The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1876-08-16
WARRINGTON LETTER.
From our Regular Correspondent.
WASHINGTON, August II, 1876.

From our Regular Correspondent.
WASHINGTON, August II, 1876.
We sing. IN these Centennial days, the
yalorous deeds Of our forefathers, OF their
fortitude in privation, of their sacrifices
and their triumphs.
1t has ever been characteristic oi
men and nations, to ignore the present,
with its colossal heroes, with its exam
ples of toiling and enduring patriotism.
and to find in the magnifying page OF
history their ideals and demi-gods. There
have been many heroes since Leonidas,
hut none of them serve SO well to round
Fourth of July perorstion; perhaps it
il because none have such vlstas oil
antiquity to conceal their defects and
reyerberate their mighty deeds.
This is supposed to be piping time
of peace" but it is fact that the country
has an army of $4,000 office holders, and
that it is fighting day and night for "the
psrty." The army is in the midst OF
campaign, and the rank and file, with a
patriotism unequallsd by any thing in
the annals OF the revolution, contribute
from their pay to purchase the munitions
of war. Who will say these are degen.
crate days, and that the sons are not
worthy of their siresH 1t is spectacle
that may be seen OF all government em
ployes after the srduous labors OF the day,
after remaining six hours in office, en-
gagged mostly in reading newspapers,
talking politics and flirting with pretty
female clerks, will repair TO campaig n
headquarters At night, and direct
campaign documents for Two or
three hours. They are regularly or
panized and drilled. Each state is rep
resented here by a Republican campaign
committee, composed OF clerks IN the Ex'
ecutiye Departments. They rent rooms
and meet al stated periods to direct cam
paign circulars for the dissemination oi
Radical views. Many of these circulars
are marked on the envelope, Hamburg
riot" Part of the Congressional Record,
"Free." This is why Congress, ''likc a
wounded snake drags its slow length
along" that Morton, Boutwell, and Conk'
ling NAV place stump speeches on the
Record, and that Chandler and Edmunds
may make excepts for free distribution
through the mails.
The Democratic Congress has said
IN the legislative appropriation bill that
seven hundred and sixty-tve Of these
party patriots must be discharged IN
the next three months, and Senator
Conkllng and the Republican press are
As indignant as psrtisans, who know the
worth Of sxlaried political workers, were
expected to be.
Those acquainted with the idle, losflng
life of these clerical supernumerarles, can
believe Senator Conklng honest only by
presuming him ignorant. lie said when
ws remember that we are assured the
Treasury Department has of late been
administered with ability, the high re.
formatory aim of that administration
with an eye single TO economy, and with
an earnest effort for retrenchment, 1t WA:
difficult to accept rs fact, the statement
that 49l persons can summsrlly be with
drawn from the working force that oper'
a,es the department, and not utterly Grip
ple il. 1t was Is absurd, to his mind, as i,
would have been after A. 7. Stewart:
death, had some one attempted to prove
that the details of his immense business
could have been attended TO by four
ffths of the force which Mr.. Stewart
himself had deemed necessary.
Itis common remark among the
more intelligent clerks OF the Executive
Department here, that A. 7. Stewar,
could have carried on all the business oi
any department. with one-third the forcs !,
now employed. Many clerks are idle
one-hslfth time during the official hours
from "a. n. to 3P. M.-idle, notwith
standing the elaborately complicated sys
tenn that have no merit in point OF utility
and that seem 10 have been ingenIomly
invented to keep up the illusion Of en-