Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1910-09-10
man who corrupts the politician who
blackmails the corporation.

man who corrupts the politician who
blackmails the corporation.
ANY man in his seses knows that
there are plenty of corporations in
this country who prosper by bribing
legislatures just as they prosper by
swindling the public; and any man
in his senses ought to know, in ad-
dition, that there are plenty of cor
rupt men of small means who, in leg
islative or other bodies, try to black
mail corporations-and try to black
mail other people as well. If they
doubt this, let them look at the reve-
lations of corruption in my own
State-New York-and in yours, my
hearers-here in Missouri; let them
look at what has occurred in Cali
fornia and what has occurred in
Illinois. In Illinois, for instance,
one of the rascalities developed by
the recent investigation of legisla-
tors who blackmailed fishermen
along a certain river, forcing them
to pay to prevent legislation which
would have interfered with their
business.
Now scoundrels who do these
kind of things are, of course, the
very men who, on the one hand, will
blackmaiI a corporation. if they get
a chance, and, on the other hand,
will cheerfully, if the chance occurs,
sell themselves to that corporation
against the interests of the public.
Their corruption is no more due to
the action of the corporations than
the corruption of the corporations
is due to their action; and evil, and
not good, is done by the honest but
misguided man who would persuade
you that either fact is true. Our
duty is to war with equal sternness
against the corrupt man of great
wealth and the small man who makes
a trade of corruption; our fight is
against both the swindling corpora
ton and the blackmailing or bribe-
taking politician.
1--WE cannot afford to limit a cam
paign against corruption to those
who happen to have a certain social
status. We need laws which shall
put the corporation out of business,
so far as concerns corrupting the
servants of the public and betray-
ing the rights of the public. l be-
lieve that the great issue now before
the people is the doing away with
special privilege in all it's forms; do
ing away with the power of the cor
poration to control legislation in its
interests and to interfere in politics
in order to secure privileges to which
1t is not entitled. But l regard the
essential factor in this campaign as
being an aroused civic conscience
which will unsparingly condemn dis
honesty in every form, and in every
man, high or low. The reckless,
Would-be reformer, who, in speaking
or writing, seeks to persuade us that
we need pay heed to corruption only
when it shows itself in the rich man,
is doing as great a moral wrong as
the rich man whose low moral
standard tends to lower the moral
standard of the whole community,
The people of this country will get
justice from the corporations only If
they both do justice to them and
rigidly exact it from them. Unless
they do justice to rich men, they put
premium upon injustice and dis
honesty among rich men. Let us
hold them to the strictest account
ability for any wrong-doing; but let
us insist upon honesty in our own
ranks, no less than theirs; let us war
on crookedness of every kind in the
man of small means as well as the
man of large means. Let us Judge
each man by his conduct, and not
by his social or financial condition"