Editorial September 25, 1920 Issue

Steadfastness

Frederick Dixon

Nobody appreciates the character of a trimmer. In spite of Halifax's brilliant and ingenious defence of the tribe, the world recognizes something unstable and mean in the mentality which produces one. Halifax himself may be regarded as an exceptional specimen, born of a particularly nicely balanced objection to extremes. And yet the man who follows Principle instead of person may find himself at any moment passing from side to side, as those sides sway with unrestrained momentum from extreme to extreme.

The question therefore arises, What is a trimmer? and most people who the political conditions amidst which Halifax found himself would probably agree that he sailed far nearer to Principle than the whole-hearted exponents of party, on either side of him. The carious part of the matter is, however, that it is really the parties which change and not the trimmer, if the trimmer is holding to a straight and scientific course. Halifax left this party and that party because in office they tended to abjure the very ideals for which they had contended in opposition. He was on the side of the persecuted and the ostracized, that is to say, in the day of their persecution and ostracism, but when they obtained power, he declined to follow them in persecution and ostracism of their opponents. In his way, then, and in circumstances of great difficulty, Halifax made the name of trimmer a title of honor. But one Halifax does not make a political millennium. The ordinary trimmer is a man who takes advantage of conditions to improve his own opportunities, and acts selfishly and cravenly where his opponent may act courageously though violently.

If Halifax had possessed a real understanding of Principle, he might have steered a scientific course amidst the breakers, or he might have yielded to the prejudices of his education, and remained the trimmer of his own defining to the end. It is because the world knows so few Halifaxes that its dislike of trimmers has degenerated into a contempt. Yet in estimating the character of the trimmer it is necessary to take into consideration the various elements which go to form it. And in the end it will be found that, as in so many other cases, it the motive which is the test of the result. At the same time, motive is one of the most difficult things in the world to estimate. A man may ask himself every morning and every evening what his motives have been for the course he may have pursued; and in spite of every effort to answer truthfully, he may persuade himself by the most egregious reasoning of almost anything. It would be difficult to say if Mr. Pecksniff really appeared to himself such an unmitigated fraud as he did to his "venerable friend" and to everybody else who knew him.

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