The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-03-13
PARKER'S SPEECH.
tcontiaued from page ~

acuOnS, SO That 1t became necessary to
defend, in every possible way, what
had been built up by public favor.
Whenever there was a threat of the
reduction or the loss of tariff duty,
there stood monopoly armed, ready to
defend its privileges. That it ask
ed no questions how this was to he
done is shown by the additions to the
political literature of our country.
From the days when Gen. Fitzpatrick
said that the Indiana voters were
poor, needy, and in debt" down
through those of the ''fat fryer" and
his successors, to those of the recent
insurance scandals, we have witnessed
the progressive development of the lob
ty, and have seen the avowed, deliber-
ate, open, shameless purchase of votes,
still further to strengthen privilege.
Then came the "floater,' dealt with
in blocks" of increasing size, until
to-day there are, in some of our States
lural communities, in some cases coun-
ties to say nothing of cities, where not
less than fourth or a third of their
voters are known to have been open
to the approach of the briber No op-
ponent of this system was either too
lofty or too lowly to escape defeat.
if his protest endangered this privi-
lege. The system was as ready and
as eager to defeat a member OF Con-
gress in some remote district, as it was
to lay low, for time, President of
the United States, or to train all it's
guns at once upon candidate for
governor, whose ability or prominence
had made him dangerous.
Power Of States and Cities Added.
In this progress of privilege, al
most imperial in its rapidity and the
methods employed, the time came
when the opportunities conferred by
the Federal Government were not suf-
ficient to satisfy the growing cohorts
of monopoly. Then the powers of the
states were invoked. Although
the Federal Government create values
by taxation, they could confer powers
and authority upon railroads, street
railways and corporate bodies, often
organized by an abuse of the general
laws, though devised for the encour-
agement and promotion of honest en-
terprise, and they could sanction the
combination which Federal exactions
had made desirable to those who would
stifle home competition. So every
State Legislature became first the re-
sort of lobby, and, when this became
too expensive, the method was chang
ed, and the boss came to his own. Here,
again, not only was the system which
Lad been SO effective in Federal poll
tics, relentlessly applied, but it's power
was added to the forces already in
existence, so that the briber was able
to draw upon new resources, from
field greatly widened, and thus to levy
hlackmail from an enlarged constitu-
ency of victims.
Still privilege grew by what it fed
on; still, with the daughters of the
horseleech, it cried: "Give!" "Give!"
In almost every city and local COM
munity of Importance there were pub
lie franchises and rights. So these
were either given or sold at prices
ridiculously low, nearly always with
out those wise restrictions which pro-
vided for the payment of taxes, or for
renewal on new and more favorable
terms, fair alike to public and to pri-
vate interests. 1t was not long until
the holders of those franchises form
ed alliance with those above them in
rank. From this new source, there
trickled down added rivulets of bribe
money, and other legislative bodies
were opened to manipulation by the
boss. When the vicious circle was
complete, the greater SO included the
less that the so-called organization of
the Republican party had at it's COM
mand every capacious and well-filled
reservoir of political corruption, with
supply pipes draining from them into
every camp where it's favorites were
found.
No Democrats Have Become Real
Bosses. rs ~
1t is one of the natural, but in
teresting and often overlooked, facts
of political history, that, with all the
development of bosses throughout
the country, during the past gener-
alton, there is mo instance where, In
any State, a Democrat has come to the
front with the will and the opportunity
to use. public power or revenues to en-
rich himself, or his henchmen, or his
followers 1t is also true that, in no
more than three or four cities, has this
rank and foul excrescence been able to
gain hold, to grow and to flourish for