The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10

by William Cowper Brann

The result was that the nominations for State offices went to the same old crowd. Mr. Sesueur was nominated for Secretary of State. Mr. Siebert, who had been auditor, was nominated again. Frank Pitts, an ex-Confederate, who had been a candidate for a dozen things, but who, when defeated, never had done aught but "take his medicine," was nominated for Treasurer. Mr. Lon V. Stephens, who had been Treasurer was nominated for Governor and elected. He had been appointed Treasurer by Francis after the Noland defalcation, had been elected and had changed his allegiance from Francis to Stone. Mr. Stone, a man with somewhat of the scholarly taint to him, inclined to think, but prone to machination, ambitious, vindictive, able, elusive, made Stephens the nominee, and has been "sore at himself" ever since.

Stephens is a National banker. His family is wealthy and his wife's family is said to be the wealthiest in the State. It was the belief that when he was nominated he would "cough up" large "chunks of dough." But he didn't. The necessity for "dough" was evident to the managers of the party. There was no hope for funds from the interests that feared free silver. They wanted an "angel" candidate. Stephens failed to contribute. As an "angel" he was a "frost."

This National banker made a campaign of extreme rabidity. When Debs was managing the big Chicago strike this man wrote a letter to the Mirror in which he advocated Gatling guns for the suppression of Debs and his like. When he wanted to be Comptroller of the Currency under Cleveland he declared in an interview that Cleveland was "the greatest man since Jesus Christ." He denied that he was a National banker with his name on the bank's stationery. He denounced Cleveland for calling out the troops to suppress Debs. And while in the country he was posing as the enemy of the plutocrats, he was "tipping" them the wink in the cities, that they needn't be afraid he would hurt their interests. This candidate, who was proclaiming honesty had to suppress in Col. Jones' paper, a sensation dealing with his own alleged irregularities in the settlement of his father's estate. This personal-liberty Democrat had written a letter in favor of Prohibition. Mr. Stephens proclaimed that he was going to purify politics. When elected he appointed as Election Commissioner a man against whom there was a tremendous protest upon the part of the best element of the party. This man was accused of taking $1,200 from Ed Butler, the St. Louis "boss," to give to the members of the St. Louis city committee to boom the charter amendment providing for capital removal, and of putting the money in his own pocket. Ed. Butler entered suit for the money against this man Brady and his friend Higgins, appointed Excise Commissioner by Stephens. The suit was dismissed at Brady's expense. Then the capital movers at Sedalia sued for the money on the ground that the contract was against public polity. In other words he took the money to do something illegal, and, therefore, was entitled to keep it after failing to do the wrong. As a result of my comment upon this, Mr. Brady and I had a passage at fisticuffs on the street the other day, and the day following the Circuit Court here decided that the contract was valid and the suit for $1,200 would have to be tried on the issue of fact.

Mr. Brady was appointed Election Commissioner at the instigation of Mr. Louis C. Nelson, a St. Louis banker, brother-in-law of Governor Stephens. Mr. Brady is interested in a wholesale liquor store. His company rents a building from Mr. Nelson. Mr. Nelson is said to be interested in the company.

Mr. Higgins, the Excise Commissioner, was appointed at Mr. Nelson's instigation. The Excise Commissioner has charge of the issuance of all saloon licenses in St. Louis, Mr. Higgins is a good friend of Brady's and a protege of Nelson. A whisky drummer told me, and it is a common report around St. Louis, that the relationship of the man controlling the saloon licenses to Brady and Nelson is taken advantage of by the saloon men to ingratiate themselves by buying supplies at Brady's liquor store. I am not adding a word of color to the aspect of the case. The saloons are under tribute to Stephens' brother-in-law and his appointees. These people may not hold up the saloons, but the saloonists know that it is good policy to stand in with "the powers that be." A daily paper, the "Star," asserts that one of the Police Commissioners, a brewer, uses his position as controller of the police to protect dive-keepers who sell his beer. The paper has not been sued for libel. All this has been done in the name of silver and friendship for the people.

A brother of "Silver Dick" Bland was nominated for Judge of the Court of Appeals. The Populists had nominated a candidate named North for the same place. It is in evidence in Mr. Bland's own letters that he gave $1,000 to the Chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee to get North of the track. North withdrew. Afterwards he was reported reporter of the Court of Judge Bland. He denied that he had received $1,000. The Chairman of the State Democratic Committee then said he gave the money to the chairman of the Populist committee. The chairman of the populist committee denies that he got the $1,000. And so the matter stands. The Judge bought off the Populist candidate. The $1,000 is unaccounted for. The $1,000 does not appear in the Judge's statement of expenses as required by law. This "boodle" deal evokes the query whether if a candidate for Judge will buy his election he will not sell his justice. This deal, too, was consummated in the name of the masses.

I am told that the Governor has given the best places within his gift to his relatives, or the men selected by his relatives. I know that he appointed a man manager of the Nevada asylum on condition that he would vote out the Superintendent. The Superintendent showed the manager a letter from the Governor in which he declared that the Superintendent's retention was his dearest wish. The manager voted for the retention of the Superintendent and the Governor promptly removed the manager. This illustrates the gubernatorial character beautifully. The Governor of Missouri was receiver of the Fifth National Bank of St. Louis. He gave out that the bank would not pay more than 50 cents on the dollar in all. Therefore, his brother-in-law and other relatives bought up outstanding claims at that figure and below it. They bought up at least $30,000 worth. The bank paid 50 per cent. in sixty days. It has paid ninety-six per cent. in ten years. The question is, how could a receiver say a bank, that was in position to pay 50 per cent. in sixty days, would only pay that much in all? The receiver's relatives made 46 per cent. on their speculation. This is one of the performances characteristic of this kind of "friends of the people." The popular cause of silver, with all its generous enthusiasm for the rights of the poor, all its just resentment against oligarchies, political bosses, gangs of "grafters," combinations of the few for the plucking of the many, was taken charge of, in Missouri, by politicians of the type which can be imagined from what I have stated here of simple fact and conservative deduction. The cause of silver may be my "pet aversion" as a political theory, but I have all respect for the honest multitude who espoused it. I am convinced that what there is of good in that theory of reform of our evils is not advanced toward embodiment in our law by the character of the men who make the Chicago platform an excuse to get the public confidence and carry out schemes of public plunder, political corruption and miscellaneous incivism.

A few days ago Judge Klein in our Circuit Court uncovered what we call "a graft" in the matter of building association receiverships. It was discovered that politics stepped into these affairs to get for certain political lawyers, good fees. There was a ring in the receiverships of these concerns. The commissioner in one case would be attorney in another. The attorney in one case would be receiver in another with the commissioner as attorney and receiver as Commissioner. There were fees for all. No duty in connection with winding up the associations, to which there attached any compensation, was ever given outside the "charmed circle." Political attorneys got large fees for only going into court and asking that building associations be wound up. All these fees came out of the money of the poor people, which happened to be left after the looting or failure of the concerns. Those whose savings were invested in the concerns had little coming to them after the failures. The fees of the ring left little of that. All this "grinding of the faces of the poor" is being accomplished by those politicians who were most vocal in proclaiming their allegiance to the Chicago platform as a new "Magna Charta of Mankind."

These facts have nothing to do with the righteousness or wrongfulness of the Chicago platform. The suggestion that a good cause may be advanced by bad men and mean methods, it may be retorted that such men are calculated rather to injure the cause by their prominence than to help it by their unique idea of practical politics. People are apt to believe that the New Democracy is the outgrowth of such men, or that such men are the outgrowth of New Democracy, when, in fact, the men have attached themselves to the movement only for their own selfishness. When we think that the men who are doing the things I have pictured are engaged in an effort to make Stephens the next Senator from Missouri, it is plain that the character of the organization and its purpose will react dangerously against whatever there may be of genuine merit in the propositions of the Chicago platform.

And all this is being done in Missouri and the rural press connives at it. To criticize the administration is sacrilege. The papers are slavering over the Governor. They declare that he is "the champion of the people" next to Bryan. They identify him with the ideal that Mr. Bryan gave voice for in his Chicago speech. Nothing is to be said of any administration peccadilloes or crookedness, for fear of hurting the party and delaying the triumph of the great cause. All the political corruption of the party when it was dominated by plutocrats is condoned because its perpetrators shout "sixteen to one!" The administration, at a breath of criticism, has its subsidized organs—subsidized by anything from two to ten dollars—declare that the critic is a traitor to the cause, that he is a gold-bug or a republican in disguise. The people seem to respond to all this and the honest country editor dares not express himself for fear of losing subscribers or advertisers. The party cry drowns the criticism of acts that impeach the party. Submission to the party fetich makes every and any deed acceptable because it is done by the party's men. Nepotism, falsity to pledges, the plundering of the poor, the squeezing of the saloon interests, the "skinning" of depositors in banks, the records of violation of trust,—all these things are jammed down the throats of the Democracy of Missouri, and if the faithful dare to gag at the dose they are told "You traitor, you don't believe in Bryan, or 16 to 1!" And they swallow it all. The papers are slaves of the administration. They vie with each other in printing stomach-turning gush about these leaders. The country editors are forced into a conspiracy of silence and of support of a "machine" as vile as ever was worked under plutocratic auspices. The gang cries "silver, silver, silver," and so their jobs and schemes of personal profit are allowed to go on uncriticized. They have the faith. Damn the good works! The "push" in control of things in Missouri are Silver men, with about the same exalted purpose as Chilo, the Greek charlatan in "Quo Vadis" had in aligning himself with the Christians. It is a combination that is ready at any time to desert the cause of silver. It has been stated in Missouri time and again that the administration wants to "heal the breach" with the gold Democrats, that Governor Stephens has made overtures to ex-Governor Francis who, fortunately, is not much more of a gold bug than Stephens is a silver Democrat. The new party faith means nothing to the men in power and warfare upon them is not, in any sense, a warfare upon the principles they profess to represent, unless it may happen that the character of the men shall become confused with the principles. But these men were "in the push" before the Chicago platform was an issue. They are what they were before. The new principles have made them no better. They are worse because they plot their infamy in the name of a political purification and a humanizing of economy.