The Democratic advocate., 1884-08-09

Election Tuesday, November Lh, 1854.
The Great Issue of the Campaign
There is but one great issue before the
people in the pending campaign, and that
is thorough reform in every department Of
the government Such reform can only be
effected by turning out the present incum.
bents As long as the present party is en-.
trenched in power, SO long will reform be
impossible. Mr.. Blaine and his coadjutors
want the issues of the bloody shirt and OF
the tariff kept in view, and are doing their
best to divert public attention from their
own shortcomings by holding up these
topics prominently before the people. But
the people will hold their public servants to
a strict accountability for the manner in
which they have executed their trust in the
past twenty years. During all that long
period the Republican party have held
control of the government and are respon-
sible for its maladministration. The nu-
merous instances of peculation, fraud, and
maIadministration, need hardly be recount
ed here. their number is legion. The pub
he will, remember one act after another,
which goes to make up the startling record
against the party in power We need call
to mind only few of the more fragrant of
them The whiskey ring, and the immu-
nifty of its participants from punishment;
the land grants, by which an empire larger
than the original thirteen states, was voted
away to heartless spectators and corpora
tions instead of being reserved as homesteads
for poor men who would become actual
settlers; 0akes Ames' bribery of members
of Congress, by Credit Mobilier stocks; In
dian post leadership frauds and robberies;
black Friday, and its disgraceful record
affecting even the inmates of the White
House; the Dick Harrington safe burglary,
for which the perpetrators went scot free;
the sale of our rotten navy for mere bag
atelle, by which spectators in old junk
were enriched, while the treasury received
but small accessions to its funds from the
sale; the salary grab, which excited the in
dignation of the whole country, while men,
bers of Congress smiled serenely and poek-
eted their ill-gotten gains; the fraud of the
Presidency in 1876, for which the perpe-
traitors ought to have been hung, but re-
ceived no retribution whatever; the pur-
chase of the Presidency in 1880 by the
most unblushing barter of so-called ''soap"
for freemens votes, the star route plumber
furnishing the ''soap," for which Garfield
wrote to "My Dear Dorsey" expressing his
thanks; the bitter faction-fght that then
ensued over the spoils, by which President
Garfield lost his life through the bullet of
the assassin Guiteau, the exhorbitant sums
paid to the three physicians for attendance
upon the mortally wounded President; and
the unhcard OF expenditures to counsel and
others in the trial Of the assassin; the pre-
tended trial of the star-routc thieves, in
which the comedy of GLOW not to do it, -"
was reenacted in the so-called Department
of Justice, the solemn mockery ending in
the escape of nearly the whole of the guilty
gang of plunderers, while the treasury was
heavily drafted upon to pay the expenses;
the frauds, peculations, and plundcrings,
the exposure of which follow each other in
such rapid succession, that they now scarce
ly excite surprise or comment. In the
language of the Democratic platform,
the Republican party is so "honeycombed
with corruption, that outbreaking expos
ures no longer shock its moral sense"
These are but few of the more fragrant
acts Of the party in power. Blaine was Il
participant in most of them, and is the di-
rect representative of his party delinquen-
cies. He must be beaten, or there is an
end to honest government. Another 1our
years lease of power would so entrench the
corruptionists as to render them almost i'm
pregnable He himself is tattooed all over
with Mulligan letters, the Madigan circu-
lar, guano contracts, Little Rock rulings,
and profits resulting directly from said ru-
lings while Speaker ofthe House of Repre-
sentatives. He is corrupt from the crown
of his head to the soles Of his feet, as is
shown by the record of his acts in Congress,
while the name of Cleveland is the synonym
of reform and of purity and honesty in ad-
ministration The Augean stable at Wash
ington must be cleansed, though it take
more than the rivers of Peneus and Alpheus.
to do it. Cleveland is the Hercules for
the work