The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-09-14

To the Editor of The Herald:
While the answers in your issue of
the 18th to certain questions PROFOUND
ed by the New York World are liter
ally correct, I do not believe they are
as complete as they might be, and
would like to suggest an addition.
Among the questions are: Would
free coinage stop campaign bribery and
vote buying, or the purchase of char
tiers, franchises, etc, from almost every
city council and other legislative body
in the United States; or the notorious
dominance of the railroad lobby over
almost every state legislature; or put
an end to monopolleS, trusts, pools, syn
dictates, coal combines, beef trusts and
other conspirators for the plumber OF
the people, or would its triumph make
out attorney generals do their sworn
duty in the suppression of these con-
spiracies?"
Free coinage would not stop any of
these things, but the success of the
free coinage ticket in this campaign
would have a tendency to stop them
all 1t would give notice that the peo-
pie were aware of these abuses, and
knew who perpetrated them, and were
opposed to their continuance.
Who brides and buys votes and pur-
chases charters and franchises from
almost every city council and legisla-
tive body i'm the United States?
Why, the monopolies. trusts, pools,
syndicates, coal combines, beef trusts
and other conspirators for the plumber
of the people.
Which side are they on in this con-
test? Isn't it true that all the railroad
and telegraph owners and managers;
the beef syndicate, the coal Oil syndi-
cate the coal trust, the linseed oil
trust, literally all the great corpora
tons and combinations of capital are
for the Mckinley ticket?
Isn't it a fact that practically all OF
the very rich people are for the same
ticket? Statistics tell US that more than
three fourths OF all the wealth in this
country is owned by one-tenth of its
people How many of the one-tenth
are for the Bryan ticket?
This immense wealth owned by the
few and the tremendous power and in
fluence of the gigantic syndicates and
trusts were never acquired in an open
field and in free competition. They
come about through legislation and
executive action in their particular in
terest, and as they grow their influ-
ence over the makers, interpreters and
executors of the laws grows.
Special legislation in their interest
must necessarily be against the interest
Of the people, for their abnormal pro-
pensity was obtained at the expense
of the people. They did not acquire
their great disproportioned power and
wealth without many millions failing
to get their proportion, for they did noG
produce it all by their own labor and
there is no wealth that is not the pro-
duct of somebody's labor.
To my mind the present contest has
come to be bigger and more impor-
taut thing than merely an expression
of the opinions Of the people as to
whether a single or a double standard
is the better financial policy.
1t is now and is growing every day
more a contest between those who
prosper and thrive by controlling leg
islation and shaping it to their own
particular interests and the people who
cannot and do not reach government
officials, and must trust to general
prosperity and the natural course Of
events and their own industry and bus
mess ability for their own success.
Are not practically all the corpora
tons and syndicales, who have hereto
fore had Hobbies and representative at
the state and national capitals during
legislative sessions, supporting the Nc
Kinley ticket and using all the power
they possess over the employees and
agents to insure its success? Why is
this so? Are not the farmers and la
boring men the people the Mckinley
managers most fear in this campaign?
Why?
If the Mckinley ticket is elected, will
it not be considered by all parties a
triumph of the rich and we'll born, and
if the Bryan ticket shall be success
full, will it not be looked upon as a
victory for the mud sills and the COM
mon folk?
If that be so, viii not the defeat of
the ticket that is supported by those
who have heretofore been able to reach
and influence legislative bodies to their
private advantage and the success of
the ticket, which has no such support
tend to stop bribery and vote buying
and the purchase OF charters and fran
chises, and 10 put an end TO monopo-
lies, trusts, pools, syndicates, coal COM
bines, beef trusts and other conspira-
tors for the plumber of the people?
]. D.
nr- Vra,Ia