[98] _Cf._ Professor C. Edward Merriam’s “Primary Elections.” [99] Laws of 1896, p. 123. The repeal was due to minor defects in the law which could easily have been corrected by amendment. [100] Laws of 1906, ch. 17. [101] Nebraska, L. 1901, 30; Virginia L. 1903, ch. 98; Georgia, L. 1908, 63. [102] An able argument on this point is presented by Mr. Perry Belmont in his “Publicity of Election Expenditures,” _North American Review_, vol. clxxx (1905), p. 166. For many of the most important facts cited in the preceding pages of this study the writer is indebted to Mr. Belmont’s valuable article. [103] _Cf._ the Association’s searching “Report of Examination of Election Expense Statements, 1908;” also its leaflet on “Future Plans to Prevent Corrupt Practices.” CORRUPTION AND NOTORIETY: THE MEASURE OF OUR OFFENDING VII CORRUPTION AND NOTORIETY: THE MEASURE OF OUR OFFENDING Charges of corruption make up a large and important part of the stock in trade of the ordinary American journalist, politician, and reformer. One unfortunate result of this condition of affairs is that, taking us at our word, Europe is forming a very low estimate of the honesty of governmental and business practices on this side of the Atlantic. Even among ourselves corruption is coming to be thought of as an indefinite percentage of evil corroding the general service of the state, and this percentage is assumed to be much larger in the United States than abroad. Similar comparisons are drawn between the principal local and state governments of the country. One popular writer owes no small part of his vogue to the crisp and supposedly accurate tags which he has affixed to several of our municipalities and states, _e.g._, “corrupt and contented,” “half free and fighting on,” “a city ashamed,” “bad and glad of it,” “a traitor state,” “a state for sale,” and so on. Between actual corruption, however, and the notoriety attached to it no definite and known ratio can be said to exist. Much as it is to be regretted quantitative measures of this political and social evil are at present quite impossible. Many difficulties stand in the way even of approximations sufficiently exact for comparisons of any value. It may perhaps be as well worth while to consider the nature of these difficulties as to indulge in denunciation regardless of them.