Virginia free press. (Charlestown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1832-1916, 1895-09-25
SEDUCING THESOUTH
FAIRY STORIES REGARDING THE RE-
FORM CLUBS WORK.

Its Real Object Is Education and Not Cor
ruption Small Fund Magnihed Into
MnIions-How 1t Spreads Information.
Influence and Scope.
We clip the following from The Jour
nal of Commerce and Commercial Bull
letin Of Sept. 9. This is the leading
commercial journal of this country, and
its statements show that the Reform
Club, instead Of having millions Of dol
lars, which it is spending for corrupt
purposes, really has small fund which
it is spending for educational purposes.
1t is, i'll fact, supplemeDting 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 ST.,
10000 said to have been raised by the
Chamber of Commerce or the Reform
Club, 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
for sound money candidates for legisla-
lures and for congress.
This corruption fund is a mere night
mare. 1t does not exist 1t is as baseless
as 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 1918. Children and savages
easily believe in fairies and spooks and
the supernatural in various manifesto
tions, but why will grown men, who
wish to be reputed intelligent and sensi-
BILE, 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 i'll support of its publ
cation Office, except trifie that has de-
frayed the expenses of some public 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 l, 800, 600 copies of the 10 numbers
of its regular publication, Sound Cur
rency," in editions varying from 1000
to 800, 600, according to the adaptable
ity of the various numbers for popular
reading 1t has supplied 'broadsides," "
which have been folded into country
newspapers and issued as supplements to
SS9 papers, having an aggregate circula-
iton Of 2SS, 210, which gives an average
of 500. This is getting sound currency
literature into the hands Of the farmers
in 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 or the leading politician to
the sovereign voter himself. OF these
papers 220 are published in the southern
states, including Kansas i'll the south
western group, and these papers have an