The Portland daily press., 1873-03-12
"HOnest John LYNCH"


The retirement of Hon. John Lynch from
the national legislature on the 4th of the
present month deserves more than passing
notice. His term of service has been longer
than that OF any other Representative from
this district, with a single exception, since
the admission of Maine to the Union in 1920.
And we believe that his constituents of both
parties will unanimously assent to the propo-
sition that in the eight years during which
he has represented them at Washington he
has sustained as enviable reputation for
ability, integrity and industry as any of his
predecessors, not even excepting the illus
trious Fessenden, whose brightest laurels
were won as member of another body.
The circumstances attending Mr.. Lynchs
return home are peculiar. The time has been
when the pecuniary honesty OF congress-
man would be presumed, and when it would
be an impertinence to congratulate MN on
freedom from the vulgar crime OF thieving.
Formerly the only inquiry would have been
touching his ability and the fidelity with
which he had supported the interests of his
constituents. Unhappily the times have
changed, and there are to-day many of Mr..
Lynch's late associates returning to their con-
stituents, fresh from shameless robberies
which have placed upon them an ineffacea-
BILE brand OF disgrace. Men of integrity de-
serve and will receive attention and respect
proportioned to their rarity and to the temp
tations which tae new tolerance of fraud bv
the most eminent public men has placed in
their path. Such heightened attention and
respect are due to Mr.. Lynch. He has not
only escaped the disgraceful fall of Ames Col
fax, Brooks and Patterson, and the lighter
shadows that have for the moment, at least,
ciouded the otherwise spotless regulations of
Dawes, Bingham and Wilson, but he has also
escaped those far-off suspicious that haunt
certain Others who are nevertheless still adj
mired and trusted as of yore. We believe
that no act or vote of Mr.. Lynch while a
member of Congress now demands from
him either explanation or apology. Like
Washburne Of Illinois and Sumner
he has been so far above reproach as never to
incur the smallest suspicion. He has formed
part of no ring; jobs and schemes for de-
pleting the treasury have found no friend in
him; he has left such shabby tricks as that by
which Congressman have secured back pay
to chevaliers of industry like Butler and
Banks. 1t ought to be asource of pride to
us all that our Representative in the last four
Congresses comes back TO us having fairly
won the title of Honest John Lynch at a
time when men of more pretentious virtue
have won far less desirable popular sobri-
quets.
The principal triumph of Mr.. Lynch's
Congressional career, is the partial relief af-
forded to commerce in the bill passed by the
Congress that has just expired. He made the
decline of commerce especially from the first,
and in January 1857, during his first term,
before any movement in the same direction
had been made by any other member, he in
troduced resolutions and a bill in which a
drawback on shlpbuilding material was first
proposed. In the Fortieth Congress he once
more introduced the resolution and bill above
referred to, and supported his views on the
subject in carefully prepared speech. At
that time the interest of the public had not
been fully aroused on the subject, and moth
ing was done. At the next session Mr..
Lynch determined that his scheme should no
longer labor under the Disadvantage OF public
apathy arising from want of appreciation of
Its Importance. Accordingly he secured the
appointment of a special committee of which
he was chairman, and which held its sessions
In the chef commercial cities of the country.
The report of this special committee, drawn
up by Mr.. Lynch, was one of the most val
liable ever published. II is cyclopada of in
formation on the subject of American ton
mage and is the textbook to which all who
are interested in the subject must refer.
Accompanying the report were bills for the
relief of commerce which had wider scope
than any since introduced. But although
the President commended them to the at
tention of Congress in special message,
Western free-traders, the narrow jealousy of
some Eastern members and the "free trade in
ships" cry from New York defeated them.
But the main purpose of Mr.. Lynch was ac-
complished. Congress and the people at large
were made fully aware of the i'm
mensity of the losses the country was
annually sustaining in the decline of its
tonnage and in the monopoly of the carrying
trade by foreign nations. In the next Con-
gress the subject attracted renewed attention
and bill allowing drawback on imported
material was passed. Although this measure
of relief is inadequate, yet its influence is
already powerfully felt in the once more busy
shipyards of Maine and other commercial
States.
fMr. Lynch's only work had been as an adj
vocate of the revival of American commerce.
it would have fairly entitled him to the en-
during gratitude of the country. The aver
age Congressman does not accomplish so
much in the course of eight years. But MI.
Lynch, with his untiring industry has par
ticipated actively in the political struggles of
the reconstruction era. Entering Congress
just as the war was closing, he at once allied
himself with the more radical and progress
i've wing of the Republican party. From
that time to the present no one has ever felt
1t necessary to ask where Mr.. Lynch was po-
litically. While many other Republicans in
public life were giving in at least moment.
airy adhesion to Andrew johnson from mo-
tives of selfishness or from confusion of ideas,
he never for moment swerved from his fidel-
ity to justice and humanity. His vote will
be found always recorded on that side whose
triumph would rebound to the highest inter-
ests of the government and mankind. With
his mental constitution, which strongly in
clinss him to a radical view of most ques-
tons, he could not be conservative or
and neither selfinterest nor parti-
san expediency has ever tempted him to
swerve from what he conceived to be his
duty.
Mr.. Lynch has been one of the most earn
est advocates in Congress of a return to specie
payments. He has opposed himself on the
one hand to the unprincipled Butlerian quack
remedies for financial disorders, and, on the
other to the more popular laissez fare policy
",icn mas actually been in operation. He
believed that the value Of greenbacks could
be made to approximate orad,,,,I,, =. 49,. =