The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-04-07

compensation offered for three votes
by Clark, who was finally elected. He
is mine owner and speculator, of i'm
mense wealth, who lives in New York
city, where he is about to build a
palace, and one of the ornaments of
the picture gallery will be a painting
FOR which he paid $42,0 600 few months
ago. In the final round up II republi-
can members of the legislature voted
for him. securing his election. Is any
one credulous enough to believe that
those IL republicans betrayed their
party and abandoned its candidate
without compensation? Had Clark
been miner with pick. instead of a
mining Croesus, would he hold the
credentials as the senator from Mon
tana?
= after a long. unseeming wrangle,
with much recrimination, the legisla-
ture OF Utah has adjourned without
electing senator, depriving the demo-
Gratis of a vote.
THE legislature of California had a
still more disgraceful session, in which
the corrupt use of money was openly
exposed, and has adjourned, leaving a
vacancy, which is a republican loss.
''In Pennsylvania, the second state in
the union. with a legislature republican,
months have been wasted in a most de-
grading wrangle between Quay and his
lock, with humiliating Investigations
rejecting upon the honor and integrity
of the whole commonwealth. Mean
while the term has expired and Penn
sylvania has but one senator
I'm Kentucky. two years ago, the
fight over Backburns successor came
| near precipitating civil war and ended
| in discreditable compromise.
George H. Pendleton was candi-
| date for reelection in 1885, and the un-
| doubted choice of the democracy of
| Ohio for the succession. He was de-
| feated by Henry 3. Payne, everybody
| knows how.
Another phenomenon in the same
state was the election of Calvin S. Brice
| to the senate. He was practically a
resident of New York. He had no train
ing in public affairs. During the six
years of his incumbency he was as
dumb as the sheep before the shearers,
and opened not his mouth But he was
a practical business man, a 'fXer,' and
| he fixed the Ohio legislature with the
| same calculating composure that he
| employed in fixing boards of railroad
| directors. The people of Ohio were not
| consulted. The performance was sar-
| donic travestX on representative self
government.
when the senate was organized in
| 1889. 10 states We're represented with
| 20 senators. In 1903 Tucker said in de-
bate that the number would probably
| never exceed so. There are now 80 SEN
| ators from a. states, with New MeXiXco,
| Arizona. Oklahoma. the Indian Terri
tory. Cuba Porto Rico. Hawaii and the
Philippines in posse
1.-The time has come for the people to
| resume their power. There is no rea-
| son why senators should not be chosen,
as the governors of states are elected,
| by plurality vote at the polls. at the
| general election in November preceding
the expiration of the term There
would then be no deadlocks, no futile
sessions wasted in factional fights, nc
| wholesale corruption, no dark horses,
| no tongue-tied monopolists in the seats
| of the mighty.
| This does not imply that the ma
| 1ority of the senatorial elections are
| not clean. nor that constituencies are
not in general honorably represented
nor that the public service of the coun-
| try is not upon high plane of moral
ity, but recent developments have re
| suited in an unmstakable distrust OF
the method of choosing senators by leg
islatures and an equally strong sentl-
ment in favor of their election by the
direct vote of the people.
| Not the least of the evils attending
the present system is the demoraliza-
| ton of the sordid and mercenary ele-
| ers the pirates and brigands, who
| make politics trade, and are fol
sale to whoever will pay the most
money.
Sir Robert Walpole. who had prob
ably more experience in the purchase
of legislators than any other gentle
man of his time, always insisted with
somewhat brutal candor that such
transactions were justitiable from the
moral standpoint, because, if a member
of parliament was for sale, unless you
bought him, the other side would, and
then the wrong might triumph.
This is ingenious and consoling
Perhaps it is not wholly devoid OF
truth Sometimes We must do evil that
good may come, but the prayer of the
politician should be not to be led into
temptation"
SIS reward to any one proving that E.
| Dor OF II