Nashville Union And American

ROSCOE CONKLING

Mourns over Radical Degeneracy

And Says Grant Only Can Save the Party.

TROY, N. Y., Sept. 2.—A letter from Roscoe Conkling to J. H. Griswold is published to-day in which the Senator says that the Republicans of the State are not divided upon any principle at stake now, or upon any practical measure, and asks if the Republicans will desert their cause merely because the loaves have not come to their baskets nor fish to their nets. A few years ago it was an imputation to charge that politics depended upon spoils, and it cannot be possible now that men will plot against the cause because the offices are too few to go around.

The Senator continues his address:

For my part there is no Republican whom I cannot take cordially by the hand and labor with shoulder to shoulder in the work before us. I am for Gen. Grant. This would be my position without my strong regards for him and confidence in him personally. He has made a better President in some respects than you and I when we voted for him had any right to expect, and he is a better President every day than he was the day before. He has given the country the best practical administration in many respects that we have had for a quarter of a century and the people know it. With Gen. Grant as the candidate our success is assured. With any other, success is not certain, and hence the renomination and election of Gen. Grant seems to be a foregone conclusion.

"In the State of New York, more than anywhere else, the path of the Republicans appears plain and their duty urgent. Here is the greatest free State in Christendom given over to rascals, a prey to a horde of thieves who, infesting our chief city, disgrace humanity and wield the commonwealth by their pestilential profligacy. These plunderers have seized upon the State government, the Legislature, and all the municipal agencies of the city of New York, and hitherto they have tampered with our party organizations also, debauching and controlling them. The question warning us is whether this degrading sway shall cease or be permitted. Every one knows that the only step toward reform is to nominate the best men in the Republican party, and elect them to the Legislature and to the Executive offices of the State, and yet men stand talking about Federal patronage and differences among leaders, and personal feelings between individuals and the like. What have such things to do with the duty of this hour? What do the people care about them? What should they care? Of what public consequence are the personal aims and objects and mishaps of individuals? For one, if I can know how, by act or omission I have given just offense to any man, I ought to go and will go, and make any amends in my power, but I insist that all who are in earnest should go to work and keep at work.

It is high time to be done with unprofitable things signifying nothing and productive only of harm. The best way to do a thing is to do it. Talking may be good, but talking about what we are willing to do and what might be done, when there is but one straight forward thing to do, is not so likely to help the Republican party as to take the right hold honestly and squarely as men should who believe in what they are about and mean it. We shall all be together in redeeming the State, I hope, and many good men will help who never helped us before.