Year: 1873




ttics-The Meaning OF the New De-


Parture-Thc Spirit of Csosarism Per-


vading Our Public Life.


Some of our contemporaries are asking,
'What does the HERALD mean by its new
departure2 What does it propose to gain by
the crusade upon the administration and the
republican party? What grievance does it
represent? What hope does it cherish? What
aim will it attain?" 1t is not always wise to
step aside from o discussion as earnest and
grave as that now interesting the best minds
in both parties to answer questions of per-
sonal nature. But sometimes personal ques-
tons are of the most general character, and
in responding to the inquiries of our contem-
poraries some views in relation to the press
and politics may not be unworthy of our
attention.


We live in a privileged era. This is no
longer the age of tradition. The spirit of
scepticism and inquiry discovers daily new
truths, long hidden under superstition and
ignorance, even as the adventurous men of
science, in searching the ruins of Greece and
Rome and Babylon, discover historical records
throwing light on the earlier world, and
legends in marble and metal that make easy
the pages of Plutarch and Tacitus, and now
and then works as exquisite as the Venus of
Milo. Ideas pervade the world. The cable.
in its silent life under the seas, binds the
Continents together with ligament as strong
and as sensitive and as necessary to modern So
ciety as the spinal column which supports our
body or the great arteries that carry life in
their current. A generation ago Cincinnati
and New Orleans were as far off as Paris and
Paris is as near to us as Boston and Phihdel-
phia. The emotions that move the Assembly
in Versailles to-day are shared by New York
tomorrow. When the Prince of Wales was
lowering over the grave at Sandringham pray
ers were offered for him on the same day by
the Parsees in India and English clergymen
on the Pacific. The world has drawn closer
French questions as in what transpires in
Washington and we have On interest in the
cheers which follow Mr.. Gladstone or Mr..
Disraeli from crowded House of Commons.
An American journal sent its minister to pene-
trate Africa, and because of what he saw and
did an English Cabinet sent Sir Bartle Frere
to do a necessary work. Thus we see that
nations and great Powers act together. and
that in the works of mercy and civilization
men are brothers, whatever their nationality,
and do the brotherly part


The true newspaper has its ofice-in this
economy an Office that grows in strength
with every year. 1t is the express image of
The time. 1t is the mirror Of the world-each
days history mapped and written and printed
for the morrow. The citizen may sit over his
breakfast, and, like Goldsmith's traveller,
survey mankind from China to Peru. The
time has gone when o true journalist can be
the politicians lackey or dance in antecham-
bers, just as men like DR.. johnson no longer
wait on the stairs for the pleasure of Lord
Chesterfield. What is it to us who reigns
to-day or to-morrow-whether we have the
Sweeny Ring or the Murphy Ring-whether
Grant or Seymour is in Washington-whethe
one party or the other is in power? The
HERALD, we trust, is still in its morning time,
and yet the HERALD has already seen the rise
and fall of eleven administrations and of
countless politicians who were famed and
powerful in their day. Grants administra-
ton is no more to us than Jackson's or
Lincoln's. 1t will pass away and others will
come, and to the others we shall perform
our Office We have never assailed Grants
administration. We believe that the Chief
Magistrate of the country, no matter who
elects him, is entitled to certain respect
akin to that shown by Englishmen to their
Queen. We are loyal to our flag and our
Union, but we are always courteous to the
President He is the nations Chief Magis-
trate, and the honor we expect from other
nations we must encourage by paying it our
selves.


Again, we prefer to regard the Presidency
as the heritage of every American. 1t was
said in the time of Napoleon that every
private soldier carried marshal's baton in
his knapsack. 1t may be said in ours that
every American carries the Presidency in his
ballot. Therefore, as no true soldier would
dishonor his uniform, so should no citizen
dishonor his ballot. The evil of our politics
Is the spirit OF defamation, and as our
ingenious historian, Mr.. Parton, means
to give us lecture on the subject, he
must not forget that slander never
won or lost canvass If it had
any power General Grant would have been
thrown into that Dante's hell where the spir-
its of the condemned live on in restless ecstasy
The American sense of humor, the craving for
the grotesque and extraordinary, is satisfied
with an exciting political campaign, in which
Grant is represented as coward and Greeley
as slave dealer. We enjoy it as we enjoy the
pranks of the negro minstrels or Mr.. Nast's
caricatures or anything absurd and unnatural;
but to suppose that votes are ever thus affected
is to lose sight of that common sense which is
the dorniua ant elenaent in the American char-