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THE

HONEST AMERICAN VOTER'S

LITTLE CATECHISM

FOR

1880.


BY

BLYTHE HARDING.


Copyrighted, 1880.


NEW YORK:

John Polhemus, Publisher, 102 Nassau Street.




PREFACE.


I was invited the other day to take down, as Stenographer, what
purported to be a discussion upon some general political topics, and
more especially on the forthcoming presidential election. One of the
disputants entrenched himself in what, I believe, scholars call the
Socratic method, that is, he _pumped_ his supposed antagonist dry.
Whether the world at large may think the dialogue as funny as I did
myself, I can form no opinion. It is to solve this question that I
give it to the public.

BLYTHE HARDING.

NEW YORK, _August 31st, 1880_.




THE DIALOGUE.


What is a republic?

--A state, or Union of states, in which the people holds supreme
power.

How does the people exercise this power?

--Through men elected for this purpose.

What are these men called?

--Senators and members of Congress or Congressmen.

Is there a head or chief in a republic?

--Certainly.

What is he called?

--The President.

Must the President be elected?

--Yes, by the people.

Who declares the voice of the people in this matter?

--The electors of the different states, appointed to do it by the
people.

Is it necessary that the whole people should agree on one man in order
to elect him?

--No; it only needs a majority of the nation, voting through the
electors.

Do the votes of the electors generally follow the voice of the people
in the different states?

--They ought to follow it.

Are the electors considered bound to vote as the majority of the
people in their different states direct?

--Undoubtedly they are.

Then it is fair to say that the vote of a majority of the electors
show which way the majority of the people voted?

--That's a simple question. Why, of course!

What are the duties of the President?

--To mind the business of the nation, and his own, too.

Anything else?

--Isn't that enough?

Well, but what is that business?

--The business of the nation?

Yes.

--He makes treaties, weeds out old political hacks, and sends them
on embassies where they cannot annoy him, and have nothing to do;
appoints Judges of the Supreme Court like Joe Bradley, when he wants
to play eight-to-seven, commands the army and navy, gets fifty
thousand dollars a year, takes all the presents he can get, lives
in the White House, and does a kind of general housekeeping business
for the country.

I was not talking of Grant. Let that go. Does he do anything else?

--Yes; if he comes from Ohio, he fills nearly every place he's got
to give away with lean, hungry Ohio men, so that you can get a "whiff"
of that state all over Washington, and in a good many other places
too, any time of the day or night.

Really I don't understand you. All our Presidents do not come from
Ohio or Illinois!

--Thank God they don't.

Just tell me what the Senators have to do?

--To prevent Congressmen from making fools of themselves.

Anything else?

--Yes; to keep an eye on the "jobs" Congressmen are always trying
to put through.

What are the duties of Congressmen?

--God knows! I don't think they do themselves.

What should you think?

--From the way they go on, I should say: to make a grab whenever
they can.

Who is now President of the United States?

--Samuel J. Tilden.

That is a mistake. The present President of the United States is
Rutherford B. Hayes.

--He is, is he? Yes, just about as much as I'm owner of Central Park,
when I sit down on a bench there.

What do you mean?

--I mean to say a man can't be President of this country unless he
is elected, and Hayes was never elected.

Who was elected then?

--Why, Samuel J. Tilden, to be sure!

Then how did Hayes get in?

--He had some "statesmen" working for him, who kept the right man
out and pushed him in.

Do you really mean that?

--As certain as death.

Very strange! Who were these "statesmen;" I suppose you mean his
friends?

--Friends, indeed! Yes, like wolves are to sheep.

Is Mr. Hayes a sheep?

--The people that put him where he is, have made him sheepish enough;
but he isn't a sheep. His hide is too thick for that. He would be a
mule, _only he isn't quite big enough_.

Ah! You have a strange way of expressing yourself. But tell me, who
were his "friends" as you call them?

--The same men that "worked" Grant.

What do you mean by "working" Grant?

--Putting a pair of "blinkers" on him, and then stealing everything
they could lay their hands on; and then when they were going to be
turned out, stealing the presidency so as to get another "hack" at
the "swag."

Really, this language sounds dreadful, I don't understand it; but
I suppose you mean right.

--Mean right? I should think I do. I _am_ right. Only in talking of
thieves, I am using the language of thieves. They simply wanted to
keep their places and go on plundering the people.

Speaking about General Grant, what kind of a President was he?

--The best judge of whiskey, cigars and horses that ever stepped
into the White House.

Heavens! how dull you are! I'm not talking about whiskey and cigars,
I mean what were his gifts?

--Gifts? to whom? I never heard that he made any gifts. He took
everything offered him from a brownstone front downwards, until it
got to a bull-pup with the expressage unpaid--there he stopped.

Shall I ever get you to understand me? I mean had he any good
qualities?

--Yes; he had. He wore a padlock on his mouth, was a rattling fighter,
and stuck to his friends. In fact, he was generally bull-headed, _as
it were_.

Good enough! But these are not the qualities I am speaking of. I mean
qualities that the people look for in a President. Perhaps "sticking
to his friends" may have been one. What do you mean by that?

--What do I mean? Why, screening and protecting a set of rascals not
half as honest as nine-tenths of the men in jail for robbery.

Do you mean me to understand by screening that he did what they do
with coal, sift out the little ones and keep in the big ones?

--Not at all. There was no "sift" to Grant; he stuck to the whole
lot until the Republican party told him he must either let them go
or lose the country.

By the way, are the Republicans good people?

--Yes; just as good as any other, and a good deal better, if they
were only Democrats.

Why do you complain of them, then?

--I don't complain of the honest Republican people of the country.
I complain of the Republican politicians.

What is a "politician?"

--Sometimes an honest man like John Morrissey; hardly ever a fool;
generally a knave.

What do you mean by a political party?

--The term has two meanings. First, all the honest people of
the country who believe in a given set of political principles.
Secondly, it means all the political office-holders, _managers_
and wire-pullers, whose business is to throw dust in the eyes of
the non-politicians (_i. e._, the simple voters).

_In this latter sense_ how many parties are there?

--A good many people think there is only one.

To what party does Mr. Hayes belong?

--To the Orange party.

What is that?

--The temperance party that takes its rum in iced oranges.

Is he an able man?

--Yes; able to take a kicking from the Republicans better than any
other man in the country.

What do you mean by taking a kicking?

--Why, accepting the toe of the political boot.

Can you name any one who has operated on him in this delicate manner?

--Yes; Roscoe Conkling.

Would you call _him_ a good kicker or bootist?

--Yes; tip-top.

What proof have you of this?

--When Hayes and Sherman kicked Cornell out of office, Roscoe kicked
him back on them as governor of the state of New York. When they
kicked Arthur out of the custom-house, Roscoe kicked him into the
second place on the Republican ticket.

Any further proof?

--Yes; he kicked Evarts to New York to talk for Cornell, whom, as
before said, the administration kicked out. John Sherman was afraid
of his toe when he spoke lately at Washington _in favor_ of the man
whom he forced the President to kick out, saying he was unfit for
the office he held. At last it looks as if Roscoe was going to kick
himself into talking for Garfield, whom he despises.

Why should he do that?

--Oh! it's only the "machine" working.

I don't understand.

--Have you ever seen a bull trying to stop a locomotive?

No.

--Well, if ever you do, you'll see something like a politician trying
to butt against the "party," _alias_ the "machine."

Then is the great bootist afraid of the "machine?"

--I don't think he's afraid of anything. But he knows there's no use
kicking against _that_.

By the way, you said Hayes had been put into office without being
elected, had Conkling anything to do with that?

--No. He's too proud a man to stoop to any dirty work. He has held
Hayes' administration at arm's length, and never gone near them except
when he was on the "kick."

Then who did put Hayes into office?

--There were a good many in the job. Thirty-three in Florida and
seventy-two in Louisiana; Garfield and John Sherman, chief
"engineers."

Do you mean to say that the man nominated by the Republicans for
President, and the Secretary of the Treasury countenanced the men
who forced Hayes on the country?

--If not, why were rewards promised the rascals for doing it? When
the job was done, and Hayes inaugurated, every one of the scoundrels
was "provided for."

Didn't the other party protest?

--Of course they did. But it was the old story of the fly and spider.

In what way?

--The 'Pubs got the 'Crats to consent to have the difficulty settled
by an Electoral Commission and then euchred them.

How?

--Simple enough. There were eight 'Pubs on the Commission and seven
'Crats. They met. Up gets old Evarts. Says he to the Commissioners:
"Boys"--I mean--"Gentlemen! The first duty of a Judge, if he wants
very badly to find the 'cat in the bag,' is to look up the chimney."
Here he winked at the Judges on Joe Bradley's side. They say he looked
very much like Beecher, when he proved his innocence in Brooklyn.
"Therefore," says he, "if the involutionary concatenation of a
political residuum approximates to the concordant volitions of a
Republican effervescence, it is extra self-evident that judicial
investigation into supernumerary circumstantial totality, is beyond
the hypodermic flexal radiation of your illustrations." The argument
was short, but it settled the case!

But I don't understand a word of it.

--What does that matter? He didn't himself. But they voted on the
question all the same.

How did the vote go?

--Well, that _is_ a simple question! Why eight to seven, to be sure!
What he said was supposed to mean they had no right to take evidence.
The 'Pubs agreed with him. They said they were there to do nothing,
and intended to do it, and pay attention to it. They were eight. And
they voted eight--eight, eight, eight, eight--every time.

Well, but what had Garfield particularly to do with this?

--First of all he said in Congress: "The Commission is clothed with
power to hear and determine the vote of any state." * * * He declared
on his honor (!) that the Commission had power to go down into the
states and _review_ the act of every officer, to _open every ballot
box_, and to pass judgment on _every ballot_ cast by seven millions
of Americans. He said they had all the powers of the Senate and House
of Representatives to examine into everything.

And then?

--Well, then, as he was playing euchre, he popped the "joker"
(himself) on the 'Crats' left bower, and voted the Commission had
no right to do anything of the sort. In the next game the "_joker_"
will be discarded.

How about the 'Crats, as you call them?

--Well, as they were only seven, and couldn't be in two places at
once, and vote fourteen, they threw up their hand.

Why, this was simply a farce?

--That's so; but it's very curious the people that were watching
the farce didn't see anything funny about it, or laugh. They were
quiet--very quiet. I think they had a notion the tragedy would
come later, and then they'd change the _cast_, and take a hand in
themselves, just to see how it would go.

Please, explain yourself?

--Well, during the farce, the Electoral Commission, Garfield being
one, were the actors, and the people were the spectators. During the
tragedy the people will be the actors, and Garfield, the Electoral
Commission, and the "machine" politicians will be the spectators--a
very _select_ audience. Admission free. The stage will be rather
large, about the size of the United States. Lots of room for the
audience. After the play there will be a procession to the White
House in Washington. The actors will invite their special friends
to it. I don't think Garfield, the Electoral Commission, or the
Republican "machine" engineers, will get cards of invitation. They
will, perhaps, be asked to a free lunch in Ohio.

Now for the application.

--Well, you must remember the American people are not born idiots.
They saw through the whole of this Electoral Commission business,
and they kept quiet. They were enraged, however, to think these
politicians could imagine them so dead daft. I think, too, at one
time they were within an ace of letting themselves out. If they had,
there would have been bad work!

They did better to wait.

--To be