Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 January 1886 — BROWN OF MAINE. [ARTICLE]

BROWN OF MAINE.

The Report on This Gentleman Provokes a Lively Discussion in the Schatfe.' Messrs. Voorhees, Vest, and Hale Have a Three-Handed Forensic . Bout,

[Associated Press report,] The Chair laid before the Senate a letter from the Postmaster General, complying with the call of a recent Senate resolution in respect to the appointment of postmasters in Maine, alleged to have been procured through the influence of S. S. Brown, Chairman of the Democratic Committee of that State. The communication having been read, Mr. Hole said that before it went to the country he desired to say a few words with regard to it. It was every day becoming the belief of the people, he said, that the civil service of th*e Government should not be the reward of- party service. Above all, the country desired that we should have a pure civil service. Thero should be no taint of bargain and sale about it. All parties had recognized this, and the party rallying-cries had been based on this thought. The rallying cry of the Democrats was "Turn the rascals out,” which could only mean that if rascals were in office they should be turned out. A singular state of affairs, Mr. Hale continued, has arisen in Maine withm the last six months. There were few large offices in that State. There were but twenty-seven presidential postoffices, but several hundred fourth-class ones. No department of the government came so near the people as the postoffice. The Repub- i licans had expected to go out. The clamor of thp ; Democrats for offices had been so great that they expected to go. The administration had taken a conservative course, and the President, j though pressed to moke a general sweep of the | postmasters in Maine, had declined. But the ; people of many places had waked up one moming in Maine and found that persons had been appointed whom nobody wanted and nobody recommended. In one case it was found that the Chairman of the Democratic ■ committee, Mr. S. 8. Brown, had given up his law practice, closed his office, and had come to Washington to attend to the distribution of patronage under the civil-service system. When it was found that this one-man power was the source of removals ho (Hale) received letters from Democrats and Republicans alike , complaining of the new state of affairs. Mr. Hale then read several letters—one saying that the people had sent the Postmaster General a petition, signed by eighty-four persons, praying for the appointment of a person, who, however, was not appointed. When Mr. Hale came to Washington one of Mr. Brown’s letters was handed to him (Mr. Hale). This letter became the basis of the present inquiry. He had made the inquiry for the purpose of putting before the Senate full information on the subject. Out of one hundred of the larger postoffices in Maine it now seemed that Mr. Brown had recommended eighty-seven of the new appointments. Mr. Hule acquitted the Postmaster General of any indprsement of Mr. Brown. Brown had come to Washington indorsed by the Democratic party or its committees. The Postmaster General had turned these matters of appointment over to his assistant, who relied upon Mr. Brown, but the Postmaster General had not made a complete answer to the resolution of the Senate. He had not stated whether the wishes of the people had been respeoted in the new appointments. No explanation had been made of the infamous system on which the proceedings complained of had been based. Mr. Halo read what ho termed the most extraordinary exculpatory letter ever heard of—a letter of Mr. Brown to the Portland Argus, stating, among other things, that the Democratic Committee of Maine and Mr. Brown had arranged that persons who received appointments should pay something for the expenses incurred in their behalf, and also stating that he (Mr. Brown) had secured a large number of appointments to postoffiees. Mr. Hale referred to the severe denunciation which, on a former occasion, had been expressed by Mr. Beck in the Senate at a circular issued by a Republican committee chairman, calling merely for voluntary contributions. What was the issuance of such a circular compared to this condition of affairs shown by the facts in the case ? The one may have muddied the water, the other poisoned the fountain. The Republican party had not always been perfect, but in twenty-four years Mr. Hale had never heard that public offices had become matters of public sale. Mr. Halo had heard, from an employe of the House of Representatives that there had never been in the summer season more Democrats in Washington than during tho past summer, and that the Indiana Democrats had not gone home at all. Mr. Voorhees remarked that when Mr. Hale ■was so told, he (Mr. Hale) was keeping company with a man who did not tell the truth. Mr. Voorhees warmly denied the truth of the statement, saying that of his personal knowledge it was untrue. Mr. Hole did not care whether it was true or not, though if the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Voorhees) had remained here at the suggestion of his constituents, to look after their interests, it would not have been a case at all like that under consideration. Mr. Hale believed he spoke for tho honest, conservative Maine in denouncing the course pursued by the Democratic Committee of Maine and by Mr. Brown. . . Mr. Vest said it was impossible that the administration should know every man who solicited office. If Mr. Vest had his way he would make it a misdemeanor for any man to solicit office. But what was the Postmaster General to doV It had become a part of the common law in both parties for men to recommend people for office. Was the Postmaster General to go to Republicans for recommendations ? Mr. Vest characterized Mr. Hale’s position as mere cant. He (Mr. Vest) had before now seen in the departments at Washington such indorsements as this: “This man is indorsed by Vest and Cockrell,” and,therefore, the appointments had been refused. Yet the Senator from Maine had discovered what he pretended to be a new evil. But for the Democratic success of 1882, thero never would have been a civil-service law passed by the Republican party. The civil-service bill had been in the Semito for years without attention until the prospects of Democratic ascendency became clear to the Republicans. Mr. Hale said that had nothing to do with the ’ question under debate. Mr. Vest said his colleague, Mr. Cockrell, and himself, in the course of their investigations heretofore, under Republican administrations, had found unmistakable evidences -of the use of money in the attainment of public offices, and though they could not put their fingers on a letter showing any use of money they could convince the moral sense of any man that money had been used. Mr. Voorhees said the facts seemed to be that three Presidential Postmasters and some other minor Postmasters had been changed by the present administration. It seemed to Mr. Yoor* hees that that simply showed that not as many changes had‘been made in the postoffices of Maine as the people had, by their votes last fall, intended should be made by the administration. Mr. Voorhees sympathized with the Republican Postmasters who had been turned out. They would get used to it after a while, as the Democrats had got used to it. Mr. Voorhees was not here to defend Brown. He thought Mr. Hale had done a service to the Democratic party by exposing snch a man ; but did Mr. Hale suppose ..he could make an impression on the country that the Democracy of the United States favored the course pursued by Mr. Brown? Mr. Voorhees differed from Mr. Vest in one thing. He (Mr. Voorhees) was willing to put in power and office the men who had helped elect the Democrats. He believed it to have been the intention of tho framers of the Constitution that the Government should be administered by the friends of the administration which the people should place in power. Mr. Vest said he had merely meant to say that if he were to consult his own personal ease he would do what he had stated. He did not mean that he was not willing to help his party friends. „ Mr. Voorhees willingly conceded that fact. Mr. Logon, referring to the allusion made to the civil-service law and the Bepublican administration, saidthat Congress—meaning the House and Senate, both—had not been for Beveral administrations in the bands of the Republican party. Mr. Vest said the Senate had been, and for a part of the time every committee was in the hands of the Republicans.

Mr. Hoar remarked that that was only when Senator Davis, of Hlinois, was President of the Senate. He (Mr. Hoar) did not wish to claim that up to the time stated either party was spe-. cially in favor of tho civil-service bill. The civilservice cause was a growth. The Democratic platform on which Mr. Cleveland had been elected declared for that cause. Mr. Vest said that President Cleveland had honestly and conscientiously endeavored to carry ont every particle of the pledge made by him . to the people of the United States before his election. He (Mr. Vest) was astonished that any complaint of-him in that regard should come from a Republican. It wws certain that much complaint had come from Democrats because he had not made removals enough. The debate then closed, and, on motion of Mr. Hale, the communication of the Postmaster General was referred to tho Committee tffi CivilService Reform.