The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-03-18
THE DEMooRATIC LEGISLATURE.


fed himself, in the face of the most disgrace
full record Of inactivity ever made by legis
latiye body in the State, by saying, in his
farewell speech of the usual twaddle and bun
corhbe: DAY after day have seen you dill
gently and intelligently discharging your du-
ties as worthy representatives Of those who
sent you here" At the time he uttered
this palpable piece of courteous falsehood
the Journal called attention to its manifest
absurdity, and now, within weeks time
precisely week-Mr. Jewett himself is
forced, by his sense of self-respect and by his
desire to extricate his party, if possible, from
the slough into which the spoilsmen and i'm
beetles have led ii, to tell the truth and totell
it vigorously. In speech to the House, yester-
day, Mr.. Jewett said it was an actual fact
that the House had not done fifteen minutes
of necessary work since the adjournment on
Thursday afternoon. He told the members
'they had got to stop wasting their time in in
Producing useless resolutions and talking about
every little matter that comes up. The action
of the House was about to become ridiculous
before the whole people Of the State, and, al
though he did not say they might not yet
justify themselves he would say that, so far
as he was concerned, he would use every pos
sible effort to stop the wasting of time" Mr.
Jewett was so deeply in earnest in his lecture
that he added that, without desiring to be-
come offensive, he would much prefer to leave
the chair and leave the House than to soc the
time wasted as it had been the last two or
three days" In these righteous words Mr..
Jewett told the truth, uttering simply what is
in the mind of every sensible man, the State
over, who sees and has seen the miserable and
criminal conduct Of this Democratic Legisla-
ture. A few members Of the House did not
| fancy the plain words from the Speakers chair,
and Mr. Patten promptly appeared with
resolution Of censure, which received twelve
votes, although other members expressed
themselves in opposition to the lecture de-
liyered by Mr.. Speaker With this we have
nothing TODD, other than to call attention to the
fact that there was no one with honesty and
candor sufficient to compel him to arise and
protestagainst the undeserved and palpably
untrue compliment the same Speaker paid
the same House few days ago. The capacity
| of the average human for "taffy" is phenome-
| nal, else the stomach of more than one hon
orable legislator would have rebelled against
the nauseous dose administered by Mr..
Jewett in the melting hours of dis
solution, when, as rule, common sense
gives way to gush and truth takes its fight
upon the wings of Mandy PANTY sentiment
What we have to do with, and what the peo-
pie Of the State have to do with, is the abso-
lutte, impregnable, unassailable truth of the
present words Of the official head Of the Dem
ocratic House of Representatives of the Gen
eral Assembly and we call the attention of
every citizen and taxpayer to them and to
their import. They are complete and
official Endorsement of every word the Journal
has said Of the phenomenal, unparalleled i'm
becility and acknowledgement spirit of the
sitting Legislature. The State never was
cursed with one lkeit That Of two years ago,
then damned to everlasting fame, can now hold
up its head with an assumption of responsibility
when the record of the present one is seen and
studied. The only public thing 80 far done is
the passage of bills to disfranchise one third
of the people Of the State, and to give the
Democracy, with less than 1000 plurality,
$50 members of the Legislature-an infamy
as damnable as any practiced by the red shirt
ers and Ku-klux murderers of the Southern
Statesmen who had more physical courage
and less moral cowardice than their imitators
in the Indiana fail to the Southern kite.
The orphan children of Union soldiers
have been shown to be subject to
the most inhuman barbarites and the
most devilish crimes, but this Democratic
Legislature has not been able to devise rem
edy, and the soldiers little ones are still sub
ject to the authority of officials whose incom-
petence and criminality have been proven by
evidence that makes every decent person
blush with shame and stirs every loyal heart
to mutiny. This Legislature will leave the
State two millions of dollars in debt. It has
not passed a tax-levy law yet, although but
two days remain for that duty. 1t has made
no provision for any of the public institutions
of the State nor for any of the legitimate func-
tions of the State government It has
appropriated money to pay itself, and
has speedily exhausted the treasury,
while the time for which the