Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1884-05-21
from our regular correspondence
WASHINGTON LETTER.
Washington, ID. c., May, II, '84.


game that the office holders in New
York are just now playing, but il
shows pretty plainly that the Presi
dents chances have become 50 very
desperate that he has been compclled
to resort to desperate means to raise
what boom he has got. But it is nei-
Their shrewd, sagacious or prudent
device to have such names as Johu
Jacob Astor and Horace B. Clahin to
lead in any political movement, for
they at once put the rank and file upon
their suspicious. Mr.. Arthur's ad-
ministration has been purely negative
one, and it is appropriately endorsed by
these negative men, for nobody knows
how Mr.. Arthur votes, or how Mr..
Clanin votes, if they vote at all. Mr..
Arthur has done no harm, simply be-
cause there was no harm to be done.
The machine would have run as well
if Macarthur had been in Kamschat.
ka. The politicians in the "grand old
party" have all along credited Arthur
with harmonizing the differences that
for three years have kept their leaders
in hot water all over the country. The
recent action of the local conventions
for choosing delegates to their Chicago
funeral hardly looks that way, and Mr..
Arthur's appointments have calculated
to leep up the estrangement between
the two Or three wings in which the
party is divided. Talking with lead
ing Democrat the other day, he seemed
to think that the killing of the Morri-
son bill was, after all, the best thing
that could have happened this year to
shape things for democratic success.
There was no leading Democrat that
had been or would be talked of in con-
ncction with Presidential nomination,
who had not pronounced views upon
the tariff, and it was not for Congress
to be making tariff platforms in ad-
vance to suit any possible candidate,
and the Morrison arrangement would
MT suit any of them. The dropping Of
the question altogether, gives us a
Democratic President just as sure as if
the thing had already happened.
| should like to know if the country
is to continue this pampering of the
Grant family during the term of their
natural lives! Grant has been given
three or four fortunes in the last twen-
ty years, and now Congress puts him
on the retired payroll at about the
same salary that he got when Presi-
dent during his first term If he is
foolish enough to invest his own and
other peoples money in Kelley motors
and other South Sea bubbles, | don't
see why the country should keep on
encouraging him in that sort of out-of-
pocket speculation, and this talk of our
being unable to compensate him for his
brilliant services, smacks a good deal
more of sentiment than of justice to
ourselves and regard for posterity.
The callow clap-trap politicians of
the Republican school who clerk In the
departments and affect base ball, are
the ones who have started this hue ard
cry for Bob Lincoln as q Presidential
candidate. While there may be sad
dearth of statesmen in this country just
at this time who may be available, it
must strike an intelligent citizen with
the idea that We have got on our last
legs altogether when such a statesman
as young Lincoln can be seriously
talked about as q candidate. Why,
Henry Clay tried three times, and
Daniel Webster as many more, after
thirty years of as Jealous service and
able craftsmanship as the world has
seen, and yet failed to reach position
that this political aspirant proposes to
jump into without even having exhibit
ed the first qualities for the place either
as a citizen or public official These
are not the times and the country's in
terests cannot permit the the election
of Presidents upon mere sentiment,
and Mr.. Robert Lincoln would do well
to bide his time until he can acquit
himself of something that will entitle
him to consideration, besides his
fathers name.
The Republican Congressional Com
mittee are in peck of trouble over
the discovery all at once that their con-
nection with the political machinery of
their party is the contravention of the
Civil Service law, which makes them
amenable to all the pains and penalties
incident to its infractlon. The eleventh
section of the law expressly hits them,
and Senator Hawley admits that the
luties of the committee cannot be per-
ormed without the inevitable following
If a term in the peaitentiary. To see
uch men as Hawley, Sabin, Logan,
Frye and Don Cameron in company
With the House Members of the Com
nlttep oil OoinU IN tho ponitontiarv |