The Portland daily press., 1862-08-14


A few days since, the clerks and employees
of the Government at Washington, attended a
Union demonstration, and pledged their fidei-
ty to the Government, and urged the most
vigorous measures for putting down this UNI
holy rebellion. The meeting was addressedby
President Lincoln, ex-Goy. Boutwell,, Gen.
Shepley, and others, and the resolutions were
of the most inspiring and patriotic kind. But
in such a movement, the Argus of this city
sees something to condemn, to find fault with
and to carp at--as we dare say JEFF Davis or
gan at Richmond would--calls those engaged in
the demonstration "wordy patriots" whose
resolutions have no weight with thinking
men, and says:
It Is very easy for persons receiving fat
salaries TO resolve great things for Others to
do. They are greatly rejoiced at a draft of
men for the army, they say, but they do not
refer to the fact that they take no chance in
the levy, are exempts. We say with them,-
sslet the Union be restored" but their altern-
ative cor let the country be made a DESERT" is
worthy only of devils. Even if the men were
all to be killed in the struggle, the fertility of
the soil would only be increased, and the wom-
en- and children might be spared to save it
resolutions the meeting was "very small pota-
toes,D an article that seems to abound in the
District.
The Argus, it will thus be seen, takes excep
tions to any expression, from those in the en-
ploy of the Government and in receipt of its
salaries, in favor of sustaining and re-
manning faithful to that Government. 1t would
have them as mum in relation to the prosecu-
ton of the war, and as cold in its support, as
was its convention last year. They should
remain shady in this hour Of peril, attend to
their own duties, and not obtrude their opin-
ions upon others, because that, we suppose,
would be misuse of their official influence,
prostitution of their personal and moral pow
er to Legitimate uses. This is the Argus,
now, to-day.
During the years 1858, ., and go, under the
reign of James ", when it became the great
and paramount duty Of the Government to
akill Douglas" because he had dared step be-
tween the throne and the traitorous mission
upon which Cobb, Floyd, Thompson, Mason,
Slidell, and their fellow-conspirators had en-
tered, and when public meetings were held in
slaves (officials) of these wicked men, and
when the clerks were heavily taxed to support
partizan presses dedicated to the purposes of
the ripening rebellion, and when the head of
every man who would not crawl upon his
knees, and do the dirty work of the infamous
cabal then in power, was summarily chopped
of, the Argus-this same immaculate sheet
t.~I R.s..
against SO much corruption and abuse of pow
er.
We know whereof we speak 1t is no guess
work, for our relations to the Democratic par
ty at that time were such that we could not
avoid knowing the significant silence of that
sheet, and the pain and modification which
that silence brought to every true man of the
party. The Argus knew that in this State, it
was a systematized business for men in the
employ of the Government to travel all over
the State to manage and control the caucuses,
to report all petty officials who were untrue to
the purposes of Cobb, Davis, & Co., and to
bring their heads to the block. We say the
Argus knew this; 1t knew,-or might have
known-that one mani. Babson, of Ii ncoln
county-was pald eignt dollars per Gay ana
mileage equal to that ola member of Congress,
and at the same time was franked over all
mail-carrying roads, ostensibly to look after
Custom House officials and their duties, but
really to do the dirty work of Howell Cobb,
and prepare the minds of the people for the
treason soon to follow. This was special APP
pointment, to an office created for the purpose
by Secretary Cobb. Under such a rowing
commission Babson could go all over New
England, and other States, though his special
field was Maine; and other equally unprinci-
Piled men were engaged for equally nefarious
purposes, and yet the Argus never had so