The Mississippi Creole

From the True Democrat
Political Gratitude:
There is no such thing as political gratitude,
in this exceeding enlightened age of ours. In
earlier days—times of primitive honesty—men
were accustomed to stand shoulder to shoulder
through good report and evil. This was, how
ever, the era of romantic friendships, the Da-
mon and Pythias age, while the present is the
calculating, selfish and enlightened age—
Friendship, now to endure, must be tributary;
heart must pay the dollars and cents tithe to
heart, to ensure a continuance of the miserable
sycophancy mis-called friendship.
Who, a few years ago, was the compeer of
Alexander G. McNutt? None: he led the
Democratic Cohort—he was chieftain by unani-
mous acclaim; none were superior—his rival
was not in the State. McNutt was then rich;
his soul was as large as his purse; a big heart
gave prodigality to the land, and hundreds of
miscreants were exalted from deserved obscu-
rity by his generous benefactions. He asked
but justice, in return. Too proud to be a slave
himself, he scorned the abject homage tender-
ed to him by meaner spirits, in the hour of his
prosperity and fame. Many who offered him
the incense of hypocritical adulation, were
conductors of the press. They returned from
haunting, like craven birds of prey, the execu-
tive mansion, to their own homes, and the flat-
tery which was too fulsome a dose for the Re-
publican stomach of the Governor. they flung
the nauseous stuff to the People, to whom it
was less objectionable. But mark—time brings
changes—it brought them to McNutt. He ap-
pears before the people for the office of Sena-
tor in Congress. They, true to the man who
had served them with unblemished faith in the
counsels, and while occupying the highest Ex-
ecuitve office in the State, rallied around him,
and gave sufficient indication that he was their
choice for Senator. But the glutted panders,
things on whom he had heaped benefit, turned
their pop-gun artillery against him with a ve-
nom that has no parallel in the black history
of gratitude. Too noble to notice these crea-
tures who slank, in conscious turpitude of
heart, from the scorn of his glance, he allowed
their slanderous breath to pass by him as the
wind, to poison the moral atmosphere, and to
stand as a future record of their own depravity.
Had McNutt changed? In fortune only. Not
a principle had he deserted; from no responsi-
bility did he shrink. The political action of
his life was his boast—the pride of the De-
mocracy. The same genius was vigorous as
in the earlier days of his fame; age had only
proved the incorruptibility of the man Who
was more trustworthy—who more competent?
None—but he disdained to subsidize the friend-
ship of the hungry small fry who fed upon the
wealth of political men; who follow them as
the shark trails in the wake of the ship at sea
laden with the dying and the dead, or as the
vulture and the raven follow on slow wing the
rear of an army, awaiting the slaughter of the
battle and the flesh-feast of the battle-field.
Such was the influence that mainly contribut-
ed to the defeat of McNutt; and more glorious
is he in defeat than he could have been in tri-
ump, when such spawnish allies were to have
been propitiated.
We call these reminiscences occasionally,
to keep fresh in the popular mind, the devious
course of certain political gamesters whom a
concurrence of accidents has thrown upon the
surface of political life to show how admira-
bly nature can caricature her own productions.
by an occasional contrast of the genuine with
the counterfeit.