166 MICHIGAN STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 



that the popular temples of worship are not the churches but 

 the eating and drinking-places, the mighty temples where 

 expensive raiment and jewelry may be purchased. Our news- 

 papers treat us daily to the scandals, divorces, and crimes 

 of men and women who have more money than they know how 

 to use except in that senseless and selfish material luxury which 

 breeds immorality. And this is not confined to the obvious 

 examples of the great millionaires whose doings are reported 

 in the daily journals, but the same rule applies in the small cities 

 and even in country neighborhoods. How many times have we 

 seen men ruined by the wealth they had worked so hard to win 

 because they never learned how to use it wisely. 



Our public activities show the same conditions. No states 

 or cities in the world are able to raise such vast sums as ours. 

 Our country is very rich. Almost unlimited amounts of money 

 can be obtained for public purposes. But how do we spend 

 it ? Let the stories of graft and political corruption told in the 

 last few years answer that question. Our governments, whether 

 state or city, have not learned how to use their money wisely 

 any more than those who inhabit them. The state of Pennsyl- 

 vania has just finished a gorgeous new capital building costing 

 millions upon millions of dollars. The money was easily raised, 

 for Pennsylvania is a wealthy state; but we are just now finding 

 out that those who supervised the expenditure of the money 

 wasted or stole over one-third of the amount appropriated. A 

 city is cursed with bad pavements as in Chicago ; corrupt police 

 service as in New York, which not only allows but encourages 

 crime; or with a water-system like that of Scranton, Pennsyl- 

 vania, which, instead of improving the health of the people with 

 pure water, actually spreads typhoid fever; and these things 

 do not exist because there is not plenty of money to build good 

 pavements and supply good water but because the city adminis- 

 tration does not know how to spend the money it has. For a 

 government, after all, is just like the people who make it. We 



