The record-union., 1894-10-06
EARLY PARTISANSHIP AND SCAN
DAL.


DAL.
Each generation is apt to think that
corruption in its time is the greatest. The
truth is that our forefathers were not free
from the charges similar to those we now
lay against our politicians. If the men
of the early days were fewer who held
Office, they were not so in proportion to
the whole body of the people and the vol
ume and Importance of the business of
the Nation.
Washington was harshly lampooned
and caricatured and held up to scorn and
odium in his day, though he was un-
questionably pure man. 1t was charged
that the location of the Capital at Wash
ington was the result of corrupt bar
gain, and the matter never was success
fully cleared up. Jefferson charged
Hamilton with selling State secrets. JEFF
ferson's organ, the Atrora, said that
Washington wore "a mask of patriotism
to conceal foul designs against the liber-
ties Of the people," An autograph letter
in copy is now before us, in which
Washington quotes from official reports
by General Knox of conspiracies in New
England of the anarchistic order and of
the schemes of great numbers of people
to destroy life and property and overturn
the republic.
The Seattle P0st-I2atelJigeJlcer has
searched out long catalogue of alleged
corrupt practices and charges of venality
against our forefathers, when not few
statesmen changed their views to accom-
modate their private desires for gain of
power or money. But some of our con-
temporary's statements it cannot verify,
while others are true. a clerk in Jeffer-
sons department ran a paper that de-
famed the first President and charged
him with rascality. and Jefferson
chuckled over the articles and Washing
toms fury. Washington himself, it is
alleged, spoke of Jefferson as "a pro-
found hypocrite," and the latter came
back from France and was charged with
preaching Jacobinism for a time. Ham
ilton charged Jefferson with disregard
of truth, and with being a designing
man, for his assaults upon Wash
ington's Administration and for per-
mitting his clerk to lampoon the Presi-
dent. James Monroe wrote a bitter
libel upon Hamilton, and the latter in de-
fense had to confess to a shameless liaison
with the wife of Treasury clerk.
Randolph, under charge of accepting
bribes, had to resign office under Wash
ington, though he was afterward vindi-
Gated, and the scheme to ruin him ex-
posed. The fact at least proves that
libelers were not wanting in high places
in those days, when French diplomats
openly announced that for few thousand
francs they could buy their projects
through in America.
There was a nasty scandal about Jeffer-
son and the use of money, growing out
of his relations with Calender, an editor
whom Jefferson had used./ Jefferson
made a successful defense, though admit
ting that he had aided Calender with
money when the latter was libeling
Washington. Hamilton intrigued shame
fully against Adams, and his hatred of
Burr was Satanic. Oliver Wolcott suf-
fered bitterly under charge of burning
the treasury to cover peculations, and the
lower house of Congress avoided the
duty OF righting his name, though the
Senate vindicated him and confirmed
him when Washington appointed him to
the bench.
Some OF the great men and most dis
tinguished among our forefathers voted
against the resolution Of thanks to Wash
tells us that during Washington's last
term his military and political character
was Indignantly assailed, and the press
teamed with abuse of hin-probably
quite as harsh in tone as anything we
read nowadays in our papers regarding
public men.
Dewitt Clinton resigned United States
Senatorship to become Mayor of New
Y York at larger salary, though he died a
poor man. he it was who charged scan
dal concerning Van Buren,. Democratic
papers openly accused John Quincy
Adams with being procurer for the Car
of Russia while United States Minister at
st. Petersburg. Partisanship in those
days was as rancorous as in these, and
while there was less peculation in office
there was less opportunity, for obvious
reasons. Not one-tenth of all the charges
against our foremost men in those days
was true, but the charges were not the
less holly made or persistently pushed.
In fact, human nature was then pretty
nearly as it is now regarding political
warfare and the aims and means of par
tisanship.
| SIR FRANCIS SEYMOUR HADES, before
the British Institute of Public Health,
has taken a position against cremation.
He helds that the earth is the great puri-
fer and renovator, and that our bodies
should go back to the earth to refurnish
it with nutritiye material: that such re-