constitutional reform. At times when all kinds of conflicting views of duty are current, it is of course easy for different individuals and classes to form extremely divergent views of the morality or immorality of given acts or institutions. Thus, among us, property of various sorts and property in general, government in certain forms or in all forms, marriage, the church, medicine, and law, and those who represent them, are all denounced by small or large groups as graft and grafters. And indeed one need not be a thoroughgoing radical to observe that in some instances narrow and selfish interests have crept into these institutions, warped their highest ideals and crippled their efficiency. There seems to be little justification, however, for the employment of the word corruption in such sweeping fashion. Those who so employ it cannot pretend that any general consensus of moral opinion supports their usage. No doubt many propositions for social change which are now considered extremely radical will gradually gain converts and will ultimately be enacted into law; but not all reforms can appeal unerringly to the future for justification. Institutions hotly assailed in times past have not infrequently outlived their detractors and developed new possibilities of social utility. The formation of modern nationality itself wore the appearance of corruption to many contemporary observers. With all due respect for unfledged reforms, we may fitly remind their advo

cates that the force of a hard and stinging word like corruption is materially weakened by employing it in senses familiar only to the members of a small circle. Such reckless usage is similar to that of the party politicians criticised above, and it is similarly adapted to produce either a callous levity or a sour distrust of social integrity which in the end must react unfavourably upon every constructive effort for social betterment.

IV. The motive of a corrupt act must be some advantage more or less directly personal. The grosser the nature of the advantage sought and the more directly selfish the purpose, the worse from the moral point of view is the transaction. Thus in the case of venal voters or boodling aldermen we have direct transfers of money or its equivalent, to be employed later, it may be, solely to the advantage of the men who sell themselves. Or still more reprehensible, high police officials or even mayors of cities may be in receipt of sums which they know were paid originally by criminals or prostitutes for license to disobey the law. Perhaps we are too prone to think of all political corruption as consisting essentially of such gross cases and sordid transactions. In one way it is unfortunate that this is not the case, for, if it were, the task of defining and uprooting the evil by law would be comparatively easy. As a matter of fact we have to deal with every possible nuance of cor

ruption, shading off from the most palpably illegal and immoral acts to apparently harmless transactions that are of everyday occurrence even in circles that would hotly deny the least imputation of wrong-doing.

Let us consider first the various gradations of corrupt action with reference to the advantages offered and sought. There are crassly venal persons, of course, whose itching palms are held open to receive cash bribes, but after all these are the small and stupid minority of the army of corruptionists. Many who would scorn a direct bribe are, however, quite willing to accept considerations more tactfully offered but almost as purely material in character-shares of stock, railroad passes, salaried positions, etc. In pointing out the distinction between bribery and corruption, the large possibilities of "auto-corruption " have been touched upon. The absence of a personal tempter seems very often to veil the real nature of a corrupt act, and contemporary usage completes the illusion of innocence. Tax-dodging is a case in point. Here the citizen is seeking, not a bribe, of course, but merely to cut down as far as possible an inevitable deduction from his income. He may depend upon his political influence, his friendship with assessors, his contributions to campaign funds, or upon the misrepresentation of facts in obtaining the reduction, but he would refuse indignantly to offer a cash bribe to secure action which he knew would be

disadvantageous to the government. He might refuse with equal heat to accept a cash bribe to secure his continued allegiance to a party or his continued support of particular politicians. It hardly occurs to him that in a sense he is bribing himself with a part of his own income. Of course this case leaves open the question of the justice of the tax and of the failure of the state to provide suitable technical safeguards to prevent evasion. Unjust or ill-constructed tax laws do not, indeed, justify corrupt action on the part of individuals, but they do transfer part of the moral guilt to the state. Other instances of veiled corruption readily suggest themselves-the intrigues of banks to secure the deposit of public funds, the devices employed to escape tenement-house, sanitary, or lifesaving inspections, the appropriation by officials of government supplies or services as perquisites"

of office, and so on.1

Besides material inducements almost every object of human desire may tempt to corrupt action. Social position, personal reputation, office, power, the favour of women, the gratification of revenge -all these have been artfully adapted by corruptionists to bear with the greatest weight upon the tempted individual. Far more often, however, temptations of this kind originate within. They are the more dangerous because they prevail with

1Cf. C. Howard, "The Spirit of Graft," Outlook, vol. lxxxi (1905), p. 365.

men of much higher type than venal voters or boodling aldermen. But it will be objected that these are not necessarily objects of corrupt desire; that on the contrary they are currently recognised as part of the necessary driving power of political and other human activities, and praised as such by contemporaries and historians alike. The point is well taken in so far as it is maintained that such rewards are not necessarily sought by corrupt means. So far as that is concerned, the money which a corrupt legislator accepts is not bad in itself, nor need it be put by him to other than very creditable uses. The major evil lies in the deflection from duty which the money bought, in the resultant deterioration of character and in the contagion of bad example. Precisely the same thing may be said of the so-called higher objects of desire to gain which men sell their political honThis distinction goes far toward disposing of the objection that such motives are not corrupt because they are currently recognised as necessary and beneficial in political life. So far as their effect is the reinforcement of the influences which make for the performance of public duty there is no reason why they should not be regarded as good. To regard them in the same way when they have a directly contrary moral effect is a pernicious perversion of a true idea.

our.

Nevertheless the fact must be faced that the public conscience is often deceived on this point; and