THE BAD6E0F FRAUD
Mr. YanYorhla Comment on the Too Prer
Int I'raclieo of Mannfactarlnff Sta
tistic for Porpoioi of
Concealment
Editor Independent: Concealment
has always been regarded as a badge
of fraud. It is a rare occurrence that
it is not evidence of evil intention.
There is something inherently wrong
about any purpose that will not bear
the broad light of complete disclosure.
Deception is the plan of an enemy;
rarely that of a friend. It is the meth
od of self-seeking; seldom of self-sac-rice.
It is not often that ignorance
serves a good purpose. It does not
frequently occur that the effort to
keep people in ignorance has an hon
est object Want of information is
the ambuccade from which deception
malies its attack; it never can be the
instrument, the method, or the pur
pose of truth and honesty. Truth re
quires no assistance from falsehood,
tnd honesty is never promoted by de
ception. Motives are never made pure
by devices for concealment, nor is the
public welfare advanced by schemes
to prevent the people from acquiring
information. Want of knowledge is
the only soil in which humbugs will
grow; in no other can schemes for
public plunder and individual despoil
ation be germinated and cultivated
with success. The man who is inter
ested in a business that succeeds best,
when the people know least about it
will seek to enrich the soil that pro
duces his kind of crops. The man
who regards public plunder as a lawful
purpose, and individual despoilatitfn
as a legitimate business enterprise,
will naturally resort to every possi
ble device to keep information from
interfering with his plans. Knowledge
is like a flood to his soil and destroys
his crops. The man who desires to
profit by the ignorance of others does
not want his intended victims enlight
ened. f
' There are in this country today not
a few pursuits in which men are en
gagedpursuits that, by too many
people, are regarded as legitimate bus
inessthat have no possible basis up
on which success can be predicated or
expected except concealment, decep
tion and falsehood; no possible
grounds of any reasonable hope of
profit except as the result of want of
information.
It. is an awful fact with which we
are brought face to face, but the truth
must be faced; -the fact that there are
in this country many men in high
standing in business, and in social cir
cles, with whom concealment, decep
tion and falsehood are every-day n,eth
ods of business, and whose business
would be ruined in a day if the cloak
of concealment was removed and the
truth fully known. -
It is appalling to contemplate, but
sooner or later it will have to be con
fidered; that there are men in high
places who have not heretofore, and
will not hereafter, hesitate to use,
when personal or party interests may
be advanced thereby, the opportuni
ties given them by public confidence
to deceive and mislead the very peo
ple who have trusted them.
We have taken great pride in assert
ing that our . American institutions
have their principal safeguard in the
intelligence of our people; but in the
buun?ss affairs. of our country we are
acting as if oblivious to the fact that,
in the highest places and in the most
important departments of our gov
ernment influences are at work, the
wholo tendency and purpose of -which
is to undermine this bulwark of our
freedom. The very possibility that
such influences may find their way
into our executive departments, or be
admitted to the floors of the house
p.n-1 senate of the American congress,
is planning. The thought that our
executive and legislative departments
may be used, by influences that de
pend upon concealment for success, to
throw obstacles in the way of the pub
lic acquiring information about mat
ters ihat most nearly concern them is
calculated to give every patriotic
American a chill of apprehension.
When it is realised that it is not only
a possibility but a fact that Loth
the exeeulive and' the legislative department:-,
are, through reports and
legislative - enactments, being used to
conceal what the public ought to know,
how can alarm and apprehension fail
to be changed into consternation? It
rvn no longer be disguised that the
reports of the departments, particular
ly of the treasury department, are not
constructed for the purpose of impart
ing exact information, but to conceal
facts that are regarded as detrimental
to the great financial, corporate and
pnrty interests. Upon the floors of
the house and the senate are men,
who, a the opportunity occurs, are
using their places and their votes to
advance personal interests; who are
devising, and seeking to put In opera
tion, schemes to prevent public infor
mation; whose conduct in the perform
ance of their legislative duties dif
fers in no wise from what It would be
expected to be on a board of trade, or
In a "bucket shop," where the mark
ets are manipulated for personal gain;
wnere gambling fn the necessities of
life is regarded as business, and the
winnings are called profits.
We deceive ourselves if we refuse
to recognize that there are now on
the floors of both house and senate
men with whom personal and party
interests are first, and public business
and national welfare are second; if,
indeed, public business and national
welfare have any place at all in their
minds as a motive for their conduct
in the discharge of the duties they
have sworn to faithfully perform.
Some are there, not by the freely ex
pressed will of the constituency they
pretend to represent, but by the will
of the financial and corporate influ
ences they really represent, expressed
through various methods of most
heartless coercion, or by the most
audacious and shameless bribery and
corruption. The holders of large cred
its, and the great corporations that in
combination have acquired so large a
control over the business of the coun
try, nave their representatives in both
houses, and it begins to look as if they
constituted a majority. The evidence
of their presence, and of the power of
the influences behind them, is so plain
that the fact is now generally recog
nized by all who take interest enough
in public affairs to observe current
events. So powerful, self-confident and
audacious have these twin influences
become, that those who are accused of
being their instruments feel so secure
that they no longer deny it. It is a
matter that is too plain for contro
versy that representatives in both
houses are using opportunities offered
them by the positions they occupy to
advance their own interests, and the
interests of personal and party friends,
by the enactment of laws intended fo
benefit the holders of credits, or that
are intended. to advance the inteiests
of corporations by which they are em
ployed, or in which they are other
wise directly or indirectly interested.
A large part of the business of the
country has passed into the hands of,
and is controlled by, corporations, the
very existence of which is a public
grant, the very life of which is a gift
and evidence of public favor. The
growth and success of these business
monsters have depended in large de
gree upon the fact that the people
have had very little information con
cerning their objects and their meth
ods. These combinations of creditors and
corporate influences have been for
years, and are now, resorting to ev
ery possible device to prevent the
I ople of this country, who have made
them what they are and given them all
they possess, from acquiring any in
formation concerning their organiza
tions o- their methods of business.
Not only have they sought to conceal
their true character and purposes, but
they have sought, for the purposes of
gain, to mislead public thought, cor
rupt the public mind, and debauch
public morals. There is a pretense that
they are required to make reports.
But the reports that are made are
marvels of ingenuity for wrat they
do not contain, being d?vised more
with a view to concealment than for
giving information. Not only is there
concealment, but every avenue of pub
lic information is filled with false
statements and false pretenses so mon
strous that the father of lies is likely
to give up the contest in disgust.
No possible opportunity is lost in
cr out of congress to ma' e it difficult
for our people, who are being robbed,
to learn anything about how the rob
bery is being effected. The effort goes
even beyond this; to the not altogether
unsuccessful attempt to make those
who are being despoiled cf their prod
ucts and their p-opertv believe that
their misfortunes are the results of
unavoidable and imvi'able business
conditions resulting fn m natural laws
over which no human wisdom and
p nver can have crn rol.
These organizations that deal in
credits, and are necessarily out of busi
ness when the nati n and i s pcop'e
ore out of debt, cr org-'niz'ions that
are permitted to operate privileges and
utilities that are public property, were
created by law because it was expected
that a public benefit would be derived
from them. That, at least, was the
professed purpose. It is not to be de
nied that, to a certain extent and in
certain ways, the public has derived,
at least from some of them, a benefit;
but a benefit small and limited in ex
tent to what it ought to be. It is this
limited benefit limited in amount, and
limited with reference to the classes
to whom it is permitted -that la used
as a cover under which to inaugurate,
perpetuate and extend schemes for
the deception and robbery of the na
tion, of industry, and of commerce.
Under the cover of premeditated
concealment, professed benefits, false
reports and false pretenses, much of
the work of these organizations has
been done. The business of these in
stitutions is our business, and the time
has come when public interest and
public safety alike demand that more
should be known about them; that
they should be compelled to disclose
their doings to the minutest detail, or
else go out of existence.
The warning of the great-hearted
Lincoln comes to our memory like a
voice from the tomb. The remarkable
foresight of his clear intellect filled his
patriotic heart with gloom and fore
boding. Mow little the American peo
ple then realized that which he saw
in the movement of events, and which
is now being fulfilled before our eyes!
His words of warning ought to be read
from every pulpit, morning and even
ing; taught to the children in school;
graven upon every monument, and
blazoned on. every wail; should stand
at the head of every newspaper in the
land, and be committed to memory by
every American man and woman until,
like a great signal of danger, it Khali
fill the eyes, and, like a great cry of
alarm, fill the ears of this whole na
tion, and attract the attention of all
civilization. Read over and ever
again his words, and ponder well their
meaning
"As a result of the war, corpora
tions have been enthroned, and an era
of corruption Will follow. The money
power of the country will endeavor to
prolong its reign by playing on the
prejudices of the people, until all
wealth is concentrated in a few hands,
and the republic is destroyed. Ilefore
God, I fear more for my country now
than when in the midst of the war,"
In these few words history and
prophecy are' mingled. "Corporations
have been enthroned." Wa3 it not
true? "An era of corruption will fol
low. Has it not come to pass?
Out o! the necessities of the nation
engaged in war for its existence sprang
corporations and financial combina
tions in great numbers and almost lim
itless power. They hung over the
American congress, over fields and
shops, over industry and- commerce,
over our navy upon the seas, and over
our armies in camp and field like vul
tures over a battle field, and with in
satiable maw and gluttonous greed
feasted upon the necessities and mis
fortunes of the nation and its people.
Would to God our people could have
seen then what Lincoln saw; 'that,
even before the close of the war, finan
cial combinations and corporations
had come into the occupancy of the
places of power. Looking into he
future, he saw the results that must
come, and said, "Corruption will fol
low." Looking backward, we are
compelled to see the results that have
come, and are compelled to say, cor
ruption has followed. It is every
where; so bold that it hardly wears a
mask, or seeks to hide its head.
Taught by history, in the wisdom of
that teaching he was able to antici
pate the future. "The money power
of t ) country will endeavor to pro
long its reign." The holders of pow
er rarely relinquish it without a strug
gle. With the money power, on the
throne, that it would seek to remain
was a natural conclusion. That it was
and is on the throne of power is ap
parent to any one who is not wilfully
blind to passing events; that it has
prolonged its reign from the time of
Lincoln until now; and that the en
deavor to still further prolong it is
still" going on, with as much earnest
ness as ever before, is demonstrated
every day of the year.
The reign of these malevolent in
fluences and powers has been pro
longed in the way and by the means
that Lincoln said it would be -"By
playing on the prejudices of the peo
ple." In this play, concealment, de
ception and falsehood have occupied
prominent places. Government sta
tistics have been manipulated; reports,
public and corporate, have been con
structed to conceal facts; eehcols have
been prostituted to the perversion of
history; colleges have been created,
and chairs in col!g"S endowed, that
the scientific brain might be put in
chains and compelled to furnish so
phistries to. mislead and deceive; and
the press has been induced by pecun
iary rewards and personal preferments
to become a party to the tremendous
game of concealment, and falsehoods
are promulgated and the truth sup
pressed or perverted. That which
Lincoln feared is going on with a
rapidity that it is questionable if even
he anticipated. All wealth is being
concentrated in a few hands.
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Indianapolis, IncL
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