The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-11-05

y
be a scrutiny on this subject. TIE law must
have keenest twist for the neck of repeaters.
Something more THAI slight fine aud short
Imprisonment. 1t is an attempt at the as
sassination of the republic when u man at
tempts to put in spurious vote In olden
times when mon laid uuholy hands on the
ark of the covenant they dropped down
dead. Witness Uzzah And when men at
tempt to put unholy hands on the American
ballot-box, the ark of the American cove
nant, they deserve eXternlination.
Another powerful foe of this sacred chest
is intimidation.
Corporations sometimes demand that their
employees vote III this and that way. 1t is
skillfully done. 1t is not positively in SO
many words demanded, but the employe
understands he will be frozen out of the es-
Establishment unless he votes as the firm do
SO you can go into villages where there are
establishments with hundreds aEd thousands
Of employees and having found out the
politics of the head men in the factory. you
can tell which way the election is going
Now, that is damnaole. II in any predict
in the United States a man cannot vote as
he pleases, there is something awfully
wrong.
How do you treat that employee who
votes differently from what You do2 Oh,
you say YOU do not interfere with his right
of suffrage But you call him into your
private office and you find fault with his
work, and after awhile you tell him there is
an uncle, or an aunt, or niece or nephew
that must have that position. You do not
say it is because be voted this or that way,
but he knows and God knows it is. If that
man has given to you in hard work an
equivalent for the wages you pay him, you
have no right TO ask anything else of him
He sold you his work. he did not sell you
his political or religious principles But
you know as well as | do there IS sometimes
on that sacred chest, the ark of the Ameri-
can covenant, a shadow corporate or
monopolistic.
do not wonder at the vehemence of Lord
Chief Justice Holt, of England, when he
said: LET toe people vote fairly. Inter
ference with a mans vote is in behalf of
this or that party. l give you notice that
if an offender against the law comes before
me, will charge the jury to make Dim pay
we'll for it." No shadow plutocratic, or
mobocratic, or capitalistic. Every man
voting in his own way-God and his own
conscience the only dictator.
Another powerful foe of that sacred
chest. the ark Of the American covenant,
the ballot-box, is bribery.
You know something Of the hundreds of
thousands of dollars that were expended to
carry Indiana in 1880. You know some
thing of the vast sums of money expended
in Brooklyn and New York in other years
to carry elecuons. Bribery is one of the
disgraces of this country. And there will
be more money used in bribery in this
autumns election than in any previous
election. 1t is often the case that a man is
nominated for Office with reference to his
capacity to provide money for the elections
or with reference to his capacity to COM
mand money from Others You know the
names of men who have at different times
gone into the gubernatorial chair or con-
gressional office buying their way all
through. l tell you no news. Your patri-
otto heart has been panied again and again
with it.
Very often it is not money that brides,
but it is Office. you make me President
and Ill make you a cabinet officer; you
make me governor and I'll make you sur
veyor general; you make me mayor and I'll
put you on the water board; you give me
position and I'll give you position" That
is the form of bride often and often in these
great cities. do not say it is in our city,
but you know again and again throughout
the land these have been the forms of bride
offered. So 1t is often the case that by the
time a man comes to an Office to which he
has been elected, he is from the crown of
head to the sole of foot mortgaged with
pledges, and the man who goes to Albany
or to Washington to get an office is apply
ing for some position which was given away
three months before the election. Two
long lines of worm fence, one worm fence
reaching to Albany and the other to Wash
ington, and there a great many citizens
astride the fence, and they are equally
posed and they are waiting to see on which
side there is most emolument, and on this
side they get down, But bribery kicks
both avs. 1t kicks the man that offers it
and the man that takes it. Bribery to-day
you will admit to be Que of the mightiest
foes of the American ballot-boX.
Another great enemy of that sacred chest
is defamation Of character. Can you find
out from the newspapers when two men are
running for office which is the bests How
often in the autumnal elections the good
man is denounced and the bad man ap-
plauded, SO that you can come sometimes
to no Just opinion as to who is the best
man, and there are hundreds and thousands
of electors who go up to vote 80 utterly be-
logged they know not what they do. Is not
that fearful influence to be brought upon
the ballot-box Of this country? 1t has been
SO ever since the foundation of this govern
ment Defamation Of character.
Thomas Paine writes Washington letter,
and publishes it, saying: "Treacherous in
all private friendship and a hypocrte in
public morals, the world will be puzzled to
know whether we had better call yon an
apostate or an impostor, and whether you
abandoned good morals, or never had any"
That is Thomas Paine's opinion of George
Washington.
John Quincy Adams declared that he was
solaced in regard TO the scandals and the
anathemas inflicted upon him by the fact
that his father, John Adams, had to go
thr ough the same process, and John Quincy
Adams declared he really thought in that
present election there were men vino gave
their entire time to manufacturing false
hood in regard TO him. Martin Van Buren,
was always pictorialized as a rat Thomas
II. Bentol and Amos Kendall were always
pictorialized as robbers with battering rams
breaking In the door Of the United States
bank.
On the day on which Thomas Jefferson
was inaugurated President of the United
States, March 4. 1901, the following APP
peared in the Sentinel Of Boston: "Monu-
mental inscription. Yesterday expired,
deeply regretted by millions of grateful
Americans, and by oil good mea, the
federal administration Of the governm emit
Of the United States, animated by Wash
ington, Adams, Hamilton, Knox, Picker
ing, McHenry, Marshall and Stoddard ;
aged IL years. Its death was occasioned by
the secret arts and open violence Of foreign
and domestic demagogues. As one tribute
OF gratitude in these times this monument
TO the talents and services of the deceased
is raised by the Sentinel" Under such de-
famation as that Thomas Jefferson went
into Office.
NV father told me that when Andrew
jackson was running for President Of the