Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1876-04-14
WHAT'S THE REMEDY

STEPHEN ID. Pool.
WHAT rs rHE SEEM EDYl
This is the question that row agi-
tates the better part of the public
mind. We agree with the New York
Freni,7q Post that "among right
minded men the alarm occasioned by
the late disclosures of corruption IN
high places is universal. AS theinqui-
ries which have been set on foot pros
coed the revelations ofiniquity become
more startling, and we ask ourselves
where they are to end? Even should
they proceed no further, the enormity
of wickedness which has been laid bare
prompts the question, What is the
remedy, and how are we to avoid the
repetition of such crimes in the futufeY
1T is clear that we cannot prevent
the repetition of these enormities with
out putting the administration of pub
lie affairs into more scrupulous hands
than those to which it has hitherto
been confided, and. which have allowed
the powers of government to be per-
verted to such fragrant abuses. The
evil has it's origin in the appointment
of bad men to Offices which gave them
opportunity of enriching themselves
by putting price on their official
functions and selling them to men
as bad as themselves. In the
bestowment of offices the question
has been,' not whether the per-
sou appointed was an honest man, but
whether he was a Jealous partisan. If
he happened to be an honest man, as
was no doubt often the case, so much
the better for the community, and he
performed his duties creditably; if he
| was a rogue, as appears also to be
frequent case, he began Immediately
to obtain money by corrupt practices.
The Republican party must acknowl-
edge with shame that if their adverse
ries had not obtained majority in the
House of Representative and set on
foot the investigations which are now
going on, the frightful abuses which
have been lately revealed would in all
probability have continued unchecked
to the end of General Grants admins.
tratiou, and if the officeholders could
| succeed in electing his successor, would
have lasted perhaps four years more.
That General Grant is responsible fol
| l. I,o1 n1 roN frof h
most shameless hardihood to deny. We
do not impute to him any personal share
in the crimes perpetrated, or any sucl
knowledge of the proceedings of the
knaves to whom he had entrusted the
highest responsibilities that be coulc
swear to their conduct as witness
but he cannot escape censure on tive
important grounds: in the first place
for culpable indifference to the char
acter of those TO whom he gave tn,
Offices which they have disgraced, ant
in the second place for culpable blind
ness to circumstances which should
have led him to suspect their guilt
The case of the late Secretary of Wa
is an example of this blindness Her,
was a man living on his little salar,
as collector of the revenue in
petty district, poor man, who
found himself suddenly made thu
head of the War Department. The
poor man became in very short time
man of princely expenditures, gi wing
the most sumptuous entertainments
lavish in all his ways of living, his
wife appearing at parties in blaze o.
diamonds. General Grant must have
known that all this expense could moi
be betrayed by the comparatively
moderate salary of Belknap's post as
Secretary. He must have known that
something was wrong in all this. He
must have known that the means OF
this enormous expense could not be
honestly obtained-that the sources OF
this splendor of living must be fraud
and guiIt-yet it went on from year to
year, and wonld have gone on nobody
can say how long, if it had not been
interrupted by the investigation now
proceeding.
We must have a new order of things
The country is disgraced by what has
happened, and we must retrieve our
character by putting the power into
not only the ablest but the cleanest
hands. We must have nobody at the
head of affairs who represents the men
by whom we have been brought to this
shame. We must take care, if posi-
! BILE. that the fatal Infection which has
crep. into the management of public
affairs, and made its exposure SO dis
gushing, is not propagated into the
next administration. In naming q
candidate for the next term of the
Presidency, no man identified, even
by suspicion, with these abuses, or
who is not known to regard them with
utter abhorrence-for example, no
man who has sought to make them
permanent by exerting his influence in
| favor of third election of the present
| chief magistrate-shcu ld be trusted u