Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 July 1890 — THE LODGE INFAMY. [ARTICLE]

THE LODGE INFAMY.

REPUBLICANS PROPOSE A REVOLUTIONARY MEASURE. A Rol<l Step In the Direction of Centralization—The End of Popular Government and a Proclamation of lin peri alia m —lt la Hostile to the Liberties of the People—A Departure from the Old and Tried Ways of the 'Republic—Violation ■of the Constitution and a Partisan In-trigue-Able Argument in the House Against the Scheme by Judge Chipman of Michigan. It is doubtful whether the present discussion <s a practical one. We have a bill under coneideration, it is true, but we may at the last xninuto have a substitute thrust upon us more hostile to free institutions in all its provisions than it is. The majority have reserved the fight to do that. They cling to the policy of making every measure an ambush, every report of the Committee on Buies a surprise. Ido not know, no man save one close 16 the throne knows, what is in store for us, what new mine may be sprung upon the liberties of the people. iSir, the bill before us, the subject of that bill, certainly ought to be discussed in tire spirit of the purest patriotism. It ought not to be approached in a partisan spirit. The institutions of our country are jot fetiches from which to threathon or cajole selfish rewards for ourselves and bad fortu je for our political opponents. There are certain grounds •of political action which ought to be common to all the people. The element of popular rights, like the elements of the Christian religion, should bear the same meaning to all men. Wuere these rights are concerned there should be but one. It Is as clear as sunlight that no party is true to liberty which seeks to intrench itself in power by vetoing the machinery through which the will of the people is expressed. No party actuated by honest motives will even attempt to do that. No man who has either the pride of intellect or tha virtue of patriotism will dare go into history as the inventor or the aider of so great an infamy. No one on the floor here to-day will gainsay this. Yet a great change is proposed in our institutions. I will not call it revolutionary, because that word applied to an honest c&ute has no terror for Americans. Fanatics and knaves alike use it a sibboleth of their faith or a halo to their villainy. But, sir, It is a groat change, a departure from the old ways and the tried ways of the republic. It is a bold stej) toward consolidation ;it is consolidation, centralization In its most positive form. It is the end of popular government. It is the final, authoritative utterance -of the doctrine that people are unfit to govern themselves In the old-fashioned way through their local officers; that the township and county authorities, the executive and Legislature s of States shall bo curbed and bitted and ridden by the irresponsible appointees of the most despotic and lnesponsible officors of the government. It is a proclamation of imperialism. Why, Bir, if these returning boards and supervisors derived their power from some source near the people and in which they have -confidence, we might tolerate them because the power to mako would be the power to unmake. But, sir, how will you reach the judges? Who can check a judicial officer whom the law authorizes to be a politician and whose r arty demands that he shall be a partisan. Sir, there are but two despotisms in this country to-day, the speakership of the House and the federal judiciary—the first omnipotent because the incumbent is expected ex-officio to be the leader of a party, and the last because of the power which may lay its hand on every man’s person and property, and because of the respect which flatters the incumbent and Bhutsfrom his ■ ear the just criticism of his conduct. I repeat,, sir, how will we control tho judges? What guaranty Is there In this bill that they will be honest and unpartisan In the exercise of their appointive power? A constant temptation is set be.’ore them. Visions of political advancement will haunt their waling and sleeping hours. The great political prizes of tho country will seem constantly within their reach. Judges have heretofore, without the aid of this great power, aspired even to tho Presidency of the Republic, 'they are men like unto other mon. You propose to put a great temptation before them. Sir, the functions conferred upon thorn by the bill are not judicial functions. They are essentially political, essentially partisan. They will drag the judiciary down instead of exalting them. The inclinations of judges in great public crises will be subjects of solicitude and they will be expected to stand with their party when "emergencies arise.” It Is •certain that these duties are not judicial. They •do not come within any purpose for which courts are instituted or for which we are under the Constitution permitted to institute them. I protest that the spirit of the Constitution is violated when functions of the oxecutive nature are imposed on the judges. It is a confusion of two distinct departments of the Government, a distinct departure from the theory of the division of powers. But there is another violation of the Constitution in the bill. The measure it proposes is not meant to anply universally or to be the absolute rule in the conduct of elections. You do not say.that in every election district in the United States this machinery shall be set in ■motion. The voices cf fifty or a hundred men, according to the locality, are required to extend tho blessings of pure elections to the constituencies. Why is this? What secret of partisan inirigue is hidden under this provision? Why Shall Congress abdicate its power to establish a rule to govern all elections and delegate it to a handful of men here and there through the country? What manner of men are they who may oxercise this power of overturning the ■ election laws ip some of the States, -while the laws' of other States remain in force? What monstrous spectacle Is this which will keep in force at the same time two different sets of ■election laws, one for Massßachusetts, another for South CaToliria? what manner of men are they who may do this great work? Of what umoral standard shall they be, of what intelligence, of what patriotism? Will they come from the slums of cities? Will they be the mean paupers of ambitious leaders? Will they ■seek pure elections or partisan advantage? Will they be the champions of free representations or the instruments of a party which requires this machinery to retain domination of

this House ? I know that appeals to the Constitution are irksome to some gentlemen on this floor. They believe in “meeting emergencies" when they arise, and the restraints of the Constitution fret their nohle spirits; but, sir; that instrument, tried as it has been by _ the storm of battle, assailed by the lust of money and the lust of power, still stands in the path, the bulwark •of the people against oppression. It prohibits ysu to do this thing. By its terms the election flaws of all the States are the normal standard, mot to be departed from except on the gravest .necessity. Its spirit and interest demand that when you act you shall establish a general rule (applicable uniformly to all the country, a rule dvolved, not from party exigencies or local hatreds, but trom the best interests of all the people. You oannot say—and if you constitutionally can you ought not to say—that one law shall prevail in one district and another in the next, that a State shall have two different rules of election pro•cadhre present within its border, one Federal anti the other local, or within the same Congressional districts, and that different States may have different regulations. This sporadic kind of legislation renders partiality to sections *m<i places easy. It makes the oppression Of otl»r sections and places easy. It savors too mflph of taking care of the salvation of the sausts and providing for the damnation of the political opponent. The Constitution prescribes, akj&veall, that whatever is done shall be done bynßongress, and not by companies of fifties and companies of hundreds; that here and there only by your voices shall a uniform rule be proclaimed, which shall prevail in every precinct of 1 every country and every district in every State of the Union. You must apply your law everywhere alike. The rural constituencies of the. North must bear under it with Demoera’ ic cities •of the North and the people of the South. That is the only law you have power to make. You cannot delegate your power. Nor can you aid this bill by saying that the rule is universal, that the fifties and the hundreds may apply to put it in operation everywhere. The fifties and the hundrt ds are unknown powers to the Constitution. The legislative power of this country is not hidden in the vest pockets of a few •dissatisfied citizens or of political tools. It is your pocor, the power at the peoplo speaking -through Congress in the same tones everywhere. and imposing rules which no section is favcred to escape and with whioh no section can be crushed to political death. Bir, your law is unconstitutional, and no man in this House

dM* try to make it constitutional hg applying it to every part of the countryI observe, sir, that the author of this bill shrinks from altering the registration law of the States by establishing a national law in ita stead. I wonder at this forbearance. You endeavor to strike out with the dash of a pen the entire election machinery of the States. * Why not take the next step of constitutional invasion and establish an added qualification to the right to vote? Why hesitate? You overturn the State election boards, you give power to appointees of irresponsible judicial officers to override the decisions of inspectors elected by tne people. Why did you not complete the work by abolishing the State system of registration? You can never he sate until you do that. I know that this bill provides for espionage in the registration boards of the States, but why preserve even the form of respecting the standardlof qualification set up by the States? You will find that you cannot subjugate the Democratic cities of the North. They will continue to be Democratic, and the first fruit of the enforcement of this law will be greater majorities against you. I notice, sir, that in this bill you have a special eye on those cities. I notice, too, that you provide for domiciliary visits, that the homes of the citizen may be invaded by the men who are empowered to overturn the people’s laws. I notice, too, that there is a peculiar venom in the bill against the naturalized citizens, that they are treated as suspects, and may he dogged by spies aud harassed when they try to exercise their right to vote. You have all the machinery to annoy the citizen, to terrify, cajole, to corrupt him, You have at the public expense political minutemen to keep watch and ward of your partisan fortunes, an army of spies and informers under political leadership encamped at the hearthstones of the people, but, sir, you cannot, even by this engineering, subjugate this people. The tide has turned against your party, and even this audacious bill cannot stay it. This bill means centralization of all power in the Federal Government, because it strips the people of their old security that they shall have fair representatives In this House. Is centralization good for any citizen? Will it bless the black man while it curses the white man ? Can you do anything by this kind of legislation save to relight the fires of- race prejudice? Those fires are burning low, and only yesterday seemed to be dying out, but you propo e again to thrust the race question Into political prominence and to make the negro the pawn on the board of your party necessities. Is this well for him? Will it raise hfrn in either the social or political scale to keep him constantly the bone of contention between party strifes? What, too, let me ask, is to be gained by your proposed treatment of naturalized citizens? Under the law they are part of us, bone of our hone and flesh of our flesh, as much members of the national family &b we are. Why treat them as objects of suspicion ? Have they not been brave in war, law abiding in peace? Have qot their brain and brawn been as beneficent to the country as yours? Why shall- spies and eavesdroppers hang at their heels ? Why shall the unclean projeny of your bill fatten on them and watch them as if they are dangerous to the public welfare? If there Is need of Congressional interference to purify elections you begin at the wrong place. The great power of corruption to-day is money, the immense sums which control conventions and so poison the elective franchise at its fountain head, money concontributed for the mysterious purposes known as “campaign expenses.” an* rewarded by the great ana small offices of the Government. That is the imminent evil, that is the power which debauches, which reaches to high places and which is certain to reach your returning boards and to fill this House with its minions. Why not pronounce it a felony to contribute immense sums to aefray “campaign expenses?” Why not tell the trqth and declare the man who uses his purse to elevate himself to office or to t a(u a partisan advantage an enemy of the people and a traitor to free institutions? Here, sir, is a fertile Held for the viger of vl>tue and the zeal of reform. The plutocrat Is the foe of popular rights, the champion of centralization. His interests are not the interests of the people. His ways are not their ways. He demands new ways, the ways of federal life appointees, dominating the old ways of elected election officers, the ways of one-man power, armed to overthrow popular rights, the ways of monopoly, of class legislation, of money despotism. If you are patriots, if you burn with zeal to bless your country, strike at him. Make his chief poli ical virtue, the expenditure of money to influence elections, the greatest of civic crimes. Kir, we do not need this proposed law. The people know ve do not need it. Every honest town officer, every inspector of an election precinct in the country, knows that we do not need it. Our States are all prosperous, content sits at every hearthstone. There is no demand from the people for your fifties and hundreds, your life-long supeivisors, your hosts of spies aud informers, your political judges, your despotic returning boards. The ways of our fathers have been the ways of prosperity and freedom to as, We will not bow down to your strange gods. We will cling to the true faii hos local control of our ballots and of our rights.