Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1896-02-12
PRESS COMMENTS.
The Bond Scandal.
IN. Y. Press }


President Cleveland and Secretary Car
isle are endeavoring to divert attention
from the bond scandal by talking enthu
siassically about the tremendous success
Of the issue What had they to DO with
this success They We're driven to a
popular loan by the clamor of public
opinion voiced in papers like the Press.
They had contemplated, indeed com
pleted, the arrangements for another such
secret deal as the outrageous one of a year
ago by which sixty-two millions of bonds
were handed over to Morgan's syndicate
AZ net loss to the government of over
80 900, GEO. When they had been COM
PEELED to forego this second deal they did
everything in their power to make the
popular lean failure. Undoubtedly
they supposed the deal was not aban-
doned only postponed Through their
Official spokesman, through their news
paper organs and at very opportunity they
condemned the popular loan. They made
this conditions governing it as discourag-
ing as il was possible to make them
They hedged it about with provisions
that compelled disapproval and mistrust.
They attacked the credit of the nation
In every way that vas open to them they
prophesied, invited and planned failure
And then, it having become evident
that the loan would be success. that
there was about to be an uprising of.the
people TO take the power of wrecking. the
credit of the richest people in the world
out Of the hands of band of money,
lenders aided by the administration itself,
the treasury officials made possible the
mnSk nIinI3s scandal that hoc Gat att bod
itself to their department.
1t Is of no use for them to declare that
If Mr.. Morgan obtained information
about other bids he got it in Wall street
The people of this country believe, as they
have every reason to believe, that a
knowledge of the bids was obtainable
from the treasury officials. Dozens of
clerks in the department were possessed
of that knowledge. 1t Is impossible of
tellef that secret, and secret OF such
magnitude, involving millions on millions
Of dollars, could be kept within the walls
OF the room where the bids were opened
And II it could. By what right was any
body possessed of that secret? The score
tary of the treasury himself had no right
TO open the bids before the exact hour of
IL O'Clock noon. 1t was no more his duty.
privilege or right than it was that of one
of Mr. Morgan's clerks to open them. No
bid should have been unsealel before the
precise hour of noon, whereas ten minutes
before that time, when Mr.. Morgan's bid
was put in, score and more of people
knew what were the offers of several hun
dred bidders. They had known this for
hours before the bid of MIR. Morgan was
entered
The administration cannot get away
from the shame and the scandal of this
thing. One thing it might have done to
remove part Of the odium Of its breach of
faith with the bidders in disclosing before
the time agreed upon the contents of their
sealed proposals. It might have rejected
the Morgan bid. as the secretary had the
authority to do. TO its everlasting dis.
credit of shameful bond dealing the ad-
ministration added this new scandal.