Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1877-11-28
THE PRESIDENT AND THE SENATE.

his political associates. He outlawed every
body except the chosen few whom he had
taken into his confidence. He lent the weight
of the Presidency to the weight of obloquy
heaped by the Independent press upon the
trusted men of the Republican party. He
''set up shop on his own account. The SEN
ate was to be treated like a district school.
Appointments to Office were to be made in de-
fance of the Machine. Without any provo
cation he thus made war upon the highest
branch of the Legislative department of the
Government. At the outset of his Reform
movement he had the entire commercial press
on his side. Also he had 4 large proportion
of the Republican press at his beck. Now,
after having aienated the greater part of the
Republican side of the Senate from himself
and insulted the entire ofice-holding class );
after having turned over the South to the
Rebels and caused the loss of Ohio to the party
which made him President, he seems to be
without any friends of influence in the Repub-
lican press Not any detection is more
markable than that of the New York Tribune.
The support rendered him by that paper was
unqualified, ardent, enthusiastic. Now it is
among his most uncharitable critics. Com
1nenting upon the difference between the Pres
ident and the Senate the Tribune says:
without undertaking to discuss again ques-
ton upon which the views of The Tribune
ought to be pretty well known, we may re-
mind President Hayes that if the Senate AFRO
gates privileges which seem to him altogether
incompatible with the proper exercise of the
duty of the Chief Executive, he has perhaps
allowed some of his Cabinet counsellOrs to
supply them with pretexts and arguments If
the rule is indeed to prevail that no appoint
ments are to be made except for merit and no
removals except for cause, then the Senators
can have no excuse for demanding the allot
ment of the patronage in shares for political
purposes the Presidents theory is absolutely
unassailable. But if the patronage is to be
taken away from the Senate only in order that
the President and one or two of his Cabinet
officers may exercise it in the old way, making
appointments no more creditable than those |
of General Grants worst times, for reasons no
less personal than those that used to prevail |
and with all the familiar concomitants of bar |
gaining and jobbery, then the Senators will |
be most formidably armed against the at
tempted revolution; they may well say, If the
Civil Service is to be used for anything except
the transaction of the public business, it must
be used for the good of the party, and we
know what the party needs in our own States
much better than the President. Take this
Toledo case, which is now rising again to
disagreeable notoriety. A change was made
in the post Office at Toledo for no known rea-
son that can be reconciled with the principles
of reform, but apparently in order to reward
an active politician who aided in the election
of Mr.. Stanley Matthews to the Senate. The
affair turned out very badly. Its most i'm
portant results seem to have been loss of
l 900 votes in the county, and bitter quarrel
which will outlast the scandal that gave rise
to it, Whether the election of Mr.. Stanley J.
Matthews even was ain unmixed benefit to the
party, is question upon which Republican :;
opinions differ. Then there was the affair of .
'IIS hIloS1Oli IL Was IIOG SIFIl CSI- /
vice reform for Mr.. Evarts to offer that i'm =
oortant post to the Pennsylvania delegation. !,
It was not Civil Service reform to allot the
Berlin Mission to the delegation from. Illinois. +
It was not Civil Service reform to send Mr.. ,
Sanford to Belgium, or Governor Osborn, of =
Kansas, to South America. 1t was not Civil g
service reform to yield to Mr.. Fulton's bland g
shments in the matter of the Baltimore Col =,
ectorship or to tender the Swiss Mission to :,
Ir. Schneider or to make the disgusting an =
of George FL. Butler, in order to =
lease his uncle, the General. We might ex- =,
end to great length the record of instances in
hich the practice of the Administration has
wen the lie to its professions but we are p1
OF making catalogue of the Presidents to
listakes. If we can induce him to muzzle cl
ne talking members of his Cabinet, and sup to
ress the amateur statesmen who have done tn
D much to make their own proclamations or
we shall do him the service of by
ne friend. The gentleman around him have in
liked so finely that the public exacts great in
cal of them. The petty lapses of ordinary dc
en- of the world are unnoticed or easily for DC
ven, but moralists and reformers are judged re
verly by their own standards. They may fir
epend upon it that the Senate, at all event, tn