Humbuggery

Has a Candidate Any Right to Be Honest and Sincere?

On March 10, TIME printed the following note on its PRESS page:

Frank R. Kent, of the Baltimore Sun, has a habit of writing articles for his paper that would be produced in toto in TIME would space and the copyright law permit.

In November he wrote a series on the Anti-Saloon League and told more secrets about that organization than Marco Polo did about China.

In December he obligingly did the same for the Ku Klux.

Now Mr. Kent expounds daily on "The Great Game of Politics." If this series appears in book form, the volume will gain high mention in at least one review.

Last month Doubleday, Page & Co. produced Mr. Kent's The Great Game of Politics in book form.

Says the author in his preface:

"The purpose of the book is merely to disseminate political information and not to propose panaceas for present-day political evils. . . . All I have tried to do is to tell a plain reporter's story of the political game as I have seen it at close range and in many different parts of the country. . . ."

The book is in two parts: 1) The party machine described--from the precinct executive to the boss; 2) Candidates and their ways.

In the latter section, Mr. Kent announces that he will tell " why even men of the highest type cannot afford to be entirely natural and open while running for office."

This sentence comes as something of a shock to the political neophyte. " Surely there are some honorable men in politics."

But Mr. Kent proves his point beyond question. He heads his chapter HUMBUGGERY IN EVERY CAMPAIGN and proceeds as follows:

"No candidate and no campaign are exactly what they seem. . . .

"Often the candidate is a natural demagogue and faker; often he is at heart an honest and courageous man, but, whatever his type or character, when he goes before the voters he loses frankness and lacks candor."

A downright, outspoken candidate, who honestly, openly and fearlessly expresses exactly what he believes to every group of voters on every issue, declining to dodge or evade, and refusing to appeal to prejudice or cater to class, would be overwhelmingly beaten by the candidate on the other side, who would promptly take advantage of such honesty to gather for himself the large number of voters alienated by the other fellow. . . .

"No man, however genuine, can afford in a fight to give his opponent the tremendous advantage that complete frankness about himself and his views would give. Hence, as a matter of self-preservation, all candidates deceive the voters more or less--some to a large extent and on important issues, others to a small degree and on trivial questions--but they all humbug a little."

The ignorant reader is still skeptical--and a little bit indignant. So Mr. Kent cites a concrete case:

"Here is an illustration given me by a man who ran for mayor in one of the great cities of the country a few years ago. A better man has seldom been nominated anywhere, nor one with higher purposes, greater sincerity, or a finer sense of public service. The fight was a hot one and concededly close. He had for weeks been going about the city speaking nightly in five or six different places. One night about 10 o'clock he found himself in a small hall in which there were about 300 persons. It was not until he reached the meeting that he learned that his audience was composed exclusively of anti-vivisectionists.

" 'These people, whispered the ward executive, as he was being introduced, don't care a damn about the tax rate, or the schools, or the health department, or any other issue of the campaign. All they care about is this antivivisection stuff. If you are with them on that, they will be with you, and if you are against them, they will be against you to a man. They are worth about 1,500 votes. There are no reporters here and if you say the right thing we can get them all.'

"What this candidate really believed and would like to have said was that he was wholly and strongly opposed to the antivivisection movement, that he considered it the worst sort of nonsense, that anti-vivisectionists generally are misguided, soft-headed people who are working against the real interests of humanity and checking the advance of science.

"What he did say was this--that he was extremely interested in the sub-ject--that there was much merit in some of the arguments against vivisection, that he was greatly impressed with the character of the men and women in the antivivisection movement, and that, if elected mayor, he promised to look thoroughly into the question and, if satisfied of its soundness, to give the movement his cordial support!

"What he said to me afterward was that this speech cost him his self-respect, and yet he saw no way out of it at the time, and if he had to do it over again would have said the same thing. ' If,' he said, 'I had only myself to consider, perhaps I would have had the nerve to say what I really believed and risked defeat. But if I am defeated I am not the only sufferer. It means the defeat of my running mates. It means the loss of control of my party. It means disappointment and loss to the men who have financed my campaign and put up the money to make my fight. It means a blow to the hundreds who have worked and fought for me and to thousands who have some sort of stake in my success.

"'Had I the right to kick the bucket over merely to gratify my own personal desire to be absolutely honest and sincere ? ' "