The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1889-10-02

If the constantly expressed desire
of the people for purer methods and
more wholesome laws be half as earn
est as it is noisy, great will be the de-
feat of the Democratic party In New
York at the November election.
The Secretary of State, who will
head the Democratic ticket, and every
Democratic candidate for seat in the
State Legislature, will go to the coun-
try as a man approving OF the past
and pledged to the future policy OF
Governor Hill. 1t will be Hillism
against reform, and even against de-
cency, in the New York campaign.
And what is Hillism? The reform
element demands high license as
means of checking the great and grow
ing evils which the multitude of sa-
looms have begotten and forever are
begetting all over the State, and es-
pecially in the large cities. Governor
Hill has vetoed every measure which
the Legislature has passed as a check
upon the liquor trade, and his call TO
the Democratic convention has stopped
little short of an open declaration of
hostility to any and every form of legis-
lation which may hinder or lessen the
sale of intoxicating liquors.
Governor Hill also vetoed with un-
disguised contempt, the Saxon bill.
although both parties had demanded
electoral reform in their platforms of
1888, and although the bill contained
all that is best in the Australian ballot
law He gave active aid and support
to the defense of one of the most guilty
participants in the scandalous ceiling
steal" connected with the Capitol
Building Though both parties
pledged themselves to labor for the
reform of the civil service, Governor
Hill has surrounded himself with the
most unscrupulous gang of officials
that the State ever has been burdened
with. He defeated the popular desire
for q Constitutional Convention. He
has done everything that the liquor
sellers, the ballot-box suffers, the dis
honest public contractors have desired
him to do, and he has left undone
everything that the friends of temper
ance, the advocates of an honest ballot,
the promoters of civil service reform,
the champions of honesty in the making
and securing of public contracts have
wished him to do. This is Hillism
and Hillism is what is to pass as
Democracy in the next New York cleo
ton.
1t would seem impossible that any
nomination of good Republican can
didates should fail to overcome the
array of Hillism at the polls. 1t
would be impossibleif the ballot-boXes
in New York City were as carefully
guarded as those in the lesser towns
and rural districts of the State. The
hope of Hillism lies in direct bribery,
in that indirect bribery which saloon
keepers can exercise toward many of
their customers, and in that thinly dis
guised intimidation which one set of
minor officials can bring to bear upon
the criminal classes, and which another
set can exercise toward those who are
dependent upon it for place or profit.
Yet the prospects of Democratic sue
cess are far from bright. There is a
protest against Hillism, even in the
Democratic party, and there is steady
hostility to it among the Independents.
New York is becoming impressed with
the belief that the defeat of Hillism is
as much necessity now as the defeat
of Tweedism was aforetime. Chicago
Inter Ocean.