The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1910-09-01
MUSIPURGEPA RTY
Of DISHONEST
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swindler in New York or Chicago as
with the horsethief or homicide in
Indian Territory. We never at
tackled a man because he was a man
cause he did or did not possess
wealth; and we never shielded him
because he was poor or rich, because
he belonged to any particular church
or I oany particular party. But ]
also wish you especially to remem-
Der that we never hesitated to shield
him and stand up for him once we
were convinced that he was i'm
properly attacked. There is no
greater foe of honesty than the man
who, for any reason, in any capacity,
attacks, or seeks to attack, an hon
est man for a crime which he has
not committed. Falsely accusing an
honest man of dishonesty is an act
which stands on the same level of
infamy with that of the dishonest
man himself; and it is no higher
duty to attack the dishonest man
than it is to exonerate the honest
man falsely accused; and / should
he ashamed to hesitate the fraction
of a second longer in one case than
in the other.
Remember that honesty cannot be
unilateral. Good citizens should cor
daily distrust the man who can
never see dishonesty excepting in
men of the class he dislikes. The
reckless agitator who invariably sin
eles out men of wealth as furnishing
the only examples of dishonesty; and
the equally unscrupulous-but no
more unscrupulous-reac who
can see dishonesty only in a black
mailing politician or a crooked labor
leader; both stand on the same plane
of Consciousness. You will never
get honesty from politicians until
you exact honesty from business
men; on the other hand, you brand
yourselves as fools or as hypocrites
if you say that the corporation
owner, or the employer, is always
the dishonest man, and the poor man
never, that it is only the wealthy
man who corrupts the politician and
never the politician who blackmails
the corporation.
Weed Out the Blackmailers.
amy man in his senses knows
that there are plenty of corporations
in this country who prosper by brib-
ing legislatures just as they prosper
by swindling the public; and any
man in his senses ought to know, in
addition, that there are plenty Of
corrupt men of small means who, in
legislative or other bodies, try to
blackmail corporations-and try to
blackmail other people as well. Ii
they doubt this, let them look at the
revelations of corruption in my own
state-New York-and in yours, my
hearers-here in Missouri; let them
look at what has occurred in Califor-
mia and what has occurred in Illinois.
In Illinois, for instance, one of the
rascalities developed by the recent
investigation was the existence of
combination of legislators who black
mailed fishermen along a certain
river, forcing them to pay to prevent
legislation which would have inter-
fered with their business.
"Now, scoundrels who do these
kinds of things are, of course, the
very men who, On the one hand, will
hlackmail a corporation, if they get
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
corporation and the Matchmaking or
bribe-taking politician.
Protect Public Servants.
eve cannot afford 70 limit 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 betraying
the rights of the public. l believe
that the great issue now before the
people is the doing away with spe-
cial privilege in all its forms; doing
away with the power of the big cor
poration to control legislation in its
interests and to interfere in politics
in order to secure privileges to which
it is not entitled But 1 regard the