Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 February 1869 — Grant Dined! [ARTICLE]

Grant Dined!

“General Grant dined yesterday,” says the telegram. Well, what of it ? Most other men get Something to eat. Bujt, “lie dined with” somebody or other. What ©f it? Men of sense prefer not to dine ah>ne. But “there js some vast significance in the circumstance,” implies the confirmed toady who sends the dispatah by telegraph. The toady does not kiiow that oven- Presidents may bo permitted to be human and that there are some human wants which they will satisfy when not th? slightest .politioal significance attaches to their acts. One of these wauts is the desire for dinner when one is hungry. Another is the desire for agreeable cotnpafty. Toadyism is becoming a disgustthts (Jbunt¥y7n» it long has been iu Europe. To be sure, Etlfope bends its knee to somebody born of some particular family; we only bow to men who have done something, or 'who, without doing anything, hate made money. The European aristocracy is one of blood and birth, ofteq of stupidity. The American aristocracy is one of deeds or dollars, or both. But the tufthunter i 3 the same contemptible creature, on either side of the water.

General Grant, we maintain,. has an indefeasible right, as an American eilizefl, to dine with whom, he pleases, and not to be dogged by any prying, wide-mouthed spy. But the notion cf getting up an American Court Journal, after the English fashion, Seems to have taken full possession of some men. Let us relate, for example, the “movements of the royal family.” “Ilis Majesty, Ulysses, took an airing in the park this morning, behind the horses o's, Bonner. And then he diued at Del-! raonico’s. And then lie visited the residence of FiUboodlc, Esq.”— j Whereupon Fitzboodle is driven out of his wits by office hunters. In like manner we have seen chronicled the doing of all the Grants, and of • all the Dents, aud of all other per- j sons and families even remotely re- j lated, or supposed to be related to | the Man of Silence. Why can not American reporters and American editors see that this is most disgusting toadyism ? The meanest creature that ever licked the boots of a lord is not rneauer than the man who fawns upon power, Jbrtnne aiul wealth- on this—side- ofi the water. It is just as contemptible to worship Grant, as to worship Napoleon or Victor. Both are men. Both have faults. Also, both have human desires and instincts, which 1 th’v do not "Care to see dragged out for ptibHc gaze and comment. Both want to dine, aud like company. And the miserable tuft-hunter who troubles himself to tell where Grant dines, and witli whom, is impertinent to Grant, and insulting to the free people of whom Grant is one. Let him alono ! in the name of common sense and decency. His public ’acts will make him conspicuous enough. “That fierce light which beats upon a throne,” and upon the Presidential chair not less, is annoying enough, without the prying and intrusive gaze of the whole tribe of Jenkins’. Let the man dine in peace! Let biiu dine when, aud where, and wifli whom ho will. And let him drive a horse and go to the opera, it he likes, without a mousing toady to chronicle the performance.— Mitsouri Dcinowat . . The Indianapulisjonmal says;— “Those ltcpnblioans Who are strenuously urging an amendment to the Constitution to deprive the States of control over the suffrage question, would do well to refresh their memory by reading the following plank from the platform on which tiro late Presidential election was carried: V “ ‘The guarantee t>v Congress of equal suffrage to i)!l loyal men at. the South was demanded by every consideration of public safely, of gratitude, and of tustice, and must oe mantained; wliile IfU question; of sujfraije in all the loyal States properly belongs to the people of those States! ” * l don’t want mother to marry again,” gaid a little boy one day gt breakfast “NVdty not ?” was asked v*wh some surprise. “Because,” said'he, “I’ve lost one father, and 1 "don’t trank the trouble of getting ac(fftainted with auother.” r*u —— A volatftd vMhpg .gentleman Who*? cOnipmsU' iii ’Abe female world were numb