The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1876-02-11
CROWDING MIR. BRISTOW.

For three or four days past the anti
Administration newspapers and such
Republican journals as have a tenderness
for the whisky rings, East and West,
have teemed with reports of a bitter
quarrel on Friday last between the Pres
ident and Secretary Bristow. Not con-
tent with this. the imaginative CORE
spondents have gone on to predict
savage controversy in the Treasury De-
partment between Secretary Bristow
and Senator Conkling, at the close of
which, the New York Senator was said
to have rushed dramatically from the
presence of the Secretary with the awful
warning that he would never darken the
door of his Office again. 1t seems pity
that so much telegraphing, and printing
and headlining should be done with
only the smallest shred of truth to justi
fy il. The story about a quarrel be-
tween Bristow and Conkling is unqual-
itedly false; the Secretary has not
seen Senator COnkling for more than a
month.
With regard to the President and Sec
retary Bristow this much is true: There
is a bevy of politicians at Washington
who represent two other rings of politi-
clans in Chicago and Milwaukee 1t is
the crowd that is represented mainly by
the Chicago Inter Ocean, a professed
Republican paper in so far as blatant
imitation sheet can be said to represent
or misrepresent Repuhiioani-,n in this
day and generation. These politicians
are terribly alarmed for the result in
case the whisky ring prosecutions are
Il. 81, 81 L..
spirit which has controlled the proceed
ings in st. Louis. They are therefore
moving heaven and earth 10 stir up an
issue between President Grant and Sec
retary Bristow. They go to the Presi-
dent with stories that Bristow is pur-
posely bringing the whole weight of his
prosecutions upon whoever of the whis-
ky men have in past times, in the army
or civil life, enjoyed the confidence of
General Grant. In other words, that
Mr.. Bristow is trying to build up his own
personal reputation by tearing down
that of the President. They are also
endeavoring to stir up an issue between
the Secretary of the Treasury and the
Department of Justice, that is, the de-
partment of Attorney General Pierre
pont, and are trying to induce the At
torney General to resent Mr.. Bristow's
interference with the whisky cases and
tlke the trials into his own hands. Any
thing that will take the terrible Ken
tuckian off the trail of the whisky
thieves and their friends is q desirable
point for them to gain, and they are
working every string and wire within
reach to effect it.
We do not observe that they have
thus far achieved any noticeable success.
The President and Mr.. Bristow have had
no quarrel or anything resembling one
The Cabinet meeting of Friday is stated
upon the highest authority to have been
harmonious and unclouded. Babcock
goes to his trial as Mckee, and Joyce
and Mcdonald have gone before him.
There is no transfer of his case to Wash
ington for trial as the correspondents
were saying would be done. There is no
Indication of whatever kind that the
course of justice will be in any way in
terfered with. OF course the arraign-
ment of Gen. Babcock is an intense
modification to President Grant, who
has trusted him implicitly as father
would trust a son, but the trusted Sec
retary goes to his trial and stands or
falls by the verdict of the law. The cor
respondents aud newspapers who are
helping a small knot of gangrened poll
ticians to crowd Mr.. Bristow and badger
the President are in very disreputable
business. -CIecetand Leader.