Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1878 — What Does Democracy Intend? [ARTICLE]

What Does Democracy Intend?

In some r. spects the question is difficult tn Answer. With respect to consistent political action, their intentions are not esaily divined. They have been consistent in nothing except an intense desire to obtain office? ..They have been consistent ami per* sis'ent in this, seeking it with azenl wbrthy Of higher motives. Did they intend to lienCfil anybody but the office holding portion of their party we could speak respectfully of their incentives to apfioo. They went into the electoral cuiiiinusion business, nnd were bcnien in the ratio of eight to seven, and are now whining about it. This, They claim, is not the cause of the whine; fraud is held up before the eyes of the thoughtless. It is laudable to investigate fraud—to expose wrong, hence they expect popular endorsement. There i* always fraud where political corruptionists spend their money in ol - gnnizing victory, and it cnls disastrously. They me very much like the gambler who strive* to regain at the point of the bowieknife what he ha* lost by the superior cunuingof an opponent. They engng d in u gaum of chance ami were outwitted, and now they intend to re-win by force what they lost by fraud. Whose fraud do they intend to investigate? Their actions during the passage of the Poller resolutions, and the packing of the committee leave u« no room to doubt. To expose republican fraud is the great object. They think they have invented a one-sided probing machine, but their strenuous efforts to make it one-sided have aroused the suspicions of the thinking portion of the American people, and converted them into an investigation committee, whose researches cannot be hidden by white wash, and whose verdict will be detrimental to democratic supremacy. They played their first game of chance and lost, by the unexpected and un-democnitic decision of the electoral commission, aud now they have entered upon the second. The first was the old gambler's game of ‘‘heads and tails,” dignified by an euphonious appellation; the second, the one which they have now undertaken, is the childish game of “hide and seek,” and so far,-they have played it very childishly. They are aiming to hide democratic, and seek republican sins. Had it been their intention to act fairly and honestly, to seek to discover and punish all political corruption, the country would have been with them; but in their efforts to conceal their own crimes, tAey have overreached themselves, nnd have called into being a committee which will be more indefatigable in its labors and unerring in its conclusions than any congressional committee. They cannot afford to go into the fraud business generally. They have had a general fraud machine at work for some time, and it has succeeded in taking in only democrats. Now they want one intended specifically for republicans—one which, if unable to discover republican fraud can be quietly withdrawn from the fraud business without doing the partiyjany injury. Their real intention is to hide their own stains , prove the Republicans guilty of corruption, and go before,ike-peapie on a “reform platform.’’ They--partially succeeded before with this programme. The. east and west can unite on it. The election will be carried—the entire legislature branch of the government secured, and—The time is too far distant to hazard a positive prediction. If the democracy had been consistent in its action heretofore, one might guess what they intend doing provided they carry the election — Terre Haute Express.