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The growth of national politics with a universal franchise and universal publicity has made it much harder for a public figure to hide his indiscretions. Only politicians with safe constituencies can carry on the way they used to. By pacifying their constituents with assorted favors, Congressmen as diverse as South Carolina's hard-drinking Mendel Rivers and Harlem's high-living Adam Clayton Powell are still able to ride out allegations of impropriety. Where money is concerned the public is more exacting. As a Senator from Massachusetts, Daniel Webster maintained a private fund that had been collected from wealthy businessmen. He was criticized for it, but he had nothing to worry about: he was elected by a state legislature dominated by these same businessmen. In 1952, when it was disclosed by the press that Richard Nixon had a similar fund, he was saved only by a dramatic television appeal: the famous "Checkers speech."
Strain of Office
While the U.S. has become more permissive about such matters as divorce and sex outside marriage, the public is demanding more of politicians these days—possibly because they are demanding more of themselves. Since the new politician relies more on his "image" and personality, he must answer for their defects as well. And these are scrutinized more closely than ever by an omnivorous press. His flaws are almost always excruciatingly on display.
It is hard to object to this rise in political standards; yet perfection has its limits. The man entrusted with high public office today operates under unprecedented strain: he may well feel personally responsible for the survival of much of the human race in the nuclear age. More than ever, he needs the kind of private release that the open frontier once provided. A successful politician often possesses immense energy that needs to be released. The obscure private citizen can lose control of himself in public. Nobody but his friends will care. The man in public life must exercise iron control.
It may be that Americans have overmoralized public office. They tend to equate public greatness with private goodness, forgetting that a revered President like Abraham Lincoln suffered assorted psychosomatic ailments, that he was absentminded, and told jokes that made him seem callous. If private rectitude were tantamount to public usefulness, then Calvin Coolidge would be esteemed the greatest President.
In a way, too much purity begs to be tarnished. It is only human to want to tear down that which has been built up too far. Americans have borrowed their notion of statesmanship in large part from the Romans, who emphasized dignity and piety. Perhaps they should have taken some lessons from the Greeks as well, who knew better than to expect more than moderately good conduct from their leaders. A quest for perfection was hubris and ended in disaster.