The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1899-03-31
Correspondence of The Gazette.

AuONA llJdt liz has everything Ieduy 10
make an attack upon the headquarters
Of A~guinaldo.
A committee Of citizens called on
Secretary Long to request that Admiral
Dewey be ordered home in time to par
ticipate in the big peace jubilee to be
held in Washington the latter part of
May. Secretary Long told them he
would submit their request to President
Mckinley when he returned to Wash
ington, but intimated that. owing to
Dewey's being a member of the Philip
pine commission, he would be unable
to leave his post in time.
March promises to be the banner
month in the amount of customs duties
received under the Dingley tariff, pres
ent estimates being that the receipts
will exceed $21 900, 900 for the month.
Nothing could more certainly indicate
the prosperity of the country. as the
present high duties make imported
goods luxuries, and only prosperous
people buy luxuries.
Chairman Proctor Of the civil service
commission is doubtless sorry that he
tried to tackle General Grosvenor in a
civil service discussion. He could have
enjoyed the answer General Grosvenor
made to his charge that abuses said to
have existed in the bureau Of engraving
and printing were all committed by
those appointed outside Of civil service
rules. General Grosvenor said: "This
is the only point made in the gentle
mans deliverance, and my answer to it
is very simple: it would suggest itself
to anybody with capacity enough to
stand a non-competitive examination
for the position of law clerk in lumber
yard. Here is a system of administra-
ton which went into effect in the
bureau of engraving and printing Ger.
tainly long before the beginning of this
Observation-Disclosures exact date I cannot
give-and long enough to have become
assimilated to the provisions of this
wonderful system of publication and
merit, and yet at this late date the
chairman Of the civil service commits
SIGN m before the public and admits
the allegations of wrong doing and
outrage existing in the bureau. and ad-
mits that he knows the men by name.
can identify them absolutely, and cor
them with the Irregularities proven
the Investigation, and yet they are
there; they are in the bureau, and the
chief is there, and Mr.. Proctor is at the
head of the civil service commission.
Now, there need be nothing else said.
There is the very proof Of the utter
valuelessness of this whole system. |
In order to get rid of these men there
must be a lawsuit begun and finally |
tried upon charges preferred. and a
copy to be furnished, and a judgment
of custer rendered upon full proof re-
all doubts in favor of the &C.
cused and compelling the government
to prove it's charges beyond a reasonable |
doubt. In order to avoid the impossi-
bility Of this administration these men
are continued in Office. and so it makes
no difference to the force of my argu-
where they came from. The
crime is not in their coming; it is in
heir staying. The fault of the organi-
zation Of the bureau of civil service
was not in it's coming; it is in it's stay
1t is the opinion of shrewd political
observers that the correspondence be-
tween Mr.. Bryan and MI. Belmont,
president of Croker's democratic club,
Il which Mr.. Bryan read Mr.. Belmont
all other democrats who bolted in
90 and have failed to publicly an
lounce since then that they will sup
port the Chicago platform, if it be re-
next year, out of the demo-
party, will result in ~accentuating
he line between the dollar democrats
md the ten dollar democrats, as the sill
yer and gold democrats are now called,
md in increasing the certainty of re-
,ublican success. A prominent New
York democrat said Of Mr.. Bryan's
"It is perhaps a play to the
,alleries-an old Bryan trick-a bid
or the continued support of the south
md west by this act of voluntary an
agonism to the east. It seems to me
clumsy performance and how it will
make the Nebraska man friends any
where is hard to understand. He could
ave sent a courteous declination with
ut any insulting allusion; nobody but
be most fanatioal will commend his
Brigadier General Corbin, who, as
general of the army, was on :
uty eighteen hours a day during the
ar and who has been on duty con-
except n day, since, gives :
following as his reasons for not ac-
the commission Of major-gen-