COMMERCIALISM IN POLITICS.
By Editor
One of the Most Subtle and Dangerous Evils of These Times.
It is not the open, grosser sins and crimes which destroy the vital righteousness of a people; it is the subtle forms of evil, the things winked at, cloaked under political necessities, and made to do service in philanthropical lines. It is the latter which harden the heart, benumb the conscience, and make greater and still greater crime possible, till a whole nation perishes in its own corruption. One of these phases of evil is strongly set forth by Hon. Bird S. Coler, Comptroller of the City of New York, in an article in the Independent of October 31, entitled "Commercialism in Politics." We have not space to quote more than a few paragraphs. Yet it has all been foretold in such scriptures as Isaiah 59, Amos 7, and elsewhere. We are nearing the end. Inherent corruption means decay and ruin. The only hope is in individual regeneration by faith in Christ Jesus. Commercialism in politics provides no place in public life for a man who tries to be courageously honest. The system demands of those who serve it, or act as its agents in public office, a show of outward honesty of the ostentatious, rather than the aggressive, order. There must be no looting of the treasury, no squandering of funds in the open where detection is certain. A Tweed or a 'Tweed Ring' would be as grotesque and impossible in the New York or Philadelphia of to-day as stage coaches in Broadway. "Boodleism," by the old method, and "buses" passed together out of the political and material life of the city to return no more. Commerce in the great benefits of power in politics has grown from a business of blundering force to an exact science by means of which public opinion, always suspicious, is so swayed and divided that it remains merely suspicious, never positive. The public mind has been made less inquisitive, the official conscience more elastic, by the skilful cloaking of political corruption into the outward form of honesty and respectability. Commercial transactions in politics, at least all those of magnitude, now bear the label of public benefits or municipal development. The system of using public offices and political power for private gain, which is the plain English for commercialism in politics, has been so perfected during the past ten years in the larger cities and States of the Union, that its greatest beneficiaries are undoubtedly sincere when they say that they are honest and public-spirited citizens. They have not filched any money from a public strong box by the exact method of a thief or burglar; in fact, they9would not do so if the opportunity offered. They are honest, according to their own standard of honesty. The degree of their honesty is a matter of opinion or viewpoint. Their system teaches that the spoils of politics are legitimate, and they practise the politics that provide spoils. If they were engaged in trade or finance, they would live up to their present standard of honesty. They would not steal from a customer, not in the broad or vulgar meaning of the word—they would merely ascertain his needs and necessities, then corner the material to supply them, and take the lion's share of the profits. That is business—business of sharp practise the moralist may say; but those who succeed at it have no fear of prison or other punishment; therefore they are honest in their own conscience. The moral code of such men is that where there is no punishment, there can be no crime. They [great political leaders] put into places of power and responsibility men who will do their bidding, or at least men who are expected to obey orders. The higher the personal reputation of the man elevated to office, the better for the interests of the representatives of commercialism in politics, provided, always, that he does not prove to be aggressively honest. The man favored by such interests to the extent of election to office is expected to be personally and outwardly honest, above suspicion. He must keep his own hands clean, but it is also expected of him that his honesty will be confined to the passive or negative state. If he proves honest to that degree of positiveness or aggressiveness that causes him to block commercial schemes, he at once passes out of favor, and becomes a marked man, one to be hounded, and, if possible, destroyed. When he reaches that stage, the fight against him will not be confined to his own party or faction, but it will be made by every party, faction, and individual interested in the commerce of politics. This system promotes, in fact compels, a combination between leaders or rulers of opposing factions or parties, because their commercial interests in politics are identical. This community of interests has grown and extended in the course of the development of the commercial spirit in politics until its tentacles reach every social, professional, and moral influence, as well as all elements in business and political life. It is a marvelous system, and dangerous, not only to public interests, but to the moral standards of the community. Division of power and combinations of personal and commercial interests have brought the great political parties of the country to a condition, in some States, where a leader of one may say to the membership of the other party, in a great sub-division of the commonwealth remote from his home, "This man you may employ in your public service; that man you shall not." Not only has such a command been issued, it has been obeyed, and obeyed because the commercial interests of opposing factions were identical, and could not brook independent and aggressive honesty in public office. There is a moral danger in this spirit of arrogant contempt for official honesty that is more to be feared than the constantly increasing expenses of providing from taxation the profits of commercialism in politics. To discourage true honesty in public life is a serious matter; but it is blunting the moral sense of the rising generation to blazon to the world the lesson that the public officer who bars the sluice from the public treasury to the private pocket is a marked man, doomed to suffer defamation for daring to do right. Such is the principle, such the methods, of commercialism in politics.