The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1905-07-14
URGES RELIGION TO AID PURE
POLITICS.
Secretary Bonaparte Discusses Evils
of .Craft'' In Government

W w
Pure Politics and Religion" was the
subject of an address delivered before
the Christian Endeavor convention al
Baltimore, Nd, by Charles j. Bona
parte, Secretary of the Navy. 1t was
the Maryland mans first public ad.
dress since his appointment to place
in President Roosevelt's cabinet, and il
had kind of Rooseveltian twsng to it,
1.-The underlying evil in the admins.
tration of our public affairs is simply
dishonesty, said Secretary Bonaparte.
"For seventy-ive years" he declared
1--WE have permitted our public offices
to be treated as mere loot in political
warfare-not as trusts belonging to the
people. but as spoils' belonging to the
'victors.
AS preface to his talk to the En-
deavorers the new Secretary of the
Navy told story. Many years ago, he
said, a well-known professional poll
tician was met on his way home from
church one Sunday by a newspaper
man, who said to him
"Mr. A, do not understand how so
regular an attendant at church as you
are also can be so great an adept in
'stuffing' ballot boxes, fixing juries and
plugging corporations
"Mr. B." replied the church going
boss, IL never mix up politics and re-
ligion."
MIXTURE BAD FOR BOSSES.
MANY of our citizens" said Mr..
Bonaparte, "are beginning to mix up
good deal of what my late fellow
townsman would call religion with
what he would call politics, and the
resultant of this mixture is decidedly
unpalatable and unwholesome to those
of his ways of thinking and acting.
The people of our union have finally
gained fairly clear insight into the
nature ofour ills and are gradually but
steadily learning what medicine will
heal them.
"Our public offices, too often are
held by dishonest men, too often gained
by dishonest means, too often used for
dishonest ends. The great bulk of
Americans in public employ wish and
intend to do their duty, but grave
and mischievous, though very common,
confusion of ideas as to what is their
duty makes the best of them some
times fail to do it, and permits the
worst often to neglect it with i'm
punity.
"Since the pecuniary value of many
offices can be largely increased by
adopting latitudinarian views as to
certain lines of official conduct, an alb
sense of prejudice is soon cultivated
against tips, sugar, the plugging of
of corporations and other practices with
and euphemistic names
which cloak such bald terms as extor-
tion and bribery.
OFFICES NOT SPoILS.
Civil service reform, in fact, applies
a caustic to the very ulcer in our poll
tics in the application of morality and
common sense to the choice of public
The typical American politi-
tian, as developed by the spoils system
Of politics, earns his living by holding,
when he can get it, public Office, in
return for past or expected party works.
to get rid of him and his work, we must
eradicate from our own
minds and those of our fellow citizens
the absurd and wicked notion that Of
flee are 'spoils
ITO understand. indeed, how the
spirit of Christianity or anything else
can operate to purify our politics, we
must first define what we mean by 'pur-
ty' and what we mean by politics.
Every man who interests himself active
y in the good government of his city,
who tries to secure for it sufficient
police and fire department, well-paved
streets, judicious regulations for the
public health, public buildings in good
repair, public schools in good working
order, and, with all, low taxes and
winding debt, who does what he can
TO enforce the law, punish crime and
the order, good morals and
of the community, 80 far as
.hese are intrusted to public officers,
,very such man is engaged in politics
s, in the Greek sense of the word, a
politician.
POLITICS AND POLITICIANS.
1T is true that when we speak of