Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-12-28
PRESIDENT MAKING.
A Chat With Hugh Hastings-The Coming
Man Not Yet Named-Arthur Politically
Dead-The Blaine Movement.
[Gath letter.


[Gath letter.
NEW YORK, Dec. z7.-On Christmas day
had few minutes conversation with
Hugh Hastings, editor of the Commercial
Advertiser; said 1:
'Who is going to be the next Republ-
can candidate for PRESIDENT"
sob, pshaw," said Mr.. Hastings, sswhat
do you ask mo such question as that for +?
Nobody knows anything about it. I don't
believe it will be any person who has up
to this time been discussed"
"Don't you think there is bitter feel
ing in the Republican party already!"
"Oh, yes" said Hastings, "when dis
ease becomes so violent and leaves the
patient alive, he is pretty sure to recover
and get on his feet again. 1t is a great
deal better to see some high excitement and
eruption than to have one of
these slow fevers, which merely re-
duce the victim and take
his strength away. That was the case
with the last election. The Republicans
had got SO mad with each other that they
just slammed around as if in delerium
Convalescence is now going on"
General Arthur has given up, by all
accounts, any notion of a denomination,
and that is the first step in making his ad-
ministration respectable. 1t is not in the
people to let any accident of great crime
appear to be good enough for the greatest
Office in America. If the presidential
Office is SO easy to be filed that man
who gets up near noon and gives
his chief intellect to the furnishing
of his bedroom can be the best
president since Lincoln, it is an Office
beneath contempt. Throughout the pub
lie service half work is crying evil. Our
presidents, whom the people love to honor,
grew old an anxious in their Office. Gen
eral Washington took on nearly all of his
age while president and desired to lay the
office down at the end of four years; and
only kept it from the deepest sense of du-
ty, backed by the entreaties of the bright
est characters of his day, including those
who became the opposition during his Sec
ond term. General Taylor was worried to
death at the end of year. President
| Polk barely served his term. Mr.. Lincoln
came into his office, not.
outstanding the tremendous campaign
he had gone through, hale giant of a
man and before long the wrinkles of his
face could hardly be counted. Gen. Grant,
who some think never bothered himself
much, exclaimed toward the end of his
presidency: "My responsibilities are 80
great that have often thought would
sink under them" The face of Garfield
never smiled after he became president.
President Arthur cannot have a worse
| adviser, nor the Republican party greater
incendiary and forger, than any one who
seeks to awaken in his breast foolish
ambition. The tendency of our times is
toward men wholly masculine in their ma
lures who will take abuses by the
neck and throttle them, who feel
with the multitude that our government is
beneath our genius, as it has been long
prevented by politicians. There are but
two alternatives to succeed the present ad-
ministration. The first and probable one
is change of party, which shall turn a
river through the public service and sweep
everything out except that which is barna-
cled by age and great length of service
and peculiar merit, to the bottom of the
stream. The other alternative is a moral
and mental recuperation of the Republican
party, which shall make it capable of Sc
Letting candidate like him of old, of
whom it was said, ellis fan is in his hand,
and he shall thoroughly purge his foor.''
1t is to the interest of the whole peo-
pie to see the next two candidates
for the presidency taken from high
quarters, so that we can have a campaign
without base charges and insinuations,
forgeries, villainies, perjuries, the spend
ing OF huge sums of money, etc. Here we
behold to-day the principal agent to carry
the state of Indiana on trial for alleged
conspiracy against the public treasury,
while the president is on record, beyoad
recall, Of having said: at a banquet to this
agent, with wink all. a Hfin: "we all
know how elections are carried" Now.
elections are not to Do carried in that man
ner. The evil Of edmitting to power an
element which has not had control of
this country for twenty-five years. is small
compared to the other evil Of buying
an election by money, and thereby
putting the Office of president above
reformation. For he whose Office is pur-
chased by the consent of a whole party
cannot, in the nature of things, respect
the party much when it afterwards talks to
him about morals and good behavior.
The worst of all things the Republican
party has done has been to introduce the
system of carrying the presidency by
universal levy, not only on Office holders,
but on every class of persons who expect
to get some benefit out an administration.
Even considered in his physical proper
tons, President Arthur is not equal to the
great emergencies which might happen in
government of the proportions of ours.
While some criticise Garfield as
of feminine mould and temperament,
that would apply much more to his sue
cessor. Garfield rode into battle like a
man, and knew the smell of powder, and
his physical character came out fully afer
the assassin shot him, when he said that
if there was chance in 100 he would try
for that chance. The innumerable cow
ards in all parts of this country who
grudged the man the exhibition of mental
strength and bodily power on his death
bed may well consider the president who,
however gentle his nature is, was plunged
into melancholy, like girl at the loss of
her lover, during the defeats of last No
vember. Achilles has been known to pout
in his fant Init our Achilles went in his