Year: 1872

JObbery and tho Annual Approprfa-


items.


In little more than fortnight Congress will
have reassembled to complete the work Of its
two years legislation. The annual jobbery
and the old-established, well-known jobbers
will again occupy the attention of our states
men. Already the Committee on Appropria-
tions is at work laying the groundwork of
corruption. In this we intend no reflection
upon the committee, for while the necessary


money for carrying ON the government is an


nnally voted in twelve or fourteen appropria-


ton bills, and latitude is allowed in them for


every species of Legislation, it is impossible to


guard against fraud. A case in point is the


increased subsidy to the Pacific Mail Steam


ship Company last session. Though included
in the Postal Appropriation bill. and nominally
for carrying the mails, it was, in fact, only


subsidy thrown away upon great corporation.
Other companies have claims for subsidies
almost or altogether as strong as those of the
Pacific Mail. If Congress is constantly to ex-


ercise the privilege of voting away the peo-


ple's money on pretences of this kind the
steamship companies will all be subsidized in


time and the steamship lobby become more
powerful year after, year. The Brazilian, the
Havana, the Mexican and the Australian lines
are all seeking subsidies, and new companies
will be created with no other purpose than to
s'work'' Congress and the Treasury. The
voting of money to carry the mails is likely
to consume the greater part of the last session
of the Forty-second Congress, and this, too,
while no feasible legislation for the revival Of
American commerce is undertaken.


We have word to say to the dominant
party in Congress on this and kindred legisla-
reelected. The next Congress will be even
more overwhelmingly republican than the
present one. The second session of the Forty
second Congress will be more thoroughly in
harmony with the administration than the
first The Senate has not been weakened by
the State elections, and most of the leading
republican Senators whose terms expire in
March are certain of another term of service.
In the House the recalcitrant element has been
turned over to the democracy Banks, Farms
worth and Blair will no longer be regarded as
leaders, except by the opposition. New duties
come with the new conditions duties which
commend themselves to the Executive as well
as the Legislature. The first of these is
honesty. The President cannot expect the
record of his Presidential life to go down to
history unblurred and unsullied if he allows a
departure from rule SO necessary by his
sanction to the jobs which may receive the en-
dorsement Of Congress. Neither can the
dominant party hope to retain power much
longer if the majority in Congress is untrue to
the people. The country will not hear with
patience of any more subsidies, under what
ever guise they may come nor Of further land
grants tor railroads, however speciously they
may be urged. This is the time to throttle all
corrupt schemes, big and little, and to begin
q new era of wise and beneficial legislation.
There is much useful and conscientious work
to be performed in the next three years, and if
it is not well done the men who have been
chosen to perform it must be held to the
strictest accountability.


Jobs in Congress do not take very wide
range, but limited as they are in kind they
are boundless in their power for evil. SUBJ
sidy is not only the robbery Of the Treasury
but the groundwork for gambling in Wall
street. and in the end the certain prostration
Of the business interests of the country,
especially the shipping interests A land
grant is premium upon corruption and
bounty to monopoly. Because these truisms
are not needed Washington is overrun every
Winter by an army Of lobbyists intent on
stealing the public treasure and the public
domain. The jobs come down from session to
session and from Congress to Congress as an
inheritance of evil, and they live till the OBJ
jects Of their promoters are accomplished.
Their success is the encouragement of other
schemes and schemers. II the Pacific Mail
had not succeeded last session in taking half
million dollars year from the Treasury the
disasters of the Summer would only add to the
piteous character Of their appeals this Winter


AS it is we are not sure that Congress will not
be asked to indemnify the company for the
acts of God by voting still larger subsidy
than is now paid for carrying the mails to
Japan and China. In any event the success
of the one makes the success of all possible.
The same reasoning applies to land
grants. If the Bayfield, and ST. Croix job
had gone through the House last Winter in
anything like its original shape its passage
would have been the signal for pressing other
schemes even more Objectionable. Now,
however, its friends are very quiet, and profess
an intention not to revive it this Winter. But
if it is not Bayfield, and st. Croix upon which
the lobby chooses to fight its first battle it
will be on some other job equally objectiona-
BILE and aided by even more powerful combina-
tons. The intention to carve up the Indian
Territory for the benefit of railroad corpora
tions will be revealed before long, and we may
expect renewal of the tactics of the Union
Pacific by its hungry rival, the Northern