The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1892-10-20
A BAD RECORD.
BENJAMIN HARRIsoN's ADMINISTRATION
UNDER INDICTMENT EXTRAvA-
CANOE, CORRUPTION AND UTTER
DISREGARD OF SOLEMN PLEDGES.


DISREGARD OF SOLEMN PLEDGES.
The issue in this campaign is the Re-
publican record of the last four years.
1t is very bad record. 1t is a record
of wrong doing, of unfair favoritism In
legislation aud Of scandalous misconduct
in administration; a record OF reckless
squaudering; of the debauchment OF the
public service; of corruption in office
and IN getting Office, and of shameful
malpractices in the attempt to retain
power regardless of the popular will.
The Administration and the Fitty-first
Congress came into power by plain pur-
chase. The Republican Party in 1883
secured its triumph by selling legislation
short.
Abandoning all that it had professed
and all that its leaders, living and dead,
had taught concerning the limitations of
right in tariff legislation, it framed
platform IN Chicago in which it offered
to monopolists suca tariff rates as they
should desire for their enrichment at the
expense of the people, in. return for con-
tributions to the campaign fund.
The offer was accepted. The money
was paid, and with it the notorious en-
bezzler and corruptionist, Matthew
Qaay, with his lieutenant, Dudley, was
set to buy the election. When the funds
ran low John Wanamaker purchased an
option on Cabinet Office by securing an
additional contribution of $4,000
from the buyers of legislation upon
margin.
When the Congress thus elected came
together the Republican majority was
too narrow and uncertain to do the work
it had promised. 1t could not deliver
the legislative goods it had sold to mon
opolists without resort to further un.
fairness and wrong. 1t proceeded to un-
seat members of the minority whom the
people had elected and to seat Republi.
cans whom the people had refused to
elect, and not man in all the majority
was brave or honest enough to raise a
voice in protest.
When the time came for debate the
majority decided not to permit debate,
lest the truth be made plain to the peo-
pie.
The rules of the House were revolu-
tionized. A dictator of peculiarly arbi-
trary will was placed in the chair who
suppressed discussion, overrode all con-
siderations of fairness, changed the
House from a deliberative body into
mere machine for recording his deter
mination, and thus enacted the measures
of monopoly which the party had been
paid in advance to pass.
In two short years this Congress squan-
dered an enormous surplus, reduced the
treasury to the sorest straits, laid heavy
burdens upon the people and upon in
dustrv and made determined, though
fortunately fruitless, effort to rob the
several States of the right of free elec-
ticns in order to secure for the Republi-
can Party longer lease of power. 1t
sought to buy votes for the future by
pension legislation of the most reckless
and unjust character, whose shadow
hangs like pail over the finances OF the
country and must embarrass its prosper
ity for a generation to come.
The Administration thus elected de-
livered to Wanamaker the Cabinet office
he had bought, put Tanner into the Fen
sion Office, with his exultant exclama-
ton, "God help the surplus!' not upon
his lips, and when his scandalous mis-
conduct made his removal necessity,
put Raum there instead. to work still
larger mischief in less vociferous fash
ion, and to fill the office with specula-
tions, peculations and scandals so shame
full that even the Reed Congress could
not be dragooned into palliating them.
Aud, in spite of further and more fla
grant exposure, Raum is in office still!
The Administration came into power
protesting most solemnly its purpose to
enforce the Civil Service law in letter
and spirit, and to extend its scope and
influence. 1t straightway set Clarkson
at work to behead postmasters at rate
wholly unprecedented. The President
openly farmed out the Federal offices as
spoils to such bosses as Quay and Platt,
and quartered his own relatives and
partners and chums upon the public SER
vice. When the Civil Service Commits
sion discovered the most fragrant and
shameless abuses in Baltimore and urged
the removal of numbers OF persons by
name for proved misconduct amounting
to neutrality-suspicious. perpetrated
in the name and on behalf of the Ad-
ministration-the whole matter was
jauntily put aside by Wanamaker, aud
the President IN no way interfered to re-
deem his pledge or to free himself from
the shame of it all.
Dudley was one of the agents in the
purchase of Mr.. Harrisons election, and
he was found out. Mr.. Harrison has
since refused to hold intimate personal
relations with the "Blocks OF Five
statesman, but through his Attorney
General and former law partner he has
interfered with the administration OF
justice in Dudley's case, has caused
Judge upon the bench to shield and pro-
tect crime, and has since rewarded that
Judge for his corrupt subserviency by
him TO higher judicial posi-
ton.
And within these later months the