The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1881-07-14
A Few OF the lessons.
[PhlladelphIa SUNDAY Press. ]

suffered since the darkest gloom of
the war was dispersed by the radient
triumph of Vicksburg and Gettysburg.
In the first dread hours the national
heart sank with grief and dismay.
AS time wore on and the frail thread
of life gathered strength, it bounded
from deep depression to cxultant
hope. Last Sunday the Republic
was bowed i'm sorrow and prayer.
To-day it leaps with joyful gratitude
and with trembling but triumphant
faith. And this experience teaches
several impressive lessons.
1t teaches the unity and patriotism
of the people in great emergencies.
In the presence of this overshadow-
ing peril party feeling vanished, and
the universal thought turned to the
restoration of the President and the
safety of the country. Men forgot
party differences and party advan-
tages, and dwelt only on the common
stake of all in the preservation of the
Republic from the threatened calain-
ity. In this demonstration OF the
patriotic sentiment which underlics
all political distinctions and which
consumes all partisan impulse in the
hour of danger, we have the highest
assurance of the strength and sta
bility of our institutions. Under any
other system the situation would have
involved grave complications. With
fatal blow ut the President there
was but single life between consti-
tutional government and an interre-
gum for which the law made no
provision. Yet the people cherished
undoubting confidence that even if
worse came to worse the patriotic
sense of the country would be equal
to the trying occasion. And now
that we have seen this exhibition we
have higher faith in American lib
erty.
1t teaches the evils and dangers of
the spirit of faction. When the crisis
meet its high demands But we are
far from living always in the crisis
which stirs the grandest forces of the
popular heart. 1t is the ordinary life
of the nation with which we have
chiefly to deal. The exigency comes
when the evils of our common daily
methods have eliminated in a flaming
outbreak and convulsed the country
xt-ttl, ia
What we need TO do is to arrest the
vicious influences which tend to such
abnormal developments. LII the hush
of such an hour we realize more than
ever the degradation of much of our
political strife and the fury of our
factions. In the higher sentiments
| which are awakened at such a time
we recognize the folly and criminality
of the contests which appeal to the
baser passions, and see the rocks
toward which they are drifting us.
1t teaches the necessity of lifting
our civil service to q different plane.
If faction breeds passion and frenzy,
the spoils system breeds faction. For
| four months the country has witnessed
a bitter and angry contest which has
excited general disgust. In the light
of the better sentiment which the
Presidents danger has developed the
| people see that this contest was al
| together unnecessary and wholly
! harmful. They see that il is the di-
rect outgrowth of the spoils system,
| the legitimate fruit of IA prostiluted
civil service. This has been empha-
! sized in the most startling manner by
the assassin's attempt to indentify
| himself with one of the factions.
| Himself disappointed otfice-seeker,
| he found the motive for his crime in
the system which makes the civil
service an eleemosynary institution
for needy, politicians. With a
rational and reformed service Wash
ington would hold out no hopes and
| present no attractions to such men as
Guiteau. The President would be
relieved from the opportunities of
otfice-seekers as we'll as from the
danger of being assaulted by some one
of the many who are necessarily dis
appointed. If our civil service
needed another argument for its re-
! form it is found in the fact that in its
present shape it contains within itself
constant source of peril to our
President.
1t teaches the obligation of respect
ing the Presidential office and au-
thority. The wicked and cowardly
assault upon Mr.. Garfield would have
awakened the grief and excited the
wrath of the nation an any time,
irrespective of the position which he
held. But the blow came home with
double force; it penetrated every
household in the land as a personal
affiiction because it was the President
who was laid low. The voice of de-
traction was silenced, and none too
soon. How much Guiteau had been
Influenced by it, how far he supposed
his act would find favor III any quarter
it is idle to conjecture. 1t is enough
that he was by his own acknowledge
ment to some extent so influenced, to
show that those who by word or deed
detract from the authority or the re-
spect due to the President of the
United States may incite baser men to
deeds they little dreamed of. The
President, more than anybody or
anything else, represents the power,
dignity, and sovereignty of the whole
people. While his acts are always
the proper subject of legitimate criti-
cism, he should, by his position be
removed form the rancor, the viru-
lence, the hasty judgment, and the
personal abuse which disgraces so
much OF our politics. Had this been
done the nation might not now be
reading to-day with great solcitude
the periodic bulletins issued by the
Presidents anxious physicians.
There are many other lessons which