Sauk City High School - Sauk Log Yearbook (Sauk City, WI)

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these places are the scenes of hair raising incidents. Take for instance, Packingtown, as shown to us by Upton Sinclair’s “Jungle”, who in letters of blood and words of thunder con- demns the Packing industries, who charges and contaminates the Packers with inhuman deeds, who shows how offenders of the law are treated, how judges of the courts are the machines by which these corporations keep down and check the unions, who tend to better existing conditions, how government laws are freely violated and inspectors freely and easily bribed, as was done by the south in the fifties, and what was the result, a war. This may not have to be the extreme taken in this case, but it ought to go so far as prosecuting and unconditionally imprisoning any violators of our laws and any government officials bribed to hide facts. Corruption to a great extent is due to bosses in the cities. By bosses are meant men who by their influence either thru intellectual superiority or financial greatness control certain districts and elect men which favor them. Let us examine the work of some of the bosses in our largest cities, as New York for instance. New York, the metropolis of our nation is the seat of uncounted breaches and violations of the laws. This has been the case in New York, ever since i860, we find that purity in politics was out of question there, and we find that in the long sway of the fire and life insurance companies, some of our nations greatest boodlers and swindleas, the Tammany society and the New York Police, that bribery corruption and bossism walked o’er the heads of the power- less rabble, until finally a man appeared, as if from Paradise, whose tiger eye saw into all violations of the laws and opposed them at the next election, but this time the rabble awoke and in spite of the most desperate efforts to dislodge this champion of righteousness, Jerome was elected under the fire of the cannon of Wall Street. Baltimore, was the seat of uncounted dishonorable appliances in the hands of Democrats and Republican leaders as Gorman and Aldrichs, who sold franchises to street rail- ways, bought votes at wholesale which turned out retail profits in the face of the bitterest opposition. Chicago, probably the most intricate and darkest political center of our nation and has been subject to volumes of graft and corruption, which in its rapid growth had grown unnoticed. We find that government laws and officers are alike outwitted by the great inventions of man, especially in

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impossible. This amply illustrates how corrupt our nation is, how corporations, trusts and monopolies control our government and that if corruption keeps on progressing, the next step will be the selling of our people’s freedom and rights. Now let us take a scrutinous examination of corruption brot on by parties and corporations in general. For this we need only refer to the way campaigns are supported and carried on, a very good example of which was our last presi- dential election especially on the side of the Democrats, the Republican candidate being so popular that opposition would have been fruitless. The Democrats were in the minority for a number of years, yet Democrary was supported by financial giants as Hill and Gorman as individuals and Tammany society as a body. These liberally contributed to the campaigns and especially towards the nomination of a man who would particularly favor their interests, such a man was Alton B. Parker, and so at the Democratic convention at St. Louis in 1904, with all the opposition of honest men like Bryant of Nebraska and Littlemann of Maine, the “interests” succeeded in nominating Parker against the will of the com- mon people, one of the causes of the unanimous defeat of the Democrats. As we go from large to small, from the national govern- ment to municipal government we find that the presence of graft becomes more and more prominent. Since our state will be of supreme interest to us, let us examine its standing in regard to graft, we find that it is not entirely clean, that the railroads chiefly have influenced legislation and party platforms so that investigation was averted till popular clamor has finally persuaded all grafters to give in or be forced to, hence reduction of passenger rates. As we come to our large cities, we find them infested with graft and corruption, in the hands of greed, and en- veloped in darkness. What is the cause of this ? The answer is money and ignorance of the working class, which con- stitutes the greater portion of the population of our cities, and a further fact is. that these people, being foreigners, are ignorant of our laws and institutions and so are easy prey to the corporations who probably buy votes even as cheap as fifty cents each, thus getting an administration favorable to them. So we find our cities to be controlled by corporations, as Transit companies, Street railways, Packing companies, etc..

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chemistry, and we find that purity is one of the last things the packers look for, money, holding the head of the list. Milwaukee, the metropolis of Wisconsin has also for long years been the scene of much graft under the leadership of Rose and his faction, and we find also that District Attorney McGovern, by trying to uphold the law was almost deprived of his office by the grafters, had not the people fought and followed New York’s example. Then we must also pass to unfortunate San Francisco, whose misfortunes in the last year, have been terrible, but probably to her advantage in the end, for among the broken fragments of old splendor, she finds the schemes of the grafters, secret treasuries and depositories of her money, and the grafters themselves, and so as she is gradually up- lifted, her political system also ascends the heights of re- formation. Now as Bossism, is one of the reasons of corruption in our cities, let us examine the character of some of them. We find the bosses to be of a winning nature, talkative and smooth, for they are generally good lawyers. These men, when in conversation with you, seem to be the most honest men God has allowed to exist, they inform you of the exist- ance of graft among the constituents of the other party until they have won your vote. Bosses rise, as great men rise, they rise as La Follette rose, for he is a boss, as they become influential they make use of their influence either for just or unjust purposes. When once their power is known to capitalists, their race is won, they are the rulers, their influence wins votes and what their influence and power can’t do, money can. Among the important grafters or bosses of the present day we find Ruef of San Francisco, probably one of the greatest and shrewdest of our grafters, whose principles had probably not been found out, whose misdemeanors not dis- covered had it not been for recklessness of Mayor Smitz. Murphy, another beacon light of graft, a personification of Tammany, showed his power and that of bossism when, at the Democratic national convention, he backed by the money of Hill, forced the convention to nominate Parker against the protest of Bryan. Weaver, probably the slyest of all Bosses, rules over Philadelphia, donned the gart of reformation, so gaudily colored, that he was elected mayor, while he secretly con- spiring, where he could next make money. This was lately