The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1892-09-17
THE REPUBLICAN RECORD.
BENJAMIN Harrison's Administration
Under Indictment.

and in getting Office and of shameful malpractices
in the attempt to retain power regardless of the
| popular will.
| The Administration and the Finy-irst Congress
came into power by plain purchase. The Republic
| can party in 1855 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 franz
| ed a platform in Chicago in which il offered to
monopoists such tariff rates they should desire
for their enrichment at the expense of the people
in return for contributions to the campaign fund.
The offer was accepted. Tho money was paid,
and with il the notorious embezzer and corruption
ist Matthew Quay, 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 conlribu
ton of 100000 from the buyers oflegslation 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 de-
liver the legislative goods it had sold to monopoists
without resort to further unfairness and wrong. 1t
| proceeded to unseat members of the minority whom
| the people had elected and TO seat Republicans
| whom the people had refused TO elect. and not
man in all the majority brave or honest enough
| to raise voice in protest.
| When the time came for debate the majority de-
cided not TO permit debate lest the truth be made
plain to the people.
The rules of the House were reyolutionized.
dictator peculiarly arbitrary will was placed Ill
the chair who suppressed discussion, overrode all
considerations of fairness, changed the House from
deliberative body into a machine for record
| ing his determination, and thus enacted the meas
ures of monopoly which the party had been paid in
| advance TO pass
| In two short years this Congress squandcred all
enormous surplus reduced the treasury TO the sorcst
| straits laid heavy burdens upon the people aud
| upon industry and made a determined, though
fortunately fruitless. effort 10 rob the several
States of the right of free elections in order to secure
| for the Republican 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 cmbarras its prosperity for
| a generation to come.
| The Administration thus elected delivered TO
| Wanamaker the Cabinet office he had bought, put
Tanner into the Pension Office, with his exultant
exclamation God help the surplus !" hot upon his
lips, and when his seandalous misconduct made his
removal a necessity, put haum there instead, to
work still larger mischief IN less vociferous fashion,
and to fill the office with speculations. populations
and scandals so shameful that even the Reed Con-
gress could not be dragooned into palliating them.
And in spite of further and more fragrant exposure
| Raum is in Office still
| The Administration came into power protesting
most solemnly its purpose TO enforce the Civil Ser
vice law in letter and spirit and to extend its scope
and influence. 1t straghtwag set Clarkson al work
to behead pOstmasters at a rate wholly unpreoedent
ed. The President openly farmed out the Federal
offices as spoils to such bosses as Quay and Plat
4 -. arf.Na and
ehums upon the public service. When the Civil
Service Commission discovered the most fragrant and
shameless abuses in Baltimore and urged the re-
noval of numbers of persons by name for proved
misconduct amounting to criminalty-mlsc
perpetrated in the name and on behalf of the Ad-
minstration-the whole matter was jauntily put
aside by Xanamaker and the President in no way
nterfered to redeem his pledge or to free himself
from the shame of it all.
Dudley was one of the agents in the purchase of
Mr. Harrsons election, and he was found out. Mr..
Harrison has since refused 10 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 Dudleys case, has caused judge upon
the bench to shield and protect crime, and has
since rewarded that judge for his corrupt subserv
ency by elevating him to higher judicial position
And within these later months the country has
seen the President organize the Civil Service into
political machine, and with it compel his own
nomination for a second term.
From the very beginning Mr., Harrison has used
the appointing power as a means of securing
second term for himself He resorted at the outset
10 device Justly denounced by the elder President
| of his name as wrong and dangerous. He muzzled
/ the press of his own party so far as criticism
of his administration was concerned. He made
! nff ba nrnminpnt Ranuhli-
can newspapers for all his ambitions by putting
! their editors under obligations to himself for high
Office carrying with it pecuniary rewards. political
advantages or social distinction, according TO the
known need and desire of each of his beneiicaries
In certain directions he filed the foreign service
with incapable men to oblige unworthy interests.
! lie sent Miner TO Central America, and kept him
there long after the country had given expression
TO its disgust aud humiliation with the conduct of
an American Minister who. in the interest of
speculative syndicate sacrificed the honor of the
nation and the flag.
He sent Egan and McCrecry to Chilli, with results
gregously hurtful both to the good name and to
/ the commercial interests of the country.
To Wanamaker he has added Elkins as II Cabinet
oflicer-E kins, political adventurer and specula
tor, who had grown rich out of politics without
! having won respect enough anywhere TO make his
name suggestive even of possibilities In connection
with honorable Office. He made Porter the Super
| intendent of the Census, knowing him to be an
already dscredited manipulation of statistics, for
eign adyenturer destitute of convictions and in
search of market for his peculiar abilities, man
at that very time conducting business as vulgar
wine tout in combination with politics, and ready
TO plaeard his advertisements IN the Executive
Mansion itself. He permitted this man to falsify
the census of great States by way of robbing them
of their representation and thus increasing the
chances of that partys to whose service he
had hired himself
| It is sad and shameful story of pledges broken;
of fiscal legislation bartered for campaign funds of
elections secured by the purchase of voters of high
Office made the subject of vulgar traffic of the public
service including the most honorable places, prost
iuled to the promotion of the Presidents personal
ambitions of court converted into a sanctuary
for the protection of scoundrel of judicial subser
viency rewarded with high judicial place; of de-
bate suppressed in Congress- of surplus squan1c--
ed, and of the enormous increase Of the peoples
| tax burdens that the proceeds might flow into the
Golfers OF favored monopoliss willing TO share heiF
spoil with the political organization that made its
collection possible.
1t is grievous Indictment that is here made, but
it is perfectly true and it but part OF the
| truth.
And this is not a mere recalling of old errors,
/
that condemn this Administration have been con-
tinuous. Raum is still at the head of the Pension
Bureau and that bureau is not reformed or purified.
Marshall Airey still holds Office In Baltimore, not
withstanding Commissioner Roosevelts report to
| his organization OF the Post Office and Custom
House employees there into band of political ruff
fans his of them TO carry primaries in the Adj
ministration's interest by wholesale cheating aud
by actual physical violence in which he personally
participated Neither he Postmaster Johnson
nor any of their subordinates have been removed,
though their conduct was fully set forth and their
removal strongly urged by Mr. Roosevelt, a Republi
can member of the Civil Service Commission:
though some of them, according to Mr.. Roosevet's
report deliberately testified to lies though of
them openly confessed to cheating; though all of
them set at naught the law against political
ments, and though they all professed with more or
less of eandor the creed of lying cheating and bal
lot box stuffing which the testimony showed that