Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 February 1891 — THE APPORTIONMENT. [ARTICLE]

THE APPORTIONMENT.

The Democrats Boldly Scheme to Deprive the People of Their Representation. The Indianapolis JbwrnaZ speaking of the Democratic apportionment bill says: The bill introduced yesterday by Senator Byrd apportioning the State for congressional and legislative purposes aggravates the iniquity and tyranny of the present gerrymander. It practically does for the Republicans of Indiana what the shotgun and the tissue ballot have done for the Republican party of the South. Whether or not the majority will have the hardihood to enact the measure proposed remains to be seen.— There is a considerable Democratic element in both branches of the General Assembly opposed to the political disfranchisement of the Republicans of the State, but in every instance thus far this element has obeyed the crack of the party whip, and there is nothing to indicate that this subserviance will not extend to the outrage contemplated. The bill is pot so notable as a specimen of develish ingenuity as of brutality. Counties with heavy Republican majorities are grouped together without regard to geographical location, and Republican and Democratic counties are so joined as to make them safely Democratic. In the laying off of legislative district lines there appears to be an almost utter disregard of apy rule as to population or the number of voters. Some Republican senatorial districts have voters enough to almost entitle them to a Congressman, while some Democratic senatorial districts are so small as, by the law of right, not to entitle them to a state Representative.

The bill was drawn with the vote of 1888 as a basis of calculation. At that election the Republicans elected their State officers, and carried * their presidential ticket. Upon the basis of that vote the bill proposed will enable the Democrats' to elect two years hence eleven out of thirteen Congressmen, eighteen out of twentyeight Senators and sixty out of a hundred Representatives. Marion county is given three Senators, a joint Senator and seven Representatives, virtually an increase of four members, two of whom are in the House and two in the Senate, counting the joint Senator. To-ex-Representative James B. Patten, now warden of the Jeffersonville prison, belongs the distinction of having drafted this measure by which Democratic rule in Indiana is to be made perpetual. This same Patten it was who drew the plans and specifications of the apportionment bill now in force and soon after the opening of the present session the committee on apportionment made requisition for his services. Several days ago he left his duties at the prison, and has since that time been in consultation with the pirate crew, which howled itself hoarse against the force bill, and which now proposes to rob the people of Indiana of the right of self-government

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