The author finds that the First Yugoslavia had no ethical
infrastructure and that the level of corruption in the country
was very high. The corrupt behavior of Rade Pašić, and
in particular the “Adamov scandal” are used as examples
of individual attempts in the fight against corruption that,
however, yielded no results. The article provides (mostly) the
Slovene view of corruption because the author focuses in
particular on Slovene newspapers (the dailies Slovenec and
Jutro), the only media at the time that offered the wider public
an insight in the scandals and attempts at “saving the state
from the claws of corrupt people” and shaped their attitudes
towards such acts.