Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1891-02-19
THE FORCE BILL DEFEATED.
Failure of the Plan to Rob the People of
Political Freedom


Political Freedom
The Republican party has been saved
from itself again exactly as 1t was
saved from the colossal crime conten-
plated in the In parchment of Andrew
johnson The defeat of the force bill
and the gag rule in the United States
Senate would not have been possible If
all Republicans had been as violent
fanatical and inscriptions as George
f Hoar and John l. Davenport, nor
would the country have been spared
the shame of impeaching a President If
all Republicans had been as malignant
and impiacable as Oliver p Morton,
John a. Bingham and Theddeus
Stevens To a saving remnant OF hon.
orable and conscientious men in that
party the people owe, in part, their de-
liverance ON this occasion as on the
previous one. To them. therefore, no
less than to the solid phalanx of Demo
Gratis who so heroically resisted
tyranny and usurpation at the very
threshold, the thanks of the country
are due
It is difficult at single glance to
comprehend the full villainy of the
bayonet election bill now defeated,
which was to have been the
mightiest product of a rejuven-
ated monopoly Republication. This
bill was born of the necessities of
monopoly rule, of the embarrassments
of detected vote-buyerS and of the oTer-
weening desire of fat fryers aud soap
peddlers and blocks OF FIVE manipu-
lators to reach election results by
cheaper and quicker methods than they
had yet employed. 1t was magnificent
device to relieve the robber trusts of
the necessity of buying elections and to
compel the people through official ma
chinery to pay for their own corrup-
ton and enslavement- It would have
built up a standing army Of Republican,
party mercenaries under the control of
John l. Davenport and others of his ILL
who would have been responsible to no
body, who would have served for life,
using public funds unstintingly for
party ends, and who would have had
absolute power so to intimidate and dis
qualify voters and falSify the count as
to make it forever impossible for the
American people to elect n Congress
that did not echo the demands of tariff
greed and plumber. In a word. 1t was
the measure to which Thomas B. Reed.
the impudent usurper of the House of
Representatives. as yet unrebul1ed by
the people, referred in his Pittsburgh
speech last October when he said with
splendid insolence: I'VE must do our
own registration. our own counting,
our own cerfifcation-"
The wickedness of this attempt upon
the liberties of the people becomes the
more apparent when 1t is considered
that there was absolutely no demand
for it save from the professional cleo
ton crooks like Davenport and Dudley
and the monopolies that keep them in
funds The pi etcnse that 1t was in the
interest of the colored race at the
South Is absurd. 1t was the one thing
that the colored people, recovering
from their long bondage and from the
lawleSsneSs of the reconstruction pc
riod, did not want Its enforcement
contemplated their subsection to po-
litical serfdom worse than that from
which they were so recently delivered.
and to the whites of the South, noa
only, but of the North as well. it meant
an imposition of alien bossism that
would have been intolerable. The last
hope of disintegrating party of plum
der and privilege, its defeat follows
logically upon the heels of the recent
great popular uprising in favor of re-
sponsible, economical and honest gov
eminent.
Considering the forces that have been
instrumental in building up Thomas
b. Reed in the House and George E.
Hoar in the Senate, it can not be
doubted that the country has escaped a
very great danger. The force and fraud
idea, SO magnificently championed and
so powerfully sustained, seems now to
have met its Waterloo.-ChicagoH Herald