The Portland daily press., 1871-12-22
b PR ES9
..IDAY MORNING, DEC. ss' lsII


A oantIam.n who has for Hlahy So''i9 ~
.oa;do,,4s ,,f A 5o77,sta, most of the time IN an
ell ,,osition. tells us that he has known !
-. - he used as a means of influencing
-, e,,.os of members of the Legislature on
- t-,, occasions. One of these occasions
..,as 10 j. winter. when the Portland, Saco d
portsynoutha and the Boston & Maine roads 4
were scontending about the extension
of the latter thoroughfare to Portland The
other one was ON a similar occasion, some
wears since. Other gentlemen who are wen
with the secret history OF the
Legislature Of 1871 say that no money was
used by either road to buy the votes of mem me
bers. They merely employed as agents or
attorneys large number of outsiders who |
happened or were induced to go to the State |
capital. 1t is more pleasant and more rea-
sonable, perhaps, to believe the latter YER.
sion of the case, and we shall accordingly
assume that it is the true one. 1t may,
therefore, be assumed that hitherto legisla-
tion in the State Of Maine has not been in
tuenced by anything less legitimate than the
personal efforts of prominent men not mem
bers Of the law-making body. Possibly there
may have been one exception, but that is
matter dispute.
1t is not pleasant thing to find that the
policy of the State is spoken of by those VINO
wish to see different one adopted as an IL
liberaln 'unprogressive," Grip Van Win
lle'' one. Maine has escaped from Leglsla-
tive corruption, bribery and the worst phases
of log-rolling, because it has refused to adopt
the progressive ''enterprising'' policy OF
other States in respect to the use of the pub
lie money for the purpose of developing the
railroad system and other internal improve
ments. 1t has had one of the purest legisla-
tive bodies in the world, and the statutes it
has framed constitute one of the most I'M
mane, enlightened and ''advanced' a word
savoring too much of Woodhull) codes that
has ever been enacted by men.
But there will be an effort to change this
Sleepy Hollow way of living and legislating
this winter. There are those-men of great
influence and activity, too-who are deter
mined to put the State on the road to "pro-
gress." We freely acquit the greater number
of these agitators of desiring or even fore
seeing the consequences of their proposed
amendments to the constitution, but if they
succeed it is quite certain that we shall have
in five years-for evils are of rapid growth
a lobby as potent as Massachusetts boasts,
rings as successful as New York has produced,
,nonopolies as all-powerful as Pennsylvania
has developed. We shall Speedily have our
own little Tweeds, Camerons, Fisks, Scots
and Goulds. ~
People of Maine! You may as well under
stand first as last that an effort will be made
in more than one way this very winter to open
the Treasury for plunder! The approaching
session of the Legislature will be one of the
most important in the history of the State.
The State House will be the arena of the
fierce conflicts of railroad corporations and OF
the projectors of new railroad schemes. The eold
motto, ,obsta incipiis-"resist beginnings
is a good one Don't let the capitalists begin
the State, and we shall be safe for several de-
cades yet. 4it
If it is illiberal to be honest, if it is un-
progressive to promote the prosperity of the
masses instead of building up monied aris-
tocracy by the taxation oflabor, ifit is old
fogyish to subsidize cooperative associations
of laboring men instead of insuring million
aires from six to twenty-five per cent. inter-
est, if it is movement ''of Rip Van Winlle
origin" to build up the school system and
thereby insure less poverty, suffering and
crime that have existed hitherto, rather than
10 encourage monopoles-let us accept the
reproach and its consequences. Long live
rip Van Wrinkle! Let the State nail his flag
TO the mast head. If somnolence and virtue
ere inseparable, let us sleep. But is it so?
suppose, in pursuance Of the prevailing old
fashioned policy, the Legislature gives half
million dollars to schools instead of the $780,
600 Superintendent johnson asks-suppose,
if the subsidy system mast be introduced
aid be afforded to associations of workers to
enable them to divide the profits of their
work among themselves-what would be the
result - We believe it would rebound infin-
itely more than the so-cailed progressive pol
icy to the present virtue, intelligence and
happiness and to the ultimate material pres
perity of the people. The awakening of the
CIdlt WOuu Gutu De udbuldl dlu ucdltulul-
not one obtained by poison stimulants, in
ducing industrial paroxysms and mania, fol-
lowed by prostration And as for Rip Van
Wrinkle he would become tho -rnsiest. hearth.
est, happiest, clear liest, most active, irtelli-
gent and everyway reputable old gentlemen
in the world, for whom our sister States
would gladly exchange their Tweeds and
Fisks or even their Tom SCOTS.
THE attacks upon President Grant in Con-
gress Wednesday came from a legitimate
source. First, in the Senate, Mr.. Garulous Davis,
the representative of the Cross Roads De
mocracy of Kentucky, presenteda scurilous
order of inquiry, exactly in keeping with the
record of the man who brutally assailed the
great war minister Stanton after his death,
and demanded the removal of Gen. Grant in
1862 because he punished Kentucky spies.
Next, in the House, by Mr.. Campbell Of Ohio,
who has been place seeker in every party
and who now holds his seat in Congress by
disfranchising the manned soldiers of the Day
ton Asylum, and ballot-box stuffing. LASTLY
by Mr.. Biggs Of Delaware, who coupled his
abuse of the President with the glorification of
the pillory and the whipping post as the insti
tutions of his State, that he was justly proud
iif
MIR. FORSTER, the biographer of Charles
Dickens, reveals something of his early life 1t
now appears that at ten years of age Dickens