From Sophie's front desk — Sunday, July 26
NYT — read the full story
Chaos money trouble inside. The Democratic National Committee's chair is drowning in fundraising collapse and staff revolt—the New York Times documents the wreckage, including the literal phone-throwing incidents that mark a party apparatus coming apart. The real wound: structural decay so deep that no single person can fix it by force of will. Franklin saw this in colonial assemblies. Seneca after him.
I have watched assemblies dissolve into shouting matches over a penny tax while the frontier burned. The Pennsylvania House adjourned twice rather than vote powder for the Ohio forts, and when they finally managed ten thousand pounds it passed by a single vote — eight men against twenty-four, then ten against twenty-two, then the bare majority that squeaked it through. Money sharpens every disagreement into a crisis; the lack of it turns crisis into farce. In London I saw boroughs sold for four thousand pounds apiece, the whole venal nation on offer for two million.
The monied interest of nabobs and contractors drowned the country gentlemen's natural voice. When rogues quarrel, honest men may hope for their rights — but hope is not a ledger entry. The commissioners in Paris, 1777, drafted memorial after memorial to Vergennes while Ticonderoga fell and Congress could not honor its own bills. They composed appeals they could not afford to send.
A party without a purse is a kite without a string — impressive in the wind, presently lost in the trees. The chair changes, the accusations fly, the telephones become projectiles. None of it fills the treasury. Franklin learned this at the Junto: we met every Thursday, debated morals and politics, but the club survived because each man paid his shilling and the fines for absence were collected without ceremony.
Discipline is dull. It is also the only thing that pays the printers.
papers. The parliament is up and the nation in a ferment with the new elections. Great complaints are made that the natural interests of country gentlemen in their neighbouring boroughs, is overborne by the monied interest of the new people who have got sudden fortunes in the Ind…
with giving the Marquis his Motion He cutting off part of His preamble. The leaders of the Bedford party have veerd about very much of late, & are from all appearances going over to opposition. The quarrels among the Ministry has been the probable cause of this. Lord N and Lord G…
This memorandum, under its calm surface, conveys a sense of depression; and the commissioners had reason to be depressed. They seem to have become suddenly aware that they were in deep financial trouble, because they had made commitments that they did not have the money to honor …
The new Assembly met on Monday, October 15, and elected Isaac Norris speaker once more. On the following Saturday, after taking final action on the instructions to Richard Jackson concerning the Sugar Act and the impending Stamp Act (above, p. 396 n), the House took up the matter…
The Pennsylvania Assembly had adjourned twice, on March 9 and again on April 13, without taking action to assist Virginia in the defense of the upper Ohio Valley against the French advance (see above, pp. 229 n, 258). The day after the Assembly met again on May 6, Governor Hamilt…
Lucilius, you ask how a party collapses while its leaders throw telephones. I saw the same sickness in Nero's court — men who confused the office with the man, who believed their determination could override fortune. Epictetus knew this madness: a sickly soul "knows not which way to incline," and calls its own rigidity virtue. The DNC chair inherits a hollowed treasury and warring factions. He cannot command donations.
He cannot command loyalty. He can only command his own judgment — and even that, if he clings to outcomes, becomes the "tone of madness, not of health." The cup breaks whether it belongs to your neighbor or to you. The accident of mortality does not spare institutions. I learned this in Corsica. Eight years exiled, watching the surf eat the cliffs.
My property gone. My reputation in the hands of enemies. The only thing that remained was the discipline I had practiced before the sentence arrived. The party that mistakes fundraising for philosophy will keep throwing telephones until the walls fall down. Write to me from Sicily: what have you built that no election can unbuild?
events the issues of the most admirable projects, though we ought to praise the will itself which makes an effort in the right direction. Even though another passes it by with swifter pace, yet the palm of victory does not, as in publicly-exhibited races, declare which is the bet…
all agreed. As when our neighbor’s boy has broken a cup, or the like, we are ready at once to say, “These are casualties that will happen”; be assured, then, that when your own cup is likewise broken, you ought to be affected just as when another’s cup was broken. Now apply this …
other things? for what is greater and more useful than for you to be persuaded that it is not sufficient to have made your determination and not to change it. This is the tone (energy) of madness, not of health.—I will die, if you compel me to this.—Why, man? What has happened?—I…
other things? for what is greater and more useful than for you to be persuaded that it is not sufficient to have made your determination and not to change it. This is the tone (energy) of madness, not of health.—I will die, if you compel me to this.—Why, man? What has happened?—I…
vessel? Who does not value a benevolent and faithful adviser? Who will not willingly receive a man who is ready to bear a share, as we may say, of the difficulty of his circumstances, and by this very act to ease the burden, by taking a part of it. THE ENCHEIRIDION, OR MANUAL. I.…
The story ran in the New York Times. When a party fragments over procedure while stakes climb, the wreckage teaches you which people were ever serious. That's Old News for today.