Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1905-03-30
Little Rhodv.

Rhode Island has been always anti
Democratic. with now and then an ex-
ception She is Republican now. She
may be taken as a typical Republican
state. but nevertheless the Washington
post-Independent rises to remark
That the great little state of Rhode
Island great in business and wealth, lit
tie only In size-has an unenviable repu-
taton as a theater Of exceptional I'M
eleanness in politics and gross unfairness
in government is an unpleasant but UNI
fortunately an indisputable fact But the
prevalent impression that this deporable
situation is ali innovation, a result of
causes that are operating with increased
force in these times is utterly and to-
tally erroneous. One need not go back in
Rhode Islands history more than fifty
years to find conditions vastly worse than
those of today Instead of getting fur
Their and further into the muck and mire
of corruption and the gross misgovern-
ment produced by it the state has made
considerable progress in the reverse direc-
ton If those reformers whether anna
teurs or professionals. who point to
Rhode Island as proof of their pessimistic
notion that the country is going to the
demnition bowwows' would read up that
states political history in the newspapers
=
paigns in which vote buying was openly
carried on without fear or risk of interfer-
ence, would come upon elections in which
agents of the candidates for governor
stood by the polls with large supplies of
bank notes exposed and bargained and
paid for votes. Old residents of the state
know all this to be true. But neither in
Rhode Island nor in any other state-not
even in the tiny commonwealth that has
been degraded by the shameful methods of
Addicks-is there open public bribery of
voters in these days.
The Whig party in its rule of Rhode
Island was incomparably more reckless
and unclean in its practices than is its
successor, the Republican organization
The old time Democratic party was no
better than its competitor. Each of them
was regarded by the best citizens of New
England as an awful example and was
utilized in that way.
There happen to be several states in
which decency is having a tussle with
political corruption. There have been
charges and in some instances proof of
boodling by legislators and other officials
AS in the case of Rhode Island these lam
entabe occurrences are cited as evil
dences of decadent virtue but the fact is
the great Indignation excited by such in
cidents, the stern denunciation they re-
ceive and the effort made to bring boo
dlers and corruptionists to punishment are
proofs of wholesome progress. Offenses
that escaped unpleasant notoriety in
earlier times now cause the ruin of the
offenders Political morality. like per-
sonal morality, has made great progress
since the days of our grandfathers. The
states. as whole have moved onward
and upward. Rhode Island has shared in
the general advance and although still
far back toward the rear of the process
sion. she may not remain in that relative
position. It it be true that extremes meet
it is almost time for the extreme political
depravty that obtains in Delaware and
Rhode Island to collide with antipodal
conditions and by the force of the com
pact send them to the van of the process
sion nf the forty-five progressive states.