Omaha daily bee., 1889-05-04
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PAUL VANDERVOORT,

the office of chief of the railway mail SER
| vice ut Omaha. The truth about Wander
WORT is that he Is the most tenacious Of
| friends and the bttercst Of enemies. He
never ceases laborng for those he likes or
against those he hates His dismissal years
| ago was secured by his enemies purely Us a
| matter of politics. Gresham removed him
because he had fought Gresham, and this
action was sustained by the Van Wyck ele-
ment of Nebraska politics because Wander
WORT had fought them.
The nickname Of Vanderbum given Van
| dervoort by THE BEE is slanderously malig-
nant. There is no man in this country farther
| from the bum than Paul Vandervoort, who
| never drinks, and whose associates are not
at all of the rowdy order
Perhaps it would have been wiser in
| Colonel Rosewatcr not to have meddled with
| Paul Vandervoort's aspirations. Mr.. Van
dervoort is in Office after ALL and as he is To-
| Gated in Omaha now, he may be pcrniciously
| active in local politics in the future much to
| Colonel Rosewater's disgust. Republican.
Paul Vandervoort Is not chief of the
| railway mail service at Omaha. He has
| nothing whatever to do with the rail-
way mail service. The position he
holds is n sinecure created for him
| under the title of superintendent of
mails, which, translated into plain En-
| glish, means chief-porter-of-m sacks
and pverseer-of-the-mail- that
| hauls the mail sacks from the depot to
| the postoffice. Between that menial
service and the position of general
superintendent of the railway mail Ser
| vice Of the whole United States, to
| which Vandervoort had the sublime
| gall to aspire, there is very marked
| difference.
But ,Vandervoort should never have
| been appointed even to this very sub
| ordinate place, because he is unfit for
| any public service and because his ap-
| pointment stultifies the head of the
| postoffice department. A man with
| Vandervoort's habits and malodorous
record should never be permitted to
hold any position in the civil service,
and especially IN the postal service.
| The New York Times is not the only
paper that has denounced Vandervoort's
restoration to the postal service. The
| New York Evening Post and other
| leading journals have characterized his
reappointment to a minor position as a
precedent that cannot fail to demoralize
the postal service and reflect seriously
| upon the administration.
| This protest against Vandervoort is
| not because he has been assigned to a
| prominent position, but because his
! previous record in the service should
| have barred him out.
| Vandervoort was not dismissed by
Judge Gresham because he had fought
| Gresham. AS postmaster-general, Mr..
Gresham had nothing to fight over with
| Vandervoort, who was mere railway
clerk at Omaha. But Postmaster
| General Gresham dismissed Wander
WORT because he had been insubor-
| dinate; had made false re-
ports to the department, and
had been absent from his post of duty at
Omaha 265 days in one single year. 1t
was only after he had been dismissed
in. disgrace that Vandervoort fought
Gresham, as we'll as his first assistant,
General Frank Hatton.
| Vandervoort is an iuveterate brag-
CART and liar. He magnifies himself
|
with the Grand Army for base ends.
He sought to use the Grand Army
club over the heads OF Gresham and
Hatton, but utterly failed to intimldate
them by his threats. The nickname of
"Vanderbum" is not slander. 1t is a
matter of common uotoriety that Van
! dervoort's associates, when he was
chief clerk, were ward bum
mers, roustabouts and rowdies Of
the lowest degree. 1t Is
notorious that he often detailed railway
mail clerks from the service to assist
him in packing ward caucuses and
fighting at political primaries, and sub
stituted for these regular mail clerks
irresponsible vagabonds and bummers
who were transported in the mail cars
in charge of the mails without even
taking the oath,
1t is notorious that Vandervoort was
hired and paid by the Union Pacific
railroad for conducting the legislative
oil-rooms at Lincoln with their drunken
orgies and vile methods of decoying
members into corruption by downright
bribery.
These facts were all known to the
Nebraska delegation in congress, at
whose instance Paul Vandervoort has
been made pensioner on the govern
ment. And it does not reflect credit
upon their judgment that among so
many deserving republicans this leader
of bummers and political strikers should
be given preference for position.
PauSVandervoort' IS pernicious activity
in local politics is not looked to with ap-
prehension. But the question is
whether Postmaster-General Wana-
maker has made place for Vandervoort
to give him chance to use his posi-
tion in the postal service for packing
primaries and conventions, or whether
the department will compel HIM to at
tend to his mail sacks and leave the
management of local politics to citizens
who are not on the postofiice pay roll.
GENERAL GREELY of the signal SER
vice intends to osend out weather predic-
tions three days ahead of time. This is
/ AZ tnl1 90 l,n,, 10