West-Jersey pioneer., 1882-11-23
UNHAPPY POLITICS.

What most unsatisfactory life the
life of professional politicians must be!
The vast majority of them go from dis
appointment to disappointment. For
every position there are at least a hun
dred candidates; hence, of necessity,
ninety-nine applicants are disappointed.
do not suppose that all the complaints
made all up and down the land are found
ed in unadulterated patriotism. The
simple fact is, the disappointment is
more than they can bear. By an mex
orable law, we cannot have more than
six Presidents in a generation. What
discouraging thing to seek the Presi-
dency, when out of the one thousand
who think themselves fit for the office
only five men can getit! There is more
probability that any of them will be
struck with lightning than that they get
to be President. Ifyou, through love of
city, or State, or nation, seek official po-
sition, go ahead; but if you seek it for
livelihood, or seek it for fun, you make
terrible mistake. Always vote. Al
ways attend the cancus Always use
your best influence for the betterment
OF the public interest. But he who en-
ters politics as a profession, hoping from
it to get famous and high places, is in all
probability committing fatal blunder.
Through all the wards, through all the
townships, through all the States at this
time, either through failure to secure
nominations, or through failure of cleo
ton after being put on the ticket, there
are people sore of head and sore of heart,
cast down and misanthropic. The time
was when men were SO far from Office
seeking that they had by penalties to be
compelled to take Office. The Court OF
Plymouth, in 1852, enacted that ''Who-
ever should refuse the office of Cover
nor should pay twenty pounds sterling,
unless he should be chosen two years
successfully; and whoever should refuse
the office of councillor or magistrate
should pay ten pounds" Nomore such
compulsion is necessary, and the scram-
bic is terrific, Notwithstanding all the
peril financial, social and eternal. Ma
caulay wrote: Every friendship which
man may have becomes precarious as
soon as he engages in politics. Thorn
as Corwin, the great orator of Ohio, said
to man who wanted him to get him Of
fetal position at Washington: accept
q clerkship here and you sink at once all
independence. l may give you place
to day, and | can kick you out again to-
morrow, and there is another man over
at the White House who can kick me
out, and the people by-and-by can kick
him out and so we go. But if you own
one acre of land it is your kingdom, and
your cabin is your castle. You are a
sovereign, and you will feel it in every
throb of your pulse, and every day of
your life will assure me of your thanks
for having thus advised you" But if
you have a mission in public affairs, ad
vance confidently. Whatever our hands
fndeth to do in any department of So
cial, or civic, or religious duty, let us do
it. The weeks go by, and swifter than
the comet in our morning heavens we
are speeding into the great future.
What we have to do for this worlds
improvement we must do quickly or
never do it at all. Napoleon said that
the Austrians failed at Rivoi because
they did not know the value of minutes
DR.. TaEmage, IN Frank LeSlie's Sunday
Magazine for December.