vestigators sought. Only the enthusiastic popular approval of
Secretary Bristow's brave course prevented yielding to the political
backers of the corruption. When in the spring of 1876 Bristow initiated
a similar campaign against the corruptions rife on the Pacific coast,
the Secretary was overruled and the government prosecutors were
recalled. Whereupon the Secretary resigned, and no less than seven high
Treasury officials, who had been active in the crusade of reform, left
the department at the same time. Mr. Bristow was succeeded by an
honorable man,--the President had to appoint a man known to be
pure,--Lot M. Morrill, of Maine; but he was infirm, and all aggressive
reform work ceased.

In the War Department, Secretary Belknap, sustained by the President,
stripped General Sherman of the rights and duties properly pertaining to
his rank, of which Grant himself, in the same place during Johnson's
administration, had protested against being deprived. Sherman was
subjected to such humiliations by his old commander, turned politician,
that he abandoned Washington and retired to St. Louis. Congress was a
subservient participator in this shame, repealing the law that required
all orders to the army to go through its general. But in February, 1876,
it was discovered that Belknap had been enriching himself by corrupt
partnership with contractors in his department, and he hurriedly
resigned, the President strangely accepting the resignation before
Congress could act. He was impeached, notwithstanding. He set up the
defense that being no longer an official, he could not be impeached, and
this being overruled, he was tried, but was not convicted. Of his guilt
the country had no doubt. Then Alphonso Taft, an Ohio judge, was made
Secretary of War. He was soon transferred to the Attorney-General's
office, and was succeeded by Don Cameron, already his father's
lieutenant in control of the Republican party of Pennsylvania.

Columbus Delano, Secretary of the Interior, had so mismanaged affairs,
especially in the Indian Bureau, which teemed with flagrant abuses, that
public opinion turned against him with great force, and in 1875 he had
to abandon the office, in which he was succeeded by Zachariah Chandler,
against whom no scandalous charge was made, although he was a rank
partisan of the President.

Marshall Jewell, of Connecticut, became Postmaster-General in 1874. He
was a successful business man, and on taking the office he decl