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Show "THE AMERICAN WAY CAN POLITICIANS BE HONEST FOLKS? George Peck, CI.- C. ?- t 1 I i i ' " ' i ,v - ! Recently I was asked if I believed be-lieved that politicians can be fair and honest. My answer was that most certainly they can, if we, the people, permit them to be so. A more pertinent question would have been: "Can the voting public pub-lic be fair and honest with the politicians ?" The fact that we have had, 'now have, and unfortunately may I have in the future some dishonest dishon-est politicians is due in great part to our careless attitude toward to-ward good government and to our selfish, unreasonable demands de-mands upon those whom we elect to public office. Most men elected to political office are inherently honest they aspire to serve their fellow citizens citi-zens well they embark on their public careers fired with zeal to do a thorough, unselfish job of cleaning up corruption and of administering honestly capably and economically the public affairs entrusted to their control and guidance. The exceptions excep-tions to this rule are few The new political electee barely bare-ly has time to hang his hat on the peg provided by the taxpayers' taxpay-ers' money before the onslaught begins. Individuals, committees,' pressure groups, corporations, mendicants, cranks, chislers, social so-cial reformer and legions of others besiege him for this favor and that handout nearly all of them making selfish, unreasonable demands upon him to crack open the public treasury and give them some of the loot. 'Tis a hardy soul indeed who can withstand this bombardment of patronage panhandlers and merciless mendicants and few there are of oir politicians who are successful in entirely resisting resist-ing the barrage. So, we, the people, peo-ple, largely are responsible for corrupting our politicians. |