The Portland daily press., 1880-08-14
NAMES DUTY.
A View from an Independent Stand
point.
boston Herald

Boston Herald
The thing that needs to be done first of all
and most of all in Maine this year is to put
the seal of public condemnation upon the out
rageous attempt made to reverse the result of
the last election by chicanery and fraud, and
to rebuke, as it deserves to be rebuked, the
shameless political alliance that is now Haunted
in the face of the honest people of that state
under the name of "Fusion. The facts in the
case are of so recent occurrence, and were so
indisputable in their nature, that no rehearsal
OF them is necessary. 1t was made perfectly
plain that a job was put up, with the conniv-
ance of high state officials, deliberately to steal
the state government 1t involved all the
crimes against the elective franchise which
the rapid evolution of political rascality has
developed in this country, from fraud to force.
The conspirators lacked nothing except the
courage to accomplish the overthrow of pop
ular rights in this steady-going down-east COM
munity. Their plan was the meanest form of
Mexicanization applied to elections spirit
of revolution without its bravery, the lust for
Office without its final daring. They pursued
their office up to the very point of throwing
pretended government until they had sue
ceeded in making themselves as ridiculous as
they were proven to be guilty, and then
sneaked home in the "dont-want 'er-fght''
fashion characteristics of their kidney. And
now they have the effrontery to renew their
unprincipled union, and to ask the voters of
the state to band over to their custody the stol-
en- goods that were rescued from their possess
ion. 1t is the most case-hardened exhibition
of "cheek"ever witnessed inAmerican politics.
Tweed's return to run for Governor of New
York, after his escape from jail, would have
been piece of blushing modesty compared
with this; for he only robbed a city of its mon
ey, while the Maine Fusiouists attempted to
rob state of its rights We maintain, there
fore, that the condemnation of fraud and con-
spiracy is the first duty of the Maine voters.
The Republicans could scarcely avoid making
capital out of the affair-or rather of appro-
priating the capital already made for them by
the opposition. A rousing majority in Sep
TENDER will undoubtedly accrue to,their advan-
tage in the November election. No matter.
The coming election is the opportunity and
the only one, which the citizens of Maine will
have to place onrecord their opinion of such
transactions as disgraced their state last year
II it shall turn out that a high-handed attempt
at revolution, conceived in fraudi and tenn
pered only by neutrality-suspicious. by a
fragrant disregard alike of judicial decisions
and of popular rights-is thing TO be forgot
ten because it failed, we shall hope to hear no
more down-east homilies on public virtue, nor
any further expressions of simulated horror
over the election outrages at the South. If
Maine, with its 100 years of freedom, schools
and churches, can so easily condone the prov
en- rascalities of its high officials, her people
should view with a lenient eye the petty crook
edness of the benighted crossroads in Ala
bama and the dark ways of the southern re-
turning boards in 1876. The Pine Tree state,
if she neglects her plain duty this year, will
offices from which the adage warns us it IS
unssfe to throw stones