New-York tribune., 1881-07-19

try, his party, his special followers or
himself, and by his own vanity and Obstinacy
has reduced his army to a cOrpOrals guard,
who, out of the shipwreck to which he has
driven them, save nothing but the credit OF
being loyal to the point of abjeet servility to
Il leader who recognizes no obligations ex-
cept those which flow toward himself. Leader!
Answer, men of New-Y York, over whose
politically dead bodes--killed in causeless
war raised by himself, and by himself made
war without compromise or quarter-he has
made magnificent march to miserable de-
feat. Is he a leader ? great politician
even? Is he a great politician who dismem-
bers his party to crafty his own vanity who
is always at odds with his associates who
never reduces the number of his opponents by
reasonable concession, but is always adding TO
them by his Overweenng arrogance and con-
cet whose unvarying habit is to make en-
emies of friends and who never makes @ friend
of an enemy
| No, he is not great as q statesman, leader,
or even politician. And yet his dovotee is
right. "There must be a great deal in him."
! Only-what is it ? There's a great deal in
| him, this admirer says, because he can hold
| his followers so long together in the face of
such an opposition. Ask him why they hold
so long together, and his answer will be simply
the converse of the original proposition
" because there is great deal i'm him."
There's a great deal in him because
they stick to him, and they stick to him because
there is great deal in him. For our own part
we have always asserted our belief in Mr.
COnkling's greatness, though we differ with
many of his admirers as to what his greatness
| in wit fbaf ho io
great as a rhetorician, as an orator, and per-
haps as lawyer, though he is rather casuist
than logican. And we are free to admit that
he has the intellectual qualities which go to
make up what he just escapes being statesman,
leader or great politiclan-eithcr or perhaps
all. His temper, the intense self-conscousness
| that forbids his taking into account ANYTHING or
anybody that fails to minister to the Immediate
wants of his vanity is all that stands in the way
of his being great in the most useful and honor
able sense Of the word. And this is the great
deal in him for which his friends admire him.
| This is the special characteristic which gives
! him his present prominence the quality which
| in most people is called ittlcnesS-the littlcnpss
| of self concelt-is so enormously developed in
| him that 1t actually becomes an element of
greatness. His sclf-wOrship is so intense and
absorbing that it draws others to his shrine ;
not only to his shrine, but under the wheels of
his chariot; for he has shown himself in the
past three months to be the political ,Juggernaut
of his time. Moreover, the very littlencss of
the qualities that disfigurc his character and de
stroy his usefulness, acts rs foil for the higher
ones, and it happens that men are liable
under the influence of the contrast TO over
| estimate him.
But this man is relegated to private lifc Let
lis say of him frankly that he has all the ability
and talent requisite to great and useful
public career, and with equal franLness
that he has fatal defects of character and tenn
per that not only unfit him for usefulness but
make him exceedingly miSchicvous as party
leader or officer of state. The political con-
ditions and circumstances of his period placed
i'll his hands great opportunities and great
power. His intense sclf-absorption would not
permit him to use them to the good Of either
the country the party, his Immediate followers.
or, except for comparatively brief period, for
himself. Political history affords no such re-
cord of suicidal scltishncss. One 10y one as they
asserted the right of individual judgment and
| refused to admit his absolute infallhilitv. he
| has flung away his friends. Cornell Lapham
Sharpe, whoever admitted his fallihiliy no
| matter how devoted or how sef-sacrilicing they
might have been in their adherence to his fail
ing fortunes so soon as thcy seemed to ialtcr in
| his cause or 20 set country and party above his
personal ambition. were dismissed from the list
of his friends with the stigma of :" that man .
into the category of his everlasting foes. Yes.
| there is-Or there CdS-a great deal in him Il
| great deal Of vanity, scltiAhneSs and implacabe-
ness. And he never, with all the boasting of
himself and his friends made the political for
tunes of one half so many men as he has ruined
i'll the past three months.