TWO CANDIDATES
I
TO begin with, I am going to call things by their real names. At first glance this statement will give you a shiver of terror, that is, if you happen to be a maiden lady or a gentleman with reversible cuffs. But your shivers will be without reason. Prue may read, and modest Prue's mama; for it isn't going to be a naughty story; on the contrary, grandma's spring medicines are less harmless. Yet there is a parable to expound and a moral to point out; but I shall leave these to your own discernment.
It has always appealed to me as rather a silly custom on a story-teller's part to invent names for the two great political parties of the United States; and for my part, I am going to call a Democrat a Democrat and a Republican a Republican, because these titles are not so hallowed in our time as to be disguised in print and uttered in a bated breath. There is fortunately no lèse-majesté in America.
Men inclined toward the evil side of power will be found in all parties, and always have been. Unlike society, the middle class in politics usually contains all the evil elements. In politics the citizen becomes the lowest order, and the statesman the highest; and, thanks to the common sense of the race, these are largely honest and incorruptible. When these become disintegrated, a republic falls.
Being a journalist and a philosopher, I look upon both parties with tolerant contempt. The very nearness of some things disillusions us; and I have found that only one illusion remains to the newspaper man, and that is that some day he'll get out of the newspaper business. I vote as I please, though the family does not know this. The mother is a Republican and so is the grandmother; and, loving peace in the house, I dub myself a Republican till that moment when I enter the voting-booth. Then I become an individual who votes as his common-sense directs.
The influence of woman in politics is no inconsiderable matter. The great statesman may flatter himself that his greatness is due to his oratorical powers; but his destiny is often decided at the breakfast-table. Why four-fifths of the women lean toward Republicanism is something no mere historian can analyze.
In my town politics had an evil odor. For six years a Democrat had been mayor, and for six years the town had been plundered. For six years the Republicans had striven, with might and main, to regain the power ... and the right to plunder. It did not matter which party ruled, graft (let us omit the quotation marks) was the tocsin. The citizens were robbed, openly or covertly, according to the policy of the party in office. There was no independent paper in town; so, from one month's end to another it was leaded editorial vituperation. Then Caliban revolted. An independent party was about to be formed.