THE ALLEGED INDIFFERENCE TO CORRUPTION IN THE UNITED STATES.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:']
SIR,—The able article in the Spectator for February 22, titled "The Latest American Scandal," has been read with considerable interest by many in the United States. I can readily understand how an English editor, who is dependent upon the American Press for the " revelations of corruption" reported in the United States, should take a disheartening view of self-government. If I were not familiar with the " power behind the throne " which influences, colours, and distorts all that appears in most of the secular press of my country, I might fancy the Republic on the verge of destruction,. its servants corrupt past reform, and the electors either stupid or indifferent. Doubtless during the recent contest for President there were some readers abroad of American papers who fully believed that General Grant was a very corrupt and bad man, and that Mr. Horace Greeley would be placed in the Executive Mansion by an overwhelming majority. The people of the United States listened to the stream of abuse poured upon the head of General Grant through a thousand newspaper columns, and when the day for casting their ballots came they re-elected him by an increased majority. I cite this notable instance of the action of the electors of the whole country, from Maine to California, to show that the Spectator is right when it says that the newspapers of America " on questions of personal character have utterly lost" the confidence of the people. It is a fact that most of the leading newspapers in the United States cannot be trusted. The people know this very well ; the people act independently of the leading papers; they are not represented even by those sheets which claim the greatest influence and largest circulation. And this is as true in relation to the revelations of the Credit Mobilier case, as it was in relation to the Presidential contest. The American people are not convinced that the charges against the eminent men involved have been proved, certain papers to the contrary notwithstanding. The Spectator finds difficulty in understanding " why the people bear it." With nothing better than newspaper opinion for a guide, we do not wonder at this difficulty. When the people have become con- vinced that their representatives are untrustworthy, they will find a ready way to leave them- in the obscurity which they merit.
Perhaps no man has been so ungraciously dealt with and foully slandered as the late Vice-President, Mr. Schuyler Colfax, although he takes his solemn oath that he never bought any Credit Mobilier stock, and never received any dividends upon it. He is a man who has been in public life for twenty years, without a breath of suspicion being whispered against him. Being a Chris- tian gentleman, and advocate of temperance and morality, abso- lutely incorruptible, all the evil-doing men in the United States are only too glad of a chance to cast stones at him. During the last political campaign he advocated the re-election of General Grant, thereby offending the Democrats and the self-styled Liberal Republicans. As he was about to leave his high office, retiring to private life, he was regarded, politically speaking, as a "dead' lion in the pit," whom it was safe to kick. Thereupon all the irresponsible correspondents at Washington, and all the oppo- sition Press in New York and elsewhere, did whatever could be done to blacken his character, to convince the world that the Vice-President of the United States, and many Senators and Representatives, were steeped in corruption.
The people take a different view of this matter. They trust Mr. Colfax and Mr. Oakes Ames to-day with the same confidence they did a year ago. Both of these gentlemen represent as in- telligent constituencies, the one at South Bend, Indiana, and the other at North Easton, Massachusetts, as can be found anywhere. And when these gentlemen returned to their 13.'omes recently, the business of the two cities was suspended, and they were met by the entire population, regardless of political faith, and wel- comed home with confidence. That is the answer the electors of these representatives return to the inalignant secular press. President Grant has had the manliness to address a note to Mr. Colfax expressing his belief, after a careful examination of the testimony, in the entire innocence of the Ex-Vice- President. And some of the most honourably edited papers in the land, such as the Courier Journal (Democratic), of Louisville, Ky., and the Inter-Ocean, of Chicago, fully exonerate Mr. Colfax. Says the Inter-Ocean for March 13 :—" There is an innate sense of justice in the American mind that asserts itself strongly when roused by the idea that a man is unjustly abused, and it was this feeling that found vent on Saturday at South Bend, in such an ovation as is rarely accorded to any public man." This is the feel- ing of the American electors relative to this great newspaper scandal, and the electors are neither ignorant nor stupid.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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