p. 569 | Politics for Revenue

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 4, 1900

Politics for Revenue

The Comptroller of New York City, writing in the Independent of August 9, quotes the statement of “a prominent political leader,—‘I am working for my own pocket all the time,’—and says that “he told in a terse phrase of unvarnished truth the exact condition of modern politics in the great cities of the United States. By hundreds and thousands of men, who are to-day classed as good and honest citizens, politics for revenue is regarded as a business, just as legitimate and honorable as the buying and selling of dry-goods or groceries. . . . And, unfortunately, that view of the matter is largely sustained by public opinion. . . . Few men enter modern politics for fame or honor. They are working for their own pockets all the time. . . . With the trade of such men it is not an easy matter to say where business ends and blackmail begins. . . . When corporations owning franchises or operating under the favor of special legislation can issue a vast amount of stock to be placed where it will be paid for in laws or permits, honest government has small chance of existence. Precisely this condition exists in every State in the Union.”

Of the last days of the Roman Republic it was long ago written: “For money the statesman sold the state, and the burgess sold his freedom, the post of the officer and the vote of the juryman were to be had for money. Men had forgotten what honesty was; a person who refused a bribe was regarded not as an upright man, but as a personal foe. Money was the one thought from the highest senator to the poorest wretch who sold his vote.” Do you see any likeness here?