Delaware tribune. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1867-1877, 1870-09-29
OUR STATE CAMPAIGN
THE VITAL QUESTIONS AT ISSUE.

Letter to the Editor of tho Commercial md
Tribune.
SUSSEX COUNTY, Sept, 1870.
HOWARD M. JENKINS:
Dear Sir:-Your publications, the COMMERCIAL
and the TRIBUNE, are undoubtedly looked upon,
and justly 30, as the exponents of the Republican
Party in this State and that too, without any
disparagement of other journals which have
been, and will continue to be, faithful to the
cause.
Your speak Of large circulation for the TRI-
BuNE throughout the Peninsula; and, that your
statements are not idle observation everywhere
confirms. Your paper is attractive, and we'll
calculated to win its way into thousands of
homes. Its summary of general news is salts
factory and its local columns are really exhaus-
tive of everything of interest in the communities
where it crcuates.
Your vigorous and timely advocacy Of every
public or private enterprise that looks to the
moral or material advancement of your beautiful
city, as well as the State at large, should make
you hosts of powerful friends, and secure pat
ronage of such extent as to make your enterprise
pecuniarily profitable. You deserve to be, and I
hope to see you in the early future, the fresh
champion of new regime in our old Common
wealth, redeemed from the odous and blighting
shackle which 30 sadly repress her longings and
chafe and gall her ambition to leap forward en-
rapport with her progressive sisterhood.
need not tell you that your future-my flu
ture-the future Of us all who would see our
little State uplfted to its true level lies through
and beyond the toll and agony of a political rev.
olution within our borders.
A moral nightmare rests heavily upon us and
our breathing is stihed by a noxious miasm.
You may labor and strive, you may advocate
this reform and lend your aid to the other public
enterprise but until the government, the laws,
and the institutions which now obtain, are re-
moved from your pathway, you will be az power
less as Sampson bound in the withes. You may
encourage industrial enterprises, but on the
threshold you are met by an odious and discrim-
mating State law that lays an embargo upon
skill and hard-handed toll.
Would you encourage moral reforms! Iniqui-
ty, in the seats Of power and authority, laughs
in yourteeth and names you ''innovator." Would
you stimulate the thousands of idle to industry;
the thriftless to providence; the financially
wrecked to new launch on the fe-tide? The
cold-booded statutes arm the heartless Shylocks
with power to enter the home of the unfortunate
and strip the bed from an invalid wife, or the
last measure of meal from the starving children
Education may we'll claim your heartiest es-
pousal; but while miserable dynasty reigns
whose lease of power is perpetuated through ig-
norance and fraud, your ablest advocacy will
avail you little.
Immigration from a thousand over-populated
townships of the North and East looks longingly
to our genial cline and kindly soil, and you bid
it come. But your invitation, be it never go cor
dial inyokes taunt, and our odious laws and
medieval institutions are pointed at in derision.
A thousand causes for the good Of your kind,
enlist your eager sympathes, and l would not
abate your enthusiasm for any, nor would
dictate your method.
But, believing as l do, that political change
is the only thorough effective remedy for our ills
and the primary step toward reform IN SO many
personal bearing. Your paper, as before stated,
is regarded as Il party paper. You WELD a facle
and vigorous pen. We are in the midst OF
political campaign of incalculable Importance;
The Republican party ought to win, can win, and
shall win if we all with one accord do our duty.
Let us then to the rescue Have we q cause!
Let the people know it /! Is there difference
between Repubicanism and Democracy! reach
the people wherein the difference lies. Is the
State of Delaware laboring under and dragged
down by the miserable misrule OF the party IN
powerI Do we intend in the event of success
to change the condition Of things! Show the
people how and wherein.
Let us specify! We want facts, real and
tangible. Have We an odious, unjust and ineiti-
ciemt tax law Tell the oppressed people that
we expect to wipe it off the statue book and put
one in its place drafted by the peoples represent
tatives, and not by hired legal jobbers about the
Capital "a law that will be just, equitable, and
easily borne and efficient in paying the debt and
not alone, as the present, in putting money into
the pockets OF few place men for party pur-
poses. Are we earnestly in favorof reform in
the people that we intend to supersede the old
by a new one modelled after the most approved
and successful of other States.
Much of our penal code is a stencil i'll our
nostrils, a burning shame and disgrace to the
people and our criminal jurisprudence, in
many of its features, stands adjudged and con-
demned at the bar of enlightened public opinion
everywhere, and as q party OF progress and
reform we are towards and deserve defeat if we
shrink from facing the people in advocacy OF
thorough oyer-hauling of our Statute Book and
the adjustment of the same in harmony with
Christian civilization.
A family dynasty has entrenched itself behind
these bulwarks of money and invoked the name
of conservatism to shield it in its nfamy.
Iii the name of Justice a Thousand Infamous
wrongs are perpetrated. sliding scale is ad-
| usted in the administration of law, to shield or
| crush, as the subject may happen to be friend
| or foe to the 'powers that be-" Felony is COM
| pounded in the interests of party and innocence
| prosecuted on a pretext. Patronage Is dlstribu-
ted first to the imperial household, and, beyond
this to a set of the most ignorant, corrupt and
| shameless " shysters" whose only and all suii-
| cient claim for place is their INSCRIPTIONS ser
| vice of their masters.
| These grievous wrongs, so patent to all, must
| be righted through the ballot bor
| 1t can be done only through the success Of the
| Republican Party. 1t is therefore the duty of
every good citizen and particularly OF every Re-
publican to move determinedly for a reform, and,
| especially MIR. Jenkins, will it be held as your
duty, as the editor of your leading paper to keep
these vital issues constantly before the voters OF
this State; and that too not merely as abstract
questions but in their practical, partizan aspect
relations so that there shall be no misapprehen-
sion az to the doctrines we hold in matters SC
important You told us, in the beginning, that this
campaign should be no ''childs play and now let
us make good your prophecy.
Justly alarmed at the record they have wrought
and fearful of the results, upon the honest
masses of a fair discussion of the real questions
at issues, this hide bound Bourbon Democracy
attempt q diversion by mad and vehement or,
of "Nigger Equality" "White Mans Party,
and other stale and impotent parrot phrases
with which they hope again, as in the past tt
hood-wink the people, We need not waste time
to parry these windy thrusts, but. strike home
with the lance of truth, to the heart of the man.
Icing questions in which the people of the Stat
are to-day as greatly interested. And when W
have thrown this weak and wrecked party on tn
defensive, they will be as powerless as "Napo
leon the little and like him, will surrender, hav
ing no command" aggression is the policy
A0,D is Hie time!
1 am Yours, Very Truly,