The Council Bluffs nonpareil. [volume] (Council Bluffs [Iowa]) 1857-1867, 1858-02-13
From fhe st. Louis Republican.
Cerruptisn Ut Washlnstsn.


Csrr1psisn 1t washinstsn. ss
Mn. Enron An. Iowa paper Council
Bluffs NonpareiD of the 5th inst. contains
temperate yet very pointed criticism upon
tho Official conduct of the Commissioner of
the General Land Office, from which (omit-
ting the numerous specifcations) / copy the
following paragraph and conclusion:
ssThere il very great distrust in the com
munity as to the purity Of the Land Depart
ment ut Washington, and erery one believes
! that the business of the department 10 in the
most disordered condition. There 10 no
order, system or regularitysin the details of
business. Decisions are made ono day, on
the most important points, to be overruled
the next. Important rules and instructions
are given to one Office and never commune
Gated to others, so that there are hardly two
local land Offices that are guided by the same
rules.
We are satisfied that the
community at large would look with pleas
missioner, Hendricks, and the appointment
of a business man, of comprehensive
views"
Although this appears in m opposition
Journal am satisfied it is strictly true. 1t
is known, indeed, that nothing but delicacy
of feeling, growing out OF his own removal,
coupled with the hope that Mr.. Hendricks
would be ultimately superseded upon the
record which the late Register at Plattsburg
had to furnish against thst gentleman from
making public the exposition which he some
time since forwarded to the President
This exposition, if am informed Alright,
convicts the Commissioner, not only of all
that is charged against him at the Offices in
Iowa, but of the most deliberate fdlsi fcdtion
in his oscn official records, in order to carry
through fraudulent land claim of eighteen
or twenty thousand acres, preferred by
parties in Pennsylvania, through the agency
Of the principal clerk in the Office at Wash
ington! As Democrat, regret to add,
that from the understanding have received
of this, from some Of the parties to it in this
country, the Secretary Of the Interior can
only escape a similar implication with the
Commissioner, by throwing upon his subor-
dinate, or his clerk, the crime Of having
misled him. So that, in any view of the
case, there is noed that the thing be looked
into, instead of being plastered over, or
"hus'.ed up"
When a whole department becomes so
tainted, that even its subordinates at the
District Offices are constrained either to join
| in its denunciatiop, or hang their heads in
modification and shame, it is time at least,
if the President has been ovcrreached by his
subordinates, for his friends in Congress to
look into the gross impositions which are
practiced upon him, and the injury thereby
inflicted upon the party. ~--ss %sass
If this be undertaken by Congress, in the
right spirit, and only half q dozen land
! Agents, and rs many Registers and Receiv-
ers, of the Presidents otcn dpointing, from
different sections Of the country be sum-
moned, make myself responsible for the
prediction that the testimony alone, in con-
nection with the records, which they will, as
it were, erhume. will convict the Commits
sioner, in spite of his bombastic and snowy
reports, of either being too indolent and in
attentive to his duties-too incapable of
graphing them or too corrupt in administer
ing them-to have the oversight of clerks so
prorerbidHy approachable, that in estima-
ting the fee Of an agent at Washington, it is
by no means unfrequent to remember the
clerk who has to arrange or ssmake up'' the
case.
As, however, the clerks could all be
brought straight in a week, if placed under
tho eye of a proper official superior, the
friends of the President concur in the hope
expressed in the complaint from the Office at
Council Bluffs, that he will no longer delay
the "removal of the present Commissioner,
and the appointment of business man of
comprehensive views.'
BUCHANAN DEMOCRAT.
PLArrsBURo, December %, 1857.