Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1881 — PAYING MAHONE. [ARTICLE]

PAYING MAHONE.

[from the Cincinnati Enquirer.] The Senate of the United States has been in session one month, and it has accomplished nothing. It confirmed the Cabinet appointments on the sth of March, as a matter of necessity and of course, and has done nothing since. The Republican Senators seem determined that Mahone shall be paid before any public business is done. Day after day the motion has been repeatedly made from the Democratic side to go into executive session and attend to the public business which a Republican President has laid before the Senate, and the Republican Senators have sjtead-

ily refused to do this, but have insisted that Mahone must be paid before they will proceed to the public business. The affairspf the firm, Mahone & Co., must be adjusted before the affairs of the United States can receive their attention. Mahone Sc Co. insist that the other half-of the Senate shall contribute to the payment of Mahone, and the Democratic half of the Senate, not being under any obligations to Mahone, decline to make any payment to the Virginia member of this “lop-sided,"incongruous firm—Mahone & Co. It requires astonishing assurance on the part of the Republican Senators to ask the Democrats to help them pay Mahone; but because the Democratic Senators refuse to “chip in ” and help to settle with the Virginia renegade -a distinguished Republican Senator from Massachusetts chooses to call this Democratic refusal treasonable and revolutionary. It appears, therefore, that the Democratic Senators are guilty*of “ the very essence of treason" if they will not assist the Republican Senators to recompense the Virginia renegade for his treachery to the Democratic party. We are not exaggerating or misstating the record when we say that the Republicans in the Senate are. obstructing the public business for the sole purpose of discharging their obligations to Mahone, whose treason to his party, his constituents and his State they bought with the Sromise of a mess of pottage. Senator [awley, of Connecticut, unwittingly confessed everything to a representative of the Enquirer on Saturday. The Senator said : “We organized the Senate in its committees with the aid of Mahone. Now that we have got the organization, it is not fair to adjourn and treat him with no equity. He has a candidate for one of the Senatorial places, and I think we must, for our word, as well as for general utility, go ahead.” Here is a complete admission that the public business is obstructed by the Republicans for no other pur pose than to pay Mahone. The Republicans desire to make the Democratic Senators a party to the corrupt bargain between themselves and the purchased Virginia Senator. The Democratic Senators have, so far, refused to take any part in the infamy, and do not feel under any obligations to aid <n keeping any corrupt promise which Republican Senators have Mahone. When the firm of Mahone & Co. was formed, the partners should have looked far enough into the future to foresee that a contingency might arise in which it might be impossible for the Republican Senators—the “Co.” of the firm—to deliver the promised mess of pottage to Mahone. A simple count of the Senate would have revealed this fact, and if the partnership had been intelligently formed this contingency would have been discussed, and, in the terms of the partnership, provision would have boen made for it. If this was not done it certainly was not the fault of the Democratic half of the Senate. Why should the Democratic Senators be called upon to supply omissions in this iniquitous compact between Mahone & Co. ? Why should the Democratic Senators be called upon to deliver the goods promised by the Republican allies of repudiation and treachery? Is it not the height of impudence to ask Democratic Senators to aid in any way to reward the treachery of Manone ? Mahone’s treason stole the Senate away from the Democrats, and should the Democrats be expected to recompense him for the robbery. The business of the Supreme Court and some of the Circuit Courts is so clogged as to be several years behind. There is a vacancy on the Supreme bench which should be promptly tilled. But litigation, justice, must pause in their tracks till Mahone is paid. The President of the United States has sent to the Senate a large number of appointments—scores of them of prime importance. These nominations have accumulated to such. an extent that the President will send no more till those already sent receive the attention of the Senate, and thus the executive department of the Government stands fettered in important respects because Mahone is not paid. This is the beginning of a new administration.. The Republican party has the Executive and the House, and the Republican party and Mahone have one-half of the Senate, and the Republican party presents the spectacle to the country—the spectacle of a great national party saying that the public business shall stand still till it can pay a repudiator of debts and of honor for his great treachery. The national Republican party takes the position before the ceuntry that the only business of the United States is to pay Mahone. Every day since this session began the Democratic members of the Senate have been willing and eager to proceed to the public business, but they are not yet willing and eager to assist in paying Mahone.