The Presidential campaign has been suddenly inflamed by the sensational
disclosures of Mr. Hearst. In three successive speeches at Columbus (Ohio), St. Louis, and Memphis (Ten- nessee) he has produced letters incriminating two Republican politicians—Senator Foraker and Mr. Sibley, a Member of Congress for Pennsylvania—and two leading Democrats, Mr. Haskell, the Governor of Oklahoma and treasurer of the Democratic campaign fund, and Senator Bailey, of Texas. The letters, which indicate that these gentlemen, while occupy- ing public office, have had financial and other relations with the Standard Oil Company, have caused great excitement. Senator Foraker's explanation—that the moneys received were legal fees for services not relating to legislation—has failed to convince moderate public opinion, and his career is already regarded as ended. Governor Haskell has met the charge with a flat denial, and suggests that it should be investigated by a Committee of five editors to bear both parties and other evidence on oath, on the ground of the delays of the law,—an invitation which has been declined by most of the editors named. The result of Mr. Hearst's bombshell is to make the Trust issue overshadow all others in the Presidential campaign. But while he has impartially assailed leading representatives of both parties as "the servile tools of criminal Trusts," he not only abstains from making insinuations against Mr. Roosevelt or Mr. Taft, but he sums up the evidence now divulged as showing that "when Roosevelt whipped the Standard out of the Republican Party it went over to the Democrats."
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