The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1897-02-06
Corruption Funds.
From the Silver Knight.

he use OF tens OF nllllOnS Oh money 10 elec
Major Mckinley proves Eeyond controversy
that the rich are opposed TO Republican gov
ernments deriving their just powers from th'
consent of the governed" The contest was
not between citizens of the United States eX
ercising the right of franchise according tC
their best Judgment, but between the people
on the one side and the money power
on the other. The money used by the pre-
vailing party was not expended 10 give the
voters an opportunity to freely exercise theil
choice as citizens because no large expenditure
of money could legitimately be used for thai
purpose. The vast sums of money expended
were confessedly used to influence the election
and to prevent free vote and an honest count.
The poverty and dependence of vast multi
tudes of suffering people and the dishonesty OF
others, furnished the opportunity which was
seized by the money powers to sabvert the
will of the people. If it be asserted that the
same result would have been attained without
the use of money we ask. why were such vast
sums of money collected and expended!
There is no necessity of knowing the exact
amount of money which the victorious party
employed because the lowest estimate is large
enough TO stamp the election fraudulent
and corrupt.
If the power of money can enable the rich
to seize the government, as was done in the
last election, the capacity of man for self
government is myth and free institutions are
failure. The spending of fifty or even ten
million dollars in Presidential election shows
that the republic is in danger from cOncen-
trated wealth. Nothing can do more to des-
troy the faith of the people in free institutions
than the fact that the party which spends the
most money in elections is certain to be vie
torious When the honest voters feel that the
votes they cast are to be ueutralized by the
corrupt use of money in the purchase Of votes
or the manipulation of election returns, they
will cease to regard the elective franchise as
protection of their rights or as furnishing
them the power to maintain the free institu-
tons established by the fathers. They will
naturally look upon the money power as their
enemy. and when they are satisfied that re-
sistance to the encroachments of concentrated
wealth at the ballot box is impossible history
will repeat itself in this country and anarchy
or revolution will follow. The audacity and
arrogance of the wholesale vote buyers i'll call
ing the people anarchists because their ballots
are honest is exasperating III the extreme.
What proof have they that the six and-a half
millions who voted for Bryan were not actu-
ated by the purest motives of patriotism?
What claim have those who expended tens
of millions to get votes that they are honest
and law-abiding citizens of the United States
when they are ostentatiously corrupting the
fountains of justice and subverting the funda-
mental principles of free institutions? If an
archy is an effort to overthrow established
government, why are not the money powers
who buy votes and subvert the will of the peo-
pie (Which is the governing power), by cor
ruption and fraud, anarchists of the most
malignant type? The rule of avarice is the
most malignant, despotc cruel, and barbar-
Gus of all forms of tyranny, and when that
rule is secured by hired mercenaries or in
timidatel dependents all forms of representa-
tive government are mockery and the foun-
dations of free institutions are subverted.
Nothing that the incoming administration
can do can repair the injury to civil liberty
which the expenditure of tens of millions of
money inflicted in the last election. No mat
ter how good Major McKinley's administra-
ton may be it can never heal the wounds
which the corruptionists who elected him in
hicted upOn our institutions. We already
hear the boasts of concentrated wealth that
the means they employed to prevent fair
election in 1896 will be redoubled if necessary
four years hence. We are told on every hand
that money is too powerful for the people of
the United States and that whatever happens
the money powers will rule the country. If
this be so, the rule of the people is already
overthrown and this is an oligarchy of wealth
and not Republic of free men. We call the
attention of the rich and powerful who now
seem omnipOtent, to the history of the past
and warn them against the danger of forcing
the people to desperation. The people of the
United States are long-sufferiug; they love law
and order and will submit as long as hope
remains, but such examples as were furnished
at the last election of wholesale corruption by
the use of vast sums of money will destroy
hope, and when that is done we have not the
heart to predict what must necessarily happen.
If the money powers deny that they are max
ing war on free institutions we simply call at
tention to the money they expended in the
last election. No excuse exists, no apology
can be given, no explanation can be made
for the expenditures of the vast sums of money
which were used in the last election. 1t means
corruption, fraud, anarchy, and misrule, and
nothing else. The people still have faith and
they are organizing to again face the enemy
of free institutions at the ballot-box in 1898
and 1900.
We believe that civil liberty is not lost and
that people will rally and by Constitutional
means restore the government of the United
States to the people for whom it was or
dained. If they cannot restore it we fear that
the great republic will be the last experiment of
free institutions on this earth. If liberty can
not be preserved in free America, the anarchy,
bloodshed, and barbarism which will follow
will exceed the accumulated horrors which
history records in the destruction of former
civilizations.