Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-01-16
A BOLD INDICTMENT.

name is not Grant,
BOLD INDICTMENT.
The Business OF Government.
Philadelphia Bulletin, Rep.
If the business of the state of Pennsyl-
vania could be conducted on the general
principles that rule the business affairs of
establishment, no commonwealth in the
world would be in better financial condi-
ton. Its exhaustless resources would be
SO used as to absorb all its debt and at the
same time to carry on its government and
all its affairs upon basis of liberal but
wise expenditure, for the best welfare of
all classes Of its people. If, instead Of
Legislatures reeking with such wholesale
corruptions as have repeatedly disgraced
the capital, the people would send
to Harrisburg men chosen for their
personal and official honesty, their intel
ligence and public spirit, we should
have business like financial policies
adopted and carried out, and the public
money SO appropriated, disbursed and
spent as money is used in any private and
well-ordered business establishment. We
should not have waste and corruption in
the Legislature S expenditures favOritism,
caprice and uncertainty in the treasury S
disbursements, and financial systems and
schemes, that keep the state impoverished,
virtually bankrupted, continually dis
honored, while all around are the abun-
dant means for meeting every legitimate
necessity. We should not have the public
institutions for the care of various defec-
tive classes struggling year after year to
secure their appropriations, sometimes
succeeding, sometimes failing, some
times crippled by false economy, some
times petted by false liberality, some
times beggared by the misconduct Of leg
islative clerks and other officials, some
times left struggling along for months
under the false pretence of an empty treas
| ury, while some favored institution quietly
obtains all that it wants, through personal
favor or still more questionable influence.
We should not have the public school sys-
| tenn dragging along with its insufficient or
unpaid appropriations, to the great injury
of the schools and the discredit of the
state. We should not have the an
nual raids upon the Legislature in
behalf of huge schemes of public steal.
ing, with all the demoralizing influences
that follow in their train, whether success
full or not. We should have men appointed
to Office for what good they can render to
the state, and not for what good the state
can render to them. We should have
standards of good morals, intelligent Ca
pacity and practical experience throughout
the civil service, just as the business man
picks out his clerks and other subordinatcs
for their supposed possession of these quail
itics. We should not have men put in
places of trust and responsibility, who are
unfit for them, merely as reward of po'
litical service or all expression Of friend
ship and good fellowship.
| With Pennsylvania wonderful oppOr-
tunities for being model commonwealth
financially and throughout her civil ser,
vice, her educational and institutional af-
giant to imagine the possibility of such a
State of things. 1t is a condition fal
enough away from anything ever realized
within her borders. The variation from
such high standards have been numerous
and very great, under successive genera
tiOns. They have been more nearly ap
preached under some administrations than
others, but never reached by any.
Pennsylvania is SO intrinsically rich
and powerful that nothing is wanted
but a right use of her forces to make her
all that the highest ambition of the
patriot, the philanthropist, the political
economist can desire for her. That she
should be so pinched and crippled in the
midst Of her own plenty and power comes
simply from the fact that her people, as a
mass, are not yet educated up to the full
sense of the duty of self-government.
Whenever they become so, and in proper
ton as they become so, Harrisburg will
become simply the Office of a great, we'll
managed business concern, whose mana
gers have been placed there by it's owners,
properly paid for their services and held
to the strictcst account for a faithful and
successful discharge of their duties.
| When that state Of things comes,
there will be money enough for all the
wants of the business. All the ma
chinery of the state will be kept in good
repair and running order. There will be
| well-kept accounts and clean balance sheets
| There will be no room in such an establish
ment for drones or toadies or figure-heads
or barnacles or thieves of any grade or
class. The people can have it SO when
ever they will. But there need to be a
great awakening of the political conscience
and great education of the intelligence
of the people before the government of the
state or of any of its subdivisions is
lifted up to the broad, firm level of plain,
practical honest business principles.
Whatever helps to lift government toward
such level, whether it he the people at
large, political party or the individual
citizens working honestly in his own sphere
for the public good, is helping toward the
realizing of the highest form of human
civilization.