Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1890-07-18
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" skAlCCAsrER, PA, July ls, 1880.
Wealth in Politics.

A. the expense Of party management
md the cost Of political campaigns in
&xeascs, the power Of wealthy men In
elitics Is naturally augmented, even IL
- money were expended for illegitimate
2nnrposes. And the amounts expended
i = the conduct of campaigns have grown
6ormously. 1t is estimated, for ex-
5 Eaple, that the tolls on telegraphic
Manages of a political nature in the
52nDt presidential campaign amounted
6aone to more than the entire cost Of the
plesidential campaign of 1860 while
The bills for postage and printing, for
stravelling expenses and public speakers
.teAched sum 30 prodigious that II
would have staggered the most liberal
Marty manager of half century ago.
The best informed "practical politi-
dams say that the prediction expenses
~ the present day are twenty times
\ sxleater, ut the lowest estimate, than
they were twenty-five years ago. Here
y IN increase many times greater than
( that of wealth and population combined.
It must be remembered, too, that large
bums were often expended twenty
i've and even thirty years ago.
4 Gen. VIM. Sprague, and his opponent,
In 1850, candidates for governor of the
little state Of Rhode Island, expended In
: single campaign over two hundred
5 thousaHd dollars, while their combined
yUte was only twenty-three thousand.
Bat in those days the large and, Of
course, corrupt expenditures were com
pAratively exceptional they are today
the rule. The prodigious power which
this condition of affairs gives to men of
: great wealth il only too clear.
City Chamberlain Wins, of New
York, says that in that city alone over a
million dollars are expended in every
pfesidential campaign. Several years
ago, in an address before the Harlem
Democratic club, he said:
!" Out Of every one hundred voters twenty
y Are undor pay at every election. The reg
Z iatration laws put an end to serious abuses
whereby Tweed and others manipulated
the returns as they pleased but other
q abuses have sprung up under new condi
Il lions. No provision was mado for the
& printing and distribution of tickets. These
\ must be paid for and only large organiza-
: ions can stand the expense. The organi-
& zations are as rule made up of men who
make business Of politics, and they in
q vest money in II as any merchant would
do In his business They devote part OF
4 their income to the party in order to hold
IN their places.
The necessity OF distributing ballots
4 enggested to thom perfect means of evad-
\ Ing the bribery laws by hiring men to
Y york at the polls as distributors. Forty
8 0ve men are thus paid at every poll in the
Z city. and yet no one ever saw anything
tanf Il
Y ave lo no work. II is only n cover for
direct bribery: Everybody knows it and
& ooer5t
-" The money to pay them comes from
\ assessments on the candidates. The result
't1b that 1t Is impossible for man to get a
3 ment, no matter what ability, popularity,
& nerve, energy, and patriotism he may have.
4 He Is 1t all times excluded unless his per-
E n0nal popularity and influence are so great
4 that he can break the machine. He may
{ be % great as Caesar, as fine genius az
Napoleon, as good as Paul, and yet lac can
never be nominated for mayor unless he
puts up from ten thousand To twenty
) thousand dollars. The whole atmosphere
OF election Is filled with the dollar. 1t Is
money everywhere and in everything"
This state Of things exists in every city
and town in the land, and while it con-
tinues to exist it is childishly futile to
Course the gold that gilds the straitened fore
head Of the fool"
for what is more natural than that the
fool should use his gold to crafty his
ambition Nor are all wealthy men,
! nor even majority of them, gifted with
less ability than their fellows neither
are they as rule less honest aud patri-
0tic. 1t is the system which is at fault,
for 1t corrupts both the briber and the
bribed and makes it possible for the
ignorant and corrupt plutocrat to defeat
At all times wisdom and honesty, if
linked with poverty 1t does more, for
I 1t is this condition which is responsible
for the creation of men like Quay, the
whole secret of whose power lies in their
skjll in obtaining and expending to the
best advantage large corruption funds
This is one of the chief reasons of the
urgent necessity for ballot reform. With
Its adoption Othello Quay's occupation
would be gone. Men like Vice President
Morton and Postmaster General Wana-
maker would no longer occupy high
places Ia the government. We might
then hope once more for Senate He'd
with men like Benton, Webster, CLAY
and Calhoun, instead of millonaires
like Brown, of Georgia Camden, of
West Virginia Cameron, of Pennsyl~
yania Fair and Jones, of Nevada ;
Palmer, of Michigan Payne, of Ohio ;
Sawyer, of Wisconsin and Hearst and
Stanford, of California.