The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-04-02
REED AND REVERENCE.

l.
Whitelaw Reid is what might be
called political demagogue who plays
upon sacred instruments with a pro-
fame hand, who invokes religious senti-
ment for partisan purposes.
Addicted to the use of Bible ilIustra-
tons in his own screeds and speeches,
he objects to it in others. In the New
York Tribune, of which he is editor
and owner, Mr.. Reid pretends to be
seriously shocked at the following ex-
preston in one of Bryans recent
speeches:
What the Lords supper is to the
Christian, so a Jefferson banquet is to
a Democrat"
This, says Mr.! Reid, is an exhibition
of sacrilege and irTeverence that shocks
every Christian in the civilized world.
And the way he carries on about it is
one Of the rarest exhibitions of genu-
inc demagogism the American public
has witnessed in several years.
1t recalls the attempt of another Re
publican paper to make capital out Of
a tune a, candidate had whiled away a
lonesome hour with. 1t said:
''Hoggins was heard whistling Sheep
Meat Too Good For Meyers as he
rode home the other night. He thus
audaciously flouted the hitherto I'M
questioned right Of our colored fellow
citizen to choose his food and sustain
his life on which the welfare Of his
otherwise helpless family depends, a
right the white voter has. Every colored
gentleman should enter a solemn pro-
test at the polls against this I'M Amer
lean sentiment, and the gross libeler
who has no respect for the fourteenth
constitutional amendment should be re
buked by every loyal admirer of that
inspired document"
Along the same line Mr.. whitelaw
Reid writes of Bryan as follows:
At Birmingham. Ala on Thursday he
had the unspeakable effrontery to COM
pare Thomas Jefferson to Cnrist, and to
liken the Democratic banquet soon to be
held in this city to the Holy. Sacrament;
about which the whole Christian world
thinks reYerently, speaks guardedly, and
would shrink with horror from making
the subject of jest.
Still it hasn't been many days since
Reid made the same remark substan-
tally in reference to another holiday:
What Christmas is to the church, this
day is to the Republican party" Gut
now he is Stimulating holy horror and
protesting against Bible figures and
stories to illustrate what men regard
as good and sacred, on the absurd
ground that they are sacriligious.
Continuing his attack upon Mr..
Bryan, Mr.. Reid says:
Ant this is the man who poses as a
new Lincoln, who dareS to compare him
self TO that deep, solemn soul who walk
ed reverently before God, whose epigrams
and humor are proverbial, but who amid
them all never forgot the respect due 10
sacred things. and never shocked the
feelings OF the most sensitive and religious
of his countrymen.
How long since Whitelaw Reid came
to reverence Lincoln and hold the Lord
in such veneration?
Before Mr.. Reid became editor of the
New York Tribune he was connected
with the Cincinnati Gazette, which
parer published articles over his own
/ signature. Toward the close of Lin
coins administration Reid, although a
radical Republican and abolitionist,
blamed Lincoln for Burnside's defeat at
Fredericksburg, and wrote:
1t mattered little, so far as the people
were concerned or history was concerned
what Burnside did or what Halleck did
| The administration had in its hands the
means TO insure a success. With those
! means in its hands it failed. We were re-
]
| Again and again the administration had
| exhibited feebleneSs when the times de.
manded strength. 1t has now demon
strated its folly in council and imbecility
! in action.
| This was his opinion of Lincoln. the
aid he gave him in a trying hour, the
sympathy he showed when Lincoln
needed it more than now.
And, as far as sacreligious utterances
are concerned, here is one which Illus
trates both points at cnce-his love for
Lincoln and his piety. On the 2Sth OF
Whitelaw Reid published in the Gazette
the following:
mo matter how much Lincoln
prayed. God would be sure to think he
was joking. Alas for people in the
midst of a great revolution when theil
ruler is joker"
And now Mr. Reid would overawe Mr.
Bryan with his superior veneration fo1
Lincoln and the Deity.
To paraphrase his own conclusion, d
man must be mad with fanaticism OF
drunk with vanity who dares make
such sacrilesious pretensions.