The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-01-10
IN AN AIR POISONED WITH. DOODLE
After Desperate It. the Investigation
Goes On-Certain Men Who Were Talking Loud Brought
Suddenly to Ominous Silence Result
Awaited With Deepest Interest.
Special Dispatch to the Standard.

Special Dispatch to the Standard
Helena, Jan. 9.-There are some long
faces in Helena tonight. Like an cleo
trio shock, like clap of thunder from
clear sky the realization has come to
number of people here that bribery is
crime, and that men who engage in
bribery are criminals. Some men have
suddenly awakened to a realizing
sense of the fact that the man who
gives money to buy seat in the United
States senate is a criminal and owes
to the law term in the penitentiary.
Some have awakened suddenly to a
realization of the fact that the man also
who carries the bribe from the bribe-
giver to the bribe-taker-is a criminal
and, if he receives his deserts, he will
be punished Some have awakened to
the fact that the man who accepts the
bribe to vote for some one for United
States senator is criminal as we'll
guilty souls with sickly smiles on their
faces standing in the corners of the
lobby of the Helena hotel tonight who
would give half their lives had they.
never set foot in this town.
Last week the matter of bribery was
treated -in~as joeular sort of way. In
a joking manner one member of the leg
fslature would ask of another member
well, how much have you been Of
fered?", or, Have you got next to the
barrel yet?' That was last week. But
the subject of bribery is no longer
joke and no longer is the matter treat
ed in a facetious way. All in an in
stant, the question has become serious,
and that is why there are long faces
in this town tonight.
The lobby of the Helena hotel is
singing a different tune now. The
henchmen and the heelers who have
thronged it, and who have insulted
honest men with the offer of dollars for
their honor, are not joking any more.
For the whisper has just passed from
one end of the lobby to the other, from
one street corner to the other that the
joint investigating committee appoint
ed in the legislature this afternoon has
absolutely secured evidence enough to
send dozen bribe-givers and bribe-
takers to the Deer Lodge penitentiary.
Yesterday, the question among the
members of the legislature was, "who
has been bribed?', who is the latest to
sell his vote with his honor for a mil
lionaire's gold? But tonight the ques-
tion is. "Who has been found out?"
Who has, indeed? Rather, it might be
asked, who has not been found out For
the loud-mouthed heelers and bribers
who have monopolized attention for
weeks, who came to Helena to elect
Clark to the United States senate, who
openly boasted this morning that they
had 81 votes bought up, are talking in
whispers this evening, and they are
trying to figure out who is the one who
has blundered or whether all have not
blundered.
The resolution for the appointment
of committee to investigate the
charges which have been made in re-
gard to bribery in connection with the
contest for senator, passing the senate
easily enough, met with a strange and
unaccountable opposition in the house
1t has been heralded from one end of
the United States to the other that
bribery is being used to influence voters
in the senatorial contest. 1t has been
published not only in the Montana
newspapers, it has been printed in the
newspapers of New York and Chicago,
of San Francisco, Denver, Salt Lake
and the special correspondents have
telegraphed it TO almost every news
paper of prominence in this country.
Yet when the proposition is to have
the charges of bribery investigated,
when the effort is made to ascertain
whether or not there is truth in these
charges, the attempt meets, strangely
enough, with bitter opposition. oppo-
sition which in fact lacked little of be-
ing successful. Why should any hon
est man fear an investigation? What
possible harm could an investigation
do to those whose skirts are clean?