The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1872-07-13
Whitewash.
(Fro,n tbe Missouri Rennbl;can

1t is most fortunate thing for the
Grant party that lime is abundant
and whitewash cheap in this country.
That party uses an incalculable guam
tity OF the article, and if its manufac-
ture were limited to Massachusetts or
Pennsylvania, and high protective
tariff imposed on its importation, the
whitewasll bill for single session of
Congress would bankrupt the party.
Never were so many investigating
committees ordered and put to work,
as ut the late session-ordered and
put to work, be it remembered, in
spite of the opposition of the party
whose officials and favorites were to
be investigated. Never was SO much
corruption inquired into; never were
SO many reports made; and never
were so many suspected official char
acters found to be SO immaculate and
shining. The Administration party
could not consistently refuse to inves-
tigate the charges against the Presi-
dents friends and flvorites; but they
did the next best thing, they white
washed the last man of them. They
vindicated Secretary RObeson, who
paid the 500, 900 Secor claim without
authority; they vindicated the War
Department, which sold arms to the
French knowing they were to be used
in the war against the Germans; they
vindicated Casey, who used Gatling
guns and q revenue cutter for partisan
purposes i'll Louisiana and, last of
all, they vindicated those precious
fellows, Leet and Stocking, knights
of the General Orler,n us Mr.. Schurz
called them. Some of these accused
Presidential favorites had been openly
denounced by the more respectable
organs of the Administration which,
mortified by their shameless conduct,
had loudly called upon the President
to remove them. They had spoken of
Casey as disgrace to the civil SER
vice, and counseled the President, for
the good of the party, to turn him out
of the New Orleans CollectOrship; and
they had joined with the opposition
journals and the journals of New
York, in denouncing the General
Order" robberies of Leet and Stock
ing, and demanding their removal
and the abolition of the General
Order" business. But notwithstand-
ing all this, the majority reports of
the investigating committees found
no fault with the Presidents pets.
They discovered nothing wrong in
Louisiana, and nothing wrong in New
York. The management of the New
Orleans Custom House under Collec-
tor Casey, and of the New York Gus
tom-H House under Tom Murphy, was
reported to be excellent. Casey was
found to be an excellent fellow and q
most decorous and proper official; so
was Tom Murphy; so were Leet and
Stocking; so were all the rest of them.
They saw nothing wrong about the
General Order business in New York,
ont of which Leet was making q hun
dred thousand II year, and of which
A. L. Stewart had complained to the
President; they heard of no Gatling
guns and misused revenue cutters at
New Orleans; they heard of nothing
wrong anywhere. At all places they
found things in delightful condition,
and the whole civil service under
Grant to be as pure and chaste as in
the most virtuous age of the Republic;
and SO they virtually reported.
There never was more cOld-bl0Oded
defiance of the public sentiment than
this wholesale whitewashing OF cor
rupt officials by the Presidents party
in Congress. The facts, as charged
and admitted by respectable Admin
istration journals, were sufficiently
established; the whole country knew
them, and fair minded Republicans
condemned them. Yet, in the face of
this universal Indignation, the Presi-
dents party refused to find the of
tenders guilty, and the President re-
fuses to remove one of them from of
fee.