Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1889 — RASCALITY REWARDED. [ARTICLE]

RASCALITY REWARDED.

William T. Sorsby Given a Consulship in Payment of Dirty Work. The President is having no end of trouble with his policy of building up the Republican patty, in the South by appointing Democrats to office, says a Washington dispatch. If possible the sort of fellows he has to deal with down there are worse than the average machine politicians of the North. An instance of this is found in the appointment on Saturday of William T. Sorsby, of Mississippi, to be Consul at Guayaquil. Sorsby was a Democrat up to the election last November. During the campaign he was assistant editor of the Greenville Times, a Democratic paper which was supporting Catchings for Congress against James Hill, colored Republican. The editor and proprietor of the Times is a Mr. Neeley, who is an intimate friend of Catchings. During the campaign Neeley received many letters from Catchings concerning the methods and plans, and after reading these missives put them away in his desk. Last fall, encouraged by the talk of Harrison’s plan to build up a new Republican party in the South, Sorsby came to Washington and announced himself as a candidate for a consulate. Not lbng ago he was warned that Senator Quay had in his possession twenty-five letters written by Catchings during the campaign, and it now turns out that the sly assistant editor has bartered the private letters of his late employei for a Federal appoint-

mant, and that Quay has succeeded in inducing the President to ratify the bargain. Putting this sort of a public premium on private rascality is very distasteful to some people, and there is talk of having the matter brought up in the Senate next fall by resolution of inquiry. It is proposed to ascertain if the Chairman of the Republican Committee and the President of the United States wish deliberately to offer rewards for the rifling of gentlemen’s private desks.