Most of the newspapers which regarded themselves as the especial
champions of Civil Service Reform and as the highest exponents of civic
virtue, and which distrusted the average citizen and shuddered over the
"coarseness" of the professional politicians, were, nevertheless, given
to vices even more contemptible than, although not so gross as, those
they denounced and derided. Their editors were refined men of cultivated
tastes, whose pet temptations were backbiting, mean slander, and
the snobbish worship of anything clothed in wealth and the outward
appearances of conventional respectability. They were not robust or
powerful men; they felt ill at ease in the company of rough, strong
men; often they had in them a vein of physical timidity. They avenged
themselves to themselves for an uneasy subconsciousness of their
own shortcomings by sitting in cloistered--or, rather, pleasantly
upholstered--seclusion, and sneering at and lying about men who made
them feel uncomfortable. Sometimes these were bad men, who made them
feel uncomfortable by the exhibition of coarse and repellent vice; and
sometimes they were men of high character, who held ideals of courage
and of service to others, and who looked down and warred against the
shortcomings of swollen wealth, and the effortless, easy lives of those
whose horizon is bounded by a sheltered and timid respectability.
Pages:
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257