One of The Foremost Sociological Authorities on Root-Causes of Civic Corruption and The Overthrow of Representative Government.

THE BOSTON Transcript in its issue of

`HE BOSTON Transcript in its issue of

and searching examination of the "civic uprising in the far West," made by the justly eminent sociological and economic authority, John Graham Brooks. In this contribution the author deals in a fundamental manner with the politico-economic situation he has investigated and which has resulted in the riot of corruption in public affairs and the merciless exploitation and oppression of the people by privileged bands,-conditions, however, which are by no means confined to the Western states but which obtain wherever the "interests" and the bosses have reached a perfect understanding, with the result that the money-controlled machine and the controlled press make easy the continued domination of government by public-service corporations and monopolies, and the elevation to places of power and trust of men who have been either long in the service of privileged wealth or whose elastic consciences make them satisfactory to class interests seeking special privileges and monopoly rights.

But Mr. Brooks goes farther than exposing conditions. He shows how a practical and efficient remedy, in so far as political conditions are concerned, has been found and is already proving eminently effective; and in the third place he gives a graphic pen-picture of the battle in San Francisco between the lawless or anarchistic masters of millions, the criminal rich who are pillars of societyand the law-dispensing power.

The paper is so invaluable to social reformers in every part of the Republic to-day that we notice it at length, quoting freely from the observations of the author, who, it will be remembered, is one of the most scholarly, conscientious and careful writers of our time.

John Graham Brooks, after finishing his education at Harvard, spent three years at the Universities of Berlin, Jena and Freiburg, after which he became a lecturer on economic subjects and instructor in Harvard University for two years. Subsequently several years were spent in the University Extension department of the University of Chicago. Two years were spent as expert in the United States Labor Department at Washington. He is the author of a thoughtful and scholarly economic volume, entitled The Social Unrest.

The analysis of conditions that obtain in greater or less degree in almost every city and commonwealth of the United States and which strike in a mortal way at the heart of a democratic republican government, from such an authoritative pen as that of Mr. Brooks cannot fail to be of inestimable value to friends of clean, honest and free govern

ment.

Master-Sources of Corruption of Government and Plunder of The People.

The great public-service corporations which control the arteries and veins of national business or commercial life, and other monopolies which like the people are more or less dependent on public utility corporations, as THE ARENA has time and again shown, have for many years been the fountain-head or master-source of political corruption and exploitation of the people for the abnormal enrichment of the privileged few.

The transformation of a genuinely representative government that could truthfully be described as a government "of the people, by the people and for the people," into a ghastly farce in which the old republican shell masks a misrepresentative government which systematically betrays the people at the instigation of privileged classes, was gradually brought about by the perfecting of the money-controlled party machine and the perfect understanding between the princes of privilege and unscrupulous political leaders or bosses. The fact that the political boss or

master of the party machine, and the great heads of the public-service corporations and other interests in the feudalism of privileged wealth were long popularly supposed to be honorable and respectable citizens, and that they were usually wealthy and intellectually masterful, long blinded the people to the real facts; while the various papers owned or controlled by the "interests" and the politicians, as well as other public-opinion forming agencies that could be influenced or employed to lead the people on false scents and fix the public eye on anything or everything but the chief source of corruption in city, state and national government and oppression and exploitation of the wealthcreators and consumers, rendered possible this systematic deception of the voters, long after the real facts were brought forth by leading reformers. All incorruptible and clear-seeing patriots who without fear or favor uncovered the evil conditions were denouuced as enemies of law and order, as demagogues and irresponsible agitators, and organized labor was frequently made the object of attack, while every conceivable shibboleth, slogan and sophistical catch-phrase was employed to deceive the people.

In the meantime the high-priests of the feudalism of privileged wealth and their shrewd retainers were systematically brought to the front at important functions, at great banquets, college commencements, board of trade dinners, fairs and Chautauquan gatherings, to utter smooth things, glittering generalities and to prate about civic morality and individual integrity. For years Chauncey M. Depew and Elihu Root were star performers, just as Chancellor Day and Governor Buchtel have been enacting leading rôles during the past year, since the exposures of the records of Depew and others have made them unavailable as stalking-horses for "high finance" and the feudalism of corporate wealth.

Moreover, when brilliant men could be seduced, their pathway to lucrative positions or political eminence was smoothed in marvelous ways, while those who elected to be fearless, brave and aggressively loyal to the fundamental principles of free government and the rights of the people found on every hand efforts made to discredit them, to obstruct their work and to destroy their influence.

people have been so slow to awaken to the deadly peril of present conditions, a peril as fatal to free government as it is destructive to the independence, the prosperity and the moral idealism of the wealth-creating millions. Slowly the eyes of the people have been opened and at last the criminal rich are becoming genuinely alarmed as the root causes of political corruption and the spoilation of the people are being uncovered.

In letters written by C. P. Huntington, one of the master-spirits of the Southern Pacific Railway interests, to General Colton, which after the death of the latter were put in evidence in a trial brought by the widow of General Colton to force Mr. Huntinton to disgorge twenty thousand dollars alleged to be due the heirs of the dead man, was one of the first great authoritative revelations of the systematic methods employed by the great railway interests to absolutely control the political situation by controlling the people's representatives at Washington. This revelation has been followed by so many other similar exposures (among which may be mentioned the uncovering of the sea of Wallstreet corruption in the insurance investigations; the searching facts brought out by the government commission that investigated the almost incredible charges made by Mr. Sinclair against the beef trust; the further exposure which accompanied the investigation of the Pennsylvania and other railways, and the investigation of the Standard Oil trust), that the important fact has been established that the charges that for years have been made by THE ARENA and other magazines and by leading incorruptible statesmen, economists and writers have been understatements of conditions instead of exaggerations.

We now wish to call our readers' attention to the citation of a typical illustration showing the master sources of political corruption and the plunder of the people advanced by Mr. Brooks. The chief offender in the present case is the Southern Pacific Railroad corporation and its feeders and allies; and in this connection many thousands of our readers will call to mind the extended exposure of this railway system and the republication of many of the Huntington letters which was given in THE ARENA several years ago by the present writer under the title of "TwentyFive Years of Bribery and Corrupt Practices

Typical Examples of The Corruption of Government and Enslavement of Industry by Corporate Wealth.

Mr. Brooks, it will be remembered, has been making an exhaustive examination of the actual conditions on the Pacific coast. Hence his words represent the conclusions of one of the most conscientious present-day thinkers who has long been accustomed to sift alleged facts for evidence and who speaks from the field of observation instead of from the schoolroom far remote from the scenes of civic uprising. In opening his article this writer first considers the great corruptor of government, privileged wealth, operating one of the great natural monopolies, and how it grew in power and riches through its merciless oppression and enslavement of the wealthcreators of California.

"If one's interest," says Mr. Brooks, "is in the social and political condition of California and its more immediate neighborhood, there soon proves to be neither question nor answer to anything apart from the Southern Pacific Railroad. Business men who have lived there far longer than this 'traffic hinderer's' existence, will tell you by the hour the story of this amazing monopoly

"The listener soon learns that it is not the railroad alone of which he is hearing. It is the railroad with a host of affiliated monopolies: express companies, street-cars and innumerable land and timber companies. It is primarily a monopoly of transportation.

"We have been fleeced and browbeaten from the start, until we got into the habit of accepting it precisely as people used to accept small-pox and other ills as 'visitations." That we could really do anything about it; that the people generally controlled any influence that could curb the abuses, came finally to excite only cynicism or despair.

It is very vital to see that the early hatreds against this monopoly were caused by atrocious freight rates. They were not merely excessive, they were at all times incalculable. No one knew in the least what to count upon or expect. The inequalities of rates between one shipper and another; the crushing rate to the same man this year, with a wholly different schedule in the year that followed, were among the bitterest complaints. To be prosperous, was to be instantly penalized by

the railroad. If you ‘struck rich' in a mine, your freight rate might be three or four times that of your neighbor, whose mine was of lower grade. If it went well with your prunes and walnuts, the freight bill might be so much higher than that of your less successful neighbor as to wipe out all your own advantage. "The 'stealing of improvements' by landlord rent, under which the Irish peasant so long staggered, has its exact counterpart in the long buccaneering of this Pacific coast monopoly."

Mr. Brooks points out an attempt made to obtain relief which was futile, as will always be the case so long as the bosses instead of the people govern. So long as the corporations work with the political leaders and furnish the finances for the money-controlled political machines, every measure enacted will prove abortive; for after the people have secured a law, and obtain the appointment of a commission to see that the railways, for example, conserve instead of disregard the interests of the people, lo! it will be seen that the commission has not terror for the evildoers. The results in California are interesting and valuable merely because they show precisely what is to be expected and what we find wherever the money-controlled machines, operated by the bosses and corporations, are the dominating influence in political life. On this point Mr. Brooks says:

"Plucky attempts were made from time to time, as in the 'new constitution' of 1879. Lobbying was made a felony, stock-watering was prohibited and transportation companies were asked to show books. To carry out the reform, a commission was appointed with full power to fix rates and examine accounts. As soon as it got to work, its real character appeared. It was from the first as much the creature of the railroads, as if its members had been directly chosen by the railway managers.

The little that the commission was compelled to do, was defeated by the easy devices of fraudulent leases and over-capitalization.

Why The People Have so Long Borne With The Egyptian Taskmasters. Mr. Brooks points out that:

"To one question, you never get a satisfying answer, 'Why should a hardy and vigorous people with votes at their disposal, so long endure this outraging of public interest?""

His conclusion is that the people did not "see clearly the exact nature of the enemy." This, as we have shown above, is not surprising, as there was so careful and systematic an attempt kept up by the corruptors and the corrupted to put the people on a false scent and to discredit all who uncovered facts that showed the real criminals.

"We Americans," continues our author, "have paid a quite awful price for one of our most petted illusions. From publicists, from business men of great weight, and from economists, how often we have heard the same explanation! "There are doubtless abuses connected with that corporation, but men capable of carrying on such large enterprises are far too intelligent to play these coarse tricks with the public. Their interests are too closely bound up with the people's interests. No, no, they are not so stupid. They understand that their success depends upon constructive and positive service to the community.""

There can be no possible doubt but what there is truth in Mr. Brooks' observation, yet this is not the only leading reason why the people have so long put up with the rule of the criminals, as we will presently show. That honest-minded voters could not conceive of the great men in their midst who operated public utilities, were prominent in clubs, in society, often in church work, as well as in the business councils, debauching the government or making deals with the political boss, by which the people should be bound hand and foot while a privileged few could exploit them to the limit of their power to pay the exploiters, is not only conceviable but natural. Moreover, how often, how very often, have stockholders in the public-service corporations been also leading stockholders in great daily journals, and how natural and easy it becomes for them to bring pressure to bear on the dailies to say editorially precisely what the princes of privilege want the people to believe. At other times advertising patronage has been most liberally employed by public-service corporations to subsidize the city and state journals, and the most cunningly devised sophistry as well as misleading statements have been given widest currency in this manner. In this and other ways the people have been frequently systematically misled by the press, influenced directly or indirectly through the lavish expenditure of money by interests which

were thus enabled to get monopoly rights worth millions upon millions of dollars more than all their expenditures to subsidize the press and control the sources of political power.

men.

But while this illusion under which the people have lived in regard to the industrial autocracy and the political boss, and this systematic deceiving of the people, have been leading causes for their submitting to the tyranny of the Egyptian taskmasters and the steady debauching of their government, there is still another great reason for this condition of affairs. The people have time and again been absolutely powerless since the rise and domination of the boss and the money-controlled machine. The boss makes the slate; the slate is agreeable to the "interests," and liberal campaign contributions are poured into the machine treasury. The candidates make fair promises, and whenever necessary the privilege-seeking interests see to the making of both political slates, or arrange that some of the most important offices on both slates shall be filled by their When this cannot be done, vast sums of money are used for the election of the controlled slate and the state is flooded with eminent speakers. Every paper that can be seduced is bought or advertising space is secured, to be filled with simon-pure reading matter, as was done by the Republicans in the late Cleveland city campaign; while some flaw in some of the opposing candidates' lives is made a mountain of or unessential issues are pushed to the front. The moneycontrolled machine, backed by millions of wealth, represents a perfect organization, and the people are unorganized and have no great fund at their disposal. Under these conditions the people frequently are absolutely powerless to stem the tide of opposition; yet thoughtless men and women are daily heard parrotting the fallacious words put into their mouths by paid writers for the lawless industrial autocracy,-"that the people have only themselves to thank for the betrayal of their interests by their servants; that if they did not want to be robbed and sold out, they would not nominate men who would sell them to the highest bidder," etc. This kind of twaddle first retailed by papers that frequently have done all that editors and proprietors could do to further the machine-nominated and machine-nominated and corporation-viséed candidates, has for several years past been

reëchoed by shallow-brained people who never think for themselves. But the time has come when even these parrots should have too much self-respect to longer continue circulating such counterfeit coin.

How The People Fare Under Private Ownership of Public Utilities.

Returning to the other oft-repeated fallacy, that the great heads of the public-service companies and natural monopolies will treat the people justly if the people give them fabulously rich public franchises, because it will be to their selfish interest to do so and "their success depends upon service to the community," Mr. Brooks says:

"This has been one of our most costly delusions. With monopoly privilege like that of the Southern Pacific Railroad and its affiliated monopolies, there may be a very deadly conflict between public welfare and the pecuniary advantage of the managers. It is less than two years since I heard a very great person in the business world of New York assert with much fervor that the group of looters (Ryan-Whitney-Widener-Elkins, etc.), who were wrecking the New York traction service, were, in spite of appearances, putting the people in their debt by using such talent upon the difficult problem of street transportation. They have, of course, made great fortunes out of it, but New York has had all the benefit of their rare organizing ability.'

"This was the honest opinion of the head of a large financial institution in that city. He had every opportunity to know that these vast properties were being used in a dicers game; that they were not being developed in the public interest, but were solely an instrument through which gamblers profits could be made. The whole shell game has now been laid bare before the people. Every tawdry trick is exposed. The sickening disclosures are, however, doing this service; they are showing us the nature of that longpetted illusion. For transportation and other natural monopolies, we shall be less easily hoodwinked about the relation between 'great business ability' and the public good. We now see that certain monopolies enable the managers to load the dice so heavily in their own favor that the public may be robbed as by a common cutpurse. It has long been clear that this is precisely what Yerkes did for Chicago. He had organizing ability of the

highest order, but the traction monopoly enabled him to use that ability so that the people got a most despicable transportation service while the great organizer made his many millions.

"Now the grip of the railroad on the Pacific coast has been precisely of this character. The importance of all effective competition was easily excluded and the monopoly power used to its most ruthless limits.”

The Substitution of Govenrment by Corporations for Popular Rule.

While the people of the Pacific coast necessarily instantly felt the blight and curse of rate extortion and inequality, it was some time before they even faintly realized the reason why the monopolies dared be so ruthless and brazen in their immoral and criminal practices. Long they cherished the delusion that their government was representative of the voters instead of the puppets of corrupt wealth. The deadly "evil of political corruption come so insidiously," says Mr. Brooks, "and through such secret and hidden ways, that decades passed before its full iniquity appeared.

"There is an exact parallel between the degree of economic tyranny and the political tyranny. The civic corruption was on a level with freight extortion.

"It is to the very effrontery with which both evils have been practised that we owe the present passionate revolt which stirs the entire coast.

"As a distinctly popular movement toward the restoration of elemental rights, it is ahead of the East. They see far better than we do the intimacy of the partnership between monopolized industries and the ruling politics."

The people of the Pacific coast seemed ashamed of their long blindness and the trust they placed in their fair-spoken betrayers who, while pretending to be servants of the people, turned their masters over bound hand and foot, to the freebooting corporations to be plundered at will.

"They tell us," says our author, "to the last detail how they have been duped; how business has selected for them their senators, governors, representatives, and wherever necessary their aldermen and other petty officials." But at last they have awakened:

"They have been quick to draw from this the one important conclusion, namely, that