The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-01-14
CURRENT PRESS COMMENT.

MR.. PAYNE's choice is a victory for monopoly and
corruption, and a defeat for genuine, consistent, eff
hcIent reform. It is the most telling fact in recent
politics as to the value of the Democratic opposition to
Times.
All that is or will be known is that the Standard Oh
Company wanted a senator, and that even in IA State
like Ohio, which boasts of its education and independ-
enee, the representatives of the people were found
willing slaves of the most g~rasping corporation 10
America.-Chicago Journal.
For a quarter of a century the Republican party
has been in power. 1t had its origin in a desire to
serve the many rather than the few. It has steadily
labored for government of the people, by the people,
and for the people. Whatever may have been its sins
of omission or of commission, it has never been false
to the doctrine of fair play for all Inen.-New York
Tribune.
THIS march of the monopoly on the Supreme Court
via the presidency and the Senate must be stopped.
If a fusion of the Republicans and the decent Demo
Gratis in the Ohio Legislature will accomplish it, let the
Republicans not hesitate to vote for Pendleton. The
advantage they will lose by not having the Democrats
send their worst man to the Senate will be more than
made good by the eclat they will gain by subordinating
II minor partisanship to the welfare of their country.
Chicago Tribune.
IT is not a part of the cienee of political economy
to define exactly to what exact limit taxation can be
pushed without ruin to the citizen. Any intelligent
government would lay its plans and theories entirely
out of sight of danger TO the citizen. That to fail in
granting this relief would throw upon the govern
ments largest taxpayers an immense and injurious
burden is evident. That this hardship is unnecessary
is equally manifest. Only the tribe of Cypselus will
oppose it.-Louisville Courier-Journal
The most dangerous effect of the lynching tendency
is its destructive influence upon popular respect for
the law. 1t is in fact a school of anarchy, in which
men learn to avenge their own real or faneied wrongs,
and in which they are taught to revert to thoroughly
barbarous lines of thought and action. If crime too
often escapes punishment it is the duty of a civilized
community to improve its means of detection. If the
process of the law is uncertain and eapricious, it
should be amended.-New York Tribune.
Mr.. PENDLEToN's defeat is also a notification to the
Democratic party at large that so far as its brethren
in Ohio are concerned, their repeated declarations
rains fha 1aDparr o"I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, &c .mak
moneyed corporations and powerful monopoles were
but glittering generalities, and that it only needed the
approach of the Standard Oil Company. with a request
for their votes, to hand them over without a blush,
and thus add to an already many-millionaire Senate
another representative of all that is most odious in
monopolistic Observation-Disclosures Post (Deml
In the cases of duties laid on foreign products, which
compete in our markets with American products OF
like kind and quality. they affect both the Foreign and
domestic producer, aiding the latter at the expense of
the former. Almost a unanimous preponderance Of
American statesman have pronounced this to be wise.
Hence, this may fairly be inferred to be what the Iowa
Republicans meant, especially when they were all vot-
ing, under national platforms as well, which always
distinctly defined protection to American industry as
being the policy of the Republican ~party.-Chicago In:
ter Ocean.
The liabilities of 1888 reached the enormous aggre-
gate of $l73, 000, GOO, or upward of seventy millions
crease in both the number of failures and the amount
of liabilities has been steady and rapid since 1850.
There is now no uniform law regulating the distribu-
ton of the bankrupts assets among his creditors. The
matter is loosely left to the insolvent laws Of the sew.
eral States. which are uncertain, conflicting and pro-
duetive of the most fragrant abuses in the way Of pre-
ferred creditors. A good national bankrupt law is
urgently needed. and it is the plain duty of Congress
to make one.-New York Herald.
A CONSTITUTIONAL amendment empowering the
Governor to veto items in an appropriation bill while
approving of the rest of the bill has been in force in
some States for many years. 1t has been of great adj
vantage to those States. New York adopted this pro.
vision eight years ago. 1t has kept Objectionable
items out of bills, and has exposed to the veto such as
got in. 1t is regarded by the people as wise and
e,1,Ao-1 Gavara1 SNata Taoi11o+tyuas oa par ~, nae
sion. Some Of them will not meet again in two years
1t is highly important that Congress should pass tbs
amendment without delay, so that it can be submitted
to the Legislatures in session this winter.
THE criminal iudieature has been reduced to q mass
of mystery and casuistry. giving infinite scope TO art
and a~droitness in legal Interpretation, and in the con-
struction of precedents, and this Juggling between
crime and money on the one part, and legal ~sophistry
and chicanery on the other is the survival which we
are now compelled to recognize as the representative
of the plain, stern, unmistakable code of criminal
statutes, as plain and sharp in its outlines as a Doric
column. One consequence of this is that the wealthy
murderer who can employ the most expert castist ln
instances and precedents' is always acquitted, and
the man-killer of small means who cannot secure such
aid sometimes hangs.-Louisv1le Courier-Journal
In the States and Territories west of the Mississippi
river it is a common practice to inclose large bodies of
public lands for use as stock ranges. The Commits.
sioner of the General Land Office says, in his last re.
port. that these ranges sometimes cover hundreds Of
thousands of acres. Legal ettlements.ar are thus prae-
tically prohibited. travel is interrupted. and the mails
have even been detained. These abuses reached such
d height that nearly a year ago the government gave
notice that it would make no objection to the destruc-
ton of fences which ~interfered with settlement, and it
has brought suits against persons unlawfully inclos-
ing public lands. The barbed- wire fence is a problem
which never worried our fathers, but it is evident that
modern wisdom must soon grapple with it seriously.
New York Tribune.
THE point to be remembered is that any legislative
changes which may be made in. the prison systom Of
labor should be based upon some sound principle.
There must be productive convict labor, and such
production will necessarily compete with other pro-
duetion. This can not be avoided, and the legislature
III .4L.44 H.. ia -. Is IL / 49,,
tenn was not sought at the late election by Intelligent
friends of the prisons, but by demagogues, to pander
to an ignorant feeling. The feeling invoked was that
prisoners are merely reprobates to be severely pun
ished, and that their productive labor is wrong to
honest men. But that kind of feeling would easily do
mand that convicts should be immured for their
term, fed on bread an water, and then turned loose
upon the community. 1t would enforce in prisons
the system which has long been abandoned in insane
asylums as ~inhumanly cruel and stupidity i~mpoitic.
-Harper's Weekly.
o.