Year: 1874

Opinions vary. Some say it was Of one
thing and some of another, but there is a
prevalent belief that it was a complication OF
diseases which did the business in the late
elections. There may be spice of personal
feeling in the treatment of the subject by the
press indeed we think we do detect traces of
unkindness toward the leading statesman,
who described the press as a forty-jackass
mud-throwing power, and possibly this ac-
counts for the disposition to include so con-
spicuously among the causes the cross-eyed
man of the period. That there is such
disposition cannot be doubted by any
ono who reads the newspapers with
half thought. Organs and senior
gans and semI-sO-sO-organs all agree, as
they look over the returns and foot the
fearful figures, that it was very largely strabis-
mus. The figures themselves have a sort of
cross-eyed look. and in some of them there's
the puckery flavor of persimmons.


Well, there may be much truth in the dag
nosis. Should the disease prove fatal and the
party be carried off by it, its epitaph might be,
if not "Died of a crOss-eyed man." at least,
"Ded of mental and moral strabismus." 1t
has somehow happened during the past five or
six years that whatever has been said or sug-
gested or done by the party in power that
was bad or corrupt or dishonest, or that
left bad influence upon the party and
the country, and for which the late Ad-
mnisratiOn party was made to suffer, has had
somewhere about it this baleful sign. Did the
party promise Civil Service Reform in its
platforms, and jeer at it as humbug through
its chosen representatives, it was statesman
"born on Wednesday, who stood in front and
fouted it most largely. Did speculating Con-
grcssmen take flyer i'll Credit MObilier, they
were defended at the bar of the House and of
public opinion by man with twisted vision.
Was there Back Pay Grab, he led with lcer
the hungry procession. Was there an attempt
to cheat the public creditor by the payment of
ora promise with another, it was he who tried
to make the nation look at its obligations
cross-eyed. Did an incompetent and a blum
derer sit in the Treasury, he put him there
and used him. Were merchants put at the
mercy of informers and the revenue farmed
out under shameful contract, it was he who
arranged the details, perfected the plans, and
sweated the plundef.


Over all the questionable transactions for
which the party has been held responsible,
over all the crookednesses of its policy, its
weakness willfulness and wickedness, you
may see the two queer eyes of its evil genius
The man who urges an imitation of our ire
deemable currency as remedy for financial
distress has something the matter with his
intellectual vision. The man who believes the
people will not object to any policy so long as
it puts dollars in their pockets has the same
confusion in his moral perceptions, and he who
holds these strange beliefs dsclOses the na-
ture of his moral and mental disease so soon
as he stands up to avow them. He has had his
way with the Administration and the party
now for long time. He has infected the whole
concern. 1t came at last to be that the whole
party was looking all ways and no one could
tell which way. 1t ranted in platforms and
roared in conventions, and staggered and
bulled wherever it had the power, and when
any one protested it said in the genuine
Tweed style, "Well, what are you going to
"do about Il" And it did MT look anybody
in the face or answer civil questions, but
clustered and strutted and made large
pretensions. And those people, looking at
this strange figure that led the leading states
men, said, "Why, the whole party has got it.
"It must be contagious" And then last
Tuesday they got up quietly and answered the
inquiry of the Hon. Roscoe COnkling and
others as to what they were going to do about
it, and looking next morning at what they
had done, they said it was "mOstly strabis-
"mus."