Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/307



unselfish purpose; nor his capacity to do great deeds. All the stated objections of his fellow- business men to this business man in politics are silly and all their real objections are nothing but the symptoms of the corruption of the commercial mind and its class-conscious folly. The trouble with Mr. Spreckels is that he is, like his critics, a business man and that his scheme for political reform is a business scheme.

He believes that all men are divided into two classes: gqqcLmen and bad men. Anybody who has thought about actual life knows that there is something in the plea of railroad and public utility men, that they “have to” be bad; that there are certain businesses which no man can “succeed” at and be honest. But Mr. Spreckels has that great fault of the self-made man; he has learned not from the experience of others, but only from his own, and what he doesn’t know isn’t known. He is unacquainted with the literature and the history of politics and government; he has no economic enlightenment at all. He is truly a practical man, and his practical experience is exceptional. He knows that he, as a gas magnate, did not bribe anybody and that he didn’t “have to.” If you call his attention to the salient fact that he didn’t make a “success” of gas; that he didn’t “finance” the