The
result has been a steady increase of scandals, a constant collapse of
moral organizations, a frequent unveiling of whited sepulchres. Various
observers have sought to direct the public attention to this significant
corruption of the new Puritanism. The New York _Sun_, for example, in
the course of a protest against the appointment of a vice commission for
New York, has denounced the paid agents of private reform organizations
as "notoriously corrupt, undependable and dishonest," and the Rev. Dr.
W. S. Rainsford, supporting the charge, has borne testimony out of his
own wide experience to their lawlessness, their absurd pretensions to
special knowledge, their habit of manufacturing evidence, and their
devious methods of shutting off criticism. But so far, at all events,
no organized war upon them has been undertaken, and they seem to
flourish more luxuriantly year after year. The individual whose common
rights are invaded by such persons has little chance of getting justice,
and less of getting redress. When he attempts to defend himself he finds
that he is opposed, not only by a financial power that is ample for all
purposes of the combat and that does not shrink at intimidating juries,
prosecuting officers and judges, but also by a shrewdness which shapes
the laws to its own uses, and takes full advantage of the miserable
cowardice of legislatures.
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