"Your definition slanders the word. I shall be glad to have your
support, gentlemen, at the polls. But I am for the State, not for your
faction or any other faction. I know you are not used to hearing a
candidate tell you the truth--it has not been the style in this State.
If the truth from me has shocked you, blame the truth, not me."
He ushered Harlan before him and closed his door upon the delegation.
"It's a sad feature of public affairs in this State, my young friend,"
said he, when they were alone, "that so large a mass of the people, who
naturally are sane and moderate, allow those paid agents of so-called
reform to serve as popular mouth-pieces. Reform for reform's sake
supersedes reform for the people's sake. Candidates have been afraid of
those mouths. Such mouths as those outside there assert that they are
talking for the whole people in the name of morality, but there are only
a few mouths of that kind. It is time to test it out. I propose to see
whether the people will not follow the real thing in honesty instead of
the mere protestation of it.
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