, 1875-11-14

1ue EtftIA11CuS III tAe leseut6 GASES LII Gt
Louis have become positively sickening
They weaken confidence in human integrity
They throw doubt over all human profess
sions of honor, religion, and morality. Aler-
chants who h4ve for lifetime held high
commercial ranll, who, as respectable and
moral citizens, have been social exemplars
and leaders in all the political, moral, and re-
iGous movements to arrest crime and lead
men to better ives,-are found to have been
participants in these frauds, and sharers Of
the spoils Of plundered treasury. The
scope Of these frauds is appalling. They
were not the mere vulgar offense Of defraud-
ing the revenue by secreting lace in petit
coat, or diamonds in neck-de, in order to
escape The payment of a petty charge for
duty. It was something more than this. To
carry on these frauds required, on the part Of
distiliers and rectiders, false bookkeeping,
forgery of returns, non-payment of taxes,
and the introduction of their whole working
force to g system Of falsehood, fraud, and
swindling. On the part Of the Gaugers
end other officers of the revenue it
required violations generally Of their
official oaths, and a special act Of perjury each
time they nude an official report it involved
the acceptance Of special and general bribes
by al the officials involved, from the highest
to the lowest, and guilty knowledge of the
criminal conduct of all the accomplices-
principals and subordinates. It included the
actual commission or the criminal participa-
ton in the crimes Of official and unofficial
perjury, forgery. false bookkeeping, bribery,
and robbing of the revenue. And all this for
the meanest and most degraded Of all mo-
hres-m0ney.
Had any man gone before the Chamber Of
Commerce Of St. Louis and proved that twen-
ty or thirty of the most respected mer-
chants of that city had been engaged for four
years in q systematic robbery Of their fellow
merchants, and had resorted to perjury, for
gerry, and bribery to accomplish their ends
and hnd actually obtained three millions Of
money dishonesty, how long would the guilty
have been permitted to continue as men,
bers Of the Chamber How long would these
lnen be tolerated Us merchants, or as members
Of society? Would they not properly fall to
the plane Of all the confdence-men and swim
dlers who put forged notes or checks upon
price per oath
Is the otfense Of cheating less criminal
when committed against tho Government
than when some citizen is the victim Is
perjury free from turpitude when its object is
to get money dishonesty from the public
treasury, and when it would be infamous in
the extreme had the perjury been to obtain
money from bank? Is the bribery Of the
revenue officers Of the Government to keep
their books falsely, that men may swindle
the National Treasury, less criminal than the
bribery of bank cashier to falsify his books
that some one may swindle the institution of
which he is Al officer? Are bribery, forgery,
and perjury less criminal in the man who,
while not committing either act himself,
divides the proceeds of these crimes with
other men who actually commit them
Where does society find authority for draw-
ing q line of distinction between crimes
against the Government and crimes against
individuals Where does mercantile ho.or
find its warrant in treating the forgery of a
bank note or check as an act Of turpitudc,
while the forgery of stamps, or their second
or third use, an act emitting the perpetrator
to the sympathy Of the public, and the undi-
minished confidence and respect Of society /?
One Of the greatest calamities disclosed by
these exposures is the universally of the cor
ruption of the Federal officers. From hich
to low from the Gauger earning his few
dollars day to the confidential officers Of the
Revenue Department, ali have proved false.
oil have had an itching palm, an have sacri-
feed personal aud official honor and oaths to
share with the criminals the plunder Of the
Treasury. The disclosures show how officer
after officer yielded to the temptations Of
money; how they betrayed their employers
and how they actually sought out the men
who were involved in crime, that their official
silence might be purchased. Is official in
tegrity no longer fact, end does our civil
service attest the trnth Of the English Min
ister's sweeping assertion th1t every nan has
his price? For tl1is decay in morals, for this
decline il Official integrity, for this eleerada-
ton OF official life. society is largely re-
spons:ble. The cour.r> is largely Supplied
vdth men who haye become rich br