The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-08-12

we passed through q political cam paign in which materialism wal preached as creed and selfishness as a national duty. All the forces of dis content were marshalled and the em bers of every smoldering hate were famed into burning flame. We have eaten of the fruit of the tree that was planted and it has been bitter in the mouths of even the most indifferent. speak with restraint when 1 say that il has brought forth corruption in high places; favoritism in legislation; divi sion and discord in party councils; i'm potence in government and hot strug gle for profit and advantage which has bewildered us at home and humiliated us abroad. For all these things tho party now in power cannot escape the responsibility that is its due. No re pentance at the eleventh hour and nc promise of reform can cancel half q line of the indisputable facts.
 The time demands plain speaking. It is not a welcome tnsk to recount the multiplied scandals of these melancholy years: A senator of the United States convicted of corrupt practice in the purchase of his senatorial seat; sec retary of the interior in return for bribes granting away the naval oil re- serves so necessary to the security of the country; a secretary of the navy ignorant of the spoliatiOn in progress if not indifferent to it; an attorney general admitting bribe-takers to the department of justice, making them his boon companions and utilizing the agencies of the law for purposes of private and political vengeance chief of the veterans bureau stealing and helping others to steal the millions in money and supplies provided for the relief of those defenders of the nation most entitled to the nations gratitude and care. Such crimes are too gross to be forgotten or forgiven.
 l do not believe that the millions of sincere and patriotic men and women who have composed the rank and file of the republican party are more ready to condone these and similar offenses or to pardon the offenders than those of other political faiths. Indeed, their indignation has perhaps sharper edge, for it is coupled wifh the chagrin that must folloY from the knowledge that under authority issued in their name corrupt men have crept to places of power and then betrayed the trust that placed them there.
 Not An Executive Act.
 There are circumstances, however, which spread responsibility for the effect of these things upon the public confidence beyond the list Ofsthe crimi- nals themselves. There is, first, the fact that the revelation of these crimes was not the result of any action taken by the executive. No burning indigna- tion there put in train the forces of and of punishment. The disclosures came only as the result of the painstaking effort of faithful pub lie servants in the legislative branch of the government who could not close their eyes even when others chose to ylumber.'- Again, when discovery was threatened, instead of aid and assist ance from the executive branch there were hurried efforts to suppress testi- mony, to discourage witnesses, to spy upon investigators an finally, by trumped-up indictmeat, to frighten and deter them from thespursuit. The spy ing on senators and congressmen the nasty interchange of telegrams in de- partment code; the refusal of those ac- cused to come forward, under oath, to purge themselves-all these things serve to blacken page that was already dark enough.
 Different perhaps in moral quality, but hardly less painful to the country, has been the attitude of some of those in high places whose effort it has been to weaken the effect of these expos- ures by crying out not against the guilty but against those who exposed them. What shall we say when a statement comes from one who of all men should have been most deeply stirred that the wonder is not that so many have fallen but that so few have between shown untrue? With what pa- tience shall we greet the libeIous sug- gestion that, after all, these are but incidents provoked by the demOraliza- tion attendant upon the great war? Is memory then so short that we no longer recall tn, heroic days of 1917 and 1918, when America rose to heights of moral grandeur unsurpassed, when every meeting place W-s q temple and every house a shrine? Shall we for set that no taint of dishonesty or cor ruption has ever atf4ched to any man who held public office during that great struggle or to any man who continued to hold office under the federal gov ernment until March 4, 1921? Shell shock was late indeed in arriving if it is to be put forward now as the excuse for these gross misdeeds.
 charge the republican party with
 this corruption in office. I charge it
 also with favOritism In legislation.
 I do more, charge it with that
 grOssest form of favOritism which
 gives to him who hath, and takes
 away from him who hath not. To
 pervert high office to personal gain
 is an Offense detested by all honest
 men; but to use the power of leg
 isIatIOn puFpOsely to enrich one man
 or set of men at the expense of Oth-
 CTS is robbery on 8 larger scale
 though done under the forms of law.
 In the passage of the FOrdney-M
 Cumber tariff act, imposing the high
 est rates and duties in the tariff
 history of the nation, there was an
 unblushing return to the evil days
 of rewarding party support and pO-
 litical contributions with legislative
 faVOrs.
 In the language of one of the advo- care of that measure: If we take care of the producers the consumers can take care of themselves" For every dollar that this statute has drawn into the treasury of the United States it has diverted five, from the pocket of the consumer into the pockets of the favored few. Although the repub- lican platform adopted at Cleveland holds out to the taxpayer the elusive