Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1907-08-10
rHE EASY MARKS.

Everybody has had his fling at
the bOodler and the CRATER who, so
far as words, go, have perhaps got
pretty nearly all that is coming to
them. But neither boodlers nor
grafters nor political bosses nor ma
chine politicians could do nearly SO
effective work if it were not that
the woods are full of ''easy marks"
I it IS true that the crop of knaves
never fails. il is equally true that it
only thriyes where the soil is soft.
1t is the easy mark who makes the
demagogue possibleand demagogue-
ry pref able. 1t is scarcely
easier to find a patriot who is always
advertising his own virtues than it
is to find a score, a hundred or a
thousand, who will believe in the
existence of those virtues if they
are only Urumpeted with sufficient
volume and persistency.
There are easy marks of various
kinds. There is the easy mark who
is easy because he Is weak and be.
comes the victim of every plausible
and glibtongued fakir that comes
along. There is the easy mark who
doesn't read the papers and fails to
keep informed of what is going on
outside Of his immediate neighbor-
hood, and is consequently easily I'M
posed upon by anyone who con-
fdently assumes to know il all.
There is the easy mark who doesn't
care, and who acts as though the
highest privilege Of American
citizenship were something trivial
to be bartered away as friendship
of temporary self interest or whim
may dictate. Indeed the names of
the members of the easy mark
family are legion. But after all
none of them is capable of doing so
much harm without intending any
wrong as the respecta BILE easy
marks one finds in every community
who dabble in local politics They
are the first to welcome any political
aspirant who comes to town. Their
confidence is soon won by little
adroit fattery. The tongue of the
demagOgue becomes to them that
Of the oracle and the narrative of
his achievements is accepted as Cos
pei truth. The easy mark never
thinks of weighing the claims of
the man who shouts from the |
housetop. He is credited with the
all the knowledge, wisdom and
and diplomacy he assumes to pos
sess. 1t does not take long to make
the easy mark believe that having
sat at the feet of the man who has
imposed himself upon him as a
Gamaliel, he himself has become
great. The easy mark, being active
and of some consequence in his
community, thus becomes an ardent
political evangel, and helps to swell
the volume of publicity by which
many regulations are made More
than one public man in any States
owes the measure of fame he has
achieved TO the persistent putting
by the easy marks who have been
his willing victims. Thus it happens
that here as elsewhere we have
little great men aspiring to posi-
tions to which neither their talents
nor their achievements nor their
measure of integrity entitle them,
simply because they have made it
their business to swing around the
circle picking up cary marks and !
stufing them with tales of what |
they have accomplished which have
no better foundation than some
facility in playing to the galleries |
and a chance elevation to some posi- |
ton in which they might have been
useful but in which they only sue
ceeded IN being cheaply spectacular. ,
FINED $40. 100000.