OPINION:
When he writes that the “pursuit of power and wealth go hand in hand,” Don Feder is channeling Benjamin Franklin (“Legislators for life: Congress was never meant to be a career,” web, Oct. 8).
Franklin was not keen on the idea of paying political salaries. He noted that there are two passions that have a powerful influence in the affairs of men: ambition and avarice, or the love of power and the love of money.
In his speech in the Constitutional Convention on the subject of salaries, Franklin said, “Place before the eyes of some men a post of honor, that at the same time be a place of profit, and they will move heaven and earth to obtain it.”
This truism explains why our so-called representatives spend millions upon millions of dollars for a job that pays a tiny fraction of that, and why they are loath to give it up.
This also explains why Jonathan Boucher, Franklin’s contemporary and a leading loyalist, thought the new government would lead to the possibility of governance by ignorant and corrupt tyrants. He certainly got that right.
JOHN KUPKE
Annapolis, Maryland
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