Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1888-09-10
Mr.. Blaine on Trusts

III is very well TO make stump
speeches against the republican par
ty as having favored trusts, to hold
them responsible for their existence,
and to introduce it as an issue i'm a
national campaign; but even the
democrats who are making these
speeches, when put upon their re-
sponsibility as legislators, did not
dare to bring the subject forward.
They knew, if the president did not,
that trusts were derived from state
charters, and did not exist under
national law. Nor did the passage
of the Mills tariff bill through the
democratic House afford the only oc-
casion in the history of congress that
the democratic party very unanimous
ly backed out of an investigation of
trusts. / do not desire to be person
al or censorious, and, least af all, do
l accuse any man; but it is fresh in
the memory of all my hearers that
since President Cleveland was inaug-
urated it was charged that a senator
for great state owed his election TO
bribery-bribery of the rankest char
acter ever charged in our political
history. So notorious was the charge
that the legislature of the state me-
morialized the senate Of the United
States on the subject and asked only
the favor that there might be an open
fair. and full investigation. The
bribery was charged against one of
the most prominent members of per-
haps the largest trust in the United
States. Far be it from me to say
that he was guilty. l know nothing
of him; certainly know nothing to
his personal discredit, but the charge
was made and made openly--not
made anonymously, not made in a
corner, not made by an individual re-
sponsible or irresponsible, not made
merely by a newspaper-but made
by the legislature of what the demo-
Gratis are fond of calling ga sover-
eign state of the Union" There, my
friends. was the opportunity for these
irrepressible, voracious, omniverous,
enthusiastic democratic opponents of
trusts to get right into the secret his
tory (if there was a history Of all
crooked transactions Off there were
any crooked transactions) of one Of
the largest trusts in the nation, to as
certain whether it was a guilty mon
ster, whether it was a corrupt and
dangerous organization, whether its
members were paying for the election
of United States Senators and buying
up state legislatures by the outlay of
vast sums of money. We have seen
that the contrivers of the Mills tariff
bill avoided the whole subject; and
now what did these democratic sena-
tors-many of them still in service
these senators that are preparing to
make stump speeches on the repub-
lican inquiry in the matter of trusts,
what did they do? Did they spring
forward eagerly to the investigation ?
Did they champ their senatorial bits
with Impotence to get into the race
for who should first chase these wick
ed trusts or this one wicked trust
down? Not one of them. They spoke
against investigation. They worked
against investigation. They COM
bined against investigation, lest one
stray senator might express a faint
desire to look into the matter of
trusts, of the corruption charged
upon the chief of them. They eau
cused against investigation. They
voted unanimously against touching
the matter. If the alleged trust had
the smallpox they could not have fed
from it more rapidly. Not even ten
sovereign states could have induced
them to 60 into the subject at all.
They did not want to know anything
about trusts, especially if any member
of those trusts had been resorting TO
bribery in order to elect n senator of
the United States to sit on the demo-
cratic side of the chamber. Not
alone did the democratic members
of the United States senate resist this
investigation, but they were urged
thereto with all the force of President
Cleveland's Administration, for there
were reasons affecting that Admins
tration that made it quite as eager to
suppress investigation into the alleg-
ed corruption of the senatorial cleo
ton. and into the connection there
with of money derived from this great
trust, as those which affected the
members of the United States senate.
In fact, the tar of that stick made
somewhat general besmearing in the
democratic ranks, and both outside
and inside of the Administration
they were determined to have no in
vestigation. But now when all chance
to investigate the bribery and the
trust money that was alleged to be
behind it and all chances to insert
anything about trusts in the Mills
tariff bill have gone by, the demo-
cratic papers can make loud noise
over trusts, brave member of con-
gress can fire blank cartridges at the
whole system of trusts by putting in
an occasional bill, which is at once
referred to the tomb of the Capulets,
with no possible hope of resurrection
in this world or the next.