The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1915-04-30

Two or three years ago good people of the whole country were
panied and cynics were amused by disclosure of election frauds in
Adams county, Ohio, where something like 1900 cases of corruption
we're exposed and many of the guilty punished. The news of the
past week contains the item that the mayor of Terre Haute, Indiana,
and ID others, including the newly elected sheriff, the chief of po-
lice. and other selfprocamed friends of the people had been
safely landed in jail at Leavenworth where for terms of varying
lengths they will be supported by the government asr reward for
their over Jealous desire to be supported by the votes of their home
constituencies.
Also we read within the past week that the president of the
Board of Aldermen of St. Louis, who had just been elected, had
been forced to resign before being indicted into Office, because he
had been charged beyond defense with forgery. 1t is added as a
gratifying piece of news that a Mr. Curlee, who is proclaimed a Mis-
sissippian, will hold the office thus vacated. Keep that in mind as
you read the suggestions we are about to offer.
More than 70 years ago a great and scholarly Englshman, a
writer of fiction, makes one of his characters say, appropriate to the
occasion, which was a discussion of a supposed American, Il honor
the first as a citizen of a great republic trying his best to accom-
plsh an experiment in government in which he will find the very
prosperity he tends to create will sooner or later destroy his expert
ment."
Now have we fulfilled this prophecy? Has the wealth and stable
prosperity, and satisfaction in government, which was the purpose of
our ancestors, created such a condition that the ultimate desire of
our people has become only money and the purpose OF peaceful and
harmonious government become 50 secondary that it is left 10 m
se,ubuloM men whose endeavor is to SO shape public policy that it
may tend only TO their personal gain? Have we reached the time
when the violent expression the people be damned so long as we
politicians gather power" which results in pef, is the slogan of our
much Wanted democratic government? Sadly we must admit that
it would seem so. Tammany rampant in New York and conditions
such in that state that only a little bit ago we find the Governor i'm.
peached for improper practices. Pennsylvania, Indiana. Illinois,
Ohio. California THE trail or the serpent is over them all But
they comprise large cities and large corporations. In our state linn
tied largely to agricultural endeavor these things cannot be. The
Mr.. CuHee from Mississippi who becomes president of the Board of
Aldermen in St. Louis will be an honest man necessarily because he
is a Missssippian. We wish we could assure ourselves that his ma
tivity makes this true.
1t is true that we ire an agricultural, a rural people, and such
people are as a rule virtuous people, but they art just as usually
credulous people-they are honest themselves and they believe ev
erybody else honest. They arr swayed by a song to their credulty
and are disposed to trust any man who GENEROUSLY asserts himself
"a friend to the people" Remember there was a serpent in Eden
There are men amongst us whose sole means of enlsting popula,
friendship is by seeking to array the farmer in an unnecessary state
of hostility to men who by energy and thrift, surely commendable
virtue have been successful. This is no new thing. One Of the
most conspicuous, and ignoble examples of it is the destruction o.
the last vestige of national feeling in dismembered- Poland by the
Metternich in 1916 when he arrayed the peasantry against The gen
nv. These men 90 up and down the state seeking profit by Great
ing hostility between the farmers and those who gain their livelihood
bv other means. Is there a single one Of these men Who is himself
farmer? Can we point to any reason whatever why these mer
should be vested with public Officer Can we see anything that the,
have done to deserve popular reward?
True, they re clamorous, but a hungry jackass is clamorous