The Louisiana Democrat

The Whiskey Ring.

The "exposure" of the frauds of the whiskey ring—if that can be called an "exposure" where the truth has been long known to many people and its existence suspected by all—has probably a two-fold origin. Mr. Bristow is, we make no doubt, sincere in his desire to reform the Treasury Department, and President Grant is not unwilling that he should attract attention to its good deeds and divert it from the department of Mr. Delano. But the Administration by these "exposures" also publishes two things: the wide-spread corruption that exists among its servants and the extreme unwisdom of its revenue policy.

When an attempt was made in December last to raise the duty on whiskey from 70 cents to $1 per gallon, we charged it directly to the whiskey ring. Secretary Bristow was against the increase of the tax, knowing from his experience as District-Attorney in the greatest whiskey district in the Southwest that a high tax meant fraud. He preferred a duty on coffee and tea, the most judicious tax that could be devised. But the ring was too strong for him; Commissioner Douglass, in his report, recommended the abolition of stamps, and an advance in the tax on whisky and tobacco. If the late Commissioner was not manipulated, the recommendation was, as Mr. Weller would say, a remarkable coincidence. The fact is the ring had laid the pipes for this swindle for some time, and found an unexpected obstacle in an honest Secretary of the Treasury whom they tried by means fair or foul to get out of the Treasury. The scandal, could it be laid bare, would be found to involve men in Congress as well as in the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Of course as long as such a thoroughly incapable Chairman as Mr. Dawes ruled the Ways and Means Committee, even the most honest Secretary of the Treasury was powerless to remedy evils. The Democrats, who will now take charge of this most important committee, would belie the antecedents of their party if they did not second the honest efforts of an honest officer, although not of their political creed. Whether, however, the imposition of the increased tax by the Republican majority is to be laid to ignorance or corruption, the Republicans cannot avoid the responsibility for that increase, a responsibility rendered graver by the fact that practical experiment in 1870 had shown what reason dictated—that a low tax is the only preventive of fraud. No less grave is their accountability for the inevitable lowering of the morale of the civil service, where the standard of honesty was already sufficiently low without the increased temptation afforded through placing a premium on revenue frauds.

We must own, however, that we scarcely expect that Mr. Bristow will be permitted to work any abiding reform or any extensive reform. If the St. Louis whisky ring is broken up, what will become of the eminent Radical members, one of whom the Republicans recently honored with a nomination, who divide $30,000 a week among themselves—and others? Till the Harper trial comes off it is not safe to say that the power of the ring in Central Illinois is destroyed. At Chicago it is not likely that trials will be followed far till the discovery is made that not alone are local officers interested in the stamp frauds, but that illicit stills have been running under very distinguished Radical permission from Washington. In fine, it is the same old story. The whole fabric is rotten.

[N. Y. World.]