CYRUS HALL McCORMICK 



keenest pleasures was to go to the Senate and 

 listen to its debates. He was not a fluent speaker 

 himself, but he delighted in the orations of Clay, 

 Calhoun, and Webster. He believed in politics. 

 He thought it a public danger that the strong 

 and competent men of the republic should will- 

 ingly permit men of little ability and low char- 

 acter to manage public affairs. In fact, he was 

 almost as much a pathfinder and pioneer in this 

 matter as he had been in matters of business, 

 but without the same measure of success. Pol- 

 itics, he found, was not like business. Its 

 successes depended not upon your own efforts, 

 but upon the votes of the majority. 



What McCormick tried to do as a citizen and 

 a patriot was the one heroic failure of his life. 

 He ran for office on several occasions, but he 

 was never elected. He was not the sort of man 

 who gets elected. He stood for his whole party 

 at a time when the average politician was stand- 

 ing only for himself. He talked of "fundamen- 

 tal principles" while the other leaders, for the 

 most part, were thinking of salaries. He gave 

 up his time and his money as freely for politics 



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