Perth Amboy evening news., 1906-06-04
EDITORIAL COMMENT.
More Muck 10 Rake.

Troublous days for the organs and
orators of the rings and the bosses,
both in New Jersey and out of 1t,
seem to be amending. After life in
surance exposures had given the peo-
pie an insight into the grating of
some of the Captains of Industry and
had set on foot a demand for COM
mon honesty in business and politics,
the hired advocates of special privil-
eye to loot the public retired for a
time into enforced silence and waited
for the storm to blow over.
About a month ago they thought
that the time was ripe for re-appear-
ance and n by one they stole out
again into the daylight under a new
banner.
President Roosevelt had applied
the term muck-rakers to some of his
personal and political enemies. He
expressly stated that he held in high
esteem the citizen, who, with an hon
est purpose exposed and pilloried the
thief and the CRATER and that who
ever sought to %whitewash wrong was
worse than the wrongdoer.
But his application of the COM
pound term was. altered, and, with
the shibboleth of Down with the
muck-rakers'' the old apologists for
evil sought to restore their clients to
co%untenance in this republic.
They have ill-succeeded for two
reasons. One is that they miscalcu-
lated the Intelligence of the people
and the other. is that they mischose
the time,
They were persuaded that the pub
lie conscience had gone to sleep
again, but it had not. There is sub
stantial evidence all about us that
there are millions of frugal and in
dustrious voters who will never slum-
Der again until both business and
political ) methods throughout the
country are reformed; until the party
bosses are wholly driven from power
and until the industrious millions
who annually create the vast wealth
of the county gain an honest share of
the fruits of their toll
Were anything needed to keep
awake the public conscience it has
been found in the Developments of
the past few weeks. President Roose-
velt's exposure of Standard Oil meth
DDS, whereby the corporation which
Yields greater influence In hualnesA
and finance than any other, was
found to have accumulated millions
and crushed out competition by de-
fianee 0fsthe laws of the land brought
to light conditions that had been sus-
pected. The president has furnished
the proof.
Next came the revelations relative
TO the Pennsylvania railroad. 1t Is
Fa,,x,A nat aaAIp thot thnr oAp,NA-ntfOt
is an organization of grafters, who
have used the powers vested in them
by the people under the charters of
this and other states 10 enrich them
selves, but that they have taxed the
public Illegally, as well as their own
stockholders, to satisfy their inordin-
ate and illegal greed.
Every transportation line Is a pub
lie servant. Discriminative use of
its power is quite as tyrannous as
the misuse of the power of taxation
by the state itself,
Now we have the beef trust scan
dial withsits evidence that some more
Captains of Industry have been en-
gagged in disgraceful practices under
thu very eyes of the sworn agents OF
the government whe were appointed
to prevent them.
There seems to be little reason to
doubt that lard has been manufact-
ured by some of the firms of the trust
outiof hogs that diad OF the cholera;
that the sanitary conditions in the
packing houses ire shocking; that
meat unfit for use that could not be
sent to Europe had been unloaded up=
ON the American people and that ais-
eased cattle has been cut up, medi-
Gated, and in various ways disposed
of.
Private writers had been trying for
months to get these facts before the
people of the United States. They
had been denied by the Armours,
among others, over their own sigma
lures. Now they are confirmed by
the commissioners appointed by the
president himself.
Whoever thinks that the work of
publication ad redemption Is fnlsh-