“It is important to note that corruption was rife in many departments before Grant took office. In January 1869, the journalist John Russell Young told Washburne that somebody was needed in the Interior Department “who will take the many-headed serpent of robbery and strangle it in its various shapes—Indian Rings, Patent Rings, Stationery Rings and Railroad Rings. This work will, of course, make a tremendous howl among Congress-people.”75”