The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1860-03-30
The Printing Plumber In Congress-Mr.
Haskin's Report.

OF Public Expenditures under a resolution of
the House instructing said committee to inquire
and report fully as to the public printing.
This investigation has been conducted by the
chairman of the committee, Mr. Haskin, and
the honorable gentleman deserves the thanks
of the country for the thorough way in which
bis work has been done. 1t is quite true that
Mr.. Uaskin's committee did not ascertain any
facts which were not previously stated in the
press; that he failed altogether in adducing
anything against the President and Cabinet,
Zone of the main partisan objects of the inves-
tgation) and that he damaged the party to
which he has gone rather more than that which
he recently left; but if the member for West
chester made blunder as q politician, he has
more than retrieved 1t in the service which be
has rendered the country as public man.
The facts as to this monstrous piece of cor
ruption, the printing job, have now become
part Of the history of the country. The evil
dence makes thick pamphlet of over one hun
dred pages and is as rich record of rascality
and cool, deliberate swindling as the Newgate
Calendar or the Pirates Own Book. 1t should
be printed in yellow covers by all means. The
principal witness before the committee was Mr..
Cornelius Wendell, who, although not elected
Printer to either the Thirty-ffth or Thirty
sixth Congress, yet was the de facto Printer
of the first, and incidentally of the last. Wen
dell paid to Steedman, the Printer elected by
the last House, thirty-four thousand dollars
bonus for the job. The newly elected Printer
had nothing whatever to do with the work, but
he divided the bonus with a gang of hungry
country editors like himself Each of these
suckers had few votes in his pocket; and
although the combination was known to mem
bers as we'll then as now, it was carried into
effect, and the country was swindled out of the
sum paid to Steedman & Co. That much for
the House under democratic rule.
The organization of the House is now in
other hands, but the same game is carried on.
Look at the scene few weeks ago. Washing
ton is full of broken. down country editors
and lame ducks, of politicians who have come
from the North, the East and the West, to have
little dash at the printing job. There they
all are, granting and fighting like so many pigs
waiting &c be fed. One Defrees, who edits a
sickly paper in Indiana, inhumanly deserts his
painting, and it incontinently yields up
The ghost. Once Defrees actually gets
into the trough, and the savory mess
steams under his nose, when, owing to
the shocking ingratitude of Mr.. Charles Francis
Adams, in favor of whose father Defrees 'first
wrote against General Jackson" it was sud-
denly taken away. Now comes monster
porker, with three or four little sharp-nosed,
faced Yankee suckers in his wake. He
is corn.fed Ohio boar of the ponderous or.
der. His grunt is splendid bass. With one
turn of his snout away goes Defrees in the dirt,
and the Cbevalier Tom Ford is astride of the
trough, with his paws and his nose deep in the
Apician dish. Before he has had time to serve
out ration to the little squealers about him,
the Chevalier is driven away, but finally sue
ceeds in getting back again, and quietly feeding
at his supreme leisure.
Defrees was to give one half of his profits to
help the republican cause in the doubtful
States, and made such bargain with Kilgore,
member from Pennsylvania. This was to be
spent for documents" Defrees was very par.
ticular about that stipulation, and we give him
the benefit of it. documents" are good
things. Twenty thousand dollars for "docu-
ments" would be as effective in Pennsylvania
as that other twenty thousand with which Tom
Ford didn't carry the Keystone State for Ere.
mont.
Now, as to Tom Ford. The Chevalier was as
jolly as a well fed porker ought to be. He
made Jokes, this funny Tom Ford. He,
if elected, was to help Defrees, and also
man named Moran, from Philadelphia
(once publisher of sickly daily; Pangborn,
of the Boston atlas, "a shabby concern,
far gone in consumption, and only kept alive
by inhaling official pap and one or two more
sufferers, including the Republic and Era, Wash
ington papers since deceased. Ford's bon mot
was, that he was soldier, and "took care Of
the wounded" So these fellows make the
printing money hospital fund, and the House
of Representatives hotel for the sick, the
lame, the blind and halt politicians from every
two-penny country newspaper office in the
| Union. According to Ford, men come to
Washington without sufficient money to pay
their tavern bills. and ask Congress to give
them work which requires at least one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars cash capital to start
with Is not that sublime effrcntery? All the
evidence goes to show that the House pays two
dollars for every dollars worth of work done.
and that the extra dollar is divided among
small potato editors from the provinces.
The Senate is little better off. That distin.
guished military journalist General George
Washington Bowman, is the printer de j,re; but
being also the responsible editor of that won
derful journal, the Constitution, he cannot at
tend to the first named job, and he hands it
over to that long-sufering patriot William G..
RiYes, who nays the martial Senate Print