Year: 1872




70 IN, Fdffor Of The Tribune


SIR. lam the last person in the world to be
stickler about FORMS and very much incline 10 tha'
simplcity Of action which, ON great OF small oeca-
sions is hetruest decOrum. But things may some
times he a little slipshod. Such honestly think is
tbe irreverent treatment which the late Phiadei-
nhia Convention has received both at the hands Oh
its own accredited agents and its Patron Oiuna,i-
ly. when No grave an act as the nomination Vi
President occurs those who bear TO the successiO
candidate his credentials as ii Were are CHOSEN iro
the most distinguished and respectable OF the COLI
stituent body and are at least representative men,
and when, in gravity, they discharge 'ne,i nisn
function, they are respectfully received ana ue0o-
rously replied to.
ON the recent occasion eveTything OF this sort
Cos set at defiance. The Convention, having begun
nv selecting one Of its most obscure II not unwor-
tbv men as presiding officer. chose for its committee
40 wait upop the nominees the most undistnguished
and unrepresentative of its members. They were
the very sweepings Of the Convention No great
State-Pennsylvania New-York Ohio, New-Jersey'
nor New-England-wGs represented, OF II IL was
opened its lips. The spokesmen were the UNJUST
serving men" Of the Administration, and had no
constituencies worth counting 1t looked really as
IL an the reputable men of the COnventOn-anO
there were many such--had gone home crestfaLen
and disguised with their own work. No name OF
repute in the Republican party istO be found on thls
committee. What they said. and with what ln-tlmeo
iocularity they olumsily discharged their duty Is
subject YOU do not need TO recur to- Whether u was
the consciousness of all this do not pretend to say
but certain il is that the candidate did not seem TO
be much impressed by their advent, but, taking up
a pencil as we are told scrbbled off an acceptance
tho like Of which, undertake TO say, the record of
the past does not contain.


scon to be a critic Of mere style, for, nova
days, all people have right to expect on such occa-
sions is the simple and modest utterance of genuine
emotion at the moment There is nothing of that
sort here There are the vaguest of egotistica plat
itudes strung together by the fullest of words In
but one sentence can you detect anything like latent
significance, and that is when the President talks
about the time when he shall relinquish power.
"whether il be at the end Of this term or the next
or As he intimates the next after that, for he is
guarded not to intimate anything like ceTtin ter
mnation of his tenure. Any other man would have
gladly avalled himself of the chance to propitiate
that jealousy of the prOlongation of the Executive
term which still exists in the hearts Of this people,
by announcing that, if reelected he would follow
the example Of his most illusrous predecessors and
retire at the end Of his second tenn. Nothing OF
the sort On the contrary be puts the next term on

not in the intensity of his sefshness looks at this
time 10 the indefinite extension of Executive tenure


This NAV seem very refined criticism, though to
me IL is very obvious. But supposing, what is quite
possible that the President in his pencil haste,
meant nothing at all, how can he, with the poSsi-
bity which even he comedies that his Presidential
tenure is nearly at an end there being less than nine
months to the 4th Of March-bOw can he say that
there is, OF is likely TO be- peace within our own
borders and with outside" nations, when he and
his friends have been imploring Congress to grant
him new cOeTciye powers, which he says are essen
tal; and to foreign nations, when we are at this
moment owing 10 his own gross misInanagement in
greater danger than ever of embodiment. In COM
mon charity 60 not permit myself to doubt that,
had the President been waited upon by body Of
accredited Republicans whom he could not afford to
treat with levity disIespect he would have made
his acceptance Of this high honor more worthy of
them, his party. and himself. An OLD POLITICIAN.


Washington, d. O., juno II, 1872.