© 2006–2017
All Rights Reserved
William G. Thomas
Copyright Statement
The most desperate contest that has ever been waged in Nebraska between the people and the confederated monopolies will close next Tuesday. All the corporate forces that are linked together by one common interest have pooled issues and concentrated their energies for the election of Thomas J. Majors. The Burlington czar has taken personal charge of the campaign and has staked his reputation on his ability to purchase enough voters to carry Majors into the governor's chair. A whole army of retainers has been set in motion to traverse every section of the state and distribute railroad passes and greenbacks where they can be used to advantage. As an auxiliary to the railroads in their highhanded efforts to debauch and corrupt the voters of Nebraska the leading bankers in this city, whose establishments are depositories for the railroads, the managers of the South Omaha stock yards, the Standard Oil monopoly, the lumber, grain and coal pools, who enjoy special rebates, have all joined together under the name of the "Business Men's Association." Several hundred business men in this city and elsewhere have been dragooned into signing their appeal to vote for Majors and save the credit of the state from ruin. These lists have been padded and magnified to make it appear that the great majority of Omaha merchants and manufacturers are in accord with this policy. As a matter of fact, scores of these men have vainly protested against the use of their names, and many others would do so if they dared take their chances on a boycott by the bankers and railroads, upon whom they are dependent.
A perfect reign of terror has been inaugurated in the ranks of the railway employes. Every railroad in the state is engaged in this work of intimidation. The Missouri Pacific has sent one of its general agents along its line to instruct its employes to vote for Majors. The Union Pacific has also sent out an official to impress upon its employes the necessity for voting for the railroad candidate for governor, and agents of that company, in spite of the denials of its officials, are interfering with the personal choice of every one of its employes, not only in this city, but along the entire system in the state. Every employe on these railroads from section hand up to telegraphers and local freight agents, has been given to understand in a significant manner that it will be to his interest to vote for Tom Majors.
The same policy is being pursued in a number of banks and business houses, whose clerks have been notified that they must either vote for Majors or take the chance of being dropped from the pay roll after election. Last Thursday Andrew J. Smith, one of the clerks of the Nebraska National bank, which is the Burlington depository in this city, was discharged because he expressed himself in favor of Holcomb as the regular democratic nominee. Smith is still under age, but being a democrat he dared to criticize the action of the railroad democratic rump leaders, and the president of the bank, Mr. Henry W. Yates, declared that no man could remain in its employ who favored Holcomb. The evident purpose of the discharge of Mr. Smith was to admonish all other employes that their heads would come off if they dared to express an opinion adverse to the Burlington candidate.
It is credibly reported that more than $50,000 have been placed at the disposal of the campaign managers in the interests of Majors, and more money has been promised before the day of election. So desperate is the situation that the Burlington railroad has added $15,000 to the $10,000 already contributed to the campaign fund and other sources have been appealed to for funds. The money thus contributed is to be used as a corruption fund with which to purchase voters, and it is to the plans for the purchase of the necessary votes that the campaign managers are bending their every attention at the present time. The scheme for the corruption of the ballot box in Omaha and South Omaha is already perfected. In addition to the purchase of votes in the cities it is proposed to colonize voters in western and Northwestern parts of the state. In order to do this successfully the most careful arrangements are being made. The old polling books of last year have been secured and from them have been taken the names of thousands of of[sic] voters who are known to have left the state. The names of these absent voters will be given by the colonists who expect to vote without being detected by the unsuspecting people in the rural districts.
To cover up the colonization fraud the railroad press has already announced that the exodus from Nebraska has not been nearly so great as had been supposed. In this way the railroad managers hope to discount the effects of the discovery of the presence of thousands of illegal votes when the returns come in.
It is also learned that plans have already been considered to contest the election of Judge Holcomb in the event that his plurality is within 3,000 votes of the total vote given to Majors. In order to bolster up the scheme and give it a semblance of respectability the public will within a few days be notified that a reward will be paid by the state central committee for evidence of illegal voting.
The return of Jim McShane from Wyoming throws a calcium light upon the efforts of his brother, John A. McShane, and his business partners, to turn democrats over to Majors. It appears that James McShane has a contract for 3,000,000 cross-ties to be delivered to the Burlington railroad on its Wyoming and Montana extension. The best informed railroad engineers state that the syndicate, of which McShane is the head, has cleared $150,000 out of that contract, and expects to clear another $150,000 before the contract expires, which will be about the end of 1897. It has also transpired that several bankers and business men, who have enrolled their names in the calamity manifesto to the voters, are sureties on the bond of the late State Treasurer Hill and the present State Treasurer Bartley. These parties are mortally afraid that Judge Wakeley, who has been employed to prosecute the bondsmen under the direction of Governor Holcomb until a judgment is rendered against them in the supreme court. On the other hand, if Majors is elected, they have assurance that Wakeley's services will be dispensed with and some lawyer employed who would either bungle up the case or let it go by default.
The managers of the Majors campaign have employed the services of a corps of paid writers who are devoting their entire time to the manufacture of faked stories and roorbacks. No story is too preposterous for these imaginative literary gentlemen to relate and their pictures of ruin, distress and calamity are lurid with fiction of the most palpable character. They make a specialty of supplying the country press with stereotyped editorials, all of which ring the changes of the calamity war cry. The people of Nebraska are assured in one place the "the election of the populist ticket and the consequent loss of state credit and state immigration will decrease the value of our lands fully $5 per acre." It is claimed that land in one county in Kansas lying adjacent to similar lands on the Nebraska side of the line are worth $5 less per acre. Such stories are intended only to frighten the credulous in distant parts of the state who have no means of investigation. There is nothing in the facts to warrant such outrageously false assumptions. A trip along the entire boundary line between Nebraska and Kansas will convince any fair minded man that lands in Kansas are worth as much. Improvements, character of the soil, topography and drainage being equal, as the lands on the Nebraska side. This is not a mere statement drawn from the imagination. It is susceptible of proof, and, moreover, it has been proved.
Whole tons of Judge Holcomb's alleged mortgage record have been distributed broadcast over the state, and several hundred columns of anti-Rosewater blackwash have been turned out by the fake mills, all for the purpose of distracting the attention of the voters from the real issues of the campaign. The attempt has been a dismal failure, as dismal a failure as the effort to make it appear that the sole issue is whether Rosewater shall be crowned dictator of Nebraska on the 6th of November. The Wisner Chronicle, a republican newspaper, hits the bull's eye in the following comment on the dictator business:
Some men are exhorting their fellows to deliver the state from Rosewaterism, but they have no scruples against Holdregeism. The editor of The Bee must be shown that he cannot dictate, but the manager of the B. & M. must be acknowledged dictator supreme. Which is most detrimental to the state? Rosewater's efforts have always been against monopoly; Holdrege is the head of the most gigantic and oppressive corporation in the state. Rosewater can oblige no one to patronize him to the amount of a cent against his will; Holdrege exacts tribute upon a majority of the people of Nebraska and they will continue to be helpless so long as they vote for the men whom Holdrege nominates. The issue is not Rosewaterism against Holdregeism. It is the people against corporationism, and Rosewater is only one of the people.
Reports and letters from reliable business men and farmers in all parts of the state represent that the same methods of coercion, bulldozing and intimidation are being pursued by railroad bosses, bankers and loan agents in the interior of the state. Merchants who have notes maturing in the near future have been notified that they will not be renewed if Holcomb is elected. Farmers who have mortgage loans to meet during the coming year have been threatened with foreclosure, and railway employes are given to understand that their wages will be reduced after election unless Majors is elected. In some instances wages have already been cut down, and employes have been told that they will not be raised unless Majors is elected.
In spite of this rein of terror The Bee has received assurance from every section of the state from men who are conservative and law abiding citizens that they are determined to exercise their franchise according to their conscientious convictions under the protection which the Australian ballot affords.
The action of the Standard Oil company in signing the business men's manifesto is being severely commented upon in many parts of the state. The Standard Oil company is one of the most powerful monopolies in the United States, and it is gradually, but surely, extending its powers all over the world. It is directly interested in politics in Nebraska for the reason that this state has a law upon its statute books prohibiting the sale of oil below a certain established test. This law has never been properly executed, but if Majors is elected the Standard Oil company may reasonably expect that the oil inspection department will be placed under the control of some of the many irresponsible political workers who constantly surround the tattooed candidate. The lax enforcement of the law means thousands of dollars in the coffers of the Standard oil monopoly. Mr. I.B. Ruth, Omaha manager of the Oil trust, although personally a genial citizen and well talked of by all, has taken a personal interest in the campaign, and following the example of many others having men in their employ, has carefully interrogated the employes of his company in Omaha as to their feeling with reference to Majors or Holcomb. He has given them to understand by his manner that he desires them to vote for Majors. Most of the men so informed him, but one of the employes states that nearly all of the employes of the Standard Oil company in Omaha will vote for Holcomb.
In their extremity the managers of the Majors campaign have been finally forced to resort to a number of well known tricks intended to deceive the unsuspecting voter into supporting their candidate. The scheme is well worn in Nebraska, but it will be dressed up in new clothes and made to serve its purpose once more. This time the Majors men will use the trick for the purpose of establishing beet sugar factories. One of these factories is about to be located at Fullerton, where he will unfold the plans for the erection of a mammoth beet sugar refinery. He will tell of the hundreds of thousands of dollars to be invested by eastern capitalists. These eastern money owners will not ask a bonus. They have investigated the question and have satisfied themselves that there is no spot on the globe so favorable to beet sugar industry as Fullerton. After the good people of Fullerton are about ready to congratulate themselves over the era of prosperity about to dawn they will be informed, incidentally, of course, as if it was of no special importance, that the money is all ready for investment and that work is to commence right away after election; but in order to satisfy themselves that their interests will be properly guarded these eastern investors have decided to wait and see whether Holcomb is elected. If he is they will be compelled to wait a few years; but if the republican candidate for governor is elected they will proceed at once.
This trick has served its purpose in Nebraska for so many years that no one will be impressed with it now. All beet sugar factory projects depending upon the election of Majors next Tuesday may well be looked upon with suspicion.
There is no braggadocio in this claim. It is a cold, hard fact, backed up by figures that have been prepared with extreme care from polls and estimates of the various counties of the state. This estimate was completed only yesterday, and is, therefore, based on present conditions, with all allowances made for loss to the populists by removals on account of the drouth and for all the various defections in the three parties that exist all over the state. These figures have not been doctored by the republican state central committee or any other committee. They show Holcomb's minimum strength in every county, a fact that is proven when it is known that the populist state central committee's figures give Holcomb 15,000 more plurality than is shown by the table that follows, while the estimate of the democratic committee is about 10,000 higher than The Bee's. Compared with the figures of the republican central committee, printed in The Bee of yesterday, it will be seen by all conversant with the situation in the state just how false were the claims of the Majors managers.
The figures given below cover every county in the state outside of Douglas, a county on which none of the politicians are counting to heavily swell the plurality of either side. They indicate that the vote of the state, outside of the prohibition vote, will be in the neighborhood of 178,000, allowing from 21,000 to 22,000 votes for Douglas county. On this vote Holcomb has a plurality in round numbers of 12,500 at the lowest calculation, and he stands a chance of winning by even as high as 20,000. Even the gamblers, who are prejudiced in favor of Majors, have given up hope of Majors' election, and have begun placing their money on Holcomb, taking even bets that he will receive 10,000 plurality. Last night one gambler made a bet that Majors would not carry a single county in the Sixth congressional district, the very territory where the Majors managers are asserting they will secure their heaviest gains. But their claims are a mere bluff, for they have abandoned all hope. When they asserted in print on Wednesday that Majors was gaining 1,000 votes a day, they placed his plurality at 15,000. On Thursday, Chairman Morrill made another statement and authorized its publication, that Major would have 10,000, a loss on his own claim of 5,000 in one day. When they saw their own table of claims in The Bee of yesterday they were dumfounded, but they asserted that it was an old calculation, made before Majors had developed his strength. In spite of this claim, they did not care to make any other statement of their "estimate" by counties, preferring to "lump" the state and continue the game of bluff.
These same Majors managers, however, have made the claim that they would carry Douglas county for the tattooed man by 5,000. To show how honest they are in that statement, The Bee has secured the figures made by them only yesterday in the secret of the inner committee rooms, from which the common herd are excluded. No figures were made on the actual vote, but the managers made a little table of pluralities which they expected to get and which they concede to Holcomb. This table was as follows:
| Holcomb. | Majors. | |
| First ward | 300 | . . . |
| Second ward | 400 | . . . |
| Third ward | 400 | . . . |
| Fourth ward | . . . | 200 |
| Fifth ward | . . . | 300 |
| Sixth ward | . . . | 600 |
| Seventh ward | . . . | 150 |
| Eighth ward | . . . | 200 |
| Ninth ward | . . . | 100 |
| South Omaha | 700 | . . . |
| Country precincts | . . . | 200 |
| Total Pluralities | 1,800 | 1,750 |
When it was seen how these figures came out it was resolved not to say anything about them, but the matter leaked out in spite of the vigilance of the men on the inside. It will thus be seen that the Majors managers do not expect to secure their boasted 15,000 plurality, or any part of it, in Douglas county, and while some of the pluralities they are allowing Holcomb in the various wards are approximately correct, they have made a miscalculation in several instances as to the relative strength of the candidates in the districts where they are giving pulralities[sic] to Majors.
But going back to the state figures, here is the estimate on which The Bee is safe in asserting that Holcomb will receive a rousing plurality.
© 2006–2017
All Rights Reserved
William G. Thomas
Copyright Statement