Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-05-22
"GOebeliSm.v

Louisville Courier-Journai.
The organs of assassination in Kentucky
and. by organs of assassination we
mean those newspapers which made the
murder of William Goebel possible nv
whooping up the excited public sentiment
that led to it and which lave ever since
bent their energies to the work of block
ing the course of investigation with the
purpose of ultimately thwarting the ends
OF Justice-insis upon fixing upon the
democratic party, and upon all Demo-
Gratis, a term of opprobrium of their own
invention. By it they mean to ascribe to
their political opponents the sum of all
iniquity and to impose upon them the viii
est insult of which they think themselves
capable. 1t is indeed an epithet of the
basest coinage; because it would degrade
the living by desecrating the dead. The
term is "Goebelism.'
The professional politician, who is in
it for what it will bring him, is not. as a
rule, a m~alevolent person. The greedy
trencherman who merely wants his per
diem, makes himself vulgar and resonant
only when bake of his prey. 1t is the
would-be l~eader-the whey-faced news
paper-that does the dastardly things of
political life. There are men who would
rob the grave, and damn their very souls,
for a little show of power; there are news
papers that for a little public notice, how
ever brief and contemptuous, would COM
init the objectionable sin; and of such
are the murder leaders of Kentucky, of
such are the organs of assassination.
That these should evolve out of their dis
eased imagination such a soubriquet as
"Goebelism'' is characteristic and springs
from their lack of the sense both of per-
spective and propriety.
William Goebel was so young a man,
and when he was struck down by the
hand of an assassin his career had been
limited to so narrow a range of action
as to make the using of his name after
his death as a superscription, or trade
mark, of doubtful relevancy; but the
great body of men and women to whom
it is extensively applied by the organs of
assassination-embracing the bone and
sinew, the blood and brains, the respect
ability, the intelligence and the birth-right
of the State-may well accept it, not as
an insult, but as a badge of honor; though
they should resent the sinister purpose
of the m~alignants who use it and apply it.
Nlllldll dOSDel WAS an HOIeSI Hldu.
He was a brave and loyal man.
He was a clean, sober, decorous hard
working, public-spirited man.
"Goebelism," as uttered by them, is
the merest sound and fury signifying
nothing, but it is applied to every Demo-
Graf in Kentucky as an affront. 1t is a
juggle of words at once infamous and
venomous, because it desecrates the dead
to insult the living. Yet, we repeat, it is
characteristic of the small-headed and
bad-hearted men who use it. Nobody but
an insensible brute would use it. The
man is dead. He was a young man. He
was a brave man. He was a pure man.
He was Governor of Kentucky. He was
basely murdered. The coward who could
violate the s~anctity and the repose of
the tomb of such a man can only be one
who cried on his assassins, expecting to
derive some profit by his taking off; and
he should be spotted as a villain and a
thief.