Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays

[346] I had more entire respect than for those of a young Irish-American lawyer, since dead, who sat in the next seat to mine during a whole session. I believe that the instinct of this whole class for politics is on the whole a sign of promise, although producing some temporary evils; and that it is much more hopeful, for instance, than the comparative indifference to public affairs among our large French-Canadian population.

The desire for office, once partially gratified, soon becomes very strong, and the pride of being known as a “vote-getter” is a very potent stimulus to Americans, and is very demoralizing. Few men are willing to let the offices come to them, and although they respect this quality of abstinence in another, if combined with success, they do not have the same feeling for it per se. They early glide into the habit of regarding office as a perquisite, and as something to be given to the man who works hardest for it, not to the man who is best fitted for it. Money too necessarily enters into the account, as is shown by the habit of assessing candidates in proportion to their salaries — a thing to which I have always refused to submit. Again, I am sorry to say, there is a certain amount of hypocrisy on the subject, and men often carry on a still hunt, as it is technically