Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1884-11-22
A STONE FROM A GLASS HOUSE.

One CT the best known facts in tbs
history Of crooked politics in Tennes
see is that M. ]. Wicks, acting for tht
Memphis and Charleston railroad, {
few years ago, paid the Memphis APP
peal $1,000 to assist in the deprecia
ton of Tennessee bonds in order thai
the same might be purchased cheap
by the railroad and applied TO the
discharge of its Indebtedness to the
State.
The job has been so repeatedly
ventilated that it has become a matter
of common knowledge. In the face
of the fact that the Appeal has not
changed owners or editors since this
little transaction took place, such ut
terances as the following from a re-
cent issue of that paper come with
very bad grace:
The local squab and scrub politi-
clans OF New York county and oil
Kings county, N. Y, assuming that
their individual interests were oil
greater concern than those of the peo-
pie of the State and of the whole re-
public, sold out to Blaine wherever by
so doing they could make majorities
for themselves. This is what the rail
road representatives did in Tennessee.
They snapped votes to swamp the
Democratic nominees for Railroad
Commissioners, and in this year above
all others have put the Democratic
party in position OF decadence and
decline that does not represent its real
condition.
The inference, of course, is that all
who opposed the Savage Commission
were in the pay, or in some manner
under the control of the railroads.
The same thing was frequently said
by unprincipled newspapers and dem
agogues during the campaign and not
deemed worthy OF notice, but when
the Memphis Appeal attempts to cast
such a boulder from it christine hab-
itation. we can't help but marvel at
that journals gigantic efirontery.
The charge that the anti-commission
men @made deal" with the Republi-
cans is without warrant or foundation.
1t il absurdly false from the fact that
the opponents of the commission had
no candidate to trade and that the Re-
publican Commissioners run behind
their ticket 1t is as silly as ii is I'M
true.
The same editorial from which the
above extract was taken hays down the
following remarkable assertion:
No man calling himself Democrat
has any right TO select for his indOrse-
ment and approval part Of the ticket
nominated or part of the platform
adopted by State convention.
This is the doctrine which the ring
sters and bosses attempt to enforce
and the substance of the vaporing
drivel of the one-horse politicians who
act under their direction.
No party is a close corporation and
the right of the free American citizen
to scratch" whatsoever and whomsoev-
er he pleases cannot be called in ques-
ton. The only safeguard against ring
rule and the control of cliques is the
independent voter, in other words, the
discreet scratcher. Parties have no
right to do more than promulgate
their established principles and this
thing of dragOoning voters into the
support of pet schemes and side issues
that are entirely foreign to such prin-
ciPles will disrupt any political organ
ization that attempts it. Men vote rs
they please in this country and the
average citizen will not brook having
his right to do so called in question
While the Appeal was going to New
York to find parallel for those DEM
Ocratic voters in Tennessee who re-
fused to be tricked and bulldozed into
the support of John Savage and his
Railroad Commission, the Independ-
ent Republicans who rebelled against
Blaine and BlaineIsm would have af.
fOrded better comparison than the
one offered. The Appeal has never
suggested that Curtis and Schurz had
no right to reject the ticket nominated |
by their party.