CHAPTER XX

“Rather, they would say, interdict office holders from participation in politics; appoint them by competition, however absurd competition may sometimes appear, choose them by lot, like the Athenians and Florentines; only do not let offices be tenable at the pleasure of party chiefs and lie in the uncontrolled patronage of persons who can use them to strengthen their own political position.” (American Commonwealth, Vol. II, p. 609.)

The present writer has been unable to think of anything worse to say of our present system of political appointments than this statement that it is worse than appointments by lot. Let it go at that.

This is not the only country where men are dazzled by a vision of rotation in office. The golden dream of public place as an idle refuge, to be occupied in turn by lucky politicians, with opportunity for respectable theft, is much indulged in in Cuba and the Central and South American republics, and assists in the promotion of revolutions in those countries. They feel there, that a bright and active man in a good office, ought to be able in from three to five years to steal his share, and should then be willing to retire in favor of someone else. For similar reasons, a political party should go out every fewyears and give the others a chance. This doctrine is accepted even by independent onlookers of those countries, who often sympathize with the hungry outs in their natural desire to get their turn at the public chest. And this is why, when President Menocal’s first Cuban term of four years expired, the opposition felt so outraged that he and his party should not be willing to rotate out of office, that a revolution would probably have supervened had it not been for the Platt Amendment. The faults of foreigners are very conspicuous in our eyes, and therefore the reader will surely agree that these foreign gangs of political adventurers, whose only thought of their country is to drain her blood, are a scurvy and contemptible lot, whose greed and lack of patriotism are abominable. As for our own professional office seekers, now planning for their next turn it is safest to say nothing; they may be our masters in a few days or months, and prudence is a profitable virtue.

THE EFFECT OF THE OPERATION OF MANHOOD SUFFRAGE HAS BEEN TO GIVE A LOWER TONE TO AMERICAN PUBLIC LIFE.

Thereis a quality in an individual, an association of individuals, a community or a public institution, which though difficult to describe in exact terms is everywhere well recognized as something valuable and important, and is often referred to as “tone” or “style” or “distinction.” A youth who goes to college, travels, and then enters on a business career acquires in ten years a different “tone” from his homekeeping brother. It is not merely dress, or manners, or education; it is separate from all these; it produces an effort comparable to that of the toning up of a musical instrument, and applies to the man’s acts, gestures, and thoughts; giving him a different and mayhap higher place in the world and in the regard of his fellows. So we find clubs, associations, communities whose tone is higher or lower than others, and are therefore esteemed or contemned accordingly. The tone of an institution sensibly affects its character; we feel its influence and are affected by it. No one for instance, can visit the Supreme Court of the United States or West Point Academy without immediately appreciating the superior tone or atmosphere of the institution. And so the government of a nation, its public life, has a tone, an atmosphere which all the world recognizes as higher or lower in quality than that found elsewhere. The tone of the administrations of the early presidents from George Washington to John Quincy Adams, covering a period of forty years, was high; all the world recognized the fact; Americans were proud of it; it was something of a value notto be measured by dollars, nor by power or cleverness; it was a fine emanation of the lofty ambitions and high traditions of our governing class; it meant that our country was ruled and represented by gentlemen. We all somehow realize that that tone and atmosphere have vanished; they are mere memories, like the old stage coaches, knee breeches and hoopskirts of our ancestors; and now we have a low tone in almost every department of public life; in some of them it is even mean and vulgar. It is not necessary to offer proof of this statement, the fact is practically involved in much that has been already presented to the reader in this volume; it is something which everyone can confirm who has had much contact with public officials, or who is familiar with the daily current reports concerning their character and methods. The knavery that has been systematically perpetrated here, under the name of politics for the last three generations, could not possibly have gone on, without a distinct degradation of the moral and social tone of our political life. Lord Bryce though a liberal in politics has discovered that the attempt of the multitude to govern involves the danger of “A certain commonness of mind and tone, a want of dignity and elevation in and about the conduct of public affairs, and insensibility to the nobler aspects and final responsibilities of national life” and that such a tendency is more or less observable in the United States; and he adds, “The tone of public life is lower than one expects to find it in so great a nation.... In no country is the ideal side of public life, what one may venture to call the heroic element in a public career, so ignored by the mass and repudiated by the leaders. This affects not only the elevation but the independence and courage of public men; and the country suffers from the want of what we call distinction in its conspicuous force.” (Bryce,American Commonwealth, Vol. II, pp. 583-585.) The language of this criticism is mild, in accordance with the style of the book, which is that of studied friendliness and compliment to the American people and government; but the plain truth is there, though the accents aregentle. Lord Bryce was disappointed to find a people whom he elsewhere describes in this same book as generous, high-minded and patriotic, in the political control of a lot of low politicians. The learned author, in common with some American writers, professes to be at a loss to account for this sad state of things; there has been a remarkable shutting of eyes to the sins of manhood suffrage. But it is impossible to deny that the low public tone which we have all observed and all regret came in with that institution.

This is from another eminent writer:

“There is a risk of vulgarizing the whole tone, method and conduct of public business. We see how completely this has been done in North America,—a country far more fitted, at least in the Northern States, for the democratic experiment than any old country can be. Nor must we imagine that this vulgarity of tone is a mere external expression, not affecting the substance of what is thought or interfering with the policy of the nation; no defect really eats away so soon the political ability of a nation. A vulgar tone of discussion disgusts cultivated minds with the subject of politics: they will not apply themselves to master a topic which besides its natural difficulties, is encumbered with disgusting phrases, low arguments, and the undisguised language of coarse selfishness.” (Bagehot,Parliamentary Reform, p. 316.)

Treitschke on this subject utters a despairing note.

“The strongest lungs always prevail with the mob, and there is now no hope of eliminating that peculiar touch of brutality and that coarsening and vulgarizing element which has entered into public life. These consequences are unavoidable, and undoubtedly react upon the whole moral outlook of the people; just as the unchecked railing and lying of the platform corrupts the tone of daily intercourse. Beyond this comes the further danger that the really educated classes withdraw more and more from a political struggle which adopts such methods.” (Politics, Vol. II, p. 198.)

A low tone is the sign and indication of low ideals, which dwelling with and in a man or institution influence his or its thought, act and self manifestation. The ideals of cheap andcommon men, and of those who live by catering to them, are alike cheap and common. There is a politics which consists of a study of principles applied to government; in that pursuit the ideals are necessarily lofty; it was their presence which gave the tone to the administrations of the first six presidents. There is a politics which consists in a systematic pursuit of jobs and places; it is that which has mainly characterized the administrations from Jackson downwards. The resultant loss to the nation is additional to that caused by the waste, inefficiency, mismanagement and political despotism already described; and though this lowering of tone is of course implied in the decline of political morals heretofore discussed, it yet constitutes a separate and additional public misfortune. We can imagine a moral descent without a corresponding falling off in outward behavior, as in the French Court of Louis XV; but in our country, the two declines have been contemporaneous.

Much will have to be done before this can be corrected, but one remedy is absolutely essential, and that is the elevation and perfection of the electorate. The degradation of the tone and destruction of the old-time dignity of American political life which we all so much deplore is the work of manhood suffrage, immediately followed it, belongs to it and is inseparable from it. If we would restore tone and dignity to our politics we must begin with the electorate; we must create a body of unpurchasable voters; men who have shown that they are free from the ordinary temptations of corrupt politics by earning a good living in other ways which they have preferred to politics; men pecuniarily independent, who have a stake in the country; something, nay much to lose, and nothing to gain by misgovernment; men, therefore, whose ideals in government matters are purity and efficiency. By that class of prosperous middle class men, high ideals may be and always have been adopted; they are of the proper combination of energy, capacity and independence. It is impossible for most men to cultivate lofty ideals when they are hourly strugglingfor a mere subsistence; one cannot think philosophically when he is in actual need, nor when in danger of being in need. No part of the burden of government should be put upon such shoulders as those of the needy class, the residuum, the derelicts, the pecuniarily unfortunates or incapables of our civilization. We can only elevate our political tone to the level of the time of Washington and John Quincy Adams by elevating our electorate to the plane which it occupied when it selected them and others of their type to represent it in the high places of government.

GENERAL PRIVATE AND PUBLIC CONDEMNATION BY THE INTELLIGENT CLASSES OF MANHOOD SUFFRAGE POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT IN THE UNITED STATES; AND HEREIN OF WATCH DOGS AND YELLOW DOGS.

Agoodtest of the character of a man or an institution is public reputation; let us apply that test in this case. Manhood suffrage, its methods, its politics, and its officialdom are generally not merely distrusted, but scorned, held in utter contempt and openly repudiated by the most intelligent classes of Americans. With the exception of a few among them who consider it their bounden duty to do civic missionary work, those classes take no active part in politics; many of them do not even vote, others only vote for president, entirely disregarding state and local elections; most of them totally neglect the primaries; many of them do not even know the names of their representatives in Congress. As for the obscure politicians who sit in the city and state legislatures they are absolutely beneath the social or political vision of most of our well-to-do and well-educated people. No really worldly wise American father recommends his son to enter public life; its snares and dangers and the lack of esteem in which public officials are held are too well known. Of course to many ambitious and inexperienced young men there is much temptation in a political career. The prospect of addressing political meetings, of being called “Senator” or “Judge,” of receiving mail addressed “Hon.,” of dealing with public measures, and of figuring in the newspapers, is alluring to many a young college graduate; while poor young lawyers are often tempted to struggle for public office by the salary attached thereto. They find later that the reward of politics is Dead Sea fruit that turns to ashes on the lips; even the successful ones are usually disappointed; the pay is small; it is part of the manhood suffrage meanness to court the applause of the low-waged rabble or the no-wage loafers by keeping down official salaries; the incidental expenses are many and annoying, including small loans to hangers on and other petty exactions; to get money out of politics it is necessary to be crafty and more or less dishonest. The young adventurer is disappointed in his aspirations for glory; the newspaper notices are few and frequently uncomplimentary; he finds that the platform at public meetings is usually reserved either for a notoriety of some sort or a blatherskite; and instead of enjoying public respect he encounters a pushing familiarity, which is most offensive even when it comes disguised as flattery from obsequious job hunters. Probably no business or profession has been in such disrepute, or has offered so much that is mean, sordid and repulsive to a noble nature, as has politics since manhood suffrage was ordained in this country.

Under the property qualification régime young politicians had the inspiration of great and highly respected leaders, and the incentive of a prospect of ultimately filling their places. Among such leaders in New York in the first quarter of the nineteenth century were Alexander Hamilton; John Jay; James Kent; De Witt Clinton; John Lansing; Rufus King; Gouverneur Morris; Robert R. Livingston; Brockholst Livingston; William W. Van Ness; Daniel D. Tompkins; Nicholas Fish; Erastus Root; John C. Spencer and William L. Marcy; fifteen distinguished names; a number proportionately according to population equivalent to one hundred and fifty at the present time. Each of them was eminent in something; most of them in several things; and all are still illustrious in the annals of the state. Some of their political acts are open to criticism, but they were all men of superior mentality, for the old system put the best brains we had into politics, while the present system inevitably puts into public place the cheapest andpoorest, so that we are now, as Bagehot says, “deprived of the tangible benefits we derive from the application to politics of thoroughly cultivated minds.”

The present public attitude towards officialdom not only indicates a steady consciousness of its inferiority, but a disbelief in its honesty and a plain distrust of its intentions. By many persons, officialdom and the people are supposed to be engaged in chronic warfare, and office holders as soon as chosen are assumed to be potential rascals; so that it becomes the presumptive duty of every patriotic organization and of every public-spirited citizen to watch their every movement and to sound the alarm at each of their expected attacks on the rights of the people. Eternal vigilance is popularly urged as the only means of security against the misconduct or calamitous blundering of the office-holding politicians. Nor is this attitude confined to the upper classes. Politicians are fond of pretending affection for the working people and that the manhood suffrage was a gift especially to that class. But none more than the wage earners mistrust politicians; they are the first to suspect official misconduct, and the most outspoken in its denunciation. Listen to their comments when a public question comes up in which they are concerned. They are not then heard to say that their interests are safe in the hands of the good officials chosen by the people; they are more apt to complain of improper influence, “frame-ups,” bribery actually suspected or expected, “playing politics” and the like. Many of them in despair of democracy have become socialists, and find in the rascality and inefficiency of the manhood suffrage government of the day ample material for argument. The remainder unable to see any possibility of a remedy usually assume an attitude of resignation, evincing a desire to profit by whatever little pickings may be had from the political feasts of the more fortunate. The attitude of the intelligent middle classes is more frankly hostile and aggressive than that of the wage earners; it does not, unfortunately, take the shape of a demand for a higher basis for suffrage, but of a persistentopposition to the characteristic operations of manhood suffrage government, such as appropriation of the spoils, and to its various political expedients to please the rabble or bamboozle the public. It is practically assumed by the middle class citizen, that officialdom is inimical to the public welfare; and, especially in the great cities, there is a steady and outspoken demand for a remedy for the present notorious misgovernment; that something be done to protect Society against its enemies, the politicians in and out of office.

This feeling of American distrust of our own public servants is frequently apparent in legislation enacted as a result of agitation following one of the numerous revelations of official misconduct. Thus, in some cities the police power has been taken entirely out of the hands of the local authorities and lodged in the government of the state. One reform city charter of St. Louis provided that the mayor elected for four years could not remove any official till his own third year in office. These and many similar statutes are in effect formal assertions of the complete breakdown of manhood suffrage; that the elected municipal officials cannot be trusted either to police the city or to remove or appoint subordinate officers. The mayor under such a system has to manage the best he can with deputies over whom he has little or no control. It seems as if political imbecility could go no farther than to create a system under which the mayor of the city is certain to be untrustworthy and must therefore be deprived of power to control his subordinates. And yet no doubt these provisions were but the recognition of the desperate situation of a manhood suffrage municipality. In one of the instances just referred to the object of the city charter seems to have been to vary the misery; two years chaos and two years ring-rule, turnabout.

This feeling of despondent suspicion is constantly being voiced by the middle-class newspapers and by groups of prominent citizens, by committees of fifty, of one hundred, etc., in circular appeals distributed by the ten thousand to all men ofany standing in the community, urging them to “fight” as it is called, day and night, to save the town, city, county, state and nation from disaster. A stranger reading one of these urgent calls would naturally ask with curiosity for the names of the enemies to be thus attacked; are they Huns, Bolsheviki, hoodlums, gunmen, rioters or what? The grotesquely pathetic answer is that they are all our neighbors, our fellow citizens, nay, our “Honorable” fellow citizens; elected by ourselves by large majorities last year, last month, or yesterday perhaps, or appointed by men whom we have ourselves recently elected; they are his honor the mayor; honorable members of the city or state legislature; of boards of supervisors; of Congress; of this and that public commission; of the state governments; officials of every class, both elective and appointed, county, city, state, and federal. It is not against hostile outsiders or natural adversaries, but against our own manhood suffrage officials that we have to “fight”; it is these officials and their associates, agents, and party superiors or “bosses” who we are told by press and pulpit, in newspaper, book and magazine, in private conversation and in public address, and above all at the meetings of independent citizens and reformers, are the actual or potential enemies, furtive or open, conscious or unconscious, of good government, of our pocket-books, our health, our comfort, and our lives. We are urgently reminded that our manhood suffrage government is by no means to be trusted; that the only hope of tolerable government is to arouse every good citizen to an attitude and a habit of constant distrust of our chosen representatives and rulers and to regard them with sleepless jealousy and suspicion. It is not enough to vote; you must attend primaries; nay more, you must anticipate the primaries and plan to elect certain primary candidates and to defeat others; even when your own men are chosen, you cannot safely trust them; you must doubt every member of Congress, every legislator and every official, including those just seated by your own vote; you must suspect every new proposal, every legislative bill,every municipal ordinance; a good citizen will watch them all; he will at private expense procure advance copies of all of them; he will if he can employ a lawyer to study them; he will join all kinds of political organizations and attend all their meetings, and will use constant vigilance to see that these organizations are not “captured” or purchased by the politicians, and that he himself is not captured without suspecting it, so wily are these political experts and so cunning and numerous are the snares and temptations of political life. Nor is even this all; he must work up and join deputations to the sessions of the municipal administration and to those of the town and county authorities, to the state capitol, to Washington; he must write to the newspapers, he and others must at times bombard Congress and the state legislature and their committees with letters and telegrams. In short the system is this: you select the incapable and worthless for office and then wear your soul out in efforts to keep them from blundering and plundering. Common sense would suggest the selection in the first place of men who could be trusted; and if the method of selection failed, to replace it by a better one; but this cannot be done; manhood suffrage though rotten is sacred, and those who have the patience and courage continue their endeavors to make a marble temple of justice out of a mud electorate.

This widespread attitude of suspicion and resentment toward public officials, originally private and individual, has of late years become open, formal and public through the systematic activities of clubs and associations of supposedly disinterested and public-spirited citizens principally located in large cities; non-partisan in character, and organized for the purpose of preventing or undoing the more flagrant of the illegal, immoral and improper operations of state and local governments. In plain words, just as we have detectives to watch thieves, so we have voluntary associations to watch public officials. This sounds queer, but it is true. And these societies founded on contempt and distrust of officialdom arenot made up of eccentrics; they include some of the most intelligent men in their respective communities; they are kept busily employed a large part of every year; and are sustained by the best public opinion in their open opposition to the measures proposed by the manhood suffrage officials, and in their frequent active hostility to the officials themselves. These associations may well be called “watch dog” societies, their function being to protect the community from political wolves; to bark loudly on any attempt of theirs to rob the sheepfold and thus either to scare them off or to give such warning as will result in their designs being frustrated. Thus we have in almost every city and town “Taxpayers Associations”; “Citizens Associations”; “Good Government Clubs”; “Public Welfare Societies”; “Patriotic Societies”; “Security Leagues”; and the like; some temporary but others permanent bodies, formed for general supervision and bringing to book of legislators and public officials. These watch dog societies are always on the alert; ready to receive complaints from any source; to investigate them through committees, and to attack anybody and anything in what they may choose to consider the public interest. They even employ private detectives and lawyers in these enterprises, just as in pursuit of criminal offenders; and they are usually able to get newspapers to support them and to publish bitter attacks not merely upon individual office holders but on entire boards, departments, committees, legislatures and congresses, and sometimes the courts; whereby the public are told over and over again that these official bodies, composed as they are of from five to five hundred men each, are inefficient and corrupt. There is no pretence on the part of some of these societies of concealment of their mean opinion of the office holders, especially those elected by the popular vote. One of them, the New York Citizens Union, publishes an annual statement containing notes of the character and record of each of the local representatives in the state legislature, some of them far from complimentary, and all critical and superior in tone, like the reportof a master of a reform school on the behavior of the pupils. In fact, though these watch dogs do not directly attack the institution of manhood suffrage, their attitude towards its creatures in state and city government is that of a policeman toward a professional criminal. This practice of auxiliary and supervisory government by organized meddlers is well expounded in a book ably written by W. H. Allen of New York, Director of the Bureau of Municipal Research; a man of sufficient experience in political life to have learned its diseased condition, and to earnestly desire a palliative of its evil symptoms, but who is without apparent hope of discovering or extirpating the cause of the disease. He wrote the book for the purpose of inducing citizens, especially women, to attend to their civic duties, and he urges his readers to join one or more of these watch dog organizations and to actively prosecute their work. (Woman’s Part in Government.)

Examples of the operations of these societies are easily found, since they by no means hide their lights. It will be sufficient here to refer to a recent one as a sample. In January 1917, and again in April 1917, one of the best known of the associations, the City Club of New York, filed with the Governor a complaint against the District Attorney, charging him in effect with gross misconduct in connection with certain prosecutions for homicide. The Club employed lawyers to prosecute the charges and there was a furious, scandalous and prolonged controversy in the courts, in the public press and before the Governor, involving beside the District Attorney himself some of his assistants and others. Another powerful watchdog association is the well-known Chicago Voters League, established in 1896. The League claims that at that time of the sixty-eight members of the Chicago City Council only ten were even liable to a suspicion of honesty, while the rest were organized into a gang for plunder and blackmail. To correct this situation the League was established and still operates. Its self-perpetuating Executive Committee of Nine publicly opposes and condemns candidates for the City Council and directs the citizens how to vote. This, of course, amounts to a qualified oligarchy; in conformity with the usual tendency of manhood suffrage, to create ring government in one way or another.

The whole attitude of these watch dog associations towards the constituted civil authorities is most extraordinary, in view of the respectability of most of their membership, and strikingly illustrates the deplorable results of manhood suffrage. Their general scheme of action is founded on the open assumption of each of them that its members are superior in wisdom, honesty, patriotism and knowledge of public affairs to the officials whom they denounce, lecture and admonish; and, by implication that these members are superior also to the constituents who elected these office holders. The state legislature and other public bodies are watched closely, and when a measure in which any of these societies or their controlling members actually have or choose to feign a great interest is before any legislative body or official board for action or determination, the agents of the interested association begin to interfere; the public officials having the matter in hand are not allowed to deliberate and decide impartially and coolly even should they desire to do so; they are scolded, coaxed, threatened, bullied and wheedled into doing what the association desires. Some of these private associations have funds subscribed by individuals, or arising from the collection of dues; they are therefore able to employ lawyers to prepare arguments and briefs and political agents to go about soliciting signatures; arrangements are made for a systematic campaign directed towards the officials concerned, who are bombarded with letters, telegrams, postal cards and petitions; sometimes public meetings large or small are organized, and resolutions couched in peremptory language are passed and presented at the proper quarters. Should the officials prove refractory, they are apt to find their motives impugned, their “records” and personal history unearthed, and their characters publicly assailed, all from the same source. All this, which oftenamounts to coercion, is so frequently practised upon public bodies and their members as to have become a recognized feature of American public life.

A large addition to the list of political scandals contained in this book might be made by recourse to the archives of these watch dog associations and to the published reports of the charges made by them from time to time against the membership of the state and city legislative and administrative bodies, and to the evidence collected by them in support thereof, but space will not permit even the most condensed recital of this material. Let it suffice to present here the societies themselves, composed as they are of thousands of our citizens of best standing and information, as witnesses to the bad character and reputation of manhood suffrage. By their very existence they go far to establish the significant fact that the manhood suffrage state and local governments of the United States have utterly forfeited the respect and confidence of the American people.

It must not be supposed that by the work of these watch dog associations the evil of manhood suffrage operations is sensibly alleviated. On the contrary, when carefully considered, that work, though presumably well intended, must be considered as a public misfortune, and as resulting in an aggravation rather than a diminution of the evils of our misgovernment. In an individual instance their efforts may produce good effects limited to that special transaction, just as might be said of any voluntary interference with constituted authority; but in theory and in principle and in the large and final results, the practice of such interference is and must be politically noxious, and the case to justify it even in one instance must be indeed extreme. The public-spirited citizens who form an important part of their membership probably do not realize just what they are doing when they coerce the will of the chosen representatives of the people. They would be horrified at the suggestion of using physical force or physical threats upon legislators to compel them to deviate from their ownbest judgment; and yet they do not scruple to use what they call moral force to the same purpose, and such moral force as almost amounts to physical stress and coercion. The difference in effect between threatening a member of the legislature with a cudgel or with printed defamation issued by a powerful clique or league is not always appreciable. In either case the general result is the adoption of measures or modifications thereof reflecting rather the views of the threatening meddler than those of the public official in question or of the majority who elected him. This is a clear usurpation of power. Again, the watch dog operations do not offer any permanent result in return for this trampling down of popular government; their programme includes no method of improving the quality of our officials but only one for watching and nagging them. Third, it offers no security whatever that the volunteer or self-appointed government censors shall themselves be competent or worthy, or that they shall be anything more than idle and presumptuous fools or designing hypocrites. Fourth, others less worthy and disinterested, are by the example of these societies encouraged to similar acts. So that the final result of the watch dog plan is likely to amount to no more or other than this actual situation: A number of corrupt, weak and worthless legislatures, town boards, city councils, boards of supervisors, etc., constantly nagged, worried, insulted and pulled this way and that, by all kinds of people, including watch dog associations and their officers, newspaper men, cranks, fanatics, busybodies generally and possibly scamps and adventurers. Even suppose we make the extravagant supposition that no knaves or fools whatever, but only the better type of citizens do and will respond to the appeal to organize to boss the bosses, the system is still impracticable, and if practicable would be mischievous; since it would result in oligarchical tyranny. For the work proposed for these civic organizations and for their members would be enormous; it would require an acquaintance with legislative and other political methods far beyond that possible to any one who hasany other business; it would necessitate among other things the careful scrutiny and thorough understanding of every bill or resolution introduced into the state or municipal legislature, and a steady watch from day to day of each of these bills, and of the members of the bodies where they may be pending, and especially of those of the committees having them under consideration. Besides this it involves the defense of every step taken, at the cost of endless controversy. As the ordinary citizen cannot possibly undertake this labor of supervising oversight of government activities, it is evident that if done at all by this volunteer method, it must fall to a comparatively few people who have means and leisure, or who have special interests to serve; or more likely, to hirelings employed by those people.

The result of the watch dog programme even if successfully carried out, would therefore be the creation of animperium in imperio; an irresponsible self-created governing oligarchy acting through the present class of worthless and corrupt politicians. A more complicated and mischievous political system nor one more likely to produce tyranny and public scandals could scarcely be devised. But though the watch dog scheme cannot be approved, its actual existence is a strong argument against manhood suffrage; for though bad reputation is not of itself proof of misconduct, yet it usually accompanies wrong doing; and when evidence of evil reputation is here added to the general as well as particular proof already furnished of the mischiefs resulting from manhood suffrage, the case against that system can hardly fail to be so materially strengthened as to be practically unanswerable.

The weakness and inferiority of our public officials afford opportunity for interference by another set of meddlers in public affairs who are of inferior breed to the watch dogs, and for the infusion of eccentric and fanatical ideas and theories into legislation and administration, such as would not occur in a well-founded governmental system. The class referred to is composed of political adventurers, eccentrics, cranks, andfanatics; people whose mental vision is inaccurate; who are out of harmony with nature and its operations, and whose undisciplined minds are filled with impracticable theories. Many of them are well-to-do idlers able to give time to the agitation of any cause they may happen to espouse. Compared with the watch dogs they are as the yellow dogs of politics. They function in every state as promoters of crank legislation, the history whereof in the United States would no doubt make, if compiled, a very interesting volume, containing many surprises to the general reader. While sane and prudent men are content to confine their attention to their private affairs, and while modest men, be they ever so well informed, are apt to doubt their own capacity in affairs of state, a certain class of cranks are always eager to meddle with politics; full of conceit they are not troubled with doubts as to the correctness of their own opinions. When one such takes up a fad, religious, moral, political or social, he becomes more and more engrossed in it; nothing else matters to him half so much; family and business are neglected; he writes for the newspapers; he attends and organizes public meetings; he serves on committees; he makes speeches; he circulates literature; he contributes to the cause within his means, which sometimes are large, and collects for it from others. When a “movement” as it is called is once fairly started it is sure to be joined by many with ulterior motives, impelled by vanity, by mere love of notoriety, by fondness for excitement; by those who seek the pleasure of serving on committees, of speaking in public, or of seeing their names in print; others come to make new acquaintances; to escape ennui; to become politically important. Under a strong and intelligent government these collections of faddists, adventurers, humbugs and fools would do little more harm than so many debating societies; but when, as now, those in power are of mediocre ability, weak calibre or politically timid, such societies are potent for mischief. The ordinary politician holding an office obtained perhaps by a majority of a few votes, or otherwise precarious inits tenure is easily frightened by a show of organization. Where the proposed new measure is one opposed to the pecuniary or political interests of the bosses the cranks get but slight attention; but where there are only principles involved their chances for success are often very good indeed. The fact that they are armed with theories however foolish, makes them appear mysterious and redoubtable antagonists to small politicians, who cannot understand principles or the motives of people professing principles. The official finds himself confronted and baited by an inexorable pack of those yellow dogs, small in number, but terrible in noise and clamor, who give him no rest; while on the other hand the sane and sensible folk of his constituency are not only silent and apparently indifferent but scarcely seem aware (as indeed most of them are not) of his name or existence. Getting no orders from his boss, who takes no interest in the matter one way or another, what wonder if the weary legislator or administrator, either becomes half convinced by the din of arguments which he is too weak or ignorant to answer, or frightened by the criticism he is receiving, yields at last with a sigh of relief. And so the crank project often goes through without public notice except the applause of the agitators, who print a triumphant account in the newspapers of the adoption of another “reform measure” and get one of their members to write it up in some magazine with a laudatory reference to himself and his associates. The effect of “crank” or yellow dog influence upon our weak state governments is another of the evil results of manhood suffrage.

THE ELECTORATE FUNCTIONS NOT BY ITS INDIVIDUALS BUT BY GROUPS WHEREBY THE ENFRANCHISEMENT OF THE SHIFTLESS AND IGNORANT GROUP NECESSARILY TENDS TO CREATE A VICIOUS POWER IN POLITICS.

Mostof us have from time to time in the course of our lives, heard a good deal of indignation expressed by worthy citizens over the politicians’ organization and use of the controllable vote. But if we give a little thought to the manner in which the electoral representative system actually and necessarily operates, we will see that the organization of the non-propertied voters was a perfectly natural, and one might say an inevitable result of their enfranchisement. It was a step to which they were and are practically invited by the situation itself, and for taking which neither they nor their leaders are logically blamable. The only people to be criticised are those who opened the door to this class of voters. The unpropertied vote became an organized group, because it could not otherwise function in our political system, which operates entirely though groups or classes and ignores the individual. A few of the astute public men of a century ago understood this; the mass did not; they imagined that in extending the suffrage to the unpropertied, the incapables, they were conferring a harmless compliment upon scattered individuals whose votes would be distributed among those of the other classes, and absorbed in the general mass without perceptible effect. Had this been the only result, the gift of the vote would have been a barren one, costing the givers nothing and of no benefit to the recipients. But far from being empty, it was costly, it was real, and the newly enfranchised immediately made use of it, as wehave seen, forming themselves into effective groups for the accomplishment of their own small and sordid desires. And so the generation of Americans who saw manhood suffrage established, were astonished to find shortly after, that the voting power was almost suddenly taken out of their hands by a new force in politics. They have never been able to get it back, and most people do not yet understand the theory of what has occurred. They do not comprehend, their ancestors of the last century did not comprehend that the enfranchisement of the unpropertied voters meant that they were invited not merely as individuals, but as a class, and through their own local groups or subdivisions to take such part in forming the government as they were able. It was not merely that they were enfranchised as a body, but that our political system is such that only by groups, classes and factions can any share in the government be obtained. This fact is so important, and though patent to every one its significance has been so generally overlooked, that it deserves the entire chapter allotted to it in this volume.

In our scheme of government the individual voter as such counts for absolutely nothing. Our elective system is not, as so many believe, at all intended or contrived as a medium of individual political expression, but as a means for measuring the force of groups, factions and parties and of creating majorities. The gift of the ballot is intended for collective and not for individual employment and advantage. It does not imply as is commonly supposed the right of a man “to govern himself” nor to have his individual opinions and wishes considered and acted upon. It necessarily implies joint and not individual action; the individual voter is only remotely a factor in the process of government making; the direct factors whereof are groups, factions and parties. The separate voter’s influence is no more than that of a component atom in a large moving body, and just as the snowflake cannot move the steam engine till it ceases to be a snowflake and becomes part of a volume of steam, so the individual cannot becomeany part of the moving power in politics till he merges his individuality into some of the political groups or factions of the community.

Although these plain facts are never mentioned by the politicians, the newspapers or the twaddlers who write text-books on American democracy, yet every sensible man realizes that when he votes to any effect he is really obeying orders. If he should write his true and individual choice for governor or alderman, it would probably be some worthy man of his acquaintance whose name does not appear on any official ballot or designation whatever, and his vote thus cast would be a nullity; scorned and thrown aside by the inspectors; not counted; returned as “scattering.” Knowing that a vote for his individual choice will be disregarded, he feels practically compelled to accept the candidate of some group, faction or party; one with whom he has no personal acquaintance whatever; and who if elected will represent not the voter at all, nor his views, but the combination which put him forward, and which has an existence, a history, leaders and motives of its own. Therefore, in the act of voting, your would-be independent citizen, willy nilly, surrenders his individuality just as completely, and is practically just as subservient to the group or party managers as any political heeler of the local boss. Nor does the citizen by the contribution of his vote become entitled to the slightest share of control over the group which he has thus strengthened; that group may have some political weight, while he has none that is appreciable. If he wants to talk politics he may of course do so if he can get a listener; it will usually be as effective a performance as the child blowing on the mainsail of a ship at sea.

The ordinary plain citizen in a democratic community of ten thousand votes may suppose that he has the privilege of exercising one ten thousandth part of the governing power of that community. He flatters himself. If he belongs either to no group or to the minority group or faction, he has and exercises absolutely no part whatever in, or influence upon, thecommunity’s policy or government. If he affiliates with the majority party, his part in government is very far from being represented by his fractional share of its numbers. His faction or party has a life and will of its own, and unless he has a place in its directing mind, he has no influence upon its movements or operations. His importance is comparable with that of a member of a volunteer military body or procession marching in obedience to orders from headquarters. The individual member may remain on the sidewalk or go home, in either of which cases he will have no part in the function; but even should he join in the procession he will be entirely without say or influence concerning its movements. His only effect will be as one of the constituent atoms of a body which has an existence, mind and direction of its own apart from and superior to and controlling that of each of its members.

Notwithstanding this obvious situation, impossible to deny, most people fail to realize it, and many cannot see or will not admit even to themselves the futility of individual voting. The illusion of the value of an independent vote, the product of self-conceit and political superstition exists in the minds of numbers of intelligent men, and daily manifests itself in the cant and rubbish of every-day speech. A very large proportion of American men like to believe or pretend that they believe, that an effective vote can really be cast by the individual citizen expressive of his own individual will and spontaneous desire, and that thereby such will and desire will be manifested and reflected in the policy and acts of the government. The privilege of casting this impossible vote is by such a man imagined as one of the inestimable privileges of American citizenship. He is, he proudly thinks, an independent voter, free from party trammels; and he fondly supposes that by so much as he holds himself aloof from party organization is his voted opinion the more valuable and effective. We frequently hear a man threaten to vote against this and that candidate; sometimes, filled with self-importance, he notifies his newspaper of his dire intention; others who have not evenmembership in any party gravely tell you that you should always vote for somebody, that it is your duty to do so, and having themselves voted for men of whose policies they have not the slightest knowledge or control, try to fancy that they have employed their time and shoe leather to great advantage. The fact is that these self-styled independent voters are in all this the happy victims of pleasant delusions. Each of them is either a party voter or a mere trifler. When he pretends to revolt from political control, he usually does nothing of the kind; he simply changes his vote from the candidate of one set of politicians to the candidate of the other set. In other words, instead of being independent, he joins, for the time at least, the other party or group and finds himself compelled to surrender his individual preferences and to vote the name they give him. If he really selects his own independent candidate and votes for him, his vote is practically lost; his act is futile; it is a vote “in the air”; he might as well vote for a dead man. So that the elective franchise merely gives the voter the privilege of joining with others in the formation of a political group or body capable of aspiring to influence or power. But in order to do this, the individual at the very outset is compelled to surrender his individual wishes, preferences and ambitions to be transmuted into the collective wish, preference and power of his group. He has usually no more control over the movements of the group or party which contains him than a drop of blood in the veins of a bull has over the movements of the animal.

When therefore about ninety years ago the unpropertied citizens were admitted into the political arena it was perfectly natural that they should speedily form themselves into new and distinctive groups. The electorate has always grouped and divided itself according to its interests and passions; witness the old division between Eastern and Western Virginia already referred to; the tariff and slavery divisions, etc. The unpropertied non-voters had already been distinguishable from the propertied voters by their different traits, characteristicsand desires. When they obtained the vote the difference between the two classes widened; the attitude toward the offices and the spoils of office being that of unscrupulous and hungry greed on one side, and on the other that comparative disinterestedness which comes from physical comfort and well being. The core of the membership of the new group of voters was in penury; it needed the spoils of office, to which the older voters were comparatively indifferent. Stimulated by this need the non-propertied groups at once sought and obtained a greater cohesive power than any possible rivals; enabling them to overcome and survive them all. They became united and predatory political bands; easily manageable by their leaders; willing to waive aside as comparatively impertinent, the various abstract questions on which the propertied voters were hopelessly divided. In short, they became a unified power, and often the only unified power in practical politics.

The strength and discipline of the controllable groups of voters, have always given them an immense advantage in the final and supreme governmental process, that of the formation, management and maintenance of governing majorities. The creation of such a majority, or the ability to become a part thereof is the final test of political capacity. Occasionally majorities create themselves; as in great popular agitations when the people “rise in their might” and overwhelm the controlled voter. But such irregular movements last at most but a few weeks or months, whereupon the before established oligarchy resumes control and continues its steady business of majority formation and maintenance. It is a job requiring constant and compelling discipline; and one in which the controllable and always reliable vote is the chief element of a uniformly successful management.

It comes then to this, that in a democracy no man should be admitted to vote, unless his class or group will be of service in government. In considering proposed legislation for extension of the franchise, the first question should always be, what will be the character of the group or faction with which the newvoters will identify themselves? And if the result is going to be the introduction of a new faction or party into our political system, or the dominance of one at present in the minority, the effect thereof should be seriously considered before the change is authorized. This being a government not of individuals but of groups, the right of any individual to vote can be conceded to him only as one belonging to a class or group entitled and competent to take part in the government. And if his group is of the ignorant, the worthless, the non-contributors to the commonwealth, where is its claim to govern? Those therefore who believe in unlimited suffrage, that is in the right of the ignorant and worthless to vote, must believe either that such vote will be unorganized, in which case it is an empty gift of a valueless privilege, or they must believe in the natural right of organized worthlessness to do what it has actually done and is still doing, namely to rule the country, or to take effective part in such rule, and incidentally to degrade the standards of government to a point as near the low level of its own intelligence and conscience as possible.

Prior to manhood suffrage the political groups were all transient, shifting and undisciplined bodies representing debatable theories and principles; this continued from Washington’s time to Jackson’s. Manhood suffrage furnished the material everywhere for new groups founded on need and appetite and organized by professional politicians; these have become drilled and disciplined, have learned to live off the country and to obey leaders. They have won the usual adherence of success; drawing from every direction the indifferent, the lukewarm, the careless, the unprincipled, the weak, the foolish, the men of small ambitions, the business failures, and the odds and ends, in total the material for a great predatory political army. The leaders of that army constitute the power which governs the United States to-day.

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