Year: 1879

|


When we come to think it all over,


this Congress has had an unusual expert.


ence. 1t has enjoyed what the average
! fisherman would call a very remarkable


'streak of luck" And an uncommonly


bad streak" tco. No Congress within
| the memory of man ever laid out so large
a programme at the outset, or started in
with such impetuosity and ardor to carry
it out. They divided themselves up in to
committees and sub committees and
surrounded themselves with detectives
and experts and stenographers, and
clothed themselves with power to rum
mage all the departments for rogues, and
wherever they suspected any one in the
public service of any sort of rascality, to
seize him by the collar and jerk him out
in fact. they went at it as though they
really believed their own stump speeches
that rogues were so thick in the public
service that they had only to sit on the
edge of department and drop hook and
line over among the desks to whisk them
1t is very remarkable circumstance
that every time they have had real
genuine bite they have brought out either
one of their own leaders or an expert or
or detective. There was that eminent
victim of his own misdirected zeal, Glov-
er; surely no investigator ever started
out so confidently as he; he caught no.
body but his own friends, and the best
service he did was to keep the country
on hr""@ -.e panic he created


r~lILical associates. And the


.-.lence of the other investigators was
pretty much the same. They either dis
covered nothing or what they did not
want to find.


There was great hope, though, that the
Cipher Committee would be more sue
cessful. The party leaders never dream
ed when they sent out Mr.. Potter and
his associates-and played the sharp trick
of putting Mr.. Butler on the Committee
as a Republican-to bring in Secretary
Sherman and Governor Noyes and the
Republican visiting statesmen" that
they would presently come back with
Pelton and Smith Weed and Marble and
that crowd of managing Democrats
squirming in their bag, and the report
that they came near catching a much
bigger fish. but he slipped off the hook
just at the top of the water. But that
was just about what happened The
same luck attended the Cipher Commit
tee that followed Glover. 1t is very sim
gular and very sad. But they will have
to make the best of it. 1t is really very
hard on the Cipher Committee, after
making such a powerful demonstration
against Secretary Sherman and the Ad-
ministration at the outset, to be obliged
to come back and report that they did
discover conspiracy to purchase the
Presidency, but that it was gotten up by
Mr.. Tildens friends and confidants. They |
can have the satisfaction, however Of
adding that Mr.. Tilden made solemn oath |
before God and his country that he didn't |
know any ything about it till it was all |
over


We don't see but that this Committee |
will have to make pretty much the same |
report as was given by physician who, on
coming from the house of patient who
had just been confined, was asked by a |
neighbor how the folks were getting
along. WELL said he "the child was
stillborn, and the mothers dead, but L m
in hopes the old man will pull through"
1t seems to be the opinion of the Demo
cratic press that the Cipher Committee
have saved the old man" And as that
is about all the consolation there is left,
they might as we'll report to that effect
and retire.