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THE NAVAL WAR OF 1812;
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AMERICAN IDEALS,
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AMERICAN IDEALS
.^AND OTHER ESSAYS^
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL

By Theodore Roosevelt
Author of" The Winning ofthe West," " The Wilder
ness Hunter," "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman," etc.

Second Edition

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
Zhc ¦ftnictterbocftcr ©rees
1898

Copyright 1897
BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London

Ube Iknfc fier bocher ptess» View Hlorl;

TO
HENRY CABOT LODGE
October, 1897

PREFACE

It is not difficult to be virtuous in a cloistered
and negative way. Neither is it difficult to
succeed, after a fashion, in active life, if one is
content to disregard the considerations which bind
honorable and upright men. But it is by no means
easy to combine honesty and efficiency ; and yet
it is absolutely necessary, in order to do any work
really worth doing. It is not hard, while sitting in
one's study, to devise admirable plans for the better
ment of politics and of social conditions ; but in
practice it too often proves very hard to make any
such plan work at all, no matter how imperfectly.
Yet the effort must continually be made, under
penalty of constant retrogression in our political
life. No one quality or one virtue is enough to insure
success ; vigor, honesty, common sense, — all are
needed. The practical man is merely rendered
more noxious by his practical ability if he employs
it wrongly, whether from ignorance or from lack
of morality ; while the doctrinaire, the man of the
ories, whether written or spoken, is useless if he
cannot also act.

vi Ipveface
These essays are written on behalf of the many
men who do take an actual part in trying practically
to bring about the conditions for which we some
what vaguely hope ; on behalf of the under-officers
in that army which, with much stumbling, halting,
and slipping, many mistakes and shortcomings, and
many painful failures, does, nevertheless, through
weary strife, accomplish something toward raising
the standard of public life.
We feel that the doer is better than the critic
and that the man who strives stands far above the
man who stands aloof, whether he thus stands aloof
because of pessimism or because of sheer weak
ness. To borrow a simile from the football field,
we believe that men must play fair, but that there
must be no shirking, and that success can only
come to the player who " hits the line hard."
Theodore Roosevelt.
Sagamore Hill,
October, iSgy.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER
I. — American Ideals

PAGE I

II. — True Americanism . . . , 15
III. — The Manly Virtues and Prac
tical Politics . . • ¦ 35
IV. — The College Graduate and Public
Life  47
V. — Phases of State Legislation . 63
VI. — Machine Politics in New York
City  102
VII. — Six Years of Civil Service Reform, 134
VIII. — Administering the New York
Police Force . . . .160
IX. — The Vice-Presidency and the Cam
paign OF 1896 .... 189
X. — How Not to Help our Poorer
Brother  214

Contents

XI. — The Monroe Doctrine .
XII. — Washington's Forgotten Maxim .
XIII. — National Life and Character
XIV. — Social Evolution ....
XV. — The Law of Civilization and
Decay . ....

228
247271
303
329

AMERICAN IDEALS

AMERICAN IDEALS'

IN his noteworthy book on National Life and
Character, Mr. Pearson says : " The country
men of Chatham and Wellington, of Washington
and Lincoln, in short the citizens of every historic
state, are richer by great deeds that have formed
the national character, by winged words that have
passed into current speech, by the examples of
lives and labors consecrated to the service of the
commonwealth." In other words, every great na
tion owes to the men whose lives have formed part
of its greatness not merely the material effect of
what they did, not merely the laws they placed
upon the statute books or the victories they won
over armed foes, but also the immense but inde
finable moral influence produced by their deeds
and words themselves upon the national character.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the material
effects of the careers of Washington and of Lincoln
' The Forum, February, 1895.
I

2 amerlcan llOeals
upon the United States. Without Washington we
should probably never have won our independence
of the British crown, and we should almost cer
tainly have failed to become a great nation, remain
ing instead a cluster of jangling little communities,
drifting toward the type of government prevalent
in Spanish America. Without Lincoln we might
perhaps have failed to keep the political unity we
had won ; and even if, as is possible, we had kept
it, both the struggle by which it was kept and the
results of this struggle would have been so differ
ent that the effect upon our national history could
not have failed to be profound. Yet the nation's
debt to these men is not confined to what it owes
them for its material well-being, incalculable though
this debt is. Beyond the fact that we are an inde
pendent and united people, with half a continent
as our heritage, lies the fact that every American
is richer by the heritage of the noble deeds and
noble words of Washington and of Lincoln. Each
of us who reads the Gettysburg speech or the sec
ond inaugural address of the greatest American of
the nineteenth century, or who studies the long
campaigns and lofty statesmanship of that other
American who was even greater, cannot but feel
within him that lift toward things higher and- no
bler which can never be bestowed by the enjoy
ment of mere material prosperity.
Itis not only the country which these men helped
to make and helped to save that is ours by inherit
ance ; we inherit also all that is best and highest
in their characters and in their lives. We inherit

Bmectcan fl&eals 3
from Lincoln and from the might of Lincoln's gen
eration not merely the freedom of those who once
were slaves ; for we inherit also the fact of the
freeing of them, we inherit the glory and the honor
and the wonder of the deed that was done, no less
than the actual results of the deed when done.
The bells that rang at the passage of the Emanci
pation Proclamation still ring in Whittier's ode ;
and as men think over the real nature of the tri
umph then scored for humankind their hearts shall
ever throb as they cannot over the greatest indus
trial success or over any victory won at a less cost
than ours.
The captains and the armies who, after long
years of dreary campaigning and bloody, stubborn
fighting, brought to a close the Civil War have like
wise left us even more than a reunited realm. The
material effect of what they did is shown in the fact
that the same flag flies from the Great Lakes to the
Rio Grande, and all the people of the United States
are richer because they are one people and not
many, because they belong to one great nation
and not to a contemptible knot of struggling na
tionalities. But besides this, besides the material
results of the Civil War, we are all. North and
South, incalculably richer for its memories. We
are the richer for each grim campaign, for each
hard-fought battle. We are the richer for valor
displayed alike by those who fought so valiantly
for the right and by those who, no less valiantly,
fought for what they deemed the right. We have
in us nobler capacities for what is great and good

4 American ir&eal6
because of the infinite woe and suffering, and be
cause of the splendid ultimate triumph.
In the same way that we are the better for the
deeds of our mighty men who have served the na
tion well, so we are the worse for the deeds and the
words of those who have striven to bring evil on
the land. Most fortunately we have been free from
the peril of the most dangerous of all examples.
We have not had to fight the influence exerted
over the minds of eager and ambitious men by the
career of the military adventurer who heads some
successful revolutionary or separatist movement.
No man works such incalculable woe to a free
country as he who teaches young men that one of
the paths to glory, renown, and temporal success
lies along the line of armed resistance to the Gov
ernment, of its attempted overthrow.
Yet if we are free from the peril of this example,
there are other perils from which we are not free.
All through our career we have had to war against
a tendency to regard, in the individual and the
nation alike, as most important, things that are of
comparatively little importance. We rightfully
value success, but sometimes we overvalue it, for
we tend to forget that success may be obtained by
means which should make it abhorred and de
spised by every honorable man. One section of
the community deifies as " smartness " the kind of
trickery which enables a man without conscience
to succeed in the financial or political world. An
other section of the community deifies violent
homicidal lawlessness. If ever our people as a

Bmcrfcan IFOcals 5
whole adopt these views, then we shall have proved
that we are unworthy of the heritage our fore
fathers left us ; and our country will go down in
ruin. The people that do harm in the end are not the
wrong-doers whom all execrate ; they are the men
who do not do quite as much wrong, but who are
applauded instead of being execrated. The career
of Benedict Arnold has done us no harm as a
nation because of the universal horror it inspired.
The men who have done us harm are those who
have advocated disunion, but have done it so that
they have been enabled to keep their political
position ; who have advocated repudiation of debts,
or other financial dishonesty, but have kept their
standing in the community ; who preach the doc
trines of anarchy, but refrain from action that will
bring them within the pale of the law ; for these
men lead thousands astray by the fact that they go
unpunished or even rewarded for their misdeeds.
It is unhappily true that we inherit the evil as
well as the good done by those who have gone be
fore us, and in the one case as in the other the
influence extends far beyond the mere material
effects. The foes of order harm quite as much by
example as by what they actually accomplish. So
it is with the equally dangerous criminals of the
wealthy classes. The conscienceless stock specu
lator who acquires wealth by swindling his fellows,
by debauching judges and corrupting legislatures,
and who ends his days with the reputation of be
ing among the richest men in America, exerts over

6 American ll&eals
the minds of the rising generation an influence
worse than that of the average murderer or bandit,
because his career is even more dazzling in its
success, and even more dangerous in its effects
upon the community. Any one who reads the
essays of Charles Francis Adams and Henry
Adams, entitled " A Chapter of Erie," and " The
Gold Conspiracy in New York," will read about
the doings of men whose influence for evil upon
the community is more potent than that of any
band of anarchists or train robbers.
There are other members of our mercantile
community who, being perfectly honest themselves,
nevertheless do almost as much damage as the dis
honest. The professional labor agitator, with all
his reckless incendiarism of speech, can do no
more harm than the narrow, hard, selfish merchant
or manufacturer who deliberately sets himself to
keep the laborers he employs in a condition of
dependence which will render them helpless to
combine against him ; and every such merchant
or manufacturer who rises to sufficient eminence
leaves the record of his name and deeds as a legacy
of evil to all who come after him.
But of course the worst foes of America are the
foes to that orderly liberty without which our Re
public must speedily perish. The reckless labor
agitator who arouses the mob to riot and blood
shed is in the last analysis the most dangerous of
the workingman's enemies. This man is a real
peril ; and so is his sympathizer, the legislator,
who to catch votes denounces the judiciary and

Bmerican UDeals 7
the military because they put down mobs. We
Americans have, on the whole, a right to be opti
mists ; but it is mere folly to blind ourselves to the
fact that there are some black clouds on the hori
zon of our future.
During the suramer of 1894, every American
capable of thinking must at times have pondered
very gravely over certain features of the national
character which were brought into unpleasant
prominence by the course of events. The dema
gogue, in all his forms, is as characteristic an evil
of a free society as the courtier is of a despotism ;
and the attitude of many of our public men at the
time of the great strike in July, 1894, was such as
to call down on their heads the hearty condemna
tion of every American who wishes well to his
country. It would be difficult to overestimate the
damage done by the example and action of a man
like Governor Altgeld of Illinois. Whether he is
honest or not in his beliefs is not of the slightest
consequence. He is as emphatically the foe of
decent government as Tweed himself, and is capa
ble of doing far more damage than Tweed. The
Governor, who began his career by pardoning
anarchists, and whose most noteworthy feat since
was his bitter and undignified, but fortunately
futile, campaign against the election of the up
right judge who sentenced the anarchists, is the foe
of every true American and is the foe particu
larly of every honest workingman. With such a
man it was to be expected that he should in time
of civic commotion act as the foe of the law-abid-

8 American ir&eals
ing and the friend of the lawless classes, and
endeavor, in company with the lowest and most
abandoned office-seeking politicians, to prevent
proper measures being taken to prevent riot and to
punish the rioters. Had it not been for the admir
able action of the Federal Government, Chicago
would have seen a repetition of what occurred
during the Paris Commune, while Illinois would
have been torn by a fierce social war ; and for all
the horrible waste of life that this would have en
tailed Governor Altgeld would have been primarily
responsible. It was a most fortunate thing that
the action at Washington was so quick and so em
phatic. Senator Davis of Minnesota set the key
of patriotism at the time when men were still puz
zled and hesitated. The President and Attorney-
General Olney acted with equal wisdora and
courage, and the danger was averted. The com
pleteness of the victory of the Federal authorities,
representing the cause of law and order, has been
perhaps one reason why it was so soon forgotten ;
and now not a few shortsighted people need to be
reminded that when we were on the brink of an
almost terrific explosion the governor of Illinois
did his best to work to this country a measure of
harm as great as any ever planned by Benedict
Arnold, and that we were saved by the resolute
action of the Federal judiciary and of the regular
army. Moreover, Governor Altgeld, though pre
eminent, did not stand alone on his unenviable
prominence. Governor Waite of Colorado stood
with him. Most of the Populist governors of the

amerfcan iroeals 9
Western States, and the Republican governor of
California and the Democratic governor of North
Dakota, shared the shame with him ; and it makes
no difference whether in catering to riotous mobs
they paid heed to their own timidity and weakness,
or to that spirit of blatant demagogism which, more
than any other, jeopardizes the existence of free
institutions. On the other hand, the action of the
then Governor of Ohio, Mr. McKinley, entitled him
to the gratitude of all good citizens.
Every true American, every man who thinks, and
who if the occasion comes is ready to act, may do
well to ponder upon the evil wrought by the law
lessness of the disorderly classes when once they
are able to elect their own chiefs to power. If the
Government generally got into the hands of men
such as Altgeld, the Republic would go to pieces
in a year ; and it would be right that it should go to
pieces, for the election of such men shows that the
people electing them are unfit to be entrusted with
self-government. There are, however, plenty of wrong-doers be
sides those who commit the overt act. Too much
cannot be said against the men of wealth who sac
rifice everything to getting wealth. There is not in
the world a more ignoble character than the mere
money-getting American, insensible to every duty,
regardless of every principle, bent only on amass
ing a fortune, and putting his fortune only to the
basest uses — whether these uses be to speculate in
stocks and wreck railroads himself, or to allow his
son to lead a life of foolish and expensive idleness

10 Slmerican naeals
and gross debauchery, or to purchase some scoun
drel of high social position, foreign or native, for
his daughter. Such a man is only the more dan
gerous if he occasionally does some deed like
founding a college or endowing a church, which
makes those good people who are also foolish for
get his real iniquity. These men are equally care
less of the workingmen, whom they oppress, and of
the state, whose existence they imperil. There are
not very many of them, but there is a very great
number of men who approach more or less closely
to the type, and, just in so far as they do so ap
proach, they are curses to the country. The man
who is content to let politics go from bad to worse,
jesting at the corruption of politicians, the man
who is content to see the maladministration of jus
tice without an immediate and resolute effort to
reform it, is shirking his duty and is preparing the
way for infinite woe in the future. Hard, brutal
indifference to the right, and an equally brutal
shortsightedness as to the inevitable results of cor
ruption and injustice, are baleful beyond measure ;
and yet they are characteristic of a great many
Americans who think themselves perfectly respect
able, and who are considered thriving, prosperous
men by their easy-going fellow-citizens.
Another class, merging into this, and only less
dangerous, is that of the men whose ideals are
purely material. These are the men who are will
ing to go for good government when they think it
will pay, but who measure everything by the shop-
till, the people who are unable to appreciate any

american IF&eals n
quality that is not a mercantile commodity, who
do not understand that a poet may do far more for
a country than the owner of a nail factory, who do
not realize that no amount of commercial prosper
ity can supply the lack of the heroic virtues,
or can in itself solve the terrible social problems
which all the civilized world is now facing. The
mere materialist is, above all things, shortsighted.
In a recent article Mr. Edward Atkinson casu
ally mentioned that the regular army could now
render the country no " effective or useful ser
vice." Two months before this sapient remark
was printed the regular army had saved Chicago
from the fate of Paris in 1870 and had prevented
a terrible social war in the West. At the end of
this article Mr. Atkinson indulged in a curious
rhapsody against the navy, denouncing its exist
ence and being especially wrought up, not because
war-vessels take life, but because they " destroy
commerce." To men of a certain kind, trade and
property are far more sacred than life or honor, of
far more consequence than the great thoughts and
lofty emotions, which alone make a nation mighty.
They believe, with a faith almost touching in its
utter feebleness, that " the Angel of Peace, draped
in a garment of untaxed calico," has given her final
message to men when she has implored them to
devote all their energies to producing oleomarga
rine at a quarter of a cent less a firkin, or to im
porting woollens for a fraction less than they can
be made at home. These solemn prattlers strive
after an ideal in which they shall happily unite the

12 Bmerfcan naeals
imagination of a green-grocer with the heart of a
Bengalee baboo. They are utterly incap. of
feeling one thrill of generous emotion, or the
slightest throb of that pulse which gives 1,0 the
world statesmen, patriots, warriors, and poets, and
which makes a nation other than a cumberer of
the world's surface. In the concluding page of his
article Mr. Atkinson, complacently advanciiig his
panacea, his quack cure-all, says that " all evil
powers of the world will go down before " a policy
of " reciprocity of trade without obstruction " !
Fatuity can go no farther.
No Populist who wishes a currency based on
corn and cotton stands in more urgent need of
applied common sense than does the man who be
lieves that the adoption of any policy, no natter
what, in reference to our foreign commerc _, will
cut that tangled knot of social well-being and, misery
at which the fingers of the London free-trader clutch
as helplessly as those of the Berlin protectionist.
Such a man represents individually an almost im
ponderable element in the work and thought of
the community ; but in the aggregate he stands for
a real danger, because he stands for a feeling evi
dent of late years among many respectable people.
The people who pride themselves upon having a
purely commercial ideal are apparently unaware
that such an ideal is as essentially mean and sor
did as any in the world, and that no bandit com
munity of the Middle Ages can have led a more
unlovely life than would be the life of men to
whom trade and manufactures were everything,

americau uaeals 13

and to whom such words as national honor and
glory, cLS courage and daring, and loyalty and un
selfishness, had become meaningless. The merely
material, the merely commercial ideal, the ideal
of the men " whose fatherland is the till," is in its
very essence debasing and lowering. It is as true
now as ever it was that no man and no nation shall
live by bread alone. Thrift and industry are in
dispensable virtues ; but they are not all-sufficient.
We must base our appeals for civic and national
betterment on nobler grounds than those of mere
business expediency.
We have examples enough and to spare that tend
to evi; ; nevertheless, for our good fortune, the
men who have most irapressed themselves upon
the thought of the nation have left behind them
careers, the influence of which must tell for good.
The unscrupulous speculator who rises to enormous
wealth by swindling his neighbor ; the capitalist
who oppresses the workingman ; the agitator who
wrongs the workingman yet more deeply by trying
to teach him to rely not upon himself, but partly
upon the charity of individuals or of the state and
partly Upon mob violence ; the man in public life
who is a demagogue or corrupt, and the newspaper
writer who fails to attack him because of his cor
ruption,, or who slanderously assails him when he
is honest ; the political leader who, cursed by some
obliquity of moral or of mental vision, seeks to
produce sectional or social strife — all these, though
important in their day, have hitherto failed to leave
any lasting impress upon the life of the nation.

14 American IfOeals

The men who have profoundly influenced the
growth of our national character have been in
most cases precisely those men whose influence was
for the best and was strongly felt as antagonistic
to the worst tendency of the age. The great
writers, who have written in prose or verse, have
done much for us. The great orators whose burn
ing words on behalf of liberty, of union, of honest
government, have rung through our legislative
halls, have done even more. Most of all has been
done by the men who have spoken to us through
deeds and not words, or whose words have gath
ered their especial charm and significance because
they came from men who did speak in deeds. A
nation's greatness lies in its possibility of achieve
ment in the present, and nothing helps it more
than the consciousness of achievement in the past.

II

TRUE AMERICANISM

PATRIOTISM was once defined as "the last
refuge of a scoundrel " ; and somebody has
recently remarked that when Dr. Johnson gave
this definition he was ignorant of the infinite pos-
sibilites contained in the word " reform." Of
course both gibes were quite justifiable, in so far
as they were aimed at people who use noble names
to cloak base purposes. Equally of course the
man shows little wisdom and a low sense of duty
who fails to see that love of country is one of the
elemental virtues, even though scoundrels play
upon it for their own selfish ends ; and, inasmuch
as abuses continually grow up in civic life as in
all other kinds of life, the statesman is indeed a
weakling who hesitates to reform these abuses
because the word " reform " is often on the lips of
men who are silly or dishonest.
What is true of patriotism and reform is true also
' The Forum, April, 1894.
15

i6 tirue Bmerlcanlsm

of Americanism. There are plenty of scoundrels
always ready to try to belittle reform movements
or to bolster up existing iniquities in the name of
Americanism ; but this does not alter the fact that
the man who can do most in this country is and
must be the man whose Americanism is most
sincere and intense. Outrageous though it is to
use a noble idea as the cloak for evil, it is still
worse to assail the noble idea itself because it can
thus be used. The men who do iniquity in the
name of patriotism, of reform, of Americanism,
are merely one small division of the class that has
always existed and will always exist, — the class of
hypocrites and demagogues, the class that is
always prompt to steal the watchwords of right
eousness and use them in the interests of evil-doing.
The stoutest and truest Americans are the very
men who have the least sympathy with the people
who invoke the spirit of Americanism to aid what
is vicious in our government or to throw obstacles
in the way of those who strive to reform it. It is
contemptible to oppose a raovement for good be
cause that movement has already succeeded some
where else, or to champion an existing abuse
because our people have always been wedded to it.
To appeal to national prejudice against a given
reform movement is in every way unworthy and
silly. It is as childish to denounce free trade
because England has adopted it as to advocate it
for the same reason. It is eminently proper, in
dealing with the tariff, to consider the effect of
tariff legislation in time past upon other nations

XLtae amertcanlsm 17

as well as the effect upon our own ; but in draw
ing conclusions it is in the last degree foolish to
try to excite prejudice against one system because
it is in vogue in some given country, or to try to
excite prejudice in its favor because the econo
mists of that country have found that it was suited
to their own peculiar needs. In attempting to
solve our difficult problem of municipal govern
ment it is mere folly to refuse to profit by what
ever is good in the examples of Manchester and
Berlin because these cities are foreign, exactly as
it is mere folly blindly to copy their examples
without reference to our own totally different con
ditions. As for the absurdity of declaiming against
civil-service reform, for instance, as " Chinese,"
because written examinations have been used in
China, it would be quite as wise to declaim against
gunpowder because it was first utilized by the same
people. In short, the man who, whether from
mere dull fatuity or from an active interest in
misgovernment, tries to appeal to Araerican pre
judice against things foreign, so as to induce
Americans to oppose any measure for good, should
be looked on by his fellow-countrymen with the
heartiest contempt. So much for the men who
appeal to the spirit of Araericanisra to sustain us
in wrong-doing. But we must never let our con
tempt for these men blind us to the nobility of
the idea which they strive to degrade.
We Americans have raany grave problems to
solve, many threatening evils to fight, and many
deeds to do, if, as we hope and believe, we have

i8 JTrue amertcantsm

the wisdom, the strength, the courage, and the vir
tue to do them. But we must face facts as they
are. We must neither surrender ourselves to a fool
ish optimism, nor succumb to a timid and ignoble
pessimism. Our nation is that one among all the
nations of the earth which holds in its hands the
fate of the coming years. We enjoy exceptional
advantages, and are menaced by exceptional dan
gers ; and all signs indicate that we shall either fail
greatly or succeed greatly. I firmly believe that we
shall succeed ; but we raust not foolishly blink the
dangers by which we are threatened, for that is the
way to fail. On the contrary, we must soberly set
to work to find out all we can about the existence
and extent of every evil, must acknowledge it to be
such, and must then attack it with unyielding reso
lution. There are many such evils, and each must
be fought after a separate fashion ; yet there is one
quality which we must bring to the solution of
every problem, — that is, an intense and fervid
Americanism. We shall never be successful over
the dangers that confront us ; we shall never
achieve true greatness, nor reach the lofty ideal
which the founders and preservers of our mighty
Federal Republic have set before us, unless we are
Americans in heart and soul, in spirit and purpose,
keenly alive to the responsibility implied in the
very name of American, and proud beyond measure
of the glorious privilege of bearing it.
There are two or three sides to the question of
Americanism, and two or three senses in which the
word "Americanism " can be used to express the

G:riie amevicanism ig

antithesis of what is unwholesome and undesirable.
In the first place we wish to be broadly American
and national, as opposed to being local or sectional.
We do not wish, in politics, in literature, or in art,
to develop that unwholesome parochial spirit, that
over-exaltation of the little community at the
expense of the great nation, which produces what
has been described as the patriotism of the village,
the patriotism of the belfry. Politically, the indul
gence of this spirit was the chief cause of the
calamities which befell the ancient republics of
Greece, the mediaeval republics of Italy, and the
petty States of Germany as it was in the last
century. It is this spirit of provincial patriotism,
this inability to take a view of broad adhesion to
the whole nation that has been the chief among
the causes that have produced such anarchy in
the South American States, and which have re
sulted in presenting to us, not one great Spanish-
American federal nation stretching from the Rio
Grande to Cape Horn, but a squabbling multitude
of revolution-ridden States, not one of which stands
even in the second rank as a power. However,
politically this question of American nationality
has been settled once for all. We are no longer
in danger of repeating in our history the shameful
and contemptible disasters that have befallen the
Spanish possessions on this continent since they
threw off the yoke of Spain, Indeed there is, all
through our life, very much less of this parochial
spirit than there was formerly. Still there is an
occasional outcropping here and there ; and it is

20 Zt\xe Bmerlcanlsm
just as well that we should keep steadily in mind
the futility of talking of a Northern literature or
a Southern literature, an Eastern or a Western
school of art or science. Joel Chandler Harris is
emphatically a national writer ; so is Mark Twain.
They do not write merely for Georgia or Missouri
or California any more than for Illinois or Con
necticut ; they write as Americans and for all
people who can read English. St. Gaudens lives
in New York ; but his work is just as distinctive
of Boston or Chicago. It is of very great conse
quence that we should have a full and ripe literary
development in the United States, but it is not
of the least consequence whether New York, or
Boston, or Chicago, or San Francisco becomes the
literary or artistic centre of the United States.
There is a second side to this question of a broad
Americanism, however. The patriotism of the vil
lage or the belfrey is bad, but the lack of all patriot
ism is even worse. There are philosophers who
assure us, that in the future, patriotism will be re
garded not as a virtue at all, but merely as a men
tal stage in the journey toward a state of feeling
when our patriotism will include the whole human
race and all the world. This may be so ; but the
age of which these philosophers speak is still sev
eral aeons distant. In fact, philosophers of this
type are so very advanced that they are of no prac
tical service to the present generation. It may be,
that in ages so remote that we cannot now under
stand any of the feelings of those who will dwell in
them, patriotism will no longer be regarded as a

(True amerfcanfsm 21

virtue, exactly as it may be that in those remote
ages people will look down upon and disregard
monogamic marriage ; but as things now are and
have been for two or three thousand years past,
and are likely to be for two or three thousand years
to come, the words " home " and " country " mean
a great deal. Nor do they show any tendency to
lose their significance. At present, treason, like
adultery, ranks as one of the worst of all possible
crimes. One may fall very far short of treason and yet
be an undesirable citizen in the community. The
man who becomes Europeanized, who loses his
power of doing good work on this side of the water,
and who loses his love for his native land, is not a
traitor ; but he is a silly and undesirable citizen.
He is as emphatically a noxious element in our
body politic as is the man who comes here from
abroad and remains a foreigner. Nothing will
more quickly or more surely disqualify a man from
doing good work in the world than the acquirement
of that flaccid habit of mind which its possessors
style cosmopolitanism.
It is not only necessary to Americanize the im
migrants of foreign birth who settle among us, but
it is even more necessary for those among us who
are by birth and descent already Americans not
to throw away our birthright, and, with incredible
and contemptible folly, wander back to bow down
before the alien gods whom our forefathers forsook.
It is hard to believe that there is any necessity to
warn Americans that, when they seek to model

22 Zxae amertcanlsm

themselves on the lines of other civilizations, they
make themselves the butts of all right-thinking
men ; and yet the necessity certainly exists to give
this warning to many of our citizens who pride
themselves on their standing in the world of art
and letters, or, perchance, on what they would
style their social leadership in the community It
is always better to be an original than an imitation,
even when the imitation is of something better than
the original ; but what shall we say of the fool who
is content to be an imitation of something worse ?
Even if the weaklings who seek to be other than
Americans were right in deeming other nations to
be better than their own, the fact yet remains that
to be a first-class American is fifty-fold better than
to be a second-class imitation of a Frenchman or
Englishman. As a matter of fact, however, those
of our countrymen who do believe in American in
feriority are always individuals who, however cul
tivated, have some organic weakness in their moral
or mental make-up ; and the great mass of our peo
ple, who are robustly patriotic, and who have sound,
healthy minds, are justified in regarding these
feeble renegades with a half-impatient and half-
amused scorn.
We believe in waging relentless war on rank-
growing evils of all kinds, and it makes no differ
ence to us if they happen to be of purely native
growth. We grasp at any good, no matter whence
it comes. We do not accept the evil attendant
upon another system of government as an adequate
excuse for that attendant upon our own • tb*" fact

ttrue amerfcanism 23

that the courtier is a scamp does not render the
demagogue any the less a scoundrel. But it remains
true that, in spite of all our faults and shortcom
ings, no other land offers such glorious possibilities
to the man able to take advantage of them, as does
ours ; it remains true that no one of our people
can do any work really worth doing unless he does
it primarily as an American. It is because certain
classes of our- people still retain their spirit of colo
nial dependence on, and exaggerated deference to,
European opinion, that they fail to accomplish
what they ought to. It is precisely along the lines
where we have worked most independently that we
have accomplished the greatest results ; and it is
in those professions where there has been no ser
vility to, but merely a wise profiting by, foreign ex
perience, that we have produed our greatest men.
Our soldiers and statesmen and orators ; our explor
ers, our wilderness-winners, and commonwealth-
builders ; the men who have made our laws and
seen that they were executed ; and the other men
whose energy and ingenuity have created our mar
vellous material prosperity, — all these have been
men who have drawn wisdora from the experience
of every age and nation, but who have nevertheless
thought, and worked, and conquered, and lived,
and died, purely as Americans ; and on the whole
they have done better work than has been done in
any other country during the short period of our
national life.
On the other hand, it is in those professions
where our people have striven hardest to mould

24 tlrue americantsm

themselves in conventional European forms that
they have succeeded least ; and this holds true to
the present day, the failure being of course most
conspicuous where the man takes up his abode in
Europe ; where he becomes a second-rate Euro
pean, because he is over-civilized, over-sensitive,
over-refined, and has lost the hardihood and manly
courage by which alone he can conquer in the
keen struggle of our national life. Be it remem
bered, too, that this same being does not really
becorae a European ; he only ceases being an
Araerican, and becomes nothing. He throws away
a great prize for the sake of a lesser one, and does
not even get the lesser one. The painter who goes
to Paris, not merely to get two or three years'
thorough training in his art, but with the deliberate
purpose of taking up his abode there, and with the
intention of following in the ruts worn deep by ten
thousand earlier travellers, instead of striking off
to rise or fall on a new line, thereby forfeits all
chance of doing the best work. He must content
himself with aiming at that kind of mediocrity
which consists in doing fairly well what has already
been done better ; and he usually never even sees
the grandeur and picturesqueness lying open before
the eyes of every man who can read the book of
America's past and the book of America's present.
Thus it is with the undersized man of letters, who
flees his country because he, with his delicate,
effeminate sensitiveness, finds the conditions of
life on this side of the water crude and raw ; in
Other words, because he finds that he cannot play

ttrue americantsm 25

a man's part among men, and so goes where he
will be sheltered from the winds that harden stouter
souls. This emigri raay write graceful and pretty
verses, essays, novels ; but he will never do work
to compare with that of his brother, who is strong
enough to stand on his own feet, and do his work
as an American. Thus it is with the scientist who
spends his youth in a Gerraan university, and can
thenceforth work only in the fields already fifty
times furrowed by the German ploughs. Thus it
is with that most foolish of parents who sends his
children to be educated abroad, not knowing —
what every clear-sighted man from Washington
and Jay down has known — that the American who
is to make his way in America should be brought
up among his fellow Araericans. It is araong the
people who like to consider themselves, and, indeed,
to a large extent are, the leaders of the so-called
social world, especially in sorae of the northeastern
cities, that this colonial habit of thought, this
thoroughly provincial spirit of adrairation for
things foreign, and inability to stand on one's
own feet, becomes most evident and most despic
able. We believe in every kind of honest and
lawful pleasure, so long as the getting it is not
made man's chief business ; and we believe heartily
in the good that can be done by men of leisure
who work hard in their leisure, whether at politics
or philanthropy, literature or art. But a leisure
class whose leisure simply means idleness is a
curse to the community, and in so far as its mera
bers distinguish themselves chiefly by aping the

26 ^rue americantsm

worst— not the best — traits of sirailar people across
the water, they become both comic and noxious
elements of the body politic.
The third sense in which the word " American
ism " may be employed is with reference to the
Americanizing of the newcomers to our shores.
We must Americanize them in every way, in speech,
in political ideas and principles, and in their way
of looking at the relations between Church and
State. We welcome the German or the Irishman
who becomes an Araerican. We have no use
for the German or Irshman who remains such.
We do not wish German-Americans and Irish-
Americans who figure as such in our social and
political life ; we want only Americans, and, pro
vided they are such, we do not care whether they
are of native or of Irish or of Gerraan ancestry.
We have no room in any healthy American com
munity for a German-American vote or an Irish-
American vote, and it is contemptible demagogy
to put planks into any party platform with the
purpose of catching such a vote. We have no
room for any people who do not act and vote
simply as Americans, and as nothing else. More
over, we have as little use for people who carry
religious prejudices into our poHtics as for those
who carry prejudices of caste or nationality. We
stand unalterably in favor of the public-school
system in its entirety. We believe that English,
and no other language, is that in which all the
school exercises should be conducted. We are
against any division of the school fund, and against

tErue americantsm 27

any appropriation of public money for sectarian
purposes. We are against any recognition what
ever by the State in any shape or form of State-
aided parochial schools. But we are equally
opposed to any discrimination against or for a man
because of his creed. We demand that all citizens,
Protestant and Catholic, Jew and Gentile, shall
have fair treatment in every way ; that all alike
shall have their rights guaranteed them. The very
reasons that make us unqualified in our opposi
tion to State-aided sectarian schools make us
equally bent that, in the management of our pub
lic schools, the adherents of each creed shall be
given exact and equal justice, wholly without re
gard to their religious affiliations ; that trustees,
superintendents, teachers, scholars, all alike, shall
be treated without any reference whatsoever to the
creed they profess. We maintain that it is an out
rage, in voting for a man for any position, whether
State or national, to take into account his religious
faith, provided only he is a good American. When
a secret society does what in some places the Am
erican Protective Association seems to have done,
and tries to proscribe Catholics both politically
and socially, the merabers of such society show
that they themselves are as utterly un-American,
as alien to our school of political thought, as the
worst immigrants who land on our shores. Their
conduct is equally base and contemptible ; they
are the worst foes of our public-school system,
because they strengthen the hands of its ultramon
tane enemies ; they should receive the hearty

28 tCrue americantsm

condemnation of all Americans who are truly
patriotic. The mighty tide of immigration to our shores
has brought in its train much of good and much
of evil ; and whether the good or the evil shall
predominate depends mainly on whether these
newcomers do or do not throw themselves heartily
into our national life, cease to be European, and
become Americans like the rest of us. More than
a third of the people of the Northern States are of
foreign birth or parentage. An immense number
of them have become completely Americanized,
and these stand on exactly the same plane as the
descendants of any Puritan, Cavalier, or Knicker
bocker among us, and do their full and honorable
share of the nation's work. But where immigrants,
or the sons of immigrants, do not heartily and in
good faith throw in their lot with us, but cling to
the speech, the customs, the ways of life, and the
habits of thought of the Old World which they
have left, they thereby harm both themselves and
us. If they reraain alien elements, unassimilated,
and with interests separate from ours, they are
mere obstructions to the current of our national
life, and, moreover, can get no good from it them
selves. In fact, though we ourselves also suffer
from their perversity, it is they who really suffer
most. It is an immense benefit to the European
immigrant to change hira into an Araerican citi
zen. To bear the narae of Araerican is to bear the
most honorable of titles ; and whoever does not so
believe has no business to bear the name at all,

ttrue americantsm 29

and, if he comes from Europe, the sooner he goes
back there the better. Besides, the man who does
not become Americanized nevertheless fails to
remain a European, and becomes nothing at all.
The immigrant cannot possibly remain what he
was, or continue to be a member of the Old-World
society. If he tries to retain his old language, in
a few generations it becomes a barbarous jargon ;
if he tries to retain his old customs and ways of
life, in a few generations he becomes an uncouth
boor. He has cut himself off from the Old-World,
and cannot retain his connection with it ; and if
he wishes ever to amount to anything he must
throw himself heart and soul, and without reserva
tion, into the new life to which he has come. It is
urgently necessary to check and regulate our ira-
rriigration, by much more drastic laws than now
exist ; and this should be done both to keep out
laborers who tend to depress the labor market, and
to keep out races which do not assimilate readily
with our own, and unworthy individuals of all
races — not only criminals, idiots, and paupers, but
anarchists of the Most and O'Donovan Rossa type.
From his own standpoint, it is beyond all ques
tion the wise thing for the imraigrant to becorae
thoroughly Americanized. Moreover, from our
standpoint, we have a right to demand it. We
freely extend the hand of welcome and of good-
fellowship to every man, no matter what his creed
or birthplace, who comes here honestly intent on
becoming a good United States citizen like the
rest of us ; but we have a right, and it is our duty.

30 XLme americantsm

to demand that he shall indeed become so, and
shall not confuse the issues with which we are
struggling by introducing among us Old-World
quarrels and prejudices. There are certain ideas
which he must give up. For instance, he must
learn that American life is incompatible with the
existence of any form of anarchy, or of any secret
society having murder for its aim, whether at home
or abroad ; and he must learn that we exact full
religious toleration and the complete separation of
Church and State. Moreover, he must not bring
in his Old-World religious race and national antipa
thies, but must merge them into love for our
common country, and must take pride in the
things which we can all take pride in. He must
revere only our flag ; not only must it come first,
but no other flag should even corae second. He
raust learn to celebrate Washington's birthday
rather than that of the Queen or Kaiser, and the
Fourth of July instead of St. Patrick's Day. Our
political and social questions must be settled on
their own merits, and not complicated by quarrels
between England and Ireland, or France and Ger
many, with which we have nothing to do : it is an
outrage to fight an American political campaign
with reference to questions of European politics.
Above all, the immigrant must learn to talk and
think and be United States.
The immigrant of to-day can learn much from
the experience of the immigrants of the past, who
came to America prior to the Revolutionary War.
We were then already, what we are now, a people

tlrue americantsm 31

of mixed blood. Many of our most illustrious
Revolutionary names were borne by men of Hugue
not blood — Jay, Sevier, Marion, Laurens. But the
Huguenots were, on the whole, the best immigrants
we have ever received ; sooner than any other, and
more completely, they became American in speech,
conviction, and thought. The Hollanders took
longer than the Huguenots to become completely
assimilated ; nevertheless they in the end became
so, immensely to their own advantage. One of the
leading Revolutionary generals, Schuyler, and one
of the Presidents of the United States, Van Buren,
were of Dutch blood ; but they rose to their posi
tions, the highest in the land, because they had be
come Americans and had ceased being Hollanders.
If they had remained members of an alien body,
cut off by their speech and customs and belief from
the rest of the American community, Schuyler
would have lived his life as a boorish, provincial
squire, and Van Buren would have ended his days
a small tavern-keeper. So it is with the Germans
of Pennsylvania. Those of them who became
Americanized have furnished to our history a mul
titude of honorable names, from the days of the
Miihlenbergs onward ; but those who did not be
come Americanized forra to the present day an
unimportant body, of no significance in American
existence. So it is with the Irish, who gave to
Revolutionary annals such names as Carroll and
Sullivan, and to the Civil War men Hke Sheridan
— men who were Americans and nothing else :
while the Irish who remain such, and busy them-

32 Urue americantsm

selves solely with alien politics, can have only an
unhealthy influence upon American life, and can
never rise as do their compatriots who become
straightout Americans. Thus it has ever been
with all people who have come hither, of what
ever stock or blood. The same thing is true of
the churches. A church which remains foreign, in
language or spirit, is doomed.
But I wish to be distinctly understood on one
point. Americanism is a question of spirit, con
viction, and purpose, not of creed or birthplace.
The politician who bids for the Irish or German
vote, or the Irishman or Gerraan who votes as an
Irishman or German, is despicable, for all citizens
of this commonwealth should vote solely as Ameri
cans ; but he is not a whit less despicable than the
voter who votes against a good American, merely
because that American happens to have been born
in Ireland or Germany. Know-nothingism, in any
form, is as utterly un-American as foreignism. It
is a base outrage to oppose a man because of his
religion or birthplace, and all good citizens will
hold any such effort in abhorrence. A Scandina
vian, a German, or an Irishman who has really be
come an Araerican has the right to stand on exactly
the sarae footing as any native-born citizen in the
land, and is just as much entitled to the friendship
and support, social and political, of his neighbors.
Among the men with whom I have been thrown in
close personal contact socially, and who have been
among my staunchest friends and allies politically,
are not a few Americans who happen to have been

tErue americantsm 33

born on the other side of the water, in Germany,
Ireland, Scandinavia ; and there could be no bet
ter men in the ranks of our native-born citizens.
In closing, I cannot better express the ideal atti
tude that should be taken by our fellow-citizens of
foreign birth than by quoting the words of a repre
sentative American, born in Germany, the Honor
able Richard Guenther, of Wisconsin. In a speech
spoken at the time of the Samoan trouble, he said :
" We know as well as any other class of Ameri
can citizens where our duties belong. We will
work for our country in time of peace and fight for
it in time of war, if a time of war should ever come.
When I say our country, I raean, of course, our
adopted country. I mean the United States of
America. After passing through the crucible of
naturalization, we are no longer Germans ; we are
Americans. Our attachment to Araerica cannot
be raeasured by the length of our residence here.
We are Araericans frora the moment we touch the
American shore until we are laid in American
graves. We will fight for America whenever neces
sary. America, first, last, and all the time.
America against Germany, America against the
world ; America, right or wrong ; always America.
We are Americans."
All honor to the man who spoke such words as
those ; and I beHeve they express the feelings of
the great majority of those among our fellow-
American citizens who were born abroad. We

34 Srue americantsm

Americans can only do our allotted task well if we
face it steadily and bravely, seeing but not fearing
the dangers. Above all we must stand shoulder to
shoulder, not asking as to the ancestry or creed of
our corarades, but only demanding that they be in
very truth Americans, and that we all work to
gether, heart, hand, and head, for the honor and
the greatness of our common country.

in
THE MANLY VIRTUES AND PRACTI
CAL POLITICS^

SOMETIMES, in addressing men who sincerely
desire the betterment of our public affairs,
but who have not taken active part in directing
thera, I feel tempted to tell them that there are
two gospels which should be preached to every re
former. The first is the gospel of morality ; the
second is the gospel of efficiency.
To decent, upright citizens it is hardly necessary
to preach the doctrine of raorality as applied to the
affairs of public life. It is an even graver offence
to sin against the commonwealth than to sin against
an individual. The man who debauches our public
life, whether by malversation of funds in office, by
the actual bribery of voters or of legislators, or by
the corrupt use of the offices as spoils wherewith to
reward the unworthy and the vicious for their nox
ious and interested activity in the baser walks of
' The Forum, July, 1894.
35

36 ^oralttB ana Efliciencs

poHtical Hfe, — this man is a greater foe to our well-
being as a nation than is even the defaulting cash
ier of a bank, or the betrayer of a private trust.
No amount of intelligence and no amount of energy
win save a nation which is not honest, and no gov
ernment can ever be a permanent success if admin
istered in accordance with base ideals. The first
requisite in the citizen who wishes to share the
work of our public life, whether he wishes himself
to hold office or merely to do his plain duty as an
American by taking part in the management of our
political machinery, is that he shall act disinter
estedly and with a sincere purpose to serve the
whole commonwealth.
But disinterestedness and honesty and unselfish
desire to do what is right are not enough in them
selves. A man must not only be disinterested, but
he must be efficient. If he goes into politics he
raust go into practical politics, in order to make
his influence felt. Practical politics must not be
construed to mean dirty politics. On the contrary,
in the long run the politics of fraud and treachery
and foulness are unpractical politics, and the most
practical of all politicians is the politician who is
clean and decent and upright. But a man who
goes into the actual battles of the political world
must prepare himself much as he would for the
struggle in any other branch of our life. He must
be prepared to meet raen of far lower ideals than
his own, and to face things, not as he would wish
thera, but as they are. He must not lose his own
high ideal, and yet he must face the fact that the

/IfcoralitB an5 EfHciencB 37

majority of tlie men with whom he must work have
lower ideals. He must stand firmly for what he
believes, and yet he must realize that political ac
tion, to be effective, raust be the joint action of
many men, and that he must sacrifice somewhat of
his own opinions to those of his associates if he
ever hopes to see his desires take practical shape.
The prime thing that every man who takes an
interest in politics should remember is that he must
act, and not merely criticise the actions of others.
It is not the man who sits by his fireside reading
his evening paper, and saying how bad our politics
and politicians are, who will ever do anything to save
us ; it is the man who goes out into the rough hurly-
burly of the caucus, the primary, and the political
raeeting, and there faces his fellows on equal terms.
The real service is rendered, not by the critic who
stands aloof from the contest, but by the raan who
enters into it and bears his part as a raan should,
undeterred by the blood and the sweat. It is a
pleasant but a dangerous thing to associate merely
with cultivated, refined men of high ideals and
sincere purpose to do right, and to think that one
has done all one's duty by discussing politics with
such associates. It is a good thing to meet men of
this stamp ; indeed it is a necessary thing, for we
thereby brighten our ideals, and keep in touch with
the people who are unselfish in their purposes ;
but if we associate with such men exclusively we
can accomplish nothing. The actual battle must
be fought out on other and less pleasant fields.
The actual advance must be made in the field of

38 ^oralttB ano EfHctencs

practical politics among the raen who represent or
guide or control the mass of the voters, the men who
are sometimes rough and coarse, who sometiraes
have lower ideals than they should, but who are
capable, masterful, and efficient. It is only by min
gling on equal terms with such men, by showing
them that one is able to give and to receive heavy
punishment without flinching, and that one can
master the details of political management as well
as they can, that it is possible for a man to estab
lish a standing that will be useful to him in fighting
for a great reform. Every man who wishes well to
his country is in honor bound to take an active
part in political life. If he does his duty and
takes that active part he will be sure occasionally
to commit mistakes and to be guilty of shortcom
ings. For these mistakes and shortcomings he will
receive the unmeasured denunciation of the critics
who comrait neither because they never do any
thing but criticise. Nevertheless he will have the
satisfaction of knowing that the salvation of the
country ultimately lies, not in the hands of his
critics, but in the hands of those who, however im
perfectly, actually do the work of the nation. I
would not for one moment be understood as ob
jecting to criticisra or failing to appreciate its im
portance. We need fearless criticism of our public
men and public parties ; we need unsparing con
deranation of all persons and all principles that
count for evil in our public life : but it behooves
every man to remember that the work of the critic,
important though it is, is of altogether secondary

^oralttg ana EfHcienca 39
importance, and that, in the end, progress is ac
complished by the man who does the things, and
not by the man who talks about how they ought or
ought not to be done.
Therefore the man who wishes to do good in
his community must go into active political life.
If he is a Republican, let him join his local Re
publican association ; if a Democrat, the Demo
cratic association ; if an Independent, then let hira
put himself in touch with those who think as he
does. In any event let him make hiraself an active
force and make his influence felt. Whether he
works within or without party lines he can surely
find plenty of men who are desirous of good gov
ernment, and who, if they act together, become at
once a power on the side of righteousness. Of
course, in a government like ours, a man can ac
complish anything only by acting in combination
with others, and equally, of course, a number of
people can act together only by each sacrificing
certain of his beliefs or prejudices. That man is
indeed unfortunate who cannot in any given dis
trict find some people with whom he can consci
entiously act. He may find that he can do best
by acting within a party organization ; he may
find that he can do best by acting, at least for cer
tain purposes, or at certain tiraes, outside of party
organizations, in an independent body of some
kind ; but with some association he must act if he
wishes to exert any real influence.
One thing to be always remembered is that
neither independence on the one hand nor party

40 ^IfcoralitB ana ©fHciencB

fealty on the other can ever be accepted as an
excuse for failure to do active work in politics.
The party man who offers his allegiance to party
as an excuse for blindly following his party, right
or wrong, and who fails to try to make that party
in any way better, commits a crime against the
country ; and a crime quite as serious is committed
by the independent who makes his independence
an excuse for easy self-indulgence, and who thinks
that when he says he belongs to neither party he
is excused from the duty of taking part in the prac
tical work of party organizations. The party man
is bound to do his full share in party management.
He is bound to attend the caucuses and the pri
maries, to see that only good men are put up, and
to exert his influence as strenuously against the foes
of good governraent within his party, as, through
his party raachinery, he does against those who are
without the party. In the same way the independ
ent, if he cannot take part in the regular or
ganizations, is bound to do just as rauch active
constructive work (not merely the work of criticism)
outside ; he is bound to try to get up an organiza
tion of his own and to try to make that organization
felt in some effective manner. Whatever course
the man who wishes to do his duty by his country
takes in reference to parties or to independence of
parties, he is bound to try to put himself in touch
with men who think as he does, and to help make
their joint influence felt in behalf of the powers
that go for decency and good government. He
must try to accomplish things ; he must not vote

MoraliiB ana EffictencB 41
m the air unless it is really necessary. Occasion
ally a man must cast a " conscience vote," when
there is no possibility of carrying to victory his
principles or his nominees ; at times, indeed, this
may be his highest duty ; but ordinarily this is not
the case. As a general rule a man ought to work
and vote for something which there is at least a
a fair chance of putting into effect.
Yet another thing to be remembered by the man
who wishes to make his influence felt for good in
our politics is that he must act purely as an Amer
ican. If he is not deeply imbued with the Ameri
can spirit he cannot succeed. Any organization
which tries to work along the line of caste or creed,
which fails to treat all American citizens on their
merits as men, will fail, and wiH deserve to fail.
Where our poHtical life is healthy, there is and can
be no room for any movement organized to help
or to antagonize men because they do or do not
profess a certain religion, or because they were or
were not born here or abroad. We have a right to
ask that those with whom we associate, and those
for whom we vote, shall be themselves good Amer
icans in heart and spirit, unhampered by adherence
to foreign ideals, and acting without regard to
the national and religious prejudices of European
countries ; but if they really are good Araericans
in spirit and thought and purpose, that is all that
we have any right to consider in regard to them.
In the same way there must be no discrimination
for or against any man because of his social stand
ing. On the one side, there is nothing to be made

42 jfflioralitB ana jEffictencfi
out of a political organization which draws an
exclusive social line, and on the other it must be
remembered that it is just as un-American to vote
against a man because he is rich as to vote
against him because he is poor. The one raan has
just as much right as the other to claim to be
treated purely on his merits as a man. In short,
to do good work in politics, the men who organize
must organize wholly without regard to whether
their associates were born here or abroad, whether
they are Protestants or Catholics, Jews or Gentiles,
whether they are bankers or butchers, professors or
day-laborers. All that can rightly be asked of
one's political associates is that they shall be hon
est men, good Americans, and substantially in ac
cord as regards their political ideas.
Another thing that must not be forgotten by the
man desirous of doing good political work is the
need of the rougher, manlier virtues, and above all
the virtue of personal courage, physical as well as
moral. If we wish to do good work for our country
we must be unselfish, disinterested, sincerely desir
ous of the well-being of the comraonwealth, and
capable of devoted adherence to a lofty ideal ; but
in addition we must be vigorous in raind and body,
able to hold our own in rough conflict with our
fellows, able to suffer punishment without flinch
ing, and, at need, to repay it in kind with full
interest. A peaceful and commercial civilization
is always in danger of suffering the loss of the
virile fighting qualities without which no nation,
however cultured, however refined, however thrifty

^oralttB ana BtHciencB 43

and prosperous, can ever amount to anything.
Every citizen should be taught, both in public
and in private life, that while he raust avoid brawl
ing and quarrelling, it is his duty to stand up for
his rights. He must realize that the only man who
is more contemptible than the blusterer and bully
is the coward. No man is worth rauch to the
commonwealth if he is not capable of feeling
righteous wrath and just indignation, if he is not
stirred to hot anger by misdoing, and is not im
pelled to see justice meted out to the wrongdoers.
No man is worth much anywhere if he does not
possess both moral and physical courage. A poli
tician who really serves his country well, and
deserves his country's gratitude, must usually
possess sorae of the hardy virtues which we admire
in the soldier who serves his country well in
the field.
An ardent young reformer is very apt to try to
begin by reforming too much. He needs always
to keep in mind that he has got to serve as a
sergeant before he assumes the duties of cora
raander-in-chief. It is right for him from the
beginning to take a great interest in National,
State, and Municipal affairs, and to try to make
himself felt in them if the occasion arises ; but
the best work must be done by the citizen work
ing in his own ward or district. Let him associ
ate himself with the men who think as he does,
and who, like him, are sincerely devoted to the
public good. Then let them try to make them
selves felt in the choice of alderman, of council-

44 ilfcoralttfi ana EfHcicncB

man, of assemblyman. The poHticians will be
prompt to recognize their power, and the peo
ple will recognize it too, after a while. Let
them organize and work, undaunted by any terapo
rary defeat. If they fail at first, and if they fail
again, let them merely make up their rainds to
redouble their efforts, and perhaps alter their
raethods ; but let them keep on working.
It is sheer unmanliness and cowardice to shrink
from the contest because at first there is failure,
or because the work is difficult or repulsive. No
man who is worth his salt has any right to abandon
the effort to better our politics merely because he
does not find it pleasant, merely because it entails
associations which to him happen to be disagree
able. Let him keep right on, taking the buffets
he gets good-humoredly, and repaying them with
heartiness when the chance arises. Let him make
up his mind that he will have to face the violent
opposition of the spoils politician, and also, too
often, the unfair and ungenerous criticism of those
who ought to know better. Let him be careful
not to show himself so thin-skinned as to mind
either ; let him fight his way forward, paying only
so much regard to both as is necessary to enable
him to win in spite of thera. He may not, and
indeed probably will not, accomplish nearly as
much as he would like to, or as he thinks he ought
to : but he will certainly accomplish something ;
and if he can feel that he has helped to elevate
the type of representative sent to the -municipal,
the State, or the national legislature from his

.fllboralitB ana EfHciencB 45
district, or to elevate the standard of duty among
the public officials in his own ward, he has a right
to be profoundly satisfied with what he has ac
coraplished. Finally, there is one other matter which the man
who tries to wake his fellows to higher political
action would do well to ponder. It is a good
thing to appeal to citizens to work for good gov
ernment because it will better their estate materi
ally, but it is a far better thing to appeal to them
to work for good government because it is right
in itself to do so. Doubtless, if we can have clean
honest poHtics, we shall be better off in material
matters. A thoroughly pure, upright, and capa
ble administration of the affairs of New York
city results in a very appreciable increase of
comfort to each citizen. We should have better
systems of transportation ; we should have cleaner
streets, better sewers, and the like. But it is some
times difficult to show the individual citizen that
he will be individually better off in his business
and in his home affairs for taking part in politics,
I do not think it is always worth while to show that
this will always be the case. The citizen should be
appealed to primarily on the ground that it is his
plain duty, if he wishes to deserve the name of free
man, to do his full share in the hard and difficult
work of self-government. He must do his share un
less he is willing to prove himself unfit for free insti
tutions, fit only to live under a government where he
win be plundered and buHied because he deserves
to be plundered and bullied on account of his

46 /IfcoralitB ana EfKctcncfi
selfish timidity and short-sightedness. A clean
and decent government is sure in the end to bene
fit our citizens in the material circurastances of
their lives ; but each citizen should be appealed
to, to take part in bettering our politics, not for
the sake of any possible improvement it may
bring to his affairs, but on the ground that it is
his plain duty to do so, and that this is a duty
which it is cowardly and dishonorable in him
to shirk.
To sum up, then, the men who wish to work for
decent politics must work practically, and yet must
not swerve from their devotion to a high ideaL
They must actually do things, and not merely
confine theraselves to criticising those who do
them. They must work disinterestedly, and appeal
to the disinterested element in others, although they
must also do work which will result in the material
betterment of the coraraunity. They must act as
Americans through and through, in spirit and hope
and purpose, and, while being disinterested, un
selfish, and generous in their dealings with others,
they must also show that they possess the essential
manly virtues of energy, of resolution, and of
indomitable personal courage.

IV
THE COLLEGE GRADUATE AND
PUBLIC LIFE'
THERE are always, in our national life, certain
tendencies that give us ground for alarm, and
certain others that give us ground for hope. Among
the latter we must put the fact that there has un
doubtedly been a growing feeling among educated
men that they are in honor bound to do their full
share of the work of American public life.
We have in this country an equality of rights.
It is the plain duty of every man to see that his
rights are respected. That weak good-n ature which
acquiesces in wrong-doing, whether from laziness,
timidity, or indifference, is a very unwholesome
quality. It should be second nature with every
man to insist that he be given full justice. But if
there is an equality of rights, there is an inequality
of duties. It is proper to demand more from the
man with exceptional advantages than from the
' Atlantic Monthly, August, 1894.
47

48 Colleges ana ©ubltc Xife
man without them. A heavy moral obligation
rests upon the man of means and upon the man of
education to do their full duty by their country.
On no class does this obligation rest more heavily
than upon the men with a collegiate education, the
men who are graduates of our universities. Their
education gives them no right to feel the least
superiority over any of their fellow-citizens ; but it
certainly ought to make them feel that they should
stand foremost in the honorable effort to serve the
whole public by doing their duty as Americans in
the body politic. This obligation very possibly
rests even raore heavily upon the men of raeans ;
but of this it is not necessary now to speak. The
men of mere wealth never can have and never
should have the capacity for doing good work that
is possessed by the men of exceptional mental
training ; but that they may become both a laugh
ing-stock and a raenace to the community is made
unpleasantly apparent by that portion of the New
York business and social world which is most in
evidence in the newspapers.
To the great body of men who have had excep
tional advantages in the way of educational facili
ties we have a right, then, to look for good service
to the state. The service may be rendered in
many different ways. In a reasonable nuraber of
cases, the man may himself rise to high political
position. That men actually do so rise is shown
by the number of graduates of Harvard, Yale, and
our other universities who are now taking a promi
nent part in pubHc life. These cases must neces-

Colleges ana ©ubllc Xife 49
sarily, however, form but a small part of the whole.
The enormous majority of our educated men have
to make their own living, and are obHged to take
up careers in which they must work heart and soul
to succeed. Nevertheless, the man of business and
the man of science, the doctor of divinity and the
doctor of law, the architect, the engineer, and the
writer, all alike owe a positive duty to the com
munity, the neglect of which they cannot excuse
on any plea of their private affairs. They are
bound to follow understandingly the course of
public events ; they are bound to try to estimate
and form judgment upon public men ; and they
are bound to act intelligently and effectively in
support of the principles which they deem to be
right and for the best interests of the country.
The most iraportant thing for this class of edu
cated men to realize is that they do not really
form a class at all. I have used the word in de
fault of another, but I have merely used it roughly
to group together people who have had unusual
opportunities of a certain kind. A large number
of the people to whom these opportunities are
offered fail to take advantage of them, and a very
much larger number of those to whom they have
not been offered succeed none the less in making
them for themselves. An educated man must not
go into politics as such ; he must go in simply as
an American ; and when he is once in, he will
speedily realize that he must work very hard in
deed, or he will be upset by some other American,
with no education at all, but with much natural

50 Colleges ana ipubltc Xife
capacity. His education ought to make him feel
particularly ashamed of himself if he acts meanly
or dishonorably, or in any way fall.s short of the
ideal of good citizenship, and it ought to make him
feel that he must show that he has profited by it ;
but it should certainly give him no feeling of
superiority until by actual work he has shown that
superiority. In other words, the educated man
must realize that he is living in a democracy and
under democratic conditions, and that he is en
titled to no more respect and consideration than
he can win by actual performance.
This must be steadily kept in mind not only by
educated men themselves, but particularly by the
men who give the tone to our great educational
institutions. These educational institutions, if they
are to do their best work, must strain every effort
to keep their life in touch with the life of the na
tion at the present day. This is necessary for the
country, but it is very much more necessary for
the educated men themselves. It is a misfortune
for any land if its people of cultivation take little
part in shaping its destiny ; but the misfortune is
far greater for the people of cultivation. The
country has a right to demand the honest and
efficient service of every man in it, but especially
of every man who has had the advantage of rigid
mental and moral training ; the country is so much
the poorer when any class of honest men fail to do
their duty by it ; but the loss to the class itself is
immeasurable. If our educated men as a whole
become incapable of playing their full part in our

Colleges ana public ILite sr
life, if they cease doing their share of the rough,
hard work which must be done, and grow to take
a position of mere dilettanteism in our public
affairs, they will speedily sink in relation to their
fellows who really do the work of governing, until
they stand toward them as a cultivated, ineffective
man with a taste for bric-a-brac stands toward a
great artist. When once a body of citizens be
comes thoroughly out of touch and out of temper
with the national life, its usefulness is gone, and
its power of leaving its mark on the times is gone
also. The first great lesson which the college graduate
should learn is the lesson of work rather than of
criticism. Criticism is necessary and useful ; it is
often indispensable ; but it can never take the
place of action, or be even a poor substitute for it.
The function of the mere critic is of very subor
dinate usefulness. It is the doer of deeds who
actually counts in the battle for life, and not the
man who looks on and says how the fight ought to
be fought, without himself sharing the stress and
the danger.
There is, however, a need for proper critical
work. Wrongs should be strenuously and fearlessly
denounced ; evil principles and evil men should
be condemned. The politician who cheats or
swindles, or the newspaper man who lies in any
form, should be made to feel that he is an object
.of scorn for all honest men. We need fearless
criticism ; but we need that it should also be in
telligent. At present, the man who is most apt to

52 Colleges ana fiublic Xife
regard himself as an inteUigent critic of our politi
cal affairs is often the man who knows nothing
whatever about them. Criticism which is ignorant
or prejudiced is a source of great hann to the na
tion ; and where ignorant or prejudiced critics are
themselves educated men, their attitude does real
harm also to the class to which they belong.
The tone of a portion of the press of the country
toward public men, and especially toward political
opponents, is degrading, all forras of coarse and
noisy slander being apparently considered legiti
raate weapons to employ against men of the
opposite party or faction. Unfortunately, not a
few of the journals that pride theraselves upon
being independent in politics, and the organs of
cultivated raen, betray the same characteristics in
a less coarse but quite as noxious forra. All
these journals do great harm by accustoming good
citizens to see their public men, good and bad,
assailed indiscrirainately as scoundrels. The effect
is twofold : the citizen learning, on the one hand,
to disbelieve any statement he sees in any news
paper, so that the attacks on evil lose their edge ;
and on the other, gradually acquiring a deep-
rooted belief that all public men are more or less
bad. In consequence, his political instinct be
comes hopelessly blurred, and he grows unable to
tell the good representative from the bad. The
worst offence that can be committed against the
Republic is the offence of the public man who be
trays his trust ; but second only to it coraes the
offence of the man who tries to persuade others

Colleges ana ©ublic life 53
that an honest and efficient public man is dishonest
or unworthy. This is a wrong that can be com
mitted in a great many different ways. Downright
foul abuse may be, after all, less dangerous than
incessant misstatements, sneers, and those half-
truths that are the meanest lies.
For educated raen of weak fibre, there lies a real
danger in that species of literary work which ap
peals to their cultivated senses because of its schol
arly and pleasant tone, but which enjoins as the
proper attitude to assurae in public life one of mere
criticism and negation ; which teaches the adop
tion toward public men and public affairs of that
sneering tone which so surely denotes a mean and
small mind. If a man does not have belief and
enthusiasm, the chances are small indeed that he
will ever do a man's work in the world ; and the
paper or the college which, by its general course,
tends to eradicate this power of belief and enthu
siasm, this desire for work, has rendered to the
young raen under its influence the worst service it
could possibly render. Good can often be done by
criticising sharply and severely the wrong ; but
excessive indulgence in criticisra is never anything
but bad, and no araount of criticisra can in any way
take the place of active and zealous warfare for
the right.
Again, there is a certain tendency in college Hfe,
a tendency encouraged by some of the very papers
referred to, to make educated men shrink from
contact with the rough people who do the world's
work, and associate only with one another and

54 Colleges ana ©ublic Xife
with those who think as they do. This is a most
dangerous tendency. It is very agreeable to de
ceive one's self into the belief that one is perform
ing the whole duty of man by sitting at home in
ease, doing nothing wrong, and confining one's
participation in politics to conversations and raeet
ings with men who have had the sarae training and
look at things in the same way. It is always a
temptation to do this, because those who do noth
ing else often speak as if in some way they de
served credit for their attitude, and as if they stood
above their brethren who plough the rough fields.
Moreover, raany people whose political work is
done raore or less after this fashion are very noble
and very sincere in their aims and aspirations, and
are striving for what is best and most decent in
public life.
Nevertheless, this is a snare round which it be
hooves every young man to walk carefully. Let
him beware of associating only with the people of
his own caste and of his own little ways of political
thought. Let hira learn that he must deal with the
mass of raen ; that he must go out and stand shoul
der to shoulder with his friends of every rank, and
face to face with his foes of every rank, and must
bear himself well in the hurly-burly. He must not
be frightened by the many unpleasant features of
the contest, and he must not expect to have it all
his own way, or to accomplish too much. He
will meet with checks and will make many mis
takes ; but if he perseveres, he will achieve a
measure of success and will do a measure of good

Colleges ana |)ubltc Itife a

such as is never possible to the refined, cultivated,
intellectual men who shrink aside from the actual
fray. Yet again, college men raust learn to be as prac
tical in politics as they would be in business or in
law. It is surely unnecessary to say that by " prac
tical " I do not mean anything that savors in the
least of dishonesty. On the contrary, a college
man is peculiarly bound to keep a high ideal and
to be true to it ; but he must work in practical
ways to try to realize this ideal, and must not re
fuse to do anything because he cannot get every
thing. One especially necessary thing is to know
the facts by actual experience, and not to take
refuge in raere theorizing. There are always a
number of excellent and well-meaning men whom
we grow to regard with araused impatience because
they waste all their energies on some visonary
scheme which, even if it were not visionary, would
be useless. When they come to deal with political
questions, these men are apt to err from sheer lack
of familiarity with the workings of our government.
No man ever really learned from books how to
manage a governmental system. Books are adrair
able adjuncts, and the statesraan who has carefully
studied them is far more apt to do good work than
if he had not ; but if he has never done anything
but study books he will not be a statesman at all.
Thus, every young politician should of course read
the Federalist. It is the greatest book of the kind
that has ever been written. Hamilton, Madison,
and Jay would have been poorly equipped for writ-

56 Colleges ana public 3Life

ing it if they had not possessed an extensive ac
quaintance virith literature, and in particular if they
had not been careful students of political literature ;
but the great cause of the value of their writings
lay in the fact that they knew by actual work and
association what practical politics meant. They
had helped to shape the political thought of the
country, and to do its legislative and executive
work, and so they were in a condition to speak un
derstandingly about it. For similar reasons, Mr.
Bryce's American Commonwealth has a value pos
sessed by no other book of the kind, largely because
Mr. Bryce is himself an active member of Parlia
ment, a man of good standing and some leadership
in his own party, and a practical politician. In
the same way, a life of Washington by Cabot
Lodge, a sketch of Lincoln by Carl Schurz, a biog
raphy of Pitt by Lord Rosebery, have an added
value because of the writers' own work in politics.
It is always a pity to see men fritter away their
energies on any pointless scherae ; and unfortun
ately, a good many of our educated people when
they come to deal with politics, do just such frit
tering. Take, for instance, the queer freak of ar
guing in favor of establishing what its advocates
are pleased to call " responsible government " in
our institutions, or in other words of grafting
certain features of the English parliamentary
system upon our own Presidential and Congres
sional system. This agitation was too largely
deficient in body to enable it to last, and it has
now, I think, died away ; but at one time quite a

Colleges ana public Xite 57

number of our men who spoke of themselves as
students of political history were engaged in
treating this scheme as soraething serious. Few
men who had ever taken an active part in politics,
or who had studied politics in the way that a doc
tor is expected to study surgery and medicine, so
much as gave it a thought ; but very intelligent
men did, just because they were misdirecting their
energies, and were wholly ignorant that they ought
to know practically about a problem before they
attempted its solution. The English, or so-called
" responsible," theory of parliamentary government
is one entirely incompatible with our own govern
mental institutions. It could not be put into opera
tion here save by absolutely sweeping away the
United States Constitution. Incidentally, I may
say it would be to the last degree undesirable, if it
were practicable. But this is not the point upon
which I wish to dwell ; the point is that it was
wholly impracticable to put it into operation, and
that an agitation favoring this kind of governraent
was frora its nature unintelligent. The people
who wrote about it wasted their time, whereas they
could have spent it to great advantage had they
seriously studied our institutions and sought to
devise practicable and desirable methods of in
creasing and centring genuine responsibility — for
all thinking men agree that there is an undoubted
need for a change in this direction.
But of course much of the best work that has
been done in the field of political study has been
done by men who were not active politicians.

58 Colleges ana public Xife
though they were careful and painstaking students
of the phenoraena of politics. The back numbers
of our leading magazines afford proof of this.
Certain of the governmental essays by such writers
as Mr. Lawrence Lowell and Professor A. B. Hart,
and especially such books as that on the Speakers'
Powers and Duties, by Miss Follet, have been gen
uine and valuable contributions to our political
thought. These essays have been studied care
fully not only by scholars, but by raen engaged in
practical politics, because they were written with
good judgment and keen insight after careful in
vestigation of the facts, and so deserved respectful
attention. It is a raisfortune for any people when the paths
of the practical and the theoretical politicians
diverge so widely that they have no coraraon stand
ing-ground. When the Greek thinkers began to
devote their attention to purely visionary politics
of the kind found in Plato's Republic, while the
Greek practical politicians simply exploited the
quarrelsome little commonwealths in their own
interests, then the end of Greek liberty was at
hand. No governraent that cannot coraraand the
respec.tful support of the best thinkers is in an
entirely sound condition ; but it is well to keep in
raind the remark of Frederick the Great, that if he
wished to punish a province, he would allow it to
be governed by the philosophers. It is a great mis
fortune for the country when the practical politi
cian and the doctrinaire have no point in common,
but the misfortune is, if anything, greatest for the

Colleges ana public Xife 59
doctrinaire. The ideal to be set before the student
of politics and the practical politician alike is the
ideal of the Federalist. Each man should realize
that he cannot do his best, either in the study of
politics or in applied politics unless he has a work
ing knowledge of both branches. A limited nura
ber of people can do good work by the careful
study of governraental institutions, but they can
do it only if they have themselves a practical know
ledge of the workings of these institutions. A very
large number of people, on the other hand, may
do excellent work in politics without much theo
retic knowledge of the subject ; but without this
knowledge they cannot rise to the highest rank,
while in any rank their capacity to do good work
will be immensely increased if they have such
knowledge. There are certain other qualities, about which it
is hardly necessary to speak. If an educated man
is not heartily American in instinct and feeling and
taste and syrapathy, he will amount to nothing in
our public life. Patriotism, love of country, and
pride in the flag which symbolizes country may be
feelings which the race will at some period out
grow, but at present they are very real and strong,
and the man who lacks them is a useless creature, a
mere incumbrance to the land.
A man of sound political instincts can no more
subscribe to the doctrine of absolute independence
of party on the one hand than to that of unques
tioning party aOegiance on the other. No man
can accomplish much unless he works in an organ-

6o Colleges ana public Xife
ization with others, and this organization, no mat
ter how temporary, is a party for the tirae being.
But that man is a dangerous citizen who so far
mistakes means for ends as to become servile in
his devotion to his party, and afraid to leave it
when the party goes wrong. To deify either in
dependence or party allegiance merely as such is a
little absurd. It depends entirely upon the motive,
the purpose, the result. For the last two years,
the Senator who, beyond all his colleagues in the
United States Senate, has shown himself independ
ent of party ties is the very man to whom the
leading charapions of independence in politics
most strenuously object. The truth is, simply,
that there are times when it may be the duty of a
man to break with his party, and there are other
tiraes when it raay be his duty to stand by his partyj
even though, on some points, he thinks that party
wrong ; he must be prepared to leave it when
necessary, and he must not sacrifice his influence
by leaving it unless it is necessary. If we had no
party allegiance, our politics would become mere
windy anarchy, and, under present conditions, our
government could hardly continue at all. If we
had no independence, we should always be running
the risk of the most degraded kind of despotism, —
the despotism of the party boss and the party
machine. It is just the same way about compromises.
Occasionally one hears some well-meaning person
say of another, apparently in praise, that he is
" never willing to compromise." It is a mere tru-

Colleges ana public Xife 6i

ism to say that, in politics, there has to be one con
tinual compromise. Of course now and then
questions arise upon which a compromise is inad
missible. There could be no compromise with
secession, and there was none. There should be
no avoidable compromise about any great moral
question. But only a very few great reforms or
great measures of any kind can be carried through
without concession. No student of American
history needs to be reminded that the Constitution
itself is a bundle of coraproraises, and was adopted
only because of this fact, and that the same thing
is true of the Emancipation Proclamation.
In conclusion, then, the man with a university
education is in honor bound to take an active part
in our political life, and to do his full duty as a
citizen by helping his fellow-citizens to the extent
of his power in the exercise of the rights of self-
government. He is bound to rank action far above
criticisra, and to understand that the man deserving
of credit is the man who actually does the things,
even though imperfectly, and not the man who
confines himself to talking about how they ought
to be done. He is bound to have a high ideal and
to strive to realize it, and yet he must make up his
mind that he will never be able to get the highest
good, and that he must devote himself with all his
energy to getting the best that he can. Finally,
his work must be disinterested and honest, and
it must be given without regard to his own success
or failure, and without regard to the effect it has
upon his own fortunes ; and while he raust show

62

Colleges ana public Xife

the virtues of uprightness and tolerance and gentle
ness, he must also show the sterner virtues of cour
age, resolution, and hardihood, and the desire to
war with merciless effectiveness against the exist
ence of wrong.

V
PHASES OF STATE LEGISLATION'
THE ALBANY LEGISLATURE.
FEW persons realize the magnitude of the inter
ests affected by State legislation in New York.
It is no mere figure of speech to call New York the
Empire State ; and many of the laws most directly
and imraediately affecting the interests of its citi
zens are passed at Albany, and not at Washington.
In fact, there is at Albany a little home rule par
liament which presides over the destinies of a com
monwealth more populous than any one of two
thirds of the kingdoras of Europe, and one which, in
point of wealth, raaterial prosperity, variety of inter
ests, extent of territory, and capacity for expansion,
can fairly be said to rank next to the powers of
the first class. This little parliament, composed of
one hundred and twenty-eight raerabers in the As
sembly and thirty-two in the Senate, is, in the full
est sense of the term, a representative body ; there
' The Century, January, 1885.
63

64 pbascs of State Xegtslatton

is hardly one of the many and widely diversified
interests of the State that has not a mouthpiece at
Albany, and hardly a single class of its citizens —
not even excepting, I regret to say, the criminal
class — which lacks its representative ainong the
legislators. In the three Legislatures of which I
have been a raember, I have sat with bankers and
bricklayers, with merchants and mechanics, with
lawyers, farmers, day-laborers, saloon-keepers,
clergymen, and prize-fighters. Among ray col
leagues there were raany very good men ; there
was a still raore nuraerous class of men who were
neither very good nor very bad, but went one way
or the other, according to the strength of the vari
ous conflicting influences acting around, behind,
and upon them ; and, finally, there were many very
bad men. StiH, the New York Legislature, taken
as a whole, is by no means as bad a body as we
would be led to believe if our judgraent was based
purely on what we read in the great metropolitan
papers ; for the custom of the latter is to portray
things as either very much better or very much
worse than they are. Where a number of men,
many of thera poor, sorae of them unscrupulous,
and others elected by constituents too ignorant to
hold them to a proper accountability for their ac
tions, are put into a position of great temporary
power, where they are called to take action upon
questions affecting the welfare of large corpora
tions and wealthy private individuals, the chances
for corruption are always great ; and that there is
much viciousness and political dishonesty, much

pbases of State Xegisiation 65
moral cowardice, and a good deal of actual bribe
taking in Albany, no one who has had any practi
cal experience of legislation can doubt ; but, at
the same time, I think that the good members
generally outnumber the bad, and that there is
not often doubt as to the result when a naked
question of right or wrong can be placed clearly
and in its true light before the Legislature. The
trouble is that on many questions the Legislature
never does have the right and wrong clearly shown
it. Either some bold, clever parliamentary tacti
cian snaps the measure through before the mem
bers are aware of its nature, or else the obnoxious
features are so combined with good ones as to pro
cure the support of a certain proportion of that
large class of men whose intentions are excellent,
but whose intellects are foggy. Or else the neces
sary party organization, which we call the " raa
chine," uses its great power for sorae definite evil
aim. THE CHARACTER OF THE REPRESENTATIONS.
The representatives from different sections of
the State differ widely in character. Those from
the country districts are generally very good men.
They are usually well-to-do farmers, sraall lawyers,
or prosperous store-keepers, and are shrewd, quiet,
and honest. They are often narrow-minded and
slow to receive an idea ; but, on the other hand,
when they get a good one, they cling to it with the
utmost tenacity. They form very rauch the raost
valuable class of legislators. For the most part
s

66 pbases of State Xegtslatton
they are native Americans, and those who are not
are men who have become completely American
ized in all their ways and habits of thought. One
of the most useful members of the last Legislature
was a German from a western county, and the ex
tent of his Americanization can be judged from
the fact that he was actually an ardent prohibition
ist : certainly no one who knows Teutonic human
nature will require further proof. Again, I sat for
an entire session beside a very intelligent member
from northern New York before I discovered that
he was an Irishman : all his views of legislation,
even upon such subjects as free schools and the
impropriety of raaking appropriations frora the
treasury for the support of sectarian institutions,
were precisely similar to those of his Protestant-
American neighbors, though he was himself a
Catholic. Now a German or an Irishman from
one of the great cities would probably have re
tained many of his national peculiarities.
It is from these same great cities that the worst
legislators come. It is true that there are always
ainong them a few cultivated and scholarly men
who are well educated, and who stand on a higher
and broader intellectual and moral plane than the
country members, but the bulk are very low in
deed. They are usually foreigners, of little or no
education, with exceedingly misty ideas as to mo
rality, and possessed of an ignorance so profound
that it could only be called comic, were it not for
the fact that it has at times such serious effects
upon our laws. It is their ignorance, quite as

pbases of State Xegtslatton 67
much as actual viciousness, which makes it so diffi
cult to procure the passage of good laws or-prevent
the passage of bad ones ; and it is the most irritat
ing of the many eleraents with which we have to
contend in the fight for good government.
DARK SIDE OF THE LEGISLATIVE PICTURE.
Mention has been made above of the bribe
taking which undoubtedly at times occurs in the
New York Legislature. This is what is commonly
called " a deHcate subject " with which to deal,
and, therefore, according to our usual methods of
handling delicate subjects, it is either never dis
cussed at all, or else discussed with the grossest
exaggeration ; but most certainly there is nothing
about which it is more important to know the
truth. In each of the last three legislatures there were
a number of us who were interested in getting
through certain measures which we deeraed to be
for the public good, but which were certain to be
strongly opposed, some for political and some for
pecuniary reasons. Now, to get through any such
measure requires genuine hard work, a certain
amount of parliamentary skill, a good deal of tact
and courage, and above all, a thorough knowledge
of the men with whom one has to deal, and of the
raotives which actuate them. In other words, be
fore taking any active steps, we had to " size up "
our fellow-legislators, to find out their past history
and present character and associates, to find out
whether they were their own masters or were acting

68 pbases of State Xegtslatton
under the directions of somebody else, whether
they were bright or stupid, etc., etc. As a result,
and after very careful study, conducted purely
with the object of learning the truth, so that we
might work more effectually, we came to the con
clusion that about a third of the members were
open to corrupt influences in some form or other ;
in certain sessions the proportion was greater, and
in some less. Now it would, of course, be impos
sible for me or for anyone else to prove in a court
of law that these men were guilty, except perhaps
in two or three cases ; yet we felt absolutely confi
dent that there was hardly a case in which our judg
ment as to the honesty of any given meraber was
not correct. The two or three exceptional cases
alluded to, where legal proof of guilt raight have
been forthcoraing, were instances in which honest
men were approached by their colleagues at times
when the need for votes was very great ; but, even
then, it would have been almost impossible to pun
ish the offenders before a court, for it would have
merely resulted in his denying what his accuser
stated. Moreover, the members who had been
approached would have been very reluctant to
come forward, for each of them felt ashamed that
his character should not have been well enough
known to prevent anyone's daring to speak to him
on such a subject. And another reason why the
few honest men who are approached (for the lob
byist rarely raakes a mistake in his estimate of the
men who will be apt to take bribes) do not feel
like taking action in the matter is that a doubtful

pbases of State Xegtslatton 69

lawsuit will certainly follow, which will drag on so
long that the public will come to regard aH of the
participants with equal distrust, while in the end
the decision is quite as likely to be against as to be
for them. Take the Bradly-Sessions case, for ex
ample. This was an incident that occurred at the
time of the faction-fight in the Republican ranks
over the return of Mr. Conkling to the United
States Senate after his resignation from that body.
Bradly, an Assemblyman, accused Sessions, a State
Senator, of atterapting to bribe hira. The affair
dragged on for an indefinite tirae ; no one was
able actually to determine whether it was a case
of blackmail on the one hand, or of bribery on the
other ; the vast majority of people recollected the
names of both parties, but totally forgot which
it was that was supposed to have bribed the other,
and regarded both with equal disfavor ; and the
upshot has been that the case is now merely re
membered as illustrating one of the most unsavory
phases of the once-famous Halfbreed-Stalwart
fight. DIFFICULTIES OF PREVENTING AND PUNISHING
CORRUPTION.
From the causes indicated, it is almost ira
possible to actually convict a legislator of bribe
taking ; but at the same time, the character of a
legislator, if bad, soon becomes a_ matter of com
mon notoriety, and no dishonest legislator can long
keep his reputation good with honest men. If the
constituents wish to know the character of their

70 pbases of State Xegtslatton

member, they can easily find it out, and no mem
ber will be dishonest if he thinks his constituents
are looking at him ; he presumes upon their
ignorance or indifference. I do not see how bribe
taking among legislators can be stopped until the
public conscience becomes awake to the matter.
Then it will stop fast enough ; for just as soon as
politicians realize that the people are in earnest in
wanting a thing done, they make haste to do it.
The trouble is always in rousing the people suffi
ciently to make them take an effective interest, — that
is, in making them sufficiently in earnest to be
willing to give a little of their time to the accom
plishment of the object they have in view.
Much the largest percentage of corrupt legisla
tors come from the great cities ; indeed, the
majority of the assemblyraen from the great
cities are " very poor specimens " indeed, while,
on the contrary, the congressmen who go from
thera are generally pretty good men. This fact
is only one of the many which go to establish
the curious political law that in a great city the
larger the constituency which elects a public ser
vant, the more apt that servant is to be a good
one ; exactly as the Mayor is almost certain to be
infinitely superior in character to the average
alderman, or the average city judge to the average
civil justice. This is because the public servants
of comparatively small importance are protected
by their own insignificance from the consequences
of their bad actions. Life is carried on at such
a high pressure in the great cities, men's time is

pbases of State Xegtslatton 71

SO fully occupied by their manifold and harassing
interests and duties, and their knowledge of their
neighbors is necessarily so limited, that they are
only able to fix in their minds the characters and
records of a few prominent men ; the others they
lump together without distinguishing between
individuals. They know whether the aldermen,
as a body, are to be admired or despised ; but they
probably do not even know the name, far less the
worth, of the particular alderman who represents
their district ; so it happens that their votes for
alderraen or assemblymen are generally given with
very little intelligence indeed, while, on the con
trary, they are fully competent to pass and execute
judgment upon as prominent an official as a raayor
or even a congressman. Hence it follows that the
latter have to give a good deal of attention to the
wishes and prejudices of the public at large, while
a city assemblyman, though he always talks a great
deal about the people, rarely, except in certain
extraordinary cases, has to pay much heed to their
wants. His political future depends far more upon
the skill and success with which he cultivates the
good-will of certain " bosses," or of certain cliques
of politicians, or even of certain bodies and knots
of raen (such as corapose a trade-union, or a col
lection of merchants in some special business, or
the managers of a railroad) whose interests, being
vitally affected by Albany legislation, obHge thera
closely to watch, and to try to punish or reward,
the Albany legislators. These politicians or sets
of interested individuals generally care very little

72 pbases of State Xegtslatton
for a man's honesty so long as he can be depended
upon to do as they wish on certain occasions ; and
hence it often happens that a dishonest man who has
sense enough not to excite attention by any flagrant
outrage may continue for a nuraber of years to
represent an honest constituency.
THE CONSTITUENTS LARGELY TO BLAME.
Moreover, a member from a large city can often
count upon the educated and intelligent men of his
district showing the most gross ignorance and
stupidity in political affairs. The much-lauded
intelligent voter — the man of cultured mind, lib
eral education, and excellent intentions — at times
performs exceedingly queer antics.
The great public meetings to advance certain
political movements irrespective of party, which
have been held so frequently during the past few
years, have undoubtedly done a vast amount of
good ; but the very men who attend these public
meetings and inveigh against the folly and wicked
ness of the politicians will sometimes on election
day do things which have quite as evil effects as
any of the acts of the men whom they very prop
erly condemn. A recent instance of this is
worth giving. In 1882 there was in the Assembly
a young member from New York, who did as hard
and effective work for the city of New York as
has ever been done by anyone. It was a peculiarly
disagreeable year to be in the Legislature. The
composition of that body was unusually bad. The
more disreputable politicians relied upon it to pass

pbases of State Xegtslatton 73

some of their schemes and to protect certain of
their members from the consequences of their own
misdeeds. Demagogic measures were continually
brought forward, nominally in the interests of the
laboring classes, for which an honest and intelligent
man could not vote, and yet which were jealously
watched by, and received the hearty support of,
not mere demagogues and agitators, but also a
large number of perfectly honest though misguided
workingmen. And, finally, certain wealthy cor
porations atterapted, by the most unscrupulous
means, to rush through a number of laws in their
own interest. The young member of whora we
are speaking incurred by his course on these various
raeasures the bitter hostility alike of the politi
cians, the demagogues, and the members of that
most dangerous of all classes, the wealthy criminal
class. He had also earned the gratitude of all
honest citizens, and he got it — as far as words
went. The better class of newspapers spoke well
of him ; cultured and intelligent men generally —
the well-to-do, prosperous people who belong to
the different social and literary clubs, and their
followers — were loud in his praise. I call to mind
one man who lived in his district who expressed
great indignation that the politicians should dare
to oppose his re-election ; when told that it was to
be hoped he would help to insure the legislator's
return to Albany by himself staying at the poHs all
day, he answered that he was very sorry, but he
unfortunately had an engagement to go quail-
shooting on election day ! Most respectable peo-

74 pbases of State Xegtslatton

pie, however, would undoubtedly have voted for
and re-elected the young member had it not been
for the unexpected political movements that took
place in the fall. A citizens' ticket, largely non
partisan in character, was run for certain local
offices, receiving its support from among those
who claimed to be, and who undoubtedly were,
the best men of both parties. The ticket contained
the names of candidates only for municipal offices,
and had nothing whatever to do with the election
of men to the Legislature ; yet it proved absolutely
irapossible to drill this simple fact through the
heads of a great many worthy people, who, when
election day came round, declined to vote anything
but the citizens' ticket, and persisted in thinking
that if no legislative candidate was on the ticket,
it was because, for some reason or other, the citi
zens' committee did not consider any legislative
candidate worth voting for. All over the city the
better class of candidates for legislative offices
lost from this cause votes which they had a right
to expect, and in the particular district under con
sideration the loss was so great as to cause the
defeat of the sitting member, or rather to elect him
by so "narrow a vote as to enable an unscrupulously
partisan legislative majority to keep him out of
his seat.
It is this kind of ignorance of the simplest politi
cal raatters among really good citizens, combined
with their timidity, which is so apt to characterize
a wealthy bourgeoisie, and with their short-sighted
selfishness in being unwiUing to take the smaUest

pbases of State Xegtslatton 75

portion of time away from their business or pleas
ure to devote to public affairs, which renders it so
easy for corrupt raen from the city to keep their
places in the Legislature. In the country the case
is different. Here the constituencies, who are
usually composed of honest though narrow-minded
and bigoted individuals, generally keep a pretty
sharp lookout on their members, and, as already
said, the latter are apt to be fairly honest men.
Even when they are not honest, they take good
care to act perfectly well as regards all district
matters, for most of the measures about which cor
rupt influences are at work relate to city affairs.
The constituents of a country member know well
how to judge him for those of his acts which im
mediately affect themselves ; but as regards others
they often have no means of forming an opinion,
except through the newspapers, — more especially
through the great metropolitan newspapers, — and
they have gradually come to look upon all state
ments raade by the latter with reference to the
honesty or dishonesty of public raen with extreme
distrust. This is because our newspapers, including
those who professedly stand as representatives of
the highest culture of the community, have been
in the habit of making such constant and reckless
assaults upon the characters of even very good
public men, as to greatly detract from their influ
ence when they attack one who is really bad. They
paint everyone with whom they disagree black.
As a consequence the average man, who knows
they are partly wrong, thinks they may also be

76 pbases of State Xegtslatton
partly right ; he concludes that no man is absolutely
white, and at the same time that no one is as black as
he is painted ; and takes refuge in the belief that
all alike are gray. It then becomes impossible to
rouse him to make an effort either for a good man
or against a scoundrel. Nothing helps dishonest
politicians as much as this feeling ; and among the
chief instruments in its production we must num
ber certain of our newspapers who are loudest in
asserting that they stand on the highest moral plane.
As for the other newspapers, those of frankly " sen
sational " character, such as the two which at pres
ent claim to have the largest circulation in New
York, there is small need to characterize them ;
they form a very great promotive to public corrup
tion and private vice, and are on the whole the
most potent of all the forces for evil which are at
work in the city.
PERILS OF LEGISLATIVE LIFE.
However, there can be no question that a great
many men do deteriorate very much morally when
they go to Albany. The last accusation raost of us
would think of bringing against that dear, dull, old
Dutch city is that of being a fast place ; and yet
there are plenty of members coming from out-of-
the-way villages or quiet country towns on whom
Albany has as bad an effect as Paris sometimes has
on wealthy young Americans from the great sea
board cities. Many men go to the Legislature with
the set purpose of making raoney ; but many others,
who afterwards become bad, go there intending to

pbases of State Xegtslatton 77
do good work. These latter may be well-meaning,
weak young fellows of some shallow brightness,
who expect to make names for themselves ; perhaps
they are young lawyers, or real-estate brokers, or
small shop-keepers ; they achieve but little success ;
they gradually become conscious that their business
is broken up, and that they have not enough ability
to warrant any expectation of their continuing in
public life ; some great temptation comes in their
way (a corporation which expects to be relieved
of perhaps a million dollars of taxes by the passage
of a bill can afford to pay high for voters) ; they
fall, and that is the end of thera. Indeed, legisla
tive life has teraptations enough to raake it unad
visable for any weak raan, whether young or old,
to enter it. ALLIES OF VICIOUS LEGISLATORS.
The array of vicious legislators is swelled by a
number of men who really at bottom are not bad.
Foremost among these are those most hopeless of
beings who are handicapped by having some meas
ure which they consider it absolutely necessary for
the sake of their own future to " get through."
One of these men will have a bill, for instance, ap
propriating a sum of money frora the State Treas
ury to clear out a river, dam the outlet of a lake, or
drain a marsh ; it may be, although not^ usually so,
proper enough in itself, but it is drawn up priraarily
in the interest of a certain set of his constituents
who have given hira clearly to understand that his
continuance in their good graces depends upon his

78 pbases of State Xegtslatton
success in passing the bill. He feels that he must
get it through at all hazards ; the bad men find
this out, and tell him he raust count on their oppo
sition unless he consents also to help their meas
ures ; he resists at first, but sooner or later yields ;
and from that moment his fate is sealed, — so far as
his ability to do any work of general good is con
cerned. A still larger number of men are good enough in
themselves, but are " owned " by third parties.
Usually the latter are politicians who have absolute
control of the district machine, or who are, at least,
of very great importance in the political affairs of
their district. A curious fact is that they are not
invariably, though usually, of the same party as the
member ; for in some places, especially in the lower
portions of the great cities, politics become purely
a business, and in the squabbles for offices of
emolument it becomes important for a local leader
to have supporters among all the factions. When
one of these supporters is sent to a legislative body,
he is allowed to act with the rest of his party on
what his chief regards as the unimportant questions
of party or public interest, but he has to come in
to heel at once when any matter arises touching
the said chief's power, pocket, or influence.
Other members will be controlled by some
wealthy private citizen who is not in politics, but
who has business interests likely to be affected by
legislation, and who is therefore, willing to sub
scribe heavily to the campaign expenses of an in
dividual or of an association so as to insure the

pbases of State Xegtslatton 79

presence in Albany of someone who will give him
information and assistance.
On one occasion there came before a committee
of which I happened to be a member, a perfectly
proper bill in the interest of a certain corporation ;
the majority of the committee, six in number, were
thoroughly bad men, who opposed the measure
with the hope of being paid to cease their opposi
tion. When I consented to take charge of the bill,
I had stipulated that not a penny should be paid to
insure its passage. It therefore became necessary
to see what pressure could be brought to bear on
the recalcitrant members ; and, accordingly, we
had to find out who were the authors and sponsors
of their political being. Three proved to be un
der the control of local statesmen of the sarae party
as themselves, and of equally bad moral character ;
one was ruled by a politician of unsavory reputa
tion from a different city ; the fifth, a Democrat,
was owned by a Republican Federal official ; and
the sixth by the president of a horse-car company.
A couple of letters from these two magnates forced
the last merabers raentioned to change front on the
bill with surprising alacrity.
Nowadays, however, the greatest danger is that
the member will be a servile tool of the " boss " or
" machine " of his own party, in which case he can
very rarely indeed be a good public servant.
There are two classes of cases in which corrupt
members get raoney. One is when a wealthy cor
poration buys through some measure which will be
of great benefit to itself, although, perhaps an in-

8o pbases of State Xegtslatton
jury to the public at large ; the other is when a
member introduces a biU hostile to some moneyed
interest, with the expectation of being paid to let
the matter drop. The latter, technically called a
" strike," is much the most common ; for, in spite
of the outcry against them in legislative matters,
corporations are raore often sinned against than
sinning. It is difficult, for reasons already given,
in either case to convict the offending member,
though we have very good laws against bribery.
The reform has got to come from the people at
large. It will be hard to make any very great im
provement in the character of the legislators until
respectable people becom'e more fully awake to
their duties, and until the newspapers become
more truthful and less reckless in their statements.
It is not a pleasant task to have to draw one side
of legislative life in such dark colors ; but as the
side exists, and as the dark lines never can be
rubbed out until we have manfully acknowledged
that they are there and need rubbing out, it seems
the falsest of false delicacy to refrain from dwelling
upon them. But it would be most unjust to accept
this partial truth as being the whole truth. We
blame the Legislature for many evils, the ultimate
cause for whose existence is to be found in our
own shortcomings. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PICTURE.
There is a much brighter side to the picture, and
this is the larger side, too. It would be impossible
to get together a body of more earnest, upright,

pbases of State Xegislatlon 8i

and disinterested men than the band of legislators,
largely young men, who during the past three years
have averted so much evil and accomplished so
much good at Albany. They were able, at least
partially, to put into actual practice the theories
that had long been taught by the intellectual leaders
of the country. And the life of a legislator who is
earnest in his efforts faithfully to perform his duty
as a public servant, is harassing and laborious to
the last degree. He is kept at work from eight to
fourteen hours a day ; he is obliged to incur the
bitterest hostility of a body of men as powerful
as they are unscrupulous, who are always on the
watch to find out, or to make out, anything in his
private or his public life which can be used against
him ; and he has on his side either a but partially
roused public opinion, or else a public opinion
roused, it is true, but only blindly conscious of the
evil from which it suffers, and alike ignorant and
unwilling to avail itself of the proper remedy.
This body of legislators, who, at any rate, worked
honestly for what they thought right, were, as a
whole, quite unselfish, and were not treated par
ticularly well by their constituents. Most of them
soon got to realize the fact that if they wished to
enjoy their brief space of political life (and most
though not all of them did enjoy it) they would
have to make it a rule never to consider, in decid
ing how to vote upon any question, how their vote
would affect their own political prospects. No
man can do good service in the Legislature as
long as he is worrying over the effect of his actions
6

82 pbases of State Xegtslatton
upon his own future. After having learned this,
most of them got on very happily indeed. As a
rule, and where no matter of vital principle is in
volved, a member is bound to represent the views
of those who have elected him ; but there are times
when the voice of the people is anything but the
voice of God, and then a conscientious man is
equally bound to disregard it.
In the long run, and on the average, the public
will usually do justice to its representatives ; but
it is a very rough, uneven, and long-delayed
justice. That is, judging from what I have myself
seen of the way in which members were treated by
their constituents, I should say that the chances of
an honest man being retained in public life were
about ten per cent, better than if he were dishonest,
other things being equal. This is not a showing
very creditable to us as a people ; and the explana
tion is to be found in the shortcomings peculiar to
the different classes of our honest and respectable
voters, — shortcomings which may be briefly out
lined.
SHORTCOMINGS OF THE PEOPLE WHO SHOULD
TAKE PART IN POLITICAL WORK.
The people of means in all great cities have in
times past shamefully neglected their political
duties, and have been conteraptuously disregarded
by the professional politicians in consequence. A
number of them will get together in a large hall, will
vociferously demand " reform," as if it were some
concrete substance which could be handed out to

pbases of State Xegislatlon 83

them in slices, and will then disband with a feeling
of the most serene self-satisfaction, and the belief
that they have done their entire duty as citizens
and members of the community. It is an actual
fact that four out of five of our wealthy and ed
ucated men, of those who occupy what is called
good social position, are really ignorant of the
nature of a caucus or a primary meeting, and never
attend either. Now, under our form of govern
ment, no man can accomplish anything by himself ;
he must work in combination with others ; and the
men of whora we are speaking will never carry their
proper weight in the political affairs of the country
until they have formed themselves into some organi
zation, or else, which would be better, have joined
some of the organizations already existing. But
there seems often to be a certain lack of the ro
buster virtues in our educated men, which makes
them shrink from the struggle and the inevitable
contact with rough politicians (who raust often be
rudely handled before they can be forced to be
have) ; while their lack of familiarity with their
surroundings causes them to lack discrimination
between the politicians who are decent, and those
who are not ; for in their eyes the two classes both
equally unfarailiar, are indistinguishable. Another
reason why this class is not of more consequence in
politics, is that it is often really out of sympathy —
or, at least, its more conspicuous members are —
with the feelings and interests of the great mass of
the American people ; and it is a discreditable
fact that it is in this class that what has been

84 pbases of State Xegtslatton
most aptly termed the "colonial" spirit stiU sur
vives. Until this survival of the spirit of co
lonial dependence is dead, those in whom it
exists will serve chiefly as laughing-stocks to the
shrewd, humorous, and prejudiced people who
form nine tenths of our body-politic, and whose
chief characteristics are their intensely American
habits of thought, and their surly intolerance of
anything like subservience to outside and foreign
influences. From different causes, the laboring classes, even
when thoroughly honest at heart, often fail to ap
preciate honesty in their representatives. They are
frequently not well inforraed in regard to the char
acter of the latter, and they are apt to be led aside
by the loud professions of the so-called labor re
formers, who are always promising to procure by
legislation the advantages which can only come to
working men, or to any other men, by their indi
vidual or united energy, intelligence, and fore
thought. Very much has been accomplished by
legislation for laboring men, by procuring mechan
ics' lien laws, factory laws, etc. ; and hence it often
comes that they think legislation can accomplish
all things for them ; and it is only natural, for in
stance, that a certain proportion of their number
should adhere to the demagogue who votes for a
law to double the rate of wages, rather than to the
honest man who opposes it. When people are
struggling for the necessaries of existence, and
vaguely feel, no matter how wrongly, that they are
also struggling against an unjustly ordered system

pbases of State Xegtslatton 85

of life, it is hard to convince thera of the truth
that an ounce of perforraance on their own part is
worth a ton of legislative promises to change in
some mysterious manner that life-system.
In the country districts justice to a member is
somewhat more apt to be done. When, as is so
often the case, it is not done, the cause is usually
to be sought for in the numerous petty jealousies
and local rivalries which are certain to exist in any
sraall coraraunity whose interests are narrow and
most of whose members are acquainted with each
other ; and besides this, our country vote is essen
tially a Bourbon or Tory vote, being very slow to
receive new ideas, very tenacious of old ones, and
hence inclined to look with suspicion upon any one
who tries to shape his course according to some
standard differing from that which is already in
existence. The actual work of procuring the passage of a
bill through the Legislature is in itself far from
slight. The hostility of the actively bad has to be
discounted in advance, and the indifference of the
passive raajority, who are neither very good nor
very bad, has to be overcome. This can usually
be accomplished only by stirring up their constitu
encies ; and so, besides the constant watchfulness
over the course of the measure through both houses
and the continual debating and parliamentary fenc
ing which is necessary, it is also indispensable to get
the people of districts not directly affected by the
bill alive to its importance, so as to induce their
representatives to vote for it. Thus, when the bill

86 pbases of State Xegtslatton
to establish a State Park at Niagara was on its pas
sage, it was found that the great majority of the
country members were opposed to it, fearing that it
might conceal some land-jobbing scheme, and also
fearing that their constituents, whose vice is not
extravagance, would not countenance so great an
expenditure of public money. It was of no use
arguing with the members, and instead the country
newspapers were flooded with letters, pamphlets
were circulated, visits and personal appeals were
made, until a sufficient nuraber of these merabers
changed front to enable us to get the lacking votes.
LIFE IN the LEGISLATURE.
As already said, some of us who usually acted
together took a great deal of genuine enjoyment
out of our experience at Albany. We liked the
excitement and perpetual conflict, the necessity for
putting forth all our powers to reach our ends, and
the feeling that we were really being of some use
in the world ; and if we were often both saddened
and angered by the viciousness and ignorance of
some of our colleagues, yet, in return, the latter
many times unwittingly furnished us a good deal
of amusement by their preposterous actions and
speeches. Some of these are worth repeating,
though they can never, in repetition, seem what
they were when they occurred. The names and
circumstances, of course, have been so changed
as to prevent the possibility of the real heroes of
them being recognized. It must be understood

pbases of State Xegtslatton 87

that they stand for the exceptional and not the or
dinary workings of the average legislative intellect.
I have heard more sound sense than foolishness
talked in Albany, but to record the former would
only bore the reader. And we must bear in mind
that while the ignorance of some of our representa
tives warrants our saying that they should not be
in the Legislature, it does not at all warrant our
condemning the system of governraent which per
mits them to be sent there. There is no system
so good that it has not some disadvantages. The
only way to teach our foreign-born fellow-citizens
how to govern themselves, is to give each the full
rights possessed by other American citizens ; and
it is not to be wondered at if they at first show
themselves unskilful in the exercise of these rights.
It has been my experience moreover in the Legis
lature that when Hans or Paddy does turn out
really well, there are very few native Americans in
deed who do better. A very large number of the
ablest and raost disinterested and public-spirited
citizens in New York are by birth Gerraans ; and
their names are towers of strength in the community.
When I had to name a committee which was to do
the most difficult, dangerous, and important work
that came before the Legislature at all during my
presence in it, I chose three of my four colleagues
from among those of my fellow-legislators who
were Irish either by birth or descent. One of the
warmest and most disinterested friends I have ever
had or hope to have in New York poHtics, is by
birth an Irishman, and is also as genuine and good

88 pbases of State Xegislatlon
an American citizen as is to be found within the
United States.
A good many of the Yankees in the house would
blunder time and again ; but their blunders were
generally merely stupid and not at all amusing,
while, on the contrary, the errors of those who were
of Milesian extraction always possessed a most re
freshing originality.
INCIDENTS OF LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE.
In 1882 the Democrats in the house had a clear
majority, but were for a long time unable to effect
an organization, owing to a faction-fight in their
own ranks between the Tammany and anti-Tam
many members, each side claiming the lion's share
of the spoils. After a good deal of bickering, the
anti-Tammany men drew up a paper containing a
series of propositions, and subraitted it to their
opponents, with the prefatory reraark, in writing,
that it was an ultimatum. The Taramany members
were at once summoned to an indignation meet
ing, their feelings closely resembling those of the
famous fish-wife who was called a parallelopipe-
don. None of them had any very accurate idea
as to what the word ultimatum meant ; but that
it was intensively offensive, not to say abusive,
in its nature, they did not question for a moment.
It was felt that some equivalent and equally strong
term by which to call Tammany's proposed counter-
address must be found iramediately ; but, as the
Latin vocabulary of the members was limited, it
was some time before a suitable term was forth-

pbases of State Xegtslatton 89

coming. Finally, by a happy inspiration, some
gentlemen of classical education reraerabered the
phrase ipse dixit s it was at once felt to be the
very phrase required by the peculiar exigencies of
the case, and next day the reply appeared, setting
forth with well-satisfied gravity that, in response to
the County Democracy's " ultimatum" Tammany
herewith produced her " ipse dixit."
Public servants of higher grade than aldermen
or assemblyraen sometimes give words a wider
meaning than would be found in the dictionary.
In many parts of the United States, owing to a
curious series of historical associations (which,
by the way, it would be interesting to trace), any
thing foreign and un-English is called " Dutch,"
and it was in this sense that a member of a re
cent Congress used the terra when, in speaking
in favor of a tariff on works of art, he told of the
reluctance with which he saw the productions of
native artists exposed to corapetition " with Dutch
daubs from Italy" ; a sentence pleasing alike
from its alliteration and from its bold disregard of
geographic trivialties.
Often an orator of this sort will have his atten
tion attracted by sorae high-sounding word, which
he has not before seen, and which he treasures up
to use in his next rhetorical flight, without regard
to the exact meaning. There was a laboring man's
advocate in the last Legislature, one of whose
efforts attracted a good deal of attention from his
magnificent heedlessness of technical accuracy in
the use of similes. He was speaking against the

90 pbases of State Xegtslatton

convict contract-labor system, and wound up an
already sufficiently remarkable oration with the still
more startling ending that the system " was a vital
cobra which was swamping the lives of the labor
ing men." Now, he had evidently carefully put
together the sentence beforehand, and the process
of mental synthesis by which he built it up must
have been curious. " Vital " was, of course, used
merely as an adjective of intensity ; he was a little
uncertain in his ideas as to what a " cobra " was,
but took it for granted that it was some terrible
manifestation of nature, possibly hostile to man,
like a volcano, or a cyclone, or Niagara, for in
stance ; then " swamping " was chosen as describ
ing an operation very likely to be performed by
Niagara, or a cyclone, or a cobra ; and behold, the
sentence was complete.
Sometimes a common phrase will be given a new
meaning. Thus, the mass of legislation is strictly
local in its character. Over a thousand bills come
up for consideration in the course of a session, but
a very few of which affect the interests of the
State at large. The latter and the more iraportant
private bills are, or ought to be, carefully studied
by each raember ; but it is a physical impossibUity
for any one man to examine the countless local
bills of small importance. For these we have to
trust to the raember for the district affected, and
when one comes up the response to 'any inquiry
about it is usually, " Oh, it 's a local biU, affecting
so-and-so's district ; he is responsible for it." By
degrees, some of the members get to use " local "

pbases of State Xegtslatton 91

in the sense of unimportant, and a few of the as
semblymen of doubtful honesty gradually come to
regard it as meaning a bill of no pecuniary interest
to themselves. There was a smug little rascal in
one of the last legislatures, who might have corae
out of one of Lever's novels. He was undoubtedly
a bad case, but had a genuine sense of humor, and
his " bulls " made him the delight of the house.
One day I came in late, just as a bill was being
voted on, and meeting ray friend, hailed hira,
" Hello, Pat, what 's up ? what 's this they 're vot
ing on ? " to which Pat replied, with contemptuous
indifference to the subject, but with a sly twinkle
in his eye, " Oh, sorae unimportant measure, sorr ;
some local bill or other — a constitutional amend
ment I "
The old Dublin Parliament never listened to a
better specimen of a bull than was contained in
the speech of a very genial and pleasant friend of
mine, a really finished orator, who, in the excite
ment attendant upon receiving Governor Cleve
land's message vetoing the five-cent-fare bill,
uttered the foUowing sentence : " Mr. Speaker, I
recognize the hand that crops out in that veto ;
/ have heard it before 1 "
One member rather astonished us one day by
his use of the word " shibboleth." He had evi
dently concluded that this was merely a more
elegant synonym of the good old word shillalah,
and in reproving a colleague for opposing a bill to
increase the salaries of public laborers, he said,
very impressively, " The throuble wid the young

92 pbases of State Xegisiation
man is, that he uses the wurrd economy as a shibbo
leth, wherewith to strike the working man." After
wards he changed the metaphor, and spoke of a
number of us as using the word " reforra " as a shib
boleth, behind which to cloak our evil intentions.
A mixture of classical and constitutional misin
forraation was displayed a few sessions past in the
State Assembly when I was a meraber of the
Legislature. It was on the occasion of that annual
nuisance, the debate upon the Catholic Protectory
item of the Supply Bill. Every year some one who
is desirous of bidding for the Catholic vote intro
duces this bill, which appropriates a sum of varying
dimensions for the support of the Catholic Pro
tectory, an excellent institution, but one which has
no right whatever to come to the State for support;
each year the insertion of the item is opposed by a
small nuraber of men, including the more liberal
Catbolics themselves, on proper grounds, and by a
larger number from siraple bigotry — a fact which
was shown two years ago, when many of the most
bitter opponents of this raeasure cheerfully sup
ported a similar and equally objectionable one in
aid of a Protestant institution. On the occasion
referred to there were two assemblyraen, both Celtic
gentlemen, who were rivals for the leadership of
the minority ; one of them a stout, red-faced man,
who raay go by the name of the " Colonel," owing
to his having seen service in the army ; while the
other was a dapper, voluble fellow, who had at
one time been a civil justice and was called the
" Judge." Somebody was opposing the insertion

pbases of State Xegtslatton 93
of the item on the ground (perfectly just, by the
way) that it was unconstitutional, and he dwelt
upon this objection at some length. The Judge,
who knew nothing of the constitution, except that
it was continually being quoted against all of his
favorite projects, fidgeted about for some time,
and at last jumped up to know if he might ask the
gentleman a question. The latter said, " Yes,"
and the Judge went on, " I 'd like to know if the
gintleman has ever personally seen the Catholic
Protectoree ? " "No, I haven't," said his aston
ished opponent. " Then, phwat do you mane by
talking about its being unconstitootional ? It 's
no more unconstitootional than you are ! Then,
turning to the house, with slow and withering sar
casm, he added, " The throuble wid the gintleman
is that he okkipies what lawyers would call a kind
of a quasi-position upon this bill," and sat down
araid the applause of his followers.
His rival, the Colonel, felt he had gained alto
gether too much glory from the encounter, and
after the nonplussed countryman had taken his
seat, he stalked solemnly over to the desk of the
elated Judge, looked at hira majestically for a mo
ment, and said, " You '11 excuse my mentioning,
sorr, that the gintleman who has just sat down
knows more law in a wake than you do in a month ;
and more than that, Mike Shaunnessy, phwat do
you mane by quotin' Latin on the flure of this
House, when you don't know the alpha and omayga
of the language I " and back he walked, leaving the
Judge in humiliated submission behind him.

94 pbases of State Xegtslatton
The Judge was always faUing foul of the Con
stitution. Once, when defending one of his bills
which made a small but wholly indefensible appro
priation of State money for a private purpose, he
asserted " that the Constitution did n't touch little
things like that " ; and on another occasion he re
marked to me that he " never allowed the Consti
tution to come between friends."
The Colonel was at that time chairman of a com
mittee, before which there sometimes came ques
tions affecting the interests or supposed interests
of labor. The committee was hopelessly bad in
its composition, most of the members being either
very corrupt or exceedingly inefficient. The Colo
nel generally kept order with a good deal of dig
nity ; indeed, when, as not infrequently happened,
he had looked upon the rye that was flavored with
lemon-peel, his sense of personal dignity grew till
it became fairly raajestic, and he ruled the com
raittee with a rod of iron. At one time a bill had
been introduced (one of the several score of pre
posterous measures that annually make their
appearance purely for purposes of buncombe), by
whose terms all laborers in the public works of
great cities were to receive three dollars a day —
double the market price of labor. To this biU, by
the way, an amendment was afterwards offered in
the house by some gentleman with a sense of humor,
which was to make it read that all the inhabitants
of great cities were to receive three doUars a day,
and the privUege of laboring on the public works
if they chose ; the original author of the bUl

pbases of State Xegisiation 95
questioning doubtfuUy if the amendment " did n't
make the measure too sweeping." The measure
was, of course, of no consequence whatever to the
genuine laboring men, but was of interest to the
professional labor agitators ; and a body of the
latter requested leave to appear before the com
mittee. This was granted, but on the appointed
day the chairman turned up in a condition of such
portentous dignity as to make it evident that he
had been on a spree of protracted duration. Down
he sat at the head of the table, and glared at the
comraitteemen, while the latter, whose faces would
not have looked amiss in a rogues' gallery, cowered
before him. The first speaker was a typical pro
fessional laboring man ; a sleek, oily little fellow,
with a black mustache, who had never done a stroke
of work in his life. He felt confident that the
Colonel would favor him, — a confidence soon to
be rudely shaken, — and began with a deprecatory
sraile :
" Humble though I am  "
Rap, rap, went the chairman's gavel, and the fol
lowing dialogue occurred :
Chairman (with dignity). "What 's that you
said you were, sir ? "
Professional Workingman ( decidedly taken
aback). " I — I said I was humble, sir ? "
Chairman (reproachfully). " Are you an Araeri
can citizen, sir ? "
P. W. " Yes, sir."
Chairman (with emphasis). " Then you 're the
equal of any man in this State ! Then you 're

96 pbases of State Xegtslatton
the equal of any man on this committee ! Dorit
let me hear you call yourself humble again 1 Go on
sir I "
After this warning the advocate managed to keep
clear of the rocks until, having worked himself up
to quite a pitch of excitement, he incautiously ex
claimed, " But the poor man has no friends ! "
which brought the Colonel down on hira at once.
Rap, rap, went his gavel, and he scowled grimly at
the offender while he asked with deadly delibera
tion :
" What did you say that time, sir ? "
P. W. (hopelessly). " I said the poor man had
no friends, sir."
Chairtnan (with sudden fire). " Then you lied,
sir ! I am the poor man's friend ! so are my col
leagues, sir ! " (Here the rogues' gallery tried to
look benevolent.) " Speak the truth, sir ! " (with
sudden change from the manner admonitory to the
manner mandatory). " Now, you sit down quick,
or get out of this somehow ! "
This put an end to the sleek gentleman, and his
place was taken by a fellow-professional of another
type — a great, burly man, who would talk to you on
private matters in a perfectly natural tone of voice,
but who, the minute he began to speak of the
Wrongs (with a capital W) of Labor (with a capital
L), bellowed as if he had been a bull of Bashan.
The Colonel, by this time pretty far gone, eyed him
malevolently, swaying to and fro in his chair. How
ever, the first effect of the fellow's oratory was
soothing rather than otherwise, and produced the

pbases of State Xegtslatton 97
unexpected result of sending the chairman fast
asleep sitting bolt upright. But in a minute or two,
as the man warmed up to his work, he gave a pe
cuUarly resonant howl which waked the Colonel up.
The latter came to himself with a jerk, looked
fixedly at the audience, caught sight of the speaker,
reraembered having seen him before, forgot that
he had been asleep, and concluded that it must
have been on some previous day. Hammer, ham
mer, went the gavel, and —
" I 've seen you before, sir ! "
" You have not," said the man.
" Don't tell me I He, sir ! " responded the Colonel,
with sudden ferocity. " You 've addressed this
committee on a previous day ! "
" I 've never — " began the man ; but the Colonel
broke in again :
" Sit down, sir ! The dignity of the chair must
be preserved ! No man shall speak to this com
mittee twice. The coramittee stands adjourned."
And with that he stalked majestically out of the
room, leaving the committee and the delegation to
gaze sheepishly into each other's faces.
OUTSIDERS.
After all, outsiders furnish quite as much fun
as the legislators themselves. The number of men
who persist in writing one letters of praise, abuse,
and advice on every conceivable subject is appal
ling ; and the writers are of every grade, from the
lunatic and the criminal up. The most difficult to
deal with are the men with hobbies. There is
7

98 pbases of State Xegtslatton
the Protestant fool, who thinks that our liberties
are menaced by the machinations of the Church of
Rome ; and his companion idiot, who wants legis
lation against all secret societies, especially the
Masons. Then there are the believers in " isms," of
whom the women-suffragists stand in the first rank.
Now I have always been a believer in woman's
rights, but I must confess I have never seen such
a hopelessly impracticable set of persons as the
woman-suffragists who came up to Albany to get
legislation. They simply would not draw up their
measures in proper form ; when I pointed out to
one of thera that their proposed bill was drawn up
in direct defiance of certain of the sections of the
Constitution of the State he blandly replied that he
did not care at all for that, because the measure had
been drawn up so as to be in accord with the Con
stitution of Heaven. There was no answer to this
beyond the very obvious one that Albany was in no
way akin to Heaven. The ultra-temperance people
— not the moderate and sensible ones — are quite as
impervious to coramon sense.
A member's correspondence is sometimes amus
ing. A member receives shoals of letters of advice,
congratulation, entreaty, and abuse, half of them
anonymous. Most of these are stupid ; but some
are at least out of the common.
I had some constant correspondents. One lady
in the western part of the State wrote me a weekly
disquisition on woman's rights. A Buffalo clergy
man spent two years on a one-sided correspondence
about prohibition. A gentleman of Syracuse wrote

pbases of State Xegisiation 99

me such a stream of essays and requests about the
charter of that city that I feared he would drive
me into a lunatic asylum ; but he anticipated mat
ters by going into one himself. A New Yorker at
regular intervals sent up a request that I would
" reintroduce " the Dongan charter, which had
lapsed two centuries before. A gentleman inter
ested in a proposed law to protect primaries took
to telegraphing daily questions as to its progress
— a habit of which I broke him by sending in re
sponse telegrams of several hundred words each,
which I was careful not to prepay.
There are certain legislative actions which must
be taken in a purely Pickwickian sense. Notable
among these are the resolutions of sympathy for
the alleged oppressed patriots and peoples of
Europe. These are generally directed against
England, as there exists in the lower strata of po
litical life an Anglophobia quite as objectionable
as the Anglomania of the higher social circles.
As a rule, these resolutions are to be classed as
simply bouffe affairs ; they are coramonly intro
duced by some arabitious legislator — often, I re
gret to say, a native American^who has a large
foreign vote in his district. During my term of
service in the Legislature, resolutions were intro
duced deraanding the recall of Minister Lowell,
assailing the Czar for his conduct towards the
Russian Jews, sympathizing with the Land League
and the Dutch Boers, etc., etc. ; the passage of
each of which we strenuously and usually success
fully opposed, on the ground that while we would

loo pbases of State Xegtslatton
warmly welcome any foreigner who came here,
and in good faith assumed the duties of American
citizenship, we had a right to demand in return
that he should not bring any of his race or na
tional antipathies into American political life.
Resolutions of this character are sometimes un
doubtedly proper ; but in nine cases out of ten
they are wholly unjustifiable. An instance of this
sort of thing which took place not at Albany may
be cited. Recently the Board of Aldermen of one
of our great cities received a stinging rebuke,
which it is to be feared the aldermanic intellect
was too dense fully to appreciate. The aldermen
passed a resolution " condemning " the Czar of
Russia for his conduct towards his fellow-citizens
of Hebrew faith, and " demanding " that he should
forthwith treat them better ; this was forwarded to
the Russian Minister, with a request that it be sent
to the Czar. It came back forty-eight hours after
wards, with a note on the back by one of the un-
der-secretaries of the legation, to the effect that as
he was not aware that Russia had any diplomatic
relations with this particular Board of Aldermen,
and as, indeed, Russia was not officially cognizant
of their existence, and, moreover, was wholly in
different to their opinions on any conceivable
subject, he herewith returned them their kind com
munication.' " A few years later a member of the Italian Legation
" scored" heavily on one of our least pleasant national pecu
liarities. An Italian had just been lynched in Colorado, and
an Italian paper in New York bitterly denounced the Italian

pbases of State Xegtslatton loi
In concluding I would say, that while there is
so much evil at Albany, and so much reason for
our exerting ourselves to bring about a better state
of things, yet there is no cause for being disheart
ened or for thinking that it is hopeless to expect
improvement. On the contrary, the standard of
legislative morals is certainly higher than it was
fifteen years ago or twenty-five years ago. In the
future it may either improve or retrograde, by fits
and starts, for it will keep pace exactly with the
awakening of the popular mind to the necessity of
having honest and intelligent representatives in
the State Legislature.'
I have had opportunity of knowing something
about the workings of but a few of our other State
legislatures : from what I have seen and heard, I
should say that we stand about on a par with those
of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Illinois, above
that of Louisiana, and below those of Vermont,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Wyoraing, as
well as below the national legislature at Wash
ington. But the moral status of a legislative body,
especially in the West, often varies widely from
year to year.
Minister for his supposed apathy in the matter. The member
of the Legation in question answered that the accusations were
most unjust, for the Minister had worked zealously until he
found that the deceased ' ' had taken out his naturalization papers,
and was entitled to all the privileges of American citizenship."
' At present, twelve years later, I should say that there was
rather less personal corruption in the Legislature ; but also less
independence and greater subservience to the machine, which is
even less responsive to honest and enlightened public opinion.

VI
MACHINE POLITICS IN NEW YORK
CITY'
IN New York city, as in most of our other great
municipalities, the direction of political affairs
has been for many years mainly in the hands of a
class of men who make politics their regular busi
ness and raeans of livelihood. These men are able
to keep their grip only by means of the singularly
perfect way in which they have succeeded in or
ganizing their respective parties and factions ; and
it is in consequence of the clock-work regularity
and efficiency with which these several organiza
tions play their parts, alike for good and for evil,
that they have been nicknamed by outsiders " ma
chines," while the men who take part in ^nd con
trol, or, as they would themselves say, " run "
them, now form a well-recognized and fairly well-
defined class in the community, and are familiarly
' The Century, November, 1886.

Machine politics tn Iftew l^orfe Citg 103

known as machine politicians. It may be of inter
est to sketch in outline some of the characteristics
of these men and of their machines, the methods
by which and the objects for which they work, and
the reasons for their success in the political field.
The terms machine and machine politician are
now undoubtedly used ordinarily in a reproachful
sense ; but it dpes not at all follow that this sense
is always the right one. On the contrary, the ma
chine is often a very powerful instrument for good ;
and a machine politician really desirous of doing
honest work on behalf of the community, is fifty
times as useful an ally as is the average philanthro
pic outsider. Indeed, it is of course true, that any
political organization (and absolutely no good work
can be done in politics without an organization) is
a machine ; and any man who perfects and uses
this organization is himself, to a certain extent, a
machine politician. In the rough, however, the
feeling against machine politics and politicians is
tolerably well justified by the facts, although this
statement really reflects most severely upon the
educated and honest people who largely hold
themselves aloof from public life, and show a curi
ous incapacity for fulfilling their public duties.
The organizations that are commonly and dis
tinctively known as machines are those belonging
to the two great recognized parties, or to their
factional subdivisions ; and the reason why the
word machine has come to be used, to a certain
extent, as a term of opprobrium is to be found
in the fact that these organizations are now run

104 iffiacbtne politics tn new Borfi Cits
by the leaders very largely as business concerns to
benefit themselves and their followers, with little
regard to the community at large. This is natural
enough. The men having control and doing all
the work have gradually come to have the same
feeling about politics that other men have about
the business of a merchant or raanufacturer ; it
was too much to expect that if left entirely to
themselves they would continue disinterestedly to
work for the benefit of others. Many a machine
politician who is to-day a raost unwholesome
influence in our politics is in private life quite as
respectable as anyone else ; only he has forgotten
that his business affects the state at large, and,
regarding it as merely his own private concern, he
has carried into it the same selfish spirit that
actuates in business matters the majority of the
average mercantile community. A merchant or
manufacturer works his business, as a rule, purely
for his own benefit, without any regard whatever
for the community at large. The merchant uses all
his influence for a low tariff, and the raanufacturer
is even more strenuously in favor of protection,
not at all from any theory of abstract right, but
because of self-interest. Each views such a poli
tical question as the tariff, not from the stand
point of how it will affect the nation as a whole,
but merely from that of how it will affect him
personally. If a community were in favor of
protection, but nevertheless permitted all the
governmental machinery to fall into the hands of
importing merchants, it would be small cause for

flbacbine politics tn IRew forh Citfi 105

wonder if the latter shaped the laws to suit thera
selves, and the chief blame, after all, would rest
with the supine and lethargic majority which failed
to have enough energy to take charge of ther own
affairs. Our machine politicians, in actual life
act in just this same way ; their actions are very
often dictated by selfish motives, with but little
regard for the people at large though, like the raer
chants, they often hold a very high standard of
honor on certain points ; they therefore need
continually to be watched and opposed by those
who wish to see good government. But, after all,
it is hardly to be wondered at that they abuse
power which is allowed to fall into their hands
owing to the ignorance or timid indifference of
those who by rights should themselves keep it.
In a society properly constituted for true demo
cratic government — in a society such as that seen
in many of our country towns, for example —
machine rule is impossible. But in New York,
as well as in most of our other great cities, the
conditions favor the growth of ring or boss rule.
The chief causes thus operating against good gov
ernment are the raoral and mental attitudes towards
politics assumed by different sections of the voters.
A large number of these are siraply densely ignor
ant, and, of course, such are apt to fall under the
influence of cunning leaders, and even if they do
right, it is by hazard raerely. The criminal class
in a great city is always of some size, while what
may be called the potentially criminal class is still
larger. Then there is a great class of laboring

io6 flbacbtne politics tn IRew fori? Citg
men, mostly of foreign birth or parentage, who at
present both expect too much from legislation and
yet at the same time realize too little how power
fully though indirectly they are affected by a bad
or corrupt government. In many wards the over
whelming majority of the voters do not realize
that heavy taxes fall ultimately upon them, and
actually view with perfect complacency burdens
laid by their representatives upon the tax-payers,
and, if anything, approve of a hostile attitude
towards the latter — having a vague feeling of
animosity towards thera as possessing more than
their proper proportion of the world's good things,
and sharing with most other human beings the
capacity to bear with philosophic equanimity ills
merely affecting one's neighbors. When power
fully roused on some financial, but still more
on sorae sentimental question, this same laboring
class will throw its enormous and usually decisive
weight into the scale which it believes inclines to
the right ; but its members are often curiously
and cynically indifferent to charges of corruption
against favorite heroes or demagogues, so long as
these charges do not imply betrayal of their own
real or fancied interests. Thus an alderman or
assemblyman representing certain wards may make
as much money as he pleases out of corporations
without seriously jeopardizing his standing with
his constituents ; but if he once, whether from
honest or dishonest motives, stands by a corporation
when the interests of the latter are supposed to
conflict with those of " the people," it is all up with

Macbtne politics in flew fori? Cits 107

him. These voters are, moreover, very emotional ;
they value in a public man what we are accustomed
to consider virtues only to be taken into account
when estiraating private character. Thus, if a raan
is open-handed and warm-hearted, they consider
it as a fair offset to his being a little bit shaky
when it comes to applying the eighth command
ment to affairs of state. I have more than once
heard the statement, " He is very liberal to the
poor," advanced as a perfectly satisfactory answer
to the charge that a certain public raan was cor
rupt. Moreover, working men, whose lives are
passed in one unceasing round of narrow and
monotonous toil, are not unnaturally inclined to
pay heed to the demagogues and professional labor
advocates who promise if elected to try to pass
laws to better their condition ; they are hardly
prepared to understand or approve the American
doctrine of government, which is that the state
cannot ordinarily attempt to better the condition
of a man or a set of men, but can merely see that
no wrong is done him or them by anyone else,
and that all alike have a fair chance in the struggle
for life — a struggle wherein, it may as well at once
be freely though sadly acknowledged, very many
are bound to fail, no matter how ideally perfect
any given system of government may be.
Of course it must be remembered that all these
general statements are subject to an immense
number of individual exceptions ; there are tens of
thousands of men who work with their hands for
their daily bread and yet put into actual practice

io8 flbacbtne politics tn flew lorft Citg

that sublime virtue of disinterested adherence
to the right, even when it seems likely merely to
benefit others, and those others better off than
they themselves are ; for they vote for honesty and
cleanliness, in spite of great temptation to do the
opposite, and in spite of their not seeing how any
immediate benefit will result to themselves.
REASONS FOR THE NEGLECT OF PUBLIC DUTIES BY
RESPECTABLE MEN IN EASY CIRCUMSTANCES.
This class is composed of the great bulk of the
men who range from well-to-do up to very rich ;
and of these the former generally and the latter
almost universally neglect their political duties, for
the most part rather pluming themselves upon their
good conduct if they so much as vote on election
day. This largely comes from the tremendous
wear and tension of life in our great cities. More
over, the men of small means with us are usually
men of domestic habits ; and this very devotion to
home, which is one of their chief virtues, leads them
to neglect their public duties. They work hard,
as clerks, mechanics, small tradesraen, etc., all day
long, and when they get home in the evening they
dislike to go out. If they do go to a ward meeting,
they find theraselves isolated, and strangers both
to the raen whom they meet and to the matter on
which they have to act ; for in the city a man is
quite as sure to know next to nothing about his
neighbors as in the country he is to be intimately
acquainted with them. In the country the people
of a neighborhood, when they assemble in one

flbacbine politics tn flew forft CitB 109
of their local conventions, are already well ac
quainted, and therefore able to act together with
effect ; whereas in the city, even if the ordinary
citizens do come out, they are totally unacquainted
with one another, and are as helplessly unable to
oppose the disciplined ranks of the professional
politicians as is the case with a mob of freshmen in
one of our colleges when in danger of being hazed
by the sophomores. Moreover, the pressure of
competition in city life is so keen that men often
have as much as they can do to attend to their own
affairs, and really hardly have the leisure to look
after those of the public. The general tendency
everywhere is toward the specialization of func
tions, and this holds good as well in politics as
elsewhere. The reputable private citizens of small means
thus often neglect to attend to their public duties
because to do so would perhaps interfere with their
private business. This is bad enough, but the
case is worse with the really wealthy, who still
more generally neglect these same duties, partly
because not to do so would interfere with their
pleasure, and partly from a combination of other
raotives, all of thera natural but none of them
creditable. A successful merchant, well dressed,
pompous, self-important, unused to any life outside
of the counting-room, and accustomed because of
his very success to be treated with deferential re
gard, as one who stands above the comraon run of
humanity, naturally finds it very unpleasant to go
to a caucus or primary where he has to stand on

no /llbacbine politics in flew fork CftB
an equal footing with his groom and day-laborers,
and indeed may discover that the latter, thanks to
their faculty for combination, are rated higher in
the scale of political importance than he is himself.
In all the large cities of the North the wealthier,
or, as they would prefer to style themselves, the
" upper " classes, tend distinctly towards the
bourgeois type ; and an individual in the bourgeois
stage of development, while honest, industrious,
and virtuous, is also not unapt to be a miracle of
timid and short-sighted selfishness. The commer
cial classes are only too likely to regard everything
merely from the standpoint of " Does it pay ? "
and many a raerchant does not take any part in
politics because he is short-sighted enough to think
that it will pay him better to attend purely to mak
ing raoney, and too selfish to be willing to undergo
any trouble for the sake of abstract duty ; while the
younger men of this type are too much engrossed
in their various social pleasures to be willing to
give their time to anything else. It is also unfortu
nately true, especially throughout New England
and the Middle States, that the general tendency
among people of culture and high education has
been to neglect and even to look down upon the
rougher and manlier virtues, so that an advanced
state of intellectual development is too often as
sociated with a certain effeminacy of character.
Our more intellectual men often shrink from the
raw coarseness and the eager struggle of political
life as if they were women. Now, however refined
and virtuous a man may be, he is yet entirely out

Macbine poltttcs in flew forft CitB m
of place in the Araerican body-politic unless he is
himself of sufficiently coarse fibre and virile charac
ter to be more angered than hurt by an insult or
injury ; the timid good form a most useless as well
as a most despicable portion of the community.
Again, when a man is heard objecting to taking
part in politics because it is " low," he may be set
down as either a fool or a coward : it would be
quite as sensible for a militiaman to advance the
same statement as an excuse for refusing to assist
in quelling a riot. Many cultured raen neglect
their political duties simply because they are too
delicate to have the element of " strike back " in
their natures, and because they have an unmanly
fear of being forced to stand up for their own rights
when threatened with abuse or insult. Such are
the conditions which give the machine men their
chance ; and they have been able to raake the
most possible out of this chance, — first, because of
the perfection to which they have brought their
machinery, and, second, because of the social
character of their political organizations.
ORGANIZATION AND WORK OF THE MACHINES.
The machinery of any one of our political
bodies is always rather complicated ; and its poli
ticians invariably endeavor to keep it so, because,
their time being wholly given to it, they are able
to become perfectly familiar with all its workings,
while the average outsider becoraes raore and raore
helpless in proportion as the organization is less
and less simple. Besides some others of minor

112 Jfcacbine poltttcs in flew lorft Citfi
importance, there are at present in New York three
great political organizations, viz., those of the reg
ular Republicans, of the County Democracy,' and
of Tammany Hall, that of the last being perhaps
the most perfect, viewed from a machine stand
point. Although with wide differences in detail,
all these bodies are organized upon much the same
general plan ; and one description may be taken
in the rough, as applying to all. There is a large
central committee, composed of numerous dele
gates from the different assembly districts, which
decides upon the various questions affecting the
party as a whole in the county and city ; and then
there are the various organizations in the assembly
districts themselves, which are the real sources of
strength, and with which alone it is necessary to
deal. There are different rules for the admission
to the various district primaries and caucuses of
the voters belonging to the respective parties ; but
in almost every case the real work is done and the
real power held by a small knot of men, who in
turn pay a greater or less degree of fealty to a
single boss.
The mere work to be done on election day and
in preparing for it forms no slight task. There is
an association in each assembly or election district,
with its president, secretary, treasurer, executive
committee, etc. ; these call the primaries and cau
cuses, arrange the lists of the delegates to the
various nominating conventions, raise funds for
' Since succeeded every year or two by some other anti-
Tammany Democratic organization or organizations,

Macbine politics tn flew IJorK Citg 113
campaign purposes, and hold themselves in com
munication with their central party organizations.
At the primaries in each assembly district a full
set of delegates is chosen to nominate assembly
men and aldermen, while others are chosen to go to
the State, county, and congressional conventions.
Before election day many thousands of complete
sets of the party ticket are printed, folded, and
put together, or, as it is called, "bunched." A
single bundle of these ballots is then sent to every
voter in the district, while thousands are reserved
for distribution at the polls. In every election
precinct — there are probably twenty or thirty in
each assembly district — a captain and frora two to
a dozen subordinates are appointed.' These have
charge of the actual giving out of the ballots at
the polls. On election day they are at their places
long before the hour set for voting ; each party
has a wooden booth, looking a good deal like a
sentry-box, covered over with flaming posters
containing the names of their nominees, and the
" workers " cluster around these as centres. Every
voter as he approaches is certain to be offered
a set of tickets ; usually these sets are " straight,"
that is, contain all the nominees of one party, but
frequently crooked work will be done, and some
one candidate will get his own ballots bunched
with the rest of those of the opposite party. Each
' All this has been changed, vastly for the better, by the
ballot reform laws, under which the State distributes the
printed ballots ; and elections are now much more honest than
formerly.

114 Macbine politics tn flew Korft Citg

captain of a district is generally paid a certain sum
of money, greater or less according to his ability
as a politican or according to his power of serving
the boss or machine. Nominally this money goes
in paying the subordinates and in what are vaguely
termed " campaign expenses," but as a matter of
fact it is in many instances simply pocketed by the
recipient ; indeed, very little of the large sums of
money annually spent by candidates to bribe voters
actually reaches the voters supposed to be bribed.
The money thus furnished is procured either by
subscriptions from rich outsiders, or by assess
ments upon the candidates themselves ; formerly
rauch was also obtained from office-holders, but this
is now prohibited by law. A great deal of money
is also spent in advertising, placarding posters, pay
ing for public meetings, and organizing and uniform
ing merabers to take part in some huge torchlight
procession — this last particular forra of spectacular
enjoyment being one peculiarly dear to the aver
age American political mind. Candidates for very
lucrative positions are often assessed really huge
sums, in order to pay for the extravagant methods
by which our canvasses are conducted. Before a
legislative coramittee of which I was a member,
the Register of New York County blandly testified
under oath that he had forgotten whether his ex
penses during his canvass had been over or under
fifty thousand dollars. It must be remembered
that even now — and until recently the evil was
very much greater — the rewards paid to certain
public officials are out of all proportion to the

Macbtne politics tn flew fork Citg 115
services rendered ; and in such cases the active
managing politicians feel that they have a right to
exact the heaviest possible toll from the candidate,
to help pay the army of hungry heelers who do
their bidding. Thus, before the sarae committee
the County Clerk testified that his income was
very nearly eighty thousand a year, but with re
freshing frankness admitted that his own posi
tion was practically merely that of a figure-head,
and that all the work was done by his deputy,
on a sraall fixed salary. As the County Clerk's
terra is three years, he should norainally have re
ceived nearly a quarter of a million dollars ; but
as a matter of fact two thirds of the money prob
ably went to the political organizations with which
he was connected. The enormous emoluments of
such officers are, of course, most effective in de
bauching politics. They bear no relation whatever
to the trifling quantity of work done, and the
chosen candidate readily recognizes what is the
exact truth, — namely, that the benefit of his service
is expected to enure to his party allies, and not to
the citizens at large. Thus, one of the county
officers who came before the above-mentioned
committee, testified with a naive openness which
was appalling, in answer to what was believed to
be a purely formal question as to whether he per
formed his public duties faithfully, that he did so
perform them whenever they did not conflict with
his political duties ! — meaning thereby, as he ex
plained, attending to his local organizations, seeing
politicians, fixing primaries, baiHng out those of

ii6 Macbine politics tn IRew KorK Citg
his friends (apparently by no means few in number)
who got hauled up before a justice of the peace,
etc., etc. This man's statements were valuable
because, being a truthful person and of such dense
ignorance that he was at first wholly unaware his
testimony was in any way remarkable, he really
tried to tell things as they were ; and it had evi
dently never occurred to him that he was not ex
pected by everyone to do just as he had been
doing, — that is, to draw a large salary for himself,
to turn over a still larger fund to his party allies,
and conscientiously to endeavor, as far as he
could, by the free use of his time and influence, to
satisfy the innumerable demands raade upon him
by the various small-fry politicians.'
" HEELERS."
The "heelers," or " workers," who stand at the
polls, and are paid in the way above described,
form a large part of the rank and file composing
each organization. There are, of course, scores of
thera in each asserably district association, and,
together with the almost equally numerous class of
federal. State, or local paid office-holders (except
in so far as these last have been cut out by the
operations of the civil-service reform laws), they
form the bulk of the men by whom the machine is
run, the bosses of great and smaU degree chiefly
merely oversee the work and supervise the deeds
' As a consequence of our investigation the coramittee, of
which I was chairman, succeeded in securing the enactment of
laws which abolished these enormous salaries.

/Bacbine politics in flew forft Citg 117

of their henchmen. The organization of a party
in our city is really much like that of an array.
There is one great central boss, assisted by some
trusted and able lieutenants ; these communicate
with the different district bosses, whom they alter
nately bully and assist. The district boss in turn
has a number of half-subordinates, half-allies, under
hira ; these latter choose the captains of the elec
tion districts, etc., and come into contact with the
coramon heelers. The more stupid and ignorant
the comraon heelers are, and the raore iraplicitly
they obey orders, the greater becoraes the effective
ness of the machine. An ideal machine has for its
officers men of marked force, cunning and unscru
pulous, and for its common soldiers raen who may
be either corrupt or moderately honest, but who
must be of low intelligence. This is the reason
why such a large proportion of the members of
every political machine are recruited frora the lower
grades of the foreign population. These hench
men obey unhesitatingly the orders of their chiefs,
both at the primary or caucus and on election day,
receiving regular rewards for so doing, either in
employment procured for them or else in money
outright. Of course it is by no means true that
these men are all actuated merely by raercenary
motives. The great majority entertain also a real
feeling of allegiance towards the party to which
they belong, or towards the political chief whose
fortunes they follow ; and many work entirely
without pay and purely for what they believe to be
right. Indeed, an experienced politician always

ii8 machine poltttcs tn flew forh Citg
greatly prefers to have under him men whose
hearts are in their work and upon whose unbribed
devotion he can rely ; but unfortunately he finds
in most cases that their exertions have to be sec
onded by others which are prompted by motives far
more raixed.
All of these men, whether paid or not, make a
business of political life and are thoroughly at
home among the obscure intrigues that go to make
up so much of it ; and consequently they have
quite as much the advantage when pitted against
amateurs as regular soldiers have when matched
against militiamen. But their numbers, though
absolutely large, are, relatively to the entire com
munity, so small that some other cause must be
taken into consideration in order to account for
the comraanding position occupied by the machine
and the machine politicians in public life. This
other determining cause is to be found in the fact
that all these machine associations have a social as
well as a political side, and that a large part of the
political Hfe of every leader or boss is also identi
cal with his social Hfe.
the SOCIAL SIDE OF MACHINE POLITICS.
The political associations of the various districts
are not organized merely at the approach of elec
tion day ; on the contrary, they exist throughout
the year, and for the greater part of the time are
to a great extent merely social clubs. To a large
number of the men who belong to them they are
the chief social rallying-point. These raen con-

flbacbine poltttcs tn flew fork Citg ng

gregate in the association building in the evening
to smoke, drink beer, and play cards, precisely as
the wealthier men gather in the clubs whose pur
pose is avowedly social and not political — such as
the Union, University, and Knickerbocker. Poli
tics thus becomes a pleasure and relaxation as well
as a serious pursuit. The different members of
the same club or association become closely allied
with one another, and able to act together on occa
sions with unison and esprit de corps ; and they will
stand by one of their own number for reasons pre
cisely homologous to those which make a member
of one of the upper clubs support a fellow-member
if the latter happens to run for office. " He is a
gentleraan, and shall have my vote," says the swell
club raan. " He 's one of the boys, and I 'm for
him," replies the heeler from the district party
association. In each case the feeling is social
rather than political, but where the club man in
fluences one vote the heeler controls ten. A rich
merchant and a small tradesman alike find it merely
a bore to attend the meetings of the local political
club ; it is to them an irksorae duty which is
shirked whenever possible. But to the small poli
ticians and to the various workers and hangers-on,
these raeetings -have a distinct social attraction,
and the attendance is a matter of preference. They
are in congenial society and in the place where by
choice they spend their evenings, and where they
bring their friends and associates ; and naturally
all the raen so brought together gradually blend
their social and political ties, and work with an

120 ilftacbine politics in flew forh Citg

effectiveness irapossible to the outside citizens
whose social instincts interfere, instead of coincid
ing with their political duties. If an ordinary
citizen wishes to have a game of cards or a talk
with some of his companions, he must keep away
from the local headquarters of his party ; whereas,
under similar circumstances, the professional
politician must go there. The man who is fond of
his home naturally prefers to stay there in the even
ings, rather than go out among the noisy club fre
quenters, whose pleasure it is to see each other at
least weekly, and who spend their evenings discus
sing neither sport, business, nor scandal, as do other
sections of the coraraunity, but the equally monot
onous subject of ward politics.
The strength of our political organizations arises
from their development as social bodies ; many of
the hardest workers in their ranks are neither office
holders nor yet paid henchmen, but merely mem
bers who have gradually learned to identify their
fortunes with the party whose hall they have come
to regard as the head-quarters in which to spend
the raost agreeable of their leisure moments.
Under the American system it is impossible for a
man to accomplish anything by himself ; he must
associate himself with others, and they must throw
their weight together. This is just what the social
functions of the political clubs enable their mem
bers to do. The great and rich society clubs are
composed of men who are not apt to take much
interest in politics anyhow, and never act as a
body. The great effect produced by a social or-

.flfcacbine politics tn flew Ifforfs Citg i2r

ganization for political purposes is shown by the
career of the Union League Club ; and equally
striking proof can be seen by every man who attends
a ward meeting. There is thus, however much to
be regretted it may be, a constant tendency towards
the concentration of political power in the hands
of those men who by taste and education are fitted
to enjoy the social side of the various political
organizations. THE LIQUOR-SELLER IN POLITICS.
It is this that gives the liquor-sellers their enor
mous influence in politics. Preparatory to the
general election of 1884, there were held in the
various districts of New York ten hundred and
seven primaries and political conventions of all
parties, and of these no less than six hundred and
thirty-three took place in liquor-saloons, — a show
ing that leaves small ground for wonder at the low
average grade of the nominees. The reason for
such a condition of things is perfectly evident : it
is because the liquor-saloons are places of social
resort for the sarae raen who turn the local political
organizations into social clubs. Bar-tenders form
perhaps the nearest approach to a leisure class that
we have at present on this side of the water. Natu
rally they are on semi-intimate terms with all who
frequent their houses. There is no place where
more gossip is talked than in bar-rooms, and rauch
of this gossip is about politics, — that is, the politics
of the ward, not of the nation. The tariff and the
silver question may be alluded to and civil-service

122 ^acbine politics in flew forli Citfi
reform may be incidentaUy damned, but the real
interest comes in discussing the doings of the men
with whom they are personally acquainted : why
Billy so-and-so, the alderman, has quarrelled with
his former chief supporter ; whether " old man X"
has really managed to fix the delegates to a given
convention ; the reason why one faction bolted at
the last primary ; and if it is true that a great down
town boss who has an intimate friend of opposite
political faith running in an up-town district has
forced the managers of his own party to put up a
man of straw against him. The bar-keeper is a
man of much local power, and is, of course, hail-
fellow-well-met with his visitors, as he and they
can be of mutual assistance to one another. Even
if of different politics, their feelings towards each
other are influenced purely by personal considera
tions ; and, indeed, this is true of most of the
smaller bosses as regards their dealings among
themselves, for, as one of thera once remarked to
me with enjgmatic truthfulness, " there are no
politics in politics " of the lower sort — which, being
interpreted, means that a professional politician is
much less apt to be swayed by the fact of a man's
being a Democrat or a Republican than he is by
his being a personal friend or foe. The liquor-
saloons thus become the social head-quarters of the
little knots or cliques of men who take most interest
in local political affairs ; and by an easy transition
they become the political head-quarters when the
tirae for preparing for the elections arrives ; and,
of course, the good-wiU of the owners of the places

.flfcacbtne politics tn flew fork Citfi 123

is thereby propitiated, — an important point with
men striving to control every vote possible.
The local political clubs also become to a certain
extent mutual benefit associations. The men in
them become pretty intimate with one another ;
and in the event of one becoming ill, or from any
other cause thrown out of employment, his fellow-
members will very often combine to assist him
through his troubles, and quite large sums are fre
quently raised for such a purpose. Of course,
this forms an additional bond among the members,
who becorae closely knit together by ties of com
panionship, self-interest, and rautual interdepend
ence. Very raany raembers of these associations
come into them without any thought of advancing
their own fortunes ; they work very hard for their
party, or rather for the local body bearing the
party name, but they do it quite disinterestedly,
and from a feeling akin to that which we often see
make other men devote their time and raoney to
advancing the interests of a yacht club or racing
stable, although no immediate benefit can result
therefrom to theraselves. One such man I now
call to mind who is by no means well off, and is
neither an office-seeker nor an office-holder, but
who regularly every year spends about fifty dollars
at election time for the success of the party, or
rather the wing of the party, to which he belongs.
He has a personal pride in seeing his pet candi
dates rolling up large raajorities. Men of this
stamp also naturally feel most enthusiasm for, or
animosity against, the minor candidates with whom

124 ^acbine politics in flew fori? Citg
they are themselves acquainted. The naraes at
the head of the ticket do not, to their minds, stand
out with much individuality ; and while such names
usually command the normal party support, yet
very often there is an infinitely keener rivalry
araong the smaller politicians over candidates for
local offices. I remember, in 1880, a very ardent
Democratic ward club, many of the members of
which in the heat of a contest for an assemblyman
cooly swapped off quite a number of votes for
President in consideration of votes given to their
candidate for the State Legislature ; and in 1885,
in my own district, a local Republican club that
had a member running for alderman, performed a
precisely sirailar feat in relation to their party's
candidate for governor. A Tammany State Sena
tor openly announced in a public speech that it
was of vastly more iraportance to Tammany to
have one of her own men Mayor of New York than
it was to have a Democratic President of the
United States. Very many of the leaders of the
rival organizations, who lack the boldness to make
such a frankly cynical avowal of what their party
feeling really amounts to, yet in practice, both as
regards raayor and as regards all other local offices
which are politically or pecuniarily of importance,
act exactly on the theory enunciated by the Tam
many statesraan ; and, as a consequence, in every
great election not only is it necessary to have the
mass of the voters waked up to the importance of
the principles that are at stake, but, unfortunately,
it is also necessary to see that the powerful local

iDbacbtne poltttcs fn flew f orft Citg 125
leaders are convinced that it will be to their own
interest to be faithful to the party ticket. Often
there will be intense rivalry between two associa
tions or two minor bosses ; and one may take up
and the other oppose the cause of a candidate with
an earnestness and hearty good-will arising by no
means from any feeling for the man himself, but
from the desire to score a triumph over the opposi
tion. It not unfrequently happens that a perfectly
good man, who would not knowingly suffer the
least impropriety in the conduct of his canvass, is
supported in some one district by a little knot of
politicians of shady character, who have nothing
in common with him at all, but who wish to beat a
rival body that is opposing him, and who do not
for a moment hesitate to use every device, from
bribery down, to accomplish their ends. A curious
incident of this sort came to my knowledge while
happening to inquire how a certain raan became a
Republican. It occurred a good many years ago,
and thanks to our election laws it could not now
be repeated in all its details ; but affairs sirailar in
kind occur at every election. I may preface it by
Stating that the raan referred to, whom we will
call X, ended by pushing himself up in the world,
thanks to his own industry and integrity, and is
now a well-to-do private citizen and as good a fel
low as anyone would wish to see. But at the
time spoken of he was a young laborer, of Irish
birth, working for his livelihood on the docks and
associating with his Irish and American feUows.
The district where he lived was overwhelmingly

126 /iftacbtne politics tn flew forft Citg

Democratic, and the contests were generally
merely factional. One small politician, a saloon
keeper named Larry, who had a great deal of in
fluence, used to enlist on election day, by pay and
other compensation, the services of the gang of
young fellows to which X belonged. On one oc
casion he failed to reward them for their work, and
in other ways treated them so shabbily as to make
them very angry, more especially X, who was their
leader. There was no way to pay Larry off until
the next election ; but they determined to break his
influence utterly then, and as the best method for
doing this they decided to " vote as far away from
him " as possible, or, in other words, to strain every
nerve to secure the election of all the candidates
raost opposed to those whom Larry favored. After
due consultation, it was thought that this could be
most surely done by supporting the Republican
ticket. Most of the other bodies of young labor
ers, or, indeed, of young roughs, made common
cause with X and his friends. Everything was
kept very quiet until election day, neither Larry
nor the few Republicans having an inkling of what
was going on. It was a rough district, and usually
the Republican booths were broken up and their
ballot-distributers driven off early in the day ; but
on this occasion, to the speechless astonishment of
everybody, things went just the other way. The
Republican ballots were distributed most actively,
the opposing workers were bribed, persuaded, or
frightened away, all means fair and foul were tried,
and finally there was alraost a riot, — the outcome

Machine politics tn flew forh Citg 127

being that the Republicans actually obtained a
majority in a district where they had never before
polled ten per cent, of the total vote. Such a
phenomenon attracted the attention of the big Re
publican leaders, who after some inquiry found it
was due to X. To show their gratitude and to
secure so useful an ally permanently (for this was
before the days of civil-service reform), they pro
cured him a lucrative place in the New York Post-
office ; and he, in turn, being a man of natural parts,
at once seized the opportunity, set to work to
correct the defects of his early education, and is
now what I have described him to be.
BOSS METHODS.
A POLITICIAN who becomes an influential local
leader or boss is, of course, always one with a genuine
talent for intrigue and organization. He owes much
of his power to the rewards he is able to dispense.
Not only does he procure for his supporters posi
tions in the service of the State or city, — as in the
custom-house, sheriff's office, etc., — but he is also
able to procure positions for many on horse rail
roads, the elevated roads, quarry works, etc.
Great corporations are peculiarly subject to the
attacks of demagogues, and they find it much to
their interest to be on good terms with the leader
in each district who controls the vote of the Assem
blyman and Alderman ; and therefore the former
is pretty sure that a letter of recoramendation from
him on behalf of any applicant for work will re
ceive most favorable consideration. The leader

128 ^acbine poltttcs tn mew forft Citg
is also continually helping his henchmen out of
difficulties, pecuniary and otherwise ; he lends
them a dollar or two now and then, helps out, when
possible, such of their kinsmen as get into the
clutches of the law, gets a hold over such of them
as have done wrong and are afraid of being ex
posed, and learns to mix judicious bullying with
the rendering of service.
But, in addition to all this, the boss owes very
rauch of his coraraanding influence to his social
relations with various bodies of his constituents ;
and it is his work as well as his pleasure to keep
up these relations. No debutante during her first
winter in society has a more exacting round of so
cial duties to perform than has a prominent ward
politician. In every ward there are numerous or
ganizations, primarily social in character, but capa
ble of being turned to good account politically.
The Amalgamated Hack-drivers' Union, the Hi
bernian Republican Club, the West Side Young
Democrats, the Jefferson C. Mullin Picnic Asso-
tion, — there are twenty such bodies as these in
every district, and with, at any rate, the master
spirits in each and all it is necessary for the boss to
keep on terms of intimate and, indeed, rather bois
terous friendship. When the Jefferson C. Mullin
society goes on a picnic, the average citizen scru
pulously avoids its neighborhood ; but the boss
goes, perhaps with his wife, and, moreover, enjoys
himself heartily, and is hail-fellow-well-met with
the rest of the picnickers, who, by the way, raay be
by no means bad fellows ; and when election day

^acblne politics tn flew f orft Citg 129

comes round, the latter, in return, no matter to
what party they may nominally belong, enthusias
tically support their friend and guest, on social, not
political, grounds. The boss knows every man in
his district who can control any number of votes :
an influential saloon-keeper, the owner of a large
livery stable, the leader among a set of horse-car
drivers, a foreman in a machine-shop who has a
taste for politics, — with all alike he keeps up con
stant and friendly relations. Of course this fact
does not of itself make the boss a bad man ; there
are several such I could point out who are ten
times over better fellows than are the mild-man
nered scholars of timorous virtue who criticise
them. But on the whole the qualities tending to
raake a man a successful local political leader under
our present conditions are not apt to be qualities
that make him serve the public honestly or disin
terestedly ; and in the lower wards, where there is
a large vicious population, the condition of politics
is often fairly appalling, and the boss of the domi
nant party is generally a man of grossly iraraoral
public and private character, as anyone can satisfy
himself by examining the testimony taken by the last
two or three legislative committees that have inves
tigated the affairs of New York city. In some of
these wards many of the social organizations with
which the leaders are obliged to keep on good
terms are composed of criminals, or of the relatives
and associates of criminals. The testimony raen
tioned above showed sorae strange things. I will
take at random a few instances that occur to me at
9

130 ^bacbine politics tn flew forft Citg

the raoment. There was one case of an assembly
man who served several terms in the Legislature,
while his private business was to carry on corrupt
negotiations between the Excise Commissioners
and owners of low haunts who wished licenses.
The president of a powerful semi-political associa
tion was by profession a burglar ; the man who
received the goods he stole was an alderman.
Another alderman was elected while his hair was
still short from a terra in State Prison. A school
trustee had been convicted of embezzlement, and
was the associate of criminals. A prominent offi
cial in the PoHce Departraent was interested in
disreputable houses and gambling saloons, and
was backed politically by their proprietors.
BEATING THE MACHINE.
In the better wards the difficulty comes in drill
ing a little sense and energy into decent people :
they either do not care to combine or else refuse to
learn how. In one district we did at one tirae and
for a considerable period get control of affairs and
elect a set of alraost ideal delegates and candidates
to the various nominating and legislative bodies,
and in the end took an absolutely comraanding al
though temporary position in State and even in na
tional politics.
This was done by the efforts of some twenty or
thirty young fellows who devoted a large part of
their tirae to thoroughly organizing and getting out
the respectable vote. The raoving spirits were all
active, energetic men, with comraon sense, whose

.flfcacbine poltttcs tn flew forh Citg 131

motives were perfectly disinterested. Some went
in from principle ; others, doubtless, from good-
fellowship or sheer love of the excitement always
attendant upon a political struggle. Our success
was due to our absolute freedom frora caste spirit.
Among our chief workers were a Columbia College
professor, a crack oarsman from the same institu
tion, an Irish quarryman, a master carpenter, a rich
young merchant, the owner of a small cigar store,
the editor of a little German newspaper, and a
couple of employees from the post-office and cus
tom-house, who worked directly against their own
seeming interests. One of our iraportant corarait
tees was composed of a prominent raeraber of a
Jewish synagogue, of the son of a noted Presby
terian clergyman, and of a young Catholic lawyer.
We won some quite remarkable triumphs, for the
first time in New York politics carrying primaries
against the machine, and as the result of our most
successful struggle completely revolutionizing the
State Convention held to send delegates to the Na
tional Republican Convention of 1884, and return
ing to that body, for the first and only time it was
ever done, a solid delegation of Independent Re
publicans. This was done, however, by sheer hard
work on the part of a score or so of men ; the mass
of our good citizens, even after the victories which
they had assisted in winning, understood nothing
about how they were won. Many of them actually
objected to organizing, apparently having a con
fused idea that we could always win by what one
of their number called a " spontaneous uprising,"

132 ^acbtne politics in flew fork Citg
to which a quiet young fellow in our camp grimly
responded that he had done a good deal of politi
cal work in his day, but that he never in his life
had worked so hard and so long as he did to get up
the " spontaneous " movement in which we were
then engaged. CONCLUSIONS.
In conclusion, it may be accepted as a fact, how
ever unpleasant, that if steady work and much at
tention to detail are required, ordinary citizens, to
whom participation in politics is raerely a disagree
able duty, will always be beaten by the organized
army of politicians to whom it is both duty, busi
ness, and pleasure, and who are knit together and
to outsiders by their social relations. On the other
hand, average citizens do take a spasmodic interest
in public affairs ; and we should therefore so shape
our governmental system that the action required
by the voters should be as simple and direct as
possible, and should not need to be taken any more
often than is necessary. Governmental power
should be concentrated in the hands of a very few
men, who would be so conspicuous that no citizen
could help knowing all about thera ; and the elec
tions should not come too frequently. Not one
decent voter in ten will take the trouble annually
to inform himself as to the character of the host of
petty candidates to be balloted for, but he will be
sure to know all about the mayor, comptroller, etc.
It is not to his credit that we can only rely, and
that without much certainty, upon his taking a

^acbtne politics in flew forh Citg 133

spasmodic interest in the government that affects
his own well-being ; but such is the case, and ac
cordingly we ought, as far as possible, to have a
system requiring on his part intermittent and not
sustained action.

VII
SIX YEARS OF CIVIL SERVICE
REFORM'
NO question of internal adrainistration is so ira
portant to the United States as the question
of Civil Service reform, because the spoils system,
which can only be supplanted through the agencies
which have found expression in the act creating
the Civil Service Commission, has been for seventy
years the most potent of all the forces tending to
bring about the degradation of our politics. No
republic can permanently endure when its politics
are corrupt and base ; and the spoils system,
the application in political life of the degrading
doctrine that to the victor belong the spoils, pro
duces corruption and degradation. The man who
is in politics for the offices might just as well be in
politics for the money he can get for his vote, so
far as the general good is concerned. When the
then Vice-President of the United States, Mr. Hen-
' Scribner's Magazine, August, 1895,
134

Civil Service IReform 135

dricks, said that he "wished to take the boys in
out of the cold to warm their toes," thereby raean
ing that he wished to distribute offices among the
raore active heelers, to the rapturous enthusiasm of
the latter, he uttered a sentiraent which was morally
on the same plane with a wish to give " the boys "
five dollars apiece all around for their votes, and
fifty dollars apiece when they showed themselves
sufficiently active in bullying, bribing, and cajoling
other voters. Such a sentiment should bar any
raan from public life, and will bar hira whenever
the people grow to realize that the worst enemies
of the Republic are the demagogue and the corrup-
tionist. The spoils-monger and spoils-seeker in
variably breed the bribe-taker and bribe-giver, the
embezzler of public funds and the corrupter of
voters. Civil Service reform is not merely a
movement to better the public service. It achieves
this end too ; but its main purpose is to raise the
tone of public life, and it is in this direction that
its effects have been of incalculable good to the
whole community.
For six years, from May, 1889, to May, 1895, I
was a member of the National Civil Service Com
mission, and it seems to me to be of interest to
show exactly what has been done to advance the
law and what to hinder its advancement during
these six years, and who have been the more prorai
nent among its friends and foes. I wish to tell
" the adventures of Philip on his way through the
world," and show who robbed him, who helped
him, and who passed him by. It would take too

136 Civil Service IReform

long to give the naraes of all our friends, and it is
not worth while to more than allude to raost of our
foes and to most of those who were indifferent to
us ; but a few of the names should be preserved
and some record made of the fights that have been
fought and won and of the way in which, by fits
and starts, and with more than one set-back, the
general advance has been made.
Of the Commission itself little need be said.
When I took office the only Commissioner was
Mr. Charles Lyman, of Connecticut, who resigned
when I did. Honorable Hugh S. Thompson, ex-
Governor of South Carolina, was made Commis
sioner at the sarae time that I was, and after serving
for three years resigned. He was succeeded by
Mr. George D. Johnston, of Louisiana, who was
removed by the President in November, 1893, be
ing replaced by Mr. John R. Procter, the former
State Geologist of Kentucky, who is still serving.
The Commission has never varied a hand's-breadth
from its course throughout this time ; and Messrs.
Thorapson, Procter, Lyman, and rayself were al
ways a unit in all important questions of policy
and principle. Our aira was always to procure the
extension of the classified service as rapidly as
possible, and to see that the law was administered
thoroughly and fairly. The Commission does not
have the power that it should, and in many in
stances there have been violations or evasions of
the law in particular bureaus or departments which
the Commission was not able to prevent. In every
case, however, we made a resolute fight, and gave

Civil Service IReform 137

the widest publicity to the wrong-doing. Often,
even where we have been unable to win the actual
fight in which we were engaged, the fact of our
having made it, and the further fact that we were
ready to repeat it on provocation, has put a com
plete stop to the repetition of the offence. As a
consequence, while there have been plenty of vio
lations and evasions of the law, yet their propor
tion was really very small, taking into account the
extent of the service. In the aggregate it is doubt
ful if one per cent, of all the employees have been
dismissed for political reasons. In other words,
where under the spoils systera a hundred men
would have been turned out, under the Civil Ser
vice Law, as administered under our supervision,
ninety-nine men were kept in.
In the administration of the law very much de
pends upon the Commission. Good heads of de
partments and bureaus will administer it well
anyhow ; but not only the bad men, but also the
large class of men who are weak rather than bad,
are sure to administer the law poorly unless kept
well up to the mark. The public should exercise
a most careful scrutiny over the appointment and
over the acts of Civil Service Coramissioners, for
there is no office the effectiveness of which depends
so much upon the way in which the man himself
chooses to construe his duties. A Commissioner
can keep within the letter of the law and do his
routine work and yet accomplish absolutely noth
ing in the way of securing the observance of the
law. The Commission, to do useful work, must be

138 Civil Service IReform

fearless and vigilant. It must actively interfere
whenever wrong is done, and must take all the
steps that can be taken to secure the punishment
of the wrong-doer and to protect the employee
threatened with molestation.
This course was consistently followed by the
Commission throughout my connection with it. I
was myself a Republican from the North. Messrs.
Thompson and Procter were from the South, and
were both Democrats who had served in the Con
federate armies ; and it would be impossible for
anyone to desire as associates two public men with
higher ideals of duty, or more resolute in their ad
herence to those ideals. It is unnecessary to say
that in all our dealings there was no single instance
wherein the politics of any person or the political
significance of any action was so much as taken into
account in any case that arose. The force of the
Coraraission itself was all chosen through the com
petitive examinations, and included men of every
party and from every section of the country ; and I
do not believe that in any public or private office
of the size it would be possible to find a more
honest, efficient, and coherent body of workers.
Frora the beginning of the present system each
President of the United States has been its friend,
but no President has been a radical Civil Service
reformer. Presidents Arthur, Harrison, and Cleve
land have all desired to see the service extended,
and to see the law well administered. No one
of them has felt willing or able to do all that
the reformers asked, or to pay much heed to

Civil Service IReform 139

their wishes save as regards that portion of the
service to which the law actually applied. Each
has been a sincere party man, who has felt strongly
on such questions as those of the tariff, of
finance, and of our foreign policy, and each has
been obliged to conform more or less closely to
the wishes of his party associates and fellow party
leaders ; and, of course, these party leaders, and
the party politicians generally, wished the offices
to be distributed as they had been ever since Andrew
Jackson became President. In consequence the
offices outside the protection of the law have still
been treated, under every administration, as patron
age, to be disposed of in the interest of the domi
nant party. An occasional exception was made
here and there. The postmaster at New York, a
Republican, was retained by President Cleveland
in his first administration, and the postmaster of
Charleston, a Democrat, was retained by President
Harrison ; but, with altogether insignificant ex
ceptions, the great bulk of the non-classified places
have been changed for political reasons by each
administration, the office-holders politically op
posed to the adrainistration being supplanted or
succeeded by political adherents of the adminis
tration. Where the change has been complete it does not
matter rauch whether it was made rapidly or slowly.
Thus, the fourth-class postmasterships were looted
more rapidly under the administration of Presi
dent Harrison than under that of President Cleve
land, and the consular service more rapidly under

140 Civil Service IReform

President Cleveland than under President Harri
son ; but the final result was the same in both
cases. Indeed, I think that the brutality which
accompanied the greater speed was in some ways
of service to the country, for it directed attention
to the iniquity and folly of the system, and empha
sized, in the minds of decent citizens, the fact that
appointments and removals for political reasons in
places where the duties are wholly non-political
cannot be defended by any man who looks at pub
lic affairs from the proper standpoint.
The advance has been made purely on two lines,
that is, by better enforceraent of the law, and by
inclusion under the law, or under some system
similar in its operations, of a portion of the service
previously administered in accordance with the
spoUs theory. Under President Arthur the first
classification was made, which included 14,000
places. Under President Cleveland, during his
first term, the limits of the classified service were
extended by the inclusion of 7000 additional
places. During President Harrison's term the
limit was extended by the inclusion of about eight
thousand places ; and hitherto during President
Cleveland's second term, by the inclusion of some
six thousand places ; in addition to which the
natural growth of the service has been such that
the total number of offices now classified is over
forty thousand. Moreover, the Secretary of the
Navy under President Harrison, introduced into
the navy yards a system of registration of laborers,
which secures the end desired by the Commission ;

Civil Service IReform 141

and Secretary Herbert has continued this system.
It only rests, however, upon the will of the Secre
tary of the Navy ; and as we cannot expect always
to have secretaries as clear-sighted as Messrs.
Tracy and Herbert, it is most desirable that this
branch of the service should be put directly under
the control of the Commission.
The Cabinet officers, though often not Civil Ser
vice reformers to start with, usually become such
before their terms of office expire. This was true,
without exception, of all the Cabinet officers with
whom I was personally brought into contact while
on the Commission. Moreover, frora their posi
tion and their sense of responsibility they are cer
tain to refrain frora violating the law theraselves
and to try to secure at least a forraal compliance
with its demands on the part of their subordinates.
In most cases it is necessary, however, to goad
them continually to see that they do not allow their
subordinates to evade the law ; and it is very diffi
cult to get either the President or the head of a
department to punish these subordinates when they
have evaded it. There is not much open violation
of the law, because such violation can be reached
through the courts ; but in the small offices and
small bureaus there is often a chance for an un
scrupulous head of the office or bureau to perse
cute his subordinates who are politically opposed
to him into resigning, or to trump up charges against
them on which they can be dismissed. If this is
done in a sufficient number of cases, men of the
opposite political party think that it is useless to

142 Civil Service IReform

enter the exarainations ; and by staying out they
leave the way clear for the offender to get precisely
the raen he wishes for the eligible registers. Cases
like this continually occur, and the Commission has
to be vigilant in detecting and exposing them, and
in demanding their punishment by the head of the
office. The offender always, of course, insists that
he has been misunderstood, and in most cases he
can prepare quite a specious defence. As he is of
the same political faith as the head of the depart
ment, and as he is certain to be backed by influ
ential poHticians, the head of the department is
usually loath to act against him, and, if possible,
will let him off with, at most, a warning not to re
peat the offence. In some departments this kind
of evasion has never been tolerated ; and where
the Commission has the force under its eye, as in
the departments at Washington, the chance of in
justice is minimized. Nevertheless, there have
been considerable abuses of this kind, notably in
the custom-houses and post-offices, throughout the
tirae I have been at Washington. So far as the
Post-Office Department was concerned the abuses
were more flagrant under President Harrison's
Postmaster-General, Mr. Wanamaker ; but in the
Treasury Department they were more flagrant un
der President Cleveland's Secretary of the Treasury,
Mr. Carlisle.
Congress has control of the appropriations for
the Commission, and as it cannot do its work with
out an ample appropriation the action of Congress
is vital to its welfare. Many, even of the friends

Civil Service IReform 143

of the system in the country at large, are astonish
ingly ignorant of who the men are who have battled
most effectively for the law and for good govern
ment in either the Senate or the Lower House. It
is not only necessary that a man shall be good and
possess the desire to do decent things, but it is also
necessary that he shall be courageous, practical,
and efficient, if his work is to araount to anything.
There is a good deal of rough-and-turable fighting
in Congress, as there is in all our political life, and
a man is entirely out of place in it if he does not
possess the virile qualities, and if he fails to show
himself ready and able to hit back when assailed.
Moreover, he must be alert, vigorous, and intelli
gent if he is going to raake his work count. The
friends of the Civil Service Law, like the friends of
all other laws, would be in a bad way if they had
to rely solely upon the backing of the timid good.
During the last six years there have been, as there
always are, a number of men in the House who
believe in the Civil Service Law, and who vote for
it if they understand the question and are present
when it comes up, but who practically count for
very little one way or the other, because they are
timid or flighty, or are lacking in capacity for lead
ership or ability to see a point and to put it strongly
before their associates.
There is need of further legislation to perfect
and extend the law and the system ; but Congress
has never been willing seriously to consider a
proposition looking to this extension. Bills to pro
vide for the appointment of fourth-class postmas-

144 Ctvtl Service IReform

ters have been introduced by Senator Lodge and
others, but have never come to anything. Indeed,
but once has a raeasure of this kind been reported
from committee and fought for in either House.
This was in the last session of the 53d Congress,
when Senators Morgan and Lodge introduced bills
to reform the consular service. They were referred
to Senator Morgan's Committee on Foreign Affairs,
and were favorably reported. Senator Lodge made
a vigorous fight for them in the Senate, but he re
ceived little support, and was defeated, Senator
Gorman leading the opposition.
On the other hand, efforts to repeal the law, or
to destroy it by new legislation, have uniformly been
failures, and have rarely gone beyond committee.
Occasionally, in an appropriation bill or some other
measure, an amendment will be slipped through,
adding forty or fifty employees to the classified
service, or providing that the law shall not apply
to them ; but nothing important has ever been
done in this way. But once has there been a reso
lute attack made on the law by legislation. This
was in the 53d Congress, when Mr. Bynum, of In
diana, introduced in the House, and Mr. Vilas, of
Wisconsin, pushed in the Senate, a bill to reinstate
the Democratic railway mail clerks, turned out be
fore the classification of the railway mail service in
the early days of Mr. Harrison's administration.
The classification of the railway mail service
was ordered by President Cleveland less than two
months before the expiration of his first term of
office as President. It was impossible for the Com-

Civil Service IReform 145

mission to prepare and hold the necessary examina
tions and establish eligible registers prior to May i,
1889. President Harrison had been inaugurated
on March 4th, and Postmaster-General Wanamaker
permitted the spoilsmen to take advantage of the
necessary delay and turn out half of the employees
who were Democrats, and replace them by Republi
cans. This was an outrageous act, deserving the se
vere condemnation it received ; but it was perfectly
legaL During the four years of Mr. Cleveland's first
terra a clean sweep was made of the railway mail ser
vice ; the employees who were almost all Republi
cans, were turned out, and Democrats were put in
their places. The result was utterly to demoralize
the efficiency of the service. It had begun to recover
from this when the change of administration took
place in 1889. The time was too short to allow of a
clean sweep, but the Republicans did all they could
in two months, and turned out half of the Demo
crats. The law then went into effect, and since that
time there have been no more removals for partisan
purposes in that service. It has now recovered from
the demoralization into which it was thrown by the
two political revolutions, and has reached a higher
standard of efficiency than ever before. What was
done by the Republicans in this service was re
peated, on a less scale, by the Democrats four years
later in reference to the classification of the sraall
free-delivery post-offices. This classification was
ordered by President Harrison two months before
his term of office expired ; but in many of the
offices it was impossible to hold examinations and

146 Ctvtl Service IReform

prepare eligible registers until after the inaugura
tion of President Cleveland, and in a number of
cases the incoming postmasters, who were appointed
prior to the time when the law went into effect,
took advantage of the delay to make clean sweeps
of their offices. In one of these offices, where the
men were changed in a body, the new appointees
hired the raen whora they replaced, at $35 a month
apiece, to teach them their duties ; in itself a suffi
cient comment on the folly of the spoils system.
Mr. Bynum's bill provided for the reinstatement
of the Democrats who were turned out by the
Republicans just before the classification of the
railway mail service. Of course such a bill was a
mere partisan measure. There was no more rea
son for reinstating the Democrats thus turned out
than for reinstating the Republicans who had been
previously turned out that these same Democrats
might get in, or for reinstating the Republicans in
the free-delivery offices who had been turned out
just before these offices were classified. If the
bill had been enacted into law it would have been
a most serious blow to the whole system, for it
would have put a preraium upon legislation of the
kind ; and after every change of parties we should
have seen the passing of laws to reinstate masses
of Republicans or Democrats, as the case might
be. This would have meant a return to the old
system under a new form of procedure. Never
theless, Mr. Bynum's bill received the solid support
of his party. Not a Democratic vote was cast
against it in the House, none even of the Massa-

ctvtl Service IReform 147

chusetts Democrats being recorded against it. In
the Senate it was pushed by Mr. Vilas. By a
piece of rather sharp parliamentary procedure he
nearly got it through by unanimous consent. That
it failed was owing entirely to the vigilance of Sen
ator Lodge. Senator Vilas asked for the passage
of the bill, on the ground that it was one of small
importance, upon which his committee were agreed.
When it was read the words " classified civil ser
vice " caught Senator Lodge's ear, and he insisted
upon an explanation. On finding out what the bill
was he at once objected to its consideration.
Under this objection it could not then be con
sidered. If it could have been brought to a vote
it would undoubtedly have passed ; but it was late
in the session, the calendars, were crowded with
bills, and it was impossible to get it up in its regu
lar order. Another effort was raade, and was again
frustrated by Senator Lodge, and the bill then died
a natural death.
In the final session of the 53d Congress a little
incident occurred which deserves to be related in
full, not for its own importance, but because it
affords an excellent example of the numerous cases
which test the real efficiency of the friends of the
reform in Congress. It emphasizes the need of
having, to watch over the interests of the law, a
man who is willing to fight, who knows the time to
fight, and who knows how to fight. The secretary
of the Commission was, in the original law of 1883,
allowed a salary of f 1600 a year. As the Cora-
mission's force and work have grown, the salary in

148 Civil Service IReform

successive appropriation bUls for the last ten years
has been provided for at the rate of $2000 a year.
Many of the clerks under the secretary now receive
$1800, so that it would be of course an absurdity to
reduce hira in salary below his subordinates. Scores
of other officials of the Governraent, including,
for instance, the President's private secretary,
the First Assistant Postmaster-General, the First
Assistant Secretary of State, etc., have had their
salaries increased in successive appropriation bills
over the sum originally provided, in precisely the
same way that the salary of the secretary of the
Commission was increased. The 53d Congress
was Democratic, as was the President, Mr. Cleve
land, and the secretary of the Commission was
himself a Democrat, who had been appointed to
the position by Mr. Cleveland during his first term
as President. The rules of the House provide
that there shall be no increase of salary beyond
that provided in existing law in any appropriation
bill. When the appropriation for the Civil Service
Coraraission carae up in the House, Mr. Breckin
ridge, of Kentucky, made the point of order that
to give $2000 to the secretary of the Commission
was to increase his salary by $400 over that pro
vided in the original law of 1883, and was there
fore out of order. He also produced a list of
twenty or thirty other officers, including the Presi
dent's private secretary, the Frst Assistant Post
master-General, etc., whose salaries were similarly
increased. He withdrew his point of order as re
gards these persons, but adhered to it as regards

Civil Service IReform 149

the secretary of the Commission. The chairman
of the Comraittee of the Whole, Mr. O'Neill, of
Massachusetts, sustained the point of order ; and
not one person raade any objection or made any
fight, and the bill was put through the House with
the secretary's salary reduced.
Now, the point of order was probably ill taken
anyhow. The existing law was and had been for
ten years that the salary was $2000. But, in any
event, had there been a single Congressman alert
to the situation and willing to make a fight he
could have stopped the whole movement by at
once raaking a similar point of order against the
President's private secretary, against the First As
sistant Postmaster-General, the Assistant Secre
tary of State, and all the others involved. The
House would of course have refused to cut down
the salaries of all of these officials, and a resolute
man, willing to insist that they should all go or
none, could have saved the salary of the secretary
of the Civil Service Commission. There were
plenty of men who would have done this if it had
been pointed out to them ; but no one did so, and
Mr. Breckinridge's point of order was sustained,
and the salary of the secretary reduced by $400.
When it got over to the Senate, however, the Civil
Service reformers had allies who needed but little
coaching. In the first place, the sub-committee of
the Committee on Appropriations, composed of
Messrs. Teller, Cockrell, and Allison, to which the
Civil Service Commission section of the Appro
priation bill was referred, restored the salary to

ISO Civil Service IReform

$2000 ; but Senator Gorman succeeded in carrying,
by a bare majority, the Appropriations Committee
against it, and it was reported to the full Senate
still at f 1600. The minute it got into the full Sen
ate, however. Senator Lodge had a fair chance at
it, and it was known that he would receive ample
support. AU that he had to do was to show clearly
the absolute folly of the provision thus put in by
Mr. Breckinridge, and kept in by Mr. Gorman,
and to make it evident that he intended to fight it
resolutely. The opposition collapsed at once ; the
salary was put back at $2000, and the bill became
a law in that form.
Whether bad legislation shall be choked and
good legislation forwarded depends largely upon
the composition of the committees on Civil Service
reform of the Senate and the Lower House. The
make-up of these committees is consequently of
great importance. They are charged with the
duty of investigating complaints against the Com
mission, and it is of course very important that if
ever the Coraraission becoraes corrupt or inefficient
its shortcomings should be unsparingly exposed in
Congress. On the other hand, it is equally import
ant that the falsity of untruthful charges advanced
against it should be made public. In the sist,
52d, and 53d Congresses a good deal of work was
done by the Civil Service Committee of the House,
and none at all by the corresponding committee of
the Senate. The three chairmen of the House
committee were Mr. Lehlbach, Mr. Andrew, and
Mr. De Forest. All three were able and consci-

ctvtl Service IReform 151

entious men and stanch supporters of the law.
The chairman in the 5 2d Congress, Mr. John F.
Andrew, was throughout his whole term of service
one of the ablest, most fearless, and most effective
champions of the cause of the reform in the House.
Among the other members of the committee, in
different Congresses, who stood up valiantly for
the reform, were Mr. Hopkins, of Illinois, Mr.
Butterworth, of Ohio, Mr. Boatner, of Louisiana,
and Mr. Dargan and Mr. Brawley, of South Caro
lina. Occasionally there have been on the com
mittee members who were hostile to the reform,
such as Mr. Alderson, of West Virginia ; but these
have not been men carrying weight in the House.
The men of intelligence and ability who once
familiarize themselves with the workings of the
systera, as they are bound to do if they are on the
committee, are sure to become its supporters. In
both the 51st and the 52d Congresses charges were
made against the Commission, and investigations
were held into its actions and into the workings
of the law by the House committee. In each
case, in its report the committee not only heartily
applauded the conduct of the Coraraission, but no
less heartily approved the workings of the law, and
submitted bills to increase the power of the Com
mission and to render the law still more wide-
reaching and drastic. These bills, unfortunately,
were never acted on in the House.
The main fight in each session comes on the Ap
propriation bill. There is not the slightest danger
that the law will be repealed, and there is not much

152 ctvtl Service IReform

danger that any President will suffer it to be so
laxly administered as to deprive it of all value ;
though there is always need to keep a vigilant look
out for fear of such lax administration. The dan
ger-point is in the appropriations. The first Civil
Service Coraraission, established in the days of
President Grant, was starved out by Congress re
fusing to appropriate for it. A hostile Congress
could repeat the same course now ; and, as a mat
ter of fact, in every Congress resolute efforts are
made by the charapions of foul government and
dishonest politics to cut off the Commission's sup
plies. The bolder men, who come from districts
where little is known of the law, and where there
is no adequate expression of intelligent and honest
opinion on the subject, attack it openly. They are
always joined by a number who make the attack
covertly under some point of order, or because of
a nominal desire for economy. These are quite as
dangerous as the others, and deserve exposure.
Every man interested in decent government should
keep an eye on his Congressraan and see how he
votes on the question of appropriations for the
Commission. The opposition to the reform is generally well
led by skilled parliamentarians, and they fight with
the vindictiveness natural to raen who see a chance
of striking at the institution which has baffled their
ferocious greed. As a rule, the rank and file are
composed of politicians who could not rise in pub
lic life because of their attitude on any public
question, and who derive most of their power from

Civil Service IReform 153

the skill with which they manipulate the patronage
of their districts. These men have a gift at office-
mongering, just as other men have a peculiar knack
in picking pockets ; and they are joined by all the
honest dull men, who vote wrong out of pure igno
rance, and by a very few sincere and intelligent,
but wholly misguided people. Many of the spoils
leaders are both efficient and fearless, and able to
strike hard blows. In consequence, the leaders on
the side of decency must themselves be men of
ability and force, or the cause will suffer. For our
good fortune, we have never yet lacked such leaders.
The Appropriation committees, both in the
House and Senate, almost invariably show a
friendly disposition toward the law. They are
composed of men of prorainence, who have a sense
of the responsibilities of their positions and an
earnest desire to do well for the country and to
raake an honorable record for their party in raat
ters of legislation. They are usually above resort
ing to the arts of low cunning or of sheer demagogy
to which the foes of the reform system are inevita
bly driven, and in consequence they can be relied
upon to give, if not what is needed, at least enough
to prevent any retrogression. It is in the open
House and in Committee of the Whole that the
fight is waged. The most dangerous fight occurs
in Committee of the Whole, for there the members
do not vote by aye and no, and in consequence a
mean politician who wishes ill to the law, but is
afraid of his constituents, votes against it in com
mittee, but does not dare to do so when the ayes

154 Civil Service IReform

and noes are called in the House. One result of
this has been that more than once the whole appro
priation has been stricken out in Comraittee of the
Whole, and then voted back again by substantial
majorities by the same men sitting in open House.
In the debate on the appropriation the whole
question of the workings of the law is usually dis
cussed, and those members who are opposed to it
attack not only the law itself, but the Commission
which administers it. The occasion is, therefore,
invariably seized as an opportunity for a pitched
battle between the friends and foes of the system,
the former trying to secure such an increase of ap
propriation as will perrait the Coraraission to ex
tend its work, and the latter striving to abolish the
law outright by refusing all appropriations. In the
51st and 52d Congresses, Mr. Lodge, of Massachu
setts, led the fight for the reforra in the Lower
House. He was supported by such party leaders
as Messrs. Reed, of Maine, and McKinley, of
Ohio, araong the Republicans, and Messrs. Wilson,
of West Virginia, and Sayers, of Texas, among the
Democrats. Among the other champions of the
law on the floor of the House were Messrs. Hop
kins and Butterworth, Mr. Greenhalge, of Massa
chusetts, Mr. Henderson, of Iowa, Messrs. Payne,
Tracey, and Coombs, of New York. I wish I had
the space to chronicle the names of all, and to
give a coraplete list of those who voted for the law.
Among the chief opponents of it were Messrs.
Spinola, of New York, Enloe, of Tennessee, Stock-
dale, of Mississippi, Grosvenor, of Ohio, and

ctvtl Service IReform 155

Bowers, of California. The task of the defenders
of the law was, in one way easy, for they had no
arguments to meet, the speeches of their adversaries
being invariably divisible into raere declamation
and direct misstatement of facts. In the Senate,
Senators Hoar, of Massachusetts, Allison, of Iowa,
Hawley, of Connecticut, Wolcott, of Colorado,
Perkins, of California, Cockrell, of Missouri, and
Butler, of South Carolina, always supported the
Commission against unjust attack. Senator Gor
man was naturally the chief leader of the assaults
upon the Commission. Senators Harris, Plumb,
Stewart, and Ingalls were among his allies.
In each session the net result of the fight was an
increase in the appropriation for the Commission.
The most important increase was that obtained in
the first session of the 53d Congress. On this oc
casion Mr. Lodge was no longer in the House,
having been elected to the Senate. The work of
the Commission had grown so that it was irapossi
ble to perform it without a great increase of force ;
and it would have been impossible to have put into
effect the extensions of the classified service had
this increase not been allowed. In the House the
Committee on Appropriations, of which Mr. Sayers
was chairman, allowed the increase, but it was
stricken out in the House itself after an acriraoni-
ous debate, in which the cause of the law was sus
tained by Messrs. Henderson and Hopkins, Mr.
McCall, of Massachusetts, Mr. Coombs, Mr. Crain,
of Texas, Mr. Storer, of Ohio, and many others,
while the spoils-mongers were led by Messrs. Stock-

156 Civil Service IReform

dale and WiUiams, of Mississippi, Pendelton, of
West Virginia, Fithian, of Illinois, and others less
important. When the bill went over to the Senate, however,
Mr. Lodge, well supported by Messrs. Allison,
Cockrell, Wolcott, and Teller, had the provision
for the increase of appropriation for the Commis
sion restored and increased, thereby adding by one
half to the efficiency of the Commission's work.
Had it not been for this the Commission would
have been quite unable to have undertaken the ex
tensions recently ordered by President Cleveland.
It is noteworthy that the men who have done
most effective work for the law in Washington
in the departments, and more especially in the
House and Senate, are men of spotless character,
who show by their whole course in public life that
they are not only able and resolute, but also de
voted to a high ideal. Much of what they have
done has received little comraent in public, because
much of the work in committee, and some of the
work in the House, such as making or combating
points of order, and pointing out the danger or
merit of certain bills, is not of a kind readily un
derstood or appreciated by an outsider ; yet no
raen have deserved better of the country, for there
is in American public life no one other cause so
fruitful of harm to the body-politic as the spoils
systera, and the legislators and administrative offi
cers who have done the best work toward its de
struction merit a peculiar meed of praise from all
well-wishers of the Republic.

Civil Service IReform 157

I have spoken above of the good that would
corae from a thorough and intelligent knowledge
as to who were the friends and who were the foes
of the law in Washington. Departmental officers,
the heads of bureaus, and, above all, the Comrais
sioners themselves, should be carefully watched by
all friends of the reform. They should be sup
ported when they do well, and conderaned when
they do ill ; and attention should be called not only
to what they do, but to what they fail to do. To
an even greater extent, of course, this applies to
the President. As regards the Senators and Con
gressmen also there is urgent need of careful super
vision by the friends of the law. We need criticism
by those who are unable to do their part in action ;
but the criticism, to be useful, must be both honest
and intelligent, and the critics must remember that
the systera has its stanch friends and bitter foes
among both party men and raen of no party —
among Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.
Each Congressman should be made to feel that it
is his duty to support the law, and that he will be
held to account if he fails to support it. Espe
cially is it necessary to concentrate effort in work
ing for each step of reforra. In legislative raatters,
for instance, there is need of increase of appropria
tions for the Commission, and there is a chance of
putting through the bill to reform the Consular ser
vice. This has received substantial backing in the
Senate, and has the support of the majority of the
Foreign Affairs Committee. Instead of wasting
efforts by a diffuse support of eight or ten bills, it

158 Civil Service IReform

would be well to bend every energy to securing the
passage of the Consular bill ; and to do this it is
necessary to arouse not only the Civil Service Re
form Associations, but the Boards of Trade through
out the country, and to make the Congressmen and
Senators feel individually the pressure from those
of their constituents who are resolved no longer to
tolerate the peculiarly gross manifestation of the
spoils system which now obtains in the consular
service, with its attendant discredit to the national
honor abroad.
People sometimes grow a little down-hearted
about the reform. When they feel in this mood
it would be well for them to reflect on what has
actuaUy been gained in the past six years. By the
inclusion of the railway raail service, the sraaller
free-delivery offices, the Indian School service, the
Internal Revenue service, and other less iraportant
branches, the extent of the public service which is
under the protection of the law has been more than
doubled, and there are now nearly fifty thousand
employees of the Federal Government who have
been withdrawn from the degrading influences
that rule under the spoils system. This of itself
is a great success and a great advance, though, of
course, it ought only to spur us on to renewed
effort. In the fall of 1894 the people of the State
of New York, by a popular vote, put into their
constitution a provision providing for a merit
system in the affairs of the State and its munici
palities ; and the following spring the great city
of Chicago voted, by an overwhelming majority.

Civil Service IReform 159

in favor of applying in its municipal affairs the
advanced and radical Civil Service Reform Law,
which had already passed the Illinois Legislature.
Undoubtedly, after every success there comes a
moment of reaction. The friends of the reform
grow temporarily lukewarm, or, because it fails to
secure everything they hoped, they neglect to lay
proper stress upon all that it does secure. Yet,
in spite of all rebuffs, in spite of all disappoint
raents and opposition, the growth of the principle
of Civil Service reforra has been continually more
rapid, and every year has taken us measurably
nearer that ideal of pure and decent government
which is dear to the heart of every honest Ameri
can citizen.

VIII
ADMINISTERING THE NEV^ YORK
POLICE FORCE'

IN New York, in the fall of 1894, Tamraany Hall
was overthrown by a coalition composed partly
of the regular republicans, partly of anti-Tammany
democrats, and partly of independents. Under
the latter head must be included a great many
men who in national politics habitually act with
one or the other of the two great parties, but who
feel that in municipal politics good citizens should
act independently. The tidal wave, which was
running high against the democratic party, was
undoubtedly very influential in bringing about the
anti-Tammany victory ; but the chief factor in
producing the result was the wide-spread anger and
disgust felt by decent citizens at the corruption
which, under the sway of Tammany, had honey
combed every department of the city government,
but especially the police force. A few well-mean-
' Atlantic Monthly, September, 1897.
160

Zbe flew fork police i6r

ing people have at times tried to show that this
corruption was not really so very great. In reality
it would be difficult to overestimate the utter rotten
ness of inany branches of the city administration.
There were a few honorable and high-minded
Tammany officials, and there were a few bureaus
which were administered with more or less effi
ciency, although dishonestly. But the corruption
had become so wide-spread as seriously to irapair
the work of administration, and to bring us back
within raeasurable distance of the days of Tweed.
The chief centre of corruption was the Police
Department. No man not intimately acquainted
with both the lower and humbler sides of New
York life — for there is a wide distinction between
the two — can realize how far this corruption ex
tended. Except in rare instances, where prorai
nent politicians made demands which could not be
refused, both promotions and appointraents towards
the close of Tammany rule were made almost solely
for money, and the prices were discussed with
cynical frankness. There was a well-recognized
tariff of charges, ranging from two or three hundred
dollars for appointment as a patrolman, to twelve
or fifteen thousand dollars for promotion to the po--
sition of captain. The money was reimbursed to
those who paid it by an elaborate system of black
mail. This was chiefly carried on at the expense
of gamblers, liquor sellers, and keepers of disor
derly houses ; but every form of vice and crime
contributed raore or less, and a great many respect
able people who were ignorant or timid were black-

x62 ttbe flew forh police

mailed under pretence of forbidding or allowing
thera to violate obscure ordinances and the like.
From top to bottom the New York police force
was utterly demoralized by the gangrene of such a
system, where venality and blackmail went hand in
hand with the basest forms of low ward politics,
and where the policeman, the ward politician, the
liquor seller, and the criminal alternately preyed
on one another and helped one another to prey on
the general public.
In May, 1895, I was raade president of the newly
appointed police board, whose duty it was to cut
out the chief source of civic corruption in New
York by cleansing the police department. The
police board consisted of four members. All four
of the new men were appointed by Mayor Strong,
the reform Mayor, who had taken office in January.
With me, was associated, as treasurer of the
Board, Mr. Avery D. Andrews. He was a demo
crat and I a republican, and there were questions
of national politics on which we disagreed widely ;
but such questions could not enter into the admin
istration of the New York police, if that adminis
tration was to be both honest and efficient ; and as
a matter of fact, during my two years' service, Mr.
Andrews and I worked in absolute harraony on
every iraportant question of policy which arose.
The prevention of blackmail and corruption, the
repression of crime and violence, safeguarding of
life and property, securing honest elections, and
rewarding efficient and punishing inefficient police
service, are not, and cannot properly be made,

XLbe flew forh police 163

questions of party difference. In other words, such
a body as the police force of New York can be
wisely and properly administered only upon a non
partisan basis, and both Mr. Andrews and myself
were quite incapable of managing it on any other.
There were many men who helped us in our work ;
and among them all, the man who helped us most,
by advice and counsel, by stalwart, loyal friend
ship, and by ardent championship of all that was
good against all that was evil, was Jacob A. Riis,
the author of How the Other Half Lives.
Certain of the difficulties we had to face were
merely those which confronted the entire reform
administration in its management of the munici
pality. Many worthy people expected that this
reform administration would work an absolute revo
lution, not merely in the government, but in the
minds of the citizens as a whole ; and felt vaguely
that they had been cheated because there was not
an immediate cleansing of every bad influence in
civic or social life. Moreover, the different bodies
forming the victorious coalition felt the pressure of
conflicting interests and hopes. The mass of ef
fective strength was given by the republican organi
zation, and not only all the enrolled party workers,
but a great number of well-meaning republicans
who had no personal interest at stake, expected the
administration to be used to further the fortunes of
their own party. Another great body of the ad
ministration's supporters took a diametrically oppo
site view, and believed that the administration
should be administered without the least reference

i64 Zbe flew forh police

whatever to party. In theory they were quite right,
and I cordially sympathized with them ; but as a
matter of fact the victory could not have been won
by the votes of this class of people alone, and it
was out of the question to put these theories into
complete effect. Like all other men who actually
try to do things instead of confining themselves to
saying how they should be done, the members of
the new city government were obliged to face the
facts and to do the best they could in the effort to
get sorae kind of good result out of the conflicting
forces. They had to disregard party so far as was
possible ; and yet they could not afford to disre
gard all party connections so utterly as to bring the
whole administration to grief.
In addition to these two large groups of sup
porters of the administration, there were other
groups, also possessing influence who expected to
receive recognition distinctly as democrats, but as
anti-Tammany democrats ; and such members of
any victorious coalition are always sure to overes
timate their own services, and to feel ill-treated.
It is of course an easy thing to show on paper
that the municipal administration should have
been administered without the slightest reference
to national party lines, and if the bulk of the
people saw things with entire clearness the truth
would seem so obvious as to need no demonstra
tion. But as a matter of fact the bulk of the peo
ple who voted the new adrainistration into power
neither saw this nor realized it, and in politics, as
in life generally, conditions must be faced as they

Zbe flew forh police 165

are, and not as they ought to be. The regular de
raocratic organization, not only in the city but in
the State, was completely under the dominion of
Tammany Hall and its allies, and they fought us at
every step with wholly unscrupulous hatred. In the
State and the city alike the democratic carapaign was
waged against the reform administration in New
York. The Tamraany officials who were still left in
power in the city, headed by the comptroller, Mr.
Fitch, did everything in their power to prevent the
efficient administration of the governraent. The
democratic members of the Legislature acted as
their faithful allies in all such efforts. Whatever
was accomplished by the reform adrainistration —
and a very great deal was accomplished — was due
to the action of the republican majority in the con
stitutional convention, and especially to the repub
lican Governor, Mr. Morton, and the republican
raajority in the Legislature, who enacted laws giving
to the newly chosen Mayor, Mr. Strong, the great
powers necessary for properly adrainistering his
office. Without these laws the Mayor would have
been very nearly powerless. He certainly could
not have done a tenth part of what actually was
done. Now, of course, the republican politicians who
gave Mayor Strong all these powers, in the teeth of
violent democratic opposition to every law for the
betterment of civic conditions in New York, ought
not, under ideal conditions, to have expected the
slightest reward. They should have been con
tented with showing the public that their only

i66 ttbe flew forh police

purpose was to serve the public, and that the repub
lican party wished no better reward than the con
sciousness of having done its duty by the State and
the city. But as a whole they had not reached such
a standard. There were sorae who had reached it ;
there were others who, though perfectly honest, and
wishing to see good government prosper, yet felt
that somehow it ought to be combined with party
advantage of a tangible sort ; and finally, therewere
yet others who were not honest at all and cared
nothing for the victory unless it resulted in some
way to their own personal advantage. In short,
the problem presented was of the kind which usu
ally is presented when dealing with men as a mass.
The Mayor and his administration had to keep in
touch with the republican party or they could have
accomplished nothing ; and on the other hand there
was much that the republican machine asked which
they could not do, because a surrender on certain
vital points meant the abandonment of the effort
to obtain good administration.
The undesirability of breaking with the republi
can organization was shown by what happened in
the administration of the police department. This
being the great centre of power was the especial
object of the republican machine leaders. Toward
the close of Tamraany rule, of the four Police Com
raissioners, two had been machine republicans,
whose actions were in no wise to be distinguished
from those of their Tamraany colleagues ; and im
mediately after the new board was appointed to
office the machine got through the Legislature the

^be flew forh police 167

so-called bi-partisan or Lexow law, under which
the department is at present administered ; and a
more foolish or vicious law was never enacted by
any legislative body. It modelled the government
of the police force somewhat on the lines of the
Polish parliament, and it was avowedly designed to
make it difficult to get effective action. It provided
for a four-headed board, so that it was difficult to
get a majority anyhow ; but, lest we should get
such a majority, it gave each meraber power to
veto the actions of his colleagues in certain very
iraportant matters ; and, lest we should do too
much when we were unanimous, it provided that
the chief, our nominal subordinate, should have
entirely independent action in the most important
matters, and should be practically irremovable,
except for proved corruption ; so thathe was respon
sible to nobody. The Mayor was similarly hin
dered from removing any Police Commissioner, so
that when one of our colleagues began obstructing
the work of the board, and thwarting its effort to
reform the force, the Mayor in vain strove to turn
him out. In short, there was a complete divorce
of power and responsibility, and it was exceedingly
difficult either to do anything, or to place anywhere,
the responsibility for not doing it.
If, by any reasonable concessions, if, indeed, by
the perforraance of any act not incorapatible with
our oaths of office, we could have stood on good
terras with the machine, we would certainly have
raade the effort, even at the cost of sacrificing many
of our ideals ; and in almost any other department

i68 XLbe flew forh police

we could probably have avoided a break, but in
the police force such a compromise was not possi
ble. What was demanded of us usually took some
such form as the refusal to enforce certain laws, or
the protection of certain law-breakers, or the pro
motion of the least fit men to positions of high
power and grave responsibility ; and on such points
it was not possible to yield. We were obliged to
treat all questions that arose purely on their merits,
without reference to the desires of the politicians.
We went into this course with our eyes open, for
we knew the trouble it would cause us personally,
and, what was far more important, the way in
which our efforts for reform would consequently be
hampered. However, there was no alternative, and
we had to abide by the result. We had counted the
cost before we adopted our course, and we fol
lowed it resolutely to the end. We could not
accomplish all that we should have liked to accom
plish for we were shackled by preposterous legis
lation, and by the opposition and intrigues of the
basest machine politicians, which cost us the sup
port, sometimes of one, and sometiraes of both, of
our colleagues. Nevertheless, the net result of our
two years of work was that we did more to increase
the efficiency and honesty of the police department
than had ever previously been done in its history.
But a decent people will have to show by em
phatic action that they are in the majority if they
wish this result to be permanent ; for under such a
law as the " bi-partisan " law it is alraost impossible
to keep the department honest and efficient for any

XLbe flew forh police 169

length of time ; and the machine poHticians, by
their opposition outside the board, and by the aid
of any tool or ally whom they can get on the
board, can always hamper and cripple the honest
members of the board, no matter how resolute and
able the latter may be, if they do not have an
aroused and determined public opinion behind
them. Besides suffering, in aggravated form, frora the
difficulties which beset the course of the entire ad
ministration, the police board had to encounter —
and honest and efficient police boards must always
encounter — certain special and peculiar difficulties.
It is not a pleasant thing to deal with criminals and
purveyors of vice. It is very rough work, and it
cannot always be done in a nice manner. The
man with the night stick, the man in the blue coat
with the helmet, can keep order and repress open
violence on the streets ; but most kinds of crime
and vice are ordinarily carried on furtively and by
stealth, perhaps at night, perhaps behind closed
doors. It is possible to reach them only by the
employment of the man in plain clothes, the de
tective. Now the function of the detective is pri
marily that of the spy, and it is always easy to
arouse feeling against a spy. It is absolutely nec
essary to employ him. Ninety per cent, of the
most dangerous criminals and purveyors of vice
cannot be reached in any other way. But the
average citizen who does not think deeply fails to
realize the necessity for any such employment. In
a vague way he desires vice and crime put down ;

170 a;be "Mew forh police
but, also in a vague way, he objects to the only pos
sible means by which they can be put down. It is
easy to mislead him into denouncing what is neces
sarily done in order to carry out the very policy for
which he is clamoring. The Tammany officials of
New York, headed by the Comptroller, made a sys
tematic effort to excite public hostility against the
police for their warfare on vice. The law-breaking
liquor seller, the keeper of disorderly houses, and
the gambler, had been influential allies of Tara
many, and head contributors to its campaign chest.
Naturally Tamraany fought for thera ; and the ef
fective way in which to carry on such a fight was
to portray with gross exaggeration and misstate
ment the methods necessarily eraployed by every
police force which honestly endeavors to do its
work. The raethods are unpleasant, just as the
methods employed in any surgical operation are
unpleasant ; and the Tamraany champions were
able to arouse more or less feeling against the po
lice board for precisely the same reason that a cen
tury ago it was easy to arouse what were called
" doctors' mobs " against surgeons who cut up dead
bodies. In neither case is the operation attractive,
and it is one which readily lends itself to denuncia
tion ; but in both cases it is necessary if there
is a real intention to get at the disease. Tammany
of course found its best allies in the sensational
newspapers. Of all the forces that tend for evil in
a great city like New York, probably none are so
potent as the sensational papers. Until one has
had experience with them it is difficult to realize

tibe flew forh police 171

the reckless indifference to truth or decency dis
played by papers such as the two that have the
largest circulation in New York City. Scandal
forms the breath of the nostrils of such papers, and
they are quite as ready to create as to describe it.
To sustain law and order is humdrum, and does
not readily lend itself to flaunting woodcuts ; but if
the editor will stoop, and make his subordinates
stoop, to raking the gutters of human depravity, to
upholding the wrong-doer, and furiously assailing
what is upright and honest, he can raake money,
just as other types of pander make it. The man
who is to do honorable work in any form of civic
politics must make up his mind (and if he is a man
of properly robust character he will make it up
without difficulty) to treat the assaults of papers
like these with absolute indifference, and to go his
way unheeded. Indeed he will have to raake up
his mind to be criticised, soraetiraes justly, and
more often unjustly, even by decent people ; and
he must not be so thin-skinned as to mind such
criticism overmuch.
In administering the police force we found, as
might be expected, that there was no need of
genius, nor indeed of any very unusual qualities.
What was needed was exercise of the plain, ordi
nary virtues, of a rather commonplace type, which
all good citizens should be expected to possess.
Common sense, common honesty, courage, energy,
resolution, readiness to learn, and a desire to be as
pleasant with everybody as was compatible with a
strict performance of duty — these were the qualities

172 ^be flew forh police

most called for. We soon found that, in spite of
the wide-spread corruption which had obtained in
the New York police department, the bulk of the
men were heartily desirous of being honest. There
were some who were incurably dishonest, just as
there were some who had remained decent in spite
of terrific temptation and pressure ; but the great
mass came in between. Although not possessing
the stamina to war against corruption when the
odds seemed well-nigh hopeless, they were never
theless heartily glad to be decent and to welcome
the change to a system under which they were re
warded for doing well, and punished for doing ill.
Our methods for restoring order and discipline
were simple, and indeed so were our methods for
securing efficiency. We made frequent personal
inspections, especially at night, turning up any
where, at any time. We thus speedily got an idea
of whom among our upper subordinates we could
trust and whom we could not. We then proceeded
to punish those guilty of shortcomings, and to re
ward those who did well, refusing to pay any heed
whatever in either case to anything except the
man's own character and record. A very few of
these promotions and dismissals sufficed to show
our subordinates that at last they were dealing
with superiors who meant what they said, and that
the days of political " pull " were over while we
had the power. The effect was immediate. The
decent men took heart, and those who were not
decent feared longer to offend. The morale of
the entire force improved steadily.

Zbe flew forh police 173

A similar course was followed in reference to
the relations between the police and citizens gen
erally. There had formerly been much complaint
of the brutal treatment by police of innocent citi
zens. This was stopped peremptorUy by the simple
expedient of dismissing from the force the first
two or three men who were found guilty of bru
tality. On the other hand we made- the force
understand that in the event of any eraergency
requiring them to use their weapons against either
a mob or an individual criminal, the police board
backed them up without reservation. Our sym
pathy was for the friends, and not the foes, of
order. If a mob threatened violence we were glad
to have the mob hurt. If a criminal showed fight
we expected the officer to use any weapon that
was necessary to overcome hira on the instant ;
and even, if it becarae necessary, to take life. All
that the board required was to be convinced that
the necessity really existed. We did not possess
a particle of that maudlin sympathy for the crirai
nal, disorderly, and lawless classes which is such a
particularly unhealthy sign of social developraent ;
and we were bound that the improvement in the
fighting efficiency of the police should go hand in
hand with the improvement in their moral tone.
To break up the system of blackmail and cor
ruption was less easy. It was not at all difficult
to protect decent people in their rights, and this
was accomplished at once. But the criminal who
is blackmailed has a direct interest in paying the
blackmailer, and it is not easy to get information

174 ^be flew forh police
about it. Nevertheless, we put a complete stop to
most of the blackmail by the simple process of
rigorously enforcing the laws, not only against
crime, but against vice.
It was the enforcement of the liquor law which
caused most excitement. In New York we suffer
from the altogether too coramon tendency to make
any law which a certain section of the comraunity
wants, and then to allow that law to be more or
less of a dead-letter if any other section of the
coraraunity objects to it. The multiplication of
laws by the Legislature, and their partial enforce
ment by the executive authorities, go hand in hand,
and offer one of the many serious problems with
which we are confronted in striving to better civic
conditions. New York State felt that liquor should
not be sold on Sunday. The larger part of New
York City wished to drink liquor on Sunday. Any
man who studies the social condition of the poor
knows that liquor works more ruin than any other
one cause. He knows also, however, that it is
simply impracticable to extirpate the habit entirely,
and that to attempt too much often merely results
in accomplishing too little ; and he knows, more
over, that for a man alone to drink whiskey in a
bar-room is one thing, and for men with their
farailies to drink light wines or beer in respectable
restaurants is quite a different thing. The average
citizen, who does n't think at all, and the average
politician of the baser sort, who only thinks about
his own personal advantage, find it easiest to dis
regard these facts, and to pass a liquor law which

Zbe flew forh police 175

will please the temperance people, and then trust
to the police department to enforce it with such
laxity as to please the intemperate.
The results of this pleasing system were evident
in New York when our board came into power.
The Sunday liquor law was by no means a dead
letter in New York City. On the contrary no
less than eight thousand arrests for its violation had
been made under the Tammany regime the year be
fore we came in. It was very much alive ; but it
was only executed against those who either had
no political pull, or who refused to pay money.
The liquor business does not stand on the same
footing with other occupations. It always tends
to produce criminality in the population at large,
and law-breaking among the saloonkeepers them
selves. It is absolutely necessary to supervise it
rigidly, and impose restrictions upon the traffic.
In large cities the traffic cannot be stopped ; but
the evils can at least be minimized.
In New York the saloonkeepers have always
stood high among professional politicians. Nearly
two thirds of the political leaders of Tamraany
Hall have, at one tirae or another, been in the
liquor business. The saloon is the natural club
and meeting place for the ward heelers and leaders,
and the bar-room politician is one of the most com
mon and best recognized factors, in local political
government. The saloonkeepers are always hand in
glove with the professional politicians, and occupy
toward them a position such as is not held by any
other class of men. The influence they wield in

176 G;be flew forh police

local politics has always been very great, and un
til our board took office no man ever dared seri
ously to threaten them for their flagrant violations
of the law. The powerful and influential saloon
keeper was glad to see his neighbors closed, for it
gave him business. On the other hand, a corrupt
police captain, or the corrupt politician who con
trolled him, could always extort money from a sa
loonkeeper by threatening to close hira and let his
neighbor remain open. Gradually the greed of
corrupt police officials and of corrupt politicians,
grew by what it fed on, until they began to black
mail all but the very raost influential liquor sellers ;
and as liquor sellers were very numerous, and the
profits of the liquor business great, the amount
collected was enormous.
The reputable saloonkeepers themselves found
this condition of blackmail and political favoritism
almost intolerable. The law which we found on
the statute books had been put on by a Tammany
Legislature three years before we took office. A
couple of months after we took office, Mr. J. P.
Smith, the editor of the liquor-dealers' organ, The
Wine and Spirit Gazette, gave out the following
interview, which is of such an extraordinary char
acter that I insert it almost in full :
" Governor Flower, as well as the Legislature of
1892, was elected upon distinct pledges that relief
would be given by the Democratic party to the
liquor dealers, especially of the cities of the State.
In accordance with this promise a Sunday-opening
clause was inserted in the excise bill of 1892,

XLbe flew forh police 177

Governor Flower then said that he could not ap
prove the Sunday-opening clause ; whereupon the
Liquor Dealers' Association, which had charge of
the bill, struck the Sunday-opening clause out.
After Governor Hill had been elected for the sec
ond term I had seyeral interviews with him on that
very subject. He told me, 'You knowl am the
friend of the liquor dealers and will go to almost
any length to help them and give them relief ; but
do not ask me to recommend to the Legislature
the passage of the law opening the saloons on Sun
day. I cannot do it, for it will ruin the Democratic
party in the State.' He gave the same interview to
various members of the State Liquor Dealers' As
sociation, who waited upon him for the purpose of
getting relief from the blackmail of the police,
stating that the lack of having the Sunday question
properly regulated was at the bottom of the trouble.
Blackmail had been brought to such a state of per
fection, and had become so oppressive to the liquor
dealers themselves, that they communicated first
with Governor Hill and then with Mr. Croker.
The Wine and Spirit Gazette had taken up the
subject because of gross discrimination made by
the police in the enforcement of the Sunday-clos
ing law. The paper again and again called upon
the police commissioners to either uniformly en
force the law or uniforraly disregard it. A com
mittee of the Central Association of Liquor Dealers
of this city then took up the matter and called
upon Police Commissioner Martin. * An agree-
* My predecessor in the Presidency of the Police Board,

178 Zbe flew forh police

ment was then made between the leaders of Tammany
Hall and the liquor dealers, according to which the
monthly blackmail paid to the police should be discon
tinued in return for political support} In other
words, the retail dealers should bind themselves to
solidly support the Tammany ticket in considera
tion of the discontinuance of the monthly black
mail by the police. This agreement was carried out.
Now what was the consequence ? If the liquor
dealer, after the monthly blackmail ceased, showed
any signs . of independence, the Tammany Hall
district leader would give the tip to the police
captain, and that raan would be pulled and arrested
on the following Sunday."
Continuing, Mr. Smith inveighed against the
law, but said :
" The (present) police commissioners are hon
estly endeavoring to have the law impartially car
ried out. They are no respecters of persons. And
our information from all classes of liquor-dealers
is that the rich and the poor, the influential and the
uninfluential, are required equally to obey the
law." There is really some difficulty in commenting
upon the statements of this interview, statements
which were never denied.
The law was not in the least a dead-letter ; it
was enforced, but it was corruptly and partially en
forced. It was a prominent factor in the Tam
many scheme of government. It afforded a most
effective means for blackmailing a large portion of
' The italics are my o-wn.

Zbe IRew forh police 179

the liquor sellers and for the wholesale corruption
of the police department. The high Tamraany
officials and police captains and patrolmen black
mailed and bullied the small liquor sellers without
a pull, and turned them into abject slaves of Tam
many Hall. On the other hand, the wealthy and
politically influential liquor sellers controlled the
police, and made or marred captains, sergeants, and
patrolmen at their pleasure. In sorae of the pre
cincts most of the saloons were closed ; in others al
most all were open. The rich and powerful liquor
seller violated the law at will, unless he had fallen
under the ban of the police or the ward boss, when
he was not allowed to violate it at all.
Under these circurastances the new police board
had one of two courses to follow. We could either
instruct the police to allow all the saloonkeepers
to becorae law-breakers, or else we could instruct
thera to allow none to be law-breakers. We fol
lowed the latter course, because we had some re
gard for our oaths of office. For two or three
raonths we had a regular fight, and on Sundays had
to employ half the force to enforce the liquor law ;
for the Tammany legislators had drawn the law so
as to make it easy of enforcement for purposes of
blackmail, but not easy of enforcement generaUy,
certain provisions being deliberately inserted with
the intention to make it difficult of universal execu
tion. However, when once the liquor sellers and
their allies understood that we had not the slightest
intention of being bullied, threatened or cajoled
out of following the course which we had laid

i8o ^be flew forh police

down, resistance practically ceased. During the
year after we took office the number of arrests for
violation of the Sunday liquor law sank to about
one half of what they had been during the last
year of the Tammany rule ; and yet the saloons
were practically closed, whereas under Tammany
most of them had been open. We adopted no new
methods, save in so far as honesty could be called
a new method. We did not enforce the law with
unusual severity ; we merely enforced it against the
man with a pull, just as much as against the man
without a pull. We refused to discriminate in fa
vor of influential law-breakers. The professional
politicians of low type, the liquor seUers, the edi
tors of some German newspapers, and the sensa
tional press generally, attacked us with a ferocity
which really verged on insanity.
We went our way without regarding this opposi
tion, and gave a very wholesome lesson to the ef
fect that a law should not be put on the statute
books if it was not meant to be enforced, and that
even an excise law could be honestly enforced in
New York if the public officials so desired. The
rich brewers and liquor sellers, who had made
money hand over fist by violating the excise law
with the corrupt connivance of the police, raved
with anger, and every corrupt politician and news
paper in the city gave them clamorous assistance ;
but the poor man, and notably the poor man's wife
and children, benefited very greatly by what we
did. The hospital surgeons found that their Mon
day labors were lessened by nearly one half, owing

Zbe flew forh police isi

to the startling diminution in cases of injury due
to drunken brawls ; the work of the magistrates
who sat in the city courts on Monday for the trial
of the offenders of the preceding twenty-four hours
was correspondingly decreased ; while many a
tenement-house family spent Sunday in the coun
try because for the first time the head of the family
could not use up his money in getting drunk. The
one all-important element in good citizenship in
our country is obedience to law, and nothing is
more needed than the resolute enforcement of law.
This we gave.
There was no species of mendacity to which our
opponents did not resort in the effort to break us
down in our purpose. For weeks they eagerly re
peated the tale that the saloons were as wide open
as ever ; but they finally abandoned this when the
counsel for the Liquor Dealers' Association ad
mitted in open court, at the time when we secured
the conviction of thirty of his clients and thereby
brought the fight to an end, that over nine tenths
of the liquor dealers had been rendered bankrupt
because we had stopped that illegal trade which
gave them the best portion of their revenue. They
then took the line that by devoting our attention
to enforcing the liquor law we permitted crirae to
increase. This, of course, offered a very congenial
field for newspapers like the World, which ex
ploited it to the utmost ; all the more readily since
the mere reiteration of the falsehood tended to en
courage crirainals, and so to make it not a false
hood. For a time the cry was not without influence.

i82 ttbe flew forh police

even with decent people, especially if they belonged
to the class of the timid rich ; but it simply was n't
true, and so this bubble went down stream with the
others. For six or eight raonths the cry grew, first
louder, then lower ; and then it died away. A
commentary upon its accuracy was furnished tow
ard the end of our administration ; for in February
1897, the Judge who addressed the grand jury of
the month was able to congratulate them upon the
fact that there was at that time less crirae in New
York relatively to the population than ever before ;
and this held true for our two years' service.
In re-organizing the force the Board had to make,
and did make, more promotions, more appoint
ments, and more dismissals than had ever before
been made in the same length of time. We were
so hampered by the law that we were not able to
dismiss many of the men whom we should have
dismissed, but we did turn out 200 men — more
than four times as many as had ever been turned out
in the same length of time before ; all of them
being dismissed after formal trial, and after hav
ing been given full opportunity to be heard in
their own defence. We appointed about 1700
men all told — again more than four times as many
as ever before ; for we were allowed a large increase
of the police force by law. We made 130 pro
motions ; raore than had been made in the six
preceding years.
All this work was done in strictest accord with
what we have grown to speak of as the principles
of civil service reform. In making dismissals we

ITbe flew forh police 183

paid heed merely to the man's efficiency and past
record, refusing to consider outside pressure ; under
the old regime no policeman with sufficient influ
ence behind him was ever dismissed, no matter
what his offence. In making promotions we took
into account not only the man's general record,
his faithfulness, industry and vigilance, but also
his personal prowess as shown in any special feat
of daring, whether in the arresting of criminals
or in the saving of life — for the police service is
military in character, and we wished to encourage
the railitary virtues. In making appointments we
found that it was practicable to employ a system of
rigid competitive examinations, which, as finally
perfected, combined a very severe physical ex
amination with a mental exaraination such as
could be passed by any man who had attended
one of our public schools. Of course there was
also a rigid investigation of character. Theorists
have often sneered at civil service reform as
" impracticable ; " and I am very far from assert
ing that written competitive examinations are
always applicable, or that they may not sometimes
be merely stop-gaps, used only because they are
better than the methods of appointing through
political endorsement ; but most certainly the
system worked admirably in the Police Depart
ment. We got the best lot of recruits for patrol
men that had ever been obtained in the history
of the force, and we did just as well in our examin
ations for matrons and police surgeons. The
uplifting of the force was very noticeable, both

i84 Zbe flew forh police

physically and mentally. The best men we got
were those who had served for three years or so
in the Army or Navy. Next to these came the
railroad men. One noticeable feature of the work
was that we greatly raised the proportion of native-
born, until, of the last hundred appointed, ninety-
four per cent, were Americans by birth. Not
once in a hundred tiraes did we know the politics
of the appointee, and we paid as little heed to this
as to their religion.
Another of our iraportant tasks was seeing that
the elections were carried on honestly. Under
the old Tammany rule the cheating was gross and
flagrant, and the police were often deliberately
used to facilitate fraudulent practices at the polls.
This came about in part from the very low charac
ter of the men put in as election officers. By con
ducting a written examination of the latter, and
supplementing this by a careful inquiry into their
character, in which we invited any decent out
siders to assist, we very distinctly raised their
calibre. To show how necessary our exaraina
tions were, I may mention that before each elec
tion held under us we were obliged to reject, for
moral or mental shortcomings, over a thousand
of the men whom the regular party organizations,
exercising their legal rights, proposed as election
officers. We then merely had to make the police
thoroughly understand that their sole duty was
to guarantee an honest election, and that they
would be punished with the utmost rigor if they
interfered with honest citizens on the one hand.

Cbe flew forh police 185

or failed to prevent fraud and violence on the
other. The result was that the elections of 1895
and 1896 were by far the most honest and orderly
ever held in New York City.
There were a number of other ways in which
we sought to reform the police force, less import
ant, and nevertheless very important. We paid
particular heed to putting a premium on specially
meritorious conduct, by awarding certificates of
honorable mention, and medals, where we were
unable to promote. We introduced a system of
pistol practice by which, for the first time, the
policemen were brought to a reasonable standard
of efficiency in handling their revolvers. The
Bertillion system for the identification of criminals
was introduced. A bicycle squad was organized
with remarkable results, this squad speedily becom
ing a kind of corps d' elite, whose individual raembers
distinguished themselves not only by their devotion
to duty, but by repeated exhibitions of remarkable
daring and skill. One important bit of reforra was
abolishing the trarap lodging-houses, which had
originally been started in the police stations, in a
spirit of unwise philanthropy. These tramp lodging-
houses, not being properly supervised, were mere
nurseries for pauperism and crime, tramps and loaf
ers of every shade thronging to the city every winter
to enjoy their benefits. We abolished them, a muni
cipal lodging-house being substituted. Here all
homeless wanderers were received, forced to bathe,
given night-clothes before going to bed, and made
to work next morning and in addition they

186 ttbe Iftew forh police

were so closely supervised that habitual tramps
and vagrants were speedily detected and appre
hended. There was a striking increase in the honesty of
the force, and there was a like increase in its effi
ciency. When we took office it is not too much to
say that the great majority of the citizens of New
York were firmly convinced that no police force
could be both honest and efficient. They felt it to
be part of the necessary order of things that a po
liceman should be corrupt, and they were convinced
that the most efficient way of warring against cer
tain forras of crime — notably crimes against person
and property — was by enlisting the service of other
criminals, and of purveyors of vice generally, giv
ing them immunity in return for their aid. Before
we took power the ordinary purveyor of vice was
allowed to ply his or her trade unmolested, partly
in consideration of paying blackmail to the police,
partly in consideration of giving information about
any criminal who belonged to the unprotected
classes. We at once broke up this whole business
of blackmail and protection, and raade war upon
all criminals alike, instead of getting the assistance
of half in warring on the other half. Nevertheless,
so great was the improvement in the spirit of the
force, that, although deprived of their former vi
cious allies, they actually did better work than ever
before against those criminals who threatened life
and property. Relatively to the population, fewer
crimes of violence occurred during our administra
tion of the Board than in any previous two years of

Zbe flew forh police 187

the city's history in recent times ; and the total
nuraber of arrests of criminals increased, while the
nuraber of cases in which no arrest followed the
commission of crime decreased. The detective
bureau nearly doubled the number of arrests made
compared with the year before we took office ; ob
taining, moreover, 365 convictions of felons and
215 convictions for misdemeanors, as against 269
and 105 respectively for the previous year. At the
same time every attempt at riot or disorder was
summarily checked, and all gangs of violent crimi
nals brought into immediate subjection ; while on
the other hand the immense mass raeetings and po
litical parades were handled with such care that not
a single case of clubbing of any innocent citizen
was reported.
The result of our labors was of value to the city,
for we gave the citizens better protection than they
had ever before received, and at the same time cut
out the corruption which was eating away civic
morality. We showed conclusively that it was pos
sible to combine both honesty and efficiency in
handling the police. We were attacked with the
most bitter animosity by every sensational news
paper and every politician of the baser sort, not
because of our shortcomings, but because of what
we did that was good. We enforced the laws as
they were on the statute books, we broke up black
mail, we kept down the spirit of disorder, and re
pressed rascality, and we administered the force
with an eye single to the welfare of the city. In
doing this we encountered, as we had expected, the

i88

Zbe flew forh police

venemous opposition of all men whose interest it
was that corruption should continue, or who were
of such dull morality that they were not willing to
see honesty triumph at the cost of strife.

IX

THE VICE-PRESIDENCY AND THE
CAMPAIGN OF 1896'
THE Vice-President is an officer unique in his
character and functions, or to speak raore
properly, in his want of functions while he reraains
Vice-President, and in his possibility of at any
moment ceasing to be a functionless official and
becoming the head of the whole nation. There is
no corresponding position in any constitutional
government. Perhaps the nearest analogue is the
heir apparent in a monarchy. Neither the French
President nor the British Prime Minister has a
substitute, ready at any moraent to take his place,
but exercising scarcely any authority until his place
is taken. The history of such an office is interest
ing, and the personality of the incumbent for the
time being may at any moment become of vast im
portance. The founders of our government — the men who
^ Review of Reviews, September, 1896.
189

190 TXbe Campaign of 1896

did far more than draw up the Declaration of Inde
pendence, for they put forth the National Constitu
tion — in many respects builded very wisely of set
purpose. In some cases they built wiser than they
knew. In yet other instances they failed entirely
to achieve objects for which they had endeavored
to provide by a most elaborate and ingenious gov
ernraental arrangement. They distrusted what
would now be called pure Democracy, and they
dreaded what we would novv call party government.
Their distrust of Deraocracy induced them to
construct the electoral college for the choice of a
President, the original idea being that the people
should elect their best and wisest men who in turn
should, untrammeled by outside pressure, elect a
President. As a matter of fact the functions of
the electorate have now by time and custom be
come of little more importance than those of so
many letter-carriers. They deliver the electoral
votes of their states just as a letter-carrier delivers
his mail. But in the presidential contest this year
it raay be we shall see a partial return to the ideals
of the men of 1789 ; for some of the electors on
the Bryan-Sewall-Watson ticket may exercise a
choice between the vice-presidential candidates.
The distrust felt by the founders of the constitu
tion for party government took shape in the scheme
to provide that the majority party should have the
foremost place, and the minority party the second
place, in the national executive. The man who re
ceived the greatest nuraber of electoral votes was
made President, and the man who received the

Zbe Campaign of 1896 191

second greatest number was made Vice-President,
on a theory somewhat akin to that by which cer
tain reforraers hope to revolutionize our system of
voting at the present day. In the early days under
the present constitution this system resulted in the
choice of Adams for President and of his anti-type
Jefferson as Vice-President, the corabination being
about as incongruous as if we should now see Mc
Kinley President and either Bryan or Watson Vice-
President. Even in theory such an arrangement is
very bad, because under it the Vice-President
might readily be, and as a matter of fact was, a
man utterly opposed to all the principles to which
the President was devoted, so that the arrangement
provided in the event of the death of the President,
not for a succession, but for a revolution. The
system was very soon dropped, and each party
norainated its own candidates for both positions.
But it was many years before all the members of
the electoral college of one party felt obliged to
cast the same votes for both President and Vice-
President, and consequently there was a good deal
of scrambling and shifting in taking the vote.
When, however, the parties had crystallized into
Democratic and Whig, a score of years after the
disappearance of the Federalists, the system of
party voting also crystallized. Each party then as
a rule nominated one raan for President and one
for Vice-President, these being voted for through
out the nation. This system in turn speedily pro
duced strange results, some of which remain to this
day. There are and must be in every party fac-

192 Zbe Campaign of 1896

tions. The victorious faction may crush out and
destroy the others, or it may try to propitiate at
least its most formidable rivah In consequence,
the custom grew of offering the vice-presidency as
a consolation prize, to be given in many cases to
the very men who were raost bitterly opposed to
the noraination of the successful candidate for
President. Soraetimes this consolation prize was
awarded for geographical reasons, sometimes to
bring into the party men who on points of princi
ple might split away because of the principles ofthe
presidential candidate himself, and at other times
it was awarded for merely factional reasons to
some faction which did not differ in the least from
the dominant faction in matters of principles, but
had very decided views on the question of offices.
The presidency being all important, and the vice-
presidency of comparatively little note, the entire
strength of the contending factions is spent in the
conflict over the first, and very often a man who is
most anxious to take the first place will not take the
second, preferring some other political position.
It has thus frequently happened that the two candi
dates have been totally dissimilar in character and
even in party principle, though both running on the
same ticket. Very odd results have followed in
more than one instance.
A striking illustration of the evils sometimes
springing from this system is afforded by what be
fell the Whigs after the election and death of the
elder Harrison. Translated into the terms of the
politics of continental Europe of to-day, Harrison's

Vibe Campaign of 1896 193

adherents represented a union between the right
and the extreme left against the centre. That is,
the regular Whigs who formed the bulk of his sup
porters were supplemented by a small body of ex
tremists who in their political principles were even
more alien to the Whigs than were the bulk of the
regular Democrats, but who theraselves hated these
regular Democrats with the peculiar ferocity so
often felt by the extremist for the man who goes
far, but not quite far enough. In consequence, the
President represented Whig principles, the Vice-
President represented a rather extreme form of the
very principles to which the Whigs were most op
posed. The result was that when Harrison died
the presidency fell into the hands of a raan who
had but a corporal's guard of supporters in the
nation, and who proceeded to oppose all the meas
ures of the immense majority of those who elected
him. A somewhat similar instance was afforded in the
case of Lincoln and Johnson. Johnson was put
on the ticket largely for geographical reasons, and
on the death of Lincoln he tried to reverse the
policy of the party which had put him in office.
An instance of an entirely different kind is afforded
by Garfield and Arthur. The differences between
these two party leaders were mainly merely
factional. Each stood squarely on the platform of
the party, and all the principles advocated by one
were advocated by the other ; yet the death of
Garfield meant a complete overturn in thepersonnel
of the upper Republican officials, because Arthur

194 XTbe Campaign of 1896

had been nominated expressly to placate the group
of party leaders who most objected to the nomina
tion of Garfield. Arthur made a very good Presi
dent, but the bitterness caused by his succession to
power nearly tore the party in twain. It will be no
ted that most of these evils arose from the fact that
the Vice-President under ordinary circumstances
possesses so little real power. He presides over
the Senate and he has in Washington a position of
marked social importance, but his political weight
as Vice-President is almost nil. There is always a
chance that he may become President. As this is
only a chance it seems quite impossible to persuade
politicians to give it proper weight. This certainly
does not seem right. The Vice-President should, so
far as possible, represent the same views and princi
ples which have secured the nomination and elec
tion of the President, and he should be a man
standing well in the councils of the party, trusted
by his fellow party leaders, and able in the event of
any accident to his chief to take up the work of
the latter just where it was left. The Republican
party has this year nominated such a man in the
person of Mr. Hobart. But nominations of this
kind have by no means always been the rule of
recent years. No change of parties, for instance,
could well produce a greater revolution in policy
than would have been produced at almost any time
during the last three years if Mr. Cleveland had
died and Mr. Stevenson had succeeded him.
One sure way to secure this desired result would
undoubtedly be to increase the power of the Vice-

^be Campaign of 1896 195

President. He should always be a man who would
be consulted by the President on every great party
question. It would be very well if he were given
a seat in the Cabinet. It might be well if, in addi
tion to his vote in the Senate in the event of a tie,
he should be given a vote, on ordinary occasions,
and perchance on occasions a voice in the debates.
A man of the character of Mr. Hobart is sure to
make his weight felt in an adrainistration, but the
power of thus exercising influence should be made
official rather than personal.
The present contest offers a striking illustration
of the way in which the Vice-President ought and
ought not to be nominated, and to study this it is
necessary to study not only the way in which the
different candidates were nominated, but at least
in outline the characters of the candidates them
selves. For the first time in many years, indeed for the
first time since parties have fairly crystallized along
their present lines, there are three parties running,
two of which support the same presidential candi
date but different candidates for the vice-presi
dency. Each one of these parties has carried sev
eral states during the last three or four years. Each
party has a right to count upon a number of elector
al votes as its own. Closely though the Deraocra
tic and Populistic parties have now approxiraated
in their principles as enunciated in the platforms
of Chicago and St. Louis, they yet do differ on
certain points, and neither would have any chance
of beating the Republicans without the help of the

196 Zbe Campaign of 1896

other. The result has been a coalition, yet each
party to the coalition has retained enough of its
jealous individuality to make it refuse to accept
the candidate of the other for the second position
on the ticket.
The Republican party stands on a norraal and
healthy party footing. It has enunciated a definite
set of principles entirely in accord with its past
actions. It has nominated on this platform a
President and Vice-President, both of whom are
thorough-going believers in all the party principles
set forth in the platform upon which they stand.
Mr. McKinley believes in sound finance, — that is,
in a currency based upon gold and as good as
gold. So does Mr. Hobart. Mr. McKinley be
lieves in a protective tariff. So does Mr. Hobart.
Mr. McKinley believes in the only method of pre
serving orderly liberty, — that is, in seeing that the
laws are enforced at whatever cost. So does Mr.
Hobart. In short, Mr. Hobart stands for precisely
the same principles that are represented by Mr.
McKinley. He is a man of weight in the com
munity, who has had wide experience both in
business and in politics. He is taking an active
part in the campaign, and he will be a power if
elected to the vice-presidency. All the elements
which have rallied behind Mr. McKinley are just
as heartily behind Mr, Hobart. The two repre
sent the same forces, and they stand for a party
with a coherent organization and a definite purpose,
to the carrying out of which they are equally
pledged.

ttbe Campaign of 1896 197

It will be a matter of much importance to the
nation that the next Vice-President should stand
for some settled policy. It is an unhealthy thing
to have the Vice-President and President repre
sented by principles so far apart that the succes
sion of one to the place of the other means a
change as radical as any possible party overturn.
The straining and dislocation of our governmental
institutions was very great when Tyler succeeded
Harrison and Johnson succeeded Lincoln. In
each case the majority of the party that had won
the victory felt that it had been treated with scan
dalous treachery, for Tyler grew to be as repulsive
to the Whigs as Polk himself, and the Republicans
could scarcely have hated Seymour more than they
hated Johnson. The Vice-President has a three
fold relation. First to the administration ; next
as presiding officer in the Senate, where he should
be a man of dignity and force ; and third in his
social position, for socially he ranks second to the
President alone. Mr. Morton was in every way an
admirable Vice-President under General Harrison,
and had he succeeded to the presidential chair
there would have been no break in the great poli
cies which were being pushed forward by the ad
ministration. But during Mr. Cleveland's two
incumbencies Messrs. Hendricks and Stevenson
have represented, not merely hostile factions, but
principles and interests from which he was sun
dered by a gulf quite as great as that which divided
him from his norraal party foes. Mr. Sewall would
raake a colorless Vice-President, and were he at

198 c:be Campaign of 1896
any tirae to succeed Mr. Bryan in the White House
would travel Mr. Bryan's path only with extreme
reluctance and under duress. Mr. Watson would
be a more startling, more attractive, and more
dangerous figure, for if he got the chance he would
lash the nation with a whip of scorpions, while
Mr. Bryan would be content with the torture of
ordinary thongs.
Finally, Mr. Hobart would typify as strongly as
Mr. McKinley himself what was best in the Repub-
ican party and in the nation, and would stand as
one of the known champions of his party on the
very questions at issue in the present election. He
is a man whose advice would be sought by all who
are prominent in the administration. In short, he
would be the kind of man whom the electors are
certain to choose as Vice-President if they exercise
their choice rationally.
The men who left the Republican party because
of the nomination of McKinley would have left it
just as quickly if Hobart had been nominated.
They do not believe in sound finance, and though
many of the bolters object to anarchy and favor
protection, they feel that in this crisis their personal
desires must be repressed and that they are consci
entiously bound to support the depreciated dollar
even at the cost of incidentally supporting the
principles of a low tariff and the doctrine that a
mob should be allowed to do what it likes with
immunity. There are many advocates of clipped
or depreciated money who are rather sorry to see
the demand for such currency coupled with a de-

ttbe Campaign of 1896 199

mand for more lawlessness and an abandonment
by the government of the police functions which
are the essential attributes of civilization ; but they
have overcorae their reluctance, feeling that on the
whole it is more important that the money of the
nation should be unsound than that its laws should
be obeyed. People who feel this way are just as
much opposed to Mr. Hobart as to Mr. McKin
ley. They object to the platform upon which
the two men stand, and they object as much to
the character of one man as to the character
•of the other. They are repelled by McKinley's
allegiance to the cause -of sound money, and find
nothing to propitiate them in Hobart's uncompro
misingly honest attitude on the same question.
There is no reason whatever why any voter who
would wish to vote against the one should favor the
other, or vice versa.
When we cross the political line all this is
changed. On the leading issue of the carapaign
the entire triangle of candidates are a unit. Mr.
Bryan, the nominee for the presidency, and Messrs.
Sewall and Watson, the nominees for the vice-pres
idency, are almost equally devoted adherents of
the light-weight dollar and of a currency which
shall not force a raan to repay what he has borrowed,
and shall punish the wrong-headed laborer, who
expects to be paid his wages in raoney worth sorae
thing, as heavily as the business man or farmer who
is so immoral as to wish to pay his debts. All three
are believers in that old-world school of finance
which appears under such protean changes of

200 XLbe Campaign of 1896
policy, always desiring the increase of the circulat
ing raedium, but differing as to the means, which in
one age takes the form of putting base raetal in with
the good, or of clipping the good, and in another
assumes the guise of fiat money, or the free coin
age of silver. On this currency question they
are substantially alike, agreeing (as one of their
adherents picturesquely put it, in arguing in favor
of that form of abundant currency which has as its
highest exponent the money of the late Confeder
acy) that " the money which was good enough for
the soldiers of Washington is good enough for us."
As a matter of fact the soldiers of Washington were
not at all grateful for the money which the loud
mouthed predecessors of Mr. Bryan and his kind
then thought " good enough " for thera. The
money with which the veterans of Washington were
paid was worth two cents on the dollar, and as yet
neither Mr. Bryan, Mr. Sewall, nor Mr. Watson has
advocated a two-cent copper dollar. Still, they are
striving toward this ideal, and in their advocacy of
the fifty cent dollar they are one.
But beyond this they begin to differ. Mr. Sewall
distinctly sags behind the leader of the spike team,
Mr. Bryan, and still more distinctly behind his
rival, or running mate, or whatever one may choose
to call hira, the Hon. Thoraas Watson. There is
far raore regard for the essential fitness of things
in a ticket which contains Mr. Bryan and Mr. Wat
son than one which contains Mr. Bryan and Mr.
Sewall. Mr. Watson is a raan of Mr. Bryan's type,
only a little more so. But Mr. Sewall is of a differ-

tIbe Campaign of 1896 201
ent type, and possesses many attributes which raust
make association with him exceedingly painful, not
merely to Mr. Watson, but to Mr. Bryan himselL
He is a well-to-do man. Indeed in many commu
nities he would be called a rich man. He is a
banker, a railroad man, a shipbuilder, and has
been successful in business. Now if Mr. Bryan
and Mr. Watson really stand for any principle it is
hostility to this kind of success. Thrift, industry,
and business energy are qualities which are quite
incompatible with true Populistic feeling. Pay
ment of debts, like the suppression of riots, is ab
horrent to the Populistic mind. Such conduct
strikes the Populist as iraraoral. Mr. Bryan made
his appearance in Congress with two colleagues
elected on the same ticket, one of whom stated to
the present writer that no honest man ever earned
$5000 a year ; that whoever got that amount stole
it. Mr. Sewall has earned many times $5000 a
year. He is a prosperous capitalist. Populism
never prospers save where men are unprosperous,
and your true Populist is especially intolerant of
business success. If a man is a successful busi
ness man he at once calls him a plutocrat.
He raakes only one exception. A miner or spec
ulator in mines may be many tiraes a millionaire
and yet remain in good standing in the Populist
party. The Populist has ineradicably fixed in his
mind the belief that silver is a cheap metal, and
that silver raoney is, while not fiat money, still a
long step toward it. Silver is connected in his
mind with scaling down debts, the partial repudia-

202 ^be Campaign of 1896
tion of obHgations, and other raeasures airaed at
those odious raoneyed tyrants who lend money to
persons who insist upon borrowing, or who have
put their ill-gotten gains in saving banks and kin
dred wicked institutions for the encouragement of
the vice of thrift. These pleasurable associations
quite outweigh, with the Populist, the fact that the
silver raan himself is rich. He is even for the mo
ment blind to the further fact that these pro-silver
men, like Senator Stewart, Governor Altgeld, and
their compeers, strenuously insist that the obliga
tions to themselves shall be liquidated in gold ;
indeed this particular idiosyncrasy of the silver
leaders is not much frowned upon by the bulk of
the Populists, because it has at least the merit of
savoring strongly of " doing " one's creditors. Not
even the fact that rich silver mine owners may
have earned their money honestly can outweigh
the other fact that they champion a species of cur
rency which will make most thrifty and honest men
poorer, in the minds of the truly logical Populist.
But Mr. Sewall has no fictitious advantage in
the way of owing his wealth to silver. He has
made his money precisely as the most loathed rep
robate of Wall Street — or of New York, which the
average Populist regards as synonymous with Wall
Street — has made his. The average Populist does
not draw fine distinctions. There are in New
York, as in other large cities, scoundrels of great
wealth who have made their money by means skil
fully calculated to come just outside the line of
criminality. There are other men who have made

tIbe Campaign of 1896 303

their money exactly as the successful miner or
farmer makes his, — that is, by the exercise of
shrewdness, business daring, energy and thrift. But
the Populist draws no line of division between these
two classes. They have raade raoney, and that is
enough. One may have built railroads and the
other have wrecked them, but they are both rail
road raen in his eyes, and that is all. One may
have swindled his creditors, and the other built up
a bank which has been of incalculable benefit to all
who have had dealings with it, but to the Populist
they are both gold bugs, and as such noxious. Mr.
Sewall is the type of man the contemplation of
which usually throws a Populist orator into spasms.
But it happens that he believes in free silver, just
as other very respectable men believe in spirit
rapping, or the faith-cure, or Buddhism, or pil
grimages to Lourdes, or the foot of a graveyard
rabbit. There are very able men and very lovely
women who believe in each or all of these, and
there are a much larger nuraber who believe in free
silver. Had they lived in the days of Sparta they
would have believed in free iron, iron coin being
at that time the cheapest circulating medium, the
adoption of which would give the greatest expan
sion of the currency. But they have been dragged
on by the slow procession of the centuries, and
now they only believe in free silver. It is a belief
which is compatible with aU the domestic virtues,
and even occasionally with very good capacities as
a public servant. Mr. Sewall doubtless stands as
one of these men. He can hardly be happy.

204 G^be Campaign ot 1896

planted firmly as he is, on the Chicago platform.
In the rainds of most thrifty, hard-working men,
who are given to thinking at all about public ques
tions, the free-silver plank is very far from being
the most rotten of the many rotten planks put to
gether with such perverted skill by the Chicago
architects. A platform which declares in favor of
free and unliraited rioting and which has the same
strenuous objection to the exercise of the police
power by the general government that is felt in the
circles presided over by Herr Most, Eugene V.
Debs, and all the people whose pictures appear in
the detective bureaus of our great cities, cannot
appeal to persons who have gone beyond the un
polished-stone period of civilization.
The men who object to what they style " govern
ment by injunction " are, as regards the essential
principles of government, in hearty sympathy with
their remote skin-clad ancestors who lived in caves,
fought one another with stone-headed axes, and
ate the mammoth and woolly rhinocerous. They
are interesting as representing a geological survival,
but they are dangerous whenever there is the least
chance of their making the principles of this ages-
buried past living factors in our present life. They
are not in sympathy with men of good rainds and
sound civic raorality. It is not a nice thing to
wish to pay one's debts in coins worth fifty cents on
the dollar, but it is a much less nice thing to wish
to plunge one's country into anarchy by providing
that the law shall only protect the lawless and
frown scornfully on the law-abiding. There is a

Zbe Campaign of 1896 205

good deal of mushy sentiment in the world, and
there are always a certain number of people whose
minds are weak and whose emotions are strong and
who effervesce with syrapathy toward any raan who
does wrong, and with indignation against any man
who chastises the criminal for having done wrong.
These emotionalists, raoreover, are always rein
forced by that large body of men who themselves
wish to do wrong, and who are not sentimental at
all, but, on the contrary, very practical. It is rarely
that these two classes control a great political
party, but at Chicago this became an accompHshed
fact. Furthermore, the Chicago convention attacked
the Suprerae Court. Again this represents a species
of atavisra, — that is, of recurrence to the ways of
thought of remote barbarian ancestors. Savages
do not like an independent and upright judiciary.
They want the judge to decide their way, and if he
does not, they want to behead hira. The Populists
experience much the same emotions when they
realize that the judiciary stands between them
and plunder.
Now on all these points Mr. Sewall can hardly
feel complete sympathy with his temporary allies.
He is very anxious that the Populists shall vote for
him for Vice-President, and of course he feels a
kindly emotion toward those who do intend to vote
for hira. He would doubtless pardon much heresy
of political belief in any member of the electoral
college who feels that Sewall is hie friend, not
Watson, — Codlin, not Short. He has, of course, a

ao6 Zbe Campaign of 1896

vein of the erratic in his character, or otherwise he
would not be in such company at all, and would
have no quality that would recomraend hira to
them. But on the whole his sympathies must lie
with the man who saves money rather than with
the man who proposes to take away the money
when it has been saved, and with the policeman
who arrests a violent criminal rather than with the
crirainal. Such syrapathy puts him at a disad
vantage in the Populist camp. He is loud in his
professions of belief in the remarkable series of
principles for which he is supposed to stand, but
his protestations ring rather hollow. The average
supporter of Bryan doubtless intends to support
Sewall, for he thinks hira an unimportant tail to
the Bryan kite. But, though unimportant, he re
gards him with a slight feeling of irritation, as be
ing at the best a rather ludicrous contrast to the
rest of the kite. He contributes no element of
strength to the Bryan ticket, for other men who
work hard and wish to enjoy the fruits of their toil
simply regard hira as a renegade, and the average
Populist, or Populistic Deraocrat, does not like him,
and accepts him simply because he fears not doing
so may jeopardize Bryan's chances. He is in the
uncomfortable position always held by the respect
able theorist who gets caught in a revolutionary
movement and has to wedge nervously up into the
front rank with the gentlemen who are not troubled
by any of his scruples, and who really do think
that it is all very fine and glorious. In fact Mr.
Sewall is much the least picturesque and the least

a:be Campaign of 1896 207

appropriate figure on the platform or platforms
upon which Mr. Bryan is standing.
Mr. Watson, whose enemies now call him a
Georgia cracker, is in reality a far more suitable
companion for Mr. Bryan in such a contest. It
must be said, however, that if virtue always re
ceived its reward Mr. Watson and not Mr. Bryan
would stand at the head of the ticket. In the lan
guage of mathematicians Mr. Watson merely repre
sents Mr. Bryan raised several powers. The same
is true of the Populist as corapared to the Demo
cratic platform. Mr. Bryan may affect to believe
that free silver does represent the ultimate goal,
and that his friends do not intend to go further in
the direction of fiat money. Mr. Watson's friends,
the middle-of-the-road Populists, are rauch more
fearless and much more logical. They are willing
to accept silver as a temporary makeshift, but they
want a currency based on corn and cotton next,
and ultimately a currency based on the desires of the
people who issue it. The statesmanlike utterance
of that great financier, Mr. Bryan's chief rival for
the nomination and at present his foremost sup
porter, Mr. Bland, to the effect that he would
" wipe out the national debt as with a sponge,"
meets with their cordial approval as far as it goes,
but they object to the qualification before the word
" debt." In wiping out debts they do not wish to
halt merely at the national debt. The Populists
indorsed Bryan as the best they could get ; but
they hated Sewall so that they took the extra
ordinary step of nominating the Vice-President

2o8 XTbe Campaign of 1896

before the President so as to make sure of a really
acceptable man in the person of Watson.
With Mr. Bryan denunciation of the gold bug
and the banker is largely a mere form of intellect
ual entertainment ; but with Mr. Watson it repre
sents an almost ferocious conviction. Someone
has said that Mr. Watson like Mr. Tillman, is an
embodied retribution on the South for having failed
to educate the cracker, the poor white who gives
him his strength. It would ill beseera any dweller
in cities of the North, especially any dweller in the
city of Tammany, to reproach the South with hav
ing failed to educate anybody. But Mr. Watson
is certainly an awkward man for a community to
develop. He is infinitely more in earnest than is
Mr. Bryan. Mr. Watson's followers belong to that
school of southern Populists who honestly believe
that the respectable and comraonplace people who
own banks, railroads, dry-goods stores, factories,
and the like, are persons with many of the raental
and social attributes that unpleasantly distinguished
Heliogabalus, Nero, Caligula, and other worthies of
later Rorae. Not only do they believe this, but
they say it with appalling frankness. They are
very sincere as a rule, or at least the rank and file
are. They are also very suspicious. They distrust
anything they cannot understand ; and as they
understand but little this opens a very wide field
for distrust. They are apt to be emotionally re
ligious. If not, they are then at least atheists of
an archaic type. Refinement and comfort they
are apt to consider quite as objectionable as ira-

^be Campaign of 1896 209

morality. That a man should change his clothes
in the evening, that he should dine at any other
hour than noon, impress these good people as being
symptoms of depravity instead of merely trivial.
A taste for learning and cultivated friends, and a
tendency to bathe frequently, cause thera the deep
est suspicion. A well-to-do raan they regard with
jealous distrust, and if they cannot be well-to-do
themselves, at least they hope to make matters un
comfortable for those that are. They possess
many strong, rugged virtues, but they are quite
irapossible politically, because they always con
found the essentials and the non-essentials, and
though they often make war on vice, they rather
prefer raaking war upon prosperity and refineraent.
Mr. Watson was in a sense born out of place
when he was born in Georgia, for in Georgia the
regular Democracy, while it has accepted the
principles of the Populists, has made war on their
personnel, and in every way strives to press them
down. Far better for Mr. Watson would it have
been could he have been born in the adjacent
State of South Carolina, where the Populists swal
lowed the Democrats with a gulp. Senator Till
man, the great Populist or Democratic orator from
South Carolina, possesses an untrammelled tongue
any middle-of-the-road man would envy : and
moreover Mr. TUlman's brother has been frequently
elected to Congress upon the issue that he never
wore either an overcoat or an undershirt, an issue
which any Populist statesman finds readily com
prehensible, and which he would recognize at first

210 c:be Campaign of 1896
glance as being strong before the people. It needs
a certain amount of mental subtlety to appreciate
that it is for one's interest to support a man be
cause he is honest and has broad views about
coast defenses and the navy, and other similar sub
jects ; but it does not need any mind at all to
have one's prejudices stirred in favor of a states
man whose claim to the title rests upon his indiffer
ence to the requirements of civilized dress.
Altogether Mr. Watson, with his sincerity, his
frankness, his extreme suspiciousness, his distrust
of anything he cannot understand, and the feeling
he encourages against all the elegancies and decen
cies of civilized life, is an interesting personage.
He represents the real thing, while Bryan after all
is more or less a sham and a compromise. Mr.
Watson would, at a blow, destroy all banks and
bankers, with a cheerful, albeit vague, belief that
thereby he was in some abstruse way benefiting
the people at large. And he would do this with
the simple sincerity and faith of an African savage
who tries to benefit his tribe by a sufficiency of
human sacrifices. But Mr. Bryan would be beset
by ugly doubts when he came to put into effect
all the mischievous beliefs of his followers, and
Mr. Sewall would doubtless be frankly miserable
if it ever became necessary for him to take a lead
in such matters. Mr. Watson really ought to be
the first man on the ticket, with Mr. Bryan second;
for he is rauch the superior in boldness, in thorough
going acceptance of his principles according to
their logical conclusions, and in sincerity of faith.

tIbe Campaign of 1896 211

It is impossible not to regret that the Democrats
and Populists should not have put forward in the
first place the man who genuinely represents their
ideas. However, it is even doubtful whether Mr. Wat
son will receive the support to which he is entitled
as a vice-presidential candidate. In the South the
Populists have been so crushed under the heel of
the Democrats, and have bitten that heel with such
eager venom, that they dislike entering into a coaH
tion with them ; but in the south the Democrats
will generally control the election machinery. In
the far West, and generally in those States where
the Populist wing of the new alliance is ascendant,
the Populists have no especial hatred of the Demo
crats. They know that their principles are sub
stantially identical, and they think it best to support
the man who seems to represent the majority faction
among the various factions that stand behind
Bryan. As a consequence of this curious condition of
affairs there are several interesting possibilities
open. The electoral college consists of the men
elected at the polls in the various States to record
the decrees of the majorities in those States, and it
has grown to be an axiom of politics that they
must merely register the will of the men who elected
them. But it does seera possible that in the pres
ent election some of the electors may return to
the old principles of a century ago and exercise
at least a limited discretion in casting their votes.
In a State like Nebraska, for instance, it looks as

212 Zbe Campaign of 1896
though it would be possible that the electoral ticket
on the anti-Republican side would be composed of
four Bryan and Watson men and four Bryan and
Sewall raen. Now in the event of Bryan having
raore votes than McKinley — that is, in the event of
the country showing strong Bedlamite tendencies
next Noveraber — it might be that a split between
Sewall and Watson would give a plurality to Ho
bart, and in such event it is hardly conceivable
that some of the electors would not exercise their
discretion by changing their votes. If they did
not, we might then again see a return to the early
and profoundly interesting practice of our fathers
and witness a President chosen by one party and a
Vice-President by the other.
I wish it to be distinctly understood, however,
that these are merely interesting speculations as to
what might occur in a hopelessly improbable con
tingency. I am a good American, with a profound
belief in ray countrymen, and I have no idea that
they will deliberately lower theraselves to a level
beneath that of a South American Republic, by
voting for the farrago of sinister nonsense which
the Populistic-Democratic politicians at Chicago
chose to set up as embodying the principles of their
party, and for the araiable and windy demagogue
who stands upon that platform. Many entirely
honest and intelligent men have been misled by
the silver talk, and have for the moment joined the
ranks of the ignorant, the vicious and the wrong-
headed. These men of character and capacity are
bHnded by their own misfortunes, or their own

tlbe Campaign of 1896 213

needs, or else they have never fairly looked into
the matter for themselves, being, like most raen,
whether in " gold " or " silver " communities, con
tent to follow the opinion of those they are accus
tomed to trust. After full and fair inquiry these
men, I am sure, whether they live in Maine, in Ten
nessee, or in Oregon, will come out on the side of
honest raoney. The shiftless and vicious and the
honest but hopelessly ignorant and puzzle-headed
voters cannot be reached ; but the average farmer,
the average business man, the average workman —
in short, the average American — will always stand
up for honesty and decency when he can once
satisfy himself as to the side on which they are to
be found.

X

HOW NOT TO HELP OUR POORER
BROTHER'
AFTER the publication of my article in the
September Review of Reviews on the vice-
presidential candidates, I received the following
very manly, and very courteous, letter from the
Honorable Thomas Watson, then the candidate
with Mr. Bryan on the Populist ticket for Vice-
President. I publish it with his permission :
Hon. Theodore Roosevelt :
It pains me to be misunderstood by those whose
good opinion I respect, and upon reading your
trenchant article in the September number of the
Review of Reviews the impulse was strong to write
to you.
When you take your stand for honester govern
ment and for juster laws in New York, as you have
so courageously done, your raotives must be the
sarae as raine — for you do not need the money
' Review of Reviews, January, 1897.
214

©ur poorer .fBrotbec 215

your office gives you. I can understand, instinct
ively, what you feel — what your motives are. You
merely obey a law of your nature which puts you
into mortal corabat with what you think is wrong.
You fight because your own sense of self-respect
and self-loyalty compels you to fight. Is not this
so? If in Georgia and throughout the South we have
conditions as intolerable as those that surround
you in New York, can you not realize why I make
war upon them ?
Tammany itself has grown great because mis
taken leaders of the southern Democracy catered
to its Kellys and Crokers and feared to defy them.
The first " roast " I ever got from the Democratic
press of this State followed a speech I had made
denouncing Tammany, and denouncing the craven
leaders who obeyed Taramany.
It is astonishing how one honest man may hon
estly misjudge another.
My creed does not lead me to dislike the men
who run a bank, a factory, a railroad or a foundry.
I do not hate a raan for owning a bond, and having
a bank account, or having cash loaned at interest.
Upon the other hand, I think each should make
all the profit in business he fairly can ; but I do
believe that the banks should not exercise the sov
ereign power of issuing raoney, and I do believe
that all special privileges granted, and all exemp
tion from taxation, work infinite harm. I do be
lieve that the wealth of the Republic is practically
free from federal taxation, and that the burdens of

2i6 ©ur poorer asrotber

government fall upon the shoulders of those least
able to bear them.
If you could spend an evening with me among
my books and amid my family, I feel quite sure
you would not again class me with those who make
war upon the " decencies and elegancies of civilized
life." And if you could attend one of my great
political meetings in Georgia, and seethe good raen
and good women who believe in Populism, you
would not continue to class them with those who
vote for candidates upon the " no undershirt "
platform. In other words, if you understood rae and mine
your judgment of us would be different.
The " cracker " of the South is siraply the raan
who did not buy slaves to do his work. He did it
all himself — like a man. Some of our best generals
in war, and magistrates in peace, have come from
the " cracker " class. As a matter of fact, however,
ray own people, from ray father back to Revolution
ary times, were slave owners and land owners. In
the first meeting held in Georgia to express sym
pathy with the Boston patriots my great-great
grandfather bore a prominent part, and in the first
State legislature ever convened in Georgia one of
my ancestors was the representative of his county.
My grandfather was wealthy, and so was my
father. My boyhood was spent in the idleness of
a rich man's son. It was not till I was in my teens
that misfortune overtook us, sent us horaeless into
the world, and deprived me of the thorough col
legiate training my father intended for me.

©ur poorer :®totber 217

At sixteen years of age I thus had to commence
life moneyless, and the weary years I spent among
the poor, the kindness I received in their homes,
and the acquaintance I made with the hardship of
their lives, gave rae that profound sympathy for
them which I yet retain — though I am no longer
poor rayself.
Pardon the liberty I take in intruding this letter
upon you. I have followed your work in New York
with admiring sympathy, and have frequently writ
ten of it in my paper. While hundreds of miles
separate us, and our tasks and raethods have been
widely different, I must still believe that we have
much in common, and that the ruling force which
actuates us both is to challenge wrong and to fight
the battles of good government. Very respectfully yours,
(Signed) Thos. E. Watson.
Thompson, Ga., August, 30, 1896.
I intended to draw a very sharp line between Mr.
Watson and many of those associated with him in
the same movement ; and certain of the sentences
which he quotes as if they were meant to apply to
him were, on the contrary, meant to apply generally
to the agitators who proclaimed both him and Mr.
Bryan as their champions, and especially to many
of the men who were running on the Populist tick
ets in different States. To Mr. Watson's own sin
cerity and courage I thought I had paid full tribute,
and if I failed in any way I wish to make good that
failure. I was in Washington when Mr. Watson

2i8 ©ur poorer ffirotbet

was in Congress, and I know how highly he was
esteemed personaUy by his colleagues, even by those
differing very widely from him in matters of princi
ple. The staunchest friends of order and decent
government fully and cordially recognized Mr.
Watson's honesty and good faith — men, for instance,
like Senator Lodge of Massachusetts, and Repre
sentative Bellamy Storer of Ohio. Moreover, I
sympathize as little as Mr. Watson with denuncia
tion of the " cracker," and I may mention that one
of my forefathers was the first Revolutionary Gov
ernor of Georgia at the tirae that Mr. Watson's an
cestor sat in the first Revolutionary legislature of
the State. Mr. Watson hiraself embodies not a few
of the very attributes the lack of which we feel so
keenly in many of our public men. He is brave,
he is earnest, he is honest, he is disinterested. For
many of the wrongs which he wishes to reraedy, I,
too, believe that a remedy can be found, and for
this purpose I would gladly strike hands with him.
All this makes it a matter of the keenest regret that
he should advocate certain remedies that we deera
even worse than the wrongs complained of, and
should strive in darkling ways to correct other
wrongs, or rather inequalities and sufferings, which
exist, not because of the shortcomings of society,
but because of the existence of human nature
itself. There are plenty of ugly things about wealth and
its possessors in the present age, and I suppose there
have been in all ages. There are many rich peo
ple who so utterly lack patriotism, or show such

©ur poorer SSrotber 219

sordid and selfish traits of character, or lead such
mean and vacuous lives, that all right-minded men
must look upon them with angry contempt ; but,
on the whole, the thrifty are apt to be better citi
zens than the thriftless ; and the worst capitalist
cannot harm laboring men as they are harmed by
demagogues. As the people of a State grow more
and more intelligent the State itself may be able to
play a larger and larger part in the life of the com
munity, while at the same time individual effort
may be given freer and less restricted movement
along certain lines ; but it is utterly unsafe to give
the State more than the minimura of power just so
long as it contains raasses of raen who can be raoved
by the pleas and denunciations of the average
Socialist leader of to-day. There raay be better
schemes of taxation than those at present employed ;
it may be wise to devise inheritance taxes, and to
impose regulations on the kinds of business which
can be carried on only under the especial protec
tion of the State ; and where there is a real abuse
by wealth it needs to be, and in this country gene
rally has been, promptly done away with ; but the
first lesson to teach the poor man is that, as a whole,
the wealth in the community is distinctly beneficial
to him ; that he is better off in the long run because
other men are well off ; and that the surest way to
destroy what measure of prosperity he raay have is
to paralyze industry and the well-being of those
raen who have achieved success.
I ara not an empiricist ; I would no more deny
that soraetimes human affairs can be much bettered

220 ©ur poorer 3Brotbet

by legislation than I would affirm that they can
always be so bettered. I would no more make a
fetish of unrestricted individualism than I would
admit the power of the State offhand and radically
to reconstruct society. It may become necessary to
interfere even more than we have done with the
right of private contract, and to shackle cunning as
we have shackled force. All I insist upon is that
we must be sure of our ground before trying to get
any legislation at all, and that we must not expect
too much frora this legislation, nor refuse to better
ourselves a little because we cannot accoraplish
everything at a jurap. Above all, it is criminal to
excite anger and discontent without proposing a
remedy, or only proposing a false remedy. The
worst foe of the poor raan is the labor leader,
whether philanthropist or politician, who tries to
teach him that he is a victim of conspiracy and
injustice, when in reality he is raerely working out
his fate with blood and sweat as the immense ma
jority of men who are worthy of the name always
have done and always will have to do.
The difference between what can and what cannot
be done by law is well exemplified by our experience
with the negro problera, an experience of which Mr.
Watson must have ample practical knowledge. The
negroes were formerly held in slavery. This was a
wrong which legislation could remedy, and which
could not be remedied except by legislation. Ac
cordingly they were set free by law. This having
been done, many of their friends believed that in
some way, by additional legislation, we could at

©ur poorer JBrotber 221
once put them on an intellectual, social, and busi
ness equality with the whites. The effort has failed
completely. In large sections of the country the
negroes are not treated as they should be treated,
and politically in particular the frauds upon them
have been so gross and shameful as to awaken not
merely indignation but bitter wrath ; yet the best
friends of the negro admit that his hope lies, not in
legislation, but in the constant working of those
often unseen forces of the national life which are
greater than all legislation.
It is but rarely that great advances in general
social well-being can be made by the adoption of
sorae far-reaching scheme, legislative or otherwise ;
normally they come only by gradual growth, and by
incessant effort to do first one thing, then another,
and then another. Quack remedies of the uni
versal cure-all type are generally as noxious to the
body politic as to the body corporal.
Often the head-in-the-air social reforraers, be
cause people of sane and wholesome minds will not
favor their wild schemes, themselves decline to
favor schemes for practical reform. For the last
two years there has been an honest effort in New
York to give the city good governraent, and to work
intelligently for better social conditions, especially
in the poorest quarters. We have cleaned the
streets ; we have broken the power of the ward
boss and the saloon-keeper to work injustice ; we
have destroyed the raost hideous of the teneraent
houses in which poor people are huddled like swine
in a sty ; we have made parks and play-grounds for

222 ©ur poorer ^Brotbet
the children in the crowded quarters ; in every
possible way we have striven to make life easier
and healthier, and to give man and woman a chance
to do their best work ; while at the same time we
have warred steadily against the pauper-producing,
maudlin philanthropy of the free soup-kitchen and
tramp lodging-house kind. In all this we have had
practically no help from either the parlor socialists
or the scarcely more noxious beer-room socialists
who are always howling about the selfishness of the
rich and their unwillingness to do anything for
those who are less well off.
There are certain labor unions, certain bodies of
organized labor — notably those admirable organiza
tions which include the railway conductors, the
locomotive engineers and the firemen — which to my
mind embody almost the best hope that there is for
healthy national growth in the future ; but bitter
experience has taught men who work for reform in
New York that the average labor leader, the average
demagogue who shouts for a depreciated currency,
or for the overthrow of the rich, will not do any
thing to help those who honestly strive to make bet
ter our civic conditions. There are immense num
bers of workingraen to whom we can appeal with
perfect confidence ; but too often we find that a
large proportion of the men who style themselves
leaders of organized labor are influenced only by
sullen short-sighted hatred of what they do not un
derstand, and are deaf to all appeals, whether to
their national or to their civic patriotism.
What I most grudge in all this is the fact that

©ur poorer JBrotbec 223

sincere and zealous raen of high character and hon
est purpose, men like Mr. Watson, men and women
such as those he describes as attending his Populist
raeetings, or such as are to be found in all strata of
our society, from the employer to the hardest-
worked day laborer, go astray in their methods, and
are thereby prevented from doing the full work for
good they ought to. When a man goes on the
wrong road hiraself he can do very little to guide
others aright, even though these others are also on
the wrong road. There are many wrongs to be
righted ; there are many measures of relief to be
pushed ; and it is a pity that when we are fighting
what is bad and championing what is good, the raen
who ought to be our most effective allies should
deprive themselves of usefulness by the wrong-
headedness of their position. Rich raen and poor
men both do wrong on occasions, and whenever a
specific instance of this can be pointed out all citi
zens alike should join in punishing the wrong-doer.
Honesty and right-mindedness should be the tests ;
not wealth or poverty.
In our municipal administration here in New
York we have acted with an equal hand toward
wrong-doers of high and low degree. The Board of
Health condemns the tenement-house property of
the rich landowner, whether this landowner be
priest or layoian, banker or raUroad president,
lawyer or manager of a real estate business ; and
it pays no heed to the intercession of any politician,
whether this politician be Catholic or Protestant,
Jew or Gentile. At the same tirae the Police De-

224 ©ur poorer JBrotber

partment proraptly suppresses, not only the crirai
nal, but the rioter. In other words, we do strict
justice. We feel we are defrauded of help to which
we are entitled when men who ought to assist in
any work to better the condition of the people de
cline to aid us because their brains are turned by
drearas only worthy of a European revolutionist.
Many workingmen look with distrust upon laws
which really would help them ; laws for the intelli
gent restriction of immigration, for instance. I
have no sympathy with mere dislike of immigrants ;
there are classes and even nationalities of them
which stand at least on an equality with the citi
zens of native birth, as the last election showed.
But in the interest of our workingmen we must in
the end keep out laborers who are ignorant, vicious,
and with low standards of life and comfort, just as
we have shut out the Chinese.
Often labor leaders and the like denounce 'the
present conditions of society, and especially of our
political life, for shortcomings which they them
selves have been instruraental in causing. In our
cities the misgovernment is due, not to the mis
deeds of the rich, but to the low standard of hon
esty and morality ainong citizens generally ; and
nothing helps the corrupt politician raore than
substituting either wealth or poverty for honesty as
the standard by which to try a candidate. A few
months ago a socialistic reformer in New York was
denouncing the corruption caused by rich men be
cause a certain judge was suspected of giving in
formation in advance as to a decision in a case

©ur poorer 3!5rotber 225

involving the interests of a great corporation. Now
this judge had been elected some years previously,
mainly because he was supposed to be a representa
tive of the " poor man " ; and the socialistic
reformer himself, a year ago, was opposing the elec
tion of Mr. Beaman as judge because he was one
of the firm of Evarts & Choate, who were friends
of various millionaires and were counsel for various
corporations. But if Mr. Beaman had been elected
judge no human being, rich or poor, would have
dared so much as hint at his doing anything im
proper. Something can be done by good laws ; more can
be done by honest administration of the laws ; but
most of all can be done by frowning resolutely upon
the preachers of vague discontent ; and by uphold
ing the true doctrine of self-reliance, self-help, and
self-mastery. This doctrine sets forth many things.
Among them is the fact that though a man can
occasionally be helped when he stumbles, yet that
it is useless to try to carry him when he will not or
cannot walk ; and worse than useless to try to bring
down the work and reward of the thrifty and intel
ligent to the level of the capacity of the weak, the
shiftless, and the idle. It further shows that the
maudlin philanthropist and the maudlin sentimen
talist are almost as noxious as the demagogue, and
that it is even more necessary to temper mercy with
justice than justice with mercy.
The worst lesson that can be taught a man is to
rely upon others and to whine over his sufferings.
If an American is to amount to anything he must
IS

226 ©ur poorer 3Brotber

rely upon himself, and not upon the State ; he
must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting
idle to envy the luck of others ; he must face life
with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and
accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place
on his feUow-men a responsibility which is not
theirs. Let rae say in conclusion, that I do not write in
the least from the standpoint of those whose asso
ciation is purely with what are called the wealthy
classes. The men with whom I have worked and
associated most closely during the last couple of
years here in New York, with whom I have shared
what is at least an earnest desire to better social
and civic conditions (neither blinking what is evil
nor being raisled by the apostles of a false remedy),
and with whose opinions as to what is right and
practical ray own in the main agree, are not capi
talists, save as all men who by toil earn, and with
prudence save, raoney are capitalists. They include
reporters on the daily papers, editors of magazines,
as well as of newspapers, principals in the public
schools, young lawyers, young architects, young
doctors, young men of business, who are struggling
to rise in their profession by dint of faithful work,
but who give some of their time to doing what they
can for the city, and a number of priests and clergy
raen ; but as it happens the list does not include
any man of great wealth, or any of those men whose
naraes are in the public raind identified with great
business corporations. Most of them have at one
time or another in their lives faced poverty and

©ur poorer 3Brotbet 227

know what it is ; none of them are more than well-
to-do. They include Catholics and Protestants,
Jews, and men who would be regarded as heterodox
by professors of most recognized creeds ; some of
them were born on this side, others are of foreign
birth ; but they are all Americans, heart and soul,
who fight out for themselves the battles of their own
lives, meeting sometimes defeat and sometimes vic
tory. They neither forget that man does owe a
duty to his fellows, and should strive to do what
he can to increase the well-being of the commu
nity ; nor yet do they forget that in the long run
the only way to help people is to make them help
themselves. They are prepared to try any prop
erly guarded legislative remedy for ills which they
believe can be remedied ; but they perceive clearly
that it is both foolish and wicked to teach the av
erage man who is not well off that some wrong or
injustice has been done him, and that he should
hope for redress elsewhere than in his own indus
try, honesty, and intelligence.

XI
THE MONROE DOCTRINE^
THE Monroe Doctrine should not be consid
ered from any purely academic standpoint,
but as a broad, general principle of living policy.
It is to be justified not by precedent merely, but
by the needs of the nation and the true inter
ests of Western civilization. It, of course, adds
strength to our position at this moment to show
that the action of the national authorities is war
ranted by the actions of their predecessors on like
occasions in time past, and that the line of policy
we are now pursuing is that which has been pur
sued by all our statesmen of note since the republic
grew sufficiently powerful to raake what it said of
weight in foreign affairs. But even if in time past
we had been as blind to the national honor and
welfare as are the men who at the present day
champion the anti- American side of the Venezulan
question, it would now be necessary for statesmen
' The Bachelor of Arts, March, l8g6.
228

ZTbe Monroe Doctrtne 229

who were both far-sighted and patriotic to enun
ciate the principles for which the Monroe Doctrine
stands. In other words, if the Monroe Doctrine
did not already exist it would be necessary forth
with to create it.
Let us first of all clear the question at issue by
brushing away one or two false objections. Lord
Salisbury at first put in emphatic words his refusal
in any way to recognize the Monroe Doctrine as
part of the law of nations or as binding upon
Great Britain. Most British statesmen and pub
licists followed his lead ; but recently a goodly
number have shown an inclination to acquiesce
in the views of Lord Salisbury's colleague, Mr.
Chamberlain, who announces, with bland indif
ference to the expressed opinion of his nominal
chief, that England does recognize the existence
of the Monroe Doctrine and never thought of
ignoring it. Lord Salisbury himself has recently
shown symptoms of changing ground and taking
this position ; while Mr. Balfour has gone still
farther in the right direction, and the Liberal
leaders farther yet. It is not very iraportant to
us how far Lord Salisbury and Mr. Chamberlain
may diverge in their views, although, of course,
in the interests of the English-speaking peoples
and of peace between England and the United
States, we trust that Mr. Chamberlain's position
will be sustained by Great Britain. But the atti
tude of our own people is important, and it would
be amusing, were it not unpleasant, to see that
many Americans, whose Americanism is of the

230 Zbe Monroe Doctrine

timid and flabby type, have been inclined eagerly
to agree with Lord Salisbury. A very able mem
ber of the New York bar remarked the other day
that he had not yet raet the lawyer who agreed
with Secretary Olney as to the legal interpretation
of the Monroe Doctrine. This remark was chiefly
interesting as showing the lawyer's own limitations.
It would not have been made if he had met the
Justices of the Supreme Court, for instance ; but
even on the unfounded supposition that his remark
was well grounded, it would have had little more
significance than if he had said that he had not
yet met a dentist who agreed with Mr. Olney.
The Monroe Doctrine is not a question of
law at all. It is a question of policy. It is a
question to be considered not only by statesmen,
but by all good citizens. Lawyers, as lawyers, have
absolutely nothing whatever to say about it. To
argue that it cannot be recognized as a principle
of international law, is a mere waste of breath.
Nobody cares whether it is or is not so recognized,
any more than any one cares whether the Declara
tion of Independence and Washington's farewell
address are so recognized.
The Monroe Doctrine may be briefly defined as
forbidding European encroachment on Araerican
soil. It is not desirable to define it so rigidly as
to prevent our taking into account the varying de
grees of national interest in varying cases. The
United States has not the slightest wish to estab
lish a universal protectorate over other American
States, or to become responsible for their mis-

Zbe Monroe Doctrine 231

deeds. If one of them becomes involved in an
ordinary quarrel with a European power, such
quarrel must be settled between them by any one
of the usual methods. But no European State is
to be allowed to aggrandize itself on American
soil at the expense of any American State. Fur
thermore, no transfer of an American colony frora
one European State to another is to be perraitted,
if, in the judgraent of the United States, such
transfer would be hostile to its own interests.
John Quincy Adams, who, during the presi
dency of Monroe, first clearly enunciated the doc
trine which bears his chief's name, asserted it as
against both Spain and Russia. In the clearest
and raost eraphatic terras he stated that the United
States could not acquiesce in the acquisition of
new territory within the limits of any independent
American State, whether in the Northern or South
ern Hemisphere, by any European power. He
took this position against Russia when Russia
threatened to take possession of what is now Ore
gon. He took this position as against Spain when,
backed by other powers of Continental Europe,
she threatened to reconquer certain of the Span
ish-American States.
This is precisely and exactly the position the
United States has now taken in reference to Eng
land and Venezuela. It is idle to contend that there
is any serious difference in the application of the
doctrine to the two sets of questions. An Araeri
can may, of course, announce his opposition to
the Monroe Doctrine, although by so doing he

232 Zbe jflBonroe Doctrine

forfeits all title to far-seeing and patriotic devo
tion to the interests of his country. But he cannot
argue that the Monroe Doctrine does not apply to
the present case, unless he argues that the Monroe
Doctrine has no existence whatsoever. In fact,
such arguments are, on their face, so absurd that
they need no refutation, and can be relegated
where they belong — to the realm of the hair-split
ting schoolraen. They have no concern either for
practical politicians or for historians with true his
toric insight.
We have asserted the principles which underlie
the Monroe Doctrine, not only against Russia and
Spain, but also against France, on at least two dif
ferent occasions. The last and most important
was when the French conquered Mexico and made
it into an Empire. It is not necessary to recall to
any one the action of our Government in the matter
as soon as the Civil War came to an end. Suffice it
to say that, under threat of our interposition, the
French promptly abandoned Maximilian, and the
latter's Empire fell. Long before this, however, and
a score of years before the Doctrine was christened
by the narae Monroe even the timid statesmen of
the Jeffersonian era embodied its principle in their
protest against the acquisition of Louisiana, by
France, from Spain. Spain at that time held all
of what is now the Great West. France wished to
acquire it. Our statesmen at once announced that
they would regard as hostile to America the trans
fer of the territory in question from a weak to a
strong European power. Under the American

ttbe flionroe Doctrtne 233

pressure the matter was finally settled by the sale
of the territory in question to the United States.
The principle which our statesmen then announced
was in kind precisely the same as that upon which
we should now act if Germany sought to acquire
Cuba from Spain, or St. Thomas from the Danes.
In either of these events it is hardly conceivable
that the United States would hesitate to interfere,
if necessary, by force of arms ; and in so doing the
national authorities would undoubtedly be sup
ported by the immense raajority of the American
people, and, indeed, by all save the men of abnor
mal timidity or abnormal political short-sightedness.
Historically, therefore, the position of our repre
sentatives in the Venezuelan question is completely
justified. It cannot be attacked on academic
grounds. The propriety of their position is even
more easily defensible.
Primarily, our action is based on national self-
interest. In other words, it is patriotic. A cer
tain limited numberof persons are fond of decrying
patriotism as a selfish virtue, and strive with all
their feeble might to inculcate in its place a kind
of milk-and-water cosmopolitanism. These good
people are never raen of robust character or of im
posing personality, and the plea itself is not worth
considering. Some reforraers may urge that in the
ages' distant future patriotism, like the habit of
monogaraous marriage, will become a needless and
obsolete virtue ; but just at present the man who
loves other countries as much as he does his own
is quite as noxious a member of society as the man

234 Zbe Monroe Doctrtne

who loves other women as much as he loves his
wife. Love of country is an elemental virtue, like
love of home, or like honesty or courage. No
country will accomplish very much for the world
at large unless it elevates itself. The useful mem
ber of a community is the man who first and fore
most attends to his own rights and his own duties,
and who therefore becomes better fitted to do his
share in the comraon duties of all. The useful
meraber of the brotherhood of nations is that
nation which is raost thoroughly saturated with
the national idea, and which realizes most fully
its rights as a nation and its duties to its own
citizens. This is in no way incompatible with
a scrupulous regard for the rights of other na
tions, or a desire to reraedy the wrongs of suffer
ing peoples.
The United States ought not to permit any great
military powers, which have no foothold on this
continent, to establish such foothold ; nor should
they permit any aggrandizement of those who al
ready have possessions on the continent. We do
not wish to bring ourselves to a position where we
shall have to emulate the European system of
enorraous armies. Every true patriot, every man
of statesman-like habit, should look forward to the
day when not a single European power will hold a
foot of American soil. At present it is not neces
sary to take the position that no European power
shall hold American territory ; but it certainly will
become necessary, if the tiraid and selfish " peace
t any price " men have their way, and if the

ITbe Monroe Doctrine 235

United States faUs to check at the outset Euro
pean aggrandizement on this continent.
Primarily, therefore, it is to the interest of the
citizens of the United States to prevent the fur
ther colonial growth of European powers in the
Western Hemisphere. But this is also to the in
terest of all the people of the Western Hemi
sphere. At best, the inhabitants of a colony are
in a cramped and unnatural state. At the worst,
the establishment of a colony prevents any healthy
popular growth. Some time in the dim future it
may be that all the English-speaking peoples
will be able to unite in some kind of confederacy.
However desirable this would be, it is, under exist
ing conditions, only a dream. At present the only
hope for a colony that wishes to attain full moral
and mental growth, is to become an independent
State, or part of an independent State. No English
colony now stands on a footing of genuine equal
ity with the parent State. As long as the Cana
dian reraains a colonist, he remains in a position
which is distinctly inferior to that of his cousins,
both in England and in the United States. The
Englishman at bottom looks down on the Cana
dian, as he does on any one who admits his infe
riority, and quite properly, too. The American,
on the other hand, with equal propriety, regards
the Canadian with the good-natured condescen
sion always felt by the freeraan for the raan who
is not free. A funny instance of the English atti
tude toward Canada was shown after Lord Dun-
raven's inglorious fiasco last September, when the

236 Ube /iRonroe Doctrtne

Canadian yachtsman. Rose, challenged for the
Araerica cup. The English journals repudiated
hira on the express ground that a Canadian was
not an Englishman and not entitled to the privi
leges of an Englishman. In their comments, many
of them showed a dislike for Americans which
almost rose to hatred. The feeling they displayed
for the Canadians was not one of dislike. It was
one of contempt.
Under the best of circumstances, therefore, a
colony is in a false position. But if the colony is
in a region where the colonizing race has to do its
work by means of other inferior races the condi
tion is much worse. From the standpoint of the
race little or nothing has been gained by the Eng
lish conquest and colonization of Jamaica. Ja
maica has merely been turned into a negro island,
with a future, seemingly, much like that of San
Domingo. British Guiana, however well admin
istered, is nothing but a colony where a few hun
dred or few thousand white raen hold the superior
positions, while the bulk of the population is com
posed of Indians, Negroes, and Asiatics. Looked
at through the vista of the centuries, such a col
ony contains less promise of true growth than
does a State like Venezuela or Ecuador. The his
tory of most of the South Araerican republics has
been both raean and bloody ; but there is at least
a chance that they raay develop, after infinite
tribulations and suffering, into a civilization quite
as high and stable as that of such a European
power as Portugal. But there is no such chance

Ube Monroe Doctrtne 237

for any tropical American colony owned by a
Northern European race. It is distinctly in the
interest of civilization that the present States in
the two Americas should develop along their own
lines, and however desirable it is that many of
them should receive European immigration, it is
highly undesirable that any of them should be
pnder Ei;iropean control.
i So much for the general principles, and the
justification, historically and morally, of the Mon
roe Doctrine. Now take the specific case at issue.
Great Britain has a boundary dispute with Venez
uela. She clairas as her own a territory which
Venezuela asserts to be hers, a territory which in
point of size very nearly equals the Kingdom of
Italy. Our government, of course, cannot, if it
wishes to remain true to the traditions of the
Monroe Doctrine submit to the acquisition by
England of such an enormous tract of territory,
and it must therefore find out whether the English
claims are or are not well founded. It would, of
course, be preposterous to lay down the rule that
no European power should seize Araerican territory
which was not its own, and yet to permit the power
itself to decide the question of the ovifnership of
such territory. Great Britain refused to settle the
question either by amicable agreement with Ven
ezuela or by arbitration. All that remained for
the United States, was to do what it actually did ;
that is, to try to find out the facts for itself, by its
own commission. If the facts show England to
be in the right, well and good. If they show Eng-

238 Zbe jflBonroe Doctrine

land to be in the wrong, we most certainly ought
not to permit her to profit, at Venezuela's expense,
by her own wrong-doing.
We are doing exactly what England would very
properly do in a like case. Recently, when the
German Emperor started to interfere in the Trans
vaal, England proraptly declared her own " Mon
roe Doctrine " for South Africa. We do not pro
pose to see EngHsh filibusters try at the expense
of Venezuela the sarae policy which recently came
to such an ignominious end in the Transvaal,
in a piece of weak, would-be buccaneering, which,
it is perhaps not unfair to say was fittingly com
memorated in the verse of the new poet-laureate.
It would be difficult to overestimate the good
done in this country by the vigorous course already
taken by the national executive and legislature in
this matter. The lesson taught Lord Salisbury is
one which will not soon be forgotten by English
statesmen. His position is false, and is recognized
as false by the best English statesraen and publi
cists. If he does not consent to arrange the matter
with Venezuela, it will have to be arranged in some
way by arbitration. In either case, the United
States gains its point. The only possible danger
of war comes from the action of the selfish and
timid men on this side of the water, who clamor
ously strive to misrepresent American, and to mis
lead English, public opinion. If they succeed in
persuading Lord Salisbury that the American
people win back down if he presses them, they
will do the greatest damage possible to both coun-

Zbe ,fll!»onroe Doctrine 239

tries, for they will render war, at some time in
the future, alraost inevitable.
Such a war we would deplore ; but it must be
distinctly understood that we would deplore it very
much more for England's sake than for our own ;
for whatever might be the initial fortunes of the
struggle, or the temporary damage and loss to the
United States, the raere fact that Canada would
inevitably be rent frora England in the end would
make the outcome an English disaster.
We do not in any way seek to become the
sponsor of the South American States. England
has the same right to protect her own subjects, or
even in exceptional cases to interfere to stop out
rages in South America, that we have to interfere
in Armenia — and it is to be regretted that our
representatives do not see their way clear to inter
fere for Armenia. But England should not acquire
territory at the expense of Venezuela any more
than we should acquire it at the expense of
Turkey. The raention of Armenia brings up a peculiarly
hypocritical plea which has been advanced against
us in this controversy. It has been solemnly al
leged that our action in Venezuela has hampered
England in the East and has prevented her inter
fering on behalf of Armenia. We do not wish to
indulge in recriminations, but when such a plea is
advanced, the truth, however unpleasant, must be
told. The great crime of this century against civ
ilization has been the upholding of the Turk by
certain Christian powers. To England's attitude

240 Zbe .flftonroe Doctrine

in the Crimean War, and after the Russo-Turkish
War of 1877, the present Armenian horror is pri
marily due. Moreover, for six months before the
Venezuelan question arose England had looked on
motionless while the Turks perpetrated on their
wretched subjects wrongs that would blast the
meraory of Attila.
We do not wish to be misunderstood. We have
no feeling against England. On the contrary, we
regard her as being well in advance of the great
powers of Continental Europe, and we have more
sympathy with her. In general, her success tells
for the success of civilization, and we wish her
well. But where her interests enlist her against
the progress of civilization and in favor of the op
pression of other nationalities who are struggling
upward, our sympathies are immediately forfeited.
It is a matter of serious concern to every college
man, and, indeed, to every man who believes in
the good effects of a liberal education, to see the
false views which seem to obtain among so many of
the leaders of educated thought, not only upon the
Monroe Doctrine, but upon every question which
involves the existence of a feeling of robust Amer
icanism. Every educated man who puts himself
out of touch with the current of American thought,
and who on conspicuous occasions assumes an at
titude hostile to the interest of America, is doing
what he can to weaken the influence of educated
men in American life. The crude, ill-conditioned
jealousy of education, which is so often and so
lamentably shown by large bodies of our people, ig

C:be Monroe Doctrtne 241

immensely stimulated by the action of those prom
inent educated men in whom education seems to
have destroyed the strong, virile virtues and espe
cially the spirit of Americanism.
No nation can achieve real greatness if its people
are not both essentially moral and essentially manly ;
both sets of qualities are necessary. It is an adrair
able thing to possess refinement and cultivation,
but the price is too dear if they must be paid for
at the cost of the rugged fighting qualities which
make a man able to do a man's work in the world,
and which make his heart beat with that kind of
love of country which is shown not only in readi
ness to try to make her civic life better, but also
to stand up manfully for her when her honor and
influence are at stake in a dispute with a foreign
power. A heavy responsibility rests on the edu
cated man. It is a double discredit to him to go
wrong, whether his shortcomings take the form of
shirking his every-day civic duties, or of abandon
ment of the nation's rights in a foreign quarrel.
He must no more be misled by the sneers of those
who always write " patriotism " between inverted
commas than by the coarser, but equally dangerous,
ridicule of the politicians who jeer at " reform."
It is as unmanly to be taunted by one set of critics
into cowardice as it is to be taunted by the other
set into dishonesty.
There are many upright and honorable men who
take the wrong side, that is, the anti-American
side, of the Monroe Doctrine because they are too
short-sighted or too unimaginative to realize the

242 Zbe jflBonroe Doctrtne

hurt to the nation that would be caused by the
adoption of their views. There are other raen who
take the wrong view simply because they have not
thought much of the matter, or are in unfortunate
surroundings, by which they have been influenced
to their own raoral hurt. There are yet other raen
in whora the raainspring of the opposition to that
branch of American policy known as the Monroe
Doctrine is sheer timidity. This is sometimes the
ordinary timidity of wealth. Sometiraes, however,
it is peculiarly developed araong educated men
whose education has tended to make them over-
cultivated and over-sensitive to foreign opinion.
They are generally men who undervalue the great
fighting qualities, without which no nation can
ever rise to the first rank.
The timidity of wealth is proverbial, and it was
well illustrated by the attitude taken by too raany
people of means at the time of the Venezuela
trouble. Many of them, including bankers, raer
chants, and railway raagnates, criticised the action
of the President and the Senate, on the ground
that it had caused business disturbance. Such a
position is essentially ignoble. When a question
of national honor or of national right or wrong,
is at stake, no question of financial interest should
be considered for a moment. Those wealthy men
who wish the abandonment of the Monroe Doctrine
because its assertion may damage their business,
bring discredit to themselves, and, so far as they are
able, discredit to the nation of which they are a
part.

tIbe Monroe Doctrine 243

It is an evil thing for any man of education to
forget that education should intensify patriotism,
and that patriotisra must not only be shown by
striving to do good to the country from within, but
by readiness to uphold its interests and honor, at
any cost, when menaced from without. Educated
men owe to the community the serious perform
ance of this duty. We need not concern ourselves
with the emigri educated man, the American who
deliberately takes up his perraanent abode abroad,
whether in London or Paris ; he is usually a man
of weak character, unfitted to do good work either
abroad or at home, who does what he can for his
country by relieving it of his presence. But the
case is otherwise with the American who stays at
home, and tries to teach the youth of his country to
disbelieve in the country's rights, as against other
countries, and to regard it as the sign of an enlight
ened spirit to decry the assertion of those rights
by force of arras. This raan raay be inefficient for
good ; but he is capable at times of doing harm,
because he tends to make other people inefficient
likewise. In our raunicipal politics there has long
been evident a tendency to gather in one group
the people who have no scruples, but who are very
efficient, and in another group the araiable people
who are not efficient at all. This is but one mani
festation of the general and very unwholesome
tendency among certain educated people to lose
the power of doing efficient work as they acquire
refinement. Of course in the long run a really
good education will give not only refinement, but

244 G^be yibonroe Doctrine

also an increase of power, and of capacity for effi
cient work. But the man who forgets that a real ed
ucation must include the cultivation of the fighting
virtues is sure to manifest this tendency to ineffi
ciency. It is exhibited on a national scale by the
educated raen who take the anti- American side of
international questions. There are exceptions to
the rule ; but as a rule the healthy man, resolute to
do the rough work of the world, and capable of
feeling his veins tingle with pride over the great
deeds of the men of his own nation, will naturally
take the American side of such a question as the
Monroe Doctrine. Similarly, the ansemic man of
refinement and cultivation, whose intellect has
been educated at the expense of his character, and
who shrinks from all these struggles through which
alone the world moves on to greatness, is inclined
to consider any expression of the Monroe Doctrine
as truculent and ill advised.
Of course, many strong men who are good citi
zens on ordinary occasions take the latter view
simply because they have been raisled. The col
onial habit of thought dies hard. It is to be wished
that those who are cursed with it would, in en
deavoring to eraulate the ways of the old world,
endeavor to emulate one characteristic which has
been shared by every old-world nation, and which
is possessed to a marked degree by England.
Every decent Englishman is devoted to his coun
try, first, last, and all the time. An Englishman
may or may not dislike America, but he is invari
ably for England and against America when any

Ube Monroe Doctrine 245
question arises between them ; and I heartily re
spect him for so being. Let our own people of the
partially colonial type copy this peculiarity and it
will be much to their credit.
The finest speech that for many years has been
delivered by a college man to other college men
was that made last spring by Judge Holmes, him
self a gallant soldier of the Civil War, in that hall
which Harvard has erected to commemorate those
of her sons who perished when the North strove
with the South. It should be graven on the heart
of every college man, for it has in it that lift of the
soul toward things heroic that makes the eyes burn
and the veins thrill. It must be read in its en
tirety, for no quotation could do justice to its fine
scorn of the mere money-maker, its lofty fealty to
a noble ideal, and, above all, its splendid love of
country and splendid praise of the valor of those
who strive on stricken fields that the honor of their
nation may be upheld.
It is strange, indeed, that in a country where
words like those of Judge Holmes can be spoken,
there should exist men who actually oppose the
building of a navy by the United States, nay, even
more, actually oppose so much as the strengthen
ing of the coast defences, on the ground that they
prefer to have this country too feeble to resent any
insult, in order that it raay owe its safety to the
contemptuous forbearance which it is hoped this
feebleness will inspire in foreign powers. No
Tammany alderman, no venal legislator, no dema
gogue or corrupt politician, ever strove more effec-

246 Ube /iBonroe Doctrtne

tively than these men are striving to degrade the
nation and to make one ashamed of the name of
Araerica. When we remember that among them
there are college graduates, it is a relief to remem
ber that the leaders on the side of raanliness and
of love of country are also college graduates.
Every believer in scholarship and in a liberal edu
cation, every believer in the robust qualities of
heart, mind, and body without which cultivation
and refinement are of no avail, must rejoice to
think that, in the present crisis, college men have
been prominent araong the leaders whose far-
sighted statesmanship and resolute love of country
have made those of us who are really Americans
proud of the nation. Secretary Olney is a gradu
ate of Brown ; Senator Lodge, who took the lead
in the Senate on this matter, is a graduate of Har
vard ; and- no less than three members of the
Boundary Commission are graduates of Yale.

XII
^WASHINGTON'S FORGOTTEN
MAXIM '

A CENTURY has passed since Washington
wrote " To be prepared for war is the most
effectual means to proraote peace." We pay to-
this maxim the lip loyalty we so often pay to
Washington's words ; but it has never sunk deep
into our hearts. Indeed of late years many per
sons have refused it even the poor tribute of lip
loyalty, and prate about the iniquity of war as if
somehow that was a justification for refusing to
take the steps which can alone in the long run
prevent war or avert the dreadful disasters it
brings in its train. The truth of the maxim is so
obvious to every man of really far-sighted patriot
ism that its raere statement seems trite and useless ;
and it is not over-creditable to either our intelli
gence or our love of country that there should be,
'Address as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, before the
Naval War College, June, 1897. 247

248 XKHaebtngton's /DSaEim

as there is, need to dwell upon and amplify such
a truism. In this country there is not the slightest danger
of an over-development of warlike spirit, and there
never has been any such danger. In all our history
there has never been a time when preparedness for
war was any menace to peace. On the contrary,
again and again we have owed peace to the fact
that we were prepared for war ; and in the only
contest which we have had with a European power
since the Revolution, the war of 1812, the struggle
and all its attendant disasters, were due solely to
the fact that we were not prepared to face, and
were not ready instantly to resent, an attack upon
our honor and interest ; while the glorious triuraphs
at sea which redeemed that war were due to the
few preparations which we had actually made.
We are a great peaceful nation ; a nation of mer
chants and manufacturers, of farmers and mechan
ics ; a nation of workingmen, who labor incessantly
with head or hand. It is idle to talk of such a
nation ever being led into a course of wanton
aggression or conflict with military powers by the
possession of a sufficient navy.
The danger is of precisely the opposite charac
ter. If we forget that in the last resort we can
only secure peace by being ready and willing to
fight for it, we may some day have bitter cause
to realize that a rich nation which is slothful,
tiraid, or unwieldy is an easy prey for any people
which still retains those most valuable of all quali
ties, the soldierly virtues. We but keep to the

"GClasbington'e ^ajim 249

traditions of Washington, to the traditions of all
the great Americans who struggled for the real
greatness of Araerica, when we strive to build up
those fighting qualities for the lack of which in
a nation, as in an individual, no refineraent, no
culture, no wealth, no material prosperity, can
atone. Preparation for war is the surest guaranty for
peace. Arbitration is an excellent thing, but
ultimately those who wish to see this country at
peace with foreign nations will be wise if they
place reliance upon a first-class fleet of first-class
battle-ships rather than on any arbitration treaty
which the wit of raan can devise. Nelson said
that the British fleet was the best negotiator in
Europe, and there was much truth in the saying.
Moreover, while we are sincere and earnest in our
advocacy of peace, we must not forget that an
ignoble peace is worse than any war. We should
engrave in our legislative halls those splendid lines
of Lowell :
" Come, Peace ! not like a mourner bowed
For honor lost and dear ones wasted,
But proud, to meet a people proud,
With eyes that tell of triumph tasted ! "
Peace is a goddess only when she comes with
sword girt on thigh. The ship of state can be
steered safely only when it is always possible to
bring her against any foe with " her leashed thun
ders gathering for the leap." A really great peo
ple, proud and high-spirited, would face all the
disasters of war rather than purchase that base

250 Tiaiaebtngton's fliajim

prosperity which is bought at the price of national
honor. All the great masterful races have been
fighting races, and the minute that a race loses
the hard fighting virtues, then, no matter what
else it may retain, no matter how skilled in com
merce and finance, in science or art, it has lost its
proud right to stand as the equal of the best.
Cowardice in a race, as in an individual, is the un
pardonable sin, and a wilful failure to prepare for
danger may in its effects be as bad as cowardice.
The timid man who cannot fight, and the selfish,
short-sighted, or foolish man who will not take
the steps that will enable him to fight, stand on
almost the same plane.
It is not only true that a peace may be so igno
ble and degrading as to be worse than any war ;
it is also true that it may be fraught with more
bloodshed than most wars. Of this there has
been melancholy proof during the last two years.
Thanks largely to the very unhealthy influence of
the men whose business it is to speculate in the
money market, and who approach every subject
frora the financial standpoint, purely ; and thanks
quite as much to the cold-blooded brutality and
calculating timidity of many European rulers and
statesmen, the peace of Europe has been preserved,
while the Turk has been allowed to butcher the
Armenians with hideous and unmentionable bar
barity, and has actually been helped to keep Crete
in slavery. War has been averted at the cost of
more bloodshed and infinitely raore suffering and
degradation to wretched women and children than

"DDlasbington'a flbajim 251

have occurred in any European struggle since the
days of Waterloo. No war of recent years, no
raatter how wanton, has been so productive of
horrible misery as the peace which the powers
have maintained during the continuance of the
Armenian butcheries. The raen who would preach
this peace, and indeed the men who have preached
universal peace in terms that have prepared the
way for such a peace as this, have inflicted a wrong
on huraanity greater than could be inflicted by the
most reckless and war-loving despot. Better a
thousand times err on the side of over-readiness
to fight, than to err on the side of tame submission
to injury, or cold-blooded indifference to the mis
ery of the oppressed.
Popular sentiment is just when it selects as pop
ular heroes the men who have led in the struggle
against malice domestic or foreign levy. No tri
umph of peace is quite so great as the supreme
triumphs of war. The courage of the soldier, the
courage of the statesman who has to meet storms
which can be quelled only by soldierly qualities —
this stands higher than any quality called out
merely in time of peace. It is by no means neces
sary that we should have war to develop soldierly
attributes and soldierly qualities ; but if the peace
we enjoy is of such a kind that it causes their loss,
then it is far too dearly purchased, no matter what
may be its attendant benefits. It may be that some
tirae in the dim future of the race the need for war
will vanish ; but that time is yet ages distant. As
yet no nation can hold its place in the world, or

252 TRIlaebtngton's ^ajim
can do any work really worth doing, unless it
stands ready to guard its rights with an arraed
hand. That orderly liberty which is both the
foundation and the capstone of our civilization
can be gained and kept only by men who are will
ing to fight for an ideal ; who hold high the love
of honor, love of faith, love of flag, and love of
country. It is true that no nation can be really
great unless it is great in peace ; in industry, integ
rity, honesty. SkiUed inteUigence in civic affairs
and industrial enterprises alike ; the special abil
ity of the artist, the man of letters, the man of
science, and the man of business ; the rigid deter
mination to wrong no man, and to stand for right
eousness — all these are necessary in a great nation.
But it is also necessary that the nation should have
physical no less than moral courage ; the capacity
to do and dare and die at need, and that grim and
steadfast resolution which alone will carry a great
people through a great peril. The occasion may
come at any instant when
" 'T is man's perdition to be safe
When for the truth he ought to die."
All great nations have shown these qualities.
The Dutch held but a little corner of Europe.
Their industry, thrift, and enterprise in the pur
suits of peace and their cultivation of the arts helped
to render them great ; but these qualities would
have been barren had they not been backed by
those sterner qualities which rendered them able to
wrest their freedom from the cruel strength of

XKHasbington'a ^ajim 253

Spain, and to guard it against the banded might of
England and of France. The merchants and the
artists of Holland did much for her ; but even
more was done by the faraished burghers who
fought to the death on the walls of Harlem and
Leyden, and the great admirals who led their fleets
to victory on the broad and narrow seas.
England's history is rich in splendid names and
splendid deeds. Her literature is even greater than
that of Greece. In commerce she has stood in the
modern world as more than ever Carthage was
when civilization clustered in a fringe around the
Mediterranean. But she has risen far higher than
ever Greece or Carthage rose, because she pos
sesses also the great, raasterful qualities which were
possessed by the Romans who overthrew them
both. England has been fertile in soldiers and
administrators ; in men who triumphed by sea and
by land ; in adventurers and explorers who won
for her the world's waste spaces ; and it is because
of this that the English-speaking race now shares
with the Slav the fate of the coming years.
We of the United States have passed most of
our few years of national life in peace. We honor
the architects of our wonderful material prosperity ;
we appreciate the necessity of thrift, energy, and
business enterprise, and we know that even these
are of no avail without the civic and social virtues.
But we feel, after all, that the men who have dared
greatly in war, or the work which is akin to war,
are those who deserve best of the country. The
men of Bunker Hill and Trenton, Saratoga and

254 "amasbtngton's jflRajtm

Yorktown, the men of New Orleans and Mobile
Bay, Gettysburg and Appomattox are those to
whom we owe most. None of our heroes of peace,
save a few great constructive statesraen, can rank
with our heroes of war. The Araericans who stand
highest on the list of the world's worthies are
Washington, who fought to found the country
which he afterward governed, and Lincoln, who
saved it through the blood of the best and bravest
in the land ; Washington, the soldier and states
man, the man of cool head, dauntless heart, and
iron will, the greatest of good men and the best of
great men ; and Lincoln, sad, patient, kindly Lin
coln, who for four years toiled and suffered for the
people, and when his work was done laid down his
life that the flag which had been rent in sunder
might once more be raade whole and without a seam.
It is on men such as these, and not on the advo
cates of peace at any price, or upon those so short
sighted that they refuse to take into account the
possibility of war, that we must rely in every crisis
which deeply touches the true greatness and true
honor of the Republic. The United States has
never once in the course of its history suffered
harm because of preparation for war, or because of
entering into war. But we have suffered incalcu
lable harm, again and again, from a foolish failure
to prepare for war or from reluctance to fight when
to fight was proper. The men who to-day protest
against a navy, and protest also against every
movement to carry out the traditional policy of the
country in foreign affairs, and to uphold the honor

TUHasbtngton'e fliastm 255

of the flag, are themselves but following in the
course of those who protested against the acquisi
tion of the great West, and who failed to make
proper preparations for the war of i8i2,or refused
to support it after it had been made. They are
own brothers to the men whose short-sightedness
and supine indifference prevented any reorganiza
tion of the personnel of the Navy during the mid
dle of the century, so that we entered upon the
Civil War with captains seventy years old. They
are close kin to the men who, when the Southern
States seceded, wished to let the Union be dis
rupted in peace rather than restored through the
grira agony of arraed conflict.
I do not believe that any considerable nuraber
of our citizens are stamped with this timid lack of
patriotism. There are some doctrinaires whose
eyes are so firmly fixed on the golden vision of
universal peace that they cannot see the grim facts
of real life until they stumble over them, to their
own hurt, and, what is much worse, to the possible
undoing of their fellows. There are some educated
men in whora education raerely serves to soften
the fibre and to eliminate the higher, sterner qual
ities which tell for national greatness ; and these
men prate about love for mankind, or for another
country, as being in some hidden way a substitute
for love of their own country. What is of raore
weight, there are not a few men of means who have
made the till their fatherland, and who are always
ready to balance a temporary interruption of money-
making, or a teraporary financial and coraraercial

256 TRUaebtngton's jflBajim

disaster, against the self-sacrifice necessary in up
holding the honor of the nation and the glory of
the flag.
But after all these people, though often noisy,
form but a small minority of the whole. They
would be swept like chaff before the gust of popu
lar fury which would surely come if ever the
nation really saw and felt a danger or an insult.
The real trouble is that in such a case this gust
of popular fury would come too late. Unreadi
ness for war is raerely rendered more disastrous
by readiness to bluster ; to talk defiance and
advocate a vigorous policy in words, while refus
ing to back up these words by deeds, is cause for
hurailiation. It has always been true, and in this
age it is more than ever true, that it is too late to
prepare for war when the time for peace has
passed. The short-sightedness of many people, the
good-humored indifference to facts of others, the
sheer ignorance of a vast number, and the selfish
reluctance to insure against future danger by
present sacrifice among yet others — these are the
chief obstacles to building up a proper navy and
carrying out a proper foreign policy.
The men who opposed the war of 1812, and
preferred to have the nation humiliated by unre-
sented insult from a foreign power rather than see
her suffer the losses of an honorable conflict, occu
pied a position little short of contemptible ; but
it was not much worse than that of the men who
brought on the war and yet deliberately refused to
n^ake the preparations necessary to carry it to a

IWlasbtngton's i!llba£im 257
successful conclusion. The visionary schemes for
defending the country by gunboats, instead of by
a fleet of seagoing battle-ships ; the refusal to
increase the Navy to a proper size ; the determin
ation to place reliance upon militia instead of
upon regularly trained troops ; and the disasters
which followed upon each and every one of these
determinations should be studied in every school-
book in the land so as to enforce in the minds of
all our citizens the truth of Washington's adage,
that in time of peace it is necessary to prepare
for war.
All this applied in 181 2 ; but it applies with
tenfold greater force now. Then, as now, it was
the Navy upon which the country had to depend
in the event of war with a foreign power ; and
then, as now, one of the chief tasks of a wise and
far-seeing statesmanship should have been the
upbuilding of aformidable fighting navy. In 1812
untold evils followed from the failure to provide
such a fighting navy ; for the splendid feats of our
few cruisers raerely showed what could have been
done if we had had a great fleet of battle-ships.
But ships, guns, and men were much more easily
provided in time of emergency at the beginning of
this century than at the end. It takes raonths to
build guns and ships now, where it then took days,
or at the most, weeks ; and it takes far longer now
to train men to the management of the vast and
complicated engines with which war is waged.
Therefore preparation is much more difficult, and
requires a much longer time ; and yet wars are so

258 imiasbtngton'g flbajim

much quicker, they last so comparatively short a
period, and can be begun so instantaneously that
there is very much less time than formerly in
which to make preparations.
No battle-ship can be built inside of two years
under no matter what stress of circumstances, for
we have not in this country the plant to enable us
to work faster. Cruisers would take almost as long.
Even torpedo boats, the smallest of all, could not
be put in first-class form under ninety days. Guns
available for use against a hostile invader would
require two or three months ; and in the case of
the larger guns, the only ones really available for
the actual shock of battle, could not be made
under eight months. Rifles and military muni
tions of every kind would require a corresponding
length of time for preparation ; in most cases we
should have to build, not raerely the weapons we
need, but the plant with which to raake them in
any large quantity. Even if the enemy did not in
terfere with our efforts, which they undoubtedly
would, it would, therefore, take from three to six
months after the outbreak of a war, for which we
were unprepared, before we could in the slightest
degree remedy our unreadiness. During this six
months it would be impossible to overestimate the
damage that cpuld be done by a resolute and
powerful antagonist. Even at the end of that time
we would only be beginning to prepare to parry
his attack, for it would be two years before we
could attempt to return it. Since the change in
military conditions in modern times there has

"BHlaBblngton's fliajim 259

never been an instance in which a war between
any two nations has lasted more than about two
years. In most recent wars the operations of the
ffi-st ninety days have decided the result of the
conflict. AU that followed has been a mere vain
effort to strive against the stars in their courses by
doing at the twelfth hour what it was useless to do
after the eleventh.
We must therefore raake up our minds once for
all to the fact that it is too late to make ready for
war when the fight has once begun. The prepara
tion must come before that. In the case of the
Civil War none of these conditions applied. In
1861 we had a good fleet, and the Southern Con
federacy had not a ship. We were able to block
ade the Southern ports at once, and we could
improvise engines of war raore than sufficient to put
against those of an eneray who also had to impro
vise them, and who labored under even more
serious disadvantages. The Monitor was got ready
in the nick of time to meet the Merrimac, because
the Confederates had to plan and build the latter
while we were planning and building the former ;
but if ever we have to go to war with a raodern raili
tary power we shall find its Merrimacs already built,
and it will then be altogether too late to try to
build Monitors to raeet thera.
If this point needs any emphasis surely the
history of the war of 181 2 applies to it. For twelve
years before that war broke out even the blindest
could see that we were almost certain to be drawn
into hostilities with one or the other of the pair of

260 Tiaiasbtngton's /IBaEtm

combatants whose battle royal ended at Waterloo.
Yet we made not the slightest preparation for war.
The authorities at Washington contented thera
selves with trying to buUd a flotilla of gunboats
which could defend our own harbors without
raaking it necessary to take the offensive ourselves.
We already possessed a dozen first-class cruisers,
but not a battle-ship of any kind. With almost in
credible folly the very Congress that declared war
voted down the bill to increase the Navy by twenty
battle-ships ; though it was probably too late then,
anyhow, for even under the sirapler conditions of
that day such a fleet could not have been built and
put into first-class order in less than a couple of
years. Bitterly did the nation pay for its want of
foresight and forethought. Our cruisers won a
number of striking victories, heartening and giving
hope to the nation in the face of disaster ; but
they were powerless to do material harm to the
gigantic naval strength of Great Britain. Efforts
were made to increase our little Navy, but in the
face of a hostile enemy already possessing com
mand of the seas this was impossible. Two or
three small cruisers were built ; but practically
almost all the fighting on the ocean was done by
the handful of frigates and sloops which we
possessed when the war broke out. Not a battle
ship was able to put to sea until after peace was
restored. Meanwhile our coast was blockaded
from one end to the other and was harried at will
by the hostUe squadrons. Our capital city was
burned, and the ceaseless pressure of the block-

1KIlasbtngton'0 /iBajim 261
ade produced such suffering and irritation as nearly
to bring about a civil war among ourselves. If in
the first decade of the present century the American
people and their rulers had possessed the wisdom
to provide an efficient fleet of powerful battle
ships there would probably have been no war of
1812 ; and even if war had come, the immense loss
to, and destruction of, trade and commerce by the
blockade would have been prevented. Merely
from the monetary standpoint the saving would
have been incalculable ; and yet this would have
been the sraallest part of the gain.
It can therefore be taken for granted that there
must be adequate preparation for conflict, if con
flict is not to mean disaster. Furthermore, this
preparation must take the shape of an efficient
fighting navy. We have no foe able to conquer or
overrun our territory. Our small army should al
ways be kept in first-class condition, and every
attention should be paid to the National Guard ;
but neither on the North nor the South have we
neighbors capable of menacing us with invasion or
long resisting a serious effort on our part to invade
them. The enemies we may have to face will come
frora over sea ; they may come from Europe, or
they may come from Asia. Events move fast in
the West ; but this generation has been forced to
see that they move even faster in the oldest East.
Our interests are as great in the Pacific as in the
Atlantic, in the Hawaiian Islands as in the West
Indies. Merely for the protection of our own shores
we need a great navy ; and what is more, we need

262 "Wnasblngton's ^ajim

it to protect our interests in the islands from which
it is possible to coramand our shores and to protect
our commerce on the high seas.
In building this navy, we must remember two
things : First, that our ships and guns should be
the very best of their kind ; and second, that no
matter how good they are, they will be useless un
less the man in the conning tower and the man be
hind the guns are also the best of their kind. It
is mere folly to send men to perish because they
have arms with which they cannot win. With
poor ships, were an Admiral Nelson and Farragut
rolled in one, he might be beaten by any first-class
fleet ; and he surely would be beaten if his oppo
nents were in any degree his equals in skill and
courage ; but without this skill and courage no
perfection of material can avail, and with them
very grave shortcomings in equipment may be
overcorae. The raen who command our ships
must have as perfect weapons ready to their hands
as can be found in the civilized world, and they
must be trained to the highest point in using them.
They must have skill in handling the ships, skill in
tactics, skill in strategy, for ignorant courage can
not avail ; but without courage neither will skill
avail. They must have in them the dogged
ability to bear punishment, the power and desire
to inflict it, the daring, the resolution, the willing
ness to take risks and incur responsibility which
have been possessed by the great captains of all
ages, and without which no man can ever hope to
stand in the front rank of fighting raen.

IKHasbtngton's ^ajim 263

Tame submission to foreign aggression of any
kind is a mean and unworthy thing ; but it is even
meaner and more unworthy to bluster first, and
then either submit or else refuse to make those
preparations which can alone obviate the necessity
for submission. I believe with all my heart in the
Monroe Doctrine, and, I believe also that the great
mass of the American people are loyal to it ; but
it is worse than idle to announce our adherence to
this doctrine and yet to decline to take measures
to show that ours is not raere lip loyalty. We had
far better submit to interference by foreign powers
with the affairs of this continent than to announce
that we will not tolerate such interference, and yet
refuse to make ready the means by which alone we
can prevent it. In public as in private life, a bold
front tends to insure peace and not strife. If we
possess a formidable navy, small is the chance in
deed that we shall ever be dragged into a war to
uphold the Monroe Doctrine. If we do not possess
such a navy, war may be forced on us at any tirae.
It is certain, then, that we need a first-class navy.
It is equally certain that this should not be merely
a navy for defense. Our chief harbors should, of
course, be fortified and put in condition to resist
the attack of an enemy's fleet ; and one of our
prirae needs is an ample force of torpedo boats to
use priraarily for coast defense. But in war the
mere defensive never pays, and can never result in
anything but disaster. It is not enough to parry a
blow. The surest way to prevent its repetition is
to return it. No master of the prize ring ever

264 "Wnasbtngton'e ^asim

fought his way to supremacy by mere dexterity in
avoiding punishment. He had to win by inflicting
punishment. If the enemy is given the choice of
time and place to attack, sooner or later he will do
irreparable damage, and if he is at any point beaten
back, why, after all, it is raerely a repulse, and
there are no means of following it up and making
it a rout. We cannot rely upon coast protection
alone. Forts and heavy land guns and torpedo
boats are indispensable, and the last, on occasion,
may be used for offensive purposes also. But in
the present state of naval and military knowledge
we must rely mainly, as all great nations always
have relied, on the battle-shij), the fighting ship of
the line. Gunboats and light cruisers serve an
excellent purpose, and we could not do without
them. In time of peace they are the police of the
seas ; in time of war they would do some harrying
of commerce, and a great deal of scouting and
skirmishing ; but our main reliance must be on the
great armored battle-ships with their heavy guns
and shot-proof vitals. In the last resort we most
trust to the ships whose business it is to fight and
not to run, and who can themselves go to sea and
strike at the eneray when they choose, instead of
waiting peacefully to receive his blow when and
where he deems it best to deliver it. If in the
event of war our fleet of battle-ships can destroy
the hostile fleet, then our coasts are safe from the
raenace of serious attack ; even a fight that ruined
our fleet would probably so shatter the hostile fleet
as to do away with all chance of invasion ; but if

imiasbington's ^ajim 265

we have no fleet wherewith to meet the enemy on
the high seas, or to anticipate his stroke by our
own, then every city within reach of the tides must
spend raen and raoney in preparation for an attack
that may not come, but which would cause crushing
and irredeemable disaster if it did come.
Still more is it necessary to have a fleet of great
battle-ships if we intend to live up to the Monroe
Doctrine, and to insist upon its observance in the
two Americas and the islands on either side of
them. If a foreign power, whether in Europe or
Asia, should determine to assert its position in
those lands wherein we feel that our influence
should be supreme, there is but one way in which
we can effectively interfere. Diplomacy is utterly
useless where there is no force behind it ; the di
plomat is the servant, not the master, of the
soldier. The prosperity of peace, comraercial and
material prosperity, gives no weight whatever
when the clash of arms comes. Even great naked
strength is useless if there is no immediate means
through which that strength can raanifest itself.
If we mean to protect the people of the lands who
look to us for protection from tyranny and aggres
sion ; if we mean to uphold our interests in the
teeth of the formidable Old World powers, we can
only do it by being ready at any time, if the pro
vocation, is sufficient, to meet them on the seas,
where the battle for supreraacy must be fought.
Unless we are prepared so to meet them, let us
abandon all talk of devotion to the Monroe Doctrine
or to the honor of the American narae.

266 TRUaebtngton's fliajim

This nation cannot stand stiU if it is to retain
its self-respect, and to keep undimmed the honor
able traditions inherited from the men who with
the sword founded it and by the sword preserved
it. We ask that the work of upbuilding the Navy,
and of putting the United States where it should
be put araong raaritime powers, go forward without
a break. We ask this not in the interest of war,
but in the interest of peace. No nation should
ever wage war wantonly, but no nation should
ever avoid it at the cost of the loss of national
honor. A nation should never fight unless forced
to ; but it should always be ready to fight. The
mere fact that it is ready will generally spare it the
necessity of fighting. If this country now had a
a fleet of twenty battle-ships their existence would
make it all the more likely that we should not have
war. It is very important that we should, as a
race, keep the virile fighting qualities and should
be ready to use them at need ; but it is not at all
important to use them unless there is need. One
of the surest ways to attain these qualities is to keep
our Navy in first-class trim. There never is, and
never has been, on our part a desire to use a weapon
because of it's being well-terapered. There is not
the least danger that the possession of a good navy
will render this country overbearing toward its
neighbors. The direct contrary is the truth.
An unmanly desire to avoid a quarrel is often
the surest way to precipitate one ; and utter un
readiness to fight is even surer. If at the time of
our trouble with Chili, six years ago, we had not

iKHaebington'e flbajim 267

already possessed the nucleus of the new navy we
should almost certainly have been forced into fight
ing, and even as it was trouble was only averted
because of the resolute stand then taken by the
President and by the officers of the Navy who
were on the spot. If at that time the Chilians had
been able to get ready the battle-ship which was
building for them, a war would almost certainly
have followed, for we had no battle-ship to put
against it.
If in the future we have war, it will almost
certainly come because of some action, or lack of
action, on our part in the way of refusing to accept
responsibilities at the proper time, or failing to
prepare for war when war does not threaten. An
ignoble peace is even worse than an unsuccessful
war ; but an unsuccessful war would leave behind it
a legacy of bitter memories which would hurt our
national development for a generation to corae.
It is true that no nation could actually conquer
us, owing to our isolated position ; but we would
be seriously harraed, even materially, by disasters
that stopped far short of conquest ; and in these
matters, which are far more important than things
material, we could readily be damaged beyond re
pair. No material loss can begin to compensate for
the loss of national self-respect. The damage to
our commercial interests by the destruction of one
of our coast cities would be as nothing compared
to the humiliation which would be felt by every
American worthy of the name if we had to submit
to such an injury without amply avenging it. It

268 IRHasbington's /lliajim

has been finely said that " a gentleman is one who is
willing to lay down his life for little things " ; that
is for those things which seem little to the man who
cares only whether shares rise or fall in value, and
to the timid doctrinaire who preaches timid peace
from his cloistered study.
Much of that which is best and highest in
national character is made up of glorious mem
ories and traditions. The fight well fought, the
life honorably lived, the death bravely met — those
count for more in building a high and fine type of
temper in a nation than any possible success in
the stock market, than any possible prosperity in
commerce or manufactures. A rich banker may
be a valuable and useful citizen, but not a thou
sand rich bankers can leave to the country such
a heritage as Farragut left, when, lashed in the
rigging of the Hartford, he forged past the forts
and over the unseen death below, to try his wooden
stem against the ironclad hull of the great Con
federate ram. The people of some given section
of our country may be better off because a shrewd
and wealthy man has built up therein a great
manufacturing business, or has extended a line
of railroad past its doors ; but the whole nation
is better, the whole nation is braver, because Cush
ing pushed his little torpedo-boat through the
darkness to sink beside the sinking Albemarle.
Every feat of heroism raakes us forever indebted
to the raan who performed it. All daring and
courage, all iron endurance of misfortune, all de
votion to the ideal of honor and the glory of the

TKHasbington'e ^ajim 269

flag, make for a finer and nobler type of manhood.
It is not only those who do and dare and endure
that are benefited ; but also the countless thou
sands who are not themselves called upon to face
the peril, to show the strength, or to win the re
ward. All of us lift our heads higher because those
of our countrymen whose trade it is to meet dan
ger have met it well and bravely. All of us are
poorer for every base or ignoble deed done by an
American, for every instance of sefishness or weak
ness or folly on the part of the people as a whole.
We are all worse off when any of us fails at any
point in his duty toward the State in time of peace,
or his duty toward the State in time of war. If
ever we had to meet defeat at the hands of a for
eign foe, or had to submit tamely to wrong or insult,
every man among us worthy of the narae of Amer
ican would feel dishonored and debased. On the
other hand, the memory of every triumph won by
Araericans, by just so much helps to raake each
American nobler and better. Every man araong
us is more fit to meet the duties and responsibUities
of citizenship because of the perils over which, in
the past, the nation has triumphed ; because of the
blood and sweat and tears, the labor and the an
guish, through which, in the days that have gone,
our forefathers moved on to triumph. There are
higher things in this life than the soft and easy
enjoyment of material comfort. It is through
strife, or the readiness for strife, that a nation must
win greatness. We ask for a great navy, partly
because we think that the possession of such a

270 "CDlasbtngton'e flRajim

navy is the surest guaranty of peace, and partly
because we feel that no national life is worth hav
ing if the nation is not wUling, when the need shall
arise, to stake everything on the supreme arbitra
ment of war, and to pour out its blood, its treasure,
and its tears like water, rather than submit to the
loss of honor and renown.
In closing, let rae repeat that we ask for a great
navy, we ask for an arraaraent fit for the nation's
needs, not primarily to fight, but to avert fighting.
Preparedness deters the foe, and maintains right
by the show of ready might without the use of
violence. Peace, like freedom, is not a gift that
tarries long in the hands of cowards, or of those
too feeble or too short-sighted to deserve it ; and
we ask to be given the means to insure that honor
able peace which alone is worth having.

XIII
NATIONAL LIFE AND CHARACTERS
IN National Life and Character ; a Forecast, Mr.
Charles H. Pearson, late fellow of Oriel CoUege,
Oxford, and sometime Minister of Education in
Victoria, has produced one of the most notable
books of the end of the century. Mr. Pearson is
not always quite so careful as he raight be about
his facts ; many of the conclusions he draws from
them seem somewhat strained ; and with much of
his forecast most of us would radically disagree.
Nevertheless, no one can read this book without
feeling his thinking powers greatly stimulated ;
without being forced to ponder probleras of which
he was previously wholly ignorant, or which he but
half understood ; and without realizing that he is
dealing with the work of a man of lofty thought
and of deep and philosophic insight into the world-
forces of the present.
Mr. Pearson belongs to the melancholy or pessi
mist school, which has become so prominent in
' The Sewanee Review, August, 1894.
271

272 National Xife anft Cbaracter

England during the last two or three decades,
and which has been represented there for half a
century. In fact, the note of despondency seems
to be the dominant note among Englishmen of
high cultivation at the present time. It is as
marked among their statesmen and publicists as
among their men of letters, Mr. Balfour being par
ticularly happy in his capacity to express in good
English, and with much genuine elevation of
thought, a profound disbelief in nineteenth century
progress, and an equally profound distrust of the
future toward which we are all travelling.
For much of this pessimisra and for raany of the
prophecies which it evokes, there is no excuse what
soever. There may possibly be good foundation
for the pessimisra as to the future shown by men
like Mr. Pearson ; but hitherto the writers of the
stamp of the late " Cassandra " Greg who have been
pessimistic about the present, have raerely betrayed
their own weakness or their own incapacity to
judge conteraporary persons and events. The
weakling, the man who cannot struggle with his
fellow-men and with the conditions that surround
him, is very apt to think these men and these con
ditions bad ; and if he has the gift of writing, he
puts these thoughts down at some length on paper.
Very strong men, moreover, if of morose and dys
peptic temper, are apt to rail at the present, and to
praise the past siraply because they do not live in
it. To any man who will consider the subject
from a scientific point of view, with a desire to get
at the truth, it is needless to insist on the fact that

flational Xife and Cbaracter 273

at no period of the world's history has there been
so much happiness generally diffused among man
kind as now.
At no period of the world's history has Hfe been
so full of interest and of possibilities of excitement
and enjoyment as for us who live in the latter half
of the nineteenth century. This is not only true
as far as the working classes are concerned, but it
is especially true as regards the men of means, and
above all of those men of means who also possess
brains and ambition. Never before in the world's
history have there been such opportunities thrown
open to men, in the way of building new common
wealths, exploring new countries, conquering king
doms, and trying to adapt the governmental policy
of old nations to new and strange conditions. The
half-century which is now closing, has held out to
the people who have dwelt therein, some of the
great prizes of history. Abrahara Lincoln and
Prince Bismarck have taken their places among
the world's worthies. Mighty masters of war have
arisen in America, in Germany, in Russia ; Lee and
Grant, Jackson and Farragut, Moltke, Skobeleff,
and the Red Prince. The work of the chiefs of
mechanical and electrical invention has never been
equalled before, save perhaps by what was done in
the first half of this sarae century. Never before
have there been so many opportunities for com
monwealth builders ; new States have been pitched
on the banks of the Saskatchewan, the Colurabia,
the Missouri, and the Colorado, on the seacoast of
Australia, and in the interior of Central Africa.

274 flational Xife an& Cbaracter

Vast regions have been won by the sword. Burmah
and Turkestan, Egypt and Matabeleland, have re
warded the prowess of English and Russian con
querors, exactly as, when the glory of Rome was at
its height, remote Mediterranean provinces fur
nished triumphs to the great military leaders of the
Eternal City. English administrators govern sub
ject empires larger than those conquered by Alex
ander. In letters no name has been produced that
will stand with the first half-dozen of all literature,
but there have been very many borne by men whose
effect upon the literatures of their own countries
has been profound, and whose works will last as
long as the works of any raen written in the same
tongues. In science even more has been done ;
Darwin has fairly revolutionized thought ; and
many others stand but a step below him.
All this means only that the opportunities have
been exceptionally great for the men of exception
ally great powers ; but they have also been great
for the men of ordinary powers. The workingman
is, on the whole, better fed, better clothed, better
housed, and provided with greater opportunities for
pleasure and for mental and spiritual improvement
than ever before. The man with ability enough to
becorae a lawmaker has the fearful joy of grappling
with probleras as important as any the administra
tors and legislators of the past had to face. The
ordinary man of adventurous tastes and a desire
to get all out of life that can be gotten, is beyond
measure better off than were his forefathers of one,
two, or three centuries back. He can travel round

flational Xife anO Cbaracter 275

the world ; he can dwell in any country he wishes ;
he can explore strange regions ; he can spend years
by himself in the wilderness, hunting great game ;
he can take part in a campaign here and there.
Withersoever his tastes lead him, he finds that he
has far greater capacity conferred upon him by the
conditions of nineteenth-century civilization to do
something of note than ever a man of his kind had
before. If he is observant, he notes all around him
the play of vaster forces than have ever before been
exerted, working, half blindly, half under control,
to bring about immeasurable results. He sees
going on before his eyes a great transfer of popu
lation and civilization, which is making America
north of the Rio Grande, and Australia, English-
speaking continents ; which has filled Central and
South Araerica with States of uncertain possibil
ities ; which is creating for the first time a huge
Aryan nation across the entire north of Asia, and
which is working changes in Africa infinitely sur
passing in importance all those that have ever
taken place there since the days when the Bantu
peoples first built their beehive huts on the banks
of the Congo and the Zambezi. Our century has
teemed with life and interest.
Yet this is the very century at which Carlyle
railed : and it is strange to think that he could
speak of the men at that very moment engaged in
doing such deeds, as belonging to a worn-out
age. His vision was clear to see the importance
and the true bearing of England's civil war of
the seventeenth century, and yet he remained

276 flational Xife anb Cbaracter

mole-blind to the vaster and more important civil
war waged before his very eyes in nineteenth-cen
tury America. The heroism of Naseby and Wor
cester and Minden hid from him the heroism of
Balaklava and Inkerman, of Lucknow and Delhi.
He could appreciate at their worth the campaigns
of the Seven Year's War, and yet could hardly
understand those waged between the armies of the
Potomac and of Northern Virginia. He was fairly
inspired by the fury and agony and terror of the
struggle at Kunnersdorf ; and yet could not appre
ciate the immensely greater importance of the
death-wrestle that reeled round Gettysburg. His
eyes were so dazzled by the great dramas of the
past that he could not see the even greater drama
of the present. It is but the bare truth to say that
never have the rewards been greater, never has
there been more chance for doing work of great
and lasting value, than this last half of the nine
teenth century has offered alike to statesman and
soldier, to explorer and commonwealth-builder, to
the captain of industry, to the man of letters, and
to the man of science. Never has life been more
interesting to each to take part in. Never has
there been a greater output of good work done
both by the few and by the many.
Nevertheless, signs do not fail that we are on the
eve of great changes, and that in the next century
we shall see the conditions of our lives, national
and individual, modified after a sweeping and radi
cal fashion. Many of the forces that make for
national greatness and for individual happiness in

flational Xife an6 Cbaracter 277

the nineteenth century will be absent entirely, or
will act with greatly diminished strength, in the
twentieth. Many of the forces that now make for
evil will by that time have gained greatly in volume
and power. It is foolish to look at the future with
blind and careless optimism ; quite as foolish as to
gaze at it only through the dun-colored mists that
surround the preachers of pessimism. It is always
best to look facts squarely in the face, without
blinking them, and to remeraber that, as has been
well said, in the long run even the most uncomfort
able truth is a safer companion than the pleasant
est falsehood.
Whether the future holds good or evil for us
does not, it is true, alter our duty in the present.
We must stand up valiantly in the fight for right
eousness and wisdom as we see them, and must let
the event turn out as it may. Nevertheless, even
though there is little use in pondering over the
future, most raen of intelligence do ponder over it
at times, and if we think of it at all, it is well to
think clearly.
Mr. Pearson writes a forecast of what he believes
probably will, or at least very possibly may, happen
in the development of national life and character
during the era upon which we are now entering.
He is a man who has had exceptional advantages for
his work ; he has studied deeply and traveUed
widely ; he has been a diligent reader of books and
a keen observer of raen. To a careful training in
one of the oldest of the world's universities he has
added long experience as an executive officer in

278 flational Xife anD Cbaracter

one of the world's youngest comraonwealths. He
writes with power and charra. His book is interest
ing in manner, and is still more interesting in
matter, for he has thought deeply and faithfully
over subjects of immense importance to the fu
ture of all the human race. He possesses a mind
of marked originality. Moreover, he always faith
fully tries to see facts as they actually are. He is,
it seems to rae, unduly pessimistic ; but he is not
pessimistic of set purpose, nor does he adopt pes
simism as a cult. He tries hard, and often suc
cessfully, to make himself see and to make himself
state forces that are working for good. We may or
may not differ from hira, but it behooves us, if we
do, to state our positions guardedly ; for we are deal
ing with a man who has displayed much research
in getting at his facts and much honesty in arriv
ing at his rather raelancholy conclusions.
The introduction to Mr. Pearson's book is as
readable as the chapters that follow, and may best
be considered in connection with the first of these
chapters, which is entitled " The Unchangeable
Limits of the Higher Races." I am almost terap
ted to call this the most interesting of the six
chapters of the book, and yet one can hardly do so
when absorbed in reading any one of the other five.
Mr. Pearson sees what ought to be evident to every
one, but apparently is not, that what he calls the
" higher races," that is, the races that for the last
twenty-five hundred years (but, it must be remem
bered, only during the last twenty-five hundred
years) have led the world, can prosper only under

flational Xife anb Cbaracter 279
conditions of soil and climate analogous to those
obtaining in their old European homes. Speaking
roughly, this means that they can prosper only in
the temperate zones, north and south.
Four hundred years ago the temperate zones,
were very thinly peopled indeed, while the tropical
and sub-tropical regions were already densely popu
lated. The great feature in the world's history for
the last four centuries has been the peopling of
these vast, scantily inhabited regions by men of the
European stocks ; notably by men speaking Eng
lish, but also by men speaking Russian and Spanish.
During the same centuries these European peoples
have for the first tirae acquired an enormous ascen
dency over all other races. Once before, during
the days of the Greco-Macedonian and Roman
supremacy, European peoples possessed a sorae
what similar supremacy ; but it was not nearly as
great, for at that period America and Australia
were unknown, Africa south of the Sahara was ab
solutely unaffected by either Roman or Greek, and
all but an insignificant portion of Asia was not
only without the pale of European influence, but
held within itself immense powers of menace to
Europe, and contained old and peculiar civiliza
tions, still flourishing in their prime. All this has
now been changed. Great English-speaking nations
have sprung up in Araerica north of the Rio Grande,
and are springing up in Australia. The Russians,
by a raoveraent which has not yet fired the popular
imagination, but which all thinking men recognize
as of incalculable importance, are building a vast

280 flational Xife anb Cbaracter

State in northern Asia, stretching from the Yellow
Sea to the Ural Mountains. Tropical -America is
parcelled out among States partly of European
blood, and mainly European in thought, speech and
religion ; while tropical Asia and Africa have been
divided among European powers, and are held in
more or less complete subjection by their railitary
and civil agents. It is no wonder that men who
are content to look at things superficiaUy, and who
think that the tendencies that have triumphed dur-
the last two centuries are as immutable in their
workings as great natural laws, should speak as if
it were a mere question of time when the civilized
peoples should overrun and occupy the entire
world, exactly as they now do Europe and North
America. Mr. Pearson points out with great clearness the
groundlessness of this belieL He deserves especial
praise for discriminating between the importance
of ethnic, and of merely political, conquests. The
conquest by one country of another populous
country always attracts great attention at the time,
and has wide momentary effects ; but it is of insig
nificant importance when compared with the kind
of armed settlement which causes new nations of
an old stock to spring up in new countries. The
campaigns carried on by the Heutenants of Justin
ian against Goth and Vandal, Bulgarian and Per
sian, seemed in the eyes of civilized Europe at that
time of incalculably greater raoment than the
squalid warfare being waged in England between
the descendants of Low Dutch sea-thieves and the

¦national Xife anb Cbaracter 281

aboriginal British. Yet, in reality, it was of hardly
any consequence in history whether Belisarius did
or did not succeed in overthrowing the Ostrogoth
merely to make room for the Lombard, or whether
the Vandal did or did not succumb to the Roman
instead of succumbing to the Saracen a couple of
centuries later ; while it was of the most vital con
sequence to the whole future of the world that the
English should supplant the Welsh as masters of
Britain. Again, in our own day, the histories written of
Great Britain during the last century teem with her
dealings with India, while Australia plays a very
insignificant part indeed ; yet, from the standpoint
of the ages, the peopling of the great island-conti
nent with men of the English stock is a thousand
fold more important than the holding Hlndoostan
for a few centuries.
Mr. Pearson understands and brings out clearly
that in the long run a conquest must fail when it
means merely the erection of an insignificant gov
erning caste. He shows clearly that the men of
our stock do not prosper in tropical countries. In
the New World they leave a thin strain of their
blood among and irapose their laws, language, and
forms of government on the aboriginal races, which
then develop on new and dimly drawn Hnes. In
the Old World they fail to do even this. In Asia
they may leave a few tens of thousands or possibly
hundreds of thousands of Eurasians to form an ad
ditional caste in a caste-ridden coraraunity. In
tropical Africa they raay leave here and there a

282 flational Xife anb Cbaracter

mulatto tribe like the Griquas. But it certainly
has not yet been proved that the European can
live and propagate perraanently in the hot regions
of India and Africa, and Mr. Pearson is right in
anticipating for the whites who have conquered
these tropical and sub-tropical regions of the Old
World, the sarae fate which befell the Greek king
doras in Bactria and the Chersonese. The Greek
rulers of Bactria were untiraately absorbed and
vanished, as probably the English rulers of India
will some day in the future — for the good of man
kind, we sincerely hope and believe the very re
mote future — themselves be absorbed and vanish.
In Africa south of the Zambezi (and possibly here
and there on high plateaus north of it,) there may
remain white States, although even these States will
surely contain a large colored population, always
threatening to swamp the whites ; but in tropical
Africa generally, it does not seem possible that
any white State can ever be built up. Doubtless
for many centuries European adventurers and
Arab raiders will rule over huge territories in the
country south of the Soudan and north of the
Tropic of Capricorn, and the whole structure, not
only social, but physical, of the negro and the ne
groid peoples will be profoundly changed by their
influence and by the influence of the half-caste
descendants of these European and Asiatic sol
diers of fortune and industry. But it is hardly
possible to conceive that the peoples of Africa,
however ultiraately changed, will be anything but
negroid in type of body and mind. It is probable

flational Xife anb Cbaracter 283
that the change will be in the direction of turning
them into tribes like those of the Soudan, with a
similar religion and morality. It is almost im
possible that they will not in the end succeed in
throwing off the yoke of the European outsiders,
though this end may be, and we hope will be, many
centuries distant. In America, raost of the West
Indies are becoming negro islands. The Spaniard,
however, because of the ease with which he drops
to a lower ethnic level, exerts a much more perma
nent influence than the Englishman upon tropic
aboriginal races ; and the tropical lands which the
Spaniards and Portuguese once held, now contain,
and always will contain, races which, though dif
ferent from the Aryan of the temperate zone, yet
bridge the gulf between him and the black, red,
and yellow peoples who have dwelt from tirae im
memorial on both sides of the equator.
Taking all this into consideration, therefore, it is
raost likely that a portion of Mr. Pearson's fore
cast, as regards the people of the tropic zones, will
be justified by events. It is impossible for the
dominant races of the temperate zones ever bodily
to displace the peoples of the tropics. It is highly
probable that these people will cast off the yoke of
their European conquerors sooner or later, and will
become independent nations once more ; though
it is also possible that the modern conditions of
easy travel may permit the perraanent rule in the
tropics of a vigorous northern race, renewed by a
complete change every generation.
Mr. Pearson's further proposition is that these

284 flattonal Xife anb Cbaracter

black, red, and yellow nations, when thus freed,
will threaten the dominance of the higher peoples,
possibly by military, certainly by industrial, rivalry,
and that the mere knowledge of the equality of
these stocks will cow and dispirit the higher races.
This part of his argument is open to very serious
objections. In the first place, Mr. Pearson entirely
fails to take into account the difference in charac
ter among the nationalities produced in the tropics
as the result of European conquest. In Asia,
doubtless, the old races now submerged by Euro
pean predominance will reappear, profoundly
changed in theraselves and in their relations to one
another, but as un-European as ever, and not
appreciably affected by any intermixture of Euro
pean blood. In Africa, the native States will
probably range somewhere between the Portuguese
half-caste and quarter-caste communities now ex
isting on certain of the tropic coasts, and pastoral
or agricultural comraunities, with a Mohararaedan
religious cult and Asiatic type of government, pro
duced by the infusion of a conquering Semitic or
haraitic caste on a conquered negro people. There
raay be a dominant caste of European blood in
some of these States, but that is all. In tropical
America, the change has already taken place.
The States that there exist will not materially alter
their form. It is possible that here and there
populations of Chinese, pure or half-caste, or even
of coolies, may spring up ; but taken as a whole,
these States will be in the future what they are
now, that is, they will be by blood partly white.

flational Xife anb Cbaracter 285

but chiefly Indian or negro, with their language,
law, religion, literature, and governmental system
approaching those of Europe and North America.
Suppose that what Mr. Pearson foresees comes
to pass, and that the black and yellow races of
the world attain the sarae independence already
achieved by the raongrel reddish race. Mr. Pear
son thinks that this will expose us to two dangers.
The first is that of actual physical distress caused
by the competition of the teeming rayriads of the
tropics, or perhaps by their invasion of the Teraper
ate zones. Mr. Pearson himself does not feel any
very great anxiety about this invasion assuming a
military type, and I think that even the fear he
does express is unwarranted by the facts. He is
imraensely impressed by the teeming population
of China. He thinks that the Chinese will some
day constitute the dominant portion of the popu
lation, both politicaUy and numerically, in the
East Indies, New Guinea, and Farther India. In
this he is probably quite right ; but such a change
would raerely mean the destruction or submersion
of Malay, Dyak, and Papuan and would be of
hardly any real consequence to the white man.
He further thinks that the Chinese may jeopardize
Russia in Asia. Here I am inclined to think he
is wrong. As far as it is possible to judge in the
absence of statistics, the Chinaman at present is
not increasing relatively as fast as the Slav and
the Anglo-Saxon. Half a century or so more wUl
put both of them within measurable distance of
equality with him, even in point of numbers. The

286 flational Xife anb Cbaracter

movement of population in China is toward the
south, not the north ; the menace is real for the
English and French protectorates in the south ; in
the north the difficulty hitherto has been to keep
Russian settlers from crossing the Chinese frontier.
When the great Trans-Siberian railroad is built,
and when a few raillions more of Russian settlers
stretch from the Volga to the valley of the Amoor,
the danger of a military advance by the Chinese
against Asiatic Russia will be entirely over, even
granting that it now exists. The Chinaman never
has been, and probably never will be, such a
fighter as Turk or Tartar, and he would have to
possess an absolutely overwhelming superiority of
numbers to give him a chance in a war of aggres
sion against a powerful military race. As yet, he
has made no advance whatever towards develop
ing an army capable of offensive work against
European foes. In China there are no roads ; the
military profession is looked down on ; Chinese
troops would be formidable only under a European
leader, and a European leader would be employed
only from dire necessity ; that is to repel, not to
undertake an invasion. Moreover, China is merely
an aggregate of provinces with a central knot at
Pekin ; and Pekin could be taken at any time by
a small trained army. China will not menace
Siberia until after undergoing some stupend
ous and undreamed-of internal revolution. It is
scarcely within the bounds of possibility to conceive
of the Chinaman expelling the European settler
frora lands in which that settler represents the bulk

flational Xife anb Cbaracter 287

of a fairly thick population, not merely a sraall
intrusive caste. It is, of course, always possible
that in the far-distant future (though there is no
sign of it now) China may travel on the path of
Japan, may change her policy, may develop fleets
and armies ; but if she does do this, there is no
reason why this fact should stunt and dwarf the
people of the higher races. In Elizabeth's day
the Turkish fleets and armies stood towards those
of European powers in a far higher position than
those of China, or of the tropics generally, can
ever hope to stand in relation to the peoples of
the Temperate zones ; and yet this did not hinder
the Elizabethan Age frora being one of great note
both in the field of thought and in the field of
action. The anticipation of what might happen if India
became solidified seeras even more ill-founded.
Here Mr. Pearson's position is that the very con
tinuance of European rule, doing away with war
and faraine, produces an increase of population
and a solidity of the country, which will enable the
people to overthrow that European rule. He as
sumes that the solidified and populous country will
continue to reraain such after the overthrow of the
Europeans, and will be capable of deeds of aggres
sion ; but, of course, such an assumption is con
trary to all probabilities. Once the European rule
was removed, famine and internecine war would
again become chronic, and India would sink back
to her former place. Moreover, the long continu
ance of British rule undoubtedly weakens the war-

288 flational Xife anb Cbaracter

like fibre of the natives, and raakes the usurer rather
than the soldier the dorainant type.
The danger to which Mr. Pearson alludes, that
even the negro peoples may in time become vast
military powers, constituting a menace to Europe,
really seems to belong to a period so remote that
every condition will have changed to a degree
rendering it impossible for us to make any estimate
in reference thereto. By that time the descendant
of the negro may be as intellectual as the Athenian.
Even prophecy must not look too raany thousand
years ahead. It is perfectly possible that European
settleraents in Africa will be swaraped some time
by the rising of natives who outnumber them a
hundred or a thousand to one, but it is not possible
that the negroes will form a military menace to
the people of the north, at least for a space of time
longer than that which now separates us from the
men of the River Drift. The negroid peoples,
the so-called " hamatic," and bastard Semitic, races
of eastern middle Africa are forraidable fighters ;
but their strength is not fit for any such herculean
tasks. There is rauch more reason to fear the industrial
competition of these races ; but even this will be
less formidable as the power of the State increases
and especially as the democratic idea obtains
more and more currency. The Russians are not
democratic at all, but the State is very powerful
with them ; and therefore they keep the Chinese
out of their Siberian provinces, which are being
rapidly filled up with a population mainly Slav,

flational Xife anb Cbaracter 289

the remainder of which is being Slavicized. From
the United States and Australia the Chinaman is
kept out becaiise"tHe deinbcracy, with rauch clear
ness of vision, has seen that his. presence is ruinous
to the white- race.
Nineteenth century democracy needs no more
coraplete vindication for its existence than the fact
that it has kept for the white race the best portions
of the new worlds' surface, teraperate America and
Australia. Had these regions been under aris
tocratic governments, Chinese iramigration would
have been encoura,ged jprecisely'as^the slave trade
is encouraged- -of -necessity by any slave-hold
ing j)ligarch-y>-and__the^ result would in a few gen
erations have been even more fatal to the white
race ; but the democracy, with the clear instinct of
race selfishness, saw the race foe, and kept out the
dangerous alien. The presence of the negro in
our Southern States is a legacy from the tirae when
we were ruled by a trans-oceanic aristocracy. The
whole civilization of the future owes a debt of
gratitude greater than can be expressed in words
to that deraocratic policy which has kept the tem
perate zones of the new and the newest worlds a
heritage for the white people. ^
As for the industrial competition, the Chinaman
and the Hindoo may drive certain kinds of white
traders from the tropics ; but more than this they
cannot do. They can never change the status of
the white laborer in his own home, for the latter
can always protect himself, and as soon as he
is seriously menaced, always will protect himself,

290 flational Xife anD Cbaracter

by protective tariffs and stringent immigration
laws. Mr. Pearson fears that when once the tropic
races are independent, the white peoples will be
humiliated and will lose heart : but this does not
seem inevitable, and indeed seems very improbable.
If the Englishman should lose his control over
South Africa and India, it might indeed be a seri
ous blow to the Englishraan of Britain ; though it
raay be well to remember that the generation
of Englishmen which grew up imraediately after
England had lost America, accomplished feats in
arms, letters, and science such as, on the whole,
no other English generation ever accoraplished.
Even granting that Britain were to suffer as Mr.
Pearson thinks she would, the enormous majority
of the English-speaking peoples, those whose homes
are in America and Australia, would be absolutely
unaffected ; and Continental Europe would be
little more affected than it was when the Portu
guese and Dutch successively saw their African and
Indian empires dirainish. France has not been
affected by the expulsion of the French from
Hayti ; nor have the freed negroes of Hayti been
capable of the sraallest aggressive movement. No
Araerican or Australian cares in the least that the
tan-colored peoples of Brazil and Ecuador now
live under governraents of their own instead of be
ing ruled by viceroys from Portugal and Spain ;
and it is difficult to see why they should be materi
ally affected by a similar change happening in
regard to the people along the Ganges or the upper

flational Xife anb Cbaracter 291

Nile. Even if China does become a railitary power
on the European model, this fact will hardly affect
the American and Australian at the end of the
twentieth century more than Japan's effort to get
admitted to the circle of civilized nations has af
fected us at the end of the nineteenth.
Finally, it must be borne in mind that if any one
of the tropical races ever does reach a pitch of in
dustrial and military prosperity which makes it a
menace to European and American countries, it
will almost necessarily mean that this nation has
itself become civilized in the process ; and we
shall then simply be dealing with another civilized
nation of non-aryan blood, precisely as we now
deal with Magyar, Fin, and Basque, without any
thought of their being ethnically distinct from
Croat, Rouman, or Wend.
In Mr. Pearson's second chapter he deals with
the stationary order of society, and strives to show
that while we are all lending toward it, some nations,
notably France, have practically come to it. He
adds that when this stationary state is reached, it
will produce general discouragement, and will prob
ably affect the intellectual energy of the people
concerned. He further points out that our races
now tend to change from faith in private enter
prises to faith in State organizations, and that this
is likely to diminish the vigorous originality of any
race. He even holds that we already see the be
ginning of a decadence, in the decline of specula
tive thought, and still more in the way of mechanical
inventions. It is perfectly true that the laissez-faire

292 flational Xife anb Cbaracter

doctrine of the old school of political economists
is receiving, less and less favor ; but after all, if we
look at events historically, we see that every race,
as it has grown to civilized greatness, has used
the power of the State more and more. A great
State cannot rely on mere unrestricted individual
ism, any more than it can afford to crush out all
individualism. Within limits, the mercilessness
of private commercial warfare must be curbed
as we have curbed the individual's right of private
war proper. It was not until the power of the
State had become great in England, and until the
lawless individualism of feudal times had vanished,
that the English people began that career of great
ness which has put them on a level with the Greeks
in point of intellectual achievement, and with the
Romans in point of that raaterial success which is
measured by extension through settlement, by con
quest, by triumphant warcraft and statecraft. As
for Mr. Pearson's belief that we now see a decline
in speculative thought and in mechanical invention,
all that can be said is that the facts do not bear
him out.
There is one side to this stationary state theory
which Mr. Pearson scarcely seems to touch. He
points out with emphasis the fact, which rriost peo
ple are prone to deny, that the higher orders of
every society tend to die out ; that there is a ten
dency, on the whole, for both lower classes and
lower civilizations to increase faster than the higher.
Taken in the rough, his position on this point is
undoubtedly correct. Progressive societies, and

flational Xife anD Cbaracter 293
the most progressive portions of society, faU to
increase as fast as the others, and often positively
decrease. The great commanders, great statesmen,
great poets, great men of science of any period
taken together do not average as many children
who reach years of maturity as a sirailar number of
mechanics, workmen, and farmers, taken at random.
Nevertheless, society progresses, the iraprovement
being due mainly to the transmission of acquired
characters, a process which in every civilized State
operates so strongly as to counterbalance the oper
ation of that baleful law of natural selection which
tells against the survival of some of the most de
sirable classes. Mr. Balfour, by the way, whose
forecast for the race is in some respects not unlike
Mr. Pearson's, seems inclined to adopt the view
that acquired characteristics cannot be inherited ;
a position which, even though supported by a few
eminent names, is hardly worthy serious refuta
tion. The point I wish to dwell upon here, however,
is that it is precisely in those castes which have
reached the stationary state, or which are positively
diminishing in numbers, that the highest culture
and best training, the keenest enjoyment of life,
and the greatest power of doing good to the com
raunity, are to be found at present. Unquestion
ably, no community that is actually diminishing in
numbers is in a healthy condition : and as the
world is now, with huge waste places still to fill up,
and with much of the corapetition between the
races reducing itself to the warfare of the cradle.

294 flational Xife anD Cbaracter

no race has any chance to win a great place unless
it consists of good breeders as well as of good
fighters. But it may well be that these conditions
will change in the future, when the other changes
to which Mr. Pearson looks forward with such
melancholy, are themselves brought about. A
nation sufficiently populous to be able to hold its
own against aggression from without, a nation
which, while developing the virtues of refinement,
culture, and learning, has yet not lost those of
courage, bold initiative, and military hardihood,
might well play a great part in the world, even
though it had come to that stationary state already
reached by the dorainant castes of thinkers and
doers in most of the dominant races.
In Mr. Pearson's third chapter he dwells on some
of the dangers of political development, and in
especial upon the increase of the town at the ex
pense of the country, and upon the growth of
great standing arraies. Excessive urban develop
ment undoubtedly does constitute a real and great
danger. All that can be said about it is that it is
quite impossible to prophesy how long this growth
will continue. Moreover, some of the evils, as far
as they really exist, will cure themselves. If towns
people do, generation by generation, tend to be
come stunted and weak, then they will die out,
and the problem they cause will not be permanent ;
while on the other hand, if the cities can be made
healthy, both physically and morally, the objec
tions to them must largely disappear. As for
standing armies, Mr. Pearson here seems to have

flational Xife anD Cbaracter 295
too much thought of Europe only. In America
and Australia there is no danger of the upgrowing
of great standing armies : and, as he well shows,
the fact that every citizen must undergo railitary
training, is by no raeans altogether a curse to the
nations of Continental Europe.
There is one point, by the way, although a small
point, where it raay be worth while to correct Mr.
Pearson's statement of a fact. In dwelling on
what is undoubtedly the truth, that raw militia are
utterly incompetent to make head against trained
regular forces, he finds it necessary to explain away
the defeat at New Orleans. In doing this, he re
peats the story as it has been told by British histo
rians from Sir Archibald Alison to Goldwin Smith.
I hasten to say that the misstatement is entirely
natural on Mr. Pearson's part ; he was simply copy
ing, without sufficiently careful investigation, the
legend adopted by one side to take the sting out of
defeat. The way he puts it is that six thousand
British under Pakenham, without artillery, were
hurled against strong works defended by twice
their numbers, and were beaten, as they would
have been beaten had the works been defended by
almost any troops in the world. In the first place.
Pakenham did not have six thousand raen ; he
had almost ten thousand. In the second place, the
Americans, instead of being twice as numerous as
the British, were but little more than half as numer
ous. In the third place, so far frora being without
artillery, the British were much superior to the
Americans in this respect. Finally, they assailed a

296 flatiojial Xife anD Cbaracter

position very much less strong than that held by
Soult when Wellington beat him at Toulouse with
the same troops which were defeated by Jackson
at New Orleans. The siraple truth is that Jackson
was a very good general, and that he had under
him troops whora he had trained in successive
carapaigns against Indians and Spaniards, and that
on the three occasions when he brought Paken
ham to battle — that is, the night attack, the great
artillery duel, and the open assault — the English
soldiers, though they fought with the utmost gallan
try, were fairly and decisively beaten.
This one badly-chosen premise does hot, how
ever, upset Mr. Pearson's conclusions. Plenty of
instances can be taken from our war of 181 2 to show
how unable militia are to face trained regulars ;
and an equally striking example was that afforded
at Castlebar, in Ireland, in 1798, when a few hun
dred French regulars attacked with the bayonet
and drove in headlong flight from a very strong
position, defended by a powerful artillery, five
times their number of English, Scotch, and Irish
mUitia. In Mr. Pearson's fourth chapter he deals, from
a very noble standpoint, with some advantages of
national feeling. With this chapter and with his
praise of patriotism, and particularly of that patriot
ism which attaches itself to the whole country, and
not to any section of it, we can only express our
hearty agreement.
In his fifth chapter, on " The Decline of the
Family" he sets forth, or seems to set forth,

flattonal Xife anD Cbaracter 297

certain propositions with which I must as heartily
disagree. He seems to lament the change which
is making the irresponsible despot as rauch of an
anomaly in the family as in the State. He seems
to think that this will weaken the family. It may
do so, in some instances, exactly as the abolition
of a despotism may produce anarchy ; but the
movement is essentially as good in one case as in
the other. To all who have known really happy
family lives, that is to all who have known or have
witnessed the greatest happiness which there can
be on this earth, it is hardly necessary to say that
the highest ideal of the family is attainable only
where the father and raother stand to each other
as lovers and friends, with equal rights. In these
homes the children are bound to father and mother
by ties of love, respect, and obedience, which are
simply strengthened by the fact that they are
treated as reasonable beings with rights of their
own, and that the rule of the household is changed
to suit the changing years, as childhood passes
into manhood and womanhood. In such a home
the family is not weakened ; it is strengthened.
This is no unattainable ideal. Every one knows
hundreds of homes where it is more or less per
fectly realized, and it is an ideal incomparably
higher than the ideal of the beneficent autocrat
which it has so largely supplanted.
The final chapter of Mr. Pearson's book is
entitled " The Decay of Character." He beHeves
that our world is becoraing a world with less adven
ture and energy, less brightness and hope. He

298 flattonal Xife anb Cbaracter
believes that all the great books have been written,
all the great discoveries made, all the great deeds
done. He thinks that the adoption of State social
ism in some form will crush out individual merit
and the higher kinds of individual happiness. Of
course, as to this, all that can be said is that men
differ as to what will be the effect of the forces
whose working he portrays, and that most of us
who live in the Araerican democracy do not agree
with him. It is to the last degree improbable that
State socialism will ever be adopted in its extreme
form, save in a few places. It exists, of course, to
a certain extent wherever a police force and a fire
department exist ; and the sphere of the State's
action may be vastly increased without in any way
diminishing the happiness of either the many or
the few. It is even conceivable that a combination
of legislative enactments and natural forces may
greatly reduce the inequalities of wealth without
in any way diminishing the real power of enjoy
ment or power for good work of what are now the
favored classes. In our own country the best
work has always been produced by men who lived
in castes or social circles where the standard of
essential comfort was high ; that is, where men
were well clothed, well fed, well housed, and had
plenty of books and the opportunity of using them ;
but where there was small room for extravagant
luxury. We think that Mr. Pearson's fundamental
error here is his belief that the raising of the raass
necessarily raeans the lowering of the standard of
life for the fortunate few. Those of us who now live

flattonal Xife anb Cbaracter 299
in communities where the native Araerican eleraent
is largest and where there is least inequality of
conditions, know well that there is no reason what
ever in the nature of things why, in the future,
communities should not spring up where there
shall be no great extremes of poverty and wealth,
and where, nevertheless, the power of civilization
and the chances for happiness and for doing good
work shall be greater than ever before.
As to what Mr. Pearson says about the work of
the world which is best worth doing being now
done, the facts do not bear hira out. He thinks
that the great poeras have all been written, that the
days of the drama and the epic are past. Yet one
of the greatest plays that has ever been produced,
always excepting the plays of Shakespeare, was
produced in this century ; and if the world had to
wait nearly two thousand years after the vanishing
of the Athenian dramatists before Shakespeare ap
peared, and two hundred years more before Goethe
wrote his one great play, we can well afford to sus
pend judgment for a few hundred years at least,
before asserting that no country and no language
will again produce another great drama. So it is
with the epic. We are too near Milton, who came
three thousand years after Horaer, to assert that
the centuries to come will never raore see an epic.
One race may grow feeble and decrepit and be un
able to do any more work ; but another may take
its place. After a tirae the Greek and Latin writ
ers found that they had no more to say ; and a
critic belonging to either nationality might have

300 flattonal Xife anb Cbaracter

shaken his head and said that all the great
themes had been used up and all the great ideas
expressed ; nevertheless, Dante, Cervantes, Moliere,
Schiller, Chaucer, and Scott, then all lay in the
future. Again, Mr. Pearson speaks of statecraft at the
present day as offering fewer prizes, and prizes of
less worth than formerly, and as giving no chance
for the development of raen like Augustus Csesar,
Richelieu, or Chathara. It is difficult to perceive
how these raen can be considered to belong to a
different class from Bismarck, who is yet alive ;
nor do we see why any English-speaking people
should regard a statesman like Chatham, or far
greater that Chathara, as an irapossibility nowadays
or in the future. We Americans at least will with
difficulty be persuaded that there has ever been a
time when a nobler prize of achieveraent, suffering,
and success was offered to any statesman than was
offered both to Washington and to Lincoln. So,
when Mr. Pearson speaks of the warfare of civilized
countries offering less chance to the individual than
the warfare of savage and barbarous times, and of
its being far less possible now than in old days for
a raan to raake his personal influence felt in war
fare, we can only express our disagreement. No
world-conqueror can arise save in or next to highly
civilized States, There never has been a barbarian
Alexander or Caesar, Hannibal or Napoleon. Sit
ting Bull and Rain-in-the-Face compare but ill with
Von Moltke ; and no Norse king of all the heroic
viking age even so much as began to exercise the

flational Xife anD Cbaracter 301

influence upon the warfare of his generation that
Frederick the Great exercised on his.
It is not true that character of necessity decays
with the growth of civilization. It may, of course,
be true in some cases. Civilization may tend to
develop upon the lines of Byzantine, Hindoo, and
Inca ; and there are sections of Europe and sec
tions of the United States where we now tend to
pay heed exclusively to the peaceful virtues and to
develop only a race of merchants, lawyers, and pro
fessors, who will lack the virile qualities that have
made our race great and splendid. This develop
ment raay corae, but it need not corae necessarily,
and, on the whole, the probabilities are against its
coming at all.
Mr. Pearson is essentially a man of strength and
courage. Looking into the future, the future seems
to him gray and unattractive ; but he does not
preach any unmanly gospel of despair. He thinks
that in time to come, though life will be freer than
in the past frora dangers and vicissitudes, yet it
will contain fewer of the strong pleasures and of
the opportunities for doing great deeds that are so
dear to raighty souls. Nevertheless, he advises us
all to front it bravely whether our hope be great or
little ; and he ends his book with these fine sen
tences : " Even so, there will still remain to us
ourselves. Simply to do our work in life, and to
abide the issue, if we stand erect before the eternal
calm as cheerfuUy as our fathers faced the eternal
unrest, may be nobler training for our souls than
the faith in progress."

302 flational Xife auD Cbaracter

We do not agree with him that there will be only
this eternal calm to face ; we do not agree with him
that the future holds for us a time when we shall
ask nothing from the day but to live, nor from the
future but that we may not deteriorate. We do not
agree with hira that there is a day approaching when
the lower races will predominate in the world and
the higher races will have lost their noblest ele
ments. But after all, it matters little what view we
take of the future if, in our practice, we but do as
he preaches, and face resolutely whatever fate may
have in store. We, ourselves, are not certain that
progress is assured ; we only assert that it may be
assured if we but live wise, brave, and upright
lives. We do not know whether the future has in
store for us calm or unrest. We cannot know be
yond peradventure whether we can prevent the
higher races from losing their nobler traits and from
being overwhelraed by the lower races. On the
whole, we think that the greatest victories are yet
to be won, the greatest deeds yet to be done, and
that there are yet in store for our peoples and for
the causes that we uphold grander triuraphs than
have ever yet been scored. But be this as it may,
we gladly agree that the one plain duty of every
man is to face the future as he faces the present,
regardless of what it may have in store for him,
and, turning toward the light as he sees the light,
to play his part manfully, as a man among men.

XIV
"SOCIAL EVOLUTION "s
MR. KIDD'S Social Evolution is a suggestive,
but a very crude book ; for the writer is
burdened by a certain raixture of dograatisra and
superficiality, which makes him content to accept
half truths and insist that they are whole truths.
Nevertheless, though the book appeals chiefly to
minds of the kind which are uncharitably described
as " half-baked," Mr. Kidd does suggest certain
lines of thought which are worth following — though
rarely to his conclusions.
He deserves credit for appreciating what he calls
" the outlook." He sketches graphicaUy, and with
power, the problems which now loom up for settle
ment before all of us who dwell in Western lands ;
and he portrays the varying attitudes of interest,
alarm, and hope with which the thinkers and work
ers of the day regard these problems. He points
out that the problems which now face us are by no
' North American Review, July, 1895.
303

304 "Social Evolution"

means parallel to those that were solved by our
forefathers one, two, or three centuries ago. The
great political revolutions seera to be about com
plete and the time of the great social revolutions
has arrived. We are all peering eagerly into the
future to try to forecast the action of the great
durab forces set in operation by the stupendous in
dustrial revolution which has taken place during
the present century. We do not know what to
make of the vast displacements of population, the
expansion of the towns, the unrest and discontent
of the masses, and the uneasiness of those who are
devoted to the present order of things.
Mr. Kidd sees these problems, but he gropes
blindly when he tries to forecast their solution.
He sees that the progress of mankind in past ages
can only have been made under and in accordance
with certain biological laws, and that these laws
continue to work in human society at the present
day. He realizes the all-importance of the laws
which govern the reproduction of mankind from
generation to generation, precisely as they govern
the reproduction of the lower animals, and which,
therefore, largely govern his progress. But he
makes a cardinal mistake in treating of this kind
of progress. He states with the utmost positive
ness that, left to himself, man has not the slightest
innate tendency to make any onward progress what
ever, and that if the conditions of life allowed each
man to follow his own inclinations the average of
one generation would always tend to sink below
the average of the preceding. This is one of the

"Social iSvolutton" 305

sweeping generalizations of which Mr. Kidd is fond,
and which raar so rauch of his work. He evi
dently finds great difficulty in stating a general law
with the proper reservations and with the proper
raoderation of phrase ; and so he enunciates as
truths stateraents which contain a truth, but which
also contain a falsehood. What he here says is
undoubtedly true of the world, taken as a whole.
It is in all probability entirely false of the highest
sections of society. At any rate, there are numer
ous instances where the law he states does not work ;
and of course a single instance oversets a sweeping
declaration of such a kind.
There can be but little quarrel with what Mr.
Kidd says as to the record of the world being a
record of ceaseless progress on the one hand, and
ceaseless stress and competition on the other ; al
though even here his statement is too broad, and
his terms are used carelessly. When he speaks of
progress being ceaseless, he evidently means by
progress simply change, so that as he uses the word
it must be understood to raean progress backward
as well as forward. As a matter of fact, in many
forms of life and for long ages there is absolutely
no progress whatever and no change, the forras
remaining practically stationary.
Mr. Kidd further points out that the first neces
sity for every successful form engaged in this strug
gle is the capacity for reproduction beyond the
limits for which the conditions of life comfortably
provide, so that competition and selection must
not only always accompany progress, but must pre-

3o6 "Social Evolution"

vail in every form of life which is not actually
retrograding. As already said, he accepts without
reservation the proposition that if all the indi
viduals of every generation in any species were
allowed to propagate their kind equaUy, the average
of each generation would tend to fall below the
preceding. Frora this position he draws as a corollary, that
the wider the limits of selection, the keener the
rivalry and the raore rigid the selection, just so
rauch greater will be the progress ; while for any
progress at all there must be some rivalry in selec
tion, so that every progressive form must lead a
life of continual strain and stress as it travels its
upward path. This again is true in a measure,
but is not true as broadly as Mr. Kidd has stated
it. The rivalry of natural selection is but one of
the features in progress. Other things being equal,
the species where this rivalry is keenest will make
most progress ; but then " other things " never are
equal. In actual life those species make most
progress which are farthest removed from the
point where the liraits of selection are very wide,
the selection itself very rigid, and the rivalry very
keen. Of course the selection is most rigid where
the fecundity of the animal is greatest ; but it is
precisely the forms which have most fecundity
that have raade least progress. Some tirae in the
reraote past the guinea pig and the dog had a cora
mon ancestor. The fecundity of the guinea pig is
much greater than that of the dog. Of a given
number of guinea pigs born, a much smaller pro-

"Social Evolution" 307

portion are able to- survive in the keen rivalry, so
that the limits of selection are wider, and the
selection itself more rigid ; nevertheless the prog
ress made by the progenitors of the dog since
eocene days has been rauch more marked and
rapid than the progress made by the progenitors
of the guinea pig in the same time.
Moreover, in speaking of the rise that has come
through the stress of competition in our modern
societies, and of the keenness of this stress in the
societies that have gone fastest, Mr. Kidd overlooks
certain very curious features in human society.
In the first place he speaks as though the stress
under which nations make progress was primarily
the stress produced by multiplication beyond the
limits of subsistence. This, of course, would mean
that in progressive societies the number of births
and the number of deaths would both be at a maxi
mum, for it is where the births and deaths are
largest that the struggle for life is keenest. If, as
Mr. Kidd's hypothesis assumes, progress was most
marked where the struggle for life was keenest, the
European peoples standing highest in the scale
would be the South Italians, the Polish Jews, and
the people who live in the congested districts of Ire
land. As a matter of fact, however, these are pre
cisely the peoples who have made least progress
when compared with the dominant strains among,
for instance, the English or Gerraans. So far is
Mr. Kidd's proposition frora being true that, when
studied in the light of the facts, it is difficult to re
frain from calling it the reverse of the truth. The

3o8 "Social Evolution"

race existing under conditions which make the
competition for bare existence keenest, never pro
gresses as fast as the race which exists under less
stringent conditions. There must undoubtedly be
a certain amount of corapetition, a certain amount
of stress and strain, but it is equaUy undoubted
that if this competition becoraes too severe the
race goes down and not up ; and it is further true
that the race existing under the severest stress as
regards this competition often fails to go ahead as
fast even in population as does the race where
the competition is less severe. No matter how
large the number of births may be, a race cannot
increase if the nuraber of deaths also grows at an
accelerating rate.
To increase greatly a race raust be prolific, and
there is no curse so great as the curse of barren
ness, whether for a nation or an individual. When
a people gets to the position even now occupied
by the mass of the French and by sections of the
New Englanders, where the death rate surpasses
the birth rate, then that race is not only fated to
extinction but it deserves extinction. When the
capacity and desire for fatherhood and mother
hood is lost the race goes down, and should go
down ; and we need to have the plainest kind of
plain speaking addressed to those individuals who
fear to bring children into the world. But while
this is all true, it reraains equally true that im
moderate increase in no way furthers the develop
ment of a race, and does not always help its increase
even in numbers. The English-speaking peoples

"Social Evolution" 309

during the past two centuries and a half have in
creased faster than any others, yet there have been
raany other peoples whose birth rate during the
same period has stood higher.
Yet, again, Mr. Kidd, in speaking of the stress
of the conditions of progress in our modern socie
ties fails to see that most of the stress to which he
refers does not have anything to do with increased
difficulty in obtaining a living, or with the propa
gation of the race. The great prizes are battled
for among the men who wage no war whatever for
mere subsistence, while the fight for mere subsist
ence is keenest among precisely the classes which
contribute very little indeed to the progress of the
race. The generals and adrairals, the poets, phil
osophers, historians and rausicians, the statesmen
and judges, the law-makers and law-givers, the men
of arts and of letters, the great captains of war and
of industry — all these come from the classes where
the struggle for the bare means of subsistence is
least severe, and where the rate of increase is
relatively smaller than in the classes below. In
civilized societies the rivalry of natural selection
works against progress. Progress is made in spite
of it, for progress results not from the crowding
out of the lower classes by the upper, but on the
contrary from the steady rise of the lower classes
to the level of the upper, as the latter tend to van
ish, or at most barely hold their own. In progres
sive societies it is often the least fit who survive ;
but, on the other hand, they and their children
often tend to grow more fit.

3T0 "Social Evolution"

The mere statement of these facts is sufficient to
show not only how incorrect are many of Mr. Kidd's
premises and conclusions, but also how unwarranted
are some of the fears which he expresses for the
future. It is plain that the societies and sections
of societies where the individual's happiness is on
the whole highest, and where progress is raost real
and valuable, are precisely these where the grind
ing competition and the struggle for mere existence
is least severe. Undoubtedly in every progressive
society there must be a certain sacrifice of indi
viduals, so that there must be a certain proportion
of failures in every generation ; but the actual
facts of life prove beyond shadow of doubt that
the extent of this sacrifice has nothing to do with
the rapidity or worth of the progress. The nations
that make most progress may do so at the expense
of ten or fifteen individuals out of a hundred,
whereas the nations that make least progress, or
even go backwards, may sacrifice almost every man
out of the hundred.
This last statement is in itself partly an answer
to the position taken by Mr. Kidd, that there is
for the individual no " rational sanction " for the
conditions of progress. In a progressive com
munity, where the conditions provide for the hap
piness of four-fifths or nine-tenths of the people,
there is undoubtedly a rational sanction for progress
both for the community at large and for the great
bulk of its members ; and if these members are on
the whole vigorous and intelligent, the attitude of
the smaller fraction who have failed will be a mat-

'Social Evolution" 311

ter of little consequence. In such a community
the conflict between the interests of the individual
and the organism of which he is a part, upon which
Mr. Kidd lays so much emphasis, is at a minimum.
The stress is severest, the misery and suffering
greatest, among precisely the communities which
have made least progress — among the Bushmen,
Australian black fellows, and root-digger Indians,
for instance.
Moreover, Mr. Kidd does not define what he
means by " rational sanction." Indeed one of his
great troubles throughout is his failure to raake
proper definitions, and the extreme looseness with
which he often uses the definitions he does raake.
Apparently by " rational " he means merely selfish,
and proceeds upon the assumption that " reason "
must always dictate to every man to do that which
will give him the greatest amount of individual
gratification at the moment, no raatter what the
cost raay be to others or to the community at large.
This is not so. Side by side with the selfish devel
opment in life there has been almost from the
beginning a certain amount of unselfish develop
ment too ; and in the evolution of humanity the
unselfish side has, on the whole, tended steadily to
increase at the expense of the selfish, notably in
the progressive communities about whose future
developraent Mr. Kidd is so iU at ease. A raore
suprerae instance of unselfishness than is afforded
by motherhood cannot be imagined ; and when
Mr. Kidd implies, as he does very clearly, that
there is no rational sanction for the unselfihnsess

312 "Social Evolution"

of motherhood, for the unselfishness of duty, or
loyalty, he raerely misuses the word rational.
When a creature has reached a certain stage of de
velopment it will cause the female more pain to see
her offspring starve than to work for it, and she
then has a very rational reason for so working.
When humanity has reached a certain stage it will
cause the individual more pain, a greater sense of
degradation and shame and misery, to steal, to
murder, or to lie, than to work hard and suffer dis
comfort. When raan has reached'this stage he has
a very rational sanction for being truthful and hon
est. It might also parenthetically be stated that
when he has reached this stage he has a tendency
to relieve the sufferings of others, and he has for
this course the excellent rational sanction that it
makes him more uncorafortable to see raisery un
relieved than it does to deny himself a little in
order to relieve it.
However, we can cordially agree with Mr. Kidd's
proposition that many of the social plans advanced
by would-be reformers in the interest of oppressed
individuals are entirely destructive of all growth
and of all progress in society. Certain cults, not
only Christian, but also Buddhistic and Brahminic,
tend to develop an altruism which is as " supra-
natural" as Mr. Kidd seeraingly desires religion
to be ; for it really is without foundation in reason,
and therefore to be condemned.
Mr. Kidd repeats again and again that the scien
tific development of the nineteenth century con
fronts us with the fact that the interests of the social

"Social Evolution" 313

organism and of the individual are, and must remain,
antagonistic, and the latter predominant, and that
there can never be found any sanction in individual
reason for individual good conduct in societies
where the conditions of progress prevail. From
what has been said above it is evident that this
statement is entirely without basis, and therefore
that the whole scheme of mystic and highly irra
tional philosophy which he founds upon it at once
falls to the ground. There is no such necessary
antagonism as that which he alleges. On the con
trary, in the most truly progressive societies, even
now, for the great mass of the individuals compos
ing them the interests of the social organism and
of the individual are largely identical instead of
antagonistic ; and even where this is not true,
there is a sanction of individual reason, if we use
the word reason properly, for conduct on the part
of the individual which is subordinate to the wel
fare of the general society.
We can measure the truth of his statements by
applying them, not to great societies in the abstract,
but to small social' organisms in the concrete.
Take for instance the life of a regiment or the or
ganization of a police department or fire depart
ment. The first duty of a regiment is to fight, and
fighting means the death and disabling of a large
proportion of the raen in the regiment. The case
against the identity of interests between the indi
vidual and the organism, as put by Mr. Kidd,
would be far stronger in a regiment than in any
ordinary civilized society of the day. Yet as a

314 "Social Evolution"

matter of fact we know that in the great multitude
of regiraents there is much more subordination of
the individual to the organism than is the case in
any civilized state taken as a whole. Moreover,
this subordination is greatest in precisely those
regiments where the average individual is best off,
because it is greatest in those regiraents where the
individual feels that high, stern pride in his own
endurance and suffering, and in the great name of
the organism of which he forms a part, that in
itself yields one of the loftiest of all human pleas
ures. If Mr. Kidd means anything when he says
that there is no rational sanction for progress he
must also mean that there is no rational sanction
for a soldier not flinching from the enemy when he
can do so unobserved, for a sentinel not leaving
his post, for an officer not deserting to the enemy.
Yet when he says this he utters what is a mere
jugglery on words. In the process of evolution
men and societies have often reached such a stage
that the best type of soldier or citizen feels in
finitely raore sharae and misery from neglect of
duty, from cowardice or dishonesty, frora selfish
abandonment of the interests of the organism of
which he is part, than can be offset by the gratifi
cation of any of his desires. This, be it also ob
served, often takes place, entirely independent of
any religious considerations. The habit of useful
self-sacrifice raay be developed by civilization in a
great society as well as by railitary training in a
regiment. The habit of useless self-sacrifice may
also, unfortunately, be developed ; and those who

"Social Evolution" 315

practice it are but one degree less noxious than the
individuals who sacrifice good people to bad.
The religious element in our development is that
on which Mr. Kidd most strongly dwells, entitling
it " the central feature of human history." A very
startling feature of his treatment is that in religious
matters he seeraingly sets no value on the difference
between truth and falsehood, for he groups all
religions together. In a would-be teacher of ethics
such an attitude warrants severe rebuke ; for it is
essentially dishonest and immoral. Throughout
his book he treats all religious beliefs from the
same standpoint, as if they were all substantially
similar and substantially of the same value ; where
as it is, of course, a mere truism to say that most
of them are mutually destructive. Not only has he
no idea of differentiating the true frora the false,
but he seeras not to understand that the truth of a
particular belief is of any moment. Thus he says,
in speaking of the future survival of religious
beliefs in general, that the raost notable result of
the scientific revolution begun by Darwin must be
" to establish them on a foundation as broad, deep,
and lasting as any the theologians ever dreamed of."
If this sentence means anything it means that all
these religious beliefs will be established on the
same foundation. It hardly seems necessary to
point out that this cannot be the fact. If the God
of the Christians be in very truth the one God, and
if the beHeJ in Him be established, as Christians
beHeve it will, then the foundation for the religious
belief in Mumbo Jumbo can be neither broad.

3i6 "Social Evolution"

deep, nor lasting. In the same way the beliefs in
Mohamraed and Buddha are mutually exclusive,
and the various forms of ancestor worship and
fetichism cannot all be established on a permanent
basis, as they would be according to Mr. Kidd's
theory. Again, when Mr. Kidd rebukes science for its
failure to approach religion in a scientific spirit he
shows that he fails to grasp the full bearing of the
subject which he is considering. This failure
comes in part from the very large, not to say loose,
way in which he uses the words " science " and
"religion." There are many sciences and many
religions, and there are many different kinds of
men who profess the one or advocate the other.
Where the intolerant professors of a given religious
belief endeavor by any form of persecution to
prevent scientific men of any kind from seeking to
find out and establish the truth, then it is quite idle
to blame these scientific raen for attacking with
heat and acerbity the religious belief which prorapts
such persecution. The exigencies of a life and
death struggle unfit a man for the coldness of a
mere scientific inquiry. Even the most enthusi
astic naturalist, if attacked by a man-eating shark,
would be much more interested in evading or re
pelling the attack than in determining the precise
specific relations of the shark. A less important
but amusing feature of his argument is that he
speaks as if he himself had raade an entirely new
discovery when he learned of the iraportant part
played in man's history by his religious beliefs.

"Social Evolution" 317

But Mr. Kidd surely cannot mean this. He must
be aware that all the great historians have given
their full importance to such religious movements
as the birth and growth of Christianity, the Re
formation, the growth of Islamism, and the like.
Mr. Kidd is quite right in insisting upon the im
portance of the part played by religious beliefs, but
he has fallen into a vast error if he fails to under
stand that the great raajority of the historical and
sociological writers have given proper weight to
this iraportance.
Mr. Kidd's greatest failing is his tendency to use
words in false senses. He uses " reason " in the
false sense " selfish." He then, in a spirit of mental
tautology, assuraes that reason must be necessarily
purely selfish and brutal. He assumes that the
raan who risks his life to save a friend, the woraan
who watches over a sick child, and the soldier who
dies at his post, are unreasonable, and that the
more their reason is developed the less likely they
will be to act in these ways. The mere statement
of the assertion in such a form is sufficient to show
its nonsense to any one who will take the pains to
think whether the people who ordinarily perform
such feats of self-sacrifice and self-denial are
people of brutish minds or of fair intelligence.
If none of the ethical qualities are developed at
the same time with a man's reason, then he may
become a peculiarly noxious kind of wild beast ;
but this is not in the least a necessity of the de
velopment of his reason. It would be just as wise
to say that it was a necessity of the development

3i8 "Social Evolution"

of his bodUy strength. Undoubtedly the man
with reason who is selfish and unscrupulous will, be
cause of his added power, behave even worse than
the man without reason who is selfish and unscru
pulous ; but the same is true of the man of vast
bodily strength. He has power to do greater harm
to hiraself and to others ; but, because of this, to
speak of bodily strength or of reason as in itself
" profoundly anti-social and anti-evolutionary "
is foolishness. Mr. Kidd, as so often, is misled
by a confusion of names for which he is himself
responsible. The growth of rationalism, unac
companied by any growth in ethics or morality,
works badly. The society in which such a growth
takes place will die out, and ought to die out.
But this does not imply that other communities
quite as intelligent may not also be deeply moral
and be able to take firm root in the world.
Mr. Kidd's definitions of " supra-natural " and
"ultra-rational" sanctions, the definitions upon
which he insists so strongly and at such length,
would apply quite as well to every crazy supersti
tion of the raost brutal savage as to the teachings
of the New Testament. The trouble with his
argument is that, when he insists upon the iraport
ance of this ultra-rational sanction, defining it as
loosely as he does, he insists upon too much. He
apparently denies that men can corae to a certain
state at which it will be rational for them to do
right even to their own hurt. It is perfectly pos
sible to build up a civilization which, by its sur
roundings and by its inheritances, working through

"Social Evolution" 319

long ages, shall raake the bulk of the raen and
women develop such characteristics of unself
ishness, as well as of wisdom, that it will be the
rational thing for thera as individuals to act in
accordance with the highest dictates of honor and
courage and morality. If the intellectual develop
ment of such a civilized comraunity goes on at an
equal pace with the ethical, it will persistently war
against the individuals in whom the spirit of self
ishness, which apparently Mr. Kidd considers the
only rational spirit, shows itself strongly. It will
weed out these individuals and forbid them prop
agating, and therefore will steadily tend to pro
duce a society in which the rational sanction
for progress shall be identical in the individual
and the State. This ideal has never yet been
reached, but long steps have been taken towards
reaching it ; and in most progressive civilizations
it is reached to the extent that the sanction for
progress is the same not only for the State but for
each one of the bulk of the individuals composing
it. When this ceases to be the case progress itself
will generally cease and the community ultimately
disappear. Mr. Kidd, having treated of religion in a pre
liminary way, and with much mystic vagueness,
then attempts to describe the functions of relig
ious belief in the evolution of society. He has
already given definitions of religion quoted from
different authors, and he now proceeds to give his
own definition. But first he again insists upon his
favorite theory, that there can be no rational basis

320 "Social Evolution"

for individual good conduct in society, using the
word rational, according to his usual habit, as a
synonym of selfish ; and then asserts that there
can be no such thing as a rational religion, Ap
parently all that Mr. Kidd demands on this point
is that it shall be what he calls ultra-rational, a
word which he prefers to irrational. In other
words he casts aside as irrelevant all discussion
as to a creed's truth.
Mr. Kidd then defines religion as being " a form
of belief providing an ultra-rational sanction for
that large class of conduct in the individual where
his interests and the interests of the social organ
ism are antagonistic, and by which the former are
rendered subordinate to the latter in the general
interest of the evolution which the race is under
going,'' and says that we have here the principle
at the base of all religions. Of course this is
simply not true. All those religions which busy
themselves exclusively with the future life, and
which even Mr. Kidd could hardly deny to be
religious, do not have this principle at their base
at all. They have nothing to do with the general
interests of the evolution which the race is under
going on this earth. They have to do only with
the soul of the individual in the future life. They
are not concerned with this world, they are con
cerned with the world to come. All religions,
and all forms of religions, in which the principle
of asceticisra receives any marked development
are positively antagonistic to the development of
the social organism. They are against its interests.

' Social Evolution " 321

They do not tend in the least to subordinate the
interests of the individual to the interests of the
organism " in the general interest of the evolution
which the race is undergoing." A religion like that
of the Shakers means the alraost immediate extinc
tion of the organism in which it develops. Such
a religion distinctly subordinates the interests of
the organism to the interests of the individual.
The sarae is equally true of raany of the more
ascetic developments of Christianity and Islara.
There is strong probability that there was a Celtic
population in Iceland before the arrival of the
Norsemen, but these Celts belonged to the Culdee
sect of Christians. They were anchorites, and
professed a creed which completely subordinated
the development of the race on this earth to the
well-being of the individual in the next. In con
sequence they died out and left no successors.
There are creeds, such as most of the present day
creeds of Christianity, both Protestant and Catho
lic, which do very noble work for the race because
they teach its individuals to subordinate their own
interests to the interests of mankind ; but it is idle
to say this of every form of religious belief.
It is equally idle to pretend that this principle,
which Mr. Kidd says lies at the base of all relig
ions, does not also lie at the base of many forms
of ethical belief which could hardly be caUed re
ligious. His definition of religion could just as
appropriately be used to define some forras of
altruism or humanitarianism, while it does not de
fine religion at all, if we use the word religion in

322 "Social Evolution"

the way in which it generally is used. If Mr.
Kidd should write a book about horses, and should
define a horse as a striped equine animal found
wild in South Africa, his definition would apply to
certain members of the horse famUy, but would not
apply to that animal which we ordinarily mean
when we talk of a horse ; and, moreover, it would
still be sufficiently loose to include two or three
entirely distinct species. This is precisely the
trouble with Mr. Kidd's definition of religion. It
does not define religion at all as the word is ordi
narily used, and while it does apply to certain re
ligious beliefs, it also applies quite as well to certain
non-religious beliefs. We must, therefore, recol
lect that throughout Mr. Kidd's argument on be
half of the part that religion plays he does not
mean what is generally understood by religion,
but the special form or forras which he here
defines. Undoubtedly, in the race for life, that group of
beings will tend ultimately to survive in which the
general feeling of the members, whether due to
humanitarianism, to altruism, or to some form of
religious belief proper, is such that the average
individual has an unselfish — what Mr. Kidd would
call an ultra-rational — tendency to work for the
ultimate benefit of the comraunity as a whole.
Mr. Kidd's arguraent is so loose that it may be
construed as raeaning that, in the evolution of
society, irrational superstitions grow up from time
to time, affect large bodies of the human race in
their course of development, and then die away ;

'Social Evolution" 323

and that this succession of evanescent religious
beliefs will continue for a very long time to come,
perhaps as long as the human race exists. He may
further mean that, except for this belief in a long
succession of lies, humanity could not go forward.
His words, I repeat, are sufficiently involved to
make it possible that he means this, but, if so, his
book can hardly be taken as a satisfactory defence
of religion.
If there is justification for any given religion,
and justification for the acceptance of supernat
ural authority as regards this religion, then there
can be no justification for the acceptance of all
religions, good and bad alike. There can, at the
outside, be a justification for but one or two. Mr.
Kidd's grouping of all religions together is offen
sive to every earnest believer. Moreover, in his
anxiety to insist only on the irrational side of re
ligion, he naturally tends to exalt precisely those
forms of superstition which are raost repugnant to
reasoning beings with moral instincts, and which
are most heartily condemned by believers in the
loftiest religions. He apparently condemns Lecky
for what Lecky says of that species of unpleasant
and noxious anchorite best typified by St. Simeon
Stylites and the other pillar hermits. He corrects
Lecky for his estimate of this ideal of the fourth
century, and says that instead of being condemned
it should be praised, as affording striking evidence
and example of the vigor of the immature social
forces at work. This is not true. The type of
anchorite of which Mr. Lecky speaks with such

324 "Social Evolution"

just condemnation flourished raost rankly in Chris
tian Africa and Asia Minor, the very countries
where Christianity was so speedily overthrown by
Islam. It was not an example of the vigor of
the immature social forces at work ; on the con
trary, it was a proof that those social forces were
rotten and had lost their vigor. Where an anchor
ite of the type Lecky describes, and Mr. Kidd im
pliedly commends, was accepted as the true type
of the church, and set the tone for religious
thought, the church was corrupt, and was unable
to make any effective defence against the scarcely
baser form of superstition which received its de
velopment in Islamism. As a matter of fact, as
ceticism of this kind had very little in common
with the really vigorous and growing part of Eu
ropean Christianity, even at that time. Such
asceticism is far more closely related to the prac
tices of some loathsome Mohammedan dervish
than to any creed which has properly developed
from the pure and lofty teachings of the Four Gos
pels. St. Simeon Stylites is more nearly kin to a
Hindoo fakir than to Phillips Brooks or Arch
bishop Ireland.
Mr. Kidd deserves praise for insisting as he does
upon the great importance of the developraent of
humanitarian feelings and of the ethical element
in humanity during the past few centuries, when
compared with the mere material development.
He is, of course, entirely right in laying the utmost
stress upon the enormous part taken by Chris
tianity in the growth of Western civilization. He

"Social Evolution" 325

would do well to remember, however, that there
are other elements than that of merely cereraonial
Christianity at work, and that such cereraonial
Christianity in other races produces quite different
results, as he will see at a glance, if he will recall
that Abyssinia and Hayti are Christian countries.
In short, whatever Mr. Kidd says in reference to
religion must be understood as being strictly lim
ited by his own improper terminology. If we
should accept the words religion and religious be
lief in their ordinary meaning, and should then
accept as true what he states, we should apparently
have to conclude that progress depended largely
upon the fervor of the religious spirit, without
regard to whether the religion itself was false or
true. If such were the fact, progress would be
most rapid in a country like Morocco, where the
religious spirit is very strong indeed, far stronger
than in any enlightened Christian country, but
where, in reality, the religious development has
largely crushed out the ethical and raoral develop
raent, so that the country has gone steadily back
ward. A little philosophic study would convince
Mr. Kidd that while the ethical and moral develop
ment of a nation may, in the case of certain relig
ions, be based on those religions and develop with
them and on the lines laid down by them, yet that
in other countries where they develop at all they
have to develop right in the teeth of the dorainant
religious beliefs, while in yet others they may de
velop entirely independent of them. If he doubts
this let hira examine the condition of the Soudan

326 "Social Evolution

under the Mahdi, where what he calls the ultra-
rational and supra-natural sanctions were accepted
without question, and governed the lives of the peo
ple to the exclusion alike of reason and morality.
He will hardly assert that the Soudan is more pro
gressive than say Scotland or Minnesota, where
there is less of the spirit which he calls religious
and which old-fashioned folk would call super
stitious. Mr. Kidd's position in reference to the central
feature of his argument is radically false ; but he
handles some of his other themes very well. He
shows clearly in his excellent chapter on raodern
socialism that a state of retrogression must ensue if
all incentives to strife and competition are with
drawn. He does not show quite as clearly as he
should that over-competition and too severe stress
make the race deteriorate instead of improving ;
but he does show that there must be sorae compe
tition, that there must be some strife. He makes it
clear also that the true function of the State, as it in
terferes in social life, should be to make the chances
of competition raore even, not to abolish them. We
wish the best men ; and though we pity the man
that falls or lags behind in the race, we do not on
that account crown him with the victor's wreath.
We insist that the race shall be run on fairer terms
than before because we remove all handicaps.
We thus tend to make it more than ever a test of
the real merits of the victor, and this means that
the victor must strive heart and soul for success.
Mr. Kidd's attitude in describing socialism is ex-

'Social Evolution" 327

cellent. He sympathizes with the wrongs which
the socialistic reformer seeks to redress, but he in
sists that these wrongs must not be redressed, as
the socialists would have them, at the cost of the
welfare of mankind.
Mr. Kidd also sees that the movement for politi
cal equality has nearly come to an end, for its pur
pose has been nearly achieved. To it raust now
succeed a movement to bring all people into the
rivalry of life on equal conditions of social oppor
tunity. This is a very important point, and he
deserves the utmost credit for bringing it out. It
is the great central feature in the development of
our time, and Mr. Kidd has seen it so clearly and
presented it so forcibly that we cannot but regret
that he should be so befogged in other portions of
his argument.
Mr. Kidd has our cordial sympathy when he
lays stress on the fact that our evolution cannot
be called primarily intellectual. Of course there
must be an intellectual evolution, too, and Mr.
Kidd perhaps fails in not making this sufficiently
plain. A perfectly stupid race can never rise to a
very high plane ; the negro, for instance, has been
kept down as much by lack of intellectual develop
ment as by anything else ; but the prime factor in
the preservation of a race is its power to attain a
high degree of social efficiency. Love of order,
abUity to fight well and breed weU, capacity to
subordinate the interests of the individual to the
interests of the community, these and similar
rather humdrum qualities go to make up the sum

328 "Social Evolution"

of social efficiency. The race that has them is
sure to overturn the race whose members have
brilliant intellects, but who are cold and selfish and
tiraid, who do not breed well or fight well, and
who are not capable of disinterested love of the
community. In other words, character is far more
important than intellect to the race as to the indi
vidual. We need intellect, and there is no reason
why we should not have it together with character ;
but if we must choose between the two we choose
character without a moment's hesitation.

XV
THE LAW OF CIVILIZATION AND
DECAY'
FEW more melancholy books have been written
than Mr. Brooks Adams's Law of Civilization
and Decay. It is a marvel of compressed state
ment. In a volurae of less than four hundred
pages Mr. Adams singles out some of the vital
factors in the growth and evolution of civilized life
during the last two thousand years ; and so bril
liant is his discussion of these factors as to give,
though but a glimpse, yet one of the most vivid
glimpses ever given, of some of the most important
features in the world-life of Christendora. Of
some of the features only ; for a fundamentally
defective point in Mr. Adams's brilliant book is his
failure to present certain phases of the life of the
nations, — phases which are just as important as
those which he discusses with such vigorous abil
ity. Furthermore, he disregards not a few facts
' The Forum, January, 1897.
329

330 Ctvtli3atton anb Decas
which would throw light on others, the weight of
which he fully recognizes. Both these shortcom
ings are very natural in a writer who possesses an
entirely original point of view, who is the first raan
to see clearly certain things that to his predecessors
have been nebulous, and who writes with a fervent
intensity of conviction, even in his bitterest cyni
cism, such as we are apt to associate rather with
the prophet and reformer than with a historian to
whora prophet and reformer alike appeal no raore
than do their antitypes. It is a rare thing for a
historian to raake a distinct contribution to the
philosophy of history ; and this Mr. Adams has
done. Naturally enough, he, like other men who
break new ground, tends here and there to draw
a devious furrow.
The book is replete with vivid writing, and with
sentences and paragraphs which stand out in the
memory as marvels in the art of presenting the
vital features of a subject with a few master-strokes.
The story of the Crusades, the outline of the Eng
lish conquest of India, and the short tale of the
rise of the house of Rothschild, are masterpieces.
Nowhere else is it possible to find in the same
compass any description of the Crusades so pro
found in its appreciation of the motives behind
them, so startling in the vigor with which the chief
actors, and the chief events, are portrayed. In
deed, one is almost terapted to say that it is in the
description of the Crusades that Mr. Adaras is at
his best. He is dealing with a giant movement of
humanity ; and he grasps not only the colossal

Civilisation anb Decag 331

outward manifestations, but also the spirit itself,
and, above all, the strange and sinister changes
which that spirit underwent. His raere descrip
tion of the Baronies set up by the Crusaders in
the conquered Holy Land, with their loose feudal
government, brings them before the reader's eyes
as few volumes specially devoted to the subject
could. It is difficult to write of a fortress and
make a pen-picture which will always stay in the
mind ; yet this is what Mr. Adams has done in
dealing with the grim religious castles, terrible in
size and power, which were built by the Knights
of the Temple and the Hospital as bulwarks
against Saracen might. He is not only a scholar
of much research, but a student of art, who is so
much raore than a mere student as to be thrilled
and possessed by what he studies. He shows,
with a beauty and vigor of style not unbecoming
his subject, how profoundly the art of Europe was
affected by the Crusades. It is not every one who
can write with equal interest of sacred architect
ure and military engineering, who can appreciate
alike the marvels of Gothic cathedrals and the
frowning strength of feudal fortresses, and who
furthermore can trace their inter-relation.
The story of the taking of Constantinople by
the Crusaders who followed the lead of the blind
Doge Dandolo is told with an almost brutal ruth-
lessness quite befitting the deed itselL Nowhere
else in the book is Mr. Adams happier in his in
sistence upon the conflict between what he calls
the economic and the iraaginative spirits. The

332 Civtlijatton anD Decafi

incident sets well with his favorite theory of the
inevitable triumph of the economic over the imag
inative man, as societies grow centralized, and the
no less inevitable fossUization and ruin of the
body politic which this very triumph itself ulti
mately entails. The history of the English con
quest of India is only less vividly told. Incident
ally, it may be mentioned that one of Mr. Adams's
many raerits is his contemptuous refusal to be mis
led by modern criticism of Macaulay. He sees
Macaulay's greatness as a historian, and his essen
tial truthfulness on raany of the very points where
he has been raost sharply criticised.
Mr. Adams's book, however, is far raore than a
mere succession of brilliant episodes. He fully
sees that the value of facts lies in their relation to
one another ; and from the facts as he sees them
he deduces certain laws with more than a Thu-
cydidean indifference as to his own individual ap
proval or disapproval of the developraent. The
life of nations, like any other form of life, is but
one manifestation of energy ; and Mr. Adams's
decidedly gloomy philosophy of life may be gath
ered from the fact that he places fear and greed as
the two forms of energy which stand conspicuously
predominant ; fear in the earlier, and greed in the
later, stages of evolution from barbarisra to civili
zation. Civilization itself he regards merely as
the history of the movement from a condition
of physical distribution to one of physical concen
tration. During the earlier stages of this move
ment the imaginative man — the man who stands

Civilisation anD Decag 333
in fear of a priesthood — is, in his opinion, the rep
resentative type, while with him, and almost equally
typical, stand the soldier and the artist. As con
solidation advances, the economic man — the man
of industry, trade, and capital — tends to supplant
the emotional and artistic types of manhood, and
finally himself develops along two lines, — " the
usurer in his most formidable aspect, and the peas
ant whose nervous system is best adapted to thrive
on scanty nutriment." These two very unattrac
tive types are, in his belief, the inevitable final
products of all civilization, as civilization has hith
erto developed ; and when they have once been
produced there follows either a stationary period,
during which the whole body politic gradually
ossifies and atrophies, or else a period of utter
disintegration. This is not a pleasant theory; it is in many respects
an entirely false theory ; but nevertheless there is
in it a very ugly element of truth. One does not
have to accept either all Mr. Adams's theories or all
his facts in order to recognize more than one dis
agreeable reserablance between the world as it is
to-day, and the Roraan world under the Erapire,
or the Greek world under the successors of Alex
ander. Where he errs is in his failure to appreciate
the fundaraental differences which utterly destroy
any real parallelism between the two sets of cases.
Indeed, his zeal in championing his theories leads
him at times into positions which are seen at a
glance to be untenable.
Probably Mr. Adams's account of the English

334 Civilisation anb Decag

Reformation, and of Henry VIII. and his instru
ments, is far nearer the truth than Froude's. But
his view of the evils upon which the reformers as a
whole waged war, and of the spirit which lay be
hind the real leaders and spurred them on, is cer
tainly less accurate than the view given by Froude
in his Erasmus and Council of Trent. It can be
partly corrected by the study of a much less read
able book — Mr. Henry C. Lea's work on The In
quisition. Yet Mr. Adams's description of the
English Reforraation is very powerful, and has in
it a vein of bitter truth ; though on the whole it is
perhaps not so well done as his account of the sup
pression of the Teraplars in France. If he can be
said to have any heroes, the Teraplars must cer
tainly be numbered among thera.
He is at his best in describing the imaginative
man, and especially the imaginative man whose
energy manifests itself in the profession of arms.
His description of the tremendous change which
passed over Europe during the centuries which
saw, what is commonly called, the decay of faith is
especially noteworthy. In no other history are
there to be found two sentences which portray
more vividly the reasons for the triumph of the
great Pope Hildebrand over the Emperor Henry,
than these :
" To Henry's soldiers the world was a vast space
peopled by those fantastic beings which are still
seen on Gothic towers. These deraons obeyed the
monk of Rome, and his army, melting from the

Civilisation anD Decag 335
Emperor under a nameless horror, left him help
less." His account of the contrast between the relations
of Philip Augustus and of Philip the Fair with the
Church is dramatic in its intensity. To Mr.
Adaras, Philip the Fair, even raore than Henry
VIIL, is the incarnation of the economic spirit
in its conflict with the Church ; and he makes hira
an even more repulsive, though perhaps an abler,
man than Henry. In this he is probably quite
right. His account of the hounding down of
Boniface, and the cruel destruction of the Tem
plars, is as stirring as it is truthful ; but he cer
tainly pushes his theory to an altogether irapossible
extreme when he states that the moneyed class, the
bourgeoisie, was already the dominant force in
France. The heroes of Froissart still lay in the
future ; and for centuries to corae the burgher was
to be outweighed by king, priest, and noble. The
economic man, the man of trade and money, was,
at that time, in no sense dominant.
That there is grave reason for some of Mr.
Adams's melancholy forebodings, no serious stu
dent of the times, no sociologist or reformer, and no
practical politician who is interested in more than
momentary success, will deny. A foolish optimist
is only less noxious than an utter pessimist ; and
the pre-requisite for any effort, whether hopeful
or hopeless, to better our conditions is an accurate
knowledge of what these conditions are. There is
lio use in blinding ourselves to certain of the tend-

336 Civilisation anD Decae
encies and results of our high-pressure civilization.
Some very ominous facts have become raore and
raore apparent during the present century, in which
the social movement of the white race has gone on
with such unexampled and ever-accelerating rapid
ity. The rich have undoubtedly grown richer ;
and, while the most careful students are inclined
to answer with an emphatic negative the proposi
tion that the poor have grown poorer, it is never
theless certain that there has been a large absolute,
though not relative, increase of poverty, and that
the very poor tend to huddle in immense masses
in the cities. Even though these masses are, rela
tively to the rest of the population, smaller than
they formerly were, they constitute a standing
menace, not merely to our prosperity, but to our
existence. The improvement in the raeans of cora
raunication, raoreover, has so far immensely in
creased the tendency of the urban population to
grow at the expense of the rural ; and philosophers
have usually been inclined to regard the ultimate
safety of a nation as resting upon its peasantry.
The improveraent in machinery, the very perfec
tion of scientific processes, cause great, even
though temporary, suffering to unskilled laborers.
Moreover, there is a certain softness of fibre in
civilized nations which, if it were to prove pro
gressive, might mean the development of a cul
tured and refined people quite unable to hold its
own in those conflicts through vi^hich alone any
great race can ultimately march to victory. There
is also a tendency to become fixed, and to lose

Civilisation anD Decag 337
flexibility. Most ominous of aU, there has become
evident, during the last two generations, a very
pronounced tendency among the most highly civ
iUzed races, and among the most highly civihzed
portions of all races, to lose the power of multiply
ing, and even to decrease ; so much so as to make
the fears of the disciples of Malthus a century ago
seem rather absurd to the dweUer in France or
New England to-day.
Mr. Adams does not believe that any individual
or group of individuals can influence the destiny
of a race for good or for evil. All of us admit
that it is very hard by individual effort thus to
make any alteration in destiny ; but we do not
think it impossible ; and Mr. Adaras will have
performed a great service if he succeeds in fixing
the eyes of the men who ought to know thoroughly
the problems set us to solve, upon the essential
features of these probleras. I do not think his
diagnosis of the disease is in all respects accurate.
I believe there is an iraraense amount of healthy
tissue as to the existence of which he is blind ;
but there is disease, and it is serious enough to
warrant very careful examination.
However, Mr. Adams is certainly in error in
putting the immense iraportance he does upon the
question of the expansion or contraction of the
currency. There is no doubt whatever that a na
tion is profoundly affected by the character of its
currency ; but there seeras to be equally little
doubt that the currency is only one, and by no
means the most important, among a hundred

338 Civilisation anD Decag
causes which profoundly affect it. The United
States has been on a gold basis, and on a silver
basis ; it has been on a paper basis, and on a basis
of what might be called the scraps and odds and
ends of the currencies of a dozen other nations ;
but it has kept on developing along the same lines
no matter what its currency has been. If a change
of currency were so enacted as to amount to dis
honesty, that is, to the repudiation of debts, it
would be a very bad thing morally ; or, if a change
took place in a manner that would temporarily re
duce the purchasing power of the wage-earner, it
would be a very bad thing materially ; but the
current of the national life would not be wholly
diverted or arrested, it would merely be checked,
even by such a radical change. The forces that
most profoundly shape the course of a nation's life
lie far deeper than the mere use of gold or of sil
ver, the mere question of the appreciation or de
preciation of one metal when compared with the
other, or when compared with commodities gen
erally. Mr. Adams unconsciously shows this in his first
and extreraely interesting chapter on the Romans.
In one part of this chapter he seems to ascribe the
ruin of the Roman Empire to the contraction of
the currency, saying, " with contraction came that
fall of prices which first ruined, then enslaved, and
finally exterminated the native rural population of
Italy." This he attributes to the growth of the
economic or capitalistic spirit. As he puts it,
" the stronger type exterminated the weaker, the

Civilisation auD Decag 339
money-lender kiUed out the husbandman, the
soldiers vanished, and the farms on which they
once flourished were left desolate."
But, curiously enough, Mr. Adams himself
shows that all this really occurred during the two
centuries, or thereabouts, extending from the end
of the second Punic war through the reign of the
first of the Roman eraperors ; and this was a period
of currency expansion, not of currency contraction.
Moreover, it was emphatically a period when the
military and not the economic type was supreme.
The great Romans of the first and second centuries
before Christ were soldiers, not raerchants or usur
ers, and they could only be said to possess the eco
noraic instinct incidentally, in so far as it is pos
sessed by every man of the military type who seizes
the goods accumulated by the man of the economic
type. It was during these centuries, when the mil
itary type was supreme, and when prices were rising,
that the ruin, the enslavement and the extermina
tion of the old rural population of Italy began. It
was during these centuries that the husbandmen
left the soil and became the mob of Rome, clamor
ing for free bread and the games of the amphi
theatre. It was toward the close of this period
that the Roman army became an army no longer
of Roman citizens, but of barbarians trained in the
Roraan manner ; it was toward the close of this
period that celibacy became so crying an evil as to
invoke the vain action of the legislature, and that
the Roman race lost the power of self-perpetuation.
What happened in the succeeding centuries, — the

340 Ctvtltsatton anD Decag

period of the contraction of the currency and the
rise of prices, — was merely the completion of the
ruin which had already been practically accom
plished. These facts seera to show clearly that the
question of the currency had really little or noth
ing to do with the decay of the Roman fibre.
This decay began under one set of currency con
ditions, and continued unchanged when these con
ditions became precisely reversed. An infinitely
raore important cause, as Mr. Adams himself
shows, was the iramense damage done to the
Italian husbandman by the importation of Asiatic
and African slaves ; which was in all probability
the chief of the causes that conspired to ruin him.
He was forced into competition with races of lower
vitality ; races tenacious of life, who possessed a
very low standard of living, and who furnished
to the great slave-owner his cheap labor. Mr.
Adaras shows that the husbandraan was affected,
not only by the iraportation of vast droves of
slaves to compete with him in Italy, but by the
competition with low-class labor in Egypt and
elsewhere. These very points, if developed with
Mr. Adams's skill, would have enabled him to
show in a very striking manner the radical contrast
between the present political and social life of
civilized states, and the political and social life of
Rorae during what he calls the capitalistic or clos
ing period. At present, the minute that the dem
ocracy becomes convinced that the workman and
the peasant are suffering from competition with

ctvtltsatton anD Decag 341
cheap labor, whether this cheap labor take the
form of alien immigration, or of the iraportation of
goods raanufactured abroad by low-class working
raen, or of commodities produced by convicts, it
at once puts a stop to the competition. We keep
out the Chinese, very wisely ; we have put an end
to the rivalry of convict contract labor with free
labor ; we are able to protect ourselves, whenever
necessary, by heavy import duties, against the
effect of too cheap labor in any foreign country ;
and, finally, in the civil war, we utterly destroyed
the systera of slavery, which really was threatening
the life of the free working-man in a way in which
it cannot possibly be threatened by any con
ceivable development of the " capitalistic " spirit.
Mr. Adams possesses a very intimate knowledge
of finance, and there are many of his discussions
on this subject into which only an expert would
be corapetent to enter. Nevertheless, on certain
financial and economic questions, touching matters
open to discussion by the man of merely ordinary
knowledge, his terminology is decidedly vague.
This is especially true when he speaks of " the
producer." Now the producer, as portrayed by
the Populist stump orator or writer of political
and economic pamphlets, is a being with whora
we becarae quite intiraate during the recent cam
paign ; but we have found it difficult to under
stand at all definitely who this " producer " actually
is. According to one school of Populistic thinkers
the farmer is the producer ; but according to
another and more radical school this is not so,

342 Cfvtltsation anD Decag
unless the farmer works with his hands and not
his head, this school Umiting the application of
the term "producer" to the working-man who
does the immediate manual work of production.
On the other hand those who speak with scientific
precision must necessarily class as producers all
men whose work results directly or indirectly in
production. Under this definition, inventors and
men who improve the methods of transportation,
like railway presidents, and raen who enable other
producers to work, such as bankers who loan
money wisely, are all themselves to be classed as
producers, and often indeed as producers of the
most effective kind.
The great mass of the population consists of
producers ; and in consequence the majority of
the sales by producers are sales to other producers.
It requires one set of producers to make a market
for any other set of producers ; and in conse
quence the rise or fall of prices is a good or a bad
thing for different bodies of producers according
to the different circumstances of each case. Mr.
Adams says that the period from the middle of
the twelfth to the middle of the thirteenth centu
ries was an interval of " almost unparalleled
prosperity,'' which he apparently ascribes to the
expansion of the currency, with which, he says,
" went a rise in prices, all producers grew rich,
and for more than two generations the strain of
competition was so relaxed that the different
classes of the population preyed upon each other
less savagely than they are wont to do in less

Civilisation anD Decag 343
happy times." It is not exactly clear how a rise
in the prices both of what one producer sells
another, and of what he in return buys frora that
other, can somehow make both of thera rich, and
relax the strain of competition. Certainly in the
present century, competition has been just as
severe in times of high prices ; and sorae of the
periods of greatest prosperity have coincided with
the periods of very low prices. There is reason
to believe that low prices are ultiraately of great
benefit to the wage-earners. A rise in prices
generally injures thera. Moreover, in the century
of which Mr. Adaras speaks, the real non-producers
were the great territorial feudal lords and the kings
and clergyraen ; and these were then suprerae.
It was the period of the ferocious Albigensian
•crusades. It is true that it ushered in a rather
(vorse period, — that of the struggle between Eng
land and France, with its attendant peasant wars
and Jacqueries, and huge bands of raarauding free-
corapanies. But the alteration for the worse was
due to a fresh outbreak of " iraaginative " spirit ;
and the first period was full of recurring plagues
and famines, besides the ordinary unrest, murder,
oppression, pillage, and general corruption. Mr.
Adams says that the different classes of the popu
lation during that happy time " preyed upon each
other less savagely " than at other times. All that
need be said in answer is that there is not now a
civihzed community, under no raatter what stress
of capitalistic corapetition, in which the different
classes prey upon one another with one-tenth the

344 Civilisation anD Decag

savagery they then showed ; or in which famine
and disease, even leaving war out of account,
come anywhere near causing so rauch misery to
poor people, and above all to the wage-earners, or
working-men, the under strata and base of the
producing classes.
From many of the stateraents in Mr. Adams's very
interesting concluding chapter I should equally
differ ; and yet this chapter is one which is not
merely interesting but soul-stirring, and it contains
much with which raost of us would heartily agree.
Through the cold irapartiality with which he strives
to work merely as a recorder of facts, there break
now and then flashes of pent-up wrath and vehe
ment scorn for all that is mean and petty in a purely
materialistic, purely capitalistic, civilization. With
his scorn of what is ignoble and base in our de
velopment, his impatient contempt of the deifica
tion of the stock-market, the trading-counter, and
the factory, all generous souls must agree. When
we see prominent men deprecating the assertion of
national honor because it " has a bad effect upon
business," or because it "impairs the value of se
curities " ; when we see men seriously accepting
Mr. Edward Atkinson's pleasant theory that patriot
ism is of no consequence when compared with the
price of cotton sheeting or the capacity to undersell
our competitors in foreign markets, it is no wonder
that a raan who has in hira the stuff of ancestors
who helped to found our Government, and helped
to bring it safely through the Civil War should think
blackly of the future. But Mr. Adams should rC'

Civilisation anD Decag 345
member that there always have been men of this
merely huckstering type, or of other types not
much higher. It is not a nice thing that Mr. Eliot,
the president of one of the greatest educational
institutions of the land, should reflect discredit
upon the educated men of the country by his
attitude on the Venezuela affair, carrying his deser
tion of American principles so far as to find him
self left in the lurch by the very English statesman
whose cause he was championing ; but Mr. Adams
by turning to the " History " of the administration
of Madison, by his brother, Henry Adams, would
find that Mr. Eliot had plenty of intellectual ances
tors among the " blue lights " federalists of that day.
Timothy Pickering showed the same eager desire
to stand by another country to the hurt of his own
country's honor, and Timothy Pickering was a
United States Senator whose conduct was far more
reprehensible than that of any private individual
could be. We have advanced, not retrograded,
since 1812.
This applies also to what Mr. Adams says of the
fall of the soldier and the rise of the usurer. He
quite overstates his case in asserting that in Europe
the soldier has lost his importance since 187 1, and
that the administration of society since then has
fallen into the hands of the " econoraic raan," there
by making a change "more radical than any that
happened at Rome or even at Byzantium." In the
first place, a period of a quarter of a century is
altogether too short to admit of such a generaHza-
tion. In the next place, the facts do not support

346 Civilisation anD Decag

this particular generalization. The Germans are
quite as military in type as ever they were, and very
much more so than they were at any period during
the two centuries preceding Bismarck and Moltke.
Nor is it true to say that " the ruler of the French
people has passed for the first time frora the raartial
to the moneyed type." Louis XV. and Louis
Philippe can hardly be held to belong to any
recognized raartial type ; and the reason of the
comparative sinking of the railitary man in France
is due not in the least to the rise of his economic
fellow-countryman, but to the rise of the other
military man in Germany. Mr. Adams says that
since the capitulation of Paris the soldier has tended
to sink more and more, until he merely receives his
orders from financiers (which term when used by
Mr. Adams includes all business and working-men)
with his salary, without being allowed a voice, even
in the questions which involve peace and war.
Now this is precisely the position which the soldier
has occupied for two centuries araong English-
speaking races ; and it is during these very centu
ries that the English-speaking race has produced
its greatest soldiers. Marlborough and WeUington,
Nelson and Farragut, Grant and Lee, exactly fill
Mr. Adams's definition of the position into which
soldiers have "sunk"; and the United States has
just elected as President, as it so frequently has
done before, a man who owes his place in politics
in large part to his having done gallant service as
a soldier, and who is in no sense a representative of
the moneyed type.

Civilisation anD Decag 347
Again, Mr. Adams gloomily remarks that " pro
ducers have become the subjects of the possessors
of hoarded wealth," and that among capitalists the
money-lenders form an aristocracy, while debtors
are helpless and the servants of the creditors. AU
this is really quite unworthy of Mr. Adaras, or of
anyone above the intellectual level of Mr. Bryan,
Mr. Henry George, or Mr. Bellamy. Any man who
has had the slightest practical knowledge of legis
lation, whether as Congressman or as State legisla
tor, knows that nowadays laws are passed much
more often with a view to benefiting the debtors
than the creditors ; always excepting that very
large portion of the creditor class which includes
the wage-earners. " Producers " — whoever they
may be — are not the subjects of " hoarded wealth,"
nor of anyone nor anything else. Capital is not ab
solute ; and it is idle to compare the position of
the capitaHst nowadays with his position when his
workmen were slaves and the law-makers were his
creatures. The money-lender, by whom I suppose
Mr. Adams means the banker, is not an aristocrat
as corapared to other capitalists, — at any rate in the
United States. The merchant, the manufacturer,
the railroad man, stand just as the banker does ; and
bankers vary among themselves just as any other
business men do. They do not form a " class " at
all ; anyone who wishes to can go into the busi
ness ; men fail and succeed in it just as in other
businesses. As for the debtors being powerless, if
Mr. Adams knows any persons who have lent money
in Kansas or similar States they will speedily en-

348 Civilisation anD Decag
lighten him on this subject, and will give him an
exact idea of the extent to which the debtor is the
servant of the creditor. In those States the credi
tor — and especially the Eastern money-lender or
" gold-bug " — is the man who has lost all his
money. Mr. Adams can readily find this out by
the simple endeavor to persuade some " money
lender," or other " Wall Street shark " to go into
the business of lending money on Far-Western
farm property. The money-lender in the raost
civilized portions of the United States always loses
if the debtor is loser, or if the debtor is dishonest.
Of course there are " sharpers " ainong bankers, as
there are araong producers. Moreover, the pri
vate, as distinguished frora the corporate, debtor
borrows for comparatively short periods, so that he
is practically not at all affected by an appreciating
currency ; the rise is rauch too sraall to count in
the case of the individual, though it may count in
the long-term bonds of a nation or corporation.
The wage of the working-man rises, while interest,
which is the wage of the capitalist, sinks.
Mr. Adams's study of the rise of the usurer in
India and the ruin of the raartial races is very in
teresting ; but it has not the slightest bearing upon
anything which is now happening in Western civili
zation. The debtor, in America at least, is amply
able to take care of his own interests. Our experi
ence shows conclusively that the creditors only
prosper when the debtors prosper, and the danger
lies less in the accumulation of debts, than in their
repudiation. Among us the communities which

Civilisation anD Decag 349
repudiate their debts, which inveigh loudest against
their creditors, and which offer the poorest field
for the operations of the honest banker (whom they
likewise always call " money-lender,") are precisely
those which are least prosperous and least self-re
specting. There are, of course, individuals here
and there who are unable to cope with the money
lender, and even sections of the country where this
is true ; but this only means that a weak or thrift
less man can be robbed by a sharp money-lender
just as he can be robbed by the sharp producer
from whom he buys or to whom he sells. There is,
in certain points, a very evident incompatibility of
interest between the farmer who wishes to sell his
product at a high rate, and the working-man who
wishes to buy that product at a low rate ; but the
success of the capitalist, and especially of the
banker, is conditioned upon the prosperity of both
working-man and farmer.
When Mr. Adams speaks of the change in the
relations of woraen and men he touches on the vital
weakness of our present civilization. If we are, in
truth, tending toward a point where the race will
cease to be able to perpetuate itself, our civilization
is of course a failure. No quality in a race atones
for the failure to produce an abundance of healthy
children. The problem upon which Mr. Adams
here touches is the most serious of all problems, for
it lies at the root of, and indeed itself is, national
life. But it is hard to accept seriously Mr. Adams's
plea that " martial " men loved their wives more
than " economic " men do, and showed their love

350 Civilisation anD Decag

by buying them. Of course the only reason why a
woman was bought in early tiraes was because she
was looked upon like any other chattel ; she was
" loved " raore than she is now only as a negro was
"loved" raore by the negro-trader in i860 than at
present. The worship of women during the Mid
dle Ages was, in its practical effects, worship of a
very queer kind. The " economic man " of the
present day is beyond comparison gentler and more
tender and more loving to women than the " emo
tional raan " of the Middle Ages.
Mr. Adams closes with some really fine para
graphs, of which the general purport is, that the
advent of the capitalist and the economic man,
and especially the advent of the usurer, raark a
condition of consolidation which raeans the begin
ning of utter decay, so that our society, as a result
of this accelerated moveraent away from emotion
alism and towards capitalisra, is now in a con
dition like that of the society of the later Roman
Empire. He forgets, however, that there are
plenty of raodern states which have entirely es
caped the general accelerated raovement of our
time. Spain on the one hand, and Russia on the
other, though alike in nothing else, are alike in
being entirely outside the current of modern cap
italistic development. Spain never suffered from
capitalists. She exterminated the econoraic raan
in the interest of the emotional and martial man.
As a result she has sunk to a condition just above
that of Morocco — another state, by the way, which
still clings to the martial and emotional type, and is

Civilisation anD Decag 351

entirely free from the vices of capitalistic develop
ment, and from the presence of the usurer, save as
the usurer existed in the days of Isaac of York.
Soldiers and artists have sunk lower in Spain than
elsewhere, although they have had no competition
from the economic man. Russia is in an entirely
different position. Russia is eminently emotional,
and her capitalists are of the most archaic type ;
but it is difficult to say exactly what Russia has
done for art, or in what respect her soldiers are
superior to other soldiers ; and certainly the life
of the lower classes in Russia is on the average
far less happy than the life of the workingman and
farmer in any English-speaking country. Evi
dently, as Spain and Russia show, national decay,
or non-development may have little to do with
econoraic progress.
Mr. Adaras has shown well that the progress of
civilization and centralization has depended largely
upon the growing mastery of the attack over the
defence ; but when he says that the martial type
necessarily decays as civilization progresses, he
goes beyond what he can prove. The economic
man in England, Holland, and the United States
has for several centuries proved a much better
fighter than the martial emotionalist of the Spanish
countries. It is Spain which is now decaying ;
not the nations with capitalists. The causes which
make Russia formidable are connected with the
extent of her territory and her population, for she
has certainly failed so far to produce fighting men
at all superior to the fighting men of the economic

352 Civilisation anD Decag

civiHzations. In a pent-up territory she would rise
less rapidly, and fall more rapidly, than they
would ; and her freedom from centralization and
capitalization would not help her. Spain, which is
wholly untouched by modern economic growth,
suffers far more than any English-speaking coun
try from maladies like those of Rome in its decad
ence ; and Rome did not decay from the same
causes which affect modern Araerica or Europe ;
while Russia owes her iramunity from a few of the
evils that affect the rest of us, to causes unconnected
with her backwardness in civilization, and more
over has worse evils of her own to contend with.
The English-speaking man has so far out-built, out
fought, and out-administered the Russian ; and he
is as far as the poles away from the Roman of the
later Empire.
Moreover, instead of the mercenary or paid po
lice growing in relative strength, as Mr. Adams
says, it has everywhere shrunk during the last
fifty years, when compared with the raass of arraed
farraers and wage-earners who raake up a modern
army. The capitalist can no longer, as in ages
past, count upon the soldiers as being of his party ;
he can only count upon them when they are con
vinced that in fighting his battle they are fighting
their own ; although under modern industrial con
ditions this is generally the case. Again, Mr.
Adams is in error in his facts, when he thinks that
producers have prospered in the silver-using, as
compared with the gold-using, countries. The
wage-earner and small farmer of the United States,

Civilisation anD Decag 353
or even of Europe, stand waist high above their
brothers in Mexico and the other communities
that use only silver. The prosperity of the wage-
earning class is more important to the state than
the prosperity of any other class in the community,
for it numbers within its ranks two-thirds of the
people of the community. The fact that modern
society rests upon the wage-earner, whereas ancient
society rested upon the slave, is of such transcen
dent importance as to forbid any exact comparison
between the two, save by way of contrast.
While there is in modern times a decrease in
emotional religion, there is an immense increase in
practical morality. There is a decrease of the
martial type found among savages and the people
of the Middle Ages, except as it still survives in
the slums of great cities ; but there remains a mar
tial type infinitely more efficient than any that
preceded it. There are great branches of industry
which call forth in those that follow them more
hardihood, manliness, and courage than any indus
try of ancient times. The immense masses of men
connected with the railroads are continually called
upon to exercise qualities of mind and body such as
in antiquity no trade and no handicraft demanded.
There are, it is true, influences at work to shake
the vitality, courage, and manliness of the race ;
but there are other influences which tell in exactly
the opposite direction ; and, whatever may come
in the future, hitherto the last set of influences
have been strongest. As yet, while men are more
gentle and more honest than before, it cannot be

354 Civilisation anD Decag

said that they are less brave ; and they are cer
tainly more efficient as fighters. If our population
decreases ; if we lose the virile, manly qualities,
and sink into a nation of mere hucksters, putting
gain above national honor, and subordinating
everything to mere ease of life ; then we shall in
deed reach a condition worse than that of the an
cient civilizations in the years of their decay. But
at present no comparison could be less apt than
that of Byzantium, or Rorae in its later years, with
a great modern state where the thronging millions
who make up the bulk of the population are wage-
earners, who theraselves decide their own destinies ;
a state which is able in tirae of need to put into the
field armies, composed exclusively of its own citi
zens, more nuraerous than any which the world
has ever before seen, and with a record of fighting
in the immediate past with which there is nothing
in the annals of antiquity to compare.
THE END.

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