POLIT 
 THUGGERY 
 
 Or MiSSOURFS BATTLE 
 WITH THE BOODL ERS 
 
 FRANK G. TYRRELL 
 
Class C'j^A 
 
 Book _ "7^ 
 
 Coffyiight]^", 
 
 ^f 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
Political Thuggery; 
 
 OR, 
 
 BRIBERY A NATIONAL ISSUE. 
 
 Missouri's Battle With The Boodlers, 
 
 INCIvUDING 
 
 THE GREKT FIGHT 
 
 HON. JOSEPH W. FOLK, 
 
 Circuit Attorney of St. Louis, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE UPRISING OF THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE. 
 
 'The Voice of The People Is The Supreme Law." 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY PHOTOGRAPHS AND DRAWINGS OF 
 PERSONS, SCENES AND INCIDENTS. 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANK G. TYRRELL. 
 
 
LiER^RY nf CONSRESS 
 Two Copies Received 
 
 JUN 18 1904 
 
 ^ Cooyrlffht Entry 
 OLASS a^ XXc. No. 
 
 'copy b i 
 
 Copyright, 1904. by F. G. Tyrrell. 
 
'What constitutes a state ? 
 
 Not high-raised battlement or labored mound, 
 Thick wall or moated gate ; 
 
 • Not cities proud with ^ires and turrets crowned ; 
 
 Not bays and broad-armed ports, 
 Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride ; 
 
 Not starred and spangled courts, 
 Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. 
 
 No : — men, high-minded men. 
 With powers as far above dull brutes endued 
 
 In forest, brake or den. 
 As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude, — 
 
 Men who their duties know. 
 But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain; 
 
 Prevent the long-aimed blow, 
 And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain, — 
 
 These constitute a state." 
 
FOREWORD. 
 
 Fifty-three foreign governments, onr Federal government, 
 and all the States of the American Union are participating in the 
 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, v^hich represents a total expendi- 
 ture of $50,000,000, and covers more space than the Chicago, 
 Paris, and Centennial expositions combined. Other expositions 
 have been international ; it remained for this to be universal ; it is 
 a microcosm, — a world in miniature. Art, Education and In- 
 dustry have been exploited ; Agriculture, Horticulture, Manufac- 
 tures and Transportation have been drawn upon for the most 
 elaborate, beautiful and inspiring presentation of the triumphs 
 of human genius ever offered. 
 
 At the same time, while this mammoth Exposition was in 
 preparation, another stupendous and daring enterprise was being 
 successfully pushed in the city of St. Louis, the metropolis of the 
 Louisiana Territory and the State of Missouri; an enterprise 
 which is impossible, save among a free people, with a free and 
 untrammelled press ; nothing less than the rescue of a common- 
 wealth from political pirates and commercial free-booters. This 
 magnificent spectacle of a free and soa^ereign people rising in their 
 might and purging their government from the last taint of corrup- 
 tion, is, after all, the grandest exhibit to be seen in connection 
 with the great World's Fair. 
 
 It is not a local matter. Led by the fearless and intrepid 
 Prosecuting Attorney of St. Louis, Hon. Joseph Wingate Folk, 
 the people have exposed and pilloried the knaves of the common- 
 wealth ; they have uncovered a seething mass of corruption which 
 honey-combs the nation, and finds its head in the national civil 
 service, departments of which have at times seemed to be nothing 
 more nor less than organized graft. It is this daring expose we 
 here present as the exhibit surpassing all others in pictur- 
 esqueness of detail and enduring interest. Whatever the form 
 of government, all nations are assailed and beleagured by the 
 
8 FOREWORD. 
 
 same forces of corruption ; all nations have the same or very sim- 
 ilar problems of population, legislation, and administration. 
 Brought close together by wonderfully improved means of trans- 
 portation and communication, all nations suffer and rejoice to- 
 gether. Monopoly and exploitation, the concentration and an- 
 archy of wealth, are not peculiar to America ; they are the every- 
 where prevalent conditions of twentieth century civilization. 
 
 The uprising of an outraged people against political thugs 
 and their masters has attracted the attention of the civiHzed 
 world, even as the lamentable venality and weakness of American 
 municipalities have long been themes of animadversion by Euro- 
 pean writers. The situation at the beginning of this battle with 
 boodlers is faithfully described by Mr. Folk in one of his speeches 
 before the people of the State of Missouri : ''There were com- 
 bines formed in both branches of the Municipal Assembly for 
 the purpose of getting money for the votes of members of the 
 combine on measures before the Assembly. Laws were sold un- 
 blushingly to the highest bidder for money to go into the pockets 
 of these public pilferers. Schedules of bribe prices were estab- 
 lished, ranging from a few hundred dollars for a switch bill to 
 thousands of dollars for a franchise. They tried to sell or give 
 away the water-works, the court house, and the union market for 
 their own enrichment. Nothing was safe from their avarice, not 
 even the sewer pipes in the ground. Now, these men were not a 
 bp.Tid of robbers who captured the city by force, but they were 
 elected by the people to be the makers of laws for them. Most 
 "f them were Republicans, and the majority of those who gave 
 them the bribes were Democrats, but that is of no consequence 
 now — they were all public plunderers. On one occasion a new 
 member of the combine was in the meeting when they passed 
 around $2,500 each bribe money. The new member asked if 
 they were not afraid they would get into trouble. They all 
 laughed heartily, and reminded him of their political power; how 
 each of the nineteen controlled his own ward, and told him he 
 was perfectly safe, as it had been going on for years, and they 
 and those who put up the bribes were strong enough politically 
 to annihilate anyone who would insinuate wrongdoing against 
 them. Now, nineteen of these bribe-givers and bribe-takers have 
 "faced juries, and have received from two to seven years in the 
 
FOREWORD. - 9 
 
 penitentiary; others have turned State's evidence. Bribery could 
 hardly have been more extensive in St. Louis than it was under 
 Republican rule. The Democratic party has exposed it. In the 
 State, faithless Democratic officials took bribes and distributed 
 bribe money amongst senators. Laws have been sold for years, 
 if the confessions of senators be correct. Legislators have had 
 thousand dollar bills more in mind than they have had the public 
 interests. Corruption even stalked up to a former governor of 
 the State and attempted to have him make a State appointment 
 for money. Whiles of course, the majority of senators and rep- 
 resentatives have been honest, yet it is clear that legislative pro- 
 ceedings have been honeycombed with bribery. It seemed to be 
 nothing unusual for a legislator to prostitute his official powers 
 for gain. The developments are but the indication of a diseased 
 condition of the legislative service. Instead of public office being 
 a public trust, to many it was a private snap. They have outraged 
 every sense of honor and decency, and have insolently flaunted 
 their corruption in the faces of the people." 
 
 Perhaps never before in the history of the State was there 
 a Gubernatorial campaign which awakened such interest. Cer- 
 tainly it is true that never before were the law-abiding people so 
 aroused, indignant, and united, against the forces of corruption. 
 It may be said, indeed, that there was a new alignment of parties ; 
 on one side, all the citizens of whatever political faith, who stand 
 for the parity and integrity of democratic institutions ; on the 
 other, the corruptionists, the place-hunters and the privilege- 
 hunters. And the leadership of the party of honest government, 
 a^ well as most of the rank and file of that party, is democratic. 
 But in the words of Mr. Folk, "No party has a monopoly on the 
 virtuous ; neither are the vicious confined to one party. The weed- 
 ing out of public corruption should be the mission of the Demo- 
 cratic party. ^^ ^^ ^ j^ rascal is no less so by calling himself 
 a Democrat. I believe in exposing and punishing Democratic 
 rascals as well as Republican rascals ; Democrats just a little bit 
 more than Republicans, because they should know better. Offi- 
 cials are not elected to prosecute only political opponents, but to 
 enforce the law impartially against all offenders.'' 
 
 In the pages following, the reader will find that the salient 
 features in this inspiring history of the achievements of present 
 
10 ■ FOREWORD. 
 
 day patriotism are seized upon and disentangled from the be- 
 wildering details. Then the deep, underlying principles are pre- 
 sented, together with the scope and significance of the people's 
 fight against political thuggery and piracy. Chapters treating of 
 conditions everywhere prevalent follow, and there are then indi- 
 cated some of the highways out of the quagmire. 
 
 "Our greatest domestic foes/' declares Circuit Attorney Folk, 
 "are those who would destroy by corrupt and criminal methods 
 the intent and spirit of our institutions, deprive the people of their 
 honest expression of opinion at the ballot box, thwart their efforts 
 for just and necessary legislation, impede and vitiate the admin- 
 istration of the law, and poison the fountains of justice. The 
 principal weapon of these domestic foes is bribery, which is even 
 now beginning to be a serious menace to the nation itself. 
 
 "It is not confined to Missouri. Throughout the length and 
 breadth of the land it exists. In the prosperity of the people and 
 their devotion to business interests they have forgotten that 
 'eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." But they are ready to 
 fight these domestic foes, not with bullets, but with ballots and 
 the law. There is as much patriotism in the ballot as in the bullet. 
 The people are aroused to the condition of things. They foresee 
 the dangers ahead, unless bribery and corruption be stamped out. 
 They realize that it is not a question of this or that man's candi- 
 dacy, but one of principle, the triumph of which is above all per- 
 sonal Considerations. Not only in ^Missouri is the patriotic spirit 
 moving against the powers of evil such as we are fighting here, 
 "^.om Missouri the sentiment has spread throughout the land, 
 vjcher and important political issues require consideration and 
 solution, but above all issues there stands pre-eminent the issue 
 of obtaining purity and honesty in the making and administering 
 of law in every department of the government, municipal, state 
 and national. 
 
 "]\Iy friends, it is no exaggeration to say that the eyes of the 
 world are on Alissouri, to see what the people here are going to 
 do on this momentous question. If this great State, with its glo- 
 rious history, with its memories of illustrious statesmen, who had 
 added lustre to the pages of our country's history, should shrink 
 from the task, then it might well be believed that the decadence 
 of the public conscience has begun. But the people of Missouri 
 
FOREWORD. 11 
 
 are not going to retreat ; they are going to charge the stronghold 
 of the corruptionists again and again until it is shattered by the 
 shafts of the law and riddled by the mighty power of public 
 opinion. Let Missouri be distinguished as no other state is dis- 
 tinguished for good government. Let Missouri lead the other 
 states and set an example for them to follow. When insolent cor- 
 ruption sneeringly asks: 'What are you going to do about it?' 
 let our answer be given by hundreds of thousands of patriotic 
 Missouri Democrats, who hate corruption and despise wrong. 
 Then Missouri, the fifth state in population, will be the first in 
 civic righteousness and American manhood. True Democracy 
 means the rule of the people. It is time for the people of Mis- 
 souri to do their own thinking, and take the government into 
 their own hands, where it belongs. With the Missouri Democracy 
 true to its traditions on the side of civic honor the hosts of error 
 will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day." 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Knavery Unmasked . 
 The First Clue— Hiding the Shells— Detection and Arrest- 
 Fear and Flight— The Corpus Delicti — A Gradual 
 Awakening — Another Deal — A Summing Up 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 A Man's Man. 
 A Strong Personality — Nomination and Election — Well-Born 
 — In the Lion's Den — Perils of Publicity — Success and 
 Trouble — Fallen Among Thieves 31 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 The Pubi^ic Pui.se. 
 Sovereign Power — The City Papers — Interesting Episodes — 
 Saved by Hope — Public Indignation — Dealing With 
 Anarchy — Zigzagging 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Results. 
 The Searching Test — What Is Success — Tremendous Odds 
 — A Fearful Power — Another Element — Who Are Most 
 Active — Inexcusable Indifferefice — Bribery Made Extra- 
 ditable — Nineteen Convictions 55 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Mailed Fist. 
 National Not Local — The Plugged Primary — Invasion of 
 Thugs — A Slum Overflow — Triumphant Anarchy — In 
 Kansas City — Political Hessians — Outrageous and Ap- 
 palling — Criminal Connivance — Who Paid the Bills. . 67 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 13 
 
 CHAPTER VI. PAGE. 
 
 Anarchy Under Forms op I^aw. 
 Thuggery — Three to One — Monstrous Materialism — Plutoc- 
 racy — The Taint Spreads — Pernicious Example — Naked 
 and Not Ashamed — Is There any Relief — Social Regen- 
 eration — A Sop to Cerberus — The Boodler's Power — 
 Decay of Republican Institutions 85 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Citizens' Indignation Meeting. 
 
 The Chairman's Speech — From the Rector of St. George's — 
 
 Bring Your Own Repeaters — The Home Against the 
 
 Brothel — Personnel of the Meeting — Resolutions 
 
 Adopted — Dunklin County Resolutions 101 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 The Ministers' Appeai.. 
 Political Buyers Wealthy — Time to Oust Brigands — Con- 
 trolled by One Man — Punish the Leaders — Give Way 
 to Imported Brawlers — Destruction of Suffrage. . 117 
 
 CHAPER IX. 
 
 The Voice of the Press. 
 A Grave Issue — St. lyouis or Thugville, Which — Folk's 
 Sweeping Vindication — An Easy Road for Big Cheats- — 
 Let Citizenship Take the Initiative — The Chatsworth 
 Hall Protest — Public Action for Clean Primaries — Is It 
 to be a Sham Battle — Seventeen New Indictments in 
 ''Indian" Cases — The Opinion of Horace Flack — An 
 Eastern View of Folk's Fight — Folk and the Machine. . 131 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PuEPiT Echoes. 
 Condemn Riots From the Pulpits — Where Is Responsibility 
 — Law and Order — Contempt of Law Menaces Society 
 — The Terror of Law — Lawlessness — The State Preach- 
 ers Aroused 151 
 
14 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. - PAGs. 
 The City Whirlpool. 
 A Nation of Cities — Some of the Causes — Mechanical versus 
 Muscular Power — The Rail Highways — "Stumps Ain't 
 Folks"— The Stars in Their Courses 167 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Cities of Destruction. 
 
 Provincialism and Snobberj^ — Why Study Cities — Perils and 
 
 Problems — The Old Quarrel — Municipal Misgovern- 
 
 ment — Destruction of the Home — Altars Deserted — 
 
 Hearts Hardened— The City Jungle 179 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The Boss. 
 
 Machinery Necessary — The Boss a Creature — Resources and 
 
 Power — Politics a Trade — Immense Revenues — Mad 
 
 With Greed — Continuous Carnival — A Narrow Sphere — 
 
 Discrowned and Dethroned — The Real Henchmen.... 191 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Decay of Democracy. 
 Not an Alarmist — The Paper Government — Police and In- 
 dian Outrages — Legislation Usurped — Enormous Slush 
 Fund — Train Robbers Respectable — Laws Not En- 
 forced — Tampering With Courts — Rebates and Conces- 
 sions — Indisputable 203 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Out of the Noose. 
 Logic of the Situation — A Conscience Campaign — Machine 
 Methods — Pulpit and Press — An Aroused People — 
 "Bribery Is Treason" — A System of Corruption — In- 
 dustrial Anarchy— Special Privilege 217 
 
Chapter I„ 
 KNAVERY UNMASKED. 
 
i 
 
 You are not right to stand still in any great party, moving 
 in any direction, doing wrong, zuithout deliberately taking ac- 
 count zvith yourself. Am I striving to correct the evil by all the 
 influence I can wield? On finding' that it is impossible, do I 
 free myself from all imputation of partnership in any such guilt, 
 one zvay or the other? More closely still; no man has a right in 
 any of the associations of life, in any of the partnerships of life, 
 to throzv the blame of zvrong-doing upon the zvhole, taking none 
 of it to himself. If a bank be organized to perpetrate szuindles 
 on the poor and needy, every man in it zvho neglected his duty, 
 or zvho winked at zvrong, and blinded lies consciously, and by 
 some indirection made profits but did not care about causing any 
 disturbance — every such man in it, I say, takes his dividend of the 
 responsibility. It zuas his duty to have seen these things and 
 knozv them. There is no division of the responsibility. A man 
 zvho zvith open eyes and clear understanding permits wrong io 
 be done zvithout protest and resistance up to the measure of his 
 pozver, has responsibility for the sum total of all that zvrong. 
 Nobody has a right to be peaceable zvhen there is sin around, 
 and zvhen it is surrounding him. If there is this zvrong-doing, he 
 cannot say to himself, ''There are four partners and I shall have 
 only a fourth part of this responsibility." You have the zvhole of 
 it! God does not make dividends in those things. — Beecher. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 KNAVERY UNMASKED. 
 
 THE FIRST CLUE HIDING THE SHELLS DETECTION AND ARREST- 
 FEAR AND FLIGHT THE CORPUS DELICTI A GRADUAL AWAK- 
 ENING ANOTHER DEAL A SUMMING UP. 
 
 Years ago De Tocqueville, Wendell Phillips, Thomas Jeffer- 
 son, Abraham Lincoln and other far-seeing philosophers and 
 statesmen, prophesied that the growth and misgovernment of great 
 cities would endanger the American Republic as neither slavery 
 nor any other institution would. These prophesies have become 
 history, and we are now in that era when the large cities, growing 
 steadily larger, menace free institutions. The threat has been 
 discussed by the daily press, by the magazines, and by not a few 
 authors, who have given us books which are thrilling in their 
 array of facts and the convincing logic of their arguments. Just 
 at the present time (IMarch, 1904) St. Louis, St. Joseph and 
 Kansas City, together with the entire State of Missouri, are in 
 the midst of a gubernatorial campaign in which there is but one 
 issue, namely: Shall the people or the boss. rule? 
 
 The personalities of even the greatest leaders in this bat- 
 tle are over-topped by the great issue of the machine, corrupt 
 and criminal, against the sovereign people; the brothel against' 
 the home ! ' Perhaps never before in the history -of Alissouri 
 has there been a campaign waged with such intense earnest- 
 ness, or with an issue of such great moment. In these days of 
 class commercialism and political corruption, the battle in 
 Missouri may be taken as a typical case. The exposures that 
 have been made in the city of St. Louis, and in the State, are 
 not extraordinary nor exceptional. Political thuggery and 
 brigandage are not confined by city or State lines. Thc}^ are 
 found in every city, and more or less in every State of the 
 2 
 
18 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 Federal Union. No analysis of the situation is scientific or 
 sai"i=factory which does not take note of this fact. 
 
 Neither is it correct to say that this awful corruption is 
 exclusively political. Politics is corrupt because business is 
 corrupt, and the scarlet thread runs to and fro from business 
 to politics and from politics back to business ; from high to 
 low ; from men respectable, influential and, at least nominally 
 Christian, to men low, base, unscrupulous and criminal. 
 Neither is it a simple story of infamous corruption permeating 
 and undermining society ; it is a story of the dominancy of 
 these corrupt forces in our government. 
 
 The present excited and indignant state of the best people 
 in ^Missouri is the result of long-continued corruption and de- 
 fiant wickedness and aggressive lawlessness on the part of 
 these baser elements of our commonwealth. The beginning 
 of the present determined campaign against corruption dates 
 back to the exposures of bribery in the city of St. Louis and 
 in Jefterson City, the capital of the commonwealth. It has 
 been known by thoughtful people for years that franchises in 
 the city of St. Louis were secured by bribery ; that spoilsmen 
 were growing rich out of gross wrongs ; and there have been 
 periodical attempts at exposure and overthrow. Nothing sat- 
 isfactory and permanent has been accomplished, however, un- 
 til the battle with the boodlers was fairly begun by the Circuit 
 x\ttorney of St. Louis, now a candidate for Governor. 
 
 THE FIRST CLUE. 
 
 ( 
 
 In this book it is necessary to give only a brief summary 
 of the facts, as the newspapers of the State, and magazines 
 of national circulation, have already given them wide pub- 
 licity. The St. Louis & Suburban Railway Company desired 
 to extend its franchise to occupy certain streets in the West 
 End of St. Louis. The details by which this should be secured 
 were left entirely to the President, Mr. Charles H. Turner. 
 Being familiar with the tactics necessarily employed in city 
 legislation, he went to Air. Edward Butler, the city boss, to 
 ascertain what it would cost him to have the bill, prepared 
 by the attorney of the Suburban Street Railway Company, 
 enacted into law. [Mr. Butler told him his ''fee'" would be 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 10 
 
 $145,000. This Mr. Turner considered too much, and turned 
 to Mr. Philip Stock, agent of the Brewers' Supply Company. 
 The agreement with Mr. Stock was for $135,000. The money 
 was secured by Mr. Turner on notes signed by him and en- 
 dorsed by Ellis Wainwright and Henry Nicolaus. These 
 notes were discounted at a South St. Louis bank, whose 
 cashier was instructed to pay the money to Mr. Stock upon 
 demand. 
 
 John K. Murrell was the active agent for the House of 
 Delegates combine, and he and Mr. Stock deposited $75,000 in 
 escrow with the Lincoln Trust Company, signing an agree- 
 ment that the box should not be opened unless both parties 
 were present. Mr. Stock then took $60,000 and made a similar 
 arrangement and agreement with the Mississippi Valley Trust 
 Company, with Charles Kratz, who had been delegated as the 
 representative of the combine members of the Council. The 
 legislation was secured and the bill was passed in regular 
 form and signed by the Mayor. But, some citizens who were 
 watchtng the proceedings of the city legislature, and who 
 were opposed to the franchise, had an injunction issued against 
 the St. Louis & Suburban Railway Company, which was made 
 permanent by the courts, and the legislation for which they 
 were about to pay $135,000 was declared unconstitutional. 
 Here is where the thieves fell out. 
 
 The combine members of the Council and the House of 
 Delegates, having delivered the goods according to contract, 
 insisted upon payment. But the President of the St. Louis 
 & Suburban Railway Compan}^ with his agent, declared he 
 would not pay over the money, as the Company had not 
 been in any way benefited by the legislation; and it was this 
 fortunate quarrel between these two groups of corrupt busi- 
 ness men, and still more corrupt politicians, that finally led to 
 discovery and exposure. An article appeared in the St. Louis 
 Star, giving a slight hint of the real situation. It was a mere 
 rumor, but when Circuit Attorney Folk read it he determined 
 to investigate, and immediately began the battle with the 
 boodlers before the Grand Jury, which has been one con- 
 tinuous engagement ever since. 
 
20 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 Then followed, in the usual course of legal procedure, the 
 summoning of witnesses, who boldly and unblushingly per- 
 jured themselves before the Grand Jury, until finally Mr. 
 Charles H. Turner and Mr.- Philip Stock decided to make a 
 clean breast of the miserable transaction, and became State 
 witnesses. 
 
 HIDING THE SHELLS. 
 
 Probably there was not a time, from his induction into 
 office, when Mr. Folk was not approached by politicians, as 
 well as by respectable citizens, who sought to influence him 
 against an aggressive attitude in all these matters. At this 
 juncture especially, he was advised against pushing the prose- 
 cutions. Good men trembled when they thought of the in- 
 evitable exposure and the attendant humiliation to St. Louis. 
 Just on the eve of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, they 
 declared that St. Louis could not afford to be disgraced and 
 discredited throughout the nation. And there were many who 
 were in a position to give the young Circuit Attorney ^very 
 assurance of a bright political future, if he would only keep 
 his hands off illustrious criminals and their "Pals." To one 
 and all Mr. Folk said simply and manfully that he was the 
 Circuit Attorney of St. Louis ; a public official and not a 
 partisan in office. 
 
 DETECTION AND ARREST. 
 
 Ellis Wainwright and Henry Nicolaus, millionaire brew- 
 .ers, who had signed the notes with Mr. Turner, were indicted 
 in due time. This was sufficient notice to those who "occupy 
 the seats of the mighty" that the war was on in earnest ; that 
 it would be "war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt;" and 
 that no one, high or low, rich or poor, respectable or infa- 
 mous, would be spared. There followed a reign of fear and 
 terror, until, in sheer desperation, the forces of corruption 
 ^allied ; having taken counsel of lawyers with reference to the 
 !fraTute of limitation, and advised as to how they could best 
 protect themselves ; and having learned that no treaty with 
 foreign nations contained a clause making bribery an extra- 
 ditable offense, they began to breathe easier. They realized 
 that they stood condemned by good people without regard to 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 21 
 
 religious sect or political party affiliation, and yet, although 
 condemned and writhing under the shame of exposure, they 
 became once more audacious and defiant. 
 
 FEAR AND FLIGHT. 
 
 One result of this rallying of the boodlers and their infa- 
 mous gang of political thugs was a little trip to Mexico by 
 John K. Murrell and Charles Kratz. Before Murrell and Kratz 
 departed for the more salubrious air of old Mexico, the Cir- 
 cuit Attorney went boldly to the Lincoln Trust Company and 
 demanded that the officials of that Company open the safe 
 deposit box, which had been locked under certain written 
 conditions mentioned above. Of course, the officers promptly 
 declined. They could not even think of such a thing. Mr. 
 Folk insisted that they must think and think quickly. He 
 reminded them that his demand was not that of a private in- 
 dividual, but that of the sovereign State of Missouri. The 
 officers, thought better of the proposition, and- finally went 
 with Mr. Folk into the Safe Deposit vaults and stood by him 
 while he applied the key which Mr. Stock had given him. He 
 took down the box, opened it, tore open the paper package 
 and deliberately counted the bills in hundreds, fifties, tens and 
 other denominations, in all amounting to $75,000. 
 
 He went on the same errand to the Mississippi Valley 
 Trust Company. Here he met with more stubborn resistance 
 and, soon realizing that his words were having no efifect what- 
 ever, he informed the gentlemanly officers that he would go 
 immediately to the Four Courts and within an hour have them 
 arrested as accessory to the crime of bribery. By the time he 
 had gone a block on this errand, tl^e officers of the Mississippi 
 Valley Trust Company had changed their minds and called 
 him back. They went with him into the Safe Deposit vaults 
 and stood by w^hile he took out and opened the box; 
 finding, as in the other case, a package containing a large roll 
 of greenbacks, the sum total being $60,000. 
 
 THE CORPUS DELICTI. 
 
 After this bold and successful manoeuvre, whenever a 
 witness was examined in court, in connection with the Subur- 
 
22 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 ban bribery deal, these rolls of money were exposed in the 
 court room and Air. Stock was asked to count them in the 
 presence of the Judge, jury and eager spectators. He called 
 off the amounts, giving finally the total, "$135,000; yes, there 
 are all the bills that were to have been divided."' It is scarcely 
 necessary to tell other stories of exposure, arrest and convic- 
 tion. This may be taken as a type of them all. At last 
 knavery was unmasked and the knaves were pilloried by in- 
 dignant public opinion. The succeeding events are of such 
 recent occurrence as to be fresh in the memory of the public. 
 National attention was directed to St. Louis. The Circuit 
 Attorney became a figure of national prominence. The first 
 clue had been follow^ed successfully. 
 
 An interesting episode in this connection is a published 
 interview with Mr. Ed. Butler, in which the shrewd old cor- 
 ruptionist laughed at the exposure of the Suburban bribery 
 deal, as much as to say, "That's what the boys get by not deal- 
 ing with me. They should have known better than to hire 
 any body else. If they had employed me and paid my 'fee,' 
 I would have delivered the goods." The old man seemed to 
 think the whole afifair was a huge joke, and even when he him- 
 self finally fell into the toils, and was indicted, arrested, tried 
 and convicted by a Boone county jury, the majority of whom 
 were Democrats, he still maintained his attitude of blatant 
 defiance. Was it because he knew full well that he and his 
 comrades in crime still controlled the political and legal ma- 
 chinery of the State to such an extent at least as to protect 
 themselves, and, in spite of conviction, go unwhipped of jus- 
 tice? 
 
 A GRADUAL AWAKENING. 
 
 Although there could not be the slightest question of fact 
 in this and other cases, the public became interested but 
 slowly. There can be no sort of doubt that the majority of 
 people are honest, but ninety-nine out of every hundred are 
 overwhelmed with their own concerns. Under the methods 
 of modern competitive industry, no successful man, no man 
 who aspires to success, has either the time or the strength for 
 public business, unless he is unusually public-spirited, and 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 25 
 
 is willing to make considerable sacrifice for the public good. 
 This leaves at least one man in every hundred, who is dis- 
 honest and unscrupulous, an opportunity to be perniciously 
 active ; and he never misses the opportunity. There w^ere, from 
 the very inception of this phenomenal bit of history, a few 
 citizens who commended the Circuit Attorney and gave him 
 their moral support, but the public at large became interested 
 slowly. Evidently the people did not understand the situation 
 in all its bearings. They were not out of sympathy with the 
 reforms, but they were totally unaware of the tremendous 
 task the Circuit Attorney had undertaken. This did not dis- 
 turb or deter the prosecutor in his work. 
 
 ANOTHER DEAL. 
 
 He not only continued to prosecute the cases which came 
 before him in the development of this particular piece ^of 
 bribery, but about a year later took up another matter of the 
 same kind, — that which is known as the Central Traction deal. 
 The odorous history of this affair dates back to January, 1898. 
 This was nothing more nor less than the consolidation of prac- 
 tically all of the St. Louis Street railways, except the St. Louis 
 and Suburban, into one Company-, known as the St. Louis 
 Traction Company; and the securing of a blanket franchise 
 covering most of the streets of the entire city. Mr. S., a promi- 
 nent capitalist, promoter and church member, of Kansas City 
 and New York, came to St. Louis, rented palatial apartments 
 at the Planters Hotel, stocked them liberally with choice 
 liquors and cigars, and began his infamous task of boodling 
 the Central Traction bill through the municipal assembly. He 
 spent two or three hundred thousand dollars, and sold out at 
 a profit of about a million, to men who were compelled to buy. 
 
 An interesting incident in connection with this particular 
 case is the fact that at this very time the Rev. W. F. R., pastor 
 
 of the Church of Kansas City, of which Mr. S. was 
 
 a member, was also in St. Louis assisting in a series of evange- 
 listic meetings in the Church on 
 
 Avenue. While his pastor was giving unpaid service to the 
 work of individual evangelization, trying to turn men from sin 
 to righteousness, the rich and infamous Mr. S. w^as making a 
 
24 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 million dollars for himself and friends at the other end of the 
 town by debauching and plundering the entire municipality. 
 This particular coincident throws a lurid sidelight upon the 
 whole subject of commercial and civic corruption. Comment 
 is unnecessary. 
 
 A SUMMING UP. 
 
 And now what are the facts which have been laid bare? 
 In the first place, we see the immediate and vital connection 
 between the business interests of the city and the corrupt ele- 
 ments, both in and out of authority. Public service corpora- 
 tions, under the present system of control, are necessarily in- 
 terested in legislation ; they cannot live without it. They are 
 promoted and owned by private citizens. They are private 
 corporations doing a business in which the public are inter- 
 ested, — rendering a public service. This makes it necessary 
 for the city, the State or the nation, as the case may be, to 
 become an active party in the control of the business of these 
 companies, and that seems very like interference. As long as 
 this is the method followed, corruption is inevitable. The 
 private corporation will resent the honest and well-meant 
 efforts of the public to protect its interests. They will always 
 consider it legislative meddling, and w^ill attempt to defend 
 themselves against the laws, however just, which lay upon 
 them their share of public burdens. They will also be called 
 upon to defend themselves against "sandbag'' legislation; nor 
 will they hesitate, when they want special favors, to secure 
 these favprs in any way possible, no matter how criminal or 
 anarchistic the necessary way may be. 
 
 Again, we see in bold outline the character of these men 
 who sometimes occupy prominent places in the community, 
 and even in our churches, and rank as representative citizens. 
 It is a new problem in ethics to know what kind of conscience 
 such men have. Do they imagine that a corporation has no 
 soul, and therefore whatever a corporation does can not be 
 bound by ordinary ethical canons? The fact is, a corporation 
 has as many souls as there are individuals composing it, and 
 they will find, sooner or later, here or hereafter, that the 
 Almightv does not declare dividends in sin and crime! That 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLE_RS. 25 
 
 if a hundred men arc bound together to commit a felony, each 
 and every individual is as responsible, morally and legally, 
 as if he alone were guilty. The individual does not bear one 
 per cent of the crime and ignominy, but he bears one hundred 
 per' cent, and each in his turn must be hauled before the bar 
 of public opinion and sentenced and punished ; albeit the pun- 
 ishment should be remedial, not vindictive. 
 
 If, because of the law's delays and the marvelous and 
 mysterious latent power provoked from legal technicalities, 
 they escape condign punishment, and never wear stripes on 
 their bodies, they must eternally wear stripes on their souls, 
 for, though wounds are healed, the scars remain. 
 
 Another phase which should not be lost sight of, and 
 which concerns every citizen of both city and State, is the 
 relation of bribery and boodlery to public revenues. Since 
 public franchises are thus bartered away with practically no 
 remuneration to the public, public revenues must be replen- 
 ished from the ordinary sources of taxation, and every citizen 
 pays taxes whether or not he owns a foot of ground or a 
 dollar's worth of property. He pays taxes in the enhanced 
 cost of living, because of the burden of taxation upon those 
 who own real property and who deal in the necessaries of life. 
 Evei:y slum denizen, as well as every resident of the boule- 
 vards, sufifers financially because of the plundering of these 
 marplots. 
 
 It is a well known fact, in the city of New York, attested 
 and authenticated by accurate statistics, that the very death 
 rate is higher under machine rule than when the people are 
 permitted to rule ; and what Is true of New York is likewise 
 true of St. Louis, the proud metropolis of Missouri, and of the 
 entire Louisiana Purchase. The filth and squalor which we 
 find in our vermin-infested city hospital and all other city in- 
 stitutions ; the shameful halt which was called in the com- 
 pletion of the new Citv Hall, corruption's monument, are evi- 
 dences of the financial and moral loss which the city has suf- 
 fered at the hands of these raiders and wreckers. 
 
 Still further, it is a strange partnership which we see re- 
 vealed. One party is made up of corporation magnates — 
 proud men, honorable men, conspicuous and influential in 
 
26 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 n 
 
 city, State and church. They are men who, by the work done 
 in the development of industries, have placed the whole com- 
 monwealth under obligation ; and yet we here see them asso- 
 ciated with the second party ni this weird and wicked com- 
 bination, the unprincipled political boss. He is their paid 
 agent and representative. He is the "go-between" for them 
 in their negotiations with the third group in spectacular wick- 
 edness, namely, the slum denizens and corn-crib politicians. 
 
 Men have accepted nomination to office, the remuneration 
 of which is contemptibly small, knowing that out of the spoils 
 of these offices they could make, and have made, thousands 
 and hundreds of thousands of dollars, by doing the will of the 
 rich rogues as that will has been conveyed to them through the 
 political boss. Other features of the case will be analyzed 
 as we proceed^ but it can not be said too often^ it can not be 
 too widely published, that all this means the overthrow of 
 democratic government. It is easily apparent, even to a casual 
 observer, that we have entered upon an era of government by 
 wealth. Or, to use a word which has a somewhat demagogic 
 flavor, we are not menaced by plutocracy, we already suffer it. 
 
 The question which is being asked all over the nation, and 
 with special vehemence and intense indignation throughout 
 .^lissouri is: Shall we submit to it? Political thuggery is the 
 mailed fist of plutocracy ; shall we cringe and writhe under it, 
 or shall we assert our manhood? Doubtless there are good 
 citizens who felt at the beginning, and who still feel, that 
 these exposures are disgraceful and hurtful. But we do not share 
 this feeling, nor do we believe the feeling is general throughout 
 the State of Missouri. Quite the contrary. 
 
 Any well balanced view of the situation will lead us to 
 rejoice in these exposures of infamy, because in such cases ex- 
 posure is the necessary prelude to punishment and correction. 
 If a man's arm is gangrened, he does not plaster it with salves 
 and lotions, and, when the physician calls, hide it and show 
 +he well arm. He knows full well that his life is imperilled, 
 and he is entirely willing, and not only willing but anxious, to 
 uncover his sore and submit to the severest surgery, even to 
 the amputation of his arm, if thereby his life can be saved. 
 And this is the only sane attitude for right-thinking citizens. 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 27 
 
 When the body poHtic is rotting away under the gangrene of 
 infamous corruption, exposure and civic surgery are impera- 
 tively necessary. Unfortunately, men who are not unprin- 
 cipled, men who want to do what is right, are caught up in 
 the meshes of corruption and by a peculiar combination of 
 circumstances, it would seem are almost coerced into becom- 
 ing particeps criminis with the raiders and wreckers. It was 
 this knowledge which, in the beginning, led many good people 
 to protest and to ask for a suspension of hostilities. They did 
 not want to see men of prominence, representative men, of 
 whom the whole city had been proud, dragged from their clubs 
 and palatial residences and white stone churches, as common 
 felons ! 
 
 And here again we can not but dissent from the prevalent 
 opinion, and insist that no judicial process is so wholesome, 
 no lightning of outraged justice so purifying, as that which 
 strikes the rich and influential culprit as well as the poor and 
 vicious and friendless. Too long it has been said, "Our crim- 
 inal laws are a mere farce whenever the accused happens to be 
 a man of wealth and political influence." We shall never have 
 a sound body politic, we shall never rise out of the malarial 
 swamps of commercial brigandage and political knavery into 
 the ^unny heights of freedom and purity and righteousness, 
 until it is understood among all classes of people that the 
 courts of justice can not be defiled, that the ermine will not 
 be soiled, that the law is no respecter of persons, but that 
 every accused person shall have a free and impartial trial 
 without prejudice and without favoritism ! Not only so, but it 
 must be likewise demonstrated that "The wicked prize itself 
 (no longer) buys out the law." 
 
 It will become more clearly apparent as point by point is 
 discussed, that one of the fundamental principles of a demo- 
 cratic government is not only jeopardized but absolutely 
 sacrificed, namely : Local self-government. This fact should 
 be kept in mind, especially by those who are the sons of sol- 
 diers. For it is utterly inconceivable that such men, with such 
 a dear-bought heritage of political freedom, will forever allow 
 rich and influential citizens, or any number of them, to con- 
 spire and combine with citizens of the slums and the denizens 
 
28 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 ^ 
 
 of the jails and ail-night dives, to wrest from their hands in 
 broad daylight the inestimable privilege and priceless right of 
 every freeman — the elective franchise ! 
 
Chapter II. 
 A MAN'S MAN. 
 
Let each man think himself an act of God, 
 His mind a thought, his life a breath of God. 
 
 — Bailey. 
 
 ''Knozv what yon have to do, and do it" — the great principle 
 of success in every direction of human effort: for I believe that 
 failure is less frequently attributable to either insufficiency of 
 means or impatience of labor, than to a confused understanding 
 of the thing actually to be done. — Jolui Ruskin. 
 
 If the heart of a nation be zvise and right, you may depend 
 upon it, the lazvs of that nation zvill never long remain radically 
 wrong. Free institutions will never of themselves make free men 
 out of men zi'ho are tJiemselves the slaves of vice; but free men 
 zvill inevitably express their inzvard character in their outzvard 
 institutions. The spirit of every kingdom must begin first ''zmthin 
 you." — Robertson. 
 
 When the Master of the universe has points to carry in his 
 government, he impresses his zinll in the structure of minds. — 
 Emerson. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 A MAN'S MAN. 
 
 A STRONG PERSONALITY NOMINATION AND ELECTION WELL BORN 
 
 IN THE lion's DEN PERILS OF PUBLICITY SUCCESS AND 
 
 TROUBLE— FALLEN AMONG THIEVES. 
 
 No system of business or of government can be devised 
 which does not rest in the last analysis upon personal integrity. 
 This has always been true. The intricate organization of 
 modern society has brought this truth into greater prominence 
 than ever. The power for evil of a dishonest or otherwise im- 
 moral person has a terrific leverage today. The moral derelic- 
 tion of a pioneer on the plains or in the lumber camps of the 
 West does not signify very much in the way of social discord ; 
 but the moral dereliction of a governor, a senator, a congress- 
 man, a mayor, a bank or a trust company officer, may mean 
 the temporary paralysis of business, or the overthrow and con- 
 fusion of a commonwealth. More than ever is it proved that 
 ''men constitute a State." No one, who has a reasonably wide 
 acquaintance, can for a moment doubt that! there are men, 
 multitudes of them, in the State of Missouri, as in all other 
 States, such as John G. Holland described years ago when he 
 wrote : 
 
 "God, give us men! a time like this demands 
 
 Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands. 
 
 Men whom the lust of office can not kill. 
 
 Men whom the spoils of office can not buy. 
 
 Men who possess opinions and a will, 
 
 Men who have honor, men who will not lie ! 
 
 Men who can stand before a demagogue 
 
 And damn his treacherous flatteries Avithout winking ! 
 
 Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog 
 
POLITICAL TIJUGGERY. 33 
 
 In public duty and in private thinking. 
 For, while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds, 
 Their large professions and their little deeds, 
 Mingle in selfish strife, lo ! -Freedom weeps ! 
 Wrong rules the land and waiting Justice sleeps !" 
 
 A STRONG PERSONALITY. 
 
 Prominent among such men in the State of Missouri is 
 the Circuit Attorney, Hon. Joseph W. Folk. The battle 
 against the boodlers centres largely around his unique person- 
 ality. For a long time he stood alone, but he stood like Gibral- 
 tar. Kindred spirits finally rallied to his support, and later 
 developments seem to have made the issue one which, while 
 it depends on strong personalities, nevertheless overtops any 
 and all. As a typical citizen of the Mississippi Valley, every- 
 body is interested in Mr. Folk, and, as a type, he is well 
 worthy of study. It is most gratifying to those who have high 
 and exalted hopes for the future of the nation to reflect that 
 such young men as he are found in city, village and hamlet 
 throughout the nation ; and that as he has come to the front 
 in a time of crisis, so likewise from time to time will other 
 young men step to the front and fill the breach. 
 
 Mr. Folk comes from families that are proud of the part 
 taken by their ancestors in the American war for independence. 
 He was born, October 29, 1869, in Brownsville, Tenn., a little 
 city of some three thousand population. His career was that 
 of thousands of boys similarly circumstanced. His father was 
 a lawyer, with the general practice which falls to the lot of a 
 member of the bar in towns of that size. The boy attended 
 the public schools, and early in his teens made up his mind 
 to follow in his father's footsteps. 
 
 When nineteen years of age, he entered Vanderbilt Uni- 
 versity, graduating in law two years later. He opened an 
 office in his native town and for three years followed the mixed 
 practice which came to him. He left for St. Louis in 1893, at 
 the age of twenty-four, allured by the larger prizes, and un- 
 daunted by the severer conditions to be found in the growing 
 metropolis of the southwest. Here he took up his specialty, 
 the practice of corporation law, in which he was unusuallv suc- 
 
 3 
 
34 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 cessful. On November lo, 1896, he was married to Miss Gertrude 
 Glass, a Tennessee girl, who has borne heroically and admira- 
 bly in every detail the duties of her position as wife and helpmeet. 
 In this same year he became chairman of the Jefferson Club 
 Campaign Committee. 
 
 At that time the Club counted in its membership the 
 younger element of the Democratic party. They were full of 
 enthusiasm and true to the Jeffersonian ideals which have ever 
 been the inspiration of Democrats since the sage of Monti- 
 cello lived and labored w4th other makers of the Republic. His 
 services here proving" unusually efficient, he was elected Pres- 
 ident of the Club in 1898, holding the position during the 
 term with dignity and success. 
 
 In 1900 occurred the great Street Railway strike, which 
 temporarily paralyzed business, imperilled life and property, 
 and well nigh inaugurated a reign of terror. . Citizens from 
 all w^alks of life w^ere summoned by the authorities to shoulder 
 riot guns and patrol the streets to protect the people from 
 acts of violence. An imperious demand arose for arbitration, 
 which was finally acceded to, and in the adjudication of these 
 difficulties Mr. Folk played a prominent part. The labor 
 trouble was ended; peace was restored; the cars began run- 
 ning once more, and soon, largely as a result of his self-denying 
 eft'orts, business had resumed its wonted channels. 
 
 NOMINATION AND ELECTION. 
 
 Perhaps this incident, more than any other one thing, led 
 to his nomination, in the summer of 1900, for Circuit Attorney. 
 At first he declined, but at length reluctantly yielded and ac- 
 cepted the nomination. He was elected by a plurality of three 
 thousand votes, and inducted into office on January 2, 1901. 
 Then came the first shock of surprise. During the canvass for 
 the office, he stated repeatedly that if elected he would do his 
 duty, no matter who might suffer. Occasionally a nervous 
 and time-serving politician would inquire what such a state- 
 ment meant, but he was invariably reassured by some one who said 
 it w^as 'good campaign talk,' and that Joe' Folk w^as 'a good 
 boy wdio knew^ his friends.' Subsequently, the statement found 
 its interpretation, if any were needed, when Mr. Folk, elected 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 35 
 
 to this responsible place, selected his own assistants, Andrew 
 C. Maroney and C. Orrick Bishop, both able criminal lawyers 
 as well as upright and reliable gentlemen. Ed. Butler, the 
 political boss, called and congratulated the 3^oung man, and 
 ventured to suggest a certain person as a suitable assistant. 
 
 He was astounded when Mr. Folk told him that his 
 assistants had already been appointed ! The boss informed 
 him that there were other men who had claims on the party 
 and indeed had been promised the place. But Mr. Folk replied 
 that, so far as he was concerned, he had made no promises 
 whatever. The party leaders who had ventured to promise 
 places found themselves reckoning without their host. To 
 all attempts to cajole or frighten him into compliance with 
 their wishes, Mr. Folk had but one rejoinder : "As Circuit 
 Attorney, I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I am 
 an official and shall do my duty regardless of consequences." 
 
 WELL BORN. 
 
 The firmness and fearlessness which Mr. Folk showed 
 from the very moment of his induction into office are con- 
 spicuous traits in his character. It is not a little remarkable 
 that such qualities, together with fidelity to his sworn obliga- 
 tions as an offijcer of the law, should awaken amazement and 
 consternation in the party and lead to such extraordinary 
 results in the community. It proves, not that -these qualities 
 ,ire rare in Missouri manhood, but, that men possessing these 
 qualities are rarely elected to any office of public trust. 
 
 It is an old saying, ''blood will tell." The Folk family may 
 be taken as fairly representative of a large section of our 
 American population. His brother, Reau E. Folk, has been 
 State Treasurer of Tennessee ; Carey A. Folk, President of 
 Boscotal College ; Edgar E. Folk, editor of "The Baptist and 
 Reflector," and still another brother, Humphrey B. Folk, a 
 minister of the gospel. 
 
 This particular campaign, against civic corruption and 
 infamous lawlessness, shows most admirably how in this man 
 Folk, and in others who come up from similar rural environ- 
 ments, the State and the nation must always find deliverance. 
 If it were not for the new, fresh blood which flows into the 
 
36 . POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 cities from the country, the}' would long ago have become 
 like Sodom and Gomorrah, and the angry skies would have 
 rained fire upon them and consumed them from the face of 
 the earth. 
 
 IN THE LION'S DEN. 
 
 As time passed, Mr. Folk found himself where any other 
 man of deep convictions, moral earnestness and aggressive 
 courage must find himself under similar circumstances — in the 
 lion's den. He had not been flung there by his enemies, like 
 Daniel of old ; but, in the discharge of his duty, he had fear- 
 lessly walked there. With that imperturbable smile of his, he 
 gazed into the eyes of the beasts of the jungle "even as a boy 
 upon a laughing girl." No one who has never visited a city 
 slum can fully appreciate the perilous position in which this 
 young man found himself. In another chapter we have made 
 an effort to bring city conditions before our readers. 
 
 It is, of course, generally known that in every large city 
 there are sections through which it is unsafe to go alone after 
 nightfall. It is here that we find the always-open saloon, the 
 all-night dive and the swarming population of the nether 
 world — the potThouse politician, the jail-bird, the bum, the thug 
 and the plug-ugly. In our large cities in Missouri and 
 throughout the nation, it is the criminal and semi-criminal 
 population that is used by corrupt and designing men to defeat 
 the will of the people and secure, in the way of special privileges, 
 what they desire from city and State alike ; and the work done by 
 Circuit Attorne}' Folk had antagonized these really dangerous 
 classes. 
 
 There can be no manner of doubt that his life was in peril, 
 and for a time he deferred to the wishes of his friends and 
 employed a body-guard, but soon grew weary of the espionage 
 and dismissed him. As he had fearlessly and firmly declared, 
 he continued in the only way open to a conscientious man, — 
 regardless of consequences. It is in the work of such men 
 who are occasionally found in all parties, and whose influence 
 is in all communities, that our hope lies. 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 37 
 
 Lowell said, "What is so rare as a day in June?" We 
 must say : "What is so rare as a conscientious public serv- 
 
 PERILS OF PUBLICITY. 
 
 ant?" Rare indeed is it that men of real ability will consent 
 to surrender their private business for the distractions and 
 tribulations and small remuneration of a public career. And 
 when men who have been honest enter such a career with the 
 bestof intentions, they are in great danger of being smirched 
 by the ooze and slime of slum politics. They are likewise 
 assailed by men who want favors and are abundantly able to 
 pay for them with both money and conspicuous promotion. 
 They meet with great opportunities for gratifying their 
 cupidity and ambition, and it is no wonder that, in such an 
 atmosphere and such soil, multitudes suffer moral asphyxia- 
 tion and fall and sink to rise no more. 
 
 SUCCESS AND TROUBLE. 
 
 James Whitcomb Riley, in a moment of inspiration, sings : 
 "I've al'ays noticed grate success 
 Is mixed with trubbles more or less ; 
 And it's the one who does the best 
 That gits more kicks than all the rest !" 
 
 This hits off a great truth, and fits the facts, but a man's 
 man will display courage and persistence nevertheless. What- 
 ever else he may be, he is no coward ! A peculiar feature of 
 the situation is the fact that the greatest tax on his courage 
 does not consist in facing his avowed and malignant enemies, 
 but in facing unknown foes and unimagined perils ; in facing 
 the misgivings and reproaches of quondam friends. His 
 courage niust be of sufficient measure to enable him to make 
 great sacrifice of private interests. 
 
 When we are denouncing the rogues who are occupying 
 public offices and feeding at the public crib, do we ever stop 
 to think where we can find honest, upright men who will 
 forsake their private business for the public good? Suppose 
 that every rascal were turned out of office in Missouri today, 
 are there honest, conscientious, capable citizens to be found in 
 numbers large enough to fill their places? And, too, a man in 
 such a place must be willing to be slandered ; to be pelted 
 
38 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 with jejune epithets ; to have his reputation attacked by design- 
 ing and maUcious enemies, who have everything to gain and 
 nothing to lose. And yet Joseph W. Folk and others have 
 demonstrated that there are men in the community who have 
 the courage and the endurance to encounter all this and more. 
 
 FALLEN AMONG THIEVES. 
 
 Without exaggeration it can be said that the City of St. 
 Louis at this time had falle;i among thieves. Indeed it had 
 been the spoil of thieves for years. "We got a moon yet, aint 
 it? What more do you zvantf These are the words which 
 vere addressed to a Committee of citizens by the Hon. Henry 
 Ziegenhein, a German American politician, who was then 
 IMayor of St. Louis, and who thus answered their protest 
 because of culpable delay on the part of the City Fathers in 
 furnishing light to a large section of the city. That this man 
 was a Republican did not seem to make the slightest difference 
 in the affairs of the municipality, and this fact goes to prove 
 conclusively, if any proof be needed, that plunderers of munici- 
 palities have no politics ; that they constitute a party by them- 
 selves, a party of daring lawlessness, a party which plots and 
 conspires with criminals and thieves upon officially protected 
 thievery. 
 
 Strange, indeed, that in view of this fact intelligent citi- 
 zens of a great municipalit}': will permit themselves to be 
 divided in allegiance between the two great parties, and thus 
 defeat themselves, instead of taking their cue from the crim- 
 inals and conspirators whom they must combat, and making 
 a municipal party which shall stand for common decency, for 
 law and order, for dignity and high moral purpose. 
 
 The streets of the city in many sections were neglected 
 until they became impassable quagmires. More than once the 
 strange and humiliating spectacle w^as witnessed of fire unre- 
 strained consuming a fine dwelling, with the fire engine two 
 or three blocks aAvay mired down in a city street ! The city 
 hospital for years has occupied a tumble-down, vermin-infested 
 brick building, in which a well man would very soon contract 
 a serious illness, because of the deplorably defective condition 
 of the structure. The poor and the insane have been compelled 
 

 So 
 
 
 
 '^im<^i,iSim»h:^i^^LsCM > 
 
 ^%.-j^<!^ ;r^; 
 
 ^^i^s^^-'s«fU:iS!^'!*i;<^^ 
 
 JAMES A. REED. 
 
40 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 ^ 
 
 to occupy the same quarters, both of them bemg crowded. But 
 language can not give more than a faint idea of the awful 
 condition of the proud metropolis of the southwest under the 
 reign of the boss, and to this shameful and humiliating state 
 St. Louis was brought for the want of a larger number of 
 manly men willing to sacrifice time and means, for the common 
 weal. No wonder a speaker at the Chatsworth Hall indigna- 
 tion meeting, described in another chapter, asked in amaze- 
 ment, "Are you the sons of soldiers? Are you yourselves 
 veterans of the Civil War? Where is the stubborn, sturdy 
 resolve of the Yankee, and the dare and dash and chivalry of 
 the Southerner?" 
 
 And yet we do not believe that these superb qualities of sol- 
 dierly courage have died out. They are only slumbering. Nor 
 indeed can it be said that they slumber any longer ! The forces 
 of unrighteousness have over-reached themselves and their 
 defiant aggressiveness has recoiled upon their own heads. 
 The State of Missouri is aroused, as it has not been since the 
 troubled times of the 6o's, when armed bands marched up and 
 down over her fertile fields and rendezvoused by her murmur- 
 ing rivers. It may be the issue is in part still obscured by 
 wilful and designing partisans, but the majority of the people 
 are beginning to see the facts as they are; and nothing more is 
 necessary, where every man's heart throbs with vehement 
 indignation at cruel wrongs inflicted and rights ruthlessly 
 invaded and denied. Prof. WJ. McGee has told us that 
 Missourians are larger and finer types of physical manhood 
 than the men of any other section ; and so the conduct and 
 results of this campaign will show that in mentality and moral- 
 ity, as well as in brawn, Missourians are among the highest 
 type of men, and worthy of such a leader as Joseph W. Folk. 
 
Chapter III. 
 THE PUBLIC PULSE, 
 
Yoli cannot rely much on the extraordinary people. Phe- 
 nomena are interesting as studies, but not of niucli value for 
 service. You cannot depend upon exceptional thiiigs. The lamp 
 which continues its flickering is better than the rocket for steady 
 illumination. The plain people do the ivorld's zvork. And they 
 are behind the leaders, giving them their place and their poiver. 
 The renown of great men comes principally from men who have 
 no renozvn in themselves. — /. F. Carson. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PUBLIC PULSE. 
 
 SOVEREIGN POWER THE CITY PAPERS — INTERESTING EPISODES 
 
 SAVED BY HOPE PUBLIC INDIGNATION DEALING WITH 
 
 ANARCHY ZIGZAGGING. 
 
 Our government is not a pure democracy, but a repre- 
 sentative democracy. The people bear rule through their 
 accredited representatives whom they are supposed to elect. 
 In such a government it is impossible to set bounds to the 
 power of public opinion. The only way to circumvent it is to 
 keep the people uninformed, or misinformed, concerning any 
 proposed nefarious measure. If it be granted that, in spite 
 of the disintegrating influences of our civilization, the vast 
 majority of our people are still pure-hearted and right- 
 motived, then it follows as a matter of course that govern- 
 ment in theory as well as in practice should be pure. 
 
 It is sometimes said, as if it were practicable and as if it 
 were a cure-all for political corruption, "Elect only good men 
 to ofhce." Something is surely forgotten when this slogan is 
 raised. In the first place, we forget that our government is 
 representative. If only good men were elected to office, who 
 would represent the fellows of the lewd and baser sort? They 
 constitute a not inconsiderable element of our population, 
 especially in the large cities, and unfortunately they are the 
 most active when it comes to the manifold exercise of civic 
 rights. They not only see to it that the men elected represent 
 them, but that the upright majority, who are pre-occupied 
 with their private affairs, have very few, if any, men of their 
 own type as their representatives. 
 
 We are perfectly willing to have every section of our 
 community participate in public affairs, provided only and 
 always that this participation does not violate the common 
 laws of decency, not to say the statute laws of the land. We 
 
44 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 are likewise willing for them to choose and elect men of their 
 own ilk as their representatives, if they can! But we insist 
 that theit representatives, especially wTien they pollute their 
 offices by all manner of wickedness, are not our representa- 
 tives, nor the State's ; they are partisans of criminals in ofhce. 
 
 SOVEREIGN POWER. 
 
 AA'hile there can be no question as to the sovereign powder 
 of public opinion, it must nevertheless be sorrowfully admitted 
 that the public conscience slumbers; that the so-called "better 
 classes" are supremely indifferent to the public good. George 
 William Curtis once said, *'\\^hen good men sit at home, not 
 knowing that anything needs to be done, nor caring to know^; 
 half suspecting that a Republic is the vulgar and contemptible 
 rule of the mob, and secretly longing for a splendid and 
 vigorous despotism ; then, be it remembered, that the govern- 
 ment resulting is not the victory of the slums, but the sur- 
 render of the schools ; it is not that bad men are brave, but 
 that good men are infidels and cowards !" Although uttered 
 more than a generation ago, these words are as apropos now 
 as then. They bear with vehement insistence upon the imme- 
 diate crisis which confronts us. 
 
 THE CITY PAPERS. 
 
 But finally the work which had been done by fearless and 
 faithful Grand Juries began to receive its meed of public 
 applause. With scarcely an exception, indeed with no excep- 
 tion worth mentioning, the city press commended the work. 
 Sometimes, in a pessimistic mood, we are inclined to criticise 
 the daily papers because they do not lead in the exposures 
 of infamous wrong and the moulding of public opinion. We 
 forget that a modern newspaper is an immense commercial 
 enterprise, and that its prosperity, not to say its survival, 
 depends upon the ruling conditions in the commercial world. 
 
 Suppose the papers had been first and foremost, as thev 
 easily might have been, in the work which was taken up bv 
 ]\Ir. Joseph W. Folk before the Grand Jury, immediately they 
 would have brought upon their devoted heads the wrath and 
 vengeance of vested business interests. Their advertising 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE Wi'l ii TJIE BOODLERS. 45 
 
 patronage would have been jeopardized and doubtless much 
 of it lost; for advertising is the quartz mine of the modern 
 newspaper. No matter what might be the private opinions 
 and purposes of the editors, the wishes of the stockholders 
 and directors must be consulted ; and whether we like it or not, 
 a newspaper must, to some extent, if not absolutely, be con- 
 trolled from the counting room. 
 
 In view of this simple statement of the case, we believe 
 that we have a right to rejoice in the attitude of the public 
 press. The time may come, when our civilization has arisen 
 several grades higher, when a great newspaper may be a 
 great leader and molder of public opinion. But, at present, 
 it seems to be rigidly confined to the less noble function of 
 reflecting public opinion. Still we will hold to our high ideals, 
 and anticipate the time when, as a recent waiter put it, — 
 "Before the chariot of the millenial King will roll a printing 
 press, and the wing of the Apocalyptic angel will be a printed 
 page." 
 
 INTERESTING EPISODES. 
 
 So, through the medium of the daily papers the applause 
 of the public began to be heard. Highminded and honorable 
 men set themselves to work to re-enforce the public prosecutor 
 by raising an emergency fund. It is a shame that such a 
 recourse should have been necessary. But can we expect any- 
 tlnng else, when, judging from appearances, for a long period 
 of time the criminal and semi-criminal mal-contents among 
 us have exercised a moulding influence upon our public insti- 
 tutions? With the moral encouragement which the raising 
 of a fund for prosecution created, the machinery of the law 
 continued its merciless grind. This little incident was a 
 capital point in unearthing further fraud and pushing to a suc- 
 cessful conclusion the cases already on the docket ; and, as 
 long as there is moral earnestness and vitality in city and 
 State, we may expect just such aids to the ordinary and regu- 
 larly appointed modes of justice. They are indispensable, and 
 all honor is due to the people who initiated them. Be it remem- 
 bered that they likewise became conspicuous for their cour- 
 ageous and steadfast support of the State, and that they 
 
46 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 thereby became the targets at which all the stenchful artillery 
 of the mob was aimed. 
 
 Another interesting episode in this connection was that of 
 raising a fund of $15,000, among the merchants and manufac- 
 turers in the city of St. Louis, to purchase a home for Circuil 
 Attorney Folk, and present it to him with the compliments and 
 congratulations of his fellow townsmen. Mr. Folk was deeply 
 moved by this proffered testimonial, but immediately declined 
 the courteous offer. He insisted that as a sworn public officer 
 he was only doing his duty, for which he neither asked nor 
 anticipated any reward. 
 
 It must forever redound to the credit of St. Louis that 
 such a testimonial was offered, and no less does it redound to 
 the credit of Circuit Attorney Folk that the generous offer 
 was declined. It was an assurance from the best people of the 
 City that their hearts were with the young man in his heroic 
 and arduous toil ; that they admired his courage and genius 
 and stood ready to support him in every possible way. 
 
 It may be regarded as another indication of the premise 
 upon which this whole book is written, that however soiled and 
 turbid the surface of the stream of history may be, underneath 
 the floating carcasses and scum flows steadfastly a deep, pure 
 current of moral principle. Conversations over coffee and 
 cigars, in clubs and hotels and restaurants, among gentlemen 
 who met casually on street corners and in street cars, gave 
 still further currency to right sentiments and leavened the 
 entire community with right feeling. 
 
 SAVED BY HOPE. 
 
 We are municipally, as well as nationally and individually, 
 saved by hope. It is not the noisy and vociferous deliverances 
 of the demagogue to which we must look in moments of crises 
 and peril ; nor yet to the flamboyant utterances of the pulpit 
 or press, but to the quiet, determined, earnest work of the 
 level-headed men who "know the right, and knowing, dare 
 maintain ;" they hold the saving common sense of the nation ; 
 they must be the steadfast reliance of a fearless and faithful 
 pulpit and press, as well as of the politician whose stainless 
 record entitles him to be called, not politician, but statesman. 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 47 
 
 And it is likewise among them that we must go to find 
 that capacity for indignation without which self-government 
 must be a farce and a failure ; for, in a land blessed with almost 
 an excess of freedom, as ours is, there will be continued inroads 
 upon public rights and transgressions of both common and 
 statute law by the vicious and criminal classes. They will 
 usurp the forms of civic administration and rule by the might 
 of the terror they inspire and the entangling alliances with 
 the respectable classes which, with Satanic ingenuity, they 
 create and sustain. 
 
 PUBLIC INDIGNATION. 
 
 When from either extreme of society, top or bottom, upper- 
 crust or under-crust, a raid is made upon public institutions or 
 the public treasury, no matter what may be its character, the 
 people have a right to be indignant. Not only do they have 
 such a right, but they will be indignant unless among them 
 also conscience is seared as with a hot iron. And there is no 
 better index to the character of a community than its capacity 
 for indigation. A man who does not feel outraged when his 
 rights are taken from him, or when cruel wrongs are inflicted 
 upon him, must be himself a knave or a weakling. It will 
 not do to condone the offense and let the offender go free. 
 Even if the ordinary processes of law fail and are defeated, 
 there should yet be sufficient energy in the hearts of the people, 
 and r^al makers of public opinion, to punish with scorn and 
 v/bloquy and the perpetual obscurity of private life, all daring 
 wrong-doers. Let the hot blow-pipe of an outraged peoples' 
 indignation be focused upon them ! The v/hitecaps some- 
 times take a criminal and cover him with a coat of tar and 
 feathers. The contempt which covers audacious criminals and 
 political brigands should be like that coat of tar and feathers. 
 
 Perhaps it ought to be said that one of the most gratifying 
 results of this whole chapter of municipal history is the demon- 
 stration of the fact that the great majority of the citizens of 
 St. Louis and imperial Missouri are not only industrious, pro- 
 gressive and thrifty, but they are also possessed of great moral 
 earnestness. It means much for the future of the city of St. 
 Louis that roguery, long triumphant and defiant, has been 
 
48 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 unmasked ; that the public conscience, for a long time somno- 
 lent, has at last been aroused. Macaulay says that only when 
 conditions of oppression aiid misrule have become intolerable 
 will they be righted by English-speaking people. Perhaps, 
 therefore, the intolerable conditions under which we have 
 suffered have been necessary as a counter-irritant and helpful 
 stimulus to the body politic. Be that as it may, the State of 
 Missouri has enjoyed this remedial agency. 
 
 There is a constant tendency during 'the piping times of 
 peace' for men to sink into a sweet and sunny optimism, and 
 become supremely indifferent to anything which does not 
 press upon them immediately and demand their attention. 
 There can be no safe optimism which is not based upon a thor- 
 ough and comprehensive knowledge of facts, whatever they 
 may be. No man, save only one who is well informed concern- 
 ing the life and tendency of his times, has any right to be 
 either an optimist or a pessimist. We firmly believe that great 
 gain will come to the State of jNIissouri from the awakening 
 which recent developments in the State and in the cities have 
 brought about. 
 
 DEALING WITH ANARCHY. 
 
 In one of the most stirring meetings ever held in the City 
 of St. Louis, a meeting which is described in another chapter, 
 Judge Sterling P. Bond said : 
 
 'Tt has been the history of every age that but few men 
 have been capable of wielding power with justice, and while 
 in a republic parvenues and adventurers, at times, seem to 
 ascend to power and brutality, yet it has ever been the history 
 in this country that their brutish sway and abandoned inso- 
 lence have been the beginning of their final dissolution and 
 defeat. 
 
 "So it has ever been, that where tyranny has played her 
 role, she has done so by tramphng upon the laws and the liber- 
 ties of the people, who, in the last analysis, are the sovereigns 
 of despots. 
 
 ''And in a state like this in which we live, the head of 
 anarchy should no more than show itself ere it is cut off by the 
 swords of men who cherish and are ready to defend their 
 inalienable rio^hts and libertv. 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 49 
 
 "So also, the annals of the world point out that there are a 
 few men who are capable of meeting any crisis which confronts 
 their country. 
 
 "Missouri is our home and our first love. Can anarchy 
 reign in the remotest hamlet or in her largest cities without 
 being trampled to death by the untarnished men who live 
 within her borders, and dare to defend the rights of men 
 against the insolence of the corrupt? 
 
 "Here we have anarchy and bribery. The laws enacted to 
 safe-guard the sacred rights of citizenship are looked upon 
 with derision and contempt by the officers of the law who have 
 taken oath to uphold, defend and enforce the laws. 
 
 ''This unseemly spectacle arises from the minions and offi- 
 cers of the law obeying the will and nod of their masters. 
 Their masters are appointed by an executive. The executive 
 can eradicate the evil or bid it live.' If he would destroy the 
 source of anarchy he must lop off the heads of the men in 
 authority and in control of the patrolmen, because it can not 
 be conceived that a thousand men who walk these streets 
 as sworn peace officers would in unison and one accord violate 
 their oaths and the written law without the sanction and com- 
 mand of their superiors. 
 
 "Though we be private citizens, our sacred duties to the 
 State are not less onerous than those of the executive. We 
 must all arise, like an army for the defense of our country, to 
 erase the last vestige of bribery and anarchy from the com- 
 monwealth, aye, the commonwealth of Missouri and the com- 
 monwealth of these United States." 
 
 This brief extract from the stirring speech of Judge Bond 
 is an appeal which, at one and the same time, voices public 
 sentiment and creates it. So valuable are right ideals, so 
 indispensable is the eager and sustained attention of the rank 
 and file of citizens to civic duties, that although chagrined and 
 humiliated, we may yet be grateful for the disorderly and 
 deplorable conditions that have aroused a commonwealth. Or, 
 if this statement be considered too strong, then we may say 
 that this efifect upon the State is one of the many good results 
 that have followed and that will always follow a career of 
 audacious wickedness. 
 
50 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 James Russell Lowell says, in "Bigelow Papers": — 
 "Abstract war is horrid, 
 
 I sign to that with all my heart; 
 But civilization does git forrid 
 
 Sometimes upon a powder cart.'' 
 
 ZIGZAGGING. 
 
 And in a similar strain we may say that corruption and 
 anarchy under the forms of law are "horrid." Defiant and 
 triumphant invasions of popular rights are appalling, and yet 
 by such means as these, horrid and appalling as they are, the 
 civilization of a State and city may "git forrid." To be sure 
 the State of ^Missouri is still on trial. Lincoln Steffens, at 
 about the time the events herein narrated were happening, 
 wrote a trenchant article entitled "The Shamelessness of St. 
 Louis," which appeared in ^IcClure's ^Magazine of ]\Iarch, 
 1903. Xo matter how just this characterization may seem to 
 have been at that time, we believe that it no longer describes 
 the condition of this great city. St. Louis has not dismissed 
 and exiled her rabble. She is still cursed with a slum section ; 
 with the merciless and vindictive reign of the boss ; wdth the 
 undermining influence of wealth and talent prostituted to 
 purposes most base ; yet the city has nevertheless been aroused 
 as never iDcfore in Her history : and, unless a little coterie of 
 rich plungers and political parasites succeed in subsidizing the 
 press and intimidating men to whom we naturally turn for 
 daring leadership, the time is at hand when St. Louis will 
 stand erect, with her heel upon the necks of her infamous 
 spoilers and oppressors. L'nless the city shall thus clear her- 
 self ; unless she cleanses away the political vermin, leeches and 
 parasites that have been sucking her very life-blood, and 
 humiliating her before the eyes of the world, then indeed may 
 popular magazine writers talk without let or hindrance about 
 'The Shamelessness of St. Louis," and our World's Fair visitors 
 wonder at her supine indifference. 
 
 It is meet in troublous times to turn to the pulpit, the 
 press and the platform for the moral energy and daring recti- 
 tude which are necessary to the formation of right public 
 opinion, and the adoption of right courses. AVe believe that 
 
HARRY B. HAWES. 
 
52 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 when these soiled pages of the city's history are written and 
 folded down, it will be apparent to all the world that these 
 sources of power have not been altogether wanting. On the 
 other hand, we believe that many pulpits, as well as many 
 editors and othe^ writers and speakers, will have made a last- 
 ing impression upon the minds and consciences of the com- 
 munity ; and whatever may be the final outcome, whether sad 
 and sorrowful failure and a recrudescence of barbarism, or a 
 glorious victory of civic morality and righteousness, these 
 men will have cleared their skirts. 
 
 The people may be misinformed and misled ; but the time 
 shortly comes when they discover that they have been duped, 
 and then woe betide their deceivers ! The popular pulse beats 
 firm and strong for justice, freedom and equity. 
 
Chapter IV. 
 RESULTS. 
 
/ c!ai]u, that notzvith standing the cries of corruption, not- 
 zinihstanding the zuails of the Jeremiahs about the deplorable state 
 of politics, that the people of this country are getting just exactly 
 as good government as they deserve. There is a great deal of 
 talk about the Senate of the United States being a ''bankers' 
 Club;' about "Sugar Trust senators'' ; but I staiid here to say that 
 if the United States senate has in it an imbecile niillionaire zi'ho 
 does not knozv enough to anszver to the yea and nay of the roll- 
 call, he is there because some constituency sent him there. Not 
 all the millions of the Vanderbilts multiplied by those of all the 
 Astors can put a corrupt man in any office if the people do not 
 care to have him there. These men are in pozcer because the people 
 do not attend to their duties. 
 
 There are more good people thaji bad pople in this country ; 
 if there are not, then the government of the United States should 
 quit business, go into the hands of a receiver and shut up shop. 
 I knozu there are a number of men in this country zi'ho love to en- 
 large their phylacteries and go about the streets thanking God 
 that they are not like other men. There are men zvho like to talk 
 about the degrading and contaminating touch of modern politics, 
 zvho get off and flock by themselves because they are too good to 
 associate z^'ith their fellozvs. But I notice that such men are very 
 doubtful, and in that respect a man is like an egg; zvhen it takes 
 an argument to prove that lie is very good, he is doubtful, and 
 zi'hen he is doubtful, he is bad. — John J. Jngalls. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 RESULTS. 
 
 THE SEARCHING TEST WHAT IS SUCCESS — TREMENDOUS ODDS A 
 
 FEARFUL POWER ANOTHER ELEMENT WHO ARE MOST 
 
 ACTIVE INEXCUSABLE INDIFFERENCE BRIBERY MADE EX- 
 TRADITABLE NINETEEN CONVICTIONS. -~- 
 
 Every body wants results. Advertisers want them ; 
 teachers and students want them; preachers and politicians 
 and public prosecutors want them. A party will demand 
 results of its leaders and workers in the rank and file. In 
 time of war, military leaders are held responsible for results. 
 If they are not satisfactory, the leaders are deposed and others 
 are installed. No farmer ever turns a furrow or plants a crop 
 without a buoyant hope of results in an abundant harvest. 
 Gardens and orchards are meaningless unless there be results 
 in bloom and fruit. Even so, reformers, — no matter how 
 deplorable the situation, nor how great the obstacles, nor how 
 vicious the enemies, are held accountable for results. When 
 a lawyer draws up his pleadings and files his suit, he does it in 
 anticipation of satisfactory results, in the ordinary grind of 
 judicial procedure, both for himself and for his client. Ships 
 are launched and freighted; railroads are built and bonded; 
 constitutions and laws are created, for results. 
 
 THE SEARCHING TEST. 
 
 Workers here and everywhere must submit to this search- 
 ing test of their efficiency. It will not do to spend one's time 
 in manufacturing excuses and explanations. Instead of work- 
 ing the "excuse factory" over-time, as employees sometimes do, 
 they should spend their energy in result-producing enterprise. 
 To be sure there are conditions which may postpone the 
 accomplishment of the best laid purposes, but a mere post- 
 
56 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 '^1^^ 
 
 ponement must be made a stepping stone to ultimate success. 
 Temporary defeat is easily possible and of frequent occurrence. 
 No matter how efficient the worker, no matter whether a man 
 serves the city, the state, the nation or a private concern, he 
 must, sooner or later, be able to show results. Even the men 
 who serve themselves, will find their standing- in the com- 
 munity is determined by nothing so much as by their ability 
 to produce results. The man who is a perpetual failure, no 
 matter how earnest and industrious he may be, needs some- 
 thing to redeem him from reproach and ignominy. 
 
 WHAT IS SUCCESS? 
 
 We must never lose sight of what really constitutes suc- 
 cess on the one hand, or failure on the other. The martyrs of 
 Smithfield may be looked upon as monumental failures or as 
 monumental successes. John Bunyan in Bedford jail was only 
 a poor and despised tinker, but he was a brilliant success, not 
 a dilapidated and contemptible failure. Savonarola died a 
 martyr in his effort to make Florence a city of God, a city 
 of triumphant righteousness, but no one ever thinks of stigma- 
 tizing his martyrdom as a spectacular failure. Better any time 
 go to Golgotha with the Nazarene than to a throne with 
 Caesar. 
 
 TREMENDOUS ODDS. 
 
 Probably the great majority of our citizens will never 
 fully realize the tremendous odds against which the battle with 
 the boodlers has been waged from the firing of the first gun. 
 It is a hard thing to say, and it is by no means an easy thing 
 to think, that almost incalculable wealth, in the hands of 
 covetous and mercenary men, has been arrayed in tireless and 
 determined opposition. 
 
 The full force of this simple statement can not be realized 
 unless we call a halt and think of the far-reaching influence 
 of organized wealth in our midst. In the first place, it is gen- 
 erally in the hands of men who, because of their industrial 
 triumphs, are honored with the title, "Captains of Industry." 
 Not only are they men of thrift and enterprise in the commer- 
 cial world, but they generally stand for the earnest, productive 
 elements of the State. They do not represent tramps, crim- 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WrfH THE BOODLERS. 57 
 
 inals and social parasites. Their associations are with leaders 
 of thought and moulders of public opinion. Many, if not most, 
 of them are on the right side of an issue more than half the 
 time, and always on the right side of an issue which has 
 become publicly triumphant ; for although they may not heart- 
 ily approve the verdict which the people have rendered, they 
 are nevertheless shrewd enough to know when it is useless to 
 stand out against the tide. 
 
 ]Many time^, although the corporation of which they are 
 a part, is engaged in corrupt and wicked methods of business, 
 through its officers, they themselves purposely remain ignorant 
 of the fact. Thus they are in a position to use the immense 
 influence which they possess among their associates, who may 
 be judges, reputable lawyers, honored physicians, famous min- 
 isters, merchants, manufacturers, etc. ; and this is but one 
 point of advantage for the cause that has the sympathy and 
 support of the wealthy man. 
 
 A FEARFUL POWER. 
 
 It is unneccessary to mention the vast resources which 
 are theirs because of their power to take the bread and butter 
 from hungry mouths, the roof from poor families and the 
 covering from crying babes, simply by refusing employment. 
 The mere intimation that a factory may shut down is enough 
 to send a tremor of terror through the hearts of scores of in- 
 dustrious, but dependent, toilers; nor can it be doubted that 
 this terrific power has been employed by the masters of men 
 in order to protect their vested interests. 
 
 If the reader will follow out this single force, in its inter- 
 minable ramifications, he will be overwhelmed with a con- 
 sciousness of the well-nigh invincible energy that is arrayed 
 against civic reform. We would not be understood as here 
 incriminating all business men, but what we are saying is true, 
 indisputably true, of multitudes of big business men in this nation 
 of ours. 
 
 There are men of quite another class, engaged in the suc- 
 cessful prosecution of other kinds of business, who rank as 
 high as those who choose to cast their lot with the rabble. 
 They have been heard from in the present campaign in ^lis- 
 
58 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 souri, and they will be heard from as moons wax and wane, 
 suns rise and set, in the years that are to come. 
 
 ANOTHER ELEMENT. 
 
 Before glancing once more at the results which have been 
 accomplished by the fearless exposure of official knavery and 
 anarchy in the seats of the mighty, it will be well to take into 
 account another element of the opposition, and that is the 
 wicked and criminal classes of the community. All criminals are 
 wicked, although all the wncked are not criminal. But every- 
 body knows that there are characters, in every large city espe- 
 cially, that live by promoting vice and crime, and the criminal 
 and vicious are never satisfied, even as hell and destruction 
 are never full. Occasionally, lawless vice will buy protection 
 from the peace officers of a municipality w4th a part of the 
 spoil which it lays its felonious hands upon, and in considera- 
 tion of which the authorities consent to the prosecution of their 
 devilish business. 
 
 The great, proud city of Minneapolis has only recently 
 been shamed by officially protected vice and crime. A certain 
 per cent went into the hands of the city's officials, and all man- 
 ner of unclean beasts prowled throughout the city unmolested. 
 This great underworld of vice and crime is always populous. 
 Its inhabitants, as a rule, are citizens of the globe. They may 
 be in Minneapolis today, in St. Louis tomorrow, in San Fran- 
 cisco next week, in London for the summer and in South Africa 
 for next winter. But they are numerous enough to furnish' a 
 residuum of the morally unfit and socially menacing at all times 
 for all sections of the world that will consent to harbor them. 
 We find among them thieves, burglars, highwaymen, pick- 
 pockets, assassins and murderers. There is no crime on the 
 calendar which has not been committed at some time by some 
 of them, and w^hich they can not be procured to commit again 
 for a consideration. 
 
 Sometimes these people are referred to as the "saloon 
 vote." This is no compliment either to them or to the saloon. 
 It is a well known fact that the saloon is the rallying place for 
 these promoters of civic plunder, these beasts of prey ; as it 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 59 
 
 is also well known that the baleful fires of passion are kindled 
 and sustained by alcoholic beverages. 
 
 It has been said that the State machine in Missouri con- 
 trols this vote in St. Louis, Kansas City and St. Joseph, by 
 means of the three boards of police commissioners who are the 
 personal representatives of the Governor. It is amazing to 
 think that intelligent men will stoop so low and venture so 
 far as to employ the most dangerous classes in the community 
 in the work of carrying elections. And yet municipal history 
 in Missouri solemnly attests this fact and the people of city and 
 State and nation should knoAv it. 
 
 WHO ARE MOST ACTIVE. 
 
 Now we can easily see how the dangerous classes them- 
 selves, under more or less capable leadership, may plot and 
 conspire against the common weal. We can understand how they 
 may open up negotiations with politicians and with office- 
 holders ; that is, how they themselves may be originators of 
 infamous schemes for looting the public treasury and plying 
 their trade of crime. There can be no doubt that the initia- 
 tive often proceeds from them ; they are absolutely without 
 party loyalty. It is immaterial to the thug and the plug-ugly 
 what party bears rule. It is a matter without any bearing 
 whatever upon their interests ; but it is a matter of serious 
 moment to them when unpurchasable men hold office, whether 
 they be called Democrats or Republicans. They hate nothing 
 so much as a man who can neither be bought nor intimidated 
 nor cajoled. And it is equally certain that the opposition first 
 described — that of men of wealth and social prestige — some- 
 times originate a scheme of plunder and, in order to carry it 
 through successfully, open up negotiations with the dangerous 
 classes of the city, employing them under capable leadership 
 to do the dirty work. 
 
 What a confederacy is this ! It is a "covenant with death 
 and a league with hell." Such men could not possibly form so 
 infamous a partnership unless their consciences had first been 
 seared, their moral judgment rendered obtuse, and their very 
 "^inds clouded by the gangrene of greed. And yet, who shall 
 sa}' whether it is greed of gain for gain's sake, or for the sake 
 
60 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 of indulging extravagant tastes which they and their families 
 have developed in that w^orld of organized mimicry called 
 "society?" Be that as it may, it is enough to know that such 
 alliances are formed, and that such forces are arrayed against 
 us in the battle for the integrity of the Republic and its insti- 
 tutions. 
 
 INEXCUSABLE INDIFFERENCE. 
 
 This powerful confederacy is the real enemy of the Re- 
 public. As we have intimated elsewhere, a tremendous re-en- 
 forcement comes to this army of plunderers from the indiffer- 
 ence and culpable ignorance of the mass of our citizens. They 
 are the natural guardians of the liberties which they enjoy, 
 and if they dare to dispense with sentinels, or, worse still, if 
 their sentinels slumber on duty, what can they expect but 
 that the citadel will be taken and sacked, and liberty lost? 
 
 Here we have the three elements of the opposition. 
 The aggressive wickedness of the vicious and the criminal; 
 the conspiracy and piracy of the rich and influential, and the 
 ignorance and indifference of the rank and file of citizens. 
 Now, when we come to take account of results accomplished, 
 it is something to know that as work is always for the worker, 
 the efforts put forth by men like Mr. Folk and his colleagues, 
 supported by substantial business men of the city and State, 
 have by the law of reflex action developed these men. They 
 have been in this warfare "men in the making;" and as the 
 war of the revolution developed a high type of citizen soldiery, 
 so the war against civic corruption has developed among us a 
 high type of citizenship. Every reporter, every editor, every 
 preacher, every person, no matter who nor where, who has 
 borne a part in this splendid warfare, has been strengthened 
 and trained thereby. 
 
 BRIBERY MADE EXTRADITABLE. 
 
 We have already referred to the awakening of public 
 opin'on as one of the results gained in this great contest. But 
 specffically. what are some of the direct gains? In the first 
 place this warfare has led to the enactment of international 
 laws making bribery an extraditable offense, and thereby 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 61 
 
 hangs a most interesting- tale of three cities, — St. Louis, Wash- 
 ington and Mexico. 
 
 When John K. Mnrrell tied for refuge to Mexico, it was 
 with the expHcit understanding and solemn agreement between 
 him and the rogues who could be safe only in his absence and 
 silence, that he should be plentifully supplied with funds and 
 that his family should not want. Murrell is a man, with a 
 man's affections, sympathies, hopes and fears. He went, in 
 order thereby to secure the immunity of his confreres in crime, 
 feeling that he could depend upon the pledged honor of these 
 gentlemen. And for a time the promise was kept, and the 
 money forthcoming. Not only so, but after he had been gone 
 sot7)e time, a special messenger was sent to cheer him up in his 
 lonely exile. 
 
 However, it was not long until the rogues decided to 
 desert him and began to neglect his family. Mrs. Murrell, his 
 innocent and helpless wife, was left to suffer and was finally 
 compelled to secure transportation and join her husband under 
 a foreign flag. It is sometimes said ''there is honor among 
 thieves," but among these thieves there was evidently not a 
 vestige of honor, nor the shadow of a shade of moral principle. 
 
 But it was not long until the Circuit Attorney pushed his 
 investigations into the real status of the laws between the 
 United States and Mexico, concerning the extradition of crim-* 
 inais. To make a long story short, after having communicated 
 with W^ashington, D. C, Mr. Folk went to that city to confer 
 with the President and the Secretary of State, and a new treaty 
 was enacted, worded in such fashion that it became at once 
 possible on the ground of international courtesy to have these 
 fugitives extradited. This must be considered a capital 
 achievement. Henceforth there can be no harbor of refuge 
 in the Republic of Mexico for the man who has given or 
 accepted a bribe. In the notorious Alum legislation at Jeffer- 
 son City, an active agent for the Royal Baking Powder Com- 
 pany was a Mr. Daniel J. Kelly. When thousand dollar bills 
 began to circulate numerously in that small city, and one inci- 
 dent following swiftly upon another led to the discovery of 
 •egislative debauchery at the capital city of the State, Mr. 
 Kelly found that his failing health demanded a trip abroad 
 
62 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 and tied from New York to Canada. There again a criminal 
 found refuge, because bribery was not an extraditable offense ; 
 and for a similar reason Ellis Wainwright, the millionaire 
 brewer, still resides unmolested abroad. We feel that as a part 
 of the rich harvest already gathered, we are justified in claim- 
 ing the law referred to as one of the chief gains, with a pros- 
 pect of similar legislation and treaties with other nations. 
 These are results that bear immediately upon the situation, 
 and also serve to tone up public sentiment throughout the 
 entire world and promote the efficient organization of the 
 machinery of justice. 
 
 NINETEEN CONVICTIONS. 
 
 A public prosecutor who secured one conviction after 
 another until nineteen men had been convicted in the courts, of 
 crimes relating directly or indirectly to bribery, might well 
 be proud. It has been said occasionally, in weak criticism, 
 that 'Mr. Folk is not a great lawyer. Nineteen convictions, 
 with public opinion at the outset slumbering, w4th the tre- 
 mendous and overawing forces already referred to actively 
 opposing ; nineteen convictions won against the ablest criminal 
 lawyers money could hire, nineteen convictions under such 
 circumstances are little short of marvelous. Again and again 
 juries of their peers declared that these men were guilty ; 
 declared by their verdicts, under the careful instruction of the 
 courts, presided over by men learned in jurisprudence, that 
 they were worthy of stripes ; and with every conviction the 
 heart of the commonwealth rejoiced. At last justice was 
 avenged. 
 
 It is passing strange that with such a showing of facts, 
 ind with such continuous convictions of defiant roguery, not a 
 sentence should, at this writing (]March, 1904) have been 
 executed. The rogues invoked the proverbial law's delays ; 
 appeals were taken ; all sorts of dilatory tactics were resorted 
 to ; and in a final emergency the army of pirates guarded the 
 penitentiary door with that last champion of convicted knaves — 
 "Technicalities." But even this humiliating exhibition, either 
 of defective statutes or defective jurisprudence, has not been 
 without its recompense. It has served notice upon the State 
 
64 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 of Missouri of the extent to which these corrupt influences 
 are intrenched, and it has started a movement for the enact- 
 ment of law which will be absolutely incapable of any inter- 
 pretation favorable to proved crime. Yet still, as evermore, 
 "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." The State is, at 
 this writing, beginning to answer in unmistakable terms the 
 rogues and parasites who have fattened upon her substance. 
 The question still is a question for the plain citizen : What 
 are YOU going to do about it? 
 
 The results indicated in this brief summary are not final — 
 the war is still on. Lies and innuendoes are being manufac- 
 tured and circulated industriously. The arch fiends of bribery 
 are still free. Money is being poured out like water, and the 
 results most desirable are yet to be recorded. The final cliap- 
 ter in this history must be written by an aroused and indig- 
 nant citizenship in their action this year and in the years to 
 come, at the polls ! 
 
 Many who have worked and waited in the years that are 
 gone are hopeful that now at last redemption draws near. 
 
 "'Tis weary watching, wave by wave, 
 
 And yet the tide heaves onward ; 
 We build like corals, grave by grave. 
 
 Yet pave a path that's sunward. 
 
 We're beaten back in many a fray, 
 
 Yet newer strength we'll borrow ; 
 And where the vanguard rests today 
 
 The rear will camp tomorrow." 
 
Chapter V. 
 THE MAILED FIST. 
 
The grand jury is of the opinion that policemen, stationed 
 about the polls at the recent primary, refused protection to voters 
 ''not because they were not good policemen individually, but be- 
 cause they zvere dominated by the political machine." 
 
 It might have been added that these zvorthy policemen zvere 
 not unmindful that three members of the Police Commissioners 
 zvere candidates at the primary election. 
 
 Is it likely that policemen zvere allozved to forget that im- 
 portant fact? Is it likely that ihey could so far rise above the 
 ordinary promptings of human nature as to be impartially care- 
 ful and careless of the interests of the men to zvhom they looked 
 for bread and butter, to say nothing of preferment and promo- 
 tion? They may not have been conscious of such considerations, 
 but it is not possible to believe they zvere not someJwzv influenced 
 by them. — Post-Dispatch. 
 
 ''The easy-going, good-natured public official, zvho deliber- 
 ately closes his eyes to minor infraction of municipal laz.v zvhich 
 it is his duty to restrain, is one of the most hurtful factors in our 
 municipal life. We may be thankful that a grozving public senti- 
 ment is more and more insisting on a strict enforcement of all 
 lazvs, municipal as zvell as State and national. And zve may also 
 be thankful for the bright examples zvhich are furnished by many 
 in every station, from the lozvest to the highest, of rigorous insist- 
 ence on obedience to lazv, examples zvhose healthful contagion zjuill 
 speak through the country from ocean to ocean and from the lakes 
 to the Gulf. No matter zvhat you may think of them in other re- 
 spects, zvhat lazv-abiding American is not proud of the fact that 
 zve have — not to mention others — tzvo such magnificent examples 
 as Joseph W. Folk and Theodore Roosevelt?" — Justice David J. 
 Brewer of the United States Supreme Court. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE MAILED FIST. 
 
 NATIONAL NOT LOCAL THE PLUGGED PRIMARY INVASION OF 
 
 THUGS — A SLUM OVERFLOW TRIUMPHANT ANARCHY — IN 
 
 KANSAS CITY POLITICAL HESSIANS OUTRAGEOUS AND AP- 
 PALLING CRIMINAL CONNIVANCE WECO PAID THE BILLS. 
 
 The conditions described in this book are not confined 
 to the State of Missouri and its great cities. As we have stated 
 before they are general. 
 
 NATIONAL NOT LOCAL. 
 
 New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, San 
 Francisco — indeed, one may take the list of our American cities 
 and call the roll in alphabetical order and find that practically the 
 same conditions obtain in all. Therefore, this discussion will hold 
 the attention and challenge the interest of all people who are in any 
 measure concerned with public affairs. 
 
 It would be difficult to say how long the methods called 
 appropriately, "political thuggery," have been in vogue in St. 
 Louis. Election after election has been notorious for fraud 
 and force. Deeds of violence and daring outrages against the 
 purity of the ballot have been common ; but, in St. Louis, as 
 in most other cities, there have been sections comparatively 
 free from force and fraud. In this city what is known as the 
 West End represents such a section. This is one of the choice 
 resident districts of the city and is perhaps more American in 
 population than any other portion. Here are to be found the 
 palatial home of the millionaire, as well as the modest cottage of 
 the man of moderate circumstances. Its avenues and streets 
 are lined with shade trees ; wide areas have building restric- 
 tions, making it impossible to erect anything but a residence, 
 and that of a certain character ; the houses stand back from 
 the thoroughfare, leaving room for well kept lawns with shrub- 
 bery and serpentine walks. 
 
68 
 
 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 Certainly one would not select the 28th ward of St. Louis, 
 for example, as a ward where either Democrat or Republican 
 could be found who would commit deeds of violence at an elec- 
 tion. And yet on the 12th day of ]\Iarch, 1904, at a Democratic 
 
 THE PLUGGED PRIMARY. 
 
 party primary, respectable and prominent citizens were held 
 in line at the polling places by the hour, while ruffians, im- 
 ported from the lowest dives of the city, were crowded in 
 ahead of them and permitted to vote under names which had 
 been, by culpable negligence or wilful criminality, placed on 
 the registration books for that purpose. 
 
 Indeed, the citizens whose homes are in this section were 
 fortunate if they escaped w^ith merely being held in line until 
 too late to vote or until duty called them elsewhere, for 
 many w^ere assaulted with brass knucks and chased away from 
 the polling place. The illustration, 
 "Thuggery in the Twenty-Eighth 
 Ward of St. Louis," represents an 
 actual occurrence. A young man, 
 Thos. M. Harding, engaged for 
 vears in business in St. Louis, a 
 quiet, inoffensive citizen, was 
 pulled out of line by "plug-uglies,'" 
 knocked down, kicked, and, when 
 he finally attempted to escape, was 
 chased across the street by these 
 imported curs. In describing the 
 incident, ^Ir. Harding said, "The 
 
 first thing I knew% my coat was ••Being Held in l^lne." 
 
 seized and I was pulled out of line by someone who stood behind 
 me — a burly fellow^ just outside the line. Then someone hit me 
 and knocked me against another man, who also struck me, and as 
 I fell to the ground I was kicked ; my hat was crushed, and on ex- 
 amining it afterwards, one hole was found which seemed to have 
 been made bv a knife or some sharp instrument. Dazed as I was, 
 I struggled to my feet and started to run across the street, with 
 the whole pack after me. Finally, Mr. L., or his brother, who 
 seemed to kno\v the fellows that struck me, called out to them 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. GU 
 
 'Never mind, boys, he is all right,' and like a pack of curs 
 that had ben sicked on, they obeyed the master that now 
 called them off. I went to a gentleman who seemed to know 
 Mr. L. and some of the rest, and said to him 'You are a 
 friend of these fellows apparently, and I wish you would be 
 kind enough to accompany me away from the place'." 
 
 INVASION OF THUGS. 
 
 This assault, like that upon the aged Judge Shultz, was 
 absolutely unprovoked. It was thuggery pure and simple. 
 This was the polling place at which Rev. Dr. R. A. Holland 
 voted, and which he described at length in a signed communi- 
 cation which appeared in the Globe-Democrat on the follow- 
 ing Wednesday. We have space here for a few extracts from 
 this interesting and valuable document : — 
 
 'Tt was near 3 o'clock when I went to the polls at Taylor 
 and Delmar avenues. I saw about fifty men in line. The fore- 
 most part of the line had an ugly look, there were some gentle- 
 men in the rear. I took my place behind Rabbi Messing. We 
 waited — I can not tell exactly how long — without any per- 
 ceptible advance. Dr. Messing began to lose hope of reaching 
 the ballot box, and said he had engagements^ that would take 
 him away. I begged him to remain as a duty above all ordi- 
 nary engagements. While we were talking a red-nosed rowd3% 
 standing just outside the column, accosted the doctor with 
 impudent familiarity. 
 
 " 'It's no use to wait,' he said. 'Your vote won't count. 
 I've got lots o' fellows across the street, and we are going to 
 down you. We are Republicans, we are, but we are going to 
 down you.' I asked him where his Republicans were. He 
 answered : 'All around here in these houses, waiting until I 
 call 'em.' The doctor observed sotto voce that 'there Avas 
 truth in wine,' for the red-nosed rowdy had liquor enough aboard 
 to make him slop over with recklesslv confidential brag. 
 
 "He persisted for some time in his effort to coax or bluff 
 the doctor out of line, and then left to greet with liquorish 
 affection the policeman three yards away, who did duty with his 
 back turned to the incident. They seemed to be old play- 
 mates. 
 
70 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 "Dr. Messing grew tired and left without voting. I stayed, 
 and interested myself with a study of the scene. No attention 
 was paid to the hundred-foot rule. A gang of young ruffians 
 held the sidewalk. Most of them showed signs of drink. They 
 were evidently organized for their work, and under a head. This 
 head had as devilish looking a face as I ever saw. I should hate 
 to meet it at midnight alone. His business seemed to be to watch 
 the line, and estimate the character of the vote by the appearance 
 of the voters. This he did with furtive, but frequent, glances, and 
 the glances grew angrier as the column lengthened. His confer- 
 ences with his minions were in undertone, and they shared his 
 temper. They came and went away anywhere along the line and 
 in and out the polling place as they pleased. 
 
 A SLUM OVERFLOW. 
 
 "It was a ruffian crew, for while some of them were not 
 greasy tramps or roustabouts, and might have been official 
 underlings, the general air was one of whiskified insolence and 
 swagger and scowl. They were there for mischief. They ruled 
 the sidewalk. When they were not going in and out of the 
 column, or in and out of the polling room, they stood together 
 in front of the polling-room door. 
 
 "Their appearance was a menace and intimidation to every 
 well-clad voter who was not personally known to be for their 
 candidate. Their candidate saw them, knew them — knew 
 what they were there for, knew that they had no right to be 
 there, and yet spoke no word of disapproval. His delight daz- 
 zled their eyes. And as soon as he left their activity grew 
 bolder and more busy. 
 
 'T do not think they were repeaters, so much as liners, their 
 business being to hold the line and delay voting as long as 
 they could in this way, and later on to shove or slug voters out 
 of places, which they would themselves occupy until reaching 
 the door, and then leave to return for new shoves and slug- 
 gings. They had the liberty of the line while I was present. 
 It was only the break caused by the appearance of their chief 
 that enabled me to vote when I did. Their chief gone, they 
 held a brief sidewalk jollification, then tapped the saloon and 
 came back to the column. 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH. THE BOODLERS. 71 
 
 "I knew when I left that there was to be bloody work at dark, 
 iJ not before, and told my apprehension to my family and 
 friends. It was the first time I had ever voted at a primary 
 election, and never did my American citizenship, my very 
 manhood, seem so cheap and dirty a bit of refuse. And that 
 is all the manhood of any citizen of St. Louis amounts to if he 
 tolerates any longer this bullyism. It is your cowardice, fel- 
 low-citizens, that the hoodlums bank upon in their bold, 
 shameless overriding of your rights. 
 
 *'And many of you are Southern men. Your fathers fought 
 four years for grievances infinitely less and against the shadow 
 rather than the reality of an oppression that had not as yet 
 laid violent^ hands upon one of them. Are you going to waste 
 time in talk about legal redress? Where is the hope of it? 
 Where is the law? The ruffians hold all the seats of govern- 
 ment, and control the courts, and make law as they go, to 
 rescue their miscreants and reward their captains in crime. 
 There is no anarchy so dreadful as anarchy under the forms 
 of law. 
 
 TRIUMPHANT ANARCHY. 
 
 "The man who shot one President was not half so much an 
 anarchist as the man who has organized all the thieves, thugs, 
 gamblers, pimps and saloon keepers of your city into a mafia 
 of crime to abet his ambition. 
 
 *'Yoii are not men, but a breed of cowards, unworthy of the 
 liberty of your claim, if you let another election day pass 
 without such a military organization as shall redden the 
 streets of your city with the sacrificial blood of its bravest and 
 best rather than yield supinely to this reign of low-bred rascality 
 that riots under sanction of law. 
 
 "It is not a question of whether you will resort to lynch law. 
 The lynch law already exists. The question is how long shall 
 it last, and while it lasts, who shall be the lynchers? Some of 
 your worthiest citizens have already been lynched for attempt- 
 ing to discharge their duty as citizens, and no thanks are due 
 to the lynchers that these quiet, law-abiding gentlemen escaped 
 with their lives. 
 
72 
 
 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 "The next riot will be more murderous. It will come at a 
 general and presidential election. It will beat you from the 
 polls by brass knucks and poUcemen's bludgeons. It will 
 terrify your judges of election. It will awe the timid and 
 infirm and aged, however estimable, from the ballot which is 
 their badge of citizenship. It will shoot down like so many 
 mad dogs those who can not be otherwise beaten or awed. 
 
 ''Will you wait till then and afterward fill the air with your 
 craven complainings, while the courts stand ready to quash 
 or acquit, or do whatever they are bidden in support of the 
 villainy, and the Governor refers the trial of the villains to 
 commissions of candidates in whose behalf their outrages are 
 committed? How long, brother citizens, whether Democrats 
 or Republicans, will you wear the brand of "shamelessness" 
 that has now become one of infamy? 
 
 "Until you purge it away with costlier purification than 
 idle protests, there it will stand over your city's once saintly 
 name, as its proper legend, in the eyes of free America, "St. 
 Louis the Infamous." 
 
 Although it was generally agreed in St. Louis that the 
 scenes enacted in the twenty-eighth ward were the most disgraceful 
 
 in the annals of .the city, yet 
 the machine newspapers published 
 broadcast the statement that it was 
 one of the quietest elections ever 
 held, with no disturbances except 
 in two polling places in one ward ! 
 Fortunately, the machine organs 
 were few in number and con- 
 temptible in character. The great 
 dailies, without exception, pub- 
 lished the facts, some of which 
 are as follows : 
 
 W. R. Hall, of 4633 Maryland 
 Avenue, was slugged with brass 
 knuckles while standing in line, 
 waiting his turn to vote. J. W. 
 Fristoe, President of the T. J. 
 
 'Slug-ged With Brass Knuckles.' 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOOULERS. 73 
 
 Moss Tie Company, residing at 4362 McPherson Avenue, was one 
 of many who tried hard but in vain to get into the polHng place. 
 He arrived there about 5 :30 in the afternoon and stayed until he 
 thought he was in imminent danger of being slugged. Mr. J. T. 
 Wallace, of 4366 McPherson Avenue, and Capt. J. J. Corkery, of 
 4330 McPherson Avenue, were in the same predicament. All 
 three were compelled to leave the polls without votmg. In 
 relating his experience with the Indians Mr. Fristoe said, "I 
 am in favor of holding an indignation meeting to show the 
 party leaders that we will not tolerate such proceedings in our 
 midst. They were disgraceful, and to think they should hap- 
 pen in one of the best districts of our town, too. The assaults 
 that were made in our district Saturday were innumerable. I 
 saw a man knocked senseless and left lying on the pavement. 
 Not a soul went to help him for quite awhile. Finally, he was 
 hauled back into the alley. I have been a Democrat all my 
 life, but I will vote for the meanest Republican that can be 
 placed upon the ticket before I will vote for a machine candi- 
 date." 
 
 Mr. Hall also was slugged with brass knuckles and was 
 laid up at home and confined to his room, as a result of the 
 attack. After standing in line for an hour on Saturday after- 
 noon, he was suddenly pushed out. As he fell forward, he was 
 caught by the arm and thrown into the gutter. A moment 
 later he was struck on the left ear. In another moment the 
 crowd of ruffians were lipon him, as he lay prostrate on the 
 ground. He said, 'T shall take my case to the grand jury. The 
 assault upon me was entirely unprovoked and unwarranted. 
 My complaint will be against the police. They saw me 
 assaulted and beaten and refused to help me. I picked out the 
 man who struck me, but the officers refused to arrest him, even 
 after I went up to the fellow and laid my hand upon him. 
 The policemen I appealed to I can identify at any time. I saw 
 one of them this afternoon. He walks my beat. I never 
 wished for a weapon to defend myself before in my life. If I 
 had been armed there might be a different story to tell." 
 
 J. D. Perry Francis and David R. Francis, Jr., sons of 
 Governor Francis, President of the Louisiana Purchase Expo- 
 sition, also suffered an attack from a dozen or more of the 
 
74 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 ruffians. Mr. Perry Francis stated that he arrived at the poll- 
 ing place shortly after 6 o'clock. "I took my place in line 
 behind my brother, David R. Francis, Jr. He told me that a 
 number of men had been pulled out of Ime and cautioned me 
 to be on my guard. 1 was not expecting an attack, but soon 
 after taking my place, my attention was attracted by a scuf- 
 fle behind me and, upon looking toward the polling place 
 again I found that my brother had disappeared. He tells me 
 that a man caught him by the lapel of the coat and pushed him 
 out of line, when he was immediately jumped upon by about 
 ten more Indians, and when I saw him he was defending him- 
 self as best he could. I immediately left the line and hurried 
 to his assistance. I shoved several men away and hit two or 
 three, when I was jumped upon by five or six of the gang. 
 After this unequal contest, which lasted a few minutes, we 
 managed to get back in line and cast our votes. I have no 
 doubt that these Indians were hired to intimidate and prevent 
 the Folk men from voting. My brother and I were both for 
 Hawes, and if we had so informed the police and the hoodlums 
 who attacked us, they would, no doubt, have permitted us to 
 peacefully cast our votes. We did not think it necessary, how- 
 ever, to inform either the police or the bystanders how we 
 proposed to vote. There seemed to be at least half a dozen 
 policemen at the polls, and while I was standing in line there 
 were innumerable fights, in which I had no part. None of 
 the policemen made any effort whatsoever to preserve the 
 peace. We did get into the polling place and did cast our votes 
 for Mr. Hawes, but if Mr. Hawes sanctions such practices he 
 is not worthy to be Governor, and I certainly will not support 
 him." 
 
 W. K. Kavanaugh, President of the Interstate Car Trans- 
 fer Company, residing at 4635 Maryland Avenue, was another 
 of the inoffensive witnesses who experienced much difficulty 
 in voting. After Avaiting for two hours and fifteen minutes, 
 he was at last allowed to cast his ballot. That he was not 
 treated to a severe drubbing he attributes to the fact that he 
 was acquainted with several of the "boys," who passed word 
 at intervals that he was all right. He described what he saw 
 as the most dastardly behavior he had ever witnessed. "Three 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 
 
 70 
 
 times I was within hailing distance of the voting booth, when 
 the Indians would make a rush, break the line, and all would 
 have to seek new places. The whole plan of action seemed 
 to be to delay the honest voters. It seemed as if it were con- 
 ceded that there were enough of the right sort of votes cast, 
 and the only object in view was to see that none of the Folk 
 voters got a chance. Expressions of disgust at the doings of 
 thugs was taken as a sure sign that the person was against 
 them, and he was immediately slated for removal from the 
 line. Finally, I got into the polling place. I was shoved in 
 with two men whose actions prior thereto left no doubt that 
 they were Indians. A few moments later they were ordered 
 out. A judge said that one had been inside three times and 
 the other four times. They raised an argument, which stopped 
 the ballot-casting for some time. Everytliing was being done 
 to waste time and keep down the vote. 1 stood in line with 
 Mr. S. Bent Russell. I guess we witnessed a dozen assaults 
 upon unoffending citizens. In every instance the police 
 refused to notice anything that was going on. 
 
 "A party of about thirty toughs was doing all the mischief. 
 They would make rushes on the line of voters, after the style 
 of college football players. Once the whole line of voters was 
 sent sprawling by these thugs, 
 and when the line was formed 
 again the attacking party held 
 all the choice positions. These 
 positions were always traded to 
 persons who were said to be 'all 
 right.' Several times when men 
 were shoved in the line in front 
 of me, I called the attention of 
 the police. 'Oh, that's all right, 
 Mr, Kavanaugh, but I didn't see 
 it.' I told him that I had seen 
 it, and I called upon several men 
 to prove it, but he laughed, and 
 that is all the satisfaction that 
 could be gotten. 
 
 "I saw John C. Roberts (of Roberts, Johnson & Rand Shoe 
 Company) assaulted, and I am very much surprised to hear 
 
 'Holding Clioice rositioiis." 
 
76 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 that he was not badly hurt. Dozens, it seemed, were trying to 
 hit him at once. They swarmed around him like bees and 
 pushed him off toward the alley, away from the police, who 
 invariably turned their backs when trouble was brewing. 
 
 "I saw a young man struck in the face. He retaliated, and 
 was set upon by ten or twelve men. He ran and was followed. 
 They caught him ; knocked him down and began kicking him. 
 Residents in the vicinity raised windows and cried out to the 
 man's assailants to desist. It was terrible." 
 
 Dr. Bruce Carson, of 4379 Westminister Place, stood at 
 the polls several hours and then returned home disgusted. 
 'T got in line," he said, "at 5 o'clock. I noticed several friends 
 ahead. When I got near the door I saw several pulled out of 
 line and many rushed into their places. I then held a position 
 behind several Indians. Twice I was pushed from my feet, 
 and each time I found myself getting further back in the line. 
 A big fellow, who seemed to know the police, was conducting 
 things. I heard him giving orders to several persons who 
 seemed to be his lieutenants. 'Hold the line' he said several 
 times. The policeman heard him, but paid no attention. I 
 remained until almost 8 o'clock, when I concluded that it was 
 useless to try to vote, and returned home. During the time I 
 stood in that line, I saw many assaults upon inoffensive people. 
 I saw a leaden-shot 'billy' flourished in the air, and saw a man 
 trying his best to use it upon another person." 
 
 Still others, who are widely known as men of the highest 
 standing and integrity, expressed their disapproval of the 
 treatment at the polls ; among them were Houston T. Force, 
 first Alce-President of the Boogher, Force & Goodbar Hat 
 Company ; Edward Cunningham, attorney ; and Edward Shaw, 
 of the Brown Shoe Company. 
 
 Mr. John C. Roberts, who is mentioned in the foregoing, 
 and who was one of the local Folk Committee, gave out the follow- 
 ing signed statement : 
 
 "The priniary election held here Saturday would be a 
 disgrace to any civilized community. Crooks, thugs and 
 thieves ran riot and terrorized decent citizens. Butler-Hawes 
 'Indians' went about in bands from polling place to polling 
 place, repeating and voting for Hawes and slugging Folk 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 77 
 
 voters. I was at the polling place of the Twenty-eighth Ward, 
 located at Taylor and Delmar avenues, from the time when 
 the polls opened until 7 p. m., and was repeatedly assailed and 
 threatened by the ruffians, and finally, upon the advice of friends 
 on the other side, who said that I would be killed if I remained, 
 1 went away. 
 
 'Tt was almost as much as a man's life was worth to try 
 to vote for Folk. The legal voters of the ward were with us 
 three to one, but they did not have a chance to vote. The 
 Butler-Hawes 'Indians' stood in line all day and kept Folk 
 voters from getting into the polling place. When one of their 
 friends came they would make way for him and let him get 
 into the polling place. 
 
 ''Once, when Folk voters became too numerous, I saw 
 these Butler-Hawes 'Indians' knock down an inoffensive old 
 gray-haired man who had been standing patiently in line for 
 hours. They beat him in the most brutal manner. They 
 then returned and slugged one after another, first jerking 
 them out of the line and then beating them in order to terrorize 
 the legal voters. In this they succeeded, as a respectable citi- 
 zen does not like to be beaten up. All could see that the police 
 were affording no protection to the citizens of the ward. 
 
 "This rioting kept up during the time I was there, and I am 
 told it grew worse later. I cannot believe that Democratic 
 voters can have any conception of the high-handed, brutal 
 methods of the gangs employed in the primary Saturday. The 
 Butler gang voted for Hawes all over, and I witnessed them 
 myself in my own precinct. They would vote, then exchange 
 coats and hats and vote again. 
 
 "Once, when one of our judges challenged a repeater, the 
 repeater defied the judge to have him arrested, saying he had 
 done nothing until he had voted, and he then intimidated them 
 into accepting his vote. 
 
 "The Democracy of St. Louis is in control of one of the 
 most desperately lawless and shameless gangs that ever 
 infested any city. It is very evident that Butler thugs and 
 Hawes Tndians' do not approve of Folk's prosecution of elec- 
 tion frauds and boodlers. They have declared that boodle is 
 not an issue. 
 
78 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 "I was a member of the Democratic State Committee, was 
 president of the Jefferson Club in 1897, have always supported 
 the regular Democratic ticket, and am vice president of the 
 Roberts, Johnson & Rand Shoe Company. I am responsible, 
 and I declare that no decent Democrat should tolerate the things 
 that went on yesterday. I saw that the so-called primary was a 
 farce, carried on by fraud, brutality and ruffianism." 
 
 IN KANSAS CITY. 
 
 Kansas City, the Western metropolis, suffered a similar 
 reign of terror. Mr. A. E. Norton, a real estate agent, was 
 assaulted three times during the day and the last attack was 
 most serious. He remained unconscious from his injuries for 
 ten days. His head was broken and his shoulder shattered, 
 and simply because he shouted for Shelley, the anti-machine 
 candidate. No effort was made at all by the police who wit- 
 nessed the attack to apprehend his assailants. 
 
 Karl W. Hinman, a young fellow about 24 years of age, 
 with no trace or lineament of a repeater was nevertheless 
 thrown into jail and confined for twenty-four hours. He was 
 denied anything to eat while a prisoner, except at his own 
 expense, and discharged from custody upon a simple statement 
 by him to a justice of the peace. No effort whatever was 
 made to substantiate the claim that he was arrested for illegal 
 voting; no steps taken to justify the inhuman treatment shown 
 him or to justify his arrest. While he stood in line, on the day 
 of the Democratic primary, he was asked by Patrick Sheehan, 
 candidate for alderman, for whom he intended to vote. This 
 information Avas given, and by Sheehan repeated to Jack 
 McGraAv, a guard at the workhouse. McGraw then approached 
 Hinman and told him that if he voted for Shelley he would 
 be "pinched." The young fellow pluckily declared that he 
 would vote for Shelly ''pinch or no pinch," and did so vote. 
 William Clark, a police officer, placed him under arrest. The 
 money he had on his person at the time was taken from him 
 and when he asked for food, giving an order for the meal, to 
 be paid for from his own funds, the order was refused unless he 
 would sign it J. W. Inman, instead of K. W. Hinman, his own 
 name. 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE Wmi THE BOODLERS. 79 
 
 Mr. Hinman is vouched for by men who are as responsible 
 as the creator of the police commission or the election com- 
 mission, who sits in his office in Jefferson City and declares 
 such outrages to be funny to a farcical degree. Mr. Hinman 
 has brought suit for $10,000 damages against the police officer 
 making the arrest, and also for a like sum against the police 
 commissioners. 
 
 At Fifteenth and Brooklyn, a quiet and respectable neigh- 
 borhood, where police officers are so seldom seen that many 
 of the children do not know what they look like, they were 
 present in force on the day of the primaries. Prominent pro- 
 fessional and business men, patiently waiting in line, were 
 pushed about by the police to make room for two divekeepers 
 in a negro neighborhood, the officers saying that these men must 
 b*". given a chance to vote, so that they could return to their 
 business. 
 
 In Kansas City, as well as in St. Louis, the padded regis- 
 tration was a leading feature of this brutal election. One man 
 who registered there gave his address as 2100 Garfield Avenue. 
 It was found that there was no such number, but where 2100 
 Garfield Avenue would be, is the centre of a pond. This is 
 only one incident of many. These cases can not fully portray 
 the actual conditions. A searching and thorough exposure 
 would show yet deeper infamy. Is it any wonder that the 
 cities of Missouri are beginning to sicken and tire of machine 
 rule? And be it remembered that the thousands of policemens* 
 clubs which are swung at every election to beat back respecta- 
 ble citizens, to terrorize and intimidate legal voters, and pro- 
 tect bums and thugs in raiding the ballot, are not in reality 
 held by these blue-coated officers, but by the machine poli- 
 ticians who, in their turn, are the cat's paws of corrupt cor- 
 poration magnates. ■ 
 
 POLITICAL HESSIANS. 
 
 And now what was the meaning of this slum overflow? It 
 was more than a slum overflow. It was an army recruited in 
 the slums; hired, rumor says, at $5.00 apiece, marshalled by 
 saloon bums and ward heelers, led in groups of ten to forty 
 from one polling place to another and voted against law and 
 order. A gentleman who saw some of the 'Tndians" in line 
 
80 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 1 
 
 at the polling places recognized a number whom he had in 
 his capacity as a lawyer tried and convicted of crime. Some 
 of them he recognized as former inmates of the penitentiary. 
 
 Men who never resided in the ward where they were vot- 
 ing, nor in any contiguous territory, were lined up. It was 
 an invasion of thugs ; it was floating the black flag before the 
 best people of St. Louis; it was an assauh upon the integrity 
 of the city; it was a threat to the peace and purity of the city's 
 homes. We can but wish that the officers of Missouri, not only 
 the peace officers, but the office-holders who are called Demo- 
 crats, and some who are called Republicans, could show a 
 cleaner bill of health with reference to the whole infamous 
 transaction. Appearances are very much against them. 
 
 The assault as described was undoubtedly premeditated 
 and carried out by the parties chiefly in interest, namely, the 
 machine politicians. They began with their rulings concern- 
 ing registration ; they made demands of busy citizens which 
 were, to say the least, very difficult to comply with ; the regis- 
 tration books were padded; slips of paper were furnished to 
 the "Indians" with the names under which they were to vote 
 plainly written upon them. In one instance, when the Indian 
 had lost his slip, or was too drunk to read it, a friendly judge 
 suggested that it was "So-and-So;" the Indian took the tip, said 
 "Yes, that's it," and voted accordingly. 
 
 As a matter of course, these fellows are not Democrats, 
 neither are they Republicans ; they are either or both by turns, 
 but whether working for one party or the other, they are by 
 hereditary possession, by instinct and training, criminals ! 
 
 OUTRAGEOUS AND APPALLING. 
 
 It would have been sufficiently infamous and daring if 
 they had been content to vote illegally in these wards, but 
 they did not stop with voting, nor yet with crowding into the 
 line under the very eyes of the police and keeping citizens, 
 resident in the ward, from their rights. True to their instincts 
 and the bidding of their masters, they made cowardly and 
 brutal assaults upon peaceful, law-abiding citizens. They did, 
 in other words, what in a rural community or in some of the 
 large towns of the West would have resulted in the immediate 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH TiiE BOODLERS. 81 
 
 organization of a vigilance committee and in the lynching ot 
 the perpetrators of these deeds of darkness. When the stories 
 came out, indeed, before the public press had furnished the 
 appalling narrative; as soon as the word passed from mouth 
 to mouth through the West End, among those who had seen with 
 their own eyes, if they had not felt in their own bodies, the terrific 
 outrages, the city was profoundly stirred. 
 
 ■ CRIMINAL CONNIVANCE. 
 
 It may be asked innocently : Where, during all this, were 
 the policemen? And there lies a still darker shadow of polit- 
 ical turpitude. They were ignoring, conniving at or co-operat- 
 ing with these thugs and ruffians. No one for a moment 
 believes that the blue-coated municipal police did this of their 
 own motion. The word must have been passed down the 
 line; the understanding must have been given that this was to 
 be their attitude ; such an understanding could not emanate from 
 any other source than from the police commissioners themselves, 
 who are the personal representatives of the Governor of the State. 
 
 The poor craven policemen are entitled to our sympathy — 
 at least we can feel for them only pity and contempt. But, Mis- 
 sourians, what must be your feelings toward the men who rep- 
 resent you in office in the State? The feelings of some of the 
 most reputable citizens of the -community are indicated in the 
 extracts from the published letters and addresses which were 
 called forth by this appalling demonstration of brute force on 
 the I2th day of March, 1904, and which must ever be memorable 
 in the annals of St. Louis. 
 
 WHO PAID THE BILLS? 
 
 Another important question arises: Who paid the bills? 
 These men are political Hessians. Some of them we can imagine 
 would commit crime and lend themselves to deeds of violence 
 from the pure love of wickedness, but the majority of them must 
 have been hired. To be sure they were paid with abundant drinks 
 of St. Louis brewed beer and forty-rod whiskey, but there must 
 have been some more valuable consideration. Who furnished the 
 wherewithal? The papers asked the question, but up to date 
 no one has risen to reply. 
 
 6 
 
82 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 What we have said in the preceding chapters as to the ele- 
 ments constituting the opposition will be quite illuminating if 
 read again in this connection. We are content to leave the issue 
 with the people of Missouri and of America ; for, as we said at the 
 outset in this chapter, these are not local conditions nor local 
 issues. They afifect for weal or woe the entire nation and we 
 would as well accept now the gauge of battle here- flung down, 
 as to endeavor under the coward's flag of truce to make peace 
 with our enemies and admit them to still further participation in 
 the affairs of State. This fearful and shameful story of municipal 
 corruption, of the perversion of law, of political thuggery and 
 piracy, has been told and will be told again and aga^n. American 
 citizens are patient and long-suffering, and much more inclined to 
 suffer the ills they have than to arise and by sustained antagonism 
 and the adoption of that aggressive attitude which is, to say the 
 least, disagreeable to most men, right existing wrong; but when 
 finally they are aroused, then let hirelings and thugs and pot- 
 house politicians hunt their holes ! They, may well 'beware the 
 wrath of a patient man.' 
 
Chapter VI. 
 ANARCHY UNDER FORMS OF LAW. 
 
^ 
 
 We have a risiht to deniand that the Mayor and those as- 
 
 sociated zvith him in adiuiiiistering the affairs of this uiunici' 
 pality should not put obstructions in the path of our ameliorating 
 endeavors; and they do. There is not a for in under lifhich the 
 devil disguises himself that so perplexes us in our efforts, or so 
 bewilders us in t/ic dez'ising of our schemes, as the polluted 
 harpies that, under tJie pretence of governing this city, are feed- 
 ing day and night on its quivering vitals. They are a lying, 
 perjured, rum-soaked and libidinous lot. If zi^e try to close np 
 a house of prostitution or of assignation, zve, in the guilelessness 
 of our innocent imaginations, might have supposed that the arm 
 of t/ie city goz'cvnment that takes official cogni::ance of such mat- 
 ters, Zi'ould like nothing so zvell as to zvatch daytimes and sit tip 
 nights for the purpose of briiiging these dirty maief actors to their 
 deserts. On the contrary, the arm of the city government that 
 takes official cognizance of such matters evinces but a languid in- 
 terest, shozcs no genius in ferreting out crime, prosecutes only 
 Zi'heu it has to, and has a mind so keenly judicial that almost no 
 amount of evidence that can be heaped up is acceptable as suffi- 
 cient to zi'arrant indictment. — Dr. Chas. H. Parkhurst, in Our 
 Fight zvith Tammany. 
 
CHAPTER VL 
 
 ANARCHY UNDER FORMS OF LAW. 
 
 THUGGERY THREE TO ONE MONSTROUS MATERIALISM PLUTO- 
 CRACY THE TAINT SPREADS PERNICIOUS EXAMPLE — 
 
 NAKED AND NOT ASHAMED IS THERE ANY RELIEF SOCIAL 
 
 REGENERATION A SOP TO CERBERUS THE BOODLER's POWER 
 
 DECAY OF REPUBLIjCAN INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 In an extraordinary degree, the city of St. Louis was in the 
 lime light. The fearless prosecutions by the Circuit Attorney, 
 his unsparing exposures and tireless efforts to ferret out and 
 arrest and convict the criminals, whether high or low, attracted 
 national and international attention, and yet out of nineteen con- 
 victed boodlers, not one has begun to serve his sentence. The 
 very courts themselves seemed to be implicated in the prevalent 
 political corruption. The vicious elements of society were in 
 control ; no matter how many good men chanced to be associated 
 with them as public officials, the criminals were sufficiently in the 
 majority to carry things with a high hand. For a time they 
 seemed to be cowed, but when the courts were heard from with 
 systematic reversals, and the endless law's delays were experi- 
 enced, their courage immediately revived, and they began their 
 atrocities afresh with unparalleled boldness and audacity. They 
 seemed to be surprised themselves at the extent to which the 
 legally constituted State authorities co-operated with them, but 
 "it is a long lane that never turns." The appalling violence and 
 criminality at the primary election, served to arouse the vehement 
 indignation of all classes without respect to party, save only those 
 who were themselves criminal or in league with criminals. The 
 very figures showing the results of this primary election indicated 
 that the forces of evil had over-reached themselves. 
 
86 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 Siich deeds of infamy have been perpetrated at the polls in 
 St. Louis for lo ! these many years. The illegal voters, "Indians" 
 
 THUGGERY. 
 
 as they are called, constitute a party by themselves. They are 
 called political thugs, and the name itself is most interesting and 
 appropriate. It is from a Hindoo word which means literally a 
 deceiver, a cheat. It is the name of a religious fraternity in In- 
 dia, which in honor of the goddess Kali, is addicted to murder 
 and chiefly lives upon the plunder obtained from its victims. In 
 ^he south of India they used to live under the protection of the 
 native chieftains who, in consideration of a settled contribution, 
 and probably also a share in the results of their crime, connived 
 at their practices, which were generally concealed under the guise 
 of an honest industry. They operated after this fashion : band- 
 ing together in gangs of from ten to fifty, they assumed the ap- 
 pearance of ordinary travelers, journeying on horseback with 
 tents and all the comforts of rich merchants, but in a humbler 
 fashion if they could not afliord such luxury. Each gang had its 
 leader, its teacher, its entrappers, its stranglers and its grave dig- 
 gers. On arriving at towns and villages, they pretended to meet by 
 accident and to have no previous acquaintance with one another. 
 Some of the gang then went to work to collect information. They 
 found out when any persons of property were about to undertake 
 a journey and endeavored to gain their confidence. They usually 
 proposed, under the plea of safety or for the sake of society, to 
 travel in their company, or else they followed them, waiting an 
 opportunity for their murderous work. When the moment has 
 arrived, they throw around the neck of the victim a rope or a 
 cloth, which one of the gang holds at one end while the other end 
 is seized by an accomplice ; and while the two thugs draw the 
 noose tight and press the head of their victim forward, a third 
 seizes him bv the leg, thus throwing him to the ground. Then 
 the rope or cloth very easily strangles the life out. Travelers 
 are sometimes thus murdered in the night. Three thugs are 
 
 THREE TO ONE. 
 
 generally required to murder one man, just as three or more 
 votes go to one of our American thugs. Two at least are thought 
 necessary. To strangle a man single-handed is a rare occurrence. 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 87 
 
 and a feat of this kind is esteemed by the fraternity a most hon- 
 orable distinction, which ennobles the thug who has achieved it 
 and even his family for many generations. After the murder 
 is perpetrated, the body of the victim is generally mutilated, in 
 order, it seems, to expedite its decomposition and thus to guard 
 against discovery. For the same reason care is taken to bury the 
 body where it is not likely to be found. The mode of dividing 
 the plunder is probably various. According to one account, a 
 part of it is used to defray the expenses of religious ceremonies 
 and sometimes a part is devoted to the benefit of widows and 
 families of deceased members of the gang. The remainder is 
 generally divided as follows : To the leader two shares ; to the 
 actual murderer and to the person who cut the dead body, each one 
 share and a half, and to the remainder of the gang each one 
 share. These poor heathens, like their St. Louis prototypes, 
 imagine that their murderous work is approved by the higher 
 powers. There is, however, this difference. The St. Louis thug 
 knows that his work is approved by the political gods whom he 
 faithfully serves. 
 
 The similarities between these criminals and the "Indians" 
 of St. Louis and other American cities are too marked to require 
 pointing out, but is it not amazing that such similarities should 
 be possible in a nominally Christian and civilized community? 
 No one who has not seen with his own eyes the atrocities which 
 have been committed at the polls during the last few years can 
 form any adequate conception of their enormity. Neither can 
 he understand the fearful threat which the successful practice 
 of political thuggery conveys. In the first place virtue, life and 
 property, all are jeopardized. Civic liberty is sacrificed. The 
 most sacred office and the highest forms of law are usurped by 
 anarchists. The entire body politic becomes permeated with cor- 
 ruption and society perishes, root and branch. 
 
 MONSTROUS MATERIALISM. 
 
 Now what does it all mean ? Can it be that these facts indi- 
 cate a general reversion to barbarism or are they but a pitifully 
 humiliating incident in our progress to higher things ? These 
 enormities are the natural result of our monstrous materialism. 
 A prize fighter with his thick neck and thicker skull and muscular 
 
"^'^ THUGGERY IN INDIA. 
 
90 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 body and vicious habits, is a magnificent animal, but as a man he 
 is a monster. The physical is the only foundation for manhood. 
 So it is in the development of human society. The material 
 things which are produced and handled, and in which we so 
 greatly rejoice, are only the foundation of society. Under the 
 whip and spur of steam and electricity, the world has gone for- 
 ward with Kangaroo leaps in material prosperity, until spiritu- 
 ality has sunk into atrophy and morality has decayed. Just as 
 no one believes for a moment or for any part of a moment that 
 the municipal police connived with "Indians" at the election with- 
 out understanding from some one high in authority that this was 
 expected of them, so it is impossible to believe that the work was 
 done even by corrupt and scheming politicians, whether in office 
 or desiring office, without the friendly aid and co-operation of 
 wealthy men somewhere. The question has been asked, who 
 
 PLUTOCRACY. 
 
 furnished the money to pay the repeaters ? Candidates for office, 
 with possibly the single exception of the United States Senate, 
 are not millionaires, but it was easily apparent in the campaign 
 that the machine forces had unlimited funds at their command. 
 It was likewise apparent that these funds were used not only for 
 legitimate and necessary expenses, but for purposes of villainy 
 and corruption. Now, it is also known, that nothing is ordinarily 
 more sensitive and cautious than capital. Capital will never ven- 
 ture, save only where the angel of promise leads theway. In 
 other words, we understand full well that the money which is 
 being used to save a corrupt and infamous polititcal machine, is 
 the money of interested parties. Corporation n^gnates, even 
 when they chance to be church members and Sunday-school Su- 
 perintendents, are not one bit averse to contributing money to 
 put into power weak and wicked men whom they can buy, of 
 whom they can secure legislative or judicial favors. This fact 
 St. Louis and the world knows just as well as if the high priest 
 of boodlery had turned State's evidence and given the names and 
 addresses of these men who have so infamously stultified them- 
 selves. There can be no manner of doubt that if their names 
 were made public, the city would stand appalled and aghast. In 
 a word, political thuggery, as we have seen it in operation in our 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE Wnil THE BOODLERS. Ul 
 
 own city, is but the mailed fist ue i'lutockacy ! The thousand 
 poHcemen's clubs that were swung for the triumph of lawlessness 
 at the polls, were not in reality held by these weak officers, but by 
 millionaires in our State and nation. 
 
 Now there is in all this a fearful peril — even to the anarchists 
 who walk in patent leather over moquette carpets and sit at ma- 
 hogany desks. They are teaching and training a horde of sav- 
 ages to know their strength, and the time may come when these 
 savage underlings will throw themselves upon their rich friends 
 and protectors. This is not indiscriminate. We are not de- 
 claring that all millionaires are particeps criminis, but if any are, 
 let them take warning. If any dare to protest, must we not con- 
 clude that it is the "hurt dog that howls ?" And then still further, 
 this is not the reign of the rich even -by means of political things. 
 It is the reign of riches, and for it not only the obese tyrants them- 
 selves are responsible, but all who share the materialistic and 
 covetous spirit of the age. For the greed that fattens on the 
 under-paid toil of women and little children, that floats its costly 
 wares on deep seas of human suffering, is not a passion in indi- 
 vidual hearts, but a passion which pervades society from top to 
 bottom, and from which very few are exempt. Nearly everything 
 we touch is stenchful. Nearly every dollar we handle is stained 
 with blood. Most of the sources of production are wrongly 
 manipulated. Our industrial forces are wickedly adjusted, but 
 even if we had an ideal commercial and industrial organization, 
 the spirit and temper of the age is devilish, and the fruit would 
 still be the red flower of anarchy and the spawn of corruption. 
 
 THE TAINT SPREADS. 
 
 If we are ever to find relief from conditions that have finally 
 become intolerable, we must realize the gravity of the situation. 
 As already intimated, corruption does not stop at one point. The 
 taint grows and spreads with a rapidity and malignity that are 
 inconceivable. This is already seen in the fact that skullduggery 
 and thuggery which have heretofore been confined to a given area, 
 have in this last signal demonstration of their power, spread with 
 brazen defiance over the entire city. Adapting the words of Holy 
 Writ, we may say with tremendous emphasis, 'no ward liveth to 
 itself.' The West End has now had a taste of what manv of the 
 
92 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 river wards have suffered for years, and it ought to result in a 
 feeHng of sympathy among citizens of every section and of every 
 class. It ought to result in unifying the sentiment and inflaming 
 the minds of all good^ citizens without respect to party. It ought 
 to result in the inauguration of a movement for good government 
 among decent people, who will thus make common cause against 
 the common foe. 
 
 PERNICIOUS EXAMPLE. 
 
 Let us not flatter ourselves that the display of power and the 
 invasion of rights and liberties will stop with elections. No one 
 but God himself can tell what rights may next be denied, what 
 liberties curtailed, what infamous wrongs inflicted. This we do 
 assuredly know, that the taint of corruption will spread unless 
 it is eradicated. Another terrific evil of the present condition is 
 the undermining influence of pernicious example. The growing- 
 youth of a community are always impressed by the successful 
 men they see about them. What does it mean for the boys of 
 St. Louis, if the most influential man in their ward is the saloon- 
 keeper and pothouse politician? He is the favorite with city and 
 state officials, he has entry into the offices of bankers and men of 
 vast executive ability. Business and professional men pay him 
 court, they honor him, thev depend upon him. The lawless saloon 
 wields a far greater influence in the city than its strongest church. 
 As long as this is the case, it will demand the very highest sanc- 
 tions of religion and morality to bring up our young men to vir- 
 tuous lives. Christian people will find it necessary to do some- 
 thing more effective than beat drums, rattle tambourines and sing, 
 "Throw Out the Life Line," either to save adult sinners or to 
 prevent the young from following in their footsteps. Boys are 
 born hero worshippers, and like all other people, they become 
 like that which they worship. The boy's hero is not merely the 
 business man who is shrewd, enterprising and successful, but in 
 far too many cases the successful politician ; and we know what 
 the moral character of the average politician is. Our pious pre- 
 cepts are' well enough in their place, but they are neutralized by 
 the vulgar slang- of corn-crib politicians and their henchmen. 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 93 
 
 NAKED AND NOT ASHAMED. 
 
 In order to avoid the tremendous incentive to lives of dis- 
 honor which the success of dishonorable men furnishes, we must 
 make such success everywhere and forever impossible. Such 
 a state of affairs, no matter how brought about, is an advertise- 
 ment of shamelessness. "Naked and Not Ashamed" is the only 
 fair description of St. Louis, unless the good people are aroused 
 and set to work to retrieve their shattered fortunes. Can it be 
 possible that we have poured out money and engaged some of the 
 finest executive talent in the West to celebrate the Louisiana Pur- 
 chase with a great World's Fair, only that people may see our 
 foulness ? The fraternity of wickedness, the gods and undergods 
 of the nether world are always in communication with one an- 
 other. The word is being passed along the line that St. Louis is 
 wide open and the vultures are gathering. The city is attracting 
 to her midst the hunted outlaws of other cities. She will receive 
 a permanent increase to her slum population — a permanent addi- 
 tion to the burden she already carries for the maintenance of 
 policemen, jails, courts, bailiffs, hospitals and asylums. This is 
 the natural and inevitable result of decay, to spread the infection 
 and increase the gangrene. 
 
 IS THERE ANY RELIEF? 
 
 Now is there any relief? In the first place, the church and 
 the ministry have a duty to perform. The churches are gathering 
 funds for their support, and for the support of their benevolent 
 and missionary enterprises, and, as a matter of course, they must 
 depend upon the present sources of production. It is pretty diffi- 
 cult for a church to bear witness to-day with vehement earnest- 
 ness against the worship of Mammon, and to-morrow take up a 
 collection for an orphanage, a new church or a hospital in India. 
 There need not be any jar between the two acts, but that there 
 usually is such a jar goes without saying, for in humiliation and 
 contrition the church must confess that she has not been a faith- 
 ful witness against covetousness. Without being aware of it 
 herself, she seems to have followed the Mammon-worshippers, to 
 have achieved the extension of her borders by bowing at his 
 shrine and holding out her hand for his shekels, instead of seek- 
 ing first God, His Kingdom and His righteousness. The preachers 
 
94 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 must be stalwart, prophetic and faithful in every detail of their 
 high duty. They must be clear in their own hearts that they do 
 not hold reputation or popularity dear, that they do not seek social 
 prestige, great popularity or large salaries. They must be like 
 Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles, "determined to know nothing- 
 save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.'' 
 
 SOCIAL REGENERATION. 
 
 The danger in every calling is from an undue emphasis upon 
 some feature of the work. Alinisters and churches have unduly 
 emphasized the need of individual regeneration, and have slighted 
 the great work of social regeneration. A community of saved 
 people luiist constitute a saved society, whether it be a city or a 
 state or a nation. It is utterlv incomprehensible how a city like 
 St. Louis and a state like ^Missouri, made up, by a large majority 
 at least, of professed Christian people, can become the spoil of 
 men, lewd, base and criminal ; and yet such is the loudly adver- 
 tised fact. We believe that preachers generally undervalue the 
 manhood of the pews ; that there is more sturdy courage in the 
 hearts of their members than they give them credit for. We be- 
 lieve they can speak with more courageous manliness upon all 
 moral issues than they are in the habit of doing. Let them seek 
 to know the will of God for their own day and generation, and 
 then, regardless of the consequences to themselves, labor night 
 and day to make that will triumphant. 
 
 A SOP TO CERBERUS. 
 
 The daily practice of Christian men must be toned up. They 
 must be taught that every business transaction is an opportunity 
 to honor their Saviour in the service of their fellow men. They 
 must not lend themselves to chicanery, deception or fraud of any 
 sort. They must not consent to these practices, and if a corpora- 
 tion of which they are a part is guilty of these sins, it must be 
 against their protest and in spite of their influence. Every Chris- 
 tian business man as well as every Christian preacher, ought to 
 study profoundly the problems of labor and capital, and seek by 
 all means in their power to adjust the inequalities of the wage 
 system. A check for one thousand dollars to the Provident Asso- 
 ciation is a good thing, but when it comes from an employer, 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 95 
 
 Christian though he be, who drives his employees without mercy 
 and stoops to fraud in the prosecution of his business, it is all 
 too much like a sop to Cerberus. In other words, while we are 
 making sacrifices and contributing money in large amounts to 
 have our Gospel preached, the time has finally come when we 
 must likewise make sacrifices and contribute money to have it 
 put into daily practice, or else the whole church, ministry and all, 
 will stand convicted of an infamous hypocrisy. 
 
 THE BOODLER'S POWER. 
 
 Citizens of all shades of political and religious opinion mast 
 make an end of apathy and neglect. The pre-occupation in busi- 
 ness of the so-called better classes, and their consequent neglect of 
 political duties, is the chief source of power for the boodler and 
 corruptionist. The Twenty-eighth Ward in St. Louis stands for- 
 ever disgraced by the 'fact that a saloon keeper is the central 
 committeeman for the Democrats who reside in this ward. This 
 would never have been possible except for the culpable, not to say 
 criminal, neglect of their plain duty by men who are still called 
 good citizens. If, in order to give more time and attention to our 
 political duties, we must make a little less money, give a few less 
 receptions and theatre parties, spend a little less in following the 
 fashions and obeying the dictates of Mrs. Grundy, is it not well 
 worth while ? More than sixty years ago, Alexis De Tocqueville 
 showed that the principle of local self-government is fundamental 
 to our political institutions and to the very spirit of liberty itself. 
 He said, "Local assemblies of citizens constitute the strength of 
 free nations. Municipal institutions are to liberty what primary 
 schools are to science. They bring it within the peoples' reach. 
 They teach men how to use and how to enjoy it. A nation may 
 establish a system of free government, but without the spirit of 
 municipal institutions, it cannot have the spirit of liberty." 
 
 DECAY OF REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 Prof. Franklin H. Giddings, of Columbia University, said, in 
 a public address, "We are witnessing to-day beyond question the 
 decay, perhaps not permanent, but at any rate the decay of Re- 
 publican institutions. No man in his right mind can deny it.'' 
 It is needless to say that we have, in recent municipal history in 
 
28th WARD COMMITTEEMAN'S PLACE OF BUSINESS. 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 97 
 
 our own city, a living picture of this very decay ; and there can 
 be no question as to its permanency, unless the better classes awake 
 to a consciousness of the enormity of their offence in neglecting 
 political duties and the gravity of the peril that threatens them 
 and institutions blood-bought. 
 
 There must also be effective organization of the forces that 
 believe in common decency, and by effective organization we 
 mean some form of organization which will include every mem- 
 ber of the community who is in sympathy with the spirit of 
 liberty and the high purposes of republican government. Such 
 an organization, of course, must be independent of party affilia- 
 tion. It must be made up of men of all parties, and in its work 
 must serve all parties by seeking to keep them pure. It is un- 
 necessary to go into details respecting either the character or the 
 work of such an organization, but in the present state of semi- 
 savagery in which we find our American cities, no municipality 
 on the map can safely be without it. 
 
 Above all, our efforts must be sustained. We must not grow 
 weary in well-doing. The patriot must be as sleepless and vig- 
 ilant as the purveyor of pelf and his henchmen. A New York 
 brewer once said, 'The church people can drive us when they try, 
 and we know it. Our hope is in working after they grow tired, 
 and continuing to work 365 days in the year." Who does not 
 exclaim with Dr. Parkhurst, *'Oh what a world this would soon 
 be if the perseverance of the saints were made of as enduring stuff 
 as the perseverance of the sinners." Says Josiah Strong in his 
 little book, ''The Twentieth Century City," "We despise the 
 bosses, and they are no doubt worthy of all the contempt they re- 
 ceive, but they do not create the political situation. They are its 
 product. When a boss disappears, whether into a prison cell and 
 a striped suit where so many of them belong, or whether he re- 
 tires with all the plunder he wants, or is overthrown by a stronger 
 rival, in any case he is succeeded by another boss, who to the 
 methods of his predecessor very likely adds more original vil- 
 lainy of his own. The supply will be inexhaustible so long as 
 public opinion remains uneducated and the public conscience 
 lethargic." 
 
98 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 We have sore need of unselfishness and courage and straight- 
 forward manHness and daring rectitude that will introduce "The 
 Heroic Age" concerning which Richard Watson Gilder sings : 
 "He speaks not well who doth his time deplore, 
 Naming it new and little and obscure, 
 Ignoble and unfit for lofty deeds. 
 All times were modern in the time of them. 
 And this no more than others. Do thy part 
 Here in the living day, as did the great 
 Who made old days immortal ; so shall men. 
 Gazing back to this far-looming hour 
 Say : Then the time when men were truly men ; 
 Though war grew less, their spirit met the test 
 Of new conditions ; conquering civic wrong ; 
 Saving the state anew by virtuous lives ; 
 Guarding the country's honor as their own. 
 And their own as their country's and their sons' ; 
 Defying leagued fraud with single truth ; 
 Not fearing loss ; and daring to be pure. 
 When error through the land raged like a pest. 
 They calmed the madness caught from mind to mind 
 By wisdom drawn from eld, and counsel sane ; 
 And as the martyrs of the ancient world 
 Gave death for man, so nobly gave they life ; 
 Those the great days, and that the heroic age." 
 
Chapter VII. 
 CITIZENS' INDIGNATION MEETING. 
 
 LtfC. 
 
Tivo classes study and practise politics and government: 
 place hunters and privilege hunters. In a zvorld of relativities 
 like ours size of area has a great deal to do zvith the truth of 
 principles. America has grozmi so big — and the tickets to be 
 voted, and the powers of government, and the duties of citizens, 
 and the profits of personal use of public functions have all groum 
 so big — that the average citizen has broken dozvn. No man can 
 half understand or Jialf operate the fulness of this big citizenship, 
 except by giving his zvhole time to it. This the place hunter can 
 do, and the privilege hunter. Government, therefore — municipal, 
 State, national — is passing into the hands of these tzvo cl'asses, 
 specialized for the functions of pozver by their appetite for the 
 fruits of pozver. The pozver of citizenship is relinquished byi 
 those zvho do not and can not knozv hozv to exercise it t& those 
 zvho can and do — by those zvho have a livelihood to piake to those 
 zvho make politics their livelihood! — Henry D. Lloyd, in Wealth 
 Against Commonwealth. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CITIZENS' INDIGNATION MEETING. 
 
 THE CHAIRMAN S SPEECH FROM THE RECTOR OF ST. GEORGES 
 
 BRING YOUR OWN REPEATERS THE HOME AGAINST THE 
 
 BROTHEL PERSONNEL OF THE MEETING RESOLUTIONS 
 
 ADOPTED — DUNKLIN COUNTY RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 "Large bodies move slowly." A great city like St. Louis, 
 with its immense commercial enterprises and intense activities, is 
 not to be stirred by a mere quarrel among politicians. Under the 
 tremendous momentum which such a community acquires, it is 
 carried on in its usual routine, unless something extraordinary 
 occurs which attracts universal attention and arouses universal 
 indignation. Those who have read the preceding chapters will 
 agree that something extraordinary had occurred. Men who are 
 ordinarily quiet and attentive only to their own private affairs 
 were stirred to the depths of their hearts. There are many of 
 our fellow citizens in Missouri and elsewhere who read with 
 amazement of the "Indian'' outrages, as they were reported by 
 the daily press, and wondered how it could be possible that self- 
 respecting men could submit to them without meeting such at- 
 tacks with armed resistance. There can be no manner of doubt 
 that if the best citizens had that very afternoon formed a vigil- 
 ance committee, armed themselves with riot guns, and, even at 
 the cost of life, driven the thugs away from the polls, their action 
 would have been applauded throughout the State and the nation. 
 That this was not done must be attributed not to cowardice on 
 the part of these men, but to their manful and heroic patience 
 and innate respect for law and order. 
 
102 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 Only a few days followed the outrages of the primaries 
 when the Folk Committee of St. Louis called an indignation meet- 
 ing, which was held Thursday, March 17th, 1904, at Chatsworth 
 Hall, Seventeenth and Olive Streets. Long before the appointed 
 hour, 8 o'clock, the hall was packed and jammed by a quiet, de- 
 termined crowd of the best citizens of St. Louis. Multitudes 
 could not wedge their way up the crowded stairway into the 
 auditorium, and were obliged to stand on the sidewalk and in the 
 street, where they clamored for a speaker until speakers were 
 sent down to address them. Governor Norman J. Colman pre- 
 sided, and J. V. S. Barrett was temporary chairman. 
 
 THE CHAIRMAN'S SPEECH. 
 
 Mr. Colman is an ex-Lieutenant Governor of the State. In 
 his impassioned address he said, "We have assembled here for 
 a purpose, an important purpose, to express our indignation at 
 the treatment we received at the Democratic primaries in this city. 
 We have not come here to discuss the merits of candidates. No ; 
 another issue has arisen. Whether the good citizens of this com- 
 munity are to be deprived of their elective franchise is now the 
 question. 
 
 "I have lived in St. Louis fifty years, but never before have 
 I been prevented from casting my vote. Try as I would, I could 
 not get near the polls last Saturday. Many of my friends met 
 with the same experience. 
 
 ''Some may not realize the full meaning of this deprivation. 
 It was for this our forefathers laid down their lives in the revolu- 
 tion. We, in the Twenty-eighth ward, had no doubt of the result 
 of a fair count. 
 
 "I am positive Folk would have carried the ward. Evidently 
 there was little confidence on the other side, and it was decided 
 not to let the decision go to a voice of the people. They went to 
 other wards and hired thugs and ruffians and 'repeaters' to go to 
 the Twenty-eighth ward. Would they have gone to all this 
 trouble if they thought they would win? 
 
 'T stood in line a long time. Although "j^j years old, sick 
 and unfit to be there, I went nevertheless. I was making no 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 103 
 
 progress on account of the many that were pushed in front of me. 
 I saw I had no show whatever and left. My old friend, Judge 
 Seddon, outstayed me. I met him later. He said : 'Well, I could 
 have voted.' 'Why didn't you?' I asked. 'Well,' he said, Tmet a 
 friend who asked me if I wanted to vote.' I said yes, and he asked 
 a fellow to step out of line to make way for me. 'What delegation 
 are you voting for?' the judge was asked. 'For the Folk delega- 
 tion,' replied the judge. 'Well, I can't do anything for you,' re- 
 plied the friend, and that's how close Judge Seddon came to 
 voting. 
 
 "I see Gov. Dockery, a man for whom I had the highest ad- 
 miration, has come out in opposition to Folk. 
 
 "He has not heeded the warning sent out by the St. Louis 
 press. It has not come home to him as it has to us. I can see his 
 rage had the same incidents happened at Gallatin. I can see his 
 rage and just indignation had the voters of neighboring counties 
 stepped over and usurped the rights of the voters of his own 
 county. Language would not express his feelings. He would be 
 beside himself. If these facts had not come home to me I could 
 not have believed them. 
 
 "This insult of the good people will be resented, however. 
 The country voters will not stand for it. From the Kaw to the 
 Mississippi, from Iowa to Arkansas, the truth of these outrages 
 is known, and will be revenged in proper time." (Applause.) 
 
 FROM THE RECTOR OF ST GEORGE'S. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Robert A. Holland, who was unable to attend the 
 meeting, sent an address which was read by Judge Sterling P. 
 Bond. In that address he said : 
 
 "Fellow Citizens — I much regret that my strength is not 
 equal to the duty you would put upon me. 
 
 "No duties could be happier, notwithstanding the trouble that 
 requires it, than to stand in a place of peril for my city and state. 
 I should like to speak to you as a democrat born of a democratic 
 house and brought up on democracy as an element of my religion. 
 
 "I should like to speak to you as an ex-confederate soldier, 
 the chaplain of one of John Morgan's Kentucky brigades, present 
 in Frankfort, Ky., the day when the grandfather of the young 
 adventurer, now at the head of your city politics, was inaugu- 
 
104 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 rated as provisional governor of Kentucky and governed for an 
 hour. 
 
 "My word to you would be that you prepare for heroic or- 
 deals. The danger you have to face calls for the sort of manhood 
 that looks without flinching into the cannon's mouth. Men who 
 lack that sort of manhood have no right to be among you; no 
 right to the franchise that has been wrested from you. The one 
 proof of title to freedom is willingness to die for it. Your city 
 now summons a forlorn hope to redeem it from official ruffianism, 
 and the question you have to answer is, whether you will devote 
 your money and your lives to its redemption. 
 
 "The danger has grown worse since last Saturday. The 
 governor of the state has at last uncovered himself as its arch- 
 anarch and patron of ruffianism. For three years he has played 
 the part of prompter from behind the scenes. His whisper, though 
 as low as he could breathe it, has been heard from Kansas City 
 to St. Louis. 
 
 "Throughout the commonwealth he governs he has become 
 notorious for a peculiar 'wink.' A wink is the expression by 
 which cunning indicates that its words are meaningless, or mean 
 the opposite of what they say. The governor said some words 
 to the police board of St. Louis about keeping order at the polls, 
 but the board saw the 'wink' in the words and acted accordingly. 
 
 "The words were for the public, the 'wink' was for the board, 
 and the board passed it to the polls, where it did its work in 
 lawless violence. 
 
 ''He can not shelter himself behind words which his common- 
 wealth has long since learned to be worthless. The 'wink' was 
 too loud. It has reverberated in every township, in every farm- 
 house of the state, and traveled across the nation from sea to sea. 
 He has winked away the freedom of St. Louis and the fair name 
 of Missouri. And now that he is exposed, he has the efifrontery 
 to defend this dishonor, and charge the blame of its consequences 
 to the one man in the state who has represented all the honor of 
 the rest of its manhood in trying to drive >its scoundrels behind 
 the bars, where they belong. 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 105 
 
 "This man, not Hawes, not Reed, not Gantt, not Dockery, 
 is the 'ambitious politician' who would overturn his party. Yet 
 but for Gov. Dockery there would have been no Hawes, and but 
 for Gov. Dockery no Standard theatre congressman, and but for 
 Gov. Dockery's connivance, no Gantt bid for Butler's support, 
 which may be equivalent to a nomination — striking the handcuffs 
 away from the chief criminal of the state and sending him back 
 to thug leadership and the brass-knuck revel of last Saturday's 
 election. 
 
 ''And now this governor dares to say to the people of Mis- 
 souri the revel Mid not change the result.' How does he know? 
 Did he count from the observatory of his mansion the voters who 
 were not permitted to vote, who were frightened from voting, 
 who remained away from the polls because of apprehension of 
 just such treatment as no age or rank could foretell while there? 
 Has it come to this that citizens have no right to vote unless their 
 vote would 'change the result?' Then only majorities have rights, 
 and since majorities can only be found out by actual ballot, the 
 majority may be guessed beforehand, and the rights of each voter 
 determined by the guess. 
 
 That is precisely what happened last Saturday, and with the 
 additional guess as to whether or no the particular voter would 
 vote with the foreguessed majority. What a comfort to your 
 bruised heads, sons of David R. Francis, that you received the 
 blows that felled you to the ground, for the benefit of the majority. 
 And what solace, Mr. Garrett and Mr. Bland, soothes your smart 
 at the thought that your knockout did not 'change the result.' 
 
 "Consolatory governor! His words drop balm into every 
 wound his wink on ruffians have dealt. Head gashes now blos- 
 som into garlands. There need be no more distress. Hereafter 
 police commissioners can announce beforehand the majority that 
 is to be, and bid all minority voters stay at home, and escape cudg- 
 elling for unnecessary votes that can not possibly 'change the 
 result.' So shall brood a spirit of heavenly peace over the World's 
 Fair city, compassionate governor ! 
 
 "Surely no- one will find fault with such a governor for a 
 threat that comes from compassion in his prevision of results and 
 
106 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 interpretations of resultant rights. • The threat is that any other 
 course than submission will make matters worse. Bolt, demo- 
 crats, if you dare. The greater the bolt, the greater will be the 
 democratic majority. Where will the increase come from? Not 
 from the bolters, and surely not from the party they join, but of 
 the loins of the machine they repudiate. It can and will beget the 
 increase at the right time. St. Louis knows how. Jim Butler's 
 majority of 60,000 tells how. The primary election of last Satur- 
 day tells how. 
 
 "In that election 16,000 votes were cast, and 13,000 of them 
 were for the Dockery-Butler-Hawes-hoodlum conspiracy — four 
 times as many as honesty and decency and order received. Four 
 times as many, and only 13,000. Thirteen thousand out of the 
 30,000 democrats in the city. Yet not one hoodlum was knocked 
 down or shoved or scared ofif. And every hoodlum voted at least 
 once, or was voted for if absent. 
 
 "The whole mob of the machine was marshalled by military 
 methods and hope of plunder, and flung forth for grand flam- 
 boyant effect upon the state. Still it was less than one-fifth of the 
 party's fair and fairly counted suffrage. vSo that with one-fifth 
 of the party's suffrage, the Dockery-Butler-Hawes-hoodlum con- 
 spiracy managed to cast four times as many ballots as the friends 
 of honesty and decency and order. 
 
 "Hence it is that your wise and good governor speaks ad- 
 visedly and should be heeded when he calls your indignation a 
 bolt, and warns you that no matter how many votes it carries 
 away, the machine majority in the state will be larger than ever. 
 Fellow-citizen, did ever before an American commonwealth hear 
 from its chief executive such a swashbuckler blurt of purpose to 
 defy its will? 
 
 "Does the governor of Missouri think his fellow-citizens to 
 be a commonwealth of fools? Does he irnagine that he can de- 
 ceive them any longer, or has ever deceived them, since the first 
 machine politician was found guilty of oflicial corruption? Can 
 he for one moment flatter himself that his silence has not been 
 understood all along ? Bribe after bribe offered and taken, meas- 
 ure after measure bought and sold, under his gubernatorial nose, 
 and not one sniff to denote the suspicion of a scent ; culprit after 
 culprit arraigned here in St. Louis, and never one word of clear. 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 107 
 
 sharp, outspoken condemnation of the particular villainy or par- 
 ticular villain ; never one word of distinct praise for the foremost 
 champion of law ; nor at any time a word of stern rebuke for the 
 frauds of his police commissioners and the thuggeries of their 
 policemen, even when exposed by grand jury reports, nor a per- 
 sonal examination of the truth of the grand jury charges, with 
 dismissal of a single ruffian officer. 
 
 "People of Missouri, you have been very 'patient. You have 
 read bulletin after bulletin of lies scattered broadcast by hands 
 you have trusted with leadership. The liars insult you with as- 
 sumptions of a thick-headed ignorance that can not detect their 
 brazen falsity. We, your fellow citizens, believe in your intelli- 
 gence, your patriotism, your sympathy with the right, and appeal 
 to you to save us as well as yourselves from the freeman's last 
 resort. Else it will be your time next for appeal, and then too 
 late without revolution. 
 
 ''Will you shout back your answer now and week by week 
 until the conspirators against your freedom and ours are swept 
 out of power, and honest men govern a commonwealth of honest 
 men that has no employment for thieves and thugs except hard 
 labor and stripes that make their characters safely known for 
 every honest man's contempt?" 
 
 Imagine, if you can, the effect of an address like this from 
 such a source and upon such an assembly ! Estimate, if you can, 
 its far-reaching influence throughout the State and nation. 
 
 BRING YOUR OWN 'REPEATERS.' 
 
 Still another minister was heard from. Rev. E. M. Richmond, ■ 
 who said : 
 
 "The whole thing is astonishing, astounding. I don't see 
 what you men were doing. I believe men have a right to defend 
 their God-given rights. In future I would advise, when you ex- 
 pect to meet 'repeaters,' bring along your 'repeaters.' (Great ap- 
 plause.) 
 
 "No man under seven feet tall can step in front of me, 
 whether protected by a policeman or not. Are we to prove un- 
 worthy and degenerate sons of illustrious sires? Are we going 
 to just hold a meeting and then have things repeated? I appeal 
 
108 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 to you to protect, at least, the grayhaired men of your town. Don't 
 permit them to be molested again. 
 
 "I am not surprised at the position of Gov. Dockery in this 
 matter, but I tell you I am glad he has been smoked out. I be- 
 lieve that Joseph W. Folk can be nominated. If he goes down to 
 defeat, however, he will go down with the vote of the best class 
 of men that ever went down with a democratic candidate. The 
 boodlers and criminals will not vote for hjm. They bolt whenever 
 it suits them. They have no fixed principles. 
 
 "If the principles of Joseph W. Folk are turned down in the 
 convention, then thousands of democratic voters will not go to the 
 polls on election day, or, instead, they may do something they 
 never did before in all their lives." 
 
 THE HOME AGAINST THE BROTHEL. 
 
 Rev. Frank G. Tyrrell, pastor of Mount Cabanne Christian 
 Church, when called upon to address the meeting, said : "I am a 
 Missourian and a Democrat from choice and not by accident. 
 When I went to the Arcade to vote at last Saturday's primaries, 
 I was met by a plug-ugly with the face of a bull-dog, who shoved 
 a piece of paper in my hand, which I found to be a ticket of the 
 Hawes delegation. The intimation was that I could vote if I 
 would follow him. This man pranced up and down the line 
 of voters, and occasionally seized upon a man and took him out 
 of line and walked him up ahead of citizens who had been wait- 
 ing for hours. He seemed to be running the- election, in spite 
 of the fact that two or three blue-coated officers stood at the door 
 of the polling place and saw all that was going on. 
 
 "But it is needless to describe the tactics employed. After 
 finally getting in to the voting booth and depositing my ballot, I 
 
 walked out the back door, where Mr. S. T. R and several 
 
 others were holding a whispered- conversation with the bluecoat 
 who guarded the exit. The officer was saying in an undertone, 
 'No, no, Sam, we couldn't do it.' As 'Sam' had been shouting for 
 the machine candidate all the afternoon, it had the appearance 
 of an attempt on his part to smuggle 'Indians' in at the back door. 
 When I left the voting place, it was with the consciousness that 
 some Tndian' had neutralized my vote and doubtless the votes of 
 several other citizens as well. I do not object to meeting on a 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 109 
 
 field the fire of an honorable foe ; I am willing to be killed, if need 
 be, in honorable battle. I might not object even to being kicked 
 to death by a mule, provided it be a Missouri mule, but I do ob- 
 ject to being smothered to death by skunks. (Applause.) Governor 
 Colman asks what shall be the answer to such outrages. It 
 seems to me that it has become a matter of the primary, funda- 
 mental rights of men and that there are times when the only satis- 
 factory answer is the click of a rifle, or the dangling hangman's 
 noose! It is no longer a question between rival candidates for 
 office, it has come to be simply a question of whether the home or 
 the brothel shall bear rule." (Applause.) 
 
 PERSONNEL OF THE MEETING. 
 
 Judge Sterling P. Bond made an arousing appeal for sus- 
 tained opposition to the methods of the boodlers in politics, as 
 well as in business. Others were heard from in speeches that 
 were not to be misunderstood. Men who have lived in St. Louis 
 for a generation declared that never before had so representative 
 and indignant a meeting been held. Each reference to the dom- 
 ination of the machine was met with hisses that almost curdled the 
 blood. It was not a crowd of fanatics, but of men of the highest 
 probity and intelligence. The character of the assembly will 
 forever be remembered by those who were present. Among 
 others who heard the speeches and voted with enthusiastic una- 
 nimity for the adoption of the resolutions herein, were the follow- 
 ing: R. M. Noonan, Dr. C. H. Hughes, Dr. Bransford Lewis, Dr. 
 M. C. Marshall, H. L. Maupin, William S. Baker, John H. Ten- 
 nant, W. M. McPheeters, Mr. Bemis, W. K. Kavanaugh, Saunders 
 Nbrvell, J. D. Goldman, R. W. Upshaw, J. M. Allen, Aug. 
 Schlafly, R. W. Shapleigh, W. J. Gilbert, Charles P. O'Fallon, 
 T. K. Skinker, A. D. Brown, James Bannerman, G. D. Bolia, J. 
 W. Allison, Dr. C. C. Morns, J. W. Fristoe, T. H. West, A. H. 
 Duncan, S. W. Fordyce, Sr., S. W. Fordyce, Jr., William Bag- 
 nell, A. C. Ritchey, Forrest Ferguson, H. W. Peters, G. W. Har- 
 ris, E. E. Rand, J. L. La Prelle, Joseph M. Hayes, W. M. Sloan, 
 Paul Jones, J. A. Webb, J. V. S. Barret, Thomas Plummer, E. T. 
 Campbell, Jesse Boogher, J. E. Allison, J. M. Houston, A. C. 
 Church, Prof. Nipher, D. A. Jamison, William Field, Judge C. F, 
 Shult, Dr. Given Campbell, Prof. D. S. Hill, F. N. Judson, James 
 
110 . POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 L. Carlisle, H. Gambrill, George H. Small, Sterling P. Bond, 
 B. F. Savior, J. B. O'Meara, E. S. Lewis, Dr. Frank G. Tyrrell, 
 J. K. McDearmon, John H. Wear, V. O. Saunders, W. E. Gray, 
 James M. Carpenter, Claude H. Wetmore, Dr. James M. Ball, Dr. 
 G. N. Seidlitz, Dr. R. M. King, James W. Alloway, P. J. Far- 
 rington, Dr. William Standing, W. D. Isenberg, Dr. William 
 Nifong, Stanislaus Mitchell, Thomas Mabrey, E. S. Lewis, W. 
 F. Matthews, N. J. Willard, H. M. Noel, Judge Heller, Dr. E. 
 E. Gulp, Frank Merryman, C. H. Fauntleroy, Lee Meriwether, 
 John H. Adams, Rev. Dr. William Short, Charles Maurer, Rev. 
 W. Q. Donnan, J. L. Hornsby and R. H. Kern. 
 
 RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED. 
 
 The following are the resolutions offered at the conclusion of 
 the meeting and the great crowd adopted them with a rousing 
 cheer : 
 
 "When in the name and under the banner of the democratic 
 party vicious men aspire to high office, and in their madness be- 
 come the leaders of the lawless, for the purpose of trampling upon 
 the rights and liberties of the people, it becomes imperative that 
 the great majority of men in this historic party, whose charac- 
 ters are untarnished and unsullied, awake from their lethargy and 
 hurl from power the vicious and corrupt. 
 
 Through the instrumentalities of the basest characters we 
 have had laws fastened upon us which not only strike at the 
 foundation of our rights, but usurp our inalienable liberties. Such 
 are the police and election laws, under which ruffians and tyrants 
 rule the great cities of our commonwealth, with the abandon and 
 hauteur of the harlot. Under these laws the right to life, liberty 
 and property has become endangered. 
 
 Sworn officers of the law, who derive their sustenance from 
 the public treasury, refuse to protect the life, liberty and property 
 of the citizens who give them meat and bread to eat. By these 
 men and these laws, fostered by their masters, the spirit of inde- 
 pendence which inspired the immortal pen of Jefferson lies pros- 
 trate and dying. 
 
 The autonomy of municipalities, the fundamental postulate 
 of a true democracy, home rule, for which Kosciusko expatriated 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. Ill 
 
 his native land and Emmet gave his Hfe, do not maintain within 
 this commonwealth. 
 
 In a democracy men should be guaranteed the right of peace- 
 ful self defense by the sword of the ballot, but where anarchy rules 
 the citizen is not only robbed of his privilege of peaceful self-de- 
 fense, but his personal liberty and life are placed in jeopardy by 
 thieves, ruffians and the sworn officers of the law. 
 
 We have reasoned with these men who have been instru- 
 mental in passing and maintaining these baneful laws, but where 
 the prurient palm of avarice and ignoble ambition are joined 
 together, reason has no citadel in which to sit enthroned. 
 
 We have petitioned these men, but our supplications have 
 been treated with that insolence which is native only to the cor- 
 rupt, and for which barbarism would show as much consideration. 
 
 We condemn the actions of the metropolitan police force on 
 Saturday last, and especially do we condemn in unmeasured terms 
 the action of the superior officers and ^he board of police commis- 
 sioners prior to and on the day of the primary election held in the 
 city of St. Louis March 12, 1904; and we call upon and petition 
 the governor of this state to remove those members of the board 
 of police commissioners now holding office by his sufferance. 
 
 To overthrow these men and abrogate these laws is the duty 
 of the democratic party and of patriots. 
 
 We declare for a primary election law at which all political 
 parties shall hold and all men shall be nominated by the direct 
 vote of the people throughout the state of Missouri, on the same 
 day, at public expense, and with penalties for the violation of 
 these laws which will send their transgressors to the penitentiary. 
 
 We demand that the police and election laws of these great 
 cities be taken out of the hands of any executive who dares to link 
 his fortune with the vicious and corrupt, and that they be placed 
 in the hands of men who hold patriotism and justice above the 
 base advantages of criminal partisanship. Be it therefore . 
 
 Resolved, That we, as patriotic citizens, now and henceforth 
 shall make continued and unrelenting war against these men, 
 their methods and the laws now upon the statute books ; and be it 
 further 
 
 Resolved, That we call upon our brother democrats and all 
 patriotic citizens throughout the state of Missouri to aid and as- 
 
112 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 sist us, not only in driving the givers and takers of bribes from 
 public office, but in extirpating these laws which rob honorable 
 and noble men of their rights, liberties and property." 
 
 The Folk Committee issued an address to the voters of Mis- 
 souri following this great meeting, in which they said : 
 
 'In addition to all this, another new feature has arisen in 
 Missouri politics. For the first time in this generation four can- 
 didates are running for the governorship nomination of Missouri, 
 with three of them running against one. Hawes' name appears 
 on the ticket against Folk in Carter and Mississippi counties, 
 while Reed emphatically refused to allow his name to go on the 
 ticket. Reed runs against Folk in Howell and Schuyler counties, 
 and neither Hawes' nor Gantt's name appears on the ticket. In 
 other words, they are running only in spots ; Folk is the only can- 
 didate for governor of Missouri who is running in every county 
 of the state. 
 
 Is this fair politics ? Is this combination scheme to defeat 
 the will of the people what the great Democratic party of Missouri 
 is going to stand for? I do not believe it. I believe the people 
 everywhere will rebuke it when they have a fair chance'to express 
 their sentiments at the polls." 
 
 DUNKLIN COUNTY RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 'From the many meetings which were held throughout the 
 State, similar to the Chatsworth Hall meeting of St. Louis, we 
 select that of the Democrats of Dunklin County, the sentiment of 
 which is indicated by the resolutions which they adopted, viz : 
 
 ''Be it resolved by the Democracy of Dunklin County, rep- 
 resented in delegate convention now assembled at Kennett, as 
 follows : 
 
 That we take great pleasure in indorsing the economical and 
 business-like management of our state affairs under Democratic 
 rule for the past thirty years ; and point with pride to the phenom- 
 enal reduction and wiping out of the state's indebtedness inherited 
 by the Democratic party as a result of Republican misrule and 
 plundering in this state. 
 
 PURITY IN POLITICS. 
 
 That we are opposed to boodling, boodlers, bossism and police 
 interference in politics, and we also believe that it is necessary for 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 113 
 
 the Democratic party to emphasize its position on this question, 
 not only in selecting its nominee for governor, but should see 
 that the nominees selected for minor state offices are men known 
 to stand for purity in politics. 
 
 That we heartily indorse the candidacy of Hon. Joseph W. 
 Folk for governor of Missouri, not because we believe any one 
 man in the party *'has a monopoly on decency and honesty in poli- 
 tics," but because, in the first place, he is pre-eminently the ex- 
 ponent of the issue against boodling and favors the cure for cor- 
 ruption in public office ; second, because he is in every way worthy 
 and well qualified to discharge the duties of the office; third, 
 because his Democracy is vouched for by such prominent Demo- 
 crats and distinguished statesmen as Hon. C. F. Cochran, of St. 
 Joseph] the Hon. Champ Clark, of BowHng Green; the Hon. W. 
 D. Vandiver, of Cape Girardeau, and the Hon. Norman J. Col- 
 man, of St. Louis, and Hon. W. J. Bryan. 
 
 . PRIMARY OUTRAGES. 
 
 Be it further resolved by this convention as follows : 
 That it is the sentiment of Dunklin County Democrats that 
 the statement of facts as to the outrages visited upon prominent 
 citizens and good Democrats in the city of St. Louis by boodlers, 
 ruffians and thugs, in order to deprive them of their right to vote, 
 as stated by such reputable citizens as Hon. Norman J. Colman, 
 Judge Sterling P. Bond, Judge Seddon, the Rev. R. A. Holland, 
 the Rev. Frank G. Tyrrell, Mr. J. C. Roberts, J. W. Fristoe, Mr. 
 R. W. Upshaw and scores of other prominent citizens and Demo- 
 crats of the city of St. Louis, is entitled to full faith and credit at 
 the hands of the honest Democracy throughout the entire State 
 of Missouri. 
 
 GOVERNOR'S ATTITUDE. 
 
 Be it further resolved by this convention as follows : 
 That we regret no less the intimidation of delegates at Clay- 
 ton and the prevention of voters in the city of St. Louis from 
 casting their votes at their late primary than we do the un-Demo- 
 cratic, unprecedented, immodest and unfair interview of the chief 
 executive of Missouri, assailing the Democracy of the leading 
 candidate for gubernatorial honors, who has already received 
 
 8 
 
114 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 the support of a large number of the rock-ribbed Democratic 
 counties throughout southeast Missouri. 
 
 That we keenly feel the blow aimed at good and loyal Demo- 
 crats who are supporting Mr. Folk for governor, and we fully 
 appreciate the intent and purpose of our chief executive in thus 
 prostituting the powerful influences of his high office in so grossly 
 and unjustly assaulting Mr. Folk and his supporters and lending 
 his influence to encourage the tactics of ruffians, thugs and bood- 
 lers in politics." 
 
Chapter VIII. 
 THE MINISTERS' APPEAL. 
 
Of course there is a zvay of preaching that zvill keep the axles 
 cool. Unquestionably we might expatiate eloquently on historic 
 tinrighteoiisness, and the greater the eloquence, the greater the 
 favor with which u'e should be followed. We can malign David 
 for his vices, and pour canister-shot into poor Solomon for his 
 irregularities; and his being a back number, and having no ex- 
 tant relatives to pound yon with a libel suit, the whole performance 
 reduces to an elegant sedative just zvarm enough to stimulate the 
 blood if the church is cold, and cold enough to discourage per- 
 spiration if it is July. Here are certain moral ideas to be pushed. 
 IV ho is goiiig to' push them if the pulpit does not? Here are cer- 
 tain breaches of moral propriety and decency on the part of the 
 national or the municipal government. Who is going to protest 
 if the pulpit does not? Do you say that that is going outside of 
 your diocese? Well, zvhat is your diocese? Are you one of God's 
 prophets, visioned with an eye that sees right and zvrong zvith 
 something of the distinctness of divine intuition, and are you 
 going to let the wrong lie there as so much ethical rot and close 
 your eyes to it and pray, ''Thy Kingdom Come?" — Chas. H. Park- 
 hurst, D. D. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE MINISTERS' APPEAL. 
 
 POLITICAL -BUYERS WEALTHY TIME TO OUST BRIGANDS — CON- 
 TROLLED BY ONE MAN PUNISH THE LEADERS — GIVE WAY 
 
 TO IMPORTED BRAWLERS DESTRUCTION OF SUFFRAGE. 
 
 The pulpits of St. Louis have never lacked courage and de- 
 votion to duty, and it is fair to say that they have been almost 
 uniformly occupied by prudent, conservative men. The St. Louis 
 clergy, as a body, have clear convictions upon all moral issues. 
 They likewise hold strenuously to the old ideals concerning the 
 scope and function of the Christian ministry. Quite a number of 
 them are men who have occupied their pulpits for more than a 
 quarter of a century. They know St. Louis through and through, 
 and with their strong convictions touching the peculiar work of 
 the church and ministry, the separation of Church and State, and 
 the high spiritual function of the preacher of the gospel, they 
 are seldom carried out of the beaten path made fragrant by the 
 footprints of holy men through the centuries. The document 
 herein is all the more significant. It can not be conceived that 
 such a body of men could for a moment be blinded to the real issue 
 involved, or used to get any party chestnuts out of the fire. 
 
 On March i8th, following the famous primaries, one of the 
 ministerial associations adopted a set of resolutions in which 
 they made an appeal to their members throughout the State. 
 This was printed in the daily papers and called forth the fol- 
 lowing letter from a' prominent business man, who is a member 
 of another religious body : 
 
 Ralston Purina Company, 
 
 Props, of Purina Mills, 
 "Where Purity is Paramount," 
 
 St. Louis, March i8, 1904. 
 Dear Mr. : I quote from the Post-Dispatch's 
 
 account of the Christian Ministers' meeting of last Monday : 
 "The Christian Church Ministers' Association of St. 
 
 Louis has appealed to the 170,000 members of the Church 
 
118 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 in Missouri to do all in their power to reclaim the State from 
 the forces of moral and political corruption and the control 
 of men vicious and base." 
 
 If a wave of this kind should be sent over the State it 
 would only unify the Christian people and the people who 
 are in favor of good moral government regardless of party 
 affiliation — as against the elements of corruption which are 
 doubtless unified to the fullest degree. 
 
 The question before us at this time is not whether Mr. 
 Folk is a good Democrat or not, or for that matter it is not 
 a question of whether a Democrat or Republican is elected to 
 the office of Governor of Missouri. The question is whether 
 we as citizens shall continue to enjoy the privilege of the 
 ballot. I was one of those who was deprived of my vote last 
 Saturday by the ruffians in the twenty-eighth ward. It would 
 seem to me a good plan for you to start such a move as has 
 been started in your Association, in every similar Association 
 in the City of St. Louis, Catholic and Protestant alike. A 
 message should go to all the good people of Missouri regard- 
 less o^ party affiliations, to right this matter. We must real- 
 ize that although the better class of Democrats in the City 
 of St. Louis are being stirred to action at this time, that this 
 will not be the case in the State unless the facts are properly 
 placed before the people. It would seem that there is no 
 organization so well qualified to do this as the church. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 George R. Robinson. 
 
 The same feeling took possession of the minds and hearts of 
 many others, and resulted in the preparation and pubHcation of 
 the following appeal, with the signatures of ministers and relig- 
 ious editors attached : 
 
 "To the Christian People of Missouri: A company of 
 preachers would address you in behalf of law and order. We 
 are not so much interested in any partisan or any party as in the 
 re-establishment of good government over our city and common- 
 wealth. We say re-establishment of good government because 
 there has been an obvious suspension of it in the City of St. Louis, 
 for which the city is not wholly to blame. The evils of the city 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 119 
 
 were unquestionably great before the state increased them by mis- 
 designed legislation, but the increase has rendered them mon- 
 strous and insufferable. 
 
 ''New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Pittsburg have their 
 plug-uglies and repeaters, but not organized into a provost mar- 
 shalship of anarchy that turns ballot boxes and city treasuries over 
 to their rule and commands their assault upon honest citizenship 
 that will not brook their reign of political terror. It is no exag- 
 geration to say that elections in St. Louis do not indicate the will 
 of the people. The citizen is either frightened from the polls or 
 goes to them with the certainty that his vote will not count against 
 the purpose of the terror-reign to keep itself in power and to use 
 its power for the robbery of the city's wealth. 
 
 "No department of the city government is better supported 
 than the police department. The people, therefore, are entitled 
 to protection. The city's institutions of charity, however, resemble 
 hovels more than homes. Cramped and makeshift hospitals, in- 
 sane asylums that are themselves half-insane for want of proper 
 room and service, almshouses that mingle the poor with the mad, 
 as if to make the poor mad and the mad madder with neglect, at- 
 test the extent of the robbery that rewards the chartered boodler 
 and thug. 
 
 "Of course, so bitter a curse could not have come upon our 
 city without some deep, inveterate guilt of its own. For twenty 
 years and more it had been careless of its franchises. They had 
 been bought and sold in regular market. The market was at first 
 secret, but grew open with the courage of custom, until little or 
 no pains were taken to conceal its traffic. 
 
 POLITICAL BUYERS WEALTHY. 
 
 "The buyers were citizens of wealth — presidents and directors 
 of corporations — whose prominence lent respectability to the cor- 
 ruption they engaged in ; and the corruption became more and 
 more respectable with the greater prominence its additions of ill- 
 got wealth gave to the corporation presidents and directors who 
 abetted it. The brigandage thus gradually formed was not parti- 
 san. It used both parties for its plunder ends. It organized an 
 unpartisan party of its own that gained sufficient strength to hold 
 the balance of power and bring other parties to terms. Its terms 
 
120 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 were always a trade, and its trade always secured to its band their 
 privilege of boodle. But for the complicity of certain of our 
 richest men and the mercantile coteries they control, these pro- 
 fessional boodlers, who were mostly barkeepers, could never have 
 intrenched themselves in offices whose niggard pay they would 
 not have thought worth their trouble to earn or seek. Their can- 
 didacy was a candidacy for boodle, and the beneficiaries of boodle 
 supplied the money and indorsement that elected them. And still 
 it is these same bei'teficiaries who stand between them and the jail 
 doors while they scofif at the threats of a justice that can im- 
 prison their felony without exposing the felony of palaces where 
 civic honor is supposed to have its throne. 
 
 TIME TO OUST BRIGANDS. 
 
 "After twenty years of occupancy it could not be pastime to 
 oust these political and commercial brigands from their official 
 intrenchment. Twenty years of dead-letter law. Twenty years 
 of dying and well-nigh dead civic honor. Twenty years of po- 
 litical vice, so commonly accepted as to lose the memory or hope 
 of virtue. Twenty years in which a generation of young men 
 have grown up under lofty examples of corruption to low and 
 mean ideals of citizenship. Many persons have been indicted, 
 but the policy has seemingly been to delay prosecutions, to hamper 
 them and thwart them. The plan has been to get continuances, 
 and demurrers and alibi witnesses; to fix juries to hang, if they 
 will not acquit. Else appeal, in order that years may go by be- 
 fore decisions reverse and demand sentences for new trials that 
 can drag their slow course on until the new machine-prosecutor 
 comes to set the captives free. Capital plan, and so far it has 
 been carried out without a slip. Seventeen boodlers convicted 
 and not one in stripes. Five decisions from the supreme court 
 and every decision a remanding, or a reversing with dismissal. 
 
 "Nor have your criminals, good people of Missouri, been 
 less sure of escape than ours. You, too, have had brigands. 
 They held the highest offices in your gift, next to the governor- 
 ship. Their arms have gone to the elbows in your pockets. They 
 have systematically bartered your legislation. For ten years or 
 more they have waylaid and sand-bagged all bills that had hope 
 of profit. Their sales in open assembly were loud enough for 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 121 
 
 cattle auctions. They have been exposed and tried, but no trial 
 has reached conviction. They are senators still — senators of the 
 commonwealth of Missouri, if they do not hold still loftier places. 
 You are indignant at their betrayal of your trust, but your in- 
 dignation can not even clap them in jail, to await the sentence they 
 deserve. They are as free as your honest selves — as free and 
 proud as if you had already re-elected them for demonstrated and 
 illustrious honesty. 
 
 ''It is a common cause, therefore, yours and ours — a common 
 injury, with a common inability to punish and repair it. But this 
 is not all. In so far as our guilt may seem greater, it is because 
 of the greater injury we suffer through laws you have bound 
 us with as with chains of iron. These are your excise and elec- 
 tion laws. 
 
 CONTROLLED BY ONE MAN. 
 
 "Your excise law put the licensing of all saloons and wine- 
 rooms into the hands of one man. The Excise Commissioner 
 has almost arbitrary power in the issuing or withholding of li- 
 censes. There are now over 2500 saloons in our city. No nook 
 of social life is safe from their peril. They laugh at all laws en- 
 acted for their restraint. They not only entrap the youth who 
 enter them, but lure reluctant entrance with song and dance. Girls 
 no less than boys are their victims, and when passion is hot and 
 reason reckless with wine there are in many of them secret rooms 
 ready for the consummation of the ruin the winecup begins. Their 
 victims count by the thousand every year. 
 
 "Every saloon in the city must do partisan work in exchange 
 for the privilege of corruption it enjoys. The saloonkeeper, as a 
 rule, must himself be a party boss of some degree and get about 
 him a gang of bummers for election uses. The so-called Indians 
 are simply saloon gangs. It was a group of such gangs led by 
 a boss saloon gangster that throttled the citizenship of the Twenty- 
 eighth ward two weeks ago. What they did in the Twenty-eighth 
 ward they have been doing in the outer wards of the city for many 
 years. 
 
 "With 2000 ward and precinct bosses ready to do the bidding, 
 however criminal, of those above them, you can see what an 
 array of brute-might threatens the order and liberty of the city. 
 
122 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 Brute-might without curb of fear! Brute-might assured of im- 
 munity ! So far the assurance has proved good. Frauds of 
 registration, frauds of balloting, frauds in the judges' returns, 
 frauds in the ultimate count, when they can be concealed in no 
 other way, can and will be concealed by riot that confuses on- 
 lookers and thus escapes detection. 
 
 PUNISH THE LEADERS. 
 
 "The issue now is whether after two years' effort to punish 
 the commanders in chief, in the city and in the State, which have 
 so far failed, the Commonwealth of Missouri is ready to sur- 
 render its government to their seizure. We say to you frankly, 
 our best people are alarmed at recent exhibitions of lawlessness in 
 St. Louis. 
 
 *'Was there no anarchic symptom in the outbreak of two 
 weeks ago — no connection between it and the immunity similar 
 crimes, though less flagrant, have so far had in spite of all the 
 efforts of good citizens to bring them to punishment? Nothing 
 of the sort had ever been witnessed in the Twenty-eighth ward 
 before. Hoodlumism had confined its previous adventures to re- 
 gions where it was at home. It required unwonted hardihood to 
 invade the ward of the largest taxpayers and most intelligent citi- 
 zens and thug them away from the polls where they quietly waited 
 to vote. The choice of victims betray^ed the spirit of the invasion. 
 The thugs had evidently been taught that every well-dressed man, 
 every man who had a mind in his face, every gray-haired man 
 who looked as if he had come to the place from a sense of duty, 
 was to be taken for a friend of law and therefore knocked out of 
 line or knocked senseless to the ground. 
 
 GIVE WAY TO IMPORTED BRAWLERS. 
 
 "Think of it, people of Missouri ! Citizens crowded out of 
 their own polling places to make way for imported brawlers ; tax- 
 payers, paying thousands of dollars each year for good govern- 
 ment, driven back from the ballot while their tax money went to 
 the boodlers and the bravos these boodlers employed to make 
 official plunder more secure ; all the condition of impunity stand- 
 ing round to encourage the saloon gangs in their work, even the 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 123 
 
 police with their backs turned on the violence, when they did not 
 themselves take part in its meanest deeds. 
 
 "The conduct of two Saturdays ago was simply the culmina- 
 tion of a course begun four years ago and persisted in through 
 all the elections since. More grand juries than the one presided 
 over by Isaac Morton, who afterwards became a member of the 
 city council, have vividly painted the recurrent outrages and the 
 humiliation of the city that has had to endure them. Still, no 
 policeman that we have heard of has been dismissed from the 
 force on their account. 
 
 'TIow long, righteous people of Missouri, shall these out- 
 rages last in your name ? How long shall Missouri pinion the 
 city which should be your sovereign pride, that boodlers and bar- 
 room ruffians and ruffian policemen may insult her and trample 
 upon her and rob her of the wealth which is yours as well as 
 ours? How long will it be before the desperadoes who have 
 already reached the Twenty-eighth ward and buccaneered beyond 
 the city limits shall advance still further into the country? Are 
 you ready to meet them in Jefferson City and be thugged out of 
 your own convention by the trainloads that may as well go there 
 as to Clayton? And will you then flatter yourselves still that 
 you, any more than we, are American freemen ? 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF SUFFRAGE. 
 
 'Troud people of Missouri, look to your suffrage. It has 
 already ceased to count. If the spurious majorities of three board- 
 ridden cities can overbalance the real majority of the whole out- 
 side state against them, what does your free ballot signify? Is 
 not the false city count as complete a destruction of your suffrage 
 as if the Indians themselves went to your townships and bat- 
 tered you out of your rights in front of your farmhouses ? Make 
 your majority 50,000 over the counter majority of the cities, the 
 cities can outreckon it as easily as they may outreckon 10,000 — 
 can and will. 
 
 'Ts it strange, then, that in our distress we appeal to you — 
 you who have brought it upon us, and will yourselves have to 
 share it in time, unless together we can now — for it is now or 
 never — strike the blow that shall make us free ? By ourselves we 
 citizens of St. Louis are impotent. Our speeches, our resolutions. 
 
3 24 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 d 
 
 our grand jury findings, are of no avail ; as well try to cure hydro- 
 phobia with shower-baths. 
 
 "In every primary election let your voice be heard. The 
 people are tired of corruption and brutality. ' 
 
 "Missouri is a State of honest men and shall be honestly 
 governed. 
 
 'Tt is a State of sober men^ and shall not be dominated 
 by sots. 
 
 "It is a State of industrious men, who want no reckless gamb- 
 ling habits among its officials, no "stand-pat" legislators or legis- 
 lation. 
 
 "It is a State of clean men, who do not propose to wink at 
 libidinous traps set to catch their sons and daughters in the great 
 city where they would go often, but can not go now without 
 danger of being entrapped at every step. 
 
 "It is a State of Christian men who think their religion has 
 something to do with earth as well as with heaven, and are re- 
 solved to tolerate no political hells under tHe eaves of their 
 churches. 
 
 "It is a State of brave men, who, when they know they have 
 been trifled with, carry enough of God's wrath in their consciences 
 to hold an instant judgment day, and hurl the triflers into oblivion 
 that yawns for them as rightly its own. 
 
 "So, command, oh, brave Christian men of Missouri, and 
 may God empower you to see that the command is obeyed !" 
 
 [Signed] 
 Robert A. Holland, W. J. Williamson, 
 
 Rector St. George's Church. Pastor Third Baptist Church. 
 Edmund Duckworth, M. Rhodes^ 
 
 Rector St. James Episcopal Pastor St. Mark's Lutheran 
 Church. Church. 
 
 Carroll M. Davis, J. F. Cannon, 
 
 Dean Christ Church Ca- Pastor Grand Ave. Presby- 
 thedral. terian Church. 
 
 James W. Lee, B. P. Fullerton, 
 
 Pastor St. John's M. E. Pastor Lucas Ave. Cumber- 
 Church, South. land Presbyterian Church. 
 N. Luccock, 
 
 Pastor Union M. E. Church. 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 125 
 
 F. G. Tyrrell, C. H. Patton, 
 
 Pastor Mount Cabanne Chris- Pastor First Congregational 
 
 tian Church. Church. 
 
 C. W. Webdell, F. W. Luce, 
 
 Pastor St. Paul's M. E. Pastor Maple Ave. M. E. 
 
 Church, South. Church. 
 
 L. E. Ladd, M. Burnham, 
 
 Pastor First M. E. Church, Pastor Pilgrim Congrega- 
 
 South. fional Church. 
 
 J. H. Young, C. R. Carlos, 
 
 Pastor Wagoner Place M. E. Presiding Elder St. Louis 
 
 Church, South. District M. E. Church. 
 
 L. T. McCann, F. W. Simpson, 
 
 Pastor Bridgeton M. E. Pastor Bowman M. E. 
 
 Church, South. Church. 
 
 A. Mather, Ralph Wakefield, 
 
 Pastor Immanuel M. E. Pastor Tower Grove M. E. 
 Church, South. Church. 
 
 Charles M. Rauch, H. L. Stevens, 
 
 Pastor Cote Brilliante Pres- Pastor Trinity M. E. Church, 
 byterian Church. R. G. Smith, 
 
 L. H. Dorchester, Pastor Baden M. E. Church. 
 
 Pastor Lindell Ave. M. E. H. C. Leonard, 
 
 Church. Pastor Harlem Place M. E. 
 
 W. J. McKittrick, Church. 
 
 Pastor First Presbyterian y^ ^ Curi 
 Church. p^g^^j. Qif^Qj^ Heights M. 
 
 H. H. Gregg, ^ ^^^^^^^ 
 
 Pastor Compton and Wash- . ^^ tt 
 
 ington Aves. Presbyterian "^'J^' ^ughey. 
 Church Pastor Rock Hill Presby- 
 
 M. E. Williams, ^^"^^ Church. 
 
 Editorial Writer, Presbyter- J- C. Horning, 
 ian Church. Pastor Maple Avenue Re- 
 
 B. H. Charles, formed Church. 
 Pastor Brank Memorial Pres- T. Haggerty, 
 
 byterian Church. Chaplain. 
 
126 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 James T. Coffey, J. H. Gauss, 
 
 Pastor St. Leo's Catholic Pastor Carondelet Presby- 
 
 Church. terian Church. 
 
 John L. Brandt, Wm. A. Hatch, 
 
 Pastor First Christian Pastor Holy Innocent 
 
 Church. Church. 
 
 Howard T. Cree, J. n. Beall, 
 
 Pastor Central Christian Pastor McCausland * Ave. 
 
 Church. Presbyterian Church. 
 
 E. T. McFarland, a. M. Campbell, 
 
 Pastor Fourth Christian Pastor Wagoner PI. United 
 
 Church. Presbyterian Church. 
 
 S. B. Moore, Chas. L. Chalfant, 
 
 Pastor Hammet Place Chris- pastor Grace Presbyterian 
 
 tian Church. Church. 
 
 G. E. Ireland, Cecil V Cook 
 
 Pastor Carondelet Christian p^^^^^' ^^^; ^^^^ ^ 
 
 ^ ^^^'''^- Church. 
 
 F.J.Nichols Wm. Schutz, 
 
 Pastor Hamilton Ave. Chris- p^^^^^ ^^^j^^^^^ ^ ^ ^^^^^^ 
 
 tian Church. ^ ^^^^^^ 
 
 G. A. Hoffman, td \ r-^ \ tv/t i- r-u i. 
 
 T-, ^ TV 4^ 1 A r-u ' ^' Pastor Clayton M. E. Church, 
 
 Pastor Maplewood Christian o .i • 
 
 ^, I. South. 
 
 Church. 17 T T> 
 
 J. H. Garrison, E. J. Brown 
 
 Editor Christian Evangelist. ^^f °^ ^^'^^^"^ ^f ^^^^s Pres- 
 
 W. E. Garrison, bytenan Church. 
 
 Assistant Editor Christian W. D. Bradfield, 
 
 Evang-elist Pastor Cook Ave. M. E. 
 
 E. B. Reed, ' Church. 
 
 Supt. Masonic Home of Mo. J- Layton Mauze, 
 
 S. F. Dubois, Pastor Central Presbyterian 
 
 Pastor First United Presby- Church, 
 
 terian Church. Henry Gardner, 
 
 B. E. Reed, Pastor Lee Ave. Presbyterian 
 
 Pastor Grace Episcopal. Church. 
 
 Church. H. Magill, 
 
 David S. Wahl, Pastor Memorial Tabernacle 
 
 Pastor Eden M. E. Church. Presbyterian Church. 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 
 
 127 
 
 Charles F. Blaidsdell^ 
 
 Pastor Church of the Holy 
 Communion. 
 Geo, E. Bates, 
 
 Pastor Church of the Cove- 
 nant. 
 L. H. Williams, 
 
 Pastor Water Tower Baptist 
 Church, 
 Chas, a, Nussbaum, 
 
 Pastor First German Church 
 of the New Jerusalem, 
 G. D. B. Miller, 
 
 Pastor St, Augustine Church, 
 
 C. W, Watts, 
 
 Pastor Carondelet Baptist 
 Church, 
 Samuel Sales, 
 Pastor Shaare Emeth Hebrew 
 Church. 
 Z.J. Rosenfeld, 
 
 Pastor Sheerith S'phard (He- 
 brew Cong.) 
 
 L. PULLIAM, 
 
 Pastor M. E. Church, South. 
 M. J. Breaker, 
 
 Baptist Home and Foreign 
 Missions. 
 
 D. Everett Standard, 
 Pastor St. Luke's M. E. 
 
 Church. 
 S. Howard Smith, 
 
 Pastor North Cabanne Pres- 
 byterian Church. 
 John W. Day, 
 
 Pastor Church of Messiah. 
 Wm. F. Peck, 
 
 Pastor First Church of Spir- 
 itual Unity. 
 
 G, A. Hoffman, 
 
 Christian Publishing Co, 
 James W, Bloyd, 
 
 Pastor Church of God. 
 
 Louis S. BOWERMAN, 
 
 Pastor Immanuel Baptist 
 Church. 
 F. H. AuF Der Heide, 
 
 Pastor Walnut Park Presby- 
 terian Church, 
 Paul Pfeifer, 
 
 Pastor Eden Evangelical 
 Church, 
 Frank L. Brock, 
 
 Pastor Christian Catholic 
 Church, 
 
 J. G, GUYTON, 
 
 1612 Morgan St. 
 Arthur Fischer, 
 
 Pastor Evangelical Ebenezer 
 Church. 
 M. Duchon, 
 
 Pastor Holy Trinity Catholic 
 Church. 
 Walter M. Langtry, 
 
 Pastor Clayton Presbyterian 
 Church. 
 Frank Lonsdale, 
 
 Pastor Reber PL Congrega- 
 tional Church. 
 
 J. TWYMAN BOYER, 
 
 Pastor Cook Ave. Presby- 
 terian Church. 
 A. B. Barnett, 
 
 Pastor Meramec Heights 
 Church, 
 Ed. L. Bleibtreu, 
 
 Pastor German Ev. Church. 
 
128 
 
 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 W. SCHWING, 
 
 Pastor German M. E. Church. 
 E. L. Hill, 
 
 Pastor Fourth Bap. Church. 
 Philip W. Yarrow, 
 
 Pastor OHve Branch Cong. 
 Church. 
 J. R. Winchester, 
 
 Pastor Church of the Ascen- 
 sion. 
 Taylor Bernard, 
 
 Pastor Cumberland Presby- 
 terian Church. 
 
 E. T. COYNER. 
 
 Pastor Mt. Calvary Ev. Luth. 
 Church. 
 
 J. J. Fink, 
 
 Pastor German Evangelical 
 Church. 
 S. E. Ewing, 
 
 Pastor Euclid Ave. Baptist 
 Church. 
 
 J. C. Armstrong, 
 
 Editor Central Baptist. 
 
 S. C. Palmer, 
 
 Pastor Lafayette Park Pres- 
 byterian Church. 
 
 S. R. Lindsey, 
 
 Pastor Presbyterian Church. 
 Rev. J. F. Froeschle, 
 Rev. R. E. Gilleen, 
 
Chapter IX. 
 THE VOICE OF THE PRESS. 
 
Yoti have only to make your municipal corporation like your 
 business corporations and you have solved the problem. You need 
 not say that that cannot be done. It cannot be done by t^hriee\ 
 cheers and a brass band. It cannot be done by newspaper edi-\ 
 torials three zueeks before election. It can be done by beating the 
 politicians at their 'ozvn game. Their game is organization. — St. 
 Clair McKehvay. 
 
 The most inviting Held of reform in this country at the pres- 
 ent time is that of the enforcement' of the criminal laws. As things 
 noiv stand, the law-breakers have all the advantages, and the law- 
 abiders are taxed to pay for a kind of justice that is a notorious 
 travesty. — St. Louis Globe-Democrat. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE VOICE OF THE PRESS. 
 
 A GRAVE ISSUE — ST. LOUIS OR THUGVILLE^ WHICH FOLKS SWEEP- 
 ING VINDICATION AN EASY ROAD FOR BIG CHEATS LET 
 
 CITIZENSHIP TAKE THE INITIATIVE THE CHATSWORTH 
 
 HALL PROTEST PUBLIC ACTION FOR CLEAN PRIMARIES, — IS 
 
 IT TO BE A SHAM BATTLE SEVENTEEN NEW INDICTMENTS 
 
 IN "INDIAN" CASES THE OPINION OF HORACE FLACK AN 
 
 EASTERN VIEW OF FOLK's FIGHT FOLK AND THE MACHINE. 
 
 The press is the great agent of publicity. This fact alone 
 gives it enormous power, and when^ in addition to the leverage 
 of the printing press, there is back of it editorial courage and 
 manliness, one cannot set bounds to its influence. 
 
 It is no exaggeration to say that the Argus-eyed press 
 gave the first clue to corruption and that it has constantly been 
 a potent factor in the work of prosecution. 
 
 We insert this chapter of extracts from the press of Mis- 
 souri and other States as a just acknowledgment of our indebt- 
 edness to the various papers, and to give symmetry to this 
 book, for without such a chapter it would be incomplete. 
 
 A GRAVE ISSUE. 
 
 No good citizen can read the story of the Democratic pri- 
 maries in St. Louis last Saturday without recognizing that a 
 new issue has been created, of graver character and higher 
 importance than any question of partisan politics. The story 
 of the day is a tale of outrage and infamy — outrage completely 
 thwarting private right and personal liberty; infamy loading 
 the police authorities with disgrace. 
 
 It is impossible to speak of the day's occurrences with 
 moderate phrases. They require strong language, and no 
 words can exaggerate the gravity of the issue St. Louis faces. 
 It would have been sufficiently serious if the police had simply 
 been unable to repress the riotous proceedings of the organized 
 gangs of ruffians that invaded the West End precincts. But 
 
132 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 the seriousness of the situation is greatly increased by the 
 overwhelming mass of evidence showing that the police will- 
 ingly permitted many outrages to go unrebuked, if they did 
 not actually and actively assist the ruffians who committed them.l 
 
 There is no chance to question the fact that the imported! 
 rowdies who ran amuck continuously for six long hours in the! 
 Twenty-Eighth Ward had the sympathy and protection of the 
 police who were stationed at its two polls. Citizens who were 
 shoved and beaten and slugged in their efforts to faithfully 
 execute a high civic duty appealed in vain for police protection. 
 Voters who were personally known to the officers found their 
 appeals as absolutely futile as those who were unknown, and 
 the word seems to have been passed around that a man with a 
 clean shirt or a decent coat was to be accorded no rights unless 
 he was known to carry a Hawes ballot. 
 
 Mr. Hawes and the leaders who are associated with him, ' 
 as well as the Board of Police Commissioners and the Chief 
 of Police, must meet the full load of responsibility the riotous 
 scenes of Saturday impose upon them. It will not avail to 
 deny the rioting and the outrage. It was witnessed by too 
 many people and is denounced by too many Democrats with 
 lifelong records of party loyalty. It will not avail to disap-, 
 prove and condemn. The riot at the Clayton primary put 
 everyone on guard, and the duty of Mr. Hawes, of his friends! 
 and of the police authorities, who were thus forewarned, was! 
 to take effective precautions to prevent similar occurrences 
 at the St. Louis primaries. Sins of omission may be no less 
 grave than those of commission. 
 
 In the new and dominant issue thus forced to the front, 
 the people of Alissouri, the people of the whole State, are no 
 less concerned than are the people of St. Louis itself. With 
 personal liberty at an end and free suffrage lost in St. Louis, 
 the State is in gravest danger The riot of misrule and dis- 
 order here carries iii delegates into each State Convention 
 to misrepresent St. Louis and mislead the State Democracy. 
 It remains to be seen whether the Democracy of Missouri is. 
 willing to confirm this domination of rowdies and ruffians. — St. 
 Louis Republic, March 14, 1904. 
 
 Mr. Folk single-handed undertook the work of ridding 
 St. Louis of boodlers. He instituted grand jury inquiries 
 which- resulted in the exposure of gigantic and unthinkable 
 corruption. He went into the courts and prosecuted the 
 
 I 
 ,1 
 
134 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 offenders the grand juries indicted, and out of twenty-one jury 
 trials he secured nineteen convictions. His work in St. Louis 
 inspired the work that has been done in Jefferson City. He, 
 with slight encouragement and against almost insuperable 
 odds, revealed to Missouri the State's pitiable condition. He, 
 with Spartan courage, has done a work that is of immeasura- 
 ble benefit to the State and its citizens. Honest citizens, justly 
 indignant because their confidence had been imposed upon, 
 demanded of him that he become a candidate for governor. 
 He protested, begged that he be allowed to retire to private 
 life, but to no avail. Finally he yielded, and today he is asking 
 honest Democrats to nominate him for governor. 
 
 Folk has been abused, lied upon and villified. His life has 
 been threatened. Every possible pressure has been brought 
 to bear to make him let up in his prosecutions. His bitterest 
 detractors have been those who are candidates against him. 
 Today — most unusual and undemocratic circumstance — there 
 is a sentiment in the state that favors anybody to beat 
 Folk. The High-binders of politics, the self-seeking, time- 
 serving parasites in and out of office — all — are fighting him 
 viciously and vindictively. Three candidates are announced 
 against him, and yet not in one single county has more than 
 one of them appeared as opposing him. What is that but con- 
 spiracy? We find practically every state official and every 
 appointee under the state administration fighting him. — Fulton 
 (Mo.) Gazette. 
 
 ST. LOUIS OR THUGVILLE, WHICH? 
 
 Decent Democrats and all other St. Louisans have now 
 clear proof of the methods and the men who are opposed to 
 Folk, and of what a vote for anti-Folk ticket signifies. 
 
 The murderous scenes enacted in several parts of the 
 city, notably in the Twenty-Eighth Ward, show to what 
 extremes the gang of men will go to defeat the cause of Good 
 Government. 
 
 In that ward alone nearly loo murderous assaults were 
 committed upon decent citizens, many of them aged and gray- 
 haired, who were standing in line waiting to cast their ballots 
 under the law. 
 
 The reason why this ward was made the principal battle- 
 ground was that it was one of the wards that could not be 
 ''fixed." A majority of the downtown and the north and south 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 135 
 
 voting districts were supposed to be "dead sure," and as a con- 
 sequence the thugs and murderers who operate with the 
 Machine were not needed there. 
 
 The Machine programme was to so manipulate the elec- 
 tion for effect through the State as to make the results show 
 that Folk could not carry a ward in the city. 
 
 The Twenty-Eighth was one spot which was feared as 
 fatal to this programme. 
 
 For this reason there was more murderous slugging there 
 than elsewhefe. 
 
 The persistent and most shameful feature of the whole 
 day's brutality was that not a single arrest was made for this 
 thuggery at the polls. 
 
 ^ 5i< I^ ?fC 5Js 
 
 The citizens of St. Louis are long-sufferers, but they are 
 face to face with a situation in which they cannot hesitate. 
 
 Thanks and congratulations are due the Republic from all 
 decent citizens for the vigorous and impartial manner in which 
 it is exposing the murderous tactics of the anti-Folk thugs at 
 the primaries on Saturday and the criminal negligence of the 
 police. The Republic's details and statements of eye-witnesses 
 on Monday contains little that was not gathered up in The 
 Sunday Star, but the publication of such testimony in a 
 Democratic newspaper, after full verification over Sunday, 
 robs the machine gang of its only possible and oft-repeated 
 defense — that the stories were the stock-in-trade of Republican 
 publications. 
 
 The Republic has rendered incalculable service to the 
 cause of Good Government. It has placed the evidence of 
 thuggery at the polls and its toleration by the police squarely 
 before the Governor and the people of the State. 
 
 It has either forced the Governor to immediately call to 
 account all his police officials, high or low, who connived at 
 the outrages, or it has placed the Chief Executive of Missouri 
 high up in the pillory of official shame and disgrace. — St. Louis 
 Star, March 14, 1904. 
 
 Numerous Democrats were assaulted at their primary last 
 Saturday for the crime of trying to exercise the right of 
 suffrage. It was a vile outrage and crime, like hundreds of the 
 same kind committed on Republicans by the same set of 
 scoundrels. One paper, in a gust of belated wrath, declares 
 
J 36 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 that ''In the new and dominant issue thus forced to the front, 
 the people of Missouri, the people of the whole State, are no 
 less concerned than are the people of St. Louis." The "new" 
 issue ! What is new about it except that Democrats are now 
 victims, as Republicans have been for five years? Grand 
 juries have described it. Thousands of pages of sworn evi- 
 dence in the Jim Butler contests relate to it. Newspapers dis- 
 posed to be fair have recorded thousands of cases in which 
 criminals were violating election laws and gloating in their 
 supremacy. Republicans tried to contest the fraudulent elec- 
 tions and were told by the state supreme court that the ballot 
 boxes must not be opened for examination and comparison. 
 If Indians were arrested, they were quickly released. Not 
 one has ever been punished. — St. Louis Globe-Democrat, March 
 15, 1904. 
 
 FOLK'S SWEEPING VINDICATION. 
 
 Just now a big, salubrious, refreshing drama is happening 
 in Missouri which bids fair to dwarf the Exposition with which 
 St. Louis is about to dazzle the nations. The people of that state, 
 in defiance of the rumbling of the party machine and the crack 
 of the party whip, are showing their appreciation of clean-cut 
 public methods and a sanitary administration of the law by in- 
 dorsing for Governor Joseph W. Folk, the arch-enemy of the 
 boodlers. 
 
 Their action is an inspiration and an example to the rest of 
 the country. Coming as it does at a time when mayors and 
 governors on every hand are openly acknowledging the presence 
 of graft and confessing themselves powerless in its sinister pres- 
 ence, it is bound to exert a far-reaching influence in the dispelling 
 of this humiliating phantasm. With the career of Folk the ma- 
 jority of our readers are thoroughly familiar. * "^ * 
 
 That the people of Missouri have rallied splendidly to his 
 support in the pending gubernatorial campaign is a lasting testi- 
 monial to the sanity of American voters in politics. The machine 
 politicians, among whose ranks are numbered the most prominent 
 state and federal office holders, have thrown their entire tre- 
 mendous force against his candidacy; but Folk is triumphing. 
 Sufficient counties have taken action to indicate, practically be- 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 137 
 
 vond peradventure, the trend of the state, and even his oppon- 
 ents are admitting his success and scrambhng for the band-wagon. 
 
 The pessimist who croaks that the political judgment of the 
 American people is not to be trusted, or that they will not indorse 
 a cleanly administration of public affairs even at the expense of 
 entrenched power, has only to look to Missouri for a refutation 
 of his bilious doctrines. — The Atlanta Constitution. 
 
 The astounding fact is that Folk is under fire because he 
 did his duty. One might have supposed that when a Demo- 
 cratic officer had fulfilled his oath of office with fidelity and 
 a moral and physical courage that caused the admiration of 
 the whole civilized world, and that gave more credit to Mis- 
 souri than any other incident in its history, there would have 
 been a unanimous impulse to do honor to that Democrat. One 
 would have thought that every chivalrous instinct would have 
 prompted support to the faithful servant of Missouri. But, 
 instead of that, jealousy, envy and fear have united selfish 
 politicians into the most astounding, inexcusable and dis- 
 graceful fight on Joseph Folk that any political records in 
 Missouri or any other state can show. The power and indig- 
 nation which, by every consideration of decency, should be 
 directed against the boodlers have been levelled at the prose- 
 cutor of boodlers. 
 
 But the spirit of the man who dares to attack corruption 
 in its high places, who engages with absolute honesty to make 
 Missouri respected and honored — that is the spirit which the 
 plain people of this state want to animate and pervade the 
 administration of Missouri. And that is why the game of "one 
 against the crowd" will have an entirely different aspect when 
 the people take a part in it. — Kansas City Star, Feb. 9, 1904. 
 
 The thoughtful Lamar Democrat says : "Every day that 
 nov\^ passes over Mr. Folk's head, his strength is falling away 
 from him. The bandwagon has already been wheeled back 
 into the shed, and the horses are being hitched to the hearse. 
 The time has not yet come in the state of Missouri, when a 
 man can get a Democratic nomination for the highest office 
 within the gift of the people by going out and attacking his 
 party." — Nevada (Mo.) Mail, Feb. 26, 1904. 
 
138 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 (Mr. Folk carried Vernon County at the primary election 
 by an astonishing and overwhelming majority, in spite of such 
 papers as the Mail and Democrat.) 
 
 AN EASY ROAD FOR BIG CHEATS. 
 
 There is news from Albany that powerful' influences are at 
 work to prevent a legislative investigation of the United States 
 Ship-building scandal. Since the astounding disclosures of 
 organized rapacity and rascality made at the hearings in this 
 city, a legislative investigation is not needed to show that 
 somebody ought to go to jail for this gold-brick game played 
 as "high finance" in Wall street. But the powers possessed by 
 a committee of the Legislature would be so much greater 
 that it could unquestionably bring to light facts and fix the 
 responsibility far more completely than the referee in this 
 case was able to do. 
 
 It is to be hoped, therefore, in the interest of justice, that 
 Governor Odell will carry out his purpose of causing a thor- 
 ough investigation of the Ship-building scandal. 
 
 Meantime the apparent immunity of everybody connected 
 with this "promotion" of robbery, from even the fear of 
 prosecution, suggests the question whether the District Attor- 
 ney has discharged his duty and improved his opportunity in 
 this matter as he ought to have done. The net of justice 
 should not be for little fishes only. In England, Whitaker 
 Wright, whose transactions were not unlike those of various 
 "promoters" in this country, was convicted and sentenced to 
 penal servitude, though he had enjoyed the confidence and 
 perhaps had helped to fill the purses of men of high rank. 
 Is justice less sure for big swindlers in democratic America? 
 
 In his recent travels, Mr. Jerome made a passing study 
 of the administration of the criminal law in Chicago. Might 
 he not have found a more instructive, and inspiring lesson in 
 St. Louis, where Prosecuting Attorney Folk has secured con- 
 victions for bribery and corruption that have carried dismay 
 into the highest political circles? 
 
 New York will not secure respect for the law and confi- 
 dence in its administration by raiding poolrooms and har- 
 assing ordinary gamblers, while permitting the highly respectable 
 ''financiers," who are responsible for a colossal fraud and scandal 
 like the Ship-Building Trust, to find a smooth path to forgetful- 
 ness. — Nezv York World, February i8, 1904. 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 139 
 
 Rowdyism must be stamped out of St. Louis politics. 
 That it shall be stamped out is the will of the citizen. St. 
 Louis can pronounce the doom of rowdyism, which has defi- 
 nitely assumed the form of a thing intolerable under the con- 
 ditions of American life. Rowdyism is not made of the stufiS 
 which survives. It could never arrive at the dignity of 
 
 LET CITIZENSHIP TAKE THE INITIATIVE. 
 
 supremacy. It could never rule as against the strength of 
 reputable citizenship. Its domination is temporary and it 
 is never so near its doom as when it exhibits extravagantly its 
 menace, as at the primaries of last Saturday. Then it boldly 
 challenges the opposition of the real power in the community. 
 It wins once at the cost of going out hereafter. 
 
 The will of the city must show itself in activity. Thurs- 
 day night's meeting of seventeen hundred men at Chatsworth 
 Hall signally attests the spirit of the municipality. The seven- 
 teen hundred included foremost citizens, men representative 
 of every sphere of influence, men. who ordinarily accomplish 
 w^hat they set out to accomplish. They are not of the sort 
 who content themselves with denunciation. We have the 
 promise of further and larger meetings and of competent 
 organization to combat the thug influence. 
 
 Citizens act wisely in trusting to their own strength to 
 repress and eradicate the evil. Officials may do all in their 
 power, but, whether they do or not, the surest guaranty lies 
 in the real power of citizenship, the people themselves. As a 
 last resort the people may be depended upon to stop thug 
 manipulation at the polls, when they so will. 
 
 In the interim politics itself furnishes a handy remedy. 
 Let both parties unite upon an elimination, of Indian influence 
 and thug tactics, and we shall find no manifestations of them 
 to compare with that of last Saturday. It is true that in a few 
 downtown wards the reputable elements in either party can 
 scarcely cope with thuggery at this time. But the reputable 
 elements by uniting upon some measures may guard the 
 remainder of, the city against intrusion, may confine rowdyism 
 within its own few precincts and reduce it to a minimum. 
 Indeed it is within the possibilities to eradicate it completely by 
 a consolidated bipartisan effort. 
 
 The minor party machinery with which rowdyism is con- 
 cerned must have a relation to the higher and broader machin- 
 
140 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 ery. Rowdyism can only operate by grace of consent or by 
 toleration by those in control of the upper machinery. Rowdy- 
 ism, w^hich is unpartisan, holds its lease in perforce of its 
 threat to work for the opposition, and as long as the opposition 
 holds out a bid for its services the threat has force. When 
 neither party will under any circtnnstances stoop to employ 
 it, rowdyism loses its political market-value. 
 
 To put it out of business should be made a bi-partisan 
 aim, and a pan-partisan issue. 
 
 The issue is broader than a factional contention or a mat- 
 ter between party and party, and there is no just or logical 
 consideration which should prevent Republicans and Demo- 
 crats joining in what must prove a sure check to their common 
 enemy. Neither party can with plausibility make political 
 capital out of the shifting relationships which the thug element 
 imposes upon organizations within either fold. Neither party 
 can afford to make rowdyism a mere matter of reproach, in 
 the light of recent St. Louis history. There are Republican 
 primaries as well as Democratic. To raise the hue and cry 
 against Indianism purely for partisan advantage indicates 
 nothing so much as the disposition to make use of the very 
 same element when occasion offers. Both parties should take 
 high ground, should meet upon a sane and the only sane and 
 sure political remedy. — St. Louis Republic, March 19, 1904. 
 
 THE CHATSWORTH HALL PROTEST. 
 
 The resolutions adopted by the meeting of protest at 
 Chatsworth Hall Thursday evening voice the sentiments of 
 every good citizen of Missouri, regardless of political or fac- 
 tional diiferences. The cause represented by the men who 
 denounced the conduct of the Democratic 'Tndians" and pro- 
 tested against the laws of the state, which make election steal- 
 ing possible, and the methods of the Democratic machine 
 bosses, should be disassociated from the candidacy of any 
 one man or the interests of any faction. It is a common cause 
 upon whigli all good citizens should unite. The issue 
 embodied in the resolution is clear and simple. It involves 
 the question of the right and power of voters to cast their 
 ballots without molestation and to have them counted. It 
 involves the question of the right of citizens to protection from 
 violence kt the polls. It involves the question of the protection 
 of the ballot box from fraud and crime. 
 
MlSSOURrS BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 141 
 
 There is no doubt about the outrages committed at the 
 Democratic primaries. Democratic citizens of the highest 
 character and standing have testified to them. Eminently 
 respectable citizens, including well-known lawyers, judges, 
 physicians and merchants, were either victims or eye-witnesses 
 of the outrages. The outrages consisted of unprovoked 
 assaults in which voters were jostled out of the lines, knocked 
 down, beaten and kicked ; of repeating and personating voters 
 and of backdoor voting. The assaults were committed in the 
 most respectable neighborhoods, upon peaceful, law-abiding- 
 citizens, whose sole offense was an attempt to vote contrary 
 to the will of the hoodlums. 
 
 These crimes and outrages strike at the foundation of 
 government. It is useless to talk of any right unless the funda- 
 mental right to vote is assured. It is useless to talk of making 
 laws or enforcing laws, if elections can be controlled by fraud 
 and violence. The ballot box is the source of all good laws, 
 of all good government. Unless citizens are protected in their 
 right to vote as they choose, good government Is impossible. 
 The government is turned over to the control of the most 
 vicious elements. 
 
 The blow struck at the purity of the ballot box at the 
 Democratic primaries, menacing the rights of citizens to cast 
 their votes without intimidation or fraud, was a blow at every 
 citizen in Missouri. It was a blow at the rights of all citizens, 
 of all parties. This issue overshadows all other issues. It must 
 be settled right before any other issues can be settled. 
 
 If the Democrats who adopted the resolutions denouncing 
 the methods of the machine bosses mean anything by these 
 resolutions, their struggle will not cease until the rights they 
 demand are accorded them and the laws they insist upon are 
 passed and enforced. They will not permit any more party 
 or factional interest to stand in the way of their efforts to 
 secure honest elections and the right of every citizen to vote 
 in peace according to his will. — St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 
 19, 1904. 
 
 PUBLIC ACTION FOR CLEAN PRIMARIES. 
 
 Friday's Republican primaries abundantly illustrate the 
 necessity for united action against rowdyism, which necessity 
 the Republic again urges upon both parties. Republicans in 
 the Seventh Ward saw an exhibition of Indian operations of 
 a kind with the Republican primary outrages of two years 
 
142 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 ago and the recent Democratic primary disorders. Seven 
 arrests, a missing ballot box, riotous proceedings, impersonat- 
 ing officials, fraudulent voting and. stuffihg characterized 
 Friday's crookedness. Following so closely the Democratic 
 irregularities, Friday's business clinches the proposition that 
 Indianism is a disease peculiar to certain wards and that its 
 outbreaks are without partisan significance. The pathologic 
 condition manifests itself with every political occasion, be 
 the occasion Republican or Democratic, and the responsibility 
 for treating it lies equally upon the parties. It threatens them 
 both and only by leaguing themselves against it can the parties 
 administer its quietus. — St. Louis Republic, March 21, 1904. 
 
 IS IT TO BE A SHAM BATTLE? 
 
 Is the Democratic reform movement to end in the smoke 
 of the pipe of peace in the wigwam of the Indians? The local 
 Democratic organ which has been leaning to reform and 
 denouncing Indian methods, has taken to the conciliation 
 trail. It deprecates real anger over party outrages and real 
 fighting over issues within the party. Figuratively speaking, 
 it spanks both Circuit Attorney Folk and his opponents for 
 saying things that really hurt. It tells Mr. Folk that he must 
 not talk back at the machine leaders, because he might endan- 
 ger party success, which is the paramount consideration. 
 
 If everything is to be sacrificed to party success, the Dem- 
 ocratic reformers would do well to take off their war paint, 
 lay aside their weapons and come into the machine camp. The 
 battle is a sham battle, a battle for places, not for principles. 
 
 This logic leads inevitably to the condoning of any and 
 all methods, no matter how nefarious, to gain control of the 
 party convention ; the approving of any and all results, no 
 matter how antagfonistic to reform purposes, and the indorsing 
 of "yellow dogs" if the machine bosses chose to nominate 
 <-hem. 
 
 If this is to be the sum of Democratic reform — an inside 
 scramble for places, with harmony under the old machine in 
 the end, the gfame is not worth the candle. — St Louis Post-Dis- 
 patch, March 28, 1904. 
 
 SEVENTEEN NEW INDICTMENTS IN "INDIAN" CASES. 
 
 The February Grand Jury Friday morning returned 
 .seventeen indictments against the participants in the recent 
 election outrages at the polling places during the Democratic 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 143 
 
 primaries. Fourteen of those indicted are members of the 
 poUce force, three sergeants and nine officers. 
 
 The other three are Central Committeemen, John J. Lavin, 
 his brother, Timothy Lavin, and one of the Lavin henchmen, 
 James, ahas "Jimmie" Holmes.— 6^^. Loitis Star, March 25, 1904. 
 
 THE OPINION OF HORACE FLACK. 
 
 There are times when even the most glaring mistakes 
 made by the most respectable citizens of St. Louis are so 
 natural as to be unavoidable. Such a time is the present, when 
 the most respectable citizens, who are really undergomg 
 pacification, mistake their feelings for extreme and perma- 
 nent indignation. 
 
 The inevitable nature of this result lies first in the mevi- 
 table nature of the process of pacification. When any con- 
 siderable number of people organize revolt and begin a sys- 
 tem of harassing the authorities through the grand jury, 
 the criminal courts and in other ways, they cease to be con- 
 sidered as belligerents or even insurgents when the supreme 
 court has declared regular hostilities at an end. They are 
 then mere ladrones and all that remains is to complete the 
 pacification. 
 
 This is done by watching the rendezvous where those who 
 need to be reduced to subordination and satisfaction are 
 expected to meet for the purpose of voting. They are told 
 in advance that they "can't vote," but they never understand 
 exactly why until they make the attempt. Then, instead of 
 being allowed to vote, they are pacified. 
 
 When a respectable citizen is to be pacified, three or more 
 policemen are stationed in the neighborhood to prevent dis- 
 orderly interference with the process, and to check violence 
 on his"^ part. These policemen were stationed there by supe- 
 riors, carefully selected to manage this process of pacification 
 and endorsed as suitable for it by men "higher up/' whose 
 names do not appear on the applications for appointment. 
 When a considerable number of citizens who are really being 
 pacified mistake their feelings for extreme indignation, these 
 diplomats higher up, who "organize results," are habitually 
 shocked and inexpressibly grieved. If a nickel were dropped 
 in the slot to set them to repudiating and condemning, they 
 could not be unspeakably shocked and inexpressibly grieved 
 with more automatic energy than they are as a result of their 
 
144 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 own habitual tendencies to horror and grief under such cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 The circumstances of pacification are generally under- 
 stood just now. When a respectable citizen, who is in favor of 
 sending bribers, boodlers and blackmailers to the penitentiary, 
 is to be pacified at the polls, he is first shoved out of the line 
 of those who have been kept waiting for three hours to vote. 
 Then he is ''chunked in the slats" on one side^ and, as he is 
 about to lose his balance, he is "socked in the dough pan" on 
 the other side to restore it. When he does not understand at 
 once the meaning of this process, a sympathizer with his con- 
 dition asks, "Wot t'ell de matter wid dat old geezer? Is he 
 tryin' to git in de push?" Then he is slugged in the back of 
 the head and left in the gutter in the first stages of successful 
 pacification, the stage in which he "can't vote." 
 
 In the view of those who organize results from higher up, 
 there is no excuse for using "brass knucks" or lead pipe as 
 instruments of this process of pacification. During several 
 years of preparation for it, scientific pugilism has been offi- 
 cially encouraged so that it might be done systematically, 
 humanely and scientifically. The various schools of successful 
 and scientific pugilism organized in St. Louis, with the effi- 
 cient protection of the police and the patronage of the organ- 
 izers of results, have been open to all, including even respecta- 
 ble citizens. Of course, as respectable citizens w^ere attempt- 
 ing to support the processes of the grand jury and the petit 
 juries in the criminal courts, they had no time to learn to 
 "slug" scientifically. So, when they are pacified, there is the 
 less excuse for hitting them with "brass knucks" or lead pipe. 
 They might have been pacified without these, and it grieves 
 the organizers of results very greatly that lead pipe and "brass 
 knucks" should have been used. It is not only inhumane, but, 
 in their view, wholly unscientific and unnecessary. In this 
 opinion they are supported by the facts, for, when a respecta- 
 ble citizen has been knocked out by a blow which loosens his 
 front teeth, there 'is really no need for striking him with "brass 
 knucks" afterward. For he is then so far advanced toward his 
 ultimate pacification that he can't vote. — St. Louis Globe-Demo- 
 crat, March 15, 1904. 
 
 The people are the supreme power — the court of last 
 resort — under our- Democratic system of government. They 
 called into existence all the official stations in our State gov- 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 145 
 
 crnment, the Supreme Court as well as that of the township 
 constable, for the general benefit, and as the organs for the 
 execution of their will according to the rules for their gov- 
 ernment which they have prescribed in their fundamental law. 
 When Mr. Folk takes his appeal from the Supreme Court to 
 the people, he goes to that highest of all courts which it was 
 so much the delight of Thomas Jefferson to rely upon. When 
 Mr. Hawes assumes that the Supreme Court can do no harm, 
 he relegates himself back to that condition of the benighted 
 English in their loyalty to the King.— Marshall (Mo.) Progress, 
 February 5, 1904. 
 
 Doc Ames, of Minneapolis, the Mayor who has been on 
 trial for boodling, has had at least a temporary escape through 
 the quashing of an indictment by the Supreme Court of Minne- 
 sota. Coming after the Missouri cases, this decision will not 
 receive a hearty national welcome. The Court differs on the 
 grounds for reversal. The majority and minority admit evi- 
 dence of guilt. Naturally, to the lay mind, it seems strange 
 that if a man is deemed unmistakably guilty he is so likely to 
 escape, when politics are involved, by technical deficiencies in 
 indictment. Very possibly the Minneapolis Court was moved 
 entirely by love of justice and respect for law. We are in no 
 position to imply the contrary, and certainly have no desire 
 to do so. There is no doubt, however, that our criminal juris- 
 prudence is not a credit to the country. The procedure itself 
 is inferior to the English, the judges are less learned and less 
 disinterested, and the first of these conditions depends to a 
 large extent upon the other. One of our correspondents, espe- 
 cially well informed about inside politics, but without knowl- 
 edge of the law, speaks of the "uniform defences by the courts 
 of our system of corruption." Another remarks that any one 
 of our editorials on the Missouri cases "would constitute a 
 very heinous contempt under the present laws of Missouri," 
 but he submits that it is of no importance what the court 
 thinks, adding, 'T know the Court." On the Ames case a 
 Western business man writes: "It seems as if it were utterly 
 impossible to convict a man who has political backing, and so 
 other officials of our State and municipal governments are 
 encouraged to persist in their pernicious grafting." The fund- 
 amental blame belongs upon the voters who accept the boss 
 system and care more for party names than purity of char- 
 acter. — Collier's Weekly, February 17, 1904. 
 
 10 
 
146 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 Judging by the action of lier courts and her juries, Mis- 
 souri has nothing to hope for in eUminating the bribery evil 
 until public conscience has been aroused to that point where 
 it will not submit to the plan which has long been in vogue 
 of allowing municipal offices in St. Louis to be filled with 
 saloon keepers, ward heelers and political sharpers, who 
 openly boast of their desire to get office for the sole object 
 of seeing how much they can make out of it for themselves. 
 St. Louis will learn some time, as other large cities must, 
 that municipal government is business, not politics. — Roanoke 
 (Va.) World, February i6, 1904. 
 
 AN EASTERN VIEW OF FOLK'S FIGHT. 
 
 An editorial in Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly states 
 very clearly the attitude of people in the Eastern states toward 
 the political situation in Missouri. "All eyes on Missouri" 
 says the editorial. "Out in Missouri the issue is plain. Cir- 
 cuit Attorney Folk, who has done as much for clean govern- 
 ment as any American of our generation, has flatly refused to 
 step outside the ranks of Democracy. He lives in a Demo- 
 cratic state. The corruptionists in his party owe their power 
 to the mask of Democracy which they assume. To fight the 
 sham with the real is Folk's part — not to play into the enemy's 
 hands by allowing them to accomplish their daring desire of 
 reading him out of* the party. Success to him !" — California 
 (Mo.) Dispatch, February 12, 1904. 
 
 There is only one way to get honest men in the legislature, 
 house and senate. Folk can not do it; Crow can not do it; 
 all the prosecuting attorneys in the state cannot, together, do 
 it. This is exclusively the people's business. And if they do 
 not attend to it, they have no right to complain if some other 
 result happens. The people can do anything they want to do^ 
 if they really want to and are not afraid. Prosecuting officers 
 may be able to get some of the dishonest men out, occasionally, 
 but they would be saved a deal of trouble, and the state a deal 
 of expense, if the people would do their whole duty in the first 
 instance. — Charleston Enterprise, February 12, 1904. 
 
 Missouri is heartily sick of Butlerism, and now that all 
 chances for sending him to the penitentiary appear to have 
 disappeared, w^e should like to see the boss of all boodlers 
 betake himself to a life of quiet and non-interference in matters 
 public or political. The Missouri democracy might not have 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 147 
 
 such tremendous majorities in the city of St. Louis if "Old Ed" 
 wasn't around to look after the repeating and the returns, but 
 it would gain immeasurably in public esteem if his dirty 
 methods no longer ruled the caucus and the elections and his 
 defiling hands no more might tamper with the ballot. — St. Joseph 
 Gazette, February lo, 1904. 
 
 FOLK AND THE MACHINE. 
 
 Ed. Butler, the St. Louis boss who escaped the toils of 
 Joseph W. Folk, the public prosecutor, is looking with a kindly 
 eye on the canvass of former Mayor Reed, of Kansas City, for 
 the Democratic nomination for Governor. It is Reed who 
 tells his fellow Democrats from the stump that boodle is no 
 issue in Missouri. ''He is a logical fellow,^' says the St. Louis 
 boss; ''he makes a good speech." The boss likes a hard 
 worker, and Reed is working hard to convince the people of 
 Missouri that Public Prosecutor Folk is hunting down 
 boodlers for his own selfish ends and is not above slandering 
 a grand old party. "The way to get a nomination," says the 
 Democratic boss of St. Louis, "is to hustle like hell." He 
 admires a man who can pound away at the proposition that 
 boodle is not an issue in Missouri and who stands up for the 
 machine. He is a logical fellow, and Folk — well, he's no Dem- 
 ocrat. 
 
 Meanwhile Joseph W. Folk, who is a candidate for the 
 nomination, with no organization behind him, because the 
 plain people like the cut of his jib, knowing a real man when 
 they see him, is hustling in a way which fits Boss Butler's 
 description without taking his fancy. Folk fills halls to the 
 roof and the window sill, and the farmers drive thirty miles to 
 hear him say that boodle is an issue in Missouri and tell them 
 why. They cheer him when he says, as he did at Piedmont 
 the other day : "If I am elected Governor I shall see that 
 bribery in legislative halls is exterminated. The first time a 
 legislator takes a bribe there will be a message sent by me to 
 the General Assembly asking for his impeachment. I will 
 see to it that a corrupt lobby is not allowed to operate and 
 the day of sandbagging legislation comes to an end." The 
 public prosecutor realizes that the machine has weight and 
 reach and fights foul. It is as much as a man's life is worth, 
 perhaps, to enter the ring against it. But Mr. Folk faces 
 it with grit and resolution, and every blow he delivers is struck 
 
148 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 with a stout heart behind it. He is confident of getting a 
 decision from the people in spite of the odds against him. 
 "The battle against boodle can and will be won in Missouri," 
 he says. "If there ever was a doubt of the cure of corruption 
 being an issue in the Democratic party of Missouri, that doubt 
 is now dispelled. Why these gleeful exclamations of delight 
 when a boodler escapes the meshes of the law? Why all this 
 subtle influence arrayed on the side of men charged with 
 bribery ? The boodlers and their allies are well defined and 
 are very active in this fight. A few months ago they were 
 under cover, fighting from ambush. Now they have come out 
 into the open and defy the people of a great State. They 
 loudly rejoice at every victory and are downcast with every 
 defeat of the corruptionists." A man who talks in this way 
 and means it may not be a logical fellow in the calculations 
 of the machine ; but if his character is unassailable, he makes 
 his own machine as he goes along, and his machine is the 
 people who admire illogical honesty and the courage that 
 doesn't count consequences. Joseph W. Folk, whose char- 
 acter has withstood some very vicious assaults, will be a 
 hard man to beat when the roll is called on nominations for 
 Governor. — Nezv York Sun, February i8, 1904. 
 
Chapter X. 
 PULPIT ECHOES. 
 
Mr. Gladstone once ventured a suggestion as to the right kind 
 of preaching, pointing out zuhat he considered a defect in the 
 work of modern ministers. He said that the clergymen of hi^ 
 day zvere not, as a rule, severe enough upon their congregations. 
 ''They do not," he said, "sufficiently lay upon their souls and con- 
 sciences and heads their moral obligations, or probe their lives 
 and bring up the whole life to the bar of conscience. The ser- 
 mons most needed are those similar to the one that offended Lord 
 Melbourne, zvhen he claimed that he was obliged to listen to a 
 preacher zi'ho insisted upon a mans applying his religion to his 
 private life. This is the kind of preaching men need most, and 
 get the least of." And this, it may be added, is the reason wf 
 have such enormous hypocrisies and unblushing villainies in 
 trade, originated, promoted and consummated by professed Chris- 
 tian men. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 PULPIT ECHOES. 
 
 CONDEMN RIOTS FROM THE PULPITS — WHERE IS RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 LAW AND ORDER CONTEMPT OF LAW MENACES SOCIETY — 
 
 THE TERROR OF LAW LAWLESSNESS THE STATE PREACHERS 
 
 AROUSED. 
 
 After this chapter in Missouri Church history, let no one say 
 that the various rehgious bodies are indifferent and inert. They 
 may be cautious and^ conservative, but they are not cowardly. 
 From one view point, we may almost sa}^ of this moral revolution 
 what Dr. Parkhurst said of New York : "It was the pulpit that 
 did the work." For all denominations. Catholic and Protestant, 
 and nearly all the pulpits, were heard from. 
 
 ''When it is clear that the man who speaks is not speaking 
 for the purpose of putting money into his pocket or power into 
 his party, but is delivering his message because it is true, and 
 in speaking it appreciates his oracular authority as one com- 
 missioned of God to speak it, there is a suggestion of the Judg- 
 ment Day about it, there is a presentiment of the invisible God 
 back of it, that knots the stringy conscience of these fellows into 
 contortions of terror. Waning power of the pulpit? There is 
 all of power in the pulpit that there is of God voicing Himself 
 through the man who stands in the pulpit." 
 
 Rev. F. Klemme, of St. Johns Evangelical church, said : 
 "The law should be enforced and those who disgraced St. 
 Louis at the polls should be punished. The Grand Jury did splen- 
 did work. To the penitentiary with the law breakers. I blame 
 the saloons largely for the affair." 
 
 Rev. Howard F. Cree, of the Central Christian church : 
 'T was a witness to the election disgraces. I saw the bru- 
 tality and the police rendering no assistance whatever to those 
 who needed it. 
 
152 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 "They seemed to be talking over the matter with the 'Indians,' 
 who were but pawns in the game. There was no order. 
 
 "It was a species of anarchy. It was a body blow at honest 
 government." 
 
 Rev. W. D. Bradford, of the Cook Avenue Methodist church, 
 South : 
 
 "The Grand Jury has spoken in very effective terms and it 
 will receive the applause of all the people. There is no need to 
 abandon all hope in municipal affairs when we have such a Grand 
 Jury. 
 
 "I hope we will have as good a jury to try the indicted men 
 when the time comes. It is a vitally important matter to pro- 
 tect the polls." 
 
 Rev. Eugene T. McFarland, of the Fourth Christian church : 
 
 "If is a strange state of affairs when law-abiding citizens are 
 beaten by thugs while trying to vote in the city of St. Louis. 
 
 'Tt is time to organize vigilance committees. All people 
 should unite to down the boodlers in the State. 
 
 "They can be downed if the Christian voters will stand to- 
 gether. I am chagrined at Governor Dockery's attitude. It is a 
 great pity." 
 
 Rev. W. J. McKittrick, of the First Presbyterian church : 
 "There are no two sides to the matter at all. It is a burning 
 shame to St. Louis. It is not a political question. All citizens 
 must rouse themselves at once. 
 
 "The right to vote undisturbed is -an imperative necessity in 
 the United States for the preservation of the Union." 
 
 Rev. Louis I. Bowerman, of Immanuel Baptist church, 
 preached on "The American Saloon and the Dispensary System." 
 
 "As long as we have the saloon," he said, "we will have out- 
 rages similar to the outrages of last Saturday." 
 
 CONDEMN RIOTS FROM THE PULPITS. 
 
 In pursuance of resolutions adopted at the Southern Metho- 
 dist ministers' meeting, last Monday, nearly all the pastors of that 
 denomination said something from their pulpits on the subject of 
 the riotous scenes at the Democratic city primaries. Some were 
 stronger in their sentiments than others, but all took the ground 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 153 
 
 that such methods were a subversion of free government and 
 could not be tolerated by the people of Missouri. 
 
 Rev. Dr. W. F. McMurry, pastor of Centenary Methodist 
 church, preached to a congregation that filled the large audi- 
 torium on, "The World's Greatest Curse." He introduced his 
 remarks by referring to a request received from the Woman's 
 Christian Temperance Union, having reference to the Sunday 
 saloon, and to some resolutions passed by preachers' meetings 
 with reference to election disturbances. He said the whole trouble 
 lay with the liquor traffic, and that he preferred to go after the 
 disease itself, rather than spend the time with a few necessary 
 symptoms. Continuing, he said : 
 
 "The liquor traffic is the most gigantic curse the world has 
 ever known. The grand old State of Missouri, the state of my 
 birth, the state that I love better than any other state in the union, 
 is in a deplorable condition. In this city there are 2500 saloons ; 
 one saloon to every fifty-four of the male population, and we 
 seem amazed over a little rioting on election day, when brewers 
 are lined up for opposing candidates, some of them for one and 
 some for the other. We have become so accustomed to the pres- 
 ence of this evil, that we think too little about it. We forget that 
 almost the whole of our civic troubles originate here. 
 
 "A few mornings ago, I read an account of a young man 
 losing his life in a saloon, shot to death by the son of the Chief 
 of Police. Our hearts went out in sympathy to the parents of 
 these young men. Who is responsible for this death? And who 
 for the crime committed ? I answer without hesitation, the liquor 
 traffic of St. Louis. A woman drinking with her companions a 
 few nights ago took from her bosom a deadly weapon and blew 
 out her brains. The history of the case would convict the liquor 
 traffic of St. Louis of this death. Not long since, I was called to 
 bury a woman who died of poverty and a broken heart. The hus- 
 band and father was too drunk at the funeral to behave himself 
 decently. 
 
 "Tl,ie boodlers and thugs who play so large a part m our 
 cities, and about whom so much political capital is being made, 
 are the product of the saloon, and without these dens of iniquity 
 where these rascals breed and grow up, such a state of affairs 
 would be impossible. You expect too much of governors and 
 
154 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 judges when you expect ideal conditions while they are dealing 
 with the product of the saloons. 
 
 "It is high time we were giving our money to build open 
 doors, places of rest and rescue in the cities where there is now 
 no door open every day in the week except the saloon. It has 
 been on my heart since I first came to this church as pastor that 
 there ought to be erected here in connection with this church a 
 hall where men could meet and spend their idle hours, sur- 
 rounded by influences which are good, that they might not be 
 forced to enter the saloon for warmth and society. God help us 
 to do our duty in every way." 
 
 WHERE IS RESPONSIBILITY? 
 
 Rev. John S. Tilley, at the Mount Auburn Methodist church, 
 spoke on the subject of "Good Citizenship," declaring that no one 
 would question that the "Indians" had worked under instruction 
 at the Democratic primaries and that it was the people responsible 
 for these instructions, who were also responsible for the acts of 
 the "Indians." He said, in brief : 
 
 "It is without avail that the slum politicians and the saloon 
 statesmen are crying out that there is no cause for alarm. The 
 city is aroused ; its best citizens can not and will not remain silent 
 when hoodlums invade the best wards and throttle the voice of 
 the sovereign people by instituting a reign of terror at the polls. 
 
 "Where lies the responsibility? There is little to be gained 
 by abusing the degenerates called 'Indians.' The responsibility 
 lies back of the Indians. Who hired them and who sent them 
 there? Who questions for a moment that these men were acting 
 under explicit instructions? Who does not know that these In- 
 dians would not have dared invade this twenty-eighth ward, as- 
 sault its citizens and commit an offense, than which there could 
 not be a more serious, had there not been an understanding that 
 the police would not interfere? Who is so blinded by ignorance 
 or partisanship as not to realize that the police, had they been free 
 to act, could have quelled the disorder in the very beginning by 
 half a dozen arrests?" 
 
 Rev. H. R. Singleton, speaking at Cabanne church, said : "I 
 have nothing to say about the men who are seeking the Demo- 
 cratic nomination for governor, but I do say that the primaries 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 155 
 
 of last week in St. Louis were an outrage on our boasted Ameri- 
 can institutions, and ought to be rebuked in every possible way 
 by the voters of Missouri. 
 
 "One of the worst features of American politics is the slavish 
 adherence, on the part of our people, to the party with which they 
 happened to first become identified. If the better element of 
 voters would be independent enough to form their opinions in 
 each contest and vote accordingly, the political parties would be 
 forced to recognize them and respect them. 
 
 "A man has not much, if any, choice between the two par- 
 ties now, so far as men and methods go, but a large, independ- 
 ent vote would probably change that condition. And then if you 
 can not get your rights at the polls, organize and arm yourselves 
 and secure your rights by force. Our forefathers did so and are 
 respected for it." 
 
 Rev. J. Stephan, at Marvin Memorial church, brought out the 
 idea that the rioting on Saturday, March 12, was something for 
 which, when reduced to the real causes, the Christians are to 
 blame, because of their laxity in exercising the privileges of citi- 
 zenship. The corruption, he said, had been going on all the 
 time, but under the searching investigation of a man like Mr. 
 Folk, people were just awakening to this fact. 
 
 'There is nothing," he said, ''which gives the world greater 
 satisfaction than the supineness with which the church of Christ 
 treats the questions which relate to the betterment of society and 
 the purity of politics. When we fail to exercise the right of fran- 
 chise, we are thereby putting into the hands of the vicious element 
 of society power to control our government and put bad men in 
 office. Who is responsible for the perpetuation of so many evils 
 and vices, such as are common in this great city, if we the good 
 people take so little interest in their overthrow? The church 
 ought to be a moral breakwater in the midst of the evil and de- 
 structive currents of city life. One reason that sin thrives in so 
 many public and shameful forms, especially such as was witnessed 
 Saturday, March 12, and in open defiance of the law, is because 
 the church of God has been going on quietly, letting the world 
 drift in this current of lawlessness and sin." 
 
156 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 The Reverend James W. Lee, pastor of St. John's Methodist 
 church, preached on 
 
 LAW AND ORDER. 
 
 After introducing his subject by saying that there were good 
 and bad methods in all political parties, and sheep and goats in 
 all parties, too. Reverend Lee said : 
 
 '*The churches of St. Louis have no intention as a whole, 
 or in separate sections, of going into politics. They have, other 
 and far more inportant work to perform. But they are a unit 
 in the conviction that the laws which have been made for the 
 regulation and well-being of the body politic should be enforced, 
 and they know perfectlv well, too, that these laws are not en- 
 forced. This is not a political declaration ; it is an affirmation of 
 a plain, simple, sad fact. 
 
 "We are not working for the election of this man or that 
 man for governor. We are willing that any honorable man shall 
 be governor, provided he can get a majority of the votes of the 
 people. What Vv'e want is a governor who will compel his sub- 
 ordinate officers to do their duty and enforce the laws. That is 
 what we want now — an enforcement of the laws. 
 
 "The religious and reputable elements in the community are 
 at a loss to understand what the laws were ever enacted for if 
 not to be obeyed. They are excellent laws and they do not re- 
 strict the liberty of any man." 
 
 In commenting upon the non-enforcement of the law, he 
 called particular attention to two sections, one prohibiting the 
 dramshop keeper from having musical instruments or allowing 
 games to be played on his premises ; the other forbidding the 
 opening of the saloons on Sunday. The first section, which was 
 quoted in full, shows that music of any kind is forbidden in a 
 saloon, and the throwing of dice, card playing and all other forms 
 of gambling, including pool and billiards, are defined as misde- 
 meanors, and oft'enders are subject to a' fine of not less than $i or 
 more than $50, while the saloon man permitting the ofifense ren- 
 ders himself liable and, according to the law, shall be deprived" of 
 his license. 
 
 The speaker vigorously attacked the Police Commissioners, 
 the Excise Commissioner, and the police officials generally for 
 their action in ignoring these sections of the law. He pointed out 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 157 
 
 that the Sunday-closing section and the section relative to gam- 
 ing and amusements in saloons were explicit and positive in their 
 construction. He said that the present laws are as good as any 
 that can be enacted. 
 
 "Whenever the good people of this city begin to cry out 
 against lawlessness," said he, "then the word is passed round that 
 the thing to do is to get a new law, that the old ones will not 
 work. We have grown accustomed to this old cry and know 
 very well that if the authorities will not enforce the laws we now 
 have they would not enforce the new ones." 
 
 CONTEMPT OF LAW MENACES SOCIETY. 
 
 In a sermon on "The Majesty of the Law," preached by the 
 Reverend Doctor S. B. Moore at the Hammett Place Christian 
 Church, the speaker took his text from Paul to the Romans xiii, 
 I : "Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers." 
 
 Doctor Moore said, in part : 
 
 "The apostle says the powers that be are ordained of God, 
 and that rulers are not a terror to the good, but to the evil. Man, 
 as well as society, is so constituted that he must be restrained or 
 governed by law. 'Every man a law unto himself means anarchy. 
 Law is based upon justice and equity, and may be traced back to 
 the God of all wisdom and power as its remotest source. 
 
 " 'Vengeance is mine ; I will repay, saith the Lord.' Before 
 that high tribunal every man must stand in his true light; there 
 is no way of thwarting that supreme justice. No just law can 
 contravene divine law, else the injunction of our text would 
 be unreasonable. 
 
 ''The danger to society and the state lies in criminal contempt 
 of law. This danger is imminent in St. Louis just now. There 
 are laws enough upon the statute books, both State and municipal, 
 to insure the rights of citizenship and good government to all the 
 people, were they but reasonably enforced. But the laws are 
 openly violated under the very eyes of the conservators of the law, 
 and with no thought of danger of retribution. 
 
 "The scenes witnessed in our city on March 12 are an in- 
 cident, yea more than an incident — they exhibit a settled purpose 
 to override law and common decency, and set at defiance all sen- 
 timents of justice, and the common rights of men. 
 
158 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 "Right now is a time for serious thought and vigorous action. 
 The World's Fair will bring to our city a large contingent of 
 thieves, ex-convicts, lawbreakers, and criminals of all kinds, 
 which, added to the baser elements within our borders, will greatly 
 augment the perils of the present hour. 
 
 "Respectable people simply plead for the enforcement of the 
 law. The people composing our churches are not cranks ; they 
 are not posing as ultra-righteous ; they are not temperance fanat- 
 ics ; they are not Pharisaical ; they are contending only for that 
 which is right and just. 
 
 "There is law enough, and power enough to enforce it, to 
 close up the saloons of the city on the Lord's day, and during 
 other hours prescribed by law. But the law is openly violated 
 and under the eyes of its executors. 
 
 ''Contempt of law is an heinous crime and a serious menace 
 to the liberties of the whole people. When it comes to pass that 
 executors of the law become lawbreakers — violators of the laws 
 they are solemnly sworn to enforce — then the people should be- 
 stir themselves. The people are long-suffering. They are not 
 technically critical, but when forbearance ceases to be a virtue, 
 when public conscience is once aroused, something is going to 
 happen. Thus far and no farther is the mandate of the people, 
 and the mandate of God as well. When either religion or poli- 
 tics becomes oppressive and takes away the liberties of men, men 
 revolt and revolution is sure to follow. 
 
 THE TERROR OF LAW. 
 
 'Tf the law inspires no terror in evil-doers, there will be no 
 restraint. If the powers that be wink at, or connive at, infractions 
 of law, there is no terror. Conscience, being dead in the vicious 
 evildoers, offers no remonstrance. 
 
 "Human law should be as inflexible as divine law. 'Knowing 
 the terror of the Lord,' Paul persuaded men. 'Sin is a transgres- 
 sion of law, and the wages of sin is death.' So inflexible is God's 
 law that 'every transgression received a just recompense of re- 
 ward.' Hence, there could be no contempt of that law — its re- 
 tributions were swift and sure. 
 
 "The enforcement of law inspires respect and reverence for 
 authority, so that the abbreviation, 'Hon.' prefixed to the name 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH. THE BOODLERS. 159 
 
 of an official carries with it a meaning, standing as a synonym for 
 honor, rather than dishonor. 
 
 "Finally, the people of the Republic are the power. It is not 
 vested in any particular class, or cult, club, or ring. 
 
 "The power of government may for a time be centered in a 
 narrow corrupt circle. The conscienceless hoodlum element may 
 for a moment triumph. Law and order may be trodden down and 
 justice hide her fair face in shame, but the reaction will come. 
 
 "The people at large are clean, public conscience is not dead, 
 though it may be slumbering. Political, ecclesiastical, yea no con- 
 ventional bonds can hold a people whose rights are trampled 
 under foot. The people are seeing things, they are waking up, 
 they will soon be fully aroused. It may be that in their lethargy 
 they have been letting out rope by which corruption will strangle 
 itself. 
 
 "The church and all good people stand for justice and right- 
 eousness among men. Let the vote of the people be heard upon 
 all public questions, let every soul be subject to the higher powers, 
 then the state and society will be safe, and the people will have 
 peace and rejoice." 
 
 LAWLESSNESS. 
 
 Political corruption and the lawlessness which prevailed at 
 the Democratic primaries were scored by the Reverend Doctor J. 
 H. Young in a sermon delivered at Wagoner Place M. E. church. 
 South. Doctor Young said, in part : 
 
 'Tn accordance with a resolution passed by our Methodist 
 preachers' meeting last Monday, I want to say a few things this 
 morning to my congregation relative to the lawlessness in our city 
 on the day of the primar}^ election. As preachers we do not desire 
 to enter the political arena and advocate the cause of any particu- 
 lar candidate — especially from our pulpits. 
 
 "But the time has come when it would be criminal for honest 
 men to remain silent, and when the municipality must 'cry aloud 
 and spare not.' 
 
 "I need not occupy your time this morning in repeating the 
 stories of the outrages perpetrated at the polls by the Hawes In- 
 dians. There is no need to be mealy-mouthed in using names, 
 since the Reverend Doctor Holland has publicly said he saw Mr. 
 Hawes at the polls, shaking hands with these ruffians and encour- 
 
160 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 aging them in their work. We have all read the statements made 
 by some of our best citizens as to these outrages upon innocent, 
 law-abiding men, by thugs, scoundrels, or Indians, who were 
 abetted and encouraged in their rowdyism by the police officers 
 stationed at the polls. 
 
 "First of all, we need to place the blame of these outrages 
 where it properly belongs. Not so much upon these 'Indians' 
 themselves, for they are a low-lived set who are ready to sell 
 their services to either party for a consideration. Nor, indeed, 
 upon the policemen who encouraged these rowdies and refused 
 to protect men whom they knew to be honorable citizens from 
 brutal treatment at their hands. The responsibility rests upon 
 those men who set them on to their murderous work, or upon 
 those who by neglect of duties they were sworn to perform did 
 not take proper steps to prevent what many of our best citizens 
 suspected would take place on election day. 
 
 "The disgraceful row at Clayton was itself a warning which 
 the governor of our State and the police commissioners ought to 
 have heeded. A few words from Governor Dockery, spoken in 
 no uncertain- tones, would have made these outrages impossible. 
 Or, if the police commissioners, acting under their own consti- 
 tutional powers, had given the necessary orders to the police, 
 the peace of our city would not have been so flagrantly violated. 
 As law-abiding citizens, we demand of Governor Dockery that we 
 be protected in our rights. It will not do to set the Board of Po- 
 lice commissioners to work to vindicate themselves. Three of 
 their number were beneficiaries of the crimes perpetrated against 
 a free ballot. If they are sincere, let them repudiate the work 
 of their agents by refusing to profit by their crimes against the 
 ballot. It is inconceivable that all the police stationed at the polls 
 should connive at the 'repeating' and 'lining up' of these hood- 
 lums if they had not received some 'tips' that all this was expected 
 of them. No sane man can believe that these police would stand 
 by and see honest men dragged from the line and beaten without 
 even a word of protest or efifort upon their part to protect these 
 men in their rights, unless they had instructions, from some source, 
 to warrant their conduct. 
 
 "Instead of this police board going through the farce of ex- 
 amining into the conduct of policemen who refused to do their 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 161 
 
 duty, they need to be examined themselves for their failure to 
 take steps to prevent this lawlessness. The fact is, Governor 
 Dockery and our police board all stand impeached at the bar of 
 public opinion and they need to prove their own innocence before 
 attempting to 'examine' others. Let the grand jury do its duty 
 without fear and probe this matter to the bottom. We are not to 
 be satisfied with vain offers of '$ioo reward' for the conviction of 
 some poor policeman who acted, as we believe, under orders. We 
 want to know what were the orders given the board by the gov- 
 ernor and that these orders were explicit and unequivocal. We 
 want to know what were the orders given to the police by the 
 board and what were the special instructions given by the cap- 
 tains. The spectacle of a police board sitting, behind closed doors, 
 examining their own acts in strict secrecy, reflects no credit upon 
 them and is wholly unsatisfactory to an outraged public. 
 
 *Tt is time the good citizens of St. Louis were asserting their 
 rights, irrespective of party lines. The only political issue now 
 before the people of St. Louis, and, indeed, of the State of Mis- 
 souri, is that of good home government. We want honest men in 
 all our civil offices, men who consider the best interests of the 
 people at large and who will not bow to the party lash wielded by 
 saloonkeepers, ex-convicts and convicted boodlers. 
 
 ''The history of St. Louis for the last decade has not been one 
 of which the honest St. Louisan may be justly proud. Democrats 
 and Republicans have, each in turn, allowed or condoned corrup- 
 tion in high places and in low, till we have acquired the reputa- 
 tion of being the worst governed city in the Union. 
 
 "Our people have been long-sufifering to a criminal extent 
 We have talked and talked and bewailed our condition till patience 
 has ceased to be a virtue. What we need now is to act, and to act 
 decisively. I do not advocate force except in extremities — that is 
 to say, in self-defense. We have fallen upon hard lines, indeed, 
 when the Governor of our State boldly ofifers $ioo reward for the 
 conviction of blind and deaf policemen, and then weakly asks 
 the police board to examine themselves as to their reasons for em- 
 ploying these blind and deaf men at the polls. Hard lines, indeed, 
 when the acting chief of police furnishes his own buggy for one 
 of the candidates to make the rounds of the polls to encourage 
 these 'Indians' in their lawless work. 
 
 1 1 
 
162 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 "Without regard to political parties and demagogues, I trust 
 our true and loyal citizens will rise up in their might and put down 
 mob rule and 'lynch law,' as Doctor Holland very aptly calls it. 
 
 "The time has come for every true man to do what he can to 
 correct the lawlessness into which we have been drawn by un- 
 scrupulous politicians. We have almost reached the point of revo- 
 lution. Another election like this last, where the hoodlum element 
 is protected in crime by the police, and our streets will flow with 
 blood. Our indignation over these cruel and wanton outrages 
 should be so marked and outspoken that the weak-kneed officers 
 of the law, from the governor down to the constable, may be 
 encouraged or forced to take proper measures to secure us in our 
 rights.V 
 
 THE STATE PREACHERS AROUSED. 
 
 The following dispatch is one of many showing the hearty 
 co-operation of Missouri ministers with their city brethren : 
 
 KiRKSViLLE, Mo., xApril 7. — The ministers of the Cumber- 
 land Presbyterian church of this presbytery, stand by the minis- 
 ters of St. Louis, who denounced the work of the St. Louis ma- 
 chine when thugs were allowed to intimidate voters at the St. 
 Louis Democratic primaries and steal the election for Harry B. 
 Hawes. For their denunciation of the police machine the minis- 
 ters have been thanked in resolutions unanimously adopted as 
 follows : 
 
 Whereas, Forty-five ministers of the gospel, most of them 
 pastors of churches of the different denominations of the city of 
 St. Louis, have issued an appeal "To the Christian People of Mis- 
 souri * * * in behalf of law and order," and the re-estab- 
 lishment of good government over the city and commonwealth," 
 and. 
 
 Whereas, We learn from said appeal and other trustworthy 
 sources "that elections in St. Louis do not indicate the will of the 
 people ;" that "plug-uglies and repeaters" turn ballot boxes and 
 city treasuries over to their rule, and command and assault honest 
 citizenship that will not brook their reign of political terror; that 
 franchises of the city "had been sold in regular market ;" that the 
 buyers were citizens of wealth ; the corruption became more and 
 more respectable with the greater prominence its additional ill- 
 gotten wealth gave its purchasers ;" that it is these same bene- 
 
 I 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 163 
 
 ficiaries who stand between them (the guilty parties) and the 
 jail doors while they scoff at the threats of a justice that cannot 
 imprison their felony ; seventeen boodlers convicted and not one 
 in stripes ; and this immunity from punishment is not confined to 
 St. Louis, but to others in the state who have been exposed, but 
 still hold their offices in the state ; that there are now 2500 saloons 
 in this city ; no work of social life is safe from their peril ; they 
 laugh at all laws enacted for their restraint. They not only en- 
 trap the youth who enter them, but lure reluctant entrance with 
 song and dance. Girls no less than boys are their victims, and 
 when passion is hot and reason reckless with wine there are in 
 many of them secret rooms ready for the consummation of their 
 ruin the wine cup begins. Their victims count by the thousands 
 every year. 
 
 They affirm that the so-called Indians are simply saloon 
 gangs; that what they did in the twenty-eighth ward (recently) 
 they have been doing in the other wards of the city for many 
 years. 
 
 As far as heard no policeman has been dismissed for failing 
 to give citizens the protection for which he is well paid. 
 
 These under shepherds, our brethren in Christ, appeal to the 
 people of the state thus : "In every primary let your voice be 
 heard. The people are tired of corruption and brutality." There- 
 fore, 
 
 . Resolved, This presbytery thanks these men of God for their 
 timely appeal. 
 
 After such a demonstration of the pulpit's power, why should 
 the churches and ministers sink back into their usual lethargic 
 state ? When they have seen and used their opportunity, why do 
 they not continue their splendid service? As the Pope himself 
 has said, "Politics is a part of morals ;" therefore we affirm 
 that moral teachers are derelict in their plain duty when they 
 do not deal with politics. To be sure, there is a vast difference 
 between the treatment we expect from the pulpit, and that which 
 we expect from the stump, of even the same subjects. But 
 there is every reason why the stump speaker should elevate the 
 tone and improve the manner of his utterances, as there is why 
 the preacher should discuss the broad and vital issues of states- 
 manship in a non-partisan way from the pulpit. 
 
164 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 Sometimes it is said, "There are no moral issues in this cam- 
 paign ;" the inference being that therefore moral teachers should ^ 
 not be heard. But there are always moral issues in a campaign. 
 For instance, there are as many moral issues as there are men to 
 be nominated and elected to office. For each man in public office 
 becomes thereby a model for many who look up to him; he is a 
 source of moral influence, because of the office he occupies, in ad- 
 dition to the influence he may otherwise exert. More and rnore 
 the message comes to the church, 
 
 'Tight not with ghosts and shadows : let us hear 
 The snap of chain-links : let the gladdened ear 
 Catch the pale prisoner's welcome, as the light 
 Follows thy ax stroke through his cell of night ! 
 Be faithful to both worlds, nor think to feed 
 Earth's famished millions with the husks of creed. 
 Servants of Him whose mission high and holy 
 Was to the wronged, the suffering and the lowly, 
 Thrust not His Eden-promise from our sphere, 
 Distant and dim beyond the blue sky's span ! 
 Like John of Patmos, see it now and here ! 
 The New Jerusalem coming down to man !" 
 
Chapter XI. 
 THE CITY WHIRLPOOL. 
 
We must face the inevitable. The nezv civilization is certain 
 to be urban ; and the problem of the tzventieth century zvill be the 
 city. Many Englisli sovereigns attempted to arrest the growth 
 of London by proclamation. Equally idle unll be all attempts to 
 turn back from the modern city the tide of population Hozmng up 
 to it. One zvho thinks to circumvent or to successfully resist 
 economic and social lazm is fighting against the stars in their 
 courses. — Josiah Strong. 
 
 Our trades, commerce, and manufactures, our banking sys- 
 tems, our national debts, our huge systems of credit, are the 
 grozvth of scarcely more than tzco centuries. The revolution in 
 methods of travel and means of communication, and our systems 
 of universal education are the products of the century in zvhich 
 zve are still liz'ing. The capitalism and industrialism of to-day, 
 and the zvorld market zvhich they seek to supply, are but recent 
 grozcths. '^ '•' * Yet all these things are brought before the 
 mind only zvith an effort. "It is," says Sir Henry Maine, "in 
 spite of oz'erzvhelming evidence, most difficult for a citizen of 
 Zi'estern Europe to bring thoroughly home to himself the truth 
 that the ciz'ilization zvhich surrounds him is a rare exception in 
 the history of the zvorld." — Benjamin Kidd, in ''Social Evolution." 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE CITY WHIRLPOOL. 
 
 A NATION OF CITIES SOME OF THE CAUSES MECHANICAL VERSUS 
 
 MUSCULAR POWER THE RAIL HIGHWAYS ""STUMPS AIN't 
 
 folks'' THE STARS IN THEIR COURSES. 
 
 We are in the midst of a new age, with new duties, new 
 problems and new perils. Old things are continually passing 
 away, but at no time so rapidly as within the last fifty years. 
 This history suggests one of the most marked characteristics 
 of the present — the phenomenal growth of great cities. It is 
 not a feature of western civilization merely", but a world-wide 
 fact. Whatever its causes, there is no indication that they 
 will be suspended ; but, on the other hand, the signs all seem 
 to prophesy that they will be augmented, and that the growth 
 of cities, rapid as it has been, will continue, and in some sec- 
 tions even be accelerated. 
 
 A NATION OF CITIES. 
 
 At the beginning of the century, one-twenty-fifth of the 
 population of the United States lived in cities of 8,000 and 
 upwards ; this number had risen in 1850 to one-eighth ; in i860, 
 one-sixth; in 1870, a little more than one-fifth; in 1880, 22.5 
 per cent, or nearly one-fourth ; in 1890, over 25 per cent, and in 
 1900, nearly '28 per cent. 
 
 Or to state it differently, from 1790 to 1880, the whole 
 population increased about four-fold ; the urban population 
 thirteen-fold. In 1800 there were only six cities in the United 
 States with a population of 8,000 or more. In 1880 there were 
 286, and in 1890, 437. 
 
 In Europe the same fact has attracted attention. Copen- 
 hagen increased from 155,000 in i860 to 400,000 in 1895; Paris, 
 from about 600,000 in 1789 to 2,500,000 in 1889. In the last 
 one hundred and twenty years preceding 1800, London 
 
168 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 increased in size only 50 per cent. In the eighty-six years 
 following 1800, London has increased 500 per cent. Three 
 cities as large as London would be almost enough to people 
 Spain; six would be more than enough to people Italy; seven, 
 nearly enough to people France; and eleven, to people the 
 United States.'^ Every week adds 2,500 souls to its swarming 
 millions; every month adds a city of 10,000 inhabitants; every 
 year one of 125,000. But London is only the metropolis; there 
 are in England and Wales alone twenty-seven other cities, the 
 smallest of which contains over 75,000 inhabitants, whose 
 great size and sudden growth are no less remarkable than that 
 of London itself. Scotland can be cited as an illustration of 
 the centralizing forces of the time. In an article in the 
 Nineteenth Century, July, 1884, Mr. Henry George said : 
 
 "While a few Scotchmen have castles and palaces, more 
 than one-third of all Scottish families live in one room each, 
 and more than two-thirds in not more than two rooms each. 
 Thousands of acres are kept as a playground for strangers, 
 while the masses have not enough of their native soil to grow 
 a flower; are shut out even from moor and mountain ; dare not 
 take a trout from a lock or a salmon from a stream. '^ 
 
 The conditions have improved somewhat since this was 
 written, but the largest room of all is still the room for 
 improvement. 
 
 In Russia, France, Germany, Norway and Sweden, in 
 short, all Europe, we witness the rapid growth of cities that 
 we had thought was the exclusive miracle of the western lands 
 of our OAvn country. This sudden and tremendous transfer- 
 ence of population to great throbbing centres has produced 
 changes which are more than revolutionary in their sweep 
 and power. In the United States the cities have outgrown the 
 rural districts, at a time of the opening and settlement of vast 
 areas of public domain. The valuable agricultural lands have 
 not been sufficient inducement to our swarms of immigrants 
 and the native population to turn them from city to country. 
 As the most desirable of this territory is now occupied, we 
 must conclude that instead of diminishing, our cities will, for 
 a time at least, grow more rapidly than before. And there 
 are people now living who will see New York rival London, 
 and Chicago outreach New York. It is inevitable that event- 
 
 *Modern Cities. 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 1G9 
 
 ually the majority of our population must content themselves 
 with city life. 
 
 The fact is that population is being redistributed and con- 
 gested. Forty per cent of the whole number of townships in 
 the country actually lost population in 1880. The city of 
 Chicago more than doubled, while 792 townships in the State 
 of Illinois were depleted. The city is a great whirlpool, draw- 
 ing steadily vast streams of people into the vortex. The 
 tendency toward centralization is well-nigh omnipotent. It is 
 in vain to sing to our boys and young men, "Stay on the farm 
 a while longer." 
 
 SOME OF THE CAUSES. 
 
 The forces that are busy building great cities are as 
 apparent and as irresistible, may we not say as permanent, as 
 the swing of the tides or the pull of gravitation ? Dr. Josiah 
 Strong calls attention to some of these in his little book "The 
 Twentieth Century City." There is, first of all, a force work- 
 ing throughout the rural regions by power of expulsion. The 
 time was when it took a large group of men to plant and 
 harvest a comparatively small crop ; but the inventive genius 
 of the Yankee has been at work, and now improved machinery 
 in our fields and orchards has taken the place of hundreds of 
 farm laborers. 
 
 A Government agent reports, after due investigation, that 
 four men with modern agricultural instruments will do the 
 work formerly done by fourteen. This is displacing ten men 
 out of every fourteen. Where shall the ten men go and what 
 shall they do? The writer was reared in the State of Cali- 
 fornia where, in the Sacramento Valley, again a?nd again he 
 has seen a great harvester driven by steam or by a score or 
 more of mules and horses, cutting, threshing and sacking the 
 grain as it moved over the great fields. This is but one illus- 
 tration among the many that might be furnished, showing 
 how dumb machinery is driving out laborers. It will not do 
 to suggest that these farm laborers go to other sections of the 
 country and take up farms of their own, or that the farms now 
 occupied seek to increase their products by intensive methods. 
 The world's capacity to consume breadstuffs is strictly limited ; 
 and, even if farming lands were still open and Uncle Sam 
 were still liberal enough to 'give us all a farm,' suppositions 
 that are thinkable but not practicable, we should be very 
 seriously troubled to find markets. 
 
170 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 Perhaps it should be said also in this connection that the 
 introduction and use of machinery in agriculture has worked 
 at the other end of the equation, and the laborers who have 
 been displaced by machinery on the farm have, by the very 
 demand for agricultural machinery, been called to the city to 
 labor in the factories where this machinery is made. They 
 may have a feeling of Satisfaction in the reflection that the 
 machine which has crowded them out of the fields is itself 
 dependent on them for manufacture ; but if they are wise men, 
 with conditions what they now are in the factory and in the 
 city, they will none the less lament the change. 
 
 MECHANICAL VERSUS MUSCULAR POWER. 
 
 And they are not long in the city until they discover that 
 a multitude of operations in the factory that formerly required 
 the human hand are now performed by still other machinery. 
 The very word ''manufacturer" is a witness. It means literally 
 one who makes by hand. But if the manufacturer of today 
 were compelled to resort to hand labor for every process, he 
 would immediately find that his product would be cut down 
 from one-half to four-fifths, and the cost would be correspond- 
 ingly increased. Newell Dwight Hillis relates an incident 
 which once came under his observation. He says a public 
 exhibition was made of a new machine. It was entirely suc- 
 cessful, and the inventor received the congratulations of all 
 his friends. But a stalwart man, with a sinewy frame and 
 bronzed face, went out from the exhibition in tears. He said, 
 ''I entered that room as master of a trade at which I was able 
 to earn $5 a day. It was my ambition to give my children a 
 better chance in life than their father ever had, and I was able 
 to do it. But that machine has taken my place and the places 
 of such as I." It is a pathetic story, and yet it is only an inci- 
 dent in the encroachment of mechanical upon muscular energy. 
 
 When the human hand was employed instead of machin- 
 ery, manufacture was for the most part individual. The 
 worker Avas independent and every workman could have his 
 own shop. He could be the stockholder, the director, the 
 superintendent and the operative, all in one. He owned the 
 few and simple tools of his trade; but, with the introduction 
 of mechanical power, the factory system sprung up ; another 
 man, or set of men, owned the tools ; and labor, no matter how 
 skilled, immediately became a commodity. The laborers were 
 compelled to gather around the machinery which was set up, 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 171 
 
 and toil in danger from whirling wheels, and humming spin- 
 dles, and foul air, under such conditions as their masters chose 
 to give. 
 
 Dr. Strong tells us that in 1840, 21.79 P^^ ^^^^^ of all our 
 population were engaged in agriculture. In 1870 the propor- 
 tion had fallen to 15.43 per cent; in 1880, it was 15.38 per 
 cent, and in 1890, only 13.68 per cent. On the other hand, 4.12 
 per cent of the population were employed in manufactures in 
 1850; and 7.52 per cent in 1890. By the close of the century 
 the proportion engaged in manufactures will no doubt be twice 
 as large as it was fifty years earlier. As the world's popula- 
 tion increases, there will be an increasing demand for further 
 production, but this increased demand will be more than met 
 by the increase of machinery in agriculture and of mechanical 
 power. We have forever passed the time when we can hope 
 for a turn of the tide from the factory to the farm. 
 
 THE RAIL HIGHWAYS. 
 
 Still another factor should be mentioned in this connection 
 as a procuring cause of the growth of the great cities. The 
 network of railways covering the country makes transporta- 
 tion easy, rapid and comfortable. It is proverbial that unless 
 a railway makes a terminus of a town which it touches, it is 
 seldom of any real advantage; while, if it sweeps by a few 
 miles away, it must result in practically killing the town, 
 although perhaps another may spring up near at hand. Before 
 we had our railways, the transportation of food products was 
 a very serious problem. But this problem has been solved 
 now once and for all ; and the great masses of population can be 
 fed and sustained with all the necessaries of life by these great 
 throbbing arteries of trade. A local famine in any city, or in 
 any section of the country, will never more be possible. 
 
 The railway is a great distributor for the factories as well 
 as for the farm, and manufacturers naturally drift into the 
 great railroad centres where they can have every facility for 
 transporting their goods to market. The freight and pas- 
 senger trains running into the city assist in developing the 
 city, and so likewise do the trains running out from the city. 
 It is no exaggeration to say that every tr^in, whether depart- 
 ing from a great union station or entering it, is making a 
 .definite contribution to the city's growth. No one expects the 
 time ever to come when we shall have fewer railways or fewer 
 trains, but quite the contrary. 
 
172 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 Men are naturally gregarious. Indeed, so also are the 
 lower orders of creation. Fish go in schools ; sheep in flocks ; 
 cattle in herds ; bees in swarms ; and men, even in a savage 
 state, are found in tribes. General Booth of the Salvation 
 Army has been working for years to colonize the slum popu- 
 lation upon farming lands. He wants to get back to the soil, 
 and there can be no question as to the soundness of his the- 
 ories, any more than there can be as to the sincerity and earn- 
 estness and unselfishness of his purpose. 
 
 "STUMPS AIN'T FOLKS." 
 
 But General Booth is overlooking some of the most 
 marked economic tendencies of the times. Many incidents 
 have occurred in the history of such undertakings which em- 
 phasize the facts already stated. A story is told of a family j 
 of Germans who were found by some settlement workers in ; 
 absolute want and squalor in the slums of Chicago. At con- 
 siderable cost, both in labor and money, the family were trans- 
 ported into the country and comfortably settled upon a piece 
 of land. At first they seemed to be very happy indeed. But 
 greatly to their surprise, after a few months had passed, the 
 settlement workers found them back in the city slums. They 
 asked in amazement, "Were you not well provided for on the 
 farm?" "Oh, yes," was their reply. "Why, then, have you left 
 the farm and come back to this place?" An effort was made 
 at explanation and apology, but the gist of the reply is con- 
 tained in the answer of the old woman, ''Stumps ain't folks !" 
 
 There is something of hope in the Good Roads Movement 
 which will help to redeem country life from isolation and lone- 
 liness. The extension of telephone service to farm houses, 
 rural free mail delivery, and other advantages, are doing much 
 to assist in making country life exceedingly attractive. There ' 1 
 may be occasionally a family who will grow tired of the \ 
 deprivations of the crowded city life and endeavor to occupy i 
 a country home, or at least a home in the city suburbs. No I 
 matter what may be the additional attractions of the country, 
 the counter-attractions of the city must always exert a pre- 
 ponderating influence. 
 
 A statistician, who is eminently careful and reliable, stated 
 a few days ago that if the goods manufactured in one year, by 
 the three million factory operatives of the United States, were 
 to be made by hand, their production would require the labor 
 of one hundred and fifty million people; that is, machinery 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 173 
 
 is fifty times as productive as hand labor alone. And this ratio 
 will not be diminished by superior skill or handicraft, nor by 
 defective machinery, nor by a halt in the march of invention. 
 Rather, it will be increased from year to year. A fact which 
 should not be overlooked in the changes taking place on the 
 farm is that the work of the well-made machine is better than 
 hand work. For example, '-In the days of Queen Anne the 
 wheat fields of England used to yield 15 bushels to the acre. 
 The little peasant farms of France and Germany yield about 
 the same amount now^ Today, with large fields and improved 
 agricultural methods, the average yield for the United King- 
 dom is 36 bushels per acre. In France and Germany, where the old 
 methods of hand labor largely prevail, each male person 
 employed produces on an average, respectively, only 220 or 245 
 bushels of wheat each year. In England, where modern meth- 
 ods prevail, the average production of each person Is 540 bush- 
 els. In the United States it is 820 bushels. One farmer like 
 Dr. Glenn of California, or Mr. Dalrymple of Dakota, with a 
 field of wheat covering one hundred square miles, can raise 
 as much grain with four hundred farm servants as five hun- 
 dred peasant proprietors in France." 
 
 There was a time in the United States when we took 
 special pride in our great cities, but we soon discovered that 
 a great city is something to be warned of, as well as something 
 to be proud of. When Chicago and Philadelphia, during the 
 census of ten years ago, were rivalling each other, a Chicago 
 paper had the discernment to say that they were quite willing 
 to let Philadelphia keep the place, if she would exchange five 
 hundred of her good old Quaker citizens for a few thousand of 
 Chicago's anarchists. The threat of the city is treated in 
 another chapter. In this brief and hurried summary, we have 
 simply tried to make clear the fact that the cities are grow- 
 ing at a prodigious rate, and that the time is soon coming 
 when by sheer force of numbers the cities must dominate the 
 State and the nation. To quote from ''Modern Cities" by 
 Samuel Lane Loomis : 
 
 ''Such reasons as these afford abundant explanation for 
 the phenomenal increase of urban population in modern times. 
 Civilization has promoted the growth of the great towns by 
 augmenting their natural attractiveness, the facilities for reaching 
 them and the opportunities of earning a livelihood within 
 them, and, at the same time, by decreasing the obstacles and 
 
174 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 broadening the natural limits to their growth. It has brought 
 to them an unlimited supply of cheap food, greater wealth to 
 meet the costliness of city residences, and to overcome by 
 proper sanitar}^ arrangements the unhealthfulness of their 
 crowded life. And, finally, it has been continually changing 
 the balance of the demand for work and workers, from thfe 
 country to the town. 
 
 THE STARS IN THEIR COURSES. 
 
 "So long as such causes as these prevail, the cities of 
 Christendom will continue rolling themselves up to ever vaster 
 size ; but these causes as yet show no diminution in their influ- 
 ence ; nor, so far as one may- judge, are they likely to do so 
 for generations to come. The present may be the age of great 
 cities, but the future is the age of the greater. This must 
 especially be the case with the United States. The youngest 
 of the nations has already more large cities than any, except 
 Great Britain and German}-. Though still in their infancy, 
 our principal towns surpass in size and in the tumult of their 
 life, many of the older and flourishing capitals of Europe. 
 With the country growing in population at a rate unprece- 
 dented in the annals of all times, and the towns growing twice 
 as fast ; with what seems a certainty of having as many inhab- 
 itants within one hundred years as all Europe has at present; 
 with every probability that the people of the twentieth cen- 
 tury will centralize themselves even more than those of the 
 nineteenth, the _ United States may fairly expect to possess 
 cities whose greatness can not be equalled by anything that 
 the world has yet seen. 
 
 "All efforts to arrest the progress of the cities and to check 
 the population that continually flows into them, must be fruit- 
 less. The great social movements of the age cannot be stopped. 
 Each successive year is certain to see a smaller place for the 
 workers of the world in the fields and on the farms and a larger 
 place in shops, counting-rooms, oflices, banks, manufactories, 
 and the myriad industries that make their home in the metrop- 
 olis. 
 
 ''Let it not be assumed that great cities are of necessitv 
 what Thomas Jefferson called them : 'Great sores upon the 
 body politic' Nothing is evil that is in the best sense natural, 
 development of human society. They are found among the 
 and the formation of great cities is a normal result of a high 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 175 
 
 purest and most advanced of nations ; they come in the most 
 enlightened times ; the evil of them is not in -their size, but 
 in the avarice, luxury, oppression, and vice that haunt them. 
 
 "The wisest efforts of philanthropy will not be spent in 
 the vain effort to prevent the incoming of men to them, but 
 in the effort to make them better places for human habitation ; 
 not in checking their growth, but in quenching their iniquity." 
 
 We do not hesitate to affirm that if the money which has 
 been stolen, squandered, and misappropriated in any of our large 
 American cities had been honestly applied, they would now be 
 among the most beautiful and healthful places of human habita- 
 tion on the globe. Instead of presenting piteous contrasts be- 
 tween the abodes of the well-to-do and the abodes of the middle 
 classes and the poor, they would afford instructive object lessons 
 upon the phenomenal resources of the modern city, when it comes 
 to the great question of properly housing its swarming population. 
 
 It is never, in America, a question of resources. There is 
 money enough found to govern the cities wretchedly, and to enrich 
 scores of traitorous pubHc officials. The real problem is encoun- 
 tered when we appeal to the civic conscience, — and find that it is 
 not! Men are preoccupied, overworked, indifferent. They may 
 have a conscience on a great many subjects, but when it comes to 
 the matter of local municipal government, 'they are as devoid of 
 conscience as a Fiji Islander. So this is the point for the applica- 
 tion of our power, — to awaken men's consciences upon the sub- 
 ject of the city's government; to teach them that they are respon- 
 sible for that government ; that the city is their larger home ; and 
 that out of their relations to their fellow citizens grow obligations 
 which cannot be shirked without offense. 
 
 Judge Alton B. Parker, prominent as a candidate for the 
 Presidential nomination, deHvered an address to the graduating 
 class at Union College in 1901, in which he spoke of the place and 
 power of educated men in politics ; and in closing his speech, he 
 said : 
 
 'T have thus briefly called your attention to a broad field, 
 which requires the labor of many cultivators if the weeds that 
 menace the choice grain which all would have come to maturity 
 are to be kept down, and have also suggested that it is the special 
 duty of men with your advantages to take part in that work, and 
 
9 
 
 176 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 I beg leave in passing to remind you that the satisfaction which 
 comes of the consciousness of duty well performed will compen- 
 sate you for your efforts. But if you are ambitious for power 
 and place in government, they also are quite likely to come either 
 because of faithful and efficient service personally rendered in 
 humble positions at the beginning, or as a result of the contribu- 
 tion of intelligent political effort toward filling public offices with 
 men whose ambition is to serve the public well. 
 
 'It may well be said that some of your best efforts in behalf 
 of the public will prove ineffective, indeed, may seem to be un- 
 appreciated ; but remember that you are not striving for appre- 
 ciation, but only to accomplish results for those who need your 
 services ; whether they realize it or not — that yours is a higher 
 ideal than to secure personal applause ; it embraces a war against 
 wrongs and a struggle for justice for those who are sadly in need 
 of it. 
 
 ''Be not discouraged ! Press on ! supported by the assurance 
 which the history of civilization gives, that right and justice will 
 in the end prevail." 
 
 More workers would have continued in this difficult field of 
 municipal redemption if they had taken the learned Judge's ad- 
 vice — "remember that you are not striving for appreciation." 
 There are multitudes in 3^our city who need your service ; without 
 they languish and die. But they do not know when you have 
 blessed them, any more than they know what they need or how to 
 procure it. The world municipal cannot be redeemed and re- 
 generated on any new plan ; it will always require unrequited 
 service. Some toilers must miss the palms, but not the pains, of 
 martyrdom. 
 
Chapter XII. 
 CITIES OF DESTRUCTION. 
 
 12 
 
Even the best of modern civilization appears to nie to exhibit 
 a condition of mankind which neitlicr embodies any worthy ideal 
 nor even possesses the merit of stability. I do not hesitate to ex- 
 press the opinion that if there is no hope of a large improvement in 
 the condition of the greater part of the hnman family; if it is trne 
 that the increase of knowledge, the zvinning of a greater dominion 
 over nature zMch is its consequence, and the wealth zvhich follows 
 upon that dominion, are to make no difference in the extent and 
 the intensity of zvant zvith its concomitant physical and moral 
 degradation among the masses of the people, I should hail the 
 advent of some kindly comet ivhich zvould szi'eep the zvhole affair 
 awa\, as a desirable consummation. — Hnxley. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CITIES OF DESTRUCTION. 
 
 PROVINCIALISM AND SNOBBERY — WHY STUDY CITIES — PERILS AND 
 
 PROBLEMS — THE OLD QUARREL MUNICIPAL MISGOVERN- 
 
 MENT DESTRUCTION OF THE HOME ALTARS DESERTED 
 
 HEARTS HARDENED — THE CITY JUNGLE. 
 
 John Bunyaii's immortal vision of a City of Destruction, 
 with its escaping pilgrims bound for the Celestial City fur- 
 nishes an apt allegory of the present time. Cities are every- 
 where and inevitably, under modern conditions, to some extent 
 at least, cities of destruction. There are many very beautiful 
 things in the city, and it is not impossible to, live among them 
 and close one's eyes to those features which are baleful and 
 menacing, but an intelligent person is not likely to adopt such 
 a course. 
 
 PROVINCIALISM AND SNOBBERY. 
 
 In the first place, city dwellers are inclined to provincial- 
 ism and snobbery. Their lives are so full that they think little, 
 if at all, of the great world which rolls and surges beyond the 
 limits of their own town, or indeed beyond their own ward. 
 New York, the metropolis of the nation, is wanting in geo- 
 graphical perspective. There are many people in this great 
 city who have never been beyond it and who think that buffalo 
 and wild Indians still range on the plains of the Mississippi ; 
 but there are citizens in St. Louis not one^whit better, when it 
 comes to an adequate conception of the immensity of our coun- 
 try, especially that which lies still further to the west. Our 
 'country cousins,' as they are sometimes called, know full well 
 that there is sometimes a feeling of downright antagonism, and 
 hatred is thereby engendered. This is entirely natural, as 
 the- city dweller holds himself with lofty disdain above his 
 rural neighbor. 
 
 Suppose he does wear better fitting garments and live in 
 a finer house and draw a larger salary! These things do not 
 
180 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 necessarily mark a liner grade of humanity. The population 
 of the great city has been recruited from the country, and 
 there are few American cities in which the leaders of enterprise 
 and of thought are removed more than one generation frorn 
 the country. It has often been said that we might burn our 
 cities to the ground, leaving the farming country intact, and 
 in a little while the cities would rise, Phoenix like, from their 
 ashes ; but, if the farms were destroyed, the cities must neces- 
 sarily perish. 
 
 The attitude of the snob is impossible to an intelligent, 
 cultivated person ; and it is as absurd and illogical, as it should 
 be impossible, to everybody capable of consecutive thought. 
 
 WHY STUDY CITIES. 
 
 It is important for us to study the problem of the city, not 
 only for the good of the cities themselves, but also for the 
 common good ; for the cities are the determining factors in our 
 civilization. If they' become permeated with corruption ; if 
 they yield to the .tyranny of Mammon and worship at the 
 shrine of a fatuous and voluptuous fashion ; if their industry 
 is organized injustice, and the wheels of their factories grind 
 up the bodies and souls of living men, then the fiery-footed 
 avengers of social outrage will sweep down upon them and 
 whelm the State with them in a common ruin. But we must 
 reckon our cities not only as great throbbing centers of con- 
 trolling influence, but be preparing for the time when, con- 
 taining a majority of the population, they will by sheer force 
 of numbers shape the destiny of the Republic. 
 
 PERILS AND PROBLEMS. 
 
 In the city, all social problems are aggravated and com- 
 plicated. The vicious and the criminal form communities, and 
 the peculiar wickedness of each soon becomes the -possession 
 of all. Dangerous characters are encouraged by companion- 
 ship. The wise rearing of children, always and everywhere a 
 delicate and difficult matter, becomes by force of circumstances 
 well nigh impossible. 
 
 It is difficult enough in our towns and rural neighborhoods 
 to incline men to a righteous and Christian life ; but in our 
 cities it becomes the despair of the most sanguine. Armies of 
 employees, such as street car men, firemen and others, are, 
 by the very nature of their work, debarred from all church 
 privileges. Nor can they be reached by the most enterprising 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 181 
 
 and aggressive methods. Still others are kept away from the 
 churches by the hard, cruel fact of poverty, while not an incon- 
 siderable number are deterred by physical exhaustion. 
 
 All the materializing forces of society are strongest and 
 most vigorous here. The temples of Mammon stand splendid 
 and overawing. The pursuit of wealth is as feverish and 
 relentless as fate. Fortunes are made in a day by a lucky turn 
 on 'Change; speculation in every line of trade is rife; men turn 
 easily to the flip of the cards or the throw of dice, or rush away 
 from the drudgery of their desks to "play the races." The 
 wiiole population seems to have gone mad in its greed of gold. 
 All the evidences of wealth are many times multipHed. Pal- 
 aces that rival the magnificence of oriental kings loom up 
 grandly in the midst of charming parks, where fountains play 
 and flowers blossom ; elegantly clad men and women pass in 
 and out, served by a retinue of domestics ; carriages drawn by 
 fretting thoroughbreds flash by in the sunlight, gorgeous in 
 gold and silver mountings, proud with coachman and foot- 
 man. The eye is fed, and the ear is fed, and the appetite is 
 fed, and whole populations are bound in the silken chains of 
 sensualism — a sensualism which begins in a gilded form, but 
 rapidly and surely bears its votaries to the awful end of moral 
 leprosy and social decay. 
 
 At the opposite social extreme move and operate with 
 deadly and cumulative effect the same debasing passions, 
 though under widely different exteriors. Luxury and poverty 
 breed ennui and despair, and both by the same process of 
 uncurbed sensualism. The rich are sensualists by their abun- 
 dance, and the poor by their need. Extremes meet. 
 
 It is comparatively easy in a great city to lead a dual life. 
 A block from your home no ane knows you, or cares who you 
 are or what you do. Excuses and explanations are easy, if they 
 are not entirely satisfactory. And so 'the means to do ill deeds 
 make ill deeds done'. 
 
 The mere fact that men are brought into close proximity 
 in the city suggests the aggravation of all social disorders, 
 and the creation of new ones. It is on the same principle that 
 to focus the sun's rays intensifies their heat. Focusing all the 
 divergent rays of human life creates heat. 
 
 We look almost in vain in our cities for homes. If there 
 were nothing but cities in the world, such songs as "Home, 
 Sweet Home" would never have been written. Imagine the 
 
182 ' POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 old motto that we used to hang in the best room in the old 
 homestead "God bless our home," changed to meet the new 
 conditions so as to read "God bless our flat !" Boarding houses 
 are common — some of them, exceedingly common ! To extin- 
 guish the home means the obliteration of the most sacred 
 instincts of the human soul, with consequent peril to society. 
 
 Foreigners are attracted as if by a spell to the cities, and 
 tramp thither like invading armies. They gather in clusters, 
 each nationality grouped by itself, and lie there like crude 
 masses of undigested and indigestible food. They come with 
 the mark of centuries of oppression and the brand of ignorance 
 and superstition and vice upon them and settle themselves in 
 such a way that these undesirable traits are perpetuated. For- 
 eign missions are thus brought to our very doors, and the Man 
 of Macedonia stands and pleads in our streets. 
 
 THE OLD QUARREL. 
 
 In the midst of such extremes as the city presents, the old 
 quarrel between the "haves" and the have-nots" rages with 
 threatening violence. Laborers are formed into unions, and 
 capitalists mass their strength, until, by vicious or incompetent 
 leadership, they both menace the peace and stability of the 
 government. Involuntary idleness abounds, a rude and paup- 
 erizing charity is dispensed, and by the presssure of the lower 
 wants, men are crowded out of respectability and become 
 dependents and delinquents. In the midst of all this, there is 
 a savage discontent which bodes no good for the future. The 
 social organization is such that it is working out its own ruin, 
 and unless we repent, there will burst out upon us a storm 
 that will not, of all our magnificence, leave one stone upon 
 another ! 
 
 MUNICIPAL MISGOVERNMENT. 
 
 All these problems, grave enough and menacing enough 
 of themselves, are, as we have seen, aggravated by a farcical 
 and ruinous condition of municipal government. So notorious 
 are the facts that the mere mention of the term "municipal 
 government" calls up a lurid vision of chicanery and boodlery 
 and infamy. In his "American Commonwealth," James Boyce 
 declares, "There is no denying that the government of cities 
 is one conspicuous failure of the United States. The defi- 
 ciencies of the national government tell but little for evil on 
 the welfare of the people. The faults of the State governments 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 183 
 
 are insignificant compared with the extravagance, corruption 
 and mismanagement which mark the administration of most 
 of the great cities." In his own original way, Dr. Parkhiirst 
 says, "All American cities of any considerable size are sub- 
 stantially circumstanced in much the same way. Virtue is at 
 the bottom and knavery on top. The rascals are out of jail 
 and standing guard over men who aim to be honorable and 
 law-abiding." 
 
 Among the official classes and extending to a goodly pro- 
 portion of the entire community there is a mischievous spirit 
 of lawlessness. It consists of law-breakings but it has its 
 beginning in a total lack of reverence for law, and an absurd 
 classification of laws and offenses. For instance, let a fellow 
 steal a loaf of bread to appease his hunger and he will be sent 
 to the workhouse. Let him run a hell-hole called a "dive," and 
 break every law on the statute book, and he will be sent 
 to the House of Delegates, to legislate for the whole city; 
 whence, in due course of time, he is sent to Congress ! Now% 
 compare the enormity of the two classes of crime. Measure 
 their relative reach into the community and their power for 
 working social damnation. Or compare the two criminals. 
 
 The fellow who steals the loaf of bread may be, and often 
 is, an honest man out of employment from no fault of his 
 own, starving in the midst of plenty. But the other fellow is 
 a gross, lecherous scoundrel, without a vestige of conscience 
 in his whole obese anatomy. His only conception of virtue 
 is that it has a market value ; his only use for it, to discount it 
 for cash. No pirate on the high seas ever wrought such 
 ruin as he works ; no train-robber ever committed such depre- 
 dations against the social weal. And yet he goes to Congress. 
 He is the patron saint of drunkenness, prostitution and gam- 
 bling. But he is no criminal because, forsooth, he has an out- 
 ward seeming of respectability and a powerful political pull ! 
 
 The saloon finds its green pastures in the crowded cities. 
 Here all the indirect causes of drunkenness conspire to plunge 
 men into the vortex; misfortune, exhausting toil, impure air, 
 cheap and innutritions food, etc., etc., and the saloon barons 
 are not slow to take advantage of it. Saloons range from one 
 to every five hundred of the population to one to every hun- 
 dren and twenty. We all know something of the pauperizing 
 and debasing influence of the liquor traffic. Harlotry and 
 
184 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 drunkenness lie upon the same couch, and every minor offense 
 known to the statutes swarm over them like vermin. 
 
 Men without money, mind or morals, are chosen for high 
 and responsible positions in our municipal service. The very 
 worst thing that could happen to many of our city officials 
 would be the publication of their biography ! Make criminals 
 officers; and, as a matter of course, crime is officially pro- 
 tected. And in such an atmosphere as this, boys and girls are 
 being reared and the church is trying to save souls, and the 
 home is trying to conserve its peace and purity. 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF THE HOME. 
 
 The destruction of the home which takes place in our 
 large cities is a fearful menace to law and order. General 
 Booth says, "A father who never dandles his child on his 
 knee can not have a very keen sense of the responsibilities of 
 paternity. In the rush and pressure of our competitive city 
 life, thousands of men have not time to be good fathers. Sires, 
 yes ; fathers, no. It will take a good deal of school-master to 
 make up for that change. If this be the case, even with the 
 children constantly employed, it can be imagined what kind 
 of home life is possessed by the children of the tramp, the odd- 
 jobber, the thief and the harlot. For all these people have 
 children, although they have no homes in which to rear them. 
 
 "Not a bird in all the woods or fields but prepares some 
 kind of a nest in which to hatch and rear its young, even if it 
 be a hole in the sand, or a few crossed sticks in the bush. But 
 how many yr.ung ones amongst our people are hatched before 
 any nest is 'eady to receive them I ^ h-- >i^ * When an 
 English Judge tells us, as Mr. Justice Wills did the other day, 
 that there are any number of parents who would kill their 
 children for a few pounds' insurance money, we can form 
 some idea of the horrors of the existence into which many of 
 the children of this highly favored land are ushered at their 
 birth." 
 
 Multitudes of families are compelled to live in one room, 
 and sometimes even this room must be divided with outsiders. 
 It is absolutely impossible imder such conditions to rear chil- 
 dren with any conception of virtue. They are compelled to 
 witness everything. Think of it. In our American cities 
 scores and hundreds of our families live in one room. 
 One room to eat and drink in ; one room to wash and dress in ; 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 185 
 
 one room to sleep in ; one room to be sick and to die in ! Now, 
 remember that the pressure of economic necessity is crowding 
 our population more and more every year into the stifling city ; 
 and in the city, into the still more stifling tenement. 
 
 A fair sample of what we may expect when the pressure 
 of the population will in any measure justify it, is furnished 
 by the greed and avarice of St. Louis landlords during the 
 World's Fair period of 1904. With the Fair still a month off, 
 rents were advanced from 100 to 500 per cent. Families 
 utterly unable to meet this advanced charge, were evicted. 
 Landladies were compelled to double or treble their regular 
 rates for board, but salaries and wages were not doubled, nor 
 could they be. 
 
 If the conditions which prevail at this writing continue, it 
 must result in a painful paralysis of business, if not in perma- 
 nent injury to the World's Fair and to the city of St. Louis. 
 But this is merely an illustration, as we said before, of what 
 we may expect when, by the pressure of economic necessity, 
 the opportunity to exploit their fellow man is offered jto those 
 who own the land. 
 
 We cannot in a brief chapter enumerate all the forces that 
 threaten to undermine and destroy human homes. A boarding 
 house or a family hotel is no fit substitute for that place where 
 one man is the husband of one wife, and where little children 
 are born and welcomed into the arms of parental love. The 
 
 ALTARS DESERTED. 
 
 altars of religion are also deserted and sometimes destroyed. 
 We do not refer now to any particular creed or sect. Some- 
 one has said that the religion of all good men is the same. 
 Certainly human society can not exist in ordered forms, with 
 free institutions and a progressive civilization, without 
 religion. 
 
 Tramps do not go to church, and, at the other extreme of 
 society, millionaires, who have many houses but no home, 
 are not noted for church-going either. They and their families 
 are in the cit)/ for a little while during the winter, but they 
 are off to their summer home for the rest of the year, or they 
 make a trip through Europe, or a tour around the world. They 
 are tramps of another sort. 
 
 Men who are compelled to toil, so that from month to 
 month they do not see the faces of their children by daylight. 
 
186 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 can scarcely be expected to pay much attention to the church 
 on the one day in seven which is free from toil. We have 
 already referred to street car men, firemen, and other laborers, 
 the very nature of whose work compels longer and harder 
 labor, at least in some cases, on the Lord's day. Povert}' 
 lays its paralyzing hand upon the great masses of the city's 
 population, and because of human pride sternly forbids their 
 entering the sanctuary. 
 
 The tendency is for the churches to accept the stratifica- 
 tion of society ; so that we have churches for merchants, man- 
 ufacturers, clerks, salesmen and the professional classes, and 
 other churches for the factory operatives and wageworkers. 
 The old Psalmist said, "The rich and the poor meet together; 
 the Lord is maker of them all." But there are very few 
 churches in any of our modern cities, where the different 
 classes are segregated, in which fhis remains true. 
 
 HEARTS HARDENED. — 
 
 The competitive system of industry, together with the 
 headlong haste of city life, hardens people's hearts and destroys 
 human sympathy. Men are tried as by fire, and they must be 
 righteous indeed wTio maintain the best of their manly attri- 
 butes. It is the merest commonplace to live next door to a 
 family whom you never see, and whose name you do not 
 know, any more than you know the business in which the 
 breadwinner is engaged, or the cares and sorrows that burden 
 their hearts. There may be sickness and death in the flat 
 above you, or the flat below you, in the flat to the right of you, 
 or the flat to the left of you, of which you know nothing at all 
 until you see the crape on the door. 
 
 When living in Chicago, the writer was called upon to 
 conduct the funeral service of a prominent business man whose 
 career covered three or four decades of the great metropolis. 
 It is a pathetic fact that some of his most intimate friends and 
 associates were so tied to their desks by the multitudinous 
 demands of the day's business that they could not get away 
 to attend his funeral ! In the midst of the awful conditions 
 which prevail in the modern city, character is imperilled. The 
 sweeter and tenderer sentiments of the human heart are stifled, 
 and multitudes of men and women become mere human 
 machines. 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 187 
 
 General Booth says, in his book entitled "In Darkest 
 England," that the Equatorial forest of Africa which Stanley 
 traversed resembles the slums of London and other English 
 
 THE CITY JUNGLE. 
 
 cities. So, too, it resembles the slums of our own American 
 cities. The city jungle may be fittingly characterized as the 
 great "Slough of Despond" of our time. "And what a slough 
 it is no man can gauge who has not waded therein, as some 
 of us have done, up to the very neck for long years. Talk 
 about Dante's Hell, and all the horrors and cruelties of the 
 torture-chamber of the lost! The man who walks with open 
 eyes and with bleeding heart through the shambles of our 
 civilization needs no such fantastic images of the poet to teach 
 him horror. 
 
 "Often and often, when I have seen the young and the 
 poor and the helpless go down before my eyes into the morass, 
 trampled underfoot by beasts of pray in human shape that 
 haunt these regions, it seemed as if God were no longer in His 
 A-orld, but that in His stead reigned a fiend, merciless as Hell, 
 ruthless as the grave. Hard it is, no doubt, to read in Stanley's 
 pages of the slave-traders coldly arranging for the surprise 
 of a village, the capture of the inhibitants, the massacre of 
 those who resist, and the violation of all the women ; but the 
 stony streets of London, if they could but speak, would tell 
 of tragedies as awful, of ruin as complete, of ravishments as 
 horrible, as if we were in Central Africa ; only the ghastly 
 devastation is covered, corpse-like, with the artificialities and 
 hypocrisies of modern civilization." 
 
 Every word is equally appropriate to the slums of Amer- 
 ican cities, where the infamous tragedy is being enacted year 
 in and year out under the Stars and Stripes, the banner of the 
 free ! The exhibit of municipal government in St. Louis and 
 Kansas City, the stories of election outrages, of fraud and 
 violence, suffice to make clear some of the ways in wdiicli 
 democratic institutions are being destroyed. Suppose these 
 two cities had dominated the State, — then what? 
 
 Some say that the time is near at hand when the cities will 
 dominate the country. And unless some stronger decentralizing 
 force steps in and begins to scatter population, some force far 
 stronger than any at present in operation, the prophecy must soon 
 
188 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 find its fulfillment. So if we are to maintain a high ideal of 
 human life on the planet we must give ourselves unreservedly to 
 the study of the municipal problem. We must set into active and 
 vigorous operation forces that are conciliatory, remedial, edu- 
 cational ; and we must not stand upon the order of our doing it, 
 — we must do it now ! 
 
 Let us believe sincerely that the time is coming when our 
 cities will be rebuilt ; they are changing now. The crowded tene- 
 ment will give way to sanitary apartments, with every conven- 
 ience of modern life. Instead of the crowded, festering court, 
 there will be gardens and fountains. The hot, narrow, city street, 
 a veritable Via Dolorosa to the teeming multitudes, will widen to 
 embrace a park where trees will lift themselves over blossoming 
 flowers. Business will be no longer a cruel Juggernaut, but an 
 exchange of brotherly sympathy. Saloons and other businesses 
 that prey upon the vices or the weaknesses of men will give place 
 to libraries and reading rooms ; art galleries will abound, and the 
 city will illustrate what men can do when they live for one an- 
 other, instead of trying to live off one another. 
 
Chapter XIII. 
 THE BOSS. 
 
A man of insight, too; zvith resolution, even zvith manful 
 principles but in such an element, inward and outzi^ard; zvhich 
 he could not rule, but only madden. Edacity, rapacity — quite 
 contrary to the finer sensibilities of the heart! Fools, that ex- 
 pect your verdant millenium, and nothing but love and abundanxe, 
 brooks ru lining zmne, zvinds zvhispering music — zuith the zvhole 
 ground and basis of your existence champed into a mud of sen- 
 suality zvhich, daily grozving deeper, zvill soon have no bottom 
 but the abyss! — Thomas Carlyle. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE BOSS. 
 
 MACHINERY NECESSARY THE BOSS A CREATURE RESOURCES AND 
 
 POWER POLITICS A TRADE IMMENSE REVENUES MAD 
 
 WITH GREED CONTINUOUS CARNIVAL A NARROW SPHERE 
 
 DISCROWNED AND DETHRONED THE JiEAL HENCHMEN. 
 
 What has already been said about the conditions in our 
 large cities is enough to indicate the possible resources which may 
 be marshalled for evil by anyone who has sufficient executive 
 ability and little enough of conscience. The very conditions of 
 life in the larger cities are such as to invite, or even to create, 
 unscrupulous leadership. The commercial spirit is in politics as 
 much as it is in business, and there is in every community a 
 group of men who devote their time and their ability to poli- 
 tics as exclusively as others devote themselves to the practice of 
 law or medicine or to merchandise. 
 
 MACHINERY NECESSARY. 
 
 These men might be honorable and useful. No matter what 
 forces may be utilized in the election machinery or in the ad- 
 ministration of a city or a State, organization is indispensable. 
 There must be a central organization, with subordinate groups 
 in every ward of the city. A tremendous volume of expense 
 may be honestly incurred in managing these political organiza- 
 tions. Halls and offices must be rented ; the expenses of a lit- 
 erary bureau must be met ; likewise the expenses of speakers who 
 travel over the country. Large sums of money must be raised 
 and disbursed, but it is not at all necessary that the corrupt 
 use of money should figure in the expense budget. 
 
 But of course there comes the temptation to use money in 
 corrupt ways. It is well understood that multitudes are ready 
 to sell their votes. There are minor leaders with considerable 
 
192 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 following who stand ready to deliver, for a suitable considera- 
 tion, every vote which they control. There are likewise vested 
 interests, the managers of which are ready to make handsome 
 contributions to the campaign fund, provided an agreement or 
 understanding can be had as to protective legislation after the 
 election. 
 
 These are elements enough to give the boss his opportunity. 
 His figure slinks in the background of every outrage. If he did 
 not exist in a single city in the land, he would spring up to meet 
 these very conditions and to perform these functions. The field 
 which the boss and his adjutants occupy is as broad as the na- 
 tion. There are times when in a closely contested election, re- 
 sults hinge on some particular State which is controlled by some 
 large city or by a group of cities. Such conditions put the bal- 
 ance of power in the city, and therefore in the hands of the city's 
 boss. It is not a pleasant thing to contemplate, but it is very 
 easily possible that a man like Butler of St. Louis may, at any 
 time, be able to determine a national election. 
 
 The organization of the great political parties ranges from 
 the national headquarters with the National Committee down 
 to the smallest and most contemptible court-house ring in the 
 backwoods counties. Millions and millions of dollars in the 
 way of salaries to officers ; moneys to be paid on government 
 and municipal contracts, etc., are the stake for which the game 
 is played. It is an easy matter to drive through any large city 
 and point out one splendid property after another, both business 
 and residence properties, which are a part of the gains of some 
 municipal or government contract — gains which are understood 
 to be in excess of a fair profit on the work done. 
 
 THE BOSS A CREATURE. 
 
 Enough has been said to show that the political boss, with 
 his underlings, is a creature and not a creator. He is as much 
 the result of prevailing conditions, as much the answer to an 
 imperative demand, as the commanding general of an army. We 
 have a splendid pen picture of a typical boss in a paragraph which 
 has been widely quoted from The Times-Herald of Chicago : 
 
 "He is absolute master of the majority of the council, * * 
 As leader of the boodlers, he can suppress any measure submitted 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 193 
 
 by a decent member, and make it impossible for an honest alder- 
 man to put through a single piece of constructive legislation. As 
 ^ chairman of the finance committee, he holds the Department of 
 Public Works, the Department of Health, the Police Department, 
 and the School Board by the throat. He can even threaten the 
 mayor himself. "^ * '^ Yet he is as ignorant and coarse a 
 rufhan as would be encountered in a year's study of the slums 
 of America. He is a saloon keeper and gambler, the captain 
 and associate of criminals, whose morals are beneath contempt or 
 pity, whose daily life it is almost a shame to mention. And this 
 is the man who holds the purse-strings of Chicago, and is per- 
 mitted to dictate to public officials who, in the ordinary affairs of 
 life, would no more associate with him than with a leper." The 
 Tiines-Herald adds : "Is there not manhood enough in public 
 life, or power enough in the courts, or virtue in the criminal 
 code to give this odious creature his deserts?" 
 
 RESOURCES AND POWER. 
 
 It should be said that the successful boss is necessarily a 
 man of considerable ability of a certain kind.. He is generally 
 a product of the very field in which he works. He grows up 
 among his people and becomes their friend and patron. As he 
 accumulates property, he practices a most discriminating charity. 
 None of his lieutenants or followers ever make an appeal for 
 help which goes unheard. If one of them is arrested for crime, 
 the boss is ready, at any hour of the day or night, to furnish 
 the necessary bail and exert his mighty influence for the release 
 of the prisoner, or for the mitigation of any penalty which may 
 be adjudicated. 
 
 Sometimes an extension telephone rests on the table at the 
 head of his bed, and the ring of that bell will receive his imme- 
 diate and personal attention at any hour of the night. When 
 Thanksgiving day comes, or Christmas, the boss frequently re- 
 members scores of families with substantial gifts of food and 
 clothing. He loads up several wagons and sends them through 
 the wards over which he reigns with indisputable sway, and 
 sometimes pays a personal visit, following in the wake of his 
 own benevolence. And then, as a matter of course, when an 
 
 13 
 
194 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 election has been held and the victory is his, he distributes polit- 
 ical patronage among his army of followers. 
 
 He understands the ability of each man and wields sufficient 
 influence to give him the right place. There are sinecures for his 
 favorites, and jobs in the street-cleaning brigade for the humblest 
 ''Indian" in the ranks. Chief among his lieutenants are saloon 
 keepers, each of whom controls a very active minority of the 
 voters in his particular ward. He understands full well that his 
 business flourishes best when the boss is in power, and, when 
 spending time and money and pouring out liquor to carry an 
 election, he is working for himself as well as the boss. 
 
 POLITICS A TRADE. 
 
 Politics is not something apart from his vocation, but some- 
 thing vital to it. Indeed, this is true of the so-called self-denying 
 efforts of the majority of these men. And it is herein that we 
 find the chief difficulty between their participation in politics and 
 that of the respectable classes. Politics is their trade, or at 
 least one of the chief departments of their particular trade. They 
 can say like the silver-smiths of old, "By this craft we have our 
 wealth." 
 
 But participation in public affairs for the so-called better 
 classes is a patriotic duty, not a trade. They must answer the 
 clarion call of duty, without seeing how they are to be directly 
 benefited. It is none the less true that they are helped or hin- 
 dered, enriched or impoverished, by the machinery of the State. 
 But sometimes the hurt or the help is so far removed from the 
 causes that bring it about, that they fail to understand the con- 
 nection. 
 
 IMMENSE REVENUES. 
 
 We have already indicated some of the chief sources of the 
 boss's power. He is powerful in his chosen realm, first, as the 
 head of a great commercial enterprise is powerful in its realm. 
 He handles an immense business. The municipality in which he 
 finds his home is a great corporation with immense revenues to 
 gather and to disburse; with tremendous enterprises to promote. 
 He himself feels that the position he occupies is one of great honor 
 as well as of great power. He knows that he will have for his 
 intimate associates, intimate at least in business relations, some 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 195 
 
 of the foremost men of the city. And as long as the conditions 
 make it possible for a man to hold the reins of government in 
 his own hands, although not holding any office within the gift 
 of the people, this will continue to be his chief resource. He will 
 always have favors to distribute, influence to wield, and moneys 
 to disburse, which would give him a large following, even if he 
 had none at the outset. 
 
 MAD WITH GREED. 
 
 In another important particular we see the source of his 
 power, namely, in that the great majority of his fellow citizens 
 are so busy with their own affairs that they do not have time to 
 give any particular attention to politics. The prizes of business 
 are so many and so alluring that the population has gone mad 
 with a greed of gain. Life has become complex and intricate. 
 Extravagant tastes have been developed ; a costly mode of living 
 has been adopted, and it has become imperatively necessary for 
 the bread winners of every household to devote themselves with- 
 out let or hindrance to money-making enterprises. 
 
 After a family has moved into a given neighborhood and 
 assumed a given scale of expenditure, they cannot retrench with- 
 out their pride having a fall. These familiar and humiliating 
 facts help to explain the headlong haste and intense absorption 
 in business, to the neglect of civic duties, which characterize the 
 so-called better element of citizenship. 
 
 CONTINUOUS CARNIVAL. 
 
 And besides these, there are in every city a small community 
 of rich people among whom life is an endless round of amuse- 
 ment, a continuous carnival of delight. No matter who keeps 
 Lent, their passions are always engaged in riot. They may not 
 be very numerous, and their influence may not reach very far be- 
 yond their own ranks, but they are a social factor of no little 
 power, nevertheless. 
 
 It is their extravagance and ostentation which provokes 
 the hatred of their fellow men, less fortunately circumstanced, 
 toward all who are rich. It is their excesses that call forth the 
 vindictive denunciations of social agitators, and in these ways 
 they help to foment social strife and develop in every rank of 
 
196 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 society a feeling of feverish unrest. They are likewise a cor- 
 rupting element in the life of the city, and they bear a more or 
 less clearly marked relationship to the civic corruption which 
 beats and surges all about them. 
 
 A NARROW SPHERE. 
 
 Perhaps it ought to be said that, as a general thing, the re- 
 ligious and moral teachers of our large cities live and labor in 
 too narrow a sphere. This book itself bears witness to their 
 irresistible power when they are once aroused on questions of 
 great public concern. But in a Republican government like ours, 
 the function of religious and moral teachers is necessarily wider 
 than it could be under an autocratic government, and we feel 
 that it is only fair to put the comparative silence of the pulpit 
 and platform on questions of civic morality, among the procur- 
 ing causes of the power of the boss. When they are silent, when 
 they devote themselves exclusively to the other-world side of 
 religion, then the boss and his minions feel that they have an 
 unoccupied field over which they may move unmolested and spoil 
 the municipality without protest. 
 
 DISCROWNED AND DETHRONED. 
 
 If the boss is ever to be dethroned permanently, it must be 
 by changing some of the conditions which we have pointed out 
 as furnishing him with the sinews of war and placing in his 
 hands the scepter of power. He is as inevitably a product of 
 modern social life as coin is of the government mint. It will not 
 do to pour the vials of our wrath upon the poor fellow who, from 
 generation to generation, chances to occupy his throne. This is 
 eminently unscientific, and it can do but little aside from engen- 
 dering further antagonism. 
 
 We must not be so foolish and superficial as to spend our 
 money and our time in doctoring mere symptoms, in skimming 
 the surface. We must get down to fundamental conditions and 
 deal with the real problem in all of its bearings. Must we not 
 admit that the real henchmen of the boss are not the ward heelers 
 and his staggering, hiccoughing followers, the criminal and 
 semi-criminal of the slums, but rather that we ourselves, we who 
 insist upon calling ourselves the "better classes," and yet dare 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 197 
 
 to neglect most of our civic duties, that we are his real hench- 
 men ? 
 
 It is everywhere understood that the non-participation of the 
 so-called good people in politics, from the ward committee on up 
 to the highest official, is as much a factor in bringing about the 
 deplorable and lamentable conditions which shame us, as the tire- 
 less activity of men in the lower ranks. Indeed, we feel that it 
 is only fair to say that the hard working men, men who toil long 
 hours with their hands, who are found in the ranks of the fol- 
 lowers of the boss, are often inspired by a feeling of civic pride 
 and local patriotism in the work committed to their hands. After 
 a day of exhausting labor, they will go to the saloon and talk 
 politics and discuss plans, and listen to barroom eloquence for 
 half the night or more, and leave with a consciousness that they 
 have done their duty ! Many of them, it must be said, are better 
 models of citizenship than their fellow townsmen who live in 
 finer homes and, from a pedestal of pride, look down upon them. 
 In other words, the boss himself and the men who are associated 
 with him, possess many admirable qualities and exhibit, together 
 with regrettable vices, not a few manly virtues. Again, we say, 
 if the majority of the citizens of St. Louis, Chicago, New York, 
 or any other large city, do not possess sufficient civic morality 
 and intelligence to break the reign of the corrupt boss, and put 
 rascals out of office, then they do not deserve better government ! 
 
 THE REAL HENCHMEN. 
 
 There is still another point of similarity between the re- 
 spectable classes and the perniciously active ward-workers. We 
 accuse the boss and corn-crib politicians generally of sacrificing 
 the public good to private gain. There can be no doubt what- 
 ever of the truth of this accusation. It is supported by manifold 
 proofs. It is sustained by Grand Jury indictments, by the testi- 
 mony of witnesses and by the verdicts of the courts. But are we 
 unaware that precisely the same accusations may with equal 
 truth he brought against the most respectable people in the city, 
 who are non-participants in politics ? 
 
 What are they doing? They are, as they say, too busy to be 
 actively engaged in politics and therefore they sacrifice the public 
 good to private gain ! Again we see they are the real bench- 
 
198 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 men of the boss, and in this particular at least, stand upon the 
 same low level with him. Suppose they were to take some time 
 for political duties. They would necessarily sacrifice, to some 
 extent, their private interests. They would probably suffer a Httle 
 in income from their business. Profits and dividends might 
 shrink. A smaller volume of trade might be the .result ; but, if 
 it is a question with an intelligent, upright, patriotic man whether 
 he shall sacrifice private gain to public good, or public good to 
 private gain, there ought not to be a moment's hesitation in an- 
 swering as a patriot, for the men who wash their hands of public 
 business are as really responsible for the corruption and misrule 
 of our cities as are the men engaged in politics ''for revenue 
 only." In the words of Dr. Strong : "The former neglect poli- 
 tics for their private interests ; the latter manipulate politics for 
 their private interests. Touching municipal affairs, they are 
 alike selfish ; and it is the selfishness of the former^ which gives 
 the selfishness of the latter its opportunity. Evidently the so- 
 called 'good citizen' is the accomplice of the bad. We are afflicted 
 with the bad citizenship of good men. We expect bad men to be 
 bad citizens ; but when good men are bad citizens, public interests 
 'go to the bad' with a rush !" 
 
 Probably there is not a city in the United States where those 
 who would prefer good government are not in a large majority; 
 and yet they allow themselves to be ruled and plundered by a cor- 
 rupt minority. In Europe, men of high rank and of great learn- 
 ing deem it an honor to administer the affairs of their city, while 
 we intrust authority to ignorant and selfish men, who give us the 
 worst municipal government in Christendom, at four or five times 
 the cost of good government in England. 
 
 Years ago, when Kossuth visited America, he said : "If ship- 
 wreck should ever befall your country, the rock upon which it 
 will split will be your devotion to your private interests at the 
 expense of your duty to the state." For more than a genera- 
 tion since then our course has been laid directly toward that rock. 
 
 The city boss rises out of conditions. He exercises all the 
 power that a man of his abilities can exercise, and there is no 
 monopoly on executive ability. We find it as often in the chil- 
 dren of the poor as in the children of the rich. Genius is cradled 
 in obscurity and learns early the songs of want. Fortune some- 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WlTii THE BOODLERS. 100 
 
 times passes by the rich and palatial homes and blesses with both 
 hands the sons of men who are ignorant and poor. The boss is 
 a man who, if he were born and reared in different surroundings, 
 would doubtless become famous as a philanthropist and a re- 
 former. His native powers would be differently trained and find 
 a higher and nobler mode of expression. 
 
 Instead of marshalling the forces of iniquity against the 
 State, he might be found marshalling the forces of righteousness 
 in defence of the State. His Napoleonic ability would then be 
 not a menace to the government, but a superb means for the pro- 
 tection and advancement of all the government's interests. In 
 the immense patronage which he has to distribute, and the reve- 
 nues which, flow through his hands, he finds an increment of 
 his natural power. It is hard to set limits to the power of wealth, 
 or the influence which will put a man in the way of wealth. 
 Smiles says, '''Money represents a multitude of objects without 
 value or without real utility, but it also represents something much 
 more precious and that is independence. In this light it is of 
 great moral importance." 
 
 John G. Holland writes : ''Wherever the angels of promise 
 and progress lead, money follows and does their bidding. It 
 builds magnificent cities, and bridges rivers, and excavates canals 
 and constructs railroads and levels mountains and equips navies 
 and furnishes countless hosts with the energy of war." As a 
 measure of value and a medium of exchange, money is indis- 
 pensable ; and with it men can be hired for almost any conceivable 
 task. They can be sent into the jungles or the tropics or into the 
 frozen regions of the North. They can be hired to places of 
 honor and trust ; and, if sufficient money is offered, there are 
 multitudes who can be hired to commit deeds of infamy. The 
 lowliest acts of charity can be wrought, if one has the money. 
 The gratitude of the young child and the sorrowing widow and 
 the helpless aged will be poured out without stint upon him who 
 relieves their distress. There are many things that money can 
 not do, but there is a wide sphere through which it moves with a 
 sort of innate omnipotence, and in this sphere and with this means 
 the boss is practically omnipotent. 
 
200 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 We do not see, when we glance toward the future, any indi- 
 cation of a loss of power for the boss and his colleagues. Selfish- 
 ness is still dominant in the hearts of the children of men. So- 
 ciety stratifies ; class draws apart from class ; a spirit of caste, as 
 hateful as in pagan India, is engendered. The lower ranks, by 
 foreign immigration and by the multiplication table, are being 
 recruited more rapidly than the upper ranks, and unless there 
 shall be a subsidence of rampant commercialism we may yet see 
 the day in America when the infamies of the Tweed Ring in 
 New York City, and similar eruptions in other municipalities dur- 
 ing more recent times, will pale away into insignificance by the 
 side of municipal and civic wrongs and frauds -and corruptions 
 which will engulf our institutions. It is sometimes said that we 
 want leadership, but whenever a daring leader appears he soon 
 discovers that the people do not want leadership as much as he 
 wants a following. The greatest commanders of history would 
 be powerless with insubordination demoralizing and desertion dis- 
 integrating their ranks. 
 
Chapter XIV. 
 DECAY OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
America has lost her youth. Her hair is grozmng gray, her 
 teeth are falling out; she is becoming senile. Voltaire said that 
 France zuas rotten before she zvas ripe, but zvhat shall be said of 
 a nation zvhose ideals haz^e perished almost in one generation? 
 Yotir Emersons, Garrisons and Whittiers are all gone. Yon pro- 
 duce nothing but rich men. In the years before and after the 
 Civil War the soul-life of your people Hozvered and bore fruit. 
 You are pitiful materialists nozv. — Count Tolstoi. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 DECAY OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 NOT AN ALARMIST THE PAPER GOVERNMENT POLICE AND IN- 
 DIAN OUTRAGES LEGISLATION USURPED ENORMOUS SLUSH 
 
 FUND TRAIN-ROBBERS RESPECTABLE LAWS NOT ENFORCED 
 
 TAMPERING WITH COURTS REBATES AND CONCESSIONS — 
 
 INDISPUTABLE. 
 
 During the trial of one of the chief bribe givers in St. 
 Louis an able and respectable attorney, Judge P — , said in 
 his defense, — "Bribery is a conventional crime." It was 
 declared repeatedly in the progress of the gubernatorial cam- 
 paign of 1904, which seems at this writing to be reaching its 
 climax, that bribery was not an issue, and these two state- 
 ments indicate a feeling of indifference toward such offenses, 
 a feeling quite prevalent among a certain class of people. 
 Indeed, the disposition to extenuate or condone such offenses, 
 to look upon them as regrettable but necessary incidents in 
 the business and political world, may be said to characterize 
 perhaps a majority. The real gravity of the offense, indeed the 
 real nature of the offense and its appalling menace, do not seem 
 to be apprehended by the people. 
 
 Americans are patriotic. They are proud of the American 
 democracy. They attach a great deal of value to democratic 
 institutions, and feel that these institutions are theirs and their 
 childrens' ; but the bit of history which is under review in this 
 book, shows conclusively, as Prof. Giddings declared in a 
 public address not long ago, that we are witnessing "the 
 decay, perhaps not permanent, but nevertheless the decay of 
 republican institutions." 
 
 NOT AN ALARMIST. 
 
 There is not a note or a strain of pessimism in any chapter 
 of this book. The author is not writing as an alarmist. 
 Neither is he softening any of the harsh facts, nor seeking to 
 
204 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 pervert their stern logic in the interests of any party or of 
 any candidate. 
 
 It is well enough to rejoice in the freedom which has been 
 purchased for us by the courage and sacrifice of our fathers. 
 Americans have not yet grown mdifferent to the Fourth of 
 July ; the Declaration of Independence is still a cherished docu- 
 ment among us. If an enemy from without, or any enemy 
 from within, were to attack the National Constitution or the 
 Constitution of any State, he would be met by the angry 
 protest of an aroused and indignant populace. He would be 
 overwhelmed with an avalanche of denunciation and punished 
 in as severe a fashion as the laws would permit. But the 
 fact is, an enemy from within has actually usurped the func- 
 tions of our democratic government. 
 
 THE PAPER GOVERNMENT. 
 
 We still have our Constitution, defining the offices of the 
 President, the Vice-President, the lawmaking bodies, the judi- 
 ciary, etc. The State still has its constitution, describing and 
 defining the offices of Governor and the functions of the State 
 legislators. These, however, are only the paper govern- 
 ment. The de facto government can be seen only in its work- 
 ing, and it is no exaggeration but a simple statement of alarm- 
 ing fact that corrupt commercialism has usurped these func- 
 tions to such an extent as to defeat the will of the people and 
 actually take the government from them ! This is a general 
 statement which will stand the closest analysis, and which is 
 susceptible of proof. 
 
 POLICE AND "INDIAN" OUTRAGES. 
 
 In the first place, the police and "Indian" outrages which 
 have become the merest commonplace in our great municipali- 
 ties, have disfranchised the people. Many of the readers of 
 this book were Confederate soldiers. They know what dis- 
 franchisement means. They suffered it for long years. They 
 resented it then. Will they not resent it still more when they 
 reflect that they are disfranchised, not by the federal gov- 
 ernment, nor by the will of their fellow citizens, but by the 
 criminality of men who call themselves party workers and 
 who use actual criminals in bringing about their disfranchise- 
 ment? 
 
MISSOURI'S BATl'LE WITH THE BOODLERS. 205 
 
 When election clerks permit padded registration, they 
 are preparing to deprive citizens and taxpayers of their votes. 
 When repeaters go from polling place to polling place early 
 in the day and vote, nsing the names of respectable citizens 
 and taxpayers, they are depriving them of their votes. When 
 votes which have been cast by actual citizens are thrown out 
 by corrupt judges and clerks of election, they are disfran- 
 chised. When these same judges and clerks of election make 
 fraudulent returns, they are disfranchised. When, in the 
 28th ward of St. Louis, voters standing wearily in line 
 patiently waiting their turn at the ballotbox were held there 
 hour after hour, and "Indians" were run in ahead of them, 
 they were disfranchised. When citizens were assaulted with 
 brass knucks and driven away from the polling place under 
 the very eyes and with the clear connivance of the police, they 
 were disfranchised. 
 
 Suppose a foreign power, like Spain or Russia, were to 
 send an army into our cities today to do these very things, 
 what would the American people do? Suppose an attempt 
 were made to enact a law in the State legislature, or in the 
 national congress, disfranchising respectable citizens and tax- 
 payers, what would they do about it? But either of these 
 attacks upon manhood suffrage would be decent and endurable 
 compared with the attack just made by the army of thugs 
 recruited in our city slums. 
 
 Now, what is J:he logic of this simple fact? If the methods 
 of criminals were restricted to the simple act of repeating, and 
 if "Indians" voted half a dozen times only in each election, 
 and did it quietly without attempting any other fraud, with- 
 out attempting assault or intimidation, what would that mean? 
 Would it not be equivalent to disfranchising a half dozen citi- 
 zens, whose votes he has succeeded in neutralizing? 
 
 Our revolutionary fathers declared, "Taxation without 
 representation is tyranny," and they fought a long and bloody 
 war for the right of representation. Can it be possible that 
 their grandchildren have sunk so low that they have become 
 indifferent to the right so dearly bought? Are they sitting 
 supinely in their business offices and comfortable homes, 
 lamenting the deprivation and saying they can do nothing? 
 Are they willing to be disfranchised in such fashion, by such 
 characters? 
 
206 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 Manhood suffrage js fundamental to democracy. It is of 
 the very essence of democracy. It is the cornerstone in the 
 temple of liberty. It is the keystone in the arch. And yet 
 manhood suffrage for multitudes is lost. Until this infamous 
 wrong is righted we must admit that, so far as it prevails, 
 democracy is not merely decaying, — it is dead ! 
 
 LEGISLATION USURPED. 
 
 But, suppose we go a step farther in this analysis. Sup- 
 pose we take the criminal laws, or the laws governing the 
 conduct of business or the administration of civic affairs; laws 
 which have been enacted for the people by their sovereign 
 representatives. The motto of the State of Missouri is, "The 
 will of the people is the supreme law." The will of the people 
 has uttered itself in the statutes which they have enacted. 
 This also is vital to a democracy. The people must, either 
 directly or through their representatives, enact the laws. If 
 this function of legislation is usurped by any power whatso- 
 ever other than that of the people, then, in this particular also, 
 we see the decay of the democracy. 
 
 But it is the variest commonplace of vState and city legis- 
 lation that great corporations maintain successfully a lobby, 
 for no other purpose than to secure the enactment of laws 
 in their interests, and to defeat laws, no matter how just, which 
 lay any burden upon them. It is needless to multiply illus- 
 trations — one will suffice. 
 
 In the confessions of a former Lieutenant-Governor of 
 IMissouri we read that public opinion was driving a law 
 through the Missouri Senate, which laid a just tax on public 
 service corporations. The lobby, made up of men who were 
 the chosen representatives of the people, but who had sold 
 themselves out to commercial concerns, thereby betraying the 
 people, were utterly unable to stop the law. So the king of 
 lobbyists. Col. P — , took his accustomed place behind a cur- 
 tain at the back of the Lieutenant-Governor's chair and wrote 
 out amendment after amendment, which he passed to Senator 
 F — . This Senator, a man of conspicuous ability, but abso- 
 lutely unscrupulous, arose in his place and introduced the 
 amendments, with the result that the bill passed, ''smothered 
 to death." 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 207 
 
 Now, this is a case in point. The law which was in pro- 
 cess of enactment was a just and righteous law. It was 
 demanded by the people of the State. The lobby were power- 
 less to stop its progress through the Senate ; since they could 
 not stop it, they practically defeated it, to all intents and pur- 
 poses, by piling amendments upon it. 
 
 ENORMOUS SLUSH FUND. 
 
 Another case in point is that of the organization of the 
 St. Louis Transit Company. Mr. S — , a capitalist, a high- 
 toned gentleman, a prominent church member, came to St. 
 Louis and spent $250,000 in securing the enactment of a law 
 by the city legislature, giving him and his associates practical 
 control of the streets of the entire city. They did not own a 
 foot of street railway iron, nor a wheel of rolling stock. They 
 did not have an office in the city. Their whole stock in trade 
 was this enormous slush fund. 
 
 The people were not asking for any such franchise to be 
 given to any such men. Far from it. The people were 
 opposed to such an ordinance, to say nothing about the meth- 
 ods by which it was secured. But the franchise was secured 
 nevertheless, and sold to other parties for $1,250,000. This was 
 a clean profit of $1,000,000 for the hightoned gentlemen who 
 secured the franchise. Were they not political and commercial 
 brigands? Was not theirs an act of political piracy? Is there 
 not in it as deep moral turpitude as in the act of any pirate 
 on the high seas that ever floated the black flag, or scuttled a 
 ship ? 
 
 TRAIN ROBBERS RESPECTABLE. 
 
 A band of train robbers are admirable when compared 
 with such a gang of free-booters. The train robber displays, 
 at least, a high degree of physical courage — he takes actual 
 risks. He puts his own life in jeopardy, and he robs the 
 express company or the frightened passengers ; but the city 
 or State or national raiders and wreckers not only rob the 
 entire community but they assail their own government. 
 They attack democracy at a vital point and overthrow it. 
 They usurp to themselves the right of legislation ; or, rather 
 by the corrupt use of money, they persuade the peoples' repre- 
 sentatives to betray their trust, and instead of legislating for 
 the people, legislate against them. 
 
208 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 In both particulars of legislation then, that is, in defeat- 
 ing the laws which the people demand, and in enacting laws 
 which the people protest against, in both particulars, the 
 briber and boodler undermines democratic government. And 
 if the voters of the State or of the municipality permit them 
 to ply their infamous trade without let or hindrance, then 
 democracy decays and is ready to vanish away. 
 
 LAWS NOT ENFORCED. 
 
 But suppose that, in spite of the wealth and wickedness 
 and weakness that are allied against the people, laws are 
 enacted ; laws which the people want; laws which are just and 
 equitable ; still there is something to do. The legislative 
 department of the government is not worth very much without 
 the executive. Laws passed must be enforced, and if in the 
 enforcement of law these corrupt and designing men are able 
 to circumvent the peoples' will, then once more democracy 
 decays, the people are. defeated and the enemy of democracy 
 triumphs. 
 
 In the City of New York, in Minneapolis, in Chicago, in 
 St. Louis — in every large city of late, there are laws upon 
 the statute book, laws which the people placed there, laws 
 which have back of them the sovereign majesty of' the 
 people, which are not enforced. Even many of our criminal 
 laws are rendered nugatory by the wilful inaction or corrup- 
 tion of men who are chosen to execute them. In all large 
 cities there has been, at one time or another, a system of organ- 
 ized graft. Gamblers and other criminals have been per- 
 mitted to ply their trades in consideration of a division of the 
 spoils. Raids have been made by the municipal police upon 
 one house of infamy and not upon another, until the raided 
 house made good with the police officer and paid a regular 
 assessment for immunity. 
 
 The Missouri State laws demand that dramshops shall be 
 closed on Sunday. An excise commissioner and a chief of 
 police in St. Louis put their sagacious heads together and 
 decide that the dramshops of the city shall be closed on Sun- 
 day morning, and they issue an order accordingly, thus saying 
 in effect that they may run with impunity the rest of the day. 
 Who made them legislators? By what manner of sophistry 
 do they reason around the obligation laid upon them by their 
 solemn oath of office? 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 200 
 
 Again, we say that if the laws enacted by the people 
 through their representatives are not enforced ; that is, if the 
 executive department of our government fails and decays, then 
 democracy itself fails ; and this failure is witnessed all over 
 the broad land. It is no light or trifling thing. It is vital. 
 The human will may be taken as the legislative department of 
 a normal human being. The nerves and muscles we may say 
 belong to the executive department. If a man should sud- 
 denly discover that while he could think and plan and will, 
 he had lost the power of executing his will, had lost control 
 over his muscles, we can imagine the alarm he would experi- 
 ence and the haste with which he would consult a physician. 
 Should there not be a similar alarm in the body politic when 
 its nerves and muscles fail, and should there not be a similar 
 haste to consult a physician? 
 
 TAMPERING WITH COURTS. 
 
 Still another phase of the subject must receive at least a 
 passing notice. The judicial branch of the government is as 
 vital and necessary as either of the other departments, and we 
 know that justice is defeated in the process of trials at law. 
 This is done by the corrupt forces spiriting away witnesses 
 and financing their exile, as was done in St. Louis with Mr. 
 Murrell and Mr. Kratz ; and as long as our treaty with Mexico 
 did not make bribery an extraditable ofifense this was an 
 effectual perversion and defeat of justice. No other step was 
 necessary. When, however, the treaty-making power took the 
 matter up and secured the extradition of these exiles, some- 
 thing else was necessary to defeat justice. 
 
 And, so confident were the corruptionists that they were 
 immune from prosecution, and that in spite of the return of 
 these important witnesses they would still go uncondemned 
 and unpunished, they welcomed Mr. Kratz with a champagne 
 dinner! Now, what do they propose to do? There are various 
 devices that may be resorted to. They may "pack" a jury; 
 they may bribe the jurors; they may bribe the judges; they 
 may retain the public prosecutor — in some cases — for the 
 defense. 
 
 They may invoke the endless law's delays by taking a 
 change of venue ; by postponing the trial; by appealing from 
 one court to another; and it may even be in some cases that 
 their brazen defiance of justice grows out of a sweet conscious- 
 ness that already, by the good work they and their fellow con- 
 
 14 
 
210 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 spirators have done in previous elections, they have packed 
 the higher courts. We are not saying they have done this ; we 
 are saying that it may be that this has been done ; and if so, 
 this would explain their confidence. We know enough of their 
 methods to be assured that they would not hesitate to step 
 in and defeat justice at any of these points by any of these 
 mehods. 
 
 It is somewhat remarkable, as we have noted before in 
 these chapters, that of nineteen convictions secured by the Cir- 
 cuit Attorney of St. Louis, none have begun to serve their 
 sentences. Can it be possible that the American democracy 
 is decaying and disintegrating in its judicial department? Can 
 it be possible that where wealth is directly or indirectly impli- 
 cated, our criminal laws are a farce? If so, the title of this 
 chapter is no misnomer; but here again we are beholding the 
 decay of the democracy. 
 
 REBATES AND CONCESSIONS. 
 
 Once again it should be said that business agreements 
 and combinations have been made, and are being made every 
 day, in the way of rebates and other concessions to favored 
 concerns, which defeat the will of the people as voiced in 
 their laws. Unlawful rebates and other unlawful favors from 
 great railroad corporations built up the Standard Oil Trust, 
 which has been so splendidly unmasked by Henry D. Lloyd 
 in "Wealth vs. Commonwealth," and by Miss Ida M. Tarbell 
 in her series of articles in McClure's Magazine. Many of the 
 methods of attack upon our democracy, which are alluded 
 to in the foregoing, form a necessary part of the process -by 
 which this great aggregation was built up to monopolize one 
 of the resources of nature and exploit the entire world. 
 
 It is unnecessary to go into further illustration of the man- 
 ner in which shrewd business men conspire and combine to 
 defeat wholesome laws. It is sometimes done by the whole- 
 sale publication of lies ; by bribing a State officer ; by standing 
 in with the great political parties during the conduct of a cam- 
 paign, making heavy contributions for the success of the party, 
 etc. It is an endless and wearisome round of corruption and 
 outlawry, and yet it is the merest commonplace in certain lines 
 of business and among business men of a certain character, or 
 rather of a certain type of characterlessness. 
 
 It may never have occurred to these gentlemen that they 
 are guilty of an attack upon their government; that they are 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 211 
 
 practising commercial brigandage ; that they are traitors, and 
 that their names should be a hiss and a by-word along with 
 the name of Benedict Arnold. They think they are intelligent 
 and patriotic. In an article entitled "Enemies of the Republic/' 
 in McClure's Magazine for April, 1904, Mr. Lincoln Steffens 
 tells of being seated one night at a banquet of politicians beside 
 a man who had grown rich by unswerving loyalty to a corrupt 
 ring ''which had done more permanent harm to his country 
 than a E^uropean army could do in two years. He was not a 
 politician, but a business man ; not a boodler, but the backer of 
 boodlers, and his conversation was a defense of 'poor human 
 nature,' till the orchestra struck up a patriotic air. That 
 moved him deeply. 
 
 'Tsn't it beautiful !" he exclaimed ; and when the boodlers 
 joined in the chorus, he murmured, "Beautiful, beautiful," 
 then leaned over and with tears in his eyes he said : 
 
 "Ah, but the tune for me, the song I love, is 'My Country 
 'tis of Thee.' " 
 
 'T believe this man thinks he is patriotic. I believe H. C. 
 Havemeyer thinks his success is success, not one kind of suc- 
 cess, but success, not alone his, but public 'prosperity'. And 
 William Ziegler, who is spending millions to plant the Amer- 
 ican flag first at the North Pole, I am sure he regards himself 
 as a peculiarly patriotic American — and he is. They all are, 
 according to their light, honorable men and patriotic citizens. 
 They simply do not know what patriotism is. They know 
 what treason is in war ; it is going over to the enemy, like 
 Benedict Arnold, and fighting in the open against your coun- 
 try. In peace and in secret to seize, not forts but cities and 
 States, and destroy, not buildings and men, but the funda- 
 mental institutions of your country and the saving character 
 of American manhood — that is not treason. That is politics, 
 and politics is business, and business, you know, is business." 
 
 INDISPUTABLE. 
 
 Is it possible to contradict successfully the argument of 
 this chapter? Is not every point sustained by current history 
 in every State of the federal union? Is it not, therefore, dem- 
 onstrated that American institutions are imperilled? That our 
 rights and liberties are jeopardized? That the American 
 democracy is being steadfastly undermined, and that the fair 
 structure which has been reared through the years at so much 
 
212 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 cost of blood and treasure is crumbling away before our very 
 eyes? 
 
 Are we so wedded to self-interest, are we so indifferent to 
 national weal or woe, that we can rest content while* this 
 process of decay and disintegration goes steadily on? There is 
 not a community in the broad land which has not seen in its 
 own midst, in its own State, illustrations of one or all of these 
 several counts against corruption. We are telling the people 
 what they already know. We are showing them our country's 
 wounds, "poor, dumb mouths," and we bid them speak for 
 us. And the feeling which has manifested itself throughout 
 the nation, the' indignation which has found expression in St. 
 Louis and other Missouri cities, and throughout the State, are 
 proof positive that patriotism is not an outgrown virtue. 
 Neither is it smothered- by the consuming greed of gain. 
 
 There are not wanting ample evidences that the people at 
 heart are sound, and that as the time approaches they are 
 ready to deal with their country's foes as they deserve. At 
 the ballot box, in the legislative assembly, from the bench 
 where judges sit in all their dignity, and at the hands of 
 officials who know the law and are fearless and faithful to 
 enforce the law, the American democracy will yet mete out 
 justice to its foes. Legislation ought to be enacted defining 
 bribery and other forms of corruption as treason against the 
 State, and punishing it with confiscation of goods and dis- 
 franchisement. If public opinion places upon the murderer's 
 brow the brand of Cain, by what mark should we distinguish 
 the murderer of a nation? 
 
 One of the richest gains of this whole war against corrup- 
 tion is this elucidation of the subject of bribery; this discovery 
 of its awful infamy and its fearful menace to the sovereign 
 state. The Circuit Attorne}^ of St. Louis, in some of his first 
 speeches in the gubernatorial campaign, defined bribery accord- 
 ing to this conception, and the President of the United States 
 embodied the same definition in his message to Congress : 
 
 "Other problems concern the functions of government 
 while the subject of the eradication of bribery goes to the 
 very existence of government itself. Under our form of gov- 
 ernment all authority is vested in the people, and by them 
 delegated to those who represent the people in offivcial capacity. 
 
 "If there be an offense greater than all others, it is that of 
 him in whom such a sacred trust has been reposed, who sells 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 213 
 
 it for his own gain and enrichment. Other offenses violate 
 the law, while bribery strikes at the foundation of all law. 
 Bribery is more fatal to civic life than any other crime. It 
 aims at the assassination of the commonwealth itself. It makes 
 the passage of laws mere matters of bargain and sale, thwarts 
 justice, enthrones iniquity, and makes lawful government 
 impossible. If all official acts were for sale, we would have a 
 government not of, and for, and by the people, but a govern- 
 ment of, and for the few with wealth enough to purchase official 
 favors.. 
 
 "In constructing this government of which our great state 
 is a part, our forefathers exercised a wisdom unsurpassed in 
 the annals of mankind. They furnished a republic guaran- 
 teeing rights to the citizens never obtained by any other 
 people. The safety of the republic has been menaced, but wise 
 men have steered the ship of state into safe harbors. Enemies 
 threaten to-day, not from without, but from within. 
 
 "The givers and takers of bribes are the greatest enemies 
 we have to deal with to-day. Benedict Arnold attempted to 
 sell his country for gold ; he was a traitor of war. The official 
 who sells his vote is a traitor of peace, more dangerous than 
 traitors of war. The Malian guide who betrayed the Greeks 
 at Thermopylae did not by that act destroy his country, but 
 a few hundred years later the gold of Philip of Macedon did 
 the work the treason of war had failed to do. Greece fell 
 because corruption had weakened her national life. Rome 
 attained a pinnacle of greatness, and was undermined by the 
 same insidious corruption that threatens us. Jugurtha, after 
 he had corrupted the senate and bought the palace of Rome, 
 declared that he could buy the entire city if he only had money 
 enough. 
 
 "Since the beginning of history, governments of all kinds 
 have lived and died. Republics as great as ours have existed 
 and gone down into oblivion through the spirit of corruption. 
 Where wars, pestilence and all other calamities combined have 
 destroyed one government, corruption has undermined a score. 
 Yet some say that boodling can not be an issue, that we ought 
 not to get alarmed over a few cases of bribery. When one's 
 house is on fire, he is in no condition to argue about fine tapes- 
 tries and ornaments ; he is more concerned in putting out the 
 fire than anything else. So the people, when boodle breaks 
 
214 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 out, as it has in Missouri, should make it their first and highest 
 duty to put a stop to it." 
 
 While, therefore, we have written out the humiliating and 
 alarming story of our country's shame and peril, it is not in 
 dull despair, but in exuberant hopefulness; and we believe our 
 hopes are safely grounded in the.= personal integrity, in the 
 alertness, sagacity and patriotism of an awakened and indig- 
 nant citizenship. 
 
 Mr. John L. Peak, of Kansas City, former minister to 
 Switzerland, characterized the Missouri campaign as "A Fight 
 for a Great Principle." He said : 
 
 "I am unalterably opposed to revolutionary measures. But 
 I recognize the fact that everywhere and always there are 
 times when brave men are compelled to act with courage. We 
 have long suffered, knowingly and consciously, in the depriva- 
 tion of our rights. We have seen citizens turned away and 
 driven from the polls by the strong and mailed hand of the 
 police. We have seen judges of election dragged from their 
 places and hauled through the streets jeered and hooted at by 
 the mob. We have petitioned, oh, so meekly; we have been 
 laughed at. 
 
 ''What can we do now but rise and resent it? We have 
 suffered for ten years abuses that some men would not submit 
 to once. Now it has become worse than ever before. Can 
 we submit to this without condoning the offense? 
 
 ''Then, fellow citizens, let us repudiate this election. Let 
 us say that when an arrned force overturns the rights of the 
 people, let us say that we will not consent to such oppression. 
 We will fight for our liberties and our rights ; we are to-day 
 discussing the same great principles that fired the brain and 
 heart of Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. And if we 
 submit to them we are not free men, but we are slaves of those 
 who lead us around by the mailed hand of the policeman to 
 do their bidding. We no longer petition. We no longer 
 remonstrate. We file now a protest so loud and long that 
 the angels in heaven and the devils in hell can hear it." 
 
Chapter XV. 
 OUT OF THE NOOSE. 
 
May every soul that touches mine — 
 
 Be it the slightest contact— get therefrom some good, 
 
 Some little grace, one kindly thought, 
 
 One aspiration yet unfelt, one hit of courage 
 
 For the darkening sky, one gleam of faith 
 
 To brave the thickening ills of life. 
 
 One glimpse of brighter skies beyond the gathering mists. 
 
 To make this life zvorth zvhile, and heaven a surer heritage. 
 
 — Anon. 
 Ha! what is this? Angels, Uriel, Anachiel, and ye other 
 Five: Pentagon of Rejuvenescence; Pozver that destroyedst 
 Original Sin: Earth, Heaven, and thou Outer Limbo, zvhich men 
 name Hell! Does the Empire of Imposture zvaver? Burst there, 
 in starry sheen, updarting. Light-rays from out of its dark founda- 
 tions; as it rocks and heaves, not in travail-throes but in death- 
 throes? Yea, Light-rays, piercing, clear, that salute the Heavens, 
 — lo, they kindle it; their starry clearness becomes as red Hell-tire! 
 Imposture is in flames. Imposture is burnt up: one red sea of 
 Fire, zvild-hillozving, enzvraps the World; zvith its tire-tongue licks 
 at the very stars. Thrones are hurled into it, and Dubois Miters, 
 and Prebendal Stalls that drop fatness, and — ha! zvhat see I?, 
 — all the Gigs of Creation; all, all! Woe is me! Never simce 
 Pharaoh's Chariots, in the Red Sea of zvater, zvas there zvreck 
 of Wheel-vehicles like this in the Sea of Fire. Desolate, as ashes, 
 as gases, shall they zvander in the zvind. — Carlyle. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 OUT OF THE NOOSE. 
 
 LOGIC OF THE SITUATION A CONSCIENCE CAMPAIGN — MACHINE 
 
 METHODS PULPIT AND PRESS AN AROUSED PEOPLE — 
 
 ""bribery IS treason'' A SYSTEM OF CORRUPTION — INDUS- 
 TRIAL ANARCHY SPECIAL PRIVILEGE. 
 
 Frcn the time of the poHce and Indian outrages at the 
 primaries until this date, April ii, 1904, Mr. Folk carried 
 every county in the State which voted, a total of twenty. His 
 majorities in every case were large and overwhelming, and 
 left no room for doubt as to the temper of the people. On 
 April 9th, among other counties which held primaries, was the 
 count}^ of Cole, in which is situated Jefferson City, the capital 
 of the State. Here, if anywhere, the State Machine might 
 expect a victory. Scores of State employees, residing in the 
 city, would naturally be inclined to support their employers. 
 But they did not. The county was carried for Mr. Folk, and 
 this fact is doubly significant. It indicates the strength of 
 the Circuit Attorney with the people, and it also served 
 notice on the politician that all signs indicate a "new deal." 
 
 LOGIC OF THE SITUATION. 
 
 It was asked by certain citizens : "Why should Mr. Folk 
 be so eager to reap his reward? He ought to be content with 
 the applause given him in his successful prosecutions, and 
 be willing to wait for any further reward politically." Such 
 a question indicates a very superficial view of the situation. 
 The only logical thing for Mr. Folk to do was to become a 
 candidate for Governor of Missouri. The people demanded 
 it. The cities demanded it. Only corn-crib politicians and 
 men corrupt and mercenary opposed it. The Missouri condi- 
 tions differ in important particulars from those of other States. 
 One of these difi'erences consists in giving the Governor power 
 at any time to direct prosecutions in any court in the State. 
 In other ways the Governor has extraordinary powers. Mr. 
 Folk said that for this reason he would like to be Governor 
 
218 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 of Missouri. It was the next step in liis work as prosecutor 
 of the boodlers. 
 
 The higher courts had held adversely on all of the cases 
 which had been brought before them, but fortunately even in 
 a democracy the Supreme Court is not the Court of Last 
 Resort. That must evermore be the Sovereign People ! So, 
 it may be said that the case of the boodlers was appealed from 
 the Supreme Court to the People of Missouri. If Mr. Folk 
 had entered into the canvass for gubernatorial honors as a 
 self-seeking politician, his campaign would have been lacking 
 in dignity and would have ended disastrously. There was a 
 popular demand for his candidacy, and in addition to this what 
 we term the "logic of the situation" all but compelled it. His 
 campaign must be considered as a part of the work in which 
 ne had been all along engaged, in unearthing fraud and bring- 
 mg rogues to justice. Mr. Folk would have proved himself 
 unfitted for his high task and incapable of meeting the great 
 responsibilities thrust upon him, if he had declined to become 
 a candidate for Governor. 
 
 A CONSCIENCE CAMPAIGN. 
 
 Strong as is his personality it was only one factor in the 
 campaign. His strength lay in the great issue which he incar- 
 nated. The struggle of St. Louis and of the State of Missouri 
 "o get out of the noose and end political thuggery had not 
 continued long until it became clearly evident that a con- 
 science campaign was on. Was it generally held in the State 
 that ''briber)^ is a conventional crime?" Were the people 
 sunk in a crass and sordid materialism? Or was it true that 
 men of great wealth and equally great ability wielded a 
 power so extraordinary that the common people were cowed? 
 Neither of these was true. Nor was it true that the State Ma- 
 chine, equipped and organized as it was, held supreme power. 
 The prosecutions in St. Louis and in Jefiferson City had appealed 
 to the consciences of the entire State — had awakened every com- 
 munity. 
 
 Sermons had been preached, editorials had appeared in 
 religious papers, and editorials, striking a high ethical note, 
 had appeared likewise in the great dailies. Men who had 
 stood high among their fellow citizens suddenly awoke to find 
 themselves despised or pitied for their contemptible meanness. 
 There was no longer any question in regard to a division of 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 219 
 
 spoils — spoils were entirely lost sight of. Persons politically 
 ambitious were not considered for a moment. To be sure, 
 the old machine was also aroused. Some one has said : "A 
 politician is a man who serves God just so far as not to offend 
 the Devil." James Russell Lowell, in the Bigelow Papers, 
 gives us a pen portrait of the politician : 
 
 "I du believe in bein' this or that, 
 
 As it may happen ; 
 
 One way or t'other handiest is 
 
 To ketch the people nappin'. 
 
 It aint by princerpels nor men, 
 
 My prudent course is steddied ; 
 
 I scent which pays th' best, and then 
 
 Go in for it bald-headed." 
 
 MACHINE METHODS. 
 
 Doubtless there are men, more or less actively engaged 
 in politics, who carry with them their high moral ideals ana 
 an inflexible moral purpose. But the typical politician, — his 
 ways are 'like a serpent on a rock.' The successful leader 
 does not hesitate to follow "gum-shoe" tactics. He adopts 
 unmistakably the theory that politics is war, and that all is 
 fair in war. He therefore feels perfectly free to practice duplic- 
 ity, to play the spy, to deal in treachery, to hire Hessians, 
 anything for victory ! These men raised the slogan, ''Any- 
 thing to beat Folk !" Men of high standing who espoused the 
 Circuit Attorney's cause, ministers of the gospel who dared 
 assert their primal rights of citizenship, were assailed malici- 
 ously and vindictively. The personality of every supporter of 
 the Circuit Attorney became a target for the mud-slingers. 
 
 The whole vulture brood was stirred up. They became 
 suddenly solicitous for the good name of the church and her 
 ministers ! Men who had not a vestige of conscience, nor an 
 inch of standing room morally, who had not seen the inside 
 of a church since they left their mother's apron strings, who 
 knew much more about saloons, dance halls and all-night 
 dives than they did about cathedrals, shed crocodile tears over 
 the loss the church must suffer because the ministers were 
 taking a part in politics ! They alternately raved and wept ; 
 cursed and implored; threatened and beseeched ; just as they 
 thought they coula De most effective in their opposition to 
 th Circuit Attorney. 
 
220 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 A horde of party dependents, some of whom chanced to 
 be editors of httle papers, joined in. the chorus. They sought, 
 in all the ingenious ways known only to their ilk, to becloud 
 the issue. They falsified in every tashion conceivable. They 
 distorted facts, they magnified defects. They manufactured 
 facts ; they dreamed dreams, and saw visions of dire calamity. 
 They shrieked, and fell into epileptic fits ! They imported a 
 few moral lunatics, but the great commonwealth of Missouri 
 paid no attention whatever to this bombastes furioso, except 
 to indulge in an occasional pitying and contemptuous smile ! 
 
 The incursion of this element into such a campaign is one 
 of the always-to-be-expected factors and probably adds some- 
 what to the gaiety of nations. A well-known and influential 
 citizen remarked, and his remark may be taken as a fair sum- 
 ming up of the merits of these men : "Every word uttered and 
 every move made by the old machine has been a boomerang !" 
 Wily old politicians seemed to lose their heads ; while on the 
 other hand, the honest people made no mistakes and swept 
 everything before them, as soon as the lines were clearly drawn 
 and the issue definitely declared. It was found true again, 
 *'Thrice' armed is he whose cause is just." 
 
 It was not long until men who had fought side by side 
 for political perquisites and who had shared with each other 
 for long years the spoils of ofiice, when they saw that they 
 were swept off their feet, began to suspect and accuse one 
 another. Others of their number began to back water. They 
 prepared for a change of base. They were still true to the old 
 politician's motto : "Move earth and h— to beat 'em ; but if you 
 can't beat 'em, jine 'em.'' This is one of the present perils of 
 political reform. This is one of the invariable methods pur- 
 sued by astute politicians, and the campaign of 1904 in Mis- 
 souri is no exception. 
 
 PULPIT AND PRESS. 
 
 It is impossible to ascertain accurately the influence of the 
 pulpit and the press in this great campaign for civic righteous- 
 ness. It will be a long time in the State of Missouri before 
 anyone raises the question again: "Is the power of the pulpit 
 waning?" The manly, indignant protests which rang from the 
 pulpits of all denominations, Protestant and Catholic alike, 
 contributed vitally to the success of the movement. 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 221 
 
 Say what you will about modern preachers, the world 
 knows that the majority of them are unselfish, earnest, upright 
 men ; that they seek not their own but the world's good ; that 
 they are uniformly disinterested, and when they speak on 
 current moral issues, it is the voice of eternal righteousness 
 uttering its indisputable edict. The true pulpit here still pos- 
 sesses and wields an authority as unquestionable as that of 
 Mount Sinai or Mount Calvary. There are lives of more than 
 martyr heroism being lived out in our midst by priests and 
 preachers, who make no pretensions to exceptional godliness ; 
 who ask no earthly reward and who can be neither bribed nor 
 intimidated. In this particular the power of the pulpit must 
 ever be supreme. Its deliverances carry a hundredfold more 
 weight than those which come from any other source in mod- 
 ern society, and for this very reason the vile harpies who live 
 on plunder and the promotion of vice and crime are espe- 
 cially anxious to discredit the message by tainting or stigma- 
 tizing the messenger. 
 
 The press is vastly influentijal because of its circulation, 
 but the modern daily paper is a commercial institution pure 
 and simple, and it carries with it no more weight than would 
 belong to the pulpit should it be commercialized. There may 
 be exceptions to this rule, but exceptions only prove the rule. 
 The press is the great agent of publicity, but it has suffered 
 in public esteem because of 'fake' news ; because of the sus- 
 picion of self interest which must always attach to that which 
 is purely or chiefly commercial. Discriminating readers are 
 quick to detect the false, and equally quick to recognize and 
 applaud the true. Perhaps never before in the history of Mis- 
 souri and of the West have the daily papers been heard from with 
 as much satisfaction by the common people. 
 
 One editorial followed another in papers Republican and 
 Democratic alike, giving voice to the swelling indignation 
 of highminded citizens. So that it is fair to say that in this 
 particular battle pulpit and press, for the time being, became 
 allies. In April McClure's Mr. Lincoln Steffens said, in the 
 article already referred to : 
 
 "And 'that man Folk,' rising out of the wrecked machinery 
 of justice in Missouri, may lead his people to see that the 
 corruption of their government is not merely corruption, but 
 a revolutionary process, making for a new form of govern- 
 ment ; and the people of Missouri, rising out of the wrecked 
 
222 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 machinery of the government of Missouri, may teach their 
 politicians a lesson in liberty and honor." 
 
 AN AROUSED PEOPLE. 
 
 This prediction has already found its partial fulfillment. 
 People are saying, 'Tt is all over but the shouting." Nothing- 
 short of a political disaster can defeat the Circuit Attorney 
 for Governor. He will be the next Governor of Missouri and 
 he will be unhampered by promises of entangling alliances. 
 The next adniinistration will be all that honesty and integrity 
 can make it. 
 
 "BRIBERY IS TREASON!" 
 
 Is the battle won? Are these throbbing issues settled 
 once for all? Are the cities and the State out of the noose, or 
 are the stranglers still at work ? To quote Mr. Steffens again : 
 
 "But that is not enough. That will reach neither the 
 source nor the head of the evil. Some power greater than 
 Folk, greater than that of the people of Missouri, must rise 
 to bring home to the captain of industry the truth : That busi- 
 ness, important as it is, is not sacred ; that not everything that 
 pays is right ; that, if bribery is treason, if the corrupt politician 
 is a traitor, then the corrupting business man is an enemy 
 of the republic. No matter how many bonds he may float in 
 war, or how much he may give for charity and education, if he 
 corrupt the sources of law and of justice, his business is not 
 success, but treason and a people's failure." 
 
 A SYSTEM OF CORRUPTION. 
 
 In other words, the work of Prosecuting Attorney Folk 
 uncovered a vast and intricate system of commercial and 
 political corruption, and this system of corruption is inevita- 
 ble under existing industrial conditions. The fact is, we are 
 still only partially civilized. As Emerson once expressed it : 
 We are still in the quadruped stage. When the American 
 people established their democracy with the motto : ''Equal 
 rights to all, special privileges to none," they thought they 
 had solved the last problem of government and of industry. 
 They thought they had finally erected, after all the failures 
 of the centuries, the fair and goodly Temple of Justice ; they 
 looked for an Utopian age, and this is one of the inevitable mis- 
 takes of social and political reformers; they are too pessimistic 
 concerning the present, and too optimistic concerning the 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 223 
 
 future. A democratic government is undeniably good, but 
 democracy in government avails little so long as we have 
 autocracy in industry. 
 
 The committee of Congress which, in 1893, investigated 
 the coal combinations, said: "It is a law of business for each 
 proprietor to pursue his own interest. There is no hope for 
 any of us, but the weakest must go first." 
 
 Commenting upon this, Mr. Henry D. Lloyd says : 
 "There is no other field of human associations in which 
 any such rule of action is allowed. The man who should apply 
 in his family or his citizenship this 'survival of the fittest' theory 
 as it is practically professed and operated in business would 
 be a monster, and would speedily be made extinct, as we do 
 with monsters. To divide the supply of food between him- 
 self and his children according to their relative powers of cal- 
 culation, to follow his conception of his own self-interest in 
 any matter which the self-interest of all has taken charge of, 
 to deal as he thinks best for himself with foreigners with whom 
 his country is at war, would be a short road to the peniten- 
 tiary or the gallows. In trade men have not yet risen to the 
 level of the family life of the animals. The true law of business 
 is that all must pursue the interest of all. In the law, the 
 highest product of civilization, this has long been a common- 
 place. The safety of the people is the supreme law. We are 
 in travail to bring industry up to this. Our century of the 
 caprice of the individual as the law-giver of the common toil, 
 to employ or disemploy, to start or stop, to open or close, to 
 compete or combine, has been the disorder of the school while 
 i:he master slept. The happiness, self-interest, or individuality 
 of the whole is not more sacred than that of each, but it is 
 greater. They are equal in quality, but in quantity they are 
 greater. In the ultimate which the mathematician, the poet, 
 the reformer, projects, the two will coincide." 
 
 INDUSTRIAL ANARCHY. 
 
 Our competitive state of industry rests upon the self- 
 interest of the individual, and we seem to fancy that with a 
 mob of individuals following each his own interest we shall 
 conserve the interests of all. Almost any other business 
 theory is stigmatized as anarchy or socialism, or some other 
 fearful "ism," when the fact is that the present industrial sys- 
 
224 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 tern is itself industrial anarchy; and the men and the journals 
 who defend it are defenders of anarchy. They ought to learn 
 to hold the red flag. Suppose we take the same principle and 
 apply it to government, let every man follow self-interest. The 
 result would be anarchy in politics, and the same result must 
 follow the introduction of that principle into the affairs of 
 human action. To quote again from the masterly statement 
 of Mr. Lloyd: 
 
 "We are very poor. The striking feature of our economic 
 condition is our poverty, not our wealth. We make ourselves 
 'rich' by appropriating the property of others by methods 
 which lessen the total property of all. Spain took such riches 
 from America and grew poor. Modern wealth more and more 
 resembles the winnings of speculators in bread during famine 
 — worse, for to make the money it makes the famine. What we 
 call cheapness shows itself to be unnatural fortunes for a very 
 few, monstrous luxury for them and proportionate deprivation 
 for the people, judges debauched, trustees dishonored, Con- 
 gress and state legislatures insulted and defied, when not 
 seduced, multitudes of honest men ruined and driven to 
 despair, the common carrier made a mere instrument for the 
 creation of a new baronage, an example set to hundreds of 
 would-be commercial Caesars to repeat this rapine in other 
 industries and call it 'business,' a process set in operation all 
 over the United States for the progressive extinction of the 
 independence of laboring men, and all business men except 
 the very rich, and their reduction to a state of vassalage to 
 lords or squires in each department of trade and industry. All 
 these — tears, ruin, dishonor and treason — are the unmarked 
 additons to the 'price marked on the goods.' 
 
 "Shall we buy cheap of Captain Kidd, and shut our ears 
 to the agony that rustles in his silks? Shall we believe that 
 Captain Kidd, who kills commerce by the act which enables 
 him to sell at half-price, is a cheapener? Shall we preach 
 and practice doctrines which make the Black Flag the emblem 
 of success on the high seas of human interchange of service, 
 and complain when we see mankind's argosies of hope and 
 plenty shrink into private hoards of treasure, buried in selfish 
 sands to be lost forever, even to cupidity? If this be cheap- 
 ness, it comes by the grace of the seller, and that is the first 
 shape of dearness, as security in society by the grace of the 
 ruler is the first form of insecurity." 
 
MISSOURI'S BATTLE WITH THE BOODLERS. 225 
 
 We do not deal out excoriations to individuals. The multi- 
 millionaire is a commonplace. The billionaire is just arriving. 
 They are themselves creatures of industrial conditions as 
 much as the hobo and the pauper at the other extreme. The 
 people are becoming alarmed. They see these vast fortunes 
 rolling up like thunder clouds in the sky ; they knov^ full v^ell 
 that they betoken disaster. Every such cloud is freighted with 
 
 SPECIAL PRIVILEGE. 
 
 destruction. These immense accumulations of v^ealth in the 
 hands of a favored few are not the result of individual initiative 
 and enterprise; they are invariably the result of special priv- 
 ilege. The Standard Oil Trust monopolizes the wealth of 
 nature, secures rebates from great railway corporations and with 
 the stealth of the midnight assassin creeps upon its unsuspect- 
 ing and helpless competitors and puts them out of its way. 
 The coal barons succeed in cornering the supply of anthracite 
 coal upon which millions of their fellow citizens depend. They 
 can easily precipitate a strike, or, by fraudulent connivance 
 with the railways, which are their other selves, limit the sup- 
 ply because of a scarcity of rolling stock. They can produce 
 at any time an artificial winter. The money we pay for anthra- 
 cite coal is not a fair price for a merchantable commodity. It 
 is a "ransom paid by the people for their lives." These are 
 only two of the vast monopolies, the cruel Caesars of com- 
 merce. 
 
 Little groups of our fellow men have this unlimited power 
 over us, touching wellnigh all the necessaries of life. It is 
 like a weird alchemy by which they draw money from the 
 pockets of the people in their coffers and the only question 
 they need to ask is, "How much will the people stand?" There 
 is just one reason why the atmosphere itself has not been 
 monopolized and dealt out to the panting population of Amer- 
 ica, measured by a metre on every windpipe, and that is 
 because so far no inventive genius has been able to produce 
 the necessary appliance. In other words, our kings of com- 
 merce have not done it because they can't. They come very 
 near to it in land monopoly, however, for he who owns the 
 land may be said to own the air, and the light which falls 
 upon it ! 
 
226 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 Business and politics are inextricably tangled. If the 
 people of Missouri and of America are to escape from the 
 noose, they must take hold right vigorously of the great prin- 
 ciples which underlie the new industry. As they have estab- 
 lished a political democracy, they must set themselves stead- 
 fastly to work to establish an industrial democracy. Public 
 ownership of public utilities must be the keyword of the new 
 abolition. The enfranchisement of wage slaves must be the 
 high purpose. The just and equitable distribution of wealth 
 must be the consummation of our efforts. Somewhere the 
 Moses sleeps, perhaps still in his ark- of buUrushes, who will 
 awake and grow and lead this nation out of its Egyptian dark- 
 ness and bondage. It means much for the establishment of 
 this new industry that at the election in Chicago, April, 1904, 
 an overwhelming majority voted for municipal ownership of 
 the street car lines. Let the individual do what he can do, 
 and let the municipality, the State and the nation do what they 
 can do. The "man called million," as Mazzani styled him, has 
 arrived and must enter into his own. There is such a thing 
 as individual wealth and there is such a thing as common 
 wealth and to permit the latter to be transmuted into the for- 
 mer is to perpetuate an indefensible cruelty upon a long-suf- 
 fering people. 
 
 There is no reason in the nature of things why the State 
 should not own the rail highway as well as the road highv/ay, 
 nor whv the government should carry our letters and not our 
 telephone and telegraphic messages and express parcels. A 
 natural monopoly is necessarily and inherently a State func- 
 tion. But we do not have to wait for an industrial revolution. 
 It is coming rapidly. We believe it will be fought out with 
 bloodshed. And, too, such victories for civic righteousness 
 as are won in the State of Missouri can be won all over the 
 nation. The better classes of citizens must awake and assert 
 their sovereign rights. They should immediately enact into 
 law a new definition of bribery. They should define it as 
 Circuit Attorney Folk has defined it when he says : "Benedict 
 Arnold attempted to sell his country for gold. He was a 
 traitor of war. The officer who sells his vote is a traitor of 
 peace more dangerous than traitors of war." In other words, 
 bribery is treason and ought to be punished by confiscation of 
 
MISSOURI'S BATI'LE WITH THE BOODLERS. 227 
 
 goods and disfranchisement. The bribe-giver as well as the 
 bribe-taker should speedily be made "a man without a country." 
 
 "Aristotle's lost books of the Republics/' writes Mr. Lloyd, 
 "told the story of two hundred and fifty attempts at free gov- 
 ernment, and these were but some of the many that had to 
 be melted down in the crucible of fate to teach Hamilton and 
 Jefiferson what they knew. Perhaps we must be melted by the 
 same fierce flames to be a light to the feet of those who come 
 after us. For as true as that a house divided against itself can 
 not stand, and that a nation half slave and half free cannot 
 permanently endure, is it true that a people who are slaves to 
 market-tyrants will surely come to be their slaves in all else, 
 that all liberty begins to be lost when one liberty is lost, that 
 a people half democratic and half plutocratic cannot perma- 
 nently endure." Here is the key to the mystery. Here is the 
 power which throttles. We understand it ; we know how it 
 is entrenched ; we will overthrow it. 
 
 "If our civilization is destroyed, as Macaulay predicted, 
 it will not be by his barbarians from below. Our barbarians 
 come from above. Our great money-makers have sprung m 
 one generation into seats of power kings do not know. The 
 forces and the wealth are new, and have been the opportunity 
 of new men. Without restraints of culture, experience, the 
 pride, or even the inherited caution of class or rank, these 
 men, intoxicated, think they are the wave instead of the float, 
 and that they have created the business which has created 
 them. To them science is but a never-ending repertoire of 
 investm.ents stored up by nature for the syndicates, gavern- 
 ment but a fountain for franchises, the nations but customers 
 in squads, and a million the unit of a new arithmetic of wealth 
 written for them. They claim a power without control, exer- 
 cised through forms which make it secret, anonymous, and per- 
 petual. The possibilities of its gratification have been widen- 
 ing before them without interruption since they began, and 
 even at a thousand millions they will feel no satiation and 
 will see no place to stop. They are gluttons of luxury and 
 power, rough, unsocialized, believing that mankind must be 
 kept terrorized. Powers of pity die out of them, because they 
 work through agents and die in their agents, because what 
 they do is not for themselves. 
 
 "Of gods, friends, learnings, of the uncomprehended civil- 
 ization they overrun, they ask but one question: How much? 
 
228 POLITICAL THUGGERY. 
 
 What is a good time to sell? What is a good time to buy? 
 The Church and the Capitol incarnating the sacrifices and 
 triumphs of a procession of martyrs and patriots since the 
 dawn of freedom, are good enough for a money-changer's shof) 
 for them, and a market and shambles. Their heathen eyes 
 see in the law and its consecrated officers nothing but an intel- 
 ligence-office and hired men to help them burglarize the treas- 
 ures accumulated for thousands of years at the altars of lib- 
 erty and justice, that they may burn their marbles for the lime 
 of commerce." 
 
'"> 1904 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 014 572 852 6