Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1886-01-13
ALEXANDRIA, VA
WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 1a.

WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANoAhh 40.
CONGRESSMAN BoUTELLE, of Maine, VINO
was first lieutenant to Mr.. Blaine in the
campaign of last year, and who visited tnis
city soon after the republican nomination az
Chicago, making a speech in front OF tne
postoffice, has shown of late an lncilnauon
To still further concern himself with matters
more or less Virginian in their character.
His resolution, offered in the US. House
of Representatives last Monday, calling on
the Secretary of the Navy to know II GER
tain inscriptions heretofore borne on cap
tured cannon of the late war, atthe Norfolk
Navy Yard, showing the date OF capture
and other pertinent facts, had not been re-
Gently obliterated whether or not tablet
placed in the navy yard at the time it was re-
constructed, bearing the words destroyed by
the Rebels in 1862, rebuilt by the U. S. Gov
eminent in 1868" had been erased; also,
whether persons who had fought for the
Government had not been displaced by the
present Commandment to give positions to
such as had engaged in rebellion, &C., &C.,
are of spirit and motive similar to those
which have of late seemed to actuate GER
tain despairing and desperate radicals to
rekindle, by all the means in their power,
the expiring embers of the twenty-five
years-aeo- war between the North and South.
But these resolutions are not really after all
the work of the Maine radical. While the
hand is that of Boutelle, the voice is. that OF
Malone and his henchmen, who have at
last realized that the Norfolk Navy Yard is
no longer their personal perquisite. Both
the radical members of the House, as we'll as
Malone, were doubtless aware of the design,
and, indeed, it may be that Mr.. Boutelle
n ever penned word of this resolution, for
what is be presumed to know or care about
a Virginia navy yard, except as he may be
misin formed and seduced into some sort OF
action regarding it by Malone and Mahone's
oonfederates at the Capitol, as was Sherman
in the Danvillo matter. If change has in
fact come in the management Of the notori-
oas Norfolk Navy Yard, there is one more
feather in the administration cap than is
generally known of. This yard has been the
prostitute of tho republican leaders from the
time of the carpet-bag to that ofthe decease
of the Malone dynasty. Platte ruled it with
an iron hand during the six years he was in
Congress from the Norfolk district, and it
was the disgraceful prostitution of the pat
fonage of this navy yard by Platte, under
authority of a radical Secretary of the Navy,
that proved The straw which broke the
camel's back by inducing in great part
democratic House to confirm Mr.. Goode in
the seat to which in place of Platte
he had been given prima facie title.
II has, in truth, been political pest house
throughout the period referred to, but never
SO infected with all kinds of ''sores and
shames" as under the late administration of
Malone aud his cabinet representative and
friend, VIM. E. Chandler. BY all means let
some of the Virginia Congressman amend
the resolution of Boutelle and so broaden
the inquiry as to show up some of the in
iquitous practices which have for many
past years held high carnival at the
Norfolk Navy Yard. Let persons and
papers he sent for. Ex-Secretaries
Robson and Chandler, Platte, Ma
hone, Brady, Wise, Bowden, Libby and
scores Of other persons, some high, some
low, some democrats, some republicans,
could be made by their testimony to throw
a flood of light upon the rottenness and cor
ruption of this navy yard during the past
twenty. five years. Indeed, it is believed
that the democrats would BIO willing to rest
their case on the testimony of a single re-
publican, John F. Dezendorf, who, knowing
the truth and the whole truth, would prob
ably tell it. AS to the inscriptions said to
have been erased, it is only necessary to say
that more than ten years ago the best of all
the radical abolition statesmen of New
England, Charles Sumner, proposed the
erasure aud oblteration by law of just such
tablets and inscriptions as Boutelle's reso-
luton refers to. With all his prejudices
against the South, Charles Sumner was just
enough to declare that there should not
forever be Haunted in the faces of the
patriotic and now loyal sons of the nation
the memories Of their disaster and over.
throw in war. Let the Norfolk navy yard
by all means be promptly Investigated. On
"a flies both of the navy yard and Of Secre-
tary Whitney's Office will doubtless be found
3 great deal Of valuable correspondence and
many proofs of radical misbehavior and
Just why the shoe of an
honest reform is SO severely pinching to the
feet of Mahopeites now, is that with the guns
Of the navy yard Spiked, their battle for
Congress in that district next year would
almost certainly be losing one. With
their colored troops no longer in solid
column and their navy yard patronage in
other hands, they are probably whipped, and
hey know it. The investigation here sug-