Читать книгу Vanishing Landmarks - Shaw Leslie Mortier - Страница 4

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?