The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-11-26
NOVEMBER

WltH unnecessary perqulSltes IS one way in which election expenses are paid out of the taxes.
 g.. Another way in which Ring Rule prospers has been through the political use of the public works If you should happen to see a workman at intervals going through the motions of a laborer on street corner for a dollar and a quarter day, and an inspector leaning on a neighboring tree smoking and watching him for three or four dollars day, and if as taxpayer you should be sufficiently interested in that illus tration of modern democracy to ask the reason why, you need not go far ther for the answer than to mutter to yourself-Politics.
 B. A third way in which Ring Rule thrives and fosters is by bleeding cor porations. The party ringsters are the | robber-barons of this industrial age, and their natural legislative prey is the corporation. l do not propose in pass ing to discuss the grave question of the relations of corporations to the public franchises; l prefer to leave to the leis ! urely wisdom of special students the problem Of the economic place and func- ton Of the great trust; but l am con- pelled by my subject to meet this single inquiry, what Is the relation of the po- litical Ring to the corporation? In gen eral the answer-the pitiable answer of the facts--is this: The Ring fastens and fattens on the corporation and the corporation allows itself to be bled by the Ring because it dares not trust the people It feels helpless to cast off the i professional and political vampires who suck it's profits We know that all this i is often much to the disgust of honora- ble directors, who sometimes are stung by it almost to the point of open rebel lion, yet who are as often held back by the reflection that as trustees they can not jeopardize other peoples money as they might venture their own fortunes In an unequal fight with the political King. And so it seems to have come to pass that sometimes the corporation and the Ring are bound together in a union which God has not joined, but which no man can put asunder. They seem to go on together in an embrace of mutual hatred, and in mad dance l to the fiddle of the lobby towards de- struction, while plain people look on and wonder whether public corruption has any bottom, and if in the conduct 1 of the peoples business there is any i virtue or any praise. But the interests of the corporation and the people are not necessarily alien; their permanent interests are not hostile-they are one l and the same; the hostile interest, ruin ous to both, is Ring Rule.
 The interest hostile alike to that of the corporation and the people is repre- scented by the man on an important committee-I will not say in what state who, having prevented some leglsla- tion injurious to a corporation, after the adjournment of the legislative body, comes to the manager of the corpora tion and asks accommodation for his note at the bank The manager knows l that the same political influence which l put that man in office once will very l likely find it convenient to allow the 1 people to elect him a second time. What shall the manager do? Accommodate 1 him or not? Shall trustees of the funds l perhaps of widows and orphans allow ] their corporations to be fined say a hundred thousand dollars for refusal i to accommodate ruling Ring, or shall ! they put twenty-five thousand dollars | into the hands of their attorneys to | satisfy for a season some political 1 blackmailers? And what in the long run will be the profit and loss of this kind of business? One thing is sure 1 republican institutions cannot last, as 1 they have endured, if this thing is to go 1 on forever. And 1t will go on so long as Ring Rule lasts.
 6. Another way in which Ring Rult | thrives is to be traced through its pe- culiar relations to crime, and the semi criminal class. This relationship in many cities has not yet been fully re- vealed. The man of lawlessness in his 1 subtle yet pervasive power of political self-protection is not easily brought to revelation before the people. It is not necessary in this relationship that the larger portion of the Ring itself should have anything to do with it. One man is often point of contact enough between politics and some crim- inal protection. But, however it is done, politics does seem to make some strange alliances with criminal inter- ests. TO describe what has been known in some instances to have happened would compel me to utter things which it would be a shame so much as to speak of in public; which right-mind- ed man cannot even think of in private without putting a high value for pres ent use on the most vehement impreca- tions of the ancient Hebrew psalms Wishing to speak words of soberness, and from some personal knowledge and belief which cannot be gainsaid by the ignorance of any other mans tradition al party innocence, I affirm that Ring politics and certain criminal interests have repeated dalliance and unholy I communication. I acknowledge indeed that I have never been able to induce any politician to inform me how much his party treasury had received, for in- stance, from the gamblers; although have been more fortunate in gathering from some professional purveyors tc that illicit business how much volunta
 rily at some times their necessary po
 litical expenses have been. There are gentlemen, however, who may know fal more accurately than I do how mucf the care of their political interest may
 -1s l., II.