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made compulsory for the nomination of all candidates in a legalized caucus, will no more remedy the evil than its adoption for elections has stopped bribery at the polls. It may be that some other reform than the one here advocated can be found, which will force the boss to be less brazen than now in the use of corrupt measures, and even demand of him an increased outlay of party funds; but, with political prizes already large and growing larger, with many ambitious men already rich and growing

richer, it is safe to assume that managers can be hired of sufficient ability to overcome far greater obstructions to the attainment of office by the unworthy than those which now exist.

But the remedy herein set forth, judging by its recent partial application in other countries and by the obvious merits of the system itself, will render the corrupt expenditure of money in elections of no avail, thereby dethroning the State boss for all time.

TOPICS OF THE TIME

THE WORSE THINGS BECOME, THE LONGER THEY WILL STAY BAD SHALL WE HAVE AN ETHICAL CIVIC REVIVAL?

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N the discussion of public corruption, citizens sometimes comfort themselves with the saying that the sooner things get worse the quicker they will get better. While there is some truth in the idea that the more outrageous and notorious become evil conditions, the more certain are they to meet with discovery, exposure, and remedy, it can also be said with truth that the worse things become, the longer they will stay bad, the harder it will be to work an improvement in them, and the longer it will take to make them better. This is often so in physical and mental illness. It is so in the history of individual health and morals, and it is so with the health and morals of communities. If so-called good citizens, through cowardice and indifference, allow corrupt practices to continue, these corrupt practices grow more and more corrupt, till there is danger that the whole body politic will be morally debilitated.

This is shown in the history of more than one American community where there has been governmental corruption. In New York in the days of Tweed there was either interested acquiescence or complaisant and well-nigh criminal ignorance on the part of leading citizens, to such an extent that decent names were obtained not only for the denial of wrong-doing, but actually for a 1 See THE CENTURY

movement to erect a monument to him who was afterward discovered to be the arch conspirator and thief. Things got worse with a vengeance, and stayed worse, till at last came the long-delayed exposure and explosion.

The election to the "overshadowing Senate" (Mr. Nelson's now popular phrase)1 of one prominent corruptionist after another has so hardened the conscience of the American people that the other day, openly and notoriously and shamelessly, an infamous political dicker was made which resulted in placing in the Senate of the United States the alleged agent and understudy of the most notorious corruptionist in America. There was a time when such callous indifference to the honest sentiment of the country could not have been so publicly exhibited.

So far as the composition of the United States Senate goes, while it may be true that conditions as to membership there will have to get worse before they get better, it is also true that things have so long been bad there, in this respect, that they are getting worse continually, and there are those who either boastfully or regretfully predict that within two years the capstone of public shame will be put upon the edifice of senatorial corruption.

If Minneapolis had not kept on electing and reëlecting men notoriously unfit, it would not have taken such a convulsion to throw off the incubus of corrupt city government; and it has been conspicuously for February, 1903.

shown of late that St. Louis's long acceptance of foul conditions deadened the public conscience to a degree truly discouraging and alarming. In Rhode Island political corruption has been permitted so long that honest men have had to go outside of the State to gain assistance in arousing the conscience of the people. There is a psychological side to public corruption, as to all forms of crime; and the continuance and constant repetition of evil "suggestion" gradually spreads the moral disease, like a foul infection, in all directions. Speaking psychologically, the " suggestion" toward morality is made more and more difficult the longer the opposite "suggestion" is given opportunity.

What is to be done to overcome the present tendency to corrupt practices in America? It is all a matter of individual conscience: if individuals are good, the government, of course, will be virtuous. Then, it may be said, let the pulpits and let the unbought press preach individual virtue! They are, however, always doing that in a general way, sometimes in a specific. Meantime, so far as the church goes, the community is keenly aware of the fact that church connection is no guaranty of scrupulousness in either business or politics. Even apparently sincere religiousness seems often to be as queerly separated from ethics in the case of some of our capitalists and managers of corporations as in the case of the pietistic colored brother who appropriates a chicken on the way home from a vociferous revival meeting.

A prominent Philadelphian said, not a great while ago, that the trouble in that city was not so much with the "tough" as with a certain type of "the head of the family" who goes to church regularly, with his hymn-book under his arm, but who will cast his vote for the boodlers every time. There is a strong reform movement in Philadelphia, but we are told that the wrongvoting church-goer is still one of the most serious problems of the reformers there. We know that one of the most corrupt and corrupting of all the politicians we ourselves have ever come personally into contact with had an apparently sincere religious side; he was prominent in church affairs and highly exemplary in his family life. He would one day secretly commit a Stateprison offense and the next morning lead earnestly in prayer at the family altar. As

with many politicians and men of affairs, there was an insufficient connection between his religion and his daily activities.

In business circles in New York the story is well known of one of our leading citizens, a man who had held high office in the national government, who resigned his position on the board of a rich corporation because he would be no party, by direct affirmation or tacit consent, to the corrupt and secret appropriation of a certain sum of money, a sort of appropriation notoriously common in connection with the boss and legislative systems of the Empire State. There is another and similar story of a scene at a board meeting of another large corporation, where was present as member and as legal counsel one of our ablest lawyers. The question was as to an appropriation the purpose of which was not to be spread upon the official books. "What is it for?" asked the lawyer; "why this secrecy?" It was for something that the corporation wanted, replied a posted member of the board. "Are we honestly entitled to it?" asked the lawyer. "We are," was the answer. "Then," he asked, " why not fight for it?" It was explained that such a course would be less certain and convenient. Whereupon the lawyer, being no hypocrite, resigned his place both on the board and as counsel. We are not assured that his action aroused the consciences of his fellowtrustees; on the contrary, it is shrewdly suspected that matters took their course as originally intended.

These stories are in themselves reassuring, inspiring; but the fact that they can be told as somewhat exceptional would seem to corroborate the suspicions of the people of New York that the system we have referred to has long drawn into its vicious circle any number of our heaviest corporations, managed by some of our most prominent citizens, some of them conspicuous in church affairs as well as in society.

What we have said as to general conditions in New York is not based upon irresponsible rumor or mere newspaper innuendos; it is indeed of common knowledge, and has been proclaimed by as respectable members of the bar as Wheeler H. Peckham, now president of the City Club, and Joseph H. Choate, now ambassador to Great Britain. The Rev. Dr. John P. Peters, a courageous fighter for better things in the metropolis, recently did a pub

lic service in reminding the communityin connection with the latest fight against suspected legislative corruption at Albany -of a certain frank and moving appeal made by Mr. Choate at a public dinner in New York, just after the election of Mayor Strong on a reform ticket.

The only way [said Mr. Choate] in which this legislative corruption can be stopped is by holding up such men publicly to opprobrium; they must be driven from the churches; they must be branded in society as men dishonest and unworthy for honest men to associate with. Not until the attack is made directly upon the directors of corporations who are responsible for this sort of corruption will it be possible to cure this evil.

The churches constitute a tremendous organ for good; they are everywhere more and more working for ethics, for the unity of the emotional nature with the active experience of men; but there is need, at the present crisis in our history, of an ethical civic revival, both inside and outside the churches. We have heard and read suggestions recently in this direction, and the time is ripe for such a movement. It is needed, and it is needed at once, and not merely in certain cities and commonwealths where political corruption has been advertised of late by efforts to overcome the evil, but throughout the nation. For, we repeat, the worse things are allowed to become, the longer they will stay bad.

OPEN LETTERS

The Sultan of Morocco

EING about to sail for Morocco within the

BEING

week, and because of the Sultan's prominence in the newspapers of late, I send these few lines to correct false impressions.

Astounding accounts appear occasionally in the daily papers which certainly must have originated from sources where even a poet's license is disregarded.

In his excellent introduction to my articles, Mr. Williams naturally supposes that the Moors look with disfavor at the Sultan's allowing wild boars in the palace grounds. I do not so understand it, these animals having been presented to the Sultan by good Mohammedans, generally the chiefs of tribes, who expect him to do as he likes with them, except to

make use of their meat for food. In certain parts of Morocco wild boars are kept among the horses, who dilate their nostrils, snort, and, so think the natives, "become strong." Arthur Schneider.

NEW YORK, April 2, 1903.

Robertson, the Preacher REV. JESSE H. JONES of Halifax, Massachusetts, writes to us, apropos of the article on Frederick W. Robertson, in THE CENTURY for December, 1902, suggesting a commemoration of the great preacher throughout the English-speaking world, and the establishment of some fixed memorial, on August 15 next, the semi-centennial of his death. EDITOR.

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IN LIGHTER VEIN

The Deacon Talks about Lynchings

"I FEEL proud," said Deacon Abner Per

kins, "thet so much of aour country is up to the top notch of civilization."

"Meanin' what?" said Sol Bradford, the postmaster, who had sorted the mail and was preparing to lock up the post-office. One or two loungers who had been warming themselves at the air-tight stove had risen to go,

in the West an' Saouth, an' I think we ought to hold aour heads pretty high, seein' we 're the youngest of nations, an' it 's only age thet brings wisdom, generally speakin'."

Sol, with a puzzled expression, said at this point: "But I was readin' thet we 're the only country where they have lynchin's at all. We call Spain cruel, but they don't lynch people there, an' burn colored folks, with people applaudin' an' actin' 's if they was at a county fair."

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but waited to hear the remarks of the deacon, and to enjoy the obfuscation of the postmaster, who never knew how to take satire.

"Well, I was thinkin' of these here lynchin's. Wherever they have one of those lynchin's, civilization has had a setback, an' if they was prevalent in all parts of the country all the time, I dare say we'd become barbarous, an' foreigners could p'int the finger of scorn at us; but the six Noo England States an' Noo York is free from 'em, an' they ain't always prevalent

"No, they don't do sech things naow," said the deacon, "because they have reached years of discretion. But did you ever read about those inquisitions they used to have-an' when they was older than we be naow? Of course they warn't so open ez we be. They squeezed men to death, an' burned 'em an' b'iled 'em an' cut 'em to pieces, in secret, because it was their nater to; but we 're open an' aboveboard, an' the other day when aout West they cut a man's toes off an' sold 'em ez keepsakes, they

did it in broad daylight, with a craowd to see it, an' thet was a big advance on the Spanish way, although the doin' the thing itself was wrong, to my way of thinkin'. But what I was go'n' to say was thet when Spain did these things she was older than we air, an' she ought to have known better. We ain't old enough to know better, an' the fac' thet in mos' of the States we do know better, in spite of aour youth, is cause fer crowin', I say.

"Mind ye, I ain't stan'in' up fer these roastin's an' other cruelties. I'm only puffed with pride to think thet we can say to England an' France an' Spain an' Germany an' Rooshy: 'We 're only a hundred an' twenty-six years old, an' aout of some fifty States not more 'n ten of 'em burn colored people.' I tell you, it's a fine record. We might burn 'em every day. There's enough black folks to go raound. But ez it is, it don't happen more 'n once or twice in a month, an' then it 's always done by the best citizens of the place, in full view of the public. Considerin' aour youth, it's a perfec' wonder we don't do it here in Noo England. Thet 's what gives me hope fer aour country. Ef, young ez we be, we don't do it, arter a while, in the course of a couple of hundred years, folks aout West and daown Saouth 'll find thet old countries don't think it civilized to cut a human bein' to pieces an' burn him, no matter what he 's done, an' so I 'm praoud to belong to a country thet is learnin' all the while."

Charles Battell Loomis.

A Ballade of Fables
The popularity of the fable seems to be declining.
REVIEW.

OLD Æsop did his tales unfold
At once to teach and entertain-
Precepts, like pills, in sugar rolled.

And later on came La Fontaine,
Who made his points in some such vein

As, "Nous pouvons conclure de la ".
That is, to make the meaning plain,
"From this we learn," et cætera.

In forms and guises manifold

Others have followed in their train: Fables for slangy, young and old, For fair, for frivolous, for vain, In prose or in poetic strain;

And in the divers genera Authors are careful to explain, "From this we learn," et cætera.

They came and, what was more, they sold; They pleased at first the jaded brain. Perhaps it might have been foretold

Their popularity would wane. Now this has happened, some maintain, And so, mutantur tempora. We 've cast away in high disdain "From this we learn," et cætera.

L'ENVOI

MAKERS of fables, why complain?
Be guided, de te fabula.

Your books on book-shops' shelves remain,

From which we learn-et cætera.

Philip L. Allen.

Dey's All Got Sumpen

DE pitifulest truf dar is, fer folks ter steddy out, Is when er critter 's hones', dar 's sumpen else erbout;

An' hit started wid de fust man dat de good Lord eber made,

Erfore he w'ar er fig-leaf, er eber were er-fraid.

He tole hit 'bout de apple, 'Nias tole hit 'bout de lan',

An' so on, down ter you an' me, de fac' is boun' ter stan'.

When folks brags de loudes' on deyse'fs, des s'arch dem sanctified,

'Ca'se dey 's all got sumpen dat dey wanter hide.

De cap hit fit de white man an' hit fit de nigger, too;

Des here dey rights is ekil-I is tellin' what is true;

Fer de Jedge dat do de 'cidin' know de business dat is his,

An' he gwine ter size, not what you got, but size up what you is.

De big man in he kerridge lookin' mighty brave an' gran',

Des lack he own de hull yeth an' de fullness er de lan';

But he mighty po' dar somers, 'spite er fine

close, 'spite er pride,

'Ca'se dey 's all got sumpen dat dey wanter hide.

Dey bow down ter de 'zorter, an' he smile an' look erroun',

Lack he des too good fer nuffin but ter preach

an' 'zort an' 'spoun';

But dar 's sumpen on his cornscience, too,er chick'n er er horg,

An' he got ter come ter jedgment, 'umble es er yaller dorg.

De 'omenses dey come in, too-dey got ter b'ar dey part;

Long tongues is 'cute, an' empty haids is lack er rattlin' cart;

An' S'phiry she were mighty clost ter 'Nias when he lied

Fer dey 's all got sumpen dat dey wanter hide.

I hain't er-hittin' folks dat 's got er leetle bit er sin

Dey kin tie up in er han'kercher, an' easy keep hit in;

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