Show the matter with Ame america by william allen alien white it in colliers We weekly eldy and now we come to consider the other column column in III the local political problem all these stories of political dishonesty current in the county must haie some truth in them and being more or less true these stories indicate a fundamental fault in american e ric an character perhaps human character would be a better way to put it for our faults are in no wise provincial the reason why the thing thine modernly called graft Is found jn in americanism is that they have the i world old f jults faults that rise from a clouded moral perception only a few men in this world steal and murder and lie with malice most of the stealing and murdering and lying is done by people who do not realize what they are doing they do not see the actual thing that they are stealing they do not have before them the actual body of their victim they do not prec eive exactly how they are lying and so in the arof 1 of american political life the farmer who works a few desultory hours on the road in front of his farm and swears that lie he has performed his obligation to the state as prescribed by law does not see ee clearly that lie he has stolen money from the state has made or left some mans death trap and has lied into the bargain the same man is honest enough in a business transaction at the bank he is kind bind enough to his family and to his live stock he is truthful in court and out but in his simple first hand relations with wilh his and unknown neighbors through the medium of his government this man whose name is legion Is crooked and unreliable and the attitude of the farmer toward his hs road tax in so far as it epitomizes the attitude of the average voter toward his unseen and unknown neighbors who meet him through li the agency of the government is at the root of all our tiou troubles bles in this government and in all governments under the sun yet there is much hope in the situation for even though the road represents the state a thing to be cheated the di district school which sits alfongs alongside side the road is treated as a friend and a brother by the farmer and though lie he be t childless the farmer willingly gives the school the best he has the moral vision of the people can see their neighbors interests as well as their own good in the school and so all over the land district schools are as honestly and intelligently managed as the farm and the stores of the communities wherein the schools are found but after one goes beyond the school district into the county the attitude of the citizen toward the county government often is so careless that one is surprised at the honesty of those who serve the county as public officials when the tax taxpayer paa goes to court as a witness it is not infrequent to find him charging char glug the last penny that the law allows even though he has not earned it morally when he pays his taxes he is prone lo 10 gloat at his ability to cheat the county when a public road is laid out across his field the difference between his valuation to the appraisers and his returns to the assessors Is a source of innocent merriment to those who are inclined to think an oath is binding on an honest man pot liot both statements are sworn to in nil all solemnity yet the man who does these things Is honest in hib bib relations with his visible neighbor this man would give ills his full meas ute uie lie he would tell them the hie truth I 1 in a horse trade I 1 would mow enair v field if they were v arc sick and harvest the chops of their widows without money and without price he would go EO to war to lo die for a cause or a prin ciple and come home and swindle the county out ot of a lays days jury service without feeling a t futter cutter of oe conscience when lie dies from a cold v contracted while out campaigning for the lie law lav and order ticket the local papers truthfully say of 0 hi him that he was a kind husband an indulgent father and a patriotic citizen ea for the area of 0 honesty in a man Is 13 only the small spot covered ly by his moral vision and perhaps after all it Is better to lo teach men what honesty really eally i Is and what his honesty really Is than to put them in jail tor for doing things that oo 00 not seem wrong to them until it has all been spelled out so little attention Is paid to teaching morals and so much to arithmetic with its percentage and interest tables that it Is not surprising that our criminal courts are becoming crowded perhaps when the laws we now have are enforced our great universities may have to establish alumni associations in the penitentiaries aries but those who are taken from the high places and so proudly put into jail by a virtuously indignant public are only doing on a large scale what tile the honest son of 0 toll toil Is doing on a small scale when he scours his plow in the public road and hinders traffic thereby it if we ve send the rich man to jail for his greedy carelessness of others rights the poor man should go also but better than new nev jails for both would be improved schools for the children of both to teach them that our government and our civilization are based upon the law of brotherhood and that one may live honestly under our government and in our civilization only in so 30 much as lie he keeps the law not merely with the brothers and neighbors lie he sees and knows but with those unseen and unknown who deal with him through the vast invisible compact which we call life if there is much in the doings of the be rich and powerful men in this auntry country that is mean and sordid and ugly as our national critics say there is s it must be that this miserable de towards the good the true ind and the beautiful is a elopement developer dev nent of f the small vices of the people for our ur successful persona erso nall all spring from the he ranks of the poor and the medio ere re our great men may have becu lar virtues though probably they lave not but they sorely have the common vic vices es for mone if one see all the viciousness of a national central committee of either party all the selfish deviltry of a stock exchange all the conscienceless conscience ress lo 10 logrolling croli and raw venality of tile the worst day of the worst session of the american congress lie he has but to spend a day with a county contention coment lorr of the dominant party in the opera house in the average county town pleasant view township comes down simon B tracey for county treasurer mr tracey having gone into the township primaries and defeated john R hughes lie he has named his delegates anti and a more relentless set of political cal pirates never assembled ass embred under the black flag than tile the pleasant view delegation unless it is tile til gang from the sixth ward behind jimmy coburn for county attorney or the park city delegation backing backlog honest joe busch for sheriff or the bloody third who propose to vote as a unit in any combination that will land the lion hon mortimer simcoe candidate for or the legislature in in the convention are two or three hundred patriots inspired by ideals as high as those of the delegations above mentioned sim tracey may be a convicted thief whose defeat at the polls is certain jack hughes may be a moral leper and jimmy coburn a ward heeler of the most obvious type while honest joe busch may be a law defying brewer but the friends of the lion hon Mor mortimer triner simcoe sunday school teacher doctors lawyers merchants and preachers will tie tic up with the combine lor for the larger good as readily as they would sell a spool of thread defend a horse thief sniff at in an osteopath denounce christian science OT to do any one of the conventional things demanded by their professional codes in the convention thebe estimable gentlemen forget the rutes rules need a good cathartic A pill is fa best say a pill aiho dew t 4 little early risers s about the roost most reliable on the market sold by the balg city pharmacy of every game but tile the one they are placing and trade and bleker bicker and swap among themselves anil and make the interests ot of the people mere counters in their games and yet let a morat moral isme lie be set squarely before that sweaty game mad crew and in a lash flash the man rises strong and indomitable the interests of mere politics pale inta nothing and the subconscious cleme elemental race decency of the mob moves through ough the convention with a fines fine strong teung unanimity the same thing in a congress sometimes anaf no american assemblage is immune to this spontaneous stampede to er morality anor alt y always in our race thi thee courage continued on page seven THE mm MATTER WITH AMERICA continued from page six is s there only the moral conviction is needed to arouse the moral enthusiasm and it becomes the strongest thing in our national life but unfortunately in the lower levels of politics politic moral stampedes are unusual the ordinary delegate to the ordinary political convention plays the game ot of politics according to the rules of that particular sport ile he despises downright lying he scorns crude bribery with money as the consideration he is a tickler for public economy dut but on the other hand promises promise s to friends need not be kept if they endanger the interests of his ward or his township in a contest before the convention and though bob saunders be a cripple and unable to earn f his Is salary I 1 it f henry thomas will make bob ers deputy sheriff all of bob saunders friends are in honor bound to support henry thomas though it henry should offer bob tor for his support the sum of money in cash that he would draw as deputy sheriff lff the very hint of it would defeater defeat mr thomas for these are the rules of the game A county commissioner who trades a bridge for the vote ot of a township in the election loses little caste by the bargain and the coun county attorney who Is able to get railroad passes for hi friends has friends in the convention who admit they are voting for him in spite of his record though the sum of money they save in railroad fare by his kindness is so small that it would insult them it it were offered as a bribe the present system of county politics males makes it convenient for a majority of the citizens actively to engage in the political game usually the convention of a given party in any county I 1 blare are composed of the same men year after year the list for the convention ten years ago or twenty years ago would do for the he convention to day if ft death might help to answer the roll call so the local politicians form a alste caste in the county two or three republicans control the delegation to the the republican convention from any township five or six republicans public ans control each ward unless there is a factional con contest when the first fideor six men inen contest with five or six others when the county delegates are all elected a dozen men self selected from the different wards and townships gather with more or less secrecy the day or the night before the convention meets and map out its work unless of course there is a factional fight in the county when two such groups of kigh binders meet from the daya when the delegates are selected until i the county ticket is named the pe ped i pie are outcasts all the rites and ceremonies all the candle burning and bell ringing is done ly by I 1 caffe devotees of the order of politics and finally when the tickets of all the parties are named the people at best have but a choice between evils and as a result county officers are entirely honest so far as till tapping goes they are entirely efficient so tar far as the routine clerical work of the county is concerned and are kindhearted kind hearted shrewd quick witted amer americans 1 icons whose chief interest in political life I 1 Is to see that their friends genevery get every dollar of the boun countis coun tys money that the letter of the law will give then them and ands that their enemies keep well within the spirit of the statute men of this mold and timber limber form the blue lodge of politics from them we recruit our knights and nobles and most worshipful ones if this country Is to be improved politically it will do little permanent good to begin reforming presidents and senators and congressmen anti and governors and judges if there is anything so BO excitable as treason in the senate it is the same kind hind of treason that is found among the people and it will do no good to show the people what kind of rascals they have hired unless we show the people what kind of rascals they are who hired them and it will accomplish little toward ithe the real betterment of the national life if we keep scolding the people and calling them names without pointing to some real exit from the adark dark tower it if dark tower we are in but a close view of the situation compels one to conclude that we are not in a dark tower at all we are merely in a hallway to continue centi nue the I 1 architectural figure a hallway which soon must open into a wider field politics are no worse than they were a generation ago the gentleman I 1 in a frock coat with one of his hands thrust complacently between the buttons in front and the other displaying his high hat was no more honest than is he fourth ward states statesman mad of the country town of today and the two are equally stupid graft as we call special privilege was as prevalent in time and in jacksons time and in Lincol ns time and in garfielda Gar fields and Clev elands times as it is today A few persons raged about it in other days but the people as a nation care look back twenty years could a presidential candidate today carry the load that blaine carried and come within a few thousand votes of an election mr elkins Is a survival of the blaine days ot of american politics how would he run as a presidential candidate against either mr roosevelt of mr bryan ben butler was governor of massachusetts once would massachusetts elect den ben butler today in the campaign of 1884 harpers weekly stood almost alone as a type of literary weekly with real political independence now that sort of a weekly is the prevailing type the great mass of the american people in that day regarded george william curtis and carl and james russell lowell as political freaks the republicans despised them and the democrats mistrusted them but the term has lost its it it has become almost an obsolete word in the political dictionary and the reason of it all Is found in the people themselves A new generation is on the stage of life it is a generation that has been educated in the american public schools as they have existed since the war it is preeminently a reading generation the harpers weekly of 1884 had less than one hundred sti subscribers perhaps halt half a million people read evad it today the actual subscribers to the best known of a score of papers monthlies mout hales and weeklies and three or four dalles dalies of that character number many millions arid when one considers how many of these subscribers are public ll libraries barles and reading rooms robins in country towns and villages P the number of readers of first rate well made independent periodicals runs into a figure that is so large a percentage ot of the american public that one easily accounts for the fact that the public sentiment of america Is far ahead of the public service one of our chief troubles in politics today Is that the intelligently honest voter Is tied up and tangled and exasperated with an antiquated system of politics it was made for a day when the people as a mass were not quite ready for direct participation in the stairs of government ern ment in those days we called our government a government of the people but etwas in fact a government of the politicians for the people hence the convention system la ill oui our |