The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-01-26
SHE PINIONS
AN ALDERMAN.
Miss Jane Adams Uses Alder
man Powers
To Illustrate Corruption in
Municipal Affairs.
HIGH CIVIC IDEALS
Must Be Put in Practice She
Says,
Before the Upright Element
Can Defeat Evil.
HIGH CIVIC IDEALS

Chicago, Jan. 26.-Afiss Jane Adams of
Hull House spoke to a large audience in
Steinway hall yesterday morning on the
topic Ethical Survivals in Municipal
Corruption" The address, which was de-
livered before the Chicago Society for
Ethical Culture, consisted largely of an
analysis of the conditions which result
in the election of such men as John Pow
ers to places in the city council, and in
effect was warning that nothing better
need be expected until those who have
high ideals of civic righteousness put
them in practice in such manner as to
arouse the emulation of those less IA
vored.
Miss Adams was introduced by W. NJ.
Salter, the regular lecturer of the society,
and her address evoked frequent applause.
She spoke in part follows:
IN submitting this paper the writer is
giving her own experience from an eight
years residence in d ward of the city
which has during all that time returned
to the council a VIGOROUSLY corrupt poll
tician. To say that all men who vote for
him are equally corrupt or that they ap-
prove of his dealings is manifestly unfair,
but to find the motives for which the
votes are cast is not an easy matter.
Living together as We do within the
narrow boundary of a Chicago ward, so, :
600 people, of a score of different tongues
and nationalities, the writer is much i'm
pressed with the fact that all that holds
US together is our intrinsic human nature
the few basic experiences which we hold
in common. Our social ethics have been
determined much more by example than
by precept.
Granting that morality develops far
earlier in the form of moral fact than in
the higher form Of moral ideas, it becomes
obvious that ideals only operate upon the
popular mind through will and character,
and that goodness has to be dramatized
before it reaches the mass of men. The
personal example promptly arouses to en-
ulation. In a neighborhood where politi-
cal standards are plastic and undeveloped,
and where there have been little previ-
Gus experiences in self-government. the
offceholder himself sets the standard. and
the ideas that cluster around him exer-
else a specific and permanent influence
upon the political morality of his constit-
uents. No greater mistake could be made
than to assume that politics is something
off by itself which does not affect the
common lot.
1.-The American-born people of the same
community are putting forth a claim for
a weu-ordered democratic government
while at the same time they shirk the
responsibilities of self-governing citizens
Nothing is more certain than that the
quality which a heterogeneous population,
living in one of the less sophisticated
wards, most admires is the quality of
simple goodness; that the man who at
tracts them is the one whom they believe
to be a good man. Abstract virtues are
too difficult for their unframed minds to
apprehend, and many or them are still
simple enough to believe that power and
wealth come only to good people.
1.-THE successful candidate, then, must