Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1885 — REPUBLICANISM [ARTICLE]

REPUBLICANISM

A Oomepondent Gives numerous Examples of the Bott«* nesß > Jobbery, and Thefts * the Republic* Party. [From the il<il * nlk I >oUB Sentfn®!*] The leader 0 * the Republican party •evidently tIA 14 the thing to “assume a virtue ” ifthey have it not. The InA iftri ftpnl {Journal joins in the chorus of the or° r y that President Cleveland has ranched the jails and penitentiaries men to fill the appointive office^ 11 the Government. Every person receives an appointment under is at once assailed as a fj-ruptionist in politics or as a crimjjjX. No correction of the lie ever is p/on a place in their partisan columns. I an investigation of the official coniuct of Republican office-holders proposed, the editors of Republican organs Uy into a rage, as if a Republican could do no wrong. They are too pure to have their official records laid open to the world. These party organs have even been so shameless as to attack Democratic soldiers whose wounds have resulted in almost total disability for drawing a pension. After reading their editorial screeds one would come to the conclusion that a Democrat had no rights in this country worthy of respect. Let the story of the corruption, and fraud, and public robbery of the Republican party be told. The reminder should cause its leaders to blush with shame —if they are capable of such an emotion —and to silence the blatant and loud-mouthed party editors. Nearly seventy-five per ceqt. of the customs revenue is collected at the New York Custom House. As a vast army was employed there, it was a powerful political machine to control elections in that State. That machine has its influence upon the whole country, and was always felt in a Presidential campaign. So scandalous had its management become under Republican administration that an investigating committee was appointed to examine into its conduct. From a statement furnished by General Arthur, then Collector of the Port, and President Cleveland’s immediate predecessor in the White House, it is shown that the cost of collecting the revenues was more than four times as great as in Germany, nearly five times as great as in Great Britain, and more than three times as great as in France, the percentage of cost being in the United States 1.33. The investigation showed, and it was so reported by the committee, that inebriety and bribe-taking by men employed in the custom-house was not uncommon, and Surveyor Sharpe declared that the law against bribery was a “dead letter.” It was also shown that the loss in collection was from $36,000,000 to $70,000,000 annually. Mr. Isaac D. Block, Chief Clerk of the Mint, testified before the Commission that complaints had been made against two clerks, and that instead of having been dismissed and published, they were transferred to another department with increase of pay. Such were the methods adopted for the punishment of bribe-takers in Government •employ. Gen. Sharpe, Surveyor of the Port, testified as follows: “I had a letter within the last two weeks from a gentleman holding a high official position, in regard to an officer whom he knew to have been dropped three times from the service for cause. He had also been to see me for him and admitted that he had been engaged in defrauding the revenue, and yet he writes me requesting his appointment.” A high Republican office-holder indorsing a man for appointment in the Custom House whom he knew to be a thief! Wonderful, is it not? Yet 1 his is the sworn statement of Gen. Sharpe, the Republican Surveyor, and Gen. Grant’s brother-in-law. Any man who would agree to contribute funds for election purposes could easily secure a place in the Republican partisan machine officially called the New York Custom House. In a letter on the violations of law by the acceptance of bribes and complicity in frauds, Naval Officer Cornell ingeniously said: “The clerks are but human, and whenever there is a coincidence of temptation, frailty and opportunity, there can be but one result.” How touchingly the Republican Naval Offioer extenuates the shortcomings of “the boys.” If we recall the whisky ring, the “high official leaders” of which escaped punishment bv the removal of honest attorneys for the Government and putting in their places the supple tools of the corruptionists; the band of public plunderers that fattened in Washington for years upon jobs; the fact that the Postmaster at Galveston was removed to make room for a man who had been expelled from the House of Representatives for fraud; that Boss Shepard, branded as a public swindler, was appointed Commissioner of the District of Columbia; that honest and capable men like Bristow were driven from the Cabinet because they refused to sanction the appointment of men proved to have been corrupt, and we marvel that such papers as the Indianapolis Journal, which indorsed all these things, has the effrontery to shriek so loudly about the moral unfitness of the appointees of the present administration. These things attracted the attention of the old world, and were condemned by the ablest and purest periodicals of Europe. The testimony of a Republican Senator, who also had been a member of a Republican Cabinet, ought to be conclusive, In the impeaohmeht of Gen.

Belknap as Secretary of War Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts, said: I have seen five Judges of a high oourt of the United States driven from office by threats of impeachment for corruption and maladministration. I have heard the taunt from friendliest lips that when the United States presented herself in the East to take part with the civilized world in generous competition in the arts of life, the only product in which she surpassed all others beyond question was her corruption. I have seen in the btate in the Union foremost in power and wealth four Judges of her courts impeached for corruption. I have seen the Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs in the House rise in his place and demand the expulsion of four of his associates for making sale of their official privilege of selecting the youths to be educated at our great military schools. Referring to the Credit Mobilier swindle, in which so many virtuous and honest Republicans were entrapped (?) —poor, innocent souls!—Senator Hoar said: When the greatest railroad of the world, binding together this continent and uniting the two seas which wash our shores, was finished, I have seen our national triumph and exultation turned to bitterness and shame by the unanimous reports of three committees of Congress —two in the House and one here —that every step of that mighty enterprise had been taken in fraud. 1 have heard in the highest places the shameless doctrine avowed by men long in public life, that the true way in which power should be gained in the republic is to bribe the people with the offices created for their service; and that the true end for which it should be U3ed when gained is the promotion of selfish ambition and the gratification of personal revenge. I have heard that suspicion haunts the footsteps of the trusted companions of the President. I have not gone outside the record in presenting the summary of facts herewith. If there be any who can consistently palliate, excuse, or condone the rottenness, the jobbery, the thefts, and the peculations of the Republican party when in the zenith of its power, they surely ought not to be shocked by anything the present administration has done. The corruption and deviltry of Republican rule could not be reproduced, as it never has been equaled. Rayburn. Lafayette, Ind.