The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-10-09
WAS THERE EVER,


 which Roosevelt is using his power as President to promote his election &C., tually takes ones breath away His pension order No. 7s. by which. with stroke of his pen. he enlarged the pension rolls indefinitely in size with the plain purpose of bribing the soldier vote to support him; that made the country stare, but as Cleveland and Mckinley had issued orders resembling his, he was able to make out some- thing of a case before the public: though the earlier orders being issued in the early period of the administra- tions of Cleveland and Mckinley, what ever might be said in deprecation, 1t could not be said that the orders were in effect to provide a campaign chest.
 Then came Corteiyou's selection as Chairman of the National Republican Committee. He had been put at the head of Department of government specially created to supervise the oper- ations of corporations in the United States, with the ideaiin view he would procure much secret information about their agreements in restraint of trade. that plans might be devised to break up all illegal combinations amongst them. No one but the President and the head officials of the Department of Commerce and Labor know what was actually discovered: but for more than year, the Department has had a large corps of assistants securing all over the country clothed with authority to make secret examinations into the books of various business enterprises. At the precise time when the man con- ducting these secret inquiries for the government may have been supposed to have learned all he was likely to learn of their unlawful transactions. this man is taken away and put at the head of the National Republican Committee as Chairman, a place the distinctive function of which is fat-frying to get money to buy elections. And Cortel- you, armed with his secret memoranda obtained as a sworn, officer of the na- tional government. is daily proving around the business streets of New York city, demanding contributions to aid in electing a Republican President.
 Now comes the crowning infamy. Henry c. Payne, Postmaster GeneIal. unexpectedly dies. Without a mo- ment's delay 1t is officially given out at Washington that the Republican Chairman will get the job. That he would get 1t eventually. if Roosevelt is elected. was well enough understood but the opportunity offers itself | through a death. to let 1t be specially known at once and so equip the Re- publican manager with yet another weapon, now strengthened, with which to got at the railroads of the country. The relations of these with the Post office Department are of constantly in- creusing importance as the country grows in wealth, resources and busi- | ness. There is a perfect callousness about all this that would make an Andaman Islander blush if he should be found guilty of like offense against the moral law.
 Some Republicans may chuckle at the situation; that their shrewd trickster in the White House knows how to do things and among others to raise money by hook or by crook to be ex- pended in carrying the election. Yet there must and will be day of reck- oning and 1t is daily growing more nrohahle that that dav is to ha Nnvau, Der s, 1904.