“In Bryce’s view, American politics at the end of the nineteenth century was dominated not by virtuous statesmen but by venal politicians who conspired to feast at the great barbecue of govern?ment subsidies. Republicans and Demo?crats alike regularly bought votes and saw to it that their partisans cast more than one ballot in critical municipal, state, and national elections. In the ab?sence of a professional civil service re?quired to administer federal programs, public policy became synonymous with the pursuit of private gain. Access to the spoils of victory quickly replaced any lingering intention to govern while in office. Electoral triumph apparently pro?vided its own rewards.
The period that Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner labeled the “Gilded Age” signaled for Bryce an ep?och in American history when the old was dying and the new was struggling to be born. In the past lay an isolated re?public of farms and villages, with a tradi?tional emphasis on hard work, self-sacri?fice, the patriarchal family, and strict Protestant morality. The population was predominantly English, Scotch-Irish, and northern European in origin. In the fu?ture was an imperial nation of cities and factories, with a cosmopolitan popula?tion drawn from every corner of the earth.”
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回复 '阿留' 的评论 :
谢谢阿留老师耐心的回复。
这次大选也让很多人(包括我)看到了民主制度中民众参与的重要性。这也是激烈竞争的一个积极作用吧。
Democracy is not demo, but，阿留老师评论中肯，语调平和，是民主讨论的典范。
