The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1896-03-11
SOME TRUE WORDS.

In the November New England Maya
zine the editor, Mr.. Edwin D. Mead,
gives of Mr.. Henry D. Lloyd's wealth
Against Commonwealth" noteworthy
review, from which we quote these pas
Sages:
wealth against Commonwealth" has
provoked warn feeling and discussion.
Newspapers of the Outlook sort have
praised it, and the newspapers of the Ma
ton sort have damned it. We have seen
only one considerable attempt to answer
tan article Of dozen pagSe in one OF
the economic reviews, by writer, curl
ously enough whose name rumOr has as
sociated with the services Of the great
monopoly itself Rumor is very likely
false in this case as in so many Others
If it is true, however, the article has the
double interest of Quasi-Oftlclal defense
-plenarily inspired, as it were-and may
be viewed as the best which the oil trust,
feeling that an impeachment like the pres
emit cannot be left unnoticed, can say for
itself, or that it's friends can say for it,
1t is a melancholy defence-a mixture of
paltry detraction, of fustain virtue, Of
distortion of fact and the befogging of
issues, inferior only to the testimony Of
some of the Standard Oil Company's
trustees before legislative committees.
ut seems to us that this story of sin
and shame eliminates in the unexampled
briberies by which Henry B. Payne was
made United States senator from Ohio
in 1884; just as the most startling thing in
connection with the Sugar Trust is it's
manifest shaping of tariff legislation in
the senate two years ago. That Senator
Payne's seat was bought with Standard
Oil money no rational man who reads the
evidence can doubt; yet how quickly the
people have forgotten it, and how made
quately they realized at the time the ter
rible significance of such thing in re-
public! Senator Edmunds, of Vermont
realized it. This is a day of infamy for
the Senate Of the United States, when the
vote of the senate not to investigate the
SAGE was announced. Senator Hoar, of
Massachusetts, realized it. The adop-
ton of this majority report he said, will
be the most unfortunate fact in the his
tory of the senate; and he closed the de-
bate with these memorable words: A
senator, who, when the governor of his
state, when both branches of the legisla-
ture Of his state, complained to us that
a seat in the United States senate had
been bought; when the other senator from
the state arose and told us that that was
the belief Of a very large majority Of the
people of Ohio, without distinction of
party, failed to rise in his place and ask
for the investigation which would have
put an end to those charges, if they had
been unfounded, shelterng himself be-
hind the technicalities which were found
by some gentlemen on both sides of this
chamber, that the investigate ought not
the slightest request on his part. and
then remained dumb, I think should for
ever after hold his peace.
ITO us the most melancholy words in
Mr.. Lloyd's book-the word indeed which
has prompted us to write as we do at
this time-iS this: In America, where
the supreme political power and much of
the government of church and college
have been taken out of traditional hands
and subjected to the changing determina-
lions of popular will. it has inevitably re-
suited that the state, church, and school
have passed under this mercantile aris-
tocracy to far greater extent than in
other countries where sitter regimes I'M
der other and older influences still stand
''This is unquestionably true. AS con-
Germs the church there is no other country
In the world where wealth cOuntrlndOOf
in the world where considerations of
wealth count for so much as here. or
where the class spirit makes itself so
strongly felt; there are no cities where we
hear so much and see so much about this
or that church being 'aristOcratic' as in
New York, Philadelphia, Boston and other
great cities of America; no churches
where white light is softened by so many
windows in memory of millionaires in
stead of saints; no places where the get
ting Of this or that monied man into our
church is made so much of as in Ameri-
can places. Money seals the lips of re-
Duke, earns conformation for sin and even
OStentatiOuS courtesy for the sinner.
Probably no man in our time did more to
debauch the ambitious young business
men and the general commercial consci-
ence of America than Jay Gould. Proba-
bly, there was no Presbyterian minister
in the city of New York who did not know
it, Yet when, a brief time before his
death, the Presbyterian clergy of New
York were to hold conference touching
city missions or some pious enterprise,
they readily accepted the invitation to
hold the conference in Jay Goulds par
lors, and duly rendered thanks for the
check for $40, 000-which we certainly do
not criticise them for putting to good
use-which followed the grotesque con-
junction. And so far as we know, there
was but one minister of Christ in the
city Of New York-let it be written down
that this was William S. Rainsford-who
made the proceedings the theme of his
sermon on the next Sunday or had the
heroism to remind his brethren that
church or a Christian conference in the
house of Jay Gould, with the master of
the house a party to it, is long way
from the house of Aquila and Priscilla.
I'm the little village near the Catskills
there has risen, in memory of this wreck
err of railroads, church-a church cost
ing two hundred thousand dollars. we
are told of the Gould money. And on
the corner stone of the church it is in
scribed: To the glory of God and in
memory Of Jay Could"