The Topeka state journal., 1897-06-05


est of trusts to defeat They are foes
to the nation who find shelter in the
nations house.
If they could rob merely, they would
be relatively innOcuOus, but in order to
rob it is necessary that they should
corrupt everybody around them. They
have climbed to the throne by the road
of corruption, and when they cease to
corrupt they must cease to reign. The
fact the people must face when they
throw down the gauntlet to the trusts.
THE great crime of bribery" cried
Senator HOaF, when tauntng a man
whose seat in the chamber had been
by the Standard Oil trust, blood brother
to the sugar trust, and who did not
dare challenge an investigation, THE
great crime of bribery is a crime which
pOisOns the. waters of republican nber-
ty, at the fountainr'
The senate is not fond of investiga-
tions when the trusts have come to the
capitol for renewal of their licenses to
plunder and gone away satisfied
But there should be power in the peo-
pie and the free press of the United
States to compel one investigation
more.
Chapman has gone to jail.
For what?
For refusing to tell a committee of
the senate what senators had, through
him, taken advantage of their official
knowledge of the sugar schedule of the
Wilson tariff to make money by specu-
lation in Wall street. They were trad
ing on their votes. They were dishon-
Orable public servants.
Who these prideless and greedy SEN
ators are has never been ascertained by
the senate. They still sit unplacarded
in the national legislature, assisting in
making the cOuntry's laws. They are
the kind of senators desired by the
trusts, for men who would speculate as
these did would not be above realizing
profit on their votes otherwise.
The sugar trust has neither fear of
nor respect for the senate. Both the
president and secretary of the trust de-
fed its power to purge itself of currupt
members. President HaVemeyer, asked
by the investigating committee if he
contributed to the campaign fund,
made answer, with no appearance of re-
alfzing any guilt in his confession:
I'VE always do that. In the
state of New York, where the Demo-
cratic majority is between 40 900 and
state of Massachusetts,, where the Re
publican party is doubtful they proba-
bly, have the call Wherever
there is a dominant party, wherever the
majority is very large, that is the party
that gets the contribution"
Secretary Searles made the same con-
TeSs1on, but, with President HaVemey-
er declined to specify the amounts The
sugar trust, like other trusts is a non
partisan in politics. 1t corrupts impair
TALLY.
Also it has no dread of scandal on it's
own behalf, and no delicacy about in
Volving the senate in as many as the
needs OF the sugar business require:
At the very time when the falling of
Broker Chapman has revivified the pop
ular memory and resurrected the scan
daI of 1894, the trust is again putting
the senate on view as its humble SER
want Not satisfied with the great bootv
captured under the letters of maroIIe
issued to it by the Wilson tariff il is
back again asking for more. Under the
amended senate sugar schedule of the
Dlngley Dill the trust is given an added
protection to the value of 81 . On0 nnn-
just double what it gets now: $24 600 900
year TO be taken from the people of
tne united States and given to the trust
which is under the wing of the govern
ment whose corrupting and defiant enc
my it is.
Now" says Senator Til1noan ssi11s+
When the punishment, light though it
be, placed upon Chapman by decree of
the court, has cleared the atmosphere
ana leaves no excuse to have those
canning accusations proved or dis
proved, another tariff bill is under con
stderation and a most scandalous
change in the house sugar schedule by
the senate committee is reported The
same charges of senators speculatfng
in sugar stock are reiterated by cor
respondents in the senate press gal
lery over their own signatures
Let new committee take up the in
vestigation where it was left off, and
IN connection Herewith turn the light
on the recent charges of speculation as
Wen as seek to learn what influences
T.
ferential in favor the trust"
While we have trusts, we shall also
have these scandals.
While we have trusts they will cor
rupt whatever they touch, for they are
but organized greed. unmitigated by
any public or moral restraint. Their
capacity for evil grows as they grow
They hold the power to punish and re-
ward public men. They have become
the state, but in their capacity as gov
ernors they are free from the consti-
tutiOnal limitations, the ambitions, the
traditions, the honors or fears which
keep political rulers from becoming ty-
rants. They feel responsible only to
their balance sheet. A pawnbroker in
charge of the national treasury and
using it solely in the interest of his pri-
Vate business would be as a treasurer
what the trusts are as rulers of the
United States.
Their managers are business men
strictly, and pretend to be anything
else only when the pretense is neces-
sary in business
These trusts which control the coun-
try's resources and industries and are
forever showing that they believe
themselves to be beyond control are as
deadly peril to the public as would be
the navy and army were both possess
ed by a private trust whose sole object
was to levy contributions on the peo-
pie.
The trusts are the embodiment of ar
bitrary power in business. And they
combine politically by instinct to re-
sist any movement which threatens to
change present conditions in any de-
gree for the better. We saw that in the
last presidential campaign. Present
conditions are good enough for the
trusts. All are implicated in the con-
tinuing crimes by which their privil-
ege of spOilation is preserved.
The trusts reject the doctrine that
the general welfare is of higher i'm
portance than anybody's private well
fare. They have got outside of the
government of the people, by the peo-
pie. for the people, and are its most
powerful enemies-for the success of
their money making aim can only be
achieved by defeating the purposes of
that government