OCR Text |
Show HEART OF FUND I SCANDAL IS OUT G. 0. P. Freed of Everything Except Violation of Good Taste By MARK SULLIVAN iPelitical Correspondent for the New York Evening Poit) CHI AOO. Sept l.i The sfriii-orisi comujl.tee efl hold other hearings later on But everybody here believes that the heart of whatever is in this' Republican campaign fund scandal is1 now out. Your correspondent has been at the hearings every day this 1 week nnd has scanned or read closely all the testimony of proceeding days i Based on this together with knowledge knowl-edge of the feelings of the officials and 1 newspaper mn who have participated In the hearings, anyone who approaches ap-proaches it free of partisan Interest DUt conclude that the Republicans, are exculpated wholly from Cox's charged m the languace Lo which Cox rande them. And are practically exculpated ex-culpated from evcr thinq except what s hardlv more serious than a violation of taate. ACTS OF VIRTUE The truth Is. Will Hays, and whoever who-ever other Republican officials were responsible, are being penalized for what (s essentially on their part an art of virtue, or at the least an act of prudence The system of both parties in every' presidential campaign up to 'be present has been for the national chairman, or some other party loader! to go to rich men. with his hat in his hand, and ak these men to contribute large suma fifty thousand dollars, or a hundred thousand dollars or evfn more. That system was bad. that old system was subject to charge? such as 'ox made of letting rich men buy an underhold on the government That relation was tainted with the i atmosphere of obligation on the part of the chairman and expectation of re-1 ward on the part of the contributor. That relation was close to fitting tho word "sinister." Both parties have always al-ways recognized these obligations to I blR contributors Wilson himself rec I opnlzed them and paid them off with I ambassadorships Thai. I say. was the old system. This year Will Hays either rirtttOUftly came to the conclusions that i the system was bad. or prudently do I elded that public opinion had become critical of this method of finani ini; campaigns Everybody knows perfectly perfect-ly well that the Republican campaign this year could have been financed "nil an lunui ,ip i im- by this system Everybody knows that Will Hays could hae gone along the business streets of New Yorlt and I'reil I'pham along the business streets of ( hiciigo. and In those two cities alone could hove raised enough money to run the campaign EASY TO GET COIN They could have raised it from fifty or a hundred men. and the very small-ness small-ness of th BTOUP coupled with the bip ness of the individual contribui ion, wouid have constituted Just such a sinister situation as Cox alleged about this wholly different situation to get av.ay from this old system Will Hays planned an orpainzot Ion for raising his campaign fund through lens of ihou sands of small contributions. wlthOUl allowing any one man to contribute more than a thousand dollars. There can be no doubt whatever that this ? stem is vastly more desirable gnd la deglfned to prevent exactly what Cog charged. The getting of an underhold on the covernmeni b. any small roup of men In a mere detail of pnitinc the system into effect Will Hays did the only thing that has Justified all th" commotion that Cox staried He pu. In charge of it one of these profession 1 si "drive' managers a man who had rvperienre in raising monev this way' foj- the Y M C. A . for ihe communitv camp, for the Roosevelt memoripl snd other causes It was in the methods of this that the only things were (tone that are questionable and it rir.ubtful whether even thev are questionable in anv respee' except taste COLLECTING JARGON In writing ihe literature for the drive and in letters to his assistants throughout through-out the country, he Introduced a pro-reeclongl pro-reeclongl money collecting Jargon that included those phases which ar- now , practically the only things the Perao crats have to fall back on to Justify their Jibes at the Republicans. It was he who kept boosting 'he figures fur QtlOtas ne Knew mere van nu -j-n-tlon of getting, ano h-d to be over ruled. It was he who said Boys, get the money." and told the local collec tors to have "an insp. rational address" delivered at ihe luncheons tendered to the prorpertlve victims There wa-a wa-a faked uplift turn to It which was very offensive to persons of any U--N But It was exactly the same son of thing which these collectors had learned and practiced In other drives The ribald politician" spoke of thc. collectors as "Fred I'pham's Pfalm singers" The only risk the Repub hcans run. and it Is some risk. Is that the public will now visit upon the Kr publican party the accumulated resent-Iment resent-Iment against alx or seven year. of har 'rassraent from "drives" and profcloD al " drive" managers The public has become tired of this mixture o' niel mony and salesmanship It Injured ir reparably the Interchurch world move ment. a movement which. If it anlma tion had been more exclusively spirit ual. might have had results beneficial almost beyond the Imagination, but it fell too much Into the hands of th ?e drive managers who measured reault.t fej the same standard as a traveling salesman Of course. In a way tho Republicans are saved by this same familiarity fa-miliarity of the public with drives It enables the public to understand pretty clearly Just hat has happened in this case, snd to distinguish between be-tween whet has happened and what Cox charged had happened MANY COUNTERATTACKS I can't see that the Democrats have got an'hlng out of this ep.sode ba tree. There was constant whlpsawlng 'beck and forth between the Republican members of he inveetigatine commit tee and the Iemocratlc members and t whenever the Democrats seemed to bSVe. unearthed something that looked bad tor the Republicans the Repub :ran senators mere sble to counter with something ths' looked juat as bad for the Iemoerata. In fact, the Demo-j crane national committee had devised' land installed a scheme much like this and designed to raise just as much j money. But after spending a lot of money on It thev abandoned it. They didn't seem to have gotten a j manager as good as the Republican got I or as bad The truth Is. I think that Jin their hearts the Democratic leaders ! suspect there isn't much in the scan dal. but are anxious to go on for the Mke of such material as they may get for local use In cities and communities. Whenever they can show that an unpopular un-popular man In any city is a contributor contrib-utor or collector of money for the ki publicans they like to bring it out for, local effect In fact, for all of thlH' week the Investigation has been I mere battle for headlines; scmetlmes, J I am sorry 'o say. a fight to bring! about t ppearances likely to mislead the public. The committee ir going to ad Journ for some time. My guess Is they' would like to adjourn for good. But that ihe Democratic minority want tho Republicans to mak the move o quit 1 While- the Republic." r.s fet r to mak ' thet move lest the Democrats claim : there was more they could haV 8 bronchi out if the Repub I.e.. nr. had HO topped 'he whole thing had bCCOmf full of the pettiest kind of polities I doubt very much If this campaign fund hcandal can be kept r.llve by Cox to the end of 'he campaign in the role of n major issue which for some time it haa hid (Copyright, 1920. by the New York Evening Post.) m |