Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 December 1888 — “Cleveland’s Cunning,” Illustrated. [ARTICLE]

“Cleveland’s Cunning,” Illustrated.

Vdt Seib went to Indianapolis, last Thursday, in response to a summons to appear before the XL 8. grand jury, now supposed to be investigating election crimes cases. After causing Mr. Seib the trouble and inconvenience of going to Indianapolis and putting the government to the expense of his mileage, the alleged district attorney, Lson Bailey, found that Seib had no knowledge of any matters bearing upon any cases under investigation and he was allowed to return home, without examination. Whatever else be the outcome of these investigations, it is evident that Bailey and his assistants are not at all restrained by any fears of reducing the surplus. The publishers of the Valparaiso Vidette have been making a strong effort to establish Ja daily, during the past year, but last week they gave it up as a bad job. Want of paying patronage was the correct diagnosis of the case. As the case now stands, the only towns in the Tenth Congressional District which support daily papers are Logansport and Rochester, and in the case of the latter town it must be mighty slim picking, at that. Be that as -it -may, however, we can giVaJJio. Bitters, publisher of the Rochester Daily Republican, the credit of getting up an excellent and newsy little daily. It is pheno in iuaiiy good, in fact, considering the difficulties, which surround the publication ot a daily in a town like Rochester.

In noting the improvements and' progress in Rensselaer for this year of giae A. D. 1888, The Republican itself, and the printing connected with it, should not be wholly ignored. In the way of .improvements to the mechanical outfit of the office, the ~7year has been, .in fact, the. most notable since the present proprietor became connected therewith. /Two new presses have been introduced into the establishment during the year. A large job press, of superior qualities, and especially adapted for doing fine work as well as large, aad a new and rapid power press for the newspaper—the first power press The Republican was ever printed upon. Our friends are envited to call in any Wednesday'evening, and see it in operation. ;K-

Our annual summary of the growth and improvement of the town of Rensselaer is published thia week. It shows that twentyone new residences have been erected in the town during the year and several old residences made practically new by rebuilding, while many minor improve-; ments have added to the attractiveness of the town and the com. fort of its inhabitants. The total amount expended duf the year, in the manner above indicated, has not been less than These facta, in themselves, aie well

worthy ot being noted, and placed o» permanent record, but their full signification is understood only -in connection with the further fact that jn the matter of growth and improvement, the present year has only been aout an average year, as compared, with ten or a doren preceding years, and with what the next year gives certain promise to be. Viewed in this light, these facts furnish certain evidence that our town is enjoying and promises still tp enjoy, a sure, steady, solid, permanent growth.

A. W. Tourgee, in Infer Ocean. No better illustration of this could be given, hardly indeed any better illustration of the man’s mental and moral caliber —than the executive order placing the railway mail service under the provisions of the classified civil service. It was an act which a man of orninary sensibility would have been ashamed to commit, and which a man of ordinary regard for his own consistency would have shrunk from as a pitiable and puerile weakness. This service which had been debauched by reckless nse of patronage to so great an extent as to awaken almost universal indignation at its inefficiency—a service which had been made so unreliable by his own corrupt use of the appointing power as to render it the butt of

the whole country, a service so debased that certainty and dispatch had come almost to be unexpected accidents; this service, immediately after the campaign in which it had been ‘‘worked for all it was worth” in his behalf, as soon as he finds himself defeated, he places under the operation of the civil-service law! The purpose is oo apparent not to escape detection by the dullest mind. It is saying with insolent boldness to he American people, “If I had been elected I would have kept this service open in order to reward my friends, but having been defeated, I will use the last of power to protect incompetents from removal or compel my successor to undo my work.”

It was the childish act of a purely selfish man, done with a wink and a leer as if inviting attention to the wonderful “cuteness” he believed himself to be displaying. It was a finh sample of what has come to be known as “Cleveland cunning”—a cunning born of adipose and an utter inability to recognize the obligations of fitness and propriety. It is the same quality which marked his relations with Vice-President Hendricks, whom he snubbed in life and refused to honor in death.