A Discourse on Old and New 
 Landmarks; — delivered in Tam- 
 many Hall, July 4, 1884, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Hon. Samuel S. Cox. 
 
 Tbou shall not remove thy neighbor's landmark, which they of old time have 
 set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the Lord thy God 
 giveth thee to possess iL— Deut. xix, 14. 
 
Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library 
 Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library 
 
DECAY OF INTEGRITY— MORTMAIN AND MONOPOLY— 
 LAND-TRUST AND RESTITUTION— PROGRESS 
 AND POVERTY— A TIME EOR REFORM. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON SAMUEL S. COX, 
 
 IN 
 
 TAMMAJSTY hall, 
 
 JULY 4, 1884. 
 
 OM^ //fan g 6ox^<f 
 
i 
 
 I 
 
Still green with bays each ancient altar stands, 
 Above the reach of .sacrilegious hands. 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 OF 
 
 H X . S . S . COX. 
 
 Mr. Chairman: Joining with you in this patriotic celebration, I 
 would like to pursue the beaten path. I would like to follow time- 
 honored precedent, and dwell on the heroic achievements of the fathers, 
 review the proud progress of their sons, and paint with the roseate hue 
 of prophetic hope a glorious promise for our posterity. But duty and 
 love of country impel me to perform a less pleasing task. 
 
 Our past has, indeed, been of glorious record. Yet, above the not 
 ■distant horizon of the future I see dark clouds arising, charged with 
 elements of wrath and destruction. 
 
 Instead of indulging in eloquent memories and golden dreams of 
 progress and prosperity, I would call to you from the battlements of 
 your liberties, and command you to haste to their defense ; for foes more 
 deadly than armies with banners encompass the walls of your strength 
 and sap the foundations of your citadels. 
 
 I crave your indulgence and attention while I speak of the disregard 
 of . old codes of faith and rules of conduct which has become all too com- 
 mon in our day and generation. My theme, to-day, is more of fleeting 
 liberties than Independence won. — It is: The decay of Integrity in our 
 Social, Political, and Business relations. 
 
 Standing as I do to-day among friends who have known me in the 
 two States I have represented since my early manhood; among friends 
 to whom every step of my public career, aud every act of my private 
 life are as an open book, may I not speak freely of the causes of our 
 present national degradation ? 
 
 The prime cause was our departure from the landmarks set by the 
 fathers when they established the limitations of the powers delegated 
 to the Federal Government. I yield to no one in devotion to my 
 country. My every thought and wish aud act, in peace and in war, 
 has been inspired by devotion to the Federal Union, but I charge that 
 the evils of the times had their origin in the breaking down of these 
 landmarks. The terrible fratricidal war which twenty years ago del- 
 uged the land with blood, gave occasion for the exercise of Federal 
 power which, although necessary and therefore permissible in time of 
 war. grew into excesses and precedents for times of peace. 
 
 The Union established by the lathers for the common defense of the 
 States and the general welfare of the people, is worth all the bloodshed 
 and treasure expended for its establishment and maintenance. But 
 how long will it be worthy of maintenance if the republican form of 
 government gives place — as it is rapidly doing — to a plutocratic usur- 
 pation of all the co-ordinate branches of the Federal Government? Is 
 not wealth, or unscrupulous fealty to corporate wealth, fast becoming 
 
4 
 
 the main, the only, and the all-sufficient qualifications for the high 
 offices of State — executive, legislative, and even judicial? What has 
 brought about this woful anti- Republican condition of affairs? Is it 
 not plainly the continuance of the extravagances of the wartimes, when 
 the foundations of most of the present colossal fortunes were laid in 
 great contracts and cemented with the blood, tears, and cruel taxations 
 of the people? 
 
 REPUBLICAN SPOILSMEN. 
 
 While our soldiers were laying down their lives for the Union there 
 remained at home the army contractors and spoilsmen, who for four 
 long years exacted from the people nearly $2,000,000 a day as their pay 
 for devotion to the Union ! The service of the contractors and spoils- 
 men, and of the patriots who loaned the Government 30 cents on the 
 dollar at heavy interest, has ever been regarded by the Republican party 
 as something nobler and more worthy of acquittance than the patriot- 
 ism of the people who sent their sons to the field and toiled to support 
 our armies. 
 
 Whatever of legislation was demanded by the contractor, the bond- 
 • holder, or other non-combatant creditor of the nation has ever been 
 most freely granted by Republican Congresses and administrations. 
 We became so inured to Federal taxation and extravagance under Re- 
 publican administration, that we looked upon an annual expenditure 
 of five or six hundred millions of dollars with far less concern than we 
 once regarded an expenditure of one-tenth such outlay. 
 
 Most of the Federal disbursements go into the pockets of the vast 
 army of agents, officials, stipendiaries, and contractors which has been 
 organized by the Republican party in the twenty-four years of its power. 
 It now costs 50 per cent, more to maintain the Federal Government 
 than it does to support the State, Territorial, county, and municipal gov- 
 ernments of our thirty-eight States and eight Territories. 
 
 If this were the whole cost of Federal rule, the work of reform would 
 after all not be so difficult to an honest party after its administration 
 got into good working order. 
 
 THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE. 
 
 But this is not all that a reform party will have to contend against. 
 It must encounter something stronger, something more exacting on the 
 people than the grand army of office retainers in the Republican party. 
 It must encounter a power more compact and wealthy than that of the 
 Eepublican official organization itself. It must encounter the great 
 unofficial Republican organization of plunderers. This power has grown 
 up within the last twenty-five years under national charters, cash sub- 
 sidies, land grants, exclusive financial franchises, and the excessive 
 profits of indirect tariff taxations. This army has now almost absolute 
 control of the entire floating wealth of the nation. It has also amassed 
 the great bulk of the fixed wealth, either in direct proprietorship or by 
 mortgage and trust securities. 
 
 THE AMERICAN MORTMAIN. 
 
 Nothing but the wonderful resources of our rich domain could have 
 enabled the people to support themselves under such long-continued 
 and enormous exactions as those to which they have been subjected 
 during the past quarter of a century. The immense flood of immigra- 
 tion that poured in upon us during that period has helped to develop 
 those resources so rapidly, that to the superficial observer our wonderful 
 achievements over nature seem to be conclusive evidence of general 
 
5 
 
 prosperity. You, niy friends, who remember the condition of the 
 working people of this country, under the old Democratic regime, 
 know how fallacious this view is. You know, from every day's ex- 
 perience, that although our national wealth has doubled, quadrupled, 
 quintupled, during that time, it is not shared by the masses of the 
 people. It has eluded the grasp of its producers, by some sort of 
 sleight of hand. This is incomprehensible to most people. But it is 
 patent enough to even the tyro in political economy that it has been 
 gathered into the coffers of those who own bonds and stocks. It has 
 been sequestered by companies to whom either directly or indirectly 
 have been granted certain State and Federal powers and privileges 
 without any accompanying features of governmental responsibility or 
 control by the people. 
 
 There have been opened to the favored few, by legislative grants and 
 by the prostitution of legislative power, the opportunities to organize 
 under the cloak of the law which enabled thousands of men to become 
 millionaires without ever earning an honest dollar, and hundreds to 
 possess tens and twenties of millions of the wealth we boast of in our 
 statistics. 
 
 Thus it has come to pass in this great country of inexhaustible wealth 
 that the masses are miserably poor, that the struggle for existence is 
 daily growing harder for them, and that each year they ha ve less power 
 to control or direct the making, construction, and execution of the laws 
 of this country. Thus it is that wealth — vulgar, coarse, and brutal in 
 its lust, greed, and selfishness — seeks to prostitute every branch of the 
 State and Federal governments to its own ends. It has so benumbed 
 the senses of the people that they have come to that condition in which 
 they scarce think of the possibility of electing a chief magistrate, Sen- 
 ator, or even a Representative to Congress who is not either a million- 
 aire or the bondsman of a great corporation. What a humiliation it is 
 to be compelled to acknowledge such a falling away of patriotism ! Are 
 we worthy of the liberties won by our ancestors '? 
 
 THE DECLARATION OF LIBERTY. 
 
 Our ancestors never made a declaration of liberty against the tyranny 
 of money. They never dreamed that their sons could become the slaves 
 of such a power. When they signed the document which ushered in 
 our year of political jubilee they struck for independence. They as- 
 serted their independence because the form of government in the mother 
 country became destructive of the ends of liberty. When they made 
 a list of their grievances against the British Crown they were not appre- 
 hensive about anything except the deprivation of their liberties. On 
 a little tea," they cried, " depends all of freedom." 
 
 The British king had become arbitrary about his assent to the laws. 
 He had become negligent of laws of pressing importance. He had re- 
 fused laws passed under the right of representation. He had worried 
 legislative bodies so as to fatigue them into compliance. He dissolved 
 them at his will. He kept them inert at his pleasure. He hindered 
 that prosperity which comes of population, naturalization, and migra- 
 tion. He hindered the ' 1 appropriations ' ' of land. He obstructed j us- 
 tice and corrupted judges; he sent swarms of new officers to harass the 
 people, and quartered on them standing armies without legislative con- 
 sent; he gave consequence to the military above the civil power; he 
 instigated his soldiers to outrage and protected them from punishment. 
 
 Moreover, he was a tyrant in reference to the liberalities of trade. 
 
6 
 
 He refused to this country the right of commerce with all parts of the 
 world. He shackled industry not only by taxes without consent, but 
 by other arbitrary methods. It was not enough that he took away our 
 charters and abolished our laws, suspended legislatures and arrogated 
 to himself the legislative function, but he waged war against us with 
 all its horrors of ravaged coasts, plundered seas, burnt towns, and de- 
 spoiled lives. The mercenaries whom he brought here to complete his 
 work, and the merciless savages whom he brought against the inhabit- 
 ants of our frontiers made his rule abhorrent in the eyes of civilized 
 nations. 
 
 All these grievances are as nothing now. 
 
 These infractions of personal and public liberty now excite no appre- 
 hension. "We are still a free people. We are ruled by ourselves. But 
 how long will the institutions of our fathers, honeycombed as they 
 now are by fraud, permeated by selfishness and putrescent with cor- 
 ruption, remain as the witnesses of the heroic struggles of a hundred 
 years ago ? What are magna chartas and bills of rights and muni- 
 ments of personal freedom, the grand incentives to public content and 
 private fortune, when the air is fetid with poison and the Government 
 has degenerated into a moneyed cabal ? 1"~ ... 
 
 The Fourth of July has long been a white day in the national cal- 
 endar, but how long will it remain so if we abandon the elemental 
 forces by which our fathers acquired their independence while preserv- 
 ing their liberties ? 
 
 THE NATAL DAY OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 Our fathers were wont to celebrate the natal day of American Inde- 
 pendence as men whose glory it was to feel and know that theirs was 
 a land of liberty and plenty; a land where poverty and riches were 
 alike unknown; a land where the people ruled; a land where patriot- 
 ism, moral worth, and intellectual power were the only sure passports 
 to popular favor. What changes have been wrought among us in a few 
 short years — in the flight of a single generation ! Then, we were in very 
 truth a commonwealth; now, we are a nation with rulers set over us. 
 Then, ' ' our country ' ; was the theme of all our eloquence, and liberty 
 our highest aspiration. Now, a most ignoble ambition is eminent and 
 dominant. It rules the press, the pulpit, and the arena of politics. I 
 mean the inordinate desire for wealth that scruples at no means, how- 
 ever dishonorable, that will secure its gratification even at the expense 
 of the general prosperity. The frequent acquisition of sudden wealth, 
 which was so notorious during the late war, seems to have developed 
 among us a spirit of insatiate greed. 
 
 SPECULATION AND BUSINESS INTERESTS. 
 
 Is it indeed true that "money answereth all things " ? Is it indeed 
 true that our country has " waxed fat and kicked " ? The acquisition 
 of wealth by sinister methods, in the marts of money in the great me- 
 tropolis, at 20 per cent, a month, is but one of many recent develop- 
 ments leading up to the craze of speculation and the insanity of gam- 
 bling. Is it true that the old prudence, which is itself a'virtue, the 
 heroic loyalty to conscience, and the faith in a Supreme Ruler have 
 given way to the self-seeking promptings of inordinate gain? The 
 panics in our streets and the prisoners in our jails are living illustra- 
 tions that the Pecksniffs are not all gone; that the Pharisees are yet 
 making broad their phylacteries. V 
 
 It is true that our civilization creates many wants, many tempta- 
 
7 
 
 toons. It has taken hold of the people; it moves them to the front; 
 it engenders a desire for luxury and prodigality which too often be- 
 numbs the scrupulous moral sense in the hurry for the attainment of 
 wealth. The ambition to become rich has tainted almost every depart- 
 ment of social life. It has become the common incentive to almost 
 every financial fraud and crime. It has been left for this summer and 
 New York city to show us how "business interests" can be trans- 
 formed and developed in a way never before defended in the forum of 
 conscience. Whether in the daily investment of capital or in the in- 
 crease of professional practice, adventurers of all kinds seek, with fair 
 prospects of success, to reach social standing by the prostitution ot 
 trusts. The great mass of society in the cities has been leavened by 
 this most undesirable element. 
 
 MERETRICIOUS CANDIDATES. 
 
 In the selection of candidates for the highest trust known to civili- 
 zation the eyes of the people and their delegates have been blinded by 
 the dazzle of wealth. They fail too frequently to see that the methods 
 of gain, however successful, are not always such as comprehend justice, 
 the dignity of mankind, or the brotherhood of the nation. In other 
 words, the' pleasures of social and sensual life have become so para- 
 mount as to allure the imagination of the people toward the exalta- 
 tion of meretricious splendor and sensuous display over modesty and 
 solid worth. The self-styled "party of moral ideas," which boasts ot 
 the culture of the schools, of the higher thought, of the finer feeling, 
 of the nobler ambition, and of intellectual exaltation, has long since 
 succumbed before the insolent plutocratic assurance which undertakes 
 to record in advance of the ballot the people's verdict at the polls. 
 
 How long shall such methods of intrigue be allowed to manipulate, 
 bargain for and capture the highest candidacies of the Republic ? How 
 long is this party of wealth, hypocrisy, chicanery, and fraud to ad- 
 minister the public trusts ? 
 
 REVIVE THE OLDEX SPIRIT. 
 
 Upon the recurrence of this patriotic season, made memorable by 
 the self-sacrifices of patriots, who pledged fortune, life, and sacred 
 honor to maintain their independence and confirm their liberties to 
 posterity, it is especially becoming in us to determine that extrava- 
 gances and glitter, epicurean luxuries and treacheries, financial and 
 political frauds shall receive the condemnation which righteous indig- 
 nation and common honesty should heap upon them. It is especially 
 fitting that we should commend that enthusiasm of patriotism which 
 over a hundred years ago consumed in its wrathful fire the miserable 
 selfishness of men, gave revival to conscience, and shone like a precious 
 gem in the crown of Liberty. To despair of one's country is dastardly. 
 He is a graceless son who will not aid his mother in her extremity. 
 More need then of hopeful, helpful, invigorating works. 
 
 If there be one way more than another in which popular sovereignty 
 may be overthrown most speedily and dishonored most ignobly, it is 
 that by which our public service is made the feudal retainer of corpo- 
 rate wealth, and the goal of spoilsmen intent only on private aggran- 
 dizement. It is a sad day for our country when a small coin no larger 
 than one's eye is brought so near to constituent and representative that 
 its disk shuts out the whole horizon of social and political life. The 
 history of nations shows that it is not impossible, by abruption in one 
 ignoble pursuit, to lose that spiritual vision which gazes undazzled a 
 
8 
 
 the full noonday radiance of alluring ambitions. How hard for man 
 to resist temptations when such as now allure were even offered to Di- 
 vinity itself. I do not despair. 
 
 I am not as one without hope. We have not all bowed the knee to 
 Baal. I feel that I am among men who are not altogether engrossed 
 in the pursuits of avarice; men who engage in daily toils and nightly 
 meditations that are more attractive than the chink of silver or the 
 rustle of greenbacks; men who can enjoy books more interesting and 
 inspiring than the ledgers of the counting-room. Thank God, we are 
 not yet as a nation altogether bankrupted in patriotism and selfish in 
 greed. 
 
 JUDGE CANDIDATES BY THEIR LIVES. 
 
 In a year like this, when we should select our leading officers — Fed- 
 eral, State, and municipal — with a view to the general welfare, is it not 
 our duty to inquire into the causes of the untrustworthiness which has 
 become all too common in public and private administration, in order 
 that they may be removed by such an exercise of long-outraged and 
 indignant suffrage as will tend to exalt honesty over greed? Our news- 
 papers are full of the catalogues of speculative liabilities, aggregating 
 millions in amount. They are full of the long lists of stocks and bonds 
 pledged, or purloined to be pledged, in dishonest schemes from which 
 thousands of innocent people have grievously suffered. The ventures 
 pertaining to some of these peculiar transactions have come very near 
 to my own city and the Federal Government. This startling array of 
 fraud and speculation is a warning against the selection for high public 
 trusts of mere "businessmen." Their political and financial trust- 
 worthiness has not stood the test of public scrutiny. 
 
 Blackstone said that it required thirty years' study of the law in order 
 to become so imbued with its principles as to be qualified to administer 
 it in the courts. There is great wisdom in this view of the learned 
 commentator. Xo man can be a student and practitioner of law for 
 thirty years without having established a well-deserved reputation 
 either for integrity and ability, or for dishonesty and chicanery, or for 
 honesty and mediocrity. The same is true of persons who have held 
 offices of honor, profit, or trust for any considerable time. Their acts 
 and modes of life are the fruits by which they are to be judged. 
 Judging candidates for offices and trusts in this way, and giving our 
 suffrages to the competent and worthy only, would soon bring to us 
 the reform we so sadly need. I do not concur with those who would 
 regulate our State and Federal administration on " business principles. " 
 I desire a higher standard in our public agents than that of mere 
 faithful employes and wage-earners. I would have no offices of profit. 
 All should be of honor, trust, and modest compensation, and filled 
 only by those of proven ability and integrity. I would make office- 
 holding not merely an educational reward, but an award of civic honor 
 to patriotism, capacity, and unquestioned integrity. Especially would 
 I demand such qualifications in the legislators, the judges, and the 
 more important executive offices. The minor offices, like the streams 
 from pure or turbid fountains, will partake of the translucence or the 
 tinge of the sources from whence they flow. 
 
 true'civil-service reform. 
 If we had such a civil-service reform as this, would there be the place- 
 hunting, the arrogance and riotous display of wealth by men in public 
 stations that is such conclusive evidence, in thousands of cases, of the 
 
9 
 
 ill-gotten gains that grow out of corrupt contracts for public service., 
 barters of political influence, embezzlements, speculations with public 
 moneys, and other breaches of official trusts? Every fifth year the 
 ancient Romans had their lustrum — their year of purification, of cen- 
 sus, of apportionment of public burdens, of accounts of stewardships. 
 How long has it been since our nation had its lustrum ? 
 
 It is an old rule of Democratic faith that the money of the people 
 should not be deposited in banks designated by officers, to be trallicked 
 in at pleasure and tempt to speculations that end in bankruptcy. The 
 sub-treasury system of the United States grew out of this jealousy for 
 the safe-keeping of the public funds. How the times have changed. 
 Not long since a bank in New York city had in its vaults, by permis- 
 sion of a Secretary of the Treasury, securities and mone3 T s of the United 
 States resulting from securities amounting to nearly fifteen millions, 
 free to speculate in, without any bonded liability to the Government in 
 case of loss. I will not assert that this was the result of a corrupt bar- 
 gain; but I will say that such questionable conduct in an office of great 
 public trust should be regarded as conclusive evidence of want of virtue 
 in the incumbent. It is sufficient ground for divorce from the public 
 service. It is only a matter of good luck, perhaps, that in the case re- 
 ferred to speculation did not run so high as to have absorbed or sunk 
 the millions deposited. 
 
 THE GENERAL DISTRUST. 
 
 It is a matter of sadness for many a stockholder that a shrinkage of 
 ten millions occurred the other day in one of our railroads, for which 
 there was no compensation in the shrinkage in value of a millionaire's 
 assets of twenty-three millions. A depreciation of forty points on 
 twenty-five millions of bonds, equal to ten millions of shrinkage, not 
 only affected by its reaction other investments at home, but in the 
 present condition of freightage proved a terrible blow against the pros- 
 perity of railways, their operation and extension. It begat in foreign 
 investors distrust of American securities sudden and disastrous. 
 
 Are we to learn, under the untrustworthy associations of to-day, the 
 lesson that no confidence can be placed in any man, however high or 
 proud ? The game of hazard has been often played, by men of high 
 social standing, in cotton and grain, in clothing and food. Speculation 
 has run riot, loans have been shifted, and business disturbance become 
 turbulent. The banks that are now maintained for the purpose of giv- 
 ing a safe and uniform currency to the people at a cost to the tax-payers 
 of from 2.70 to 4.50 per cent, of their issue, have become so tainted by 
 participation in these transactions that Congress is now seeking to learn 
 something about the unsound condition of their reserves and securities. 
 The people demand to know why the recent enormous shrinkage in 
 values has begotten such a shrinkage of confidence in respect to all 
 financial operations. 
 
 VARIETIES OF FRAUD. 
 
 Army officers duplicate their pay until the son of Lincoln loses pa- 
 tience at their petty devices of fraud, and court-martials are called too 
 late. Unrecorded vouchers invade the Naval Bureau of Medicine and 
 Surgery. Armory contracts display frauds. "We see fixed returns of the 
 rotten railroads that owe the Government moneys not computable. Our 
 Land Office shivers under 600,000 pending claims for 7,000,000 acres of 
 public lands, mostly claimed by land thieves. It is not alone the starry 
 route, and vast largesses in the elections of 1880. nor the use of money 
 to buy mercenary delegations at Chicago. It is not alone that the Govern- 
 
J 
 
 10 
 
 ment seeks to hide its schemes of aggrandizement under secrecy, so as 
 to disburse a quarter of a million to the congress and newspapers of 
 Central America for private ends and canal projects. It is not alone 
 the acquisition by hook and by crook of "20.000,000 of acres of our soil 
 held by foreigners. It is not alone giving to France and England 
 control of our Isthmian routes. It is not alone the system of absentee 
 landlordism that exists in DakDta and other Territories to blight our 
 heritage as it has blighted the fertile fields of Ireland. It is not alone 
 the railroad wrecker and repudiator who strove to wrest Old Virginia 
 from her ancestral politics. — These and the thousand other frauds wring 
 from such Republicans as George William Curtis the following con- 
 fession : 
 
 Honest and economical administration, peaceful and honorable foreign rela- 
 tions, the progressive purification of the public service at home, wise reduction 
 of tfie revenue, and that sense of general security which springs from the moral 
 elevation of the Administration — are not to be expected from Republican suc- 
 cess. 
 
 THEIR NAME IS LEGION*. 
 
 A clerk has lucky speculations among his Xorwalk (Ohio) neighbors, 
 while pocketing fifty thousand of their earnings. A railroad magnate 
 mismanages his road between Xashville and Louisville, but manages to 
 get caught on 3200. 000 restitution of unlawful funds. Insurance rogues 
 deal with Death, and call in the gospellers to help his claims. Suicides 
 become common, and the coroners find — ''deficits." Even staid Bos- 
 ton has her scandal of gas bribes to senators for their votes. Poultices 
 and plasters help the weak, bail bonds and Government counsel help 
 the wicked. The outcasts of dishonesty, base all their hopes on the 
 possible election of a Republican candidate. Yet this dark cloud has 
 some silver lining — a few earnest and honest Republicans protest. 
 
 What, asked an English paper, makes the American a more danger- 
 ous gamester than the Frenchman or Englishman ? This was its an- 
 swer: 
 
 "What, indeed, is ruin in that exhilarating air, with nobody caring, and thir- 
 ty-six States around you offering to the skillful 30,000 ways of making money ? 
 An attack of dyspepsia is far worse; and, in fact, when a prominent American 
 is ruined we generally hear that he is "sick," and that his friends upon that ac- 
 count are full of anxiety for his future. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF GREED. 
 
 What cable can tether or chain bind this spirit of unholy greed in 
 private and public life? Whether in the canons of the Colorado, deep 
 down below the sound of human woe, or within the rocky volumes of 
 the geologic and prehistoric eras, where the simple Zuni worships like 
 an Oriental, or upon the unctuous soil of the Indian reservations, where 
 the red man imagines that he is located, as long as grass grows or water 
 runs, this spirit of greed is there, rolling arable acres as a sweet morsel 
 on its tongue. It hovers over the splendid Yellowstone Park, where 
 the laboratories of nature are producing by their perpetual chemistry 
 the weird wonders which the pencil and easel of Durant have made 
 familiar to us. Go to the uttermost parts of our land, from the Teche, 
 where the alligator fights the sugar planter with a show of teeth not 
 unlike his own tariffs, to the Red River of the Xorth, the vales of Mon- 
 tana, and snow-capped, verdure-robed Cascades of the far Northwest; 
 and lo ! the greedy spoiler is on the wing — prospecting, engrossing and 
 blighting our fair domain, the heritage of our children's children ! 
 
 THE DECAY OF INTEGRITY. 
 
 All these matters can be referred to the decay of integrity in politics, 
 business, and society. A few days ago the criminal judges of New 
 
11 
 
 York city delivered charges to the grand jury in which they commended 
 our police and our criminal jurisprudence. They said that the persons 
 and property of our people are protected from the ordinary felon and 
 bully. This is undoubtedly true. Reasonable protection has been 
 given against the common robber and burglar. Even the bunko men 
 and other vagrants have been apprehended in their pel i t larcenies. But 
 the instances which occur to you upon the west side of this city, as 
 well as in other cities — in Pittsburgh and Newark — show that the rot- 
 tenness of our society prevails not so much on the outside as inside 
 of our institutions. For example, there was the Penn Bank, named 
 after the mild and honest Quaker of Pennsylvania. It had provisos 
 against any stockholder or officer being liable or assessable for an amount 
 greater than the face value of his stocks. It received deposits by the 
 millions. The other day the depositors found little or no assetsaud two 
 millions of their money gone! Better than burglars' jimmies or out- 
 siders were the insidious banker's instruments of wholesale robbery in 
 Pennsylvania. Such instances of plunder are more emphatic in pro- 
 ducing industrial depression than your masked tariffs and taxations. 
 How was the collapse of this bank managed ? By fictitious entries of de- 
 posits. This bank, like others, became simply a medium of respectable 
 rascality. How much of a dividend will the little remnant of assets 
 give the depositors? Who among the gang of defrauders will wear 
 the striped clothes of the penitentiary? Men like Vanderbilt mas- 
 querade upon the books of the bank, and oil speculations gave lubricity 
 to the slipperiness of its officers. 
 
 It is no satisfaction to know that the fiduciary guardians of the West 
 Side Savings Bank, with its disappearing cashier, lamented in deepest 
 sorrow the necessity for suspension. They regretfully closed the doors 
 against the men and women who sought the hard-earned money they 
 had deposited with them. It is no satisfaction to know that the Stock 
 Exchange is excited over the tumbling down of gilded hopes. How sad 
 that the head office of Jerry McCauley'sCremorne Mission is now vacant 
 for another Wall Street saint. It is little satisfaction to know that it is 
 easier for such rich men to go through the eye of a needle than to enter 
 the kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 LEGALIZED GAMBLING. 
 
 Much has been said by our purist committees from the Legislature 
 about the prevalance of gambling houses in our great cities. It seems 
 to have been overlooked that these houses exist by reason of the insa- 
 tiate craving created by the business of the exchange ; for what is its 
 business unless it be betting on the price of stocks under the pretext 
 of purchase? Faro is respectable and poker courageous in comparison. 
 In these games other people's money is not always risked. The law 
 may make a difference between these and other games of chance, but 
 as between a bucket-shop and a put-and-call establishment, as between 
 a margin-dealer and a roulette-player, there is little or no moral dif- 
 ference. If there be any, it is in favor of the bucket-shop and the rou- 
 lette-wheel. It is this passion for gambling that is at the bottom of the 
 methods of the conventions and the street. 
 
 To these methods may be attributed the cause of much political 
 baseness and social decay. The capitalist who deals in futures, is in 
 some respects better than he who speculates, to the ruin of innocent 
 families, with money not his own. Yet both are gamblers. Embezzle- 
 ment, fraud, defalcation, theft, all the phases of financial crime are be- 
 gotten by this illicit passion for gain. As the cause of causes, this pas- 
 
12 
 
 sion is more harmful than all the other business schemes of men who 
 seek to engross the patrimony of the young and the honest earnings of 
 the old. The time may come when the now respectable dealers in these 
 games of chance will be branded as destroyers of families, and their 
 operations be condemned as incentives to unlawful speculation. So 
 long as these games of chance are conducted as legitimate business by 
 the pious and devout, by the long-faced hypocrites and Tartuffes of so- 
 ciety, just so long should wealth so gained be regarded with scorn and 
 indignation. Is it from this school of gamblers that we are to take les- 
 sons in "business methods," administration, and public policy? 
 
 OUR "WEALTH ENGROSSERS. 
 
 Time was, at the beginning of this generation, when the property of 
 the country was more generally shared by the people than now. There 
 was then not so much value per capita in the country; but the people 
 were more contented. There was then little of private defalcation and 
 less of public dishonor. Xow we have our Goulds and Vanderbilts and 
 others who engross most of the wealth of the nation. No one is con- 
 sidered in the roll of wealth to-day who does not list his property by 
 the million. The vast assets of our great millionaires were accumu- 
 lated, not by the ordinary rise of values incident to our industrial devel- 
 opments, but by the watering of stocks aided by corrupt courts, the 
 subtle artifices of bribed legislators, and combinations organized for the 
 spoliation of honest stockholders. 
 
 It is not worth while to speak to you in detail of the enormous swin- 
 dles, heaped like Pelion on Ossa, by which hundreds of millions of ill- 
 gotten gains have been accumulated in the hands of a few financial 
 conspirators. Perhaps the remarks already made may be sharply criti- 
 cised because they relate to private and not to public matters. My 
 answer to this is, that when business men, so called, who are supposed 
 to manage and control the great interests which center in our metrop- 
 olis and involve the prosperity of the whole country, join in demon- 
 strations of a political nature, it is well for us to learn how far their 
 business interests go into the field of politics. The dashing Ward, 
 the festive Eno, the pious Hatch, the humane Seney, the devout Bo- 
 gart, and the godly Gould all join in an apotheosis to the Republican 
 party, as if they were worshiping devoutly some emperor lavish with 
 the plunder of the nations. These worship at the Republican shrine 
 with the same reverential awe as the Dorseys and Elkinses of the postal 
 Milky Way. The big king of the gambling financiers himself rushes 
 into print to hail the Republican nominee as "a live man, " "a live 
 President," as "abreast of the times," " the man who never allows 
 himself to fall behind a single step," "a man for the place." Many 
 such "business men" are so high above the people that they osten- 
 tatiously avoid being contaminated by association with industrious men 
 who vote the Democratic ticket and marshal under our banner. 
 
 THE UXIOX LEAGUE DICTATORS. 
 
 These and other Jeremy Diddlers of the Union League, who assume to 
 be the best society and falsely claim the highest culture, might well be 
 spared from the arena of politics which they befoul with their unsa- 
 vory presence. Let us endeavor to teach fiduciary agents something 
 of that fidelity which would come from the rule of honest labor and 
 Democratic practices. They and their brethren of the street should 
 learn something of the philosophic wisdom of Jefferson, the economic 
 frugality of Franklin, and Jackson's contempt of mere money-mon- 
 
13 
 
 gers before they presume to dictate to honest citizens whom they shall 
 elect as Chief .Magistrate. These gamblers in millions are fit asso- 
 ciates perhaps for the official pirates who ran New York city in 18727 
 and who were always promptly at the front of the citizens' movement 
 for reform. These are the ' ' reformers * ' who gloried in the Sherman and 
 Hayes administration of 1877. The speculators and bankers who gam- 
 ble on the earnings of the poor; who feather their own nests by treachery 
 and falsehood; who buy and sell what they do not have; who make 
 bread and coal dear by secret combinations; who deify successful political 
 profligacy; who would exclude honest merit from social position — are 
 these the men by whom reproach can be cast upon those who seek to 
 make society honorable under the pure teachings of Democracy, and the 
 nation worthy of its founders ? 
 
 The example of these gamblers for wealth is followed not alone by 
 the confidence-men who will meet you in our avenues and squares, 
 not alone by the agent who may collect money in the name of the 
 Goddess of Liberty and the Bartholdi statue, not alone by the clerk 
 who robs his employer to gratify his lust of gain, not alone by the cashier 
 or the president of a bank who breaks faith with those by whom he is 
 trusted, but, alas ! also by men who have obtained leadership in the 
 great sanhedrim of political organization. Thus the decay of our in- 
 tegrity, beginning with the very fruit and flower of our system, ex- 
 tends and ramifies its blight into every social and political institution 
 all over our land. 
 
 A TIME FOR REFORM. 
 
 However numerous the modes of deceit and the practices of fraud 
 may be, however demoralizing the prostitution of official trusts by 
 public officers and corporate and other managers, we might still be 
 able to bear and forbear if the consequences were limited to the records 
 of detected frauds; but when fraudulent quotations make the prices 
 of our bonds speculative, it is not to be wondered at that other restric- 
 tions of honest business modes have been removed, it is no wonder 
 that hypothecations and sales of borrowed property have been made 
 by respectable financiers who oppose legal restrictions upon their pri- 
 vate business conduct, and complain that it is not the concern of the 
 public to restrain speculation by law. The pools which defy and set 
 at naught the honest enterprises of industry and trade and depress or 
 enhance values at pleasure, might be of little moment to us if they 
 only affected the private interests of conspirators; but when great pub- 
 lic interests are injuriously affected, when the whole market reeks 
 with deceptive and fraudulent deals and quotations the moral atmo- 
 sphere becomes equally tainted, and industrial prostration, bankruptcy, 
 and other evil results follow. "When these are the results is it not time 
 to attempt some public and business reforms ? Is it not high time to 
 attempt some reform when a great political party in its candidacy for 
 the most honorable office in the gift of the American people enthusi- 
 astically nominates for that high estate a candidate of whom it would 
 be mild language to say that he is reasonably suspected of acquiring 
 vast wealth by the prostitution of great official position and influ- 
 ence ? ' 
 
 Allow me to make some pregnant illustrations of what I have said. 
 They are in reference to corrupt and demoralizing combinations which 
 cause much of the decay of integrity both in business and political rela- 
 tions. And first, as illustrated in the grasping monopolies under our 
 
14 
 
 tariff system; and second, the grasping combinations and pools not 
 originating in the tariff. 
 
 THE OLD TARIFF THEORY AND THE NEW. 
 
 The old theory of protective tariffs was based on the idea that as the 
 countries of the Old World had great knowledge and experience in the 
 manufacturing arts, some special favors should be extended to persons 
 on this continent. This was to be done with a view to enable and en- 
 courage them to develop manufacturing industry. It was not until 
 after many years that the question of protection of wages entered into 
 the tariff policy. The larger the growth of our manufacturing indus- 
 try the more important became the question of wages. 
 
 The original theory vanished long since. It vanished because it is 
 now admitted on all sides that manufactures are so firmly established 
 among us that, so far as tariffs are concerned, the laborer is the only 
 party who needs protection. 
 
 Then it follows that the laborers in our shops and factories are the 
 only parties who have any proper interest in the maintenance of high 
 tariffs. The question is: Are they the beneficiaries ? I hold that they 
 are not ; and therefore I hold that the operations of the tariff laws are 
 unj ust. These laws are oppressive to the full extent of their indirect 
 taxation. Show me that these laws are beneficial to the mechanics and 
 other laborers, and I will advocate a tariff for revenue so adjusted as 
 to enhance as much as possible the rewards of labor. I will do this 
 even though the tax weigh heavy on the whole people, if I have con- 
 stitutional power. 
 
 We have the constitutional power to raise all our Federal revenue 
 from the customs; but to do this we must import manufactured goods. 
 We have no constitutional power to enact a law that is ostensibly de- 
 clared to be a revenue measure, but in fact the opposite, a prohibition 
 of importation, and hence in its operation a restraint on exportation. 
 Our people can not engage in the latter without practicing the former. 
 
 The Constitution forbids the taxation of exports, much more the 
 larger measures of prohibition. The reason for this is that foreign mar- 
 kets are a prime necessity for the maintenance of our farming interests. 
 The more these are developed the greater the necessity for observing in 
 good faith this wise restriction on Federal power. If we adopt the 
 policy of the advocates of high tariffs we must favor legislation that is 
 forbidden by the Constitution. We must restrain exportation. We 
 must to that extent restrain the development of our greatest industry, 
 agriculture. Would this be wise? 
 
 RESPECT FOR THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 I have never known an instance of unconstitutional legislation prov- 
 ing beneficial to the people. Bad logic is bad law. All our legislators 
 are sworn to obey the Constitution. We are bound to respect its spirit 
 as well as its letter. I believe in commerce because of its benefits. All 
 the more do I believe it my duty to foster commerce, because that is a 
 duty imposed upon us by the Constitution, which we have sworn to obey. 
 
 The very fact that the protection of wages was never in the early 
 days of the Republic considered as being within the scope of tariff 
 legislation, and that the heavier the tariffs the more talk there was and 
 is of the necessity for protection of wages, is strong evidence that the 
 operation of a tariff is inconsistent with the theory of its advocates. 
 Why, then, do these men insist that there shall be free trade in labor, 
 and that we should violate our oaths by imposing unconstitutional re- 
 
15 
 
 straints on the large business of exportation ? Is it because the labor in 
 our mills and factories is benefited ? 
 
 AN EXPOSURE OF THE TARIFF FRAUDS. 
 
 In my addresses to Congress this session on the tariff question, I 
 proved by the official figures that under the tariff laws of 1880 the 
 average wages in our manufacturing industries was 81.10 a day for 
 three hundred working days in the year, while at the same time the 
 average profits of the manufacturers were equal to 36 per cent, of their 
 invested capital. I also proved that the indirect taxation of the tariffs 
 reduced the purchasing power of these wages at least 40 percent. 
 This, in connection with the well-known fact that employers are ever 
 on the alert for cheap labor, is conclusive proof that they are not inter- 
 ested in maintaining high wages. 
 
 Why, then, do employers demand high tariffs? Why do they organ- 
 ize lobbies to prevent the reduction of tariffs 9 Motives of philan- 
 thropy are not the inspiring cause of these lobbies. I will show you 
 the cause of their efforts in the sacred name of labor — as I exposed it 
 in my last address to Congress on this subject. It is the insatiate 
 greed of wealth. I thus exposed it. I thus proved by cold arithmetic 
 the extent of the tariff robbery: 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF TARIFF ROBBERY. 
 
 First. I showed by the figures of the Tenth Census that the profits 
 of manufacturing capital for the year covered by the official returns 
 amounted to $1,024,801,847, a sum equal to between 36 and 37 per 
 cent, of the capital employed. I showed that if this profit had not 
 exceeded 10 per cent, there would, at the wages paid, have been a sav- 
 ing to consumers of 8745,774,587; that this sum would have paid all 
 the State and local taxes and still have left to the credit of the con- 
 sumers $443,573,863; that the latter sum, saved annually for six years 
 and invested in United States 3 per cent, bonds, would amount to 
 $2,861,051,610— a sum $70,779,004 in excess of the total capital in- 
 vested in 1880 in the manufacturing industries of the United States; 
 that this six years' savings would pay off all State, Territorial, county, 
 municipal, and other local debts, and still leave unexpended $1,804,- 
 645,402; that this six years' savings would exceed by $247,445,346 all 
 the paid up capital of all the railroad companies in the United States 
 in 1880; and that six years more of such savings would pay off all the 
 bonded and all the unfunded debt of these railroad companies, as re- 
 ported in 1880, and leave an unexpended balance of $4^,935,314! 
 
 Second. I further showed that the total amount of wages (including 
 salaries of officers and clerks) paid in 1880 in the manufacturing indus- 
 tries was $947,953,795; that on a 6 per cent, return to the capital in- 
 vested, the manufacturers could have paid, in 1880, to their employes 
 90.45 per cent, in excess of the wages paid that year; that on a 10 per 
 cent, return to the capital they could have paid their employes 78.62 
 per cent, in excess of the wages paid that year; and that they could 
 have paid from the returns accrued to their capital in 1880 all the State, 
 Territorial, county, and municipal taxes, and 46.79 per cent, more 
 wages to their employes than they did, and still have a return of 10 
 per cent, on the capital employed in their business. 
 
 THE ANNUA I- CONSCRIPTION. 
 
 As a 10 per cent, return to capital was liberal in a year in which 
 money was freely invested in Government bonds bearing low interest, 
 I charged that our tariff-protected manufacturers were engrossing the 
 
L6 
 
 wealth of the nation at the rate of 8745,774,587 per annum, while 
 labor was receiving the bare pittance of $1.16 a day — equal only to 75 
 cents in purchasing power ! I say now, as I said then, that it was this 
 annual conscription of the national wealth that capitalized all the other 
 exacting monopolies. And yet the Republican party dares us to at- 
 tempt tariff reduction. It challenges the Democrats to make this an 
 issue in the approaching political campaign. 
 
 It is this system of tariff concentration of our great and enormously 
 increasing national wealth that the great hulk of the Democratic party 
 is opposed to. It is this system that the Republican party is as de- 
 termined to maintain. 
 
 The evil effects of tariffs do not stop at the iniquitous exactions from 
 the people, the incident paralysis of industry, and the degradation of 
 labor. The moral tone of our society has been debased by this open 
 legalized system of robbery which is unblushingly carried out under the 
 most transparent veil of hypocrisy that ever disguised a fraud. When 
 I see so plainly this tariff monstrosity, my wonder, my indignation 
 arises almost as much against the blindness and stupidity of the grossly 
 defrauded laborers who adhere to the party that legalizes their rob- 
 bery and enslaves their children, as it does against the robbers them- 
 selves. 
 
 ASSOCIATIONS FOR PLUNDER. 
 
 The great manufacturers are associated for two purposes, yea, three, 
 namely: 
 
 First. To maintain high tariffs. 
 
 Second. To maintain high prices for their products. 
 
 Third. To reduce wages as low as possible and to prevent any and 
 every organization of labor, social, industrial, and political, that would 
 tend to defeat any of these objects. 
 
 Any young man of talents and brilliant qualities as an advocate can 
 enter the service of these associations with reasonable prospect of high 
 legislative position, if he has sufficient elasticity of conscience to yield 
 to their seduction. 
 
 Wealth commands talent. Wealth is ' ' the daughter of the horse- 
 leech, crying, ' Give ! ' ' Give ! ' " " The grave ; and the barren womb ; the 
 earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not, 'It is 
 enough,' " are not more insatiate than the tariff spoilers. 
 
 Surely of their generation was spoken the word of Agur, the son of 
 Jakeh, even the prophecy: "There is a generation, whose teeth are as 
 swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the 
 earth, and the needy from among men." 
 
 I would remind the incorporated devourers of the poor who, like 
 "Hell and destruction, are never satisfied," that "He that hasteth to 
 be rich hath an evil eye and considereth not that poverty shall come 
 upon him ; " " He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house. ' ' I 
 would tell them : ' ' Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly 
 than to divide the spoil with the proud; " " Better is a little with right- 
 eousness than great revenues without right." 
 
 When I see the corrupt methods of the corporate and tariff spoilers, 
 the social and political degradation that they have brought upon us, 
 I thank my God for having directed my steps away from those who 
 haste to be rich on the unrequited labors of the poor, and for enabling 
 me to preserve in thought and deed true loyalty to my oath and the 
 Constitution in the halls of legislation. 
 
 It is this ill-gotten tariff wealth that has caused the decay of integrity 
 
17 
 
 in our business and political relations and fostered the development of 
 other monopolies. It was amassed in fraud of the people by modes 
 that have cast reproach on the legislative branch of our Government. 
 It has long controlled legislation and made the way easy for many vio- 
 lations of the Constitution in the name of national developments. 
 
 THE PUBLIC LANDS TRUSTS. 
 
 The lands transferred to the Federal Government in trust for the 
 people by Virginia and other of the old States that forjned this Union, 
 and those subsequently acquired, were long regarded as a sacred her- 
 itage. This trust was fairly guarded until the high-tariff party obtained 
 control. Then it was that the policy of lavish grants to railroad cor- 
 porations came in vogue. 
 
 From the year 1864 to 1875 the Republicans had full control of both 
 branches of Congress. In the House of Representatives Schuyler Col- 
 fax was Speaker from December 7, 1863, to March 3, 1869. For six 
 years thereafter the present nominee of the Republican party for the 
 high office of President of the United States, a gentleman of still more 
 unsavory fame then his predecessor in the Speakership, presided in the 
 House. 
 
 In the eleven years following 1863 Republican Congresses voted 296,- 
 000,000 of acres of our public lands to a few corporations, in addition to 
 millions upon millions of public money. Very much of the latter was 
 used as a corruption fund for members who were in haste to be rich. 
 These grants exceeded in area that of all the farms in the United States 
 in 1880; exceeded it by many millions of acres. They exceeded by 
 75,000,000 acres the area of the thirteen original States. This em- 
 pire, equal in area to fifteen average States of the Union, was vested 
 in the possession of a handful of millionaires who now wield the full 
 political power of at least that number of States. 
 
 Is not this another illustration of the monstrous combinations of mo- 
 nopolies? Have not these caused the decay of political morality? Is 
 not the gambling in stocks secured by these infamous grants another 
 illustration of the decay in business morality ? Do you ever stop to con- 
 sider the effect of these stocks, both direct and indirect, as an obstacle 
 in the way of the attempt made in Congress to make some restitution 
 of the lands despoiled from the people in violation of a most sacred trust? 
 If you do, you will begin to know something of one of the causes of the 
 decay of integrity that is second only to the tariffs in its baleful in- 
 fluences on public and private morality. 
 
 THE FALSE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM. 
 
 We have created our masters — our task-masters. They dictate our 
 laws, our tariffs, our wages, and our rates of transportation. They 
 scarce allow us straw to make the brick for their pyramids of wealth. 
 Their greed is only equaled by their effrontery. The climax of their 
 audacity is the last Republican platform, hung with false lights to lure 
 the people to their wreckers. 
 
 When will labor arouse from its lethargy ? Is there any haven for it 
 in the Democratic party ? If not, farewell to the Republic of our fath- 
 ers. But I do not despair of the Republic. When our people begin to 
 discuss the tariff policy their natural quickness of perception and good 
 sense will soon bring them as right on this question as they are on the 
 other monopoly issues. 
 
 The genius of greed needs no legislation to foster its passion. If I 
 could make the law, my aim would be to render it impossible for any 
 Co 2 
 
18 
 
 man to accumulate a million dollars while labor was glad to earn a 
 dollar and sixteen cents a day the year round. While this condition of 
 industry remains, the fraud of tariff protection is patent, and corporate 
 enterprise is robbery. 
 
 If you would have progress, prosperity, virtue, and reform, yourrep- 
 resentatives and officials must not be hirelings of millionaires or direct- 
 ors of corporations. Ye can not gather figs from brambles nor grapes 
 from thistles. Holy writ says, ye can not serve two masters. Ye 
 can not serve God and mammon; neither can your legislators nor exec- 
 utives nor judges. They must hate you and love mammon, or else the 
 reverse. 
 
 If such be the political ethics and practice as to political economy in 
 our public lands, yon will not wonder that the laboring man is poorly 
 recompensed for his day's Labor, and that even the Scotch crofter and 
 t he I rish tenant, oppressed as they are by harsh lawsand avaricious land- 
 lords, begin to hesitate about yielding to the attractive forces of that 
 emigration which has filled our shores. 
 
 REPURLICAN PHARISEES. 
 
 You have read of the pharisee who thanked God that he was better 
 than other men, therefore you wonder not that even the Republican 
 platform-makers assume a virtue which they have not in resolving 
 against the consummation of their own land thefts, and the turning 
 over to foreigners of large areas of our public domain. You need not 
 wonder that our nation has become a shipless one under the rule of 
 such a party. 
 
 With such examples of corruption as those furnished by the Repub- 
 lican administrations you are not surprised at the testimony given be- 
 fore our investigating committees as to the inutility and perfidiousness 
 of the "star-route" prosecutions. Even the bar, not to speak of the 
 jury, are tainted by the order to "let Dorsey and others go." Are you 
 surprised that a leading Republican paper in 1883, despairing of any 
 reformation under a Republican administration, cried, after the ac- 
 quittal of the Bradys and Dorseys, ".Turn the rascals out." Was 
 there ever a shame equal to the Republican mode of prosecution or to 
 that verdict of acquittal ? Was there ever a cause for public shame 
 equal to the impudence and arrogance of those other rascals who, never 
 acquitted because not indicted, have undertaken to make nominations 
 for the American people to fill the highest offices of trust? If it be 
 impossible to find a jury in Washington to convict representative Re- 
 publican statesmen in such palpable cases of grand larceny, can we ex- 
 pect that the smaller thieves, the Howgates and the Burnsides, will 
 not go acquit of their crimes and unwhipt of justice? 
 
 TURN THE RASCALS OUT. 
 
 The business methods of the Executive Departments under Repub- 
 lican administration are very like those of the many robbed and broken 
 banks. The accounts of the paymaster in the Post-Office Department 
 had not been audited for three years; and though the amount of pec- 
 ulation may be quite small in a federal way, as compared with others 
 that occurred in the Departments, or many recent ones in bankingbusi- 
 ness, the temptations to the embezzlement of money by the fever of 
 speculation and immunities given to our magnificent rascals became 
 more and more frequent. The extent of Republican embezzlements 
 and peculations will never be known until we — "turn the rascals 
 out." 
 
19 
 
 OFFICIAL LOBBYISTS. 
 
 Much has been said, and doubtless truthfully, of the lobbies around 
 onr Legislative bodies. Much has been said as to the control of lobbies 
 at Albany, Harrisburg, and Washington. Doubtless the lobby at the 
 latter place has been bold, even beyond the vigorous grammar of Senator 
 Logan to denounce. He publicly acknowledged sonic weeks ago that 
 he had been excessively lobbied for a railroad grantor other monopoly 
 in the Yellowstone by a high Republican official in our Land Depart- 
 ment. The party which shamelessly confesses to having elevated Gar- 
 field by the use of money, and which, as has been alleged, recently used 
 money lavishly for the transportation of purchasable delegates to Chi- 
 cago, and consigned them there to the care of its confidence men, affords 
 a striking illustration of the difference between precept and practice. 
 It has not improved upon its former teaching. Its long-established 
 practice and present conduct and policy, make the combinations and 
 log-rolling for public-building and river-and-harbor plunder bills ve- 
 nial, compared with the repeated attempts, which have signally failed 
 in the House of Representatives, to carry a measure for New York bank- 
 ers by which to appreciate securities and help a firm heavily loaded 
 with a certain class of bonds. 
 
 Official corruption, base political methods, the connection between 
 bursting banks in New York, closing savings-banks in New Jersey, 
 and the attempted Republican legislation in Washington, together with 
 the frantic efforts to stop the late panic by calling Government bonds 
 in advance of expectancy — thus giving Government aid and part ici- 
 pancy in rings of corrupt speculators — all illustrate the decay of integ- 
 rity in a political, business, and social point of view. 
 
 Is it in vain to call attention to the $387,000,000 wasted upon an un- 
 seen navy? Is it in vain to inveigh against the Robesons, Belknaps, 
 and others who have made official life suspicious by reason of their 
 partialities? 
 
 A DEGRADED JUDICIARY. 
 
 Yet these public wrongs are as nothing compared with the contempt 
 which has been heaped upon our supreme judiciary. The bench may 
 no longer boast of its immaculate ermine. Even beibre it was dragged 
 into the mire through which Hayes was elevated, it had lost much of 
 that sanctity which was our best guarantee of liberty and justice. 
 The miscarriage of justice on that occasion was not alone due to the 
 corruptions incident to this age of moral decay. It was a conquest by 
 corporate money-power aided by political bigotry and partisan malice — 
 a crime against our institutions that was condoned and defended by 
 some of the highest men in the Republican party. Perhaps this startling 
 degradation of the judical office was less astounding at the time because 
 the people had become, in some sort, accustomed to vicious and merce- 
 nary judicial practices in political affairs. 
 
 The times which make such men as Jay Gould possible have made 
 us indifferent to deeds that would have outraged our former sense of 
 honor and duty. Is not the very form and system of our Government 
 perverted when men like Gould can openly boast of using the legisla- 
 ture and the court for theirselfish ends ? Is there not decay in the land 
 where judges sit in the highest courts whose gowns have been thrown 
 upon their shoulders by cunning intrigue if not by mercenary litigants ? 
 Is there not a vulture tearing at the vitals of honest industry when 
 aboard of directors, controlled by one man, is permitted to double its 
 corporate stock by watering, and distribute its shares broadcast among 
 
20 
 
 his friends? It is because such things as these are possible in this 
 Republic that panics come to us and the hard-earned wages of labor 
 are evanescent. It is as true that the corruption \\ hich belongs to our 
 public life has been caused as much by the profligacy of private life, 
 as that the corruption of private life has been fostered by the oppor- 
 tunities which public life has afforded. 
 
 There is great need of business, social, and political reform. We 
 have had many sad days in our history; but the saddest of all is to 
 come if a leader such as the one recently chosen at Chicago, one whose 
 great wealth has, it is said, been acquired by the manipulation of 
 public credit and legislation, shall be elected to sit in the seat of exec- 
 utive power, with all its opportunities for political and financial re- 
 wards. The modes of the campaign which ensue from the recent 
 contest at Chicago will be dictated not by virtue and fidelity to good 
 principles, but by the reckless, unblushing practices of those who seek 
 to corruptly influence the public vote. 
 
 CAN THE LAW BE ENFORCED? 
 
 What is the remedy for these recent aberrations and crimes? We 
 must appeal to the electoral as well as the judicial tribunals. We must 
 have a purer administration of power and justice. The unparalleled 
 swindlers must have some other form of trial than before a Washington 
 jury. The demand for extradition of embezzlers and public thieves 
 must be stronger than our present State Department is disposed to make. 
 Why are the wholesome provisions of the national banking laws al- 
 lowed to remain inert on the statutes ? The Federal officers high and 
 low whose duty it is to enforce them have been criminally inactive; 
 they should be themselves arraigned as criminals. Our law declares 
 that every officer or agent of any national bank who embezzles, ab- 
 stracts, or willfully misapplies any of the moneys, funds, or credits of 
 the association, or who makes any false entry in any book, report, or 
 statement, and every person who aids or abets any such business, shall 
 be imprisoned not less than five nor more than ten years. Can this law 
 be executed ? If not, let us know the reason why. Let the national 
 banks undergo a searching inquisition. Let the right kind of exam- 
 iners be appointed. Let the apathy which now reigns be changed to 
 activity by the demand of the people, and we will have some amazing 
 and mysterious disclosures that will lead to reformations such as reno- 
 vated France after the bursting of John Law's bubble. 
 
 THE PLATFORM OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 But there are other remedies besides those of the law. The working 
 people are not satisfied with the modes of the present great parties. They 
 are organizing against monopolies. They may not very clearly see where 
 the grievous wrong is, but they know that the rich are growing richer as 
 the toiling millions are growing poorer. The working people are watch- 
 ing the oil monopolies and money engrossers, the national bankers and 
 political Jeremy Diddlers, the bank embezzlers and official peculators, 
 with a keen and vigilant eye. They are noting the extent of the money- 
 power in political parties. They demand that labor and capital shall 
 be allies in profits as well as production. They proclaim that charters 
 are repealable and controllable by the power that granted them; that 
 economy must be exercised in the public service; that bounties shall no 
 longer be given for the largess of the few against the welfare of the 
 many; that taxes be levied only for the economic ends of Government; 
 and that unnecessary taxation must bring corrupting surpluses. They 
 
2] 
 
 indict the old organizations — the Republican party for gross dishonesty 
 and the usurpation and prostitution of Federal power; the Democratic 
 party for itssupineness, its want of vigorous policy audits toleration of 
 Mammon. They insist that the best interests of the people, the many, 
 must be regarded, as well in their daily life in respect to shelter, cloth- 
 ing, and food, as in their hours of labor, their system of education, and 
 their share in our institutions and common heritage. They demand 
 that the men who labor least shall not have the best and largest re- 
 wards. They point to the awful chasm which has been widening every 
 day between our two great classes, the employers and the toilers. 
 
 REFORM THROUGH POLITICAL ORGANIZATION. 
 
 Do not the great ramparts of wealth that were founded in robber tar- 
 iffs, reared high by corporate exactions, and manned by the political 
 band of the money lords challenge an outbreak of communism that 
 may at any time destroy them? The bad blood which caused the out- 
 break at Cincinnati the other day is some evidence of the need of a 
 timely reform. Peaceful reform must come from the good sense and 
 integrity of the people through political organizations. They must 
 combine to reform. They must communicate with each other to secure 
 concert of action for reform. Is the needed reform to come through the 
 Democratic party ? It is not the party of the tariff robber, the com- 
 merce destroyer, or wealth engrosser. Its motto is, "A lair held for 
 labor in all industries and no special privileges to capital. ' ' We believe 
 that commerce should be so regulated between the States that the price 
 of bread, coal, and the other necessaries of life may not be unduly en- 
 hanced. We demand that the importation of foreign labor under con- 
 tract should be prohibited. We say that not only shall no further sub- 
 sidies of public lauds be granted, but that Congress must repeal the 
 grants of lands already forfeited by the faithless corporators. 
 
 LAND-GRANT FORFEITURES. 
 
 What has Congress done in regard to land restitution ? Already the 
 Democratic House has begun the work. The following is a list of the 
 
 forfeiture bills passed in the House at the present session. This list 
 gives the names of the corporations and the acreage we are trying to 
 recover for the people : 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Gulf and Ship Island Railroad 612. soo 
 
 Tuscaloosa and Mobile Railroad 688, 000 
 
 Coosa and Tennessee Railroad 140,060 
 
 Savannah and Albany Railroad 900, OCX) 
 
 New Orleans and State lane Railroad 120,800 
 
 Little Bock and Fort Smith Railroad 1,057,024 
 
 Texas Pacific Railroad 14.309,700 
 
 Oregon Central Railroad 1,130,880 
 
 California and Oregon Railroad 2, 126, .126 
 
 Atlantieand Pacific Railroad 16,000,000 
 
 Sioux City and Saint Paul Railroad 85,654 
 
 Total 37,211,504 
 
 The following bills are on the House Calendar : 
 
 Acres. 
 
 New Orleans, Raton Rouge and Yicksburg Railroad 903,218 
 
 Oregon and California Railroad 8,701,760 
 
 Marquette, Houghton and Ontonagon Railroad 627,200 
 
 Ontonagon and Brule River Railroad 232,849 
 
 Marquetteand State Line Railroad 540, 
 
 Northern Pacific Railroad 20,000,000 
 
 Southern Pacific, of California 7,500,000 
 
22 
 
 How many of these bills will become law? I fear a satisfactory 
 answer will have to await the action of a Democratic Congress. 
 
 REPUBLICAN DUPES AND AUGURS. 
 
 Shall we, like the augurs of the Republican party, regard these prin- 
 ciples as mere generalizations for the delusion of honest voters on elec- 
 tion day. and wink at each other over the cheat ? Itisnotby the worship 
 of the golden calf into which the Republican Israel has strayed that 
 Democracy can restore the ancient faith. A compact organization of 
 prejudice, insatiate greed, and vast money power confronts us. If we 
 would emancipate and have labor for our allies, we must enter on re- 
 form in no hesitating fashion. Our standard-bearers must be good men, 
 tried and true. The demands for reform are not to be disregarded. The 
 party that disregards them will soon lack the votes to give it the pow r er 
 for reform. The party which disregards the industrial toilers, and levies 
 and continues to levy heavy tribute upon the people, and impose count- 
 less wrongs upon the millions, will not be the party of success, though 
 its.- platform be studded with all the political and social platitudes of 
 the times. The victory of the people is at hand. The party of the 
 people can not be led by doctrinaires nor controlled by mere money. 
 
 THE FLAME OF DISCONTENT. 
 
 The frequent election of millionaires to the Senate and the House of 
 Representatives only adds fresh fuel to the flame of discontent. The 
 monstrous accumulations of wealth in the hands of a few, through leg- 
 islative partiality, must soon receive a check at the hands of an indig- 
 nant people. Legal trickeries, the extortions of railroad pools and 
 tariffs, breaches of trust and of the Constitution, and other reckless dis- 
 regards of social and political order we must grapple with, but the main 
 contest will be with the giant of monopoly, whose pockets are lined 
 with money, whose agents and directors sit in our Legislatures, and whose 
 platitudes of hypocrisy and greed furnish planks for the fraudulent po- 
 litical platforms of the part}^ in power. History repeats itself. It 
 warns us of the fate of nations in which the privileges of the few are 
 allowed to override the liberties and interests of the many. 
 
 Are we to learn the lesson of the French Revolution by practical incul- 
 cation ? It is the old story of the downfall of nations — of royalty gam- 
 bling in the provinces of the people, of enormous fortunes squeezed out 
 of the industrial masses, of judgeships purchased, of juries suborned, of 
 granted monopolies, of crime punished only when the criminal is poor. 
 It is the old, old story of corruption sowing the seeds which yield the 
 harvest of chaos and destruction. 
 
 THE BASE FASCINATION. 
 
 One would think that in this age and country the preservation of law 
 and order would be the first object of those who have a desire for the 
 security of property and the maintenance of liberty. One would think 
 that the honest business interests of this country would look askance at 
 such nominations as have recently been made at Chicago, and aid in 
 administering the remedy. One would think that a people like our 
 own, with an inheritance so splendid, with an ancestry providentially 
 guided here, and with the example set them by generations of patriotic 
 men who have passed from us, would still retain the freshness and 
 purity of virtuous pow er. Our lands and mines and rivers and forests 
 and our very oil wells and fisheries — all the bounteous elements of sea 
 and earth and sky — would seem to beckon our legislators, our judges, 
 our executives, and our ministers of official grace and honor away from 
 
• 
 
 the base fascinations of hoarded pelf which dishonors to destroy our in- 
 stitutions. 
 
 ITASTK TO THE WOKK OK KKKOK ML 
 
 We must haste to the work of reform. America in its fresh hemis- 
 phere, in its first cycle of liberty, with the vote, with the numbers, 
 with the added wisdom and practical sagacity of her people, must clar- 
 ify the political and social atmosphere, and declare for a new order of 
 administration ere the light of our liberties be extinguished. Let not 
 progress and poverty march abreast in this as in the older hemisphere. 
 Let us make the American Republic an exemplar for all future repub- 
 lics which may be created by the achievements of free men. Now that 
 the world is adapting itself to new developments of physical forces and 
 moral resources, now that new boundaries are being made between the 
 nations, now that new elements are startling kings and kaisers, and 
 giving fleet coursers to civilization by the vapor of water and the spark 
 of lightning, let progress and prosperity march hand in hand on this 
 continent. Let us not prove recreant to the demands of this new order. 
 
 THE ONWARD MARCH. 
 
 National wealth is not alwaj^s national prosperity; nor does great 
 progress always imply corresponding happiness. The world is moving, 
 but is humanity benefited ? 
 
 Let our progress be in the paths of peace, of humanity, and justice, and 
 all our victories, in the interest of liberty and industr}'. Let the torch 
 of patriotism shine out upon the shoals and reefs where the wreckers 
 would despoil our ship of state, so that free, unbiased as the winds 
 and waves, she may sail on forever freighted with the hopes and the 
 happiness of our human kind. 
 
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