POLITICAL CORRUPTION—AND ENGLISH AND AMER¬ 
ICAN LAWS FOR ITS PREVENTION. 
BY CHARLES NOBLE GREGORY, A. M., LL. B. 
Associate Bean of the College of Law, University of Wisconsin. 
Dining at the City Club in New York some months ago I 
saw on my plate the crest of the club (copied from the old seal 
of Manhattan), as Wm, Allen Butler says of such heraldry, 
“ Gleam through the soup and glimmer through the gravy ” 
Speaking at the club the next day, on the same topic 
I have to-day, I told them I noticed that their crest consisted, 
of a spread eagle, a windmill and a barrel; that out in Wiscon¬ 
sin we still cherished in political campaigns the spread eagle 
and the windmill as legitimate aids, but that we were making 
an earnest attempt to do away with the barrel in politics. 
I refer to this because what I have to say to-day is a part of 
that attempt. 
I am frank to say that I accepted the courteous invitation of 
your president with especial pleasure, because it gave me the 
opportunity of discussing with you the necessity of doing 
away with the barrel in politics, and the best ways yet found by 
English-speaking men for so doing. 
No man can carry a reform alone. All he can do is to win 
the sympathy and aid of good men for it and let their joint 
action carry it. It is especially to young men that we must turn 
to reform old standing wrongs. When one of these is ended we 
can generally tell of its fate in those well known words from 
the story of Ananias “ and the young men arose, wound him up 
and carried him out and buried him.’ ? 
There is a regular progress in moral development. There are 
times and seasons in economic and civic reforms, which it is wise 
and convenient to regard. Efforts for any especial right or to 
