It is the system that is to be blamed, the
general belief that a man can, and justly may, support himself by clinging
to a set of principles of which he does not honestly approve; that he may
earn his daily meal, since it comes to that in the end, by doing jobs
which in the free state he would despise as unworthy, and by speaking
boldly in support of measures which he knows to be injurious to the
welfare of the country. That is the history, the epitome of the ends and
aims and manner of being of the average politician in our day. He has
ventured into the waters of political life, and they have risen around him
till he must use all his strength in keeping his head above them, though
the torrent carry him whither it will and whither he would not. There are
no compromises when a man is drowning.
"There are many who are not in any such position. There are men great and
honest, and disinterested in the highest sense of the word--men whose
whole lives prove it, whose whole record is one of honor and truth, whose
following consists of men they have themselves chosen as their friends.
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