Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1882 — A FEARFUL ARRAIGNMENT. [ARTICLE]

A FEARFUL ARRAIGNMENT.

The Corrupt Party Whose Abominations Cry Aloud. Illustrations of Republican Pollution. Not less than 5,000 “persons gathered in the Brooklyn Tabernacle the s other Sunday night, to listen to Dr. Talmage’s revelations of the “Degradation of Modern Polities.” In the audience were the familiar faces of many New York wire-pullers who awaited anxiously the onslaught. The preacher took for his text the passage: This place shall no more be called Tophet, nor the val ey of the son of Hinnom, but the valley or slaughter. Dr. Talmage said : “This wa3 Gehenna, or the valley outside of Jerusalem. The carcasses of animals were thrown there ; the offal of the oity was deposited there ; fires were kept perpetually burning, so that the palace would not breed a pestilence. It had sometimes been used by religious writers and speakers—that God-forsaken spot has been used by them as a symbol of perdition. I use it as a symbol of the condition of modern politics. THE FOULEST TOUR ON RECORD. After numerous illustrations of the animosities and corruption of the party strife in past years. Dr. Talmage said: “But why should I go away back, when the blackest year in American politics is the year between October, 1881, and October, 1882? I will give you some illustrations. I draw one illustration from the Yorktown carousal. On the 19th of October, 1781, the British forces under Cornwallis surrendered to Washington, and the long agony of our revolutionary fathers was ended. Last autumn was the centennial celebration. Sons of distinguished foreigners who had helped us in achieving American independence came across the water and were our guests. The programme for the service and celebration was issued. The Congress of the United States made an appropriation for that celebration; multitudes of people went to the quaint village of Yorktown and preserved their patriotism and their respectability, but to a great many of our public men it was a drunken carousal. I refer you back to the correspondence in the different papers about that time. Look at the whisky bill; look at the wine bill; look at the c : gar bill of those limes, and then consider the fact that there were innocent men and women in ulted during these times and duiiug that celebration, making sure that the October of 1781 was not more glorious than the October of 1881 was infamous. They saluted the English flag, and they sainted the Fr nch flag, and they saluted the American flag, but all the flags together cannot cover the shame of that debauch. The politicians get up the celebration, tbe politicians conducted the celebration, f he politicians ended the celebration, the politicians forever besmirched that occasion. I bring it as an illustration of the degradation of modern politics.

“I draw another illustration from the Garfield funeral carousal, reaching from Washington to Cleveland, and from Cleveland back to Washington. On that d.av and at that time when, this nation was sick with a grief such as has seldom befallen any nation, there were public men who guzzled and swilled and drank and caroused at the expense of the nation. You and I helped pay for it, if we have paid our taxes. The city of Cleveland, as beautiful and as moral a city as we have in all the land, never had so much drunkenness and debauchery in it as the night before Garfield’s* burial, while the Mayors and the Common Councilmen and the politicians from all the cities were there waiting for the obsequies. I arra : gn it as an appalling indecency, as an insult toGol and the American people. I arraign it as an illustration of the degradation of modern politics. “I draw another illustration from the last Albany Legislature. Look over the record of the ayes and noes, and the dodgers on the Convict Labor bill, on the General Stre et Baiiwav bill, on the Grain bill, on the Canal bill, and get your eyes so wide open you will never get them shut. As a specimen, they voted to destroy the grandest §troet on earth—Broadway, New York —by running a railroad through it. There never has been a greater sense of relief in this State than when it was announced that the Legislature had gone home. “I draw another illustration from the Spuyten-Duyvil disaster that Friday afternoon when the Hudson river railcar was crowded with politicians, and by their drunkenness and obscenity they turned the car into a pandemonium and overpowered the conductor, until he testified on solemn oath that he could not manage the train, and then one of the politicians jerking the rope to the air-brakes until the train halted and another train swept around the curve, and the lives of some of our most-valua-ble citizens and the bright and happy bridal tour ended in horror and massacre, the flames completing what the collision left. The politicians got the management of the train, and I charge them—l cars not what the Coroner’s juiymaysay—l charge them with tho murder. They halted the train. THE RIVER AND HARBOR STEAL. “I bring another illustration of the degradation of modern politics—the River and Harbor bill misappropriation—• millions of dollars voted away by Congress, and voted away in dead waste. Gentlemen wanting to be re-elected to Congress may go around this country trying to fix tilings up,*.but it will never be fixed up this side of tlieYlay of judgment, and that will fix it down. I saw last summer two of the places for which large appropriations were made by Congress in the way of improvement and development. One of these places was in Virginia; thousands of dollars voted by Congress to develop vliat is there, or what was there dnring the summer, a dry creek. There was not one drop of water in it, and in the winter time it very seldom has more than two or three feet of water. You could see looking there where at some time there had been water. The creek started nowhere especially, and ended nowhere especially. Thousands of dollars vo l ed for the development of that creek, doing no more good to the public than au appropriation for the development of rivers or

harbors on the top of your City Hall, of no more use than an appropriation to run a railroad from Trinity Church steeple to the moon. Swindle—all swindle—nothing but swindle. Then I saw this summer also another place for which a large appropriation had been made. It is on the coast of Massachusetts. A sea Captain, familiar with all the coast, pointed out to me where tbe improvements were to be, and he told me that the only use of that large appropriation by the Congress of the United States for that development would hr to pile up the ice in winter and impede navigation. A laugh of derision has gone all around this country about this Congressional outrage; but the people who pay the taxes are so stupid they cauuot see the joke. Oh, how easy it is to vote away other people’s m nev! Some of the leading meu of both political parties were in that national insult, that God-defy ng outrage! Oh, how much more beautiful it would have been if the Congress of the United States had practically said: ‘The people of this couniry have,'since the war, been taxed until tbe blood came. Now let up on them! Let us throw this surplus in the treasury and lower the taxes. Let us give a surprise party to the people, and lift their burdens, and let the toiling men and women of America have au easier chance to earn a livelihood for themselves and families.’ Ah, no; let the people sweit; grind harder tho faces of the poor; draw the buckle of tlio harness one hole tighter. Let Dives come to finer linen, and the dogs lake cave of Lazarus’ sores. LESSON OF THE STAR-ROUTE THIEVERY. “I bring another illustration of the degradation of American politics from the star route thievery. What a beautiful revelation! All the miscreants in that enterprise confirmed politician*, their guilt proved beyond doubt, and if they had been poor men they would have had a trial of four daya and would have long been in the penitentiary. Rut, as there was a large amount of money to draw on, they had four months of trial, and they are comparatively free. There is condemnation, great condemnation, in this country for a man who steals less than SIOO,OOO. If you are going to steal, if you must steal, steal over SIOO,OOO, or there will be no chance for you. The reason people are condemned in this country is because they do not steal enough. There will be other star-route trials instituted, but as long as there is a large amount of money to be drawn on there will be no more convictions. Put that down in your memorandum-books. Oh! it was beautifully consistent that this star-route crime should employ as counsel the champion infidel of America. Without the Bible there is no good government. The prominent infidel of the country said he did not see anything wrong in li’s clients. Of course he did not. There is no God; there is to be no judgment day; there are no eommandnients of divine authority. Let every mau do as he pleases. Such a theory as that would soon turn this land into a pandemonium. lam so glad that modern infidelity tells us at last what it believes in. I lift this fact up before the people of America. I want it understood, I am glad now that modern infidelity has gone out of the region of the abstract into the realm of practical morals, and we know what it sanctions and what it favors. FRAUD IN THE BARATOGA CONVENTION. “But J come down into the present autumn for an illustration of the degradation of modern politics. There were three factions in the Saratoga Convention—three factions. The Folger telegram to the State Committee has been excoriated from one end of the land to the other, and so it ought to be, but there is one fraud that has not been ventilated and I propo e to ventilate it. I propo e to turn on all the lights this morning. If you are going to take out a cancer, take it out root and all. There" came in that Saratoga Convention an hour of supreme excitement. It was found that Judge Folger would get the most votes. Then a member of the Oneida delegation, in as bold a spirit of fraud as was ever practiced this side of pandemonium, aro e and declared, that the entire Oneida delegation would now go over from Wadsworth to Cornell, trying to get a stampede in that direction, and without the consent . of the men of that delegation. The bold fraud would have been successful but for the fact that a member of that misrepresented Oneida delegation arose and said in a stentorian voice: ‘I am from the Oneida delegation and I turn my vote over to •Judge Folger.’ There was a great cry among the men of the convention: ‘ Call the roll of that delegation! Let us see where they stand!’ The roll of that delegation was called, and, instead of finding as that man had represented—that defrauder had represented—that all the delegation had gone over from Wadsworth to Cornell, it was found that seven went for Cornell, and four for Wadsworth and two for Folger. The forged telegram was to help Folger. The Oneida fraud was to help Cornell. While yon denounce the one you must anathcn\mtize the other. Well, my friends, it seems that in that ease righteousness was crucified on the center cross, while on the right and left were the two thieves —the forged te’egram and the fraud—the latter six times worse than the first, bee uise the forged telegram misrepresented one man, while the fraud misrepresented six men. “Now, I see people in holy horror talking about one fraud or another fraud or another fraud. Let us have them all out now. Cornell men I see standing with holy horror, their hands outspread toward this forged elegram, while with their skii ts they are trying to cover up the Oneida abomination. They cannot cover it up. I hand it out in the presence of the American pa >ple as another illustration of tho degradation of modern {>olities. Cursed is the forged telegram ! Cursed is the Oneida fraud! But there are more illustrations than I have tim to brin ; in. ’