The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1877-07-26

Two sisters resided in an Eastern State |
before the war. One married in Mary |
land, the other in Iowa The husband |
OF each entered the Union service. The |
Maryland officer rose to be Inspector
General OF his division While in active |
service he was captured, and died in
prison in Georgia The Iowa officer was
a graduate OF West Point. and brilliant
officer. He died in the service. far from
his wife, in Texas. Each widow had two
children. Both were without means OF
support Both were appointed in the
Treasury Department; one in 1863 from
Iowa, and the other in 1869. from Mary
land Both were competent and efficient
clerks. Under Sherman's blood relation
order the Maryland woman was dismiss
ed. Upon hearing of this, the Iowa sis.
ter proposed that she should be removed
instead, since through the kindness of
her dead husbands friends she had been
relieved of the support of one child, and
30 she was better able to bear dismissal,
and to struggle along than her sister,
who had two children. But here the
very sublimity of the spurious civil ser
vice was brought into play, and the
touching request of the sister with only
one child to call for bread, in behalf Of
the sister with two to feed. was denied
because forsooth, though both we're good
clerks, the one with two children was
little less efficient than her sister, and so
must go in order that the interests of the
government might be held above all pri-
vate interest.
Two brothers lived before the war, one
in New York, the other in the South
Both entered the Union service and
fought through the war. The New York
officer was killed, and left an orphan
daughter who was given place in the
Treasury Department. She had never
met the uncle from the South until after
the war, when he, too, was appointed to
the Treasury, and removed here with his
family Under the recent order the or
phan was selected for removal, when the
brother with family on his hands and
with no prospect in any direction Tor en-
ployment, resigned, rather than see the
daughter of his dead brother thrown on
the world with no means of support
And one great department of govern
ment for which this father and brother
had died looked coldly on and saw such
results follow its orders.
The niece of former Secretary of the
Treasury, now a lady in middle life and
widow of an officer who died in the ser
| vice, was in the capacity of counter,
supporting herself and her aged mother.
She was one of the most efficient in the
force. Last winter or spring there came
on q visit to Washington q young lady
| from a Western State whose family is in
good circumstances at home, and whose
brother is in government service here.
| She was charmed with the life, and,
against the wishes OF her parents and
brother, she insisted upon obtaining a
place in the Treasury. in order that she
1 r. q l.. aI
pealed to the member of Congress repre-
senting her district, and he in turn went
to the department and obtained the
promise Of place for her. The soldiers
widow with the old mother to support
was turned out to make place for this
Congressman.
| The widow of a soldier from a New
England State was removed in the same
way. simply to make place for another
far less deserving. She was an excellent
clerk Her husband had been a brilliant
soldier He was selected to go on the
raid which young Dahlgren made to
Richmond, and was twice captured and
taken to rebel prison in such expeditions.
But her influence" had gone from pow
er, and it was easy to make the place
that was wanted by dismissing her.
1t is useless to multiply cases. A num-
Der have heretofore been given in this
correspondence. Columns might be fill
ed with narrowing details Of the workings
Of this regulation against blood relations.
The above facts stated coldly as they are.
should be sufficient to stamp the rule
with infamy But what should the com.
ment be- when all is summed up, upon
the fact that the Secretary who made il
and who enforces il against the wea n and
defenseless with relentless vigor, has
brothers, and brothers sons, nephews,
and cousins in the government employ,
and numbers of them in the service of
the Treasury, tool What shall be said
further in view OF the fact that an Assist
ant Secretary of the Treasury has a
brother and a son in Treasury service.
Doubtless all these relations of the men
who stand at the head of the departments
are competent and efficient officers
They have prominent positions and lib
eral salaries. They are not the widows
or orphans of Union soldiers toiling on
with the lowest pay which the Treasury
gives. They are for the most part in
easy circumstances, and some of them
wealthy. The Secretary himself is far
more able to support them all to the
third generation in ease and comfort
than are those poor widows of soldiers
whom he has dismissed to give even
bread to their children. If the rule is
good against any one, il should be those
who made it. Until il is it remains a
mockery and disgrace, both to those
who conceived it and those who allow it
to be thus unequally enforced. The
cases cited are such as appeal with pow
er to all whose hearts ever went out to
the soldiers of the Union. Further than
this. there is not brave man who fought
under the Confederate flag who will not
utterly condemn such treatment The
husbands and fathers of these wives and
children thus thrust out to starve under
a rule that is only enforced against the
weak, gave all that men can give to their
country gave more than any who live
to enjoy what their lives helped to pur-
chase. A mans blood might be as cold
as the streams which flow down from
snowclad mountains, but if only once in
a lifetime it had been warmed by the SEN
sations of the battlefield, it would never
again have grown cold enough TO execute
such a rule in such cases as are here de-
tailed
In calling the attention of the President
to these cases. and appealing to him to
remedy the wrong done, let him take the
matter to himself Many women in this
land went down to its battlefields to seek
wounded husbands, as did his own estims-
ble and heroic wife. But many as worthy
as she, as high then in station, as well
supplied with this worlds goods, found
only dead husbands, while some Of them
wandered about unblessed, even by the
discovery of their dead, and to day their
hearts still bleed at the countless graves
of the unknown" Many of these wo-
men went back to long lives of poverty,
and many of them till now have found
scanty support for themselves and chill
dren in the Treasury service here. Let
the President imagine, if he can, his own