The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1875-03-18

cities depends upon the exclusion Of the
non-freebolding rabble from the ballot-box.
Experience has demonstrated this absolute
necessity. 1t is well enough for eowardly
politicians in legislative bodies to prate
about 'Reform" and Economy aud talk
loudly about ''reconstructing city and town
governments The sport is worth the
candle since the innocent people are duped
and the demagogue is still blest with their
unthinking approval. He knows we'll
enough that no reform is effective, no change
augmentation of the number of offices or of
salaries signifies anything as long as the
tenure Of office depends upon purchasable
votes. AS light follows day so the Off
Ger is an epitOme in virtue and interest and
blackguardism of those that invest him
with office. He is no sooner elected than
he begins to use patronage and money to
assure a reelection, and the passion for
Office grows with qualification and this
hell-bOrn lust, as in Grants ease, would
spare neither public money, or the blood of
myriads of our race or an empires wealth
or country's organic law in comprising the
aims of ignorant ambition. Each vulgar,
corrupt, selfish, besotted alderman or other
municipal officer born of city's sans eul-
lOttes is only the impersonation of the vices
and interests of his electors. What slgEi-
fies, to such people, the rate Of taxation
They and their constituents squander or
steal the contents, but pay not groat
into the city treasury. They even lack,
in most instances, that sympathy
which distinguishes unity of race,
and the governing is of one, the taxpay
ing of another, and wholly different race.
Since municipal legislation affects nothing
but property, and does not deal with civic
or personal rights, there is no reason in
fact OF morals, save the moral cowardice of
demagogues, why the ballot-box, In munici
palities, towns, cities and counties, should
not be thoroughly expurgated. The New
York Egenihg Post, knowing nothing prac-
tically of the horrors of negro domination
in cities and recognizing only the one hun
dred and sixty millions of debt fastened
upon the city of New York by the de-
praved rabble, concludes an article on this
subject with the assertion that eff we de-
priVe the ignorant and unworthy and inca
pable of the right of suffrage in cities and
towns, we Wouid soon be induced to go fur
ther and exclude them, even in political
elections, from the ballot-box." In this
the Post confesses that we would be taught
the value of restricted suffrage, and in this
confesses all we ask, and there remains only
the question of nerve to face the dema-
gogue iu New York and the negro and his
newly-chosen masters in cities and towns of
the South. The Post is driven at last, by
its own reflections, to the impOtent concul-
sion, always reached by newspapers and
demagogues that. owe potency to. the rab-
BILE, and says:
Let the property owners, the substan-
tial classes of society, interest themselves
actively and constantly in city affairs, and
the evils incident to the rule of municipal
corporations by majorities will be speedily
abated."
The non-freeholding, city ruling mob is
inaccessible to deoeACy. It's forces are
gathered and organized in whisky dens and
hash houses and in filthy caverns, into
which light and cleanliness and decency
never enter. Nothing but money or prom
ises of money or whisky can be used effec-
lively, and even the Post hesitates, in the
face of these plain facts, to repeat the
absurd injunction. 1t is easy enough for
the editor to advise, but most difficult to
do. We would be pleased to see William
Cullen Bryant knocking down a voter on
the right, and thrusting q tincup of whisky
in the face of another on the left, after the
felicitous manner of the redoubtable Con-
gresham, John Morrissey. Or would the
Post buy forged certificates of registration,
fields and railways to prevent the election
of thieves by the same agencies and vile
practices employed in their elevation to
office? No, no! While the black rabble
votes, and especially where its superiority
in numbers is confessed, decency stands
aloof, even as the Post admits, and the in
telIigent people of New York are repelled
from voting places by disgusting incidents
of the hour, and by more deplorable results
of elections. New York City, groaning
under evils originating in no other source
than this, finds its party leaders constantly
discovering the origin of calamities in some
provision of the city charter, and this is
constantly amended, and the Legislature, at |
Albany, devotes half of each session, at the |
instigation of sharp fellows who would de-
lude the innocent people, to reforming the
city's organic law. They laugh in their
sleeves, and wink at one another, while |
duped taxpayers applaud. None know
better than these representatives of the
rabble and creatures of universal suf-
frage which means necessarily the dis
franchisement of intelligence and decency-
that no reform, however many changes are
is possible until the very fountain
itself-the ballot-box-whence all woes
flow, is purified.
AUSTIN WIVES AND DAUGHTERS,
AND RvILS OF SRRVANT-GALISm. !
The STATESMAN published, day or two
i