The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY. SEPTEMBER 30, 1908. THE AMERICAN SCANDALS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 234, 30 September 1908, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY. SEPTEMBER 30, 1908. THE AMERICAN SCANDALS.

— > For the cause that lochs assistance. For tht wrong that needs resistance. For the future in the distance. And the good t'r.et we can do.

! Whatever be the value of Mr. "W. RI Hearst's intentions, he has succeeded in j j creating a sensation of the first magni-. ' tude in American political circles. It is I 1 : not easy to understand why anybody! j should affect to be surprised at the I character of the Hearst revelations. For I .it has been for years past a matter of i i r . ■ common knowledge that the majority of I j members of the Senate, of either politi- • : cal party, were in league with the trusts, I and that they used their high office to j protect the interests of their patrons. ' Nor has there been any secret about the lavish donations and contributions' which financiers and millionaires have I been constantly pouring into the Demo- j cratic as well as the Republican cam- i paign chests. But Mr. Hearst, seems to : have secureu evidence of an unexpected- j ly incriminating character in support of. his charges, and for the moment he has j roused popular indignation to a very intense pitch. Senator Foraker. once a possible Republican candidate for the i Presidency, has been driven from public , life by the storm that Hearst has raised,! aDd Governor Haskell, a leading Democrat, i has been practically ruined by the coun- I ter-charges laid by President Roosevelt himself. The leaders of the two great; I political parties are represented as wa.itI ing in anxious suspense for Hearst's next move, and the publication of furi ther documentary evidence of corruption may exercise a serious influence i upon the course of the coming electoral campaign. So far as Hearst is concerned, it is | uot necessary to credit him with any j entirely disinterested motive. For he is the recognised leader of the so-called J Independence parly, a power which has only just begun to torce its wav into iht public arena: and his political success depends upon the amount of damage ht can do to the Republicans and Democrats in turn. He has begun by making o furious attack upon Mr. Bryan, the Democratic candidate: and he ha~ described the Democratic party as "a FalstafTs army whose banner "oears on ; one side a watchword for the people ! and on the other a password for the j trusts, whose only object is office at any I cost, whose motto is ' After us the ; Deluge.'" According to tha "New York Times." it is Hearst's intention to "bury ! Bryan beyond hope of resurrection," and it is held by competent judges of the | political situation that if Hearst perI scveres Bryan may be beaten more severely than in his two previous contests for the Presidential chair. As the : Independence party has already stolen "planks" from the Democratic

uatfonn," and has strengthened its se by including some of the Labour .rty's demands, Hearst's prospects of itrtrolling a large vote at some future ection are distinctly encouraging, and > doubt this is the end that this indetigable agitator is keeping steadily in ew. As to his attack upon the Relblicans, Hearst- has always posed as ie champion of the masses against the ealthy classes, and his personal antiithy to President Roosevelt would one be enough to explain his anxiety i discredit the political reputation of ie Republican party and its great ader. In a controversy in which argument ppears chiefly to consist in givyag "the c direct 1 * to one's opponents, it is not isy to reach any logical conclusion. ut. while we may accept Mr Bryan's ssertion that the Republican campaign md has constantly been replenished by ac trusts and by Wall-street financiers, c may equally accept President Rooseelt's declaration that, so far as he is oncenied, these donations have been iven freely and unconditionally, and ■ithont any suspicion of corruption. The ractice of raising campaign funds by "vying upon the wealthier members of political party, was first reduced to regular system by Mr W. C. Whitney 3 President Cleveland's third electoral axnpaign, and it was brought to the jvel of a fine art by Mr Mark Hanna, he friend and confidant of President ■fcßinley. Hanna arranged for a horongh-going assessment of the railoads. the insurance companies, the banks, he iron and steel companies, and all ther financial institutions that he could each, and levied upon them for subcriptions to his fund in proportion to heir "Sapital and revenue. Hanna. had

thus control of a campaign fund that was estimated at quite six million dollars. And it must not be imagined that the Democrats have been slow to follow the example set by their Republican rivals. As the total cost of a presidential campaign is reckoned at quite £5.----000.000 sterling, it is evident that the money has to be supplied somehow; and it is equally obvious that anybody contributing it must lay himself and his party open to the charge of bribery and corruption. But while the standard of political morality is admittedly lower in America than in England, it must not Ibe forgotten that neither Liberals nor Conservatives have thought it any degradation to accept lavish subscriptions to the party funds. The story of Mr Rhodes' famous cheque paid to the Liberal organisers should not yet be forgotten, and it is notorious that in many instances the offer of gifts of this kind, ii on a sufficiently generous scale, has been followed by the elevation of the donor to high titular rank. It is not generally held In England that these proceedings are discreditable, and this fact should make us hesitate to pronounce judgment rashly upon the evidence so far available as to the nature of the trusts' transactions with the Republican treasury or President Roosevelt's complicity in them. —