Faulty Reasoning

FAULTY REASONING.

Democratic papers in the state are interpreting the comparatively small plurality of Gov. Bliss as a rebuke to Mr. Bliss himself. It is nothing of the kind. It is, if anything, a condemnation of the prevailing system of using large sums of money in politics. As the Telegraph has said before, Gov. Bliss was the victim of a bad system - a system that permits political grafters to demand large sums of money when in most cases little or no service is rendered in return.

In 1904, the republicans of Michigan must nominate a man for governor who does not possess a fortune to spend, and who will stand out preeminently on a platform condemning and repudiating the use of money to secure a nomination or an election. - Kalamazoo Telegraph.

The above effort to differentiate between the governor's deliberate acts in politics and the man himself is far fetched and it is just such efforts as this of the Telegraph that tend to make politicians corrupt by holding that a man may do any corrupt and dishonest thing in political matters and still be looked upon as personally clean and honorable. The moral fiber of a man is certainly of a low order when he feels that he can go out in search of political honors (?) and corrupt the electorate, buy nominations and do all sorts of disreputable things from a political standpoint and still be regarded as an honorable and pure citizen. In the greatest money debauches this state has ever passed through and which resulted in the nomination and renomination and election of Mr. Bliss, it is nonsense to claim that Mr. Bliss was not a guilty factor. And it is equally nonsensical to claim that the cutting in two of Mr. Bliss' majority by the voters is not to be considered as a rebuke to the governor for permitting the political heelers and grafters to use his money to corrupt the electorate and the conventions and the elections in his interest.