The Evening critic., 1882-01-21
Go In George !

The quarrel III pIOSreSS DcbWccu bHe
organs of the late Administration and those
of the present one affords some melancholy
proofs of the weakness ofman in general and
of Reformcrs in particular. Every day or
two some new private letter" turns up in
an unexpected quarter, revealing or
helping to reveal some new feature of the
factional conspiracy through which an or
ganized band of political adventurers and
buccaneers sought to seize upon the patron
age of the Government through the good
natured weaknesses of poor General Gar
field Foremost among these conspirators
appear the forms of Whitelaw Reid and
Murat Halstead-with little Tommy Nichol
bobbing around in the background like
the jocund grave-digger in Hamlet"
We can now begin to comprehend the
origin and purpose of that swift and cruel
reign of terror inaugurated last spring, ia
which Isaac w. McVey figured as Fouquier
Tinville and Tom James as Barere, while
the yelling mob of so-called Reform news
papers worked the guillotine. This syndi-
cate of editors and their correspondents,
together with the two co-couspirators in
Garfeld's Cabinet, understood well the
character of the unfo~Nnate man whom
they had determined to make their tool
They knew that his instincts were those
of manhood, and that his impulses were,
natively, broad, just and generous. But
they knew also that he shrank with pain
ful sensitiveness from the lash ofnewspaper
libel, and that whatever might be his
courage in the face of physical peril, he
wofully lacked the mental nerve so con-
spicuous in his great predecessor Grant to
face storm of calumny, either in his own
behalfor in that of those who had been
his tried and trusted friends.
The men whom he took to his bosom
were, as this constant outcropping of private
correspondence shows, the most poisonous
vipers.
Openly or covertly they had been biting
and stinging him for years. His sensitive
nature had been Scared all over by their
brutal assaults and his honest, well-mean-
ing life had been embittercd by their per-
secution. They had even followed him to
the threshold of the convention that nom-
mated him; and on the very eve of his
tremendous triumph they had spurted
their venom at him from ambush.
Garfield knew all this. But when they
came around in the warm sunlight of his
victory to nestle in:his bosom he took them
in. Then they quit biting him but what
was even worse, they used his bosom in
turn as an ambush from which to assail his
best friends.
Thus it happened that after taking Reid
II s.,A1 l. IL .1.l.
Garfield meekly acquiesced in the employ
ment of A. NJ. Gibson-for nine years the
most relentless of his libelers-as an instru-
Iaept IL the hands Of t.oie who had always
been his enemies to persecute those who
had always been his friends
1t was q strange spectacle; one, let III
hope, that will not soon be repeated in oui
history.
The task of exposing this conspiracy and
holding its participants up to the publ.
scorn seems to have fallen upon cur dis
tinguished friend, George Gorham. 1t
could not he confided to better hands. What
ever may be the faults or errors of oar
friend, lack of moral manhood or mental
virility is not among them. There arr
many elements in the makeup of the
average Stalwat which we do not consider
essential to-the truest symmetery, and ol
these Gorham has his share.
But baseness, treachery, hypocrisy an'
cant arc not Stalwart attributes. N
follower of Grant or disciple of Grantisn
has ever been known to stab at man fron
behind and then, because he missed hi
aim, rush round in front of his intende,
victim with extended hand and gapini
smile
This is what Halstead, Reid and Com
pany have done, by the showing of thei
own private letters. Let our friend Gor
ham persevere. If he succeeds in maxim
that sort of thing impossible in the future
he will have wrought reform in ou
politics for which every thoroughbred ma
in the land will thank him.