“Behold! See that money!”
“Behold! See that money! There sit in this house fifty-three men who know where that money came from, and what it was given for. They know it because they each have received from the same hand like sums. They came here sworn to represent the people who elected them; they would sell them into slavery instead. They are bribe-takers, and have sold their votes and influence against the bill that comes up to-day. This hall for the last week has been surrounded by a horde of lobbying bankers and bankers’ lawyers, buying the manhood of men that the poor may continue to be oppressed.”
Then, turning and pointing toward a banker from Cincinnati who sat in the south gallery, he said:
“There is the man! I defy him to deny that he paid me the five hundred dollars I hold in my hand to vote and work against this bill!”
The banker was livid. All eyes were turned toward him. He sat looking straight at the legislator, who pictured the banker as a “thief,” a “murderer,” a “corrupter of justice,” a “despoiler of government,” and closed by waving his hand over the hall and exclaiming that such criminals had by their own acts put themselves beyond the pale of the law.
By this time the crowd had become furious. The Assembly arose as one man, many with rolls of money in their hands, and a cry went up that was awful to hear—a cry of lost manhood found.
There were repeated calls for order, but there was no order to be had. Well-dressed, sleek men could be seen hurriedly making their exit from all the doors of the State-house, and hastening at full speed in all directions. For more than an hour the tumult continued.
In the meantime some of the spectators had caught the Cincinnati briber and a lobbying lawyer from Findlay, and, securing a rope, tied them together, took them out on High Street, and made them run a gauntlet of some three hundred yards’ length through a maddened concourse of American citizens. Some had staves, straps, switches; others, lamp-black, flour, Venetian red, and whatever they could get to deface and besmirch the fine clothes, fair faces and dignified appearance of the two corrupters of the law. The pair trotted up and down that space until they became so fatigued and crestfallen that they fell prostrate and begged for mercy. They were permitted to go on sworn promises never again to come to Columbus to bribe or influence the people’s legislators.
After the tumult had subsided and when quiet had been restored at the State-house, some forty-eight members, seemingly under the influence of a stricken conscience, took from their pockets various sums of money and sent them up to the clerk as a contribution to the fund for the needy. In all there was $21,468. Many admitted that it was bribe money, and many others, while not openly admitting it, said so by their convicted looks. It was a solemn occasion. It seemed as though money and dishonor had been routed and the spirit of human justice reigned in that hall, touching each heart with unseen hand.