126 Machine Politics 



political importance than he is himself. In all the 

 large cities of the North the wealthier, or, as they 

 would prefer to style themselves, the "upper" classes, 

 tend distinctly toward the bourgeois type; and an 

 individual in the bourgeois stage of development, 

 while honest, industrious, and virtuous, is also not 

 unapt to be a miracle of timid and short-sighted self- 

 ishness. The commercial classes are only too likely 

 to regard everything merely from the standpoint of 

 "Does it pay?" and many a merchant does not take 

 any part in politics because he is short-sighted 

 enough to think that it will pay him better to at- 

 tend purely to making money, and too selfish to be 

 willing to undergo any trouble for the sake of ab- 

 stract duty; while the younger men of this type 

 are too much engrossed in their various social 

 pleasures to be willing to give their time to any- 

 thing else. It is also unfortunately true, especially 

 throughout New England and the Middle States, 

 that the general tendency among people of culture 

 and high education has been to neglect and even 

 to look down upon the rougher and manlier virtues, 

 so that an advanced state of intellectual develop- 

 ment is too often associated with a certain effem- 

 inacy of character. Our more intellectual men 

 often shrink from the raw coarseness and the eager 

 struggle of political life as if they were women. 

 Now, however refined and virtuous a man may be, 

 he is yet entirely out of place in the American body- 

 politic unless he is himself of sufficiently coarse 

 fibre and virile character to be more angered than 



