2
But the facts can, I think, be explained more convincingly without the
help of the oversoul in any of its disguises. After all, the art of
inducing all sorts of people who think differently to vote alike is
practiced in every political campaign. In 1916, for example, the
Republican candidate had to produce Republican votes out of many
different kinds of Republicans. Let us look at Mr. Hughes' first
speech after accepting the nomination. [Footnote: Delivered at Carnegie
Hall, New York City, July 31, 1916.] The context is still clear enough
in our minds to obviate much explanation; yet the issues are no longer
contentious. The candidate was a man of unusually plain speech, who
had been out of politics for several years and was not personally
committed on the issues of the recent past. He had, moreover, none of
that wizardry which popular leaders like Roosevelt, Wilson, or Lloyd
George possess, none of that histrionic gift by which such men
impersonate the feelings of their followers. From that aspect of
politics he was by temperament and by training remote. But yet he knew
by calculation what the politician's technic is. He was one of those
people who know just how to do a thing, but who can not quite do it
themselves. They are often better teachers than the virtuoso to whom
the art is so much second nature that he himself does not know how he
does it. The statement that those who can, do; those who cannot,
teach, is not nearly so much of a reflection on the teacher as it
sounds.
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