Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 November 1879 — THE NEXT PRESIDENCY. [ARTICLE]

THE NEXT PRESIDENCY.

Republican and Democratic Outlooks. [Washington Dispatch to Cincinnati Enquirer (Dem.).] The giants of the Republican party have already begun the battle in a quiet way for the mastery. The first move is to secure the place of holding the next National Convention. Secretary Sherman’s friends want it to go to Cleveland. Blaine’s friends prefer Philadelphia, though they are not averse to Chicago, while Grant’s friends favor Chicago. It seems to be conceded by common consent that A. B. Cornell, of New York, will be Zach Chandler’s successor as Chairman of the National Committee, and Col. Tom Keogh, of North Carolina, the successor of young McCormick, Thurman’s son-in-law, as Secretary, although W. E. Chandler’s’ friends put in a c’aim for him. If Cornell is chcsen it will be a starter for Grant. Just how it got abroad there is no telling, but within a day or two there has cropped out an impression that Grant, after all, will not be a candidate. The fact that Sherman preferred to let the Ohio Senatorship slip away from him to remain in the Presidential field indicates that there will be a contest for the nomination, and in such an event the wiseacres say that Grant will not suffer his name to go before the convention. J. Brisbin Walker, an timate friend of Secretary Sherman, called in at the Enquirer bureau tonight, aud, in the course of conversation said that he recently had a talk with Sherman, during which the Presidential topic came up. Said Walker: “I cannot see, Mr. Secretary, how Gen. Grant can permit his name to go before the convention in a case of a contest,” to which the Secretary quickly responded : “Of course there will be a contest.” This goes to show that Secretary Sherman is not going to step aside so easily as the Grant managers had hoped, but will keep in the race with a view to make Grant contest for the place rather than that the Presidential plum should, unsought, be dumped into his lap. I hear it, too, from Sherman’s friends that he is not so much afraid of Blaine as he is of Conkling—that is, he has no idea that Conkling 3an himself get the nomination, but that if Grant should get out of the way, in that event Conkling would turn in and throw his influence (tho vote of the New York delegation) for E. B. Washburne, of Illinois. The sixty-six votes of New York, added to tho foTty of Illinois, Which Washburne could count, would give him a good start, and the Grant influence in the South would also be likely to go for Grant’s candidate, who would undoubtedly be Washburne. Again, Washburne is outside of the jealousies and bickerings which exist between Conkling, Blaine and Sherman; and if, with Grant out, the convention should degenerate into a political throat-cutting affair, it would be the history of the Cincinnati Convention over again—the selection of a candidate upon whom the discontented elements could rally. Blaine aud Sherman might as well make a chalk-mark of it now that Conkling is going to have a delegation sent to tho convention from New York, and he may himself head it, which in no event will voto for either of them. Conkling is now here. One of his enthusiastic admirers, who is with him, said to-night that the Presidential nominee on the Republican ticket would be a candidate acceptable to Conkling, and that he will have more to say than any one man as to whom the nominee will be. This same enthusiastic admirer likewise adas, with a flavor of sarcasm, that the administration removed three Federal officers in New York— Cornell, Sharp, and Arthur—and gloats over the fact that Cornell has been elected Governor, Sharp to the New York Legislature, of which he will probably be the Speaker, aud that Arthur stands a very good chanco of succeeding Kernan in the Senate should the next Legislature be Repnblicau. This would indicate that to those lie speaks with in confidence Conkling feels that he has paid President Hayes and Secretary Sherman back in part, but that ho has yet more retribution in reserve. The Democrat'c outlook is still mixed. All the Democrats concede that the man wanted is one that can carry Indiana and New York. The Bayard boom has met with a check, so to speak, because no sensible Democrat believes he could carry Indiana. “If Tilden would only die,” say some staunch Democrats, “the situation would be simplified, for the reason that it is believed here that he is as much a candidate as ever, and is, after all, the most promising.” Now, and again, there is a little boom started in hotel circles for David Davis, of Illinois, but it is ephemera], aud soon loses its wind and force.