Litchfield enquirer., 1881-09-22
The President.

a The long agony is over. After making a s long and apparently doubtful fight for life, the President has had to succumb at last. < Everything that medical skill could do has been adone for his relief the prayers of States,
 gchurches. families. individuals. have gone up
 sfor him from all over the land the love and
 good will of all the people, of whatsoever class.
 asection, party, race, have for two months Skept the nation in constant anxiety, now in
 the anxiety of hope and again in the anxiety
 ssof despair yet all in vain. The assassin's abulet had done such injury that no courage zof the patient, no skill of the physicians. nor
 good will of the people could save him.
 q During this period of ever enduring anxiety S$there has much been said and done thatat any| Sother time would have seemed absurd. MenI have seemed to expect that the art of the doc ! tors, the pluck of the patient. the prayers of stbe people, might work miracles. There was| sa disposition to regard the President as heroI land a martyr, because he was shot in the back Sby fool, for no assignable reason whatsoever There was proposition to raise statue for| Mrs. Garf1eld, simply because she has behayedI , with admirable courage and discretion, whenI ;there are hundreds of thousands of American| women who have behaved equally well-andI Inc American woman 90 far as we have heard, has yet been honored with ststue. In factl sthe general anxiety has taken bizarre forms of depression, even to the shooting at Guiteaul sby soldier of the regular army and the justi- .fcation of that shooting by many, which show| that the strain on public feeling had become| junendurable. As in a monarchy ''The King is dead, long| Hive the King ;" is all one cry so in Repub. slic, we must turn, on the instant as it were, from the dead to the living President. Pain full as the past eighty days have been to the| lone, they cannot have been without profit toI sthe other. MT. Arthur has had convincing lproof that his own feeling toward ex-Senator1 sConkling is not shared by the people of hisownI State, still less by the people of the nation. Had President Garfield died immediately, .or| soon after Guiteaus shot was fired, Mir Conk -' Hing would undoubtedly have been restored toj Ipolitcs, either as Senator or as Cabinet Minis tier. To bring him into his Cabinet nowI would be such defiance of the popular will las no one will expect of Mr. Garfield's succes-s ,sor. This is one great danger happily shun-; ;ned. If there is any moral to be derived from| :Guiteau's foolish act, it is tue moral that thel sautocratic power of appointment hitherto ex- .ercised by American Presidents, rather on considerations of favor and influence than off merit, is a source of serious personal danger ito them. This was first shown in the attempts aon the life ofJackson, tlfe presi dent who intro duced the spells system. by an office seeker. If Guiteau can be fairly recko: ed, not perhapsI las the normal but as the possible product off ithe evil system, it cannot do otherwise. thanI increase its present unpopularity. Indeed, lfI the opinions of the press can be taken as aI true indication of the feeling of the people, the spells system is doomed already.
 One effect of the Presidents death is to re- move from the National Senate the Republican, ,umpire who decides all the votes and to leaveI both parties exactly equal. The RepublicansI have the advantage in that the reorganization 3of the committees in their favor, effected laslI summer, gives them practical control of busi ness; but they will not be able to pass billsl that are distasteful to the Democrats. Regarding the composition of the cabinet MT. Arthur must soon select we venture noI ,guess. We should be very sorry to see Messrs. sMcVeigh, Windom and James retired. Vel should not regret the removal of Mir. Blaine .to whom and to whose ambition, most of the| troubles encountered by the Garfield admins 5tration have been due. The strength of Blaine| sis the weakness of the present cabinet, andl ] few, except of his personal following, will bel ssorry to see so thorough politician deprived sof the opportunity of making personal spoil| ,of the offices good natured chief too oftenI allowed him to fill Of the great sorrow and grief overspreadingl the country at the loss of man SO recently chosen to the highest position among us, it isl hardly necessary to speak. Long weeks and| months of the intensest interest sufficiently sattest the personal regard in which the late| sPresideRt was held by the people whose gov !
 sernmeEt he administered. While there couldl snot but be feeling of relief that his sui ! tferngs are over, the pity, admiration andl ssympathy of the public have been such as have| snever before been shown in the history of our| Scountry.. Long may we wait for such| sRnother occasion