The Madisonian

THE "CORMORANT OF THE SPOILS."

We have no disposition to interfere improperly with the private affairs of others, nor are we inclined in any illiberal or jealous spirit, to obstruct fair competition for the "spoils" of party triumph. Our friends and neighbors are welcome to all the wealth and fame they may honestly acquire in the miserable scramble. But as we are not now willingly, or knowingly, parties in this strife: as we have asked no man's vote—courted no man's favor, we presume we may be pardoned for noticing, for the information of uninitiated readers at a distance, a circumstance which, however surprising it may appear to some, furnishes only one of the thousand causes of disgust which meet the politician here.

The publishers of the Globe have been for many years the monopolists of the Public Printing. During General Jackson's administration, we believe about the time it was necessary to bring the batteries of his Press to bear with their utmost force upon the high-mettled South Carolinians, the President issued a peremptory order to his departments to bestow, in addition to Congressional printing, all their patronage, exclusively, upon the Globe.

Thus, it appears that, in 1832 and 1833, the Executive Department paid the Globe establishment for printing, $47,245

In 1834 & '35, 40,473

'35 & '36, up to Sept. 24,384

113,102

Printing for the 24th Congress, 105,914

218,016

To this may be added amount paid that establishment by the Executive Departments, in 1836 & '37, believed to be not included in the above, 28,101

In '37 & '38, at a low estimate, for we have not the official accounts for these years, say, 30,000

In '38 & '39, 25th Congress, that establishment also received, according to its own admission, last January, $51,000 for printing for the Senate, exclusive of the salt documents, admitted to cost 17,900, and other printing done for that body since January last, say, 80,000

$343,117

The last two items, being estimates, we believe to be much below the actual amounts. But the entire sum of public money paid into the pockets of the proprietors of the Globe since the days of nullification, seven years, cannot be far from 375,000—which is equivalent to FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS, and upwards, per year, for the seven last consecutive years.

At the last session of Congress a law was enacted providing for the farming out or letting of the executive printing to the lowest bidder. This divested the Globe of some of its great profits, though we have suspicions in relation to the full execution of the law. Whether the Globe has, contrary to law, profited by executive printing during the year past, can only be known by eliciting the facts through a congressional call upon the Executive.

Though it seems to be proper that each Congress should elect its own printer, yet the proprietors of the Globe, (whether in that cormorant spirit ascribed to them by Mr. Pickens or not, we do not undertake to say,) contrived to get re-elected printers to the Senate, at the conclusion of the last session of Congress. This of course secures them their customary almonry for two years more.

But greedy avarice is less easily satisfied than most of the passions of human nature. The studium pecuniae seems to be thought by the proprietors of the Globe, as well as others, the great business of life, and especially of politics.

"Money, being the common scale

Of things by measure, weight, and tale,

In all the affairs of church and state.

'Tis both the balance and the weight."

Faithful to these axioms, the proprietors of the Globe, not satisfied with the patronage of a powerful party, and the printing of the Senate, seek, with sleepless industry to clutch also the printing of the House of Representatives. They are seen on every side of the Bar of the House, begging, coaxing, fawning, soaping, promising, protesting, pouncing upon this member, pushing a second into the bar, running after a third, and hurrying about like hounds at a fox borough, "stopping in," "bucking out," "waring 'scapes," "smoking," "over-hauling," &c., &c.

There is an exceeding diffidence, delicacy, and disinterestedness about all this which honorable members no doubt hugely admire.