Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 67, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1911 — MUST PAY THE PRICE [ARTICLE]

MUST PAY THE PRICE

COUNTRY’S RESPONSIBILITY FOR REPUBLICAN RULE. "Big Interests” Are Now Demanding Their Pound .of Flesh as Arranged for In Presidential Election of 1896. There are those who think that the substantial business structure of the country, is breaking down under the trust assaults of the federal department of justice. That is wrong. What is giving way is a false superstructure built up in years of political iniquity which sought to roof in the whole power of government for selfish individual use. The main structure trembles under the shock, but no more. The financial debauch which beset this country from the : election of 1896 has had no parallel in modern times. That election was a victory for sound money, as the people understood It. It was the execution of a bill of the country’s sale to high finance, as Mr. Hanna and his followers understood and gave notice. What price was paid will never be known, but the enormity of the cash sum has never been questioned. The continuing payments to secure the bargain are better known —the $150,000 of life-insurance money to the Republican exchequer in 1904, the $260,000 raised by Harriman, the SIOO,OOO of the Standard Oil company, the Frick-Twomblv SIOO,OOO, the Beer trust. Sugar trust, Coal trust, Steel trust and other Contributions.

Bought and paid so was the accepted position of the nation’s government to the special interests, and with no power left save the courts to question the validity of the title. How this private property in government was capitalized into Individual pockets is written large ip late history. The tariff was first given another unllft, and then, with the Spanish war out of the way, the suppression of competition to get the full private benefit of tariff swept through the country like a whirlwind. Trusts and trusts of trusts rose In scores; the millionaires were made In a day; the shadow of the billionaire appeared; and captains of high finance sought a ratification of special bargrains in the White House itself. "They built up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.” They sowed the wind. Has anybody supposed the whirlwind was to be avoided? It had to come; it Is here; and the sooner the Inevitable reaping Is over the better. —-St. Louis Republic.