4 have felt grieved when bad men succeeded in obtaining office, but have shrunk from the exertion requisite to make their honest convictions felt in the management of public affairs. The needy and the desperate, the unprincipled adventurers who abound in all large and prosperous nations, have not been slow to avail themselves of the opportunities thus offered, and to thrust themselves forward to occupy the place thus abandoned by the honest and capable. Causes such as there react upon each other with constantly increasing intensity, until at length we, who regard ourselves as essentially a practical people, present to the world the anomalous absurdity of a country where we pretend to govern ourselves, and yet where the business of government is regarded as degrading those who are engaged in it. This last assertion may perhaps provoke dissent, yet a moment’s reflection will confirm its truth to every man. What merchant proposing to engage a clerk would not hesitate if he learned that the applicant was a “ politician ?” Visions of corner groggeries, of contaminating associations, of debased morality would naturally suggest themselves, and would probably result in the choice of some safer assistant. What merchant would not run some risk of impairing his credit if it were known that he participated actively in the political movements of his district ? Who would care to give an important contract to a man who was known to be largely engaged in work for the city or state ? The first impression would be that he had either gained employment by dishonest practices or had speedily become familiarized with them, for every one takes for granted that corruption exists in all public business. Do we not express surprise when an independent and cultivated man accepts position in our municipal councils or in our state legislature ? Have we not reached the point where every one is suspected of private motives in offering his name as a candidate before the people ? What wonder then that the men best fitted by education and position to aid in controlling public affairs shrink in disgust from the means necessary to secure success, and from the associations connected with office ? Surely
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