National Republican., 1875-07-19
POLITICAL ASSESSMENTS AGAIN.

Just what the national and executive
committees of the Republican party have
done or contemplate doing in the matter of
political assessments for party campaign
purposes we have recently fully explained;
but the howl on this subject by the OPP
position press is sufficient to justify the
belief that every Republican office-holder
in the land is being raped. robbed and
ravished to an extent not only Gripping
his fortunes, but making him miserable
for life. The tears shed are simply croco-
dilian. Mr.. Dana and Mr.. Marble are in
the role of 'thired mourners. Their
grief is not in the least degree catching
and the lockers on laugh at their would-be
calamity. .....
1t is susceptible of proof that the Demo
cratic party, when in power, organized
and executed the most stringent system OF
political assessment, and one so extended
In its ramiicatioRs as to include every
Democrat in office from the Justice on the
Supreme Bench to the watchmen in the
public grounds This was notably the
fact in the Presidential campaigns resulting
in the elections of franklin Pierce and
James Buchanan, and in the defeat of
John c. Breckenridge. Isaac l. Stevens,
chairman of the National Democratic Ex-
ecutive Committee in the latter, was par
ticularly rigorous in his eXactions upon
office holders for means, and refusal to
pay an assessment was regarded as evidence
of disloyalty to the organization, punished
by instant removal from Office. For this
reason swarm OF Office holders went into
political exile, because they favored Doug
las. Every clerk in every Department was
not only expected to work, TO give his SER
vices free 10 the committee when required,
but 10 paw certain sum of money, and
Democrats in those days regarded it as both
pleasure and duty-a duty because their
continuance in Office depended upon the
success of their party. The custom house
officers throughout the country were asked
for a specific sum, and that was made up
by levies on their deputies aud clerks.
Chairmen of State committees were asked
for so many dollars, and they were for
warded without grumble, and these sums
swelled up into an aggregate of hundreds
of thousands, about $780, 900 being con-
suned in Washington and in Philadelphia
in the printing of documents alone, and
then there were all the expenses Of speak
efs, voters, naturalization, clerk hire, &c,
&C., met by contributions from office
holders. What was true in this campaign
was also true of the preceding one, Mr..
Buchanan's, managed by Judge David A.
Smalley, of Vermont, as chairman of the
executive committee That keen, efficient
politician, and most successful wire worker.
very much like John W. Forney, by
whom he was ably assisted, was the most in
tolerant of any Democrat in office who
hesitated in walking up to the captain s
office to settle his assessment. He made
assessments right and left. He laid over
all officeholders the iron hand of necessity,
and taught the Democrats how to do their
duty when the editor of the World wore a
bib around his Democratic neck. People
of the latter's creed now talk on this subject
like knavcs and fools, but they deceive nc
one, for their object is well understood.