Excerpt from The American Foreign Service

Europe was advised of Sanborn contracts and moiety spoils, of the whisky frauds in the Western States, of the resolution and skill with which Mr. Secretary Bristow unearthed and grappled with that daring combination to defraud the Treasury, and of the treatment awarded to that faithful officer for the efforts to purify his Department. Europe was advised also of the attempted impeachment of the Secretary of War for official corruption, in selling the traderships of our Western forts for moneys that were to be extorted in turn from the soldiers, Indians, and pioneers, whom the President and the War Secretary were bound especially to protect.

It has been intimated abroad that our republican Government had become more personal in its character, and more arbitrary in its disregard of national traditions, than any Government in Europe, that the President had deliberately set aside the rules of the civil service, to which he was pledged, to readopt the immoral doctrine, "that to the victor belongs the spoils, " and that he had acquiesced in the claim of senators and representatives to share in their distribution, that in this course he was sustained by the interested flattery of those around him who were more careful than Mr. Bristow to maintain their positions, that his Cabinet ministers, regardless of all remonstrances against lowering the tone of the Government, joined the President in associating with public plunderers, "loaded with odium and riches." In fact, it was widely suggested that the dignity, rights, and interest of the people were scarcely more regarded at Washington, in the distribution of offices and influence, than they were by the sovereigns of the olden time, who bestowed cities or provinces as marriage portions, and gave titles to the boon companions in whose society the king amused himself. Of the actual condition of our civil service, and of the class of men occasionally selected for the highest posts, Europe learned something on her own soil at the Vienna Exposition.

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