Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1883 — THE DORSEY DISCLOSURES. [ARTICLE]

THE DORSEY DISCLOSURES.

Governor Hendricks, in his speech at Council Bluffs, spoke in scathing terms of the honors heaped upon Dorsey. The following is a pretty picture, true to life, of what occurred at the famous Delmonico dinner: “No warrior returning from fields of victory; no representative to foreign lands, bringing home the sheaves of successful diplomacy; no Irving, or Longfellow, or Hawthorne, crowned with the wealth and glory of literature, has been welcom’d by their countrymen with such distinguished marks of admiration and approval as were awarded to Dorsey on his return from the field of successful political crime. The feast in his honor at Dehnonico’s was right royal. Wealth contributed its vessels of gold. Wine flowed as waters run. — The charms of literature were invoked in his praise. It was a distinguished assemblage.— An ex-president sat at his side and proposed his ‘health, long life and prosperity. A vice-pres’t-elect made the speech of the evening, in which he said that ‘Mr. Dorsey was selected as' the leader of the forlorn hope to carry Indiana.’ Beecher and Newman were there. — Did they represent our clergy? Gould was there. The giant monopolies were there and towered above presidents and vice presidents and clergy.— The fraud of 1876-77 breathed its poisoned breath into the debauch; and presiding over all was the genius of the occasion, the spirit of partial and unequal legislation, the enemy of the common people.”

Referring to the means employed by Dorsey, the character of the hirelings and their methods is thus vividly and correctly sketched: “I am sure you will not believe that $400,000 (nearly $1 to every voter) were necessary for the legitimate expenses of a State campaign, nor that it was necessary to a fair election that men should be bro’t from other States “to intimidate voters, to create brawls and disturbances, to knock men down, and to ‘repeat’ at the polls.” And very properly did he put it to his hearers: “Can such things receive your approval? vVill you commend them as right to the young men of Iowa? May I not appeal to you as men who love your country, to help remove these influences, so hurtful, so pernicious?” To the citizens of Indiana—men of all parties—this appeal should be doubly important. Within this State, and upon the citizens thereof, was the great crime alluded to committed.

Think of old Wendell Phillips’ last eulogy on Republicanism. It is a scorcher, sureRead: “I distrust and despise the Republicans as hypocrites and time-servers, as double-dealers, as soulless carrion masquerading in the grave clothes of their honored predecessors. They have no right to seek their candidate among high-minded and honorable men. Let them choose a fitting leader from among the Tewksbury marshes —those peddlers of poor men’s bones.” How is that, coming from the grand-parient of the g. o. r. p.? Tom Nelson, the eloquent Republican stump-speaker of Terra Haute, says that Dan Voorhees, as the Democratic candidate for Governor, wo’d sweep Indiana like { a whirlNo doubt of it. The Democracy, however, intend that he shall return to the United States. Senate. His presence there is a constant terror to that grandiloquent old granny —Benny Harrison.

American Register: The Dorsey disclosures continue to be the reigning sensation of the day. The blow was dealt with such vigor, and the statements supported with so much circumstantial detail, that sweeping denials were useless, and the Republican party leaders have been forced to content themselves with counter attacks upon Dorsey. Never in the history of the dominant party has there been such a disclosurejmade of its political methods, and coming from a man who was intimately connected with the party since its rise to power, it has a force which no amount of defense or explanation can weaken. That this damaging attack of Mr. Dorsey has been widely read and commented upon by the whole country, the course of the Renublican party press full/ proves. And that it has produced great havoc in the Republican ranks, the various comments of the press clearly show. Coming at a time when the country is weighing the recent history of that party with a view of determining whether it is not the exercise of the highest patriotism to drive that party from power, it has a peculiar significance, and the party managers are not slow to perceive if. Such revelations as Mr. Dorsey has made of the inner workings of the Republican organization ought to cause every citizen to stop and reflect whether a party capable of such intrigues, and governed by such a bad policy, is not a menace to free institutions and a positive hindrance to the welfare and prosperity of the country. The unbiased intelligent voter can come to no other conclusion if he compares the statements made by Mr. Dorsey with the public acts and known history of that party since the days of Lincoln. Coupled with its distinctly avowed‘doctrines of centralization—the old Federalist principle, and intensified by the greedy grasp for continued power which has been so marked a peculiarity of. its Srinciple leaders, it seems they ave added a system of debasing party management which has had no parallel in the history of the country. Acting on the maxim that the“end justifies the means ; ” they have stopped at nothing and attempted everything which co’d insure success. That a party managed after that method should breed public corruption, and mark its course in our National history by a series of flagrant usurpations of public and private rights, does not seem at all strange to men who have a knowledge of human history and can analyze the motives of men and of parties. That any good can come out of such an association of evil policies and wicked purposes, no sensible man can believe, and that when Dorsey lifted the veil and revealed the w hole rottenness of the party managers, he told the truth no one doubts who has kept himself informed upon the record of the times. The whole history of the Republican party, culminating in the events which made General Garfield President, will pass in review before the people in the coming great campaign, and there will be plenty of reasons shown why the best interests of the country and the well being of the people demand that the Republican party be deprived of further power and driven in disgrace from the position it has held already much too long for national prosperity. It is not simply a change that the people want, but a restoration of true Democratic methods and principles, a wholesome system °r P u kli c policy and a revival of honest, economic forms of administration. The return of the Democracy will be the

harbinger'of better and brighter days for the Republic, the end of humiliating and degrading public scandals, and the earnest of an era of political conscience and individual responsibility to public opinion. This is the pledge the Democratic party makes, and if entrusted with power it will make good its promises.