The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1893-03-23
MR.. Voorhees, DISTRICT ATTORNEY.

The TRADE of the anti-Burke people
of the Democratic and reform variety
has become tiresome. The labor or
CARNATIONS have cause for resentment,
but no Democrat who walks the middle
of the road with his party in Indiana is
In a position to rail at the new district
attorney. The accusation of the Senti-
mel that MIR. Burke is a machine poll
~tician," reiterated by Leon Bailey and
the courthouse ~cOterie. is enough to con-
vulse with laughter the wooden Indian
of the tobacconist. The Sentinel and
the solemn Mr.. Swift denounce Mr..
Voorhees, district attorney as "the
most vicious man who ever got into
public place" because he voted against
the civil-service bill which would have
made the control of the State institu-
tiOns nOnpartisan and against the So
called secret ballot law. Not five DEM
ocrats in any Indiana Legislature would
vote for the first named measure, and
no Democrats voted for the secret ballot
law until they were impressed with
the belief that it could be used
to aid the Democratic party. Voting
against these measures is q mild offense
compared with the infamy of disfran-
chising one-fifth of the voters of Indi-
ana by Rerrymanders which every
Supreme Court that has been brought
to consider them has declared unconsti-
tutional. Every democrat in the last
Legislature, including the excellent Mr..
Kern, voted to re-enact q Rerrymander
which the Supreme Court has declared
unconstitutional. There is no political
infamy which can be compared with the
Indiana Democratic gerrymander. In
the present Senate a majority Of the
Democrats, aided by Lieutenant Gov
ernOr Nye, practically defeated a bill
authorizing minor parties to have
watchers at the polls. Men who sus-
tain such outrages are not In a position
TO denOunce the man as vicious who voted
against the secret ballot law. 1t is also
asserted by the Kern reformers that the
new district attorney was the tool of
the corporations. So be it; how much
better is Mr.. Kern, who, with his
colleague, Stuart. prevented the pass
age of the bill compelling the Citizens
Street-railway Company to do its share
of the paving of the streets it occupies,
evidently preferring to put the car COM
pany under obligation than to legislate
to lift a burden from the home-owners
of this city? Jobbery did not depart
from the legislative halls of Indiana
with Mr.. Burke. The evidences of it
were never more palpable than during
the late session. A prominent citizen
interested in the worlds fair declared
that an appropriation of $780, 600 could
have been secured by the judicious
placingo of $4,000 and fifty season tickets.
A member of the soldiers home COM
mittee was told by q Democrat about
the Legislature that the bill in aid Of
that charity passed by the House could
be "helped" through the Senate for
81, 200. The last Democratic Legis-
lature applied whitewash to a State
prison warden who accepted the lowest
bid for labor and the highest bid for
material, and refused to investigate the
charges of illegal fee-taking against the
Encouragement. Democrats who are
in the same boat and who are doing the
same things as Burke is accused of will
not succeed in escaping public censure
by making a Jonah of him when they
are angry. He is no worse than the ma
jority of his associates. But that is
very, very bad.