Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1882-04-22
" THE GODS TRUTH
REPUBLICAN ROTTENNEss sALr CON-
IESSED.

All Manner of Shames and Crimes Frankly
Admitted.
We make the following extracts from an
address issued by the Republican "Com-
mittee of Seventy-Two," of this county,
on the eve Of the primary elections of that
party. 1t is signed by Chairman Abram
Kline, who is Wolfe Independent and
was curbstore delegate " to Chicago,
and by Secretary G. Glenn. Kennedy, who
is in good and regular standing in tho
local Republican party:
For twenty years Lancaster county has
been rent by the bitterness of factional
strife, and the tone of its political life has
been gradually lowered until it has become
a subject Of comment not only in the state
but elsewhere. During that period the
public has been frequently startled by the
enOrmity Of crimes committed in the SER
vice Of the powerful interests that were
again and again combined to defeat the
will of the people, and though it has wit
messed leader after leader go down in the
struggle, it has only been to see
their places filed by others who served
their masters more skilfully, obeyed
them more abjectly, and Judged
human nature more meanly than ever.
The county has seen its old men grow
Indifferent and its young men debauched
as they stepped into the political arena.
1t has witnessed perjury, forgery and
every species of crime successfully en-
ployed in the Justification Of the popular
verdict, until it is doubtful if there has
been an entirely fair Republican primary
aln %h4 Loot
secondary result tho public officers who
have been elected have in many cases com.
mitted wilful and direct perjury upon the
used their positions afterwards as high
wayman would use his weapons to plumber
every one with whom their official duties
brought them in contact.
The charitable and penal institutions OF
the county have likewise been used as a
part of the political enginery, until in
many instances it became doubtful whothcr
the criminals, who were in the custody OF
the keepers, or the keepers, who were tho
custOdians of the criminals, were the more
dangerous class. If to complete the pic
ture of public iniiGelity there was needed
any act of perfidy it was usually supplied
when tho representatives Of the people
reached Harrisburg either in,the capacity
of legislators or delegates-always reserv-
ing the conspicuous prostitutions of the
pronounced will of tho county at Cincin-
natl in 1876, and at Chicago in 1880. n
After all, tho real sinners in Lancaster
county politics are ourselves, who have
permitted these practices to grow up here
in the first agricultural county of the
Union. Men may be lost to selfrespect,
but there is hardly one SO resOlute that lie
will brave q determined public sentiment
which, while it brands him as scoundrel,
dares likewise to punish him as cIimi
nal. These practices exist because VIC
have permitted one get of morals for pub
lie life and another for private. Crime is
crime, no matter under what pretext it is
perpetrated, and'if every citizen will do
his duty the political criminal will lose his
apologists, be they newspapers or indi-
viduals.
"The pool by which candidates have
been hitherto compelled to buy their
Offices from men who took their orders
from Harrisburg or Washington, is dis
grace to civilization and must be abolished.
There must be no obligations hanging over
county officials to be discharged by sub
serviency to interests that are foreign and
anta.onistic to the will of the local ma
jOrity.
This is not the place to portray the cor
rupt jobbery i'll these positions which has
tended to make every public man, from
the highest to the lowest of those who
should be our guardians, vacillating
coward when compelled to decide between
plain duty and the behcsts of tho imaSin-
ary power which assumed to make OR un-
make him. The humiliating terms to
which these officials have been compelled
to submit must likewise end. To be free
men must be uDtrammeled; to be un-
trammeled the positions they hold ought
to be the voluntary gifts of the people,
not the disgraceful badges OF scrvitude to
any man or any interest.