The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1857-02-04
From the Ohio Eagle.]
The Smelling Committees.

The Smelling Committees.
The investigating committee after te-
dious and protracted labor have brought
forth their bantlings, the fusion Legis-
lature standing godfather to them. A
vast amount of foolscap has been consum-
ed in order to present the minutest of
the astounding disclosures and every
black republican newspaper in the State
has been furnished with 'stupendous
frauds astounding developments, start
ling revelations wherewith to embellish
its columns, to the great detriment of
the business of the accident maker
The Democratic party never has shun-
ned investigation. 1t has invited it.
Ever the uncompromising foe to fraud,
corruption and political iniquitY, its his
tory has been one connected story of
conflict with gigantic fraud, and wrongs
perpetrated against the people. 1t has
never taken to its bosom for protection,
a single individual who has sought to
make it the shield and covering of his
individual sins. But every thoughtful
and just citizen of any party, has con-
demned the policy and the wrong of
these offensive and costly smelling com
mittees. The Hiss Committee of Mass
achusetts. of strong olfactories. the
Kansas Committee with its still born
report, and lastly our Ohio Committees
with their rehash of developments a year
old have but served to make them all a
reproach, and to bring odium upon their
very name. Fair investigation is not
to be obtained through the scent of paid,
partizan blood hounds, by exparte ex-
aminations, condemning alike innocent
and guilty without a hearing, by partial
evidence inadmissible in any court of
justice. And again, instead of paying
nerly four thousand dollars for the ex-
penses of smelling committees, causing
an adjournment of the Legislature at a
cost Of perhaps 500, 600, to receive the
report, it strikes the good sense of all
that everything of Importance obtained
by a committee sitting during the Leg
islature, or through the sworn officers
whose duty it is to make these discover
les if they are required, and finally we
say that this immense expense has elici-
ted nothing which was not known and
exposed even before the appointment of
the committee. These disclosures and
developments are no new things although
paraded now with a flourish of trumpets
as if it had been the work of the virtu-
ous fusionists in power to bring them
to light. The Democracy had o vigi-
liant, brave, honest sentinel on guard at
the treasury of the State, a man of stern,
uubending integrity as inc%orruptible as
Aristides, and a fit type of the pure,
bold, jackson Democrat, we mean our
former Auditor of State, Hon. VIM. d.
Morgan, who boldly told in plain lam
guage all that these dark lantern COM
-mittaes have endeayored t. cover with
the air of mystery. The letting of the
public works, the extravaganza of the
Trustees of the new Asylums, the bad
policy of going beyond the %appropria-
tons of the Legislature in making con-
tracts for the work on the new public
buildings was all distinctly set forth and
denounced in the last annual report of
Auditor Morgan, and the intelligent
reader will fnd in the lS pages of this
report costing the State no extra ex-
peuse, all of importance that can be
cleaned from the 1000 pages of foolscap
gotten up at an enormous expense by
the fusion smelling committee. We will
take occasion hereafter to publish ex-
tracts from his report to su5stantiate
what we now say. But how much of
credit will this faithful public officer
ever receive.
First, we have the report upon the
lettings, this exparte report duplicates
in what it alleges to be a great wrong,
the board of which hat ancient whig
model of a works man the black repub-
lican Blickensderfer was an active mem
Der, and who never yet has opened his
mouth to condemn the conduct of the
board; and why ? because if friends were
favored his old wing and fusion friends
received the lions share of the favors,
They were not given 10 party favorites
exclusively, for we find men protesting
to be Democrats and fusionists the re-
c~ipients of them. Why, we ask, did not
B~lickensderfer and the fusion member
of the board, who succeeded MIR. Steed-
man, when they were In the majority
aud held the whole control of the mat
ter, bring to the light these fraudulent
contracts ? aud why did they ratify and
approve them if wrong? If wrong has
been done, and the Democracy dare
boldly to denounce the wrong doors
who act with them, dare the fusionists
to bring their w men to the bar and
denounce and impeach them ? we shall
see again, who was the active man. in
creating the vast debt against the State
for expenditures in building and furnish
ing the new Lunatic Asylums ? what
drove P. P. Lowe from the Democratic
party to the more c%ongenial companion
ship of the black republicans? Rumor
says that he was angered by the frmness
and integrity of the Democratic admin
istration in refusing to pay enormously
extravaganza bills against the State made
by him as one of the Trustees. How
many of the contractors on the new
| State House work, who may possibly
have got the advantage of the State, In
their contracts, were old wings and flu
s~ionists =? 1t is contemplate in dishon-
est party journals to seek to charge the
Democratic party with whatever pri-
vate individual wrongs may have been
done the State by men employed by it.
Before the mighty power of that great
party of the people, how much error,
fraud and wrong has gone down, and We
challenge comparison and contrast, be.
tween the Democratic administration of
the State, and the present or any for.
mer one, for rigid economy, and faithful
honesty. We again demand an inves-
tigation of the transaction BY which our
State bonds were sold by the fusion