Wilmington journal., 1876-02-25

THE REAL EVIL OF CRAMPS
ADrgGNISrfk fkA TiON.
The Nation takes an original and at
the same time common sense view OF
some of the evils which Grants Ad-
ministration has inflicted upon the
country. Grant has done more to
famiI1arize the American people wi h
the face of crime than any man before
him ON tue American continent has
been able to do. 1t has been time and
again charged, and the charges have
been sustained by indisputnbte facts,
that he has retained men in office un-
der his Administration whom he knew
to be corrupt and unworthy the repo-
sal of public trust. These corrupt
officials have been even members of
his magisterial household. Corruption
has been traced SO near to his imme
diate official presence, that he, himself,
is gravely suspected of being not only
cognizant of such corruptions, but of
being an actual participant therein.
His high official position, ignoring as
he does these numerous acts of cor
ruption, countenancing and sustain
ing men in office who are openly
charged with the gravest crlml
nal offenses, makes him powerful for
evil, and affords him the facilities of
being the greatest OF corruptionists.
When the name of the President of
the United States is thus freely asso-
ciated with vice aud crime, how po-
| tent Is the influence upon officials of
| lower station. "When vice prevails
and impious men bear sway" the gaze
! of the multitude makes them familiar
them to ''frst endure, then pity, then
| embrace" It is not SO much the re-
suits Cf the war that the times are SO
disjointed, or that crime is so preva~
lent throughout the lengthaud breadth
of the land. The cause of these re-
suits may be traced to another source,
the example of high official corruption.
The Nation thinks that it is not
Grants simple mindedness that has
| betrayed him into his series of diff
culties. That paper shows that the
| President has a will Of his own when
| ever tue Executive authority is brought
into requisition. Here is what it say S:
We, for our part, see far more
danger to the government in popular
| familiarity with or indifference to the
! evils which General Grants admins
| tration has fostered, than in the po SSH
bility of the election IF any man for
| three terms. 1t must not he forgotten,
in estimating or in criticlsing his polit
| ical career, that it is the very fact of
his strong claim on popular gratitude
! which has made lis two terms so de-
moralizing, and it is almost always by
men with claims on popular gratitude
that the seeds of po itical ruin are
sown. If he had not bet a successful
| general in dark days, he would have
become odious before 1872; but with
the halo of war around him, not only
have terrible number of faults been
| forgiven him, but they have come to
lose the appearance of faults aud to
take on that of virtues. No ordinary
President could, for instance, have
| been allowed to give government
like this a Musselman flavor, by ap-
pointing high public functionaries
TIN ough pure personal caprice. When
| President Grant first began to N ke
extraordinary and. as 1t seemed. and
alous selections for places in the civil
service, his friends maintained that we
must not reproach him, that he was a
simpie-minded man, who was necessar-
| lily IN this matter IN the hands of the
Senators and Represer tatives; but he
speedily dissipated this theory by ap-
| pointing Simmons, of Boston, in def
ance Of the Representative of the dis
trict, and Mcdonald, of st. L"uis, in
defiance of the whole State delegation.
| In short, he has administered the gov
erDment neither on the old American
"spoils" system nor on the new ''civil
service reform system, but on the
Sultanic or Turkish system, which
says: II like Mustapha; put the VIZ
ier's robes on hum, and give anybody
who says he is a thief one hundred
| blows with stick"