The Plymouth weekly Democrat. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1860-1869, 1869-04-22
Vulnerable paymasters, commisssry and

Vulnerable paymasters, commissary and
quartermaster accounts, dating back to
! the Mexican war, and including an in
! fnitude of accounts belonging to the
rebellion, from first to last, are not yet ad-
| justed; and so great is the disorder in the
| finance department that any particular &C.
count can scarcely be discovered under
the mountains of pay-ro,ls and other loose
records. Suffers, for instance, who have
thousands of dollars credited on pay-rolls,
have waited four or five years in vain for
the payment of their claims. To work up
all the arrears the whole Of the dismissed
clerks would have their hands full, and
three times as much money might be re-
covered in adjusting the old accounts,
making defaulters reimburse, and debtors
settle with the Government, as can be
economised by dispensing with few hun
dred clerks. Nothing, moreover, promises
any improvement in the future, so long as
the system remains unchanged.
The fact is the superfluous clerks have
been dismissed because it was an easy
thing to dismiss them. The new Cabinet
was DESTROYS of seeming to perform its
promise of reform, and, finding immense
difficulties in the way of carrying on its
programme on large scale, has decapi-
tated the poor devils to inaugurate an ap-
pearance of business.
The Cabinet will scarcely succeed in
making the knowing ones believe that
the dispensing with few hundred clerks
is great stroke of economy, or that it
will be followed by the curtailment of ex-
penses on q larger scale. There are thou
sands of other unnecessary officers en-
ployed. But their appointment is made
by authority of laws which the Executive
must enforce, and which cannot be arbi-
trarily changed. For time of peace,
our regular military force is too large.
The Cabinet can scarcely reduce the ex-
penses of the army, except by giving
leave Of absence to few thousand pri-
Yates All the superf1uous officers must
be retained. 1t is the same in regard to
the legion of Internal Revenue officers.
If one-third of the employees in service
would work as long and as hard as pri-
vate citizens do, the whole Government
business might be done much better,
cheaper and more conscientiously than it
is done now. Millions and millions
might be economical, and as there would
be fewer officers there would be less steal
ing. But the Cabinet is bound by acts of
Congress to retain all these officers. The
poor clerks, therefore, are sacrificed, as
the mere signs of good intentions. If
this sacrifice could be regarded as the
commencement OF a general reform it
| might be we'll enough, though it would
always appear as ungenerous and coward
ly to commence with the poorest and
weakest, while the real cormorants are
| left in undisturbed possession of fat of
| fees, and so will remain so long as the
nation can endure the expensive blessing
of being ruled by Radicalism and hav-
ing all its income absorbed by an army of
civil officers, which will soon reach the
number of men we had in the field during
the rebellion.
The discharge from service of these
clerks evidently is only deception. A
little leak in the hull of the huge ship Of
state may be stopped by it, whilst there
are many unmanageable ones. The least
change in the tariff, small mistake in
the planning of new railroad line causes
greater damage to the nation than three
times the salary of the whole list Of dis
missed clerks. If one bushel of coal per
hour could be saved in running each
locomotive engine in the country, the
economy thereby effected would be in
| finitely greater than if the salary of all the
railroad hands were reduced fifty dollars
per annum. The latter would of course
be the more snowy economy; the former
more substantial. If, by controlling the
internal revenue officers, the hundred
millions of dollars which are stolen every
year, according to the report of Mr..
Wells, could be saved to the Government,
not only could the poor clerks be retained,
but their services, if well directed, might
become invaluable to the country. The
new Cabinet has evidently commenced at
the wrong end. Had it started from the
idea that many absolutely idle clerks were
not so costly and pernicious as fraudulent
work done by few officials, these few Gov
eminent employees might still be used to
great advantage in ferreting out frauds
and malversations.-Miss Republican,.