Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/572

560 is no reason to fear that it can last. If it were to last all of the really spiritual elements of our national life would be driven to emigrate. It would be an instance of Gresham's law applied to the factors of national character.

This third state of mind is the feeling of the "good citizen" that he can treat citizenship from a pecuniary point of view and thus can afford to endure bad government better than he can afford to give time to get good government. This is not peculiar to the very rich, but to all well-intentioned citizens, whatever the amount or sources of their income. The feeling is that one may choose between taxes or personal convenience and political effort; that citizenship can be taken for nothing, or, like some foreign titles, can be paid for in cash, and things squared once for all; squared with the town and squared with one's conscience.

There is but one step from all this sense of irresponsibility and self-separation from city government—and I believe this is the very road which is taken—to that deep pit of fallen citizenship into which men plunge who bribe their way through city government to what they want. These men commit the unpardonable sin of city life. I know of nothing in all the range of municipal reform more important than the tearing up by the roots of the infamous practices of bribery. There is no worse citizen in America than the good citizen who pays a bribe. He is as much worse than the man he bribes as his social and financial opportunities are greater and his temptation less. His crime is committed without necessity and without haste. It is cold-blooded, mercenary debauchery, and wholly inexcusable. It inevitably must be stopped. It furnishes food for the greater part of the corruption of city government ; with the spoils system it furnishes nearly all; and it is impossible to reform city government as long as this horrible vice in its present virulence exists. It is not only a grand obstacle to the introduction of business methods in city government, and it is not only immoral, dishonest and dishonorable as scarcely anything else in the corruption of city life is, but, upon the part of the bribers, is scandalously