The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-12-25
MIR. rAwNEY oRAwF1sHEs.

Mr.. Tawney, who still labors under
the delusion that he is a representative
of a Minnesota congressional district
and not a bit misrepresentation of
it, has come home to see how the chic
DRY industry is flourishing in his dis
trict and whether. the hens are doing
their full duty to mankind under the
stimulus he secured for them in the
Dingley act. Mr.. Tawney has the pc
culiar faculty of getting himself more
misunderstood than any statesman of
our day. There was that interpolated
credited to him and the greatness of the
paternity of which was thrust upon
him by the Times Herald in one of
those write-ups which the suddenly ia
the press who are quick to scent the
budding of genius. But, instead of
waves of warm approval from the
state in which his political fortunes are
cast and whence must come all the
laurel wreaths for future advancement,
there came chilling blasts of disap-
prevail and censure. And then Mr.
Tawney fastened to deny the pater-
nifty of the Interpolation or any fur
Their responsibility for it than his IA
voring vote gave, a responsibility, he
added, that he shared with the entire
Minnesota delegation.
Now Mr.. Tawney insists that he has
been again misinterpreted. Those re-
ports that came over hot wires from
Washington that told of him and
Fletcher and Eddy meeting with
Grosvenor and sixty or seventy other
Republican representatives to devise
means for taking the starch out Of
the civil service law grossly misrepre-
scented the patriotic and public-spirited
motives that animated the men who
gathered, very fifty, in the room of the
river and harbor committee. How far
the unfavorable reception of their pur-
pose by the press Of his party in this
state has convinced our James that he
and they were misunderstood is mat
ter locked up in the interior chambers
Of what he is pleased to call his mind,
but he feels it incumbent on himself to
state that they were misrepresented
and misunderstood. They are not at
all enemies of the merit system. Con-
trawise, they are it's best friends, its
most jealous guardians. 1t is the men
oh with tho odr ictr o
ton of the law who are it's real enc
mics, and it is from them these patriots
would save and preserve it.
So, upon his arrival in Winona, that
fecund city Of statesmen, Mr.. Tawney
Immediately takes the First district
into his confidence and imparts the
esoteric motives Of the gallant seventy.
The language in which ihe conveys this
precious information indicates that,
while Eddy has been reading law, Taw-
ney has been studying the language Of
diplomacy, the high art of which is to
use language so as to conceal thought.
Lest we should be suspected of being
uncharitable to the member from the
First, we quote from his prepared in
terview. He said to thee o e s local
correspondent:
''No assault upon the merit system is in
tended or contemplated. the only purpose
being to effect, If possible, reform in the
administration Of the civil service law by
so restricting the power siof those charged
with the duty of administering the law that
it will be impossible for them in the future
to destroy the merit system in the executive
departments of the government by extending
its operation and protection to government
employees that the original trainers of the
civil service law either expressly excluded
from its operation never intended should
be included therein"
If the reasons given are correctly
stated it seems clear that there is
far simpler remedy than that proposed.