Speakers Blame Citizens of State For Massachusetts Corruption, Offer Voters Possible Remedies

Three local experts last night indicted the people of Massachusetts for the corruption among public officials in the Commonwealth.

"Public corruption is based on our society's values of materialism, power and wealth," said Arnold M. Soloway, Special Advisor to the Governor on Fiscal Affairs, and visiting professor of Economics at Boston College Graduate School. Citizens should accept this assumption of values, he continued, and "put materialism to work" to attract better men to public office.

Within this value system, Soloway said, higher salaries for state legislators, the governor, teachers and other public officials would lend more prestige, more respect to their positions.

"Purity we can never have," Soloway told a Ford Forum audience; "the main thing is to reduce the impact of corruption in our state until it is tolerable."

Elliot L. Richardson said that he, as a U.S. Attorney, knew of at least four cases worse than the publicized Worcester case, the Metropolitan District Commission scandal, and the "mystery building" deal.

Such frequent corruption, he said, not only drains the state treasury of needed funds and indicates immorality, but also brings mediocrity and delay in conducting Massachusetts' business, promotes public apathy, and abolishes the "alienated voter's" confidence in all public officials. "The whole fabric of democracy is destroyed," Richardson declared, "and this is the real price of corruption."

He suggested 1) more effective corrupt practices laws and election procedure laws, 2) denial of the self-incrimination privilege when public office holders testify on their official acts (New York has such a statute), 3) stronger conflict of interest laws by which informal conversations that precede governmental favors are as punishable as formal deals.

Corruption Bi-Partisan

Charles L. Whipple, Boston Globe staff writer, later offered several examples showing that Massachusetts corruption is bi-partisan--"both parties are guilty." He suggested that citizens of the Commonwealth fight this by in turn voting bi-partisan in elections. "The public--not the courts or the press--must identify who is and who is not responsible," according to Whipple.

Richardson said later, "The primary responsibility for investigating corruption cannot rest with the press, which does not have the time for a thorough job, but with the courts." He and Whipple praised the reporting of corruption by the Boston press, but Soloway blasted local newspapers for "conflicts of interests," which, he implied, were as bad as the scandals reported in their columns.

"Many stories that should be printed in the newspapers never reach the public," he said.