Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1878-10-21
LETTER FROM WASHINGTON.
ESPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE OF THE MONITOR
WASHINGTON, Oct. Is, 1873

mess men, politicians, and vast ma
jority of the members of the various
local labor organizations were so pointed
in their avoidance of the unprepossess-
ing demagogue, as to afford him no en-
couragement to repeat his visit. Cohen
and his handful of loafers and strikers
who had given the police some trouble
and occasioned a good deal of excite
ment first and last, have had no better
success in enlisting sympathy or in COM
hitting any one caring aught for reputa-
ton, to their lawless programme. Even
the masses of our colored population,
who more than any similar number of
our other residents have suffered from
the effects of the business depression of
the past five years, turned deaf ears to
the constant appeals made them to unite
with the gang. and have decisively neg
atived every proposition made to array
them against the authorities. In short,
our citizens have repeatedly demonstrat.
ed their law-abiding character and thef
lack of agrarianism. But the laborirg
and business element of this town feel
that they have ample ground for their
Impotence that is more and more taking
the form of Indignation as weeks lapse
into months and months into years, and
there is no apparent move made to un-
dertake the work for which comparative
ly large appropriations have been made,
some of them more than two years ago,
and thus furnish labor and give bust
ness fresh impetus. And it is not
easy to feel otherwise than that those
entrusted with the work for which these
appropriations have been voted, are su-
premely indifferent to the distress every.
where prevalent, also those works had
been undertaken long ago and pushed to
completion, July 9Th, 1875. Congress
still prompted by the patriotism and
other inspiring things imbibed on the
occasion of the members visit to the
Centennial Exposition the day previous
voted 100000 wherewith to complete
the Washington Monument. After ;
good deal of ly-daIlying among tn,
officials, including survey by an Arm,
Engineer whose conclusions were subse
quently found all wrong, it was decided
an additional $4,000 was required t.
strengthen the base that the imposing
superstructure might be entirely safe
1t was voted and early last spring it wa
to 60 right on to completion. But be
yond tearing off the old wood work lief
on top the marble shaft when work wa
discontinued nearly 20 years ago, an
carting little earth from one part {
the ground to another, giving employ
ment to only handful of laborer;
nothing seems to have been done, and q
the rate of speed manifested by tn
custodians of this fund in pushing th
work, George Washington will hav
been forgotten many thousand year
before the monument is completed.
only that is requisite to keep his meme
ny green. This illustrates the spir
that seems to have governed relative
other public works for which appropri
tions were made months ago. Our wei
paid, luxuriously lodged. and over-fe
officials seem too intent on their ow
ease and pleasures to spare little
their squandered time to the duti
. made by law incumbent on them al
whose prompt execution would affol
vital relief to scores who seem their s
periors in everything but official pos
ton. There is also growing fear tn
in our change of District COMMISSIONS
we have fallen into the hands of mode
reformers, or at least that majority
6 the new Board are justly entitled to t
kind of distinction implied by that d.
ignation. Burdened as we are wi
;, debt, while advocating rigid retrenc
ment by cutting down the salaries
school teachers, policeman and 9th
! workers, and while looking on wi
apparent unconcern and self-satisfi
> complacency, at the effort to reduce
i rate of day laborers to so cents a de
. they are reported as ransacking the i
for authority to increase the Distr
- Attorneys salary to $4,000.
= Recent investigation by those larg'
= interested in the shipment of cattle
II Europe, seems to have aroused new
- terest among business men of Baltimo
&c Philadelphia and New York, in n
u railroad enterprises, having among til
= other special objects, the furnishing
- better facilities to the this trade and
re larger development. The direct sh
ha ment of cattle, though of comparitiv
ba recent beginning, has become busin
90 of considerable magnitude. Lack
~ transportation facilities seems about
IA only bar to its almost indefinite exp
re sion. Coupled with the ''hard time
OBJ the arbitrary course and exorbit
y rates demanded by our only railroad
b. the Pacific, have served to confne
- limits within which it could be prot
- bly, carried on, as has been the {
with ordinary kinds of hrsiness that