Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1878 — “ Mexicanization.” [ARTICLE]

“ Mexicanization.”

“I thank thee for teaching me that word,” said Shakspeare’s Gratiano to the Hebrew. The Republican cry of “Mexicanization” is ended, but the Republican disposition toward Mexicanization is not; The Republican party stands to-day committed to a policy of Mexicanization, as it has been the party of Mexicanization for more than a decade of peace. What is Mexicanization? Is it not the placing the army above the law ? Is it not the rule of the sword, even in time of peace ? Is it not the control of force and not the sway of law ? Is it not placing the musket over the ballot? Is it not making Government bayonets, superior bayonets, the title to office ? Is it not making the authority of the legislative power dependent upon the number of uniformed men behind it? All these things we have seen in that sunny but unhappy land of revolutions called the Mexican republic. All these things we have also seen in the sunny half of our own republic under the Republican regime. Men who had been elected Governors have been bayoneted out of offi je to make room for men who hadn’t. Legislatures the people had chosen have been forced by Federal muskets to abandon the legislative halls to which the people chose them, to permit Government guns to make laws for free States. All this in time of peace. This is Mexicanization. On assuming the Presidency Mr. Hayes withdrew the rule of the Federal army from the States where it held sway. Each Republican convention that has met since that time has confronted tne question, whether or not it approved such withdrawal. .Not a Republican convention has indorsed that conduct, least year it may have been too soon to

expect a party to approve a policy it had so pertinaciously fought, but time should have so far soothed the hatreds that in 1878 a Republican State convention might be found to approve a course so eminently just, constitutional and peaceful; but not one is found. Some States, like Pennsylvania and Michigan, condemn that policy, known as the Southern policy, most severely by silence touching it. That is emphatically indorsing Mexicanization. The Republican party is bitterly opposed to a policy that “ brought peace and harmony” to the South, a policy “constitutional and pacific.” Let the voters choose between such a policy and Mexicanization. — Cincinnati Enquirer.