The clarion., 1885-02-04
From Washington.
Correspondence of the CLARION. ]

Correspondence of the CLARroNl
WAsHINGToN. January 81, 1885.
Only four weeks more and a most
Interesting epoch in the administrative
r,istorv of the Capital and the country
will be introduced. As the time draws
ON apace expectation on tip-toe Is grow
ing painfully nervous. Who viii be the
Cabinet? What will be the policy of
the new administration? How stiff,
cruel and searching will the new broom
be? What revolutions, political and
social, local and general will follow? !?
These are the questions that must soon
have an answer more or less definite.
Usually the interest in the National
Capital wanes with the adjournment of
Congress. This year it will wax all
summer. Newspaper correspondents will
have to forego their usual summer pic
mic. and spend the dog-days in Wash
ington. Fortunately there will be a
plentiful supply of ice water and such
things, and the city has grown to be
not unpleasant summer resort.
During the last four months there has
been powerful undercurrent of politi-
cal coat-turning going on in the Govern
ueut Offices here, and | am told that in
some offices many supposed Republicans
have made the surprising discovery that
thev have always been consistent Demo
rats, awaiting in darkness but in hope
for the sun burst of the fourth of March,
.sS5. The unselfish fortitude with
which these poor prisoners have endured
aquarter of century of Republican des-
potism, and repression, toiling throug h
the administration of Grant, blushing
at the scandalous usurpation OF Hayes,
and sorrowing over the election of Gar
field. paving money and making speeches
for their cruel captors, is really pathetic.
There has been a remarkable subsidence
of Republican brag, falsehood, and
abuse of Democrats in the Departments.
If it we're not a serious and universal
contagion, the Republican clerks who
look at each other across their desks
would explode with laughter at the
silent, saint-like disuse of the ISLANDERS,
and lies about the "disfeyal Democrats"
and their obscene candidate, which only
four months ago was the staple OF the
work of the civil service of the party OF
moral ideas"
Washington society, which is mainly
official, and therefore Republican, has
made desperate effort to smile at grief,
but the smile was brief and "sickled
3Yer with the pail cast of thought. The
gay reyelers have seen the fourth of
March at the bottom of every oyster
stew, and the Democratic broom has
been the Damocles sword at every feast
The chickenisalad served only to remind
them of the Democratic rooster. The
hrtl
cheerful, and i: is now closing much
earlier than usual. There will be 8
brief revival of social festivities about
the fourth of March and then score Of
society queens will abdicate forever.
The preparation for the Inaugural
procession, illumination and ball is go
ing on. 1t is on generous plan and II
will be expensive, but there is no doubt
of its success. The vast enclosure o
the Pension building, now surrounded
by naked walls, without floor or roof
will soon be in readiness for the festival
and it will be the largest and most i'm
posing hall ever before used for al
inaugural ball.
The citizens of the Capital are con
tributing to the Inauguration fund lib
erally and there is assurances that ample
provision will be made for all expendi
lures.
The cost of fitting up and decorating
the Pension building will be muci
greater than attended the arrangement
for the Garfield ball four years ago, bu
the interest taken this year is create
than it was four years ago, in fact great
er than ever before. An immense mum
Der of visitors will be in the city, anC
many of them will see the Capital o
their country for the first time.
1t begins to look as if the last Repub
lican President intended to devote th'
few remaining days of Republican mis-
rule to fixing his friends in comfortable
positions to which he has little NOR
right than 10 the furniture of the Whit
House, the country having declared IL
favor of new man, and, as sequence
new men. Mr.. Arthur's appointment o
Carpenter to be Governor of Montana
Territory, and Of Davis to be Judge o
the Court of Claims, is now followed b,
that of Andrew Draper as Judge of th'
Court of Commissioners of Alabam'
Claims. Mr.. Draper has no qualifica
ton for the Office He is simply warn
personal friend of the President, ant
the appointment is of the class, an'
from the motive that disgraced tn
Grant era Z. A. ,.