Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/195

Rh until he is threatened with the loss of his authority. Then he will do what is necessary to retain it, as he did before what was necessary to obtain it. He will either bind upon his brow the wreath of promises and party cries or else threaten the grumblers, as the emergency may require. This sequence of logical premises and conclusions is called by the world representative legislation.

We must study the details of the profession of politician before we can appreciate how shamelessly the practice of Parliamentism belies its theory.

How does a man become a representative to Congress or Parliament? Only once in ten years or so does it happen that the voting public seeks some sagacious and honest fellow citizen and begs him to be its representative, and even in this case it is usually under the influence of certain circumstances which deprive it completely of its ideality. Some party has an interest in placing the authority in the hands of this chosen man, perhaps because his name will be an ornament to its standard, or else to oppose a strong candidate to the dangerous one nominated by the other party. In this case the candidate's name is advertised and his virtues celebrated, without any effort on his part, without any solicitation from him, and the office falls to the most suitable one among the citizens according to the abstract theory of representation. But the case is usually entirely different: some ambitious individual steps up before his fellow-citizens and tries to convince them that he, more than any one else, deserves their confidence. What motive impels him to this step? Because he feels an impulse within him to make himself useful to the community? Who can believe this? Men are rarely met with in