Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/206

192 commonwealth. Theoretically the representatives are supposed to be the best and wisest of all the citizens; in reality they are the most ambitious, the most pushing and the coarsest. Theoretically the vote deposited in favor of a candidate means that he is known and trusted by the voter; in reality the voter knows nothing whatever about him except that a set of ranting speech-makers have been deafening him for weeks with the candidate's name and placarding it before his eyes. The forces which theoretically keep the parliamentary machine in motion, are experience, foresight and abnegation of self; in reality they are strength of will, egotism and fluency of speech. Culture, intelligence and noble sentiments are defeated by noisy eloquence and indomitable audacity, and the halls of legislature are ruled, not by true wisdom, but by individual, obstinate wills.

Not an atom of the right of representative legislation supposed to be gained by universal suffrage, falls to the individual average citizen. Now as much as ever before is my poor Hans obliged to pay taxes and to obey the authorities, bruising his elbows again and again, by coming in contact with the thousand absurd restrictions that hem him in on every side. All the share he has in the whole business of representative legislation, with all its fuss and ceremonies, is his fatigue on election days, from walking to the-polls, and his dissatisfaction that more entertaining and profitable reading matter is crowded out of the newspapers to make room for the uninteresting, interminable congressional debates.