The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1877-05-22


We read once more in the Washington
dispatches that there are numerous applica-
tions for offices, particularly from theSouth-
ern States. The President is apparently IN
no hurry to make removals or new appoint
ments, but there are very good reasons tor
believing that he means in general to select
Southern men OF character and influence
for the prominent federal Offices in the
South. In doing this he will have the cor
dial support of the Northern public, because
long and troublesome experience under
the last administration made plain to every
body the inexpediency Of filling such places
with strangers, men who had no hold on
the communities in which they held Office
and no influence, and who were but too apt
to misuse their positions for partisan pur-
poses.
There are in the, Southern States q large
number Of Northern men who have removed
there since the war, and who follow useful
industries and live comfortably and us they
please. There is another class Of Northern
men who went to the South as political ad-
venturers, and who have lived exclusively
by politics. /: is this last class, kind OF
political tramps. who are properly known as
'.carpet-baggers." The character Of the car
pet Dagger is not understood in the North,
because we have no such class here. He is
o person who has migrated to Southern
State, not to engage in business or any other
usual occupation, but to control its politics.
He has no other interest in the State he in
tests than to hold Office there, either federal
or local. When he ceases to hold Office by
reason of his party's performance being
overthrown'he is usually ready to remove
from the State 10 which he has no ties, either
social or Of business. Thus Governor Ames
no sooner ceased to rule Mississippi than he
removed to Minnesota; Mr. Chamberlain,
being no longer Governor in South Carolina,
removes to New York; and hundreds Of other
instances might be cited Of the same kind.
We have no ''carpet.baggers' in Northern
States, because the circumstances favorable
to their growth do not exist. They need,
first, numerous class Of ignorant and timid
voters, on whose fears and prejudices they
can easily work and, second, the coun-
tenance and assistance of the federal gov
eminent to overawe political opposition, to
help them keep the ignorance and poverty
massed on their own side and to sustain
them by force when they are overcome by
votes. Being thus independent of the moral
sentiment Of the community, depending for
his political success, not on giving the peo-
pie honest and efficient government, but on
the overwhelming force Of the federal adj
ministration which he summoned at will to
his aid, the carpet-bagger, no matter with
what honest purposes he set out, inevitably
became corrupt or inefficient. If he was a
State officer he did not attempt to enforce
the laws, but called for federal troops to do
this for him. If he was a federal Office
holder he did not attend to his duties, but
became partisan leader and misused the
influence of his Office TO secure the pre-
dominance of his faction. In both cases he
rather welcomed than discouraged disorders,
because these made him important in the
North and enabled him to appeal to North
ern sympathy and for federal troops.
1t was the bad habit of President Grant to
select the federal ofice-holders in the South
ern States chiefly from among the class we
have described-Northern adventures, stran-
gers in the States where he suffered them to
rule: mere politicians, the leaders of the
negro vote, which saw in such federal off,
GERS, marshals, collectors and their subordi-
mates, the direct representatives of General
Grant," whose orders they obeyed blindly,
because the negro was constantly taught by
the carpet-baggers that General Grant
alone stood between him and return to
slavery. IT. therefore, the Southern preju-
dice against 'carpet-baggers' has seemed to
Northern men extreme and unreasonable, all
the circumstances we have recited should be
remembered as the causes for this feeling. If
President Hayes should appoint South
Carolinian Collector OF Boston and a Louisi-
anian United States Marshal Of Massachu-
sets the whole of New England would cry
out Indignantly at once, though they might
be respectable people but if these persons,
on taking possession of their places, should
at once seek to combine the poverty and ig-
norance OF the State against the intelligence
and property, in party depending upon
federal troops for protection in public theft,
there would be such Din about the Presi-
dents ears rs would compel him to remove
these carpet baggers without delay.
It is because he saw this probably, that
the venerable ex-Presidcnt Woolsey, of
Yale, last fall publicly advised Mr.. Hayes.
if he should become President, to "put
Southern men in Southern Offices" II is
understood that the President remembers
and appreciates the soundness of this advice
and that he means carefully to act upon it.
In doing so we have no doubt he will select
his appointees, as he may rightly do, with
due regard to their political antecedents;
and it is here that he will probably en-