The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1882-07-05

The Next Democratic Saint.


the present period is the manifest pur-
pose of the Democratic party to make
a hagiology of its own. The saints and
saints day of the Republic, the Colo
niai and Revolutionary heroes, and the
great anniversaries of the Nation have
never seemed sufficient to that party.
They were always longing for saints
and saints days of their own for par
tisan celebrations, and days to which
they might lay special and exclusive
claim. They began with jackson. He
filed the first niche in their temple.
They raised him to it because he seemed
In all respects--from the corn-cob pipe
in which he found his highest sensual
delight to the vigorous by the Eter-
nal with which he emphasized his
highest intellectual expression-the
ideal representative of the coarse fiber.
the tough, brawnyi substance and the
downright earnestness of an everyday
Democracy. They wrote his name upon
their banners; they enrolled themselves
in Jacksonian Clubs; they celebrated
the Sth of January with. as much zeal
and enthusiasm as the average citizen
gave to the commemoration of the
Declaration of Independence on the
Fourth of July. 1t was not for his in
tellectual power or brilliance, not as
statesman, orator or scholar, but for his
unyielding stubbornness and obstinacy--
the brute force with which he overrode
obstacles and pursued his predetermined
purpose-that they canonized him.
The period of that particular phase OF
Democratic hagiolatry having passed,
there succeeded another marked by
somewhat higher form of worship The
apotheosis of brain followed that Of
4. IL. T,o fhax
hoisted the canonized Jefferson; St.
Thomas with the scroll stood beside st.
Andrew with the sword. The Jefferso-
nian succeeded the Jacksonian Democ-
racy. Turning from the figure of the
man on horseback who had earned theiI
gratitude and admiration by the robust
energy with which he carried on parti-
san warfare and the brutal candor with
which he ordered the apportionment OF
spoils, they bowed themselves at the
shrine of the new saint, to whom they
gave the chief glory of having laid the
foundations of the Republic, and whom
they idolized as the philosopher and
statesman not merely of his own but OF
all time. They called themselves by his
name, they celebrated his birthdays,
they ate and drank, sang, danced and
pronounced windy orations to his mem
ory. Hardly daring to undertake tc
steal from the brow of Washington the
| title of Father of his Country" they
decorated him with what they conceived
to be the higher title of ''Father OF the
Democratic Party" Upon hundreds oi
festive occasions and with multitudinous
ibations they have pronounced him i'm
maculate; in innumerable debates in
Congress, in the press and upon the
stump they have appealed to his oPin-
ions as the very highest authority and sci
up his Judgment upon all disputed ques-
tions of government or of constitutional
construction as absolutely infallible.
So there are two inches in the Demo
cratic temple already filed. And the
question is: Who nextP Who of all the
great leaders of the party who have fig
| ured conspicuously in the past twenty
| years shall go up beside Jefferson as the
| representative Democrat of this period?
| The Imagination wanders over a vast
array of names. 1t passes by Jefferson
Davis as ineligible; it dismisses Samuel
Cox as too fresh; it fingers a moment
on Horatio Seymour, but he unfortu-
| nately represents nothing sufficiently
definite; and pausing q moment over
John Kelly and Samuel j. Tilden, it
sets one against the other and leaves
4
jefferson? Is there not one man above
all others entitled to that place, and
does not the recent anniversary celebra-
ton of " Big Six" suggest it at once?
What Democrat so wen illustrates the
period through which we have been and
still are passing as the foreman of big
Six" the former Boss of Tammany
Hall, William NJ TweedP At the height
of his career he dominated his party. No
man in it ever possessed one-haf the
power he did, and no man ever used
| power and place in such thorough ac-
cordance with the principles of the party
and the wishes of its members. Better
illustration of its principles and pur-
poses could not be furnished. More
over, he crowned with martyrdom his
brilliant but somewhat checkered career
by dying in Jail. This seems to be
the figure for the niche. this the next
candidate for canonization- 1t cannot
be done at once. of course, but must be
reached by slow and gradual processes
and by the education up to it of the
public mind. The Big Six'' celebra-
ton may be tentative move in that
direction. He was the most distin-
guished foreman of that organization,
and it would not be improper for the
movement to begin with the survivors.
Then slowly but surely the patron saint
of Big SIX may be hoisted to its
place beside St. Andrew and st. Thomas
in the temple of Democracy. There
should be no jealousy in such a matter. as
there is certainly no question of fitness.
By all means add st. William to the list
of Democratic saints.-N. Y. Tribune.