Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-07-31
INCONSISTENT GARFIELD.

INCONSISTENT GARFIELD.
Whatever virtues Garfield may claim, or
his friends claim for him, consistency can
not be included in the number. Els public
record on almost all questions of general con-
Germ is full of the gravest inconsistencies,
which prove him to be either man without
decided convictions or a weathercock, easily
moved about by every wind of doctrine, and
therefore unfit for the high position to which
he aspires. He has been on both sides of
the tariff question SO often that it is doubt
full if even his most intimate friends can tell
whether he is in favor of free trade or pro-
lection. His latest conspicuous action in
this regard was his opposition to theremoval
of the duty on wood pulp and chemicals that
enter into the manufacture of printing pa
per-a duty that has produced the enormous
revenue of nearly thirty three dollars year.
In the matter of the electoral commission
Mr.. Garfeld's record is singularly incon-
sistent, as shown by an article copied into
the GLOBE from the Cincinnati Enquirer.
He denounced the bill in the House as
unconstitutional, and yet, after it had been
passed he accepted position on the COM
mission, and as member proceeded to do
all that was in his power to accomplish
the theft of the Presidency. This will be
remembered against him to the close of his
life, and many who had not before thought
of questioning his integrity will find it hard
to reconcile his conduct with the strict code
of morality.
As to the salary grab, it will be remem-
bered that Mr.. Garfield worked against the
measure in the committee, and voted for it
in the House under protest. He took the
back pay, however, and kept it for more
than month, but when he found that
popular indignation over the steal was run
ming high he covered it back into the
treasury, and again appeared before the pub
lie as paragon of virtue. 1t is safe to say.
however, that if there had been no popular
protest against the back pay grab he would
have kept the money up to the present time,
as many of his Republican associates have
done. His record in this matter is none too
clean, and he cannot afford to boast of it.
There is another matter, however, in
which Mr.. Garfield appears to yet worse ad-
vantage. he is the candidate for the Presi-
dency on the Republican ticket. All of the
money for the expenses of the campaign is
procured from the officers and employees of
the government by an assessment of from
two to three per cent. of their salaries.
These assessments are simply Matchmaking
process, for those who refuse to respond to
the demands made upon them are promptly
dismissed from the service. MIR. Garfield
himself has denounced this system in I'M
measured terms. In speech delivered in
the House in 1872 he said
Gentlemen who advocate the purity of our
civil service say that it is now doing well and
needs no reform. ask these gentlemen what
they think of the system of political assess
ments. / ask them what they think of the
collector of great port or chief of any great
| branch of the service issuing circular calling
for one, two or three per cent. of the salaries
of all the employees under his control, to be
| used for party purposes, with the distinct IN
derstanding that unless they paid that per
cent. upon their sslarias others will be found
to fill their places who will pay the assessment
call the attention of gentlemen around me
to the shameful fact that prevails all through
our service, and which has prevailed for the
last twenty-five years.
How can man holding these views con-
sistently accept for his own use moneys
raised under that system? Is he not open
to the charge of dishonesty, both political
and personal? 1t will not avail him to pre-
tend ignorance of the means by which the
campaign fund is raised, for he knows it as
we'll as do those who contribute to it. Nor
will it excuse him to say that the contribu-
tions are voluntary. He and every other
person of intelligence knows that the en-
ployes of the government hold their posi-
tons conditional upon the prompt payment
of all assessments for political purposes.
MIR. Garfield has been neither consistent
nor honest in his political conduct. He has
been actuated either by selfish motives OF
has been made the tool of lot of unscru-
pulous politicians. On the tariff question
he has now been afraid of offending the free
traders of the West and has again done the
bidding of the protected monopolisis. He
voted to remove the duty on wool, then
| turned around and voted to retain the
tax on railroad iron and the tax on the dis.
semination of knowledge. He took the sal
AIRY grab, but was too cowardly to retain it
in defiance of popular opinion. He
denounced the system of political
assessments, but is to-day the principal bene.
ficiary of that pernicious and dishonest sys-
tenn. He lacks the moral courage to repeat
to day the language he employed in 1879.
He may be man of brains and large in
formation, but be lacks moral stamina to
stand by his convictions when he knows
them to be right. He suggested the COM
promise deputy marshal bill afterwards
adopted by Congress, and then tried to de-
feat it, going personally to Mr.. Hayes to
urge him to disapprove of it. Such a
double-dealer is no credit to himself or the
party of which he is the acknowledged lead
or. He is certainly unit for the high Office
of President of the United States, and the
people will SO decide in November next.