The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1876-05-18
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENCE.
WASHINGTON D. C. MAY IS. 1876.

WASHINGTON D. G. May Is, 1876.
It is claimed that last Friday week q
large number of old claims, which have
been repeatedly rejected by former con-
crosses because of the fraudulent charae
er and the disloyalty of the claimants,
were rushed through the House by the
reforners constituting majority of its
members Neither disloyalty nor Ku
Klux proclivities are seemingly any bar
to the recognition of the claims against
the Government, (many of them based
upon the most absurd grounds,) which
have been pouring into the House from
the Southern States since the very
first private bill day of the session. In
deed claims of that character are regard
ed with the utmost favor by the South
ern members pretty generally and by
their cringing allies from other sections
who are accustomed to with contemp-
tuous sneers of the friends OF natlona!
supremacy and unity as the ''truly-
loil. II venture to predict that if the
voters of these United States had full
knowledge of the hundreds of millions
of dollars involved in bills of
Southern origin, which have been intro
duced into the House this winter, and
which are only waiting Democratic ac-
tendency to be pushed to final payment
the Democratic party would come up to
the next November election, skeleton
composed of its politicians, their ex-
rebel constituents and small following
of venomous copperheads who preferred
the destruction of the Union rather than
a transfer of the National power which
has been so long welded by their South
ern authors in the interests of slavery,
to the Republican party, one of the log
ical sequences of the encroachments OF
the slave power. The sharp stings of
the foundations visited upon our Demo-
cratic Legislators by President Grants re-
ply to Blackburu's resolution, and the
publication of Fitzhugh's letter have
been somewhat blunted by the two days
festivities of Philadelphia, and yester-
day they resumed their reformator labors
by an attempt to deprive all cities of
less than forty thousand inhabitants OF
the free delivery system. The PROPOSE
ton was warmly discussed, the Repub-
hcans opposing it and the Bourbons IA
voring it of course as they do any
measure looking to a return to the med
ical practices of the dark ages. During
the discussion General Banks tainted
them with the inconsistency between
their action in the river and harbor IL
Equity and that on the pending measure.
They were finally defeated. The Com
mittee appointed to investigate Govern
ment- Printer Clapp, made very bad
showing for that official in their report
made Yesterday. They charge that Mr..
Clapp had habitually paid from 120 to
125 per cent more for printing material
than was paid by private parties; that
he charged for work done at the same
rate that he never informed himself as
to what he ought to pay for material,
and that his price paid for labor was
equally extravagant and that he has
in various ways disregarded laws III his
administration of the Office. They re-
comend that the Office be abolished and
as preliminary step in that direction to
give the printing of the Congressional
Record to Franklin Rives, good Dem
ocrat. 1t is also recommended that res
olution of the House be passed, direct
ing the Speaker to certify the testimony
in the case to the proper tribunal in this
District, that Clapp may be indicted and
punished and that he be also impeach
ed if it is decided that his are impeach-
able offenses. The exaggerated terror
with which Davenport is regarded by
the Democratic members of Caulfield's
committee and by the party generally
was too deeply seated to be dissipated
by their two days Of oblivion relative to
investigations obtained while absent at
the Centennial opening at Philadelphia.
It was propably regarded as flying IN
the face of providence to allow DaYen-
port to come back here and testify; so
a subcommittee is to be sent to New
York and while Davenport completes his
testimony they are to be especially vigil
liant that he makes no allusion to the al
legged Democratic practice of carrying
the elections of that city through re-
peating, intimidation, bribery and per
Jury. The election Of Coke as the new
Senator from Texas, who is an unrepeut-
ent rebel of very poisinous type, over
Hancock who rendered himself odious
to the highly educated and refined
communities of that State by his Union
sentiments during the war, is not regard
ed as very convincing evidence by peo-
pie here that the voters of that far off
State feel very deeply the enormity of
their sin in doing their level best to de-
stroy the Government that made them
all they are, or that they would hesitate
to reenact their reasonable work upon
any fitting opportunity.
MAXWELL.