The daily Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1878-1???, 1880-10-29
GOV. CULLOM AND THE WORKING
MEN OF THE STATE.
East st. Louis Gazette.

regard for the constitution and the laws
did not allow him to sign that bill. That
as a lawyer he knew it would not, and
could not, be maintained and upheld if
tested in the courts. That to save the pco-
pie the trouble and expense OF finding this
out, he had pocketed it. He who uttered
such miserable excuses knew at the time
that he was lying, and Intentionally so. As
if Cullom cared for the constitution the
laws, or the decisions Of the courts of the
land in the way OFFS personal object of
his ownl
During the great railroad strike, in July
1877, certain officers of certain corpora
tons, were sadly disappointed at the ex-
ceedingly quiet course and termination of
that event. They had been painting for an
opportunity through the power of the gov
ernor, to teach the ''rabble,' as they styled
the workmen, who refused to work for
ninety cents a day, terrible lesson. They
had hoped that the strikers would commit
excuses, in our midst, in order to give
| them more or less colorado excuse for
bloodshed and future intimidation.
The conduct of the local authorities at
East St. LOUIS, tending to, and resulting in,
the profoundest peace and order, during
those exciting days, disappointed them Sc
verely. In anticipation OF another event
of the kind they intended to be in
better condition to attain their bloody pur-
pose.
Shelby NJ. Cullom, governor then, and
applicant for re. election now, was ready to
be their willing tool and potent instrument.
1t was determined that he assume control
of the local government of East st. Louis,
by the appointment of metropolitan police
commissioners, under an obsolete and most
infamous law, of 1867. Commissioners so
appointed, according to the letter Of that
law, are in times of peace clothed with the
powers which provost marshas have in
times OF war They are independent of
local authorities Judges, magistrates,
sherifs, mayors, constables, ETC., are made
their subordinates. They may employ, So
called policemen, without number, and
may arm and equip them as they please,
and all at the expense OF the city whose
only privilege it would be, were the law
valid, to pay the expense They are
bound to obey the governors orders
only. They must shoot when and where
he says Shoot and arrest and lock up,
even without a warrant, whomsoever his
excellency or they themselves, may
suspect as intending to commit a breach of
the peace. These are prominent features
of that law which Shelby NJ Cullom was
to execute IN behalf of the money power to
which he was ready to prostitute the great
authority and power, entrusted by the peo-
pie into his unworthy hands. Strange to
say, but not the less true, the man whose
conscience and legal attachments, did not
| allow him to permit to go into effect an
innocent truck BILL" which in New Jer-
sey is in full force, under the sanction of
the supreme court of that state could not
withstand the temptations, whatever they
were, cravenly to try to give force and eff
feet to so heinous and outrageous law as
the notorious metropolitan police law of
East St. Louis. We don't pretend to say
that Cullom was prompted thereunto by
corrupt motives. But why did he so
act, if not coTuptly2
While there is nothing in the recorded
| decisions of the courts of the state, denounc-
ing an unconstitutional, or as otherwise
obnoxious to common justice, the terms of
the Inflated "uuck bill" of the last session
of our legislature there have been in the
published reports Of the supreme court of
our state, of which Cullom, the lawyer, can
not claim to be ignorant, three several de-
cisions, rendered as early as 1870, each de-
claring the East st. Louis Metropolitan
police law of 1867, an abomination, an in
tolerable outrage upon free people, uncon-
stitutional and void.
Shelby M. Cullom, was not only not ig.
norant OF these decisions, but had them
specially submitted to him, before he acted.
More than that, the attorney general of the
state advised his excellency in writing to
the same effect. Yes, more than that, the
principle authorities of this county, both
republicans and Democrats, united in an
appeal to him, to not attempt to revive a
law which in the part, during its enforce
ment and before its condemnation by the
supreme court has been the cause of 50
much turmoil, disturbance and disaster to
one of the most promising and most pros
porous points in the state. He was i'm
plored to forego the infiction which the
disappointment Of such officers, in East ST.
Louis, would result in.
Shelby NJ. Cullom, as it were, spat upon
the repeated and unmistakable opinions of
the supreme court of the state, contemptu-
ously ignored the sound and honest counsel
Of the states chief law officer, and treating
with undisguised disdain the local remon-
strances of even political friends, in and out
of Office, fastened to do the bidding of the
moneyed mag by whose aid he expects
10 procure new lease of official lite, at the
next election.
We defy contradiction of the facts here
alleged, showing the demagoguery and
hypocrisy OF the republican candidate for
highes. Office in the gift Of the people of
this state.
Shlby M. Cullom's pretended conscien-
tous scrupes about the truck bill" is a
mask too thin to deceive the most simple
of minds. The working people of the state
are not such fools as he takes them to be.
Not by the honest votes of laboring men,
but by the money of his bosses and the cor