Another characteristic of the politician in the novel is the often-met change in values. Basic to this process may be the frequency with which he encounters moral problems. Some may be like Senator Ratcliffe in _Democracy_, whose “weakness ... lay in his blind ignorance of morals.” But usually a choice must be made between that which is right and that which is profitable. Sometimes it is as clear-cut as whether or not DeForest’s John Vane should participate in the Great Subfluvial Tunnel Road (a satire on the Crédit Mobilier) which is to run under the Mississippi and unite Lake Superior and the Gulf of Mexico. Often the politician must decide if he will check his conscience in the cloakroom while he votes on a small issue in order to keep his party in power to attain larger ends. Trollope’s heroes usually make the difficult but morally right decision, but few applaud them. When Phineas Finn votes for the Irish Reform Bill, Lord Tulla declares, “Very dirty conduct I think it was.... After being put in for the borough twice, almost free of expense, it was very dirty.” A symptom of changing values is the rejection of the constituency for the capitol. Even the Duke of Omnium begins to abandon the idea of retirement because “the poison of place and power and dignity had got into his blood.” The career of Bradley Talcott in _A Spoil of Office_ is a classic example. He thinks of throwing up his political life until his renomination is threatened. Then he finds that his office is the breath of life in his nostrils. Jerome Garwood’s comment on returning to Washington from campaigning in _The 13th District_ is that “it’s worth all a fellow has to go through out in that beastly mud hole to be back here where one can really live.” This pattern is bound up, of course, with the problem of conformity. In order to retain the prize, the politician must pay its price. Hamer Shawcross puts the best possible interpretation upon his own behavior when Pen Muff asks him why more can’t be done for the Welsh miners. He replies that they will do as much as they can without running the risk of being turned out of office: I admit ... that it’s a matter of getting the most out of the second best. If all things were working for the best--why, there’d be no need of politics at all, Pen. I suppose the very word means not what we want but what is expedient.