Bitter Attack on President

Senator Tillman delivers “one of the most direct and denunciatory addresses ever heard” in the Senate, presenting criticisms and solutions for the recent financial crisis.

Washington-- with a caution unusual for him Senator Tillman read a part of his speech in the senate, in which he denounced executive encroachment on legislative power. With this apparent caution he proceeded to deliver one of the most direct and denunciatory addresses ever heard in that body. His speech was based on his resolution instructing the committee on finance to inquire whether national banks of New York are in the habit of furnishing permanent capital for speculative enterprises, etc. The resolution was adopted. Citing what he asserted to be “cold blooded facts” to show executive responsibility for many evils, Senator Tillman said: “In the same category of ‘keeping the work of commerce to the ear and breaking them to the hope,’ if the newspaper are to be believed, he is now planning a truce with these same rich malefactors and is ready to grant amnesty to all past trust offenders. “In the most pronounced language he has denounced the combination between labor organizations and the boycott, but on the eve of an election panders to this same vote by demanding changes in the law as interpreted by the supreme court. “Organized labor is to be relieved from the prohibition of the supreme court’s decisions, but along with it must go the relief of capital. “Once relieved ‘the malefactors of great wealth’ will smile in triumph over their victory, while labor will find itself no freer than before. It is a battle between predatory wealth on both sides, with the power and prestige of the president thrown into the balance in behalf of his favorites. “Violation of civil service rules, pernicious activity of government officials, bold and unblushing efforts to dictate his successor in the White House or compel his own conspicuous factors of the situation.” “The people, poor simple souls, reading the special pleas and sophistical excuses of editors are led to believe the president alone is honest and patriotic” said Mr. Tillman. “They believe religiously that the senate is corrupt and the house debauched and that the policies, --’my policies’-- which are so exploited in the press must prevail and become law before and relief can be obtained.” Mr. Tillman reviewed the events of the recent currency crisis and charged Wall street with many misdemeanors. “The profits of this nefarious stock mongering have,” he said, “found their way into the pockets of the very men who with the evil results of their fraud manifest pose as ‘saviours’ and ‘uncrowned kings,’ and are lauded to the skies when they were really trying to save themselves from the disasters which threatened to overwhelm them along with their deluded victims. One of these ‘saviours’ had done more than any other of the money kings to deluge the stock market with watered stock.”

“Bitter Attack on President,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed June 17, 2025, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/517.