The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1899-10-06
GOV. LOWNDES.
A Comparison OF His Utter
ances and Practices.
A Picture by Rayner and a Charac-
terizatiOn by wellington.

In the Indictment of the Republi-
can Party" it was said-"We charge,
and will prove, that Gov. Lowndes
has usually acted contrary to his pub
lie utterances."
1t has already been proven that
Governor Lowndes, after deliberately
and knowingly Republicanizinge every
board of county school commissioners
in the State, as was shown by giving
the political status of every board by
counties on January 1, 1896, and Jan
uary /, 1899, said in an interview W
published in the Baltimore Sun of
May 25, 1899:
Il believe that it is of the highest
Importance that politics should be
eliminated from the practical manage
ment of the public school system"
The only non-partisan act the Gov
ernor has ever done in the matter of
public education, was to vote to re-
tain the present able and competent
principal of the State Normal School.
For this act he claims much credit,
but he never knew, perhaps, that the
Democrats kept Prof. Newell, a Re-
publican, in the same position for
about twenty years. The fact was
not heralded abroad, for the Demo
Gratis did not use the public school
system for political ends, like Gov.
Lowudes and the Republican party
are doing.
Gov. Lowndes has lately said much
in the public press about believing in
lifting the judiciary above partisan
politics. Since he became Governor
three vacancies have occurred on the
bench by reason of the deaths of
three Democrats. In two instances
he appointed straight and pronounced
Republicans, Judges Russum and
Schumacher. Judge Russum had been
one of the most active Republicans on
the Eastern Shore, and Immediately
resumed his partisan activity when he
retired from the bench. In the third
instance Coz. Lo10ndeS GAGE q Repub-
Hcan the refusal of an appointment.
1t was not his fault that ID RepubIi-
can did not succeed Judge Roberts.
And when he did fill the vacancy he
selected a gentleman who had ma
terially aided the Republican party
lately.
Gov. Lowndes, when a candidate
for Governor in 1895, talked nicely of
civil-service reform. He has given
evidence of how much he beliec ed in
it by RepublicaniZing the county
school boards, who in turn replaced
experienced and efficient school eX-
aminers with inexperienced ones.
He said that public Office was a
public trust, to be administered for
the good of the public interests. not
made the rewards for partisan activity.
He was scarcely warm in the Execu-
tive Mansion before he began dealing
out offices to make Wellington Sena-
tor and enable Mudd to get a nomina-
ton for Congress.
In no instance can it be shown that
the Governors practice has harmonic
ed with his public utterance. 1t is
inconceivable how he can have the
effrontery, with his record altogether
to the contrary, to go into print and
say that public Office should be used
solely for the public good and not as
rewards for craftsmanship; that the
judiciary should be taken out of poll
tics, and that politics should be eli
mated from the practical management
of the public school system.
Gov. Lowndes is an extreme parti-
san, and he has shown it in every act
since he was inaugurated. His pub
lished views to the contrary are only
intended to deceive and draw atten-
ton away from his record. Hon.
Isidor Rayner, in his speech at Fred
erick, on September 81, drew a very
good picture of the Governor as a
purist in politics. He said
HE Gov. Lowndes) is as shrewd
and as scheming politician as was
ever graduated from the political
seminaries of Allegany. When he is
framing his political contracts at the
Maryland Club, he is an ardent re-
former, but when he is dining and
winning at Republican leagues and
banquets he is as bitter an enemy Of
the Democratic party as the extremist
fanatic from the shores of New Eng
land. When he leaves his home amid
the celestial regions of Allegany coun-
ty and lands in Baltimore city, he en-
yelopes himself in his dazzling domino
of reform, so that he can f1irt grace
fully with the independent vote of
the city"
The plain meaning of what Mr..
Rayner said is that the Governors
word cannot be depended upon in
politics, and it is fact that most of
fiience in him. Neither Malster,
w lOl !" uuu u ucO
Wellington who knows him better
than the rest, says he is untruthful.
In letter to the Governor, ON Sep
TENDER %, in answer to one asking
him to resign as chairman of the State |
Central Committee, Senator Yelling
ton used this language:
81 write more in sorrow than in |
anger, but, above all, there is present
with me for you, mingled with some
pity for your weakness, Unreasonable |
and unutterdble cOntempt for yoatr |
aCant of FRANKNESS and TRUTH
Such is the character of the man |
whom the people elected to the high |
office of Governor of Maryland. His |
talk on the stump and through the |
press in 1895 and ever since about
political reform, non partisan schools,
a non partisan judiciary, civil service
reform, sc, was cant and rank hypo-
crisy. 1t remains to be seen whether
the people have fully realized his true
character and will bury him with their
ballots on November Z.