Daily Public Ledger

KENTUCKY'S INFAMY.

In a brief submitted to the Court of Appeals, State Senator CHARLES Bronston of Lexington, the well known Democratic leader, says of the principles and objects of the Goebel Election Law:

"The measure viewed from a purely political standpoint, is cowardly, corrupt and dishonest.

"Cowardly, in that it forces a great party, which has attained complete local success by persistent adherence to free men, free and equal elections and local self-government, to abandon such principles and ask future advancement by the use of powers so concentrated and arbitrary as to offend all sense of fair dealing.

"Corrupt, in that it creates a political machine and makes it possible for a free people to be governed by a boss whose greed for official power will supplant all interest, however dear, of the individual citizen.

"Dishonest, in that, under the plausible pretense of preventing fraud, it opens so wide the avenue for unprecedented fraud as to become repulsive to the traditions of the party whose fair name the promoters of this measure seek to degrade. The intelligent and courageous manhood of this state will never submit without protest to the use of such arbitrary and autocratic power, and the political party which assumes the burden will surely be crushed under its self-destructive weight.

"May I beg to state to this honorable Court that the only hope of the citizens of this commonwealth for relief from such radical invasion of constitutional rights lies in this Court. Partisan and political majorities, when once clothed with such power, will never surrender it. If this act is judicially approved by the highest Court it will never be repealed, and only amended to increase the powers therein conferred. The majority now will effectively use it, and if perchance, the opposing minority should succeed to power, they, too, will keep and use it."