Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 March 1877 — DEMOCRATIC CARPET-BAGIBM. [ARTICLE]

DEMOCRATIC CARPET-BAGIBM.

One prominent trait of democratic Character is to firacttee among themselves for temporary expediency things that they bitterly flondemn in another. Take for an illns♦ration the crime of oarpet-bagism, fl|e they denominate it. How democratic newspapers denounce it! What bitter anathemas have their public men hurled against it in de--ffiate’. How severely do democrats IwVeigh against it in private conversation! Carpet-bagism is brandin democratic party platforms as one of the most henious of offenses against political morals and the public weal. But, after all, thia »eal is only mock morality. They don’t believe what they preach against it, or if they do they don’t iractice what they believe. It is inly republican carpet-bagism that are opposed to, not oarpet-bag-ism in the abstract as a principle. jDemouiatic reform >is acJdoiu reform at all, but it is more often Worse corruption and greater depth of depravity. If the practice of Uarpet-bagism or any aj|pneßty will assist them through With any scheme to obtain powui and plunder they seldom hesitate Jong to make it avail their purpose, Now there is the case of Mr. Purman in Florida which will illustrate just how badly they despise carpetbagism. This gentleman is not only a carpet-bagger but he is also a negro. Until last Monday he -was a member of congress, representing a large republican constituency in the first district of Florida. If we are not mistaken he -had been elected to represent that |listrict two or three times in »uck Cession. After a while, however,. They found out that he had peddled cadet appointments and possibly other official favors for money, and the suspicion got abroad that he was some way connected with the robbery of the Freedmen’s bank, in which not a few of his constituents had deposits; so at the last election they gave Mr. Purman“the grand bounce’’ and sent another gentleman to represent them. Mr. Furman got mad at this andjoined the democratic party. They received him with open arms, petted him in congress during the last days of Us session, lionized him about the Capitol', and meet him as a hail fellow at every saloon bar. Down in Louisiana, famous for orange groves and returning boards, is a gentleman—a very handsome man physically, elegant, suave, tall, dark-eyed, hair and beard a trifle wavy, foot high in instep and beautifully arched, nostrils as delicate as a sea-shell, hands soft as a woman’s, fingers taper, complexion Spanish olive faintly tinged with a blush of warm cardinal rose—whom democrats have been wont to call “Moxa Morton’s saddle-colored protege"— Mr. Pinchback,. by name. He is also a carpet-bagger, and the taint of African ancestry mingles in his veins. “Old Wells’ returning-board legislature” elected him to the United States senate a couple of years ago, but for some reason that body refused him a scat among them, although quite a gohdly majority were republicans. For this cause, as he says, Mr. Pinchback left the republican party of Louisana ar;d Wfnt over to ths democrats for sympathy and caresses, both of which they gave him. Since then it is no uncommon thing to hear democrats quoting Mr. Purman and Mr. Pinchback—one a convicted corruptionist, and the other a self-acknowledged oompctinder with thieves—as competent witnesses against the republican party. They do not find fault with, these gentlemen now for being carpet-baggers. It is all right if they act with the democracy. ‘ There is still another phase of carpet-bagism that is aho kindly fostered by the democratic party. In some of the northern states are locaiities where the republican ma-

jority has grown so large that its leaders thought two or mor? ete of candidates might be elected to the same offices, or where it has become divided into several jealous factions. Under these conditions democrats have flometirnes slipped in and like jackalls carried off the prey while the lions Were fighting among themselves. It not unfrequently happens that adjoining districts are occupied by de rocratic majorities, and in them has been developed a class of chronic officeseekers and other dead-beatfl who have become played-out in commu.nity, as the phrase goes, on account ot dissipated habits, inertia, or some other equally great misfortune, and are constantly watching for opportunities to trade or travel. Immediately upon learning that a democrat has accidently slipped into official position in a republican county these fellows pack their carpet-bags for a tramp. They undeistand perfectly the well-known law of political philosophy that democratic office-holders seldom employ republican deputies; they know that if elected by republican voters the first movement of a democrat will be to surround himself with a community of democratic carpetbaggers, and the next to Cdrtvert his office into a political soup-house, as it were, where parly mendicants may obtain a little thin daily relief; and these tramps come swarming around as thick as small black gnkts on a dog’s sore ear in the summer lime. Dr. Crowell has taken the pains to collect evidence which 'shows conclusively, or seems to, that spiritualism does not increase insanity as has been frequently charged by its enemies. On the contrary 1f is found’ by an examination of official records that, out of 30,000 patients in the insane asylums of the United States last December, the entire number whose malady is traced io religious excitement was 530, of whom 76 were classed as spiritualists There are 87 asylums in the United States which brings the proportion to less than one insane spiritualist for each. The subject is treated at length in the Spiritual Scientist for March Ist, a publication issued at Boston, Mass., and is interesting as well as instructive and satisfactory to the friends of spiritualistic philosphy. At the October election of 1874, in Jasper county, the democratic candidate for auditor received 848 votes, which was a majority of 62., In ail this large constituency not one person could he find whom he thought was capable and honest enough to perform the duties of deputy in his office, and he was compelled to import a gentleman from another county for that service. This necessity should teach those 848 gentlemen who voted for him the importance both of a better education and of a higher standard of personal morals. ' e===-=rt=st=s At a i ecent meeting of the Indiana republican state central committee the basis of representation for the next state convention, which will probably be held at Indianapolis February 22d, 1878. was made one delegate for every two hundred votes or fraction of one hundred cast at the presidential election. According to this basis Jasper county will be entitled to six delegates in the convention. It is reported thatex-Gevernor Samuel J. Tilden has rented an office in the city of New York and will resume the practice of law and railroading. It is also said that the old pirate will trim his sails for another presidential cruise in 1880 ; but the latter report we do not believe for two eighty reasons. '..l' .. I ’-'.-TTS We have met the thieves and we are theirs --LaPorte Argve. The editor of the Argue has been a director of the northern prison for two year*, and this remark tallies with the charges made against the officers of that institution by ex-Chaplain Ragsdale. The RcKßsriAka I?bion has managed to get injo a squabble with the tSen/irroZ—McEwen’s new paper.— Monticelb, ' Th a Rensselaer Sentinel is the best democratic journal published in Indiana.