Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-05-23

MONDAY EVENING, NAY %, 1881.

AdllIdSkEI' ESllElSA4EIICEC.
MONDAY EVENING, NAY %. 1881.
All Tarred With the Same Stick.
The Republicans have had another
primary election in this county, and
surely nothing that the INTELLIGENCER
has ever said about the vileness OF their
and its best workers Is SO
strong as what they are now saying
about each other and in their news
papers. For weeks this community has
been infected with the lOathsome con-
tasion of political corruption, arising
from the struggle here between two
rival rings struggling by all bad devices
for the spoils of Office. All reports agree,
and our personal observation con-
firms it, that these rings were
never more reckless and INSCRIPTIONS
in the employment of such devices.
Without doubt the larger portion of bet
ter citizens fingered with the Ne,c Era
faction, trusting somewhat to its pledges
of reform, and to the character of it's
among whom there were
fewer political hacks and candidates in
whom the roosters had 50 large a specu-
lative interest rs on the other side and
to this confidence that faction is largely
indebted for the decided victory it has
won. Somewhat, too, it owes to its bet
ter organization and bolder plan of cam.
psign, selecting a full ticket and
strengthening its combination in the
strongholds of the opposition. But, after
all, far more voters than the majority
which any of ITS candidates has received,
were gained for them by the kind Of
men and the sort of means which it
processes, through its organ, to de-
nOllnce, and to which the public can
never look for the elevation to Office Of
men untrammeled by obligations incon-
sistent with honest fealty to public in
tcrest. The effective practical work of
the Ner Era faction was largely contri-
buted by Levi Sensenig and his camp
followers, and that fact makes the claim
ed victory of the Citizen Reform"
ticket as insincere as the triumph of
''refOrm'' in the name of McMellel-
johnson & Co., three years ago,
is now admitted to have been by the
very men who crOwed most loudly over
it then.
The INTELLIGENCER pointed out
then, to the sincere rs we'll as to the
hypOcritical friends of reform" that no
good could come out of the victory
of such political harlots as McMeIlen and
j. w. johnson even over Sensenig, HES
tand, Brown Il Co. Neither can we see
now any better prospect since McMellen
and Sensenig and their respective allies
have changed their sides without any
Change of their principles or their
methods. On last Saturday votes were
bought just rs slrsmelessly and paid for
just rs cIleerfully by the I,efOrmers -
in the Second, Fourth and Sixth wards
a by the no less dishonest but less hyp-
Ocritical, ROSTERS on the other side in the
Third and Eighth; and all over the city,
if not all over the county, this primary
election was an Orgie of fraud, an
auction of votes, an utter abandonment
of every pretense to political fairness or
rcctitude among those who conducted it..
Out of such stew of corruption there
c:.n only emanate the black spawn of
fraud. No ticket can I've born from such
travail that is entitled TO any respect as
the fair nomination of a dominant party.
Scarcely half the Republican voters par
ticipatel in Saturdays election fairly
and freely. 1t was only a race of the
rascals and the competition of their cor
rupLion funds, which, we are assured,
ran up asl,igh Us 81, 900 Or Sc, 900 on each
side.
1t really matters little to the public
who is nominated in such acOntest. The
stream cannot get above its fountain.
The men who get on the ticket will not
forget those who put them there, nor re-
pudiate the means employed to do it.
1t does matter 4 great deal, however, to
our citizens that this sort of thing should
run riot no longer. Our youth are being
tainted deeply 10y it; the morals of the
whole community are impaired by the
scenes attending these primary elec-
tiOlls the conduct of the general
elections is largely affected by the
practices put in vogue. Neither
of the two factions now struggling for
the mastery is guiltless. From the de-
feat or victory of none of these can re-
lief Ike expected. Places won by such
means will he employed to perpetuate
them. The leaven of true reform can
only work among honest men, and as
yet the Republican party of Lancaster
county shows itself painfully destitute of
men of this class, who have the brains
and the courage to scOurge its party of
the thieves and money changers who
now pollute its organization and breed
pestilence in the whole body polite.
CONKLING and Platt have agreed to
stand for reelection. Nothing else was
left item to do by the course of their
had forced the fighting
by organizing for their defeat. They
will 20 to Albany and demand a caucus
and submission to its will, because they
believe they can command a majority of