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Show All Within Firteen Years IF Senator Lorimer bribed members of the Illinois legislature to vote for him for senator, sena-tor, or if knowingly he permitted any one else to bribe members to vote for him, we hope he will lose that seat; but we do not want him disgraced dis-graced on a hue and cry. The cry of: "Give us Barabbas!" and 'Crucify him! Crucify him!" has not been held in esteem for some nineteen hun-drod hun-drod years. We believe the present persecution of him is because he had the temerity to be a candidate against ex-Senator Hopkins. That gentleman cast one very important vote in the Senate in a way to please the then President of tho United States. So great was that President's gratitude that he wanted him rewarded and continues con-tinues his hostility toward the man who stood in the way of that reward. But it was for another reason that we refer to this matter now. It is to point out how things can change in a brief time. It is not yet fifteen years since there was a most Important presidential presiden-tial election in this country. The real issue, no matter what eisguises were then or may be still thrown around it, was whether half the money in tho world should remain primary money or be converted into merchandise. The object behind this desire was to double the money of the creditor cred-itor class, and to double the burden already upon the backs of the debtor class, which included nineteen-twentieths of the people. Well, to com-pas com-pas this desire a great and powerful press was enlisted to deceive tho common people. Learned writers were subsidized for tho same purpose. Such men as the late Edward Atkenson; the late Professor Sumner of Yale and Professor J. Lawrence Law-rence Laughlin of the Chicago University. Theso gentlemen conjured up a new political economy, t Q H whicli 0" lom of the world had never before H evolvfc . hich it is safo to say never will H again. . -uition the creditor class in the east, H especially in Now York, Boston, Philadelphia and H Chicago raised an unparalleled corruption fund H and placed it in the hands of the man who that H year had in hand the management of the political H party that espoused the cause of the creditor H class. He employed a great bureau of writers to 'H edit and publish and circulate the specious lit- ;H erature which was intended to deceive the peo- H pie; to engage special trains and bands of music H to take the people on free excursions where they H might hear more of the same stuff; to hire local H advocates to preach the same heresy; to bulldoze H the people into voting a certain ticket on pain H of losing the situations in which they were earn- H ing bread for their babies. H In those ways and by special counting in va- H rious places, the will of the majority of tho peo- H pie of this Republic was defeated, and these H great newspapers, writers and the great sinister H creditor class in those eastern cities in chorus fl chanted a Te Deum over the result; though in H truth that result has cost this country in money H and property since that election day more than did the great war between 1861 and 18G5, and H continues to inflict inestimable damage upon the H republic's trade and prosperity. H But now a most singular thing is seen. Those H great newspapers that backed that gigantic con- H spiracy against the welfare of this country and KrT quite nineteen-twentieths of its people, are verv IM many of them, with a touching show of integrity M insisting that the Lorimer case must be probed to tho bottom; that the elections of this countiy must be delivered from all symptoms of taint or j' coruption. It is most amazing to note how the ; consciences of these teachers of the people have M been quickened in the brief space of fifteen years. 'H As to the case of Lorimer, in one respect ho j has our sympathy. When a man, or three men, ! are willing to make an affidavit that he or they as members of a legislature, under oath, sold his M or their votes for a United States senator, instead M of believing, our idea would be that a brand on M each check and fifteen years in a penetentiary M would be the proper treatment. H |
