Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1886 — GEO. WILLIAM CURTIS. [ARTICLE]

GEO. WILLIAM CURTIS.

The Relations of President and Senate Defined by the Mugwump 1 Bead Osnter. [Ne.w York telegram.) The Ntew York Herald prints a long interview with George William Curtis, in regard to the dispute between the President and the Senate. Mr. Curtis said that perhaps the President was justified in refusing to make confidential communications public, but his refusal should only apply to such as had already been made to him. He should give the people to understand that in the future all papers would be open for inspection. Then any one who had any information to lay before the President would know what to expect. No one conK suffer by such an arrangement. It wonl serve to make people more carefn of what they said and for whom the. sighed. And that certainly was desirable. The signing of petitions for offle® had grown to absnrd proportions. Many prominent men will sign anything, and a Go - ernor of thifi State, Mr. Cnrlis said, ha< told him that he signed every petition that was presented to him. But whenever ha signed such papers he wrote to the appointing power to say that the signature meant, nothing at all, and that if he really wanted to help an applicant he would write in a private way. This was not fair to those who had secured the appointment. President ykn Buren’s practice was similar. If Martin said or wrote such and such a thing, it would not do to rely upon it; but if Mnrtin’s son said or wrote it, why then it was perfectly reliable. These were tricks of politicians, to be sure, but they showed bow great this abuse was capable of becoming. Mr. Curtis said that he ngreed with Senator Sherman on the right of the Senate to see the recommendations for appointment. The Senate was a part of the executive power. The Constitution said that the President should nominate, and by and with the consent of the Senate appoint certain officers. A 6 part of the executive power the Senate had the right to know what influences, considerations, and information had decided the President in making a nomination. Its action could not be thoroughly intelligent unless it bad such information. The Object of the Senate in demanding these papers was two-fold. First, it wanted to defend the character of the men who had been removed; In the second place, it wished, if possible, to throw discredit on the Presit dent, and to show that he had violated his pledges. This latter was its prime object. The Senate belonged to the opposition party, aild it had the right to attack the President’s position if its warfare was honorable. The President could block the Senate’s game by furnishing it with the information asked. The Senate has said that the information was wanted as secret information. It was pretty certain, however, that if anything likely toinjure the President was obtained in this way it would speedily become public. Let the President try the Senate’s secretsession plan. If the information thus given should leak out he could thereafter reply to the Senate’s demands by saying: “I shall give you the information you ask, but I shall also give it to the public at the same time.” The President, Mr. Curtis thought, had nothing to fear. Suppose that his reason for removing, a Postmaster was that he was drunk, would the publication of that fact hurt the president? Would not such action deter other Postmasters from like offenses? In conclusion, Mr. Curtis said that he was compelled 6) differ with the President ns to his prerogative,. Mr. Cleveland was, perhaps, right in declining to make his action retroactive and in refusing to turn over communications intended as confidential and in many cases so marked. But his course in the future was clear. He should place all communications oh record, and the writers should know that letters to the President are letters to the -country. Mayor Low’s idea was praiseworthy. He let the people know that he felt at liberty to make anything public, as he deemed best. Mr. Curtis said that a demand of this sort had never been complied with by any other President from Washington’s time to the present, but Mr. Cleveland was elected under peculiar circumstances, under a movement intended to reform politics. A gTeat step for reform would be his putting an end to a secrecy that was not supported by reason of the Constitution.

Senator Edmunds’ Resolutions. [Washington special to Chicago Times (Dem.),] The indications now are that the Compromise between the extreme and the moderate Republican Senators relative to the attitude to be maintained toward the administration has been successful, and that while Mr. Edmunds’ resolutions do not go so far as he would be glad to go, the Senators who have been disposed to hang back will go as far as those resolutions. These represent the concessions that had to be made by the extremists to Senators who were opposed to a policy of wholesale rejection. The resolutions have been misapprehended in many quarters. The only nominations to be rejected are those of persons nominated to succeed persons suspended, information regarding whose suspensions the administration refuses to send to the Senate. Core will be taken not to call for information where the Republicans do not have what they call a “good case,” and information will be asked for as to some classes of removals, and in some States more than in others. The papers will be called for in a great many postoffice cases. It is probable that the Postmaster General will be asked to furnish the papers in the case of every Presidential postmaster in the State of Virginia; for instance. This is due to the" fact, as alleged by the Virginia Republicans, that the Virginia Republican postrihsters were all removed upon; "charges which either reflected upon then! personally or upon those who secured their appointment. The Virginia Senators take this as a personal affront, and the Postoffioe Committee will undoubtedly support them in their request for the production of the papers. As it is possible that all of the papers will be refused, it may fce expected that all of the Presidential postmastore in Virginia whose names are now pendin { before the Senate will be rejected. f X The theory of the Republicans, as has been suggested by one of them, is that suspension without the assignment of reasons is a stigma; that rejection by the Senate is also a stigma, and that it is bnt just that one stigma shall offset another. If the Republican is to remain in k locality with the cause of his removal unexplained, the Democrat may ljye there witbont being able to assign the Cause of his rejection. Moreover, it is chaiged .that the-accusations that have been made against the suspended officers have been iu most instances preferred by those persons whose nominations; to be their successors are now pendingThomas Cbuse, the millionaire miner of Helena; M. T„ who is over sixty years (old, is soon to be married to a dressmaker in that city. The bride will receive a check far $500,000 as a present from her husband. 4