Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-10-10
ALAS. FOR WHEAT.

dLAC, II OH " HEAL.
Poor Wheat, postmaster of the house
| of representatives., was not only made
scapegoat of but is being nettled and
stung by the photographers of the press
throughout the Union. 1t was hard
enough in all conscience, TO be singled
out from the grass band of thrifty patri-
OTIS IN the service of the government,
and made to walk the plank by the same
men and the same political body that
| excused and sought to cover up the
plunderings and open rapacitIes for
more exalted rascals. But to be be-
squibbed and pelted numerically by the
newspapers is too much. 1t Is giving the
matter more Importance than it de-
serves, and treating the victim as though
his was a single and isolated case of pee
ulation or wrong doing, wher eas it was
only one, and that among the least of a
series of steals and grabs for which DR..
Harrison Sunday-school administra-
ton is distinguished above all others.
Is is really hard to blame Wheat for
making all he could out of his opportunl-
ties. He saw and knew what was going
on around him. Nepotism was rampant,
and why should he not give his son, or
any other member of his family out of
swaddling olouts, place under himP
Did not the president take care of all his
own and his wife 3 relative and friends?
Did he not quarter a whole generation of
Harrlsons and SCOTS on the government?
To be sure he did. All Wheat had to do
was to make every edge cut and keep his
mouth shut. So he made the mail car
rier pony up $50 month for his con-
tract, and his son paid another fellow So
for the use of his name on the pay roll,
for which he drew the salary.
Wheat was not postmaster of the house
merely for his health, nor for pure pa
triotism, any more than Ben Harrison
was president for those reasons, or Tan
ner or Raun pension commissioners.
Profligacy and extravaganza were ram
pant everywhere about congress and the
government. The air of Washington
was full of 1t. A vexatious and trouble
some surplus had TO be got rid of, and
jobs and steals of all kinds abounded
as plentiful rs gnats in fly time.
Congress was voting away millions daily,
everybody else was doing his utmost TO
feather his nest, and amid the grand
carnival of plumber and peculation, why
should not Brer Wheat get Il slice? So.
he probably reasoned.
But he had the misfortune to be
small fish, and somehow stuck in the
net, while the big fellows slipped through
the meshes and escaped with their loot.
Raum and sons, together and in collision
with the pension sharks, are robbing the
government of millions. Wheat only
plucked a poor unfortunate devil under
him, but took nothing from Uncle Sam.
Raum has strong friends and is backed
by the G. A. R., to whom he is ex-
tremely obliging and complacent.
e4tenuated, while Wheat's measly pee
cadilloes are taken up and exploited |
with an ostentatious display of virtuous
Indignation, and himself kicked out of |
office as though he were a menaeing |
Boulanger.
What bizarre and interesting thing is
that species of political humbug that
strains at gnat and swallows camel,
that maguifies a mole hill into noun
tain, and refuses to notice the most glar-
ing wrongs and notorious steals. Aud
all this under most pious and godly ad-
ministration, too. Good God! SAID
Jones, when his wife asked him for a
quarter.