Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1883-03-16

The word Republican" as applied
10 the party in power. is stupendous
falsehood. Jefferson's was the Ere
publican" and Hamilton's the anti-Re-
publican, or. more properly, the Fed
sraP' or Capitalization party. Its prac-
tees correspondent with its chosen des-
ignation. Some six years ago, when
the Democratic party was dominant in
Congress, there was a demand. by
heads of departments, for more clerks.
The democratic Congress chose to prac-
tice economy. and instead of conceding
what was asked, added an hour to the
number through which department
clerks were kept at their desks Prac
tically they thus added about one-sey-
enth to the number of clerical EMPLOYEES
of the Government The clerks did not
complain, but it was enough and all
that should be exacted at their hands.
But the Democrats won prestige for
this wise and economical legislation.
and the Republicans, so called, think
our party has won more by giving pa
ternity to the so called Ciyil-Service Re-
form bill Therefore, when there is no
demand for more clerks or more cler-
ical labor. and when every faithful. hon.
estly laborious clerk finds himself ex-
hausted by steady, tedious. painstaking
tasks, each day made more irksome bv
the monotonous. wearisome eXactitude
required. and even more painfully tire
some by irreversible attention demand
ed, then. that the Republicans may get
even with the Democrats as reformeis,
these pseudo Republicans would add an
other hour to the number through which
these clerks must be confined to crowd
ed prisons, in which the very air inhaled
becomes poisonous and the last hour s
work more painful than that of the six
preceding it.
Six hours for study and three for
recitations. which are restful, are all
that are demanded of students in
colleges. Continuous physical exertion,
if at all varied, may be endured ten and
even twelve hours in each twenty-four;
but this tedious. painstaking. silent,
sedentary. Supplying toll of Govern
ment clerk who discharges tasks as
signed him with fidelity, and for such
alone Congress is supposed to legislate,
are urdensome enough as they are,
and the Republican party, in its shame
less effort to get even with its opponents
by wronging the defenseless clerks,
should not be approved. This party
has been in power more than twenty
years. At any time within that period
it might have reformed the abuse
rectitied by the Democratic majority in
Congress six years ago; but now, when
it sees Cleaveland a Democrat gov
erring New York, ard Patterson a
Cat
another over Massachusetts,, and a
Democratic Congress elected, it be.
comes suddenly over-virtuous and over
righteous, and would practice its
pharisaism and humbug the country,
when no additional labor is requ red by
the departments, by subjecting the de-
fenseless cler to exactions as
ru'nous to Government interests
and true public economy as wrong
iul and needless. The present
force of clerks can do all the work
re luired by the departments by toiling
till four o'clock each day, even if the
worthless dead-beats, and they are
numerous, who have been thrust into
clerkships, as parasites and washers of
dirty linen for Republican Congress
men, be discharged. They are bunglers,
and often dishonest, and, relying for
retention in Office upon their great
patrons, are the loafng, whisky-swill-
ing idlers who produce the impression
that the Government clerk is an idle,
embarrassed, stupid, unthinking Gov
eminent mule. only fit to be cuffed
and victimized by Republican dema-
gogues.
Let any Congressman ask any honest,
industrious clerk whether the Govern
ment will be the gamer by adding to
present hours of toll, and the answer
will be uniformly in the negative, and
it will be, as well. the unmixed truth.
No weary brain can discharge tasks
most painstaking and always exacting
minutest accuracy, and every clerk will
con ur with us in saying that even now
two-thirds of erroneous and defective
work is done between three and four
O'Clock. when patient labor begins to
merge into realms of that brain .weari-
ness next akin to sleep. We happen to
know precisely what we are talking
about, and hope never to know it again
american Register.