The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1892-09-03

of the State for stern enforcement OF
law and justice is once again a pride
to honest citizens.
We could wish that the act of yes
terday was the last in this painful
story. We could wish that the Demo-
cratic party could enter upon the
campaign with the eclat of placing
actually behind the bars these traitors
to the institutions of the State, these
enemies of liberty and republican gov
ernment. We bitterly regret the course
of counsel in still c~ontending against
the right, and we confess to no small
disgust at the jaundiced and dis
torted sense of duty which inspires
the latest resistance to the DEGREES of
the court.
These men have plead guilty. They
have plead guilty after fair warning
that the Court would make no bar
gain with them, would guage their
punishment absolutely by the degree
of their crimes. They have plead
guilty by advice of counsel.
Now these same counsel are labor
ing to upset the result of that act, the
only decent one that has characterized
these prosecutions. Perhaps it may
be the duty of counsel, after judg-
ment is conferred, after all appeals for
mercy are exhausted, to resort to
quibbling and wrangling-mere dila-
tory proceedings in the hope that
their clients may die before the other
wise Inevitable doom overtakes them.
This may, we say, be a lawyers view
OF duty, but it is certainly most I'M
lovely, most exasperatingly contra
dictory of the ordinary mans notions
of honor and conscience. 1t is GER
tainly the most atrocious error from
the point of view of politics that a
be thought of. The public duty of
every democrat is to hasten these men
to Jail SO that the party may be freed
from the report of their freedom.
Dual Office Holding and the De
mocracy.
When the Solons of the Democratic
party come to frame the platform to
be presented to the coming State Con-
vention, there are several abuses
which have, crept into the party policy
against which they should make the
most positive pronouncements. Per-
haps the most important Of these is
the vice of dual office holding.
Nobody can doubt that the recent
course of the party in giving several
places TO this, that and the other owner
of a pull has had a most disastrous eff
feet within and without the party
organization. 1t discourages work
ers, because they see the prizes of
political effort concentrated in the
hands of a few. while many, equally
deserving, go empty handed. 1t Of
tends the general public because it
creates the impression that the party
is being run by a small clique, "a
ring,n for personal profit and not for
the benefit of the people.
OF course the party is not commit
ted in any way to the plan of concen-
trating offices in the hands of a few.
Neither is any serious censure in
volved in such a plank in the plat
form for any errors of Judgment or
policy that have been made. Mis-
takes will be made, and the effort of
the party to correct those into which
it has lapsed and to bind itself to a
more rigid policy in future, will not
be interpreted as conveying any per-
sonal reflections whatever.
The adoption of this plank will win
for the party a renewal of the pub
lie confidence which it has always en-
joyed. The declaration of its position
will show that it is progressive and
earnest in its desire for political re-
form. 1t will show that it is able to
read the public mind and ready to
respond to the public wishes. The
plank, if adopted, will wipe out per-
haps the most serious ground of oppo-
sition to the party held by the voters
of this State.
NEW PU BLICATIONS.
Romance for September.
The September issue of Romance is a