XIV
HE DEFENDS CAMPAIGN METHODS
"Good-morning, gentlemen," said the Idiot, cheerily, as he entered thebreakfast-room. "This is a fine Sunday morning in spite of the gloominto which the approaching death of the campaign should plunge us all."
"You think that, do you?" observed the Bibliomaniac. "Well, I don'tagree with you. I for one am sick and tired of politics, and it will bea great relief to me when it is all over."
"Dear me, what a blase old customer you are, Mr. Bib," returned theIdiot. "Do you mean to say that a Presidential campaign does not keepyour nerve-centres in a constant state of pleasurable titillation? Why,to me it is what a bag full of nuts must be to a squirrel. I fairlygloat over these quadrennial political campaigns of ours. They are to meamong the most exhilarating institutions of modern life. They satisfyall one's zest for warfare without the distressing shedding of bloodwhich attends real war, and regarded from the standpoint of humor, Iknow of nothing that, to the eye of an ordinarily keen observer, is moreprovocative of good, honest, wholesome mirth."
"I don't see it," said Mr. Bib. "To my mind, the average politicalcampaign is just a vulgar scrap in which men who ought to know betterdescend to all sorts of despicable trickery merely to gain theemoluments of office. This quest for the flesh-pots of politics, so farfrom being diverting, is, to my notion, one of the most deplorableexhibitions of human weakness that modern civilization, so called, hasproduced. A couple of men are put up for the most dignified office knownto the world--both are gentlemen by birth and education, men of honor,men who, you would think, would scorn baseness as they hate poison--andthen what happens? For three weary months the followers of each attackthe character and intelligence of the other until, if you reallybelieved what was said of either, neither in your estimation would havea shred of reputation left. Is that either diverting or elevating oreducational or, indeed, anything but deplorable?"
"It's perfectly fine," said the Idiot, "to think that we have men in thecountry whose characters are such that they can stand four months ofsuch a test. That's what I find elevating in it. When a man who isnominated for the Presidency in June or July can emerge in Novemberunscathed in spite of the minute scrutiny to which himself and hisrecord and the record of his sisters and his cousins and his aunts havebeen subjected, it's time for the American rooster to get upon his hindlegs and give three cheers for himself and the people to whom hebelongs. Even old Diogenes, who spent his life looking for an honestman, would have to admit every four years that he could spot himinstantly by merely coming to this country and taking his choice fromamong the several candidates."
"You must admit, however," said the Bibliomaniac, "that a man with anhonorable name must find it unpleasant to have such outrageous storiestold of him."
"Not a bit of it," laughed the Idiot. "The more outrageous the better.For instance, when _The Sunday Jigger_ comes out with a four-pagerevelation of your Republican candidate's past, in which we learn how,in 1873, he put out the eyes of a maiden aunt with a red-hot poker, andstabbed a negro cook in the back with a skewer, because she would notpermit him to put rat-poison in his grandfather's coffee, you knowperfectly well that that story has been put forth for the purpose ofturning the maiden aunt, negro, and grandfather votes against him. Youknow well enough that he either never did what is charged against him,or at least that the story is greatly exaggerated--he may have stuck apin into the cook, and played some boyish trick upon some of hisrelatives--but the story on the face of it is untrue and thereforeharmless. Similarly with the Democratic candidate. When the _Daily FlimFlam_ asserts that he believes that the working-man is entitled to fourcents a day for sixteen hours' work, and has repeatedly avowed thatbread and water is the proper food for motormen, everybody withcommon-sense realizes at once that even the _Flim Flam_ doesn't believethe story. It hurts no one, therefore, and provokes a great deal ofinnocent mirth. You don't yourself believe that last yarn about theProhibition candidate, do you?"
"I haven't heard any yarn about him," said the Bibliomaniac.
"That he is the owner of a brewery up in Rochester, and backs fifteensaloons and a pool-room in New York?" said the Idiot.
"Of course I don't," said the Bibliomaniac. "Who does?"
"Nobody," said the Idiot; "and therefore the story doesn't hurt theman's reputation a bit, or interfere with his chances of election in theleast. Take that other story published in a New York newspaper that onthe 10th of last August Thompson Bondifeller's yacht was seen anchoredfor six hours off Tom Watson's farm, two hundred miles from the sea, andthat the Populist candidate, disguised as a bank president, went offwith the trust magnate on a cruise from Atlanta, Georgia, toOklahoma--you don't believe that, do you?"
"It's preposterous on the face of it," said Mr. Bib.
"Well, that's the way the thing works," said the Idiot. "And that's whyI think there's a lot of bully good fun to be had out of a politicalcampaign. I love anything that arouses the imagination of a people toomuch given over to the pursuit of the cold, hard dollar. If it wasn'tfor these quadrennial political campaigns to spur the fancy on toglorious flights we should become a dull, hard, prosaic, unimaginativepeople, and that would be death to progress. No people can progress thatlacks imagination. Politics is an emery-wheel that keeps our witspolished."
"Well, granting all that you say is true," said the Bibliomaniac, "theintrusion upon a man's private life that politics makes possible--surelyyou cannot condone that."
The Idiot laughed.
"That's the strangest argument of all," he said. "The very idea of a manwho deliberately chooses public life as the sphere of his activitiesseeking to hide behind his private life is preposterous. The fellow whodoes that, Mr. Bib, wants to lead a double life, and that isreprehensible. The man who offers himself to the people hasn't anybusiness to tie a string to any part of him. If Jim Jones wants to bePresident of the United States the people who are asked to put him therehave a right to know what kind of a person Jim Jones is in hisdressing-gown and slippers. If he beats his mother-in-law, and eatsasparagus with the sugar-tongs, and doesn't pay his grocer, the publichave a right to know it. If he has children, the voters are perfectlyjustified in asking what kind of children they are, since the voters ownthe White House furniture, and if the Jim Jones children wipe theirfeet on plush chairs, and shoot holes in the paintings with theirbean-snappers and putty-blowers, Uncle Sam, as a landlord and owner ofthe premises, ought to be warned beforehand. You wouldn't yourself renta furnished residence to a man whose children were known to have builtbonfires in the parlor of their last known home, would you?"
"I think not," smiled the Bibliomaniac.
"Then you cannot complain if Uncle Sam is equally solicitous about thepersonal paraphernalia of the man who asks to occupy his little cottageon the Potomac," said the Idiot. "So it happens that when a man runs forthe Presidency the persons who intrude upon his private life, as you putit, are conferring a real service upon their fellow-citizens. When Ihear from an authentic source that Mr. So-and-So, the candidate of theThisorthatic party for the Presidency, is married to an estimable ladywho refers to all Frenchmen as parricides, because she believes theyhave come from Paris, I have a right to consider whether or not I wishto vote to place such a lady at the head of my official table at WhiteHouse banquets, where she is likely, sooner or later, to encounter theFrench ambassador, and the man who gives me the necessary information isdoing me a service. You may say that the lady is not running for apublic office, and that, therefore, she should be protected from publicscrutiny, but that is a fallacy. A man's wife is his better half and hischildren are a good part of the remainder, and what they do or don't dobecomes a matter of legitimate public concern. As a matter of fact, apublic man _can_ have no private life."
"Then you approve of these stories of candidates' cousins, the prattlinganecdotes of their grandchildren, these paragraphs narrating the doingsof their uncles-in-law, and all that?" sneered the Bibliomaniac.
"Certainly, I do," said t
he Idiot. "When I hear that Judge Torkin'sgrandson, aged four, has come out for his grandfather's opponent I amdelighted, and give the judge credit for the independent spirit whichheredity accounts for; when it is told to me that Tom Watson's uncle isgoing to vote for Tom because he knows Tom doesn't believe what he says,I am almost inclined to vote for him as the uncle of his country; when Ihear that Debs's son, aged three, has punched his daddy in the eye, ongeneral principles I feel that there's a baby I want in the White House;and when it is told to me that the Prohibition candidate's third cousinhas just been cured of delirium tremens, I feel that possibly there is afamily average there that may be struck to the advantage of thecountry."
"Say, Mr. Idiot," put in the Poet, at this point, "who are you going tovote for, anyhow?"
"Don't ask me," laughed the Idiot. "I don't know yet. I admire all thecandidates personally very much."
"But what are your politics--Republican or Democratic?" asked theLawyer.
"Oh, that's different," said the Idiot. "I'm a Sammycrat."
"A what?" cried the Idiot's fellow-boarders in unison.
"A Sammycrat," said the Idiot. "I'm for Uncle Sam every time. He's thebest ever."
The Genial Idiot: His Views and Reviews Page 15
