St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1886-06-03
INDEPENDENTS AND CLEVELAND

There has been great deal of talk
in many republican journals intended
to convey the impression that the in
dependent voters who supported the
president in 1884 have lost confidence
in his purpose and his courage. Moth
ing could be farther from the truth.
We do not know single independent
journal, except the New York Herald,
which shows any distrust of the presi-
dent or questions the great service that
he has rendered to reform under cir
cumstances of unprecedented difficulty
or whose differences of opinion or
doubts of the expediency of certain
strongest tone of friendly regard and
good understanding. The general
course of the president, indeed, has
been heartily approved, not only by
independent voters, but by great null
titudes of republicans. The conscious
ness that there is a man of the utmost
integrity and independence in the
chief executive Office, who is essential
ly and in the best sense conservative
and patriotic, is practically universal,
and the president is unquestiOnably
very much stronger in the popular con-
fidence than when lie was elected. His
so-called concessions to the lndepen-
dents or mugwumps, which have so
greatly exasperated the democratic
politicians, are in no sense whatever
concessions. They are simply acts
done in conformity to his own princi-
pies, always openly declared, and not
only perfectly we'll known when he
was nominated, but determining his
nomination. 1t was because of these
principles that he was selected by his
party for the purpose of attracting the
voters who would not support Blaine,
and in the hope that the democratic
bosses could prevent his active fidelity
to his own views. These bosses and
their organs, not the president, have
invited the contest by trying to force
him to break faith with the country
and himself.
His adhesion to his own convictions,
we repeat, is not a concession to the
mugwumps, nor to any other body OF
voters. Concession implies bargain.
Concessions in administration are made
for the purpose of securing support.
But such concessions have not been
made by the president, nor have they
been asked by independent voters.
Such voters have watched his course
with the utmost interest and sympathy,
and they have been fully aware of the
immense practical difficulties of bis pO-
sition. They have seen ii chief execu
tive jealousy opposed at every point
by the republican party, without a
strong supporter either among demo-
cratic senators or representatives, or
among the chief democratic leaders out
of congress, and with IL large part of
the press of his party discrediting and
Obstructing his course in every way.
There is, indeed, the regulation party
courtesy toward the official head of the
party. But as yet there is no evidence
of al earnest and effective democratic
support of the distinctive reform poll
cy of the democratic president which
secured his nomination and election,
and the disregard of the principles and
methods of reform among democratic
Office holders is notorious. In this
tremendous stress of weather, if the
president yields point now and
again, his action is perfectly intelligi-
ble. 1t is with him a question of ex-
pediency-a question upon which there
may be decided and honest differences
of opinion. The independent and re-
form voters see manly struggle wag-
ed for their principles. They compre-
bend it fully. They distrust neither
purpose, nor his steadfastness. But
they do not, of course, commend what
is plainly indefensible upon principles
of reform, nor do they by silence, or by
noting only what is well done, author
ize the conclusion that they have lost
the courage of their own convictions
and accept without comment violations
of their declared principles.
But they differ, when they differ, as
friends and cO-laborers bent upon q
common purpose. They differ in such
cases without distrust and with entire
consciousness that it is difference upon
points of expediency and not of prin-
ciple. They acknowledge, with the
utmost pleasure and pride, that the
president whom they helped to elect
has done and is doing very much more
for civil-service reform and under very
much more difficult conditions than
any other president. They aid him in
his contest in every practical way
They treat him with his own candor
and directness. In a word, they are
openly faithful to their own view,
without unreasonable anticipation OF
his conformity to it, and with com
plete confidence that he will equally
expect nothing unreasonable of them.
This is the attitude that independent
voters have always held toward the
president. They foresaw the inevita-
BILE contest in his party. In that con-
test lay the danger for reform. 1t was
not that the president would renOunce
his views or abandon his course, but
that his honest estimate of the neces-
sity of yielding for the sake of holding
his party might differ from what SEEM
ed to them expedient for the common
cause of reform. The peril of such a
course always is that it really satisfies
neither side, and with the most upright
purpose tends to isolate the man who
takesit. Meanwhile they rejoice hearth
ly in the good work that he is doing,
convinced that it is very much greater
than it would have been under the ad-
ministration of his competitor in 1884.
Il Harper's Weekly.
Legal Assistance.