ii4 The Best and the Good 



claimed, which it would be indecent to refuse, and 

 which would make a considerable difference about 

 our powers of dealing rightly with cases. Gain that 

 platform, and it would be a footing for more ideal 

 measures. I do not want the best to be any more 

 the deadly enemy of the good. We climb through 

 degrees of comparison." 



This is really a description as excellent as it is 

 epigrammatic of the attitude which must be main 

 tained by every public man, by every leader and 

 guide of public thought, who hopes to accomplish 

 work of real worth to the community. It is a mel 

 ancholy fact that many of the worst laws put upon 

 the statute-books have been put there with the best 

 of intentions by thoroughly well-meaning people. 

 Mere desire to do right can no more by itself make 

 a good statesman than it can make a good general. 

 Of course it is entirely unnecessary to say that noth 

 ing atones for the lack of this desire to do right. 

 Exactly as the brilliant military ability of an Arnold 

 merely makes his treason the more abhorrent, so our 

 statesmanship can not be put upon the proper plane 

 of purity and ability until the condemnation visited 

 upon a traitor like Arnold is visited with no less 

 severity upon the statesman who betrays the people 

 by corruption. The one is as great an offence as 

 the other. Military power is at an end when the 

 honor of the soldier can no longer be trusted; and, 



