Democratic Northwest and Henry County news. [volume] (Napoleon, O. [Ohio]) 1894-1905, 1895-05-23
OF Mckinley Scandals Flashed
on the Public.
HOW MEMBERsoF THELEG-
ISLATURE ACT IN COL
UMBUS.
The State House a Hot Bed of LII
oentiousness and Debauchery.
Two Republican State oHoials Con-
duct Poker Game on High.
Democratic Gossip About the Ohio
Leaders.

COLUMBUS, O., May 20, 5.-Refer-
ence has heretofore been made in re-
gard to the low state of official NOR
atty prevailing in Ohio under the
Mckinley administration for three
years past. No ordinary pen could
expect to depict the revels and de-
baacheries of the men who stand
about Mckinley in the capital wheth-
er elected by the people to the legisla-
ture or whether chosen by the gov
ernor as a reward for their party SER
vices in the various counties where
they live. Indeed healthy regard
for the public morals of the state
would make such an exposure mem
ace to good society. But there are
some things that can be spoken above
whisper and without anyone hold
his nose during the recital Among
other escapades of
REPUBLICAN MEMBERS.
of the last odious and oderiferous
legislature were those that grew out
of the Organization of society known
as the
ORDER OF CHOSEN FRIENDS
which had variable membership of
from 20 to 40, all of whom were either
Republican members of the legisla-
ture or persons holding Office under
Mckinley in the State House. This
order of Chosen Friends was not
masculine society by any means. It's
other half was composed of young
women of presumably good charact-
er, women whose husbands had de-
serted them for reasons best known
to themselves, young and attractive
widows who had wearied of the SOM
ber symbols of mourning, and last of
all wives whose husbands were en-
gagged at night, little suspecting the
mother of their children to be the as
sociate of male and female prostitutes
in high and low life. These people
would meet at various houses where
the members lived. where they would
indulge in all manner of ribaldry and
COARSE ALLUsIoN,
eating fine lunches and drinking fine
wines and winding up in general
assignation after the adjournment of
the party to their homes. How many
women were led astray by these Re-
publican debauches sent to Columbus
to make laws for the people, how
many wives were alienated from
their husbands, how many homes
broken up and how many women
taught to despise the sacred ties that
bound them to home, husband and
children none will ever know. This
immoral, polluting and vile order
came to a sudden and almost tragic
end by reason of the
HoRRIFYINd DISCOVERY
of a wrong husband that his wife had
been constant attendant on these
midnight reyelries and debaucheries
and that her liasontwith a handsome
Republican member of the Legisla-
ture from county in eastern Ohio
bordering on the Ohio river not a
thousand miles from Pittsburgh had
resulted in open defiance of him and
rebellion against his home. This SO
maddened the lwretched man whose
BED WAS DEFILED
by the Mckinley debauchee, that he
armed himself with a deadly weapon
and at Town and High street in this
city he came upon the betrayer of his
wife, the despoiler of his home and
the defiler of his bed and would have
shot him down in his tracks if he had
not been disarmed and hurried away
by friends. On one other occasion
he made a second unsuccessful at
tempt to avenge his honor but the base
scoundrel made good his escape in
rapid fight. Other husbands and
fathers made similar discoveries and
the women themselves falling out and
accusing each other of improper con-
duct the society broke up in scan
dial which was only kept out of the
newspaper at the time through the
greatest exertions. The wholes tate
house seems to have given up to
RIGHTEOUSNESS and lust and during
the sessions Of The legislature women
of most
BRAZEN CHARACTER
focked to the ladies' gallery in order
that they might be near the equally
brazen Lotharios on the floor of the
house below. So notorious retreat
had the house ladies' gallery become
by the nesting there of the
WOMEN OF THE TOWN
that the wives and daughters of the
other members were obliged to cease
their visits to the session or sit in
contamination with the scarlet ha-
bitues of the gilded dens of great
city. These occurrences have 3ong
been matters of private comment in