OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION BEING SEVERAL SHORT ESSAYS SETTING FORTH CERTAIN FACTS WHICH EVERY THOUGHT- FUL CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES SHOULD KNOW BY BUSH C. HAWKINS M.A., LL.D., BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL U. S.V. AND AN OFFICER OF THE LEGION OF HONOR OF FRANCE THE GRAFTON PRESS NEW TOEK COPYKIGHT, 1904, BY THE GRAFTON PRESS First Impression, May, 1904 CONTENTS. PAGE. PRELIMINARY WORDS .... 1 PROPHETIC WORDS .... 6 THE STATE . . . . .10 MANHOOD SUFFRAGE . . . .56 NATURALIZATION . . . .89 IN KB, " THE Boss " . . . .122 BRUTALITY AND AVARICE TRIUMPHANT . 164 Is AVARICE TRIUMPHANT? . . . 196 BY ROBERT G. INGERSOLL Is OURS THE BEST ? , . . 220 LATEST FROM THE FRONT . . , 261 SOME RESULTS OF CRIMINAL MATERIALISM . 278 255112 PRELIMINARY WORDS. SEEMINGLY a large majority of the writers, who during the last two or three decades have written about our political condition ; Na- tional, State and Municipal ; have been afraid to state their honest convictions. Many among them have written learnedly, politely and knowingly ; but they have been content to J>addle around startling truths as though they were floating in a sea of harmless and elegant literature, with their facts specially sandpa- pered and emeiy wheeled so as not to give oif ence to common offenders and the specially favored criminal classes, whose backs deserve a lash fashioned out of the rawest possible hide. If in the history of a nation, there ever was a time when honest and patriotic lovers of their country ought to speak out and write out, that time has arrived in ours where the whole political system is rotten to the core. The taking of this view of present political conditions has caused the writer to resurrect from their repose a majority of the papers 1 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION which appear in the following pages. They were written from a completely personal standpoint, and treat of governmental affairs, formation, administration and execution, and are heterodox to an extent bordering upon un- patriotic depravity ; and their being made pub- lic is calculated to send the average statesman of our spoils creating and spoils taking sort into a condition of convulsive indignation. That particular class, who, with the assistance of the " Criminal Rich," * rule and rob in accordance with laws of their own making, do not enjoy a mirror which records any phase of their vicious pursuits. But since this particular looking- glass has not been fashioned to please their views, the printing has been ventured upon without the hope of their approval. And, therefore these little measures of heterodoxy are thrust into the light without apology, or * " Criminal Rich." This is a signification in- vented by William Travers Jerome to fittingly char- acterize our all-powerful criminal classes who have fattened upon the results of their crimes, until they have become, in verity, the real and mighty lords of our misgoverned land. 2 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION the hope, that the few who may happen to read will be convinced. Possibly, however, they may realize that the views presented may indi- cate another side seldom considered, difficult to understand, and never dreamed of by the average citizen. At present, political conditions are of such a degraded nature, that the dominant object of every citizen who cares for decent government and the general reputation of his country, ought to be, to investigate and ascertain for himself the location and nature of the weakV places in our political structure which have\ given birth to the disgraceful degradations \ which beset us, and then to assist to devise I ways and means to eradicate corrupt practices'" by curing defects of system, which no accu- ' mulation of years can make commendable. At the threshold, those who investigate will encounter at least four self-evident malignant forces with enormous power for evil which are in active operation. (1) The immoral influ-V ence of the Roman Catholic Church, reaching \ out in all directions as in the ages past, and cor- ruptly obtaining political power and untold property. (2) Manhood's Suffrage, upon which 3 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION no honestly administered government can exist. (3) Nearly, practically, unqualified, un- restrained, unrestricted immigration, and (4) wholesale fraudulent naturalization. From these gigantic evil forces flow the all potent fact, that we are a nation without being a race ; and the all powerful and overwhelming result flowing from that condition is a monstrous ag- gregation ofjkaleidoscopic humanity, a mixture of vice producing ignorance and unqualified self-seeking unknown to history ; and without that love of the moral side which ennobles and is necessary for the development of all of those qualities which make the political compact honorable and worthy of respect. This mottled mass of mixed humanity which afflicts our soil is absolutely devoid of pride of race or country and boasts only of material aggrandizement which is always pushed to the front and made to pass off for real greatness. These forces for evil, and many others which our system in its one hundred and twenty-six years of existence has developed, have become the all powerful factors for partisan political uses. Each party in turn, seeks to control and profit by them and neither will ever lend its 4 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION assistance to any attempt to effect better con- ditions ; but on the contrary, is, and always will be, ready for the creation of new evils which may promise to further the potency of corrupt partisan practices. The great question of the moment is, or should be, from one end of the country to the other : " What are you going to do about it ? " and the answer is, and will be for a long time to come : " We will continue our cowardly and unpatriotic Inaction until the tax consuming hordes and their adherents have succeeded in sending us down to the lowest depths of abject subserviency to political knaves and tyrants and achieved a moral degradation beyond precedent." Then there will be an upheaval from the deep down bottom, and the many germane lessons recorded in the histories of the past will become applicable. But those who reflect, know, even now, upon whose heads the deserved punishment will fall. In some of the pages that follow an attempt has been made to make known a few of the evils and weaknesses which appear to exist, and they are submitted without reservation or apology. 5 PEOPHETIC WOKDS. AT the banquet tendered General Miles at the Auditorium a couple of weeks ago one of the speeches which rang in the ears of the auditors not only that night, but for days and days thereafter, was a little gem by Judge Gresham, which, by the kindness of a warm friend and admirer, was not permitted to per- ish like the other speeches of that evening. It is herewith presented in "the art preser- vative " : MB. CHAIRMAN : The army represents force, and in paying deserved honor to our distinguished guest to-night we assert our belief in the necessity of force in government. Not the force which enables one man, or a class, or a minority to hold in subjection the majority, but the force which is essential in all Governments for the maintenance of the laws. When land was cheap and food plenty the people were contented, but population and wealth have increased at unexampled 6 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION rates, and steam and electricity have made our life more rapid and intense and perhaps less satisfactory. Until a comparatively recent date the people of this country were simple in their tastes and modest in their desires, and those who were charged with the duty of government had little to do. Rights of per- son and property were generally respected. Such times do not severely test the utility or strength of institutions. Young as we still are as a nation, we realize that force is abso- lutely necessary to overcome lawlessness and maintain order. There is danger, however, that too much will be expected of the executive departments of the Nation and the States. If the duties of citizenship are generally neglected, espe- cially by those who are most interested in the maintenance of order, the army of the United States and the militia of the States will be powerless to afford protection. Municipal government, especially in our large cities, is notoriously bad it might be called a failure. It is largely intrusted to men who, if capable, are not trustworthy, many of 7 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION them desiring loose and extravagant adminis- tration that they may profit thereby. This has resulted mainly from the practice of electing municipal officers on political grounds. Polit- ical considerations should not have weight at such times, and property holders are largely responsible for the prevailing abuses. They should manifest greater concern and inde- pendence in local government. But evils are seen elsewhere than in munic- ipal administration. The number of voters in the market for the highest bidder has increased at a rate which has excited grave apprehension in the minds of good people. The prizes in our political contests are tempt- ing, and the bidding for votes has increased at more than a steady pace. Can this be stopped ? Will it continue ? If it does, pop- ular government and all the blessings that it secures will perish. Political leaders may be allowed to be prac- tical, within limits, but they should not be tolerated when detected in doing things which violate the plainest principles of right and wrong. Too many so-called respectable men 8 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION think, or act as if they thought, it was less disreputable to buy a vote than to sell a vote. Too many indulge in fair pretenses about a free ballot and an honest count while engaged in concocting fraudulent schemes for carrying elections. Those who spend money in corrupt- ing voters and bribing officers are more dan- gerous enemies to the Republic than were the men who engaged in unsuccessful rebellion against it. While wrong, the latter believed they were right and so believing fought with unsurpassed courage to the end. When the public judgment becomes satis- fied that elections cannot be relied on as a means of ascertaining the will of the people, and that money and fraud control the suffrage, an army such as Grant commanded will not be able to save us from a fate worse than would result from a dissolution of the Union. From the Chicago Herald, Oct. 25, 1890. THE STATE* IF economy in the administration of a Government is one of the primary objects to be attained, the organization of the United States based upon a confederation between separate sovereignties is a mistake of gigantic magnitude. With this plan of political com- pact, a low rate of expenditure for mainten- ance of the machinery needed to carry on the business affairs of a nation is impossible. If in one State, disbursements for public ex- penses are carefully supervised, so that a dol- lar's worth of service or material is received for each dollar paid out, as in private busi- ness affairs, there will be found at least five for one where the opposite rule obtains, and where expenditures are made without any particular reference to the value received, and generally in direct violation of the com- monest principles of honesty or business dis- cretion. * Rewritten in 1901. OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION In public affairs, from the villages or the municipal political unit up through all grades to the Federal, one common result is visible and may be formulated in a very short sen- tence, viz., The largest possible expenditure for the smallest possible return. The Par- ties, Bosses, Politicians and elective office- holders while proclaiming in their platforms and other public declarations, the most lofty, ardent and patriotic desires for honest ex- penditures, usually ask and vote for the most extended and amplified schemes of, in part, dishonest extravagance. If the General Gov- ernment builds a warship it costs at least a third more than elsewhere, and the repairs made to old ships often cost as much as new ones of the same class in other countries. If a State erects a Capitol building, the tax payers are often made to pay from two to four times its value. That at Albany, New York, was to cost, upon first estimates not over four millions of dollars and to be com- pleted in four years. The politicians of both parties, on and off, have " worked " it for about a third of a centuiy, and expended on it over twenty-five millions, and it will, prob- 11 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION ably, remain in their hands for many years more at an annual expense of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and when, if ever it may be completed, repairs will then commence at the rate of an hundred thousand dollars or more per year, and continue indefinitely.* * Another million dollars is to be added to the enormous sums already spent upon the Capitol. The Senate is crowding out the State Library and the Regents of the University will attempt to have some legislation enacted providing new quarters for the library. It is now proposed to purchase the property di- rectly west of the Capitol, as far as Swan street, on which to erect a separate building for the use of the Court of Appeals, the Regents and the library. The estimated cost of this land is a cool million dollars. Sergeant-at-Arms Garrett J. Benson, of the State Senate, last week took possession of the rooms of the State Library upon a resolution transferring these rooms to the Senate for committee purposes, and thus it is that the library needs new quarters. In the last twenty-seven years the Capitol has cost the State $20,000,000, and a steady stream of appropriations is always needed to complete an edi- fice which it almost seems never will be complete. 12 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION The Court House in the City of New York was started upon an estimated expendi- The Capitol at Washington, which covers nearly twice the ground, and in which the art work cannot be surpassed, cost only $10,000,000, or about half the price already expended upon the Capitol of New York State. The history of the building and the jobbery connected with it could not be told within the space of many ponderous volumes. THE BEGINNINGS. An act was passed April 22, 1867, appropriating $250,000 to begin the work on the Capitol, and the first section of the act contained this clause : " But no part of the amount hereby appropriated shall be expended, nor shall the Capitol Commission incur any expense on account of the said Capitol, until a plan of the Capitol shall be adopted and ap- proved by them and approved by the Governor not to cost more than $4,000,000 when completed. " Shortly after this first appropriation there were rumors that all was not as it should be, and the Commissioners of 1868 had charges of irregularities and even corruption made against them from time to time. The Legislature took action, and several investigating committees were appointed, but these 13 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION ture of four hundred thousand dollars and cost over sixteen millions. The City Build- were never able to make reports positively implicat- ing any one in wrongdoing, though all of them recommended reforms in the management, which were adopted. In 1871 an act was passed prohibit- ing the payment of commissions or percentages to contractors or others, and making provisions for other stringent regulations designed to prevent speculation or corruption. A MILLION A YEAR. From 1869 to 1880 a steady stream of money poured into the capitol building, being an average of a million a year, and amounting in all in 1880 to $11,439,000. A report of the New Capitol Commission, pre- sented to the Legislature on January 24, 1879, said that for $4,200,000 the new building could be com- pleted and furnished by January 1, 1881. Since that report was made more than double the sum then estimated has been expended nearly $9,000,- 000 and the end is not yet. LIST OF APPROPRIATIONS. Here is a full list of appropriations for the pur- chase of land upon which the Capitol now stands, 14 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION ing in Philadelphia, begun in 1871, was to cost about five millions, is not nearly corn- interest paid by former Commissioners, and for con- struction, finishing and furnishing, including res- torations and necessary repairs to the interior and exterior of the Capitol building: Chap. 1865648 $10,000 1867485 250,000 1868830 250,000 1869645 275,000 1869822 125,000 1870492 1,300,000 1871715 650,000 1872733 1,000,000 1873760 1,000,000 1874323 1,000,000 1875634 1,000,000 1876193 800,000 1877336 500,000 1878 7 $300,000 252 700,000 1,000,000 1879 65 500,000 272 500,000 1,000,000 1880 33 100,000 138 1,500,000 1,600,000 1881 24 250,000 325 750,000 1,000,000 1882 7 250,000 295 1,000,000 1,250,000 1883 9 250,000 320 1,000,000 1,250,000 1884 37 1,000,000 15 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION pleted, lias passed the twentieth million, and the end is not yet in sight.* 1885 4 250,000 180 30,000 330 750,000 1,030,000 8 88518 147,260 585 15,000 162,260 1889 41, shoring up Assembly Chamber ceiling 8,116 1890316 365,125 1890 317, providing and equipping carpenter's shop outside of building . . 6,000 1891 2, furnishing committee rooms 9,805 206 642,959 652,764 1892 81 . 800,000 1893 15 700,000 1894 1 200,000 155 300,000 500,000 1895 400,000 3896 75,000 1896 810,000 885,000 Grand total $21,759,265 This table does not comprise the cost of mainte- nance, salaries, etc., which is now about seventy thousand dollars a year. From the Evening Tele- gram, Dec. 25, 1896. *Af ter thirty years' existence the Public Buildings Commission held its last meeting to-day. On Mon- day the City Hall passes to the control of the city administration, in accordance with a recent act of the Legislature, though the hall is not yet completed. 16 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION In the slang political phraseology of the day, as explained by an eminent Celtic mem- ber of the Tammany Society of New York, the practical politician " Knows a good thing when he has it, proposes not to let go and to The members present were President Perkins, John S. Stevens, Thomas E. Gaskill, William H. Wright, Richard Peltz, Charles Seger, Franklin M. Harris, Ex-Mayor William S. Stokley and James F. Miles. President Perkins and ex-Mayor Stokley are the only living members of the original commission. Dying, the commission did what it had always refused to do living accounted for the money it has spent. In all the commission has used $24,313,- 455.43 upon the hall. Its requisitions upon Coun- cils have aggregated $41,150,736.29. In the ex- penditures the largest single item is $5,467,503.47 for marble, which is followed by the sum of $2,017,- 299.72 for dressed stone for inside finish. The commission spent $3,990,211.46 in fitting up rooms for city departments. For cast and wrought iron, including roofing, $1,122,543.78 was required. The salaries of the architects were $317,452.06, and law- yers got $28,643.35. Plumbers and gas fitters got $460,413.62. Metal work on the tower cost $750,- 17 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION work it for all it's worth." This is an accurate statement of a well-known condition which has generally obtained wherever American politicians practice their trade. The National Government and forty-five State organizations afford an unexampled field for the reaping of the tax-eater engaged in the occupation of making the administration of public affairs a venal trade. He has been so successful in his proscription of the pro- ducing and industrial classes from all partici- pation in Government business, that he now < has the entire field to himself, and will only occasionally allow others joint occupation 537.01, almost twice the sum expended in supplies for maintenance $396,431.38. Heating and ventilating cost $682,607.22 and an additional sum of $736,767.05 was spent for <( elec- tric light installation, etc." The four-faced tower clock represents $27,960, Painters and glaziers got $351,490.62 and $1,342,396.60 is laid at the door of " labor and watching," while superintendent and assistants" drew $317,452.06 New York Times, June 27, 1901. 18 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION of his political domain, upon his own terms. To make the average American believe that there are deeply seated, not to say inherent, weaknesses in his favored system would be a hopeless undertaking. For upon every occasion offered, he leaps into the field of political controversy with the crystallized ad captandum assertion : " We have the best, the greatest and purest government the sun ever shone upon." He then points to the unprecedented material progress of his country and the enterprise of his countrymen, flaps a pair of imaginary wings and congrat- ulates himself upon having successfully silenced all opposing argument. To such an individual any appeal founded upon actual experience and well authenticated facts can accomplish but little, and yet it is a fact that those who run, even though they may observe but little, may read. The yearly crop of vicious and unwise sins born of our manifold lawmaking bodies is beyond exact enumeration. A consolidated form of government would have prevented 19 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION this annual congestion of crude legislative acts, and relieved the Nation from the expense of having them, passed and the pernicious consequences of their existence. Where in. the name of common sense, public policy or logic, let us ask, does there exist the necessity for so many lawmaking bodies and so many laws? Up to this time we have succeeded in mustering into power, in full working order, forty-five legislatures, having jurisdiction over as many separate sovereignties. A large majority of these meet annually and a small minority once in two years. When all the lawmaking machines are working under high pressure, up to full speed, the amount of illy or digested and pernicious legislative acts turned out per year cannot possibly be com- prehended or fairly understood. When the general unfitness and ignorance of the average legislator is taken into consideration, the marvel is that the so-called " Old Ship of State " sails on as well as she does. Over all these separate organizations, with limited powers, presides the Federal Govern- 20 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION ment with its yearly assembly of lawmakers, who usually sit for seven months, at an enor- mous cost to the Nation and accomplish often only pernicious results. The scope of their legislation is often limited to appropriations for support of the Government and liberal bestowal of public monies in many directions where not needed. Reformatory measures in the interest of economical administration and for the benefit of the whole people are seldom earnestly undertaken. Occasionally, to satisfy public clamor, a spasmodic demon- stration, seemingly in the interest of the whole Nation, is made, but it seldom gets further than the gong stage of existence, and then sinks into a somnolent condition from which there is no awakening, and the average Congressman and Senator resumes his reflec- tions upon partisan schemes and the ways and means applicable to his re-election. These numerous separate governments are popularly supposed to be of one people whose citizens hold themselves out to the world as the people of one nation, when in reality they are in forty-five separate parts, each fostering and having separate interests, all more or 21 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION less jealous of each other and taking consid- erable pride in their separate interests and State rights. These independent interests assert themselves upon many occasions and often prevent the enactment of measures which would result in the greatest good of the greatest number. One State produces iron, another silver, a third grows wool, while a fourth manufactures cotton goods; each demands of the General Government sufficient protection, or coddling of some sort, to enable it to maintain fictitious or abnormal values for its products. In this direction, one State standing alone, unaided, would make but little headway with National legislation; but they usually pool their schemes and make a general advance all along the line and in the end accomplish the desires of each section. Neither the consum- ers of the whole country are benefited by this special legislation in the interest of sections ; nor are the people generally in the States directly interested better off for this legisla- tive partiality, which they are often made to believe specially affects them for the better. The large producers, manufacturers, specula- 22 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION tors and middlemen are the classes that are made to thrive, while the general average of men and women who constitute the great bodies of communities remain stationary or fall behind in the great race for a reasonable share of the world's possessions. It is a well- settled fact that a rule has obtained in nearly all the States, that their representatives in Congress must represent local (often less than State) interests first, and National after- wards, provided they do not happen to interfere with the supposed interests of one of the forty-five sovereignties, or in other words the formula is, the State before the Nation. It is a question for publicists to decide whether as time goes on and the States be- come more powerful by reason of increased wealth, and dense population, the accumula- tion of material interests of various kinds, and State pride, will not with age crystallize into an offensive and arrogant individuality impatient of even the little control the Fed- eral Government now has over them. This is an important question not apparent at this period of our history, but sure to present itself in the near future. 23 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION In February, 1886, I travelled west of the Missouri River in company with a wealthy, intelligent and influential citizen of one of the " Silver States." In discussing the '* Bland Silver Bill " with him, he said with- out any reservation whatever, that if Con- gress repealed it, the silver producing States would be warranted in setting up a govern- ment of their own. The particular point adorning this statement is this : The gentle- man who made it was born in New England and was a field officer of one of the two regiments raised in his State for the purpose of putting down Secession in the Southern States. To his mind States Rights were wrong in the South, but right in the West. These forty-five sets of law-making ma- chines with which the States are equipped have a judiciary, generally elective, separate bodies of laws, differing in many respects from those of the other States, and requiring separate sets of law and executive officers to see them executed, form an unnecessary bur- den which is more expensive than any single military establishment in Europe ; and the inconvenience flowing from the want of 24 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION uniformity of laws between the States is one of the largest among the world's unknowable quantities. Take as examples the variety of laws relat- ing to divorce, collection of debts, statutes of limitation, rates of interest, transfers of real estate, relating to trusts, penalties for crimes, division into a variety of grades of the well defined crime of murder, the formation of, and laws applicable to corporations. These are only a small number out of the many examples that might be quoted to illustrate our confusion among the statutes and legal remedies. The estate of a gentleman who died in New York in 1890 is now (1898) in course of settlement in ten different States by the employment of as many different firms of attorneys. The amount of assets left when all of these different firms have com- pleted their ministrations may possibly be enough to furnish food for reflection for the heirs who may happen to be of a reflective turn of mind, but may not materially swell their possessions. In England, France, Italy or Germany a single firm of attorneys would have sufficed. 25 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION The needlessly expensive judiciary organ- ization inflicted upon this people through the numerous State organizations, is of enor- mous magnitude. The people of the State of New York, generally, and those of the City of New York, in particular, bear re- markable burdens of this exceptional abuse. For England and Wales the Court of Queens Bench, consisting of fifteen Judges, does the same work, excluding Chancery cases, for twenty-nine millions of inhabitants, that it takes seventy-six trial Judges of the Supreme Court to perform for the seven and a quarter millions of the State of New York. In the whole of that Commonwealth there are two hundred and thirty- two Justices of Courts of Record, besides the numerous Civil and Criminal petty Justices of the cities and towns. The outlay for this judiciary estab- lishment is very great, while the return in the way of prompt and reliable administra- tion of the laws is most unsatisfactory.* * The following items show the result of an attempt to ascertain the exact cost, to the tax producers, of the State of New York, for the administration of 26 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION In this, as in all other instances involved in public administration, the citizen is com- pelled to pay the highest price for faulty and inadequate returns ; but as usual consoles himself with the thought that he is no worse off in this particular respect than in many Justice and execution of State laws for the year 1901. New York City Greater New York, . . $1,150,400.00 New York County " " " . 1,678,322.00 Kings " " " " . 620,400.00 Queens " " " . 94,870.00 Kichmond " " " " . 46,135.00 58 Counties at $25,000 each 1,400,000.00 Paid from the State Treasury . . . 974,264.23 Total . . . $5,964,391.23 The average put down for the 58 counties was based upon official reports from eight counties, in neither of which is situated either of the large cities outside of the Greater New York. From other information obtained from various unofficial sources, the compiler was led to believe that the average stated is under rather than over the actual amounts paid. An investigation in relation to the cost of main- taining the various courts in England and Wales, and the high Appellate courts for the United King- 27 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION others, and he meekly folds his arms and makes no effort at reform. The administration of Criminal law is more defective, irregular and unreliable than that of the Civil. What with' the difficulty of obtaining intelligent and honest jurors who dom, including India, shows rather startling results in favor of English methods. Of course these results are in the interest of economy (the tax producer) and not the leeching political parasite or the party judge fishing votes for another term. The official items making the total are so valu- able, for use in the way of comparison, that they are given entire. Great Office of the Crown .... 22,500.00 Appellate Tribunals, House of Lords . . 34,000.00 Judicial Committee of the Privy Council . . 2,700.00 Supreme Court of Judicature Court of Appeal 32,650.00 High Court of Justice Chancery Division . 35,000.00 Queens Bench Division 86,900.00 Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division . . 10,000.00 Bankruptcy Division 5,000.00 Crown Office House of Lords ... 1,733.00 Lord Chancellor's Office 6,886.00 Chancery Courts . 141,806.00 Supreme Court 319,010.00 Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division . . 66,620.00 Bankruptcy Department 30,832.00 Lunacy Commission 57,860.00 City Courts London . . . . . 14,625.00 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION cannot be influenced ; prosecuting attorneys in full sympathy with the earnest perform- ance of their duties ; Judges with requisite experience, and vexatious appeals so indulg- ently permitted, we are in a lamentable con- dition of uncertainty which the vicious classes regard as especially advantageous to County Courts England and Wales . . . 120,925.00 Metropolitan Co. Courts London . . . 25,600.00 Police Courts, City of London . . . 8,650.00 Metropolitan Police Courts .... 47,250.00 870,647.00 Amount, carefully estimated, for all other payments for England and Wales .... 400,000.00 1,270,647.00 (In dollars at 4.866,175,344.20.) The items named are from official reports and correct. The estimated amount of 400,000.00 to cover all other expenses incurred in relation to the administration of justice, in England and Wales, is of the wholesale sort, and certainly large enough to cover all items not enumerated. The compiler believes it is much above the amount required. Prob- ably by about 100,000.00. By comparing the totals it will be seen that while the 7,268,012 inhab- itants of the State of New York in 1901 paid for the administration of justice $5,964,391.23. 29 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION their pursuits; and which has come to be regarded as an almost settled rule, that those among the great offenders "the Criminal Rich" who are able to make a liberal expen- diture of money at the right time and in the right quarter, particularly if they happen to be politically influential, are seldom punished, the 29,001,018 of England and Wales maintained their judicial establishment at a cost of about $6,175,544.20, certainly not more and probably con- siderably less. This amount pays the entire cost of all the legal business of every kind, name and nature of the every day kind needed for the entire population of England and Wales, and all of the Appellate business for the British Empire. These figures bring one question at least into great promi- nence : Why should the people of the State of New York for their law expenses pay about four times the per capita amount of the people of England and Wales ? Is it because of the superior quality of the justice their courts deal out to them or what ? Let the overflowing calendars of their Appellate Courts answer that question. No other answer is needed and explanatory comment would be superflu- ous. 30 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION although sometimes convicted ; while the unfortunate pauper who steals to prevent physical suffering, is convicted as soon as arraigned. In many parts of the South and West, fortunately, " Lynch Law " with its j speedy meting out of justice does something / for the reputation of our country, in a f direction where fair repute is very much f needed. In a recent report carefully compiled by a reliable authority, it appears that in 1882 there were committed in the United States 1266 wilful murders; ninety- three of the murderers were executed according to law and one hundred and twenty-eight were lynched, leaving 1055 unwhipped of that de- gree of justice to which they were entitled. The proportion adequately punished accord- ing to law was eight and a fraction to the hundred. Do these statistics show even a color of punishment needed for the proper protection of life ? On the contrary, do they not prove a direct incentive to do more mur- der ? An examination of very imperfect statistics shows, that notwithstanding we have the most numerous and expensive judiciary 31 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION system for administration of criminal laws known, this offense is on the increase. The following from the summary lately com- piled from reliable sources shows startling results : THE NATION'S HOMICIDAL RECORD. A " murder map " of the United States may be fitly characterized as the delight of the pessimist, for it shows that we are not as humane, law-abid- ing, or civilized as we think we are. In fact, a murder map showing the number of murders com- mitted in each State might easily impress one who does not take into account our vast area and popu- lation with the notion that we are a race of barba- rians and are still living in the dark ages. The average number of murders committed an- nually in the States of the Union during the last decade is as follows: Alabama . 461 Idaho . . 27 Arizona . . 43 Illinois . 315 Arkansas . . . 305 Indiana . 228 California . . 422 Iowa . . 202 Colorado . 252 Kansas . . 235 Connecticut . 73 Kentucky . . 398 Delaware . . 48 Louisiana . . 358 Dist. of Columbia . 24 Maine . . . 18 Florida . 157 Maryland . . 280 Georgia . 381 Massachusetts . . 96 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION Michigan . . 205 Oregon . 79 Minnesota . . 159 Pennsylvania . 312 Mississippi . . 317 Rhode Island . 52 Missouri . 362 South Carolina . . 221 Montana . 90 South Dakota . . 45 Nebraska . . 168 Tennessee . . 408 Nevada . 39 Texas . . 1,021 New Hampshire 9 Utah . . 57 New Jersey . 120 Vermont . . 6 New Mexico . 58 Virginia . 305 New York . . 512 Washington . 102 North Carolina . 285 West Virginia . . 87 North Dakota . . 29 Wisconsin . . 154 Ohio . . 332 Wyoming . . 22 The feature of this table that will attract especial notice is the disclosure that the West and South lead in murders. It is noted that one-tenth of all the murders in the United States are committed in Texas, a fact which disproves the contention of criminologists that crime is in proportion to density of population. It is also noted that Illinois, with a population of 5,800,000, averaged a less number of homicides annually than Mississippi, with a popu- lation of only 1,650,000. Vermont, with a popula- tion of 350,000 has only six murders a year, while Nevada, with a population of only 60,000 has an average of thirty-nine homicides annually. With a homicidal record of 10,000 murders a year in the United States, the task that is before 33 DUE POLITICAL DEGRADATION the church, the schoolhouse, the home, and the State is big enough to stagger human optimism and Christian courage. Chicago Times Herald, Novem- ber, 1900. Another perplexing evil incident to the States organization is a vast accumulation of unnecessary laws. Take any one year when all the States have had legislative sessions and supplement their acts by those of Congress, and we shall find that alto- gether, they have passed more legislative acts in number and extent of words in one year, than England, the German Empire, France, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Belgium and Holland have in twenty. In this direction it is barely possible that we might venture still farther and say that our legis- lative bodies, State and National, since the formation of our government have passed more acts in number, composed of a greater number of words, than all the civilized peo- ples of Western Europe since they became nations. As an example of the lawmaking abuse, let us refer to the New York Legislature of 1867, when it enacted 2494 pages of 34 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION public and private acts, while those for the government of the British people enacted by the Parliament of that year were con- tained in a moderate sized volume. It is safe to say that at least two-thirds of the New York enactments were unnecessary, special, personal, and pernicious in their effects, and ought not to have been passed. The greater portion of this peculiar charac- ter of legislation is unknown in other coun- tries. It was born of manhood suffrage, and fortunately for the rest of the world is confined within the borders of our own territories. Where there is such a quan- tity and diversity of legislation, can there be economy in administration? Does the existence of so many sets of laws and the machinery, executive, administrative and judicial, needed to carry them into effect meet any proposition in favor of economy ? Are they not an insurmountable obstacle that can only be removed by a change of system ? Is it not a self-evident propo- sition that a nation should have but one lawmaking body, and is it not true that every duplicate constitutes an item of un- 35 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION necessary expense, and that its acts often result in oppressive and extravagant pub- lic expenditures which maintain intriguers, demagogues, henchmen of parties and drones at the expense of the tax producer ? As soon as a new State is admitted to the Union and a new legislature goes into opera- tion, an additional focal point of corruption is established ; and within a week from the time it opens its doors for business, a colony of organized spoilsmen consisting of profes- sional lobbyists, bosses and politicians, and " criminal rich " or their representatives appear. This evil force is composed of individuals not engaged in legitimate occupa- tions, who are averse to all kinds of honest industry, and regard the numerous legisla- tive halls of the Nation as exchanges for the promotion of robbery, jobbery and rascality generally : in the interest of corrupt per- sonal and corporate schemes, which permit the promoters to rob communities according to law without risk, and enable them to accumulate fortunes without honest effort.* * THE PENNSYLVANIA LEGISLATURE. THE Pennsylvania Legislature, which recently 36 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION Another phase of the legislative evil is the matter of course creation of unnecessary offices at the dictation of politicians, which are bestowed upon unworthy persons as re- wards for corrupt partisan service. The ex- tent to which this abuse has been practiced in the State of New York can be hardly adjourned, seems to have left behind it quite as dis- graceful an odor as that which characterised the sessions and departure of its Republican brother of Illinois. The Harrisburg Patriot draws the following bill of indictment against the Pennsylvania combina- tion : The Legislature has gone away from this city and leaves behind : A destroyed Capitol. A depleted Treasury. A deficit of $3,500,000. A church, the occupation of which, in rent and repairs, cost as much as the erection of the struc- ture. A revenue measure, which it is " calculated " will put $1,000,000 into the Treasury, but will not yield $100,000. 37 OUK POLITICAL DEGKADATION understood by the heedless citizen who boasts that he takes no interest in politics. In 1887, a new court of Criminal Jurisdiction only was created for the City of New York against the judgment and protests of several of the Judges of the local Criminal Courts, who stated publicly that their tribunals were A "revenue" measure which will give the Sena- torial Beer Trust a monopoly of the beer brewed in the State. A record of junkets never before approached, A record of jobbery in bills of expenses of inves- tigating and special committees. A record of thievery in placing upon salary lists men who perform no duties and who do not appear in official lists of employees. Eecorded refusal to hear witnesses to investiga- tions. Eecorded defense of the accused, even to the verge of perjury in investigations. A record of utter and entire worthlessness, dishon- esty and disregard of public duty. A record of bribery, blackmail and perversion of Justice. All these the departed legislature leaves behind, 38 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION equal to the discharge of the current busi- ness, and it was only necessary for the prose- cuting attorney to bring pending cases to trial in order to have them speedily disposed of. In spite of these statements, the new court was organized. It was of a party and seventy-five thousand dollars a year was but their memory will cling to it forever. No man who was prominent or even interested in jobs and thievery can escape the odium which rascality casts upon the rascal. These persons are well known to their constituents, and, sanctimonious as some of them are, they will not be forgotten when the peo- ple are again importuned to give them office. [Date forgotten.] THE KENTUCKY LEGISLATURE. FOR violence to the very vitality of Americanism ; for abandonment of every principle of Democracy ; for contempt of even the semblance of liberty ; for the abolition of every individual and social right upon which republicanism is based ; for flagrant scorn of even the form of fair play and even the shadow of decency ; for absolute and open desertion of public duties and abject and malevolent prostitu- 39 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION added to the tax list for a new political lux- ury of doubtful value. This single example, out of many, will suffice to show how easy it is for a political party in power to perpetrate, out of whole cloth, a wholly unnecessary and immoral act, in the interest of corrupt party politics. It is quite safe to assert that fully tion to partisan plunder ; for arrogant usurpation, in the name of spoils, of the sacred functions of representative government and their distortion to oligarchic despotism for all these things the record of this Legislature is not only unparalleled, but unapproached. It is unapproached in all the dreams of the federalism of Hamilton's day. It is unap- proached in all the tendencies of Toryism andWhig- ism. It is unapproached in all the orgies of carpet- bagism, militarism, returning-boardism, Brownlow- ism, reconstructionism, Lodgeism, in the state and national annals of this country. The maddest usurpa- tions of state government in the South over the rights of the disfranchised whites, the most des- perate efforts of the Republicans in Congress to build a party dynasty upon the suffrage of the newly emancipated blacks, the wildest riots of the fanati- cal freaks of Kansas and South Carolina, never 40 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION ninety per cent of these nefarious schemes, are in the nature of the bestowal of rewards upon undeserving and worthless, and often vagrant recipients, hangers on who have performed service of a questionable nature, for the venal bosses of the party in power. Another defect incident to our peculiar approached the record of this Kentucky Legislature in its plunge from democracy to despotism. Louis- ville Courier- Journal, March 22, 1898. A POLITICAL QUAGMIRE. Rhode Island's Majority Tied Hand and Foot. Providence, R. L, March 16, 1903. A first impression of the political situation to-day in the State of Rhode Island and Providence plantations, reinforced by a mass of facts gathered from first sources and the matured opinions of reputable pro- fessional and public men, is this : The pitiable figure of a Governor elected by a big majority, powerless and contemptuously flouted by a boss who keeps an office in the State House and dares anyone to remove him ; a bribe-taking elec- torate in many of the country districts lost to all sense of shame and honor and sunk to the lowest 41 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION formation is the want of uniformity in, and frequency and expense of numerous elections. The practical logic of this abuse is, that the officials should be changed as often as pos- sible, in order that our public political busi- ness shall be administered by people who know absolutely nothing about it. When a depths of political and civic degradation ; corrupt party leaders, Eepublican and Democratic, who speak openly and unblushingly of debauching the electors, and whose moral senses are so blunted that they see nothing heinous in the crime ; a vicious minority rule with brutal disregard to the majority ; a curious scheme of government that gives to twenty small towns, with less than one-fourth the popula- tion of Providence, a majority of the members of the Senate, and through that body the control of the State ; in brief, a political quagmire. The underlying cause for these conditions is found in the plan of unequal and unjust representa- tion which gives to the towns (rotten boroughs) the control of the Legislative branch of the Govern- ment. It would be hard to contrive a better scheme to strike down a Government of the people. The three branches the legislative, the judicial and the 42 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION President becomes fairly conversant with his duties and useful to the people, he is, or may be, turned out, unless his party permits him through a renomination to succeed himself by a re-election. In States, Cities and Towns, the conditions are even worse for, in many instances, officials are changed as often as executive are not independent except in theory ; the legislative controls all three. Gen. Charles R, Bray ton (the Republican boss) owns the controlling branch, and his ends are wrought chiefly through the Senate. Under the present Constitution the Governor is a negligible quantity ; he has powers over legislative measures and cannot thwart the will of the boss. The Senate is Republican and has been for years. The Governor is a Democrat. The executive depart- ment is no longer a vital part of the State Govern- ment, and the Governor sits in his great suite of offices with no one to do him honor, without power or even the symbol of power; what one observer has called "an administrative mummy "; neither his wishes nor commands avail when they run counter to the plans of Bray ton. For some years the population of the towns and 43 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION once a year. The constitutional Monarchies have many advantages in this respect. When they have incurred the expense of getting their reigning families well housed, supplied with estates, jewels and appropriately ap- parelled, they are kept in harness until some return is made to the people for their salary. villages of the State has been stationary or decreas- ing ; the population of the cities has been increas- ing. When this is known Brayton's reasons for increasing the power of the Senate at the expense of the lower house and the Executive becomes vividly apparent. The fewer electors in the country districts the less money will have to be paid for votes and the easier it will be to control the small bodies of elec- tors. For instance, the town of Little Compton cast 78 votes for Senator in the November election, going solidly, without a dissenting vote, for the Eepub- lican candidate, while in Providence 21,063 Sena- torial votes were cast. Such figures explain the bribery in the country districts ; the cities are too big to be carried in Brayton's pocket. The statutes which govern elective qualifications in this State would seem, in theory, to reduce to a 44 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION Here, we no sooner get our officials fairly groomed, adorned and in working order, than they are turned out, that a new set may come in whose only claim to office is that they pro- fess another political creed, and are perfectly innocent of any knowledge of the duties they are called upon to perform. minimum the direct purchase of votes ; that they do not is the general testimony, borne out by facts that are easily verified. The beginnings of bribery in this State, one is told, date back to ante-bellum days. There is said to have been a notable revival of the practice in the sixties, when Sprague, the war Governor, was elected. It is presumed that Brayton referred to that cam- paign when he said the other day in an interview that the Democrats began the bribing ; as if that made any difference. It is impossible to feel any sympathy for the Democrats as a party for their present plight. After talking with some of their leaders and hearing the current gossip the signifi- cance of Governor Garvin's reference to those who are " tarred with the same stick/' printed on Satur- day last, becomes apparent. All classes of citizens have seen so much of bribing, have known of it so 45 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION Possibly the most pernicious legislative practices and far reaching in their vicious consequences, is the corrupt huckstering which results in the sending of Bosses and newly made millionaires, often of the criminal long, that their moral sensibilities seem to have become blunted. From a university-bred man, of recognized per- sonal integrity, and with the highest social and professional standing, I have heard the astounding suggestion that the only way to secure a reform was to out-bribe the Republican machine, get control of the Senate for one year, and amend the Constitution so as to give a more equitable representation. Prob- ably some of the men who urge this are indulging in bitter irony, but unquestionably they see no other way out of their present plight. Perhaps this incident will serve to show why any reform is appar- ently so far in the distant future. " I must confess/' said this man, " that I have become discouraged at the lack of success that has attended the sporadic attempts in the past to check or suppress existing evils. Until some one appears who is willing to give his whole time and attention to the matter I don't see that much can be done. 46 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION rich sort, to the Senate of the United States. These, of both classes, carry with them to a body where once were to be found such hon- ored statesmen as Clay, Webster, Calhoun, The quickest way, the commercial way, if you wish, is to buy the Senate one year and amend the Con- stitution." " Are there not enough decent men in the State to form the nucleus of an independent reform party for the purpose of educating the voters and prevent- ing their further degradation ? " " I'm afraid not," he replied. " You see, most of the practical men are too busy attending to their personal affairs, and until this thing is brought home to them they won't take much interest in what is going on in the towns and out in the coun- try. Brayton, as a rule, does not interfere in local affairs in the country, and his men in the Senate are not asked to run counter to their home interests." So long as the system of representation remains as it is now, bribery seems inevitable. The induce- ment lies in the great value of each vote in the sparsely inhabited towns. This was quickly realized many years ago by astute politicians. (From the Boston Herald.) 47 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION B urges, Lewis, Clinton, Morris, Hale, Sum- ner, Collamer and scores of others equally respected for their character and ability, little else than their want of capacity for dealing with the important questions brought before them in a disinterested and statesmanlike manner. They possess, however, the needed cunning which can press to the reaping point measures for personal, sectional, class and partisan advantage, which are often obtained to the detriment of the whole people. At this period in our history it seems to have come to this, that among the various methods of getting elected ,to the United States Senate there are two, clearly recognized and very much in vogue. 1. By becoming a Boss and showing the party in power ex- ceptional capacity for wirepulling, intriguing, obtaining places for workers, managing cau- cuses and conventions, and gathering in from the trusts and over protected industries funds for distribution among the dependent faith- ful of his party. 2. By outright purchase. Those of the millionaire class often adopt that method and make a cash payment, based upon an estimate, for the number of votes re- 48 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION quired. At this time we have several Sen- ators who belong to that category. There is also another group, that may be classed with the millionaires : those who have reached their places by the aid of powerful corporations, trusts and capitalists with whom they were affiliated. For these also, large cash payments are made for election purposes, but usually by the interests they are elected to serve. These Senators, upon the floor of the Senate, take the place of paid attorneys to protect the interests they are elected to represent: and being spoilsmen rather than statesmen can be relied upon to support the numerous unnecessary demands upon the pub- lic treasury. A very remarkable tendency in all con- ditions of American society, which must be apparent to the most casual observer, is the national bias in favor of office holding. Those who are most ambitious seek remunerative political employment, while a great multitude are seemingly satisfied to be known as " Mr. President Doe " or " Mr. Secretary Roe " of some sort of a corporation, benevolent society, club or other association, with which our 49 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION country is so plentifully supplied. It would be rather difficult to find a man over twenty years of age, earning five dollars per week, who does not belong to at least one useless organization managed by the usual board of directors and adorned with an extensive staff of officials. It is fortunate for our longing citizens who desire public recognition, that our plethora of government places affords an ample field for the satisfaction of their aspir- ations ; and in an extraordinary measure gives hope to a craving for office-holding unknown to any other political society. The countless swarms of devouring, fatten- ing parasites fastened upon the suffering body politic constitute a continuous National calamity, which nothing but poverty can ever diminish, for so long as the supply of wealth holds out, the hordes of vampires will continue to suck, and only with decrepit old age and National poverty can we reason- ably hope for improved conditions. Our ruling classes have made it appear, and possibly with some show of truthful- ness, that this great army of office-holders is made necessary because of the existence of 50 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION our forty-five complicated sets of political machines. The best that can be said of these classes is : that they are only a portion of the evil consequences of an unwise system, to which must be added the political bosses and workers, who are to be found in every city and nearly every township throughout the land, and who exist upon the perquisites that flow to them through the channels of corrupt partisan politics. In a wisely organized political society the existence of these powerful elements would be impos- sible. A careful estimate of the various existing divisions of unproductive tax-eaters gives a rather startling general result. It shows that in the year 1900, outside of the Army and Navy, there was in the pay of the Fed- eral Government and States, officials and employees to the number of about 1,060,000. These were the regulars and do not include the day-by-day on's and off' s, the local bosses and party workers, who from time to time, manage to obtain substantial pickings, which flow from our useless multiplication of local Treasuries. Possibly the number of male 51 CUE POLITICAL DEGRADATION workers, official and non-official, engaged in partisan politics, who derive their sustenance from public monies raised by direct and indirect taxation may number about two millions. In that alert army of spoils hunters we have an ever ready and aggressive compact body, which wields a weapon so potent, that resistance to its rule, under pre- sent conditions, is absolutely hopeless. This army without arms, the uncrowned tyrant born of unwise suffrage, with its ever ready ally, the corrupt corporation, consti- tutes a power of enormous strength and is an ever growing and constant menace to the liberties of a great people ; and no army in arms, of a single tyrant, from the time of the first oppressor to the present, was ever more successful in methods of extortion than this civilian political army, whose only weapon is the ballot, which demagogues point to, as the "Palladium of our liberties." One hundred and twenty-five years of experience have taught us that to call it the " Palladium of our wrongs " would be nearer right. To the conditions which have obtained through the unrestricted vote, can be directly 52 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION traced to the State legislatures, the fact tliat all the large cities, and many of the lesser ones, have fallen under the partial control of irresponsible, ignorant and brutal cohorts of foreign plunderers who contribute nothing whatever to the general welfare of the body politic, but on the contrary constitute impedi- ments which effectually stop the way to all moral and political improvement, and render economical and honest administration of municipalities impossible. In the order of falling New Orleans took the lead, and then in regular succession, Balti- more, New York, Philadelphia, Brooklyn Chicago and Boston. The latter was the last to come under foreign yoke, and now the O's and the Mc's sit enthroned in the hall where a Quincy and many other not less honorable New England worthies were wont to rule. If the influence of city methods could be confined within municipal boundaries there would be less cause for alarm than now, but the past and present experience proves that we cannot hope for any such happy restric- tion. Unfortunately the fact is too painfully 53 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION apparent for successful contradiction, that the criminal political atmosphere generated in these municipal hotbeds is contagious, spread- ing out in every direction and rapidly con- taminating the entire population of the country. The fact of this decay of political morality is self-evident, and may be now regarded as only a question of time, as to how long it may take to do away with the shattered remnants now remaining of honest methods in politics. Even now the average law-abiding citizen acknowledges his impo- tence as a factor in political affairs, and has substantially delivered the rule of his country over to the professional spoilsman who makes politics a business that pays the highest known returns for amount of labor and skill invested ; and the seeming hopelessness of the situation (by this phrase I refer to the impos- sibility of electing suitable representatives to make laws) constitutes a real and ever present danger of portentous magnitude. When honest men in the face of great public evils fold their arms and admit to themselves that there is no way out of a pending dilemna, the case is desperate, and 54 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION nothing short of a volcanic upheaval can arouse them to a realizing sense of their cowardice and the necessity for strong, deter- mined and united action, such as was wit- nessed when the news came to the North that Fort Sumter had been fired upon. The advantage of that armed uprising in the South was a well defined objective that all could see. Corrupt political practices are usually insidious, intangible, widely diffused over the whole country, unseen to the many, and show no concentrated point or stronghold for an attack, which has prevented concentra- tion of opposing action. These conditions must and will continue until the burdens of government become unbearable when the people will endeavor to discover causes which are now unheeded, but not because unknown. Then a concen- trated course of action may remodel a series of political organisms, which present more opportunities for abuse than any other known to history. 55 MANHOOD SUFFRAGE.* THE voting power entrusted to the citizen of a republic is the most sacred and potent privilege ever bestowed upon man. It is the foundation upon which the whole government structure rests and is the source of all politi- cal action. It not only carries with it the right to assist in making wise and just laws for the protection of the life and property of the single individual who votes, but also, often, the responsibility of assisting to secure the well being of millions of others ; and no matter what the after effect of the exercise of this franchise may be, the primary cause either for good or evil to communities constituting a free state is the ballot ; and if a majority of any political unit is corrupt, it will always pervert this sacred right to an unpatriotic, unworthy and depraved purpose ; such as cast- ing votes for representatives who in their turn will originate and sustain, for unworthy con- * Written in 1892. 56 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION siderations, evil enactments in the interests of partisans, individuals, and corporations and against the welfare of the people at large ; and in violation of an upright and enlightened public policy. Such must ever be the results which flow from an impure source. We have attained to such gigantic material strength within the one hundred and twenty-seven years of our exist- ence as a separate nation, and have become so enamored of our peculiar progress and the spoils method of conducting our political busi- ness, and have lapsed into such a condition of almost criminal neglect and carelessness in relation to the e very-day workings of our political scheme, that we have failed to see, as a people, even one out of the many self-evi- dent grave defects which seem to have been inherent in our form of government. The promoters of the revolution shook off the imaginary tyranny of a monarch one man and their posterity, aided by paupers, illit- erates and criminals, chiefly importations from foreign countries, have substituted for the one man tyranny, that of the unwashed millions, the most corrupt, vulgar, exacting 57 OUE POLITICAL DEGRADATION and extravagant known to this or any other country worse than the reign of Napoleon the Third, but, possibly, not quite as bad as the dissolute oppression which immediately preceded the French Revolution. " The Fathers " those of the Constitution, well intentioned capable men, when they had finished their labors, honestly believed that they had established a free government, where the field would be an open one free to all comers for a fair start, and that in the end the better, i. e. the honest, the industri- ous, the frugal and the good would win the race. This pleasant dream of the poor man's paradise and home for the oppressed was realized on paper in the form of a consti- tution. For more than a hundred years we have taken our rule of action from that docu- ment, and the Utopian political dream of the framers has been quoted in the forum and upon the stump, as the soundest and best foundation for a government the world has ever known ; and the citizen has attributed our national prosperity to the wise provisions of a " Peerless Charter " embodying supposed 58 OUE POLITICAL DEGEADATION national (?) as well as political rights. A dis- interested, cynical unimaginative person might say, with a considerable degree of truthfulness, that our unprecedented accumu- lations have been made in spite of our government, and that within one century and a quarter a short period of time in the history of a nation our attempt at a free government predicated upon equal rights to all men has concentrated in the hands of a few unscrupulous plutocrats an unprece- dented amount of wealth, plundered, with legislative aid, from the people ; and while these needlessly wealthy are getting richer, a large proportion of the struggling millions are not much better off than in other coun- tries. The average American is specially proud of the free ballot which upon occasion he is pleased to designate as the " Palladium of our Liberties." This is a high sounding phrase of classic origin which is particularly effective and usually convinces the skeptic that the unrestricted right to cast a vote at all elections is at once the corner stone upon which the whole American system has been 59 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION erected, the lever that has raised it to its present " proud position among the nations of the earth," and the key-stone which binds the national arch together. This idea domin- ates all classes and without reflection is accepted by them as the one superior right above all others secured under the republican form for the material and moral advance- ment of humanity. This assumption is urged in and out of season by the press, politicians, spoilsmen and men who pass for statesmen, and with such persistency that many foreign publicists have accepted the American plan, and are now acting upon it to the detriment of at least one other great nationality, which has heretofore been governed upon principles of discreet conservatism, characterized by a wise and patriotic policy which has carried its civilizing influence to many parts of the habitable globe; and the present outlook indicates that other nations are being tainted with the same political heresy. During the first fifty years after the close of the Revolution, manhood suffrage accom- plished all that its most ardent advocates could have demanded. It took from among 60 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION the whole people the better men for the higher public positions. Learning, broad intelligence and moral character went for something in those days, and were regarded as necessary qualities, which would enable those who possessed them to properly dis- charge the responsible duties imposed by a public trust. The government in the hands of such men was safe, its reputation was honorable among the nations and its business affairs were administered with a rare degree of honesty and economy. This high standard continued until several of the cities had grown to considerable dim- ensions, when the tide of corrupt politics set in, and, without hindrance, has continued to flow on ever since; and now it threatens to overwhelm a great and powerful nation with a sea of foul political slime such as only could have been created by the self-seeking partisan who rules now to ruin in the hereafter. The corrupt influence of the larger cities, has, in many states extended to the country districts, and their methods have obtained to such an extent in the towns and cities of the interior that they have become the active 61 OUE POLITICAL DEGKADATION rivals of their larger prototypes ; and their local officials and representatives in the state legislatures are often the peers in the paths of political crookedness of their brothers from the slums of the great cities. There is sub- stantially no difference in their aims and their methods are the same. Sometimes there is a difference in the market value of votes. The member from the large city on account of his supposed influence with his city brothers usually commands a higher price than the in- experienced rustic from ruralites. The former is a clever expert of much experience in the devious ways of legislature, while the bucolic member whose itching palms are to be crossed for the first time with golden pieces, is often unwittingly bought and sold for an insignifi- cant consideration. These practices have obtained to such an extent that going to the legislature has be- come one of the most profitable industries of the country, and nominations are now made and controlled by experts engaged in the traffic of securing nominations. The compen- sation of these adepts is a share of the spoils brought by the successful candidate from the 62 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION scene of his legislation triumphs ; sometimes they are rewarded with a remunerative ap- pointment to office for themselves or friends, the latter always paying the former for what they receive. Says the ardent advocate of manhood suf- frage this picture is overdrawn ; this state of things cannot exist ; the intelligent and honest voter would revolt. But he does not revolt, and probably never will; he is the slave of the caucus and casts his vote for the caucus candidate, often receiving pecuniary reward for the exercises of the inestimable privilege, i. e. voting early and often. He is not paid to discriminate or revolt, but to vote the partisan ticket, no matter how foul it may be. In a majority of American cities elections are but little removed from the plane of a wicked farce, and no intelligent person hav- ing the least knowledge of the facts as they exist could be deceived by the empty pre- tence that the will of the people is ever hon- estly expressed through the medium of the ballot box. The well-intentioned voter not influenced by improper motives is often at the mercy of the professional manipulators 63 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION in charge of the complicated election ma- chinery ; and in many instances his good in- tention to cast a clean vote is so perverted by these experts that by the time it has been deposited, it is no better in its effect than that of its fellows, which were cast for venal considerations. Purchasing votes is the common crime of the country and the lever the practical poli- tician relies upon to hoist himself into power, and when once in, if he can make a fair dis- tribution of official spoils among the " work- ers " he may remain in office indefinitely. Before elections,National, State or municipal, committees are formed of each party for the object of raising funds for "election pur- poses" which means nothing more or less, than the purchase of votes of those willing to sell. In many places the act of buying votes is carried on openly and in defiance of law. A few years since a candidate for Con- gress in one of the New York City districts was supposed to have expended about $70,- 000 to secure his election. At several of the polls where the Negro and Irish vote pre- dominated, agents of this candidate, without 64 OUK POLITICAL DEGKADATION any attempt at concealment, were engaged in bargaining for and paying voters for their votes. In one instance the negotiations were carried on in the presence of the election officials and police officers appointed to guard the sanctity of the ballot box. In the cities the keeper of the liquor saloon is the favorite of the voter, but the occupa- tion counts for little unless coupled with an offspring from the u Green Isle " who has developed, for the first time in his turbulent history, into an accepted ruler of men of the first political magnitude. One year out of the twenty-four Aldermen, same number of members of Assembly and seven State Sen- ators elected in the City of New York, thirty were either natives of Ireland or first gen- eration born of Irish parents in America; twelve were Germans, to whom the same statement would apply, and thirteen were possibly the usually accepted Americans, i. e. persons born in the United States with Eng- lish names. And sixteen out of the whole number of these "statesmen" who were to assist in making laws for and governing five millions of civilized people were engaged in 65 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION selling adulterated liquors at five cents a glass. The election of this particularly law- less class of Irish spoilsmen to power and often to absolute control of the large cities, is without question due entirely to the un- qualified vote of the irresponsible and vicious classes. Notorious instances of the perversion of the suffrage franchise are so numerous as to defy any attempt at a complete enumeration. These perversions are not confined to any particular part of the country, but with greater or lesser intensity pervade nearly the whole, and we must content ourselves with citing a small number out of the many prom- inent examples, merely for the purpose of illustration. In the summer of 1871 the great conspiracy of which William M. Tweed was the chief, was discovered. The autumn of that year he was elected to the State Sen- ate by an unprecedented majority in the dis- trict that elected him. It is fair to infer that those who voted for him knew that they were casting their votes for one of the great criminals of all times. The degree of de- pravity displayed on the part of the voters, 66 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION the great series of crimes committed by their candidate and his successful return to the Senate, constitute together an item of immoral political history unapproachably unique. A later incident equally depraved was the defeat of Delancey Nicoll, who was a candi- date for the office of District Attorney. This gentlemen as an assistant to that official had rendered most important services to the cit- izens of the City of New York, for which the reputable among them were grateful and de- sired not only to retain him in office but to promote him to a higher sphere of usefulness. But the friends of the so-called " Boodle Al- dermen "joined with all the vicious classes to defeat him. In this corrupt scheme the Mayor of the city assisted to the extent of using openly his influence in favor of a candidate of questionable character and official record, who had opposed to him a combination of all the better classes of citizens. Nicoll was defeated by a large majority, and it goes without saying, that his defeat must be con- strued into punishment for having honestly and efficiently performed his official duties to the public. At the time of this election it 67 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION was asserted by several of the leading New York newspapers, that the office-holders, brewers and liquor dealers raised and ex- pended five hundred thousand dollars to elect their man. It is an officially admitted fact that up- wards of fifteen thousand Grand Jury cases were allowed to accumulate in the New York District Attorney's office, and that a large majority of them were against liquor sellers for violation of the excise laws. This fact alone lets in a flood of light upon several of the slime-lined caverns of corrupt local poli- tics, and it constitutes a well-defined bond of union between the violators of law and that office, and the probabilities for success at an election are largely in favor of the can- didate who promises not to prosecute. Upon general principles indicted offenders had good reason to infer that Nicoll, if elected, would do his duty and empty official pigeon- holes of accumulated cases. Hence his de- feat. At the same election in the Eighth As- sembly District of New York City there was assembled a score or more of the worst crimi- 68 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION nals known to the local police. They were brought together for the purpose of cheating a candidate for the position of Civil Justice out of his election, and they did it. The proofs of their crime were ample, convincing and ready to be produced; but the District Attorney, although often requested and ur- gently pressed to do his sworn duty, refused to present the facts in his possession to a Grand Jury. The criminals this official re- fused to prosecute, while they were defeat- ing one candidate, were probably working for the success of another who was elected to the position of Justice of a new Criminal Court, not needed, but established at the in- stigation of this much overrated District Attorney, who was its first Judge. The New York legislature has been notori- ously corrupt for a half of a century. It was my fortune to have been a member of that body in 1872, when it was known as the " Re- form Legislature," then alleged for the reason, as I have always supposed, that only eighty- five out of the one hundred and twenty-eight were " Commercial," i. e.j purchasable. The notable scandal of that winter was accom- 69 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION plished by the lobby forces of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Com- pany. The traffic of that and other corpora- tions had become so great a nuisance in the Fourth Avenue of the City of New York, as to endanger life and prevent ordinary traffic, which ought to have been suppressed by the courts at the expense of the oifending cor- porations, but instead the legislature was in- duced to pass a law compelliDg the tax payers of that city to contribute $3,637,000 towards abating a public common -law nuisance they had nothing whatever to do with creating. The Albany lawmakers of 1868 ac- commodated the president of that company with an act which legalized a previous illegal overissue of stock to the extent of forty millions of dollars, upon which the patrons of that corporation have since paid scores of millions of dollars in dividends. It was stated at the time of this transaction, that the presiding official who conceived and car- ried to success this stock-watering scheme, made out of it the sum of twenty-two mil- lions of dollars, which afterwards became the foundation of one of the colossal fortunes 70 , OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION of all times. It goes without saying, that this overissue was in direct and flagrant violation of the laws of the State of New York, and that a corrupt legislature was bribed to make it valid by the enactment of a legislative act. In 1886 a person who had accumulated a great fortune out of the earnings of one of the most corrupt and oppressive corporate monopolies with which the American nation is so plentifully afflicted, sent his agents to the Ohio legislature and purchased for him- self a seat in the Senate of the United States. In 1887 a combination of Pacific (land grant) Railroad officials succeeded in defeat- ing the re-election of a Senator from Ne- braska, whose only offence had been a series of earnest attempts against great odds, in be- half of the interests of the government. He had dared upon the floor of the United States Senate to denounce the greed of the corporate land thieves, had favored a restor- ation to the people of the lands illegally taken and held by them, and also, the pay- ment of interest upon the bonds loaned by the government for building these railroads. 71 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION He was regarded by national officials and practical politicians as being " impractical," and consequently removed to give place to a supposed less troublesome Senator. Not many years ago there was an election to choose a Senator from the "Pacific Slope." A local u Boss " announced at the beginning of the campaign, "My candidate means busi- ness, has counted the cost, and is going in to win." It is probably unnecessary to write that the statesman alluded to, who had the longest purse, represented in a certain man- ner, the representatives of a constituency his money purchased, and the contest for his election has become historical. It is believed to have been one of the most expensive of its kind known to our history. Vermont may be regarded as the most economically and carefully governed of all the states. Its citizens have better protec- tion for life and property at less cost than in either of the other American states, and yet only a few years since their local railroad magnate obtained the enactment of a law which enabled him to defraud the owners of the first and second mortgage bonds out of 72 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION their security. This act was without prece- dent and wholly unparalleled in its result- ing rascality ; and the singular part of that affair consisted of the fact, that the legisla- tors who voted for the act were not culpable, they were only incapable, and in the major- ity of instances the bribes were railroad passes and insignificant retainers to cross- roads lawyers. This single incident illus- trates the importance of entrusting the law- making power to persons who are capable of judging of the effects of the laws they are called upon to enact. In 1887 the Boston and Maine Railroad officials, with the aid of an enormous lobby and $225,000 induced a sufficient number of the members of the New Hampshire legisla- ture to pass a law, which, if it had been signed by the Governor, would have placed the railroad system of that state under the control of a foreign corporation. What has been written of the legislatures named will apply with equal force to a ma- jority of the others, and especially to those of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Colorado and California, and it is quite im- 73 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION possible to form anything like a correct esti- mate as to the number of legislative bodies out of the forty-five that are not purchasable. Probably there is not one entirely free from the influence of money or corrupt politics. With the majority it is a matter of purchase pure and simple, and turns upon the single question of how much cash or in kind. The Federal Congress being a much larger body than any of the State legislatures, repre- senting many antagonistic interests of the sec- tions, is not so easily controlled, and is sel- dom if ever induced by improper considera- tions to lend itself to corrupt schemes of insignificant importance. It is only at the solicitation of the powerful and wealthy corporations, or in the interests of a momen- tous measure for partisan political aggran- dizement that it comes down to the level of vicious legislation and delivers tainted goods. But still it is a matter of national regret that its morals are not what they ought to be, and it must be admitted, that to a certain extent, this all-powerful body of lawmakers are a reflex of the State legislatures. And a few references to several of the soiled pages of 74 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION Congressional history must be made to show that its methods are in some instances about the same. The story of the Credit Mobilier is among the national landmarks which time will not efface. The knowledge of that great scandal came upon the nation like a vast dark, dense cloud in the noon of a clear summer day ; and as its humiliating details were gradually developed the surprise grew until the honest citizens refused to believe that a corrupt combination of such magnitude instituted for public plunder could have been consummated by the men they had elected to represent them. But soon the official investigation more than confirmed previous unofficial state- ments. And then came the sickening realiza- tion of the fact that several of the most honored names belonging to the late heroic period of the Nation's history were disgraced beyond redemption, and their owners' reputa- tion made infamous for all time to come. Those were the people's representatives whose official acts had been purchased to perpetrate an unheard of wrong against the property rights of the whole people. The nation had 75 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION just passed through the death dealing ordeal of a long and sanguinary war ; many hearth- stones had their vacant seats and all hearts were saddened, but there was over all a sor- rowful thankfulness for the hard fought victories which declared to the world that the territorial integrity of the nation had been maintained. This great sacrifice of blood had sanctified a heroic people, but its influence had failed to reach the heart of the politician or to affect the methods of the unscrupulous promoters of corrupt corporation schemes; and while confiding constituents were mourn- ing the loss of their fallen relations and strew- ing their graves with flowers, their chosen representatives were perfecting plans for giv- ing away the public domain and plundering the public treasury. Fortunately for the reputation of humanity such exhibitions of monstrous depravity are rarely witnessed. The success of this conspiracy in favor of land grants and bond subsidies to the Union Pacific Railroad Company, proved to be only the entering point of a wedge, and it excited more cabals of ambitious plunderers to under- take similar operations in the interest of 76 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION other projected lines of transcontinental rail- roads, which were finally carried through Congress by the methods employed by the inventors of the Credit Mobilier. The takings of the five Pacific Railroads under the several land grant and subsidy acts amount in land to upwards of fifty millions of acres and the Northern Pacific has the right to take upwards of thirty millions more, making, in all, taken and to be taken, ninety millions of acres by these five cor- porations ; add to that number the numerous grants to lesser railroad corporations, and we shall find that the national territory given to them is equal to the whole of France proper. The subsidies in bonds to these roads upon which the government paid interest amounted to $59,414,652. For a rough calculation and to keep within bounds let us estimate the lands at 125,000,000 of acres at the then value of $4 per acre, which would give a total value of lands and subsidies, of $559,- 414,652. The Congressional acts for these wholesale transfers of the national lands and bonds to private corporations were bribed through Congress; they were unnecessary 77 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION and unwarrantable and without precedent among the civilized nations, and cannot be defended upon any sound principles of public policy or political economy. The lands were taken virtually from the poor and given to the rich from the would-be settler to the corrupt corporation. If a railroad was needed to the Pacific coast, the government might, or ought to have built, owned and controlled it for the benefit of the whole people ; and not for professional scoundrels posing for public benefactors. Another item of pernicious legislation was the enactment of the " Bland Silver Bill " passed in the interest of the silver producing states for the purpose of maintaining an abnormally high price for that metal and creating an artificial-uncommercial demand for it. It compelled the government to pur- chase at least two millions of dollars worth per month which was coined into an alleged dollar, then of less than eighty cents value, which commerce could not use and no individ- ual cared to accept. The direct result of this unexampled financiering was inflation of the currency at the rate of two millions 78 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION of dollars per month, which injured the con- sumer and benefited the parasite speculator and the silver producing states. The act was passed also in the interest of corrupt politics, viz. when the republican party had control of both branches of Congress, for the purpose of keeping the silver states from going to the Democratic party, where their leaders had threatened to take them if the bill was not enacted. The "River and Harbor Bill" which is sometimes called the " Annual Steal " is always well sandwiched with corrupt " Jobs " in the interest of particular Congressmen and Senators for the benefit of their sections. One rather amusing anecdote will sufficiently illustrate the nature of many of its yearly items. A few years since a certain Senator returning from a yachting excursion with one of his wealthy constituents, suggested mak- ing an unusual landing, the yacht stuck fast in the sand of a shallow beach and the guest and yacht owner were rowed in a small boat as near dry land as possible, but finally were compelled to wade a short distance to the shore. The "River and Harbor Bill" of 79 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION the next session of Congress contained an appropriation for deepening the channel in a certain well-known New England Bay. The " Public Buildings Appropriation Bill" is a favorite with the average Con- gressman, and often its provisions add to the reputation of the representative whose con- stituents have neither trout creeks or sluice- ways to transform into navigable waterways of commerce. A grant of fifty or a hundred thousand dollars for a postoffice in a village where the postal revenues are not more than one or two thousand dollars a year is not an infrequent occurrence. These are the little tubs the amiable Senator or Congressman tosses to his section to console the patriotic constituents for not being eligible for the " River and Harbor" appropriations. The supplemental pension bills passed since the close of the rebellion, which have taken many scores of millions of dollars from the treasury, originated in the brain of one man who carried them to success with the hope that some day the pensioners' vote would carry him to the White House. The most lamentable part of this particular item 80 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION in our national history is this : while these bills were being considered there was not a member of either house who dared rise in his place and denounce them as they deserved, so fearful were they of being annihilated by the " Old Soldier Vote." There is a wide-spread belief among the people that the laws upholding an oppressive war tariff have been maintained at the expense of honest legislation, that corrupt politics and private interests have for a score of years prevented the success of all attempts at reform in our system of unnecessaiy taxation upon importations from foreign countries. Can it be said of a people who permit the abuses enumerated, not only to continue from year to year, but to increase in number and kind to an unprecedented extent, that they are free ? Can a poor man, no matter how well qualified morally and intellectually, go to a State legislature and hope to succeed in a contest with the viciously corrupt million- aire or political boss for a seat in the United States Senate? Is this particular field of contest an open one to all comers where 81 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION success ought to be, but is not, contingent upon moral and intellectual fitness ? All of the greater railroad corporations employ an expert corps of professional corruptionists known as the " Railroad Lobby " whose business it is to bribe legis- lators. They compass, whenever they elect, the passage of improper laws for the benefit of their employers, and prevent the enactment of laws intended to check the dishonest greed which the corporations are on the alert to satisfy. Experience fully warrants the assertion that these trained corruptionists have for more than two decades controlled a majority of our State legislatures. It has passed into the political literature of the nation as fact that the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad " owns the legislature at Albany " and the statement will apply with equal force to the legislatures of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, California, Colorado and other trans-Mississipi states, and the Pennsylvania Railroad is, and the Pacific (land grant) Railroads were once, equally potent at Washington. Their officials have succeeded in preventing what 82 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION they were pleased to call " hostile legislation " in other words the passage of acts intended to bring them to book for their swindles and evasions. Senator Thurman of Ohio once succeeded in obtaining the passage of an act intended to protect government interests interwoven with the land grant and subsidy railroads. It proved to be inefficient and for a long time was regarded as a practical dead letter. Many of the original promoters of these enter- prises were alive and still controlled the corporations they brought into existence, and they showed as much skill in evading the provisions of a good law as formerly in promoting the passage of bad ones. That the evils described exist there can be no reasonable doubt and we naturally search for the cause. The unqualified answer is, that they have been brought into existence by the abuse of the unrestricted vote, which chooses from among the ignorant and vicious classes unfit representatives to make our laws. This evil is a gigantic one and is as deep down in our system as the foundations of the government and can never be remedied short 83 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION of a revolution. It is perfectly certain that the corrupt non-producing classes who are wielding this all-potent weapon for selfish ends, regardless of public and private rights are not going to give it up without a des- perate and bloody struggle. Reformation to better political morals on the part of those who live by plundering the public can never be brought about by any system of education or attempt at enforcement of ethical princi- ples. A Cromwell or a French Revolution must present the only argument the spoliation classes can be made to comprehend. No theory can possibly be more absurd than the one founded upon the assumption that " All men are created free and equal." A child at the moment of its birth is not free. It is subject to parental care and with the dawn of intellect and physical power the parents interpose restraint upon freedom of action, and when the age of more mature responsibilities arrives, the civil law steps in and imposes further restraint which continues during life. Under these conditions uncon- ditional freedom is impossible. A condition of equality for all men and women is quite as 84 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION impossible as unqualified freedom, and it has never existed in any of the varied conditions of human existence, under any form of government, and all evidence goes to prove that no two men or women can be alike in intellect, morals, facial appearance, expression or physical form, and as to what are the natural rights with which every human being is supposed to be seized at the moment of birth is a matter of grave doubt. There are however several conditions which are neces- sary to human existence, that ought to be universally recognised. The right to life, which in all civilised communities carries with it the right to protection, the right to labor and its results; and the pursuit of happiness, but only in such a manner as not to interfere with the general well-being of society and the rights and happiness of others. The mere fact of birth and existence in the form of a man without other qualifica- tions does not carry with it the right to rule, or give the vicious and pauper classes the privilege of assisting to make laws for those who have earned the wherewith to pay the expense of maintaining civil government. 85 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION The right to vote ought to be limited to those who possess morals, intelligence and property at least one or all. The vicious, ignorant and pauper classes may be ruled and protected by the application of wise and just laws, but they can lay no just claim to a privilege of assisting in governing others ; and only those who pay the expenses of government should have the right to decide who shall represent them for the purpose of making public expenditures. Political, like business organizations, ought to be based upon reciprocal compensation. Those who contribute to success of the whole, equally with others, should have equal rights as to control and in results, while the drones and worthless who contribute nothing to the general prosperity ought to be deprived of both. This rule applies also to families where happiness is the outcome of order, morality and thrift. The producers, i. e. in- dustrious and better members always receive the highest parental consideration, while those who exist only to be clothed, lodged and fed at the expense of the others, are never regarded favorably and in many countries or 86 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION communities are rejected from the family household like the drones from the beehive. , A nation is nothing but a national family, and the same principles of government that applies to domestic relations underlie the laws that govern peoples, and those nations are the better governed which make the most stringent and impartial application of these principles. The right to assist in governing (to vote) others is not a natural one. It is derived from acquired or inherited con- ditions, all tending in the direction of fitness, and not from the accident of being born a male or female of the genus homo. In the United States the franchise line is drawn with many sorts on the one side, and on the other Chinese, idiots, insane persons and convicts. Why not go further and exclude illiterates, habitual criminals, tramps and the classes en- gaged in immoral occupations that encourage and produce crime and pauperism. A gov- ernment is bound, by reason of its existence, if for no other, to protect its citizens from in- ternal evils and disorders as well as to de- fend them from the attacks from without; and when the vicious law-defying millions, 87 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION by the abuse of a great privilege, consolidate themselves into the form of an extortionate tyrant, it is time for the ought to be ruling forces, to apply the necessary power to pro- tect the worthy citizen against the incursions and oppressions of spoilsmen. In the United States has not the time for such an interposition arrived ? 88 NATURALIZATION. * THE next National evil in order after uni- versal suffrage is a nearly useless set of naturalization laws. The United States is the only one among the civilized nations that has failed to erect an efficient barrier against the intrusion of the undesirable classes emi- grating from foreign countries, and by its negligence in this respect, invited those who have neither moral character or intellectual qualifications to land upon its shores, and gives them the privilege of assisting to man- age the affairs of a government before there is any likelihood of their having any knowledge of a system new to them, which would enable them to vote and act intelligently. Fortunately there is a remedy for the neglect on the part of the framers of the Con- stitution to provide measures for the pre- vention of this evil. The clause of the Fed- * Written in 1885. 89 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION eral Constitution relating to this matter is permissory and not mandatory, and it is com- petent for Congress to pass a stringent and restrictive act affording a complete remedy for a Constitutional omission. In order to show the pressing need for such a change it is only necessary to refer to the newspaper history and official report made by a Con- gressional Committee in 1868 upon the naturalization frauds perpetrated in the city of New York in the autumn of that year. The simple facts in relation to this stu- pendous scheme of rascality constitutes a chapter of political jugglery wholly un- rivalled in the known history of any other civilized nation. This conspiracy was con- ceived, elaborated and carried to success by the New York leaders of one of the great National political parties, and its successful execution involved nearly all classes of pub- lic officials, from a Judge of the Supreme Court of the great Commonwealth of New York, down through all grades of public ser- vants to the assistant clerks of local courts. The then Mayor of the City of New York was the candidate of the Democratic party 90 OUE POLITICAL DEGRADATION for Governor. He had passed as a sort of a party saint among a set of partisan free- booters, but at best lie was only a screen to shield his friends and intimate associates from public gaze while they were robbing the municipal treasury. This official had a direct personal interest in the success of his party and his partisan discretion did not permit him to interfere with the political misdeeds of his intimates. Outside of the courts, law officials and city officials, there existed no practical power to resist the consummation of a gigantic crime, which was to overwhelm and set at naught, the honest will as expressed through the bal- lots of a majority of the citizens of a great and powerful Commonwealth ; and the alli- ance made between officials who had sworn to protect and administer the laws and an enormous cabal of practical election man- agers, constituted an irresistible force which crushed all opposition, and led the law abid- ing citizens to believe that they had neither political or personal rights, nor a government strong enough to protect them even if they existed. 91 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION The offence on the part of Judges of States Courts of corruptly administering the laws relating to naturalization of aliens is an old one, and has been perpetrated in various states of the Union, both before and since the detection and impeachment of Judge Elliot in Lousiania for misconduct in this matter during the years from 1841 to 1844. But it did not become a potent and distinct factor in partisan politics in the city of New York until about 1866, when the Superior and Common Pleas Courts admitted to cit- izenship 13,023 aliens and in 1867, 15,746 more. This was mere child's play, or sort of preliminary exercise in political gymnastics of the New York courts preparatory for a supreme effort in the near future. The election of 1868 was an important one. Grant with his popular reputation of having saved the Union, was in the field for Presi- dent running against Seymour. John A. Griswold, a patriotic citizen of the highest type, who out of his own means had built the Monitor that defeated the Merrimac, was the Republican 'candidate for Governor of the State of New York against John T. Hoffman, 92 OUE POLITICAL DEGRADATION facile and expert, who was the candidate of the Democracy. There were also the usual num- ber of members of Congress to be elected and many judicial, State, city and county offices to be filled. From a spoils standpoint, the po- litical stake was of enormous value when considered in connection with the almost numberless possibilities in the direction of public plunder; and its possession was re- garded as being worthy of a herculean effort, which the notorious leaders of brutal Irish hordes were prepared to make ; and as usual all the corrupt appliances and forces so well known to machine managers were called into active co-operation. The slums had furnished the usual quotas of facile registers and in- spectors of election ; the lofts of stables, the cellars and garrets of Water and Roosevelt Streets, Mackerelville, Five Points and the African quarters had been peopled with criminals, paupers and tramps, who had been engaged, caged, colonized and paid for the express purpose of fraudulent registration and voting. These were the oft-repeated ordinary preparations for any election and had come to be regarded as legitimate and 93 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION regular, at least, by one of the great National parties. This year these preparations were destined to be dwarfed into utter insignifi- cance when compared to the grand coup the Democratic leaders had in store for a con- fiding public. Immediately after the election of 1867, a local "statesman" of knowledge, sagacity and wide experience set himself to work to invent the machinery needed to develop into an active force the immense power for evil involved in an elaborate and well adjusted system of fraudulent naturalization. The ease with which this particular fraud had been managed in a small way in years past, led this expert to believe that a perfect machine worked up to full speed, would produce astonishing, not to say satisfactory results and he was not mistaken. Under the lead of Tammany Hall, a committee, with a large force of paid employees, was organized for the purpose of obtaining all the names of adult males residing in the city of New York, who were known not to be citizens. A central headquarters was established, to which the "workers" made frequent reports and 94 OUK POLITICAL DEGKADATION deposited the lists of names of the persons designated for naturalization. The next move was to see that the co-operative courts were supplied with the necessaiy blanks which were ordered of the " New York Printing Company" a ring concern, that struck off 105,000 blank applications and 69,000 certificates of naturalization; besides these, which were furnished for the exclusive use of the courts, large issues were made for branch offices under the charge of Tammany Hall, which organization assumed the pay- ment of the necessary certificate fees to the clerks of the courts from which they were to be issued, and for this purpose the " workers " were given 40,000 two dollar red tickets and instructed to deposit one with a clerk of the court for each certificate of naturalization issued. The preparations completed, the mills be- gan to grind. The Supreme Court, which had never naturalized before, simultaneously with the Superior opened wide its doors and the surging mass of unwashed perjury rushed in at each, and then for days and weeks with- out hindrance or even protest, the great orgy 95 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION went on a veritable pandemonium of lies and a continuous revel of unheard of crime. In each instance the presiding genius guid- ing this Hell-born feast of iniquity was a judge who had recorded his solemn oath to faithfully administer the laws ; while among the whippers-in of these vast swarms of human depravities, were found court officials eager in the cause of crime whose sworn duty it was to assist in the honest execution of the laws. This carouse of crime, often with closed doors, continued for fifteen days, while at other times during that period the law was openly violated with an air of defi- ance born of unheard of depravity; and scenes were witnessed in these high courts of law of a civilized nation (sic) that would have disgraced the government of barbarians. One witness thus describes what he saw in Judge Barnard's room of the Supreme Court where sessions were held in the evening, nominally, from seven to nine o'clock, but often until after eleven : " He saw batches of men brought into court, averaging from 140 to 150 each. As they came before the bench they would be divided into groups around 96 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION four or five Bibles, one of which would be held up by five or six men in the centre of the group, and the others would either touch it or stretch out their hands towards it. The clerk would then call out the names, at the same time holding to the judge, face down, an application, upon the back of which the magistrate, without any examination of the paper would affix his initials the fiat for naturalization, no questions being asked of any person, either applicant or witnesses." He would sometimes swear en bloc, all the applicants and witnesses in the room. Cer- tificates stamped in blank with the seal of the court would then be filled out and handed to any one who had personated an applicant. Oftentimes the ceremony of natu- ralization would be performed with the wit- nesses, no real or fictitious applicants being present. The " witness " was one of the most im- portant factors in the success of this rare baseness. Ten of them within fifteen days swore to the residence and good character of 8,468 applicants. These standing witnesses appeared in the Supreme and Superior Courts, 97 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION but were known as " Judge Barnard's wit- nesses " ; one was identified as having ap- peared before Judge McCunn at least twenty- five times in a single evening, under as many different names, and Patrick Goff within three days appeared before Judge Barnard as sponsor for the good character of 1,073 applicants. The exact number of honest or fraudulent certificates of naturalization issued in the city of New York in 1868 has never been as- certained, but the figures, so far as known, are: Common Pleas, 3,145; Superior Court, 27,897; Supreme Court, 37,138; total, 68, 180. The number in October alone was 65,000, and nearly all were issued by two judges in two courts in a period of nineteen days. There were also large numbers of certificates signed and sealed with the seal of the courts and sent to adjoining counties in New York, and to the States of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Probably 10,000 would not be too high an estimate for the number of unauthorized certificates issued by the courts in New York city during the month of October of that year. A notable 98 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION but not surprising fact connected with this series of unparalled crimes, was that eight- tenths of the names of the active agents en- gaged in it were of Irish origin. The fol- lowing paragraph from the report of the Congressional Investigating Committee gives an accurate and comprehensive description of the character of the offences complained of. "Among the frauds practised under the naturalization laws were : the false persona- tion of applicants under real or assumed names ; the fabrication of applications for naturalization and oaths in support of them, with names and applications of witnesses forged ; the granting of certificates of natu- ralization in ficticious names ; and on applica- tions regular in form, but without the pres- ence of any applicants and to persons not entitled to them." No incident could more appropriately illus- trate the character of a New York office holder and the general depravity of that class than the following : A few days after the election of 1868 I had occasion to call at the office of the clerk of the Superior Court, and while there remarked upon what seemed 99 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION to me, to be the unnecessary length of the lever and great size of the weights attached to each end of it, which was used as a han- dle to a press for the stamping of the seal of the court upon official documents. An as- sistant clerk of the court who was present, placed the cover of a law book under the die, gave the lever a gentle swing, and nearly crushed a piece out of a very strong sheep binding, and at the same time with an air of triumph and pride combined, exclaimed: " This press elected John T. Hoffman Gov- ernor of the State of New York. We often worked it all night, making as many as ten impressions upon naturalization certificates with one turn of the lever." Now here comes the point. This assistant clerk came of a rather wealthy New York family of the approved business type. In his childhood and youth he had accomplished his share of Sunday school and church instruction ; his home had been a comfortable one, where morality, sobriety and industry were the leading domestic qualities ; he closed his youth period with a fair education and then became a member of the New York Bar, 100 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION And yet, with all his advantages and intelli- gence, he had failed to discern that he had been a particeps criminis in the perpetration of a monstrous crime, against morality, the laws of his country and the welfare of a nation, which in any self-respecting, law- abiding community having the least possible respect for the honest administration of jus- tice, would have been punished with im- prisonment. A few weeks before the election of 1880 I visited the court rooms in the city of New York for the purpose of witnessing the grind of the naturalization mill. Two judges in two different courts were turning the han- dles of two separate mills ; both had been on the bench for years and were crowned with fair if not good reputations. I saw one of them manufacture citizens out of the most wretched and filthy human beings I had ever beheld at the rate of three in five minutes ; while the other ground out two and a half in the same length of time. It is quite safe to assert that not more than a tenth of those thus naturalized were entitled to certificates, and hardly any were fit to become citizens of 101 OUK POLITICAL DEGKADATION any decent country. Upon this occasion as upon many others, I noticed that nearly all of the witnesses and seven-tenths of the applicants were Irish, many of them appar- ently very fresh from Ireland. A majority of both classes left the platform in front of the judge's seat with a self-satisfied leer of triumph for the success of their fraud. It has been authoritatively declared by competent authority, that the act of natural- ization is a judicial one which ought to be administered with great care. If Judges performing this function were governed by that view of the case, there would be a mate- rial decrease in the number of citizens manu- factured yearly out of objectionable foreign material. But the vicious rule of the spoils- man here, as well as in every other depart- ment of government administration, pro- nounces ex cathredra his instructions for another course ; and when he points the way even reputable judges nominated and elected by his dictation dare not disobey his orders. And so it happens that our elected judges, by their acts, have proved, conclusively that they regard it as a part of their official duties, 102 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION to perform corrupt political work for the advantage of the party that elected them to office. Experience has proved, in this instance as well as in others, that the theory of " The Fathers" in defining the bounds of a free government by the people extended too far. It ought to have meant a nation ruled by those born upon its soil, with pride of race and sufficient knowledge of National institu- tions to enable them to vote honestly and act intelligently, and the right of suffrage ought not to have been extended to ignorant for- eigners. But since they did elect to open the door and permit the manufacture of full- fledged citizens out of all sorts and conditions of human materials, they should have re- stricted control of the modus operand* involved in the manufacture to the general government, and not supplemented one blunder with another, i. e. giving the various States the power to create citizens of the United States. A brief reference to our own and the existing laws of other nations for the regu- lation of the naturalization process, will 103 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION enable those interested in that subject, to judge between the American and European systems. But of course we cannot hope for any conversion to the right way even in this most important matter, for the average American is bound by accident of birth, to be deaf and blind to all that is commendable in other forms of government, and will upon most occasions assert the superiority of his own work and set it up against the states- manship, wisdom of the ages, and experience of the rest of the world. In our method of citizen manufacturing we stand alone, and our laws were without precedent when adopted and have had no imitators since among the other nations. March 26, 1790 Congress passed its first act regulating naturalization, permitting the issuing of certificates of citizenship to free white persons, who had lived in the United States two years and in the State where application was made one. In 1795 the act was amended making a residence of five years in the country a condition precedent to application, and a declaration of intention to become a citizen of three years prior to the 104 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION issuing of a certificate. In 1798, by another amendment the term of residence was increased to fourteen years, in 1802 reduced to five years and in 1824 the time of declara- tion reduced to two. As the law now stands applicants must have resided in the United States five years and in the State or territory where application is made, two years. Minors under eighteen when they come to the United States, are entitled to become citizens upon arriving at the age of twenty- one without previous declaration. In both classes of application the other requirements and proceedings are the same; they must prove to the court good moral character and that they are attached to the principles of the Constitution. In 1872 an elaborate act was passed, which among other provisions had one making it a felony to obtain or knowingly assist in obtaining fraudulent naturalization. Notwithstanding this legis- lative definition fixing a severe penalty, the crime is still a common one and flows on un- disturbed, its even way in nearly all the larger cities of the Union. The greater number of evasions being committed in 105 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION granting certificates to minors by clerks of courts. Many of the judges, however, man- age to do their part by not making searching examinations of applicants who come before them, which if honorably and loyally made, would defeat at least one-half of all the applications. Prance is the only European government having a law providing for compulsory naturalization. The first is la grande natur- alization, conferred by the Executive for distinguished services ; this is discretionary. The second part of the law compels admission to citizenship after an authorized probation of three years living in the country, after twenty-one years of age. In Russia applica- tions may be made to the Minister of the Interior who may refuse; no appeal. In Prussia the superior Administrative Author- ities under certain conditions, are empowered, not compelled, to naturalize. In Italy, by act of Parliament or Royal decree, discretion- ary. In Portugal, application may be made to the King, who refers it to his Ministers ; discretionary. In the Netherlands, by act of the States General approved by the King ; 106 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION discretionary. In Denmark, application approved by a Minister and sanctioned by the King; discretionary. In Sweden, by petition to the King ; discretionary. In Norway, granted by special act of the Storth- ing, National Legislature ; discretionary, and in Brazil by joint resolution of both Chambers, approved by the Emperor ; discretionary. In England any alien may present an application to one of her Majesty's principal secretaries praying for a certificate of natur- alization, which must state : I. Of what state the applicant is a subject. II. His name, address, age, profession, trade or other occupation. III. Whether he is married, and has any children under age, residing with him, and if so to state their names and ages. IV. That during the period of eight years preceding the application, the applicant has for five years resided within the Kingdom ; (The place or places of such residence being specified) or that during the same period of eight years, he has for five years been in the service of the Crown. 107 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION V. That lie intends to reside in the United Kingdom or serve under the Crown. This statement must be verified under oath of the applicant, and the facts set forth in the memorial must be sustained, and the reputa- bility and loyalty of the applicant vouched for by a declaration made in like manner by four householders who are native-born Brit- ish subjects, and neither of them the agent or solicitor of the memorialist. The declara- tion may be made by such declarents jointly, or by each separately ; but each of the declar- ents must in his declaration state, as to him- self, the fact that he is a householder, and a native born British subject, the place of his residence, and the period during which he has known the applicant. It will be observed that these regulations call for all the facts needed to enable an official to act intelligently ; but if after giving the whole statement careful consideration, he should conclude that the applicant would not make a law-abiding and self-supporting citizen, he may refuse to grant a certificate of citizenship, and from his decision there is no appeal. The act under which the above 108 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION regulations were framed, was passed in 1870, and is in all respects what it ought to be. It properly guards the British people from intrusion of undesirable classes from other countries, and only gives to strangers the privilege of applying, and not the right to become citizens. The provisions of the act are based upon the proposition that the right to be incorporated into the household of a great nation, is a valuable one, which ought not to be bestowed upon those who merely seek new homes under a different national status for the sole purpose of bettering their material condition, without in return, contri- buting anything of value to the nation that is to warm them into a new existence. Demagogues and money magnates will declare that this proposition does not apply to aliens naturalized in the United States ; that they have contributed largely to the material prosperity of which every American is so eager to boast. But in the name of all that is manly, honest in private life and pure in politics, is there nothing in this world worthy admiration but money ? Must these virtues be scattered to the winds before the all- 109 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION worshiped advance of " American Progress " " Millions, no matter how obtained ? " There is no doubt about it, the foreigner honestly and fraudulently naturalized, and unnaturalized, has helped to pile up those millions. But at what a cost. The political demoralization and degradation of a nation of seventy-five millions of human souls. Other causes have contributed to bring about these unfortunate results. Foreigners, not all, but enough, were the first to offer their votes for sale and proved to the " boss " their value ; and the " Irish Groggery " has furnished the acknowledged exchange for traffic in ballots, and now in nearly all the larger cities these two elements of wicked- ness control and direct the alleged free will of the people. Any effort to attract public attention to the defects and abuses complained of, would be incomplete without some reference to the opinions of several of those leaders in Con- gress who were opposed to the insufficient and lax provisions incorporated into the law and from which all the evils incident to our methods of naturalization have grown. The 110 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION New York Daily Times of April 7, 1877 contained a communication from the writer, which among other matters, gave extracts from speeches of those opposing members, and are now incorporated into this paper as an appropriate conclusion. To the Editor of the New York Times : Our laws under which naturalizations are effected are insufficient, and are administered with a degree of laxity unkown in any other country. The privi- lege of becoming a citizen of a great republican nation is of rare value, and ought to be guardedly bestowed ; it should only be granted after a careful examination as to general and moral fitness. Crimi- nals, habitual paupers, and imbeciles ought to be rigidly excluded from participating in elections. The ballot-box is our source of power, and the power which is molded into political form through the right to vote should be both moral and intelligent. The law as it is now administered makes no discrimi- nation between classes. Some person unknown to the court swears that he has known the applicant for naturalization for a certain number of years, and that he has borne during that time a good moral character. Upon such testimony thousands of 111 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION unworthy citizens are yearly manufactured. In seven cases out of every ten, the witness and appli- cant never meet until at the courtroom door ten minutes before the testimony has to be given. During that part of the Autumn of 1868 immedi- ately preceding the election, the naturalization mill was ground as it never had been ground before. It was kept going night and day until about 28,000 naturalization certificates had been issued, 20,000 of which it is fair to assume are now in the hands of persons who are not entitled to them. Add to these the number who had before and have since received certificates obtained by fraud, and it may be safely assumed that there is in this City and Brooklyn fully 40,000 persons voting at each election who have no right to vote. If this assumption is true, and Mr. Tilden had been elected, would he not now be holding his office by virtue of a fraudulent vote ? This is a query which it is to be hoped some member of the great reform party may answer. During the Summer of 1869 I happened to be in the office of the Clerk of the Superior Court. While there my attention was attracted to a powerful machine used for the purpose of impressing the seal of the court upon official documents. A deputy clerk, of whom I asked some questions concerning it, stated that ' it was this seal which made Hoff- 112 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION man Governor of the State of New York." He also informed me that the demand for naturalization cer- tificates at that time was so great (the Autumn of 1868) that they often made ten impressions with one turn of the lever. This abuse, which we have become used to, has never received the attention which its importance demands. Both political parties have known of and tolerated these yearly frauds ; one has aided, abetted, and profited by it, while the other has not cared to expose it, or rather to attempt to remedy it, for the reason that its managers have always hoped (and in vain) that they might get a slice of the foreign vote, which in this City is com- pact, and generally goes all one way. The time has now arrived when the Eepublican Party can afford to grapple with this evil, and it ought to take upon itself the duty of presenting such a law for the con- sideration of Congress, which, if enacted, will in the future render a repetition of these frauds impossible. In Congress, Feb. 3, 1790, occurred the first dis- cussion upon the " Eule of naturalization." It ex- tended through several days, and after a most earn- est debate the law as it now stands was ordered to a third reading. A few extracts from this debate may prove of interest. The objections to the law were the same then as now, but the arguments which were urged in its favor would hardly apply at this time. 113 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION Mr. John Lawrence, of New York, said : " The reason for admitting foreigners to the rights of citizenship among us is the encouragement of emi- gration, as we now have a large tract of country to people." During the whole of the debate this was the only reason assigned for admitting foreigners to the rights of citizenship. Mr. Madison was very conservative in his views, urged great caution in framing the law, and said : " When we are consid- ering the advantages that may result from an easy mode of naturalization, we ought also to consider the cautions necessary to guard against abuses. It is no doubt very desirable that we should hold out as many inducements as possible for the worthy part of mankind to come and settle among us, and throw their fortunes into a common lot with ours. But why is this desirable ? Not merely to swell the catalogue of people. No, Sir. It is to increase the wealth and strength of the community, and those who acquire the rights of citizenship without adding to the wealth and strength of the community, are not the people we want. * * * I should be exceedingly sorry, Sir, that our rule of naturalization excluded a single person of good fame that meant to incorporate himself into our society. On the other hand, I do not wish that any man should acquire the privlege but such as would be a real 114 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION addition to the wealth and strength of the United States." Mr. Smith, of South Carolina, in urging a longer term of probation, asked " what could he [the emi- grant] know of the Government the moment he landed ? Little or nothing. How then could he ascertain who was the proper person to legislate or judge of the laws ? Certainly gentlemen would not pretend to bestow a privilege upon a man which he is incapable of using ? In New York how many worthless, ignorant emigrants vicious, incapable of reading or writing, having neither property nor habits of industry have had this inestimable privi- lege bestowed upon them ? The answer is, enough always to control the local, and in many instances the State, and in several instances the general elec- tions. Those who know how New York has been ruled and robbed are fully qualified to judge of the value of a Government which comes from such unclean and incapable sources. Mr. Jackson, of Georgia, took very high and ultra grounds. He said that he conceived the present subject to be of high importance to the respecta- bility and character of the American name. The veneration he had for, and the attachment he had to, this country, made him extremely anxious to preserve its good fame from injury. He hoped to 115 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION see the title of American citizen as highly venerated and respected as was that of a citizen of old Koine. "I am clearly of the opinion that, rather than have the common class of vagrants, paupers, and other outcasts of Europe, that we had better be as we are, and trust to the natural increase of our pop- ulation for inhabitants. If the motion made by the gentleman from South Carolina should obtain, such people will find an easy admission, indeed, to the rights of citizenship. Much too easy for the interests of the people of America. Nay, Sir, the terms required by the bill on the table are, in my mind, too easy. I think, before a man is admitted to enjoy the high and inestimable privileges of a citi- zen of America, that something more than a mere residence is necessary. I think he ought to pass some time in a state of probation, and at the end of the term be able to bring testimonials of decent and proper behavior ; no man who would be a credit to a community could think such terms difficult or indelicate ; if bad men should be dissatisfied on this account, and should decline to immigrate, the regulation will have a beneficial effect ; for we had better keep such out of the country than admit them into it." Mr. Theodore Sedgwick, of Massachusetts, was against " the indiscriminate admission of foreigners 116 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION to the highest rights of human nature on terms so incompetent to secure society from being overrun by the outcasts of Europe ; besides, the policy of settling the vacant territory by immigration is of a doubtful nature. He believed, in the United States, the human species might be multiplied by a more eligible and convenient mode than what seemed to be contemplated by the motion now before the com- mittee. He was well satisfied for himself that there existed no absolute necessity for peopling it in this way; and if there was no absolute necessity, he thought Congress might use their discretion, and admit none but respectable and worthy characters, such only as were fit for the society into which they were blended." Mr. Stone, of Maryland, said": " I would let the term of residence be long enough to accomplish two objects before I would consent to admit a foreigner to have anything to do with the politics of this country. First, he should have an opportunity of knowing the circumstances of our Government, and in consequence thereof shall have admitted the truth of the principles we hold. Second, that he should have acquired a taste for this kind of gov- ernment. And in order that both of these things may take place in such full manner as to make him worthy of admission into our society, I think a term 117 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION of from four to seven years ought to be required. A foreigner who comes here is not desirous of inter- fering immediately in our politics, nor is it proper that he should. * * * The admission of a great number of foreigners to all places of the Govern- ment may tincture the system with the dregs of their former habits, and corrupt what we believe the most pure of all human inventions." Mr. Jackson, who was very anxious for a long term of probation, said : " But with respect to residence and probation, before an alien is entitled to the privilege of voting at elections, I am very clear it is necessary, unless the gentlemen mean to render the rank of an American citizen the maygame of the world." Mr. Sylvester, of New York, thought " it neither for the honor nor interest of the United States to admit aliens to the right of citizenship indiscrimin- ately ; he was clearly in favor of a term of proba- tion, and that their good behavior shall be vouched for." He suggested the idea of lodging the power of admitting foreigners to be naturalized in the Dis- trict Judges. After carefully reading the whole debate, a con- clusion is readily arrived at that those who took part in it were anxious to establish three conditions as a basis of naturalization. First, a sufficient number 118 OUE POLITICAL DEGRADATION of years of probation. Second, qualifications which would make their possessor a desirable citizen of a republic. Third, proof of good character during probation. When they voted for the law they prob- ably thought that with all of these conditions clearly set forth, it would be sufficient for the purposes for which it was intended. They never dreamed that within three-quarters of a century corrupt politicians would violate not only this, but any other and all laws which might stand in the way of their party success. Unfortunately, the history of the last few years compels the admission that many of our gov- erning politicians have become thus corrupt, and that the law in question in this State, to a very great extent, has become a dead letter ; thousands of persons of the vilest classes have been naturalized who had not been in the country a year previous to their naturalization, and all the evils anticipated by the statesmen of 1790 have been more than realized. There is no remedy short of the enactment of a new law which should take the right to naturalize out of the hands of the States, and should embrace the following propositions, or their equivalents : First The term of probation in all instances should be at least seven years. Second No application should be made by any person under eighteen years of age. 119 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION Third The years of probation to date from the time of the first application to become a citizen. Fourth The second and final application should be for the certificate of citizenship, based upon the production of evidence of the first application and the testimony of at least three witnesses, establish- ing the good character of the applicant, that he has been self-supporting, and is able to read and write in the English language. Fifth The power to naturalize should be given exclusively to the United States District Court, which, in the event of a necessity, ought to have power to appoint in the large cities a Naturalization Commissioner, who should be under the direct con- trol of the court. Sixth The names of all applicants should be advertised and printed in some conspicuous place a reasonable time before the final application, in order that any citizen having valid objections to the naturalization of any applicant may have an opportu- nity to present them. In closing this communication, I wish to state my own convictions so plainly that those who read may understand them. I believe it to be a fact sus- ceptible of proof, that the dominant political power in the State of New York is predicated upon a class vote which has no right either in morals or law to 120 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION exist ; or in other words, the plain English of the proposition is, that we are ruled, and have been robbed, by a set of politicians who are voted into office by persons who are not citizens. RUSH C. HAWKINS. NEW YORK, Saturday, March 31, 1877. 121 INKE "THE BOSS."* THE Boss in American politics is sui generis. Born of universal suffrage, nursed and fed upon the filth of ward politics in the City, with a twin brother the child of the cross-roads in the country, he has grown to be an unmatchable monster. He has neither peer nor rival, and his infamy is at once monumental and imperishable. He stands quite alone and resembles no other creature or thing on earth, and there is nothing, save one of his own kind, he cares to resemble. As a rule his origin is obscure and his progress through life has not been a success. In most instances he has tried many occupa- tions and failed in all ; and as a last resort a sort of halting place between the peniten- tiary and pauper asylum he embraces poli- tics, and at once his great capacity develops itself. Light long hidden beneath the sur- face of supposed incapacity, now illuminates the political horizon far and wide. The low * Written in 1886. OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION cunning he has, enables him to see the one necessarily objective point ; which is, to make himself a necessity to some one of the reign- ing " Bosses " who may desire further emol- uments and promotion. This he accomplishes in various devious ways : he frowns, flatters, bows, scrapes and bends. There is no humil- iation so great that he will not bear it, and there is no work too dirty for his willing hands to do. After he has danced atten- dance for months and often years, to a " Boss " in office or in power, he at last succeeds in obtaining some sort of public employment for himself. Then if he is possessed of the true qualities of a " Boss," he commences to cast anchors to the wind- ward for the advancement and safety of his own frail craft; and when the time for kedging comes he is sure to be found at the rope ready for a pull. His methods are ingenious and sometimes wonderf ul, but the one most in vogue is the building up of a little ring composed of self seeking, bummer politicians who are willing to obey orders and work for small compensation. But there is no exact formula 123 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION for the creation and manufacture of a " Boss." Often the incipient starts business by furnishing a list for registers of election and poll-clerks, and if any considerable num- ber of them are appointed, then another new "Boss" may be considered to have made a fair commencement. He has now become known as a " local statesman " with power to give places : his fame and reputation in- creases with each new employment and his success is assured. His next move is to become attached to the head of some municipal, State or Federal department, and by dint of persistence and patient irresistance to snubs and rebuffs without number, he finally succeeds in ob- taining for his coming retainers, positions where they do but little work and draw con- siderable pay. The creatures who are selected for these appointments are not supposed, in any way, to be fitted for the places they are to occupy in the public ser- vice. They are only the shouters and heelers of a coming " Boss," and consequently must be supported at public expense. There are also many other ways of lifting the coming 124 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION potentate into power. Among the most potent is the cultivation of, and close alliance with, the keepers of corner groggeries. This class is always sure r of the familiar nod and friendly grasp; and sometimes when his purse is fat with the results of public plunder, the "Boss" drops in, in a friendly way, and stands treat all around for "the boys." When a veiy wise and astute "Boss" meets an opponent, he does not talk, but saves the expression of his profound and patriotic convictions upon public affairs for those who agree with him. By not getting into unwise disputes he keeps his blood cool, profits by his silence and accumulates wis- dom. These humble beginnings accom- panied by discretion are the roadways which lead to political wealth, and thus slowly and surely does the patriot statesman lay the foundation for future greatness. In the course of a few years, this adept in political chicanery has made himself so useful to some reigning monarch of a political unit, that his position has become fully assured. He who was once obscure and lowly is now 125 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION admitted to the inner circle and consulted upon all important party measures. He is elected a delegate to a local or State, and some- times to a National convention, but in either event, only for the clearly denned purpose of carrying out the orders of a superior " Boss "; and so well does he perform the servile task imposed upon him that his reputation becomes established, and he is at last regarded, far and wide, as a necessary cog in the biggest wheel of the party machine. Thereafter his way is clear, and the gratifica- tion of his most lofty ambition possible. If he is so fortunate as to become an alderman, he then snuffs the political breeze blowing in the direction of the office of Mayor; and he sighs for deeper municipal flesh pots. Should he become a member of the Assembly, he soon comes to regard the steps to the Senate Chamber as apart of his political property, and occasionally he casts a longing glance at the soft cushion which adorns the guberna- torial chair. He dreams of the United States Senate and White House, for he knows that to him all things are possible. His ways in office are patterned after those 126 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION of the typical " Heathen Chinee." Political aggrandizement holds the first place in his official mind ; public duty always the last. To the first he is usually competent : to the last incompetent. If he be a true statesman in its present accepted highest sense, then he is truly great at secret combinations and bargains with corrupt " Bosses " of the opposite party. In New York those who have succeeded have shown great aptitude in this particular field of political enterprise. If the midnight history of the " Bosses," of both parties, in the City of New York, could be written, it would make one of the most interesting, humiliating and degrading chapters of politi- cal history known to our later times. In the hour of danger when a receiving " Boss," who has not divided the spoils of office satis- factorily with his "pals" is threatened with ejection from position and power by his own party, he casts around for sympathy and relief, which he usually finds in a corrupt combination with the " Bosses " who run the opposite party machine. A few times in the course of a decade, an 127 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION outside party a layman has an attack of ambition to enter politics. Sometimes this victim of an unwarrantable and intrusive desire to tread upon the preserves of the 11 Bosses," is of a well-to-do, not to say decent American family. His first step, to join some local organization, is easily accom- plished. He works some and pays prodig- iously, and in due course of time makes known his wants for some sort of a nomination, to the reigning " Boss." If, after careful exami- nation, his spinal column is found to consist of a material out of which a jelly fish might be made, he is permitted to receive some sort of a nomination. Sometimes he is elected, but whether he is or not, the quantity of financial blood drawn is about the same. If elected he has but one course to pursue ; he must turn demagogue if he would succeed, and abjectly, without question, do the bidding of his immediate "Boss." Otherwise his political life will be short and his official end- ing unsatisfactory and inglorious. Often these recruits from the ranks of private life make themselves so willingly useful, that they are not only re-elected but promoted. 128 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION There have been several notable instances of success among this class. Generally the staying in or going out of office, of the person of the layman class, who cares for honors and not spoils, turns upon the question of promotion. If he makes himself very useful to the immediate "Boss," and is willing to remain upon the plane stepped upon when he entered the political arena he may stay; but if he is ambitious and demands promotion, which to his " Boss " may seem unreasonable, he is without the least hesitation ejected from the hive of party workers never again to taste the honied sweets of office. A neophyte cannot expect complete success unless he abandons good faith, decency, the assertions of honest prin- ciples and regularly " joins the band " ; then if he is apt at intrigue, he is at once on an equality with his surroundings and may demand a fair division of emoluments. There are many occasions when the u Boss," in the role of a profound and ponder- ous statesman, appears to enormous advan- tage, but if we would see him when he is wonderfully and fearfully great, not to say 129 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION grand, we must follow him to an important convention. Here we find him at his best, away from home, where he meets none save of his own kind, many with opposing inter- ests which may conflict with the well-laid .schemes of this or that particular " Boss. 1 ' Our statesman arrives upon the scene armed from head to foot and eager for the fray. He pretends to be as bold as a lion, while the real fact is, he has the courage of a rabbit and the aggressiveness of a lamb. He is discreet when it comes to blows and never fights openly. He seeks the dark and quiet corner, and after the manner of " Cypher Alley," whispers his belligerent threats and arguments into the ears of those he opposes. Like that typical emblem of wisdom, the owl, he hunts his game in the dark only, and never ruffles his feathers or shows his claws during the daylight. He has however one quality which he cannot disguise, and that is his sublime and silent confidence in his own weighty impressiveness and dignified deport- ment. If he be really a very great " Boss " and statesman, all-powerful at home, he rises far above the awful height of his local dig- 130 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION nity when abroad. His advice is seldom given and his words are mighty; his ap- pearance respectable and severe, well calcu- lated to impress the rural beholder who has not been accustomed to familiar intercourse with real greatness. The midnight prelude to the morning con- vention is the opportunity supreme for the exercise of the genius of the astute " Boss". If we would behold him at his best, rising to the loftiest heights of his dark-lantern states- manship, we should be with him upon one of these great occasions and witness his rare ability for making combinations and formu- lating schemes for success on the morrow. We would also come to know of his marve- lous power at hewing out planks for party platforms which say much and mean nothing ; which deceive without showing the decep- tion. At this sort of work he is without a rival, and we would naturally arrive at the conclusion that Macchiavelli and Kaunitz would be mere shadows in the art of diplo- macy, by the side of this ward or cross-roads adept. These later remarks apply more partic- 131 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION ularly to the Republican " Boss " tlian to the like commodity of the Democratic persuasion. The former usually indulges in black suits, high hats, clean shirt fronts, and often knows the uses of soap in a double sense ; while the latter may be careless about such trifles as dress, cleanliness, etc., and cares very little about his personal appearance, or what may be said or thought of him so long as he wins the game and has what he calls a good time ; which often consists of unlimited whiskey, tobacco and an occasional opportunity to make acquaintance with the contents of a champagne bottle. The Democratic " Boss" is not so sordid as his Republican brother. The former makes by hook or by crook, literally, a good sum of money, and then "like a man " he spends it with his "pals" in having a jollification, and when his last dollar has disappeared and the feast ended, he proclaims to the world, and glories in the fact, that he is " dead broke." Expensive frivolities the " Boss " of the other strip never indulges in. Like the good little boy from Ohio, he puts his money away in his little bag. He tries the formal 132 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION respectabilities of every day life, goes in for pews at fashionable churches and so shapes his outward conduct as to lead the world to believe that he is what he is not. The " Boss " of the Democracy has at least one advantage he is no hypocrite. He knows that he is neither respectable nor respected, and he cares for neither so long as his stom- ach is full and he has a fairly tight roof for a shelter. There is a certain kind of devil-a -care-come-take-a-drink good fellowship about him, which to a person of not over fastidious taste is not altogether repulsive. It might not be in correct taste to say that we prefer him to the other sort ; but, as " Bosses " go, we must admit that he has his commendable qualities. No country in the Christian world can show a more voracious and exacting, or probably, a more numerous army of tax con- sumers than the United States. It often divides itself into separate bodies for the protection of what they assume to be their rights ; and although very much better paid than any other foreign government employees of like grades, they are far from being satis- 133 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION fied. Their cry is always, in effect, to the party in power : " More pay and less work or we will vote you out at the next election." When dissatisfaction reaches the acute stage, corruption funds are raised, a " Boss " is enlisted in their cause who joins with the professional lobbyist and the halls of the lawmakers are assailed. The " Boss," how- ever, is as usual astute and coy, estimates votes, ponders the direction of their flowing and probable " effect upon the party," before accepting employment. This vast army com- posed of officeholders and other government employees, while often pursuing lesser and divided interests, can always be relied upon when important party interests are at stake. It is a part of the force, in fact the greater part, which in the hands of the " Boss " con- trols our government and shapes the desti- nies of a nation of seventy millions of human beings, whose territorial possessions are among the largest and richest ever possessed by a nation. In this demagogue-ridden country the average citizen who pursues any other occu- pation than politics, officeholding or office 134 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION hunting, has no more to say about the candi- dates who are to be voted into office than he would have if he lived in the geographic center of the polar regions. The respect- able and tax-paying citizen is entirely relieved from taking any part in the selection of candidates for office. He is as effectually debarred from having any voice in govern- mental affairs of his own country, as are those who are declared incompetent to vote, such as idiots, criminals and insane persons. Formerly the average " Boss " was satisfied with a good fat paying office with incidental pickings, where in the course of a few years he could save up a fair competence for the balance of his life. Now, however, his vaunt- ing ambition soars to the loftiest heights in the firmament of politics; and he hopes and sighs for positions of honor and profit which fifty years ago he would not have dared to dream of. He sees written upon the pages of his special book of fate all sorts of possi- bilities. He passes in and out of the door of the Gubernatorial establishment as though he owned the whole from cellar to gar- ret. He takes a sly side glance at the ample 135 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION chairs in the United States Senate, and squints hopefully in the direction of the Executive larder. These visions come only to the ideal " Boss " who has achieved more than an ordinaiy modicum of party and officeholding success. Such dreams are not for the hum- ble worker in the ranks. He must be satis- fied with little and be squeezed of much of that little without " squealing." Perhaps the best type of a ." Boss " is the sleek smooth-tongued, piety- varnished, cleri- cally-clad individual who does not hold office, but contents himself with taking a loaf here, a fish there, and a delve whenever he may find an unguarded flesh pot within his reach. We have many notable specimens of this sort. They are the fortunate statesmen called upon by administrations for the per- formance of special and peculiar services, which may seem to be, and in many instances are, beyond and outside the province of any particular government official or bureau ; and also in a delicate party emergency to assist and advise an official who may be trying to solve a difficult political puzzle. These stray jobs may truly be called the real golden 136 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION opportunities-bonanzas par excellence, and a sharp " Boss " who has been the fortunate recipient of a few such incidental employ- ments, may without fear of question or dis- pute, fix his own compensation and thereby secure a competency for life. The writer has known personally several of these spe- cially favored patriots, and has no hesitation in declaring that he has found them, in their particular spheres geniuses of the first order, worthy of the parties responsible for their political existence and support, the communi- ties which tolerate them, and the so-called free government which favors their methods and peculiar pursuits. It is this creature, possible under no other form of government, that has brought us to our present degraded, disgraceful and low estate politically. Since the consolidation of power into his hands, all or nearly all, politi- cal bodies have become corrupt. Even the judicial bench, the once sacred ermine of the great conservative power which administers the laws, has been besmeared with the filth and slime of the " Boss " . Up to forty years ago but few accusations intimating 137 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION corrupt practices in the Halls of tlie Federal Legislature had been uttered ; and up to fifty years ago the State legislatures had been comparatively pure and rather free from the influence of corruptionists. Now all that is changed and we may assert without fear of contradiction, that there are not a half-a-dozen legislative bodies within our territorial boundaries without their price. In nearly every instance it is merely a question of how much. If a municipal corporation or private citizens are to be despoiled of their property, without compensation or consideration, a leg- islature can be relied upon to perpetrate the outrage. The formula for this particular kind of rascality is well defined and simple. The " Bosses" of both parties, the lobbyists, street, elevated and other railroads, telegraph companies and great financial corporations generally, which are constructed in the inter- ests of their officials, upon the basis of addi- tion, division and silence, join forces. There are however some kinds of dishonest work beyond the reach of the willing hands of the officers who manage these corporations, which 138 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION only can be accomplished with the aid of the " Bosses " . A legislator is to be corrupted, a majority of its members are to be purchased, or a municipal government is to give its sanction to a corporate steal, a railroad lobby and the " Boss " are the powers to bring success to each enterprise undertaken. These twins joined together by bonds of knavery, are the powers which crush all opposition, and rule and rob as never was robbed before, one of the most powerful nations of the earth. From the best testimony attainable we are led to believe that the first comprehensive and well elaborated attempt to corrupt a leg- islature in this country was made in Albany, New York, fifty odd years ago. Unless we have been misinformed it was in the interest of a street surface horse railroad. The per- son who headed that enterprise was the pro- totype of the corrupt horde of politicians and lobbyists, who since that time have done so much to disgrace our oft alleged free govern- ment and to bring the Republican form, generally, into almost hopeless disrepute. This man who conceived and consummated this first deliberate scheme of buying a law 139 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION from a legislature, in the interest of a private corporation had a long and eventful career. It is quite safe to assert that during the latter half of his life he followed with unpre- cedented success, the occupation of a political " Boss " , and no one in our time had ever more completely filled that unenviable role. He never held office but during many admin- istrations, state and national, he exercised the powers of the executive in giving offices to others. At one time his notoriety was national and his power almost unlimited. He succeeded in acquiring an enormous repu- tation for sagacity, and for a third of a cen- tury no dark lantern political meeting of a peculiar set of professional politicians in the State of New York was considered complete without him. His advice in all matters of caucus intrigue, corrupt management of con- ventions, and expertness in underhand party manipulation generally was invaluable. His followers could be counted by the horde, and they came to his conventions from every cross-roads and rotten borough in his State ; and obeyed his commands as the famed cohorts did their Roman Commanders. 140 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION Take him for all and all, he was the great- est and most powerful " Boss " of his time whose foul eminence is a part of the politi- cal history of his unfortunate State, and he had the longest reign of any of his class. At last like humble mortals he came to the end of his mortality and passed to that un- known realm where there will be no happi- ness for him if there are no political employ- ments. After the sad taking off, all the newspapers in the great metropolitan City of the Western Empire, joined in lofty and heroic strains of eulogy in fulsome praise of this corrupt citizen with his terribly blotched reputation, who during his mortal career had achieved the bad eminence of making whole- sale legislative corruption successful and fashionable ; not only in his own State, but by his pernicious example, throughout the length and breadth of the land. There was not a single journal in the whole country, that dared to print upon its pages one single truth concerning the wrong side of this cor- ruption breeding " Boss " who had thrived and fattened upon the proceeds of his capac- ity to debase and degrade the government tinder which he was born and bred. 141 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION Lord Hertford, who died in 1842, was one of the most despicable characters that ever lived in any age or country. When the Duke of Bedford heard that Peel's carriage had fol- lowed his remains, he wrote the following to Charles Greville: ' ' I see that Peel's carriage followed Lord Hert- ford's remains out of London! What is the use of character and conduct in this world if after such a life, death and will as Lord Hertford's, such a mark of respect is paid to his memory by the first minister of this great country, and this not the loose and profligate 'Lord Melbourne,' but the good, honest and particular Sir Eobert Peel?" Evidently the Duke of Bedford did not believe that death could atone for or make respectable a crooked life, and we may put it down as a safe conclusion that death ought not to reverse a notoriously vicious history which a bad career had written for itself. This condition of legislative affairs will continue to exist and grow worse until the people who are the source of power, can be reached and convinced of the absolute necessity of sending mature, able, well- qualified pure men to represent them in all 143 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION legislative bodies. It is just here that we have made our gravest mistake. The rule has fairly obtained throughout the whole country, that anything in the form of a man is good enough human substance out of which to make a congressman, a member of the legislature or an alderman. Of course there are exceptions to this rule, but it may be safely stated that any incompetent " Boss " or demagogue, with a large enough follow- ing of political serfs, or any other sort of person, who is willing to contribute liberally for party purposes, can obtain a nomination for any legislative body within the gift of a large majority of the political units, con- tained within our territorial boundaries. These corrupt and incompetent lawmak- ers are the sources from whence flow nearly all the ills our political flesh as a nation is heir to. There is not a single abuse in our system of government which could not be effectually eradicated by wise and honest legislation. Give the State of New York for instance, five years of a majority of com- petent and incorruptible men in each branch of the legislature, and they would pass new 143 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION laws and repeal old ones which would reduce the current expenses of its Cities at least one- third of this present outlay, and instead of impairing the public service would make it more efficient. But so long as nominations of all high officials are dictated by the " Bosses," who live by corrupt combinations, officeholding and creating opportunities to rob the tax-payer, we must expect the pres- ent way of doing our governmental business to continue. Already thoughtful men seeing the seem- ingly hopeless condition into which our pub- lic affairs have fallen, are beginning to ask themselves why it was that we lost 400,000 lives and spent $5,000,000,000 of money to preserve a government and a series of gov- ernments within a government, which, all combined, are incapable of protecting the interests of its citizens against onslaughts of organized rascality and robbery. Many among our most patriotic Americans are now asking themselves this question and others germane to it. May not these thoughts have had something to do with the actions of that army of Republicans, who in the 144 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION autumn of 1884 stepped out of their party ranks and voted for the candidate they be- lieved to be an honest man ? In that move- ment, whether erroneous or not, we see the first organized serious attempt at political purification, and the result, the breaking up of an old partisan line in the interests of better government. All honor to the men who had the courage of their convictions; who dared to do what they believed to be right in spite of party commands. They placed upon the colors at the masthead of their political ship a motto worth remem- bering: "The Right before Party." The civil service reform has accomplished something in the way of getting better employees into the public service ; but it is like clipping the end of the topmost leafy point of an Upas tree with the vain hope of neutralizing the poison in the body. After all the clipping, the roots remain as much alive and as potent to mischief as ever ; and so it will continue with us unless we can convince our whole people of the absolute and positive necessity, and it is greater under our form of government than any other, of 145 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION selecting the best men, morally and intellect- ually in their respective communities, to repre- sent them in the legislative bodies which make their laws. This accomplished our nation will have a new lease of life. Without it, it is quite im- possible to foretell the disasters the future may have in store for us. Now, because of our enormous resources, unceasing mental and physical activity, all tending in the direc- tion of bringing together an almost unprece- dented amount of wealth, we are able to stand the constantly increasing drains which unwise and corrupt legislation imposes upon the pro- ductive forces of the nation. But wait until our population becomes as dense and we have, to the superficial area of our territory, as many mouths to feed as they have in any of the old countries of Europe. What will be the result then ? Possibly a daily revolt in one part of the country or another ending in a general revolution and overturning of the whole government, and finally, a dissolution. Legislative bodies are the all important and most essential of all the machinery of our modern political organizations. They 146 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION were called into existence for the convenience of nations ruled by constitutional forms of government to make salutary laws in the general interests of all conditions and classes of the governed. It is clearly the bounden and moral duty of these bodies to enforce, by their acts, economy in the administration of all matters relating to government, and also, to provide methods for a rigid and impartial enforcement of laws and the administration of justice. A legislative body, morally, has no inher- ent power nor can it acquire any, to commit or authorize a wrong against the public wel- fare and interests of the governed ; and it ought to be within the province of the Courts and their clearly defined duty, when- ever public interest requires it, to interpose their power to prevent the consummation of a wrong enacted by or permitted by a legis- lative body. Under this proposition lies the question of judicial notice, or how far the Courts, can, of their own volition, go in the way of assuming jurisdiction, upon proper presentation of facts, in matters where public property rights are involved, and where under 147 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION the color of a legislative act a great wrong in the interest of individuals or private corpora- tions is being perpetrated. May it not be said of Courts as of individuals, who seeing a crime about to be perpetrated are bound to use all the power at their command to prevent it ; and further, if from the stand- point of morals, public policy and sound poli- tical ethics, a legislative body has passed an act which violates all or either of these great principles, in impairing and setting at naught private or public rights, ought not action under such an act to be prevented upon the theory of equity : that that which we have no right to do we ought to be restrained from doing ? An incident, (one of many of the same kind) in our history, will sufficiently serve the purpose for an explanation of this pro- position. It is a notorious and scandalous fact that a certain dishonest person procured by corrupt methods payments of large sums of money to members of the legislature of the State of New York the passage of a law which enabled him and his adherents to apply to the Board of Aldermen of the City of 148 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION New York for the right to lay a railroad track in Broadway, which application was granted, as it was believed by reason of cer- tain other large payments of money to the members of that body for their votes. A deceptive action was commenced, really in the interest of the parties who were perpetra- ting this fraud, but prima facie or seemingly, to secure the property rights of the people and to prevent the consummation of a wrong- ful taking without adequate compensation, and an application was made to the Supreme Court for a perpetual injunction to prevent the building of the road. This being a pub- lic matter of vital importance, it was the duty of that Court to have taken judicial notice of all the facts involved in that self evident rascality. One of the Justices of that Court, when the case came before the General Term on appeal, took the right view of the wonder- ful piece of chicanery and wrote a dissenting opinion in favor of partially protecting the great public interests at stake. He was overruled by the two other Justices sitting with him and one of the most stupendous swindles of our later times was earned to a complete success. 149 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION Our last forty or fifty years of legislative history proves most conclusively that we have nothing to hope for in the way of decent government from the representatives chosen by the " Bosses " and elected by the sover- eign people. Year by year our voting popu- lation is becoming more vicious, and the elective candidates for office more and more unfit for the positions they are nominated to occupy ; and there is no hope for the protec- tion of private and public rights, save through the courage and honesty of the Courts ; and, if they fail, and in many instances they do, what course we may ask is left ? We must leave to others of the future the answering of this important question, but the present may suggest to the future that in other coun- tries this condition of affairs would bring a revolution, or in other words, a revolt against corrupt and oppressive rulers. Members of State legislatures as well as members of boards of aldermen are usually nominated by u Bosses" for the purpose of creating opportunities for robbery and job- bery and not for the purpose of assisting in the honest administration of a government. 150 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION A long and continuous reign of "Bosses" has brought about an accumulation of abuses which have taken such deep root in our political soil, that it is doubtful if they can ever be removed by any means less violent than a resort to physical force. The influence of "Bossism" upon our national political morals has been no less disastrous and degrading than upon those of localities. Its rule has been so extended as to cover nearly eveiy part of our country, and veiy few, if any, of the political units within its boundaries are entirely free from the rule of the local " Bosses." With the aid of their influence, incompetent and thor- oughly corrupt men have forced their way into the halls of State legislatures and pur- chased seats in the Senate of the United States. In many instances these purchases have been made out of their own means, while others have had their seats paid for by land-grabbing railroad corporations, and often by cabals of individuals the criminal rich, engaged in swindling the government. During the administrations of General Grant the Senate of the United States was 151 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION first of all an exchange organized apparently for the purpose of swapping favors in the way of appointments to office with the Ex- ecutive. To such an extent had this condi- tion of affairs obtained, that during the short administration of General Garfield a notable and influential Senator resigned his seat in the United States Senate because the Executive had presumed to interfere in his patronage rights by making an appointment without his permission, of a person to fill an important office within the senatorial terri- tory of the offended Senator. Early in General Grant's first term, Gene- ral Longstreet visited him to renew the old friendship contracted in the army. At the end of a long interview the President asked Longstreet what he could do for him. The other ^seeing the point involved in the ques- tion, said : "If you were to give me an ap- pointment the Senate would not confirm it for a rebel." The President answered : " I'll take care of that; they want more favors of me than I do of them." The sequel proved how well the President knew his men ; for Longstreet was nominated for the position of 152 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION naval officer at the port of New Orleans, an office of emoluments, and by a largely Re- publican senate confirmed without protest or question. This simple statement which came out through an interview with Longstreet since the death of General Grant, confirms conclusively one phase of the relations which have come to exist between the Senate and the Executive. Thus we see one of the two conserva- tive essentials in our government a body intended by the framers of the Constitution to act when necessary as a check upon the Executive, instead of performing its in- tended duties, entering into an unwritten compact with that official to confirm improper appointments, in the interests of each other, of all sorts of unfit and unworthy persons, who in thousands of instances possessed not a single qualification necessary for the honest performance of the duties of the offices to which they were appointed. President Lincoln's first Secretary of War was Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania. He had only served a short time when the mag- nitude of his corrupt practices, in the inter- 153 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION. ests of private greed, and against the interests of his government became so great that con- cealment was impossible. The President forced him out of the Cabinet and, later on, the House of Representatives in an isolated fit of patriotic indignation passed a resolution of censure upon him. There was at the time no doubt whatever about the propriety and ne- cessity of the action of Congress and the act of expulsion on the part of Mr. Lincoln. This resolution remained upon the records of the national legislature until it became neces- sary to punish Senator Sumner for having made an unanswerable assault upon " Kingly prerogatives " one of the greatest of his later senatorial speeches, which defeated a scheme in the interest of a mixed set of New York schemers for the spoliation of the Island of St. Domingo. This offence was not to be for- given and the White House with other influ- ences was set to work to white- wash Cam- eron who was then a senator and a very near friend of the President ; and so potent were the various powers invoked, that Congress was induced to rescind the resolution of cen- sure, and by so doing gave a Congressional 154 OUB, POLITICAL DEGRADATION varnish of respectability, of doubtful value at best, to one of the most venal and power- ful political " Bosses " of his time, who had knowingly and persistently disgraced a high official position in the way of wantonly plundering his people in the days of their greatest distress and peril. This was only a preliminary to a blow which was to fall upon the head of Mr. Sumner; for soon after he was deposed from the chairmanship of the Senate committee on foreign relations, a position he had adorned for many years, the ex-secretary of war, disgraced by Con- gressional censure and ejected from a high official position by the President of the Uni- ted States, was put in his place. By this act who was degraded and disgraced? Surely not, as intended, Mr. Sumner. A late official in the land office, of un- doubted veracity, who had ample opportun- ity for obtaining information, has stated that by dishonest methods, individuals in favor with several of the past administrations, as well as corporations, have in many instances without adequate consideration obtained possession of and titles to large tracts of 155 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION public lands, some of which are larger than several of the Grand Duchies of Europe. A later land commissioner in his first report to the Secretary of the Interior, says, that in his office, seemingly, a rule had obtained to grant all patents applied for where no oppo^ sition was presented. The results of these frauds have a future value which it is im- possible to estimate. Perhaps the greatest series of frauds ever perpetrated upon a people by an unfaith- ful set of representatives, lawmakers are those acts passed by Congress which are known as the supplementary pension laws. Each was the offspring of a single parent, a demagogue who had hoped that gratitude for these unearned favors would carry him into the White House astride the backs of the veteran soldiers. In June, 1890, another still more reprehensible than all of its pre- decessors became a law with a like object in view. These measures went through both houses of Congress without opposition; the demagogues of both parties voting for them because they feared the influence of the old soldier vote upon their home political Juiter- ests, each in his particular district. 156 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION It is estimated by authority that the possi- ble payments under the provisions of these unprecedented acts will amount to not less than five billions of dollars, and may possi- bly mount up to a much larger sum. It would be some consolation to the pro- ducing classes of the country to know that these enormous bounties were going to those who may have deserved them. A large ma- jority of the most deserving soldiers have passed away, and of those left a major por- tion are short term, large bounty men and bounty jumpers, who in many instances are not entitled to anything, even the old pen- sion of eight dollars per month. It is quite safe to assert that the unworthies, many thousands of very questionable widows, and pension agents get at least one-half of the total payments made under the provisions of these reprehensible supplementary laws. Senator Logan was once asked by General Sheridan why he was so strongly in favor of these measures. He answered that " it is a d d good way to distribute the surplus," and he might have added, " and to make Logan president." To tax-payers this may 157 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION seem the best argument ever openly made in their favor. Incidents germane to these might be cited by the hundreds, but these two or three are sufficient to give a glimpse of the political atmosphere which has pervaded Washington for a considerable period. The culmination of our political immorality seemed nearly complete with Belknap, Robeson, Delano and Ackerman in the Cabinet of the Presi- dent, and Tweed and his great horde of brutal Irish rascals in full possession of the largest and richest city of a country, whose people upon all occasions, in season and out of season, boast of its magnitude, its wealth, and its superior civilization. It would be well to boast a little less and purify more. Granting these statements are true are there any remedies ? Without doubt approximate cures are at hand, but we as a people have not the courage nor our " Bosses " the disposi- tion or honesty to adopt them. And what are they ? First : Repeal the present natural- ization law which is inadequate and farcical in its operation, and enact in its stead a law similar to the one of England. By doing 158 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION this we would get rid of our most vicious and ignorant class of voters, who are now the chief factors in the successful schemes of the " Bosses". Second : Have either a prop- erty or educational qualification one or both for regulating the right of manhood suf- frage. This would materially assist in con- fining the voting powers to classes the least likely to sell their votes. Third : Make it an offence punishable with imprisonment, for a long term, to purchase or sell a legislative vote, and apply the same penalty to those who buy and sell votes at the polls. Corrupting a voter at the polls or in a leg- islative body ought to be made an unpardon- able crime. It is much worse than the tak- ing of human life which only affects those whose lives are destroyed and those connected with them, while the other offence may, in a measure, and often does, affect the welfare of a nation, and any government would be justified in going back to the days of Tor- quemada to find a punishment equal to its enormity. No one can doubt the patriotism, unselfish- ness and intelligence of the body of men that 159 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION founded this government, who are now des- ignated as the " Fathers of the Constitution " . They intended to establish an economical government, without either king or bishop, upon sound principles of equality of all before the law and impartial administration of jus- tice. Life and property were to be abso- lutely protected at a minimum cost. In short the yoke of authority was to set less heavily upon the necks of the governed than under any other form of government. These intentions were undoubtedly right and in the interests of humanity, but the way of moulding them into a permanent political form defective. Then as now there was fleeting through the air the trite maxim of " Vox populi vox Dei " , and unfortunately, the " Fathers " accepted it as the corner- stone for their political superstructure. Another mistake not quite as serious, was the opening wide of the American gates to the ignorant, vicious and pauper population of all the rest of the world. Taking advantage of these errors those classes have rushed in upon us, from the old world, until they have clogged our political stomach beyond its 160 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION powers of digestion, and have caused our gov- ernment to become one of the most cor- rupt, vicious and expensive known to his- tory, and the general result of a century and a quarter of experiment may be summed up in these words. The boiling of our political pot usually brings the scum to the top. This happens in other countries and under other political systems, but in those foreign instances it some- times floats off, while with us it remains and becomes the dominant power which controls and directs ; and we present to the world the political spectacle of vice ruling virtue, pov- erty dictating to wealth and ignorance tri- umphing over intelligence. In short our government may be designated as one which permits the bottom to rise to the top and rule all the rest. We all know that a great num- ber of Americans are in the habit of boasting about the success of our political experiment and attribute the great material prosper- ity of our country to its form of govern- ment. The concise answer to these inconsid- erate expressions is, that the form of govern- ment has had very little to do with the 161 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION material prosperity of our people, but owing to the enprmous natural resources of our vir- gin continent, we have prospered in spite of ourselves, and notwithstanding the defects of our political system. To such boasters we would say, wait until we have as dense a population to the superficial area as is now to be found in some of the old countries of Europe, and then if facts will bear them out, let them boast of the superiority of our gov- ernment. In such an emergency, which in the history of a nation is sure to come, our defective and carelessly thrown together pol- itical structure would be about as potent in its strength to secure, and capacity to defend, as a rope of sand. The " Boss " is the evil genius of our Republic, whose influence is over all and the foul atmosphere he has engendered pervades every department of our administration. The veritable old man of the sea who is crushing us down by compelling the nation to carry the weight of his crimes the carrion bird of ill omen whose breath or touch defiles all the sources of sovereign power he is the usual direct or indirect tool used for corrupting 162 OUR, POLITICAL DEGRADATION legislative bodies the tempter of public ser- vants in official life and often a blighting shadow darkening the reputation of the judi- cial bench. In short he is the incarnation of all the villanies known to our politics. Get rid of him we must, or in time he will make our political institutions so perfectly repulsive and worthless as a form of government, that all decent people will feel like seeking a change for a purer political atmosphere. 163 BEUTALITY AND AVARICE TRI- UMPHANT.* BY GENEKAL BUSH C. HAWKINS. WOULD it be unpatriotic or in ill adjust- ment with current facts to suggest that the motto in our national coat-of-arms should be \removed, and in its place inserted, " Plun- \dering Made Easy " ? Our contribution to the world's history for the last thirty years would, I think, sustain the recommendation for such a change. From the beginning of the Rebellion to the present time insatiable greed, practically uncontrolled by law or by any decent show of regard for morality or rights of property, has swept over our land, a mighty, invisible power for evil. The self- * This article with Colonel Ingersoll's reply appeared in the North American Review of June, 1891. The rejoinder following, which is now printed for the first time, was accepted by the editor for publication. Upon reflection, he suggested changes I could not permit to be made and it was withdrawn. It contains repetitions of some facts which ex- ist in other papers and are used again as necessary items, in the answer to some of Colonel Ingersoirs statements, 164 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION respect of the community lias been impaired or destroyed, and we nave permitted the unscrupulous classes to give us the reputa- tion throughout the civilized world of a nation of political tricksters and business sharpers. Let us glance at some of the darker chap- ters of our recent record. In 1861 an army of dishonest contractors selected a struggling people for their victims. Their frauds were notorious and enormous, amounting to scores of millions. Few among them were arrested and none were punished. As examples of the frauds perpetrated upon the army during the Rebellion, I will give an account of two which came within my own experience. In the autumn of 1861 I received on the same day, at Hatteras Inlet, two invoices. One was for army shoes ; for soles many had shavings-fillings concealed beneath a thin cover of the poorest quality of sole-leather. They were worthless unequal to a single day's wear. The other invoice was for two hundred rifle-muskets : they were from a lot that had been condemned by a foreign gov- 165 OUK POLITICAL DEGKADATION ernment as being unfit for service. It was rumored at the time that their purchase was effected through the agency of a rather high government official. Only sixty of theso pieces were issued for use, and thirteen of these were disabled at the first discharge. My representations to the proper government officials, describing fully the nature of these swindles, produced no effect whatever; neither exposure, arrest, nor punishment fol- lowed. The probabilites are that individuals having political influence were engaged in each. Possibly the most successful of all the swindles upon the people during the Civil War was the selling and chartering of worn- out vessels to the Government. For the pur- pose of this paper it is only necessary to de- scribe one transaction. In the winter of 1865 the government was asked to purchase two old hulks for use in the quartermaster's department. A commission of honest ex- perts, consisting of a seaman, a shipbuilder, and a constructing engineer, was appointed. But such a commission was not wanted by the owner; and before it had time to inspect 166 OUE POLITICAL DEGRADATION and report upon values he induced the gov- ernment to appoint another, which in due time reported the hulks to be worth $650,- 000 ; and the Quartermaster-General, by very high authority, was ordered to purchase them at that valuation. The payment was made when the Rebellion was near its end, when the government had many vessels for sale and little need for water transportation. Within four months after the purchase the two hulks were offered at public auction for sale, and $35,000 was the best bid received. This swindle was opposed with great energy and warmth by the then Secretary of the Treasury, the Quartermaster- General, and the Third Auditor, but all to no purpose. The superior power invoked by the owner and his influential friends gave an absolute order to purchase, which could not be dis- obeyed. The foregoing are only typical examples, and by no means represent the variety of gigantic frauds perpetrated by knaves upon a confiding and patriotic people whose sons were pouring out their life's blood for the preser- vation of their country. I have always be- 167 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION lieved that, owing to swindling contracts and incompetent and dishonest officials, the ex- pense of putting down the Rebellion was fully one-third more than it ought to have been. To deliberately defraud a grief- stricken people engaged in such a struggle as we had in hand from 1861 to 1865, involv- ing, as it did, such an unprecedented loss of life, was one of the greatest offences which could be committed, and a person engaged and assisting in its commission reached, in my belief, the lowest depths of human de- pravity known to the calendar of criminal practices. Next in the great series of schemes for plunder came the land-grant acts, bribed through Congress, and resulting in the gift to corrupt private corporations, having no claim upon the nation, of valuable public lands which amount, in the aggregate, to a territory larger than the whole of France. These lands were voted away in direct viola- tion of moral right and an enlightened pub- lic policy, and the magnitude of these gifts is without precedent in the history of legis- lation. Only one of the railroads assisted 168 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION was a national necessity, and that ought to have been built, owned, and managed by the government. All the other lines were con- structed far in advance of the demand, and the profits of their construction have gone into the pockets of the rascals who promoted these schemes and carried them to successful con summation. Our accommodating lawmakers supple- mented their enormous land donation to the Pacific railroads with loans of government bonds amounting in the aggregate to sixty- five millions of dollars. The voting-away of public domain was bad enough, but the granting of those loans, pledging the credit of the whole people for their payment, for the use of business corporations, or, rather, as it turned out, for the benefit of a little cabal of promoters, was infinitely worse and possibly more corrupt. Railroad wrecking is another favorite American industry, which has enriched a set of individuals whose presence would adorn penal instutions. Their formula is very simple : Obtain voting power from enough stock to secure control of any railroad, the 169 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION most or the least successful it matters not which ; create a floating debt, decrease earn- ings, depreciate the value of property, cease paying interest, have a receiver appointed, foreclose and sell the whole franchise to ring purchasers, who reorganize in their own in- terests by creating a new bonded debt and issuing large amounts of stock. The bonds from the time of their issue pay interest, and dividends upon stock are sometimes paid within the first year after reorganization. This scheme usually deprives small holders of a material portion of their income, and, in its results generally, is among the most cruel of our peculiar rascalities. The rail- road receiver is an American specialty, in- vented for a specific purpose, and unknown to any European country. For many years land-stealing from the gov- ernment has been among the popular and profitable occupations of a considerable num- ber of our citizens. This particular specialty in dishonesty is not confined to class or con- dition. Rich and poor alike are adepts, and many of the representative men of exceptional influence in the West are now enjoying an 170 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION edifying Christian repose based on the pro- ceeds of their unlawful takings of the public domain. Not many years ago the well-known " star- route thieves " were found out. If I remem- ber correctly, about six millions was the amount involved in their special operations ; the rascals were indicted and tried in Wash- ington, and of course acquitted. One among their number was well known among the Republican faithful as being an adept in practical politics, who during a certain Pre- sidential campaign had assisted in disbursing a very large sum of money among the corrupt voters of the Western States. For this and other political services a great dinner was given to him, at which the Vice-President- elect of the United States presided. This case must be regarded as one of the results of our " superior civilization." It has been often stated, and, so far as I know, not con- tradicted, that those " star route " adepts were very successful in the practice of the arts which lead to the transferring of govern- ment lands to themselves, the transfers usually being made without apparent con- sideration passing to the grantor. 171 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION Another great and favorite industry is stealing standing timber from public lands. This is an abuse of fifty years' duration, and to-day wherever there are trees belonging to the people there can be found the timber- thief with axe in hand. During a certain administration of our navy a timber ring hav- ing head-quarters in the State of Massachu- setts carried on an enormous business in stealing timber from government lands in Florida, and selling it to the Navy Depart- ment for building wooden ships when there were none to be built ; iron having then entirely superseded wood as a material for government ship-building. The next item to appear in our list of pecu- liar national industries is that which has come to be known as "stock- watering." I have forgotten when the first great success in this particularly American specialty occurred, but I believe that New York, in respect to this new fraud, sustained, as usual, its bad eminence. In December, 1868, the directors of a certain great railway company passed, in substance, a resolution doubling the stock of their corporation. This act was in direct 172 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION violation both of the corporate charter and of the general railroad law of the State, and in January, 1869, a powerful corps of rail- road lobbyists was employed by the officials of that corporation to push through a corrupt Legislature the needed legislation to give life to a deliberate violation of the laws of the State. From the date of this first colossal offence against public policy and honest commerce, the abuse of stock-watering has assumed gigantic proportions. According to the last " Poor's Manual," we had in operation on December 31, 1890, 161,396.64 miles of ordinary steam surface railroads, which cost, on paper, $9,931,453,146. These are very startling figures, and it is perfectly safe to assert that two-fifths of that amount, viz., $2,972,581,258, represents "water." The street railroads of the country, horse, cable, and electric, could not have cost, including equipment, over $110,000 per mile, but they are stocked and bonded up to about $400,- 000 ; and the elevated roads in New York city, which costless than $17,000,000, are stocked and bonded for more than $60,000,000. 173 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION Within the last twenty years many of the great manufacturing industries have merged themselves into corporations or associations, which are called trusts. These also are cap- italized for at least three times their actual values. My estimate of the total of these unwar- rantable and dishonest over-issues of stocks and bonds is $5,000,000,000. This consti- tutes an indirect mortgage upon the national products, industries, and labor of our whole country; and there is a constant struggle, against public welfare and prosperity, to extort from patrons and consumers prices which will pay interest and dividends upon these fraudulently-issued obligations. Cor- porate bonds are unknown to the laws of European countries. In those older civili- zations all stock or debentures issued by rail- way corporations are sold for face or par value ; and if any were issued by officials for less than the stated values, the officials issu- ing, or rather attempting to issue, them would be arrested for a crime, tried, convicted, and punished as felons. One of the most facile means in the hands 174 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION of avarice for cheating the poor and helpless is the "corporation and contractors' store." It is usually owned by corporations whose employees are the only patrons, and the rule is to sell the poorest possible quality of sup- plies at the highest price obtainable. In many instances employees are given to under- stand that they are expected to trade at the company and contract stores, or, failing to do so, will be discharged. This oppressive method of cheating is not confined to any par- ticular part of the country, but prevails, with varying degrees of malignancy, wherever under one management, either corporate, partnership, or individual, any considerable number of employees are assembled together. Since the close of the Civil War many thou- sands of ignorant blacks have been made the victims of this common and heartless swindle, which has absorbed their scant earnings. At the end of each month, year in and out, it has proved to their untrained minds an aston- ishing fact that the longer and the harder they worked the more they got in debt to their employers. Avarice, once let loose, knows no limits, 175 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION and never halts in its aggressive career. In the pursuit of gain, human life seems of very little consequence. Sham building is another evil that is clearly attributable to the greed of the capitalist ; and the worst illustration of this particular evil is the sham American hotel, which is to be found in every part of the country ; in the greatest abundance, how- ever, west of Philadelphia. In southern Colorado, last summer, I saw one, large enough for a hundred and fifty guests, built entirely of pine boards and small scantling ; no bricks, stone, or mortar was used, save possibly in the foundations. A fire started in the first story would consume such a build- ing in thirty minutes, and few of the inmates located upon the floors above would escape. Certainly seven-tenths of the hotels in the United States have been erected with special reference to cheapness of construction rather than for the safety of guests. The motto of the hotel-builder is : Cover as much ground as possible ; herd the greatest number of guests upon the smallest practicable space ; and save expense by substituting sham for substance. The burning of a large hotel at 176 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION Milwaukee a few years ago, and the later destruction of another at Syracuse, sufficiently prove the truth of these assertions. The facts recited by a recent correspon- dent* of the New York Times will apply to a large majority of existing American hostel- ries. He says : " Apropos of the burning of the Leland House at Syracuse last night, I wish to call the attention of the public to a little incident which happened to me recently when visiting Syracuse. I met a gentleman of my acquaintance, an old resident of Syracuse, who asked me where I intended to stay. I told him at the Leland House, whereupon he said : ' If you have any regard for the safety of your life, do not by any means go to the Leland House. I watched that hote! all the time it was building, and there is not a brick partition in the whole house nothing but wood and plaster. If it ever takes fire there will be a terrible loss of life.' " The moral of this story can be readily drawn by those who are interested. In Europe the construction of public hotels is managed differently. The Grand and * T. V. Johnson, Jr. ; letter of October 16, 1890. 177 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION Continental, at Paris, the Langham, Grand, Victoria, Metropole, the Inns of Court, and the Avenue Hotel, in London, and others in Berlin, Vienna, and St. Petersburg were erected with special reference to housing a large number of human beings in the safest manner possible. They are, in several instances, like great fortifications ; they are so solidly put together, the rooms and floors are so separated by bricks and mortar, that a fire could not spread beyond its original loca- tion. Possibly the usual inflammable tinder-box American theatre is a still completer example of our sham building than the average hotel. Look, again, at the unprecedented destruc- tion of game upon our continent. It is chiefly caused by avarice. In the forests of the Northern and Eastern States the moose and deer are almost extinct, and the smaller quadrupeds, such as coons and gray, red, black, and flying squirrels, are rapidly pass- ing away. In the West the bear and elk families are fast disappearing ; and the wan- ton slaughter of the great herds of North American bison forms one of the most dis- 178 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION couraging chapters in the history of our cruelties. With the construction of the first railroad to the Pacific Ocean commenced this wholesale, indiscriminate destruction. While it lasted, accounts were often published in our newspapers of bison being shot by pas- sengers from the windows of moving trains. In most instances they were wounded and left to die lingering and painful deaths. In this business many brutal Englishmen who " came out to America to shoot " took the lead; but they soon found a numerous following among the callow snobs of our large cities, who seem to exist only to imitate the follies, vices, and outre idiosyncracies of the idle English classes. With the great killing for pleasure came the greater butcher- ing for profit ; and so persistently were both pursued that in less than four years the finest and most picturesque of all the animals pecul- iar to our continent was practically extermin- ated. During the years 1872-73-74 there were killed of the southern herd 3,698,130, and about 1,000,000 of the northern herd. Five millions of head killed in those years are about the figures of this unparalleled 170 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION extermination. It is estimated that in the whole of North America there are now 635 American bison running wild and 456 in captivity, making a total of 1,091. These lamentable statistics stand for unprecedented savagery. The beautiful feathered tribes, lovely song- sters of the forest and meadows, have fared no better than their four-footed companions of the prairies and mountains. How well I remember the cheery spring songs incident to the New England meadow ! Having once heard them, who could ever forget the liquid jingling notes of the bobolink, the mellow song of the meadow lark, and the joyous trillings of the thrush ! The robin, the wren, the ground-sparrow, the woodpecker and jay, and scores of others which came to greet us with their merry chirps and calls with the advent of every spring, are also not to be forgotten. Now in their retreats we see the human biped with gun and bag, shooting down anything that can fly, if only it has a wing or a feather large enough to adorn the head of vanity. To the demands of com- merce, the wantonness of the purchaser, and 180 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION the ignorance of those to whom the power of making our laws is given, we may look for the certain destruction of every species of American song and plumage birds. Before the end of the next fifty years the brute of the bird-gun and bag may hang both upon his wall for want of use. The proposed fish-culture, while an admir- able measure, will be futile unless reenf orced and sustained by legislation, which is in many States entirely lacking as yet. The drain upon the food fishes which inhabit the waters near the shores of our continent is veiy rap- idly increasing, and bids fair, within a few years, unless some check is imposed by the Canadian and our own government, to exter- minate several valuable species of table fish. The lobster is already fast diminishing, and will be the first to disappear ; then the choicer groups of oysters will go ; then the runs of cod- fish will be greatly reduced, and the salmon will probably disappear. The destruction of the latter upon the western coast of a portion of our continent is without precedent. A Cana- dian official connected with the Bureau of Dominions Fisheries has estimated that in 181 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION less than twenty years, at the present rate of catching for the canneries, the salmon will be seen no more in its present haunts. Of the many millions taken each season, a large pro- portion are too young and small for canning, but, instead of being put back in the water, a small piece is cut from the middle of the body and the rest of the fish is thrown away. The brook-trout of the mountain streams were nearly exterminated long ago, and their home disappeared with our forests, never to return until the latter are rehabilitated. There is the same history with the seal. Lately an official statement has been made to our government to the effect that there are not more than 125,000 fur seals left in the waters of Alaska; coupled with that statement was a recommendation that no more killing should be permitted for a period of seven years. Unless something is done by the united action of Russia, England, and our own government, there is danger of this most valuable of all fur-bearing animals be- coming extinct in a very short time. Yet we have not described thus far what is perhaps the most wanton and wicked 182 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION cruelty of this sickening history. It is the wholesale and monstrous destruction of do- mestic stock west of the Mississippi River. It is a well-known fact that from the most northerly to the southern boundaries of our stock-ranges there is neither winter food nor shelter provided for horned cattle or sheep. The old of both kinds and the young are all herded together in the open fields, utterly unprotected from wind, rain, or snow ; there is neither shrub, bush, nor tree to shelter them. In many parts of the north and west covered by these feeding fields the snowfall is very deep, and often lasts from three to six weeks. While these snows cover the earth, the graz- ing stock is absolutely without food. The consequent mortality is appalling. Accord- ing to official statistics from 12 to 15^ per cent, of the cattle and from 17 to 27*^ per cent, of the sheep died from exposure to cold and want of food during the winter of 1889 and 1890. The total number of animals which thus perished is put down at 3,470,600 head. Doubtless the number was much larger, and 4,000,000 would be a more cor- rect estimate of the total. 183 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION What a world of pain and suffering these figures suggest ! The poor animals relieved by death suffered, perhaps, no more than those that survived only to be mercilessly transported in overcrowded cars and slaugh- tered at the end of their journey. We may, in my belief, search in vain through all his- tory for a parallel to match that gigantic scheme of cruelty. It continues from year to year, and has continued in an unbroken stream for more than a quarter of a century, without even a protest from lawmakers or the Christian clergy. Christianity, indeed, has neither preached nor practised humanity towards animals. But Sunday-school chil- dren by hundreds of thousands are taught what a terrible thing it is to break the Sab- bath ; museum trustees tremble with pious horror at the suggestion of opening the doors leading to the collections on that day; mis- sionaries by the thousand are sent to the far east, west, and south to convert the kindly heathen from their evil ways heathen who do not know the A B C of dishonesty and cruelty as practised in Christian America. And so we go on over the world strain- 184 OUR POLTICAL DEGRADATION ing out the gnats of other people and swal- lowing whole herds of camels at our own doors. When in Chicago a few months ago, I ex- pressed to a leading citizen of that city a desire to see one of the great slaughtering establishments. With an expression clearly indicating his astonishment at my request, he advised me to avoid such a horrible sight, at the same time saying it was the most dis- gusting of all occupations, and, as to the slaughter of hogs, most unnecessarily cruel. In the West this industry is very much lauded, possibly for the profits it yields, and the packer is regarded as a representative man, typical of " Western progress." But if all of our other much-lauded iniqui- ties of avarice could be combined in one, the joint result would sink into insignificance when placed by the side of our two hundred and fifty years of cruel treatment of the In- dians. At Cambridge, in Massachusetts, in the year 1661 was published the first edition of Eliot's translation of the New Testament in- to the Indian language; and in 1663, in the 185 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION same town, was issued his complete transla- tion, into the same tongue, of the whole Bible. In the autumn of 1676, near Dover, Cap- tain Waldron, under pretence of a sham fight, decoyed a considerable body of peace- ful Indians to his camp, and, after depriving them of their arms by deceit, made them prisoners. Two hundred of the number thus captured were sent to the West Indies and sold for slaves, and the good pious Puritans of Massachusetts Bay, who had furnished them with Bibles for the benefit of their souls, reaped the financial results flowing from the sale of their bodies, and recorded themselves as the first of the American colo- nists to sell human beings into slavery. From that time to the present, fraud, rapa- city, and cruelty are the words which most fittingly describe our intercourse with these helpless wards of a powerful people. They have been habitually cheated in the quality and quantity of supplies furnished by the government under treaty stipulations. Sol- emn treaties made with them to-day are bro- ken to-morrow, in the interest of fraud. In- 186 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION dian agents very often are of the spoilsman- politician class, who ally themselves with dishonest contractors for the purpose of pro- moting schemes to plunder their charges; and often Indians have been provoked exas- perated to the commission of an offence by unthrifty whites, who would seize such an event as an excuse for an Indian war ; their object being the assembling, in a certain non- prosperous locality, of a considerable body of troops, necessitating large expenditures of government moneys. These wretches would burn down a city to roast a pig. Various Indian tribes were concentrated upon reser- vations, but the cheating continued at the agencies; and now the scheming white set- tler and the railroad sharp, in the " interest of progress and civilization," declare that the Indians are not entitled to their own, and are bringing to bear upon Congress and Federal officials all the varieties of influence which accomplished rascality can invent to drive them from the rightful possessions. The late General Harney probably knew as much of the character of the North Ameri- can Indians as any man that ever lived. His 187 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION active intercourse with them covered a period of over forty years. He used to say of the savage Indians, before they were contami- nated by contact with the whites, that they were the most honest and truthful people he had ever known. He had never caught one in an untruth, and was sure they did not know how to lie. These views were emphat- ically confirmed by the late General Wool, who used to add that the Indian agents were all thieves. General Albert Pike, another friend of the Indian, and a believer in the natural nobility of his character, recently died in Washington. He wrote, Oct. 2, 1890 : " I have had much to do with several Indian tribes. I have known a great many of their chiefs; have been counsel for two of the civilized tribes against the United States ; have commanded their troops ; acted as superintendent, and made treaties as commissioner of the Confederate States; met the five civilized tribes, the Osages, Quapaws, Senecas and Shawnees, the Comanches and Caiawos, Caddos, Aiouais, Kich- ois, Toncawes, Tawaihast, Huecos and Tawacaros, and have known many Delawares, Shawanos, and Skekapos. I think they are the most honest and 188 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION truthful people in the world, and the most confiding when they give their confidence at all. Not in one instance did those with whom I made treaties ask any change that was not right and fair ; and what- ever my decision was, it was acquiesced in by all and accepted with perfect contentment. I never knew a claim made to property by any of them, or a claim for compensation preferred, that was not just and reasonable. All the tribes with which I made trea- ties kept them to the letter and in spirit, in perfect good faith. Up to that [my] time no treaty had ever done complete justice to any Indian tribe. Al- most invariably the Indians were tricked and de- ceived by the whites, their just claims cut down, and most shamefully unjust clauses against them allowed and enforced. " General Sam Houston said to me once that the United States had never made a treaty with the In- dians which they did not deliberately violate ; and that was true. All Indians are not alike. The Apaches, it was always said, were treacherous and faithless. The Navajos were neither, but truthful, upright, and honest, and they have been plundered without compunction or shame. " In my opinion, there has seldom been an Indian war or outbreak that was not caused by violating a 189 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION treaty or other gross bad faith or wrong dealing on the part of our government or people. For fifty years an invisible line divided the people of Arkan- sas from the Cherokees, Creeks, and Ohoctaws; and in all that long time no complaint was made by the Indians against the whites or whites against In- dians. " The foregoing is the testimony of an intel- ligent and disinterested witness of great ex- perience. His estimate of the Indian char- acter is fully sustained by Canadian officials who have, from time to time, had control of the Indian tribes of that country; and, to our everlasting shame, the experience just on the north side of our border proves our iniq- uity in dealing with our Indians. There, humanity and good faith have dictated the rule of action in dealing with them, and the result is that Canada has never an Indian war, an uprising, or any serious trouble with a single tribe. On December 3 of last year, the United States Senate discussed a resolution to furn- ish arms and ammunition to the inhabitants of North and South Dakota, to enable them to defend themselves against attacks that might 190 CUE POLITICAL DEGRADATION be made upon them by the Indians then assembled at Pine Ridge. While debating the resolution Senator Voorhees, of Indiana, made a strong plea for better treatment. His arraignment of the government was un- answerable and effective. Among his re- marks occurs the following pathetic appeal : " I shall not oppose the passage of this resolution, and I shall not vote against the issuance of these arms to the people ; but I cannot let it pass, with the feelings I entertain in regard to the administra- tion of our Indian affairs, without a word. " If the proposition were to issue 100,000 rations and more to the starving Indians, it would be more consistent with Christian civilization than the policy we are now pursuing. When a major-general of the War Department is publicly interviewed and pub- lishes that the Indians are driven to revolt rebel- lion, if you please to call it and to the savagery of the Indian warfare by starvation, it becomes an inex- piable crime, in my judgment, on the part of this government to stand silently by and do nothing ex- cept to furnish arms. General Miles has stated to the public, and to me before he did to the public, that these Indians are being starved into hostility, and that they prefer to die fighting to being starved to death. 191 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION "I look upon the policy which has been pursued by the administration of Indian affairs as a crime revolting to man and God. I look upon the present outbreak, or the threatened outbreak, which will bring not merely the destruction of the Indians, but will bathe the snows of the northwest, crimson with the blood of our brave soldiers and officers, as some- thing revolting in the extreme. Instead of sitting here debating election bills and force bills, and pro- viding for the issuance of arms to the States in the northwest, we should be hurrying, anxiously and eagerly, to provide for the feeding of these starving people. General Miles says they have been hungry for the last two years ; that they are devoured with hunger, wretched, and perfectly desperate, and would rather die with arms in their hands than with empty stomachs. " They have no newspapers. Their privations and griefs and sufferings cannot be made known. They have been suffering in silence there for years, while guilt is somewhere." It is probably true that the North Ameri- can Indians are not the superior beings de- scribed by the witness cited ; but what they were or are matters very little. If they were as bad as their worst enemies describe them 193 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION to be, their imperfections of character would be no excuse for our faithlessness in dealing with them. The point I desire to make in closing this account of a few of our shortcomings is this : The misdeeds described are perpetrated in the open light of day, and go on year after year without protest either from the Federal or State governments or from any considerable portion of our people. One of the unwritten mottoes of our business morals seems to say in the plainest phraseology possible : " Suc- cessful wrong is right." The general government finds no difficulty in punishing a counterfeiter who issues false money, be the amount ever so small, or a post-office clerk who takes a few dollars from a letter. But the man who is a power in poli- tics, who steals public lands by the thousands of acres; the schemer who robs the public treasury of great amounts of money, or the agent who yearly cheats the Indians out of scores of thousands of dollars, is beyond the reach of those who administer and execute our laws. Great knaves who succeed are respected and often admired. Little thieves 193 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION are regarded as contemptible, and fill our prisons. But the big ones live in palaces, and are usually great powers in the communi- ties in which they live. Not long ago a French official, an expert in a special department, who had held over from the empire, complained to a friend that he was compelled to employ twenty clerks to do the work done by four under the empire. He was asked if he knew of any reason for the change, and answered : " It is the repub- lic." "But why do you not prevent this abuse ? You are the head of the bureau, and have the power." " Yes, I know I have the power; but I have been in this position for more than thirty years, and am now too old to learn another occupation; and I must make places for the friends of the deputies." And so it is here. The republic and the friends of the deputies of the people must be favored. Neither the republic nor separate States hinder or check the offences of indi- viduals of political importance, whose crimes are against the property of the people, or of others whose deeds of plundering and cruelty result in considerable profits. 194 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION The influence of these offences against civilization is far-reaching and destructive. The fact that a considerable number of indi- viduals obtain great wealth by dishonest schemes and cruel practices is of little moment when compared with the effect their financial successes produce upon particular communities and the country at large. They have established a national standard, and now only one kind of success is acknow- ledged. Morality has no market value. High character is impracticable, and intel- lectual achievement pays no dividends. These qualities count for very little in the estimation of the public when compared with the glory of great possessions. The owner- ship of millions, no matter how obtained, constitutes a theme of almost national admira- tion; and if they were stolen outright and their possessor is out of prison, the homage would be about the same. The motto is : " We worship the millions in hand, and no questions asked." Is it not time that there should be an awakening ? RUSH C. HAWKINS. 195 IS AVARICE TRIUMPHANT? BY COLONEL ROBERT GK INGERSOLL. THERE are many people, in all countries, who seem to enjoy individual and national decay. They love to prophesy the triumph of evil. They mistake the afternoon of their own lives for the evening of the world. To them everything has changed. Men are no longer honest or brave, and women have ceased to be beautiful. They are dyspeptic, and it gives them the greatest pleasure to say that the art of cooking has been lost. For many generations many of these peo- ple occupied the pulpits. They lifted the hand of warning whenever the human race took a step in advance. As wealth increased, they declared that honesty and goodness and self-denial and charity were vanishing from the earth. They doubted the morality of well-dressed people considered it impossible that the prosperous should be pious. Like 196 OUE POLITICAL DEGRADATION owls sitting on the limbs of a dead tree, they hooted the obsequies of spring, believing it would come no more. There are some patriots who think it their duty to malign and slander the land of their birth. They feel that they have a kind of Cassandra mission, and they really seem to enjoy their work. They honestly believe that every kind of crime is on the increase, that the courts are all corrupt, that the legis- lators are bribed, that the witnesses are suborned, that all holders of office are dishon- est ; and they feel like a modern Marius sitting amid the ruins of all the virtues. It is useless to endeavor to persuade these people that they are wrong. They do not want arguments, because they will not heed them. They need medicine. Their case is not for a philosopher, but for a physician. General Hawkins is probably right when he says that some fraudulent shoes, some useless muskets, and some worn-out vessels were sold to the government during the war ; but we must remember that there were millions and millions of as good shoes as art and honesty could make, millions of the best muskets ever 197 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION constructed, and hundreds of the most magni- ficent ships ever built, sold to the govern- ment during the same period. We must not mistake an eddy for the main stream. We must also remember another thing : there were millions of good, brave, and patriotic men to wear the shoes, to use the muskets, and to man the ships. So it is probably true that Congress was extravagant in land subsidies voted to rail- roads; but that this legislation was secured by bribery is preposterous. It was all done in the light of noon. There is not the slight- est evidence tending to show that the general policy of hastening the construction of rail- ways through the territories of the United States was corruptly adopted not the slight- est. At the same time, it may be that some members of Congress were induced by per- sonal considerations to vote for such subsidies. As a matter of fact, the policy was wise, and through the granting of the sudsidies thou- sands of miles of railways were built, and these railways have given to civilization vast territories which otherwise would have remained substantially useless to the world. 198 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION Where at that time was a wilderness now are some of the most thriving cities in the United States a great, an industrious, and a happy population. The results have justified the action of Congress. It is also true that some railroads have been " wrecked" in the United States, but most of these wrecks have been the result of competition. It is the same with corporations as with individuals the powerful combine against the weak. In the world of commerce and business is the great law of the survival of the strongest. Railroads are not eleemosy- nary institutions. They have but little regard for the rights of one another. Some fortunes have been made by the criminal " wrecking " of roads, but even in the busi- ness of corporations honesty is the best policy, and the companies that have acted in accordance with the highest standard, other things being equal, have reaped the richest harvest. Many railways were built in advance of a demand; they had to develop the country through which they passed. While they waited for immigration, interest accumulated ; 199 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION as a result foreclosure took place ; then reorg- anization. By that time the country had been populated ; towns were springing up along the line ; increased business was the result. On the new bonds and the new stock the company paid interest and divid- ends. Then the ones who first invested and lost their money felt that they had been defrauded. So it is easy to say that certain men are guilty of crimes easy to indict the entire nation, and at the same time impossible to substantiate one of the charges. Every one who knows the history of the star-route trials knows that nothing was established against the defendants, knows that every effort was made by the government to con- vict them, and also knows that an un- prejudiced jury of twelve men, never sus- pected of being improperly influenced, after having heard the entire case, pronounced the defendants not guilty. After this, of course, any one can say, who knows nothing of the evidence and who cares nothing for the facts, that the defendants were all guilty. It may also be true that some settlers in 200 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION the far West have taken timber from the public lands, and it may be that it was a necessity. Our laws and regulations were such that where a settler was entitled to take up a certain amount of land he had to take it all in one place ; he could not take a cer- tain number of acres on the plains and a certain number of acres in the timber. The consequence was that when he settled upon the land the land that he could cultivate he took the timber that he needed from the government land, and this has been called stealing. So I suppose it may be said that the cattle stole the government's grass and possibly drank the government's water. It will also be admitted with pleasure that stock has been " watered " in this country., And what is the crime or practice known as watering stock? For instance, you have a railroad one hundred miles long, worth, we will say, $3,000,000 able to pay interest on that sum at the rate of 6 per cent. Now, we all know that the amount of stock issued has nothing to do with the value of the thing represented by the stock. If there was one share of stock representing this OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION railroad, it would be worth three million dollars, whether it said on its face it was one dollar or one hundred dollars. If there were three million shares of stock issued on this property, they would be worth one dollar apiece, and, no matter whether it said on this stock that each share was a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars, the share would be worth one dollar no more, no less. If any one wishes to find the value of stock, he should find the value of the thing represented by the stock. It is perfectly clear that, if a pie is worth one dollar and you cut it into four pieces, each piece is worth twenty-five cents; and if you cut it into a thousand pieces, you do not increase the value of the pie. If, then, you wish to find the value of a share of stock, find its re- lation to the thing represented by all the stock. It can also be safely admitted that trusts have been formed. The reason is perfectly clear. Corporations are like individuals they combine. Unfortunate corporations become socialistic, anarchistic, and cry out against the abuses of trusts. It is natural 202 OUE POLITICAL DEGKADATION for corporations to defend themselves natu- ral for them to stop ruinous competition by a profitable pool ; and when strong corpora- tions combine, little corporations suffer. It is with corporations as with fishes the large eat the little ; and it may be that this will prove a public benefit in the end. When the large corporations have taken possession of the little ones, it may be that the govern- ment will take possession of them the gov- ernment being the largest corporation of them all. It is to be regretted that all houses are not fireproof; but certainly no one imagines that the people of this country build houses for the purpose of having them burned, or that they erect hotels having in view the broiling of guests. Men act as they must ; that is to say, according to wants and neces- sities. In a new country the buildings are cheaper than in an old one, money is scarcer, interest higher, and consequently people build cheaply and take the risks of fire. They do not do this on account of the con- stitution of the United States, or the action of political parties, or the general idea that 203 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION man is entitled to be free. In the hotels of Europe it may be that there is not as great danger of fire as of famine. The destruction of game and of the sing- ing birds is to be greatly regretted, not only in this country, but in all others. The peo- ple of America have been too busy felling forests, ploughing fields, and building houses, to cultivate to the highest degree, the aesthe- tic side of their natures. Nature has been somewhat ruthless with us. The storms of winter breasted by the Western pioneer, the whirlwinds of summer, have tended, it may be, to harden somewhat the sensibilities ; in consequence of which they have allowed their horses and cattle to bear the rigors of the same climate. It is also true that the seal-fisheries are being destroyed, in the interest of the pres- ent, by those who care nothing for the future. All these things are to be deprecated, are to be spoken against; but we must not hint, provided we are lovers of the republic, that such things are caused by free institutions. General Hawkins asserts that " Christian- ity has neither preached nor practised human- 204 OUE POLITICAL DEGRADATION ity towards animals," while at the same time " Sunday-school children by hundreds of thousands are taught what a terrible thing it is to break the Sabbath " ; that " museum trustees tremble with pious horror at the suggestion of opening the doors leading to the collections on that day," and that no protests have come " from lawmakers or the Christian clergy." Few people will suspect me of going out of my way to take care of Christianity or of the clergy. At the same time, I can afford to state the truth. While there is not much in the Bible with regard to practising hu- manity towards animals, there is at least this : " The merciful man is merciful to his beast." Of course, I am not alluding now to the ex- ample set by Jehovah when he destroyed the cattle of the Egyptians with hailstones and diseases on account of the sins of their owners. In regard to the treatment of animals Christians have been much like other peo- ple. So, hundreds of lawmakers have not only protested against cruelty to animals, but 205 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION enough have protested against it to secure the enactment of laws making cruelty towards animals a crime. Henry Bergh, who did as much good as any man who has lived in the nineteenth century, was seconded in his eff orts by many of the Christian clergy not only, but by hundreds and thousands of professing Christians probably millions. Let us be honest. / j+^tt It is true that the clergy are apt to lose J<^ tne distinction between offences and virtues, r to regard the little as the important that is to say, to invert the pyramid. It is true that the Indians have been badly treated. It is true that the fringe of civili- zation has been composed of many low and cruel men. It is true that the red man has been demoralized by the vices of the white. It is a frightful fact that, when a superior race meets an inferior, the inferior imitates only the vices of the superior, and the supe- rior those of the inferior. They exchange faults and failings. This is one of the most terrible facts in the history of the human race. Nothing can be said to justify our treat- ment of the Indians. There is, however, 206 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION this shadow of an excuse : In the old times, when we lived along the 'Atlantic, it hardly occurred to our ancestors that they could ever go beyond the Ohio ; so the first treaty with the Indians drove them back but a few miles. In a little while, through immigration, the white race passed the line, and another treaty was made, forcing the Indians still further west ; yet the tide of immigration kept on, and in a little while again the line was passed, the treaty violated. Another treaty was made, pushing the Indians still further toward the Pacific, across the Illinois, across the Mississippi, across the Missouri, violating at every step some treaty made ; and "each treaty born of the incapacity of the white men who made it to foretell the growth of the republic. But the author of " Brutality and Ava- rice Triumphant " made a great mistake when he selected the last thirty years of our national life as the period within which the Americans have made a change of the national motto appropriate, and asserted that now there should be in place of the old motto the words, " Plundering Made Easy." 207 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION Most men believe in a sensible and manly patriotism. No one should be blind to the defects in the laws and institutions of his country. He should call attention to abuses, not for the purpose of bringing his countiy into disrepute, but that the abuses may cease and the defects be corrected. He should do what he can to make his country great, pros- perous, just, and free. But it is hardly fair to exaggerate the faults of your countiy for the purpose of calling attention to your own virtues, or to earn the praise of a nation that hates your own. This is what might be called wallowing in the gutter of reform. The thirty years chosen as the time in which we as a nation have passed from vir- tue to the lowest depths of brutality and avarice are, in fact, the most glorious years in the life of this or of any other nation. In 1861 slavery was, in a legal sense at least, a national institution. It was firmly imbedded in the federal constitution. The Fugitive-Slave Law was in full force and effect. In all the Southern and in nearly all of the Northern States it was a crime to give food, shelter, or raiment to a man or woman 208 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION seeking liberty by flight. Humanity was illegal, hospitality a misdemeanor, and char- ity a crime. Men and women were sold like beasts. Mothers were robbed of their babes while they stood under our flag. All the sacred relations of life were trampled beneath the bloody feet of brutality and avarice. Be- sides, so firmly was slavery fixed in law and creed, in statute and Scripture, that the tongues of honest men were imprisoned. Those who spoke for the slave were mobbed by Northern lovers of the " Union." Now, it seems to me that those were the days when the motto could properly have been, " Plundering made easy." Those were the days of brutality, and the brutality was practised to the end that we might make money out of the unpaid labor of others. It is not necessary to go into details as to the cause of the then condition ; it is enough to say that the whole nation, North and South, was responsible. There were many years of compromise, and thousands of statesmen, so called, through conventions and platforms, did what they could to preserve slavery and keep the Union. These efforts corrupted 209 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION politics, demoralized our statesmen, polluted our courts, and poisoned our literature. The Websters, Bentons, and Clays mistook tem- porary expedients for principles, and really thought that the progress of the world could be stopped by the resolutions of a packed political convention. Yet these men, mis- taken as they really were, worked and wrought unconsciously in the cause of human freedom. They believed that the preserva- tion of the Union was the one important thing, and that it could not be preserved unless slavery was protected unless the North would be faithful to the bargain as written in the Constitution. For the pur- pose of keeping the nation true to the Union and false to itself, these men exerted every fac- ulty and all their strength. They exhausted their genius in showing that slavery was not, after all, very bad, and that disunion was the most terrible calamity that could by any pos- sibility befall the nation, and that the Union, even at the price of slavery, was the greatest possible blessing. They did not suspect that slavery would finally strike the blow for dis- union. But when the time came and the 210 OUE POLITICAL DEGKADATION South unsheathed the sword, the teachings of these men as to the infinite value of the Union gave to our flag millions of brave defenders. Now let us see what has been accomplished during the thirty years of "Brutality and Avarice." The republic has been rebuilt and reunited, and we shall remain one people for many centuries to come. The Mississippi is nature's protest against disunion. The constitution of the United States is now the charter of human freedom, and all laws inconsistent with the idea that all men are entitled to liberty have been repealed. The black man knows that the constitution is his shield, that the laws protect him, that our flag is his, and the black mother feels that her babe belongs to her. Where the slave-pen used to be you will find a schoolhouse. The dealer in human flesh is now a teacher; instead of lacerating the back of a child, he develops and illumines the mind of a pupil. There is now freedom of speech. Men are allowed to utter their thoughts. Lips are no longer sealed by mobs. Never before 211 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION in the history of our world has so much been done for education. TJbe amount of business done in a country on credit is the measure of confidence, and confidence is based upon honesty. So it may truthfully be said that, where a vast deal of business is done on credit, an exceed- ingly large per cent, of the people are regarded as honest. In our country a very large per cent, of contracts are faithfully fulfilled. Probably there is no nation in the world where so much business is done on credit as in the United States. The fact that the credit of the republic is second to that of no other nation on the globe would seem to be at least an indication of a somewhat general diffusion of honesty. The author of " Brutality and Avarice Triumphant " seems to be of the opinion that our country was demoralized by the war. They who fight for the right are not de- graded they are ennobled. When men face death and march to the mouths of the guns for a principle, they grow great ; and if they come out of the conflict, they come with added moral grandeur ; they become better 212 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION men, better citizens, and they love more in- tensely than ever the great cause for the success of which they put their lives in pawn. The period of the Revolution produced great men. After the great victory the sons of the heroes degenerated, and some of the greatest principles involved in the Revolu- tion were almost forgotten. During the Civil War the North grew great and the South was educated. Never before in the history of mankind was there such a period of moral exaltation. The names that shed the brightest, the whitest light on the pages of our history became famous then. Against the few who were actuated by base and unworthy motives let us set the great army that fought for the republic, the millions who bared their breasts to the storm, the hundreds and hundreds of thousands who did their duty honestly, nobly, and went back to their wives and children with no thought except to preserve the liberties of themselves and their fellow- men. Of course there were some men who did not do their duty some men false to them- 213 OUE POLITICAL DEGRADATION selves and to their country. No one expects to find sixty-five millions of saints in Amer- ica. A few years ago a lady complained to the president of a Western railroad that a brakeman had spoken to her with great rude- ness. The president expressed his regret at the incident, and said among other things: " Madam, you have no idea how difficult it is for us to get gentlemen to fill all those places." It is hardly to be expected that the Amer- ican people should excel all others in the arts, in poetry, and in fiction. We have been very busy taking possession of the republic. It is hard to overestimate the courage, the industry, the self-denial it has required to fell the forests, to subdue the fields, to con- struct the roads, and to build the countless homes. What has been done is a certificate of the honesty and industry of our people. It is not true that " one of the unwritten mottoes of our business morals seems to say in the plainest phraseology possible : ' Suc- cessful wrong is right.' " Men in this coun- try are not esteemed simply because they are rich; inquiries are made as to how they 214 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION made their money, as to how they use it. The American people do not fall upon their knees before the golden calf ; the worst that can be said is that they think too much of the gold of the calf and this distinction is seen by the calves themselves. Nowhere in the world is honesty in busi- ness esteemed more highly than here. There are millions of business men merchants, bankers, and men engaged in all trades and professions to whom reputation is as dear as life. There is one thing in the article " Brutality and Avarice Triumphant" that seems even more objectionable than the rest, and that is the statement, or, rather, the insinuation, that all the crimes and the shortcomings of the American people can be accounted for by the fact that our government is a republic. We are told that not long ago a French official complained to a friend that he was compelled to employ twenty clerks to do the work done by four under the empire, and on being asked the reason answered : " It is the republic." He was told that, as he was the head of the bureau, he could prevent the 215 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION abuse, to which he replied : " I know I have the power ; but I have been in this position for more than thirty years, and am now too old to learn another occupation, and I must make places for the friends of the deputies." And then it is added by General Hawkins : " And so it is here." It seems to me that it cannot be fairly urged that we have abused the Indians be- cause we contend that all men have equal rights before the law, or because we insist that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. The probability is that a careful reading of the history of the world will show that nations under the control of kings and emperors have been guilty of some cruelty. To ac- count for the bad we do by the good we be- lieve is hardly logical. Our virtues should not be made responsible for our vices. Is it possible that free institutions tend to the demoralization of men? Is a man dis- honest because he is a man and maintains the rights of men ? In order to be a moral nation must we be controlled by king or emperor ? Is human liberty a mistake ? Is 216 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION it possible that a citizen of the great republic attacks the liberty of his fellow-citizens ? Is he willing to abdicate ? Is he willing to ad- mit that his rights are not equal to the rights of others ? Is he, for the sake of what he calls morality, willing to become a serf, a servant, or a slave ? Is it possible that " high character is im- practicable " in this republic ? Is this the experience of the author of " Brutality and Avarice Triumphant " ? Is it true that " in- tellectual achievement pays no dividends " ? Is it not a fact that America is to-day the best market in the world for books, for music, and for Art ? There is in our country no real foundation for these wide and sweeping slanders. This, in my judgment, is the best government, the best country, in the world. The citizens of this republic are, on the average, better clothed and fed and educated than any other people. They are fuller of life, more pro- gressive, quicker to take advantage of the forces of nature, than any other of the chil- dren of men. Here the burdens of Govern- ment are lightest, the responsibilities of the 217 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION individual greatest, and here, in my judg- ment, are to be worked out the most im- portant problems of social science. Here in America is a finer sense of what is due from man to man than you will find in other lands. We do not cringe to those whom chance has crowned; we stand erect. Our sympathies are strong and quick. Generosity is almost a national failing. The hand of honest want is rarely left unfilled. Great calamities open the hearts and hands of all. Here you will find democracy in the family republicanism by the fireside. Say what you will, the family is apt to be pat- terned after the government. If a king is at the head of the nation, the husband im- agines himself the monarch of the home. In this countiy we have carried into the family the idea on which the government is based. Here husbands and wives are begin- ning to be equals. The highest test of civilization is the treat- ment of women and children. By this stan- dard America stands first among nations. There is a magnitude, a scope, a grandeur, 218 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION about this country an amplitude that sat- isfies the heart and the imagination. We have our faults, we have our virtues, but our country is the best. No American should ever write a line that can be sneeringly quoted by an enemy of the great republic. ROBERT G. INGERSOLL. 219 IS OURS THE BEST? IN the June number (1891) of the North American Review there was published an article entitled " Brutality and Avarice Triumphant," in which I attempted to por- tray, in rather strong colors, several immoral shortcomings which seem to me to have been the outgrowths peculiar to our defective social order and careless political administra- tion. Following my article there appeared an answer from Colonel Robert Gr. Ingersoll, under the title of " Is Avarice Triumphant ? " After reading it over as carefully as I am capable of doing, I failed to discover, save in two instances, that its author had attempted to controvert my alleged facts. I fear that our brilliant author, whose possession of a most vivid imagination none can dispute, fails when he comes upon the necessity of such a commonplace quality as a fairly good memory. 220 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION Of the land grants to the Pacific Railroads he writes : " It was (the voting) all done in the light of noon. There is not the slightest evidence tending to show that the general policy of hastening the construction of railways through the territories of the United States was corruptly adopted not the slightest/' Of course the voting was done in the light of noon, or possibly afternoon, or perhaps evening. But how about the preceding business of the lobby arranging for the votes so openly cast ? The official investigation of the unprecedented " Credit Mobilier " frauds proved conclusively that the grants to the Union Pacific Railroad were procured by bribes and in the interests of corruptionists. Afterwards it was often asserted by the Washington correspondents of as reliable newspapers as we have in our country, and never disputed, that the Congressional grants of lands and Government bonds to at least two other Pacific Railroads, were tainted through and through with corrupt lobby influence, but the manner of their passage through Congress was managed so discreetly, 221 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION as not to allow any damaging facts to get outside of the various corrupt cabals inter- ested in their passage. Enough of facts, however, leaked out to enable correspondents to make some rather clear statements which to this time remain uncontroverted. Colonel Ingersoll questions the correctness of my allusion to the so-called Star Route conspiracy, and says, " Every one who knows the history of the Star Route trials knows that nothing was established against the defendants." Absolutely correct! At the second trial none of them were convicted, but at the first trial two were convicted, one acquitted and the jury could not agree as to the others. Thomas I. Brady, one of the defendants, was the assistant Post-Master General in charge of Star Routes during the period of the alleged conspiracy. It is in evidence that soon after he came into office, July 23, 1876, he commenced " expediting " the Star Routes and ordering enormous pay- ments, in excess of amounts agreed upon in original contracts, for the supposed necessary increase of service. Under his administra- tion the cost per mile upon the Star Routes OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION west of the Mississippi River had risen to $16.99. By July 1, 1882, with Brady out of office, the cost per mile was reduced to $8.62, and by December 10, 1882 it had been further reduced to $7.82 per mile. It is not known how much the "expediting" by Brady cost the United States, but not less than $5,000,000, and I have heard it estimated as high as $6,000,000. A large proportion of these misappropriations were traced, either to, or especially near to, Brady and his alleged co-conspirators. The testimony pro- duced upon the trials by the government appeared to be conclusive. And why there was no verdict against the defendants, re- mains to this day, to many competent lawyers, a secret which they define as a miscarriage of justice. Colonel Ingersoll objects to my dislike of " Stock watering" and takes pleasure in admitting "that stock has been watered in this country," and asks, " What is the crime or practice of stock waterings ? " In my article I only enumerated a few phases of the offence and now offer a further view which may better express valid objections. Stock 223 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION watering as to fact consists of issuing stock and bonds one or both, which purport to represent actual cost of corporate property, but which in fact often stand for more than ten times the cost or market value of the property they are supposed to represent. In the majority of instances these unwarrantable issues are made in the interests of inside cabals of promoters, corrupt officials and their friends. The rule is to water the stock for all the traffic will bear, and for the Stock Exchange to peddle off to unsuspecting pur- chasers, these supposed securities without regard to actual cost of property. And then managing officials, if possible, compel patrons to pay rates for services high enough to yield interest and dividends upon the entire corpor- ate issues including the "water." Not the least among the evils of " stock watering " are the sales of those so-called securities to innocent buyers who purchase them for in- come and learn when too late that they have become possessed of worthless pieces of paper. The history of the elevated roads in the City of New York aptly and fully illustrates the evil involved in this pernicious practice. 224 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION Their whole cost was less than seventeen millions of dollars, and the value now stands, in stocks and bonds, at about seventy mil- lions. If they were stocked and bonded at actual cost, two-cent fares would pay inter- est upon bonds and large dividends upon stock. Instead of which the public is com- pelled to pay five-cent fares which go for in- terest and dividends upon dishonest issues. In a country where public rights are prop- erly protected, the offence described would be regarded in the nature of a conspiracy against an enlightened public policy, and pun- ished accordingly. In Germany, where I am now writing, an attempt even at stock water- ing would probably be punished with the utmost rigor. The German railways are re- garded and treated as creatures of the sover- eignty incorporated for public use, and are regulated and managed in the better inter- ests of the whole German people, rather than for the benefit of families, cabals of officials, stock gamblers, express companies or inside fast freight lines. In no European country are these outside freight and small package leeches permitted to fasten upon the corpor- 225 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION ate body of a railway ! and in Germany espe- cially, the railway service is exact, and as a rule, safe and remunerative. And whenever necessary the government can assume actual control of the entire railway system. Not long ago were two cases in point, illus- trating government interference. Two of the railway managements in Eastern Prussia were detected in making secret rebates to favored shippers. The Minister of Public Works at Berlin to whom this matter was reported ordered an investigation and a con- tingent suspension of offending officials. So close is the connection between government control and actual management that all changes in time schedules, freight and pas- senger rates, have to be submitted to a properly authorized official and his consent obtained before the changes proposed can go into operation. Nor can a mile of railway be built without government consent. It is assumed that the taking of private property, for the use of a quasi private corporation is, at best, a high-handed measure and that it never ought to be done, save in the event of a self-evident necessity, and then solely in the OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION public interest. Scheming promoters, as with us, are not permitted to exercise the rights of an exceptional franchise for the purpose of robbing the producing classes and of enrich- ing themselves. The result of this strict and perfectly honest supervision is uniformity of railway operation throughout the German Empire. The service from one year's end to the other, is regular, reliable and satisfactory to all classes. Managing officials have neither friends to serve, enemies to punish or legisla- tures to purchase. Discriminations in charges are not permitted, and the passenger rates are so arranged that all classes can travel in a manner suited to their respective conditions. In my humble judgment the German view of a railway system in its relation to peoples, government and commercial needs is the correct one, and the American misrule and practice is most defective and fraught with many unnecessary evils. Railroads are not wholly private corporations, but are insti- tuted granted by sovereignties, primarily for the benefit of the inhabitants of a country and its commerce. And while it is a fact that those who promote and build them are, 227 OUK POLITICAL DEGKADATION in some instances, entitled to exceptional re- muneration, the power of active control, whenever necessary in the interest of the pub- lic, should rest in the hands of the sovereign power that grants the franchise. And in no other way can great scandals and abuses in connection with railway grants and their uses be prevented. I once heard of a great classical scholar, a professor in a well-known European Univer- sity, who composed an ode in the best of Greek, in praise of a daring house-breaker. He gave a copy to a friend and the ode found its way into print. It created a stir and the learned scholar was compelled to explain that he wrote it as an experiment. He desired to ascertain if an ode could be written in lauda- tion of such an incident which would seem to portray the honest convictions of the writer. Let us hope that Colonel Ingersoll's praise of stock watering was an experiment in the same line as the ode of the professor. My respondent is especially severe upon individuals who take the liberty of calling public attention to the evils complained of in my article, and asks : 228 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION " But is it hardly fair to exaggerate the faults of your country for the purpose of calling attention to your own virtues, or to earn the praise of a nation that hates your own ? This is what might be called wallowing in the gutter of reform." That is the kind of a gutter that many citizens of the United States would like to discover. At present, however, it does not appear to exist, and from present indications there does not seem to be a likelihood of any considerable amount of reform wallowing. Wallowing in the gutter of political cor- ruption, breaches of trust and corporate rascality pay better, and that is the reason why the other gutter, if it exists, is not just at this time particularly well patronized. In our current daily history there is no neces- sity for exaggeration of national sins, or to put it more mildly faults. A narration of simple facts will answer every purpose. Colonel Ingersoll calls attention to an un- precedented accumulation of national glories within a certain given period : "The thirty years chosen as the time in which we as a nation have passed from virtue to the lowest depths of brutality and avarice are, in fact, the 229 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION most glorious years in the life of this or any other nation." This is another instance of an inversion of the moral sense. Of course he sings for the twenty millionth time a paean for the free- ing of the slaves and putting down the rebellion. To which every good citizen will pronounce a hearty amen. The most cow- ardly head of a household will rise up to defend his home, communities have always defended themselves from assaults without and attacks within, and nations seldom fail to defend their territorial integrity. The latter is what the people of our North, East and West did, their effort was crowned with success, and incidentally the slave liberated. The great contest was a splendid one and has shed everlasting lustre upon the physical prowess of our whole people. But what shall we say of our political history during the twenty-six years since the close of the rebellion ? Can it be pretended that those years were as free from corruption as any like period in our previous history as an in- dependent nation ? 230 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION Up to 1860 only the legislatures of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania had in- dulged in the practice of selling acts to cor- rupt cabals and corporations. The custom of purchasing legislative enactments from venal legislators has, within the glorious period, become so common that it is doubtful if there could be named one out of the forty- four legislatures which is free from the cor- rupting influence of corporations, money in the hands of professional lobbyists or the taint of vicious partisan degradation. In many instances the passage of pernicious enactments is not obtained by the payment of money, but for individual political spoils- men and corrupt partisan politics. No evi- dence could more clearly prove the low standard of the State legislatures than the steady decline in the quality of statesman- ship of the United States Senate. There was a time when that body, for wisdom and patriotic aspirations stood without a peer in any land. The men who composed it were well-read, capable of intelligently consider- ing all measures brought before them, na- tional in their legislative action, having only 231 OUE POLITICAL DEGRADATION the welfare and reputation of their entire country at heart, and above all they were honest and faithful in the performance of their great duties. There is now a wide- spread belief that that body is not what the " Fathers of the Constitution " intended or what it ought to have been. Up to 1862 there had not been an instance of the pur- chase of a senatorial seat. Since then the practice has become, possibly not common, but far too frequent. And the result is that an intended august and conservative body now stands more for bank accounts, sec- tional, class and partisan interests, than for brains, statesmanship, broad nationality or patriotism. And to-day, as it was fifty years ago, when senators were elected be- cause of their good character and general fit- ness, the United States senator is the crea- tion of the State legislature. The enormous and growing evil of office purchasing has, possibly, culminated by the appointment to a high cabinet position of an individual who had raised a large sum of money-corruption funds, to be used for the success of the party to which he belongs. OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION It may now be said that a precedent has been established as to the value of a cabinet position, and if an often repeated, unrefuted report tells the truth, such a position has been obtained for about four hundred thou- sand dollars. A further and another cul- mination is possible, and can be realized in the purchase of a National Convention for the nomination of President of the United States. And in the belief of the writer the day is not far off when that will be accom- plished. It is now a very common practice for interested parties to pay the expenses of individual delegates, and often of whole State delegations to those conventions, and afterwards to reward delegates with offices for their votes. An easier way to transact the business would be to buy the necessary majority on the spot, and pay cash down. That method would be in accordance with the views of a late notable vice-president of the New York Central Railroad, who, thirty- five years ago, said it was cheaper to pur- chase the New York legislature (any number of members needed) than it was to pay the election expenses of the individual members. 233 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION My critic repeats the saying of Pitt about not being able to indict a nation. It is quite true, there is no regularly constituted grand jury which can entertain charges against a nation. But there is a larger body or jury made up of the honest citizens of a people, and it is quite competent for that great inquest to indite morally by condemn- ing the corrupt acts and deeds of those who make their laws and administer their politi- cal affairs ; and before that body any citizen may present his charge, call it an indictment or by any other name. The first count in such an indictment might assert that, in many of the states, a sufficient number of votes are usually purchased to secure the control of their legislatures to incompetent and corrupt hands ; and that it is to the two evils of voters selling their votes at the polls, and members of the legislators selling theirs, not always for money, but often to cabals and corporations for other considerations, that we are chiefly indebted for our present degraded political conditions. Of course vicious partisanship is ever present the most important factor in directing and shap- 234 OUE POLITICAL DEGRADATION ing the great game of pollution, and for the collection of party-spoils. Very few of our citizens, I am sure, at all appreciate the power, the value and the dignity of a vote. In my humble judgment the giving the right to vote, i. e., the power to assist in governing others, to ignorant and vicious human beings often differing from ordinary brutes only in form, was a mon- strous error, which has already amounted to a crime against the welfare of a nation. Its future magnitude and its influence for evil upon our nationality is beyond human calcu- lation. Of the power given by the voter to the legislator to make laws for the govern- ment of peoples, it may be said, it is at once the most sublime and the nearest approach to the supreme ever bestowed upon man. And it ought only to be exercised by capable and patriotic citizens, ever willing to sacrifice selfish interests for the public good. Within the boundaries of these two powers are com- passed the foundations of our whole political superstructure, and if they are venal and rotten, the whole governmental edifice which rests upon them must be tainted with the 235 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION foul stench which flows from the polluted sources of our political power. In many instances in our later history, we have conclusive testimony, proving that the ballot in the hands of the vicious and ignor- ant classes is the most potent weapon for the destruction of decency in politics and of hon- est administration of public affairs, ever placed in the hands of tax devouring dema- gogues. The outflow from such a condition of debasement is an unprecedented quantity of sectional, class, individual and partisan legislation in the interest of sections, classes, individuals often tax eaters, and parties. Federal legislation is seldom national, i. e., in the interest of the whole nation. The various silver enactments compelling the whole peo- ple to purchase all the silver produced by the owners of silver mines, whether it is needed or not for actual use, were measures in the interest of a class and a section, and among the most pernicious ever enacted by a legislative body; and the one of 1891 was, probably, passed for the purpose of keeping the " Silver States " in the Republican line for use in 1892. The pension act of 1890 236 OUE POLITICAL DEGRADATION was thoroughly venal in its general purpose, and in less than a year has done more towards lessening the respect of our people for popular government than any other act ever passed by Congress. It was unprece- dented, unwarrantable, unnecessary and an enlarged tub to the old soldier whale vote to keep it in Eepublican waters, and ought to have been entitled an act for the annihila- tion of patriotism and the promotion of per- jury and mendicancy. The later Tariff legislation, the usual river and harbor and public buildings appropria- tions, all bear the taint of favor to sections, party and classes. The political abuses with which our people are now cursed were, in the main, planted, grown and ripened within the last thirty years, which according to Colonel Ingersoll was the most glorious of all the national periods recorded in the world's history. Can that gentleman point out from the whole era of the Roman decadence or from the history of the downfall of any other nation, a period of thirty years which records a more complete debasement from a rather decent level of po- litical purity? 237 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION In England, Germany, Austria and other European countries that might be named there is a popular prejudice in favor of legis- lative bodies which do not make to order, and sell legislative acts to purchasers. But in our country such a prejudice, if it exists, does not materialize sufficiently to be of any visible value. We may select as apt illus- trations of our methods the legislative his- tory of the street railways in the State of New York, and those of the City of New York and Brooklyn in particular. It is an open secret that many and probably all of their charters were purchased from the legis- lative representatives of the people; and public highways were practically sold to cabals for inconsiderable considerations and the rights of the people and municipalities imperfectly protected. In the former city these and other corporations that use the streets ought, at least, to pay in taxes and for use of public highways an amount equal to one-fifth of the cost of an honest munici- pal government, but instead they contest many items, of just taxes levied upon them and do not contribute more than a thirty-fifth part of the local budget. 238 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION . The legislature of the richest and most pop- ulous state in the Union is only a prototype, many of the others have become adepts in the manufacture and sale of legislative enact- ments. This is an incalculable evil fraught with most dangerous consequences to the na- tion^ but so many colossal fortunes have been made out of it and so many reputable (sic) and influential individuals connected with it, that a new legislative " steal," no matter of what gigantic proportions, excites neither astonishment or protest. Legislative corrup- tion has come to be accepted as a matter of course, and so blunted and demoralized has the public conscience become that very little is thought about it, and the average citizen sums up a legislative session with a sigh of relief when it adjourns and thanks the wretches who composed it for its not having been any worse. It must be inferred that the items described constitute some of the chief glories of the matchless period. My critic does not quite adopt the usual Fourth of July and election stump formula of " This is the best govern- ment and we are the greatest and freest people 239 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION the sun has ever shone upon," but he does say, " This in my judgment is the best govern- ment, the best country in the world." In my belief it is neither one nor the other. There never has been nor is there now a best government or best country. All countries are, more or less, good, but some are more favored as to position, natural products, soil and climate than others, and no government is best. The most imperfect scheme of political gov- ernmenton paper, which now exists, honestly and impartially administered in the equal interests of its entire inhabitants, would show better results to the governed than the most perfect compact dishonestly and carelessly administered. At this period in our history it is unfair to compare ourselves with the older European nations. If we want to be honest in our comparisons we must wait until we have the same density of popula- tion, for instance, as England, i. e., the same number of inhabitants to the square mile before we can compare ourselves with that country. There is, however, at least one reason why ours is now the better for all 240 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION classes. And it is because it is the least populated and the loaf is easier attainable than in the older countries of Europe. There can be no reasonable doubt about our material progress, the enormous magnitude of which must be admitted. It is not of that, that complaint can be made. My charge is that in our vicious race for material possessions, we have lost our political, and to an extent, our commercial and social morality. "Why is ours the best government'? The better of all governments is the one which secures the better protection for the lives, other personal rights and property of the governed at the least cost. Political govern- ment has many other aims, but around those paramount greater objects are grouped all the diverse and lesser interests of the gov- erned. Is our complicated judicial system the best the sun has ever shone upon ? In the State of New York the expenses attending the ju- dicial part in the administration of state laws are about three millions of dollars a year, which is about eight hundred thousand dol- lars less than the entire cost of similar service 241 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION in England and Wales. Those countries, two only in name, as to judicial administra- tion, have about thirty millions of inhabi- tants. New York has less than six. For this enormous outlay do we usually get a better quality of law than England? Let the voluminous reports of the Court of Ap- peals answer that question. In that country a murderer is arrested, convicted and exe- cuted within three months from the commis- sion of the crime, and from the verdict of the jury there is, practically, no appeal. In New York it usually takes more than a year to bring to trial and convict, and the carrying out of a death sentence depends upon the num- ber of stays and appeals granted by an appel- late court, in the majority of instances, for technical reasons which have very little to do with facts. In New York probably two years and a half is about the time it usually takes to execute a death sentence after the commission of the crime. It is possible that there may be a very great advantage in our having forty-four distinct sets of laws, no two alike, and a corresponding number of complete judicial 242 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION machines to administer them, outside of the body of Federal laws with the accompany- ing national courts. But the exact point where the advantage comes in, or wherein exists the superiority of our complicated, un- necessarily multiplied series of systems over the single body of laws of the several Eu- ropean countries is not to the average thinker quite perceptible. My theory in relation to our judicial arrangements is, that they are needlessly numerous, expensive, hopelessly complex, often unintelligible and in many in- stances the system is cursed with corruptly elected and appointed incompetent judges, who, instead of meting out justice peddle errors for appellate courts to correct. There is another political flower peculiar to our system which has blossomed within the boundaries of the matchless period. The criminal dishonesty in the administration of our municipal governments is not only a dis- grace to us as a nation, but of such magnitude as to constitute a blot upon the civilization of the century in which we live. Our cities, with very few exceptions, are in the control of polit- ical spoilsmen, the chiefs being men who live 243 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION by the almost open robbery of tax-payers. Our streets are the filthiest and the worst paved known, and for want of authoritative, honest and intelligent supervision over general fea- tures and buildings in particular, our cities present the most irregular and inartistic ap- pearance of any in the civilized world. And yet it costs their inhabitants a larger amount per capita to govern them as they ought not to be, than it does those of other countries who in many instances have nearly perfect municipal administration. The New Yorker pays nearly three times as much per capita as the Londoner. In London for every pound paid out its value is received either in labor or material. In New York it is quite safe to assert that the city pays two dollars for every one received either in material or labor, and salaries of from one to three thou- sand dollars per year, in many hundreds of instances, are paid to coarse and brutal specimens of foreigners, chiefly Irish, who would better adorn a hod or State prison than the positions they now occupy. The reason for these lamentable conditions is to be found in the single fact of the exer- 244 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION else of manhood suffrage which elects the lawmaking, the governing and appointing officials from among classes totally unfitted to assist in the administration of any kind of government. We may set it down as a proved fact, that such suffrage in its relation to municipal government is an absolute fail- ure, and unless its baleful influence can be checked or materially neutralized, municipal corruption will go on increasing to the logical culmination of physical revolt against the rule of knaves who reign but to rob. The most characteristically American and the most completely vicious and venal out-f growth from within the boundaries of the matchless period is the professional, practical politician. That creature is decidedly na- tional. He belongs to neither section nor party, but is found wherever the ample folds of the American flag indicate a unit of popu- lation large enough for his peculiar opera- tions. That human excrescence fastened upon the body politic, realizing a degree of toler- ated infamy unknown to any other country, manages and manipulates caucuses and con- ventions, extorts from corrupt candidates 245 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION money and promises for vicious use of power after election, and fattens upon public plunder which flows from their cowardice. He is a lobbyist, dabbles in bribes and is the go-be- tween for secret bargainings between supe- rior and venal party managers. He is always a partisan, but ever ready to make combina- tions with the chiefs of an opposing party against the honest administration of public affairs and in the interests of corrupt politics. His chief business, however, is to prevent honest and capable men from obtaining office. He sees in the legislator and officeholder only a machine for the distribution of polit- ical plunder to underlings, and the making of new offices and extended opportunities for additional manifestations in the interest of his class. He is the incarnation of low cunning, cowardice, falsehood and deceit, the veritable bete noir of the republic, and fortunately for the cause of civilization, he has no counter- part in any other country. Within the matchless period the incalcu- lable evil of the frequency of useless elec- tions has developed to an extent which fifty years ago could not have been foretold. The 246 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION enormous expense attending them is not the greater evil incident to their frequency. They disturb the usual commercial affairs of the country and are the nurseries of falsehood and deceit, and constitute the great school in which the peculiar chicanery incident to our politics is taught. It is in these foul contests that thousands of American young men, yearly, receive their first lessons in political immorality and come to a knowledge of the habitual practice of deception as an art, and seeing it successful in politics, gradually come to the practice of deceit, which often leads to something worse, as their habitual rule of action. The culmination comes once every four years when there is a combination of all the malignant forces from out of our political hades. These hordes scent the coming presi- dential election, with the possibly attending flesh-pots, with the keenness of wolves that detect their distant prey upon the prairies, and during many months before the day of voting they continue their secret combina- tions, elaborating their schemes for purchas- ing majorities in cities and States, extorting 247 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION money from timid merchants and capitalists, interested manufacturers and corporations which are often their allies. Usually for six weeks or two months before the election, the greater centers of population are, in a meas- ure, converted into a veritable orgy which amounts to a conspiracy against the political morality of a nation. The worst of it is that this gigantic strife is not in the better inter- ests of the whole people, but for the spoils of office and the attainment of low partisan ends. There probably never has been a best gov- ernment. Any enlightened form of the po- litical compact manifestly in the interest of an entire people is good, and is better only when administered by honest, capable and patriotic men. But the better scheme or the nearest approach to the perfect organization ever known, in the hands of self-seeking par- tisan demagogues, is sure to degenerate into a tyranny, and it matters not whether we call it an absolute monarchy, empire, constitu- tional monarchy or republic ; if in the hands of bad and incapable rulers the result will always be the same. 248 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION France has had the largest experience of any modern nation in trying to solve the ques- tion of the better government, and to the av- erage observer, the satisfactory solution seems as far off now as it was a hundred years ago. In the person of Louis XIV, who was indis- putably the great monarch he asserted him- self to be, France realized advantages of conquests, national prestige and many of the worst evils growing out of a purely personal government. Louis XV intensified the evils of the preceding reign, but imitated none of its greatness. The reign of Louis XVI brought the Revolution and the end of the old order. The Revolution was a culmina- tion of a great reaction which wiped out, for a time, all that was personal, and ended old abuses which had become unbearable, but gave birth to many new ones quite as vicious as those to which it gave the death-blow. Napoleon succeeded a confusion of seven so-called governments, which had covered a period of fifteen years, with a completely personal government, which, on the whole, accomplished a great work for France and modern civilization. 249 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION The republic and empire of the third Napo- leon followed the frugal and conservative reign of Louis Philippe, and the Empire was, possibly^ the weakest and most corrupt known to French history. The present republic is unwarrantably extravagant in its expendi- tures, and like ours, is governed by the di- rect representatives of the people. Since the rule by the deputies of the people, France has achieved the distinction of creating the largest public debt, having within the last five years passed ahead of the national debts of England and Russia, and now the people of that country are yearly confronted with an enormous deficit of many millions, (in 1890 upwards of seven hundred and forty millions of francs) the extravagance of appropriation continues, and there is, seemingly, no power to control the rulers who are, as with us, responsible to no intelligent concentrated authority. In Prussia, from the time of the Great Elec- tor, the administration has been strong, honest and frugal. Under Frederick the Great, father of the later Prussia, the administration was vigorous and intelligent, and the quaint old 250 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION ruler, who had spent a life devoted to the in- terest of his country, died beloved by his whole people. The later Hohenzollerns fol- lowed in the footsteps of their two illustrious predecessors, and the present young ruler, although possibly somewhat erratic, is giving ample proof of his devoted attachment to the better interests of the German people. In that country, where intelligent and honest administration is the rule, personal and prop- erty rights are absolutely and impartially protected, and at the least possible cost to the people, and no citizen, be he noble or peas- ant, is beyond the control of the law. The army is typical of the nation. Perfect obedience, subordination and industry are exacted from the highest officer down through all ranks to the raw recruit. There are no favors, all are treated alike, and the result is that the army has become a great national school, where the sons of peasants and others who come from the lower walks of life, are thoroughly educated in all the elements and principles which go far towards making use- ful and honest citizens. They are taught in many branches of education, and cleanliness, 251 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION industry, fidelity and obedience are enforced. The compulsory three years of service serves another great purpose. It assists to keep down population in an old country already very much overpopulated. It is probably true that the rate of taxa- tion, owing to the compulsory maintenance of a large army, is high. From an American standpoint that ought to be regarded as a national blessing. But if their taxes are burdensome, the Germans have at least one advantage over Americans. They know what they are paying, for nearly all levies are direct. With us our direct taxes are village, town, county, city and State, and besides, we have numberless items of indirect taxes which go for the support of the general government. Fortunately for our Federal legislators, the amount of these is an unknown quantity. For the high taxes in Germany, the people get back from the government many items of real value which our people know nothing of. For instance, the govern- ment sends a telegram from one end of the Empire to the other for one and four- tenths of a cent per word ; forwards a package of ten 252 OUE POLITICAL DEGRADATION pounds to any part of the Empire for about twelve cents; arranges the railway passen- ger rates into four classes, so that all may travel in a manner suited to their respective conditions, the lowest rate being less than one cent per mile; supports numerous museums, galleries, libraries; and the fine bands of the army furnish gratuitously refin- ing amusement to millions of music loving subjects. The reason for the cheap rates cited is that the government is the honest agent and servant of the people, and does their business at the lowest possible cost. Of course in our country we cannot expect cheap rates for like services. Managers of private corporations with stock watered to the extent of from four to ten times the cost of corporate properties, or in other words, watered for all the earnings will bear, do not believe in delivering cheap service. So it would appear, notwithstanding the fact that Germany is an imperialism, and liable to be denounced by all good republicans as an unmitigated tyranny, it does in fact contrib- ute a few items to the people, which materi- ally increase, without great expense, the sum 253 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION total of their conveniences, instruction and happiness. The Swiss Confederation has a notable record for fine qualities of nationalism. Its people had, at various times, fought against great odds many successful battles for their independence ; and in their civil administra- tion the sturdy qualities which enabled them to conquer upon the battle-field have preserved, untainted, the liberties their arms achieved. Their country is not a productive one, and its people are compelled to exercise extreme frugality as to private and public expenditures ; they elect the better citizens to office ; see that they perform their official duties honestly, and pay no high salaries. The rule in all the Cantons is that good character and acknowledged capacity are conditions precedent to office. Many years of careful and honest administration of public affairs have enabled a hardy race to wrest, from most unfavorable natural sur- roundings, the means of sustaining them- selves, and to establish a reputation as to national qualities which would be most creditable to any other nation. 254 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION It would seem, therefore, that there are existing at this time, two republics which are notoriously and possibly unwarrantably ex- travagant in relation to their expenditures of the people's money ; and an empire and a republic administering their financial affairs in accordance with better known principles of business economy. In all four the inhabit- ants enjoy all the liberty that reasonable human beings are entitled to demand. In the empire, and certainly in one of the repub- lics, wholesome legal restraints impartially imposed, regulate and restrain human action, so as to prevent natural selfishness and culti- vated greed from encroaching upon the rights and property of others. And an enlightened and well-defined public policy, promoting justice, the stability of commercial relations and transactions, enforcing the honest execu- tion of public trusts and watching over the entire field covered by national interests, is the one great vital and ever present principle that influences the officials who govern those nationalities. If this account is true, form of government has very little to do with the making or pros- 255 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION perity of a nation. Wise and honest admin- istrations, and bountiful nature, are the foun- dation for both. Our political compact is not the perfect one which the average American claims it to be. In our one hundred and fifteen years' existence as a separate nation we have devel- oped our full share of weaknesses and abuses. Hence, while our scheme reads very well, its every day application to the needs of a peo- ple, as illustrated by its workings is defec- tive in many essential particulars. The fathers of the Constitution divided the Gov- ernment into three sub-divisions, for the purpose, when necessary, of enabling one sub-division to act as a check upon the un- warrantable deeds of the other. The acts of the last session of Congress, and the co-oper- ation of the present executive, when con- sidered together, completely set at naught the intention of the fathers. The intended conservative Senate, without question, joined the popular branch of Congress in passage of the pension, silver, tariff, sugar bounty and subsidy bills, and a weak Executive, with a desire for a second term, unhesitatingly 256 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION affixed his signature to a series of acts which, I believe, will prove to be against the gene- ral interests of the whole people, not one of which could have passed, if presented for approval to the popular will. Unfortunately those acts are constitutional, and cannot be presented to the third sub-division, the ju- dicial, for revision, and unless repealed must stand as significant instances of the tyranny of an unpatriotic majority in a republic which boasts of the unrivalled liberty of its citizens. It may be said of these extraordinary and unnecessary appropriations, direct, indirect and contingent as to total, and made in a time of peace, that they stand without prece- dent in the history of legislation. By pandering to the demands of sections, the government is admitting and re-erecting over again, upon more solid foundations than ever, the destructive heresy of State rights, which cost five hundred thousand lives and five billions of dollars to eliminate from its discordant position in our political system. In the South the claim for State rights was an ideal, founded, to an extent, upon an old 357 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION sentiment which was colonial in its origin and not a real condition. The special legis- lation of our later time has revived the old evil. But now it has for its foundation the selfishness and the sordid greed of sections, and bears about it none of the saving grace of ideality. Nature contributed the new continent for an experiment, a clean sheet upon which to write a new government. Its location in- sures freedom from complications with troublesome neighbors; its magnitude fur- nishes every variety of climate ; its rocks and earth yield nearly every known mineral ; its soil is capable of producing every kind of useful crop, and its two ocean-washed sides make it easily accessible to the commerce of the world. Never was a people so favored before with such bounteous natural con- ditions, and if we fail to create a truly great race and a wise government, it will be the fault of man failing to appreciate the excep- tional opportunity placed within his keeping. One of our prevailing national characteris- tics is a placid belief in the superiority of present conditions and habitually mistaking 258 OUE POLITICAL DEGRADATION of bigness for greatness. We believe that because we have more acres of smoke-stacks and more miles of railway than any other nation, that those facts which relate to the material only, really constitute the greatest people the world has ever known. It is true that certain phases of American individuality are monumental and in many directions most commendable. The numerous splendid gifts for colleges, schools, libraries, museums, elee- mosynary and other institutions attest the en- lightened and liberal spirit of many of our better citizens and are worthy of all praise. Such acts, however, are not national but be- long to individuals, and in no sense can they be attributed to form of government or national traits. A nation, in order to be truly great, must be moral as well as big. Bigness alone cannot excuse the absence of honesty in the administration of the political business of a nation, and until we can reform many of the glaring abuses which now exist, the less we boast of our bigness the better. What is needed is another heroic uprising of all decent citizens who place country and good government above party and selfish in- 259 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION terests. It is time to drive the Irish ruffians and groggery keepers from their dominant position in the politics of the municipalities, and the partisan, self-seeking mental infini- tesimals from legislative seats and other positions of power under the Federal and States governments. When those reforms are made, many others quite as important will Be possible. And much will have been accomplished to warrant the boasting of those superior and complacent patriots, whose vivid imaginations transform thistle patches into beds of roses. RUSH C. HAWKINS. 260 LATEST FROM THE FRONT. YEARS ago, as they were written, several of these papers were submitted to an ac- quaintance of the present time " Statesman " order, one of the providing and taking kind, for his opinion and advice. He said: " Don't print them. It would ruin you for the rest of your life ; and besides the evils you complain of will cure themselves. They are the result of the war, and we'll come out all right after a little more time." I knew he was wrong, and that we were certain to keep on going from bad to veiy much worse ; but, for certain reasons other than those stated, they were not printed. During the Civil War we took on, to re- main, the habit of large payments for small returns ; and it now not only applies to the national political unit, but to the State, city, county, village and town as well. We have become so hardened to criminal extravagance in the conduct of our public business that no one now questions its immorality; and * Written in December 1903. 361 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION the tax-eater revels at the expense of the unfortunates who are compelled to produce. But, notwithstanding, we have gotten along " somehow," and public affairs have moved on fairly well, our kind of fairly well, until 1889 when Benjamin Harrison reached the White House. Soon after his advent there he made up his mind that his new place suited him, and that a second four years would come near rewarding him for his ex- cess of public virtue : and so he set about inventing many wheels for his new machine, which the confiding people were to be made to pay for the running. Where statistics exist within the reach of all searching hands, it is unnecessary to cite elaborate statistical particulars ; and for that reason they are not stated. By the aid of the President's eager assistance, the " River and Harbor Bill" always known as the " Annual Steal," and the public buildings appropriations, were pushed up to enormous dimensions more than double, in amounts per year, of those made by any previous ad- ministration. The members from the " Sil- ver States " forced through a bill compelling 262 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION the purchase of $2,000,000 worth of their favorite metal per month ; this was in addi- tion to the $2,000,000 we were already buy- ing. Neither amount was needed by the Government or wanted by the people ; and nearly the whole of the results of this politi- cal juggle purchase remained in vaults for many years without being used. These pur- chases, as intended, maintained an abnormal value ; and as soon as they were discontinued, the price of silver declined to about one-half of the amount the Government had paid for its holdings. But the " Silver States " were kept in the Republican line ready for use at the next Republican Presidential Conven- tion. The crowning infamy of this attempt at place-continuing, was the signing of the Pension Act of June 27, 1890. This act burst wide open the public treasury vaults, and turned the much courted and politician feared " Old Soldier " into a perjured mendi- cant ; and encouraged the " Grand Army of the Republic" (sic) to continue its war cry of : " We have saved the earth, and demand its contents in payment for our patriotic services." 263 OUE POLITICAL DEGRADATION In 1869, General Garfield, who was chair- man of the House of Representatives Pensions Committee, stood up in his place and apolo- gized for the amount, about $30,000,000 ap- propriated for that year, saying : " We have reached the limit and from this time on there will be a gradual diminution." Under the pro- visions of that law (1890) we have paid to the end of the last fiscal year about $1,300,000,000 and still they come; and instead of the promis- ed diminution there has been a fourfold in- crease. The old soldiers and their multitudes of widows, the majority of these of the post- bellum sort, continue to come, and the " Grand Army " is as active as ever. The total amount paid up to the end of the last fiscal year, on account of Civil war pensions was $2,878,240,400. In 1887 the entire cost of the German Army, maintainance, arms, ord- nance, fortifications, etc., etc., was $129,680,- 000, while our pensions for that period called for $140,360,000. These figures show, that 38 years after the close of our contest, our army under ground and its remains above, cost $10,950,000 more than the living army of Germany, which is the best organized and 264 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION equipped of all the armies in the world; and second only in size to that of Russia. At the time when we had ventured to hope that we had reached the maximum of yearly payments for pensions, the Spanish war veteran is beginning to show signs of activity ; and we now see looming up in the immediate foreground, those gallant martyrs who made that fearful newspaper charge up Wind Mill Hill led on, to gore and deeds of fearful im- port, by that mighty host of on-rushing riders. They are now preparing for another and a mightier charge upon the treasury. This will give the " Grand Army " a new lease of life; and cause it to pass more bellicose resolutions for higher pensions and more of them. Pres- ent indications point to the depressing fact that our " Old Soldier " supply is far from being exhausted ; and that our newly made ninety day heroes, under the act, who neither saw an enemy or smelt burning powder, save at guard mount or target practice, during their perilous service, will be able to keep the pen- sion roster up to the one hundred and forty million point for many years to come. But what if the pension payments should 265 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION diminish and the " Grand Army of the Re- public " furl its flag ? Even then, there would be but little relief from the voracity of the tax-eater: for there is a new fraud taking root which is destined to fashion a mantle, of respectability for the unprecedented pension enormity. For several years it has been coming quietly, like a thief in the night ; but surely, and is now firmly set in our unfortu- nate soil ; and is known by the faithful of the " Deestricts " as the " Rural Free Deliv- ery." Outside of the ring of those who are permitted to know, it is not known in whose brain this scheme for enormous plunder was coined; but we have a suspicion that a high post-office official, well known to fame, who came from near the banks of the "Mighty Wabash," may have been present at the time of its birth and afterwards, certainly, be- came one of its chief promoters. The pretended object of this to be perpet- ual " job " is distribution where there is little of importance to distribute ; and by the time it is working up to its highest pressure, we are to have about sixty thousand or more not needed mail-carriers dipping their fingers into 266 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION the public treasury. By the end of this fis- cal year we are to have 24,500 routes in full operation at a cost of at least $15,000,000, and during the next fiscal year the new routes to be established will cost $5,500,000 addi- tional. So with only one-third of the prob- able or possible total, we will have a yearly payment of $20,500,000. The worst of it is, this gigantic scheme of political rascality has come to stay. In relation to the pension scheme we may venture the shadow of a hope that we might some time in the far off dis- tance see the end. But there can be no hope, of seeing the end of this save by national bankruptcy or revolution. These are called Congressional routes, and are located in Congressional districts where the contractors to cany can do the most good. They are outside the Civil Service regulations, and consequently, at liberty to assist in manipulating conventions in the interests of the faithful, who may desire to be retained in office. Probably, a large majority of these routes were uncalled for, and established where there was no necessity for them. I happen to 267 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION know of two where three-fourths of the resi- dents along each would be glad to return to the former status; one covers about eight, miles, and formerly had three post stations each selling about $35 worth of stamps per year ; and the mail carrier for three times a week received $175 ; now the government pays $600, for a daily carrying of the mail over a route where there is very little to carry, and a daily delivery that was neither needed or desired, exists ; in fact so hostile are the farmers along this route that only one quarter of them have purchased the " Regulation iron box," the others have no boxes at all. The high pressure, flag waving American, at home or abroad, often proclaims in stentorian tones, that this is not a paternal govern- ment. But in the face and eyes of that boast, it seems rather clear that the paternal spoils-partaking and spoils-providing politi- cian takes particularly good care of his useful children always at the cost of the tax-pro- ducer. At this time, of all the national depart- ments, the postal presents by far the largest 268 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION and most fruitful field for the reapings of our "Statesman" who is so completely pecu- liar to the period. With its about 74,170 post-offices, its great army made up of employees, contractors and the rapidly grow- ing division of rural carriers,- the possibili- ties for successful dark-lantern political ma- nipulation must be regarded as one of the largest among our unknown quantities. A President in chair, seeking a second term, can garner from this fruitful source, if cultivated by an expert, untold influence which would be very useful at a convention assembled for the purpose of nominating a presidential candidate ; and possibly we may have such an expert at this moment who was especially called for the purpose of growing the kind of a crop suggested, for use at the next Republican party Presidential nomina- ting convention. The following from the Milwaukee Free Press^ leading Republican journal,of Dec.l 8, 1901 ,may possibly explain the why of the call: " If the President had studied how to put the greatest possible affront upon the voters of a State 269 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION who gave 100,000 majority for the Kepublican ticket last fall, he could not have selected a better means for doing it. And if he had studied to select the man whose whole record has been in sharpest contrast with his own, who is the embodiment of what is known as commercialism in politics, he could not have found in Wisconsin any other man who would so well suit his purpose." What kind of goods is this official expected to deliver ? The facts disclosed by the present investi- gation showing the enormous magnitude and far reaching scope of frauds committed by post- office officials must be regarded as the only logical answer to that question. A pessimist, in this statement, would find sufficient war- rant for believing that he was appointed to do what is being done : " To work his department for all it's worth," politically. Probably at no time during the last forty- five or fifty years have our public lands offices been without their expert malefactors, officials or employees one or both, ever ready to join hands with the "Land and Lumber Thieves" in their schemes to rob the govern- ment. 270 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION This particular kind of dishonesty is of so ancient an origin and has flourished for so many years, that it has come to be regarded, in some parts of the West as a sort of a birthright ; and lands and timber stolen from the government by prominent and influential citizens are regarded as property found with- out owners; and it would be quite impossible to make even an approximate estimate of the value of these takings. Once in a while, as in the other departments, there conies a great tidal wave of these frauds of colossal dimen- sions, which cannot be concealed and must receive the attention of high officials, and then the usual investigation is set in motion with the usual results. The stealings traced, no recoveries of value, and the knaves go free. Of late such a wave has been passing over us ; and possibly, the boldest of all yet known, and affecting the largest area of territory, and the most successful as to the total value of its takings. From undisputed newspaper accounts of official investigations, it has been proved that the amount involved goes up into the millions. The culprits are within reach and their crimes provable ; and 271 OUR, POLITICAL DEGRADATION the questions of punishment and restitution are as nebulous as in former instances of like nature. With us the robbing of any political unit of our government is easily accomplished, but punishment of the robbers most difficult ; in fact so difficult has it become, that it is seldom inflicted. In other departments than those mentioned there are small pilferings by the lesser officials and employees who have to do with public moneys, which are often discovered and promptly punished ; but they are criminals of the small fry order, mostly in the classified service who have no friends at the high court of practical politics ; and of course they are " railroaded " to the stripes without stars. It has come to this that the chiefs of the most of our greater departments and their immediate subordinates all of whom are charged with important responsibilities, are taken from the all powerful body of party- workers and wire-pullers. They are usually selected by the " Congressional Delegation," and it is probably true that neither moral, mental, business nor educational qualifications 272 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION are often considered. When the delegation presents a name to the President, the question, pro forma, as a matter of course, is asked about fitness and is always answered in the affirmative ; and it goes without saying that the candidate has done valuable party work at all elections especially at the late presiden- tial. If there are among us those who would like to know, particularly, about the quality of a goodly number among the officeholders appointed by our Presidents from this limited field, let them read our criminal statistics for the last forty years. In the States and the lesser political units, the rule about rewarding workers, is if pos- sible, more stringently applied than by the General Government. In these the " Hench- men" of the " Bosses " are the only ones to receive the emoluments of office, or employees' positions in the public service. A layman, outside of the classified service, no matter how well qualified morally and educationally for the holding of any public position, stands not- one chance in a thousand of obtaining position or employment. The naturalization abuse goes on, all over our country, uninterruptedly and increasing 273 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION in volume, not one judge in twenty who administers the law taking the judicial view of his duty. They usually ask two or three formal questions, hear the ready prepared answers, sign the paper placed before them, and call the next. In most instances, a few searching questions would disclose conditions showing absolute unfitness under the law to become citizens. In the summer of 1902, one of the most eminent among the European scientists who is also well known as a publicist, asked this question : " Why is it in your country, that you admit so many undesirable emigrants to citizenship? Those of us over here who think we know something of the eifect of power upon our politics wielded by such a class as you admit to your political house- hold, are constantly on the watch to prevent their interference in our governmental affairs. Our object lesson is the present condition of France with its three or four hundred millions of francs deficit each year, the result of its extended suffrage." Yearly, the United States Senate is going lower down in public estimation, and grad- 274 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION ually, but surely, taking into its ranks the most powerful and corrupt of the place-seeking and place-peddling " Bosses " of the various commonwealths; and the multi-millionaire who buys legislative votes, openly, is now coming to the front, and without question, takes a seat among his fellows who welcome him as an appropriate member of their asso- ciation. It is doubtful if any well informed citizen having any regard for his reputation for intelligence, would assert that there is a sin- gle member of the present United States Senate to whom the term of statesman could be applied. From one of the Eastern States there is a kindly old gentleman, who upon several occasions has tried to inject a color of the decalogue into the actions of that body. But he might as well have talked to a railway train rushing ahead at sixty miles an hour. His associates always pretend to listen to him, respectfully, and then vote the other way. This Senator comes nearer to being a statesman than any other member of the present Senate a once illustrious and so honorable a body that every true Ameri- 275 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION can was justly proud of its reputation among the Nations of the earth. But why go on with the rattling of old skeletons ? We know that our vicious politi- cal methods are spreading and are openly practised with little pretence at concealment ; and that the decent law-abiding citizens of the country are, in politics, helplessly tied hand and foot by the "Bosses"; and that the chances in favor of reform in the broad field of our rot- ten politics are growing less with the passage of each year ; and we might as well own to ourselves that we have now reached a point in our history where the spirit of resignation and arm-folding are in order; and our active interest in public affairs can be com- passed in the asking of a single question : Of what complexion will be our approaching IMPER ATOR ? From what part of the line made up of our ruling classes shall we be compelled to accept him? Will he be one of our almost Supreme " Bosses," the owner of a Sovereign state, a manufacturer of Presidents who has manipulated himself into the United States Senate : a Celt graduate from the groggeiy Class backed by the Holy Mother 276 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION Church; or will he be one of our great stock- watering multi-millionaires, whose dishonesty in acquiring his millions has made countless among the helpless mourn ? New York, November 3, 1903. 277 SOME EESULTS OF CKIMINAL MATERIALISM.* IF it were possible to formulate the con- stituent parts of our civilization by resorting to a scale of ten, we would be compelled to credit nine parts to materialism and one part to an insignificant group of uncertain and almost unknown quantities. The reasons for this classification are perfectly plain. For the proposition is self-evident to the average human understanding, that all our roads, directly or indirectly, lead to the pursuit of material objectives. Our most successful churches are those which have the larger number of millionaires seated on the centre aisle near the pulpit end. The most power- ful politician is the one who sucks the sub- stance which flows from the stench befouled rifts in the seamy side of corrupt politics; and the men of dominant influence in our communities are those who have made their * Written in the month of January, 1901. MS OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION unearned millions by corrupting all the sources of political authority found standing in the way of their nefarious schemes. To these too much worshipped habitual sharpers all gates are open, and the whole field of human activities and honors is theirs to choose from. In the world of Vanity Fair where they enter by contract, they are espe- cially potent. Soon as millions enough are accumulated they place their orders for the required quantity of aristocracy of the tailor-made variety, same as they would pur- chase commodities for eveiy-day use, by the yard, pound or bushel, to be delivered in New York or Newport, according to season. This potential aggregation of watering-pot millionaires have set the pace for the fashion- ables all over the United States, and created an ostentatious standard of ill-breeding and bad manners, which for pretentious over- bearing has never been witnessed elsewhere. There are other places of lesser note, out- posts, as it were, of the " Fashionable Set," in many of the older states; and New Yorl^ may be regarded as its most efficient and per- manent stronghold : but Newport, is, pre- 279 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION eminently, the Royal exchange and clearing house where our peculiar brand of nobility receives its Passer- Barrier e and disports itself at its best. Our materialism is at once the most exact- ing and intolerant of all masters. It exacts the possession of wealth, recognizes nothing else, and tolerates the most colossal schemes of fraud and deception in obtaining it. The millions once obtained and their possessor out of prison, no questions are asked. The combination of schemer and gold enforces respect from all classes, while morality, hon- esty and yearning for the decencies and hon- est government, which ought to be the foun- dations of all civilization, sit upon the fallen ramparts of our once noble national structure, vainly imploring our heedless throng not to complete the destruction of our national integrity. So used have we become to the worship of the gold of the calf, inventing excuses for successful knavery and applaud- ing the gigantic proportions of thrifty ras- cality, that we have forgotten that in the conduct of our every-day affairs the quality of moral honesty ever obtained, or that there 280 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION is a present necessity for little else than that sort of cunning which makes the usurer suc- cessful, and those mountains of deception and trickery which crown each day's crime with a new brood of millionaires, whose success is coined out of the confiding credulity of the thoughtless and helpless. We have bowed down so low before the imperious tyranny of material success, no matter how obtained, that we can bend no lower. We have crowned the stockwatering, official bribing, tax evading money god with the honors which the ancients laid at the feet of true greatness ; and in our debased esti- mate of the uses of humanity, bestowed upon these walking human monsters of monumental corruption all the tributes of admiration we have to bestow: thus proclaiming our unbounded approval of the qualities and deeds which all honest men and gentlemen ought to condemn. And so we send out to the world a new dictum and leave a new admonition for those who come after us, which reads as plain as day : That success- ful wrong is right, which may be accepted as a new application, with a slight variation, of 281 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION the old assumption of tyrants, that might makes right. Not content with giving our every-day affairs the taint of that deceit which has pro- duced our debased commercialism, the over- whelming inflow of its ever increasing tide has degraded the arts, abolished gentle man- ners and good breeding, and lowered public and social morals, so that we are no longer able to discern where the truly moral leaves off and debauchery begins. Our perverted habits of thought and vitiated tastes have transformed our sources of literature into manufactories of abnormal literary hashes, which do not instruct and ought not to amuse. The occupation of the historian has departed and the inspiring works of the poets consigned to the dust bins for the use- less, while the commercial writer who pre- sents his bill for each day's work has taken the place of the author. The most baleful and thoroughly disas- trous, in its widespread results, of all the victories achieved by materialism is that phase of it which has submerged out of sight and beyond all hope of resurrection, decency 282 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION in politics. In the bringing of the " Boss " and the " Business Man " into politics we have fashioned politics into business; and have made of political office and honors matters of commercial barter; and banished the states- man forever from the field once trodden by historic patriots, chosen by intelligent con- stituents for admitted fitness, capacity and integrity, who honored the high positions bestowed upon them, and gave the Ameri- cans their rightful position among the civilized peoples of the earth. These notable prototypes, who laid the foundations and erected the structure of all that is truly great in our nationality, have disappeared, and in their places we have the completely disreputable huckstering, quick- turning, spoils-seeking, bribe-taking machine corruptionist, who knows nothing of the moral side of political occupations, and re- gards office as a mine out of which to evolve emoluments and substantial profits. These are the usuals often sent from the slums of the cities and the meagrely furnished back room office of the countiy crossroads vora- cious lawyer. 283 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION With the end of a four years' curse of a mighty war, came the great change in the quality of the nationality left to us by the Fathers. Striving for lofty political ideals and pursuit of noble purpose was no longer admired or demanded ; seemingly, the tricks- ster was what we wanted. We found him by the legion and he is with us to remain and to rule; and so used have we become to his tyrannical sway, that we stand idly by witnessing the constant and open practice of political corruption, which is surely and speedily leading to the complete subjuga- tion of our political rights. But what is most lamentable, and ought to crush to the earth with its weight of shame every honest citizen who possesses pride of race or love of country, is our knowledge of the open selling, once in every four years, of the higher offices in the gift of the people, for the purpose of procuring means with which to corruptly advance purely par- tisan purposes. We are told that so clearly defined by the machine powers, has this cus- tom become, of paying for office in advance upon promise to deliver after Presidential 284 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION election, that the greater offices which the successful party may have to parcel out, are scheduled in order and priced according to prominence and importance. The " work- ers" no matter of what sort, where from, whether fit or unfit, reputable or disreputable, are rewarded with the lesser places ; while the greater are reserved for the money lords who would rather pay than work. For this particular phase of our political degradation we are indebted to Jackson who was the first President to pay political debts with office. But notwithstanding the partisan support be- stowed upon the Jackson method it proved to be a plant of slow growth, which required time and change in habit of national thought, to crystallize into exact working form. From the close of the rebellion its roots com- menced to take deeper hold in our political soil, and the branches to spread ; and within a few years after the practice of handing over of office for questionable political work be- came an open one, and now strange as it may appear, is acknowledged as an obligation to be satisfied like others relating to the ordi- nary transactions of every-day life. 285 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION The carrying out to its full completeness and seeming finality of this malignant scheme of wholesale corruption, was consummated only a few years ago ; and was the achieve- ment of a mighty " Boss " in control of a campaign, who, being hard pushed for funds, suggested the secret auction block, and sent out the cry of " how much ? " to the ambitious millionaires who possessed the itching desire to become great. The scheme succeeded so well that its inventor was regarded as a Moses in the way of filling depleted political machine exchequers. After this achievement, so transcendently powerful did he become that a great position was made for him which he now adorns, and besides he was compelled to become the " Supreme Boss " for the management of a second campaign, which, financially, he conducted to an un- precedented success. This political deity, who is in reality, pos- sibly, the most thoroughly unscrupulous corruptionist demagogue who has ever dis- graced our political history, is worshipped by the faithful; and to-day is the most pow- erful single man factor in our governmental 286 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION affairs, carrying, as it were, in the palm of his hand, more of the destinies of this nation of seventy-five millions of human beings, than any other single citizen. The career of this man, in his favorite field of operations, exemplifies more clearly than any other of his period could, the irresistible force and power of venal materialism. The unscrupulous managers of the great corporations which are all powerful, in our vast field of seething corruption, often pay to control office, but only in a great emer- gency, for office. Their aim is to ascend the most lofty heights in our great scheme of political and commercial debasement, and they never descend to small affairs. In their exclusive field they are no till-tappers. They despoil treasuries and rob communities of franchises of untold value, for which they pay little or no compensation, and often throttle the more important of the common necessities of every-day life, with that aca- demic ease and perfectly adjusted formula born of long practice : the result of devices set in motion by the most expert and thor- oughly lawless tolerated cabals of profes- 287 OUR POLITICAL DEGRADATION sional knaves known to history. Ghoul- like they do their evil work in darkness when preparing their foul feasts from out of the depths of official depravity; and con- stantly revel in the spoils flowing from their unhallowed victories, which an honest savage would scorn to touch. They habitually defy laws, human and divine, devised for the enforcement of good faith and wholesome regulation which ought to govern the usual transactions between man and man ; and their daily ambitions in pernicious purpose, equal the most ardent dream of the practiced crimi- nal for professional success. Their Heaven would be an honest man's hell. Thirty years ago the ruling " Boss " of that day defiantly inscribed upon his banner for the use of his kind for all time this motto : " What are you going to do about it?" Ten years later, another "Boss" of another kind, a prototype, an ally of the other, and a notable reaper in his field of abundant political tares, formulated and pro- claimed another motto he also for his kind when he said to his sixty-five millions of fellow sovereigns : " The Public be Damned. " 288 OUK POLITICAL DEGRADATION Each body of efficient workers which has labored so faithfully for the crushing out of honesty and in the pursuit of political and corporate aggrandisement, adopted these war cries, and ever since, have been ardent disci- ples of the teachings of their now canonized saints. These two potent forces, with the Roman Catholic Church as an active and profit sharing third, and an ally of both, are the dominant powers now governing and shaping politically, socially and commercially the destinies of the admittedly greatest com- mercial nation on earth. And each in its allotted sphere toils unceasingly for the suc- cesses of nefarious schemes which grow in all seasons and yield results, and which make all known accounts of scoundrelism in the past pale into insignificance when compared to the achievements of the least among our giants, in our peculiarly American field of criminal materialism. 289 YB 08430