The
Cortland Democrat, Friday,
March 20, 1896.
SOURCE
OF CORRUPTION.
Nefarious Engine of Political
Tyranny, Says Harper's Weekly.
The Raines liquor tax bill at present pending before the Legislature of New
York is one of the most striking instances on record
of that short sighted infatuation with which the so-called "practical
politician" pursues his spoil. The public sentiment of the State demands
an excise law that aside from distributing its burdens fairly and diminishing
as much as possible the number of low dram shops, would above all things so
operate as to eliminate the element of corruption from our political life by
"taking the saloon out of politics."
Instead of
this the Republican politician in the Legislature, under the instructions of
Boss Platt, give us a bill which heavily and most unfairly taxes the cities for
the benefit of the country districts, which fails to make the rational and
salutary distinction between distilled liquors and fermented beverages and
between sales over a bar and sales in restaurants with meals, and which in
addition to this not merely concentrates the administration of the law in the
hands of a State officer, which would in itself be well enough, but authorizes
that officer to appoint a large number of subordinates not to be subject to the
civil service law—the whole force to be, of course, composed of party workers and to be armed with powers opening
boundless opportunities for blackmail and corruption—thus forming a most
formidable political machine to stretch its fangs over every election district
in the State.
If the
discretionary authority of the excise boards under the present law is
objectionable because it tends to be
subservient to political interests, the official machinery created by the
Raines bill is a hundred times more so. In other words, this bill, if made a
law, will thrust the saloon into politics infinitely deeper than it ever has
been. No more prolific source of corruption and no more nefarious engine of
political tyranny than this bill could have been contrived by the most inventive
genius of mischief.—Harper's Weekly (Ind. Rep.)
 |
| William Clark, editor and published of the Cortland Standard. |
 |
| Benton B. Jones, editor and publisher of the Cortland Democrat. |
PAGE TWO—EDITORIALS.
Was it Contemptible?
Last Friday
the Standard copied our article of last week, wherein we took occasion
to criticize the political performances of some of the professors in the Normal
School. Under the heading of "A Contemptible Attack" he made
the following charges:
"The
Cortland DEMOCRAT has achieved many triumphs of meanness and mendacity, but the
above is the cap sheaf. It is a masterpiece of deliberate, willful and
malicious falsehood. A year ago, when the no-license law was being defied all
day and all night and Sundays, when Normal students were being lured into
saloons and enticed to drink, and in some instances intoxicated, some of the
professors in the Normal school took part in a non-partisan movement to secure
the better enforcement of this law—a movement which resulted in the defeat of
the Republican ticket and the election of a ticket made up of Democrats and
Republicans on the platform of law enforcement. Did the DEMOCRAT denounce them
then for "disseminating Republican politics of the rankest and meanest sort?"
Not a bit of it. It was glad to have its party receive its share of the results
of the victory. During the past year these professors, as all good citizens
ought, have interested in an attempt to enforce the laws and protect their
students, and for this unselfish and unpleasant work they deserve general
thanks. This year the Good Government people, with whom these professors had
associated themselves, saw fit to endorse a portion of the Republican
nominees as men who would exert themselves to see that the law was enforced,
and worked for their election—not because the nominees were Republicans (one of
them in fact having been a Democrat till very recently, and a man whom the
Cortland DEMOCRAT had twice supported for the same office) but because they
were pledged to enforce the laws. And this is the occasion for the contemptible
attack made on them in the DEMOCRAT."
Now the
facts are that the Normal students have not been lured into the Cortland
saloons at any time. In fact the saloons don't want them there. If they go into
the saloons they do so voluntarily. The only Democratic candidates on the good
government ticket a year ago was one school commissioner, and he was a
prohibitionist, and two out of eight inspectors of election, one of these being
also a prohibitionist. All the other candidates were selected from the
republican party.
If the editor
of the Standard will turn to the files of the DEMOCRAT a year ago, he will
find that we expressly warned Democrats that it was a republican
movement and advised them to vote the straight Democratic ticket. There
was no part of the good government ticket for the Democrats to share, for the
simple reason that everything worth having was given to the republicans by the
Normal professors and those who worked with them. This year they repeated their
work of last year by endorsing nearly the whole of the Peck-Bronson-Duell
republican ticket, which would seem to show very plainly that they were doing
business entirely in the interest of the republican ticket.
If this was
not true why did the trustees of the Normal call the professors down for doing
just what we charged, at their meeting held last Tuesday evening, when every
member of the board was present, and even the non-resident members of the
board, Messrs. Hyde of Syracuse, and Deyo of Binghamton, both republicans,
condemned the action of the professors. In fact every member of the board with
the exception of the editor of the Standard criticized the action of the
professors and one of them insisted that Prof. Banta ought to resign as a
member of the Board of Excise Commissioners. If the DEMOCRAT'S article was a
"contemptible attack" why did the board of trustees agree with us in
that attack? The fact is that our neighbor allows his partisan prejudices to
get the better of his judgment and occasionally has to be sat down upon by his
own friends. The board of trustees of the Normal stood by the DEMOCRAT and left
the editor of the Standard chewing a very bitter cud all by himself.
◘ If the editor of the Standard would have the good sense to resign
the office of trustee of the Normal school, the people of Cortland would
applaud him as he never was applauded in his life. If these officers were
elected by the votes of the people, our neighbor would be occupying the position
of a highly respected private citizen.
Of Course Not.
Partisan politics have never entered into
the management of the Cortland Normal school, nor have republican politics or
any other kind of politics been taught in it, and the Democrat knows this as
well as any one. Democrats and Republicans alike have been employed in its
faculty, and the politics of an applicant for a place in the school has never
been inquired into, and in many cases not even known, and never allowed to
enter into consideration.—Cortland Standard.
When the school was first organized, the board
of trustees consisted of five
Democrats
and four Republicans and this ratio prevailed until it was changed by Superintendent
Draper, the last four of whose appointments were taken from the Republican
party, although there were then many highly respectable and competent Democrats
residing in the town from whom be might have made a selection. This
made the board stand 6 Republicans to 3 Democrats. Was not this action on the
part of Mr. Draper injecting partisan politics in the Cortland Normal?
We remember only one Democrat who has been
employed as an instructor in the Normal school for many years, and if the brainy
editor of the Standard has his way, it will be many years before another
Democrat has a place in the faculty. No one supposes that the editor of the Standard
asks applicants in regard to their political faith, but it is very easy to find
out and it seems that it must have done so else they would not all be
Republicans. This looks like party politics.
Up to the winter of 1888, the law expressly
prohibited a trustee of a school from furnishing any supplies for the school
and taking pay for the same. During that winter the editor of the Standard, who
is president of the board of trustees of the Cortland Normal school, prevailed
upon assemblyman. R. T. Peck to have the law amended so as to read as follows:
"Sec. 473: A public officer (or school
officer) who is authorized to sell or lease any property, or to make
any contract in his official capacity, or to take part in making any such sale, lease or contract, who voluntarily becomes interested
individually in such sale, lease or contract, directly or indirectly, except
in cases where such sale, lease or contract, or payment under the
same, u subject to audit or approval by the superintendent of public
instruction, is guilty of a misdemeanor."
The lines in italics were inserted by the direct
orders of the editor of the Standard in order that he might furnish the
school with all the printing it required, and he has gobbled every bit of it since the amendment
above set forth permitted him to do so. Isn't this injecting partisan politics
in the management of the Normal school?
There are many other instances that might be
named, some of which are fresh in the minds of our citizens but these must
suffice for the present at least.
More Stuff and
Nonsense.
The law of supply and demand controls the
price of everything. When potatoes are plenty the price will be low and when
they are scarce the price will be high and all the tariffs in the world cannot
change this rule. When three jobs are looking for one man he can fix his own
price but when three men are looking for one job the price of labor will be
low.—Cortland Democrat.
Will The Democrat kindly inform its readers
and an anxious world—if the above paragraph
be true—how the Standard Oil Co., owned and run by Democratic millionaire politicians,
has been able to double the price of kerosene oil at will and utterly independent
of supply and demand? Also how the Democratic sugar trust, with the aid of a
Democratic United States senate, has been able to put up the price of sugar,
and thereby rob every consumer of it to a greater or less extent, likewise utterly
regardless of supply and demand? Will it also explain the testimony of the Bermudan
potato and onion raisers who swore before a Democratic house committee—under
Republican cross examination that the Bermudans had to pay the tariff on their
products out of their own pockets, and that they were by so much the less dangerous
competitors of American agriculturists? Will it also ask our Democratic farmers
whether, with Canadian hay and potatoes crowding our markets, the truth has not
begun to dawn on them that protection has something to do with the supply of
farm products offered for sale in this state, and something to do with prices?
And will it also explain how much chance a man in this country, looking for work
in a manufacturing establishment at $1.50 a day, will stand of getting it as against
three men in England looking for the same kind of work there at 50 cents a day,
with the British manufacturer free to ship his product into this country without
tax or tariff? A newspaper which talks such nonsense as the Democrat on these
matters indicates a bankruptcy of brains, conscience and rudimentary
education.—Cortland Standard.
Of course the world is always anxious to know
what the DEMOCRAT has to say upon all questions of moment and it here sets down
some facts that are apparently unknown to our neighbor.
In the first place, the Standard Oil Co. is
not owned and run by Democratic millionaire politicians because a large
majority of the owners are republicans. The reason why that company has a cinch
on the price of oil is because it owns nearly all the oil in this country, but
instead of raising the price it has lowered it from 80 cents per gallon in 1864
to 8 cents per gallon in 1896. The latter price ought to be low enough to
satisfy anybody. Before the war when sugar was raised in small quantities by hundreds
of people, the very poorest was sold at 7 cents per pound and granulated or
refined sugar at 14 cents. Now the latter can be purchased at any retail store
for 5 1/2 cents per pound. We are unable to see where the consumer is robbed.
Under republican administration it took a
dollar to buy 5 pounds of sugar but now under a Democratic administration that
same dollar will buy 20 pounds. It ought to be sufficient once and for all to
inform the brainy editor of the Standard, that the country that produces
anything to be shipped to the American markets does not pay the American tariff
abroad. The tariff is paid by the importer at the American port of entry and
for this reason the Bermuda onion and potato raiser does not pay the tariff out
of his own pocket. It comes out of the pocket of the American consumer who pays
for the onions and potatoes and the tariff added to the price.
What has protection to do with the supply of
farm products offered for sale in this state or the prices? Canada is not
shipping potatoes here to sell at 5 or 10 cents per bushel. The price is low
because the home supply is so large that there is no demand for them at any
price. Hay is scarce and therefore the demand is great and the price is very
high. If farmers had more hay in their barns than they needed, the price would
be low.
The laboring man ought to be satisfied when
he can purchase more supplies for his family with a dollar note than he could a
few years ago for $3.
The twaddle about American mechanics looking
for work at $1.50 per day while England's
mechanics earn only 50 cents indicates that the writer is troubled with a
plethora of brains, an India rubber conscience and a college education. He
ought to know that American manufacturers are shipping large quantities of
goods to Europe and notwithstanding the fact that they pay their workmen higher
wages. They
are able to undersell the foreigner even in his own market. Manufacturers in
Cortland have been doing this for some time.
NEIGHBORING COUNTIES.
TOMPKINS.—The Empire glass works have again started up at Ithaca.
The Ithaca
City Hospital recently received an anonymous gift of $4,000.
The Dryden
Dramatic company will present The Lady of Lyons' in Lyceum hall, Freeville on
Friday evening, March 20.
The Groton
Bridge Company have just received the contract for the steel trusses and
girders for the Brooklyn City Hall addition. This is a large and important
piece be executed at once.
The E., C.
& N. depot at Freeville is closed, passengers purchase their tickets at the
L. V. depot. G. G. Dupuy is agent; H. O. Cady and Jay Sevie are deputies; and
Mr. Jaslin, the former agent, is night operator and express man.
HERE AND THERE.
Clark's
Female Minstrels are booked for Keator opera house, Homer, to-night.
Messrs.
Case, Ruggles & Bristol have a new advertisement on our fourth page.
The bill to
amend the charter of Cortland passed the Assembly Wednesday.
The colored
ladies give a dime social and supper in Collins hall this evening.
Mr. C. S.
Bull is a candidate for the office of Excise Inspector for this county.
The time
table of the Lehigh Valley R. R. Co. will be found on our second page.
G. J. Mager
& Co. have a new advertisement on the fourth page that will interest our
lady readers.
Police
Justice Mellon took the oath of office last Thursday and is now doing business
at the old stand.
H. A.
Dickinson, Esq., has been elected president of the board of trustees of Union Free
school district. No. 1.
William D.
Reilly of this place has purchased the old Ingalls farm of over 200 acres one mile
south of Groton City.
Mr. F. M.
Miller of New York has purchased Hon. L. J. Fitzgerald's black mare, Thistle
Dolly. Consideration $350.
Cooper
Bros. are in Boston looking after machinery for their new shops, which they
will erect as soon as the weather will permit.
There was a
fair audience to hear Michael Strogoff at the opera house last
Friday evening. It was a most excellent production
and was worthy of a full house.
Mrs. H. H.
Pomeroy will move her stock of goods from the Graham building to the Dowd store
just north of the Martin block on the first of next month. The store is being
altered and greatly improved. Mr. F. I. Graham will occupy the store vacated by
Mrs. Pomeroy.
Henry T.
Giles, formerly of Homer, an inventor well known in manufacturing circles in
this and other states, died of paresis at the city hospital in Watertown. on
March 6, aged 70 years. He was born in Connecticut. Among his most valuable
inventions are fish plates for binding steel rails, expanding mandril for paper
machines, card paper holes for news paper, hoisting machines for elevators, balanced
slide valves for engines, automatic steam engine governors, locomotive valve
gear and other appliances.
No comments:
Post a Comment