Corruption in American Legislatures
By Editor
IF we are to believe the New York papers, that State suffers more than almost any other from corrupt law-makers. The New York World of May 22 says:— "It is the custom every year for honest people to remark, upon the adjournment of the New York Legislature, that the record for venality, general worthlessness and meanness, has been strained if not broken. But it must be said in all truthfulness that this State has not had since Tweed's day such a shameless, corrupt, and blackmailing body as that which adjourned Thursday. It passed a few good measures, and the evils left behind were hardly up to former averages, but for willingness to engage in jobbery and to defend rascality in every form, this Legislature—especially the Assembly—stands pre-eminent in the annals of free-booting." This is certainly a dark picture, but probably not much if any worse than in numerous other States. Looking at it from the standpoint of California, we would say that it is impossible to find a more corrupt Legislature than the last one with which this State was afflicted. And if we are to believe the testimony of the press, other States fare no better. And that which is true of the several States is true of the nation as a whole. Even the conservative and cautious Senator Edmunds estimates that $5,000,000 was spent on "corrupt political methods" during the last campaign, and much of it for illegal and immoral purposes. Certain it is that the political condition of this country does not justify the hope that the popular millennium is about to dawn.