Weekly Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1853-1861, 1855-03-29
Bill Poole.

Since the DAYS OF the CTuSddeS, the human
intellect has failed to devise a scheme, the
effect of which was to unite, in one class, ele-
done through the instrumentality of the
Know Nothing organization. Bishops and
bandits, priests and pirates, kings and culprits,
were all leagued under the crusade banner !;
some actuated by religious enthusiasm, some
by the spirit of adventure, and many by a
thirst for plumber. Fhe American Crusade
of the nineteenth century, is less reasonable
and equally ridiculous. The source of its
real vitality is the atmosphere of religious in
tolerance and bigot fanaticism. These are its
spirit, tits body is the adventurer in search of
mystery, the cumming in search of craft, the
party pirate in search of spoils, the desperate
in search of place, and power, and protection.
The enthusiast, blinded by spirit of in
tolerance worse than that which he lays at
the door of'bis enemy, will pile upon the
polluted altar of his prejudice, his furnished
religion and his bliehted fame Upon the
same altar are thrown the offerings of the
adyenturer, the party spOils- hunter the gam
bier, the drunkard, the desperate and the
bully. The higher are lowered, the lower
are elevated to a common standard, where re-
ligion has lost its virtue and depravity ceased
to be crime Let this course Of degradation
in the American character go on, and the
scenes of declining Rome will be re-enacted
in our midst vice will take precedence of vir-
tue and our rulers will be outlaws and des-
peradoes. The quiet but moral citizen,
when his earthly career is ended, is silently
carried to his grave, and few friends stand
around it and mourn his departure. The
unobtrusive minister of the gospel, who has
spent a useful life in administering to the
spiritual wants of those placed by an over
ruling hand in his charge, when his labors
are over, is borne away by those that loved him,
to rest in forgotten obscurity. The learned
jurist or the great statesman, who, after a
brilliant useful career, shrouds his mortal in the
sleep that knows no waking, is, perhaps, borne
to his sepulchre in pomp and ceremony, sur
rounded by a thoughtless, heartless, gay and
glittering throng of his countrymen. But, LEI
the pugilist die let the great bully Of secret
political organization in our midst, I've sent
suddenly To his long home, by the reception
of fatal wound in drunken frolic, and q
costege of dazzling, unequalled splendor and as
tonishing apparent responsibility, attends upon
his funeral obsequies.
These thoughts were suggested, upon read.
ing, some time since, an article from the New
York Correspondent of the Buffalo Republic
from which we extract the following:
Who WAS BILL PooLE?-" Pooie's funeral
yesterday was very large one He was con.
nected with the order of U. A, and the turn.
out was so large as to make quiet people
who do not carry revolves, nor get drunk
daily, nor fight for a'living, ask each other BY
what new dispensation of Providence it cam,
about, nowadays, that outlaws and bullies
rOwdies, rum-suckers and gamblers by pro-
fession, when they happened to get the
deserts. and go home to their father, the devil
were buried with the hOnors of war; and haC
their bringing home blessed by the mos
reverend, the clergy; while pious folk, Su
lTeme Court Judges. and other magnates o.
virtue and respect, are Struggled out of sigh
as quietly as if the dead were burying the
dead. Prob pador! Primary elections ar,
at the bottom oft. Poole ,coS the great WI,
bully Of The Eighth Ward / remember hi
standing at the polls there stripped 10 has ,de5,
shirt, taking tickets oa Of the hands Of tindd me,
and forcing others on them, and knocking dom,
any PeaoeaJIe citizen iChO re,atured To hare {
political aciU Of has o,sn. only wonder tina
Seward or Thurlow Weed don't deliver :
funeral Grafton at his grave, and chronicle tn,
history Of one of the bravest centurions o
their Pr'etorian colbert of 'shoulder-hitters' il
this city,