Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1876-01-06

organizations. In the mouth of the
politician, each successive measure he
advocates is essential, indispensable to
our national existence. We are in
mortal peril every moment if we do
not use his prescription and pay him
we'll for his advice.
But the year 1876! Is the world
and our part of it growing better P
What answer does 1875 make to this
question? The American people have
lost confidence in their public men and
in each other. New York city was
ruled for several years by gang of
thieves; Congressman by wholesale
were bribed by Cakes Ames, and
Ralston raked in the gold of confding
depositors from every part of the trad
ing world, spends it in riotous living,
and then what? And defaulting
navy clerk embarks on board vessel
with his ill gotten gains and his mis-
tress, and sails away like Capt. Kidd.
Aud do we not have of corruption,
bribery, defalcation, embezzlement
everywhere by men regarded hereto
fore as above reproach We do
And have the gigantic whisky frauds
even been paralelled (? Though this
outlook in 1875 and years preceding.
on public and private morals, is not
encouraging, there is another side to
the picture. If we read the newspa.
pers, the Industrious ferreting out and
denouncing and exposing all villains
and villainy, and see how the public
exult in their punishment, we are JUS
tilted in believing the swollen, impet-
uous volume of public virtue is ten
times as large as the underground
current of official and private corrup-
ton ever was. This may be cheap
way of winning an honest reputation;
but when there is public opinion that
condemns fraud, falsehood and perjury
and is willing to see it disgraced and
punished, we think there is hope for
our age. In fact if we look at the
condition of our own country and the
world as it is, and was in 1875, we
will be compelled to admit that vice
and crime and successful villainy was
never so certain to be punished as at
the present time. A man that has
reputation such as the heralds of Fame
can give him in our times, if he betrays
public trust for filthy lucre, if the
light of day is thrown upon the act,
he dies ninety-nine deaths; yes a
death for the good opinion of every
fellow citizen that he formerly priced
and now has forfeited forever. If
there be future state of punishment
it must be suffering of this sort-such
suffering as an incorporeal being can
feel loss of reputation, sensitive
ness of moral baseness, uniting its
possessor for association with the un-
de6led and just. And it is just this
sort of punishment that the present
age inficts. 1t makes US more alive to
public censure. Why did Ralston
plunge into the waves of the Pacific ,?
He knew too many faces and every
face would be to him dagger. Death
was preferable. And how James F.
Brooks shrank and withered under
the censure of Congress So did
Cakes Ames; but let US forgive him.
He built the great continental railroad
when honest, cautious men like our
selves would not have dreamed of the
undertaking, although we can tell now
how it might have been done at half
the cost. Boss Tweed, too, although
he has escaped from Jail, yet was
rudely dragged from his marble fronted
palace to a penitentiary = terrible,
headlong fall, as fatal as that of the
tourist who fell from precipice of
Mont Blank. Would the Boss tell you
the present age is uncommonly kind
and merciful to villains like himself ?
And what would be the idea of Don
aldson and Joyce in reference to the
laxity of the age and the inefficlency
of courts. Our own opinion is that the
present age has IN its possession more
effectual checks and instruments
wherewith to combat and scourge and
overcome vice, crime and either public
or private immoralities than any other.
We do not think it is an age which the
professional villain would specially
covet. The world has no hiding place
now. Surratt is hunted and brought
from Egypt.
And now when the croaker is
stroking his own virtue by enlarging
on the crimes, corruptions and alb
sence at all moral stamina in the
present age, let these and similar ex
amples vindicate the credit of 1875.