Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1902-02-20
WILL THEY CORRUPT TINE STATED

The discussion of the report Of the Com
mittee on Corporations has been in the
main dispassionate. The speech of the
chairman of the committee was singuiarly
so. But one note has been struck by Mr..
Hunton, speaking for the corporations,
and hy the attorneys of record who APP
peared before the committee at its public
hearings, that may well give us pause. 1t
is intimated in a manner more or less thin
ly veiled that if any real attempt is made
to control them that they will debauch
the politics of Virginia, that they will see
that corruption creeps into high places,
that they will produce condition of af-
fairs which will make us wish that the
Constitutional Convention had never been
born.
If this is the position those institutions
are going to assume the sooner the issue is
made up the better. We do not believe
that the politics of Virginia can be de-
bauched We do not believe that this old
State with all her high traditions is for
sale. We do believe that any who try
tn iule it by corruption and bribery will
l We to rue the day that such an ignoble
dream of evil found Judgment in their
minds.
Connected with our corporate enierpris.
es are many of our best and purest citizens.
Men to whom the very suggestion of such
a thing is abholrent, and it is due to them
selves and to the interests that they repre-.
rent that they come forward and say: we
have been and are law abiding citizens,
We have opposed and will oppose the
enactment of laws which we believe viii |
hunt us, but every law upon our statute
books while it is written there shall have
our loyal support, and we scorn the sug-
gestion that We might seek its repeal by
corruption. This is the time to speak.
God save the Commonwealth. stanton
Spectator,
Can it be possible that the Spectator is
SO young in tie politics of Virginia that it
does not know, or its memory is so faulty
that it has forgotten, that it has moi than
once been asserted that the Corporations
had debauched the politics of the Demo.
cratic party. 1t was openly charged by
the friends of General Fitzhugh Lee that
tie Legislature elected in 1893 was de.
hauched by money furnished by the rail-
roads. The Spectator ought to recall tine
fact that the lnvestigalion-went far enough
in the General Assembly to establish that
fact, but that party policy demanded that
the investigation should stop.
We know our contemporary is not as
obtuse as it would seem to be. 1t must
suspect, if it does not know, that very
large part of the campaign funds of the
Democratic party in Virginia, at each cleo.
ton, is furnished by the corporations. OIL
course the soulless corporations have no
Interior motive for contributing to the
Democratic campaign fund. Il
Besides, one of the strongest reasons
that was urged for holding Constitutions.
al Convention was to get rid of corruption
and debauchery in politics. Even in the
last campaign all the Democratic speakers,
including Attorney General Anderson, de-
clared that corruption had become q can
kering sore in Virginia politics. n
When Governor Tyler signed the bill
ordering an election for delegates to Con.
stitutional Convention. he exclaimed:
GOD Save Commonwealth" Just as the
Spectator does at the close of the above ar
ticle from It's columns. What 10 you sup
pose provoked the exclamation by Gov.
ernor Tyler? 1t must have been his ap
prehension that the fraud, corruption and |
debauchery that had heretofore existed III
Virginia. under authority of statute law
were TO he reinforced and intensified by
the new organic law.