Middletown transcript., 1894-12-01
ADDICKs' DIVORCE SUIT.

1t is unfortunate for Addicks, but it may
be very fortunate for the people of Della
ware in particular, and of the Unite
States in general, that his wife should have
brought suit for divorce against him JUS
at this time. The impudence of crude
hustler like Addcks in aspiring to be {
member of the Senate of the United States
is still supplying, after all that has hap
pened to degrade that body. For Delaware
is not mere mining camp or lumber camp
where we might expect to see man run,
ming for Senator upon the sole ground that
he had money and was willing to spend it
1t is an old Commonwealth, with decorous
traditions and corporate self respect. One
of the traditions of which the State has o
right to be proud is of the distinguished
and high minded men who have repre-
sented it in the national councils, tradi-
ton that has been worthily continued to
our own day by the present Ambassador of
the United States to Great Britain. 1t is a
much more atrocious offense to the public
decency for Yahoo like Addicks to un-
dertake to represent such State than it
would be to attempt to represent COM
munity as crude as himself, though we
really cannot affirm even with Stewart and
Allen and PETER clearly in mind, that the
crudest Commonwealths have ever sunk so
low as to send an Addicks to the Senate.
These are the conclusions of decent peo-
pie throughout the country, and they have
appealed with peculiar force to the decent
Delaware people. whose State pride has been
deeply wounded by Addicks impudence.
Of course, these Delawareans, have been
bestirring themselves to avert the shame of
Addicks from their State and to prevent
the carrying out of the CORRUPT bargain in
virtue of which Addicks expects to be sent
to Senate. When pubic opinion reaches
a certain pitch Of ofunanimity and intensity,
even hired legislature will not dare to
defy it, and it has has been the aim of the
decent people in Delaware to create senti-
ment that the legislators of whom Addick S
is the mortgage cannot Withstand, SO that
which he holds.
Everything, therefore. which comes out
to increase and emphasize the disrepute
of Addicks does good. The fact that he is
jobber in franchises, and has mads his
money thereby, ought to be conclusive.
Equally conclusive should be the consid-
Grafton that he proposes to spend
the money so amassed in buying a
Senatorship. Then, the man is not really
Delawarean, and he uses his alleged
residence in Delaware merely as pretext
for getting into the Senat e, as he might
use his residence in Pennsylvania or
Massachusetts or New York, if he
would get into the Senate as cheaply
from one of these large and expensive
States. But all these considerations have
been known and operative all along, and
they do not seem to have made the con-
temptuous rejection of Addicks by the
Legislature of Delaware a foregone con-
clusion. There are people who can stand
all these things, but who will nevertheless
be revolted by the prospect of having a
man for Senator whose wife will not live
with him and is suing him for divorce. In
to the merits of the matter, which is going
before the courts, it would be improper now
to enter. But, whether Addicks is guilty
or not Of what his wife charges him with,
her charges are calculated to increase the
disgust already entertained for him on ac-
count of his antecedents and his efrontery,
and to recruit the number of the disguised.
So that it is very good that the charges
have been made and that the domestic
troubles of the Addickses are likely to do
valuable public service by increasing the
popular repulsion to the notion of the male
Addicks as Senator.