Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-10-30
WATCH YOUR TICKET.
Certain Features of the Present State
Campaign Not to be Overlooked.
Party Machinery Being Quietly manipulated
Adversely to the Popular Insrests.
Crooked Tickets.
Special correspondence of tbs c,zette.


escaped the notice, rot only of the
masses, but of those supposed to
be conversant with whatever is
going GU in politics. Or, If the
knowing ones are CON- they do not
appreciate the importance of some things
that it behooves the many to keep an eye
on. A recent dispatch from this city in
THE GAZETTE discussing the appar-
eut apathy existing in state
politics, has put some friends of
the railroad commission idea to
| thinking, and specializing as 10 tho
causes thereof. They are disposed to
feel that the masses who pronounced q
| short tins ago SO emphatically in favor
| of a com mission. and carried everything
| before them in laundering fashion, were
lulled by the plandits attending their
| victory into a state Of fancied security
that has made them wholly forgetful of
| the cunning, able and ingenious adver-
saries whom defeat did not wholly con-
quer, and who, II is believed, are now
shrewdly at work manipulating the
party machinery with the hope either of
defeating the proposed amendment at the
polls or of forestallng effective
legislation on the subject, should the
amendment carry. These gentlemen
point TO recent manifestations as seeming
proof that some underhand WORK is in
Progress. and that il behooves the friends
of the commission to wake up and be-
stir themselves. A gentleman we'll up in
state politics said to-day: ga great
many newspapers in the state, including
nearly all the dailies and host of week
lies, print a mutllated form of the state
ticket instead of that prescribed by the
executive committee. or the morning
dailies, THE GAZETTE Is perhaps the only
one that prints the ticket as
the committee directed. The regular
ticket should read :For the commission
amendment. In great many of the
papers this is entirely omitted or printed
in connection with the Alternative form,
''against the commission. - Although
the commission was the sole issue within
the party previous to the convention and
although its advocates and adherents
won a grand and notable victory over the
enemies by committing the party to its
Endorsement in convention asse bled,
and making it a plank in the party plat
form, as much to be respected and sup
ported as any other part of the platform,
these papers quietly ignore their duty
cases, and the traditions of the party,
and by printing a mutilated form of
ticket strive to impress the Democratic
voter with the notion that the commits
sion is an open question, for which lie
may vote for or against without
affecting his allegiance to party. In
this way they hope to win the votes
of many who, considering themselves
loyal partisans, might otherwise fear to
vote against the commission lest they
imperil their standing in the party. of
course, those papers are unrecoustructed
and as much opposed to the commission
now as before the convention. The
evidences of that fact may not
appear in their columns, but
it is believed that such is the case, all
the same
"But that is not ALL, - said he, Hthe
mutllated ticket scheme is being played
in another way. Taking their cue, evil
IDENTIFY, from the papers aforesaid,
county executive committees in q
number OF counties have lately
prescribed the alternative form
for and against the commission in
the form OF tickets for
the voters. This is, of course, contrary
TO the directions OF the state executive
and out of order. 1t was
done in Lamar, Denton, Harris,
Colorado, Dallas and Travis, but
was afterwards reconsidered in the
latter county and made regular, when |
the committee foun that for local rea-
sons It had TO be done. In how |
many other counties the execu- |
tive committees have thus al |
tered the prescribed form of ticket, 1 |
don't at present know, but those |
named will suffice to show that |
there is, to all appearances, something |
rotten, and not in Denmark either. 1t |
must be remembered that from each of
The counties named above, solid COM
mission delegations were sent to the San
Antonio convention instructed TO vote
first, last and all the time for the
rom mission. They did SO, aud the
declared in favor of the
just as 1t did in fuvor of
ticket. In defiance of official party ac-
ion, in every way regular in form, the
committees In those same COM
mission counties now frame the ticket
with respect to the commission in such
way as to mlslead many by conveying
he idea that 1t is a uon-partisan ques-
ion for which loyal Democrats may vote
n not, just as they please. These COM
nittees have as good a right to put on
their tickets 'for Hogg' and against
dogg. Hogs was no more the choice
II the convention than was the commits
ion. the one great desideratum OF that
body; and in shaping the ticket both
hould be treated alike, but they are not.
II Dallas county, under the very noses
II Sawney Robertson and Barney Gibbs,
he arch apostles of the com mission,
md wholly unbeknown to them, the
Executive committee got together in a
orner somewhere, and fixed up the
bogus and fraudulent ticket with which
hey expect to do execution at the
olls.'
In view Of these facts-the two feat
res Of the campaign mentioned at the
strange and mysterious si-
epee that has pervsded the politi-
al realm for several weeks,
specially that part OF it Inhabited by
he ants and their newspaper organs. is,
artly at lsast, explainable to the minds
q few inQuiring commissionists. They
egard those things as evidences OF
still hunt, and fear that the
eople may be caught mapping. The
eople are wholly unaware of
ny scheme outside of the Republican |