Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1890 — BETRAYED HIS TRUST. [ARTICLE]

BETRAYED HIS TRUST.

Home Postmaster Wheat Will Have to Resign— His Son’s Illegal Conduct. A special to the Indianapolis Journal of the 30th says: Your correspondent has refrained from making any comments on the investigation of Postmaster Wheat, of the House of Representatives, as he has heretofore borne the very highest character among multitudes of friends in Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin-.- It appears, however, that he has been guilty of somepractices which none of his friends can defend, and he must resign his office at , once or he will be turned out with a vote of ! censure from the House of Representas • tives. The case, in short, is this: Captain I Wheat made a contract with a man by the iname of Culbertson to deliver the mails of ;the House of Representatives for $5,000 a year, which is the limit of the appropriation by Congress * for "this: purpose. Culbertson bid the ful amount, and thon repaid to Wheat, not as a rebate, to be returned to the treasury, hu as a gift to him personally, the sum of SI,SOO or $l5O a month. Wheat accepted the money for.several months, and then, the arrangement being discovered by some of his enimies, he made an attempt to renew it through a third party named Fisher. In the second place, Walter Wheat, the postmaster’s son,-has* drawn two salaries from the government, and has paid sums like $5 and $lO a month to a “dummy,” who signed the pay-roll for him. This act brings the young man within the jurisdiction of the criminal courts and makes him liable for a journey to the peni - tentiary, but it is hot probable he will be prosecuted. The mildest form of criticism possible would be to say that Captain Wheat has made a dreadful fool of himself: