Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 November 1888 — THE BALLOT BOX. [ARTICLE]

THE BALLOT BOX.

IGNORANCE AND BRIBERY, DEFAM A|ION AN O THE CAUCUS. The Bnllot-Box Should Be Snfely Guarded an the Ark ut the American Covenant. f ' Rev. Dr. Talmage spoke at the Brooklyn tabernacle last Sunday. Text: Exodus 37, 1. He said: O'Connell and Grote and Cobden and Macaulay and Gladstone fought great battles in the introduction of the ballotboxes in England, and to-day it is one of the fastnesses of (hat nation. It is one of the corner-ston'es of our Govern-' ment. It is older than the constitutionIn it is ..pur national safety. Tell me what will be the fate of the American ballot-box. the ark of the, American covenant, and I will tell you what will be the fate . of this nation. Give the people qnce a year or oncejn four years an opportunity to express their political and you practically avoid insurrection and revolution. Either give them the ballot or they will take the sword. Without the ballot-box there can be no free? republican institutions. Milton, visiting in Italy, noticed that on the sides of Vesuvius gardeners and farmers were at work while the volcano wasJn eruption, and he asked them if they were safe. “Yes,” said the farmers and the gardeners. “it is safe, all the danger is before the eruption; then comes earthquake and terror,.but just as soon as the volcano begins to pour forth lava we all feel at rest.” It is lhe suppression of political sentiment, the. suppression of public opinion that makes moral earthquake and national earthquake. Let public opinion pour forth, and that gives satisfaction, and that gives peace, and that gives permanency to good government.- Ami yet, though lhe ballot-box is the sacred chest and the ark of the American covenant, you know as well as I know it has its sworn antagonists, aid I propose this morning in God’s name, and as a Christian patriot, to set before you the names of some of the sworn enemies of this sacred chest, the ark of the American covenant, the ballot-box. First, I remark, ignorancetfa a mightv foe. Other things being equal, the more intelligence a man has the better he is qualified to exercise the-right of suffrage. You have been ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty years studying American institutions; you have canvassed all the great questions about tariff and home rule and all the educational questions, and everything in American politics you are acquainted with. You consider yourself competent to cast a vote in November, and you are competent. You will take your position in the-line of electors; you will wait for your turn to come, the Judge of Election will announce your name, you will cast your vote and pass out. Well done.

But right.behind you there will- be a man who can not spell the name of Comptroller, or attorney, or Mayor. He can not write,or if he can,uses a small “i” for the personal pronoun. He could not tgjl on„ which side of the Allegheny mountains Ohio is. Educated canary birds, educated horses know more than he. He will cast his vote, and it will balance your vote. His ignorance is as mighty as your intelligence. That is not right. All men of fair mfrid will acknowledge that this is not right. .Until a man can read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, and calculate the interest on the American debt, and know "the difference between a republican form of government and a monarchy or despotism, he is unfit to exercise the right of suffrage at any ballot-box between Key West and Alaska. In 1872, in England, there were 2,60 V 000 children who ought to have been in school. There were only 1,333,000, in other words, about 50 per cent, and of the 50 per cent, not more than 5 per cent, got anything worthy the name of an education. Now, take that foreign ignorance and add it to our American ignorance, and there will be in November thousands and thousands of people who are no more uualifiedto exercise "the-right of suttrage-than to Aeehire onastronomy. How are these things to be corrected? By laws of compulsory education well executed. Igo in for a law which, after giving fair warding for a few years, shall make ignorance a crime. There is no excuse for ignorance on these subjects in this land, where the common schools make knowledge as free as the fresh air of heaven. I would have a Board of Examination seated beside the officers of registration, and let them decide whether the men who come up to vote have any capacity to be monarchs in a land where we are all monarchs. One of the most awful foes of the American ballot-box to-day is popular ignorance. Educate the people, give them an opportunity to know and understand what they do. If they will riot take the education, deny them the vote. 1

Another powerful enemy of this sacred chest, the ark of the American covenant, the ballot-box, is spurious voting. In 1880, in Brooklyn, there .were a thousand names recorded of persons who had no residence here, and if there were a thousand attempted fraudulent votes in the best city on the continent, what may we expect in cities not so fortunate? What a grand thing is the law of registration! Without it elections in this country would be a farce. There must be a scrutiny on this subject. The law must have keenest twist for the neck of repeaters. Something more than slight fine and short imprisonment It is an attempt at the assassination -of the republic. when a man attempts to put in a spurious vote. In olden time when men laid unholy hands on the ark of the, covenant they dropped down dead.. Witness Uzzah. And when men attempt to put unholy hands on the American ballot-box, the ark of the American covenant, they deserve extermination. Another powerful foe of this sacred chest is intimidation. Corporations sometimes demand that their employes vote in this and that way. It is skillfully done. It is not positively demanded, but the employe understands he will be fro?en out of the establishment unless he votes as the firm does. So you can go into villages w'here there are establishments with hundredsand thousands of employes, and, having founcT out the politics of the headmen in the factory, you can tell which way the election is going. Now, that is damnable. If in any precinct in the United States a man cannot vote as he pleases, there 'is something awfully wrong .. - - ■- ■. ■

How do you treat that employe who votes differently from what you do? Oh you say you do not interfere with his .j right of suffrage. But you call him into ' yopr private office and you find fault Jx itH ivs work, and, after awhile, you 1 tell him there is an uncle pr an aunt, or -a niece, or a nephew that must have, that position. You do not say it is because he voted this way or -that way, but he knows and God knows it is. If that man has given to you in hard work an equivalent for the wages you pay him, you have-no right to ask anything else of him. He sold you his work; he did not sell you his political or religious principles. But yon know as well as I there is sometimes on that " sacred chest—the ark Of the American covenant—a shadow corporate or monopolistic.

, Another powerful foe of that sacred chest, the ark of the American •covenant, the ballot box, is bribery. You know something of the*hundreds of thousands of dollars that were expended to carry Indiana in 1880. You know something of the vast sums of money expended in Brooklyn and New York in other years to carry elections. Bribery is one of the disgraces of this country, and there will be more monev used in

bribery this autumn’s election than in any previous election. It is often the case that a man is nominated for office with reference to his capacity to provide money for the elections, or with- reference to his capacity to command money from others. You know the "names of men who have at different times gone into the Gubernatorial chair or Congressional office, buying their way all through. I tell you no news. Your patriotic’ heart has been pained again and again with it.

Very oftenit iff not moneythat bribes? but it is office. “You make me President and I’ll make you a Cabinet officer; you make me Governor and I’ll make you Surveyor-General; you make me Mayor and I’ll put you on the Water Board; you give me position and TIT give you position.” That is the form of bribe often and often in these great cities. Ido not say it is in our city, but you know again and again throughout the land these have been the forms of bribe offered. So it is often the case that by the time a man comes to an office to which he has been elected he is from the crown of head to the sole of foot mortgaged with pledges, and the man who goes to Albany or Washington to get an office is applying for some position which wasgiven away three months before the election. Two long lines of worm fence—one worm fence reaching tn Albany and the other to Washington, Bnd there a great many citizens astride the fence, and they are equally poised, and they are waiting to see on which side .there is most emolument, and on this side they go down. But bribery kicks both ways. It kicks the man down that offers' it and the man that takes it. Bribery to-day you will admit to be one of the mightiest foes of the American ballot-box.

Another great enemy of that sacred chest is defamation of character. Can you find out from the newspapers when two men are running for office which is the best? How often in the autumnal elections the real good man is denounced and the bad man is aplauded, so that you can sometimes come to no just opinion as to who is the best man, and there are hundreds and thousands of electors who go up to vote so utterly befogged that they know not what they do. Is not that a fearful influence to be brought- upon the ballot-box of this country? it has been go ever since the foundation of this ■Government. Defamation of character. Thomas Paine writes Washington a letter, and publishes it, saying: “Treacherous in all private friendship and a hypocrite in public morals, the world will be puzzled so know whether he had better call you an apostate or an impostor, and whether you abanoned good morals, or never had any.” That is Thomas Paine’s opinion of George Washington. John Quincy Adams declared that he was solaced in regard to the scandalsand the. anath-mas inflicted upon him by the fact that his father, John Adams, had to go through the same process, and John Quincy Adams declared lie really thought in that present election there were men who en fj re ti me tnmanufacturing falsehoods in regard to him. Martin Van Buren was always pictorial!zed as a rat. Thomas H. Benton and Amos Kendall were always pictoralized' as robbers with batteringrams breaking in the door of the United States Bank.

On the day on which Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated President of the United States,’March 4, 1801, the following appeared in the Sentinel of Boston: “Monumental inscription. Yesterday expired deeply regretted by millions of greatful Americans and by all good men, the Federal Administration of the Government of the Uuited States, animated by Washington, Adams, Hamilton, Knox, Pickering, McHenry, Marshall and Stoddard; aged twelve years. Its death was occasioned by the secret arts and open violence of foreign and domestic demagogues. As one tribute of gratitude in these times this monument to the talents and sendees of the deceased is raised by the Sentinel.” Under such defamation as that Thomas Jefferson went into office. My father told me that when Andrew Jackson was running for President of the United States, the .whole iand was flooded with coffin handbills—pictures bf six dead men—in allusion to the six deserters whom Andrew Jackson hadhad shot, and all the pictorials ot those times represented Jackson as taking his office from the hands of the devil. I saw at Put-in-Bay, Ohio, in a museum, a prominent paper of 1844, which spoke of Henry jQlay as a gambler, a libertine aud a murderer; and the man ner in which he was defamed anti the outrages which were heaped upon him ‘may be well guessed from Mr. Clay’s eulogy of his State, Kentucky. He said; “When I seemed to be assailed by all the rest of the world she interposed her broad and impenetrable shield, -repel hd the poiioned.shafts that were aime'd for my destruction, and vindicated my good name from every malignant and unfounded aspersion.” Defamation! It is the curse of the American ballot-box. Just as soon as in the great cities a man is put up for office he is made the target. The fact that he is up is prima facie evidence that he must be brought down". His public life and his private life are scrutinized, and all the electric lights arq turned on. How often, it is that men have gone down under such things. In every autumnal election the air is filled with their carrion crows scenting carcasses. CaWl Caw! Caw! There are newspapers in the United States that.

in the great autumnal elections take wild license for liberty. They are filled w ith calumny. Tfie editorial columns of such papers reek with it; their columns are stuffed with it. There are newspapers in the United States which in the great popular elections breakfast and dine and supon indecency. They wallow in it. Swine like the mire. The give more for one quillful of it than a whole hogshead of decent product. There are in these great autumnal elections men sitting in editorial chairs who write with a quill, not plucked from the stupid goose or the sublime eagle, but from a turkey buzzard! Ghou|®! Ghouls! They .tip thmeity sewer into their editorial inkstand. Defamation of character is one of the curses of the American ballotbox tq-day. In your great Presidential elections, who can tell from what he reads who is the man he ought to vote for? Bad merii sometimes applauded, good men denounced. Another’powered foe of the sacred chest, the ark of the American covenant the ballot-box, is the rowdy and drunken caucus. !_

The ballot-box does not give any choice to a man when the nominations are made in the back part of a groggerv. When the elector comes up he has to choose between two evils. In some of the cities men have come to the ballotbox to vote, and have found both names siich a scaly, greasy and stenchlul cre*w they had no choice. You say vote for somebody outside. Then they throw away their vote. Christian men of New York and Brooklyn, honorable men patriotic men, go and take possession of the caucuses. First having saturated your handkerchief with cologne or some other disinfectant, go down to the caucus and take possession of it in the name of the Lord God Almighty and the American people, though after you come back you shou d have to hang your hat and coat on a line in the back yard for ventilation. In some of the States pot ties has got so low that the nominees no more need good morals than they do a bath-tub. Snatch the ballot-box from such men. Where is the David who will go forth and brine; the ark of the covenant back from Kirjath-jearim? Do you-not think politics has got to a pretty low ebbjn our day when a Tweed could be sent to the Legislature of New York and a John Morrissov, the prifice of gamblers, could be sent to the American Congress? Now, how are these things to be remedied? Some say' by a property qualification; They say that after a man gets a certain amount of property—a certain amount of real estate —he is financially interested in good government and he becomes cautious and conservative. I reply, a property Tqualification would shut off from the ballot box a great many of the best men in this land. Literary men are almost always poor. A pen is a good implement to make the world better, but it is a very poor implement with which to get a livelihood ordinarily. I have known scores of literary men who never owned a foot of ground, and never will own a foot of ground until they get under it. Professors of colleges, teachers of schools, editors of newspapers, ministers of religion, qualified in every way to vote, yet no worldly success. There has been many a man who has not had a house on earth who will have a mansion-rin heaven. There are many who through accidents of fortune have come to great success while they are profound in their stupidity—as .profound in their stupidity as a man of ] arge fortune with whom I was crossing the ocean who told me he was going to see the dikes of Scotland! When a member of my family asked a lady on her return from Europe if she had seen Mont Blanc, she replied: “Well, really, I don’t know; is that in Europe?” Ignorance by the square foot. Property qualifications will not do. The only way these evils will be eradicated will be by more thorough legal defense ol the ballot box and a more thorough moralizatjqn and* Christianization of the people. ? Theark of the covenant was carried into captivity to Kirjath-jearim, but one day the people hooked oxen to a cart, and they put this ark on the cart, and the cart was takbn to Jerusalem-the ark of the covenant coming with the shouting tfnd thanksgiving of the, people.

"And througli tbe American ballot box, the ark of the American covenant, our sacred chest has been carried again and again into captivity by fraud and iniquity and spurious voting. I believe it will be brought back yet by prayer and by Christian consecration, and will be set down in the midst of the temple- of Christian patriotism. Whose responsibility? Yours and mine. You have not only a vote, you have a prayer. The prayer may be mightier than the vote. Oh, as citizens of this beautiful city, and of this State, and of this Nation, let us do our whole duty. We cannot live under anyother form of government than that which God has given us in this country. The stffFs on our flag are not the stars of a thickening night, but the stars sprinkled amid the bars of morning cloud. We are going to have one government on this entire continent. Let the despotisms" of Asia keep their feet off the Pacific coast, aud let the tyrranies of Europe keep their feet off the Atlantic coast. We are going to have one government. Mexico will follow Texas into the Union, and Christianity and civilization will stand side by side in the halls of the Montezumas; And if not in our day, then in the day of our children, Yucatan and- Central America will come in dominion, while on the north Canada will be or.rs, not by conquest—oh, ho, American and English swords may never clash blades—but we will woo our fair neighbor of the North, and then England will say to Canada: “You are old enough for the marriage day,” and then, turning, will say, “Giant of the West, go take your bride.” And then, from Baffin’s Bay to the Carribean Sea there will be one government under one flag, with one destiny—a free, undisputed,Christianized American continent. God save the city of Brooklyn! God save the commonwealth of New York! God save the Union! Ink stains are entirely removed by the immediate application of dry salt before the ink has dried. When the salt become discolored by absorbing the ink brush it off and apply more; wet slightly. Continue this till the ink is .all removed. Break up setting hens by putting them under small coops for a few days, without perches. _ • •’ If sassafras bark is sprinkled among dried fruit it will keep out the worms.