for three years to try to help your city, or state,
you must not make him subject to recall at any moment by those
candidates or people whom he has had to disappoint in order to do his
work effectively. Under the system of recall you are not going to secure
the men who will work well by looking ahead to preserve the real public
interest, but men who are trimmers, devoting their time to politics and
doing as little as possible to avoid criticism. Your executive officers
should be men of independence, courage and ability, who are interested
in the public and willing to encounter criticism for the time being in
order that they may carry out those policies that are going to inure to
public benefit in the end. By making them subject to recall, you
eliminate all independence and courage in your officers.

Another sign of recent times which will repay consideration has been
aptly termed "muck-raking." Mr. Roosevelt took the word from Bunyan's
"Pilgrim's Progress" to describe the irresponsible and slanderous
attacks upon public officials, which were made merely for the purpose of
selling the wares of penny-a-liners. To eliminate corporations from
politics and to bring them under government control, as I have
described, it was doubtless necessary to formulate charges against
individuals and political leaders and it was not to be expected that
misstatements would not creep into such personal attacks. While many
people were doubtless injured unjustly, it was essential that general
corrupt conditions should be revealed to the public. But there were a
great many who were induced to go into outrageous muck-raking solely for
profit, and magazines filled with such stuff and spreading real poison
among the people were sent in the mails at a much less rate than it cost
the government to carry them. I am glad to say muck-raking is not so
profitable now and it has been greatly reduced in volume.

But the opportunity for attacking prominent and powerful men in this way
has served to create a condition that we still suffer from. It has
brought about a feeling that nobody is to be trusted, and it has spread
too far the idea that all men are corrupt. In fact, it has led to the
feeling that everybody is on the same level in matters of character,
learning, skill and effectiveness of labor, and, in short, that every
man is as good as everybody else in everything. The idea is that men are
on a dead level. There is no room for leadership in such a