The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1889-03-22

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ten cents or the orange you will give
them There Is great difference between
rewarding virtue and making the profits
thereof the impelling motive. That man
who is honest merely because honesty il
| the best policy" is already . moral bank.
rupt.
My charge is to you. in all departing nts
| of life, steer clear Of bribery, all of you.
Every man and woman at some time will
be tempted to do wrong for compensation.
The bride may not be offered in money.
1t may be offered in social position. Let
us remember that there is day coming
when the most secret transaction of pri-
vete life and of public life will come up for
public reprehen sion. We can not bride
death, we can not bride sickness, we can
not bride the grave, we can not bride the
judgments Of that God who thunders
against this sin.
'Fiew said Cardinal Beaufort 'fiei
can't death be hired? is money nothing?
must die, and so rich? if the owning of
the whole realm would save me- l could
get it by policy or by purchase = by
money!" No. Death would not be hired
then; he will not be hired now. Men of
the world often regret that they have to
leave their money here when they go away
from the world. You can tell from what
they saw in their last hours that one of
their chief sorrows is that they have to
leave their money. / break that delusion.
tell that bride taker that he will take
his money with him. God will wrap 1t up
in your shroud, or put it in the palm of
your hand in resurrection, and there it
will lie, not in the cool, bright shining
gold as it was on the day you sold your
vote and your moral principle, but there it
will lie, hot metal, burning and consum-
ing your hand forever. Or, if there be
enough of it for chain, then it will fall
from the wrist clanking the letters of an
eternal captivity. The bride is an ever
lasting possession. You take it for the
time, you take it for eternity. Some day
in the next world, when you are longing
for sympathy, you will feel on your cheek
a kiss. Looking up you will find it to be
Judas, who took thirty pieces of silver as
bride and finished the bargain by put
ting an infamous kiss on the pure cheek of
his divine Master.
Another wrong use of money is seen in
the abuse Of trust funds. Every man dur
ing the course of his life, on a larger or
smaller scale, has the property Of others
committed to his keeping. He is so far a
safety deposit, he is an administrator and
holds in his hand the interest of the family
of deceased friend. Or he is an attor.
ney, and through his custody goes the
payment from debtor to creditor, or he is
the collector for a business house which
compensates him for the responsibility; or
he is treasurer for charitable institution
and he holds aims contributed for the
suffering; or he is an official Of the city or
the State or the Nation, and taxes and
subsidies and salaries and supplies are in
his keeping. 1t is as solemn a trust as
God can make it 1t is concentrated aud
condolences. On that man de.
ponds the support of bereft household or
the morals of dependents or the right
move ment of a thousand wheels Of social
A man may do what he
will with his own but he who abuses
trust funds in that one act commits
theft, falsehood, perjury, and becomes,
in all the intensity of the word,
a miscreant How many widows and
orphans there are with nothing between
them and starvation but a sewing ma
chine, or held up out of the vortex of de-
simply by tde thread of a needle,
red with their own hearts blood, who a
little while ago had, by father and hus-
band, left them a competency. What is
the matter? The administrators or the
executors have sacrificed it-running
risks with it that they would not have
dared to encounter in their own private
affairs. How often is it that a man will
earn a livelihood by the sweat of his brow
and then die, and within few months all
the estate goes into the stock gambling
rapids OF Wall street. How often is it
that you have known men to whom trust
funds We're committed taking them out of
the savings bank and from trust COM
panies, and administrators turning old
h omesteads into hard cash, and then put
ting the entire estate into the vortex of
speculation. Embezzlement is an easy
word to pronounce, but it has ten thousand
ramifications of horror.
There is not city that has not suffered
from the abuse of trust funds. Where is
the court house, or the city hall, or the
Jail, or the post-office, or the hospital. that
in the building of it has not had political
job:
Long before the new court house in New
Y DIRK City was completed it cost over $l2,-
900, 900. Five million six hundred and six
ty three thousand dollars for furniture.
For plastering and repairs 3, $40, 0O0 For
plumbing and gas works, S1,s31, ST.. For
SO. 353. The bills for three
coming to the nice little sum of
S13, Isl. 1889 There was not an honest
brick, or stone, or lath, or nail or foot of
or inch of plastering, or ink
stand, or doorknob in the whole establish
ment
That bad example was followed in many
of the cities, which did not steal quite so
much because there was not SO much to
steal. There ought to be a closer inspec-
ton and there ought to be less opportun-
ity for Enforcement. Lest a man should
take five cent piece that does not belong
to him, the conductor on the city horse car
must sound his bell at every payment and
we are very cautious about small offenses
but give plenty OF opportunity for sinners
on a large scale to escape. For a boy who
steals loaf of bread from corner grocer
to keep his mother from starving to death.
a prison; but for defaulters who abscond
with half a million of dollars, a castle on
the Rhine, or, waiting until the offense is
forgotted, then a castle on the Hudson!
Another remark needs to be made, and
that is that people ought not to go into
places, into business, or into positions,
where the temptation is mightier than
their character. If there be large sums Of
money to be handled and ihs man is not
sure of his own integrity you have no right
to run an unseaworthy craft into an euro
clydon. A man can tell by the sense OF
weakness or strength in the presence of
bad opportunity whether he is in q safe
place How many parents make an awful
mistake when they put their boys in bank
ing houses nd stores and shops and fact
cries and places of solemn trusts, without
once discussing whether they can endure
the temptation. You give the boy plenty
of money and have no account Of it, and
make the way down become very easy,