The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-11-26
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lnQeHnaDle, lmperceptlDle, put real e'iid pervasive influence meets and prevents the effort of this citizen at every turn. Nobody is dishonest; no one is bribed; there is no evidence of any direct cor ruption; nevertheless something, some secret poison, finds somewhere a point of entrance into the civic body, and It works therein, paralyzing the moral nerve of town and letting moral dis ease run riot. And when this citizen, reflecting philosophically over such ex perience, inquiries what this hidden yet effective something is, he may answer, human passion, cunning, sin-yes, all these ancient enemies, old as Adam the first fool, and deceitful as Eve the first woman; but besides these and working among them is another, a modern evil conceived in the lust of democracy-1t is politics; that which flinders and re- strains is politics, ring politics, together with all the progeny of cowardice, hy- pocrisy and pitiable incompetency which are engendered by the rule of the boss, and the hard necessity of hold ing office at the pleasure of the ring in stead of by the will of the people in an American city.
 THE NATURAL LIFETIME or THE
 RING.
 From this description of the consti- tuition and course of Ring Rule I pro- ceed to notice next it's natural lifetime and termination. For very much as some diseases are self-limiting, so evil in general is a self-liniting process in the divine order of the world. And it is always well to know the natural course which an evil may run without any reformatory interference. The Ring will survive in politics so long as political ability in it's management can keep it's factions working together; so long as sufficient public plunder may be found to go around, and so long as by taking advantage of national tissues, or by working the appeal to party loy- alty, it can continue to fool the people. But no Ring, however strong it may be, has a natural immortality. It does have one deadly enemy. The man whom the Boss fears Is another Boss; the natural destroyer of the Ring IS an- other Ring. It is perhaps fortunate for the people that thus far the history of the rings In this country has resembled the procession of the fat and the lean kline in Pharaoh's dream: And the ill favored and lean-feshed kline did eat up the seven well favored and fat kine." This appetite of political rings for one another, the lean for the fat, is, of course, to be encouraged; but will the succession of these very lean and very hungry political kline ever stop? Not at least until the people awake from their dream. We mark also in recent rings some additional precautions which have been taken to secure their own greater longevity. More care, for instance, is observed to render the ring a -perpetuating corporation, and to maintain an orderly succession of State Committees and Bosses It is not per- haps an altogether new thing that state committees should not only look after an election campaign, but also pay some financial attention to remote country caucuses; but when fifty dollars are suddenly placed in the single store of an inland country village for the pur- pose of charitably aiding the instructed in defeating the nomination of an inde- pendent delegate to state convention, that comparatively insignificant sum of money, stolen perhaps from some cor porate interest, may serve to illustrate how Ring Rule is losing none of the wisdom of the serpent even among the farmers who are innocent as doves.
 REMEDIAL TREATMENT FOR RING RULE.
 The account which has just been given of the contagious disease of Ring Rule in our cities presents to us two ques- tions which require brief suggestion at least of an answer in a Thanksgiving discourse. The first is, will the patient survive if the disease is allowed to run to it's natural issue without interfer- ence, and even with very little moral nursing? Many cheerful optimists think that it will Possibly it may, for the natural constitution of our country is strong, and God is good Others are of the opinion that the cause of demo- cratic government is already lost in our country; that already the old order has taken on corruption; and we know not what the new order may be. A wiser | (Continued on Third Page)