The Grange advance., 1874-09-16
Onr Politics..

"uOuCSCI VIC uoVc AaN ou y 0"A"5 w
say on politics we have tried to say it
on the side Of purity and honesty, and
to advocate the election of reliable, Ca
pable men, on account Of their true
merit and ability. In doing this We
have tried to be impartial, as tar as all
existing parties were concerned, beleiv-
ing honestly that the great body Of vo
ters, of both parties, had 20 very great
extent if not altogether permitted the
parties to pass into the hands of men
who were not sought out by the people
to fill the Offices, but who sought the
Offices for, the little money aud honor
that they thought were in them. We
have had occasion to often criticise the
corruptions and generalization that
must necessarily grow ont Of such a
system. And we have endeavored to
make these criticisms impartially. and
in so doing we have not received any
greatlove FROM the miserable demagogues
aud wire pullers Of either Of the cor
rupt Office seeking machines into which
the parties have been converted.
OF course the miserable little papers,
who have got their living from the little
Offices or public printing that has been
given them as sop, not for any work
that they have done the country or the
cause Of justice, or to advance the cause
Of the great principles on which the
party was supposed to rest, but for SER
vices rendered in elevating some particu-
lar candidate or set Of candidates to a
nomination; We say such sheets have
endeavored to show that we belonged
to some opposition ring or clique falsely
called party. This has been done, too,
when we have said no more against
corruption and dishonesty than have the
more independent sheets of the party
to which they claimed to bow the knee
or than they had themselves said, per-
haps merely for effect, and these at
tacks may have been because they be-
lieved us in dead earnest. What we
have advocated is not an abandonment
Of one single principle, but that the
people should come forward and take
the management Of the government,
which has been lately captured by poll
ticians, back into their own hands and
make it in fact what it is in name peo-
pies government.
Now that the different parties have
made their nominations, what do we
see? Have the men that the people
wanted been nominated OF the men who
wanted the Offices.
Take the congressional nominations.
In the Sd District the man who is placed
in nomination converted all the proper
ty, for which he could find sale, into
ready cash before he knew that there
was even a corporars guard of the people
that had ever thought of him us their
representative in the halls of Congress,
and if the half of what his own sup
porters, with whom we have talked, is
true, started through his district buying
up men and newspapers as he had for
merly bought bulls.
Of this canvass the St. Paul Press,
who under the grand idea of the inde-
pendence and purity Of party journals
must now support this model Christian
Statesman, during the canvass said:
The present Congressional contest in this
district is likely to pass into history as the
most rotten and disgraceful which ever
stirred the Shiny depths Of political cor
! ruption. No such unblushing and syste.
| matte effort was ever made to debauch the
primaries and purchase votes and delegates
with open bribery as has been witnessed
in various parts Of this district during the
| last few weeks. It has become 80 loathsome
and sickening q scandal, that all honest
men turn away from it in disgust. If not
an entire new feature in our politics it
has heretofore been decently yelled in pru.
dent secrecy. But now the strumpet Of
corruption strides in naked horror over the
district, and opens her shameful market at
every caucus and convention, and brings
men to the herd like cattle and sheep.
i
Yet this ia the man who ia to ranra.