St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-06-12

scOupdrels. Either confusion prevented Mr..
Compton from hearing Mr. Findlays question
or drowned his reply, but the gentlemen stood
within few feet of one another angrily ges-
ticulating, while other members of the house
gathered around and took much interest in
the scene. Speaker Carlisle, who was in the
chamber approached the speakers chair and
was apparently ready to seize the gavel and
exert his authority in case the demonstration
became more threatening, but Chairman
Blount was equal to the emergency and soon
succeeded in securing comparative quiet.
Mr.. Findlay-I would like to ask the gentle
man from Maryland whether I understood
him to state that all the persons discharged
from the postofice in the last year by the
postmaster were political scoundrels and
scalawags?
Mr.. Compton-Not all of them.
Mr.. Findlay-I understood you to say all of
them.
O Mr.. Compton-Not all of them. never in
tended to say so.
Mr.. Findlay-How many of them?
But Mr. Compton, declining to answer the
question, went on to assert that it had been
sought TO convict Veasey of violation of the
civil service rule because he had removed q
lot of men who were unfit to hold office under
any administration in collision with whom
his distinguished colleague had sought to de-
feat him together with the Democratic ticket.
They were unfit to hold office, and he knew
that these men, in connection with the Of
hclals of the custom house in Baltimore, had
run Republican politics in Maryland by every
means within their reach ever since the party
had been in power. 1t was
A STRANGE SOUND
to come from the lips of a gentleman elected
to congress as a Democrat to charge, as his
colleague had done, that the purpose and OBJ
1ect of Mr.. Veasly in making these removals
had been to institute and create q partisan
force in the postoffice. He was ready to say
here and now that if it was a partisan organ
1zatlon, it was an organization of competent
honest, efficient and faithful officers, who had
rendered to the government its full and COM
plete due, and when the primaries would
come they would be found exercising the
privileges only of free American citizens, and
not of partisans. Applause on the Demo-
cratic side and derisive laughter from the
Republican. When the postoffice under u
Democratic administration sought to control
the politics of Maryland, he would be with
MS colleague for turning the rascalS out.
Whence sprang this new born zeal of his col
league, and other Democrats for retaining
the rascals in office? For twenty years his
colleague and all Democrats had made the
welkin ring with the declaration that if the
power came into the hands of the Democratic
party they would use it to turn the ras-
Gals out. Mr.. Findlay suggested that
turning the rascals out was one thing and
making clean sweep was another. Mr..
Compton said that in spite of these declara-
lions it seemed to be the policy of his col
leagues to want to keep the rascals in. He
Compton, was against it. He was as earn
eStly in favor of the honest administration of
the civil service as his colleagues dared be,
and his colleagues knew it.
81 don't know it, remarked Mr.. Findlay.
II have record as an honest official in my
state,' retorted Mr.. Compton, angrily.
Mr.. Findlay-I made no personal charges.
Mr.. Compton-You cannot do it. You ain t
going to do it here or elsewhere. Laughter. ]
IL the gentleman is ready to let his declara-
ton go to the Democracy of Maryland and be
tried on it, I am ready to meet the issue. IAp-
plause on the Democratic side.
Mr.. Findlay-And l am before the real
Democracy of Maryland, but not the spurious
Democracy. We have real Democracy in
Maryland and spurious Democracy that has
corrupted and debauched the franchise. The
committee then rose.