Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1884-12-12
SOME REFL EDITIONS ABOUT
OFFICE SEEKING AND
HOLDING.

OFFICE SEEKING AND
HOLDING.
We have jus. finished reading an editor
ial in church contemporary in which it
speaks with considerable contempt and
much asperitY of Office seekers. Some of
the things it says are lamentably true, but
that there is anything in Office seeking or
Office holding in itself meriting contempt,
we are not prepared to admit. It IS an
enigma to us why the man who seeks
position of bookkeeper in large CONNER
cial house is praised as a man who will
work if he can get employment, while the
same man seeking the same sort of work,
under larger firm, the Government. is
spoken of contemptueusly as an office
seeker. There is nothing unworthy of
mans dignity or compromising in any
way, in his seeking or holding an official
position. If he seek it merely on the
ground of services rendered political
party. and has not the qualifications fit
ting him for tie discharge of its duties,
he is simply contemplate in as far as he
is attempting to obtain a living by false
pretence, but if he is qualified for the
place there is nothing contemplate in bis
applying for it; he expects to give the
government full return in work for the
compensation it gives him. Office seekers
who are able to execute the work they are
applying to undertake are no more to be
despised than any other class of men
merchants, mechanics, doctors and law
yers who seek to sell their industry to the
public for compensation. AS general
thing. men accept position under govern
ment because it is to their interest and
profit, just as other men sell their labor.
1t is curious to observe, and it is by no
means confined to any political party, that
the people who hold office seekers in the
least esteem are those who are already in
office themselves; for it is not to be denied
that long possession of official position
does beget sense Of fee simple right
which silently takes possession of the
mind of the occupant. This was well H.
lustrated in the general npheaval OF
things that attended Mahone's capture OF
Virginia. It was picture that had
here and there by touches of real suffering
and distress. The humor of the thing
consisted in the utter inability of the
Democrats in place to understand how it
could be possible for them to be displaced
without the world coming to an end. At
first they could hardly believe that the op-
position would have the temerity to call
down the wrath of the gods by dragging
them from the horns of the altar to which
they chung with true official desperation
The whole thing was to them sacrilege.
We remember the day when that infidel
as to the divine right of office
holders. John Paul, announced bis
shocking creed in the open Court
house of Augusta and in the broad
daylight. "They say we want the Offices"
saiG he. Yes. We want 'em;" and, added
this unbelieving pagan. 1--WE are going to
have 'em." The utterance was shocking;
even some of his own party thought he
had gone too far. An eminently respect
able old Democratic Office holder, culver
ing with just indignation, remarked to us:
Well. they did get them. Head after head
fell. The Democratic press shrieked on
high g in their daily and weekly editions.
Almost every other officeholder slain, ap-
peared, from his biography, to have been
a descendant Of Washington, Patrick
Henry, Madison, Monroe, or some other
Of the fathers. Our best beloved we're fall
ing, and what was worse, their salaries
were going with them. The very founda-
ton of the government had been swept
away. God help the poor old Common
wealth, was the pious prayer of the Dem
ocratic Office holders as they unbuckled
their official harps from their backs and
hung them on the willow. 1t is no exag-
geration to say-and it was a result Of
many years. education-th not only the
office holders turned out felt that they had
been robbed aud that their successors were
robbers; but also that the Democrats of
the State who had never dreamed of office
for themselves, shared this feeling with
the Office holders who had suffered. We
don't know if we state the resalt of that
education too strongly if we say that the
new Office holders themselves felt little
uneasiness and some apprehension that
they were filing the shoes of the anointed
to which they had no divine rght-so
insensibly does this education of perma-
nent place affect the mind of people.
Well, it was not very long before the
Democrats suddenly came out one Novem-
Der morning and kicked the whole struc-
ture of the new regime to pieces. If the
Democrats had made an cutlery On their
way to the official guiilotine it was
nothing to the walls and impreeations of
the new vicoims. They had hardly got
warm in their nests before the dread sum-
mons came. They tore their hair. they
called on their Deity, Arthur; they in
voked the god of Troops to save them.
They threatened their destroYers with the
wrath of the People. Alas it was the
People who had ordained their slaughter.
In two short years they had learned to
regard themselves as the anointed, and the
fo IL, uo n oro nd fhof pnocf do