Political writer

“ I might have added that newspaper writers give such a preponderance to politics—not political philosophy, but to the everyday work of politicians—that intellectual culture is thrown into the background, and the election of a single member of Parliament is made to seem of greater national importance than the birth of a powerful idea. ”

“ The political party in this country that will first be practical with the people, and that will first get what it wants, will be the political party that first takes Literature seriously. Our first great practical government is going to see how a great book, searching the heart of a nation, expressing and singing the men in it, governs a people. Being a President in a day like this, if it does not consist in being a poet, consists in being the kind of President who can be, at least, in partnership with a poet. ”

“ On that score we can not surely fail in knowing at least how to build up a reputation and establishment of our own. In debuts of this kind many talk of principle—political principle—party principle, as a sort of steel-trap to catch the public. We mean to be perfectly understood on this point, and therefore openly disclaim all steel-traps, all principle, as it is called—all party—all politics. Our only guide shall be good, sound, practical common sense, applicable to the business and bosoms of men engaged in every-day life. ”

“ If I were to make choice, therefore, of extracts from his works with a view to recommend him as a politician, I should choose those passages which show him a man of infinite capacity to see and understand men of all kinds, past and present. By showing in his case the equipment of a mind open on all sides to the life and thought of society, and penetrative of human secrets of many sorts, I should authenticate his credentials as a writer upon politics, which is nothing else than the public and organic life of society. ”

“ We are known as a country ruled and governed by our newspapers, which are said to be able to make and unmake political parties, and to raise a politician or statesman to a dizzy pinnacle of fame or else to cast him headlong into oblivion. ”

“ The skill, the industry, the arts of the politician, had been used by a man gifted with the genius and not free from the faults of a philosopher, to plant in American usages, prejudices, and traditions,—in the very fibre of American [Pg 7] political life, a cardinal and fruitful idea. The work was done for all time. For Americans, government was thenceforth to be a mere instrument. ”

“ And so these Progressives, bent on trusting implicitly the intelligence, the unselfishness, and the honesty of the People, proposed three novel political instruments for obtaining the pure Democracy they dreamed of. ”

“ Let the genius of American Literature, as she wings her slow flight upwards, give the answer.
This political spirit, contagious and diffusive in its nature, has spread itself throughout the entire frame of our government. All classes of society, from the proudest to the humblest spheres of life, have imbibed it, feel it, and act under its influence. It composes the chief interests, and engages the active feelings, of almost every community. Who can be insensible to the fact, that our universal mind has already assumed a political character? ”

“ The democratic ideas, in a new form and fitted to existing circumstances, began to burn again in the poetry, the philosophy, the religion, the social and political realms of England. Deep-seated, wide-spreading emotion, accompanied by serious thinking, stirred the country and the towns, even the universities; and the deaf opposition of the baser conservative elements in society only deepened the excitement. ”

“ The story of the Star was really that of hundreds of newspapers which, under the inspiring example of leaders in the profession, refused to be merely the organs of party, and became,—where the community was not large enough to make itself heard in national politics — of local and state-wide power for political and civic reform and for the betterment of the community. ”

“ But if something is to be ascribed to the manners of the times, much more may be traced to that science of politics, which sought for mastery in an undefinable struggle of ungovernable political power ”

“ No truth which does not on all41 its sides touch human life can ever reach the heart of politics; and men of ‘unmolested tasks,’ of mere library calm, simply cannot think the thoughts which will tell amidst the noise of affairs. An alert and sympathetic perception of the infinite shifts of circumstance and play of motive which control the actual conduct of government ought to permeate the thinking, as well as check the criticisms, of writers on politics.
In a word, ought not the ‘man of the world’ and the ‘man of books’ to be merged in each other in the student of politics? ”

“ I met quick-witted townspeople who had been more or less used to political activity and were acquainted with the current language of political discussion, and who would promptly grasp the point of an argument or the catch-words or battle-cries of party and instantly respond with applause or signs of disapproval. ”

“ Yet, the Politician seems, of all others, most liable to be mistaken in the Application of History to his own Purpose; because the political Connexions and Interests of Men are, above all others, complicated and various. ”

“ The reaches of public opinion have been infinitely extended; the number of voices that must be heeded in legislation and in executive policy has been infinitely multiplied. Modern influences have inclined every man to clear his throat for a word in the world’s debates. They have popularized everything they have touched.
In the newspapers, it is true, there is very little concert between the writers; little but piecemeal opinion is created by their comment and argument; there is no common voice amidst their counsellings. ”

“ When an election approached, or when a great measure or political question was to be decided, men who were influential consulted together informally, ascertained the public sentiment, deferred to it, if it seemed to be right, and did what they could to persuade it and guide it by speech and discussion in the press, if it needed guidance, and trusted, hardly ever in vain, to the intelligence of the people for the result. ”

“ I should like to say to the Members of the opposition--whose numbers, if I am not mistaken, seem to have increased somewhat--that the genius of the American political system has always been best expressed through creative debate that offers choices and reasonable alternatives. ”

“ But, in any case, you should think seriously of entering on a political career. Your constant cry has been on a matter on which we have always quarrelled, and a reference to which on your part very nearly sent me off just now, you will harp upon the difference of social position; now distinction in politics levels all ranks. The two leaders of political parties in the present day, who really have pas and precedence over the highest in the land, who are the dispensers of patronage, and the cynosures of the world, are men sprung from the people. ”

“ They are the power-houses of our political system. Party sentiment finds its first public expression there—often it has its beginnings there in the free conversations which characterize such American political societies. ”

“ The politician, cunning and subtle, swims along smoothly upon the rolling current of the credulity of [Pg 76] the people and his own duplicity. He prospers because you have not as yet grown into full political manhood, and he succeeds in hoodwinking you with the belief that his heart is overflowing with patriotism and anxious solicitude for the public weal. But I must leave this class—the politicians—to the tender mercies of several gentlemen who are waiting the opportunity to contribute their part to your enterprise. ”

“ But dare I say, that political ambition is not as darkly sullied as in other countries? Dare I say, that men of most influence in political life are those who represent most virtue, or even intellectual power? ”

“ And there has as yet developed in modern government no substitute for this older and more direct political appeal to individuals, through their work, to make the vote alluring to the imagination of modern laborers. ”

“ Finally, when the state becomes a democratic organisation and co-operates with the individual in all spheres of his activity, the movement for political democracy has ripened and has produced its natural social fruits. ”

“ Add to these obstacles the fierce partisan feeling engendered by the circumstances of the time and country—fears of aristocratic influences on the one hand, and sectional intrigues on the other, and we can easily perceive that the first duty of the enlightened and patriotic was to clear away prejudices, explain principles, advocate cardinal political truths, and lift the whole subject out of the dense region of faction and into the calm and clear sphere of reason and truth. ”

“ It is to these special worlds, it is to these private or group, or class, or provincial, or occupational, or national, or sectarian artifacts, that the political adjustment of mankind in the Great Society takes place. Their variety and complication are impossible to describe. Yet these fictions determine a very great part of men's political behavior. ”

“ The Government of the right-hand party restrained political life and action within a narrow circle, and rendered them more difficult; the generation which was then beginning to stir in the world, sought, not entirely independent of, but side by side with politics, the employment of its strength and the gratification of its desires: literature, [309] philosophy, history, policy, and criticism assumed a new and powerful flight. ”

“ Thus, when speaking of some political leaders of a then failing party, he added: ‘Wherever I look I see only brilliant political sunsets.’ He was a liberal of the old school; inclined to reform, but with certain paradoxical tendencies. ”

“ Is it not obvious, then, that the student who seeks for the explanation of democracy in the social and economic forces that underlie political forms must make inquiry into the conditions that have produced our democratic institutions, if he would estimate the effect of these vast changes? ”

“ It occasionally happens to men of letters, at political gatherings, to be asked to respond to the toast of Literature; so one may fairly conclude that, in the opinion of many persons, there is between literature and politics a close and familiar relation. ”

“ As selective as he wants to be, the novelist may comment upon any phase of political life. The subjects in these novels range from small-town corruption to international policy, from the rise and fall of men to the birth and death of parties. ”

“ Good or bad, the representative system demands immense talent; big writers will necessarily be sought after in political crises, for do they not supplement their other knowledge with the spirit of observation and a profound understanding of the human heart? ”

“ The Chronicle will be republican in politics, and in all our political and public affairs it will be our aim to advance the best interest of the people, censuring the wrong and advocating the right on general principles. ”

“ But few of the editorial corps seem to feel the high responsibility resting upon them. Too many are the automatons of political parties and issue sheets not calculated to improve the mind, correct the head or better the heart. ”

“ One has no right to make a literary subject political—that is, to make it partisan; but to give a political motive which concerns all equally, for promoting a literary study, is allowable, and does not partake of the nature of party politics. ”

“ It is a spontaneous step taken by men of standing in the world of politics or literature, with the view of adding to the knowledge, improving the social condition, or influencing the political sentiments of their fellow-countrymen. ”

“ And every new idea of political reform and social progress that by dint of hard work among the intellectual and moral élite has gained a substantial following in public opinion of even a relatively small minority, has, in justice, and in demand for constant advance in human affairs, a right to a place in the high debate of political leadership. ”

“ Are they able to form political judgments? Have they knowledge of the working of political machinery; or, lacking it, are they prepared to obtain it? Are they able to make a wise selection of people to represent them in political action? ”

“ Such is the progress of society, that conversation, social manners, and the incitements of example, now combine in furtherance of personal culture.
Our Political Institutions present, likewise, eminent incentives to a higher self-training than has ever yet been witnessed. The republican principle not only gives scope for individual freedom of thought and action, but awakens associated effort. ”

“ The individual is concealed in all these. In some ways, politics is a social-educational practice resulting in the integration of instinctive actions (a-political) and learned modes of practice with social impact. ”

“ When transformed into instruments of public debate, such writings allowed the instruction of readers and the formulation of questions that represented interests of different sectors of society, understood from the experience that contemporaries experienced in the past, leading to the accumulation of experiences and the possibility of rising a different horizon of expectations, formulated through the new political languages ​​available - that of constitutionalism and that of liberalism. By ignoring them we run the risk of making anachronistic interpretations. ”