cago.

All parts of the community are bound together in ethical development. If
the so-called more enlightened members accept corporate gifts from the
man who buys up the council, and the so-called less enlightened members
accept individual gifts from the man who sells out the council, we
surely must take our punishment together. There is the difference, of
course, that in the first case we act collectively, and in the second
case individually; but is the punishment which follows the first any
lighter or less far-reaching in its consequences than the more obvious
one which follows the second?

Have our morals been so captured by commercialism, to use Mr. Chapman's
generalization, that we do not see a moral dereliction when business or
educational interests are served thereby, although we are still shocked
when the saloon interest is thus served?

The street-car company which declares that it is impossible to do
business without managing the city council, is on exactly the same moral
level with the man who cannot retain political power unless he has a
saloon, a large acquaintance with the semi-criminal class, and
questionable money with which to debauch his constituents. Both sets of
men assume that the only appeal possible is along the line of
self-interest. They frankly acknowledge money getting as their own
motive power, and they believe in the cupidity of all the men whom they
encounter. No attempt in either case is made to put forward the claims
of the public, or to find a moral basis for action. As the corrupt
politician assumes that public morality is impossible, so many business
men become convinced that to pay tribute to the corrupt aldermen is on
the whole cheaper than to have taxes too high; that it is better to pay
exorbitant rates for franchises, than to be made unwilling partners in
transportation experiments. Such men come to regard political reformers
as a sort of monomaniac, who are not reasonable enough to see the
necessity of the present arrangement which has slowly been evolved and
developed, and upon which business is safely conducted. A reformer who
really knew the people and their great human needs, who believed that
it was the business of government to serve them, and who further
recognized the educative power of a sense of responsibility, would
possess a clew by which he might analyze the situation. He would find
out what needs, which the alderman supplies, are legitimate ones which
the city i