Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1877-06-28
THE PRESIDENTS GAG-ORDER.

A Tribune w washington Speclal OH tIit 4eH1-
dents order says: As interpreted by cabinet
officers, the order is intended to prohibit any
connection whatever with any of the various
ward, township, county, State or National
organizations for conducting political cam
palms, and debars the office holder from act
ING as delegate at political conventions. The
only mort office holders will be allowed to take
in political affairs will be voting, speaking and
writing for the press. 1t is doubtful whether
an official Will be allowed to leave his Office to
run itself, however, while he takes the stump
for his party, as many have done heretofore
The order is expected to provoke strong oPpo-
sition from the whole body OF working Re
publican politicians throughout the country,
and it will no doubt be sharply criticised
when Congress meets by prominent represen-
tatives of this class in both houses. Southern
Republicans, particularly, are troubled about
the new departure. They say the party or
ganization cannot be maintained in any part
of the South without federal ofhee-holders ;
that in many sections the only efficient work
ers the party possesses are postmasters, deputy
marshals and revenue officials, and if they
cease their labors it is predicted the party
will 60 to pieces.
There is more to the same effect but what
we have selected is sufficient to indicate the
direction, intent and expected influence of this
extraordinary pronunciamento. Some months
ago it was popular fashion to speak of Caesar
ism as governing motive in the White
House II mattered little that nobody ever
attempted to explain what it was about
Grants administration that resembled the
reign of julius Caesar the epithet lodged and
hurt, ali the same. But here is a newmade
President who has all at once discovered that
he not only is the Commander in chief Of all
army which has been chOked to death and
utterly impoverished by the rebel power i'll
Congress, but that in him lodge the law and
the constitution so far as they apply to the
incumbents of Federal offices all over the
country Somewhere in the constitution
there is clause which provides that certain Of
fcers shall hold their places by appointment
of the President "by and with the advice and
consent of the Senate" We do not know
that it is anywhere provided either by the
organic act, or by statute, that the President
or any other man shall have it in his power
to curtail the rights, privileges and motions
OF citizenship We know there is clause,
lately adopted into the Constitution, which
provides that the rights of citizens shall not
be abridged-by any law Of any State-on ac-
count of race, color or previous condition OF
servitude But here, the President being not
only, in his own estimation a law uuto him
self but to the entire civil service of the coun-
try as we'll, we are bluntly told that a post
master shall not suffer himself to be mem
Der OF a Hayes and Wheeler Club or vote at
primary election; that Custom House Of
hcer shall not be permitted to accept the
empty honors of vice Presidency at a cam
palgn barbecue, or carry torch IN process
sion of patriotic citizens rallying to the sup
port of Republican Institutions and that not
even Mint-drop shall be allowed to stand on
thefarthest edge of mass meeting and listen to
a stump speech in favor of the party which
put Rutherford 3. Hayes in Office Now if
the President may thus control and circum
scribe the actions of the holders Of Federal Of
fee so far as to designate what they shall not
do, then, by parity of reasoning--or as an
inevitable deduction, rather, he may also pre- |
scribe what they shall do. If he has the con-
stitutional right thus to curtail and abridge, /
if, in short, the members of the civil service !
are subject to the caprice of an absolute mas
ter, they are constantly liable to find them
selves ordered to organize and conduct
branches of the Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes
Temperance Society, to Danish wine from
their dinner tables, or to join the Young
Mems Christian Association. To be Fed
eral Office holder under these circumstances
is to be a manakin, and not man, servant
and not a gentleman The conditions i'm
posed are simply degrading. The inevitable
implication is that the civil service is degra-
dation and not an honor Now what does this
canting hypocrite of a President mean He
seems to know no enemy 50 detestable, no
80 suspicious, no force in the
political world so deserving of suppression as
the Republican party. Ever since his inaugu-
ration he has been ingenious in devising in
suits to the members of the party in regular I
standing. His whole policy is of that malig- |
nant type and tone which find expression in
Dolly Vardenism and the various manifesto d
ions of malcontent and meanness that have 6
been flung at the party ever since the revolt c
yet on foot by Sumner, Schurz, Trumbull t
md their associates. The secret motive of -.