Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 October 1894 — DON’T MOVE NOW. [ARTICLE]

DON’T MOVE NOW.

Or You Will Aid the Republicans at the Election. e It has grown to be a basic principle of the Republican faith that the Democrats cannot be beaten in Indiana except by some sharp practice by trickery, fraud or corruption. And Republicans have much reason for the faith that is in them. Not in a generation have they carried Indiana without the use of boodle or without some chicanery. That’s why they so bitterly opposed the Australian ballot law and the antibribery laws. They didn’t want to forgo the advantage they possessed under the old law, when they could buy the floaters. They sigh when they think of the ogood old times;” the times when, in 1880, Dorsey and Brady and Arthur “soaped” the state with “crisp $2 bills” and of 1888 when Dudley organized his “blocks-of-flve in charge of trusted inen with the necessary funds" supplied by Wanamaker and Pullman. Though they announced in the early part of the campaign that they had a walkover in Indiana this fall, they evidently didn’t believe so; for the canvass hadn’t fairly opened before a scheme was hatched for the indirect purchase of voters. Word has been sent out to all of Dudley’s old lieutenants and the plan is already in operation. Jt is a very simple but very inBidiaus scheme and is being worked “on the dead quiet” wherever possible. The purchase of voters this year is to be merely a purchase to make Democrats lose their votes and is more in the nature of a confidence game than anything else. It doesn’t deal so much with the floaters as with honest but unsuspecting Democrats, who would never think of selling out knowingly. The election law requires that a voter shall reside six months in the state,, (If)days in the township and 30 saya 'in the precinct in which h?. votes. Taking advantage of th# provisions of the law the Republicans in the past 30 days have been busily engaged in the attempt to induce Democrats to change their residence from one township to another, This work has so far been chiefly eopfiped to the country districts, bu.t fropr now on work will mostly be W the cities and towns, wfieih ¥i ift necessary only to change cne precinct to another, often merely across a street, in order to yge. a wfe. AU sorts of inducements are offered Democrats to move. Low rents, permanent work and other considerations are given and before they realize it many Democrats voluntarily disfranchise themselves.

The scheme is an adroit 9DO and is likely to prove highly successful if not headed off. papers and Democratic cojimuitteemen should put the p.u,b.l|ic an guard. Every voter’s attention should be called to the fact that u he moves from one precinct to another after Oct. she will lose his vote. He should steadfastly refuse to listen to any argument favoring removal after that date, for it is nothing more, than a scheme to prevent Democrats from voting.