We have, indeed, sometimes witnessed so-called "crazes" in favor of financial policies that were essentially immoral, such as the "inflation craze" and the "silver craze," gaining an apparently almost irresistible momentum among the people. But that was not owing to a real and wide-spread demoralization of the popular conscience, but rather to an artful presentation of the question which covered up and disguised the moral element in it, and so deceived the unsophisticated understanding, and also to the cowardice of politicians of high as well as low rank, who, instead of courageously calling things by their right names, would, against their better convictions, yield to what they considered a strong current of opinion, for fear of jeopardizing their personal popularity. I have seen men of great ability and high standing in the official world do the most astonishing things in this respect when they might, as far as their voices could be heard, have easily arrested the vicious heresies by a bold utterance of their true opinions. The moral cowardice of the politicians is one of the most dangerous ailments of democracies. _Missouri Retires Senator Henderson_ To me the Republican victory brought a promotion which I had not anticipated while I was active in the campaign. One of the United States Senators from Missouri, Mr. John B. Henderson, had voted in the impeachment trial for the acquittal of President Johnson. He was a gentleman of superior ability and of high character, but he had voted for the acquittal of Andrew Johnson. He had done so for reasons entirely honorable and entirely consistent with his principles and convictions of right, but in disregard of the feelings prevalent among his constituents and in spite of a strong pressure brought upon him by hosts of Republicans in his own State; and as his term as a Senator was just then expiring, this clash was fatal to his prospects of a reëlection. The warmest of his friends frankly recognized the absolute impossibility of keeping him in his place. Indeed, all the Republican Senators who had voted for Johnson's acquittal found themselves more or less at variance with their party in their respective States; but Republicanism in Missouri was in one respect somewhat different from Republicanism elsewhere. In Missouri a large part of the population had joined the rebellion. The two parties in the Civil War had not been geographically divided. The Civil War had therefore had the character of a neighborhood war--in Missouri it was not only State against State, or district against district, but house against house. The bitter animosities of the civil conflict survived in Missouri much longer than in the northern States, and any favor shown to "the traitor" Andrew Johnson appeared to the great mass of Missouri Republicans simply unpardonable.