New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1872-01-08

votiOn to their church, their party, their social
circle or coterie but they are 10th to brave
obloquy, and hostility, and disfavOr in war
ring against crying pu5h6 wrongs They
complain that corruption is universal, but do
nothing to stem its fetid current. They
choose to obtain their rights by bribery
like knaves rather than contend for them
fearlessly like true men. Gov. Hoffman says-we
presume truly--that the very shippers and i'm
porters who according to THE TRTBUNE)
have been heeced 80 numerically by his
Quarantine officials have made no complaint
and submitted no statement of facts to him.
Grant that this does not justify his inaction,
does it it not nevertheless condemn theirs
Mr.. A. r.. Stewart rendered on Saturday a
service to the cause Of honest and frugal rule
which is only the more merit0rious that it Is
not likely to be generally appreciated nor imi-
tated. Our most successful and eminent mer-
chant left behind him his vast business, his
multifarious cares, and gave the day to an clu-
cidatiOn, before the Senates Committee of
Investigation, Of the abuses and extOrtiOns in
our Cnstom-hOusG management which are tech
nically known as General Orders THAT is, of
those general orders from the Collector to send
all imports not yet cleared at the Custom
house to the stores owned or rented by favored
parties who charge for receiving, storing.
and delivering them rates which are
highly profitable to them and quite
otherwise to the owners of the goods and the
commerce of our City. He made this exposure
in reply TO questions, some of which seem to
us calculated rather to belittle or pooh pooh"
the abuses he uncovered than to rebuke their
authors or insure their correction. Unlike
other witnesses for the people who had braved
this ordeal before him, Mr.. Stewart was once
impelled to demonstrate against tho indigni-
ties to which he was subected-a protest
which ought not to have been required. For
Mr. Stewart, at all events, is no sOre-headed
aspirant. no self-seeking politician. He speaks
as a merchant purely, and pleads for the reform
of abuses which affect him only as they affect
all merchants. He asks that Commerce may
not be exorbtantly burdened and needlessly
embarrassed simply that certain adventurous.
who are not even Of any account as pOliti-
clans, but the mere creatures and parasites of
Executive favor. shall fatten on the spOils of
an unprotected community. And he does not
ask this of Congress until he has Mt least
twice, at intervals of months, laid open the
abuse to the President in person, seeking re-
dress of one able to command it, and seeking
it In vain. 1t does seem to us impossible that
the full and clear exposure made by him On
Saturday should not secure the interpOsiiOn
hitherto sought so earnestly. yet sought in
vain
The Malakof of crying abuses and shameful
wrongs in our day ID partisan bieotry-nay,
NOT al into
and aspiration, borrowing the gaIb of blinded
craftsmanship. Every one, you would say, is a
natural enemy of abuses save those who profit
by them. Such however, is far from the
fact. Those who apprehend that their
respective parties win suffer from the OK
pOsure of this or that corruption cOnsti
tute far larger and more formidable phalanx
of practical enemies of reform. Even the SEN
ator or Representative who seeks reelection
or elevation to some higher post will ask-"Sup-
" pose there Is corruption here, will not its
" complete exposure damage my party, and
81 thus cloud my prOspeCts2 Had nj we bet
draw it mild till after the next election 2"
And thus our Leets and their sharp attorneys
enlist party prejudice and party organization
in defense Of their unjustifable extortions
ences; yet it does not. because it too often
finds its interest in pandering to tho per-
yerted sentiment which it ought to resist aud
correct. What reader of The World, for ex-
ample, has derived therefrOm any adequate
conception of the Ku-Klux OutTages and ter
rOrism whereby large sections of the South
have for years been paralyzed and desOlated
What reader of The Times has been fairly in
formed thereby of the extent of the villaines
and robberies whereby most of the
Southern States have been sunk in an
abyss Of debt and bankruptcy, their
tax payers oppressed, and their credit utterly
ruinedq What intelligent person expects from
The Times any fair exposure of rottenness and
rascality in our Revenue service? Who looks
to The World for like exposure of prodi-
gality in the recent management of our Ca
nails, or in any branch of our State admins
trationP Is THE TRIBUNE equally blind on
one sdef We hope not we mean that it shall
not be. If 1t has been even partially subject TO
such reproach in the past, we mean that IL
shall not be in the future
Will the public sustain a journal IN making
war on all corruptions, regardless Of the party
to which their authors adhere whose COOL
name they pervert to base uses, and by whose
Partially they hope to be shielded from
justice Perhaps not but the experiment is
worth trial
Not long since, n subscriber wrote 10 have
his TRIBUNE stOpped-an utterly needless and
useless procedure, since it would stop Mt any rate
SO soon as he had received all the issues for
which he had paid, aud would. under no circum-
stances, be stopped till then. He gave
as a reason another superduOus performance.
since it was none of our business for what
raason La chosa not IN buv any more TRID-