The Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1837-1867, 1839-07-30

IA People who Brought this Administration into
power to get rid of Offices they supposed to be use
less, and cut OIL expenditures they believed to be
eXtTavagant
know, indeed, that, to make show ofattempt
! ing reform, the President, in his first message, in
ved the attention of Congress- TO the subject &,
ascertain what offices can be dispensed with, and
what expenses retrenched.' That part of the mes
sage was referred TO u committee of this House =
and the committee called on tho heads of all the
Executive Departments FOR information to what Ok.
tent reductions might DO mado in their several De.
parlments And, what replies do you think were
gwen! why, SIR, from every one of them there
came back the response that no reduction of Off
| GERS could be made while most OF them actually
! asked for an increase Yes, sir, increase The
'relormers had promised rerenchment if they
could get possession of the Executive Offices, and
nave the cordial aid of the President. Vol they
were gratlied. They got President of their
choice. They took possession of the Executive
offices. And, sir, the President himself-f we
can believe the declaration Of The United States
Telegraph, a: chat time his official oIgan--gave his
cordial and efficient aid by actually pisiting the
public offices to see that every thing in order
and that every man did his duty And yet his
own Secretaries, thus acting under his own imme-
date inspection, told Congress that then ar0nted
| more o6cerS!!
Thus exploded the bubble of rctronchmont and
from that time to the present, the great effort has
been to multiply offices rapidly possible to en-
able the Administration to provide for the swarlns
OF hungry, famished eXpectanls, who had for years
been cursing extravaganza, lauding economy, and
P'"yInS Ioi lcs, SIT, " yOH WIFI take the
trouble to examine the 'BUo Book you will find
that, IN every department, there has been II great
increase in the number land the amount OF com,
pensaton OF the Executive officers while the ag.
gTegate amount of the expenditures ofthe Govern
ment has swollen from lGSS than thirteen millions
to nearly forty
II is said, indeed, that thcre have been extraord.
nary demands on the Treasury within the last few
years-such as those arising from tho Florida war,
an increase Of PENSIONS &c. Now, sir without
dwelling on the wasteul extravagance of expend-
ture in the Florida war, or the Injustice, on our
part in which 1T orig inated and deducng from
the aggregate Of expenditures all chargeable to that
cause, as well as to every other of an extraordinary
nature, there will yet remain increase of several
millions which the apologsts of the Administra-
ton wholly fail to account for, consistently with
their Wanted professions of rctrenchment and
economy.
Sir, there has not been the slightest effort to rel
trench or economic. No one, indeed, has even
attempted, under all the goadnss of opposition, to
exhibit dny evidence of retrenchment. All tina [
we have Witnessed have been awkward attempts
to apologize for the vast increase of expenditure !
One of these apologies has been that the natural
increase IN the business of the Government has
called for increased plumber of officers. Now,
sir, if had time would so through the various
Departments, and show you that the increase of
officers in most if not all, of them, bears a very
great disproportiou TO any reasonably assumed
tural increase of their business. l must conten:
myself, however, with referring to one of the de !
partme nts-that of the customa--as an exampl -
have before statement from the Secretary
of the Treasury, communicated in answer a call |
Of the Senate at the last session of Congress-, ex-
hibitng the total annual expense of collecting the
evenue for twenty years, commencing with 1918,
md ending with 1887. 1t is as follows, omittiug
he fractions of dollars