The Democratic banner. (Mt. Vernon, Ohio) 1898-192?, 1915-09-14
HAMS7RlNG
REFERENDUMS
Is The Program Of Willis
Administration
The Inconsistent Action Well
In Keeping
With The Other VagarieS Of
The Governor
Who Declaimed vigorously
Against Referendum
When Petitions We're Honey.
COmbed With Fraud

Columbus, o., Sept. 1.-the impress
sion mas gained ground in state circles
that the proposed referendum cleo
tions on Willis laws are to be ham,
strung if possible. Such inconsistent
action is we'll in keeping with the 9th
er vagaries of Governor Willis, the
echoes of whose voice in arraignment
of preventing election even under
manifestly fraudulent petitions, still
reverberate in the Ohio hills.
The smelling committee appointed
by the governor to ferret out those of
his own appointees who were engaged
in petition peddling has been turned
loose on another job, the effect of
their work being to aid in prevention
of referendum in any way possible.
Governor Willis is insisting that the
referendum petitions must be invali-
dated at any cost and he fears to let
the matter rest in the hands of the
boards of elections to whom the work
has been delegated. Privately his
reason for this action is that there is
some suspicion that the secretary OF
state is not above suspicion of connec-
ton with the attack on the McDermott
law. The smelling committee is ex-
pected to furnish campaign material
against the referendum on the McDer-
mott law even if not successful in hay
ing the petitions thrown out. 1t looks
like the eleven gizzards" governor
was afraid to let the people pass on his
illustrious work.
Elihu Root in his farewell address
to the New York constitutional con-
vention admitted that the state had
been ruled by an invisible government,
chosen by no one and responsible to
no one. He sold of the reigns of COnk
ling and of Plat and of the operations
of the system. Let us take up his
story where he finished it. Pennsyl-
vania was ruled in the same fashion
by Cameron, Quay and Penrose. H.
linois had her Lorimer and his prede-
cessors like Cannon. Aldrich had his
dominion in Rhode Island, where
minority under an antiquated consti-
tuition rules majority. Hale wore
the crown in Maine, Fairbanks in In
diana, and Gallinger in Vermont. Here
in Ohio we need go on farther back
than Hanna and Foraker. Neither of
these last named persons were ever
members of the general assembly and
yet for years that body turned out laws
at their dictation and defeated worthy
measures at their nod. The Archbold
Standard Oil letters are still in exist
ence and undenied. What Elihu Root
refrained from saying was that these
same men, who ruled invisibly in their
home states commanded jointly and Op-
emily in the United States senate, the
most powerful legislative chamber in
all the civilized world. But he knew
it.
The uprising caused by the rebellion
of Theodore Roosevelt smashed that
fthe oligarch. The system remains
though disjointed Survivors seek
return to the ancient regime. Hence
throughout the country every agency
to restore power to them is being used.
So long as they can secure control of
the senate they care not who is Presi-
dent nor what his politics may be. Taft,
like Harrison before him, felt their
mailed fists when he essayed progress
sive things. Here in Ohio only cor
poration lawyers are being permitted
to enter the lists for the senatorial
nomination. They are the systems
dependable men. The same is true
elsewhere. Root should have told the
constitutional convention the rest of
the program-how Wilson is to be de-