"Where is the 'People's Party' now, which with a 10,000 majority conquered our city two years ago? Hesing and 'Buffalo' Muller are in the county jail, von Holden and Hildreth are fugitives from justice, Rehm is standing on the door sill of the penitentiary, and in a few days Colvin will step back into the background. Will decent Germans and Irishmen ever again lend their support to conspiracies against the commonweal?" So speaks the Chicago Tribune.

Mr. Joseph Medill has at last made an open confession. Hesing has never been forgiven for having created the People's Party which triumphed so completely over the puritan Know-Nothings. This accounts for the constant instigations; that Hesing should be punished severely. If the Tribune is so solicitous to see evil-doers punished, why not extend this solicitude to the punishment of Gage?

The Tribune's article is proof that the conviction held by the majority of the population, that Hesing was mostly punished for the recognition he won for the foreign-born element, is well founded. The entire population has read with the utmost attention the reports concerning the whiskey trial and is convinced that Hesing should have received a lighter sentence than the other 2distillers.

The majority of the people cannot understand, that Hesing's partner G. Miller, who swore in court, that Hesing never took part directly in the business and who swore that he gave Hesing $20,000 and Rehm $40,000, that this Miller should go free without one day in prison and without a one dollar fine, while Hesing was sentenced to two years imprisonment and $5,000 fine. The public cannot understand, why Rehm, who was no partner of Miller, received $40,000 and yet should go free.

The only testimony against Hesing was that of Rehm, whose testimony was declared to be perjury by two juries and whose testimony was considered to be incredible by the judge and the federal attorneys. Hesing could have gotten off free, if he had consented to be a squealer and a perjurer. Leonard Swett came to him a few days after Ward and Wadsworth had been indicted and said: "Mr. Hesing, you may get off free, if you will testify against Ward and Wadsworth." But Mr. Hesing refused.

The 10,000 majority in 1873 and the fact that he refused to help the federal prosecutors, are the cause of Hesing's extreme punishment. Did not Mr. Bangs say to Buffalo Miller: "Oh, you are a pretty good fellow, you have never plotted against us, we shall let you down pretty easy." Mr. Bangs calls it a plot directed against him, that Hesing should have told the truth under oath.