St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1885-08-29
WASHINGTON LETTER.
From our Regular Correspondent
N.sH1neroN. D. c. August Il, 1886.

WASHINGTON ~. VI August Ats LOU"
Life is comparatively easy in Wash
ington Just now. The heat OF last
week has subsidized from fifteen to TWEEN
tv degrees. Men have resumed their
collars, neck-ties and coats. Women
have resumed-but | cannot go into
particulars. The President has taken
TO the woods. The Cabinet is divided
Geographically only. The Postmaster
General is In Madison, Wisconsin. The
Secretary of war is in Salem, Mass.
The Secretary of State oscillates be-
tween his home in Delaware and the
Department in Washington. The other
Secretaries, [ believe, are at their posts,
but I have Just returned to Washington
after two weeks absence, and must
make the confession, unparalleled IN
journalism, that there are one or two
things that do not know.
The work in all the Departments has
not been for years SO well systemlzed
and pushed as at present. This is the
comment of all who have long had
business with Pension, Patent, Land,
Indian and other bureaus of the Govern
ment service. Methods have been i'm
proved, abuses eradicated, barnacles
have been scraped off; competent men
have been appointed in place OF drones
and shirks; new life, new energy, and
old-fashioned honesty have been in
fused into the complicated and labyrin-
thine system through which the affairs
of $4,000, 900 of people are administered.
That so much has been accomplished
in five months is remarkable: but then
it must be remembered that this has
been done by traitors and rebels
whose sole object, as predicted by the
only truly good Republican party-was
to disrupt, paralize and ruin.
The wonderful changes which can be
effected in a Government Office by the
introduction Of the thoroughly BUSH
ness methods, in place of the methods
formerly in vogue, is strikingly appa-
rent in the Pension Office at this time.
The working force of the bureau is ITO
short of the full number employed un-
der the old Administration. Besides
this, 214 of the clerks are absent on
their annual leaves, and there are thir-
ty absent sick. Notwithstanding this
decrease in the working force, amount
ing altogether to 354 clerks, the amount
of work being done at the present time,
without any heightened hours or over
working of the force, is as large as
done by the full staff of clerks under
Commissioner Dudley, and it is rapidly
augmenting. Recently there have been
one or two clerks, both Democrats and
Republicans, dismissed because they
relied too much on their influence and
not enough upon their record, but be-
yond this there have been but few
changes recently.
The loud and braggart glorifcation
Of the Republican party, when the
count of money in the Treasury De
partment showed no loss, has not yet
ceased to reverberate in the land, but
that is not the way the truly good Off
Gals of the truly good party have re-
plenished their exchequers. Investiga-
tions now pending. and others that the
country will hear of soon, will convince
the most skeptical chat an examination
of the books, and an elimination of the
crooks, have come none too soon. The
Republicans are trying to take political
comfort from the fact, as they put it
that the implicated officials who were
lately dismissed from the Coast Survey
Office are all democrats. This is not
true; but even if it were so, it is moi
easy to see how the cause of Republi.
canism is helped any by the discovery
The fact remains that whatever irregu.
larities existed were continued under
republican rule, and that it remained
| for a Democratic Administration to ex.
pose them and apply the necessary
corrective. The country is not so mucf
concerned just now about the politics
of individual rascals, as it is in having
rascalities stopped. It is upon the lat.
ter point that the record will be made
up.