Hedges, Job E. Common Sense in Politics. New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1910. First Edition. [9432]
Cream cloth with gilt decoration, light soil to binding, small ding to the foredge of the rear board, 8 x 5 1/2 inches, top page edge gilt, pencil note filling the ffep with recommendation & personal knowledge of the author, 253 clean pp., tight, most of the pages remain unopened. Very good. Hardcover.
Published October, 1910. "Amen Corner Edition" in gilt on front.
"It would not have been inconsistent to have entitled this small volume 'Political Psychology.' It is not the purpose of the writer to indulge in didactics or polemics, but merely to describe things as they are in a particular field of activity, and by that description arouse a different attitude of mind, so that more normal conclusions may be reached. It is a wast of time to enact laws to govern the conduct of men if these laws are based on the assumption that the men to be affected are what they ought to be rather than what they are. The wisest plan is to study human nature as it exists, to endeavor to uplift it, to legislate for actual conditions, and not to put upon the statute books any law which does not reflect the real consensus of public opinion. Any other course results only in the exploitation of the advocates of the measure and, late, in its infraction, which harms the public." - p. 8.
Chapters on the State of the Nation, Americanized Traits, Political Parties, Bosses, Patronage, Reform, the Press, Office Seeking, Laws and Morals, Political Corruption, Political Honesty, &c.
Job Elmer Hedges (1862-1925), b. Elizabeth, NJ; d. Atlantic City, NJ. Educated at Princeton University and Columbia Law School, Hedges practiced law in New York City. He became active in Republican politics and in 1912 was nominated as their candidate for Governor of New York, losing to Democrat William Sulzer. He returned to the practice of law, and in 1920 was appointed receiver of the New York Railways Company, which he successfully guided through reorganization.