Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1898-09-21
! COMPROMISING SECRETS.
LIN Some European Countries They Are
Sources of Some Mems Power.

In Some European Countries They Are
Sources of Some Mems Power.
Perhaps no stronger illustration
OF tae power conferred by the
knowledge of compromising secrets
need he cited than the Immunity
enjoyea by Nj, Daniel Wilson, the
Bon-in law of the late President
Grevy While living at the Elysee
he made use of his advantages as
son-in ts,w of the president and
Chairn of the parliamentary
budget committee to obtain from
the col l.laisant project of police, as
we'll as from the minister of the in
terror the day, copies, and in some
eases The originals, of what are
known Us the "dossiers' of nearly
FO.OC0 Il his fellow countrymen con-
spicuous in every walk of French
life. When subsequently indicted
as principal in those disgraceful
Legion of Honor scandals which
caused The downfall of his fathers
5n-law and the condemnation of his
associates to various terms of i'm
Frison1H ent, he himself escaped all
YunisL MCnt, thanks to the posses
SION ot these dossiers, which he
threatened to publish abroad if any
atte,npa were made to imprison
him.
The Gossiers are nothing more or
less than the result of secret police.
invest alton of the shadows on the
lives OF. prominent men, the infor
matioi hus obtained being largely
supplel ented by means of more or
less ant ymous denunciations. In
deed the. e is an entire branch of the
Parisian police force exclusively
sempluy2t in making up dossiers,
which often cover 90 and 80 years,
and it r ny readily be imagined how
great is the power which those pos
sess no have access to these dos
SiCrS.
That explains better than any
thing else why ambitious and un-
ScrupuloEs statesmen usually prefer
the portfolio of the interior depart
ment to any other seat in the cabinet
and why the chief commissioner
ship of the Partisan police has of
date become the stepping stone to
the highly paid embassadorship t.
the coErt of Vienna and to the
equally lucrative and magnificent
yiceroyalty of Algeria. There is
no statesman more hated in France
than M Costans, whose political
and administrative actions have
been so utterly regardless of public
opinion, and, one might add, of pub
Tic requirements. Yet no one ven
lures to attack him. His frequent
possession of the portfolio of the in
terror department and the access
which he enjoyed while there to the
dossiers Of the prefecture Of police
have placed in his hands power
which every one of his many foes is
force 70 take into account and to
dread.
In G1l many, in Austria, and espe-
cially in Italy, the knowledge of
skeleton IN the closets of public men
: recos Dized as an instrument of
.,oliticai warfare, and it is not so
many years ago that a member of
the opposition almost caused min,
isterial crisis at Rome by suddenly
bringing to light in the senate the
fact that one of its most venerable
and universally respected members,
the Senator Achille del Guidice, the
most intimate friend of ex-Premier
Grispi, and knight grand cross
of the Order of st. Maurice and ST.
Lazarus, had quarter of century
previously served not one but three
terms OF penal servitude for forgery
and embezzlement. = Washington
Pest ~.
Total Abstinence Mt Sea. kiatS