Los Angeles herald., 1910-09-02
THOUSANDS BRAVE
RAIN TO HEAR 7. R.
Returned African Explorer Given
Tremendous Ovation by AS
sembIed MisSourianS
TALKS OF HONESTY IN PUBLIC
Colonel Relates Stories of His
Travels to School Chill
dren at Westport
TALKS OF HONESTY IN PUBLIC
lcontlnned from Page Twol

ashamed to hesitate the fraction OF a
second longer in one case than In the
other.
HONESTY NOT UNILATERAL
Remember that honesty cannot be
unilateral. Good citizens should cor
daily distrust the man who can never
see dishonesty excepting IN men or tne
class he dislikes. The reckless aglta-
tor who invariably singles out men or
wealth as furnishing the only examples
of dishonesty; and the equally un-
scrupulous-but no more unscrupulous
-reactionary who can see dishonesty
only In q blackmailing politician or
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 IL you say that the corpora
tion owner, or the employer, is always
the dishonest man, and the poor man
never; that 1t Is only the wealthy man
who corTupts the politician and never
the politician who blackmails the cor
poration.
ANY man in his senses 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 addition,
that there are plenty of corrupt men
of small means who, In legislative or
other bodies, try to blackmail corpora
tions-and try to blackmail other peo-
pie as well. If they doubt this, let
them look at the revelations of cor
ruptions In my own state-New York
and in yours, my hearers-here in
Missouri; let them look at what has
occurred in California and what has
occurred in Illinois.
Now, scoundrels who do these kinds
of things are, of course, the very men
who. on the other hand, will blackmail
a corporation, IL they get a chance,
and, on the other hand, will cheer
fully, IL the chance occurs, sell them
selves to that corporation against the
interests of the public.
MUST FIGHT CORRUPTION
eve cannot afford to 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. I believe that the great Is
sue now before the people Is the doing
away with special privilege in all its
forms; doing away with the power of
the big corporation to control legisla-
ton in it's interests and to interfere in
politics In order to secure privileges to
which it Is not entitled. But I 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 writ
ing, seeks to persuade us that we need
pay heed to corruption only when 1t
shows itself In the rich man, is doing
as great a moral wrong as the rich
man whose low moral standard ten9s
to lower the moral standard of the
whole community. The people of this
country will get justice from the cor
porations only IL they both do justice
to them and rigidly exact 1t from them.
Unless they do justice to rich men,
they put premium upon injustice and
dishonesty among rich men. Let us
hold them to the strictest accountable
ity for any wrong-doing; but let us in
sist 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"