, 1876-05-06
NO. H..

inent personal and party friends. Men do
not get office now by their individual efforts
so much as by the lsborious zeal and skilled
assiduity Of the personal friends and pro-
tessional partisans whose services they are
able to enlist. these inestimable helpers
cannot work without substantial reward,
especially If the candidates whose cause
they espoused chance to be successful. The
successful candidate is generally expected to
cast out of Office all who opposed his elec-
tion, irrespective of character and official
merit, and put in these places only such as
prominently labored for his election, with
out any special regard being paid to per
sonal quality, ability, or experience.
doubt If it is possible for any nation to suf.
fer from any more destructive political vice
than this. What policy could be so surely
suicidal as, at least, every quadrennium to
turn out Of office all the matured and expe.
rienced merit there is in itl No personal
or party friend should be allowed to usurp
the place of any well.tried incumbent who
still desires to remain. When able and
honest men are formed for public life they
must be kept, without regard to the ap.
peals of patronizng friends or selfish parti.
san abettors.
The ceaseless efforts of the "outs" to de.
throne the "ins." To do this any resort is
esteemed admissible, The guilt of an offend
ing individual is eagerly seized upon, and
disproportionately magnitied to break down
the party with which he may happen to be
identified Any crime or blunder, by which
any official high in power is looked upon by
the party anxious to come into the possession
OF power as the most benign of all possible
fortune. Those who are now enjoying the
ta'ors of political Influence iacile salary, may
be dispossessed of both by votes, and these
it isproposed to control against them. Lies,
false-witness, trickery, and bribes are as cur
rent and even more effective, electioneering
devices than eloquence, logic, and the most
brilliant antecedcnts.
A very large part ofthc terrible accusa-
tons against federal officials, now OBTAINING
our courts, wasting the time of our congerss-
ional committees, interrupting the executive
administration, and dsgracing our nation at
home and abroad, is the studied intrigue of
political leaders, determined to crush the
party in power, if possible at any moral cost.
There may be something in each lease" of
guilt, but the vastness of the prosecutions
which have been organized and the long :
and noisy reservations OF corruptions which
are made to precede all testimony, have al
ready impressed the minds of the people
with the conviction that all government is
but synonym of crime. The administra-
tion now in power is not half as corrupt as
the opposition to it is anxious to get in its
place. 1t is remarkable, and to me disgust
ingly significant, that official mistlemeanors
are so rarely exposed, except on the margin
of an important general election; nor would
seek to conceal the intensity of my emton
in view of the number of really beautiful rep
utations that this designing breath of parti-
san calumuy has slain. 1t is sheer nonsense
to assert and it is mournful imbecility to
believe, that those out OF office are better
than those in Office. One party will furnish
nation just as wholesome government as
another. No rivalry is innocent in politics
that is not in social or business life. }Ia-
licious statements, and unwarnntable de-
nunciations are as wicked and discOurteous
in party politics as anywhere else. Follow
the Golden Rule, and the Sermon on the
Mount, and the leading vices of American
politics would at once be unknown.-C Chi.
cdgo Times.