Ye who hold that the power of eloquence is a thing of the past and
the orator an anachronism; who believe that the trend of political
events and the results of parliamentary action are determined by
committees in cold consultation and the machinations of programmers
in holes and corners, consider the ascension of Bryan and be wise. A
week before the convention of 1896 William J. Bryan had never heard
of himself; upon his natural obscurity was superposed the opacity of
a congressional service that effaced him from the memory of even his
faithful dog, and made him immune to dunning. A week afterward he
was pinnacled upon the summit of the tallest political distinction,
gasping in the thin atmosphere of his unfamiliar environment and fitly
astonished by the mischance. To the dizzy elevation of his candidacy
he was hoisted out of the shadow by his own tongue, the longest and
liveliest in Christendom. Had he held it—which he could not have done
with a blacksmith’s tongs—there had been no Bryan. His creation was the
unstudied act of his own larynx; it said, “Let there be Bryan,” and
there was Bryan. Even in these degenerate days there is a hope for the
orators when one can make himself a presidential peril by merely waving
the red flag in the cave of the winds and tormenting the circumjacence
with a brandish of abundant hands.
To be quite honest, I do not entirely believe that Orator Bryan’s
tongue had everything to do with it. I have long been convinced that
personal persuasion is a matter of animal magnetism—what in its more
obvious manifestation we now call hypnotism. At the back of the words
and the postures, and independent of them, is that secret, mysterious
power, addressing, not the ear, not the eye, nor, through them, the
understanding, but, through its kindred quality in the auditor,
captivating the will and enslaving it. That is how persuasion is
effected; the spoken words merely supply a pretext for surrender. They
enable us to yield without loss of our self-esteem, in the delusion
that we are conceding to reason what is really extorted by control.
The words are necessary, too, to point out what the orator wishes us
to think, if we are not already apprised of it. When the nature of
his power is better understood and frankly recognized, he can spare
himself the toil of talking. The parliamentary debate of the future
will probably be conducted in silence, and with only such gestures as
go by the name of “passes.” The chairman will state the question before
the house and the side, affirmative or negative, to be taken by the
honorable member entitled to the floor. That gentleman will rise, train
his compelling orbs upon the miscreants in opposition, execute a few
passes and exhaust his alloted time in looking at them. He will then
yield to an honorable member of dissenting views. The preponderance in
magnetic power and hypnotic skill will be manifest in the voting.
The advantages of the method are as plain as the nose on an elephant’s
face. The “arena” will no longer “ring” with anybody’s “rousing
speech,” to the irritating abridgment of the unalienable right to the
pursuit of sleep. Honorable members will lack provocation to hurl
allegations and cuspidors. Pitchforking statesmen and tosspot reformers
will be unable to play at pitch-and-toss with reputations not submitted
for the performance. In short, the congenial asperities of debate
will be so mitigated that the honorable member from Hades will retire
permanently from the hauls of legislation.
V
“Public opinion,” says Buckle, “being the voice of the average man, is
the voice of mediocrity.” Is it therefore so very wise and infallible
a guide as to be accepted without other credentials than its name and
fame? Ought we to follow its light and leading with no better assurance
of the character of its authority than a count of noses of those
following it already, and with no inquiry as to whether it has not on
many former occasions led them and their several sets of predecessors
into bogs of error and over precipices to “eternal mock?” Surely “the
average man,” as every one knows him, is not very wise, not very
learned, not very good; how is it that his views of so intricate and
difficult matters as those on which public opinion makes pronouncement
through him are entitled to so great respect? It seems to me that the
average man is very much a fool, and something of a rogue as well.
He has only a smattering of education, knows virtually nothing of
political history, nor history of any kind, is incapable of logical,
that is to say clear, thinking, is subject to the suasion of base and
silly prejudices, and selfish beyond expression. That such a person’s
opinions should be so obviously better than my own that I should accept
them instead, and assist in enacting them into laws, appears to me most
improbable. I may “bow to the will of the people” as gracefully as a
defeated candidate, and for the same reason, namely, that I can not
help myself; but to admit that I was wrong in my belief and flatter
the power that subdues me—no, that I will not do. If nobody would do
so the average man would not be so cock-sure of his infallibility, and
might sometimes consent to be counseled by his betters.
In any matter of which the public has imperfect knowledge, public
opinion is as likely to be erroneous as is the opinion of an individual
equally uninformed. To hold otherwise is to hold that wisdom can be got
by combining many ignorances. A man who knows nothing of algebra can
not be assisted in the solution of an algebraic problem by calling in
a neighbor who knows no more than himself, and the solution approved
by the unanimous vote of a million such men would count for nothing
against that of a competent mathematician. To be entirely consistent,
gentlemen enamored of public opinion should insist that the text books
of our common schools should be the creation of a mass meeting, and all
disagreements arising in the course of the work settled by a majority
vote. That is how all difficulties incident to the popular translation
of the Hebrew Scriptures were composed. It should be admitted, however,
that most of those voting knew a little Hebrew, though not much. A
problem in mathematics is a very simple thing compared with many of
those upon which the people are called to pronounce by resolution and
ballot—for example, a question of finance.
“The voice of the people is the voice of God”—the saying is so
respectably old that it comes to us in the Latin. He is a strange,
an unearthly, politician who has not a score of times publicly and
solemnly signified his faith in it. But does anyone really believe
it? Let us see. In the period between 1859 and 1885, the national
Democratic party was defeated six times in succession. The voice of
the people pronounced it in error and unfit to govern. Yet after each
overthrow it came back into the field gravely reaffirming its faith in
the principles that God had condemned. Then God twice reversed Himself,
and the Republicans set about beating Him with as firm a confidence
of success (justified by the event) as they had known in the years of
their prosperity. Doubtless in every instance of a political party’s
defeat there are defections, but doubtless not all are due to the voice
that spoke out of the great white light that fell about Saul of Tarsus.
By the way, it is worth observing that that clever gentleman was
under no illusion regarding the origin of the voice that wrought his
celebrated “flop;” he did not confound it with the _vox populi_. The
people of his time and place had no objection to the persecution that
he was conducting, and could persecute a trifle themselves on occasion.
Majorities rule, when they do rule, not because they ought, but because
they can. We vote in order to learn without fighting which party is
the stronger; it is less disagreeable to learn it that way than the
other way. Sometimes the party that is numerically the weaker is by
possession of the government actually the stronger, and could maintain
itself in power by an appeal to arms, but the habit of submitting when
outvoted is hard to break. Moreover, we all recognize in a subconscious
way, the reasonableness of the habit as a practical method of getting
on; and there is always the confident hope of success in the next
canvass. That one’s cause will succeed because it ought to succeed
is perhaps the most general and invincible folly affecting the human
judgment. Observation can not shake it, nor experience destroy. Though
you bray a partisan in the mortar of adversity till he numbers the
strokes of the pestle by the hairs of his head, yet will not this
foolish notion depart from him. He is always going to win the next
time, however frequently and disastrously he has lost before. And
he can always give you the most cogent reasons for the faith that
is in him. His chief reliance is on the “fatal mistakes” made by
the other party since the last election. There never was a year in
which the party in power and the party out of power did not make bad
mistakes—mistakes which, unlike eggs and fish, seem always worst when
freshest. If idiotic errors of policy were always fatal, no party would
ever win an election and there would be a hope of better government
under the benign sway of the domestic cow.