Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-07-21
Aanraslrr flltclllgemrer.
EVENING. JULY Il. 1881
Save Him From His Friends.


Save Him From His Friends.
Cyrus W. Fields subscription won't
grow anymore, notwithstanding the
whole country has been summoned to
help to swell fund that was originally
promised in the name of the New York
Chamber of Commerce. The presidents
recovery pa.alyzes the subscription,
which is now so unfortunate as to have
even become subject for the satire of
the comic periodicals.. Puck portrays
Field posting his subscription list over
those remarkable bulletins of health
which Cundurango Bliss declares have
never been exceeded in their truth and
good judgment. But good judgment is
Just the quality that the author of bull
letin or a subscription list always thinks
he displays. There never was fool
that did not boast himself of
his good judgment. Both Bliss and
Field have no doubt shown good
judgment very often in their Ca
reers, for they seem to have been sue
cessful in them and in their present
failure to exhibit it they have the con-
ISOLATION of knowing that they are not
the first men of distinction who have
come to be laughed at for their folly, and
through like lust for nOtoriety and ap-
plause. Probably Mr.. Field is very
much astonished ut the miscarriage of
his benevolent scheme and cannot under
stand at all how an impudent comic
paper should dare to hold him up to
ridicule for starting it. He forgets how
vulnerable a man he is to the Satirist
shaft in engaging in such bcnevolence.
People remember how lie has amassed the
wealth that enables him to be generous
through processes Of watering elevated
railroad and telegraph stocks in which
he rocked little of the loss to the deluded
people who paid out to him their hard
money for the pictured shadows that his
magic-lantcrn threw before their eyes.
If Mr.. Field had shown in his life that
thought of the poor was always with
him, his present essay towards relieving
a family in receipt of a salary of fifty
thousand 4 year might have been more
leniently judged. But Cyrus has always
been good bit of a nabOb with nose
for aristOcracy and a love of notoriety :;
amiable weaknesses which assail even
seemingly benevolent men like our own
Childs.
If Mr.. Field had been as acute in feel
ing the popular pulse as he has shown
himself in reading financial signs he
would have known that project to re.
lieve a presidents wife, who did not need
relief, while the president lived. was pre-
mature until the occasion for the relief
occurred. Mr.. Field is unlucky that the
president lives. IL he had died the prema-
tureness of his scheme might have been
excused him in the circumstances which
gave it present propriety. But just now
everybody sees its impropriety and
Gov. Long, of Massachusetts,, but states
the general conviction when he declares
that gifts to public servants, or their
families, ought not to he made by those
who may possibly require favOrs from
those whom they thus put under obliga-
tions to them.
We are sorry for Mr.. Field that his
possibly well-intcnded project has gone
SO amiss us to bea subject of comic illus
tration and satire, and has become SO
manifestly injudicious that Mrs. Garfield
is said to intend to refuse it. The presi-
dent and his wife are the victims of their
friends, who are less sensible than them
selves. Garfield has been thus troubled
all his life. His amiable desire to shield
others who would suffer got him involved
III the terrible mess of falsehOod that
disgraced him in the Credit Mobilier
affair far more than this original
subscription to the stock, in which
he probably was innocent enough.
If he survives Bliss, Field and the other
affections that have supplemented Gui-
teau's pistol, he will have shown vital
ity that ought to encourage the
country to believe that folly can
not kill him. His previous career
has given good assurance of this,
and We hope that his luck will he endur-
ing. Still it would be better not to strain
it too far, and to provide every possible
safeguard against the further approach
of Blisses, Guiteaus and Fields.
WE are in hearty accord with the pro-
fessed sentiment of the Nc,p Era that
it is one of the deplorable features of
our municipal politics that officers are