BRIBERY : THE ARCHBOLD LETTERS Standard Oil people have undoubtedly practised bribery throughout a long series of years and on the most comprehensive scale, and that not merely to avert a temporary danger or get themselves out of an unex pected scrape, but as a matter of ordinary business routine. They bribed high and low, in season and out of season. How real the evil is was revealed in a dramatic manner in the famous Standard Oil letters which Mr. Randolph Hearst read during the American Presidential campaign of 1908. The genuine ness of these letters was never questioned, although the persons implicated made some feeble attempts to put a less invidious explana tion upon them. It was stated that one of the Standard Oil Company's letter-books had been stolen, and the Times editorially remarked that there had been " nothing approaching the dis closures in sensational rapidity of action in the history of the American Presidential elections." The principal figure in these epistles of corrup tion is Mr. J. D. Archbold. The first letter was addressed to Mr. J. B. Foraker, Senator for Ohio, and one of the leading members of the Republican party.
In fact, in that year-1899—the Annual Report of Mr. Monnett to the Governor of the State of Ohio contains detailed charges of six deliberate attempts to bribe Mr. David K. Watson, his
predecessor in office, to withdraw suits entered against the Standard Oil Company of Ohio. Mr. Watson, however, was not to be bribed ; neither was he to be intimidated, though Senator Marcus A. Hanna, the personal friend and financier of President McKinley, and one of the most influential Republican poli Both Judge Morrison and Judge Henderson were appointed to the Supreme Court of Penn sylvania, and the former's familiarity with " oil and gas " no doubt proved acceptable to Mr. Archbold. We shall see hereafter that Mr. Archbold himself and other Standard Oil mag nates had good reason to appreciate in the famous Buffalo refinery prosecution the advan tage of having on the Bench a judge who was familiar with " oil and gas." These strange letters did not disdain other rising members of the Bar. Here is a telegram and three letters addressed to the Hon. J. P. Elkin, Attorney-General of Pennsylvania—the officer whose duty it is to act as public prose cutor in his State in enforcing anti-Trust legis lation. Mr. Elkin's merits have since raised him also to the Bench of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania :—