The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-09-12
CUMMINGS' KEYNOTE SPEECH THRILLS CONVENTION WITH
 ITS MASTERFUL ORATORY

vir'tuously rejects so gigantic a bribe
 other. Perhaps the transaction can
 be justified under the Biblical injunc- ton Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.''
 l And now one step further. Though
 the World gave public notice of the
 $1oo.o0o contribution, though Mr. l about it and talked ito Mir Knox about it, he still maintains that he tspoke in good faith when he issued.
 his famous retort to Judge Parker.
 This is only important for one req
 son. If when he denounced Judge
 Parker as the author of an infamous l falsehood-he knew that it was not l Judge Parker, but he himself who had put forth the untruth then it would be l adequately to measure and describe so base a deed
 1 Did lie know?
 I have been a member Of the Dem ocratic National Committee for twelve years and if, at any time during that i period any one had contributed $100,-
 have known ft-every member of the Committee would have known it, 1 the very walls of the committee room would have proclaimed it. Is it
 thinkable that any man could be chair man of the Republican National Com nfttee, and spend $1o0.o0o without |
 must have known that he had it and that it had traceable origin and was not the free gift of a little fairy that had mistaken the Republican war chest for the tattered hat of the poor and had dropped in s100.00o unaware.
 And, if MT. CorteIyDu knew, Col. contribution the only one that time has reveafed.
 The Insurance 7Trust contributed
 $50, GOO; the Railreads. through MT
 Steel Trust contributed s1o,000 on ac- count, and MT. Prick was to make
 up the deficit. What other great do--
 nations then were made we do not
 know. Mr.s Roosevelt on Sept. End. 1912, published .18.0e8 W ords of explana- l ton. But he did not tell us what pora tions did in fact contribute to se-
 cure his election in 1904? He now
 says that many corporations did in tiolas had been small a complete list would long since have been published. We are forced to conclude that the were they nnunificent? :? What is the. secret Of these gigantic donations? MT Roosevelt says the corporations were moved by patriotic impulses. But nevertheless the Democratic party and
 it's great leaders. have by constant
 agitation aroused sufficient public in terest to lead to the passage or la,W- putting a check upon such patriotic mpu1ses,' and making them illegal and criminal. We have not had a fair election in this country for eighteen
 years Great corruption funds have
 been accumulated to influence the
 press and to debauch the electorate and have been used for that purpose
 year after year, not as some loose
 thinking and loose speaking people
 have said tby both parties, but by
 the Republican party and by the Re
 publican party alone. [ Our party has been poor through all
 these years. Every man within the sound of my voice knows that this is true. T. have been ina position per- sonalIy to know with what difficulty the national. campaigns have been financed and how hard it has been. to legitimate expenses of the campaign
 Let partisanship make what charges it may, but it cannot truthfully be said that the Democratic party has been guilty of flebauching the electorate or of attempting to buy an election. That sin is a Republican sin. Nor was against it until his vaulting ambition was thwarted at the Republican Con Vention held at Chicago in June. 1912
 The recent Penrose revelations have been sordid and humiliating-hutt they afford us glimpse behind the scenes and show what motives have moved means the American people have been played upon and deceived. Nor can Roosevelt wash his hands clean. Vio- lent language in describing his for mer associates will not avail him. He was then behind the scenes with them. He played the game and managed the rected the manipulation of the spot light. Except for the use of Stand ard Oil money and like funds his cam paign of 1904 might have ended in disaster. In 1912 skipping, with the agility of a tight rope performer from the Rockefeller interests to the Nor gan interests. he used the Perkins and similar funds to secure again the Re- publican nomination
 Is there any one so simple as to sup pose that he would now be ag1Tating the atmosphere with wild cries against bosses and bossism if he had received the regular Republican nom jnation and could have made himself the supreme boss of that party? On up and down the land picturing that I organization as. the only hope of an 1 over-burdened public. The Republi- 1 can party became wicked only because l it denied him a third nomination. Its l practices never scandalized him be- l fore Its bosses never seemed naugh- l ty to him. l
 He has merely tapered down from 1 Platt and Deoew in New York to lit 1 tie Tim Woodruff, and from Quay and | Penrose in Pennsylvania, to Boss Finn l rin1an to the onnnipresent Perkins. l
 Oh, my friends, let them go on. If 1 Taft will only tell all he knows about | Roosevelt and, Roosevelt will only tell 1 of Wilson will be made unanimous!
 Another proof of how lightly he attitude toward a third term In 1904 he said '-The wise custom which l limits the president to two terms re- gards the substance and not the form. and under no circumstances will I pe a candidate for or accept anoSher nomination.
 Should he achieve third term. will this satisfy him, or will it whet his 1 could