Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-04-19
A CATHOLIC JOURNALS DEMAND.

The Monitor, the leading journal of the
Catholic Church in California, in its issue
of the 10Th, devotes more than an editorial
column to consideration of political abuses.
The article is very bitter, and is pro-
nounced call for immediate reform. 1t is
but rare that this semi-official religious
journal raises its voice upon political ques-
lions, and its demand for the regeneration
of political circles comes, therefore, with
unusual force The Monitor is not inaccu-
rate in its Indictment.
1t charges, in brief, but more severely
than we state it, that politics is ceasing to
be an honorable profession; that honesty
of conviction is no longer a success; that
money is too potent an influence in party :;
that whisky is the Eolus, or wind-raiser,
for the would-be Ulysses of the political
world" that we are raising up race of
INSCRIPTIONS politicians without a particle
of conscience; that call sorts of disrepu-
table lodges are resorted to very often to
get office" and once in, such incumbents,
set their wits to work to recoup for the
money they had to expend to secure the
positions; :" that young men, lacking brains
and muscle to make an honest living by
manual or mental labor, become the aids
or victims of political bosses, who put
them into positions for which they in re-
turn pay the boss a percentage of their
salaries ; that thus incapacity is rewarded,
crime engendered and the taxpayers
robbed that the questions, Is he honest :?
Is he capable? are not now, as in olden
time, asked, and neither honesty nor capa-
bility are now considered necessary factors
in the formation of the character of polit-
zeal candidates that the "boss names
the candidates, the machine" manipu-
lates the delegates to the Convention, the
hackers support the aspirant, the race
is run, and the winning jockey must report
for orders to his owners; that every under
ling must see the boss" and only by
yielding a stipend to the political king for
political expenses can Offices, most fire.
quentIy, be obtained, and thus capable and
honest men are excluded in favor of time
serving toadies.
The remedy the Monitor discovers is
precisely that which must underlie
oil rafor,, ,,over,a,,+S ~ ,oI;+;c. M
tivity on the part of the individual voter.
Political action is the first movement in
organized government. President choos-
ing, and law making begin in the caucus,
council, ward or town meeting. When the
citizen, DESTROYS Of fair dealing, absents
himself from them. he must expect the
citizen who is actuated wholly by selfish
motives to assume the reins. The Monitor
does not thus proceed in its detail, but its
demand for the "abolition of the bosses,
the breaking up of corrupt machinery, the
of the saloon influence and
fair dealing and capacity and honesty" in
dictate what it means. The conclusion of
our churchly contemporary is sound, that
if all this is not done, "if the voters per-
nit the present nefarious system of spoils-
hunting and stealing to go unchecked, it is
only a question of time until the plumber
seekers will constitute majority in politi-
cal parties, and the whole terror of the peo-
pies government become merely tool for
personal ACKNOWLEDGEMENT and private pecu-
Iation "