The daily gazette., 1876-06-27
Fighting for Plunder.

From the New York Sun.
The Republican majority In he
Senate are struggling desperately to
save the patronage and plunder upon
which the leaders and their retainers
have fattened, and the party machine
has been run since the advent of
Grantism. In spite Of all the astound-
ing exposures of corruption. fraud
blackmailing, colluson, and bare-faced
robbery, they adhere to the extrava-
gance and outrageous exbenditures
established by successive Republican
Congresses, and demand the same
enormous appropriations to continue
them, as if nothing had occurred.
The postrate condition of all the
great industrial interests, the stagna-
ton of trade, the impoverishment of
labor, aud the enforced necessity for
economy everywhere, have made no
impression on partisan minds accus-
toned to prey on republic Treasury.
No matter what form retrenchment
takes, it encounters the solid and OBJ
stinate opposition of the Republicans
| in Congress. AS resistance is power
| less in the House. it is transferred to
the Senate, where majority controls
ed by Ring agents and carpet-bag
lknaves shape the legislation of that
body.
Gen, Grant has thrown all the in
fluence of the Executive into the scale
against any reduction of the expenses
His friends, his relations, and his ap-
pointments, made to satisfy the exac-
tions of party, are the benefciaries of
the profigate system through which
the Treasury has been and still is
Irobbed. He is responsible for great
part of it. and he now clings with
Iconvulsive grasp, as he sees power
slipping away, to every office and job
and contract and chance, in order to
improve his remaining opportunities.
His recent message to Congress was
concocted under Ring influences, for
no other object than to deceive the
country as to the true situation. For
1 many years the appropriation bills
| have not passed until the closing hours
of a session, and repeatedly under Re.
publican rule, without even being read
when ten millions were voted away.
1t has often happened that some OF
these bills did not go through until
weeks after the close of the fiscal
year, and occasionally they failed to
pass at all, without in any way de-
ranging the operations of government.
/ This was the condition of things
when the policy of the Republican
party was to accept the estimates
without question, to multiply offices,
. to increase salaries, and to appropriat
the peoples money by millions for
Rings. Grant had no warning to give
then, when plunder and prodigality
were the order of the day. He sal
! complacently in the White House and
5 saw the sands fast running out with
= out the least misglving. He knew
= that the majority in Congress had too
a much personal interest at stake to let
+ the money bills fail, whatever else
0 might be lost. -.
$ Now, however the situation is radi
! cally changed, and the President il
: alarmed at the prospect Of reduction
7 of forty millions in the appropriations
! To achieve this reform the House Of
i Representatives had to abolish rul'
o of the Republicans, by which 1t was
t always in order to increase salaries AM
! expenses, and out of order to reduce
= them. The Democrats reversed it il
p favor of retrenchment.
sI That was the first step. But to econo
S mize properly and Judiclously, II wa
l. necessary to examine every Item IN a.
1 the appropriation bills, or substantiall
q TO reconstruct them from the foundation
= up. 1t was most laborious task, such
: NO preceding committee ever performed
= Time. patience, and investigation had t
Ie be employed to get at the bottom of
? chronic extravaganza and to extripat
10 an organized system Of plunder. The re
lg suit is before the country, and but fe
d the certain hostility Of the Senate an
Is President, twenty u4I-lons would lav