Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1885-08-22
OUR WASHINGTON LETTER.

(From Our Regular Correspondent.)
Life is comparatively easy in Wash
ington just now The heat of last
week has subsidized from fifteen to
twenty degrees. Men have resumed
their collars, neck-ties and coats.
Women have resumed-but 1 can not
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 between his home in Della
ware and the Department in Washing
ton. The other Secretaries, believe,
are at their posts, but 1 have just re-
turned 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 we'll system
lied 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
Government service. Methods have
been improved, abuses eradicated, bar
nacles have been scraped off; compe
tent men have been appointed in place
of drones and shirks; new life, new
energy, and old-fashioned honesty
have been Infused into the complica-
ted and labyrinthine system through
which the affairs of 100000 of peo-
pie 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 dis
rupt, paralze and ruin"
The wonderful changes which can
be effected in Government Office by
the introduction of a thoroughly bust
ness methods, in place of the methods
formerly in vogue, is strikingly appar-
ent in the Pension Office at this time.
The working force of the bureau is
ITO short of the full number employed
under the old Administration. Besides
this, 214 of the clerks are absent on
their annual leaves, and there are
thirty absent sick. Notwithstanding
this decrease in the working force,
amounting 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 was done by the full staff of
clerks under Commissioner Dudley,
and tits rapidly augmenting. Recently
there have been one or two clerks,
both Democrats and Republicans, dis
missed because they relied too much
ON their influence and not enough
upon their record, but beyond this
there have been but few changes re-
Gently.
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. Investi-
cations now pending, and others that
the country will hear of soon, will
convince the most skeptical that an
examination of the books, and an elm
nation 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 Off
Gals who were lately dismissed from
the Coast Survey Office are all Demo
Gratis. This is not true; but even if it
were so, it is not easy to see how the
cause of Republicanism is helped any
by the discovery. The fact remains
that whatever irregularities existed
were continued under Republican
rule, and that 1t remained for Demo
cratic administration to expose them
and apply the necessary corrective.
The country is not so much concerned
inst now about the politics of indlvid-
nal rascals, as it is in having rascalities
stopped. tits upon the latter point
that the record will be made up,
Washington, August IL, 1886, 1