Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 June 1881 — A QUARTERLY REPORT. [ARTICLE]

A QUARTERLY REPORT.

[From tbe CMnflixitati Enquirer.] The Republican party uuder the present administration has been doing business nearly three months. The Executive has made all of the communications to the Senate he desired to make. The administration is launehed upon the sea of public opinion. Tt has proceeded far enough to give the country an opportunity to form an estimate of the spirit, the purposes, the general charao- < ter of this administration; and some light has also been thrown upon its origin. It is proper to make the first quarterly report on behalf of the administration. What has the Republican party accomplished in this first quarter? What is its indicated purpose? What sort of au administration is it ? By what means and by what methods do we find it was placed in power ? What are its achievements in this first quarter ? First, there is the bargain with Mahone. No more infamous and unpatriotic bargain and sale have been known iu the politics of this country. The infamy was sanctioned ostentatiously by the Pmsident and participated in by all of the jßepublican Senators of the United States. The Republican party was. thus committed to aud involved in the disgraceful proceeding. The Republican party became the pu chaser and the ally of Mahonc. The Senate became Republican, not by the votes of the Legislatiu es of the States, not by the votes of the people, but by treachery and infamous trading. Then there was Riddleberger. Riddleberger was a part of the price. Riddleberger was not a Republican. He was not known to any Republican Senator. Mr. Mahonc said iu the Senate that he alone was responsible for the in(reduction of Riddleberger’s name into the Senate chamber. Hu was a Repqdiator, and an obnoxious man in his State. But the Republicans of the Senate blockaded the public business two months iu the vain effort to make Riddk berger Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senite. This was done with the sanction iud co-operation of the Executive. Then there was Gorham. He had said in his Republican paper some things unpleasant to the President, and the President in a letter attacked the Repub’iean Senate for its endeavor to make Gorham its Secretary. The bargain with Mahone was not an offense in the -yes of the president; he laureled that .iilaniv with Presidential flowers. The it tempt to elect Riddlebereer was not an oftense in the opinion of the President ; but the President in writing attacked the Republican United States Senators for the attempt to elect Gorham, because. Gorham had told some truth about Garfield. Then there v, as the star-route exposure, which explained to the country that Garfield had been elected by corruptionists and by corruption funds, and that said funds' had been contributed at the personal solicitation of Gen. Garfield, who, in the House of Representatives, bad had abundant means of information touching the star-route peculations. Brady had been accused of these peculations iu the House while Garfield was a member. Gen. Garfield knew with what Brady and the star-route people were charged. After this knowledge it was made known to him, while he was a candidate for the Presidency, that upon his personal solicitation some of the money dishonestly taken from the treasury of tne United States ■would be contributed toward his election. He made this request in writing, and at the same time asked ‘ ‘ how the departments generally were doing. ” Then, as another fact to be incorporated in this quarterly report, we find two seats in the United States Senate to which the Empire State is entitled vacant, made vacant by a quarrel between the Executive and prominent and representative men of the Republican party. We see the Vice President of the United States and a member of the President’s Cabinet and the two Senators from the foremost of the States unite in accusing the President of dishonorable conduct, un-Republican behavior, and we learn with much directness from some of these prominent Republicans that the President, before his election and since, has been guilty of treating the highest office iii the land with disgraceful disrespect, has “dickered” with it as though it were a piece of his personal property, and has shown that all of his handsome words in favor of the betterment of the civil service of the country are the phrases of a hypocrite. In the first quarter the Republican party is become involved in a wrangle from which it can not soon recover, if recover it cau at all, and the fact is disclosed that its only purpose, its sole errand on earth, relates to a petty matter of small spoils. The country also knows that in obedience to an indignant public sentiment the Republican Senators were compelled to abandon the unworthy, unpatriotic, contemptible position they greedily held two months of obstructing the public business to foist Riddleberger and Gorham upon the public service. The Republicans of the Senate were obliged to make a complete surrender to the strength of the Democratic position and to Democratic tenacity. This seems to be a tolerably full and impartial account of the doings of the Republican party for the first quarter. The country is to be congratulated upon one thing; it knows more of the Republican organization than it knew on the 4th day of last March.