Page:Notes on democracy - 1926.djvu/147

. I point, as examples, to the cases of Fremont Older, of San Francisco, and Julian Harris, of Columbus, Ga., two honest, able and courageous men, and both opposed by the vast majority of their colleagues. The democratic process, indeed, is furiously inimical to all honourable motives. It favours the man who is without them, and it puts heavy burdens upon the man who has them. Going further, it is even opposed to mere competence. The public servant who masters his job gains nothing thereby. His natural impatience with the incapacity and slacking of his fellows makes them his implacable enemies, and he is viewed with suspicion by the great mass of democrats. But here I enter upon a subject already discussed at length by a competent French critic, the late Emile Faguet, of the French Academy, who gave a whole book to it, translated into English as "The Cult of Incompetence." Under democracy, says Faguet, the business of law-making becomes a series of panics—government by orgy and orgasm. And the public service becomes a mere refuge for prehensile morons—get yours, and run.