CHAPTER XXXVI.GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL LIFE—HOW PLACE AND POWER ARE WON.
Government Official Life—Its Effects on Human Nature—Keeping his Eye Open—The Sweet and Winning Ways of Mr. Parasite—In Office—The Fault of “the People” and “my Friends”—Shrinking from Responsibilities—Pulling the Wool over the Eyes of the Innocent—Writing Letters in a Big Way—The “Dark Ways” of Wicked Mr. P——— —A Suspicious Yearning for Private Life—The Sweets of Office—A Little Change of Opinion—A Man Afflicted with Too Many Friends—Forgetting Things that Were—John Jones is not Encouraged—Post-offices as Plentiful as Blackberries—Receiving Office-seekers—“The Worst Thing in the World for You”—Dismissing John—Over-crowded Pastures—John’s Own Private Opinion—The “Mighty Messenger”—Government-Servants—Peculiar Impartiality of the Man in Office—What the Successful Man Said—I Change My Opinion of Him—A Certain Kind of Man, and Where He can be Found.
Governmental official life has one effect upon those whom it benefits, which is anything but creditable to human nature.
Mr. Parasite wants a high place in the governmental service, and circumstances favor his getting it. While there is any doubt about it, he does not disdain to use any influence within his reach to make it certain. How lovely he is to everybody whose good word or ill word may “tell” for or against him. How affable he is to every mortal, from the lowliest outspoken man in his home town, to the influential writer, whose powerful pen he wishes to propitiate. Mr. Parasite glides into his placewith grace and resignation. “The people, the people, you know, and my friends—theyforced it upon me. They quite overrate my fitness, quite. I shrink from such responsibilities, such arduous labors; but, if my country needs me, if my constituentsdemandmy services, I feel that I have no right to refuse, no right to consult my personal ease, although the desire of my heart is for the peaceful quiet of private life.”
THE LOBBY OF THE SENATE.INSIDE THE CAPITOL.—WASHINGTON.
THE LOBBY OF THE SENATE.INSIDE THE CAPITOL.—WASHINGTON.
THE LOBBY OF THE SENATE.INSIDE THE CAPITOL.—WASHINGTON.
Strange to tell, when an accommodating people are about to grant him the desire of his heart, Mr. Parasite suddenly starts up alert, and touches the springs of a most powerful enginery. He writes personal letters by thousands; he has his friends—i. e. agents—at work for him everywhere, whispering with this one, arguing with that one, and urging his claims incessantly upon the appointing power. But who, that did not know it, could believe it.
Chance to light upon Mr. Parasite about this time, and mention the subject of his possible appointment or election to him as one in which he is naturally interested. Lo! amid all others, Mr. Parasite alone is indifferent. “Of course, it would be a compliment, a re-election or re-appointment. He would prize it much as a mark of confidence from the people, or the Government; but really, so far as personal desires go, private life.”
Private lifestill fills the measure of his yearning. “Retirement” is still the goal of his desire. This is but the weakness; the crime of Mr. Parasite is revealed further on. The long suspense over, safely ensconced in that official chair, while its cushions are a new delight, its honors are fresh, its powers unwonted, perhaps a consciousness of gratitude remains with Mr. Parasite. It’s a pleasantoffice, very. Carpeted, cushioned, curtained, pictured, secluded. It is pleasant, very. This ever-acknowledged honor of official state, messengers flying at your bid, doors swinging noiselessly at your approach, hats springing into air as you pass by,lorgnetteslifted by fair hands in great assemblies, the crowd peering and shouting, “There goes the great Mr. Parasite!” Sweet, also, are the newly-found uses of official power—sweeter even than to die for one’s country. The privileges of patronage, the consciousness of power over the fate of others, the uses of power in ministering to self—first sought and last relinquished—of all the gifts of office.
While all these retain the charm of newness, a sense of gratitude may remain with Mr. Parasite towards those who led and lifted him to his high estate. Rarely strong in any man, the sense of gratitude with continued office is sure to die out. When he first enters, and the memory of fresh services remains with him, he may feel, at least faintly, that he owes something to somebody besides himself; but the longer he remains, the surer he is that all is his by right, all due to his own exalted merit. There comes a time when it seems as if that cushioned chair, that luxurious office, those muffled doors, those cringing messengers, were all made especially for him and to do him service. With a growing sense of security in his position, comes, perhaps, an unconscious indifference toward those who, in the beginning, helped to lift him toward it. There is no intentional ingratitude, only it is so easy for some natures to forget others when they cease to need them.
Then, too, official place, even in a republican government, hourly feeds in a man his love of power, and his sense of personal importance. It feeds the vanity andself-satisfaction of poor human nature, when its fellows are dependent upon it even for the smallest favors. Few meet this test and survive it their noblest selves. It is astonishing how soon Mr. Parasite forgets that, a short time since, he was a seeker of favors himself, and is sure to be again, before old age strands him amid things gone by in the long-deferred haven of private life.
While a feeling of dependence on others survives, an emotion of gratitude lingers, Mr. Parasite will try to treat other applicants for office as he desired to be treated a few short months since himself. But these emotions were never known to live through a single stress of a single term of office.
Poor Mr. Parasite is very much beset! Every hour in the day somebody wants something that somebody believes is in Mr. Parasite’s power to bestow. It may be flattering, but it is also wearing, tearing, exasperating, and even maddening, sometimes, to a man to be deemed the dispenser of so much power and patronage. He cannot give everybody all that everybody may ask—of course not. This is not all his sin. His sin is this: He comes in time (usually in a marvellously short time) to regard every one seeking the patronage of his office as a mendicant on his personal bounty, rather than as a member of one class with himself. Because he gained the highest honor, he forgets that he got it on the very same principle that John Jones, who, armed with credentials from his minister and doctor, so humbly sues for the post-office of Mudtown. He listens to the sister pleading for her brother, the wife for her husband, the father for his son, the poor man for himself, and because it is little each asks, despises each accordingly, lectures each on the folly ofwanting any Government place whatever. The one thing that he cannot remember, and which it is most delightful to forget, is that he was ever in John Jones’ place himself.
To be sure, he did not sue for the Mudtown post-office. He wanted a foreign ministry, a home secretaryship, to be a Senator, or, at least, a Governor. He begged or bartered for these Government-gifts precisely as John does for his post-office. Both are equally office-seekers; but there is such disparity between John’s little Alpha and the Omega of Mr. Parasite’s desires, the latter does not recognize in this seeker of small things his remotest cousin. Comparatively few dare demand ministries and secretaryships, while post-offices and their ilk are as plentiful as blackberries, and their pickers equally so—so plentiful that Mr. Parasite leans back in his cushioned chair, on his official tripod, and wonderswhichJohn Jones it will be next, and whathewill want; and, when one of the innumerable Johns, waiting outside, is admitted by a mighty messenger, whose official state is more overwhelming even than his master’s, the suppliant quakes to the bottom of his boots in the presence of the powerful potentate, Mr. Parasite.
“What doyouwant?” says the potentate, in a tone which implies in advance, “You can’t have it.”
“Only the Mudtown post-office,” says John, “or—or anything that I can get.”
“Impossible; I have nothing—nothing for you,” says the potentate, in a remote and superior tone, which indicates, as only a tone can, that he, the potentate, needs nothing at present himself. And who can imagine that he ever did? “Why on earth do so many of you comefor Government employment? Don’t you know it is the worst thing in the world for you? You had better go to work. Do anything, rather than to hang upon the Government.”
ThusoneJohn is dismissed, to go and browse in the closely-cropped and over-crowded pastures of the inefficient and ne’er-do-well mediocrity.
Several days later, when John rebounds from the shock imparted by Mr. Parasite’s grandeur, its momentum sends him pat against a fact. “Why, he is a hanger-on to the Government himself.” Yes; and so, in one sense, is every office-holder, from the President down to the mighty messenger who condescends to shut and open doors. It implies no discredit to be a server of the Government; but it reveals a very ignoble side of human nature, when the favored holder rebuffs the lowliest seeker as a being from another race, in any essential quality the antipodes of himself.
A man who has just been lifted by his friends from one high place to another, has long boasted, while in power, “that he would not help a friend sooner than an enemy.” I had a certain admiration for him till I knew that he said this, and proved it by his practice. There is something true and grateful and noble lacking in a man’s nature, when he turns from his friend as he would from an enemy, doing nothing for either; always taking, and never giving; always seeking, yet sneering at others who seek; always subsisting on Government bounty and place himself, while he wounds, ignores, and sometimes insults the unfortunates who wish to do likewise and can’t.
This is Mr. Parasite, and he lives, reigns and flourishes, as parasites only can, in every department of governmental state.