The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-08-23
Mr.. VOORHEES, AS ABOASTER.
An Inquiry Into His Claim that Indi-
ana Is Indebted to the Democracy.
A Dissection Of the Assertion that the Demo-
Gratis Created the School System and
Fund, and the State Charities.

quarter of a century, primarily by large en-
dowment Of what Tony Weller calls the gift o
the CAB VERY gallopin';;' secondarily, by an
amazing facility in the construction of distorted
rhetoric, and by an inexhaustible supply Of in
correct historical information. A large pretense
of classical culture has, so to speak, vanished
over these elementary qualities, and, as it were,
finished or polished them off No man now livs
ing can achieve, in the same time, so bewilder.
ing a display of profound Instrumentation.
No other man can SO completely mis-
conceive a subject or misapply
misstatement. His intellect resembles an air
bubble in windowpane Anything seen
through it looks sometimes like house and
sometimes like plug of tobacco He never saw
the center Of anything in the middle in his life,
and he never had patience enough TO study
subject so closely that he could feel sure that
the exemption of whisky from taxation was not
an endowment of religious charity instead Of
big speculation of dstillers or that the salary
grab" was not popular testimonial to immacu
late purity instead of a legalized confidence
game by a combination of sharpers
Reason and rhetoric do SO combine in him"
that each bedevis the other, like the mis-
matched legs of cross, made by Yankee
chicken-breeder with shanghai anda bantam.
| 1t had one long leg and one very short one.
i When it stood on its long leg the short one
| couldn't touch the ground, and any attempt to
scratch with it or use it irted it helplessly about
| in the air When it stood on the short leg the
long one would dig so furiously into the ground
/ in q scratch that it would tumble the bird over
on its head When the Senator mounts his
stilted rhetoric his shortlegged reason can reach
nothing and do nothing When he sinks down
upon that in his attempts at the application Of
history, his unmanageable eloquence is too
much for him and pitches him over in the
,comical fashion so frequently noted by ad-
miring critics. BY way Of brief preface to some
very recent illustrations of this amusing CON
trariety, take one just ten years old while the
Senator was still on what may be called the
classic LAY, long before it occurred to him to
attitudinize in the ludicrousy inapt character of
the soldiers FRIEND He was delivering an ad-
dress to the Literary Societies of the Univers-
ity of Missouri, June %, 1874 On page sci of
his authorized published speeches. edited BY his
son, is this astounding eruption Orwell, defect
i've classical knowledge:
CLASSIC IGNORANCE.
. teThat wonderful though now common article
, of wealth and food, designated in general as
' corn was then wholly unknown, and Gibbon,
the warm eulogist Of ancient Rome, IN touching
on her principal products, condescends to make
mention of any great staple OF Dreaustul as
a substitute
The whole continent may be safely challenged
to produce parallel to this amazing display Of
: ignorance If he had read fifty pages further
!, he would have found that Gibbon stated the
am cunt Of wheat annually imported from Egypt
q at half million bushels; and that one Of
t Pompeys first military feats destroying the
IS pirates Of the Tyrian coast who robbed the
wheat ships from Alexandria to Ostium. The
# most generated of the goddesses the Pantheon
n was Ceres, the patron of agriculture, always
9. represented as crowned with a wreath OF wheat.
q PASEGYRIo ON THE DEMOCRACY.
y Now let us pass to the EN- oyment Of some very
: recent antics Of the Senator's mismated intellect
: ual legs the funny Democratic hybrid, between
& laundering statstician anda blathering stumper
he In his speech on the night Of Tuesday, the 18th
which was loudly trumpted in advance as the
rs key note of the campaign, he boosted with more
ul than customary 'gostration' OF the incalcuani'
~ and exclusive benefactions bestowed BY tht
ne Democracy on the people of Indiana in the De
n nevolent institutions and the public school sys
e tenn He gave most Of his time to the Question
!. of s.prohibitionn and "sumptuary legislation,
M but Just now we are concerned only with M
eir comical plumbers in his panegyrics on the Dem
led ocratic party as the creator of our educationa
system and its funds, and our charitable inst
RS. tutions. OF the latter he said:
red Indiana has long been famous too, for ne
the great public charities Behold her benevolen
10 fnstitutions where the blind see, the dunn
sneak the sick are healed, and the destitute re
~ and clothed You find their blessed POUNDS
ar lions laid deep and strong in that Consttutlo
hn- which the Democratic party created, ana VII
lue which the Republican party has never pee
oat satisfied, ana now seeks to change.
liza If the Senator had known anything Of Il
Who records of the constitutional convention,
can would havesknown that the Wings supported Il
provision touching these insttutio ms even mo
the heartily.an and unanimously than the Dem ocrat
'onl Putting aside the dishonest innuendo that I'll
1ne Republican party seeks to change the Constit
p ', tom to the detriment of the asylums, let
~ look at the history of their establishment, al
N see how much the Democracy had to do with
for in the Constitution, which Mr. Voorhees, affirr
his. .laid the foundation, in other words Great
sing them N4
eled ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INSANE ASYLUM.
ance Early in 1912, Jan 81, Governor Bigger,
um- Wing, was directed by the Wing Legislature
correspond with the Governors of other States
ON obtain information as to the character and C
~, Of the buildings required for the treatment
80 the insane, and as to the modes of treatnel
ed That was the first step in the establishment
dis. our system Of benevolent institutions. II
only not taken by the Democrats, though most
seen, them approved it, and none made any decic
'rye, opposition to it On Christmas day OF the sa
and year DR. John Evans, the first superintend'
week Of the Insane Asylum lectured on the subject
teen insanity and its treatment before the Legs
'sner ture. At the same session, in February e
Governor Bigger was directed tocorrespond "