Merits and Qualifications of Candidates. 231 
might be said on this subject — enough to swell this paper to 
intolerable proportions. It must suffice here to merely suggest 
two reasons why this theory does not help the voter very much 
in the perplexing task of choosing between rival candidates. 
In the first place it is by no means easy to say whether a man’s 
success in private business is due to his ability or to other 
causes. Ability is but one of many things which singly or in 
combination lead to success in business. (Business, of course, 
is here used in the sense most commonly attached to it in every¬ 
day life, that is, money-making.) Besides ability, the amount 
of capital with which a man starts out; the connections which 
he is fortunate enough to inherit or acquire; the presence or 
absence of powerful competitors; complications of the market, 
over which the individual has no control; new inventions or 
discoveries which may favorably or unfavorably affect his 
branch of trade; accidents of flood and fire; and a hundred 
other things dependent on good or bad fortune are the factors 
which help to gain success for the business man. Furthermore, it 
often happens that a man is ostensibly the head of a business 
enterprise when the real leading spirit, unknown to the world, 
is some partner or subordinate. As the outside world can rarely 
learn the details of a man’s private business, it is quite im 
possible for a voter to draw reasonable conclusions as to the 
qualifications of a candidate merely from his good or ill success 
in private business. 
In the second place, it is a fallacy to infer that a man is well 
qualified for public office because he shows good ability in the 
conduct of private business. Both the objects and the methods 
of public and private business must of necessity differ widely, 
and consequently the training received in the one does not in all 
cases qualify for the other. I hope to have an opportunity some 
day to analyze this difference in detail. But the mere sugges¬ 
tion of the fact must suffice for present purposes. 
What conclusion must we draw from these considerations? 
Simply this, that ordinarily it is quite impossible for the great 
majority of voters in our large municipalities to obtain inform¬ 
ation sufficient to form an intelligent opinion as to the merits and 
