Year: 1878

The tendency of the Greenbackers is


to take men "fresh from the people" il


is said. This phrase we are to under


stand as referring to men who are wholly


unaccustomed to public life. OF course


we must except from any such category


the distinguished gentleman nominated


for Governor by the Massachusetts Green.


hackers yesterday. General Butler can
not be called fresh" whatever else may


be said Of him. Neither should we admit
that Gideon j. Tucker, the Judicial can
didate of the New York National party,
is fresh from the people. Both Butler
and Tucker are politicians of extreme
age and cunning. If they are not played
out, it is because the human race is pa
tient and enduring. But some of the
nominations of Congressman by the
Greenback party, in other States than
New York, exhibit very clearly a deter
minaton to send to Congress the rawest
and most inexperienced men. In Maine,
for example, one of the candidates for
Congress is an illiterate stone-cutter. 1t
is not to his discredit that he is a work
ing man. Henry Wilson was q shoe
maker Lincoln was farm hand and a
laborer. Andrew johnson was tailor,
and learned to read and write after he
was twenty-one years old. But here is a
man who has arrived at the maturity of
life without mastering the rudiments of
an English education. He will 90 to
| Washington with but one element of
power-his vote.


1t can not be pretended that there is
any such sacredness about labor that the
ignorant laborer is, by virtue Of his being
laborer, superior to all other considera-
tions. But the blatherskites of the Kear-
ney school seem to fancy that working
man is specially qualified to discharge
the highest duties of Government because
he is working man. The sand-lot ora
tor, in fact, told one of his New Jersey
audiences that when the laborer's party
was in power, bricklayers and shoemak
ers should be judges. What do you
think of that?' he yelled in an ecstasy of
delight One man, who looked on the
practical side of things, said that it was
pretty rough" And so it would be.
Nobody would think of putting black
smith or a shoemaker into the office of
physician and expect him to prescribe
iutelligently for the ills of the body. Nor
would bricklayer succeed as lawyer
or school teacher Yet it seems to be
thought that any Of these men can go to
Congress and make laws without first
having had any special training which
should fit them for this vocation. 1t
does not follow, of course, that a legisla


tor learns his profession, as a physician
or lawyer does, but we ought to be able
| to assume that something in his training
has fitted him for the new duties which
are to be laid upon him. banker, dry
goods merchant, or mariner may be as
wholly helpless in Congress as the stone
cutter or the charcoal burner. But it
may be safely taken for granted that a
man whose ideas have been enlarged and
| expanded by education Can be more safely
| intrusted with making the laws Of his
country than can one whose horizon is
| bounded by the edge of his stone quarry


or the limits of his dry goods shop


Take the case OF the Maine stone cut
! ter, for example. Here is ii man who


was brought up newer o! wood and


drawer OF water. For generations his


progenitors were clam dlggers, wood


sawyers, and, as they say in Maine, ac-


customtd to do chores for a living


Great genius, undeniably, may arise from


such humble beginnings But the scion


of the clam digger becomes day laborer