that furnishes an adequate explanation of the practice of government
as carried on in every democratic country in the world. The work of
private business and philanthropy, the work in which modern
democracies have come to be chiefly engaged, is not in itself
productive of the ethics and evils of war. Contrary to the common
belief, industrial competition, which is conducted by voluntary
co-operation, tends to the supremacy of excellence, moral and
material. In societies where civilization has made headway, a merchant
or manufacturer does not seek to crush rivals by misrepresenting them
or assailing them in other ways. His natural and constant aim is to
have his goods so cheap and excellent that the public will patronize
him rather than them. To be sure, the ethics of war often prevail in
industrialism. They are not, however, one of its products; they are
the fruits of militant ages and activities. But in political
competition, which is coercive, the policy pursued is precisely the
reverse. Not by proof of moral and material excellence does the
politician establish his worth. Not by the superiority of his services
or by his fidelity to obligations does he gain the esteem and
patronage of the public. It is by the infliction of injury upon his
rivals. He misrepresents them; he deceives them; he assails them in
every way within his reach. When he triumphs over them he uses his
power, not primarily for the benefit of the people whom he is supposed
to serve, but to maintain his supremacy in order to pillage them.
"Those who make war," says Machiavelli, whose famous book is a _vade
mecum_ for a modern politician as well as for an unscrupulous and a
tyrannical prince, "have always and very naturally designed to enrich
themselves and impoverish the enemy. Neither is victory sought nor
conquest desirable except to strengthen themselves and weaken the
enemy."
In the light of this truth the organization of powerful political
parties becomes natural and inevitable. It is just as natural and
inevitable that the more numerous the duties intrusted to the
State--that is, the greater the spoil to be fought for in caucus and
convention and on the floors of legislatures--the more powerful,
dangerous, and demoralizing they are certain to be. Were these duties
confined to the maintenance of order and the enforcement of justice,
it would be an easy matter for the busiest citizen to give them the
attention they required. So simple would they be that he could
understand them, and so important that he would insist upon their
proper performance. But when they become vast and complex, including
such special and difficult work as the education of children; the care
of idiots, lunatics, and epileptics; the supervision of the liquor
traffic, the insurance business, and railroad transportation, and the
regulation of the amount of currency needed in an industrial
community, it is beyond the powers of any man, however able, to
understand them all, and, no matter how much time he may have, to look
after them as he ought. When to these duties are added the management
of agricultural stations; the inspection of all kinds of food; the
extirpation of injurious insects, noxious weeds, and contagious
diseases; the licensing of various trades and professions; the
suppression of quacks, fortune-tellers, and gamblers; the production
and sale of sterilized milk, and the multitude of other duties now
intrusted to the Government, it is no wonder that he finds himself
obliged to neglect public questions and to devote himself more closely
to his own affairs in order to meet the ever-increasing burdens of
taxation. Neither is it any wonder that there springs up a class of
men to look after the duties he neglects, and to make such work a
means of subsistence. The very law of evolution requires such a
differentiation of social functions and organs. The politician is not,
therefore, the product of his own love of spoliation solely, but of
the necessities of a vicious extension of the duties of the State.
There is nothing more abnormal or reprehensible about his existence
under the present _régime_ than there is about the physician or lawyer
where disease and contention prevail. As long as the conditions are
maintained that created him, so long will he ply his profession. When
they are abolished he will be abolished. No number of citizens'
unions, or nonpartisan movements, or other devices of hopeful but
misguided reformers to abolish him, can modify or reverse this
immutable decree of social science.
Politics tends to bring to the front the same kind of men that other
social disorders do. A study of political leaders in the democratic
societies of the world discloses portraits that differ only in degree
from those that hang in the galleries of history in Italy in the
fifteenth century, in Germany during the Thirty Years' War, and in
France at the height of the French Revolution. Although the men they
represent may not be as barbarous as Galeazzo or Wallenstein or
Robespierre, they are just as unscrupulous and despicable. Like their
prototypes, some of them are of high birth; others are of humble
origin; still others belong to the criminal class. They do not, of
course, capture cities and towns and hold them for ransom, or threaten
to burn fields of wheat and corn unless bribed to desist; still they
practice methods of spoliation not less efficient. By blackmailing
corporations and wealthy individuals, they obtain sums of money that
would have filled with bitter envy the leaders of the famous or rather
infamous "companies of adventurers." With the booty thus obtained they
gather about them numerous and powerful bands of followers. In every
district where their supremacy is acknowledged they have their
lieutenants and sublieutenants that obey as implicitly as the
subordinates in an army. Thus equipped like any of the great brigands
of history, they carry caucuses and conventions, shape the party
policy, and control the legislation proposed and enacted.
To be sure, the economic devastation of politics is not as conspicuous
as that of war. It does not take the tragic form of burning houses,
trampled fields of grain, tumbling walls of cities, and vast
unproductive consumption by great bodies of armed men. Yet it is none
the less real. Not infrequently it is hardly less extensive when
measured in dollars and cents. Seldom does an election occur,
certainly not a heated congressional or presidential election, that
the complaint of serious interference with business is not universal.
So great has the evil become that, long before the meeting of the
national conventions in 1896, a concerted movement on the part of the
industrial interests of the country was started to secure an
abbreviation of the period given up to political turmoil. Even more
serious is the economic disturbance due to legislatures. As no one
knows what stupendous piece of folly they may commit at any moment,
there is constant apprehension. "The country," said the Philadelphia
Ledger, a year ago, referring to the disturbance provoked by the
Teller repudiation resolution in the Senate and the violent Cuban
debate in the House, "has got Congress on its hands, and, after their
respective fashions, Senate and House are putting enormous weight of
disturbing doubts and fears upon it.... To a greater or less degree a
meeting of Congress has been during recent years anticipated by the
community of business with timidity which in some instances has
amounted to trepidation." The State legislatures are hardly better. No
great industry has any assurance that it will not find itself
threatened with a violent and ruinous assault in some bill that a
rapacious politician or misguided philanthropist has introduced. In
New York the attacks of these modern brigands have become so frequent
and so serious that many of the larger corporations have had to take
refuge in adjacent States,[4] where they can enjoy greater, if not
complete immunity. In a less degree the same is true of the minor
legislatures--town, county, and municipal. Ordinances for pavements or
sewers or in concession of valuable privileges keep the taxpayers in a
state of constant anxiety. At the same time vast harm comes from the
neglect of more important matters. The time of legislators is spent in
intriguing and wrangling, and the millions of dollars that the
sessions cost are as completely destroyed as though burned by
invaders.
Though seldom or never recognized, politics has the same structural
effect upon society as war. The militant forces of the one, like the
militant forces of the other, tend to the destruction of social
mobility and the creation of social rigidity, making further social
evolution difficult or impossible. There is a repression of the spirit
of individual initiative, which calls into existence just such
institutions as may be required at any moment and permits them to pass
away as soon as they have served their purpose. There is an
encouragement of the class and parasitic spirit, which produces
institutions based upon artificial distinctions, and, like those in
China, so tenacious of life as to defy either reform or abolition. To
provide place and pelf for followers, political leaders, aided by the
misdirected labors of social reformers, favor constantly the extension
of the sphere of government in every direction. In New York, for
example, during the past eighteen years, thirty-six additions to State
offices and commissions have been made. Simultaneously, the
expenditures on their account have grown from less than four thousand
dollars a year to nearly seven million. This feudal tendency toward
the bureaucracy that exists in France and Germany, and in every
country cursed with the social structure produced by war, is not only
the same in the other States, but in the Federal Government as well.
Its latest manifestation is the amazing extension of the powers of the
interstate commerce commission demanded in the Cullom bill, and the
proposed establishment of a department of commerce to promote trade
with foreign countries. As in New York, there has been an enormous
increase in Federal expenditures. In the agricultural department it
has been from $3,283,000 in 1887 to $23,480,000 in 1897. In other
departments the increase has ranged from nineteen per cent in the
legislative and twenty-three in the diplomatic and consular to seventy
in the Indian, seventy-seven in the post office and river and harbor,
and one hundred and thirty-three in the pension. Another manifestation
is the pressing demand for the extension of the pension system to
civil officials. Already the system has been extended to policemen and
firemen. In some States the teachers in the public schools receive
pensions, and in others the clamor for this form of taxation is loud
and persistent. At the present time a powerful movement is in progress
to pension the civil servants of the Government. Still another
manifestation is the passage of laws in revival of the old trade and
professional corporations. For a long time those in protection of the
legal and medical professions have been on the statute-books, if not
always in force. But, as always happens, these bad precedents have
been used as arguments in favor of the plumbers, barbers, dentists,
druggists, and other trades and professions. But the most absurd
manifestation is the social classification of Government employees in
accordance with the size of their salaries, a form of folly
particularly apparent in Washington, and the establishment of
patriotic and other societies, like the Sons and Daughters of the
American Revolution, the Baronial Order of Runnymede, and the Royal
Order of the Crown, that create social distinctions based, not upon
character and ability, but upon heredity. Could anything be more
un-American, to use the current word, or hostile to the spirit of a
free democracy?
In the intellectual domain politics works a greater havoc than in the
social. Politicians can no more tolerate independence in thought and
action than Charles V or Louis XIV or Napoleon I. "I have never had
confidence in political movements which pretend to be free from
politics," said the Governor of New York at the close of the campaign
that restored Tammany Hall to power in the metropolis, showing that
the intolerance of this form of warfare does not differ from that of
any other. "A creed that is worth maintaining at all," he added, using
an argument made familiar by the agents of bigotry everywhere, "is
worth maintaining all the time.... Do not put your faith in those that
hide behind the pretense of nonpartisanship," he continued, striking a
deadly blow at all party traitors; "it is a device to trap
the thoughtless and unsuspecting." As was shown during the
Blaine-Cleveland campaign of 1884, politicians treat dissent as proof
of unmistakable moral and intellectual baseness. Only the progress of
civilization prevents them from pouncing upon such men as George
William Curtis, Carl Schurz, and Wayne McVeagh with the ferocity of
the familiars of the Inquisition. As it is, they are regarded with
more abhorrence than the members of the opposition; they are treated
with a greater wealth of contempt and hatred, and often pursued with
the malignant vindictiveness of the cruelest savages. "I submit," said
Mr. Wanamaker in one of his speeches against the Quay machine, "that
the service of self-respecting men is lost to the Republican party by
vile misrepresentations of reputable people, employment of bogus
detectives, venomous falsifiers, a subsidized press, and conspirators
who dare any plot or defilement, able to exert political control, and
by protecting legislation and by domination of legal appointees of
district attorneys and others not in elective but appointive offices."
During the memorable campaign of 1896, when political bitterness and
intolerance reached perhaps the highest point in the history of the
United States, thousands of voters, driven by the scourge of "party
regularity," either concealed or disavowed their convictions, and
marched under banners that meant repudiation of public and private
obligations. Even one of Mr. Cleveland's Cabinet officers, who had
stood up bravely for the gold standard, succumbed to party discipline
and became an apostate. The intolerant spirit of politics extends to
dictation of instruction of students. The prolonged assaults of the
protectionists upon Professor Perry and Professor Sumner are well
known. The same spirit inspired the attack upon President Andrews, of
Brown University, the dismissal of the anti-Populist professors in the
Agricultural College of Kansas, and the populistic clamor against
certain professors in the universities of Missouri and Texas. That
politics produces the same contempt for culture and capacity that war
does, evidence is not lacking. "There is," said Senator Grady, of
Tammany Hall, apologizing for the appointment of some illiterate to
office in New York city, "a class of persons, chiefly the educated,
who thinks that if a man begins a sentence with a small letter, or
uses a small 'i' in referring to himself, or misspells common words,
that he is unfit for public office. Nothing could be further from the
truth," he continues, using an argument that the barbarians that
overran Europe might have made; "it is an idea that only the
aristocracy of culture could hold.... We do not want the people ruled
by men," he adds, giving a demagogic twist to his reasoning, "who are
above them, or who fancy they are because they have wealth or learning
or blood, nor by men who are below them, but we want them ruled in a
genuine democracy by men who are the representatives in all their ways
of thinking, feeling, speaking, and acting, of the average man." What
is wanted, in other words, is not men anxious to acquit themselves
with ability and fidelity to the public interests, but men that will
look after the interests of their organization and do the other work
of political _condottieri_. It can, of course, be a matter of no
consequence whether such men spell or speak correctly, or whether they
conduct themselves like boors and ruffians.[5]
As implied in all that has been said, it is, however, upon morals that
the effect of politics is the most deplorable. From the beginning of
the discussion of the party platform and the nomination of the
candidates to the induction of the successful combatants into office,
the principles applied to the transaction of business play the
smallest possible part. The principles observed are those of war. All
the tactics needful to achieve success in the one are indispensable to
success in the other. First, there is, as I have already said, an
attempt to misrepresent and injure political opponents, and, next, to
confuse, befool, and pillage the public. I shall not, however,
describe the factional conflicts that precede a convention--the
intrigue, the bribery, the circulation of false stories, and even the
forgery of telegrams like the one that brought about the nomination
and defeat of Secretary Folger. They exhibit only on a small scale the
ethics of party warfare in general. More needful is it to illustrate
these, and to make clear the vanity of any hope of moral reform
through politics, or through any other agency, either religious,
philanthropic, or pedagogic, as long as it remains a dominant activity
of social life.
"If Mr. Gage had been a politician as well as a banker," said Senator
Frye, criticising the secretary's honesty and courage at a time when
both were urgently needed, "he would not have insisted upon a
declaration in favor of a single gold standard. It was all right for
him to submit his scheme of finance, but hardly politic to be so
specific about the gold standard." Always adjusted to this low and
debased conception of duty, a party platform is seldom or never framed
in accordance with the highest convictions of the most intelligent and
upright men in the party. The object is not the proclamation of the
exact truth, as they see it, but to capture the greatest number of
votes. If there is a vital question about which a difference of
opinion exists, the work of putting it into a form palatable to
everybody is intrusted to some cunning expert in verbal juggling. A
money plank, for instance, is drawn up in such a way that the
candidate standing upon it may be represented by editors and orators
of easy consciences as either for or against the gold standard. The
same was true for years of the slave and tariff questions; it is still
true of the temperance question, the question of civil-service
reform, and of every other question that threatens the slightest
party division. Again, questions are kept to the front that have no
more vitality than the dust of Cæsar. Long after the civil war the
issues of that contest formed the stock in trade of the politicians
and enabled them to win many a battle that should have been fought on
other grounds. If need be, the grossest falsehoods are embodied in the
platform, and proclaimed as the most sacred tenets of party faith.
When the campaign opens, the ethics of the platform assume a more
violent and reprehensible shape. Not only are its hypocrisies and
falsehoods repeated with endless iteration, but they are multiplied
like the sands of the beach. Very few, if any, editors or orators
pretend to discuss questions or candidates with perfect candor and
honesty. Indeed, very few of them are competent to discuss them. Hence
sophistry and vilification take the place of knowledge and reason.
Were one party to adopt the Decalogue for a platform, the other would
find nothing in it to praise; it would be an embodiment of socialism,
or anarchism, or some other form of diabolism. If one party were to
nominate a saint, the other would paint him in colors that Satan
himself would hardly recognize. Not even such men as Washington and
Lincoln are immune to the assaults of political hatred and mendacity.
As the campaign draws to a close, we have a rapidly increasing
manifestation of all the worst traits of human nature. In times of
quiet, a confessed knave would scarcely be guilty of them. False or
garbled quotations from foreign newspapers are issued. The old Cobden
Club, just ready to give up the ghost, is galvanized into the most
vigorous life, and made to do valiant service as a rich and powerful
organization devoted to the subversion of American institutions.
Stories like Clay's sale of the presidency are invented, and letters,
like the Morey letter, are forged, and, despite the most specific
denials of their truth, they are given the widest currency. Other
forms of trickery, like the Murchison letter, written by the British
minister during Mr. Cleveland's second campaign, are devised with
devilish ingenuity, and made to contribute to the pressing and
patriotic work of rescuing the country from its enemies.
But this observation of the ethics of war does not stop with the close
of the polls, where bribery, intimidation, and fraud are practiced,
and the honest or dishonest count of the ballots that have been cast;
it is continued with the same infernal industry in the work of
legislation and administration. Upon the meeting of the statesmen that
the people have chosen under "the most perfect system of government
ever devised by man," what is the first thing that arrests their
attention and absorbs their energies? More intriguing, bargaining, and
bribery in a hundred forms, more or less subtle, to secure election
and appointment to positions within the gift of the legislature.
Little or no heed is given to the primary question of capacity and
public interests. Political considerations--that is, ability to help
or to harm some one--control all elections and appointments. What is
the next thing done? It is the preparation, introduction, discussion,
and passage of the measures thought to be essential to the
preservation of civilization. Here again political considerations
control action. Such measures are introduced as will strengthen
members with their constituents, or promote "the general welfare" of
the party. Very rarely have they "the general welfare" of the public
in view. Sometimes they seek to change district boundaries in such a
way as to keep the opposition in a perpetual minority. Sometimes they
have no other motive than the extortion of blackmail from individuals
or corporations. Sometimes their object is to throw "sop to
Cerberus"--that is, to pacify troublesome reformers within the party,
like the prohibitionists and the civil-service reformers. Sometimes
they authorize investigations into a department or a municipality with
the hope that discoveries will be made that will assist the party in
power or injure the party out of power; it happens not infrequently
that they are undertaken to smother some scandal, like the
mismanagement of the Pennsylvania treasury, or to whitewash some
rascal. Sometimes they create commissions, superintendents, or
inspectors, or other offices to provide rewards for party hacks and
heelers. Finally, there are the appropriation bills. Only a person
ignorant of the ways of legislators could be so simple-minded as to
imagine that they are miracles of economy, or that they are anything
else but the products of that clumsy but effective system of pillaging
known as log-rolling, which enables each to get what he wants with the
smallest regard for the interests of the taxpayer.