The record-union., 1891-03-07
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES SIGNS.

Whoever has taken note of the ex-
pressions of the California press, both
metropolitan and rural, and especially
the former, in the last few weeks, must
have been impressed by the unison of
the tone of the papers regarding official
corruption, the trickery of political rings
traffickers in patronage.
That expression has been-and its en-
phasis is daily augmenting-in the di-
rection of promoting reforms which
mean the uncovering of venality and the
suppression of vicious practices that have
long served to bring California poll
ties into disrepute. In short, the Cali
fornia press, apparently moved by a
common impulse to throttle official vice
wherever discovered, and to uncover and
hold up to public judgment every in
stance and movement of boodlers about
legislative and other official bodies, has
manifested an activity in the promotion
of a revolt that is full of hopeful promise.
It now would seem to be the aim of
about every newspaper Of prominence in
California to lend its best efforts to the ex-
posure of every sort of rascality in politi-
cal, State, municipal and rural circles; to
snatch the mask from all sorts of thin
pretense, and to denounce jobbery and
boodlers, buyers and sellers alike, with
unsparing severity.
That this is true Interpretation of the
press expression we are positive. These
exponents of public opinion are leading
the revolt which, as the REcoRD-UNIoN
has uniformly held, must come, and
which we have every reason to believe
has already set in. Nor do we believe
that it is merely spasmodic. On the con-
trary, the evidences are patent that the
press of California, irrespective Of politi-
cal faiths, has awakened to the realization
of the full importance of its duty in con-
serving official cleanliness. and exposing
to public gaze and correction the venality
and rottenness that has dishonored and
does disgrace the State.
It is an undeniable fact that the tone of
the moral sense of our people in regard
to all matters relating to public trust
has been sinking; that public sensi-
tiveness has become Injured to the
shameful corruption in State, city
and country alike. In fact the drift of
the times seems to have carried us into an
atmosphere of Indifference. 1t has be-
come common thing for communities to
look on with complacency while the
looting of treasures, the corruption of
local boards, the purchase and sale of
positions, the packing of juries, the sub
orning of witnesses and the buying of
legislative independence, have gone on.
The truth is, that such soaring has there
been of the public conscience, that men
openly preach the right to sell their votes,
to bargain for the mortgaging of their
manliness and to traffic in patronage and
place. 1t is not at all uncommon to hear
it boldly proclaimed that position is
properly the subject of auction, and that
political service justifies any means for
its ends.
OF course the least intelligent can under
stand what must be the result of such an
abnormal condition. When communi-
ties become Indifferent to viciousness in
public life; when their news mediums
are Gstless in rebuke of official corrup-
ton; when places of high trust are de-
bated without blush as objects to be Sc
cured by the highest bidder, the verge of
the precipice over which order plunges
into anarchy, and freedom into slavery,
is neared.
The metropolitan press, we note, and
we think we do not misunderstood its
reading, has led the revolt that has as
suredly set in, and the rural press has not
been slow to applaud the movement.
Publicity is the great corrective of evil.
Exposure of official rottenness. legisla-
tive harlotry and political "boodling'
can best be made effective when
undertaken by the press. When
it opens the way to knowledge of the
truth concerning these offenses, it may
be compared in its effects to letting a
flood of warm sunshine and pure air into
noisome cellar.
We believe the hour of the place broker
is striking when he must cease from
plying his nefarious business. The press
united in sentiment upon this subject
is an agency of such potency that its onset
will be irresistible, and that there is now
such setting of the tide we are con-
WINGED. The effect will be to givea healthy
tone to public sentiment, to quicken the
public conscience, to restore the faith of
the many who have come to doubt the
capacity of the people to maintain free