For the giant spoils of Greater New York three contestants are in
the field. They are the regular Republican organization, Tammany
and the "Citizens' Union." The regular Republican organization is
headed by United States Senator Thomas C. Platt, and its active,
or rather its most visible manager, is ex-Representative Lemuel
Eli Quigg. Tammany still has John Croker for its boss, although
John C. Shenan is its official head. The "Citizens' Union" is
composed of the truly good and every man is its chief. It has for
its candidate Seth Low, president of Columbia University.
This organization is one of the results of a long continued era
of official corruption that has no parallel in modern municipal
history. Until times quite recent Tammany has had things all its
own way in the Eastern metropolis. The extent of corruption was
not suspected until the Lexow investigating committee brought it
to light. It is certain that not even the committee itself
conceived the vastness of the system of thuggery and blackmail.
Having begun its labors, evidence poured in upon it in a
constantly increasing stream. It could do no less than go ahead.
Its prosecuting attorney, John C. Goff, who not so many years ago
was a counter jumper in a big New York store, and is now the city
recorder at a salary of $12,000 a year and perquisites, woke to
find himself famous. The Lexow committee was indirectly a result
of the Parkhurst crusade and the Parkhurst crusade was made
necessary by an unheard of state of public immorality. Of
Parkhurst and Lexow the "Citizens' Union" is the child and more
than the child. It stands for purity in politics and the rights
of the honest citizen. It objects to high salaries and little
work. It desires economy in public places. It wants each vote
counted once and only once. It believes in the civil service. It
swears by Teddy Roosevelt. It thinks that the workingman is able
to judge for himself. It does not think that the world is
governed enough. It is certain that it has in its ranks young men
of vigor and intellect who would draw salary and serve the public
in a manner hitherto never approached. It boasts that it is "the
better element." It does not know the alphabet of politics. It is
virtuously theoretical and practically impotent. It cannot be
brought to understand that successful politics demands a
"machine." Each of its individual members is a boss. They have
been derisively termed "goo-goos," which is a contraction of
"goody-goods." They are youthful, sanguine, patriotic,
impertinent, impractical and self-sufficient. Their idea of
conducting a campaign is nebulous. They believe that a number of
voluble young men, clad irreproachably in evening dress and
touring the city in carts after nightfall, stopping on corners
and haranguing the multitude, cannot fail to command success.
They have a large campaign fund, which will go to the printing of
esoteric literature and the hire of carts. There is good in them
and any amount of energy. Recognizing this, the leader of the
regular Republican organization asked them for a conference. They
bouncingly refused. It was explained to them that the best effort
of every honest man in Greater New York was needed to defeat
Tammany and that a divided front meant defeat, but they would
have none of it. "Come into our camp," they said, and be soldiers
under us. Accept our commands. Do as we say, work as we direct,
spend as we decide, or go to the devil." This being so, the
veterans of the regular Republicans, men who have fought through
dozens of campaigns and know the meaning both of victory and
defeat, naturally decided to go to the devil.
Mr. Low, the candidate of the "Citizens' Union," is a good man.
He is a kind man. He is a gentleman and a scholar. He is an
educator. Columbia University loves him. All through the campaign
its students will give their college yell for him with vigor and
much satisfaction to themselves. He has friends who believe in
the massive strength of their own influence. But it is to be
feared that he will be butchered to make a tiger's holiday. His
personal characteristics are all that they should be. His morals
could not be improved, but he will know more in November than he
knows now. It is to be doubted that the New York voter will rush
to the polls and plump ballots for him with the frenzied
enthusiasm of which he has been told. The New York voter is a low
animal at best, much lower than the Chicago voter, and he
enthuses only when filled with beef and beer. Tammany understands
him. Thomas C. Platt understands him. Tammany and Thomas C. Platt
are not saying a word. They are sitting still and watching the
inception of the meteoric canvass of Low.
Integrally the "Citizens' Union" is all right. The trouble lies
in the fact that it believes that no good men can come out of
Nazareth. There is but one right way, and it has that way. It is
purse-proud, bull-headed and inexperienced. It will hold daily
conferences with Mr. Low. It will fill him with vain hopes and
longings and it will send out the young men on the carts. Also it
will publish essays on the dignity of the American ballot. These
essays will be written by its own scribes, who will joy to see
themselves in print, and they will be scattered broadcast through
the city. They will serve to wrap up butter pats and as tails to
small boys kites. They will not be read, of course, for who, in
the hurly-burly of a city campaign, has time or inclination to
read tracts?
The Citizens' Union will not make a house-to-house canvass; it
will not make and keep a record of the name, business and
preference of every voter; it will not have trained proselyters
at work; it will not organize clubs; it will not descend to the
brutish level of the torchlight procession; it will not employ
the agonizing brass bands; it will not send out men on election
day whose business it is to see that every voter gets to the
polls at least once, and more times if necessary.
The regular Republican organization ought to win, but it entered
the contest heavily handicapped. If the tiger of Tammany again
inserts a paw into the public treasury and converts the humblest
office into a reward for rascality, the responsibility will rest
directly upon the "Citizens' Union"--whose self constituted
mission is to purify politics and elevate the ballot box.
The success of Tammany would be deplorable--calamitous. It would
mean the restoration of the old era of trickery, jobbery and
blackmail in a richer and wider area. But, owing to the split
among those who ought to know better, it has never in its history
had a better opportunity, nor has it ever fought for so grand a
prize. "Greater New York" is composed of the original city,
Brooklyn, which by the census of 1890 contained more than 900,000
people, several Long Island towns, suburban to Brooklyn, and a
large part of Westchester county, lying north of the city proper.
The total population will approach 4,000,000. The taxable wealth
is enormous. The number of salaried place holders is close to
25,000. The salary list that is disbursed monthly runs far into
the millions. Once in possession of this enormous power, Tammany
would build up a machine to pale the records made by the
administration of Boss Tweed. There was never any reason for the
formation of "Greater New York" other than the fear that Chicago
would oustrip the old town in the race for pre-eminence among
American cities. There were grave reasons against it, chief among
them being the acquisition of an enormous debt and the affording
of an opportunity for plunder at the hands of the organization
that now threatens. It is certain that the citizens of older New
York have carried their pigs to a bad market. If history teaches
anything, they will live to regret that they allowed urban pride
to run away with common sense.
The methods of Tammany are well known. It is preeminently the
American representative and practitioner of the low and effective
in politics. It is the oldest and most powerful political society
this country has ever known, and possibly ever will know. It is
twofold. There is the Tammany general committee, to which any
citizen of the city who is a Democrat, may belong. It numbers
some 100,000 members. There is a wheel within a wheel, called the
Society of Tammany. This is a secret concern, whose lodge-room is
in the hall on Fourteenth street, near Third avenue. All of the
leading Tammanyites belong to it. From its ranks the executive
committee is chosen. It keeps the rolls and the records, makes
the assessments, appoints the captains of the various election
precincts, holds them responsible for the discipline of their
men, rewards faithful service and punishes treachery. The society
makes no special pretensions to purity. Its motto is to the
victors belong the spoils. While Democratic in politics and of
large influence in the national councils of the Democracy, it has
never hesitated to sacrifice a national candidate for local gain.
It is of and for New York City first, last and all the time.
Occasionally it is loyal to a presidential candidate, but more
often it is disloyal. Trades are always possible. For instance,
it was true to Mr. Cleveland in 1884 and untrue in 1888. It was
true again in 1892, and there is no doubt that at the last
general election its members were told to knife Mr. Bryan
whenever they wished.
It is the most persistent and thoroughly equipped warrior in our
political lists. There is not a square foot of New York City that
it does not know. On the day before election it is able always to
tell within a fraction the number of votes it will poll. Every
member is forced to go to his voting place and deposit his
ballot. The political preference of every man in every precinct
of every ward is known. Its agents are everywhere and always at
work. It spends money like water. It is quick to reward and
fierce to punish. It has no sentiment. It battles for so much
place, so much power and the handling of so many dollars. If it
wins, its spoils are promptly and equitably divided. Against such
a machine, so intelligently and mercilessly handled, a divided
enemy is almost certain beaten. The Republican party of New York
and the respectability of New York are able to defeat Tammany
when they go hand in hand, but only when they go hand in hand. It
is to be feared that the chasm between them in the present
campaign is not to be bridged. Their active and unscrupulous
foeman may be trusted to leave no stone unturned and no device
untried. Chicago, Ill., October 1.
* * *
THE HON. BARDWELL SLOTE, OF COHOSH.
BY JUNIUS.
The man whom poor dead Billy Florence used to make the dominant,
laughter-breeding memory-haunting figure in "The Almighty
Dollar," is with us still. He infests Washington for many months
of each year. He saves the country with persistency. I purpose to
tell of him as I have known him. A residence of three years in
the Capital City and a daily converse with its legislators has
convinced me that nearly all congressmen are Bardwell Slotes,
more or less. It is a fact that to a dweller in the District of
Columbia there are no great men. Washington people are valets to
these heroes. They get to know them with their rouge and corsets
off. The sight is not pretty, but it is instructive. Sometimes it
fills a man with despair of the future of this country. It
convinces him that the greatest republic of history cannot hold
together for another century. It makes him think that
statesmanship is dead, never to resurge, and that its place is
taken by narrow foul politics. But generally mirth comes as a
relief. There is so much of the ridiculous in the modern American
Cicero or Catiline that one's visions of his shortcomings is
blurred by the tears that laughter brings.
In nine cases out of ten the man sent to Washington to represent
his people is uneducated. In the tenth case he is ill-bred. I
once showed to twenty congressmen the following stanza, asking
them to translate it.
"Le bruit est pour le fat,
La painte est pour le sot,
L'honnete homme s'eloigne trompe,
Et ne dit pas mot."
It is the simplest of French doggerel and means, freely
translated, that while the fat-headed and the weakly foolish do a
great deal of jawing when mistreated by the powerful, the
sensible man picks himself up and totes himself far from the
neighborhood wherein he is unwelcome and never says a word. Of my
twenty congressmen but one offered a translation. That was the
dead William H. Crane, of Texas. The men were taken at random,
and I may say that I did not expect any translations when I
started out. Most frequently a man gets to congress through a
practically acquired knowledge of dirty politics backed by the
ability to make a stump speech, to tell a smutty story, and to
plead for his job with a slavish lickspittleism that would
disgust a Digger Indian. The ordinary congressional candidate
when smitten upon one cheek will turn the other, and when smitten
upon the other will hoist his coat-tail and request the honor of
a kick.
It is but natural that a job which is obtained by eating filth
and drinking filth and sleeping in filth is held to with a
tenacity that rises superior to all manliness and all decency.
The congressman knows but one God--the people who elected him. He
has but one object--to pleasure those people and get a
renomination. He does not represent the United States of America.
He represents his district. His idea of statesmanship is to get
as many federal jobs for the voters of his District and as many
and large federal appropriations for his District as he can. That
is all of it. Any individual Congressman, if he had his way would
fill the government places entirely from his District and erect a
Federal post-office and custom house at every cross roads in his
Districts. If he could do these things, he thinks he would be
certain of reelection, and he is right. Federal patronage is a
fanged whip that hangs ever above his shoulders and occasionally
it falls. The recipient of the blow cringes, cowers and howls
like a beaten hound, but he does not resent. When Grover
Cleveland called the Fifty-third congress into extraordinary
session, the object being to repeal the Sherman act and utterly
demonetize silver, thus completing the vast robbery of 1873, he
knew that there was a pro-silver majority against him, but he
knew also that he held the handle of the patronage whip in his
fat beer-swelled hand and that his slaves would troup to do his
will at the first crack of its lash. The result justified his
confidence. The Democratic party had a majority of nearly 100 in
the house of representatives, but that majority voted directly
against its convictions. It was told that it would get no jobs
for constitutents until it had surrendered its honesty. American
history contains no such pitiful instance of cowardice and
grovelling meanness. Instead of one Benedict Arnold selling his
soul for temporary gain, we had fifty. It did the soul of me good
to read the returns of the next Congressional election and to
know that the truckling, craven disgusting majority was wiped out
as a boy rubs a wet sponge across a slate.
The Hon. Bardwell Slote is a large man at home and a giant to his
wife. In his first term he comes to Washington a month ahead of
the date set for the assembling of Congress, because he wants the
Capital to get used to him gradually. He hires a couple of rooms
in a hotel. His wife puts some flowers on the mantel piece in the
sitting-room and wears her best dress all the time while she is
waiting for the president's consort and the cabinet ladies to
call. They do not call. The Hon. Slote is shocked almost to
dumbness to discover that the Capital does not know that he is on
earth. Beyond a two-line "personal" in the morning paper, jammed
among the "hotel arrivals," no mention is made of his coming. He
has bills in his trunk providing for a public building at
Bungtown and a deep water harbor at Squashville and a light house
on Jim Ned creek and the establishment of a federal court at Eden
and a governmental survey of the bad lands around Dogtown, and
the Bungtown Bazoo and the Squashville Cresset and the Eden Echoe
and the Dogtown Democrat have all stated that he intended to make
speeches on every one of them, but the general public does not
seem to take much interest in these foreshadowed cataclysmal
events. Posing on the sidewalk in front of his hotel, with his
legs wide apart, his hands behind him and his breast well out, a
couple of small boys passing remark that he is "de new jay f'on
Injyanny," and that is all the notice he gets. The attitude was
very effective at home, but it does not seem to excite awe in the
District of Columbia.
Once in his seat on the floor of the House he discovers that he
is merely a unit in the majority or the minority. Nobody asks his
advice about anything. The tally clerk calls his name in a
careless manner. He cannot catch the speaker's eye. He bobs up
half a dozen times in the first hour with intent to make a motion
about something and sinks back limply. The voice, face and manner
that were wont to still the conventions at home are no good. The
newspaper men in the gallery over the speaker's head point at him
and whisper to each other and then they laugh. It makes him
uncomfortable. The next day the clipping bureau sends him thirty
or forty paragraphs like this:
"The Hon. Bardwell Slote, of the Cohosh district, Indiana, made
his first appearance on the floor yesterday. He experienced some
difficulty in delivering his half dozen speeches on the various
manuscripts in his trunks. The speaker was savagely oblivious.
The Hon. Slote will add much to the gaiety of nations. The
distinctive articles of his attire were a red cravat, a coat of
the vintage of '49, a tobacco-stained shirt-front and a whisp of
oakum- colored chin beard. As a bit of bric-a-brac, or a curio
from one of the oldest portions of the unhallowed west, he will
be of value in the interior decoration of the Capitol, but it is
to be feared that his oratorical vent has been choked up for some
time to come."
As time goes on the Hon. Slote finds his uses. He visits the
departments with persistency. He is followed by a trail of
officeseekers from home. He finds that he must wait like a
servant in the ante-rooms of the secretaries. He does not wield
much influence. His party leaders realize the value of his vote
and order him to cast it when they want it. The qualities of the
man bring him forward. He has been a heeler in the small politics
of his own county and he becomes a wrestler with two or three
hundred heelers from other parts of the republic. The
professional widow, clad in the sable habiliments of woe, takes
him into a quiet corner and leans against him hard. The Hon.
Slote becomes wildly excited and promises to leg for her bill. He
legs for it until it passes and goes up to the court of claims.
Then the widow knows him no more. A young lady, with freshly
colored cheeks and golden hair streaming down her back, looks at
him tenderly in the House restaurant. He follows her outside the
Capitol and boards a car with her and scrapes acquaintance with
her, and goes back to his lean but fiery wife some time that
night, looking and feeling like a dissipated tom cat stealing
homeward over the roofs in the gray of a chilly morning. He is
introduced to the poker game at Chamberlin's and finds that he
can hold more big hands and get more of them beaten than in any
place he ever saw in his life. He discovers that the whisky sold
in the Capitol is sudden death at a distance of 150 yards against
the wind. He draws his first month's wage of $416 and finds that
his resolution to save $316 of it might as well not have been
made. His mileage money has been spent long before. The fact is
borne in on him that it is necessary only that he answer to his
name at 12 o'clock roll call. He will not be allowed to make
speeches anyhow and can, if he chooses, fill in his time talking
to the professional widow and the young lady of the restaurant.
At the end of the two years' term he returns to his home a wiser
man. He encourages the idea that in order to get good results it
is necessary to return a congressman for many sessions. He has
had a taste of the fleshpots. He is sent back. At the next
session he is an "old member." His capacity for chicanery has
been increased by experience. Having little morals to start with,
he is now as utterly conscienceless as it is possible for a man
to be and keep out of jail. He gets his bills through by "fine
work." He prefers to be known as a mole that works under ground.
He has formed an ability to add materially to his income. He
would get rich, but for the fact that his expenses have increased
with his earnings. He has from one to four female employes of the
government "on his staff." He seeks constantly for youthful
typewriters. He has learned to dress in a manner that does not
shock the populace. His voice takes on an unctuous greasy timbre.
He has become something of an authority on canvas-back and wines.
His head is full of "schemes" and the pre-requisite of them all
is governmental appropriation. In return for his vote in favor of
several more or less iniquitous measures, grabs and steals, he
has obtained appropriations for the federal building at Bungtown
and the light house at Jim Ned creek. The money for the deep
water harbor at Squashville is carried in the general rivers and
harbors bill and he has hopes that the federal court will sit at
Eden the next year. He is more solid with his constituents. Many
of them have been made postmasters and railway postal clerks and
inspectors of various kinds. One of them has even been given a
consulate at Demerara and writes many letters home bearing
strange looking stamps. The Hon. Slote at this period is puffy
under the eyes. Three Turkish baths a week keep him going. His
wife has learned not to question him too closely, and, possible,
has found consolations of her own.
So he goes on from year to year. He does not sink any lower in
the scale of morality, because already he is about as low as he
can get. When a man reaches a stage where he depends for his
living altogether on public office and to obtain that office is
compelled to fight politicians with their own weapons, not much
more need be said than a simple statement of the case. When the
day of his decapitation arrives--and it comes to him soon or
late--he is apt to develop into a lobbyist. Having been a
congressman gives him the right to the floor of the House or
Senate. He will be found later on championing any bill that has
money in it, no matter how patent the steal.
This description of the Hon. Bardwell Slote, of Cohosh, is not in
any way overdrawn. It is, in fact, conservative, If an exact
portraiture of him were given, the ICONOCLAST would be
unmailable. There are some men in the American House of
Representatives who are ornaments to the Republic. They are
honest, patriotic and intelligent. But they are woefully few.
Slote may stand for the ruck of them. They are immoral and
pestiferous demagogues, robbing the public whose pay they draw,
and willing to go any length to maintain their seats. Washington
is notoriously a rotten city, sexually and politically, and the
representatives in Congress, more than any other component of the
body civic, help to make it so.
This state of affairs will continue until men are chosen by the
people distinctly for merit and past services, and for these
things only. There are in the state of Texas to-day, and in every
other state of the Union, for that matter, a hundred demagogues
who are known to be demagogues. They have fed like buzzards upon
the rotting offal of politics and the people continue to vote for
them. Every now and then the ICONOCLAST reaches out and whacks
one of them a fell blow upon his sconce, but, having tied up his
head, he once again returns to his business of craving alms at
the hands of his fellows.
If I wanted to send a daughter of mine to perdition, I would
leave her in Washington dependent upon the influence of some
congressman on the wrong side of forty. If I wished to insure for
my son a liberal and eternal dose of hell-fire, I would set
before him any one of two hundred representatives and tell him to
follow their example in all things. The girl might land as a
leader in low-necked bare-armed and swell-busted society or in a
bagnio and the boy might land in Congress or in the penitentiary.
Washington, D. C., November 23, 1897.