Incorruptibility

“ Every thing around us is fathered by corruption, battened by corruption, and into corruption returns at last. Corruption is at once the womb and grave of Nature, and the very beauty on which we gaze and hang,—the cloud, and the tree, and the swarming waters,—all are one vast panorama of death! ”

“ Well, I declare to you that in all my experience I have found no society which has had elements of corruption like the United States. The children in the street are corrupt, and know how to cheat me. The cities are all corrupt, and also the towns and the counties and the States' legislatures and the judges. Everywhere men betray trusts both public and private, steal money, run away with public funds. Only in the Senate men take no money. ”

“ Thus, among us, property of various sorts and property in general, government in certain forms or in all forms, marriage, the church, medicine, and law, and those who represent them, are all denounced by small or large groups as graft and grafters. And indeed one need not be a thoroughgoing radical to observe that in some instances narrow and selfish interests have crept into these institutions, warped their highest ideals and crippled their efficiency. There seems to be little justification, however, for the employment of the word corruption in such sweeping fashion. ”

“ More than one of the gentlemen have ridiculed my apprehensions of corruption. How, say they, are the people to be corrupted? By their own money? Sir, in many countries, the people pay money to corrupt themselves: why should it not happen in this? Certainly, the Congress will be as liable to corruption as other bodies of men. Have they not the same frailties, and the same temptations? With respect to the corruption arising from the disposal of offices, the gentlemen have treated the argument as insignificant. ”

“ The worst scandals of the eighteenth century were relatively harmless by the side of this, which smirched executive, judiciary, banks, corporate systems, professions, and people, all the great active forces of society, in one dirty cess-pool of vulgar corruption. ”

“ If in such cases we excuse and forget, why not also excuse and forget corrupt transactions that have been more than repaid by general brilliant conduct of affairs of state? No answer to this second question, however, can avoid the distinction that while certain kinds of personal immorality may affect the value of a man’s public service to an infinitesimal degree only, corruption in any part of his political career strikes directly at whatever efficiency he may possess as a public servant. ”

“ If you proceeded against the freemen on the ground of bribery and corruption, in justice to those men you ought first to establish the existence of corruption before you attempted to punish them. It was not fair, on a general and vague presumption of bad repute, to destroy their rights. ”

“ Corrupt practices may begin in, and at first be limited to, the business world, but, as we have just seen, they are likely to overstep economic boundaries and become a menace to the integrity of the state. As such they must also be recognised and discussed as derivative forms of political corruption. ”

“ My Lords, pecuniary corruption forms not only, as your Lordships will observe in the charges before you, an article of charge by itself, but likewise so intermixes with the whole, that it is necessary to give, in the best manner I am able, a history of that corrupt system which brought on all the subsequent acts of corruption. I will venture to say there is no one act, in which tyranny, malice, cruelty, and oppression can be charged, that does not at the same time carry evident marks of pecuniary corruption. ”

“ Have we not the same evidence of the fraud that we have of the existence of the claims? Are not the evidences of both in the same report? the same proof of the corruption as of the claims? They both hang together. Do not gentlemen themselves admit the existence of the corruption? On what other principle could they justify their proposition to withhold from these harpies the whole of their glorious booty, and put them off with a comparative pittance? Set aside the evidence of the corruption, and it cannot be denied, that instead of five, they are entitled to fifty millions of acres. ”

“ If, however, it can be shown that in spite of the evil involved political corruption nevertheless has certain resultants which are advantageous, not simply to those who profit directly by crooked devices, but to society in general, the use of the term would be justified. ”

“ If they must soothe a patron's ear,
Not I—I was not born to bear;
All base conditions I refuse,
Nor will I so debase the muse.
Though I ne'er flatter nor defame,
Yet would I fain bring guilt to shame;
And I corruption would expose,
Though all corrupted were my foes.
I no man's property invade,—
Corruption 's an unlawful trade;
So bribery also. Politicians
Should be tied down to such conditions ”

“ Unsupported charges of corruption are too frequently indulged in by practical politicians, reformers, and conservatives, the results being a popular moral callousness and a loss of social confidence which render all constructive work more difficult.
(4) Acts involving corrupt motives range in current social estimation all the way from heinous felonies to minor foibles. The view that there are only a few “corruptionists,” all of whom richly deserve criminal sentences and might receive them without unduly crowding our penitentiaries, is a grotesque misconception. ”

“ Our rulers are generally politicians. To obtain office, corruption not unfrequently takes precedence of religion: hence injustice, wrong, and oppression are the means used to insure success. Examples thus set in high places have been followed through all the departments; peculation in office, fraud in agents, government itself cheated, are all indications of corruption, and are the strongest evidences to be adduced for the increase of crime, the disregard of truth, and the absence of morality among us. ”

“ A PERSISTENT PROBLEM OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL LIFE In its broadest significance, corruption has been defined as “the intentional misperformance or neglect of a recognised duty, or the unwarranted exercise of power, with the motive of gaining some advantage more or less directly personal.” Evil of this sort may occur not only in the state, but also in the church, the family, in business associations, and every other kind of social body. One may infer from the nature of corruption itself that if developed to an extreme degree it will cause the dissolution of any organisation affected by it. ”

“ Now, dear Vanity, you may call me a Russophile, or by any other marine term of endearment you like, if I don't think the old plan were the better of the two. We ourselves could conduct corruption decently; but to be responsible for corruption over which we exercise no control is to lose the credit of a good name and the profits of a bad one. ”

“ Good God! shall a man be prosecuted and pronounced guilty, and consigned to punishment for affirming that our laws are corrupt; that there is corruption in the system, and that corruption is an avowed part of that system? when in so affirming he only echoes the exclamation of the Speaker himself, that “practices, at which our ancestors would have started with indignation, were as notorious as the sun at noon-day?” ”

“ There have been some dishonest men in public employ and some dishonest practices under the best Governments, in all countries and at all times. That may be unavoidable. But where corruption develops itself during a long period of time and on an extensive scale, we may be sure that it must be the fault of the existing political system. ”

“ But the use of money always results in demoralization, and goes beyond demoralization to actual corruption. There are two kinds of corruption,—the crude and obvious sort, which consists in direct bribery, and the much subtler, more dangerous, sort, which consists in a corruption of the will. ”

“ Policy, inevitably and indiscriminately, leads to corruption. Corruption, obeying the inherent laws of its own nature, untouched by and beyond the control of the enactments that first gave it life and afterward fostered its growth, must culminate in certain destruction to all parts involved, whether it be within the body human, the body corporate or the body politic. ”

“ As soon as the State recognizes the right of existence of this dung-heap, by its toleration and organization, corruption hitherto hidden and ashamed raises its head and becomes more and more bold, even dragging public organs into its sink. ”

“ It is evident, likewise, that corruption is not confined to publick offices; that those who have lost their own integrity, have endeavoured to destroy the virtue of others; that attempts have been made to subject the whole nation to the influence of corruption, and to spread the contagion of bribery from the highest to the lowest classes of the people. ”

“ Their riches consisted not of spoils taken from enemies, but were the base product of their own corruption. They valued nothing but money, and those who could bribe them were sure to be advanced to the highest offices ”

“ Conversely corruption necessarily finds its richest field in highly organised political communities which have developed most fully the idea of duty and which have intrusted its performance to the largest number of officials and citizens. The modern movement toward democracy and responsible government, beneficent as its results in general have been, has unquestionably opened up greater opportunities for evil of this sort than were ever dreamed of in the ancient and mediæval world. Economic evolution has co-operated with political evolution in the process. ”

“ It is his Duty; both because Corruption can only flourish on the Ruins of Virtue and Religion, good Morals and Principles, without which public Liberty is essentially destroy'd; and because Corruption tends inevitably and invariably to weaken the public Administration of Government, by filling every high Department with the Venal, the Ignorant, the Selfish, the Dishonest. ”

“ It follows then, that his leading Proposition is as false in itself, as it is pernicious to Society, that "Corruption must always increase in due Proportion to the Decrease of arbitrary Power:" Because Virtue and Religion, upright Manners and Principles, properly instilled, may much better supply Corruption's Place. ”

“ Never forget that the worst and most degrading species of corruption is the corruption which operates, not by hopes, but by fears. Cherish those noble and virtuous principles for which we have struggled and triumphed together—the principles of liberty and toleration, of justice and order. ”

“ The country at this very moment is ringing with the cry of corruption. Is it without reason? Never before have the agencies been so powerful which seek to serve private interests by a corrupt use of money, and never before has the field of political life been so well prepared for their work. The same causes will always and every where bring forth similar effects. ”

“ As a necessary and direct result of such disorder in the intellectual region, we see corruption erected into a recognized and indispensable means of carrying on government. So powerless have general ideas become, into such discredit have they fallen, that they no longer avail to prompt any course of action ”

“ Corruption and incompetence in legislatures, or in the executive branch of the government, are serious evils when they exist, to be sure; but when incompetence and corruption invade the judiciary they reach to the very heart of the Republic. ”

“ If these few plain rules are observed, no corruption ought to be suspected; if any of them are violated, suspicion will attach in proportion; if all of them are violated, a corrupt motive of some kind or other will not only be suspected, but must be violently presumed. ”

“ For such guilty and corrupt men, therefore, to charge the people with corruption, whom either they have corrupted, or cannot corrupt, and, having brought great misery upon them, to threaten them with more ”

“ A very striking implication of the persistent character of the problem may be found in the fact that much of the current terminology of political science implies the presence of corruption as a common factor in the life of the state. To modern students Greek classifications of forms of government appear rather naive, considered simply as classifications, but many of the separate terms employed in them nevertheless remain in general use. ”

“ The real source of misgovernment—the active cause of corruption—is to be found, not in the slums, not in the population ordinarily regarded as ignorant and vicious, but in the selfishness and greed of those who are the recognized leaders in commercial and industrial affairs. ”

“ In commending its wares it has become as regardless of truth as a vendor of quack medicines. It pursues corruption as an end, and it freely uses corruption—both direct and indirect—as the means by which it may attain its end. ”

“ Well, but suppose now the same corruption to be in other men's hearts, that they are in great danger of an ambitious ensnarement if they be trusted with government, is this corruption only in the hearts of ministers, or is it in the hearts of all other men? I suppose he will say, in all men's hearts, and then his argument will conclude against all civil government. ”

“ Have I ever been suspected of being corrupted? A strange phenomenon, a corrupter himself not corrupt! Is ambition imputed to me? Why then do I still continue a commoner?—I, who refused a white staff and a peerage. ”

“ Did those merchants and traders, who, in their private dealings would scorn a lie, but recognize the duty they owe as citizens and as men of truth, they would, by uniting, soon sweep away the serious discredit to our country and to Republican Institutions, the festering corruption of this city and of the State; yet it is to their supine, nay wicked tolerance of the evil that we owe the specimens of judicial corruption by which we are robbed and dishonored. ”