Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1879-10-03
FRIDAY MORNING. OCT. 8, 1879.

Tt becomes daily more evident as this
campaign in Virginia progresses that that
eminent statesman, Dennis Kearney. has
missed the opportunity of his life in not
possessing commission from Mozart
Hall as canvasser. When we hear it said
from the hustings. and said to an intelli-
gent company Of men that ''the preachers
with fat salaries not those poor ones that
preach around here you know'' are array
ed against the people; that "the newspa-
pers always 60 with the money side' and
that ''the politicians are going the same
way" the uppe1most thought before seeing
the speaker, is, that Mr.. Kearney himself,
has arrived. Apart from the falsity of
these things, the feeling sought to be in
culcated is detestable. And as dangerous
as detestable. Dangerous to any man that
makes his living by his labor, and more
dangerous to him than to any one else,
because they instil a feeling of apprehen-
sion that is unfavorable to enterprise and
progress those two things that distribute
money to laboring men. If any one of
these foolish takers was working man.
these appeals, however incendiary and
foolish, would at least have the resem-
blance of appropriateness. But among
them you will see a county court lawyer
who never struck lick Of work in his life
and who has comfortable income from
his practice and perhaps the finest resi-
dence in his city, bewailing the burdens
of the people [of which by the way he
himself is amcng the heaviest) and de-
nouncing ssrings of county court lawyers. "
Another, professional office holder who
has held many and boasts Of it. be-
walls the wrongs the people suffer
from the Office holders. Another.
who is utterly bankrupt and whose
memory does not run back to the
time his creditors could make dollar
out of him, denounces the high taxes, OF
which the capitation is the only one OF
which he knows anything. Yet another
who was defeated in his district for office
every year since the war, denounces the
office-seekers. And SO on with the list. II
is no argument of the question, it is true,
that these men are what they are, but it
is a question for the people to ask why
they should be their special advocates
Not only question for them to ask, but
for these agitators to answer. If these
men dropped their demagoguery and
argued the debt question as a question OF
State, they would not have to account for
their special interest in it, for every citi
zen has a right, and duty, too. to
that. But when they drop argument and
leap into appeals to the passions and pre-
JUDGES Of those they address they should
account for their presence as simple
agitators.
A man may be bankrupt, he may bf
honestly ambitious for public position
and he may conscientiously make living
at law, and yet be entitled to speak from
every hastings in the State; but when he
assumes the role of Dennis Kearney, and
attempts to ride into position upon the
prejudices Of people, exciting the pas
sions instead of instructing the minds
of his hearers, he should be deprived Of
public place, and if not already in his
entrance should be barred by that wise
conservatism, which in this State per
vades the masses of the people from thu
humblest to the highest.