The Portland daily press., 1874-05-01
A Side.Show at the Capitol,

means OF the House OF Representatives. All
winter long this Committee, ranking first in
Importance of the whole list and just now es-
pecially invested with responsibilities, arising
out of its natural relation to financial ques-
tions. has been engaged in investigating
transactions of the Treasury Department and
of revenue officers. 1t seems quite obvious
too, that the questionable business has been
carried on with a relish altogether out OF
keeping with any inherent attractiveness
there can possibly be in it and to an extent
calculated to weary the patience and provoke
the anger alike of Congress and the country.
In so far as it is necessary to arrive at facts
for the purpose of correcting abuses and pro-
noting official purity, such inquisitions are
proper enough but when they are prolonged
far beyond the point where any new light
can possibly be thrown upon the practices
which it is designed to correct, they become
offensive alike to good taste and public
morality.
Now, Tor months, the associated press dis
patches have been freighted with start
ling revelations of official malfeasance
wrought out with elaborate dramatic coloring
and other concomitants of sensational writ
ing. All this, to be sure, may be consistent
with patriotic desire to extirpate abuses,
and may be inspired by lofty motives,
but to the average mind the whole
thing is liable to the suspicion of being largely
impelled by the desire to make political capt.
tai for the fall elections. For what possible
object can be gained in the direction of re-
form by gathering in the lobbies of the capt.
toll all the men who have been charged with
violations OF the revenue laws-and who have
bought their way out of prosecutions-and
listening for hours to pathetic stories of their
treatment by the brigands whose atrocities
they revel in dilating upon at prodgous
length. All the facts in these cases can be as
certained, in very short time, from the De-
partment. They. are matters of record. A
committee room is neither a court nor
theatre, and therefore not the place to try is
sues,-mueh less to decide questions on er
pdrte statements, the place to listen to
heart-rending or soul-stirring declarations
either from accused parties or their advocates.
The country has had surfeit of investiga-
lions for the past two years, and all of them
seem to be conducted on the principle OF
making as much noise as possible with very
little concern about attaining practical re-
suits. It is safe to say that so far as
they were intended as money saving
agencies they have proved hopeless failures
for they have cost ten times as much as they
have come to. If on the other band they
- 81, Io,J al~I,
purpose of promoting integrity, efficiency
and strict accountability in official station,
they have fallen short of their purpose sim
ply because they have been conducted with
SO little judicial impartalty, and with such
tremendous flourish of trumpets and spirit OF
buncombe. "'i
The current performance before the Com
mittee of Ways and Means forms no excep-
ton to this rule. On the contrary it seems
to have been put upon the boards with so
much regard to stage effect that il promises
to eclipse all previous spectacular shows on
the national stage.
Every new conner, to Washington who has
grievance, or tale of woe, is hunted up by
the managers, put at rehearsal, and then
placed before the footlghts to speak his
piece. Barnum is not more keen of scent for
curiosities of the animal kingdom than the
Committee of Ways and Means is to find
some man who can regale its members with
an affecting narrative of wrongs lie has suf-
fered at the hands of his government. And
care is taken that the story shall be sent on
Its travels through the telegraph and woven
into texts wEereon the s'independent' sheets
which constitute such an important element
in modern literature can base pitiful lamepta-
tons upon the utter degeneracy and ire
claimable depravity of American citizens
If any good could possibly come of this
getting upon the housetops, and proclaiming
what an Ubiquitous people we are, we should
still find it difficult to reconcile ourselves to
such a wretched method of promoting re-
FORM. Bot we don't believe in the system
The. way to deal with errors is to remedy
them, not to screech about them. Nor is it
by any means an effective way of inspiring
the rising generation with an adherence of
immorali- y to tamiliarize them with it by in
cessant proclamation of its universally. We
are getting tired of the can't and SWIVEL which
is perpetually expanding itself in means over
the dreadful wickedness of our times, es-
pecially in view of the fact that, in our judy
ment, the world is full of signs of the gradual
and constant growth of the human race in
knowledge and goodness, and that this ten
dency TO improvement is nowhere more no.
-ticeable than in our political circles. If any
one is inclined to dispute this let him con-
trast the moral, social and political condition
OF Washington to-day with what it was at
any period prior to Lincoln's advent. The
time has been within the memory of men
now sitting in the United States Senate,
when during a Congressional session third
OF the members in each house, were in a
condition of unmistakable intoxfcaton-
when gaming was the prevailing vice of the
capital, and when RIGHTEOUSNESS was too gen.
eral to excite surprise. much less rebuke.
All these things have changed. Washington
society has improved marvellously in every
respect. .Intemperance is scarcely known at
all in the halls of Congress, and the utmost
decorum and propriety of life constitute the
rule, to which there are few exceptions.
And yet we are told, day by day, what sink
of corruption the national capital is. The
statement is libel on the American people.
and deserves not merely contradiction but
reprobation.
we are not at all averse to any and every
proper inquiry into the conduct of public
AFFAIRS and the fitness of public men. We
are as heartily for reform as anybody can be.
and VIII support every measure that shall tend |
to advance it. But we do entertain strong
conviction that the Ways and Means Com
mittee has engaged in business quite he.
meath its dignity, and pursued it with an ex-
tremey inju iicious propensity for sensation
and clap-trap, and that the sooner if turns
over its properties and scenery to some minor
and special committee, and abandons tho |
show business, to engage in something more
serious and important, the sooner it will
meet tie just expectations of the country.
and enhance the claims to respect of the |
members who compose it.