University of Virginia Library

WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH MISSOURI?
BY WILLIAM MARION REEDY.

THE art of politics in Missouri is not more depraved than in most other states, I imagine; but it seems that in Missouri the practitioners of that art are somewhat coarser-grained and smaller-minded than men in the like charlatanry elsewhere. I think I may write of them and their methods in the capacity of critic, without obtruding my prejudices as a gold-bug.

Missouri, like every other Western State, took kindly to the silver theory; indeed, possessing, as one of its chief citizens, Mr. Bland, a champion of silver for thirty years, Missouri was as ready for 16 to 1 as any silver producing State. "Coin's" book found welcome wide and warm when it appeared among a people who admired Mr. Bland, and who had equally admired "Farmer" Hatch.

But while the people of Missouri were for silver it was

only partly in deference to popular opinion that the Democratic party declared for that doctrine.

When Col. Chas. H. Jones became editor of the Republic, coming from Jacksonville, Florida, he was taken up by the then Governor David R. Francis, a grain merchant, or speculator, a very rich man and an aristocrat. The two were fast friends until, Col. Jones having married, the wife of the governor, for reasons sufficient to herself, refused to receive Mrs. Jones. Out of this social episode grew a feud. As the first result of that feud Col. Jones was forced out of the Republic. He went to the New York World. Ad interim, however, he managed to defeat the plan of President Cleveland to name Mr. Francis as a member of his cabinet in 1893. When Col. Jones fell out with Mr. Francis, the editor made an alliance with Mr. Joel Stone, who succeeded Mr. Francis as governor of Missouri.

In course of time Col. Jones was sent West to take charge of the Post-Dispatch. When he arrived in St. Louis he conferred with Governor Stone. Col. Jones wanted to destroy Francis, who had control of the Democratic party machinery. Francis had been "mentioned" for president. He was the brilliant, if chilly, leader of the party. He had wealth and he and his friends could "take care of" the visiting rural committeeman. Col. Jones scented the silver sentiment in the State. That sentiment suggested, naturally, antipathy to wealthy bosses and "grain gamblers." Col. Jones declared that the way to destroy Francis was by "taking up silver." And Col. Jones "took it up" with a vengeance. The sentiment had been lurking among the people all the time. For years the party committees warned the speakers to "steer clear of the money question." Col. Jones in print and Governor Stone on the stump, appealed to the people on

the very thing the old rulers of the party had hedged on, and the battle was on.

Mr. Francis evaded the fight. He wanted harmony. He was suave and clammy but non-committal. He did not wish to come out for silver. He did not wish to oppose the silver people. Once or twice he threatened to fight and then he threw up his hands. Missouri declared for silver at 16 to 1, without a dissenting voice in the convention. The State committee was enlarged to render Mr. Francis' friends innocuous. Col. Jones and Governor Stone voted to support Bland for President at the Chicago convention and the National battle was precipitated. When Missouri declared for silver, with a candidate who represented the silver issue wholly and whose character endeared him especially to the bucolics everywhere, the silver sentiment became a political force to reckon with the stampede that ended with the nomination of Mr. Bryan was started.

So it seems to me that if Mrs. Francis had swallowed her prejudices and received Mrs. Jones there might have been a great deal of different history. Mrs. Jones was the Helen of the Siege of Wall Street. This incident is important only as showing, once again, how trifling things affect the destinies of Nations.

Had Mr. Francis and Col. Jones never disagreed, Col. Jones never would have left the "Republic." Col. Jones would have stood by Francis' interests as a banker and monied man. Col. Jones never would have obtained control of the "Post-Dispatch." Silver sentiment would have been smothered by the politicians of Missouri and Bland never would have been a candidate. There would have been no Missouri alliance with Mr. Altgeld and the combination of peculiar political ability that was attracted to Stone. Jones and Altgeld never would have dominated the Chicago convention as wholly as they did. To resent

an affront to Mrs. Jones the Democratic party was rent asunder. Mr. Bland was taken up to destroy Mr. Francis and was himself destroyed in due time. The senators from Missouri, Messrs. Vest and Cockrell, were forced into the anti-Francis movement under threat of defeat by the men who had identified themselves with the popular feeling for their own purposes.

The late Mr. McCullagh of the Globe-Democrat, told me, when Vest became a silver champion that it was because he had to do so to retain his seat, and that Mr. McCullagh was a friend and extravagant admirer of Mr. Vest and his abilities.

Whatever one may think of silver he must admit that the turning down of Mr. Francis was a good thing. Mr. Francis represented the dodging Democracy. He stood for the evasion of a great issue; for intellectual and moral cowardice, for nauseous neutralism. Mr. Francis was the impersonation of political insincerity. He thought of the party—of keeping the party together, with himself on top —and his stand for what the opponents of silver call "sound money" was a very perfunctory performance. He never declared himself against the Chicago platform until he was offered the Secretaryship of the Interior, vice Hoke Smith, resigned.

In this we have a picture of the man whom I saw alluded to the other day as "the leader of the sound money forces in Missouri." A leader! Why, he couldn't be induced to come within the borders of the State, during the fight, nor did he come until he came home to vote, when, under the inspiration of a stupendous sound money parade, he declared himself.

When silver was the cry every spoilsman took it up, and the fact is that some of the loudest shouting was done by men who cared not at all for the doctrine. All the

politicians got on the popular side. Every fellow that wanted an office became a shrieker for silver. All the men who had truckled to Francis while he was in power left him and went with the crowd. The party in Missouri had been in power for years and the same old gang had controlled the offices. They stayed together and they still retained their grip upon the offices. The gang got together on silver as upon everything else. The elimination of Francis carried out of the party no politicians of note. They remained. The corporation "attorneys" or lobbyists stood by the regulars. The fine workers of the Missouri Pacific, the 'Frisco, the Burlington roads were hand in glove with the party which was making war on corporations, with its mouth. Some of the railroads contributed to the support of the men who were "denouncing them in unmeasured terms." No one was more regular than "Bill" Phelps, the Missouri Pacific lobbyist, against whom Governor Stone and Col. Jones made war in connection with the enactment of a fellow-servant law. Col. Spencer of the Burlington was with the regulars too. All the party hacks, the caucus bosses, the township and country and congressional district leaders who had made the ticket for years fell in line. There was made no real change in party management. Mr. Francis and his lieutenant, Mr. Maffitt, were turned down, but the crowd that had trained with them went over to the opposition. I am not aspersing the silver cause. I mean to say only that the gang that ran things joined the silver cause in order to stay in power. There were no politicians at all in the ranks of the Missouri Gold Democrats. The politicians seized upon silver, which represented a general desire for change, in order to fasten themselves more thoroughly upon the party.

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 posiiton 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 geniune 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.

In view of the almost unparalleled lack of independence in the Missouri rural press there does not seem much hope of reaching the people with a statement of the truth about

conditions. The country editor in Missouri insults his subscribers by taking for granted that they are so prejudiced they will not take a paper that criticizes the man who sneaked into power as a bogus silver man. By keeping their readers in ignorance of the deeds of their officers and servants, by suppressing all unfavorable comment, the newspapers block the way to reform. There is no way to reach the people. They are kept in ignorance. They are fed upon "plate" fake puffs of the administration prepared by the Governor's "literary bureau." Whatever he prepares is printed, and nothing else. The people are stuffed upon "taffy" and the men in power are thus enabled to deceive the people and strengthen themselves for the tightening of their grip upon the offices. The subserviency of the rural press in Missouri is something slavish beyond imagination heretofore. The papers, in the main, are edited by the political machine. The press, that engine of enlightenment, is industriously engaged in clouding the intelligence of the people and identifying a cause which in its abstract intention is good, with the selfishness of bad men. Reform cannot come from the politicians. It cannot come from the people kept in ignorance of the need of it by prostitutes of the press.

The matter with Missouri is that there is too much idolization of the party. There is no partisan independence. There is no courage in the Democratic press. The truth is suppressed rather than the evil about which a truth is told. The worship of party goes to the extreme of worship of all the moral ugliness of partisanism. The men who know what is wrong, who know that the leaders of the New Democracy are in harmony with it only for their own ends, who know that in the name of political purity and economic honesty a lot of political jobbers and crooks are continuing the evils of the old political régime,

remain silent. The St. Louis Republic shifts and shuffles and maintains a neutral attitude. It is suspected of gold bugism and it dares not criticize the Governor that it scourged in cartoon and comment. The Post-Dispatch, that was the greatest silver daily and is owned by the millionaire Pulitzer, is now suspected of gold bugism. It makes war upon the Governor, but its position robs its criticism of effectiveness. The Kansas City Times scores the Governor but its opposition is believed to be based upon the refusal of the Governor to appoint its owners' candidate to a position of importance. My criticism is denounced as the criticism of a gold-bug. But I am not criticizing the party policy s I am writing here about the men. They would disgrace any principles they might profess. I am not opposing anyone because he was for Bryan. I am pointing out conditions and circumstances that are matters of public record, of common talk among silver men, of wide-open notoriety, that are flourishing in Missouri, under the cloak of a bogus devotion to Mr. Bryan and the Chicago platform. These things are true. If the people knew them, if the fact of the existence of these things were not suppressed, the fact that the men who are working the evil are silver shouters would not save them from the popular wrath.

"O Liberty," said Madam Roland on the steps of the guillotine,"what crimes are committed in thy name!" In the name of Silver, too, crimes are committed and the criminals flourish as prophets of a new and better time. Silver will have a better chance when the crooks who have identified themselves with it, in Missouri and other States, are repudiated. If free coinage be a good thing, it will never be believed while bad men conspicuously stand for it. If education will develop the mind to the destruction of our political and economic miseries, a gagged press

is not the means to such education. How can a press be trusted in its assaults on the old order when it suppresses the truth that the men and methods of the old régime are flourishing to the profit of the former under the new? What use is any platform, however noble in its aspirations or purposes, if the men who attain to power upon it continue all the meanness and nefariousness of the men who flourished under the old domination of the bosses, the corporations and the trusts?

The altruism of the Chicago platform—which I think mistaken—is admirable in so far as so many millions of people honestly believe its principles are for the benefit of the oppressed and unfortunate of the earth. This altruism is knocked and blasphemed by being made the means to the entrenchment in power in Missouri, of self-and-pelf seekers. The people are deceived. The press keeps them deceived. The Chicago principles are betrayed into the hands of men who have no principle but profit. A reform movement is turned over to the men against whom the movement is directed. The cause of free coinage is committed to a national banker. The cause of honest elections is committed to the care of a professional ballot-eater. The cause of the people is made the means to build up a machine. The liberty of the press is advocated by paper subsidized by political pap. The "friends of the people" in Missouri, are "grafters." The "foes of the corporations" are the tools of these institutions. The "enemies of corruption" are themselves corruptionists. The people are kept ignorant of all this under a false impression that the eradication of evil will injure the cause of Silver, under cover of which these men grasped power.

And that's what's the matter with Missouri. St. Louis, December 16, 1897.