National Republican., 1882-12-25
ON THE AVENUE.
Walks and Talks win Public Men.

mated speculation among the wseacres and
gossippv statesmen. Every time New York
worker" who may have enjoyed friendly
relations with the President in times past,
shows up in Washington, the conclusion forces
itself upon the minds of the gentlemen who
haunt the hotel lobbies in quest of a peg upon
which to hang a romance, that he is here to
drive another nail in Woodford's coffin. As a
matter of fact the question of Woodford's re-
moval has not been discussed at all in the
white house, and no man excepting the gen
tleman who sits in the executive
chair knows whether there is going to be
a change in Office the named. The ground for
the gossip is in the conditions of the case, and
great numbers of people, members of all par
ties, have made up their minds that there is
going to be change because they think a
change ought to be made in the very nature
Of things. A gentleman not unacquainted
with the subject gave his views on the New
York attorneyship to NATIONAL REPUBLI-
CAN reporter as follows:
"The President has not talked to anybody
about Woodford, and least of all would he dis
Cuss the matter with visiting delegations from
New York. He knows the situation in that
state as well, and probably better, than any
of the men who might be suspected of
attempting to influence him, and they know
ii. They are too wise to intrude advice upon
the president, and he will be left free to make
up his own mind as to what should or should
not be done in the premises. | do not be-
lieve he has indicated to living soul what
his course will be, and all the gossip that is
atloat on that point is based on the assump-
tion that Woodford has invited dismissal, and
that he will go on his own motion. He can
only expect to be retained in the service of
party which he has openly and boast
ngly antagonized on the hypothesis
that the ruling powers will be afraid
to order his dismissal while the people
remain sentmentally sick on civil service re-
form, and that the Miss Nancy statesmen will
protect him from merited punishment. The
truly good reformers of the George William
Curtis school would lift the dome of heaven
by the violence of their vocifcrations if the
President should take it into his head to re-
buke party treason by turning party traitor
out of Office They would exalt Woodford, and
probably insist on running him for president
as a compensation. These impracticables,w who
have been doing all they can to destroy the
republican party, insist that WoOdford and his
fellow deserters should be concilatcd and
coaxed to be loyal. In their private business
they carry out the civil service precepts they
advocatc; and when clerk goes out on the
highway and scandalzes them, misrepresents
them, and runs down their goods, they inva-
rably advance his salary, give him gold
watch, promote him over the heads of the
other clerks who have performed their duties
honestly and conscientiously, and end by in
viting him to sit in their parlors, spit on
their carpet, and put his feet on their mar
Bile mantels. They do this through admira-
tion for his independence. When another
clerk catches the infection and sets fire to his
reformer employers store he is promptly
conciliated and given the management of
the entire establishment. The reward given
is always governed by the amount of damage
the disloyal employe does the baser the be-
trayal of trust, and the more harm resulting
the greater the reward. Generals in the
army that is the truly good generals, always
conciliate deserters that way; and when tho
colonel of a regiment joins the enemy and
leads an attack against his commander, he is
conciliatea' by promotion to the rank of
brigadier on account of his independence.
The gentlemen who want to reform the civil
service by making party disloyalty an indis-
pensible qualification for Office holding would
look upon the dismissal of Stewart L. Wood
ford with horror, and fill the air with lamen-
tations. The worst of it is the people are
lust now in q mood to listen to that kind of
rot. 1t is quite the popular thing nowadays,
and must have its run like other classes of
mental distemper which take possession of
the public from time to time How much
the President will be influenced by this
maudlin and unnatural sentiment in his
policy toward Woodford and other malcon-
tents of the same sort or whether it will in
fiuence him at all, time alone will deter
mine."
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Messrs Frank Hereford, of Monroe county,
John L. Kenna, of Kanawha county, Henry
NJ. Matthews, of Greenbrier county, Lewis
Baker, editor of the Wheeling Register and C..
J. Faulkner, of Martinsburg, are among the
candidates for United States senator in West
Virginia, to succeed Senator Davis. The
chances are said to be in favor of Mr.. Kenna,
who will go into caucus with long list OF
part of the state.
~
Gen. Thomas o. Osborn, minister to the Ar
gentine Republic, who has been in Washington
for few weeks is on the point of returning
to Buenos Ayres. Gen. Osborn has repre-
sented the United States in Buenos Ayres for
nine years. and this is his first visit to his ma
tive land in that time. He has been so long
in South America that he has come to regard
that country as his home. A few days spent
in Chicago, which was his place of residence
for twenty years, made him homesick and
filled him with an intense desire to be off for
his adopted country. He was lost in a wilder
ness Of strange faces in Chicago, and would
stand for an hour at a time watching the
rushing thrOngs on the busy streets without
seeing Il man he knew. When he left there
ten years ago he was rs widely known prob
ably as anybody in the city, but it seemed to
him that almost every friend and acquaintance
of other years had been swallowed in the mad
whirl of that impetuous metropolis.
a*#
| Mr.. Mark H. Dunnell member from the
first Minnesota district, imagines that he is
giving Senator Window a close rub for the
senatorship. He is a worker and has organ
lied quite following in the Minnesota legis-
lature, following much more formidable
than his distinguished competitor thought
possible
| Ohsaryers find amusement in ryatch;no tl,a