Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1873 — Official Honesty. [ARTICLE]

Official Honesty.

The cheapest way of establishing a rep - utation as a reformer nowadays is to denounce with the utmost absence of- responsibility the corruption and profligacy of the body of men who are employed by the Federal Government in its vast and important transactions of every kind. From Maine to Texas and from Oregon to California, in custom-houses, post-offices, Internal Revenue bureaus, and in the Departments at Washington, there is a vast army taken from all classes of the people, engaged in all classes of employment, collecting the revenue, paying pensions, handling the mails, making the keeping the records, none of them overpaid, few with any brilliant prospects of promotion, a great many contributing not merely their routine service, but the best thought of their brains and the most valuable suggestions for the public good, as a part of their duty to their country. Among them there are and there must always be some dishonest ones; until the milleuium comes we may not hope to find all men beyond temptation; but do the feckless denouncers of the office-holders ever pause to ask themselves whether these office-holders are not possibly as honest as the same number of men of any other class in the country? We do not claim for them any superior honesty; we • do not ask that they be considered paragons, but we insist and we honestly believe that they fairly represent the average morality of the community. It is to be borne in mind that the character and methods of transacting public business necessarily give prominence to any irregularity or dishonesty. Each employe is only a part of a system, and his transactions and reeords pass through so many hands that it is merely a question of time how long he can conceal any flishonesty of which lie may have been guilty. As soon as his fault is known It is at once public property, and the telegraph sends the news from one end of the country to the other: It is known because there is no ,way of hushing it up, and even his superiors in office who might be disposed to hide it would only shift upon themselves both the moral responsibility and the pecuniary responsibility at the same time. The merchaqj or banker in private life, who has suffered by the depredations o.f a trusted clerk, is very often disinclined to give any publicity to the fact unless there is a prospect of recovering the amount lost, and every one who has had any experience of business knows how often this consideration prevents any exposure at a 11... _ Z', _I 1-.... - But even with this odds against the Government, does it not make a fairly favorable showing compared with private enterprise in the matter of honesty? During the foolish time when the tax on whisky offered a premium to dishonesty, -the corruption of the internal revenue was as bad as the corruption of the outside whisky ring: There were as many official thieves to take bribes, as there were thieves in private life to offer them. But that was an exceptional period, which lias gone, we hope, never to return; and we can point to the record of the Internal Revenue Department in the past five years, as we can to any other branch of the public service, and say that it is fairly honest. In this city of St. Louis, we can point to our Internal Revenue office, where one Collector has gathered in nearly $20,000,000, and the Government lias never lost a dollar; we can point to a Custom-house where the duties amount to some $2,000,000 a year, and every dollar of it is accounted for; or to a Post-office, managing the'mail business for the fourth largest city in the Union, without the loss of a dollar. Is St, Louis exceptionally honest? We are prqud to believe that in all departments of business honesty is the rule, and that the good name of our city is not undeserved. But if our officials fairly represent the high average of honesty here, is that not'strong presumption that the same tiling is the case elsewhere; and is not such a circumstance a tangible, and definite fact, ontweighing a legion of vague and windy diatribes about corruption and appeals for reform? It will at least do to think over, and as often as the attempt is made to throw on the Administration and on its whole force of servants the blame of one man’s dishonesty, we will ask the public to think of the thousands who honor their country by the faithful discharge of their duties.— St. Louis Globe.