The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-03-24
CURRENT PRESS COMMENT.

LIFELEss as the campaign toward which we are APP
preaching has hitherto seemed to be. the impending
rupture IN the Democratic party, which we confidently
oeleve can neither be evaded nor prevented, will lift
1t into dignity as being not only one of the most excit-
ing, but the most educating, important and beneficial
the country has ever known. Now is the hour when
Republicans can borrow the spirit of the homely tele-
gram which President Lincoln once sent to Governor
Richard Yates: Wait, Dick and behold the salvation
Of the Lord. '0Chicago Inter Ocean.
GENERAL WATTERsON, we fear, is more threaten
ing than formidable. His proclamation recalls the
time when he was ready to lead an imaginary army on
Washington to seat Mr.. Tilden. The result of that
terrible campaign is known. The one now announced,
under the Illinois HOtspur in his bare feet, with his
interchangeable opinions above and below his neck.
armed with a hot poker and pushing before him a
plank for the harlot of protection to walk, with her
wrung withers, into the Republican camp. is not much
leader to quotations. Suppose he suggests to him to
cease his damnable mouthiAgs and beginr'-New
York Times.
ABOVE all, they 1.-THE liquor dealers) will find it to
their interest to abandon the attitude of hostility and
obstruction that they have assumed toward the high
license doctrine. That doctrine is going to prevail,
and they cannot prevent it; but they can, by their own
folly and perversity, change the high license senti-
ment to one of absolute prohibition. The step from
one to the other is not very long, it is well to bear in
mind, and the best way in the world to persuade a
great many people to take it who are not at present so
disposed, is to confront them with the spectacle Of the
liquor-making and lquor-selling interest arrayed
against and trying to disparage and defeat the high Ii.
cense system of saloon control and regulation.-St.
Louis Globe-Democrat.
1T is a palpable error not to require that each and
every State shall expend out of its OWL taxes "a sum
for the support of the public schools at least equal to
its share of the national appropriation. This is a con
sideratiOn which the government will be entitled to
exact in return for the aid it shall contribute whether
it shall be large of small. The government should
help those communities only which are willing to help
sclentlous and Judlelous expenditure OF the govern
ment fund in any State or district which is not sufi-
GENTLY interested in the cause of popular education to
contribute of its own resources to the maintenance of
public ~schools.-Chicago Tribune.
THE good Methodist clerics who have been agitated
in conference over the practice of marrying divorced
persons, are like a valiant army going out to battle
armed with pop-guns. No mere denominational war
fare can prevail against or even check the growing
sentiment which accepts such unions as legitimate and
common place affairs. The current tendency to secu-
larization of the marriage ceremony. encouraged by
additions. legal props and increasing social recog-
milton, breeds naturally a disregard of religious in
hibitions. The public conscience is drugged, and
makes no protest. There is little hope of a new cru
SADIE, and the great religious bodies viii be obliged to
combat the evil with something more effective than
mere Observation-Disclosures Record.
ONE voter out of every three can be properly classed
as illiterate. Nor is the case by any means fully
stated. If these illiterates were equally distributed
throughout the country, the danger would not be so
great. They could be easily outvoted, or their inhu-
ence at least materially lessened. But they are massed
in a few places in the country. They form the ma
jority in certain sections. and thus menace constantly
the continued existence of the nation. One of the
great dangers of our politics is that, in course of time,
Inscriptions and designing men may. during some
national crisis. by working upon the prejudices and
passions of large masses of ignorant voters, precipi-
tate a conflict which will end in the dissolution of the
Union, or, more likely, In a military despotism.-Ph
adelphia Press.
IT is an affront to the intelligence of Congress and
of the country to force such a tariff abortion as the
Morrison bill upon the Democratic party. Morrison
despises it because it is not wholly free trade. but he
has taken it as q wedge to make an opening for free
trade, and he whittles his wedge from day to day to
adapt it to the Democratic logs to be split. He has
no more hope of passing his bill and making it a law
than he has of making Watterson the next Pope of
Roma aud ba M wants RI mako H. "a law than
he wants to go home from Washington feet foremost,
toes upward and cooled in ice. with q congressional
committee reveling at his funeral; but he wants free
trade, and he proposes to tempt or force the Demo
Gratis over the fence or on top of the fence. to get
them so far committed to free trade.-Philadelphia
Times.
THAT feeling of individual hberty-of the moral
right possessed by every man to do as he likes, 50
long as he does not interfere with the liberties of 9th
ers-joins hands with the awakened curiosity conse-
quent upon the news of a successful raid upon an
opium joint. and pleads, Come. let us go and hit the
pipe" While the weak-minded and viciously in
cined-those who cannot say no, and those who want
to say yes-visit these resorts whore man and woman
lose their humanity in bestid stupor, and while the
law adds advertisement and excitement TO the vice, it
will he well for sensible men and women to sternly
set their faces against it. 1t is only by social ostra-
cism that any vice can be kept down. This alone is u
deterrent sufficient to save the weak from erring. As
for the wrong-headed, they will err anyway.-Phila
delphia Record.
THE evil of dime literature of the kind that stimu-
lates BOYS to initiate eminent robbers and murderers
must be dealt with in some way, if there are to be any
honest and decent men in the next generation, The
difficulty is that there is at present no way in which
the law can touch the scoundrels who make their hv-
ing by publishing dime novels. Their publications
are neither indecent nor blasphemous. within the
meaning of the statute; neither do they in 50 many
words incite to the commission of crime. 1t is idle to
expect that the small boy, with his natural love for
whatever is exciting and blood-curdling. Will refrain
from reading dime novels as long as they are found
on every newsstand. How to suppress this pestilent
literature is a problem for which a solution must be
found if civilization and decency are to be preserved.
New York Times.