THE SALE OF THE PRESIDENCY.
No better illustration of the power wielded by the press has been given, since the London Times took up the Crimean War and remodelled the allied armies, than that of the New York World in its assault on the corruptions of the ballot that robbed the people of the United States of their voted will at the late presidential election.
This monstrous crime against self-government would have faded from public memory, and lost its place in the annals of iniquity, but for the energy and enterprise of this journal, that sent an army of correspondents over the country and gathered the proofs of the open market in which was sold and bought the Presidency.
This fearful exposé of a burning shame was followed by messages from governors, and bills by legislatures, looking, not to the punishment of the wrong-doers, but to the enactment of preventive laws tending to the protection of the people in the future.
It is to be observed, however, that this potent power failed to bring on any investigations, any indictments, or a single effort to punish the guilty. This the World demanded, but this the World failed to obtain.
The reason for the impotent result in this one direction is easy to comprehend when we get at the facts underlying the corruption. Neither party was, or is, in a condition to demand an investigation, for the leaders of each are alike guilty. It is generally believed that money was corruptly used by both organizations, and that the Republicans, having the larger sum, won in the end. This is true, but it is only true in part. Honest investigation would bring out the startling fact, that the vast sums collected from millionaires, and the very significant amount assessed on office-holders, were for the one purpose of returning Benjamin Harrison to the Presidency and again putting the moneyed power of the country in the keeping of the Republican party.
This manner of operating by corrupt means has long been well known to the more observant. Corruption has no conscience, no patriotism, and no politics. All rascality rests on a purely business basis. When a merchant seeks a partner, he does not bother himself about that partner's religious belief or party predilections. When rogues wish to form a trust or ring, they in like manner consider only the capacity of their brother-rogues, and when politics is at all considered, it is because of the safety from investigation found in having all sides implicated. Thus, when the great Aqueduct steal of New York was organized, the managers were made up of both Democrats and Republicans. When, therefore, an investigation went far enough to develop two prominent Republicans added to the responsible commission, and one of those Republicans was called to the stand and asked how he came to accept such a position, he responded naïvely that he sought to secure some of the patronage of the public work for his own party.
Now, when we remember that President Cleveland, in the last hours of his illustrious administration, made a deadly assault on a system that oppressed the many for the benefit of a few, we get a clue to a mystery that has puzzled the masses. Vast sums were openly subscribed, and almost as openly used, in the purchase of votes to perpetuate the corruption. And we had developed two startling facts that go to show that our experiment of self-government is well-nigh a failure.
The first of these is that we have so cheapened the suffrage that we have an element in between the two parties large enough to decide a presidential election of what we call "floaters"—that is, men who stand upon the street-corners, and crop out in the rural regions, with their votes in hand, for sale to the highest bidders. The market price varies from five dollars to a hundred, as the demand may rule.
The second fact teaches that the election through States facilitates this infamous abuse. We find that while President Cleveland won in the popular vote by nearly a hundred thousand majority, he lost the presidency. Through the electoral system we have developed two pivotal States, and the market thus narrowed makes the corruption possible.