Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1892-10-13
REPUBLICAN RECORD.
AN ABLE INDICTMENT OF HARRl-
SONS ADMINISTRATION.

|
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 wrongdoing, of unfair favoritism in
| legislation and of scandalous miscon-
duct in administration; record of reck-
less squandering; of the debauchment
of the public service; of corruption in
Office and in getting office, and of shame
full malpractices in the attempt to retain
power regardless of the popular will.
The administration and the Fifty-first
congress came into power by plain pur-
chase. The Republican party in 1888
secured its triumph by selling legisla-
tion 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 a
platform in Chicago in which it offered
to monopolists such 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 cor
ruptionist, 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
contribution of $400,000 from the buy
ers 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 de-
liver the legislative goods it had sold to
monopolists without resort to further
unfairness and wrong. 1t proceeded to
unseat members of the minority whom
the people had elected and to seat Re-
publicans whom the people had refused
to elect, and not man in all the major
ity 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-
Pile.
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 thu
house from a deliberative body into
mere machine for recording his de-
termination, and thus enacted the meas
ures of monopoly which the party had
been paid in advance to pass.
IN, +,.rc shout 1-aa ,., +hiS ,r,,,,,,
dered an enormous surplus, reduced the
treasury to the sorest straits, laid heavy
burdens upon the people and upon in
dustry, and made determined, though
fortunately fruitless effort to rob the
several states of the right of free cleo
tions in order to secure for the Republi-
can party a 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 a pail over the finances of
the country and must embarrass its
prosperity for generation to come.
The administration thus elected de-
livered to Wanamaker the cabinet office
he had bought, put Tanner into the pen
sion Office, with his exultant exclama-
ton, "God help the surplusr hot 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.
And in spite of further and more flag
rant exposure Raum is in Office still,
The administration came into power
protesting most solemnly its purpose 10
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 Plat,
and quartered his own relatives and
partners and chums upon the public
service. When the civil service COM
mission discovered the most fragrant and
shameless abuses in Baltimore, and urged
the removal of numbers of persons by
name for proved misconduct amounting
to criminality-misconduct perpetrated
in the name and on behalf of the admin
istration-the whole matter was jaunt-
lily put aside by Wanamaker, and the
president in no way interfered 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.. Harrison's election, and
he was found out. MIR. Harrison has
| pince 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 O.
justice in Dudley's case, has caused a
Judge upon the bench to shield and pro
tect crime, and has since rewarded that
judge for his corrupt subserviency by
elevating him to a higher judicial posi-
ton.
And within these later months the
country has seen the president organize
the civil service into a political machine
md with it compel his own nomination
| for a second term.