charge
nearly a half of our people with corrupt motives and unpatriotic
conduct. We have no such intent. We are only striving to show that the
success of the Republican policy is fatal to the Republic. This party,
as we have said, is in no sense a political organization. It is a
great combination of private interests that seek to use the government
to further their own selfish ends. Governments through all the ages
have been the deadly enemies of the people they governed. Ours,
controlled by the Republican party, makes no exception to the rule.
The gigantic trusts, or combinations, are eating the substance out of
honest toil, and back of them stands the awful shadow of a powerful
organization making those trusts possible, and doing to the people
precisely the cruel wrong it was created to prevent. Palaces multiply
as hovels increase; and while millionaires are common, the million
sink back to that hopeless poverty of destitution that has the name of
freedom, as a mockery to their serfdom.

THE INFAMY OF IT.

For years past it has become more and more patent to the people of the
United States that the ballot has come to be a commercial affair, and
instead of serving its original purpose of a process through which to
express the popular will, represents only the money expended in its
use. For a long time it was abused through stuffing, false counts,
repeating, and switching tickets. In the late Presidential election we
seemed to have passed from that stage to open and shameless bribery.

This is simply appalling to those who love their country and believe
in our great Republic. The old system of roguery that attacked the
integrity of the ballot was that of a few low villains, who could be
met by an improved box and other stringent, legalized guards that
would make the vile practices difficult, and punishment easily
secured. But this open purchase of votes indicates a poison in the
spring head itself, and a consent found in the apathy of the public.

What good would be the Australian system, that seeks to shield the
secret ballot, where the official agents themselves would of course
be corrupt and purchasable? Under this system the voter entering a
stall by himself finds an official to give him such ticket as he may
demand. What will be the good of this when that agent can be
purchased? We really simply give the corruption into the hands of the
corruptionists through the very enactment called in to protect us.

Our