The San Francisco call., 1904-04-08
THE CASE OF SENATOR BURTON.

Il
crime of brbe taking. and his fine and sentence
Imprisonment, carrying deprivation of civil
rights deplorable its effects him
sonay and also in its public aspect He claimed to be
merely acting attorney for company that by reason
of the character of its business liable to exclusion
from the of the mails. The allegation against him
that he appeared before the postal authorities to
the of the exclusion order In doing he
violated the law which obligates him member of
Congress. The law under which he convicted has
only recently been called public attention by the in
dctment prosecution and acquttal of Senator Dietrich
of Nebraska.
Formerly such acts as those charged against these
Senators were not unlawful and freely induged
in by members of Congress. When the operations of
the Government in much less volume than now
and when Federal legislation touched infinitely less
number of private interests member OF Congress had
his attorney agent unchanged by his cleo
ton There is in existence letter from Daniel Web
ster in which the divine Daniel offered for percentage
to get through Congress large claim against the Gov
ernment while he Senator of the United States
Such practicesvere common in his time, and did not in
any way impair the moral standing of member of Con-
gress who nduged in them When States or individuals
had claims against the Federal Government Representa-
ves and Senator's acted as agents and attorneys for the
claimants and used their influence and position to get
bills passed making appropriations to pay their
clients.
The first change from this system appeared in 1861
The Federal Government not prepared to make all
the immediate expenditure of its credit to carry
on the Civil War In this emergency Congress passed
act authorizing States spend money in enistng,
ing and equipping troops, and pledging the Federal
Government to repay such outays upon submission of
proof thereof the money be paid the of each
State to the Governor his authorized agents This
lifted from members of Congress the burden and took
from them the reward of pressing such claims and by
Federal established State agency for that purpose
Under that law, these claims, the largest pre-
sented against United States have been proved
by the agents of States who received such compensa
by way of percentage therefor the States agreed
to give The New England States have just collected
interest that class of claims their agent being Mr.
Fessenden who has just collected his percentage fee of
25 per cent, amounting to large sum. We believe
every State has made such collections except California
which is still of pocket about $3oooooo though the
State agents long ago made the necessary proofs
ceptable the War Department.
Following the principle of this law of 1861 in 1864
Congress passed act making it crime for member
of Congress have any interest any claim,
or matter which the Federal Government is in
interest involving money. This is the statute under
which Senator Burton has been convicted 1t was also
the cause of the investigation of Congressman Lttaue
because gloves manufactured in his factory sold
the Government and of the conviction OF the Demo
cratic Congressman. from Brooklyn. who was more d
rectly involved in Government contracts.
1t was the basis of the report of the Postoce Depart
showing the number OF members OF Congress who
were involved in for the lease of their
erty to the Government for postofce purposes In all
of this class of it shown that the leases
made before the lessons elected to Congress- and
the interesting question raised whether lease
profitable the Government, could be voided by cleo
ton of the the House Senate This question
has not gone to the for decision but the Depart
ment of Justice construed it fayorably to the Govern
ments interest lessee.
The cases arising under this statute used
text for preachment upon the decadence of public
morals But is so? Does it not rather prove that the
of 1864 evidences higher sensbility and stand
ard of morals superior the conditions that preceded
it? What Webster and numbers of his contemporaries
did or offered do with of its immortality,
is for penal sentence and loss of civil rights
They did recognize such mala in Sc wrong
in themselves and immoral The statute ranked them
nfala prohbita, wrong because prohibited and
the public conscience has to recognize them
as morally wrong. This better condition than
that which existed "in the brave days of old"