Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1902 — PARAGRAPHIC POINTERS [ARTICLE]

PARAGRAPHIC POINTERS

Emma Goldman is delivering herself of some of the same sort of language which resulted in the assassination of President McKinley. There are times When the American people are disposed to doubt the theory that the ducking stool and the whipping post have outlived their usefulness. There Is nothing in the Monroe doctrine to the effect that the United States shall defend a dishonest republic from its honest debts. “The work of fixing for a renomination too often interferes with' the public duties devolving upon the official,” says “The Commoner.” The distinguished editor of “The Commoner” has not been bothered that way in recent years. The New Orleans States denounces General Wise of Virginia and John G. Carlisle of Kentucky for attacking In the courts the Southern state constitutions designed to nullify the United States constitution and the principle of majority rule. To overthrow these particular devices for preventing an expression of the popular will, the States says, would be “to force the South to resort once more to the shotgun and ballot-box stuffing to preserve its civilization." By preserving civilization the States means making It dead sure that no Republican shall be permlted to represent a Southern state in congress or the electoral college. The South wTU'be driven to the crimes of which the States speaks, only on the principle that a law against burglary drives a' tided to stealing. Suppose Republicans should proceed throughout the North to enact laws disfranchising the members of the opposition party, on the plea that such a course is necessary to the preservation of “our oMtizatton,” and with the threat that If these methods of nullifying the constitution proved futile, resort would be bad to “the shotgun and ballot-box stuffing”? What but censure would any fair-minded, patriotic American have for such a proceeding? And what but censure should any fair-minded, patriotic American have for the nullification schemes of the selfish politicians who seek through them to establish a perpetual oligarchy in every state south of the Ohio, and at the same time impudently demand the right to exercise in the electoral college and congress, political power based on the suffrages i of thousands of citizens denied a voice I in the selection of those who claim to I represent them?