the Americans themselves seldom fairly treated. There are three possible
sources of income. Firstly, the representatives of the people are
directly remunerated; secondly, the politician may obtain a salaried
federal, state, or municipal office; and, thirdly, he may misuse his
influence or his office unlawfully to enrich himself. It is a
regrettable fact that the first source of revenue attracts a goodly
number into politics. It is not the case with Congress, but many a man
sits in the state legislatures who is there only for the salary, while
in reality the monetary allowance was never meant as an inducement but
as a compensation, since otherwise many would be deterred altogether
from politics. But the stipend is small and attracts no one who has
capacity enough to earn more in a regular profession. It attracts,
however, all kinds of forlorn and ill-starred individuals, who then
scramble into local politics and do their best to bring the calling into
disrepute. And yet, after all, these are so small a fraction of the
politicians as to be entirely negligible. There would be much worse
evils if the salaries were to be abolished. There are others who make
money in criminal ways, and of course they have ample opportunity for
deception, theft, and corruption in both town and country. Their case is
not open to any difference of opinion. It is easy for a member of the
school committee to get hold of the land on which the next school-house
is to be built, and to sell it at a profit; or for a mayor to approve a
street-car line which is directly for the advantage of his private
associates; or for a captain of police to accept hush money from
unlawful gambling houses. Everybody knows that this sort of thing is
possible, and that the perpetrators can with difficulty be convicted,
yet they occasionally are and then get the punishment which they
deserve. But this is no more a part of the political system than the
false entries of an absconding cashier are a part of banking. And even
if every unproved suspicion of dishonesty were shown to be well founded,
the men who so abuse their positions would be as much the exceptions as
are those who enter politics for the sake of the salary. We shall return
later to these excrescences.
Of the three sources of income from politics, only one remains to be
considered—the non-legislative but salaried offices with which the
politician may be rewarded for his pains. This is the first and surest
means by which the party keeps its great and indispensable army of
retainers contentedly at work. And here the familiar evils enter in
which are so often held up for discussion in Germany. An American
reformer, in criticizing the condition of the parties, is very apt not
to distinguish between the giving out of offices to professional
politicians as rewards and the later corrupt using of these offices by
their incumbents. And as soon as the politician receives an income from
the public treasury, the reformer will cry “stop thief.” The so-called
“spoils system,” by which the federal offices in the patronage of the
President are distributed to those who have worked hardest in the
interests of the victorious party, will occupy our attention when we
come to the political problems of the day. We shall have then to mention
the advantages and disadvantages of civil service reform. But it must be
said right here that, however commendable this reform movement may be in
many respects, and in none more than in the increased efficiency which
it has effected in the public service, nevertheless the spoils system
cannot be called dishonourable, and no one should characterize
professional politicians as abominable reprobates because they are
willing to accept civil positions as rewards from the party for which
they have laboured.
It is a usage which has nothing to do with the corrupt exploitation of
office, and the German who derives from it the favourite prejudice
against the political life of the United States must not suppose that he
has thereby justified the German conception of office. Quite on the
contrary, no one ever expects the German government to bestow offices,
titles, or orders on members of the political opposition, to confirm,
for instance, an independent for the position of Landrat or a social
democrat for city councillor, while co-operation in the plans of the
government never goes unrewarded. Above all, a German never looks on his
official salary as a sort of present taken from the public treasury, but
as the ordinary equivalent of the work which he does, while the American
has a curious conception of the matter quite foreign to the German,
which is the ground for his contempt of the “spoils system.” To
illustrate by a short example: a state attorney who had been elected to
the same office time after time, was asked to renew his candidacy at the
coming elections. But he declined to do so, and explained that he had
been supported for twenty years out of the public funds, and that it was
therefore high time for him to earn his own living by the ordinary
practice of law. A German cannot understand this conception, traditional
though it is in America, but he can easily see that the man who shares
such views as to public salaries will naturally consider it an act of
plunder when the party in power distributes the best public posts to its
own followers.
The case would be somewhat different if the politicians who step into
offices were essentially incapable or indolent, though this is aside
from the principle in question. Germans have recently become used to
seeing a general or a merchant become minister. In America it is a
matter of course that a capable man is qualified, with the aid of
technically trained subordinates, for any office. And no one denies that
politicians make industrious office-holders. And yet the same remarkable
charge is always made, that the holder of an office receives a gift from
the public chest.
These considerations are not meant as an argument against civil service
reform, which is supported by the best men of both parties, although
they are not exactly the most zealous party “heelers.” But the
superficial assertion must be refuted, that the spoils system shows lack
of morality in party politics. No unprejudiced observer would find
anything improper in the attitude of those who endure the thankless and
arduous labours imposed by the party for the sake of a profitable
position in the government service. It would be equally just to reproach
the German official with lack of character because he rises to a high
position in the service of the government. If this were the true idea,
Grover Cleveland, who has done more than any other president for the
cause of civil service reform, could be said actually to have favored
the spoils system. In an admirable essay on the independence of the
executive, he says:—
“I have no sympathy with the intolerant people who, without the least
appreciation of the meaning of party work and service, superciliously
affect to despise all those who apply for office as they would those
guilty of a flagrant misdemeanor. It will indeed be a happy day when the
ascendancy of party principles and the attainment of wholesome
administration will be universally regarded as sufficient rewards of
individual and legitimate party service.... In the meantime why should
we indiscriminately hate those who seek office? They may not have
entirely emancipated themselves from the belief that the offices should
pass with party victory, but in all other respects they are in many
instances as honest, as capable, and as intelligent as any of us.”
There are such strong arguments for separating public office from the
service of party, that every reformer is amply justified if on his
native soil he stigmatizes the present usage as corrupt. But the
representation that all professional politicians are despicable scamps
because they work for their party in the hope of being preferred for
public office, is unjust and misleading when it is spread abroad in
other countries. Abuses there are, to be sure, and the situation is such
as to attract swarms of worthless persons. It is true, moreover, that
even in the higher strata of professional politics there is usually less
of broad-minded statesmanship than of ingenious compromise and clever
exploitation of the opposing party’s weaknesses and of popular whims and
prejudices. Petty methods are often more successful than enlightened
ones, and cunning men have better chances than those who are more
high-minded. In the lower strata, moreover, where it is important to
cajole the voting masses into the party fold, it may be inevitable that
men undertake and are rewarded for very questionable services.
Nevertheless the association of party and office is not intrinsically
improper.
In the same category of unjust reproaches, finally, belongs the talk
over the money paid into the party treasury. It is, of course, true that
the elections both great and small eat up vast sums of money; the
mountains of election pamphlets, the special trains for candidates who
journey from place to place in order to harangue the people at every
rural railway station, from the platform of the coach—Roosevelt is said
at the last election in this way to have addressed three million
persons—the banquet-halls and bands of music, and the thousand other
requisites of the contest are not to be had for nothing. It is taken as
a matter of course that the supporters of the party are taxed, and of
course just those will be apt to contribute who look for further
material benefit in case of victory; it is also expected that, of
course, the larger industries will help the propaganda of the
high-tariff party, that the silver mine owners will generously support
bimetallism, and that the beer brewers will furnish funds when it is a
question between them and the Prohibitionists. But in the endeavour to
hurt the opposing party some persons make such contributions a ground of
despicable slander. Any one who considers the matter really without
prejudice will see not only that the American party politics are a
necessary institution, but also that they are infinitely cleaner and
better than the European newspaper reader will ever be inclined to
believe.
CHAPTER THREE
_The President_
The President of the United States is elected by the people every four
years. He may be re-elected and, so far as the Constitution provides, he
may hold the first position in the land for life, by terms always of
four years at a time. A certain unwritten law, however, forbids his
holding office for more than two terms. George Washington was elected
for two terms, and after him Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James
Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Grover
Cleveland, and William McKinley; that is, nine out of twenty presidents
have received this distinction. No president has served a third term of
office, because since Washington declined to be nominated for a third
time the conservative sense of the Americans has cherished the doctrine
that no man should stand at the helm of the nation longer than eight
years.
At the present day it is urged from many sides that the provisions of
the Constitution ought to be changed. It is said that the frequently
recurring presidential elections, with the popular excitement which they
involve during the months immediately preceding, are an appreciable
disturbance to economic life and that the possibility of being
re-elected is too apt to make the President in the first term of office
govern his actions with an eye to his second election. It is proposed,
therefore, that every President shall be elected for six years and that
re-election shall be forbidden by the Constitution. Experience of the
past, however, hardly speaks for such a plan. The inclination shown by
the President to yield to popular clamours or the instances of his party
has been very different with different presidents, but on the whole it
has not been noticeably greater in the first than in the second term of
office. More especially, the disadvantages which come from the
excitement over elections are certainly made up for by the moral
advantage which the act of election brings to the people. The
presidential election is a period of considerable reflection and
examination of the country’s condition, and everybody is worked up to
considerable interest; and the more changeable the times are so much the
more rapidly new problems come up. Therefore there should be no thought
of putting the decisive public elections, with their month-long
discussions, at further intervals apart.
The most important duties and prerogatives of the President involve
foreign as well as domestic affairs, and of the latter the most
important concern the administration; a less important, although by no
means an insignificant, part of his duties relates to legislation. The
President is commander-in-chief of the army and of the navy, and with
the approval of a majority of the Senate he appoints ambassadors,
consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all the higher federal
officials. Subject to the ratification of two-thirds of the Senate, he
concludes treaties with foreign powers and regulates diplomatic
relations. He has, moreover, the right to send back inside of ten days,
with his veto, any bill which Congress has passed, and in this case the
bill can become law only by being once more voted on by Congress and
receiving in both houses a two-third’s majority. The President has the
power to convene both houses in special sessions, and is expected to
send messages to both houses when they meet, in which he describes the
political situation of the country and recommends new measures. In
addition to this he has the right of pardon and the right to afford
protection to individual states against civil violence, if they cannot
themselves quell the disturbance.
Such are the principal features of the presidential office, and it is
clear that here as everywhere in American civil law the spirit of
precaution has tried from the outset to limit the possibilities of
abuse. Although he is commander-in-chief of the army, the President has
not the right to declare war, this right being given to Congress. The
President negotiates with foreign representatives and signs all
treaties, but these are not valid until the Senate has approved them
with a two-thirds vote. He nominates government officials, but once
again only with the sanction of the Senate. The President convenes
Congress and recommends matters for its legislative consideration, but
the President cannot, like the German Government, lay bills before
Congress for its ratification. While the President sends his message to
Congress his ministers have not, as in Germany, a seat in parliament,
and cannot, therefore, in the debates actively support the President’s
policy.
The President is authorized to veto any bill that is passed through
Congress, but his veto is not final since the bill can still become a
law if Congress is sufficiently of one accord to override his veto.
Therefore a whimsical or arbitrary president would find small scope for
his vagaries so long as he keeps within his powers, while if he exceeds
them he can be impeached, like a king under old English law. The House
of Representatives can at any time file complaint against the President
if he is suspected of treason or corruption or any other crime. In such
case the Senate, under the chairmanship of a judge of the Supreme bench,
constitutes a court of trial which is empowered to depose the President
from office. Up to the present time but one president, Andrew Johnson,
has been impeached, and he was acquitted. The seditionary ambition of a
man who should try to gain complete control, to overthrow the
Constitution, and at the head of the army, or of the populace, or, as
might be more likely, of the millionaires, to institute a monarchy,
would have no chance of success. Neither a Napoleon nor a Boulanger
would be possible in America.
In spite of these provisions, it is to be observed that tremendous power
is in the hands of this one man. Thousands and thousands of officials
appointed by his predecessor can be removed by a stroke of his pen, and
none can take their places except those whom he nominates. And he can
put a barrier before any law such as Congress could only in exceptional
cases ride over. Cleveland, for instance, who to be sure made the freest
use of his authority in this respect, vetoed more than three hundred
bills, and only twice did Congress succeed in setting aside his veto.
The President may negotiate with foreign powers up to the point where a
loyal and patriotic Congress has hardly any choice but to acquiesce. The
President can virtually force Congress to a declaration of war, and if
insurrection breaks out in any state he can at his pleasure employ the
federal troops on behalf of one or the other faction, and when war has
once been declared the presidential authority grows hourly in
importance. The army and navy stand under his direction, and since the
Constitution makes him responsible for the maintenance of law and order
in the country he becomes virtually dictator in case of an insurrection.
Bryce says very justly that Abraham Lincoln exercised more power than
any man in England since Oliver Cromwell, and the anti-imperialistic
papers of America always assert that in their Philippine policy McKinley
and Roosevelt have taken on themselves more authority than any European
monarch, excepting the Czar, could acquire.
In two respects the President is more important as compared with the
representatives of the people, even in times of peace, than the king of
England or the President of France. Firstly, his cabinet is entirely
independent of the voice of parliament, and it has often been the case
that while a majority in Congress sharply opposed the party policy of
the President, this has not influenced the composition of his cabinet.
The cabinet ministers are the representatives of the presidential
policy, and they do not even take part in the doings of Congress.
Secondly, the President is not less but rather more than Congress a
representative of the people. A monarch who takes up a position against
the parliament thereby antagonizes the people. The President of France
is elected by the people, but only through their parliamentary
representatives; the chambers elect him, and therefore he is not an
independent authority. The President of the United States, on the other
hand, is in his own person a symbol of the collective will of the
people, as opposed to the different members of Congress, which is of
diverse composition and chosen on more local issues. There is moral
authority, therefore, vested in the President. He is the true will of
the people and his veto is their conscience. It is almost astonishing
that a Republican democracy should have put such tremendous power into
the hands of a single man. It is the more striking inasmuch as the
Declaration of Independence related at length the sins of the English
monarch. But we must bear in mind that the framers of the Constitution
had to make a new and dangerous experiment, wherein they were much more
afraid of that so far unknown and incalculable factor, the rule of the
people, than the power of that single person whose administrative
possibilities they had, in the colonial days, been able to observe in
the governors of the several states. These had been diminutive but, on
the whole, encouraging examples. Before all else the great and
incomparable George Washington, the popular, dashing, and yet cautious
aristocrat, had presided at the deliberations in which the Constitution
was discussed, and had himself stood tangibly before the popular mind as
the very ideal of a president.
Thus the President stands with tremendous powers at the helm of the
nation. Who has sought him out for this position from the hundreds of
thousands, whose hot ambition has led them to dream of such a
distinction, and who has finally established him in this highest
elective office on the face of the earth? The Constitution makes no
other provision for the selection of a candidate than that he shall have
been born in the land, that he shall be at least thirty-five years old,
and shall have resided at least fourteen years in this his native
country. On the other hand, the Constitutional provisions for his
election are highly complicated, much more so indeed than the
circumstances really call for. In fact, while the electoral procedures
still comply with the wording of the original Constitution, actual
conditions have so changed since the establishment of the Union that the
prescribed machinery is not only partly unnecessary, but in some cases
even works in opposition to what had been originally intended, and
inconsistently with itself. The law requires, merely to mention the main
point, that every state shall elect by popular vote a certain number of
men who are called electors, and that a majority of the electors shall
choose the President. For each state the number of electors is the same
as that of the representatives which it sends to both houses of Congress
together; it depends, therefore, on the number of inhabitants. Out of
the 447 electors, 36 come from the State of New York, 32 from
Pennsylvania, 24 from Illinois, 23 from Ohio, 15 from Massachusetts, but
only 4 from Colorado, Florida, or New Hampshire; and only 3 from
Delaware, Idaho, North Dakota, Utah, and several others. In case the
vote of the electors should give no absolute majority to any candidate,
the House of Representatives has to elect the President from among the
three candidates who have received the greatest number of electoral
votes.
The intention of the men who framed the Constitution in making these
roundabout electoral provisions is clear enough; the election was not
meant to be made directly by the people. When in the first discussions
of the Constitution it was suggested that the President be elected
directly by the people, some of the framers called the scheme chimerical
and others called it impracticable. Indeed, some even doubted whether
the people would be competent to choose the electors since, it was said,
they would know too little about the persons and so would be liable to
grave errors. This mistrust went so far, it is said, that leaving the
election of the highest executives directly to the people seemed as
unnatural as asking a blind man to match colors. The first plan which
was at all approved by the Assembly was that Congress should elect the
President; and not until later did it adopt the system of electors. It
was hoped that for the electoral college the people would select the
best, most experienced, and most cautious men of the country, and that
these men should be left quite free to choose the highest executive as
carefully and conscientiously as possible: and so it really happened
when the electors met for the first time and fixed unanimously on George
Washington.
But the situation is somewhat changed to-day: for a hundred years it has
been the case that the electors have inevitably been deprived of all
free choice. They are as passive as a printed ballot. They are no longer
elected in order to come to a decision as to the best President, but
merely to vote for this or that special candidate as designated, and for
a hundred years not a single elector has disappointed this expectation.
Thus the election of the President is practically accomplished on the
day in November when the electors are voted for. McKinley defeated Bryan
for the Presidency on the ninth of November, 1900, although no elector
had officially voted for either one or the other; nor would he have a
chance to vote until the first day of January, when he was mechanically
to deposit his ballot.
The indirect election prescribed by the Constitution has therefore
become to all intents and purposes a direct one, and the whole machinery
of electors is really superfluous. It may, indeed, be said to have
become contradictory in itself.