p. 63 | A TIMELY REBUKE

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 16, 1869

A TIMELY REBUKE.

The London Saturday Review, which is certainly—whatever else may be said of it—one of the ablest and most thoughtful of the English journals, has these reflections:

“In the United States we see the influence of money in its worst and most unblushing form. Of all the dangers to which the great democracy is exposed, none is so conspicuous, and none so generally recognized by all thinking men, as the danger of downright pecuniary corruption. An effort is being made in England to bring to justice men who are accused—rightly or wrongly—of having defrauded the shareholders of a great financial company. Whatever the result, no one doubts that the case will be fully investigated, and that the Judges will do their duty without fear or favor. But in New York the leaders of commerce appear to be above the law. They use their power without restraint or concealment for transactions in shares which fairly astonish the enterprising British financier, and when an appeal is made to the law in consequence of a quarrel between the conspirators, it turns out that each of them has a judge in his pay, and is able to drag the machinery of justice through the dirt of the most unblushing corruption. Certainly no spectacle has been exhibited in England half so demoralizing to the public mind as the whole course of the rival manipulators of the great Erie Railroad. Money has doubtless great influence upon the British Parliament, but at least it does not influence members in the repulsive form of direct bribery. The taxation of the country is doubtless determined in a great measure by rich men; but at least we are not told here that more than half the revenue escapes through mysterious leaks between the contributor and the national exchequer, and we are entirely free from such mysterious but powerful agencies as the notorious “whiskey ring.” The influence of money in England acts through what, by comparison at least, may be called legitimate channels; and we are not disgraced by paying one set of taxes to the public and another to the plunderers of the public revenue. The wealthy classes may be powerful, but they have not the power to mould tariffs with an exclusive view to their own pockets.”

It is lawful, says the Latin proverb, to learn from an enemy, and though the Saturday Review is not a special friend of this country, we may acknowledge the truth of this statement, even if it were made in an unfriendly spirit. We may not only acknowledge its truth, but confess that it is not the half of it. Unhappily, in the largest and most influential city of the country, both commercial and political affairs are rotten from core to skin. There is not only the hidden gangrene, but the hideous and disgusting corruption which there is no attempt to hide, but there is not honesty enough left even to be ashamed of it. From primary meetings to national elections is an unbroken chain of bargains, of buying of votes and selling of legislation. Laws are made, not for the public welfare, but to subserve private interests, and are bought by the purchase of members at so much a head, either in money or office. The rule is universal, with only here and there a few honorable exceptions of individual men. The “Ring” is King, and Legislatures are only its ministers, to give a legal sanction to whatever legislation it chooses to be paid for, at such a price as the interest in question warrants. Office is sought and accepted, whether legislative or executive, not with any purpose of faithfully discharging its duties at a fixed emolument, but for what can be made out of it by wholesale theft or plundering the public. The Bench is no better. The man who goes before a Judge elected by popular vote, in the hope of a just judgment according to the merits of his case in law or equity, is a fool. The Judge is bought by money, or interest, or political considerations, and he who cannot count one or the other on his side, will, if he has ordinary common sense, keep out of court and save his costs.

From the corner grocer who sells fusil oil for whisky, peach leaves for tea, chicory for coffee, or marble-dust in four parts to four of sugar, up to the millionaire in Wall street who waters stock, makes a corner on Erie or a corner in pork—and the category covers the greater part of them—all are knaves alike, great rascals or small rascals, according to their opportunity. At the Bar men reach distinction who, fifty years ago, would not have been permitted to practice in any court, and because of that bad eminence and influence it gives them among thieves and pimps, and other beastly elements of society, are raised to Chairmanships in State party committees and command the nominations to the highest offices. It is only among the old-fashioned lawyers of a past generation or the few young men who cling to the old traditions that that high sense of professional honor which once distinguished the legal calling is clung to and held as more precious than all fee or reward. The greed of gain has eaten out all purity; honor is a romantic notion, and honesty a weakness which only fools believe in or practice.

This is not an agreeable picture; but who can say that it is not a true one? True, that is, of the dominant influences that govern society in New York, that shape its ends and mould its various public relations. There would be little hope for us, as a people, if we did not see and acknowledge that this is a true statement of the case there, and that contagion is showing itself in other places. * Never before in this country has there been such a destitution of public morality, or any such well-grounded reason for fearing that we may not be able to get back to a healthy state without serious convulsions. New York, as the metropolis, sets the example to the rest of the country, and has long done on a large scale in her municipal affairs and local politics what is done on a smaller scale, and, as yet, with less boldness, in some other sections. And in New York the reaction seems likely to first show itself. “When these Yankees,”—said one foreigner to another in the silent crowd that awaited around the San Francisco jail the bringing forth of the first criminal to be hanged by order of the Vigilance Committee,—“when these Yankees take a “Bible in one hand and a musket in the other they “are the Devil.” They are getting their Bibles and their muskets ready in New York.

Shall we take warning in time? Or are we to go through another ordeal of civil convulsion and of blood? The work of purification is enormous, but it must be begun and persevered in or the whole political fabric which it has cost so much to rear will tumble into ruins. Party names and party interests are less than dust in the balance where the stake is the welfare of a whole people and the existence of a republican form of government. We are in greater danger of destruction now from the want of morality and any sense of honor in our public affairs than we have ever been from foreign or domestic enemies, and our only salvation is in that private virtue of the people which, when they see the danger, may apply the remedy.—Chicago Tribune.