Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 June 1881 — The First Stage. [ARTICLE]

The First Stage.

The Garfield administration has passed through its first stage. It has been stormy beyond precedent. For those who entertained expectations of Garfield, it has been decidedly disappointing. Not so, however, for those who could correctly estimate probabilities concerning him; more especially after his Cab--inet was announced. Blaine was given the control. Blaine in the Cabinet would, of course, be as he had been on the floor and as Speaker of the House of Representatives—tricky, audacious, impolitic, with the added quality of revengefulness, as the result of disappointments. With him power was something to be used for punishing those who had stood between him and the object of his ambition. No one who could form a decent estimate of human motives operating in a mind like Blaine’s could expect him to act otherwise. In appointing Blaine, Garfield gave himself away. It may be he shared Blaine’s revengefulness. A stronger mind like Blaine’s would speedily bring him in sympathy with almost any object. In the first hour of its existence the administration conceived the unnatural purpose of turning upon and pursuing to the death those to whom it was chiefly indebted for that existence. It committed paricide as soon as it could raise an arm to strike the blow. There are. those who maintain that it was Garfield’s crime in fact as well as in form ; that it was he who conceived the purpose. Blaine merely assenting. But the overwhelming proof is that the unnatural purpose was conceived by Blaine, and that Garfield without much hesitation fell into it, his moral perceptions being too feeble to save him from the enormous guilt. To state the case more plainly, just as subsequent acts describe it: It was in the first hour determined that, as a rule, Grant men—meaning thereby those who work* d for Grant for President and who afterward fought and won the battle for Garfield—should have no favors from the administration. Not only this ;on the true Donnybrook principle, there should be a club for every Grant head. To make a practical application of this policy, and drive Grant men either into

tAme submission, with Blaine’s foot on their necks, or into open antagonism, itobertson was appointed. It is unne&a»sary to rehearse this dismal story of perfidy, ending in the rupture of the Republican party. But the Grant men who would not surwere driven out, or rather comprised to go out to preserve their manhood. I suspect that by far the larger part, of those Who succumbed did so only to destroy Garfield. Of course there exceptions, as in New York. There pun be no love with enforced relations ts this kind. Hate must be the outcome. Among the immediate results, the Senate adjourns with a Democratic majority, instead of the Republican majority at Garfield’s inauguration.— Washington Cor. New York Sun.