Year: 1876

1t will be fortunate thing for the Hon.
Hester Clymer, who sniffled over the dra-
matte features of the Belknap expose like a
very Joseph, if he escapes without public
indignation demanding his prosecution as
compounding the crime of Belknap by
allowing the chief witness against him,
Marsh, through whose testimony conviction
is possible, to escape to Canada. We are
told by the latest development that Belkusp
and Clymer were schoolmates, and there
fore the lachrymosal exhibition given by
the chairman when he announced the fact
of Belknap's infamy was excusable. He
was shaken to the very centre of his being
by his emotions, and hence these tears.
The situation unnamed him, so to speak,
but still not to such an extent as to entirely
deprive him Of the power of getting all the
political capital possible out Of the event,
and in the agony of his grief fortunately
for his party, he asstill able to appreciate
and take advantage of the capital to be
made by a judicious exhibition of an exag-
geration of the crime, as showing the ter
rible decentralization of the Republican
party. In the meantime Marsh was packing
his vallse at the Arlington house, and went
deliberately to New York, and from thence
we hear of him, by telegraph dispatches
from various points, as he journeys by easy
stages to his place of refuge; in fact, almost
week elapsed before he was out of the
reach of immediate detention and arrest,
and in all this time the grief of Clymer
over official corruption had not subsidized,
but went on-as did the manufacture of
public sentiment by his associates-un-
checked. Such overwhelming misery as
this Is rare but, then, the frightful shock
that his sensibilities received by finding
that it was all due to the corruption of the
Republican party was such blow as virtue
seldom receives, especially such virtue as
goes to make up the Democratic body-cor-
porate. To ordinary minds it looks as
though Mr.. Clymer, blinded by zeal for
publication and shaken with emotion, as
be was, yet shrewdly connived at letting
Marsh escape. He, more than any one
else, knew just how absolutely necessary
his presence was to q prosecution of the
case against the ex-Secretary. He and his
colleagues were Immediately informed of
the fact if they did not know it before. and
however guilty they may be, or may not
be in this connection, the public will not
fail to see that the opportunity for piling
up the agony was prolonged for political
uses by allowing Marsh to get away from
the country. Without trial, the absurd


and wild exaggcrations, inculpating every
official from the President down, can be
continued indefinitely, while 4 trial would
at once show that Belknap and the petty
traders under him are the only guilty ones
concerned. This is just what the commit
tee do not want to show. In their eyes it
is party and not an individual sin, and
these are so scarce that this is "bonanza"
for them. Catch them throwing it away.


Sharply in contrast with the duplicity of
the Democratic committee, however, is the
conduct of the President in the emergency.


We cab adj minded men to witness the
difference between mere pretension and
honest indignation. as illustrated in this
case. The President promptly condemned
Belknap; Clymer wept. The President
gave no time for thought, but acted at once
by doing all he could to shame the man
who had deceived him; Clymer stood up
in. Congress with loud lamentations over
the decadence Of virtue. The President,
as soon as the evidence was presented, an
nulled the contracts of all the swindling
traders. and sought by every means in his