The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1880-11-25
DoNN pIArrro GEN. eARFIELD.

Party OusAttO Be Killed n
MY DEAR GENERAL: Now that this
senseless political row is over, and you
are the President elect, venture, before
you are buried in that mansion through
the thick walls and plate glass Of which
no word of truth ever reachesthe incum-
bent, to write you few words in the
same intimate and friendly spirit that
marked our intercourse when we both
occupied a cheap boarding house, go
back to the time when you gladly ac-
cepted my heartfelt congratulations in
your triumphs, and yours, l feel more
anxiety about you, my friend, now that
you are fortunate, than in the darkest
hour of your life, when life itself seemed
so horrible that an escape from it was a
temptation
You are no politician, my dear friend.
You have sadly confessed the same over
and often. When, giving way to your
generous impulses, you have brought
upon your unhappy head the wrath and
disgust Of your party associates. Joshua
r. Giddings, all his life in Congress,
would have returned you to the House
of Representatives, Or having done so,
kept you there, Ashtabula widened itself
when you were made Senator while at
Chicago you were nominated by acci-
dent, and then elected from necessity,
You are not only no politician, but you
are hated by the politicians. AS every
man is better in the estimation of his
associates than in his own, we are much
given to sustaining our self-respect upon
the good opinion of others, And so we
guard against a knowledge of our inner
shortcomings with jealous care. The
most sacred trust of a man is his own
meanness. A very mean man-and one
has to be very mean to be politician
not only guards with anxious watchful-
ness his real self from being known, but
he hates any one whom he believes purer
than himself,
How, then, could one who preferred
his library to restaurant, and the inter
course of refined, educated people to the
senseless clamor of caucus, keep terms
with men whose little lives were bound
ed bv the low rewards of Office, where in
tellect and character lent no lustre to
position? You were living rebuke to
such, and so Oakes Ames and his guilty
associates turned on you with the fierce
ness of entrapped beasts; and, while men
who openly acknowledged their guilt
lived forgiven or died lamented, you
have been bounded down night and day.
Had your honored name been can
vassed 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 wiling, 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 nominated.
put to record this fact in your honor
To that same be it said that you have not
single feeling, through principle or i'm
pulse, 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.
Of course the leaders are insinCere.
They mean to secure control Of the
Government. They cannot look each
other in the face without laughing, and
enjoy the justification the event gives of
their low estimate of human nature. But
the poison thus created lives and perme-
ates the masses, and as fraud breeds vlo-
lence and the sun-heated rot breeds
storms, the consequence Of the infamy is
sometimes gravor and more importance
than the mere success of faction in a
Presidential contest.
1t is not, however, of this that | sat
down to write, l want, as friend, to
warn you of matter not only personal,
but of public concern.
We have among us certain evil.dis-
posed persons, with heavy backing of
plunderers, through class legislation,
who are bent upon changing in form, as
they have long since changed in sub
stance, our self-government. Threatened
with loss of their ill-gotten gains,
through the returning four years strug-
gle of Presidential canvass, they seek
to make of the Presidency life tenure,
and, under the name of a stronger gov
ernment, escape the return Of power to
the people, which is yet apparent in form
if it be without reality.
You know the man who is to serve
their purpose in this reasonable scheme.
They bank upon his military record and
supposed popularity and certainly he is
tittest tool evil opportunity ever offered
You know that he did more to debauch
our Government in his eight years of adj
ministration than JEFF Davis, with his
armed hosts. The result he brought
about is more terrible than a violent
ending, for it is the decay which not only
precedes death, but sickens one of the
living, and so fetches a republican form
of government into contempt. on. .r
You know that from the first to the
last hour of his Administration he was
on the make, to use a vulgar but ex-
pressive phrase; and the associate of
prostitutes and the patron of thieves he
made the Executive Mansion a resort of
plunderers, the civil service so rotten
that Republicanism became a by-word of
reproach and shame to the civilized
world, while his constitutional advisers
were men upon whom he held lien in
common with the penitentiary.
Now, don't frown and turn away. Let
us. before you are lost to knowledge of
truth, through an Inauguration that will
surround you thousand deep with syc-
ophantic liars, indulge, as we have so
often in the past, the luxury Of express
ing our convictions.
1t was your committee that investi-
gated that national shame called Black
Friday, wherein Fisk, Gould, and Grant
sought, through use Of the National
Treasury to enrich themselves at the
expense of thousands of honest men.
1t is not my purpose to recall the de-
tails of that infamy. The chief criminal
was tracked to the threshold of the Ex-
eCutiVe Mansion and vonr conomittea