Morning journal and courier., 1881-03-30
Wednesday Morning, March 30. 1881.
WHO SHALL BE PRESIDENT.

The Washington National Republican, which is owned in large part by Thomas J. Brady, Second Assistant Postmaster General, and which has found good deal of fault with the appointments of the President not made from the old Grant faction, rather in- discreetly criticised one of E. V. Smalley's letters to the Tribune, finding fault especially with this passage:
 ''Ah! but the anti machine men get the big place." say the malcontents. 'Their best man is put in the custom house, and will control its vast patronage" Well, did any one suppose the administration idiotic enough to put there one of the 3O6 who decorated themselves with medals and pledged them selves at Chicago to keep up the contest for Grant until 1884? Self preservation IS the first law of nature, and no administration can be expected to put sharp kni fe in the hands of man who has taken a VOW to cut its throat at the end of its first term. Very nat urally and very properly, say Republicans of all sorts-save few who cherish old resent ments-the President prefers man for col lector at New York who was his friend at Chicago, and the friend of the cause he rep resented. to one who was not. At the same time he shows by his selection of some of the most prominent Grant men for other lm- portant offices that he has no feeling ot un- friendliness toward the element which op- posed his nomination and afterward labored zealously and efficiently for his election. He stands near to them as to anybody, and they have his confidence and esteem; but in filling an office which might be made powerful political agency he prefers one of his old friends to one of his new ones.
 MT. Smalley has been moved by the Re ao,t6zcan's criticism to declare that the letter containing the passage above noted was writ ten without any consultation with any mem ber of the Administration. and was in no sense authorized.o inspired. He also points out that the New York appointments will stand the test of examination as an honora- ble effort to harmonize the Republican party in that State by recognizing all it's elements. Before the President appointed Judge Rob- ertson he nominated the following prominent adherents to the Grant -Conkling faction Colonel James, Postmaster -General Mir. Morton, Minister to France; Mir. Pearson, Postmaster of New York; Mir. Penney, Dis trict-Attorney of Brooklyn; General Wood ford. District-Attorney of the Southern Dis trict of New York; MT. Payn, Marshal of that District MT. McDougal, Marshal of the Northern District of New York; and Mir. Ty- Ter, Collector of Buffalo. He also put a man of the same stripe ia the Batavia postofice, and has since put one in the Albany office. Here, then, were ten pronounced friends of Senator Conkling named for important off, ces one after another.
 What happened, continues MT. Smalley, after these nominations were made? A num- Der of Mr. Conklings friends at home and in Washington began to beat their drum and shout victory. They made an uncomfortable din about the ears of the Independent Re- publicans, and as good as suggested that the men who broke the unit rule at Chicago and nominated General Garfield should now lie down in the dust so they could put their feet on their necks. Instead of accepting the nominations as an earnest of the purpose to bring about harmony, they seized on them as weapons with which to pummel all Repub- licans who did not train with their machine. Under the circumstances, MT. Smalley thinks, it was the plain common sense of the Administration to make at least one censpic- nous appointment from the Independent ele- ment. This appointment shows that the h. dependents were not to be left unprotected as targets for their opponents, but It was no evidence of any hostile even unfriendly feelings towards Senator Conkling or toward the friends of General Grant in New York.
 Mr. Smalley does not believe Mir. Conkling and his friends are to make open war upon the Administration and dissolve their amica- ble relations with it, as some indiscreet friends of theirs are noisily asserting in the Hobbies of the Senate. He gives him credit for being too wise politician to assail a pop ular President at the beginning of his term, merely because he did not dispose of single office in 8 way to meet his wishes. This esti- mate of the situation is probably the correct one. If it is not and Mir. Conkling and his friends are determined to make war upon the President, the sooner the fight begins and is over the better. Whatever happens we have faith to believe that General Garfield and not Mir Conkling will be President.