The Call of the Nation

An excerpt from the beginning of the first chapter. Some twenty-five years ago, more or less, a Politics in young man of my acquaintance once told me of Politics an experience in New York politics. He had found an ardent Democrat working tooth and nail for the election of a Republican alderman. My friend expressed surprise, but the henchman explained: "You are a very young man, Mr. Roosevelt, but when you are as old as I am, you will know that there is no politics in...
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An excerpt from the beginning of the first chapter.
Some twenty-five years ago, more or less, a Politics in young man of my acquaintance once told me of Politics an experience in New York politics. He had found an ardent Democrat working tooth and nail for the election of a Republican alderman. My friend expressed surprise, but the henchman explained: "You are a very young man, Mr. Roosevelt, but when you are as old as I am, you will know that there is no politics in politics."
In this phrase, the word politics has two distinct meanings. In the one case, it is synonymous with partisanship; in the other with plunder -- "We play no favorites when we are working the people." This statement, likewise in slang, fairly expresses the meaning of the other.
In our democracy, the word politics should be a most lofty one. Politics is the science of citizenship. Only in a democracy has citizenship a definite meaning. Individual citizens banded together to look after their common affairs and learning by their own mistakes, -- this is democracy, and politics is the science which treats of the citizen's functions and operations.
But in our vulgar usage, as in the thought of the New York henchman, the word politics stands for the machinery by which men gain money through the struggles of political parties. It is the traffic in the loyalty of the blind partisan. It is the building up of a sort of feudal system, with the boss at the top and the voter of straight tickets at the bottom, as the natural serf.
This feudal system we must eradicate. This traffic we must drive out of our national life. This is the politics which must be taken out of politics, if the nation is to endure. There is no short and easy way of doing this. It is the work of a generation. It must follow the education of another generation. This education is now going on. It began long ago with the Mugwump movement. It received a vigorous impetus from the first address on Conservation by the President of the United States, at Palo Alto, I think, in 1903.