The Ghost in the White House: Some suggestions as to how a hundred million people (who are supposed in a vague, helpless way to haunt the white house) can make themselves felt with a president, how they can back him up, express themselves to him, be expressed by him, and get what they want — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Ghost in the White House: Some suggestions as to how a hundred million people (who are supposed in a vague, helpless way to haunt the white house) can make themselves felt with a president, how they can back him up, express themselves to him, be expressed by him, and get what they want
John Stuart Mill · en
I do not say in so many words, I _was_ lied to. I do not know. A great
many people every day find themselves in situations where they do not
know. The question I am asking of myself is, how can a man or a public
take a fair human and constructive attitude when one does not know and
cannot know for the time being, all that it is to the point to know?
A stupendous amount of red-flagism, unrest and expensive unreasonableness
would be swept away in this country if we all had in mind to use for
ourselves when called for the following rules for being lied to.
(Not that I am going to lumber people's minds up by numbering them as
rules out loud. They are all here--in what follows--the spirit of them,
and people can make their own rules for themselves as they go along.)
IV
RULES FOR BEING LIED TO
(Charles Schwab or Anybody)
---- dropped in, in the rain the other night, and sat by my fireplace and
said: "Charles Schwab is the Prince of Liars. He says one thing about
labor and does another." He went on to say things he said other people
said.
There are two courses of action to take about Charles Schwab's being the
Prince of Liars.
One way is to expose what he says.
The other way is to help him make what he says true.
I would rather do what I can to help Charles Schwab practice what he
preaches than to stop his preaching.
Everything turns for the American people to-day on being constructive, on
dealing with facts as they are, on using the men we have, and on getting
the most out of the men we have.
To get the most out of Charles Schwab throw around him expectation and
malediction and then let him take his choice.
Charles Schwab in saying what he says about the new spirit in which
capital has got to deal with labor is rendering a great, unexpected,
sensational and indispensable service to labor and to capital. It is a
pity to throw this public confession of capital to labor, and in behalf
of labor away. It would be a still greater pity to see labor itself
throwing it away.
If I could let myself be cooped up as a writer in any one class in this
country to-day, and if it were my special business to take sides with
labor, the thing I would try to do first with Charles Schwab, instead of
undermining what he says and making what he says mean nothing--would be
to cooeperate with him--back him up--back him up with the public--back him
up with the stockholders and the people in his mills, until he makes what
he says mean three times as much.
Then I would see to it if I could, that he says four times as much. I
would try, if I could, to keep Charles Schwab steadily at it, claiming
more and more for labor. Then catching up more and more to Charles
Schwab, doing more and more, and compelling his partners to do more and
more of what he says.
Charles Schwab has fifty or a hundred thousand or so partners, of
course--stockholders he has to educate.