Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The new officers were "emigrants," and that was no title to anybody's affection or admiration either. The new government was received with considerable coolness. It was not only a foreign intruder, but a poor one. It was not even worth plucking except by the smallest of small fry office-seekers and such.
The scales having fallen from our sight and the figure of the greatest American standing out colossal and clean-cut for posterity to worship as without a blemish, it is hard to measure the conceit of the clique of politicians, pettifoggers, and office-seekers certainly assisting in the advancement of Abraham Lincoln from confined obscurity in the West to the choice of the Northern nation.
The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." The Outbreak of War. Upon the newly-inaugurated President there now descended a swarm of office-seekers.
There was undoubtedly a brighter side, but it was limited, and the surroundings of the distinguished men who led our political parties in 1841 at the national capital, do not present a very cheerful or attractive picture. When the new President appeared upon the scene he was followed by a general rush of hungry office-seekers, who had been starving for places for many years.
So soon as it was known in the autumn of 1860 that Abraham Lincoln was to be the next president of the United States, he was at once beset by two pests: the office-seekers, and the men who either warned him to fear assassination or anonymously threatened him with it.
It was a thankless job, consisting of trying to protect the public interests against a swarm of office-seekers and their friends in Congress. It is ridiculous now to remember what a fight had to be waged to set up the merit system of the Civil Service in this country.
As we continued our walk, the President spoke of the annoyances incident to his position, saying: 'These office-seekers are a curse to the country; no sooner was my election certain, than I became the prey of hundreds of hungry, persistent applicants for office, whose highest ambition is to feed at the Government crib. When he bade me good-bye, he said, 'Let me hear from you once a week at least. As he turned to leave me, a young army officer stopped him and made some request, to which the President replied with a good deal of humor, 'No, I can't do that; I must not interfere; they would scratch my eyes out if I did.
There is no more humorous reading, or more typical, than the ups and downs of office-seekers. Sometimes it is that of William the "Innocent," and often that of William the "Croker." The trials of "an unsuccessful," a prototype of "Orpheus C. Kerr," the nom de plume of that prince of writers, on this subject, is in place: Diary of an office-seeker, William the "Innocent": March 2d Just arrived.
"But who paid for the votes?" "You are a merciless cross-examiner," I said. "The classes which had an interest in controling the government that is, the capitalists and the office-seekers did the buying. The capitalists advanced the money necessary to procure the election of the office-seekers on the understanding that when elected the latter should do what the capitalists wanted.
But I ought not to give you the impression that the bulk of the votes were bought outright. That would have been too open a confession of the sham of popular government as well as too expensive. The money contributed by the capitalists to procure the election of the office-seekers was mainly expended to influence the people by indirect means.
Word Of The Day