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AUGUST 4, 1905
The Commoner.
15
political and commercial life of the
community appeal 3 to bo lioney
corabed with fraud, graft and the pros
titution of public office.
Will the state stand it? That is
not the problem. The question is,
will the people put up with it? Will
the God who governs human states
suffer it without the penalty he in
flicts upon the disregard and viola
tion of the very first principles of
society? The old Roman empire rot
ted away before the greed of her
princes. Venice fell prey to the
avarice of her merchants. The Stu
arts lost England because they stole
the people's privileges. England lost
her American colonies through ex
tortion, and Spain has been stripped
of her possessions through the cor
ruption of her foreign service.
Would it then be any great wonder
if our own great republic, harassed
by the same internal disorders, should
lose the confidence qf her citizens and
, fall a prey to the Iniquity of those
to whom the people have committed
the integrity of her institutions and
the honest administration of her po
litical and commercial life?
Don't ask me what all this has to
do with religion and find fault with me
because I mix religion with politics
and business. For where in the
sphere of our existence as a people
is religion more needed today than in
these very spheres of political and
commercial existences? Religion is
the life and very source of justice,
honesty, and every form of moral in
tegrity. Never before in the history
of our republic has religion come to
us with a more weighty message than
the one she b-ars to the people now.
Hitherto, a man's career was sup
posed to be built upon the principle
of honor, integrity and justice. To
him the great law of Sinai was as
sacred as the faith that made him
Christian. Thou shalt not steal was
the law of Tiis public life and his pri
vate transactions.
Now that law is changed, and the
man who is to succeed in life must
go forth with the warning ever speak
ing to his conscience, but with the
crime in his face. If thou wilt suc
ceed in life; it thou wilt have things
and be something, thou shalt steal,
and thou shalt steal in every shape
and form anything and everything,
and in every form and manner that
craft, cunning, experience and the
devil himself will show thee.
No law will control this degeneracy
but the law of the other world, the
law of religion with its sanction of
eternity, with its menace of the ever
lasting ills of God. No other remedy
is at hand. Surely not education. For
our education an education without
God, and, therefore, without morality
is not only not a remedy, but with
out religion it only makes more cun
ning rascals and smarter scoundrels.
Take God out of man's conscience
and you put the devil and all his
words into it. Publicity is something
in the right direction. But publicity
only repairs evil. It will not eradi
cate the iniquity that is overwhelm
ing us. Publish one rogue's trick and
you but sharpen the wits of a thou
sand others.
The evil lies In the public con
science. It is Godless. It is with
out faith. It is without a Christian
code. And until it shall have been
renewed in the principles of C-hrlstian
truththe whole truth the people
shall remain at the mercy of the pas
sions of evil men and still more evil
systems.
"LOOMIS THE EXONERATED"
A correspondent thinks our criti
cism of the president for exonerating
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Mr. Loomis entirely too severe- that
the president relied entirely upon Sec
retary Taft's report to him. Yet Taft,
In that report, said, in a very gingerly
way to be sure:
"I sincerely hope that his bitter ex
perience in this case makes it un
necessary further to point the moral
that one who occupies tho position
of minister of the United States can
not afford, in any country in which
he is accredited, in which business en
terprises must more or less be affect
ed by government favor and conces
sion, to make personal investments
of any sort or to leavo the slightest
doubt as to the absence of all personal
interest in any matters which ho may
bring before the government to which
he is accredited."
But tho president had more than
this before him. He had the record
the absolute proof or Loomis' guilt
as contained in tho report Itself. As
the conservative New York Post says,
"let that record speak";
(1.) Mr. Loomis exchanged checks
for $5,000 with the New York and
Bermudez Asphalt company a lit
igant for asphalt concessions in the
Venezuela courts whose claims he
had vigorously pressed. Let this pass
for a patent indiscretion; obviously
he should have banked elsewhere.
(2.) Mr. Loomis advanced $5,800 to
tho putative American, Mercado, on
the security of contested torpedo-boat
scrip issued by the Venezuelan gov
ernment. In other words, an Ameri
can minister enters into an unex
plained note-broking transaction in
tho scrip of the nation to which he is
accredited.
(3.) Mr. Loomis, stipulating that ho
should first resign as American min
ister, agreed with Charles R. Mayers
to engineer for an estimated profit
of over one million dollars the re
funding of Venezuelan loans held by
aa American syndicate. Of this trans
action Secretary Taft says:
"He (Loomis) was certainly tread
ing on dangerous ground in bringing
his offlci 1 life so close to a transac
tion in which, after receiving Mayer's
letter, he must have expected to have
a great personal interest."
(4.) Mr. Loomis became the agent
of a West Virginia corporation or
ganized to obtain mining concessions
in Venezuela. Like the exchange of
checks with the Bermudez company,
he explains that the transaction was
purely nominal.
Quoting again from the New York
Post:
"In a capital which fairly reeks
with financial scandal, Mr. Loomis
contrived to bank with a litigant con-
cessionnaire, to dabble in contested
government claims, to engage to re
fund a large portion of the national
debt, and to negotiate for a group of
mines. Grant that this is the entire
record of Mr. Loomis's extra-ministerial
activities, concede that he
drifted intd these dubious transac
tions merely as a convenience to
himself and to oblige friends, and one
cannot fail to admit that he is either
too guileless for this world or too
restless for the diplomatic calling."
' Yet the president 3ays he Is all
right and has given him a "certifi
cate" of good character." San Fran
cisco Star.
SAF7TY VS. DOLLARS
In this land of freedom the rail
roads run with about as much regard
for safety as they choose, the national
government taking no part and the.
state government being frequently
controlled by the road. Why is not
the block system of signals every
where in vogue? Because it costs
money, and the absence of it only
costs lives. Why are cheap tinder
cars allowed everywhere or any
where? Corporations and money in
terests generally in tL'-j country are
pretty leniently treated by the law.
The amount a man's life is worth is
often less than what ho can recover
for being Injured. Tho amount a
steamship company can bo mulcted
for an accident due to cowardice or
negligence of its own, ns in tho Bour
gono and General Slocum cases, scorns
to be limited by the amount of prop
erty saved in tho accident. Positive
favors of the law, however, have less
to do with tho unexplained danger of
travel by land In America than Its nog
atlvo influence tho fact that it has
so littlo to say in regard to methods
and appliances for safety. Regarding
water travel, where tho government
takes more part, tl o danger la less
m inadequacy of tho laws than In
what may be described as Indifference
or as tho case with which Inspectors
arc corrupted. Collier's Weekly.
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ors. Bond for cutuloguo und jirlco Jlbt. HKAJtS, llOKHUOIC X CO., QUU-muu, III.
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