The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1903-03-21
How Are The Mighty Fallen?
From the Baltimore Sun.

According to various reports which come
to us from that once pious land, 1t is ap-
parent that morality in New England is at
a low ebb. The time is fast approaching
when it will be necessary to organize socle-
ties throughout the South to do missionary
work down East From Massachusetts,
the original home of the Pilgrim Fathers,
and the stamping ground of Wendell Phil
lips comes the exceeding bitter cry Of the
oppressed negro. And one of our esteemed
Boston contemporaries finds it necessary to
plead with the pastor of the leading colored
church not to make his complaint too bitter
nor his cry too loud. 1t seems that a young
colored man in cultured Boston recently
diverted himself by numbering two white
women. He was arrested, and his pastor
now complains that his treatment was so
harsh and unsympathetic that he died In
prison. Right upon the heels of this out
rage comes narrowing story of ballot-box
stuffng in the Hub, which almost reads as
if it came from Philadelphia From Rhode
Island comes tale of bribery and corrup-
ton which is almost alluring enough to at
tract immigration from Delaware. In his
message to the Legislature the Governor OF
this tight little commonwealth declares
that ''the election Of assemblymen by
means of bribery goes on year after year
without punishment and with little con-
cealment.' The esteemed Providence
Journal is very bold, and says 'there are
men in the General Assembly today who
would be in jail if the statute forbidding
bribery were enforced. In former years
this State was generally known as ''Rogue's
Island"
Crossing the border from Rhode Island
we come to Connecticut. The esteemed
Hartford Courant, leading paper of that
State, feels impelled to say +:
We know something about the misuse OF
money in elections in Connecticut. The eyll IS
not SO fragrant with US nowadays. we think,
as with our neighbors Oh the east; but
it's more than bad enough. We know some
thing here also about laws that make herce
show of teeth and don't bite. When has
Connecticut vote-buyer been arrested, tired,
convicted, imprisoned and distranchlsed! we
bevond measure shocked at the brisk election
day traffic in Delaware and Maryand-shock.
ing as it is. We have small-fry Addickses OF
our own. Still less does it lie in our mouths to
denounce our fellow Americans in States fur
Their south than delaware and Maryland for try
ing to reduce the evil to minimum by sweep
ing exclusions of II otoriously venal voters from
their celebrates. We wish they had gone
about the attainment of that end In an abso-
lutely single. minded, straightforward, deten-
sible way; but, having said that, our criticism
is estopped.
We would think they do "know some
thing about the misuse of money when 1t
has been stated by gentleman who made
an investigation that one half the voters
in the State of Connecticut are up for sale
on election day.
But vote buying and selling are not the
worst kinds of immortality if the state
ments of the Rev. Henry L. Hutchins,
who died the other day in New Haven,
are to be credited. That gentleman, who
was an agent of the Bible Society, said not
long ago that the native Connecticut stock
is either dying off or becoming degenerate,
and that it will not be long before foreign
immigrants will have to be looked to to
put Puritan New England back on the
high moral plane for which 1t was once
famous. He asserts that among class ne
terms the poor whites there is an almost /
absolute indifference to religion; that the
moral laws are most fagrantly broken;
that there is a condition almost bordering
upon polygamy, and by reason of continual
intermarrying mentally degenerate and
physically enfeebled people are populating \
the back-oountry districts where years ago