New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-09-15

roads alone are now moving more than three
million tons of vegetable food each year, and
are gaining rapidly at the expense OF the
canal, whose tonnage of wheat and corn Is
less this year than last, and was less last year
than the year before last.
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THE PRESIDENTS LATEST APPOINTMENT.
Gen Grant has conferred the Office Of Gov
ernor of the District of Columbia upon Mr..
Alexander Il. Shepherd This is an appoint
ment not fit to be made. Mr. Shepherd has
been the Vice-President and executive officer
(tbe Governor of the District being ex-otliciO
PresidenD of the Board OF Public Works,
commission whose career has been long
record of scandals 1t was perhaps inevitable
that in carrying out the costly improvements
which this Board undertook great many
frauds should be committed and great many
more should be suspected, for the manner in
which the work was done offered every tacll-
ity for dishonesty. We do not purpose 20 In
qure Just now how far the Board deserves
the bad reputation that attaches to IT. but
We may say that the following charges against
it are established beyond any question: l. That
it has made improvements at such ruinous
cost as to involve in some cases almost the
absolute cOnfscatOn of the property assessed
for benefit g That it has violated the stat
utes in giving out jobs; 8. That it has expended
enormous sums of money in violation OF law
and in excess of appropriations; a. That
great deal of its work has been improperly
done and at outrageous prices; 8. That 1t has
involved the District in serious financial en-
barrassment, and threatens to leave it bankrupt.
These charges are beyond dispute 1t is also
alleged, with strong probability of truth, that
the Board has shaped its improvements so as
to further the real estate speculations of Mr..
Shepherd and other members, instead of adj
yancing the interests of the city, and that
fraudulent payments have been made, on
system something like that which fiourished
under the rule of Tweed and Connolly in New
York. Mr.. Shepherd, as we have saId was the
managing man of the Board, and so it happens
that he is generally known as the Boss of the
"Washington Ring"
Now it is not necessary to inquire whether
Mr.. Shepherd is a rascal or not. We have no
proof that he is, and we certainly do not
accuse him. But great abuses have been COM
mtted in the department over which he pre-
sides, and he is suspected of promoting them.
That is reason enough why he should not be
appointed to a higher Office. A public func-
tiOnary ought to be not only free from offense,
but void of suspicion. TO confer Office upon
a man whose reputation has been sOiled, is to
proclaim that the appointing power does not
look upon integrity and honor as the first
qualifications for place under government
1t is to declare that the loose notions of
morality, the sordid avarice, the habits of
4hoc4
life and threaten ruin to our politi-
cal system, are trivial things in the
eyes of our chief magistrate, !who ought to set
an example to the whole country. Let us
open our eyes to the truth. We are in danger
through the growing influence of base, sor-
did, INSCRIPTIONS class who go into politics
for what they can steal, who run for Congress
and the Legislature that they may sell their
votes, who climb to the bench that they may
dispense injustice for price, and haunt Wall
Street that they may swindle their neghbors
Butler and his rabble of BLACKBOARD followers,
Cakes Ames and his retinue of perured Con-
gressmen, Tweed and his company of mus
tached and bejeweled thieves, Fisk and his
harlots, Gould and his fellow gamblers,-thes
are representatives of the true dangerous
ton to see what the first man in the nation is
doing to save us, and what do we behold
One Of the Congressman implicated in the
Credit MObilier transaction has just been an
pointed to foreign mission. The author of
the Back Pay Bill, type of the dishonest
demagogue and most disreputabe man in
Congress, is in high favor at the White House.
and the President tries so hard to make him
Governor OF Massachusetts,, that the Republi-
cans of that loyal State revolt with indigna-
ton. Mr.. Murphy, forced to retire. from the
New-York Custom-house after the exposure of
his corrupt maladministration, receives n
warm letter of recommendation from Gen.
Grant; and now Mr.. Shepherd is appointed
Governor of the District of Columbia while
the charges made in Congress and elsewhere
against his administration of lower office
are, not proved indeed, but certainly not dis
proved.
Of course Gen. Grant has no idea of COM
mending dishonesty. lie doubtless believes