New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1880-05-13
DLSrINcTION8 WITHOUT Difference.

independent Republicans of New York, and the
Young Republicans of Massachusetts,, and the
Reform Leuguers of Pennsylvania assembled
the other day in New-YOrk, they acted pre-
cisely like q handful of machine politicians
inst fledged, it is true, very vOciferOus and
callow, but every man Of them notified with
Din-feathers prophetic of the same old bird
whose plumage they had met to pluck
They were O professedly anti-Grant crowd,
and If, when they had passed their anti-Grant
resolutions and chosen their anti-Grant dele
gates to the st. Louis Convention, they had
been content to button up their OvercOats and
60 home, they would have accomplished def
mite aim and would have been q dCterminable
| force.
But with President and Secretary, and all
the machinery of organization, they could not
resist the temptation to keep at it. Civil Ser
vice Reform crept into the debate. The wiser
| heads saw that they would lose force by scat
| teripv fire. They pleaded that Grant was now
| the great menace to Civil Service Reform; that
| nero plank in the platform meant nothing;
| that not machine Convention met, Republican
! or Democratic, that did not clap a Reform plank
! into its platform quick as wink. But the
children cried for it, and so they said it would
harm nobody and stop the clamOr, and they
! chuckcd it in.
But independents charge that this Is exactly
the way Reform planks get into the machine
platform. They harm nobody, they stop the
camOr, and the hOrnicst-handed machlulst
| thinks il not worth while to make an ado about
it. Have you snatched Yourselves as brands
from the burning, Independents, merely to
kindle another fire just like itf llavo you
separated yourselves from the uncIean thing
merely to get up an unclean thing OF your
own1 Did the Angel of the Church III Phlla-
dclphia go up to meet the Angel of the Church
in New York-did the little Republicans OF
| Massachusetts, lay their little shoes away, ana
creep painfully through the HOoSac Tunnel, ana
saw and plane and tug at n useless Kcf0rm
plank on the plea that it would do no harm 7
What harm did it do in the machine plat
formY If you did not think or mean 1t to he
elective, aud only showed it in to hush the
clamorors, why do you object to the machinlsts
for doing the samef
Grant being snugy tucked away, ana the
Civil Service Reform single being quietly in
situated into the place meant for n plank,
Massachusetts brought forward her pet ami
mostly, her MOrdccai from Maine, and de-
manded that the Convention should hang him.
AS this was not what they had come Tor, the
Indepcndcnts demurred. They said 1T was
impossible to organize any opposition to HIM;
that Ncw-YOrk was largely for him, and would
certainly give him her vote If nominated; that
PENNSYLVANIA had gone daft for him; that he
was. whatever his high crimes and INSIDE
mcanors, tho one stumbling block in the way
of Grants nomination that the whole machine
was against HIM, and that 1t was foolish ana
wastcful to strike ut the man who was dealing
the heaviest blows at their foes. But the Pre-
cociOus Infants of Massachusetts, SAID II nc
broke tho Grant machine he would make an
other; that lac was master hand at machines
that he could work just as well without
machine as with one and in short they put
their thumbs in their eyes and declared that
Reforms and new parties avalcd them nothng
so long as this MOrdecai bowed not nor dlu
reverence TO Massachusetts,, but, on the con-
trarv. thumped her black and blue whenever
he plcasrd And again the Independents gave
in They naturally thought it hard that
State which has to stand still and be looked at
so mich rs Observation-Disclosures DO lrrcyerently
nummclled lust rs If she had been only Cali
fonia or New York. and they said 1t would do
no harm. and please the young Massachusetts,
80 they resolved-nOt exactly to hang her Nor
decai but to put gentle pressure on his throat
, that would be likely to choke him, by mildly
, yecommendipg the bold buccaneers Of Reform
not to vote for Blaine
= But if the resolution does not mean anything
, cannot accomplish anything, is only to please
, tbo miniature Republicans from Massachusetts
has not the now Purist party gone the way oil
3 all the old, and simply put Bnncombe plank
into political platform for compromised
And what word was that which fell upon the
listening ear of Nation 7 "MOney, Paul
D @moncy 7" Did tho Reform Lcaguers oper
, their chasto lips to announce that they had
, nlentv of money! What shall money do Will
. honest elections7 1t is Reform, it is purity, il
Il patliotism the Independents are after, moi
q money. But, says the aggrieved Independent
wo must have money. We can't get along
, without money. We must print our advertise
ments and hire O hall and pay for gas. W.
, can't run the thing day without money.
2 Tu1e. but that moment you become machine
! politicians, for all this is machine. There are
{ only two things in politics. principles ant
machinery soul and body. 1t is true tina
a though The machine be against q candidate, thu
II first thing he will do is to make another. Blu
g it is also true that when the independent
, oatbor from the East and the West and the NOrtl
+ and the South, the first thing they do is Il
n make a machine. Whether the machine Is {
n GOOD one, whether 1t runs smoothly and turn
n ont good work, depends upon the men WIFI
f make and manage it. According to Reform
it principles, the man who has been most tamllla
= with politics, who has studied most Its history
q who has most successfully practlsed 1t
n methods, Is the one to whom it should DO en-
IS trusted. According to Reform practice, til
+ veterans in the service should all be turned out