Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-02-24
lanraster fntelltqe,1cer.
TUESDAY EVENING, FEB. "a, 1880.
The Responsibility For II.

AHC nCSPVuSAUlAlty IVI Ats
The Philadelphia Erening Telegraph,
very respectable and reliable Republi-
can paper, makes some remarkable
charges concerning the prostitution of
the machinery of justice - in that city to
" serve the exigencies " of political par
ties. If the courts there do not take no
tice of the 1elegraph's intimations about
the q imposition practiced upon them
and the disgrace attaching" to them,
it can only lie because they do not feel
that such a procedure could relieve
them from the public contempt into
which so many courts in this land have
fallen, because Of their prostitution to
personal and political service.
David Mouat, select councilman and
one of Prothonotary VIM. B. Mann's
deputies, has admitted in court that ne
boldly entered the room where certain
election officers were engaged in the
count last Tuesday, and altered return
from IS to IS for candidate to whom he
was opposed. The Telegraph says he was
embOldened to commit this outrageous
fraud and make impudent admission of
it, because of his assurance tha. political
influences will rise superior to the ma
chiIery of justice and, somehow or
other, deliver him from the power of the
law. If this charge can be sustained the
Telegraph is right in its position
that. atrOciOus as Mouat'S crime is,
Ian &c 1>o IL I'D
for what he did as the society whose lax
ity has taught him that he could do it
with impunity. 1t declares it to he the
unwritten law of the quarter sessions" :"
in Philadelphia, that g guilt sustained by
political influence is as good as innocence
that can he proved and very much better
than innocence that can not be-" This
is a fearful condition of things to be
charged against society. For, the foun-
tains of justice corrupted or tainted,
every stream that flows therefrOm is pol
luted {; and the Sanctity of the courts
invaded 10y the political spoilsmen the
last hope of free people is gone.
The common mind is quick to appre-
hend the fact that political offenders
escape accountability for their miSdeeds,
and there is scarcely locality in the
commonwealth where this spectacle is
not presented. Whether it be due to the
general Indifference of the community
touching such violations of law, or to
the corruption of district attorneys, or to
the incompetency and partisan weakness
of courts-or in what degree to each one
of these in different sections-we shall
not undertake to determine but we are
certain that the remedy must come
through reform in each one of these
directions. The courts must Straighten
up and hold their prosecuting officers to
stricter conduct; the commonwealth S
agents must enforce the law with more
severity ,unsparingly against all offenders;
and only with such examples before them
can the public he expected to arouse
themselves to resist the wrongs perpe-
trated upon 4 free people.
For eleven years, at least, by the con-
fesSion OF their own organs, the Repub-
lican politicians of this county have
made one election after another "a earn
iyal of frauds" Beginning with the bold
alteration of returns in the Geary cam
paign, the record of forged naturaliza
ton papers, bogus tax receipts and other
crimes is 4 very dark one, intensified by
the fact that in every instance justice
has been powerless to vindicate herself.
The Examiner and the Neu Era demon
strate annually that large proportion of
the active politicians in their party are
bummers and return tinkers, poor-house
jObbers and prison ringsters, fOrgers of
naturalization papers, jail-birds, bogus
tax receipt swindlers and plunderers of
the city. When has any one of them been
brought to book by the machinery of
Justice?
We have seen one district attorney
prostitute his office and deceive the court
into getting political offender off and
the court never subsequently inquired
into the circumstances of the case. We
have seen his successor indicted for a
political Offense and, escaping by tech
nicality, abuse his office by multiplying
indictments and piling up illegal fees,
and no serious obstacle to his malversion
was ever interposed by the court and
more recently, the machinery of justice
being prostituted to save 1.-The best Re-
publican workers. in the ward, we have
seen that the court did not feel called
to take cognizance of the imposition
practised upon it and the disgrace at
taching to the administration of justice,
except to institute proceedings against
those who criticised it's failure.
So that when the time comes to make
up the reckoning there is a chance for a
just distribution of the responsibility.
THE time and place for holding the