Minnesota weekly times. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1854-1859, 1854-12-12
MONDAY, DEC. III, 1864.
TIME BEAVERS.

A. TIME BEAVERS.
4 There are in all communities and at all times
large and respectable class of persons whose
proper name stands at the head of this article
Men Of expediency, who, when question of i'm
portance arises do not, before taking their posi-
ton, ask or consider I" is it rights it honest''
but simply {" is it expedient " forgetting that
/" right is always expedient." -a,-,-,..e,,,,
Perhaps in our own community this class of
men abound in greater numbers than in some 9TH
er localities; but we think they are pretty well
distributed, az We have met them in all places we
have visited. There is something, however, in
country like this, where speculations of all kinds
are rife, and the road to wealth thereby, is made
short and easy, that tends to propagate and
strengthen this principle in the minds Of men of
not over-strong moral or political principles.
An idea seems to have obtained that political
dishonesty is no crime-that man may shift his
position on the great questions Of the day to sub
serve his own pecuniary interests and yet incur
no moral obliquy. A farther elaboration of this
idea evolved the principle that all robberies and
frauds perpetrated upon the General Government,
upon the States and upon Banks, Corporations
&C., were equally innocent in their nature and
this it is that fills the columns of our papers
with accounts of defalcations, frauds, robberies
and larcenies, from the first class swindler who
attempts to defraud the government out of tens Of
millions of dollars like Billings or Walker, down
through the various grades of Railroad Presi-
dents, Bank Tellers, Merchants Clerks, even to
the barkeeper's cub, who flches three cent pieces
from the money drawer-all are equally honest
equally honorable and equally innocent. The
great swindler only more fully carries out the
principle acted upon by the petty thief.
All these men act upon expediency-they grasp
at present gain without calculating the future
loss. They have no to-morrow-nof uturisv, and
no eternity. They say if this man wrongs his
neighbor, it is none of my business, provided
share in the profits. If by the crime of another
the value of my property is enhanced, surely it is
not my business to complain, even though the
consequences of that crime should DO entailed
upon my country for generations. They forget
that Sc a bitter fountain cannot send forth sweet
waters" that schemes conceived in evil can never
result in good.
We believe that political dishonesty and public
peculation are not the beginning but the end of
corruption that in short they are but the outcrop-
pings of long covered but deep seated moral
gangrene. They are not the first step in crime but
the eliminating Of a lifetime of villany.
We have seen men degraded by a long course
of crime and evil associations drunken and in
rags-to whom all the nobler feelings of our ma
ture seemed strangers-we have seen such men
when their country was assailed, rouse themsel-
to resent the insult, that had it been personal
would have been received with Indifference. The
sense of individual honor or honesty had long
s;1ce been lost in the vortex Of crime and degra-
dation, but spark of political honesty still re-
mained-it had out-lived all else that was manly
o. virtuous. We believe that this is almost al
ways the case, and so strong is that belief that
when we hear man speak lightly of this princi-
pie we instinctivcly avoid him.
If this view of the matter was adopted and
acted upon bythe community, higher standard
of both moral and political honesty would obtair.
Men would no longer be compelled to reverse the
old maxim e to believe every man honest until he
proved him otherwise "-but generous conf
dence would take the place of now too well
grounded dstrust.
BY any one conversant with the political history
of our Territory the above remarks will be fully
understood and easily applied; for that history
has furnished a field for the full development of
the principle Of expediency, and has produced
many as perfect specimens of the contemplate
class of men representative of that principle as,
perhaps, ever strutted their brief hour upon the
stage of political life, in the same number of
years in any age or nation and the race is not
vet extinct. On the contrary they seem to in
crease, and having now fine field opened for the
exercise of their abilities in discriminating their
"peculiar views, they are, both through the press
and. on the streets, uncommonly busy in impressng
upon the public mind the "policy' of conniving
at crime and fraud, because, say they, property
will rise faster. They wish the people to sur
render their interests to the keeping of an over
shadowing monopoly, whose first act was one of
bribery and corruption as exemplifed in their in
tercourse with our Legislative Assembly last win.
ter, and whose subsequent career has been mark
famous crimes-a company of whom it may b.
truly said, they we're sborn in sin and conceived
in iniquity." To such men they wish to sell the
rights, honor, and interests of our infant Territory
for what for aprospective rise in the price Of
their real estate. Let the people beware the tree
is corrupt and the fruit will turn to ashes on the
lips.
FRE.-There was an alarm of fire on Saturday
last, at IL O'Clock NJ. The alarm arose, from the
roof of small log building taking fire, near d
L. Fuller's store. The fire originated from stove
pipe, and was extinguished, without damages.