e gentleman_ is still justified. In America,
a similar faith in matters of politics would at times be sorely tried.

Perhaps as good an illustration as could be cited of the greater
possibilities of corruption in the United States, is contained in a
statement of the fact that a very few thousand dollars would at one time
have sufficed to prevent Mr. Bryan from becoming the Democratic
candidate for the Presidency in 1896. This is not mere hearsay, for I am
able to speak from knowledge which was not acquired after the event. Nor
for one moment is it suggested that Mr. Bryan himself was thus easily
corruptible, nor even that those who immediately nominated him could
have been purchased for the sum mentioned.

The fact is that for a certain specified sum the leaders of a particular
county convention were willing to elect an anti-Bryan delegation. The
delegation then elected would unquestionably control the State
convention subsequently to be held; and the delegation to be elected
again at that convention would have a very powerful influence in
shaping the action of the National Convention at St. Louis. The
situation was understood and the facts not disputed. Those to whom the
application for the money was made took all things into consideration
and determined that it was not worth it; that it would be better to let
things slide. They slid. If those gentlemen had foreseen the full volume
of the avalanche that was coming, I think that the money would have been
found.

It was, however, better as it was. The motives which prompted the
refusal of the money were, as I was told, not motives of morality. It
was not any objection to the act of bribery, but a mere question of
expediency. It was not considered that the "goods" were worth the money.
But, as always, it was better for the country that the immoral act was
not done. The Free Silver poison was working in the blood of the body
politic, and it was better to let the malady come to a head and fight it
strenuously than to drive it back and let it go on with its work of
internal corruption. Looking back now it is easy to see that the fight
of 1896 must have come at some time, and it was best that it came when
it did. The gentlemen who declined to produce the few thousand dollars
asked of them (the sum was fifteen thousand dollars, if I remember
rightly, or three thousand pounds) would, a few weeks later, have given
twice the sum to have the opportunity back again. Now, I imagin