The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-01-16

however, there was no law to forbid an army
officer from becoming the private secretary
of the President Such is not the case at
present.
The Army act approved July Is, 1870, pro-
vides in section Is that cit shall not be law
full for any officer of the army of the United
States, on the active list to hold any civil
Office, whether by election or appointment;
and any such officer accepting or exercising
the functions of O civil Office shall at once
cease to be an officer OF the army, and his
commission shall be vacated thereby" This
provision utterly forbids the employment of
military officers at the White House. But
President Grant keeps three such officers
about him in violation of this law. In the
Congressional Directory" just published at
Washington, these officers are set down as
secretaries of the President. They are Gene
raj +. L. Dent, General Horace Porter, and
General 0. e. Babcock In the official re-
ports of Congress, General Porter, who
habitually bears the messages of the Presi-
dent to the Capitol, is constantly represented
as his secretary. This is false representa-
tion. General Porter is not secretary of
the President at all. 1t is well known that
the only private secretary is Mr.. Robert NJ.
Douglass But whatever else Mr.. Douglass
may do, he has never performed the most
conspicuous function of the Office, which is
to bear the Presidents messages to Con-
gress.
The three military officers who thus figure
as the Presidents secretaries fall under that
provision of the law which forbids any officer
Of the army to exercise the functions of
civil Office. In the view of the law they
have all vacated their commissions by viola
ting this provision But this is not the worst
feature of the case. If President Grant
wishes for three additional secretaries it is
his duty to apply to Congress for authority to
appoint them, and also for an appropriation
to pay for their services. This he has not
been willing to do He prefers to attain the
purpose of keeping up SO large staff by
subterfuge and equivocation, alike unworthy
of the President and of the officers whom he
puts in a false and illegal position. These
three officers appear upon the rolls of the
army not as secretaries of the President, but
as aides-de-camp in the staff of General
Sherman. AS such they are paid, and Gene
raj Sherman details them for service about
the person of the President. This piece of
false pretense, this sneaking sort of illegality,
is, we say, not creditable to any of the par
ties engaged in it.
If there be any reason why General Grant
should have larger number of secretaries
than any of his predecessors, there is no
doubt that Congress, on proof of the neces-
sity, will grant them. But certainly they
should not be military men. No civil officer,
and least of all President who has been a
military man, should be surrounded by a
military staff. There is in it something
odious and repugnant to the public feeling,
which should not be tolerated for an hour.
But the case becomes still worse when such q
staff is maintained by the President by means
which SAVIOR of false pretenses, and involve a
deceitful violation of the spirit and letter of
the law.