THE MORALITY OF THE ALTERNATING PARTY SYSTEM
The only difference between the morality of the Liberal party and that of the Conservative party is one of clothes. Among Conservatives the most primitive clout seems to be slightly more ample, but not noticeably so.
The preoccupations of both are purely with matters of style. The only distinction is that the Conservatives make off with a great deal at once, while the Liberals take less, but do it often.
This is in harmony with the law of mechanics according to which what is gained in force is lost in velocity and what is gained in intensity is lost in expansion. After all, no doubt morality in politics should be a negligible quantity. Honest, upright men who hearken only to the voice of conscience, never get on in politics, neither are they ever practical, nor good for anything.
To succeed in politics, a certain facility is necessary, to which must be added ambition and a thirst for glory. The last is the most innocent of the three.
ON OBEYING THE LAW
It is safe, it seems to me, to assume the following axioms: First, to obey the law is in no sense to attain justice; second, it is not possible to obey the law strictly, thoroughly, in any country in the world.
That obeying the law has nothing to do with justice is indisputable, and this is especially true in the political sphere, in which it is easy to point to a rebel, such as Martínez Campos, who has been elevated to the plane of a great man and who has been immortalized by a statue upon his death, and then to a rebel such as Sánchez Moya, who Was merely shot. The only difference between the men was in the results attained, and in the manner of their exit.
Hence I say that Lerroux was not only base, but obtuse and absurdly wanting in human feeling and revolutionary sympathy, when he concurred in the execution of the stoker of the "Numancia."
If law and justice are identical and to comply with the law is invariably to do justice, then what can be the distinction between the progressive and the conservative? On the other hand, the revolutionist has no alternative but to hold that law and justice are not the same, and so he is obliged to subscribe to the benevolent character of all crimes which are altruistic and social in their purposes, whether they are reactionary or anarchistic in tendency.