Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/200

186 knowing anything more about him than that he is recommended and endorsed by a committee of men who are often as perfect strangers as the candidate himself. And it does no good to rebel against this act of violence, for such it is. A private citizen who accepts seriously his constitutional rights and wishes to learn more about the man to whom these important trusts are to be confided, tries in vain to resist the tyranny of the committee, forcing upon his acceptance a candidate of whom he knows so little. His resistance is impotent and his conscientiousness is smothered and lost in the indolence of the crowd. What can he do? He can stay away from the polls on election day, or vote for the man of his individual preference. But neither of these proceedings will help him in the slightest. The man will be elected nevertheless, for whom the great mass of the thoughtless, the indifferent or the intimidated deposit their votes, and this mass proclaims always the name which has been kept most loudly, forcibly and constantly before the public. It is true that theoretically every citizen is at liberty to endorse the man of his individual choice, to convene meetings for him, and create a party to support him. But in real life it is much more difficult to win adherents by extolling the superior virtues of a candidate, than by promising advantages of all kinds. In consequence of this fact the citizen who conscientiously tries to practise his political rights with a view to the welfare of the community, will always find himself in the minority, while the majority are following the lead of the professional politicians who carry on their public life as a regular lucrative business career.

This is the physiology of the elections of members to representative bodies. The one elected is supposed to be the man in whom the majority have confidence, whereas he is in reality, only the choice of an insignificant minority.