rents, and evictions will take place by the thousand. Lord Salisbury's duty as a statesman is plain, but he is not likely to heed it as long as it can be avoided. The Irish Canadian, July 29. IT must be remembered that Mr. Parnell is not tied to party, and that he will accept home rule, whether it be granted by the Tories or the Liberals. A coalition with Parnell would place Salisbury on a permanent basis-a gain that is seldom overlooked by those anxious to control the treasury benches. Who, then, can say that Ireland's great desideratum may not yet come from the Tories? New York Evening Post (Ind.), July 29. THE appearance of Lord Randolph Churchill on the scene as chancellor of the exchequer has the air of a burlesque. Lord Iddesleigh will be a highly respectable foreign secretary, but one who will do as little to make a mark of any kind as Lord Granville did. The selection of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach for the Irish secretaryship is either a slur on him or bit of defiance to the Irish. SALISBURY has formed a cabinet. But only seven months of the year have gone, and ample time is left for the installation of a couple of successors before the holidays. While the Irish question remains uppermost, the duration of a cabinet is about as difficult to forecast as the direction of next month's winds. SOME of the Tory organs look upon the appointment of Matthews for home secretary as an evidence of weakness of the Salisbury cabinet, and a doubt is raised whether the cabinet will endure with divided counsels on important questions. It is also a break in the Tory prejudice against placing Roman Catholics in the counsels of the government.-Troy Times, July 31. SALISBURY has been in labor and has brought forth his cabinet. Every indication points to unfavorable treatment of the Irish question. The reactionists of England are in full command and home rule is to be killed if possible, but, perhaps, the more extreme the measures adopted by the new ministry the sooner will come deliverance.—Manchester Union (Dem.), July 31. A WORSE, more injudicious appointment could not possibly have been made, because it would be impossible for the Irish people not to recognize in the Marquis of Londonderry a likely successor to the Bloody Castlereagh, and the reproduction by him of the policy of hate, and fraud, and corruption which betrayed Ireland to her undoing. Philadelphia Inquirer (Rep.), July 31. THE OLEOMARGARINE BILL. On the 2d inst. the President signed the Oleomargarine bill. In his message to the House on the bill he sets forth the reasons urged on both sides of the question. He holds it to be a revenue bill, and states that THERE is little timber for statesmanship in the Tory party. In fact, the main difference between the Liberal and Tory parties lies in the fact that the Tory is an animal moved so entirely by prejudice as to be incapable of correct vision or judgment, while the Liberal is a man who will allow himself to be influenced by events.-Indianapolis Sentinel (Dem.), July 30. If the question was presented to me as an original proposition, I might doubt the present need of increased taxation. I deem it my duty in this instance to defer to the judgment of the legislative branch of the Government which has been so emphatically announced in both Houses of Congress on the passage of this bill. Moreover, those who desire to see removed the weight of taxation now pressing upon the people from other directions may well be justified in the hope and expectation that the selection of an additional subject of internal taxation, so well able to bear it, will in consistency be followed by legislation relieving our citizens from other revenue burdens, rendered by the passage of this bill even more than heretofore unnecessary and needlessly oppressive. If this article has the merit which its friends claim for it, and if the people of the land, with full knowledge of its real character, desire to purchase and use it, the taxes exacted by this bill will permit a fair profit to both manufacturer and dealer. Notwithstanding the immense quantity of the article described in this bill, which is sold to the people for their consump tion as food, and notwithstanding the claim made that its manufacture supplies a cheap substitute for butter, I venture to say that hardly a pound ever entered a poor * * * The fourteenth man's house under its real name and its true character. and fifteenth sections of this bill, in my opinion, are in danger of being construed as an interference with the police powers of the States. Not being entirely satisfied with the unconstitutionality of these provisions, and regarding them as not being so connected and interwoven with the other sections as, if found invalid, to vitiate the entire measure, I have determined to commend them to the attention of the House with the view to an immediate amendment of the bill, if it should be deemed necessary, and if it is practicable at this late day in the session of Congress. New York Herald (Ind.), August 3. THE leadership of the House of Commons is supposed to call for qualities just about the opposite of those which Lord Churchill has heretofore exhibited, and it will be interesting to see with what success he will discharge his new duties.-Chicago Journal (Rep.), July 30. AT present the probabilities for a smooth, peaceful, and long-continued reign of the new ministry are not very strong. The Irish question will bob up serenely as soon as Parliament opens, and there is no middle course between coercion and some sort of home rule.-Nebraska State Journal (Rep.), July 30. It is no bed of roses to be a premeir of Great Britain now, and if Gladstone is sure of four years more of active life he has yet a right to hope that Salisbury's head will fall into the basket long before that time.-Salt Lake Tribune (Rep.), July 31. THE new British cabinet is universally conceded to be a very weak one, but it is not believed that any of the ministers have any Pan-Electric stock concealed about their person.-St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Dem.), July 31. THERE is plenty of good timber in the Salisbury cabinet, and neither brains nor experience is lacking.- Washington Post (Dem.), August 1. By signing the Oleomargarine bill President Cleveland has given executive sanction to a statute which is as clearly an abuse of the Federal Constitution as the oleomargarine law passed by the New York Legislature, approved by Governor Cleveland, and set aside by the court of appeals was a violation of the constitution of this State; and the President signs the bill, notwithstanding that he finds one of its sections seriously defective and two others "in danger of being construed as an interference with the police powers of the States," and, therefore, in need of "immediate amendment." The message in which Mr. Cleveland seeks to justify his approval of this remarkable measure is a piece of special pleading which can not redound to the credit of the President. He claims that it is a revenue bill, But it is notorious that its purpose is not to raise revenue, but to put burdens upon one ONE might almost suspect that the President fears that he would lose the support of the dairy interest of New York in the Democratic Nominating Convention of 1888 unless he signed the bill, and so he signs it, though he thereby involves himself and his party in a tissue of inconsistencies and contradictions, for the oleomargarine bill is regarded by the President in form and substance a revenue bill, and it is as such that he signed it; and thus, while the Morrison wing of the Democratic party sought a revision of the tariff for the purpose of reducing taxation, and failed to get it, the bill which taxes a new industry is adopted, and receives the President's approval. Moreover, it is an increase of the revenue at a time when the measure for applying the surplus already in the Treasury is under discussion. It is a measure of protection at a time when the real strength of the Democracy favors free trade. But the President signs it. Philadelphia Telegraph (Rep.), August 3. THE President's message, signifying his assent to the Oleomargarine bill, and giving his reasons therefor, is a document which it would have been better had it not been written, for it does no particular credit to either the head or heart of Mr. Cleveland. The message, in fact, is an exceedingly bad specimen of the kind of special pleading in which the dignities which environ the President of the United States should have prevented him from indulging. This document is the more objectionable for the reason that there was no sort of necessity for it, as it was open for the President either to sign the bill or to let it become a law without his signature, without, in any way, incurring the censures which have been bestowed on the members of the Senate and House who have figured as its advocates; but, presuming that a defense of the signature of the bill was necessary, the defense surely should have been based on some better reasoning than Mr. Cleveland has permitted himself to set forth. New York Tribune (Rep.), August 3. THE President has wisely approved the bill to tax oleomargarine. He does so on the ground that the tax will still allow the commodity to be manufactured and sold at a fair profit, while the necessity of putting stamps on the packages will probably prevent bogus butter from being sold as the pure product of the dairy. This reasoning will shock the nerves of the oleomargarine men, who don't very much mind the tax of two cents, but who do feel their pockets shrink at the pros pect of being obliged to put a tell-tale stamp on their wares. A secondary benefit which flows from this approval is that it enables those Congressmen who meant to stay in Washington until they had passed the bill over the President's veto to go home now in short order. New Bedford, Mass., Mercury (Ind.), August 3. AS THE President has signed the Oleomargarine bill, and it has become a law, why will it not be in order to put a tax on kerosene? The whale fishery needs protection quite as much as the dairy interest, and it has never had the slightest favor from our paternal Government. ** * * Kerosene deserves less favor than oleomargarine, for it is quite as noxious and has made more victims. Tax it, tax it heavily, that whale and sperm oil may have a fair chance to lighten and lubricate, and that a business which has fallen into desuetude may have a chance to recuperate and a nursery for hardy mariners be maintained. Brooklyn Eagle (Dem.), August 3. THERE is not much doubt that the bill is a popular one, so far as it goes, and that in appending his signature to it the President will antagonize only those who are engaged in the manufacture of oleomargarine. The general public is bitterly op. posed to the article in question, not because it is a substitute for butter, but because of the elaborate rascality which has long characterized the substitution. The dairy interests of the country, indeed, the entire agricultural interest, will hail the act with satisfaction, too, since it is of the essence of a protectionist measure, the first that their guild has ever asked for. Washington Post (Dem.), August 3. THE law will probably do nobody any harm, and the tax receipt or label will serve as a voucher, to some extent, of the innocuous qualities of the artificial butter thus distinguished with the stamp of the Government. Two cents a pound will not seriously hurt either the manufacturer or the consumer, while it will tend to remove and abolish the odium under which the article has hitherto been sold, as a pariah and outlaw in the market. Henceforth oleomargarine may look the old Alderney cow fearlessly in the eye and point to its badge of respectability. Pittsburgh Chronicle-Telegraph, August 3. It is greatly to be regretted that President Cleveland, profiting by his experience while Governor of New York, should not have vetoed instead of signing the bill taxing oleomargarine. While in the gubernatorial chair at Albany he signed two similar measures passed by the New York Legislature, and the court of appeals declared them both unconstitutional. It is believed that as soon as a test case can be brought before the Supreme Court of the United States it will take the same view of the act just passed by Congress and approved by the President. Washington Star (Ind.), August 3. THE President's position in regard to the oleomargarine tax bill is sound, and his message on the subject is statesmanlike. Congress will probably consider it too late now to take action on the points of emendation suggested by the President, but they deserve attention, either immediately or as soon as Congress reassembles next winter. At all events, the friends of genuine dairy products are entitled to congratulate themselves on the success of their enterprise. On the whole, this has proved the most interesting and exciting feature of the session. New York Sun (Dem.), August 4. MR. CLEVELAND is a candidate for renomination. His message approving the bogus butter and bogus tax law is evidence. If he were not a candidate for re-election as President, he never would have signed the Oleomargarine bill. Mr. Cleveland is after the so-called farmer vote, just as are Mr. Evarts and Mr. Sherman and Mr. Edmunds and a couple of hundred other Senators and Representatives who have pretended to believe in the soundness of this unconstitutional, dangerous, dishonest measure. Philadelphia Press (Rep.), August 3. PRESIDENT CLEVELAND has finally concluded that he disapproves of eleomargarine, and that it is constitutional to tax it. He has signed the bill, therefore, giving with his signature some wholesome recommendations to Congress looking to its amendment and improvement. This is a triumph for the honest buttermakers, for, though two cents a pound is not much of a tax, its imposition and collection will help to identify the oleomargarine and make it less easy for it to masquerade as butter. New York Evening Post (Ind.), August 3. Ir would be more consonant with the spirit of the Constitution if the President would simply approve or disapprove the measures before him, and state his opinions regarding legislation in his annual messages to Congress. The reasons given by him for signing the bill will not be satisfactory to those who, like ourselves, consider it a very plain case of class-legislation, and the most offensive specimen of its kind to be found on the statute book. Boston Post (Dem.), August 3. A TAX of two cents a pound is not prohibitory of oleomargarine, neither is it protection of dairy butter. The most it can accomplish is the designation of the imitation article in the public eye by revenue stamps, and, possibly, a sort of supervision by the revenue officials. The principle which the law recognizes, however, in yielding to the demands of those who have advocated it is mischievous, and is likely to return to plague our legislation. New York Mail and Express (Rep.), August 3. THE House was not enlightened by the President's little essay. It was a reiteration of some of the host of Congressional utterances on the worn themes it discusses. Why should a President give reasons for signing a bill, anyway? Reasons for a veto are always proper. Is the President anxious to get before the country as much as possible before Congress adjourns? National Republican (Rep.), August 4. EVEN Cleveland holds in discreet awe the horny-handed dairy farmer and his vote.-Philadelphia Times (Ind.). Who could have expected the President to resist the pressure after the unexampled stampeding of Congress by the wrathful bellowing of the honest cow? Cincinnati Enquirer (Dem.), August 3. PRESIDENT CLEVELAND may persuade himself that he was right in signing the Oleomargarine bill, but there is sad danger that the country will think he was playing for the dairymen along the Hudson river. Buffalo Courier (Dem.), August 3. CANDOR compels us to express our regret that the President has not seen his way to withhold his approval from a measure of so doubtful character and questionable policy. Ohio State Journal (Rep.), August 3. THE President met his master at last in the grangers. He was afraid to veto the Oleomargarine bill, and signed it. THE MEXICAN BORDER TROUBLES. New York Times (Ind.), August 4. THERE has been a palpable decrease in the interest felt in Mr. Cutting since the case of Arresures has afforded a better basis for the war spirit. That the Mexican judge who put the American editor in prison exceeded his authority may or may not be established, but there seems to be no doubt whatever that Cutting deliberately defied the Mexican courts or laws after taking up his residence in Paso del Norte. To suppose that our country would go to war with Mexico on Editor Cutting's account is simply nonsense. Arresures, who was an omnibus driver at Eagle Pass, was delivered up as a horse-thief by County Judge Hoffstetter, a Texas official, on demand of Mondragon, a captain of Coahuila State Rangers. Consul Linn's telegram to Governor Ireland shows that this Texas judge and another Texas official, Sheriff Oglesby, combined to give up Arresures under a wholly illegal extradition, and probably under a trumped-up charge, to Mondragon, who was his rival for the affections of a woman, and that Arresures was probably murdered by Mondragon's men, who broke into the jail at Piedras Negras in order to lynch him. Mexican outrages against our citizens are numerous and irritating. Their laws and customs give their officials great power over the property, liberty, and lives both of Mexicans and of American residents in Mexico. At the same time, it must be rather discouraging to the State Department, whenever it tries to pitch on any one specific case of outrage, to find it starting with a wrong on the American part, as in the cases of Cutting and Arresures. New York Tribune (Rep.), August 4. IF Cutting is wrongly detained, his release should be peremptorily demanded, but faith in our ability to whip the Mexicans in short order should not tempt Congress to anything arbitrary or unjust. It is well enough to understand that the State Department is anxious to regain through this affair as much as possible of the reputation which the Administration has lost in the fisheries dispute. But there is really no reason to bully Mexico merely to please Mr. Bayard. New York Star (Dem.), August 4 OUTSIDE of the Mexicans and Texans who are facing each other on the line there is not one man in ten thousand who believes that a war is imminent. The demand of the United States ought to be sufficient to bring the Mexican governA ment to a recognition of its obligations, and we have no doubt that it will. Mexican army might, indeed, inflict a good deal of damage in the Southwest, but who is foolish enough to suppose that any Mexican official will dare to take the responsibility of the terrible and crushing defeat which would be sure to follow a contest of arms with the United States? PAYABLE IN GOLD. Portland Oregonian (Rep.), July 23. CONGRESSMAN BRECKENRIDGE, of Kentucky, in debate on Wednesday, expressed the opinion that the Government had option of paying its bonds in gold or silver. The record of our financial legislation, fairly construed, does not sustain this view. Congress in 1869 passed the act to strengthen the public credit, pledging the payment of the bonds in "coin," and the funding act of 1870, providing for new issues, makes them payable "in coin." At the time when these acts were passed both parties to the discussion understood these acts to commit the Government to gold payments; the friends of the acts declared this to be their purpose, and the opposition objected because it was proposed to pay in gold rather than in greenbacks. General Schenck, chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, introduced the act of 1869 by saying: "Honest men have remembered, too, that the bonds were taken on the faith of contemporaneous declarations by Congress and the agents of the Government that they were payable in gold." Mr. Bromwell said: "All we have got to do is to make our promises of gold as good as gold, satisfy the world that our bonds mean just what an English bond means, and that is gold for gold." General Logan said: "Let us stop this higgling about it, and say, as an honest people, that we mean to pay our honest debts, both greenbacks and bonds, in money that the world recognizes as money." General Butler, in the debate on the funding bill, said: "We will agree to pay something that no people can change if we agree only to pay gold at present standard value. The bill has the words 'present standard value,' so that we may not change the value. Gold is the standard of value here." Mr. James Brooks said: "The payment of our debts, both principal and interest, in gold-this is the platform of the Democratic party." Jones, of Kentucky, said that rather than have the bonds paid in gold he would prefer to repudiate the whole debt. Holman, while holding the bond might be paid in greenbacks, said: "There will be every motive to take the 4 per cent. bonds, payable in gold." In the Senate, Sherman said it was the purpose of the were Finance Committee "to put the bond and the note on the same footing-both to NEW INDIAN NEGOTIATIONS. Springfield Republican (Ind.), July 29. men were then deputized to visit the Arapahoes and Shoshones, for the purpose of inducing them to sell their country and remove to the great Sioux reservation in Dakota. The majority of the Sioux are said to be fully convinced of the necessity of becoming farmers and adopting the ways of white men. THE embassy of which John V. Wright, of Tennessee; Bishop Whipple and Charles F. Larrabee, of the Indian office, are members, and which will start in a few days to negotiate new treaties with Northern Indian tribes, is of first-class importance. They will first try to satisfy the Indians of the White Earth and Leech Lake reservations in Minnesota for the damage to their lands by the flowage of the Government reservoirs at the head of the Mississippi. Other controversies in that State will receive their attention. They will then visit the Fort Berthold reservation on the Missouri, in Dakota, and the great Blackfeet reservation in Northern Montana to negotiate a surrender of a portion of the lands. In the latter case, a few thousand Piegans, Blackfeet, and Gros Ventres occupy a reservation as large as Massachusetts, or larger, between the Missouri river and the British line. These tribes are the most backward of any in the United States, and have to be supported almost entirely by the Government, as the periodic north and south movement of the buffaloes has been entirely broken up by the transconti nental railroads and belts of settlements, and the buffalo nearly exterminated. These tribes can do nothing with so vast an allotment of land, and need a more limited range and some agricultural lands. They will probably object, however, to utter removal, as they have occupied that country ever since they were found there by Lewis and Clark, and the Indian love of locality is strong. In a state of nature, they followed the buffalo as he migrated from the mountains to the valleys and plains and back again, and their best chance of livelihood in civilization is probably in connection with cattle-raising. It is not very definitely stated whether the same commission will visit the Crows, whose reservation occupies Southern Montana from the Northern Pacific Railroad and the Yellowstone south to the Wyoming line. The railroad runs along its northern border for 200 miles, and the whole patch is nearly as large as Massachusetts, or two square miles apiece for every Indian on it. This land is suitable for agriculture, especially with irrigation. The Crows are making slow progress in civilization and are thoroughly land-poor. The commission will proceed still further westward to Idaho and Washington Territory and will try to persuade the Spokanes and Pen d'Oreilles to go on the Jocko reservation of the Flatheads in Montana, and the Flatheads to receive them. These are not large tribes. The Flatheads occupy a paradisiac country of noble mountains, rushing rivers, and rich meadows, railroads and all, and are good farmers, each family living in a comfortable log-hut with the old-fashioned tepee standing in the yard. They will not want to share their portion with less advanced Indians. Thus this commission goes out on a very delicate and difficult mission, regarded from the stand-point of the welfare of the Indians and our own honor. They are charged to make no arrangement without the full consent of the tribes concerned. But this means a consent of majorities, and Indians are as likely to differ among themselves as any people. No agreements will be binding until they have been accepted by Congress, but it is a melancholy fact that this ratification does not always secure the full carrying out of the stipulations by subsequent Congresses. The commission's labors will be followed with interest by the communities neighboring to these reservations, by the railroad interests and cattle interests, and those watching for the opening of new lands to settlement. It is interesting to note in connection a movement among the Sioux looking to a similar object with that of the commission. On Saturday, July 17, a general council was held at Pine Ridge agency, presided over by United States Inspector Pearsons, of a full delegation of the nation, including Red Cloud, Young-Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses, Little Wound, No Flesh, and, indeed, nearly all the head men. It was primarily a reunion of the two parties, the opponents and supporters of the late agent, Dr. McGillicuddy, the latter giving their allegiance to Red Cloud. That chief and a few head A NATIONAL PROHIBITION SCHEME. Chicago Tribune (Rep.), July 28. SENATOR BLAIR has not been occupied exclusively with schemes to pension everybody, and to dig Government canals in which water is to run up hill, but in every session of Congress, for the last ten years, he has advocated a prohibitory amendment to the Federal Constitution. Blair's cranky and absurd plan for the regeneration of mankind in the United States has, at last, been reported favorably by the Senate Committee on Labor and Education, which takes the ground that, however impracticable the scheme, it is the duty of Congress to submit it in the form of a proposed amendment to the Constitution. The committee insists that whenever" any considerable and respectable portion of the American people" desire to vote on anything, it is obligatory on Congress to propose an amendment, and that "to deny this is the very essence of despotism, and for Congress to unreasonably refuse the hearing is a just cause for revolution." This is the kind of twaddle relied upon to support a scheme which even Blair's cranky committee is unwilling to argue on its merits. Contrary to the views of the Blair committee, there is a very general public opinion that the Constitution was not intended to be voted up or down at every election, and that changes in the fundamental law were not to be formally proposed unless there was a strong popular pressure in that direction, and good reason to believe a large majority of the people favored an amendment of the Constitution. Under the practice proposed by the Blair committee, there would be a dozen or more amendments in question at every election, and the Constitution would lose all stability, and be blown about by every wind of agitation. It is the duty of Congress to guard against hasty, ill-considered changes, and not propose amendments until it believes the demand for them is general, earnest, and well founded. The framers of the Constitution regarded the perpetual agitation of constitutional questions as an evil to be guarded against carefully, but, according to the Blair committee, there must be a general vote on the fundamental law whenever such action is desired by any considerable number of fanatics or enthusiasts. The Blair committee was, doubtless, much affected when Miss Willard appeared before it and "talked like an angel from Heaven," but it has very serious business on hand when it proposes national constitutional prohibition. In the first place, any State that desires prohibition can secure it at present, and the Blair scheme aims simply to force on some of the States laws which they would not adopt for themselves. According to all experience, such enactments would not reach the object sought, and could, at best, only drive the liquor traffic into secret places, and remove it from police supervision. In order to deny "home rule" to the States in a matter that is distinctively one of local regulation, and establish paper prohibition for the entire country, the Federal Government would lose the tax on liquors, which amounts to about $100,000,000 annually, while cities, counties, and towns would be deprived of the license fees now exacted. The people are not ready to pay any such price for prohibition in theory and cheap, untaxed whisky in fact. The proposition is too absurd even for a vote, but the conclusion reached by the Blair committee is so mischievous and fallacious that it ought to be rejected promptly and emphatically. A NEW TEST FOR OFFICE-HOLDERS. Charleston News and Courier (Dem.), July 29. It is not easy to understand upon what constitutional or moral grounds the Senate has rejected the nomination of Postmaster Rosetto, of DeKalb, Illinois. The sole objection urged against his confirmation, it is stated, is the fact of his "having written and published an obituary of Gen. Grant, in which the hero was alluded to as a tyrant and compared with Julius Cæsar." This was held to constitute an offense of sufficient gravity to warrant his summary and unanimous rejection. Mr. Rosetto is not a resident of a Southern State, and probably never has been. The fact that he had been appointed postmaster of a town in Illinois is evidence that he is a citizen of that State, so that his case might be the case of any "loyal" citizen of the United States during the late war. He is not punished for having been a Southerner, therefore, and the cause of his taking off may be considered on the broad ground of right and public policy. The matter simply amounts to this-no more, no less-that a citizen of the United States is held by the Senate of the United States to be disqualified from holding an office of trust or profit in the United States for having expressed an unfavorable opinion of an ex-President! The offense is a continuing one, of course, and as there is nothing about the position of disability" postmaster to make it peculiar in this respect, it follows that unless his " can be removed by Congress, or unless he can be pardoned for an offence for which he cannot be tried, Mr. Rosetto, of Illinois, must remain disqualified from holding any office under the Government unless he changes his honest opinion of a fellowcitizen who chanced to fill a more important office, and shall write and publish a flattering opinion concerning him. It is a curious development in the history of American progress, and looks very much like a step backward. The record as it stands reads very much as if the affair had happened in Spain or Russia, and the culprit had insulted the reigning prince or some member of a powerful dynasty, and the legislative tools of the government had taken that as a reason for prosecuting him. There is more toleration than this in monarchical England, and if the precedent now attempted to be set by the Senate is accepted as a right and proper one, it is evident that there is not so much freedom of opinion and speech in this country as is generally supposed. PRESIDENTIAL POSSIBILITIES. EVEN in the heated term and on the eve of the State and Congressional campaigns of '86 there is no lack of comment on the possibilities of the next Presidential election. Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette (Rep.). THE St. Louis Globe-Democrat is kind enough to remark: In 1876 the Cincinnati Commercial- Gazette said worse things of Blaine than it has said in 1886 of Logan. Now, according to that same journal, the chief end of the Republican party is to glorify Blaine and vote for him forever. In these circumstances we see reasons to prevent Logan from mourning as one without hope. It is true that the Commercial and the Gazette were opposed to Blaine in 1876, and stated their reasons for opposition with a good deal of freedom of speech. It is true, also, that when the Commercial-Gazette reached the conclusion that Mr. Blaine had been condemned before he was convicted, the enemies of the Republican party-the old Confederates, and the third-termers, and all the resthave given much time and many labors to an exaggeration that amounted to falsification of what we actually said in antagonism to Mr. Blaine. This sort of thing is rather easier than absolute lying, for it is founded on fact. But Mr. Blaine was not our first choice or his own for the Presidency in 1884. He did not wish to be nominated then, and we did not urge that he should be. We said that the Commercial-Gazette was a straight Republican newspaper, and would support the ticket. Blaine was nominated, and we supported him heartily. We were against turning over the country to the Democratic party. More than that, it was our conviction that, when the accusations that were stormed at Mr. Blaine in 1876 were sifted, and the dust was blown away, the facts that remained were small matters. They had at first been greatly magnified and distorted. The version General Logan gave the other day of what we said about Blaine in 1876 was the Cincinnati Enquirer's grotesque falsification. But we suppose Logan did not know any better-or quite appreciate the character of the trash he used. Now, Logan did not care to have the Credit Mobilier matters looked into, and did not come out of the Senate, to which he had just been elected, to insist upon an investigation. He was not among those who had a dispute with Mr. Ames. Mr. Blaine was the man who moved the investigation and started the great racket, and he came out square as a brick. One advantage Mr. Blaine has, and that is that no man in the country has ever been so relentlessly investigated, pursued, and ransacked as he. If the highly figurative language of the Globe-Democrat can be taken to mean anything in particular, it must be that we are urging that Blaine should be nominated in 1888. Well, we are not doing it. We have only to say that if he is nominated we shall support him. We do not think the Republican party belongs to any man. We think it greater than any man, and we thought so in 1880 as well as now. We have said that we did not mourn for Logan as those without hope. He has made a shocking and shabby blunder, but it is possible he may have usefulness in him. We shall watch him with solicitude to discover symptoms of a return of his ability to reason. He may recover, but we do not think the coal-oilers will be able to nominate the next Republican candidate for the Presidency. When Logan was possessed by the notion that his Presidential prospects were interfered with, he strode into the arena and ripped himself up. That was not worth while, but it was Logan's way. We are of the opinion the Republican party will win next time, and if it does not we shall not follow its defeated candidate, after the manner of the Globe-Democrat in 1884, with sneers and mouthings and ravings and the gibberish of insult, expressing rather satisfaction over the defeat of the leader than regret at the discomfiture of the party. New York World (Dem.). MR. BLAINE himself is to open the campaign in Maine on the 10th of August, and Senators Sherman, Logan, Hoar, and Allison, Congressmen Burrows, Grosvenor, McKinley, and Hiscock, and Gov. Foraker and ex-Gov. Foster, of Ohio, are on the list for speeches. Some of our Democratic contemporaries take much comfort in displaying this array of talent. They say it is evidence that the Republicans are alarmed, and that there is hope for the Democrats in Maine. Of course, if Mr. Blaine is to be the next Republican nominee for the Presidency, it is of the first importance for him to keep Maine in line this year; but he has still another purpose in attracting so much sounding declamation to his State. Observe the Ohio list. McKinley belongs to a section of the State which is enthusiastic for Blaine, and he dare not raise his voice for Sherman. Grosvenor is from a Sherman community, and is himself confessedly for Sherman, but he is of pliable material, and it will be one of the easiest tasks Blaine ever had to mould him. Ex-Gov. Foster has had more influence in restraining Mr. Sherman's ambitions than any other man. Gov. Foraker has enough prestige to insure him a place in the Ohio delegation to the Republican National Convention, and the sly Maine politician will attack him with a magnetic battery the moment he touches the border. Mr. Blaine will keep Ohio divided. When Mr. Sherman goes to Maine he will be in the peculiar position of a man attending his own funeral. * * * * * * * * * A semi-editorial letter signed "R. S." in the Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette can be from no less a person than the original and only Deacon Richard Smith, who seems to be rusticating in the mountains. The deacon has of late been attending to the dollars-and-cents end of journalism. It has been so long since the gray matter of his brain has diffused itself in print that we can not refrain from copying a paragraph from his valuable letter. Here it is: Gen. Logan has lost most because he had most to lose. He was a brave soldier, and this reputation covered a multitude of sins of omission and commission. As a Presidential possibility or probability he had risen immensely within the last two years. In spite of his rudeness and egotism and immeasurable vanity, I had brought myself to like Gen. Logan and was prepared to support him, if nominated, most heartily; but by his own acts he has driven his friends away in sorrow and destroyed his political prospects. He, too, made such an exhibition of vulgarity as to show how unfit a person he would have been for President of the United States. That position requires honesty capacity, and refinement. These are three qualities in which Gen. Logan has shown himself to be sadly deficient. Evarts was also talked about for the Presidency. That bunch of Presidential rubbish has been cleared away. Really, the deacon is becoming quite heterodox in his Republicanism. Now, suppose General Logan should be nominated for the Presidency. Or suppose we should have the old ticket, Blaine and Logan. Or suppose, again, it should be Logan and Evarts or Evarts and Logan. What would the deacon do? There are half a dozen possible combinations, either one of which would make him wish that he had held his peace or had not been born a Republican. Memphis Avalanche (Dem.). A CURIOUS matter for speculation is presented by the Republican party. Its leaders are engaged in killing one another off. Where are they going to find a candidate when the Kilkenny cat fight is over? There are some Republicans who fondly cling to Blaine as a sort of a demigod and expect his renomination. One would just as soon expect a reputable citizen to offer a note in payment after a bank had stamped it counterfeit and condemned. The last election stamped Mr. Blaine "tattooed" and no party will ever try to pass him again. Logan is hardly available, and if he were his enemies are too numerous for him to reach the prize. Sherman is able and strong in some respects, but he will not fit the peculiar revival of all the old sectionalism of the party which is its almost inevitable line of policy for the next canvass. Sherman's forte is business. There was a time when that business idea would have been potent, but the business interests no longer fear the Democratic party and they have turned away from the Republican party as that one under which all untoward conditions grew up. If they have secured no complete restoration they will not turn backward for it. The Republican party will inevitably resort to a revival of sectionalism, Blaine's Augusta speech, an appeal to the soldiers, to the pensioners, to the truly loyal sentiment, to prejudices against rebels and the South. It will be hard to find a young man to fit a backward-looking platform. The older leaders will have killed one another off. It is not at all improbable that they may again drop in under Sherman to find an Ohio man who will fit. Governor Foraker is the one young Republican who, with personal honesty, high character, and the respect of his neighbors of both parties, has managed also to be in politics narrow-minded enough and bigoted enough and fanatical enough and prejudiced enough to contain within himself, bottled and yet fresh for uncorking and ready to effervesce, all of the old sectional narrowness and bigotry that his party or any of its extremest leaders ever managed to chamber. Foraker is a man who can singularly suppress his bigoted fossilism and fanaticism in his personal intercourse with his fellow-men, and yet of all the Republican leaders, young or old, there is not one so narrowly bigoted as he nor one who would so well befit a canvass that would call the shades of Thad. Stevens and Oliver P. Morton and Zach. Chandler from their graves to rejoice that the seed they sowed still lingers to sprout anew. Philadelphia Inquirer (Rep.). If the accomplished editor of the New York Sun, who daily writes pleasing, letters to his own newspaper under a bewildering variety of signatures, all of which expose the perfidy of ex-President Rutherford B. Hayes, and glorify ex-Governor Samuel J. Tilden, does not, during the next two years, succeed in securing the Presidential nomination of the Sage of Greystone from his party, the fault will be in nowise his. The labors of the editor of the Sun, in this behalf, have been greater than those of Hercules, but, we fear, they will be no more profitable to the world. Mr. Tilden is a good man, but we respectfully represent to our esteemed contemporary that, after twelve years, it would be exceedingly difficult to revive the fraud cry so effectively as to elect a President of the United States with it. The world does move, and the most vital of political issues cannot reasonably be expected to endure forever. There is really no saving grace, at present, in the ancient contention of 1876-'77. The chance to render it effective was in 1880, and that year and its national campaign having passed, the contention itself passed. The persistent devotion of the Sun to an idea is commendable; but the most commendable thing, if too long persisted in, will eventually become, say, a little tiresome. The day and the hour have a great deal to do with the selection of Presidential candidates. Parties, like persons, are largely the creatures of circumstances, and they are influenced to select one aspirant and to reject another by reason of his fitness or unfitness for the occasion. As we have said, Mr. Tilden is a good man; but it must be admitted that there is very little in common between him and the present time. He is of another generation. He had his innings in 1876 and was bowled out. There was, we remember, some objection from the party that lost the game to the decision that gave Mr. Tilden out, but the losing side always objects to the ruling of the umpire that defeats it. Rutherford B. Hayes was not a fraud. He was elected by a majority of the people in the regular way, and, subsequently, the people's representatives of the Electoral Commission declared him fairly and properly elected. There was no fraud about it, and it is hopeless to expect to elect Mr. Tilden President in 1888 by crying fraud in 1886. New York Sun (Dem.). In their own estimation, at least a dozen Republican Senators are candidates for the Presidency. Nine of them are sure that they will get it. We shall name them and give their respective ages at the commencement of the Presidential term on March 4, 1889. William Maxwell Evarts will then have just passed into his seventy-second year. This would be rather late in the day to enter the White House, but Brother Evarts need not be discouraged. Mr. Gladstone is now more than half through his seventy-sixth year, and Lord Palmerston died while premier at the ripe age of eighty-one. John Sherman, the sharp rival of Evarts, will have crossed the threshold of his sixty-seventh year. This, however, may not give him any advantage over Evarts. In point of longevity three of these aspiring Senators, Logan, Hoar, and Hawley, are about neck and neck. Hoar is a cousin of Evarts. When the next President mounts the east portico of the Capitol to take the oath of office, Logan will be a month over sixty-three, Hoar six months over, and Hawley eight months short of sixty-three. Edmunds, the highreaching Vermonter, will be sliding into his sixty-second year, and Allison will be exactly sixty. Harrison and Ingalls are also side by side. On March 4, 1889, the grandson of President William Henry Harrison will be half through his fiftysixth year, and Ingalls, who is sometimes called the most eloquent Republican in the Senate, is four months younger than Harrison. Of course, Brother Blaine, who is three years the junior of each of the nine except Harrison and Ingalls, is likely to beat them all in the Republican National Convention of 1888, and the Democrats are looking out for a candidate that will beat Blaine or any other Republican. Hartford Times (Dem.). It is still nearly two years before the next Presidential campaign will open with the nominations. But Mr. Blaine has been, for a whole year now, as busy as ever at his wire-pulling work to secure a renomination. Some of the prominent Republican journals do not hesitate to say that it would be folly to expose the party to renewed defeat under such a leadership, but Blaine, who is one of those politicians that are called, down in Maine, "dretful smart fellows at management, is thought to have already got a commanding position as a candidate for renomination. It seems he is still intriguing for what he calls "the Irish vote." This little dispatch to the New York Herald is significant: AUGUSTA, ME., July 29, 1886.-Mr. Patrick Ford, of the New York Irish World, has been down to see Mr. Blaine. The two gentlemen were closeted together at Mr. Ford's hotel for several hours. What transpired is only known to themselves. It is to be hoped the "Plumed Knight" will succeed in again capturing the nomination by his party. The Democrats would like nothing better than to bowl him down again, and with an added emphasis, next time, that would tend to extinguish even Mr. Blaine's restlessly flickering flame of personal ambition. Chicago Herald (Ind.). THE assumption in some quarters that Senator Sherman and the Ohio gang have killed off John A. Logan as a Presidential candidate is entirely gratuitous. The Ohio gang can kill off nobody. Gen. Logan has more friends and enjoys a higher degree of public respect to-day than he did before he took the trouble in the Senate to pull the lion's skin from the Cincinnati ass whose bray has affrighted many timid men, and he will undoubtedly continue to grow in popularity. Ohio will not be able to make or break Presidential candidates on either side of the political fence until its representative men cease to be whooping blackguards and lunatics. It has failed in Republican conventions as it has in Democratic conventions to carry any weight. The nomination of two of its citizens by the Republicans was not because of anything that the Ohio political blatherskites had done, but in spite of them. Hayes and Garfield were both taken up in order to beat men whom the Ohio gang favored. Senator Logan's refusal to be bullyragged by an irresponsible crowd of party shriekers in Ohio will have some influence in the direction of suppressing them. They can not injure him, and they know it. Chicago Times (Dem.). IF General Logan is to be believed, he not only does not want to be President, but he is determined not to be, it he can help it. Such being the case, the Times can only regard it as positive cruelty that his pretended admirers should persist in running him for the office. The spectacle of a great statesman struggling so vigorously to prevent the American people from forcing him into the White House against his own wishes is one that ought to appeal with irresistible eloquence to every good citizen, and cause an immediate abandonment of the nefarious conspiracy against him. By all means, in view of the general's latest utterances upon this subject, the persecution of which he has so long been a victim ought to cease. It is, no doubt, a great misfortune for the Republic that General Logan will not consent to become its President for even a single term. But he himself has said it," and the only thing left for the country to do is to bear up under the disappointment as best it may, in the meantime casting about, for the next best person who is willing to make the sacrifice. Cleveland Plain Dealer (Dem.). in the process of the election no knowledge of such corruption was brought to his colleague. He believed also, sincerely believed, that if the investigation were granted, his colleague's honor would not be touched by the testimony that would be produced." If he spoke the truth, any further remarks were unnecessary and redundant. Any subsequent action of the Senate could only be in the direction of demagogy and persecution. Senator Logan spoke truly when he said "it is Halstead's case." Sherman bared his back to the party lash, and in so doing exhibited a frailty utterly inconsistent with broad statesmanship, not to mention ambition for the Presidency. New York Times (Ind.). WE should judge from certain statements which have appeared in the public prints that a considerable number of the Republican members in the Senate and House, while feeling certain that Mr. Blaine is the most probable candidate of their party in 1888, would very much prefer to see the nomination go to somebody else. Political conditions have very much changed in this country since the 4th of March, 1885, and the opinion that Mr. Blaine is the strongest candidate who could be put in nomination by the Republican party has undergone a notable modification, and no longer obtains among politicians who are wise enough to get their impressions about popular sentiment from the people themselves. THE political campaign is about to open in Maine, and Mr. Blaine has the Republican end of it in charge. He has summoned to his aid quite a number of Ohio men, but all of them are faithful lieutenants of Mr. Blaine, and none of them are Sherman men. There is McKinley, and Charlie Foster, and Grosvenor, and Governor Foraker, who expects the second place on the Blaine ticket. But neither John Sherman nor any of his lieutenants seem to have been invited to speak in Maine. Ben Butterworth, nor John Little, nor the leather-lunged Bob Kennedy, nor any of the Halstead howlers have received invitations to participate in the Maine contest. It is Blaine's fight with Blaine's men. He expects to contest Ohio with John Sherman, and he has already brought over to his side the abler of the Republican leaders. When Ohio goes into the national convention in 1888 it will be with her delegation divided, and John Sherman will fall in the house of his friends in the same old way. Washington Correspondent Indianapolis News (Ind.). Washington Star (Ind.). MR. BLAINE is undoubtedly leading all his Republican competitors at present, but if he thinks he is to have a walk-over for the nomination in 1888 he is greatly mistaken. His particular "fad" is a vigorous American foreign policy. Just now this idea is a popular one, and if the national convention were to be held this summer, in all human probability Mr. Blaine would be its nominee. But this is a world of change, and two years is a long while, counting by events. Besides, Mr. Blaine has been employing his leisure in writing a book, and there is excellent authority, both scriptural and secular, for pronouncing this a very dangerous pastime. THE secret animosities of certain Democratic leaders flourish with tenfold virulence. They begin to realize the fact that unless something can be done, or something happens to break the back of President Cleveland, nothing in the world will prevent his unanimous renomination at the next national convention. It may be a little too strong to say that a conspiracy has been formed to accomplish this purpose. It is rather an understanding that something should be done. It bears the same relation to a conspiracy that an understanding" between young lovers bears to an engagement. I can say with truth, however, that there are a dozen Democratic statesmen in Congress, the House and Senate, who would join hands with anybody in any scheme not actually disastrous to their party which would promise the early political death of Mr. Cleveland. Cambridge, Ohio, Jeffersonian (Dem.). SENATOR SHERMAN, in his "great speech" in the Payne investigation debate concerning Senator Payne, said: "He believed that whatever corruption occurred Kansas City Times (Dem.). MR. BLAINE has sent to Governor Martin, of Kansas, an autograph copy of his "Twenty Years in Congress." This is Blaine's way of getting in his work on the Kansas politicians. It's very much cheaper than Logan's way, and shows again how keen a financier is the would-be President. Governor Martin may be caught by the cheap compliment, but he knows the arts of slubbering too well himself to value them highly in others, and probably he will not rush into Blaine's arms until he knows whether that gentleman is likely to be the nominee again. * THE Presidential bee in Gen. Logan's bonnet is humming low just now, but it is there yet. * * * Should Gen. Logan be the next President of the United States it is hardly likely that the leading Republican journal of Ohio will get the Government printing.-Louisville Courier-Journal (Dem.). THE suggestion of a Dana and Hayes ticket for 1888, which is made by an esteemed New York contemporary, has uncommon merit. In no other way that we can think of will the fraud issue ever be satisfactorily settled.-Philadelphia Telegraph (Rep.). It seems that the only thing Halstead and his crowd succeeded in accomplishing with reference to the Payne business was the destruction of the Logan boom, which, however, was .not in good condition to begin with.-Savannah, Ga., News (Dem.). WHEN Blaine reads Sherman on Logan and Evarts on Sherman, he heaves a sigh of satisfaction, and with a wink of his weather eye softly sings: "I'm out of politics.-Pittsburgh Press (Rep.). It is not Mr. Dana who writes the communications to the Sun urging Mr. Tilden for the Presidency. They are written by Mr. Dana's astral body.-Washing ton Hatchet (Ind.). |