Making of the president 1964

EVERY MAN who writes of politics shapes unknowingly in his mind some fanciful metaphor to embrace all the wild, apparently erratic events and personalities in the process he tries to describe.
Over the past few years the image of politics that has taken shape for me is that of an immense journey-the panorama of an endless wagon train, an enormous trek, a multitudinous procession of people larger and more confused than any of the primitive folk migrations.
There ahead-lies the crest of the ridge, and beyond it, perhaps, the plateau or the sunlit valley-or danger. The procession stretches out for endless miles, making its way up the tangled slopes through strange new country, and it has been marching for a long time. The country the people enter is full of unknown dangers and fresh promise, where the only thing to be anticipated is the unexpected. In the procession there are those who trudge on foot, those who ride in the wagons, those who go by horse. On and on they go, some weary, some gay, some infuriated by the slowness of the pace, and others who insist the journey pause because the pace is too fast. In the long, endless file are the sturdy ones, the happy ones, the good hunters; and also the lame, the old, the trouble-makers, the stupid, the children too. They quarrel with each other as they go, or they make friends and form groups about their own section leaders in the rear. But none can leave the march for very long, or go his own way; for to leave means to be alone in the wilderness, or perhaps to fall into the hands of an equally savage enemy procession. All are bound to their own migration, their own wagon train, whether they enjoy it or hate it.