Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1889 — THE PRICE OF VICTORY. [ARTICLE]

THE PRICE OF VICTORY.

SECRETS OF THk INDIANA CAMPAIGN COMING TO EIGHT. A Letter from a Hoosier Politician Showing that the State Was Bought for Harrison, Who Lives in Terror Lest Details Should Reach the Public. [Washington special to Chicago Herald.] An interesting letter was received today by an Indiana man temporarily sojourning in Washington from one of his friends at Indianapolis. It is a letter which throws some light on the methods of the Republicans in the last campaign and on the anxiety of President Harrison to suppress all statements tending to rouse curiosity concerning the use of money in carrying Indiana. The statements made in the letter given herewith may be relied upon as absolutely correct: Indianapolis, July 23. —Some of the granger members of our Republican State Committee were greatly surprised at the proceedings had in the secret meeting of the committee last * week. Chairman Huston made a little speech ■on resigning the chairmanship, and for a peroration declared he was ready to account to the committee for all the funds in his possession • and turn the same over to the Treasurer. He then reached down and picked up a small handbag which he had brought into the room with him, and from this he began taking big stacks of currency. A friend of mine, who is a member of the committee, says the eyes of. the country members bulged out as they saw the large sum of ready cash which Mr. Huston drew from his bag—more money than some of them had ever seen in their lives. The amount was 910,900, and the new Treasurer of the committee was so much surprised by the sight of such a big pile of stuff that he receipted for it without a count. Huston was warmly praised for his honesty and fidelity in handling the committee funds, and is said to have left the room because the members were so enthusiastic in their compliments. I am informed by a member of the committee that this sum of 810,000 was left over out of a total amount of 8425,900 handled by Huston in Indiana last year. All but thirty or forty thousand of this came from the East, as Indiana contributions were small and scarce. This sum of $425,000 was handled by Huston personally, and every dollar put where it would do the most good. Remittances were made him from the East in his own name, and not a dollar of the money that was used for the “blocks of five” passed through the hands of the committee in the regular way. Hu st on carried the money .on his person all through the campaign, as the funds were such that he did not dare put them in bank. That was a responsibility which I Should not have cared to take. Would you ? This method of Huston’s in handling the money explains why ho was not called before the Grand Jury that was investigating the election. Scores of prominent Republicans', members of the State Committee, county committeemen, and others were summoned before the Democratic jury, but Huston was not called. The Prosecuting’ Attorney had received a tip that such a call would do him no good, for Huston was ready and even anxious to go into court with the books of the State Committee under his arm. By these books he would have shown where every dollar used by the committee had come from and where and for what purpose expended. All this represented the ordinary expenses of the committee for speakers,printing, etc. If the jury had asked Huston for. a statement concerning his personal finances or other moneys that passed through his hands, he would have' declined to answer, standing on his right to keep silent where testimony was likely to incriminate himself. Another phase of the story which may interest you is told by some of the Michen'er and Ransdell fellows, who are the personal representatives of the President, and inclined to throw stones at Huston. They say Huston, proud of the success he had won in the campaign, aud of the fact that he had a large enough balance left to set the committee up in business for another year, was determined to go before the committee and make a full statement of the financial operations during his chairmanship, and give this statement to the press. Of course this statement would have covered only the ordinary expenditures, and had nothing to say about what was done with the hundreos of thousands of dollars handled by Huston personally, and of which no record was ever made. But' Harrison wouldn’t listen even to that much. He would have no public report made at all, and his representatives here say it took him two hours to talk Huston over to his vay of thinking. Said one of them to me: “But f. r the President Huston might have been just fool enough to have blurted right out in meeting the fact that ne bought Indiana and that it cost us pretty nearly a half million of dollars to do it.” Hanison knows Indiana was bought just as well as we do, and he is Jiving in mortal terror lest the facts should come out. He wants the country to believe it was his popularity that carried the • State, while we all know it was ths skill with which the large sum of money sent here from the East was handled that saved him from an inglorious defeat at home. Some of the President’s friends here are talking too much about the manner in which Harrison sat down on Huston’s plan to make a public report, and it is stirring up some hard feelings. If the boys get to quarreling, the public may yet get all the facts, even though Harrison pleads to have them suppressed. Personally I don’t believe Huston would have said an indiscreet word in making his public report, but Harrison is so timid and so awfully afraid that the facts about Indiana will get out, that he wouldn’t let Huston say a word about finances. Another bit of gossip which you may be glad to hear is that among the Republicans who gathered here during the meeting of the State Committee Harrison is looked upon as a single termer. The talk here is that the President does not want to run again, and in good time will make an announcement of his intention to retire. He is not as popular here as he was before he became President, and that isn’t saying much.

When asked to-night about the statements made in the foregoing letter, ex-Chairman Huston said it was a matter which he could not talk about. The managing members of the National Republican Committee are preparing for another campaign of boodle. This time they expect to drive voters to the polls in blocks of fity instead of five. In a little more than a month a special election for Congressman is to be held in the Third Louisiana District, and the Republicans want that member. It has been decided to send •down a number of speakers of national reputation, and Senator Allison and Congressman McKinley are named as among those who have consented to go. This campaign of speakers and brass bands is to be used as a cover for the operations of the Executive Committee, probably under the direct management of Colonel Dudley. The district has a negro majority of 4,000, and ordinarily the Republicans should have no difficulty in carrying it, but the colored brother is now in a state of discontent, and vows his intent to have revenge upon the administration that has denied him a crust of patronage when he is hungry. Chairman Herwig, of the Louisiana Republican Committee; who has grown rich out of the Louisiana lottery, says he is willing to put up $25,000 to elect the Republican candidate, who will probably be exCongressmen Darrall. To this sum the National Committee is expected to add a liberal donation, and with $40,000 or $50,000 the Republicans are expecting io capture all the negro preachers and

plantation politicians in the district. In the rotten-borough politics of the Southern States the colored preachers carry the votes of the blacks in their pockets, and the efforts of the Republican National Committee to carry Northern boodle methods into the parishes of Louisiana will make a spectacle worth going miles to see.