Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1909-12-21
Where Lies The Sham

WAere Lies The Sha me?
Taxing the endurance and challeng-
ing the intelligence of his constituency.
George p. Hambrecht, a member of
The assembly from Wood county with
congressional aspirations, has taken
occasion to write letter to The Wau-
sau Record-Herald in which he gives
vent to the chagrin and humiliation
with which he has been oppressed
since there was manifested in the
legislature a disposition to inquire in
to the methods end means that were
employedto procure for Uncle Ike the
primary nomination for United States
senator. 81 look" he recalls with his
cheeks burning with shame and his
hand quivering with the palsy of
stricken pride, ''upon the attempted
reputation of the results of the pri-
mary election law by the last legisla-
ture, in so far as it pertained to che
election Of a United States senator, as
positively disgraceful."
The people of Wood county, we take
it, are not different from the
people of Brown county or Dane
county, or Milwaukee county, or
any other county in the state. We
may inquire, then, if they feel in any
sense that they were disgraced by the
attempt of the legislature to probe
into the confessed expenditure of over
100000 by Isaac Stephenson to obtain
the nomination-net the election-to
the office of United States senator?
is there any one, excluding Mr.. Ham
brecht and possibly w. d. Connor, in
Wood county who feels that it would
have been else than creditable to the
state of Wisconsin if the legislature,
after the fact of the Stephenson
deluge of money had been disclosed,
had.declined to elect him to the office
on the ground that his nomination
was without moral force?
The people of Wood county, no
doubt, are familiar with the sicken-
ing disclosures made in the course of
the investigation. They recall that
the report of Mr.. Stephenson's cam
paign secretary showed that among
the members of the legislature to
share in the deluge was even the
speaker of the assembly. Without
taxing their memory, they may recol-
lect that he was the recipient of $500,
and that when he appeared before the
investigation committee he declined
to make public the uses made of the
money, under the plea of protecting
his friends. He said:
There seems to have been a dispo-
sition here for people not to protect
their friends, but / want to protect
mine to that extent. don't know
what they did with the money and |
don't care, and | don't think it is any
of your business
The speakers friends were protected
to the utmost of his ability, but did
he avert disgrace from the people of
Wisconsin? And yet this man Ham
brecht is Inundated by "the disgrace
to the state because they were men,
beers of the legislature that refused to
be delivered over to Isaac Stephenson
and demanded that ne should come
before it with clean hands and a clear
title to his nomination.
What are we to think of such impu-
dence, assurance and eTrontery!
When we recall that from one end
of the state to the other the trail of
money left contamination and shame
in its wake, What brazen thing it is
for a member of the legislature to
speak of the disgrace" to the state
in the effort to prevent the sower from
reaping save as he had sown.-Mil-
waukee Journal.