The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1896-01-31
The Depravlty Of Politics and one of
Hts Causes.


The Depravlty Of Politics and one of
Its Causes.
Outside the ranks of anarchy. we pre-
sumo, there Is no one who is not disgust
ed with the performance of Senator Till
man in the Senate on Tuesday. Republic
can and Democrat, Christian and infdel,
liquor advocate and liquor opponent. all
alike must be shocked at an outbreak of
ribaldry which disgraced the. highest
chamber of our national Legislature,
and insuIted the Chief Magistrate of the
Nation in terms which one would hesi-
tate to apply to a Hoboken Recorder.
xln view of the facts. we are all apt to
lament the degeneracy of the times. All
the newspapers yesterday harped on the
deeadence of the Senate. It used to be
the bulwark of the Nation. The greatest
OF our statesmen were ambitious to sit in
1t, The privilege Of aiding in its delfbera-
tons was the browning glory of many a
historic career. Now, the number Of men
who have gained seats in the Senate
with credit is few: those who fill them
with honor are fewer. The question con-
fronts the Nation in all its gravity:
What are we to do with the Senate? 1t
is the graveyard of all wisdom, honor
or practical purpose in legislation. The
reformation of it is a doubtful POSSIBLE
ity of years duration; the reconstruc-
ton of it is an impossibility because it.
self stands in the way. The future with
which it threatens the people is gloomy
in the extreme.
But the trouble does not originate in
the Senate itself: it begins with the
people. The people have for the most part
sent the Senators to Washington with
full antecedent knowledge of their char
acters and tendencies. The complaint
that a man does the very thing we know
he will do before we gave him the power
to do it is certainly a weak and silly
one. TIL attitude. of the people, indeed,
Is not unlike that of a mother who
should give her baby a box of matches
to play with and then express wonder
and dismay when he set fire TO some
thing.
One reason why so many mistakes
have been made of late in the choice of.
public servants is tina we are not con-
tent to take our politics straight. We
mix up the tariff, the Monroe Doctrine.
the currency question and the like, which
are true issues of statecraft, with social
and ethical questions which have no
mere real place in politics than the
chronology of the Old Testament or the
Nebular Hypothesis. What is worse. we
are not content with mixing our ideas
in this way; we sometimes go SO far as
to subordinate all the. real stuff that
Government is concerned with to some
Visionary conception of a social fanatic.
We lose sight of the welfare of the coun-
try, we trade away our own birthright
for the sake of an impossible dream, and
then. when the logic of events wakes US
UP to facts, we are astonished to find
that the times are out of joint.
This misdirection of conscience in poll
tics, it is, that has given us Tlllman of
South Carolina. ribald and crank. wan
ton as to his tongue and frantic in his
brain, a disgrace to US in the eyes of
the world and peril to our National Gre
dit and prosperity, beyond all expression
greater than all the rum that ever was
or ever will be consumed in the State of
South Carolina. But we are not forced
to go to Washington to see the results
Of the error Of which we speak. .Unfor-
tunafe New York with her Strong and
her Roosevelt. her Golf, her Raines. her
P~arkhurst, her Lexow and her Platt, af-
fords a example of what is
accomplished in the direction of good
By the abandonment of political
principle and the subordination of
the true. party issues to desires and as
pirations which. however fine, however
desirable of realization, nave no proper
place in political agitation.