Note 369 — Chapter XXIII · The Defense Becomes Arrogant.
Reading edition
The following are extracts taken from Mr. Weinstock’s address:
“After all, the saddest thing is to find men who are rated as decent, law-abiding, intelligent, presumably high minded and moral, condoning the sins of the bribe givers and deploring their indictment and prosecution.
“Both the commercial and political bribe givers committed serious crimes, but by far the more serious was the crime of corrupting public officials, because the tendency of this crime is to undermine the very foundation of the State, thus leading to the ultimate destruction of democracy.
“If the spirit of the respectables, fighting and condemning the graft prosecution, is to become the common spirit, then must we bid farewell to civic virtue, farewell to public morality, farewell to good government and in time farewell to our republican institutions and to civic liberty.”