Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1903-07-09
SETTLED POLICY OF PLUMBER.
Abuses of Every Kind Have Flour
shed Under the Republican,
PIan of Administration.

Its the hit dog that hollers" Is 9
homely proverb, and, judging from
the noise coming from the post Office
department, public opinion is laying
the lash on well. The bowling, how
ever, is unseemly, judged by the es-
tablished methods of the republican
party in dealing with a full treasury
in the past. In fact, it cannot be said
that Machen and Tyner and Heath
and Payne have departed in any man
ner from the regular plan of proceed
ing in a republican administration
whenever the vaults OF the treasury
began to overflow.
The famous declaration of Corporal
Tanner, God help the surplus" when
he entered upon his occupancy of the
post of pension commissioner, may be
taken as the keynote of the republican
policy in such matters. Corp" Tan
ner went farther than any other Of the
party leaders; he was franker and
more o%utspoken, but he in nowise va
ried from the policy which Messrs. Ty-
ner, Machen. Heath and others have
been practicing SO successfully at this
later day. The corporal's plan was to
shovel out the treasury assets to the
army of pension beggars, but he made
so much noise and ranting over it that
President Harrison was forced to dis
place him with Gen. Green B. Raum.
II nop ha cai1 for Can paupn how
ever, that he made no substantial
amendment in the prodigality with
which Tanner administered the pen
sion Office. What Tanner did was
done openly and by main strength and
awkwardness; Raum reduced to a
science an equally prodigal method Of
scattering the public revenues. Under
the plea of helping the veterans and
expediting the work of his bureau, APP
plications were rushed through the
hands of the examiners with such ra-
pidity as never before known. He
put a holder and more plausible face
upon the matter, but he, nj less than
Tanner, helped the whole party lay
the broad foundations for the deficit
with which the succeeding democratic
administration had to deal.
at is easier to deal with a surplus
than a deficit" was another o~racular
republican u%tterance, and was as cas-
lily justified as Tanners. The democrat.
ization which followed Gen. Raum in
the pension Office was not corrected by
Gen. Blacks severe honesty nor ever
by the lawyer-like respect for the tech.
nicalities and the statutes shown by
Commissioner Evans. Mr.. Evans wa
finally driven from office by the hun.
CRY pack Of pension agents ant
solicitors, and now his methods have
been transferred to the department
that furnished the next best opportu'
mites for looting. The great revenue!
of the post office and the plea of en-
larging the service afforded the means
70 a new outbreak of criminal extrav
aeance. Abuses of every kind hav'
multiplied and flourished until ever,
step that is taken in the investigation
reveals new and more extensive mean
of plundering.
Do not blame the looters unthink
ingly. Aside from the fact that the.
are all republicans and following re
, publican presidents, they are perhap
only aiming to distribute the vast &C
, cumulations of the treasury. The,
have needed the> cry of Wall stree
that money has been taken out o
business and locked up in the vault
of the government where it can do tn
people no good. 1t is the sympath,
with Wall street and with the cry TO
a more liberal currency system tina
has set these officials to blowing opcl
the vast receptacles of the revenue
J and parceling them out where the.
will relieve those who believe them
, selves the needy. Their methods hav
been effective, and they have bee.
l working along old and respected line
of republican policies. What is tn
E moral difference between takin
I money from the consumer for tn
benefit of the robber tariff barons an
9 stealing it from the treasury by lille
! gal contracts and gratuities? Ger
tainly the distinction has to be finel
drawn to make the one plan appea
t worse than the other.-Louisvill
Courier-Journal