A Growing Figure

Up to the present time 100 democratic newspapers in Missouri have declared for District Attorney Folk for governor. No organization stands back of this movement to push it, but the growth has been spontaneous. Mr. Folk is known today from the Great Lakes to the Gulf and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and all because he has been proven honest and fearless in the administration of his office of Circuit Attorney of St. Louis. He has sent a score of boodling members of the St. Louis common council to the penitentiary and also a number of the members of the state legislature. So rare is courage like his in public office that he has become famous as a result of his faithful discharge of the duties of his office.

Recently Mr. Folk made an address on "Civic Righteousness" at a meeting of old settlers, at New Florence. "The honor of the state," Mr. Folk declared, "has been peddled around by the seekers of bribes in return for official influence. The Lieutenant governor himself distributed bribe money amongst certain senators. Thousand dollar bills have been caught sight of here and there with senators in hot pursuit. Lawmakers have confessed to boodling extending through a period of twelve years, indicating that legislation bas been bought and sold like merchandise. The eyes of the world are on Missouri to see what the people are going to do about it. After all these exposures, there can be no honorable conciliation. Every citizen must either march under the flag of decency or the banner of iniquity.

"The allies of the boodlers," said Prosecutor Folk, "do not dare come out in the open and defend corruption, but on one pretext or another they seek to accomplish the same purpose. They cry out 'Slandering Missouri.' Did anyone ever claim that the exposure and punishment of murder, arson or other crimes slandered the state? Why are they so sensitive about official thieves being caught in the net of the law ? They object to so much 'hell being raised.' Hell can not be raised unless it is there, and if it is, it is better to raise it than to allow it to remain and rot the state. Exposure and punishment of public plunderers is a state's honor, not its shame. The disgrace is in tolerance, not in correction. It is more honorable to correct evils than to bear them in ignoble silence. The only way to stamp out corruption is to strike it hard whenever and wherever it rears it ugly head."

The man appears to have the right conception of the obligations of a public official and evidently he is destined to be called higher. There is need of men of his stamp in the higher offices.