Throw the Bums Out
Adam Cohen writes about the muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens whose book "The Shame of the Cities" turns 100 this spring.

In a recent Los Angeles Times poll, 63 percent of those surveyed said President Bush is more concerned with corporations than workers, and it is not hard to see why. He has raised more than $180 million in campaign funds, much of it from corporate-minded contributors who want something from government — weaker environmental laws, lower taxes, government contracts — or have already gotten it. John Kerry and the Democrats, of course, raise money from many of the same sources.

Steffens would not be surprised by the extent of the alliance between business and government today. But he would be disheartened if the American people did not start to follow his simple electoral prescription. "Vote in mass on the more promising ticket," he urged, adding that if the choices are equally bad, "throw out the party that is in, and wait till the next election and then throw out the other party that is in." If the voters did that, Steffens promised, "the commercial politician would feel a demand for good government and he would supply it."