Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1889 — TANNER'S CRONIES SAD. [ARTICLE]

TANNER'S CRONIES SAD.

“INFERNAL OUTRAGE” SAYS BLOCKS-OF-FIVE DUDLEY. Pension Sharks and Surplus Looters Are Exercised to a High Degree by the Com- ‘ xnissioner’s Enforced Retirement, but j Noble Is Happy. [Washington special.] Probably Secretary Noble was to-day tbe happiest man in Washington. He had at last rid himself of Tanner. Dud- j ley and Lemon, however, were unhappy, for their pension agencies had lost a powerful friend at court. The following i statement of the beginning and end of Tanner’s difficulty is official, and thoroughly verified in every respdct: Before his departure from Washington for his vacation, Secretary Noble on several occasions spoke to the President about the course of Commissioner Tanner and his clerks in the matter of rerating pensioners, and also in relation to unguarded remarks which the Commissioner had made from time to time. The President was inclined to defend Mr. Tanner, and he did so several times. Recently Mr. Tanner made speeches at Elmira, Chautauqua and Milwaukee which called forth strong protests from prominent Republicans. Directly after the Milwaukee incident Secretary Noble returned to this city determined to bring the Tanner matter to a climax. He put his views before the President in a very positive manner, and intimated that he would retire from the Interior Department if Mr. Tanner was continued in office much longer. On Tuesday Senator Hiscock, who had learned that the matter was likely to come to a climax, went to Commissioner Tanner, without authority from the President, however, and said that the Commissioner would better resign his office, as if he did not he would be removed. When Mr. Tanner visited the White House later he lea ned that the President had not asked for his resignation. Last evening Marshal Itansdell, a particular friend of the President, went to Mr. Tanner’s house, and in his private capaci.y suggested that Mr. Tanner would better relieve the Piesident by resigning. The Commissioner, however, was firm in his determination to force the President to choose between removing him and leaving him in office. Shortly before midnight, however, he gave in and wiote the letter of resignation. Secretary Noble feels a proper sort of • elation over his victory, for such it may be termed. He had made good his promise to rid himself of Tanner or oiler his own resignation. He has won this fight against the influence of the pension office ring, Dudley, and even the Grand Army, and against the unwillingness and timidity of Harrison himself. The President was feirful of the result of Tanner’s removal before the election in Ohio, and wanted the case postponed till after election, but Secretary Noble would not listen to it. The President has all along sought to minimize the pension office Bcafidal, and but for Noble’s persistent demand nothing would have been done for several months. Grand Army men in Washington denounce Noble in bitter terms, and Corporal Tanner was this morning flooded with telegrams from his comrades adjuring him to stand firm. The Corporal did indeed try to stand firm, but Noble proved too much for him. Tanner’s reluctance to give up the job and his lack of decency in the doing of it has disgusted many of his former friends, and though he had known for two or three days that the President wanted his resignation, he held on by his teeth, fighting to the last, whereas a man of pride would have sent in his resignation at the first intimation that it was wanted. At one time Tanner is said to have been determined not to resign and to force the President to dismiss him. Colonel Dudley’s opinion of the decapitation of his friend is expressed in a pair of strong words—“lnfernal outrage.” Captain Lemon echoes this sentiment. Tanner’s friends cannot find words in which to express their opinion of Noble. They denounce him as an upstart who • came here without political friends or experience, and say he is in the cabinet simply because he happened to goto school with Mr. and Mrs. Harrison. They do not appear to recognize honesty as a virtue in a public official, and hence are unable to appreciate Noble. The last •card played by the Tanner crowd against Noble was a big one, but it failed to win. They sent to the White House evidence that Secretary Noble w'as a Gresham man in the early part of 1888. They claim' Harrison had never known this, and hoped this desperate device might help them. Even the bugaboo of a Greshamite could not save the Corporal.

The Tanner Embezzlement. [From the Chicago Herald.] Scarce half a year after the inauguration of a 'high taxer for President, the greatest administration scandal in the history of the government is completely • exposed and acknowledged in the dismissal of Commissioner Tanner. A huge sum of money has been taken from the treasury without law or reason, and the nation has been obligated for payments which must be ns inequitable as they will be extraordinary. The sum of money directly purloined may be thirty or forty millions; the amount eventually involved cannot now be estimated. For two months the disbursements of a 5 subordinate of the Interior Department have far exceeded half the daily cost of the war while Grant was before Eichmond and Sherman before Atlanta. To have continued Tanner in office during the fiscal year 1890 would have necessitated a first payment of $213,000,000, and not less than two thousand millions in subsequent and circumstantial subventions. The immediate ruin of the country is prevented by the ouster of the Pension Commissioner. But the ruin is not averted save by a confession of the hypocrisy and treachery of the Eepublican party. The pensions were to be “enlarged and extended. ” On this platform the paralyzers destroyed Cleveland. But there has never been a Eepublican office-holder save Tanner alone who intended to keep his pledge to the coffee-coolers. Tanner was a demagogue without a suspicion of Eepublican cant, snivel, or hypocrisy. He never alleged that he had even the law on his Bide. He ingenuously declared that

the Grand Army saved the Union, and should have it. The Grand Army should Receive one, two. three thousand millions. If the taxpayers did not like it, let them move out of the country with the Chinese —it was. at least, in Tanner’s opinion, a severe climate for taxpayers. The iteration of views made Tanner putatively the sublimest hero who has arisen since Appomattox. In Tanner’s shadow Tecumseh Sherman was eclipsed. The largess which Tanner could bestow gave room even for deserters, and that once unhappy host marched into line and moved toward the national capital. joined with this alarming spectacle was the presence at the Treasury doors of the pension agents whose wicked wit had elected the President in Indiana. Private administrations sprang out of the earth over night, and these private administrations overshadowed the departments of Ihe Government in power and detail. With the embezzlement published, the President has not dared to go further. As his own organs have coldly admitted, it was a question whether Tanner or Harrison should tumble, and Tanner has fallen. But the Democratic party and Democratic press demand something more corrective than the piece of paper Tanner has now written. They want the money recovered. It was no less than stolen. Will the President go after it? Will he permit the “fences” to keep the pelf they have received by no other executive authority than Tanner’s say-so? Can a pension officer prosecute his own case, pay himself $6,000, and get away with it? Did even the Congressmen succeed who essayed that adventure in 1873? Tanner did not talk too much. He took too much. Tanner is not dismissed because he talked too much, but because ho took too. much. “No money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law,” says the very first article of the Constitution. Now what says the President?