The Cortland Democrat, Friday, May 17,
1889.
PAGE TWO/EDITORIALS.
More than
100,000 Italians have landed at the port of New York during the last eighteen
months.—Exchange.
The
infant industries of the country must be protected, but there seems to be no
desire on the part of our republican friends to protect the interests of the
laboring men. Emigration and protection are rapidly bringing the country to a
state of innocuous desuetude.
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There are
nearly enough mechanics and laborers landing on our shores from the old
countries every year to do all the work that our infant industries have to perform
during that period, and thus the resident mechanic and laborer is thrown in
direct competition with the "pauper labor of Europe." The mechanics
and laboring men of this country have little to fear from the pauper labor of
Europe so long as that labor is performed in Europe, but when the laborer comes
here, the competition is to be dreaded, for it takes the bread from their
children's mouths and transfers it to the capacious stomachs of the pauper
laborer from Europe. How much longer will the laboring men be fooled by the
falsehoods of the republican party?
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The beauties of a high protective tariff and
its effect on American labor continue to be illustrated says the Oneida Union.
The shutting down of the large iron works at Bloomsburg, Pa., after operating steadily
for forty years, the boom in iron and steel manufacture in other countries, the
great demand for iron in iron-producing countries which has not extended to the
United States, the spectacle of idle mills and idle workmen, and the following
wail by Wade's Fibre and Fabric, one of the most earnest supporters of Harrison
last fall, are some of the results. The wool organ [trade journal—CC editor]
now wants to know where are the good old times predicted during the campaign
and says: "We were led to believe that if the party of high protection
secured control of the government we would then, very soon, have good times. We
are a firm believer in protecting American industries, if it could be done
under the guidance of honest statesmen, but in the hands of quack politicians
terrible work is made of protection."
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Speaking
about ballast, what an immense pile of Cortland Standards it would take
to furnish the required amount of ballast for one ship. For this purpose at least,
a bushel of "bulbous roots" would be worth a good many yearly
subscriptions to the Standard. For ship's ballast, the potato has an
immense advantage over our neighbor's production.
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A lot of
railway mail clerks were discharged last week and new men put in their places.
The appointments of the latter were all dated previous to May 1st, the date
when the civil service rules went into operation with reference to railway mail
clerks. Dating the appointments back obviates the necessity of a civil service
examination, which it is pretty safe to say not one of the new appointees could
pass. If there ever was an administration that failed utterly to keep its
promises to the people, the present administration is the one of all
others.
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The Standard, in trying to show that Lathrop and Darby, who were appointed to the
places in the railway mail service made vacant by the removal of Messrs. Randall and Dunsmoor, were competent to fill those
places attempts to deceive its readers by publishing the following: Clark H.
Lathrop, who succeeds Randall passed 98 the preliminary examination for the
place, having already mastered his route, and C. C. Darby, who succeeds Dunsmoor
and was a clerk in the Cortland postoffice under Mr. Nixon, passed 96, out of a
possible 100.
No one
knows, or at least ought to know better, than the editor of the Standard,
that Messrs. Lathrop and Darby have not as yet passed an examination of any
nature whatever. They were simply handed 100 addressed envelopes and were able
to read the superscriptions on most of them. It was simply a test as to whether they could read
common writing and not an examination in any respect whatever. Lathrop,
it seems could read 98 of the superscriptions and Darby only 96. When they come
to stand a regular examination, that will be quite another thing. If they were
competent, why have they been obliged to employ Messrs. Randall and Dunsmoor,
at their own expense, to run with them ever since they were appointed, to teach
them how to perform their duties?
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The Standard
is sometimes very funny without intending to be so. Here is a quotation from
that sheet of a recent date that strikes us as being rather racy:
Imagine Benton B. Jones drawing his inspiration
from "the paper that champions Blaine's cause in season and out of
season." How do Democrats like this? Does it not justify the suspicion so
often expressed that Jones is a Democrat for revenue only, and that he
gratifies his dislikes to his party leaders by voting against them whenever he
gets sufficiently ugly?
It is
only a year or two since, that our neighbor charged the editor of the DEMOCRAT publicly,
with the crime of never having voted for a republican. Did he believe the charge
made at that time? If he did, has he changed his belief on the subject? We can
assure our neighbor that Jones has had no reason to vote for a republican since
that time and has not done so. We can further assure our neighbor, that while
Jones is editor of the DEMOCRAT, he will not become sufficiently ugly to vote against
his party leaders when they are regularly nominated. It would be gratifying to
the writer as well no doubt as to the readers of the DEMOCRAT to know who expressed
the opinion, after or otherwise, "that Jones is a Democrat for revenue
only."
In the
campaign of 1887, and only two or three weeks before election, the Standard
published a portrait of Hon. L. J. Fitzgerald, then the Democratic candidate
for State Treasurer, on its most prominent page, together with a strong
biography of that candidate. Did the Standard do this for revenue and if
so how much? Undoubtedly the party, as well as the republican candidate for
State Treasurer thought so, for our neighbor was forced to follow up the
publication with a similar service for Mr. Jas. H. Carmichael of Buffalo, the republican
candidate for State Treasurer. Was the latter done for revenue? The Standard is very funny sometimes.
ASKS RANDALL AND DUNSMOOR'S FORGIVENESS.
The
Cortland Standard of May 2 devotes about a column in trying to crawl out
from under its lying statements of the week previous in reference to Messrs. R.
F. Randall and D. F. Dunsmoor. We presumed that our neighbor would hear from his
misstatements and he did.
Mr.
Randall promptly called at the office of the Standard and made the
editor of that paper eat his own words and apologize. While trying to make an
acceptable apology, however, he endeavored to excuse himself for lying by claiming
that certain railway mail clerks were kicked out of the service during Cleveland's
administration simply because they were republicans.
We never
knew an incorrigible boy that would own up frankly. They always try to throw
the blame on some one else. The Standard claims that Col. Wm. Lansing of
Truxton, and W. H. H. Blaney of Homer were kicked out of the service to make
room for democrats solely on account of politics. Col. Lansing was an old man
and no one who knows him will deny that he had outgrown his usefulness for the
place. Mr. Blaney was allowed to hold his place under a democratic
administration until last fall when he was removed. Being allowed to retain his
office under a democratic administration for nearly four years, we see no reason
for any complaint on Mr. Blaney's part or any of his friends. Mr. Curly, a republican,
is still running on the D. L. &
W. line and has held the place for the past fifteen or sixteen
years.
Every
democrat on the line was kicked out on account of his politics by a republican
administration before it had been in power two months.
The Saxton Bill Vetoed.
Governor
Hill has vetoed the Saxton electoral reform bill, so called, and in so doing he
simply performed a plain duty. After the experience of last fall's campaign, every
honest citizen will agree that something should be done to purify the ballot
and prevent, if possible, another repetition of wholesale bribery and
corruption at the polls.
The
Saxton bill would fall far short of accomplishing the object desired. The voter
has the undoubted constitutional right to vote for whom he pleases and should
not and cannot legally be compelled to vote for the candidates on any of the official
ballots prepared for him. The fact that all the ballots are to be furnished at public
expense and distributed by the County Clerks of the several counties on the
morning of election, is a fatal defect.
In some
of the counties of the state it would to impossible for the clerk to perform this
service. The bill also provides that the voter shall be ushered into a
compartment alone, where tickets containing the names of all the candidates
shall be furnished him by a clerk, and the voter shall make a cross against the
name of the candidates he desires to vote for and then the ballot shall be
delivered to the inspectors who shall deposit the same in the ballot box.
There are
thousands of voters in both parties that can neither read nor write. What are
these voters to do? How can they prepare their ballots? Must they rely on a
tricky, partisan clerk to prepare the ballot for them? Again there are many intelligent
voters who have arrived at that age when their eyesight has nearly failed them.
Who would prepare their ballots?
The voter
must be let into the compartment alone and without any provision to the contrary,
he may remain there such length of time as he thinks necessary to prepare his
ballot. How many booths or compartments would be required at a polling place to
accommodate four hundred voters? At least four or five and probably more.
The printing
of the ballots is to be paid for by the county except in city elections. The expense
of printing the ballots for the charter election in this village would be a county
charge. This would be unjust to the taxpayers in the smaller towns. The candidates
may have tickets of their own printed but they cannot be used unless the supply
furnished by the County Clerk is exhausted or fails to reach the polls.
Candidates should be permitted to pay for printing the tickets and voters
should not be disfranchised simply because they do not desire to vote the
ticket prepared for them at public expense. Any one who feels so disposed can
circulate a petition and by obtaining fifty signatures to the same, can present
the petition to the County Clerk and demand that tickets be furnished him and
the Clerk has no other alternative but to furnish them at public expense.
The bill
is a botch in every respect and would have a tendency to defeat the very object
that its supporters pretend they desire to promote. The law can prescribe the
size and color of the ballot and the style of type to be used in printing it, but
is quite clear that a law that undertakes to say for whom an elector shall vote
is unconstitutional. It is fortunate for the people that the man who occupies
the governor's chair, possesses a level head and is a good lawyer, otherwise
much confusion and trouble would result from the bungling legislation of an
incompetent set of legislators.
Republican Protection of Workingmen
Illustrated.
From the
Rochester Union (Dem.)
P. K
Dederick is a manufacturer of hay presses, brick machines, &c., at
Albany, and an intense Republican partisan and protectionist. In November last
be insulted the men in his employ by sending them their wages in pay envelopes
upon which the following was conspicuously printed:
The One
Issue of this Campaign:
Shall American Goods and Products, or English
Goods and Products Stock Our Home Markets?
Shall American Wages or English Wages be
Paid to Our Workingmen and Working Women?
Dederick
thus answers his own question, now that protection has triumphed in the
election of Harrison and a Republican House of Representatives:
From the Albany Express (Rep.)
WAGES
HEAVILY CUT.
The
woodworkers in the employ of P. K. Dederick, manufacturer of hay presses, brick
machines, etc., have been notified that their wages will hereafter be 25 per cent
lower than before. They have not been asked whether they will accept the reduction; it has simply been thrust upon them. Whether Mr. Dederick has followed the example of
the great Republican carpet manufactory in New York that used the pay envelope
before election, and immediately afterward not only reduced the wages but at
the same time advanced the price of goods, the Albany organ of protection does not
state.
UNDER THE NEW LAW.
William Kemmler Condemned to Death by the
Application off Electricity.
BUFFALO,
May 14.—William Kemmler, the man who murdered his mistress, Tillie Zieglar,
with a hatchet, and was convicted of murder in the first degree, was this
morning brought into court for sentence. Judge Childs pronounced sentence under
the new law in the following words:
"The
sentence of the court is that for the crime of murder in the first degree,
whereof you stand convicted, within the week commencing on Monday, the 24th day
of May, 1889, and within the walls of Auburn State prison, or within the yard
of the enclosure adjoining thereto, you suffer the punishment of death to be
inflicted by the application of electricity, as provided by the code of criminal
procedure of the State of New York, and that in the meantime you be removed to,
and until the infliction of such punishment, you be kept in solitary
confinement in said Auburn prison."
Kemmler
looked steadily at Judge Childs as he was delivering the fatal words, but showed
no emotion whatever. When the painful scene was concluded, Mr. Hatch, the
prisoner's counsel, who put in no previous objection, took exception to the
sentence, on the ground that it was cruel and unusual and against the spirit of
the constitution. The prisoner was then removed to the jail and placed in
solitary confinement. He will be removed to Auburn within the next ten days.
AUBURN, N. Y., Aug. 6, 1890.—William Kemmler, who
murdered his wife with an axe the year before, was strapped into the chair at
Auburn State Prison and 1,500 volts surged through his body for 17 seconds. He
was pronounced dead, but as the warden began to unstrap Kemmler, his body
moved. A second jolt—this one lasting 70 seconds—was ordered, causing Kemmler’s
blood vessels to burst and flames to shoot from his back.—Exchange.
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