Butte semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1886-1890, 1889-02-27


spent last November in the doubtful
states has developed q great and growing
public sentiment against political meth
DDS which, created by the Generalization
of civil war. have only been tolerated
because Of the survival Of the civil wa
animosities.
Frauds are committed not for lack Of
law, but in contemptu0us defiance OF 1t.
They are not punished because they are
treated as party crimes for which the
party accepting the benefit assumes
party responsibility. This is we'll under
stood by the people-so well understood
that no one expects the Republican party
to inquire what use was made of the cor
ruptiOn fund raised by Foster and con-
tributed by Wanamaker, Alger, Wharton,
Baker and other m~ilIionaires, who are
now considered as eligible for Harri-
sons cabinet. H it were announced
that Harrison intends to have Dudley
prosecuted, no story told on the first OF
April could be received with SO much in
credulity. If it were suggested to Sena-
tor Edmnnds, Senator Hoar, Senator
Chandler and Senator Eyarts that the adj
mitted bribery in the Minnesota Legis-
lature ~vitiates Wasllburn's title to a seat
in the United States Senate, that cOnse-
qusntly it is their duty to examine into
aud act on the evidence, they would
every one be genuinely astonished at the
novelty Of the suggestion. Yet every one
of them is prepared to plead ~unctuOusly
for pure elections in Mississippi and to
vote for Federal interference in the
politics of that State.
This hypocrisy is deplorable because it
divides the American people on lines Of
civil war prejudice and because it en-
courages and promotes fraud and demon
alization in both parties.
We do not say that the Republican
party is guilty of all the fraud practiced
in our politics, but it is morally respon-
sible for most of it, because, setting for
rs years an example Of fraud, it refuses
to condemn or to attempt to punish any
fraud by which it profits. Democrats
have often been guilty Of frauds directed
against the Republican party,
but really against Democracy, and they
have been repeatedly punished for it by
regardless of p~artisanship.
The first non-partisan prosecutions of
election frauds instituted by the Federal
government in many years were insti-
tuted in st. Louis by President Cleveland,
who, suspecting Democrats of completely
in them, called to the assistance of the
District Attorney the ablest Republican
in Missouri. As a result, there
were numerous convictions without re-
gard to the politics of the criminals.
When has the Republican party when in
control Of the Federal government ever
used the federal courts to punish a Re-
publican guilty of bribery OF ballot-box
stufing?
Benjamin Harrison is about to swear
to support the Constitution of the United
States rs President Of the United States.
He succeeds a just, honorable and pa
triotic man. If he shows himself just,
honorable and patriotic, he will have the
honest majority with him, but il he
attempts to act out the hypocritical
Of partisanship the Republican
Senate is marking out for him he will
not succeed in deceiving the people.
More than it needs anything else, this
country during the next four years needs
a brave and honest man in the White
House-a man who will refuse to ask the
politics of any criminal, or the geo.
graphical location Of any crime before
deciding what he is to think of it and do
about it.
The politics Of the country reek with
morally there is no crime
greater in all of it than that of men who
are ready to denounce all crime ex-
cept that Of which they are the bene-
ficiaries.
II Mr.. Harrison could show himself
equal to the situation; if it were possible
for him to desert his party's ground; to
be honest, to be brave, to be manly; to
hold crime as a cause Of quarrel with
criminal wherever found and not
a. single section because it has
criminals in it; If he could honestly con-
iemn and honestly use the power of his
office against such corruption as Dudley
and Quay are guilty of, the country could
we'll afford to ignore his tainted title to