FOOTNOTES:
[53] “Sin and Society,” p. 78.
[54] “Back to Beginnings,” Commencement Address, Oberlin College, June 28, 1905.
[55] “The Nature of Political Corruption,” p. 46, supra.
[56] Limitation of the scope of this study to the internal forms of corruption makes it impossible to discuss this very interesting topic. It may be noted, however, that in international cases certain peculiarities occur regarding the personal element of corruption. When the military secrets of one government are purchased by another, the faithless official of the former who makes the sale is, of course, corrupt in the highest degree. What shall be said of the nation making the purchase? Personal interest on its side is merged in the collective interest of a commonwealth numbering millions of inhabitants it may be. The case is not entirely unlike those in which group interest rather than self interest impels to corrupt action (see p. [65]), except that in the latter the groups are subordinate and not sovereign. If, however, the state which buys the secrets of another government runs counter to international law or morality in so doing, it may be held to be pursuing a relatively narrow interest regardless of the broader interest of humanity as a whole. From this point of view the state which uses money for such ends is guilty of corruption although, of course, it is a highly socialised form of corruption.
[57] “Law and Opinion in England,” p. 216.
[58] Cf. H. C. Adams, “Public Debts,” pt. iii, ch. iv, for a very able discussion of the influence of the commercial spirit on public officials.
[59] Cf. sec. vii, “Die Organisation als Klassenerhöhungsmaschine,” in Robert Michel’s very thorough and illuminating study of the organisation of the German social-democracy. Archiv. f. Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, Bd. xxiii, Heft 2 (September, 1906).
[60] For an overwhelmingly convincing presentation of materials on this point cf. the “Digest of Report by the Bureau of Municipal Research on the Administration of the Water Revenues, Manhattan,”—Efficient Citizenship Leaflet, no. 145. Corruption of this sneaking sort resembles tax dodging in that it is so largely indulged in by otherwise respectable people. Cf. p. 192.
[61] “Enough Money to Uplift the World,” p. 6, by William H. Allen, Director, Bureau of Municipal Research, reprinted as a pamphlet by the Bureau from the World’s Work of May, 1909.
[62] Cf. p. 5, supra, for a discussion of the consequences of the corrupt protection of vice and crime.
[63] Cf p. 61, supra.
[64] Cf. especially No. 3 of the Taxation Series published by the Board, entitled, “Cincinnati an Independent Assessment District,” by Allen Ripley Foote.
[65] The assumption is not extreme. In the pamphlet referred to it is held that by the various means proposed, Cincinnati’s (then) rate of 2.96 per cent. might be reduced to 0.75 per cent. “When the real estate of the state of Kansas was revalued by the Tax Commission,” according to Mr. Foote, “the valuation was increased 484 per cent.” Of course real increase of property values through considerable periods of time accounts in part for such totals whenever assessment periods are a number of years apart.
[66] “Civil Service in Great Britain,” p. 154.