Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1877 — Sherman Tells the Truth. [ARTICLE]

Sherman Tells the Truth.

Gen. Sherman has frequently compelled a great many people to believe that if he had not been a great soldier be would hare been a great statesman, and it is very possible that be is quite as good a politician as he is a general, lie is, moreover, one of the best after dinner speakers in the country, and very seldom rises to answer to a toast without expressing some concise and clenr-cut sentiment that seems to the hearers worth more than all the viands of the banquet, and Whether one agrees with him or not, every one is forced to.admit the vigor and originality of his ideas And remarks.

On Patrick’s Day the Genera! attended the banquet of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in New York, aud in response to the toast to the army and navy, took occasion to relieve the army from certain aspersions which have been cast on it by most.of the friendly sons of all the saints in the democratic calendar. In the course of his speech, in which lie paid a modest and fitting tribute to the worth of the army during the war, and to : the peaceful readiness with which they ceased fighting as soon as ijie war wag over, he alluded to, the little handful of men who still constitute the nucleus of a military defense, nnd Baid: “I challenge any man to point to any act performed in the south, or in any other portion of the country, wherein the soldiers of the Army of the United States had prevented any man from fulfilling his whole office ns u citizen, or wherein they had not sustained tilt; weak against the strong.” These arc plain words, and they are just ns true as plain. They needed utterance from just some such authority, and Gen. Sherman deserves credit for the honest courage which led him to apeak for the army, not in general platitudes, but in just the terms which needed to be spoken. Of course he has pulled the string for a regular shower-bath of democratic abuse', but it would hardly be fair for the army to get so much of that commodity and for the General to got none. The New York World opened on him very promptly the next morning, by saying that it was “not sn edifying spectacle to see the first officer of the army making himself a political orator on a subject in regard to which the constitution has clothed him with no authority whatever,” intimating that in this country nobody has any right to make a speech on ahy subject unleSs the constitution has clothed him with authority in regard to that subject. We trust that other censors will be more successful in, wrestling with the General than the World has been in its first attempt; but, ftankly, let us say that the unjust, ungenerous and uncalled-for abnse heaped on the army by the toadies of deraagogisin has been quo of the saddest features in ’.lie sad political history of the past few years. We only express a part of Ihe truth when we say that the army has nevor interfered in politics at the south except to prevent blooibhed; it has never interfered until after the slaughter of unoffending citizen* had made bloodshed a feature of the situation, and we may even ejy that it never interfered in politic* at all, for we caniibt dignity the barricading of streets, armed battles with the police, and throatcutting and pistol-shooting in mobs, by the name of politics. Yet by constant iteration of the false aspersion, the democracy has about, got to believe that the chief use ot any army in time of peaoi is to sway political contests by the resort io armed violence. Our, army deserves better treatment, and the words of tien. Sherman ought to show the more abusive democrat* how their abuse is resented by brave and honorable men.— GloleDemocrat, i Buhng’a S :lve an en * tertaiiunvnt at Ken-selacr on<* evening last week. They were well received, hospitably entertained, ami return home with a very good opinion of our flourishing sister town.— MorUirtHo Herald.