The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1860-04-04


sumed by some of the abolition journals that
because the real purposes of the party engi-
neers, IN raising the corruption committees,
have been exposed, there IS an attempt to
stite the investigation. This is an error of so
gross nature as to deserve to be character.
lied as an Intentional misstatement. Every
one desires that official corruption, wherever
it exists, whether in the Federal, State, or Mu-
nicipal governments, may be ferreted out. ven
tilated and properly punished. The only
question is, how is it to be done? What are the
best measures to be pursued, and how shall
the inquisitors begin their work?
As to the primary point of the matter there
can be no doubt that there is more or less cor
ruption in nearly all the departments of the
government. Nations are constituted OF indi-
viduals with the passions and the weaknesses
common to human nature. Therefore, officials
will succumb to temptation as easily as pri-
vate persons; and as governments are con-
stituted with vast routine machinery. OPP
portunities for pluDder are never want
ing. That has been the case in every
organized government in the world, and it will
be SO till the end of time the miieninn,
when the pickers and stealers of all the lobby
men are to be duly extracted The evil ad-
mitted, the remedy comes to be considered
Congress has power to investigate in its WI
way. The House has made the incorruptibe
m, mber for Westcbester Chairman of the Com
r,ittee on Public Expenditures, with general
license to overhaul all the departments. IF
this was done thoroughly it would be great
thing The machinery of the departments, and
of public executive offices generally, is in the
hands of subordinates, who, from long ac
uuaintance with their duties are able to
mystify the head of the department who rs
changed quadrensislly or otener, add to
manage the business of the Office % they
| please. The head of the department enters
| upon his duties without the slightest know
! ledge of its details, and at about the time
that he begins to have faint glmmering of
| light on the subject he goes out of Office.
From these facts it will be readily seen that
the Congressional Committees have gone to
work rather to make little political capital,
| by abusing the President and his Cabiuet
|
of the Treasury by dishonest public servants.
1t is not supposed by any man, in his sober
senses, that either Mr.. Buchanan (who has
public record Of more than forty years without
| suspicion of STAIN, or either of his consti-
| tutional advisers, knows anything about the al
legged populations or corrupt practices Of their
subordinates. No one knows this fact better
than the members of the House themselves.
And Notwithstanding all this they 60 delibe-
rately to work and attempt to blacken the repu-
tation of pure and good men, who have given
the whole of their mature years and conse-
Grated their lives to the public service We
should applaud any action which would really
tend to purify the public offices; but we de-
Ispair of ever seeing any such thing. The COM
mittees are nearly all humbugs, and so under
stood and intended by their originators The
last affair of this kind is engineered by the
Forney -Haskin clique, which, with a degree of
efrontery altogether unparalleled in the an
malls of impudence, is endeavoring to fasten
upon the Administration the odium of all
the jobs fixed up in poor Pierce's kitchen,
when Forney was one of the chief cooks
This clique reduced the business of Spolia-
ton to science, and kept hot fire going
in the White House kitchen night and day
Now Forney has gone over to the republicans,
and with them is charging upon the President
and his Cabinet the peccadilloes of the lobby
men, of whom the Chevalier is the chief Even
now the republicans are supplying Forney
with money wherewith to abolitionize Penn
sylvania in time for the Presidential election.
These are facts, and they prove conclusively
that the corruption committees are the traps of
tricky politicians, set to catch simple minded
| fools.