THE CORRUPTING POWER OF MONEY.
A apostle said: "The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." How the truth of that statement is manifest at the present time. To obtain money for itself or for what it will buy, men and women will sell purity, honor, reputation, life. As the control of money becomes concentrated in the hands of a few, its corrupting power becomes greater. It enters the jury box, the court, the municipal counsels of our cities, the state legislatures, and the National Congress. Its metal-clad hand is upon the throat of the nation, and its magic touch palsies moral nerve and conscience. The exposures of Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, and more latterly, Thomas W. Lawson, of how the great trusts and companies and rings control cities, states, and nation are known to all. Men laugh at and ridicule the statements of Lawson concerning "the system," but there are the statements; who can disprove them. Facts brought to light are presumptive evidence that Lawson is correct. But here is a word concerning "the system" from another quarter. The Denver Times, of Jan. 23, 1905, quotes the following from the Wall Street Journal, an orthodox exponent in the capitalistic world. Things are sweeping on with such a high hand, that even this paper sees danger. The quotation is from a leading editorial: "The power that bails the 'cadet,' that protects the law-breaking liquor seller, that paralyzes the police captain's hand as against the gambling-house keeper, that sells a franchise or protection for the law-breaking public service corporation, is one and the same power. It is a power that in every activity of its existence imperils the liberty of every citizen. It is truly an imperium in imperio nullifying the machinery of free government, and its first example is the prostitution of public trust to private profit. Infinite in number are its methods and infinite the gradations of villainy in their application, ranging from real estate speculation and 'contracts' almost innocent in character, down to the sale of human flesh and blood into unspeakable slavery. Its arterial system touches alike the miserable 'Raines law hotel' on the Bowery and the innermost parlors of the high finance. This is 'the system.' It has no party, it never sleeps, it never takes a holiday, and it is always on guard. In this respect it follows the example of the devil, its master." In the campaign that elected Mayor Low, Mr. Jerome went before a fashionable West Side audience and shook in its face the brass checks that represented the purchase price of human bodies and souls. He aroused the public to a sense of angry shame that led to the temporary defeat of "the system" in one of its forms. Until some Mr. Jerome can go before some such audience and arouse it to angry shame with, let us say, a handful of stock brokers' contracts for the purchase and sale for account of politicians of some public service corporation stock, "the system" has little to fear. "Graft" has many forms, and as long as it is but the form of "graft" that arouses anger the principle is safe. "The system—you can't beat it!" Such is the boast of its exponents. It is not surprising that they feel this confidence when they have fighting for them such influences as arise from the inefficiency of many reformers, the general passivity on such matters of a busy community, and the whole-hearted support of newspapers of a certain type. Perhaps "the system" can not be beaten just yet. It can only be, however, a question of time when people generally will realize that what "the system" is doing is equivalent to betraying the country in time of war to its natural enemies, and doing it for money, to say nothing of robbing the dead bodies on the battlefield in its leisure time. Then it will be too late; the best government in the world will have been ruined, and all earthly hopes will be blasted. But, thank God, then Christ will come and set up His everlasting kingdom of righteousness.