The Portland daily press., 1880-02-28
\ IN. Y. Tribune.l
.sThiS Horrible Cow
Our Democratic friends seem to be some-
what in the case of the man who said:

Our Democratic friends seem to be some-
what in the case of the man who said:
How
Shall 'scape from this horrible COW?
will sit on the stile and continue to smile
Which may soften the heart of the cow"
For whichever way they turn is Tilden. The
quietest and most unassuming man in the
world out of active politics, shrinking from
publicity, timid as hare, avoiding the inter-
viewer, ignorant of anything connected with
the last Presidential election-its ciphers and
negotiations and Electoral Commissions re-
membering only that there was fraud which
cannot be condoned-this Gramercy Park
statesman somehow always happens to be
there when the Democratic party gets its fo-
Gus. There with his hand on his heart and his
left lid dropping, saying impressively, "You
were looking for me?" Singularly enough too
it is quite clear that if there is anybody in
this whole country that the Democratic party
is not looking for, it is the Hon. Samuel j.
Tilden. They do not want Mr.. Tilden. They
never did want him. The Tribune has here
tofore pointed out that they did not desire him
as a candidate for Governor of New York, and
later, they did not desire him as Presidential
candidate. But he had led them against all
their instincts and all their habits to point
where no one else so well ''filled the bill''; no
one else, indeed, could fill any of its require
ments. And then, like the Swiss patriot who
gathered the spears into his devoted breast to
make way for Liberty" he gathered all
their ballots with the remark, "you are looking
for Reform and you find it here, ''-aDd to fol-
low the figure, like Winkelried, he died.
There's no denying the fact that they are
more tired of him now, more anxious to escape
him than ever. They have slain him thous-
and times over, have Theoretically sealed and
buried him, till one would suppose there was no
show whatever for his resurrection; but it is
the phenomenal fact in our politics that not
withstanding all, whenever the Presidential
question comes up in Democratic circles, this
old gentleman is by all odds the livest man in
the list of candidates. He has been shelved
scores of times in the calculations of short
sighted managers, but he never stays shelved.
The first thing the managers who have shelved
him know, he steps down, and without max
ing much fuss about it, takes State Commit
tee away from them. He follows it up by the
seizure of State Convention. He has the
patronage of the City and the State at his dis
posal before they have ceased making merry
over his discontinue. He bewilders them
with his unexpectedness. Without ever
seeming to be, interested in it, the event
that he is not on hand at. Even when
his opponents are concocting their deep
est strategy, and congratulating them
selves that he is thousand miles away and in
abysmal ignorance of their plotting, he appears
to them with his inevitable 'You were look
ing for-Reform?-or the Victim of the Great
Fraud?-or the only man who can carry New
York? You will find him here" They kill
him and bury him, and pronounce epitaphs
that are not eulogies ON him, but they never
get entirely rid of him. Other people have
their ''booms' and Bayard and
Hancock, and the little two-for accent fellows.
He has none, but he is nevertheless there all
the time, and always leading.
And yet they do not want him. Twice has
he taken nomination from their unwilling
hands-once for Governor, once for President.
1t is for him to say whether he will take anoth-
er. He has them in his grip. They cannot
escape him, except in the direction of assured
defeat. The only question that will remain
when the Convention meets will be whether
he will take the nomination himself or dictate
another. Without him or a candidate of his
dictation they cannot hope to carry New York.
He knows it, and so do they. They must wait
upon him in the matter or deprive themselves
of their only hope of success He is their "hor-
rible cow" And SO they ''sit on the stile and
continue to smile" in the hope that they may
soften the heart of this cow,'' All, but what
very lively old dead man he is!