Behind the Mirrors: The Psychology of Disintegration at Washington — John Shaqi
Behind the Mirrors: The Psychology of Disintegration at WashingtonGilbert, Clinton W. (Clinton Wallace)
History
Behind the Mirrors: The Psychology of Disintegration at Washington
Gilbert, Clinton W. (Clinton Wallace)
Harding, Warren G. (Warren Gamaliel), 1865-1923; United States -- Politics and government -- 1921-1923
Whatever the reason is, whether the inertia of large organization and
the weakening of competition have favored the remaining in power of the
second generation, whether we have evolved but one great type, the
pioneer, whose day is past, and have not yet differentiated the true
business man any more than we have differentiated the true statesman;
whether that psychological change which I have sought to trace, that
denial of freedom which once was the pioneers'--the new laws, the hard
restraints operating now upon business as upon everything else and
enforcing conformity--there are today no Titans, no one stealing fire
from the heaven of Progress for the benefit of the human race--unless
Henry Ford--no Carnegies, Morgans, Rockefellers, Harrimans, of the
blessed nineties.
The old sureness is gone. The great pioneers were never assailed by
doubts: they went straight forward, wearing the blinkers of a single
aim, which kept their eyes like those of harnessed horses in the narrow
road; God was with them, Progress was with them, Public Opinion was with
them, the government at Washington was with them.
But their successors, like everyone else, look over their shoulders and
see the shadows: see the government at Washington and attach a comic
importance to that bewildered figure; just as the government at
Washington looks over its shoulder and sees at New York the government
by business, its traditional master, and wishing a master, is unaware
that the twilight of the gods is come. And both see that greatest of all
shadows, Public Opinion, the new monster of Frankenstein which everyone
feeds with propaganda, and fears. These three things were all one in the
bright days of the great pioneers, and in that perfect unity everyone
was sure, so sure, and the few were free, so free!
Business no longer imposes itself up on the imagination through its
extraordinary personalities. In vain do we seek to recover the past. In
vain does the popular magazine fiction strive to furnish what life no
longer does--the pioneer ideal, the hero who overcomes fire and flood
and the machination of enemies and moves irresistibly forward to
success, who believes in himself, whose motto is that the will is not to
be gainsaid, whose life is one long Smile Week.
Vast propaganda exists to hold us true to the old faith; we read it as
we used to read Sunday School fiction; but religion only sought its way
into hearts within the covers of E. P. Roe when other channels began to
close. We beat the bushes for the great, the kings that should come
after Agamemnon. Monthlies of vast circulation tell us of every
jack-of-all-trades who hits upon a million dollars. This one found out
how to sell patches for automobile tires. That one was an office boy who
never knew when it became five o'clock in the afternoon. Our faith
requires vast stirring.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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