The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1884-04-07
WASHINGTON LETTER.
From our Regular Correspondent
WASHINGTON, D. c., April 4, 1884


WASHINGTON, D. c., April 4, 1884
As it now stands the generating report
Of the special committee is pretty mess
for both Keifer and Boynton, and a very
touching commingling of compliment and
equivocation which the committee allowed
itself to indulge in. BOynton is exon
Grated from the charge made against him
by Keifer, because Refers testimony does
not come up to the committees standard
zee legal preponderance, although his
evidence was confirmed by two witnesses.
Boynto1 being the defendant, is entitled
to the benefit of the doubt which the
committee entertained that the whole
brood of the witnesses on both sides were
not lying at each other from the shoulder
throughout. The committee nevertheless
declares that both of the gentlemen are of
unblc nished character, so far as the com
miltee is able TO Judge from the testimony,
and the powerful eifolt made by each to
prove the other a liar, the committee
hopes. maynOt again tind imitators in the
republican ranks 1t may here he said
that Boynton's denial about the McGar
rahan claim business is very like the
pleading of the great Sheridan in the
borrowed kettle case. in that he never
knew McGarrahan, and if he did it was
not corruptly, and it corruptly there was
no malice prepense about it.
For many years, during and since the
war, the general government has been
called upon to pay more money in liquda
ton of the district expenditures for i'm
provements, than the whole tax levy Of
Chicago, with her more than half million
inhabitants. In 1873, these expenditures
reached the enormous SUN of eight million
dollars, while in 1915. it was almost if not
quite as much, and in no year since 1876
have the expenditures been less than two
million dollars, with no corresponding
public improvement to show for it. TAX
ing the capitol and all the other public
buildings and adding together their ag
gregate cost. we find that it does not
amount to as much by several millions as
has been laid out for the work upon the
lures all the time increasing, and with no
prestige to maintain itself except that of
being the capital of great nation. it has
become already serious question whether
it were not better to fix the capital at
some city whose citizens have had energy
enough to build it up and get along with
out governmental dependence
1t is good time now for Reavis;' the
capital mover, to get in his work before
Washington city succeeds in getting more
public buildings than can be handily
transferred beyond the Mississippi. A
late figuring shows that the government
has incurred an expenditure of only about
one hundred million dollars since the year
1890, for its share in running the district
government, constructing its public build
ings, buying and maintaining its public
parks, and all. This is only about the
sum we are paying out in pensions every
year, and we could hardly miss it from our
enormous on hand surplus But the city
is getting more and more eXtravagaut in
its outlay for public Improvements, and
more and more audacious in its demands
upon congress, which has hitherto been
paying one half of the running expenses
of the municipal government, until the
recent demand that the government shall
pay one half the expense of the construc-
ton of three million dollar bridge over
the Potomac, has aroused everybody to
the inquiry as to where and when shall
this thing stop?
Those who believe that the public do
main should remain in the actual posses
sion of Government, to- be distributed to
actual settlers instead of going into the
hands of spectators and land -pillagers,
will be pleased to learn that the Govern
ment is evincing a determination to en-
force what law there is in protecting itself
against the stupendous frauds that have
become bold to actual defiance. The
fencing, in of millions upon millions of
acres of the public land by herdsmen, the
frauds practiced upon the Government in
the occupation of other millions of acres
of land under the homestead and pre- emp
ton laws, through forged and perjured
attidavits, and the appropriation of i'm
mense bodies of timber land belonging to
the reservations, have been going on for
years In the face of the efforts that have
been put forth by the Government to
restrain them, which from the inadequacy
of the appropriations for special agents,
have thus far proved futile. The Interior
department, however has found sufficient
authority to take this particular bull by
the horns and without respect to persons,
the special agents have received their in
struCtions to ferret out every instance OF
fraud and follow it up to the conviction
and punishment of the offender. II
transpires that some of the men involved
in the fencing in of the public domain are
those who affect to stand well with the
Government, and therefore presume them.
selves exempt from legal interference, but
secretary Teller's Instructions are to the
effect that the whole system shall be
wiped out root and branch. and the cases
now pending before the United States
courts in the states and territories show
that the agents have already entered upOr
the work. PHONO