The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1888-06-02
GRESHAM IN POLITICS.
Come OF tho spots In His Record which
Can Not he Wiped Away.

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 IL all Mt
one glance until he becomes formid-
able candidate for some political office.
That is why Judge Gresham is perhaps
better acquainted with himself to-day
than ever before. 1t Is altogether
probable that he never realized what
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
Cabinet officer. 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 sole desire to do
the square thing. II Judge Gresham
had never become Presidential candi-
date, he would have gone down into
history as one of the purcst men that
ever adorned public life. But it
doesn't look that way now. The
Blaine folks are talking 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 a good deal of
mysterious undertone talk about the
political trades the Judge made to get
into Cabinet Office and from the
Cabinet to a life position on the Fed
eral bench. And then they profess to
have something that they are holding
back to be sprung at an opportune
time, which will show that Judge
Gresham's celebrated ruling in the
Jay Gould railway case was not
so purely unselfish 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
unearthcd 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 threatenings 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 Blainites concerning Judge
Gresham's crookedness in politics or
his ruling in the Wabash cases, they
will count for but little against him
unless substantiated by proof. But so
far as his Know-Nothing record is con-
cerned, it is bound to give the judge $
Presidential aspirations a 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-
BILE Know-Nothing record would not
make an available Presidential candi-
date. That record would ALLEVIATE the
entire foreign-born population at the
start. without any show of attracting
strength from other quarters, because
the entire Know-Nothing element is
already inside of the Republican party.
Judge Gresham's friends must have
been ignorant of their candidate S
past record when they started his
boom, or they underestimated the
hyena-like capacity of the Blaine lead
ers for delving into the dead past
81. Paul Globe.