Why do

do not purify the ballot. We are discovering that a primary election ballot as big as a tablecloth does not prevent bad men getting into office. How often in your city has the ballot been the utterance of the highest intelligence and conscience of a majority of the people? How often has your state legislature executed the will of the masses instead of the classes? What is the trouble? Have we made citizenship too cheap? devices for guarding the purity of the ballot fail? multitudes of good men, churchmen among them, do not exercise the responsibilities of citizenship. The gang always votes. The gang candidate is elected. He does the bidding of the vicious elements. And the vicious do not all belong to the lower classes. Whose fault is it that the franchise is vitiated, and the welfare of the people sold at so much per? It is the fault of the moral, easy-going, optimistic citizen who abhors the caucus and neglects the polling place.

Because

b. Of course we have in state and city corrupt party machines. They crack the party whip, throw dust in the eyes of the people, by raising factitious issues; all the while they marshal the gang and vote them as often as is necessary to elect their men, in legislature, city council, who, in public office, become the servants, not of the whole people, but of organized greed and crime.

c. Political alliance with crime in American life is notorious. In one city alone, it has been computed that organized vice paid $200,000,000 in a few years for immunity. Think of the night of horror in which such a city dwells! A judge of that community is reported to have said that there were two murders and three suicides every week in the year in that city! This condition exists in varying degrees of effrontery in many of our municipalities. Whose life is safe? Whose property is secure? Whose home is tranquil?

d. Have you heard of the unholy alliance between politics and unscrupulous vested interests? He who runs may read. In fact, he can read it without running. He can read it in the butcher's bill. He can read it in the grocer's bill. He can read it in the coat on his back, in the coal bin, in his wife's dress, in the children's shoes, in the flour barrel, on the clapboards of his house on nearly everything that he must have he reads the tribute he pays to monopolies, trusts, and combinations,

which are intrenched behind special legislation secured by graft and greed. This is truth unholy truth.

And who is to blame? Whose fault is it that weak, unscrupulous men in legislatures and public office are the easy tools of greed and theft? Why is the public being exploited by class legislation and economic measures which burden the many to enrich the few? The fault belongs with the man who stays away from the caucus and the polls. It is the fault of the man who is shocked at politics and shuns public service because of fear or love of ease. Under these conditions, the state becomes not the instrument of the kingdom of Christ, but of the kingdom of Satan.

III. What is the remedy?

What can we do? We are asked, What is your aim? If church men are to go into active politics, is not this likely to lead to church domination?

1. Let me state what we do not want.

a. We do not seek the rule of the state by the church. Christendom had that for five hundred years, and both were plunged into darkness. The world has become too enlightened to submit to the rule of bigots. Ecclesiastical tyranny is more paralyzing than civil despotism. The most backward nations to-day are those where the church has ruled the state for a thousand years. We seek something better.

b. We are not seeking to build up a church party. That would be perilous to liberty and progress. Neither are we seeking church partisanship. Where a political party seeks alliance with the church, or a particular branch of it, both party and church are endangered. Such alliances inflame evil passions and strengthen prejudices that ought to be effaced. Whenever sectarianism is called into political contests, or allowed place in the administration of public affairs, the liberty of conscience and reason are in peril.

c. Neither are we seeking special legislation, or other favors for the church. We do not need such. The church's influence and power are greatest when she is free and independent. To receive favors from the state is to muzzle her prophets and smother her moral fire.

It is not any or all of these ends for which we plead. They all hark back to a corrupt union of church and state which demoralizes both. That unholy alliance is doomed.

2. What, then, do we seek?

a. We seek Christian ideals in politics and in the administration of public affairs. What are these? "Seek good, and not evil . . . establish justice in the gate. Let justice roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream." Amos. "Loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free." - Isaiah. "Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy."- Psalms. "Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor. . . . Do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow." -Jeremiah. "Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates." Zechariah. Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." - Jesus. We are the subjects of a heavenly king. "The government shall be upon his shoulder." What is the character of His government? "Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end . . . to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever." Listen to our warrant: "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." This is more than a prayer - it is a commission to bring in the rule of God on earth. Politics is one of the agencies of the kingdom. It is concerned with the ways of living together in a Christian society. It is our duty to establish the Christian society, the ideals of which are righteousness and love. Do you think our society and government are yet Christian? Have we fulfilled our commission? Is the administration of public affairs Christian when a governor like Hughes is thwarted and defeated in his knightly battle for the people and honest government? Where were the Christian men who should have stood with him? Do you think our government is Christian if seats in our highest legislative body can be bought at so much apiece? Is our economic order Christian with millions on the edge of poverty while a few squander in luxurious sins what would give a cityful comparative comfort?

Far from it. Hungry thousands and exploited millions are the condemnation of our unchristian system. Poverty, suffering, and depression are not excusable or tolerable because they can be charged to defects in economic system, to our political acci

dents or to our unjust legislation. Any system which levies tribute upon the blood, bread, and opportunity of multitudes is unchristian in spirit and method. It is our duty, heroic duty, to lift up the ideal of a Christian society and go to work to establish it.

b. We want Christian men in politics. We want Christian men in the lead. They should be back of and in the caucuses and primaries and at the polls. They ought to be our leaders. Political scheming should be taken out of saloon back-rooms and conducted in schoolhouses and other public buildings. The slate-makers of criminal interests, high or low, can be put out of business when men of Christian principles take hold of political machinery. We want Christian men in politics all the way from every hamlet up to the seats of the mighty in Washington. We want our politics managed by men under the leadership of the King of kings, instead of by men under the dictation of Wall Street. We want our cities ruled by men of Christian ideals instead of Tammany's. We want men who can be independent of parties when parties are wrong. We want men fearless and sacrificial enough to hold office and administer without fear or favor; men who are willing to be poor, to be persecuted, in order that public affairs may be directed so as to promote the peace, prosperity, and happiness of all the people. We want men who are willing to work to work all the time. We want men who are willing to fight - to fight all the time for clean government and social justice.

c. Let Christian men unite. Here is the strength of evil. It is unified. Wicked men act together for selfish ends. Cannot those who are Christian act together for good ends? If we will move forward together from Maine to California, from Dakota to Texas, we can secure political integrity or anything else that is needed. Here is an ounce of loose powder. Throw a spark into it and what is the result? A flash and a little smoke. But pack it into the rifle barrel behind a bullet and then flash your spark into it! If decent men all over this country would act together, we could close the saloon and drive the liquor power out of politics, and three fourths of the crime and misery out of the land. If we would rally and act and vote together, we could drive organized vice into a corner and choke it to death. If Christian and all decent men would vote and work together,

we could drive the political crook and his millionaire boss out of politics.

Christian men ought to unite in the support of good men and good measures. Here is where we fail. Occasionally, by a spasm of enthusiasm, we elect a high-minded man to office and then leave him to fight alone. Whom is he fighting? The gang. They camp down beside him and never leave. They wait for him in the morning and dog his footsteps home at night. They seek special favors for themselves or the interests they represent. They plead, they promise, they bulldoze; they offer bribes and they threaten and they never leave him. If Christian men in Minneapolis had stood together, they might have reëlected for mayor Percy Jones, one of the knightliest men who ever entered public life. If Christian men after putting Hughes in the governor's chair had stood by him, he would not have been defeated in his fight for the people and decent politics. Now public administration loses, to the seclusion of the Bench, one of the brainiest, cleanest, most self-controlled men of our generation. Vain are spasms of public virtue that die out at the polls. Stand by your servants in city councils, legislatures, in Congress, and in public administration. It's the steady current that pulls the load, not the sudden flash that burns out the motor and leaves the car stalled half way up the hill.

Our

d. Let us act openly. We have nothing to conceal. cause will commend itself to enlightened public conscience. Indeed, this is the way to develop an enlightened social conscience. Bring the battle for righteousness out into the open. Publicity for public business is the only right method. Draw the evildoers out where the people may see their hideousness. Expose their nefarious schemes and vicious designs. Seven thousand volts of invisible energy, made luminous, turns night into day. Turn on the light! It makes rats and rascals

run!

Here is our platform for political integrity and social righteousness. Bring religion into politics. Purge politics of bad men and vicious methods. Restore its true dignity by giving it the ideals of the kingdom of God. Let Christian men enter political activities. Let them take office. Let decent men everywhere unite and move forward like an army with banners.