The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-02-21

to be fact the intelligence is important
perhaps as much SO as any other news point
of the present dispatches.
-. e" Isy1-srE- = -ssp"'>' -.
"he Innoeehts i'm Congrcss-Memories
and Memorandums.
1t has been the common impression that the
present Congress of the United States is not
lacking in shrewdness and worldly wisdom.
Of late the people have not looked for the mas
siveintellect heightened principle and patriot
ism which in former years distinguished our
national legislature. The war, while it ele-
waited the nation, lowered the standard of our
public men, and brought to the surface diff
ferent class of lawmakers from that which rem
dered Washington attractive in former days.
But the politicians who foated into power on
the muddy waves Of sectional strife have never
been regarded as harmless innocents, ignorant
| of the wicked ways of the world, careless of
their financial interests, and liable to be made
the victims of designing knaves Indeed,
your modern legislator has generally received
credit for more than ordinary acuteness, and
one would as soon have searched for honesty
among the shaved heads of Sing Sing as for
verdancy in the halls of Congress.
| The recent developments at Washington
will shake this popular belief in the shrewd-
ness of our public men. Vice President
Colfax, keen Western lawyer and journalist
whose ingenious political speeches and adroit
parliamentary tactics have seemed to mark
him as a thorough man of the world, is proved
to have been so careless Of his personal inter-
ests as to be forgetful of the purchase of stock
the reception of dividends and the receipt of
thousand-dollar donations from government
contractor until his treacherous memory had
been refreshed by Hoax Ames famous mems
and goaded into activity by the necessity of
self-defence. One thousand dollars appears
to have been the not extravagant price of this
smiling Harold Skimpole of political life, and
the natural ease and indifference with which
he bagged and forgot the profits of the Credit
Mobilier and the offerings of Nesbitt indicate
the guilelessness of his unworldly nature.
Kelley and Scofeld, of Pennsylvania, have
been popularity credited with that keen per-
ception of their own interests common to the
citizens of the Keystone State; yet the legal
acumen of Judge Poland has discovered
that they could buy shares of Cakes Ames on
credit without being aware that Cakes Ames
was buying them; receive enormous dividends
on Credit Mobilier stock in bonds Of the
Union Pacific Railroad without ascertaining
the connection between the two corporations,
and accept brides without knowing they were
bribed. Massachusetts, and Ohio politicians
are not generally set down as deficient in
acuteness in pecuniary transactions or as ver-
dant in legislative resorts; yet Dawes, very
old political bird, Bingham, the keen and red
hot impeacher of Andrew Johnson and Gar
field, whose experience in five Congresses
might be supposed to have taught him some
thing, are declared by the Poland polishers Of
Congressional regulations to have proved them
selves as unsophistcated as children in money
transactions and as unfamiliar as babes with
the well-worn tricks of the lobby. All these
simple-minded Congressman, says the pene-
trating Poland, were ignorant of the nature of
Credit Mobilier when investing money or credit
in its shares had no knowledge of its remu-
nerative character, were unaware of its con-
nection with the Union Pacific, and were sim
ply as willing as children to open their mouths
and shut their eyes and see what Ames would
send them!
| Caldwell, too, who halls from the State
where the rules of draw-poker are more
clearly understood than The Ten Command
mepts.. and where the bowie-knife is the popu-
/ lar oothpick-Caldwell has been found by
Senator Carpenter to be saint behind a
cloud, the innocent victim of wicked and
designing plotters. Pomeroy, whose piety
has been the pride Of bleeding Kansas, is
taken under the wings Of those shepherds of
the Christian fock-Nye and Conkling-and
sheltered from the cruel ISLANDERS of the sim
full York. And the Senate Of the United
States taken as a whole, what q congregation
of harmless lambs does it present to the
public gaze From the smiling President,
Mr. Carker Colfnx, whose many virtues
wrapped the contracting Nesbitt in tribute
paying admiration, past the seat OF the
reverend Harlan, who remembers our
Saviour's treatment of the money-changers IN
the Temple better than his own pecuniary
transactions with DR.. Durant down TO the