THE DEMOCRACY AGAIN.

Nor was the Democracy at all loath to avail itself of the advantage of a coalition. The Spring elections in New Hampshire and Connecticut did not serve to strengthen their faith in their ability to combat the Republicans successfully. Up to April the most of the party organs had apparently maintained the idea that, with the help of the persistent criticism and slanders which the Disorganizers had been heaping upon the Administration of President Grant, the Democrats might still hope to beat the old enemy against whom they had contended so long and so pluckily in vain; but with the decision of the New Hampshire election, this hope utterly vanished. Of the four principal organs of the Democracy in the country-The New York World, the Chicago Times, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and the Missouri Republican—the last named had for months been favoring the Passive policy; the others responded to New Hampshire in these words: The World:

"The Democratic party is satisfied with this result. It confirms the certainty of Grant's renomination, precludes the taking up of any other candidate who might reunite the Republican party, and though last not least, it removes the last vestige of danger that any portion of the Democratic party will protest against the complete abandonment of dead issues."

The Times:

"It is a circumstance tending to convince even the most irrational and pig-headed of Democrats that the political organization called the Democratic party is utterly and irredeemably powerless to achieve a change in the Federal Administration. It is a fact proving, to the full extent that it proves anything, that however much a considerable body of liberal-minded Republicans may dislike the military President and his military regime, they

dislike the Democratic party more. It is needless for any Democratic abstractionist to say that they are influenced by unreasonable prejudices. What is to be considered is the fact; not whether the causes of the fact are rational or irrational."

The Enquirer was at first disposed still to hold out, and urged:

"It is not in this little and remote New England State that the great battle of 1872 is to be fought, but is in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri that the contest will be decided. It is in those States, with a different population from New England, that we shall win.”

But this journal soon after wheeled into the Passive line, and put on so docile a demeanor, that it was e'en willing, or at least ready, to take up Greeley himself, as the bearer of the coalition standard.

Mr. Greeley received the call of the Missouri malcontents with a mixture of real smiles and simulated frowns. In his paper of the 29th of January, he said:

"The Tribune is likely to be against the Bolters, since they are almost certain to make hostility to Protection one of the planks of their platform, and that the Tribune can never abide, no matter who may be the rival candidates for President. Now that Emancipation is a fixed fact, Impartial Suffrage nearly so, and Universal Amnesty inevitable, there is no remaining National issue which is half so important in the view of the Tribune as that of Protection vs. Free Trade. We have no shadow of doubt that the overthrow of Protection would be speedily followed (as in 1816-20, and again in 1833-'7) by a sweeping industrial collapse and commercial bankruptcy, which would carry hunger and distress into the homes of millions of our countrymen. To such a calamity the Tribune cannot contribute, even passively, for anyconceivable consideration."

This does not seem very favorable to the Disorganizers, of whose platform Free Trade was certainly the corner-stone; but the sting was taken out of his rebuke of this feature by the paragraphs which followed, and in which Mr. Greeley handled

very roughly the conduct of the Administration and the policy of Congress, adding, in his exclamatory style, "Men and brethren! a new leaf must be turned over, or there are breakers ahead. The proposed Cincinnati Convention may prove a fiasco, or it may name the next President"; and hinting that if "Roscoe Conkling & Co." are allowed to run the "Grant machine" a few months longer, it will be all up with the Republican party, and that Cincinnati will surely win. Altogether, this editorial of Greeley's forms a congeries of inconsistencies, like his political record in the large.

Under such auspices the Cincinnati Convention assembled. Its proceedings will form the subject of the next two chapters.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE CINCINNATI CONVENTION.

The Place Gathering of the Clans-No Concert of Action-The Tariff Question-The Rival Candidates-Greeley's Name Received with Laughter-The Davis Hordes-Caucuses of the Syndicate-Opening of the Convention-A Side Show-Row in the New York Delegation-How Greeley's Strikers Captured that Body-Flank Movements-A Woman in the Case-Trouble, of Course-A Turbulent Session-Permanent Organization-Carl Schurz's Speech-Good Advice which was Not Followed.

The selection of Cincinnati as the place of holding the soi disant liberal convention was most agreeable to the people of that city. For this, there were various reasons, some of propriety, others of interest. The "new departure" had taken place from this point not so many months before that it had slipped the memories of observant politicians. This city and vicinity was a hot-bed of discontent with the present Administration. The region abounded with the flash element in politics.

There were lawyers of repute, ambitious of national distinction, like ex-Judges Hoadley, Stello, and Matthews, in neither of whom inhered persistency of purpose, or qualities that command permanent success. Their sworn allegiance to any

cause was the sure precurser or its speedy downfall and decay. Judge Stallo, representing the extreme phases of German freedom of thought, has never been trammeled by church or party. To these effervescent orators was added Judge Cox, an excellent gentleman and average lawyer, but not above revenge for offended vanity, and willing to accept any honorable means to compass the defeat of Grant.

THE LOCAL PRESS.

a Dem

The newspapers of the Queen City were leavened with discontent. The Enquirer being ocratic journal, was the hereditary enemy of the incumbent of the Presidential office. The Commercial, a fierce iconoclast, was eager for anything that seemed to promise the loss of others and its own gain. Even the Gazette was known to desire a change of national standard-bearers, although hoping it would be effected within the old organization. The Germans of Northern Ohio, like all their countrymen in the United States, for obvious reasons, are directly influenced and controlled by the journals published in their language. Whatever sparks of discontent were latent among them had been assiduously fanned into flame by the Volksblatt, Courier, and Volksfreund, the three daily German newspapers of the city. Fred Hassaurek, editor of the first, is an ex-office-holder of long standing, and has had ever an eye for spoils. The Courier, an infant newspaper, just