The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-12-24
BELMONT'SP PAPER
Rich New Yorker Launches a
Journalistic Enterprise.
1t FaYOrs Income Tax and
Fights the Trusts.
AGAINST FREE SILVER
sThe Verdict is Patterned At
ter Puck and Judge.
Declares Bryan Himself to Be a
Worthy Man.
AGAINST FREE SILVER

New York, Dec. 24-Oliver H. P. Bel
mont is the latest Richmond to enter
the field of journalism. He comes with
sword unsheathed, and his mission is
partly social, as will be seen later on
Mr.. Belmont is the proprietor and
editor of a new weekly illustrated pa
per, patterned after Puck and Judge,
called THE Verdict" the first number
of which has just been issued.
The real power behind the throne,
however, is Mrs. Belmont, who, it will
be remembered, obtained a divorce from
William K. Vanderbilt several years
ago under sensational circumstances.
The attitude of The Verdict toward the
Vanderbilt family is evidenced by the
leading cartoon in the first number OF
the paper. This cartoon shows Cor
nelius Vanderbilt as an organ grinder
with J. PierpOnt Morgan standing along
side with a tambourine in one hand
and a string in the other. Attached to
the string is a monkey, bearing the face
of Chauncey NJ. Depew. The monkey
is looking up at Thomas G. Platt, who
leans from a window with a penny in
his hand labeled 'Senatorship."
Referring editorially to the Wander
bits and DR.. Depew, the paper says:
LAS becomes wealth that is wide
awake and aware of itself, the Wander
biltian treasure enlisted an army of
footmen, buffers and Wallets. Among
its front rank dOOr-SlammerS was and
is Depew, the candidate for senatorial
hOnors.''
Mr. Belmont is a member of the bank
ing firm of August Belmont & Co. AL
fred Henry Lewis is the active editor
of The Verdict, but the salutatOry is
the handiwork of the owner The fol-
lowing declaration of policy is made:
In politics The Verdict will stand
for the principles of Democracy, as it
understands them, and for truth, as the
latter finds display. It Will, before an
election, care more for a man than a
measure. 1t will read a list of candi-
dates twice before it reads your plat
form once. The Verdict will be a Dem
Ocrat But no one need cOnstrue that
to mean that it will support bad man
for place.
This paper is against free silver 16
to 1; put a pin there-against free silver
at any ratio. 1t is not for Bryan in
1900 It will do all that truth and honor
may to prevent the selection of either
the man or the issue in the next ma
tional convention. But there are worse
things than free silver 16 to 1; and
worse men than Bryan, who is himself
worthy enough and comes only to be
a menace as the exponent of free silver;
and the Verdict is free to say, as 1t
stands on the threshold of an existence
which shall at the worst be an honest
one, that should Bryan and free silver
again find Democratic adoption, it will
support them both.
1.-The Verdict favOrs an income tax,
as a measure at once honest, fair equal
and just to all. An income tax is as
direct as a bullet.
Those trade deadfalls and dollar
traps, the trusts, The Verdict believes,
should be smashed. They make the rich
richer and the poor poorer. The locusts
of Egypt were a mOuthless brood to
thenI On half the streets of New
York city the citizen is no better than
a tolerated treSpasser, while the tele-
phone and telegraph and street railway
companies are the true, real lords of
the soil. Such should have their claws
cut and the manicuring should be short
and sharp and gone about at once"