men? How do they influence them? The great fights waged
to defeat certain measures are well known, and it is known that money
was used. Certain congressmen have been notoriously receptive. I have
seen the following story in print in many forms. I took the trouble to
ask a well-known man if it was possible that it could be founded on
fact; his reply was, "Certainly it is a fact." A briber entered the
private room of a congressman. "Mr. ----, to come right to the point, I
want the ---- bill to pass, and I will give you five hundred dollars for
the vote and your interest." The congressman rose to his feet, purple
with rage. "You dare to offer me this insulting bribe? You infernal
scoundrel, I will throw you out." "Well, suppose we make it one
thousand," said the imperturbable visitor. "Well," replied the
congressman, cooling down, "that is a little better put. We will talk it
over."

The American Government had been attempting, since 1859, to build a
canal across the Isthmus. I believe surveys were made earlier than that,
but bribery and corruption and "graft" enabled the friends of
transcontinental railroads to stop the canals. It would be a
disadvantage to the railroads to have a canal across the Isthmus. So in
some mysterious way the canal, which the people wished, has not been
built, and will not be until the people rise and demand it. Corruption
has stood on the Isthmus with a flaming sword and struck down every
attempt to build the canal. The morality of the people is low. Divorce
is rampant, the daily journals are filled with accounts of divorces, and
daily lists of crimes are printed that would seem impossible to a
nation that can raise millions to send to China to convert the
"heathen." If they would only divert these Chinese missionaries from
China to their own heathen and grafters, but they will not. The peculiar
freedom of the country, which is nothing less than the most atrocious
license, tends to drag it down.

The papers have absolutely no check on their freedom. Men and women are
attacked by them, ruined, held up to scorn and ridicule, and the victim
has no recourse but to shoot the editor and thus embroil himself. That
it is a crime to ridicule a man and make him the butt of a nation or the
world seems never to occur to these men. Certain statesmen have been so
lampooned by the "hired" libelers that they have been ruined. The press
hires a class of men, called cartoonists, usually ill-bred fellows of
no