The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-07-27
SIXTEEN

without bond of sympathy being devel-
oped between them. Good men in warfare
are always generous to the weak, quick to
the helpless and needy, generous in stand
ing aside for those more worthy.
Ii every man who worked in politics got
an Office, as every man in stock company
gets share of stock, politics might be said
to be based on seltishness; but it is case
where the forty-nine men work for the
hftieth. Here you see men in a school of
generosity, the many working for the one,
and not working for him so much as party
and country. If the work OF the forty nine
for the one be called friendship, the indict-
ment is one of compliment. For there Is
no friendship without faith, and no faith
among good men unless the man who is
trusted is good himself The average
American voter knows that the protection
of his home and of his own life, as well as
that of his country, is involved in his poll
tlcal action and his choice of men for office
Therefore, in contests into which men
carry their own convictions of honor. their
love of country and their sense of pro-
lection for their families, they show at
their best, and are constantly developed for
the best that is IN them, rather than for
the worst
The world of politics takes care of its
poor. helps TO reform by human sympathy
and cheer those who have made mistakes,
helps 10 make everything fair and free
from successful accusation or stain, as
much as any other of the organized forms
Of society. Its in contest that men learn
to know each other. 1t is in contest that
they learn to be generous. Politics has de-
veloped good fellowship in many chap
who never knew before what good fellow
ship was. 1t has taught him to be gener-
Gus where he was little and mean before.
1t has Shamed him into the display of man
hood where it was not in him to be manly
before Participation in a great political
contest, the same as participation in Office
tends to make a man conservative. Put
responsibility On an American and you
have got your best American. Put respon-
sloility on men in a political convention
and you have made better Americans of
them. Men go together in politics to help
serve their country. Theiudictment of men
In politics Tor selfishness has nothing to
stand on. There are twelve or thirteen
millions of men who are active in politics,
and there are less than three hundred
thousand Offices. Why indict the thirteen
million men who go into politics as all hunt
ing for an Office, in face of this great fact
that there is not an office for one in fifty!
Why not be fair. Why should not intel
lectual critics and moral cynics be fair
even with workers in politics. 1t would be
a great change, and new experience to
them; but why not try it for once!
In the last year, holding an humble place
In the government where have had to do
business with every neighborhood in the
United States for every neighborhoed has
postolfice, and every man in every neigh
borhod is interested in the postoffice), 1
have had abundant opportunity to study
this side of human nature. 1t has refreshed
my faith in mankind. In the hundreds of
nd n hot To
in the hundreds of thousands of men
with whom l have talked, and on whose
counsel l have acted, l have found that
ninety mine times out of hundred the
noblest motives, those that are dearest in
the family and safest in the nation, are at
the bottom of their counsel. The love of
country has been shown by the Union sol
der everywhere being given the prefer
ence-and he has had it two times out of
three. and In ninety-tive cases out of one
hundred where he at all times deserved it,
or was competent for the office. 1t has
been shown again in the voluntary act of
men in politics everywhere in the last year
who had made the fight for their party and
won 1t, voluntarily taking themselves out
OF chance for office, and recommending
women-widows, without other means of
support elder daughters left to support
the family, girls with no other means of a
living, children of distinguished families
left poor-and placing them in one office
instead. There have been thousands of
cases of this kind. Every one of them is
noble disproof of the charge of professional
morallstS and cynlcS that all politics is sci
fishness and all politicians selfish men,
| have seen thousands of other disproofs
of the challenge. Thousands of men have
come to Washington to serve some deserv-
ing person, paid their own expenses and
taken valuable time for the good errand
L have known thousand men in the last
year each to spend more than the salary
Tor year of the office sought for, saying
nothing OF their time, to come to Washing
ton and get small postoffice for some dis
abled soldier or some needy woman. The
files OF the postoffice department are lumi.
nous with letters of good human feeling
and kindness and of the desire of good men
to serve those who are worthy or who are
in need. If had been cynic, hater of
my kind, doubter of the good in men, q
believer in selhshness in politics, wher
took this Office l now hold a year ago, this
past years experience alone would have
converted me and taught me to love better
than ever my fellow men, taught me to
believe in the good in human nature, and
taught me that in America almost every
man is willing to serve his deserving neigh
Dor. Indeed, years service in any public
pOSlUlOQ would increase the latin OF almost
any man in his fellow men.
In public places you see human nature
from every angle. The motives of men arc
laid bare to your eye. Selfishness comes
to show its ugly face very often, as it does
in every profession and vocation of life:
but very much more often comes the gooC
that is IN human nature, with its open gen
erous hand, its warm and trusting heart
and its desire to serve some human being
that IS IN need, or some good motive that
will help the government. | venture to say
that there are more sacrifices made by men
in politics, sacrifices that it costs them
more to make, than in any other form OF
society in America. 1t is said to be good
test in Christian zeal to sacrifice and give
so that it hurts. 1t ought to be as good a
test in politics; and there has not been a
day since | have been in Washington that
| have not seen men make sacrifices that
hurt, sacrifices that were purely for human
kindness, party good, or the good of the
government. Others may afford to ignore
and peck at such generosity. l am too poor
in superior virtues to scott at any such no
bility.
Another noble thing IN politics is that
men in politics for the present time do not
forget those who passed before them in the
previous generation. | have seen hundreds
of men in the past year give up chance of
office for themselves to let it 90 to the son
or daughter of some man who had served
his country well, or his party generously,
and gone his way and left his family poor.
Indeed, think there is something of good,
not only in the Republican but in the Dem
ocratic party, that prompts both to consid-
erations of humanity of this kind. I know
that in the present administration the sons
and daughters of distinguished men now
hot
given official place and shown great con-
sideration because their fathers in their
time served the country well and left their
descendants poor. Every department in
Washington is proof of this There is
hardly room in any of the departments