Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1885-04-09
NOT AN IMITATOR.
Emo Democratic Administration Not a
Copyist of Republican Methods.


Copyist of Republican Methods.
One thing is clear already-the new
Administration at Washington is not to
be an imitator of Republican prece
dents. 1t will not do things in a GER
tain way merely because its late prede-
cessors did them in that way. The
new Cabinet Ministers are not dunn.
mics. Bayard. Manning, Whitney and
Lamar have already revealed themselves
as men who do their own thinking,
without being content to tread docilely
In the footsteps of those who preceded
them, and accept as sacred and immuta
BILE all they find done in their depart
ments. Mr.. Bayard gives the first
sharp official recognition of our inter.
ests in Central America that has been
exhibited for more than twenty years,
and Secretary Whitney supports him by
ordering the Yantlc to Port Livingston,
Guatemala, to protect the rights of our
citizens against violence by the dictator
Barrios. We have right to infer from
this that our navy is not to 90 on phi
laundering in gay and festive seaports as
it has been doing for twenty years past,
but is to be put to work, even II Its
task be only to display our flag in out
of-the-way places and remind the world
that there is such power as the United
States.
Secretary Manning, of the Treasury,
has knocked off one fungus growth on
mis- department in abolishlng the fraud
ROLL" as it is called, an organization of
spies and informers maintained and
paid ostensibly to look after underval-
uation frauds on the revenue, but really
to tap the custom-house in New York
for political and personal advantage.
The new Secretary of the Treasury,
who is himself New Yorker, under
stands the ''fraud rolf business, and
knows that its agents, some of whom
are now under trial for collision in
frauds on the revenue, are more active
in instigating and hiding underyalua-
lions than in exposing them.
Mr.. Lamar, too, finds that the In
terror Department needs reforming, and
exhibits the capacity to do the work.
He is not willing that it shall remain
just as he received it from the late Sec
rotary Teller. He has already annulled
two OF the late Secretary's orders, one
for giving the backbone land grant,
of seven hundred thousand acres to
the New Orleans & Pacific Rail
road Company, and another
throwing open to settlers the
Crow Greek reservation in Da-
kota without protecting the Indians on
the farms they have acquired by settle
ment In both these decisions Secreta-
~ Teller, it is asserted. acted with I'M
due haste, if not in gross disregard of
his duty; and he has his hands full just
now in the Senate defending them
against attacks, in which even Repub-
lican Senators join. 1t is strange
thing for Republican Cabinet-of1icer
to have his official record '.ripped up"
in this style, and the feelings of Mr..
Teller under the operation are not to be
envied.
The action of these four heads of de-
partments shows US, then, that the
Cleveland administration is to be some
thing else than a tame i'm itator of Re-
publican methods and practices. 1t has
too much vigor and independence in it
for that. 1t will think for itself and
construe the laws for itself. 1t will
show that the spirit and temper of De-
mocracy are different from the spirit
and temper of Republicanism, and leave
it to the people to decide which is the
better.-iSt. Louis Republican.