The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-01-26
Get the Cash !

| scheme for checks and bonds,
the Standard limited to the men
who are taking brides from w. A. Clark
to demand the cash-the gold or the
bank notes, and not to tangle them
selves up in any anonymous check
deals The Miner calls this talk vi
cious; but, then, of course, Mr.. Clark's
| own newspapers may be expected not
to relish any references to w. A.
| Clarks million-dollar bribery opera
tons in the legislature of Montana.
1t may have been super1uous on the
Standards part to throw out hint to
the bribe-takers respecting the manner
and method of payment to them.
Doubtless they will all insist on the
cold cash, although. as the Standard
remarked. the other way suits Clark
better. He learned a lesson when his
$4,000 in bank notes were passed over
to the state. That money is Clark's
dead loss-the Standard hopes that the
legislature will appropriate it for the
endowment of the chair of american
History and American Citizenship" in
the state university-although we have
no doubt that the thirst Clark's sup
porters have developed for dishonest
money will prompt them to vote tie
thirty thousand to themselves, before
tt1Iy rot
Clark lives constantly in fear that
some other man who gets hold of his
money will hand it over to the state
and give the bribers away. If he can
fix it so that his hard cash isn't thus
lost to him in ten thousand dollar lots,
of course he'll do it.
Ut is not forgotten that early in the
fight the bank bills had been passed
out with such reckless lavishness That
the stock actually ran low. AS good
a man as lives in Montana, as respect
ed and as honorable, is on record in a.
sworn statement which every citizen Of
Montana has read and which, up to this
hour, no Clark briber has questioned in
which this testimony appears:
Welcome said to me: 81 haven't got
the currency now; we have paid out so
mucn and have used up all the big bills
we could find in the Helena banks, but it
is all right; we will turn the money over
to Whiteside for you"
told him I had no doubt that thew
would, but I wasn't going to do business
in that way, and they We have to pro-
duce the money and let me count it to see
that it was right and 1 would seal it up
and turn it over to Whitesde in his
presence, after marking the envelope SO
that l could identify 1t in case anything
happened to Vhiteside Mr.. Welcome
then said that the "old man. (meaning
w. A. Clark of Butte, would be in on
the evening train and he wou.. bring with
him lot of currency in large bills, and
that he would see me again that evening
and fix it up.
1 then left the room and about half
4, 1899 Whiteside came to me and said
that Welcome wanted to see me. Mr..
Whiteside and myself went together to
iooAi Eo1 III lie T1eietla motel. ana after
talking a little while Mr.. Welcome took
me over into the corner, took an envelope
out of his pocket, took out bunch of
bills and said there was $4,000 there,
took the bills and counted them over and
there were ten $1,000 bills. placed them
back in the envelope and wrote my mi
tials on the seal flap.
That was early in the game and even
then the stock of bills was low. Mean
while the changes have been great. At
that time the price for man was ten
thousand dollars, and Clark was buy
ing up members with as little con-
science or self-respect in the matter as
a pork packer has in buying hogs. But
the price for a man has so rapidly ad-
vanced that those to whom Clark re-
fuses thirty thousand dollars put their
fingers to their nose. 1t takes a lot of
bills; but the bride takers won't &C
cept any form of negotiable paper.
Current Inmment