And therefore, if the established powers are sensitive and
well-informed, if they are visibly trying to meet popular feeling, and
actually removing some of the causes of dissatisfaction, no matter how
slowly they proceed, provided they are seen to be proceeding, they
have little to fear. It takes stupendous and persistent blundering,
plus almost infinite tactlessness, to start a revolution from below.
Palace revolutions, interdepartmental revolutions, are a different
matter. So, too, is demagogy. That stops at relieving the tension by
expressing the feeling. But the statesman knows that such relief is
temporary, and if indulged too often, unsanitary. He, therefore, sees
to it that he arouses no feeling which he cannot sluice into a program
that deals with the facts to which the feelings refer.
But all leaders are not statesmen, all leaders hate to resign, and
most leaders find it hard to believe that bad as things are, the other
fellow would not make them worse. They do not passively wait for the
public to feel the incidence of policy, because the incidence of that
discovery is generally upon their own heads. They are, therefore,
intermittently engaged in mending their fences and consolidating their
position.
The mending of fences consists in offering an occasional scapegoat, in
redressing a minor grievance affecting a powerful individual or
faction, rearranging certain jobs, placating a group of people who
want an arsenal in their home town, or a law to stop somebody's vices.
Pages:
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261