Mr.Jerome alone among American politicians has made a specialty of plain speaking.

He has revolted against the tradition in our politics which seeks to stop every leak with a good intention and plaster every sore with a "decorative phrase." He has, says Mr.Hodder, "a partly Gallic passion for intellectual veracity, for a clear recognition of the facts before him, however ugly, and a wholly Gallic hatred of hypocrisy." It is Mr.Jerome's intellectual veracity, his somewhat conscious and strenuous ideal of plain speaking, which has been his personal contribution to the cause of reform; and he is right in believing it to be a very important contribution.

The effective work of reform, as has already been pointed out, demands on the part of its leaders the intellectual virtues of candor, consistency, and a clear recognition of facts.

In Mr.Jerome's own case his candor and his clear recognition of facts have been used almost exclusively in the field of municipal reform.

He has vigorously protested against existing laws which have been passed in obedience to a rigorous puritanism, which, because of their defiance of stubborn facts, can scarcely be enforced, and whose statutory existence merely provides an opportunity for the "grafter." He has clearly discerned that in seeking the amendment of such laws he is obliged to fight, not merely an unwise statute, but an erroneous, superficial, and hypocritical state of mind.