The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-01-03
POLITICAL HUMBUGs.

AS illustrative Of the reckless and vim
dsctive mendacity of the Pc0ulist lead
ers i'm this State. as elsewhere. is the
charge made by some members of it's
committee in connection with their de-
mand for the right to have watchers at
the polls. that the two old parties ''di-
vided the Populist vote between them"
There may be few hundred, possibly
few thousand people in Indiana who are
so ignorant as to believe that the seven
officers in each of the 1908 precincts in
Indiana or in any number of them would
or could openly agree to divide the votes
cast for the Populist candidates be-
tween the two parties which they repre-
sent, but it seems incredible. In order
to do SO. one must believe that all OF the
21,441 citizens of Indiana selected to SUI
perintend the voting and to count and
return the votes are willing to make
themselves perjurers. That is too much.
Indeed, it is much more reasonable to
believe that more than twenty thousand
of these officers would utterly refuse to
commit such a barefaced crime. and
that in not over sixty-three of the 1908
precincts could seven men be found who
would agree to divide small vote
equally between the parties to which
they belonged. A large part of them
might he sharp in their decisions affec-
ting the legality OF certain ballots be-
cause of the stamping, but men iii In
diana are a long way from that general
corruption which would be necessary to
insure a combination to divide the Pop
lllist vote between the two parties. Any
extended plan would involve an agree
ment between the State chairmen, and
through this the county chairmen and
Such an assumption would be prepos-
ferrous to any man whose intellect is not
unbalanced.
The Populist leaders. moreover, make
this charge in the face of the fact that
the Republicans fiercely resisted the
change in the law by the Legislature of
1891. by which watchers for all parties
were excluded from the polls, and in the
last Legislature were persistent in their
es.orts to have the law so changed that
representatives of each party may be
present during the counting of votes,
making a protracted fight in the SEN
ate, which occupied a good part of three
sessions. All that goes for nothing with
these constituencies demagogues, who
are not even honest in their advocacy
of the free coinage of silver because
they are the remnant of the old Green
back party, which left the other parties,
for the most part, because they were not
given offices. The money they believe
in is paper-mill money in vast issues,
never to be redeemed.
Two States have tried Populisnl-Kan-
sas and Co1orado-and in them members
of their own party, have proclaimed that
their inefficiency and rascaiity have
been without parallel in the history
of the States. In Kansas. Sc many of
the Populist reformers out of Office
turned thieves in Office that they fought
each other in the public institutions for
plunder. In both States the people sent
the Waite and Lewelling administra-
tions to the rear. and with them all of
the political humbugs of the Jerry Simp-
son variety, except one. In view of
these experiences, intelligent people will
view with disgust the reform preten-
sions of the same sort of political hum
bugs in Indiana.