The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-04-25

one member of the senate and no more. | A small town of a few hundred people is as powerful in the senate as is Prov
 idenee, a city of one hundred and sev- enty-five thousand people.
 There is a similar unfairness in the constitution of the house. The ''boss' l of the republican party owns the senate by procuring the election of his politi- cal parasites and tools, and he is thus l able to enact his will into state laws. The governor has no veto power and no nominations can be confirmed that
 are hostile to the 'boss'' and his politi-
 cal mercenaries. This republican party
 boss" with immoral audacity, con-
 fesses that he is the professional lob-
 byist for various jobbing corporations, but insists that it Is stipulated in his bond of service that he will never do anything injurious to the welfare of the republican party. It was the corrupt Talleyrand who saia;h"I confess that
 I was not true toEthea republic; I was
 not true to the direetory: was not
 true to Napoleon, but I was always
 true to France"
 LhE Stiioil tpWatS Ol IbtlOuE Ibtdtu dIu
 Connecticut are described as exceed
 ingly venal to-day, and the situation
 in Delaware is described as so hopeless
 of reform that Addicks is reported as
 sure of an election two years hence
 One of the justices of the Delaware su-
 preme court is. reported as saying:
 If we could stop this thing now, this
 population has become 80 corrupt that
 1t won't get over it in whole genera
 tion." Professor McCook, in recent
 address before the Massachusetts Re-
 form club. said that, in his judgment,
 in Connecticut there are at least thirty
 thousand purchasable voters, a body
 large enough to hold the balance of
 power a venal vote that is well dis
 tributed among the cities and rural
 towns. It is true that there is still much vote buying in Indiana; 1t Is
 true that the money of rich men like Senator Clark has corrupted the electo-
 rate of Montana, but the record of the old states of Rhode Island, Delaware and Connecticut betrays the presence of quite as low a state of political mos rality as exists in Montana, a new state, thinly populated. of vast area, containing large mining population that is naturally controlled by great
 mine owners of the quality of Senator Clark. The voters of Pennsylvania must be venal to a large extent or Quay could not have succeeded in making them register his will at every important election.
 The, new state of Montana does not present so hopeless a picture of politi- cal venality as is found in the record we have recited of the old states of the east. During the last twenty years the political morality of the Pacific states has clearly improved, The time has been when vote-buying and corruption were practiced without any attempt at ooncealment. Money was openly paid for votes; policemen helped escort the venal voters to the polls and saw that the purchased ballot was deposited. Within the last fifteen years this open vote-buying and prostitution of the po- lice to the polling of purchased votes has ceased to be in evidence. The spec tacle of the man with the sack" deal- ing out the price of purchase to one voter after another is no longer seen. The Pacific coast states have improved in political morality, while several of the old states of the extreme east are more corrupt than they have ever been before in their whole history.
 When remedies are discussed for this state of things the reform clubs of the east seem to be hopeless of any reform that can be accomplished through leg islation. Eternal vigilance is the. price of liberty, but when there is more or ganized venality than there is eternal vigilance" liberty is likely to be bound hand and foot by the bribe-takers. The voters of New England have great ly changed in character within fifty years through the adrnixture of very large foreign element. There are more ich and powerful corporations, who do not hesitate at bribery to secure valua- ble franchises anr concessions from the state. Doubtless legislatures and indi- viduaI voters at the east are exposed to far more temptations than they were fifty years ago. There are more rich corporations that can afford to pay lib- J erally for votes, and there are more rich opportunities for paying invest ments which can be realized through l