BREAKING THE "JACK POT,"
Ickes, Harold L.
Breaking the "Jack Pot" How Illinois is Setting About to Restore Representative Government By HAROLD L. ICKES ILLINOIS has asked to be mustered in as a progressive state. This statement may...
...perchance to assume command and lead Illinois out into purer air and brighter sunlight...
...for an expression of opinion at the coming November election, of the three propositions for which the Conference had gone on record—the Initiative and Referendum a Corrupt Practices Act and a State Civil Service Law...
...The respective states attorneys were bringing or were preparing to bring the accused to the bar of justice...
...As part of its campaign, which will be conducted vigorously until the Conference program shall have been enacted into law, it caused to be circulated petitions requiring the placing on a "little ballot...
...A call for a conference of citizens to be held at Peoria on June 27 and 28, 1910, appeared, almost spontaneously, signed by citizens in all parts of the State, "to consider the breakdown of representative government in Illinois, and to devise ways and means, if pos-sible, of restoring it," This already historic "Peoria Conference" was in some respects the most extraordinary political gathering ever held in Illinois...
...Grand juries in Cook and Sangamon counties found indictments against legislators chaiging them with bribery, perjury and conspiracy...
...No statement with regard to the Peoria Conference would be complete without a reference to the notable part played in it by the Hon...
...A Senate sub-committee was charged with an investigation which has not yet been concluded...
...This leader in the movement for popular government made a speech at Peoria on the night of June 27, that made it possible for the Conference on the following day to agree unanimously upon the Initiative and Referendum plank in the platform...
...Getting Down to Work THE CONFERENCE did more than adopt a platform, it appointed a Committee of Seven, representing all parts of the State, to give force and effect to that platform...
...And on the afternoon of the second day the most remarkable event in connection with this remarkable conference occurred...
...Every man came at his own expense and upon his own initiative...
...Jonathan Bourne, Jr., United States Senator from Oregon...
...Then there happened what may always happen so long as any community in America contains right minded, public spirited citizens...
...More, the Interests wanted certain legislation passed and certain other legislation emasculated or killed...
...This statement may occasion surprise to many political observers who have been watching' patiently for some indication that the nation-wide revolt against domination by the Interests was causing the blood of Illinois to flow more quickly...
...A crisis was needed—not by a revulsion of feeling to recall Illinois from a wrong path into which the had strayed —but merely to energize and give point and direction to a public sentiment that has never yet hesitated when the issues were fairly joined between public and private interests...
...Meanwhile the United States Senate ordered an inquiry into the charges that Senator Lorimer's election was the result of corrupt practices...
...How to Restore Representative Government LED by the Chicago Tribune, fighting courageously and intelligently, a vigorous attack was begun on the known corruption-ists and an earnest attempt made to discover the others...
...All that was necessary was to negotiate through the legislative procurer for the desired number of legislative white slaves...
...This Committee, under the able leadership of Walter S. Rogers of La Grange, proceeded to cover the State in an effective campaign against the prostituted legislators who were seeking renomination, and in advocacy of the Peoria Conference program...
...Bargaining in Honor AND SUCH a crisis happened with all the unexpectedness of a cloud burst...
...Touching elbows with states that, following the lead of Wisconsin, her noithern neighbor, were already on the firing line in the renewed struggle of the people for that real political freedom and equality of opportunity that has been the quest of the American people since the beginning, Illinois gave no outward sign that her imagination had been fired by the greatest moral issue that has confronted the country since the Civil War...
...With a constituency differing in no material respect from that of her neighbors, there never was any doubt that in due season she would take her place in the ranks formed to resist oppression and greed just as she did in Lincoln's time...
...Citizens waited for some of the accredited public leaders to suggest a remedy...
...A circumstantial confession of bribery and corruption in the Illinois legislature, strengthened and supported subsequently by more confessions, and other confirmatory evidence, left no doubt in the minds of any except of those who would not believe, that the state house at Springfield was as much a place of barter and sale as South Water Street or the Stock Yards...
...It contained radicals and conservatives, Republicans, Democrats and Prohibitionists, White less than one hundred men attended they represented nearly every part of the State...
...Peoria Conference" Points the Way WITHOUT machinery, without a fixed program, the conference went to work...
...But no leader presented himself...
...Merely a business transaction...
...But it was realized that denunciation of crime or even punishment of criminals waB not constructive work and would not per-manantly secure the commonwealth against ft recurrence of the identical situation just discovered...
...As opposed to Human Rights, Illinois to all appearances had as definitely cast in her lot with Property Eights as had Pennsylvania or Rhode Island...
...For a consideration, senators and representatives sold, not their bodies, but their souls...
...The Interests wanted to make a clever tool and faithful servitor United States Senator...
...But notwithstanding her apparent indifference Illinois was deeply stirred almost from the first...
...came because the shame of Illinois was his shame as a citizen of Illinois and because it was his duty as a citizen to remove that shame forever...
...When they could not persuade enough legislators of his own party to elect him they bought so many head of Democratic stock, bought them on the hoof, at prices varying according to pedigree and weight—and Lorimer occupied the seat for which Douglas and Lincoln had fought...
...It was composed of men who there met and worked together for the first time...
...Something must be done to make it more difficult, if not impossible, for the Interests again to debauch the state...
...The report of the committee on resolutions was adopted without a dissenting vote, conservative and radical joining in a program that demanded as initial reform legislation for Illinois an Initiative and Referendum amendment to the State Constitution, a Corrupt Practices Act and a comprehensive state-wide Civil Service Law...
Vol. 2 • October 1910 • No. 43
