But I hear some people answer: “Why, is it not perfectly natural that those who are profited by the tariff should contribute money for the success of the high-tariff party, and that this party should then do the best it can for the benefit of its supporters?” Quite natural? Yes! But just there is the rub! That there should be an economic policy followed by the Government which makes relations between a moneyed interest and a political party, involving the substantial purchase of legislation, appear entirely natural, in fact almost inevitable. Just that is the significant, the awful fact! That there are so many people finding such a bargain perfectly natural and talking about it with the utmost coolness as an ordinary business transaction—just that proves how far the dreadfully demoralizing influence of such a practice of corrupt bargaining has already done its work. Who was there in 1888 that dared to defend Colonel Dudley's famous circular about the buying up of purchasable voters in “blocks of five”? The Democrats indignantly denounced it, the Republicans blushingly quibbled about its genuineness or its meaning. Even Mr. Harrison, the beneficiary of the work done with the “fat fried out of the manufacturers,” found it proper to banish Colonel Dudley from the grace of his countenance. And yet, would not the buying of the “blocks of five,” and all that Colonel Dudley was charged with, if standing alone, unconnected with a far-reaching system, have been a very trifling incident compared with the grand bargaining of legislation for material support between the Republican Party and the moneyed power profiting by the tariff—a bargain of the execution of which Colonel Dudley's scheme was only a modest, although significant detail?
We are all agreed as to the enormous dangers to the vitality of free institutions flowing from the illegitimate use of money in elections. But can you find among all
