The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1885-10-29
DEFAM1NG THE DEAD.

Andrew Johnson is aead and gone
Hewas staunch Unionistand stood BY
tire government in its darkest hour
when such Eatriots as Halstead were
calling GRAM drunken ass and howl
ing for Bincoln's assassination. BY
merit he raised himself from the
tailors' bench TO the Governorship oil
Lis State, to the United States Senate
and finally to the Presidency. Republl'
cans impeached him but could not con
Wet, and some are now assailing him In
the grave upon alleged new evidence
which was in fact fully developed years
ago and before the impeachment was
attempted. Is it courageous to do this
Mind. Johnson's voice is hushed IN
death. and it cannot be heard in his be-
half. 1t also involves the loyalty and
honor ola Republican President of the
United States. : Burlington Qowa)
Gdzettes
The foregoing lines, coming at time
Ike this, when hyenas are digging into
the graves of the departed and jackalls
hold high carni val. sound like bugle's
blast ordering halt. Those who have
not permitted partisanship to overcome
their better selves will look to them as
somany words of reproof uttered in be
half of. a great man whose voice, ionce
SO powerful, is hushed in the awful
gloom of the beyond,
There have been several attempts
made of late to drag forth from its
mouldy and decayed cerements all
that is mortal of Andrew Johnson, to
parade him anew before the public as
one who dared to brave the fury Of
mob by disowning the party which pro
NOTED him, when he found that party
blind with the smoke of war and inten-
SIZED to PASSIONS supreme heat by its
flames; they claiming that for doing
this he was traitor. If so, he was
traitor on the side of right, just as is
any man who finds that he is unwit-
tingly the associate of marauders, muir
deTers and incendiaries, and turns his
back upon them as soon as the awful
truth Is discovered.
The less the Republican party have to
say about ANDREW Johnson, the better
for them. Even if they could prove
their dastardly utterances against him,
such proof would add nothing to the
lustre Of the man whose reputation
they seek to advance by tearing that of
Johnson down. Both these men-the
one sought to be further glorifed and
the one attempted to be besmirched-
are dead; they are beyond the infu-
ences which control those who are left
behind. Flattery cannot "soothe the
dull, cold ear of death" nor can
stored urn or monumental
bust" build up the reputation
of Grant higher than it already is; but
# such a thing were to be done, and
could be done, what should we say of
those who seek to accomplish such re-
suits by the Wanton destruction of what
the other patriot left as a patrimony
not merely to his kin but to his coun-
trymen-a record worthy the emula-
ton of the best in our land?
Those who knew Johnson, personally
or otherwise, must have recognized in
the mans scope of intellectual power
and physical daring many of the ele-
ments of Cromwell, all OF them that
we're good and none ofthem chat were
bad. Coming from among the lowest Of
the loRly and advancing step by step to
the Hottest place ever attained bv a
human being, and this at a time in
which mems. souls we're tried as never
before on this soil; when the blazing
fagots ot the war we're lurid; when man
hated his fellow man because he lived
III another part of the country; when
not to be hand-in-glove with the domi-
nant faction was to be branded traitor
and subjected to all the Outrages. in
suits and annoyance which public
sentiment not entirely depraYed would
permit-in the midst of al this, daring
all and doing all, in the name OF what
he conceived and what subsequently,
proved to be the right, President john
son stood like an 0lympian god, immor-
tai. immutable and immaculate. Scorn-
ing the threats of blinded bigots and de-
flying the hosts of a power crazed with
victory and drunk on blood; daring the
minions of fanatical horde to do their
worst, he remained calm, impassive and
collected-as dignified as Jupiter and
as immovable as Gibraltar. The Union |
was his creed, the Constitution his
ritual; their enemies were his enemies
their friends his friends; but be could |
recognize no north. no south, no east, |
no West-it was ssnation or a mob, all |
MS Efforts being bent in establishing the |
iormer on basis as solid as the earth |
itself, q basis upon which parties might
1--we, thrive and increase as far as they |
could legihmately. but not to the ex-
c'osion OF patriotic sentiment. govern