The Evening critic., 1881-07-04
MONDAY, JULY 4, 1881.
Thc Gravesi Peril of All.

Oeier tnc remarks we arc ABOUT TO make un-
til period of calmer public Judgment and
more deliberate public reflection. We are
as mindful as any can be of the deccncies
and the decorum that should mark Journal
istic expression in this critical hour, fraught
not only with the cxcitements naturally
Incident to such tragedy as is being
enacted but also with the gravcst possibili-
tics and the most tremendous contingencies
touching the Government itself.
The situation is one that calls for the ut
most sclf-poisc, the coolest caution and the
most conservative patriotism on the part of
every person having the least access to the
public understanding or the most trivial
facilities for impressing the popular mind.
Hence, as rule, all political discussion
should be suspended, all party feeling put
aside and every utteraucc calculated to
hcighten the fever already burning in the
national veins carefully avoided.
Our duly chosen and inaugurated Presi-
dent lies at deaths door and his constitu-
tional successor awaits, in sorrow that can
be measured only by the magnitude of his
responsibility, the turn of the wheel of fate.
Thus far the emotions of our vast populace
have been kept within bounds, and unless
through some dcvilish machination of des-
peradoes, or some malign device of revolu-
tionary villains the train of sedition should
be ignited, there is every reason to hope
that the sturdy common sense and gran d
conservatism of the American mind in it's
better and nobler phases, will carry us safely
through the crisis. -
But in this moment of agony; nay, under
the very shadow of the awful possibility
that overhangs the White House, what do
we see? In the midst of sorrowing friends,
agonized relatives and the awe-stricken
heads of the Government itself, peer and
fit the sinister faces and echo the baleful
whispers of small group of reptiles in hui
man shape crawling erect on end, whom it
would affront humanity to call men, vomit-
ing into the witches cauldron of this crisis
Sheir poison slime of covert insinuation and
their deadly venom of vague hint against
the fair fame of those whom destiny may
soon call upon the Republic to honor, and
whom hard fate may soon command all good
citizens to obey.
We will not mention the names of these
miscreants We need not describe them.
The ingenuity of rhetoric stands at fault
for an epithet fit for the one and help
lessly in want of terms fit for the other.
Suffice to say that in the malignant
virus of their whispered conclaves
Turks the deadly poison of sedition and
in the desperate promptings of their vile
souls is disguised the horrible spirit of an
archy and revolution.
Through confedemtes in che press this
nest of human serpents is busily infiltrating
the popular blood with the poison of doubt
and corrupting the public imagination with
the disease of suspicion This, to our mind,
is the Gravest Peril of AL If, in their
present state of suspense and sorrow, any
considerable part of the American people
should be seized with the conviction that
Guteau was the agent ofa plot, or that his
maniac hand was directed to its awful work
by the instigation, or even inspiration OF
men ambitious to reap the results of his
crime, our institutions would not be worth
a moments purchase. There would be q
revolution such as the world has never seen
and Reign of Terror compared to which
the French Revolution was child's play.
And yet in the face of all these horrible
possibilities the scrpcnts keep crawling in
and out of the White House, holding whis-
pered consultations with high officers of the
Government and darting all over the land
upon the telegraph wires as with forked
tongues their baleful slanders. These things
are the sowing of the wind of anarchy from
which our devoted millions may come to
reap the whirlwind Of revolution.
We believe we echo the sentiments Of
every good citizen when we say that these
things must stop. If the high officer who
has the power and the responsibility in
these premises has in him spark of patriot
ism not quenchcd by love of sensation and
craving for notoricty, he will stop it in
stantly. Let the reptiles Of whom we speak