"Robert A. Heinlein - Take back your Government" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

normal American!)
The voice mutters, "Fairview, Farwest, Farflung - " The owner of the voice
is checking a file or a map. Then you hear, in an aside, "Say, Marjorie,
gimme the folder on the 13th ward."


9
 "What do you want to know?" says Marjorie. She knows them by heart;
she typed them. She is a political secretary and belongs to one of two
extreme classes. Either she is a patriot and absolutely incorruptible, or she
can be bought and sold like cattle. Either way she knows who the field worker
in the 13th ward is.
After a couple of minutes of this backing and filling you are supplied with a
name, an address, and a telephone number of a local politician who is
probably the secretary of the local club. You may also be supplied with the
address and times and dates of meetings of the local club, if it is strong
enough to have permanent headquarters. The local club may vary anywhere
from a dub in permanent possession of a store frontage on a busy street,
with a full time secretary on the premises and a complete ward, precinct, and
block organization, to a club which exists largely in the imagination of the
secretary and which meets only during campaigns in the homes of the
members.
Your next job is to telephone the secretary. This is probably not
necessary. If the local organization is any good at all, the secretary of the
local club will callow, probably the same day. Marjorie will have called him
and said, "Get a pencil and paper, Jim. I've got a new sucker for you." Or, if
she is not cynical, she may call you a new prospect.
She will have added you to a card file and set the wheels in motion to
have your registration checked and to have you placed on several mailing
lists. Presently you will start receiving one or more political newspapers -
free, despite the subscription price posted on the masthead - and, in due
course, you will receive campaign literature from candidates who have the
proper connections at headquarters. Your political education will have begun,
even if you never bother to become active.
Note that it has not cost you anything so far. The costs need never
exceed nickels, dimes, and quarters, even if you become very active. The
costs can run as high as you wish, of course. The citizen who is willing to
reach for his checkbook to back up his beliefs is always welcome in politics.
But such action is not necessary and is not as rare as the citizen who is
willing to punch doorbells and lick stamps. Some of the most valuable and
respected politicians I have ever known had to be provided with lunch money
to permit them to do a full day's volunteer work in any area more than a few
blocks from their respective homes.
I know of one case, a retired minister with a microscopic pension just
sufficient to buy groceries for himself and his bedridden wife, who became
county chairman and leader-in-fact of the party in power in a metropolitan
area of more than three million people. He was so poor that he could not
afford to attend political breakfasts or dinner. He could never afford to
contribute to party funds, nor, on the other hand, was he ever on the party
payroll - he never made a thin dime out of politics.