Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1882 — LEVYING BLACKMAIL. [ARTICLE]

LEVYING BLACKMAIL.

Hore About “Ms Dear” Hubbell’* Recent Circular—The Infamous Procramue of the Republican* Brought to the Attention of Congrwu. [From the Jackson (Mich.) Patriot) The Republican National Committee is making it lively about these dayß with officeholders and Government employes throughout the country, the work of assessing their salaries for the purpose of obtaining money to use in Congressional elections being prosecuted with great vigor. Says the New York Herald, of operations at Washington: “ The Republicans are making a general levy, and the mechanics and laborers here, even down to the men and boys, have received their summons, with the amount required of each neatly written into the oircular. Boys are called on for $6, laborers are required to pay from $9 upward. Mechanics still more. The oircular of which a copy is sent you called for sl4 from a servant of the House of Representatives. They all get receipts when they pay up, and when one of them is threatened with a loss of his place nowadays he brings this receipt to headquarters as a proof that he is “a good Republican” and entitled to Government employment.” And yet there is a law on the statute book which reads as follows: “That all executive officers or omEloyes of the United States not appointed y the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, are prohibited from requesting, giving to, or receiving from, any other officer or employe of the Government any money or property, or other thing of value, for political purposes; and any such officer or employe who shall offend against the provisions of this section shall l>e at once discharged from the service of the United States; and he shall also be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof shall be fined in a sum not exceeding $500.” Yet a committee of fifteen Republican Senators and Representatives, including Hubbell, Robeson, Hale, McKinley and Allison, flood the country with circulars demanding assessments from all Federal employes under the well-understood threats of dismissal. The law-makers set an example of overthrowing the law and blackmailing money to promote their own election. This is about up to the level of Republican morality, and they have Arthur to carry out their threats of dismissal. The Democrats in the House, pending the consideration of the General Legislative and Executive Appropriation bill, made several attempts to add amendments prohibiting under heavy penalties those blackmailing levies, but the Speaker strained a point and uniformly ruled them out of order, and this was sustained by the Republican majority. Strong speeches were made by Gox, of New York, and Townshend, of Illinois, but the Republicans sat dumb as driven cattle and would make no replies, contenting themselves with summarily votring down the reform propositions. Mr. Cox said that while he was in New York recently a calker in the Brooklyn navyyard showed him one of the Republican circulars, signed by Jay A. Hubbell, calling upon him to pay s2l toward the Republican campaign fund. The poor calker asked his advice about paying the ' assessment or declining to pay, and running the risk of losing his situation. Mr. Cox could not advise him to run the risk of seeing his family suffer by refusing to pay. He then read to the House one of the Hubbell assessment circulars, and declared : “It is meaner than blackmailism, this taking advantage of men who are practicing their-trade, and who have l>een properly chosen as skilled laborers and artisans. Under this law it is worse than blood money; it is trying to take the very bread from the mouths of the families of those who earn this money.” Then Mr. Cox read from the laws a section positively forbidding assessments for political purposes on the employes in navy yards, and declaring no workman should be discharged for political opinion, etc., and following it up with this statement: “ The idea of the law was, if possible, to give the skilled laborer, irrespective of his political affiliations, a fair chance in our navy yards. You cannot turn your navy yards into a mere political machine. Your navy yard is kept up for the purpose of building ships for the Government, and not to run any particular party into power. “Why, sir, in Boston, judging by what I read in the Boston Herald , an Independent Republican paper,or quasiindependent paper, it appears that 700 of these missives from the Chairman of the Republican Committee, Mr. Hubbell, have been sent to the employes of the Charlestown navy-yard—7oo of them, intended to raise $15,000. What for ? As the circular states, to elect you men to Congress. I will not speak here about levying this assessment on the little pages in the House. I should be ashamed to come to Congress in ‘virtue ol a subsidy made up by little euvuP of • money exacted from the pages. We pay our assessments that aro levied by our party. It is proper we should pay our assessments in coming to Congress. But the difference between paying assessments in that way and this insidious business is the difference between a perfume and a smell. Why seek to take this money from the very mouths of the poor people who are earning but $2 and $3 a day, in order to help you to your places here to pass statutes which you defy and violate ?” Mr. Townsend, of Illinois, followed - Mr. Cox and said: “It should bring the blush of shame and‘remorse to the face of any honest man to accept a sear in Congress bought with the bread money of the families of half-starved clerks and laborers. Sir, it was only last night that a negro man made a complaint that he had heen assessed $6 for campaign purposes by the Republican Campaign Committee ; and he is drawing a salary of only ssff por month. The ‘ spoils ’ system is the foulest blot upon our boasted free institutions. “It is a festering sore, which, if not arrested, will taint the whole body politic and eventually destroy the republic and render the freedom of elections a farce. I believe it essential to the perpetuity of free institutions in this country that we should strike down the dangerous corrupting influence of Fodoral patronage and political assessments which was used so extensively in the last Presidential campaign, 19 it hot well known, sir, that if it had pot been for the bread money extorted from the clerks, laborers and other, employes * of the Government, and the m<>n^y-fur-nished on the begging Appeals of Republican candidates by the stawoutu men

who are now on trail for stealing that and other funds from the national treasury, Indiana would’have i gone Democratic in 1880; and the oountry would not be disgraced on the 30th of this month by tho horrible spectaole of hanging a detestable wretch (a maniac, perhaps) for making a stalwart President of the United States? I say again, that if the last election had been free, had been unbought by this bread orblood-money, if there had been no " spraft ’ system in this country, there would have been a different political party in control of the Government to-day.' * * * “It is tyrannioal to demand the assessment' and slavish kroomply if against the will. Is it more honorable than bulldozing ? “Ib there h member on the floorwho,is not Aware qf families pinched for the neoessaries of life by these poEtioaf . assessments, hnd who would spurn l 'the demand upon Their savings with indignant refusal if they dared to defy the power pf this political machine ? It destroys the freedom, the independence, the manhood of the citizen.” , The Republican leaders looked very uncomfortable as these revolting facts and vigorous arguments were hurled at them, but not even Beoor -Robeson hod the cheek - to- make response. They were dumb; but aided by tpe Speaker’s ruling and their own votes they summarily rejected the' DemoWatic propositions prohibiting the bl&ckmailing under severe' penalties. -.' The Question JUctore the Sennle-Itlr. Pendleton’* ReuiafK*. ~ ‘ [ A.b»ocU te<V Preasfttpor t. ] On the resolution instructing the Committee on Civil Service and'Retrenchment to inquire‘whether any attempt is being made to lekytflr collect an assessment for political {hi imposes by parties from Government employes m Washington, whether the same bo Under tho guise of ask hi g contributions or otherwise, etc., Mr. Pendleton addressed the Senate. He called attention to the Republican Congressional Committee’s ciroular, signed “Jay A. Hubbell, Acting Treasurer,” a copy of which he exhibited. He then read and commented in detail upon each of its statements, to show that its undeniable purpose was to .levy contributions upon Government employes under t)m guise of a demand for voluntary , contributions. This circular had been sent to Government employes all over the country. Seven hundred had gone tq the Bostop Custom House, and the demand had, been made there for the aggregate pf $15,000. It had been to the armory at Springfield, aud an assessment of $lB bad been made up'on'each armorer in that institution. It had been Sent to the postotfloo, Custom House, 'Collector’s office and other Government institutions at New .York, and the branch of the public service there located, which had earned exceptional oredit by reason of its freedom from the debasing arts of political assessors, was again; to be plunged into the mire from which it had so laboriouslyemerged. It had been sent to the employes at Chicago, to every postoffioe in the country {at least he had returns from almost every State east of Nevada), and to men engaged on tho Government works on tbe Ohio rivet at Marietta. Tho demand had been made for part of the daily wages of the men there in outting atone for the dam. Deputy clerks had been assessed in various Amounts of Jtom $lB to S3O. The circular had been sent tb men'engaged in day labor on The Capitol and through thp Capitol grounds, mid $5 aud $6 had been assessed updn them. The Government Printing Offioe had noF escaped! The circular had been sent to every name upon • every Government pay-roll, whether tho amount paid was great or small. Ladies in the department earning mere pittances, and little pages of the House, and perhaps those of the Senate, had been directed to stand and deliver the amounts dopaanded of them. He could imagine he saw this brave committee going to ouo of the little pages and oonjuring him by his appreciation of the agencies of the oountry and the excellence of the Republican principles, and by his dread of the restoration of the Democratic party to power, to make a contribution of $9 in order to avert such terrible calamity. If this was not a sad pidture of partisan tyranny and degeneracy, it would be in many of its aspects a broad faroe. Jt would even t>e better for the oountry if the Republican party would thrust its hands into the treasury, boldly abstract public money, and charge it up to “soap.” The Assistant Attorney General, with a great deal of gasconade, had said he defied and’ spat on the existing law because it was Ho laV, as he could find no authority for prohibiting voluntary contributions for lawful objects. The men in the face of the Republican Committee’s* circular, could talk about voluntary- contributions were either entirely ignorant of the force, of language, or of the substanco of things, and in either case discussion with him would be useless. The treasurer of 'the committee, Representative, Hubbell, whose natqc was appended to the circular, had denied having violated the law prohibiting assessments, because he was not an executive officer or employe of the Government, but a member of Congress. In tliip position he was relying upon a decision made in the last century, that a Senator is not liable to impeachment. If the case was taken into court, that gentleman would probably And if . he had not lapde3 somebody in the penitentiary he had at least brought them perilously near the Verge of conviction. Possibly he may escape upon a technicality, but his culpability in inviting and inducing violations of law by others will remain. Mr. Conger, replying to an allusion to himself by My. Pendleton, denied that his objection to -the resolution t when it was originally infjjpduced, was that Republican political assessments were justified by Elje practices heretofore on the part of the Democrats. He explained that wliat ho. had said was that he hod documents before him to show that the practice luwl been in existence when the Senator was iii, Congress, and the Democratic party had power to make assessments. He* added* that in . the period here ’referred tp. « number of leadiug Democrats met on the Sabbath day to declare who should be turned out of office for not'paying* assessments. Mr. Pendleton replied that Mr. Conger could not find in all past Democratio history anything so small and petty, and so widespread in all its ramifications, as the present oonsfArifcy agfciiwt the purity of the ballot-box sad the freedom of elections, f r. / I A jpjsop/UAB apparatpfi cSfled a “chemical lung.” has-been* and successfully tested for the purification of air. Tt is designed cbieflyfor use ill the boring of tunnels, f.