cause of this dissatisfaction which has
never ceased to gird me, and which I have learned girds all men of
intelligence who lead an active life. I think it is that such men are
like a civilized man who has to live among a savage tribe. To keep
alive, to have influence, he must pretend to accept the savage point of
view, must pretend to disregard his own knowledge and intelligent
methods, must play the game of life with the crude, clumsy counters of
caste and custom and creed and thought which the savages regard as fit
and proper. Intelligent men of action do see as clearly as the
philosophers; but they have to pretend to adapt their mental vision to
that of the mass of their fellow men or, like the philosophers, they
would lead lives of profitless inaction, enunciating truths which are of
no value to mankind until it rediscovers them for itself. No man of
trained reasoning power could fail to see that the Golden Rule is not a
piece of visionary altruism, but a sound principle of practical
self-interest. Or, could anything be clearer, to one who takes the
trouble really to think about it, than that he who advances himself at
the expense of his fellow men does not advance, but sinks down into the
class of murderers for gain, thieves, and all those who seek to advance
themselves by injustice? Yet, so feeble is man's reason, so near to the
brute is he, so under the rule of brute appetites, that he can not
think beyond the immediate apparent good, beyond to-day's meal.

I once said to Scarborough: "Politics is the science and art of fooling
the people."

"That is true, as far as it goes," he said. "If that were all, justice,
which is only another name for common sense, would soon be established.
But, unfortunately, politics is the art of playing upon cupidity, the
art of fooling the people into thinking they are helping to despoil the
other fellow and will get a share of the swag."

And he was right. It is by subtle appeal to the secret and shamefaced,
but controlling, appetites of men that the clever manipulate them. To
get a man to vote for the right you must show him that he is voting for
the personally profitable. And very slow he is to believe that what is
right can be practically profitable. Have not the preachers been
preaching the reverse all these years; have they not been insisting that
to do right means treasure in Heaven only?

* * * * *

It was in my second term as Senator, to