we have any sense of loyalty to the Union and its institutions, all political lines vanish at once. We can afford to consider in a public servant nothing but the question of his honesty or dishonesty when once that question is raised. The surest way of blunting the public conscience in dealing with corruption is to confuse the public mind as to who is corrupt and who is not. There are plenty of men with whom we differ radically, plenty of men of whom we radically disapprove, as to whom it is right and necessary that we should express that disapprobation; but beware of expressing it in terms that imply moral reprobation. When we express moral reprobation let us be sure that we know the facts and then that we say only exactly what is true. To accuse an honest man of being a thief is to gladden the heart of every thief in the Nation. In our legislative bodies, in our National Congress, if you find that any man is corrupt, you are not to be excused if you do not hunt him out of public life, whether he is of one party or whether he is of another. But if you accuse, either specifically or in loose general declamation, all men of being corruptionists, you by just so much weaken your own strength when it becomes necessary to assail the genuine corruptionist. So far from asking that you be lenient in your judgment of any public man, I hold that you are recreant to duty if you are thus lenient. Do not be lenient, but do be just. If you dislike a man’s policy, say so. If you think he is acting in a way so misguided that he will bring ruin to the State or Nation, say so. But do not accuse him of corruption unless you know that he is corrupt; and if you know that he is corrupt, if you have good reason to believe that he is corrupt, then refuse under any plea of party expediency, under any consideration, to refrain from smiting him with the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. AT JACKSONVILLE, FLA., OCTOBER 21, 1905 _My Fellow-Citizens_: