The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1873-09-11

! hard earnings, and, not satisfied will
! that, sells himself to any hawker ol
} buyer in Congress and when you SCI
t this, say you have no remedy. Wha
becomes of your sovereign power
WhY were you not afterwards q SOW
ereign power? Because you aban
E doned it by transferring it to one sin
gle man and taking him in the place
of your ten thousand. That is Wha
YOU have done. A little voting trans
: ferred all the sovereignty which you
possessed to him, and he goes off and
leVies as much tax as he chooses, and
expends it in any way that he sees fit
You see him commit all manner OF
crime, and commit it in your name
for mark, he is your representative
and you have not the power to recall
him or to check him for one single
minute; and at the end of his term.
if you see fit to turn him adrift, he
will probably laugh at you, and say
"Well, l guess / am ready to go;
have taken pretty good care of my
pockets" laughter And at the
end of the term what do you do
Why, you go and do over the same
thing you did ON that second Tuesday
of October. Then for the first time
Il YOU Ec2d1u lnO BO0CA O0 AAoAOA wv
| two years ago But how long do you
retain it? You retain it twelve hours.
At the end of those twelve hours you
have transferred the whole thing to
| A, B. for the next two years, and if
! A. B. turns out as bad as the other
1 man YOU have still no remedy, no
| remedy whatever. Now, you will
observe that this elective principle
becomes the life-blood of our organi-
zstion, and that our organization de-
| peDds for its life upon the purity of
! the elective principle. There is no
use of talking about popular sover-
eighty or any other kind of sover-
eighty, if you are to allow the repre-
sentative principle to become con-
taminated and corrupt. You want
reform; you want a reduction of tar
iff: YOU want to lift unnecessary bnr-
dens from the shoulders of the peo-
pie; you want te bring the Govern
ment back within the constitutional
limits from which it has strayed and
is still straying you want, in word,
the entire revision of the whole sys-
tenn of government and the 'systen of
currency. All these things you want.
If so, purify the elective principle by
sending good men to Washington who
will make good laws. Applause
The life of the nation hangs solely
upon your ability to purge this repre-
sentative principle from the impurity
which now injects its poison into it,
by turning out the men who have
abused the trust; the men who threat
ened you with still greater baseness,
and put in other men who can be
more certainly trusted with your po-
itical peWer. I tell you that this rep
resentatiVe principle which I have, in
order to illustrate it briefly, spoken of
as relating to the election of members
of Congress, is equally applicable to
the entire system of popular power
in this country from the election of
the President down to the election of
the Mayor of the smallest village.
Suppose, for instance, you should
be so unfortunate as to elect man for
four wears who would take the oath
of office that he would faithfully exc
cute the trust and discharge the duties
of that office. Suppose that after his
election, unmindful of the great honor
which you have conferred upon
him, he was everywhere else but at
his post OF duty at Washington City,
[aPpIause,] who took greater delight
in tho whitfs OF his cigar by the ocean
breezes than in supervising the op-
erations of the greatest government
in the world, through whose entire
financial and gathering organiza-
ton he knew full well that corruption
was flowing unlimited and nnrestrain-
ed, and that he was the only man on
earth who stood the least chance of
being able to stem that tide of corrup.
TIQnnhtQp7
breezes. Renewed laughter.] Those
sea breezes have cost you an immense
amount of money. Suppose, for in
stance, that you committed that high
trust to a man who in the appoint !
ment of his cabinet should overlook
all men known TO the nation, and pick |
ont a few obscrre persons and put |
them in there as his cabinet ministers, |
who are not known at all, and who |
are not responsible to the people, and |
he should Job out the whole executive |
power to those four or five ministers !
that were never heard of by the peo-
pie before, and should say to them,
"I mean to go off; here, boys, take |
this thing and do the best you can"
laughter, entrusting them with the |
of q hundred thousand /
office-hoIders, through whose hands
the whole mass of the public money
must pass, and to whose hands an i'm
mense portion of it would be found
to stick. Laughter. IT is not sim
ply that Congressman were bribed in
the Credit Mobilier business. Ny
Godi if you could only see the naked
facts, if you could only have an eye
near to Wherei the curtain is lifted,
and see how many dark rogueries had
preceded the Credit Mobilier, you
would sicken at the sight, and become
so disgusted that you would be ready
for almost any alternative to which
the people would resort.
The Credit Mobilier roguery was
discovered by accident. Hundreds of
other rogueries as big as that passed
doubtless under the dark mantle 10
which they were shrouded. But
these rogues~in the shape of q law
suit. In that lawsuit they began TO
tell the secrets OF their prison-house. !
1t was by quarrel between two men
of that sort that the nation ever got
its eyes within the vista in which that
terrible animal, the Credit Mobilier,
was to be seen. When the eyes of the
people did see the thing, the people h
began to straighten up and inquire
sWhy in the name of God, and what
is this ?" A number of members of
Congress get up giant company, and |
Congressional acts passed to {
make millions of dollars for them
selves distribu ted their atock around
so much to this man, and SO much to
that, according to their needs and
wants. To use the language of Oakes [
Ames himself-for, he was curious and
4 clear grit Yankee, and he was eco
even in his roguery-[ laugh
ter]-he put his money where it
would do the most good. Then, when
they weLe about to leave, and all other !
sources of supplies of money having !
failed them, they snatched five thou I
sand dollars apiece. r. !
That is called the salary grab
III, 80, CnII...r,n INn,,,ol,,.n | 4