The American Commonwealth
Format: Paperback
ISBN13: 9780217570190
Paperback|9780217570190
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER LVm WHY THE BEST MEN DO NOT GO INTO POLITICS BuT, some one will say, who has read the reasons just assigned for the development of a class of professional politicians, you allow nothing for public spirit. It is easy to show why the prize of numerous places should breed a swarm of office- seekers, not so easy to understand why the office-seekers should be allowed to have this arena of public life in a vast country, a free country, an intelligent country, all to themselves. There ought to be patriotic citizens ready to plunge into the stream and save the boat from drifting towards the rapids. They would surely have the support ot the mass of the people who must desire honest and economical administration. If such citizens stand aloof, there are but two explanations possible. Either public life must be so foul that good men cannot enter it, or good men must be sadly wanting in patriotism. This kind of observation is so common in European mouths as to need an explicit answer. The answer is two-fold. In the first place, the arena is not wholly left to the professionals. Both the Federal and the State legislatures contain a fair proportion of upright and disinterested men, who enter chiefly, or largely, from a sense of public duty, and whose presence keeps the mere professionals in order. So does public opinion, deterring even the bad men from tEe tricks to wliich they are prone, and often driving them, when detected in a sf rimis nffpnf-q frnm plfMtp- and power. However, this first answer is not a complete answer, for it must be admitted that the proportion of men of intellectual aScTiocial eminence whoenter public life is smaller in America than it liasbeen during the present century in eacTToTthe free countries of Europe. Does this fact indicate a want of p...
| ISBN-13 | 9780217570190 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 0217570194 |
| Weight | 2.23 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 9.00 x 6.00 x 1.53 In |
| List Price | $42.59 |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Pages | 698 pages |
| Publisher | |
| Published On | 2009-08-01 |
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