New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-03-15
JACKALS AT WORK AGAIN.
THE LATEST PLOT TO DEFAME GARFIELD.


safe ground His great popularity, founded on his
frank and winning character, strengthened by in
tense sympathy with his heroic suffering, ideazed
by his cruel and premature death, has been chain
of Rocky Mountains protecting him roundabout
For some weeks his bitterest foes sat vainly staring
at it. despairng of scaling IT. Death wrested him
from their hostility, and 10 the sacred immunity of
the grave they were forced TO yield, and hear him
praised and his ends approved and his measures
adopted. without apparent dissent.
The first moment they thought it was safe they
moved against him-ndirectly, indeed, for the same
DO dyguard surround his memory that surrounded
the Master eighteen hundred years ago, and the
Stalwarts, like the Scribes, feared the people
They attacked him by means of stolen telegraphlc
dispatch addressed to MIN. The dispatch was
not only innocent but acknowledgements
" proper to be sent and to be received
But it was hoped that the dishonesty Of the theft
might by a sort of Chinese warfare OF sound and
fury. be transferred IN The public mind to the dis
patch itself and the dishonOr of stealing II attach
somehow to the act of sending and receiving 1t.
This was an utter failure. The Chinese gongs were
beaten in vain. The dispatch was never denied,
explained apO,ogzed for, or even defended. Ii was
openly av0wed and publicly appiauded. All the
"lnfamy" was turned upon the thief, who was
promptly and pitllessly hunted down and upon the
receivers Of the stolen goods who having little 10
lose bad run no great risk
Next Garfield was attacked-s'ill indirectly
through his foreign policy. 4 bloody war with
Chill ragged through the Stalwart newspapers, and
through good many religious and otherwise re-
spectacle journals which their easy dupes. That
policy was even charged with giving a saucy ana
supererogatory tweak 10 the tail OF the british hon
whose roarings made all the Stalwart camp to
tremble But unhappiy, though Garfield was
dead, his policy had living defender
who stubbornly refused to die or let the
policy be DETAINED and traducrd Instead OF
perlshIng decorously, defunct diplomat should
he resisted and. loud enough to be heard from
Maine 70 California. showed beyond question
that the Garfield policy was the pohcy
of universal peace and national power; and
already arises in the House of Representatives
ulaintive wail-not from the Garfield men-that the
new dcparture Is not 40 very different from the old
after all and that those who cried down the Car
field plan we're not really crying it down-were
only stopping TO examine IL for a moment ana
then roll up their sleeves and jump with it all the
harder.
Twice repulsed by living men. they have now
odonted the only safe recourse, and attack the
dead. Wherever else they have alighted
they have found life enough to repel and
oyerpover them, ard in their despair they
are scratching at grave on which
the grass has never sprung. A private and
confidential letter written nineteen years ago by
the dead Garfield to hIs friend and fellow statesman,
the dead Chase. is brought out and Published. Like
the DISPATCH 1t is perfectly unobjectonable. Like
the policy. it is thoroughly patriotic. No one can
read TIE letter without seeing how intensely the man
loved his country how truly he loved his commander
Full of fire, ger, confding, hgh-heartcd. he
noured out his soul TO his friend, and that soul
shows in the letter itself to be all courage, faith.
fidelity But those men who think they see IN the
popular love and admiration for Garfield wall of
adamant against their own ambition steal this let
t,r-a helpless woman being the custodian of Secre-
tarv Chases papers--and haunt it before the world
not with the Chinese gong outcry which
served them i'll in the foreign policy
and stolen dispatch matter but with Crocodile
tears Of regret that Garfield should have
BETRAYED his comnander-in-chief and violated mill
tary etiquette. and with Rev.-Chidband-y
bopes that the letter is not genuine. Scribes and
Pbarisees hypocrites the letter is undoubtedly
oenuinel Tho people read its honest. genuine ring
in every glowing sentence. There Is III I neither
had faiih nor bad feeling. For military etiquette,
know that every Sunday after drlll, every soldier
so far as in him lay sent home Just such letter to
mother sister. sweetheart; aud will continue to
send them whenever and wherever the heart of the
American citizen beats under the uniform of the
American soldier What Russian dcspotisr rules
Republc that mar shall not write in a private
Litter c1actIv what he pleases7 What military
rule forblds a citizen-soIdier to speak his mind
nriyately to citizeu-civilianf The letter is not
only proper. bnt in every sense praiseworthy and
perfectly consistent with Oafiieiu puoIIc oplHlo7
and public course.
The a1.inus OF this publication Is not 10 be mis-
taken. For nineteen years he letter has 3lumbercd
quietly in the archives where salmon y ChaS'S
literary remains repOse. Now that CARRIED j. dead
With a rainbow Of glory over LIS tomb now that
measures PROPOSED to him ami measures adopted Dy
him have failed 20 disturb that glory now Gla' Tue
nal 4ulogy pronounced upon him has aided 10 lts
LrightursS a fresh glOw-this letter Is Wreuchrd
from the dead hand tnat wrote II; from me dead
hand that held il, from the weak ~onans haud
Which il al that Is left alive to defend It, and Il
paraded before the world Is bot upon the aIne OF
him whose lips are forever Seaieu III ued.H
For MI eteen wears through all me PKclIemrl anu
exirencies of Congressional and Presidential cam
nairus so long rs Garfield was alive nobody dared
Of dreamed Of md ling with IT. NoY' IL IesS man
with ali the prominence OF headlines and
capitals And is t brought cdl out direct IN to
eT senator Conklin. Mrs. Kate chase. Sprague
has the sympathy of every American Ia lIls outrage
upon her own privacy aud hdeny, anI dpon Lor
fathers memory. In the attempt WhI9h dlsasIceI
abe az il is she cannot fail to make to discover and
punish the villain. all honorable IAcA Will Ola her
DoRhtless the Stalwarts felt absolutely certain
when thew put the Garfield Kosecrans matter be;
fore the public that il a contest between a dead
man and living men, the dead man mus De al a ils,
advantage. But they are even more pIIldiIv pima
in this than they have been their other attacks
and the people will promptly, ana ana conc lao
sively prove 10 them that that dead non Is more
than match for the whole pack Of living dogs
HashtRgt0n, D. e., March 10, loS2. A. u. s.
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OBITUARY..
PHILO c. CALHOUN.
Philo C. Calhoun, president of the Fourth