Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-09-29
The Passing Of Tanner.

lH6trucblVo aS eQOulu 10 tulb WuOlo
business Of the appointing and removing
Of James W. Tanner, the recent Pension
Commissioner, it is feared the full lesson
will not be learned and treasured. Never
was such partisan bitterness and blind.
ness as was exhibited by nearly the
whole Republican press whenever
Tanners methods were criticised by the
opposition. And when, one by one, the
decent Republican journals came out in
criticism, too. they we're in turn de-
nounced by thick-and-thin partizans Of
the Grand Army. Many men of the
Foraker stamp stand today not only
without sympathy with Secretary Noble,
who has had this fierce hand-to-hand
conflict with Tanner, but actually ar
rayed against him and the whole ad-
ministration because it has simply re-.
moved from q responsible position a
confessedly incompetent official, as well
as very coarse and noisy demagogue.
The report Of the investigating COM
mittee, plain as it will be found, does
mot show the true inwardneas of the
Tanner doctrine and the Tanuer methods.
An interview with Major Geo. s. Mer-
rill, of Massachusetts,, the gentleman
chosen by the President next after Warner
for Pension Commissioner, gives some
points about Tanner that the whole
country should have known before. In
deed, it does not now appear probable
that Tannerism as it exists in the minds
of some OF the Grand Army men and the
politicians, could have ever been un-
masked short Of giving it trial, costly
and humiliating as that trial has been.
1t appears, in the first place, that dur
ing his short incumbency of the Office,
Tanner was absent more than half the
time, mostly making 'public appear
ances," and that while there was an
immense amount of re-rating done,
including Arst Of all his immediate friends
and officials in the Department-extend-
ing by way of variety into the charmed
circle Of statesmen-the real business OF
the Office was sorely retarded. The state
men. is now made that fewer applications
were considered and much less work was
done by Tanner than by any of his prede.
eessors in the Office during the same
period.
The whole power Of friendship and
sympathy of his best advisers was lost
On him, and when he was asked not to
60 to Milwaukee because his utterances
were sure to be taken as official. he re-
sented it, with many dispar aging hits at
officials who were afraid to talk. And
while the speech he made at the en-
rambling and coarse as it
was, might have been the last STRAW
that dragged him down, it is not true
that it really had much to do with the
case in the minds of those responsible
for his conduct. It was needed, how
ever, to show to the public just what go
nany-aye, great majority-of the
Grand Army knew before, that Corporal
Tanner was only representative of the
most unsafe and unthinking portion of
what is known as the "soldier element"
in politics.
In the interview to which we have al
luded are given many instances of the
vain and bumptious character of the man
who has occupied go much of the coun-
try's attention, and really deserved go
little. We happen to know that in the
State Department of the G.. A. R. of
New York he has for years been the
snfant terrible, and has made it impossi-
BILE for comrades to unite on really able
for public office. The Tanner
80 many leading members of
The order say, has kept the State OF New
York from ever having the National En-
;ampment or any just and natural
in the councils of the or.
ganixation. 1t has rarely If ever hap
,ened that the delegation has escaped |
liscOrd In it's ranks. and it's influence
las always been correspondingly weak,
nd mainly because Of the noisy claims
Tanner and his friends. But as We
'sye said, it ia good thing that all this
lss happened. The fetch will never
aors be blindly worshipped, and
decent citisens will be per-
nittsd 70 hope and to demand that