The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1896-02-21
WHERE TIE RESPONSIBILITY WILL
REST

Should the civil service reform bill
which was passed unanimously by Senate
nearly equally divided in political opinions
now be defeated or modified with a view
to insure its defeat or delay its operation
by the House of Delegates, where the
republicans outnumber the democrats
three to one, there will be no difficulty in
fixing the responsibility where it properly
belongs 1t will rest upon those recognized
and acknowledged leaders ofthe republi-
can party who are responsible for the
position which the party assumed in the
late campaign, and for the pledges which
it made, and who to-day, if they are
really in earnest, can insure the fultilment
of those pledges. The democratic minority
has neither the disposition nor the power
toprevent the fulflment by the republicans
of every campaign pledge to which Cover
nor Lowndes owes his election and the
party its majority in the Legislature BY
passing the Bruce bill as we have said
with practical unanimity, the democratic
have given proof of their willingness to
cooperate in the cause of reform. Where
now is the hitch.
Frankly. we believe that the trouble is
that those leaders who should personally
feel most deeply interested in the honest
and loyal fulilment of every pledge upon
the faith of which the republican party
was admitted to power, have failed to
impress the House of Delegates with a
sense of the necessity of keeping every
pledge that can be kept, or with a belief
in their own sincerity and earnestness.
The people did not rely simply upon the
raw, inexperienced and comparatively
obscure men who find themselves I'M
eXpectedly and for the first time clothed
with the power and responsibility of
legislators. Those men did not make or
shape the policy of the campaign or sound
its keynote. They are simply the instru-
ments selected to carry ont the purposes
and the policy by which the party leaders
announced that they wonld be governed
in the event of success and upon which
the people by electing them set the seal
of their approval.
1t was Governor Lowndes and his friends
who controlled the action of the Cam
bridge convention. 1t was in his interest
that the platform was framed, embodving
the pledges for the futilment of which the
people are now anXiously looking. The
personal confidence felt in Mr. Lowndes
=
paign 1t W to him and to the chairman
of the republican State committee, now
United States Senator-elcct that the peO-
pie looked for assurance "a to the purposes
of the party and the dependence to be
placed upon the declarations and pro-
misses of the platform. That in this res
pect they meet the expectations Of the
people fairly is shown by the result of the
campaign. Everybody will remember
with what care, as a rule, they avoided the
discussion of national and partisan issues
and the stress they laid upon the reforms
which were to follow upon the defeat of
the democratic machine and ringled or
ganization-the breaking up Of the spoils
system by the introduction of civl-scrvicc
reform in State and city and the protect
ion of the ballot-boX by the passage of
better election laws. Keyed high or key
ed low, reform, especially in these partic-
ulars. was the keynote of the campaign
Today there is not the smallest difficult
ty in the way of an honest and faithful
fulfillment of every substantial pledge
made by the leaders before the election in
behalf of the party, then and now under
their leadership and control, unless ii is to
be found in Il secret indisposition on their
part to do what they promised and what
the honest voters of Maryland who trusted
them and theirpromiSes at the polls expect
them to do. No Governor of Maryland
since the adoption of the constitution of
1867 has had more real power in his hands
than Governor Lownlcs Few of his pre-