The Sunday herald. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1866-1887, 1882-09-10
LNCnNSLSTENCLES.

There is such thing as "public policy"
which is recognized and at least partially re.
garded in the details of the public service,
and prevents some Of the worst abuses that
might otherwise prevail. The trouble is that
it is not completely regarded, and hence the
strongest incongruities come to exist, and
seem among those accustomed to them
scarcely to excite remark.
For instance, you cannot levy ON the
salary of Government clerk or other em-
ployt for debt due by him, however honest
and meritorous, because, as the decisions
explain, that salary is intended to keep him
decently fed, clothed and lodged, and free
from anxiety in regard to his family, in order
that he may attend to the public business
intellectually and efficiently. II would
therefore be "contrary to public policy to
deprive him of all or part of his pay for an
antecedent debt, thus frustrating the very
object which the Government has in paying
him. In similar manner recent act of Con-
gress has generously extended the same pro
lection to private employees in the District,
eXempting their wages to the amount ofSl00
per month for two months from execution or
attachment for debt. But none the less the
Hubbell campaign committee can raid through
the Departments and for no honest debt at
all, but for partisan blind pool" and as
political blackmail eXtort an amount equal
to two per cent. of all salaries, by covert
threats and other means not only unknown
but positively contrary to the law. This can
be followed up with impunity by the Penn
sylvania committee demanding two per cent
more, and the Virginia cabal full five per
cent, and any other authorized or unauthor-
lied political body levying such sum as its
impudence and command of "infuence ~
may dictate; until the employe, who is care
fully protected from his honest creditors,
finds himself nevertheless on the ragged edge
of anxiety and privation, untitled for his
duties, and worse off than the humblest
laborer ia private service. This was the evil
that Congress evidently had in view in pass
ing the statute against assessments, a
statute which is evaded by Mr.. Hubbell on
the quibbe that he is % not an officer of the
"United States, and by Mr. Commerce
in the Treasury Department, through the
simple device of resigning while he collects
the blackmail on liberal commission, OF
course expecting to be reinstated when he
finishes this dirty work.
Again, smaller and meaner development
of the same incongruity is found in the fact
that book agents, fruit sellers, and other
yenders of minor wares are now not allowed
to ply their perfectly honest trade in any
Department They distract the attention
and take up the time of the clerks in Office
hours. But the cormorants of the Repub
lcan Congressional Committee are freely al
lowed to pervade every room and corridor,
in season and out of season, harrying and
worrying their unfortunate victims, and
actually forcing money from them by ill
the slightest apparent interference from SUI
perior officials, whose duty it is to see that
their employers, and who ought to expe
these nnisances at the nearest door with .
kick or have them walked of to the police
station. What is falsely called by the lofty
name of politics" i. e., the greed of power
and office, can strangely blind some men IL
decency and consistency.