feated the Democratic candidate. Whoever will read the testimony offered in the Lowry-White contested election case will find ample proof of this statement. When 1887 came round the President's declarations and proclamations were treated as waste paper, and the President himself seems by this time to have fallen into such harmony with the spirit of his party that he not only acquiesced in this wholesale disregard of his previously expressed sentiments and directions, but himself joined in the movement. His most intimate friends, both in and out of office, took charge of the conduct of conventions and elections in the year which was considered as having so close a bearing in its results upon the great coming battle of 1888. At the Saratoga meeting of the Democratic State committee of New York, when the preliminaries of what then looked like the dawning contest between the national Administration and the State administration were to be settled, Deputy Collector John A. Mason and Second Auditor William F. Creed, of the NewYork custom-house, were most prominent and active. At the Pennsylvania State convention more than forty of the Federal officials of that State appeared to marshal the forces of the Administration. The names of some of these have been furnished me as taken from a Democratic newspaper: E. J. Bigler, collector of internal revenue; D. O. Barr, surveyor of the port of Pittsburgh; McVey and Ryan, special Treasury agents; Fletcher, chief clerk in a bureau of the Navy Department; Glozier, hull inspector; Guss, oleomargarine inspector; Chester and Warren and Bancroft, from the Philadelphia mint, and many others. In Baltimore the naval officer, the appointment clerk, Higgins, and Indian Inspector Thomas, Customs Agent Mahon, Postmaster Brown and his assistant, United-States marshal and deputies, deputy collector of internal revenue, and a host of clerks, inspectors, and janitors monopolized the direction of the entire campaign. I might go on and give like instances in other States, but I leave that to be more fully brought out by the committee which I hope will take this matter in charge. Mr. HAWLEY. May I make an inquiry? Mr. HALE. Certainly. Mr. HAWLEY. Is the Senator certain that these men have not been indignantly and virtuously removed? Mr. HALE. Not only have I yet to learn of a removal for such action, but I have yet to learn of any censure being visited upon one of these men. I do not know of a case where the President has put his strong hand upon these men and made it seen that he meant to perform what he had promised. In fact, so gross was the violation of every principle of reform and of the President's directions and pledges that even the "Evening Post" declared that "this playing fast and loose with orders and promises, which the President is now permitting among those around him, will be used in the campaign with terrible effect." But the President has not hesitated to deal deadly blows at reform with his own hand. A remarkable manifestation of the desire of the people for a practical reform in the selection of important officers was shown in the city of New York previous to the last election. Public suspicion had for a long time rested upon officials in the municipal government, and had at last demanded and secured an investigation, which disclosed the most corrupt and shocking practices on the part of municipal officials, implicating them and well-known parties outside in extensive schemes involving corruption and bribery. Public indignation, expressed through almost the entire press of New York, was aroused, the intervention of the courts was sought, and from time to time trials of the accused had proceeded in some cases to conviction of the criminals. The work was by no means completed, and as the time for the election of a district atttorney who should represent the State and the public in the conduct of these trials came near, a pronounced and general movement grew up in favor of the selection of Mr. Delancy Nicoll, an able and brilliant young Democratic lawyer, who had found thrown upon him, as an assistant in the district attorney's office, the burden of largely managing and conducting the hitherto successful prosecution of these cases. Nobody claimed that the movement for Mr. Nicoll had its origin in any party preference. It came from the people, and the demand was taken up by the newspapers. With few exceptions the Republican, Democratic, and Independent press demanded the nomination and good government. He was nominated by different independent organizations, indorsed by all of the civil service reform associations and newspapers, and, al. though a Democrat, accepted generally by the Repub. licans. Here was a plain, spontaneous, earnest, honest movement on the part of the people in the direction of reform. It would seem to have been political wit on the part of the Democratic managers in New-York City to have accepted this movement and to have joined in the election of a man who had always been a Democrat, but whose character and services were so high that good men demanded generally that he should be retained in the public service. But, as I have said, long before this the Democratic leaders had found that in the practical management of politics they were in the saddle, and the nominating conventions of the two branches of the New-York Democracy joined in reject. ing Mr. Nicoll and in setting up as his opponent an old-fashioned, worn, bruised, and battered New-York City politician, whose personal character was not high, and who had been a crony of and a beneficiary at the hands of Tweed in the worst days of New York City's corruptions. The business men of New York, the Independents, the Reformers, and Republicans generally accepted the issue, and a contest almost unequalled in intensity and bitterness ensued. Here, Senators, was the opportunity for the President not only to say but to do something for reform. If, in accordance with his declarations in favor of non-interference of Federal office-holders in elections, he had, including himself as the head of all Federal official life, determined to keep aloof from the contest, he still might in many ways have breathed expressions giving aid and comfort to the men in New-York City who were fighting against thieves and robbers and bribe-takers and bribegivers in the interest of good government. All of the so-called reform element in New-York City that had hitherto adhered to the President, looked to him for some such expression. How bitterly were they disappointed! The President was now completely in the hands of the party leaders in New York, whose stern rule had always been to support regular nominations and to shoot down bolters and deserters. While the contest was at its thickest, and men every where throughout the country turned their eyes expectantly upon the result, and when the battle had become one of national importance, and when the issues were, seemingly, well nigh evenly balanced, a great Tammany Hall ratification meeting was held in the interest of Mr. Fellows, the Tammany Hall and county Democratic candidate for district attorney in opposition to Mr. Nicoll. I have before me a full report of the proceedings of this meeting and of the parties who participated therein. Their names have not been found upon the lists of any civil-service reform association heretofore made known to the public. General John Cochrane called the meeting to order. Congressman S. S. Cox presided. State Senator Raines of Monroe was followed by the candidate, Col. Fellows, and Hon. Charles A. Dana, editor of "The Sun." Speeches were also made by George Blair and Congressman William McAdoo of New Jersey. The following letter was read: "It will be impossible for me to comply with your courteous invitation to meet with those who propose to ratify to-morrow evening the nomination of the united Democracy. With a hearty wish that every candidate on your excellent ticket may be triumphantly elected, I am yours very truly, "GROVER CLEVELAND." The report of the meeting further says that Gov. Hill wrote that a previous engagement prevented his attendance, and said a good word for the Democratic State and local tickets, and that William M. Springer of Illinois telegraphed to Colonel Fellows that he hoped that he would be elected, as did also Senator Gorman of Maryland. The "Reformers," Mr. President, were out in great force that night. The extent of the President's contribution in money to the election of the New-York ticket I am not aware of. It has been stated to have been in the form of a check for $1,000, and I have never seen the statement denied. Of this attitude of the President, Mr. Carl Schurz said, only a few days later: "What malignant enemy of President Cleveland was [He referred to Mayor Cooper, the old mayor] terview, which gave great hopes to the Democratic pol"to extort from him that most unfortunate letter inter-iticians of Massachusetts, that he had in his interviews meddling in New-York city politics on the side of the with the President found him "to be a very close obtypical dead-beat' as a candidate for an office which server of events and thoroughly informed_concerning is the guardian of the public honor? If the President the issues of the campaign in the State." He said that had had a true friend in your councils that friend would "the President spoke in terms of praise of Mr. Loverhave strained every nerve to confirm his disinclination ing whom he considered a perfectly honest man, who to descend from the high dignity of his office; that would make a good governor, and he hoped to see friend would not have failed to remind him of 1882, elected ;" and he declared thatwhen the meddling of the national administration with New-York State politics resulted in the most sweep. ing opposition victory on record; that friend would have struggled to the bitter end against the publication of the President's letter after the new revelations concerning Mr. Fellows's career, in ignorance of which, I have no doubt, that letter was written, and after learn. ing which I trust he would wish it never had been written. "I shall say nothing in extenuation of the fact that the President permitted himself to be so misused. But certain it is that the bitterest enemies of the President and of the Democratic party could not have dealt them a more vicious blow. For more than thirty years I have been an attentive observer of political events, and never, never have I witnessed more wanton recklessness of party leaders, sacrificing the interests and good name of a great municipality, the character of a national administration, as well as the interests of their party and cause, to their blundering folly or their small selfishness." To set at rest in Mr. Schurz's mind the question which he raises as to the President's interference being deliberate and determined, I read the following letter, which likewise appeared and was used in this remarkable campaign: "NEW YORK, November 4. "Ex-Mayor Edward Cooper has received the follow. ing letter from President Cleveland: EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, Nov. 2, 1887. "MY DEAR SIR: I do not think the newspaper clippings you send and now before me amount to enough to even raise a doubt concerning my desire for the success of both the State and the New York local tickets in the coming election. You know that I am very much inclined to abstain from any interference with New-York City campaig, fully believing the people of that city to be quite competent to manage their affairs. It surely ought not to be considered any interference, however, when I say in reply to your letter that the newspaper extracts which you inclose totally misrepresent my wishes and hopes in regard to the fate of your Democratic local ticket. I shall be very much pleased to see it entirely successful. know nothing which, if I were a voter in New York, would prevent my support of Mr. Fellows's candidacy without the least misgivings as to his fitness and with considerable personal satisfaction. Please present my congratulations to Mr. Hewitt upon his excellent letter published this morning. "Yours, very truly, "GROVER CLEVELAND. "Hon. EDWARD COOPER." I "Notwithstanding the attack in the Worcester convention upon the Federal management of offices in Massachusetts, he had no doubt that the Massachusetts Democracy were in full accord with himself and his administration, and he hoped this might be proven by a majority the next Tuesday in favor of Mr. Lovering.' It is to the credit of the Massachusetts Independents that this endorsement by the President of candidate Lovering availed little; but nothing could have more plainly shown the entire abandonment on the part of the President of the positions he had previously taken in favor of divorcing the civil service of the Government from politics. Another subject closely connected with this question and specially provided for in the statute, is that of assessments for political purposes imposed upon the officers, clerks, and employés of the Government. The whole course of the Republican party upon this was thoroughly gone over in the debate which arose here in the Forty-seventh Congress, in which the distinguished gentleman now our minister at the German court, then a prominent member of this body and the author of the Pendleton civil service bill, took part. In that debate the course of the Republican party was most fully justified, and it was shown clearly that whatever contributions had been made by officials, clerks, and employés of the Government toward maintaining the organization and conducting the campaigns of the party had been voluntary, and that no exactions had been laid and no threats or coercion resorted to, to enforce contributions. The amount derived from all these sources in a single year was small compared with the entire expenses involved in a political campaign. But, Mr. President, a great hue and cry was raised throughout the country because of these voluntary contributions, and in the last years of the Republican administration they sank to almost nothing. The law was regarded and respected. The present Administra tion stood pledged to resist and destroy this evil equally with its pledges which I have adverted to in other directions.... My only comment upon the attitude of the Administration on this phase of the subject which I am discussing shall be to read the following: [Washington Post, Nov. 1, 1887.] Among the Democrats -Money for the New the evening." peared in the Washington Republican" of Nov. The following communication, which I read, ap8, 1887. I have never seen any denial of the facts as therein given: "A representative of the New-York State Democratic committee opened headquarters for the receipt of contributions for the New York campaign in the rooms of the Columbia Democratic Club, at No. 419 In Massachusetts, where removals from office, Tenth street, yesterday. A large number of contrithough numerous and covering nearly all the import-butions were received, the first of which came from a ant appointments, were not so sweeping as in other young lady in the Government Printing Office signStates, dissatisfaction existed in the Democratic party, be open to-day at 4 o'clock, and remain open during ing herself Sincerely a Democrat.' The office will which plainly manifested itself in the State convention. The President's appointments were criticised, the retention of a few Republicans in office was denounced, the platform was made to suit the spoilsmen, and instead of renominating Mr. Andrew, who had to some extent represented the reformers, in heading the Democratic ticket last year ex-Congressman Lovering was set up in his place, and the convention adjourned with a bowl against reform and with the avowed pur pose of getting along without and snubbing the reformers. So plain was the purpose and the bias of the Democratic party in the State that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the so-called Independents who had voted the Democratic ticket in the last Presidential election determined to withhold their votes from Mr. Lovering, and in the end many of those votes were cast for Gov. Ames, his competitor. Civil-Service Reform. is a true copy of a receipt for money solicited from the Received from The President did not fail here to add to the discom. fiture of his Independent allies. When Collector Sal. tonstall, who visited Washington a few days previous "The Government Printing Office was thoroughly to the elections, where he had several interviews with canvassed. The cashier of the office went to every parent to them that they must go home and vote, and on their return furnish the name of the precinct in which they voted. "Never in the history of the office has there been such a complete system of obtaining money from both men and women for political purposes, and that in a manner that left no doubt in the minds of the employés that if the request was not complied with their places would be filled by others. "The argument used to obtain money was about as follows: If Grover Cleveland, President of the United States, could contribute $7,000, certainly a poor woman could pay 50 cents. "WASHINGTON, November 7, 1887." 66 66 66 individual political rights is the reasonable measure of their party service." To show that he thoroughly understood the perni. cious tendencies which he pledged himself to resist and overcome, he declared in his letter of acceptance: "When we consider the patronage of this great office, the allurements of power, the temptation to retain public place once gained, and, more than all, the availability a party finds in an incumbent whom a horde of office-holders, with a zeal born of benefits received, and fostered by the hope of favors yet to come, stand ready to aid with money and trained political service, we recognize in the eligibility of the President for re-election a most serious danger." How have these pledges been kept? The President has become a candidate for re-election. But has he purified the public service? Has he been faithful to civil-service reform, which means, according to "The New-York Times" (May 31, 1884), "The essential principle of reform is the absolute separation of the public service, in its administrative abolition of patronage, the complete and permanent branches, from politics." In the following pages, evidence regarding the actual conduct of the President, and his exercise of the appointing and removing power, is presented. It is evidence mainly from Democratic sources. Out of 1,045 editorials or despatches quoted, only 249 are from "The Tribune" and all other Republican journals; The New-York Tribune, July, 1888, pub-more than three-quarters are from papers which are lishes more than twenty columns of Demo- now supporting Mr. Cleveland for re-election. While cratic appointments during the administra- great care has been taken to omit statements by these supporters of the Administration which were aftertion of President Cleveland, which serve to ward found erroneous, it is possible that, in some show the utter hollowness of his sham pre-instances out of so many, satisfactory corrections have tences of "reform" in the Civil Service, and been overlooked, and if in any case this has happened, "The Tribune" will promptly publish a correction. more than justify the language recently It appears that in seventeen cases the civil-service uttered in the United-States Senate by Sena- law has been directly violated by appointments, and tor Plumb, to the effect that President Cleve-in seven by removals; that the intent of the law has land, instead of regarding been violated in nine other appointments specified a public office" and in sixty-five removals, besides 386 cases in which as a public trust," evidently looked upon the facts without names are given. Acts of offensive it as "" a private snap.' It is, of course, im- partisanship by officials of Mr. Cleveland's selection possible in these pages to find room for this are specified in 151 cases, while many others are destartling list of appointments, but the intro-scribed. But it is within the personal knowledge of every intelligent citizen that the entire army of offi. ductory synopsis of the same-thoroughly cials is as actively at work in the cause of party as it borne out as it is by the detailed cases which ever was in the days of Pierce and Buchanan, before follow it-in itself constitutes a terrible in-civil-service reform was undertaken. Official statedictment of President Cleveland's double-ments, more than a year ago, showed that above fourdealing with the advocates of Civil-Service reform, to whose votes he is so largely indebted for the great office which he now holds. The list is furnished from Democratic sources, and hence the more convincing to Democrats. The introductory synopsis is as follows: Mr. Cleveland gained the Presidency as a reformer of the civil service. If he then desired the change of tariff he now urges, he deceived the people about it. The votes which turned the scale were obtained by his explicit promises that abuses in the civil service should be corrected, that appointments should be made for merit only, and that qualified and faithful officers should not be removed for partisan reasons. In his letter of acceptance, Aug. 18, 1884, he said: "The selection and retention of subordinates in Government employment should depend upon their ascertained fitness and the value of their work, and they should neither be expected nor allowed to do unquestionable party service." In case of his election, he declared that reform should prevail, so that: "The unseemly scramble for place under the Government, with the consequent importunity which embitters official life, will cease; and the public departments will not be filled by those who conceive it to be their first duty to aid the party to which they owe their places." In his letter to Mr. Curtis, Dec. 25, 1884, he said: "The lessons of the past should be unlearned, and such officials, as well as their successors, should be taught that efficiency, fitness, and devotion to public duty are the conditions of their continuance in public fifths of the officials under President Cleveland had been changed during his administration, so that in August, 1887, the resolutions of the National Civil Service Reform League declared: "The change in the unclassified civil service is so great as to forebode its complete partisan reconstruction by the close of the Administration." The changes during the past year have substantially finished this" complete partisan reconstruction;" undoubtedly much more than nine-tenths of the officials are now men selected by Mr. Cleveland, and selected because they are Democrats. Men have been appointed in a great majority of cases expressly for partisan services. The appointing power has been used to reward party workers, from Mr. Manning, chairman of the Democratic State Committee in New York, and the chairmen in Ohio, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and many other States, down to the very clerks and doorkeepers who served during the campaign which resulted in Mr. Cleveland's election. The names of fifty-seven notorious party hacks who have been selected for office represent a great army. The appointing power has been used to support thirty-five relatives of the President, his wife, his cabinet officers, prominent Senators, and other officials, and in fourteen other cases specified to pay personal or political obligations. In order to make places, a great number of tried and faithful public servants have been dismissed. A few illustrations, such as the dismissal of Mr. Bacon for the keeper of a Brooklyn gin-mill, are mentioned. In a host of cases partisanship has clearly dictated action in contemptuous disregard of public opinion, as when Benton and Stone were dismissed for making political speeches; the Democrat was reinstated and the Republican was refused; or in the case of Postmaster Wallace, dismissed for offensive partisanship was a Democrat, and thereupon he was reinstated and the other man turned out. În notable cases the public service has been used to control nominations; thus Collector Bishop of Cincinnati packed a convention with officials to nominate his son for sheriff; Messrs. Benedict and Maynard appealed to postmasters to make a canvass of voters for the Democratic party. In at least three States, offices have been openly and shamelessly sold for cash, according to Democratic testimony. So" Harper's Weekly "admits that" President Cleveland has not been sustained by his party in civil service reform and yields to his party." "The NewYork Sun," referring to the order against partisan activity of officials, says: "It might be a good idea for President Cleveland to issue this proclamation again. At a moment when, to quote from his letter of acceptance, a horde of office-holders, with a zeal born of benefits received and fostered by the hope of favors yet to come, stand ready to aid with money and trained political service' the President who appointed them, it would be especially fitting for Mr. Cleveland to recall his subordinates to the path of duty." (1888, April 9; "The New-York Sun," 4.) The Democratic organ at the National Capital, "The Washington Post," declared in May: one of whom had served two terms for that offence, but "knew Cleveland personally," and men guilty of robbery, embezzlement, theft, malfeasance, tapping a church till, grand larceny, bribery, obtaining money under false pretences, of a printing steal, a mileage steal and a patent fraud, of keeping gambling houses and houses of resort for the vile of both sexes, of assault and battery, fist fighting and insulting women, of assaulting a lady temperance lecturer with a club, of wife-beating, of blackmailing and selling offices and of selling official information, with an editor of a rogue's paper, and a Brooklyn police officer who was dismissed for arresting in her bed at 2 A.M. a sick woman against whom there was no charge, and compelling her to walk'a mile to a station-all these are chosen instruments of reform. Scarcely less offensive is the list of men who have been notorious for political crimes. Persons like Pillsbury and Chase, who tried to steal the State Government of Maine; like Higgins, Thomas, and Raisin, who have stuffed ballot-boxes, and swindled decent citizens for years in Maryland; like the assistant of Mackin in Chicago election frauds, and of the convicted swindlers in Indianapolis, Columbus, and Cincinnati, appear among Mr. Cleveland's chosen instruments of reform. With them are Goode of Virginia, who got office by tissue ballot frauds; Shelley of Alabama, who bulldozed and swindled his way into Congress; Hull, the participant in Florida frauds; Holmes, who had a large part in robbing the people of Misadvised murder for party's sake, and Meade, who justified the assassination of Print Matthews. All these have been placed in office, though some are now out because the Senate refused to confirm them. "Mr. Cleveland is a candidate for the renomination -an earnest, eager, anxious candidate, armed and equipped at all points and possessed of all the advantages of a great number of friends and a powerful machine. Look out for the Cleveland machine, fellow-sissippi of self-government; Groome, who publicly citizens. You may hear of it in Georgia to-day and in Maine to-morrow, but wherever it is you will find it in beautiful order and working as smoothly and as effectively as a Corliss engine. It has yet to meet an obstruction, and the delegates are pouring out of the hopper at all hours of the day and night. This being the truth, why not proclaim it?" Thereupon" The New-York Sun "thus comments: "Better a public immolation of the President's shallow utterances of incipient statesmanship than a continuance of pretence and cant and sham.' (1888, May 14; "The New-York Sun," 4.) Finally "The Evening Post" sums up the record with the melancholy admission: "The painful truth is that we doubt if a single Independent voter in this State, of the thousands who supported President Cleveland in 1884, any longer attaches any importance to the utterances of the members of the Administration on the subject of civil service reform, or any longer refuses to believe that the President's promises and professions have been violated or disregarded on a great scale, with the utmost boldness, in sundry places and in divers manners, and that men like Judge Maynard and Surveyor Beattie have actually been detailed or told off to practise as much civil service abuse as can be readily concealed or disguised when they are found out and exposed." (1888, May 28; "The New-York Evening Post.") So sweeping a change of officials, governed by such motives, necessarily involves the appointment of some unworthy men. President Cleveland had appointed only seven Territorial judges, when he stated in a published letter that one of them was "morally and professionally unfit." Within a week five of the seven were publicly named as answering the description, in the judgment of people where they lived and to whom they were best known. Three of the five the President has since retired for misconduct. Whether his judicial appointments were exceptionally unfortunate the following memoranda will help the public to judge. This savory list includes two murderers and the tools of two others, five notorious duellists and three rioters-one to be judge of the very court by which he bad been imprisoned six weeks. It includes five persons who had been indicted or convicted for frauds against the revenue, appointed to be officers of the revenue service. It includes a jury-fixer, a dead beat, a lawyer guilty of defrauding clients and an attorney who had cleared notorious bandits by contriving a defeat of justice, all appointed to be judges. Persons were appointed pension agents who had been indicted for violating pension laws. Persons guilty of robbing the mails were appointed postmasters or mail-agents one, when appointed, was in jail for robbing the very office to which he was appointed. Liquor-sellers, their sons or attorneys were appointed internal revenue officials. An impeached State Treasurer, de The list of criminals embraces 137, not including 22 persons guilty of political crimes, of 59 other persons directly connected with the criminal classes. But besides these there are mentioned only 49 persons guilty of the crime of treason, though fully one-third of all the appointees of Mr. Cleveland, an army of thirty or forty thousand men, are of that class. Still less is there any attempt to enumerate appointments of copperheads, whose disloyalty once made them infamous, though 16 are named, and the new Chief Justice heads the list. Among the rebels, those who who were the vilest in character come to the surface; like the person who wears a scarf-pin made of the skull of a Union soldier, or the one who hoped "Union blood would be deep enough for his horse to swim in." The men whose language about Lincoln and Grant, or about Blaine or the wives of Union veterans was too vile to be printed, have found appointments from Mr. Cleveland, with one who personally insulted Mr. Blaine, and another who insulted Gen. Logan, and two deserters from the Union army. There were liv. ing three years ago, perhaps, a dozen Rebels who had never sought removal of disabilities, and Mr. Cleve land selected three of these for foreign missions. The same spirit selected Rebels, deserters, and revilers of Lincoln and Grant for officials of the pension service, with several men who had robbed the Government by forged or fraudulent applications, and one who had robbed the Grand Army by false pretences, He who signed the order to restore captured Rebel flags has naturally ousted many Union veterans, some so disabled that they could with difficulty find other employment, to make room for party tools. If loyal veterans are offended, so decent citizens well may be by the appointment of blackguards, like Meiere and Button, notorious drunkards and "howling idiots." When one foreign minister is on the point of being put off a train for intoxication, and another plays poker while receiving foreign diplomats, and a third is the "boss poker player" of his State, and a fourth be comes notorious by the death of a wanton in a vile den; when another at Rome refuses to dine with any Catholic clergyman, and one who declares "Catholicism worse than paganism" is sent to Spain; when a minis. ter at Colombia engages in a fist-fight with his secretary; when the ministers to Peru, Chili and Venezuela represent private claims of a doubtful sort; when the minister to England was the attorney for the Emma mine, by which many Englishmen were plundered, and the minister to the Argentine Republic descants in published despatches about the corruption of that government; when men are accredited to Governments which as editors they have most savagely assailed, and a debt for campaign uniforms, and an unnaturalized Greek is sent to represent the United States in Turkey, at the time on the point of war with Greece; when Mr. Keiley is sent about Europe, hat in hand, hunting for a government which will consent to receive him - this great nation is hardly honored by its foreign representatives. Perhaps the worst feature of the sad record is the persistency with which men have been appointed after their bad character or unfitness had been exposed. Volumes of evidence were placed before the President, and afterward Higgins, Thomas and Raisin were appointed. Beecher was put into three different offices which he disgraced. Bancroft, rejected for collector, was made superintendent of the railway mail service. In several cases records of indictments for crime were sent to the President, as in that of Warner, and the persons indicted were afterward appointed. He keeps the postmaster who thought a sheet of stamps was a circus poster and stuck it on the wall, but remarked that" the darned circus-riders looked all alike," and he retains in office the man who "drinks whiskey and plays poker like a gentleman." The President personally ordered the reinstatement of the Chief of Records who could not spell, after he had been discharged the "fellow who spells appoint with one p and Democrat with an i." He suffers Goode and Upshaw to find lucrative places, after their full exposure in fraud; keeps Garland in his Cabinet, and has pro copy, but that it was restored to the reporter's origi nal notes under his direction after an examination of the changes made. In short, the matter in plates is now in the shape given it by the reporter himself. (Signed) "H. I. BRIAN, "Foreman of Printing. To Hon. J. H. Gallinger, House of Representatives." Extended comment is unnecessary on this point. Even admitting Capt. Brian's statement to be exactly true, and we have no other proof at hand and cannot have unless we demand printed copy of the entire 206 pages of testimony from the plates as Capt. Brian says they now are, and compare it with the stenographer's copy, which would be a work of weeks to complete, it shows a laxity of official honor on the part of the public printer sufficient to warrant his immediate dismissal from office. That the copy was tampered with and changed admits of no doubt, as we have in our possession indubitable proof of that fact, and even if the stenographer prevented its consummation, it leaves Public Printer Benedict in the nosition of attempting to accomplish an unworthy and dishonorable act, for which either he should be removed or the administration of President Cleveland be held responsible for the retention in office of a man who does not hesitate to change records and falsify testimony. moted Lamar after the same fraud had been aided by nal, Aug. 30, 1888, alluding to this minority A special despatch in the Boston Jour his official action. Such is the Administration of President Cleveland as described by evidence drawn mainly from Democratic sources. A special committee appointed some months since by the House of Representatives to investigate Public Printer Benedict of the Government Printing Office at Washington, recently made its report. The minority of the committee is composed of Republicans; the majority, Democrats. The minority, in presenting its conclusions, says: In addition to the committee being a partisan one, it is proper that we should add that the testimony was printed by the present public printer, who was supposed to be under investigation. Ordinarily this circumstance would not be deserving of notice, but when it came to the attention of the minority of the committee that the testimony was being tampered with and changed by that official, it became a very serious matter. To what extent this was done it is impossible to determine, but that it was done admits of no doubt. For the purpose of making an investigation on that point a member of the minority addressed a letter, under date of Aug. 24, asking Capt. H. T. Brian, foreman of printing, to furnish him with the original copy, covering about 40 pages of the testimony, no suggestion being made why it was called for. That copy shows that the stenographer's work was "edited" in the Government printing office, in many instances questions and answers being changed, and in some instances entirely stricken out. In transmitting the copy, it is but right for us to say Capt. Brian accompanied it with the following letter: "GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. "SIR: I send herewith, in accordance with your request, the copy of testimony from page 1165 to the end of volume. In doing so it is proper to state that the matter, as it now appears in the stereotype plates, report, says: The report is very damaging to Benedict in regard to a paper contract that he refused to the Winona Paper Company, of Holyoke, at 8.4 cents a pound, and gave to a jobbing firm of Philadelphia, who took the chief clerk and the superintendent of the paper warehouse on a junket, at 9.2 cents a pound, the jobbers having previously tried to contract with the Winona Company for the paper, saying they were sure to get the contract because they "had a pull" with the printing-office. The report shows unusual delays and arrearages in the work of the printing-office, the introduction of expensive methods, and the collection of political assessments from employees by other employees in violation of the civil service law. It shows that the testimony on which the majority of the committee make serious and even criminal charges against the late Mr. Rounds was of a very worthless character. quantities of private work were done under Mr. Rounds, The majority of the committee charged that large at the Government Printing-Office. The minority offer considerable testimony in rebuttal of this, and then quote from the evidence to show that Mr. Benedict and one of the head printers were asked whether the speeches made by the President in his Western trip last year were not printed at the Government PrintingOffice, and both witnesses refused to admit or deny it. PART VII. - The latest Phases of the Reform Sham Democratic Assessments and "Contributions" for Campaign Purposes in 1888. In the days of Republican Administration, whenever any request was made upon Republican office-holders for contributions for campaign purposes, the Democratic leaders and their Mugwump allies were utterly shocked, and wondered that such things could be; but mark the change! How they do it in Ohio - The Confidential Assessment circular of the Ohio State Democratic Committee. The following confidential circular speaks |