Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 August 1887 — THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. [ARTICLE]

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

Why It Was Exiled from Power and Has Forfeited the Respect of the Country. ["From the Indianapolis Sentinel.j It is said that when Congress meets in December the probabilities are an investigation will be ordered which ! will show that the operations of bacon, the Republican Patent Office thief, ' were as but a drop in the bucket com- j pared with the scoundrelism which prevailed throughout all the departments of the Government when under Republican rule from 1876 to 1884. The people have never had anything approximating full and correct information concerning the piratical success of Hubbell in obtaining money for the purpose of keeping the Republican party in power. The Washington correspondence of the Buffalo Courier says: “An investigation will show that up to the day Grover Cleveland was elected President the extortion of money from the employes in the civil service went steadily onfor the truth of which see the letter of Hubbell, under date of May 15, 1882, is given as follows: “Under the circumstance# in which the country finds itself placed the committee believes that you will esteem it both a privilege and a pleasure to make to its funds a contribution which it is hoped will not be less than s—.$ —. The labors of the committee will affect the result of the Presidential election in 1884, as well as the Congressional struggle, and it may therefore reasonably be hoped to have the sympathy and assistance of all who look with dread upon the possibility of the restoration of the Democratic party to the control of the Government.” But the Republican clerks, laborers, and scullions were not inclined to respond as liberally as Hubbell desired. They hesitated. Many of them were convinced that the era of Republican rascality and robbery was drawing to a close. They knew that the Republican bosses were alarmed and that their methods were those of desperation, in proof of which Hubbell issued another circular as follows: “Sir —Your failure to respond to the* circular of May 15, 1882, sent to you by this committee, is noted with surprise. It is hoped that the only reason for such failure is that the matter escaped your attention, owing to press of other cares. Great political battles can not be won in this way. This committee can not hope to succeed in the pending struggle if those most directly benefited by success are unwill ng or neglect to aid in a substantial manner. We are on the skirmish line of 1884, with a conflict before us this fall of great moment to the Republic, and you must know that the situation now is full of danger to the next Presidential campaign. Unless you think that our grand old party ought not to succeed, help it now in its struggle. It is hoped that by return mail you will send a voluntary contribution equal to 2 per cent, of your annual compensation as a substantial proof of your earnest desire for the success of the Republican party this fall, transmitting by draft or postal money order payable' to the order of Jay A. Hubbell, Acting Treasurer, postoffiee lock box 589, Washington. D. C.” It will be observed that Hubbell was creating a fund for future emergencies, and it was tli s urgency that transformed Bacon, the Patent Office clerk, into a thief. He stole for the part He robbed at the bidding of Hubbell, and the contemplated investigation will make, it is believed, further disclosures, showing to what extent money was stolen from 1876 to 1884 to secure the elect on of a Republican Congress and administration. To have some rational idea of Republican piracy, the following from the North American Btview for September, 1882, will be read with interest: “Could the curtain of secrecy be lifted, we should see a vast drag-net of Extortion thrown out by the committee from Washington over the whole land, from Maine to California, with every humjble official and laborer from those under the sea at Hell Gate to the weather observers on Pike’s Peak, entangled in its meshes, and busy among them for their prey a series of tax extortioners ranging down from Hubbell, the great quitstor, to little Hubbells by the hundred, each paid a commission on his collections in true Turkish fashion. These minions, book in hand, are haunting the official corridors and tracking the public laborers. They mouse around the bureaus for names and salaries, which all high-toned officials contemptuously withhold. Neither age, sex nor condition is spared by these spoils systems harpies. They wavlay the clerks going to their meals. They hunt the Springfield arsenal and the Mississippi breakwater laborers to their humble homes. They obtrude their impertinent fac&3 upon the teachers of Indians and negroes at Hampden school and the Carlisle barracks. They dog navy-yard workmen to their narrow lodgings. “The weary scrub-women are persecuted to their garrets. The poor officeboys are bullied at their evening school; the money needed for rent is taken from the aged father and only son; men enfeebled on the battlefields are harried in the very shadow of the Capitol; lifeboat crews listening on stormy shores for the cry of the shipwrecked, and even chaplains and nurses at the bedside of the dying are not exempted from the merciless, mercenary, indecent conscription which reproduces the infamy of Oriental taxfarming. We know of the head of a family who hesitates between defying

Hubbell and taking a meaner tenement; of a boy at evening school blackmailed of three dollars while wearing a suit given in charity, and of a son of sl7 when the furniture of a mother he supports was in pawn. Pages could be filled with such cases. A newspaper before us gives that of a laborer with a family earning $750 a year pursued by a harpy for sls, and also that of a boy of thirteen earning $1 a day with another harpy after him for $3.60. To women and girls no mercy is shown.” With such facts before them the j people will readily comprehend why the Republican party was exiled from | power. It had forfeited the respect of j the country. It was corrupt to the core. Its methods were criminal and could be no longer tolerated. The Republican party has not changed its policy. It no longer robs the people, simply because it is not in power; and honest Republicans fearlessly assert that the standard-bearers of the party —Blaine and Sherman—represent ail that is vile in Republicanism. Those are dangerous men, and that they will not vote for either of them. But it matters little who the Republicans nominate. The people object to Republicanism. It is dishonesty. It corrupts, debases; has finished its mission and must disappear.