Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1884-08-22

daily occurrence in banks, business
houses and positions Of trust in private
life? The Government scarcely ever
loses any money by a dishonest serv-
ant. We do not mean to say that the
Government is as yet entirely free from
favoritism and that there are nothordes
of hungry contractors and plunderers.
and that their assaults en- the Treasury
are always successfully repealed. But
in the Government Offices p%ecuniary
dishonesty is rare, and of the millions
of taxes and revenue paid by the people
almost nothing sticks to the fingers of
those who collect and handle them.
We doubt if any Government in the
world is on the whole better served in
this respect.
The reasons for this contrast between
the public and private business are two.
The public servants are o carefully
selected and with a greater sense of re-
sponsibility, and, secondly, public
opinion holds officials up to a higher
moral standard than prevails in bus
mess circles generally. Transactions
that pass without comment daily in pri-
vate life would in Government employ
raise a storm of Indignation. The
truth is that the honor in business Cir
| clos is weakened, and that business
morality is low, No better illustration
| of this is needed than was furnished by
the late transactions of Grant IL Ward.
Ward pretended to have profitable Gov.
eminent contracts. A.number of bus
mess men in good standSlg put money
into those supposed contracts. knowing
that the enormous profits expectedfrom
them could not be realized unless there
was dishonestv-that is. corrupt colln-
sion with Government officials. The
moral standards of these business men
were just that low. And if the con-
tracts had e~xistedssand money had been
made, the Government is the only par
ty that would have suffered in the esti.
nation of these business men.
They would have been loud, in
a general way, in denouncing
the corruptions OF Governmcnt.
Gambling in stocks, which is as un-
fruitful as betting on the weather or Oh
cock-fghting, smart transactions in
railways by which bona tide stockhold-
ers are squeezed out OF their money,
the m~aniDulations of grain by which
the price is lowered for the raiser and
raised for the consumer, are judged so
leniently by public opinion that the
only price of a mans keeping his bust
ness standing in them is success. Ev-
erybody knows that they are directly
responsible for the swindles, the thefts,
the daily ruin OF men who are in posi-
tons where they handle money. The
trouble is that we have ceased to call
stealing stealing. and dishonesty dis
honesty. Merchants, grocers and deal
ers of all sorts will candidly confess
that they could not get on without mis-
representation. And when there is this
state of things all through the country,
great swindles and defaIcations are to
be expected. We all agree that burg
larry OF a bank is ar awful crime. but
when a bank President gradually alb
stracts the funds OF the bank we do not
class him with burglars. We have "a
lot of soft phrases to disguise his trans
actions-he is weak, he became in
volved in speoulations, he m~iscalculated
the market.
Now, the public is able to discrim-
mate between what is honest and what
is dishonest; it does it in its Judgment
Of Government officials and Govern |
ment business. If it would apply the |
same standards to privatelif we should
have a much more wholesome state of
affairs. There was a time when the
terms cuisines morality" and "com-
mercial morality" meant the highest
integrity and were terms Of honor;
When we use them now we mean some
thing that is a shade off and probably |
many shades Oft from honest dealing.
1t used to be said that the Government
offices ought to be conducted on ''busi-
ness" principles; that remark has
rather q sardonic sound.-Ear1to~d i
COaYunI.