The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1876-04-05
Our New York Letter.
The Investigating Business AT Washing.
ton-A Series of FaiIures-Bell and his
Character-Tho Financial Question
MIR. BoRtwelps Speech and the Southern
states.

Charactef-Tho Financial 4uestlou-
MIR. BoRtwelps Speech and the Southern
states.
NEW YORK, April 1, 1876.
The investigating business at the National |
capital has not thrived. The Democrats are !
Disguised with it, The Republicans smile COM
placenty at each successive failure of each pro- |
digious effort to make some discovery dsmag- |
ing to the administration or to prominent sup |
porters of it. There are at this moment thirty
four committees engaged in this sort OF scaveu-
ger work. Their activity has created sharp
demand for witnesses so sharp indeed, that the
supply great as 1t is hardlk keeps pace with it,
and as for quality, bad as it was in the begin
ming, it deteriorates day by day. Any adven-
tufef, out of money and out at elbows, who has
ingenuity enough to invent and impudence
enough to relate plausible story, may make
journey to Washington, and be entertained
there with sumptuousness to which hei
wholly unaccustomed, by sending in his name
and the outline of his fabrication to Clymer,
Blackburn & Co., corruption and fr aud miners
House of Representatives, U. S. Applications
for these places have already poured in and
been granted to such an extent as utterly to ex-
haust the contingent fund provided for that
purpose, and a new kind of initiation is threat
ened in the form Of certificates of Indebtedness
for witness fees which are beginning to circu-
late among the hotel keepers in the District Of
Columbia. For the wary proprietors of those
establishments are by no means conddng in
heir treatment of these gentry, and deal with
them on the principle of limited credit and fire.
quent settlements. Quite independently of their
disinclination to pay their bills, they are not
desirable guests in any respect. As they wan
der up and down the stairways and corridors,
sinister Of aspect, unsoaped and altogether
shabby and shutting, respectable visitors
shrink from them and instinctiyely put their
hands to the pockets which contain their watch
and wallet. Even the bar-keeper, although his
calling does not tend to render him fastidious,
nevertheless gives facial indications of sense
Of relief when one of these customers has i'm
bibed, passed in his stamp and taken himself
off.
The Democracy could the better endure the
descent of these worse than Egyptian plaques
if there was any capital to be made out of them.
have no doubt astounding revelations were
expected. Such an incessant hurricane Of
evaporation has been raining upon the admin
istration that great many of the new members
had actually wrought themselves into the belief
that every department of the government was
honeycombed with abuses and iniquities
Those with larger experience knew differently.
If the House had been skllfully led. there
would have been far less of investigation.
Denunciation is SO very much easier and an
swers the purpose quite as well in a time of
general craze and distemper. This being put to
the proof is very awkward thing. 1t does not
appear In spite of all the efforts to make it ap-
parent in spite of the introduction of all sorts
of tales, many of them ridiculously irrelevant,
and Of witnesses so reckless in their averments
that the extravaganza of them was their best
refutation, that any member of the government
has done anything which ought to impair an
iota the public confidence in his integrity and
honor save only the late Secretary of War,
who was promptly elected from Office and put
upon his trial The various departments, on
the contrary, are shown to have been conducted
in manner with the uprightness or efficiency
of which no fair minded citizen can find fault
am entirely certain that no previous admin
istration of our generation could have passed
through the same ordeal with equal invulnera-
bility, Nobody who is at all well informed in
such matters will pretend that Lincoln's could
But then it will be urged very properly that
any shortcomings of that epoch are to be
passed over with gentle criticism on account
of the eventful scenes which marked its his
tory. That carries US back to Buchanan and
Democracy and one has only to remember the
behavior of the men then in power to shudder
at the possibility of a restoration of such dy-
nasty.
The latest witness who has been put on ex-
hibition, was this creature (BelD who was dis
charged from detective service in the Depart
ment of the Interior when he was discovered
to be a liar and cheat The stuff be makes
oath to, duplicates nobody who is now in Off
cial station, but his oath is Of no conceivable
worth any way. 1t may be asked why was
such a man permitted to get into the govern
msnt employ. This is easily answered In the
first place men of his stamp never have any
difficulty in presenting the best of reoommen-
dations, ard in the next place it is scarcely
possible to get men of average character and
any great self respect to engage in detec-
tive service. In war it is brave and noble to
act as spy, and manga trae hero has dared
the halter in his manly resolution to serve
cause. But in peace, the calling of detective
and informer is especially repulsive and men of
line sensibilities are as 10th to practice it as
they are unsuited to the kind of duty it i'm
poses. This fellow Bell, managed to get a
place in the corps, but the President and Secre-
tary very soon ascertained that he was fraud
and sent him adrift. He was just the charac-
ter to tender his services flor consideration
to anybody in the investigating line. 1 fancy
he was rather more eager to bear testimony
against the administration than otherwise,
because he had so recently been discharged,
though ordinarily I dare say he has been in the
habit of making his allegations conform to the
wishes of his principal.
1t must not be supposed that opposition Con-
gressmen are at all happy in parading such ami
mails as this in the National Menagerie. They
would do better if they could. But they are in
desperate strait. They have undertaken to
unearth great mass of "fraud and corrup-
tion." They can't find any. They have as
sumed contract which they are without
means. to execute. If they had contented them
Soteo Will auOaclOu6ly prOclalmlng tnaC
fraud and corruption" prevailed throughout
all the bureaus of the government and must be
punished, they would have avoided vast deal
of trouble. And in the present temper of SO
much of that noun of multitude called the
people, as pins its faith on hearsay, accusation
is precisely as effective as demonstration. To
accuse is to convict. To be sure such convic-
tions must inevitably be reversed whenever rea-
son bears sway. But for the time being and for
the exigencies of feeting polite al campaign,
they are as good reliance as the enemies of
the administration can hope for.
1t is worthy of remark that the tales recited
before these thirty-four investigating commit
tees find no home demand. The market for
them is exclusively for the purposes of expor-
tation. Their value depends largely upon the
coloring they receive at the hands of the in
dustrious and imaginative reporters who make
mp the press dispatches. And here the great
law of competition asserts itself with peculiar
force. Events that seemed tame and common
place at the time when and the place where
they happened are waited back next day
clothed with such melodramatic drapery that