Los Angeles herald., 1890-09-04
POPULAR CHOICE VERSUS POLITICAL
CHICANE.

Long before the present session OF
Congress assembled it was very plain
that certain radical and unheard of de.
partures were to be made in the rules of
the House of Representative of the
United States. These were prefgured in
an article contributed by the Hon.
Thomas B. Reed, who had not at that
time been elected Speaker, but who was
already clearly the choice of his party
Review. The sweeping changes advo-
Gated by Mr.. Reed were at once carried
out on the assembling OF Congress.
Though the Speaker had to 60 counter to
ruling of favorite son of his own
State, the Hon. James G. Blaine, he has
made quorums at his pleasure, has rid
den oversthe majority, and inaugurated
the most tyrannical regime ever known
in the House OF Representatives So
arbitrary has been his career as Speaker
that the Maine trickster has earned the
nickname OF "Czar' Reed. He would
have done well to have recalled the fact
that imperial and monarchical methods
have seldom found favor with the people
of this country.
Not content with introducing an iron
and despotic rule in the lower house of
Congress, the Republican party has
started out to violate every principle Of
American liberty by the formulation Of
a measure, known as the Lodge bill,
which will, if enacted into law, make free
elections in the South forever impossi-
BILE. Such despotic measures, if once
consummated, are fatal to liberty, and
grow with malign rapidity into iron
forms of oppression. There is a hope
that the Senate may defeat this infa-
nous force bill.
While the people OF the United States
gladly welcome territories into the I'm
ion which have attained the population
necessary for that dignity, they see with
indignation such commonwealths ad-
mitted for the special purpose of giving
an undue partizan advantage to any po-
litical party. There would have been no
protest against the admission of Wash
ington, Dakota and Montana, but very
few people could see any necessity for di-
viding Dakota into two commonwealth.
The real reason for this act was that
thereby the Republican party gained two
United States Senator's.
In this and similar acts we have thor
ough illustrations of chicane in politics.
Doubtless political trickery is potential
for time, but an ascendancy based on
such acts is transient. The injustice
worked by the measures actually consum-
mated will be transient, and will quickly
rectify itself, always excepting the
Lodge Federal Elections bill which with
its elaborate Returning Board machin-
ery.is an attack upon the very life of the
Republic itself. In the case of new
States admitted for partizan purposes a
change in the popular sentiment may
inure to the benefit of the Democratic
party, through the election of Demo-
cratic Senators Of the United States.
While the Republican party is busy
buttressing it's political fortunes by all
sorts of chicane and questionable de-
vices, the Democratic party is gaining
steadily in the good will of the masses.
The results of the present census will
give Southern New York, which is
staunchly Democratic, her rightful
representation in the New York Legis-
lature, which will mean d Democratic
United States Senator to succeed VIM.
M. Evarts. The canvass in Pennsylva-
mia looks so promising that Demo-
cratic successor to Don Cameron is not
one of the impossibilities. Gen. John
M. Palmer is making gallant fight for
the United States Senate in Illinois. In
California the chances are excellent
for the election OF Democratic United
States Senator to succeed Hon. Leland
Stanford
No one'who has watched the course of
the elections during the past year can
have failed to note the strength of the
Democratic tide. In municipal and
State contests the Democracy have not
only held their own, but gained steadily.
In the battle of the popular choice
against political chicane the right is