should not flinch from seeing what is vile and debasing. There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck-rake; and there are times and places where this service is the most needed of all the services that can be performed. But the man who never does anything else, who never thinks or speaks or writes, save of his feats with the muck-rake, speedily becomes, not a help to society, not an incitement to good, but one of the most potent forces for evil.

"The liar is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves. It puts a premium upon knavery untruthfully to attack an honest man, or even with hysterical exaggeration to assail a bad man with untruth. “An epidemic of indiscriminate assault upon character does no good, but very great

harm.

“One of the chief counts against those who make indiscriminate assault upon men in business or men in public life is that they invite a reaction which is sure to tell powerfully in favor of the unscrupulous scoundrel who really ought to be attacked, who ought to be exposed, who ought, if possible, to be put in the penitentiary.

“The effort to make financial or political profit out of the destruction of character can only result in public calamity. Gross and reckless assaults on character, whether on the stump or in newspaper, magazine, or book, create a morbid and vicious public sentiment.

"But remember that even in the case of crime, if it is attacked in sensational, lurid, and untruthful fashion, the attack may do more damage to the public mind than the crime itself. It is because I feel that there should be no rest in the endless war against the forces of evil that I ask that the war be conducted with sanity as well as with resolution.

"If the whole picture is painted black, there remains no hue whereby to single out the rascals for distinction from their fellows.

"To assail the great and admitted evils of our political and industrial life with such crude and sweeping generalizations as to include decent men in the general condemnation

means the searing of the public conscience. There results a general attitude either of cynical belief in and indifference to public corruption or else of a distrustful inability to discriminate between the good and the bad.

"The fool who has not sense to discriminate between what is good and what is bad is wellnigh as dangerous as the man who does discriminate and yet chooses the bad.

"Hysterical sensationalism is the very poorest weapon wherewith to fight for lasting righteousness.'

These, we believe, are all the words used by the President either as descriptive of his conception of the muck-raker or in condemnation of him. They are merely a string of general platitudes which no one will question and as to the truth of which no persons would more emphatically agree than the great magazine writers who have forced the public to take cognizance of evils that flourish in consequence of the partnership of the criminal rich and the privileged interests on the one hand, and the political bosses, the manipulators of the money-controlled machines and the political henchmen of corrupt wealth in government on the other.

The President's Praise For Magazine Writers Who Faithfully and Conscientiously Unmask Corrupt Conditions.

But lest he be misunderstood as the plutocratic and Wall-street organs have insisted on misunderstanding him, President Roosevelt went out of his way to describe the army of magazine writers who have forced the nation to take cognizance of corrupt conditions

that mark so much of modern business life,

especially where there exists a community of interests between political bosses and machine politicians and privileged wealth. Hence we find him saying:

"There are, in the body politic, economic and social, many and grave evils, and there is urgent necessity for the sternest war upon them. There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil man, whether politician or business man, every evil practice, whether in politics, in business, or in social life. I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform, or in book, magazine or newspaper, with merci.

The Copmulsion of Moral Idealism Has
Led The Magazine Writers to
Battle Against Corrup-
tion in High Places.

That the President did not mean and could not have meant the men and women who have wrought so nobly and effectively in arousing a healthy moral sentiment is apparent from his description of the man with the muck-rake as the man who "consistently refuses to see aught that is lofty, and fixes his eyes with solemn intentness only on that which is vile and debasing."

Not one of the men or women that the criminal rich and the corrupt political bosses so dread comes under the head of this description. They are without exception earnest, high-minded men and women under the compulsion of moral idealism, who because they believed and felt within their souls that the heart of the people was sound and that if the people could realize the nature and extent of the corruption that was undermining the Republic and rapidly lowering the ethical standards of the various communities, they would punish the evil-doers and drive the faithless servants from their high-places, they have dared to take up the unwelcome fight against the most powerful and wealthy men and organizations in the Republic. We venture the statement that there is not in the United States to-day another band of high-minded, intelligent and conscientious workers who have greater faith in the power of moral ideals, greater faith in the future of free government, greater love for that which is noble, just and true, greater devotion to the Republic, or

more moral heroism than the men and women who in the great magazines have so fearlessly, toilsomely, ably and effectively battled to expose rotten conditions in modern high finance, the trusts, the corporations and in public life. America owes a lasting debt of gratitude to such patriotic writers as Rudolph Blankenburg, Lincoln Steffens, David Graham Phillips Ida Tarbell, Hon. J. Warner Mills. Charles E. Russell, John Brisben Walker, Thomas W. Lawson and Upton Sinclair for their fearless and vitally important uncovering of political and business immorality that has degraded our public life and demoralized business ethics. In almost if not indeed in every instance they have had to face the savage attacks of the agents and hirelings of the corrupt element and not unfrequently also those of slothful conservatism, which gauges success in life by the acquisition of wealth regardless of how that wealth has been acquired. They were denounced as sensation-mongers, as reckless falsifiers and as shameful exaggerators of the facts they portrayed by those who dared not challenge them to prove their charges in the courts. And yet in every instance, when investigation has followed these exposures, the facts brought to light have been so much worse than the worst that had been charged that the exposures make tame reading in comparison with the revelations that have followed.

Take, for example, the series of papers prepared for THE ARENA by Rudolph Blankenburg and published during the first nine months of last year. These exposures showed in detail the rise and onward march of an appalling and almost incredible reign of corruption, due to the union of the great publicservice corporations and other privileged interests of Philadelphia with the political bosses, Quay, Penrose and Durham. They showed the depths of degradation to which Philadelphia had been dragged by the Republican machine, presided over by Durham and backed by the multi-millionaire corruptionists who controlled the public-service corporations and through them were systematically plundering the city. The ARENAS containing this series of papers were regularly mailed by us to every important daily and weekly newspaper of Pennsylvaina, while the morally alive men and women of the commonwealth were quick to read and circulate this story of political shame, in the hope-considered by many vain—that the people could be aroused from their lethargy. Their hopes were real

ized. The papers crystallized public sentiment. A tremendous moral awakening followed which shook the state machine to its foundations and overthrew Boss Durham and his corrupt hosts. And the revelations that came in the wake of this popular uprising and which have been disclosed since make the previous charges of Mr. Blankenburg appear tame in the extreme.

Few men were more recklessly denounced than was Thomas W. Lawson for his charges against the insurance companies. He and the New York World were unsparingly attacked as recklessly unscrupulous sensationmongers. Governor Higgins long positively refused to allow the legislature to investigate the insurance scandal, declaring there was nothing brought out sufficient to warrant such investigation; and all the power of Wallstreet high financiers, of the political machine of New York State, and of the recreant officials was brought to bear in the hope of heading off the investigation which an aroused public sentiment finally forced. The American public knows the result. All the charges made before the investigation, which were denounced as calumnies and base slanders, were not only verified, but the revelations of corruption, dishonesty and general all-round rascality on the part of the insurance corporations and the people's mis-representatives were so much greater than any critic had charged that the ante-investigation exposures appeared insipid beside the sworn testimony brought out at the Armstrong investigation.

And what is true in the cases of Pennsylvania and the insurance investigation has been true in every instance where a thorough investigation has followed the charges of the magazine writers.

Absurdity and Insincerity of The Charge of Recklessness and Untruthfulness Made Against The Magazine Writers.

To the thoughtful man or woman nothing is more apparent than the absurdity and insincerity of the charge made by the "kept" editors of corporation-owned organs, that the great magazine writers who have been so largely responsible for the unmasking of corruption and criminality in high places are reckless, untruthful slanderers or exaggerators of facts. The charge is made not merely to discredit high-minded and incorruptible writers, but in the hope of diverting the attention

of the public from the great criminals who are quaking lest they be overtaken by investigations similar to that conducted by Mr. Hughes, and also because they know that when the people realize the relation existing between the privileged interests, the party-bosses and money-controlled machines and the agents of plutocracy in official positions, there will be a revolution in comparison with which the upheavals of last autumn will appear insignificant.

The absurdity of the charge of recklessness or untruthfulness will become apparent to the thoughtful reader when he remembers that no one knows better than the writers and the magazine editors who are upholding the ideals and honor of free government, that the men and corporations criticized are fabulously rich; that they have also in their employ the ablest and most influential lawyers in America; and our courts have never displayed any disposition to be unduly severe with corporate wealth. Now if the writers in question had made one false or scandalous statement which they could not have substantiated, they would have laid themselves liable to criminal libel suits and they and their journals would have been prosecuted without delay.

When Everybody's Magazine announced that Mr. Lawson would expose the Standard Oil crowd in regard to the Amalgamated Copper exploits, Mr. Rogers was quick to threaten. His lawyers notified the publishers of Everybody's Magazine that if they published any libelous statements they would be prosecuted; and with this notice before him Mr. Lawson published his story of unparalleled moral turpitude. But the millionaires of No. 26 Broadway dared not face him in court, even after threatening that if he said things he could not prove he would be prosecuted.

Why The Campaign Against_Corruption Must be Prosecuted With Increasing Vigor.

Necessary as has been the work already achieved by the great magazines, it is even more vitally important that this labor should be pushed forward with increasing vigor despite the clamor of the guilty and their friends and beneficiaries; for now that the fact is revealed that the political bosses, the partymachines and the great corporations everywhere where there have been investigations are guilty of corruption, graft and criminal. practices, the people themselves can no longer

be quit of responsibility. So long as the public was in ignorance of the criminality and corruption that flourished by reason of the partnership between corporate and privileged interests and the politicians, the people were not morally culpable; but now that it has been made plain, the whole nation will be

morally responsible and the ethical sentiments of the people will become blunted in an appalling degree if dishonesty, moral turpitude and corruption are not everywhere chased to their lairs and the unfaithful ones punished, be they rich or poor, to the fullest extent of the law.

himself at the same disadvantage as is the poor victim in class-ruled lands who is denied the right to vote, when the real masters choose to wield the lash of injustice or turn on the screws of oppression. The man or the men, the class or the coterie, who represent the real power that is responsible for men in office will find the law-makers, the law-interpreters and the law-enforcers responsive to their creators; not to those who are supposed to be their creators, but to the interests whose fiat actually can and does make or unmake. The recognition of this fact on the part of the great publicservice corporations and other monopolies and trusts, or the "interests" that fatten off of special privileges and exploit labor, and the failure to recognize so vital a truth on the part of the industrial millions, constitute the true secret of the rapid advance of reactionary and class-interests in this republic, the undermining of the ideals of the Declaration of Independence or the fundamental democracy of Jefferson and of Lincoln, and the dominance of the criminal rich, the high financiers, the Wall-street gamblers and the political bosses in national life.

The steady and aggressive advance of corporate oppression paralleling the defeat of every effort to secure effective legislation in the interests of the people and the old-time legal enforcement against law-breakers who are also millionaires; the steady and sinister arrogation by the judiciary of a power that was never intended or comprehended by the founders of our government, notably the flagrant abuse of the injunction power and the attempted despotic extension to absurd and menacing lengths of the contempt of court as seen in the vicious theory of constructive

destructive to democracy and inimical to the happiness, development and well-being of all the people have marked the rise of the plutocracy during the past twenty-five years, and they have been rendered possible only because Labor-the great wealth-producing and consuming millions-has failed to unite to combat privilege and class advance that must in the long run mean the virtual subjugation of the toilers to the masters of the bread and the sinking of the wealth-creators to the position of the man without the vote in despotic lands.

For years Labor has cried with increasing bitterness against the shameful abuse of the injunction power and other unjust and oppressive acts which have registered the wishes or demands of the great corporation chiefs who furnished the fat campaign funds for the money-controlled political machines; yet all demands have been systematically ignored when not contemptuously spurned. And why? Simply because Labor has resolutely refused to seize and use as a unit the one sovereign remedy in a democracy which in a single day would have shorn its oppressive masters of their power in a manner as peaceful as effective the ballot.

The multi-millionaires whose wealth has been chiefly the result of special privileges and monopoly rights that enabled them to levy unjust toll and tariffs upon the millions are as one to one hundred when it comes to a battle at the ballot-box. The corrupt beneficiaries of special privilege who oppress Labor and debauch government, through control of political machines, have exalted their tools to the seats of the mighty in all departments of governmental life only because they have been able systematically to defeat and

negative the influence of the producing and consuming millions. Yet year after year Labor has shrieked aloud at injustice and oppression, has struck when strikes meant almost starvation to tens of thousands of the toilers and the increase of millions upon millions of dollars of burden for the community at large, with the probability of failure for the laborers in the long run or at least only a minimum of justice; yet on election day these same toilers have done precisely what the corrupt beneficiaries of privilege and the political bosses desired and counted on their doing supported the men acceptable to the plutocracy that furnished the bosses with funds for the money-controlled machine, with the result the inevitable result-that every year the contempt of the office-holders for the laboring millions has become offensively apparent whenever a crisis has come between the interests of the plutocracy and those of Labor or the people at large.

Time and again has THE ARENA pointed out that there could be no real relief for the toilers or restoration of the government to the people until the laboring millions united at the polls and used the effective and peaceful remedy which democracy places in the hands of the citizen for his protection and for the widest interests of the people at large.

The Labor leaders have held otherwise. They have depended on strikes and on the promises of venal politicians who were as ready to make ante-election pledges as they

were to break them when the boss or his masters commanded them to do so. This has long been to us the most discouraging aspect of the battle of the people for justice and the fundamental rights guaranteed by free government against the criminal rich and classrule. True, the Socialists in recent years have resolutely fought at the polls against the reactionary, imperialistic, militaristic and unrepublican order, but this has not been true of the great mass of organized Labor. Inactivity Not Marked by Moral and

Intellectual Inertia.

This almost fatal inactivity in the presence of the steady advance of the three things that are absolutely destructive to democracy— militarism, imperialism and class-rule-has happily not been marked by sordid corruption or moral obloquy on the part of organized Labor. On the contrary, a great and fundamentally important work has been pushed forward.

For years Mr. Gompers and his associates have cordially seconded the magnificent labor of Mr. George H. Shibley in his systematic campaign for the education of American workers along the lines of fundamental democracy and their instruction in regard to the simple and practical method of bringing the government back to the people and meeting changed conditions so as to effectively preserve a fundamentally free government. by means of the initiative, the referendum and the right of recall. There is nothing so needed in America to-day as Direct-Legislation, or guarded repersentative government, as Mr. Shibley prefers to call it. And thus through the active and sympathetic aid of Mr. Gompers and other Labor leaders, these practical measures for preserving a government of the people, by the people and for the people have been so luminously explained and persistently impressed on the intelligent workers that they have come to appreciate the vital importance of these fundamental democratic methods.

The waiting season, therefore, though in many respects very unfortunate for Labor and for the Republic, has not been lost or wasted, since it has been utilized for the most important education of which the people stand in need.

Some Foreign Influences That Have Contributed to Labor's Awakening.

There are several causes that have contribu

ted to the tardy awakening of organized Labor:

(a) The spectacle presented during the great revolutionary outbreak in Russia has necessarily produced a profound impression on all the more thoughtful and philosophical workers in America. Here we have seen tens and hundreds of thousands of workers deliberately risking not only all their earthly possessions, but life and liberty to gain the right of constitutional government-the right to vote and thus be in a position to compel their No man could contemplate that thrilling and interests to be considered by the law-makers. inspiring spectacle of moral heroism in which, with prison and the bleak expanses of Siberia grimly staring them in the face, if happily they were not killed outright, tens of thousands of toilers risked all to obtain that priceless thing -a free man's ballot, without being impressed with the sacred character of the vote or without recognizing that the daily record of Russian heroism in its struggle for the right of