THE PARTY NECESSITY A PARTY SNARE urally bound to support the senator in this campaign. As I am a mightily convinced partizan, I 'm free to confess that I should support him if the senator were the personal devil himself, and I sometimes think he is." HE excuse for supporting an unscrupulous senator is made in one State on the ground of party necessity, in this case party necessity generally meaning business necessity. The "honest" manufacturer, while privately denouncing in one breath the State's notorious boss senator, -with satisfactory moral fervor and profane persiflage,—in the next breath will explain the impossibility of letting his own views be known outside of the charmed circle of intimacy, because, as you know, his business is such as to be endangered by any change party domination. Of course," he will say, "So-and-so is an intolerable rascal and possibly ought to be in the State prison, but I am convinced that the pros perity of the country depends upon the ascendancy of our party; and because I can't afford, on account of my business, to take any chances, I confess that, in the circumstances, I 'd support the senator if he were the devil himself." in 66 In another State the "honest" member of the opposite party will say: Of course I agree with you, as between gentlemen, that the senator is an intolerable rascal; but he controls the State machine and is a part of the national machine, and I'm so tired of the abominations of the other party in national affairs that I'm just nat So each party sends to represent it, from each of these two States, not two honest and capable partizans, but one conscienceless boss senator and a servile tool of the boss senator. And when it comes to some great and pressing issue, in which, in the broadest sense, the good of one party or the other is involved, each of these boss. senators and his tool,-having no real principles themselves, either of party or otherwise, will be found conspiring with the most conscienceless men under the opposite flag to defeat the honest policies of the conscientious leaders of their respective parties. Those familiar with modern political history will not find it difficult to make fairly close application of the above remarks to particular instances, perhaps in various directions. The conclusion is irresistible that it would be infinitely better, in the interest of mere partizanship, -to say nothing of the interest of good government,-for these States to send representatives to the Senate who would stand honestly by anything, including the principles of the party that sent them. MR. RABBIT: You 're a fine one to cry all night long, "It's going to rain! It's going to rain!" TREE-TOAD: I must have been talking in my sleep. THE DE VINNE PRESS, NEW YORK THE SULTAN OF MOROCCO, MULAI ABD-UL-AZIZ, AT FIDALA, ON THE WEST COAST His first view of the ocean since childhood THE HE ancient custom of conducting a hold Fez, a city of whiteness and”-here monarch and his court through his he stood rigid to illustrate—“strength.” dominions with the charm of semibarbaric Then, gracefully sweeping the loose bottom splendor still exists in Morocco, between end of his sulham over his shoulder, he prothe two capitals of which, Fez and Mo- ceeded to stalk about in humorous imitation rocco, the Sultan, accompanied by a vast of the men of that city, who, he assured army of followers, journeys from time to me, were vain fellows. I now recall him time. sitting upon an imaginary horse, just as I The journey, which for two years had was about to leave, and laughingly saying, become more and more of a necessity, “On the march.” owing to the rebellious tribesmen near Fez, As military officers, some of his royal had been eagerly anticipated by the court, predecessors had taken Europeans along, and had kept it in a constant state of per- but never in any other capacity; therefore, plexity. The Sultan's eagerness, I was the natives said, at the last moment I tempted to believe, was doubtful, and the would be left behind through the efforts of puzzling glances which he cast in my di- those slaves to tradition, the vizirs. Furrection during a quiet game of billiards thermore, distrusting the semi-official maniwere suddenly solved by the startling query: festo that the court was about to move, the Dost care to travel with me to Fez?" people looked for the Sultan himself to give I replied with an eager “ Yea." the infallible signal, which is to appear in "The time is close at hand,” he re- person and make a pilgrimage to the shrines marked. "Assemble thy belongings and of the seven saints buried in the city. This prepare thyself, for soon shall thine eyes be- carried out, the Commander of the Faith Copyright, 1993, by THE CENTURY CO. All rights reserved. 9 |
