Some improvement in this
direction has been made by the appearance of the set of people known as
the "Mugwumps," who are, in the main, men of cultivation. They have been
defined in various ways. They are known to the masses mainly as
"kickers"; that is, dissatisfied, querulous people, who complain of
everybody and cannot submit to party discipline. But they are the only
critics who do not criticize in the interest of party, but simply in
that of good government. They are a kind of personage whom the bulk of
the voters know nothing about and find it difficult to understand, and
consequently load with ridicule and abuse. But their movement, though
its visible recognizable effects on elections may be small, has done
inestimable service in slackening the bonds of party discipline, in
making the expression of open dissent from party programmes respectable
and common, and in increasing the unreliable vote in large States like
New York. It is of the last importance that this unreliable vote--that
is, the vote which party leaders cannot count on with certainty--should
be large in such States. The mere fear of it prevents a great many
excesses.

But in criticism one always has hard work in steering a straight course
between optimism and pessimism. These are the Scylla and Charybdis of
the critic's career. Almost every man who thinks or speaks about public
affairs is either an optimist or a pessimist; which he is, depends a
good deal on temperament, but often on character. The political jobber
or corruptionist is almost always an optimist. So is the prosperous
business man. So is nearly every politician, because the optimist is
nearly always the more popular of the two. As a general rule, people
like cheerful men and the promise of good times. The kill-joy and bearer
of bad news has always been an odious character. But for the cultivated
man there is no virtue in either optimism or pessimism. Some people
think it a duty to be optimistic, and for some people it may be a duty;
but one of the great uses of education is to teach us to be neither one
nor the other. In the management of our personal affairs, we try to be
neither one nor the other. In business, a persistent and uproarious
optimist would certainly have poor credit. And why? Because in business
the trustworthy man, as everybody knows, is the man who sees things as
they are: and to see things as they are, without glamor or illusion, is
the first condition of worldly succe