The Labor enquirer., 1886-02-13

contaminated ballot, the free express
sion of sovereign peoples will.
The day election day Is and the day
lit should be are very different days
It's true, tits pity, and pity tits tbs
true" Election day in Denver is a
day, as we have all often seen, when the
worst elements of society, the "boodle
kings" and their parasites, turn loose the
sewers of competition, make pander of
patriotism, strip the robes from the god
dess of freedom and make of her very
harlot.
Election daY in Denver Is day when
the worst of the thugs and pluguglies of
the city have more money than they
ever have at any other time. Who is
there. that has witnessed past elections
in this city, who has not seen the
s'bunko" and other criminals of lesser
and greater degree leading gang of
outcasts and toughs to some rumhole
with the drunken exclamation: "Come
on boys; let's have drink. I've got
some TelIar, (Chaffee or Tabor money" !"
as the case might be.
The writer has seen brutal doodle
king" ride through the streets of Lead
vile from poll to poll on election day
with an immense roll of money openly,
brazenly held in his fist and exclaming
defantlv to his political adversaries: !:
"By God, we'll see who carries this elec-
tion."' He carried the election. The
people of the state afterwards sent him
to occupy seat in the United States
senate. No; will not SANDER this peo-
pie of this state. / will take that back;
they did not send him; he bought and
paid for his seat like all the doodle
kings" do. The IS bill and the rum
hole are not the only agents the corrup-
tlonists employ to effect their purposes.
They have the press also in their en-
ploy in fact they own it.
The enthusiastic American and tle
Fourth of July orator swell up and ex-
plode with praise and gloriication of
the great American free press. Free
press as it is popularity understood is
misnomer, delusion. A journal that
deserves the name of free press should
be edited by man who could give his
own ideas on any and all subjects per-
tanning TO the good or evil of the coun-
try; man who dared to make his edi-
torial column the mirror of his own
mind.
The founder of the New York Tribune
while he lived edited a free press
and anyone could see that there was no
power behind the throne, for on the
editorial page were mirrored the convlc-
tions of honest old Horace Greeley.
There are but few Horace Greeleys, in
point of independence, in this country
to-day, and but one in Denver.
At the last meeting of what is known
as the. Colorado State Editorial asso,cia-
ton" the Hon. L. B. France delivered an
address on Success in Journalism" in
the course of which he made use of the
following language, which goes to show
that there is at least one editor in this
state editing capitalistie paper who
recognizes the fact that the press of this
country (the labor press not counted, of
course) has degenerated into servile
machine; has been prostituted to the
base uses of those who under the name
of business" are engaged in heaping up
mass of wealth by means of legalized
robbery of those who create all the
wealth-the workers.
Mr. France said:
'The individuality of the journal is
lost in ENTERPRISE, an old, familiar word,
with a new meaning We no longer see
the editor in the paper, we think only
of corporstion-a thing created of
men; without human sympathy an
aggregation of souls without any soul !;
Its utterances inspire no faith an intel
lectual machine with an eye to diyi-
dends and questionabl power; through
it no mans heart appeals to his fellows;
a something said to be demanded by the
necessity of the times; the times are
fast, and require. what some men are
pleased to term, enterprise no man, not
even an editor, likes to be. behind the
times. He loses himself among three or
thirteen men, and calls it enterprise"
Sentiments like these coming from the
source they do are productive of sur
prise in two different senses.
That this maverick editor should have
land it is evident he hss) escaped the
branding irons of all the editorial cattle
kings, that his cuticle should not have
been scared by the painless brand of the
Colorado "boodle" king is indeed won
der, especially when we consider the
fact that he as been running with the
branded herd.
1t ls wonderful to hear of man who
has courage to 90 into gathering such
as was the Colorado Editorial associa-
ton" and dare to tell them they are
the prostitutes they are. j..
Take the press of Denver and it will
no doubt compare favorably with the
capitalistic press of the rest of the coun-
try in point of freedom" and what is it
as far as its being the free and fearless
expression of its editor is concerned.
Take the News for instance. Mr.. Stap-