Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1888-11-02
The Election at Hand.


list more or less business will 90 on peo
pie will buy and sell and get married ;
well ordered industry will thrive, though
perhaps not with equal prosperity, and
reckless idleness and vice will bring pow
erty and rags, whichever way the election
turns. Yet it is momentous election
fraught with consequences of the highest
moment to the material and moral welfare
Of the people.
Ihe democratic party, hungry and
thirsty for office, has had four years of
power and pap, and finds its hunger grow
ing with what it feeds on. Its managers
are bold, INSCRIPTIONS, active and able
They have not the slightest intention of
relinquishing their grasp upon the spoils {;
and we may all be sure that all that
money, management, sophistry, argu-
ment and entreaty can do will be done by
them to carry the election. There is-it
Ks palpable and notifying fact-a large
purchasable element in the voting popula-
ton of many States. Venal voters abound
in the great Empire State; they are numer.
GUS in Indiana and New Jersey. There
are far too many of them in our neighbor-
without them, though there are States
like our own in which the preponderance
on one side or the other is so great as to
remove all motive for spending dollar in
buying votes and where no money will be
80 spent. In the existence of this pur-
chasable element lies the chief uncertainty
In regard to the result of the election. If
there could be fair and honest vote and
true count throughout the country or in
the Northern States-for no free election
or fair count Is to be expected in most of
the Southern States-we should have no
apprehensions in regard to the result. AS
1t Is, votes will be bought on 10th sides,
but the natural proclivlties of the major
ity of the venal voters are toward the
democratic party. Corrupt democratic
managers are more numerous, more ex-
perienced and more reckless In the pur-
chase of votes than corrupt republican
managers. They are, beyond doubt, bet
ter supplied with funds than the repub-
licans, and they will use the money on
election day in the doubtful States with
a lavishness never known before
But the masses of American voters
are after all not purchasable !;
nor could money enough be raised
by any party to buy them all, if
every man had his price. Our candid be-
lief is that the honest masses will decide
this election. The progress of the can
vass has indicated that many thousands of
men who voted for Cleveland four years
ago are now satisfied that Harrison is the
honester, ADLER and more trustworthy of
the two candidates; that many thousands
of workrgmen, heretofore democrats, pro-
pose to vote this time with an enlightened
view to the interests of American indus
try; that thousands Of non partisans who
thought four years ago that it might be
good thing to have Change" in order to
'have the books overhauled," having dis
covered that the books were all right, and
that the change Was a change for the
worse, will vote 10 put things back as they
were that thousands of honest friends of
civil service reform, who We're misled by
Cleveland's specious promises, will not
be so misled again that a majority of the
young voters at the North prefer a party
Of patriotism and progress to q party
which is ruled by the Bourbons who learn
nothing and forget nothing; that many
democrats, outraged by the gross personal
favoritism with which their hos SEES
have distributed the spoils will vote
against the administration which |
lpholds the bosses and countenances their
corrupt and demoralizing management
and that thousands of other intelligent |
and thoughtful democrats, Disguised by |
he degradation of the civil service and |
,larmed at the tendencies OF their own
,arty and satisfied chat four years more of |
is suprem acy will seat the rebel briga- |
'ers so fir y in the saddle that they can |
De unseated only by another civil war, |
will quiet vote for Harrison and Morton. |
These classes, with the steadfast rank and |
lie of the republican party, will, as we
believe, make host which will outnum-
Der the democracy and its third party and |
rec trade anneXes, and so largely out |
number it as to overcome the margin of |
corruption and fraud which otherwise |
would carry the day against us. We be-
ieve that every State which went repub- |
lean four years ago will go republican |
gain; and that the State of New York |
will swing back to the republican stand |
trd, and give her electoral vote and the cleo |
ion to Harrison and Morton. So beliey- |
ng we await the issue of next Tuesdays |
contest at the polls, with cheerful equa-
limity