The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-08-25

cOuIeSSlOn 10 HletheJ Du1 AA5Lo AAAAAA>S. -
everywhere will applaud such frank acknowl-
edgment of error, and will not be slow to
recognize the vast difference between the soph-
istries of the Republican and the outspoken
honesty of the religious Journal. Honesty is
the best policy, even in reform politics, though
many are slow to discover the fact
STATE HoNoRs WON BY THE DEMOCRACY.
Mr.. Voorhees,, in his "key-note" speech at
Terre Haute, last Tuesday night, said the
provisions in the Constitution of 1850, for the
benevolent institutions and the school system,
were the work of Democrats entirely, though
the Wings supported them as heartily, and
more unanimously than the Democrats
though Wings took the first steps in estab-
fishing the benevolent institutions, and there
were neither Wings nor Democrats when the
school system was made feature Of the Con-
stitution of 1916, nor when the first school
fund was created in 1855, by the ordinance of
May 20, which gave every sixteenth section OF
land in every township to the support Of
schools. On this airy foundation Mr.. Voor-
bees proceeds to build an encomium on his
party equally as resplendent and substantial
as its basis. It is style of architecture adj
nirably adapted to the Senator's brilliant en-
dowment Of incapacity to acquire or apply
facts. No man we know of could take so large
contract for Spanish chateaux" and com
plete it with such massive piles of imponder-
able material, and such splendor of aerial dec
grafton. Here is sample, in his reference to
the constitutional provisions of 1850, which
the record shows created nothing and estab-
lished nothing, and only re-enacted identical
provisions from six to sixty years old;
esThese are grand provisions. love to read
them. They add charity unto knowledge
They associate Christian benevolence with re-
ligious freedom, and have crowned the State
with glory as imperishable as the stars"
And all this glory is Democratic glory
There is not spot on the sun, a cloud in the
sky, worm on the blossom, fly in the ONT
ment, dead dog in the spring anywhere
It is pure, radiant dazzling glory, hardly
equaled by the splendor that shall dawn on
the recreated world. There are, however,
points, or focuses, or nuclei-to adopt the
Senator's classic style-of especial intensity
scattered through the universal lustre that it
will no doubt crafty the Senator aud his
numerous admirers to have us point out to
their discernment, weakened by long contem-
plation of such an excess of light.
The earliest, but not the most conspicuous,
of these radiant points Of Democratic glory
appeared in 1914, when the Democratic Lieu
tenant governor, Jesse D. Bright, the most
honored ofall his party's leaders in Indiana,
gave the casting vote in tied Senate to post
pone the election Of United States senator one
year, that he might get the Office himself.
The Senate journal of that year will show the
vote, and that of the following year will show
the election and explain the motive of this, at
the time, unprecedented defiance of law and
duty 1t ''pales its Intellectual fires" how
ever beside the next outburst of Democratic
glory.
Among the assets that came to this State
from her debtors in the panic of 1887, was a
tract of some seventy-fve thousand acres of
land in Georgia, heavily timbered and made
Immediately and largely valuable by num-
Der of saw-mills to reduce the timber to
marketable lumber The Democratic State
agent sold these lands, worth at the lowest
estimate, SIS an acre, to one Martin r. Green,
for ST. 600, or three-fourths of cent an acre.
not counting the mills. In 1851, john p
Usher, amember Of the lower house from Vigo
county, afterward Mr.. Lincoln's Secretary of
the Interior, discussed this eminently Demo
cratic transaction, and laid particular stress
on the breadth and brilliance of Democratic
glory difused over the States reputation by
it. Ashbel P. Willard, representing Floyd
county, by no means satisfied with the honor
reflected by the act of single Democratic
officer, demanded the ratification Of the sale
by the Legislature that the glory might
spread all over the party like the brilliant
hues Of dying dolphin, or the fragrant
radiance of a dissolving mackerel. The Dem
ocratic Legislature, with possible prophetic
eye to supplying Mr.. Voorhees, with material
for a panegyric confirmed the sale, and $780,