The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-03-04
WHERE Will IT END 2
From the NJ Y. sun,


From the ~ Y Sun,
If the appointment of persons to lucrative
or honorable positions because they gave
money or presents, directly or indirectly, to
the appointing power, is sufficient reason
for degrading or expelling from office those
who have conferred such appointments and
those who have received them, then we may
well look ahead to see where this line of pro-
ceeding is likely to end The House of Re-
presentatives have thus far applied these
principles only to the purchase and sale of
cadetships in the national academies. Do
they imagine that the people will make no
other and further application The House
having put the guillotine in motion, do its
members suppose that their constituents will
rest satisfied with seeing the blade fall only
upon the necks of three or four obscure Con-
gressmen? If they do, they are very seri-
ously mistaken.
Congress has set the ball a-going, and they
cannot stop it now. Do they believe that
well-informed politicians do not know chat
members of Congress have long been in the
habit of selling other places than cadetships
that post offices, assessorships, collector
ships, consulships and other lucrative posi-
tions, have been disposed of by Congress-
men for money and other valuable things
The practice doubtless reaches, in some in
Stances still higher than the grade of offices
just enumerated while everybody is aware
that it descends much lower. Who does not
know, for instance, that it is not very un-
common practice for the heads of bureaus
and minor departments to appoint subordi-
mates on the condition that they will divide
their salaries with their superiors?
Do the House Of Representatives mean to
lay down the broad proposition, that if be-
slows money or other valuable things upon
b, and thereupon and in consequence thereof
B appoints or procures the appointment of
to Office, both A and b ought to be expelled
from the places they respectively hold? If
| the House do not mean this, then why drive
| from seats in their chamber Whittemore, Col
| laday, and Deweese AS we understand the
| action of the House, they do not accept as
mitigating, much less as exculpatory circum-
| stances, the facts that the money in question
was raised without the knowledge or solicita-
| ton of the member who made or procured
the appointment, or was not paid to him
directly, or was not pocketed by him as a
| bribe, but was spent for charitable purposes
in his district, or to defray his election ex-
| penses; nor do they accept as a valid excuse
| that the money was raised by friends and was
contributed for the members benefit in con-
sideration of meritorious services and sacri-
| fees for 'the cause.
None of these pleas availed Whittemore
and his unfortunate colleagues. All that the
House required to be proven was that A paid
money which was in some way to be benef-
cial to b, and that Is conferred an Office upon
A in consideration of this payment. That
| ended the case, and b has had to leave
the House of Representatives, and A will
| doubtless have to quit West Point.
If this principle is sound one when ap-
piled to Congressman and cadets, then why
is it not equally sound when applied to Pre-
sidents, members of the Cabinet, collectors
of the customs, and other occupants Of posts
| of honor and emolument? Some of the gen.
| tlemen at Washington may fancy they see a
| distinction in the two classes of cases; but
the people elsewhere will not be slow to pro-
| claim that there is no such distinction; that
one law of rectitude, of honor, of decency,
binds alike a President and a member of
Congress, Cabinet officer and student of
a national academy and that if that law con-
| signs to ignominy and demands the expul-
sion from power and place of inferior officials
and their humble benefciaries, it is an out
rage upon justice and fair dealing, and a
gross insult to the people, not to infict these
penalties upon offenders of higher grade.
Is Congress prepared to carry to its logi-
cal conclusions the policy it has initiated
If not, then it had better not have COM
menced it, Are the Republicans in the
House ready to see the doctrines they have
laid down and put in execution in the Whit.
temore case, as rigidly applied outside OF
their hall, and even in the council chamber
of the President if need be? If not, then
far better would it have been for their party
if they had not SO ostentatiously sent to the
block carpet-bagger of South Carolina. Ii
it imagined that the people do not clearly
understand this matter, and fully comprehend
the nature and scope of the rule involved in
the recent action at Washington? And dc
gentlemen lay the fattering unctien to thei
souls that for the bribery and corruption
which stain the Executive and Legislativ
departments of the Government, the peopl
will accept poor Whittemore as a scapegoat
Let those in high places set their houses il
| order for their hour draws near