The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-09-15
kentucky's Crucial Campaign.

Y UNLIKE past dissensions with
in the ranks of the Kentucky
" Democracy, the present di-
vision over the Goebel law,
which has resulted in the nomination
of two Democratic state tickets, shows
no signs of compromise. If anything,
the men who have bolted the regular
party ticket are more bitter and more
determined than they We're at the
time that the flag of party revolution
was unfurled: and there are no evi-
dences at this distance that their fol-
lowing among the people has suffered
the slightest diminution. On the con-
trary, unless signs deceive, the revolt
is growing steadily.
The boilers have based their whole
campaign up the iniquitous Goebel
election law, which puts the appoint
ment of every election officer in Ken
lucky in the hands of a board of three
partisan Democrats controlled by the
dominant machine; and they are maxi
ing use of some splendid ammunition
furnished, before this campaign devel-
oped, by the Louisville Courier-Jour-
nal, which now, to the intense surprise
of many of Colonel Henry Watterson's
friends, supports Goebel. For exam
pie, while the law was pending-it
passed without amendment and was
enacted over the governors veto-that
paper said:
"The people may well stand aghast
before the revolutionary election bill
| which has, like some dread monster,
suddenly emerged from the Businesses
| of passion and error through which
| the legislature has been threading its
| tortuous way. 1t is safe to say that
| the annals Of free government will be
sought in vain for anything approach
| ing it in shameless effrontery and un-
| concealed deformity. The records Of
reconstruction furnish nothing to COM
| pare with it. The BrOwnlow despotism
| in Tennessee was considered tolerably
reckless and tolerably thorough in its
day. But the Brownlow despotism
at its worst ventured upon nothing so
! boldly, wholly bad as this. In all the
| force bills meditated by the radicals
| in congress during the dark days of
| reconstruction there We're discernible
| some pretense and some preteXt, some
lingering memory Of Republican in
stincts and traditions. Even in the
plebiscites of Louis Napoleon there was
the outer display of a just electoral pro-
cess and purpose. This force bill gives
the voters Of Kentucky not a ray of
hope, 1t makes no claim or show of
fairness. 1t places exclusively in the
hands of three irresponsible persons, to
be named by the authors of the meas
ure itself, the entire electoral machin-
cry of the state. That is the whole
of it. In one word. and at one fell
swoOp, Kentucky is to become the sub
ject of a triumvirate, which is to de-
eide who shall hold office and who shall
not. Nominally the people are to be
permitted still to go through the form
of elections. They are to be permit
ted still to vote. The ballot box is
not actually abolished. But the trium-
virate is in each and every case to
cast up the returns and determine the
result. With the machinery
of this Goebel bill in his hands Mr..
Goebel becomes as completely mast Fl
of the situation in Kentucky as Dia2
in Mexico or Menelek in Abysslnia."
The paper which only a short time
ago said these unmistakable words is
now supporting this same Goebel, on
this same law as a platform, for the
office Of governor, and the anti-Goe-
bellies are not slow in springing the
deadly parallel. The count is in Goe-