Page:Confessions of an Economic Heretic.djvu/74

 contact. One of my early American friends was John Graham Brooks, who for many years was the chief interpreter of current European affairs to American audiences and the closest student of new American movements. Though his sympathies were exceedingly liberal, he owed much of his influence to a careful adhesion to a descriptive factual method of address which enabled him to keep on easy terms of communication with all sorts and conditions of men. Professor E. A. Ross, one of the foremost sociologists, also helped me towards a clearer understanding of American affairs, when I spent a fortnight with him on a lecture visit to Wisconsin. He and Veblen (of whom I shall speak later) seemed to me to have the most comprehensive understanding of the recent evolution of American political-economic life. Incidentally, my visit to Madison gave me an interesting light upon a type of political leader whose mentality would have been impossible in any European country. Madison was the “home town” of William Jennings Bryan, whose rhetorical campaign on the Silver question brought him within sight of the Presidency. As he drove me about the country in his “buggy” he dilated upon the advantages of the scrapping of officials with every change of party, because it brought new men with new experiences into office. The idea that new officials might not be as good as experienced office holders never occurred to him. Every American could easily adapt himself to any post to which, for party reasons,