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AST fall, just before the biennial election of members of the Delaware Legislature, the wife of a locally well-known farmer in the southern part of Sussex County said to her husband at the breakfast-table, "Jim, how much are you going to get for your vote?" "I don't know that I'm going to sell my vote," replied the husband.

"I can't see," she said, "why you talk like that; why shouldn't you sell it? We need the money bad enough. Other people sell theirs, and I don't see that they're thought any the worse of. You're not the first man that's done it. Look at the men who have taken Addicks's money, and see where some of them are now!"

About a week later, on election day, a German citizen of Camden, Kent County, went into the cashier's office of the Addicks Republican party in that village, presented to the cashier a small button of a peculiar form, and shortly afterward came out, bringing in his hand seventy-five dollars in crisp, new bills of the Merchants' National Bank of Boston, which he had just received for his own vote and the votes of his two sons. Holding up the money as he passed an acquaintance on the street, he said, significantly, "It would take a good many drops of sweat to make that seventy-five dollars!"

On the same day, in Milford, Kent County, a young man who had always be fore voted the straight Democratic ticket went into the voter's assistant booth of the Addicks Republicans. When one of his friends, William T. Morris, who happened to be the Democratic voter's assistant, looked at him reproachfully, as if to say, "I didn't think you'd go back on your party in this way," the young man replied, with a shamefaced smile, "I know you don't like to see me going in here, Will, but they've got the most money."

Six weeks later, while engaged in an

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investigation of the political situation in Delaware, I happened to be driving one afternoon along the sandy country road that leads from Millsboro, Sussex County, to Dagsboro. My driver, an uneducated but fairly intelligent young fellow of eighteen or twenty, seemed to be quite ready to talk to a man whom he supposed to be a commercial traveler, and I had no difficulty in getting at his views with regard to the political situation and the election.

"How did it go in your town?" I inquired; "the Union Republicans won, didn't they?"

"Oh, yes!" he replied; "the Addicks men bought up pretty much everything there was in sight. I've heard that they paid some fellows as high as thirty dollars."

"Is the selling of votes a regular thing down here?" I asked.

"Pretty regular," he said, nonchalantly; "they 'most all do it; and it ain't such a bad thing for the county, neither. There's a lot of money come in here since Addicks took a hand, and it's been a great help to the farmers."

"What do the people generally think of Addicks?"

Well, I dunno; I guess they think he's all right-anyhow the Unions do; but from the talk I hear 'round the hotel I judge they don't really want to have him elected Senator. They'd rather keep him along on the ragged edge, because, they say, 'When he's elected, where's our money comin' from? He won't give down any more.' I think, though, he ought to have it. I'm a Democrat myself, but when a man spends his money like he does, I'm damned if I don't think he's entitled to it."

Such are the views and the practice of the people of southern Delaware with reference to one of the most important duties of American citizenship. The cases that I have cited are few in num

ber, and may seem inadequate as a basis for a sweeping charge of political corruption; but they are typical as well as characteristic, and fairly illustrate the state of demoralization to which thousands of the Delaware people have come. Women urge their husbands to sell their votes because they need the money and because the act is no longer regarded as disgraceful; eight-year-old boys wish that they were grown up, so that they might get twenty dollars from Addicks; fathers sell not only their own votes but the votes of their sons who have just come of age; Democrats go into the camp of the Addicks Republicans simply because the latter have "got the most money;" and intelligent young men frankly express the opinion that the bringing in and distribution of a huge corruption fund is a good thing for the poor farmers, and that a man who buys votes enough to elect him to the Senate of the United States is fully entitled to go there, and is unjustly treated, if not actually defrauded, when kept out of the position for which he has liberally paid. What influences have brought about the moral deterioration shown in such opinions and practices as these, and what party or person is chiefly responsible for the corruption of a population that was once honest and of good repute? It is my purpose, in this and the following articles, to answer these questions by giving the results of a study that I have recently made of Delaware politics and the working methods of certain Delaware politicians. I have no prepossession for or against any political party as such, and it is a matter of perfect indifference to me whether the Senators from Delaware be Republicans or Democrats. I have looked at the situation, therefore, in its political aspect, with absolute impartiality, and I shall try to present accurately and fairly the facts that have come to my knowledge. The only personal bias of which I am conscious is a strong inherited prejudice in favor of common honesty.

The history of political corruption in Delaware is, for the most part, the history of a single man and a single party. Other men have bought votes now and then upon a small scale, and other parties have resorted, occasionally, to tricky or dishonorable methods; but no systematic attempt was ever made to corrupt the

whole population and buy up the whole State until J. Edward Addicks and the Union Republican party took the field. With a lone star for their device, and "Addicks or nobody" for their war-cry. they began a campaign of corruption which has had no parallel, I think, in the political history of the United States.

When, after the most lavish use of money, they failed to attain their ends. they proceeded to hold up the State, as a highwayman would hold up a stage; and declared that it should go unrepresented in the United States Senate until it would agree to elect Mr. Addicks to one of the vacant seats. This hold-up still continues. and seems likely to continue until the winter of 1904-5, when Mr. Addicks's lieutenants promise to end the long struggle by "wiping up the earth" with all the honest Regulars and incorruptible Democrats who may then be left. In view of the wide and general attention that the legislative deadlock in Delaware is now attracting, I shall postpone, for the present, a review of Mr. Addicks's earlier career, and devote this article (1) to a characteristic illustration of his latest working methods, and (2) to a description of the means by which he brought about, last November, the election of the Union Republican legislators who are now sup porting him at Dover.

First, the attempt to make a "deal."

In the early part of last September, Dr. L. H. Ball, the present Congressman from Delaware, who happened then to be in Wilmington, was called to the telephone by an acquaintance named Lawton, who asked him if he would not go to New York that night and meet a few gentlemen who were desirous of settling the factional fight in Delaware by means of an amicable arrangement. Dr. Ball got the impression, from Lawton's telephone talk, that the New York gentlemen referred to were members of the National Republican Committee. He consented to go, met Mr. Lawton at the station, and they started. On the train Lawton virtually admitted that he had secured Dr. Ball's consent to go to New York by means of an innocent stratagem; and that the person whom they were really to meet was J. Edward Addicks. When they reached their destination, they drove to the New York Yacht Club, where Addicks had his

except that you have persisted in fighting us, and if you would only join us, and use your influence with the Regulars who are opposing us, it would make your political future secure. I think you ought to go to the United States Senate with me."

Dr. Ball replied that he did not care, at that time, to discuss the question of his political future, and that so far as the Regular Republican legislators were concerned, he could not influence them in favor of Mr. Addicks, even if he felt disposed to do so; because they were voting against him on principle.

Mr. Addicks then said: "I'll tell you what I'll do, Ball; there are three men in your party that I want to get. If you'll use your influence with Chandler, Pilling, and Flinn, and get them, I'll have the Governor call a special session of the Legislature, and I pledge you my word that you shall go to the United States Senate with me. If you use your influence with those men in good faith, and, for any reason, fail to get them, I will still promise that you shall be renominated for Congress, as Representative, on both Republican tickets, and sent back to Wash ington for another term."

Dr. Ball replied that he could not control the three men named; that he would not if he could; and that he must decline to enter into any deal or agreement with Mr. Addicks that would involve the political future of either.

Addicks then became irritated in turn, and said, with emphasis: "You won't? All right! I'm going to reiterate now what I said years ago: I'm either going to be Senator, or I'll sink the Republican party in Delaware ten thousand fathoms deep!" 2 "A man who talks in that way," rejoined Ball, hotly, "is no Republican! Such speeches, and action in accordance with such speeches, have kept you out of the United States Senate thus far, and will keep you out always." He then took his hat, left the room, and returned that night to Wilmington.

By the terms of the compromise agreement between the Union Republicans and the Regulars, made in 1900, Dr. Ball was equitably entitled to re-election as the Con

Representatives William Chandler, of White Clay Creek hundred, Richard T. Pilling, of Mill Creek hundred, and William R. Flinn, of Christiana hundred.

3 Mr. Addicks first made this declaration in a telegram to Senator Washburn, of Minnesota, shortly after the adjournment of the Delaware Legislature in May, 1895.

gressional representative from the Dela ware district; but when he refused to make the deal suggested by Addicks, the latter determined to punish him for his obstinacy, and therefore put up United States District Attorney Byrne to defeat him. The result of Byrne's nomination on the Union Republican ticket was the election of a Democratic Congressman; but, as one of Mr. Addicks's lieutenants afterward said to me, “We intended to beat Ball, whatever happened; we preferred a Democrat to him." Byrne resigned the office of United States District Attorney and thus became the instrument of Addicks's vengeance, and when he had been defeated by the Democratic candidate, he was reappointed to his old place. It is not improbable that Byrne really expected to be elected; but whether he did or not, Addicks seems to have used him as a means of punishing a man against whom, as he admitted, he had nothing personally, but with whom he had failed to make a corrupt deal.

He

I have cited this case as a characteristic illustration of one of the many and varied methods by which Mr. Addicks endeavors to secure the help or support of men to whom he dares not offer cash. knew that he could not buy Dr. Ball, but he thought he might tempt him with the United States Senatorship. He held the temptation in one hand and a club in the other, and when he failed to entrap he smote.

Among all the varied inducements held out by Addicks and his lieutenants to men whom they wish to "get," spot cash takes the first place; and in the election, last fall, of the legislators who are now voting for Mr. Addicks in Dover, it played a more important part, perhaps, than all other inducements combined. Before attempting to describe, however, the ways in which money was made to take the place of argument and persuasion in that campaign, I must give the Addicks workers the benefit of the explanations that they make for publication with regard to this charge of vote-buying and corruption. Such explanations may be summed up, briefly but fairly, in the reply to a question that I asked the President of an Addicks Republican club in Sussex County. He had just called my attention to the overwhelming majorities rolled up by the

Union Republican candidates in the south ern part of the State, and had referred to this apparent unanimity of public senti ment as a proof of Mr. Addicks's great and growing popularity. "Yes," I replied, "it does seem to show that Mr. Addicks gets hold of the people in some way; but the general understanding is that he obtains these big majorities by means of wholesale vote-buying. What about that?"

The Addicks man laid his hand on my knee; bent forward a little; looked at me for a moment with a grieved and shocked expression, and then said, with slow enunciation and impressive gravity, "Now, Mr. Kennan, this is confidential-that's what it is confidential—between me and

you and God!It ain't so !"

The reply made by Mr. Layton, the present Secretary of State, to a similar inquiry was not so brief, and was not "confidential between me and you and God;" but it was to the same effect "it ain't so !"

"The rural population of Kent and Sussex Counties," said Dr. Layton to me, " comes from the sturdy, self-reliant AngloSaxon stock. They are not ignorant, lowborn foreigners-in fact, the foreign element is very small-and I doubt whether anywhere in the United States there is a population of better ancestry. They are generally industrious farmers, who do their own thinking and live by their own efforts, and the idea that such a population, with such an ancestry, is purchasable -that it can be bought up wholesale by anybody is incredible-it is inconceivable! If the Republicans of Kent and Sussex Counties are corrupt and purchasable, there is no Republican party in the State, and no material out of which a Republican party can be made. It's true we don't play Sunday-school politics in Delaware, because we have to fight the combined corruption fund of the Democrats and the so-called Regular Republicans; and we're in the position of a man who is up against a Texan desperado armed with a six-shooter. We did put up Byrne to beat Dr. Ball, because Ball refused to recognize us and didn't secure a single appointment of any consequence from the ranks of the Union Republican party. There are less than two hundred Regulars in this county, and yet they hold all

the Federal offices. The Regular Republicans have been trying to browbeat us and tyrannize over us ever since 1896; but they can't beat us. As for the Legislature, not a single member of it from these lower counties has ever been pledged to Addicks. We don't have to get pledges from our legislators-they vote for Addicks without any pledge, simply because such is the wish of ninety-nine out of every hundred of their constituents."

It is not necessary at present to comment upon Dr. Layton's assertions further than to say, first, that more than fifty per cent. of the Republican voters in Kent and Sussex Counties are "Anglo-Saxons" from the coast of Africa, whose incorruptibility is not wholly beyond question; and, second, that the statements with regard to votebuying which he furnishes to newspaper men seem to differ widely from the admissions made by him to personal friends and associates in private conversation. In 1894 the Sussex County Republican Committee was authorized to expend $2,000 of Mr. Addicks's money in an election precinct that contained only 280 voters; and two years ago Dr. Layton told a prominent lawyer in Georgetown that up to that time Mr. Addicks, to his certain knowledge, had spent $400,000 in Delaware in campaign years alone.

Second, setting aside, for the present, the questions raised by Dr. Layton's conflicting statements, I shall try to describe what happened in the legislative campaign of 1902—that is, last fall; and I will begin with the notes of the Merchants' National Bank of Boston.

Two or three days before the November election, Mr. Addicks, or somebody acting in his interest, brought into the State of Delaware two whole series (fives and tens) of crisp, new, consecutively numbered notes of the Merchants' National Bank of Boston, and distributed them among the Union Republican workers in all the election districts of Kent and Sussex Counties. Prior to the first of November there was not a single new, unworn bill of that bank in all southern Delaware; but five days later the two lower counties were flooded with them. On the day after election, Mr. C. W. Lord, a well-known hardware merchant of Dover, took in over the counter, in the ordinary course of business, twenty-eight of these