Watertown Republican

The Waupun Wardenship.

The first business of the new board of control was the removal of the warden of the State prison-which is in line with the course of the last Republican administration. From Dodge county we learn that ex-Sheriff Lamoreaux, the successor of Warden Weeks, is not a man to inspire enthusiasm, and that his appointment is the rankest of politics.-Milwaukee Sentinel.

Yes, and this "first business" is by no means creditable. "Pard" Lamoreaux is not appointed warden of the State prison because of any fitness whatever that he possesses for the office. He is simply the fruition of a bargain and sale made at the last Democratic state convention, through which Dodge county was brought into line for Peck and the balance, and moreover he is a relic and exponent of the worst days of the vicious and corrupt Dodge county ring politics. In the history of a great many men all that could be said to explain the way fortune or good luck had stuck to them, was that they were "sons of their father," but in this case the wheel turned solely on the pivot that he is the "brother of the judge." Since the time of the deal at the state convention, everything Dodge county wanted had to be subordinated to the understanding that "Pard" Lamoreaux was to obtain the Waupun wardenship. This is what was the trouble with T. J. Fleming. Dodge county could not have the warden and the Dairy and Food commissioner, and Mr. Fleming, whose experience and education had eminently qualified him to fill the office of commissioner in the best interest of the department and to the satisfaction of the people of the entire state, was shamefully set aside and his claims ignored because of the compact entered into with Judge Lamoreaux, whereby his brother, without anything to recommend him for the place except the point of relationship, was given a fat and important office. And this Waupun business, it is presumed, we shall have heralded abroad as "reform" and an evidence of improvement upon the way Republicans used to do things. God save the mark! But all the same under the circumstances it is a most discreditable, as well as unpopular appointment, and had the people's wishes been consulted it is safe to say that "Pard" Lamoreaux would not be "in it." That the Peck administration has brought discredit upon itself by its action in the Waupun wardenship, will hardly be denied by any one possessing a grain of political sense.