The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-03-08
LORIMER'S
RISE in
POLITICS
A Newsboy at Ten, He Later
3uilt up a Machine of Demo-
Gratis, Being Himself a Lone
some Republican = "Hinky
Dink" and o her Celebrities
Who Became His Lasting
Friends
(From the New York Post.)

esting story as TOLD Dy senator LORI
mer, in the speech he delivered in the
Senate at Washington last week in de.
fence of his right to retain his seal
In that body as a representative o.
the State of Illinois. But he Wen
far beyond that, portraying as he did
test for political power and advance
ment That Lorimer has since beer
decided to have been elected by prop
or and legal means, even if he die
4 have the help and the votes of fifty.
three Democratic members of the IL.
linois Legislature, does not lessen the
interest in the pictures he drew OF
q modern politicians progress.
That suspicion should have attach
ed to this Democratic support of a
Republican candidate appeared to
iamaze him. If to have Democrats
admire you and vote for you was a
crime, then he was guilty-and proud
Of It.
connection, ''f the securing of Dem
ocratic votes is an evidence of wrong
doing. then have been doing wrong
for the past twenty-five years. If the
securing Of Democratic votes, either
for myself or for my party or for the
candidates Of my party, is an evil
dence of corruption, then 1 have beer
a corruptionfst ever since I was a
boy.
Il was brought up in a Democratic
neighborhood, and the very thing that
took me into politics was not the hope
Of political preferment, but that i
was Republican, and that me was
In0body In the precinct the day that
i went to cast my first vbte for Jas
q. Blaine with a Republican ticket in
his hand to give me to cast.
"AIl the precincts around my home
were made up solidly of Democrats
1900 Democratic votes and two or three
Republican votes-not enough mem
beers Of my party in a precinct to fill
mp the quota Of judges and clerks and
ticket peddlers on election day
II was only twenty-four years old
them, and / voted for Blaine, and !
doubt II there was a more enthusiast
tic Blaineite In this country than i
pointed than / was with his defeat,
| and concluded if all the country
was managed in my party as the ter
Exitory that I lived in was managed,
that In itself, applied to New York,
was enough to defeat Blaine for the
! Presidency.
Tho Making Of Republicans.
81 made up my mind that that
would never happen in my election
precinct again. So 1 began to or
ganize-not to become a leader of
my party, but to take care of my
own precinct two days in a year, and
ZEE that the ballots were there for
Republicans; and then the other pre-
cincts were organized, because once
the political virus is injected into
the white man there is no telling
where he will stop. And so I went
that, and how-with Republicans :.
No: there were no Republicans there.
With Democrats, young men of my
age who had never been tied up to
their party. but thought they were
Democrats because their good fathers
were Democrats. And they joined
with us and we organized one pre-
cinct after another until the whole
ward was organized, and we did not
go out calling Democrats names.
I'VE did not abuse Democrats We
told them the things that our party
stood for and we asked them to join
US on that account, and after while,
with energy and industry, we had a
cinct in the ward, and we were not
in politics, or at least we did not
know we were.
But we had not been in politics
over two years until we sent Re-
, publican Alderman to the council
from that ward, and that organization
spread from that ward to other wards
: until the Republican leaders of our
county began to look to that section
of the county for their Republican
Ninety per cent. of the Democrats,
whether they were for me or not, will
tell you that they would rather have
Lorimer in Congress or Lorimer any
place that he wants to go than any
man in their own party. AS I have
stated before 1T is not because I have
ever deceived Democrat. No DEM
ocrat ever thought that I would vote
with his party when he voted for me-
Senator Lorimer then told of one
'Democrat-who had told him, just
before the election, that, although he
lived In Democratic county, where
1T IL hard to forgive Democrat if
vote for Lorimer provided the latter
would vote with ethe Democrats in
Congress In the matter of the Tariff
bill. Lorimer refused, adding a lit
tie later on in his speech:
rs it an evidence of corrupting
Democrats to vote for me? If it is
then. Mr.. President, have a trail of
scorruptfng Democrats following me
over my career of twenty-five years"
As His Power Grew.
Continuing his account of his rise
in politics. Mr.. Lorimer said.
'And it was not long before the
leaders of the party all over the
county looked to our territory, and
without knowing it, or rather with
out realizing it, and surely not know
ing the reason why, / was pushed
forward and made the leader of that
my party.
IT do not know whether Senators
understand what that means who do
not live in a large city and a large
county. In our city and in our coun-
ty in those days we had at the dispo-
sal of the party that was in power
anywhere from $4,000 to $1,000 pla-
ces, according to the seasons of the
year, and when the Republican par
ty came into control of the city for
the first time in my career in 1879 the
disposition of all the patronage in
that section of town fell into my
hands.
81 knew nothing about it. To be
truthful, / did not know what to do
with it. I disposed of it as best 1
could. and it was disposed of among
the people in our neighborhood, and
these young men that came from
Democratic families into our party
were chiefly the recipients of what
We had, and from that time to this no
ever came to my office to ask me to
do him a favor, little or big, unless
it was a strictly party matter, that
i ever asked him what his politics
was.
81 do not know and I cannot know
whether / properly carried out my
obligations in the disposition of those
places or not j do not know what
people would think about them but
do know the territory from which
come, and if they were bought with
money 1 would have been compelled
to buy them by the tens of thousands,
and. according to the theory that is
commended for here, it would have cost