Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1902-07-03
Platform and Practice.

Political parties are to be judged by
their works and not by their platforms.
If their practical conduct is particu-
larly at variance with their specially
emphatic platform professions, the
more highly moral the planks the more
distrusted is the party.
In the late State Convention the con-
trolling Republican politicians issued
platform in which the lobby is de-
nounced. Yet the convention, with
full knowledge of the facts and against
the protests of the best men in the
party, cody indorsed an agreement
made between the chief lobbyist of the
State and "bunch" of professional
spoilsmen.
As part of the same system of party
conduct-lobbysm at Jefferson City
and boodleism in the City Hall of st.
Louis being the same thing-it is to
be noted that the principal Republican
political organization in this city, the
Merchants League Club, has indorsed
Kratz and Murrell, confessed and alb
seconded boodlers; in effect extending
sympathy and fellowship to the two
absent members of the club.
Missouri voters have seen the lead
ing Republican organ OF St. Louis try
to stop the Doodle investigation, seek
ing to protect boodling politicians from
the law. They have seen the organ
attack the Grand Jury and the Circuit
Attorney, thereby bringing upon itself
the inglorious fame OF public rebuke
from a Grand Jury composed chiefly
of Republican citizens; the rebuke be-
ing now matter of record in the Cir
cult Court.
The platform denounces the man.
agement of the State School Fund.
Yet that management has been shared
by all the Republican members of the
Legislature in the past and was
cordially approved by the House in
1895, body over which B. F. Russell,
now candidate for Congress in the
Sixteenth District, presided as Speaker
The School Fund policy is now be-
ing ably defended by Joseph I. Tatum,
who was the Republican leader in the
same House of 1895 and is as true q
Republican in principle as any Of the
politicians who constructed the plat
form this week.
There is an infammatory denuncia
tion of the St. Louis election law, o.
"Nesbit" law. Yet in four-ffths o
its provisions that law was passed b!
the Republican House in 1895. Th'
word "Nesbit" is used by the Repub
licans merely as hit of claptrap
The Credentials Committee of this re
cent Republican State Convention ex
posed the nature of election frauds b,
reporting extensive swindles at tn,
Republican primaries In st. Louis
They did not choose TO denounce tn,
law Of primary elections under which
the primaries were held, and NATURAL,
avoided denunciation OF the politica
party which mad the said primarie
exclusively in its hands. The repor
Of the committee is sufficient evidenc
that frauds in ST. Louis are not the re
suit of law but of the violation an,
defiance of law.
Having read the report of the Gre
dentials Committee, Missouri voter
will ask how party which cannot con
duct decent election OF its own /
going to purify the election law an
the administration thereof In St. Louis
Whenever In the coming campaign th
Phelps-Kerens orators and organs asl
that their candidates be installed a
redeemers Of election purity, the hard
headed voters will look back at the re
! port on credentials and conclude t
i Judge by conduct instead Of by procls
nation. II Republican primary cleo
, tions are run by "Indians" and trick
sters, Republican managers will b
| found using "Indians" and cheats Q
: the general elections. That is plai