Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 September 1879 — How Sherman’s Speeches Are Distributed. [ARTICLE]

How Sherman’s Speeches Are Distributed.

The official envelopes of all the departments at Washington have a printed notice on the front forbidding their use for any private purpose. The notice is in the following words, with the name of each particular office inserted, in lieu of “Treasurer of the United States TREASURY DEPARTMENT. To be returned to TREASURER OF THE UNITED STATES If not delivered in ten daya. Official Business. Any person using this envelope to avoid the payment of postage on private matter of any kind will be subject to a fine of S3OO. Thousands of copies of John Sherman’s partisan speeches have been circulated in these envelopes all over the

country in direct violation of law, for which the sender might be prosecuted. When the head of the department thus openly prostitutes a public trust to a personal object, and makes his subordinates participants in the offense, it is easy to see what effect such an example must have on the clerks, and what the state of discipline must be under him. This is only an illustration of the practices at Washington, where the whole public service is used to advance partisan and personal interests, and where hypocrisj is added to the corruption that Grant bequeathed as a legacy to his successor.