Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 May 1885 — Blaine and Logan as Civil Service Reformers. [ARTICLE]

Blaine and Logan as Civil Service Reformers.

Indianapolis Sentinel: It is common amohg the Bourbon Republican organs to trace the origin of every appointment made by the administration, and, in many cases if any prominent Democrat has influenced it, to hold him up either for scorn or ridicule. One would imagine that the appointments made by the Republican administrations were altogether free from everything objectionable, and were the of inspirations from a high breed of statesmen. The Washington correspondent of the Courier-Journal has gone to the trouble of hunting up the record made by Blaine and Logan in the matter of appointments, and here is what he found. The record dates back to 1881. This is a list —a partial list —of the Blaine connection, showing how they were placed by the frugal Jiand of their patriarch, James G. Blaine, Secretary of State: John E. Blaine, Paymaster, brother; Robert G. Blaine, Agricultural Department, brother; Walker J. Blaine, Assistant Secretary of State, son; JohnE. Blaine, Revenue Collector, Tennessee, cousin; Rev. M. C. Blaine, Chaplain in the Armv, cousin; John J. Coppinger, U. 8. A., son-in-law; James A, Eakin, Quartermaster General’s Office, cousin; Augustus Stanwood New York Custom House, nephew; Isaac Stanwood, New York Custom House, nephew; James A. Dodge, Inspector of Customs, cousin; Wm. M. Eakin, Treasury Agent, cousin. Several assorted hangers-on of the family were scattered about. The document is not yet complete. Then comes “Black Jack”—and it will be observed that it is a cold day when Jack gets left in a thing of this sort. The Logan list run > about as follows: John A. Logan, United States Senator; C. A. Logan, Minister to Chili, cousin; W. F. T_cker, Paymaster Army, son-in-law; John M. Cunningham, Yellowstone, Park, brother-in-law; Cyrus Thomas, Smithsonian Institute, brother-in-law; Susie Cunningham, Clerk in Treasury, sister-in-law; Enoch Blanchard. Postal Railway Service, nephew; Nellie E. Jenkins, Marine Hospital, niece; James Cunningham, Chicago Custom House, brother-in-law; James M. Logan, Postmaster, Illinois, brother; Ed. Hill, United States Marshal, Illinois, nephew; Mary H. Brady, Treasury, servant; Louis Norris, messenger Interior, ervant; Daniel Shephard, Assistant Postmaster, Chicago, relative; Taylor Beach, Clerk yf Senate, relative. Besides others in precincts yet to hear from.

General McClellan’s account of the Peninsular campaign [in the May Century,] presents the simple outlines of one of the most significant chapters in the whole history of the civil war. Unprofitable as it usually is to speculate upon what might have been, the thought is irresistable that if McClellan had been given a fa r fighting chance he might and in all probability would have taken Richmond and ended the war in 1862, and that it was because of the fear that this glory might come to a man, around whom, as he expressed it, “all the enemies of the administration centered,” that Secretary Stanton deliberately destroyed McClellan’s plan of campaign and made its success impossible. This thought is not derived from General McClellan’s own statement but is the irresistable result of a study of the facts reached long ago by the most competent military critics.—Philadelphia Times.