Title: The offices
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: 1854
Whitman Archive ID: prc.00128
Source: The manuscript was sold by Sotheby's in 2008. The current location of the manuscript is unknown. Transcribed from digital images of the original that were posted to Sotheby's website. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
Editorial note: This manuscript includes a partial draft of "Memorial in Behalf of a Freer Municipal Government, and Against Sunday Restrictions," a public letter printed in the Brooklyn Star on October 20, 1854. Whitman probably drafted the manuscript shortly before the piece was published.
Related item: Poetic lines on the back of this manuscript leaf relate to the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself." See prc.00127.
Contributors to digital file: Brett Barney, Caitlin Henry, Nicole Gray, and Brandon James O'Neil
[cut away]most selfish interests of a few, and
The offices [cut away] great city are not ^principally created for as to be the successful rewards of smart and or lucky politicians, or to confirm that the nominations of some caucus in a lawyers office, or in a packed convention, may be put through and confirmed.—They are part of the organic motion of the city, for the life and health of it from head to foot.—
WW WWAfter all has been is said, ^however, it ^the work of establishing and raising the character of cities, of course, remains at last and eventually with the people ^themselves.—Strictly speaking they have no right to complain of being hampered and cheated and hoodwinked [illegible] overtaxed and insulted.—for they always hold the remedy in their own hands.—I am not athe man to soft‑soap the people any more than I do office‑holders—but this I say for, them at all times, that their very credulity is in some sort, a proof of their and perpetual confidence in others, an are organic signs of the most upright and beautiful noble ^elements of our national character.—It remarkable that is to be said [o?]
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