The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1885-06-12
WASHINGTON LETTER.
Prom our regular Correspondent.

/ WASHINGTON, June s, 1885.
The tug of war still comes on and
I goes on between the Administration
/ and the Office seekers. The tugging is
\ to a great extent among the Office seek
I ers. that is they tug against each other
I but the President has to bear the brunt
and suffer the wear and tear. He is.
I no doubt, becoming very weary of the
I delegations that puTsue him relative to
. comparatively unimpOrtant offices. Per-
I haps no minor Office has made no great
er demands upon his time and patience
than the Charleston. South Carolina.
COllectoTship. The rival delegations
have been persistent in their claims on
his attention. He told them last week
that they must agree to settle this mat
ter among themselves, and that if they
did not do so soon, he would be COM
PEELED to settle it in way that would
not suit any of the contending factions.
The work of turning out the idle, the
incomDetent, and the otherwise often
sive partisans goes on slowly but surely.
The term offensive partisan, F" is in the
mouth of every one here, and it is in
danger of being not ouly abused but
misunderstood. 1t should be known
that these discharged, discarded en-
ployes were not cast out merely because
they were Jealous Republicans but be-
cause their zeal in politics wholly inter
fered with their duties as Government
employees. They are those who have
been drawing paw from the public treas
ury but performing no public service,
because their time has been entirely ia
ken up with partisan work. While they
were doubtless very important factors
in the Republican organization, collect
ing campaign money, fals.fying state
ments, skilled in the art of making the
worse appear the better part upon the
stump, and through the press they were
the vampires of our political system,
sucking its blood, and lulling it with
lies. Many of them have been discharg-
ed. and many more will be discha rged
No matter who their "infuence" and
"backing" may be. the time has come
for them to go into scandalous retire
ment and they will go.
1t is not alone in the discharge of idle
ana worthless partisans that this admin
istration is making itself memorable.
There are other and PERHAPS more i'm
portant reforms going on. These re-
forms are not palpable and visible to the
unskilled eye of the public at large, but
their accumulated weight will be seen
in the reports of Cabinet officers when
Congress meets next fall, in tie message
of the President, aud especially in the
greatly reduced appropriations that VIII
be asked for the public service for the
next fiscal year.
H. is well known that frauds upon the
revenue have long been practiced by
impOstors and persons in cOnnivance I
with custom house officials. So great /
had this evil become few years ago
that it was found necessary for Con- /
gress to appropriate 500 900 to aid iG .
the detection and exposure of these 4
frauds. But even this fund, designed /
as it was for the prevention of evasiOns /
and irregularities, was soon perverted to I
as fraudulent uses as those il was appro- /
priated TO correct and il is matter of I
not tOrious history that the greater part .
of this hundred thousand dollars year .
went into the hands of gang OF disrep-
utable political bnmmers in New York, 4
Philadelphia and other cities. as a re-
ward for their partisan services. Here /
was one attempted reform, but the mis- .
fortune of it was that like most Repub-
llcan reforms, it was a packard rather
than forward sep.
Such is but one of the many great ras- 4
calities in the customs service which .
Secretary Manning, as a practical busi- .
ness man, set to work to eliminate upon /
his taking charge of the Treasury de .
partment and how be has succeeded is /
best told in the language of prominent .
of this city to correspond .
ent of the New York Herald
81 have occasion, by the nature of MY /
work, to know what is being done IN /
the Treasury ard by the Administration
in the way of reforming long standing ,
and very grave abuses and | say TO you /
that, in the important matters which .
am necessarily familiar with, this Dem
Ocratic Administration has done more 4
in three months than has been done IN
fifteen years before - h.