Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1876-08-24
falcation, under your. administration

falcation, under your administration
then it has suffered under ours.
In an official letter to the Senate
under date of June 19, 1866, the Secre
tary of the Treasury copies from hi:
records the aggregate losses by defal
cations and the loss per 81, 600 in each
period of four years since 1884 in all the
departments an bureaus of the Govern.
ment. Without quoting the table at
length, the grand aggregate stand thus;
From January 1, 1884, 10 July 1, 1861,
the total disbursements of the Govern.
ment were 81, 1863, ,977 SOP 80; the total
defalcatiOns were $12, 1851 ,122 81; or 9
loss of $9.02 to the $1,00O.
From July l., 1861, to July 1, 1875,
the total disbursements were 81, ,566,
892, ,569 So; the total dsfalcations were
S9,905, ,205 81; or loss of 26-cents to the
81 900. In the latter period the dis
bursements We're nearly ten times as
great as in the former, and the defalca-
tions one-lhird less.
Is this country SO given over to cor
ruption ss the gentleman from Missis-
sippi suggests? l. will answer by
quoting two distinguished witnesses.
In his able speech on the impeach ment
trial, one Of the Democratic managers,
the gentleman, from New York (Mr.
Lord, said: - 9l!..s1z
Senators, am one of those who be-
lieve In progress, ] believe that this
age Is the best age which the sun ever
shOne upon; l believe there is more OF
religion, more of humanity, more of
love, more Of charity, in this age, than
in any age that has preceded It.
"There is now q higher and health.
ier sentiment than in any former age.
Men are held to official responsibilities
now, thank God, that they never were
before. The time has been In the re-
collection of many of you when per
son thought he had the right to use bis
official position for his own advantage;
but that time has gone by, and good
deal of what we see and hear which
leads great many SO mournfully to
say that the age Is going backward and
we are receding to barbarisn, very
much which occasions the apparent in
crease of wrong arises, from the higher
demands of greater civilization, from
the higher plane of an enlightened
people,"
Now, / ask the Clerk to read para
graph which / have marked from the
Centennial address of Rev. DIR. Storrs,
a man fit to be the teacher Of his race.
The Clerk read as follows:
81 scout the thought that we as a
people are worse than our fathers.
John Adams, at the head Of the War
Department in 1776, wrote bitter Ia
ments of the corruption which existed
in even that infant age of the Rspublic,
and of the spirit OF yenality, rspacious
and insatisble, which was then the
most alarming enemy Of America. He
declared himself ashamed of the age in
which he lived. In Jefferson's day all
Federalists expected the universal do
minion of French infidelity. In jack
sons day all the Wings thought the
country gone to ruin already, as if Mr..
Biddle had had the entire public hope
locked up in the vaults of his terminal
ed bank. In Folks day the excite
ments of the Mexican war gave lite and
termination to many seeds of rascality.
There has never been time, not here
alone, In any country, when the fierce
light of incessant inquiry blazing on
men in public life would not have re-
vealed forces of evil like those we have
seen, or when the condemnation which
followed the discovery would have been
sharper. And it is among my deepest
happened to debase and bebauch 1t, the
nation at large was never before more
mentally vigorous or morally sound"
Mr.. Gsrfeld-Now, Mr.. Chairman,
after all the fearful corruption of his
time described by John Adams, our
fathers never thought it necessary to
call the tories back 10 take charge Of
their newly gained liberties.
Twill close by calling your attention
again to the great problem before US.
Over this vast horizon Of interests,
North and South, above all party pref
udice and personal wrong-dOing, above
all that we hoped for and won, or that
you hoped for and lost, is the grand, on
ward movement of the Republic to-
perpetuate its glory, to save liberty
alive, to preserve exact and equal jus
tice to all, to protect and foster all these
priceless principles, until they shall
have crystallized into the form of en-
during law, and become inwrought in
to the life and the habitg of our people.
And until these great results are &C
it is not safe to take one
step backward. 1t is still more unsafe
to trust interests of such measHreless |
value in the hands of such an Organiza- |
tion whose members have never COM
pretended their epoch-have never |
been in sympathy with its great move
ments, who have resisted every step of
its progress, and whose principle func-
ton has been
To lie in cold obstruction
across the pathway of the Nation.
It is most unsafe of all to trust that
when, for the first time,
since the war, it puts forward for the !
first and second place of honor and
command men who, in our days of
greatest danger, esteemed party above
and felt not one throb of patri-
otic ardor for the triumph of the inn
perilled Union, but from the beginning
10 the end hated the war, and hated
those who carried our eagles to victory.
No, no, gentleman; our enlightened
and patriotic people will not follow
such leaders in their rearward march
Their myriad faces are turned the other
way; and along their serried lines, still
rings the cheering cry, "Forward J"
ill our great work Is fully and worthily
done. Loud and continued applause.
Autumn Planting.
P. Barry furnishes to the Rochester
Rural Home o statement of some of his
In fall planting. Last fall,
1uite late, after the hurry Of the season