The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1892-12-01
HOOSIER VANDALS.
They Desecrate the Graves
OF Union Soldiers in Sew
eral Indiana Gene
teries. ="
The Dastardly Deed Was
Done by People Who Were
Celebrating Cleveland's
Election.

/ - 49, ~ ACOHAV w IlC w ere
Celebrating Cleveland's
!. 1874. Election.
There are dark places in Hoos-
1erdom. Last year rancorous COP.
perheads in school district of that
State refused to permit a patriotic
schoolma'am to fly the flag of hel
country in front of the school
house where she. was teaching: in
tact the pole was cut down and
the flag torn into shreds. A few
nights after election, while the
Democrats were: celebrating the
great victory of their party, sew
eral cemeteries were entered and
the tombstones over the graves Of
Union soldiers were daubed with
red paint and otherwise disfgured.
1t was not the work of drunken
roWdies, for none but the graves
OF soldiers We're. desecrated and the
operations Of the cowardly ghouls
were not confined to one cemetery.
The Pioneer Press editorially re-
fers to the Hoosier hyenas in the
following scorching language.
THE SLIME OF THE SERPENT.
The old saying that not every Demo
GRAFT is a horsethief, but that every
horsethief is Democrat conveyed, IN
| der an hyperbole, a truth that is illus
trated by the deseqration of the graves
of Union soldiers in the State Of In
diana. It. is true that there are plenty
OF Democrats whose blood will boil as
readily as that of Republicans when
they hear of this infamy; but it is also
true that in the Democratic party only
could agents for, such a crime be found.
We are apt to forget, when wezhear the
patriotic speeches Of Democratic lead
ers, and acknowledge the high charac-
ter OF Democrats prominent in public
lie, many Of whom we're formerly Re-
publlcans, what the substratum of that
party really is. We are blamed when
we remember it; and told that. to re-
call the acts and words of the vile and
shameful men who during the war.
we're as vindictive in their hatred of
the Union as they were cowardly in
thelr unWllllngness to go to the front
and tight, is to ''wave the bloody
Shirt" Yet that element is there.
And it is not in the South, where men
wear their enmities openly and royalty,
and are staunch as friend or foe, but in
the foul and stagnant pools of the
North, where the copperhead breeds
that we find the Democrats who trail
the slime of the serpent over their
party, and forbid us to forget that it's
tangs are as venomous as of old.
1t would be impossible of any other
party that it should. in an hour of re-
joicing and victory, go out systematic
ally and in cold blood to defile the
graves Of those who died for their
country. We should like to say that
it would be impossible in any other
State than Indiana, where the craven
White Cap outrages flourish, and
where the miasma of the native swamp
still keeps pestilential life in the frame
of the traitorous order of war DAYS
known as the Knights of the Golden
Circle. 1t is nearly thirty years since
the war was ended. Brave men On
both sides have forgotten their differ
ences. Results are accepted, and all
that the most rancorous now desires is
to let oblivion cover the passions of the |
time that tried the nations strength.
But the copperhead will not have it SO. !
His slow, cold poisonous blood has held
the sullen rancor of defeat. Fooled all
those years ago in his attempt to strike
the nation in the rear, he still feels |
darkly and blindly about him for {;
victim. And now as then, afraid to
face the living, he steals to the church
yard to vent his spleen upon the unre-
sisting dead. It is the old legend of I
the ghouls come true. Men who can
do this, men who only do not honor the
patriot dead, but who find a hideous
satisfaction in defacing their lowly and
mOss-grOWn monuments are less and
worse than human. These men are
Democrats. They marked their act
by making it part Of their
celebration of a great Democratic VIC
cory. And the Democratic party,
though as a whole it would scorn such
IN act, must bear the odium of those
who have been faithful to it from its
worst estate. All Of bitter disloyalty