Law: They Do Not Know It Is Wrong

A major study probes the meaning of bribery

"You can buy now and then a Senator or a Representative; but they do not know it is wrong, and so they are not ashamed of it." So says a cynical newspaperman to an equally cynical speculator in The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner. The speculator, though, sees virtues in the corrupt system: "We would have to go without the services of some of our ablest men, sir, if the country were opposed to--to--bribery. It is a harsh term. I do not like to use it." John T. Noonan Jr., 58, professor of law at the University...

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