The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1898-10-14

W. y ny g
FOSTER NJ. VOORHEES,.
required 1914 Republican votes to elect
a member, while it required only 1902
votes to elect Democratic member.
In other words, each of the Republican
members represented more than twice as
many voters as each Democratic member,
so that one Republican ballot counted for
less than half as much as a Democratic
ballot. Fortified by this contrivance
the party felt itself secure. Protected in
control of the State by the systematic
stufing of ballot boxes, repeaters and
padded registry lists, by huge corruption
funds drawn from their racetrack con-
federates, by an army of INSCRIPTIONS
retainers who had been billeted upon the
State in every position of public emolu-
lnent, and by a gerrymander that made
Democratic vote count for more than
two Republican votes, its leaders be-
lieved that nothing less than a political
cataclysm could dislodge their party
from its intrenched position in this State.
In this fancied security, they played the
role that is natural to irresponsible
power. The revelations that were made
by the Voorhees, Investigating Committee
filled the State with the odors of corrupt
rule. IT WAS FOUND THAT EVERY
PURCHASE THAT WAS MADE FOR
THE STATE UNDER THIS REGIME,
EVERY PIECE OF WORK THAT
WAS DONE, EVERY CONTRACT
THAT WAS GIVEN OUT, WAS SAT-
URATED WITH POPULATION AND
JOBBERY.
But just when the Democratic party
felt most secure, and its political control
of the State was seemingly doubly
clinched, there was witnessed one of the
most majestic ard remarkable moral up
risings of the people ever seen in this
country. The waters of public indigna-
tion that had been steadily but silently
rising against these accommodating iniqui-
ties, finally rose like resistless flood and
gathered up and swept to destruction
these cunning and INSCRIPTIONS devices.
The blow was sudden and the victory
complete. In the Legislature of 1893
the Senate contained sixteen Democrats
and five Republicans, and the House of
Assembly contained thirty-nine Demo-
Gratis to twenty one Republicans. A
year later the Senate contained eleven
Republicans to ten Democrats, while the
House stood forty Repu blicans to twenty
Democrats. So futile are the most
elaborate and formidable partisan
schemes against public opinion, when it
is righteously aroused.
The Democratic ringsters were so
maddened by this unexpected reverse
that they concocted the infamous con-
spiracy to steal the Senate, altogether
the darkest and most heinous crime
against government by the people ever
attempted by any party in New Jersey.
It was frustrated by the Supreme Court,
but the same men who concocted, aided
and abetted the infamy, are still high in
favor with the Democratic machine in
whose interest it was attempted.
When the Republicans came into
power in 1894 they found the govern
ment honeycombed with dishonesty,
pervaded by looseness and ineficiency,
and so conducted as to pour every source
of revenue possible into the pockets of
Democratic party favorites. It was
government of the machine, by the ma
chine and for the machine.
This corrupt scheme of grab has been
transformed by the Republicans into
systematic. efficient and honest govern
ment.
The political spoilsmen to whose ten
der mercies the public institutions of the
State had been committed have been
turned out and nom partisan boards, COM
posed of citizens eminent for their
character and fitness, again placed in
charge.
The various public boards and COM
missions that had been packed with
Democratic machine workers have been
placed by law on non par isan basis.
The Clerk in Chancery and Clerk of
the Supreme Court have been placed on
fixed, moderate, annual salaries, and the
fees, which formerly went into the
hands of these officials, turned into the
Treasury of the State, effecting by this
change the saving of about forty thou
sand dollars year.
The different departments of the State
government have been placed on sys-
tematic basis by providing for their sup
port in an annual appropriation bill,