The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1872-06-14

positlVe merit, III designating n CITIZEN
for particular post, the President
might appoint relation, it would be
only where merit was 80 shining that his
absence would be noticed. At least il
must be such as to make citizen can.
didate, without regard to family. But
no such merit 10 attributed TO the bene-
ficiaries of our President, some of whom
have done little but bring scandal upon
the public service. At. least. one il
tainted with fraud and another, with
the com mission Of the Republic abroad,
has been guilty of indiscretions incon.
sistent with his trust. Appointed origi-
nally in open defiance Of republican
principles, they have been retained in
Office after their unfitness became pain.
fully conpicuous.
Here l leave for the present this
enormous pretension of nepotism,
swollen to elephantiasis, which nobody
can defend and ] pass to gift taking, which
with our President has assumed an un.
precedented form. For q public man
to take gifts is reprehensible. For the
President TO select Cabinet counselors
and other officers from among those
from whom pc has taken gifts is an
anomaly in republican annals.
An ancient Patriarch feared Greeks
bearing gifts, and these words have be-
come a proverb: But there are
Greeks bearing gifts elsewhere than at
Troy"
A public man can traffic with such
only at his peril, and at its appearance a
prayer should be said, "Lead US not in.
to temptation" The President noto-
riously has taken gifts while in the pub
lie service, some at least after he had
been elected President, until the Galena
tanner of few hundred dollars year
is now rich in houses, lands, and stock
above his salary, being probably the
richest President since General Wash.
ington. He has appointed to his Cabi.
net "Greeks bearing gifts" without
seeming to see the indecorum, if not the
indecercy, of the transaction. At least
two, if not three, of these Greeks, hav.
ing no known position in the Republi.
can party, or influence in the country,
have been selected as counselors in Ma.
tional affairs, and are heads of great
Departments of the Government. Nor
does the case of the FIRST Secretary of
State, appointed as a compliment, differ
in character from the other threat. The
President; feeling under personal obi.
cations 10 Mr.. Washburne for important
support, gave him a complimentary
nomination, with the understanding
that after confirmation he should forth.
with resign. cannot forget the indig.
liant comment of the late Senator FEES.
sender, as we passed out of the Senate
Chamber Immediately after the con-
firmation, who said he "never heard be-
fore Of man nominated as Secretary of
State merely as q compliment" But
this is only another case of the public
service subordinated so personal con.
siderations, not only in the Cabinet, but
in other Offices. There is reason to
believe that the President has been
under the influence of patrons. Why
was he SO blind as to Thomas Murphy +?
The Custom House of New York, with
all its capacity as political engine, was
handed over to this agent, whose want OF
recognition in the Republican party was
unbalanced by the President, and whose
gifts have become notorious; and when
the demand for his removal was irresisti.
BILE, the President accepted his resigna.
ton, with an effusion of sentiment
natural toward patron, but without
justification in the character of the re-
firing officer. have now completed a
survey of two typical instances of nePot-
ism and gifttaking officially compensa-
ted, in which we are compelled to see
the President. In these things he
shows himself. This is no portrait
drawn by a critic or an enemy. Its
original stands forth, saying, Behold
the generosity l practice to my relations
at the expense of the public service:
also, the gifts take, and then my way
of rewarding my patrons, at the ex-
pense Of the public service. In this
open exhibition we see how the Presi.
dency, instead of trust, has become
perquicite. A President that can do
such things, and not recognize at once
the error he has committed, shows that
super eminence of egotism under which
the Constitution, international law, and
law, to say nothing of repub.
lican government in its primary princi-
pies, are all subordinated to the Presi.
dental will, and that this is personal
government. Add an insensibility to
the honest convictions of Others, and
you have a characteristic incident Of
this pretension. Initiating
the Popes in nepotism, the President
has inflated them in an ostentatious as
Of infallibility. Other Presi-
dents have entered upon Office with a
certain modesty and distrust, but Grant,
untried in civil life, entirely
a new man, in entering upon the
sublimest duties, before which Washing
ton and Jefferson had shrunk, said, in
his inaugural: "The responsibilities Of
the position l feel, but l accept them
without fear" The next step, after the