Pioche daily record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1872-1876, 1874-06-26
NOBODY TO BLAME.

This, as usual, il the burden of the re-
port of the Corlmittes on Postoffices in
reference to the complaints made by Lut-
trell respecting the California postal
routes. The report admits the abuses of
straw bids, etc., but adds that under the
law the Postmaster General is powerless.
Why in the world is he allowed to re-
main powerlsss? Why is no. the law
altered SO that he can defend the treas
ury against these swinilers? 1t is very
curious, but not less certainly the fact,
that high Government official always
finds precepts ard examples to do mis-
chief and perpetrate some swandle, but
directly be is wanted to do something
beneficial, then he finds out he is power
less, is perfectly helpless, is defenseless
as a child. When IN consequences OF
some abuse more than ordinarily flag
rant cropping above the surface of the
official slough of despond, an inyesti-
CATION is ordered, then these obstacles TO
behaving decently are paraded, and
forthwith the Congressional whitewash
pail is brought into use, and nobody is
to blame is the report. The other day
that funny little paper, the Reno Journ-
al, was stating with great complacency
how virtuous Congress had suddenly be-
come, and how it had been ferreting out
abuses, and in the words of that verdant
bucolic, member Foster, it had employed
metaphorical club to beat the heads of
the corrupt. Good Heavens, if that had
actually been done, nine-tenths Of Wash
ington officials would have found CORY
grave. The truth is, that in spite OF the
club aforesaid, and what the Journal says,
that the present Congress has in every
possible manner avoided bringing the
real offenders to justice. For instance,
take the District case. There has been
ten or twelve millions stolen, and yet the
committee calls that keeping accounts
loosely" We should say it was very
loose, indeed. The same kind of loose
ness that causes a pickpocket to steal
purse, that Is the kind of accounts
that these District rascals keep.
1t is probable that there is an equal
amount of looseness in the accounts of
the Central Pacific Contract and Finance
Company, if they could ever be got at.
In the latter matter there was more
whitewash used, coupled with positive
refusal TO continue the research. Talk
about the present Congress doing its
duty: it dare not. A large number OF
its members are go linked in with these
plundering schemes, have SO often par
ticipated in the profits, and are SO COM
pletely delivered over, bound hand and
foot, to those who have purchased them,
that, let alone their votes, they dare not
call their souls their own. These are
disagreeable and unpalatable truths to
declare, but they have the merit of being
true, and one must blurt them out, when
a dapper little eight-by-ten penny
whistle pipes ont in childish treble that
the National Legislature has done csr-
tain things, when its daily telegraphic
dispatches distinctly show that Congress
has not and will not do its duty in pun
ishing those officials that have betrayed
their trust. If it did, why did it not i'm
peach Richardson, Sawyer, Shepherd
and the rest OF them, and punish San
born and Jayne?