Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 November 1859 — A Contrast. [ARTICLE]

A Contrast.

Gov. Willard of Indiana, says the Chicago Journal, has failed to procure a verdict of acquittal for Capt. Cook, his brother-in-law, who was one of the Harper’s Ferry rioters. The Governor and his family are said to be deeply grieved at the conviction of deathsentence of the misguided young man, and the certainty of his meeting his doom at the j gallows-. We cannot but sympathise with the afflicted family. It is.la hard blow to have a brother consigned to so ignominious a death, whether just or unjust. But at the same time we cannot let this opportunity pass, sad as it is, to suggest a striking contrast, :by asking why the relatives ot Capt. Cook are more deserving of our sympathy than those" of his associates in the Harper’s Ferry raid! Is the distressed wife of old John Brown less to be commisserated in her grief than the family of Gov. Willard, merely because old Brown is crazy and his wife a poor woman, and Governor Willard and his family reside in the Gubernatorial mansion of Indiana ! And suppose Capt. Cook had been the brother-in-law of Gov. ('base of Ohio, or of Gov. Bissell, of Illinois, Republicans, instead of Gov. Willard, of Indiana, a Democrat! Would we ever hear the last of the ' charges, intimations and calumnies that tiie Democratic organs would utter against Gov. Chase or Gov. Bissell,-to prove their complicity in the Harper’s I’erry conspiracy, in order to fasten the responsibility upon the party which they represent! They would violate all dictates of sympathy and humanity — sneer at the sorrow of a sister's heart, ‘ or the brother’s grief, in their wolfish purI suit of capital. Such is the partisan rapacity of Democratic demagoguism. We are heartily glad that no Republican editor, c ither in Indiana or elsewhere, had Iso far forgotten decency or humanity as to gloat over the fact that one of the Harper's Ferry rioters is the brother-in-law ot a Dem>>erat'c Governor. It would be cruel .and inluiman. But we know the reckless-ness-of Democratic newspaper men and politicians well enough to believe that were Gov. Willard a Republican, th>'i/ would,iliowl their throats h la-'se to prove tiiat he was a party Ito the conspiracy.