The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-07-15
LAsHING THE TIGER.

ment of Tammany. A Band of Civilized
Brigands.
The Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr., so far
from being deferred from attacking
Tammany Hall and its officials by his re-
cent arrest on a charge of libel, has re-
turned to fight with undiminished zeal
In a sermon delivered Sunday he
followed up his former arraignment of
Excise Commissioner Koch by sweep
ing assault on Tammany and all its out
posts. The title of his sermon was
Municipal Corruption" Among other
things he said:
1T is conceded without discussion by
62,000,00 people in America that the
rottenest city government in the English
speaking world is in New York.
For this we have to thank Tammany
Hall-an organization of civilized brig
ands' banded together for the sole pur-
pose of plundering the public treasury.
1t knows no principle save that of self
interest. 1t wears cloak of National
party, beneath which to conceal the
assassin's dagger. The only power re-
cognized within it's royal domain is the
power of pull
1T has transformed the government of
the second city of the world, that holds
the key of the New World, into comedy
of thieves. The name of the municipal
government of New York is the joke of
two continents. Our municipal record
under this band of plunderers has formed
the worlds international burlesque of
free government.
1--WE are the laughing stock of Europe
and the recipients of the pity and con-
tempt of our fellow Americans.
with shame we recognize more truth
~ I,n xr,,f &c
Rudyard Kipling as he describes Man.
tween two sewers This certainly is a
moral if not physical fact. For all of
which we have to thank Tammany Hall.
Unto your city treasury every year
pours Niagara of gold, more than the
sum total required by the governments
of twenty-four of the greatest States of
the Union.
"And what do we get in return? In
brief, we get the meanest schoolhouses
of any great city of America, and not
enough of them, turning annually thou
sands of children into the streets to be-
come criminals; filthy, ill-paved streets;
fire-traps and death traps dotting the
city in every direction, that violate the
laws, until the coroner sit over the ruins
and the insurance company furnishes
money for a new building; vermin in
tested station houses, dirty and cheer
less into which the shelterless wretch is
kicked and left upon the floor; unrelieved
disease and starvation among the poor.
Gan inadequate or i'll managed water
service. poisoned by 1000 catalogued
nuisances in its watershed; thousands of
betrayed trusts in the granting of city
franchises to corporations that hold our
highways and pay nothing for the priv
ilege and give US inadequate facilities of
travel; police service declared by
grand jury to be the friends and pro-
tectors of crime and criminals, receiving,
by the estimate of the foreman, at least
$1,000, 900 annually as the price of official
blackmail, and retaining on its pay roll
men charged in open court with the foul
est crimes known to civilization;
Judiciary that has been disgraced by the
elevation to the bench of saloon keeper
who was chronic violator of the law,
and of other political things of equally
shady antecedent, who had not the first
qualification or attainment to redeem the
infamy of their appointment; police
power that cannot see five thousand open
saloons ON Sunday and hundreds of
gambling bells and disorderly houses
until pointed out by DR.. Parkhurst, and
yet who can easily get warrant for the
arrest of a grocer, who sold cake of
soap on Sunday and of preacher, who
dared in his pulpit to apply soap to foul
city government.
"As a fitting climax for all this we
have mayor presiding over the city,
when not otherwise engaged in presiding
over liquor dealers conventions, who
has branded himself as a self-confessed
al
mayor in vindication of the criminal con-
fession that while in Office he had appro-
priated 5000 in illegal fees.
"Back of him stand the governing
committee of Tammany Hall. Back of
these men stretches an army of rum
soaked, licentious violators of law whom
Tammany has fostered and upon whose
ill-gotten gains the deep tribute of black
mail is regularly laid.
1.-THE strength of Tammany Hall is
found in the old guard of sixty thousand
men who marched to the polls and voted
for William NJ. Tweed's candidate for
Register, while the city yet reeked with
the exposure of that notorious regime
This trained army of thugs would vote
for Judas Iscariot at the bidding of their
boss. Therefore Tammany defies every
pulpit that may thunder at her villainies.
Her army asks no question. With the
experience of years as heritage, and the
audacity of the devil as birthright,
Tammany defes the moral sentiment of
the world
"Shall men, who believe in truth and
right, cringe before this beast?
''Or shall we challenge the brute to
mortal combat and lift up our PROSTATE
and disgraced city?
LET every man in New York who be-
lieves in purity and home and righteous
ness and God give now the weight of his
manhood to the regeneration of the city.
Let us seperate this question from State
and National issues and pledge ourselves
to know no parties until this work is
done.
IF what have said be not true it may
be libellous. Let the henchmen and hire
lings see to it. If it be treason let the
dastardly tyranny that is crushing the
life and manhood out of our city make
the most of it.
IF it is necessary in the present de-
bauched life of the city for an honest
citizen to serve term in prison for
daring to speak the truth, am ready to
serve my God in the penitentiary, as in
this pulpit"
ETERNAL VIGILANCE