Springfield Weekly Republican

SCAPE-GOATS WANTED.

The old Jewish custom of loading some poor goat with the sins of the people, and sending it into the wilderness with the uncomfortable burden, seems to have had a reason in human nature. We imagine the Jews who believed in the reality of the process must have experienced great relief as they saw the poor animal driven off, and perhaps they quickened his speed towards the wilderness with a stone or two and a shout of derision. The world has not outgrown this weakness, and what the American people want just now is a scape-goat upon whom may be laid the sins and mistakes of the war. If we could but get rid of this heavy load of past transgressions by some such device, and take a fresh start, we think there might be a restoration of popular confidence and hope. Cannot the government invent something in the scape-goat line to amuse us until the tide of war turns in our favor. If our generals can neither organize nor achieve victory; if the most they can do is to demonstrate the courage of our soldiers and the strength of the enemy by fruitless experiments; if inefficiency and unfaithfulness in our commanders are only to be covered up by the attempts made to expose them; there is at least one class of offenders that may be dealt with and none but themselves be disgruntled. Let a few of the villainous contractors be hung off hand. They have no friends, or should have none, and their loss would be our gain. Without doubt the administration knows who the thieves are, and can lay hands on them without the least danger of mistake. If there is neither law nor constitution for hanging them, what's the odds? The government is fast learning how to be a law unto itself, and there is no assumption of power the people would more complacently acquiesce in than this. The hanging of all the public thieves is of course out of the question. But nothing would be more grateful to the people than to see a few of the worst strung up, and the balance put into the cells of Fort Lafayette and Fort Warren, lately vacated by Secretary Stanton's prisoners. By all means let us make scape-goats of these plunderers of the national treasury. They are so heavy laden with their own sins already that the sins of the government and the generals will add very little to the burden. Pile the whole load on to these scape-goats, then, and let them swing with it, and we shall all feel a great deal better for it.