Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-27
Philadelphia and National Republicans

Every move in the Philadelphia gas lease
campaign brings more sharply into the
light the fact that the dominant political
machine In that city Is the most shame
lessly corrupt ring in control of any Amer
lean community 1t has for years dehed
public ouinion It has manipulated the
finances of the city for the private ends
of few grafters and their henchmen. 1t
has prostituted the election machinery to
its own base ends. There has not been an
honest election in the city of Philadelphia
for many years Ballot boxes have been
stuffed, gangs of repeaters have marched
the rounds. primaries have been reduced
to a farce. nominations have been sold to
the highest bidders The courts have been
debauched to serve the purposes of the
ring.
The machine operates in the name of the
republican party 1t is for that reason more
brazen. more defiant of law and sent-
ment than the corrupt municipal organiza-
tions of other cities. 1t is more thorough
going in its rascality than Tammany, so
long regarded as the maximum of all that
is wicked in politics. For Tammany mas
always been more or less subject TO the
handicap of state legislature of differ
ent political complexion. In Chicago, too.
the elements of municipal corruption nave
been held in some measure of restraint by
the fact that the state is usually dominated
by the republicans. In Philadelphia, how
ever there is no such possibility OF check-
ing the speed of the city machine. The
state is overwhelmingly republican. The
city machine virtually controls the state
machine The one fosters and protects the
other. The honest citizen of Philadelphia,
outraged and robbed by the corrupt city
ring has 10 redress. with the courts and
the legislature controlled by the men of
graft. who take his taxes and spend them
on measures of fragrant corruption.
This identification of the city and the
state republican parties in Pennsylvania
has often before injured the good name of
the national organization in the view OF
honest Americans. In many ways the cor
ruption that exists so VIGOROUSLY in Phila-
delpha has polluted the party at large ana
affected policies Today there is pros
pect that the gas scandals of Philadelphia
and the other disclosures of crookedness
there in the name of a municipal republic
can party will seriously react upon the
party of the nation.
The republican party is today skating
toward some very thin ice. Between its
stand-pat policy. indicated to date by
its leaders in Congress and by some of
those outside, and its dissemination to ad-
vance a step in the matter of regulating
the railroad rates, or otherwise practically
curbing the worst evils of the trusts,
it is weakening the public faith in its good
intent. its purpose to attack these questions
with determination to reach the wisest So
luton for the good of all classes. 1t can
not afford TO be identified with the powers
of corruption, however great or small. 1t
cannot indefinitely win the suffrages of the
people if it fosters. by its name or by its
performances. such outrages upon the peO-
pie as those that are now being disclosed
in Philadelphia.
The citizens who stand behind Mayor John
Weaver in Philadelphia are average Ameri-
cans, men of affairs. men of property, of
good sense, of clear vision and of honest in
clinations. They can see through a mill
stone that is pierced They know the inner
workings, too, of the great graft game.
They know that the ramfied lines of corrup-
ton and unwholesome influence that spread
from the municipal ring into all branches of
local business have their cOunterparts in the
ramihed lines of influence that spread from
national party standing for the protection
of the oppressive trusts. Therefore this
Philadelphia fight against corruption may
have a national significance far beyond the
issue of the gas lease or the ousting of the
ring or the Impeachment of Mayor Weaver
And the sooner the leaders of the republican
party Of the country at large see the hand
writing on the wall and take warning the
better for it and. perhaps, for the nation.