The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-05-05

spo asible for the Contracts Ban
held-A Word i'm Defense of Senator
Boutwell,.
New YORK, May 4, 1874.
q observe you are growing impatient of the
extraordinary prolongaton of the inquisition re-
specting the working of the revenue laws aid
the Sanbor1 contracts. am not surprised at it.
There is reason in all things and this using up
a considerable part of five months session, in
getting at facts which might have been gather
ed in five days, goes to show that Congression-
al investigations are the most tiresome, costly
and unsatisfactory methods of accomplishing
reform. 1t was all very well if anybody had
obtained $4,000 from the Treasury, without
giving an equivalent for it to find out how and
why it was doue. But the n aterial part of the
information this prolonged inquiry has elected
was generally known in Washington months
ago, and could have been collated and embodied
in report as well in January as in May. The
whole case lies in small compass. Congress
passed law authorizing the collection of ar
rears of taxes by special contract. Two expert
ments were tried under it, They both failed.
Then Sanborn came upon the scene. The
Secretary, busy with weightier matters, and
having little faith in the proposed project, turn
ed it over to the Solicitor. That official super
vised the whole subsequent operations-prepar-
ed the contract-furnished the instructions-be-
came reponsible for the legal points-and was
to all intents and purposes, director, adviser
and exclusive controller of the Sanborn con-
tract For whatever was done in the premises,
or left undone, he is accountable. 1t is per-
fectly true that the head of the Department is
answerable for everything to which he gives
official sanction, and in that sense, and to that
degree Mr.. Boutwell, and his successor have
been compromised by the questionable arrange
ment with Mr.. Sanborn, which the Solicitor
of the Treasury contaminated. Both of
them frankly admit this share of responsibility
and have evidently suffered extreme mortifica-
ton and regret that their confidence in the le-
gal adviser of the Department should have ex-
ceeded the limits of prudence.
But the measure of censure. visited upon the
Secretaries has been altogether out of propor-
ton to the gravity of the error acknowledged.
There has been no allegation or fntimation of
intentional wrong. In all the long array of
needlessly cumulative testimony adduced, not
a syllable has been elected which reflects even
by implication upon the integrity of Mr.. Rich
ardson or his predecessor. The utmost that can
be said to their blame, is that they have rati-
fed too credulously the acts of the Solicitor
And when one takes into account the magni-
tude and diversity of the duties devolving
upon the chief financial minister of the Re-
public-the incessancy of his labors and the
perplexity of his cares-it will appear obvious
that it is physical impossibility that he
should give personal attention to the innumer-
able details of his Office. The treasury build
ing is stupendous establishment. and is more
largely peopled than many shire town in New
England Its prodigious business is divided
among thirty-four bureaus, each in itself a
ponderous organization. Upon the fidelity of
the heads of these bureaus depends not only
the efficiency of the service, but the safety of
the public money. The Secretary exercises a
general supervision over them, but had he as
many eyes as Argus he could not possibly keep
himself infinitely informed as to the multifa-
rious details of their respective occupations.
l think it is immensely creditable to the ma
tional honor, and to human nature that this
gigantic portion of the machinery of govern.
ment, dealing as it does with money by hun
dreds of millions, is conducted with such scru-
pulous honesty and so much arithmetical skill
Perhaps to New Yorker thiS phase of the
matter presents itself in a more striking light
than to citizens less familiar with official NAL
feasance, and incomprehensble bookkeeping.
Leaving out of view the exceptional epoch in
our municipal history, when the Tweed cabal
were stealing twenty-five per cent. Of the an
nual revenues the average populations from
our city treasury were larger in any single
year of the eighteen from 1858 to 1871 than
all the sums of money that have been
lost to the national exchequer by defalcation
or mismanagement from the day of the inau-
guration of Abraham Lincoln until now.
dare say it is because these striking con-
trasts are forced upon our consideration that
we find it somewhat difficult to keep up to con-
cert pitch in the mournful dirge with which SO
many worthy and unworthy people are b.wail-
ing the degeneracy of the times, and vocifer-
ating wildly against the cabinet minister who
holds the keys of the treasury. That the San
born contract was ill-advised and discreditable,
will be conceded on all hands. So much has been
freely admitted by the Secretary and it has been
abrogated. Bot that the mere ministerial act
of putting it in force, in obedience to law of
Congress, involved such degree of moral tur-
pitude as to demand the humiliation of that
high officer, is a proposition which will not
commend itself to the reason and Judgment of
fair-minded and impartial men.
Not little of the vehement denunciation of
which the Secretary has been the object, has
had its inspiration in the haunts of specula-
tors in and about Wall street. The leading
habitues of these temples of mammon have
their Organs" and when the Treasury De-
mote their manifold contrivances to cheat the
public. the "organs" are required to pipe in
harsh tones Everybody remembers how firm
ly Mr.. Richardson resisted the Establishments
Of the stock-jobbing fraternity, last fall, and
refused to lend them the peoples money to
keep their bubbles from collapsing They have
never forgiven him for that act of fidelity to his
trust and the journals they control have teem-
ed ever since with disparaging sneers and ma
licious criticisms upon his administration. The
identical editors who were so full of Christian
charity for ex-Mayor Hall, who signed war
rants by the hundred, on the strength of the
signature of a VIGOROUSLY corrupt comptroller,
and thereby consummated an actual robbery
OF many millions, lift up their eyes in pious
norror at the act of the Secretary, who with
ouS especial scrutiny gives sanction to a law of
congress which puts money into the Golfers of
tne state with collateral profit to the party
who collects it.
For whatever of culpability there NAV be lin
the much talked of tax gathering arranoemsnt
which has given rise to such copious shedding
has ELECTED such unexpected wall.
of outraged virtue, from publicists hitherto nm.
moved by much greater official derelictions-
the responsibility lies chiefly between Congress
and the Solicitor of the Treasury, Mr.. e. G.
Banfield. The share of the two Secretaries in it
is comparatively unimportant. They seem to
tohave accepted the law as mandatory, and to