The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1884-06-28
A Change Demanded.
Corruption I'm Every Department of the
Governments.

From the Baltimore Saa:
| AS the Arthur administration is drawing to
close malfeasances are reported to have
been discovered in the departments which
would probably have been hushed up if there
had been certainty that the Republicans
would continue in control of the government
after the fourth Of next March. The public
has heard of the gigantic frauds perpetrated
in one branch of the mail service of the gen.
eral postoffice. By these frauds the govern
ment was plundered, according to Attorney
General Brewster, of not less than four mil
lions of dollars. They were discovered soon
after Mr.. Garfield entered upon the presidency.
The principal agents in them were among the
most influential and active politicians of the
Republican party. They were prosecuted in
such way that the trials dragged along for
more than three years, and whether it was the
reluctance of the prosecution to convict, or
! the sympathy felt by the jury for the accused,
or the liberal use of money to bring about an
acquittal, not one man of all the long list,
| from Dorsey to Kellogg, has been convicted
we pass from the general postolfice to the
signal service, we find that Howgate, who was
defaulter to the estimated extent of at least
quarter of a million dollars, although ARES
ted, was allowed by some mysterious infiu-
ence to make his escape and is still at large.
Turning from the signal service once more to
a recent defalcation in the Postoffiee Depart
ment, we are informed that Col. Burnside, the
superintendent, was first discovered to be a
defaulter in the sum of forty-fve thousand
dollars, and now we learn that he has been
rearrested on the further charge of embez-
zling eight thousand dollars of the money
realized from the sale ''of old Office furniture,
carpets, waste paper, etc." How much more
than fifty-three thousand dollars he has taken
the investigation still going on will probably
disclose. Within the last few days the public
has been treated to another revelation. This
time it is in the Navy Department, where two
clerks connected with the bureau of medicine
and surgery, are charged, with the assistance
of outside parties, of defrauding the govern
ment through false vouchers of eight hundred
and forty dollars, but as the frauds are said to
extend over a period of three years, it is
thought they will reach in the aggregate not
less than twenty five thousand dollars. The
War Department has also its share e af.efault-
ing paymasters, who nave squandered the
public money in gambling and speculations of
various kinds, and the same spirit of demon
alization has been manifested among class
of army officers in the duplication of their ac-
counts. But while corrupt practices have
been disclosed in the Postoffice Department,
in the departments of the army and the navy,
anu IN the SlSnai service bureau, winch is IT.
self a bureau of the army, and while it has
been asserted that an examination of the books
of the Treasury Department would disclose
enormous frauds, not breath of suspicion
ever tainted until now the State Department.
Yet, all at once, it is discovered that even
in that department (which of all Others" as
our correspondent writes, twas supposed to
be hedged around with the strictest and most
extreme conservatism shortage" in the
accounts of Col. Morgan, the disbursing Off
Ger, who died about two months ago, is re-
ported to have been discovered. The amount,
so far as it is known at present, does not
coed twelve thousand dollars, and the State
Department is disposed to regard the deli
cheney as arising from negligence and ineom-
potency, and not from deliberate dishonesty.
However this may be, the fact, of the ''short-
age" is acknowledged, and in whatever way
il may have occurred, it is but another justifi-
cation of the general belief that in every de-
partment of the government plundering has
been going on upon more or less extensive
scale ever since the close of the war, and that
while the greater part of the losses have been
covered up, there is yet wide field to be in
vestigated if the Democratic party acquires
control of the departments, although, from
the lapse of time, the principal offenders will
escape punishment.