The Cape Girardeau Democrat. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909, 1895-10-05
SEDUCING THEs0UTH
FAIRY sroRgs REGARDING THE RE-
FORM CLUBS WORK.

Ia Real Object Il Edaestion and Not Ger
rzpfloa-snAn Fund aEaznsaed Int.
NnIIons-Hox Is spreads 1~zfsr.nation
xnHuencs znd Scope.
We clip the following from The Jour
nal Of Commerce and Commercial Bull
Istin Of Sept. 8. This Is the leading
commercial journal Of this country, and
It's statements show that the Reform
Club, instead Of having millions OF dol
zars, which it lie spending for corrupt
prrpcses, really has a small fund which
e Is spending for educational purposes.
Il is, in fact, experimenting the work
done by our schools and colleges-or
rather it is doing work that they should
have done:
A Texas paper is manifesting great
distress over a corruption fund Of s1,-
500, 900 said to have been raised by the
Chamber of Commerce or the Reform
Climb, or each of them, for the purposes
Of seducing the south from its loyalty TO
the long suffering and down trodden
"white metal" This money, it repre-
sents, is being disbursed to secure the
control of newspapers and to buy votes
fr sound money candidates for legisla-
lures and for congress.
This corruption fund is a mers might
mare II does not-exist It is as baseless
Is the cargo Of gold that Ernest Seyd
was declared, in a Colorado affidavit,
to have brought from London and used
In bribing congressman to commit "the
crime Of 1873" Children and savages
easily believe in fairies and spooks and
the supernatural in various manifesto
tons, BUT why will grown men, who
wish { obe reputed intelligent and sensi-
bic, disgrace themselves by repeating
such nonsense?
The Reform Club has not yet succeeded
in raising $50. 600, and it has not spent
quite all it has raised. All its disburse-
ments have been in support Of its publ
cation Office, except a trifie that has de-
frayed the expenses of somepublic meet
ings. The Chamber of Commerce COM
mittee has probably raised less money,
and its expenditures have been of the
same general character.
The Reform Club has bought or hired
no southern paper. Much less has it
bought or hired any southern politician.
The belief in the Reform Club is that
the southern silver men are honest, but
misinformed, and that any attempt to
influence them by money would be fu-
tile and resented as an insult. The
southern papers that are printing the
literature issued by the Reform Club are
doing it because they believe or their
readers believe in sound money. The
matter is supplied to them, and they
print it if they wish it, and it does not
cost them anything. But they are not
paid to print it
The Reform Club has issued more
than 1900, 000 copies of the 10 numbers
Of its regular publication, "Sound Cur
rency," in editions varying from 80, 600
to 800, 900, according to the adaptable
ity.of the various numbers for popular
reading. It has supplied t'broadsides, "
which have been folded into country
newspapers and issued as supplements to
839 papers, having an aggregate circula-
iton of 288, 80, which gives an average
Of 800. This is getting sound currency
literature into the hands of the farmers
m the back counties, who see only one
newspaper and do not often get to pub
lie meetings. This is getting back of the
local boss O the leading politician to
the sovereign voter himself. OF these
papers 220 are published in the southern
states, including Kansas In the south
western group, and these papers have an
aggregate circulation of 1853, 900 and an
average circulation of 741. In the mid
die west and northwest these supple
ments are used by 81 papers, whose aver
age circulation is a little more than
1000.
Sound currency literature already set
and ~stereotyped, what is called '.plate"
matter, has been supplied to and used
very freely by SOB papers with an aver
age circulation of 1,400 and an aggre-
gate circulation of 724, 400, and of these
there are in the southeast and southwest
2O6, with an aggregate circulation of
2S1, 600. A large supply of cartoons
has also been prepared and is being
freely used. The majority of the publ
cations of the club have been illustrat-
ed, and less than a third of them have
been Of that literary or statistical char
acter which is supposed to be unaccept-
able to the average man. The publica-
ions, as a whole. have been Of a very
popular character. Their numbers are
summed up as follows:
sound Currency series
,6roads1de, pages Recommendation
,iaee matter. 10000
reprints and miscellaneous documents
through supply I2S Om I,
speeches OF Carlisle and others, not in
ciuding the much greater number
lately furnished at the expense of
otner 9o,Q0o
10000
The influence Of this work ON the
,nblic sentiment o4he south and west !
3 already APPARENT The literature of
club has been reproduced at second
md third and fourth hand and is found