with imposing solemnity that the old system was intolerable, and that
the interests of humanity and the country required him to do as he had
done. Not one of them was ever known to declare that he had destroyed
the old government because he wished to be the government himself. The
two friends of the Easy Chair had sincerely sophisticated themselves,
and identified their personal advantage and wishes with the public
interest. If they had told the precise truth they would have said that
they wanted office, and if they could not get it from one party they
would try another. When a man is conscious of a strong desire and of
great ability to serve the public, this kind of sophistication is
easy. That which should make a generous man suspicious under such
circumstances is that he confounds official position with public
service. The latter, indeed, is in a sense a technical phrase; but a
man may equally serve the public unofficially by taking his part in
the necessary and disagreeable details of practical politics. If he
will not do this he must share the responsibility of bad government.

Yet here, again, he must not be discouraged if his efforts appear to
be abortive and the results ridiculous. The secret of a republic seems
abstractly to be very simple, for it is merely that all good men shall
act together and elect good officers. But good men cannot act together
if they do not think together, and the best method of obtaining
results which all desire is the very problem of politics. All good men
cannot act together, therefore, because good men differ. But even the
good men who agree cannot easily and simply have their way, because
political measures can be secured only by organization, and the
organization, or the machine by which the result is to be attained,
may very readily fall into crafty or corrupt hands, which will use the
sincerity and pure purpose of better men to serve base and mercenary
ends. The first of the two friends of the Easy Chair was used in this