New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-08-09

stonier till with great gurgle and gush ana
ouIn If neroration. and wild outburst OF
gesture. the lord of the manor ceased.
Tho owner Of the cabbage patch, slowly re-
covering from his daze, changed MS ioo'iiis
uneasily and gave his hat an extra twis'
then. as one coming out OF nightmare ho
caught his breath convulsively, ana saying
with great disgust, "Mr. Shamison, you re
&" dom'd humbook," turned and lett the
presence
Somehow. Mr.. Buffers seven column defense
of the Salary Grab reminds us OF TINS story
Not that it is written in the pato's alluded 10,
or that an unsOphisticated and aggrieVed
people has called him in so many words
{" dom'd humbook !" but there IS In 1t such an
iIlusiye yolubility, o sort of something that
gives you an idea occasionally that he Is
really talking about the Salary Grab, and the
essential quality of that transaction, when
plainly he is not-it only comes in as the
genuine German word drops into the patols,
quite incidentally, but with just enough fire.
quency to keep up the illusion, that really we
could not help thinking of "Mr. Shamison."
Seven mortal columns AS much noise almost
as the powder-boat made and about as ef-
fective on the Grab that was on Fort
Fisher.
We have said Mr.. Buffers defense is much
the cleverest that has yet been offered. We
mean by that to say that it misleads the reader
and befogs the question much more success
fully than any other. BY artfully drawing in
procession of people who arc denounclng
this measure, but have heretofore voted for
and participated in the profits of similar bills,
he makes an entertaining and spicy diversion
his personalities are always piquant-but ne
evades the subject entirely. 1t makes no I'LL
ference with the moral quality of this trans
| action if all the Washburns and Hoars ana
Wilson's in the country have done something
remotely similar, or precisely the same, at
| some previous time. This is not q matter to be
| settled by precedents. 1t is not right because
these or other distinguished leaders and Chris
tion statesmen have countenanced it in the past,
or wrong because they denOunce 1T now. MOI
is it at all pertinent to say that the news
papers which have attacked it are inconslst-
emit selfish, and base, or that the men who
have returned the money are not conscientious
but cowardly, or that various people are
demagogues, as Mr.. Butler occupies four-fifths
Oh Ills space III ANohO VI bhNoS P'iAN''
which Mr.. Butler makes in his usual fippant
and somewhat entertaining way, are pertinent
as a defense. Nor can the back-pay grab be
yoked up with the increase of the salary OF
the President. Mr.. Butler tries to make the
two inseparable, aud drag the President, who
seems to be above criticism, to the defense OF
the Grab. 1t is well enough to remember that
the transaction which Mr. Butler undertakes
to befog has quality of its own which is en-
tirely separate from all the considerations adj
duced.
There is an instinct of honesty in the peo-
pie that probed this whole matter at once, and
no casuistry of Mr.. Carpenter, or volubility OF
Mr.. Butler, or defiance of Mr. Platt can deceive
mislead, or brighten them out of it. These
gentlemen, having the control of the Treasury,
not only availed themselves of the trust con-
fided to them at the close of campaign which
they had carried by elusive protestations OF
economy to increase their prospective salaries,
but with the promise of honest administration
and of retrenchment and reform hardly cold
on their lying lips, they took five thousand
dollars apiece out Of the Treasury upon the
sneaking and swindling pretense that they mad
not been fully paid for their services, and
that the law fixing their compensa-
ton under which they were elected was
no contract on their part that they would not
take all they could lay hands on. 1t makes
no difference what Christian statesmen have
done before. or how inadequate the Presidents
salary is, or what the motives of men and
newspapers are who denounce it. That is all
stuff; foreign to the subject. There's your
Salary Grab; a plain unmistakable breach OF
trust. Seven columns of talk, or seventy
times seven about people and newspapers and
demagogues, cannot defend or explain it away
1t has its own essential quality that cannot be
disguised OF concealed, and Mr.. Buffers failure
is only little less marked than those which
have preceded it,