The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-04-06
SPIRIT or THE PRESS.
EDITORIAL OPINIONS OF THE LEADING JOURNALS
UPON CURRENT ToPICs--ooMPILED EVERY
DAY FOR THE EVENING TELEGRAPH.
WHAT THE COUNTRY THINKS OF THE
CORRUPT DEMOCRATS.

CORRUPG DEMOOhALO.
From the NJ Y. Times.
It would be q great satisfaction to us as
Republicans to have the Democratic party
carry the Tammany gang on their shoulders
in the next Presidential struggle. The con-
test would be comparatively easy one The
immense power ard influence of this gang of
adventures are now mainly confined to this
city and State. Here the money they have
plundered, and the hundreds of petty offices
they can distribute, and the rabble they COM
mand, give them great weight in all our po-
itical affairs. The accumulation of an lgno-
rant foreign population in this city and the
slower counties" is throwiDRgevery year a
heavier vote into their hands, which they are
not slow to increase by any dishonest means.
Uniting this vote with that of the more re-
spectacle rural Democracy, they have been
enabled to elect the Governor of the State,
to control the Legislature, and to pass laws
whereby they have acquired absolute power
over the income of this wealthy metropolis.
Imposing, however, as is the position of
the "Ring" in this city and this portion of the
State, they have thus far little power outside
of it, and are daily losing influence with their
own more honest supporters in the rural dis
tricts. If we pass beyond the limits of New
York State, the name of this audacious and
unprincipled band of rogues and adventurers
is "a byword and kissing" to all honest men,
In the West it is we'll understood that the
Erie gamblers and their lawyers, the courts
and judges who protect them, the Tweeds,
Sweenys, and Connolys who now receive the
rich income of this city and have become
millionaires themselves, the "roughs" and
s'repeaters" and ward politicians who have
so long aided to elect them, with Governor
Hoffman at the head of all, form together
one vast and INSCRIPTIONS "Ring,' which
now seeks to obtain control of the National
Government. The character of this set of
scamps is enough to ruin Governor Hoffman
forever, if he is presented by them as their
chosen candidate for the Presidency No
party in the Union could carry round its neck
such weight as the New York Ring.
Even in the neighboring State of Oonnecti-
cut, where these adventurers could employ
money and personal influence as they never
could in more distant communities, we have
seen how the well-founded rumor that the
Democratic Governor was in collusion with
Tweed has been one of the principal causes
of his defeat In our own State, we venture
to predict that this triumph in Connecticut is
the sign of the approaching storm which shall
sweep away the Ring and its works from
public sight for many years. Without doubt,
next year the Republicans will carry both
branches of our Legislature, and then it will
be hard if New York, its beautiful parks, its
Boards of Education and Charities, its
finances and police, cannot be rescued from
the hands of an ignorant and rapacious fac
ton.
The truth is that the rural population in
this and other States still retains the genuine
American pluck and honesty, and will not
suffer themselves to be utterly at the disposal
of the most notorious gang of sharpers and
adventurers who ever infested a civilized
community. The marble palaces" and
countless city lots, and splendid equipages,
and innumerable offices in the hands of Fisk
and Sweeny and Tweed, do not impose on the
honest yeomanry of Western New York or
Connecticut or our neighboring States These
trophies are to them merely the signs of dis
honesty and successful gambling. AS Re-
publicans, we might desire above all things
that the Democratic party of the Union
should present the chosen champion of the
Erie and Tammany Ring as their candidate
for the highest Office Of the Union, The
prospect before our rursil community of hav-
ing the performances of Fisk and Gould, of
Tweed, and Sweeny, and Connolly, repeated
on grander scale in Washington and through
out the country, would make the course clear
for any Republican candidate. But on higher
grounds we should prefer, for the honor OF
the Republic, that no party, even by nomi
nation which had no chances of success
should ever place the stamp of approval on
set of men whose offenses are disgrace tc
our civilization and danger to the success
of free principles.