Pillage Must Cease

It lias been said that since the accession of the Democratie party to power in both Ilonses of Cengresa the lobby has disappeared. The people know that it means smaller appropriations and lighter taxes. The ruthless application of the knife to executive estimates, and the large reduction of expenditures made by the lower House in the Forty-fourth Congress, liad much to do with the election of Tilden and Ilendricks in 1876. Tliis, with the ecoüomical adminlstration of Gov. Tilden in ïiew irork and his war upon the rings, undoubtedly produced the great majority againsL Hayes and Wheeler which was given, and was falsifledin the interest of further corruption and extravagance. Mr. Blaine, Mr. Sherman,, the third termers, and the Fraudulent Administration may make speeches, and more speeches, and do what they will to turn the public mind off upon Other questions, but the real issue is this of honest and economical government. The people are determined to stop the plundering and the squandering, to reduce their taxes, and pay for nothing but the support of their Governments. They know that extravagance is the parent of every other evil, and that a people who permit the earnings of industry to be taken and enjoyed by their rulers, either with or without the forms of law, are mere slaves. The political history of the last few years shows that this great truth has leavened the whole public mind. The real struggle now is for emancipation f rom corrupt combinations, rings, corporations, which, in ways too numerous to mention, prey upon the people and eat out their substance. The campaign in Pennsylvania shows perhaps more clearly than any other the f act that the popular apprehension is fully alive to these issues. There reform seemed to be hopeless. In the State and in the chief cities, rings of political crimináis, growing visibly rich from public plunder, controlled everything, and their despotic rule was scarcely questioned. The Treasury Ring embezzled millions, with but a feeble popular protest, which the leaders of both parties took ravs shnnlri fïnd no effectual sion. The Pennsylvania Iiailroad debauched and used the Legislatura, and in collusion with the rings, owned and directed the State Administration. But they overdid the business. The recent attempt to fllch $4,000,000 from theCommonwealth by bribingtheLegislature to give it away was too startling. Men began to figure up how much it was proposed to steal from them individually, or trom their ties, by this single tremendous grab. Had this operation been snccessful, Lancaster County, for instauce, would have been required to pay up, a8 her share of the Ring's booty, $121,000; York,$76,000 ; Chester, $77,000 ; Franklin, $45,000; Berks. $106,000, and so on through the list. Decent house-holders over there haye begun to ci-uher- it is high time- and while they are wEaü e'xteííf t'ii(Ty'áré robbedby the unconstitutional freight discrimination against them by this same Pennsylvania Railroad, which they created and endowed not to be their master but their servant. "Whenthey get this sum done, there will be a revolution in the old Commonwealth, and the Itepublican Bing, which openly sustains these iniquities, refuses to let its convention condemn the four million steal, and forces it to declare against "honest men in office," will be broken into fragments. The people are evidently determined tliat pillage must