Page:Notes on democracy - 1926.djvu/148

 9.

Footnote on Lame Ducks

Faguet makes no mention of one of the curious and unpleasant by-products of democracy, of great potency for evil in both England and the United States: perhaps, for some unknown reason, it is less a nuisance in France. I allude to the sinister activity of professional politicians who, in the eternal struggle for office and its rewards, have suffered crushing defeats, and are full of rage and bitterness. All politics, under democracy, resolves itself into a series of dynastic questions: the objective is always the job, not the principle. The defeated candidate commonly takes his failure very badly, for it leaves him stripped bare. In most cases his fellow professionals take pity on him and put him into some more or less gaudy appointive office, to preserve his livelihood and save his face: the Federal commissions that harass the land are full of such lame ducks, and they are not unknown on the Federal bench. But now and then there appears one whose wounds are too painful to be assuaged by such devices, or for whom no