New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1876-03-07
LOOKING ZOE TIE MORIL or II


The press of the country is furnishing just
now large amount of very entertaining and
instructive reading on the subject of Bel
knap's fall, its causes, its lessons, its moral,
the temptations that led to it, and the
lessons generally TO DO learned from
the whole business So always the
press goes with lighted candle through
the ruins left by some fatal catastrophe or the
debris of IL great disaster, moral or otherwise.
and searches most intently for the cause.
And each Journal pounces on its own clew to
the mystery of the fall, and reads IN large,
superior way its own lesson. The scent each
one follows is very liable to be on the nose OF
the seeker, but he finds his lesson and his
moral no less, and is no less positive
in his preachments and absolute in his pre-
scrption of the only remedy for the present,
and preventive for the future. There is a
great deal to be learned from the wise deliver
anccs Of the press upon the occasion OF Bel
knap's fall. None of them may be exclusively
and entirely right, but from all of them 1t
would be strange indeed if there could
not be compiled Mt least plausible
and reasonable diagnosis of the case in hand
il not a sure cure, or preventive rather, OF
similar ones hereafter. If there is no good
thing in Belknaps crime there is this good in
its exposure, that it sets people a-thinking
and phil0sophizing The philosophy of the daily
press, more or less tainted as 1t must be with
personal and partisan prejudice, with considera-
tons of how il will affect parties and individuals
and how il will doVctai with recorded Opin-
ions, and views hitherto expressed and main
tlined-how. in short, it will affect Gus "our
friends" and q" our party"-iS still worth study
ing. For from all these side lights thrown
from oil quarters and under all cir
cumstanccs and surroundings, and affect
ed by all sorts of influences, we shall
get pretty correct idea of what forces are mt
work in politics, what considerations govern
our public men, and how the public view
them of the average morality of official life,
and the average Judgment Of the people con-
corning it I; and from the whole obtain a reason
able conception of the prevailing standards of
political morality.
We do not need to dwell upon the bitter
denunciations of Marsh, the informer, in which
some of the Administration organs have in
dulged to the extent almost Of forgetting the
crime of the impcachcd Secretary nor upon
the brutality with which some of them have
condemned Belknap for the crime, not
against morality and law, but against
the President whose confidence he is
said to have abused, and the party whose pros
poets he has injured The reading between
the lines of these comments is all too plain.
Ii is Indignation at tho exposure, not at the
crime Then there are those who moral
ize upon the extravaganza of Wash
ingtOn society; the senselcss passion for
display, the silly and wasteful grand recep-
tons and parties, the ambitions and riyalries
of "the ladies of the court and all the dis
NAL train of fOllies through which women lead
men TO dishonor and ruin. There's good
deal in it. IL is well worth thinking Of
Others meantime are directing attention to
the dreadful results of the speculative tend
cncy that grew up out of and with the
war, and running along on all tours with
an unredeemed and inedeemablc currency, had
demOraized private business and the public
service and put on all things everywhere the
sign of barter and trade. A few, we observe,
are making the most of the great lesson which
they read on all this class of crimes, that our
public servants are too poorly paid, and that
the plain duty of the Republic is to
put them beyond temptation by increase of
salary. And tina, is lesson that is not, and
never can, grow old an excuse for robbery
old rs sin, and as sure 30 last. There are some
who account for it by the prevailing low