The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-08-08
THE KENTUCKY ELECTION

| been announced last week, last month, or
last year. Kentucky is Democratic beyond
a doubt Everything goes to prove it. 1t Is
not necessary to turn to the election totals
to discover that the State of Kentucky is
Democratic to the core. Democracy means
stagnation and rust. Kentucky has been
content to stand still while her neighbors
have gone on in every enterprise Ken
lucky is solidly Democratic and stupidity
on-progressive. With wonderful natural
resources, she has been content to lag behind.
Except from natural increase, she has not
! Her school system is not to be compared
with those of Republican or even doubtful
States around her. Her manufactures, aside
from that of making distilled spirits, are not
ever reach anything like what they ought to
be until partisan prejudice and old-time
Kentucky hide-bound loneliness give way to
common sense and higher appreciation of
labor and laboring men. There seems to be
constitutional weakness for genuine, in
born lazness that many of the bluegrass no.
bility mistake for something more honor
able. Fast horses and fine women are
Better to have fast rolling-mills and fine
machinery. Better revolving wheels than
revolvers. With the majority that Ken
lucky rolls upyear after year there can be no
| -
ed business No party can keep abreast of
the times and hold its voters like so many
automatons. The party of progress is GER
tain to strike some issue that will ALLEVIATE
for time large per cent. of its voters A
steady majority of 10000 or $4,000 in any
State means that the managers of the party
that has it have never had the boldness to
cross the prejudices of the voters. Old
time customs are allowed to live beyond
their usefulness because the party workers
dare not graphic for their overthrow for fear
of alternating voters. Herein lies the radical
difference between a Republican majority
of 40 900 in Iowa and like Democratic ma
jority in Kentucky. Republican statesmen
take hold of every vexing problem on its
merits, with little regard for the prejudice
of any part of their political organization.
The question is fought for what there is in
it, and as general rule the right has al
ways prevailed. Iowa and Kansas
are as strongly Republican as Kentucky is
Democratic, but an Iowa or Kansas Republi-
can is vastly different from a Kentucky DEM
ocrat, in that he thinks and acts for himself.
There is not that slavishness of leaders nor
of the rank and file. The leaders in the two
Republican States named saw fit to indorse
certain legislation looking to the regulation
of the liquor traffic, though they knew that
such action must inevitably forfeit the sup
port OF thousands of good and true Republi-
cans. The Democratic leaders in Kentucky
would no more dare to propose such an inno-
walton than to commit political felo de Sc.
1t would be the same.
Democracy, however is Democracy every
where. Its characteristics are unmistakable.
1t belongs to the past; it lives on the past,
and has no plan for the future Kentucky
Democracy is Indiana Democracy fossilized.
Fortunately for this State there is enough
Republican salt to save it from Democratic
stagnation. Barely three years ago the peo
pie of Indiana were called upon to vote on
certain constitutional amendments Among
cratic constitution the clause that declared
''no negro or mulatto shall have
the right of suffrage" and another
was to strike out the word ''white'' wher-
ever it might occur in the old constitution.
Both these were mere formalities, since the
federal constitution rendered the old provis-
ions null and void. Yet such was The Demo
cratic prejudice in Indiana, in $780, that
against the former, and 1856, 716 Democrats
voted against the latter proposition. In 9TH
er words, this vast army or mob, of Democ-
racy stood then as they stood score of
years before, and after a lapse of seventeen
years publicly refused to acknowledge the
political rights of the colored man. The
State was saved. from still deeper humilia-
ton by the Republican party, which voted
soldly against such stupidity and stultiica-
ton. Even after that Democratic Supreme
Court saw fit to declare the amend
ments not carried. and the Repub-
lican party again had to come to the
rescue of political common sense. The Re-
publican party is progressive and aggressive.
1t espouses principles in defiance of preu-
dice within or without the party, and fights
them through to successful issue. Its ma