The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-05-29
Walter Ouinton Gresham.

Walter Quinton Gresham.
Walter Quinton Gresham was brave
soldier, respected judge and an un-
successful politician. Peculiarly sus-
ceptible to flattery, he made. in the
latter years Of his life, the mistake of
taking it seriously; and foolishly i'm
agined that the selection OF another for
the presidency in 1883 was the result of
baneful influences which, had he him
self been chosen instead, would have
presented no semblance of evil. We
have no doubt that the sccret Of Mr..
Gresham's surprising conversion to the
cause of so-called tariff reform is to be
found in the refusal of the last Chicago
Republican convention to nominate him
for president. Nor do we question the
sincerity of that conversion, personal
and pitiable as was its actuatins inn
pulse. The late secretary of state was
one of those men who unconsciously
measure public questions in the scale
of their personal moods. Individual
chagrin, in such men, means q spasm OF
pessimistic philosophy, just as individ-
ual satisfaction means optimism.
1t seems singulalr enough, looking
backward in the ampler light of subse-
quent experience, that Walter Q. Gresh-
am, in the Republican National con-
vention of 1883, should, on the first bal
lot, have led every other candidate
His following, in that convention, was
a most curious one. 1t had no backing
from men of wealth or from great cor
porations; it was not called into the
field by the magnetic power of person.
ality which swayed men Independent of
their sober judgment, and it was in
every aspect, although perhaps then
unaware of the fact, wholly negative
force. Yet in the preliminary ballot 1t
led the convention, and would in all
probability eventually have won had
the leaders felt assured that Judge
Gresham would have been a safe man
to entrust with enormous executive re-
sponsibilities. Though perhaps even
yet somewhat inexplicable, it is prob
ably to be accounted for as the advance
rr l,ot
alleged class supremacy which in later
manifestations so greatly degenerated
and stopped over The common people
of the western states had been surfeited
with exaggerated narratives of the null
tiplylng opulence and arrogance of the
moneyed classes in the east; and, them
selves forced to struggle hard for the
barest of existences, took 1t into their
heads that somehow the old order of
things involved an unequal deal. Just
how Judge Gresham, of all men,
CHANGED to be presented to their notice
as the candidate of "the masses" we do
not know, nor perhaps does any body
else. The one thing certain is that the
time was ripe for an agrarian uprising;
and that he came perilously near being
the beneficiary of it.
We say 'perilously near" because re-
gardless of whatever of Justice may
have been embodied in the crudely for
mulated philosophy OF his candidacy it
1t has since, we think, become clearly
apparent that he was not the man fitted
in the capacity of leader to bring sue
cess to any great public movement. We
suspect that the better half of his re-
dictionary opinion concerning the tariff
the half which protests against excess
sive and unnecessary duties, useful
only to monopolies-has already be-
come fixed in the warp and woof of our
gained nothing by having him as its
presidential champion; and it would
PiOOobiy boNC ioSt NY VI Ills
indecision and because Of the peculiar
susceptibility of his vanity to flattery or
slight. AS a successor to Mr.. Blaine,
Secretary Gresham has been not per-
haps a disappointment, because little
was expected Of him, but certainly a
failure. the magnitude and the humilia-
tion of which make It difficult, even at
the moment Of his unexpected sum-
mons. to observe that charitable silence
as to faults which custom exacts from
those who comment upon the newly
dead.
The refusal yesterday of Judge Arch
bald to reverse his action Of Monday