The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1860-10-08

The issues to be decided here on Wednesday con-
Germ men rather than measures. The people are
not called on TO accept or reject any special
line of local policy but TO determine which
of the two lists of candidates is most
entitled to their confidence and support.
Who AT this iuncture can best be entrusted to ad-
minister the affairs Of this city honestly, intel-
gently and firmly? Before this inquiry can be sat-
isacorily answered it is necessary to take into ac-
count the integrity and capacity Of the nominees
in the various wards and also the character and
antecedents of the organ cations parties by
whom these candidates were brought forward and
are now sustained. 1t may be safely presumed
that the qualifications mental and moral, of the
different aspIrants will be thoroughly canvassed
in those sections of the city in which they respec-
lively reside but the other consideration by which
their fitness is also TO be tested is Of more gen.
eral nature and may be in some degree overlook
ed, and we feel, therefore, that cannot advert
to it too often. Leaving out of sight then for the
moment the individual merits or dement's of the
candidates, it may be asked whether the people of
Baltimore are still willing to confde their rights
and interests to the keeping of those in whose
hands they have been for the last four years? The
opponents of municipal reform are the
identical men who have countenanced the
misrule of the past by apologizing for
every enormity that has been perpetrated in
our midst. They not only failed to check the
corruption that was at work in the Councils, or
TO repress the ruflianism which rioted in the
Streets but they refused to credit or even hear the
complaints of the sufferers. They not merely de-
MED protection to the citizen when be urgently
demanded it, but they asserted that lie had not
been wronged even though he may have been
imprisoned for days in a den of thieves within
sight of the Mayors Office, or pricked with avis
and menaced with rifles in the open streets and in
the very presence Of the police. 1t is answer TO
all this 10 say that such matters are bygoues now,
and that similar atrocities will never be tolerated
more. They who tell so to-day are the same
men who had outlaws for their allies Yesterday,
and it is sheer faulty to entrnst our destnies to
them tomorrow. They promise, it Is >~ue, to take
up the work of reform themselves, but Wis.,
reliance Is 10 Oe placed upon them in view of the
pledge they made year ago, and the results that
followed it. They asserted just prior to the last
municipal election their determination to discard
at least in their nominations the ruilans with
whom they had been so long in league and yet
several Of the candidates who were regularly
brought forward Immediately after that declara-
ton were of such abandoned lives and char
acter, that some of those who had never
before shrunk from contact with useful
bully, were compelled to denounce Them The
greater number of those upon the anti-Reform
lit, e 4
who were thus elected City Councilman and
n Magistrate have already been tried for murder,
and Constable is now under Indictment for the
same crime. With the minor offences of many others
the public is already too familiar. Notwithstanding
all this, the party which is wholly responsible for
the evils against which we so long vainly strug-
ged and protested, again challenges the sufrages
of the people They who denied the necessity for
any reform whatever-who stigmatised those who
advocated it as members of Vigilance Committee
and who suffered the Reformers to be driven
from the polls amid the eers of the police and the
yelis of brutal mobs- appeal again to the citizens
for support. Under the pressure of an indignant
and adverse public sentiment they have placed
more decent men in the seats in their Conventions
which were once filled by desperadoes from the
clubs and they protest that they desire to see law
and order established in Baltimore for all time to
come. Are they to be trusted, or shall we conide
rather in those who, in throwing open the ballot
box and providing adequate protection for the
humblest citizen, have already given sufficient evil
dence of the earnestness and honesty with which
they will consummate the good work of municipal
reform? We cannot doubt how the people will
decide this question.