Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-05-09
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MONDAY EVENING. GAy Q. 1881.
The NomIpation OF Hancock.
Senator Wallace denies that there was
any fund raised from the Star route"
conspirators to promote General Han
cocks nomination at Cincinnati, and
says that his interests there were under
the conduct-in-chief Of General William
B. Franklin, and that only few hun.
dred dollars for the small necessary ex-
penses of keeping up a headquarters
were expended in General Han
cocks interest. These statements
of Senator Wallace are quite notoriously
true, and We know of no foundation for
any assertion that the star route or any
other ring promoted General Hancock's
success at Cincinnati. 1t was aisponta-
neous movement made quite independ-
emily of rings or politicians influence
even more than Senator Wallace
admits. He says that the action
of the Pennsylvania state conven-
ton in the selection of delegates
was loudly trumpeted as a defeat of
General Hancock and himself. This is
hardly accurate, so far as it conveys the
impression that the Pennsylvania con-
vention was hostile to General Hancock,
and that the opposition there manifested
to Senator Wallace was opposition to
him because of his advocacy OF Ham
cock. Senator Wallace encountered a
personal hostility which in no way
extended to any candidate he fa-
vored. Indeed it was generally
understood that his personal preference
was for Senator Bayard, but at Cincin-
natl Senator Wallace fell early into the
Hancock column because it soon mani
tested itself as the one most easily re-
cruited against Tildea. It has not been
charged by anyone that Gen. Hancock
was cognizant of any ring influences fa-
voring his election nor is it stated why
the star route people should have given
him their favor. The allegation that
they did is very improbable. But if they
did he certainly was in no way indebted
to them. No candidate was ever nom
mated who was more free from Oblig:s
tians to the efforts of politicians for his
success; for no one was ever chosen
more spontaneously.
Joseph McKibben, once q member Of
Congress and now a lobbyist and up to
his eyes in star route and similar iniqui-
ties, was actively for Hancock at Gin
cinnati, but nobody can say that he saw
a business speculation in it. Senator
Wallace was one of the Hancock leaders,
but there is no reason to charge him
with being SO because he wanted to
benefit postal contractors he had reason
enough in the potent fact that he was
the strongest man to nominate and elect.
Senator Wallace took a position in refer.
ence to the star routes when they were
under investigation in Congress-, which
we did not at the time approve. He was
the chairman of the subcommittee of the
Senate appropriation committee which
undertook to investigate these routes
at the same time that the House CON-
mittee was inquiring into them. II was
charged that the Senate committee was
more favorable to the contractors than
the House committee and that it's labors
embarrassed those of the House COM
mittee.
The result lent color to this allega-
tion, as the Senate subcommittee re-
ported to the full committee-which
confirmed the report and submitted it to
the Senate which also approved it-that
the deficiency in the appropriation for
these trans Mississippi routes should he
voted, although the full amount de.
manded originally by the postoffice de.
partment for the service had been given,
but had been expended in the first three
months of the year. Senator Wallace says
that this recommendation was made be-
cause it was deemed expedient not to stop
the carriage of the mails on these routes.
But it was so manifestly shown that the
original appropriation had been fraudu-
lently expended on the Star routes, that
it seemed to be very unwise, to say the
least, to put other millions into the
hands of the same men who had fraudu-
lently distributed the first million, to be
poured into the same bottomless holes.
If the frauds were as they were shown
to he, the mails could have been carried
for 1.-THE of the contract price, and be-
fore new appropriation was made by
Congress it would seem to have been
its clear duty TO see that new mail con-
tracts were made in which the nation
should get fair value for its money. But
Senator Wallace claims that the respon-
sibility for what was done by his COM
mittee is that of the whole Senate which
approved its action and in this he is
right.
Innocent and Ignorant.
Congressman Harmer declares that he
is very innocent of any connection with
postal contracts. He hardly seems to
know what sort of things they are. His
partner in the coal business, Mr.. Black,
told him that he had lost ten thousand
dollars in his postal contracts, and Mr..