The Indianapolis journal., 1885-12-18
THE GOVERNMENT MACHINE
ASermOn on Its Evil Influence, with the
Postal Telegraph Bill as the Text.
posed Scheme-John N. Runyans PEN
SiOn-General and Personal Notes.

has reintroduced his bill providing for a postal
telegraph, and has expressed himself favorabiy
to the purchase of the plant" OF some existing
company companies rather than to have the
government, as has been heretofore proposed. 90
into the building of independent lines The pal
pable injustice of such scheme is apparent on
its face. Millions of dollars have been invested
in the business of telegraphy, and it seems an
unqualified outrage that the government should
go into the business as competitor with the
avowed object and the inevitable result of prac-
tically extingpishing the value of the enormous
telegraph properties. OF course, it is understood
that much of the nominal value of telegraph
stock is 'watered," but it is not ''watered' for
the man or men who bought it last week, or last
year, or yesterday; it is not 'watered" for the
investors of trust funds who have placed in it
the moneys belonging to widows and orphans.
and to estates. This feature Of the postal
telegraphy scheme Mr.. Edmunds has felt himself
compelled to abandon; but it is to be doubted
whether the scheme, in any shape or form, will
or should commend itself to the considerate
judgment or approval of Congress or the people
There are two classes of folks here at Washing
ton. These are the resident and located people,
whose idea is that the government is everything
and should be everything They live in gov.
ernmental atmosphere, are brought up upon
governmental pap, and have not in their veins
or brains drop of blood or suggestion Of
brains outside Of and independent of govern
ment This is the dangerous and demoralizing
tendency of Washington. 1t has taken all man
hood out of tho people who live here, and has
builded city whose social and political life is in
terraces-graded according to official place and
power. 1t is made up Of tyrants and sycophants,
the bad qualities nearly always. to be found in
the same personality. To the corroding in-
fuences of the concentration of the govern
mental idea no one is more exposed or suscepti-
BILE than the old and regular member of Con.
gress. He imbibes the idea of the machine and
that he is an important member of the machine;
that it is his business to turn the crank,
and the country must furnish the
men who are to be thrown in and their manhood
and independence ground out of them. The Sec
ond class of folks in Washington are the tran
sient people who come fresh from the healthy
places in the country where men are men; where
individuality and independence are allowed to de-
velop, and who live where flunkeyism and lack
of terraces, life is one democratic-republica
plane of selfrespecting citizenship. These
transient folks see, and deprecate, and detest
the governmental tendency of Washington, and
they 60 home impressed with the littleness Of
the capital, after all, and the greatness of the
country, and American independence, and o. in.
dividual freedom. These people, going out into
every nook and corner of the country. carry
with them the democratic republican idea; so
that, while there IS steadily increasing federal
stic idea OF the power of the national govern
ment in whatever properly belongs to its indis-
putable functions, there is an also ever-increas-
ing protest against the government taking on
unnecessary functions and unnecessarily invad-
ing the domain Of private business and
enterprise. All other arguments against
the postal telegraph scheme, good as
they are. seem dwarfed beside this one
that it adds multiplied thousands to the al.
ready too large army of place-h hunters and place.
filters; it adds another long list to the sycophants,
whose manhood and independence are crushed
out in the machine" and adds to the strength
and power of those who turn the crank. To the
army Of postal employees it will add the army Of
telegraph employees as the assumption by the
government of the railways would add an army
of railway employees; and this objection of itself
ought to be fatal to the scheme in the minds Of
all who have witnessed the demoralzing effects
of government employment, especially as exem4
plifed in the city of Washington. l do not think
the postal telegraph will find favor with this
Congress- and the more the cankeriug influence
of government employment upon the growing
manhood of our country is studied, only to be
deplored, the less and less favorably will any
and all schemes be received the effects Of which
will be to extend the area and the density of the
balefui shadow.
1t is we'll known that General John c. Black,
the Commissioner of Pensions, stands at the
head of the list of United States pensioners, re-
ceiving $l00 month by special act of Congress.
The bill for this. which is $28 above the limit of
the highest pension paid by the government,
was based upon the extraordinary and painful
experiences of General Black from Wounds re.
ceived in both arms, and because of unusual ex.
penses incurred by him in the treatment of ha
disability, and in the effort to recover his health
General Black was compelled to undergo moro
than one. possibly two or three surgical opera
tions, and the recital of his experiences as pub
lished in letter to friend in Illinois, is calcu-
lated to make any one concede that the pension
is well deserved. But possibly General Black is
not alone in the nature, and painfulness and ex-
pense of his disability Pretty nearly every.
body in Indiana knows Major John N. Runyan,
of Warsaw. He General Blacks letter,
anu Lne similarity OF MS case Win the deneraIa
led him. naturally enough, to write the
Pension Department, asking rerating OF his
pension. Runyan wounded in the leg at
Resaca. IL was amputated above the knee. The
wound never satisfactorily healed. 1t continued
to be an open one, giving him great pain and
draining his system until his life was despaired
of. He went to Chicago, had the stump opened.
portion of the bone exsected, and the entire
bone thoroughly scraped. This did not bring
healing; but, after long period of pain and
sickness. UNDERGO n
when the amputation was extended to within
two inches of the articulation Of the thigh
Thus he has been for years, with yet painful
and tender stump which will not allow the wear
ing OF a false leg, and he is living as all who
know him know, broken down man, full Of
pain, and at times absolutely incapacitated from
business. Runyan's first pension was $l4 per
month"; then it was raised to $l7, then to $50