The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-05-31

whether they are rich or poor, whether
| they follow one occupation or another
but with reference solely to whether
| they act as honest and upright citizens
! should act. Let the local attorneys of
| the big roads keep out of politics; and
when they have to appear before the ma
| tional or any state legislature let their
| names be put on a special register. and
! let their business be aboveboard and
| open. There are blackmailers in public
| life, and the citizen who is honest will
war against the man who tries to black
| mail railroad or big corporation with
! the same stern determination to punish
| him as against the man who corruptly
| favors such corporation. But let the
| railroad man remember that to pur-
chase immunity in wrongdoing or to de-
feat blackmail by bribery is the worst
and most short-sighted of policies. Let
the plain people insist on the one hand
on governing themselves and on the 9TH
er hand on doing exact justice to the
railways. Let the big railroad man
! scrupulOusly refrain from any effort to
influence politics or government save as
it is the duty of every good citizen in
legitimate ways to try to influence poll
tics and government; let the people as
a whole, in their turn, remember that it
is their duty to discriminate in the
sharpest way between the railway man
who does well and the railway man who
does ill; and above all, to remember
that the irreparable moral harm done
to the body polite by corruption is just
as great, whether the corruption takes
the form of Matchmaking a big corpora
ton or of corruptly doing its bidding.
What we have to demand in ourselves
and in public servants is honesty
honesty to all men; and if we condone
dishonesty because we think 1t is ex-
ercised in the interests of the people, we
may rest assured that the man thus
showing it lacks only the opportunity to
exercise it against the interests of the
people. The man who on occasion will
corruptly do what is wrong in the in
tereStS of big corporation is the very
man eager to blackmail that corpora
ton as the opportunity arises. The man
who is on occasion a corruptionist, is
apt, when the gust of popular feeling
blows hard against the corporations he
has corruptly served, to be the loudest,
most reckless, and most violent among
those who denounce them. Hunt such a
man out of public life. Hunt him out as
remOrselesSly if he is a blackmailer as
if he stands corruptly for special priv
ilege. Demand honesty-absolute, I'M
f1inching honesty-together with courage
and common sense, in public servant
and in business man alike. Make 1t evil
dent that you will not tolerate in public
life a man who discriminates for or
against any other, save as justice and
reason demand it: and that in your atti-
tude toward business men, toward the
men who are dealing with the great
financial interests of the country. while
you intend to secure sharp reckoning
for the wrongdoers, you also intend
heartily to favor the men who in legiti-
mate ways are doing good work in the
business communicable railway presi-
dent the traffic manager, or other Off
cial, high or low, who is doing all in his
power to handle his share in vast and
complicated business to the profit alike
of the stockholder and the general pub
lie.
Let the man of great wealth remem-
Der that, while using and enjoying II.
he must nevertheless feel that he Is I'm
a sense a trustee, and that consistent
misuse whether in acquiring or spend
ing his wealth, is ominous of evil to
himself, to others who have wealth, and
to the nation as a whole. AS for the
rest of us, let us guard ourselves
against envy as we ask that others
guard themselves against arrogance,
and remember Linco1n's words of kind
ly wisdom: Let not him who is house
less pull down the house of another. but
let him work diligently and build one
for himself, thus by example assuring
that HIS own shall be safe from violence
when built"