Book - The Campaign Text Book

The Campaign Text Book¹

Why the People Want A Change.

The Republican Party Reviewed:

Its Sins of Commission and Omission.

A Summary of the Leading Events in Our History Under Republican Adminsitration.

New York

1876

In some instances the suddenness of the order for destruction gave rise to the belief that the unworthy motive of influencing the result of political elections was the moving cause of the order. For example: An old line-of-battle ship, was ordered to be broken up at the Boston Navy Yard, although Captain Young swears that she was as sound as the day that the timber was put in her, and could have been sold at a handsome profit. The men who were put to work to break her up were political strikers, it being then about election time.

Mr. Nehemiah Gibson testified: That one of the vessels broke up at the Boston Navy Yard, he offered $25,000 for, and does not believe that the government realized one dollar. The following is Mr. Gibson's testimony with respect to the breaking up and destruction of two iron-clads in Boston, Harbor:

Q: What would the Government realize from breaking them up? 

A: In their way of breaking them up they would realize nothing. Here is one cuit up in this year that I offered $25,000 for, and I don't believe the Government realized a dollar. The laborers here don't do anything. I have seen so much of their idleness and inefficiency that I would not pay their board. If I had a thousand such men to work for me I would not pay their board for what they would do. They put in everything - old cripples that are not food for anything. That makes the navy cost tremendously. It makes me crawl when I go about the yard and see the men loafing. They get hid up out of sight - a pack of loafers that calculate living on the navy yard. There are a pack of people around this city that don't calculate to do anything. It is a premium offered to them to do nothing, because their work lasts so much the longer of they don't do anything.

Q: I would like to ask you if you don't think the old ship Virginia, and some of the other ships here that are condemned, could be sold to private individuals for something? 

A: Yes sir; that Virginia, the one that was cut up, the old friagete that they started in 1817, I offered the officers here $25,000 for that ship as she lay, to take her down myself.

The Secretary of the Navy does not possess any right or authority under tha law to destroy vessels belonging to the U.S. Navy. He possess power to sell at public sale no vessel or material of the U.S. Navy that can be advantageously used, repaired or fitted out. If, in his judgment, such sale cannot be advantageoulsy made, it was manifestly his duty to have made report to Congress, and from Congress obtain power to destroy and convert the materials. The discrepancy of millions of their money to a people who are growing poorer under the weight of taxes, while their agents, who control it, grow rich, is not to be accounted for. If all this property and all the money which has vanished in the last seven years, any corresponding results and returns were shown, then flagrant violations of the law might be excused.

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