The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1911-05-03
As circuit attorney O

As circuit attorney Of st. Louis
he exposed more official corruption
than was ever laid bare before in
the history of the world.
When he commenced bribery was
the common and accepted thing. 1t
was regarded as merely conventional
The revelations he made awoke a
slumbering public conscience, and the
is the result.
Meeting with the fiercest opposition
in his work of Graduating corruption,
denounced and villified by corruption
! lists of every kind. he took his fight
before the people. In the face Of
the bitterest contest in the history
of American politics he won the nomi-
nation of the democratic party Of his
state for governor by an overwhelm-
ing majority. Again in the campa ign
for election every vcnal influence
combined against him, and again he
triumphed He was elected, while
the others on the ticket, who were
not fought as he was, were defeated.
He carried Missouri by 30,100 for
| governor at the same election Roose-
welt on the opposite ticket carried
lne state by 2o,OOO.'
In this campaign he announced the
| doctrine known as the missouri
| idea" which is familiar in every
| part of the earth today. This idea
| is that citizenship in a free coun-
| try implies a civic obligation to on
| force the performance of every pub
| lie trust: that bribery is treason, and
the givers and takers of brides are
! the traitors Of peace; that laws are
made to be enforced, not to be ig
nored; that officials should no more
embezzle the public power entrust-
cd to them than public money in their
custody
His was the first of the great bat
| ties for reform before the people, and
| the principles he declared are the in
SEPARATION of the crusade for higher
ideals in public life.
AS governor he put an end to hood
ling in legislative Affairs. There was
no crookedness or scandal in the
three legislatures held under him
| This was n wonderful change from
conditions that existed prior to that.
He abolished the practice of legis-
lators and officials riding on free
| passes.
In the first legislature under him
he procured the ena ctment OF a law
giving right of action for the neg
liGent death of adult unmarried per-
sons. Until then there was no rem
edy in such cases.
He signed a maximum freight rate
bill. the first relief in that direction
for twenty-five years.
He caused the exorbitant fee svs-
tenn, whereby the excise commissioner
of st. Louis received more than forty
thousand dollars a year, TO be chang
ed and the commissioner put on a
salary basis. Although the governor
appointed the commissioner he did
this because he believed it right.
| He procured the passage of a law,
after hard legislative fight, repeal
ing the race-track law, whereby
gambling was legalized, and put the
most powerful and insolent race
track syndicate in the world out OF
business. He broke up the attempted
defiance of the law by race-tracl1
gamblers, who had the assistance Of
local officers, and enforced the law
over the heads of the local officials.
He put the state institutions on Il
business basis, and eliminated graft
from them
He took the police of the large
cities, where the governor appoints
the commissioners, out of politics, and
put them on a basis of public service
alone.
He stamped out the grafters from
the police departments.
lie rrvulutiouized the conduct or
the police In reference to elections,
and made elections fair and free from
police interference.
He appointed men Of the highest