Within the last few years names that have stood honored for a
generation in financial, political and social life have been dragged
down from high places perhaps as never before in America. The court of
King Graft has been attacked and threatened as never before, and with
greater showing. There is war in the open against this pretender king,
and his legions everywhere are retiring behind their breastworks,
broken but not defeated.
Graft in its nakedness, has been exposed and the people are aroused,
fearing that the grafter has sucked the life blood of the republic.
What they have seen is but a glimpse of real conditions--the ulcer
spots where the rottenness beneath has broken through--but they have
seen enough to realize the peril and attack it. While the conditions
revealed are astounding and alarming, they are signs of improvement.
The nation is better than it was a decade ago, since tens of thousands
of grafters have been stamped out, since the leaders of the greatest
grafts of the land have been exposed to the withering light of
contempt of all decent Americans.