Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-01-10
REPUBLICAN CORRUPTION.

Tn the election Of General Harrison was conducted on plan of the most un- scrupulous and gigantic corruption ever conceived and executed in the political history of America. The. enormous sums contributed by the manufacturers, merchants and speIulators, fried out of the barons who make large fortunes out of the tariff were used in New York Indiana and Connecticut with unsparing hand in a successful effort to debauch the ballot and purchase enough ''foaters" to turn the scales for the republican candidates. AS the days go on and revelations are made from various sources this becomes more evident. The Voice, the well known organ of the prohibitionists pub lished by Funk & Wagnalls of New York, now comes forward with an ex- pose of Dudleyism that is extremely dis creditable to the republican party and all concerned in the infamous transac- ton.
 Some time since the Voice charged the republican managers with the theft of its mailing list during the campaign. This.week it devotes several pages to describing how the list was stolen and sold to the republican national com mittee and the confession of the men who made the dicker with Dudley, Clarkson and Quay. When the..campaign was hottest last summer, the Voice says, it received numerous complaints from subscribers that they were receiving through the mail copies of the paper within which were enclosed republican campaign documents opposing pro- hibition and falsely advocating protec- ton. In the closing days of the cam paign the proprietors of the Voice dis covered that 10S sheets containing a mailing list of their subscribers had been stolen from the office. An investigation it resulted in the discovery that two en- ployes of the Voice, James I. Sansom and Charles A. Durfee, had entered into a dicker with Matt Quay, Colonel Dudley and John $. Clarkson whereby the former received S250 for turning over the papers mailing list and the latter was promised lucrative clerk ship at Washington. Sansom has made q written confession stating that Durfee put him up to do the job and Clarkson paid him S250, Sl5O being i'll two checks of S15 each, one signed by w. w. Dud- ley, treasurer, and the other by w. w. Dudley and M. $. Quay. The Voice is naturally indignant at such a sneaking, that the clean and godly Harrison who has been made president by such means will grow in the respect and confidence of the public that learns of the facts for the first time. The republican managers, who were accessories to the crime of Sansom and Durfee in this actual theft of private property, stand very close to the president-elect, and it is to be pre- stunned that he has not rebuked them for the infamous campaign methods of which this affair of the Voice was simply a solitary instance.
 Speaking of the republican effort to carry Connecticut by corrupting the ballot-which was fortunately frustrated though by a small margin-the Hartford Times claims that the republican com- mittees and managers had $250, ,000 for electioneering purposes ill this state, basing its statement on ''certain facts that came to the surface just previous to and during the election" A quarter of a million dollars was pretty fat cor 1uption fund in a state where the demo- cratic majority under the most favoring circumstances could hardly be expected to exceed twenty-five hundred. The fact that money was so freely used by the republicans is more eloquent, in explana- tion of the small plurality which Con- necticut gave to Cleveland and Thur man, than any reason of tariff fears or even of discontent with federal appoint ments. The fact that this vast fund was corruptly used says the Times, lis known to many persons. In a large number. of towns men of both parties knew that the republicans paid unusually high prices for votes, and that they had all the money they could use. In some towns they could not find purchasable voters enough to absorb their corruption fund"
 These are humiliating revelations for a party that has held itself up as the unco righteous embodiment of all political virtues. They are the legitimate out come, however, of system that is de- signed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, that is every year turning large fortunes into favored hoppers, that is building up huge monopolies at the expense of the common people. It is not to be expected that the beneficiaries of this system will stop ct corruption bribery theft or dishonesty to perpetuate it, and it is not to be wondered at that the more the methods of the last cam paign are stirred up and looked into the more damaging are the revelations concerning General Harrison and those who had in charge the conduct of his canvass.
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