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Show POLIliCAL SGANDAL o "111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Wh.'ie weilth accumulates, arvl men decay." There is a stench arising from our political capital which discloses the putrid ity beneath. Easy money in fjreat Quantities, got in the walks of iife which the better element wish to prohibit (we now refer to prize right films); easy money got in oil, '.vbich comes so easily when It does come; and the easy money of great. ;orporate interests, which is so easy to pass over from the (accepted) legitimate work of "lobbying" into "favors bestowed," "friendship influenced," in-fluenced," and to "open bribery," chese phases of easy money and their paths of operation show that at the iation'8 capital influence was nought and paid for. We do not vish to write radically, and say with i tempered thought "bought and paid for." Because one man, or tind of man can only be approached iy favors bestowed, who sees in the pther fellow only a good friend, who has done him a benefit which should e reciprocated. And he accepts '.he money, the favor, the kindness (which the other has offered as bait) md the result is the same as the ipen bribery money handed to the ther class who will accept just such money. Copy books and school texts speak if the glory, the distinction, the hon-r hon-r of "serving our country." Take iway from It the perquisites, take iway from It the emolument, take iway from it "boodllng" in Its many enses, and there remains almost lothing to public service. It is out 'or the coin. And whenever any nan or group of men fool themselves themsel-ves by thinking that things" are not otten, that politics is not a dirty esmirching mess, of trade and give, if Sinbad the office holder seating simself entrenched upon Publio, the ailor such men show in our opin-on opin-on self-interest, which is inclined to otter itself from the existing con-litions. con-litions. When Thomas Lawson wrote in Everybody's years ago, and exposed 'Frenzied Finance;" when the Dear-jorn Dear-jorn Independent writes of it al-nost al-nost weekly and "Chronicles neglee-ad neglee-ad Truth;" when a lid is lifted in Vashington and a peep taken in-ide, in-ide, inside is seen full of deals; o 'influence" offered, taken and ac-epted; ac-epted; a disclosure is seen of a ery low national probity. Nor is this anything new. Teddie R. showed it up. The Big Itick lambasted many a predatory volfe away from the door of the reasury of public money. Manly irtue is not all in the Democratic arty, nor entirely absent from the tepublican fold. It is not a partisan ssue. It is simply a question of msting In disgrace those guilty of nalfeasance in office, whether that nan is simply a weak teel of a deigning de-igning villian or the open acceptor if the nastiest of all pandering an pen bribe. Thoughtful men ar disguested. 'here is a retiring from activity. '"T is an unweed garden grown to seed, nd things rank and gross in nature lossess it merely." And weeding hat garden Is highly necessary right ,t present. Not all are bad, and ertainly not all are good. The ramifications of "the root of ill evil" are many, and seen In its vorst in many high places. The public crier does not chant In Washington "Oil is well, oil is well." |