“THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN OF ALL.”
By Editor
The Indianapolis News says:— When the American people undertake reform, they must begin nearest the ground, closest to the great source. If they will insist on an end of violence and murder by labor, and on purity in their legislators, they must first get after the corrupt scoundrels who stand in the background, and poison all sources of public action by their bribes. The principal villain is the man who buys councils and corrupt legislators, the “respected” citizen, the “promoter,” the “manager,” who is clothed in soft raiment, and whose name is writ large. This man, who is to-day sapping the vitality of American institutions, municipal, state, and national, is the one that must first be driven from prominence to obscurity, from respectability to disgrace, from fame to infamy. But the above reform is of a class that no legislation can reach. It has a moral basis, and law does not make morals. The bribing concerns would go out of fashion, if there were no legislators, no councilmen, no corrupt officials to be bribed. All this talk is good, but who will drive out the briber? Surely not the one “benefited” by his bribing? Where will he be driven to? He will find his partners in the bribing business all the way from the top to the bottom, and their name is legion. We would prefer putting this title in a different way, “The Most Alarming Symptom of All.” The easy operations of such men show the whole body politic to be fearfully corrupt. Read what the prophet says: “Their hands are upon that which is evil to do it diligently; the prince asketh, and the judge is ready for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth the evil desire of his soul: thus they weave it together. The best of them is as a brier; the most upright is worse than a thorn hedge: the day of thy watchmen, even thy visitation, is come; now shall be their perplexity.” Micah 7:3, 4.