102 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts^ and Letters, 



agogues ; the bartering of legislative power and privilege, for 

 influence or pecuniary gain ; the corrupt letting of contracts ; 

 embezzlennent of public funds, and rascality in many other 

 forms, have their root in human nature and are incidental to 

 all governments. But they would certainly occur less often, 

 even under the best possible system, if their perpetrators when 

 detected, were made to feel the full rigor of the law and the 

 withering condemnation of the people. 



VIII. But it were unphilosophical to expect oflEicial virtue to 

 outmeasure public virtue. It is only in exceptional cases that a 

 representative of the intelligence of a community will not also 

 be a fair representative of its morality. Hence it is requisite, 

 above all, that the community, the state, and the nation 

 should adopt and vigorously enforce measures calculated to 

 increase the intelligence and to strengthen and refine the 

 moral sense of the people. 



This is a trite statement. But that it sadly fails of universal 

 recognition, even among those who rank as intelligent leaders 

 and guides in social and political affairs, will appear from the 

 action of great numbers of town boards, municipal councils, 

 and legislative assemblies. 



We are a great nation, aiming at self government — the 

 only great republic so fortunate in its conditions of social and 

 political life as to have gained the world's confidence. Confi- 

 dent of the ability of the republican system, under these favor- 

 able conditions, to successfully resist tbe disturbing or deter- 

 iorating influences consequent on the immigration of the mul- 

 titudes destined to come, first from the oppressed populations 

 of Europe, and later from the semi-barbarous lands of the 

 Orient, the founders of the government made easy provision 

 for their absorption into the body politic. Then, to make the 

 system of government more fnlly consistent with the principle 

 of equality, which lies at its very foundation, we have our- 

 selves extended the privileges of citizenship to the millions of 



