Phenix Gazette

From the New York American.
IMPROVING THE PRESS.

Mr. Van Buren's proposition in the Senate of the U. S. to improve the condition of the press, and as a means thereof, to use the public moneys of the country, is calculated as it strikes us, to excite much attention and discussion. The object when plainly stated, is no other than to corrupt by means of the Senate's patronage, & the much more extensive patronage, which the members of the new "Combination" against the present administration, will be required individually, and through their friends, to afford a sufficient number of presses to write down Mr. Adams and his Cabinet, and to write up Mr. Jackson and the motley "combination" that is to sustain him. Of the decorum, the dignity, of making the Senate of the U. S. an instrument in so base a scheme, we will not discourse remarking only that Mr. Randolph's speeches and conduct as a Senator, and Mr. Van Buren's intrigues, have in a few short months, degraded to the level of an ale-house club, a body, to which the nation has heretofore looked with unmingled respect and confidence.

As to Mr. Van Buren's personal agency in this mode of improving the press, it is no new thing. During the last Presidential contest, he employed himself very assiduously in causing the Argus, then and now the supple instrument of his will, to be circulated at the South, in order to improve its condition--& the public mind. It will not be denied, that Mr. Van Buren exerted himself among his brother senators and others, at Washington, to obtain, and did obtain, a great number of subscribers to the Argus, as the paper that was to be relied upon, to further their particular views. Happily the people did not suffer themselves to be cheated into a concurrence in these views; but defeat does not dispirit Mr. Van Buren. He has now to play over the same game; but on this occasion he seeks to extend his means, by taking the money appropriated by the public for the honest uses of the Senate, to reward the efforts of personal partizans. As yet, however the Senate, though 23 votes were found to sustain Mr. V. B's. scheme, has not committed itself as a body thereto.

When in connection with this bold attempt, illustrated by some minor ones of a similar character, such as the advance by Mr Senator Eaton of a large sum of money to sustain the Columbian Observer in Philadelphia, the purchase of the Louisiana Advertiser, and its immediate consequent conversion from a paper friendly. into a paper hostile to the administration-we look at the speeches delivered. by the members of the "combination," (Mr. Floyd of Virginia stands sponsor for this name, the badge of himself and his associates) on Mr. Saunders' resolution in the House of Representatives concerning the public printing-it is impossible to suppress astonishment at the effrontery which sought to impute to Mr. Clay as a crime, the dispensation of some eighty or a hundred dollars patronage in a manner authorized by law, at the very moment when in secret conclave the same individuals were maturing a scheme by which thousands of the public money were to be placed in the hands of an incapable, but devoted and unquestioning political adherent.

This, however, is Mr. Van Buren's notion of improving the press.