Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1890-04-10
MilWaukee'S FarcicaI Election
and It's Results.

NIL " HhtS , GfCICdA L6CLLOA
and It's Results.
The municipal election which was
held at Milwaukee, Tuesday, was
one Of the most singular perform
ances which this country has ever
witnessed. There were three tickets
ia the feld-republican, democratic
and labor. The second was success
full, receiving about thousand
more votes than the other two united.
The republicans in their platform
declared themselves in favor of the
principles of the Bennett law, but
were willing to amend any matters
of detail which needed alteration.
The democrats, after first declaring
that they we're in favor of compul-
sorry education, of instruction in
English, and the other objects which
the law was passed to carry out, put
at the tail end of their platform a
demand for It's notification aud re-
peal The specific for this they did
not state, and no one yet knows
officially why they are for its repeal.
Unquestionably the only reason was
that they thought it would help
them to get the city Offices. The
labor party declined to make an
issue of the Bennett law, because it
was a state and not a local question.
1t is agreed, however, that those
who voted for It's candidates favor
the maintenance of the measure.
They were all workingmen and had
expressed themselves as anxious that
it should be enforced.
The election turned on the Bennett
law, though one party has nothing
to say about it, and the democrats
stated the matter blindly, for it was
the promise of the latter to do what
they could to repeal the law that
sent to the polls almost every
Roman Catholic, an overwhelming
majority Of whom are always demo
Gratis, and that made the German
Lutherians, about two-thirds Of
whom have voted with the republi-
cans, vote solidly against that party.
The extraordinary phenomenon Of
German Lutherians and Roman
Catholic Poles, whom race and
religious hates keep asunder, acting
together, was seen for the first time
Tuesday. The lutheran ministers
and the Roman Catholic priests
gave similar instructions to their
flocks and marched them TO the
polls against the Bennett law.
The Roman Catholics turned out
in full force because their bishops
told them to. The latter said that
the religious liberty of the members
of their church was interfered with
by the Bennett law, but how it was
done they never explained. The
real ground of their hostility to it
is well known to be their hatred of
| the American common-school sys-
tenn. The Lutheran preachers were
even more indefinite in assigning
reasons for opposing the law. All
that could be gathered from their
statements was that they did not
think 1t right that the English Ian
guage should be used in their
schools for the instruction of Amer
lean youth. The law does not drive
German out of parochial schools; it
merely puts English in beside it,.
But that is something which the
Lutheran ministers think a nation
speaking the English tongue has no
right to do.
This farcical election, which mas
put a maker of poor jokes at the
head Of the city administration of
Milwaukee, is what might be ex-
pected to result from the blending
of such homogeneous elements as the
Lufherans and the Catholics, the
sole tie that binds them being a
party which as a political organiza-
ton cares nothing ut all about the
Bennett law and attacks it merely
to get some votes. How long this
queer mixture of oil aud water will
stay together it il impossible to
guess, but the time will surely come
when the Lutherans are merely cats
paws of their old Antagonist
Chicago Tribune.