The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1889-03-01
sOGEaron GETS AFTER THE PRESIDENT.
He Reads the Riot Act to the Chief Erecutivs
Because Of Hts Removal.

EDGERToH GETS AFTER THE PRESIDENT.
He Reads the Riot act to the CHIEF E~recutics
Because Of Hts Removal
Judge Edgerton, who was recently re-
moved from the office Of civil service
commissioner. has written an open letter
Co the president. He says, among other
things: II was indebted to you for the
only appointive Office l ever held. You
now declare, by your action, that you
regret the appointment; |, with equal
right, can say I regret its acceptance.
Your regret was never made known to
me by you in any word of utterance or
action until now, at the close of your
administration, and on the day before
my removal. 1 presume there were
prudential political reasons why you did
not make the removal until after the
election. In this regard it would almost
seem as if you were willing to play false
with the mugwumps to enable you to
win with the democrats. The result of
the election placed you in a dilemma
from which few people would have
known how to extricate themselves. You
found man on your hands whom the
mugwumps had declared war upon, and
an enemy to their civil service reform
theories, and your plan of becoming their
representative in the future would be
weakened or defeated if assurance Of
your fidelity to their cause could not be
assured. Accordingly, it appears you
decided upon the removal of the head
of the commission; and deeming Thomp-
son a good enough mugwump for them,
you therefore demanded my resisna-
ton that you might appoint him, ap-
parently as an atonement for your pre-
vious inaction. Mr.. President, with
due courtesy to the high office you hold,
allow me to say you are q very peculiar
man, a positive man-positively wrong
or positively right-and therefore an
unsafe man to trust, and that element
in your character, L believe, led to your
defeat. Pope says '"The most positive
men are the most credulous since they
most believe themselves and advise
most with their fellow-fatterers and
worst enemies" Being one of that
kind of positive men yourself, you have
kept some men of like character around
Tou, who are positive only in their NAL
ice and conceit. Juvenal says: "There
j uOtullS al Ildu VII uOb Dcllcfe Ill DiS
own favor" You were credulous enough
the mugwumps, and therefore you per-
mitted them to malign your real friends
and to fiatter you in a policy which led
to your defeat. You are a man who
would not permit your real friends to
admonish you with freedom and conf
dence, and as a result you have suffered
for want of friends, and your wretched
! greatness has discovered that there is
no true success in life without the power
and blessing of friendship. You be-
lieved your will and power to enforce it
was above all powers, but the will of the
people, expressed in a constitutional way,
has taught you there was q wiser and
better way than that chosen by you.
You will be censurcd and condemned
because you put no trust in your own
party, but believed yourself to be better
than your W and greater than all par
ties. You have ascertained that the
many were not made for the one. You
can find as many reasons for removing
me as the democratic party, through an
indifference which was simply ~retalia-
tory, had for removing you. L shall be
quite willing to remain with you in the
gloom of defeat.
The Judge concludes his letter as fol-
lows: How can You say that you found
the departments filled with incompe-
tents, and yet retained all in office dur
ing your administration? There is a
mistake somewhere. Did you not know,
Mi. President, that nearly three-fourths
of all the persons now in Office in the
departmental service were there in 1885?
You will soon have no power of removal,
and the places they hold will not be sub
iect to your clearing out" efforts. You
have shut your eyes to the fact that
these clerks had been active and success
full in aiding your own clearing out"
and poor civil service eligibles still have
the wide scope you have secured for
them on the outside while the incompe-
tents are rejoicing within. You do not
understand the civil service law, Mr..
made for those inside, but for those out
side. Your theory of ~inaction would
defeat the law. You have not dared to
weed out the incompetents." Judge
Edgerton concludes with a criticism of
the conduct of one of the other commits
sioners without mentioning his name
Returned WIthout approval.
Washington dispatch: The president
to-day returned to congress without his
approval the house bill to determine the
title of settlers on the Des Moines river
lands, in Iowa. The president says:
'One result of this legislation, if con-
summated, should be to restore to the
United States, as part of the public do
main, the lands which more than TWEEN
ty-five years ago the government ex-
pressly granted and surrendered, and
which repeated decisions of the supreme
court have judged to belong to this Sec
ton of the government. It is by no
means certain that this proposed legis-
lation relating to a subject peculiarly
within the judicial function, and which
attempts to disturb rights and interests
thoroughly entrenched in the solemn
adiudications of our courts, would be
upheld. In any event, it seems to me,
that it is an improper exercise of legis-
lative power, an interference with the
determinations of the coordinate branch
of the government, and the arbitrary
annulment of a public grant made more
than twenty-five years ago-an attempt
cd destruction Of vested rights and
threatened impairment of lawful COD,
tracts"
D%isapproyes the Finding.
President Cleveland has disapproved
the finding of the court martial in the
case of Past Assistant Surgeon Robert
W. Shufeldt, of the army, who was tried
for neglect of duty and sentenced to
dismissal from the service, and has been
ordered before another retiring board,
which shall have instructions to inquire
carefully into his condition and deter
mine whether he is able to perform his