public spirit or civic pride where men are willing to spend largely from their private fortunes to promote the general welfare without expectation of direct return. The result is that most of our citizens of means hold aloof from practical politics and leave the field open to less scrupulous individuals. The latter enter politics with mercenary motives. They may be reasonably honest to begin with and feel amply repaid when they obtain office, but once they acquire the power to sell favors few of them are strong enough to resist the spirit of commercialism.

As a nation we love system and order, therefore the creation of compact political organizations is an easy matter. Prosperous as a nation we are prone to personal extravagance and ready to excuse excessive public expenditures. Add to this the widespread feeling that it is not a sin to cheat the government, and we have a fruitful field for dishonest business methods in all our public affairs.

The late John J. Ingalls once said that no employer was so poorly served as a government, the truth of which cannot be denied. This is due to a public sentiment created largely by dishonest politics, and it is a dishonest sentiment, that an officeholder or public employe need not render the same quality of service to city, state or nation that he would render to a private corporation or individual. This is in another form the spirit that would obtain something for nothing and on that the worst form of commercialism in politics will thrive.

It is an accepted and universally practiced theory among practical politicians that, conditions being equal, all offices and favors of government should go to members or friends of the party in power. The public business need not suffer from a fair and honest application of this system, but when commercialism has invaded politics it is an easy matter to make conditions sufficiently equal to justify favors to particular persons.

Place a thoroughly organized party or faction in absolute control of every department of a great city and that power can be used to enrich favored corporations and individuals and to crush any and every legitimate business that refuses to engage in questionable transactions with the representatives of the man whose word is the law. The spirit of commercialism is so intrenched

in politics that however much we may quibble, explain and deny, the fact remains that when individual or corporate interests seek the favor or protection of government they do not go to the men whose votes make laws or to those whose decisions interpret legislation, they go to the man or men whose orders make and unmake office holders.

Financial and business interests are always in favor of peace, not alone the peace of nations, but that condition of quiet and security from sudden change and interruption which creates a safe basis on which to plan for the future. In the days when there are no wars of nation against nation, the peace of business is stability of government or advance knowledge of laws that are to be made or acts that may be changed. That is a peace of price, a quiet and security to be bought in the markets of commercial politics.

Always timid where great interests are at stake capital will buy this peace rather than fight in the open for honest politics, that would create a government from which favors could not be bought. This condition is not due so much to natural dishonesty in business as to that kind of timidity that fears less honest competition. When it is known that the favors of government are for sale there is never a dearth of buyers.

To-day the industrial and commercial interests of this country are largely controlled by a few great combinations of capital, which in turn are controlled by a few men. This is not a desirable or safe condition for any country, especially for one of such vast natural resources. Legitimate enterprise and industry can be and have been checked or throttled by these combinations that are in no sense a natural growth of normal business or political conditions. Every trust in this country to-day is in whole or part a creation of dishonest commercialism in politics.

Honest governments conducted on business principles do not grant to combinations of men or capital special privileges or powers that are denied to the individual citizen. Such legislation is a radical and dangerous departure from the true spirit of our system of government. It is not an honest experiment, to test a new system or to meet new conditions. It is plainly a business of barter and sale in politics and public life.

One of the gravest features of this danger is the toleration with which such methods are endured and the failure of the average politician to realize his moral dishonesty. Men have made money out of politics until they have come to regard such transactions as legitimate. By hundreds and thousands of men who are today classed as good and honest citizens, politics for revenue is regarded as a business, just as legitimate and honorable as the buying and selling of dry goods or groceries. Such men do not believe there is any personal dihonesty or impropriety in making money indirectly out of politics and unfortunately that view of the matter is largely sustained by public opinion.

The chief beeneficiaries of commercialism in politics owe their immunity from exposure and punishment to the avarice and selfishness of human nature. So long as they can convey a fair return for the money they receive the public will be kept busy trying to get the better of each other in the transaction. Every man who seeks to obtain a favor from a city or state government by means of political influence expects to pay for it.

When corporations owning franchises or operating under the favor of special legislation can issue a vast amount of stock to be placed where it will be paid for in laws or permits, honest government has small chance of existence. Precisely this condition exists in every state in the Union, and it will not improve until we have legal inspection and regulation of corporations. Under the present system our state governments create trusts and monopolies that make a business of buying any additional favor or special legislation that they may need to crush competition or prevent exposure.

The conscience of a politician can thrive on subterfuge and false reasoning and he can speculate in the stock of a friendly corporation while boasting that he is a faithful public servant.

No man can grow rich on the salary of any public office in this country, and whenever a public officer accepts chances to earn money by reason of the place he holds or the power he wields, he has entered the commercialism of politics and the end of that business is dishonesty and moral bankruptcy.

Dangerous combinations of capital, stock jobbing swindles and dishonesty in politics and public places have grown up together in this country.

Under existing conditions there is no safety and little protection for outside investors who buy the securities of great corporations. A legislature that will charter an illegitimate corporation is just as dishonest as the company that promotes a swindle.

The dangers of this spirit of greed and commercialism in politics and public life we cannot longer afford to ignore. They are real, they are threatening. They are spreading the contamination of public dishonesty through every line of private business. The young men of the country no longer turn to politics and public life as a field for a noble career. If they are honest they find little opportunity for advancement. If great combinations of capital can buy the favor of governments it is only a logical conclusion that in time they will buy and control governments.

The remedy for the evils and dangers of the present system is in the hands of the people. The time has come for them to act and to act effectively. Popular clamor and political agitation against a recognized evil that stops short of effective and intelligent action is as senseless as it is useless. The adoption of a sound political platform does not make good government, and general denunciation, no matter how well founded, will never destroy a trust or reform a public abuse.

The remedy for the evil of corrupt politics is aroused and intelligent public opinion. The masses of the people in this country are honest and that is why I believe in them. Aroused to a full knowledge of their rights and the wrongs they now suffer they will speedily apply the remedy, and once aroused no political machine or combination of politicians can stop them. Government can control and regulate that which it creates and when the spirit of commercialism is crushed out of American politics no trust can buy a favor that is denied the poorest citizen.

PUBLIC POLICY CONCERNING RAPID

TRANSIT.

GEORGE E. HOOKER, CHICAGO.

Editorial Staff of The Chicago Tribune.

How to get the best service for the lowest fares-that is the rapid transit problem in any city. Accommodation, price and how to insure that each shall be reasonable are the three considerations.

I.

Accommodation.-I can go in great comfort from Milwaukee to Chicago, a distance of eighty-five miles in two hours. But when I reach the Chicago station, it will take me-using the two cars which I must employ, and allowing for the average wait for each one fourth as long to reach my home two miles distant, and I must ride through dusty streets on noisy cars which are often crowded. I make my journey at a rate ten times more rapid and several times more comfortable in the one case than in the other.

So far as known no computations have ever been made concerning the average speed at which people make their journeys, for example, in Chicago from start to destination, when they employ cars as far as practicable. It is doubtful, however, if, including all grades of rapid transit-steam, electric and cable cars—that are employed, but counting also all time consumed in waiting for cars, and in eking out journeys on foot at either end of rides, this average would exceed six, or at most seven miles per hour. But, considering modern invention, the speed attained in long distance journeys and above all the exigent need of rapid transit in the expanded modern city, seven miles per hour cannot be regarded as a reasonable rate of urban journeying.

The contrast is equally marked in respect to carriage of mail or merchandise. A letter dropped in the Chicago postoffice will