The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-11-10
THE PRESIDENT AND EX-SECRE-
TARY COX

the Cabinet we have never been animated by
anything but q desire to do exact and equal
Justice to all parties concerned, and if we
have censured the President it has been be-
cause we sincerely believed that he deserved
censure, and that the good of the country in
general and Of the Republican party in par
ticular required that he should be informed
that the men who appeared to be most inte-
rested in forcing Mr.. Cox out of the
Interior Department were dangerous, and
that he could not allow himself to be in
fuenced by them without damaging his repu-
tation, and endangering the welfare of the
party that elected him. AS a sort of reply to
MIR. Cox's letter of resignation the President
has now published a correspondence that took
place between himself and the Secretary of
the Interior last summer with reference to
the famous McGarrahan claim. In these
letters the President certainly appears to
more advantage than Mr.. Cox, for he states
that suspicion of gross frauds exists, and that
he is unwilling to take any action in the mat
ter until it has been definitely settled by
Congress. He accordingly directs
that no patent shall be
signed without his special orders. Mr.. Cox,
on the other hand, appears as a somewhat
violent partisan of McGarrahan's opponents
and enters upon lengthy argument
to stow that they are in the right
What he says with regard to the interference
of local courts with the executive business of
the country seems to be correct enough upon
general principles; but so far as the settle
ment of the dispute between McGarrahan
and the New Idria Mining Company is con-
ko1ro -
not to permit any executive action until Con-
gress had decided which contestant was in
the right was unauestionably the correct one.
At the conclusion of his letter Mr.. Cox re-
quests to be relieved from duty if his course
has not met with the entire approval of the
President; and it is upon the strength of this
request that the apologists of the President
contend that the retirement of Mr.. Cox took
place.
We are unable to see that the publication
of the documents referred to above throws
any great light upon the secret causes for
MIR. Cox's exit from the Cabinet. In the first
place, if the Washington correspondents of
nearly all the newspapers in the country are
to be believed, the President has declared
again and again that he had no serious con-
troversy with Mr.. Cox concerning the McGar-
rahan claim, and that it had nothing what
ever to do with his retirement. This
statement has been made SO often as coming
directly from the President, that the country
is interested in knowing whether he
the second place, the influences
to which we ascribed the enforced resigna-
ton of Mr.. Cox have been plainly indicated
in the public and private reports from Wash
ington for months past. Last summer, when
the letter of Mr.. Cox, refusing to allow his
clerks to be assessed by the Congressional
Committee for political purposes, was pub
lished, we said that he would undoubtedly be
maligned, and if possible driven from Office;
and since then the daily increasing intimacy
of such men as Senators Cameron and Chand-
Ter with the President, and the open and CO.
vert threats made against the Secretary of the
Interior, made it evident that q strenuous
effort was being made to force him
out of the Cabinet. At the time
when his resignation was accepted,
all the indications were that Chandler and
Cameron were the chief instruments in pro-
curing his removal, and that their reasons
for ousting him were that he would not per-
ullL luoLn W manipulate luo D6pdfG-
ment to suit their own ends. The CORES
pondence with regard to the McGarrahan
claim that the President has published
places him in favorable light so far as it is
concerned, but it does not explain all that the
public feel interested in knowing with regard
to Secretary Cox's removal, nor is it an
answer to the statements made in Mr.
Cox's letter of resignation with regard
to the opposition of politicians to his efforts
in the way of civil service reform and the
purifoation of the Indian Bureau. If the
President has any defense to the implied
charge contained in that letter, that he pre-
fers to give up any attempts at reform rather
than to quarrel with certain political wire
pulers, he certainly ought to make it, but the
McGarrahan correspondence certainly does
not touch upon the main question.
The resignation of Mr.. Cox and the reasons
that are believed to have induced it have
caused profound sensation throughout the
country; and whether he was in the right or
in the wrong, it ought to lead to those re-
forms in the administration of the Govern
ment that every honest man desires. The
controversy that has occurred will at least
have the effect of informing the President
that there is public opinion that he cannot
afford to disregard, and that is better worthy
of conoiliation than such intriguers as
Cameron and Chandler.