284 
Gregory—Political Corruption. 
scrupulous and open his accounting was shown in his own con¬ 
gressional canvass. His friends raised $200 for an election fund 
and placed it in his hands. After the campaign “ honest old 
Abe” explained that he would have returned it all but at one 
place he got cornered and had to buy a barrel of cider, and so he 
returned only $199.75. Apples were abundant; we were nearer 
the garden of Eden then than now. 
When Hon. Horace Rublee, some years ago served as chair¬ 
man of the Repubiean State Central committee of Wisconsin, he, 
in a manner greatly to be commended, published a statement of 
the receipts and disbursements of the committee, and it is to be 
regretted that so desirable a practice has not become a custom 
The usage which a gentlemen lately holding the place of an 
assistant cabinet officer at Washington assured me prevails in 
the national committees of both parties is a sufficient commen¬ 
tary on their methods. At the end of the campaign they order 
their records burned. Nothing but fire can cleanse them. The 
only light they ever see is that of their own combus¬ 
tion. This is a branch of public business whose transactions 
can not be opened to press or people. 
The base and vicious doctrine that though that it is wrong to 
buy votes,‘‘if we don’t the other side will,” that we must “fight 
fire with fire;” that anything is right if it succeeds; these are all 
maxims of evil which sere and indurate the conscience and the 
heart. They sap the very foundations of integrity and ruin all 
that rests thereon. They touch with a lasting blight the roots 
of character and whether they are in the games of the boys or 
the work of the men, in the ball field or the caucus or convention 
or at the polls, they are knavish and unscrupulous and to be 
branded as such with “neither honesty, manhood nor good fel¬ 
lowship in them. “ 
I do not so much value the penalties denounced in these 
new laws against bribe givers and bribe takers as I value 
the sworn reports of receipts and expenditures with vouchers, 
which are wrung from candidates and committees alike 
after every election. I trust much to these powerful search 
lights. I believe in fact that the prevalence of truth and 
justice in the world were assured when on that first day of re- 
