San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-10-12
SHORT STOPS.
what the People are Saying

| What the People are Saying
| The rapid rate at which the registra-
| tion of voters has been conducted shows
| one OF two things, either the people have
| come forward with more than ordinary
| alacrity, or the safeguards in the law
/; have not been exercised to prevent illegal
| registration.
The people have difficult task before
| them ON election day;the ymuSt overcome
| tricky and INSCRIPTIONS crowd; an
official ring, composed of the city and
county office holders, backed by all the
patronage and and power of their posi-
lions.
These veteran ringsters do not Scruple
to avoid and violate the laws governing
the right to vote: and why should they II
the people do not rise in their strength
and put them down in spite OF their trick
cry and corruption.
We are now to vote under a new law
requiring the test of registration. A law
providing severe penalties for false re-
giStration: law that but one voter in
one hundred has read, yet daily hundreds
have been registered without being tested
as TO their right to register.
Instead of being a crucial test through
which each voter must pass, our regiStra
ton is simply the making of a list of
names of voters, which is done as rapidly
as clerks can write them.
That a large number of illegal voters
will be listed there can be no question,
but if the genuine voters, young men and
old men will come forward and register
we will be able on election day to down
the ring.
The question OF the eligibility of a
large percentage of the Mexican vote is
one that should attract the attention of
the people. Those MeXicanS here at the
date of the treaty of Guadalupe Hdalgo |
and their descendants are citizens of the |
United States and none others. To admit |
the native Indian population of Mexico to |
citizenship, it would be necessary TO |
change our naturalization laws.
Custom does not change the established |
law of the country. 1t would be sheer |
nonsense TO argue that we make an ex- |
ception in favor of the Mexican over the |
native of the Sandwich Islands, or other |
foreign people; they must all seek ct
zenshtp under the same restrictions and |
qualifications.
The Mexican is the only fore igner that |
a treaty between the two countries es- |
pecially provides that declaration of in !
tentiOn'' does not have the effect of |
naturalization. This point needs looking |
into.
1t is fact, that in giving in their |
census, those MexicanS who had come |
from Mexico, claimed not to have relin- |
Quished their Mexican citizenship, but |
that they voted on some sort of paper |
furnished them for that purpose.
When the hord of imported Mexican |
voters that were used to thwart the will |
of the people, at the last election. were |
amused themselves by throwing from the |
car windows the ''ctizen papers on !
which they had voted.
1t was by the corrupt use of this kind of |
voting cattle that the ring secured power, |
and expect to keep it. Every good citizen |
should throw aside all other considera- |
tionS and determine to put an end to
this putrid condition of politics: to rebuke
these men who to secure Office do not
scruple to destroy the virtue of the bel
lott box. Every mothers son OF them
should be onsted from power.
The whole plan of the ring is to secure
as many illegal voters as possible, be-
about with trades in their hands and ask
descent people to vote for them. Let the
good people of this city rise as one man
against the ring.
No wonder Sam Jones finds food for his
sermons, and people to listen to them,
when the moral upright sentiment of the
community finds itself confronted by the
most INSCRIPTIONS combination of DO
litical corruption. the most hTaZpD- ia cpd
assumption on the part of men in office.
to rule the people and defy the law and
the courts.
What a text for sermon. The prose
cutting attorney, Geo. Paschal. yOked in
the same team with the indicted mayor,
and the people called on to came forward
and vote for it.
No wonder our whole community, with
its thousands of virtuOUs, happy homes,
must STAND the SANDER of pulpit revi
valiSt when crime walks erect, arm in
arm with those whose duty it is to serve
at the altar Of Justice.
If there is one portion of our population
kwhO deserve comment for uprlghtnesS of
| life, it is our German fellow citizens.
They are moral, upright, conservative in
| all their ways; theirs is a home life-wife
| and children are all to the German: he
| loves his home, and to him there is no
| attractions in the denS of vice and de-
| bauChery. If he is a beer drinker, it is
because his social life has never yet
| been contaminated with false ideas of
| society, that what men eat and drink
| should be made test of religion or poll
tics. To this large and worthy class of
our citizens we look for relief from the
| incubus of corrupt politics. They have