Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1874 — INGRATITUDE. [ARTICLE]

INGRATITUDE.

The Republicans have shown a disposition to briilg to account and punish corrupt officials, liigh or low. It needs to go a step farther, and shake off ils dead weights before election. Because a man has a great many relatives and friends who are Republicans, is no reason that lie must be accepted for office when he cannot command the confidence and respect of the people generally. — Jasper Republican. The assertion that Republicans have shuun a disposition to bring to account and punish corrupt ~ofii- H cials is so at variance with the facts that it brings a smile of 'derision to the faces of those who are at I all acquainted with the revelations ' of investigating committees. What j disposition was shown to punish the j members of Congress implicated j in the Credit Mobilier rascality?! Look at the “Salary Grab, and Sal-; ary Grabbers. Garfield, the most, contemptible one in the batch because the most cowardly, re-elected j to Congress by a Republican majority of more than six thousand ; ' Butler, the boldest and most un-j scrupulous Salary Grabber, and pronounced hater of a free- press j and free !speeeh, sure to be returned to Congress by a Republican dis- j "trier; Poland, another Salat v Grab- ! her, and author of the most insidi- j ious thrust yet made at free speech J by an American legislator, regu- j larly renominated to Congress by a Republican convention. Behold Secretary Richardson, implicated by incontrovertible testimony, in the Sanborn frauds, appointed to a life tenure in the Court of Claims. See Shepherd appointed to the Chairmanship of the new Government of the District of Columbia after'an investigation proved him a public robber. Look at these examples of the punishment me ted by the Republican party to a few of its larger corrupt officials and | see bow false are its boasts- of ! purity. Read the platform adopted by the Republican party ot Indiana last J une, and see if there is a ! word in it condemning the Salary Grabbing Congressmen from this j State; see if there is a word in it j that censures President Grant for ! permitting the Salary Grab, for con- | senting to the increase of his own ' salary, or for recommending Richardson and Shepherd for promotion. Find iu that interesting document, j if you can, a syllable that censured !or even deprecated the action of either the members of a Republican legislature of Indiana, w,ho in evasion of the letter ot our State constitution, and plain violation of its spirit, increased their own salaj ries, or of the Republican governor who approved the bill What kind : of punishment did the Republican par-iy of this Senatorial district inflict on him who represented them in the Lower House of that corrupt and extravagant Assembly which increased its own pay, used up a surplus of more than §700,000,' run the State in debt more than §700,000 besides, aud increased the rate of taxation for State purposes more than jive times what it was before? Why the honest old party endorsed him, promoted him on-their ticket, and called people traitors and renegades who would not vote fpr him for Senator. J ■ .... •••••'

So much lor the disposition that has becMi shown by Republicans this year to punish corrupt officers, and now to another matter which crops out in the quotation at the commencement of this article. Can any person, who is at all conversant with our local politics for the lust eight years, read that quotation and not see at whom the thrust is made? Is there more than one man whom that description fits? What individual among our local politicians has invariably proven a dead weight, an incubus, upon the Republican organization in Jasper county? Who has been three times a candidate, twice defeated, ! once elected by less than forty j votes, when the party had three hundred and fifty to four hundred and thirty majority? What other man lias ever made more industriI ous use of his church relations and the influence of his relatives both consanguineous and maritial to : foist himself upon the party shoulders? What other one is there who so signally fails to command the respect of the people generally? ■ What other local political dabbler | has been so stubborn, so indiscreet, so selfish and so bad a manager ! while a candidate, or as an officer lias been so overbearing, so haughty, so dictatorial, so abrupt in his treatment of people having public business to transact, and so great a stickler for mere forms that were altogether unimportant? Is there more than one person to whom the Republican can possibly allude? But are such covert attacks necessary ? Will they harmonize and strengthen the Are” they prudent? or wise? If one has influence sufficient to procure a nomination, may it not be possible for him when smarting from cruel censure to also inflict a wound? And what hurt rankles deeper than wounded pride? What indignity is erueler thau that which comes in the hour of adversity from one who was established by our friendship? What man did more to establish the Republican than him .whom it thus insidiously assails? Were they not his relatives and his personal friends, who, more than all others, rode the county over to solicit patronage for that paper? Is it not irsui the hand of him whom they kick as a dog that they expect to receive the bulk of public patronage? Yet, alas! this conduct is too often observed among mankind. Mercenary souls who can be hired to forsake the principles they have espoused seldom make true friends. Those who are attracted to us by the benefits we have to bestow are ever ready to mock us in the day of our afflictions. Verily an open enemy is nobler than a deceitful, venal friend, who will desert our standard when it seems to be floated by the fainter breeze. It is unkind —positively cruel—to taunt a man because he is unpopular and fails to make a successful political race, and our contemporary will make no friends m this community by such unwise conduct.