It is not a worse case perhaps of lost-mindedness or of losing the end in the means than the rest of us are guilty of, but with such an inspiring example of what not to do, and of how it works to do it—to lose the end in the means, I have to mention it—not in behalf of Mr. Burleson, but in behalf of all of us.
XXII
I had not intended to illustrate my idea of amateur technique in self-criticism quite so much with Mr. Burleson, especially as I stand for a bi-partisan point of view. I wish there were some way of dealing with Mr. Burleson as a Republican for fifteen minutes and then as a Democrat for fifteen minutes, and in dealing as I am, in what might be called a nationally personal subject, a technique for self-criticism in all of us, I only hope my Democratic friends will give me credit for making use of Mr. Burleson not as a Democrat (it is just their luck that he's a Democrat), but as a specimen human being I am trying to get hundreds of thousands of Republicans that are just like him, not to be like any longer. I have only used our Postmaster General in this rather personal fashion because he is so close and personal to us, because in a time when we are all in peculiar danger of being fooled by ourselves he constitutes, in plain sight a kind of national Common Denominator of the sins of all of us.
We are all concerned. We all want to know.
It is easy enough to say pleasantly as if it settled something that the reason Mr. Burleson keeps doing things and keeps picking at most people so through fifty-three thousand Post Offices day after day, all day, and night after night, all night, is that he is fooled about himself.
But why? What are the causes and the remedies people in general can look up and have the benefit of? When we are being fooled about ourselves, when we believe what we want to believe, and are not willing to change our minds about ourselves, what is there we can do?
XXIII
SELF-DISCIPLINE BY PROXY