Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-09-01
xxxIII.
A "Spasn Of Virtue"

chairman of the national committee and
went abroad with my daughters. We stayed
there until Scarborough was inaugurated.
He had got his nomination from a con-
vention of men who hated and feared him.
but who dared not flout the people and
ding away victory; he had got his election
because the defections from our ranks in
the doubtful states far unbalanced Good
richs extensive purchases there with the
huge campaign fund of the interests. The
wheel-horse Partianship, had broken
down, and the leader, Plutocracy, could not
draw the chariot to victory alone.
AS soon as the election was over, our
people began to cable me to come home and
take charge. But l waited until Woodruff
and my other faithful lieutenants had thor
oughly convinced all the officers Of the ma
chine how desperate It's plight was, and
that 1 alone could repair and restore. and
that l. could do 1t only If absolute control
were given me. When the ship reached
quarantine Woodruff came aboard; and. not
having seen him In many months, / was
able to see, and was startled by, the con-
trast between the Doc Woodruff had met
on the train more years before than ! cared
to cast up, and the United States Sena-
tor Woodruff, high in the councils of the
party and high in the esteem of Its paru-
sans among the people He was saying:
You can have anything you want, sens-
tor and on. But / was thinking of
him, Of the vicissitudes of politics, of the
unending struggle of the foul stream to
purity itself, to sink or to saturate its
mud. For we ought not to forget that II
the clear water Is saturated with mud,
also the mud Is saturated with clear water
A week or so after l resumed the chair
manship Scarborough invited me to lunch
alone with him at the White House. When
/ had seen him, four years before, just af-
ter his defeat, he was in high spirits and
looked youth. Now 1t depressed me, but
gave me no surprise, to find him worn and
OF hyyf hof frary io cldn yx-h % NJ.
opies every one of the seats Of the mighty.
II fear, Mr.. President said l, you are
finding the men who will help you to carry
out your ideas as rare as l once warned
you they were"
Not rare" was his answer, but hard to
get at through the throngs of Baal-wor-
shippers that have descended upon me and
are trying to hedge me in
fortunately, you are free from political
and social entanglements,' said /, with
ironic intent.
He laughed with only slightly concealed
bitterness. From political entanglements
yes said he. But not from social tolls.
Ever since 1 have been in national life, my
wife and I have held ourselves socially
aloof, because those with whom we would
naturally and even inevitably associate
would be precisely those who would some
day beset me for immunities and favors
Ano how can one hold to a course of any
sort of Justice, If doing so means assailing
all ones friends and their friends and rela-
are of the rich. of the successful, of the
clever, of the socially agreeable and charm
ing. And how can one enforce justice
against ones dinner companions-and In
favor of whom? OF the people, voiceless,
distant, unknown to one. Personal friend
ship on the one side; on the other, an alb
straction."
II should not class you among those like
ly to yield many inches to the social bride,
said I.
THAT is pleasant, but not candid" replied
he. with his simple directness. No man
of your experience could fail to know that
the social bride is the arch-corrupter, the
one briber whom 1t is not in human nature
to resist. But, as 1 was saying, to my
amazement, in spite OF my wife's precau-
lions and mine. l find myself beset-and
with what devilish insidiousness! When 1
refuse, simply to save myself from fla
grant treachery to my obligations of duty
l find myself seeming, even to my wife and
to myself, churlish and priggish; Pharisai-
cal, in the loathsome attitude Of a moral
poseur. Common honesty, in presence of
this social bribe, takes on the sneaking
leming of rottenest hypocrisy. 1t is In
deed hard to get through and to get at the
men l want and need and must and Will
have"
Impossible" said l. "And If you could
get at them, and If the Senate would let
you put them where they seem to you to
belong. the temptation would be too much
for them. They, too. would soon become
Baal-worshipers. the more assiduous for
their long abstinence"
Some" he admitted, perhaps most But
at least a few would stand the test-and
just one such would repay and justify all
the labor of all the search. The trouble
with you pessimists Is that you don't take
our ancestry into account Man isn't a
falling angel, but rising animal So
every impulse toward the decent. every
CLEAN Of light, is a tremendous gain. The
wonder isn't the bad, but the good; isn't
that we are so imperfect, but that in such
q far nd a. va pnr Cn
far up. l know you and l have in the
main the same purpose-where is there
man who'd like to think the world the
worse for his having lived? But we work
by different means. You believe the best
results can be got through that in man
which he has inherited from the past-by
balancing passion against passion, by Off
setting appetite, with appetite. l hope for
results from that in the man of today
which is the seed, the prophecy, of the man
who is to be-
Your method has had one recent and
very striking apparent success" said l..
Certainly" he replied, land so, too will
the succeeding spasm of reaction. Also.
your party must improve itself-and mine,
too-as the result of this spasm of virtue"
For time" / admitted. Il envy you
your courage and hope. But l can't share
in them. You will serve four stormy years;
you will retire with friends less devoted
and enemies more bitter; you will be mis-
remote possibility that your vindication will
come before you are too old to be offered
second term And the harvest from the
best you SOW will be ruined in some flood
of reaction
NO" he answered. "It will be reaped.
The evil 1 do, all evil, passes The good
will be reaped. Nothing good is lost"
'And If 1t is reaped," l reioined, 1.-The
feaping will not come until long, long after
YOU are mere name in history"
Even as spoke my doubts I was wishing
[ had kept them to myself; for thought I,
there's no poorer business than shooting
at the beautiful soaring bird of illusion.
But he was looking at me without seeing
me. His expression suggested the throwing
open of the blinds hiding a mans Utmost
self.
'If a man." said he. absently, fixes his
mind not on making friends or defeating
enemies, not on elections or on history, but
Just on avoiding from day to day. from act
to act. the condemnation of his own self
respect" The blinds closed as suddenly
as they had .opened-he had become con-
scious that some one was looking in. And
/ was wishing again that ! had kept my
doubts to myself; for l now saw that what
had thought bright bird of Illusion was
in fact the lost star which lighted my own
youth.
Happy the man who through strength or
through luck guides his whole life by the