CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES
_By the Same Author_
EMERSON AND OTHER ESSAYS. 12mo. $1.25
CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES
BY
JOHN JAY CHAPMAN
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1899
_Copyright, 1898_,
BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
_DEDICATED_
TO THE
MEMBERS OF CLUB C
PREFACE
As we unravel political knots, they resolve themselves into proverbs
and familiar truth, and thus our explanation becomes a treatise upon
human nature,--a profession of faith.
The idea that man is an unselfish animal has gradually been forced
upon me, by the course of reflection which I give in the following
chapters, in the order in which it occurred to me. The chapters are
little more than presentations from different points of view of this
one idea. The chapters on Politics and Society seem to show that our
political corruptions and social inferiorities can be traced to the
same source,--namely, temporary distortion of human character by the
forces of commerce. The chapter on Education is a study on the law of
intellectual growth, and shows that a normal and rounded development
can only come from a use of the faculties very different from that
practised by the average American since the discovery of the cotton
gin.
The chapter on Democracy is a review of that subject by the light of
the conclusions as to the Nature of Man, arrived at in the Essay on
Education; and it is seen that our frame of government is in accord
with sound philosophy, and is a constant influence tending to correct
the distortions described in the first two chapters. In the final
chapter on Government, some illustrations are drawn together, showing
that the whole course of reasoning of the book contains nothing novel,
but accords with the ideals and with the wisdom of the world.
The book itself arose out of an attempt to explain an election.
J. J. C.
ROKEBY, June 10, 1898.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. POLITICS 3
II. SOCIETY 49
III. EDUCATION; FROEBEL 83
IV. DEMOCRACY 115
V. GOVERNMENT 137
POLITICS
I
POLITICS
Misgovernment in the United States is an incident in the history
of commerce. It is part of the triumph of industrial progress. Its
details are easier to understand if studied as a part of the commercial
development of the country than if studied as a part of government,
because many of the wheels and cranks in the complex machinery of
government are now performing functions so perverted as to be unmeaning
from the point of view of political theory, but which become perfectly
plain if looked at from the point of view of trade.
The growth and concentration of capital which the railroad and the
telegraph made possible is the salient fact in the history of the last
quarter-century. That fact is at the bottom of our political troubles.
It was inevitable that the enormous masses of wealth, springing out of
new conditions and requiring new laws, should strive to control the
legislation and the administration which touched them at every point.
At the present time, we cannot say just what changes were or were not
required by enlightened theory. It is enough to see that such changes
as came were inevitable; and nothing can blind us to the fact that the
methods by which they were obtained were subversive of free government.
Whatever form of government had been in force in America during
this era would have run the risk of being controlled by capital, of
being bought and run for revenue. It happened that the beginning of
the period found the machinery of our government in a particularly
purchasable state. The war had left the people divided into two
parties which were fanatically hostile to each other. The people were
party mad. Party name and party symbols were of an almost religious
importance.
At the very moment when the enthusiasm of the nation had been exhausted
in a heroic war which left the Republican party-managers in possession
of the ark of the covenant, the best intellect of the country was
withdrawn from public affairs and devoted to trade. During the
period of expansion which followed, the industrial forces called in
the ablest men of the nation to aid them in getting control of the
machinery of government. The name of king was never freighted with more
power than the name of party in the United States; whatever was done
in that name was right. It is the old story: there has never been a
despotism which did not rest upon superstition. The same spirit that
made the Republican name all powerful in the nation at large made the
Democratic name valuable in Democratic districts.
The situation as it existed was made to the hand of trade. Political
power had by the war been condensed and packed for delivery; and in
the natural course of things the political trademarks began to find
their way into the coffers of the capitalist. The change of motive
power behind the party organizations--from principles, to money--was
silently effected during the thirty years which followed the war. Like
all organic change, it was unconscious. It was understood by no one.
It is recorded only in a few names and phrases; as, for instance, that
part of the organization which was purchased was called the “machine,”
and the general manager of it became known as the “boss.” The external
political history of the country continued as before. It is true that
a steady degradation was to be seen in public life, a steady failure
of character, a steady decline of decency. But questions continued to
be discussed, and in form decided, on their merits, because it was in
the interest of commerce that they should in form be so decided. Only
quite recently has the control of money become complete; and there are
reasons for believing that the climax is past.
* * * * *
Let us take a look at the change on a small scale. A railroad is to be
run through a country town or small city, in New York or Pennsylvania.
The railroad employs a local attorney, naturally the ablest attorney in
the place. As time goes on, various permits for street uses are needed;
and instead of relying solely upon popular demand, the attorney finds
it easier to bribe the proper officials. All goes well: the railroad
thrives, the town grows. But in the course of a year new permits of
various kinds are needed. The town ordinances interfere with the road
and require amendment. There is to be a town election; and it occurs
to the railroad’s attorney that he might be in alliance with the town
officers before they are elected. He goes to the managers of the
party which is likely to win; for instance, the Republican party.
Everything that the railroad wants is really called for by the economic
needs of the town. The railroad wants only fair play and no factious
obstruction. The attorney talks to the Republican leader, and has a
chance to look over the list of candidates, and perhaps even to select
some of them. The railroad makes the largest campaign subscription ever
made in that part of the country. The Republican leader can now employ
more workers to man the polls, and, if necessary, he can buy votes.
He must also retain some fraction of the contribution for his own
support, and distribute the rest in such manner as will best keep his
“organization” together.
The party wins, and the rights of the railroad are secured for a year.
It is true that the brother of the Republican leader is employed on the
road as a brakeman; but he is a competent man.
During the year, a very nice point of law arises as to the rights of
the railroad to certain valuable land claimed by the town. The city
attorney is an able man, and reasonable. In spite of his ability, he
manages somehow to state the city’s case on an untenable ground. A
decision follows in favor of the railroad. At the following election,
the city attorney has become the Republican candidate for judge, and
the railroad’s campaign subscription is trebled. In the conduct of
railroads, even under the best management, accidents are common; and
while it is true that important decisions are appealable, a trial judge
has enormous powers which are practically discretionary. Meanwhile,
there have arisen questions of local taxation of the railroad’s
property, questions as to grade crossings, as to the lighting of cars,
as to time schedules, and the like. The court calendars are becoming
crowded with railroad business; and that business is now more than
one attorney can attend to. In fact, the half dozen local lawyers of
prominence are railroad men; the rest of the lawyers would like to
be. Every one of the railroad lawyers receives deferential treatment,
and, when possible, legal advantage in all of the public offices. The
community is now in the control of a ring, held together by just one
thing, the railroad company’s subscription to the campaign fund.
By this time a serious scandal has occurred in the town,--nothing less
than the rumor of a deficit in the town treasurer’s accounts, and
the citizens are concerned about it. One of the railroad’s lawyers,
a strong party man, happens to be occupying the post of district
attorney; for the yearly campaign subscriptions continue. This district
attorney is, in fact, one of the committee on nominations who put the
town treasurer into office; and the Republican party is responsible
for both. No prosecution follows. The district attorney stands for
re-election.
An outsider comes to live in the town. He wants to reform things,
and proceeds to talk politics. He is not so inexperienced as to
seek aid from the rich and respectable classes. He knows that the
men who subscribed to the railroad’s stock are the same men who own
the local bank, and that the manufacturers and other business men
of the place rely on the bank for carrying on their business. He
knows that all trades which are specially touched by the law, such
as the liquor-dealers’ and hotel-keepers’, must “stand in” with the
administration; so also must the small shopkeepers, and those who have
to do with sidewalk privileges and town ordinances generally. The
newcomer talks to the leading hardware merchant, a man of stainless
reputation, who admits that the district attorney has been remiss;
but the merchant is a Republican, and says that so long as he lives
he will vote for the party that saved the country. To vote for a
Democrat is a crime. The reformer next approaches the druggist (whose
father-in-law is in the employ of the railroad), and receives the
same reply. He goes to the florist. But the florist owns a piece of
real estate, and has a theory that it is assessed too high. The time
for revising the assessment rolls is coming near, and he has to see
the authorities about that. The florist agrees that the town is a den
of thieves; but he must live; he has no time to go into theoretical
politics. The stranger next interviews a retired grocer. But the grocer
has lent money to his nephew, who is in the coal business, and is
getting special rates from the railroad, and is paying off the debt
rapidly. The grocer would be willing to help, but his name must not be
used.
It is needless to multiply instances of what every one knows. After
canvassing the whole community, the stranger finds five persons who are
willing to work to defeat the district attorney: a young doctor of good
education and small practice, a young lawyer who thinks he can make use
of the movement by betraying it, a retired anti-slavery preacher, a
maiden lady, and a piano-tuner. The district attorney is re-elected by
an overwhelming vote.
All this time the railroad desires only a quiet life. It takes no
interest in politics. It is making money, and does not want values
disturbed. It is conservative.
In the following year worse things happen. The town treasurer steals
more money, and the district attorney is openly accused of sharing
the profits. The Democrats are shouting for reform, and declare that
they will run the strongest man in town for district attorney. He is a
Democrat, but one who fought for the Union. He is no longer in active
practice, and is, on the whole, the most distinguished citizen of the
place. This suggestion is popular. The hardware merchant declares
that he will vote the Democratic ticket, and there is a sensation.
It appears that during all these years there has been a Democratic
organization in the town, and that the notorious corruption of the
Republicans makes a Democratic victory possible. The railroad company
therefore goes to the manager of the Democratic party, and explains
that it wants only to be let alone. It explains that it takes no
interest in politics, but that, if a change is to come, it desires only
that So-and-So shall be retained, and it leaves a subscription with
the Democratic manager. In short, it makes the best terms it can. The
Democratic leader, if he thinks that he can make a clean sweep, may
nominate the distinguished citizen, together with a group of his own
organization comrades. It obviously would be of no use to him to name a
full citizens’ ticket. That would be treason to his party. If he takes
this course and wins, we shall have ring rule of a slightly milder
type. The course begins anew, under a Democratic name; and it may be
several years before another malfeasance occurs.
But the Republican leader and the railroad company do not want war;
they want peace. They may agree to make it worth while for the
Democrats not to run the distinguished citizen. A few Democrats are let
into the Republican ring. They are promised certain minor appointive
offices, and some contracts and emoluments. Accordingly, the Democrats
do not nominate the distinguished citizen. The hardware man sees little
choice between the two nominees for district attorney; at any rate, he
will not vote for a machine Democrat, and he again votes for his party
nominee. All the reform talk simmers down to silence. The Republicans
are returned to power.
The town is now ruled by a Happy Family. Stable equilibrium has been
reached at last. Commercialism is in control. Henceforth, the railroad
company pays the bills for keeping up both party organizations, and it
receives care and protection from whichever side is nominally in power.
The party leaders have by this time become the general utility men of
the railroad; they are its agents and factotums. The boss is the handy
man of the capitalist. So long as the people of the town are content
to vote on party lines they cannot get away from the railroad. In
fact, there are no national parties in the town. A man may talk about
them, but he cannot vote for one of them, because they do not exist.
He can vote only for or against the railroad; and to do the latter, an
independent ticket must be nominated.
It must not be imagined that any part of the general public clearly
understands this situation. The state of mind of the Better Element
of the Republican side has been seen. The good Democrats are equally
distressed. The distinguished citizen ardently desires to oust the
Republican ring. He subscribes year after year to the campaign fund
of his own party, and declares that the defalcation of the town
treasurer has given it the opportunity of a generation. The Democratic
organization takes his money and accepts his moral support, and uses it
to build up one end of the machine. It cries, “Reform! Reform! Give us
back the principles of Jefferson and of Tilden!”
The Boss-out-of-Power must welcome all popular movements. He must
sometimes accept a candidate from a citizens’ committee, sometimes
refuse to do so. He must spread his mainsail to the national party
wind of the moment. His immense advantage is an intellectual one. He
alone knows the principles of the game. He alone sees that the power
of the bosses comes from party loyalty. Croker recently stated his
case frankly thus: “A man who would desert his party would desert his
country.”
It may be remarked, in passing, that New York city reached the Happy
Family stage many years ago. Tammany Hall is in power, being maintained
there by the great mercantile interests. The Republican party is out
of power, and its organization is kept going by the same interests. It
has always been the ear-mark of an enterprise of the first financial
magnitude in New York that it subscribed to both campaign funds. The
Republican function has been to prevent any one from disturbing Tammany
Hall. This has not been difficult; the Republicans have always been
in a hopeless minority, and the machine managers have understood this
perfectly. Now if, by the simple plan of denouncing Tammany Hall,
and appealing to the war record of the Republican party, they could
minimize the independent vote and hold their own constituency, Tammany
would be safe. The matter is actually more complex than this, but the
principle is obvious.
To return to our country town. It is easy to see that the railroad
is pouring out its money in the systematic corruption of the entire
community. Even the offices with which it has no contact will be
affected by this corruption. Men put in office because they are tools
will work as tools only. Voters once bribed will thereafter vote for
money only. The subscribing and the voting classes, whose state of mind
is outlined above, are not purely mercenary. The retired grocer, the
florist, the druggist, are all influenced by mixed motives, in which
personal interest bears a greater or a smaller share. Each of these men
belongs to a party, as a Brahmin is born into a caste. His spirit must
suffer an agony of conversion before he can get free, even if he is
poor. If he has property, he must pay for that conversion by the loss
of money, also.
Since 1865 the towns throughout the United States have been passing
through this stage. A ring was likely to spring up wherever there
was available capital. We hear a great talk about the failure of our
institutions as applied to cities, as if it were our incapacity to
deal with masses of people and with the problems of city expansion
that wrecked us. It is nothing of the sort. There is intellect and
business capacity enough in the country to run the Chinese Empire like
clockwork. Philosophers state broadly that our people “prefer to live
in towns,” and cite the rush to the cities during the last thirty
years. The truth is that the exploitation of the continent could be
done most conveniently by the assembling of business men in towns; and
hence it is that the worst rings are found in the larger cities. But
there are rings everywhere; and wherever you see one you will find a
factory behind it. If the population had remained scattered, commerce
would have pursued substantially the same course. We should have had
the rings just the same. It is perfectly true that the wonderful
and scientific concentration of business that we have seen in the
past thirty years gave the chance for the wonderful and scientific
concentration of its control over politics. The state machine could be
constructed easily, by consolidating local rings of the same party name.
* * * * *
The boss _par excellence_ is a state boss. He is a comparatively
recent development. He could exist only in a society which had long
been preparing for him. He could operate only in a society where
almost every class and almost every individual was in a certain
sense corrupted. The exact moment of his omnipotence in the State
of New York, for instance, was recorded by the actions of the State
legislature. Less than ten years ago, the bribing of the legislature
was done piecemeal and at Albany; and the great corporations of the
State were accustomed to keep separate attorneys in the capitol, ready
for any emergency. But the economy of having the legislature corrupted
before election soon became apparent. If the party organizations
could furnish a man with whom the corporation managers could contract
directly, they and their directors could sleep at night. The state boss
sprang into existence to meet this need. He is a commercial agent,
like his little local prototype; but the scope of his activities is so
great and their directions are so various, the forces that he deals
with are so complex and his mastery over them is so complete, that a
kind of mystery envelops him. He appears in the newspapers like a demon
of unaccountable power. He is the man who gives his attention to aiding
in the election of the candidates for state office, and to retaining
his hold upon them after election. His knowledge of local politics
all over a State, and the handling of the very large sums of money
subscribed by sundry promoters and corporations, explain the miracle of
his control.
The government of a State is no more than a town government over a wide
area. The methods of bribery which work certain general results in a
town will work similar results in a State. But the scale of operations
is vastly greater. The State-controlled businesses, such as banking,
insurance, and the State public works, and the liquor traffic, involve
the expenditure of enormous sums of money.
The effect of commercialism on politics is best seen in the state
System. The manner of nominating candidates shows how easily the major
force in a community makes use of its old customs.
The American plan of party government provides for primaries, caucuses,
and town, county, and State conventions. It was devised on political
principles, and was intended to be a means of working out the will of
the majority, by a gradual delegation of power from bottom to top. The
exigencies of commerce required that this machinery should be made
to work backwards,--namely, from top to bottom. It was absolutely
necessary for commerce to have a political dictator; and this was found
to be perfectly easy. Every form and process of nomination is gravely
gone through with, the dictator merely standing by and designating the
officers and committee-men at every step. There is something positively
Egyptian in the formalism that has been kept up in practice, and in the
state of mind of men who are satisfied with the procedure.
The men who, in the course of a party convention, are doing this
marching and countermarching, this forming and dissolving into
committees and delegations, and who appear like acolytes going through
mystical rites and ceremonies, are only self-seeking men, without a
real political idea in their heads. Their evolutions are done to be
seen by the masses of the people, who will give them party support if
these forms are complied with.
We all know well another interesting perversion of function. A
legislator is by political theory a wise, enlightened man, pledged to
intellectual duties. He gives no bonds. He is responsible only under
the Constitution and to his own conscience. Therefore, if the place
is to be filled by a dummy, almost anybody will do. A town clerk must
be a competent man, even under boss rule; but a legislator will serve
the need so long as he is able to say “ay” and “no.” The boss, then,
governs the largest and the most complex business enterprise in the
State; and he is always a man of capacity. He is obliged to conduct it
in a cumbersome and antiquated manner, and to proceed at every step
according to precedent and by a series of fictions. When we consider
that the legislators and governors are, after all, not absolute
dummies; that among them are ambitious and rapacious men, with here
and there an enemy or a traitor to the boss and to his patrons, we see
that the boss must be well equipped with the intellect of intrigue. And
remember this: he must keep both himself and his patrons out of jail,
and so far as possible keep them clear of public reprobation.
We have not as yet had any national boss, because the necessity for
owning Congress has not as yet become continuous; and the interests
which have bought the national legislature at one time or another have
done it by bribing individuals, in the old-fashioned way.
Turning now to New York city, we find the political situation very
similar to that of the country town already described. The interests
which actually control the businesses of the city are managed by very
few individuals. It is only that the sums involved are different. One
of these men is president of an insurance company whose assets are
$130,000,000; another is president of a system of street railways
with a capital stock of $30,000,000; another is president of an
elevated road system with a capital of the same amount; a fourth is
vice-president of a paving company worth $10,000,000; a fifth owns
$50,000,000 worth of real estate; a sixth controls a great railroad
system; a seventh is president of a savings-bank in which $5,000,000
are deposited; and so on. The commercial ties which bind the community
together are as close in the city as in the country town. The great
magnates live in palaces, and the lesser ones in palaces, also.
The hardware-dealer of the small town is in New York the owner of
iron-works, a man of stainless reputation. The florist is the owner of
a large tract of land within the city limits, through which a boulevard
is about to be cut. The retired merchant has become a partner of his
nephew, and is developing one of the suburbs by means of an extension
of an electric road system. But the commercial hierarchy does not stop
here; it continues radiating, spreading downward. All businesses are
united by the instruments and usages which the genius of trade has
devised. All these interests together represent the railroad of the
country town. They take no real interest in politics, and they desire
only to be let alone.
For the twenty years before the Strong administration the government
of the city was almost continuously under the control of a ring, or,
accurately speaking, of a Happy Family. Special circumstances made
this ring well nigh indestructible. The Boss-out-of-Power of the
Happy Family happens to be also the boss of the State legislature.
He performs a double function. This is what has given Platt his
extraordinary power. It will have been noticed that some of the masses
of wealth above mentioned are peculiarly subject to State legislation:
they subscribe directly to the State boss’s fund. Some are subject to
interference from the city administration: they subscribe to the city
boss’s fund.
We see that by the receipt of his fund the State boss is rendered
independent of the people of the city. He can use the State legislature
to strengthen his hands in his dealings with the city boss. After
all, he does not need many votes. He can buy enough votes to hold his
minority together and keep Tammany safely in power, and by now and then
taking a candidate from the citizens he advertises himself as a friend
of reform.
As to the Tammany branch of the concern, the big money interests need
specific and often illegal advantages, and pay heavily over the Tammany
counter. But as we saw before, public officers, if once corrupted, will
work only for money. Every business that has to do with one or another
of the city offices must therefore now contribute for “protection.” A
foreign business that is started in this city subscribes to Tammany
Hall as a visitor writes his name in a book at a watering-place. It
gives him the run of the town. In the same way, the State-fearing
business man subscribes to Platt for “protection.” No secret is made of
these conditions. The business man regards the reformer as a monomaniac
who is not reasonable enough to see the necessity for his tribute. In
the conduct of any large business, this form of bribery is as regular
an item as rent. The machinery for such bribery is perfected. It is
only when some blundering attempt is made by a corporation to do the
bribing itself, when some unbusinesslike attempt is made to get rid of
the middleman, that the matter is discovered. A few boodle aldermen go
to jail, and every one is scandalized. The city and county officers
of the new city of New York will have to do with the disbursing
of $70,000,000 annually,--fully one half of it in the conduct of
administration. The power of these officers to affect or even control
values, by manipulation of one sort or another, is familiar to us all
from experience in the past.
* * * * *
So much for business. Let us look at the law. The most lucrative
practice is that of an attorney who protects great corporate interests
among these breakers. He needs but one client; he gets hundreds. The
mind of the average lawyer makes the same unconscious allowance for
bribery as that of the business man. Moreover, we cannot overlook the
cases of simple old-fashioned bribery to which the masses of capital
give rise. In a political emergency any amount of money is forthcoming
immediately, and it is given from aggregations of capital so large that
the items are easily concealed in the accounts. Bribery, in one form or
another, is part of the unwritten law. It is atmospheric; it is felt by
no one. The most able men in the community believe that society would
drop to pieces without bribery. They do not express it in this way,
but they act upon the principle in an emergency. A leader of the bar,
at the behest of his Wall Street clients, begs the reform police board
not to remove Inspector Byrnes, who is the Jonathan Wild of the period.
The bench is fairly able. But many of the judges on the bench have paid
large campaign assessments in return for their nominations; others have
given notes to the bosses. This reveals the exact condition of things.
In a corrupt era the judges pay cash. Now they help their friends.
The son or the son-in-law of a judge is sure of a good practice, and
referees are appointed from lists which are largely dictated by the
professional politicians of both parties.
It would require an encyclopædia to state the various simple devices
by which the same principle runs through every department in the life
of the community. Such an encyclopædia for New York city would be the
best picture of municipal misgovernment in the United States during
the commercial era. But one main fact must again be noted: this great
complex ring is held together by the two campaign funds, the Tammany
Hall fund and the Republican fund. They are the two power houses which
run all this machinery.
So far as human suffering goes, the positive evils of the system
fall largely on the poor. The rich buy immunity, but the poor are
persecuted, and have no escape. This has always been the case
under a tyranny. What else could we expect in New York? The Lexow
investigation showed us the condition of the police force. The lower
courts, both criminal and civil, and the police department were used
for vote-getting and for money-getting purposes. They were serving
as instruments of extortion and of favoritism. But in the old police
courts the foreigner and the honest poor were actually attacked.
Process was issued against them, their business was destroyed, and they
were jailed unless they could buy off. This system still exists to some
extent in the lower civil courts.
It is obvious that all these things come to pass through the fault
of no one in particular. We have to-day reached the point where the
public is beginning to understand that the iniquity is accomplished
by means of the political boss. Every one is therefore abusing the
boss. But Platt and Croker are not worse than the men who continue to
employ them after understanding their function. These men stand for the
conservative morality of New York, and for standards but little lower
than the present standards.
Let us now see how those standards came to exist. Imagine a community
in which, for more than a generation, the government has been
completely under boss rule, so that the system has become part of the
habits and of the thought of the people, and consider what views we
might expect to find in the hearts of the citizens of such a community.
The masses will have been controlled by what is really bribery and
terrorism, but what appears in the form of a very plausible appeal to
the individual on the ground of self-interest. For forty years money
and place have been corrupting them. Their whole conception of politics
is that it is a matter of money and of place. The well-to-do will
have been apt to prosper in proportion as they have made themselves
serviceable to the dominant powers, and have become part and parcel
of the machinery of the system. It is not to be pretended that every
man in such a community is a rascal, but it is true that in so far as
his business brings him into contact with the administrative officers
every man will be put to the choice between lucrative malpractice and
thankless honesty. A conviction will spread throughout the community
that nothing can be done without a friend at court; that honesty does
not pay, and probably never has paid in the history of the world;
that a boss is part of the mechanism by which God governs mankind;
that property would not be safe without him; and, finally, that the
recognized bosses are not so bad as they are painted. The great masses
of corporate property have owners who really believe that the system
of government which enabled them to make money is the only safe
government. These people cling to abuses as to a life-preserver. They
fear that an honest police board will not be able to bribe the thieves
not to steal from them, that an honest State insurance department will
not be able to prevent the legislature from pillaging them. It is
absolutely certain that in the first struggles for reform the weight
of the mercantile classes will be thrown very largely on the side of
conservatism.
Now, in a great city like New York the mercantile _bourgeoisie_
will include almost every one who has an income of five thousand
dollars a year, or more. These men can be touched by the bosses, and
therefore, after forty years of tyranny, it is not to be expected
that many of those who wear black coats will have much enthusiasm
for reform. It is “impracticable;” it is “discredited;” it is
“expensive;” it is “advocated by unknown men;” it speaks ill of the
“respectable;” it “does harm” by exciting the poor against the rich; it
is “unbusinesslike” and “visionary;” it is “self-righteous.” We have
accordingly had, in New York city, a low and perverted moral tone, an
incapacity to think clearly or to tell the truth when we know it. This
is both the cause and the consequence of bondage. A generation of men
really believe that honesty is bad policy, and continue to be governed
by Tammany Hall.
* * * * *
The world has wondered that New York could not get rid of its famous
incubus. The gross evils as they existed at the time of Tweed are
remembered. The great improvements are not generally known. Reform has
been slow, because its leaders have not seen that their work was purely
educational. They did not understand the political combination, and
they kept striking at Tammany Hall. Like a child with a toy, they did
not see that the same mechanism which caused Punch to strike caused
Judy’s face to disappear from the window.
It is not selfishness and treason that are mainly responsible for the
discredit which dogs “reform.” It is the inefficiency of upright and
patriotic men. The practical difficulty with reform movements in New
York has been that the leaders of such movements have clung to old
political methods. These men have thought that if they could hire or
imitate the regular party machinery, they could make it work for good.
They would fight banditti with bravi. They would expel Tammany Hall,
and lo, Tammany is within them.
Is it a failure of intellect or of morality which prevents the
reformers from seeing that idealism is the shortest road to their goal?
It is the failure of both. It is a legacy of the old tyranny. In one
sense it is corruption; in another it is stupidity; in every sense it
is incompetence. Political incompetence is only another name for moral
degradation, and both exist in New York for the same reason that they
exist in Turkey. They are the offspring of blackmail.
Well-meaning and public-spirited men, who have been engrossed in
business for the best part of their lives, are perhaps excusable
for not understanding the principles on which reform moves. Any one
can see that if what was wanted was merely a good school board, the
easiest way to get it would be to go to Croker, give him a hundred
thousand dollars, and offer to let him alone if he gave the good board.
But until very recently nobody could see that putting good school
commissioners on Platt’s ticket and giving Platt the hundred thousand
dollars was precisely the same thing.
In an enterprise whose sole aim is to raise the moral standard,
idealism always pays. A reverse following a fight for principle, like
the defeat of Low, is pure gain. It records the exact state of the
cause. It educates the masses on a gigantic scale. The results of that
education are immediately visible.
On the other hand, all compromise means delay. By compromise, the
awakened faith of the people is sold to the politicians for a mess of
reform. The failures and mistakes of Mayor Strong’s administration were
among the causes for Mr. Low’s defeat. People said, “If this be reform,
give us Tammany Hall.” Our reformers have always been in hot haste
to get results. They want a balance-sheet at the end of every year.
They think this will encourage the people. But the people recall only
their mistakes. The long line of reform leaders in New York city are
remembered with contempt. The evil that men do lives after them; the
good is oft interred with their bones.
That weakness of intellect which makes reformers love quick returns is
twin brother to a certain defect of character. Personal vanity is very
natural in men who figure as tribunes of the people. They say, “Look at
Abraham Lincoln, and how he led the people out of the wilderness; let
us go no faster than the people in pushing these reforms; let us accept
half-measures; let us be Abraham Lincoln.” The example of Lincoln has
wrecked many a promising young man; for really Lincoln has no more to
do with the case than Julius Cæsar. As soon as the reformers give up
trying to be statesmen, and perceive that their own function is purely
educational, and that they are mere anti-slavery agitators and persons
of no account whatever, they will succeed better.
As to the methods of work in reform,--whether it shall be by clubs or
by pamphlets, by caucus or by constitution,--they will be developed.
Executive capacity is simply that capacity which is always found in
people who really want something done.
* * * * *
In New York, the problem is not to oust Tammany Hall; another would
arise in a year. It is to make the great public understand the boss
system, of which Tammany is only a part. As fast as the reformers
see that clearly themselves, they will find the right machinery to
do the work in hand. It may be that, like the Jews, we shall have to
spend forty years more in the wilderness, until the entire generation
that lived under Pharaoh has perished. But education nowadays marches
quickly. The progress that has been made during the last seven years in
the city of New York gives hope that within a decade a majority of the
voters will understand clearly that all the bosses are in league.
In 1890, this fact was so little understood by the managers of an
anti-Tammany movement which sprang up in that year that, after raising
a certain stir and outcry, they put in the field a ticket made up
exclusively of political hacks, whose election would have left matters
exactly where they stood. The people at large, led by the soundest
political instinct, re-elected Tammany Hall, and gave to sham reform
the rebuff it deserved. In 1894, after the Lexow investigation had
kept the town at fever-heat of indignation all summer, Mayor Strong
was nominated by the Committee of Seventy, under an arrangement with
Platt. The excitement was so great that the people at large did not
examine Mr. Strong’s credentials. He was a Republican merchant, and in
no way identified with the boss system. Mayor Strong’s administration
has been a distinct advance, in many ways encouraging. Its errors
and weaknesses have been so clearly traceable to the system which
helped elect him that it has been in the highest degree valuable as an
object-lesson. In 1895, only one year after Mayor Strong’s election,
the fruits of his administration could not yet be seen. In that year a
few judges and minor local officers were to be chosen. By this time the
“citizens’ movement” had become a regular part of a municipal election.
A group of radicals, the legatees of the Strong campaign, had for a
year been enrolled in clubs called Good Government Clubs. These men
took the novel course of nominating a complete ticket of their own.
This was considered a dangerous move by the moderate reformers, who
were headed by the Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber of Commerce and its
well-meaning supporters then took a step which, from an educational
standpoint, turned out to be most important. In their terror lest
Tammany Hall should gain the prestige of a by-election, they made an
arrangement with Platt, and were allowed to name some candidates on his
ticket. This was the famous “fusion,” which the Good Government men
attacked with as much energy as they might have expended on Tammany
Hall. A furious campaign of crimination between the two reform factions
followed, and of course Tammany was elected.
The difference between the Good Government men (the Goo-Goos, as
they were called) and the Fusionists was entirely one of political
education. The Goo-Goo mind had advanced to the point of seeing
that Platt was a confederate of Tammany and represented one wing
of the great machine. To give him money was useless; to lend him
respectability was infamous. These ideas were disseminated by the
press; and it was immaterial that they were disseminated in the form of
denunciations of the Good Government Clubs. The people at large began
to comprehend clearly what they had always instinctively believed.
There was now a nucleus of men in the town who preferred Tammany Hall
to any victory that would discredit reform.
It may be noted that the Good Government Clubs polled less than one
per cent of the vote cast in that election; and that in the recent
mayoralty campaign the Citizens’ Union ran Mr. Low on the Good
Government platform, and polled 150,000 votes. In this same election,
the straight Republican ticket, headed by Tracy, polled 100,000 votes,
and Tammany polled about as many as both its opponents together. A
total of about 40,000 votes were cast for George and other candidates.
Much surprise has been expressed that there should be 100,000
Republicans in New York whose loyalty to the party made them vote a
straight ticket with the certainty of electing Tammany Hall; but in
truth, when we consider the history of the city, we ought rather to be
surprised at the great size of the vote for Mr. Low. He was the man who
arranged the fusion of 1895. It was entirely due to a lack of clear
thinking and of political courage that such an arrangement was then
made. Two years ago the Chamber of Commerce did not clearly understand
the evils that it was fighting. Is it a wonder that 100,000 individual
voters are still backward in their education? If we discount the appeal
of self-interest, which determined many of them, there are probably
some 75,000 Republicans whose misguided party loyalty obscured their
view and deadened their feelings. They cannot be said to hate bad
government very much. They do not think Tammany Hall so very bad, after
all. As the London papers said, the dog has returned to his vomit. It
is unintelligent to abuse them. They are the children of the age. A few
years ago we were all such as they. Of Mr. Low’s 150,000 supporters,
on the other hand, there are probably at least 40,000 who would vote
through thick and thin for the principles which his campaign stood for.
Any one who is a little removed by time or by distance from New York
knows that the city cannot have permanent good government until a
clear majority of our 500,000 voters shall develop what the economists
call an “effective desire” for it. It is not enough merely to want
reform. The majority must know how to get it. For educational purposes,
the intelligent discussion throughout the recent campaign is worth
all the effort that it cost. The Low campaign was notable in another
particular. The banking and the mercantile classes subscribed liberally
to the citizens’ campaign fund. They are the men who have had the most
accurate knowledge of the boss system, because they support it. At last
they have dared to expose it. Indeed, there was a rent in Wall Street.
The great capitalists and the promoters backed Tammany and Platt, as a
matter of course; but many individuals of power and importance in the
street came out strongly for Low. They acted at personal risk, with
courage, out of conscience. The great pendulum of wealth has swung
toward decency. It is very difficult to use this or any money in the
cause of reform without doing more harm than good. But the money is
not the main point; the personal influence of the men who give it
operates more powerfully than the money. Hereafter reform will be
respectable. The professional classes are pouring into it. The young
men are re-entering politics. Its victory is absolutely certain, and
will not be distant.
* * * * *
The effect of public-spirited activity on the character is very rapid.
Here again we cannot separate the cause from the consequence; but it is
certain that the moral tone of the community is changing very rapidly
for the better, and that the thousands of men who are at this moment
preparing to take part in the next citizens’ campaign, and who count
public activity as one of the regular occupations of their lives, are
affecting the social and commercial life of New York. The young men who
are working to reform politics find in it not only the satisfaction of
a religious instinct, but an excitement which business cannot provide.
One effect of the commercial supremacy has been to make social life
intolerably dull, by dividing people into cliques and trade unions. The
millionaire dines with the millionaire, the artist with the artist,
the hat-maker with the hat-maker, gentlefolk with gentlefolk. All of
these sets are equally uninspiring, equally frightened at a strange
face. The hierarchy of commerce is dull. The intelligent people in
America are dull, because they have no contact, no social experience.
Their intelligence is a clique and wears a badge. They think they are
not affected by the commercialism of the times; but their attitude of
mind is precisely that of a lettered class living under a tyranny. They
flock by themselves. It is certain that the cure for class feeling
is public activity. The young jeweller, the young printer, and the
golf-player, each, after a campaign in which they have been fighting
for a principle, finds that social enjoyment lies in working with
people unlike himself, for a common object. Reform movements bring men
into touch, into struggle with the powers that are really shaping our
destinies, and show them the sinews and bones of the social organism.
The absurd social prejudices which unman the rich and the poor alike
vanish in a six weeks’ campaign. Indeed, the exhilaration of real life
is too much for many of the reformers. Even bankers neglect their
business, and dare not meet their partners, and a dim thought crosses
their minds that perhaps the most enlightened way to spend money is,
not to make it, but to invest their energies directly in life.
* * * * *