The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-09-11
MONEY IN POLITICS.

closure of the immense campaign fund raised by the Republican com mittee three years ago to elect the presidential ticket and the demand now being made that Secretary Cor telyou, who was and still is chairman of the national committee, shall resign from the cabinet He certainly should resign from one of the offices he holds, but which one Is largely a matter of taste. If he should resign from the party chairmanship there would be no impressive reason why he should re- tire from public life altogether The fact that he raised huge sum of money from the big corporation in- terests can scarcely be said to dis qualify. him from public office. If that rule should be enforced generally public life would be robbed of many, if not most of it's leaders.
 The impression made nevertheless by the disclosure that the campaign CTS three years ago were hand in glove with the captains of industry is sickening, perhaps more so because of the indignant denials which were made at the time that such fund ex- isted and because of MT. Cortelyous attitude to-day. The more one consid- CTS the invasion of the ranks of the multi-millionaires and the specially favored corporations the more diff cut 1t becomes to reconcile the situa- ton with anything approaching a conscientious management of political affairs. Chauncey M. Depew with his characteristic fiippancy calls the pres- ent agitation ancient history" but more serious men will agree that knowledge. such as is now reaching the public of the dreadful waste of moral sense in the conduct of politi- cal campaigns, must lead to a scandal as bad in it's way as that created by the insurance exposures. It is impos- sible for one thing to reconcile the huge contributions of these million aires and corporations with a patriotic desire to serve the country, even granting that in an earlier campaign the fear of the radicalsm of MT. Bryan may have inspired that senti- ment. Three years ago the Democrats nominated a man of first class integri- ty and conservatism. To have felt the need of using an independent fortune to defeat him was to admit that the extravagant expenditure of money to achieve an end was political princi- pie to be utilized. Judge Parker bold ly charged the misuse of money and was branded as liar in consequence.
 These are the facts which no amount of explaining will explain away They point indisputably to the extravagant use of money in political campaigns for an indefinite time and they substantiate the belief that cleo tions have been purchased over and over again with money given by those who have had selfish reasons for ob- taining the good will of the party in power. It will be remembered that the insurance officials admitted in the course of the investigation that they had had no idea of wrongdoing when they used the money of other people to finance get-rich schemes, but the general public was not fooled for 8 moment It may be that these multi millionaires meant no harm wher they undertook to finance politica campaign, but the general public has no such pleasant delusions on tho subject The wrath of the public fol. lowing the insurance disclosures brought with it it's own fearful conse duences to individuals who until ther stood high in the estimation of tht public. It remains to be seen what ef feet the wrath will have which vii surely follow the disclosures of DO litical inhdelltS When the truth i fully established, as now it must be 
 that our political campaigns havu been conducted on dishonest plans and when in addition the demoraliz ing effect of such corrupt systen on the public health is appreciated a way will be found to put an end t
 political leadership of that character The great American people are hon
 est at heart and live honest lives. Le them become convinced, as they mus now be convinced, that corrupt meth
 ods of polling the popular will ar
 preferred by their political manager
 to decent methods and something wi
 be seen to drop. The very silence c
 those who could give the necessar