small units there are, the sooner the system reaches the
destruction point."

[Illustration: _Sometimes "resignation" means the highest determination
... when you can't simply resign._]

Senator Cannon chuckled. "Any practical politician could have told them
that, but I'm glad to hear that a mathematical tool to work on the
problem has been devised. Maybe one of these days we won't have to be
rule-of-thumb empiricists."

"Let's hope so," said Matt Fisher.

* * * * *

By the end of October, nearly two weeks from Election Day, the decision
had been made. There were still a few Americans who hadn't made up their
minds yet, but not enough to change the election results, even if they
had voted as a bloc for one side or the other. The change from the
shouting and arguing of mid-summer was apparent to anyone who knew what
he was looking for. In the bars and restaurants, in the subways and
buses, aboard planes and ships and trains, most Americans apparently
seemed to have forgotten that there was a national election coming up,
much to the surprise of Europeans and Asians who were not familiar with
the dynamics of American political thought. If a foreigner brought the
subject up, the average American would give his views in a calm manner,
as though the thing were already settled, but there was far more
discussion of the relative merits of the horses running at Pimlico or
the rise in Lunar Developments Preferred than there was of the election.
There were still a few people wearing campaign buttons, but most people
didn't bother pinning them on after the suit came back from the
cleaners.

A more detailed analysis would have shown that this calmness was of two
types. The first, by far in the majority, was the calmness of the
complacent knowledge of victory. The second was the resignation to loss
manifested by those who knew they were backing the wrong man, but who,
because of party loyalty or intellectual conviction or just plain
stubbornness, would back him.

When Senator Cannon's brother, Dr. Frank Hewlitt Cannon, took a short
leave of absence from Mayo Clinic to fly to the senator's campaign
headquarters, there was a flurry of speculation about the possibility of
his being appointed Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, but the
flurry didn't amount to much. If President Cannon wanted to appoint his
brother, that was all right with the voters.

After a tirade by the Soviet Premier,