Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1900-02-09
Government in Kentucky.
The Indepemlent.

AA4Na AANhs ~ Nao hAulNCA GOAunlll-
ed by an assassin in ambush. and the
'ictim, whatever may justly be said OF
his baleful influence upon politics in
Kentucky. was peacefully approaching
he legislative hall in which he was
entitled to sit as a member. Not the
slightest excuse or defense can be
found for a crime of this character.
No effort should have been spared to
detect the assassin and bring him to
justice. Because the fatal shot was
fred from the shelter of a guarded
occupied by Governor Taylor
and the executive officers associated
with him, and from part of that
building in which armed partisans of
the Governor from the mountains had
been lodged,he might well have shown
a more earnest desire to have found
the guilty man. We do net believe
that he had any guilty knowledge of
the assassin's purpose; but the cir
cumstances should have urged him to
use all his power in searching for the
criminal
This crime, atrocious and detestable,
was in certain sense, the natural re-
suit of a train of preceding events in
the environment of an imperfect civil
lizatlon. Goebel himself, who had
killed his man" was the author of an
unjust and cunning scheme to rob a
majority of the voters in Kentucky.
Having devised and by his influence
carried to enactment an election law
which gave almost absolute power to
his party, he procured a nomination
for the governorship by lies and tricks
and violation of pledges, thus driving
the more honest element in his party
to revolt. But the work of all his
agents in the local returning boards
could not entirely blot out his Repub
lican opponents plurality. When Ii
had thus been cut down to little
more than 1000, two of the three
Election Commissioners appointed in
Goebel's interest declined to serve his
selfish ambition by additional wrong,
and gave a certificate to Taylor. But
Goebel had framed his law to meet
such a protest of conscience. The con-
test was transferred to the Legisla-
ture, in which he had a subservient
majority, and the machinery of in
justice was put in motion there. With
an outrageous decision in his favor
impending, the passions of the peol
were aroused. Goebels own course
tended to destroy respect for law,
In state of ready weapons and per-
ennial feuds bloodshed was to be eX-
pected, and possibly even assassina-
ton by a murderer in ambush at the
capital Goebel was proceeding in ac-
cord with statute law, but the law it
self was denial of justice. His course
invited attack upon himself by eXas-
perated men unaccustomed to the re-
straints of civilization.
On the ether hand, we cannot find
much to commend in the course OF
Governor Taylor although some eX-
cuse may be offered for it. He bellev-
ed that he had been elected and we
think there was ample warrant for
this belief. He held the office by the
certificate of Democrats who had not
been hostile to Goebel. He saw Goe-
bel and mis- subservient majority in the
Legislature preparing to steal the gov
eminent of the state, but to steal ii
under the forms of law Two coures
lay open for him. One was to await
the decision of the Legislature; that
having been announced, to ask the
courts for justice; and then, if justice
should be withheld, to appeal to the
voters OF Kentucky at the earliest OPP
portunity The other was to resist by
force, setting one wrong against an
other, fighting fire with fire. We re-
gret that he chose the latter While the
Legislature had the contest in hand
he permitted nearly thousand OF his
armed par:isGps to be brought to the
capital from the mountains, and to
pitch their camp of intimidation in the
grounds about the State House. 1t is
believed that one of these killed Goe-
bel. The mountaineer from the Gov
ernor's county who has been arrested
for the crime, and who does not APP
pear to be the guilty man, was ready
to kill and lay waste, for he carried
three loaded revolvers anda knife.
Simply to prevent what would have
been a legal, if unjust, decision in IA
vor OF Goebel, the Governor summar-
lily adjourned the Legislature and or
dered that is should assemble week
later at a remote village in the
mountains, where the Republicans out
number the Democrats two to one
Under his orders the members have
been prevented by force from assemb-
ling in the State House or even in the
Frankfort Opera House. He has ar
rested a court officer for serving a le-
gal notice upon him, and has refused
to recognize writ of habeas corpus
He adjourned the Legislature on the
ground that there was insurrection in
Frankfort. There was none, unless il
can be found in his own treatment oi
the courts and the Legislature. This
he has put himself in the wrong and
lost the support of many who regarded
him as the victim of what may be call