The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-11-14
News ana Gossip @ Washington
BY Luc1EN JULIEN WALKER.

Washington. Nov. 13.-(Special. )-ln its adoration of the apotheosis of the negro. the administration has administered knockout drops to the merit system in its peremptory demand for the resigna- ton of Internal Revenue Collector Julian Bingham of Alabama.
 Whatever else may be said of this new est manifestation of Republican Party devotion to the kinked darling of its heart the Bingham incident marks what is perhaps the lowest level of partisan politics to which any administration has fallen.
 Ostensfoly. and absurdly ostentatiously, to espouse the cause of "a few hundred coiored men in Alabama" to quote Post master General Payne. but in brazen re- ality to seal yet stronger the Northern negro to the lustfu body of National officeholder is driven from the place he most worthily filled. "The change in the office of Collector of Internal Revenue for the District of Alabama fin no wise MT. Bingham, MT, Payne declared, spea a!ns for the President. Secretary Shaw and himself Commissioner of h. terrnl Revenue Yerkes declared to the new. paper men that .Mr. Bingham was
 Just here is little inside history that 1t is best to record. Monday morning MT. Bingham called by appointment up- on Secretary Shaw to learn the final dis position of his resignation, which had been filed on the previous Friday morn ing. Mir. Shaw at once stated that the result of consultations between himself, the President and Mir. Payne was the acceptance of the resignation and the ap- pointment of a successor, which. the Sec retary said. pained him very much. be- cause Mir. Bingham's official record was entirely satisfactory.' Thereupon MT. Bingham asked if the Secretary did not At,-t. T officially exonerate him from all possible charges of official misconduct
 Secretary Shaw gladly assented to this and informed Mir. Bingham that the sd- ministration would give out a statement during the day. Postmaster General Payne was then communicated with by Mir. Shaw. and he drew up the now fa- millar statement. Aft 1T writing the state ment MT. Payne took 1t to MT. Shaw, and its terms being satisfactory to the Secretary, MT. Payne then took 1t to the President. who gave 1t his approval.
 It Is said that upon the occasion of Booker Washington's last visit to the White House, two weeks ago. when as it will he remembered, he was closeted with the President for a half-hour. the President promised him to ask for Mir. Binghams resignation and to appoint Jo- seph O. Thompson of Tuskegee, to the vacancy.
 It would seem however that at the last the President was reluctant to make so excellent an officer and man as MT. Bingham the victim whose taking-off was to appease the negro voters of the North in their resentment against the lily-white movement amongst the Alabama Repub- licans. At any rate, the resignation that was first demanded of MT. Bingham by telegraph was not accepted until 1t had lain in the Treasury Department three days. and seven days after 1t had been asked for.
 All Republicans look alike to good Dem ocrats, and 1t is not the business of Dem ocrats to do other than enjoy dissensions In Republican ranks; but inasmuch as civil service reform has been the stock card of Theodore Roosevelt ever since he quilted the somewhat facilitating atmos- phere of Harvard until he recently found the knave of Trusts, and scented de nigger in de woodpile.' the Bingham in- cident Is quite indefensible upon grounds of public morality.