New-York tribune., 1876-04-24
THE INVESTIGATIONS.

The Democrats in Congress are In falr way
to dscredit themselves by the Investigations
now under way far more than they can hope
TO disgrace the Administration. They seem TO
imagine that all the people of the Uuitcd
States are quite as anxious as Democratic pol
ticians can be to prove Gen. Grant thicf,
Mr.. Williams public robber, RObeson wol-
Thy comradc of Belknap, and Babcock bui-
gar. They are ransacking bank-accounts,
turning the departments inside out. listening
to the chatter of human magpies, hanging
upon the lips of gaIrulOus detectives, getting
together the tag-rag and bobtail OF the civil
service, and setting up scandal bureau IN
every cOmmittee-room of the Capitol No
story that comes to their ears is too cross for
immediate belief. No charge against officers
of the Government is so outrageous that they
are not ready upOn the slightest testimony
both to accept it themselves and to spread it
before the public.
The most fragrant example of their headlong
haste to believe evil was in the case of the
expenditures from the Secret Service fund,
through the hands of Davenport. We have
no manner of doubt that in this instance, rs
in great many Others, Gen. Grant spent the
We know that his Administration has ha
btually used the funds of the Government for
election purposes; We need not 90 beyond tho
nearest navy-yard to see that sort of thing
done every year. We know too that Daven-
port abused his powers disgraced his office,
and invaded the rights of respectable citizens.
But the money paid to him by Whitley and
Williams was paid in accordance with the let
ter of the law, and the purpose to which 1t
was applied was on its face good one. The
Committee has discovered no evidence thus
far that dollar of it was misappropriated.
Yet they have allowed the report to go out
from their meeting-room and TO be telegraphed
all over the civilized world that the President
has been caught making corrupt use OF the
Government funds,-embezzling from tho
Treasury for the purpose of buying votes.
NOT is this by any means an isolated instance
Of their unfair behavior. The financial trans
actions of Secretary Robeson at the time of
the panic of 1878 have been set before the
world in an equally unjust light; and there is
hardly an official of high rank connected with
the Administration who has not been subjected
TO an unmerted imputation of some kind by
=, Committee eager to believe the worst and
TO publish what it believes upon insufficient
information.
These over-zealous partisans ought to remem-
her that no decent American, whatever his
politics, wishes to "catch Grant, or any oil
his Cabinet. No one can detest more heartily
than we do the base and demoralizing system
upon which Gen. Grant has governed the
country, or can entertain a moro pro-
found contempt for the vulgar and
rorrupt creatures whom he has gathered
around him; but it is matter of satisfac-
ton to us, as it is to all that large body of
liberal and Independent thinkers for whom we
speak, that the investigations of this Winter
pushed in every possible direction, have left
his honesty above suspicion. The closer the
various scandals are examined the clearer does 1t
appear that the BabcOcks, Belknaps, Shepherds
| Ory Grants, and other people of that sort, have
grossly ill-used the President, upon whose con-
fidence and kindness they have traded. And
the people, who are a great deal more sensi-
tive respecting the character of their Chief
Magistrate than he seems to be himself, will
not thank anybody who invites them to be-
lieve that Grant is a swindler and his Cabinet
den of thieves We beg our Democratic
friends therefore to moderate their unruly rage
and to spring no more scandals upon dis
gusted nation till they are sure about the facts