Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1885-06-19
Washington Letter.
From our Regular Correspondent.

washington Letter.
From our Regular Correspondent.
| WASHINGTON, May 30, 1885.
Since last wrote you change
has come over the bright illusion o1
official security in the breasts Of 6
large number of Republican Office
holders. There havs been numer'
Gus dismissals during the past week
and nine.tenths of those who remain
see ever before them the Democle,
sword labeled "your turn next
The dismissals have been chiefly fol
offensive partisanship and also TO,
dishonesty, insobriety, and general
unftness. The new Administration
is beginning to know its ground, get
its hand in and to overcome it's ma.
tive bashfulness. It will learn more
day by day, and the rascala will 60,
and go with accelerated velocity.
The recently appointed Chiefs oi
Bureau, to whose attention cases oi
suspected wrong.doing have been
brought, feel themselves handi
capped by the Republican clerks
who are subordinate to them, bu,
upon whom they cannot depend fol
cooperation. When papers are re-
ferred to these clerks for investiga-
tions and report, they are placed in
possession OF the movements of the
enemy, and they are quick to take
advantage of their confidential posi-
ton, and to play the traitor by in.
forming interested parties outside
the Departments that an investiga-
ton threatens. 1t is not difficult to
| see how valuable and important
such information is to the Old rings
aud rinSsters that have had and
still have this underground wire and
back stairs connection with the
Treasury and other Government D.
partments. Clerks who have been
in collusiou. and actually in guilty
partnership, with claimants and
others dealing with the Government.
obtain the earliest information Of
proposed Investigations, and are en-
abled to cove: up suspicious appear
ances aud forewarn their outside ac-
completes.
The disadvantage of Democratic
officials is that they stand solitary
and helpless at the heads of their
departments with no subordinate
whom they can trust. They are in
the condition of a General whose
army is treacherously servils and
whose sentinels are colleagues of the
enemy. The new Administration
will never recover the Holy Cross Of
political purity at the head of a host
of Republican in6dels.
The discharges for offensive parti-
zanship during the past week have
been chiefly from postoffices, and a
majority of them have been in Vir.
ginia. but every day witnesses a
number of discharges from tho de-
partments here in this city. They
consist chiefly of those clerks who
were absent from their desks during
the late campaign, making speeches
for Blaine, organizing Republican
clubs, and doing other campaign
work while drawing pay as clerks.
This rule of offensive partisanship, if
impar,ially applied, will slay its
thousands. A Government clerk
has no more business to be an active
partisan, than bank clerk. or q hod
carrier. He is employed to do Ger
tain clerical work, and he should do
that work not as Republican or
Democrat. but as asclerk. When he
neglects to do the work he should be
Us peremptorily discharged, as he
would be if LIE were a clerk in any
private business house.
Apart from discharges and rumors
of discharges, clerical life in the i'm
meuse coun,ing-hou.e of Uncle Sam
is not what it used to be. There is
more work, less play, and better
health. The Republican employe
has a gloomy, careworn face, but
he is keeping better hours, and
bringing forth fruit meet for repent
ance. Officers that have been for
years in arrears With their work are
now up to date. Since it has been
given out that plotracted absence
from sickness shall be without ray,
and that any absence shall be sub
tracted from the thirty days vaca-
ton allowed each clerk, there has
been remarkable decline of sham
sickness. DEN.