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24 Pol. Sci. Q. 1 (1909)

handle is hein.journals/pclscceqry24 and id is 1 raw text is: Volume XXIV] POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY THE NATURE OF POLITICAL CORRUPTION IN the whole vocabulary of politics it would be difficult to point out any single term that is more frequently em- ployed than the word corruption. Party orators and writers, journalists, muck rakers and reformers all use it with the utmost freedom, and it occurs not uncommonly in the less ephemeral pages of political philosophers and historians. Transactions and conditions of very different kinds are stig- matized in this way, in many cases doubtless with entire justice; but apparently there is little disposition to inquire into the essen- tial nature of corruption itself and to discriminate in the use of the word. Detailed definitions of corrupt practices and bribery are of course to be found in every highly developed legal code, but these are scarcely broad enough to cover the whole concept as seen from the viewpoint of political science or ethics. The sanctions of positive law are applied only to those more flagrant practices which past experience has shown to be so pernicious that sentiment has crystallized into statutory prohibitions and adverse judicial decisions. Even within this comparatively limited circle clearness and precision are but imperfectly at- tained. Popular disgust is frequently expressed at the inepti- tude of the law's definitions and the deviousness of the law's procedure, as a result of which prosecutions of notoriously de- linquent offici :, politicians and contractors so often and so ignominiously fail in the courts. If once we step outside the circle of legality, however, we find extremely confused, conflict- ing and even unfair states of moral opinion regarding corrup- March, ipop [Number I