Morning journal and courier., 1880-04-05
GENERAL RRADY,s VICTORY.


 General Brady has made good his boast that he would defeat the Appropriation committee, l which attempted to interfere with his plans for tho distribution of public money for the benefit of certain contractors and the tsexpe- dition" of the Ster route mail service. But although he is victorious his victory is noth- ing to brag of, for it is clearly victory of wrong over right.
 It needs but glance at the facts to show the mismanagement of which the Postofics 1 department has been guilty in the matter of tho Star service. The appropriation for the year was exhausted in few months. That there was any necessity for this is not eredi- ble. How 1t was exhausted has been shown in these columns before. It wag by making contracts in utter disregard of the interests of | the Treasury, and in a manner which shut the department of from the advantage which it | might have had from competition. The con- | tracts were first given out under formsl | competition, at rates which were apparently insufficient to secure good service, and then | enormous sums were contracted to be paid for s'expediting" the service i. G., for less ening the time employed in each trip, or in increasing the number of trips For this change in the contracts no competition wes possible under the law. The additional com pensation thus contracted for was out of all proportion to tho additional service obtained, calculating it's value relatively to that of the service originally promised, and at the rates for which that WAS undertaken. As the New York Times forcibly says "This pro- cedure was so contrary to the requirements of ordinary business common sense that it justi- fes the gravest suspicion as to the motives which inspired it. It Is absurd to suppose that the Postoffice authorities were entirely ig- norant, at the date of the original contracts, of the approaching necessity for greater ser vice which they recognized only few weeks later. And it is not too much to say that if the action of the department had been dictat- ed by ring of greedy and interruptions contractors bent on plundering the Treasury under the forms of lsw and plotting to place the Government at Che greatest possible dis advantage, 1t would not have been different from what it actually was."
 If any further evidence were wanted to make it clear that sone vigorous reform work is needed in the Possofice department, It is furnished by the words and actions of Brady and other officers of the department since the revelation of the state of affairs complained of was made. They have attempted to lay the blame upon members of Congress, who they say induced them to give great sums of money to contractors by promising support when the dsfcisnoy should be reported It needs no argument to show that those who control the expenditure of the public money should have different sense of their responsibility. To make their fitness for their offices still more apparent, sone of them have been openly lob- bying, with the a9s-4ts of the contractors, against the Committee on Appropriations and others who's ougEt to restrict the expedition" of the star serTics. And moro soandalous lobbying than has been done by the opponents of the committee is not often seen, even in Washington.
 Many members of both parties have de- nounced the course of the department. Prom inent among those on the Republican side has been General Hawley, who from the first has not hesitated to speak his mind concerning the wrong that has been done. In the debate last Friday ha showed that the department had been guilty of violation of law, and that this violation had been deliberate, and he also showed that the committees bill ought to pass. But in spite of his efforts and the eff forts of those who worked with him, the House condoned the offsnse of the department by a vote of 91 yeas to s3 nays. reliable correspondent says of the yea vote that fit is in an uncommon degree indicative of the strength of the party which cannot be depend ed upon to rebuks misconduct in the adminis- l tration."
 It remains to be seen whether those respon- sible for the Star route scandal will get off | without any other rebuks than has been be- slowed upon them by some of the members of Congress and a few newspapers. The proba 1 bility is that they will.