He Is Politically Popular With A Large Section Of
The Nation, And Therefore It Has Been Thought Well To Promote Him To
High Place.
Whether he be fit for such place either as regards
capability or integrity, seems to be considered of no moment.
The same argument must be used with reference to the other gentlemen
named. Mr. Welles is still a cabinet minister and Secretary of the
Navy. It has been found impossible to keep Mr. Cameron in the
cabinet, but he was named as the minister of the States government
to Russia, after the publication of the Van Wyck report, when the
result of his old political friendship with Mr. Alexander Cummings
was well known to the President who appointed him and to the Senate
who sanctioned his appointment. The individual corruption of any
one man - of any ten men - is not much. It should not be insisted on
loudly by any foreigner in making up a balance-sheet of the virtues
and vices of the good and bad qualities of any nation. But the
light in which such corruption is viewed by the people whom it most
nearly concerns is very much. I am far from saying that democracy
has failed in America. Democracy there has done great things for a
numerous people, and will yet, as I think, be successful. But that
doctrine as to the necessity of smartness must be eschewed before a
verdict in favor of American democracy can be pronounced. "It
behoves a man to be smart, sir." In those words are contained the
curse under which the States government has been suffering for the
last thirty years.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 248 of 531
Words from 66356 to 66630
of 142339
