Dishonesty in Official Life
THE use of public office for private gain has become so wide-spread and so notorious that it is being commented upon in various quarters. It is evidently causing uneasiness in the minds of those who do not deliberately shut their eyes to unimpeachable evidence. Even United States senators have been convicted of violating the laws of the land by selling their influence to those who were defrauding the government, the latest case of this kind being that of Senator Mitchell, of Oregon. A Pennsylvania judge, when he recently imposed sentences of imprisonment and fine upon some school directors who had been indicted and pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy, bribery, and extortion, said:— The system of graft seems to have pervaded the entire State, menacing its government. A New York paper published the following paragraph in one of its recent editorials:— The old idea that honesty is one of the essential qualities of business life seems entirely abandoned to-day. Are we to think that the financial community of New York City, which is rapidly becoming the financial center of the world, is made up of men with no sense of honor, with no feeling of noblesse oblige? Are the methods of Standard Oil, the Steel Trust, the International Shipping Trust, the methods which characterize all our financiers and their institutions? Another New York paper draws a sarcastic comparison between the methods employed by Boss Tweed in defrauding the public and those used now to obtain “honest graft.” It says:— Some thirty-odd years ago there flourished in New York an arrogant, ostentatious person named Tweed. . . . His methods were crude. He sold cuspidors and carpets and chairs to the city at absurd prices, and paid himself out of the city treasury over and over again. He issued fraudulent warrants and flagrantly stole. But, after all, he stole only a few millions, much less than a little street railroad or gas franchise is worth, and the lawyers and the blackmailers took most of those few millions away from him. He was a benighted4man who, in his ignorance, overlooked his best opportunities. They do things better now, lawfully and honestly, using the word honestly in the sense the courts of law construe it. Nobody in politics does crude and criminal things now. Those are left nowadays to the high financiers in Wall Street, to life insurance officials, and the great banks and trust companies. No more stealing, no more corruption. Nothing left but what George Washington Plunkitt calls “honest graft.” A Federal grand jury, in Chicago, after an investigation of several months, during which more than one hundred witnesses were examined, has returned indictments against seventeen of the prominent business men of that city for alleged conspiracy in restraint of trade. The Cook County grand jury, sitting in the same city during a portion of the same time, has returned a long list of indictments against various persons for conspiracy to injure the business of other parties, and in its report used the following language:— That the city of Chicago for years past has been infested with moral lepers who have preyed upon its financial and social strength is known to most informed citizens. That reputable business men and reputable citizens employed in all fields of labor have been subjects of blackmail and the greed of these vampires, is also a well-known fact. The present grand jury has had laid before it facts and conditions so convincing and positive along these lines that it feels in duty bound to report to the court and the public the situation as it has been given them by witnesses, some of whom at least were brazen enough to flaunt not only flagrant acts of moral turpitude of others in the face of this body, but who, with an air of great glee, told of their own debauched and criminal acts and methods. And thus the facts might be cited from all parts of the country and relating to all the walks of life. The daily papers are full of these things, and the magazines seem to be vying with one another in their exposure of dishonesty in business and civic life, until one is inclined to wonder if integrity of character has been wholly thrown to the winds in the race for wealth and power. It is increasingly evident that we are in the perils of the last days, and that we are facing the conditions that are foretold as indicating the mighty working of Satan in his final effort to sweep as many as possible to destruction. We have no well-grounded hope that things will grow better, but on the contrary we may expect that “evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse.” The only remedy will be in the coming of the Lord to overthrow evil and to restore righteousness to the earth. In the meantime we are to bear a telling testimony in favor of honesty by scorning to take advantage of our neighbor, and in all our official acts we are to shun even the appearance of personal benefit. “What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” So shall we witness to the reality and the value of the message of deliverance which the Lord is now sending to the world to prepare a people for his coming.