The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1895-01-18
Along Wrong Lines.

Years of financial depression are in
| almost all cases years also in which
| endorsements and defalcations reach
a large total. During the year just
| closed the total embeZZ ements and
defalcatIons in the United States
reached the enormous sum of S25,-
100000, which is 20 per cent more tn IN
in 1898; and the largest total since
| 1873.
South Dakota was in particularly
bad shape TO stand the defalcation of
State Treasurer Taylor The crops in
that state were short ana in many sec
tons not enough was raised for bread
and seed. Taxes came in slowly and
the treasury was at low ebb. While
the bondsmen of the defaulting treas
urer will probably be forced to make
good the deficiency, the money will
not be available for a long time and
he state will meanwhile be in an en-
barrassed condition. The bondsmen,
too, If forced 10 make good the defal-
cation, will all be ruined men, for none
of them were very wealthy and they
all qualified to the full amount of their
wealth.
The great increase in the number of
embellishments would suggest that
this country needs less talk about the
encroachments of capital and the
wrongs of the masses, and more in
siruction on the subject of honesty.
Newspapers contain almost every day
the story of one or more persons in
trust who have gone wrong. They
are not alone public officials and bank
officers, but employees in all sorts of
positions of trust. Who shall say that
the mass of rubbish that has been
talked for few years past about the
oppression of the poor and the great
wrong of some people being wealthy
while others are poor, has not some
thing to do with the decline of hon
esty in America? Many of the ha-
rangues delivered by professional agi-
iators are an encouragement of dis
honesty They emphasl re the sins of
the wealthy until the poor begin to
believe it no sin to rob their employ
ers. The unscrupulousnesS of the
average rich man, too, in his methods
of gaining wealth is not of nature to
instruct his employees in the way of
honesty.
John Burns, the great English
labor talker. has gone back to Eng
land after pronouncing almost every
thing on this side of the ocean TO be
wrong. Had lie talked less about "the
coming French revolution in Amer
lea, and given some wholesome adj
vice on the importance of honesty and
fidelity among people IN all classes of
labor and ali positions of trust, even
among those who work in official posi-
tions, he might have done some good
in America. The greatest need in
this country to-day is an infusion of
old-fashloned honesty. The rich need
it and the poor need il. Ii Is wrong
for a man to rob on Wall street. and
because one man gets rich that way
doesn't excuse a clerk for stealing
from his employer, or a policeman
from accepting an occasional brIbe
Less agitation, less preaching of dis
Cuntentment, less talk about wrongs.
will be Of material service in getting
the American people back 10 a stand
ard of old-f4shiontd honesty and To a
common sense understanding of duties
as well as rights. Obligations as well as
.WtorCs. Of what a citizen owes 10 his
fellow citizens and 10 his country. as
well as of what his fellow citizens and
las country owe 10 hlm.