The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1871-06-22
SECRETARY BELKNAP AND GA.
Def SMITH,

cd elsewhere in relation to the COL
ored cadet we are glad to find new
occasion for commencing the official
action Of the Secretary of War;
Coming into Office bat little known,
and at time when the subsistence of
war in the land and political strife at
the capital promised to remit the
lately gigantic military department
of the Government TO the compare
tive obscurity and, we should add,
the usefulness of peace, the new
Secretary at once set himself down
to the inglorious task Of reforming
those MINOR Irregularities and abuses
that had grown up, escaped atten-
ton, or been neglected during the
buster days of his Predecessors, but
which, IN the little wherein lived and
moved the regular army and its va
rious agencies of supply and admin
istration, were still potent for evil
and provocative of discomfort, ex-
travagance and ineffieiency. OF the
good results of his laborsin this fold,
the reduced army estimates, year by
year, and the increasing tone of the
service bear HIM ample witness. Nor
has he been any the less successful
in dealing with the unforeseen diff
culties arising at the Military Acad-
envy, or in connection with the en-
forced discharge or retirement of a
large number Of officers, whose pla-
ces, accepted or obtained under
strong belief-founded on long GUS
tom-of their permanency of tenure,
were not relinquished without MANY
struggle at the Department and
much opposition to it's final decree.
West Point, which, deservedly or
otherwise has ever been regarded by
some as . sore upon the body polite,
has, in the past year, surpassed tho
widest forecastings of its most CON-
slant detractors. Arraying itself,
apparently, against the prevailing
and still progressive political senti.
mcnt OF the country setting at defi-
ance those principles of subsection to
law that have been accepted as part
of the very groundwork Of civiliza-
ton, and manifesting an unexpected
and nearly fatal weakness in its I'M
mediate representatives OF lawful au-
thority, it has needed strong hand,
a determined will and a wise iudg-
ment to save it from itself and from
those who would have destroyed it.
All these it has found in the Secre-
tary of War; and when, regenerated
and strengthened, the Military Acad-
envy shall have reasserted its once
conceded right to live and be foster
cd, an honored place should be found
in it for fifth memorial of William
w. Belknap.
70 return to our immediate topic !:
it is gratifying to soc, in tho order
referring TO Cadet Smith, new de.
claration that the black man, who so
lately rs eight or nine years ago had
no rights at all, shall have all the
lawful rights to which Interrogation
in the Constitution has lifted him,
and new evidences that adroit APP
peaIs to the people by those insin-
cere leaders of the party that would,
were it in power, check tho wheels
of progress and turn them back wards
to crush the race they have carried
forward to manhood, arc not to
swervc q Republican administration
from the only path it can pursue with
honor and with safety. If any Of
the white cadets at West Point have
heretofore looked upon the colored
cadet as an intruder in their sacred
domain, they can have no justifca.
ton in SO regarding him hereafter
He is fixed fact at the Academy,
and is going TO stay there.
Now thatthe old scors oredt ~