THE MIDDLE WEST IN POLITICS
_The great interior region bounded east by the Alleghanies, north by
the British dominions, west by the Rocky Mountains, and south by the
line along which the culture of corn and cotton meets ... already has
above 10,000,000 people, and will have 50,000,000 within fifty years
if not prevented by any political folly or mistake. It contains more
than one-third of the country owned by the United States--certainly
more than 1,000,000 square miles. Once half as populous as
Massachusetts already is, it would have more than 75,000,000 people.
A glance at the map shows that, territorially speaking, it is the
great body of the republic. The other parts are but marginal borders
to it.--Lincoln: Annual Message to Congress, December, 1862._
I
If a general participation in politics is essential to the successful
maintenance of a democracy, then the people of the West certainly bear
their share of the national burden. A great deal of history has been
made in what Lincoln called “the great body of the republic,” and the
election of 1916 indicated very clearly the growing power of the West
in national contests, and a manifestation of independence that is not
negligible in any conjectures as to the issues and leadership of the
immediate future.
A few weeks before the last general election I crossed a Middle Western
State in company with one of its senators, a veteran politician, who
had served his party as State chairman and as chairman of the national
committee. In the smoking compartment was a former governor of an
Eastern State and several others, representing both the major parties,
who were bound for various points along the line where they were to
speak that night. In our corner the talk was largely reminiscent of
other times and bygone statesmen. Republicans and Democrats exchanged
anecdotes with that zest which distinguishes the Middle Western
politician, men of one party paying tribute to the character and
ability of leaders of the other in a fine spirit of magnanimity. As the
train stopped, from time to time, the United States senator went out
upon the platform and shook hands with friends and acquaintances, or
received reports from local leaders. Everybody on the train knew him;
many of the men called him by his first name. He talked to the women
about their children and asked about their husbands. The whole train
caught the spirit of his cheer and friendliness, and yet he had been
for a dozen years the most abused man in his State. This was all in the
day’s work, a part of what has been called the great American game.
The West makes something intimate and domestic of its politics, and the
idea that statesmen must “keep close to the people” is not all humbug,
not at least in the sense that they hold their power very largely
through their social qualities. They must, as we say, be “folks.”
Apart from wars, the quadrennial presidential campaigns are America’s
one great national expression in terms of drama; but through months
in which the average citizen goes about his business, grateful for a
year free of political turmoil, the political machinery is never idle.
No matter how badly defeated a party may be, its State organization
must not be permitted to fall to pieces; for the perfecting of an
organization demands hard work and much money. There is always a great
deal of inner plotting preliminary to a State or national contest, and
much of this is wholly without the knowledge of the quiet citizen whose
active interests are never aroused until a campaign is well launched.
In State capitals and other centres men meet, as though by chance,
and in hotel-rooms debate matters of which the public hears only when
differences have been reconciled and a harmonious plan of action has
been adopted. Not a day passes even in an “off year” when in the corn
belt men are not travelling somewhere on political errands. There are
fences to repair, local conditions to analyze, and organizations to
perfect against the coming of the next campaign. In a Western State I
met within the year two men who had just visited their governor for
the purpose of throwing some “pep” into him. They had helped to elect
him and felt free to beard him in the capitol to caution him as to
his conduct. It is impossible to step off a train anywhere between
Pittsburgh and Denver without becoming acutely conscious that much
politics is forward. One campaign “doth tread upon another’s heel, so
fast they follow.” This does not mean merely that the leaders in party
organizations meet constantly for conferences, or that candidates are
plotting a long way ahead to secure nominations, but that the great
body of the people--the Folks themselves--are ceaselessly discussing
new movements or taking the measure of public servants.
The politician lives by admiration; he likes to be pointed out, to have
men press about him to shake his hand. He will enter a State convention
at just the right moment to be greeted with a cheer, of which a
nonchalant or deprecatory wave of the hand is a sufficient recognition.
Many small favors of which the public never dreams are granted to the
influential politician, even when he is not an office-holder--favors
that mean much to him, that contribute to his self-esteem. A friend
who was secretary for several years of one of the national committees
had a summer home by a quiet lake near an east-and-west railway-line.
When, during a campaign, he was suddenly called to New York or Chicago
he would wire the railway authorities to order one of the fast trains
to pick him up at a lonely station, which it passed ordinarily at the
highest speed. My friend derived the greatest satisfaction from this
concession to his prominence and influence. Men who affect to despise
politicians of the party to which they are opposed are nevertheless
flattered by any attention from them, and they will admit, when there
is no campaign forward, that in spite of their politics they are mighty
good fellows. And they _are_ good fellows; they have to be to retain
their hold upon their constituents. There are exceptions to the rule
that to succeed in politics one must be a good fellow, a folksy person,
but they are few. Cold, crafty men who are not “good mixers” may
sometimes gain a great deal of power, but in the Western provinces they
make poor candidates. The Folks don’t like ’em!
Outside of New York and Pennsylvania, where much the same phenomena
are observable, there is no region where the cards are so tirelessly
shuffled as in the Middle Western commonwealths, particularly in Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, and Kansas, which no party can pretend to carry
jauntily in its pocket. Men enjoy the game because of its excitement,
its potentialities of preferment, the chance that a few votes delivered
in the right quarter may upset all calculations and send a lucky
candidate for governor on his way to the Federal Senate or even to the
White House. And in country towns where there isn’t much to do outside
of routine business the practice of politics is a welcome “side-line.”
There is a vast amount of fun to be got out of it; and one who is apt
at the game may win a county office or “go” to the legislature.
To be summoned from a dull job in a small town to a conference called
suddenly and mysteriously at the capital, to be invited to sit at the
council-table with the leaders, greatly arouses the pride and vanity
of men to whom, save for politics, nothing of importance ever happens.
There are, I fancy, few American citizens who don’t hug the delusion
that they have political “influence.” This vanity is responsible for
much party regularity. To have influence a man must keep his record
clear of any taint of independence, or else he must be influential
enough as an independent to win the respect of both sides, and this
latter class is exceedingly small. At some time in his life every
citizen seeks an appointment for a friend, or finds himself interested
in local or State or national legislation. It is in the mind of the
contributor to a campaign fund that the party of his allegiance has
thus a concrete expression of his fidelity, and if he “wants something”
he has opened a channel through which to make a request with a
reasonable degree of confidence that it will not be ignored. There was
a time when it was safe to give to both sides impartially so that no
matter who won the battle the contributor would have established an
obligation; but this practice has not worked so satisfactorily since
the institution of publicity for campaign assessments.
It is only immediately after an election that one hears criticisms
of party management from within a party. A campaign is a great
time-eater, and when a man has given six months or possibly a year of
hard work to making an aggressive fighting machine of his party he
is naturally grieved when it goes down in defeat. In the first few
weeks following the election of 1916 Western Republicans complained
bitterly of the conduct of the national campaign. Unhappily, no amount
of _a posteriori_ reasoning can ever determine whether, if certain
things had been handled differently, a result would have been changed.
If Mr. Hughes had not visited California, or, venturing into that
commonwealth, he had shaken the hand of Governor Hiram Johnson, or if
he had remained quietly on his veranda at home and made no speeches,
would he have been elected President? Speculations of this kind may
alleviate the poignancy of defeat, but as a political situation is
rarely or never repeated they are hardly profitable.
There are phases of political psychology that defy analysis. For
example, in doubtful States there are shifting moods of hope and
despair which are wholly unrelated to tangible events and not
reconcilable with “polls” and other pre-election tests. Obscure
influences and counter-currents may be responsible, but often the
politicians do not attempt to account for these alternations of
“feeling.” When, without warning, the barometer at headquarters begins
to fall, even the messengers and stenographers are affected. The gloom
may last for a day or two or even for a week; then the chairman issues
a statement “claiming” everything, every one takes heart of hope, and
the dread spectre of defeat steals away to the committee-rooms of the
opposition.
An interesting species are the oracles whose views are sought by
partisans anxious for trustworthy “tips.” These “medicine-men” may not
be actively engaged in politics, or only hangers-on at headquarters,
but they are supposed to be endowed with the gift of prophecy. I know
several such seers whose views on no other subject are entitled to
the slightest consideration, and yet I confess to a certain respect
for their judgment as to the outcome of an election. Late in the fall
of 1916, at a time when the result was most uncertain, a friend told
me that he was wagering a large sum on Mr. Wilson’s success. Asked
to explain his confidence, he said he was acting on the advice of
an obscure citizen, whom he named, who always “guessed right.” This
prophet’s reasoning was wholly by inspiration; he had a “hunch.” State
and county committee-rooms are infested with elderly men who commune
among themselves as to old, unhappy, far-off things and battles long
ago, and wait for a chance to whisper some rumor into the ear of a
person of importance. Their presence and their misinformation add
little to the joy of the engrossed, harassed strategists, who spend
much time dodging them, but appoint a subordinate of proved patience to
listen to their stories.
To be successful a State chairman must possess a genius for
organization and administration, and a capacity for quick decision and
action. While he must make no mistakes himself, it is his business to
correct the blunders of his lieutenants and turn to good account the
errors of his adversary. He must know how and where to get money, and
how to use it to the best advantage. There are always local conditions
in his territory that require judicious handling, and he must deal with
these personally or send just the right man to smooth them out. Harmony
is the great watchword, and such schisms as that of the Sound Money
Democrats in 1896, the Progressive split of 1912, and the frequent
anti-organization fights that are a part of the great game leave much
harsh jangling behind.
The West first kicked up its heels in a national campaign in the
contest of 1840, when William Henry Harrison, a native of Virginia who
had won renown as a soldier in the Ohio Valley and served as governor
of the Northwest Territory, was the Whig candidate. The campaign was
flavored with hard cider and keyed to the melody of “Tippecanoe and
Tyler too.” The log cabin, with a raccoon on the roof or with a pelt of
the species nailed to the outer wall, and a cider-barrel seductively
displayed in the foreground, were popular party symbols. The rollicking
campaign songs of 1840 reflect not only the cheery pioneer spirit but
the bitterness of the contest between Van Buren and Harrison. One of
the most popular ballads was a buckeye-cabin song sung to the tune of
“The Blue Bells of Scotland”:
“Oh, how, tell me how does your buckeye cabin go?
Oh, how, tell me how does your buckeye cabin go?
It goes against the spoilsman, for well its builders know
It was Harrison who fought for the cabins long ago.
Oh, who fell before him in battle, tell me who?
Oh, who fell before him in battle, tell me who?
He drove the savage legions and British armies, too,
At the Rapids and the Thames and old Tippecanoe.
Oh, what, tell me what will little Martin do?
Oh, what, then, what will little Martin do?
He’ll follow the footsteps of Price and Swartout, too,
While the log cabins ring again with Tippecanoe!”
The spirit of the ’40’s pervaded Western politics for many years after
that strenuous campaign. Men who had voted for “Tippecanoe” Harrison
were pointed out as citizens of unusual worth and dignity in my youth;
and organizations of these veterans were still in existence and
attentive to politics when Harrison’s grandson was a candidate for the
Presidency.
I find myself referring frequently to the continuing influence of the
Civil War in the social and political life of these Western States. The
“soldier vote” was long to be reckoned with, and it was not until Mr.
Cleveland brought a new spirit into our politics that the war between
the States began to fade as a political factor; and even then we were
assured that if the Democrats succeeded they would pension Confederate
soldiers and redeem the Confederate bonds. There were a good many of us
in these border States who, having been born of soldier fathers, and
with Whig and Republican antecedents, began to resent the continued
emphasis of the war in every campaign; and I look back upon Mr.
Cleveland’s rise as of very great importance in that he was a messenger
of new and attractive ideals of public service that appealed strongly
to young men. But my political apostasy (I speak of my own case
because it is in some sense typical) was attended with no diminution
of reverence for that great citizen army that defended and saved the
Union. The annual gatherings of the Grand Army of the Republic have
grown pathetically smaller, but this organization is not a negligible
expression of American democracy. The writing of these pages has been
interrupted constantly by bugle-calls floating in from the street, by
the cheers of crowds wishing Godspeed to our young army in its high
adventure beyond the Atlantic, and at the moment, by stirring news of
American valor and success in France. In my boyhood I viewed with awe
and admiration the veterans of ’61-’65 and my patriotism was deeply
influenced by the atmosphere in which I was born, by acquaintance
with my father’s comrades, and quickened through my formative years
by attendance at encampments of the Grand Army of the Republic and
cheery “camp-fires” in the hall of George H. Thomas Post, Indianapolis,
where privates and generals met for story-telling and the singing
of war-songs. The honor which it was part of my education should be
accorded those men will, I reflect, soon be the portion of their
grandsons, the men of 1917-18, and we shall have very likely a new
Grand Army of the Republic, with the difference that the descendants
of men who fought under Grant and Sherman will meet at peaceful
“camp-fires” with grandsons of the soldiers of Lee and Jackson, quite
unconscious that this was ever other than a united nation.
II
The West has never lost its early admiration for oratory, whether from
the hustings, the pulpit, or the lecture-platform. Many of the pioneer
preachers of the Ohio valley were orators of distinguished ability, and
their frequent joint debates on such subjects as predestination and
baptism drew great audiences from the countryside. Both religious and
political meetings were held preferably out of doors to accommodate the
crowds that collected from the far-scattered farms. A strong voice, a
confident manner, and matter so composed as to hold the attention of an
audience which would not hesitate to disperse if it lost interest were
prerequisites of the successful speaker. Western chronicles lay great
stress upon the oratorical powers of both ministers and politicians.
Henry Ward Beecher, who held a pastorate at Indianapolis (1839-47),
was already famed as an eloquent preacher before he moved to Brooklyn.
Not long ago I heard a number of distinguished politicians discussing
American oratory. Some one mentioned the addresses delivered by Beecher
in England during the Civil War, and there was general agreement that
one of these, the Liverpool speech, was probably the greatest of
American orations--a sweeping statement, but its irresistible logic and
a sense of the hostile atmosphere in which it was spoken may still be
felt in the printed page.
[Illustration: There is a death-watch that occupies front seats at
every political meeting.]
The tradition of Lincoln’s power as an orator is well fortified by
the great company of contemporaries who wrote of him, as well as by
the text of his speeches, which still vibrate with the nobility, the
restrained strength, with which he addressed himself to mighty events.
Neither before nor since his day has the West spoken to the East with
anything approaching the majesty of his Cooper Union speech. It is
certainly a far cry from that lofty utterance to Mr. Bryan’s defiant
cross-of-gold challenge of 1896.
The Westerner will listen attentively to a man he despises and has no
intention of voting for, if he speaks well; but the standards are high.
There is a death-watch that occupies front seats at every political
meeting, composed of veterans who compare all later performances with
some speech they heard Garfield or “Dan” Voorhees, Oliver P. Morton
or John J. Ingalls deliver before the orator spouting on the platform
was born. Nearly all the national conventions held in the West have
been marked by memorable oratory. Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll’s
speech nominating Blaine at the Republican convention of 1876 held
at Cincinnati (how faint that old battle-cry has become: “Blaine,
Blaine, Blaine of Maine!”) is often cited as one of the great American
orations. “He swayed and moved and impelled and restrained and worked
in all ways with the mass before him,” says the Chicago _Times_ report,
“as if he possessed some key to the innermost mechanism that moves the
human heart, and when he finished, his fine, frank face as calm as
when he began, the overwrought thousands sank back in an exhaustion of
unspeakable wonder and delight.”
Even making allowance for the reporter’s exuberance, this must have
been a moving utterance, with its dramatic close:
“Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine marched
down the halls of the American Congress and threw his shining lance
full and fair against the brazen foreheads of the defamers of his
country and the maligners of his honor. For the Republican party to
desert this gallant leader now is as though an army should desert
their gallant general upon the field of battle.... Gentlemen of the
convention, in the name of the great republic, the only republic that
ever existed upon this earth; in the name of all her defenders and of
all her supporters; in the name of all her soldiers dead upon the field
of battle, and in the name of those who perished in the skeleton clutch
of famine at Andersonville and Libby, whose sufferings he so vividly
remembers, Illinois, Illinois nominates for the next President of this
country that prince of parliamentarians, that leader of leaders--James
G. Blaine.”
In the fall of the same year Ingersoll delivered at Indianapolis
an address to war veterans that is still cited for its peroration
beginning: “The past rises before me like a dream.”
The political barbecue, common in pioneer days, is about extinct,
though a few such gatherings were reported in the older States of the
Middle West in the last campaign. These functions, in the day of poor
roads and few settlements, were a means of luring voters to a meeting
with the promise of free food; it was only by such heroic feats of
cookery as the broiling of a whole beef in a pit of coals that a crowd
could be fed. The meat was likely to be either badly burnt, or raw,
but the crowds were not fastidious, and swigs of whiskey made it more
palatable. Those were days of plain speech and hard hitting, and on
such occasions orators were expected to “cut loose” and flay the enemy
unsparingly.
Speakers of the rabble-rouser type have passed out, though there
are still orators who proceed to “shell the woods” and “burn the
grass” in the old style in country districts where they are not in
danger of being reported. This, however, is full of peril, as the
farmer’s credulity is not so easily played upon as in the old days
before the R. F. D. box was planted at his gate. The farmer is the
shrewdest, the most difficult, of auditors. He is little given to
applause, but listens meditatively, and is not easily to be betrayed
into demonstrations of approval. The orator’s chance of scoring a hit
before an audience of country folk depends on his ability to state his
case with an appearance of fairness and to sustain it with arguments
presented in simple, picturesque phraseology. Nothing could be less
calculated to win the farmer’s franchise than any attempt to “play
down” to him. In old times the city candidate sometimes donned his
fishing-clothes before venturing into country districts, but some of
the most engaging demagogues the West has known appeared always in
their finest raiment.
[Illustration: The Political Barbecue.]
There has always been a considerable sprinkling of women at big Indiana
rallies and also at State conventions, as far back as my memory
runs; but women, I am advised, were rarely in evidence at political
meetings in the West until Civil War times. The number who attended
meetings in 1916 was notably large, even in States that have not yet
granted general suffrage. They are most satisfactory auditors, quick to
catch points and eagerly responsive with applause. The West has many
women who speak exceedingly well, and the number is steadily growing.
I have never heard heckling so cleverly parried as by a young woman
who spoke on a Chicago street corner, during the sessions of the last
Republican convention, to a crowd of men bent upon annoying her. She
was unfailingly good-humored, and her retorts, delivered with the
utmost good nature, gradually won the sympathy of her hearers.
The making of political speeches is exhausting labor, and only the
possessor of great bodily vigor can make a long tour without a serious
drain upon his physical and nervous energy. Mr. Bryan used to refer
with delight to the manner in which Republicans he met, unable to
pay him any other compliment, expressed their admiration for his
magnificent constitution, which made it possible for him to speak so
constantly without injury to his health. The fatiguing journeys, the
enforced adjustment to the crowds of varying size in circumstances
never twice alike, the handshaking and the conferences with local
committees to which prominent speakers must submit make speaking-tours
anything but the triumphal excursions they appear to be to the
cheering audiences. The weary orator arrives at a town to find that
instead of snatching an hour’s rest he must yield to the importunity
of a committee intrusted with the responsibility of showing him the
sights of the city, with probably a few brief speeches at factories;
and after a dinner, where he will very likely be called upon to say
“just a few words,” he must ride in a procession through the chill
night before he addresses the big meeting. One of the most successful
of Western campaigners is Thomas R. Marshall, of Indiana, twice Mr.
Wilson’s running mate on the presidential ticket. In 1908 Mr. Marshall
was the Democratic candidate for governor and spoke in every county
in the State, avoiding the usual partisan appeals, but preaching a
political gospel of good cheer, with the result that he was elected by
a plurality of 14,453, while Mr. Taft won the State’s electoral vote
by a plurality of 10,731. Mr. Marshall enjoys a wide reputation as a
story-teller, both for the humor of his narratives and the art he
brings to their recital.
A few dashes of local color assist in establishing the visiting orator
on terms of good-fellowship with his audience. He will inform himself
as to the number of broom-handles or refrigerators produced annually in
the town, or the amount of barley and buckwheat that last year rewarded
the toil of the noble husbandmen of the county. It is equally important
for him to take counsel of the local chairman as to things to avoid,
for there are sore spots in many districts which must be let alone
or touched with a healing hand. The tyro who prepares a speech with
the idea of giving it through a considerable territory finds quickly
that the sooner he forgets his manuscript the better, so many are the
concessions he must make to local conditions.
In the campaign of 1916 the Democrats made strenuous efforts to
win the Progressive vote. Energetic county chairmen would lure as
many Progressives as possible to the front seats at all meetings
that they might learn of the admiration in which they were held by
forward-looking Democrats--the bond of sympathy, the common ideals,
that animated honest Democrats and their brothers, those patriotic
citizens who, long weary of Republican indifference to the rights
of freemen, had broken the ties of a lifetime to assert their
independence. Democratic orators, with the Progressives in mind,
frequently apostrophized Lincoln, that they might the better contrast
the vigorous, healthy Republicanism of the ’60’s with the corrupt,
odious thing the Republican party had become. This, of course, had to
be done carefully, so that the Progressive would not experience twinges
of homesickness for his old stamping-ground.
There is agreement among political managers as to the doubtful value
of the “monster meetings” that are held in large centres. With plenty
of money to spend and a thorough organization, it is always possible
to “pull off” a big demonstration. Word passed to ward and precinct
committeemen will collect a vast crowd for a parade adorned with
fireworks. The size and enthusiasm of these crowds is never truly
significant of party strength. One such crowd looks very much like
another, and I am betraying no confidence in saying that its units are
often drawn from the same sources. The participants in a procession
rarely hear the speeches at the meeting of which they are the
advertisement. When they reach the hall it is usually filled and their
further function is to march down the aisles with bands and drum-corps
to put the crowd in humor for the speeches. Frequently some belated
phalanx will noisily intrude after the orator has been introduced, and
he must smile and let it be seen that he understands perfectly that the
interruption is due to the irrepressible enthusiasm of the intelligent
voters of the grand old blank district that has never failed to support
the principles of the grand old blank party.
The most satisfactory meetings are small ones, in country districts,
where one or two hundred people of all parties gather, drawn by an
honest curiosity as to the issues. Such meetings impose embarrassments
upon the speaker, who must accommodate manner and matter to auditors
disconcertingly close at hand, of whose reaction to his talk he is
perfectly conscious. In an “all-day” meeting, held usually in groves
that serve as rural social centres, the farmers remain in their
automobiles drawn into line before the speakers’ stand, and listen
quietly to the programme arranged by the county chairman. Sometimes
several orators are provided for the day; Republicans may take the
morning, the Democrats the afternoon. Here, with the audience sitting
as a jury, we have one of the processes of democracy reduced to its
simplest terms.
The West is attracted by statesmen who are “human,” who impress
themselves upon the Folks by their amiability and good-fellowship.
Benjamin Harrison was recognized as one of the ablest lawyers of the
bar of his day, but he was never a popular hero and his defeat for
re-election was attributable in large degree to his lack of those
qualities that constitute what I have called “folksiness.” In the
campaign of 1888 General Harrison suffered much from the charge that
he was an aristocrat, and attention was frequently called to the fact
that he was the grandson of a President. Among other cartoons of the
period there was one that represented Harrison as a pigmy standing in
the shadow of his grandfather’s tall hat. This was probably remembered
by an Indiana politician who called at the White House repeatedly
without being able to see the President. After several fruitless visits
the secretary said to him one day: “The President cannot be seen.” “My
God!” exclaimed the enraged office-seeker, “has he grown as small as
that?”
Probably no President has ever enjoyed greater personal popularity than
Mr. McKinley. He would perform an act of kindness with a graciousness
that doubled its value and he could refuse a favor without making an
enemy. Former Governor Glynn of New York told me not long ago an
incident illuminative of the qualities that endeared Mr. McKinley
to his devoted followers. Soon after his inauguration a Democratic
congressman from an Eastern State delivered in the House a speech
filled with the bitterest abuse of the President. A little later
this member’s wife, not realizing that a savage attack of this sort
would naturally make its author _persona non grata_ at the White
House, expressed a wish to take her young children to call on the
President. The youngsters were insistent in their demand to make the
visit and would not be denied. The offending representative confessed
his embarrassment to Mr. Glynn, a Democratic colleague, who said he’d
“feel out” the President. Mr. McKinley, declaring at once with the
utmost good humor that he would be delighted to receive the lady and
her children, named a day and met them with the greatest cordiality.
He planted the baby on his desk to play, put them all at ease, and as
they left distributed among them a huge bouquet of carnations that
he had ordered specially from the conservatory. In this connection I
am reminded of a story of Thomas B. Reed, who once asked President
Harrison to appoint a certain constituent collector at Portland. The
appointment went to another candidate for the office, and when one of
Reed’s friends twitted him about his lack of influence he remarked:
“There are only two men in the whole State of Maine who hate me: one
of them I landed in the penitentiary, and the other one Harrison has
appointed collector of the port in my town!”
III
Statesmen of the “picturesque” school, who attracted attention by
their scorn of conventions, or their raciness of speech, or for some
obsession aired on every occasion, are well-nigh out of the picture.
The West is not without its sensitiveness, and it has found that a
sockless congressman, or one who makes himself ridiculous by advocating
foolish measures, reflects upon the intelligence of his constituents
or upon their sense of humor, and if there is anything the West prides
itself upon it is its humor. We are seeing fewer statesmen of the type
so blithely represented by Mr. Cannon, who enjoy in marked degree the
affections of their constituents; who are kindly uncles to an entire
district, not to be displaced, no matter what their shortcomings,
without genuine grief. One is tempted far afield in pursuit of the
elements of popularity, of which the West offers abundant material
for analysis. “Dan” Voorhees, “the tall sycamore of the Wabash,” was
prominent in Indiana politics for many years, and his fine figure, his
oratorical gifts, his sympathetic nature and reputation for generosity
endeared him to many who had no patience with his politics. He was
so effective as an advocate in criminal cases that the Indiana law
giving defendants the final appeal was changed so that the State might
counteract the influence of his familiar speech, adjustable to any
case, which played upon the sympathy and magnanimity of the jurors.
Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio, a man of higher intellectual gifts, was
similarly enshrined in the hearts of his constituency. His bandanna
was for years the symbol of Buckeye democracy, much as “blue jeans”
expressed the rugged simplicity of the Hoosier democracy when, in
1876, the apparel of James D. Williams, unwisely ridiculed by the
Republicans, contributed to his election to the governorship over
General Harrison, the “kid-glove” candidate. Kansas was much in
evidence in those years when it was so ably represented in the Senate
by the brilliant John J. Ingalls. Ingalls’s oratory was enriched by a
fine scholarship and enlivened by a rare gift of humor and a biting
sarcasm. Once when a Pennsylvania colleague attacked Kansas Ingalls
delivered a slashing reply. “Mr. President,” he said, “Pennsylvania has
produced but two great men: Benjamin Franklin, of Massachusetts, and
Albert Gallatin, of Switzerland.” On another occasion Voorhees of the
blond mane aroused Ingalls’s ire and the Kansan excoriated the Hoosier
in a characteristic deliverance, an incident thus neatly epitomized by
Eugene F. Ware, (“Ironquill”), a Kansas poet:
“Cyclone dense,
Lurid air,
Wabash hair,
Hide on fence.”
Nothing is better calculated to encourage humility in young men about
to enter upon a political career than a study of the roster of Congress
for years only lightly veiled in “the pathos of distance.” Among United
States senators from the Middle West in 1863-9 were Lyman Trumbull,
Richard J. Oglesby, and Richard Yates, of Illinois; Henry S. Lane,
Oliver P. Morton, and Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana; James Harlan and
Samuel J. Kirkwood, of Iowa; Samuel C. Pomeroy and James H. Lane, of
Kansas; Zachariah Chandler and Jacob M. Howard, of Michigan; Alexander
Ramsey and Daniel S. Norton, of Minnesota; Benjamin F. Wade and John
Sherman, of Ohio.
In the lower house sat Elihu B. Washburne, Owen Lovejoy, and William
R. Morrison, of Illinois; Schuyler Colfax, George W. Julian, Daniel W.
Voorhees, William S. Holman, and Godlove S. Orth, of Indiana; William
B. Allison, Josiah B. Grinnell, John A. Kasson, and James F. Wilson, of
Iowa; James A. Garfield, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Robert C. Schenck,
of Ohio. In the same group of States in the ’80’s we find David Davis,
John A. Logan, Joseph E. McDonald, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas W. Ferry,
Henry P. Baldwin, William Windom, Samuel J. R. McMillan, Algernon S.
Paddock, Alvin Saunders, M. H. Carpenter, John J. Ingalls, and Preston
B. Plumb, all senators in Congress. In this same period the Ohio
delegation in the lower house included Benjamin Butterworth, A. J.
Warner, Thomas Ewing, Charles Foster, Frank H. Hurd, J. Warren Keifer,
and William McKinley.
How many students in the high schools and colleges of these States
would recognize any considerable number of these names or have any
idea of the nature of the public service these men performed? To
be sure, three representatives in Congress from Ohio in the years
indicated, and one senator from Indiana, reached the White House; but
at least two-thirds of the others enjoyed a wide reputation, either
as politicians or statesmen or as both. In the years preceding the
Civil War the West certainly did not lack leadership, nor did all who
rendered valuable service attain conspicuous place. For example, George
W. Julian, an ardent foe of slavery, a member of Congress, and in 1852
a candidate for Vice-President on the Free Soil ticket, was a political
idealist, independent and courageous, and with the ability to express
his opinions tersely and effectively.
It is always hazardous to compare the statesmen of one period with
those of another, and veteran observers whose judgments must be treated
with respect insist that the men I have mentioned were not popularly
regarded in their day as the possessors of unusual abilities. Most of
these men were prominent in my youth, and in some cases were still
important factors when I attained my majority, and somehow they seem to
“mass” as their successors do not. The fierce passions aroused in the
Middle West by the slavery issue undoubtedly brought into the political
arena men who in calmer times would have remained contentedly in
private life. The restriction of slavery and the preservation of the
Union were concrete issues that awakened a moral fervor not since
apparent in our politics. Groups of people are constantly at work in
the social field, to improve municipal government, or to place State
politics upon a higher plane; but these movements occasion only slight
tremors in contrast with the quaking of the earth through the free-soil
agitation, Civil War, and reconstruction.
The men I have mentioned were, generally speaking, poor men, and
the next generation found it much more comfortable and profitable
to practise law or engage in business than to enter politics. I am
grieved by my inability to offer substantial proof that ideals of
public service in the Western provinces are higher than they were
fifty or twenty years ago. I record my opinion that they are not, and
that we are less ably served in the Congress than formerly, frankly to
invite criticism; for these times call for a great searching for the
weaknesses of democracy and, if the best talent is not finding its way
into the lawmaking, administrative, and judicial branches of our State
and federal governments, an obligation rests upon every citizen to find
the reason and supply the remedy.
No Westerner who is devoted to the best interests of his country will
encourage the belief that there is any real hostility between East and
West, or that the West is incapable of viewing social and political
movements in the light of reason and experience. It stood steadfastly
against the extension of slavery and for the Union through years of
fiery trial, and its leaders expressed the national thought and held
the lines firm against opposition, concealed and open, that was kept
down only by ceaseless vigilance. Even in times of financial stress
it refused to hearken to the cry of the demagogue, and Greenbackism
died, just as later Populism died. More significant was the failure
of Mr. Bryan to win the support of the West that was essential to his
success in three campaigns. We may say that it was a narrow escape,
and that the West was responsible for a serious menace and a peril not
too easily averted, but Mr. Bryan precipitated a storm that was bound
to break and that left the air clearer. He “threw a scare” into the
country just when it needed to be aroused, and some of his admonitions
have borne good fruit on soil least friendly to him.
The West likes to be “preached at,” and it admires a courageous
evangelist even when it declines his invitation to the mourners’
bench. The West liked and still likes Mr. Roosevelt, and no other
American can so instantly gain the ear of the West as he. In my
pilgrimages of the past year nothing has been more surprising than the
change of tone with reference to the former President among Western
Republicans, who declared in 1912 and reiterated in 1916 that never,
never again would they countenance him.[E]
IV
One may find in the Mississippi valley, as in the Connecticut valley
or anywhere else in America, just about what one wishes to find. A New
England correspondent complains with some bitterness of the political
conservatism he encountered in a journey through the West; he had
expected to find radicalism everywhere rampant, and was disappointed
that he was unable to substantiate his preconceived impression by
actual contacts with the people.
If I may delicately suggest the point without making too great a
concession, the West is really quite human. It has its own “slant”--its
tastes and preferences that differ in ways from those of the East,
the South, or the farther West; and radicals are distributed through
the corn belt in about the same proportion as elsewhere. The
bread-and-butter Western Folks are pretty sensible, taken in the long
run, and not at all anxious to pull down the social pillars just
to make a noise. They will impiously carve them a little--yes, and
occasionally stick an incongruous patch on the wall of the sanctuary
of democracy; but they are never wilfully destructive. And it cannot
be denied that some of their architectural and decorative efforts have
improved the original design. The West has saved other sections a good
deal of trouble by boldly experimenting with devices it had “thought
up” amid the free airs of the plains; but the West, no more than the
East, will give storage to a contrivance that has been proved worthless.
The vindictive spirit that was very marked in the Western attitude
toward the railroads for many years was not a gratuitous and unfounded
hatred of corporations, but had a real basis in discriminations that
touched vitally the life of the farmer and the struggling towns to
which he carried his products. The railroads were the only corporations
the West knew before the great industrial development. A railroad
represented “capital,” and “capital” was therefore a thing to chastise
whenever opportunity offered. It has been said in bitterness of
late that the hostile legislation demanded by the West “ruined the
railroads.” This is not a subject for discussion here, but it can
hardly be denied that the railroads invited the war that was made upon
them by injustices and discriminations of which the obscure shipper
had a right to complain. The antagonism to railroads inspired a great
deal of radicalism aimed at capital generally, and “corporate greed,”
“the encroachments of capital,” “the money devils of Wall Street,” and
“special privilege” burned fiercely in our political terminology. Our
experiment with government control as a war measure has, of course,
given a new twist to the whole transportation problem.
The West likes to play with novelties. It has been hospitable to such
devices as the initiative, the referendum, and the recall, multiplied
agencies for State supervision in many directions, and it has shown
in general a confidence in automatic machinery popularly designed to
correct all evils. The West probably infected the rest of the country
with the fallacy that the passing of a law is a complete transaction
without reference to its enforcement, and Western statute-books are
littered with legislation often frivolous or ill considered. There has,
however, been a marked reaction and the demand is rather for less
legislation and better administration. A Western governor said to me
despairingly that his State is “commissioned” to death, and that he is
constantly embarrassed by the difficulty of persuading competent men to
accept places on his many bipartisan regulative boards.
There is a virtue in our very size as a nation and the multiplicity
of interests represented by the one hundred million that make it
possible for the majority to watch, as from a huge amphitheatre, the
experiments in some particular arena. A new agrarian movement that
originated in North Dakota in 1915 has attained formidable proportions.
The Non-Partisan League (it is really a political party) seems to have
sprung full-panoplied from the Equity Society, and is a successor
of the Farmers’ Alliance and Populism. The despised middleman was
the first object of its animosity, and it began with a comprehensive
programme of State-owned elevators and flour-mills, packing-houses
and cold-storage plants. The League carried North Dakota in 1916,
electing a governor who immediately vetoed a bill providing for a
State-owned terminal elevator because the League leaders “raised their
sights” as soon as they got into the trenches. They demanded unlimited
bonding-power and a complete new programme embodying a radical form
of State socialism. “Class struggle,” says Mr. Elmer T. Peterson, an
authority on the League’s history, “is the key-note of its propaganda.”
The student of current political tendencies will do well to keep an eye
on the League, as it has gained a strong foothold in the Northwest, and
the co-operative features of its platform satisfy an old craving of the
farmer for State assistance in the management of his business.
The League is now thoroughly organized in the Dakotas, Minnesota,
Wisconsin, Montana, Idaho, and Colorado and is actively at work in
Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Governor Burnquist of Minnesota
addressed a letter to its executive secretary during the primary
campaign last summer in which he said:
At the time of our entrance into the European conflict your
organization condemned our government for entering the war. When it
became evident that this course would result in disaster for their
organization they changed their course and made an eleventh-hour
claim to pure loyalty, but notwithstanding this claim the National
Non-Partisan League is a party of discontent. It has drawn to it
the pro-German element of our State. Its leaders have been closely
connected with the lawless I. W. W. and with Red Socialists.
Pacifists and peace advocates whose doctrines are of benefit to
Germany are among their number.
The League’s activities in obstructing conscription and other war
measures have been the subject of investigation by military and civil
authorities. The _Leader_, the official organ of the party, recently
printed, heavily capitalized, this sentiment, “The Government of the
People by the Rascals for the Rich,” as the key-note of its hostility
to America’s participation in the war.
The West is greatly given to sober second thoughts. Hospitable to new
ideas as it has proved itself to be, it will stop short of a leap in
the dark. There is a point at which it becomes extremely conservative.
It will run like a frightened rabbit from some change which it has
encouraged. But the West has a passion for social justice, and is
willing to make sacrifices to gain it. The coming of the war found
this its chief concern, not under the guidance of feverish agitators
but from a sense that democracy, to fulfil its destiny, must make the
conditions of life happy and comfortable for the great body of the
people. It is not the “pee-pul” of the demagogue who are to be reckoned
with in the immediate future of Western political expression, but an
intelligent, earnest citizenry, anxious to view American needs with the
new vision compelled by the world struggle in the defense of democracy.
The rights and privileges of citizenship long enjoyed by women of
certain Western States ceased to be a vagary of the untutored wilds
when last year New York adopted a constitutional amendment granting
women the ballot. The fight for a federal amendment was won in the
House last winter by a narrow margin, but at this writing the matter
is still pending in the Senate. Many of the old arguments against the
enfranchisement of women have been pretty effectually disposed of
in States that were pioneers in general suffrage. I lived for three
years in Colorado without being conscious of any of those disturbances
to domesticity that we used to be told would follow if women were
projected into politics. I can testify that a male voter may register
and cast his ballot without any feeling that the women he encounters as
he performs these exalted duties have relinquished any of the ancient
prerogatives of their womanhood.
There is nothing in the experience of suffrage States to justify a
suspicion that women are friendlier to radical movements than men, but
much to sustain the assertion that they take their politics seriously
and are as intelligent in the exercise of the ballot as male voters.
The old notion that the enfranchisement of women would double the vote
without changing results is another fallacy; I am disposed to think
them more independent than their male fellow citizens and less likely
to submit meekly to party dictation.
In practically every American court- and State-house and city hall
there are women holding responsible clerical positions, and, if the
keeping of important records may be intrusted to women, the task of
defending their exclusion from elective offices is one that I confess
to be beyond my powers. Nor is there anything shocking in the presence
of a woman on the floor of a legislative body. Montana sent a woman to
the national Congress, and already her fellow members hear her voice
without perturbation. Mrs. Agnes Riddle, a member of the Colorado
Senate, is a real contributor, I shall not scruple to say, to the
intelligence and wisdom of that body. Mrs. Riddle, apart from being
a stateswoman, manages a dairy to its utmost details, and during the
session answers the roll-call after doing a pretty full day’s work on
her farm. The schools of Colorado are admirably conducted by Mrs. C.
C. Bradford, who has thrice been re-elected superintendent of public
instruction. The deputy attorney-general of Colorado, Miss Clara Ruth
Mozzor, sits at her desk as composedly as though she were not the first
woman to gain this political and professional recognition in the
Centennial Commonwealth. I am moved to ask whether we shall not find
for the enfranchised woman who becomes active in public affairs some
more felicitous and gallant term than politician--a word much soiled
from long application to the corrupt male, and perhaps the Federation
of Women’s Clubs will assist in this matter.
V
As the saying became trite, almost before news of our entrance into
the world war had reached the nation’s farthest borders, that we
should emerge from the conflict a new and a very different America, it
becomes of interest to keep in mind the manner and the spirit in which
we entered into the mighty struggle. It was not merely in the mind of
people everywhere, on the 2d of April, 1917, that the nation was face
to face with a contest that would tax its powers to the utmost, but
that our internal affairs would be subjected to serious trial, and
that parties and party policies would inevitably experience changes
of greatest moment before another general election. When this is read
the congressional campaign will be gathering headway; as I write,
public attention is turning, rather impatiently it must be said, to
the prospects of a campaign that is likely to pursue its course to the
accompaniment of booming cannon overseas. How much the conduct of the
war by the administration in power will figure in the pending contest
is not yet apparent; but as the rapid succession of events following
Mr. Wilson’s second inauguration have dimmed the issues of 1916, it may
be well to summarize the respective attitudes of the two major parties
two years ago to establish a point of orientation.
It was the chief Republican contention that the Democratic
administration had failed to preserve the national honor and security
in its dealings with Mexico and Germany. As political platforms are
soon forgotten, it may be of interest to reproduce this paragraph of
the Republican declaration of 1916:
The present administration has destroyed our influence abroad and
humiliated us in our own eyes. The Republican party believes that a
firm, consistent, and courageous foreign policy, always maintained by
Republican Presidents in accordance with American traditions, is the
best, as it is the only true way to preserve our peace and restore us
to our rightful place among the nations. We believe in the pacific
settlement of international disputes and favor the establishment of a
world court for that purpose.
The concluding sentence is open to the criticism that it weakens what
precedes it; but the Mexican plank, after denouncing “the indefensible
methods of interference employed by this administration in the internal
affairs of Mexico,” promises to “our citizens on and near our border,
and to those in Mexico, wherever they may be found, adequate and
absolute protection in their lives, liberty, and property.”
General Pershing had launched his punitive expedition on Mexican soil
in March, and the Democratic platform adopted at St. Louis in June
justifies this move; but it goes on to add:
Intervention, implying as it does military subjugation, is revolting
to the people of the United States, notwithstanding the provocation
to that course has been great, and should be resorted to, if at all,
only as a last resort. The stubborn resistance of the President and
his advisers to every demand and suggestion to enter upon it, is
creditable alike to them and to the people in whose name he speaks.
As to Germany, this paragraph of the Democratic platform might almost
have been written into President Wilson’s message to Congress of April
2, 1917, so clearly does it set forth the spirit in which America
entered into the war:
We believe that every people has the right to choose the sovereignty
under which it shall live; that the small states of the world have
a right to enjoy from other nations the same respect for their
sovereignty and for their territorial integrity that great and
powerful nations expect and insist upon, and that the world has a
right to be free from every disturbance of its peace that has its
origin in aggression or disregard of the rights of peoples and
nations, and we believe that the time has come when it is the duty of
the United States to join with the other nations of the world in any
feasible association that will effectively serve these principles, to
maintain inviolate the complete security of the highway of the seas
for the common and unhindered use of all nations.
The impression was very general in the East that the West was apathetic
or indifferent both as to the irresponsible and hostile acts of
Mexicans and the growing insolence of the Imperial German Government
with reference to American rights on the seas. Any such assumption was
unfair at the time, and has since been disproved by the promptness
and vigor with which the West responded to the call to arms. But the
West had no intention of being stampeded. A Democratic President whose
intellectual processes and manner of speech were radically different
from those at least of his immediate predecessors, was exercising a
Lincoln-like patience in his efforts to keep the country out of war.
From the time the Mexican situation became threatening one might
meet anywhere in the West Republicans who thought that the honor and
security of the nation were being trifled with; that the President’s
course was inconsistent and vacillating; and even that we should have
whipped Mexico into subjection and maintained an army on her soil until
a stable government had been established. These views were expressed in
many parts of the West by men of influence in Republican councils, and
there were Democrats who held like opinions.
The Republicans were beset by two great difficulties when the national
convention met. The first of these was to win back the Progressives
who had broken with the party and contributed to the defeat of Mr.
Taft in 1912; the second was the definition of a concrete policy
touching Germany and Mexico that would appeal to the patriotic voter,
without going the length of threatening war. The standpatters were
in no humor to make concessions to the Progressives, who, in another
part of Chicago, were unwilling to receive the olive-branch except on
their own terms. Denied the joy of Mr. Roosevelt’s enlivening presence
to create a high moment, the spectators were aware of his ability to
add to the general gloom by his telegram suggesting Senator Lodge as a
compromise candidate acceptable to the Progressives. The speculatively
inclined may wonder what would have happened if in one of the dreary
hours of waiting Colonel Roosevelt had walked upon the platform and
addressed the convention. Again, those who have leisure for political
solitaire may indulge in reflections as to whether Senator Lodge would
not have appealed to the West quite as strongly as Mr. Hughes. The
West, presumably, was not interested in Senator Lodge, though I timidly
suggest that if a New Jersey candidate can be elected and re-elected
with the aid of the West, Massachusetts need not so modestly hang in
the background when a national convention orders the roll-call of the
States for favorite sons.
There was little question at any time from the hour the convention
opened that Mr. Hughes would be the nominee, and I believe it is a
fair statement that he was the candidate the Democrats feared most.
The country had formed a good opinion of him as a man of independence
and courage, and, having strictly observed the silence enjoined by his
position on the bench during the Republican family quarrel of four
years earlier, he was looked upon as a candidate well fitted to rally
the Progressives and lead a united party to victory.
The West waited and listened. While it had seemed a “safe play” for the
Republicans to attack the Democratic administration for its course
with Mexico and Germany, the presentation of the case to the people was
attended with serious embarrassments. The obvious alternative of Mr.
Wilson’s policy was war. The West was not at all anxious for war; it
certainly did not want two wars. If war could be averted by negotiation
the West was in a mood to be satisfied with that solution. Republican
campaigners were aware of the danger of arraigning the administration
for not going to war and contented themselves with attacks upon what
they declared to be a shifty and wobbly policy. The West’s sense of
fair play was, I think, roused by the vast amount of destructive
criticism launched against the administration unaccompanied by any
constructive programme. The President had grown in public respect and
confidence; the West had seen and heard him since he became a national
figure, and he did not look or talk like a man who would out of sheer
contrariness trifle with the national security and honor. It may be
said with truth that the average Western Democrat was not “keen” about
Mr. Wilson when he first loomed as a presidential possibility. I
heard a good deal of discussion by Western Democrats of Mr. Wilson’s
availability in 1910-11, and he was not looked upon with favor. He was
“different”; he didn’t invoke the Democratic gods in the old familiar
phraseology, and he was suspected of entertaining narrow views as to
“spoils,” such as caused so much heartache among the truly loyal in Mr.
Cleveland’s two administrations.
The Democratic campaign slogan, “He has kept us out of war!” was
not met with the definite challenge that he should have got us into
war. Jingoism was well muffled. What passed for apathy was really
a deep concern as to the outcome of our pressing international
difficulties, an anxiety to weigh the points at issue soberly. Western
managers constantly warned visiting orators to beware of “abusing the
opposition,” as there were men and women of all political faiths in the
audiences. Both sides were timid where the German vote was concerned,
the Democrats alarmed lest the “strict accountability” attitude of
the President toward the Imperial German Government would damage the
party’s chances, and the Republicans embarrassed by the danger of
openly appealing to the hyphenates when the Republican campaign turned
upon an arraignment of the President for not dealing drastically enough
with German encroachment upon American rights. In view of the mighty
sweep of events since the election, all this seems tame and puerile,
and reminds us that there is a vast amount of punk in politics.
In the West there are no indications that an effect of the war will
be to awaken new radical movements or strengthen tendencies that were
apparent before America sounded the call to arms. I have dwelt upon the
sobriety with which the West approached the election of 1916 merely as
an emphasis of this. We shall have once more a “soldier vote” to reckon
with in our politics, and the effect of their participation in the
world struggle upon the young men who have crossed the sea to fight for
democracy is an interesting matter for speculation. One thing certain
is that the war has dealt the greatest blow ever administered to
American sectionalism. We were prone for years to consider our national
life in a local spirit, and the political parties expended much energy
in attempts to reconcile the demands and needs of one division of the
States with those of another. The prolonged debate of the tariff as
a partisan issue is a noteworthy instance of this. The farmer, the
industrial laborer, the capitalist have all been the objects of special
consideration. One argument had to be prepared for the cotton-grower
in the South; another for the New England mill-hands who spun his
product; still another for the mill-owner. The farm-hand and the
mechanic in the neighboring manufacturing town had to be reached by
different lines of reasoning. Our statesmanship, East and West, has
been of the knot-hole variety--rarely has a man risen to the top of
the fence for a broad view of the whole field. What will be acceptable
to the South? What does the West want? We have had this sort of thing
through many years, both as to national policies and as to candidates
for the presidency, and its effect has been to prevent the development
of sound national policies.
The Republican party has addressed itself energetically to the business
of reorganization. The national committee met at St. Louis in February
to choose a new chairman in place of Mr. William R. Willcox, and the
contest for this important position was not without its significance.
The standpatters yielded under pressure, and after a forty-eight-hour
deadlock the election of Mr. Will H. Hays, of Indiana, assured a
hospitable open-door policy toward all prodigals. In 1916 Mr. Hays, as
chairman of the Republican State committee, carried Indiana against
heavy odds and established himself as one of the ablest political
managers the West has known. As the country is likely to hear a
good deal of him in the next two years, I may note that he is a man
of education, high-minded, resourceful, endowed with prodigious
energy and trained and tested executive ability. A lawyer in a town
of five thousand people, he served his political apprenticeship in
all capacities from precinct committeeman to the State chairmanship.
Mr. Hays organized and was the first chairman of the Indiana State
Council of Defense, and made it a thoroughly effective instrument for
the co-ordination of the State’s war resources and the diffusion of
an ardent patriotism. Indeed the methods of the Indiana Council were
so admirable that they were adopted by several other States. It is
in the blood of all Hoosiers to suspect partisan motives where none
exists, but it is to Mr. Hays’s credit that he directed Indiana’s war
work, until he resigned to accept the national chairmanship, with the
support and to the satisfaction of every loyal citizen without respect
to party. Mr. Hays is essentially a Westerner, with the original Wabash
tang; and his humor and a knack of coining memorable phrases are not
the least important items of his equipment for politics. He is frank
and outspoken, with no affectations of mystery, and as his methods
are conciliatory and assimilative the chances are excellent for a
Republican rejuvenation.
The burden of prosecuting the war to a conclusive peace that shall
realize the American aims repeatedly set forth by President Wilson
is upon the Democratic administration. The West awaits with the same
seriousness with which it pondered the problems of 1916 the definition
of new issues touching vitally our social, industrial, and financial
affairs, and our relations with other nations, that will press for
attention the instant the last shot is fired. In the mid-summer of 1918
only the most venturesome political prophets are predicting either
the issues or the leaders of 1920. Events which it is impossible to
forecast will create issues and possibly lift up new leaders not
now prominent in national politics. A successful conclusion of the
war before the national conventions meet two years hence would give
President Wilson and his party an enormous prestige. On the other
hand, if the war should be prolonged we shall witness inevitably the
development of a sentiment for change based upon public anxiety to
hasten the day of peace. These things are on the knees of the gods.
In both parties there is to-day a melancholy deficiency of presidential
timber. It cannot be denied that Republican hopes, very generally,
are centred in Mr. Roosevelt; this is clearly apparent throughout
the West. In the Democratic State convention held at Indianapolis,
June 18, tumultuous enthusiasm was awakened by the chairman, former
Governor Samuel M. Ralston, who boldly declared for Wilson in 1920--the
first utterance of the kind before any body of like representative
character. However, the immediate business of the nation is to win
the war, and there is evident in the West no disposition to suffer
this predominating issue to be obscured by partisanship. Indeed since
America took up arms nothing has been more marked in the Western States
than the sinking of partisanship in a whole-hearted support of the
government and a generous response to all the demands of the war. In
meetings called in aid of war causes Democrats and Republicans have
vied with each other in protestations of loyalty to the government. I
know of no exception to the rule that every request from Washington
has been met splendidly by Republican State governors. Indeed, there
has been a lively rivalry among Middle Western States to exceed the
prescribed quotas of dollars and men.
Already an effect of the war has been a closer knitting together
of States and sections, a contemplation of wider horizons. It is
inevitable that we shall be brought, East and West, North and South,
to the realization of a new national consciousness that has long been
the imperative need of our politics. And in all the impending changes,
readjustments, and conciliations the country may look for hearty
co-operation to a West grown amazingly conservative and capable of
astonishing manifestations of independence.