Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-06-02
THE CATS PAW OF THE ADMINS
TRATION.

During the last week or two, let
ter has been going the rounds of the
press in Tennessee, written by Post
master General Key to his brother
at Chattanooga. The occasion of
writing it seems to have consisted
in the complaints of some one that
offices were not given to Southern
men so fast as was inferred to be the
intention of the administration.
Some dead-beats of the Democratic
party probably, anxious to be es-
duced from their party allegiance
by sufficient consideration in the
way of Federal patronage, found
that the seduction didn't go on
worth cent. and that their party
loyalty was getting to be an unpro-
ductive virtue, which they were
eager to sell to the first bidder.
Such at least is the natural influence
from the opening of the letter, which
commences as follows:
Very little is doing in regard to Southern
appointments presume the President is
feeling his way as to these. He desires to
be as liberal toward the Southern people as
he dare.
He then goes on to speak of the
virulent opposition of the Blaine
and Wendell Philips faction to the
Presidents Southern policy: and
then proceeds:
The Democrats have a majority in the
House, and this detection may give an OPP
position majority in the Senate. To give
the President the power to carry out his
Southern policy it is important that he have
administration.
He then proceeds to show that his
having this majority can be either
secured or prevented by the South
ern Democrats f.; the Senate he says
cannot be relied upon for majority
on account of the detection of the
Blaine faction unless the Democratic
Senators from Southern States side
with him; and, if they should not
and if a Northern Democrat like
Randall or Sayler should be elected
Speaker in thelOwer house she will
be compelled to use his official pa
trOnage in such a way as to give
him strength in his own party" On
the other hand it is intimated that,
if the Southern Democrats support
him, she will be able to deal his pa
tronage to them literally, and revO-
lutiOnize the system of Federal pa
tronage, which has existed in the
South since the war"
The letter closes as follows:
his Southern policy, if the South will give
him the support necessary to carry IL out. In
my opinion the true method of the Demo
cratic party in the South to protect itselfand
maintain its successful organization, is for
that party to declare in favor of Mr.. Hayes
Administration, not as Republicans, but a.
Democrats, upon his Southern policy. II
the Presidents Southern policy fails the
Southern Democratic party will be to blame
for IL; the people will know il and hold tire
sponsible.
Never in all the annals of political
prOfiigacy have we seen such a bare
faced proposal of wholesale bribery
of buying political deserters by the
wholesale at the price of office. II
would be to little purpose we sup
pose to insist upon the glaring in
consistency of all this with the pro-
professions made in the platform OF
the Republican party and repeated
dd ndUSedn1 by Stanley Matthews
and other agents of the President.
All these said that the Federal pa
trOnage was no longer to be used as
a reward for political subserviency,
and we here see it openly avOwed as
the Presidents purpose to use ii
first, if possible, to buy Democratic
representatives and secondly if not,
to reconcile recalcitrant Radicals.
1t must be admitted that the pres
ent POstmaster-General, is a most
fitting agent for dirty work like this.
He has shown himselftO bea man in
whom office Overrules all other con-
sideratiOns, it has influenced him tC
turn his back upon all previous pO-
litical associates, to accept his
bureau under the most humiliating
condition that could be imagined
that its patronage shall be distribu.
ted by nominal subordinate but
real superior, under the instructions
of the very head and chief centre oil
the extreme Radical section of the
Republican party, OliverP. Morton,
and now it imposes on him the ser,
vice of bribery agent-in-chief for
Southern politicians.
Thank God, Southern Democrats
are not such as he is, or such as he
would have them. Office is not
with them the first consideration,
they have higher purposes such
rs he probably never opened his
mind to conceive of; they look
TO a restoration of the Southern
people to its original equality with
those of the rest of the nation and
not to the distribution of official pa
trOnage, and in their name we bid
Mr.. Key to keep his patronage and
do what hewill with it, do anything
with it rather than to offer it a boz
nus for Southern recruits. We don't
want it here and can do very well
without it; ReXingeris a very good
Postmaster and a clever gentleman,
and DIR. Green collects Federal taxes
quite rs humanely as any one else
would be likely to do, considering
the necessary painfulness of the OPP
Grafton, and it is much more suita-
ble to our ideas to see it all left in
their hands than to see crowd of
Democratic dead-beats gaping for the
sOps and Off-scOurings of the FEEDER
al swill-tub, which are to be their
reward for desertiOn-and if this
were all, we might dismiss Mr.. Key
and his bribery and corruption, but
something further is held out, which
we shall now consider.
1t is intimated not Obscurely not a
failure on the part of the Southern
Democrats to accept these terms,