New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1880-02-24

THIS HORRIBLE COW"
Our Democratic friends seem TO be some
what in the case of the man who said:
Shall 'scape from this horrible cowf
will sit on the stile and continue to smile,

what in the case or the man WHO sdlu
g. How
Shall 'scape from this horrible cowf
viii sit on the stiie and continue to smile,
Which may soften the heart of this cow"
For whichever way they tuIn is Iilden. The
quietest and most unassuming man IN the world,
out Of active politics. shrinking from publicity,
timid as a hare, avoiding the interviewer,
scarcely knowing his own nephew, utterly
ignorant of anything connected with the
last Presidential election - its ciphers
and negotiations and Electoral Commissions
remembering only that there was fraud
which cannot be cOndoned-this Gramercy
Park statesman somehow always hap
pens to be there when the Democratic
party gets it's focus. There with lis
hand OH his heart and his lett lid dropping,
saying impressively, You were looking for
"me ~ SInguarly enough. too, it liz 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. Tjlden. They do not
want Mr.. Tilden. They never did want him.
THE TRIBUNE has heretofore pointed out that
they did not desire him as n candidate for
Governor of New York, and later they did
not desire him as a Presidential can
dldatc. But he had led them against all their
instincts and all their habits to a point where
no one else so well as he /" filed the bill''; no
one else, indeed, could fill any Of its require
mcnts. And then, like the Swiss patriot
who gathered the spears into his de-
voted breast TO make "wV for Liberty"
he gathered all their ballots with the remark,
"You are looking for Reform and you find it
there, and to follow the figure, like Win
kclri'd he died.
There's no denying the fact that they are
more tired OF him now more anXloas t. escape
him tan ever. They have slain HIM thou
Sand tines over, have hcrmeticaliy sealed and
buried him, till one would suppose there was
no show whatever for his resurrection; but ii
is the phenomenal fact in Our politics that not
withstandIng all, whenever the Presidential
question comes up in Democratic circles. TINS
old gentleman is by all odds the liyest man
in the list OF candidates. He has been sbeived
scores of times in the calculations Of short
sighted managers, but be never stays shelyed.
The first thing the managers who have shelved
him know, he steps down. and without making
much fuss about it, takcs a State Committee
away from them. He follows it up by the
seizure Of State Convention. He has the
patronage OF the City and the State Mt
his disposal before they have ceased
making merry over ais discontinue
lie bewilders them with his uneXpectedDcSs.
Without ever seeming to be Interested III Ii
the event always finds him there. Nothing
comes off that he is not on hand at
Even when his opponents are cOucocting their
deepest strategy, and congTatulatins them
md mil
and i'm abysmal ignorance OF their plotting, he
appears To them with his inevitable " on
were looking for-Reform l-or the Victim o.
" The Great Fraud l--or the only man who can
"carry New-York You viii fnd him here
They kill him and bury him, and pro-
nouncc cDitaphs that are not eulogcs on him,
but they never get entirely rid Of him. Other
pooDle have their " boomsr-Thurman and
Bayard and Hancock and the little two-for-a
cent fellows. lie has none, but he is neyerthe-
less there all the time, and always leading.
And yet they do not want hun.
Twice has no taken nomination
from their unwilling handsome for Cover
nor. once for President 1t is for him to say
whether he will take another. lie has them
in his grip. They cannot escape him,
except ia the direction of assured de-
feat. The only question that will re-
main when the Convention meets will be
whether he will take the nomination himself
or dictate another. Without him or a candi-
date of his dicta,ion they cannot hope to carry
New-Yorl lie knows it, and SO do they. They
must wait upon him in the matter or deprive
themselves of their only hope of success. lie
"a their "horrible cow And so they " sit on
1.-THE stilo and continue to smile in the hope
that they may soften the heart of this cow
Al, but what a very lively old dead man
lac is