New-York tribune., 1900-08-30
4 POOR START IN KENTUCKY.

There is very little OF the spirit of confession
and amendment in the message sent by Gov
ernor Beckham last Tuesday to the Kentucky
General Assembly recommending O revision Of
the Goebel Election law. It was only natural
that a State Executive owing his office to the
crimes committed at Frankfort last winter ru-
der the shadow Of the Gocbel statute should
show some awkwardness in condenning the
processes by which his own fraudulent title was
| manufactured But it was little less than a
defiance TO outraged public sentiment for Mr.
Beckham to declare TO the two houses of the
Legislature that the lis complained Of under
the Goebel counting in system were largely
! imaginary" Imaginary Ills" the Boy Gov
ernor significantly announced. whether polIt-
"cal or physical, should be treated as well as
real ones What palmer hint could this
fraudulent Executive have given to the par
tisan Democratic majority which fabricated his
certificate that the real task before it was not
so much to check the abuses practised upCer
the Goebel law as to abate by hook or crook
the nveterate popular prejudice awakened
against the spirit and methods of Goebelism? :?
And in further evidence of the hollowness ard
! insincerity of his own purpose to give Kentucky
n fair and honest election system the author Of
the message recommending revision refrained
from offering the slightest suggestion of reform
or Improvement.
The tone taken by Governor Beckham on
Tuesday and the general attitude of the GoebeI
party toward revision bear melancholy witness
to the moral callousness to which five years OF
Organism and Goebelism have reduced party
once led by men Of the stamp of Beck Carlisle
Lindsay, John Young Brown and Buckner he
Boy Governor at Frankfort airily dlsmlsses as
Imaginary ills' the outrages against majority
rule which for two months last winter kept
Kentucky on the very brink of civil war Other
Democratic leaders have tried to defend Mr.
GOebers self-registering machinery of fraud
but none have ever gone before to this limit Of
faulty. Before the Goebe law was passed
Colonel WattersOn, then its most unhampered
critic, denounced II as "force bill which gave
the voters of Kentucky not ray of hope" 1t
made no claim or show of fairness" and
while 1t did not entirely abolish the ballot box
ii erected an irresponsible triumvirate at Frank
fort, (which decided who should hold office and
who should not" with the machinery of this
Goebel bill in his hands" Colonel Watterson's
extraordinarily accurate prophecy of 1893 cen
cluded, "Mr. Goebel becomes as completely
master Of the situation in Kentucky as Diaz in
Mexico or Menelek in Abyssinia." In June
1899, writing to Mr.. Belmont as an apologist
for Goebel and the Goebel campaign, Colonel
Watterson declared with refreshing candOr that
Goebel would surely be elected Governor, be-
cause under 1.-THE operation of the GOebel law
the result is not left 10 chance" How true both
the Indictment of the Goebel statutes original
and most determined enemy and the confession
OF its most beated and unwilling friend! The
| first test OF its value as a means of political
larceny beggared the widest predictions OF both
opponents and promoters. It subverted public
order excited lawless passions fomented crime
and shocked to the centre the pride and CON
science OF the State. Yet to the Boy Function
airy at Frankfort put In office through its
tragical perversion of justice, its offences