Los Angeles herald., 1890-07-29
DECENCY IN POLITICS.

The American people are getting very
weary of the school of machine politics
which has made itself so formidable in
both the great parties of late years. How
long they will stand an innovation which
has virtually taken the original power
out of their hands and placed it in the
keeping of the pariah classes, it is not
difficult to predict. When it has reached
that point at which indecency has
thrown off even the thin mask that pays
a seeming homage to virtue in citizen
ship, by planting itself Extensively and
aggressively in the face of the respecta-
bility of communities, the time will
not be far off when the popular
indignation will crush under its
iron heel bossism and its rotten follow
ing and execrable methods. What can
be more exasperating, and at the same
time humiiiating, to the decent Ameri-
can citizen than to find himself year
after year the mere instrument to record
his vote for candidates in whose choos-
ing he has had no voice? Why should
the honest, self-respecting Democrat or
Republican be made particeps criminis in
elevating to public position men who
have been selected for them by the
pimps and pariahs of the community?
And why should any citizen be bound to
the logical outcome of frauds perpe-
trated upon their rights in the broad
glare of day?
Primary elections were instituted as
the means to get at the honest express
sion of the citizen upon men and meas
ures. If they serve any purpose, it is
that Of concentrating the wishes of
neighborhoods into compact form and
sending up to the convention men who
will honestly represent those wishes.
In the sense that these elections are the
fountain and source of public power,
they should be held even more sacred
from the sacrilegious hand of the heeler
and the repeater-the bought scoundrel
who perverts ward politics into school
of infamy-than the final elections
themselves. If it is treason to
try to subvert the government,
what higher or lower type of treason
can we conjure up than that which sub
verts the will of the people by robbing
them of their political right of express
sion. II treason merit the extreme pen
atty, why should not men who pollute
the very fountain Of republican govern
ment .be punished by death? The
canaille of Los Angeles would meet with
speedy and condign punishment if they
were to physically attempt to drag out
of the executive chamber governor and
place usurper of their own choosing in
the chair. Is it any less criminal or any
less deserving of swift rope for that
same canaille to accomplish the same
object by the methods they adopted in
this city at the late Democratic pri-
maries? .
Why should an honest newspaper
pass such things over in silence? Is it
not the function of the self-respecting
journalist to hold such acts up to the
public execration, and to impale the
wretches who are guilty of them upon
the retributive lance OF public justice =?
The poor devil who steals loaf of bread
to keep his body and soul in touch is re-
lentlessly punished, yet scoundrels who,
in the face of day, steal an election have
the temerity to question the right Of a
decent newspaper to call them to &C
count for their colossal crime.
The HERALD stands out for decency in
politics, for fair, honest expression OF
the people at their primaries, for purity
of the ballot-box, and for the annihila-
tion of the scum that has grown up in
our cities to pervert by bold and high
handed means the will of the people.
If the dives, the "macs" and the Grim
inal classes generally must have repre-
sentation, let them have it in the proper
place--in the penitentiaries, not in our
party conventions.