Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1869-04-01
word for our Public Men.

The Chicago Republican, under this
heading, has sensible, article in which
it notes the present tendency to decry
our public men. Popular opinion, the
Republican says, oscillates to extremes
like the pendulum of clock. At one
time, we regard our public men, oil
many of them, with a kind of hero
worship, and exalt their characters and
exaggerate their virtues. Now, the
tendency is in the other direction, and
the common occupation of writers fol
| the press is TO attack the characters and
sneer at the honesty and virtue of men
in public life. The journal referred to
put in timely word:
To many of our public men the peo-
pie owe debt of enduring gratitude for
their noble efforts to contribute to the
general welfare. Every pioneer and
| frontier settler has found benefactor in
Julian, of Indiana, who has stood guard
over the homestead and preemption
laws with faithful and effectual watch
fulness. Every citizen should shrine
the name of Jenckes of Rhode Island,
as one whose time, talent and energies
have been devoted, in the face of incred-
ible obstacles, to the regeneration of the
civil service. Every taxpayer should
embalm with his heart the sixteen years
of effort which E. B. Washburne, of Illi-
nois, has exhibited in protecting the
treasury vaults from the rapacious hands
of plunderers, and from the waste of
unnecessary appropriation. So signal
have been his services looking to such
dc hot H. l,n,
sional circles, the nickname of "Old
Economy"
Thus we might go through the list of
such Representatives as Boutwell,, of
Massachusetts; Schenck and Garfield,
CT Ohio; Blaine, of Maine; Maynard, of
Tennessee; Covode, of Pennsylvania;
Wilson, of Iowa; and so on through
list too numerous to be recOunted. Ex-
tending our researches to the Senate,
we would there find u number of noble
men, who are not only above suspicion,
but whose services have been SO signal
that their names have become household
words.
The fault of the times has been that
charges against public men have been
toe sweeping there has been too little
discrimination between the good and
bad. Paragraphists and letter-writers
may cheaply and readily bloviate
about "the politicians" and "party
hacks" as pests of the Republic and nui-
sancss ofits governmental functions; but
common sense are beginning to see that
the NJ ture of Senator's or Represen-
tative's official duties forces him to be
politician, while the division of the
country into parties, equally forces him
to be, within proper hand reasonable
meaning a DartiSan.
There is, we are glad to knew, grow
ing inclination among the voting mass
es, to frown down indiscriminate
clamor against and abuse of our public
men, and to distinguish between those
who make trade and those who
make science of politics. All honor,
we say, to the men who have stood the
test ofthree to eight successive elections
to Representative honors, or who, at
the close of second Senatorial term,
have found the Endorsement of q further
return to official duty These are the
ones whose heightened and repeated ex-
perience has trained them to that skill
in the performance of their functions
which is one of the best safeguards of
the peoples interests. The public are
to understand that the de-
nunciation of such men, without adduc-
ing proof of the charges made, is merely
q proceeding in the interests of plum
dering lobby, or in resentment for frus-
tration of some AK grinding scheme.