The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1905-03-21
A GLASS HOUSE SHATTERED

The Globe can have no personal
interest and feel no personal reflection
in the extraordinary statements made
! by Mr.. Leavitt of the state board Of
control Resenting a movement to
abolish the star chamber system set
up by that precious body. and to de-
prive it of the power Of spending the
peoples money secretly and without
accountability, he put in the plea that
, opposition to the star chamber system
was accounted for by what he was
| pleased to call newspaper graft; mean
ing thereby an alliance between con-
tractors who wanted to secure the work
and newspapers that wanted to get
the advertising. Now as the political
complexion of T h Globe has ex-
cluded it from consideration in all mat
tiers of state printing, it can review Mr..
picion of personal motive.
A man who talks as Mr.. Leavitt does
always raises a doubt of his own i'm
peccability. When, without evidence to
go upon, you call another man with
whom you have difference a corrupt
scoundrel, the just inference is that
you are none too clean yourself. We do
not believe that Mr.. Leavitt has a shred
of proof for his insinuations. II not,
II afrl,@ H.
and the first suggestion of his calmer
moments should be an apology. We do
know that, although he and his asso-
ciates have stood well in the commu-
nifty. their course has been such as to
call for just criticism, and their policy
such that the willing acceptance by
honest men of its consequences is
fairly unintelligible
Let us be explicit. A year ago a con-
ter under circumstances quite out of
the usual. The gravest irregularities
in this connection were charged by q
man with both reputation and money
to back him. He laid his charges be-
fore the board Of control. Failing to
secure any notice from them, he made
the charges public over his own sigma
ture. He courted and dared investiga-
ton. He announced both his personal
and his financial responsibility, and
again and again through the press the
appeal was made to the board of con-
troll to investigate the facts for its own
honor and the credit of the state. 1t
did absolutely nothing. No body of
men anywhere in the country could as
sumo such a position and keep its repu-
tation unsmirched
1t is with very bad grace that the
hero of any such episode as this comes
before the public with improved refiec-
tions on his fellows. 1t is with equally
bad grace that even the honestest
man could, in this age of progress, ap-
pear as the advocate of a system of
spending the public money for public
purposes in utter secrecy. That con-
tracts should be let in private, without
public notice, without public competi-
ton, without publicity as to their terms.
carries us back about four hundred
years. 1t is crude, antiquated idea,
inseparably entwined with the grossest
and basest forms of corruption. II it
has not brought forth its fruit in this
state, that is because time lacks rather
than opportunity.
A man holding such ideas and partial
to such system should be very mod
est. A man capable of passing up the
state prison scandal should erect some
kind Of shelter about his frail glass
house, rather than get out in front of
1t and shy rocks. The one good feature
of this deplorable exhibition is its adj
dition to the vast accumulation of evil
dence against the whole false, foolish
and iniquitous system represented by
the board of control idea