The Brookhaven leader., 1888-05-31
GRESHAM IN POLITICS.
Some OF the spots In His Record which
Can Not he wiped Away.

i some OF the spots In His Record which
Can Not he Wiped Away.
/ A man never knows himself until he
gets into politics. At least, he never
gets his past life pulled together in
such shape that he can see it all ut
one glance until he becomes a formid-
able candidate for some political office.
That is why Judge Gresham is perhaps
better acquainted with himself to-day
than ever before. Ii rs altogether
probable that he never realized what n
small potato he was until the Blaine
folks got to editing his record. Up to
within the last month or two the
Judge had reason to be stuck on him
self, for pretty much every body else
was stuck on him. He had been n
Cabinet officer. a Judge of the Federal
Court and had held various public
trusts, and yet every body spoke of
him as clean man, who was guided
in public affairs by 4 sole desire to do
the square thing. If Judge Gresham
had never become Presidential candi-
date, he would have gone down into
history as one of the purest men that
ever adorned public life. But it
doesn't look that way now. The
Blaine folks are taking a good deal,
and what they say is calculated to
tarnish the Judges good name and to
knock the spots out Of his Presidential
boom. They indulge in good deal of
mysterious undcrtone talk about the
political trades the Judge made to get
into Cabinet Office and from the
Cabinet to life position on the Fed
eral bench. And then they profess TO
have something that they are holding
back to be sprung at an opportunc
time, which will show that Judge
Gresham's celebrated ruling in the
Jay Gould railway case was not
50 purely unscllish as the Judges
friends would have the public
believe. In addition to these
mysterious intimations of crooked
transactions on the part of one who is
held up as an example of immaculate
purity in American political life, the
Blaine people have gone to work and
uncarthed Judge Gresham's political
record, thirty years back, and, as re-
suit, show that he was an ultra Know
Nothing, who went about breathing
slaughter and thrcatcnings to all
American citizens of foreign birth.
America for Americans was the
Judges political war cry thirty years
ago.
SO far rs the intimations thrown out
by the El&init,s concerning Judge
Gresham's crookcdncss in politics or
his ruling in the Wabash cases, they
will count for but little against him
unless substantiated by proof. But so
far rs his Know Nothing record is con-
ccrned, it is bound to give the Judges
Presidential aspirations n very black
eye. Not because of any special preju-
dice in the Republican party against
know-Nothingism, because the old
Know-Nothing party was the germ of
the Republican party, but it will be
because of the general recognition of
the fact that man with an unmiStaka-
bic Know-Nothing record would not
make an available Presidential candi-
date. That record would ALLEVIATE the
entire foreign-born population at the
start, without amy show of attracting
strength from other quarters, because
the entire Know-Nothing clement is
already inside of the Republican party.
Judge Grc>ham's friends must have
been ignorant of their candidates
past record when they started his
boom, or they underestimate the
hycna-likc capacity Of the Blaine lead
crs for dclvihg into the dead past
81. PQuL Globe.