The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1893-11-10
Boomerang Burst of Virtue.

1oOau6Ao aug DuASt VI tlTtu6s A.
We congratulate most heartily our
Republican friends. They have
achieved a triumph as is a triumph, a
triumph over their own evil propen-
stiles and pernicious designs. They
buiided better than they knew when
they brought that Supreme Court
suit, and now they will be able to
realize that sweet moral dictum that
virtue is its own reward, for it is
about all the reward they are likely
to get. Oh, yes, We congratulate
them; Ha, la! Gadzooks, this is a
merry Jest
The Supreme Court yesterday
knocked ont that infamous gerry
mander-which the Republican party
was plotting for the purpose of send
ing General Sewell to the United
States Senate in spite of the people
knocked it out clean and cold: made
it an impossibility, even for a Repub-
lican Legislature. And so we SON
graduate the victorious party. 1t has
been saved from the commission of a
great crime.
Some months ago, certain virtuous
republicans claimed that the State
had been SO '.gerrymanderedn by the
Democratic party as to make it i'm
possible for the Republicans over
again to carry the Assembly. The
impudent mendacity of this claim
was, perhaps, sufficiently proven on
Tuesday; but the cry was good
enough to bring the party into the
Supreme Court with a piteous wall
for relief.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court
granted the '~'relief" sought. 1t de-
cided that not only the redistricting
act of 1891, but all other distributing
systems were unconstitutional and
null and void. They have expressly
ruled that this adjudication shall
have no retroactive operation. But
they enjoin that in all future cleo
lions, the members of Assembly shall
be elected by the voters of the coun-
ties at large. This is where the un-
scrupulous Republican falsehood
proves a boomerang. The present
districts are fairly and squarely laid
out. Nine-tenths of them have been
carried by both parties in the course
of the three elections for which the
system has prevailed. But the Re-
pnblicans, having gained control of :.
the Legislature, meditated a real
gerrymander-one on the old Horse
shoe plan. They would have Sc
cured control of the Assembly for the
next ten years if they had been
allowed.
1t is hard to see how they can take
any such step now. If the Supreme
Court decision is valid, then any re-
districting law they may pass will be
null aud void. Even if an appeal be
taken from the decision to the Court
of Errors and Appeals. they can
hardly sun that this decision,
which they procured themselves, is
erroneous, and SO proceed to redis-
trict the State in contempt of it's
commands. Assuredly if they do
this, they will go before the people SO
stultiied and discredlted as to insure
their defeat in the next election by
just as decisive results as they have
in their favor now.
This is why they are not happy.
BUT, after all, you may say, they
wanted this system. They wanted the
A~ssemblymen elected at large in each
county. Are they not sure of winning
under this system. Let us see:-
The following counties must under
all circumstances be conceded to
them:-
Gounts. Nc. of Assembly men.
Auaouc ..- .,..-,... ---....,--... |
Gercer..'r-sa..+.-. .......s....s..s,. q |
ocean. |
Satnuen.. 3 |
Lassaic. .t..-.-.......... ......... |
cumberland. |
Iaps