The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-06-29
AROUSED AT LAST.

AL last the people OF the city or PM
adelphia seem to have arisen to the con-
sciousness that they and the state of
which they are citizens have been ruled
over by several gangs of public thieves.
all operating under the supreme leader
ship of their senior representative in the
United States senate. After they had
been robbed of valuable public rights.
involving the power to occupy their pub
lie streets, on the surface, underground
and through elevated structures, for pur-
poses Of local street car traffic, and after
the prostitution of the public life of the
entire state had for years been notori-
ously maintained to the ends of Quay
and his followers, they seem at last to
have decided that the time for effective
action has arrived.
The mass meeting held In Philadelphia
on Thursday night is evidently true ex-
preston of the evaporation of public
sentiment at the wrongs perpetrated So
called reform movements have prevailed
at one time and another for the past ten
or fifteen years in that city, and all with
the same result of apparently fastening
still more securely on the popular neck
the yoke of the corrupt sway Of Quay
and his following. But the end evidently
has been reached. When the postmaster
general of the Hanna-McKinley admin
istration feels called on to telegraph his
opposition to the operations of the Quay
syndicate in the terms set forth in the
press dispatches, it seems quite plain
that there is a full assurance somewhere
among the friends and party associates
Of Quay in national politics that the dan
ger line has been reached.
The end aimed at by the mass meeting
in question offers a remedy not for the
fraud and robbery that has been per-
petrated. It has reference only to the
prevention of like frauds in the future 1t
ought not to be impossible for the citi-
zens of Philadelphia to establsh the ex-
istence of fraud in the granting of those
valuable franchises. Fraud vitiates
everything. The great undertaking OF
the hour in Philadelphia ought not to
be merely the turning out of office of
the men who helped thus to despol the
people; but to bring to them the pun
isnment which such a giant crime should
carry with it. 1t is not their defeat at
the polls that ought at this moment to
be under discussion, but the great ques-
ton Of the ways and means whereby the
stolen property shall be recovered and
the thieves sent to Jail for the periods
prescribed by law.
1t is at least Qualifiedly true, as Col.
Mcclure says, that the present struggle
in Philadelphia is not one of party, but
one of self preservation against or
ganized crime, a. corrupt ballot and the
looting of the public treasury But it
is not to be ignored that the organized
crime, the corruption of the ballot and
the Iooting of the public treasury OF
which complaint is made have all been
accomplished through the agents Of the
Republican party, and that the oppor-
tunities to commit such crimes nave
been called into existence in the perpetu-
alton of Republican control in the state
Of Pennsylvania and in the city of Phil
adelphia. The moral depravity represent
ed by Quayism in city and state has re-
suited in this case in the effectuation of
a shocking public crime. 1t would be
foolish to assume, however. especially in
the light of Quays eminence in the ma
tional councils Of his party, that they
find no warrant in the wider field of
nationaI control