The Story of the Sun: New York, 1833-1918O'Brien, Frank Michael
History
The Story of the Sun: New York, 1833-1918
O'Brien, Frank Michael
Sun (New York, N.Y. : 1833)
The Crédit Mobilier Scandal--This involved the names of many Senators
and Representatives who were accused of accepting stock in the Crédit
Mobilier of America, the fiscal company organised to build the Union
Pacific Railroad, as a reward for using their influence and votes in
favour of the great enterprise.
The Navy Department Scandal--In this the _Sun_ accused George M.
Robeson, Secretary of the Navy, of having permitted double payment
to contractors and of violating the law in making large purchases
without competitive bidding. Mr. Dana appeared as a witness in the
Congressional investigation of Robeson, who, in the end, while not
convicted of personal corruption, was censured for the laxity of his
official methods.
The Whisky Ring--This evil combination cheated the government out
of millions of dollars. It was made up of distillers, wholesale
liquor-dealers, and employees of the internal revenue office, these
conspiring together to avoid the payment of the liquor tax. The first
attack on the corrupt alliance was made in the _Sun_ of February
3, 1872, in an article by “Sappho,” one of the _Sun’s_ Washington
correspondents. Other great newspapers took up the fight, but the _Sun_
was the chief aggressor. As a result of the exposure, two hundred and
thirty-eight men were indicted and many of them, including the chief
clerk of the Treasury Department, were sent to prison.
“Addition, Division, and Silence”--On March 20, 1867, W. H. Kemble,
State Treasurer of Pennsylvania and one of the Republican bosses, wrote
the following letter to Titian J. Coffey, a lawyer and claim-agent in
Washington:
MY DEAR TITIAN:
Allow me to introduce to you my particular friend, Mr. George
O. Evans. He has a claim of some magnitude that he wishes you
to help him in. Put him through as you would me. He understands
addition, division, and silence.
W. H. KEMBLE.
When this letter fell into the hands of the _Sun_, which had already
made war on the ring formed for the collection of war claims, it saw
in Kemble’s last four words the sententious platform of wide-spread
fraud. It printed the letter, and kept on printing it, with that
iteration which Dana knew was of value in a crusade. In a few months
the whole country was familiar with the phrase so suggestive of plunder.
Kemble was a politician with a thick skin, but he at last became so
enraged at the repetition of “addition, division, and silence,” whether
uttered by street urchins or printed all over America as the watchword
of corruption--“honest graft,” he would have called it, if that phrase
had then been common--that he sued out a writ of criminal libel against
Mr. Dana and had him arrested as he was passing through Philadelphia.
The only result of this was to make the phrase more common than before.
Kemble was afterward convicted of trying to bribe Pennsylvania
legislators, and was sent to prison for a year.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account