The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-01-21

AAo xocont uoFelOpmen@ OF OmclA cor
rupticn at Washington have brought into
prominence the singular Elasticity of the
political conscience in regard TO violations of
public trusts. The partisan and the partisan
organ can discover fraud in q political
opponent with astonishing facility but their
acuteness in that case does not exceed their
obtuseness when their attention happens to
be called to malefeasance on the part of their
party friends. During the reign of the Tweed
Tammanyites in this city and occasionally in
the State we were accustomed constantly to
hear eloquent democratic denunciations of
the official dishonesty of the republican
national administration, and we were taught
be found oil the rascality that ever disgraced
q profigate government Everybody remem-
bers the zeal with which the virtuous democ-
racy hunted up and exposed the notorious
revenue frauds, when millions upon millions
were stolen from the government and when
the Baileys Of the whiskey ring-the "Old
Baileys' they might have been appropriately
called-were lording it over the Internal Reve-
nue. Department At that time few, if any, re-
publican organs could discover any irregu-
larity in the conduct of their friends in Office,
and their voices were silent on the subject Of
| the wholesale plumber, unless when the fight
of some over-gorged robber compelled them
to speak Attic turn of the tide when, through
a quarrel among themselves, the boldness and
magnifcence of the Tammany thieves burst
upon the astonished world, the republicans
were rampant over the disclosures and from
the tone of their organs it would have seemed
that up to that period official robbery had been
a crime unknown. The democrats were as
slow to discover the criminality of the New
York ring as the republicans had been to de-
tect the guilt of the whskey ring, and if many
of the leading democratic politicians subse-
quently made up their minds to run with the
crowd, and actually led the chase after the
Tammany plunderers, it is noteworthy fact
| that these honest members of the party were
in oil cases leaders who had been snubbed or
| ignored by the deposed magnates.
! We are now in the midst Of startling devel-
opments duplicating members of both politi-
cal parties, but especially the most shining
lights Of the republican household, in offences
as gross and more dangerous to the Common
wealth than those for which the Tammany
corruptionists have suffered dethronementand
swer at the bar Of justice But although little
more than year has passed since the whole
| country rung with denuncation of the acts of
Tweed, Ingerson and Garvey, very little in
| terest is manifested in disclosures which show
that the fountain-head Of our republican in
situations, the Congress of the United States,
is foul with jobbery and corruption. Senators
around an agent of the Union Pacific Railroad
and Credit Mobilier rings seeking informa-
ton as to how they could invest money, &C
ceptng from him stock at fourth
or fifth part Of its understandings
borrowing of him the money with
which to pretend to pay for the shares
placed to Them and the people ore asked
to believe that these hungry, purchasable legis-
lators were only engaged in an ordinary bust
ness transaction Senators and Representatives
are proved to have consummated their bargains
with the Credit Mobilier lobbyist under the
mask of their wives or sons-in-hw, and to
have run like frightened sheep to get rid of the
stock as soon as it became evident that expo
sure was inevitable; and yet the people are
asked to believe that these lodging skulking
operators never dreamed that they were COM
hitting an improper or illegitimate act when
they accepted the pecuniary favors of the
shiny Ames Some of the tainted legislators 1
come boldly forward and justify their specula-
tions in the Credit Mobilier stock, declaring
that they had as much right to become pur-
chasers of shares in that corporation and
voting upon legislation in regard to it as they
have to buy sheep and vote on the tariff on
wool, and their party organs approve their
position or quietly pass it over as
reasonable enough to satisfy the public,
Cakes Ames, the serpent in the Congressional
Eden, avows that he had no idea of ''infuenc-
ing the votes of members when he placed
his valuable stock where it would do the most
good the Congressman who have made their
written confessions to the committee are
emphatic in their declarations that Cakes
Ames never sought an equivalent for the pecu-
mary favors he showered upon them and the
party organs accept this evidence as conclusive
proof that the transactions were innocent ones
and that no corrupt bargain was made between
the liberal lobbyist and the benefited Con-
gressmen.' But nothing is said of the necessity
of stopping the mouths and shutting the eyes
of the Senate and House Of Representatives to
the fraud Of the Credit Mobilier and to the
swindling of the government in the Union
Pacific Railroad business and the shrewd
inquiry Of Cakes Ames when q resolution of
inquiry received parliamentary smothering,
whether the investment in the Speaker of the