New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1885-08-25
OHIO IND YIRGLNfA.

The Virginia and Ohio elections seem NJ nrsI
glance to involve entirely different issues
Senator Sherman and other Republican leaders
in Ohio do not altogether agree with Senator
Malone and his associates The local issues
differ widely: the dishonest measures OF re-
pudiation adopted by the Bourbons IN Virginia
are unlike the corruption which has made the
last Democratic Legislature in Ohio disgrace
to its party. But behind all differences these
two contests are esse ntially one at the vital
point In both States the Democratic party
seeks to succeed only by robbing the people OF
their right of self-government. In both new
laws have been framed for that specific purpose
by the Democrats and the effect OF those laws
is now to be tested. The question is not what
the people Of Ohio or Virginia want, but
whether they will be allowed TO vote rs they
wish. and to get their votes properly counted.
In Virginia this is perfectly well understood.
But in Ohio it is not so clearly seen. and yet
even the unhappy Ohio postmaster, who values
office SO much that he stops to fawn upon
Democratic President for it, and casts mud on
his own past political action by the attacks he
now makes on the Republican party and its
principles must surely know tull well that it Is
by no honest means that the party to which he
sells himself seeks success In ONO. For all
men of fair intelligence know that the object OF
the legislation for the control of the ballot-b box
and the police in the cities OF Ohio which the
Democrats enacted at the last session was to
render frauds easy and safe-tO enable the
party to carry the State in spite OF decided
majority against it. The question there, ms in
Virginia, is whether the foul abuse of the con-
troll of election machinery which recent Demo-
cratic legislation has rendered possible can de-
feat the will of the honest voters.
Yet Governor Hoadly defends this Legislat-
ure. 1t is a proof of the depth to which Mr..
Hoadly has sunk that he stoOps to justify meas
ures which, not many years ago, he would have
denounced in those terms of unboundcd
severity that he then employed for party
which has shown itself not better bit worse,
not cleaner but infinitely viler, since he had to
do with il. Never in the history of Ohio has
there been such notorious corruption in any
Legislature as in the last, but the lofty scorn of
men like Mr. Thurman had no effect the
creatures whose deeds Governor Hoadly now
defends. The men who openly boosted that
they were going to make the State surely Dem
ocratic, by snatchng the control OF ballot
boxes in its cities, are now the very men upon
whom Mr.. Hoadly relies for his success
The enactment of such laws was n confession
that these States could not be controlled by the
Democratic party in any other way. The
leaders of that party in Ohio and Virginia are
not destitute of sense. They knew that those
laws would be regarded by fair-mnded men of
all parties as measures intended to steal
victories which they could not hope to win. 1t
is not to be believed that they would have ex
posed their party to such shame If they had
hoped for success by otner means. In Ohio
they were beaten last year by heavy majority,
and in Virginia saved themselves only by de-
privng citizens of their rights. The question is
whether they can defeat the will of the people
in both States, by means of the new laws and
the frauds which those laws were intended TO
hermit