The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1896-11-22
FAVOR AT COURT OR GETTING NEXT

Perhaps the greatest mystery Oh dI
our most mysterious political life is that
which drifts its misty shape between
the public and the appointive office, re-
vealing only enough to license curiosity
and perchance desire, obscuring just
enough to puzzle and confuse.
Politicians who manipulate cam
paigns by the iron-clad rule of inducing
success by first inducing harmony Id
their own ranks and later by causing
clashes in the opposition and a half
dozen similar weil-known and always
applicable rules, when it comes to secur-
ing an appointment. lose all sense OF
rule and precedent, reel in intellect,
sicken under the sensation or beng
plunged off sheer precipice in the DARK,
and, finally having either won or LOST
are always in doubt as to just what act
or word won or lost the day.
The nation has just passed through
great campaign in which many men
have been elected and many more de-
feated. But one man above all others
was elected-Major Mckinley. He has
at his disposal, in the popular bellef, an
immense patronage. But the popular
belief is merely deluded, for if Major
Mckinley as president would under
take to select man for every place
which must he filed by personal ap-
Il
night and day fer four years. The
popular belief is not the politicians be-
lief. With that practicability which ne
has learned by long association in poll
tics. he starts for no place without ask
ing .sWho does it?' He will argue, If
his place is small, that the president will
certainly not give it personal attention.
Who then? The heads of the depart
ments? Perhaps. And who will handle
him? A state leader, and who Will
handle him? A local leader? And is he
next to him? This is practical politics.
But the path is wary and the trail dim,
and the briers thick and the Dogs deep.
The local leader. once reached, is handl-
ing the tender wires that may jerk his
fortunes up or down. The head OF the
department himself inaccessible, haugh-
ty. serene as he may appear to the mad
ding crowd beneath his window. may
be tussling with some mighty scheme of
his own And the practical politician,
for the only time in his life, having
scented tangles and complications and
clashing combinations from the street
corner of his own town to the closet of a
Washington department, feels that the
ground is gone beneath him and he Is
wholly at the mercy of the same chance
that a man who is dropping through the
infinitude of space, stands Of hitting a
planet.
And into this unsubstantial race,
where a whim may overcome book OF
signatures, where long personal ac-
auaintance may override the terrific
weight Of a complete and harmonious
machine, the man who knows no poll
tics enters with a feather of hope where
the politician has a lance of influential
demand. And knowing that history
has many a record where the slight
feather struck down the Oaken lance,
the man who knows no politics battles
on brayely, pulling the rags of long-for-
gotten friendship together. imploring
the help of former schOolmates, risen to
influence, besieging the gracious aid OF
former partners in other states, and as
suming a tremendous ascendancy over
the power of the local machine.
And as there is no rule to go by and
no trail to travel but only hurdle
scamper. the result is often astonishing.
The politician with his machine has
much the better of it, but there are land
marks all the way back through the
past where he has failed with signal
ignominy and il is this record which
encourages the man without political
influence to glide into the race and eX-
pect in A sort of blind, Hateful manner
favor at court"