p. 8 | POLITICAL CORRUPTION by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Sep 28, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 38.

POLITICAL CORRUPTION.

By Editor

Corruption in politics has become so common, so extensive, so notorious, so emboldened, that leading politicians themselves no longer try to hide it. Only a few men, whose profession makes it somewhat inconsistent for them even to go to the polls to help one or the other of the great contending forces, feel it essential to their standing to try to screen or apologize for the sinister methods employed in the various efforts to carry an election.

The argument is made that it is the duty of those who know these things to select the best men and vote for them. But everybody ought to know by this time that no man can get a nomination for office, by any party having a shadow of a chance to succeed, who will even tacitly oppose the party's campaign policies and tactics. No party leader or manipulator pretends to deny, on the other hand they all openly urge, that millions and millions of dollars are necessary in order to win a national election contest. And it is conceded that much of this money must be used for the purpose of buying the support of wavering or “independent” voters. The so-called “independent” voters are largely a class who care nothing for the result; they simply take occasion to make a little gain out of the occasion—it may be a few dollars, or merely the promise of some future consideration. As indicating how leading politicians view the matter, we submit the following from the Nashville (Tenn.) American:

Party managers are frequently staggered by the extravagant demands made upon them during a campaign. Money, judiciously expended, is more effective on election day than all of the campaign oratory and brass band displays of former days. In the rural districts of the north and west the farmers and their neighbors have heard about the vast sums of money expended to get out the party vote in the big cities. The result is, the farmer and his men require to be paid for leaving their work to go to the polls. It is astonishing to know how general this practise has become during the past ten or fifteen years.

In the pending contest the dividing lines between the two parties, from a practical business standpoint, are so indefinite, that the independent vote this year promises to be unusually troublesome, and also expensive to both parties. It is difficult to estimate the cost of getting out the so-called independent vote. Even an expert like David Bennett Hill confesses that, since the days of Roswell P. Flower and Levi P. Morton, and their expensive campaigns for the governorship of New York, there is no way of calculating what it will cost to round up the independent voters on election day.

In this connection Mr. Hill says that Mr. Flower, after securing the nomination for governor, determined to be elected if it cost him every dollar of his accumulated millions. In the Flower campaign it became known to the boys that “Uncle Roswell” was willing to pay for a big majority, and the result was that independent votes went to a high premium. When Levi P. Morton was the republican candidate for governor, he was ambitious to go to Albany with the biggest majority ever given to a New York Governor. It was understood that his treasure chest was wide open on that occasion, and ever since the price of independent votes throughout the country has had an upward tendency.

To this we add some comment on this subject in the Commoner, whose editor is an acknowledged party leader:—

Some are purchased to remain at home, while others are bought outright. As a rule, large campaign funds are collected from corporations that have favors to ask at the hands of the government, and the money is subscribed in return for assurances that make it impossible for the party receiving the same funds to do its duty to the people. Mr. Havemeyer, in the sugar trust investigation a few years ago, testified that the trust gave liberally to the Democratic Party in New York and to the Republican Party in Massachusetts. When asked about New Jersey, he said that that state was doubtful, and that he would have to look at the books before he could say to which side the trust contributed.

It does seem that in recent years the use of large campaign funds gives a great advantage to the party which the corporations support. Addison put it well when he said: “A man who is furnished with arguments from the mint will convince his antagonist much sooner than one who draws them from reason or philosophy. Gold is a wonderful clearer of the understanding; it dissipates every doubt and scruple in an instant; accommodates itself to the meanest capacities; silences the loud and clamorous, and cringes over the most obstinate and inflexible.”

History notes here and there men, and limited combinations of men, who exercised wonderful influence over the masses through the medium of money; but never was gold more potent in political affairs or more powerful in social circles than to-day. In the present national campaign men have seemed to base their judgment of the result upon the question as to which party should be able to raise the largest campaign fund—in other words, which could gain the greatest favor of the wealthy corporations, and thus have the most money with which to buy votes.