The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1880-11-24
DON PIATT To GARFIELD.
An Open Letter to General Garfield In
: Which Certain Matters Are Very
Plainly Discussed.
Gnrfield's Election an Incident to n Third
Term for Grant, and Perhaps
Worse to Follow.
Washington Capital

President-elect, ] venture, before you are
buried in that mansion through the thick
walls and plate-glass of which no word OF
truth ever reaches the incumbent, to write
you few words in the same intimate and
| friendly spirit that marked our intercourse
when we occupied cheap boarding house
when | carried my fortunes on the slender
rib of a pen as a newspaper correspondent,
and you sought to support yourself and
family on the meager pay of Congressman.
In so doing ignore the fact that while /
remain private citizen you, by a turn of
! fortunes wheel, have been thrown into the
highest and most potent position known TO
this or any Government. 1 go back to the
time when you gladly accepted my aid and
sympathy in your troubles and my heart
| felt congratulations in your triumphs and /
yours. You know keenly as do what that
past has been, and returning in spirit to it,
feel satisfied that you will receive what am
about to say as at least the words of one
deeply attached to YOU, one who was a
| friend when friends were few, and not afraid
to show that friendship when the few fell
away with only whispered words of encour-
agement and sympathy.
Had your honored name been canvassed
in advance of that Convention | doubt
whether you would have received vote.
In the fierce contest between the men who
sought to perpetuate the Presidency in one
| family, and they who were quite as willing
but feared the attempt and so rallied under
James g. Blaine, your name opened door
/ to an escape for both sides, and in the wild
| hurrah that followed the show of such relief
you were nofninted.
1 put to record this fact in your honor
To that same be ii said that you have not q
single feeling, through principle or impulse,
| in common with the party that has made
you its President. God knows, you have
labored long and persistently to be of that
party, and keep step to the music of its
rogue's march to power.
This you have accomplished by keeping
| your eyes on the Democracy and ignoring
all the insincere dishonesty of your own or
ganization. You know, if you permit
| yourself TO know, that under the guise IF
the purest patriotism, it has nearly destroy
ed the Republic, and under the cloak of the
| highest morality it has sunk our civil SER
vice until it is stencil in the nostrils of all
honest men; while protesting to care forour
material prosperity it has PLUMB cred the
people until the difference between the
rich and poor is as marked and distressing
as in any part of Europe
| for which this organization has striven has
debauched the party that seems opposed to
il until we have reached q condition, point
ed out by you in your own thoughtful way,
that is fatal 10 free government, and that is
when but one party exists. SO far as the
vital questions of reform are concerned
questions coming home to and affecting the
welfare of the people, there has been in the
late Presidential canvass no difference what
oil Tod
in which the solid North was arrayed against
the solid South, as in the late war. 1t was
in one of your efforts to keep step with your
corrupt party, and against your own con-
science that you said in Maine three wears
since to the voters that when in doubt, to
look along the deadly level of their rifles,
and vote as they shot in the laterwar," and
this has made all of the platform of the Re
publican party during the canvass.
History never has and never will proba-
bly, put to record such an infamv as that
upon which you were elected. We came
up from the late war of brother against
brother with but duty before us and
that was to heal as rapidly and tenderly as
we could the cruel wounds that the armed
conflict had made. This not only because
of the fact that we were of one family, hut
that the existence of the Republic depends
upon the good will and common interests of
States that, combined, make up the Gov
eminent. To secure this the fathers put up
in the original compact called our COnstitu-
ton written guarantee securing to the
slave States their property in slaves. We
tore that guarantee from the Constitution
with our bayonets, and robbed our own peo-
pie of millions in a property the title to
which we ourselves had made.
Not content with this your party turned
upon the ruined country an army of thieves,
backed by a horde of brutal negroes, and
held them TO their work of plumber by Fed
eral bayonets.
We talk about our magnanimity. No
greater punishment was ever awarded a re-
bellious people in any part of the earth.
And now, after the South has. under the
brutal rule of your party, staggered to its
feet in a manner that is simply miraculous
and is striving honestly to rebuild its social
fabric and regain its material prosperity, a
cry of wrath has gone up throughout the
North scarcely surpassed by the excitement
that preceded our late civil war. From
Evarts down to Conkling, from the highest
TO the lowest there has been an outpouring
of anger, tinctured with contempt that is
paralleled only by the way in which Ireland
is treated by England.
OF course the leaders are insincere. They
mean all this only to secure a control of the
Government. They can not look each other
in the face without laughing, and enjoy the
justification the event gives of their low es-
innate of human nature. But the poison
thus created lives and permeates the
masses, and as fraud breeds violence and
the sun-heated rot breeds storms, the conse-
quence of the infamy is something graver
and of more importance than the mere sue
cess of faction in Presidential contest.
1t is not, however, of this that sat down
to write. / want, rs friend, to warn you
of matter not only personal, but of public
concern.
We have among Us certain evil-disposed
persons, with heavy backing of plumber
ers. through class legislation, who are bent
upon changing in form, as they have long
since changed in substance, our self-govern-
ment. Threatened with a loss of their ILL
gluten gain, through the returning four
years struggle of Presidential canvass
they seek TO make of the Presidency life
tenure. and, under the name of stronger
Government, escape the return of power to
the people. which is yet apparent in form.
If il be without reality.
You know man who is to serve their
purpose in this reasonable scheme. They
bank upon his military record and supposed
popularity; and certainly he is the fittest
tool evil opportunity ever offered. Trained
and Taught in a school where an utter indif-
ference to a knowledge of Government is
made the foundation of the so-called educa-
tiOn-for To- become a soldier it is necessary
to cease being a citizen, as blind obedience
to the orders of the party that happens to
possess the Government makes il necessary
the soldier should belong to no party-this
man is without inflammation, even had he
the intellect to profit from either experience