Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-11-13
THE NATIONAL CAPITAL.
A LETTER WRITTEN BEFORE THE ELEC.
TIoN Full Or PROPHECY.
Garfeld-Conkling -sherman-Th Admin
istration that Is To Bs-Anxious
Officeholders-Etc.
WAsHrScroS. October 2s. 1850.

0fficeholders-E
WASHINGTON, October IS, 1880.
The attitude of California in this cam.
palgn just drawing to a close, as ] have
observed it through the columns of the
RECORD UNION, has been such as to en-
dear me yet more to a State round which
cluster the recollections of four happy
years of sojourn there, and four more re-
cent years of relation to her people as a
correspondent from Washington. Some OF
the very best things said in this canvass
have been said by California editors aud
orators, and some of the most sagacious
| predictions and suggestions to which the
occasion has given rise | have found in the
editorials of the RECORD UNION. ] had
the pleasure of showing General Garfield
this papers first editorial on his nom
| ination, which reached me about the
time of his visit here the fol-
lowing week. 1t was very pleasantly
received. California is second to no
community under the sun in love for fair
play, and | know how Indignantly your
| best minds fout the fraudulent Morey let
| ter purporting to express General Garfield s
views on the Chinese question, and will
| thunder forth their scorn at this attempt
| to deceive her voters with q clumsy lie
1t is wonderful to me how at your great
| distance from the focus OF affairs you so
accurately
KEEP STEP
| With the most delicate variations of public
| thought on the great topics of the day.
| California newspapers would be ashamed
| to make the blunders in interpreting the
public heart that are made here by our To-
cal press. General Garfield once said to me
'sOculists tell US there is one blind point at
| the very center of the human eye. just
SO, have sometimes thought, is Washing
ington in political campaign. 1t is the
| one non-visual point in the whole
country" You know we have no suf
| frage here. The better class of citizens
| were glad to give it up on account of
the corruption and misrule engendered by
adding to our forty per cent. OF irresponsi-
| BILE coiored voters the same element from
| outside that could at an hours notice be
massed here from Maryland and Virginia
| under the lead of defiant and despotic
demagogues 1t was better to give up the
| mockery of self government, and trust
| wholly to Congress and the Executive. 1t
| is meet and becoming that the national
| Capital and its environment should be free
| from the actual conflict of campaign war
| fare, but the sympathetic pressure is in
tense, for Washington is city of placemen
and place-hunters Nowhere In all the
land is there such fear and trembling when
the result hangs doubtful in the balance.
Twenty thousand Government clerks-our
respectable middle class population
know that their retention depends upon
the continuance of Republican Ad-
ministration, and their party devotion is
stimulated accordingly. The male clerks
have very generally gone home to vote,
except those who gave up their citizenship
at their former homes when the suffrage
| was established here. Those living In
doubtful States have such pressure
brought to bear upon them that 1T would
not be safe for them to remain supine. 1t
| is not to be denied that an assessment of
| two per cent. on their salaries this year it
| has been three per cent. J, added to the
cost Of going 500 or | 900 miles to deposit
| their ballots is severe temporary drain
upon them; but there are few who grumble
at it. The Democratic party grumbles for
them by the wholesale. From the Maine
election till the victory in Ohio and Indiana
| there was
A PITIFUL ANXIETY
Throughout the Departments, and on the
U,,ooJo,, &c 4ba lof4ar alaofio,, four Ia
clerks attended with any show of faithful
ness to routine duty. Women are by habit
more faithful, more steadfast than men,
and though the female clerks had more at
stake, because if discharged from the
Government service fewer avenues of earn
| ing livelihood would be open to them
than to men, and none that pay as well in
proportion to the labor, yet it was the
| men who Topped about and stood in
groups in the corridors with intense faces
| on that day, and went singing and hurrah-
| ing through the halls the day following, to
| the great scandal of grave old government
! walls; but the tension which many
mothers nerves had undergone as she had
sat at her desk pondering how her little
ones would be fed if change of admins
evidenced that Wednesday morning, by
the quiet tears of Joy they shed over pom.
derous letter. books and dingy piles of Off
cial papers. Said a one-armed ex-soldier,
looking up from his department desk, SIT
| seems like the hand of Providence. can
| call it nothing else" Even the Demo
| cratic business men here are glad for the
signs of the November victory.
| AN ARBITRARY CHANGE
OF so large an element of society, an ele-
ment, too, that has it's regular monthly
stipend, and is pretty generally honest and
reliable in meeting business obligations,
would be disastrous to our limited mercan-
| tile interests. There was an almost total
| suspension of all trade here, but that in the
bare necessities of life, from the Maine de-
| feat till the October victory /; and business
| firms felt it sorely. Our army and navy
officers are generally considered as neutral
| in politics as live red blooded men can be
| in republic, but there is an active inter
est taken on both sides among them in this
campaign. General Mcdowell, who has
| Just arrived from across the continent to
cast his vote for Garfield, is not
| an isolated case. Within three
days two prominent naval officers, a
| Commodore and Captain, have ex-
pressed to me their Joy at the Republican
prospect. You have noticed that General
Sheridan lays particular and satisfied stress
on the probable Republican complexion of
Congress. This is very general feeling
among his comrades. The Forty-fifth and
Forty sixth Congresses have so hewed and
hacked at the army that military men
have little love for the majority in power.
They say it is always unfortunate for the
army any navy when Congress and the Ex-
ecutive are of opposite political parties.
They become the first bone of contention,
and appropriations are cut down or alto
gether withheld till the life of an army
man becomes abject and full of apprehen-
sion.
In the States where Congressman have
already been voted for it is interesting to
notice not merely the Republican gain nu-
merically, but
THE STRONG MEN
That have been slaughtered in the ranks of