more profound than his influence on the galaxy of nations. At the very
hour when the United States by their economic and territorial expansion
stepped into the circle of world powers, they had at their head a
personality who, for the first time in decades, had been able to make a
great, characteristic, and, most of all, a dramatic impression on the
peoples of Europe. And if this hour was to be made the most of it was
not enough that this leader should by his impulsiveness and self-will,
by his picturesque gestures and effective utterance, chain the attention
of the masses and excite all newspaper readers, but he must also win the
sympathies of the keener and finer minds, and excite some sympathetic
response in the heads of monarchies. A second Lincoln would never have
been able to do this, and just this was what the moment demanded. The
nation’s world-wide position in politics needed some comparable
expansion in the social sphere. Other peoples were to welcome their new
comrades not only in the official bureau but also in the reception-room,
and this young President had always at his command a graceful word, a
tactful expedient, and a distinguished and hospitable address. He was,
in short, quite the right man.
Any new person taking hold so firmly has to disturb a good many things;
busied with so much, he must overturn a good deal which would prefer to
be left as it was. The honest man has his goodly share of enemies. And
it is not to be denied that Roosevelt has the failings of his virtues,
and these have borne their consequences. Many national dangers, which
are always to be feared from officials of Roosevelt’s type, are largely
obviated by the democratic customs of the country. He lives amid a
people not afraid to tell him the whole truth, and every criticism
reaches his ear. And there is another thing not less important:
democracy forces every man into that line of activity for which the
nation has elected him. A somewhat overactive mind like Roosevelt’s has
opinions on many problems, and his exceptional political position easily
betrays one at first into laying exceptional weight on one’s own
opinions about every subject. But here the traditions of the country
have been decisive; it knows no President for general enlightenment, but
only a political leader whose private opinions outside politics are of
no special importance. In this as in other respects Roosevelt has
profited by experience. There is no doubt that when he came to the White
House he underestimated the power of Senators and party leaders. The
invisible obstructions, which were somehow hidden behind the scenes,
have no doubt given him many painful lessons. In his endeavour to
realize so many heartfelt convictions, he has often met with arbitrary
opposition made simply to let the new leader feel that obstructions can
be put in his way unless he takes account of all sorts of factors. But
these warnings have really done him no harm, for Roosevelt was not the
man to be brought by them into that party subserviency which had
satisfied McKinley. They merely held him back from that reckless
independence which is so foreign to the American party spirit, and which
in the later years of Cleveland’s administration had worked so badly.
Indeed, one might say that the outcome has been an ideal synthesis of
Cleveland’s consistency and McKinley’s power of adaptation.
For the fanatics of party Roosevelt has been, of course, too
independent, while to the opponents of party he has seemed too yielding.
Both of these criticisms have been made, in many different connections,
since everywhere he has stood on a watch tower above the fighting lines
of any party. When in the struggles between capital and labour he
seriously took into account the just grievances of the working-man he
was denounced as a socialist. And when he did not at once stretch out
his hand to demolish all corporations he was called a servant of the
stock exchange. When he appointed officials in the South without
reference to their party allegiance, the Republicans bellowed loudly;
and when he did not sanction the Southern outrages against the negro the
Democrats became furious. When everything is considered, however, he has
observed the maxim of President Hayes, “He best serves his party who
serves his country best.”
In this there has been another factor at work. Roosevelt may not have
had McKinley’s broad experience in legislative matters, nor have known
the reefs and bars in the Congressional sea, but for the executive
office, for the administration of civil service and the army and navy,
for the solution of federal, civil, and municipal problems his years of
study and travel have been an ideal preparation. Behind his practical
training he has had the clear eye of the historian. The United States
had their proverbial good luck when the Mephistos of the Republican
party prevailed on the formidable Governor of New York to undertake the
thankless office of Vice-President. If this nomination had gone as the
better politicians wished it to go, the death of McKinley would have
placed a typical politician at the helm instead of the best President
which the country has had for many years.
* * * * *
The President is closely associated with the Cabinet, and he is entirely
free in his choice of advisers. There is no question here of the
influence of majorities on the composition of the ministry, as there is
in England or France. In this way Cleveland, in his second term, had
already announced by his choice of cabinet ministers that he should go
his own ways regardless of the wire-pullers of the party. He gave the
Secretaryship of War to his former private secretary; the position of
Postmaster-General to his former partner in law; the Secretaryship of
Justice to a jurist who had never taken any interest in politics. His
Secretary of the Interior was a personal friend, and the Secretary of
Foreign Affairs a man who shortly before had left the ranks of the
Republican party to become a Cleveland Democrat. The Secretaryships of
Commerce and the Treasury were the sole cabinet positions which were
given to well-known party leaders. The very opposite was to have been
expected from a man of McKinley’s disposition. Even when he became the
chief executive of the country he remained the devoted servant of his
party, and just as his success was owing in large part to his
sympathetic relations with all the important factions in Congress, so
the success of his Cabinet was due to his having chosen none but men who
had enjoyed for a long time the confidence of the party.
Roosevelt did at the outset an act of political piety when he left the
Cabinet, for the time being, unchanged. It was at the same time a
capital move toward reassuring public opinion, which had stood in fear
of all sorts of surprises, owing to his impetuous temperament. Slowly,
however, characteristic readjustments were made and a new cabinet office
was created under his administration, the Secretaryship of Commerce and
Labour. This was entrusted to Cortelyou, who had been the private
secretary of two presidents, and who, through his tact, discretion, and
industry, had contributed not a little to their practical success.
The highest minister in order of rank is the Secretary of State, who is
the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and who, in the case that both the
President and Vice-President are unable to complete their term of
office, assumes the Presidency. He is responsible for the diplomatic and
consular representation of the United States and he alone negotiates
with representatives of foreign powers at Washington; moreover, it is
through him that the President treats with the separate states of the
Union. He publishes the laws passed by Congress and adds his signature
to all of the President’s official papers. He is, next to the President,
so thoroughly the presiding spirit of the administration that it is
hardly a mistake to compare him to the Chancellor of the German Empire.
It happens at the moment that the present incumbent makes this
comparison still more apt, since John Hay, the present Secretary of
Foreign Affairs, resembles Count von Bülow in several ways. Both have
been in former years closely affiliated to the national heroes of the
century, both have gotten their training in various diplomatic
positions, both are resourceful, accommodating, and brilliant statesmen,
and both have a thoroughly modern temperament, intellectual independence
bred of a broad view of the world, both are apt of speech and have fine
literary feeling. Hay was the secretary of President Lincoln until
Lincoln’s death, and has been secretary of the embassies in France,
Austria, and Spain, has taken distinguished place in party politics, has
been Assistant Secretary of State, Ambassador to England, and in 1898
was placed at the head of foreign affairs. His “Ballads,” “Castilian
Days,” and “Life of Lincoln,” call to mind his literary reputation.
How far foreign affairs are really conducted by the President and how
far by the Secretary of State is, of course, hard to say, but, at any
rate, the representatives of foreign powers treat officially only with
the Secretary, who has his regular days for diplomatic consultation, so
that the relations of foreign representatives to the President, after
their first official introduction, remain virtually social. Yet all
important measures are undertaken only with the approval of the
President, and on critical questions of international politics the whole
cabinet deliberates together. Hay’s personal influence came clearly
before the public eye especially in his negotiations regarding the
Central American canal, and in his handling of the Russian and Asiatic
problems. Particularly after the Chinese imbroglio he came to be
generally reputed the most astute and successful statesman of the day.
It will probably not be far wrong to ascribe such tendencies in American
politics as are friendly toward England chiefly to his influence. On the
other hand, he is supposed to feel no special leanings toward Germany.
The Secretary of the Treasury is next in rank. He administers the
Federal finances to all intents and purposes like a large banker, or,
rather, like a bank president who should have Congress for his board of
directors. Since customs and international revenues are levied by the
Federal Government, and not by the several states, and since the
expenditures for the army and navy, for the postal service, and for the
Federal Government itself, the national debt and the mints come under
Federal administration, financing operations are involved which are so
extensive as to have a deciding influence on the banking system of the
entire country.
The third official in rank is the Secretary of War, while the Secretary
of the Navy holds only the sixth place, with the Attorney-General and
the Postmaster-General in between. The General Staff of the Secretary of
War, which was organized in 1903, is composed of officers of high rank,
although the Secretary himself is a civilian. In the case of the army,
as well as of the navy, the functions of the secretary are decidedly
more important than those, say, of a Prussian Minister. They concern not
only administration, but also, in case of war, are of decisive weight on
the movements of all the forces, since the President as
commander-in-chief has to act through these ministers. Elihu Root was
for almost five years Secretary of War; and on his retirement in
January, 1904, Roosevelt declared: “Root is the greatest man who has
appeared in our times in the public life of any country, either in the
New World or the Old.”
The position of Attorney-General is less comparable with a corresponding
office in the German state. This minister of the President has no
influence on the appointment of judges or the administration of the
courts. The official representative of justice in the Cabinet is really
an exalted lawyer, who is at the same time the President’s legal
adviser. So far as appointments to office go, the Secretary of the Post
Office Department has practically no influence regarding those who are
under him, since the tremendous number of postal officials of any
considerable importance have to be confirmed in their appointments by
the Senate, so that the appointing power has virtually gone over to that
body. On the other hand, the whole postal service is under his
direction; but it is here not to be forgotten that the American
railroads and, what the German may think more extraordinary, the
telegraph lines, are not government property.
The Secretary of the Interior is merely a name for a great many
unrelated administrative functions. In the long list of duties which
fall to this office comes education, although this seemingly most
important responsibility is really rather slight, since all educational
matters fall to the separate states and the Federal Government has
nothing to do but to give out statistics and information, to collect
material, and to offer advice. The national Bureau of Education is not
empowered to institute any practical changes. A much more important
function, practically, of the Secretary of the Interior is the Pension
Bureau, since the United States pay yearly about $138,000,000 in
pensions. Other divisions are the Patent Office, which grants every year
about 30,000 patents, the Railroad Bureau, the Indian Bureau, and the
Geological Survey. The Secretary of Agriculture has not only certain
duties connected with agriculture, but is also in charge of the Weather
Bureau, and of zoölogical, botanical, and chemical institutes, and
especially of the large number of scientific departments which
indirectly serve the cause of agriculture. Last in rank comes the
recently created Secretary of Commerce and Labour, who has charge of the
Corporation Bureau, the Labour Bureau, the Census Bureau, and the
Bureaus of Statistics, Immigration, and Fisheries.
There are some 240,000 positions under the direction of these ministers;
and all of these, from ambassadors to letter-carriers, are in the
national service and under the appointment of the President, and are
entirely independent of the government of the separate states in which
the offices are held.
CHAPTER FOUR
_Congress_
There is an avenue which leads from the White House in a direct line to
the Capitol, the dominating architectural feature of Washington. On
walking up the broad terraces one comes first to the great central hall,
over which rises the dome; to the right one passes through the Hall of
Fame and comes finally to the uncomfortably large parliamentary chamber,
in which 386 Representatives sit together as the direct delegates of the
people. Going from the central hall to the left one passes by the
apartments of the Supreme Court, and comes finally to the attractive
room in which the ninety state delegates hold their sessions. The room
on the right is called the “House,” on the left the Senate; both
together make up Congress, the law-giving body of the nation. When the
thirteen states which first formed the Union in the year 1778 adopted
the Articles of Federation, it was intended that Congress should be a
single body, in which each state, although it might be represented by a
varying number of members, should nevertheless have the right to only
one vote. Nine years later, however, the final Constitution of the
United States replaced this one simple system by dividing Congress into
Senate and House of Representatives, doing this simply by analogy with
the traditions of the state governments. Pennsylvania was the only state
which had but one legislative chamber, while the others had taken over
from England the system of double representation and had carried out the
English tradition, although probably nothing was further from their
intention than to divide their legislators into lords and commoners.
For the United States the dual division inevitably seemed the shortest
way to balance off conflicting requirements. On the one side every
state, even the smallest, should have the same prerogatives and equal
influence: on the other side, every citizen must count as much as every
other, so that the number of inhabitants must be duly represented. It
was necessary, therefore, to create one chamber in which all States
should have the same number of Representatives, and another in which
every delegate should represent an equal number of voters. Furthermore,
on the one hand a firm and conservative tradition was to be built up,
while on the other the changing voice of the people was to be reflected.
It was, therefore, necessary to remove one chamber from popular election
and leave it to the appointment of the separate state legislatures. It
was also necessary to put the age for candidacy for this chamber high,
and to make the term of office rather long, and finally to contrive that
at any one time only a fraction of the numbers should be replaced, so
that a majority of the members could carry on their work undisturbed.
The other chamber, however, was to be completely replaced by frequent
direct popular elections. Thus originated the two divisions of Congress
which so contrast in every respect. A comparison with European double
legislative systems is very natural, and yet the Senate is neither a
Bundestag, nor a Herrenhaus, nor a House of Lords; and the House of
Representatives is fundamentally different from the Reichstag. One who
wishes to understand the American system must put aside his
recollections of European institutions, since nothing except emphasis on
the difference between the American and European legislatures will make
clear the traditions of Washington.
As has been said, the Senators are representatives of the several
states; every state sends two. The State of New York, with its seven
million inhabitants, has no more representatives in the Senate than the
State of Wyoming, which has less than one hundred thousand inhabitants.
Every Senator is elected for six years by the law-giving body of the
individual state. Every second year a third of the Senators retire, so
that the Senate as a whole has existed uninterruptedly since the
foundation of the Union. Curiously enough, however, the Senators vote
independently, and thus it often happens that the two Senators from one
State cast opposite votes. A candidate for the Senate has to be thirty
years old.
The members of the House are elected every two years and by direct
popular vote. The number of delegates is here not prescribed by the
Constitution. It is constantly modified on the basis of the ten-year
census, since every state is entitled to a number of delegates
proportionate to its population. While there were slaves, who could not
vote, the slave states nevertheless objected to the diminution in the
number of their representatives, due to the fact that the negro was not
considered an inhabitant, and it was constitutionally provided to
compute the number of Representatives on the basis that every slave was
equivalent to three-fifths of a man. To-day neither colour nor race
constitutionally affects the right to vote. On the other hand, the
nation as such does not concern itself to consider who is allowed to
vote, but leaves this completely to the different states, and requires
only that for the national elections in every state the same provisions
are observed which are made for the elections to the state legislature.
Moreover, it is left to every state in what wise it shall choose the
allotted number of Representatives at Washington. Thus, for instance, in
those four Western States in which women are allowed to vote for members
of the legislature, women have also the right to vote for Congressmen.
The first House of Representatives had 65 members, while the House of
1902 had 357, and the political centre of gravity of the country has so
shifted that the states which originally made up Congress send now only
137 of the members. The number of delegates has recently been increased
to 386. The age of candidacy is 25, and while a Senator must have lived
in the country for nine years, only seven years are required of a
Representative.
The differences in the conditions of election are enough to bring it
about that the personal make-up of the two Houses, as had been
originally intended, give very different impressions. The dignity of
being Senator is granted to but few, and to these for a long time, and
as it is bestowed by that somewhat small circle of the legislators of
the state, is naturally accounted the highest political honour; it is
thus desired by the most successful leaders of public life and the most
respected men of the several states. The ideal condition is, to be sure,
somewhat frustrated, since in reality the members of a state legislature
are generally pledged, when they themselves are elected, to support this
or that particular candidate for the Senate. Thus the general body of
voters exerts its influence after all pretty directly; and, moreover,
this distinction depends not a little, in the West and especially in the
thinly populated states, on the possession of great wealth. Since,
however, in these cases such wealth has generally been won by
exceptional energy and keen insight, even in this way men come to
Washington who are a good deal above the average voter, and who
represent the most significant forces in American popular life
earnestly, worthily, and intelligently.
In the last Senate the average age of ninety Senators was sixty years,
and seventeen were more than seventy years old. Sixty-one of them were
jurists, eighteen were business men, three were farmers, and two had
been journalists. As to the jurists, they are not men who are still
active as attorneys or judges. Generally men are in question who went
over early from the legal profession into politics, and who have lived
almost entirely in politics. Indeed, not a few of these lawyers who have
become legislators have been for some years in commercial life at the
head of great industrial or railroad corporations, so that the majority
of jurists is no indication whatsoever of any legal petrifaction. All
sides of American life are represented, and only such professions as
that of the university scholar or that of the preacher are virtually
excluded because circumstances make it necessary for the Senator to
spend six winters in Washington. It will be seen that politics must have
become a life profession with most of these men, since many are elected
four and five times to the Senate. Among the best known Senators,
Allison, Hoar, Cockrell, Platt, Morgan, Teller, and several others have
been there for more than twenty-five years. Of course the conservative
traditions of the Senate are better preserved by such numerous
re-elections than by any possible external provision.
It is also characteristic of the composition of the Senate that, with a
single exception, no Senator was born on the European continent. Nelson,
the Senator from Minnesota, came from Norway when he was a boy. Thus in
this conservative circle there is little real representation of the
millions who have immigrated to this country. In the autobiographies of
the Senators, two relate that, although they were born in America, they
are of German descent; these are Wellington, the Senator from Maryland,
and Dietrich, the Senator from Nebraska. The Senators are notoriously
well-to-do, and have been called the “Millionaires’ Club”; and yet one
is not to suppose that these men have the wealth of the great industrial
magnates. Senator Clarke, of Montana, whose property is estimated at one
hundred million dollars, is the single one who, according to American
standards, could be called rich. Most of the others have merely a few
modest millions, and for many the expensive years of residence in
Washington are a decided sacrifice. And, most of all, it is certain that
the Senators who are materially the least well-off are among the most
respected and influential. The most highly educated member of the Senate
would probably be the young delegate from Massachusetts, the historian
Lodge, who is the President’s most intimate friend; but the most worthy
and dignified member has been the late Senator from Massachusetts, the
impressive orator, Hoar.