XIX.

MUNICIPAL REFORM A PATRIOTIC DUTY.

THIS united effort of all the churches, this virtuous outbreak against municipal corruption, this earnest endeavor to wipe away foul political stains from our fair escutcheon, is a grand display of patriotism. This conflict between the criminal classes on the one hand and the people on the other is a conflict as stern, and puts as severe a strain upon patriotism, as was ever endured upon the battlefield amid the glitter of cold steel and the rattle of musketry.

Thanks to the pulpit and the press, the rightful creators and conservators of public opinion, a flood of daylight has been thrown upon our city's government. The evil has been brought out. The monster has been dragged from his den for all New York to gaze at him, and hate him and kill him if they can.

The part of the ministers in politics is the patriotic spirit of the Roman. He was charged with violating the laws of his country. Fresh

from the fight, covered with the blood of a battlefield, where he had led his country's armies to victory, he replied, "I have broken the laws, but I have saved the State." And so the ministers of religion, throwing all the laws of spurious delicacy to the winds, will be able to say, "We have broken its laws, but we have saved the city from the panderers to vice, and successfully delivered the rising generation, who, all unconscious of their danger, are being caught in the mantraps of the city that now flourish either through municipal complicity or municipal stupidity."

As a rule, all our largest cities are the worst governed. Popular government in nearly all our cities has degenerated into a government by a "boss." Think of thousands of our citizens going to the polls led by a "boss"! Who is this "boss" whom the ambitious must court? Is he a man who earned the confidence of his fellow-men by the purity of his life, his integrity, competency and probity in public trusts, his deep study of the problems of government? In the light of notorious facts these questions sound satirical.

The city is a menace to our civilization, and as our cities grow larger and more dangerous the government will become more corrupt and control will pass into the hands of those who

themselves most need to be controlled. It is the patriotic duty of every good citizen to be interested in municipal as well as State and national politics. No man can abjure politics and be either a good citizen or a good Christian.

It was one of the singular regulations of Solon, which declared a man dishonored and disfranchised who, in civil dispute, took no part with either side.

In the colonial days there were portions of New England in which votes were sent to householders, and if they did not use them they were fined.

The Greek word idiot is of Greek extraction, and meant with the Greeks a man who cared nothing for the public interest. Victor Hugo said, "Every honest man ought to be a politician." Charles Sumner often declared that "the citizen who neglects his political duties is a public enemy." Edmund Burke said, "When bad men combine the good must associate, else they will fall one by one an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."

Every good man in politics wields a power for good. Every good man not in politics is to blame for political corruption, because by neglecting his plain duty he adds to the strength of the enemy. It behooves you as

Christians to realize that the good of humanity is bound up in the destiny of America, so as to carry it continually on your hearts and devoutly pray for it. It behooves you to lay hold of every privilege, with self-sacrificing patriotism to perform every duty of a citizen. Do not allow yourself to be driven by any party lash into a compromise of your convictions. Let it be known that with you principle amounts to something, that character counts, that transcendent party service cannot count upon your suffrage.

"The lewd fellows of the baser sort" have developed political trickery and corruption to the highest perfection in our cities, and the cities determine our State and national elections. Does not this fact contain an ominous augury for the future of our Republic? Unless there is an immediate grand rally of the good citizens, that will drive out of our politics these imported godless masses, sunk in ignorance, lost to the profession of religion, and even to the decent habits of civilized society, the prophecy that the ocean was dug for America's grave, that the winds were woven for her winding-sheet, and that the mountains were reared for her tombstone, will be fulfilled.

Matters are not so far gone but they may

be averted. A great French general who reached the battlefield at sundown and found that the troops of his country had been worsted in the fight, accosted the commander. Having rapidly learned how matters stood, he pulled out his watch, turned his eye on the sinking sun, and said, "There's yet time to gain the victory." He rallied the broken ranks. He placed himself at their head, and launching them with the arm of a giant in war upon the columns of the foe, snatched victory from the jaws of death. There is time yet also to save our city. But there is no time to lose. There is no time to lose!