Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1881-11-11
Washington Letter.

POLITICAL INTEREST SHIFTS EXCENTRI-
CALLY FROM THIS CENTRE-THE PRES
IDENT AWAITING ONENS FROM THE
sTATEs-THE COMING CONGRESS, WHAT
1T WILL POSSIBLY DO AND PROBABLY
oMIT-wEsT POINT AND THE NAVAL
ACADEMY.
Correspondence Of the Staunton VINDIoAToR.l
WASHINGTON, D. c., Nov. s. 1881.
The President, who has been absent in
New York for week, will return to-mOr-
row. The White House. now empty. swept
and garnlshed, will not be ready for its
distinguished occupant before the middle
Of the month. Attention is just now
turned from the political affairs that work
and writhe here, to the mills that grind
to-day in various States, and fear your
columns will be too full of the grist, its
political drifts and siftings, to admit this
letter of your Washington correspondent.
The President has, perhaps. been wise
in postponing the nomination OF new
Cabinet until after these State elections
A prudent politician will, doubtless, be
able to make forecasts from the lndica-
OlouO VI Up-0Oy Uudu may GbcOi0U AALti AL ubO
adoption of policy and the selection of
its executors.
In less than month the National legis-
lature will have assembled for a long prob
ably seven months session. 1t is believed
that a revision of the tariff will be under
taken and reduction of the internal rev.
| enue will be accomplished.
| Something ought to be done to improve the
condition of the Navy, but this can be best
accomplished by reviving the once mighty
| but now extinct commercial marine of the
| the United States, thus furnishing large
| body of sea-sOaked and seasoned sailors to
draw upon in time of war, rather than ed
| ucating the effeminate sons and grandsOnS
| OF old comm0dores and retired admirals
at the Naval Academy in French, waltz
| ing, astronomy and international law.
No radical legislation, it may be safely
| said, will prevail in relation to the army.
Appropriations will be passed maintaining
| it at about the same force, rank and file,
upon which it has been kept up during the
| last four years. There is much talk, in
both the Army and Navy Departments, of
a more rigid enforcement of real service
| upon large number of official clerks, orig
inally from West Point. who manage to
| remain at Washington, Fortress Monroe
| New York, Philadelphia, or get off to Eu
| rope, On full pay, thus securing the de-
lights of society and travel at the expense
of the taxpayer, and uniting themselves
! (if they ever had any htness) for the stern
duties they were educated at public ex-
| pense, to perform. It is doubtful, how
ever, if Secretaries Hunt and Lincoln, or
their successors, will be able to enforce
this much needed reform. Army and Ma
val officers are so entrenched by relation.
ships and marriage connection with lnfu.
entail Senators and members that nothing
short of the heroism that plucks out tbs
offending right eye will eradicate this
| growing evil. There is, however, strong
feeling in Congress against the aristocrati(
tendencies and growths of West Point and
the Naval Academy. The Whitaker and
| Flipper episodes have directed public at
tention to them in a way that it has not
before been directed, and have called at
tention to General Schenck's prophecy thai
| the negro who once broke up the Union o.
the States would yet break up the two Ma
tional academies. 1t may not be that the
two institutions whose sole legitimate OBJ
| ject is education for national defence shall
be discontinued, buG it is necessary thai
their object shall be more clearly seen ant
pursued by those who maintain them, ant
| especially by those who directly contro
them.