The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1888-10-20
! BRACE OF GREAT POLITICAL
SCANDALS.
New York's Aqueduct Squabble and WASH
ingtOn's.
Divers Topics Discussed in an Enter-
tanning Manner by q Master of
the Art Of interviewing.
lGath in Cincinnati Enquirer.l

paper like the Cincinnati Enquirer
leave an occasion for an assembling
of forces, and l have thought that
great question is the relative strength
OF corruption in our politics.
AT this moment there are two scau-
dats before the peopte-the New York
Aque,.uct SCANDAL and the Washington
Aqueduct scandal. They are almost
alike, and the discovery of one has led
10 the discovery Of the other. The
one involves the most successful
and powerful city In America,
one fully representative of the mu-
nicipsi civilization OF the country,
aud the other involves not the
Capital City, but the Government,
which has the Ca pital City in custody,
the Federal Engineers, aud the Com
missiouers of this District. As in the
recent discovery of confidential mort |
gage clerk for firm OF lawyers forging
noltgases and selling them, including
the forging of the city's seal, &C., an
other such forgery was Immediately
developed in an equally high quarter;
so shaking up the New York Aqueduct
followed the shaking up OF the WASH
ington Aqueduct. One shock of earth-
quake is almost always followed BY
another. The turning up of one stone
and finding Il snake under 1t leads
everybody 10 turn up the edge of the
stone on which he sits to see it snake
Is there.
1t seems to me that the two hagrant
Cases Of these aqueducts show that the
American people have not reached
precision in any OF their governments;
that their methods of doing business
under political superintendents are
faulty, aud that we have allowed Offen-
ders to 60 past us until almost any
crime is punishable with very slight
imprisonment, fine or public ban.
That scamp like Ferdinand Ward,
me of the vastest swiudlers OF any
period, should be sent to Jail for only
four or 1--we years, after having ruined
General Grant, shaken the banks, &C.,
is commentary upon the want Of
power in our criminal procedure. There
is surely no other government In the
United States which would permit a
fellow of this sort, still quite young, to
lie in Jail only until toward the middle
of his life and then let him out to
spend the other half of his life In prob
ably swindling again. We overlook
in the administration of justice that
which stuus by its fsrocity in the
application to olfsnses which strike at
the very life and honor of the State.
We talk of State Rights and Home
Rule, and yet permit a great public
utility, like the New York Aqueduct,
TO be made a nest of robbery, so that
the very Governor Of the State borrows
money for his campaign expenses from
the same contractors who shirk their
work and leave upon the remainder of
this generation or the next generation
to come hideous bills to pay for frac-
lures in their aqueduct, which re fleet
upon the engineering, po'itlca! and
contracting character OF our time, all
at once. The State seems to have no
statute, no Court, no public opinion
effective enough 10 rebuke such cor
ruptiOn. The fact is that the public
press in this country, which ought to
reserve its power for these great occa-
sions, discusses everything With a
waste of strength, and when the time
comes to apply strength to a giants
task the public is languid. I some
times wonder whether Alexander
Hamilton was not right when he said
that certain of the qualities of Europe
transplanted to America did not seem
to suffer rust and a corruption. The
application of the American life almost
exclusively TO moneymaking leaves
no reserve quantity or society here to
ait in judgment upon the rapacious.
We are always eXclaiming against rich
men, and yet 1t is apparent that we do
need in this country some element
whose Yebuke will reach the ear of
judges on the beach and jures in the
box.
Many years ago I was lin England,
when it was found that certain rogues
had set themselves 10 work to tamper
with the paper on which Bank Of En-
gland notes were printed. They had
got bold Of a man at the mill which
made this paper, and through him had
obtained the material on which to exc
cute their couuterfeits. It seems TO me
that they were Americans, but I am
not quite sure, for the ms tier happened
about twenty-five years ago. My re-
collection is, however, that every one
of them was sent 10 penal servitude for
life, and if any of them are living they
are there still. The courts took the
Wow that an offense OF this kind aimed
at the great body Of the people and at
the dignity of the State, was the mex,
Thing to a capital otfeuse, aud but for
the liberalization of the laws would
have been a capital offense; for in the
last seventy. Ave or one hundred years