Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1888-10-11

W.>nI>a1oN, d G.. october !. l-o>.
Brisadier General $ v Bcuet Chlcf Of
Ordnance T. 5 Army, Ill III. anxiety to
hclp tile Democratic party ha~ got him
SELF into trouble a. well a. the admins
,ratinn In l.s6 tic sent confidential
circular 70 the commanding oflicer- Of the
national Armorics 3; Springfield, Mas,
and Rock Island. ILL.,, ana Of The lnit"i
States arsenals at New York. West Troy
N Y Philadelphia, Pa Boston. Mass.
ana Bynicja Caitorn.s. ordering them U
discriminate In favor of Democrats IN thc
employment and discharge Of employees
dren. Tn. secret was we'll kept, and was
ONLY recently discovered by the widow OF
a Republican soldier who together with
hcr child, Wa discharged from the Rock
cominaulaut the reason Of her discharge
and he showed her a copy Of the c"nnden-
tlal circular Of Gen. Benet The matter
ha. created great Indignation here, as il j.
the first time that any man has attempted
to manipulate army affairs In the
interest Of either political party Gen.
Benet makes no attempt 10 deny or pal
liatc his ofcnsc; he says 1t va, done on
the advice Of Secretary Endicott. for the
purpose Of making places for the Demo
cratic Congressman who were bringing
great pressure To bear on the Secretary.
whether this case Of the plainest viola
tion Of the civil-seryice reform law Will
be looked after by Senator Hale's special
investigating committee, or whether y
will be brought up separately before the
whole Senate has not yet been fully decid-
ed upon but the universal sentiment
among fair minded men is that Gen Ben
ct and Secretary EndicOtt should be pun
ished for this gross violation of the law.
The idea thatarmy officers, as a class,
are honester than other men has just
received terrible setback BY the
| discovery of great frauds in the
building Of the aqueduct tunnel, which
| is intended TO increase the water sup
| ply Of this city, which is being built
under the supervision OF army engineer
Officers. The facts already discovered
show conclusivey that the army officers
have been guilty of criminal neglect of du
ty, if of nothing worse. Congress propos-
es to 90 into thorough investigation OF
the whole scandal to find the guilty party
or parties and to see that they are proper
" punished. To all of which the long
| fering citizens of Washington add fer
| vent amen.
Dan Lamont went over to New York
last week to see II he could not do some
thing to improve the rapidly waning for
tunes of Cleveland in that State. His mis-
sion was not successful He was quietly
informed by the local politicians that the
best thing he could do for Cleveland was
to keep his hands OF and go back to Wash.
ington.
Justice Matthews who has been quite
in. i. now much better, and his physicians
hope that he will be able to take part in
the opening of the Supreme Court nex'
Monday.
The Republican substitute for the Mills
bill wa. not reported to the Senate to-day
as it was generally expected it would be
The DELAY is caused by the Democratic
members Of the committee who have no
vet prepared their report. They say i
will be ready in two or three days; If 1t Il
the bill will be reported this week. Th'
tables are completely turned upon th'
Democrats They have been complainin:
of the slowness of the Republicans in pre-
pairing their bill. and now the Republican
have got their bill ready to report and the!
have to wait for the Democrats. The bill
is very long one 1t took the clerk o
the committee nearly four hours to read !
! aloud.