New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-11-25
TILE GREAr EKDERAL SOUP-HOUSE.


The ReDublican papers which have urged
the Administration to take up vast scheme
of costly canals and railroads for the beneht
of hungry voters getting to be disagreeabie
at election time, are pressing their project as
if they really believed it good one. They
appear to be thoroughly convinced that moth
ing will patch up their rent and rlckety party
aud retain their fast vanishing followers ex-
cept the addition of hundred millions a year
to the national debt in "giving labor and food
:" to the laborer." This suggestion, or some
thing very much like it, was made in the as
tOnishing Address issued to the country last
Summer by Messrs. Logan, Chandler, Cameron,
Flanagan, Clayton, and other leading states
men of the Union Republican Congressional
Committee. They expressed the belief that
nation which had "spent three thousand mil
L" lions of treasure and an ocean of life for
"peace" would not haggle over triile of
one hundred and twenty millions or so for
internal improvements. The idea was only
limited. 1t was reserved for the newspaper
oracles after the election to develop and en-
force its lessons The great trouble with the
present Administration has been the INSULT
cheney of the offices to go round. A judicious
employment of the Civil Service rules, with oc-
casional suspensions, answered very well to
keep in order the post-oiiice patriots
who pack caucuses, control nominations,
and manage the rest of the machinery of the
party; and while business was reasonably
brisk and the country undisturbed, nothing
further was needed to insure orthodox cleo
lions. But with trouble in the finances and
depresslon of trade came disposition among
the people to ask impertinent questions and
disregard their official leaders. 1t was not
possible to give every insubOrdlnate voter a
nost-oflice; and yet it was plain that some
thing must be done.
The scheme of vast system of government
works, upon which money could be spent in
fabulous amounts and for any length OF years,
seemed to meet the case exactly. 1t would
furnish fat places for the leaders, with n
handsome margin of outlay for campaign
purposes, and enable the Administration to
give q Job of work to as many voters as the
exigencics of politics might make 1t necessary
for the party TO provide for. 1t can safely be
said that after one season there would not be
doubtful Congress District anywhere on the
great network of Improvements which Messrs.
Cameron and Flanagan meant to spread over
the whole country; and it can probably be
predicted with equal safety that the works
would never be finished while there
was a dollar left in the treasury or q
market for another bond. The plan
is shrewd enough, though it is not strictly
original. 1t is nothing more than an extern
sion of the NavyYard process. The public
understand what that is pretty well by this
time. There is hardly a yard in the country
which has not some rotten hulk perpetualy
on the stocks, some ancient unfinished ship
of-war, begun when our oldest admiral was
red-cheeked midshipman, and destined never to
leave tho ways or some fragment of an old
keel which is to be repaired into new
vessel There is only one use for these curl
osities of naval architecture. About October
five or six hundred men are taken into the
Enclosure and set to work For few weeks
the yard resounds with the battering of ham
mers and the ripping of saws, and
foreigner strolliDg into the shops at such
q time might believe the nation to be on the
brink of war. But on the day after election
the five or six hundred workmen are all dis
charged the old hglks Rre covered 0yeri tho