The Lake Charles echo. [volume] (Lake Charles, Parish of Calcasieu, La.) 1876-1898, 1880-06-26

Il WASHINGTON, D. O., june 10, 1880.
/ Congress has left Washington, buf
| the Capital viii be centre Of unnsua
interest during the recess. Here vii
be the campaign headquarters for botl
political parties, and all through the
dog day heats, and until what Mr. Gar
field calls the melancholy days of No
vember, commands and supplies will
be issued from Washington, and the
fierce strife waged in city and village,
on plain and in dingle, will receive its
impulse and return its echo here.
Already clerks in all the Departments
have organized, according to their sew
eral states, and are prepared to do the
work they know so well how to do, for
the party that has SO long kept them
in sinecures, at the public expense.
Last night Mr.. Garfield trumpeted
the keynote of the campaign in
speech from the balcony of the Riggs
House; but it was note of uncertain
sound, characteristic of the cornet, and
"who shall prepare himself for battle?"
/ venture to predict that the campaign
win not be waged with much enthusi-
asm on the part of the republicans.
MIR. Garfield is not candidate to ex-
cite enthusiasm. Your correspondent
has known him for thirteen years, and
has studied him, not because he is in
interesting, but because he
is such type as no student of contem-
porary history can ignore. 1t is true
that Don Piatt and George Alfred
Townsend have recently written letters
that are highly eulogistic of the candi-
date, and ingeniously exculpatory of
bis crooked record. But it must be
remembered that these gentlemen
would each like to have a foreign mis-
lion or at least first class consnlship.
Mr.. Garfield, they say, is ia great scholar,
! broad-guage statesman, brainy man.
do not think he is any of these. |
hink his genius is chiefly in his lungs .
nd other viscera. His voice is like I,
he note of war; he has the famed APP !
'etite of Boswelfs hero, and the diges-
ion of an ore crusher. He is a superb ,
nimal. Mr.. Garfeld's chiefest mental t
tribute is precocity, not profundity. /
ie is unripe, prematurely developed.
lie rose rapidly from the helm of a |
anal boat to the head of fourth-rate s
ollege for both sexes. His advance 8
lent had been rapid, but not remark
Bile, for, in an era and area of low
alture, fiippant oratory is considered a
proof of genius, and a resonant voice u
mistaken for oratory. None of Mr.. a
speeches, indeed scarcely f
will bear literary criticism. II
nsh and grandiloguence are the char b
,teristics of his style. The first time I
heard him speak was at a college fl
twelve years ago, when D
exhorted us in such platitudes as ii
to keep up with the times, to press W
rward to the van, and march abreast N
it'll the latest thought" Now reflect c,
s men do not have to be very old I
fore they learn that the latest thought Y
not necessarily the best thought. W
ut i'm these few words ] think we have Il
key to MIR. Garfeld's mental tone. In m
ligion, politics, and science, be be- in
ives in many unsound or unsound- Fl
things. Plate hesitated and to
ked: "What is truth?" If Mr.. Gar o.,
Id could be persuaded to answer he c.
'uld say; "the newest tangled thing" in
G. a. S. =