The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1859-09-22

The PRINTING OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT
There are few Offices or positions under the fed
eral government more eagerly sought after and
pursued with more disgraceful means than the
post of public printer. Before and at the
commencement of each Congress shoals of
penniless and brainless editors are at work,
boring members for their votes. The lobby
members, too, find in this placer their richest
gains. They are hired, with promises of large
contingent commissions, to use their efforts for
the election of the man who secures their SER
vices. More disgraceful scenes than those
which attended the election of House printer at
the opening of the Thirty fifth Congress have
rarely been witnessed; and certainly, if any
thing could bring thorough discredit on the
present system and break it up completely
the corrupt sale and transfer of votes by which
Steedman was elected House printer, only to
sell out afterwards to Wendell the rival candi-
date, would have had that effect
Similar operations are again at work in re-
gard to the printing of the next Congress. AS
if there were not chances enough for plumber
in single arrangement for the printing of both
must have its own special printer. The Senate
elects one individual, the House another
When the one prints voluminous public docu-
ment by the order of one house, the other
house orders the printing Of the same dOcu-
ment Of course, by an arrangement between
the two printers, the composition work is not
duplicated; but it is charged for as if it were.
This is the greatest source of the profits.
Through this and other means the printer who
actually does the work is able to pay large
discounts to the noodle who secures the cleo
ton and sells out.
How many noodles there are at present
travelling through the country and drumming
up members for a promise of their support for
this post in the next Congress it would be
hard to say. They certainly are numbered by
scores. From the West and from the South,
and from New England, they circulate here and
there, affecting to have unlimited political
influence at home, while probably they could
not control half a dozen votes They will all
concentrate in Washington in the first week of
December, and will go around making the best
bargains they can for the transfer Of the sup
port which they may have been promised. We
may expect, therefore, to witness at the open
ing Of the next Congress more disgraceful
scenes than even those which attended the
election of House printer to the thirty-ffth
Congress.
The fact is that this whole system Of public
printing is exercising the most baneful and cor
ina, &c ~,
on that account. The fact of the two houses
having each its own printer while the work OF
both is precisely alike, is pretty conclusive
evidence of the object for which the system is
maintained. Its Alpha and Omega is plumber
The continuance of such system reflects the
utmost discredit on both houses of Congress
and on the individual members thereof. If they
or any one else should profess to be ignorant of
the gross impositions and frauds practsed upon
the government through the channel fthe pub
lie printing, we would refer them to the report
made by an investigating committee of the
House during the first session of the last Con-
gress. They will there find that the per cent
age paid by the actual printer to the fellows
who, by clubbing the votes of their respective
! supporters, managed to have one of their gang
| elected public printer, amounted to twenty
thousand dollars per month for one house
alone; that the person who had the contract for
binding sub-let it to another for the con-
sideration of twenty per cent; and that this
other again sub-let it to third party for
the consideration Of one half the profits:
| and that frauds on the same grand scale
were perpetrated in the matter of en-
craving, lithographing and electrotyping.
When it is stated that the grand total paid for
the printing, binding and engraving of the
Thirty-third Congress, was over three millions
OF dollars ($3,025,S3 92), and of the Thirty
fourth Congress over two millions 2,131-
Gil 59), the enormity Of these frauds will be
| appreciated.
There is but one practical mode of put
| ting stop to these abuses, and of snuffing
out and extinguishing for ever the little West
ern and Southern editors who batten on them,
and that is, by the establishment of a printing
bureau at Washington, presided over by com
petent man, and kept free from all political in
| fiuences Such bureau, well organized with
its corps of shorthand writer's, proof-readers
and compositors, would be able to have all the
| reporting, printing and binding of Congress
and of the departments done at fifty per cent
less than they now cost. The only apprehen-
l sion is, with the friends of such a reform that
the bureau would like all other departments
Of the general government, become hospital
| for political loafers but that danger might be
effectually guarded against in the bill debating
| the plan of organization.
The next Congress would consult its own
self-respect and the public interests by giving
| its earliest attention to this subject.
THE GREAT EASTERN AT SEA.-We learn by
the Arabia, at Halifax, that the Great Eastern
started from her moorings in due course on the