The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1885-09-04
"REEORMEnu LAW.

The recent raid of the Hon. Milton j. Dur
ham, first comptroller of the treasury upon
the Alabama Claims Court has greatly COM
mended that individual to the Democracy.
When he was appointed there was some
kicking: it was feared that he was not a true
refOrmer in the Democratic acceptation of
the term-that is it was feared that
he might not be sufficiently on the
alert for scandal, and that some eYi-
dence of the rotten condition to which the
Republicans had brought the government
might escape him. There is no longer how
ever, any doubt that Durham is thoroughly
competent to occupy a seat in the Democrat
ic synagogue of reform. He evidently has a
nose for scandal. He has smelled out
something in the Alabama Claims Court ex-
penditures which he thinks when fully ex-
posed will prove very refreshing to the Dem
ocratic nostrils.
Amongst other things Judge Durham has
discovered that the Alabama Claims Court
has been employing woman at the princely
salary of eight dollars a month to scrub the
court room. In the organic act the Judge
finds nothing said about employing scrub
women and after profound study, with an
eye single, of course,to relieving the taxpay-
ers of the enormous burdens entailed upon
them by the extravagant and corrupt Re
publicans, he concludes that the scrub wom-
an was employed illegally, that she was a
Republican favorite ''fattening on the coun-
try" and that when she presents her bill
the treasury department shall inform her
that the era of corruption has passed and the
era Of reform begun, and promptly show her
the door. To be sure there is provision for
the payment of the incidental expenses of
the court but the Judge probably thinks that
keeping the court room clean is not an ex-
pense incidental to the running of court,
that it might be run just as well in dirty
room as in one swept and garnished once
day or once week.
The Judge has also discovered that the
court has employed attorneys in various parts
of the country to take testimony, and he
thinks this also is an expenditure not COW
cred by the law. 1t was thought by the
judges of the court that the taking of testi-
mony was one of the incidents which the or
ganic law was designed to cover. But the
astute Durham decides in effect that it is
no part of the courts business to take testi-
mony, that no such contingency as that was
ever thought of by Congress. The Court was
expected to evolve its judgments out of its
inner consciousness without regard to evil
dence.
An insurance expert has been employed by
the court and the Hon. Mr.. Durham thinks
that, too was an unnecessary expenditure.
Congress didn'tsa anything about insurance
experts in the act. Neither didit say anything
about counsel or assistant counsel Yet I'M
der the corrupt administration which existed
before the gentleman from the pure moral
atmosphere of Kentucky was transplanted
to Washington both these officials were en-
ployed and paid. The court thought it
necessary to have them and believed they
were covered by provision for incidentals,
but Judge Durham decides that they are not
incidents to court. In the view of this as
tute lawyer the only incidents of court are
the judges and clerk, anything or anybody
else connected with it being an extravaganza