Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/354

328 can Congressmen. Its mischief was widened by the multiplication of executive officers; its wrong was only slowly appreciated by the people at large. The Democratic party at the north had been debauched and demoralized by its attitude during the war, and the Republican party had become so sacred in the eyes of most of its adherents that under its shelter abuses found easy tolerance. The progressive political work of the years from 1868 on was largely of a very disagreeable kind. It consisted very much in the rooting out of abuses both old and new. A great deal of it resembled more the work of a policeman than a prophet."

We have seen in the Republican convention of 1860, particularly on the part of those from the West, a distrust of the type of politician represented by Seward and Weed. The references at that time to the use of money indicated that, though the question had not yet become a primary one, corruption in politics was sooner or later to be a matter of absorbing public interest. The time had now come for warfare on this corruption, and in the reconstruction period, the Springfield (Mass.) Republican, under Samuel Bowles, became a journal of national influence, through its vigorous and continued denunciation of corrupt leaders and their connection with politics.

Bowles had very sharply delineated the character of James Fisk, Jr., a notorious stock gambler and corruptionist. When Bowles later visited New York, Fisk had him arrested and locked up in Ludlow Street jail. The affair attracted nation-wide attention, and many pi-ominent citizens of Boston, wishing to do Bowles honor, tendered him a dinner. The editor declined, but in so doing he wrote the platform of the new reform movement.

"The corruption in politics and the corruption in busi-