Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1889 — Crape on Republican Doors. [ARTICLE]

Crape on Republican Doors.

[From the Chicago Herald.] □There is wailing in the camp of monopoly and privilege. Mournful epitaphs have been hung, and all the rites performed that appertain unto a burial. The Republican stomach is full of nauseous crow, garnished with wormwood and seasoned with the gall of bitterness. For many a day the organs will feed their readers on explanations. They will seek to cover with petty excuses that which appears in appropriate nakedness. There is but one thing upon which the party of bluster can brag now—it can show more black eyes than all the houris of the Mussulman heaven. The lowa Democrats have at last got out of the wilderness of fanaticism and free whisky, and their Moses will now strike with his rod of might the rock of justice, and bring forth a pure stream that will cleanse the State of Republican sewage. He has led his f aithful followers into the promised land of Democratic ascendency. The rebel brigadier, Mahone, is buried for all time. Trie organs should not complain of his destruction. Their meat and drink is, abuse of rebel brigadiers, and they should rejoice that one of them—the —worst—has met his fate at the hands of an honest man. The forged letter dodge did not save the Fire-Alarm leader of the Ohio Republicans. His sham pretense at espousing the cause of Sunday saloonclosing did not save him. The respectable element in his own party refused to vote for him, and he had nothing to expect from the Democrats. He, too, is done for. The defeat of Foraker, Hutchison, and Mahone, the election of Campbell, Boies, and McKinney, is a stinging rebuke to the administration and to the whole Republican party. Tuesday’s votes show that the election of Harrison was an accident and a mistake. More than that, they show that the bow of promise for the Democrats in 1892 is already being set in the political heaven. They show, too, that the tax-ridden, monopoly oppressed people of this country are finding out that they must look to the Democratic party for their deliverance from the chains of error, dishonesty, and fanaticism. The people have found that the Democratic party is their party; and, having learned this, they will stand by the party and their rights. For the next few weeks the organs of the grand old party will be largely devoted to explaining why their candidates were generally defeated. They will, of course, show that local issues that are not understood by persons living out of the States where the elections occurred, and which have no connection with national politics, contributed largely to secure the unexpected result. Then their readers will be reminded that this is not the “bearing year” for sweet apple trees and is the “off year” for Republican victories. These statement sought to satisfy most fair-minded persons. If they do not it may be fairly claimed that Republicans did not enthuse much before the election and that many of them did not even turn out to vote. It can be proved by former election returns that fully 75,000 Republicans in lowa neglected to go to the polls and that about 10,000 through carelessness or some other cause voted the wrong ticket. They were sure the candidates of their party would be elected without their votes, and they did not take much interest in swelling the great majorities of former years. They knew that lowa was bound to continue to be a Republican State and they were satisfied.

Then it can be shown that the honest, industrious Republican fanners in most of the States that held elections on Tuesday were busy husking corn and doing fall plowing, and had no time to go to town, while the dishonest, idle Democrats, who principally live in towns, all voted at least once or twice. They were not slow to witness the apathy of the Republicans, and improved their opportunity. At this point in an editorial a neat little homily can be worked in about eternal vigilance being the current price of liberty in most of the markets in the country. Of course it can be shown, as has been many times before, that the shotgun—not the one in the hands of Gen. Mahone —kept thousands of black and white Republicans away from the polls in Virginia and the other Southern States. Then this is just as good a time asauy to revive the story about Biitish gold being distributed in this country by the agents of the Cobden Club for the purpose of carrying an election in a way that will benefit the free-trade manufacturers in the country we went to war with something over a hundred years ago. The story is old, but it io a good one to tell on occasions like the present. It may not be well to refer to it as one of the causes of the great defeat, but it is likely that many farmers, miners and mechanics were so busy trying to ascertain why the last Presidential election did not result in raising prices and making the promised good times that they forgot when the State election day occurred. When studious persons have a difficult problem to solve they are liable to fix their minds on it so closely that they forget about attending to other matters that are of the greatest importance to them and the country.