Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 April 1887 — After the Texas Bulldozers. [ARTICLE]

After the Texas Bulldozers.

The first returns from the recent Congressional inquiry into the charges of intimidation in "the Texas elections have began to come in, and they are not very favorable to the Democratic party. The United States Grand Jury has indicted Judge Kirk and several other citizens.„of Washington County, Texas, on the charge of intimidating voters, and they nre bound over for trial. The fact that a jury in the State of Texas has found three bulldozers deserving of trial, with reasonable ground to expect them guilty, is pretty good proof of their subsequent conviction. The investigation before the Senate Committee showed a condition of things that reflects shame upon American institutions and disgrace upon the Democratic party that is responsible for it. It was brought out then that armed men stood about the polls frightening voters away. That in some instances they forcibly stopped the balloting and closed the election loDg before the time required by hw. That they used intimidation, supported by violence, to compel men to vote the Democratic ticket, or refrain from voting at all. These facts were brought out in the preliminary examination, and yet the Democrats in the Senate stoutly insisted, when an investigation was proposed, that there was no occasion for it, and that the charges wore manufactured for the purpose of making capital for the Republican party. The Grand Jury iu Texas evidently doesn’t take that view of it, and there is good ground for believing that the jury that has finally to pass upon the charges will not consider them untrue or trifling. And yet with this indisputable evidence of forcible interference by the Democratic party with the right of citizens to vote, with plenty of proof that the Democratic party of the South is a constant t conspiracy against the honesty of elections,' and for the forcible and fraudulent usurpation of the right of suffrage, sentimentalists like Grady gush about a “new South,” and denounce any reference to these crimes against society and government as waving the bloody shirt, and an attempt to perpetuate sectional animosity and strife. If the Democratic party wants a clean bill of health in the South, let it repudiate and suppress the crimes against the ballot that are committed in its name. Nothing will do more to create public belief that there really is a new South, where justice and respect for law go hand in hand with the genius of enterprise and progress, than the assurance that in all its borders the right of every man to cast his vote and have it fairly counted is sacedly preserved and enforced, whether be be rich or poor, black or white. When that assurance can be truthfully given there will lie some occasion to acknowledge tho existence of a new South; but not till then.— Des Moines Register.