Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 May 1887 — THE PRESIDENT AND THE BOURBONS [ARTICLE]

THE PRESIDENT AND THE BOURBONS

Senator Gorman having expressed approval of so much of the Kentucky Democratic platform as glorifies the spoils system, the New York Times takes occasion to glorify Mr. Cleveland. It is a case of light coming from that which is not a source of light, but, the mugwumps are never particular as to the relation of cause and effect. It does not follow that the President disapproves the Kentucky platform because Senator Gorman approves it. It does not follow that “the Democratic spoilsmen are becoming desperate, and that they will leave nothing untried' to break down the President in bis own party,” because Mr. Gorman has said that when the President declined a renomination in his hearing, “he did not impress me as being so sincere in this as in other statements.” Nor does it follow that Mr. Cleveland resents this assertion of Mr. Gorman. There are a great many indications that he is anxious to have such assertions made. He is reported to have j said, very lately, that he did not blame Senator Vest for discrediting his sincerity. “In fact,” said the President, “no one but my wife does believe me.” It would have been well if the Times had waited until some word or deed of the President had given reason for belief in either his dissent from the Kentucky platform or his disapproval of Mr. Gorman’s utterances. The appointments in» Maryland have beer*, the mugwumps themselves being witnesses, as bad as bad could be. They have been distributed among Mr. Gorman’s supporters, and, it is generally believed, at Mr. Gorman’s dictation.

Mr. Gorman has no reason to be, and is not, dissatisfied with the distribution of patronage in Maryland. It has been worse than partisan; it has been factional, and factional to Gorman’s personal desire. The Maryland Senator accepts the gift, and despises the giver, and so do the Kentucky Democrals, and so do most Democrats. There is little dissatisfaction, even in Indiana, with tne distribution of patronage; the dissatisfaction ig with the manner of it. The old-fnshionod Democrats are plain speakers. When a Democratic President bounces a Republican and replaces him by a Democrat they do not care about cant phrases concerning “efficiency of the service;” they like a plain acknowledgment of the plain fact that the one was rejected because he was a Republican, and the other chosen because he was a Democrat. And if a Republican be retained they hate to have his retention explained by “devotion to the great principle of civibservice reform.” If it were said that he was retained because he could do the party more service as a Republican than he could as a Democrat, all would be well. It is the cant that is objected to.

The truth is that the President is not disliked by the Bourbons for his acts, it is his words that are distasteful. The hands are those of Esau, the voice is that of Jacob. The Bourbons are not a cunning race, and yet there are things thatnven they can not fail to discern, chief of which is the trick by which it is sought to place Mr. Cleveland before the mugwumps as a reformer with whom the Democrats are disgusted, and by the mugwumps to enforce his renomination in place of Hill or some other who is a Democrat and likes to be thought of as proud of his Democracy. Mr. Cleveland is a Democrat who likes to be thought of as ashamed of his Democracy. —Chicago Inter Ocean.