The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-01-22

The Moral Aristocracy who Have Lost Faith
In Popular Government.

'Gath's" New York Letter.
Among the results of too much success is the
existence, especially in the East, of a consider
able Pharlsee element, which no longer believes
IN popular government. The men who are labor
ing toward this end supply President Cleveland
with his favorite reading The publisher of the
New I ork Evening Post said to me, about 1873,
that he did not believe the American people were
ut for self government, and in those words. l
suppose that he is too well settled IN his views
to deny the statement: On that line he
has ever since proceeded, and popular man
with the multitude of the political laborers he
instinetively dislikes.
But these reformers are all on the make: |
hardly ever saw one of them who was not striv-
ing to get his million of dollars Probably if
they will examine their minds they will find that
1t Is this million that has changed their politics.
Possessions always make a man timid. You will
remember In the Scriptures there was rich man
who came to the chief of the ranble, the man
who preached in the fields and had not where to
lay his head. who consorted with the publicans,
who were the internal revenue men of that day,
and with the sinners who went to the mass
meetings. and this rich man said: Master, what
shall DO to inherit the life you preachW
go and sell all that you have and give it to
the poor, and come and follow me-" was the re-
ply
He did not get this answer: Don't vote for
any man who is popular; keep yourself away
from the dear public, hold yourself high, and call
yourself the better clement"
The rich man had to go off only because he had
great possessions There is no better test of the
integrity OF mans patriotism than his respect
for the institutions of his fathers long after they
have been laid away in the grave. Now and
then find the descendants of some of the old
revolutionary men aping the moral aristocracy
and starting anew the government of the high
priests, scribes and Pharisees. In almost all
these cases you can find that the seed has gone
out of them, and some grabbing family has inter-
married there. Old John Adams, for example,
had fer wife a preachers daughter, Abigail
Smith, who was full of sense, and the smartest
woman who ever inhabited the White House
Her son, therefore, though he got good deal of
crankiness out Of his fathers nature threw
himself, toward the end of his life. gallantly into
the support OF popular rights. The earlier por-
ton OF his life, when he wrote his old diary and
mpugned everybody's motives, was modelled in
Europe, where he had been minister, college
student etc. There was not much of his life
worth noting until he went back to Congress
after he had left the presidency, a failure. But
he had son who married rich woman in
Boston. and that son had a crop of other sons
who married money-bag and corner lots and
now whenever there is anything doomed to be in
the minority you will find an Adams tied to it.
1t is said from this family emanated the TRADE
published in England called Democracy" Now,
il such was the case, the family was only ex-
posing its own matters For generations the
Adamses who produced John Adams had been
brewers of cheap ale and grubbers of bad ground
at Quincy. and they scraped together just money
enough to send John Adams to Harvard, which
was already infested with the old harsh leaven
of the Winthrops and Endlcotts, and the boys
there, John Adams says, were numbered, not by
their talents, but by the position of their fathers
in the world Charles Francis Adams says
what is still true to considerable extent of
Harvard University, that it makes man prig
if he has got it in him. Iquote: I'm the ordi-
nary intercourse of society. it existed at that
time in New England, the effect of a college
education was to introduce youth of the condi-
ton of John Adams into different class of
familiar acquaintance from that Of his fathers
The distinction of ranks was observed with such
puncJilious nicely that in the arrangement
OF the members of every class precedence was
assigned to every individual according to the dig
nifty of his birth or to the rank of his parents
John Adams was thus placed the fourteenth in
a class of twenty four, station for which he
was prohab1y indebted rather to the standing of
his maternal family than that of his father
This custom continued until the class which en-.
tered in 1863. and was graduated in I773, when
the substitution of the alphabetical order in the
names and places of the members Of each class
may be considered as pregnant indication Of
the republican principles which were rising to
an ascendency over those which had prevailed
during the colonial state of the country
This is true, and the mugwumps are still the
colonists This is seen by their affecting colonial
styles in their houses, endeavoring to secure
outdoor knockers and old andirons, and mag
lining themselves back in the condition of lJohn
Milton and John Winthrop.