Commandments in Politics 1 1 1 



uplifting of the people as will render, for instance, 

 Tammany rule in New York, as Tammany rule 

 now is, no more possible than it would be possi 

 ble to revive the robber baronage of the Middle 

 Ages. 



Great is the danger to our country from the fail 

 ure among our public men to live up to the eighth 

 commandment, from the callousness in the public 

 which permits such shortcomings. Yet it is not 

 exaggeration to say that the danger is quite as great 

 from those who year in and year out violate the 

 ninth commandment by bearing false witness against 

 the honest man, and who thereby degrade him and 

 elevate the dishonest man until they are both on the 

 same level. The public is quite as much harmed 

 in the one case as in the other, by the one set of 

 wrong-doers as by the other. "Liar" is just as 

 ugly a word as "thief," because it implies the pres 

 ence of just as ugly a sin in one case as in the other. 

 If a man lies under oath or procures the lie of an 

 other under oath, if he perjures himself or suborns 

 perjury, he is guilty under the statute law. Under 

 the higher law, under the great law of morality and 

 righteousness, he is precisely as guilty if, instead 

 of lying in a court, he lies in a newspaper or on 

 the stump; and in all probability the evil effects of 

 his conduct are infinitely more wide-spread and more 

 pernicious. The difference between perjury and 



