The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1874-05-28
The Reign of Corruption in South Caro-

lima.
Judge Mackey, one of the fercest and most
uucompromising Radicals in the State, deliv-
cred political address recently in Sumter,
where he had presided at the Court of General
Sessions. We are not possessed of any great
amount of faith in the integrity and honesty OF
Judge Mackey as politician, much less as
reformer. He was the chief fugleman of Scott,
and was an untiring advocate of Moses in"the
nominating convention, where he delivered
bitter and unrelenting speech against all oppo-
nents As reform is somewhat more popular
now than it was two years ago, Judge Mackey
is riding this horse with unexampled freedom,
and certainly paints the picture of our degra-
dation with master hand. We make the fol-
lowing extracts from the report his speech by
the Sumter Watchnaan:
BE believed that his party WAS now on its
trial in this State. If it arose in its might and
threw off the load of corruption, which now
made South Carolina the disgrace of American
States, he believed it would continue to prevail
here. If it did not if the same corruption in
the administration was again attempted, he
believed the Republican party would never
again hold a convention in single county In
the State. He had full confidence in the re-
generation of the party, and thought the reform
would be complete. He argued that the party
would last forever, because it was founded in
truth and Justice, while the bad men who had
betrayed their trusts would pass away. Admit
ting that the principles of both parties were
identically the same, he called upon the white
conservatives to come into the ranks OF the
! II 70 Of
the people, and help them to clean out the
house, and to elect honest and upright men to
fill the offices of the State and county govern
ments He said that the opposition could do
no good by waiting, like the farmer on the
banks of the Mississippi waiting for the river
to run dry. He said the Conservatives were
looking forward to some change that would
never take place; that was natural; the people
in this State were the most sangllne people IN
the world. The Republicans could not leave
their party because they constituted but small
portion of that great national organization
which dominated twenty-seven States OF the
Union; and to ask Republicans to abandon
their party was like expecting the brave soldier
who commands small fortress on the extreme
flank of all army to surrender his post into the
hands of the enemy.
He denounced the shameful nalpractices of
the ruling politicians in South Carolina, and
admitted that for the past five years the gov
ernment of the State, in all its departments,
was complete and total failure. The princi-
pies were good, but the men who perverted
them for private gain were bad He showed
how in Georgia the corruption of the Office
holders had so wrecked the party, that whereas
four years ago the Republicans were all power
full in that State now there was not single
county where Republican convention is held.
Mississippi, louisiana and Arkansas were suf-
fering from bad and corrupt governments. Even
the terrible overflow of the Mississippi, the
largest river in the world where one hundred
thousand whites and one hundred thousand
poor colorcd laborers were rendered homeless,
and are now starving, he showed was owing to
Republican corruption and pecuation. Thirty
millions of dollars had been appropriated by
the various States along its banks to keep the
great earthen ramparts in repair, but the mon
ey had been stolen, and now vast territory is
suffering, and the finest lands in the world are
covered with the angry waters of that great
river flowing through it's entire length, but the
waters of corruption wash its surface from the
salt sea to the peaks of its mountain tops.
He then attacked the management of the
school funds. He showed that the schools es-
tabished especially for the poor white and the
colored men, were less efficient in 1873 than
they were before the war, say in 1859 because,
although the school population was now three
times as large as then, yet the schools were
then open ten months in the year, and now they
only average t,co months. Yet 100000 was
taken from the people especially for the com.
mon schools 1t availed nothing that the lamp
was kept burning in the public treasury; it
mattered not that the faithful sentinel kept
watch outside of the door, if the enemy was
safe within the stone walls of the treasury OF
the State itself Judge Mackey spoke with
great earnestness in describing the blighting
effect of high taxation upon the poor. He truly
stated that the laboring classes paid all the
taxes in fact The taxpayers were of two class
es, those who paid the taxes directly, and those
who paid them indirectly. The poor man who
had nothing but the labor of his strong arms,
paid all the taxes in the end. He sprinkled
the taxes in the salt with which he seasoned his
corn meal the taxes creaked in the dear bro
gans he wore on his weary feet; he groaned out
the taxes at the point of the high priced plough
share; he hammered at the taxes with every
blow of the blacksmth's hammer working
dear iron on high-priced anvil. The land
owner who was assessed last year 81 per acre,
and this year IS, was obliged to raise his rent
in proportion. The merchant distributed the
high taxes which he had to pay, through bis
goods and made his customers pay them IN
the increased prices of every article of con-
sumption.