Lexington weekly intelligencer. (Lexington, Mo.) 1871-1887, 1876-07-15
#seklg gntelli9enfer,
WHAT THE HOUSE HAS DONE.
A Record That Does Honor TO Inc
Democratic Party II
the Country.
From the Washington Telegraph

What has the present house of reI
resentatives done for the country
The organs of the administrator
which are edited by the government
advertising ; the ring republican POI
iticians which have not been locke
up in the penitentiaries ; the conver
tlons of office-holders whose only pun
: pose in life is to keep their hold upo'
the public treasury, and or tw,
newspapers like the New York Trib
une, which are on the fence, with on
leg down on the republican side, sol
emnly assure us that it has done moth
: ing. They tell US that the house ha
forfeited public confidence and rove.
by its deeds that the majority in i
ought at the next election to b,
swept away, and the benches it oc
cupies filled by men ''who were tru'
: to the country in its hour of peril,
and who, when the hour of peril wa
passed robbed it upon the right hant
and the left; who turned every one O.
its departments into a den of infa
my used its highest offices for the
purpose of making money; plunged
the whole country into financial pan.
ic, from which it has not yet recov.
cred +; turned by its vicious legislation
millions of men into the streets to
beg filled the work-houses and jaiis,
and brought disgrace and shame up.
on republican institutions at home
and abroad. The men who did all
this, so-called Independent Journals
like the Tribune are asking the coun-
try to again place in power and to
give to them again the opportunity
to continue their work of destruc-
ton and drag the nation to still low
er depths of financial and political
ruin. Let us see what the present
house has and has not done:
1. 1t has not elected a Speaker like
Schuyler Colfax, who used his high
Office to enrich himself; who was
bribed and bought by every band of
adventures and swindlers who came
to Washington during his term of
office; who was caught in the Credit
. Mobilier iniquity, who was detected
in stationery frauds to the house and
exposed as a broker, receiving regu-
lar commission from a New York
paper establishment. It has not
elected a Speaker like James e.
Blaine, who used his position to in
f1uence legislation in favor of rail-
road subsidies, who accepted a bride,
as the agent of q firearms company,
who sold rulings and legislation for
SO much cash down, in the shape of
railroad bonds.
2. Since it met last December it
has not been devising ways and
means, day after day, to get money
out of the Treasury. On the con-
trary, it has cut down the extrava-
CANT estimates of the departments,
and, if the senate will pass it's bills.
has reduced the running expenses of
the government nearly forty millions
of dollars per annum. Instead of
making places for the creatures ofthe
administration, creating offices for
men to live in idleness at the expense
of the sorely-taxed people, it has
abolished every Office that was not
absolutely necessary, and, so far as it
could do so, stopped the leaks in the
public treasury.
8. Ithas not legislated a freedman's
bank into existence and placed it in
the power of q lot of men to steal the
earnings and savings of the poor col
0red men of the south, amounting to
millions of dollars. On the contrary.
it has taken the robbers and swind-
lers who did that infamous work by
the throat, exposed their ~rascality
and directed the officers of the gov
ernment to send their names before
the grand juries.
f.. 1t has gone into President
Grants Cabinet and dragged out of
it one of his trusted advisors, who
abused his high place, who robbed
tho haQn UnfQVQnS nf tho vra~ .ulo
aided in cheating the living soldiers
on the plains, who demanded money
for every appointment he made, and
brought him to trial for his many
crimes.
5. 1t has shown how the funds of
the so-called Department of Justice
have been used for the purpose OF
controlling elections il the south
and in the north how the President
put his hand into the public treasury
and took out money to aid in his own
reelection. 1t has exposed the vii
lainy of Williams, the r~ascality of
Davenport and the general corrup-
ton of that entire branch of the
public service.
6. 1t has stretched its hand across
the water to London and saved the
honor of the country by c~ollaring the
minister and ambassador extraordi.
nary, who was using his influence as
our representative to "bull" a worth
less mining stock and rob the English
people. 1t compelled the President
to accept his resignation aud send
Robert G. Schenck into an obscurity
from which he will never come.
z. 1t has shattered the District of
Columbia ring into a thousand atoms:
indicted Babcock for completely with
safe burglars, made Harrington a fu-
gitive from justice, and exposed the
rottenness and corruption of the pres
ent commissioners.
8. 1t has instituted a rigid scruti-
ny into the management of the NAVY
Department., exposed the corrupt
operations of the Cattells and other
plunderers, and before the investiga-
ton closes will expose whatever is
rotten and corrupt in the service.
9. 1t has laid bare the straw bid |
system in the PostoHce Department.
and proved that the country had been
annually robbed of hundreds and
thousands Of dollars for CARVING
letters that were never written, over
routes that never had an existence.
10. 1t has exposed the infamies of
the Indian ring, shown how the Indi-
n are driven on the war path that |
army contractors may be enriched |
and the treasury bled.
IL. It has matured a tariff hill
which, if the senate would agree tn
1t, would do more to start our idle |
mills and furnaces and factories and
restore prosperity to all classes than |
any measure which could be devised |
1t has taken the control of our Indian
affairs out of the hauds of thieves !
who had charge of them so long and
placed them where they belong-in
the Wal Department. 1t has reor-
gained the army and closed a thou-
sand avenues of fraud and corrun-
lion in every department.
These are some of the rascalities
and acts Of corruption the present
house has exposed, the reforms it has
instituted; the bad men it has mn
1shed ; the great service it has done
for the country. Done nothing? No
house for q quarter of a century has
done one-tenth as much or deserves
better at the hands of the people.
The value of silver continues to
decline all over the world. AT Lon.
o 1T is said to have been worth onJv |
1orty-seVen pence an ounce vester.
; but the Times declares that |
1.-The silver market becomes more and
more depressed and 90 oytra-.--