The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1875-03-05

SuCn SlanelcsS IdsCaiitJ 10 6Oou Sho"5A ~
rule savages, much less civilized people.
What a satisfaction it is that such Congress
net i s death yesterday. 1t had been long
previously damned.
The Presidents Salary-salary Grab
bing. "...-.. i
1t is. a very impudent thing in the Ohio
House of Representatives to be resolving
that the salary of the President Of the United
States ought 70 be reduced. OF course The
Presidents salary cannot be reduced during
his term of service; but, then, it is we'll ur
derstood that General GRANT is looking tc
n election, and the proposal 10 reduce tho
Presidents salary has direct effect upor
what be must consider his personal interest
if, indeed, be expects TO be reelected, a:
everybody seems now to believe. 1t may be
considered, therefore, that proposal TO re-
duce bis salary is nothing less than an insult
offered to him. Such all insult ut such time
is exceedingly provoking to General GEAST
The Congress which he has regarded as ready
always to help on bis rigorous plans for
ruling the South has openly resisted his VIII
and secuted the statements he has made IS
the reasons for increasing his authority over
the South. He has become the object Of
ridicule OF number Of leading Republican
Journals that once were filled with euoglcs
of him. His motives have been impugned,
his capacity and judgment disparaged by
those who once praised him excessively.
He finds no response from Congress, and 20
tIttery from any but the yilest men of his
party, such as the worse sort of the numer-
Gus Radicals who left Congress yesterday
not to return, the carpet-bag thieves of the
South; and the negroes. And after all this
comes the Ohio Legislature with PROPOSE
ton to reduce the Presidents "third-term /"
salary. This is the cruellcSt blow of all.
For ourselves we think $50, 1000 is not too
much for Republican President; but Gen
eral GIANr has been in course of rapid
development into 4 sort of ruler whose cha
racter would demand larger sum to keep
up the proportion OF compensation to OIL
cial grandeur. His department, bis
hectoring over the people, bis royal
reticerce, his brief messages to the loyal Con-
gress, his summary declarations and impe-
rious demands, all belong to the order Die
atorial amongst rulers. But step more
and ne have the emperor with his royal
civil list and estates. When 10, ard behold
here comes the Ohio Leg ilature-law-mak-
ers from the State Of b.con and sausage
understand rudely propose to nip the bud
of royal remuneration by cutting down in
the future the Presidents frugal salary.
Couldn't they forbear and pity fallen
manp
But we feel it due to our fellow-citzens in
Ohio that we should say that fear of high
salaries has been hereditary in our Republic
(saye il y, and We suppose the body that sits
80 near that old fossil Governor WILLIAM
ALLEN has inherited good share of this feel
ing. Frugal and simple statesmen are unr
questionaby to be more trusted than those
who live luxuriously, or who are growing
rich by making laws and by salary-grab-
bing." We acknowledge an intrnity Of
sympathy with these artless fogies.
Big salaries are generally demoralzing.
They are the premonitory symptoms OF roy.
atty. Your railroad kings WELD vast pow
er through their immense salaries and means
of corruption; and it is time, indeed, that
the people conceived a fear that they were to
be made hewers of wood and drawers OF
water that these lordly-paid persons might
flourish in authority and corruption.
The fact was that so munificent had the
salaries of the railroad kings become that it
was necessary to raise the salary of the chief
magistrate of the Union in order that his
proper dignity might be maintained. A
railroad king, getting a salary equal to that
of the President, and having no state din.
ners and balls to give as duty incumbent
upon him as a doer Of the honors of the ma
ton, had a great advantage over the Presi.
dent in having a large sum ficely to be used
for personal advantage.
Into this sentiment and these reasons We
heartily entered. The salary paid a man Is
generally the gauge of the dignity Of his
Office; and shall President get no more per
annum than mere railroad president? The
idea is prepoSterous.
But, then, our President of the nation has
been cutting such strange capcrs-so shock
ing 70 the good sense and humanity Of a
civilized people-he has so tyranDized over
a fallen people-he has done so much to in.
crease their dtstresses and to multiply their
apprehepsions-he has been so unphilo-
sophical, SO brutal, iu bis schemes
for eXalting bar5ariSm and humbling civil
ization-he showed bis ruling temper so
clearly in sending the least sensible, the most
oyerbearing, and the least humane of all the
army officers to harry the ruined and pros
trate people of Louisiana that tho whole
nation has been shocked at bis vulearity and
want of civilization and humanity. We take
it that all this has done more 10 point this
last arrow aimed by Ohio at his royal
birds than y patient consideration of
the matter of the salary. SO that after all
we must confess that the Ohio proposition is
rather natural, and to be expected. We con-
TESS that it is, alas too true that swelling saa-
ries and greedy salary-grabs" are tend
ins to the destruction Of every sentiment
Of virtue and simplicity Of our ancestors and
the final subversion Of our Government.
The nation would best preserve lis independ-
ence by exalting no men to emoluments that
may enable them to rule the people through
corrupting their representatives.
Then down " It'll enormous salaries with