Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-02-01
Result OF LAwLEssNEss.

fassinate Hon. William Goebel, at
Frankfort, KY, yesterday, was simply
the legitimate result of the lawless
policies and wholly vicious methods
lately given full sway in that State
by the reckless and INSCRIPTIONS lead
ers of the Republican party, who were
determined to confirm and uphold Tay-
Tor in his claim to the gubernatorial
Office at whatever cost-even that of
civil war within the State. That
bloodshed and violence has been medi-
tated and deliberately planned by
these fanatica1 partisans is shown
clearly by the fact that last week they
summoned nearly three thousand
witnesses" to appear before the Con-
test Board, and in one day between
mine hundred and n thousand pf
these men, fully armed, and having
an open contempt for the law, arrived
in Frankfort by a special train, paid
Tor by the Republican leaders, marched
to the State House, and stacked arms
in the public grounds. Later the ma
jority OF these men returned home,
after a broad animation that they
would return when needed" but many
remained, and within the past few days
other detachments have appeared in the
capital of the State, armed with shot
gums and revolvers, and evidently pre-
pared I'd do the bidding of their leaders,
without question and without regard to
0setqeuces. NO opportunity present
sd itself either TO ~terrorize and intimi-
date the Legislature OF the State, or to
shoot down Democratic lawmakers or
leaders until yesterday, when, as Sen
ator Goebe1, the Democratic candidate
for the Chief Executive of the State,
claiming to be elected upon a fair and
lawful inspection of the returns, and
giving due consideration to the Republi-
can methods employed on the day Of
election and since, was approaching the
State House, in which the Legislature,
of which he is a member, was sitting,
he was fired upon repeatedly by an
armed man from one of the windows of
the capitol Office building, and fell NOR
talyy wounded. Armed men are said
to have immediately escaped from the
building, one jumping from a window
of Governor Taylor's official apart
ments, and evidences of a well-laid
political plot are apparent
When he heard the news Governor
de facto Taylor is said to have wept.
1t is not apparent in any degree that
he was a party to or was cognizant of
the intent to murder in cold blood the
Democratic contestant for the Office
he holds, but he may well have been
moved to tears at the bloody results
Of the plots of those who were his
partisans, and who have been both
willing and ready to go to any
extreme in behalf of himself and the
party of which he is a State leader.
It was a crime a. foul as any ever
rerpetrated upon American soil, with
out excuse OF palliation, and a direct
result of a disregard and contempt
for law and lawful methods. That it
will arouse the earnest and honest in
~dignation of all fair minded men,
throughout the length and breadth
of the land is undoubted, and swift,
sure and adequate punishment should
fall, not only upon the assassin who
actually fred the shots, but as well
upon those whose course, counsel and
policy made it possible for him to
pull the trigger upon an un~suspecting
and law-abiding representative of the
people, striving within the strict lin
is of the law for what he believed to
be his of right.
1t now remains for Kentucky to
show that while political assassins
openly march through the streets of
her capital city and may shoot to kill
from the windows of her public build
Ing, there is still a public sentiment
strong enough to not only call a halt
upaa that political policy which has for
Is backing the shotgun and the re-