Year: 1869

common bond OF union, except the common


bond of the public plumber, and over the plum


der since the 4th of March last they have been
growing, snarling, swapping and fighting like
infuriated cats and dogs. There have been,


on an average, say ten applicants for every
desirable office in the gift of the President


with the consent of the Senate, and so,
for every patriot removed, nine patriots are
disappointed and some are incensed and
disgusted The President has been making
quick work of an ugly job. Within two months
from his Inauguration he has filed nearly all
the desirable places but he has at the same
time, with the consent of the Senate. filed all
the land with the groans of the wounded. The
unlucky place-hunters have turned against
him, against the lucky ones and against each
other; and such an exhibition of wrath and
scandal, with the washing of dirty linen
before the public, we have not had since the
first great Cabinet imbroglio of General Jack
son.


From republican journals we are in
formed that the great Washburne is little
better than small political Jeremy Diddler;
that he cheated Wilson, of Iowa, out of
the State Department, and has humbugged
the President and disgusted Secretary Fish
in naming Washburne's men for all the
foreign appointments before retiring; that
there is no love lost between Fish and Wash
burne; that Secretary Borie is tired of the
gold-laced straight jacket of Admiral Porter,
and will get out of it very soon; that Attorney
General Hoar has had enough of Grants Cabi-
net, and that Grant himself thinks the time for
another reconstruction has come. From the
same sources it further appears that at least
half the republican Senators are soured with
Grants appointments that the Senatorial dis
affections against the administration are not
limited to Sprague, Ross, Carl Schurz and Par
son Brownlow by any MEANS that the party
lead ers in almost every State excepting Mas
sachusetts aud Illinois consider the President
poor stick, and that he will find it out in the
coming fall elections; that, in short, in failing
to bring about within sixty days the millen-
mum of Tittlebat Ti.mouse, Everything for
everybody" the administration is failure
pdi ID


A few specifications of the sort of harmony
which prevails among our republican contem-
poraries will serve to season this dish.


Isn't it dainty dish


To set before the king


For instance, the patriotic free ..ade .,oets
of the Post have fling or two at some of Gen
eral Grants appointments and then we learn
from another quarter that it is because they
have failed to be sent to take possession of
their ''castles in Spain" The facetious Dana
next ceases to be funny, gets out of
patience, gets in rage and proceeds
fervently and furiously to scold and scandalize
the administration whereupon it appears that
it is because Dana has failed in his dreams Of
the Custom House, and even of good whiskey
district, which would enable him, in his coach
and four and diamonds and gold chains, to
shine like Sheridan Shook. Worst of all,
Dana, dropping his mock heroics over Greeley,
produces some biting revelations of the curiOsi-
ties of joint stock newspaper system calcu-
lated to petrify the Tribune philosopher;
whereupon the enterprising Dana is brought





libel suit and there is great fuss among the
small fry in Philadelphia. With these things
and the Sprague war still on in Rhode Island,
and amid the general turmoil, noise aud confii-
sion in the republican camp, the formidable Fisk
and his railway lawsuits are for the time
eclipsed. When the politicians get into a
Donnybrook ''scrimmage" over the spoils Fisk
must fall back, for he ceases to be the living



But where is all this mutiny and uproar
among the powers that be to end? ''We shall
be broken up. says Senator Trumbull, "unless
some administration will set the example, or
some legislation will compel it, of making
the price of Office good behavior only" He
says, moreover. that ''the scenes and the
scramble of the last month have been disgrace
ful :" that Congress is becoming demoralized and
paralyzed, and that unless we have a great
reform in this busnesss of the spoils ''the
political state Of the country will be degraded
beyond recovery" Our opinion is that ter
demoralized party in power, and that whole
some political revolution will follow. in bring
ing new party into the foreground. Thus.
while the signs Of tue times indicate that the
present administration will be disastrous
one to the republican party, we think it will be
good for the country. In the policy which
General Grant is pursuing OF faithfully aud
rgidly carrying ont the laws and the orders
and the wishes of Congress the consequences
are becoming apparent TO the people. and thus
the dominant party, through its own'devices, is
rapidly hurried on the road to ruin. Andy
Johnson from his policy of opposition to
Congress. kept this party alive and furnished
il political capital for every election General
Grant, in giving to Congress and the party pro-