Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1876-12-16
OUR WASHINGTON LETTER.

A Beautiful City infested with Radical
Rot-How the Grant.Shepherd Ring
Contemplate their Future-Franttc Ell
forts to Hang On-ssTO BE Not 10
Bean Active Session Of Congress i'm
Prospect.
Special Cora dependence of the Standard.
Back to Washington in the balmy
November days. Back from the
dirty, dusty, crowded, narrow streets
of the Centennial city to the broad,
breezy, park-like thoroughfares of the
most beautiful city in America, per-
haps in the world. No longer penned
in by towering piles of gloomy walls
that shut out the blessed sunlight, we
breathe freer and invoke blessing
upon the memory of that far-seeing
young Frenchman, L'Enfant, who
laid out the federal city upon such a
grand and magnificent scale. There
is suggestion of Paris, gay, giddy,
happy Paris, in the plan of the city.
Its avenues, parks, gardens and pub
lie buildings remind the traveller
forcibly of the French capital, and
the day will come when'it will far sur
pass the latter in beauty. What a
pity, what a crying shame it is that
all this beauty all these grand i'm
provements should be coupled with so
much fraud and villainy. The Shop
herd Mullet-Babcock ring have
reaped a rich harvest and beggared
many a property-holder, Yes, it is
beautiful city,-goodly and fair to
look upon, but within there is foul
rot and much uncleanliness. And
this reminds us that the mighty Null
let swims again after brief season of
inactivity. His recent appointment
by Secretary Morril to some indefn-
lite advisory position in the architect
ural bureau of the Treasury Depart
ment has a very fshy look, It is
doubtless an illegal exercise ofpower
on the part of Mr.. Morril, but Boss
Shepherd and Babcock demanded it
and it was done. One OF the monu-
ments of Mullet's costly architectural
folly is the huge unfinished pile known
as the new War and Navy Depart
ment. It reminds us of one of Beck
ford's weird and ghostly conceits in
vathek, the description of the
Hall of Eblis. The gloomy watch
towers, whose numbers could not be
counted, were yelled by no roof, and
the Capitol, of an architecture I'M
known in the records of the earth,
served as an asylum for the birds of
darkness, which, alarmed at the ap-
proach CT such visitants, fed away
croaking."
Who can fail, reading this para
graph, to call to mind the gloomy,
unfinished War and Navy Depart
ment;; "veiled by no roof, "of an
architecture unknown in the records
of the earth," filed with its possible
occupants flying ",away croaking"
at the approach of a Democratic
administration and a Democratic
investigating committee. All, these
fellows who have SO long fattened
upon the spoil of the people feel
it in their bones. The symptoms
of q change are unmistakeable. They
have lost their confident and defiant
air. They are nervous and depressed,
There is wailing, and woe in the
camp ofthe ofice-holders, and Grant
ism is in despair.
There is listening fear in their regard,
As II calamity had Just begun;
As II the Yanward clouds Of evil DAYS
Had spent their malice, and the suller rear
Was with its stored thunder laboring up"
They have one hope and but one
alone, bayonet rule and bloodshed at
the South. All their energies are
now directed toward stirring up anar-
chy and strife to obtains pretext for
counting out the votes of several of
southern States. This is the great
est danger that thrertens the Democ-
racy. Nothing will make the election
sure until the final count is made, un-
less there should be q generous re-
Spouse from the Democracy in states
of the North yet classed as doubtful.
In these the administration ring will
make desperate effort. Orators Of
the stamp of Bob Ingersol and Bogus
Brain Fag Blaine will traverse these
States and deluge the land with o
water-spout OF words. Money will
be used without stint, and the already
depleted Department clerks will have