The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1890-06-06

which at the last compelled the acuui-
essence Of the Democrats in compro-
mise method of ballot reform which
may possibly secure partial deliver
ance from the evils of a corrupted ball
lot. 1t knows that at this hour Demo-
cratic policy in this State is dictated
by an organization which has perpe-
trated every possible crime against
civic purity and popular rights-a PAR
| tisan banditti whose one dominating
| impulse is an unappeasable greed; that
| this Lorde of rapacious plunderers,
whose debaucheries and excuses have
long defled all restraint, have seized ey-
cry avenue of preferment, and hold to-
day in practical subsection, to the vast
detriment of the public interest, all de-
partments of the State administration.
The very atmosphere we breathe is
tainted by the poison of the muck-heaps.
whose impurities recent investigations
have exposed to public gaze. This jour-
nal IS aware, too-it can not help being
so-that in Ohio. New Jersey, Mary
land and every other State in which
efforts to secure legislation corrective
OF corrupt election methods, and prac-
tical reform in other directions have
been Intellectually made by Republicans,
the failure was due to the hostility of
the dominant party. To say, in view of
these facts, that the man who left the
Republican party and united himself
with the Democracy has found a cleaner
bed than he left, is to put an affront
upon the popular intelligence, and
practically to deny the truth of history.
Political parties are to be judged and
weighed by their major purposes, and
their dominant and controlling tenden-
cies. just as mans life is measured
and weighed, not by what he may do in
one hour or in one emergency but by
what he does in all the crucial tests of
his life as a whole, so the Republican
party in this State and country is to be
weighed and measured by its prevailing
trend and tendency. It Is indeed posi-
BILE that it has not in all crises risen to
the height of its duty. 1t is quite proba-
BILE that it has at times paltered
with its opportunities and failed to
utilize its power for the larg--
est and greatest possible results,
but it is still true that its stand
ards have fluttered in the van of every
great struggle for reform and for the
maintenance of vital and essential prin-
ciples. 1t was the backbone of the 10y
al purpose of the American people dur
ing the civil war. 1t steadied the pub
lie faith all through the dark and trou-
blous reconstruction period that sue
ceeded. 1t gathered in and anchored
in the constitution and laws the legiti-
mate fruits of the triumph over rebel
lion. 1t is to-day the stay and the hope
of every movement looking to the pro-
motion of the public welfare. No real
advance along any line of social or civic
reform is possible without its leader
ship. And when we find any journal
like Harper's Weekly undertaking to
pervert and obscure the obvious truth as
to the relations which the two political
parties of the country sustain to the
great questions of the hour, we can only
conclude that it lost the desire, il no.
the capacity, to be impartial in its criti
cisms Of public men and measures coin
with its decision 10 become an
organ of the partisan Democracy
Frank Leslie's illustrated Newspaper.