ABUSED POLITICIANS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 12 September 1913, Page 6

ABUSED POLITICIANS.

SHOULD HAVE A TOUCH SKIN,

Referring to the general abuse of politicians, Mr T. P. O'Connor says: —"lt must always be remembered that they all have a double personality —their own. and the part thoy play in great conflicts of principles or interests. In the latfcar capacity they are pawns in a groat game; a-;d it is as pawns that they are judged, and not according to their own personality. If a man especially be a man of power and authority and have a great hold over largo masses of his fellow men, ho becomes at once a threat to some great interests on the : one side, and on the other a standardbearer for some great hopes. It is as much the inevitable tendency of the on© to paint him in dark as for the other to paint him in glowing colours, both being in most cases very far from the actual truth. I heard Mr Bryan, the celebrated American statesman, once say that he had to show himself to his foes and friends that they might see, the one that he had no hoofs and horns and the other ' that ho did not carry wings. And thus it isi that every public man of any ) note finds himself the object of both blame and, praise that are a surprise to him. .' "Indeed apublic man realises after .he has,attained any prominence that -his i very existence seems to ; offend '.• some ..people.: ; scarcely a •week -when I doitfot, receive an abu- ' sijre letter fWm someone I have never heard of, and for sojtn.e act which appeared to me or so innocent that I could not .understand anybody it or. blaming it. When pub* lie men, then, are assailed, however, \ bitterly, it is because they have excited the fears or offended the honestly held opinions of some section of their countrymen-nto is not they who ' are really attacked so much as the i principles they represent or oppose. i There are few public men who would ! not have a large monument if every ! stone thrown at them were collected together into one mound. But use accustoms one to everything—even to abuse. "And he is a very poor creature'; who allows'any amount of it either to disturb his temper or deflect his course."