The Indianapolis journal., 1884-06-13
MR.. TILDEN,s LATEST LETTER,

cOnVentlon can Dut nave QemOrallZlng ana
discouraging effect upon that party. The as
pect of the Democratic campaign is entirely
changed by his letter of declination, and the
lines must be hastily reformed to meet the al
tered conditions. The antiquated cry of
fraud" will not be enough now, and the
platform builders must seriously undertake the
business of formulating declaration of
principles that shall compare with the plat
form drawn and adopted at Chicago last week.
Mr.. Tilden has been guilty of a very grave
offense against his friends and the party as an
entirety. In waiting until this late date to de-
clare his intentions he has kept all other can
didates in suspense, and has seriously embar-
rassed all concerned. His action, however,
will result in benefting the country at large,
compelling, as it must the abandonment of
bugaboo issue and the assumption of some
show of interest in the real issues at
stake and in which the people are so
fore, that however disastrous his action may
be to Democratic prospects, it can but go to
strengthen the party morally, which is now
obliged to meet the issues of this great cam
paign as they are Mr.. Tilden has been
prolific letter writer and has always been a
puzzle to his fellow Democrats; but this let
ter, all things considered, will be productive
of more trouble and vexation to the party than
any he has hitherto seen fit to infict upon it.
To-have renominated this man would have
been a calamity, not that he would be elected,
but from the fact that such character could
command sufficient influence to keep him at
the head of great political party. The peo-
pie of this country have not forgotten the
dangerous days of 1876, when the politics of
the nation were debauched by this same man
with a shameless daring never before known.
Posturing as a reformer, and prating contin-
ually of purity in public affairs it
still remains matter of his
tory that Samuel Jones Tilden is
the only man ever named for the high and
honorable office of President who was base
enough to attempt to buy his way there by
bribing electors. Demoralized and broken up
as it is, the party should congratulate itself
| that it is at last rid of this great burden. If
Tilden methods are to prevail in American
politics, then is there an end to honest cleo
tions, and popular government is a farce tend
ing to the tragedy of anarchy. The Demo
cratic party is to be congratulated on its de-
liverance. 1t will go on to its defeat, just as
it would have gone with Tilden on its
shoulders; but it will go with more decency
Democratic party is proverbially unlucky-it
should boost another man like Tilden into
the place just vacated by him.
Samuel J. Tilden was very dangerous
and unscrupulous man; unconscionably cor
rupt while preaching crusades of reform, and
planning the rape of popular suffrage while
Enthusiastically pleading for purity in elections,
he has done more to degrade and
demoralize politics than any man in
the history of this republic. In a
contrast between him and such Democrats
as Stephen A. Douglas, Horatio Seymour and
General Hancock, who, like him, have been
honored with the Democratic nomination, he
must be regarded with contempt. Yet, de-
spite all these well-known characteristics, this
man is to-day one of the greatest egotists of
+ba e 1o4+ :, 4I>o+
him is centered the hopes, not only of the
Democratic party but of the nation. In it he
plainly declares that this great republic of ours,
its millions of people, with all their intelligence
and love of country, and all the
grandeur of great and prosperous ma
ton to inspire them, are actually
suffering because he, Samuel J. Tilden, a de-
crepit old man, a lean and slippered panta-
loon, has not been permitted to deliver them
There is a ghastly humor in this, apparent
enough to anybody not blinded by the mar
rowest prejudice and the meanest ignorance.
That any man should become so inflated with
self love as to imagine that the American re-
public, so rich in material progress, so FORUM
ate in its financial management af-
ter most disastrous internecine
war, 50 prosperous above all the
nations of earth as to draw tens and hundreds
of thousands from them to us, still stands in
need of any one man to come to its rescue, is
an idea so grotesque and absurd as to provoke
only derision. 1t is well that this man has
taken himself out of active politics. The
country can spare him, and his party ought to
be glad to be well rid of him at last
SCHOOL commissioners are to be elected to-