The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-09-22
HON JAMES M. BECK.
Some References to Republican Steals In
Guiding Montana.

Some References to Republican Steals In
Guiding Montana.
Assistant District Attorney James M.
Beck, of Philadelphia, followed Senator
Faulkner in a ringing speech on republican
corruption and misrule. He congratulated
the democrats of the state on their organ
ization of the day. In sober truth, he said,
he WAS there to assert that the republican
very verge of ruin. If the forefathers who
had founded the republic could revisit the
scenes of their labors they would not re-
cognize the features of their child. Many
thoughtful men in the republican
party also saw the dangers with which the
from Charles Francis Adams and
Herbert Spencer to the effect that
the tendency of the times was towards CEN
tralization. 1t was much more so during
the Baby Mckee administration than ever
before. Weak az it had been it had gone
farther in that direction than any other.
With bills granting tariff bounties to ia
vored institutions, with the extravaganza of
q billion dollar congress- with the idea that
public office is not a public trust but a fam
lily picnic, will these and other centralizing
tendencies at Washington, it was time to
organize and restore the nice e%quipoise be-
tween the autonomy of the state and the
p0poibiCy - WY ROFcIhluGAb. h0IGTFluU TO
the reciprocity clause in the tariff bill. the
speaker said it was q dangerous power to
place in the hands one man, the president,
to suspend the free importation of any ar
ticle. He was not afraid that
the present president would do
it. Even Alexander Hamilton
would have stood aghast at such an idea of
Capitalization. Mr.. Beck quoted President
Barrison's remarks about cheap coats and
cheap men, and those of Mckinley on the
same subject, and said the men who fought
at Lexington wore their cheap homespun
suits. and they were not cheap men by any
means. Referring to Speaker Reeds DO asst
that he had done away with a deliberative
congress, he said that gentleman came
near making the coming congress non-de-
Lucrative. A fow more outrages such as
were perpetratsd, and there wouldn't have
been enough republicans in the next house
to deliberate with. Mr.. Beck handled tho
tariff question in q very able manner, but it
was when he referred to the big steal of tho
presidency in 1876. and the lesser, but equally
criminal one in Montana in 1889, that he
strack the popular chord. He said this
state had sent two rightful senators to
Washington, but they had not bsen ad-
mitted. 1t was Il wrong that would not 20
unpunighed. 1t would never nave been
attempted but for the succession of corrupt
election practices from the great steal
down. That brutal act of the republican
senate would make Montana reliably demo-
cratic. He thsn quoted Judge Jeremiah
Blacks famous d~enunciation of the repub-
lican members Of the electoral commits
sion when TINT body was preparing to steal
South Carolina for Hayes, and declared
that an equally outraged Justice in this
state, Though it moved with leaden heel,
would strike with an iron hand" Mr..
Beck closed with an earnest sntreaty to the
democrats to organize.