Saddest of all and most disheartening was the almost universal extent to which this feeling spread among the people. They came to consider this dishonorable and cowardly attitude on the part of Government officers as natural and quite to be expected. The few who remonstrated or pleaded for a more honest official spirit were regarded with good-natured contempt as men meaning well and having lofty ideals, but too visionary for “practical politics;” as “doctrinaires,” “theorists,” etc. There has been corruption in other lands and under other forms of government. But the demoralizing fact in the United States was, not so much that official corruption and cowardice was the rule, as that the people who had the power to rebuke and reform such a condition of things condoned it, took it for granted, continued the corrupt and cowardly time-servers in office and responsibility, or changed them for other equally unfit but shrewder rogues. It was not strange, in this condition of public sentiment, that other trusts than those of Government were abused. The last decade of the Republic was signalized by an unprecedented number of defalcations, embezzlements, and similar crimes against private trust. In the treatment of these crimes, even more clearly than in regard of public dereliction, the utter demoralization of public opinion was demonstrated. It is true that the public prints teemed after each new rascality with virtuous demands for the infliction of condign punishment. It is true that prosecuting officers commonly made complaints and issued warrants with exemplary promptness, taking good care that the newspapers were duly informed of their energetic action. It is true that occasional embezzlers were actually punished by sentences of imprisonment fixed at the minimum extreme of lax and unjustly lenient laws. But these were exceptional cases. Many of the embezzlers were men of social standing or of political importance; they had numerous friends; and, no matter though their guilt was clear as the day, it was assumed by the nonchalant public,--taken for granted, even by those who had suffered most,--that these friends would use all their influence to obstruct or prevent merited punishment. In a majority of cases they were too successful. Officials who should have stood faithful sentinels over the public weal to compel the enforcement of justice, generally bowed before the influence which might be exerted to oust them from their offices if they should prove inconveniently virtuous. Sometimes the embezzler was allowed to bribe his custodian and escape. Sometimes he was admitted to bail in such a trifling sum that a percentage of his stealings paid the cost of a default. Sometimes he was allowed to bargain with those whom he had robbed.