Politics and the Public Weal

Abstract

The original constitutional provision limiting the Liberian president's term of office to two years permitted no period of recovery from the stress of one election before another was on. The subject of politics is almost the entire concern of Liberian newspapers; the young men's clubs are political clubs. The political scene is one uninterrupted campaign of vilification, from which no man in public life escapes. The crystallization of a permanent official class tended to give both the aspect and reality of “family rule,” which was no infallible guarantee of competence. The People's Party platform was almost wholly an opposition program. The American medical officer undertook a thorough investigation, and as a preliminary measure, collected a stupendous heap of trash, tin cans, and bottles that had been cluttering the streets and lots for years.