Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-01-03
WI SPERED RUM0Rs.
POLITICAL PREPARATION AT TIE NA-
TIoNAL CAPITAL.
The Contest for Supremacy = Conkling
and Anti-conkling Struggles
Social Notes.
WAsuINeroN. December p. lsSO.

SSS-s~4 @'SsSS'
WASHINGTON, December p, 1880.
General Grants four days visit to Wash
ington has served to enliven the second
week Of an ominously dull session. The
Democrats are SO demoralized by their de-
feat in October and November that they
are not even interesting. Their end
man." S. S. Cox, meditates going home
for the winter at the holidays. The debate
on the Electoral count was undoubtedly
resumed to maintain show of consistency
with their last sessions record. When
preached at that time it is well understood
to have been preliminary toward seating
the Democratic candidate should the con.
; test be a nearly even one. But when the
result declared itself so emphatically as to
leave no room for trickery, they fell back
on the Constitution and renewed the debate
on high national grounds. Another cause
they are conscientiously concerned in now
is the
REFORM OF THE CIVIL SERVICE.
Many Democrats have crept Into Office,
even in the executive departments, since
their party gained an ascendency in Con-
gress. Speaker Randall's carriage, stand
ing in front of the Treasury, always moves
some well posted bystander to say, "There
goes another Pennsylvania Democrat into
office" Now, the forlorn hope of the out
going party is to keep all such in position
| by the application of the Hayes theories
of civil service retention. The question is
often asked whether General Garfield will
be Of the same stripe when he reaches his
high Office. A Pennsylvanian-on of the
Cameron class-asked your correspondent
the question recently, adding, with refer
ence to both : "Some way distrust these
taffy. haired politicians from Ohio" My
belief is that if Mr.. Hayes had not made
the experiment he did, both with regard
to the recognition of the South and the
qualification of the civil service reformers,
General Garfield would be
THE VERY MAN
Most likely to do il. The philosophic cast
of mind, of which his is type, is sure to
be mind predisposed to take its bearings
from more than one standpoint, and in
Congress, while in the main stalwart,
General Garfield was continually disap.
| pointing his stalwart friends by leaning
toward the opposition in thousand minor
points. But with the experience of Mr.
Hayes before him, and with the necessity
he has perceived of stalwart men and
methods to carry On successful campaign,
as exemplifed last fall, the idea here is that
his administration will start in with pre-
dominance of old-fashioned Republican
vigor. The truth is that, when it came to
facing a serious campaign, the Hayes
theories collapsed suddenly, and the
! GOOD OLD PLANS
Were revived with more than their olden
vigor. Although the President himself
gave nothing to the campaign out of his
ample salary, declining three successive
times to do so, it is sal d Department en-
ployes were taxed three per cent. of their
salaries where two per cent. had
| been the limit heretofore, and in
somes Bureaus this even extended
to the female clerks. In New York
Chairman Jewell of the National Commit
tee was ignored by MIR. Conkling and his
friends, and both the Senator and General
Grant spoke in that State under the
auspices of the State Committee, and not
the National, receiving their appointments
at the hands of the former, under the
Charm anship of General Arthur. At the
speech of Mr. Conkling at the great mass
meeting in New York, with which he sig
| 60
man Jewell was not even invited to be
present. Also, the latter had so little sue
cess in raising funds for the campaign, that
Congressman Levi P. Morton, of the bank
| ing firm of Morton, Bliss & Co., was made
| Chairman of the Finance Committee of the
canvass, and both by persuasion and ex-
ample, made money flow into the yearning
Golfers of the committee from the purses of
New York's great business firms. Every
where Chairman Jewell has seemed gilded
figure head, except in the investiga-
ton of the Morey letter fraud, at
which he is still diyerting himself
Mr. Conkling's tyrannous methods in his
State, against which so many good Repub-
licans writhe in desperate if Intellectual re-
bellion, must be condemned. With Cornell
in the gubernatorial chair, and all the
State patronage in his hands, including as
one enormous item the canal patronage
inhering in these 400 miles of Erie Canal,
Mr.. Conkling is infinitely stronger than
in the days when he controlled the New
York Custom house, and he uses his power
like silent, scheming despot. sob
isn't he Strathmore !" say lady friends
admiringly. 1t is long time since the
redundant rhetoric and luxuriant villainy
of Ouida and her heroes palled upon my
taste but from what | can remember of
the ''swift and silent Strathmore, u
Roscoe Conkling could give him points on
the situation every time. 1t is manifest
that the Conkling interest intends to con.
troll the successorship to Mr.. Herman in the
Senate that is to say, Mr.. Cenkling, and
not the sovereign State of New York, is
to nominate his colleague in the
HIGHEST PARLIAMENTARY BODY OF THE
WORLD.
Among the several men named for the pc.
stion, the one who felicitates himself that
| he has the inside track is said to give as
his reason that Mrs. Kate Chase Sprague
favors his candidacy! Could anything
indicate more lamentably the subservience
of the splendid Empire State to the very
love- affairs of h er autocratic Senator The
Conkling power is phenomenal but the
true student of events has cause to
believe that it will collapse by and
by like an egg-shell a year ago Mr.
| Conkling's face and frame bore traces of
great mental suffering. Close observers
even believed that the wound was mortal
under which he writhed but he is looking
much better this season, and has seemed
more defiant than ever in his personal re-
lations to mankind. 1t is morally certain
! that he will be in the foreground as the
most difficult factor in the Garfield prob
lem of adjusting the conflicting elements of
his administration, especially if he this
winter secures the naming of his Senatorial
colleague. With the Vice President, the
Governor of New York and her two Sem
ators in accord-all under the leadership of
Conkling-he will naturally demand
fer himself the distribution of the
entire Federal patronage in New
| York. If President Garfield yields it,
it will be to the crucifying of the New
| York men whose refusal at Chicago, and
before, to enroll themselves with the
Grant. Conkling phalanx, made Garfeld's
nomination possible. If he refuses to
yield it, Mr.. Conklng will sulk If the
new President shall temporlze, and put in