Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1874 — DISREPUTABLE ELECTIONEERING. [ARTICLE]

DISREPUTABLE ELECTIONEERING.

rrrLast wook Gen. Thomas .1. Brady, Chaimrn of yhe Indiana State ItepuTblican Committee, sent a letter to the Editor of Tin: UnioXi in whicli ho says: I desire to call your attention to the horrible scenes of violence ami bloodshed transpiring throughout the South, and suggest that you give them as great prominence m possiblt; in your jiajifr, fuom this Tnn: Tiu, trim KI.KCTTON. After the election we presume Gen. Brady and the Republican Central Committee will not care so much whether these reports of Southern outrages arc published or not. This method of electioneering is not only disreputable, but it is absolutely wicked. That negroes are killed, and white inen, too, for that matter, there is probably no doubt ; but that they arc killed on account of their political views to she extent publisJred by tlie Inter Ocean and Indianapolis Journal is very improbable. This “Southern outrage” business is a kind of stock m trade with certain unscrupulous politicians ; the cry is a dernier resort seized upon in the extremity of the party in power to create a diversion in their favor and cause people to forget, for the time being, such infamous measures as the “newspaper gag law,” the salary stealing, the railroad and steam shin subsidies, tlm high protective tariff, the class legislation, the oppressions, the proscriptions; the short comings, Republican patty. — — That these reported outrages are grossly exaggerated, the careful reader can net doubt. Only a few weeks ago the Indianapolis Journal had this item published at the head of its cd l loriaLenlunuise “About this time look out for telegraphic reports of a war of races in the Southjust precisely as the old almanacs used to say of the weather —“about this time look out for rain.” When the Journal published that observation for a peice of pleasantry, the order had not gone forth from head quarters to give these reports “as great pronvi nj;iee as possible till election;” but the Journal had heard tiiis “wolf, wolf” cry in previous campaigns, and knew when to expect it again. Let any person read the Inter Ocean ind remember from day to day what appears in its intensely parlizan columns and he wiil-be struck with the similarity of the reports published from week to week.— For illustration : Mouday wo have the Couslialta murders, Tuesday the Trenton massacre, Wednesday trouble ill Missouri, Thursday violence in Mississippi, Friday .bloodshed in Louisaiia, Saturday outrages iji Texas. Then there will be a general liisilade all along the line. Drunken brawls are magnified into a war of races, while murders and robberies are made to assume a political aspect. This paper scans its Southern exchanges and Southern telegrams for reports ot lawlessness, collects them column, exaggerates, magnifies, and gives them political coloring for mtM;e partisan purpose. If we are not mistaken the managing editor of the Inter Ocean was at one time a carpet bag member of Congress from a Virginia disc triet. By the term “carpet, bag” we mean that lie was down in that region directly after the war closed and by some Hocus poctis obtained a certificate of election during the time of transition from rebellion to reconstruction. He was properly a citizen of another State, where the people held entirely different views upon political questions eveii the most trivial; he did not reflect the feelings of the people whom' ho assumed to represent, was nbt of them, did not understand them, could not sympathize with them, did not have their confidence, and was not a representative man.— Of course after political disabilities were removed from the people and tliey were permitted to choose for themselves this map could no longer be sent to Congress from tjia v district, and having no interest there, hi| trade being gone, he was 'compelled either to work, to leave, or to starve. He chose to leave . J and now the columns of his paper are filled with intense, proscriptive, pnrlizaD. illiberaliiy; hoping thereby to revenge his personal disappointments upon a people who prefer to exercise the constitutional rights of freemen and choose representatives froth those whose are identical with their pwn, to being misrepresented by men of unholy ambition whose highest aim is fjr own a pleth-

! one purse. The illiberal!ty, hatred, and ‘fu-oseri jVliveness“of tlio mlfnaging editor of the Inter Oceania well illustrated in an article which appeared in its columns last Monday. Having said of the Shreveport Times that it was “outspoken, defiant”' and aggressive; and the nittrders which have illustrated its teachings, show plainly enough that it truly represents Southern white sentiment,” that paper replies “Here.the Inter Ockan tells a plumb square lie. We have never proposed to deprive the negros, of their rights, nor to kill any negros. The Inter Ocean is telling nauseous, filthy; - loathsome lies about the South, and particularly about the people of Louisaiia.” In answer to this the Inter Ocean says: “This man is the deadly loe of society, he ought to be sent to the penitentiary, or hung, as accessory to a hundred murders, and his paper suppressed.” The argument advanced by the Inter Ocean is that a Southern editor who does not acquiesce in its manufactured “outrages,” its partizan misstatements, and its wicked falsehoods, ought to be hung and his paper be suppressed—if the Republican party cannot keep itself in power by the votes of Southern people, Northern people must be frightened into keeping its corrupt representatives in control of the administration, and should this measure fail also, then the bayonet, the halter and the suppresion of the press must follow'. That crimes are committed in the Southern States is not doubted. That they are committed in Northern States is true. That more crimes, equally ashorrible ami revolting, are committed daily in the ei t i e-s-o-f Boston, New York, Philadelphia, -Cincinnati, Indianapolis Chicago and Sau Francisco, than in the entire' Southern States outside of llveir large cities is altogether probable; but to charge these atrocities to political account would be outrageous. There are people from Jasper county living in the South —in Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, and in Texas —who arc intelligent, outspoken Republicans. They have friends and relatives here v.'i fir whom they correspond. But we have yet to hear that they are timorous, or have any trouble on account of their political faith.— j One—a lady who is very outspoken ami a- radical RepubUiMin in 'her sympathies—was at Little Hock during the Baxter-Bvooks wav.— ■She. wrote to friends TrT Rensselaer übeot her experience, and asked if certain male acquaintances were .-•till warm friends of President Grant. “If you could only see some of his appointees here in the South,” she said, “you would lose your respect lor him.” And so far as we are able to learn from people Who have no personal interest to subserve, the conclusions of this lady represent the universal sentiment of Northerners who go into the oppressed and misruled States of the South. TTfeii"again, there is another phase-of the' question winch it is well to consider, if these reports of Southern political violence are true. For nearly ten years the Republican party has had control of the government. Its policy has, been enforced by the.bayonet and civil authority throughout the country during that w hole time.-— Since May, lt-00, the platforms of that party have been “eoiigratulatf.,i<r the country on the assured success ol the reconstruction policy.. — Securing equal civil rights to all.” Hither the platforms are false* or the current newspaper reports are j false. We believe the statements in tiro platforms are nearer true than those which are now filling the editorial and news columns of disreputable journals. But if the reports are true, then it follows that the Republican party has been ] deceiving the people year after j year by its reiterated:statements concerning she success of reconstruction measures. If the administration is powerless, if the government is powerless, to guarantee .peace and protection to its people, everywberej in all the States, then it is high time that such wretched imbecility was substituted with something more efficient. It is w ieked for papers to color the reports from the South as they do.— It is wicked to foster the prejudices ihat were engendered by the, wn,r, It is wicked to deter emigration, and prevent capital from developing the” natural resources of that section, by publishing these grossly exaggerated reports which are invented solely to’ gain temporary political advantage in sectiotfs far removed. *

Liikoconntv line a citizen who fougrU, under Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo. His name is John Basher, aud is 64 years, old.

Comes now the Independents of Lapbl-te county and place In tTie political field a full county ticket. They nominated Amos Tharp for Representative, John R. Stewart for Auditor, John D. Hoover for Treasurer, W. R. Godfrey for Recorder, Andrew J. Rodgers for Sheriff, Geo. W, Mills for Commissioner, John P. Cathcart for Surveyor, William Crichton for Assessor, and N. S. Darling for Coroner.

In the Fort Wayne district (12th) the Independents nave issued a call for a Congressional Convention. The Democratic majority of the 12th district was 4,471 two years ago. The Republicans will unite with the Independents up there and become cat’s-paws to pull chestnuts out of the fire.