WEAKNESS AND INEFFICIENCY OF OUR MANHOOD SUFFRAGE GOVERNMENT IN ITS
FOREIGN RELATIONS
The qualities which render a government popular or successful at home do
not always work for efficiency in foreign relations. In home matters the
nation discusses, divides, and experiments; in its foreign relations it
must act as one man and present to the other nations the same single
attitude as would be offered by a dictatorship. Therefore it has been
often said that a democracy is apt to be weak in its foreign policy,
because it has to reconcile so many opinions before it can effectually
act. But this weakness is not inherent in every conceivable democracy;
it is possible for a democratic electorate if sufficiently intelligent
to select one man or a small group of men to represent it in foreign
affairs with firmness and ability. This, however, cannot be expected
from an unintelligent constituency such as manhood suffrage provides,
much less from an organization for spoils such as it has developed and
placed in power in the United States.
The manhood suffrage politicians who have had the popular ear for the
past century have not understood the necessities or proprieties of our
foreign relations, and have misinformed the people on the subject. They
have adopted the cheap newspaper attitude of sneering at skill, tact and
secrecy and applauding truculence and bluff in foreign diplomacy. They
have never realized the value of trained and cultivated statesmanship.
Its importance is however transcendent. As long as the world continues
to be composed of many different nations each including large
populations, differing more or less in race, religion, habits and
prejudices from each of the others, there will be new and delicate
situations constantly arising, requiring the practice of tact,
statesmanship, diplomacy, and a historical as well as a present day
practical knowledge of foreign countries. But under the system of
universal suffrage the populace is king, the machine is his chief
minister, the cheap daily press is his mouthpiece, and statesmen and
diplomats are not valued by either. The inferior newspapers want men in
office who depend not on merit but on advertisement; who rely for
promotion on journalistic control of a public which gets all its
information from the daily press. They prefer politicians who toady to
them to statesmen who despise their ignorance, their lies and their
vulgarities. It is the custom of both politicians and newspapers to
belittle statesmanship, because the politicians have no knowledge of its
history and capacities, and because real statesmen are indisposed to
tolerate the pretensions and the interference of either newspapers or
politicians. All three, populace, press and political machine, would
like to see the general policy of the nation, including its foreign
affairs, confided to such politicians as would seek guidance rather in
the opinions of the mob and the columns of the newspapers than in
studies of the history of foreign politics, of economics, of
institutions and of the dynamic forces of the time.
There can be no successful diplomatic or even business negotiation
without a decent amount of secrecy. The cheap newspapers dislike this
precaution. They pretend to see no need for secret diplomacy; they
insist that all negotiations between nations should be public. They are
not prone to understand pride or delicacy in any quarter, and would like
to see made public the private transactions not only of nations but of
individuals, so that they might thus satisfy the cheap curiosity of
their readers; for this reason they are opposed to the law of libel and
to every protection to human privacy. They tell us in their flippant and
cock-sure way that diplomacy and secrecy are not necessary parts of the
policy or of the procedure of a free nation; that all treaty
negotiations should be open; and they are fond of denouncing with a
great show of moral indignation the secret diplomacy of the so-called
autocracies of the world. But common sense teaches us that as long as
national pride continues, and treaties are to be made and war and peace
decided upon by governments, that is to say, as long as opposing and
warlike nations exist, secrecy will be necessary in the discussion of
treaties and in all important international negotiations; and that the
government which neglects to use the precaution and to give the guaranty
of secrecy will be sometimes left in the lurch.
We hear a lot about a League of Nations in these days. The greatest and
most successful league of sovereign powers ever established was this
Union of States by and under a Constitution which was forged and created
at Philadelphia in 1787 by some forty educated and propertied gentlemen
working in absolute secrecy. Neither the newspapers nor the populace was
allowed to be present or to be represented at their deliberations, nor
to know what was going on, nor to read or otherwise learn of their
debates or processes, therefore the delegates were able to work
untrammelled and to produce good results. Absolute secrecy in its
construction made our American Constitution possible.
Besides secrecy, great skill is required in the making of treaties and
constitutions. The nations whose rulers and diplomatic agents are chosen
under a system of universal suffrage, of government by demagogues and
platform ranters who are allowed and expected to distribute diplomatic
posts among their supporters; such nations will suffer in competition
with those whose polity brings to the front and puts in command a set of
trained educated statesmen and diplomats. The two greatest triumphs of
the United States in its entire history were diplomatic achievements;
and both were accomplished by statesmen trained under the old property
qualification suffrage system, before manhood suffrage had cheapened our
institutions. It was diplomacy, and secret diplomacy at that, which
under the astute management of Franklin obtained for the American
States the aid of France and made successful the American Revolution. It
was diplomacy, secret and highly skilled diplomacy, which procured in
1803 the cession to the United States by France of Louisiana, from which
territory nine great states and the greater part of four others were
created and which made the United States a real power in the world. The
story of that acquisition as described by Fiske is that of one of the
greatest diplomatic achievements in history; and, after making all
allowances for good luck in the affair, we find there pictured a
statesmanship and a patriotism calculated to thrill the heart of every
American. The men who were most conspicuous on the American side from
first to last in that transaction, were not of the class of politicians
who are to-day being chosen for high office by the popular vote; they
were Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Robert R. Livingston; all of them
men of position, property, good family, descent and education. All but
Washington were college graduates. All were brought to the front by a
system established upon the votes of a propertied electorate.
As government by the propertied class was successful in diplomacy in
those old days, so that of manhood suffrage has been a diplomatic
failure in our own time. The most recent and terrible instance of the
direful results of lack of governmental efficiency has been that of the
episode of the German War just concluded. Democracy was not only
unprepared in 1914 for the struggle with Germany, but it completely
failed to foresee or even to suspect its approach. The crisis of 1914
found the four great democratic nations of the world deficient in
military organization, in preparation for defense, and in international
vision and information. Granted the existence of a Germany, armed to the
teeth, and sharpening her sword for mischief, Democracy should have had
in charge of its foreign affairs men with vision sufficient to enable
them to foresee or at least to conjecture her designs. Of these designs
her democratic neighbors had no conception, and the United States was as
unsuspecting as a child. No effort had been made to study the
situation. Our rulers were mere vote-getters, local politicians, with a
ridiculously small knowledge of foreign affairs, and of the dreadful
impending future no vision whatever. We had then and we have now no
adequate foreign affairs organization at Washington or abroad; and no
sufficient popular conception of the need of one. It was part of the
business of an efficient national government in 1914 to understand
thoroughly our foreign relations; and therefore to keep competent
representatives in all foreign countries; to measurably understand the
policy of Germany and every other first class power and its true
significance; the extent of Germany’s military and naval preparations
and their object, and the issues involved in the war; it was its
business to realize our true interests therein; to keep informed of
every phase of the struggle as it proceeded; to lead and advise the
press and the representatives of the people on all these matters; to
cause due preparation to be made for all eventualities, and to prescribe
a consistent and dignified policy for the nation. No one can possibly
deny that the Washington administration failed in all and every one of
these respects. It did none of these things; and let us haste to say
that it is not to be supposed that the opposite party could have done
any better. In these important matters Washington could not help but
fail, because our political system created by universal suffrage and
guided by its paltry spirit makes no provision for statesmanship or
diplomacy; for forethought, sagacity and profound policy in foreign
affairs; nor for preparation for great wars. Nor were the other great
democracies, Great Britain, France, or Italy, much better off, as is
shown by the miserable Russian fiasco, when they and ourselves, with an
incredible fatuous folly permitted and even aided or encouraged the
Bolsheviki and their German assistants to destroy the Russian alliance,
by deposing the friendly Czar who was maintaining a government which had
fought nobly and effectively for the common cause, and which was the
only civilized government possible in Russia. It was then in the power
of the Allies backing the Czar to have stamped out Bolshevism. They
allowed him to be deposed by a gang of adventurers, while we stupidly
applauded and raised the silly cry that Russia was now a democracy; a
free country forsooth. Misled by our ignorant and worthless Foreign
Office the masses who foolishly believe that freedom consists in merely
voting at elections were delighted; our politicians and newspapers
really or affectedly joined in this senseless joy; and the few among us
who understood what was really being done were unable to get a hearing.
Civilization in Russia and the cause of the Allies was betrayed by the
ignorance of the politicians who controlled the Allied policies, and the
result has been the loss of tens of thousands of American lives and
billions of American dollars.
A corresponding inefficiency was displayed elsewhere by the great allied
democracies. From the moment of the first blare of the German war
trumpet in 1914 we saw them piteously struggling to free themselves from
the burden of the political ineptitude which this pernicious system of
universal suffrage and vote-getting politics had fastened upon each of
them; striving to oust the democracy of ignorance and weakness, and to
give the aristocracy of merit the place it must have before the fierce
contest could be won. Some of the incompetents chosen for office by the
much vaunted elective system were pushed to the rear out of sight; some
were otherwise got rid of or superseded; and some were slowly trained up
to the efficiency they should have already possessed before being put in
places of trust and power. In the meantime, there was over there failure
and again failure; failure in Serbia; failure in Greece; failure in
Rumania; failure in Ireland; failure in Russia. And here in our own
country as the war proceeded, want of foresight, want of preparation,
inefficiency and waste; and though democracy conquered at last it was by
sheer weight of numbers and resources, while its slowness to understand,
to decide and to act brought us to the very verge of disaster and cost
untold lives and money, which efficiency would have saved.
For the benefit of short memories, the writer presents here a few
extracts from publications pointing out our criminal want of preparation
for defense at all times prior to 1918. For this situation, each
political party blames the other; the fact being, that the fault is
chargeable, not to any party, group or individual, but to our political
system and cheap traditions.
“And we are unprepared. We have neither gates nor bars. We are
careless of the future, and the machinations of wicked men and the
ambitions of royalty. We sit in fancied security, trusting to the
potency of our riches and the divinations of our stargazers. We are
fat, otiose, spineless, insolent and rich. Could the devil himself
add anything to this catalogue to make us riper for plucking?”
(Henry D. Estabrook--“_Bewaredness_,” the American Academy of
Political and Social Science. _The Annals_, July, 1916.)
“The term, a ‘fool’s paradise,’ describes to perfection the
dreamland in which Americans have slumbered for years in their
complacent indifference to national defence.” (Huidenkoper’s
_Military Preparedness_, p. 252.)
“We never want to face another (war) in such ridiculous
helplessness as has crippled us in facing this one.” (_New York
Mail_, Ed. July 26th, 1917.)
“More than thirty months after the outbreak of the European War,
with all its terrible lessons, we have still to lay the statutory
foundations of a proper system of land-defense.” (H. L. Stimson,
_Scribners’_, April, 1917.)
“The United States of America is prepared for war neither
commercially nor physically.... We have neither a merchant fleet to
carry our commerce nor any army and navy to protect it.” (_Chicago
Evening Post_, Feb. 14, 1917.)
“The crisis finds us unprepared.” (_Chicago Tribune_, Feb. 15th,
1917.)
A well-known authority on naval and military affairs, writing in the
_Outlook_ of April 11th, 1917, says, p. 651:
“The greatest fault in democracy is the lack of imagination of its
administrators. Our press are held in the hollow of the hands of
political men whose knowledge of the art of war is only of the
primary school standard.”
“The European War has demonstrated to our people, among many other
things, that this country is as unprepared on land to defend
herself in case of an attack as was Belgium.” (Adj. Gen, Charles H.
Cole, of the Mass. National Guard, _Worcester Magazine_.)
“The close of 1915 found the United States Government involved in
most serious diplomatic differences with Germany and Austria....
The Navy, which in 1904 stood second in strength, is now third in
material strength and fourth or fifth in the strength of
personnel.... As showing the farcical weakness of our mobile land
forces, it is sufficient to say that we have in the continental
United States to-day only 30,000 effective militia, but, in the
event of a surprise invasion, it would take thirty days to
concentrate these 90,000 regulars and militia against the enemy.”
(_Scientific American_, Jan. 1st, 1916.)
“At a moment when by the sheer force of perfect preparedness
Germany is winning victories all along the line against the greater
part of Europe allied against her, we permit our army to sink close
to the point of inefficiency.” (_New York American_, Oct. 31,
1914.)
“America is wasteful, chiefly through lack of efficient
organization. We are now spending, under recent military
legislation, enormous sums for a totally obsolete kind of regular
army.... We have voted to build a large navy, and are taxing the
people to pay immense bills, but have not enough collective
efficiency to spend the money and get prompt results.” (_Review of
Reviews_, Feb., 1917.)
“Secretary Garrison has shown us that the entire army of the United
States available for movement to a point of danger is less than
three times the number of New York’s policemen.” (_Review of
Reviews_, Feb., 1916.)
Here is the case of England, another democracy, presented in an extract
from an article in the _North American Review_ for July, 1918, by A.
Maurice Low:
“When England entered the war against Germany it was not exactly
with a light heart, but it was only with a faint conception of the
magnitude of the task she faced and the strain it would impose upon
her. Instead of immediately adopting conscription, she dallied
with it, talked about it, made it a political question, and then
accepted a compromise, which is the usual English fashion, and only
when much valuable time had been lost and the emergency was so
great that further delay was impossible, universal service was
enforced. It was the same with many other things. The blockade of
Germany was lax because of the timidity of the Foreign Office.
Business as usual was our boast, and we went about our several ways
spending money foolishly and refusing to be put on rations or
voluntarily reducing our consumption of luxuries.... Time, of
course, taught us wisdom. We bought our experience and a pretty
price it cost us.”
Not only were the American people unprepared for physical action of any
kind at the outbreak of the war of 1914, but the Congress then sitting
in Washington was mentally unprepared and unequipped for dealing with
that or any similar situation. It needed first rate men; and manhood
suffrage furnished and is still furnishing the Capitol with a supply of
third and fourth raters. It is not merely that they were wrong on the
European situation; the fact is that they were nowhere; that a large
proportion of them had no opinions whatever on the questions involved in
the conflict, and were incapable of forming any; they were absolutely
ignorant of European politics; were unable to read a French newspaper or
to understand the political discussions of an English one; a few or none
of them had ever made an adequate preparation for a congressional
career; they were mere vote-getters, representatives of the political
machines of their respective districts; they waited for the newspapers
to tell them what was the popular thing and for the bosses to inform
them as to the strength of the German vote. At every step in the
nation’s progress from August 1914 to the declaration of the state of
war in February 1917 the country and the President showed plainly that
they did not trust Congress; and Congress showed plainly that it did not
deserve to be trusted in such an emergency. Neither the manhood suffrage
Congress nor the manhood suffrage administration nor its political
opponents in Congress took the lead at any time during this fateful
period in forming, enlightening, instructing or fixing public opinion;
they lacked courage and statesmanship to do it, and the nation finally
got into the war by the process of drifting stern foremost. Once in, and
blood drawn, real work began with the officers of the army and navy
acting and compelling action; and after all when it comes to waving the
banner and making appropriations our congressmen are seldom derelict.
The popular belief in the inefficiency of the Federal government, and
the mischievous operation of the rabble vote, are manifested by the
unwarranted meddling of individuals and groups of individuals with the
administration of our foreign affairs. Any one looking into the _New
York Times_ on a certain day in July in the year of grace 1919 might
have there read of the activities of the “National Association for the
Protection of American Rights in Mexico,” whose principal offices are in
New York City and which seems to be a regularly organized and possibly
incorporated body with directors and other officers. The intentions of
the members of this association may be innocent enough, yet the fact is
undeniable that the United States is and ought to be the true and only
“National Association for the Protection of American Rights” not only in
Mexico but everywhere; and it is difficult to imagine just what this
Society can perform in pursuance of its avowed purpose without undue
interference with the sovereignty and proper functions of the United
States Government, and without endangering the peace of the two
countries mainly affected. And although the whole community ought to
have been shocked at an organized movement founded on a contempt for the
Federal government and a belief in its incompetence or worse, it seemed
to excite no comment, and there was probably little notice taken of this
particular half column of the newspaper except by those directly
interested in Mexican affairs. In the same and other newspapers of the
same week were items of news concerning an agitation openly being
carried on in New York, Boston, and other large American cities to
forcibly overthrow the government of Great Britain, as it actually
exists in Ireland, and to establish in its place not merely another
government, but another form of government. At the very time this
scandalous agitation was being promoted by solicitations, subscriptions
and collections of money, and the usual acessories of dinners,
receptions and bunkum speeches by politicians, the United States was
just finishing a great war in practical alliance with Great Britain; the
moral ties which bound the two nations were of the strongest; each owed
its very existence at that moment to the other; and the two had just
signed a compact binding them to unite in defense of France. The
proposals of the agitators, if they meant anything practicable, were
therefore in every way improper and seditious; they included a breach of
faith toward Great Britain, a betrayal of France and a disregard of the
best interests of the United States. It is true that few take these
agitators seriously or believe that they will attempt a revolution in
Ireland or that if they should they could possibly succeed; it is
doubtful if all the world combined would be able to wrest Ireland from
England by force; it is true also that the majority of the American
people probably believe that the so called Irish grievances have no
substantial existence, and really mean no more that the exclusion from
power of a set of political adventurers. But the agitators count on the
well-known weaknesses of the British and American governments, both
chosen by universal suffrage, and the equally well-known fact that a
minority if sufficiently well-organized and impudent can bully and
humbug its way along far enough to be certain to get money and place for
its chiefs and always with a chance of some substantial concessions to
its desires. Already the money is coming in, and the leaders are living
in luxury, at the expense not merely of their dupes but of the friendly
relations of the United States with Great Britain and Canada and of its
reputation for good faith in its foreign relations.
The nation is in constant danger of being pushed into serious
difficulties by the interested meddling with its foreign affairs of
political adventurers and fanatics who would never think of daring to
thus insult and interfere with a government founded upon an electorate
composed of the propertied and intelligent classes, nor to bully a
Congress representing them. For it is reasonable to suppose that the
immediate effect of excluding the irresponsible voters from the
congressional elections would be to smash the machines, and to clear the
way for such an improved representation in Congress, as would certainly
be demanded by a constituency of men of substance and education. To sit
in Congress might become once more a distinction worthy of the ambition
of proud, honorable and able men; the standard of its membership would
be sensibly elevated; the administration backed or criticised as the
case might be by a really able and high-minded Congress would at once be
stimulated and encouraged to energetic action on the highest attainable
level, and America would present as she ought a firm and thoroughly
intelligent attitude towards the rest of the world.