STATESMEN MUST FIRST BE BORN AND THEN MADE
Some fundamental qualifications for statesmanship. Integrity
and wisdom compared.
How are lawyers obtained? Admission to the bar does not always produce
even an attorney. And there is a very marked difference between an
attorney and a lawyer. But when a young man is admitted to the bar who
has aptitude for the law, without which no man can be a lawyer,
industry in the law, without which no man ever was a lawyer, then with
some years of appropriate environment—the court room and the law
library—a lawyer will be produced into whose hands you may safely
commit your case.
How are law makers obtained? Many seem to think it only necessary to
deliver a certificate of election, and, behold, a constructive
statesman, of either gender. I would like to ask whether, in your
judgment, it requires any less aptitude, any less industry, or a less
period of appropriate environment to produce a constructive law maker,
than to develop a safe law practitioner.
I will carry the illustration one step further. Do you realize that it
would be far safer to place the man of ordinary intelligence upon the
bench, with authority to interpret and enforce the laws as he finds
them written in the book, than to give him pen and ink and let him
draft new laws? We all recognize that it requires a man of legal
aptitude and experience to interpret laws, but some seem to assume
neither aptitude nor experience is necessary in a law-maker. If
legislators in state and nation are to be abjectly obedient to the wish
of their constituents, what use can they make of knowledge and
judgment? They will prove embarrassments, will they not?
To interpret the laws requires aptitude improved by experience; it
demands special knowledge, both of the general law and of the
particular case under discussion. It takes a specialist.
I would rather have the ordinary man stand over my dentist and tell him
how to crown my tooth than to have him stand over my congressman and
tell him how to vote. He knows, in a general way, how a tooth should be
crowned, and further than that I refuse to carry the illustration.
Then, I can stand a bad tooth better than I can a bad law. No man ever
lost his job because of a bad tooth. But millions have stood in the
bread line, and other millions will suffer in like manner because of
unfortunate and ill-considered legislation.
INTEGRITY VERSUS WISDOM
We all demand integrity in office, but integrity is the most common
attribute of man. I can go on the street and buy integrity for a dollar
a day, if it does not require any work; but aptitude, experience and
wisdom are high-priced. If I had to choose between men of probity but
wanting in aptitude and experience, and men of aptitude and experience
known to be dishonest, I should unhesitatingly choose the crook rather
than the fool; either for bank president or congressman. Banks seldom
fail because of dishonesty. Banks fail because of bad management. The
thief may steal a little of the cream but the careless and the
inexperienced spill the milk.
Thus far in our history no man has ever walked the street in vain for
work, no man has gone home to find his wife in rags and his children
crying for bread, because of dishonesty in public office. The United
States can stand extravagance, it can stand graft, it has stood and is
standing the most reckless abandon in all its financial expenditures.
The worst this nation has yet encountered—and may the good Lord save
us from anything more dreadful—is incompetency in the halls of
legislation. Extravagance and graft stalk forth at noonday when
incompetency occupies the seats intended for statesmen.
None but bolsheviki would consider subjecting an army to democratic
command. The personnel of an army may possess equal patriotism without
possessing equal aptitude for war. Recent experiences have only
emphasized what was said more than a thousand years ago: “An army of
asses commanded by a lion will overthrow an army of lions commanded by
an ass.”
Strange, is it not, that every one should recognize this principle when
applied to an army and to business, and an overwhelming majority
overlook it when applied to governmental matters?