The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1889-07-10
Harrison,s EsreacIing and

DGIWtGH lSIl anu -GiGNtIi ttlouSsluA
removals and appointments to office
under the Harrison Administration
in three and halt months, against
twenty-one hundred by Cleveland
in the same time. When Cleveland
took hold practically there was not
Democrat holding Federal Office.
When Harrison became President
twenty per cent. of the Federal Of
fices-or more correctly between
one-fourth and one-fifth-were Re
publicans, who had been appointed
in Republican administration and
held over under President Cleve-
land. AT the rate of removal in tho
last three and a half months, in a
year aud a half there viii not be a
Democrat holding office under the
Federal goxernpaent
This being the record of Presis
dent Harrison 1t is interesting to
get at the views OF the then Senator
Harrison, in 1856, when the Cleye
land administration had been in
less than two years, on the subject
of removals without charges. That
is precisely what the Harrison ads
ministration is now doing by whole
sale, but when President Cleveland
refused to give the Senate reasons
for the removals he made, ii stirred
the bile of the lofty house of Har-
rison, and very bitter was the de-
nunciation of the Benjamin of that
ilk.
In speech on the 10Th of March,
1856, Senator Harrison on the q1es-
ton of the power of the Senate to
compel the President to report
"charges, +" which MIR. Cleveland re-
fused to do, proceeded to .slook a
little out side" the constitutional
questions, and to discuss the sad
ministrative policy inaugurated by
this administration, a policy that is
without precedent, and that viii be
without imitation "a policy of slim
ulating and receiving secret charges
against the reputation of men, ay, as
! shall show presently, not only
against the reputation of men, but
against the reputation of women; of
denying to tho accused any access
or knowledge of the charges, and of
acting upon those charges in the
dark"
All this is precisely what Prcsi-
dent Harrison is now doing, but the
Hoosicr Senator went on:
"In my own State, the Rcpubli-
cans who were in office were will
ing, at the mere suggestion of the
administration, to step out Hum
drcds of them, besides those who
took that course, whould have
placed their resignationin the hands
of the administration but for the
fact that their confidence was be-
traycd by the suggestion that if they
had discharged their their public
duties conseientiously and we'll,
they might hold their offices until
the end of their terms. Such was
the proclamation. 1t went through
ali this country. The President of
the United States repeatedly put
himself under pledge in favor of
such a policy 1t went through all
the land to those Republicans in of
flee who had a fragment, large or
small, of a legal term to serve, that
if they had discharged their duty
faithfully and honestly, they would
not be disturbed in serving out the
residue of their terms. 1t was said
that mere difference in political
opinion should not operate against
the officer 1t was said that if he
had not made himself an independ-
ent partisan, the fact that he was
Republican should not be taken
advantage of in order to deprive
him of his Office
"It has turned out that it was a
deceptive feast to which these gen.
tlemen were invited. It was al
most as full of deception and almost
as fatal IN its results as some of
those feasts of old story to which
men are invited for the purpose of
assassination"
This reads well in the light of the
1000 removals, without cause, in
three and a balf months. General
Harrison next described the outra-
geous manner in which Postmastcrs
had been removed under Cleveland
without charges. II that was bad
how much worse is the way Clark
son has worked the guillotine under
the pious supervision of Elders
Harrison and Wanamakcr? The
case of the Postmasters induced
Senator Harrison to inject a prayer