Senators and congressmen at the national capital have been impeached,
and indicted, and tried, and convicted of grafting.
Bureau officials, as in the cotton scandal, the postoffice frauds,
and other of the departments, and civil service exposes have been
arraigned by their own democracy for traitor intrigues with King
Graft, and have been beheaded.
State senators, representatives, treasurers and the innumerable "small
fry" of official life, together with the millionaire briber and his
henchmen at state capitals, have been uncovered and convicted of
debauching democracy in behalf of a pretender sovereign.
Great cities have been shaken with the inquisitorial rounds of
investigations. Philadelphia of Independence memories has been
weighed in the balance and found wanting; in St. Louis the prosecutor
governor, Folk, has stirred corruption to the depths; New York
has been moved as it has not been since the overthrow of Tammany;
Minneapolis has been cleansed; and the spectacular "graft hunt" in
Milwaukee has been a lesson in "how to do it." Perhaps never before
in the history of America have so many grafters been scattered to the
winds, in hiding or locked behind the bars of prisons.