Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-11-29
GRAFT

IN HOSE who attended the City club
dinner yesterday with the hope of
- hearing the able and eloquent
Frank G. Tyrrell denounce srafters in
his address on cowardly and corrupt
politicians were perhaps surprised when
he went to the root of the matter and
denounced the CAUSES of graft and
grafters, corruption and corrupted.
While admitting the fact that men
who proved susceptible to the in
fiuences brought to bear on them
were of course to blame, Mr.. Tyrrell
maintained the position often asserted
by The Herald that the 'souIless cor
porations," their INSCRIPTIONS agents
and middle men, and SNUG, self-satis-
fed individuals who may be found in
church pews or presiding at missionary
meetings or establishing free Libraries
are the real sources of the remarkable
conditions which have prevailed not
merely in one but in many American
cities.
Hardly less to blame, in the opinion
of 1Ir. Tyrrell, and in ours, are the
Indifferent citizens, who pay little at
tention to the work of government and
never allow public affairs to encroach
on the time they devote to their selfish,
personal gain-getting business inter-
ests. To take only one instance Of the
consequence of their Indifference: While
they are supine a paid agent of a great
corporation engaged in transportation
gives days and nights of consummate
skill to seeing how he can pervert, de-
bauch or defeat municipal and state
government.
Mr.. Tyr-all, however, does not be-
lieve the situation is hopeless On the
contrary, he believes, with The Herald,
that while individually the better men
of the community may be no match
for the slick, smooth, adroit agent of
corporation corruption, when honest
men by the ten thousand and the hun
dred thousand stand together for good
citizenship, the pestiferous and piratical
Intermediates will be overthrown.
1t is needless to tell readers of The
Herald we indorse and approve Mr..
Tyrrell's remarks, and wish more
power to him" He made one state
ment which the needless or the preju-
diced will characterize as SENSATIONAL;
but we take the position that the result
of leaving such words unsaid by men
like Mr.. Tyrrell, or unpublished by fear
less American newspapers like Los
! Angeles Herald, will be apt to be far
more sensational to the American
people than any statement of the
TRUTH concerning the LOGIC of pres
emf conditions and future prospects can
possibly be.
Mr.. Tyrrell said: "IF THESE GREAT
ENTH- PRISES AND WEALTHY
CORPORATIONS GO ON EXPLOIT
ING THE ToILING MILLIONS AS
THEY ARE DOING, IF THEY GO ON
PI,UNDERING AND PILLAGING
AND PLUCKING AND OUTRAGING
.MERICANISM, WE WILL HAVE A
REIGN OF TERROR SOME DAY; or,
at least. a sociological and political
reaction. a regime of radicalism that
will endanger, if 1t does not undermine
and destroy our American institutions
The new district offices of the forest
service will be in San Francisco. The
forest service includes so much that is
of interest and Importance to Southern
California that to station a big Office
force In San Francisco and to overlook
entirely the Los Angeles and the South
ern California district is ridiculous, and
can only be the result of Washingtonian
ignorance concerning the needs OF
Southern California, and sometimes we
are compelled to think the eastern
Ignorance of those needs is so great
that if set on end it would dwarf the
Washington monument.
When Dick Croker took his first ride
in the New York subway his emotions
at thought of the pie he missed by re-
turning to the British isles must have
been almost overwhelming. But tits OF
no use to cry over split milk and buiiS
/ "a, l,xvava Dfclxie arOOn acushla, ma