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
A typical Senator is Mr. Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, one of the smaller
business men being drawn into public life. Son of a country minister, he
started as an insurance agent. Nature equipped him with unusual energy
and aggressiveness and those two qualities brought success in writing
insurance. Nothing in his early training inhibited his robust
temperament. Ruddy and vigorous, he is not sicklied o'er with any pale
cast whatever. Plainly he has a zest for life, that easily accessible
American life where good mixers abound.
Not a highbrow, he yet recognizes that literature has its place, on all
four walls of a large room, and bought in sets.
Having the American horror of loneliness, whether social or moral, you
find him always going along with his party. When his set divides he
balances between the two factions as long as possible and elects to go
with the more numerous. Simple, likable, honest, safe so long as
majorities are safe, and that is the theory we are working on, he is the
average man in everything but his aggressiveness and energy.
No, he also rises above the average in possessing such a name as
Frelinghuysen. You enter his library and you see a banner of the
campaign of Clay and Frelinghuysen. He will recite to you campaign
songs of those unsuccessful candidates for President and Vice-President.
Another Frelinghuysen was a Cabinet member. Another Frelinghuysen, of
the wealthier branch of the family, has an assured social position.
None of these famous Frelinghuysens is an ancestor. Each of them is a
challenge. If he could have found an ancestor! If an insurance company
were a high place from which to survey the world at one's feet! But, no!
Ancestors, power, publicity, social prestige, all lie beyond the reach
of small business success.
In the Senate men, important men, come to you for favors; it is so much
better than going to them to write policies. From the Senatorship you
condescend; there really is a world to which a Senator can condescend.
Washington is a social melting pot. No one asks whether you are one of
the Blanks. You are Senator Blank and that is enough. And if you are so
fortunate, by your very averageness, to attach yourself to the average
man whose fortune makes him President, and you become one of the Harding
Senators, one of the intimates, you are lifted up: like Bottom, you are
translated. You are the familiar of greatness.
As a legislator you deal with policies, international and domestic, in
the realm of ideas--as when you sit in your library, four square with
all the wisdom of the ages.
If you have enough of the boy about you, like Frelinghuysen, you enjoy
all this hugely. You have projected your ego beyond the limits of the
insurance business. You look among the branches of the Frelinghuysen
family tree without losing countenance. Who knows that there won't be
another "and Frelinghuysen" ticket, this time a successful one?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account