tionalism, suggestion, and association of ideas to impress fleeting attention. Adulterations, the misbranding of goods, the counterfeiting of trademarks, the forging of testimonials from celebrities, the manufacture of stock-exchange quotations for worthless securities, the sale of diplomas by bogus medical schools, advertisement masquerading as news dispatch or editorial- these illustrate how good repute is preyed upon. Owing to the association of the Quaker name and symbols in the public mind with integrity and just dealing dealers are using them so unscrupulously for advertising purposes that the Quakers have sought legislation forbidding the use of their name as a trademark on commercial products. THE PROFESSIONAL СНАР. LV Make-be Athletic Amateur A more serious, because more elusive, form of simulation is the The professionalizing of something which ought not to be used for lieve making money. There is the professional mendicant, whose tone and tale far surpass in piteousness the appeal of the honest victim of misfortune. Sport is infested by the professional athlete, posing as an enthusiast for physical development while greedy of prizes and purses and bent on secretly hiring himself to amateur teams and organizations whose eagerness to win has gotten the better of their honesty. In college he passes for a student while he debases intercollegiate athletic contests with his low standards and unscrupulous methods. Nothing has so hurt real sport as the creeping in of these mercenaries among the true sportsmen. Our courts are plagued by the presence of the professional expert witness on handwriting, poisons, or insanity. He simulates, of course, that disinterested love of truth which is rightly presumed of the bank cashier, alienist, or chemist who for a moment steps aside from his work to clear up a doubtful point in a law suit. The fact is, however, that the expert who makes a trade of furnishing testimony becomes a parasite on his own past and on the credit of his profession. To keep fees flowing in he must give testimony in favor of the side that has engaged him, at the same time guarding himself from damaging grilling by the experts and attorneys of the other side. Hence, when he has a hard case, he hides himself in a maze of technical minutiae or a cloud of big words which can only mystify and befog the court. Experts who make a business of furnishing testimonials The Pro- fessional Witness СНАР. The Professional Muckraker Pulpit as a Means of On Social as to the merits of commercial wares follow the same downward path. It is instructive to follow the rise and downfall of the professional muckraker. At first the exposure of the misdeeds of the high and powerful in the political, the financial, or the commercial world is dangerous, and only brave men undertake it. But in case, as sometimes happens, exposures excite interest, are eagerly read, and make money and fame for both writer and publisher, there arises the professional muckraker who aims to meet the market demand for exposure; who not only probes for a living, but who sensationalizes, spices, and misinterprets in order to dress a dish to the readers' taste. By showing only one side, twisting facts, hinting when he cannot prove, suggesting bad motives for innocent actions, and interpreting errors as crimes, he sells his wares but finally discredits the work of even the honest muckraker and brings all unauthorized exposure into doubt or contempt. A religious body that has gained resources, credit, and power is likely to become infested by worldly clerics to whom the pulpit is an opportunity for easy living or a chance to rise. The ambitious wire-puller, without a spark of religion in his heart but adept in its tones, phrases, and postures, schemes his way up to the miter, while the real saint toils unnoticed in his parish. These shrewd self-seekers are of course strong for authority, profess orthodox beliefs, and commend themselves by their zeal in smelling out and hounding down clergymen honest enough to confess to a heresy. Until some one devises a litmus paper for testing spirituality, wealthy and powerful churches will be liable to dry rot while pure religion will be found where a learned and hard-worked clergy commands no temporal power, only a modest living, and not too much social consideration. When charity and social work, having achieved a solid financial basis, begin to hold out the prospect of a reputable career, a change is likely to occur in the type of worker. The self-devoted still offer themselves as in the days of ill-paid and uncertain employment, but with them enter ambitious young people of greater ability and broader preparation perhaps, but lacking the spirit of service. Conscientious and efficient they may be, but they feel little sympathy and liking for the distressed people they deal with. Try as they may to imitate the approach and man ner of volunteer workers, the poor sense their coldness and are less confiding and less comforted than under the old system. While it is inevitable that social work should develop into a profession, the friends of the unfortunate who have relinquished their ministrations to paid workers should oversee and scrutinize these workers, to the end that only the genuine may be kept and advanced. There is need of labor on unpaid boards and in voluntary associations to hold the organized services up to the mark. СНАР. LV fessional Leader Once a labor union is in smooth water with a loyal dues-paying The Promembership willing to maintain salaried officials, the leader of Labor its storm-and-stress period is often succeeded by the canny schemer who prefers a salary to a wage. Although willing to sell out his fellows to their political enemies as from the Mulhall lobby investigation we know that thousands of union officials actually did he is pat with the talk and pose of class loyalty. His first concern is by fair means or foul to keep himself in office. Thanks to his methods, labor-hall contests are sometimes worse than the politics of the lowest slum wards. While voicing roundly labor sentiments and getting what he can for his constituents, he is too shrewd to risk his job by attacking a formidable abuse or calling a hazardous strike unless he is driven to it. His counsels of narrow self-interest chill his people to the cause of labor; so that when his ilk control a labor organization "the fight is out of it." By the fiery crusaders who rouse and organize unskilled labor, such union officials are styled "labor grafters." fessional The hallowness of the patrician pretense that every popular The Proupheaval threatening privilege is the work of "irresponsible agi- Agitator tators" should not obscure the fact that disturbance may be followed as a trade. The man possessed of assurance, a glib tongue, a platform manner, and a taste for excitement may make a career for himself by going about stirring up discontent without in the least knowing or caring whither it will lead. Until he has met the acid test it is easy to mistake him for the unselfish champion of the wronged and the prophet of the disinherited. The workingmen dread being fooled by the windbag and are likely to withhold their full confidence from the agitator until he has proved his mettle in a time of danger and persecution. Most insincere agitation, however, is the work of another type, CHAP. The Professional Politician Politician and Patriot Politician and Groupleader Politician and Reformer the vote-seeking politician. Once power has passed from classes to masses, there springs up the professional politician, a man unembarrassed by principles, loyalty, or public spirit, whose sole and abiding concern is the gaining and keeping of office. In a way he is the modern courtier. Says Mr. Lecky: In the field of politics the spirit of servility and sycophancy no longer shows itself in the adulation of kings and nobles. The man who, in former ages, would have sought by Byzantine flattery to win power through the favour of an emperor or a prince, will now be found declaiming on platforms about the iniquity of privilege, extolling the matchless nobility of the masses, systematically trying to excite their passions or their jealousies, and to win them by bribes and flatteries to his side. A thousand times the political conservatives have thus exposed him without persuading the people to return to class government. They remember that the governing class cost them quite as much as the politicians and insulted them in the bargain. In order to maintain himself the politician must be able to drive off the field the real leaders, the men of positive character and conviction, who have gained popular support for their ideas. This he does by impudently outbidding them at every point. His patriotism is loftier, his rhetoric more glowing, his promises more dazzling. Beside him the truth-teller who makes no mealymouthed professions, nor promises more than he can perform, seems halting and timid. When a hitherto negligible class the wage-earners, for example-gains the suffrage, or shows independence in voting, the politician professes suddenly a deep concern for its welfare. He takes to voicing its grievances and advocating measures in its program. Since the politician is able to bring to the workingmen prestige and a following, perhaps even a party, they are tempted to discard at this point the trusty working-class leaders, who have brought them thus far but can hold out to them no prospect of immediate gains, and swing to the support of the politician. It is needless to add that they either fail to get what was promised them, or, if they get it, it proves to be a sham. When by years of labor and sacrifice a reform movement has been brought within sight of victory, some "practical" politician takes up with it, professedly as a convert but really because he deems it a vote-getter. At this crisis its faithful friends, who nursed it through its initial unpopularity and have built it up to its present strength, are sent to the rear because they bear the taint of radicalism and the scars of defeat. Taken up by a "safe" political celebrity, the reform triumphs and goes down in history as the fruit of his statesmanship. Thus has it been with tariff reform, old-age pensions, direct democracy, and workmen's compensation. Under the two-party system scarcely any great reform is credited to those who sacrificed most for it. The glory goes to some political strategist who opposed or ignored it when it stood most in need of friends, and became an eleventh-hour convert only when it could do as much for his party as his party could do for it. Such is the way of the world. of СНАР. LV Politics from the sional In England the old party custom of encouraging only men of Methods fortune to stand for Parliament was defended as a means of ex- Rescuing cluding the political adventurer. After the class struggle came into politics, however, the practice had to be given up, since it left Profes the wage-earners entirely without representation from their own Politicians class. Non-payment of legislators has been justified on the ground that, if service in the legislature involves financial sacrifice, the self-seeking politicians will shun it, thus leaving the way. clear for men of means and public spirit. Here again labor is put at a serious disadvantage, so that everywhere democracies have come to compensate their legislators sufficiently to cover at least their actual expenses. It is probable that the public is least plagued by political job-hunters when it allows only expenses for part-time service-like that of the legislator, the university regent and the member of an advisory board,-while for full-time service it pays well enough to attract ability. The People's Champion Adopt the cian's "It is the weaker sort of politicians," says Lord Bacon, "that are the great dissemblers." Resort to the arts of popularity is, however, no proof that a public man is a professional politician. They may be forced on him by competition with the professionals. They may be his means of withstanding money and organization. Manner The candidate of the prosperous classes does not need the eyebeam, the handshake or the platform way of the representative of the popular cause; he has behind him the "interests" and the "machine." It is the champion of the broader public welfare or of the poor man's cause who must expose himself to the sneers of the powerful by openly paying court to his constituents. |