Year: 1878

-
the issues of the day, and the delicate dis
elimination with which mis- hearers dis
tributed thoir silence and their applause
must have left on him the pleasing
conviction that he was closely and eagerly
listened to by Men who knew what they
themselves thou Nit, and were curious to see
what was passing in his own mind. The
audience was probably, in fact, as amusing
and instructive study for the speaker as
he was to them.


Three questions, he said. were to be set
tied by the republican party and its admin
istration-the pacifcation of the country;
the elevation of the civil service and the
domination of personal and private inter-
ests; and the restoration of the finances and
commerce. Fortunately, he added, all these
tasks were placed by the republican party
in such state of forwardness that they do
not require the aid or Intervention OF Con-
gress, but are entirely in the hands OF the
Executive; ..and," he added, 'it is not
my duty to defend a republican adj
ministration to republican audience.
So saying he turned, as was natural in
campaign speech, from the immediate
past to the immediate future, to the evident
relief of his hearers, who manifested no
particular fondness for the administration
in general, but only for the Secretary of
State in particular.


His statement of the Southern question
was full, explicit and eminently just He
asked the republican party to say that
armed intervention in the South was no
longer necessary. (Silence.) He promised
the enforcement of the laws and the protec-
ton of the weak. (Applause.) He chal-
lenged any one to say that the ad-
ministration had neglected its duty
in these respects. Great silence.) He
asserted the necessity of using only
constitutional methods in dealing with
this question, and carefully explained
the constitutional limitations, but
here the audience clearly thought him
tiresome SO he turned to the question of
civil service reform, the reduction Of public
officers to the number absolutely necessary
to perform the duties, and the permanence
of the civil service, which he declared
necessary to the welfare and even
the security Of the country. Here, too,
apparently, the audience was but very
slightly interested, and, being an expert
enced orator, Mr.. Evarts hastened over this
subject and came to thard money" the
mere suggestion of which, even, was re-
ceived with great and prolonged applause.
Being now plainly in full accord with his
hearers he went on swimmingly, and, it is
needless to say. made brilliant and sue
cessful appeal for sound currency, which
won cheers at every hit against fat money
and against the deluded democrats who are
said to be seeking to plunge the country
into ruin.


To a student of the political situation
what Mr.. Evarts said was, perhaps, less in
teresting-ably said as it of course was
than what his audience thought; because
it is not what Mr. Evarts thinks,
but what the republican party de-
sires and is interested in that is of
importance in canvass where this party
and its opponents ask for votes. IT, then,
the Cooper Institute assemblage is a fair
index of the party's wishes, we should say
that it has but the slightest and most per-
functory interest in the reformation Of the
civil service; that it thinks with disgust Of
the pacifcation Of the country and
| regards the discussion Of constitutional
| limitations as tiresome in the extreme; that
it has sharp and suspicious eye on the
| Southern democrats, whose blunders and
violence it will not fail to make use of for


Campaign" purposes, and that it has made


up it's mind that 'hard money" is safe


issue to 60 to the country on.


| If the HERALD were the confidential ad.


wiser of the democratic party we should


counsel them to take notice of this attitude


OF their opponents Their long and sad


experience Of wandering about in the


dreary wilderness must have by this


time convinced that part of the demo-


cratic party which has brains that
the republicans are not fools. The republi-


can leaders have been vacillating in


purpose in their duty toward the coun-
try; they have either weakly or per-


versely kept open questions which for
the good Of the nation ought to have
been closed; it is the fault Of their
ignorance and timidity that we are to-day


engaged in struggle over the currency and


the national credit. But they have always
shown o marvellously keen and correct
knowledge of the drift of public sentiment.


and have known how to take advantage


of the blunders Of their opponents.


Three months ago the republican party be-
lieved itself doomed to defeat; to-day its
shrewdest chiefs believe victory in their
grasp; the best proof Of which is that they
no longer talk Of General Grant as their
candidate in 1880. To great extent the
folly Of the democrats in surrendering SO
| nanerallv TO the nnation craze is the causa