And State Papers 7 



Corruption, in the gross sense in which the word 

 is used in ordinary conversation, has been abso 

 lutely unknown among our Presidents, and it has 

 been exceedingly rare in our President's Cabinets. 

 Inefficiency, whether due to lack of will-power, 

 sheer deficiency in wisdom, or improper yielding 

 either to the pressure of politicians or to the other 

 kinds of pressure which must often be found even 

 in a free democracy, has been far less uncommon. 

 Of deliberate moral obliquity there has been but 

 very little indeed. 



In the easiest, quietest, most peaceful times the 

 President is sure to have great tasks before him. 

 The simple question of revenue and expenditure 

 is as important to the nation as it is to the average 

 household, and the President is the man to whom 

 the nation looks and whom it holds accountable in 

 the matter both of expenditure and of revenue. It 

 is an entirely mistaken belief that the expenditure 

 of money is simply due to a taste for recklessness 

 and extravagance on the part of the people's rep 

 resentatives. 



The representatives in the long run are sure to 

 try to do what the people effectively want. The 

 trouble is that although each group has, and all the 

 groups taken together still more strongly have, an 

 interest in keeping the expenditures down, each 

 group has also a direct interest in keeping some 

 particular expenditure up. This expenditure is 

 usually entirely proper and desirable, save only that 

 the aggregate of all such expenditures may be so 



2 VOL. XIII. 



