The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1876-03-18
UHY HE FELL.


| Social Erfrdr1gance at the National Capita
Lurcd BeiEnap to Ruin.
The Chicago Inter-Ocean says: In on
columns in this issue will be found full
details of the testimony before tn, con
gressiOnal investigating committee affect
ing the official integrity of w. w. Bel
KNAPP, secretary of war. No event in tho
history of official administration in Wash
ington has ever caused more painful
interest. When Gen. Belknap was APP
pointed secretary of war on the death OF
Hon. John A. Rawlins the selection
occasioned universal surprise, and in nc
state more than in Iowa, where his resi-
dence had been for many years. lie was
lawyer by profession, but had not
attained to eminence. He was Il brave
but several officers in his adopted state
were his seniors in military rank and
distinction. AT the close of the war he
was appointed to federal civil trust,
but not of a high grade.
From his induction, however, into the
high office of cabinet counsellor hs
bore his new honors SO modestly, and dis
charged his duties so cxcellently, that in
brief time he won the approval and the
pride of the people of his state, and the
respect of the whole country. He seemed
to have obtained. also, from the outset
the confidence of the president, ami to
have retained it uninterruptedly until
the resignation was rendered and ac-
cepted yesterday. During his admins
tration of the war Office, extending
through the larger part of two successive
presidential terms, he did not, indeed,
escape charges of malcfeasance; but af-
ter the long, searching, bitter investiga-
ton of his official connection with the
sale of United States arms to the French
his vindicatiOn was so triumphant in all
respects that his reputation as an honest
officer of the cabinet from that time on
ward was left reasonably free from as
sault. The blow under which he is now
stricken down, apparently never to rise
again, comes, therefore, like a lightning
bolt from an unclouded sky. 1t has
stricken him so suddenly and irrecovera-
bly, as to have paralyzed his personal and
political friends, and to have appealed to
the pity even of his political enemies.
Men of all parties, and who can in no
manner defend nor palliate his great Of
fence, are moved to silence and to sad
ness in the view of the swiftness and the
hopelessness of his fall.
Without full knowledge of all the in
fluences leading to this catastrophe, it
may be safely assumed that one element
which was potent in producing it was
the extravaganza of social life which
seems to have become accepted as an in.
dispensable adjunct of high official rank
in Washington. While senator or
in congress, with salary
of $4,000 year, is often compelled-un-
less he has liberal private income-to
accept of lodgings on the upper floors of
Indifferent private dwellings, and browse
around in unsavory dining halls and res
taurants for his meals, cabinet officer,
with salary of $4,000 year, is expected
to maintain an establishment where the
Inequalities of foreign dignitaries and
resident and transient citizens of great
wealth and high rank may be returned
in kind.
There are only three modes by which
this popular expectation may be met:
The officer must have liberal private for
tune at his command, or he must gener-
Gus and confiding friends who are willing
to discount his expectations in the flu
ture; or he must sell his official and per-
sonal honor for price. Rather than ac-
cept of the latter alternative brave
man will refuse to accept the social
courtesies which he cannot return or,
if accepted, ignore the customary laws
of reciprocity in such cases. How, when,
or where the remedy may be applied for
this extravaganza of social official enter
tainment at the national capital it is not
our purpose here and now to discuss;
but in passing judgment on the secretary
who has fallen from dizzy height OF
official rank to a depth far below that of
the poorest citizen in honest private life,
it should not be forgotten that the great
public itself, by the exactions it makes
upon some Of its officials, may have
helped to push this man, once possessed
of an unsullied, soldierly name, to his
temptation and his destruction.