Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-10-11
Fass and Feathers Barnes.

delivered this campaign in Los Angeles
than that OF General Barnes. 1t is
neither argumentative, instructive or
witty. There is certain dd captdndum
style of defamation in some OF
its parts which served to draw
out an occasional hurrah from the
groundlings; but when we scan it for
thoughts that appeal to the mind OF the
well-informedl listener we fail to find them.
But perhaps the worst feature OF this
weak production is its boldness in the line
OF mendacity. One of its falsehoods Is
that the st. Louis Convention was packed
with Cleveland's appointees. No con-
vention ever assembled in this country to
nominate President in which the
absence of Federal office-holders
was so conspicuous. Another i'm
pudent statement is the declaration
that Cleveland has disregarded the
principles of Civil Service Reform, and
out OF 60, 900 offices in his control he has
appointed sc, 900 for purely political pur-
poses. The President has carried the
principles OF civil service much farther
than he was required to do by law, and
this has been a complaint against him
by many OF his own party, who
believe that Democrats are entitled
to more consideration than Republicans
in the distribution of offices under a
Democratic Administration. The great
office of Postmaster of New York city
was left in the hands of its incumbent,
and there is more patronage attaching to
that position than to any other civic
office in the country. When has Re-
publican President ever done such a
thing? If Cleveland had followed the
example set by Republican Presidents,
every office in the country would be
held by Democrat, yet Barnes
himself admits that Republicans hold
ten thousand out of sixty thousand.
Gould there be anything more callow
than Barnes fancy description OF Cleyea
lands excruciating agony over the news
that the Republicans had carried YER
mont? AS if the President or any other
man had ever supposed they would not
carry that State. General Barnes repu-
tation for veracity, if he ever had any,
must disappear before his bald false
hood that the only badge Democrats
have attempted to wear during this
campaign is one manufactured in England
at the instance OF the Golden Club. The
Generals humor, too, is of the poorest
and most chestnutty kind. He has
transferred the old Texas story,
about the fellow who could have bought
a vast domain once for pair of boots if
he had had them, to San Francisco, and in
suits the religious portion of his audience
by telling "nigger story" the point of
which hinges upon the burthen of
that beautiful hymn, "Nearer My God
to Thee" Indeed the wit OF General
Barnes in his liveliest moods is cheap
and unexplosive. Tuesday night it was
cheap and nasty. The fact is the Re-
publican orator is a man whose intel
lectual trend is of very low order. To
call him an intellectual hoodlum would
not be far from accurate. He is perhaps
the only man Of even provincial promi-
nence in the United States who could so
far forget the respect due to the Governor
of his own State as to publicly insult
him, in the coarsest and most brutal
manner, from his place as the presiding
officer of State Convention of the party
opposed to the dignitary he assailed.
The less our friends on the other side
have of Barnes the better they will be off.