OCR Text |
Show riOlL'ilSG 1'QR THE SPOILS. The cupidity of professional politicians, politi-cians, no matter what the party, is daily becoming more openly displayed. dis-played. Their eagerness for an opportunity op-portunity to fill otlieo and live o'V the country in any capacity is no longer covered with the thin gauze of hypocrisy. hypoc-risy. That the oUice should seek the man is scouted, as something too old-fashioned old-fashioned to be for a moment countenanced coun-tenanced by the later brood of "patriots;" and p-u-tin e truffle furiously for power, merely that they may share in the sinecures which custom has created aft:r laav tacitly sanctioned the Appointment of deputies depu-ties who do the uork for which the successful ot lice-holders receive the pay. Aud it does not matter which party succeeds in the contest tor power the same results are apparent, Keecntly Mr. Foul, Collector of St. Louis, died in Chicago, and before the corpse was cold there was a bitter struggle inaugurated for the place. The St. Louis Globe and Dunocral, oti ?trong .Republican papers, ! and Administration supporters, were -at daggers' points, each contending for its favorite; and the disgraceful strife was a gixmndwork for numerous sarcastic comments by the Democratic papens, which pointed with a large degree of party scorn to the 'exhibition thus f urnie.be-l by these representatives of the national dominant party. Missouri is Democratic; Demo-cratic; and, about the same time, the oiiiee of State Supervisor of Insurance became vacant through the removal nf the incumbent. Here was another cause for internal party btrife; and the Democratic papers which had united to hold the Republicans up to o.liiim for the squabble over the Col-leetorship, Col-leetorship, rushed at each other just as furiously over the Supervisorship. The Tttvs and : i!' -' of the same city, wa:ed a warfare as bitter as that which the t,-' and iKmm-raf "had been eng.igi-d in. and showed th;it, under like circumstance, their action was exactly the si me. General Frank 1. Blair, who w.is the Demo--rt'w. candidate for Vice President in appoints by Governoi Wotxlson to the vacant place, and then there arose a howl among that portion of the press whose nominees had been slighted, Ulair being vilified nearly as much .is he had at onetime I veil lauded by the samo sapient and purely partisan sheets, while Wood-s?o:i Wood-s?o:i received it hot and in unlimited incisure. And so it goes. WhereVer either party has power tiie same disgraceful anxiety for the spoils is manifest, and tnsid-1 parly lights are as bitter as these between parties. What hope is there for the country in either party ? It is merely a struggle by the "outs" to be iu, and a struggle among the "ins" ;is to who shall have his hand in the public purse. Unlike similar contests in sonrj portium of the European Euro-pean Conttnet, the honor of occupying occupy-ing important places of trust is not the object in view, but the opportin:- ity to enrich sell at the public expense. ex-pense. Viewed in the light furnUhed by these trading and professional pol- ' it:c:j.ns thcms-elu-s, they are but leeches foraging on the body-politic, , and steadily destroying its viuhty. |