His mentality is
slight. He is the voice of many; instinctively he gives tongue to
what the many feel; that is all.
Suppose the strong-lunged Californian were a political blank, just
reaching the national consciousness, when the reaction against
Wilson began and when the public swung to conservatism.
You know those vast tin amplifiers employed in big convention
halls, or in out-door meetings, to carry the voice of the speaker
to the remotest depths of the audience; Johnson is a vast tin
amplifier of the voice of the mass. When the people had become
"docile" he would have thundered "docility" to the uttermost bounds
of the universe, if he had not by earlier utterances been
definitely placed on the side opposed to docility.
But he had been definitely placed in the battle of Armageddon. A
thousand ennuies located him for all political time. No convictions
hold him where he is in case there be profit in changing sides;
other men habitually conservative would have the preference over
him on the other side. In this sense he is accidently radical,
accidently because he happened to emerge in politics at a radical
moment. That takes into account only the mental background of his
political position. There is an element that was not chance. Public
passion is almost invariably radical, springing as it does from the
resentment of inequality, and Johnson is the tongue of public
passion.
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