The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-03-03

| LOT the last tlne To-Day. Inc uOur Oh HUH
tomorrow will close its existence, and If it is
in session up to that hour. it may be by run
ming on to-day's session through the night and
the morning hours, or by an early meeting in
the morning, to adjourn finally at twelve
o'clock. "The evil that men do" said the de-
spondent Antony at Caesars funeral, "lives
after them, but the good is oft inferred with
their bones" We are not called, on this occa-
sion, to the political deathbed of Caesar. but OF
Caesars Congress-the last Congress that Cesar
will ever have, unless he achieves the dearest
object of his ambition by another reelection.
Before the time arrives for celebrating his
political obsequies-two years hence-we trust
he will change his policy and furnish the press
with some topics for panegyrc on his adj
ministration. "Eulogies belong to the dead
and we courteously offer this excuse to His
Excellency for not offending his modesty by
prematurely reciting his praises now. The
reasons for abstaining from any eulogy OF this
expiring Congress are of a different character.
The occasion is suitable, but there are no
topics. There is enough of evil which will
live after them, but the amount of good to be
inferred with their bones need not enlarge the
dimensions of their political graves. Even
Cesar finds in this, the closing hour OF an
obedient Congress- that it will not follow ODE
diently at his heels Our readers know the
Importance of the Arkansas question and the
interest felt by the President in the success OF
that measure After debate memorable in
its character and covering every phase Of the
subject, the resolution of Judge Poland, de-
claring against Brooks and the Presidential
policy, was adopted by 149 yeas to 80 nays.
So that in his own House of Representatives
our Caesar receives decisive and humiliating
defeat.
One of the reasons why this particular ses-
sion reflects so little honor upon Congress is
to be found in the fact that so large proper
ton of the members are remanded to private
life by their constituents. One hundred and
thirty of the administration members of the
House take their final leave of that body
when the session is adjourned tomorrow. It
is from this fact that the whole explanation
of the recent proceedings may be evolved.
These one hundred and thirty members, con-
demned by their constituents, but reluctant to
retire from public life, became servile tools in
the hands of an ambitious President. The
greatest of English satirists remarked of q
worthless renegade priest that che could not
live by God so changed his master" So
these one hundred and thirty discarded re-
publican members of the House, finding that
they cannot live by their constituents, changed
their master to become the subservient in
struments of Grant, who, as Blackstone wrote
of the King of England, is 'the fountain of
Office and honor" His Excellency disposes
of foreign missions and consulships, post
offices, places in the customs and internal
revenue service, marshalships and desirable
posts as governors and judges in the Terri
tories Indian commissioners, and other
Offices which it would be tedious to enumer-
ate. 1t is in the power of the President, if
not to "drag up drowned honor by the locks"
at least to drag up drowned politicians from
beneath the waves with which their constit-
uencies have overwhelmed them and give them
a further lease of that official life which is so
dear and precious in the eyes of all dema-
gogues. What Gray, in his inimitable
'.Elegy," says with SO much truth and poeti-
cal beauty of ordinary human nature is
doubly true of the reluctance with which
inveterate ofice-seekers quit political ife:-
For who, TO dumb orgetlulness prey,
This pleasing. anxious being eer resigned,
Lett the warm precincts OF the cheer1n DAY,
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind
1t is the longing, lingering look of the one
hundred and thirty discarded republican
members, it is the intense hankering for Office
which lives in the ashes of their ambition,
which has made them ready, compiaisant
tools of the President in these last days of
their gasping official life His Excellency
wanted legislation which would facilitate his
designs upon o third term, and the compost
ton of Congress could not have been better
suited to his hopes. A majority of the repub-
! lican members of the House consisted Of
repudiated and desperate politicians, whose
only chance of future prominence lies in the
| power of appointment which the constitution
vests in the President. With nothing further
to hope from their constituents they realized
| their abject dependence on the fountain of
Office and honor" the distributor of federal
patronage, for continuance In public posi-
! tons. This Congress- in its closing days,
has accordingly exhibited the most unparal-
leled spectacle of political servility ever wit
messed in a free country.
A majority of those republican members
who will sit in the next House heartily disap-
proved of the Force bill and other measures of
that kind desired by President Grant; and it
is not creditable either to their sagacity or
their courage that they did not make a
vigorous opposition to their passage. They
would have opposed these measures if their
will had been as resolute as their judgment
was correct and clear. On the Force bill, for
instance, they would have run no risk, be-
cause the respectable part of the republican
4 l. In lie