Moral corruption

“ IV. The motive of a corrupt act must be some advantage more or less directly personal. The grosser the nature of the advantage sought and the more directly selfish the purpose, the worse from the moral point of view is the transaction. ”

“ Thus the strength of the moral condemnation visited by our society upon offences of a certain sort may become the most potent weapon in the hands of an unscrupulous boss or clique. The question remains whether the neglect or misperformance of duty procured by threats or injuries comes properly under the definition of corruption. ”

“ There will probably always be some attempt at corrupt practices, more or less, as there will always be some highway robbery. But the extent of those corrupt practices, the more or less, and, therefore, the damage and danger arising from them, will depend upon the popular maintenance of that moral standard according to which corruption is branded as a dishonorable thing, condemned as a crime and treated as such. ”

“ There are many petty forms of evil, the shady moral character of which is as yet hardly perceived. The spirit thus revealed is, however, identical with that which expresses itself in the major forms of corruption which are so obvious and threatening that they have become subject to public criticism. It cannot be denied that some abuses of a grave character make their appearance in the learned professions, journalism, and higher education. In all such cases, however, vigorous reform work is in progress. ”

“ And in the moment of her disregard of these principles, when wickedness and sin can run riot with impunity, and not moral influence and force enough be found in the people to check it, and walk it under foot, then may she reckon on a speedy downfall. When moral obligations cease to exert an influence, and virtue hides its face, and the unblushing effrontery of sin and foul corruption takes its place, then may the nation consider there is danger. "When the wicked rule the people mourn." ”

“ This distinction which the novelist draws between crime and wickedness is one that society itself is making, otherwise the novelist would not perceive it, and the growing interest in the discussion of the subject corresponds with the general increase in the value of the individual. Laws, we may perhaps say, concern masses; moral corruption is a personal matter that eludes the legislator. The ordinary citizen is law-abiding by nature and education ”

“ The mere volume of clamour developed by reform movements against corrupt practices is, therefore, no certain index of higher moral standards. There is even danger that we may too complacently accept mere denunciation for real achievement. Nor can the work be deemed finished when popular uproar has secured new legislation, for laws, notoriously, do not execute themselves. ”

“ I don’t know whether you find also in your part of the world that there are certain people who go zealously snuffing about to smell out moral corruption, and, as soon as they have found some, put the person concerned into some lucrative position where they can keep their eye on him. Healthy natures are left out in the cold. ”

“ Such societies must die sooner or later of their own gangrene, of their own corruption, because the infection of evil, spreading into unbounded selfishness, ever intensifying and reproducing passions which defeat their own aim, can never end in anything but moral dissolution. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is seen also that the last system gradually destroys individual responsibility; little by little it produces cynicism, corruption, and a deep-seated moral degradation in all classes of society, which at last kills the sense of evil in the individual conscience, and thus destroys both the will and the power of a nation to regenerate itself. ”

“ It is an unquestionable [pg 225] fact, whether we can explain it or not, that many men of the worst moral principles have been gifted with the highest intellectual powers, and have been placed in positions in society which have enabled them to inflict the greatest evil on others. History is full of such cases. The most extreme forms of human corruption have been not inaptly designated as “Satanic.” ”

“ A rectitude of conduct which, in all its manifestations, offers a striking contrast to the deceitfulness and corruption that characterize the political life of the nation and of the parties and factions that compose it; a holiness and chastity that are diametrically opposed to the moral laxity and licentiousness which defile the character of a not inconsiderable proportion of its citizens ”

“ So far as their effect is the reinforcement of the influences which make for the performance of public duty there is no reason why they should not be regarded as good. To regard them in the same way when they have a directly contrary moral effect is a pernicious perversion of a true idea. ”

“ If in many instances he is degraded by moral and political slavery to the practice of the basest vices it engenders—and that below the level of ordinary degradation—let us reflect that the corruption of the best produces the worst, and that habits which subsist only in relation to a peculiar state of social institution may be expected to cease as soon as that relation is dissolved. ”

“ The despicable is honoured, and corruption is a recommendation to high position. There have been such epochs of moral dissolution; and there is always a drift in that direction, which is only checked by the influence of the "faithful." ”

“ This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments. ”

“ Is any one inclined to dispute the possibility of a happy change in society? Do they say that the nature of man is corrupt, and that he was made for misery and wickedness? Be it so. Certain as are opposite conclusions, I will concede the truth of his, for a moment.—What are the means which I take for melioration? Violence, corruption, rapine, crime? Do I do evil, that good may come? ”

“ What a vast crime does he commit,—private man or public man, agent or contractor, legislator or magistrate, secretary or president,—who dares, with indignity and wrong, to strike the bosom of the Public Welfare, to encourage venality and corruption, and shameful sale of the elective franchise, or of office; to sow dissension, and to weaken the bonds of amity that bind a Nation together! What a huge iniquity, he who, with vices like the daggers of a parricide, dares to pierce that mighty heart, in which the ocean of existence is flowing! ”

“ Had that corruption availed so as to extinguish in them the sensibility to pleasure, passion, and natural scenery, which is imputed to them as an imperfection, the last triumph of evil would have been achieved. For the end of social corruption is to destroy all sensibility to pleasure; and, therefore, it is corruption. It begins at the imagination and the intellect as at the core, and distributes itself thence as a paralysing venom, through the affections into the very appetites, until all become a torpid mass in which hardly sense survives. ”

“ All the practices which I have been describing here I call corrupt, as I would call corrupt every act of a public servant intended to promote personal interest at the expense of the public good. If we have ceased to regard those practices in that light, it only shows that under the influence of the “spoils” system our moral sensibility has been dulled, and that a certain indifference as to the corrupt character of our own motives, unless they appear in the most palpable and the grossest form, has gradually and insensibly crept over us all. ”

“ The mouth full of cursing and bitterness, the throat an open sepulcher, the poison of asps under the tongue, the feet swift to shed blood, destruction and misery in their paths, and the way of peace unknown to them, are the clearest and amplest demonstration that men "have gone out of the way," "have together become unprofitable." We see the bitter fruit of the same corruption in robbery, adultery, gluttony, drunkenness, extortion, intolerance, persecution, apostasy, and every evil work—in all false religions ”

“ 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. ”

“ Besides material inducements almost every object of human desire may tempt to corrupt action. Social position, personal reputation, office, power, the favour of women, the gratification of revenge—all these have been artfully adapted by corruptionists to bear with the greatest weight upon the tempted individual. ”

“ Yet they only smile good-humouredly at these failings of yours. All this, they think, is founded solely on your lack of knowledge of the world—that is to say, of the general state of human corruption; for they have no eyes for anything else in the world. ”

“ You can not but know that we live in a period of chastisement and ruin; the enemy of mankind has caused the breath of corruption to fly over all regions; we behold nothing but unpunished wickedness. The laws of men or the laws of religion have no longer sufficient power to check depravity of manners and the triumph of the wicked. ”

“ And this you did, not from a misguided sense of duty towards your country, but in wanton and impure spirit, to be rid of the surveillance of one who had your welfare at heart, and who tried to prevent your leading the immoral life which had become a public scandal, and which has now brought you before this court of justice, to answer to a charge of wantonness, impurity, defamation of character, and corruption of public morals. ”

“ Up to now, this simplicity and childlike faith of the young in the higher perfection of adults has been used, as a rule, for their corruption. It was precisely their innocence and their natural faith in us that made it possible for us, before they could distinguish good from evil, to implant in them, instead of the good that they inwardly wished, our own corruption, which they would have abhorred if they had been able to recognize it. ”

“ To recapitulate the preceding argument,—the structure of society, no matter how completely evolved and generally beneficial to the highest human interests, is nevertheless such that when brought into contact with natural human egoism it offers access at many points to the onslaughts of corruption. The evil consequences may be extreme, or only severe, or in time they may be completely overcome. ”

“ A considerate person must find difficulties in enquiring into the causes and reasons of that depravity of human nature which has produced these evils, and rendered the best institutions liable to be so corrupted. This enquiry is much the same with the enquiry into the origin of moral evil, which has in all ages puzzled human wisdom. ”

“ But if the human intellect cannot prevent or control corruption, cannot it disenchant vice of its evil, and so counteract its effects? Is there no new conception of virtue with which to allure mankind? ”

“ But it is not any general or vague declamation on the progress of corruption, and the growing evils of society, which he has brought forward; he has given a close and cogent chain of reasoning, supported by a formidable array of historical facts, and shown how it is that the evils have arisen—how they bear upon the condition of the great bulk of the people, how they degrade their character, how their habits corrupt their morals and destroy their happiness; and how irremediable, under the prevailing ideas of the influential classes in society, these evils have become. ”

“ But what renders your injustice toward the pious still more cruel, is, that it is your own examples, your irregularities, and even your censures, which stagger, weaken, and force them sometimes to imitate you; it is the corruption of your manners which becomes the continual and the most dangerous snare to their innocence; it is those foolish derisions with which you continually assault virtue, that force them reluctantly to shelter themselves under the appearances of guilt. ”

“ Whether you examine the conduct of the nation at large, or that of its chiefs and leaders, your feelings revolt at the one, and your integrity despises the other. You see the idols erected by Folly, degraded by Caprice;—the authority obtained by Intrigue, bartered by Profligacy;—and the perfidy and corruption of one side so balanced by the barbarity and levity of the other, that the mind, unable to decide on the preference of contending vices, is obliged to find repose, though with regret and disgust, in acknowledging the general depravity. ”

“ There is not, perhaps, in all the stores of ideal anguish, a thought more painful, than the consciousness of having propagated corruption by vitiating principles, of having not only drawn others from the paths of virtue, but blocked up the way by which they should return, of having blinded them to every beauty but the paint of pleasure, and deafened them to every call but the alluring voice of the syrens of destruction. ”