The Online Library of Liberty

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• Part III: The Party System
• Chapter 53: Political Parties and Their History
• Chapter 54: The Parties of Today
• Chapter 55: Composition of the Parties
• Chapter 56: Further Observations On the Parties
• Chapter 57: The Politicians
• Chapter 58: Why the Best Men Do Not Go Into Politics
• Chapter 59: Party Organizations
• Chapter 60: The Machine
• Chapter 61: What the Machine Has to Do
• Chapter 62: How the Machine Works
• Chapter 63: Rings and Bosses
• Chapter 64: Local Extension of Rings and Bosses
• Chapter 65: Spoils
• Chapter 66: Elections and Their Machinery
• Chapter 67: Corruption
• Chapter 68: The War Against Bossdom
• Chapter 69: National Nominating Conventions
• Chapter 70: The Nominating Convention At Work
• Chapter 71: The Presidential Campaign
• Chapter 72: The Issues In Presidential Elections
• Chapter 73: Further Observations On Nominations and Elections
• Chapter 74: Types of American Statesmen
• Chapter 75: What the People Think of It
• Supplementary Note to Editions of 1910 and 1914
• Part IV: Public Opinion
• Chapter 76: The Nature of Public Opinion
• Chapter 77: Government By Public Opinion
• Chapter 78: How Public Opinion Rules In America
• Chapter 79: Organs of Public Opinion
• Chapter 80: National Characteristics As Moulding Public Opinion
• Chapter 81: Classes As Influencing Opinion
• Chapter 82: Local Types of Opinion—east, West, and South
• Chapter 83: The Action of Public Opinion
• Chapter 84: The Tyranny of the Majority
• Chapter 85: The Fatalism of the Multitude
• Chapter 86: Wherein Public Opinion Fails
• Chapter 87: Wherein Public Opinion Succeeds
• Part V: Illustrations & Reflections
• Chapter 88: The Tammany Ring In New York City
• Chapter 89: The Philadelphia Gas Ring
• Chapter 90: Kearneyism In California
• Epilogue to This and the Two Last Preceding Chapters
• Chapter 91: The Home of the Nation
• Chapter 92: The Latest Phase of Immigration
• Chapter 93: The South Since the War
• Chapter 94: Present and Future of the Negro 1
• Chapter 95: Further Reflections On the Negro Problem
• Chapter 96: Foreign Policy and Territorial Extension
• Chapter 97: The New Transmarine Dominions
• Chapter 98: Laissez Faire
• Chapter 99: Woman Suffrage
• Chapter 100: The Supposed Faults of Democracy
• Chapter 101: The True Faults of American Democracy
• Chapter 102: The Strength of American Democracy
• Chapter 103: How Far American Experience Is Available For Europe
• Part VI: Social Institutions
• Chapter 104: The Bar
• Chapter 105: The Bench
• Chapter 106: Railroads
• Chapter 107: Wall Street
• Chapter 108: The Universities and Colleges
• Chapter 109: Further Observations On the Universities
• Chapter 110: The Churches and the Clergy
• Chapter 111: The Influence of Religion
• Chapter 112: The Position of Women
• Chapter 113: Equality
• Chapter 114: The Influence of Democracy On Thought
• Chapter 115: Creative Intellectual Power
• Chapter 116: The Relation of the United States to Europe
• Chapter 117: The Absence of a Capital
• Chapter 118: American Oratory
• Chapter 119: The Pleasantness of American Life
• Chapter 120: The Uniformity of American Life
• Chapter 121: The Temper of the West
• Chapter 122: The Future of Political Institutions
• Chapter 123: Social and Economic Future
• Appendix I
• Note to Chapter 61: Explanation (by Mr. G. Bradford) of the Nominating Machinery and Its Procedure In the State of Massachusetts 1
• Note to Chapter 90: Remarks By Mr. Denis Kearney On “kearneyism In California”
• Appendix II: The Predictions of Hamilton and De Tocqueville
• Appendix III: Bryce’s American Commonwealth: a Review  *
• Appendix IV: Review of the American Commonwealth *

James Bryce

PART III

THE PARTY SYSTEM

chapter 53

Political Parties and Their History

In the preceding chapters I have endeavoured to describe the legal framework of American government as it exists both in the nation and in the states. Beginning from the federal and state constitutions we have seen what sort of a structure has been erected upon them as a foundation, what methods of legislation and administration have been developed, what results these methods have produced. It is only occasionally and incidentally that we have had to consider the influence upon political bodies and methods of those extra-legal groupings of men called political parties. But the spirit and force of party has in America been as essential to the action of the machinery of government as steam is to a locomotive engine; or, to vary the simile, party association and organization are to the organs of government almost what the motor nerves are to the muscles, sinews, and bones of the human body. They transmit the motive power, they determine the directions in which the organs act. A description of them is therefore a necessary complement to an account of the Constitution and government; for it is into the hands of the parties that the working of the government has fallen. Their ingenuity, stimulated by incessant rivalry, has turned many provisions of the Constitution to unforeseen uses, and given to the legal institutions of the country no small part of their present colour.

To describe the party system is, however, much harder than it has been to describe those legal institutions. Hitherto we have been on comparatively firm ground, for we have had definite data to rely upon, and the facts set forth have been mostly patent facts which can be established from books and documents. But now we come to phenomena for a knowledge of which one must trust to a variety of flying and floating sources, to newspaper paragraphs, to the conversation of American acquaintances, to impressions formed on the spot from seeing incidents and hearing stories and anecdotes, the authority for which, though it seemed sufficient at the time, cannot always be remembered. Nor have I the advantage of being able to cite any previous treatise on the subject;1 for though the books and articles dealing with the public life of the United States may be counted by hundreds, I know of no author who has set himself to describe impartially the actual daily working of that part of the vast and intricate political machine which lies outside the Constitution, nor, what is more important still, the influences which sway the men by whom this machine has been constructed and is daily manipulated. The task, however, cannot be declined; for it is that very part of my undertaking which, even though imperfectly performed, may be most serviceable to the student of modern politics. A philosopher in Germany, who had mastered all the treatises on the British Constitution, perused every statute of recent years, and even followed through the newspapers the debates in Parliament, would know far less about the government and politics of England than he might learn by spending a month there conversing with practical politicians, and watching the daily changes of sentiment during a parliamentary crisis or a general election.

So, too, in the United States, the actual working of party government is not only full of interest and instruction, but is so unlike what a student of the federal Constitution could have expected or foreseen, that it is the thing of all others which anyone writing about America ought to try to portray. In the knowledge of a stranger there must, of course, be serious gaps. But since no native American has yet essayed the task of describing the party system of his country, it is better that a stranger should address himself to it, than that the inquiring European should have no means of satisfying his curiosity. And a native American writer, even if he steered clear of partisanship, which I think he might, for in no country does one find a larger number of philosophically judicial observers of politics, would suffer from his own familiarity with many of those very things which a stranger finds perplexing. Thus European and even American readers may find in the sort of perspective which a stranger gets of transatlantic phenomena some compensation for his necessarily inferior knowledge of details.

In America the great moving forces are the parties. The government counts for less than in Europe, the parties count for more; and the fewer have become their principles and the fainter their interest in those principles, the more perfect has become their organization. The less of nature the more of art; the less spontaneity the more mechanism. But before I attempt to describe this organization, something must be said of the doctrines which the parties respectively profess, and the explanation of the doctrines involves a few preliminary words upon the history of party in America.

Although the early colonists carried with them across the sea some of the habits of English political life, and others may have been subsequently imitated from the old country, the parties of the United States are pure home growths, developed by the circumstances of the nation. The English reader who attempts, as Englishmen are apt to do, to identify the great American parties with his own familiar Whigs and Tories, or even to discover a general similarity between them, had better give up the attempt, for it will lead him hopelessly astray. Here and there we find points of analogy rather than of resemblance, but the moment we try to follow out the analogy it breaks down, so different are the issues on which English and American politics have turned.

In the United States, the history of party begins with the Constitutional Convention of 1787 at Philadelphia. In its debates and discussions on the drafting of the Constitution there were revealed two opposite tendencies, which soon afterwards appeared on a larger scale in the state conventions, to which the new instrument was submitted for acceptance. These were the centrifugal and centripetal tendencies—a tendency to maintain both the freedom of the individual citizen and the independence in legislation, in administration, in jurisdiction, indeed in everything except foreign policy and national defence, of the several states; an opposite tendency to subordinate the states to the nation and vest large powers in the central federal authority.

The charge against the Constitution that it endangered states’ rights evoked so much alarm that some states were induced to ratify only by the promise that certain amendments should be added, which were accordingly accepted in the course of the next three years. When the machinery had been set in motion by the choice of George Washington as president, and with him of a Senate and a House of Representatives, the tendencies which had opposed or supported the adoption of the Constitution reappeared not only in Congress but in the president’s cabinet, where Alexander Hamilton, secretary of the treasury, counselled a line of action which assumed and required the exercise of large powers by the federal government, while Jefferson, the secretary of state, desired to practically restrict its action to foreign affairs. The advocates of a central national authority had begun to receive the name of Federalists, and to act pretty constantly together, when an event happened which, while it tightened their union, finally consolidated their opponents also into a party. This was the creation of the French Republic and its declaration of war against England. The Federalists, who were shocked by the excesses of the Terror of 1793, counselled neutrality, and were more than ever inclined to value the principle of authority, and to allow the federal power a wide sphere of action. The party of Jefferson, who had now retired from the administration, were pervaded by sympathy with French ideas, were hostile to England whose attitude continued to be discourteous, and sought to restrict the interference of the central government with the states, and to allow the fullest play to the sentiment of state independence, of local independence, of personal independence. This party took the name of Republicans or Democratic Republicans, and they are the predecessors of the present Democrats. Both parties were, of course, attached to republican government—that is to say, were alike hostile to a monarchy. But the Jeffersonians had more faith in the masses and in leaving things alone, together with less respect for authority, so that in a sort of general way one may say that while one party claimed to be the apostles of liberty, the other represented the principle of order.

These tendencies found occasions for combating one another, not only in foreign policy and in current legislation, but also in the construction and application of the Constitution. Like all documents, and especially documents which have been formed by a series of compromises between opposite views, it was and is susceptible of various interpretations, which the acuteness of both sets of partisans was busy in discovering and expounding. While the piercing intellect of Hamilton developed all those of its provisions which invested the federal Congress and president with far-reaching powers, and sought to build up a system of institutions which should give to these provisions their full effect, Jefferson and his coadjutors appealed to the sentiment of individualism, strong in the masses of the people, and, without venturing to propose alterations in the text of the Constitution, protested against all extensions of its letter, and against all the assumptions of federal authority which such extensions could be made to justify. Thus two parties grew up with tenets, leaders, impulses, sympathies, and hatreds, hatreds which soon became so bitter as not to spare the noble and dignified figure of Washington himself, whom the angry Republicans assailed with invectives the more unbecoming because his official position forbade him to reply.2

At first the Federalists had the best of it, for the reaction against the weakness of the old Confederation which the Union had superseded disposed sensible men to tolerate a strong central power. The president, though not a member of either party, was, by force of circumstances, as well as owing to the influence of Hamilton, practically with the Federalists. But during the presidency of John Adams, who succeeded Washington, they committed grave errors. When the presidential election of 1800 arrived, it was seen that the logical and oratorical force of Hamilton’s appeals to the reason of the nation told far less than the skill and energy with which Jefferson played on their feelings and prejudices. The Republicans triumphed in the choice of their chief, who retained power for eight years (he was reelected in 1804), to be peaceably succeeded by his friend Madison for another eight years (elected in 1808, reelected in 1812), and his disciple Monroe for eight years more (elected in 1816, reelected in 1820). Their long-continued tenure of office was due not so much to their own merits, for neither Jefferson nor Madison conducted foreign affairs with success, as to the collapse of their antagonists. The Federalists never recovered from the blow given in the election of 1800. They lost Hamilton by death in 1804. No other leader of equal gifts appeared, and the party, which had shown little judgment in the critical years 1810–14, finally disappears from sight after the second peace with England in 1815.

One cannot note the disappearance of this brilliant figure, to Europeans the most interesting in the earlier history of the Republic, without the remark that his countrymen seem to have never, either in his lifetime or afterwards, duly recognized his splendid gifts. Washington is, indeed, a far more perfect character. Washington stands alone and unapproachable, like a snow peak rising above its fellows into the clear air of morning, with a dignity, constancy, and purity which have made him the ideal type of civic virtue to succeeding generations. No greater benefit could have befallen the Republic than to have such a type set from the first before the eye and mind of the people. But Hamilton, of a virtue not so flawless, touches us more nearly, not only by the romance of his early life and his tragic death, but by a certain ardour and impulsiveness, and even tenderness of soul, joined to a courage equal to that of Washington himself. Equally apt for war and for civil government, with a profundity and amplitude of view rare in practical soldiers or statesmen, he stands in the front rank of a generation never surpassed in history, a generation which includes Burke and Fox and Pitt and Grattan, Stein and Hardenberg and William von Humboldt, Wellington and Napoleon. Talleyrand, who seems to have felt for him something as near affection as that cold heart could feel, said, after knowing all the famous men of the time, that only Fox and Napoleon were Hamilton’s equals, and that he had divined Europe, having never seen it.

This period (1788–1824) may be said to constitute the first act in the drama of American party history. The people, accustomed hitherto to care only for their several commonwealths, learn to value and to work their new national institutions. They become familiar with the Constitution itself, as partners get to know, when disputes arise among them, the provisions of the partnership deed under which their business has to be carried on. It is found that the existence of a central federal power does not annihilate the states, so the apprehensions on that score are allayed. It is also discovered that there are unforeseen directions, such for instance as banking and currency and internal communications, through which the federal power can strengthen its hold on the nation. Differences of view and feeling give rise to parties, yet parties are formed by no means solely on the basis of general principles, but owe much to the influence of prominent personalities, of transient issues, of local interests or prejudices. The small farmers and the Southern men generally follow the Republican standard borne aloft by the great state of Virginia, while the strength of the Federalists lies in New England and the Middle states, led sometimes by Massachusetts, sometimes by Pennsylvania. The commercial interests were with the Federalists, as was also the staid solid Puritanism of all classes, headed by the clergy. Someone indeed has described the struggle from 1796 to 1808 as one between Jefferson, who was an avowed freethinker, and the New England ministers; and no doubt the ministers of religion did in the Puritan states exert a political influence approaching that of the Presbyterian clergy in Scotland during the seventeenth century. Jefferson’s importance lies in the fact that he became the representative not merely of democracy, but of local democracy, of the notion that government is hardly wanted at all, that the people are sure to go right if they are left alone, that he who resists authority is prima facie justified in doing so, because authority is prima facie tyrannical, that a country where each local body in its own local area looks after the objects of common concern, raising and administering any such funds as are needed, and is interfered with as little as possible by any external power, comes nearest to the ideal of a truly free people. Some intervention on the part of the state there must be, for the state makes the law and appoints the judges of appeal; but the less one has to do with the state, and a fortiori the less one has to do with the less popular and more encroaching federal authority, so much the better. Jefferson impressed this view on his countrymen with so much force and such personal faith that he became a sort of patron saint of freedom in the eyes of the next generation, who used to name their children after him,3 and to give dinners and deliver high-flown speeches on his birthday, a festival only second in importance to the immortal Fourth of July. He had borrowed from the revolutionists of France even their theatrical ostentation of simplicity. He rejected the ceremonial with which Washington had sustained the chief magistracy of the nation, declaring that to him there was no majesty but that of the people.

As New England was, by its system of local self-government through the town meeting, as well as by the absence of slavery, in some respects the most democratic part of the United States, it may seem surprising that it should have been a stronghold of the Federalists. The reason is to be found partly in its Puritanism, which revolted at the deism or atheism of the French revolutionists, partly in the interests of its shipowners and merchants, who desired above all things a central government which, while strong enough to make and carry out treaties with England and so secure the development of American commerce, should be able also to reform the currency of the country and institute a national banking system. Industrial as well as territorial interests were already beginning to influence politics. That the mercantile and manufacturing classes, with all the advantages given them by their wealth, their intelligence, and their habits of cooperation, should have been vanquished by the agricultural masses, may be ascribed partly to the fact that the democratic impulse of the War of Independence was strong among the citizens who had grown to manhood between 1780 and 1800, partly to the tactical errors of the Federalist leaders, but largely also to the skill which Jefferson showed in organizing the hitherto undisciplined battalions of Republican voters. Thus early in American history was the secret revealed, which Europe is only now discovering, that in free countries with an extended suffrage, numbers without organization are helpless and with it omnipotent.

I have ventured to dwell on this first period, because being the first it shows the origin of tendencies which were to govern the subsequent course of party strife. But as I am not writing a history of the United States I pass by the particular issues over which the two parties wrangled, most of them long since extinct. One remark is however needed as to the view which each took of the Constitution. Although the Federalists were in general the advocates of a loose and liberal construction of the fundamental instrument, because such a construction opened a wider sphere to federal power, they were ready, whenever their local interests stood in the way, to resist Congress and the executive, alleging that the latter were overstepping their jurisdiction. In 1814 several of the New England states, where the opposition to the war then being waged with England was strongest, sent delegates to a convention at Hartford, which, while discussing the best means for putting an end to the war and restricting the powers of Congress in commercial legislation, was suspected of meditating a secession of trading states from the Union. On the other hand, the Republicans did not hesitate to stretch to their utmost, when they were themselves in power, all the authority which the Constitution could be construed to allow to the executive and the federal government generally. The boldest step which a president has ever taken, the purchase from Napoleon of the vast territories of France west of the Mississippi which went by the name of Louisiana, was taken by Jefferson without the authority of Congress. Congress subsequently gave its sanction. But Jefferson and many of his friends held that under the Constitution even Congress had not the power to acquire new territories to be formed into states. They were therefore in the dilemma of either violating the Constitution or losing a golden opportunity of securing the Republic against the growth on its western frontier of a powerful and possibly hostile foreign state. Some of them tried to refute their former arguments against a lax construction of the Constitution, but many others avowed the dangerous doctrine that if Louisiana could be brought in only by breaking down the walls of the Constitution, broken they must be.4

The disappearance of the Federal party between 1815 and 1820 left the Republicans masters of the field. But in the United States if old parties vanish, nature quickly produces new ones. Sectional divisions soon arose among the men who joined in electing Monroe in 1820, and under the influence of the personal hostility of Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson (chosen president in 1828), two great parties were again formed (about 1830) which some few years later absorbed the minor groups. One of these two parties carried on, under the name of Democrats, the dogmas and traditions of the Jeffersonian Republicans. It was the defender of states’ rights and of a restrictive construction of the Constitution; it leant mainly on the South and the farming classes generally, and it was therefore inclined to free trade. The other section, which called itself at first the National Republican, ultimately the Whig party, represented many of the views of the former Federalists, such as their advocacy of a tariff for the protection of manufactures, and of the expenditure of public money on internal improvements. It was willing to increase the army and navy, and like the Federalists found its chief, though by no means its sole, support in the commercial and manufacturing parts of the country, that is to say, in New England and the Middle states. Meantime a new question far more exciting, far more menacing, had arisen. In 1819, when Missouri applied to be admitted into the Union as a state, a sharp contest broke out in Congress as to whether slavery should be permitted within her limits, nearly all the Northern members voting against slavery, nearly all the Southern members for. The struggle might have threatened the stability of the Union but for the compromise adopted next year, which, while admitting slavery in Missouri, forbade it for the future north of lat. 36° 30′. The danger seemed to have passed, but in its very suddenness there had been something terrible. Jefferson, then over seventy, said that it startled him “like a fire-bell in the night.” After 1840 things grew more serious, for whereas up till that time new states had been admitted substantially in pairs, a slave state balancing a free state, it began to be clear that this must shortly cease, since the remaining territory out of which new states would be formed lay north of the line 36@dg 30@pr. As every state held two seats in the Senate, the then existing balance in that chamber between slave states and free states would evidently soon be overset by the admission of a larger number of the latter. The apprehension of this event, with its probable result of legislation unfriendly to slavery, stimulated the South to the annexation of Texas, and the war with Mexico which led to further annexations, and made them increasingly sensitive to the growth, slow as that growth was, of Abolitionist opinions at the North. The question of the extension of slavery west of the Missouri River had become by 1850 the vital and absorbing question for the people of the United States, and as in that year California, having organized herself without slavery, was knocking at the doors of Congress for admission as a state, it had become an urgent question which evoked the hottest passions, and the victors in which would be victors all along the line. But neither of the two great parties ventured to commit itself either way. The Southern Democrats hesitated to break with those Democrats of the Northern states who sought to restrict slavery. The Whigs of the North, fearing to alienate the South by any decided action against the growing pretensions of the slaveholders, temporized and suggested compromises which practically served the cause of slavery. Anxious to save at all hazards the Union as it had hitherto stood, they did not perceive that changes of circumstances and feeling were making this effort a hopeless one, and that in trying to keep their party together they were losing hold of the people, and alienating from themselves the men who cared for principle in politics. That this was so presently appeared. The Democratic party had by 1852 passed almost completely under the control of the slaveholders, and was adopting the dogma that Congress enjoyed under the Constitution no power to prohibit slavery in the Territories. This dogma obviously overthrew as unconstitutional the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The Whig leaders discredited themselves by Henry Clay’s compromise scheme of 1850, which, while admitting California as a free state, appeased the South by the Fugitive Slave law. They received a crushing defeat at the presidential election of 1852; and what remained of their party finally broke in pieces in 1854 over the bill for organizing Kansas as a Territory in which the question of slaves or no slaves should be left to the people, a bill which of course repealed the Missouri Compromise. Singularly enough, the two great orators of the party, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, both died in 1852, wearied with strife and disappointed in their ambition of reaching the presidential chair. Together with Calhoun, who passed away two years earlier, they are the ornaments of this generation, not indeed rising to the stature of Washington or Hamilton, but more remarkable than any, save one, among the statesmen who have followed them. With them ends the second period in the annals of American parties, which, extending from about 1820 to 1856, includes the rise and fall of the Whig party. Most of the controversies which filled it have become matter for history only. But three large results, besides the general democratization of politics, stand out. One is the detachment of the United States from the affairs of the Old World. Another is the growth of a sense of national life, especially in the Northern and Western states, along with the growth at the same time of a secessionist spirit among the slaveholders. And the third is the development of the complex machinery of party organization, with the adoption of the principle on which that machinery so largely rests, that public office is to be enjoyed only by the adherents of the president for the time being.

The Whig party having begun to fall to pieces, the Democrats seemed for the moment, as they had been once before, left in possession of the field. But this time a new antagonist was quick to appear. The growing boldness of the slave owners had begun to alarm the Northern people when they were startled by the decision of the Supreme Court, pronounced in the case of the slave Dred Scott, which laid down the doctrine that Congress had no power to forbid slavery anywhere, and that a slaveholder might carry his slaves with him where he pleased, seeing that they were mere objects of property, whose possession the Constitution guaranteed.5 This completed the formation out of the wrecks of the Whigs and Know-Nothings, or “American party,” together with the Free Soilers and “Liberty” party, of a new party, which in 1856 had run Fremont as its presidential candidate and taken the name of Republican. At the same time an apple of discord was thrown among the Democrats. In 1860 the latter could not agree upon a candidate for president. The Southern wing pledged themselves to one man, the Northern wing to another; a body of hesitating and semi-detached politicians put forward a third. Thus the Republicans through the divisions of their opponents triumphed in the election of Abraham Lincoln, presently followed by the secession of eleven slave states.

The Republican party, which had started by proclaiming the right of Congress to restrict slavery and had subsequently denounced the Dred Scott decision, was of course throughout the Civil War the defender of the Union and the assertor of federal authority, stretched, as was unavoidable, to lengths previously unheard of. When the war was over, there came the difficult task of reconstructing the now reconquered slave states, and of securing the position in them of the lately liberated Negroes. The outrages perpetrated on the latter, and on white settlers in some parts of the South, required further exertions of federal authority, and made the question of the limit of that authority still a practical one, for the old Democratic party, almost silenced during the war, had now reappeared in full force as the advocate of states’ rights, and the watchful critic of any undue stretches of federal authority. It was found necessary to negative the Dred Scott decision and set at rest all questions relating to slavery and to the political equality of the races by the adoption of three important amendments to the Constitution. The troubles of the South by degrees settled down as the whites regained possession of the state governments and the Northern troops were withdrawn. In the presidential election of 1876 the war question and Negro question had become dead issues, for it was plain that a large and increasing number of the voters were no longer, despite the appeals of the Republican leaders, seriously concerned about them.

This election marks the close of the third period, which embraces the rise and overwhelming predominance of the Republican party. Formed to resist the extension of slavery, led on to destroy it, compelled by circumstances to expand the central authority in a way unthought of before, that party had now worked out its programme and fulfilled its original mission. The old aims were accomplished, but new ones had not yet been substituted, for though new problems had appeared, the party was not prepared with solutions. Similarly the Democratic party had discharged its mission in defending the rights of the reconstructed states, and criticizing excesses of executive power; similarly it too had refused to grapple either with the fresh questions which had begun to arise since the war, or with those older questions which had now reappeared above the subsiding flood of war days. The old parties still stood as organizations, and still claimed to be the exponents of principles. Their respective principles had, however, little direct application to the questions which confronted and divided the nation. A new era was opening which called either for the evolution of new parties, or for the transformation of the old ones by the adoption of tenets and the advocacy of views suited to the needs of the time. But this fourth period, which began with 1876, has not yet seen such a transformation, and we shall therefore find, when we come to examine the existing state of parties, that there is an unreality and lack of vital force in both Republicans and Democrats, powerful as their organizations are.

The foregoing sketch, given only for the sake of explaining the present condition of parties, suggests some observations on the foundations of party in America.

If we look over Europe we shall find that the grounds on which parties have been built and contests waged since the beginning of free governments have been in substance but few. In the hostility of rich and poor, or of capital and labour, in the fears of the haves and the desire of the have-nots, we perceive the most frequent ground, though it is often disguised as a dispute about the extension of the suffrage or some other civic right. Questions relating to the tenure of land have played a large part; so have questions of religion; so too have animosities or jealousies of race; and of course the form of government, whether it shall be a monarchy or a republic, has sometimes been in dispute. None of these grounds of quarrel substantially affected American parties during the three periods we have been examining. No one has ever advocated monarchy, or a restricted suffrage, or a unified instead of a federal republic. Nor down to 1876 was there ever any party which could promise more to the poor than its opponents. In 1852 the Know-Nothing party came forward as the organ of native American opinion against recent immigrants, then chiefly the Irish (though German immigration had begun to swell from 1849 onwards), and the not unnatural tendency to resent the power of foreign-born voters has sometimes since appeared in various parts of the country. But as this ‘American’ party, for a time powerful by the absorption of many of the Whigs, failed to face the problem of slavery, and roused jealousy by its secret organization, it soon passed away, though it deserves to be remembered as a force disintegrating the then existing parties. The complete equality of all sects, with the complete neutrality of the government in religious matters, has fortunately kept religious passion outside the sphere of politics. The only exceptions to be noted are the occasionally recurring (though latterly less vehement) outbreaks of hostility to the Roman Catholic church. Nor would these outbreaks have attained political importance but for the strength added to them by the feeling of the native against the foreigner. They have been most serious at times when and in places where there has been an influx of immigrants from Europe large enough to seem to threaten the dominance of American ideas and the permanence of American institutions.

Have the American parties then been formed only upon narrow and local bases, have they contended for transient objects, and can no deeper historical meaning, no longer historical continuity, be claimed for them?

Two permanent oppositions may, I think, be discerned running through the history of the parties, sometimes openly recognized, sometimes concealed by the urgency of a transitory question. One of these is the opposition between a centralized or unified and a federalized government. In every country there are centrifugal and centripetal forces at work, the one or the other of which is for the moment the stronger. There has seldom been a country in which something might not have been gained, in the way of good administration and defensive strength, by a greater concentration of power in the hands of the central government, enabling it to do things which local bodies, or a more restricted central government, could not do equally cheaply or well. Against this gain there is always to be set the danger that such concentration may weaken the vitality of local communities and authorities, and may enable the central power to stunt their development. Sometimes needs of the former kind are more urgent, or the sentiment of the people tends to magnify them; sometimes again the centrifugal forces obtain the upper hand. English history shows several such alternations. But in America the federal form of government has made this permanent and natural opposition specially conspicuous. The salient feature of the Constitution is the effort it makes to establish an equipoise between the force which would carry the planet states off into space and the force which would draw them into the sun of the national government. There have always therefore been minds inclined to take sides upon this fundamental question, and a party has always had something definite and weighty to appeal to when it claims to represent either the autonomy of communities on the one hand, or the majesty and beneficent activity of the national government on the other. The former has been the watchword of the Democratic party. The latter was seldom distinctly avowed, but was generally in fact represented by the Federalists of the first period, the Whigs of the seond, the Republicans of the third.

The other opposition, though it goes deeper and is more pervasive, has been less clearly marked in America, and less consciously admitted by the Americans themselves. It is the opposition between the tendency which makes some men prize the freedom of the individual as the first of social goods, and that which disposes others to insist on checking and regulating his impulses. The opposition of these two tendencies, the love of liberty and the love of order, is permanent and necessary, because it springs from differences in the intellect and feelings of men which one finds in all countries and at all epochs. There are always persons who are struck by the weakness of mankind, by their folly, their passion, their selfishness; and these persons, distrusting the action of average mankind, will always wish to see them guided by wise heads and restrained by strong hands. Such guidance seems the best means of progress, such restraint the only means of security. Those on the other hand who think better of human nature, and have more hope in their own tempers, hold the impulses of the average man to be generally towards justice and peace. They have faith in the power of reason to conquer ignorance, and of generosity to overbear selfishness. They are therefore disposed to leave the individual alone, and to entrust the masses with power. Every sensible man feels in himself the struggle between these two tendencies, and is on his guard not to yield wholly to either, because the one degenerates into tyranny, the other into an anarchy out of which tyranny will eventually spring. The wisest statesman is he who best holds the balance between them.

Each of these tendencies found among the fathers of the American Republic a brilliant and characteristic representative. Hamilton, who had a low opinion of mankind, but a gift and a passion for large constructive statesmanship, went so far in his advocacy of a strong government as to be suspected of wishing to establish a monarchy after the British pattern. He has left on record his opinion that the free Constitution of England, which he admired in spite of the faults he clearly saw, could not be worked without its corruptions.6 Jefferson carried further than any other person set in an equally responsible place has ever done, his faith that government is either needless or an evil, and that with enough liberty, everything will go well. An insurrection every few years, he said, must be looked for, and even desired, to keep government in order. The Jeffersonian tendency long remained, like a leaven, in the Democratic party, though in applying Jeffersonian doctrines the slaveholders stopped when they came to a black skin. Among the Federalists, and their successors the Whigs, and the more recent Republicans, there has never been wanting a full faith in the power of freedom. The Republicans gave an amazing proof of it when they bestowed the suffrage on the Negroes. Neither they nor any American party has ever professed itself the champion of authority and order. That would be a damaging profession. Nevertheless it is rather towards what I may perhaps venture to call the Federalist-Whig-Republican party than towards the Democrats that those who have valued the principle of authority have been generally drawn. It is for that party that the Puritan spirit, not extinct in America, has felt the greater affinity, for this spirit, having realized the sinfulness of human nature, is inclined to train and control the natural man by laws and force.

The tendency that makes for a strong government being akin to that which makes for a central government, the Federalist-Whig-Republican party, which has, through its long history, and under its varying forms and names, been the advocate of the national principle, found itself for this reason also led, more frequently than the Democrats, to exalt the rights and powers of government. It might be thought that the same cause would have made the Republican party take sides in that profound opposition which we perceive today in all civilized peoples, between the tendency to enlarge the sphere of legislation and state action, and the doctrine of laissez faire. So far, however, this has not happened. There may seem to be more in the character and temper of the Republicans than of the Democrats that leans towards state interference. But when the question arises in a concrete instance neither party is much more likely than the other to oppose such interference. Federal control has been more frequently and further extended through legislation passed by Republican Congresses. But that has happened largely because the Republicans have, since the Civil War, possessed majorities much more often than have the Democrats, so that when the need for legislation arose, it fell to the former to meet that need. Neither party has thought out the subject in its general bearings; neither has shown any more definiteness of policy regarding it than the Tories and the Liberals have done in England.

American students of history may think that I have pressed the antithesis of liberty and authority, as well as that of centrifugal and centripetal tendencies, somewhat too far in making one party a representative of each through the first century of the Republic. I do not deny that at particular moments the party which was usually disposed towards a strong government resisted and decried authority, while the party which specially professed itself the advocate of liberty sought to make authority more stringent. Such deviations are however compatible with the general tendencies I have described. And no one who has gained even a slight knowledge of the history of the United States will fall into the error of supposing that order and authority mean there what they have meant in the monarchies of continental Europe.

chapter 54

The Parties of Today

There are now two great and several minor parties in the United States. The great parties are the Republicans and the Democrats. What are their principles, their distinctive tenets, their tendencies? Which of them is for tariff reform, for the further extension of civil service reform, for a spirited foreign policy, for the regulation of railroads and telegraphs by legislation, for changes in the currency, for any other of the twenty issues which one hears discussed in the country as seriously involving its welfare?

This is what a European is always asking of intelligent Republicans and intelligent Democrats. He is always asking because he never gets an answer. The replies leave him in deeper perplexity. After some months the truth begins to dawn upon him. Neither party has, as a party, anything definite to say on these issues; neither party has any clean-cut principles, any distinctive tenets. Both have traditions. Both claim to have tendencies. Both have certainly war cries, organizations, interests enlisted in their support. But those interests are in the main the interests of getting or keeping the patronage of the government. Distinctive tenets and policies, points of political doctrine and points of political practice, have all but vanished. They have not been thrown away, but have been stripped away by time and the progress of events, fulfilling some policies, blotting out others. All has been lost, except office or the hope of it.

The phenomenon may be illustrated from the case of England, where party government has existed longer and in a more fully developed form than in any other part of the Old World.1 The essence of the English parties has lain in the existence of two sets of views and tendencies which divide the nation into two sections, the party, let us say, though these general terms are not very safe, and have been less applicable in recent years than they were down to 1874, of movement and the party of standing still, the party of liberty and the party of order. Each section believes in its own views, and is influenced by its peculiar tendencies, recollections, mental associations, to deal in its own peculiar way with every new question as it comes up. The particular dogmas may change: doctrines once held by Whigs alone may now be held by Tories also; doctrines which Whigs would have rejected seventy years ago may now be part of the orthodox programme of the Liberal party. But the tendencies have been permanent and have always so worked upon the various fresh questions and problems which have presented themselves during the last two centuries, that each party has had not only a brilliant concrete life in its famous leaders and zealous members, but also an intellectual and moral life in its principles. These principles have meant something to those who held them, so that when a fresh question arose it was usually possible to predict how each party, how even the average members of each party, would regard and wish to deal with it. Thus even when the leaders have been least worthy and their aims least pure, an English party has felt itself ennobled and inspirited by the sense that it had great objects to fight for, a history and traditions which imposed on it the duty of battling for its distinctive principles. It is because issues have never been lacking which brought these respective principles into operation, forcing the one party to maintain the cause of order and existing institutions, the other that of freedom and what ws deemed progress, that the two English parties have not degenerated into mere factions. Their struggles for office have been redeemed from selfishness by the feeling that office was a means of giving practical effect to their doctrines.

But suppose that in Britain all the questions which divide Tories from Liberals were to be suddenly settled and done with. Britain would be in a difficulty. Her free government has so long been worked by the action and reaction of the ministerialists and the opposition that there would probably continue to be two parties. But they would not be really, in the true old sense of the term, Tories and Liberals; they would be merely Ins and Outs. Their combats would be waged hardly even in name for principles, but only for place. The government of the country, with the honour, power, and emoluments attached to it, would still remain as a prize to be contended for. The followers would still rally to the leaders; and friendship would still bind the members together into organized bodies; while dislike and suspicion would still rouse them against their former adversaries. Thus not only the leaders, who would have something tangible to gain, but even others, who had only their feelings to gratify, would continue to form political clubs, register voters, deliver party harangues, contest elections, just as they do now. The difference would be that each faction would no longer have broad principles—I will not say to invoke, for such principles would probably continue to be invoked as heretofore—but to insist on applying as distinctively its principles to the actual needs of the state. Hence quiet or fastidious men would not join in party struggles; while those who did join would no longer be stimulated by the sense that they were contending for something ideal. Loyalty to a leader whom it was sought to make prime minister would be a poor substitute for loyalty to a faith. If there were no conspicuous leader, attachment to the party would degenerate either into mere hatred of antagonists or into a struggle over places and salaries. And almost the same phenomena would be seen if, although the old issues had not been really determined, both the parties should have so far abandoned their former position that these issues did not divide them, but each professed principles which were, even if different in formal statement, practicably indistinguishable in their application.

This, which conceivably may happen in England under her new political conditions, is what has happened with the American parties. The chief practical issues which once divided them have been settled. Some others have not been settled, but as regards these, the professions of the two parties so far agree that we cannot now speak of any conflict of principles.

When life leaves an organic body it becomes useless, fetid, pestiferous; it is fit to be cast out or buried from sight. What life is to an organism, principles are to a party. When they which are its soul have vanished, its body ought to dissolve, and the elements that formed it be regrouped in some new organism:

• The times have been
• That when the brains were out the man would die.

But a party does not always thus die. It may hold together long after its moral life is extinct. Guelfs and Ghibellines warred in Italy for nearly two centuries after the emperor had ceased to threaten the pope, or the pope to befriend the cities of Lombardy. Parties go on contending because their members have formed habits of joint action, and have contracted hatreds and prejudices, and also because the leaders find their advantage in using these habits and playing on these prejudices. The American parties now continue to exist, because they have existed. The mill has been constructed, and its machinery goes on turning, even when there is no grist to grind. But this is not wholly the fault of the men; for the system of government requires and implies parties, just as that of England does. These systems are made to be worked, and always have been worked, by a majority; a majority must be cohesive, gathered into a united and organized body: such a body is a party.

When an ordinary Northern Democrat was asked, say about 1880, to characterize the two parties, he used to say that the Republicans were corrupt and incapable, and would cite instances in which persons prominent in that party, or intimate friends of its leaders, had been concerned in frauds on the government or in disgraceful lobbying transactions in Congress. In 1900 he was more likely to allege that the Republican party is the party of the rich, influenced by the great corporations, whereas the Democrats are the true friends of the people. When you press him for some distinctive principles separating his own party from theirs, he may perhaps refer to Jefferson, and say that the Democrats are the protectors of states’ rights and of local independence, and the Republicans hostile to both. If you go on to inquire what bearing this doctrine of states’ rights has on any presently debated issue he may admit that, for the moment, it has none, but will insist that should any issue involving the rights of the states arise, his party will be, as always, the guardian of American freedom.

This is nearly all that can be predicated about the Democratic party. If a question involving the rights of a state against the federal authority were to emerge, its instinct would lead it to array itself on the side of the state rather than of the central government, supposing that it had no direct motive to do the opposite. Seeing that at no point from the outbreak of the war down to 1913, except in the Fifty-third Congress (1893–95), has it possessed a majority in both houses of Congress as well as the president in power, its devotion to this principle has not been tested, and might not resist the temptation of any interest the other way. However, this is matter of speculation, for at present the states fear no infringement of their rights. So conversely of the Republicans. Their traditions ought to dispose them to support federal power against the states, but their action in a concrete case would probably depend on whether their party was at the time in condition to use that power for its own purposes. If they were in a minority in Congress, they would be little inclined to strengthen Congress against the states. The simplest way of proving or illustrating this will be to run quickly through the questions of present practical interest.

One of those which most interests the people, though of course not all the people, is the regulation or extinction of the liquor traffic. On this neither party has committed or will commit itself. The traditional dogmas of neither cover it, though the Northern Democrats have been rather more disposed to leave men to themselves than the Republicans, and rather less amenable to the influence of ethical sentiment. Practically for both parties the point of consequence is what they can gain or lose. Each has clearly something to lose. The drinking part of the population is chiefly foreign. Now the Irish are mainly Democrats, so the Democratic party in the North has often feared to offend them. The Germans are mainly Republican, so the Republicans are equally bound over to caution.2 It is true that though the parties, as parties, have been, in almost all states, neutral or divided, Temperance men are, in the North and West,3 generally Republicans, whiskey-men and saloonkeepers generally Democrats. The Republicans therefore more frequently attempt to conciliate the anti-liquor party by flattering phrases. They suffer by the starting of a Prohibitionist candidate, since he draws more voting strength away from them than he does from the Democrats.

Free Trade v. Protection is another burning question, and has been so since the early days of the Union. The old controversy as to the constitutional right of Congress to impose a tariff for any purpose but that of raising revenue, has been laid to rest, for whether the people in 1788 meant or did not mean to confer such a power, it has been exerted for so many years, and on so superb a scale, that no one now doubts its legality. Before the war the Democrats were advocates of a tariff for revenue only, i.e., of free trade. A few of them still hold that doctrine in its fulness, but as the majority, though they have frequently declared themselves to favour a reduction of the present system of import duties, have not been clear upon the general principle, the party trumpet has given an uncertain sound. Moreover, Pennsylvania is Protectionist on account of its iron industries; several Southern states have leanings that way for the same reason, or because they desire high import duties on their own products, on sugar for instance, or on timber. Unwilling to alienate the Democrats of such districts, the party has generally sought to remain unpledged, or, at least, in winking with one eye to the men of the Northwest and Southeast who desired to reduce the tariff, it was tempted to wink with the other to the iron men of Pittsburg and the sugar men of the Far South.

This division, however, did not prevent the Democratic party from passing in 1913 an act which largely reduced protective duties. It did not, however, any more than the Republicans, avow pure free trade principles, and though the Republicans have been heretofore the high tariff party, many among them have latterly shown themselves quite as desirous of seeing reductions made in the present rates as are the “revisionist” section of the Democrats.4

Civil service reform long received the lip service of both parties, a lip service expressed by both with equal warmth, and by the average professional politicians of both with equal insincerity. Such reforms as have been effected in the mode of filling up places, have been forced on the parties by public opinion, rather than carried through by either, or else were due to the enlightened views of individual presidents. None of the changes made—and they are perhaps the most beneficial of recent changes—has raised an issue between the parties. The best men in both parties support the Civil Service Commission and would extend the scheme still further; the worst men in both would gladly get rid of it.

The regulation by federal authority of railroads carrying on commerce between the states has attracted great attention for many years. Neither party has had anything distinctive to say upon it in the way either of advocacy or of condemnation. Both have asserted that it is the duty of railways to serve the people, and not to tyrannize over or defraud them, so the Interstate Commerce Acts passed in and since 1887 with this view cannot be called party measures. The discussion of the subject continues, and while some have urged that it is impossible effectively to regulate interstate railroad traffic without regulating all railroad traffic, a few have gone so far as to suggest that the national government ought to acquire all the railroads of the country. But neither party is committed to a particular line of policy. So also both profess themselves eager to restrain the abuse of their powers by corporations, and to put an end to monopolies.

Finances have on the whole been well managed, and debt paid off with surprising speed. But there have been, and are still, serious problems raised by the condition of the currency. In 1896 the great majority of the Democratic party pledged itself to the free coinage of silver; but a section important by its social and intellectual influence seceded and ran a candidate of its own. The schism has been healed by the dropping of the free silver issue, and a Currency Act was passed in 1913,5 the working of which will be closely watched. The matter is not now a party issue.

As regards the extension and government of territories outside the North American continent, the Democratic party did not approve the acquisition of the Philippines, and has announced an intention to withdraw therefrom as soon as conveniently may be, but there has been no controversy between it and the Republicans over the administrative policy to be followed there and in Puerto Rico.

It is the same as regards questions belonging to the sphere of state politics, such as woman suffrage, or ballot reform, or child labour, or an eight-hour law, or convict labour. Neither party has any distinctive attitude on these matters; neither is more likely, or less likely, than the other to pass a measure dealing with them. It is the same with regard to the general doctrine of laissez faire as opposed to governmental interference. Neither Republicans nor Democrats can be said to be friends or foes of state interference: each will advocate it when there seems a practically useful object to be secured, or when the popular voice seems to call for it. It is the same with foreign policy. Both parties are practically agreed not only as to the general principles which ought to rule the conduct of the country, but as to the application of these principles, and this has been shown even in a matter which raised so many difficult questions as the condition of Mexico has done since the fall of President Diaz. The party which opposes the president may at any given moment seek to damage him by defeating some particular proposal he has made, but this it will do as a piece of temporary strategy, not in pursuance of any settled doctrine.

Yet one cannot say that there is today no difference between the two great parties. There is a difference of spirit or sentiment perceptible even by a stranger when, after having mixed for some time with members of the one he begins to mix with those of the other, and doubtless more patent to a native American. It resembles (though it is less marked than) the difference of tone and temper between Tories and Liberals in England. The intellectual view of a Democrat of the better sort has been not quite the same as that of his Republican compeer. Each of course thinks meanly of the other; but while the Democrat has generally deemed the Republican “dangerous” (i.e., likely to undermine the Constitution), the Republican was more apt to think the Democrat (at least in the North) low toned or reckless. So in England your Liberal used to fasten on stupidity as the characteristic fault of the Tory, while the Tory suspected the morals and religion more than he despised the intelligence of the Radical. But these statements, generally true of Democrats and Republicans from the time of the Civil War till near the end of the century, have latterly been less applicable. There is still a contrast between the larger and more radical wing of the Democratic party and the older school of Republicans, but the conservative section of the Democrats differ very little from the conservative Republicans; and there are radical Republicans whose views are shared by plenty of Democrats. This approximation seems to indicate that the time for a reconstruction of parties is approaching; but party organizations are strong things, and often interfere with the course of natural evolution.

It cannot be charged on the American parties that they have drawn towards one another by forsaking their old principles. It is time that has changed the circumstances of the country, and made those old principles inapplicable. An eminent journalist remarked to me in 1908 that the two great parties were like two bottles. Each bore a label denoting the kind of liquor it contained, but each was empty. This at any rate may be said, that the parties may seem to have erred rather by having clung too long to outworn issues, and by neglecting to discover and work out new principles capable of solving the problems which now perplex the country. In a country so full of change and movement as America new questions are always coming up, and must be answered. New troubles surround a government, and a way must be found to escape from them; new diseases attack the nation, and have to be cured. The duty of a great party is to face these, to find answers and remedies, applying to the facts of the hour the doctrines it has lived by, so far as they are still applicable, and when they have ceased to be applicable, thinking out new doctrines conformable to the main principles and tendencies which it represents. This is a work to be accomplished by its ruling minds, while the habit of party loyalty to the leaders powerfully serves to diffuse through the mass of followers the conclusions of the leaders and the reasonings they have employed.

“But,” the European reader may ask, “is it not the interest as well as the duty of a party thus to adapt itself to new conditions? Does it not, in failing to do so, condemn itself to sterility and impotence, ultimately, indeed, to supersession by some new party which the needs of the time have created?”

This is what usually happens in Europe. Probably it will happen in the long run in America also, unless the parties adapt themselves to the new issues, just as the Whig party fell in 1852–57 because it failed to face the problem of slavery. That it happens more slowly may be ascribed partly to the completeness and strength of the party organizations, which make the enthusiasm generated by ideas less necessary, partly to the growing prominence of “social” and “labour” as well as economic questions, on which both parties are equally eager to conciliate the masses, and equally unwilling to proclaim definite views, partly to the fact that several questions on which the two great parties still hesitate to take sides are not presently vital to the well-being of the country. Something is also due to the smaller influence in America than in Europe of individual leaders. English parties, which hesitate long over secondary questions, might hesitate longer than is now their practice over vital ones also, were they not accustomed to look for guidance to their chiefs, and to defer to the opinion which the chiefs deliver. And it is only by courage and the capacity for initiative that the chiefs themselves retain their position.

chapter 55

Composition of the Parties

The less there is in the tenets of the Republicans and Democrats to make their character intelligible to a European reader, so much the more desirable is it to convey some idea of what may be called their social and local, their racial and ecclesiastical complexions.

The Republican party was formed between 1854 and 1856 chiefly out of the wrecks of the Whig party, with the addition of the Abolitionists and Free Soilers, who, disgusted at the apparent subservience to the South of the leading Northern Whigs, had for some time previously acted as a group by themselves, though some of them had been apt to vote for Whig candidates. They had also recruits from the Free Soil Democrats, who had severed themselves from the bulk of the Democratic party, and some of whom claimed to be true Jeffersonians in joining the party which stood up against the spread of slavery.1 The Republicans were therefore from the first a Northern party, more distinctly so than the Federalists had been at the close of the preceding century, and much more distinctly so than the Whigs, in whom there had been a pretty strong Southern element.

The Whig element brought to the new party solidity, political experience, and a large number of wealthy and influential adherents. The Abolitionist element gave it force and enthusiasm, qualities invaluable for the crisis which came in 1861 with the secession of all save four of the slaveholding states. During the war, it drew to itself nearly all the earnestness, patriotism, religious and moral fervour, which the North and West contained. It is still, in those regions, the party in whose ranks respectable, steady, pious, well-conducted men are to be looked for. If you find yourself dining with one of “the best people” in any New England city, or in Philadelphia, or in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Chicago, or Minneapolis, you assume that the guest sitting next you is a Republican, almost as confidently as in English county society you would assume your neighbour to be a Tory; that is to say, you may sometimes be wrong, but in four cases out of five you will be right. In New York the presumption is weaker, though even there you will be right three times out of five. One may say that all over the North, the merchants, manufacturers, and professional men of the smaller perhaps even more than of the larger towns, have tended to be Republicans. So too have the farmers, particularly in the upper Mississippi Valley, although there, as well as on the Pacific coast, the growth of what is called “radicalism” has occasionally strengthened the Democratic vote. The working class in the cities is divided, but the more solid part of it, the church-goers and total abstainers, are generally Republicans, while some are inclined to socialism. A number, still considerable, though of course daily diminishing, are veterans of the Civil War; and these naturally rally to the old flag. When turning southwards one reaches the borders of the old slave states, everything is changed. In Baltimore the best people are so generally Democrats that when you meet a Republican in society you ask whether he is not an immigrant from New England. This is less markedly the case in Kentucky and Missouri, but in Virginia, or the Carolinas, or the Gulf states, very few men of good standing belong to the Republican party, which consists of the lately enfranchised Negroes, of a certain number of whites, seldom well regarded, who organize and use the Negro vote, and who in the years that followed the war were making a good thing for themselves out of it; of a number of federal officials (a number very small when the Democrats are in power), who have been put into federal places by their friends at Washington, on the understanding that they are to work for the party, and of a few stray people, perhaps settlers from the North, who have not yet renounced their old affiliations. It is not easy for an educated man to remain a Republican in the South, not only because the people he meets in society are Democrats, but because the Republican party managers are apt to be black sheep.

In such Middle states as New York and New Jersey, to which one may for this purpose add Ohio and Indiana, and on the Pacific slope, the parties are nearly balanced, and if one regards state as well as national elections, the majority of votes is seen to sway now this way now that, as the circumstances of the hour, or local causes, or the merits of individual candidates, may affect the popular mind. Pennsylvania is now, as she has been since 1860, a Republican state, owing to her interest in a protective tariff. New York, whose legislature has been often Republican, is in presidential elections still to be deemed doubtful. In all these states, the better sort of people are mostly Republicans. It is in that party you look to find the greater number of the philanthropists, the men of culture, the financial magnates and other persons of substance who desire to see things go on quietly, with no shocks given to business confidence by rash legislation. These are great elements of strength. They were gained for the Republican party by its earlier history, which drew into it in the days of the war those patriotic and earnest young men who are now the leading elderly men in their respective neighbourhoods. Against them there was for a time (1884–96) to be set the tendency of a section of the Republican party, a section small in numbers but including some men of character and intelligence, to break away, or, as it is called, “bolt” from the party platform and “ticket.” This section explained its conduct by declaring that the great claims which the party gained on the confidence of the country by its resistance to slavery and its vigorous prosecution of the war had been forfeited by maladministration since the war ended, and by the scandals which had gathered round some of its conspicuous figures. If intelligence and cultivation dispose their possessors to desert at a critical moment, the party would have been stronger without this element, for, as everybody knows, a good party man is he who stands by his friends when they are wrong. That group was mostly reabsorbed into the Republican ranks. But somewhat later another tendency to division appeared in the disposition of some Republicans, especially in the Northwest, to go faster and further, especially in economic legislation, than the moneyed men wished to follow. No open schism has so far resulted, but the antagonism of tendency is manifest.

The Democratic party has suffered in the North and West from exactly the opposite causes to the Republican. It was long discredited by its sympathy with the South, and by the opposition of a considerable section within it (the so-called Copperheads) to the prosecution of the war. This shadow hung heavy over it till the complete pacification of the South and growing prominence of new questions began to call men’s minds away from the war years. From 1869 to 1885 it profited from being in opposition. Saved from the opportunity of abusing patronage, or becoming entangled in administration jobs, it was able to criticize freely the blunders or vices of its opponents. It may however be doubted whether its party managers were, take them all in all, either wiser or purer than those whom they criticized, nor do they seem to have inspired any deeper trust in the minds of impartial citizens. When, as has several times happened, the Democrats have obtained a majority in the House of Representatives, their legislation was not higher in aim or more judicious in the choice of means than that which Republican Congresses have produced. Hence the tendency to fall away from the Republican ranks of 1872–96 enured to the benefit of the Democrats less than might have been expected. In 1896 the emergence of the free silver question as a burning issue produced a serious breach in the party, the consequences of which, though it was to outward appearance healed in the presidential nomination of 1904 did not for some time disappear. The Democratic party includes not only nearly all the talent, education, and wealth of the South, together with the great bulk of the Southern farmers and poorer whites, but also a respectable minority of good men in the Middle states and the Northwest, and a slightly smaller minority in the rural parts of New England.2

In these last-mentioned districts its strength lies chiefly in the cities, a curious contrast to those earlier days when Jefferson was supported by the farmers and Hamilton by the townsfolk.3 But the large cities have now a population unlike anything that existed in those distant days, a vast ignorant fluctuating mass of people, many of them only recently admitted to citizenship, who have little reason for belonging to one party rather than another, but are attracted some by the name of the Democratic party, some by the fact that it is not the party of the well-to-do, some by the leaders belonging to their own races who have risen to influence in its ranks. The adhesion of this mob gives the party a slight flavour of rowdyism, as its old associations used to give it, to a Puritan palate, a slight flavour of irreligion. Not so long ago, a New England deacon—the deacon is in America the type of solid respectability—would have found it as hard to vote for a Democratic candidate as an English archdeacon to vote for a Yorkshire Radical. But these old feelings are wearing away. A new generation of voters has arisen which never saw slavery, and which cares little about Jefferson for good or for evil. This generation takes parties as it finds them. Even among the older voters there has been a sensible change within the recent years. Many of the best Republicans, who remembered the Democrats as the party of which a strong section sympathized with the slaveholders before the war, and disapproved of the war while it was being waged, looked with horror on the advent to power of a Democratic president. The country, however, has not been ruined by Mr. Cleveland, either then or in his second term, but went on much as before, its elements of good and evil mixed and contending, just as under Republican administrations. The alarm which the moneyed classes felt in 1896 had nothing to do with the old controversies, and the association with the Democratic party of the states where slavery prevailed no longer creates any real pejudice against it in Northern minds.

Race differences have played a considerable part in the composition of the parties, but it is a diminishing part, because in the second and still more in the third generation a citizen is an American first and foremost and loses quickly the race consciousness which his father or grandfather had. Besides the native Americans, there were till about 1890 men of five nationalities in the United States—British, Irish, Germans, Scandinavians, French Canadians.4 Of these, however, the English and Scotch lose their identity almost immediately, being absorbed into the general mass of native citizens. Though very numerous, they have hitherto counted for nothing politically, because English immigrants have either been indifferent to political struggles or have voted from the same motives as an average American. They have to some slight extent remained British subjects, not caring for the suffrage, and those who have adopted the United States as their country have seldom exerted their voting power as a united body.

Far otherwise with the Irish. They retain their national spirit and disposition to act together into the second, rarely however into the third, generation; they are a factor potent in federal and still more potent in city politics. Now the Irish have hitherto been nearly all Democrats. The exodus from Ireland, which had been considerable as far back as 1842, swelled in 1847 (the year after the famine) to vast proportions; and was from the first a source of help to the Democratic party, probably because the latter was less Protestant in sentiment than the Whig party, and was already dominant in the city of New York, where the Irish first became a power in politics. The aversion to the Negro which they soon developed, made them, when the Republican party arose, its natural enemies, for the Republicans were, both during and after the war, the Negro’s patrons. Before the war ended the Irish vote had come to form a large part of the Democratic strength, and Irishmen were prominent among the politicians of that party: hence newcomers from Ireland have generally enlisted under its banner. Of late years, however, there have been plenty of Irishmen, and indeed of Irish leaders and bosses, among the Republicans of the great cities; and statesmen of that party often sought to “placate” and attract the Irish vote in ways too familiar to need description. It is now, except in a few cities, far less of a solid vote, Irish immigration having much declined.

The German immigration, excluding of course the early German settlements in Pennsylvania, began rather later than the Irish; and as there was some jealousy between the two races, the fact that the Irish were already Democrats when the Germans arrived, may be one reason why the latter have been more inclined to enrol themselves as Republicans, while another was to be found in the fact that German exiles of 1849 were naturally hostile to slavery. The Germans usually become farmers in the Middle and Western states, where, finding the native farmers mainly Republicans, they imitated the politics of their neighbours. That there are many German Democrats in the great cities may be ascribed to the rather less friendly attitude of the Republicans to the liquor traffic, for the German colonist is faithful to the beer of his fatherland, and, in the case of the Roman Catholic Germans, to the tacit alliance which subsisted in many districts between the Catholic Church and the Democrats. The Germans are a cohesive race, keeping up national sentiment by festivals, gymnastic societies, processions, and national songs, but as they take much less keenly to politics, and are not kept together by priests, their cohesion is more short-lived than that of the Irish. The American-born son of a German is already completely an American in feeling as well as in practical aptitude. The German vote over the whole Union may be roughly estimated as five-ninths Republican, four-ninths Democratic. But it is even more true of the Germans than of the Irish that in the twentieth century they have been ceasing to constitute a “solid vote” in the older sense of the term, and before 1930 politicians may have left off thinking of either race as a distinct voting entity.

The Scandinavians—Swedes and Norwegians, with a few Danes and a handful of Icelanders—now form a large element among the farmers of the Upper Mississippi states, particularly Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. So far as can be judged from the short experience the country has of them, for their immigration did not begin to swell till after the middle of the nineteenth century, they Americanize even more readily than their Teutonic cousins from the southern side of the Baltic. However, both Swedes and Norwegians are still so far clannish that in these states both parties find it worth while to run for office now and then a candidate of one or other, or candidates of both, of these nationalities, in order to catch the votes of his or their compatriots.5 Nine-tenths of them were Republicans, until the rise of the so-called “People’s Party,” which for the time detached a good many; and some of these have passed into the Democratic ranks. Like the Germans, they came knowing nothing of American politics, but the watchful energy of the native party workers enlisted them under a party banner as soon as they were admitted to civic rights. They make perhaps the best material for sober and industrious agriculturists that America receives, being even readier than the Germans to face hardship, and more content to dispense with alcoholic drinks.

The French Canadians are numerous in New England, and in one or two other Northern states, yet not numerous enough to tell upon politics, especially as they frequently remain British subjects. Their religion disposes those who become citizens to side with the Democratic party, but they can hardly be said to constitute what is called “a vote,” and occasionally “go Republican.”

In the northern half of the country, the Negroes are not generally an important element, but their vote in New York, Ohio, and Indiana is large enough to be worth having whenever the state is doubtful. Gratitude for the favour shown to their race has kept them mostly but not exclusively Republicans. They are seldom admitted to a leading place in party organizations, but it is found expedient in presidential contests to organize a “coloured club” to work for the candidate among the coloured population of a town. In states like Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, where there are plenty of white Republicans, they have voted steadily Republican, unless paid to abstain. In the further South, their mere numbers would have enabled them, were they equal to the whites in intelligence, wealth, and organization, not merely to carry congressional seats, but even in some states to determine a presidential election. But in these three respects they are unspeakably inferior. At first, under the leadership of some white adventurers, mostly of the “carpetbagger” class, they went almost solid for the Republican party; and occasionally, even since the withdrawal of Federal troops, they have turned the balance in its favour. Presently, however, the Democrats gained the upper hand; and most of the Negroes, losing faith in their former bosses, and discouraged by finding themselves unfit to cope with a superior race, either ceased to vote or found themselves prevented by the whites from doing so. Latterly the seven Southern states have so altered their constitutions as to exclude nine-tenths of the Negroes from the suffrage.6

Religion comes very little into American party except when, as sometimes has happened, the advance of the Roman Catholic church and the idea that she exerts her influence to secure benefits for herself, causes an outburst of Protestant feeling.7 Roman Catholics are usually Democrats, because, except in Maryland, which is Democratic anyhow, they are mainly Irish.8 Congregationalists and Unitarians, being presumably sprung from New England, are apt to be Republicans. Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Episcopalians, have no special party affinities. They are mostly Republicans in the North, Democrats in the South. The Mormons fight for their own hand, and in Utah, Idaho, and Arizona have been wont to cast their votes, under the direction of their hierarchy, for the local party which promised to interfere least with them. Lately in Idaho a party found it worth while to run a Mormon candidate.

The distribution of parties is to some extent geographical. While the South casts a solid Democratic vote, and the strength of the Republicans lies in the Northeast and Northwest, the intermediate position of the Middle states corresponds to their divided political tendencies. The reason is that in America colonization has gone on along parallels of latitude. The tendencies of New England reappear in northern Ohio, northern Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, giving the Republicans a predominance in this vast and swiftly growing Western population, which it takes the whole weight of the solid South to balance. This geographical opposition does not, however, betoken a danger of political severance. The material interests of the agriculturists of the Northwest are not different from those of the South: free trade, for instance, will make as much and no more difference to the wheat grower of Illinois as to the cotton grower of Texas, to the ironworkers of Tennessee as to the ironworkers of Pennsylvania. And the existence of an active Democratic party in the North prevents the victory of either geographical section from being felt as a defeat by the other.

This is an important security against disruption. And a similar security against the risk of civil strife or revolution is to be found in the fact that the parties are not based on or sensibly affected by differences either of wealth or of social position. Their cleavage is not horizontal according to social strata, but vertical. This would be less true if it were stated either of the Northern states separately, or of the Southern states separately: it is true of the Union taken as a whole. It might cease to be true if the new socialist or labour parties were to grow till it absorbed or superseded either of the existing parties. The same feature has characterized English politics as compared with those of most European countries, and has been a main cause of the stability of the English government and of the good feeling between different classes in the community.9

chapter 56

Further Observations on the Parties

Besides the two great parties which have divided America for thirty years, there are two or three lesser organizations or factions needing a word of mention. About 1820–30 there was a period when one of the two great parties having melted away, the other had become split up into minor sections.1 Parties were numerous and unstable, new ones forming, and after a short career uniting with some other, or vanishing altogether from the scene. This was a phenomenon peculiar to that time, and ceased with the building up about 1832 of the Whig party, which lasted till shortly before the Civil War. But De Tocqueville, who visited America in 1831–32, took it for the normal state of a democratic community, and founded upon it some bold generalizations. A stranger who sees how few principles now exist to hold each of the two great modern parties together will be rather surprised that they have not shown more tendency to split up into minor groups and factions.

What constitutes a party? In America there is a simple test. Any section of men who nominate candidates of their own for the presidency and vice-presidency of the United States are deemed a national party. Adopting this test we shall find that there are now two or three national parties in addition to the Republicans and Democrats.

The first minor party was that of the Greenbackers, who arose soon after the end of the Civil War. They demanded a large issue of greenbacks (i.e, paper money, so called from the colour of the notes issued during the war), alleging that this must benefit the poorer classes, who will obviously be richer when there is more money in the country. It may seem incredible that there should still be masses of civilized men who believe that money is value, and that a liberal issue of stamped paper can give the poor more bread or better clothes. If there were a large class of debtors, and the idea was to depreciate the currency and let them then pay their debts in it, one could understand the proposal. Such a depreciation existed during and immediately after the Civil War. As wages and prices had risen enormously, people were receiving more money in wages, or for goods sold, than they had received previously, while they were paying fixed charges, such as interest on mortgage debts, in a depreciated paper currency. Thus the small farmers were on the whole gainers, while creditors and persons with fixed incomes were losers. It is true that both farmers and working men were also paying more for whatever they needed, food, clothes, and lodging; still they seemed to have felt more benefit in receiving larger sums than they felt hardship in paying out larger sums. Those who called for a great increase of paper money did not profess to wish to depreciate the currency; nor were they to any great extent supported by a debtor class to which a depreciated currency would be welcome, as a debased coinage served the momentary occasions of mediæval kings. But the recollections of the war time with its abundant employment and high wages clung to many people, and were coupled with a confused notion that the more money there is in circulation so much the more of it will everybody have, and so much the better off will he be, so much the more employment will capital find for labour, and so much the more copious will be the fertilizing stream of wages diffused among the poor.2

The Greenback party, which at first called itself Independent, held a national nominating convention in 1876, at which nineteen states were represented, and nominated candidates for president and vice-president, issuing an emphatic but ungrammatical denunciation of the financial policy of the Republican and Democratic parties. They again put forward candidates in 1880 and 1884, but made a poor show in the voting and presently melted away, some of those who had supported it presently going to recruit the Populist party.

The various Labour or Socialist parties are composed, not of agriculturists like the Greenbackers, but chiefly of working men in cities and mining districts, including many of the recent immigrants. It is not easy to describe the precise tenets of a Labour party, for it includes persons of very various views, some who would be called in Europe pronounced Collectivists, others who wish to restrain the action of railway and telegraph companies and other so-called “monopolists,” and of course many who, while dissatisfied with existing economic conditions, and desiring to see the working classes receive a larger share of the good things of the world, are not prepared to say in what way these conditions can be mended and this result attained. Speaking generally, the reforms advocated by the leaders of the Labour party have included the “nationalization of the land,” the imposition of a progressive income tax,3 the taking over of railroads and telegraphs by the national government, the prevention of the immigration of Chinese and of any other foreign labourers who may come under contract, the restriction of all so-called monopolies, the forfeiture of railroad land grants, the increase of the currency, the free issue of inconvertible paper, and, above all, the statutory restriction of hours of labour. But it must not be supposed that all the leaders, much less all the followers, adopt all these tenets; nor has it been always easy to say who are to be deemed its leaders. It shows a tendency to split up into factions. Its strength has lain in the trade unions of the operative class, and for a time in the enormous organization or league of trade unions that was known as the Knights of Labour; and it is therefore warmly interested in the administration of the various state laws which affect strikes and the practice of boycotting by which strikes often seek to prevail. It has much support from the recent immigrants who fill the great cities, especially the socialistically inclined sections of the Germans, Jews, Pole, Czechs, and other Austro-Hungarian Slavs.

The Labour party did not run a presidential candidate till 1888, and was then divided, so that its strength could not be well estimated. But it has been wont to put forward candidates in state and city elections when it saw a chance. It ran Mr. Henry George for mayor of New York City in 1886, and obtained the unexpected success of polling 67,000 votes against 90,000 given to the regular Democratic, and 60,000 to the regular Republican candidate;4 but this success was not sustained in the contest for the governorship of the state of New York in 1887, when a vote of only 37,000 was cast by the Labour party in the city. In 1892 one section, calling itself the Socialist Labour Party, ran a presidential candidate, but obtained only 21,164 votes, 17,956 of which came from New York, the rest from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. In 1900 the party which has since called itself Socialist was founded. Both these parties sometimes put forward candidates in state or city elections. The Socialists are a somewhat incalculable force in state and city politics, seldom strong enough to carry their own candidates, but sometimes able to defeat one of the regular parties by drawing away a part of its voters, or to extort a share of the offices for some of their nominees. It is only in some states, chiefly Northern states, that candidates of this complexion appear at all.

The Prohibitionists, or opponents of the sale of intoxicating liquors, have since 1872 regularly held a national convention for the nomination of a presidential candidate, and put out a ticket, i.e., nominated candidates for president and vice-president. The action of this party has been most frequent in the state legislatures, because the whole question of permitting, restricting, or abolishing the sale of intoxicants is a matter for the states and not for Congress. However, the federal government raises a large revenue by its high import duty on wines, spirits, and malt liquors, and also levies an internal excise. As this revenue was for some years before 1890 no longer needed for the expenses of the national government, it was proposed to distribute it among the states, or apply it to some new and useful purpose, or to reduce both customs duties and the excise. The fear of the first or second of these courses, which would give the manufacture and sale of intoxicants a new lease of life, or of the third, which would greatly increase their consumption, was among the causes which induced the Prohibitionists to enter the arena of national politics; and they further justify their conduct in doing so by proposing to amend the federal Constitution for the purposes of prohibition, and to stop the sale of intoxicants in the Territories and in the District of Columbia, which are under the direct control of Congress.5 Their running a candidate for the presidency has been more a demonstration than anything else, as they cast a comparatively weak vote, many even of those who sympathize with them preferring to support one or other of the great parties rather than throw away a vote in the abstract assertion of a principle. One ought indeed to distinguish between the Prohibitionists proper, who wish to stop the sale of intoxicants altogether, and the Temperance men, who are very numerous among Republicans in the North and Democrats in the South, and who, while ready to vote for local option and a high licence law, disappove the attempt to impose absolute prohibition by general legislation.6 The number of persons who are both thoroughgoing Prohibitionists and pure Prohibitionists, that is to say, who are not also Republicans or Democrats, is small, far too small, even when reinforced by a section of the “Temperance men,” and by discontented Republicans or Democrats who may dislike the “regular” candidates of their party, to give the Prohibition ticket a chance of success in any state. The importance of the ticket lies in the fact that in a doubtful state it may draw away enough votes from one of the “regular” candidates to leave him in a minority. Mr. Blaine probably suffered in this way in the election of 1884, most of the votes cast for the Prohibitionist candidate having come from quondam Republicans. On the other hand, a case may be imagined in which the existence of an outlet or safety-valve, such as a Prohibitionist ticket, would prevent the “bolters” from one party from taking the more dangerous course of voting for the candidate of the opposite party. Latterly the party vote has been too small to make much difference.

The strength of the Prohibitionist party lies in the religious and moral earnestness which animates it and makes it for many purposes the successor and representative of the Abolitionists of forty years ago. Clergymen were prominent in its conventions, and women took an active part in its work. Partly from its traditions and temper, partly because it believes that women would be on its side in elections, it advocates the extension to them of the electoral franchise. But it has latterly lost much of its political importance, though temperance has advanced both in the diffusion of its principles and in practice.

A spirit of discontent with the old parties, and vague wish to better by legislation the condition of the agriculturists, caused the growth of what was called at first the Farmers’ Alliance Party, and thereafter the People’s Party, or “Populists.” In 1889 and 1890 it rose suddenly to importance in the West and South, and secured some seats from Western states in the Fifty-second and succeeding Congresses. Its platform agreed in several points with those of the Greenbackers and Labour men, but instead of seeking to “nationalize” the land, it desired to reduce the taxation on real estate and to secure (among other benefits) loans from the public treasury to farmers at low rates of interest. It ran a candidate at the presidential election of 1892 (carrying four states and obtaining one electoral vote in each of two others), but has since then so much declined, that in 1908 only 29,108 votes were cast for the candidate whom it nominated. Although the economic and social conditions of agricultural life in America are likely from time to time to produce similar outbreaks of dissatisfaction, with impatient cries for unpractical remedies, the tendency has of recent years been towards the formation of parties professing views of a more or less Collectivist type. In 1900, 1904, 1908, and 1912 a party calling itself Socialist and another calling itself Socialist Labour ran candidates for the presidency; and in 1908 there also appeared an “Independence Party,” which denounced the Republican and Democratic parties alike. Of these minor new parties the largest vote was in 1912 cast by the Socialist, 901,873. In 1904 its vote had been 402,321. In 1912 the new Progressive party ran its candidates.

The advocates of woman suffrage cannot be reckoned a national party, because the question is one for the states, and because women have no vote in presidential elections (save in ten states). In 1884 a woman was nominated, but did not go to the poll.7

Though the group which went by the name of Mugwumps has disappeared, it had a temporary significance which entitles it to the meed of a melodious tear.8 At the presidential election of 1884 a section of the Republican party, more important by the intelligence and social position of the men who composed it than by its numbers, “bolted” (to use the technical term) from their party, and refused to vote for Mr. Blaine. Some simply abstained, some, obeying the impulse to vote which is strong in good citizens in America, voted for Mr. St. John, the Prohibitionist candidate, though well aware that this was practically the same thing as abstention. The majority, however, voted against their party for Mr. Cleveland, the Democratic candidate; and it seems to have been the transference of their vote which turned the balance in New York State, and thereby determined the issue of the whole election in Mr. Cleveland’s favour. They were therefore not to be reckoned as a national party, according to the American use of the term, because they did not run a ticket of their own, but supported a candidate started by one of the regular parties. The only organization they formed consisted of committees which held meetings and distributed literature during the election, but dissolved when it was over. They maintained no permanent party machinery; and did not act as a distinct section, even for the purposes of agitation, at subsequent presidential elections. Some of them have since been absorbed (especially in New England and New York) into the Democratic party, others have returned to their old affiliations. They were not so much a section as a tendency, persons in whom a growing disposition to a detached independence was for the time embodied. The tendency is now chiefly conspicuous in municipal politics, where it has given birth to Good Government Clubs and other civic associations intended to purify the administration of cities.

The Mugwumps bore no resemblance to any British party. The tendency which called them into being is discernible chiefly in New England and in the cities of the Eastern states generally, but it affects some few persons scattered here and there all over the North and West as far as California. In the South (save in such border cities as St. Louis and Louisville) there were none, because the Southern men who would, had they lived in the North, have taken to Mugwumpism, were in the South Democrats. There did not in 1884 seem to be in the Democratic party, either in North or South, as much material for a secession similar to that of the “bolters” of that year as was then shown to exist among the Republicans. In 1893, however, an enormous “swing-over” in New York State of votes usually Democratic to the Republican side, provoked by the nomination of a man deemed tainted to an important judicial office, showed that the Mugwump element or tendency was to be reckoned with, at least in the Northeastern states, by both parties alike, and in 1896 (as already remarked) many of the richer and more influential gold Democrats “bolted” the party ticket and ran a presidential ticket of their own.

The reader must be reminded of one capital difference between the Republican and Democratic parties and the minor ones which have just been mentioned. The two former are absolutely coextensive with the Union. They exist in every state, and in every corner of every state. They exist even in the Territories, though the inhabitants of Territories have no vote in federal elections. But the four minor parties that held conventions in the elections of and since 1900, did not attempt to maintain organizations all over the Union.9 The Populists, though for the moment strong in the West, had no importance in the Atlantic states. Where these minor parties are strong, or where some question has arisen which keenly interests them, they may run their man for state governor or mayor, or will put out a ticket for state senators or assemblymen; or they will take the often more profitable course of fusing for the nonce with one of the regular parties, giving it their vote in return for having the party nominations to one or more of the elective offices assigned to their own nominee.10 This helps to keep the party going, and gives to its vote a practical result otherwise unattainable.

Is there not, then, some European may ask, a Free Trade party? Not in the American sense of the word “party.” The Democratic party used to stand for a “tariff for revenue only,” and there are still more advocates of a low rate of duties in that party than among their opponents. But there is no political organization which devotes itself to the advocacy of free trade by the usual party methods, much less does anyone think of starting candidates either for the presidency or for Congress upon a pure anti-protectionist platform.

Why, considering the reluctant hesitancy which the old parties have been apt to show in taking up a clear and distinctive attitude upon new questions, and formulating definite proposals regarding them, and considering also that in the immense area of the United States, with its endless variety of economic interests and social conditions, we might expect local diversities of aim and view which would here and there crystallize, and so give rise to many local parties—why are not the parties far more numerous? Why, too, are the parties so persistent? In this changeful country one would look for frequent changes in tenets and methods.

One reason is, that there is at present a strong feeling in America against any sentiment or organization which relies on or appeals to one particular region of the country. Such localism or sectionalism is hateful, because, recalling the disunionist spirit of the South which led to the war, it seems anti-national and unpatriotic. By the mere fact of its springing from a local root, and urging a local interest, a party would set all the rest of the country against it. As a separately organized faction seeking to capture the federal government, it could not succeed against the national parties, because the Union as a whole is so vast that it would be outvoted by one or other of them. But if it is content to remain a mere opinion or demand, not attacking either national party, but willing to bestow the votes it can control on whichever will meet its wishes, it is powerful, because the two great parties will bid against one another for its support by flatteries and concessions. For instance, the question which has interested the masses on the Pacific coast is that of excluding Chinese immigrants, and latterly the Japanese also, because they compete for work with the whites and bring down wages. Now if the “anti-Mongolians” of California, Washington, and Oregon were to create a national party, based on this particular issue, they would be insignificant, for they would have little support over five-sixths of the Union. But by showing that the attitude of the two great parties on this issue will determine their own attitude toward these parties, they control both, for as each desires to secure the vote of California, Washington, and Oregon, each vies with the other in promising and voting for anti-Asiatic legislation. The position of the Irish extremists was similar, except of course that they are a racial and not a geographical “section.” Their power, which Congress has sometimes recognized in a way scarcely compatible with its dignity or with international courtesy, lay in the fact that as the Republicans and Democrats are nearly balanced, the congressional leaders of both desired to “placate” this faction, for which neither had a sincere affection. An Irish party, or a German party, or a Roman Catholic party, which should run its candidates on a sectional platform, would stand self-condemned in American eyes as not being genuinely American. But so long as it is content to seek control over parties and candidates, it exerts an influence out of proportion to its numbers, and checked only by the fear that if it demanded too much, native Americans might rebel, as they did in the famous Know-Nothing or “American” party of 1853–58. The same fate would befall a party based upon some trade interest, such as protection to a particular sort of manufactures, or the stimulation of cattle breeding as against sheep. Such a party might succeed for a time in a state, and might dictate its terms to one or both of the national parties; but when it attempted to be a national party it would become ridiculous and fall.

A second cause of the phenomenon which I am endeavouring to explain may be found in the enormous trouble and expense required to found a new national party. To influence the votes, even to reach the ears, of nearly one hundred millions of people, is an undertaking to be entered on only when some really great cause fires the national imagination, disposes the people to listen, persuades the wealthy to spend freely of their substance. It took six years of intense work to build up the Republican party, which might not even then have triumphed in the election of 1860, but for the split in the ranks of its opponents. The attempt made in 1872 to form a new independent party out of the discontented Republicans and the Democrats failed lamentably. The Independent Republicans of 1884 did not venture to start a programme or candidate of their own, but were prudently satisfied with helping the Democratic candidate, whom they deemed more likely than the Republican nominee to give effect to the doctrine of civil service reform which they were advocating.

The case of these Independents, or Mugwumps, is an illustrative one. For many years past there had been complaints that the two old parties were failing to deal with issues that had grown to be of capital importance, such as the tariff, the currency, the improvements of methods of business in Congress, the purification of the civil service and extinction of the so-called Spoils System. These complaints, however, have not come from the men prominent as practical statesmen or politicians in the parties, but from outsiders, and largely from the men of intellectual cultivation and comparatively high social standing. Very few of such men took an active part in “politics,” however interested they might be in public affairs. They were amateurs as regards the practical work of “running” ward meetings and conventions, of framing “tickets,” and bringing up voters to the poll, in fact of working as well as organizing that vast and complicated machinery which an American party needs. Besides, it is a costly machinery, and they did not see where to find the money. Hence they recoiled from the effort, and aimed at creating a sentiment which might take concrete form in a vote, given for whichever of the parties seemed at any particular time most likely to adopt, even if insincerely, the principles, and push forward, even if reluctantly, the measures which the Independents advocate.

Why, however, does it so seldom happen that the professional politicians, who “know the ropes,” and know where to get the necessary funds, more frequently seek to wreck a party in order to found a new one more to their mind? Because they are pretty well satisfied with the sphere which existing parties give them, and comprehend from their practical experience how hazardous such an experiment would be.

These considerations may help to explain the remarkable cohesion of parties in America, and the strength of party loyalty, a phenomenon more natural in Europe, where momentous issues inflame men’s passions, and where the bulk of the adherents are ignorant men, caught by watchwords and readily attracted to a leader, than in a republic where no party has any benefit to promise to the people which it may not as well get from the other, and where the native voter is a keen-witted man, with little reverence for the authority of any individual. There is however another reason flowing from the character of the American people. They are extremely fond of associating themselves, and prone to cling to any organization they have once joined. They are sensitive to any charge of disloyalty. They are gregarious, each man more disposed to go with the multitude and do as they do than to take a line of his own,11 and they enjoy “campaigning” for its own sake. These are characteristics which themselves require to be accounted for, but the discussion of them belongs to later chapters. A European is surprised to see prominent politicians supporting, sometimes effusively, a candidate of their own party whom they are known to dislike, merely because he is the party candidate. There is a sort of military discipline about party life which has its good as well as its bad side, for if it sometimes checks the expression of honest disapproval, it also restrains jealousy, abashes self-seeking, prevents recrimination.

Each of the American parties has usually been less under the control of one or two conspicuous leaders than are British parties. So far as this is due to the absence of men whose power over the people rests on the possession of brilliant oratorical or administrative gifts, it is a part of the question why there are not more such men in American public life, why there are fewer striking figures than in the days of Jefferson and Hamilton, of Webster and Calhoun. It is however also due to the peculiarities of the Constitution. The want of concentration of power in the legal government is reflected in the structure of the party system. The separation of the legislative from the executive department lowers the importance of leadership in parties, as it weakens both these departments. The president, who is presumably among the leading men, cannot properly direct the policy of his party, still less speak for it in public, because he represents the whole nation. His ministers cannot speak to the people through Congress. In neither house of Congress is there necessarily any person recognized as the leader on either side. As neither house has the power over legislation and administration possessed by such an assembly as the French or Italian Chamber, or the English House of Commons, speeches delivered or strategy displayed in it do not tell upon the country with equal force and directness. There remains the stump, and it is more by the stump than in any other way that an American statesman speaks to the people. But what distances to be traversed, what fatigues to be encountered before he can be a living and attractive personality to the electing masses! An English statesman leaves London at two o’clock, and speaks in Birmingham, or Leeds, or Manchester, the same evening. In a few years, every great town knows him like its own mayor, while the active local politicians who frequently run up from their homes to London hear him from the galleries of the House of Commons, wait on him in deputations, are invited to the receptions which his wife gives during the season. Even railways and telegraphs cannot make America a compact country in the same sense that Britain is.

From the Civil War till the end of last century, neither Republicans nor Democrats leaned on and followed any one man as Mr. Gladstone and Lord Beaconsfield, as before them Lords Derby, John Russell, and Palmerston, as still earlier Sir Robert Peel and Lord Melbourne, were followed in England. No one since Mr. Seward exercised even so much authority as Mr. Bright did when out of office, or as Gambetta did in France, or as Mr. Parnell in Ireland, over the sections of opinion which each of these eminent men has represented.

How then are the parties led in Congress and the country? Who directs their policy? Who selects their candidates for the most important posts? These are questions which cannot be adequately answered till the nature of the party machinery has been described. For the moment I must be content to suggest the following as provisional answers:

The most important thing is the selection of candidates. This is done in party meetings called conventions. When a party has any policy, it is settled in such a convention and declared in a document called a platform. When it has no policy, the platform is issued none the less. Party tactics in Congress are decided on by meetings of the party in each house of Congress called caucuses. Leaders have of course much to do with all three processes. But they often efface themselves out of respect to the sentiment of equality, and because power concealed excites less envy.

How do the parties affect social life? At present not very much, at least in the Northern and Middle states, because it is a comparatively slack time in politics. Your dining acquaintances, even your intimate friends, are not necessarily of the same way of voting as yourself, and though of course political views tend to become hereditary, there is nothing to surprise anyone in finding sons belonging to different parties from their fathers. In the South, where the recollections of the great struggle are kept alive by the presence of a Negro voting power which has had to be controlled, things are different; and they were different in the North till the passions of civil strife had abated.

So far, I have spoken of the parties only as national organizations, struggling for and acting on or through the federal government. But it has already been observed (Chapter 46) that they exist also as state and city organizations, contending for the places which states and cities have to give, seeking to control state legislatures and municipal councils. Every circumscription of state and local government, from the state of New York with its nine millions of inhabitants down to the “city” that has just sprung up round a railway junction in the West, has a regular Republican party organization, confronted by a similar Democratic organization, each running its own ticket (i.e., list of candidates) at every election, for any office pertaining to its own circumscription, and each federated, so to speak, to the larger organizations above it, represented in them and working for them in drilling and “energizing” the party within the area which is the sphere of its action.

What have the tenets of such national parties as the Republicans and Democrats to do with the politics of states and cities? Very little with those of states, because a matter for federal legislation is seldom also a matter for state legislation. Still less with those of cities or counties. Cities and counties have not strictly speaking any political questions to deal with; their business is to pave and light, to keep the streets clean, maintain an efficient police and well-barred prisons, administer the poor law and charitable institutions with integrity, judgment, and economy. The laws regulating these matters have been already made by the state, and the city or county authority has nothing to do but administer them. Hence at city and county elections the main objects ought to be to choose honest and careful men of business. It need make no difference to the action of a mayor or school trustee in any concrete question whether he holds Democratic or Republican views.

However, the habit of party warfare has been so strong as to draw all elections into its vortex; nor would either party feel safe if it neglected the means of rallying and drilling its supporters, which state and local contests supply. There is this advantage in the system, that it stimulates the political interest of the people, which is kept alive by this perpetual agitation. But the multiplicity of contests has the effect of making politics too absorbing an occupation for the ordinary citizen who has his profession or business to attend to; while the result claimed by those who in England defend the practice of fighting municipal elections on party lines, viz., that good men are induced to stand for local office for the sake of their party, is the last result desired by the politicians, or expected by anyone. It is this constant labour which the business of politics involves, this ramification of party into all the nooks and corners of local government, that has produced the class of professional politicians, of whom it is now time to speak.

chapter 57

The Politicians

Institutions are said to form men, but it is no less true that men give to institutions their colour and tendency. It profits little to know the legal rules and methods and observances of government, unless one also knows something of the human beings who tend and direct this machinery, and who, by the spirit in which they work it, may render it the potent instrument of good or evil to the people. These men are the politicians.1

What is one to include under this term? In England it usually denotes those who are actively occupied in administering or legislating, or discussing administration and legislation. That is to say, it includes ministers of the Crown, members of Parliament (though some in the House of Commons and the majority in the House of Lords care little about politics), a few leading journalists, and a small number of miscellaneous persons, writers, lecturers, organizers, agitators, who occupy themselves with trying to influence the public. Sometimes the term is given a wider sweep, being taken to include all who labour for their political party in the constituencies, as, e.g., the chairmen and secretaries of local party associations, and the more active committeemen of the same bodies. The former, whom we may call the inner-circle men, are professional politicians in this sense, and in this sense only, that politics is the main though seldom the sole business of their lives. But at present extremely few of them make anything by it in the way of money. A handful hope to get some post; a somewhat larger number find that a seat in Parliament enables them to push their financial undertakings or make them at least more conspicuous in the commercial world. But the gaining of a livelihood does not come into the view of the great majority at all. The other class, who may be called the outer circle, are not professionals in any sense, being primarily occupied with their own avocations; and none of them, except here and there an organizing secretary, or registration agent, and here and there a paid lecturer, makes any profit out of the work.2 The phenomena of France and Italy and Germany are generally similar, that is to say, those who devote their whole time to politics are a very small class, those who make a living by it an even smaller one.3 Of all the countries of Europe, Greece is that in which persons who spend their life in politics seem to bear the largest proportion to the whole population; and in Greece the pursuit of politics is usually the pursuit of place.

To see why things are different in the United States, why the inner circle is much larger both absolutely and relatively to the outer circle than in Europe, let us go back a little and ask what are the conditions which develop a political class. The point has so important a bearing on the characteristics of American politicians that I do not fear to dwell somewhat fully upon it.

In self-governing communities of the simpler kind—for one may leave absolute monarchies and feudal monarchies on one side—the common affairs are everybody’s business and nobody’s special business. Some few men by their personal qualities get a larger share of authority, and are repeatedly chosen to be archons, or generals, or consuls, or burgomasters, or landammans, but even these rarely give their whole time to the state, and make little or nothing in money out of it. This was the condition of the Greek republics, of early Rome,4 of the cities of mediæval Germany and Italy, of the cantons of Switzerland till very recent times.

When in a large country public affairs become more engrossing to those who are occupied in them, when the sphere of government widens, when administration is more complex and more closely interlaced with the industrial interests of the community and of the world at large, so that there is more to be known and to be considered, the business of a nation falls into the hands of the men eminent by rank, wealth, and ability, who form a sort of governing class, largely hereditary. The higher civil administration of the state is in their hands; they fill the chief council or legislative chamber and conduct its debates. They have residences in the capital, and though they receive salaries when actually filling an office, and have opportunities for enriching themselves, the majority possess independent means, and pursue politics for the sake of fame, power, or excitement. Those few who have not independent means can follow their business or profession in the capital, or can frequently visit the place where their business is carried on. This was the condition of Rome under the later republic,5 and of England and France till quite lately—indeed it is largely the case in England still—as well as of Prussia and Sweden.6

Let us see what are the conditions of the United States.

There is a relatively small leisured class of persons engaged in no occupation and of wealth sufficient to leave them free for public affairs. So far as such persons are to be found in the country, for some are to be sought abroad, they are to be found in a few great cities.

There is no class with a sort of hereditary prescriptive right to public office, no great families whose names are known to the people, and who, bound together by class sympathy and ties of relationship, help one another by keeping offices in the hands of their own members.

The country is a very large one, and has its political capital in a city without trade, without manufactures, without professional careers. Even the seats of state governments are often placed in comparatively small towns.7 Hence a man cannot carry on his gainful occupation at the same time that he attends to “inner-circle” politics.

Members of Congress and of state legislatures are invariably chosen from the places where they reside. Hence a person belonging to the leisured class of a great city cannot get into the House of Representatives or the legislature of his state except as member for a district of his own city.

The shortness of terms of office, and the large number of offices filled by election, make elections very frequent. All these elections, with trifling exceptions, are fought on party lines, and the result of a minor one for some petty local office, such as county treasurer, affects one for a more important post, e.g., that of member of Congress. Hence constant vigilance, constant exertions on the spot, are needed. The list of voters must be incessantly looked after, newly admitted or newly settled citizens enrolled, the active local men frequently consulted and kept in good humour, meetings arranged for, tickets (i.e., lists of candidates) for all vacant offices agreed upon. One election is no sooner over than another approaches and has to be provided for, as the English sporting man reckons his year by “events,” and thinks of Newmarket after Ascot, and of Goodwood after Newmarket.

Now what do these conditions amount to? To this—a great deal of hard and dull election and other local political work to be done. Few men of leisure to do it, and still fewer men of leisure likely to care for it. Nobody able to do it in addition to his regular business or profession. Little motive for anybody, whether leisured or not, to do the humbler and local parts of it (i.e., so much as concerns the minor elections), the parts which bring neither fame nor power.

If the work is to be done at all, some inducement, other than fame or power, must clearly be found. Why not, someone will say, the sense of public duty? I will speak of public duty presently; meantime let it suffice to remark that to rely on public duty as the main motive power in politics is to assume a commonwealth of angels. Men such as we know them must have some other inducement. Even in the Christian church there are other than spiritual motives to lead its pastors to spiritual work; nor do all poets write because they seek to express the passion of their souls. In America we discover a palpable inducement to undertake the dull and toilsome work of election politics. It is the inducement of places in the public service. To make them attractive they must be paid. They are paid, nearly all of them, memberships of Congress8 and other federal places, state places (including memberships of state legislatures), city and county places. Here then—and to some extent even in humbler forms, such as the getting of small contracts or even employment as labourers—is the inducement, the remuneration for political work performed in the way of organizing and electioneering. Now add that besides the paid administrative and legislative places which a democracy bestows by election, judicial places are also in most of the states elective, and held for terms of years only; and add further, that the holders of nearly all those administrative places, federal, state, and municipal, which are not held for a fixed term, are liable to be dismissed, as indeed many still are so liable and are in practice dismissed, whenever power changes from one party to another,9 so that those who belong to the party out of office have a direct chance of office when their party comes in. The inducement to undertake political work we have been searching for is at once seen to be adequate, and only too adequate. The men needed for the work are certain to appear because remuneration is provided. Politics has now become a gainful profession, like advocacy, stockbroking, the dry goods trade, or the getting up of companies. People go into it to live by it, primarily for the sake of the salaries attached to the places they count on getting, secondarily in view of the opportunities it affords of making incidental and sometimes illegitimate gains. Every person in a high administrative post, whether federal, state, or municipal, and, above all, every member of Congress, has opportunities of rendering services to wealthy individuals and companies for which they are willing to pay secretly in money or in money’s worth. The better officials and legislators—they are the great majority, except in large cities—resist the temptation. The worst succumb to it, and the prospect of these illicit profits renders a political career distinctly more attractive to an unscrupulous man.

We find therefore that in America all the conditions exist for producing a class of men specially devoted to political work and making a livelihood by it. It is work much of which cannot be done in combination with any other kind of regular work, whether professional or commercial. Even if the man who unites wealth and leisure to high intellectual attainments were a frequent figure in America, he would not take to this work; he would rather be a philanthropist or cultivate arts and letters. It is work which, steadily pursued by an active man, offers an income. Hence a large number of persons are drawn into it, and make it the business of their life; and the fact that they are there as professionals has tended to keep amateurs out of it.

There are, however, two qualifications which must be added to this statement of the facts, and which it is best to add at once. One is that the mere pleasure of politics counts for something. Many people in America as well as in England undertake even the commonplace work of local canvassing and organizing for the sake of a little excitement, a little of the agreeable sense of self-importance, or from that fondness for doing something in association with others which makes a man become secretary to a cricket club or treasurer of a fund raised by subscription for some purpose he may not really care for. And the second qualification is that pecuniary motives operate with less force in rural districts than in cities, because in the former the income obtainable by public office is too small to induce men to work long in the hope of getting it. Let it therefore be understood that what is said in this chapter refers primarily to cities, and of course also to persons aiming at the higher federal and state offices; and that I do not mean to deny that there is plenty of work done by amateurs as well as by professionals.

Having thus seen what are the causes which produce professional politicians, we may return to inquire how large this class is, compared with the corresponding class in the free countries of Europe, whom we have called the inner circle.

In America the inner circle, that is to say, the persons who make political work the chief business of life, for the time being, includes:

• Firstly. All members of both houses of Congress.
• Secondly. All federal officeholders except the judges, who are irremovable, and who have sometimes taken no prominent part in politics.
• Thirdly. A large part of the members of state legislatures. How large a part, it is impossible to determine, for it varies greatly from state to state. I should guess that in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, California, Maryland, and Louisiana, half (or more) of the members were professional politicians; in Ohio, Virginia, Illinois, Texas, perhaps less than half; in Georgia, Kentucky, Iowa, Minnesota, Oregon, not more than one-third; in Massachusetts, Vermont, and some other states, perhaps even less. But the line between a professional and nonprofessional politician is too indefinite to make any satisfactory estimate possible.
• Fourthly. Nearly all state officeholders, excluding all judges in a very few states, and many of the judges in the rest.
• Fifthly. Nearly all holders of paid offices in the greater and in many of the smaller cities, and many holders of paid offices in the counties. There are, however, great differences in this respect between different states, the New England states and the newer states of the Northwest, as well as some Southern states, choosing many of their county officials from men who are not regularly employed on politics, although members of the dominant party.
• Sixthly. A large number of people who hold no office but want to get one, or perhaps even who desire work under a municipality. This category includes, of course, many of the “workers” of the party which does not command the majority for the time being, in state and municipal affairs, and which has not, through the president, the patronage of federal posts. It also includes many expectants belonging to the party for the time being dominant, who are earning their future places by serving the party in the meantime.10

All the above may fairly be called professional or inner-circle politicians, but of their number I can form no estimate, save that it must be counted by hundreds of thousands, inasmuch as it practically includes nearly all state and local and most federal officeholders as well as most expectants of public office.11

It must be remembered that the “work” of politics means in America the business of winning nominations (of which more anon) and elections, and that this work is incomparably heavier and more complex than in England, because:

(1) The voters are a larger proportion of the population; (2) the government is more complex (federal, state, and local) and the places filled by election are therefore far more numerous; (3) elections come at shorter intervals; (4) the machinery of nominating candidates is far more complete and intricate; (5) the methods of fighting elections require more technical knowledge and skill; (6) ordinary private citizens do less election work, seeing that they are busier than in England, and the professionals exist to do it for them.

I have observed that there are also plenty of men engaged in some trade or profession who interest themselves in politics and work for their party without any definite hope of office or other pecuniary aim. They correspond to what we have called the outer-circle politicians of Europe. It is hard to draw a line between the two classes, because they shade off into one another, there being many farmers or lawyers or saloonkeepers, for instance, who, while pursuing their regular calling, bear a hand in politics, and look to be some time or other rewarded for doing so. When this expectation becomes a considerable part of the motive for exertion, such an one may fairly be called a professional, at least for the time being, for although he has other means of livelihood, he is apt to be impregnated with the habits and sentiments of the professional class.

The proportion between outer-circle and inner-circle men is in the United States a sort of ozonometer by which the purity and healthiness of the political atmosphere may be tested. Looking at the North only, for I have no tolerable data as to the South, and excluding congressmen, the proportion of men who exert themselves in politics without pecuniary motive is largest in New England, in the country parts of New York, in northern Ohio, and the Northwestern states, while the professional politicians most abound in the great cities—New York, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Boston, Baltimore, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Louisville, Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans, San Francisco. This is because these cities have the largest masses of ignorant voters, and also because their municipal governments, handling large revenues, offer the largest facilities for illicit gains.

I shall presently return to the outer-circle men. Meantime let us examine the professionals somewhat more closely; and begin with those of the humbler type, whose eye is fixed on a municipal or other local office, and seldom ranges so high as a seat in Congress.

As there are weeds that follow human dwellings, so this species thrives best in cities, and even in the most crowded parts of cities. It is known to the Americans as the “ward politician,” because the city ward is the chief sphere of its activity, and the ward meeting the first scene of its exploits. A statesman of this type usually begins as a saloon- or barkeeper, an occupation which enables him to form a large circle of acquaintances, especially among the “loafer” class who have votes but no reason for using them one way more than another, and whose interest in political issues is therefore as limited as their stock of political knowledge. But he may have started as a lawyer of the lowest kind, or lodginghouse keeper, or have taken to politics after failure in storekeeping. The education of this class is only that of the elementary schools. If they have come after boyhood from Europe, it is not even that. They have of course no comprehension of political questions or zeal for political principles; politics mean to them merely a scramble for places or jobs. They are usually vulgar, sometimes brutal, not so often criminal, or at least the associates of criminals. It is they who move about the populous quarters of the great cities, form groups through whom they can reach and control the ignorant voter, pack meetings with their creatures.

Their methods and their triumphs must be reserved for a later chapter. Those of them who are Irish, an appreciable though diminishing proportion in a few cities, have seldom Irish patriotism to redeem the mercenary quality of their politics. They are too strictly practical for that, being regardful of the wrongs of Ireland only so far as these furnish capital to be used with Irish voters. Their most conspicuous virtues are shrewdness, a sort of rough good-fellowship with one another, and loyalty to their chiefs, from whom they expect promotion in the ranks of the service. The plant thrives in the soil of any party, but its growth is more vigorous in whichever party is for the time dominant in a given city.

English critics, taking their cue from American pessimists, have often described these men as specimens of the whole class of politicians. This is misleading. The men are bad enough both as an actual force and as a symptom. But they are confined to a few great cities, those eleven or twelve I have already mentioned; it is their achievements there, and particularly in New York, where the mass of ignorant immigrants is largest, that have made them famous.

In the smaller cities, and in the country generally, the minor politicians are mostly native Americans, less ignorant and more respectable than these last-mentioned street vultures. The barkeeping element is represented among them, but the bulk are petty lawyers, officials, federal as well as state and county, and people who for want of a better occupation have turned office-seekers, with a fair sprinkling of storekeepers, farmers, and newspaper men. The great majority have some regular avocation, so that they are by no means wholly professionals. Law is of course the business which best fits in with politics. They are only a little below the level of the class to which they belong, which is what would be called in England the lower middle, or in France the petite bourgeoisie, and they often suppose themselves to be fighting for Republican or Democratic principles, even though in fact concerned chiefly with place hunting. It is not so much positive moral defects that are to be charged on them as a slightly sordid and selfish view of politics and a laxity in the use of electioneering methods.

These two classes do the local work and dirty work of politics. They are the rank and file. Above them stand the officers in the political army, the party managers, including the members of Congress and chief men in the state legislatures, and the editors of influential newspapers. Some of these have pushed their way up from the humbler ranks. Others are men of superior ability and education, often college graduates, lawyers who have had practice, less frequently merchants or manufacturers who have slipped into politics from business. There are all sorts among them, creatures clean and unclean, as in the sheet of St. Peter’s vision, but that one may say of politicians in all countries. What characterizes them as compared with the corresponding class in Europe is that their whole time is more frequently given to political work, that most of them draw an income from politics and the rest hope to do so, that they come more largely from the poorer and less cultivated than from the higher ranks of society, and that they include but few men who have pursued any of those economical, social, or constitutional studies which form the basis of politics and legislation, although many are proficients in the arts of popular oratory, of electioneering, and of party management.

They show a high average level of practical cleverness and versatility, and a good deal of legal knowledge. They are usually correct in life, for intoxication as well as sexual immorality is condemned by American more severely than by European opinion, but are often charged with a low tone, with laxity in pecuniary matters, with a propensity to commit or to excuse jobs, with a deficient sense of the dignity which public office confers and the responsibility it implies. I shall elsewhere discuss the validity of these charges, and need only observe here that even if the years since the Civil War have furnished some grounds for accusing the class as a whole, there are many brilliant exceptions, many leading politicians whose honour is as stainless and patriotism as pure as that of the best European statesmen. In this general description I am simply repeating what nonpolitical Americans themselves say. It is possible that with their half-humorous tendency to exaggerate they dwell too much on the darker side of their public life. My own belief is that things are healthier than the newspapers and common talk lead a traveller to believe, and that the blackness of the worst men in the large cities has been allowed to darken the whole class of politicians as the smoke from a few factories will darken the sky over a whole town. However, the sentiment I have described is no doubt the general sentiment. “Politician” is a term of reproach, not merely among the “superfine philosophers” of New England colleges, but among the better sort of citizens over the whole Union. “How did such a job come to be perpetrated?” I remember once asking a casual acquaintance who had been pointing out some scandalous waste of public money. “Why, what can you expect from the politicians?” was the surprised answer.

Assuming these faults to exist, to what causes are they to be ascribed? Granted that politics has to become a gainful profession, may it not still be practised with as much integrity as other professions? Do not the higher qualities of intellect, the ripe fruits of experience and study, win for a man ascendency here as in Europe? Does not the suspicion of dishonour blight his influence with a public which is itself at least as morally exacting as that of any European country? These are questions which can be better answered when the methods of party management have been described, the qualities they evoke appreciated, their reaction on men’s character understood.

It remains to speak of the nonprofessional or outer-circle politicians, those who work for their party without desiring office. These men were numerous and zealous shortly before and during the Civil War, when the great questions of the exclusion of slavery from the Territories and the preservation of the Union kindled the enthusiasm of the noblest spirits of the North, women as well as men. No country ever produced loftier types of dauntless courage and uncompromising devotion to principle than William Lloyd Garrison and his fellow workers in the Abolitionist cause. Office came to Abraham Lincoln, but he would have served his party just as earnestly if there had been no office to reward him.12 Nor was there any want of high-souled patriotism in the South. The people gave their blood freely, and among the leaders there were many who offered up fine characters as well as brilliant talents on an altar which all but themselves deemed unhallowed. When these great issues were finally settled, and the generation whose manhood they filled began to pass away, there was less motive for ordinary citizens to trouble themselves about public affairs. Hence the professional politicians had the field left free; and as they were ready to take the troublesome work of organizing, the ordinary citizen was contented to be superseded, and thought he did enough when he went to the poll for his party. Still there are districts where a good deal of unpaid and disinterested political work is done. In some parts of New England, New York, and Ohio, for instance, citizens of position bestir themselves to rescue the control of local elections from the ward politicians. In the main, however, the action of the outer circle consists in voting, and this the ordinary citizen does more steadily and intelligently than anywhere in Europe, unless perhaps in Switzerland. Doubtless much of the work which outer-circle politicians do in Europe is in America done by professionals. But that lively interest in politics which the English outer circle feels and which is not felt by the English public generally, is in America felt by almost the whole of the nation, that is to say, by the immense majority of native white Americans, and even by the better sort of immigrants, or, in other words, the American outer circle comes far nearer to including the whole nation than does the outer circle of England. Thus the influence which counterworks that of professionals is the influence of public opinion expressing itself constantly through its countless voices in the press, and more distinctly at frequent intervals by the ballot box. I say “counterworks,” because, while in Europe the leaders and still more the average legislators share and help to make public opinion, in the United States the politician stands rather outside, and regards public opinion as a factor to be reckoned with, much as the sailor regards the winds and currents that affect his course. His primary aim, unless he be exceptionally disinterested, is place and income; and it is in this sense that he may be described as a member of a definite profession.

chapter 58

Why the Best Men Do Not Go Into Politics

“But,” someone will say, who has read the reasons just assigned for the development of a class of professional politicians, “you allow nothing for public spirit. It is easy to show why the prize of numerous places should breed a swarm of office-seekers, not so easy to understand why the office-seekers should be allowed to have this arena of public life in a vast country, a free country, an intelligent country, all to themselves. There ought to be patriotic citizens ready to plunge into the stream and save the boat from drifting towards the rapids. They would surely have the support of the mass of the people who must desire honest and economical administration. If such citizens stand aloof, there are but two explanations possible. Either public life must be so foul that good men cannot enter it, or good men must be sadly wanting in patriotism.”

This kind of observation is so common in European mouths as to need an explicit answer. The answer is twofold.

In the first place, the arena is not wholly left to the professionals. Both the federal and the state legislatures contain a fair proportion of upright and disinterested men, who enter chiefly, or largely, from a sense of public duty, and whose presence keeps the mere professionals in order. So does public opinion, deterring even the bad men from the tricks to which they are prone, and often driving them, when detected in a serious offense, from place and power.

However, this first answer is not a complete answer, for it must be admitted that the proportion of men of intellectual and social eminence who enter public life is smaller in America than it was in each of the free countries of Europe. Does this fact indicate a want of public spirit?

It is much to be wished that in every country public spirit were the chief motive propelling men into public life. But is it so anywhere now? Has it been so at any time in a nation’s history? Let anyone in England, dropping for the moment that self-righteous attitude of which Englishmen are commonly accused by foreigners, ask himself how many of those whom he knows as mixing in the public life of his own country have entered it from motives primarily patriotic, how many have been actuated by the love of fame or power, the hope of advancing their social pretensions or their business relations. There is nothing necessarily wrong in such forms of ambition; but if we find that they count for much in the public life of one country, and for comparatively little in the public life of another, we must expect to find the latter able to reckon among its statesmen fewer persons of eminent intelligence and energy.

Now there are several conditions present in the United States, conditions both constitutional and social, conditions independent either of political morality or of patriotism, which make the ablest citizens less disposed to enter political life than they would otherwise be, or than persons of the same class are in Europe. I have already referred to some of these, but recapitulate them shortly here because they are specially important in this connection.

The want of a social and commercial capital is such a cause. To be a federal politician you must live in Washington, that is, abandon your circle of home friends, your profession or business, your local public duties. But to live in Paris or London is of itself an attraction to many Englishmen and Frenchmen.

There is no class in America to which public political life comes naturally, scarcely any families with a sort of hereditary right to serve the state. Nobody can get an early and easy start on the strength of his name and connections, as still happens in several European countries.

In Britain or France a man seeking to enter the higher walks of public life has more than five hundred seats for which he may stand. If his own town or county is impossible he goes elsewhere. In the United States he cannot. If his own district is already filled by a member of his own party, there is nothing to be done, unless he will condescend to undermine and supplant at the next nominating convention the sitting member. If he has been elected and happens to lose his own renomination or reelection, he cannot reenter Congress by any other door. The fact that a man has served gives him no claim to be allowed to go on serving. In the West, rotation has been the rule. No wonder that, when a political career is so precarious, men of worth and capacity hesitate to embrace it. They cannot afford to be thrown out of their life’s course by a mere accident.1

Politics have been since the Civil War less interesting or at any rate less exciting, than they have in Europe during the same period. The two kinds of questions which most attract eager or ambitious minds, questions of foreign policy and of domestic constitutional change, were generally absent, happily absent. Currency and tariff questions and financial affairs generally, internal improvements, the regulation of railways and so forth, are important, no doubt, but to some minds not fascinating. How few people in the English or French legislatures have mastered them, or would relish political life if it dealt with little else! There are no class privileges or religious inequalities to be abolished. Religion, so powerful a political force in Europe, is outside politics altogether.

In most European countries there has been for many years past an upward pressure of the poorer or the unprivileged masses, a pressure which has seemed to threaten the wealthier and more particularly the landowning class. Hence members of the latter class have had a strong motive for keeping tight hold of the helm of state. They have felt a direct personal interest in sitting in the legislature and controlling the administration of their country. This has not been so in America. Its great political issues have not been class issues. On the contrary there has been, till within the last few years, so great and general a sense of economic security, whether well or ill founded I do not now inquire, that the wealthy and educated have been content to leave the active work of politics alone.

The division of legislative authority between the federal Congress and the legislatures of the states further lessens the interest and narrows the opportunities of a political career. Some of the most useful members of the English Parliament have been led to enter it by their zeal for philanthropic schemes and social reforms. Others enter because they are interested in foreign politics or in commercial questions. In the United States foreign politics and commercial questions belong to Congress, so no one will be led by them to enter the legislature of his state. Social reforms and philanthropic enterprises belong to the state legislatures, so no one will be led by them to enter Congress. The limited sphere of each body deprives it of the services of many active spirits who would have been attracted by it had it dealt with both these sets of matters, or with the particular set of matters in which their own particular interest happens to lie.

In America there are more easy and attractive openings into other careers than in most European countries. The development of the great West, the making and financing of railways, the starting of industrial or mercantile enterprises in the newer states, offer a tempting field to ambition, ingenuity, and self-confidence. A man without capital or friends has a better chance than in Europe, and as the scale of undertakings is vaster, the prizes are more seductive. Hence much of the practical ability which in the Old World goes to parliamentary politics or to the civil administration of the state, goes in America into business, especially into railways and finance. No class strikes one more by its splendid practical capacity than the class of railroad men. It includes administrative rulers, generals, diplomatists, financiers, of the finest gifts. And in point of fact (as will be more fully shown later) the railroad kings have of late years swayed the fortunes of American citizens more than the politicians.

The fascination which politics have for many people in England is largely a social fascination. Those who belong by birth to the upper classes like to support their position in county society by belonging to the House of Commons, or by procuring either a seat in the House of Lords, or the lord-lieutenancy of their county, or perhaps a post in the royal household. The easiest path to these latter dignities lies through the Commons. Those who spring from the middle class expect to find by means of politics an entrance into a more fashionable society than they have hitherto frequented. Their wives will at least be invited to the party receptions, or they may entertain a party chieftain when he comes to address a meeting in their town. Such inducements scarcely exist in America. A congressman, a city mayor, even a state governor, gains nothing socially by his position. There is indeed, except in a few large cities with exclusive sets, really nothing in the nature of a social prize set before social ambition, while the career of political ambition is even in those cities wholly disjoined from social success. The only exception to this rule occurs in Washington, where a senator or cabinet minister enjoys ex officio a certain social rank.2

None of these causes is discreditable to America, yet, taken together, they go far to account for the large development of the professional element among politicians. Putting the thing broadly, one may say that in America, while politics are relatively less interesting than in Europe and lead to less, other careers are relatively more interesting and lead to more.3

It may however be alleged that I have omitted one significant ground for the distaste of “the best people” for public life, viz., the bad company they would have to keep, the general vulgarity of tone in politics, the exposure to invective or ribaldry by hostile speakers and a reckless press.

I omit this ground because it seems insignificant. In every country a politician has to associate with men whom he despises and distrusts, and those whom he most despises and distrusts are sometimes those whose so-called social rank is highest—the sons or nephews of great nobles. In every country he is exposed to misrepresentation and abuse, and the most galling misrepresentations are not the coarse and incredible ones, but those which have a semblance of probability, which delicately discolour his motives and ingeniously pervert his words. A statesman must soon learn, even in decorous England or punctilious France or polished Italy, to disregard all this, and rely upon his conscience for his peace of mind, and upon his conduct for the respect of his countrymen. If he can do so in England or France or Italy, he may do so in America also. No more there than in Europe has any upright man been written down, for though the American press is unsparing, the American people are shrewd, and sometimes believe too little rather than too much evil of a man whom the press assails. Although therefore one hears the pseudo-European American complain of newspaper violence, and allege that it keeps him and his friends from doing their duty by their country, and although it sometimes happens that the fear of newspaper attacks deters a good citizen from exposing some job or jobber, still I could not learn the name of any able and high-minded man of whom it could be truly said that through this cause his gifts and virtues had been reserved for private life. The roughness of politics has, no doubt, some influence on the view which wealthy Americans take of a public career, but these are just the Americans who think that European politics are worked, to use the common phrase, “with kid gloves,” and they are not the class most inclined anyhow to come to the front for the service of the nation. Without denying that there is recklessness in the American press, and a want of refinement in politics generally, I do not believe that these phenomena have anything like the importance which European visitors are taught, and willingly learn, to attribute to them. Far more weight is to be laid upon the difficulties which the organization of the party system, to be described in the following chapters, throws in the way of men who seek to enter public life. There is, as we shall see, much that is disagreeable, much that is even humiliating, in the initial stages of a political career, and doubtless many a pilgrim turns back after a short experience of this Slough of Despond.

To explain the causes which keep so much of the finest intellect of the country away from national business is one thing, to deny the unfortunate results would be quite another. Unfortunate they certainly are. But the downward tendency observable since the end of the Civil War seems to have been arrested. When the war was over, the Union saved, and the curse of slavery gone forever, there came a season of contentment and of lassitude. A nation which had surmounted such dangers seemed to have nothing more to fear. Those who had fought with tongue and pen and rifle, might now rest on their laurels. After long-continued strain and effort, the wearied nerve and muscle sought repose. It was repose from political warfare only. For the end of the war coincided with the opening of a time of swift material growth and abounding material prosperity, in which industry and the development of the West absorbed more and more of the energy of the people. Hence a neglect of the details of politics by the better class of voters such as had never been seen before. Later years have brought a revival of interest in public affairs, and especially in the management of cities. There is more speaking and writing and thinking, practical and definite thinking, upon the principles of government than at any previous epoch. Good citizens are beginning to put their hands to the machinery of government; and those who do so are, more largely than formerly, young men, who have not contracted the bad habits which the practice of politics engendered among many of their elders, and who will in a few years have become an even more potent force than they are now.4 If the path to Congress and the state legislatures and the higher municipal offices were cleared of the stumbling blocks and dirt heaps which now encumber it, cunningly placed there by the professional politicians, a great change would soon pass upon the composition of legislative bodies, and a new spirit be felt in the management of state and municipal as well as of national affairs.

chapter 59

Party Organizations

The Americans are, to use their favourite expression, a highly executive people, with a greater ingenuity in inventing means, and a greater promptitude in adapting means to an end, than any European race. Nowhere are large undertakings organized so skilfully; nowhere is there so much order with so much complexity; nowhere such quickness in correcting a suddenly discovered defect, in supplying a suddenly arisen demand.

Government by popular vote, both local and national, is older in America than in continental Europe. It is far more complete than even in England. It deals with larger masses of men. Its methods have engaged a greater share of attention, enlisted more inventive skill in their service, than anywhere else in the world. They have therefore become more elaborate and, so far as mere mechanism goes, more perfect than elsewhere.

The greatest discovery ever made in the art of war was when men began to perceive that organization and discipline count for more than numbers. This discovery gave the Spartan infantry a long career of victory in Greece, and the Swiss infantry a not less brilliant renown in the later Middle Ages. The Americans made a similar discovery in politics between 1820 and 1840. By degrees, for even in America great truths do not burst full-grown upon the world, it was perceived that the victories of the ballot box, no less than of the sword, must be won by the cohesion and disciplined docility of the troops, and that these merits can only be secured by skilful organization and long-continued training. Both parties flung themselves into the task, and the result has been an extremely complicated system of party machinery, firm yet flexible, delicate yet quickly set up and capable of working well in the roughest communities.1 Strong necessity, long practice, and the fierce competition of the two great parties, have enabled this executive people to surpass itself in the sphere of electioneering politics. Yet the principles are so simple that it will be the narrator’s fault if they are not understood.

One preliminary word upon the object of a party organization. To a European politician, by which I mean one who knows politics but does not know America, the aims of a party organization, be it local or general, seem to be four in number:

• Union—to keep the party together and prevent it from wasting its strength by dissensions and schisms
• Recruiting—to bring in new voters, e.g., immigrants when they obtain citizenship, young men as they reach the age of suffrage, newcomers, or residents hitherto indifferent or hostile
• Enthusiasm—to excite the voters by the sympathy of numbers, and the sense of a common purpose, rousing them by speeches or literature
• Instruction—to give the voters some knowledge of the political issues they have to decide, to inform them of the virtues of their leaders, and the crimes of their opponents

These aims, or at least the first three of them, are pursued by the party organizations of America with eminent success. But they are less important than a fifth object which has been little regarded in Europe, though in America it is the mainspring of the whole mechanism. This is the selection of party candidates; and it is important not only because the elective places are far more numerous than in any European country, but because they are tenable for short terms, so that elections frequently recur. Since the parties, having of late had few really distinctive principles, and therefore no well-defined aims in the direction of legislation or administration, exist practically for the sake of filling certain offices, and carrying on the machinery of government, the choice of those members of the party whom the party is to reward, and who are to strengthen it by the winning of the offices, becomes a main end of its being.

There are three ways by which in self-governing countries candidates may be brought before electors. One is for the candidate to offer himself, appealing to his fellow citizens on the strength of his personal merits, or family connections, or wealth, or local influence. This was the practice in most British constituencies till our own time; and seems to be the practice over parliamentary Europe still. It was not uncommon in the Southern states before the Civil War. Another is for a group or junto of influential men to put a candidate forward, intriguing secretly for him or openly recommending him to the electors. This also largely prevailed in England, where, in counties, four or five of the chief landowners used to agree as to the one of themselves who should stand for the county, or perhaps chose the eldest son of a duke or marquis as the person whom rank designated.2 So in Scotch boroughs a knot of active bailies and other citizens combined to bring out a candidate, but generally kept their action secret, for “the clique” was always a term of reproach. The practice is common in France now, where the committees of each party recommend a candidate.

The third system is that in which the candidate is chosen neither by himself nor by the self-elected group, but by the people themselves, i.e., by the members of a party, whether assembled in mass or acting through representatives chosen for the purpose. This plan offers several advantages. It promises to secure a good candidate, because presumably the people will choose a suitable man. It encourages the candidate, by giving him the weight of party support, and therefore tends to induce good men to come forward. It secures the union of the party, because a previous vote has determined that the candidate is the man whom the majority prefer, and the minority are therefore likely, having had their say and been fairly outvoted, to fall into line and support him. This is the system which now prevails from Maine to California, and is indeed the keystone of transatlantic politics. But there is a further reason for it than those I have mentioned.

That no American dreams of offering himself for a post unless he has been chosen by his party, or some section thereof, is due not to the fact that few persons have the local preeminence which the social conditions of Europe bestow on the leading landowners of a neighbourhood, or on some great merchants or employers in a town, nor again to the modesty which makes an Englishman hesitate to appear as a candidate for Parliament until he has got up a requisition to himself to stand, but to the notion that the popular mind and will are and must be all in all, that the people must not only create the office-bearer by their votes, but even designate the persons for whom votes may be given. For a man to put himself before the voters is deemed presumptuous, because an encroachment on their right to say whom they will even so much as consider. The theory of popular sovereignty requires that the ruling majority must name its own standard-bearers and servants, the candidates, must define its own platform, must in every way express its own mind and will. Were it to leave these matters to the initiative of candidates offering themselves, or candidates put forward by an unauthorized clique, it would subject itself to them, would be passive instead of active, would cease to be worshipped as the source of power. A system for selecting candidates is therefore not a mere contrivance for preventing party dissensions, but an essential feature of matured democracy.

It was not however till democracy came to maturity that the system was perfected. As far back as the middle of the eighteenth century it was the custom in Massachusetts, and probably in other colonies, for a coterie of leading citizens to put forward candidates for the offices of the town or colony, and their nominations, although clothed with no authority but that of the individuals making them, were generally accepted. This lasted on after the Revolution, for the structure of society still retained a certain aristocratic quality. Clubs sprang up which, especially in New York State, became the organs of groups and parties, brought out candidates, and conducted election campaigns; while in New England the clergy and the men of substance continued to act as leaders. Presently, as the democratic spirit grew, and people would no longer acquiesce in self-appointed chiefs, the legislatures began to be recognized as the bodies to make nominations for the higher federal and state offices. Each party in Congress nominated the candidate to be run for the presidency, each party in a state legislature the candidate for governor, and often for other posts also. This lasted during the first two or three decades of the nineteenth century, till the electoral suffrage began to be generally lowered, and a generation which had imbibed Jeffersonian principles had come to manhood, a generation so filled with the spirit of democratic equality that it would recognize neither the natural leaders whom social position and superior intelligence indicated, nor the official leadership of legislative bodies. As party struggles grew more bitter, a party organization became necessary, which better satisfied the claims of petty local leaders, which knit the voters in each district together and concentrated their efforts, while it expressed the absolute equality of all voters, and the right of each to share in determining his candidate and his party platform. The building up of this new organization was completed for the Democratic party about the year 1835, for the Whig party not till some years later. When the Republican party arose about 1854, it reproduced so closely, or developed on lines so similar, the methods which experience had approved, that the differences between the systems of the two great parties are now unimportant, and may be disregarded in the sketch I have to give.

The essential feature of the system is that it is from bottom to top strictly representative. This is because it has power, and power can flow only from the people. An organization which exists, like the political associations of Britain, almost entirely for the sake of canvassing, conducting registration, diffusing literature, getting up courses of lectures, holding meetings and passing resolutions, has little or no power. Its object is to excite, or to persuade, or to manage such business as the defective registration system of the country leaves to be fulfilled by voluntary agencies. So too in America the committees or leagues which undertake to create or stimulate opinion have no power, and need not be strictly representative. But when an organization which the party is in the habit of obeying, chooses a party candidate, it exerts power, power often of the highest import, because it practically narrows the choice of a party, that is, of about a half of the people, to one particular person out of the many for whom they might be inclined to vote.3 Such power would not be yielded to any but a representative body, and it is yielded to the bodies I shall describe because they are, at least in theory, representative, and are therefore deemed to have the weight of the people behind them.

chapter 60

The Machine

The organization of an American party consists of two distinct, but intimately connected, sets of bodies, the one permanent, the other temporary. The function of the one is to manage party business, of the other to nominate party candidates.1

The first of these is a system of managing committees. In some states every election district has such a committee, whose functions cover the political work of the district. Thus in country places there is a township committee, in cities a ward committee. There is a committee for every city, for every district, and for every county. In other states it is only the larger areas, cities, counties, and congressional or state assembly districts that have committees. There is, of course, a committee for each state, with a general supervision of such political work as has to be done in the state as a whole. There is a national committee for the political business of the party in the Union as a whole, and especially for the presidential contest.2 The whole country is covered by this network of committees, each with a sphere of action corresponding to some constituency or local election area, so that the proper function of a city committee, for instance, is to attend to elections for city offices, of a ward committee to elections for ward offices, of a district committee to elections for district offices. Of course the city committee, while supervising the general conduct of city elections, looks to each ward organization to give special attention to the elections in its own ward; and the state committee will in state elections expect similar help from, and be entitled to issue directions to, all bodies acting for the minor areas—districts, counties, townships, cities, and wards—comprised in the state. The smaller local committees are in fact autonomous for their special local purposes, but subordinate in so far as they serve the larger purposes common to the whole party. The ordinary business of these committees is to raise and apply funds for election purposes and for political agitation generally, to organize meetings when necessary, to prepare lists of voters, to disseminate political tracts and other information, to look after the press, to attend to the admission of immigrants as citizens and their enrolment on th party lists.3 At election times they have also to superintend the canvass, to procure and distribute tickets at the polls (unless this is, under recent legislation, done by a public authority), to allot money for various election services, to see that voters are brought up to the poll; but they are often aided, or virtually superseded, in this work by “campaign committees” specially created for the occasion. Finally, they have to convoke at the proper times those nominating assemblies which form the other parallel but distinct half of the party organization.

These committees are permanent bodies, that is to say, they are always in existence and capable of being called into activity at short notice. They are reappointed annually by the primary (hereinafter described) or convention (as the case may be) for their local area, and of course their composition may be completely changed on a reappointment. In practice it is but little changed, the same men continuing to serve year after year, because they hold the strings in their hands, because they know most and care most about the party business. In particular, the chairman is apt to be practically a permanent official, and (if the committee be one for a populous area) a powerful and important official, who has large sums to disburse and quite an army of workers under his orders. The chairmanship of the organizing committee of the county and city of New York, for instance, is a post of great responsibility and influence, in which high executive gifts find a worthy sphere for their exercise.

One function and one only—besides that of adopting platforms—is beyond the competence of these committees—the choice of candidates. That belongs to the other and parallel division of the party organization, the nominating assemblies.

Every election district, by which I mean every local area or constituency which chooses a person for any office or post, administrative, legislative, or judicial, has a party meeting to select the party candidate for that office. This is called nominating. If the district is not subdivided, i.e., does not contain any lesser districts, its meeting is called a primary. A primary has two duties. One is to select the candidates for its own local district offices. Thus in the country a township primary4 nominates the candidates for township offices, in a city a ward primary nominates those for ward offices (if any). The other duty is to elect delegates to the nominating meetings of larger areas, such as the county or congressional district in which the township is situated, or the city to which the ward belongs. The primary is composed of all the party voters resident within the bounds of the township or ward. They are not too numerous, for in practice the majority do not attend, to meet in one room, and they are assumed to be all alike interested. But as the party voters in such a large area as a county, congressional district, or city, are too numerous to be able to meet and deliberate in one room, they must act through representatives, and entrust the choice of candidates for office to a body called a nominating convention.5 This body is composed of delegates from all the primaries within its limits, chosen at those primaries for the sole purpose of sitting in the convention and of there selecting the candidates.

Sometimes a convention of this kind has itself to choose delegates to proceed to a still higher convention for a larger area. The greatest of all nominating bodies, that which is called the national convention and nominates the party candidate for the presidency, is entirely composed of delegates from other conventions, no primary being directly represented in it. As a rule, however, there are only two sets of nominating authorities, the primary which selects candidates for its own petty offices, the convention composed of the delegates from all the primaries in the local circumscriptions of the district for which the convention acts.

A primary, of course, sends delegates to a number of different conventions, because its area, let us say the township or ward, is included in a number of different election districts, each of which has its own convention. Thus the same primary will in a city choose delegates to at least the following conventions, and probably to one or two others:6 (a) To the city convention, which nominates the mayor and other city officers; (b) to the assembly district convention, which nominates candidates for the lower house of the state legislature; (c) to the senatorial district convention, which nominates candidates for the state senate; (d) to the congressional district convention, which nominates candidates for Congress; (e) to the state convention, which nominates candidates for the governorship and other state offices. Sometimes, however, the nominating body for an assembly district is a primary and not a convention. In New York City the assembly district is the unit, and each of the thirty districts has its primary.

This seems complex: but it is a reflection of the complexity of government, there being everywhere three authorities, federal, state, and local (this last further subdivided), covering the same ground, yet the two former quite independent of one another, and the third for many purposes distinct from the second.

The course of business is as follows. A township or ward primary is summoned by the local party managing committee, who fix the hour and place of meeting, or if there be not such a committee, then by some permanent officer of the organization in manner prescribed by the bye-laws. A primary for a larger area is usually summoned by the county committee. If candidates have to be chosen for local offices, various names are submitted and either accepted without a division or put to the vote, the person who gets most votes being declared chosen to be the party candidate. He is said to have received the party nomination. The selection of delegates to the various conventions is conducted in the same way. The local committee has usually prepared beforehand a list of names of persons to be chosen to serve as delegates, but any voter present may bring forward other names. All names, if not accepted by general consent, are then voted on. At the close of the proceedings the chairman signs the list of delegates chosen to the approaching convention or conventions, if more than one, and adjourns the meeting sine die.

The delegates so chosen proceed in due course to their respective conventions, which are usually held a few days after the primaries, and a somewhat longer period before the elections for offices.7 The convention is summoned by the managing committee for the district it exists for, and when a sufficient number of delegates are present, someone proposes a temporary chairman, or the delegate appointed for the purpose by the committee of the district for which the convention is being held “calls the meeting to order” as temporary chairman. This person names a committee on credentials, which forthwith examines the credentials presented by the delegates from the primaries, and admits those whom it deems duly accredited. Then a permanent chairman is proposed and placed in the chair, and the convention is held to be “organized,” i.e., duly constituted. The managing committee have almost always arranged beforehand who shall be proposed as candidates for the party nominations, and their nominees are usually adopted. However, any delegate may propose any person he thinks fit, being a recognized member of the party, and carry him on a vote if he can. The person adopted by a majority of delegates’ votes becomes the party candidate, and is said to have “received the nomination.” The convention sometimes, but not always, also amuses itself by passing resolutions expressive of its political sentiments; or if it is a state convention or a national convention, it adopts a platform, touching on, or purporting to deal with, the main questions of the day. It then, having fulfilled its mission, adjourns sine die, and the rest of the election business falls to the managing committee. It must be remembered that primaries and conventions, unlike the local party associations of England, are convoked but once, make their nominations, and vanish. They are swans which sing their one song and die.

The national convention held every fourth year before a presidential election needs a fuller description, which I shall give presently. Meantime three features of the system just outlined may be adverted to.

Every voter belonging to the party in the local area for which the primary is held, is presumably entitled to appear and vote in it. In rural districts, where everybody knows everybody else, there is no difficulty about admission, for if a Democrat came into a Republican primary, or a Republican from North Adams tried to vote in the Republican primary of Lafayetteville, he would be recognized as an intruder and expelled. But in cities where people do not know their neighbours by headmark, it becomes necessary to have regular lists of the party voters entitled to a voice in the primary. These are made up by the local committee, which may exclude persons whom, though they call themselves Republicans (or Democrats, as the case may be), it deems not loyal members of the party. The usual test is, Did the claimant vote the party ticket at the last important election, generally the presidential election, or that for the state governorship? If he did not, he may be excluded. Sometimes, however, the local rules of the party require everyone admitted to the list of party voters to be admitted by the votes of the existing members, who may reject him at their pleasure, and also exact from each member two pledges, to obey the local committee, and to support the party nominations, the breach of either pledge being punishable by expulsion. In many primaries voters supposed to be disagreeably independent are kept out either by the votes of the existing members or by the application of these strict tests. Thus it happens that three-fourths or even four-fifths of the party voters in a primary area may not be on the list and entitled to raise their voice in the primary for the selection of candidates or delegates. Another regulation, restricting nominations to those who are enrolled members of the regular organization, makes persons so kept off the list ineligible as party candidates.

Every member of a nominating meeting, be it a primary or a convention of delegates, is deemed to be bound by the vote of the majority to support the candidate whom the majority select, whether or no an express pledge to that effect has been given. And in the case of a convention, a delegate is generally held to bind those whom he represents, i.e., the voters at the primary which sent him. Of course no compulsion is possible, but long usage and an idea of fair play have created a sentiment of honour (so-called) and party loyalty strong enough, with most people and in all but extreme cases, to secure for the party’s candidate the support of the whole party organization in the district.8 It is felt that the party must be kept together, and that he who has come into the nominating meeting hoping to carry his own candidate must abide by the decision of the majority. The vote of a majority has a sacredness in America not yet reached in Europe.

As respects the freedom left to delegates to vote at their own pleasure or under the instructions of their primary, and to vote individually or as a solid body, the practice is not uniform. Sometimes they are sent up to the nominating convention without instructions, even without the obligation to “go solid.” Sometimes they are expressly directed, or it is distinctly understood by them and by the primary, that they are to support the claims of a particular person to be selected as candidate, or that they are at any rate to vote all together for one person. Occasionally they are even given a list arranged in order of preference, and told to vote for A. B., failing him for C. D., failing him for E. F., these being persons whose names have already been mentioned as probable candidates for the nomination. This, however, would only happen in the case of the greater offices, such as those of member of Congress or governor of a state. The point is in practice less important than it seems, because in most cases, whether there be any specific and avowed instruction or not, it is well settled beforehand by those who manage the choice of delegates what candidate any set of delegates are to support, or at least whose lead they are to follow in the nominating convention.

Note further how complex is the machinery needed to enable the party to concentrate its force in support of its candidates for all these places, and how large the number of persons constituting the machinery. Three sets of offices, municipal or county, state, federal, have to be filled; three different sets of nominating bodies are therefore needed. If we add together all the members of all the conventions included in these three sets, the number of persons needed to serve as delegates will be found to reach a high total, even if some of them serve in more than one convention. Men whose time is valuable will refuse the post of delegate, gladly leaving to others who desire it the duty of selecting candidates for offices to which they seldom themselves aspire. However, as we shall see, such men are but rarely permitted to become delegates, even when they desire the function.

“Why these tedious details?” the European reader may exclaim. “Of what consequence can they be compared to the Constitution and laws of the country?” Patience! These details have more significance and make more difference to the working of the government than many of the provisions of the Constitution itself. The mariner feels the trade winds which sweep over the surface of the Pacific and does not perceive the coral insects which are at work beneath its waves, but it is by the labour of these insects that islands grow, and reefs are built upon which ships perish.

Note on Recent Legislation Regarding Primaries

Soon after 1890 the sins of the machine, and the abuse of the system of nomination by primaries and conventions described in this and succeeding chapters, led to an effort to cure those abuses and to secure the ordinary citizen in his freedom of selecting candidates for office by bringing party nominations under the authority of the law and surrounding them with safeguards similar to those which surround elections. Thus statutes have been enacted in nearly all the states which deal to a greater or less extent with the times and manner of holding primary meetings for the nomination of party candidates for office and of delegates for party conventions. Oklahoma, the latest of the new states of the Union, entered the Union with a constitution containing four important constitutional provisions on the subject of primary elections. (See these in Appendix to Vol. I.)

The regulations imposed upon the holding of these party meetings differ widely in the several states. They range from minor provisions concerning the dates of primaries, the preparation of the ballots, and the regularization of the methods of counting, up to sweeping and drastic measures, such as are found in Oregon and Wisconson, for instance, requiring the nomination of nearly all party candidates (including United States senators) at public primaries conducted under official supervision.

It would be impossible to give within moderate compass a full account of these statutes for they vary from state to state and are often complicated in their provisions. Moreover, they are frequently changed. All that can be done here is to summarize the tendencies they disclose, and to indicate briefly those features in the system of party nomination which are now being made subject to legislative interference.

Many laws fix the dates on which primaries should be held for all the political parties and also prescribe conditions as to the times at which the primaries and conventions shall be summoned.

The determination of who may vote at a primary and who are to be deemed legitimate and regular members of a particular party entitled to vote at its primaries is a vexed question on which no uniformity of practice exists. Broadly speaking there are two systems. Under the “open primary” plan the use of the so-called “Australian” secret ballot enables the voter to vote a party primary ticket without declaring to which party he belongs, though, to prevent him from voting for more than one party at a primary, it is generally provided that ballots cast for any person as candidate for a nomination are to be counted for that person only as a candidate of the party upon whose ticket his name is written. In Wisconsin, for instance, the primary is secret, and the voter may cast his ballot as he pleases. Under the “closed primary” plan the voter is subjected to some test determining his party affiliation, and can vote only for the candidates of that party. In some states he is required to enrol himself as a member of some particular party if he wishes to take part in the proceedings of the primary. So in California, under a statute of 1909, the voter must declare the political party with which he intends to affiliate, otherwise he cannot vote at the primary; and it is provided that at the primary he shall receive the ballot of that party and of no other. So in Minnesota the voter must declare his allegiance before he receives the party ballot. In some states he must even announce his intention to support the party at the election next following; in some he must bind himself to support the persons nominated at the primary (so in Louisiana and Texas). Other states allow the authorities of the party themselves to fix the test of membership in a party which shall qualify the person to cast a primary vote.

Many states have a separate official ballot for each party at the primary, but others are content to regulate the colour, size, etc., of the party ballot.

Those states which require all parties to hold their primaries on the same day generally require them to use the same polling place and official ballot boxes.

The conduct of primaries is now generally placed under the supervision of regular officials being the same as those who conduct the elections: and the hours of opening and closing the primary, as well as the particular method of voting at it are prescribed.

The official expenses of primaries are borne by the same public authority which bears the general election expenses.

For the prevention of corruption and other offences at primaries the usual precautions against bribery and fraudulent voting at elections are prescribed.

The extent to which the primaries are used for the nomination of candidates varies from state to state. In general it is only delegates to conventions and members of political committees who are required to be selected by ballot. Sometimes it is left to the local committee of the party to determine whether or not the primary shall be used for nomination to local offices. The laws of Wisconsin, Oregon, Nebraska, and several other states require the primary to be used for the nomination of United States senators, who, of course, have to be elected by the legislature, and of all other officers except presidential electors, school superintendents and certain judicial persons.

Many legal questions have arisen and many decisions have been delivered upon these enactments when it has been alleged that provisions of a particular primary law are unconstitutional.

The further extension of the principle of legislative control over the operations of political parties has become a leading question in the politics of not a few states. Oregon, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Oklahoma might seem to have gone as far as it is possible to go in this direction, but, as has already been observed, many states are continuing to make experiments in the matter. A succinct account of the condition of legislation on the subject in 1908 may be found in a Report of the Connecticut State Commissioners of January 1909. In 1914 every state had laws under which some candidates were nominated in direct primaries, and a majority had established statewide direct primaries applicable to all or nearly all offices except (in a few cases) judgeships.

Regarding the practical value of these primary laws as a means of relieving the good average citizen from the yoke of party machines, opinion has not yet settled itself. The new laws were disliked, and in some states opposed, by the professional politicians; and this naturally confirmed the reformers in their expectation of good results. In some states, however, it is alleged that the professionals have succeeded in manipulating the new system so as practically to reestablish their own control, although, of course, at the cost of more trouble to themselves than they had previously to take. In other states this does not seem to have happened; and the voters think themselves more free than formerly. The extreme complexity of some primary laws, and the long and elaborately constructed ballot placed before the voter, do give ground for the apprehension that the professional politicians may lay hold of and work a system which, in some of its forms, no one but an expert can master. And it is also feared that the expense of working primaries, which are practically another set of elections, may prove a heavy burden both on the public revenue, so far as it is chargeable thereon, and upon the candidates, who will have to spend money in a good many ways, some perhaps illegitimate. As President Lowell says (Public Opinion and Popular Government, p. 150): “Under the usual system of direct primaries a special organization to solicit the nomination is normally a necessity, even when the only question is between the rival ambitions of individuals. Such an organization is very expensive and can hardly be undertaken unless the candidate or his friends are prepared to spend money freely. The contests for nomination at the direct primaries in Wisconsin in 1909 are said to have cost the candidates $802,659.”

That provision of many of these laws which requires a voter at a primary to declare himself beforehand a member of the political party, or even binds him to support the primary’s nominee, seems in itself objectionable, but has in some states been thought needed as a protection against tricks. May it not, however, be thought that such a provision unduly limits the voter’s freedom? Why should the citizen be obliged to put himself into a sheep pen and feel himself bound legally, or, if not legally, yet to some extent morally, to support a particular party candidate at a future election? Who can tell what persons may be selected, or what further light may be thrown on the records of those persons, or what aspect the issues will have assumed on the following day?

Apart, however, from this objection, Europeans whose habit of regarding party organization as a purely voluntary matter and parties as fluid and changing, not solid and permanent entities, makes them averse to any legal recognition of parties as concrete and authoritative bodies existing within the community, are disposed to ask whether these laws may not be a sort of counsel of despair, an abandonment by the good citizens of their old hope of extinguishing or superseding the machine altogether by the voluntary and unfettered action of the voters themselves. Were those citizens who have no interest except in good government, those who value their party only because it is a means of giving effect to their views of the true needs and aims of the nation, to take hold themselves, and by their own constant presence and activity make meetings for the nomination of candidates serve their proper purpose of selecting those men whom they feel to be their best men, this recourse to state regulation and supervision might be dispensed with. In Britain, however, parties are so much less organized and so much less powerful as organizations than they are in the United States that the reflections which occur to an English mind may be deemed inapplicable to American conditions; and it is plain that in many states the reformers hold these primary laws to be a long step toward the overthrow of the machine and of the evils associated with its action.

Pending further experience of the working of these measures, the variety of which gives ground for hope that one form may ultimately approve itself as the best, all that it seems safe to say is that the rapid adoption by one state after another of the plan of invoking the law to restore to voters their freedom in the choice of candidates shows that the evils of the old system have become widely recognized, and that the spirit of reform, now thoroughly awakened, will doubtless persist until some solid and lasting improvements have been secured.

chapter 61

What the Machine Has to Do

The system I have described is simple in principle, and would be simple in working if applied in a European country where elective offices are few. The complexity which makes it puzzle many Americans, and bewilder all Europeans, arises from the extraordinary number of elections to which it is applied, and from the way in which the conventions for different election districts cross and overlap one another. A few instances may serve to convey to the reader some impression of this profusion of elections and intricacy of nominating machinery.

In Europe a citizen rarely votes more than twice or thrice a year, sometimes less often, and usually for only one person at a time. Thus in England any householder, say at Manchester or Liverpool, votes once a year for a town councillor (if there is a contest in his ward); once in four (on an average) for a member of the House of Commons.1 Allowing for the frequent cases in which there is no municipal contest in his ward, he will not on an average vote more than one and a half times each year. It is much the same in Scotland, nor do elections seem to be more frequent in France, Germany, or Italy, or even perhaps in Switzerland.

In the United States, however, the number of elective offices is so enormous and the terms of office usually so short that the voter is not only very frequently called upon to go to the polls, but has a very large number of candidates placed before him from among whom he must choose those whom he prefers.2 Moreover, besides the voting at the regular election, he ought also to vote at primaries, i.e., to vote to select the candidates from among whom he is subsequently to choose those whom he desires to have as officers; while in many states the law now fixes the day and manner in which he ought to do so. And as if this was not burden enough, he has also, in a good many states, to vote also on a number of legislative propositions which the law requires to be submitted to him for his decision instead of their being left to state legislatures or city councils. As Professor Beard well observes:3

Let us now take another illustration from Massachusetts, and regard the system from another side by observing how many sets of delegates a primary will have to send to the several nominating conventions which cover the local area to which the primary belongs.4

In New York City many posts have recently been made appointive, yet at the November elections there were in 1908 eighty-six candidates for the offices to be filled by election. In 1909 when a mayor was to be chosen, there were eighty-one candidates, although the party lists had been so far united that a good many of the candidates on several of these lists were the same. The ballot paper was 3 feet 9 1/2 inches long and 15 inches wide and had eighteen columns of candidates besides a nineteenth in which the voter might place the names, under the respective offices, of the persons he desired to vote for who were not on the printed lists of candidates. So at Chicago in the November election of 1908, there were on the ballot paper (exclusive of the names of presidential electors) the names of 195 candidates, nominated to fill 46 posts in the state and the county, as well as the municipal judgeships, but no other city offices. However, I need not weary the reader with further examples, for the facts above stated are fairly illustrative of what goes on over the whole Union.

It is hard to keep one’s head through this mazy whirl of offices, elections, and primaries or nominating conventions. In America itself one finds few ordinary citizens who can state the details of the system, though these are of course familiar to professional politicians.

The first thing that strikes a European who contemplates this organization is the great mass of work it has to do. In Ohio, for instance, there are, if we count in such unpaid offices as are important in the eyes of politicians, on an average more than twenty offices to be filled annually by election. Primaries or conventions have to select candidates for all of these. Managing committees have to organize the primaries, ‘run’ the conventions, conduct the elections. Here is ample occupation for a class of professional men.

What are the results which one may expect this abundance of offices and elections to produce?

Where the business is that of selecting delegates and, in the particular state, the selection of candidates is made by the older kind of primaries and conventions, it will be hard to find an adequate number of men of any mark or superior intelligence to act as delegates. The bulk will be persons unlikely to possess, still more unlikely to exercise, a careful or independent judgment. The functions of delegate being in the case of most conventions humble and uninteresting, because the offices are unattractive to good men, persons whose time is valuable will not, even if they do exist in sufficient numbers, seek it. Hence the best citizens, i.e., the men of position and intelligence, will leave the field open to inferior persons who have any private or personal reason for desiring to become delegates. I do not mean to imply that there is necessarily any evil in this as regards most of the offices, but mention the fact to explain why few men of good social position think of the office of delegate, except to the national convention once in four years, as one of trust or honour.

If on the other hand the new statutory primaries have in the particular state superseded conventions, then the attendance at these primaries and the choice of candidates there is a serious task thrown on the voter for which his knowledge of the persons from whom candidates are to be selected may be quite inadequate. As Professor Beard remarks:

The number of places to be filled by election being very large, ordinary citizens will find it hard to form an opinion as to the men best qualified for the offices. Their minds will be distracted among the multiplicity of places. In large cities particularly, where people know little about their neighbours, the names of most candidates will be unknown to them, and there will be no materials, except the recommendation of a party organization, available for determining the respective fitness of the candidates put forward by the several parties. Most of the elected officials are poorly paid. Even the governor of a great state may receive no more than $5,000 to $8,000 a year, the lower officials much less. The duties of most offices require no conspicuous ability, but can be discharged by any honest man of good sense and business habits. Hence they will not (unless where they carry large fees or important patronage) be sought by persons of ability and energy, because such persons can do better for themselves in private business; it will be hard to say which of many candidates is the best; the selection will rouse little stir among the people at large.

Those who have had experience of public meetings know that to make them go off well, it is as desirable to have the proceedings prearranged as it is to have a play rehearsed. You must select beforehand not only your chairman, but also your speakers. Your resolutions must be ready framed; you must be prepared to meet the case of an adverse resolution or hostile amendment. This is still more advisable where the meeting is intended to transact some business, instead of merely expressing its opinion; and when certain persons are to be selected for any duty, prearrangement becomes not merely convenient but indispensable in the interests of the meeting itself, and of the business which it has to dispatch. “Does not prearrangement practically curtail the freedom of the meeting?” Certainly it does. But the alternative is confusion and a hasty unconsidered decision. Crowds need to be led; if you do not lead them they will go astray, will follow the most plausible speaker, will break into factions and accomplish nothing. Hence if a primary is to discharge properly its function of selecting candidates for office or a number of delegates to a nominating convention, it is necessary to have a list of candidates or delegates settled beforehand. And for the reasons already given, the more numerous the offices and the delegates, and the less important the duties they have to discharge, so much the more necessary is it to have such lists settled; and so much the more likely to be accepted by those present is the list proposed. On the other hand the new statutory primary intended to secure the freedom of the voter is also so complex a matter that preliminary steps must be taken by experts familiar with the law and practice governing it.

The reasons have already been stated which make the list of candidates put forth by a primary or by a nominating convention carry great weight with the voters. They are the chosen standard-bearers of the party. A European may remark that the citizens are not bound by the nomination; they may still vote for whom they will. If a bad candidate is nominated, he may be passed over. That is easy enough where, as in England, there are only one or two offices to be filled at an election, where these few offices are important enough to excite general interest, and where therefore the candidates are likely to be men of mark. But in America the offices are numerous, they are mostly unimportant, and the candidates are usually obscure. Accordingly guidance is not merely welcome, but essential. Even in England the voters may in large boroughs know little of the names submitted and be puzzled how to cast his vote, and the party as a whole votes for the person who receives the party nomination from the organization authorized to express the party view. Hence the high importance attached to “getting the nomination” which in so many places is equivalent to an election; hence the care bestowed on constructing the nominating machinery; hence the need for prearranging the lists of delegates to be submitted to the primary, and of candidates to come before the convention.

I have sought in this chapter first to state how the nominating machine is constituted, and what work it has to do, then to suggest some of the consequences which the quantity and nature of that work may be expected to entail. We may now go on to see how in practice the work turns out to be done.

chapter 62

How the Machine Works

Nothing seems fairer or more conformable to the genius of democratic institutions than the system I have described, whereby the choice of party candidates for office is vested in the mass of the party itself. A plan which selects the candidate likely to command the greatest support prevents the dissension and consequent waste of strength which the appearance of rival candidates of the same party involves; while the popular character of that method excludes the dictation of a clique, and recognizes the sovereignty of the people. It is a method simple, uniform, and agreeable throughout to its leading principle.

To understand how it actually works one must distinguish between two kinds of constituencies or voting areas. One kind is to be found in the great cities—places whose population exceeds, speaking roughly, 100,000 souls, of which there were in 1910 fifty in the United States. The other kind includes constituencies in small cities and rural districts. What I have to say will refer chiefly to the Northern states—i.e., the former free states, because the phenomena of the Southern states are still exceptional, owing to the vast population of ignorant Negroes, among whom the whites, or rather the better sort of whites, still stand as an aristocracy.

The tests by which one may try the results of the system of selecting candidates are two. Is the choice of candidates for office really free—i.e., does it represent the unbiased wish and mind of the voters generally? Are the offices filled by men of probity and capacity sufficient for the duties?

In the country generally, i.e., in the rural districts and small cities, both these tests are tolerably well satisfied. It is true that many of the voters do not attend the primaries. The selection of delegates and candidates is left to be made by that section of the population which chiefly interests itself in politics; and in this section local attorneys and office-seekers have much influence. The persons who seek the post of delegate, as well as those who seek office, are seldom the most energetic and intelligent citizens; but that is because these men have something better to do. An observer from Europe who looks to see men of rank and culture holding the same place in state and local government as they do in England, especially rural England, or in Italy, or even in parts of rural France and Switzerland, will be disappointed. But democracies must be democratic. Equality will have its perfect work; and you cannot expect citizens who are pervaded by its spirit to go cap in hand to their richer neighbours begging them to act as delegates, or city or county officials, or congressmen. This much may be said, that although there is in America no difference of rank in the European sense, superior wealth or intelligence does not prejudice a man’s candidature, and in most places improves its chances. If such men are not commonly chosen, it is for the same reason which makes them comparatively scarce among the town councillors of English municipalities.

In these primaries1 and conventions the business is always prearranged—that is to say, the local party committee come prepared with their list of delegates or candidates. This list is usually, but not invariably, accepted, or if serious opposition appears, alterations may be made to disarm it and preserve the unity of the party. The delegates and candidates chosen are generally the members of the local committee, their friends or creatures. Except in very small places, they are rarely the best men. But neither are they the worst. In moderately sized communities men’s characters are known, and the presence of a bad man in office brings on his fellow citizens evils which they are not too numerous to feel individually. Hence tolerable nominations are made, the general sentiment of the locality is not outraged; and although the nominating machinery is worked rather in the name of the people than by the people, the people are willing to have it so, knowing that they can interfere if necessary to prevent serious harm.

In large cities the results are different because the circumstances are different. We find there, besides the conditions previously enumerated—viz., numerous offices, frequent elections, universal suffrage, an absence of stimulating issues—three others of great moment:

• A vast population of ignorant immigrants;
• The leading men all intensely occupied with business;
• Communities so large that people know little of one another, and that the interest of each individual in good government is comparatively small.

Anyone can see how these conditions affect the problem. The immigrants are entitled to obtain a vote after three or four years’ residence at most (often less), but they are not fit for the suffrage.2 They know nothing of the institutions of the country, of its statesmen, of its political issues. Those especially who come from Central and Southern Europe bring little knowledge of the methods of free government, and from Ireland they used to bring a suspicion of all government. Incompetent to give an intelligent vote, but soon finding that their vote has a value, they fall into the hands of the party organizations, whose officers enrol them in their lists, and undertake to fetch them to the polls. I was long ago taken to watch the process of citizen-making in New York. Droves of squalid men, who looked as if they had just emerged from an emigrant ship, and had perhaps done so only a few weeks before, for the law prescribing a certain term of residence is frequently violated, were brought up to a magistrate by the ward agent of the party which had captured them, declared their allegiance to the United States, and were forthwith placed on the roll.3 Such a sacrifice of common sense to abstract principles has seldom been made by any country. Nobody pretends that such persons are fit for civic duty, or will be dangerous if kept for a time in pupilage, but neither party will incur the odium of proposing to exclude them. The real reason for admitting them, besides democratic theory, has been either that the locally dominant party expected to gain their votes,4 or that neither of the parties wished to incur such odium as might attach to those who seemed to be debarring residents from full civic rights. It is an afterthought to argue that they will sooner become good citizens by being immediately made full citizens. A stranger must not presume to say that the Americans have been imprudent, but he may doubt whether the possible ultimate gain compensates the direct and certain danger.

In these great transatlantic cities, population is far less settled and permanent than in the cities of Europe. In New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, San Francisco, a very small part of the inhabitants are natives of the city, or have resided in it for twenty years. Hence they know but little of one another, or even of those who would in Europe be called the leading men. There are scarcely any old families, families associated with the city,5 whose name recommends one of their scions to the confidence of his fellow citizens. There are few persons who have had any chance of becoming generally known, except through their wealth; and the wealthy have neither time nor taste for political work. Political work is a bigger and heavier affair than in small communities; hence ordinary citizens cannot attend to it in addition to their regular business. Moreover, the population is so large that an individual citizen feels himself a drop in the ocean. His power of affecting public affairs by his own intervention seems insignificant. His pecuniary loss through overtaxation, or jobbery, or malversation, is trivial in comparison with the trouble of trying to prevent such evils.

As party machinery is in great cities most easily perverted, so the temptation to pervert it is there strongest, because the prizes are great. The offices are well paid, the patronage is large, the opportunities for jobs, commissions on contracts, pickings, and even stealings, are enormous. Hence it is well worth the while of unscrupulous men to gain control of the machinery by which these prizes may be won.6

Such men, the professional politicians of the great cities, have two objects in view. One is to seize the local city and county offices. A great city of course controls the county in which it is situated. The other is so to command the local party vote as to make good terms with the party managers of the state, and get from them a share in state offices, together with such legislation as is desired from the state legislature, and similarly to make good terms with the federal party managers, thus securing a share in federal offices, and the means of influencing legislation in Congress. How do the city professionals move towards these objects?

There are two stages in an election campaign. The first is to nominate the candidates you desire; the second to carry them at the polls. The first of these is often the more important, because in many cities the party majority inclines so decidedly one way or the other (e.g., most districts of New York City are steadily Democratic, while Philadelphia is Republican), that nomination is in the case of the dominant party equivalent to election. Now to nominate your candidates you must, above all things, secure the primaries. They require and deserve unsparing exertion, for everything turns upon them.7

The first thing is to have the kind of primary you want. Now the composition of a primary is determined by the roll or “check list,” as it is called, of ward voters entitled to appear in it. This is prepared by the managing committee of the ward, who are naturally desirous to have on it only such men as they can trust or control. They are aided in securing this by the rules requiring members to be admitted by the votes of those already on the list, and exact from persons admitted a pledge to obey the committee, and abide by the party nominations.8 Men of independent temper often refuse this pledge, and are excluded. Many of the ward voters do not apply for admission. Of those who do apply and take the pledge, some can be plausibly rejected by the primary on the ground that they have on some recent occasion failed to vote the party ticket. Thus it is easy for an active committee to obtain a subservient primary, composed of persons in sympathy with it or obedient to it. In point of fact the rolls of membership of many primaries are largely bogus rolls. Names of former members are kept on when these men have left the district or died; names are put on of men who do not belong to the district at all, and both sets of names are so much “voting stock,” applicable at the will and needs of the local party managers, who can admit the latter to vote, and “recognize” men personating the former. In fact, their control of the lists enables them to have practically whatever primary they desire.9

The next thing is to get the delegates chosen whom you wish for. The committee when it summons the primary settles in secret conclave the names of the delegates to be proposed, of course selecting men it can trust, particularly officeholders bound to the party which has put them in, and “workers” whom the prospect of office will keep faithful. When the meeting assembles a chairman is suggested by the committee and usually accepted. Then the list of delegates, which the committee has brought down cut and dry, is put forward. If the meeting is entirely composed of professionals, officeholders, and their friends, it is accepted without debate. If opponents are present, they may propose other names, but the official majority is almost always sufficient to carry the official list, and the chairman is prepared to exert, in favour of his friends, his power of ruling points of order. In extreme cases a disturbance will be got up, in the midst of which the chairman may plausibly declare the official list carried, or the meeting is adjourned in the hope that the opposition will not be at the trouble of coming next time, a hope likely to be realized, if the opposition consists of respectable citizens who dislike spending an evening in such company. Sometimes the professionals will bring in roughs from other districts to shout down opponents, and if necessary threaten them. One way or another the “regular” list of delegates is almost invariably carried against the “good citizens.” When however there are two hostile factions of professionals, each anxious to secure nominations for its friends, the struggle is sharper and its issue more doubtful. Fraud is likely to be used on both sides; and fraud often provokes violence.10 It is a significant illustration of the difference between the party system in America and Europe that in the former foul play is quite as likely, and violence more likely, to occur at party nominating meetings than in the actual elections where two opposing parties are confronted.

The scene now shifts to the nominating convention, which is also summoned by the appropriate committee. When it is “called to order” a temporary chairman is installed, the importance of whose position consists in his having (usually) the naming of a committee on credentials, or contested seats, which examines the titles of the delegates from the various primaries to vote in the convention. Being himself in the interest of the professionals, he names a committee in their interest, and this committee does what it can to exclude delegates who are suspected of an intention to oppose the candidates whom the professionals have prearranged. The primaries have almost always been so carefully packed, and so skilfully “run,” that a majority of trusty delegates has been secured; but sometimes a few primaries have sent delegates belonging to another faction of the party, or to some independent section of the party, and then there may be trouble. Occasionally two sets of delegates appear, each claiming to represent their primary. The dispute generally ends by the exclusion of the Independents or of the hostile faction, the committee discovering a flaw in their credentials, but sometimes, though rarely, the case is so clear that they must be admitted. In doubtful cases a partisan chairman is valuable, for, as it is expressed, “he is a solid 8 to 7 man all the time.” When the credentials have been examined the convention is deemed to be duly organized, a permanent chairman is appointed, and the business of nominating candidates proceeds. A spokesman of the professionals proposes A. B. in a speech, dwelling on his services to the party. If the convention has been properly packed, he is nominated by acclamation. If there be a rival faction represented, or if independent citizens who dislike him have been sent up by some primary which the professionals have failed to secure, another candidate is proposed and a vote taken. Here also there is often room for a partial chairman to influence the result; here, as in the primary, a tumult or a hocus pocus may in extreme cases be got up to enable the chairman to decide in favour of his allies.

Americans are, however, so well versed in the rules which govern public meetings, and so prepared to encounter all sorts of tricks, that the managers do not consider success certain unless they have a majority behind them. This they almost certainly have; at least it reflects discredit on their handling of the primaries if they have not. The chief hope of an opposition therefore is not to carry its own candidate but so to frighten the professionals as to make them abandon theirs, and substitute some less objectionable name. The candidate chosen, who, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, is the person predetermined by the managers, becomes the party nominee, entitled to the support of the whole party. He has received “the regular nomination.” If there are other offices whereto nominations have to be made, the convention goes on to these, which being despatched, it adjourns and disappears forever.

I once witnessed such a convention, a state convention, held at Rochester, New York, by the Democrats of New York State, at that time being under the control of the Tammany Ring of New York City. The most prominent figure was the famous Mr. William M. Tweed, then in the zenith of his power. There was, however, little or nothing in the public proceedings from which an observer could learn anything of the subterranean forces at work. During the morning, a tremendous coming and going and chattering and clattering of crowds of men who looked at once sordid and flashy, faces shrewd but mean and sometimes brutal, vulgar figures in good coats forming into small groups and talking eagerly, and then dissolving to form fresh groups, a universal camaraderie, with no touch of friendship about it; something between a betting ring and the flags outside the Liverpool Exchange. It reminded one of the swarming of bees in tree boughs, a ceaseless humming and buzzing which betokens immense excitement over proceedings which the bystander does not comprehend. After some hours all this settled down; the meeting was duly organized; speeches were made, all dull and thinly declamatory, except one by an eloquent Irishman; the candidates for state offices were proposed and carried by acclamation; and the business ended. Everything had evidently been prearranged; and the discontented, if any there were, had been talked over during the swarming hours.

After each of the greater conventions it is usual to hold one or more public gatherings, at which the candidates chosen are solemnly adopted by the crowd present, and rousing speeches are delivered. Such a gathering, called a “ratification” meeting, has no practical importance, being attended only by those prepared to support the nominations made. The candidate is now launched, and what remains is to win the election.

The above may be thought, as it is thought by many Americans, a travesty of popular choice. Observing the forms of consulting the voters, it substantially ignores them, and forces on them persons whom they do not know, and would dislike if they knew them. It substitutes for the party voters generally a small number of professionals and their creatures, extracts prearranged nominations from packed meetings, and calls this consulting the pleasure of the sovereign people.11

Yet every feature of the machine is the result of patent causes. The elective offices are so numerous that ordinary citizens cannot watch them, and cease to care who gets them. The conventions come so often that busy men cannot serve in them. The minor offices are so unattractive that able men do not stand for them. The primary lists are so contrived that only a fraction of the party get on them; and of this fraction many are too lazy or too busy or too careless to attend. The mass of the voters are ignorant; knowing nothing about the personal merits of the candidates, they are ready to follow their leaders like sheep. Even the better class, however they may grumble, are swayed by the inveterate habit of party loyalty, and prefer a bad candidate of their own party to a (probably no better) candidate of the other party. It is less trouble to put up with impure officials, costly city government, a jobbing state legislature, an inferior sort of congressman, than to sacrifice one’s own business in the effort to set things right. Thus the machine works on, and grinds out places, power, and the opportunities for illicit gain to those who manage it.

chapter 63

Rings and Bosses

This is the external aspect of the machine; these the phenomena which a visitor taken round to see a number of primaries and nominating conventions would record. But the reader will ask, How is the machine run? What are the inner springs that move it? What is the source of the power the committees wield? What force of cohesion keeps leaders and followers together? What kind of government prevails among this army of professional politicians?

The source of power and the cohesive force is the desire for office, and for office as a means of gain. This one cause is sufficient to account for everything, when it acts, as it does in these cities, under the condition of the suffrage of a host of ignorant and pliable voters.

Those who in great cities form the committees and work the machine are persons whose chief aim in life is to make their living by office. Such a man generally begins by acquiring influence among a knot of voters who live in his neighbourhood, or work under the same employer, or frequent the same grog shop or beer saloon, which perhaps he keeps himself. He becomes a member of his primary, attends regularly, attaches himself to some leader in that body, and is forward to render service by voting as his leader wishes, and by doing duty at elections. He has entered the large and active class called, technically, “workers,” or more affectionately, “the boys.” Soon he becomes conspicuous in the primary, being recognized as controlling the votes of others—“owning them” is the technical term—and is chosen delegate to a convention. Loyalty to the party there and continued service at elections mark him out for further promotion. He is appointed to some petty office in one of the city departments, and presently is himself nominated for an elective office. By this time he has also found his way on to the ward committee, whence by degrees he rises to sit on the central committee, having carefully nursed his local connection and surrounded himself with a band of adherents, who are called his “heelers,” and whose loyalty to him in the primary, secured by the hope of “something good,” gives weight to his words. Once a member of the central committee he discovers what everybody who gets on in the world discovers sooner or later, by how few persons the world is governed. He is one of a small knot of persons who pull the wires for the whole city, controlling the primaries, selecting candidates, “running” conventions, organizing elections, treating on behalf of the party in the city with the leaders of the party in the state. Each of this knot, which is probably smaller than the committee, because every committee includes some ciphers put on to support a leader, and which may include one or two strong men not on the committee, has acquired in his upward course a knowledge of men and their weaknesses, a familiarity with the wheels, shafts, and bands of the party machine, together with a skill in working it. Each can command some primaries, each has attached to himself a group of dependents who owe some place to him, or hope for some place from him. The aim of the knot is not only to get good posts for themselves, but to rivet their yoke upon the city by garrisoning the departments with their own creatures, and so controlling elections to the state legislature that they can procure such statutes as they desire, and prevent the passing of statutes likely to expose or injure them. They cement their dominion by combination, each placing his influence at the disposal of the others, and settle all important measures in secret conclave.

Such a combination is called a ring.

The power of such a combination is immense, for it ramifies over the whole city. There are, in New York City, for instance, more than forty thousand persons employed by the city authorities (without counting the eleven thousand school teachers), the large majority dismissible by their superiors at short notice and without cause assigned. Of the large number employed by the national government in the customhouse, post office, and other branches of the federal service,1 many are similarly dismissible by the proper federal authority; and there are also state servants, responsible to and dismissible by the state authority. If the same party happens to be supreme in city politics, in the federal government, and in the state government, all this army of employees is expected to work for the party leaders of the city, in city primaries, conventions, and elections, and is virtually amenable to the orders of these leaders.2 If the other party holds the reins of federal government and state government, then the city wire-pullers have at any rate their own ten thousand or more, while other thousands swell the army of “workers” for the opposite party. Add those who expect to get offices, and it will be seen how great and how disciplined a force is available to garrison the city and how effective it becomes under strict discipline. Yet it is not larger than is needed, for the work is heavy. Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem.

In a ring there is usually some one person who holds more strings in his hand than do the others. Like them he has worked himself up to power from small beginnings, gradually extending the range of his influence over the mass of workers, and knitting close bonds with influential men outside as well as inside politics, perhaps with great financiers or railway magnates, whom he can oblige, and who can furnish him with funds. At length his superior skill, courage, and force of will make him, as such gifts always do make their possessor, dominant among his fellows. An army led by a council seldom conquers; it must have a commander in chief, who settles disputes, decides in emergencies, inspires fear or attachment. The head of the ring is such a commander. He dispenses places, rewards the loyal, punishes the mutinous, concocts schemes, negotiates treaties. He generally avoids publicity, preferring the substance to the pomp of power, and is all the more dangerous because he sits, like a spider, hidden in the midst of his web. He is a boss.

Although the career I have sketched is that whereby most bosses have risen to greatness, some attain it by a shorter path. There have been brilliant instances of persons stepping at once on to the higher rungs of the ladder in virtue of their audacity and energy, especially if coupled with oratorical power. The first theatre of such a man’s successes may have been the stump rather than the primary; he will then become potent in conventions, and either by hectoring or by plausible address, for both have their value, spring into popular favour, and make himself necessary to the party managers. It is of course a gain to a ring to have among them a man of popular gifts, because he helps to conceal the odious features of their rule, gilding it by his rhetoric, and winning the applause of the masses who stand outside the circle of workers. However, the position of the rhetorical boss is less firmly rooted than that of the intriguing boss, and there have been instances of his suddenly falling to rise no more.

A great city is the best soil for the growth of a boss, because it contains the largest masses of manageable voters as well as numerous offices, and plentiful opportunities for jobbing. But a whole state sometimes falls under the dominion of one intriguer. To govern so large a territory needs high abilities; and the state boss is always an able man, somewhat more of a politician, in the European sense, than a city boss need be. He dictates state nominations, and through his lieutenants controls state and sometimes congressional conventions, being in diplomatic relations with the chief city bosses and local rings in different parts of the state. His power over them mainly springs from his influence with the federal executive and in Congress. He is usually, almost necessarily, a member of Congress, probably a senator, and can procure, or at any rate can hinder, such legislation as the local leaders desire or dislike. The president cannot ignore him, and the president’s ministers, however little they may like him, find it worth while to gratify him with federal appointments for persons he recommends, because the local votes he controls may make all the difference to their own prospects of getting some day a nomination for the presidency. Thus he uses his congressional position to secure state influence, and his state influence to strengthen his federal position. Sometimes, however, he is rebuffed by the powers at Washington and then his state thanes fly from him. Sometimes he quarrels with a powerful city boss, and then honest men come by their own.

It must not be supposed that the members of rings, or the great boss himself, are wicked men. They are the offspring of a system. Their morality is that of their surroundings. They see a door open to wealth and power, and they walk in. The obligations of patriotism or duty to the public are not disregarded by them, for these obligations have never been present to their minds. A state boss is usually a native American and a person of some education, who avoids the grosser forms of corruption, though he has to wink at them when practised by his friends. He may be a man of personal integrity.3 A city boss is often of foreign birth and humble origin; he has grown up in an atmosphere of oaths and cocktails. Ideas of honour and purity are as strange to him as ideas about the nature of the currency and the incidence of taxation. Politics is merely a means for getting and distributing places. “What,” said an ingenuous delegate at one of the national conventions at Chicago in 1880, “what are we here for except the offices?” It is no wonder if he helps himself from the city treasury and allows his minions to do so. Sometimes he does not rob, and like Clive, wonders at his own moderation. And even the city boss improves as he rises in the world. Like a tree growing out of a dust heap, the higher he gets, the cleaner do his boughs and leaves become. America is a country where vulgarity is sealed off more easily than in England, and where the general air of good nature softens the asperities of power. Some city bosses are men from whose decorous exterior and unobtrusive manners no one would divine either their sordid beginnings or their noxious trade. As for the state boss, whose talents are probably greater to begin with, he must be of very coarse metal if he does not take a polish from the society of Washington.

A city ring works somewhat as follows. When the annual or biennial city or state elections come round, its members meet to discuss the apportionment of offices. Each may desire something for himself, unless indeed he is already fully provided for, and anyhow desires something for his friends. The common sort are provided for with small places in the gift of some official, down to the place of a policeman or doorkeeper or messenger, which is thought good enough for a common “ward worker.” Better men receive clerkships or the promise of a place in the customhouse or post office to be obtained from the federal authorities. Men still more important aspire to the elective posts, seats in the state legislature, a city aldermanship or commissionership, perhaps even a seat in Congress. All the posts that will have to be filled at the coming elections are considered with the object of bringing out a party ticket, i.e., a list of candidates to be supported by the party at the polls when its various nominations have been successfully run through the proper conventions. Some leading man, or probably the boss himself, sketches out an allotment of places; and when this allotment has been worked out fully, it results in a slate, i.e., a complete draft list of candidates to be proposed for the various offices.4 It may happen that the slate does not meet everybody’s wishes. Some member of the ring or some local boss—most members of a ring are bosses each in his own district, as the members of a cabinet are heads of the departments of state, or as the cardinals are bishops of dioceses near Rome and priests and deacons of her parish churches—may complain that he and his friends have not been adequately provided for, and may demand more. In that case the slate will probably be modified a little to ensure good feeling and content; and it will then be presented to the convention.

But there is sometimes a more serious difficulty to surmount. A party in a state or city may be divided into two or more factions. Success in the election will be possible only by uniting these factions upon the same nominees for office. Occasionally the factions may each make its list and then come together in the party convention to fight out their differences. But the more prudent course is for the chiefs of each faction to arrange matters in a private conference. Each comes wishing to get the most he can for his clansmen, but feels the need for a compromise. By a process of “dickering” (i.e., bargaining by way of barter), various offers and suggestions being made all round, a list is settled on which the high contracting parties agree. This is a deal, or trade, a treaty which terminates hostilities for the time, and brings about “harmony.” The list so settled is now a slate, unless some discontented magnate objects and threatens to withdraw. To do so is called “breaking the slate.” If such a “sorehead” persists, a schism may follow, with horrible disaster to the party; but usually a new slate is prepared and finally agreed upon. The accepted slate is now ready to be turned by the machine into a ticket, and nothing further remains but the comparatively easy process of getting the proper delegates chosen by packed primaries, and running the various parts of the ticket through the conventions to which the respective nominations belong. Internal dissension among the chiefs is the one great danger; the party must at all hazards be kept together, for the power of a united party is enormous. It has not only a large but a thoroughly trained and disciplined army in its officeholders and office-seekers; and it can concentrate its force upon any point where opposition is threatened to the regular party nominations.5 All these officeholders and office-seekers have not only the spirit of self-interest to rouse them, but the bridle of fear to check any stirrings of independence. Discipline is very strict in this army. Even city politicians must have a moral code and moral standard. It is not the code of an ordinary unprofessional citizen. It does not forbid falsehood, or malversation, or ballot stuffing, or “repeating.” But it denounces apathy or cowardice, disobedience, and above all, treason to the party. Its typical virtue is “solidity,” unity of heart, mind, and effort among the workers, unquestioning loyalty to the party leaders, and devotion to the party ticket. He who takes his own course is a kicker or bolter; and is punished not only sternly but vindictively. The path of promotion is closed to him; he is turned out of the primary, and forbidden to hope for a delegacy to a convention; he is dismissed from any office he holds which the ring can command. Dark stories are even told of a secret police which will pursue the culprit who has betrayed his party, and of mysterious disappearances of men whose testimony against the ring was feared. Whether there is any foundation for such tales I do not undertake to say. But true it is that the bond between the party chiefs and their followers is very close and very seldom broken. What the client was to his patron at Rome, what the vassal was to his lord in the Middle Ages, that the “heelers” and “workers” are to their boss in these great transatlantic cities. They render a personal feudal service, which their suzerain repays with the gift of a livelihood; and the relation is all the more cordial because the lord bestows what costs him nothing, while the vassal feels that he can keep his post only by the favour of the lord.

European readers must again be cautioned against drawing for themselves too dark a picture of the boss. He is not a demon. He is not regarded with horror even by those “good citizens” who strive to shake off his yoke. He is not necessarily either corrupt or mendacious, though he grasps at place, power, and wealth. He is a leader to whom certain peculiar social and political conditions have given a character dissimilar from the party leaders whom Europe knows. It is worth while to point out in what the dissimilarity consists.

A boss needs fewer showy gifts than a European demagogue. His special theatre is neither the halls of the legislature nor the platform, but the committee-room. A power of rough and ready repartee, or a turn for florid declamation, will help him; but he can dispense with both. What he needs are the arts of intrigue and that knowledge of men which teaches him when to bully, when to cajole, whom to attract by the hope of gain, whom by appeals to party loyalty. Nor are so-called social gifts unimportant. The lower sort of city politicians congregate in clubs and barrooms; and as much of the cohesive strength of the smaller party organizations arises from their being also social bodies, so also much of the power which liquor dealers exercise is due to the fact that “heelers” and “workers” spend their evenings in drinking places, and that meetings for political purposes are held there. Of the 1,007 primaries and conventions of all parties held in New York City preparatory to the elections of 1884, 633 took place in liquor saloons.6 A boss ought therefore to be hail fellow well met with those who frequent these places, not fastidious in his tastes, fond of a drink and willing to stand one, jovial in manners, and ready to oblige even a humble friend.

The aim of a boss is not so much fame as power, and not so much power over the conduct of affairs as over persons. Patronage is what he chiefly seeks, patronage understood in the largest sense in which it covers the disposal of lucrative contracts and other modes of enrichment as well as salaried places. The dependants who surround him desire wealth, or at least a livelihood; his business is to find this for them, and in doing so he strengthens his own position.7 It is as the bestower of riches that he holds his position, like the leader of a band of condottieri in the fifteenth century.

The interest of a boss in political questions is usually quite secondary. Here and there one may be found who is a politician in the European sense, who, whether sincerely or not, purports and professes to be interested in some principle or measure affecting the welfare of the country. But the attachment of the ringster is usually given wholly to the concrete party, that is to the men who compose it, regarded as officeholders or office-seekers; and there is often not even a profession of zeal for any party doctrine. As a noted politician once happily observed, “There are no politics in politics.” Among bosses, therefore, there is little warmth of party spirit. The typical boss regards the boss of the other party much as counsel for the plaintiff regards counsel for the defendant. They are professionally opposed, but not necessarily personally hostile. Between bosses there need be no more enmity than results from the fact that the one has got what the other wishes to have. Accordingly it sometimes happens that there is a good understanding between the chiefs of opposite parties in cities; they will even go the length of making a joint “deal,” i.e., of arranging for a distribution of offices whereby some of the friends of one shall get places, the residue being left for the friends of the other.8 A well-organized city party has usually a disposable vote which can be so cast under the directions of the managers as to effect this, or any other desired result. The appearance of hostility must, of course, be maintained for the benefit of the public; but as it is for the interest of both parties to make and keep these private bargains, they are usually kept when made, though of course it is seldom possible to prove the fact.

The real hostility of the boss is not to the opposite party, but to other factions within his own party. Often he has a rival leading some other organization, and demanding, in respect of the votes which that organization controls, a share of the good things going. The greatest cities can support more than one faction within the same party; thus New York has long had three Democratic organizations, two of which are powerful and often angrily hostile. If neither can crush the other, it finds itself obliged to treat, and to consent to lose part of the spoils to its rival. Still more bitter, however, is the hatred of boss and ring towards those members of the party who do not desire and are not to be appeased by a share of the spoils, but who agitate for what they call reform. They are natural and permanent enemies; nothing but the extinction of the boss himself and of bossdom altogether will satisfy them. They are moreover the common enemies of both parties, that is, of bossdom in both parties. Hence in ring-governed cities professionals of both parties will sometimes unite against the reformers, or will rather let their opponents secure a place than win it for themselves by the help of the “independent vote.” Devotion to “party government,” as they understand it, can hardly go farther.

This great army of workers is mobilized for elections, the methods of which form a wide and instructive department of political science. Here I refer only to their financial side, because that is intimately connected with the machine. Elections need money, in America a great deal of money. Where, then, does the money come from, seeing that the politicians themselves belong to, or emerge from, a needy class?

The revenues of a ring, that is, their collective, or, as one may say, corporate revenues, available for party purposes, flow from five sources.

I. The first is public subscriptions. For important elections such as the biennial elections of state officers, or perhaps for that of the state legislature, a “campaign fund,” as it is called, is raised by an appeal to wealthy members of the party. So strong is party feeling that many respond, even though they suspect the men who compose the ring, disapprove its methods, and have no great liking for the candidates.

II. Contributions are sometimes privately obtained from rich men and especially from corporations (though statutes are now attempting to prevent this) who, though not directly connected with the ring, may expect something from its action. Contractors, for instance, have an interest in getting pieces of work from the city authorities. Railroad men have an interest in preventing state legislation hostile to their lines. Both, therefore, may be willing to help those who can so effectively help them. This source of income is only available for important elections. Its incidental mischief in enabling wealth to control a legislature through a ring is serious.

III. An exceptionally audacious ring will sometimes make an appropriation from the city or (more rarely) from the state treasury for the purposes not of the city or the state, but of its own election funds. It is not thought necessary to bring such an appropriation into the regular accounts to be laid before the public; in fact, pains are taken to prevent the item from appearing, and the accounts have often to be manipulated for that purpose. The justification, if any, of conduct not authorized by the law, must be sought in precedent, in the belief that the other side would do the same, and in the benefits which the ring expects to confer upon the city it administers. It is a method of course available only when ring officials have the control of public funds, and cannot be resorted to by an opposition.

IV. A tax used to be levied upon the officeholders of the party, varying from one to four or even five per cent upon the amount of their annual salaries. The aggregate annual salaries of the city officials in New York City amounted to $11,000,000, and those of the two thousand five hundred federal officials, who, if of the same party, might also be required to contribute,9 to $2,500,000. An assessment at two per cent on these amounts would produce over $220,000 and $50,000 respectively, quite a respectable sum for election expenses in a single city.10 Even policemen in cities, even office boys and workmen in federal dockyards, have been assessed by their party. As a tenant had in the days of feudalism to make occasional money payments to his lord in addition to the military service he rendered, so now the American vassal must render his aids in money as well as give knightly service at the primaries, in the canvass, at the polls. His liabilities are indeed heavier than those of the feudal tenant, for the latter could relieve himself from duty in the field by the payment of scutage, while under the machine a money payment never discharges from the obligation to serve in the army of “workers.” Forfeiture and the being proclaimed as “nithing,” are, as in the days of the Anglo-Norman kings, the penalty for failure to discharge the duties by which the vassal holds. Efforts which began with an order issued by President Hayes in 1877 applying to federal offices have been made to prevent by administrative action and by legislation the levying of this tribute on federal officials, but it is believed that the evil has not yet been extirpated. Indeed, some officials do not wait to be “assessed,” but think they “earn merit” (as the Buddhists say) by sending in their contributions ultroneously before any suggestion reaches them.

V. Another useful expedient has been borrowed from European monarchies in the sale of nominations and occasionally of offices themselves.11 A person who seeks to be nominated as candidate for one of the more important offices, such as a judgeship or a seat in the state Senate, or in Congress, is often required to contribute to the election fund a sum proportioned to the importance of the place he seeks, the excuse given for the practice being the cost of elections; and the same principle is occasionally applied to the gift of nonelective offices, the right of appointing to which is vested in some official member of a ring—e.g., a mayor. The price of a nomination for a seat in the state legislature is said to run from $500 up to $1,000, and for one of the better judgeships as high as $5,000; but this is largely matter of conjecture.12 Of course much less will be given if the prospects of carrying the election are doubtful: the prices quoted must be taken to represent cases where the party majority makes success certain. Naturally, the salaries of officials have to be raised in order to enable them to bear this charge, so that in the long run it may be thrown upon the public; and an eminent boss of New York City defended, before a committee of the legislature, the large salaries paid to aldermen, on the ground that “heavy demands were made on them by their party.”13

chapter 64

Local Extension of Rings and Bosses

To determine the extent to which the ring and boss system sketched in the preceding chapters prevails over the United States would be difficult even for an American, because it would require a minute knowledge of the local affairs of all the states and cities. Much more, then, is it difficult for a European. I can do no more than indicate generally the results of the inquiries I have made, commending the details of the question to some future investigator.

It has been pointed out that rings and bosses are the product not of democracy, but of a particular form of democratic government, acting under certain peculiar conditions. They belong to democratic government, as the old logicians would say, not simpliciter but secundum quid: they are not of its essence, but are merely separable accidents. We have seen that these conditions are:

• The existence of a Spoils System (= paid offices given and taken away for party reasons);
• Opportunities for illicit gains arising out of the possession of office;
• The presence of a mass of ignorant and pliable voters;
• The insufficient participation in politics of the “good citizens.”

If these be the true causes or conditions producing the phenomenon, we may expect to find it most fully developed in the places where the conditions exist in fullest measure, less so where they are more limited, absent where they do not exist.

A short examination of the facts will show that such is the case.

It may be thought that the Spoils System is a constant, existing everywhere, and therefore not admitting of the application of this method of concomitant variations. That system does no doubt prevail over every state of the Union, but it is not everywhere an equally potent factor, for in some cities the offices are much better paid than in others, and the revenues which their occupants control are larger. In some small communities the offices, or most of them, are not paid at all. Hence this factor also may be said to vary.

We may therefore say with truth that all of the four conditions above named are most fully present in great cities. Some of the offices are highly paid; many give facilities for lucrative jobbing; and the unpaid officers are sometimes the most apt to abuse these facilities. The voters are so numerous that a strong and active organization is needed to drill them; the majority so ignorant as to be easily led. The best citizens are engrossed in business and cannot give to political work the continuous attention it demands. Such are the phenomena of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, St. Paul, St. Louis, Cincinnati, San Francisco, and New Orleans. In these cities ring-and-bossdom has attained its amplest growth, overshadowing the whole field of politics.

Of the first two of these I need not speak in detail here, proposing to refer to their phenomena in later chapters, but Chicago, often shockingly misgoverned, has latterly improved and seems likely to improve further under the vigilant action of a group of public-spirited citizens. As regards certain other cities, I subjoin some remarks with which I was favoured in 1887 by leading citizens resident therein, in reply to interrogatories which I addressed to them; and have in each case added a few words to bring the story down through more recent years. Knowing how apt a stranger is to imagine a greater uniformity than exists, I desire to enable the reader to understand to what extent the description I have given is generally true, and with what local diversities its general truth is compatible. And as the remarks quoted illustrate the phenomena of city misgovernment in general, they have the interest which belongs to original and contemporaneous historical authorities.

Cincinnati (Ohio), population in 1890, 296,908, in 1910, 364,463:

It would not be fitting to insert here equally free comments on the conditions of today. But in 1912 Cincinnati was described by competent observers as suffering from the old evils, and it is no secret that she had been long ruled by a boss of eminent capacity.

St. Louis (Missouri), population in 1890, 451,770; in 1910, 687,029:

In 1909 St. Louis had no recognized boss, and had enjoyed for some years an exceptionally good mayor. There was, however, a good deal of ring power, acting on or through the city councils. Attempts were being made in 1912 to enact a new charter.

Louisville (Kentucky), population in 1880, 161,129; in 1910, 223,928:

In 1909 Louisville was stated to be suffering from rings, but in a comparatively mild form. A civic uprising in 1906 had given her for three years an upright and capable mayor.

Minneapolis (Minnesota), population in 1890, 164,738:

In 1910, population 301,408, things had improved in Minneapolis. A trustworthy correspondent wrote in 1909:

St. Paul, population in 1890, 133,156, in 1910, 214,744:

I have taken the two cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul because they illustrate the differences which one often finds between places whose population and other conditions seem very similar. The centres of these two cities are only ten miles apart; their suburbs have begun to touch; they will soon be, in a material sense, one city. Minneapolis is younger, and has grown far more rapidly, and the manufacturing element in its population is larger. But in most respects it resembles its elder sister—they are extremely jealous of one another—so closely that an Old World observer who has not realized the swiftness with which phenomena come and go in the West is surprised to find the political maladies of the one so much graver than those of the other.

It has been seen how things stood in 1887. In 1893 they had changed for the better in both cities. The boss of Minneapolis had vanished, and the party opposed to that he had adorned was in power. The municipal administration, if not free from reproach, was comparatively free from scandals. St. Paul showed a marked improvement. A mayor had been elected on a “reform ticket,” and the municipal clique formerly dominant had been broken up. But no one could feel sure that these gains would be preserved.

In 1909 Minneapolis having (as above reported) done much to reform her ways, it was stated that the situation in St. Paul had changed much less. The former political clique still held power. A boss had for some time been reigning, but the police administration was described as efficient. Such are the vicissitudes of cities.

The great city of San Francisco, capital of the “Pacific slope,” with a population in 1910 of 416,912 people, was for years ruled by a formidable boss who, through an energetic lieutenant, commanded the fire department of the city, and used its 350 paid employees as a sort of prætorian guard. He controlled the city elections, dominated the officials, was a power in state politics, tampered with the administration of the criminal law. At last steps were taken to have him and his grand vizier indicted for peculation, whereupon they both fled to Canada, and the city escaped the yoke. But the conditions which produced bossdom remaining, it fell before long under a still worse yoke. In 1907 there was a local revolution, due to the discovery of corruption on the part of prominent officials for which two were imprisoned, but the phenomena of that uprising and the events that have followed cannot yet be with propriety described in these pages. In 1913 there was an honest government.

Pittsburg, population (in 1910) 533,905, has had a chequered history. No city has been more swayed by bosses of ability and audacity. Lately a strong and able mayor gave it a good administration, the results of which have tended to raise the standard which the people expect; but whether that standard will be maintained seems still doubtful. In 1910 several members of the city government were convicted of corruption.

In cities of the second rank (say from 10,000 to 100,000 inhabitants) some of the same mischiefs exist, but on a smaller scale. The opportunities for jobbing are limited. The offices are moderately paid. The population of new immigrants, politically incompetent, and therefore easily pervertible, bears a smaller ratio to the native Americans. The men prominent by their wealth or capacity are more likely to be known to the mass of the voters, and may have more leisure to join in local politics. Hence, although we find rings in many of these cities, they are less powerful, less audacious, less corrupt. There are, of course, differences between one city and another, differences sometimes explicable by its history and the character of its population. A very high authority wrote to me in 1887 from Michigan, a state above the average:

Detroit (population in 1910, 465,766) was described in 1909 as improving steadily, owing to an aroused public sentiment for good government which is forcing higher standards on the professional politicians.

Denver, now a city of 213,381, has obtained an unenviable notoriety for the prevalence of corrupt influences in its politics, but the administration of its affairs seems to be efficient.

The cities of New York State seem to suffer more than those of New England or the West. Albany (a place of 100,000 people) has long groaned under its rings, but as the seat of the New York legislature it is a focus of intrigue. Buffalo (with 400,000) has a large population of foreign origin and obeys a boss. Rochester and Troy are ruled by local cliques; the latter is full of fellows who go to serve as “repeaters” at Albany elections. Syracuse is smaller and said to be more pure than Rochester, but has of late years shown some serious symptoms of the same disease. Cleveland is a larger place than any of these, but having, like the rest of northern Ohio, a better quality of population, its rings have never carried things with a high hand, nor stolen public money, and it is fortunate in having a strong nonpolitical commercial organization of good citizens who keep an eye on the city government. The same may be said to such New England cities as Providence, Augusta, Hartford, Worcester, Lowell, though neither Boston nor New Haven have been free from rings. The system more or less exists in all these, but the bosses have not ventured to exclude respectable outsiders from office, nor have they robbed the city, debauched the legislature, retained their power by election frauds after the manner of their great models in New York and Philadelphia. And this seems to hold true also of the Western and Southern cities of moderate size. A seaside suburb of one great Eastern city once produced a singularly audacious boss, who combined that position with those of head of the police and superintendent of the principal Sunday school. He had tampered freely with the election returns, giving his support sometimes to one party sometimes to another, and had apparently been able to “turn over” the vote of the place at his pleasure. A rising of the “good citizens” at last succeeded in procuring his conviction and imprisonment for election offences.

As regards Ohio a judicious authority said:

As regards Missouri I am informed that:

A similar answer from Kentucky adds that rings have nevertheless been heard of in cities so small as Lexington when it had 22,000 inhabitants and Frankfort with less than half that population. In these three states the facts seem to be still much as formerly stated.

In quite small towns and in the rural districts—in fact, whenever there is not a municipality, but government is either by a town meeting and selectmen or by township or county officials—the dangerous conditions are reduced to their minimum. The new immigrants are not generally planted in large masses but scattered among the native population, whose habits and modes of thinking they soon acquire. The Germans and Scandinavians who settle in the country districts have been among the best of their race, and form a valuable element. The country voter, whether native or foreign, is exposed to fewer temptations than his brother of the city, and is less easy either to lead or to drive. He is parsimonious, and pays his county or town officials on a niggardly scale. A boss has therefore no occupation in such a place. His talents would be wasted. If a ring exists in a small city it is little more than a clique of local lawyers who combine to get hold of the local offices, each in his turn, and to secure a seat for one of themselves in the state legislature, where there may be pickings to be had. It is not easy to draw the line between such a clique, which one may find all the world over, and a true ring; but by whichever name we call the weed, it does little harm to the crop. Here and there, however, one meets with a genuine boss even in these seats of rural innocence. I know a New England town, with a population of about ten thousand people, which was long ruled by such a local wire-puller. I do not think he stole. But he had gathered a party of voters round him, by whose help he carried the offices, and got a chance of perpetrating jobs which enriched himself and supplied work for his supporters. The circumstances, however, are exceptional. Within the taxing area of the town there lie many villas of wealthy merchants, who do business in a neighbouring city, but are taxed on their summer residences here. The funds which this town has to deal with were therefore much larger than would be the case in most towns of its size, while many of the rich taxpayers are not citizens here, but vote in the city where they live during the winter.3 Hence they could not go to the town meeting to beard the boss, but had to grin and pay while they watched his gambols.

Speaking generally, the country places and the smaller cities are not ring-ridden. There is a tendency everywhere for the local party organizations to fall into the hands of a few men, perhaps of one man. But this happens not so much from an intent to exclude others and misuse power, as because the work is left to those who have some sort of interest in doing it, that, namely, of being themselves nominated to an office. Such persons are seldom professional office-seekers, but lawyers, farmers, or storekeepers, who are glad to add something to their income, and have the importance, not so contemptible in a village, of sitting in the state legislature. Nor does much harm result. The administration is fairly good; the taxpayers are not robbed. If a leading citizen, who does not belong to the managing circle, wishes to get a nomination, he will probably succeed; in fact, no one will care to exclude him. In many places there is a nonparty “citizens’ committee” which takes things out of the hands of the two organizations by running as candidates respectable men irrespective of party. Such candidates generally succeed if the local party managers have offended public sentiment by bad nominations. In short, the materials for real ring government do not exist, and its methods are inapplicable, outside the large cities. No one needs to fear it, or does fear it.

What has been said refers chiefly to the Northern, Middle, and Western states. The circumstances of the South are different, but they illustrate equally well the general laws of ring growth. In the Southern cities there is scarcely any population of European immigrants. The lowest class consists of Negroes and “poor whites.” The Negroes are ignorant, and would be dangerously plastic material in the hands of unscrupulous wire-pullers, as was amply shown after the Civil War. But they have hitherto mostly belonged to the Republican party, and the Democratic party has so completely regained its ascendency that the bosses who controlled the Negro vote can do nothing. In most parts of the South the men of ability and standing have interested themselves in politics so far as to dictate the lines of party action. Their position when self-government was restored and the carpetbaggers had to be overthrown forced them to exertion. Sometimes they use or tolerate a ring, but they do not suffer it to do serious mischief, and it is usually glad to nominate one of them, or anyone whom they recommend. The old traditions of social leadership survive better in the South than in the North, so that the poorer part of the white population is more apt to follow the suggestions of eminent local citizens and to place them at its head when they will accept the position. Moreover, the South is a comparatively poor country. Less is to be gained from office (including membership of a legislature), either in the way of salary or indirectly through jobbing contracts or influencing legislation. The prizes in the profession of politics being fewer, the profession is not prosecuted with the same earnestness and perfection of organization. There are, however, some cities where conditions similar to those of large Northern cities reappear, and there ring-and-bossdom reappears also. New Orleans is the best example—it has a strong ring— and in Arkansas and Texas, where there never was a plantation aristocracy like that of the slave states on the Atlantic coast, rings are pretty numerous, though, as the cities are small and seldom rich, their exploits attract little attention. That in Galveston fell when the commission form of city government was adopted.

chapter 65

Spoils

An illustration of Oxenstjerna’s dictum regarding the wisdom with which the world is governed may be found in the fact that the greatest changes are often those introduced with the least notion of their consequence, and the most fatal those which encounter least resistance. So the system of removals from federal office which began in the days of Andrew Jackson, though disapproved of by several among the leading statesmen of the time, including Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, excited comparatively little attention in the country, nor did its advocates foresee a tithe of its far-reaching results.

The Constitution of the United States vests the right of appointing to federal offices in the president, requiring the consent of the Senate in the case of the more important, and permitting Congress to vest the appointment of inferior officers in the president alone, in the courts, or in the heads of departments. It was assumed that this clause gave officials a tenure at the pleasure of the president, i.e., that he had the legal right of removing them without cause assigned. But the earlier presidents considered the tenure as being practically for life or during good behaviour, and did not remove, except for some solid reason, persons appointed by their predecessors. Washington in his eight years displaced only nine persons, and all for cause, John Adams nine in four years, and those not on political grounds. Jefferson in his eight years removed thirty-nine, but many of these were persons whom Adams had unfairly put in just before quitting office; and in the twenty years that followed (1808–28) there were but sixteen removals. In 1820, however, a bill was run through Congress fixing four years as the term for a large number of the more important offices, and making those terms expire shortly after the inauguration of a president. This was ominous of evil, and called forth the displeasure of both Jefferson and Madison. The president, however, and his heads of departments, did not remove, so the tenure of good behaviour generally remained. But a new era began with the hot and heady Jackson, who reached the presidential chair in 1829. He was a rough Westerner, a man of the people, borne into power by a popular movement, incensed against all who were connected with his predecessor, a warm friend and a bitter enemy, anxious to repay services rendered to himself. Penetrated by extreme theories of equality, he proclaimed in his message that rotation in office was a principle in the Republican creed, and obeyed both his doctrine and his passions by displacing five hundred postmasters in his first year, and appointing partisans in their room. The plan of using office as a mere engine in partisan warfare had already been tried in New York, where the stress of party contests had led to an early development of many devices in party organization; and it was a New York adherent of Jackson, Marcy, who, speaking in the Senate in 1832, condensed the new doctrine in a phrase that has become famous—“To the victor belong the spoils.”1

From 1828 till a few years ago the rule with both parties has been that on a change of president nearly all federal offices, from the embassies to European courts down to village postmasterships, are deemed to be vacant. The present holders may of course be continued or reappointed (if their term has expired); and if the new president belongs to the same party as his predecessor, many of them will be; but they are not held to have either a legal or a moral claim. The choice of the president or departmental head has been absolutely free, no qualifications, except the citizenship of the nominee, being required, nor any check imposed on him, except that the Senate’s consent is needed to the more important posts.2

The want of knowledge on the part of the president and his ministers of the persons who applied for places at a distance, obliged them to seek information and advice from those who, belonging to the neighborhood, could give it. It was natural for the senators from a state or the representative in Congress from a district within which a vacant office lay, to recommend to the president candidates for it, natural for the president or his ministers to be guided by this recommendation, of course, in both cases, only when they belonged to the same party as the president. Thus the executive became accustomed to admit the rights the politicians claimed, and suffered its patronage to be prostituted to the purpose of rewarding local party service and conciliating local party support. Now and then a president, or a strong minister controlling the president, has proved restive; yet the usage continues, being grounded on the natural wish of the executive to have the goodwill and help of the senators in getting treaties and appointments confirmed, and on the feeling that the party in every district must be strengthened by a distribution of good things, in the way which the local leader thinks most serviceable. The essential features of the system are, that a place in the public service is held at the absolute pleasure of the appointing authority; that it is invariably bestowed from party motives on a party man, as a reward for party services (whether of the appointee or of someone who pushes him); that no man expects to hold it any longer than his party holds power; and that he has therefore the strongest personal reasons for fighting in the party ranks. Thus the conception of office among politicians came to be not the ideal one, of its involving a duty to the community, nor the “practical” one, of its being a snug berth in which a man may live if he does not positively neglect his work, but the perverted one, of its being a salary paid in respect of party services, past, present, and future.

The politicians, however, could hardly have riveted this system on the country but for certain notions which had become current among the mass of the people. “Rotation in office” was, and indeed by most men still is, held to be conformable to the genius of a democracy. It gives every man an equal chance of power and salary, resembling herein the Athenian and Florentine system of choosing officers by lot. It is supposed to stimulate men to exertion, to foster a laudable ambition to serve the country or the neighbourhood, to prevent the growth of an official caste, with its habits of routine, its stiffness, its arrogance. It recognizes that equality which is so dear to the American mind, bidding an official remember that he is the servant of the people and not their master, like the bureaucrats of Europe. It forbids him to fancy that he has any right to be where he is, any ground for expecting to stay there. It ministers in an odd kind of way to that fondness for novelty and change in persons and surroundings which is natural in the constantly moving communities of the West. The habit which grew up of electing state and city officers for short terms tended in the same direction. If those whom the people itself chose were to hold office only for a year or two, why should those who were appointed by federal authority have a more stable tenure? And the use of patronage for political purposes was further justified by the example of England, whose government was believed by the Americans of Jackson and Van Buren generation to be worked, as it had been largely worked, by the Patronage Secretary of the Treasury in his function of distributing places to members of the House of Commons, and honours (such as orders, and steps in the peerage) to members of the House of Lords, ecclesiastical preferments to the relatives of both.3

Another and a potent reason why the rotation plan commended itself to the Americans is to be found in the belief that one man is as good as another, and will do well enough any work you set him to, a belief happily expressed by their old enemy King George III when he said that “every man is good enough for any place he can get.” In America a smart man is expected to be able to do anything that he turns his hand to, and the fact that a man has worked himself into a place is some evidence of his smartness. He is a “practical man.” This is at bottom George III’s idea; if you are clever enough to make people give you a place, you are clever enough to discharge its duties, or to conceal the fact that you are not discharging them. It may be added that most of these federal places, and those which come most before the eyes of the ordinary citizen, require little special fitness. Any careful and honest man does fairly well for a tide-waiter or a lighthouse keeper. Able and active men had no great interest in advocating appointment by merit or security of tenure, for they seldom wanted places themselves; and they had, or thought they had, an interest in jobbing their poor relatives and unprosperous friends into the public service. It is true that the relative or friend ran the risk of being turned out. But hope is stronger than fear. The prospect of getting a place affects ten people for one who is affected by the prospect of losing it, for aspirants are many and places relatively few.

Hitherto we have been considering federal offices only, the immense majority whereof are such petty posts as those of postmaster in a village, customhouse officer at a seaport, and so forth, although they also include clerkships in the departments at Washington, foreign ambassadorships and consulates, and governorships of the Territories. The system of rotation had however laid such a hold on the mind of the country that it soon extended itself over state offices and city offices also, in so far as such offices remained appointive, and were not, like the higher administrative posts and (in most of the states and the larger cities) the judicial offices, handed over to popular election. Thus, down to that very recent time of which I shall speak presently, appointment by favour and tenure at the pleasure of the appointer became the rule in every sphere and branch of government, national, state, and municipal. It may seem strange that a people so eminently practical as the Americans acquiesced in a system which perverts public office from its proper function of serving the public, destroys the prospect of that skill which comes with experience, and gives nobody the least security that he will gain a higher post, or even retain the one he holds, by displaying conspicuous efficiency. The explanation is that administration used to be conducted in a happy-go-lucky way, that the citizens, accustomed to help themselves, relied very little on their functionaries, and did not care whether they were skilful or not, and that it was so easy and so common for a man who fell out of one kind of business to take to and make his living by another that deprivation seemed to involve little hardship. However, the main reason was that there was no party and no set of persons specially interested in putting an end to the system, whereas there soon came to be a set specially concerned to defend it. It developed, I might almost say created, the class of professional politicians, and they maintained it, because it exactly suited them. That great and growing volume of political work to be done in managing primaries, conventions, and elections for the city, state, and national governments, whereof I have already spoken, and which the advance of democratic sentiment and the needs of party warfare evolved from 1820 down to about 1850, needed men who should give to it constant and undivided attention. These men the plan of rotation in office provided. Persons who had nothing to gain for themselves would soon have tired of the work. The members of a permanent civil service would have had no motive for interfering in politics, because the political defeat of a public officer’s friends would have left his position the same as before, and the civil service not being all of one party, but composed of persons appointed at different times by executives of different hues, would not have acted together as a whole. Those, however, whose bread and butter depend on their party may be trusted to work for their party, to enlist recruits, look after the organization, play electioneering tricks from which ordinary party spirit might recoil. The class of professional politicians was therefore the first crop which the Spoils System, the system of using public office as private prize of war, bore. Bosses were the second crop. In the old Scandinavian poetry the special title of the king or chieftain is “the giver of rings.” He attracts followers and rewards the services, whether of the warrior or the skald, by liberal gifts. So the boss wins and holds power by the bestowal of patronage. Places are the guerdon of victory in election warfare; he divides this spoil before as well as after the battle, promising the higher elective offices to the strongest among his fighting men, and dispensing the minor appointive offices which lie in his own gift, or that of his lieutenants, to combatants of less note but equal loyalty. Thus the chieftain consolidates, extends, fortifies his power by rewarding his supporters. He garrisons the outposts with his squires and henchmen, who are bound fast to him by the hope of getting something more, and the fear of losing what they have. Most of these appointive offices are too poorly paid to attract able men; but they form a stepping-stone to the higher ones obtained by popular election; and the desire to get them and keep them provides that numerous rank and file which the American system requires to work the machine. In a country like England office is an object of desire to a few prominent men, but only to a few, because the places which are vacated on a change of government are less then sixty in all, while vacancies in other places happen only by death or promotion. Hence an insignificant number of persons out of the whole population have a personal pecuniary interest in the triumph of their party. In England, therefore, one has what may be called the general officers and headquarters staff of an army of professional politicians, but few subalterns and no privates. And in England most of these general officers are rich men, independent of official salaries. In America the privates are proportioned in number to the officers. They are a great host. As nearly all live by politics, they are held together by a strong personal motive. When their party is kept out of the spoils of the federal government, as the Democrats were out from 1861 till 1885, they have a second chance in the state spoils, a third chance in the city spoils; and the prospect of winning at least one of these two latter sets of places maintains their discipline and whets their appetite, however slight may be their chance of capturing the federal offices.

It is these spoilsmen who have depraved and distorted the mechanism of politics. It is they who pack the primaries and run the conventions so as to destroy the freedom of popular choice, they who contrived and executed the election frauds which disgrace some states and cities—repeating and ballot stuffing, obstruction of the polls, and fraudulent countings in.4

In making every administrative appointment a matter of party claim and personal favour, the system has lowered the general tone of public morals, for it has taught men to neglect the interests of the community, and made insincerity ripen into cynicism. Nobody supposes that merit has anything to do with promotion, or believes the pretext alleged for an appointment. Politics has been turned into the art of distributing salaries so as to secure the maximum of support from friends with the minimum of offence to opponents. To this art able men have been forced to bend their minds; on this presidents and ministers have spent those hours which were demanded by the real problems of the country.5 The rising politician must think of obscure supporters seeking petty places as well as of those greater appointments by which his knowledge of men and his honesty deserve to be judged. It is hardly a caricature in Mr. Lowell’s satire when the intending presidential candidate writes to his maritime friend in New England,

• If you git me inside the White House,
• Your head with ile I’ll kinder ’nint,
• By gittin’ you inside the light-house,
• Down to the end of Jaalam pint.

After this, it seems a small thing to add that rotation in office has not improved the quality of the civil service. Men selected for their services at elections or in primaries have not proved the most capable servants of the public. As most of the posts they fill need nothing more than such ordinary business qualities as the average American possesses, the mischief has not come home to the citizens generally, but it has sometimes been serious in the higher grades, such as the departments at Washington and some of the greater customhouses.6 Moreover, the official is not free to attend to his official duties. More important, because more influential on his fortunes, is the duty to his party of looking after its interests at the election, and his duty to his chiefs, the boss and ring, of seeing that the candidate they favour gets the party nomination. Such an official, whom democratic theory seeks to remind of his dependence on the public, does not feel himself bound to the public, but to the city boss or senator or congressman who has procured his appointment. Gratitude, duty, service, are all for the patron. So far from making the official zealous in the performance of his functions, insecurity of tenure has discouraged sedulous application to work, since it is not by such application that office is retained and promotion won. The administration of some among the public departments in federal and city government is more behind that of private enterprises than is the case in European countries; the ingenuity and executive talent which the nation justly boasts, are least visible in national or municipal business. In short, the civil service is not in America, and cannot, under the system of rotation, become a career. Place-hunting is the career, and an office is not a public trust, but a means of requiting party services, and also, under the method of assessments previously described, a source whence party funds may be raised for election purposes.

Some of these evils were observed as far back as 1853, when an act was passed by Congress requiring clerks appointed to the departments at Washington to pass a qualifying examination.7 Neither this nor subsequent legislative efforts in the same direction produced any improvement, for the men in office who ought to have given effect to the law were hostile to it. Similar causes defeated the system of competitive examination, inaugurated by an act of Congress in 1871, when the present agitation for civil service reform had begun to lay hold of the public mind. Mr. Hayes (1877–81) was the first president who seems to have honestly desired to reform the civil service, but the opposition of the politicians, and the indifference of Congress, which had legislated merely in deference to the pressure of enlightened opinion outside, proved too much for him. A real step in advance was, however, made in 1883, by the passage of the so-called Pendleton Act, which instituted a board of civil service commissioners (to be named by the president), directing them to apply a system of competitive examinations to a considerable number of offices in the departments at Washington, and a smaller number in other parts of the country. President Arthur named a good commission, and under the rules framed by it progress was made. The action of succeeding presidents has been matter of some controversy; but while admitting that less has been done in the way of reform than might have been desired, it is no less true that much more has been done than it would have been safe to expect in 1883. Both Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Roosevelt largely extended the scope of the act. In the so-called “classified service,” to which the examination system is applied, some removals for political reasons have from time to time been made, but the percentage of such removals is far smaller than in the unclassified service. Honest efforts have been made by recent presidents to prevent the intrusion of politics and to enforce the rule that civil servants in the classified service shall not take an active part in campaigns.

The act of 1883 originally applied to only 14,000 posts. It has since been so extended that now out of 367,794 employees in the civil service, 234,940 are subject to competitive examination under civil service rules. Of those not subject to examination, 9,105 are presidential appointees, 7,202 of whom are first, second and third class postmasters, 37,712 are fourth class postmasters, and the bulk of the remainder minor employees, largely labourers.8 The salaries of those covered by the act amount to very much more than half of the total sum paid in salaries by the government. Its moral effect, however, has been even greater than this proportion represents, and entitles it to the description given of it at the time as “a sad blow to the pessimists.” Public sentiment is more and more favourable, and though the lower sort of “professionals” were incensed at so great an interference with their methods, and Congress now and then (as in the case of the census bill of 1909) shows imperfect sympathy with the principle, all, or nearly all, the leading men in both parties seem now disposed to support it. It strengthens the hands of any president who may desire reform, and has stimulated the civil service reform movement in states and municipalities. Between 1883 and 1910 seven states (New York, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Illinois, Colorado, New Jersey and Ohio) had adopted the merit system, which has also been adopted by nearly one hundred cities. Nevertheless, there remain a great many posts, even in the higher national civil service, within the spoils category which in European countries would be permanent nonpolitical posts.

Some time must yet pass before the result of these changes upon the purification of politics can be fairly judged. It is for the present enough to say that while the state of things above described was generally true both of federal and of state and city administration from 1830 till 1883, there is now reason to hope that the practice of appointing for short terms, and of refusing to reappoint, or of dismissing in order to fill vacancies with political adherents, has been shaken. Nor can it be doubted that the extension of examinations will tend more and more to exclude mere spoilsmen from the public service.

chapter 66

Elections and Their Machinery

I cannot attempt to describe the complicated and varying election laws of the different states. But the methods of conducting elections have so largely influenced the development of machine politics, and the recent changes in them have made so much stir and seem likely to have such considerable results, that the subject must not pass unnoticed.

All expenses of preparing the polling places and of paying the clerks and other election officers who receive and count the votes, are borne by the community, not (as in Britain) by the candidates.

All elections, whether for city, state, or federal offices, are in all states conducted by ballot, which, however, was introduced, and was long regarded, not so much as a device for preventing bribery or intimidation, but rather as the quickest and easiest mode of taking the votes of a multitude. Secrecy had not been specially aimed at, nor in point of fact generally secured.

An election is a far more complicated affair in America than in Europe. The number of elective offices is greater, and as terms of office are shorter, the number of offices to be voted for in any given year is much greater. To save the expense of numerous distinct pollings, it was long usual, though by no means universal, to take the pollings for a variety of offices at the same time, that is to say, to elect federal officials (presidential electors and congressmen), state officials, county officials, and city officials on one and the same day and at the same polling booths. Presidential electors are chosen only once in four years, congressmen once in two. But the number of state and county and city places to be filled is so large that a voter seldom goes to the polling booth without having to cast his vote for at least eight or ten persons, candidates for different offices, and sometimes he may vote for thirty or more.

This gave rise to the system of slip tickets. A slip ticket is a list, printed on a long strip of paper, of the persons standing in the same interest, that is to say, recommended by the same party or political group for the posts to be filled up at any election.1 For many years, the universal practice was for each such voting ticket to be printed and issued by a party organization, and to be then distributed at the polling booths by the party agents to the voters and placed by them in the box. The voter usually voted the ticket as he received it, that is to say, he voted en bloc for all the names it contained. It was indeed open to him to modify it by striking out certain names (“scratching”) and writing in others, or by placing over a name a bit of paper, gummed at the back for the purpose (called a “paster”), on which was printed the name of some other candidate. But the always potent tendency to vote the party list as a whole was naturally stronger when that whole list found itself on the same piece of paper in the voter’s hands than it would have been had the paper contained in alphabetical order the names of all the candidates whomsoever, making it necessary to pick and choose among them. This, however, was the least of the evils incident to the system. When (as often happened) the two great parties had bad names on their respective state or city tickets, the obvious remedy was the formation of a “citizens”’ or “independent” organization to run better men. The heavy expense of printing and distributing the tickets was a serious obstacle to the making of such independent nominations, while the “regular” ticket distributers did all in their power to impede the distribution of these “independent tickets,” and generally to confuse and mislead the independent voter. The expenses which the regular parties had to bear were made by their leaders a pretext for levying “election assessments” on candidates, and thereby (see ante, ) of virtually selling nominations. And, finally, the absence of secrecy, for the voter could be followed by watchful eyes from the moment when he received the party ticket from the party distributer till he dropped it into the box, opened a wide door to bribery and intimidation. A growing sense of these mischiefs roused at length the zeal of reformers. In 1885 a bill for the introduction of a really secret ballot was presented to the legislature of Michigan, and in 1888 such a measure, resembling in its outlines the ballot laws of Australia and those of the United Kingdom, was enacted in Massachusetts. The unprecedented scale on which money was illegitimately used in the presidential election of 1888 provoked general alarm, and strengthened the hands of reformers so much that secret, or, as they are called, “Australian,” official ballot laws are now in force in all the states except Georgia and South Carolina; but in Tennessee and North Carolina the ballot law is not statewide, i.e., applies to certain counties only. Missouri and New Jersey have halfway measures embodying certain features of the Australian system.2 It may cause surprise that the Southern states, communities which lived in alarm at the large Negro vote, did not sooner seize so simple a method of virtually excluding the bulk of that vote, but the reason is doubtless to be found in the fact that a secret ballot, unaccompanied by provisions for illiterate voters, would have excluded many whites also. Georgia and South Carolina may probably ere long follow their sisters in the enactment of secret ballot laws, and the strength of the movement is witnessed by the fact that in eleven states provisions on the subject have been embodied in the constitutions.

The new laws of these forty-six states are of varying merit. Nearly all the laws provide for the official printing of the voting papers, for the inclusion of the names of all candidates upon the same paper, so that the voter must himself place his mark against those he desires to support, and for the depositing of the paper in the box by the voter in such manner as to protect him from observation. Thus secrecy has been nearly everywhere secured, and while independent candidates have a better chance, a heavy blow has been struck at bribery and intimidation. The practice of “peddling” the ballots at the polling place by the agents of the parties, which had reached portentous dimensions in New York, has in most places disappeared, while the extinction of the head of expenses incurred for this purpose, as well as for ballot printing, has diminished the pretext for levying assessments. Elections are far more orderly than they were, because more secret, and because the attendant crowd of those who peddle and hang about the polls, disposed to turbulence and ready for intimidation, has been much reduced. And it is an incidental gain that the most ignorant class of voters, who in the North are usually recent immigrants, have been in some states deprived of their votes, in others stimulated (as happened to the more intelligent Negroes in parts of the South) to improve their education, and fit themselves to vote. Even where provision is made for the voting of illiterates, a certain disgrace, which citizens desire to escape, attaches to him who is forced to have recourse to this provision. No one proposes to revert to the old system, nor has the ingenuity of artful politicians succeeded, to any great extent, in evading the salutary provisions of the new statutes.

So much for what may be called the machinery of voting. There are, however, several other questions that may be asked regarding an election system. One is, whether it is honestly carried out by the officials? To this question no general answer can be given, because there are the widest possible differences between different states; differences due chiefly to the variations in their election laws, but partly also to the condition of the public conscience. In some states the official conduct of elections is now believed to be absolutely pure, owing, one is told, to the excellence of a minutely careful law. In others, frauds, such as ballot stuffing and false counting, are said to be common, not only in city, but also in state and more rarely in federal elections. I have no data to determine how widely frauds prevail, for their existence can rarely be proved, and they often escape detection. They are sometimes suspected where they do not exist. It is however clear that in some states they are frequent enough to constitute a serious reproach.3

Another question is: Does the election machinery prevent intimidation, bribery, personation, repeating, and the other frauds which the agents of candidates or parties seek to perpetrate? Here, too, there are great differences between one state and city and another, differences due both to the laws and to the character of the population. Of intimidation there is now but little, save in a few cities, where roughs, or occasionally even the police, are said to molest a voter supposed to belong to the other party, or to be inclined to desert their own party. But till the enactment of the secret ballot laws, it sometimes happened that employers endeavoured to send their workingmen to the polls in a body in order to secure their votes; and the dislike to this was one of the motives which won popular favour for these laws. Repeating and personation are not rare in dense populations, where the agents and officials do not, and cannot, know the voters’ faces; and these frauds are sometimes organized on a grand scale by bringing bands of roughs from one city to another.

Bribery is a sporadic disease, but often intense when it occurs. Most parts of the Union are pure, as pure as Scotland, where since 1868 there has been only one election petition for alleged bribery. Other parts are no better than the small boroughs of Southern England were before the Corrupt Practices Act of 1883.4 No place, however, not even the poorest ward in New York City, sinks below the level of such constituencies as Yarmouth or Sandwich used to be in England. Bribery is seldom practised in America in the same way as it used to be at Rome, by distributing small sums among a large mass of poor electors, or even, as in many English boroughs, among a section of voters (not always the poorest) known to be venal, and accustomed to reserve their votes till shortly before the close of the poll. The American practice has been to give sums of from $20 to $50 to an active local “worker,” who undertakes to bring up a certain number of voters, perhaps twenty or thirty, whom he “owns” or can get at. He is not required to account for the money, and spends a comparatively small part of it in direct bribes, though something in drinks to the lower sort of elector. This kind of expenditure belongs to the category rather of paid canvassing than of bribery, yet sometimes the true European species occurs. In a New Hampshire rural town not long ago, $10 were paid to each of two hundred doubtful voters. In some districts of New York the friends of a candidate will undertake, in case he is returned, to pay the rent of the poorest voters who occupy tenement houses, and the candidate subsequently makes up the amount.5 The expenses of congressional and presidential elections are often heavy, and though the larger part goes in organization and demonstrations, meetings, torchlight processions, and so forth, a part is likely to go in some illicit way. A member of Congress for a poor district in a great city told me that his expenses ran from $8,000 up to $10,000, which is just about what a parliamentary contest used to cost in an English borough constituency of equal area. In America the number of voters in a congressional district is more than five times as great as in an average English constituency, but the official expenses of polling booths and clerks are not borne by the candidate. In a corrupt district along the Hudson River above New York I have heard of as much as $50,000 being spent at a single congressional election, when in some other districts of the state the expenses did not exceed $2,000. In a presidential election great sums are spent in doubtful, or, as they are called, “pivotal,” states. Indiana was “drenched with money” in 1880, much of it contributed by great corporations, and a large part doubtless went in bribery. What part ever does go it is the harder to determine, because elections are rarely impeached on this ground, both parties tacitly agreeing that bygones shall be bygones. The election of 1888 was one of the worst on record, so large was the expenditure in doubtful states. In that year well-informed Americans came to perceive that bribery at elections was a growing evil in their country, though even now they think it less noxious than either bossism or election frauds.

This alarm has favoured the movement for the enactment of laws against corrupt practices. More than half the states have now passed such statutes. New York requires every candidate and the treasurer of every political committee to file an itemized statement of receipts and expenditure. Every payment exceeding $5 must be accounted for in detail; and expenditures are restricted to certain purposes. The provisions vary from state to state; on the whole they seem to be working for good. The practice, so general in America, of conducting elections by a party committee, which makes its payments on behalf of all the candidates running in the same interests, renders it more difficult than it is in Britain to fix a definite limit to the expenditure, either by a candidate himself or upon the conduct of the election. However, some of the new laws attempt this, fixing a low scale for “campaign expenditures,” and imposing severe penalties on the receiver as well as giver of any bribe, whether to vote or to refrain from voting, a form in which bribery seems to be pretty frequent. Other but much lighter penalties are imposed on the practice of treating. It seems probable that the blow struck at electoral corruption by the secret ballot laws will be followed up by a general limitation of expenditures. Another important advance has been made by a federal law which requires the publication of the sums received by party committees in federal elections, and by another which seeks to end the pernicious habit into which large corporations had fallen of making contributions, usually kept secret, to party campaign expenditure.

On the whole the shadows have not darkened; the presidential election of 1912 cost relatively less than preceding contests had done for many years. The Republican National Committee returned its total receipts at $904,828, while those of the Democratic National Committee were $1,159,446, and those of the Progressive National Committee $676,672. These figures, however, do not include the sums received and expended by state committees, part of which went to the conduct of the national campaign.

It is always difficult to estimate the exact value of laws which propose to effect by mechanical methods reforms which in themselves are largely moral. This much, however, may be said, that while in all countries there is a proportion (varying from age to age and country to country) of good men who will act honourably whatever the law, and similarly a proportion of bad men who will try to break or evade the best laws, there is also a considerable number of men standing between these two classes, whose tendency to evil is not too strong to be repressed by law, and in whom a moral sense is sufficiently present to be capable of stimulation and education by a good law. Although it is true that you cannot make men moral by a statute, you can arm good citizens with weapons which improve their chances in the unceasing conflict with the various forms in which political dishonesty appears. The value of weapons, however, depends upon the energy of those who use them. These improved ballot acts and corrupt practices acts need to be vigorously enforced, for the disposition, of which there have been some signs, to waive the penalties they impose, and to treat election frauds and other similar offences as trivial matters, would go far to nullify the effect to be expected from the statutes.

Strong arguments have been adduced in favour of another reform in election laws, viz., the trial of contested elections, not, as now, by the legislative body to which the candidate claims to have been chosen, but by a court of law. The determinations of a legislature are almost invariably coloured by party feeling, and are usually decided by a party majority in favour of the contestant whose admission would increase their strength. Hence they obtain little respect, while corrupt or illegal practices do not receive their due condemnation in the avoidance of the election they have tainted. Against these considerations there must be set the danger that the judges who try such cases may sometimes show, or be thought to show, political partisanship, and that the credit of the bench may thus suffer. The experience of England, where disputed parliamentary elections have since 1867 been tried by judges of the superior courts, and municipal elections since 1883 by county court judges, does not wholly dispose of this apprehension; for it happens every now and then that judges are accused of partiality, or at least of an unconscious bias. Still, British opinion prefers the present system to the old one under which committee of the House of Commons tried election petitions. In the United States the validity of the election of an executive officer sometimes comes before the courts, and the courts, as a rule, decide such cases with fairness. The balance of reason and authority seems to lie with those who, like ex-Speaker Reed, have advocated the change. It was proposed as a constitutional amendment by the legislature of New York to the voters in 1892, but rejected. Latterly it seems to have dropped out of sight.

Not satisfied, however, with the purification of election methods, some few reformers go further, and have proposed to render the ballot box a more complete representation of the will of the people by making voting compulsory. The idea is not quite new; in some Greek states citizens were compelled to attend the assembly; similar provisions were to be found in parts of the United States in last century, while in modern Switzerland several cantons fine electors who fail to vote at elections or when laws are proposed under a referendum. The Swiss evidence as to the merits of the plan is not uniform. In St. Gallen, for instance, where it was introduced so far back as 1835, it seems to have worked well, while in Solothurn it proved ineffective, and was ultimately abolished. On the whole, however, the effect would seem to have been to bring out a comparatively heavy vote, sometimes reaching 83 and even 84 per cent of the registered electors, though it deserves to be noticed that the cantons in which the plan exists are, speaking generally, those in which political life is anyhow most active.6 In the United States, however, abstention from voting does not appear to be a very serious, and certainly is not a growing, evil. City and state elections sometimes fail to draw even three-fourths of the voters to the polls; but in the presidential election of 1880, a year coinciding with that of the national census, and therefore suitable for investigation, 84 per cent of the qualified voters in the whole United States actually tendered their votes, while of the remaining 16 per cent fully three-fourths can be accounted for by illness, old age, necessary causes of absence, and, in the case of the Southern Negroes, intimidation, leaving not more than 4 per cent out of the total number of voters who may seem to have stayed away from pure indifference.7 This was a good result as compared with Germany, or with the United Kingdom, where 77 per cent is considered a pretty high proportion to secure, though at some recent British elections the figure has gone above 80 per cent. In the presidential election of 1892 the total number of votes cast showed only about half the increase on 1888 which the estimated growth of population ought to have given. This abstention, however, may have been largely due not to indifference, but to an unwillingness in one party to support the party candidate. In the election of 1900 the percentages varied much in different states, but do not seem to have reached on an average, 80 per cent. In 1912 the total popular vote was about a million and a half more than in 1900. The increased proportion of the population of aliens and disfranchised Negroes makes it difficult to form an estimate.

The plan of compelling men to vote on pain of being fined or incurring some disability is not likely to be adopted, and one of the arguments against it is indicated by the cause suggested for the abstentions of 1892. It is not desirable to deprive electors displeased by the nomination of a candidate of the power of protesting against him by declining to vote at all. At present, when bad nominations are made, independent voters can express their disapproval by refusing to vote for these candidates. Were voting compulsory, they would probably, so strong is party spirit, vote for these bad men rather than for their opponents, not to add that the opponents might be equally objectionable. Thus the power of party leaders and of the machine generally might be increased. I doubt, however, whether such a law as suggested could, if enacted, be effectively enforced; and it is not well to add another to the list of half-executed statutes.

The abuse of the right of appointing election officers can hardly be called a corrupt practice; yet it has in some places and notably in New York City, caused serious mischiefs. There elections were for a time under the control of the Police Board, but this plan gave rise to great abuses, and now elections have by statute been placed in charge of a special board of four commissioners, two of whom must be Republicans, two Democrats, there being also in each district four election inspectors, again two Republicans and two Democrats, with a ballot clerk from each party.8 The selection of shops or other buildings as polling places is made by the board on the recommendation of the parties, each being allowed a half share.

The particular form of evil here described, now checked in some states, still flourishes like a green bay tree in others. But on the whole, as will have been gathered from this chapter, the record of recent progress is encouraging, and not least encouraging in this, that the less honest politicians themselves have been forced to accept and pass measures of reform which public opinion, previously apathetic or ignorant, had been aroused by a few energetic voices to demand.

chapter 67

Corruption

No impression regarding American politics is more generally diffused in Europe than that contained in the question which the traveller who has returned from the United States becomes so weary of being asked, “Isn’t everybody corrupt there?” It is an impression for which the Americans themselves, with their airy way of talking about their own country, their fondness for broad effects, their enjoyment of a good story and humorous pleasure in exaggerations generally, are largely responsible. European visitors who, generally belonging to the wealthier classes, are generally reactionary in politics, and glad to find occasion for disparaging popular government, eagerly catch up and repeat the stories they are told in New York or San Francisco. European readers take literally the highly coloured pictures of some American novels and assume that the descriptions there given of certain men and groups “inside politics”—descriptions legitimate enough in a novel—hold true of all men and groups following that unsavoury trade. Europeans, moreover, and Englishmen certainly not less than other Europeans, have a useful knack of forgetting their own shortcomings when contemplating those of their neighbours; so you may hear men wax eloquent over the depravity of transatlantic politicians who will sail very near the wind in giving deceptive pledges to their own constituents, who will support flagrant jobs done on behalf of their own party, who will accept favours from, and dine with, and receive at their own houses, financial speculators and members of the legislature whose aims are just as base, and whose standard is just as low as those of the worst congressman that ever came to push his fortune in Washington.

I am sensible of the extreme difficulty of estimating the amount of corruption that prevails in the United States. If a native American does not know—as few do—how deep it goes nor how widely it is spread, much less can a stranger. I have, however, submitted the impressions I formed to the judgment of some fair-minded and experienced American friends, and am assured by them that these impressions are substantially correct; that is to say, that they give a view of the facts such as they have themselves formed from an observation incomparably wider than that of a European traveller could be.

The word “corruption” needs to be analyzed.1 It is used to cover several different kinds of political unsoundness.

One sense, the most obvious, is the taking or giving of money bribes. Another sense is the taking or giving of bribes in kind, e.g., the allotment of a certain quantity of stock or shares in a company, or of an interest in a profitable contract, or of a land grant. The offence is essentially the same as where a money bribe passes, but to most people it does not seem the same, partly because the taking of money is a more unmistakable selling of one’s self, partly because it is usually uncertain how the bribe given in kind will turn out, and a man excuses himself by thinking that its value will depend on how he develops the interest he has obtained. A third sense of the word includes the doing of a job, e.g., promising a contractor that he shall have the clothing of the police or the cleaning of the city thoroughfares in return for his political support; giving official advertisements to a particular newspaper which puffs you; promising a railroad president, whose subscription to party funds is hoped for, to secure the defeat of a bill seeking to regulate the freight charges of his road or threatening its land grants. These cases shade off into those of the last preceding group, but they seem less black, because the act done is one which would probably be done anyhow by someone else from no better motive, and because the turpitude consists not in getting a private gain but in misusing a public position to secure a man’s own political advancement. Hence the virtue that will resist a bribe will often succumb to these temptations.

There is also the sense in which the bestowal of places of power and profit from personal motives is said to be a corrupt exercise of patronage. Opinion has in all countries been lenient to such action when the place is given as a reward of party services, but the line between a party and a personal service cannot be easily drawn.

Then, lastly, one sometimes hears the term stretched to cover insincerity in professions of political faith. To give pledges and advocate measures which one inwardly dislikes and deems opposed to the public interest is a form of misconduct which seems far less gross than to sell one’s vote or influence, but it may be, in a given instance, no less injurious to the state.

Although these two latter sets of cases do not fall within the proper meaning and common use of the word “corruption,” it seems worthwhile to mention them, because derelictions of duty which a man thinks trivial in the form with which custom has made him familiar in his own country, where perhaps they are matter for merriment, shock him when they appear in a different form in another country. They get mixed up in his mind with venality, and are cited to prove that the country is corrupt and its politicians profligate. A European who does not blame a minister for making a man governor of a colony because he has done some backstairs parliamentary work, will be shocked at seeing in New York someone put into the customhouse in order that he may organize primaries in the district of the congressman who has got him the place. English members of Parliament condemn the senator who moves a resolution intended to “placate” the Irish vote, while they forget their own professions of ardent interest in schemes which they think economically unsound but likely to rouse the flagging interest of the agricultural labourer. Distinguishing these senses in which the word “corruption” is used, let us attempt to inquire how far it is chargeable on the men who compose each of the branches of the American federal and state government.

No president has ever been seriously charged with pecuniary corruption. The presidents have been men very different in their moral standard, and sometimes neither scrupulous nor patriotic, but money or money’s worth they have never touched for themselves, great as the temptations must have been to persons with small means and heavy expenses. They have doubtless often made bad appointments from party motives, have sought to strengthen themselves by the use of their patronage, have talked insincerely and tolerated jobs; but all these things have also been done within the last thirty years by sundry English, French, and Italian prime ministers, some of whom have since been canonized.

The standard of honour maintained by the presidents has not always been maintained by the leading members of recent administrations, several of whom have been suspected of complicity in railroad jobs, and even in frauds upon the revenue. They may not have, probably they did not, put any part of the plunder into their own pockets, but they have winked at the misdeeds of their subordinates, and allowed the party funds to be replenished, not by direct malversation, yet by rendering services to influential individuals or corporations which a strict sense of public duty would have forbidden. On the other hand, it is fair to say that there seems to be no case since the war—although there was a bad case in President Buchanan’s cabinet just before the war—in which a member of the cabinet has received money, or its equivalent, as a price of either an executive act or an appointment, while inferior officials, who have been detected in so doing (and this occasionally happens), have been dismissed and disgraced.2

Next, as to Congress. It is particularly hard to discover the truth about Congress, for few of the abundant suspicions excited and accusations brought against senators or members of the House have been, or could have been, sifted to the bottom. Among nearly five hundred men there will be the clean and the unclean. The opportunities for private gain are large, the chances of detection small; few members keep their seats for five or six successive congresses, and one-third are changed every two years, so the temptation to make hay while the sun shines is all the stronger.

There are several forms which temptation takes in the federal legislature. One is afforded by the position a member holds on a committee. All bills and many resolutions are referred to some one of the committees, and it is in the committee-room that their fate is practically decided. In a small body each member has great power, and the exercise of power (as observed already)3 is safeguarded by little responsibility. He may materially advance a bill promoted by an influential manufacturer, or financier, or railroad president. He may obstruct it. He may help, or may oppose, a bill directed against a railroad or other wealthy corporation, which has something to gain or lose from federal legislation.4 No small part of the business of Congress is what would be called in England private business; and although the individual railroads which come directly into relation with the Federal government are not numerous—the great transcontinental lines which have received land grants or other subventions are the most important—questions affecting these roads have frequently come up and have involved large amounts of money. The tariff on imports opens another enormous sphere in which legislative intervention affects private pecuniary interests; for it makes all the difference to many sets of manufacturers whether duties on certain classes of goods are raised, or maintained, or lowered. Hence the doors of Congress are besieged by a whole army of commercial or railroad men and their agents, to whom, since they have come to form a sort of profession, the name of lobbyists is given.5 Many congressmen are personally interested, and lobby for themselves among their colleagues from the vantage ground of their official positions.

Thus a vast deal of solicitation and bargaining goes on. Lobbyists offer considerations for help in passing a bill which is desired or in stopping a bill which is feared. Two members, each of whom has a bill to get through, or one of whom desires to prevent his railroad from being interfered with while the other wishes the tariff on an article which he manufactures kept up, make a compact by which each aids the other. This is logrolling: You help me to roll my log, which is too heavy for my unaided strength, and I help you to roll yours. Sometimes a member brings in a bill directed against some railroad or other great corporation, merely in order to levy blackmail upon it. This is technically called a strike. An eminent railroad president told me that for some years a certain senator regularly practised this trick. When he had brought in his bill he came straight to New York, called at the railroad offices, and asked the president what he would give him to withdraw the bill. That the Capitol and the hotels at Washington are a nest of such intrigues and machinations, while Congress is sitting, is admitted on all hands; but how many of the members are tainted no one can tell. Sometimes when money passes it goes not to the member of Congress himself, but to some boss who can and does put pressure on him. Sometimes, again, a lobbyist will demand a sum for the purpose of bribing a member who is really honest, and, having ascertained that the member is going to vote in the way desired, will keep the sum in his own pocket. Bribery often takes the form of a transfer of stocks or shares, nor have even free passes on railroads been scorned by some of the more needy legislators. The abuse on this head had grown so serious that the bestowal of passes was forbidden [on interstate lines] by federal statute in 1887 and is now forbidden by the constitutions of many states.6 In 1883 portions of a correspondence in the years 1876–78 between Mr. Huntington, one of the proprietors and directors of the Central (now Southern) Pacific Railroad, who then represented that powerful corporation at Washington, and one of his agents in California, were published; and from these it appeared that the company, whose land grants were frequently threatened by hostile bills, and which was exposed to the competition of rival enterprises, which (because they were to run through Territories) Congress was asked to sanction, defended itself by constant dealings with senators and representatives—dealings in the course of which it offered money and bonds to those whose support it needed.7

It does not seem, from what one hears on the spot, that money is often given, or, I should rather say, it seems that the men to whom it is given are few in number. But considerations of some kind pretty often pass,8 so that corruption in both the first and second of the above senses must be admitted to exist and to affect a portion, though only a small portion of Congress.9 A position of some delicacy is occupied by eminent lawyers who sit in Congress and receive retainers from powerful corporations whose interests may be affected by congressional legislation, retainers for which they are often not expected to render any forensic service.10 There are various ways in which members of Congress can use their position to advance their personal interests. They have access to the executive, and can obtain favours from it; not so much because the executive cares what legislation they pass, for it has little to do with legislation, but that the members of the cabinet are on their promotion, and anxious to stand well with persons whose influence covers any considerable local area, who may perhaps be even able to control the delegation of a state in a nominating convention. Hence a senator or congressman may now and then sway the executive towards a course it would not otherwise have taken, and the resulting gain to himself, or to some person who has invoked his influence, may be an illicit gain, probably not in the form of money, but as a job out of which something may be made. Again, it has been hitherto an important part of a member’s duty to obtain places for his constituents in the federal civil service. There are still many such places not subject to the civil service rules. Here there has lain a vast field, if not for pecuniary gain, for appointments are not sold, yet for the gratification of personal and party interests. Nor does the mischief stop with the making of inferior appointments, for the habit of ignoring public duty which is formed blunts men’s sense of honour, and makes them more apt to yield to some grosser form of temptation. Similar causes produced similar effects during last century in England, and it is said that the French legislature now suffers from the like malady, members of the chamber being incessantly occupied in wheedling or threatening the executive into conferring places or decorations upon their constituents.

The rank and file of the federal civil service attain a level of integrity as high as that of England or Germany. The state civil service is comparatively small, and in most states one hears little said against it; yet cases of defaulting state treasurers are not uncommon. Taking one part of the country with another, a citizen who has business with a government department, such as the customs or excise, or with a state treasurer’s office, or with a poor-law or school authority, has as much expectation of finding honest men to deal with as he has of finding trustworthy agents to conduct a piece of private commercial business. Instances of dishonesty are more noticed when they occur in a public department, but they seem to be little (if at all) more frequent.11

It is hard to form a general judgment regarding the state legislatures, because they differ so much among themselves. Those of Massachusetts, Vermont, and several of the Northwestern states, such as Michigan, are pure, i.e., the members who would take a bribe are but few, and those who would push through a job for some other sort of consideration a comparatively small fraction of the whole.12 Even in the Northwest, however, a wealthy man has great advantages in securing a federal senatorship at the hands of the legislature.13 Some states, including New York and Pennsylvania, have so bad a name that people profess to be surprised when a good act passes, and a strong governor is kept constantly at work vetoing bills corruptly obtained. Several causes have contributed to degrade the legislature of New York State. The Assembly having but 150 members, and the Senate 51, each member is worth buying. There are in the state, besides New York, several considerable ring-governed cities whence bad members come. There are also immensely powerful corporations, such as the great railroads which traverse it on their way to the West. Great corporations are the bane of state politics, for their management is secret, being usually in the hands of one or two capitalists, and their wealth is so large that they can offer bribes at which ordinary virtue grows pale. They have, moreover, in many cases this excuse, that it is only by the use of money they can ward off the attacks constantly made upon them by demagogues or blackmailers. The Assembly includes many honest men, and a few rich men who do not need a douceur, but the proportion of tainted men is large enough to pollute the whole lump. Of what the bribetaker gets he keeps a part for himself, using the rest to buy the doubtful votes of purchaseable people; to others he promises his assistance when they need it, and when by such logrolling he has secured a considerable backing, he goes to the honest men, among whom, of course, he has a considerable acquaintance, puts he matter to them in a plausible way—they are probably plain farmers from the rural districts—and so gains his majority. Each great corporation keeps an agent at Albany, the capital of the state, who has authority to buy off the promoters of hostile bills, and to employ the requisite professional lobbyists. Such a lobbyist, who may or may not be himself a member, bargains for a sum down, $5,000 or $10,000, in case he succeeds in getting the bill in question passed or defeated, as the case may be; and when the session ends he comes for his money, and no questions are asked. This sort of thing now goes on, or has lately gone on, in several other states, though nowhere on so grand a scale. Virginia, Maryland, California, Illinois, Missouri, are all more or less impure; Louisiana, under the influence of its lottery company (now happily at an end), was even worse than New York.14 But the lowest point was reached in some of the Southern states shortly after the war, when, the Negroes having received the suffrage, the white inhabitants were still excluded as rebels, and the executive government was conducted by Northern carpetbaggers under the protection of Federal troops. In some states the treasury was pilfered; huge state debts were run up; Negroes voted farms to themselves; all kinds of robbery and jobbery went on unchecked. South Carolina, for instance, was a perfect Tartarus of corruption, as much below the Hades of Illinois or Missouri as the heaven of ideal purity is above the ordinary earth of Boston and Westminister.15 In its legislature there was an old darkey, jet black and with venerable white hair, a Methodist preacher, and influential among his brother statesmen, who kept a stall for legislation, where he dealt in statutes at prices varying from $100 to $400. Since those days there has been a peaceful revolution for the better at the South, but some of its legislative bodies have still much leeway to make up.

Of city governments I have spoken in previous chapters. They are usually worse when the population begins to exceed 100,000, and includes a large proportion of recent immigrants. They are generally pure in smaller places, that is to say, they are as pure as those of an average English, French, or German city.

The form which corruption usually takes in the populous cities is the sale of “franchises” (especially monopolies in the use of public thoroughfares)—a frequent and scandalous practice16 —the jobbing of contracts, and the bestowal of places upon personal adherents, both of them faults not unknown in large European municipalities, and said to be specially rife in Paris, though no rifer than under Louis Napoleon, when the reconstruction of the city under Prefect Haussman provided unequalled opportunities for the enrichment of individuals at the public expense. English small local authorities, and even, though much more rarely, town councils, do some quiet jobbery. No European city has, however, witnessed scandals approaching those of New York, where the public was in 1869–70 robbed on a vast scale, and accounts were systematically cooked to conceal the thefts,17 or the malversations that occurred in connection with the Philadelphia City Hall and with the erection of the Pennsylvania State Capitol at Harrisburg.

On a review of the whole matter, the following conclusions may be found not very wide of the truth.

Bribery exists in Congress, but is confined to a few members, say 5 per cent of the whole number. It is more common in the legislatures of a few, but only a few, states, practically absent from the higher walks of the federal civil service, rare among the chief state officials, not frequent among the lower officials, unknown among the federal judges, rare among state judges.18

The taking of other considerations than money, such as a share in a lucrative contract, or a railway pass, or a “good thing” to be secured for a friend, prevails among legislators to a somewhat larger extent. Being less coarsely palpable than the receipt of money, it is thought more venial. One may roughly conjecture that from 15 to 20 per cent of the members of Congress and perhaps rather more of an average state legislature would allow themselves to be influenced by inducements of this kind.

Malversation of public funds occurs occasionally in cities, rarely among federal or state officers.

Jobbery of various kinds, i.e., the misuse of a public position for the benefit of individuals, is not rare, and in large cities common. It is often disguised as a desire to render some service to the party, and the same excuse is sometimes found for a misappropriation of public money.

Patronage is usually dispensed with a view to party considerations or to win personal support. But this remark is equally true of England and France, the chief difference being that owing to the short terms and frequent removals the quantity of patronage is relatively greater in the United States.

If this is not a bright picture, neither is it so dark as that which most Europeans have drawn, and which the loose language of many Americans sanctions. What makes it seem dark is the contrast between the deficiencies which the government shows in this respect, and the excellence, on the one hand of the frame of the Constitution, on the other of the tone and sentiment of the people. The European reader may, however, complain that the picture is vague in its outlines. I cannot make it more definite. The facts are not easy to ascertain, and it is hard to say what standard one is to apply to them. In the case of America men are inclined to apply an ideal standard, because she is a republic, professing to have made a new departure in politics, and setting before her a higher ideal than most European monarchies. Yet it must be remembered that in a new and large country, where the temptations are enormous and the persons tempted have many of them no social position to forfeit, the conditions are not the most favourable to virtue. If, recognizing the fact that the path of the politician is in all countries thickly set with snares, we leave ideals out of sight and try America by the average concrete standard of Europe, we shall find that while her legislative bodies fall much below the level of purity maintained in England and Germany, and also below that of France and Italy, the body of her higher federal officials, in spite of the evils flowing from an uncertain tenure, is not, in point of integrity, at this moment markedly inferior to the administrations of most European countries. This is perhaps less generally true of most of the state officials; and it certainly cannot be said of those who administer the business of the larger cities, for the standard of purity has there sunk to a point lower than that which the municipalities of any European country show.

chapter 68

The War Against Bossdom

It must not be supposed the inhabitants of ring-ruled cities tamely submit to their tyrants. The Americans are indeed, what with their good nature and what with the preoccupation of the most active men in their private business, a long-suffering people. But patience has its limits, and when a ring has pushed paternal government too far, an insurrection may break out. Rings have generally the sense to scent the coming storm, and to avert it by making two or three good nominations, and promising a reduction of taxes. Sometimes, however, they hold on their course fearless and shameless, and then the storm breaks upon them.

There are several forms which a reform movement or other popular rising takes. The recent history of great cities supplies examples of each. The first form is an attack upon the primaries.1 They are the key of a ring’s position, and when they have been captured their batteries can be turned against the ring itself. When an assault upon the bosses is resolved upon, the first thing is to form a committee. It issues a manifesto calling on all good citizens to attend the primaries of their respective wards, and there vote for delegates opposed to the ring. The newspapers take the matter up, and repeat the exhortation. As each primary is held, on the night fixed by the ward committee of the regular (that is, the ring) organization, some of the reformers appear at it, and propose a list of delegates, between whom and the ring’s list a vote of the members of the primary is taken. This may succeed in some of the primaries, but rarely in a majority of them; because (as explained in a previous chapter) the rolls seldom or never include the whole party voters of the ward, having been prepared by the professionals in their own interest. Sometimes only one-fourth or one-fifth of the voters are on the primary roll, and these are of course the men on whom the ring can rely. Hence, even if the good citizens of the district, obeying the call of patriotism and the reform committee, present themselves at the primary, they may find so few of their number on the roll that they will be outvoted by the ringsters. But the most serious difficulty is the apathy of the respectable, steady-going part of the population to turn out in sufficient numbers. They have their engagements of business or pleasure to attend to, or it is a snowy night and their wives persuade them to stay indoors. The well-conducted men of small means are an eminently domestic class, who think they do quite enough for the city and the nation if they vote at the polls. It is still more difficult to induce the rich to interest themselves in confessedly disagreeable work. They find themselves at a primary in strange and uncongenial surroundings. Accustomed to be treated with deference in their countinghouse or manufactory, they are jostled by a rough crowd, and find that their servants or workmen are probably better known and more influential than they are themselves. They recognize by sight few of the persons present, for, in a city, acquaintance does not go by proximity of residence, and are therefore at a disadvantage for combined action, whereas the professional politicians are a regiment where every private in each company knows his fellow private and obeys the officers. Hence, the best, perhaps the only chance of capturing a primary is by the action of a group of active young men who will take the trouble of organizing the movement by beating up the members of the party who reside in the district, and bearding the local bosses in the meeting. It is a rough and toilsome piece of work, but young men find a compensation in the fun which is to be had out of the fight; and when a victory is won, theirs is the credit. To carry a few primaries is only the first step. The contest has to be renewed in the convention, where the odds are still in favour of the professionals, who “know the ropes” and may possibly outwit even a majority of reform delegates. The managing committee is in their hands, and they can generally secure a chairman in their interests. Experience has accordingly shown that this method of attacking the machine very rarely succeeds; and though the duty of attending the primaries continues to be preached, the advice shares the fate of most sermons. Once in a way, the respectable voter will rouse himself, but he cannot be trusted to continue to do so year after year. He is like those citizen-soldiers of ancient Greece who would turn out for a summer inroad into the enemy’s country, but refused to keep the field through the autumn and winter.

A second expedient, which may be tried instead of the first, or resorted to after the first has been tried and failed, is to make an independent list of nominations and run a separate set of candidates. If this strategy be resolved on, the primaries are left unheeded; but when the election approaches, a committee is formed which issues a list of candidates for some or all of the vacant offices in opposition to the “regular” list issued by the party convention, and conducts the agitation on their behalf. This saves all trouble in primaries or conventions, but involves much trouble in elections, because a complete campaign corps has to be organized, and a campaign fund raised.2 Moreover, the average voter, not having followed politics closely enough to comprehend his true duty and interest, and yielding to his established party habits, inclines, especially in state and federal elections, to vote the “regular ticket.” He starts with a certain prejudice against those who are “troubling Israel” by dividing the party, because he sees that in all probability the result will be not to carry the independent ticket, but to let in the candidates of the opposite party. Hence the bolting independents can rarely hope to carry so large a part of their own party with them as to win the election. The result of their action will rather be to bring in the candidates of the other side, who may be no better than the men on the ticket of their own ring. Accordingly, reformers have become reluctant to take this course, for though it has the merit of relieving their feelings, it exposes them to odium, involves great labour, and effects nothing more than may be obtained by one or other of the two methods which I have next to describe.

The third plan is to abstain from voting for the names on your party ticket to which you object. This is scratching. You are spared the trouble of running candidates of your own, but your abstention, if the parties are nearly balanced, causes the defeat of the bad candidates whom your own party puts forward, and brings in those of the other party. This is a good plan when you want to frighten a ring, and yet cannot get the more timid reformers to go the length of voting either an independent ticket or the ticket of the other party. It is employed when a ring ticket is not bad all through, but contains some fair names mingled with some names of corrupt or dangerous men. You scratch the latter and thereby cause their defeat; the others, receiving the full strength of the party, are carried.

If, however, indignation against a dominant ring has risen so high as to overcome the party predilections of ordinary citizens, if it is desired to administer condign and certain punishment to those who have abused the patience of the people, the reformers will take a more decided course. They urge their friends to vote the ticket of the opposite party, either entire or at least all the better names on it, thus ensuring its victory. This is an efficient method, but a desperate one, for you put into power a ring of the party which you have been opposing all your life, and whose members are possibly quite as corrupt as those of the ring which controls your own party. The gain you look for is not therefore the immediate gain of securing better city government, but the ultimate gain of raising the general practice of politics by the punishment of evildoers. Hence, whenever there is time to do so, the best policy is for the reformers to make overtures to the opposite party, and induce them by the promise of support to nominate better candidates than they would have nominated if left to themselves. A group of bolters afraid of being called traitors to their party, will shrink from this course; and if they are weak in numbers, their approaches may be repulsed by the opposition. But the scheme is always worth trying, and has several times been crowned with success. By it the reforming party among the Democrats of Baltimore once managed to defeat their ring in an election of judges. They settled in conference with the Republicans a nonpartisan ticket, which gave the Republicans (who were a minority) a better share of the bench than they could have got by fighting alone, and which substituted respectable Democrats for the objectionable names on the regular Democratic ticket. A similar combination of the reform Republicans in Philadelphia with the Democrats, who in that city are in a permanent minority, led to the defeat of the Republican Gas Ring (whereof more in a later chapter). This method has the advantage of saving expense, because the bolters can use the existing machinery of the opposite party, which organizes the meetings and circulates the literature. It is on the whole the most promising strategy, but needs tact as well as vigour on the part of the independent leaders. Nor will the opposite party always accept the proffered help. Sometimes it fears the gifts of the Greeks, sometimes it hopes to win unhelped, and therefore will not sacrifice any of its candidates to the scruples of the reformers. Sometimes its chiefs dislike the idea of reform so heartily as to prefer defeat at the hands of a ring of the other party to a victory which might weaken the hold of professionals upon the machine and lead to a general purification of politics.

If the opposite party refuses the overtures of the reformers who are “kicking” against their own machine, or will not purify the ticket sufficiently to satisfy them, there remains the chance of forming a third party out of the best men of both the regular organizations, and starting a third set of candidates. This is an extension and improvement of the first of the four enumerated methods, and has the greater promise of success because it draws votes from both parties instead of from one only. It has been frequently employed of late years in cities, generally of the second order, by running what is called a “citizens’ ticket.”

Of course bolters who desert their own party at a city election do not intend permanently to separate themselves from it. Probably they will vote its ticket at the next state or presidential election. Their object is to shake the power of their local boss, and if they cannot overthrow the ring, at least to frighten it into better behavior. This they often effect. After the defeat of some notorious candidates, the jobs are apt to be less flagrant. But such repentances are like those of the sick wolf in the fable, and experience proves that when the public vigilance has been relaxed, the ringsters of both parties return to their wallowing in the mire.

The difficulties of getting good citizens to maintain a steady war against the professionals have been found so great, and in particular the attempt to break their control of the primaries has so often failed, that remedies have been sought in legislation. Not a few states have extended the penalties attached to bribery and frauds at public elections to similar offences committed at primaries and nominating conventions, deeming these acts to be, as in fact they are, scarcely less hurtful to the community when practised at purely voluntary and private gatherings than when employed at elections, seeing that the average electors follow the regular nomination like so many sheep: it is the candidate’s party label, not his own character, that is voted for. And now, as already observed, by the laws regulating primaries passed in almost every state, bribery or any sort of fraud practised at a primary election is made an offence punishable as if it was a final election.3 Similar provisions protect the delegate to a convention from the candidate, the candidate from the delegate, and the party from both. Minnesota led the way by a set of stringent regulations, making the annulment or destruction of any ballots cast at a party meeting held for the purpose of choosing either candidates or delegates, or the wrongfully preventing persons from voting who are entitled to vote, or personation, or “any other fraud or wrong tending to defeat or affect the result of the election,” a misdemeanour punishable by a fine not exceeding $3,000, or three years’ imprisonment, or both penalties combined.4 Europeans are surprised that legislation should not only recognize parties, but should actually attempt to regulate the internal proceedings of a political party at a perfectly voluntary gathering of its own members, a gathering whose resolutions no one is bound to obey or regard in any way. But it was because the machine had succeeded in nullifying the freedom of the voter that statutes were framed to protect even his voluntary acion as a member of a party. That such a plan should be tried at all is a phenomenon to be seriously pondered by those who are accustomed to point to America as the country where the principle of leaving things alone has worked most widely and usefully; and it is the strongest evidence of the immense vigour of these party organizations, and of the authority their nominations exert, that reformers, foiled in the effort to purify them by appeals to the conscience and public spirit of the voter himself, should be driven to invoke the arm of the law.

The struggle between the professional politicians and the reformers has been going on in the great cities, with varying fortune, since 1870. As illustrations of the incidents that mark it will be found in subsequent chapters, I will here say only that in the onslaughts on the rings, which most elections bring round, the reformers, though they seldom capture the citadel, often destroy some of the outworks, and frighten the garrison into a more cautious and moderate use of their power. After an election in which an “independent ticket” has received considerable support, the bosses are disposed to make better nominations, and, as an eminent New York professional (the late Mr. Fernando Wood) said, “to pander a little to the moral sense of the community.” Every campaign teaches the reformers where the enemy’s weak points lie, and gives them more of that technical skill which has hitherto been the strength of the professionals. It is a warfare of volunteers against disciplined troops, but the volunteers, since they are fighting for the taxpayers at large, would secure so great a preponderance of numbers, if they could but move the whole body of respectable citizens, that their triumph will evidently depend in the long run upon their own constancy and earnestness. If their zeal does not flag; if they do not suffer themselves to be disheartened by frequent repulses; if, not relying too absolutely on any one remedy, they attack the enemy at every point, using every social and educational as well as legal appliance, the example of their disinterested public spirit, as well as the cogency of their arguments, cannot fail to tell on the voters; and no boss, however adroit, no ring, however strongly entrenched, will be able to withstand them. The war, however, will not be over when the enemy has been routed. Although much may be done by legislative remedies, such as new election laws, new provisions against corruption, a reconstruction of the frame of city government, and a purification of the civil service, there are certain internal and, so to speak, natural causes of mischief, the removal of which will need patience and unremitting diligence. In great cities—for it is throughout chiefly of cities that we have to think—a large section of the voters will, for many years to come, be comparatively ignorant of the methods of free government which they are set to work. They will be ignorant even of their own interests, failing to perceive that wasteful expenditure injures those who do not pay direct taxes, as well as those who do. Retaining some of the feelings which their European experience has tended to produce, they will distrust appeals coming from the best-educated classes, and be inclined to listen to loose-tongued demagogues. Once they have joined a party they will vote at the bidding of its local leaders, however personally unworthy.5 While this section remains numerous, rings and bosses will always have materials ready to their hands. There is, however, reason to expect that with the progress of time this section will become relatively smaller. And even now, large as it is, it could be overthrown and bossdom extirpated, were the better citizens to maintain unbroken through a series of elections that unity and vigour of action of which they have at rare moments, and under the impulse of urgent duty, shown themselves capable. In America, as everywhere else in the world, the commonwealth suffers more often from apathy or shortsightedness in the richer classes, who ought to lead, than from ignorance or recklessness in the humbler classes, who are generally ready to follow when they are wisely and patriotically led.

chapter 69

National Nominating Conventions

In every American election there are two acts of choice, two periods of contest. The first is the selection of the candidate from within the party by the party; the other is the struggle between the parties for the post. Frequently the former of these is more important, more keenly fought over, than the latter, for there are many districts in which the predominance of one party is so marked that its candidate is sure of success, and therefore the choice of a candidate is virtually the choice of the officer or representative.

Preceding chapters have described the machinery which exists for choosing and nominating a candidate. The process was similar, and, subject to the variations introduced by the recent primary laws, is still similar in every state of the Union, and through all elections to office, from the lowest to the highest, from that of common councilman for a city ward up to that of president of the United States. But, of course, the higher the office, and the larger the area over which the election extends, the greater are the efforts made to secure the nomination, and the hotter the passions it excites. The choice of a candidate for the presidency is so striking and peculiar a feature of the American system that it deserves a full examination.

Like most political institutions, the system of nominating the president by a popular convention is the result of a long process of evolution.

In the first two elections, those of 17891 and 1792, there was no need for nominations of candidates, because the whole nation wished and expected George Washington to be elected. So too, when in 1796 Washington declared his retirement, the dominant feeling of one party was for John Adams, that of the other for Thomas Jefferson, and nobody thought of setting out formally what was so generally understood.

In 1800, however, the year of the fourth election, there was somewhat less unanimity. The prevailing sentiment of the Federalists went for reelecting Adams, and the small conclave of Federalist members of Congress which met to promote his interest was deemed scarcely necessary. The (Democratic) Republicans, however, while united in desiring to make Jefferson president, hesitated as to their candidate for the vice-presidency, and a meeting of Republican members of Congress was therefore called to recommend Aaron Burr for this office. It was a small meeting and a secret meeting, but it is memorable not only as the first congressional caucus but as the first attempt to arrange in any way a party nomination.

In 1804 a more regular gathering for the same purpose was held. All the Republican members of Congress were summoned to meet; and they unanimously nominated Jefferson for president, and George Clinton of New York for vice-president. So in 1808 nearly all the Republican majority in both houses of Congress met and formally nominated Madison and Clinton. The same course was followed in 1812, and again in 1816. But the objections which were from the first made to this action of the party in Congress, as being an arrogant usurpation of the rights of the people—for no one dreamed of leaving freedom to the presidential electors—gained rather than lost strength on each successive occasion, so much so that in 1820 the few who met made no nomination,2 and in 1824, out of the Democratic members of both houses of Congress summoned to the “nominating caucus,” as it was called, only sixty-six attended, many of the remainder having announced their disapproval of the practice.3 The nominee of this caucus came in only third at the polls, and this failure gave the coup de grâce to a plan which the levelling tendencies of the time, and the disposition to refer everything to the arbitrament of the masses, would in any case have soon extinguished. No congressional caucus was ever again held for the choice of candidates.

A new method, however, was not at once discovered. In 1828 Jackson was recommended as candidate by the legislature of Tennessee and by a number of popular gatherings in different places, while his opponents accepted, without any formal nomination, the then president, J. Q. Adams, as their candidate. In 1831, however, assemblies were held by two great parties (the Anti-Masons and the National Republicans, afterwards called Whigs) consisting of delegates from most of the states; and each of these conventions nominated its candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency. A third “national convention” of young men, which met in 1832, adopted the Whig nominations, and added to them a series of ten resolutions, constituting the first political platform ever put forth by a nominating body. The friends of Jackson followed suit by holding their national convention which nominated him and Van Buren. For the election of 1836, a similar convention was held by the Jacksonian Democrats, none by their opponents. But for that of 1840, national conventions of delegates from nearly all the states were held by both Democrats and Whigs, as well as by the (then young and very small) party of the Abolitionists. This precedent has been followed in every subsequent contest, so that the national nominating conventions of the great parties are now as much a part of the regular machinery of politics as the rules which the Constitution itself prescribes for the election. The establishment of the system coincides with and represents the complete social democratization of politics in Jackson’s time. It suits both the professionals, for whom it finds occupation and whose power it secures, and the ordinary citizen who, not having time himself to attend to politics, likes to think that his right of selecting candidates is duly recognized in the selection of candidates by delegates whom he is entitled to vote for. But the system was soon seen to be liable to fall under the control of selfish intriguers and therefore prejudicial to the chances of able and independent men. As early as 1844 Calhoun refused to allow his name to be submitted to a nominating convention, observing that he would never have joined in breaking down the old congressional caucus had he foreseen that its successor would prove so much more pernicious.

Thus from 1789 till 1800 there were no formal nominations; from 1800 till 1824, nominations were made by congressional caucuses; from 1824 to 1840, nominations irregularly made by state legislatures and popular meetings were gradually ripening towards the method of a special gathering of delegates from the whole country. This last plan has held its ground since 1840, but its workng is beginning to be affected by the new plan of primary votings.4

Its perfection, however, was not reached at once. The early conventions were to a large extent mass meetings.5 The later and present ones are regularly constituted representative bodies, composed exclusively of delegates, each of whom has been duly elected at a party meeting in his own state, and brings with him his credentials. It would be tedious to trace the process whereby the present system was created, so I shall be content with describing it in outline as it now stands.

The Constitution provides that each state shall choose as many presidential electors as it has persons representing it in Congress, i.e., two electors to correspond to the two senators from each state, and as many more as the state sends members to the House of Representatives. Thus Delaware and Idaho have each three electoral votes, because they have each only one representative besides their two senators. New York has thirty-nine electoral votes; two corresponding to its two senators, thirty-seven corresponding to its thirty-seven representatives in the House.

Now in the nominating convention each state is allowed twice as many delegates as it has electoral votes, e.g., Delaware and Idaho have each six delegates, New York has seventy-eight. The delegates are chosen by local conventions in their several states, viz., two for each congressional district by the party convention of that district, and four for the whole state (called delegates-at-large) by the state convention. As each convention is composed of delegates from primaries, it is the composition of the primaries which determines that of the local conventions, and the composition of the local conventions which determines that of the national. To every delegate there is added a person called his “alternate,” chosen by the local convention at the same time, and empowered to replace him in case he cannot be present in the national convention. If the delegate is present to vote the alternate is silent; if from any cause the delegate is absent, the alternate steps into his shoes.

Respecting the freedom of the delegate to vote for whom he will, there have been differences both of doctrine and of practice. A local convention or state convention may instruct its delegates which aspirant6 shall be their first choice, or even, in case he cannot be carried, for whom their subsequent votes shall be cast. Such instructions are frequently given, and still more frequently implied, because a delegate is often chosen expressly as being the supporter of one or other of the aspirants whose names are most prominent. But the delegate is not absolutely bound to follow his instructions. He may vote even on the first ballot for some other aspirant than the one desired by his own local or state convention. Much more, of course, may he, though not so instructed, change his vote when it is plain that that aspirant will not succeed. His vote is always a valid one, even when given in the teeth of his instructions; but how far he will be held censurable for breaking them depends on a variety of circumstances. His motives may be corrupt; perhaps something has been given him. They may be pardonable; a party chief may have put pressure on him, or he may desire to be on the safe side, and go with the majority. They may be laudable; he really seeks to do the best for the party, or has been convinced by facts lately brought to his knowledge that the man for whom he is instructed is unworthy. Where motives are doubtful, it may be charitable, but it is not safe, to assume that they are of the higher order. Each “state delegation” has its chairman, and is expected to keep together during the convention. It usually travels together to the place of meeting; takes rooms in the same hotel; has a recognized headquarters there; sits in a particular place allotted to it in the convention hall; holds meetings of its members during the progress of the convention to decide on the course which it shall from time to time take. These meetings, if the state be a large and doubtful one, excite great interest, and the sharp-eared reporter prowls round them, eager to learn how the votes will go. Each state delegation votes by its chairman, who announces how his delegates vote; but if his report is challenged, the roll of delegates is called, and they vote individually. Whether the votes of a state delegation shall be given solid for the aspirant whom the majority of the delegation favours, or by the delegates individually according to their preferences, is a point which has excited bitter controversy. The present practice of the Republican party (so settled in 1876 and again in 1880) allows the delegates to vote individually, even when they have been instructed by a state convention to cast a solid vote. The Democratic party, on the other hand, sustains any such instruction given to the delegation, and records the vote of all the state delegates for the aspirant whom the majority among them approve. This is the so-called unit rule. If, however, the state convention has not imposed the unit rule, the delegates vote individually.

For the sake of keeping up party life in the Territories and in the federal District of Columbia, delegates from them have been admitted to the national convention, although the Territories and District (and of course the transmarine possessions) have no votes in a presidential election. Such delegates still attend from Hawaii and Alaska and the District; and even from Puerto Rico and the Philippine Islands. Delegations of states which are known to be in the hands of the opposite party, and whose preference of one aspirant to another will not really tell upon the result of the presidential election, are admitted to vote equally with the delegations of the states sure to go for the party which holds the convention.7 This arrangement is justified on the ground that it sustains the interest and energy of the party in states where it is in a minority. But it permits the choice to be determined by districts whose own action will in no wise affect the election itself, and the delegates from these districts are apt to belong to a lower class of politicians, and to be swayed by more sordid motives than those who come from states where the party holds a majority.8

So much for the composition of the national convention; we may now go on to describe its proceedings.

It is held in the summer immediately preceding a presidential election, usually in June or July, the election falling in November. A large city is always chosen, in order to obtain adequate hotel accommodation, and easy railroad access. Formerly, conventions were commonly held in Baltimore or Philadelphia, but since the centre of population has shifted to the Mississippi Valley, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Denver, Minneapolis, and especially Chicago, have become the favourite spots.

Business begins by the “calling of the convention to order” by the chairman of the national party committee. Then a temporary chairman is nominated, and, if opposed, voted on; the vote sometimes giving an indication of the respective strength of the factions present. Then the secretaries and the clerks are appointed, and the rules which are to govern the business are adopted. After this, the committees, particularly those on credentials and resolutions, are nominated, and the convention adjourns till their report can be presented.

The next sitting usually opens, after the customary prayer, with the appointment of the permanent chairman, who inaugurates the proceedings with a speech. Then the report of the committee on resolutions (if completed) is presented. It contains what is called the platform, a long series of resolutions embodying the principles and programme of the party, which has usually been so drawn as to conciliate every section, and avoid or treat with prudent ambiguity those questions on which opinion within the party is divided. Any delegate who objects to a resolution can move to strike it out or amend it; but it is generally “sustained” in the shape it has received from the practised hands of the committee.

Next follows the nomination of aspirants for the post of party candidate. The roll of states is called, and when a state is reached to which an aspirant intended to be nominated belongs, a prominent delegate from that state mounts the platform, and proposes him in a speech extolling his merits, and sometimes indirectly disparaging the other aspirants. Another delegate seconds the nomination, sometimes a third follows; and then the roll call goes on till all the states have been despatched, and all the aspirants nominated.9 The average number of nominations is seven or eight; it rarely exceeds twelve.10 In 1908 there were only eight at the Republican, three at the Democratic, convention, and it was well understood in each case that only one person had a chance of success.

Thus the final stage is reached, for which all else has been but preparation—that of balloting between the aspirants. The clerks call the roll of states from Alabama to Wyoming, and as each is called the chairman of its delegation announces the votes, e.g., six for A, five for B, three for C, unless, of course, under the unit rule, the whole vote is cast for that one aspirant whom the majority of the delegation supports. When all have voted, the totals are made up and announced. If one competitor has an absolute majority of the whole number voting, according to the Republican rule, a majority of two-thirds of the number voting, according to the Democratic rule, he has been duly chosen, and nothing remains but formally to make his nomination unanimous. If, however, as has happened often, no one obtains the requisite majority, the roll is called again, in order that individual delegates and delegations (if the unit rule prevails) may have the opportunity of changing their votes; and the process is repeated until some one of the aspirants put forward has received the required number of votes. Sometimes many roll calls take place. In 1852 the Democrats nominated Franklin Pierce on the forty-ninth ballot, and the Whigs General Scott on the fifty-third. In 1880, thirty-six ballots were taken before General Garfield was nominated. But, in 1835, Martin Van Buren; in 1844, Henry Clay; in 1868 and 1872, Ulysses S. Grant; in 1888 Mr. Cleveland, were unanimously nominated, the three former by acclamation, the latter on the first ballot. In 1884 Mr. Blaine was nominated by the Republicans on the fourth ballot, Mr. Cleveland by the Democrats on the second; in 1888, Mr. Harrison on the eighth. In 1896 Mr. McKinley was nominated on the first ballot and Mr. Bryan on the fifth. In 1892 both Mr. Harrison (then president) and Mr. Cleveland were nominated on the first ballot, each of them by an overwhelming majority. Similarly in 1904 both Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Parker and in 1908 both Mr. Taft and Mr. Bryan were each of them nominated on the first ballot. Thus it sometimes happens that the voting is over in an hour or two, while at other times it may last for days. In 1912 Mr. Taft was nominated by the Republicans on the first ballot after an embittered struggle over the credentials of certain delegates. Three hundred forty-three delegates abstained from voting and a month later held a convention of their own, at which a new party, called Progressive, was formed, and Mr. Roosevelt was nominated for the presidency. At the Democratic convention in the same year Mr. Woodrow Wilson was nominated on the forty-sixth ballot.

When a candidate for the presidency has been thus found, the convention proceeds similarly to determine its candidate for the vice-presidency. The inferiority of the office, and the exhaustion which has by this time overcome the delegates, make the second struggle a less exciting and protracted one. Frequently one of the defeated aspirants is consoled by this minor nomination, especially if he has retired at the nick of time in favour of the rival who has been chosen. The work of the convention is then complete,11 and votes of thanks to the chairman and other officials conclude the proceedings. The two nominees are now the party candidates, entitled to the support of the party organizations and of loyal party men over the length and breadth of the Union.

Entitled to that support, but not necessarily sure to receive it. Even in America, party discipline cannot compel an individual voter to cast his ballot for the party nominee. All that the convention can do is to recommend the candidate to the party; all that opinion can do is to brand as a kicker or bolter whoever breaks away; all that the local party organization can do is to strike the bolter off its lists. But how stands it, the reader will ask, with the delegates who have been present in the convention, have had their chance of carrying their man, and have been beaten? Are they not held absolutely bound to support the candidate chosen?

This is a question which has excited much controversy. The constant impulse and effort of the successful majority have been to impose such an obligation on the defeated minority, and the chief motive which has prevented it from being invariably formally enforced by a rule or resolution of the convention has been the fear that it might precipitate hostilities, might induce men of independent character, or strongly opposed to some particular aspirant, to refuse to attend as delegates, or to secede early in the proceedings when they saw that a person whom they disapproved was likely to win.

At the Republican National Convention at Chicago in June 1880 an attempt was successfully made to impose the obligation by the following resolution, commonly called the “Ironclad Pledge”:

“That every member of this convention is bound in honour to support its nominee, whoever that nominee may be, and that no man should hold his seat here who is not ready so to agree.”

This was carried by 716 votes to 3. But at the Republican National Convention at Chicago in June 1884, when a similar resolution was presented, the opposition developed was strong enough to compel its withdrawal; and in point of fact, several conspicuous delegates at that convention strenuously opposed its nominee at the subsequent presidential election, themselves voting, and inducing others to vote, for the candidate of the Democratic party.

The general tendency towards a reform of the nominating system as a whole has recently led to the enactment in fifteen states of laws enabling the voters of each party to declare at a primary state election their preference for a particular aspirant as the candidate of their party, and requiring the delegates chosen by the party to give their votes in the party convention accordingly. Should this method of ascertaining the wishes of the majority of each party come to prevail over the whole Union, the present convention system will be profoundly changed. There will then be practically an election of candidates by the people. Great efforts will of course be made in every state to win for one or other among the party aspirants the position of party candidate, but the character of those efforts will be different. There will be more public meetings, at many of which the aspirants will doubtless present their respective claims. There may possibly be less underground intrigue. Time alone can shew how the new plan will work, and whether it will eliminate all aspirants except those who possess conspicuous popular gifts.

chapter 70

The Nominating Convention at Work

We have examined the composition of a national convention and the normal order of business in it. The more difficult task remains of describing the actual character and features of such an assembly, the motives which sway it, the temper it displays, the passions it elicits, the wiles by which its members are lured or driven to their goal.

A national convention has two objects, the formal declaration of the principles, views, and practical proposals of the party, and the choice of its candidates for the executive headship of the nation.

Of these objects the former has in critical times, such as the two elections preceding the Civil War, been of great importance. In the Democratic Convention at Charleston in 1860, a debate on resolutions led to a secession, and to the break-up of the Democratic party,1 and in 1896 there were contests in both conventions over the treatment to be given to the currency question, the struggle being especially warm among the Democrats. So in 1908 a short but significant debate arose in the Republican convention over amendments of a “radical” character. But, with such occasional exceptions as last hereinbefore mentioned, the adoption of platforms, drafted in a somewhat vague and pompous style by the committee, has been almost a matter of form. Some observations on these enunciations of doctrine will be found in another chapter.2

The second object is of absorbing interest and importance, because the presidency is the great prize of politics, the goal of every statesman’s ambition. The president can by his veto stop legislation adverse to the wishes of the party he represents. The president is the supreme dispenser of patronage.

One may therefore say that the task of a convention is to choose the party candidate. And it is a task difficult enough to tax all the resources of the host of delegates and their leaders. Who is the man fittest to be adopted as candidate? Not even a novice in politics will suppose that it is the best man, i.e., the wisest, strongest, and most upright. Plainly, it is the man most likely to win, the man who, to use the technical term, is most “available.” What a party wants is not a good president but a good candidate. The party managers have therefore to look out for the person likely to gain most support, and at the same time excite least opposition. Their search is rendered more troublesome by the fact that many of them, being themselves either aspirants or the close allies of aspirants, are not disinterested, and are distrusted by their fellow searchers.

Many things have to be considered. The ability of a statesman, the length of time he has been before the people, his oratorical gifts, his “magnetism,” his family connections, his face and figure, the purity of his private life, his “record” (the chronicle of his conduct) as regards integrity—all these are matters needing to be weighed. Account must be taken of the personal jealousies and hatreds which a man has excited. To have incurred the enmity of a leading statesman, of a powerful boss or ring, or of an influential newspaper, is serious. Several such feuds may be fatal.

Finally, much depends on the state whence a possible candidate comes. Local feeling leads a state to support one of its own citizens; it increases the vote of his own party in that state, and reduces the vote of the opposite party. Where the state is decidedly of one political colour, e.g., so steadily Republican as Vermont, so steadily Democratic as Maryland, this consideration is weak, for the choice of a Democratic candidate from the former, or of a Republican candidate from the latter, would not make the difference of the state’s vote. It is therefore from a doubtful state that a candidate may with most advantage be selected; and the larger the doubtful state the better. California, with her ten electoral votes, is just worth “placating”; Indiana, with her fifteen votes, more so; New York, with her thirty-nine votes, most so of all. Hence an aspirant who belongs to a great and doubtful state is prima facie the most eligible candidate.

Aspirants hoping to obtain the party nomination from a national convention may be divided into three classes, the two last of which, as will appear presently, are not mutually exclusive, viz.:

A favourite is always a politician well known over the Union, and drawing support from all or most of its sections. He may be a man who has distinguished himself in Congress, or in some high executive post, or in the politics of some state so large that its politics are matter of knowledge and interest to the whole nation. He is usually a person of conspicuous gifts, whether as a speaker, or a party manager, or an administrator. The drawback to him is that in making friends he has also made enemies.

A dark horse is a person not very widely known in the country at large, but known rather for good than for evil. He has probably sat in Congress, been useful on committees, and gained some credit among those who dealt with him in Washington. Or he has approved himself a safe and assiduous party man in the political campaigns of his own and neighbouring states, yet without reaching national prominence. Sometimes he is a really able man, but without the special talents that win popularity. Still, speaking generally, the note of the dark horse is respectability, verging on colourlessness; and he is therefore a good sort of person to fall back upon when able but dangerous favourites have proved impossible. That native mediocrity rather than adverse fortune has prevented him from winning fame is proved by the fact that the dark horses who have reached the White House, if they have seldom turned out bad presidents, have even more seldom turned out distinguished ones.

A favourite son is a politician respected or admired in his own state, but little regarded beyond it. He may not be, like the dark horse, little known to the nation at large, but he has not fixed its eye or filled its ear. He is usually a man who has sat in the state legislature; filled with credit the post of state governor; perhaps gone as senator or representative to Washington, and there approved himself an active promoter of local interests. Probably he possesses the qualities which gain local popularity—geniality, activity, sympathy with the dominant sentiment and habits of his state; or while endowed with gifts excellent in their way, he has lacked the audacity and tenacity which push a man to the front through a jostling crowd. More rarely he is a demagogue who has raised himself by flattering the masses of his state on some local questions, or a skilful handler of party organizations who has made local bosses and spoilsmen believe that their interests are safe in his hands. Anyhow, his personality is such as to be more effective with neighbours than with the nation, as a lamp whose glow fills the side chapel of a cathedral sinks to a spark of light when carried into the nave.

A favourite son may be also a dark horse; that is to say, he may be well known in his own state, but so little known out of it as to be an unlikely candidate. But he need not be. The types are different, for as there are favourite sons whom the nation knows but does not care for, so there are dark horses whose reputation, such as it is, has not been made in state affairs, and who rely very little on state favour.

There are seldom more than two, never more than three favourites in the running at the same convention. Favourite sons are more numerous—it is not uncommon to have four or five, or even six, though perhaps not all these are actually started in the race. The number of dark horses is practically unlimited, because many talked of beforehand are not actually started, while others not considered before the convention begins are discovered as it goes on. This happened in the leading and most instructive case of James A. Garfield, who was not voted for at all on the first ballot in the Republican Convention of 1880, and had, on no ballot up to the thirty-fourth, received more than two votes. On the thirty-sixth3 he was nominated by 399. So, in 1852, Pierce was scarcely known to the people when he was sprung on the convention. So, in 1868, Horatio Seymour, who had been so little thought of as a candidate that he was chairman of the Democratic Convention, was first voted for on the twenty-second ballot. He refused to be nominated, but was induced to leave the chair and nominated on that very ballot.

To carry the analysis farther, it may be observed that four sets of motives are at work upon those who direct or vote in a convention, acting with different degrees of force on different persons. There is the wish to carry a particular aspirant. There is the wish to defeat a particular aspirant, a wish sometimes stronger than any predilection. There is the desire to get something for one’s self out of the struggle—e.g., by trading one’s vote or influence for the prospect of a federal office. There is the wish to find the man who, be he good or bad, friend or foe, will give the party its best chance of victory. These motives cross one another, get mixed, vary in relative strength from hour to hour as the convention goes on and new possibilities are disclosed. To forecast their joint effect on the minds of particular persons and sections of a party needs wide knowledge and eminent acuteness. To play upon them is a matter of the finest skill.

The proceedings of a nominating convention can be best understood by regarding the three periods into which they fall: the transactions which precede the opening of its sittings; the preliminary business of passing rules and resolutions and delivering the nominating speeches; and, finally, the balloting.

A president has scarcely been elected before the newspapers begin to discuss his probable successor. Little, however, is done towards the ascertainment of candidates till about a year before the next election, when the factions of the chief aspirants prepare to fall into line, newspapers take up their parable in favour of one or other, and bosses begin the work of “subsoiling,” i.e., manipulating primaries and local conventions so as to secure the choice of such delegates to the next national convention as they desire. In most of the conventions which appoint delegates, the claims of the several aspirants are canvassed, and the delegates chosen are usually chosen in the interest of one particular aspirant. The newspapers, with their quick sense of what is beginning to stir in men’s thoughts, redouble their advocacy, and the “boom” of one or two of the probable favourites is thus fairly started. Before the delegates leave their homes for the national convention, most of them have fixed on their candidate, many having indeed received positive instructions as to how their vote shall be cast. All appears to be spontaneous, but in reality both the choice of particular men as delegates, and the instructions given, are usually the result of untiring underground work among local politicians, directed, or even personally conducted, by two or three skilful agents and emissaries of a leading aspirant, or of the knot which seeks to run him. Sometimes the result of the convention turns on the skill shown in sending up “handpicked” delegates.

Four or five days before the day fixed for the opening of the convention the delegations begin to flock into the city where it is to be held. Some come attended by a host of friends and camp followers, and are received at the depot (railway terminus) by the politicians of the city, with a band of music and an admiring crowd. Thus Tammany Hall, the famous Democratic club of New York City, came six hundred strong to Chicago in July 1884, filling two special trains.4 A great crowd met it at the station, and it marched, following its boss, from the cars to its headquarters at the Palmer House, in procession, each member wearing his badge, just as the retainers of Earl Warwick the kingmaker used to follow him through the streets of London with the bear and ragged staff upon their sleeves. Less than twenty of the six hundred were delegates; the rest ordinary members of the organization, who had accompanied to give it moral and vocal support.5

Before the great day dawns many thousands of politicians, newspapermen, and sightseers have filled to overflowing every hotel in the city, and crowded the main thoroughfares so that the streetcars can scarcely penetrate the throng. It is like a mediæval pilgrimage, or the mustering of a great army. When the chief delegations have arrived the work begins in earnest. Not only each large delegation, but the faction of each leading aspirant to the candidacy, has its headquarters, where the managers hold perpetual session, reckoning up their numbers, starting rumours meant to exaggerate their resources, and dishearten their opponents, organizing raids upon the less experienced delegates as they arrive. Some fill the entrance halls and bars of the hotels, talk to the busy reporters, extemporize meetings with tumultuous cheering for their favourite. The common “worker” is good enough to raise the boom by these devices. Meanwhile, the more skilful leaders begin (as it is expressed) to “plough around” among the delegations of the newer Western and Southern states, usually (at least among the Republicans) more malleable, because they come from regions where the strength of the factions supporting the various aspirants is less accurately known, and are themselves more easily “captured” by bold assertions or seductive promises. Sometimes an expert intriguer will “break into” one of these wavering delegations, and make havoc like a fox in a hen roost. “Missionaries” are sent out to bring over individuals; embassies are accredited from one delegation to another to endeavour to arrange combinations by coaxing the weaker party to drop its own aspirant, and add its votes to those of the stronger party. All is conducted with perfect order and good humour, for the least approach to violence would recoil upon its authors; and the only breach of courtesy is where a delegation refuses to receive the ambassadors of an organization whose evil fame has made it odious.

It is against etiquette for the aspirants themselves to appear in the convention,6 whether from some lingering respect for the notion that a man must not ask the people to choose him, but accept the proffered honour, or on the principle that the attorney who conducts his own case has a fool for a client. But from Washington, if he is an official or a senator, or perhaps from his own home, or possibly even from his room in the city, each aspirant keeps up hourly communication with his managers in the convention, having probably a private telegraph or telephone wire laid on for the purpose. Not only may officials, including the president himself, become aspirants, but federal officeholders may be, and very largely are, delegates, especially among the Southern Republicans when that party is in power.7 They have the strongest personal interest in the issue; and the heads of departments can, by promises of places, exert a potent influence. One hears in America, just as one used to hear in France under Louis Napoleon or Marshal MacMahon, of the “candidate of the Administration.”

As the hour when the convention is to open approaches, each faction strains its energy to the utmost. The larger delegations hold meetings to determine their course in the event of the man they chiefly favour proving “unavailable.” Conferences take place between different delegations. Lists are published in the newspapers of the strength of each aspirant. Sea and land are compassed to gain one influential delegate, who “owns” other delegates. If he resists other persuasions, he is “switched on” to the private wire of some magnate at Washington, who “talks to him,” and suggests inducements more effective than those he has hitherto withstood. The air is thick with tales of plots and treasons, so that no politician trusts his neighbour, for rumour spares none.

At length the period of expectation and preparation is over, and the summer sun rises upon the fateful day to which every politician in the party has looked forward for three years. Long before the time (usually 11 A.M.) fixed for the beginning of business, every part of the hall, erected specially for the gathering—a hall often large enough to hold from ten to fifteen thousand persons—is crowded.8 The delegates—who in 1912 were 1,078 in the Republican Convention and 1,086 in the Democratic—are a mere drop in the ocean of faces. Eminent politicians from every state of the Union, senators and representatives from Washington not a few, journalists and reporters, ladies, sightseers from distant cities, as well as a swarm of partisans from the city itself, press in; some semblance of order being kept by the sergeant-at-arms and his marshals. Some wear devices, sometimes the badge of their state, or of their organization; sometimes the colours or emblem of their favorite aspirant. Each state delegation has its allotted place marked by the flag of the state floating from a pole, or a board bearing its name raised aloft; but leaders may be seen passing from one group to another, while the spectators listen to the band playing popular airs, and cheer any well-known figure that enters.

When the assembly is “called to order,” a prayer is offered—each day’s sitting begins with a prayer by some clergyman of local eminence,9 the susceptibilities of various denominations being duly respected in the selection—and business proceeds according to the order described in last chapter. First come the preliminaries, appointment of committees and chairmen, then the platform, and probably on the second day, but perhaps later, the nominations and balloting, the latter sometimes extending over several days. There is usually both a forenoon and an afternoon session.

A European is astonished to see nearly one thousand men prepare to transact the two most difficult pieces of business an assembly can undertake, the solemn consideration of their principles, and the selection of the person they wish to place at the head of the nation, in the sight and hearing of twelve or fourteen thousand other men and women. Observation of what follows does not lessen the astonishment. The convention presents in sharp contrast and frequent alternation, the two most striking features of Americans in public—their orderliness and their excitability. Everything is done according to strict rule, with a scrupulous observance of small formalities which European meetings would ignore or despise. Points of order almost too fine for a parliament are taken, argued, decided on by the chair, to whom everyone bows. Yet the passions that sway the multitude are constantly bursting forth in storms of cheering or hissing at an allusion to a favourite aspirant or an obnoxious name, and five or six speakers often take the floor together, shouting and gesticulating at each other till the chairman obtains a hearing for one of them. Of course it depends on the chairman whether or no the convention sinks into a mob. A chairman with a weak voice, or a want of prompt decision, or a suspicion of partisanship, may bring the assembly to the verge of disaster, and it has more than once happened that when the confusion that prevailed would have led to an irregular vote which might have been subsequently disputed, the action of the manager acting for the winning horse has, by waiving some point of order or consenting to an adjournment, saved the party from disruption. Even in the noisiest scenes good sense, with a feeling for the need of fair play—fair play according to the rules of the game, which do not exclude some dodges repugnant to an honourable man—will often reassert itself, and pull back the vehicle from the edge of the precipice.

The chief interest of the earlier proceedings lies in the indications which speeches and votings give of the relative strength of the factions. Sometimes a division on the choice of a chairman, or on the adoption of a rule, reveals the tendencies of the majority, or of influential leaders, in a way which sends the chances of an aspirant swiftly up or down the barometer of opinion. So when the nominating speeches come, it is not so much their eloquence that helps a nominee as the warmth with which the audience receives them, the volume of cheering and the length of time, perhaps an hour or more, during which the transport lasts. As might be guessed from the size of the audience which he addresses, an orator is expected to “soar into the blue empyrean” at once. The rhetoric is usually pompous and impassioned, but few are those who can make themselves heard by the whole of the multitude. To read a speech, even a short speech, from copious notes, is neither irregular nor rare.

While forenoon and evening, perhaps even late evening, are occupied with the sittings of the convention, canvassing and intrigue go on more briskly than ever during the rest of the day and night. Conferences are held between delegations anxious to arrange for a union of forces on one candidate.10 Divided delegations hold meetings of their own members, meetings often long and stormy, behind closed doors, outside which a curious crowd listens to the angry voices within, and snatches at the reports which the dispersing members give of the result. Sometimes the whole issue of the convention hinges on the action of the delegates of a great state, which, like New York, under the unit rule, can throw seventy-eight votes into the trembling scale. It may even happen, although this is against a well-settled custom, that a brazen aspirant himself goes the round of several delegations and tries to harangue them into supporting him.

Sometimes it is well known beforehand whom the convention will nominate. One aspirant may be so generally popular with the whole party that the delegates have nothing to do but register a foregone conclusion. Or it may happen that the leaders of the party have reached an agreement which a majority of the delegates can be relied on to carry out. Such cases, however, have hitherto been infrequent, and in what follows I describe the more usual phenomenon of a struggle between contending factions and aspirants prolonged until the moment comes for the convention to decide.

As it rarely happens that any aspirant is able to command at starting a majority of the whole convention, the object of his friends is to arrange a combination whereby he may gather from the supporters of other aspirants votes sufficient to make up the requisite majority, be it two-thirds, according to the Democratic rule, or a little more than a half, according to the Republican. Let us take the total number of votes at 1,000—a trifle below the figure in 1912. There are usually two aspirants commanding each from 280 to 350, one or two others with from 50 to 120, and the rest with much smaller figures, 20 to 40 each. A combination can succeed in one of two ways: (a) one of the stronger aspirants may pick up votes, sometimes quickly, sometimes by slow degrees, from the weaker candidates, sufficient to overpower the rival favourite; (b) each of the strongest aspirants may hold his forces so well together that after repeated ballotings it becomes clear that neither can win against the resistance of the other. Neither faction will, however, give way, because there is usually bitterness between them, because each would feel humiliated, and because each aspirant has so many friends that his patronage will no more than suffice for the clients to whom he is pledged already. Hence one or other of the baffled favourites suddenly transfers the votes he commands to some one of the weaker men, who then so rapidly “develops strength” that the rest of the minor factions go over to him, and he obtains the requisite majority.11 Experience has so well prepared the tacticians for one or other of these issues that the game is always played with a view to them. The first effort of the managers of a favourite is to capture the minor groups of delegates who support one or other of the favourite sons and dark horses. Not till this proves hopeless do they decide to sell themselves as dear as they can by taking up and carrying to victory a dark horse or perhaps even a favourite son, thereby retaining the pleasure of defeating the rival favourite, while at the same time establishing a claim for themselves and their faction on the aspirant whom they carry.12

It may be asked why a dark horse often prevails against the favourites, seeing that either of the latter has a much larger number of delegates in his favour. Ought not the wish of a very large group to have so much weight with the minor groups as to induce them to come over and carry the man whom a powerful section of the party obviously desires? The reason why this does not happen is that a favourite is often as much hated by one strong section as he is liked by another, and if the hostile section is not strong enough to keep him out by its unaided vote, it is sure to be able to do so by transferring itself to some other aspirant. Moreover, a favourite has often less chance with the minor groups than a dark horse may have. He has not the charm of novelty. His “ins and outs” are known; the delegations weighed his merits before they left their own state, and if they, or the state convention that instructed them, decided against him then, they are slow to adopt him now. They have formed a habit of “antagonizing” him, whereas they have no hostility to some new and hitherto inconspicuous aspirant.

Let us now suppose resolutions and nominating speeches despatched, and the curtain raised for the third act of the convention. The chairman raps loudly with his gavel,13 announcing the call of states for the vote. A hush falls on the multitude, a long deep breath is drawn, tally books are opened and pencils grasped, while the clerk reads slowly the names of state after state. As each is called, the chairman of its delegation rises and announces the votes it gives, bursts of cheering from each faction in the audience welcoming the votes given to the object of its wishes. Inasmuch as the disposition of most of the delegates has become known beforehand, not only to the managers, but to the public through the press, the loudest welcome is given to a delegate or delegation whose vote turns out better than had been predicted.

In the first scene of this third and decisive act the favourites have, of course, the leading parts. Their object is to produce an impression of overwhelming strength, so the whole of this strength is displayed, unless, as occasionally happens, an astute manager holds back a few votes. This is also the bright hour of the favourite sons. Each receives the vote of his state, but each usually finds that he has little to expect from external help, and his friends begin to consider into what other camp they had better march over. The dark horses are in the background, nor is it yet possible to say which (if any) of them will come to the front.

The first ballot seldom decides much, yet it gives a new aspect to the battlefield, for the dispositions of some groups of voters who had remained doubtful is now revealed, and the managers of each aspirant are better able to tell, from the way in which certain delegations are divided, in what quarters they are most likely to gain or lose votes on the subsequent ballots. They whisper hastily together, and try, in the few moments they have before the second ballot is upon them, to prepare some new line of defence or attack.

The second ballot, taken in the same way, sometimes reveals even more than the first. The smaller and more timid delegations, smitten with the sense of their weakness, despairing of their own aspirant, and anxious to be on the winning side, begin to give way; or if this does not happen on the second ballot, it may do so on the third. Rifts open in their ranks, individuals or groups of delegates go over to one of the stronger candidates, some having all along meant to do so, and thrown their first vote merely to obey instructions received or fulfil the letter of a promise given. The gain of even twenty or thirty votes for one of the leading candidates over his strength on the preceding ballot so much inspirits his friends, and is so likely to bring fresh recruits to his standard, that a wily manager will often, on the first ballot, throw away some of his votes on a harmless antagonist that he may by rallying them increase the total of his candidate on the second, and so convey the impression of growing strength.

The breathing space between each ballot and that which follows is used by the managers for hurried consultations. Aides-de-camp are sent to confirm a wavering delegation, or to urge one which has been supporting a now hopeless aspirant to seize this moment for dropping him and coming over to the winning standard. Or the aspirant himself, who, hundreds of miles away, sits listening to the click of the busy wires, is told how matters stand, and asked to advise forthwith what course his friends shall take. Forthwith it must be, for the next ballot is come, and may give the battlefield a new aspect, promising victory or presaging irretrievable defeat.

Anyone who has taken part in an election, be it the election of a pope by cardinals, of a town clerk by the city council, of a fellow by the dons of a college, of a schoolmaster by the board of trustees, of a pastor by a congregation, knows how much depends on generalship. In every body of electors there are men who have no minds of their own; others who cannot make up their minds till the decisive moment, and are determined by the last word or incident; others whose wavering inclination yields to the pressure or follows the example of a stronger colleague. There are therefore chances of running in by surprise an aspirant whom few may have desired, but still fewer have positively disliked, chances specially valuable when controversy has spent itself between two equally matched competitors, so that the majority are ready to jump at a new suggestion. The wary tactician awaits his opportunity; he improves the brightening prospects of his aspirant to carry him with a run before the opposition is ready with a counter move; or if he sees a strong antagonist, he invents pretexts for delay till he has arranged a combination by which that antagonist may be foiled. Sometimes he will put forward an aspirant destined to be abandoned, and reserve till several votings have been taken the man with whom he means to win. All these arts are familiar to the convention manager, whose power is seen not merely in the dealing with so large a number of individuals and groups whose dispositions he must grasp and remember, but in the cool promptitude with which he decides on his course amid the noise and passion and distractions of twelve thousand shouting spectators. Scarcely greater are the faculties of combination and coolness of head needed by a general in the midst of a battle, who has to bear in mind the position of every one of his own corps and to divine the positions of those of the enemy’s corps which remain concealed, who must vary his plan from hour to hour according to the success or failure of each of his movements and the new facts that are successively disclosed, and who does all this under the roar and through the smoke of cannon.

One balloting follows another till what is called “the break” comes. It comes when the weaker factions, perceiving that the men of their first preference cannot succeed, transfer their votes to that one among the aspirants whom they like best, or whose strength they see growing. When the faction of one aspirant has set the example, others are quick to follow, and thus it may happen that after thirty or forty ballots have been taken with few changes of strength as between the two leading competitors, a single ballot, once the break has begun, and the column of one or both of these competitors has been “staggered,” decides the battle.

If one favourite is much stronger from the first than any other, the break may come soon and come gently, i.e., each ballot shows a gain for him on the preceding ballot, and he marches so steadily to victory that resistance is felt to be useless. But if two well-matched rivals have maintained the struggle through twenty or thirty ballots, so that the long strain has wrought up all minds to unwonted excitement, the break, when it comes, comes with fierce intensity, like that which used to mark the charge of the Old Guard. The defeat becomes a rout. Battalion after battalion goes over to the victors, while the vanquished, ashamed of their candidate, try to conceal themselves by throwing away their colours and joining in the cheers that acclaim the conqueror. In the picturesquely technical language of politicians, it is a stampede.

To stampede a convention is the steadily contemplated aim of every manager who knows he cannot win on the first ballot.14 He enjoys it as the most dramatic form of victory, he values it because it evokes an enthusiasm whose echo reverberates all over the Union, and dilates the party heart with something like that sense of supernatural guidance which Rome used to have when the cardinals chose a pope by the sudden inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes it comes of itself, when various delegations, smitten at the same moment by the sense that one of the aspirants is destined to conquer, go over to him all at once.15 Sometimes it is due to the action of the aspirant himself. In 1880 Mr. Blaine, who was one of the two leading favourites, perceiving that he could not be carried against the resistance of the Grant men, suddenly telegraphed to his friends to transfer their votes to General Garfield, till then a scarcely considered candidate. In 1884 General Logan, also by telegraph, turned over his votes to Mr. Blaine between the third and fourth ballot, thereby assuring the already probable triumph of that favourite.

When a stampede is imminent, only one means exists of averting it, that of adjourning the convention so as to stop the panic and gain time for a combination against the winning aspirant. A resolute manager always tries this device, but he seldom succeeds, for the winning side resists the motion for adjournment, and the vote which it casts on that issue is practically a vote for its aspirant, against so much of “the field” as has any fight left in it. This is the most critical and exciting moment of the whole battle. A dozen speakers rise at once, some to support, some to resist the adjournment, some to protest against debate upon it, some to take points of order, few of which can be heard over the din of the howling multitude. Meanwhile, the managers who have kept their heads rush swiftly about through friendly delegations, trying at this supreme moment to rig up a combination which may resist the advancing tempest. Tremendous efforts are made to get the second favourite’s men to abandon their chief and “swing into line” for some dark horse or favourite son, with whose votes they may make head till other factions rally to them.

• In vain, in vain, the all-consuming hour
• Relentless falls—

The battle is already lost, the ranks are broken and cannot be rallied, nothing remains for brave men but to cast their last votes against the winner and fall gloriously around their still waving banner. The motion to adjourn is defeated, and the next ballot ends the strife with a hurricane of cheering for the chosen leader. Then a sudden calm falls on the troubled sea. What is done is done, and whether done for good or for ill, the best face must be put upon it. Accordingly the proposer of one of the defeated aspirants moves that the nomination be made unanimous, and the more conspicuous friends of other aspirants hasten to show their good humour and their loyalty to the party as a whole by seconding this proposition. Then, perhaps, a gigantic portrait of the candidate, provided by anticipation, is hoisted up, a signal for fresh enthusiasm, or a stuffed eagle is carried in procession round the hall.

Nothing further remains but to nominate a candidate for the vice-presidency, a matter of small moment now that the great issue has been settled. This nomination is frequently used to console one of the defeated aspirants for the presidential nomination, or is handed over to his friends to be given to some politician of their choice. If there be a contest, it is seldom prolonged beyond two or three ballots. The convention is at an end, and in another day the whole host of exhausted delegates and camp followers, hoarse with shouting, is streaming home along the railways.16

The fever heat of the convention is almost matched by that of the great cities, and indeed of every spot over the Union to which there runs an electric wire. Every incident, speech, vote, is instantly telegraphed to all the cities. Crowds gather round the newspaper offices, where frequent editions are supplemented by boards displaying the latest bulletins. In Washington, Congress can hardly be kept together, because every politician is personally interested in every move of the game. When at last the result is announced, the partisans of the chosen candidate go wild with delight; salvos of artillery are fired off, processions with bands parade the streets, ratification meetings are announced for the same evening, “campaign clubs” bearing the candidate’s name are organized on the spot. The excitement is of course greatest in the victor’s own state, or in the city where he happens to be resident. A crowd rushes to his house, squeezes his hand to a quivering pulp, congratulates him on being virtually president, while the keen-eyed reporter telegraphs far and wide how he smiled and spoke when the news was brought. Defeated aspirants telegraph to their luckier rival their congratulations on his success, promising him support in the campaign. Interviewers fly to prominent politicians, and cross-examine them as to what they think of the nomination. But in two days all is still again, and a lull of exhaustion follows till the real business of the contest begins some while later with the issue of the letter of acceptance, in which the candidate declares his views and outlines his policy.

chapter 71

The Presidential Campaign

A presidential election in America is something to which Europe can show nothing similar. Though the issues which fall to be decided by the election of a chamber in France or Italy, or of a House of Commons in England, are often far graver than those involved in the choice of A or B to be executive chief magistrate for four years, the commotion and excitement, the amount of “organization,” of speaking, writing, telegraphing, and shouting, is incomparably greater in the United States. It is only the salient features of these contests that I shall attempt to sketch, for the detail is infinite.

The canvass usually lasts about four months. It begins soon after both of the great parties have chosen their candidate, i.e., before the middle of July; and it ends early in November, on the day when the presidential electors are chosen simultaneously in and by all the states. The summer heats and the absence of the richer sort of people at the seaside or mountain resorts keep down the excitement during July and August; it rises in September, and boils furiously through October.

The first step is for each nominated candidate to accept his nomination in a letter, sometimes as long as a pamphlet, setting forth his views of the condition of the nation and the policy which the times require. Such a letter is meant to strike the keynote for the whole orchestra of orators. It is, of course, published everywhere, extolled by friendly and dissected by hostile journals. Together with the “platform” adopted at the national party convention, it is the official declaration of party principles, to be referred to as putting the party case, no less than the candidate himself, before the nation.

While the candidate is composing his address, the work of organization goes briskly forward, for in American elections everything is held to depend on organization. A central or national party committee nominated by the national convention, and consisting of one member from each state, gets its members together and forms a plan for the conduct of the canvass. It raises money by appealing to the wealthy and zealous men of the party for subscriptions, and, of course, presses those above all who have received something in the way of an office or other gratification from the party1 or who expect something from its action. The chairman of this committee is an important personage, who exercises great power and upon whose abilities much may depend. The treasurer is also always a prominent man, in whom both energy and discretion are required. It communicates with the leading statesmen and orators of the party, and arranges in what district of the country each shall take the stump. It issues shoals of pamphlets, and forms relations with party newspapers. It allots grants from the “campaign fund” to particular persons and state committees, to be spent by them for “campaign purposes,” an elastic term which may cover a good deal of illicit expenditure. Enormous sums are gathered and disbursed by this committee, and the accounts submitted do not, as may be supposed, answer all the questions they suggest. The committee directs its speakers and its funds chiefly to the doubtful states, those in which eloquence or expenditure may turn the balance either way. There are seldom more than six or seven such states at any one election, possibly fewer.

The efforts of the national committee are seconded not only by a congressional committee2 and by state committees, but by an infinite number of minor organizations over the country, in the rural districts no less than in the cities. Some of these are permanent. Others are created for the election alone; and as they contemplate a short life, they make it a merry one. These “campaign clubs,” which usually bear the candidates’ names, are formed on every imaginable basis, that of locality, of race, of trade or profession, of university affiliation. There are Irish clubs, Italian clubs, German clubs, Scandinavian clubs, Polish clubs, coloured (i.e., Negro) clubs, Orange clubs. There are young men’s clubs, lawyers’ clubs, dry-goods clubs, insurance men’s clubs, shoe and leather clubs. There are clubs of the graduates of various colleges. Their work consists in canvassing the voters, making up lists of friends, opponents, and doubtfuls, getting up processions and parades, holding meetings, and generally “booming all the time.”

This is mostly unpaid labour. But there are also thousands of paid agents at work, canvassing, distributing pamphlets or leaflets, lecturing on behalf of the candidate. It is in America no reproach to a political speaker that he receives a fee or a salary. Even men of eminence are permitted to receive not only their travelling expenses, but a round sum. Formerly a candidate, unless possessed of popular gifts, did but little speaking. Latterly he has been expected to take the field and stay in it fighting all the time, a terrible strain on health and voice. He is of course chiefly seen in the doubtful states, where he speaks for weeks together twice or thrice on most days, filling up the intervals with “receptions” at which he has to shake hands with hundreds of male callers, and be presented to ladies scarcely less numerous.3 The leading men of the party are, of course, pressed into the service. Even if they dislike and have opposed the nomination of the particular candidate, party loyalty and a lively sense of favours to come force them to work for the person whom the party has chosen. An eminent Irishman or an eminent German used to be deemed especially valuable for a stumping tour, because he influenced the vote of his countrymen. Similarly each senator is expected to labour assiduously at his own state, where presumably his influence is greatest, and any refusal to do so is deemed a pointed disapproval of the candidate.

The committees print and distribute great quantities of campaign literature, pamphlets, speeches, letters, leaflets, and one can believe that this printed matter is more serviceable than it would be in England, because a larger part of the voters live in quiet country places, and like something to read in the evening. Even novelettes are composed in the interests of a candidate, wherein lovers talk about tariffs under the moon. Sometimes a less ingenuous use is made of the press. On the very eve of the election of 1880, too late for a contradiction to obtain equal publicity, a forged letter, purporting to come from Mr. Garfield, and expressing views on Chinese immigration and labour, distasteful to the Pacific states, was lithographed and scattered broadcast over California, where it told heavily against him.

Most constant and effective of all is the action of the newspapers. The chief journals have for two or three months a daily leading article recommending their own and assailing the hostile candidate, with a swarm of minor editorial paragraphs bearing on the election. Besides these there are reports of speeches delivered, letters to the editor with the editor’s comments at the end, stories about the candidates, statements as to the strength of each party in particular states, counties, and cities. An examination of a few of the chief newspapers during the two months before a hotly contested election showed that their “campaign matter” of all kinds formed between one-half and one-third of the total letterpress of the paper (excluding advertisements), and this, be it remembered, every day during those two months. The most readable part of this matter consists in the reports of the opinion of individual persons, more or less prominent, on the candidate. You find, for instance, a paragraph stating that the Rev. Dr. A., president of such and such a college, or Mr. B., the philanthropist who is head of the Y Z Bank, or ex-Governor C., or Judge D., has said he thinks the candidate a model of chivalric virtue, or fit only for a felon’s cell, as the case may be, and that he will vote for or against him accordingly.4 Occasionally the prominent man is called on by an interviewer and gives a full statement of his views, or he writes to a young friend who has asked his advice in a private letter, which is immediately published. The abundance of these expressions or citations of the opinions of private citizens supplies a curious evidence of the disposition of some sections in a democracy to look up to its intellectual and moral leaders. For the men thus appealed to are nearly all persons eminent by their character, ability, learning, or success in business; the merely rich man is cited but rarely, and as if his opinion did not matter, though of course his subscription may. Judges and lawyers, university dignitaries and literary men, are, next to the clergy,5 the persons most often quoted.

The function of the clergy in elections is very characteristic of the country and the occasion. They used during the period from 1820 to 1856 to give politics a wide berth, for not only would their advocacy of any particular cause have offended a section among their flocks, but the general sentiment condemned the immixture in politics of a clerical element. The struggle against slavery, being a moral issue, brought them into more frequent public activity. Since the close of that struggle they have again tended to retire. However, the excitement of a presidential election suspends all rules; and when questions affecting the moral character of the candidates are involved, clerical intervention is deemed natural. Thus in the contest of 1884, the newspapers were full of the opinions of clergymen. Sermons were reported if they seemed to bear upon the issue. Paragraphs appeared saying that such and such a pastor would carry three-fourths of his congregation with him, whereas the conduct of another in appearing at a meeting on behalf of the opposing candidate was much blamed by his flock. Not many ministers actually took the platform, though there was a general wish to have them as chairmen. But one, the late Mr. Henry Ward Beecher, did great execution by his powerful oratory, artillery all the more formidable because it was turned against the candidate of the party to which he had through his long life belonged. Nor was there any feature in the canvass of that same candidate more remarkable than the assembly of 1,018 clergymen of all denominations (including a Jewish rabbi), which gathered at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York, to meet him and assure him of their support on moral grounds, immediately before the election day.6

From a class usually excluded from politics by custom to a class excluded by law, the transition is easy. Women as a rule (setting aside the four woman suffrage Western states) keep as much aloof from electoral contests in America as in continental Europe, and certainly more than in England, for I have never heard of their forming an organization to canvass the voters of a district in America, as the (Conservative) Primrose League and the Women’s Liberal Associations do in England. Nor are women appointed delegates from any ward primary,7 as they have lately been in some places in England. However, the excitement of a close struggle sometimes draws even women into the vortex. Receptions are tendered by the ladies of each party to the candidate, and are reported in the public press as politically significant, while among the letters which appear in the newspapers not a few bear female signatures.

Speaking and writing and canvassing are common to elections all over the world. What is peculiar to America is the amazing development of the “demonstration” as a means for raising enthusiasm. For three months, processions, usually with brass bands, flags, badges, crowds of cheering spectators, are the order of the day and night from end to end of the country. The Young Men’s Pioneer club of a village in the woods of Michigan turns out in the summer evening; the Democrats or Republicans of Chicago or Philadelphia leave their business to march through the streets of these great cities many thousands strong.

When a procession is exceptionally large, it is called a parade. In New York City, on the 29th of October 1884, the businessmen who supported Mr. James Gillespie Blaine held such a demonstration. They were organized by profession or occupation: the lawyers, 800 strong, forming one battalion, the dry-goods men another, the produce exchange a third, the bankers a fourth, the brokers a fifth, the jewellers a sixth, the petroleum exchange a seventh, and so on ad infinitum. They started from the Bowling Green near the south end of Manhattan Island, and marched right up the city along Broadway to Madison Square, where Mr. Blaine reviewed and addressed them. Rain fell incessantly, and the streets were deep with mud, but neither rain above nor mud below damped the spirits of this great army, which tramped steadily along, chanting various “campaign refrains,” such as

• Five, Five, Five Cent Fare;8

but most frequently

• Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine,
• We don’t care a bit for the rain,
• O—O—O—O—HI—O.9

There were said to have been 25,000 businessmen in this parade, which was followed soon after by another more miscellaneous Blaine parade of 60,000 Republicans, as well as (of course) by counter parades of Democrats. A European, who stands amazed at the magnitude of these demonstrations, is apt to ask whether the result attained is commensurate with the money, time, and effort give to them. His American friends answer that, as with advertising, it is not to be supposed that shrewd and experienced men would thus spend their money unless convinced that the expenditure was reproductive. The parade and procession business, the crowds, the torches, the badges, the flags, the shouting, all this pleases the participants by making them believe they are effecting something; it impresses the spectators by showing them that other people are in earnest, it strikes the imagination of those who in country hamlets read of the doings in the great city. In short, it keeps up the “boom,” and an American election is held to be, truly or falsely, largely a matter of booming.

If the cynical visitor smiles at these displays, he is constrained to admire the good humour and good order which prevail. Neither party in the Northern, Middle, and Western states dreams of disturbing the parades or meetings of the other. You might believe, from the acclamations which accompany a procession, that the whole population was with it, for if opponents are present they do not hoot or hiss, and there are always enough sympathizers to cheer. During the hotly contested elections of 1880 and 1896, hardly any collisions or disturbances reported from California to Maine. Even in Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, where the old Southern party is apt to let its angry passions rise against the Negroes and their white Republican allies, the breaches of order were neither numerous nor serious. Over five-sixths of the Southern states perfect quiet prevailed. It is true that one party could there count on an overwhelming majority, so that there was no excuse for the one to bully nor any inducement for the other to show fight. The elections of 1904 and 1908 were even more tranquil. If any disturbances occurred anywhere in the latter year no notice of them found its way into the press.

The maxim that nothing succeeds like success is nowhere so cordially and consistently accepted as in America. It is the cornerstone of all election work. The main effort of a candidate’s orators and newspapers is to convince the people that their side is the winning one, for there are sure to be plenty of voters anxious to be on that side, not so much from any advantage to be gained for themselves as because reverence for “the people” makes them believe that the majority are right. Hence the exertions to prove that the Germans, or the Irish, or the working men are going for candidate X or candidate Y. Hence the reports of specimen canvasses showing that 70 per cent of the clerks in a particular bank or 80 per cent of the professors in a particular theological college have declared themselves for X. Hence the announcements of the betting odds for a particular candidate, and the assertion that the supporters of the other man who had put large sums on him are now beginning to hedge.10 But the best evidence to which a party can appeal is its winning minor elections which come off shortly before the great presidential one. In three states, Vermont, Maine, and Oregon, the choice of a governor and other state officers takes place in September, i.e., within two months of the presidential contest. If the state is a safe one for the Republicans or the Democrats (as the case may be), the votes cast are compared with those cast at the last preceding similar election, and the inference drawn that one or other party is gaining. If it is a doubtful state the interest is still more keen, and every nerve is strained to carry an election whose issue will presage, and by presaging contribute to, success in the presidential struggle. Possibly the candidate or some of his ablest speakers stump this state; probably also it is drenched with money. The inferences from such a contest may be thought uncertain, because state elections are always complicated with local questions, and with the character of the particular candidates for state offices. But it is a maxim among politicians that in a presidential year local issues vanish, the voters being so warmed with party spirit that they go solid for their party in spite of all local or personal obstacles. The truth of this view was illustrated by the fact that Ohio used often to return a majority of Democrats to Congress and had a Democratic majority in her own legislature, but for several elections gave a majority for the presidential candidate of the Republican party. The eagerness shown to carry the October elections in this great and often doubtful state used to be scarcely second to that displayed in the presidential contest. She has now (and Indiana likewise) put her fall elections later, and makes them coincide (every second term) with the presidential election, in order to avoid the tremendous strain which they had been forced to bear. Before this change it was often made an argument why the party should select its candidate from Ohio, that this would give a better chance of winning the preliminary canter, and thereby securing the advantage of a presageful victory.11

So far I have described the contest as one between two parties and two candidates only. But it is sometimes complicated by the appearance of other minor parties and minor candidates who, although they have no chance of success, affect the main struggle by drawing off strength from one side or the other. In the elections of 1880–92 the Prohibitionist party and the Greenback party each held a national convention, nominated candidates for presidency and vice-presidency, and obtained at the polls a number of votes far too small to carry any single state, and therefore, of course, too small to choose any presidential electors, but sufficient to affect, perhaps to turn, the balance of strength between Republicans and Democrats in two or three of the doubtful states. The Prohibitionist candidate drew most of his votes from the Republican side; a Greenbacker from the Democratic: and so more recently the appearance of a Populist or Socialist candidate has been supposed to injure the Democratic prospects. Hence there was apt to be a sort of tacit alliance during the campaign between the Republican organs and the Labour or Socialist party, between the Democratic organs and the Prohibitionist; and conversely much ill blood between Republicans and Prohibitionists, between Democrats and Labour men. Anyone can see what an opening for intrigue is given by these complications, and how much they add to the difficulty of predicting the result of the contest. The area of that contest is a continent, and in the various regions of the continent forces different in nature and varying in strength are at work.

chapter 72

The Issues in Presidential Elections

Upon what does a presidential election turn? The presidential candidate has a double character. He is put forward as being individually qualified for the great place of executive head of the nation, because he is a man of integrity, energy, firmness, intellectual power, experience in affairs. He is also recommended as a prominent member of a great national party, inspired by its traditions, devoted to its principles, and prepared to carry them out not only in his properly executive capacity, but, what is more important, as the third branch of the legislature, armed with a veto on bills passed by Congress. His election may therefore be advocated or opposed either on the ground of his personal qualities or of his political professions and party affiliations. Here we have a marked difference between the American and European systems, because in England, and perhaps still more in France, Belgium, and Italy, elections turn chiefly on the views of the parties, secondarily on the character of individual leaders, seeing that the leaders are not chosen directly by the people, but are persons who have come to the top in the legislatures of those countries, or have been raised to office by the Crown. In America, therefore, we have a source of possible confusion between issues of two wholly distinct kinds—those which affect the personal qualifications of the candidate, and those which regard the programme of his party.

Whether, in any given presidential election, the former or the latter class of issues are the more conspicuous and decisive, depends partly on the political questions which happen to be then before the people, partly on the more or less marked individuality of the rival candidates. From about 1850 down to 1876, questions, first of the extension of slavery, then of its extinction, then of the reconstruction of the Union, had divided the nation, and made every contest a contest of principles and of practical measures. Since the controversies raised by the war have been settled, there were, till the free silver question emerged in 1896, few real differences of political principle between the parties, and questions of personal fitness therefore became relatively more important. Now that both currency issues and those raised by the war with Spain have subsided, the qualities of the candidates seem again tending to be potent factors.

The object of each party naturally is to put forward as many good political issues as it can, claiming for itself the merit of having always been on the popular side. Anyone who should read the campaign literature of the Republicans would fancy that they were opposed to the Democrats on many important points. When he took up the Democratic speeches and pamphlets he would be again struck by the serious divergences between the parties, which, however, would seem to arise, not on the points raised by the Republicans, but on other points which the Republicans had not referred to. In other words, the aim of each party is to force on its antagonist certain issues which the antagonist rarely accepts, so that although there is a vast deal of discussion and declamation on political topics, there are few on which either party directly traverses the doctrines of the other. Each pummels, not his true enemy, but a stuffed figure set up to represent that enemy. During the presidential elections after that of 1876, the Republicans sought to force to the front the issue of protection versus free trade, which the Democrats sometimes hesitated to accept, having avowed Protectionists within their own ranks, and knowing that the bulk of the nation was (at most) prepared only for certain reductions in the tariff. Thus while Republican orators were advocating a protective tariff on a thousand platforms, hardly a Democrat ventured to refer to the subject except by saying that he would not refer to it. Both sides declared against monopolists and the power of corporations. Both professed to be the friends of civil service reform, though neither cared for it. Both promised to protect the rights of the Americans all over the world, to withstand Bismarck in his attacks on American bacon—this was in 1884—and to rescue American citizens from British dungeons. Both, however, were equally zealous for peace and goodwill among the nations, and had no idea of quarrelling with any European power. These appeals and professions made no great impression upon the voters. The American, like the Englishman, usually votes with his party, right or wrong, and when there is little distinction of view between the parties it becomes all the easier to stick to your old friends. The Republican party still had much support from those who remembered that it had saved the Union in the days of Secession. The Democratic party commanded a solid South.

The election of 1888 was remarkable for the fact that the victory of the party which had been defeated in 1884 was mainly due to a personal intrigue, a secret “deal,” which was believed to have turned over from the Democrats to the Republicans the thirty-six electoral votes of New York State. In the contest of 1892 the Democrats imitated the Republican tactics of 1884 by attacking the latter party upon an issue (that of the Federal Elections or so-called “Force” Bill) which the Republicans had carefully avoided, and which they refused to accept. The protective tariff did on this occasion raise a definite issue and materially affect the result. But as regards currency questions, profound and important as they were, the “platforms” of the two great parties differed but slightly, and neither could command the allegiance to its platform of the whole of its rank and file. In particular the strange spectacle was presented of a candidate avowing strong and clear views, who found himself in this weighty matter more in accordance with the bulk of his Republican opponents than with a large section of his Democratic supporters.

In the election of 1896 the section last referred to carried the Democratic Convention and nominated its candidate, so the contest turned upon the free silver issue. Here there was an economic question of capital importance, which divided the Republicans from the “regular” Democrats, for a part of the Democratic party, differing from the majority on the currency, had broken away and nominated its own candidates for presidency and vice-presidency. On this occasion campaign oratory and literature were directed to a tangible issue. Economic doctrines were forcibly argued; the intelligence of the electors was appealed to; the contest was splendidly stimulating and educative. In 1900 something similar happened, though the currency was then a less prominent issue. In 1904 that issue had disappeared. Both then and in 1908 there was a less sharp opposition of contending doctrines, and on many points the parties were practically agreed, though one stated its views in more “radical” terms than the other, and the Democrats kept almost silent on tariff questions while the Republicans talked of cautiously revising a scale of duties which they lauded as beneficial.

When political controversy is languid, personal issues come to the front. They are in one sense small, but not for that reason less exciting. Whoever has sat in any body of men, from a college debating society up to a legislative chamber, knows that no questions raise so much warmth, and are debated with so much keenness as questions affecting the character and conduct of individual men. They evoke some of what is best and much of what is worst in human nature. In a presidential election it is impossible to avoid discussing the personal merits of the candidates, because much depends on those merits. It has also proved impossible to set limits to the discussion. Unmitigated publicity is a condition of eminence in America; and the excitement in one of these contests rises so high that (at elections in which personal issues are prominent) the canons of decorum which American custom at other times observes, are cast aside by speakers and journalists. The air is thick with charges, defences, recriminations, till the voter knows not what to believe.

These censures are referable to three classes.1 One used to include what was called the candidate’s “war record.” To have been disloyal to the Union in the hour of its danger was a reproach. To have fought for the North, still more to have led a Northern regiment or division, covered a multitude of sins. It is the greatest of blessings for America that she fights so seldom, for in no country do military achievements carry a candidate farther, not that the people love war, for they do not, but because success in a sphere so remote from their ordinary life touches their imagination, marks a man out from his fellows, associates his name with their passionate patriotism, gives him a claim on the gratitude, not of a party, but of the nation as a whole. His prowess in repulsing the British troops at New Orleans made Andrew Jackson twice president, in spite of grave faults of temper and judgment. Some Indian skirmishes fixed the choice of the Whig party in 1840 upon William H. Harrison, though his competitor for the nomination was Henry Clay. Zachary Taylor was known only by his conduct of the Mexican war, when he was elected by the same party in 1848. The failure of General Grant as president in his first term, a failure which those who most heartily recognized his honour and patriotism could not deny, did not prevent his reelection in 1872; and the memory of his services came near to giving him a third nomination in 1880.

More serious, however, than the absence of a war record, have been charges of the second class—those impeaching the nominee’s personal integrity. These few candidates used to escape. Few men can have passed years in a state legislature or state or city office, or Congress, without coming into contact with disreputable persons, and occasionally finding themselves in situations capable of being misrepresented. They may have walked warily, they may not have swerved from the path of rectitude, but they must have been tempted to do so, and it requires no great invention to add details which give a bad look to the facts. As some men of note, from whom better things had been expected, have lapsed, a lapse by a man of standing seems credible. It was therefore an easy task for the unscrupulous passions which a contest rouses to gather up rumours, piece out old though unproved stories of corruption, put the worst meaning on doubtful words, and so construct a damning impeachment, which will be read in party journals by many voters who never see the defence. The worst of this habit of universal invective is that the plain citizen, hearing much which he cannot believe, finding foul imputations brought even against those he has reason to respect, despairs of sifting the evidence, and sets down most of the charges to malice and “campaign methods,” while concluding that the residue is about equally true of all politicians alike. The distinction between good and bad men may for many voters be practically effaced, and the spectacle be presented of half the honest men supporting for the headship of the nation a person whom the other half declare to be a knave. Extravagant abuse produces a reaction, and makes the honest supporters of a candidate defend even his questionable acts. And thus the confidence of the country in the honour of its public men was lowered.

Less frequent, but more offensive, have sometimes, though happily rarely, been the charges made against the private life of a candidate, particularly in his relations with women. American opinion is highly sensitive on this subject. Nothing damages a man more than a reputation for irregularity in these relations; nothing therefore opens a more promising field to slander, and to the coarse vulgarity which is scarcely less odious, even if less mendacious, than slander itself.

Though these have been the chief heads of attack, there is nothing in the life or habits of a candidate out of which materials for a reproach might not be drawn. Of one it is said that he is too fond of eating; of another that though he rents a pew in Dr. Y—’s church, he is more frequently seen in a Roman Catholic place of worship; of a third that he deserted his wife twenty-five years ago; of a fourth that he is an atheist. His private conversations may be reported; and when he denies the report, third persons are dragged in to refute his version. Nor does criticism stop with the candidate himself. His leading supporters are arraigned and dissected. A man’s surroundings do no doubt throw some light upon him. If you are shown into a library, you derive an impression from the books on the shelves and the pictures on the wall; much more then may you be influenced by the character of a man’s personal friends and political associates. But such methods of judging must be applied cautiously. American electioneering has now and then carried them beyond reasonable limits.

These personal issues do not always come to the front. The candidates may both be free from any reasonable possibility of reproach. This tends to be more and more the case; and there have in fact been few attacks on personal character in recent elections—practically none in 1908 and 1912.

Obviously, both the integrity and the abilities of the rival candidates deserve to be carefully weighed by the electors and ought to affect the result, for the welfare of the country may be profoundly affected by them. The personal qualities of a president generally make more difference to the United States than the personal qualities of a prime minister do to Britain. Sometimes, however, this quite proper regard to the personal merits or demerits of the candidates has tended to draw attention away from political discussions, and has thereby lessened what may be called the educational value of the campaign. A general election in England seems better calculated to instruct the masses of the people in the principles as well as the practical issues of politics, than the longer and generally hotter presidential contest in America. The average intelligence of the voter (excluding the Negroes) is higher in America than in Britain, and his familiarity not only with the passwords and catchwords of politics, but with the structure of his own government, is much greater. But in Britain the contest is primarily one of programmes and not of persons. The leaders on each side are freely criticized, and most people are largely influenced by their judgment of the prime minister, and of the person who will become prime minister if the existing ministry be dismissed. Still the men are almost always overshadowed by the principles which they respectively advocate, and as invective and panegyric have already been poured for years, there is little inducement to rake up or invent tales against them. Controversy turns on the needs of the country, and on the measures which each party puts forward; attacks on a ministry are levelled at their public acts instead of their private characters. Americans who watch general elections in England say that they find in the speeches of English candidates more appeal to reason and experience, more argument and less sentimental rhetoric, than in the discourses of their own campaign orators. To such a general judgment there are, of course, many exceptions. The campaign of 1896 was highly educative, and those of 1904, 1908, and 1912, turning largely on economic questions, were similarly valuable. There have always been in the United States public speakers such as Mr. Henry Ward Beecher was in the days of the Civil War, whose vigorous thinking has been in the highest degree instructive as well as stimulative; and the oratory of English candidates is probably, regarded as mere oratory, less effective than that of the American stump.

An examination of the causes which explain this difference belongs to another part of this book. Here I will only remark that the absence from British elections of flags, uniforms, torches, brass bands, parades, and all the other appliances employed in America, for making the people “enthuse,” leaves the field more free for rational discussion. Add to this that whereas the questions discussed on British platforms during the last two generations have been mainly questions needing argument, such as that of the corn laws in the typical popular struggle which Cobden and Bright and Villiers led, the most exciting theme for an American speaker during a whole generation was one—the existence and extension of slavery—which specially called for emotional treatment. Such subjects as the regulation of the tariff, competing plans of liquor legislation, currency and labour questions of controlling or abolishing trusts, are so difficult to sift thoroughly before a popular audience that election speakers were long tempted to evade them or to deal in sounding commonplaces. Latterly, however, the growing gravity of the problems which the customs tariff and the national currency present, has induced a noteworthy change, a change strikingly apparent in 1896; and although these complex economic topics are often handled with little knowledge and in a declamatory way, it is a real gain that the popular mind should be constantly directed to them and forced to think seriously about them.

If the presidential contest may seem to have usually done less for the formation of political thought and diffusion of political knowledge than was to be expected from the immense efforts put forth and the intelligence of the voters addressed, it nevertheless rouses and stirs the public life of the country. One can hardly imagine what the atmosphere of American politics would be without this quadrennial storm sweeping through it to clear away stagnant vapours, and recall to every citizen the sense of his own responsibility for the present welfare and future greatness of his country. Nowhere does government by the people through the people for the people take a more directly impressive and powerfully stimulative form than in the choice of a chief magistrate by fifteen millions of citizens voting on one day.

chapter 73

Further Observations on Nominations and Elections

Several questions may have occurred to the European reader who has followed the foregoing account of presidential nominations and elections.

The most obvious is—How comes it that a system of nomination by huge party assemblies has grown up so unlike anything which the free countries of Europe have seen?

The nominating convention is the natural and legitimate outgrowth of two features of the Constitution, the restricted functions of Congress and the absolute sovereignty of the people. It was soon perceived that under the rule of party, a party must be united on its candidate in order to have a prospect of success. There was therefore need for a method of selecting the candidate which the whole of a party would recognize as fair and entitled to respect. At first the representatives of the party in Congress assumed the right of nomination. But it was presently felt that they were not entitled to it, for they had not been chosen for any such purpose, and the president was not constitutionally responsible to them, but rather set up to check them. When the congressional caucus had been discredited, the state legislatures tried their hands at nominations; but acting irregularly, and with a primary regard to local sentiment, they failed to win obedience. The self-authorized and sometimes secret action of both these sets of persons caused resentment. It began to be held that whom the people were to elect the people must also nominate. Thus presently the tumultuous assemblies of active politicians were developed into regular representative bodies, modelled after Congress, and giving to the party in each state exactly the same weight in nominating as the state possessed in voting. The elaborate nominating scheme of primaries and conventions which was being constructed for the purpose of city, state, and congressional elections, was applied to the election of a president, and the national convention was the result. We may call it an effort of nature to fill the void left in America by the absence of the European parliamentary or cabinet system, under which an executive is called into being out of the legislature by the majority of the legislature. In the European system no single act of nomination is necessary, because the leader of the majority comes gradually to the top in virtue of his own strength.1 In America there must be a single and formal act: and this act must emanate from the people, since it is to them that the party leader, when he becomes chief magistrate, will be responsible. There is not quite so strong a reason for entrusting to the convention the function of declaring the aims and tenets of the party in its platform, for this might properly be done by a caucus of the legislature. But as the president is, through his veto power, an independent branch of the legislature, the moment of nominating him is apt for a declaration of the doctrines whereof the party makes him the standard-bearer.

What have been the effects upon the public life of the country of this practice of nomination by conventions? Out of several I select two. Politics have turned largely upon the claims of rival personalities. The victory of a party in a presidential election depends upon its being unanimous in its support of a particular candidate. It must therefore use every effort to find, not necessarily the best man, but the man who will best unite it. In the pursuit of him, it is distracted from its consideration of the questions on which it ought to appeal to the country, and may form its views on them hastily or loosely. The convention is the only body authorized to declare the tenets and practical programme of the party. But the duty of declaring them is commonly overshadowed by the other duty of choosing the candidate, which naturally excites warmer feelings in the hearts of actual or potential officeholders. Accordingly delegates are chosen by local conventions rather as the partisans of this or that aspirant than as persons of political ability or moral weight; and the function of formulating the views of the party may be left to, and ill discharged by, men of an inferior type.

A further result will have been foreseen by those who have realized what these conventions are like. They are monster meetings. Besides the thousand delegates, there are some twelve to fifteen thousand spectators on the floor and in the galleries, while at Chicago in 1860, there were also thousands on the roof. It goes without saying that such a meeting is capable neither of discussing political questions and settling a political programme, nor of deliberately weighing the merits of rival aspirants for the nomination. Its platform must be presented to it cut and dry, and this is the work of a small committee. In choosing a candidate, it must follow a few leaders.2 And what sort of leaders do conventions tend to produce? Two sorts—the intriguer and the declaimer. There is the man who manipulates delegates and devises skilful combinations. There is also the orator, whose physical gifts, courage, and readiness enable him to browbeat antagonists, overawe the chairman, and perhaps, if he be possessed of eloquence, carry the multitude away in a fit of enthusiasm. For men of wisdom and knowledge, not seconded by a commanding voice and presence, there is no demand, and little chance of usefulness, in these tempestuous halls.

Why, however, it may also be asked, should conventions be so pre-eminently tempestuous, considering that they are not casual concourses, but consist of persons duly elected, and are governed by a regular code of procedure? The reason may be found in the fact that in them are united the two conditions which generate excitement, viz., very large numbers and important issues to be determined. In no other modern assemblies3 do these conditions concur. Modern deliberative assemblies are comparatively small—the House of Representatives has only 435 members; the French Chamber 584; while in the British House of Commons there is sitting space for only 400. Large popular gatherings, on the other hand, such as mass meetings, are excitable in virtue of their size, but have nothing to do but pass resolutions, and there is seldom controversy over these, because such meetings are attended only by those who agree with the summoners. But a national convention consists of about one thousand delegates, as many alternates, and some fourteen thousand spectators. It is the hugest mass meeting the world knows of. Not only, therefore, does the sympathy of numbers exert an unequalled force, but this host, larger than the army with which the Greeks conquered at Marathon, has an issue of the highest and most exciting nature to decide, an issue which quickens the pulse even of those who read in cold blood afterwards how the votes fell as the roll of states was called, and which thrills those who see and listen, and, most of all, those who are themselves concerned as delegates, with an intensity of emotion surpassing, in proportion to the magnitude of the issue, that which attends the finish of a well-contested boat race. If you wish to realize the passionate eagerness of an American convention, take the House of Commons or the French Chamber during a division which is to decide the fate of a ministry, and a policy, and raising the numbers present twenty-fold, imagine the excitement twenty-fold hotter. Wanting those wonderful scenes which a great debate and division in Parliament provide the English with, America has evolved others not less dramatic. The contrast between the two countries is perhaps most marked in this, that in Parliament the strife is between two parties, in an American convention between the adherents of different leaders belonging to the same party. We might have expected that in the more democratic country more would turn upon principles, less upon men. It is exactly the other way. The struggle in a convention is over men, not over principles.

These considerations may serve to explain to a European the strange phenomena of a convention. But his inquiry probably extends itself to the electoral campaign which follows. “Why,” he asks, “is the contest so much longer, more strenuous, and more absorbing than the congressional elections, or than any election struggle in Europe, although Europe is agitated by graver problems than now occupy America? And why does a people externally so cool, self-contained, and unimpulsive as the American work itself up into a fever of enthusiasm over an issue which may not be permanently important between two men, neither of whom will do much good or can do much harm?”

The length of the contest is a survival. The Americans themselves regret it, for it sadly interrupts both business and pleasure. It is due to the fact that when communication was difficult over a rough and thinly settled country, several months were needed to enable the candidates and their orators to go round. Now railways and telegraphs have drawn the continent so much together that five or six weeks would be sufficient. That the presidential election is fought more vehemently than congressional elections seems due to its coming only half as often; to the fact that the president is the dispenser of federal patronage, and to the habit, formed in days when the president was the real head of the party, and his action in foreign affairs might be of transcendent importance, of looking on his election as the great trial of party strength. Besides, it is the choice of one officer by the whole country, a supreme political act in which every voter has a share, and the same share; an act which fills the whole of the party in all of the states with the sense that it is feeling and thinking and willing as one heart and mind. This simultaneity of effort, this concentration of interest upon one person and one polling day, gives to the struggle a sort of tension not to be looked for where a number of elections of different persons are going on in as many different spots, nor always at the same time. In congressional elections each constituency has to think first of itself and its own candidate. In the presidential elections all eyes are fixed on the same figure; the same personal as well as political issue is presented to the nation. Each polling district in a state, each state in the Union, emulates every other in the efforts it puts forth to carry the party ticket.

To explain why the hardheaded self-possessed Americans go so wild with excitement at election times is a more difficult task. See what the facts are: From Abraham Lincoln’s reelection in 1864 down to the end of the nineteenth century there had not been a single presidential candidate (always excepting General Grant) of whom his friends could say that he had done anything to command the gratitude of the nation. Some of these candidates had been skilful party leaders, others had served with credit in the Civil War. None could be called distinguished in the sense in which, I will not say, Hamilton, Jefferson, Marshall, Webster, but J. Q. Adams, Clay, Benton, Calhoun, Seward, Stanton, and Chase, were distinguished men. To avoid recent events let us go back to Mr. Blaine and Mr. Cleveland in the election of 1884. One had been Speaker of the House, and was a skilful debater in Congress, an effective speaker on a platform, a man socially attractive, never forgetting a face or a service. The other had made a shrewd and upright mayor of Buffalo and governor of New York State. Compare the services rendered to the country by them, or by any other candidate of recent times, with those of Mazzini, Garibaldi, Cavour, and Victor Emmanuel to Italy, of Bismarck and Moltke to Germany, even of Thiers and Gambetta to France in her hour of peril. Yet the enthusiasm shown for Mr. Blaine (who seems to have drawn out the precious fluid at a higher temperature than his rival), the demonstrations made in his honour wherever he appeared, equalled anything done, in their several countries, for these heroes of Italy, Germany, or France. As for England, where two great political leaders, towering far above their fellows, have of late years excited the warmest admiration and the bitterest dislike from friends and foes, imagine eight hundred English barristers turning out from the Temple and Lincoln’s Inn to walk in slow procession from London Bridge to South Kensington, shouting themselves hoarse for Gladstone or Disraeli!

In attempting an explanation, I will take the bull by the horns, and ask whether the world is right in deeming the Americans a cool and sober people? The American is shrewd and keen, his passion seldom obscures his reason; he keeps his head in moments when a Frenchman, or an Italian, or even a German, would lose it. Yet he is also of an excitable temper, with emotions capable of being quickly and strongly stirred. That there is no contradiction between these qualities appears from the case of the Scotch, who are both more logical and more cautious in affairs than the English, but are also more enthusiastic, more apt to be swept away by a passionate movement.4 Moreover, the Americans like excitement. They like it for its own sake, and go wherever they can find it. They surrender themselves to the enjoyment of this pleasure the more willingly because it is comparatively rare, and relieves the level tenor of their ordinary life. Add to this the further delight which they find in any form of competition. The passion which in England expresses itself in the popular eagerness over a boat race or a horse race, extends more widely in America to every kind of rivalry and struggle. The presidential election, in which two men are pitted against one another over a four months’ course for the great prize of politics, stirs them like any other trial of strength and speed; sets them betting on the issue, disposes them to make efforts for a cause in which their deeper feelings may be little engaged.

These tendencies are intensified by the vast area over which the contest extends, and the enormous multitude that bears a part in it. The American imagination is peculiarly sensitive to the impression of great size. “A big thing” is their habitual phrase of admiration. In Europe, antiquity is what chiefly commands the respect of some minds, novelty what rouses the interest of others. Beyond the Atlantic, the sense of immensity, the sense that the same thought and purpose are animating millions of other men in sympathy with himself, lifts a man out of himself, and sends him into transports of eagerness and zeal about things intrinsically small, but great through the volume of human feeling they have attracted. It is not the profoundity of an idea or emotion, but its lateral extension which most quickly touches the American imagination. For one man who can feel the former, a hundred are struck by the latter; and he who describes America must remember that he has always to think first of the masses.

These considerations may help to explain the disproportion that strikes a European between the merits of the presidential candidate and the blazing enthusiasm which he evokes. It is not really given to him as an individual, it is given to the party personified in him, because he bears its banner, and its fervour is due, not even so much to party passion as to the impressionist character of the people, who desire to be excited, desire to demonstrate, desire, as English undergraduates say, “to run with the boats,” and cheer the efforts of the rowers. As regards the details of the demonstrations, the parades and receptions, the badges and brass bands and triumphal arches, anyone can understand why the masses of the people—those who in Europe would be called the lower-middle and working classes—should relish these things, which break the monotony of their lives, and give them a sense of personal participation in a great movement. Even in London, least externally picturesque among European cities, when the working men turn out for a Hyde Park meeting they come marshalled in companies under the banners of their trade unions or other societies, carrying devices, and preceded by music. They make a somewhat scrubby show, for England does not know how to light up the dullness of her skies and streets by colour in costume or variety in design. But the taste for display is there as it is in human nature everywhere. In England, the upper class is shy of joining in any such “functions,” even when they have a religious tinge. Its fastidiousness and sense of class dignity are offended. But in America, the sentiment of equality is so pervading that the rich and cultivated do not think of scorning the popular procession; or if some do feel such scorn, they are careful to conceal it. The habit of demonstrating with bands and banners and emblems was formed in days when the upper class was very small, and would not have dreamt of standing aloof from anything which interested the crowd; and now, when the rich and cultivated have grown to be as numerous, and, in most respects, as fastidious as the parallel class in Europe, the habit is too deeply rooted to be shaken. Nobody thinks of sneering. To do as the people do is a tribute to the people’s majesty. And the thousand lawyers who shout “James G. Blaine, O-h-i-o,” as they march through the October mud of Broadway, have no more sense that they are making themselves ridiculous than the European noble who backs with repeated obeisances out of the presence of his sovereign.

chapter 74

Types of American Statesmen

As trees are known by their fruits, and as different systems of government evidently tend to produce different types of statesmanship, it is pertinent to our examination of the American party system to inquire what are the kinds of statesmen which it engenders and ripens to maturity. A democracy, more perhaps than any other form of government, needs great men to lead and inspire the people. The excellence, therefore, of the methods democracy employs may fairly enough be tested by the excellence of the statesmen whom these methods call forth. Europeans are wont to go farther, and reason from the character of the statesmen to the character of the people, a convenient process, because it seems easier to know the careers and judge the merits of persons than of nations, yet one not universally applicable. In the free countries of Europe, the men who take the lead in public affairs may be deemed fair specimens of its best talent and character, and fair types, possibly of the virtues of the nation, though the temptations of politics are great, certainly of its practical gifts. But in two sorts of countries one cannot so reason from the statesmen to the masses. In despotic monarchies the minister is often merely the king’s favourite, who has risen by unworthy arts, or, at any rate, not by merit. And in a democracy where birth and education give a man little advantage in the race, a political career may have become so unattractive as compared with other pursuits that the finest or most ambitious spirits do not strive for its prizes, but generally leave them to men of the second order.

This second case is, as we have seen, to some extent the case of America. We must not therefore take her statesmen as types of the highest or strongest American manhood. The national qualities come out fully in them, but not always in their best form. I speak of the generations that have grown up since the great men of the Revolution epoch died off. Some of those men were the peers of the best European statesmen of the time: one of them rises in moral dignity above all his European contemporaries. The generation to which J. Q. Adams, Jackson, Webster, Clay, Calhoun, and Benton belonged is less impressive, perhaps because they failed to solve a question which may have been too hard for anyone to solve. Yet the men I have mentioned were striking personalities who would have made a figure in any country. Few of the statesmen of the third or Civil War period enjoyed more than a local reputation when it began, but in its course several of them developed remarkable powers, and one became a national hero. The fourth generation is now upon the stage, and it is too soon to attempt to conjecture the place they will hold in the judgment of posterity. Only a few who belong to it have as yet won high fame. The times, it is remarked, are comparatively quiet. What is wanted is not so much an impassioned popular leader nor a great philosophic legislator as men who will administer the affairs of the nation with skill and rectitude, and who, fortified by careful study and observation, will grapple with the economic problems which the growth of the country makes urgent. While admitting this, we must also ascribe something to the character of the party system which, as we have seen, is unfavourable to the development of the finest gifts. Let us note what are the types which that system displays to us.

In such countries as England, France, Germany, and Italy there is room and need for five sorts of statesmen. Men are wanted for the management of foreign and colonial policy, men combining the talents of a diplomatist with a wide outlook over the world’s horizon. The needs of social and economic reform, grave in old countries with the mistakes of the past to undo, require a second kind of statesman with an aptitude for constructive legislation. Thirdly there is the administrator who can manage a department with diligence and skill and economy. Fourthly comes the parliamentary tactician, whose function it is to understand men, who frames cabinets and is dexterous in humouring or spurring a representative assembly.1 Lastly we have the leader of the masses, who, whether or no he be a skilful parliamentarian, thinks rather of the country than of the chamber, knows how to watch and rouse the feelings of the multitude, and rally a great party to the standard which he bears aloft. The first of these has no need for eloquence; the second and third can get on without it; to the fourth it is almost, yet not absolutely, essential; it is the life breath of the fifth.2

Let us turn to America. In America there are few occasions for the first sort of statesman, while the conditions of a federal government, with its limited legislative sphere, are unfavourable to the second, as frequently changing cabinets are to the third. It is chiefly for persons of the fourth and fifth classes we must look. Persons of those classes we shall find, but in a different shape and guise from what they would assume in Europe. American politics seem at this moment to tend to the production of two types, the one of whom may be called par excellence the man of the desk or of the legislature, the other the man of the convention and the stump. They resemble the fourth and fifth of our European types, but with instructive differences.

The first of these types is usually a shrewd, cool, hardheaded man of business. He is such a man as one would find successful in the law or in commerce if he had applied his faculties to those vocations. He has mostly been, is often still, a practising counsel and attorney. He may lack imagination and width of view; but he has a tight grip of facts, a keen insight into men, and probably also tact in dealing with them. That he has come to the front shows him to possess a resolute and tenacious will, for without it he must have been trodden down in the fierce competition of a political career. His independence is limited by the necessity of keeping step with his party, for isolated action counts for little in America, but the tendency to go with one’s party is so inbred there that a man feels less humiliated by waiving his private views than would be the case in Europe. Such compliance does not argue want of strength. As to what is called “culture,” he has often at least a susceptibility to it, with a wish to acquire it which, if he has risen from humble beginnings, may contrast oddly with the superficial roughness of his manner. He is a ready and effective rather than a polished speaker, and is least agreeable when, forsaking the solid ground of his legal or administrative knowledge, he attempts the higher flights of eloquence.

Such a man does not necessarily make his first reputation in an assembly. He may begin as governor of a state or mayor of a large city, and if he earns a reputation there, can make pretty sure of going on to Congress if he desires it. In any case, it is in administration and the legislative work which deals with administration that he wins his spurs. The sphere of local government is especially fitted to develop such talents, and to give that peculiar quality I have been trying to describe. It makes able men of affairs; men fit for the kind of work which needs the combination of a sound business head and the power of working along with others. One may go further and say, that this talent is the sort of talent which during the last half century has been most characteristic of the American people. Their greatest achievements have lain in the internal development of their country by administrative shrewdness, ingenuity, promptitude, and an unequalled dexterity in applying the principle of association, whether by means of private corporations or of local public or quasi-public organisms. These national characteristics reappear in federal politics, not always accompanied by the largeness of vision and mastery of the political and economic sciences which that wider sphere demands.

The type I describe is less brilliant than those modern Europe has learned to admire in men like Bismarck or Cavour, perhaps one may add, Tisza or Minghetti or Castelar. But then the conditions required for the rise of the last-named men do not exist in America, nor is her need for them pressing. America would have all she wants if such statesmen as I have described were more numerous; and if a philosophic mind, capable of taking in the whole phenomena of transatlantic society, and propounding comprehensive solutions for its problems, were more common among the best of them. Persons of this type have hitherto been most frequently found in the Senate, to which they usually rise from the House of Representatives or from a state legislature. They are very useful there; indeed, it is they who have given it that authority which it long enjoyed but is now fast losing.

The other kind of statesman is the product of two factors which give to American politics their peculiar character, viz., an enormous multitude of voting citizens and the existence of a wonderful network of party organizations for the purpose of selecting and carrying candidates for office. To move the masses, a man must have the gifts of oratory; to rule party committees, he must be a master of intrigue. The stump and the committee room are his sphere. There is a great deal of campaign speaking to be done at state elections, at congressional elections, above all, in presidential campaigns. It does not flow in such a perennial torrent as in England, for England has since 1876 become the most speech-flooded country in the world, but it is more copious than in France, Italy, or Germany. The audiences are less ignorant than those of Europe, but their critical standard is not higher; and whereas in England it is Parliament that forms most speakers and creates the type of political oratory, Congress renders no such service to America. There is therefore, I think, less presumption in America than in Europe that the politician who makes his way by oratory is a man either of real eloquence or of vigorous thinking power. Able, however, he must be. He is sure to have fluency, a power of touching either the emotions or the imagination, a command of sonorous rhetoric. Probably he has also humour and a turn for quick retort. In fact, he must have the arts—we all know what they are—which please the multitude; arts not blamable in themselves, but needing to be corrected by occasional appearances before a critical audience. These arts joined to a powerful voice and a forcible personality will carry a man far. If he can join to them a ready and winning address, a geniality of manner if not of heart, he becomes what is called magnetic. Now, magnetism is among the highest qualities which an American popular leader can possess. Its presence may bring him to the top. Its absence may prevent him from getting there. It makes friends for him wherever he goes. It immensely enhances his powers in the region of backstairs politics.

For besides the visible work on the stump, there is the invisible work of the committee-room, or rather of the inner conclave, whose resolves are afterwards registered in the committee, to be still later laid before the convention. The same talent for intrigue which in monarchies or oligarchies is spent within the limits of a court or a knot of ruling families, here occupies itself with bosses and rings and leaders of political groups. To manipulate these men and groups, to know their weaknesses, their ambitions, their jealousies, to play upon their hopes and fears, attaching some by promises, entrapping others through their vanity, browbeating others into submission, forming combinations in which each partisan’s interest is so bound up with that of the aspiring statesman that he is sure to stand faithfully by his chief—all this goes a long way to secure advancement under the party system.

It may be thought that between such aptitudes and the art of oratory there is no necessary connection. There are intriguers who are nothing but intriguers, useless on the stump or on the platform of a convention; and such a man does occasionally rise to national prominence. First he gains command of his own state by a dexterous use of patronage; then he wins influence in federal politics by being able to dispose of his state vote in federal elections; finally he forces his way into the Senate, and possibly even aspires to the presidential chair, deluded by his own advancement, and by the applause of professionals who find in success sufficient evidence of worthiness. Recent instances of such careers are not wanting. But they are exceptions due to the special conditions of exceptionally demoralized states. Speaking generally, oratory is essential to distinction. Fluent oratory, however, as distinguished from eloquence, is an art which most able men can acquire with practice. In popularly governed countries it is as common as it is worthless. And a link between the platform and the committee-room is found in the quality of magnetism. The magnetic man attracts individuals just as he captivates masses. Where oratory does not need either knowledge or reflection, because the people are not intent upon great questions, or because the parties evade them, where power of voice and skill in words, and ready sympathy with the feelings and prejudices of the crowd, are enough to command the ear of monster meetings, there the successful speaker will pass for a statesman. He will seem a fit man to put forward for high office, if he can but persuade the managers to run him; and therefore the other side of his activity is spent among and upon the managers.

It sometimes happens that the owner of these gifts is also a shrewd, keen, practical man, so that the first type is blended with the second. Nor is there anything to prevent the popular speaker and skilled intriguer from also possessing the higher attributes of statesmanship. This generation has seen the conjunction both in America and in France. But the conjunction is rare; not only because these last-named attributes are themselves rare, but because the practice of party intrigue is unfavourable to their development. It narrows a man’s mind and distorts his vision. His eye, accustomed to the obscurity of committee-rooms, cannot range over the wide landscape of national questions. Habits of argument formed on the stump seldom fit a man to guide a legislature. In none of the greatest public men that have adorned America do we discern the features of the type just sketched. Hamilton was no intriguer, though he once executed a brilliant piece of strategy.3 Neither was Clay or Webster. Jefferson, who added an eminent talent for party organization and management to his powers as a thinker and writer, was no speaker; and one might go through the whole list without finding one man of the first historic rank in whom the art of handling committees and nominating conventions was developed to that pitch of excellence which it has now reached in the hands of far inferior men. National conventions offer the best field for the display of the peculiar kind of talent which this type of statesman exhibits. To rouse delegates and one thousand spectators needs powerful lungs, a striking presence, address, and courage. A man capable enough in Congress may fail in this arena. But less than half the work of a convention is done on the public stage. Delegates have to be seen in private, combinations arranged, mines laid and those of the opponent discovered and countermined, a distribution of the good things in the gift of the party settled with swarms of hungry aspirants. Easy manners, tact, and suppleness, a reputation for remembering and requiting good turns and ill turns—in fact, many of the qualities which make a courtier—are the qualities which the intrigues of a convention require, develop, and perfect.

Besides such causes inherent in the present party system as check the growth of first-class statesmen more rare than might be expected from the vastness of the nation and its boundless energy, there are two others which spring from the constitutional arrangements of the country. One is the disconnection of Congress from the executive. How this works to prevent true leadership has been already explained.4 Another is the existence of states, each of which has a political life and distinct party organization of its own. Men often rise to eminence in a state without making their mark in national politics. They may become virtual masters of the state either in a legitimate way by good service to it or in an illegitimate way as its bosses. In either case they have to be reckoned with when a presidential election comes round, and are able, if the state be a doubtful one, to dictate their terms. Thus they push their way to the front without having ever shown the qualities needed for guiding the nation; they crowd out better men, and they make party leadership and management even more of a game than the Spoils System and the convention system have tended to make it. The state vote comes to be in national politics what the ward vote is in city politics, a commodity which a boss or ring can dispose of; the man who can influence it has a power greater than his personal merits entitle him to; and the kind of skill which can make friends of these state bosses and bring them into a “pool” or working combination becomes valuable, if not essential, to a national party leader. In fact, the condition of things is not wholly unlike that of England in the middle of the eighteenth century, when a great boroughmonger like the Duke of Newcastle was a power in the country, who must be not only consulted and propitiated at every crisis, but even admitted to a ministry if it was to secure a parliamentary majority. When a crisis rouses the nation, the power of these organization-mongers or vote-owners vanishes, just as that of the English boroughowning magnate was checked on like occasions, because it is only when the people of a state are listless that their boss is potent. Unable to oppose a real wish of the masses, he can use their vote only by professing obedience while guiding it in the direction of the men or the schemes he favours.

This remark suggests another. I have remarked that among statesmen of the former of the two types described, there are always ability and integrity sufficient for carrying on the regular business of the country. Men with those still higher gifts which European nations look for in their prime ministers (though they do not always find them) have indeed never been absent, but they have been comparatively rare. The Americans admit the fact, but explain it by arguing that there has been no crisis needing those gifts. Whether this is true may be doubted. Men of constructive statesmanship were surely needed in the period after the Civil War; and it is possible that a higher statesmanship might have averted the war itself. The Americans, however, maintain that when the hour comes, it brings the man. It brought Abraham Lincoln. When he was nominated by the famous convention of 1860 his name had been little heard of beyond his own state. But he rose at once to the level of the situation, and that not merely by virtue of strong clear sense, but by his patriotic steadfastness and noble simplicity of character. If this was luck, it was just the kind of luck which makes a nation hopeful of its future, and inclined to overlook the faults of the methods by which it finds its leaders.

chapter 75

What the People Think of It

The European reader who has followed thus far the description I have attempted to give of the working of party politics, of the nominating machine, of the Spoils System, of elections and their methods, of venality in some legislative and municipal bodies, may have been struck by its dark lines. He sees in this new country evils which savour of Old World corruption, even of Old World despotism. He is reminded sometimes of England under Sir Robert Walpole, sometimes of Russia under the czar Nicholas I. Assuming, as a European is apt to do, that the working of political machinery fairly reflects the temper, ideas, and moral standard of the governing class, and knowing that America is governed by the whole people, he may form a low opinion of the people. Perhaps he leaps to the conclusion that they are corrupt. Perhaps he more cautiously infers that they are heedless. Perhaps he conceives that the better men despair of politics and wash their hands of it, while the mass of the people, besotted with a self-confidence born of their rapid material progress, are blind to the consequences which the degradation of public life must involve. All these views one may hear pronounced by persons who have visited the United States, and of course more confidently by persons who have not. It is at any rate a plausible view that whatever public opinion there may be in America upon religion, or morality, or literature, there can be little public opinion about politics, and that the leading minds, which in all countries shape and direct opinion, have in America abdicated that function, and left the politicians to go their own way.

Such impressions are far from the truth. In no country is public opinion stronger or more active than in the United States; in none has it the field so completely to itself, because aristocracies like those of Europe do not exist, and because the legislative bodies are relatively less powerful and less independent. It may seem a paradox to add that public opinion is on the whole wholesome and upright. Nevertheless, this also is true.

Here we are brought face to face with the cardinal problem of American politics. Where political life is all-pervading, can practical politics be on a lower level than public opinion? How can a free people which tolerates gross evils be a pure people? To explain this is the hardest task which one who describes the United States sees confronting him. Experience has taught me, as it teaches every traveller who seeks to justify when he returns to Europe his faith in the American people, that it is impossible to get Englishmen at any rate to realize the coexistence of phenomena so unlike those of their own country, and to draw the inferences which those phenomena suggest to one who has seen them with his own eyes. Most English admirers of popular government, when pressed with the facts, deny them. But I have already admitted them.

To present a just picture of American public opinion one must cut deeper than the last few chapters have done, and try to explain the character and conditions of opinion itself beyond the Atlantic, the mental habits from which it springs, the organs through which it speaks. This is what I propose to do in the chapters which follow. Meanwhile it is well to complete the survey of the actualities of party politics by stating in a purely positive, or as the Germans say “objective,” way, what the Americans think about the various features of their system portrayed in these last chapters, about spoils and the machine, about corruption and election frauds. I omit attempts at explanation; I seek only to sum up the bare facts of the case as they strike one who listens to conversation and reads the newspapers.

Corruption.

Most of it the people, by which I mean not the masses but all classes of the people, do not see. The proceedings of Congress excite less interest than those of legislative chambers do in France or England. Venality occurs chiefly in connection with private legislation, and even in Washington very little is known about this, the rather as committees deliberate with closed doors. Almost the only persons who possess authentic information as to what goes on in the Capitol are railroad men, land speculators, and manufacturers who have had to lobby in connection with the tariff. The same remark applies, though less forcibly, to the venality of certain state legislatures. A farmer of western New York may go through a long life without knowing how his representative behaves at Albany. Albany is not within his horizon.1

The people see little and they believe less. True, the party newspapers accuse their opponents, but the newspapers are always reviling somebody; and it is because the words are so strong that the tale has little meaning. For instance, in a hard fought presidential contest charges affecting the honour of one of the candidates were brought against him by journals supporting the other candidate, and evidence tendered in support of them. The immense majority of his supporters did not believe these charges. They read their own newspapers chiefly, which pooh-poohed the charges. They could not be at the trouble of sifting the evidence, against which their own newspapers offered counter arguments, so they quietly ignored them. I do not say that they disbelieved. Between belief and disbelief there is an intermediate state of mind.

The habit of hearing charges promiscuously bandied to and fro, but seldom probed to the bottom, makes men heedless. So does the fact that prosecutions frequently break down even where there can be little doubt as to the guilt of the accused. A general impression is produced that things are not as they should be, yet the line between honest men and dishonest men is not sharply drawn, because those who are probably honest are attacked, and those who are almost certainly dishonest escape punishment. The state of mind of the average citizen is a state rather of lassitude than of callousness. He comes to think that politicians have a morality of their own, and must be judged by it. It is not his morality; but because it is professional, he does not fear that it will infect other plain citizens like himself.

Some people shrug their shoulders and say that politicians have always been so. Others, especially among the cultivated classes, will tell you that they wash their hands of the whole affair. “It is only the politicians—what can you expect from the politicians?” Leaving out the cynics on the one side, and the perfectionist reformers on the other, and looking at the bulk of ordinary citizens, the fair conclusion from the facts is that many do not realize the evil who ought to realize it and be alarmed, and that those who do realize it are not sufficiently alarmed. They take it too easily. Yet now and then when roused they will inflict severe penalties on the receivers of bribes, as they did on the New York aldermen who were bribed to grant the right of laying a streetcar line in Broadway. The givers of bribes are apt to be more leniently dealt with.

Election Frauds.

As these are offences against popular government and injure the opposite party, they excite stronger, or at least more general disapproval than do acts of venality, from which only the public purse suffers. No one attempts to palliate them; but proof is difficult, and punishment therefore uncertain. Legislative remedies have been tried, and fresh ones are constantly being tried. If people are less indignant than they would be in England, it is because they are less surprised. There is one exception to the general condemnation of the practice. In the Southern states Negro suffrage produced, during the few years of “carpetbagging” and military government which followed the war, incredible mischief. When these states recovered full self-government, and the former “rebels” were readmitted to the suffrage, the upper class of the white population “took hold” again, and in order, as they expressed it, “to save civilization,” resolved that come what might the Negro and white Republican vote should not, by obtaining a majority in the state legislatures, be in a position to play these pranks further. The Negroes were at first roughly handled or, to use the technical term, “bulldozed,” but as this excited anger at the North, it was found better to attain the desired result by manipulating the elections in various ways, “using no more fraud than was necessary in the premises,” as the pleaders say. As few of the Negroes are fit for the suffrage, these services to civilization have been leniently regarded even at the North, and are justified at the South by men quite above the suspicion of personal corruption.

The Machine.

The perversion of rings and bosses of the nominating machinery of primaries and conventions excites a disgust which is proportioned to the amount of fraud and trickery employed, an amount not great when the “good citizens” make no counter exertions. The disgust is often mingled with amusement. The boss is a sort of joke, albeit an expensive joke. “After all,” people say, “it is our own fault. If we all went to the primaries, or if we all voted an independent ticket, we could make an end of the boss.” There is an odd sort of fatalism in their view of democracy. If a thing exists in a free country, it has a right to exist, for it exists by the leave of the people, who may be deemed to acquiesce in what they do not extinguish. Nevertheless, the disgust rose high enough to enable the reformers to secure the enactment of the new primary laws, which represent a real effort to smash the machine.

The Spoils System.

As to spoils and favouritism in patronage, I have already explained why the average citizen tolerates both. He has been accustomed to think rotation in office a recognition of equality, and a check on the growth of that old bugbear, an “aristocracy of officeholders.” Favouritism seemed natural, and competitive examinations pedantic. Usage sanctioned a certain amount of jobbery, so you must not be too hard on a man who does no more than others have done before him.

The conduct, as well as the sentiment, of the people is so much better than the practice of politicians that it is hard to understand why the latter are judged so leniently. No ordinary citizen, much less a man of social standing and high education, would do in his private dealings what many politicians do with little fear of disgrace. The career of the latter is not destroyed, while the former would lose the respect of his neighbours, and probably his chances in the world. Europe presents no similar contrast between the tone of public and that of private life.

There is, however, one respect in which a comparison of the political morality of the United States with that of England does injustice to the former.

The English have two moralities for public life, the one conventional or ideal, the other actual. The conventional finds expression not merely in the pulpit, but also in the speeches of public men, in the articles of journalists. Assuming the normal British statesman to be patriotic, disinterested, truthful, and magnanimous, it treats every fault as a dereliction from a well-settled standard of duty, a quite exceptional dereliction which disentitles the culprit to the confidence even of his own party, but does not affect the generally high tone of British political life. The actual morality, as one gathers it in the lobbies of the legislative chambers, or the smoking rooms of political clubs, or committee-rooms at contested elections, is a different affair. It regards (or lately regarded) the bribery of voters as an offence only when detection has followed; it assumes that a minister will use his patronage to strengthen his party or himself; it smiles at election pledges as the gods smiled at lovers’ vows; it defends the abuse of parliamentary rules; it tolerates equivocations and misleading statements proceeding from an official even when they have not the excuse of state necessity. It is by this actual standard that Englishmen do in fact judge one another; and he who does not sink below it need not fear the conventional ideality of press and pulpit.

Perhaps this is only an instance of the tendency in all professions to develop a special code of rules less exacting than those of the community at large. As a profession holds some things to be wrong, because contrary to its etiquette, which are in themselves harmless, so it justifies other things in themselves blamable. In the mercantile world, agents play sad tricks on their principals in the matter of commissions, and their fellow merchants are astonished when the courts of law compel the ill-gotten gains to be disgorged. At the University of Oxford, everybody who took a Master of Arts degree was, until 1871, required to sign the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. Hundreds of men signed who did not believe, and admitted that they did not believe, the dogmas of this formulary; but nobody thought the worse of them for a solemn falsehood. We know what latitude, as regards truth, a “scientific witness,” honourable enough in his private life, permits himself in the witness box. Each profession indulges in deviations from the established rule of morals, but takes pains to conceal these deviations from the general public, and continues to talk about itself and its traditions with an air of unsullied virtue. What each profession does for itself most individual men do for themselves. They judge themselves by themselves, that is to say, by their surroundings and their own past acts, and thus erect in the inner forum of conscience a more lenient code for their own transgressions than that which they apply to others. A fault which a man has often committed seems to him slighter than one he has refrained from and sees others committing. Often he gets others to take the same view. “It is only his way,” they say; “it is just like Roger.” The same thing happens with nations. The particular forms in which faults like corruption, or falsehood, or unscrupulous partisanship have appeared in the recent political history of a nation shock its moral sense less than similar offences which have taken a different form in some other country.

Each country, while accustomed to judge her own statesmen, as well as her national behaviour generally, by the actual standard, and therefore to overlook many deflections from the ideal, always applies the conventional or absolute standard to other countries. Europeans have done this to America, subjecting her to that censorious scrutiny which the children of an emigrant brother receive on their return from aunts and uncles.

How then does America deal with herself?

She is so far lenient to her own defects as to judge them by her past practice; that is to say, she is less shocked by certain political vices, because these vices are familiar, than might have been expected from the generally high tone of her people. But so far from covering things up as the English do, professing a high standard, and applying it rigorously to other countries, but leniently to her own offspring, she gives an exceptionally free course to publicity of all kinds, and allows writers and speakers to paint the faults of her politicians in strong, not to say exaggerated, colours. Such excessive candour is not an unmixed gain. It removes the restraint which the maintenance of a conventional standard imposes. There is almost too little of make-believe about Americans in public writing, as well as in private talk, and their dislike to humbug, hypocrisy, and what they call English pharisaism, not only tends to laxity, but has made them wrong in the eyes of the Old World their real moral sensitiveness. Accustomed to see constant lip service rendered to a virtue not intended to be practised, Europeans naturally assume that things are in the United States several shades darker than they are painted, and interpret frankness as cynicism. Were American politics judged by the actual and not the conventional standard of England, the contrast between the demerits of the politicians and the merits of the people would be less striking.

Supplementary Note to Editions of 1910 and 1914

REMARKS ON THE GROWTH OF PARTY: ITS PERVERSIONS AND THE REMEDIES APPLIED

It may be well to add here a few further observations, suggested by recent events, on the party system.

The government of the United States, and of every state, and of every city, was originally intended and expected to be conducted by the people as a whole through their elected representatives, who, being the best and wisest, were to act for the whole people in their common interest. But, within a few years of its establishment, the government, both in the nation and in the states, and subsequently in the cities also, was seized upon by party, which has ever since controlled it and worked it, so that no other way of working it has even been thought of, or can now be easily imagined. Out of party there naturally grew the machine, i.e., an elaborate system of party organization created for the purpose of selecting candidates and securing their election by the people. The machine is the offspring of two phenomena, both natural, though both unforeseen. One was the deficiency of public zeal among the citizens, a deficiency not indeed more marked here than in other countries but here more unfortunate. The other was the excess of private zeal among the politicians, who perceived that public work could be turned to private gain. Thus the Spoils System sprang into being, office being the prize of party victory.

But the action of these factors was mightily increased by the influence of democratic theory pushed to extremes. The doctrine of human equality was taken to imply that one man was just as good as another for public office. The doctrine of popular sovereignty was applied by giving the election of nearly all officials in state, county, and city to the voters and by choosing the officials for very short terms. The consequence of this was that it became impossible for the voters, in such large communities as states and great cities, to know who were the fittest men to choose for the large number of elective offices. Hence the action and power of the machine became inevitable. Since the voters could not possibly select the numerous candidates needed, it stepped in and selected them. Since the incessant elections required a great deal of work, it stepped in and conducted the elections.

These evils grew with the increasing size of the communities and the increasing wealth of the country, which threw into the hands of legislatures and officials immense opportunities for bestowing favours on unscrupulous groups of men bent on gain. It is easy for such men to influence a legislature, and it was well worth their while to do so.

At last a point was reached at which the evils aroused the public conscience and were felt to be injuring the whole community. How were they to be dealt with? Human intelligence, by a sort of natural law, chooses the path of least resistance, and instead of trying to root out an evil altogether, oftens seeks to discover some expedient which will get round the evil and avoid its worst consequences. So in this instance the voters, instead of destroying the machine or setting it right by ejecting the professionals and making a party organization truly represent the whole party and the principles the party stands for, resorted to the plan of creating statutory primaries, that is to say, of duplicating elections by holding a party election to choose candidates as preliminary to the general election for choosing officials. Already, instead of trying to reform the legislatures, which had largely lost public confidence by their subservience to the machine and to powerful private interests, they had limited the powers and shortened the sittings of the legislatures; and were turning to the state governor whenever he happened to be a strong and upright man, encouraging him to lead and restrain the legislature so far as his legal powers went. And now at last they have begun to supersede the legislature by taking to themselves the direct power of lawmaking through the institution of the referendum and the initiative, these being in their essence an effort to get rid, not only of the evils incident to the selfishness of legislatures and their amenability to improper influences, but also of party itself, as a force which divides the people and prevents them from taking the shortest way to accomplish their will.

All this beautiful series of constitutional developments in state and city government has evolved itself naturally and logically within little more than a century. The constant element in the series has been democractic theory, i.e., the faith in unlimited and direct popular choice and the doctrine that one man is as fit for public office as another. These doctrines, largely abstract in their origin, rooted themselves in mens’ minds, under conditions which made them seem reasonable, in small communities, where the citizens were nearly on a level in education and intelligence, and where the questions of government that arose were within the range of an ordinary man’s knowledge. When such notions came to be applied to huge communities like the states and the vast modern cities, their inapplicability was manifest, while at the same time the need for an organization to work the party system became more evident. Improvements in the representative system might have seemed to be the obvious remedy, but unfortunately the same changes had so injured, and at last discredited, the legislatures of states and cities that the efforts for reform took a different line.

Since 1894, when the preceding chapters on the party system were last revised, public opinion has become more impatient of the rule of the machine, and more sensitive to scandals, while “good citizens” have begun to show more activity in their campaign for purity. “Boss rule” seems to be losing its hold in some of the cities, and the tendency to emancipate them from the state legislatures and stimulate the inhabitants to frame better schemes of government and take a more constant interest in their working has gained ground. Accordingly, although the facts set forth above are still so far generally true that the statements can properly be allowed to stand, it may safely be said that the sky is brighter in 1914 than it was in 1894.

[1] Since the first edition of this book was published, many works on the subject have appeared, some of great merit. Among them are M. Ostrogorski’s Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties; Professor Morse’s History of Political Parties in the U.S.; Professor Jesse Macy’s Party Organization and Machinery; Professor Henry Jones Ford’s Rise and Growth of American Politics.

[2] In mockery of the title he had won from public gratitude a few years before, he was commonly called by them “the stepfather of his country.”

[3] It is related of a New England clergyman that when, being about to baptize a child, he asked the father the child’s name, and the father replied, “Thomas Jefferson,” he answered in a loud voice, “No such unchristian name: John Adams, I baptize thee,” with the other sacramental words of the rite.

[4] It is now generally held that the Constitution does permit the federal government to acquire the new territory, and Congress to form states out of it. Many of the Federalist leaders warmly opposed the purchase, but the farseeing patriotism of Hamilton defended it.

See upon this subject the so-called Insular Cases, 1900–1901, 182 U.S. Reports, pp. 222, 244, and 540, and 183 U.S. Reports, p. 151.

[5] This broad doctrine was not necessary for the decision of the case, but delivered as an obiter dictum by the majority of the court.

[6] David Hume had made the same remark, natural at a time when the power of Parliament was little checked by responsibility to the people.

[1] English parties are however not very ancient; they date only from the struggle of the Stuart kings with the Puritan and popular party in the House of Commons, and did not take regular shape as Whigs and Tories till the reign of Charles II.

[2] Race counts for much less in politics than it did in the last century.

[3] The Southern Negroes have usually voted for the Republicans, but were frequently opposed to restrictions on the sale of liquor. On the other hand, the better class of Southern whites, who are of course Democrats, are largely Temperance men, and many states have now either prohibited the sale of liquor or have adopted a local option system, under which each county decides whether it will be “wet” or “dry” (i.e., permit or forbid the sale of intoxicants).

[4] The protective tariff has struck its roots so deep and rallied so many interests to its support that in the presidential elections of 1904 and 1908 the general issue of “tariff for revenue only” was not raised at all, though there was some talk among Republicans, and far more among Democrats, of tariff revision.

[5]Publisher’s Note: Lord Bryce is apparently referring to the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. The last “Currency Act” was passed by Congress in 1908; but in 1913—the decade indicated in the text—Congress enacted the Federal Reserve Act. Prominent political leaders of the period, including Woodrow Wilson, William Jennings Bryan, and Carter Glass (the act’s chief sponsor), frequently used the term “Currency Act” when referring to the Federal Reserve Act. See, for example, Paolo Coletta, William Jennings Bryan, 3 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1964–69), 2: 126–39.

[1] The name Republican was given to the new party, not without the hope of thereby making it easier for these old school Democrats to join it, for in Jefferson’s day his party had been called Republican.

[2] In the presidential elections of 1904 and again in 1908 two Southern states were carried by the Republicans.

[3] Jefferson regarded agriculture as so much the best occupation for citizens that he was alarmed by the rumour that the codfish of the Northeastern coasts were coming down to the shores of Virginia and Carolina, lest the people of those states should “be tempted to catch them, and commerce, of which we have already too much, receive an accession.”

[4] There have entered since 1890 large masses of Poles, Czechs, Italians, Russian Jews, Slovaks and other Slavs from the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, Magyars, Roumans, Greeks, Syrians, and Armenians (as to all of which see Chapter 92); but though these newer elements have increased rapidly of late years, no one of them can be said to have affected the composition of the parties over the country at large. In New York City the Jews (of whom there are about 400,000 adult males) were at first mostly Democrats, and the Italians mostly Republicans. These new immigrants are most numerous in the great cities and in the mining regions.

[5] There has been some slight jealousy between Swedes and Norwegians, so that where they are equally strong it is not safe to put forward a candidate of either race without placing on the same ticket a candidate of the other also. But where the population of either race is too small to support a church or a social institution of its own, they fraternize for this purpose, feeling themselves much nearer to one another than they are to any other element.

[6] See further as to the Negroes, Chapters 94 and 95.

[7] As recently in the formation of the American Protective Association, which became for a time a political factor in parts of the Northwest.

[8] In 1904 and 1908, however, it was believed that the bulk of the Roman Catholics, at any rate in New York, supported the Republican candidates.

[9] Since 1886 the vast majority of the rich, a proportion probably larger than at any previous time, has in England belonged to one of the two historic parties. But this phenomenon may not be permanent.

[1] The same phenomenon reappeared at the break-up of the Whigs between 1852 and 1857, and from a like cause.

[2] The matter is further complicated by the fact that the national banknotes issued by the national banks are guaranteed by government bonds deposited with the U.S. Treasury, bonds on which the national government pays interest. The Greenbackers desired to substitute greenbacks, or so-called “fiat money,” for these banknotes as a circulating medium.

[3] This was demanded by the Greenback national convention in its platforms of 1880 and 1884, and by the Farmers’ Alliance in 1890; but less than might be expected has been heard of it in America. Its adoption in the Canton of Vaud in Switzerland caused some of the wealthier inhabitants to quit the canton, and in Zürich after it has been raised to a pretty high figure people found that any further rise would be deleterious, so the increase stopped.

[4] In 1874 when a Labour candidate was first run for the New York mayoralty he obtained only between 3,000 and 4,000 votes.

[5] The Prohibitionist platform of 1892, issued by their national convention, contained the following passage:

“The liquor traffic is a foe to civilization, the arch enemy of popular government, and a public nuisance. It is the citadel of the forces that corrupt politics, promote poverty and crime, degrade the nation’s home life, thwart the will of the people, and deliver our country into the hands of rapacious class interests. All laws that under the guise of regulation legalize and protect this traffic, or make the government share in its ill-gotten gains, are ‘vicious in principle and powerless as a remedy.’ We declare anew for the entire suppression of the manufacture, sale, importation, exportation, and transportation of alcoholic liquors as a beverage by Federal and State legislation, and the full powers of the government should be exerted to secure this result.” In 1908 their convention declared one of its principles to be “the submission by congress to the several States of an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting the manufacture, sale, importation, exportation, or transportation of alcoholic liquors for beverage purposes.”

One might have expected the Prohibitionists to advocate the repeal of the protective tariff on manufactured goods so as to make it necessary to maintain customs duties and an excise on intoxicants for the purposes of the National government. But this would imply that these beverages might still be consumed, which is just what the more ardent spirits in the temperance party refuse to contemplate. In 1892 they said: “Tariff should be levied only as a defence against foreign governments which lay tariff upon or bar out our products from their markets, revenue being incidental.”

[6] Many state legislatures have “placated” the Temperance men by enacting that “the hygienics of alcohol and its action upon the human body” shall be a regular subject of instruction in the public schools. Whether this instruction does more good or harm is a controverted point, as to which see the report for 1890 of the U.S. Commissioner of Education.

[7] See further as to women’s suffrage, Chapter 99.

[8] The name is said to be formed from an Indian word denoting a chief or aged wise man, and was applied by the “straight-out” Republicans to their bolting brethren as a term of ridicule. It was then taken up by the latter as a term of compliment; though the description they used formally in 1884 was that of “Independent Republicans.”

[9] In 1912 the Socialist party was the only minor party for which votes were cast in every state. The Prohibitionists obtained votes in forty states, and the Socialist Labour in twenty.

[10] The Labour men and latterly the Socialists did this pretty frequently, the Prohibitionists scarcely ever. As to the Progressive party in the presidential election of 1912, see p. 849 , post.

[11] That is to say, they respect the authority of the mass, to which they themselves belong, though seldom that of individual leaders. See post, Chapter 85, “The Fatalism of the Multitude.”

[1] In America (Canada as well as the United States) people do not say “politicians,” but “the politicians,” because the word indicates a class with certain defined characteristics.

[2] Of course now and then a man who has worked hard for his party is rewarded by a place. Barristers who have spent their substance in contesting seats have a better chance of judgeships, and there are usually five or six practising counsel in the House of Commons who are supposed to contemplate the possibility of their obtaining legal office. But these cases are so few as to make no practical difference.

[3] The number of persons who live off politics by getting places or by manipulating finance is said to have increased in France of late years. But it cannot be very large even now.

[4] The principal business in life of Cincinnatus was to till his fields, and a dictatorship a mere interlude. When I waited on the president of the Republic of Andorra, one of the oldest states in Europe, in 1873, I found him in a red shirt with his coat off wielding a flail on the floor of his barn.

[5] Rome in the later days of the Republic had practically become a country, that is to say, the range of her authority and the mass of her public business were much greater than in any of the Greek cities, even in Athens in the days of Pericles. The chances of making illicit gains were enormous, but confined to a small number of persons.

[6] Norway, the most democratic of the monarchical countries of Europe, is the one which has probably the smallest class of persons continuously occupied with politics.

[7] E.g., the seat of government for Maryland is Annapolis, not Baltimore; for Ohio, Columbus, not Cincinnati; for Illinois, Springfield, not Chicago; for California, Sacramento, not San Francisco; for Washington Territory, Olympia, not Seattle or Walla Walla; for Louisiana, Baton Rouge, not New Orleans.

[8] Though, as observed in a previous chapter, the payment of members of Congress does not seem to have any marked effect in lowering the type of members. It is the offices rather than legislative posts that sustain the professional class.

[9] The progress of the civil service reform movement has greatly reduced the number of federal officers dismissed on a change of administration; and a similar reduction is going on in some states and cities.

[10] But, as already observed, there are also in the rural districts and smaller towns many workers and expectants who do not look for places.

[11] The inner circle may in England be roughly taken to include:

Comparatively few newspapers are primarily political, and in many constituencies (e.g., Irish and Highland counties) there are very few persons occupied in political work. I do not, therefore, think this estimate too low.

In the United States there are now out of the whole number of federal offices about 100,000 which may be said to attract aspirants to endeavour to gain them by political work. Allowing one expectant for each office (a small allowance), and assuming the state and local offices bestowed as the reward for political services to be one and a half times as numerous as the above federal offices (they are, of course, more numerous), and allowing one expectant to each such office, we should have a total of over 100,000 + 150,000 × 2 = 500,000, a little less than one-third of the total number employed in railway work. Deducting from this total those who, though they work for office, do not make such work their main business, and those who work with no special eye to office, we should still have a very large total, doubtless over 250,000 of persons whose chief occupation and livelihood lies in politics.

[12] Lincoln was never a professional politician, for he continued to practise as a lawyer till he became president: but he was so useful to his party that for some years before 1860 he had been obliged to spend a great part of his time in political work, and probably some would have called him a professional.

[1] The tendency in Switzerland to reelect the same men to the legislature and to public office has doubtless worked as much for good in politics there as the opposite tendency works for evil in the United States. Men who have supported measures which their constituency disapproves are often reelected because they are thought honest and capable. The existence of the referendum facilitates this.

[2] It is the same in some, though by no means in all, of the cantons of Switzerland. Office carries little or no social consideration with it. In some cantons the old families have so completely withdrawn or become so completely shut out from public office, federal or cantonal, that it would be assumed that a politician was necessarily a plebeian. I remember to have been told in Bern of a foreign diplomatist who, walking one day with one of the old patricians of the city, stopped at the door of the government offices. “Where are you going?” asked the patrician. “To see one of your ministers on business.”“You don’t mean that you are going to speak to one of the canaille!” was the reply. The minister was, as Swiss statesmen generally are, a perfectly respectable man; but to a Bernese Junker his being a minister was enough to disparage him.

[3] This is true even of eminence in letters or art. A great writer or eloquent preacher is relatively more honoured and valued in America than in England.

[4] This seems to be even more true in 1914 than it was when first written in 1894.

[1] Since the earlier editions of this book appeared, a careful and instructive study of U.S. political party machinery has been published by M. Ostrogorski in a work entitled Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties.

[2] Thus in Mr. Disraeli’s novel of Tancred the county member, a man of good birth and large estates offers to retire in order to make room for the oldest son of the duke when he comes of age. This would not happen nowadays, unless of course the duke were a party leader, and the county member desired to be rewarded by a peerage.

[3] The rapid change in the practice of England in this point is a curious symptom of the progress of democratic ideas and usages there. As late as the general elections of 1868 and 1874, nearly all candidates offered themselves to the constituency, though some professed to do so in pursuance of requisitions emanating from the electors. In 1880 many—I think most—Liberal candidates in boroughs, and some in counties, were chosen by the local party associations, and appealed to the Liberal electors on the ground of having been so chosen. In 1885 and at every subsequent election, all or nearly all new Liberal candidates were so chosen, and a man offering himself against the nominee of the association was denounced as an interloper and traitor to the party. The same process has been going on in the Tory party, though more slowly. The influence of the locally wealthy, and also that of the central party office, remains somewhat greater among the Tories, but in course of time choice by representative associations will doubtless become the rule. This subject has been excellently treated in Mr. A. L. Lowell’s Government of England, which see.

The main difference which still exists between British and American practice is that in Britain the sitting member is always understood to have a presumptive claim to be adopted as the party candidate. Unless he has become personally unpopular, or has failed to support his party, he is almost certain to be renominated, whereas in the United States no such presumptive claim is recognized.

[1] The system described in this chapter has been recently much modified, but as no new system has yet taken its place over the whole country, it is best to let the chapter stand, while adding a note at the end.

[2] Within the state committees and national committee there is almost always a small executive committee in practical control.

[3] The business of registration is undertaken by the public authority for the locality, instead of being, as in England, partially left to the action of the individual citizen or of the parties.

[4] I take township and ward as examples, but in parts of the country where the township is not the unit of local government (see Chapter 48 ante), the local unit, whatever it is, must be substituted.

[5] Sometimes, however, a primary is held for a whole congressional district or city. As to recent changes in the primary system, see note at end of this chapter. All that is said here must be taken as subject to what is said hereafter regarding the new statutory primaries created in many states.

[6] There may be also a county convention for county offices, and a judicial district convention for judgeships, but in a large city or county the county convention delegates may also be delegates to the congressional convention, perhaps also to the state assembly district and senatorial district conventions.

[7] In the case of elections to the presidency and to the governorship of a state the interval between the nominating convention and the election is much longer—in the former case nearly four months.

The procedure described here is that of state and local conventions. For national nominating conventions, see Chapter 69 post.

[8] The obligation is however much less strict in the case of municipal elections, in which party considerations sometimes count for little.

[1] He may also vote once a year for guardians of the poor, but this office is usually so little sought that the election excites slight interest and comparatively few persons vote. If he goes to a vestry meeting he may, in places where there is a select vestry, vote for its members.

[2] Speaking generally the ordinary citizen has to vote for five sets of offices, viz., federal, state, district, county, city, the federal elections coming once in two years (Congress) and once in four (presidential election) and the others at longer or shorter (usually short) intervals according to the laws of the particular state. Even a single city election may present a very complicated problem to the voter.

[3]Political Science Quarterly, Vol. XXIV. p. 598. Professor Beard’s article entitled The Ballot’s Burden contains many valuable facts and remarks on the way in which the complexity of nominating and election machinery destroys that freedom of the citizen which it was originally meant to secure.

[4] I owe the following list, and the explanatory note at the end of the volume, to the kindness of a friend in Massachusetts (Mr. G. Bradford of Boston), who has given much attention to the political methods of his country.

[5] A “town” in New England is the unit of rural local government corresponding to the township of the Middle and Western states. See Chapter 48 ante.

[6] See further the note to this chapter in the Appendix.

[1] The reference here is to primaries of the older type. Though they are being largely superseded by the newer directly nominating primaries, a knowledge of both systems is still necessary. It was indeed the abuse of the old primaries which led to the statutes creating the new ones.

[2] Federal law prescribes a residence of five years as the prerequisite for naturalization, but the laws of not a few Western states enable a vote to be acquired in a shorter term by one who is not a United States citizen. See Chapter 28 ante. And in some states, persons who have not completed their five years are often fraudulently naturalized.

[3] Things are better now than they were then, but even now there is no security that the recently arrived immigrant possesses the qualifications required for the giving of an intelligent vote. It is even alleged that many of the immigrants (especially Italians) brought over to be employed on railroad-making and other similar works come under what are virtually contracts to cast their votes in a particular way, and do so cast them, possibly returning to Europe after some months or years, richer by the payment they have received for their votes as well as for their labour.

[4] At one time a speedy admission to citizenship was adopted as an inducement to immigrants, but this motive has ceased to have force in most states.

[5] In a few of the older cities some such families still exist, but their members do not often enter “politics.”

[6] Although what is here stated is generally true of machines in large cities, there may be, even in such cities, districts inhabited by well-to-do people, in which the political organizations, being composed of men of good character and standing, are honestly worked. The so-called “brownstone districts” in New York City have, I believe, fair machines.

[7] The two paragraphs that follow refer to primaries of the older type, the primary under the laws recently passed in nearly all states being simply an election of candidates by the whole body either of the voters of each party separately or of the voters of both parties voting together.

[8] The rules of the Tammany Hall (Democratic) organization in New York City for many years past made the consent of a majority of the members of each primary necessary to the admission of a new member. A similar system prevails among the Republicans in that city. “The organization of the twenty-four Republican primaries (one for each Assembly district) is as complicated, and the access to membership as difficult, as that of any private club.” Now, however, under the New York primary law of 1899 a person desiring to qualify to vote at a primary has to enrol himself on the general registration days, declaring on the enrolment form that he is in general sympathy with the party which he has designated by his mark at the foot of the paper, that he intends to support the nominees of such party for state and national offices generally at the next general election, and that he has not since the last preceding first of January enrolled as a member of any other party. No one not then enrolled may vote at a party primary.

[9] In 1880 it was computed that out of 58,000 Republican voters in New York City not more than 6,000, or 8,000 at most, were members of the Republican organization, and entitled to vote in a primary.

The numbers present in the old-fashioned primaries were sometimes very small. “At the last Republican primaries in New York City only 8 per cent of the Republican electors took part. In only eight out of twenty-four districts did the percentage exceed 10, in some it was as low as 2 per cent. In the Twenty-first Assembly District Tammany Primary, 116 delegates, to choose an Assembly candidate, were elected by less than fifty voters. In the Sixth Assembly District County Democracy Primary, less than 7 per cent of the Democratic voters took part, and of those who did, sixty-nine in number, nearly one-fourth were election officers. The primary was held in a careless way in a saloon while card-playing was going on.”—Mr. A. C. Bernheim in Pol. Science Quarterly for March 1888.

A trustworthy correspondent wrote to me from Philadelphia in 1894. “There is probably an average of 150 Republican voters to an election district. The average attendance at primaries is said to be about 12, which is approximately the number of party servants necessary to manage the meeting under party rules.”

[10] For a remarkable instance in Baltimore see the report of United States Civil Service Commissioner Roosevelt made to the president, May 1, 1891. “Pudding ballots” (composed of six or seven ballots folded together as if one) were profusely used at these primary elections in the various wards of Baltimore. One of the witnesses examined, an employee of the Custom House, testified as follows: “Each side cheats as much as it can in the primaries. Whoever gets two judges wins. I do just the same as they do. They had two judges.” . . . Q. “How do you do your cheating?” A. “Well, we do our cheating honourably. If they catch us at it, it’s all right: it’s fair. I even carried the box home with me on one occasion . . . I have broken up more than one election.”

[11] It was a perception of these facts and a growing discontent with their results that suggested the new primary laws above referred to.

[1] The state of things under which rings first developed was worse, because then everybody was dismissible. Now many federal posts and (in some places) some city posts have been brought under civil service rules, but there are still a great many officials who are expected to work for the party.

[2] Assuming, as one usually may, that the city leaders are on good terms with the federal and state party managers.

Federal statutes and civil service rules made under them now provide that no person in the public service shall be compelled to contribute service or money for political purposes; and that persons in the competitive service shall take no active part in political campaigns, or use official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with an election or controlling the result thereof. These rules, however, do not cover the whole field, and it is believed that they are not always observed.

[3] So too a rural boss is often quite pure, and blameworthy rather for his intriguing methods than for his aims.

[4] A pleasant story is told of a former boss of New York State, who sat with his vassals just before the convention, preparing the slate. There were half a dozen or more state offices for which nominations were to be made. The names were with deliberation selected and set down, with the exception of the very unimportant place of state prison inspector. One of his subordinates ventured to call the attention of the boss to what he supposed to be an inadvertence, and asked who was to be the man for that place, to which the great man answered, with an indulgent smile, “I guess we will leave that to the convention.”

[5] As for instance by packing the primaries with its adherents from other districts, whom a partisan chairman or committee will suffer to come in and vote.

These remarks all refer to the old-fashioned primaries. The new statutory primary, as already observed, is a different thing, whose defects, as well as its merits, are different.

[6] Where primary laws are in force, primaries are no longer held in saloons.

[7] “A Boss is able to procure positions for many of his henchmen on horse railroads, the elevated roads, quarry works, etc. Great corporations are peculiarly subject to the attack of demagogues, and they find it greatly to their interest to be on good terms with the leader in each district who controls the vote of the assemblyman and alderman; and therefore the former is pretty sure that a letter of recommendation from him on behalf of any applicant for work will receive most favourable consideration. The leader also is continually helping his supporters out of difficulties, pecuniary and otherwise: he lends them a dollar 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 exposed, and learns to mix bullying judiciously with the rendering of service.”—Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, in an article in the Century magazine for November 1886.

[8] In one great state it was recently well understood that the Democratic boss of the chief city and the Republican boss of the state were in the habit of trading offices with one another.

[9] Federal officials would, as a rule, contribute only to the fund for federal elections; but when the contest covered both federal and city offices, the funds would be apt to be blended.

The totals of salaries of officials now are of course far larger, but as it is impossible to ascertain today on how much of them an assessment is paid, the figures in the text have been allowed to stand.

[10] To make the calculation complete we should have to reckon in also the (comparatively few) state officials and assessments payable by them.

[11] As judicial places were sold under the old French monarchy, and commissions in the army in England till 1872.

[12] “A judgeship,” said (writing in 1883) Mr. F. W. Whitridge, “costs in New York about $15,000; the district attorneyship the same; for a nomination to Congress the price is about $4000, though this is variable; an aldermanic nomination is worth $1500, and that for the Assembly from $600 to $1500. The amount realized from these assessments cannot be exactly estimated but the amount raised by Tammany Hall, which is the most complete political organization, may be fixed very nearly at $125,000 (£25,000). This amount is collected and expended by a small executive committee who keep no accounts and are responsible only to each other.”—Article “Assessments” in Amer. Cyclop. of Political Science. In 1887, the City Chamberlain of New York estimated the average minimum assessment levied on a candidate for mayor at $20,000, for comptroller at $10,000, for district attorney at $5,000. However, in 1887 the Democratic rings in New York City demanded $25,000 for the nomination to the comptrollership, and $5,000 for that to a state senatorship. The salary of the comptroller is $10,000 for three years, that of Senator $1,500 for two years, i.e., the senatorial candidate was expected to pay $2,000 more than his total salary, a fact suggestive of expectations of gain from some other source.

[13] “Before a committee of the New York legislature the county clerk testified that his income was nearly $80,000 a year, but with refreshing frankness admitted that his own position was practically that of a figurehead, and that all the work was done by his deputy on a small fixed salary. As the county clerk’s term is three years, he should nominally receive $240,000, but as a matter of fact two-thirds of the money probably goes to the political organizations with which he is connected.”—Mr. T. Roosevelt in Century magazine for November 1886. A county officer answered the same committee, when they put what was meant to be a formal question as to whether he performed his public duties faithfully, that he did so perform them whenever they did not conflict with his political duties(!), meaning thereby, as he explained, attending to his local organizations, seeing politicians, “fixing” primaries, bailing out those of his friends who were summoned to appear before a justice of peace, etc.

[1] My correspondent wrote in 1892 that the above remarks were still equally applicable. Both parties remained under a despotic ring rule.

[2] The condition of Louisville was described as substantially the same in 1893.

[3] It will be remembered that in the United States, though a man may pay taxes on his real estate in any number of states or counties or cities, he can vote, even in purely local elections or on purely local matters, in one place only—that in which he is held to reside. In this respect the principle of “no taxation without representation” has been ignored.

[1] Before 1820 Governor Clinton complained “of an organized and disciplined corps of Federal officials interfering in State elections.” Marcy’s speech was a defence of the system of partisan removals and short terms from the example of his own state. “They [the New York politicians] when contending for victory avow the intention of enjoying the fruits of it. They see nothing wrong in the rule that to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy.”

[2] See on this subject, Chap. 5, in Vol. 1.

The act of 1820 as extended by subsequent legislation applies to more than 6,000 offices. Its mischief, however, was not confined to the legal vacating of these posts, but has lain largely also in establishing a custom applying to a far larger number of minor places.

[3] Now of course the tables have been turned, and the examples of the practically irremovable English civil service and of the competitive entrance examinations in England are cited against the American system.

[4] The fact that in Canada the civil service is permanent has doubtless much to do with the absence of such a regular party machine as the United States possess.

[5] President Garfield said “one third of the working hours of senators and representatives is scarcely sufficient to meet the demands in reference to the appointments to office. . . . With a judicious system of civil service the business of the departments could be better done at half the cost.”

[6] Sometimes the evil was so much felt that a subordinate of experience was always retained for the sake of teaching those who came in by political favour how to carry on the work.

[7] To have made places tenable during good behaviour would have been open to the objection that it might prevent the dismissal of incompetent men against whom no specific charge could be proved.

[8] Report of Civil Service Commission for 1909.

[1] A ticket includes more names or fewer, according to the number of offices to be filled, but usually more than a dozen, and often far more.

[2] West Virginia permits the voter to choose between the open, sealed, or secret ballot.

[3] They were specially frequent, and are not extinct, in some of the Southern states, having been there used before recent amendments to the state constitutions had debarred the vast majority of the Negroes from the suffrage. It was here that the use of “tissue ballots” was most common. I was told in San Francisco that elections had become more pure since the introduction of glass ballot boxes, which made it difficult for the presiding officials to stock the ballot box with voting papers before the voting began in the morning. After the election of 1893, nearly one hundred election officers in New York City, about twenty-five in Brooklyn, and a good many in the smaller cities were indicted for offences against the election laws, and especially for permitting “repeaters” to vote, for accompanying voters into the booth on a false pretence of their blindness or physical incapacity, and for cheating in the counting of the votes. Many were convicted. Repeating has been profusely practised in New York and (it is said) largely by professional criminals, in some subsequent elections. However the official management of elections has there and elsewhere improved.

[4] The British general election of 1880 gave rise to no less than ninety-five petitions impugning returns on the ground of some form of corruption, and many were sustained. After the election of 1886 there was not a single petition. After that of 1892 there were ten petitions alleging corrupt practices, and in three of these the election was declared void on the ground of such practices. More recent elections have brought very few petitions, and the boroughs in which bribery still exists are probably less than a dozen. This improvement must, however, be partly ascribed to the Redistribution Act of 1885, which extinguished the small boroughs.

[5] At an election in Brooklyn, a number of coloured voters sat (literally) on the fence in front of the polling booths, waiting to be bought, but were disappointed, the parties having agreed not to buy them. There is a good deal of bribery among the coloured voters in some of the cities, e.g., in those of Kentucky and Southern Ohio, and in Philadelphia.

When there is a real issue before the voters, bribery diminishes. In the mayoralty contest of 1886, in New York, the usually venal classes went straight for the Labour candidate, and would not be bought.

[6] I quote from a paper by M. Simon Deploige in the Belgian Revue Générale for March 1893. The plan is now being tried in Belgium.

[7] The subject is examined with care and acuteness by Professor A. B. Hart in his Practical Essays on American Government.

[8] This statutory recognition of party as a qualification for office is not unusual in America, having been found necessary to ensure an approach to equality of distribution between the parties of the posts of election officers, for the fairness of whose action it was essential that there should be some sort of guarantee.

[1] The term “graft” has within the present century established itself as that which technically describes the corrupt taking of money by public officials, and its frequent use testifies not to a spread of the malady, but rather to the growing sensitiveness of the public conscience and the more earnest efforts to abate the evil.

[2] The so-called Whisky Ring of 1875 and the Star Route gang of a later time are perhaps the most conspicuous instances of malpractices in the civil service. Some gross instances of misconduct on the part of minor officers in the New York custom office were discovered in 1909.

[3] See Chap. 15 in Vol. I. on the committees of Congress.

[4] I remember to have heard of the governor of a Western Territory who, when he came East, used to borrow money from the head of a great railway which traversed his Territory, saying he would oblige the railway when it found occasion to ask him. His power of obliging included the right to veto bills passed by the Territorial legislature. This governor was an ex-boss of an Eastern state whom his party had provided for by bestowing the governorship on him.

[5] See ante, Note (B) to Chap. 16 in Appendix to Vol. I.

[6] All lines traversing the territory of more than one state are subject to the power of Congress to “regulate commerce.” As to free passes, see the instructive remarks of the Interstate Commerce Commission in their First Report. The grant by the state of free passes on railways to members of the chambers has led to abuses in Italy.

[7] Mr. Huntington comments freely on the character of various members of both houses, and describes not only his own operations, but those of Mr. Scott, his able and active opponent, who had the great advantage of being able to command passes on some railways running out of Washington. In one letter he uses a graphic and characteristic metaphor: “Scott has switched off (i.e., off the Central Pacific track and on to his own railroad track) Senators S. and W., but you know they can be switched back with the proper arrangements when they are wanted.”

The Report of the U.S. Pacific Railway Commission says of these transactions, “There is no room for doubt that a large portion of the sum of $4,818,000 was used for the purpose of influencing legislation and of preventing the passage of measures deemed to be hostile to the interests of the company, and for the purpose of influencing elections.”—Report, p. 84.

[8] The president of a great Western railroad told me that congressmen used to come to the company’s office to buy its land, and on seeing the price list would say, “But isn’t there a discount? Surely you can give the land cheaper to a friend. You know I shall be your friend in Congress,” and so forth.

[9] Among the investigations which disclosed the existence of bribery among members of Congress, the most prominent since that of 1856–57 are those of the Credit Mobilier and the Pacific Mail cases.

[10] See Vol. I., p. 109, note.

[11] There have, however, been some serious cases of malpractice in the customs at the seaports.

[12] The new Western legislatures vary greatly from time to time. Sometimes they are quite pure; the next election under some demagogic impulse may bring in a crowd of mischievous adventurers.

[13] Colorado some while ago and more recently Illinois are instances.

[14] The New York legislature has been believed to have improved of late years, and probably may be improving, though a grave case of corruption was unearthed in 1909–10.

[15] T´όσσονἔνερθ’ Aἴδεωὅσονοὐρανόςἀστ’ἀπὃγάἴης: Iliad VIII, 16.

[16] A notorious case is the sale by the New York aldermen of the right to lay a tramway in Broadway. Nearly the whole number were indicted and some were punished by imprisonment.

[17] See Chapter 88 post.

[18] Senators were often charged with buying themselves into the Senate: but, so far as I could ascertain, it did not often happen that a candidate for the Senate directly bribed members of the state legislature, though frequently he made heavy contributions to the party election fund, used to defray the election expenses of the members of the party dominant in the state legislature.

[1] The remarks that follow must be taken subject to the alterations recently introduced, in many states, by the new primary laws. I allow these remarks to stand because they describe what existed before those laws, and still exist in states that have not adopted them.

[2] “To run an anti-machine candidate for mayor it is necessary to organize a new machine at an expense of from $60,000 to $100,000 (£12,000 to £20,000), with a chance of his being ‘sold out’ then by the men who are hired to distribute his ballots.”—Mr. J. B. Bishop in the paper on “Money in City Elections,” written in 1887. Now that the new laws of nearly all states provide for official voting papers, the last-mentioned risk has disappeared, but the expense of getting up a new election organization is still heavy. Someone has said that the difference between running as a regular candidate and running on your own account as an independent candidate is like the difference between travelling by railway and making a new railway of your own to travel by.

[3] See note on primary laws to Chapter 60 ante.

[4] Statutes of Minnesota of 1887, Chapter IV, §§ 99–105. It is significant that these sections apply only to cities of 5,000 inhabitants or upwards.

[5] Says Mr. Roosevelt: “Voters of the labouring class in the cities are very emotional: they value in a public man what we are accustomed to consider virtues only to be taken into account when estimating private character. Thus if a man is open-handed and warm-hearted, they consider it as being a fair offset to his being a little bit shaky when it comes to applying the eighth commandment to affairs of state. In the lower wards (of New York City), where there is a large vicious population, the condition of politics is often fairly appalling, and the [local] boss is generally a man of grossly immoral public and private character. In 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 president of a powerful semi-political association 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 term in the State prison. A school trustee had been convicted of embezzlement and was the associate of criminals.”—Century magazine for November 1886.

[1] The president is now always chosen on the Tuesday after the first Monday in the November of an even year, whose number is a multiple of four (e.g., 1880, 1884, 1888), and comes into office in the spring following; but the first election was held in the beginning of 1789, because the Constitution had been then only just adopted.

[2] It was not absolutely necessary to have a nomination, because there was a general feeling in favour of reelecting Monroe. The sentiments which suggested ‘rotation’ in office as proper for less important posts did not include places of such importance as those of president or state governor.

[3] The whole number was then 261, nearly all Democratic Republicans, for the Federalist party had been for some time virtually extinct.

[4] See last paragraph of this chapter.

[5] In 1856 the first Republican convention, which nominated Frémont, was rather a mass meeting than a representative body, for in so many states there was not a regular organization of the new party. So was the seceding Republican convention which met at Cincinnati in 1872 and nominated Greeley.

[6] I use throughout the term “aspirant” to denote a competitor for the nomination, reserving the term “candidate” for the person nominated as the party’s choice for the presidency.

[7] In the Republican National Convention of 1908 an attempt was made to reduce the number of delegates from the states where the party is weak by proposing that every state should have four delegates-at-large and one additional delegate for every 10,000 Republican votes polled at the last preceding presidential election. This plan, which would have greatly reduced the representation in the convention of nearly all the Southern states, was rejected by a vote of 506 to 470.

[8] Although the large majority of the delegates in the conventions of the two great parties belong to the class of professional politicians, there is always a minority of respectable men who do not belong to that class, but have obtained the post owing to their interest in seeing a strong and honest candidate chosen. The great importance of the business draws men of talent and experience from most parts of the country.

[9] Nominations may however be made at any subsequent time.

[10] However, in the Republican Convention of 1888, fourteen aspirants were nominated at the outset, six of whom were voted for on the last ballot. Votes were given at one or other of the ballotings for nineteen aspirants in all.

[11] Except for the idle formality of appointing a committee to notify to the candidate his selection.

[1] The national conventions of those days were much smaller than now, nor were the assisting spectators so numerous.

[2] Chapter 83. The nearest English parallel to an American “platform” is to be found in the addresses to their respective constituencies issued at a general election by the prime minister (if a member of the House of Commons) and the leader of the opposition in that House. Such addresses, however, do not formally bind the whole party, as an American platform does.

[3] In 1860 the Democratic Convention at Charleston nominated Mr. Douglas on the fifty-seventh ballot.

[4] The boss of Tammany was an object of special curiosity to the crowd, being the most illustrious professional in the whole United States.

[5] The two other Democratic organizations of New York City, the County Democracy and Irving Hall, came each in force—the one a regiment of five hundred, the other of two hundred.

[6] Oddly enough, the only English parallel to this delicate reserve is to be found in the custom which forbids a candidate for the representation in Parliament of the University of Oxford to approach the university before or during the election.

[7] Not to add that many Southern Republican delegates are supposed to be purchasable.

[8] Admission is of course by ticket, and the prices given for tickets to those who, having obtained them, sell them, run high, up to $30, or even $50.

[9] I have heard in such a prayer thanks returned to the Almighty for having secured the nomination of a particular candidate at a previous sitting of the convention and the request preferred that He would make sure the election of that candidate.

[10] In the Democratic Convention of 1884 it was understood that the choice of Mr. Cleveland, the leading favourite, would depend on the action of the delegation of New York State, not only, however, because it cast the largest vote, but because it was his own state, and because it was already foreseen that the presidential election would turn on the electoral vote of New York. Thus the struggle in the convention came to be really a duel between Mr. Cleveland and the boss of Tammany, with whom Mr. Cleveland had at an earlier period in his career “locked horns.”

[11] Suppose A and B, favourites, to have each 330 votes. After some ballotings, A’s friends, perceiving they cannot draw enough of the votes commanded by C, D, and F (who have each 70), and of G and H (who have each 30) to win, give their 330 votes to F. This gives him so considerable a lead that C, D, and G go over to him on the next ballot; he has then 570, and either wins at once (Republican rule) or will win next ballot (Democratic rule).

[12] It will be understood that while the favourites and favourite sons are before the convention from the first, some of the dark horses may not appear as aspirants till well on in the balloting. They may be persons who have never been thought of before as possible candidates. There is therefore always a great element of exciting uncertainty.

[13] The gavel is a sort of auctioneer’s hammer used by a chairman to call the attention of the meeting to what he is saying or to restore order. That used at a national convention is then made of pieces of wood from every state.

[14] To check stampeding the Republican Convention of 1876 adopted a rule providing that the roll call of states should in no case be dispensed with. This makes surprise and tumult less dangerous. (See Stanwood’s useful History of Presidential Elections.) With the same view the Republican Convention of 1888 ruled that no vote given on any balloting should be changed before the end of that balloting. The impulse to “jump on the bandwagon” is strong in moments of excitement.

[15] Probably a dark horse, for the favourite sons, having had their turn in the earlier ballotings, have been discounted, and are apt to excite more jealousy among the delegates of other states.

[16] Should the plan of presidential primaries, referred to at the end of Chapter 69, be generally adopted, the conditions under which a convention works will be materially changed. When one aspirant has obtained at the primaries a majority of all the votes cast, the convention will have nothing to do but ratify a selection already made by the party, and then adopt a platform. Should no aspirant have secured an absolute majority, it will be so difficult for anyone who has not received a large measure of popular support at the primaries to get himself chosen that the field of choice, which has heretofore included men who had been scarcely considered before the convention met, will be sensibly narrowed.

[1] As a statute now forbids the levying of assessments for party purposes on members of the federal civil service, it is deemed prudent to have no federal official on this committee, lest in demanding subscriptions from his subordinates he should transgress the law.

Large contributions used to be made by the great manufacturing and other corporations, partly because those who managed them thought their corporate interests involved in the success of one party, partly (it has been alleged) because they hoped to receive certain favors from the party to which they were giving pecuniary aid. The practice has now been forbidden by a statute enacted by Congress in 1907.

[2] In 1908 both parties, under the provisions of a statute, returned the money collected by their respective national committees for election purpose. The Republican return was $1,655,518; the Democratic was $620,644. These were deemed unusually small sums.

[3] Sometimes he stumps along a line of railroad, making ten-minute speeches from the end platform of the last car.

[4] Sometimes a sort of amateur census is taken of the persons occupied in one place in some particular employment, as, of the professors in a particular college, or even of the clerks in a particular store, these being taken as samples of store clerks or professors generally; and the party organ triumphantly claims that three-fourths of their votes will be cast for its candidate. Among the “throbs of Connecticut’s pulse,” I recollect an estimate of the “proclivities” of the workmen in the Willimantic mills in that state.

[5] An eminent Unitarian clergyman having written a letter condemning a candidate, the leading organ of that candidate in sneering at it, remarked that after all Dr. Clarke’s coachman’s vote was as good as Dr. Clarke’s; to which it was rejoined by a hostile journalist that hundreds of voters would follow Dr. Clarke, and hundreds more be offended at this disrespectful reference to him.

[6] One of the clerical speakers spoke of the opposite candidate as receiving the support of “rum, Romanism, and rebellion.” This phrase, eagerly caught up, and repeated by hostile newspapers, incensed the Roman Catholics of New York, and was believed to have turned the election against the candidate in whose interest the alliteration was invented. Nothing so dangerous as a friend.

[7] Women, however, have often appeared as delegates at the conventions of the Prohibition party; and there have been instances in which they have been admitted as delegates to a Republican state convention in Massachusetts.

In 1904 several women were alternate delegates to the Republican National Convention from Wyoming, Colorado, and Idaho, and in 1908 one woman came as an “alternate” from Colorado to the Republican convention.

[8] Mr. Cleveland had, as governor of New York State, vetoed as unconstitutional a bill establishing a uniform fare of 5 cents on the New York City elevated railroads. This act was supposed to have alienated the working men and ruined his presidential prospects.

[9] In the state elections held in Ohio shortly beforehand, the Republicans had been victorious, and the omen was gladly caught up.

[10] There is a great deal of betting on elections, so much that bribery is often alleged to be practised by those who are heavily involved. The constitutions or statutes of some states make it an offence to give or take a bet on an election. In the campaigns of 1904 and 1908 the odds were from the first on one candidate, and after a little fluctuation during a few weeks, rose slowly but steadily in his favour till the end. This happened also in 1912.

[11] There is a touch of superstition in the value set in America upon the first indications of the popular sentiment, like that which made the Romans attach such weight to the vote of the century first called up to vote in the comitia centuriata. It was selected by lot, perhaps not merely because the advantage of calling first a century which he might know to be favourable to his own view or candidate was too great a one to be left to the presiding magistrate, but also because its declaration was thus deemed to be an indication of the will of the gods who governed the lot.

[1] This and the two following paragraphs are allowed to stand in the text because they describe what happened in earlier elections and might possibly, given similar conditions, happen again. But what is said in them does not apply to the contests from 1888 onwards, for in these there have been comparatively few and slight attacks upon the character of candidates.

The inquiry into a candidate’s honesty is pursued so keenly that even his property tax returns are scrutinized to found charges of his having endeavoured to evade the law. Such a charge played a great part in a recent presidential contest.

[1] The nearest parallel to the American nominating system is the selection of their leader by the opposition in the House of Commons, of which there have been only three instances, the choice of Lord Hartington by the Liberal members in that House in 1875, on which occasion the other candidates withdrew before a vote was needed; the choice of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman by the same party in 1898, on which occasion no other candidate appeared; and the choice of Mr. Law by the Tory party in 1911. The selection of a prime minister is the act of the Crown. If he sits in the House of Commons, he naturally leads it; if in the other house, he chooses one of his colleagues to lead in the Commons.

[2] Hamilton had acutely remarked in 1788 that the larger an assembly the greater is the power of a few in it. See Vol. I, p. 172.

[3] In the ancient world the assemblies of great democratic cities like Athens or Syracuse presented both these conditions; they had large numbers present, and almost unlimited powers. But they were at any rate permanent bodies, accustomed to meet frequently, composed of men who knew one another, who respected certain leaders, and applauded the same orators. The American convention consists of men who come together once only in their lives, and then for a week or less.

[4] Sir Walter Scott remarks of Edinburgh, early in the eighteenth century, that its mob was one of the fiercest in Europe. The history of the Covenant from 1638 downwards is full of episodes which indicate how much more excitable is Scotch than English blood.

[1] Englishmen will think of the men who framed the new Poor Law of 1834 as specimens of the second class, of Sir G. C. Lewis as a specimen of the third, of Lord Palmerston as a specimen of the fourth. The aptitudes of the third and fourth were united in Sir Robert Peel.

[2] It need hardly be said that the characteristic attributes of these several types are often found united in the same person; indeed no one can rise high who does not combine at least two of the four latter.

[3] In agreeing that the national capital should be placed in the South in return for the support of two Southern men to his plan for the settlement of the public debt.

[4] See Chaps. 21, 25, and 26 in Vol. I.

[1] This remark does not apply to the malversations of officials in cities like New York or Philadelphia. These nobody can help knowing.