CONSTR.UCTIVE CRITICISM
1103
caught making a living, while the other, who felt no such urge, decided
to stay on and become, if possible, a high-ranking diplomat. They
both did what they wanted; the writer wrote, criticizing now this and
now that of the absurdities of politics, the other buttoned up
his
coat and his lips, and, instead of expressing his amazement at what he
saw, he erased all symptoms of its presence from his face. But the
feelings of both remained the same: the writer went on laughing at
his
typewriter, while the diplomat laughed at the Club.
When they met again in New York a few years later, the writer
greeted his old friend with the same warmth of former days, but was
instantly sobered down by the most diplomatic "Good Morning," fol–
lowed by the strange remark: "So you write, do you? I have read
your articles these past three years."
"Oh, have you?" said the writer, still hoping to break through
that ice, "and what do you think of them?"
"Quickly done, to criticize everything as you do," answered the
diplomat. "Anyone can do that. Why don't you give us some con–
structive alternatives for all you think is so terribly wrong in our
foreign policy?"
For a moment the writer was stunned. "Quickly done?" he
asked, "What do you mean by that? Does it take you so long to com–
mit a mistake?
If
it's the speed of my criticism that makes you en–
vious, all you have to do is take a chronometer and measure the
time it takes high government officials to commit their mistakes and
the time it takes me to criticize them, then you will see who wins. A
President today gives instructions by phone; they are covered with
secrecy for the usual security reasons, and their results are first known
to the public when those instructions have already done their damage,
while the govemment has already set into motion its public relations
machinery whose job it is to sell government policies as good. I, the
free-lance journalist, must read between the lines, and before I can
realize what damage has been done to the 'cause of peace, it takes me
about three days. Two more days it takes me to scribble an article
of critical comment, after which I must peddle it from magazine
to magazine until I sell it two weeks later to a third-rate publication,
the editor of which keeps it on his desk for another three weeks and
then prints half of it because by that time, thanks to the government
public relations office, everybody has accepted the government's point
