“Fitness to govern must depend on the community to be governed and on the merits of other persons who may be capable of governing that community. A savage chief may be capable of governing a savage tribe. He may have the right of governing it, for he may be the sole person capable of so doing: but he would have no right to govern England. Whatever may be your capacity for rule, you have no right to obtain the opportunity of exercising it by dethroning a person who is more capable; you are wronging the community if you do, if you are depriving it of a better government than that which you can give to it.... The true principle is, that every person has a right to so much political power as he can exercise, without impeding any other person who would more fitly exercise such power.... Any such measure for enfranchising the lower orders as would overpower and consequently disfranchise the higher should be resisted on the ground of abstract right; you are proposing to take power from those who have the superior capacity, and to rest it in those who have but an inferior capacity or in many cases no capacity at all.” (Parliamentary Reform, 1859.)
“Fitness to govern must depend on the community to be governed and on the merits of other persons who may be capable of governing that community. A savage chief may be capable of governing a savage tribe. He may have the right of governing it, for he may be the sole person capable of so doing: but he would have no right to govern England. Whatever may be your capacity for rule, you have no right to obtain the opportunity of exercising it by dethroning a person who is more capable; you are wronging the community if you do, if you are depriving it of a better government than that which you can give to it.... The true principle is, that every person has a right to so much political power as he can exercise, without impeding any other person who would more fitly exercise such power.... Any such measure for enfranchising the lower orders as would overpower and consequently disfranchise the higher should be resisted on the ground of abstract right; you are proposing to take power from those who have the superior capacity, and to rest it in those who have but an inferior capacity or in many cases no capacity at all.” (Parliamentary Reform, 1859.)
In calling to its counsels at the polls such citizens as the State may deem competent for that purpose, it is practically impossible to select individuals; but it is quite possible to designate certain classes to whom suffrage may or may not be permitted; and when these classes are open to receive accessions indefinitely upon conditions useful to the State and attainable by all, there is nothing in the whole transaction inimical to the best democracy, or of which complaint can be made on the ground of monopoly or injustice. The acquisition and judicious management of a reasonable amount of property are terms and conditions of just this character and experience has amply shown the necessity for their imposition in the interests of society.
To summarize this branch of the subject. The primary object of an ideal election is not to ascertain where lies the interest or to gratify the caprices or whims of individuals, butto continue and sustain, and if necessary to create the government of the country. The exercise of this function is in itself an act of government or in aid of government, and the privilege of participation therein is an acquired, a conferred authority or function, not a natural right, and should be bestowed solely for merit or capacity to be exercised in trust for the common benefit. It is the patriotic duty of all incapable, unprepared or unqualified citizens voluntarily to refrain from taking part in this function; and it is the right and duty of the State by appropriate legislation to exclude peremptorily therefrom all classes of men incapable of its proper exercise, and for this purpose to establish racial, property, educational, or other appropriate qualifications.
On the theory that the State itself may be supposed to have been originally inaugurated and its operations originally sanctioned by the suffrages of all its citizens as their creature and agent, a curious question has been raised by some writers, namely, on what ground the State can exclude from the constituent franchise a part, though ever so small, of its original creators or principals. Such writers have, however, overlooked the existence of a power higher and mightier than that of the State or of its inhabitants at any particular period; a power which is the real source of the authority of the State. This power is “Society,” and its relation to the subject of the franchise will be dealt with in the next chapter.
THE STATE AS THE DEPUTY OF SOCIETY POSSESSES THE JUST POWER OF ORDAINING FRANCHISE QUALIFICATIONS
THE STATE AS THE DEPUTY OF SOCIETY POSSESSES THE JUST POWER OF ORDAINING FRANCHISE QUALIFICATIONS
Yes, for it was not Zeus who gave them forth,Nor Justice, dwelling with the gods below,Who traced these laws for all the sons of men;The unwritten laws of God that know no change,They are not of today nor yesterday,But live forever, nor can man assign,When first they sprang to being.(Sophocles: “Antigone”)
Yes, for it was not Zeus who gave them forth,Nor Justice, dwelling with the gods below,Who traced these laws for all the sons of men;The unwritten laws of God that know no change,They are not of today nor yesterday,But live forever, nor can man assign,When first they sprang to being.(Sophocles: “Antigone”)
Yes, for it was not Zeus who gave them forth,Nor Justice, dwelling with the gods below,Who traced these laws for all the sons of men;The unwritten laws of God that know no change,They are not of today nor yesterday,But live forever, nor can man assign,When first they sprang to being.(Sophocles: “Antigone”)
Atthe end of the last chapter was suggested a question which troubles many superficial but honest and sympathetic thinkers. How, say they, can a democratic State justly refuse the suffrage to any citizen? They see plainly the policy of such refusal in many cases; they realize the mischief of permitting discordant voices to mar the democracy of the cultivated choir of good citizenship, the danger of allowing rotten timbers in the structure of the ship of State; they wish for some superior power to silence the one or remove the other; but they cannot see that such a power exists. Can a man or any group of men in a democracy justly assume such superiority of judgment as the exercise of this power would imply? If the State be as democracy asserts, the creature, the agent of the people, how can it by refusing the franchise to any of its citizens rightfully deprive them of a voice in its deliberations? Is not such refusal in its essence a tyranny and a negation of democracy? No doubt some such feeling as above expressed, though perhaps more vaguely formulated, actuated many who, with more or less reluctance made the blunder of acquiescing in theestablishment of white manhood suffrage in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, and also many of those who forty years later made the still greater blunder of accepting negro suffrage.
An answer to all these scruples familiar to all sound lawyers and quite sufficient for most intelligent men, is found in the law of self preservation. Before any law or rule of a state or community can be enacted, the state or community must have existence, and the enactment implies that the state’s continuance is to be secured. The original law of its being must first be satisfied, and must ever remain superior to all other of its enactments. It is sufficient reason therefore for the suppression of the votes of the unworthy that they are prejudicial to the State, and the State in its struggle for existence may rightfully suppress them.
But there is still another complete answer to the questions above propounded, and one perhaps still more satisfying to some minds than that of the primal right of self preservation; and that is, that there does exist a higher warrant for the disfranchisement of unworthy voters, and for all suffrage regulations, conditions and qualifications than the mere precept of the State. This higher sanction is that which authorized men in the beginning to found the commonwealth in which we live. What was that authority? Imagine if you please the foundation of a state. By what rightful authority did the first white settlers in Virginia or Massachusetts establish a government and proceed by its agency to deal with the property, lives and liberty of the members of their little company and of all new comers? By what rightful authority did they for instance execute the first malefactor? The answer is, by the mandate of Society. For even if it be true, as many insist, that the State has no original power, but is a mere created agency of limited authority, it yet does not follow that that authority has no basis but the fiat of the electorate and no justification beyond certain election certificates and its own statutes. There is a mighty mundane power in constant operation amongst men, one farsuperior and anterior to the State; a part indeed or manifestation of that almighty persistent and mysterious force which maketh for righteousness in this world; a potentate with whose operations we are all perfectly familiar and whom we may here, for want of a better word, designate by the name “Society.” The idea intended here to be represented by that word is somewhat difficult of definition. We may approximately indicate our meaning by defining “Society” as Humanity self organized for the promotion of civilization; but we can best identify her by noting some of her operations and attributes. She finds her original source as all true authority must in the Eternal Verities, and her sovereignty is mysterious in its deepest origin as is everything vital in the universe. Her forms and methods are fine and subtle beyond description. She is not the State; she antedates the State; she was the source of the authority of our first American ancestors to establish governments and to execute justice, and was the founder and is the mistress and director of all states and governments that ever were or ever will be. Nor can she be identified with the population or body of citizenship of the nation or community; she is something which remains outside and independent of all these; possessing a separate organism, life and growth of her own. Society is the Overlord, the vital essence of which the State is the manifestation; she is to the State what the spirit is to the human body; and for her the State exists and was created. Her membership is not confined to any class, but includes all those who voluntarily submit to her decrees. These she organizes in a way peculiar to herself, assigning to them rights, obligations, influence and power without regard to laws or statutes except those of her own original promulgation, disregarding entirely the shallow and false modern notion of equality between men. For just as no two individuals have exactly the same appearance or physical power, so in the whole social domain there are no two members who are in every respect or indeed in any respect the social equals of each other. Her membership has its own traditions, rules and standardswhich she promulgates by silent and subtle methods, often finally compelling their formal adoption by the State. Her mandates are more powerful than those of governments; and all political decrees are subordinate to the constitutions of civilized society. Her honors and powers are often more valued than those of the State, and are conferred not as in our politics at the command of mere numbers, as prizes for oratory or rewards for intrigue, but in consideration of social aptitudes and energies; so that in any given community you will find the social development of each individual to correspond with his or her compliance with the rules and mandates of Society.
Thus is constituted what may be called the Social Commonwealth,imperium in imperio, composed of all those who take up the cause of civilization; a number which does not necessarily represent a majority or any definite proportion of the people of the community, but does represent and include the community’s mental and moral force and civilizing influence. Its leaders or captains are comparatively few; they are readily distinguishable as active champions of social progress; spending time and effort for the cause; zealous in the establishment of public order; in advancing public health, in creating and maintaining beauty in public and private life; in forwarding enterprises of religion, art, education, science and benevolence; in promoting civilizing institutions, such as libraries, hospitals, churches; also operas, music, dancing and all the refinements of life; in creating parks and flower gardens, in beautifying cities and villages; in elevating the standards of dress, manners and private living, and in furthering all civilizing and humanizing influences. Following these leaders at greater or less social distance are the great body of the membership of the Social Commonwealth composed of all classes of rich and poor and between, the great mass of the socially loyal, themselves originating and initiating nothing of social importance, but faithfully keeping up year by year with the steadily advancing procession; directing their children in the way of sweetness and light, that so they may reach the places wherethe social leaders stood a generation before. So that a basis for the establishment of a qualified electorate and for the exclusion therefrom of the disqualified is found in the primary fact of the existence of two classes of humanity, the one including the socially fit, the socially organized, the members of the Social Commonwealth; and the others the non-members of that organization. As already stated, not all the inhabitants of our borders are the lieges of Society; there is the considerable body of the unsocial; comprising those cold and indifferent to the social cause, the socially worthless, the nondescript and the rabble; also the anti-social; the openly hostile, the criminals and malefactors of the community. The existence of these two divisions of men, the social and the unsocial, justifies and requires the State to distinguish between them in granting the voting franchise. The primary test of voting capacity is and must be allegiance to the social commonwealth.
Society was born when humanity emerged from savagery, and will endure while civilization continues in the world. The Jacobins of France of 1790, like the present Bolsheviki of Russia, got possession of the State machinery and turning it against Society swore to destroy her forever; after a dozen years of strife she emerged from the conflict stronger than before. She accompanied the first immigrants to Massachusetts Bay, to Jamestown and to every other American settlement. There she was on the very first day and ever after with her customs, traditions, beliefs, classes, prejudices, dress, manners and standards of conduct, ready to enforce them in America with the same despotic authority exercised long before in the England of the Plantagenets, Normans, Saxons and Romans. And then and there in the fields and forests of the new world, Society established governments as her agents to enforce her mandates, imposing her will upon the States which she thus created. Since then, by Society has the onward course of the nation at all times been directed. Governments may change; peace may follow war; the monarchy may give way to a republic or dictatorship and that to a democracy, or vice versa;laws may be enacted and repealed, constitutions established and abolished, but the rule of the Social Commonwealth goes on forever.
It is to Society, the champion of civilization, that the enlightened civilized man considers his allegiance is ultimately due, and only to the State as the agent of Society. A law to be valid and enforceable must conform to social mandates. The late James C. Carter, a noted New York lawyer, is the author of a philosophical treatise on Law in which he clearly establishes this principle. He says (p. 120); “That to which we give the name of Law always has been, still is, and will forever continue to be Custom.” But customs are merely the ordinances of Society. When the State forgets its duty to Society it does so at its peril; let it enact for example, a Fugitive Slave Law and the Emersons, Thoreaus, Beechers and other social leaders refuse obedience and defy the State. In like manner, wars are justified when decreed by Society against unsocial sovereign states in the interests of civilization, as for instance, some of the modern wars of civilized powers against Turkey. Consider the actual political power and operations of Society. Compare the statute books of today with those of fifty or a hundred years ago and note the changes she has dictated in that period. History is sad and bloody with the story of the efforts of the State to modify the religious practices of men; they have all failed; but Society does not fail to change these practices year by year. Commerce, manufactures, transportation, the arts, education, customs, manners, all human institutions are in turn created and destroyed by Society, and law and the State are powerless to defeat permanently her decrees, while their own are only valid when stamped with her approval.
Here then we find in the inherent powers of Society, in powers which are God-given or Nature-given if you prefer, an answer to the scruples of those who seek a source of authority in the State to protect its life by preserving its own machinery. It is this supreme potentate acting by and through the Statethat we invoke to settle the structure of the State on the foundations of capacity and intelligence.
Consider now the interest of Society in the proper regulation of the suffrage as the source and foundation of the State. Not alone is she vitally interested in the maintenance of the present civilizing forces which are sending us forward day by day on the march to higher planes of life; but also in preserving the material and intellectual inheritance of all the ages. This inheritance includes all the accumulated acquisitions of the civilized human race; its property, treasures, achievements and traditions; all the products of its mental and physical endeavor, the fruits of its art, literature, science and industry. These constitute the body of civilization in which its soul and mind are preserved, nourished and kept alive; they form a social trust for ourselves and for posterity. “Civilization,” said Burke, is “a triple contract between the noble dead, the “living and the unborn.” And by that contract we are forbidden to live or to legislate so as to cheat those who come after.
Society’s process for the preservation of our intellectual inheritance is called education; her method for the preservation of our material inheritance is the institution of private property rights. Humanity, property and education combined, constitute the material endowment of society, wherewith she works for the advancement of the human race, or as otherwise expressed for the promotion of civilization. Obviously she is justified in adopting all possible precautions to guard and preserve this precious deposit committed to her charge, nor can it be doubted that she should carefully select its custodians and overseers. Equally plain is it that since the civilization of the nation is and has been produced entirely by the thrifty members of the Social Commonwealth and remains in their guardianship, they and they alone, as constituting the class who have produced and cared for the same should be continued in its care as the representatives of Society and in her behalf; and should be authorized to formulate the laws andmeasures which make for its protection and advancement. To this end and purpose Society is constantly endeavoring. A volume could be written illustrating the exercise of her steady and mighty influence in placing the scepter in the hands of her chosen ones. Rome was the ancient conservator of civilization, and to her was given sway for centuries; England of all modern nations has been most devoted to preserving the best of the product of the generations as they pass on, and she and her race were made foremost among nations and peoples. Look at the community where you live and you will easily note how Society bestows influence, authority, distinction and esteem upon her own workers, the builders and creators of civilization and upon their children, and passes contemptuously by the unsocial and anti-social. You cannot fail to observe her disdain of the mere talkers and wasters and how she brings to naught the works and cheap distinctions of a manhood suffrage constituency. To the silly French Jacobin scheme of ascertaining the best by counting noses, Society opposes her own never failing system of continuous study, training and selection. She does not favor, on the contrary, she discourages the absurd and impossible purpose of modern liberalism of giving expression to ignorant individual wills with all their clashing selfishness and brutality. She does not favor the politician’s purpose of perpetuating moral feebleness and incapacity, nor of forwarding the foolish aims and ideas of the weak and the worthless. She is far from giving office or power to such or from even hearkening to their prattle and humbug. She has much to overcome. The power that makes for righteousness is not permitted to operate without the opposition of fools and charlatans; and it is within Society’s function to master this opposition, which she invariably does in the end. She constantly refuses to descend as manhood suffrage does to the level of the ignoble; on the contrary when they presume to oppose her in her momentous business she undertakes either to conquer them by reclamation or to see that they are hanged or otherwise removed out of her implacable path.
It is the crime of manhood suffrage that it constantly endeavors to oppose and thwart this all beneficent social tendency; that it pushes to the front and seeks to give power in civic affairs to the non-social and anti-social classes, consisting of men devoid of the instinct for the creation and preservation of the useful and the beautiful, and who cannot safely be trusted as their guardians. In so doing it perverts the State from its proper functions. The State has no rightful authority over men’s lives except as the deputy of Society, and its every legitimate act should and must be for the promotion of beneficial social objects. It is its clear duty as such deputy to place political control in the hands of those gifted with distinguished social attributes; and an essential and the first step in that direction is the discarding of manhood suffrage and all similar unnatural political stupidities which inevitably lead to Jacobinism, Bolshevism, anarchy, ruin and death.
THE CAPACITY TO CREATE AND PRESERVE PRIVATE PROPERTY IS THE PROPER TEST AND PROOF OF QUALIFICATION FOR ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP IN AN ADVANCED DEMOCRACY.
THE CAPACITY TO CREATE AND PRESERVE PRIVATE PROPERTY IS THE PROPER TEST AND PROOF OF QUALIFICATION FOR ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP IN AN ADVANCED DEMOCRACY.
Thereare two principal arguments in favor of a property qualification for voters; one the argument of fitness, that the propertied class are the most capable of passing upon affairs of state; the other the argument of justice, that the business of government principally concerns property, namely, the belongings and the productions of propertied people. Both these arguments assume that what is wanted is an honest and efficient government, not a corrupt and inefficient one.
The demand for a property qualification for voters is predicated upon the theory that there is an obligation on the part of the citizens of a state to contribute towards its material prosperity; a duty of such importance that the state cannot flourish in the face of its neglect; that the class of men who are incapable of creating and preserving property is unfitted to form part of the electorate; and that neither native birth nor the taking of a naturalization oath is sufficient qualification for the duties and function of active citizenship in a genuine democracy. There may be valid excuses such as ill health, ignorance, etc., for the individual’s failure to perform his part in the work of civilization, but such excuses do not disprove the existence of the obligation in others, but rather emphasize it. It is not well fulfilled when the citizen only produces enough from day to day for his immediate support, or wastes the surplus, leaving the burden upon others to provide for the time of old age, sickness and incapacity. Its proper performance therefore involves the exercise of the virtue known as prudence, a systematic saving or accumulation ofproperty for the joint benefit of the individual and the State. The practice of this virtue is incumbent not merely upon good citizens but upon every citizen and tends to qualify for active citizenship. Like cleanliness, it is not a superfluous but an essential virtue. The neglect of home cleanliness may breed a pestilence; the neglect of home prudence may unfairly burden the community; such neglect is an act of disloyalty to Society and to the State, and is a proof of such civic incapacity and indifference as to require in any well regulated political community, the placing of the offender in the class of passive citizens who are not entitled to the suffrage. His country’s protection is a sufficient reward for one of that class for merely taking the trouble to be born in her domain. Let him be content to be what Sieyes called a passive citizen till he has proved his qualification to be an active one. If there be, which is doubtful, exceptional cases of men such that neither they nor their forefathers were actually able to earn more than enough to support them, or having earned it to take care of it, and yet are capable of directing affairs of state they are so few as to be negligible. Such men need the spur of disfranchisement to make them go ahead, and meantime the thrifty can legislate for them. Constitutional legislation can only deal with groups, or classes, and cannot properly attempt to provide for such extraordinary exceptions.
Democracy is an ideal form of government for none but a highly capable people; a representative government of a worthless or a politically indifferent constituency will be a worthless government, the more representative the more worthless. Witness Hayti, San Domingo, Mexico, and certain Central American or South American democracies. These are totally incapable because their electorates are totally incapable, and in this country the democracy, though not a complete failure, is a partial failure, namely, to the extent that its life is vitiated by an inferior constituency. There are thousands of men, not to speak of women, on our voting list who are as incompetent toexercise the functions of voters as the inferior orders of Mexico or Hayti. Many of the improvident classes have minds absolutely childish and utterly incapable of foresight or serious reflection. At an election held in Ashton in England under the recently extended suffrage system, a theatrical man named de Freece was elected to Parliament not because of his political views, but because of the amusing performances of his wife, a noted vaudeville actress. We quote from a newspaper:
“Vesta Tilley, the most popular male impersonator London has known in decades, took a prominent part in the campaign. Her ‘Picadilly Johnnie with the little glass eye’ and other popular songs, it was admitted played a far greater part in the election than her husband’s political views.” We may be sure it was the unpropertied and non-tax-paying rabble whose vote went in favor of “Picadilly Johnnie.” Lord Bryce’s description of the indifferent or incompetent British voters applies well enough to our own:
“Though they possess political power, and are better pleased to have it, they do not really care about it—that is to say, politics occupy no appreciable space in their thoughts and interests. Some of them vote at elections because they consider themselves to belong to a party, or fancy that on a given occasion they have more to expect from the one party than from the other; or because they are brought up on election day by some one who can influence them.... Others will not take the trouble to go to the polls.... Many have not even political prepossessions, and will stare or smile when asked to which party they belong. They count for little except at elections, and then chiefly as instruments to be used by others. So far as the formation or exercise of opinion goes, they may be left out of sight.” (American Commonwealth, Vol. II, pp. 319-20.)
“Though they possess political power, and are better pleased to have it, they do not really care about it—that is to say, politics occupy no appreciable space in their thoughts and interests. Some of them vote at elections because they consider themselves to belong to a party, or fancy that on a given occasion they have more to expect from the one party than from the other; or because they are brought up on election day by some one who can influence them.... Others will not take the trouble to go to the polls.... Many have not even political prepossessions, and will stare or smile when asked to which party they belong. They count for little except at elections, and then chiefly as instruments to be used by others. So far as the formation or exercise of opinion goes, they may be left out of sight.” (American Commonwealth, Vol. II, pp. 319-20.)
It is impossible to weigh merits so nicely as to exclude all of this class; it is impracticable to disfranchise a man for frivolity even though he be so frivolous that his vote depends on the song of an actress, but when that frivolity gives itself concrete expression such as incapacity to acquire or retain property, it may and should be excluded from our political life.
In considering the proposition that the creation and preservation of property is a primary duty of citizenship, we must realize the absolute essentiality of accumulated property in the scheme of civilization. We all know the value of money, but we are generally loath to formally acknowledge its importance. There is a prevalent affectation of indifference towards it, assumed by vain fools as a mark of superiority, and by spendthrift fools to excuse their stupid poverty. This affectation is encouraged by the writers of the popular magazines and newspapers and other cheap literature which is published for the masses, who are supposed to be poor and to like to be flattered by being told that their poverty, instead of being a mark of inferiority as it really is, is a sign of superior goodness. This sort of writing misleads many thoughtless people to their detriment. Civilization can only be expressed in terms of property; and property is its token, its manifestation, its note, its unfailing indication, its hall mark. There is not a quality, a circumstance, a feature of civilization which is not represented in some way by property, either by being due to property, derived from property, originating in property, or sustained by property. The desire for property is an attribute of man; denied to the lower animals and dormant in savages, such as the North American Indians who when discovered, had no permanent property, not even a year’s provisions to live on in times of scarcity, and had created nothing for posterity. A pauperized people is on the direct road to barbarism. On the other hand, the higher the grade of civilization the greater the wealth of the country; so that to attain the very highest grade we must pass far beyond the period of aggregation of merely useful things and reach a point of great luxury, where men can spend lives and millions in the service of the high arts and refinements of life, and where in an atmosphere enriched by the artistic emanations of centuries, are produced operas costing $10,000 a day, and palaces and cathedrals at an expenditure of the time of generations of men and of hundreds of millions of dollars in money.
It is often said that the main object of our government should be to preserve our political institutions. This is too short-sighted a view. These institutions are not an ultimate object; they are only the means of promoting and protecting civilization, the which ought to be the principal and ultimate object of the State. This object is to be accomplished by encouraging the citizens in the voluntary production of life’s primal material necessities: food, clothing, and shelter; in the conservation of the accumulated treasures of the past, and by favoring the addition thereto of new contributions by this generation, so that the total may be passed on intact to posterity. Any government is a failure which neglects that duty; which if accomplished, and a proper attention given to education, virtue and morality will take care of themselves. In the play of “Major Barbara,” one of Bernard Shaw’s best and most instructive comedies, the distinguished author shows the difficulty, the almost impossibility of the reclamation by mere admonition of a man degraded by pauperism; but that good wages regularly paid will do the job. Now, our present voting system not only fails to encourage thrift, saving or accumulation of wealth, or to promote civilization, but has a contrary tendency, because it grants equality and power in government to the non-producer, to the shiftless, lazy and vicious consumers and wasters of property.
In order to fairly realize the gross injustice of granting governmental powers to the thriftless classes, we must clearly visualize and properly estimate the results of the lives and labors of the thrifty and industrious. We must not fail to fully understand that frugality is the creator and preserver of the State. We have recently heard frequent appeals to save and help win the German war; because to save is to contribute to a fund out of which can be paid the expenses of the government. But the common fund of the nation’s wealth in peace as well as in war exists and is drawn upon by every member of the community, and it is just as true in peace as in war that the citizen who saves money is thus contributing tothat common fund and thereby to the strength and well-being of the commonwealth, and this, whether he deposit his savings in a bank where it is loaned out to aid industry and create employment, or whether he invests it in commerce or manufactures, directly or indirectly, by the purchase of stocks or securities in industrial or commercial concerns. The mere fact of saving, that is to say of producing more than he consumes makes him at once a contributor to this general fund; and therefore any man who leaves behind him upon his death money or property which he accumulated in his lifetime has been a benefactor to the community, in the same sense as if he had contributed a great book or a valuable invention to the world, or had spent his life in benevolent work. To save or to make money and then to usefully spend it in one’s lifetime, reaping the tribute of the world’s appreciation is well enough; but to frugally save for a long lifetime in order to do good or give pleasure to others after one’s eyes are closed in death is surely nobler still. All the useful productions of man in the United States, the dwellings, stores, shops, ships, roads, railroads, telegraphs and telephones; the schools, colleges, hospitals and church edifices; all the accumulated fuel and stores of manufactured and other goods, are the fruits of individual saving. The greatness and power of the United States depend upon the collected savings of generations gone by, and evidence their industry, prudence and self-denial. The class of Americans who have wasted their surplus or who have produced no more than they earned; those devil-may-care fellows so admired by sentimentalists, have been of no permanent material value to the country; they are of the parasite class; they have no part in the creation of its civilization which is represented by its acquisitions and depends upon them for its continuance. Many of these people give themselves airs of virtue and generosity because they are not “mean” as they say; they even brag that they spend as they go, and for that attitude toward life expect and sometimes receive applause from others as great fools as themselves. Their ignorance prevents their perceiving their own selfishness; and their vanity hides from them a suspicion of their worthlessness. The late Andrew Carnegie is credited with many sayings wise and foolish; of the latter one of the oftenest quoted is that it is a disgrace to die rich. No proverb more mistaken and mischievous was ever uttered. For since no man, however much he made but might have squandered it all, therefore to die rich implies some prudence and self denial, and usually means that the departed left the world better off than he found it. The only anti-social rich are the land grabbers. All who have become capitalists by trade, production or invention, or by efforts in aid thereof, are public benefactors.
Here let us stop to pay a well-earned tribute to the past and present rank and file of the hard-working money savers of our country, above all to those of the past; to such of the departed ones and of the old superannuated fathers and mothers still feebly lingering among us, as have lovingly toiled and scraped and saved to leave something to their children and their descendants. They are and have been among the best the world produces, those honest, prudent, thrifty, self-denying Americans, those brave old progenitors of ours, whose honest toil and stinting and close bargaining for generations past built up the wealth which makes so many of us comfortable and which enabled America to give Germany her solar plexus blow. May their memories be dear to their descendants and be honored by all of us forever.
We hear much these days of “class consciousness”; of that feeling of solidarity among the working classes which inclines the mechanic or operative to feel the needs of his fellow workers and to act with a view to their benefit, and this is well; but a little guiding thought is never amiss in such matters, and will surely lead to a conclusion favorable to a property qualification for voters. First, the workers should remember that all good workmen are interested in the creation and preservation of capital. Their class consciousness should align them on this question with those who produce and save. They shouldrealize that immense numbers of workingmen have savings bank accounts and other property and are therefore in the capitalistic class. Most of them have hopes and aspirations for still greater wealth, for in the United States and in other civilized countries where the ancient struggle for personal and religious liberty is over, the chief modern aspiration of all workers is to create and preserve property, and thus to enjoy to the utmost the security and happiness which come with civilization and are expressed in terms of property. They should also understand that all capital is in a fund which is accessible to all, and that their best contribution to the welfare of their brothers would be the increase of this fund by their own wise thrift and saving. The savings bank is a great creator and preserver of property, and operates by a process which is vital to the existence of the unpropertied working man to an extent which he often fails to realize till the destruction of stored up capital by Bolsheviki methods brings him to starvation’s verge. And while the property actually owned by the working man is usually much less in dollar value than that of almost any single capitalistic employer of labor, or business men generally, yet its actual importance to him is as great or greater; and then the use by the working man of property not his own but accumulated by society, and its necessity to his existence is usually almost as great and may be practically greater than that of the rich man. The latter for instance may be an invalid or of sedentary habits, making but little direct use of mechanical forces; while the working man in question may be constantly and necessarily using machinery, railroads, and other transportation facilities, etc., in his daily employment to such a degree as to be absolutely dependent on them for his existence. In the case of another worker his direct personal use of food, clothing, furniture, household goods, books, etc., may be actually greater than that of his wealthy but more secluded or abstemious neighbor. Such a one whether or not he realizes it, is vitally interested in the preservation and maintenance of the property of others throughthe use of which he obtains his livelihood, or on which his comfort and happiness depend, and therefore that government should be so organized as to protect that property.
As the thrift of the worker is the root of our material prosperity, so is the thrift of the rich its flower and choicest fruit. What would America be, what would Europe be without the savings of the well-to-do, accumulated from generation to generation, and here now at our command and for our use manifested not only in railroads, ships, canals, banks and all the buildings and equipments of commerce and industry, but also in fine mansions, in elegant furniture, in beautiful lawns and gardens, in churches, cathedrals, hospitals, universities and museums? From out the ranks of the opulent and thrifty classes, and especially of those of them who have scorned waste, extravagance, dissipation and vulgar display, came the leaders in the social army, the noble pioneers of taste and beauty. We hear much canting laudation of the frontier pioneers, a rough and coarse set mostly, of whom such as did their part deserve the credit. But far more excellent and admirable are those to whose zeal, enthusiastic taste and noble self-denial we owe most of the preserved and accumulated treasures of the earth in architecture, painting, sculpture and ornamentation. In every age, in every generation they appear on the scene, little bands of modest amateurs, devoting time, patience and money to rescuing these treasures from destruction, and to fostering, instructing and creating public taste for created beauty. They seek and teach the best in life, leisure, refinement and loveliness; they introduce noble and graceful fashions in dress, manners and deportment and set fine examples to the world. The public museums and opera are endowed by their benefactions; they are the patrons of the best music, the purest drama, and the most inspiring architecture. And not merely to the cultivated very rich who are able to do so much, but also to the refined of the more modest middle class is our gratitude due for their leadership in this same direction. We see their tasteful comfortable houses dotting thelandscape; their good sidewalks, shady street trees, gardens and orchards delight the wayfarer. In improving the public taste in the choice of furniture, or book bindings, of music and other things they are constantly helping along our civilization and forwarding the interests of the Social Commonwealth. They train their children so that they often become still more tasteful than their parents; they set an example of decent living to the poorer classes; they beautify the land; they give the rest of us something to aspire to. As we pass through a handsome well-kept American village let us give a thought of gratitude to the folk of all degrees of well-to-do, most of them now dead and gone, who planted and built well, who dressed, talked and lived like gentlemen and ladies; who improved the life and manners of their time and left the world better housed, better mannered and better looking than they found it. Of such is the history of the nation’s progress. Like the great artists and authors, they each contributed an offering to civilization; they left something of value behind them to make them remembered, were it only a little well-built and well-designed house for someone to occupy after their departure. Though their names are never in the mouths of platform ranters, they are among the true patriots of America.
The manhood suffrage doctrine fails to recognize the vital political difference heretofore referred to, originally pointed out by Sieyes, that exists between the two classes of citizens; the one the faithful members of the social commonwealth; the progressive workers, loyal and active in the promotion of civilization and in sustaining the state; and who because of such civic activity, are accounted worthy of the suffrage; the other the non-socials; the drones; the neutrals or disloyal and therefore ineligible for political functions of any sort; non-producers, shirkers, wasters, and destroyers. Sieyes, who was a statesman, publicist and member of the French National Assembly in 1792, recognized the existence of these two clearly separated classes of citizens, and, by a statute proposed by him and subsequently enacted, all Frenchmen weredivided accordingly into active citizens (citoyens actifs), having the right to vote and hold office, and passive citizens (citoyens passifs), who are excluded from both these privileges. It is not just or fair that these latter, who are always behind the chariot of progress, pulling backward and being carried or dragged along, impeding the march of the race, should compel the progressive workers, the real active citizens of the country, to expend a large part of their efforts in overcoming their resistance.
Consider also the gross injustice and folly of inviting a large class who have contributed nothing to the treasury of civilization to share in its management and control, even permitting them to mismanage, misuse and waste it. “That the tax eaters should not have absolute control over the taxes to be expended by the tax payers would appear to be entirely axiomatic truth in political philosophy.... That this suffrage is a spear as well as a shield is a fact which many writers on suffrage leave out of sight.” (Sterne, Const. History, p. 270.) Those who made this country what it is are the thrifty workers, the successful business men. Now, is it asking too much to demand that the destiny of the country should be placed in their hands? Is it fair that government should be put under the control of the wasteful and the foolish, that they may burden it with debt, and bond their thrifty fellow citizens and all future generations to pay off the obligations thus imposed upon the nation?
A purely sentimental and therefore very popular argument against property qualification is that the rights and claims of humanity are separate from and superior to those of property. This statement has really nothing to do with the case, since it is not proposed to exclude humanity from the polls, but merely to select for admission thereto a superior and more representative class. It is said by these sentimentalists that the rights of man are absolute and transcendent and must first be satisfied, while those of property are inferior and may be disregarded. This is on the absurd assumption that civilized manand his property are separable and distinct forces; and that a conception of civilized man without property is possible. And so we are assailed with the catch phrase, popular with penny papers and platform ranters: “Man is superior to property.” This, like most catch phrases, is found, when examined, to be rather empty. Man is superior to property just as the head is superior to the stomach, as the fruit of the tree is superior to the roots. But when the stomach is neglected the head dies; when the root is not nourished the fruit perishes; the only way to preserve the head is to feed the stomach; the only way to produce the fruit is to fertilize the roots. Man in a state of civilization cannot exist without property; if you sacrifice his property you sacrifice him. The imagined comparison of the value of human life in its entirety with human property in the aggregate is absurd, it presents an impossible choice. How, for instance, can you balance the value of human life against that of the New York Croton Aqueduct system which conserves the life of millions? Carry out the notion that all property should be sacrificed rather than that one man should perish, and you have the spectacle of a people without food, fire, clothes, shelter or medicines, whereof not merely the one sacred man, but the whole lot would perish forthwith. On the other hand, a comparison of the value of individual life with that of individual property depends on the character of the life and of the property referred to. Whatever we may pretend we do not practically treat the life of a human being as such, say for instance, that of a savage, as equivalent in value to the highest forms of property such as our great works of art, our great public works, or the material equipment necessary to our subsistence. It is probable that the aggregate of the accumulated treasures of wealth and art which existed in Europe at the time of the discovery of America was worth to civilization and to the moral and religious universe a million times more than all the savage human life on the North American continent at that time. To the existence of this accumulation of property and this organized society not only the well-to-do, but the most ignorant man, be he ever so poor, owes whatever enjoyment he has in his daily life. The little naked child is brought into the world by the aid of physicians and nurses who have been trained in great institutions established and sustained by organized civilized society through the medium of property accumulated by the men of years and generations past; and from his birth on, the child, whatever be his station, is clothed, fed, sheltered and nourished in sickness and in health; trained, educated, watched over and preserved as long as he lives, by the aid of institutions which were created and are maintained by Society through the accumulation, the use and the application of property. The poorest individual is more indebted to property accumulations and is more dependent upon them in time of need than the richest, because it is only from them that charities and benevolences of all kinds, outdoor relief, free hospitals, dispensaries, schools, colleges and churches can be maintained. Even Robinson Crusoe on his island would have perished had it not been for the use of such products of high civilization as he was able to save from the wreck.
Following the argument founded on the justice of the case comes that based upon the superior fitness of members of the propertied class for the function of voters. This fitness is derived from the training which is incidental to the acquisition and care of property in the struggle for life. The property qualification for voters is in effect an educational test, and far more effective than that of mere book learning, which so often turns out to be quite insufficient as a preparation for the conduct of human affairs, and is equally insufficient for the understanding of politics. There is an education in life as well as in books and the education in life is the more valuable of the two. To have acquired and preserved property implies not only ordinary school or theoretical education, but business training as well, and as government is mostly a business affair a property qualification presupposes a special preparatory course of trainingof the kind which is the best of all for the voter, and in addition such civic and political virtues as are necessary to success in business. “In politics, as elsewhere, only that which costs is valued. The industrial virtues imply self-denial, which prepares their possessors to wield political power; but pauperism raises a presumption of unfitness to share in political power. The person who cannot support himself has no moral claim to rule one who can.” (Lalor’sCyclopedia;Suffrage.)
It is the actual contact with, and the masterful control of the things of life that fits a man to give judgment on their force and value; and his success therein is the test of his own capacity. In a very able and instructive article on “The Basic Problem of Democracy” in theAtlantic Monthlyfor November, 1919, written by Walter Lipman, he dwells upon the proposition heretofore generally overlooked that what is most needed in our political system is some means of giving the electorate true information as to facts. He says: