Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-11-05
BUSINESS MEN IN POLITICS

II am firmly of the belief" said Mr..
Cleveland in his address to the bust
ness men OF New York city a few
nights ago, ''that if a few business
men could be substituted for profess
sional men in official places, the peo-
pie would positively gain by the ex-
change" This was said in furtherance
of the idea that business men owe a
duty to the public, REINFORCED by one
mo less important to their own inter-
ests of taking an active part in political
affairs. The distinguished Democrat
was eminently correct. Much of the
evil resulting from modern political
methods proceed from the apathy and
do-nothing neglectfulness of the very
class of men who ought to be most ac-
tive in shaping the political affairs of
the state-the very men whose inter-
ests are directly affected by ignorant,
vicious or misjudged political action.
What doth it profit the most energetic
man of affairs if the manipulations and
combinations of selfish or ignorant
politicians of the professional sort, or
unwise legislation, thwart or counterfeit
his industry, and defeat the results of
all his planning and his calculations?
When the evil result manifests itself,
and he finds his affairs turned topsy
turvy by the folly or the crime of 9TH
ers, he is the first to make an cutlery,
to denounce the politicians and dema
gogues, and to deplore the degeneracy
of modern politics. He cries loudest
over his spilled milk when he and
others of his class are in measure re-
spousible for the misfortune. Such
wailing and gnashing of teeth is not
only unphilosophical, but illogical and
unbecoming. 1t betrays a strange for
getfulness of the history of professional
politics and demagogy, whose path
way is marked by continuous stream
o fspilled milk, of wrecked hopes, and
miscarriages.
The politics of the day is an essen
tial element OF every mans business,
no more to be neglected or ignored
than any of the other factors entering
into his calculations-in fact, politics
is, if rightfully considered, the princi-
pal thing to be thought of by all men
of live business instincts who have SO
much to fear from sudden or abrupt al
terations in laws, the collection OF
taxes and the distribution of the public
funds. They talk of their unwillingness
to get down into ''the political mire"
and so on. That is a mere begging of
the question. The political mire, So
called. exists, if at all, through their
neglect. If they went into politics
more, there would be less mud and
fewer puddles. If politics is often dirty,
it is because it is left to the care of
those who revel in mire and mud.
Somebody has said that a pigs notion
of parlor is room with puddle in
the middle of it. If parlors were occu-
pied by pigs, mud would take the place
of carpets. IT'S even so in the politi-
cal arena. The way to get rid of the
mud is to cast out the mud wallowers
and mud singers as the money-chang-
ers were dashed from the temple, and
introduce cleaner and more orderly and
systematic methods. Substitute COM
potency for incompetency, brains for
Drawn, honesty for crookedness, and
there will be fewer jobs, deals and
pulls. There will be far less discordant
jarring and whirring in the working of
the political machine, and business &C.
tivities and interests will experience
fewer spasms and ST. Vitus dances
from alien land laws of the Gossett pat
tern