Public Office Foil Private Gain

THE ARGUS DEMOCRAT

AND

YPSILANTI WEEKLY TIMES.

PUBLISHED BY

The Democrat Publishing Company.

D. A. HAMMOND, President.

S. W. BEAKES, Secy. and Treas.

PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY

for $1.00 per year strictly in advance.

Entered at the Postoffice in Ann Arbor Mich as second-class mail matter.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 14, 1903.

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WiLLIAM JUDSON.

Life is a mysterious entity. Now we have it and now we don't. In the midst of life we are in death. The passing of Hon. William Judson is an illustration in point. So far as the public knew at least he was man in the pink of health with many years still before him, but in an hour an almost without any warning at all he is summoned.

As a man, independent of politics, he had many admirable qualities. He was big-hearted, genial and kindly, always ready to do a good turn for a friend. He was happy in his home life, possessing those personal qualities of heart and mind which go far in the make-up of the contented and happy home circle. He was true to his friends and his enemies always know what to expect of him.

But it was in the domain  of politics that he appeared at his worst and it was over his doings in this field that his fiercest enemties were aroused. He knew machine politics, practical politics, and was willing to come out in the open in the practice of the game as few men are. He believed that if one would be successful in politics he must resort to the means so generally resorted to by the successful in the game. He did not bother himself with the results upon our political institutions. Under the kind of political methods he practiced there could be no evolution of political affairs upward, and consequently such methods are not destined to remain permanent and the best that can be said for them is that they will not be permanent.In the political methods in which his fort lay eh was resourceful, was quick to initiate movements and effect combination for the accomplishment of his purposes. He seemed to have an intuitive genius for landing with the winning faction and standing up beside the new political luminary with the air of the original discoverer. Through this ease with which he could off with the old and on with the new, eh was always able to keep himself in a public position and appear as one of the pillars of the new political power. In this way he was always able to aid the cause of men of larger ambitions than his own and thus place them under obligation to him. There were probably few, if any, men in the state who could handle the primaries under our present caucus and convention system as could William Judson. And this power was never more clearly shown than during the caucuses and conventions of last year, and possibly his greatest victory in this line was the passing of the resolution endings Gen. Alger thorugh the judicial convention at Grand Rapids. He will be missed in such contests.––Daily Argus.

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PUBLIC OFFICE FOR PRIVATE GAIN.

Certain conditions and tendencies of American life have been painfully illustrated in the current news of the past few weeks. In almost every instance, however, there have been encouraging signs to show that the fires making for good are stronger than those making for evil in the body politic. In the governmental sphere, there have been various disclosures pointing to the use of public office for private gain. There has been such a remarkable increase in private wealth throughout the country that standards of living, especially in the cities and larger towns, have been changed very greatly. Official salaries, meanwhile, have not been increased to any corresponding extent. In a European country like Germany, while official salaries are small, it is a high honor to hold place in the public service, and tenure is for life, on conditions of faithfulness, honesty, and efficiency. Under those circumstances, public posts are regarded as so desirable that officeholders are content with a very simple scale of living, and seldom feel any temptation to ape the manners of the rich. Public rather than private life may be said to fix the standards; and a great deal of solid comfort, as well as of high thinking, goes along with very plain and simple living. In the United States, on the contrary, private life sets the pace, and officialdom finds its lot rather precarious and difficult. In a few positions, the public service affords opportunity for a career practically permanent and in most respects satisfactory. But for the most part, our officeholders come and go, and are ever uneasy and anxious. They are strongly tempted to be on the lookout for influential outside connections, because they do not expect to find permanence or adequate reward in the public service. At times, this condition of things becomes seriously detrimental to the efficiency, and even to the honesty, of the public service; and that this is true is now abundantly illustrated in the facts already brought to light by the investigation of the scandals in the administration of the postoffice system.––From "The Progress of the World," in the American Monthly Review of Reviews for August.

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GOING AFTER THE TRUSTS.

If President Roosevelt is elected next year it will be because the voters of the country believe that he is helping them in their battle with the trusts. It is not strange, then, that the President is doing all in his power to give currency to the idea that he is fighting the trusts with might and main. Let us see how he is doing this. Let us see how much he is entitled to the distinguished consideration of the people for his efforts to curb the trusts. Mr. Roosevelt started in political life as a strenuous free trader, and was a member of the New York Free Trade club, yet recently, under pressure from the Protective Tariff League, he joined the "standpatters," and thus stand opposed to the most certain way of curbing the trusts and giving relief to the people––by reducing the tariff duties. It was the President's voice that killed the Littlefield anti-trust bill in the last Congress and caused the passage of two sham anti-trust bills––the Elkins anti-rebate bill and the Department of Commerce bill with its Bureau of Corporations to give publicity to trusts. His voice could have caused his Attorney General to go after the coal trust that William Randolph Hearst had treed with his own money and solely in the interest of the people. His voice was silent. Instead of saying, "Sick 'em, Knoxy," he left Mr. Hearst to guard the tree alone. The facts that are slowly coming to light in regard to the new Bureau of Corporations in the Department of Commerce should open the eyes of the voters of the country to the real position of the President on the trust question. In discussing the "Present Statistical Outlook in Washington," the correspondent of the New York Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin, on July 27, said of this new bureau: "The work now laid out for this bureau is of a really thorough type, and if it is pursued with vigor on the lines now suggested there will be a good deal of complaint in the near future when the methods now contemplated are actually applied. Pressure of the most strenuous sort will undoubtedly be brought to bear at the White House. Just how soon the Department will really begin to show its hand in the matter of trust investigation cannot be certainly predicted, but those who are in a position to know say it will not be until after the next presidential election. As a matter of fact, a good deal of time is needed for the organization of the work and for laying out special lines of investigation. All this will consume many months, and Secretary Cortelyou is too tactful a man to weaken his strategic position by opening fire in a presidential campaign, if there would be any danger of hurting his party thereby. It will, therefore, be a good while before there are any definite results of the inquires of the Bureau of Corporations."

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Colonel Bryan says that a bunco steerer led the democratic party into the net of Wall street in 1892, but that it cannot be done again. What is the use of his going about the country constantly belittling himself with abuse of Grover Cleveland then? It he so angry with himself for leading the party in 1896 and 1900 into the net of the two most disastrous defeats it has ever suffered, that he must constantly rail at the only democrat who has been able to take the party and win a presidency with it since the war, even when the ex-president is conducting himself in every way as an exemplary private citizen without present or further ambitions? Mr. Bryan might serve himself and the people better.

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