Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-09-13
Tho Star Rnnte Yerdicts.

The jury in the star route cases nave
brought themselves into well-merlteo
ridicule and suspicion by the farcical
verdict which they rendered Monday.
The idea of finding the small fry OF the
Miner and Rerdell-guilty,
acauitting a dead man wEo was not on
trial and declaring their inability to
agree regarding Brady and the two
Dorseys-who were confessed to be
the head and front of the swindles
nerpetrated on the government.
and who had feathered their nests
so nicely that they could afford to spend
money like water to prevent verdict
of guilty-wass to use the homely par
lance Of the present day, "entirely too
thin. After such verdict, the won
derful exhibition of virtue on the part of
the foreman of the jury, and his we'll
assumed indignation at the confessed Of
fers of bribery TO the jurors. must fail of
effect 1t may not be true, of course,
that the jury was successfully fixed"
but circumstances point that way so
conclusively that the public will never
believe otherwise.
Every sensible man in the United
States is just as firmly convinced of the
guilt of the indicted conspirators as he is
that Hayes secured the Presidency of
the United States by fragrant fraud The
criminals have, by their own course,
long since convicted themselves. But if
there was any shadow of doubt left in
the minds of the public that they were
guilty, the verdict has removed it. 1t
was just simply impossible for Rerdell,
Brady's private secretary, to have been
guilty and Brady himself to have been
innocent. Even if the latter did not
participate in Rerdell's gains. he certainly
must have been privy to them, aud en-
couraged him in his crooked practices.
The two were associated too intimately
for there to have existed any other state
of affairs.
The verdict, while it virtually sets the
alleged conspiratOrs free to concoct SINH
lar schemes in future, can do neither
them nor the party with which they have
so long been prominently identified any
good. AS we have said, the result is
just suspicious enough to clinch popular
opinion against them, while their known
connection with past political conspira-
cies of the Radical party must
tend to bring that party into
greater odium than ever. Whether
this will have the effect of defeating the
party this fall or not remains to be seen.
1t ought to assist in doing so, and all the
indications are that it, together with the
record made by the recent Keifer-Robe-
son Congress, will do so. Still Radi
calism has been guilty of many serious
and grave crimes before, and yet has
triUmphed. The populations and cor
Iuptions of the Grant regime did awake
the people to a squirt of virtue in 1874,
and caused them to dethrOne
the party which had brought
so much disgrace on the American
name. Still that outburst of virtue was
very shortlived, for in 1880 again the
voters saw fit to entrust the reins of gov.
eminent into Radical hands. The result
we all know, but that sufficient disgust
has been excited to doom the party is
certainly a matter of doubt. In less
than two months now the voters will
have an opportunity to render their YER
dict at the polls, and prove whether OF
not Bob IngersOll spoke truth when he
declared the American people were not
demoralized. 1t must be confessed that
while we hope for favorable verdict,
the denomination of Robson in New
Jersey and the result of the Maine cleo
ton give grounds for apprehension.