New-York tribune., 1874-05-18
SCOTT and MOSES,

SCOTT AND MOSES.
If any evidence wero wanting to establish
beyond question the thoroughly bad character
of the present State Government of South
Carolina, it is now furnished by the fact that
ex-GOv. Robert X. Scott has emerged from
the retirement to which he was consigned two
years ago, and with an impudence that is al
most incredible is Offering himself as a Reform
candidate for a new lease of gubernatorial
honors. We are prepared to believe
almost anything discreditabe of Gov.
Moses and his associates in office, but
really it is taxing credulity too much to i'm
agne state of things existing under their
regime which makes the administration OF
Scott respectable by comparison. If a more
shameless and rapacous swarm of thieves and
adventures infest the State and county offices
than flourisled during the four years that Scott
was in power, poor South Carolina must in
deed be reduced to most desperate straits.
We think however, that it will turn out that
Scott is little rash in his candidacy.
Voters, it is true, have short memories.
The recent delinquencies of Moses, cul-
minatiDg in tho scandal of his bank
ruptcy and the charges of blackmailing the
county treasurers to obtain money to support
his riotous style of living may have dimmed
their recollection of the Ofenses and short
comings for which Scott was remanded to
private life in 1872 by verdict of his party
as positive as it was unanimous. But it is not
conceivable that, with the reminder of
fraudulent debt and a ruined credit before
their eyes, they can be so Obliylous of the
past az not only to grant absolution to Scott,
but to look with favor upon his
application to be restored to Office. When
these voters come to compare the adj
mnistrations of Scott and Moses they will
find, though their memories be ever so short,
that if there is any choice between the two it
is not in favor of the latter. Moses and his
followers have undoubtedly robbed the tax
payers outrageously and spent the peoples
money in ways that would not bear investi-
gation; but Scott and his associates set them
the example and introduced the system of
public plunder which has become an unwrtten
law better observed by officials high and low
than anything upon the statute books. When
it is said of the Moses Administration that it
has spent all. the money it could extort
from the taxpayers, pretty much the
whole case against it is stated. Scotts
administration did exactly the same thing in
addition, it increased the debt Of South Caro-
lima from :GOOO,OOO to $l6,0OO,OOO, and left not
a solitary thing of value to show for the
money. Worse than this, Scott and his subor
dinates perpetrated fraud so enormous SO
audacious, and so criminal, that it has not its
match in all the black annals of carpet-bag
government. They had nearly $6,OOO0OO Of
bogus bonds printed In New-1Ork, which
were sold to unsuspecting persons as genuine.
There was q law authorizing them to ex-
change new conversion bonds for old bonds
of various issues, but instead Of doing this
they sold the conversion bonds just as if they
had been valid and authorized securities.
What they did with the proceeds the people
of South Carolina would very much like to
know.
Gov. Scott processes innocence of this
swindling transaction, and tries, we under
stand, to shift the whole responsibility upon
Treasurer Parker and Financial Agent Kimp-
ton. There has been q great deal of this
shifting of responsibility in South Carolina
When a rascal is nearly run down he tries to
fall back into the crowd of pursuers, and
pointing out one of his late associates he
cries "Stop thief" as Justify as his neighbors.
Scott was member of the Financial Board
that put out the fraudulent bonds. If he did
not know what Parker and KimptOn were
doing it was because he shut his
eyes to their operations. $ Kimpton was
his appointee, and he accepted from him a
bond with no other security than the irrespon-
sible financial agents own signature. And
when the gigantic swindle was exposed, Scott
made no effort to have the men punished
whom he now accuses of planning and perpe-
t1ating it. A long list of Scott's other delin-
quencies, serious enough by themselves, but
of less magnitude than this bond fraud, might
be called to mind, but the case may rest here
The Republican party Of South Carolina has
no superabundance of men who combine ca
pacity for official station with fair degree of
honesty but it is not we trust. 30 badly off
as to turn to Robert X. Scott for leader in
the path of reform.
=, 60 tl,n anf