Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1890-07-25
FRIDAY MORNING. JULY rs, 1890.
THE FORCE BILL.

L HOACE DILL.
While the new Force bill, called the
Lodge election bill, cannot be overrated
in the infamy of the design with which
it was concocted. it can be greatly over
rated in the dangers to be apprehended
from it, should it become alaw, which is
not likely to be the case.
Every Southern State, including Vir-
ginia, has worked out it's own salvation
from under the operation of election laws
equally as discouraging as this. In the
long to be remembered Virginia campaign
of 1888, the Democrats carried the State:
though at every precinct there was ma
jority of Malone officials appointed by
Malone Judges of the courts. There are
times in the history of the States and the
Nation when those in charge of the ballots
of the American people dare not brave the
temper of those people and cheat the ma
jority. Such time and temper existed in
Virginia in 1888, and such time and
temper existed in New York in 1884. when
Jay Gould proposed to count Grover
Cleveland out. Partisans in Congress
may do anything in the way of making
laws, but when the American people show
their teeth, no unfair OF unjust law is
going to be enforced against their will.
And that they will show their teeth both
North and South against any unfairness is
as certain as that the sun shines. Harri-
son and the Republican Congress went in,
because, while they did not receive a ma
jority of the votes of the Nation, they were
yet legally elected. Blaine could not have
gone in at any price, not even at that most
costly price Nations sometimes pay-be-
cause the country knew he was not elected.
The men counted into Congress by the
Federal Supervisors at the South under the
Lodge bill, even if it beco me a law, will
never be admitted there. Nor will the
Supervisors who attempt to count them in
ever repeat the attempt. There is but one
way for the Republican party to destroy
the existence of the States and that is by
bayonet elections. The day for that is
past. AS long ago as October, 1875, Gen.
Grant, then President, telegraphed to Lou
isiana that "the public opinion of the
country will no longer support it.' Fiji
teen years has increased the dire necessi-
ties of the Republican party, but it has not
changed the opinion of the people of the
Union.
That section of our common coun-
try in which hundreds of millions of N ORTIZ
ern capital have been invested shall, fol-
partisan purposes, be stricken with disor-
der and bloodshed; that for purely party adj
vantage the rights of the States shall be
impaired and an experiment at centraliza-
ton made, fraught with danger to the whole
country; that the peace of the whole coun-
Try shall be imperiled simply that men of
one political opinion may rule it, are not
reasons which will find response in the pop
ular mind. 1t is for the welfare of the
land that the government shall alternate
between the great parties now existing and
any effort by either to SO make the laws as
to perpetrate itself in power Indefinitely,
will be repudiated by the people. The
Lodge election bill, as was the McComas
reapportionment bill, is simply device to
that end, and will not be supported at the
North, nor tolerated at the south. The
Democratic party Of 1890 is not
an untried and unknown quantity in the
country as it was for a quarter of centu-
ny after the civil war. 1t has been in power
it has given the country good government
for four years fair, unsectiona and popu-
lar. Foryears it has polled a majority of the
popular vote of the Union. 1t is a mighty
party which is not to be throttled or silenced.
tits composed of a majority of the people and
it will submit to no unjust legislation pre-
pared to keep it out of participation in the
government. 1t does not propose that, in
the language of Speaker Reed, the Republic
can party shall do the registering, voting,
counting and supervising the returns for
the country. 1t does not propose to permit
this, and it will not permit it,