Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1890-07-09
Federal Interference at the Polls.

Federal Interference at the Polls.
The Federal Election bill now before
Congress is an attempt to hide poison with
honeyed words.
The republican party must have lost it's
| grip on the common sense of the country if
it can seriously hope to continue in power
by the liberal distribution of patronage and
the use of force if necessary.
This bill begins with piece of hypocrisy
and ends with piece of chicanery, since it
pretends to have general application, but
is aimed solely at the South.
When translated into cold bloodsd Auglo-
Saxon it means that if the South doesn't
vote the republican ticket it must be made
to.
hands of the several States is an intolerable
| insult to every selfrespecting section of the
Republic.
If The people are 80 debauched that they
c,n'5 ba trusted To conducs their own can
| vases; If Go this verge of every election of
federal c.ssdidases i. is necessary TO send AN
army of political Leelers who happen to be
out of job or who are hungry for govern
ment pap to watch the polls in the interest
of the party in power, we are not very far
from spontaneous combustion.
But it is CANNON, humbug and buncombe
in about equal proportions. The law is not
intended to apply to republican districts and
| will not interfere with the general purchase
of votes by the party bosses. Its chief
business will be to urge Southern negroes
to throw Southern States into the republi.
can ranks.
That is the plain English of the measure,
however disguised it may be by the plausi-
BILE logic and lurid rhetoric of it's advocates.
There are more than fifty thousand elec-
| tion precincts in the United States, accord
ing to the minority report. Several hundred
thousand appointees will make a pretty
penny out of the elections under that bill,
at cost which is reckoned at ten million
dollars.
The republicans insist that the measure
they are now debating will give the country
an honest count, but in order to insure it
they would like to do the counting them
selves.
1t is we'll known rule among politicians
that the party which counts the votes is
likely to win. The old saying, 81 care not
who makes the laws of the people if 1 can
make their songs" is adapted thus:-I care
not which side throws a majority of the
votes if can have the counting of 'em.
For complete proof of this statement it is
only necessary to refer to those illustrious
republicans, Colonel Dudley, who has pa
tent on the "blocks of five" system of car
rying State, and Hon. Matthew Quay, the
political vampire of Pennsylvania and privy
counsellor to the President.
The measure is the lastdespe-ate struggle
of party which began its existence with
principles wholly good, and seems likely to
end it by methods wholly bad.
1t once commanded our respect, but is
rapidly falling into common contempt. 1t
has journeyed from its ancient virtue to
firm belief that the only honest count is the
one that counts democrat out of office and
a republican into it.
money changers from their tables in the
temple, but it has since set up a table of its
own ard adopted the practices of the very
men it formerly expelled.
No political party in the history of the
country has SO weakly yielded to the de-
mands of monopoly or oppressed the wage
Garner with such unyieldipg temper.
And now it caps the climax of greed by
bill which begins With the assertion that the
voters in every State are dishonest and COR
rupt; that the whole country is On the road
to the devil, and can only be saved by re-
publcans who have bought votes in Ohio,
and who played the deuce with honesty in
Pennsylvania and Montana.
Fer ourselves we are lockers on in Vienna
undisturbed by party deals and bargains.
We believe in the great body of the Ameri-
can people, their common sense, their CON-
science, their love of fair play.
In the name of those people we say that
federal interference with State elections,
federal espionage and police supervision of
the polls, is contrary to the spirit of our in
stitutions and gratuitous calumny that
should be hotly resented.
If New York and Kansas and Georgia
have become so irresponsible that they can't
control their own elections the whole case
seems rathe. hopeless.
And from what we have seen of the
methods of the republicans they are most
assuredly not the teachers to whom we look
for examples of virtue in public Office.
The bill may therefore be summed up as
a piece OF political strategy to keep the re-
publicans in power few years longer.-N.
7. Herald.