The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1878-01-31

to promote temperance and to improve the
standard of public and private morality.
The following article from the Chicago
Times is timely and expressive,-if any of
our readers have already perused it, per.
NIT us to remark that it is worthy Of re-
perusal:
The new status of the whisky cases calls
for some emphatic and explicit comment.
President Hayes, Secretary Sherman, and
the attorney general have particular in
terest in learning what the state of public
opinion-an angry and exasperated public
opinions over the attitude held to che
whisky thieves by certain sworn officers of
the government especially by Nh. Raum,
commissioner of internal revenue, and Mr..
Marx Bangs, district attorney at Chicago.
1t is openly declared by the attorneys of
the whisky thieves that the presidents
order to proceed with the condemnation
cases, will be defeated in its intended
effect, and the letter of Charley Reed
shows that among the government officers,
both in Washington and in Chicago, the
whisky conspirators and robbers of the
revenue think they have friend or two
who can be successfully insulted, bullied,
and browbeaten if the president himself
and the secretary cannot be coaxed or
wheedled. That the present status of the
whisky criminals may be perfectly un-
derstood, it is we'll to recall to the memory
| of the president and the officers of the
| treasury department certain facts:
First Fact. The Chicago whisky ring
sters, Hesing, Rehm, Roelle, Junker Il
| Co., aud the rest, entered into deliberate
conspiracy to make money by defrauding
the revenue-in other words, by robbing
| the government For the carrying out of
their design, it was necessary to resort to
extraordinary methods. 1t was necessary
to corrupt the morality of many persons:
to seduce sworn officials of the govern
ment; to bride dozens of men in high and
low station; to pay men for committing
willful perjury again and again; to per-
suade, by threats of removal or promise
of reward, honest but weak men, to incur
the risk OF penitentiary sentences and for
ever ruin and disgrace their own families
to make money for whisky thieves. Into
this system of organized procuration OF
crime, the leading spirits of the whisky
ring entered. How boldly they proceeded
lis written in the confessions of the
"squealers" spread on the records of the
United States court in Chicago. What
success attended their efforts is known tt
every citizen who read the testimony OF
the trials of Rehm and Hesing. Tit
Chicago whisky ring robbed the govern
ment Of millions of dollars; its leading
members grew rich and bold and TIT
magnitude of their Ill gotten wealth is IL
real estate, recorded in their own name
or those of numbers of persons, to whom
it has been conveyed to evade the United
States marshal. Its poisonous influenc
extended through politics, business, an
society. Its enormous profits stimulate
fraud in commercial relations throughou
) the country, because the truth had becom
apparent that honesty was no longer sal
policy, and that, to make money dis
honestly was the only sure way of maxim
: it at all. So thoroughly did the whisky
, ring poison permeate politics, that othc
> brokerage became a regular appendage {
i revenue robbing, and recognized functlo
of the chief whisky conspirators, as RehI
and Hesing fully confessed when pleadin
. guilty to escape the criminal consequence
] of their conduct Men were appointe
and removed upon the dictation of person
actually engaged in a conspiracy again
the United States; and large share
the official patronage Of the department
] the treasury passed into the guilty hanC
: of revenue robbers to be administered /
them for their personal profit! For loI
time the entire government of the Unite
y States appears to have moved under the
C undisputed control.
q Second Fact 1t is currently reporte
and generally believed, that the COVER
: ment, below the president, is not y
e thoroughly emanclpated from the c0nty
ir of the whisky thieves.
J. What is the evidence justifying this b
\ lief2
;" The government has not yet recovered o
D. cent from, any a0hiShy thief, although it
nearly two years since the criminal COZ
l. viction of the principal conspiratol
10 Rehm has kept every penny except VIII
he paid to lawyers and political
he for helping him demonstrate the sma
S. ness Of the brain Of the district attornt
r Hesing is free, rich, and insoleDt; pi
ticipates in administration politics and
~ cal wire-pulling as boldly as it he had L
* stood up numbering aud whining, IN t
so United States court, and confessed hlms
eft a consp;rator against the government a
=. profter in the proceeds of revenue-ro
- bling aud of backmail in party pOliti
ell He has not paid back penny of the mo
to ey he made in the whiskey ring; he /
ir enlarged his personal estate during t
present year, and is so unconscious of a
punishment OF his confessed crimes, a
30 Indifferent to their shame that he ASST
in the schemes by which certain Cover
OF ment officials are being used to assist t
er whiskey thieves in inducing the Cover
to ment to reward them for robbing t
reyenuel
DC Third Fact. The attitude of Mr.. Coz