i26 Promise and Performance 



taken in by such a promise, and who in clutching at' 

 the impossible loses the chance of securing the real 

 though lesser good, are as old as the political organ 

 izations of mankind. Throughout the history of the 

 world the nations who have done best in self-govern 

 ment are those who have demanded from their pub 

 lic men only the promise of what can actually be 

 done for righteousness and honesty, and who have 

 sternly insisted that such promise must be kept in 

 letter and in spirit. 



So it is with the general question of obtaining 

 good government. We can not trust the mere doc 

 trinaire; we can not trust the mere closet reformer, 

 nor yet his acrid brother who himself does nothing, 

 but who rails at those who endure the heat and bur 

 den of the day. Yet we can trust still less those base 

 beings who treat politics only as a game out of which 

 to wrong a soiled livelihood, and in whose vocabu 

 lary the word "practical" has come to be a synonym 

 for whatever is mean and corrupt. A man is worth 

 less unless he has in him a lofty devotion to an ideal, 

 and he is worthless also unless he strives to realize 

 this ideal by practical methods. He must promise, 

 both to himself and to others, only what he can per 

 form; but what really can be performed he must 

 promise, and such promise he must at all hazards 

 make good. 



The problems that confront us in this age are, 



