MORE SIGNS OF THE TIMES
The present movement for a purer and more direct democracy--the
initiative, referendum and recall--is clearly an ineffective method of
securing wise legislation, good official agents, or even a real
expression of the people's will. The representative system is the most
valuable system that has thus far been invented to make popular
government possible and the introduction of more democracy, so-called,
is a retrograde step. It is going back to the machinery of the New
England town meeting and of the Republics of Greece and Rome, which we
have given up because conditions have so changed as to make it
impracticable and ineffective.
In the small number of people who constituted the town meeting in New
England, or in a Greek city, it was possible to discharge the
comparatively simple functions fulfilled by government because of the
high average intelligence of the freemen who took part. But even the
Greeks ran into difficulties, and if you will read Lord Acton, possibly
the greatest historical authority on the subject, you will find that
pure democracy, as it is called, resulted in disaster. We now have a
much more complicated government and more democracy will not supply its
needs.
The representative system, much abused as it is, is the system that has
rescued us from plutocracy. Its laws are the laws that have done the
work. Congress has adopted laws that have taken hold of the
corporations, and Congress is the most perfect model of representative
government. Why did Congress act? Because the people were aroused. You
must have the people aroused in order to make any system effective, and
when this is the case under the representative system, there is no
difficulty about its working.
The general primary is, of course, a good thing for certain leading
offices, but if you resort to it for selecting judges or subordinate
officials whose qualifications the public cannot be supposed to know,
the result will be anything but good. Men will be put into office by
some fortuitous circumstance, such as a particular advertisement in the
newspapers. Thus your Senator, and your governor, might well be elected
by the general primary as the result of party selection, but if the
people selected judges and subordinate officers they would have to take
men without regard to their qualifications. The short ballot means, as I
said, that the people should select leading officers who should in turn
select the subordinate officers and appoint the judges.
To the objection that voters will not vote on referendums, it is urged
that they ought to be compelled to do so. This is a futile remedy. Burke
said you cannot bring an indictment against the people, and it is
equally true that you cannot indict a great majority of the electorate
for not complying with their electoral duties. Suppose you attempt to
forfeit their right to vote, you may injure them, but you injure the
whole people a great deal more. The 80 per cent of the population whose
welfare is directly affected by the action of the electorate, but who
are not by law permitted to vote, are entitled to have the more
intelligent voters retained in the electorate. For, I am sorry to say,
it is generally among the intelligent part of the community that we find
neglect of electoral duties. The wisest course, therefore, is to give to
the people as much electoral duty as they are ordinarily able and
willing to perform, and no more. The fundamental fallacies in the
initiative, referendum and recall are, first, that they impose on the
voters three times the electoral work they had to do under the
representative system, and second, that the additional work involved is
of a kind that could be done much better through agents than by the
people directly. As to the recall of officers, I have only to say that
if you elect a man for three years to try to help your city, or state,
you must not make him subject to recall at any moment by those
candidates or people whom he has had to disappoint in order to do his
work effectively. Under the system of recall you are not going to secure
the men who will work well by looking ahead to preserve the real public
interest, but men who are trimmers, devoting their time to politics and
doing as little as possible to avoid criticism. Your executive officers
should be men of independence, courage and ability, who are interested
in the public and willing to encounter criticism for the time being in
order that they may carry out those policies that are going to inure to
public benefit in the end. By making them subject to recall, you
eliminate all independence and courage in your officers.
Another sign of recent times which will repay consideration has been
aptly termed "muck-raking." Mr. Roosevelt took the word from Bunyan's
"Pilgrim's Progress" to describe the irresponsible and slanderous
attacks upon public officials, which were made merely for the purpose of
selling the wares of penny-a-liners. To eliminate corporations from
politics and to bring them under government control, as I have
described, it was doubtless necessary to formulate charges against
individuals and political leaders and it was not to be expected that
misstatements would not creep into such personal attacks. While many
people were doubtless injured unjustly, it was essential that general
corrupt conditions should be revealed to the public. But there were a
great many who were induced to go into outrageous muck-raking solely for
profit, and magazines filled with such stuff and spreading real poison
among the people were sent in the mails at a much less rate than it cost
the government to carry them. I am glad to say muck-raking is not so
profitable now and it has been greatly reduced in volume.
But the opportunity for attacking prominent and powerful men in this way
has served to create a condition that we still suffer from. It has
brought about a feeling that nobody is to be trusted, and it has spread
too far the idea that all men are corrupt. In fact, it has led to the
feeling that everybody is on the same level in matters of character,
learning, skill and effectiveness of labor, and, in short, that every
man is as good as everybody else in everything. The idea is that men are
on a dead level. There is no room for leadership in such a view.
Inequality is essential to progress. If you make a dead level there will
be no interest in life or motive for effort, and you will destroy the
very spring of progress and the fountain of Christian civilization.
We now have political parties that are made by vertical divisions among
the voters. In each party we have the intelligent and the fortunate,
with those who are not so intelligent nor so experienced nor so well
circumstanced. What will be the tendency of this refusal to recognize
intelligence and high character in those who deserve it? It will make
the parties horizontal layers in the body politic. It will unite in one
party those who are ignorant and unfortunate, and array them against the
intelligent and those who have the ability for leadership. When that
comes about, the Republic will be in danger, because the permanence and
usefulness of the Republic rests upon the controlling influence of men
of intelligence, experience, patriotism and character. This array of a
proletariat against intelligent and successful leadership produces
factionalism in society. Factionalism is a class spirit which will
sacrifice the interest of the whole to the interest of the class. It
sometimes permeates a majority, but more frequently a minority. It is
illustrated for us by the militancy of English women suffragists, who
will sacrifice property, art and even life, in order to convince the
majority that unless they receive the vote they will destroy all
society.
We cannot, of course, yield to such a force. Nor can we yield to
trades-unionism when it seeks to promote so-called labor interests by
lawless violence and dynamite. The bonds of society will be loosed if we
do. I would not for a moment be thought to say that those who are in
favor of more democracy, through the initiative and referendum, are
factionalists, and insincere in their view that that system will work a
good result in the fight against corruption in politics. I only think
that they are idealists in this matter, and don't fully understand the
practical operation of the system which they recommend.
In this movement against corruption in politics and corporate control,
it was necessary that corporate control should be attacked. The
muck-raking added to it aroused a spirit against all success in business,
whether the methods pursued were honest or not. The result has been a
hysteria that prompts hostility to capital even when it is working in
honest lines and earning an honest profit. In many states it has led to
excessive restrictive legislation and has terrorized capital; it has
shrunk investments and frightened those who have money until today there
is lots of money in the banks everywhere but it can't be borrowed for
any length of time because nobody will put it into permanent or active
investment.
This state of affairs is likely to continue for some years. I am not
complaining about it because it is part of what we had to pay for the
great reform that was accomplished. After a while confidence will be
restored, and we shall come to our senses, just as they did in Kansas in
the Populist days. The Kansas farmers concluded that all their
unhappiness, and they suffered real stress, was due to the wicked
mortgagees who had lent them money on mortgage security and who insisted
on the payment of interest and even the principal when it was due. So
they elected a Populist legislature and passed a law providing that a
mortgagee could not foreclose his mortgage under two years. They did
this by stay laws and by requiring an obstructive procedure in
collection of debts. As a result, capital fled the state as men would
flee yellow fever. When there was no money at all left in the state and
they found that they couldn't get any, they began to recognize the
benefit in money loaned on mortgages. Their next legislature repealed
all these laws and devoted its attention to advertising their change of
attitude in Eastern markets where money could be had and mortgages could
be floated, promising to be good thereafter, and in general welcoming
the capitalists who would advance money on farms.
The next sign of the times is pleasanter to dwell upon, that is, the
spread of the fraternal spirit that has grown out of this great
material development. Material development in this country had grown
into corruption, undue luxury and waste at the hands of men who did not
realize the responsibility of having been fortunate in accumulating
money, and this absorption in the chase for the dollar began to pall on
the people. They tired of statistics of the growth of business, and
began to look about for some justification for our activities. The
change has brought a greater popular interest in the less fortunate who
have fallen behind in the race.
This feeling has much weakened the influence of the _laissez faire_
school of political and economic thought which was largely in control
when I was in college. Professor Sumner was a strong member of this
school. He was sure of his opinions and taught them. But we have now
drifted away from some of his moorings, and today a good many professors
are giving way to their imagination in suggesting remedies that have not
stood the test of experience. Yet it is generally conceded that the
government can do a lot to help the people that individual enterprise
cannot do. We have also gone far in the matter of regulation, though
there again we are likely to go to excesses.
It is quite probable that we shall find out by hard knocks that the
government cannot perform everything now expected of it. Nevertheless,
under the influence of a greater fraternal spirit, we have done a great
deal. The housing statutes, the safety appliances both for passengers
and employees, the restrictions on the hours of labor, the rules against
child labor, the pure food law, the white slave law, the thorough health
regulations, the control of public utilities, the growth in the public
charitable institutions of the state, the parcels post and the rural
delivery, all are instances of what the government has done to help the
individual by applying the results of public taxation and restrictive
laws. Moreover, we find among rich men a greater feeling of
responsibility for their fortunes, which is proven by their large
donations. Among those less wealthy we find an activity in philanthropic
organizations and in work of a charitable character that has vastly
increased during the last decade. In education, too, we have widened
out, especially in vocational study, by preparing the pupils directly
for wage earning by skilled labor.
Unfortunately, however, many good people in social settlements and in
philanthropic work devote their attention so exclusively to the sore and
rotten spots of society that they lose their sense of proportion, and
bring hysteria even into this movement. Persons so affected come to
think that if suffering, wickedness or squalor is permitted to exist
anywhere, society must all be bad. There must always be sin, and there
must always be neglect and waste until we get to the millennium, which
is not yet so near that we can see and feel it. In making our estimate
of human progress, we must size up the whole situation and take the
average condition. Similarly in attempting to remedy a local or special
evil, we must avoid the injustice of unduly sacrificing the general
welfare. By extreme measures planned to accomplish what may be good in
the abstract but is still not practical, we can make the cause
ridiculous.
Eugenic reformers, for instance, plan to rush right into regulation of
human society and arrange marriages just as horses are bred at a stock
farm. It has made some progress in Wisconsin, where they have required
examination of those about to marry and certificates of health before
issuing the marriage license. But I don't think the American people are
quite ready to submit to that kind of regulation. If it could be
enforced, it might be a good thing for the race, but a strong sentiment
on the other side makes it impractical. In Wisconsin the law is being
ignored and in foreign countries where restrictions upon marriages are
rigorously enforced, marriage is dispensed with and concubinage results.
There is another feature of this present hysterical condition that, I
hope, is going to disappear. But we might as well recognize it. That is
this wish to exculpate the sins of those who are unfortunate by putting
the blame on society at large. The desire seems to be, if possible, to
make scapegoats of those who are fortunate. It is this sentiment that
has given rise to investigations into the cooperative stores in order to
charge their managers with responsibility for the prostitution of some
of their employees because of the wages they pay. As the investigation
shows, there never was a more unfounded charge, but the very fact that
it was used is an indication of what I mean. It manifests itself in the
movement to dispense with all reticence and amplify in every way sex
education on the theory that society is to blame because it is not
telling young people of the danger of sin. You do not have to stand over
a sewer and breathe in the bad smell in order to recognize that it has a
bad smell when you meet it again.
I am strongly in favor of having young men and young women know certain
things about sex matters, the young men through lectures in school or
college, and the young women through instruction by women who can tell
them in a short time all they need to know; but this idea of emphasizing
and expanding the subject and of cultivating a free interchange of
thoughts between the sexes is most dangerous. For one hundred years
these subjects have been suppressed in America to the great benefit of
society and it is well that they should remain so. So-called reforms in
this direction are made the excuse for pruriency in drama, in novels, in
moving pictures and in other ways that are distinctly vicious in their
effect. They promote lubricity and although such literature and
exhibitions may have the support of good people who think they are
advocating great principles, they should be condemned.
Take another instance. Of course we all wish penitentiaries to be free
from disease, and we are interested in prison reform to the extent of
making them as healthful as possible for the prisoners. But this idea of
making society a scapegoat and ridding everybody from responsibility for
his sins, on the theory that his grandfather or grandmother was wicked
and he is only doing it because of his heredity, makes the preservation
of law and order impossible, and destroys the peace and comfort of those
who are law-abiding. The penitentiary is a place for punishment and
reformation. It is not a rest cure or a summer hotel. I have no doubt
that prison discipline can be improved; but changes based on the theory
that convicted criminals are disguised heroes who only need an appeal to
their honor and freedom from restraint to make them good citizens will
have humiliating but perhaps instructive results.
But these extravagances should not blind us to the real benefit of this
growing sense of brotherhood among men. It is shown not only by the fact
that it is preached in the pulpits and emphasized in the press and in
magazines, but, still more, by the fact that it has been taken up by
politicians. When they get hold of a subject and believe it needs
elaboration, you may know that it has a lodgment with the people. Nor
can we ignore the fact that this feeling has been increased by
indignation at the political and social corruption incident to our
enormous material development. The people have become ashamed of it in a
sense.
With many, this growing sense of brotherhood stimulates the movement
toward state socialism. Our excessive paternalism leads on to this. The
view that the government can do anything, remedy every evil, level every
inequality and make everybody happy, would have a most disastrous effect
on production and individual effort and enterprise. The next step will
be to curtail the right of property. It is difficult to define Socialism
as a practical plan of government. The plan as set forth in a little
book published in Austria called "The Quintessence of Socialism" is as
definite as any that I know. It involves such governmental restriction
of individual freedom of action and such real tyranny that the American
people could not stand it. In fact, the regulation of the details of
life by a system of awards for particular work, made by committees
instead of by the operation of the law of supply and demand, would bring
about a condition that would burst itself in a very little time. As
"Billy" Sumner used to say, "If you have that kind of a system, I choose
to be on the committee."
Another sign of the times is trades-unionism. Trades-unionism is
essential in the cause of labor. One man as a laborer is in a position
where it is utterly impossible for him to deal on an equality with his
employer. The employer has capital and can get along without his
services, but he cannot get along without the wages which the employer
pays him. Therefore, laborers unite and contribute to a fund which
enables them to withdraw together and say to the employer: "Here, we
propose to deal with you on a level. We have great force. We have a fund
which will enable us to live while out of work and we are going to
embarrass you as far as possible by withdrawing from your employ unless
you do justice to us in the matter of terms of service." That power of
union cultivated in organized labor has done a great deal to raise
wages and bring about equitable terms of service.
Organized labor is only a small part of labor generally; but organized
labor exercises great influence in legislatures. It is thought to hold
the balance of power at the polls and has undoubtedly exercised
beneficent influence in securing laws to control healthy conditions for
work, safety appliances on railroads, limitation upon the hours of labor
and a number of other laws that would not have been passed if organized
labor had not brought political influence to bear upon members of the
legislature.
On the other hand, a sense of their power has sometimes given leaders of
labor unions a lack of discretion, a truculence and an unreasonable and
unjust attitude. Like the employers, they have been dependent upon
public opinion and after a time public opinion has controlled them.
Probably the greatest evil that stands out from all the good work unions
have done, is the dead level to which they seek to bring the wages of
skilled manual labor. Organized labor insists on making a class and then
having that class receive the same wages, and it does nothing to
encourage individual effort by consenting to the payment of higher wages
to the man of experience, industry and skill than to the mediocre and
lazy. It will in some way have to obviate that difficulty which works
against the cause of labor and the interest of society. Moreover, its
leaders do not discourage, as they should, lawlessness as a means of
achieving their industrial ends. The history of the dynamiters in
California and of the civil war in Colorado shows this.
On the other hand, we find many in the ranks of labor offering the most
effective opposition to the increase in socialism. The leaders of
trades-unionism have no sympathy with the I. W. W. The I. W. W., however,
led by Haywood and others, serve a useful purpose by furnishing an awful
example for the average workingman. When they go around with the signs,
"No God, No Country, No Law," creating disgust and conservatism in the
ranks of organized labor, they do not know what a good thing they are
doing. They act blindly, but they are offering a sample of what may be
expected if organized labor is tempted to excesses. We are going to have
organized labor for all time, and we ought to have it. While I would go
to the fullest extent with courts and even with the army to protect a
non-union man in freedom of labor, if I were a workingman myself I would
join a labor union because I believe that if such unions can be properly
conducted, they are useful to promote the best interests of labor and of
society. What trades-unionism needs is leaders to teach its members
common sense.
The truth is, the longer you live, the more you will find that nothing
is perfect, and everything has a side that can be criticised. What you
have to do is to sum up the whole, take the average benefit which comes
from it, and attempt to increase that average. Now I am an optimist.
People say the initiative and the referendum, against which I have
talked, are like a ratchet wheel. If you extend power to the people and
the voters, you will never get it back again. I agree that is a rule
that generally works, but with respect to the initiative and the
referendum there is an element that may cause an exception to the rule.
The initiative will throw a heavy burden on the electorate. Cranks and
their followers will constantly be compelling voters to act upon wild
proposals. As the popular disgust grows, the requirements in respect to
the number of signers will be made so heavy that a successful petition
can rarely be secured. The referendum will then be limited to such
matters as the legislature chooses to refer and will then cease to be a
practical burden.
We must pray that the injurious excesses which I have been describing as
the cost we have to pay for a great reform, may not unsettle the
foundation of our government and destroy the self-imposed restraint
arranged in the Constitution to make that government just to the
individual, to the minority and to those who do not vote. If we do not
disturb those foundations, we can count on the common sense of the
American people to bring them back to sane views, and we can rejoice and
continue to rejoice in the preservation of a popular government that for
one hundred and twenty-five years has vindicated its conservatism and
justice before the world and will continue to do so forever.
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