Legal Repression of Political Corruption

Extract

Of the entire field of crime involving political corruption only a remote corner, that of its legal repression, has been assigned to me for discussion here. For this reason, before entering upon the consideration of my theme, it will be serviceable, I believe, briefly to state the nature of the thing sought to be suppressed.

Political corruption is not simply dishonesty in the public service; neither is it merely a phase of crime in general, nor even of crime committed by those who hold public office. The dishonest and the criminally inclined, like the poor, we shall have with us always. Political corruption, however, is a transient phenomenon, especially characteristic, so far as this country is concerned, of the last ten years. Like financial crises and periods of business depression it has come and gone quite independently of the moral factors constituting common honesty or ordinary respect for law. Its advent in any community is marked by the commission of bribery, extortion and criminal conspiracies to defraud the .public, without a corresponding increase in other and unrelated crimes. Its going, likewise, is accompanied by no abatement in the usual grist of larcenies, burglaries and murder. It is, indeed, a unique and highly complex thing; an institution, if you please, rather than a condition of society or a temper or tendency of any class of individuals.