The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1875-09-30

brag, are written by others by the job.
The little pretense of retrenchment,
which constitute his chief claim to popu-
lar favor, is no more his work than was
tie transit of Venus. His action in the
railroad controversy is extolled, but the
narrowest of his own party can now see
that it could not have been worse. The
Potter Law was the offspring of a senti-
ment which had grown up in both
parties. 1t had the backing of the whole
veop'e All that was needed was to
meet the objections of the railroads in
the Courts of last resort. But the Gov
arnor saw an opportunity for demogoglc
display. In order to advertise himself
as the great champion of anti-monopoly
he raised a hue and cry, stirred ND
feeling of resentment and all sorts of
petty prosecutions by justices aud pet
tifoggers in want of q job, and loafers in
want of a witness fee. In this way and
by his proclamation he created the i'm
preston abroad that the people of the
State were actuated by malignant spite
against railroads, which has struck dead
ali railroad enterprise for years to come
in the State, and caused foreign enter
prise and capital to shun il as they would
communists or cannibals. The course
he advised was so suicidal to the interests
of the State that the judges III deciding
the Potter Law to be valid, felt called
upon to rebuke 1t. It placed the people
in false position to the lasting detri-
ment OF the State.
By this cold blooded desertion of his
friends, having no nerve to stand by
them in pressure, he has lost legions
of Democratic workers who sweat for
him two years ago. They believe that a
false friend cannot be faithful servant.
Taylor's bitterest enemies are those
whom his 1ngratitude has made. His
admirers, outside of the family organ,
are confined to toadies for hire of the
Slaughter school, and to starveiing edit
ors, called in from the country and paid
out of the State treasury for sitting at
clerks desks in the Capitol, and writing
false and fulsome praises of the Cover
nor for bucOlic perusal. Unfortunately
their laudation, like all that is extravag
ant and undeserved, amounts to satire,
and makes its object appear another
Sancho Panza.
The shoddy character of the Reform
administration is most ludicrously ex-
hibited in the electioneering show bill
put forth before the convention to pre-
| is prepared on the patent-medicine ad-
vertisement plan, with tawdry portrait
| of Gov. Taylor. hair brushed up, and
| looking as portly and gubernauorial as a
quack doctors picture. The turgid
laudation of his exploits in doctoring
sickly finances and restoring health to a
languid body polite, which these hand
| bills contain, are in rhetoric and veracity
a mere parody on Helmbold's Buchu
Almanac. But quackery IN politics, as
in medicine, rarely fools the same fani-
/ ly but once. The hardheaded Demo
cracy of Wisconsin hate show and pre-
tension in politics rs they hate water in
whiskey or political sermons. With all
| their faults they have always admired
brains and ability. Hence, not Taylor
any more. The pet names which even
| his supporters bestow upon him would
| starve the vanity of Diogenes.
| The chief argument used III favor of
Taylor is that he has saved largely to the
! State by retrenchment. Five hundred
dollars day saved to the taxpayers" is
| the chorus. 1t is hoped that there is
such dense ignorance of State affairs
that this terse falsehood will find cred
ence and be easily learned. A word of
| explanation Cissipates it into thin air.
Wisconsin has been, under Republican
rule, notably a frugally governed State.
Not niggardly, she has built and sup
ports number of charitable institutions
and has an elegant Capitol. The build
ings were honestly built, under Repub-
lican rule, without fraud and specula-
ton by contractors, who remain poor.
They were all completed and furnished
when the Reform party came in. Large
appropriations were no longer needed.
Set up in political housekeeping, with
everything furnished to hand, it is no
credit TO the administration that it has
retrenched so much, but to its discredit
that it has not retrenched more. Its af
lection of economy will not survive a
reelection. Hunger overcomes man
ners, and rapacity such as animates its
hordes will not miss its opportunity.