Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1875-11-24
WASHINGTON.
Chandler in the Interior Department
Like Spanish Bull with Red
Trimmings in Dollar Store.
Edmunds as the Great Radical Party
AssessOr-The Speakership-Fash-
lOnable FOibles and FOllies.
From our spscial Correspondent

]
wears the administration livery but that
does not wear the administration in its
heart. A Spanish tull in a dollar store
with red trimmings could not have Gre
ated more confusion than Z3chariah
Chandler has created in the department
| OF the interior. Last Saturday was dsy
that will be long remembered by the
! employees OF the de )artment. A few
| days before, Lwenly-three cIeI ks had
| been dismissed, and IL was known that
! forty more were to be discharged from
! the patent Office, and that even that
| number would not begin to satiate the
terrible Chandler, or supply vacancies
for those who are to help him pack and
manipulate the Michigan legislature and
return him to the senate. Your CORE
| spondent went to the department to see
| the effect. There was very little work
being done. Bevies OF fair young clerks
were grouped about in the magnificent
| corridors, talking earnestly and excited
| ly, while others, with serious faces, bent
| over the papers on their elegant desks,
| thinking doubtless of the time when
| they might no longer dwell in marble
halls, and draw monthly stipend. For
information in affairs Of this character,
always interview confidential clerk
he is easily accessible, less diplomatic,
and more garrulOus than cabinet or
bureau officer; he dses not speak by the
card, and is rarely skilled in Talleyrand's
art Of cOncesling thought through
speech. The confidential clerk told me,
in substance, that there was great and
reasonable apprehensiOns among all the
employees; that very few felt that their
official heads were secure; that he had
no fears of losing his own place, since he
bai just returned from Philadelphia,
where be had been for several
weeks in the service of
the Republican committee, and where
he had contributed materially to the re-
suit of the election. He further said
that the discharges were to be from
those of luke-warm or doubtful Republi-
csuism; that the Democratic successes a
year ago had developed many such in
all the departments; that there were
those who had then dared to say that
they thought Democratic administra-
ton would not be calamitOus, and had
used other like expressions that did not
savor Of true Republicanism. There
we're few also who declined to ray the
assessments for campaign purposes, Or
dered by Judge Edmands, secretary of
the National Republican committee. All
these Offenses have been charged to
their account, and now that the day of
wrath has come they must pay
the penalty. Secretary Chandler
is making it hot for them. To
wrest camp-meeting metaphor,
he is heaping the red-hot cinders
to fry out the pride of their fat to grease
the gudgeons of (the preacher said,
"hell') the Republican party. the deck
is to be cleared for action, and the inte-
rior department will sail into the cam
psign of 1876 trimmed and manned to
the highest fighting capacity. With
some of the employees who support fami.
lies dismissal will go very hard. There
is no way in which they can earn
living, and winter is upon them. Others
have means and homes, and can get
slong very we'll without assistance
from the government. There is rumor
that number Of the examiners in the
patent Office are to be discharged. Some
Of these, although Democrats, have been
able to weather previous administra-
tions in this department, because of their
wide experience and profound acquaint-
ance with the several mechanical and
scientific specialties of which they have
had charge. The service will suffer Sc
cannot be filled with others as well
qualified. Mr.. Grinnell, chief clerk of
ihe patent office, was dismissed on Fri
day; he has held the position for ten
years with great credit to himself and
to the entire satisfaction of the immense
number who, during that time, have
had business with this important branch
of the service. But his Democ-
racy was Of pronounced character,
and when Judge Edmunds sent around
his tax, collector for permission TO pass
through the patent office, Grinnell told
him to tell Judge Edmunds to go to HI;
that he would not be the medium
through which the clerks of that bu.
reau could be assessed. There is q we'll
founded rumOr that Postmaster General
Jewell will not remain much longer ia
the cabinet. 1t is known that COM
bined and powerful ring element has
been opposed 10 him from the first, on
account Of his meddlesome reforms. He
entered the postoffice department with
the determination to purge it, and his
attack upon the mail contractors was
only less brilliant than that of Secretary
Bristow upon the whisky ring. But Mr.
Jewell has little affinity for the element
that has been recently introduced into
the cabinet; and he has not hesitated to
express himself as strongly opposed to
the third term; his resignation may be
expected early in 1876. AS to the early
resignation OF Mr.. New, the recently
appointed treasurer, there is no doubt.
He is tired Of Washington, and OF his
office, and Is anxious to get back to the
simpler life and more solid comforts of
his home in Indiana, where government |
clerks do not steal two thousand dollars
in fractional currency and where baauti- |
ful, disheveled, tristful female employees |
cannot cry q man into granting them |
luci ative sinecures, or anything else |
they want Just now there is an appar- |
ent suspension Cf interest in minor pc |
litical matters, an ominous recuperative |
pause before the great struggle that will |
be gin Ia three wet ks for the speakeIship |
OF the house. Prominent Democrats |
here do not hesitate to express their |
anxiety. They regard the success of the |
party IN 1875 as SO far trsnscending all |
Individual and other interests, and de- |
pending go much on wise, harm pniOus,
unsslfi h action now, that they are COM |
pelled to look upon the violence with |
which some candidates and sections are |
urging their claims as an inauspicious |
symptom, to say the least. 1t has |
been the custom so long that the |
memory OF woman runneth Lot |
to the contrary, for the conventional |
Washington letter to contain society |
gossip; and here your correspondent is
in seriou3 trouble; he knows very little |
sbou. society or what women wear, or
vino is to be married. There is a class |
OF CORES pOndents ia this city who seem |
to think that cur planet of six quadril-
lion tons tiits up whenever the German |
minister or the charge de dfdires Of !
Patagonia (?) walks abroad. We do |
not attach the greatest importance TO |
these matters. We write about the gov
eminent DEF artments, and phases OF
clerical and official life, because these |
are features, or eXcfescences, II you pre-
fer, Of our political system, from which
the reader may point moral or suggest
a remedy. But your correspondent will
not assume the role of an iconoclast; he
will net tear his finger-nails against
monuments founded ia nature, even
if they do not reach TO heaven;
and In order that your readers might
not be in reathen darkness in relation to
the amiabls frivolities Of fashionable lie
at the national capitol, ne went yester-
day 10 the Ebbitt house, which is head
quarters Of the army and navy officers,
their wives ant1 daughters, and asked