Constitution which was the product not of the sound common sense and the
lofty judgment of the framers, but of a weak yielding to one of the
doctrinaire fads of the time that had no relationship to life but was
the invention of political theorists, and that was the unnatural
separation of the executive, legislative and judicial functions of
government. The error has worked far and the superstition still holds.
What is needed is an initiative in legislation, centred in one
responsible head or group, that, while functioning in all normal and
necessary legislative directions, still allows individual initiative on
the part of the legislators, as a supplementary, or corrective, or
protective agency. No government functions well in fiscal matters
without a budget: what we need in legislative matters is a legislative
budget, and by this phrase, I mean that the primary agency for the
proposing of laws should be the chief executive of a city, or state or
the nation, with the advice and consent of his heads of departments who
would form his cabinet or council.
Under this plan the Governor and Council, for example, would at the
opening of each legislative session present a programme or agenda of
such laws as they believed the conditions to demand, and in the shape of
bills accurately drawn by the proper law officer of the government. No
such "government" bill could be referred to committee but must be
discussed in open session, and until the bills so offered had been
passed or refused, no private bill could be introduced. A procedure such
as this would certainly reduce the flood of private bills to reasonable
dimensions while it would insure a degree of responsibility now utterly
lacking. There is now no way in which the author of a foolish or
dangerous bill which has been enacted into law by a majority of the
legislature, can be held to account and due responsibility imposed upon
him, but the case would be very different if a mayor, a governor or the
President of the United States made himself responsible for a law or a
series of laws, by offering them for action in his own name. Certainly
if this method were followed we should be preserved in great measure
from the hasty, confused and frivolous legislation that at present makes
up the major part of the output of our various legislative bodies. One
of the greatest gains would be the reduction of the annual grist to a
size where each act could be considered and debated at sufficient length
to guarantee as reasonable a conclusion as would be possible to the
members of the legislative body. The deplorable device of instituting
committees, to each of which certain bunches of bills are referred
before they are permitted to come before the house, would be no longer
necessary. This system, which became necessary in order to deal with the
enormous mass of undigested matter which has overwhelmed every
legislature as a result of the present chaotic and irresponsible
procedure, is perhaps both the most undemocratic device ever put in
practice by a democracy, and the most fruitful of venality, corruption
and injustice. It is unnecessary to labour this point for everyone knows
its grave evils, but there seems no way to get rid of it unless some
curb is placed on the number of bills introduced in any session. The
British Parliament is not necessarily a model of intelligent or capable
procedure, but where in one session at Westminster no more than four
hundred bills were introduced, at Washington, for the same period, the
count ran well over twelve thousand! Manifestly some committee system is
inevitable under conditions such as this, but under the committee system
free government and honest legislation are difficult of attainment.
One would not of course prevent the proposal of a bill by any member of
the legislature, indeed this free action would be absolutely necessary
as a measure of protection against executive oppression, but this should
be prohibited until after the government programme had been disposed of.
After that task was accomplished the legislature might sit indefinitely,
or as long as the public would stand it, for the purpose of considering
private bills, and these could be referred to committees as at present.
The chances are, however, that the government programme would cover the
most essential matters and what would remain would be the edifying
spectacle of Solons solemnly considering such questions as the minimum
length of sheets on hotel beds, the limitation in inches and fractions,
of the heels of women's shoes, the amount of flesh that could be legally
exposed by a bathing suit, or the pensioning of a Swedish Assistant
Janitor,--all of which are the substance of actual bills introduced in
various State legislatures during the session last closed.
Another grave weakness in our system is the election by popular vote of
many judicial and administrative officers, coupled with the vigorous
remnants of the old and degrading "spoils system" whereby many thousands
of strictly non-political offices are almost automatically vacated after
any partisan victory. I cannot trust myself to speak of the infamy of an
elective judiciary; fortunately I live in a state where this worst abuse
of democratic practice does not exist, and so it touches me only in so
far as it offends the sense of decency and justice. In the other cases
it is only a question of efficient and intelligent administration. There
is an argument for electing the chief executive of a city, a state or
the nation, by popular vote, and the same holds in the case of the lower
house of the legislature where a bi-cameral system exists, but there is
no argument for the popular election of the administrative officers of a
state. There is even less,--if there can be less than nothing--for the
changes in personnel that take place after every election. Civil service
reform has done a world of good, but as yet it has not gone far enough
in some directions, while its mechanism of examinations is defective in
principle in that it leaves out the personal equation and establishes
its tests only along a very few of the many lines that actually exist. I
would offer it as a proposition that no election should in itself affect
the status of any man except the man elected, and, in the case of a
mayor or governor or the President, those who are directly responsible
to him and to his administration for carrying out his policies; and
further, that the voter, when he votes, should vote once and for one man
in his city, once and for one man in his state, and once and for one man
in the nation, and that man, in each case, should be his representative
in the lower branch of the legislative body. Choosing administrative
officials by majority vote, and the election of judges for short terms
by the same method, are absurdities of a system fast falling into chaos.
The maintenance of a bi-cameral legislative organization, with the
choosing of the members of both houses by the same electorate is in the
same class, a perfectly irrational anomaly which violates the first
principles of logic and leads only to legislative incompetence, and
worse. The referendum is of precisely the same nature, but this already
has become a _reductio ad absurdum,_ and can hardly survive the
discredit into which it has fallen. In any reorganization of government
looking towards better results, these elements must disappear.
As a matter of fact, government has come to occupy altogether too large
a place in our consciousness; naturally, for it has come to a point
where it pursues us--and overtakes us--at every turn. Democracies always
govern too much, that is one of their great weaknesses. Elections,
law-making, and getting and holding office, have become an obsession and
they shadow our days. So insistent and incessant are the demands, so
artificial and unreal the issues, so barren of vital results all this
pandemonium of partisanship and change, the more intelligent and
scrupulous are losing interest in the whole affair, and while they
increasingly withdraw to matters of a greater degree of reality those
who subsist on the proceeds gain the power, and hold it. At the very
moment when the women of the United States have been given the vote,
there are many men (and women also) who begin to think that the vote is
a very empty institution and in itself practically void of power to
effect anything of really vital moment. I am not now defending this
position, I only assert that it exists, and I believe it is due to the
degradation of government through the very modifications and
transformations that have been effected, since the time of Andrew
Jackson, in a perfectly honest attempt at improvement.
The best government is that which does the least, which leaves local
matters in the hands of localities, and personal matters in the hands of
persons, and which is modestly inconspicuous. Good government
establishes, or recognizes, conditions which are stable, reliable, and
that may be counted on for more than two years, or four years, at a
time. It has continuity, it preserves tradition, and it follows custom
and common law. Such a government is neither hectic in its vicissitudes
nor inquisitorial in its enactments. It is cautious in its expenditures,
efficient in its administration, proud in maintaining its standards of
honour, justice and "noblesse oblige." Good government is august and
handsome; it surrounds itself with dignity and ceremony, even at times
with splendour and pageantry, for these things are signs of self-respect
and the outward showing of high ideals--or may be made so; that is what
good manners and ceremony and beauty are for. Finally, good government
is where the laws of Christian morals and courtesy and charity that are
supposed to hold between Christian men hold equally, even more
forcefully, in public relations both domestic and foreign. Where
government of this nature exists, whether the form is monarchical,
republican or democratic, there is liberty; where these conditions do
not obtain the form matters not at all, for there is a servile state.
At the risk of being tedious I will try to sketch the rough outlines of
what, in substance, I believe to be that form of civil polity which,
based on what now exists, changes only along lines that would perhaps
tend towards establishing and maintaining those ideals of liberty, order
and justice which have always been the common aim of those who have
striven to reform a condition of things where they were attained
indifferently or not at all.
The primary and effective social and political unit is the "vill" or
commune; that is to say, a group of families and individuals living in
one neighbourhood, and of a size that would permit all the members to
know one another if they wished to do so, and also the coming together
of all those holding the electoral franchise, for common discussion and
action. The average American country town, uninvaded by industrialism,
is the natural type, for here the "town meeting" of our forefathers is
practicable, and this remains the everlasting frame and model of
self-government. In the case of a city the primary unit would be of
approximately the same size, and the entire municipality would be
divided into wards each containing, say, about five hundred voters.
These primary units would possess a real unity and a very large measure
of autonomy, but they would be federated for certain common purposes
which would vary in number and importance in proportion to the closeness
of their common interests, from the county, made up of a number of small
villages, to the city which would comprise as many wards as might be
numerically necessary, and whose central government would administer a
great many more affairs than would the county. The city would be in
effect a federation of the wards or boroughs.
The individual voter would exercise his electoral franchise and perform
his political duties only within the primary unit (the township or ward)
where he had legal residence. At an annual "town meeting" he would vote
for the "selectmen" or the ward council who would have in charge the
local interests of the primary unit, which would be comprehensive in the
case of a township, necessarily more limited in the case of a ward.
These local boards would elect their own chairmen who would also form
the legislative body of the county or the municipality. At the same town
meeting the voter would cast his ballot for a representative in the
lower legislative body of the state. In the smaller commonwealths each
township or ward would elect its own representative, but in states of
excessive population representation would have to be on the basis of
counties and municipalities, for no legislative body should contain more
than a very few hundred members. Nominations in the town meeting should
be _viva voce,_ elections by secret ballot. Legislation should be
primarily on the initiative of the selectmen or ward council, and voting
should be _viva voce._ With the exercise of his privilege of speaking
and voting at the meetings of his primary unit, the direct political
action of the citizen would cease.
The secondary unit would be the county or the city. Here the legislative
body would consist of the presiding officers of the township or ward
governments. The sheriff of a county or the mayor of a city would be
chosen by these legislative bodies from their own number and should hold
office for a term of several years, while the local governments, and
therefore the legislative bodies of the county or the city, would be
chosen annually. The chief executive of a county or city would appoint
all heads of departments who would form his advisory council, and he
would also frame and submit annually both a fiscal and a legislative
budget.
The tertiary unit is the state, which is a federation of the counties
and cities forming some one of the historic divisions of the United
States. The legislature would as now be composed of two chambers, one
made up of representatives of the primary units, holding office for a
brief term, and a second representing the secondary units and chosen by
their governing bodies for a long term. The logic of a bi-cameral system
demands that the lower house should represent the changing will of the
people, the upper, in so far as possible, its cumulative wisdom and the
continuity of tradition, while, as already stated, the whole principle
is vitiated if both houses are chosen by the same electorate. The chief
executive should be chosen by the legislative chambers in joint session,
from a panel made up of their own membership and the heads of the county
and city governments. He should hold office for a long term, preferably
for an indeterminate period contingent on "good behaviour." In this case
his cabinet, or council of the heads of departments, would of course be
responsible to the legislature and would resign on a formal vote of
censure or "lack of confidence." The Governor would have the same power
of appointment, and the same authority to present fiscal and legislative
budgets as, already specified in the case of a mayor of a city. No
"commissions," unpaid or otherwise, should be permitted, all the
administrative functions of government being performed by the various
departments and their subordinate bureaux.
The national government is the final social and political unit, though
it is conceivable that with a territory and population as great and
diversified as that of the United States, and bearing in mind the great
discrepancy in size between the states, something might be gained by the
institution of a system of provinces, some five or six in all, made up
of states grouped in accordance with their general community of
interests, as for example, all New England, New York, Pennsylvania, New
Jersey and Delaware; the states of the old Confederacy, those of the
Pacific Coast, and so on. The point need not be pressed here, but there
are considerations in its favour. In any case the nation as a whole is
the final federal unit. Here the lower legislative house would consist
of not more than four hundred members, allocated on a basis of
population and elected by the representative bodies of the primary units
(the townships and city wards) as already described. The members of the
upper house would be elected by the legislative bodies of the several
states on nomination by the Governor. The chief executive of the nation
would be chosen by the two legislative bodies, in joint session, from
amongst the then governors of the several states. He should certainly
hold office for "good behaviour," and his cabinet would be responsible
to the legislature as provided for in the case of the state governments.
I do not offer this programme with any pride of paternity; probably it
would not work very well, but it could hardly prove less efficacious
than our present system under conditions as they have come to be. This
cannot continue indefinitely, for it is so hopelessly defective that it
is bound to bring about its own ruin, with the probable substitution of
some doctrinaire device engendered by the natural revolt against an
intolerable abuse. If only we could see conditions clearly and estimate
them at something approaching their real value, we should rapidly
develop a constructive public opinion that, even though it represented a
minority, might by the very force behind it compel the majority to
acquiesce in a radical reformation. Unfortunately we do not do this, we
are hypnotized by phrases and deluded by vain theories, as Mr.
Chesterton says:
"So drugged and deadened is the public mind by the conventional public
utterances, so accustomed have we grown to public men talking this sort
of pompous nonsense and no other, that we are sometimes quite shocked by
the revelation of what men really think, or else of what they really
say."
We do, now and then, confess that legislation is as a whole foolish,
frivolous and opportunist; that administration is wasteful, incompetent
and frequently venal; that the governmental personnel, legislative,
administrative and executive, is of a low order in point of character,
intelligence and culture--and tending lower each day. We admit this, for
the evidence is so conspicuous that to deny it would be hypocrisy, but
something holds us back from recognizing the nexus between effect and
cause. Unrestricted immigration, universal suffrage, rotation in office,
the subjection of many offices and measures to popular vote, the
parliamentary system, government by political parties--all these customs
and habits into which we have fallen have arrived at failure which
presages disaster. They have failed because the character of the people
that functioned through these various engines had failed, diluted by the
low mentality and character-content of millions of immigrants and their
offspring, degraded by the false values and vicious standards imposed by
industrial civilization, foot-loose from all binding and control of a
vital and potent religious impulse or religious organism.
It is the old, vicious circle; spiritual energy declines or is diverted
into wrong channels; thereupon the physical forms, social, industrial,
political, slip a degree or two lower out of sympathy with the failing
energy, and these in their turn exert a degrading influence on the
waning spiritual force, which declines still further only to be pulled
lower still by the material agencies which continue their progressive
declension. Theories, no matter how high-minded and altruistic, cannot
stand before a condition such as this, for self-protection decrees
otherwise even if the higher motive of doing right things and getting
right things just because they _are_ right, does not come into effective
operation. The evil results of the institutions I have catalogued above
are not to be denied, and the institutions themselves must be reformed
or altogether abandoned, in the face of the loud-mouthed exhortations of
those who now make them their means of livelihood, and even at the
expense of the honest upholders of theories and doctrines that do credit
to their humanitarianism but have been weighed and found wanting.
I am anxious not to put this plan for the reform, in root and branch, of
our political institutions, on the low level of mere caution and
self-defense. The motive power of this is fear, and fear is only second
to hate in its present position as a controlling force in society. We
should have good government not because it is economical and ensures
what are known as "good business conditions," and promises a peaceful
continuance of society, but because it is as worthy an object of
creative endeavour as noble art or a great literature or a just and
merciful economic system, or a life that is full of joy and beauty and
wholesome labour. The political organism is in a sense the microcosm of
life itself, and it should be society lifted up to a level of dignity,
majesty and nobility. The doctrine that in a democracy the government
must exactly express the numerical preponderance in the social
synthesis, and that, if this happens to be ignorant, mannerless and
corrupt, then the government must be after the same fashion, is a low
and a cowardly doctrine. Government should be better than the majority;
better than the minority if this has advantage over the other. It should
be of the best that man can compass, resting above him as in some sort
an ideal; the visible expression of his better self, and the better self
of the society of which he is a part. If a political system, any
political system, produces any other result; if it has issue in a
representation of the lowest and basest in society, or even of the
general average, then it is a bad system and it must be redeemed or it
will bring an end that is couched in terms of catastrophe.