The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-02-03


Albany.
i There are no doubt many honest and pa
triotic people in the United States of America
1t is quite certain that there are millions OF
citizens within the Republic who pursue legit-
innate business in legitimate manner VINO
possess more or less intelligence, and who are
ordinarily prudent and upright in their deal
ings with their fellow men. Out of our forty
millions of population, not one IN hundreo
follows political life as money making spec
ulation, and probably ninety-nine in every
hundred are aware that professional politicians
"a general rule are unworthy of confidence
and seek Office only to prey upon the country.
Yet we find these honest, patriotic, intelligent
millions year after year aiding to place the af-
fairs of the nation and of the several States in
the hands of persons who they would not trust
with the management of their private concerns.
How is it that men who love their country,
and takesa pride in its progress and its repu-
tation, are more careless in the selection
of public officers than they would be in the
hiring of clerks and assistants in their own
business? How is it that those who are indie
pendent of politics suffer themselves to be SO
| constantly made the tools of trading poll.
ticiansP The reason may be found in the
character of the American people-in their
hurried, rushing, active life, which renders
them disincined to think deeply for them
selves, and induces them to allow others to
think and act for them. We are nation Of
politicians No intelligent citizen is unfa-
miliar with the great public questions of the
day or ignorant of the true position of the
contending parties Yet we allow ourselves
to be deceived and hoodwinked by political
organs and to be led by the nose by political
organizations. We take our party paper and
accept its teachings without examination. We
call ourselves democrats or republicans, as the
case may be, and we endorse such nomina-
choose to give us, and vote the tickets issued
from the regular box without even looking at
the names of the candidates.
The citizens of the United States are to-day
paying the penalty of this carelessness in the
discharge of their political duties. They find
the most important interests of the nation in
the hands of untrustworthy men. They dis
|
foul with corruption; that it's presiding officer
is disgraced before the world; that some of
its most pretentious members stand convicted
of acts that would scandalize an Albany or
Harrisburg Legislature; that others have
bought their way to seats by the most shame
less bribery. They see leader after leader in
the House of Representatives implicated in
transactions that should consign any public
officer to infamy. The Tammany frauds were
startling enough, but they were committed by
men of low origin, of degraded tastes, of
coarse, brutal and depraved natures. Few
persons were astonished when it was found
that the politicians who had graduated from
jewelry and drive fast horses, had stolen the
money which they Haunted before the eyes OF
the people in such vulgar show. But the
! recent developments have unmasked a diff
, ferent class of offenders. Harlan, Wilson, Col
fax Patterson, Pomeroy, Brooks, Garfield and
Dawes have been held up to the world as
models of purity in private life and of integrity
in public trusts These are the men who
have been Landed for their virtues, whose lives
have been paraded as examples of Christian
purity whose patriotism has been of the dem
onstrative kind. Yet they differ from the
Tammany politicians only in the fact that
their corruption has been less bold and reck-
less. The Secretary of the Interior who &C
cepts gift of ten thousand dollars from a
grasping corporation whose interests are
largely under his control, is as guilty of pub
lie wrong as is the official who plots with the in
former Garvey to add two hundred per cent to
his bills against the city and to divide the
plumber. The Senator or Representative in
Congress who takes bride from Cakes Ames
criminal as the legislator who would sell him.
self for so many dollars to the Tammany OF
Erie Rings. 1t may be said that the people
could not have been guilty of carelessness in
trusting such men as those whose faithlessness
has just been exposed. But the offenders have
all for years been professional politicians ant
ofice-seekers, and their characters have beer
taken on trust on the word of political party
They have been accepted as honest men OF
; the testimony of politicians by millions O.
citizens too busy or too careless to think and
Judge for themselves. They will be retained
in Office because majority of their associates
are equally loose in their ideas of official recti
. tude.
: Unfortunately, the experience afforded by
these recent disclosures does not promise a
present to render the people more cautious il
, their selection of public officers, or the poll
! ticians more honest in the discharge of public
trusts. The party organs are united in the
} efforts to protect their several friends from tn
} consequences Of their unworthy acts. Sin tn
eyes of these journals official corruption ca,