The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1881-04-09
What Shall Be Done for General Grants
Dignity2

-
Dignity
The question is one that has grown
up, or been pushed up, before the public
mind only within few months. When
we first began to know the General.
there was nobody's dignity in all the
world that took care of itself more
effectually, without the slightest atten-
ton from anybody, than U. 5. Grants.
Perhaps the reason why it needed SO
little care was that it got so lite from
himself. in those days when there was
such tremendous work to do, and he
was one of those rare men who stuck
doggedly to the work, without any side
chances at the newspapers to see how
his dignity was getting on. He did not
write dramatic dispatches nor put him.
self into impressive attitudes. When
it came to that kind of thing, General
Banks was unspeakably more majestic.
His dignity was sedulously taken care
of; and so, in different way. was Gen.
eraI Buffers. But Grant kept driving
ahead at his business, knowing imme-
diately on the enemy works." as if he
didn't have any such baggage as dig
nifty to look after. After that tremen-
dous fighting that ended in the fall of
Vicksburg. he was sent for TO Wash
ington, where he was the universal adj
miration; but he told the President and
his Council of War that he wished they
would hurry up and give him his orders.
for he was ''tired of this show business.
And when, the American people heard
that, they clapped their hads, like
the multitudinous waves, and said
to one another: Here's digni-
ty now! Here's man that
is not thinking about feathers in his
cap or stars on his shoulder! Here
another man as Abraham Lincoln! BY
and by some of the politicians succeed
ed in getting at him in his tent in Vir-
ginia and whispered to him confidential
" that gentleman in his position could
have anything he wished for that was
in the gift of the people. Couldn't he
think OF something he would likep And,
alter reflection, he said there was one
thing. He did wish the Common Coun-
Gil OF Galena would make plank walk
as far as his front gate. But the finest
thing, it seems to me, in all Grants ca
reer was his willingness to sit still and
hardly hold his own along the trenches
looking toward Richmond. with all the
country impaticntly wondering why
Grant did not strike, while Sheridan
and Sherman, his subordinates, were in
the full blaze of popular admiration and
he himself little in the shadow. This
was. heroic. In those brave old days
it probably did not occur to any one in
the civilized world that measures were
necessary to secure Ulysses Grants dig
nifty. But now things have changed.
The Times is passing round the hat,
and the Independent is bidding for a
pension and title, and Mr.. Hayes is
trying to invent new pattern of epau-
let, all because Mr.. Grants dignity is
in peril and something must be done
for it. What can have made the differ
eneep
| l suppose that there were people
who voted for Grant for President in
1868, because he observed it, or
was "entitled" to it, or it was "con-
ferring honor on him. In every
election, great or small, there are fools
who give their votes for such reasons.
But good citizens, worthy of the trust
of citizenship, voted for him not for
Grants sake, but for the country's
sake. We thought that he had quail
ties that were needed in the Presidency
the simple straightforwardness; the
devotion to public duty, without re-
gard to public interest; the faculty and
the will to find the right place; the set
resolution that would fight it through
on well-considered line of back-door
influence; opposition in front and rear
We thought we knew our man, and
were voting for things like these when
we voted for Grant for President. We
thought we we're doing good thing
for the dignity not of Grant, but of the
Office. by putting worthy man into it.
Well, there is no denying it, the
country was partly disappointed.
Without repeating Mr.. Summer s
overstrained indictment against Grant s
Administration, we have to acknowl-
edge that at the very points at which
we most relied on him he failed us.
The faculty of picking his subordinates,
which had been conspicuous in the
field, was conspicuously absent in the
Presidency. The logged tenacity of
purpose gave away on the one line of
policy on which he committed himself
most resolutely--the Civil Service Re
form. And the superiority to all self-seek-
ing hero was the most lamentable lack.
No citizen since Washington refused a
crown. no President since Presidents
began to be had had SO many and such
noble opportunities for acts of dignity.
So many occasions there were when,
with the highest propriety, he might
have courteously declined gifts from
persons who might be candidates for
official favor; but he missed these OPP
portunities. The SALARY Grab" bill
in which Congress, for instance, Of
fered Mr.. Grant, then President, more
or less, for himself. as a reward for
his signing the bill that was to
enrich them, might have been returned
to the House which it originated. with
sharp rebuke for the insult it implied.
But it was not. He pocketed the in