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POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY 
 
POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY 
 
 AN ESSAY 
 
 BY 
 
 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON 
 
 AUTHOR OF "A SYSTEM OF PSYCHOLOGY;" "THE TROBLEM OF EVIL; 
 "the HELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS OF THE HUMAN MIND;" "SOCIAL 
 progress;" "the philosophy of fiction in LITERATURE," 
 ETC., ETC., ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 1893 
 
^.LLLL^ 
 
 Copyright, 1893, by 
 DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON 
 
 Press of J. J. Little & Co. 
 Astor Place, New York 
 
TO 
 
 WILLIAM F. VILAS 
 
 UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM WISCONSIN 
 
 MY PERSONAL AND FAMILY FRIEND OF LONG STANDING 
 
 I RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBE 
 
 THIS VOLUME 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGC 
 
 Argument, ix-xiv 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Monarchy, i 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Supernatural Monarch, g 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Democracy, 13 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Degradation of Law 26 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Combination and Organization 30 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Political Party 35 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Government by Syndicate, . .... 43 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Democratic and Republican Parties, . . .52 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Tammany Hall, 63 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 The Supporters of Tammany Hall, . . . .75 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 The Critics and Opponents of Tammany Hall, . . 92 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Evil and the Good in Tammany Government, . 108 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Some Special Counteractives against Evil, . .131 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 General Remedies and Ultimate Tendencies, . . 140 
 
ARGUMENT. 
 
 A CONSPICUOUS characteristic of people living 
 under a monarchial rdgime is the sentiment called 
 Loyalty. This is exhibited in reverence for and 
 self-denying devotion to a personal sovereign. It 
 involves a high development of the sense of duty, 
 " impelling men to do what they think they ought 
 without hesitation, and even with enthusiasm, 
 irrespective of personal consequences. The path 
 of duty, wherever it may lead, is the only way to 
 glory. 
 
 The progress from monarchy to democracy has 
 been marked by a decline of this sentiment of 
 loyalty. Such decline has been stayed by relig- 
 ion, loyalty to a supernatural monarch taking 
 the place of devotion to a human sovereign. The 
 decline has further been stayed by patriotism, 
 love of a common country, which is rendered 
 very intense by a state of defensive conflict for self- 
 preservation. But when religious authority wanes, 
 and the safety of a democracy is established past 
 all fear, with prosperity assured, the sentiment of 
 loyalty dies out. With it also departs in large 
 measure the sense of duty. Individual ends take 
 
X POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 the place of social ends. I look at everything 
 from the point of view of self, considering only- 
 how / am to be affected. I pursue the course 
 of conduct which will presumably benefit me the 
 most, considering any other procedure as foolish. 
 
 Hence arises a state of eager competition on 
 the devil-take-the-hindmost principle. Each man 
 struggles against his neighbor to surpass him. 
 Every one is for himself, and there is no common 
 end of effort. The community sense is lost, the 
 selfish inclinations predominating over the social. 
 
 But with increased liberty arises a more ex- 
 tended and intensified ambition ; and men soon 
 find that they cannot accomplish their purposes 
 single-handed. Voluntary combination and organi- 
 zation follow. Cooperation on the basis of a 
 common interest is entered into, lasting as long 
 as that interest is preserved. The results attained 
 by this method are so satisfactory that the princi- 
 ple and practice are extended in every direction. 
 People combine and organize, in all departments 
 of activity, for certain specified purposes of com- 
 mon advantage. 
 
 This is true in politics, as elsewhere. The first 
 form of combination is the Political Party, which 
 is generally national. It is originally a union of 
 citizens thinking alike on questions of public policy 
 and working to put into office exponents of their 
 
ARGUMENT. XI 
 
 ideas. But the opposition of parties increasing, 
 the competition between them tends to solidify 
 each. The eagerness for success makes the parti- 
 san study the most effectual means of ensuring it. 
 These he finds in concentration of power. Within 
 the party goes on a process of specialization of 
 function by which the direction of affairs is vested 
 in the hands of a few. " Rings " are hence formed 
 and " bosses " arise. The organization becomes 
 more military and less democratic. The profes- 
 sional politician comes to the front. 
 
 The professional regards politics as a business, 
 wherein the object is success in carrying out meas- 
 ures and in putting men into or out of office. This 
 end is determined by the interests of the party 
 for which the professional works. The limitation 
 of the scope of operations renders success easier. 
 Hence we find, particularly in cities, that the 
 forces of combination and organization have 
 produced the most perfect form of what we may 
 term the Governing Syndicate. This is a com- 
 pact, well-organized body, controlled like a busi- 
 ness house and established on the commercial 
 principle of undertaking the government of a city 
 as a matter of business. The syndicate will do 
 the municipal government work, and to that end 
 fill and control the offices, for what the people 
 will let them make. This form of governmental 
 
Xil POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 administration obtains in most of our great cities. 
 It is commercial in principle, but not necessarily 
 vicious. At all events it is a natural and readily 
 explicable product of evolution. 
 
 As illustrations of the political party proper in 
 the United States, we have the Democratic and 
 Republican parties ; the former is the party of the 
 masses, of personal liberty, and of individualism ; 
 the latter, the party of the aristocracy, of author- 
 ity, and of socialism. 
 
 The best illustration of government by syndi- 
 cate is Tammany Hall in New York City. Its 
 methods explained, its vote analyzed, and its 
 supporters classified. The city election of 1890 
 for mayor taken as the test of Tammany strength, 
 all other elements of the voting population being 
 then combined against it. The critics and oppo- 
 nents of Tammany examined, and Tammany Hall 
 defended. Its existence, or the existence of a 
 political power like it, shown to be inevitable. 
 The evil and the good in Tammany government 
 set forth, the good preponderating. 
 
 The special remedies for political evils lie in 
 the direction of less government rather than 
 more. The great difficulty now is found in legis- 
 lation. Something should be done to control 
 legislative action, to prevent legislating for indi- 
 viduals and classes of individuals. The general 
 
ARGUMENT. Xlll 
 
 remedy lies in the education of men so as to re- 
 store, if possible, the sense of duty ; to find some 
 way to renew the spirit which existed in the sen- 
 timent of loyalty to the king. This can only 
 occur through the higher development of the 
 altruistic character and the formation of such an 
 ideal of life as will cause human beings to find 
 their satisfaction in doing things well ; in enjoy- 
 ing to the fullest what is at hand, rather than 
 struggling for the unattainable ; in being worthy 
 of success, rather than attaining it by restless 
 striving. 
 
 But though there are dangerous evils conspicu- 
 ous in American democracy, the outlook, after all, 
 is encouraging. The neglect of politics by men 
 of intelligence and wealth, the indifference to cor- 
 ruption, scheming, and selfishness which we ob- 
 serve, and which are often cited as evidences of 
 national decay, do not argue a general deteriora- 
 tion, or an increasing depravity of the people 
 leading to anarchy in the sense of revolution, 
 violence, or even insecurity of life or property. 
 This condition of affairs is, rather, symptomatic 
 of an evolutionary movement toward a situation 
 where government is becoming of less consequence 
 because of the self-control and self-regulation of 
 people in their conduct toward each other ; to- 
 ward that anarchy wherein government ceases 
 
XIV POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 because unnecessary. This is the true argument 
 to be drawn from what is sometimes called our 
 political decadence. The more stable society is, 
 the more secure people are in the great rights of 
 Life, Liberty, and Property, the more certain is 
 government to become of less consequence and 
 its administration to be relegated to professional 
 politicians, who work for wages, as they would in 
 any other business. In a country of liberty and 
 political equality, the statesman in the old sense 
 must become obsolete as civilization advances 
 and society becomes more perfect. 
 
POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MONARCHY. 
 
 In these days, when the reality of government 
 by the people seems in America to fall so far 
 below the standard of excellence which a high 
 ideal of democracy forces us to set up, the won- 
 der grows, in the mind of the thoughtful person, 
 whether, after all, anything has been gained for 
 human happiness by the abolition of monarchy 
 and the vested rights of aristocratic classes. 
 Under the recognition of status there is more 
 stability, and thus more certainty in predicting 
 the future from the past. Hence man, knowing 
 what is to come, can so shape his conduct as to 
 meet the events of life with the least amount of 
 effort, disturbance, and anxiety. His adaptation 
 becomes more complete, his mind is more con- 
 tented, and his joy keener. In the absence of 
 this stability he knows, indeed, that greater oppor- 
 tunity is afforded him to rise in the world by his 
 
2 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 own striving ; but he also learns the bitter lesson 
 that the energy of those below is just as likely to 
 knock him down from the position he actually 
 holds. Not only is eternal vigilance the price of 
 liberty, but eternal contention is the price of 
 security. There is no rest for the weary. It is a 
 constant struggle for survival. Nothing is at- 
 tained, but one is always seeking. Or, if some- 
 thing be grasped, there is need of so much exer- 
 tion to hold it that ease for enjoyment is not 
 possible. There is no chance for that cultivation 
 of happiness and enlargement of its sources which 
 quiet and repose inevitably bring and alone can 
 secure. But with the other regime, if the king 
 proudly claims that his rights are paramount, 
 that he is answerable to no man, but serenely 
 enjoys his prerogatives " by the grace of God;" 
 it is also true that the humblest workman, though 
 his sphere of action be limited, by this very lim- 
 itation is furnished with an incentive to growth 
 within that sphere, which, if it goes on, brings 
 him the satisfaction of mastery, making him 
 happy as a king and as proud as any ruler of 
 men. Dr. George Hepworth has beautifully writ- 
 ten the story of a poor man who went through 
 life rejoicing in his humble calling, attaining the 
 fulness of his desires, esteeming himself more 
 blessed than if he wore a royal crown, and asking 
 
MONARCHY. 3 
 
 when he died that there be inscribed on his tomb- 
 stone the words, " Shoemaker by the grace of 
 God " ! * Thus, where conditions are fixed, even 
 though there be barriers which may not be passed, 
 there is something in the thought that those bar- 
 riers may after all be a protection, and that within 
 them lies an opportunity for getting good out of 
 life more certain and more ample than any to be 
 found if they were swept away and the humanity 
 they enclosed precipitated into a mobile ocean of 
 rolling and tumultuous waves. 
 
 If kings had not been so prone to war it may 
 well be doubted if democracy would have ap- 
 peared so desirable, or would have been put in 
 practice so extensively. War is the most terrific 
 disorganizer of society, and its destructiveness is 
 the greatest bane to human happiness. Thus, 
 when the people who were to be the chief suf- 
 ferers from its ravages saw that national conflicts 
 were entered into upon a theory of national honor 
 which depended on the personal likes and dislikes, 
 the ambitions and caprices of autocratic rulers, 
 they naturally began to agitate for such a regime 
 as would prevent whole communities from being 
 plunged into bloody strife at the will of one 
 man, or a few. They reasoned that the system 
 of government was the chief cause of their woes, 
 * " Hiram Golf's Religion." 
 
4 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 until they came to believe that if any one was to 
 be killed it ought to be the kings and princes, 
 whose selfishness was always prominent and 
 whose concern for the popular welfare very slight. 
 Hence came revolutions ; at first perhaps looking 
 merely to a change in dynasty, but in time be- 
 coming satisfied only with some form of demo- 
 cratic control. 
 
 Nevertheless, even with war and under oppres- 
 sion there is something in the monarchical idea 
 which has always appealed attractively to the 
 minds of men dwelling together in society. The 
 notions of greater power and greater perfection, 
 intermingled in varying proportions according to 
 the characters of different individual's, have ren- 
 dered subjection to a monarch not only easy but 
 preferable. Mankind worships the hero, whether 
 he be superior in strength or preeminent in wis- 
 dom and goodness. The people, knowing their 
 own limitations, demand a leader, and having 
 found one they glory in him. This is not less 
 true in a democracy than under autocratic govern- 
 ment. Power and perfection seem to go together. 
 The might that must be obeyed is that which 
 ought to be obeyed. The conqueror is first sub- 
 mitted to, ex necessitate, then reverenced and per- 
 haps loved. That which originally was merely 
 the Great tends to become finally the Good. 
 
MONARCHY. 5 
 
 Out of this union of fear and love arises a sen- 
 timent whicli dominates the actions of men in a 
 degree often sufificient to overcome the selfish 
 instincts and inclinations. It is a sentiment of 
 Loyalty to a Sovereign which has sent countless 
 multitudes to death unflinchingly and even tri- 
 umphantly. It takes hold of the ignorant and 
 unthinking more strongly than upon the enlight- 
 ened and cultivated. It sways masses of men who 
 are selfish, brutal, and ferocious; it stimulates 
 their courage to an extreme development ; it im- 
 pels them to deeds of daring and devotion that 
 no Christian martyr, filled with divine altruism, 
 ever surpassed. No tribes of savages are so low 
 as to be wholly without it, and under its influ- 
 ence the polished and courtly knight joyfully 
 faces the cannon or yields his life to the sword or 
 spear. 
 
 No one can claim justly that this potent senti- 
 ment is an entirely unselfish one, or that the acts 
 Avhich it inspires are free from motives of individ- 
 ual advantage. The love of glory and the ambi- 
 tion for personal aggrandizement are frequently 
 conspicuous in the hero. To the common soldier 
 the hope of plunder and unrestrained license to 
 gratify the baser passions may be the ultimate 
 incentive. For the ends which the human mind 
 sets before itself, however self-denying they ap- 
 
6 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 pear, still must bear some relation to self-satis- 
 faction. But over and above all these egoistic 
 motives, governing and controlling conduct is the 
 belief, with strong emotional accompaniments, that 
 only through subjection, obedience, devotion to 
 the sovereign, can the good things of life be ob- 
 tained in whatever direction they may be thought 
 to lie. From force of education and habit this 
 homage comes to be rendered almost automatic- 
 ally. Thus loyalty grows to be an unreasoning 
 sentiment, which issues in action unreasoned, 
 spontaneous, and certain. 
 
 It is difficult to estimate the component feelings 
 of this masterful sentiment, because they vary so 
 much with respect to each other in different indi- 
 viduals ; but undoubtedly the general basis is fear 
 and the characteristic manifestation submission 
 and obedience. The lower the civilization the 
 more strongly does this last-named emotion make 
 itself evident. The great chief is the irresistible 
 man, who maintains his position by his distin- 
 guished prowess. He may be a monster of cru- 
 elty, some Zulu Chaka, but he is obeyed as " The 
 Heavens above," because he is universally feared. 
 His power to crush and kill, the certainty that he 
 will exercise it, and the impossibility of escape, 
 ensure the loyalty of his subjects. Recognizing 
 the supremacy of their king, they ascribe to him 
 
MONARCHY. 7 
 
 attributes which they think will be pleasing and 
 propitiatory. Being allowed the favor of his pres- 
 ence, or exercising his bounty, the original terror 
 becomes softened to awe and admiring reverence. 
 For him they will work and strive, his behests 
 they will follow, that they may not only avoid his 
 wrath, but share in the benefits of his superior 
 power. 
 
 This last motive increases in strength and effi- 
 ciency as civilization grows. As enlarged intelli- 
 gence gains a more complete mastery over brute 
 force, the chief maintains his hold, not so much as 
 before because he is mighty in battle, but because 
 he is of use to those who support and obey him, 
 and because he somehow awakens their love or 
 friendly enthusiasm. Though the impression of 
 his great power still remains, he is thought of more 
 as a realization of ideal virtue, or as a guarantor 
 of the attainment of those ends of life cherished 
 and pursued by the subject. The latter thus hum- 
 bles himself before the king as an inferior creature, 
 and worships royalty under the belief that his own 
 well-being is thereby assured. Under such a stim- 
 ulus, modified from the primitive motives, loyalty 
 continues to maintain itself as a tremendous sen- 
 timent, governing the conduct of the gentle, the 
 refined, the cultivated, as it does that of the fierce 
 and bloodthirsty barbarian. 
 
o POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 It is not the present intention to discuss the 
 advantages and disadvantages of monarchy, or to 
 trace its influence, or show its characteristics 
 under its various forms from extreme absolutism 
 to the most liberal constitutionalism. My pur- 
 pose just now is to call attention to a prevailing 
 characteristic of the people who live under a mo- 
 narchical regime, the existence in the individual 
 character, and the great influence over that char- 
 acter as determining conduct, of the powerful 
 sentiment we are accustomed to call loyalty to 
 and reverence for a personal sovereign ; the chief, 
 the essential element of whose sovereignty is 
 power and right to command, as against all indi- 
 vidual subjects and associations of subjects. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL MONARCH. 
 
 It has been greatly to the disadvantage of kings 
 that they are, despite their greatness, human beings 
 and mortal. However superior they may be, the 
 limitation of both their power and their perfection 
 cannot be ignored. Sometimes it is painfully ob- 
 vious. Canute could not stay the sea, nor Caesar 
 avoid the dagger of Brutus. Monarchs are not 
 proof against disease nor against the countervail- 
 ing of men. Nor are they heroes to their valets. 
 Under many circumstances they are in such a 
 position as to excite contempt and even ridicule 
 for their weakness. Frequently their acts are such 
 as to inspire malignant hatred. In either of these 
 conditions the sentiment of loyalty is under- 
 mined, and only favorable opportunity is needed 
 to cause the breaking forth of rebellion. It is 
 considered that prosperous treason is no longer 
 treason, and sacred as may be the majesty of 
 the king, when his power is gone his glory has 
 departed. 
 
 These things being so, it is not strange that mon- 
 archy has generally called religion to its support. 
 
10 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 The religious sentiment of loyalty to God is of the 
 same nature as the political one of loyalty to a king. 
 Both recognize a sovereignty and the duty of obe- 
 dience. Both set up models of superior power 
 and superior excellence. Both have their roots in 
 fear, and both afford room for love and trust. In 
 fine, the attributes ascribed to the supernatural 
 monarch are but enlargements and extensions of 
 the traits assigned to the human ruler. But the 
 divine ruler has the great advantage of being an 
 ideal creation, assumed to be absolutely perfect in 
 all his attributes, with no possible risk of his dig- 
 nity being lowered by actual comparison of reality 
 with the ideal standard. God is not the subject of 
 criticism by courtiers; and though from his re- 
 moteness he may not be able to exercise the 
 direct, present, and constant influence of an 
 earthly governor, as a sovereign of infinite per- 
 fections he stands immeasurably superior. 
 
 Loyalty to a divine monarch is inculcated by 
 religion. From the fallibility of human rulers, it 
 naturally happens that sometimes obedience to 
 the latter conflicts with obedience to the former. 
 The greater the purity and ideality of the divine 
 law, as interpreted by the ministers of God, the 
 more contemptible appear the requirements of a 
 weak or vicious monarch. Hence, in order to sus- 
 tain the authority of the latter, it becomes neces- 
 
THE SUPERNATURAL MONARCH. II 
 
 sary to hedge the king about with divinity. He 
 himself must become a priest of heaven. He 
 must stand as the representative of the Greater 
 King. He must hold the sceptre as God's vice- 
 gerent upon earth. He rules by the grace of God, 
 whose servant he is and upon whom God's favor 
 especially rests. 
 
 Thus the threatened opposition between divine 
 and human authority is averted. Of course his- 
 torically this is not always so, as innumerable con- 
 flicts between state and church testify. And 
 many are the instances where the sense of duty 
 of an individual to God has impelled him to resist 
 defensively, or overtly and aggressively to attack, 
 royal power. But, on the whole, religion has been 
 a bulwark of monarchy. The idea that he is God's 
 representative in the civil and political order 
 operates largely to prevent the people from con- 
 sidering the king's shortcomings. His sins 
 are all venial. He can do no wrong. Gluttony, 
 lechery, cruelty, avarice, do not appertain to a 
 king. Private vices are immaterial, and public 
 crimes are the work of bad advisers or subordi- 
 nates. In like manner, on the other hand, all his 
 virtues are exaggerated. He is most magnificent, 
 most beneficent, most noble, most Christian. He 
 is clothed with divine traits of character, and fre- 
 quently is sainted or made a demi-god. With the 
 
12 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 aid of these religious increments the sentiment of 
 loyalty to a monarch becomes strong enough to 
 persist even though the ruler be worthless or 
 wicked, entirely unfit for his exalted station. 
 
 In recent times the private character of royal 
 personages has greatly improved. For the most 
 part they have been amiable, kind, generous, fairly 
 intelligent, personally attractive when young, and 
 dignified, respectable, and lovable when the after- 
 noon of life is reached. The Emperor William I., 
 of Germany, was undoubtedly a magnificent speci- 
 men of humanity, whether considered physically, 
 mentally, or morally. Queen Victoria is ordi- 
 narily exalted as a model of womanhood. Most 
 of the reigning sovereigns of civilized nations are 
 thoroughly respectable, impressed with the sense 
 of their responsibilities, and animated by a Chris- 
 tian sense of duty to their fellow-men. Under 
 such circumstances the monarchical regime appears 
 at its best. When loyalty to the divine and the 
 human king, to the supernatural and the political 
 monarch, can be blended and concentrated upon a 
 person who, being a man, exemplifies the most 
 divine traits of humanity, the advantages of this 
 form of civil government for the stability of society 
 and the happiness of mankind are the most salient 
 and the most real. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 DEMOCRACY. 
 
 It will not be necessary for the purposes of this 
 work to trace the course of historical evolution by 
 which, through the increasing desire and demand 
 for individual liberty and political equality, democ- 
 racy came into vogue. Nor is it important to 
 repeat the familiar arguments by which the supe- 
 riority of a democratic form of government is 
 thought to be demonstrated. It is, however, 
 within our line of study to note some of the im- 
 perfections of popular rule and how they came to 
 arise. To do this effectively we shall be obliged 
 to inquire into the influence upon character of the 
 greater power in political matters which democracy 
 confers on the individual. Character determines 
 conduct in large measure, and the determining 
 sentiments which make up character are different 
 under different regimes. 
 
 Whatever results may be worked out in prac- 
 tice, theoretically, at least, democracy does not 
 contemplate doing away with law or government. 
 It claims only to present a superior form of govern- 
 ment and a better method of applying and enforc- 
 
 13 
 
14 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 ing law. It does not aim to detract from the 
 sacredness of law or lessen the duty of obedience, 
 although it may regard the sources as different 
 and create different rules of interpretation. 
 
 The principle of social existence under any 
 theory can only allow to the individual so much 
 liberty as consists with the common liberty. And, 
 indeed, without social liberty it can readily be 
 shown that individual liberty cannot be secured. 
 To assure the common freedom there must be 
 law, which must be obeyed and enforced. This is 
 recognized under a democratic as under any other 
 government. 
 
 But with popular sovereignty the seat of author- 
 ity is changed. The sovereign is not one but the 
 many. There is no person or class of persons in 
 whom remains inherent the right to rule, but every 
 man is entitled to say, " I am king," as much as 
 any other. Every one lawfully may command as 
 he is by law required to obey. Each individual 
 may participate in the making of law, in its inter- 
 pretation, and in its enforcement. He is free to 
 form his own ideas of right and wrong, of what 
 ought to be allowed and prohibited by the state ; 
 and also to put forth his best efforts to attain a 
 position from which he may have power to exercise 
 his will in accordance with his notions. He is 
 permitted to " rise in the world," politically and 
 
DEMOCRACY. 15 
 
 socially, and to aspire to any station that any other 
 man may reach. 
 
 Thus it must inevitably happen that reverence 
 for personality as the embodiment of righteous 
 authority will abate. For whoever represents the 
 law as its administrator does so only upon the 
 election of the multitude — a plurality of the 
 people. No particular sacredness is attached to 
 him or his personal character. It may be acci- 
 dental that he is invested with authority. He 
 may be wholly unfitted, the worst of those who 
 were candidates for the position. If despised per- 
 sonally, he is only entitled to consideration because, 
 so long as he is in office, he is a minister of the 
 law. And the fact that his tenure is short does 
 not increase personal respect. With the spirit of 
 competition becoming intense, in the general 
 eagerness -that he shall as speedily as possible get 
 out of the way, disparagement, abuse, and obloquy 
 are his unhappy fortune. 
 
 Thus, in a democracy the sentiment of loyalty 
 to a person as invested with any portion of the 
 sovereignty of the state tends to disappear. It is 
 in a measure replaced, however, by love of coun- 
 try and patriotic impulses which keep alive the 
 sense of duty to the state. In that strong reac- 
 tion from monarchical institutions out of which 
 democracy becomes established, liberty is the 
 
l6 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 great war-cry, and patriotic sentiment is focussed 
 around the idea of greater freedom for the indi- 
 vidual. 
 
 " My country, 'tis of thee. 
 
 Sweet land of Liberty — 
 Of thee I sing.'' 
 
 If, then, a common interest of self-preservation 
 exists, a degree of enthusiasm and energy may be 
 created, through the dominance of an abstract 
 idea, as potent and all-controlling as any senti- 
 ment of loyalty to a monarch. The superior force 
 of tyrants in the world's history often has been 
 wholly unable to overcome the unquenchable 
 spirit of devotion to the cause of liberty. When, 
 oppressed by evil conditions, people entertain 
 strong hopes of throwing off the burden that 
 weighs them down, there is a powerful motive 
 force to effort. And if in the process of such 
 achievement they are obliged to fight for life 
 itself, the enthusiasm for country, for home, for 
 altars and for fires, for native land, bursts forth 
 into an energy of action which death can hardly 
 paralyze, but which lives on and glows with 
 greater intensity in those who survive, impelling 
 them to immortal deeds of heroism. 
 
 Moreover, the personal element which is so 
 important for the maintenance of the sentiment 
 of loyalty, and which, at first thought, would seem 
 
DEMOCRACY. I? 
 
 to be eliminated in the transition from monarchy 
 to democracy, is still preserved, for a time at any 
 rate and in considerable measure, by religion. 
 There is no longer a king, indeed, who shines with 
 the divine glory clothing him, but if there exist 
 faith in a supernatural ruler, such a theory of ethics 
 is apt to be embraced as will make love of and serv- 
 ice to one's country, to the cause of liberty, the 
 development and improvement of the human race, 
 service to God and proof of loyalty to him. The 
 voice of the people becomes the voice of God, 
 and in heeding and following the one we respect 
 and obey the other. Such a coincidence of patri- 
 otism and religious devotion is found in its most 
 effective form in the New England common- 
 wealths at the time of the American Revolution. 
 The government became essentially theocratic. 
 As Mr. Oscar S. Straus * has shown, " In the 
 spirit and essence of our constitution the influence 
 of the Hebrew commonwealth was paramount." 
 " Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." 
 "But where, say some, is the king of America? 
 I'll tell you, friend ; he reigns above, and doth not 
 make havoc of mankind like the royal brute of 
 Britain. Yet, that we may not appear to be 
 defective even in earthly honors, let a day be set 
 
 *" Origin of Republican Form of Government in the U. S." 
 (1885), p. 79, and elsewhere. 
 2 
 
1 8 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 apart for proclaiming the charter ; let it be 
 brought forth, placed on the divine law, the word 
 of God."* In those days the influence of the 
 ministers and preachers was exceedingly great in 
 their application to politics of the teachings, and 
 the enforcement of the commands, of Holy Script- 
 ure. To be patriotic and to be religious were the 
 same. In loyalty to God was both the source 
 and the constantly feeding spring of patriotic 
 thought, desire, and action. 
 
 The American democratic republic was avow- 
 edly established to secure certain " inalienable 
 rights " with which men " created equal " are 
 " endowed by their Creator " ; " among these are 
 life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." f 
 That is to say, the founders of this republic 
 intended and expected to attain for all the people 
 security to pursue happiness unhampered and un- 
 hindered, to follow out such ends and aims of life 
 as they might choose and entertain. This in- 
 volves, of course, the limitation placed upon each 
 individual by the equal rights of others ; but, sub- 
 ject to this restraint, it was designed to open the 
 way to each person to follow the bent of his 
 nature in working out his own happiness and 
 accomplishing his own destiny. These purposes 
 
 * Quoted from Thos. Paine : "Common Sense," op. cit., p. lS6. 
 f Declaration of Independence, 1776. 
 
DEMOCRACY. 1 9 
 
 have been realized to a degree never before known 
 in the history of the world. Undoubtedly there 
 has been attained in America a more complete 
 security than ever before reached for the free 
 development of the spontaneous energies of the 
 individual man. 
 
 It is quite obvious that the ends which the free 
 and autonomic citizen will pursue will be some- 
 what different from those set before the subject in 
 a monarchical regime. All those employments and 
 objects of aspiration which are appurtenant to the 
 pomp of kings and royal aristocracies are swept 
 away. The courtier's honors are abolished. This 
 of itself works considerable change, but, after all, 
 it is relatively a small matter compared with the 
 vast alteration in the whole scheme of social life. 
 The contrast cannot be better shown than by the 
 terms Militant and Industrial Civilization. These 
 are by no means synonymous or coincident with 
 Monarchy and Democracy, respectively ; for there 
 have been militant democracies, and there have 
 been and are industrial monarchies. But it is 
 undeniably the case that the establishment of 
 democracy tends to bring about a social state 
 wherein the arts of peace and the commercial 
 industries are universally cultivated and flourish 
 to a prevailing extent. That such should be the 
 case is inevitable, for success in war necessitates 
 
20 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 a monarchical order and the adoption of the 
 methods of absolutism. By the very theory of a 
 democratic society, soldiery as a career loses most 
 of its interest. It may be honorable to serve in a 
 militia for defensive purposes, but chieftainship, 
 which is essential to a purely military ambition, is 
 impossible. Where all are equal before the law, 
 no one can attain such a supremacy as to say, " I 
 will lead you to conquest and glory." The will 
 of no one can be powerful enough to induce the 
 many to enter upon war, unless first the demo- 
 cratic regime is broken down. And if from pecul- 
 iar circumstances it happen that a popular move- 
 ment brings about war, such uprisings are so 
 uncertain and occur so seldom that the youth 
 beginning life naturally seeks his career rather in 
 the activities of peace, and makes her rewards his 
 chief object of effort. 
 
 If the state of society be such that life is secure 
 from violence, its support by industrial activity 
 will be the fi.rst consideration. Freedom to ac- 
 complish this will become the chief constituent 
 in the idea of liberty. But the support of life 
 speedily becomes a matter not merely of activity, 
 but of preserving the products of activity. Not 
 only work is needed, but laying up a store as the 
 result of work against the day when labor is no 
 longer possible, \fience, obtaining and holding 
 
DEMOCRACY. 21 
 
 property rises to the position of a prime object of 
 life in an industrial community.) It is directly 
 conducive to the preservation of existence, and 
 without it, to say the least, life is precarious and 
 insecure. Freedom to acquire and hold property 
 in security thus comes to be of essential import- 
 ance under a democratic regime, because this is 
 necessary to that development of life, in the liberty 
 to choose and pursue individual aims, which is the 
 fundamental idea of democracy. 
 
 But this is not all. The desire for liberty is also 
 the desire for expansion. An oppression which is 
 crushing out life stimulates opposing energy to 
 throw off the burden. When this is lifted, the 
 principle of growth continues to operate in enlarg- 
 ing the field of action. The impulse to overcome 
 resistance is still strong, although the necessity 
 for self-preservation has passed. That is to say, 
 craving for liberty very speedily grows into an 
 eagerness for power, leading to the formation of 
 ideals of success, reputation, honor, greatness, 
 which are set up and followed with great persist- 
 ence. ,(But power in an industrial democratic 
 civilization can best be obtained through the pos- 
 session of wealth.7 He who already has that which 
 all men are seeking, is in a position of vantage. 
 By the use of his money he can command the 
 services of those who are struggling for support or 
 
22 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 for an improved status. They will do his bidding 
 according to the degree of their necessities or 
 ambitions. He can hire service directly, or obtain 
 it indirectly through the natural inclination people 
 have to attach themselves to the prosperous and 
 great. He can enjoy luxuries and make others 
 sharers with him. He can satisfy his desire for 
 achievement of great things by planning and carry- 
 ing out vast enterprises adding to his resources 
 and augmenting his fame. He can more readily 
 secure political eminence and the honors of official 
 station. Whatever may be his tastes, he can gratify 
 them most completely by acquiring riches, which 
 bring both security and power. To do this be- 
 comes the individual's chief aim, and to accom- 
 plish the desired result he bends all his energies. 
 
 The community, consequently, comes to pre- 
 sent the spectacle of extended and intense indus- 
 trial and commercial competition, in which every 
 man's hand is turned against his neighbor to gain 
 what advantage he can within the field of strife. 
 A constant warfare goes on which occupies the 
 energies, sharpens the wits, and concentrates the 
 attention upon the exigencies of business success. 
 The active side of human nature is everywhere 
 stimulated, while the enjoyments of rest and 
 leisure are little considered. Xonstant exertion 
 is the rule ; nobody is satisfied with what he has 
 
DEMOCRACY. 23 
 
 attained, but is forever striving for something 
 more.!) 
 
 Generalizing the results of this condition of 
 affairs upon character, it will readily be seen that 
 the tendency is to increase selfishness and self- 
 concentration, and to diminish and dwarf the self- 
 denying virtues. The individual self becomes to 
 each one the centre of all aims. No doubt in 
 monarchical countries the same spirit is observ- 
 able, but duties of self-abnegation are required 
 which keep the character balanced. With these 
 last removed, as to a great extent they are in a 
 democracy, the individual's advantage becomes 
 more completely the standard of his conduct. 
 He no longer asks, What do I owe to the com- 
 munity in this matter ? but rather. What will be 
 the use to me of this or that particular course ? 
 And the more stable the order of society, the more 
 certain is this to be the case. When a person 
 feels perfectly secure of his life, liberty, and prop- 
 erty, it does not occur to him that he is bound 
 to make any sacrifices for the general good. The 
 welfare of the country does not occupy his atten- 
 tion, except in a very general way. It is hard to 
 persuade him that he has active duties to perform 
 as a citizen. The need of his exertions in that 
 line is never pressed upon him. The more suc- 
 cessful democracy is, the more prevalent is that 
 
24 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 separatism which weakens the claims of social 
 duty and makes the individual man the end and 
 measure of all things to himself. Whatever career 
 he enters into, the chief consideration is what can 
 be got out of it for one's self, not what service 
 can be rendered to others. The present gain is 
 eagerly grasped ; the more remote and larger ad- 
 vantage is set aside. 
 
 Under the circumstances described, not only do 
 the general aims and objects of life become more 
 self-limited and egoistic in their nature, but the 
 methods of attaining those ends are affected by 
 the condition of enlarged freedom. The individ- 
 ual claims the prerogative of being the sole judge 
 of the right and wrong of his own actions. His 
 own opinion of his conduct is as good as that of 
 any other man. His acts and opinions of them 
 being colored by his interests, it naturally follows 
 that his sense of justice to others is weakened. 
 Business is war, and he lays down as a rule of 
 action, " Do others, or they will do you." Hence 
 the sense of honor is blunted, and honesty itself 
 ceases to be held in high regard. As in a militant 
 and monarchical civilization murder is the prevail- 
 ing crime, so in an industrial and democratic 
 society, cheating, fraud, and stealing are the prom- 
 inent and pervasive derelictions. Under the 
 militant regime war means assaults upon life ; in 
 
DEMOCRACY. 2$ 
 
 an industrial society, though so-called peace pre- 
 vail, war exists in the form of contests for property, 
 often of the most intense and merciless ferocity. 
 In its effects upon character it may well be doubted 
 if the latter is any improvement over the former. 
 With all its horrors, military life develops grand 
 and heroic characters, while industrial war tends 
 to create sneaks and poltroons. Besides, the war 
 of the sword is intermittent. The battle over, 
 humanity, courtesy, the finer and gentler feelings 
 come into full play. In the industrial conflict the 
 battle never ends. The combatants always have 
 on their armor. Unless one is ever on guard, the 
 death-dealing stab may come at any time. War 
 is even carried into social life ; the entire being is 
 so moulded as to be fitted for and everywhere to 
 exhibit the condition of struggle. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE DEGRADATION OF LAW. 
 
 In the preceding chapter we saw how the sen- 
 timent of obedience to authority surely becomes 
 weakened when it ceases to have a kingly person- 
 age upon whom to rest ; but that a struggle against 
 oppression or aggression develops the sentiments 
 of patriotism which are just as effective, and that 
 the alliance of the sense of moral and political 
 duty with the religious emotions and motives pre- 
 serves a loyal devotion to the state and the welfare 
 of the community in general. But we also ob- 
 served that as the social order becomes more 
 assured in a democracy, and there is little danger 
 apprehended of any assault upon the institutions 
 of government and society, the patriotic sentiments 
 likewise become diminished in force, the aims of 
 activity become self-centred and indifferent to the 
 general good. If now the hold of religion upon 
 the mind and heart is loosed, so that loyalty and 
 duty to a divine monarch no longer influence con- 
 duct, what have we left of authority to constrain 
 the wills of men to respect right and justice ? 
 
 There is a remarkable warning uttered by De 
 26 
 
THE DEGRADATION OF LAW. "21 
 
 Tocqueville which is quite apropos of this ques- 
 tion. It is to the effect that the passion for ma- 
 terial well-being has no check in a democratic 
 community except religion, and if religion were 
 to decline, then liberty would perish. Mr. John 
 Rae remarks upon this : " It is impossible, there- 
 fore, in an age when the democratic spirit has 
 grown so strong and victorious, to avoid taking 
 some reasonable concern for the future of liberty, 
 more especially as at the same time the sphere 
 and .power of government are being everywhere 
 continually extended, and what is called material 
 civilization is ever increasing, and religious faith, 
 particularly among the educated and the working 
 classes, is on the decline." * 
 
 That such a decline of religious faith has oc- 
 curred in America there can be no doubt. The 
 deference paid to the teaching of the Scriptures 
 in the colonies at the time of the Revolution, as 
 exhibited in the work of Mr. Straus quoted from in 
 the last chapter, no longer exists, nor does there 
 prevail the fear of God as a bestower of rewards and 
 punishments in this world to a degree sufficient to 
 affect conduct to any great extent. The situation 
 
 * See " Contemporary Socialism," by John Rae, Introduction, 
 p. 26, where the author comments upon De Tocqueville. I have 
 alluded to this in another work, " The Problem of Evil," chap. 
 xxvii. p. 266. 
 
28 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 SO much deprecated by the French commentator 
 on our institutions has arrived ; what result is 
 noticeable ? 
 
 In general terms, we may say the result is to 
 destroy or impair the sentiment of reverence for 
 law, and of duty to honor and sustain it. Law no 
 longer has its seat in the bosom of God, but is 
 a human institution. Nor, as such, is it venerable 
 as a permanent and certain rule to be respected 
 and obeyed universally by all good citizens. It is 
 regarded as a temporary, shifting, accidental re- 
 straint upon conduct, which has no inherent sacred- 
 ness and which is liable to be set aside or modified 
 as public opinion shifts. It is not an infallible ex- 
 pression of justice, but, on the contrary, often 
 works injustice. It is not a thing to be perpetu- 
 ated, but rather to be abrogated as soon as cir- 
 cumstances allow. 
 
 It would not be a matter of so much concern if 
 this view only led to efforts to change and im- 
 prove law in orderly methods. But there are 
 other and very dangerous consequences. Such a 
 want of respect is developed that the duty to 
 obey law until it is changed is no longer felt. The 
 moment the individual interest comes into col- 
 lision with the legal mandate, the latter is re- 
 garded as an obstruction to be gotten rid of in 
 one way or another. Ingenuity is then set at 
 
THE DEGRADATION OF LAW. 29 
 
 work to discover some way in which the law can 
 be nullified or avoided. No conscience interferes 
 to prevent this. On the contrary, it is considered 
 a mark of laudable ability, if such a design can be 
 successfully accomplished. Reputable men inquire 
 how they can circumvent the statutes, and thieves 
 consult lawyers before they begin to steal, to as- 
 certain the farthest limit to which they can go 
 and escape the penitentiary. 
 
 Thus, with the individual's will as the arbiter 
 and measure of all things for himself and his own 
 conduct, sitting in judgment upon the acts of the 
 community in its collective capacity, rejecting 
 what he likes and supporting only if his interest 
 dictates, the citizen ceases to feel any civic obliga- 
 tion, and all law comes to be regarded as more 
 or less of an evil if it interferes with any settled 
 aim or cherished purpose. Government is neces- 
 sary — but for other people. The idea of applying 
 to one's self the same rule of action which one 
 would apply to the rest of the world fades away. 
 Law becomes, then, a fact to be reckoned with, 
 indeed ; but to be dealt with, if occasion arises, 
 simply as a business difficulty to be overcome by 
 business skill. Verily, in this generation the com- 
 mandment is no longer a lamp, nor is the law light, 
 nor the reproofs of instruction the way of life.* 
 
 * Proverbs of Solomon, chap. vi. 23. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 COMBINATION AND ORGANIZATION. 
 
 Under conditions where activity is least fet- 
 tered and freedom the most complete, it would 
 seem that people ought to be satisfied. But it 
 must never be forgotten that larger liberty gen- 
 erates wider ambition. And when the desire is 
 aroused to realize such ambition, the impo- 
 tence of the unaided efforts of one individual fre- 
 quently becomes apparent. Then are developed 
 the spirit of organization and movements toward 
 combination. This is certainly advantageous as 
 supplying a wholesome and potent counteractive 
 to a threatened disintegration of society, which 
 must appear when every man is for himself and 
 the respect for authority is greatly weakened. But 
 a n;an cannot have his own freedom without ac- 
 cording to others equality of liberty. Further 
 than this, when he forms his ends of life and tries 
 to work them out, he is not able to accomplish 
 much without the cooperation of others. And 
 as, in a democracy, he cannot compel this assist- 
 ance, he must invite it. He inust accord some- 
 thing to the needs and wishes of his fellows. This 
 
COMBINATION AND ORGANIZATION. 3 1 
 
 situation his intelligence quickly grasps. He sees 
 that his road to the achievement of great results 
 lies in combinations of and with other workers, 
 and in voluntary organization for the purposes 
 held in view. Without this he can do nothing ; 
 with it, everything. 
 
 The growth of the industrial and commercial 
 spirit, leading men to follow the arts of peace 
 rather than those of war, impelling them to build 
 and construct rather than to destroy, insures co- 
 operation chiefly in the direction of acquiring 
 power by the accumulation of wealth. The pro- 
 motion and management of business enterprises 
 in all their variety present the great field for com- 
 bination of efforts. To make such efforts effective 
 there must be security of person and property ; so 
 that, however intense the struggle for success, the 
 peace must be preserved and crimes of violence 
 repressed. But beyond this there is very little 
 restraint upon action. To secure the desired end 
 foul means as well as fair are often employed. 
 The more power attained through cooperation, 
 the more unscrupulous the use of it. The more 
 closely united and efficient the combination, the 
 less will it regard obstacles arising from the ob- 
 ligations of social morality. So true is this, 
 that in regard to the most far-reaching and tre- 
 mendous form of combination a proverb has 
 
32 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 been adopted which declares that " corporations 
 have no souls." 
 
 The desire for political success and power is by- 
 no means absent in a democratic state. It exists 
 often with the purpose of finding a career in poli- 
 tics itself. In former times in the American re- 
 public, and in some places at the present, the 
 pursuit of politics as a principal life activity has 
 been adopted and continued, so that men have 
 distinguished themselves as statesmen and are 
 characterized and remembered by their public 
 work. Such men may have been popular leaders 
 in political movements, occupants of important 
 public offices, or advocates of measures of reform 
 which, even if unsuccessful, brought their champi- 
 ons before the world as powerful characters. In 
 whatever manner their energies may have been 
 put forth, they are known as public men, whose 
 rewards lie in the reputation they may have been 
 able to achieve for ability and effectiveness in 
 statecraft and service to the state. 
 
 But there are many others who see in political 
 influence and power the way to obtain something 
 they value more. They seek to use political posi- 
 tion to acquire wealth, which they deem to be the 
 most precious possession. Some desire office for 
 a salaried living; others for the opportunities it 
 affords them to make money indirectly by engag- 
 
COMBINATION AND ORGANIZATION. 33 
 
 fng in large and lucrative undertakings, in further- 
 ance of which official favor can be obtained or 
 legislation influenced. Politics is a means to an 
 end, and that end a private interest. The perva- 
 sive spirit of commercial and industrial aggrandize- 
 ment seizes hold of the governmental system and 
 utilizes it for business objects. 
 
 Whatever maybe the ideas of people who enter 
 into politics, and whether their motives be selfish 
 or unselfish, if they expect to accomplish their 
 designs they will not fail to recognize the neces- 
 sity of this same method of combination and 
 organization which we have observed as so essen- 
 tial in other spheres than the political. Especially 
 is this indispensable where universal suffrage lies 
 at the foundation of political power. One vote 
 avails nothing, but a majority, directed to some 
 given end, secures it and achieves the desired 
 result. Wherever concentration is practicable, the 
 stake is won. The larger the number of those 
 who can be induced to join the combination, and 
 the more thorough and complete the organization 
 of those who have joined, so that as little force is 
 wasted as possible, the more certain is the out- 
 come of whatever effort is attempted. Here, as 
 in everything else, in union there is strength. 
 
 Hence, there have come into existence in Amer- 
 ica two forms of combined action for political 
 3 
 
34 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 purposes, which, though more or less involved 
 with each other, can yet be broadly distinguished 
 and are in many essential respects different. These 
 we will consider in order in the succeeding chap- 
 ters. The one I shall venture to term Govern- 
 ment by Political Party ; the other, Government 
 by Syndicate. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE POLITICAL PARTY. 
 
 Political parties in the United States are for 
 the most part national. Now and then local 
 issues will develop local parties contained within 
 State lines, but generally the field of their opera- 
 tions is wider. To maintain a national party, 
 some ideas or principles seem requisite, and those 
 parties have always maintained the most vitality 
 which have had some definite object to be gained 
 or policy to be pursued. The pro-slavery and the 
 anti-slavery organizations are, perhaps, the most 
 perfect specimens of partisan combination for a 
 purpose. With them, the end to be attained was 
 always kept in prominence. Intense feelings 
 were aroused, and the most effective work was 
 done because of a complete unity of sentiment. 
 The individual was willing to sink himself for the 
 sake of the cause, and the triumph of that cause 
 was the thing sincerely desired above all else. 
 
 The capacity of the political party to evoke en- 
 thusiasm and command loyalty to itself has its 
 good and its bad side. It no doubt increases the 
 social spirit which binds men together by com- 
 
36 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 mon ties of feeling and interest, and in consider- 
 able measure fosters patriotism. The theory of 
 party is, of course, the securing, through its su- 
 premacy, of all the advantages to obtain which 
 government exists. It is in furtherance of a good 
 social and political order. It takes into account 
 the welfare of large numbers of people. It aims 
 for the general, not primarily for the individual, 
 interest. It claims to be a servant of the nation, 
 through whose success there will be greater pros- 
 perity for everybody. 
 
 On the other hand, the same enthusiasm and 
 steadfastness, which are of so much value in a 
 partisan, create one of the greatest evils of gov- 
 ernment by party. The sodality of the organiza- 
 tion hinders and may defeat its legitimate ends. 
 The loyalty to party transcends loyalty to the 
 country. In the majority of human beings there 
 is natural an adhesiveness to their surroundings, 
 their associations, their friends, which is very dif- 
 ficult to overcome. In general, this is a creditable 
 trait of character. It tends to promote stabil- 
 ity, to favor a regard for man as man, to cause 
 one to overlook faults and pardon transgressions. 
 It is very much the same sort of sentiment as 
 that which keeps the family together. But if 
 sound judgment is not introduced to govern feel- 
 ing, if a blind obstinacy causes one to deny pal- 
 
THE POLITICAL PARTY. 37 
 
 pable faults and to impute virtues where none 
 exist, it is unfortunate for everybody. Espe- 
 cially must this be the case where a prejudiced 
 devotion to so large a combination as a political 
 party prevents a calm and reasonable criticism of 
 its efficiency and value for the country's weal. 
 Yet whole communities are affected in that way. 
 The uniform and almost unanimous adhesion of 
 the Southern States to the Democratic party is an 
 illustration, as also is the almost unvarying Repub- 
 licanism of the States of Vermont and Pennsyl- 
 vania, though the gravest scandals have attached 
 themselves to the party management in the latter 
 State. Where such a persistent adherence to party 
 exists, it does not matter much how venal, cor- 
 rupt, and unpatriotic the organization may be, the 
 mind of the citizen seems incapable of breaking 
 away and relinquishing the long allegiance. Even 
 if the errors and misfeasances be recognized, the 
 voter comes back to the old standard when the 
 test of the ballot is applied, perhaps scarcely 
 knowing, himself, why he continues to indorse an 
 organization he sees to be in the wrong. 
 
 Bishop Phillips Brooks observed in one of his 
 discourses : " This is the largest and richest edu- 
 cation of a human nature — not an instruction, not 
 a commandment, but a friend." The author of 
 this sentiment might have qualified it by some 
 
38 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 discrimination as to the kinds of friends, but no 
 doubt the personal influence upon each other of 
 those dwelling together in the same community 
 counts for more than " instruction " or " com- 
 mandment " imparted by any other agency. If 
 fealty to the party is an extension of the family, 
 the neighborly spirit, it is no wonder that men 
 are supported for office because they are liked, 
 not because they can pass a good civil-service 
 examination ; and that, when the party succeeds, 
 the demand arises that the spoils of office shall 
 be distributed among the victors. But it is not 
 under circumstances of social kinship and fidelity 
 that the greatest difficulty arises from the spirit of 
 clannishness. Where this is strong, conservatism is 
 pervasive. Loyalty to the party is genuine loy- 
 alty, which takes into account the character and 
 reputation of the whole body. Men feel they owe 
 a duty to their party, whose excellence is, indeed, 
 cherished as an ideal. They must so act, if in- 
 trusted with official responsibility, as to bring 
 credit and honor to those whom they represent. 
 The latter feel responsible for their representa- 
 tives, and require a good stewardship. So long, 
 then, as the true theory of party as a means to 
 governmental ends is preserved, it will continue 
 to be true that he serves his party best who 
 serves his country best. 
 
THE POLITICAL PARTY. 39 
 
 Such preservation is greatly helped by the op- 
 position of parties. All students of politics have 
 remarked the great advantage to the public weal 
 of a vigorous and effective opposition of at least 
 two parties to hold each other in check. The 
 shortcomings of one are relentlessly exposed by 
 the other, its policies are thoroughly criticised, 
 and its evil tendencies made a matter of publicity. 
 If by argument and by conduct it cannot show 
 the baselessness of the charges made against it, 
 loss of public favor and defeat will follow. The 
 necessity of thus being on the alert has a very 
 powerful educating influence to keep the stand- 
 ards high. It is the party rioting in the luxury of 
 power and not in fear of competitors, that is filled 
 with corruption and dangerous to the welfare of 
 the community. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, that same determina- 
 tion to seek present individual interest, which we 
 have already commented upon so considerably, 
 obtains within the political party and with rela- 
 tion to its movements, just as it does in every- 
 thing else, be it the counting-house or the church. 
 The difficulty is not, after all, that the party is 
 partisan, that the constitution suffers " between 
 friends," that sodality and companionshjp drive 
 out all the patriotism, but that within the organi- 
 zation the same forces are operating which are 
 
40 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 conspicuous in the whole social life of the state. 
 Each one is endeavoring to rule, not to serve. 
 Ambitious men are everywhere trying to turn the 
 power of unity to their own individual benefit. 
 It is what the party will do for them that they are 
 solicitous about, not what they can do for the party. 
 Like the forces of nature, it is something to be 
 used, to be worked for what it is worth. If they 
 profess blind loyalty, they always keep one eye a 
 little open for their own interest. Of self-sacrifice 
 there is none. Self-assertion is everywhere para- 
 mount. 
 
 When, therefore, men to whom loyalty and duty 
 are words which have ceased to have any practical 
 import, gain control of political machinery, and 
 among the masses of the organization there still 
 prevails the old superstitious devotion to the party 
 flag, we find the truly unfortunate and discourag- 
 ing situation. The devotees still worship, though 
 the god has departed from the image and a devil 
 has come to dwell therein. They follow where 
 their leaders indicate, though it be down a steep 
 place into the sea. However fallacious the princi- 
 ples and demagogical the measures which are pro- 
 posed, they are adopted and supported because 
 they bear the orthodox stamp. 
 
 The wonder is that where each man has a voice 
 and a vote, the activity of the members of the 
 
THE POLITICAL PARTY. 4 1 
 
 party is not aroused to overthrow a bad set of 
 rulers and purify the organization from within. 
 It is often said that the reason lies in a degenerate 
 apathy, which reveals a callousness to all civic ob- 
 ligations. Even if this be so, there is still perti- 
 nent inquiry into the cause of this apathy. The 
 explanation will be found, I think, in the tendency 
 to organize, of which we have spoken, and, going 
 with it, the tendency to specialization of functions. 
 Combined and concentrated power accomplishes 
 much more than scattered force. Dissent scatters 
 energy and hinders the attainment of important 
 results. Moreover, in the competitive struggle 
 everywhere going on, a man needs all his attention 
 directed to whatever he has selected as the princi- 
 pal end of his efforts. Save within narrow lines, 
 he cannot hope to do effective work. Hence, the 
 inevitable tendency is to leave everything to other 
 people pf which one does not feel able to make a 
 vocation and to which he does not feel disposed to 
 give his fulJ thought and best work. Hence, poli- 
 tics comes to be a profession, and the management 
 of political affairs is not intrusted to the amateur, 
 but passes into the hands of the professional. 
 
 And now appears that other form of govern- 
 mental administration to which reference was 
 made at the close of the last chapter. Precisely 
 as laborers combine in trades unions, as capitalists 
 
42 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 organize into corporations and again into trusts, 
 so professional politicians increase their power 
 and fortify themselves in their places by combi- 
 nations into " rings " and syndicates for political 
 purposes of all sorts. For the reasons before 
 stated, it may well be doubted if they rise to a 
 position of control because of the ignorance or 
 wickedness of the voting population. Their ad- 
 vent is a natural consequence of social conditions 
 such as have been described in these pages. This 
 is the first fact which reformers should consider. 
 Due consideration will save them from wasting 
 their breath in denunciations of human depravity, 
 with the only result of lessening their own reputa- 
 tions as political seers and prophets. Jeremiads 
 do not appear to have done much good in the 
 days of Jeremiah. At present they signify less 
 and are still less effectual. The better way is to 
 see things that are as they are, then to ask in a 
 scientific spirit why they are ; after which it can 
 better be determined whether they ought to be 
 changed, and, if so, by what methods of action. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 GOVERNMENT BY SYNDICATE. 
 
 Mr. Frank R. Stockton has written a very 
 amusing story entitled " The Great War Syndi- 
 cate," according to which, on the breaking out of 
 a war between the United States and Great Britain, 
 a syndicate of capitalists is employed, who, having 
 become possessed of some truly marvellous inven- 
 tions, by their instrumentality conduct the war 
 speedily to a triumphant conclusion for the United 
 States. If the present state of public opinion 
 becomes more confirmed, it would not be so very 
 surprising if, in case of conflict with a foreign 
 power, the contract for carrying it on were actually 
 let to a corporation, a syndicate, or a trust. For 
 the business of government in general has in many 
 instances been farmed out in a time of peace, and 
 if this proceeding is satisfactory then, why should 
 it be any less so in times of war ? 
 
 The most complete form of government by 
 syndicate has appeared in cities, for a variety of 
 reasons, which will be disclosed as we proceed. 
 Obviously the field is a better one in a municipality 
 for those who wish to undertake the business of 
 
44 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 governing. There is more governing to be done, 
 and it pays better. On the other side, with a het- 
 erogeneous population, and with everybody busy 
 with his own affairs, there is a greater apparent 
 need of some one who will make a specialty of 
 administration of public affairs. Hence the forma- 
 tion of political " rings," the very idea of which 
 often arouses righteous indignation. Reflection 
 should teach us that though in regard to some of 
 their doings such wrath may be proper, neither a 
 "ring" nor a "boss" is always and inevitably a 
 dangerous phenomenon. 
 
 The control of public affairs by a syndicate is a 
 matter of permission by the voters, on an implied 
 contract in effect something like the following : 
 A number of men, thrown together in one way or 
 another, and of a tolerable degree of congeniality 
 and power of adaptation, say to the people of the 
 city, "We will undertake to govern this munici- 
 pality, filling the offices with such men as we 
 choose, giving you the service that such a town as 
 ours requires for the security and comfort of its 
 citizens, for such compensation as we can get you 
 to allow us." In the minds of the proposers it is 
 a commercial undertaking, very much like that of 
 the contractor who essays to build and equip a 
 railroad. They do it for the emoluments they 
 expect to obtain. Whether or not they give a full 
 
GOVERNMENT BY SYNDICATE. 45 
 
 equivalent for what they get, depends both on the 
 character of the men who do the work and on the 
 closeness with which they are watched and held 
 up to their duty. 
 
 Inasmuch as the syndicate is maintained in 
 power by votes, and at public elections covering 
 the whole political field, naturally it allies itself 
 with some political party. Indeed, this would 
 seem inevitable. For the syndicate is the out- 
 growth of combination and organization within the 
 party ; and even if it ceases to make party purposes 
 its chief object, it can hardly divorce itself wholly 
 from the wider association. Nor does its interest 
 lie in so doing. For by alliance with the political 
 party proper it has the advantage of being able 
 to appeal with success to those minds which are 
 influenced by partisan patriotic ideas. If the 
 syndicate is Democratic, it can command the sup- 
 port of those who glory in the fact that they are 
 Democrats ; if it be Republican, in like manner 
 those who always have been and always will be 
 Republicans give it their votes. In hoc signo it 
 wins its victories. 
 
 But the leading, the fundamental idea in this 
 sort of combination is a private interest. Whether 
 openly avowed or not, the animating spirit at 
 bottom is a commercial one. The syndicate is a 
 business combination for business ends. Those 
 
46 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 ends are to make money by giving civil adminis- 
 tration. To say that such a scheme, however, 
 must necessarily be devoid of patriotism is not 
 warrantable. Corrupt motives might as well be 
 charged against every employee or every one who 
 buys and sells. The employee works for his living, 
 but sooner or later he finds out, if he succeeds, 
 that good service is essential. The seller of goods 
 sells for money, but the better the article the more 
 he sells and the greater his profit. If government 
 is a business worth doing, it is a business worth 
 doing well. The " practical politician " finds this 
 out as quickly as any one else, and trims his sails 
 accordingly. 
 
 Quite apart from the educating influences of a 
 criticising public to make those in office see that 
 success lies in doing good work, it by no means 
 follows that those who engage in government on 
 the commercial principle have no regard for the 
 common weal, no love of country, no respect for 
 law and order, for honesty and decency in the rela- 
 tions of men to each other. On the contrary, they 
 have the interest of all citizens in safety for them- 
 selves and security for their property. Their busi- 
 ness will not otherwise prosper. The very com- 
 mercial nature of their undertaking requires the 
 preservation of peace and order as a sine qua non. 
 All the traditions and sentiments which inspire 
 
GOVERNMENT BY SYNDICATE. 4/ 
 
 healthy appreciation of the blessings of a common 
 liberty are present no less in the minds of the pro- 
 fessional politician than in other people, even 
 though the standard of action is lower and present 
 expediency too frequently is preferred to the 
 greater but more remote good. Under any form 
 of government, the man whose political action, 
 whether in office or not, is without taint of private 
 interest, is exceedingly rare. And if the profes- 
 sional politician does not act upon lofty principles, 
 he certainly is not an anarchist ; and perhaps, de- 
 spite his dishonesties, it may be found that he has 
 just as much love of country as the man who takes 
 no interest in politics, and will not even trouble 
 himself to vote. 
 
 To make the syndicate effective, there must be 
 order and discipline among its members and fol- 
 lowers. Orders given by those above must be 
 obeyed by those below. It is not, and in its 
 nature cannot be, a democratic organization, 
 where each one has his say on equal terms with 
 any other. If it be successful, it must become 
 homogeneous. It must be closely knit together 
 and compactly organized. It must have at least 
 as much of a military rdgime as any large busi- 
 ness establishment. The councils must take 
 place at the top. Those in subordinate positions 
 must be hands rather than heads. The more 
 
48 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 numerous the members, the more necessity exists 
 for soHdarity. Every one must be relied upon to 
 do the bidding of the heads of the house, else the 
 association will be disrupted and the business will 
 be a failure. 
 
 As a consequence of the need of perfection of 
 organization, in the process of development of 
 the syndicate the " boss " is very apt to make 
 his appearance. He is usually a man raised to 
 that eminence by merit, his merit consisting both 
 in his knowledge of conditions and quickness in 
 apprehending a change in them, and in his knowl- 
 edge of and ability to control men. He attains 
 his position not by formal election but generally 
 by common consent. His tenure depends upon 
 his success ; that gone, influence with his own 
 comrades goes with it, and some one else mounts 
 his throne. He may be apparently absolute, or 
 he may share his authority with two or three 
 others, though the natural tendency is toward a 
 one-man power, one general-in-chief, whose com- 
 mands are law, at least upon critical occasions or 
 in crucial matters. But however complete the 
 absolutism may seem to be, more in politics than 
 in any other kind of combination it will be found 
 that the most successful leader is, after all, the best 
 follower, who leads because he is quick to rise to 
 the top of the wave that propels him forward. 
 
GOVERNMENT BY SYNDICATE. 49 
 
 Another characteristic of such combinations as 
 we are now considering is seen in connection with 
 the requirement of implicit obedience just spoken 
 of. The subordinate workers are taught to feel 
 that they are responsible first of all to the organ- 
 ization, and not to the people as a whole. The 
 theory is that the syndicate, through its leaders,, 
 will deal with the voters, and that the duty of an 
 ofifice-holder put into ofifice upon nomination of 
 the society is to show complete fidelity to the 
 association of which he is a member, executing its 
 will and fulfilling its law first of all, even should 
 this conflict with his own judgment of what is 
 expedient for the syndicate or best for the welfare 
 of the community. The discipline and effective- 
 ness of the organization will be satisfied with 
 nothing less than a military subordination to 
 superior authority on the part of all who carry 
 the colors of the army, in the rendering of which 
 responsibility ends. 
 
 Of course there are various degrees of perfec- 
 tion of syndicate organization. Every party is 
 governed more or less strictly by leaders, and 
 often it happens that the influence of some one 
 commanding personality is preeminent. Under 
 other circumstances power is distributed, and the 
 degree of allegiance required and given varies 
 greatly. It is hard to make mere working tools 
 4 
 
50 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 of men, yet the tendency is more and more to 
 do so. Still, as a general rule, under the most 
 exacting political " machines " it is not expected 
 that all intelligence be abdicated, or that all polit- 
 ical morality be thrown to the winds. 
 
 As to the advantages and disadvantages of gov- 
 ernment by syndicate, I shall have more to say 
 in subsequent chapters. At present it is enough 
 to note the very singular fact that the processes of 
 social evolution have developed in a purely dem- 
 ocratic country, where the right of all the people 
 to participate in the government has always been 
 most strenuously and jealously maintained, a 
 form of civil administration wherein the many 
 deliberately turn over to the few, voluntarily as- 
 sociated for the purpose, the tasks of governing, 
 and refuse to be further concerned with civic 
 affairs. This is done with no reluctance and no 
 fear of loss of liberty, nor indeed with any appre- 
 hension that thereby government by the people 
 for the people shall perish. 
 
 To statesmen of fifty years ago such a condi- 
 tion of things would be appalling. At the present 
 time it is shocking to many, who nevertheless 
 not only submit to but support the organization 
 they condemn. In former days, no doubt, the 
 establishment of a governing syndicate would 
 mean revolution and loss of liberty. This is pre- 
 
GOVERNMENT BY SYNDICATE. 5 1 
 
 cisely what the same thing always did accomplish 
 in the Italian republics. But a little thought will 
 convince one that government by syndicate, as 
 illustrated in the United States, does not in the 
 slightest degree menace free institutions. The 
 reason has been mentioned before in these pages. 
 The social order throughout the country, and par- 
 ticularly in the municipalities (where this form of 
 administration is chiefly found), is industrial and 
 absolutely opposed to militancy. Any serious at- 
 tempt to disturb the existing status by revolution- 
 ary methods would be thwarted at once. More 
 than that, the very objects for which the syndi- 
 cate exists, and in furtherance of which it waxes 
 powerful, would be utterly defeated by the de- 
 struction of commercial prosperity. Any move- 
 ment materially disturbing the social order would 
 result in the disintegration of the organization it- 
 self. This would be the more certain the more 
 com'pletely it is devoted to money-making pur- 
 poses. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN PARTIES. 
 
 General principles do not take hold upon 
 the mind effectually unless applied to particular 
 cases. But if one is seeking to elucidate existing 
 conditions and study political movements in the 
 light of scientific principles, he walks on danger- 
 ous ground if he makes comparisons between 
 political parties. The writer's sympathies and 
 affiliations are sure to display themselves, and his 
 work is apt to lose all scientific character in the 
 eyes of a political opponent. Nevertheless, I 
 shall venture to set forth what to my mind appear 
 to be the chief motive forces influencing the 
 policies of the two leading political parties in the 
 United States, as distinguishing the one from 
 the other. I mean more especially to indicate 
 the underlying social sentiments, springing from 
 character and determining individual desires and 
 interests. If what I say is discredited on the score 
 of partisan bias, I shall be sorry; but I see no 
 way in which the purposes of this treatise can be 
 accomplished without running the risk. 
 
 The Democratic party has existed almost from 
 
DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN PARTIES. 53 
 
 the foundation of the United States, and has 
 exhibited certain sentiments and ideas with a con- 
 siderable degree of uniformity throughout its whole 
 history. The Republican party began in the year 
 1854, having been founded to support the proposi- 
 tion that there should be no further extension of 
 slavery in the Territories. It rose to power and 
 maintained its supremacy upon an emergency, in 
 devoting itself to the preservation of the Federal 
 Union against the Slave States. For this emer- 
 gency the Democratic party was found utterly 
 wanting, its principles and policy carrying it to 
 the extreme of permitting denationalization. The 
 secession and slavery questions settled under the 
 leadership of the Republicans, the Democratic 
 party has been regaining its ascendency upon the 
 old lines, along which it had achieved such con- 
 spicuous success in the earlier days. 
 
 If I should attempt to characterize the Demo- 
 cratic party in the most general way possible con- 
 sistent with accuracy, I should call it the party of 
 Individual Liberty. This will answer both for an 
 historical description and a statement of what it is 
 at present. It believes in the right of each man 
 to go to heaven or hell in his own way. It denies 
 the right of society through government to inter- 
 fere with matters of personal concern. It holds 
 that government exists to furnish protection and 
 
54 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 security against assaults upon the fundamental 
 rights, so as to leave the individual truly free to 
 seek happiness after his own methods, unhindered 
 by his fellow-citizens. It claims that the govern- 
 ment should go no farther than this, and that 
 while it is the duty of the citizen to support the 
 government, it is not the duty of the government 
 to support the citizen. Hence, it insists that 
 " the government should make the least possible 
 demand upon the citizen, and the citizen the 
 least possible demand upon the government. 
 The citizen should never suppose that he can be 
 made virtuous or kept virtuous by law, or that he 
 ought to be helped to wealth or ease by those of 
 his fellows who happen to hold the offices, and for 
 that reason to be collectively called ' the govern- 
 ment.' " * 
 
 It readily appears that with such principles the 
 Democratic party ought to be uncompromisingly 
 democratic in the sense of believing in the full 
 participation of the popular masses in the govern- 
 ment. So it has been in the main. It has urged 
 that the man of low estate should be heard as 
 well as the mighty. The ignorant, the common, 
 the toilers should be represented in office ; their 
 
 * Edward M. Shepard ; "Man and the State," Brooklyn Ethi- 
 cal Asso. Lectures, p. 440. D. Appleton & Co. 1S92. 
 
DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN PARTIES. 55 
 
 wants should be considered and relieved accord- 
 ing to their own ideas, not upon the principle of 
 paternal kindliness of superiors toward inferiors. 
 The source of political power should be below, 
 and the current from below upward, not contrari- 
 wise. The country should be governed not by 
 the wealthy, not by the socially exalted, nor 
 always by the aristocracy of intellect, but by the 
 poor, the wage-earners, the strugglers, to whom 
 political liberty is of the most importance, because 
 from their necessities they are less free than those 
 better circumstanced pecuniarily. 
 
 If the Democrat believes in the minimum of 
 interference on the part of the government with 
 the liberty of the individual, it is not strange to 
 find him opposed to sumptuary laws. It is thus 
 naturally the case that the Prohibitionist (as to 
 sale of liquors) does not find himself at home in 
 the Democratic camp. It is probably true that 
 the liquor-selling interest generally supports that 
 party, although in more than one Republican 
 stronghold the rulers, recognizing the rum-seller's 
 power in politics, do what they can to favor his 
 traffic in return for fealty to their party. And in 
 the State of New York the Democrats, controlling 
 the legislature, have more than once refused to 
 grant the demands of the liquor-dealers, deeming 
 it bad policy to allow the latter to become inde- 
 
56 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 pendent of the party control, and no longer 
 obliged to pay tribute. 
 
 In pursuance of its theory of curtailing the 
 scope of governmental functions and preventing 
 the consolidation of power, the Democratic party 
 has been the foe of centralization of government 
 and the friend of home rule or local self-govern- 
 ment. Sometimes, indeed, it has wofully failed 
 to live up to its principles in this respect, but in 
 general it has been faithful to them. It was this 
 faithfulness which brought the party to its lowest 
 depths of degradation at the time of the war of 
 secession, preventing it from seeing that national 
 unity must be preserved for the very sake of 
 securing liberty and saving the blessings that had 
 been gained under a regime of Democratic freedom. 
 It was too theoretical and not practical enough. 
 Some of its best men left the party, while the 
 remnant blundered on and blundered ever, with 
 incredible stupidity, to the great benefit and glory 
 of their opponents. For a long period, as a na- 
 tional organization, it only fulfilled the offices of 
 an opposition to the party in power, acting as a 
 check or a drag, often in a very reprehensible 
 spirit, and by deeds ill-timed, vexatious, and futile. 
 
 The Democratic party wages war on capitalistic 
 monopolies, corporations, and trusts. Now that 
 there has arrived a tyranny of wealth, it is inevit- 
 
DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN PARTIES. 57 
 
 able that the Democracy should rise up against it. 
 The party's traditions, its platforms, its composi- 
 tion, insure this. To be consistent it ought like- 
 wise to combat the corresponding tyranny of labor. 
 But its course in this respect is not so clearly evi- 
 dent. The feeling no doubt prevails within the 
 party, that the capitalist or monopolist is the 
 aggressor, while laborers have combined only in 
 self-defence. The despotism of labor combinations 
 is a necessity of industrial war, which must be 
 endured till the arrogance of capital is abated and 
 a stop put to that thoughtless or wilful cruelty 
 forever grinding the face of the poor. Be that as 
 it may, it would be doing violence to all past and 
 present Democratic orthodoxy if the party should 
 fail to condemn, wherever it appears, the intoler- 
 able invasion of natural rights in which one work- 
 man, or a society of workingmen, undertakes to 
 dictate to any individual whether or not he shall 
 labor, and if he does so, on what terms and 
 conditions. 
 
 The great mission of the Republican party fin- 
 ished, the query of those forecasting the future was, 
 what characteristics would it have as a permanent 
 factor in politics. As already stated, it sprang into 
 being for an emergency. It was accidental, and 
 was not born of permanent tendencies. It drew 
 from existing parties, addressed itself to the task 
 
58 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 before it, and achieved magnificent distinction. 
 When its specific work was done, would it disband? 
 If not, what course would it follow? 
 
 It did not disband, nor is it likely to do so, 
 though now in the popular minority. Its patriotic 
 career and the ^clat of its successful conduct of 
 the war naturally attracted to it the patriotic and 
 duty-loving. It has often been said, and in many 
 localities it was true, that it contained the greater 
 part of the respectability of the population. It 
 drew to itself at any rate the aristocracy. It has 
 kept the aristocracy of wealth in large part, for 
 reasons that will be mentioned presently. But 
 beyond this it incorporated a great many of the 
 old Federalist type, who did not dare to trust the 
 people, but preferred to vest the governing powers 
 in the higher classes, and consolidate them as 
 much as possible in the Federal government. It 
 is true that the Republicans demanded and secured 
 negro suffrage, but that was against the conquered 
 States and as hostages for their good behavior. 
 The whole course of legislation during the recon- 
 struction period was in the direction of centraliza- 
 tion, which tendency was resisted by the Democrats, 
 and finally aroused alarm in the Republican party 
 itself, when the fear of militarism contributed not 
 a little to defeat the nomination of President Grant 
 for a third term. 
 
DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN F ARTIES. 59 
 
 It followed from the vast amount of construc- 
 tive and reconstructive work to be accomplished 
 under the leadership of the Republican majority, 
 that its paternalism should become extended, and 
 the party itself grow to be in a considerable degree 
 socialistic instead of individualistic in its prevail- 
 ing character. Those who think that men can be 
 made moral by legislation, or that at least it is the 
 duty of the state to try to make them so, find 
 their political home in the Republican party. They 
 have not been altogether satisfied there, as the 
 rise of the Prohibitionists, for example, indicates ; 
 but, no doubt, of the two great organizations the 
 Republican suits them better. Those who are 
 anxious to have the government undertake works 
 of philanthropy, beneficence, or missionary evan- 
 gelization are in somewhat the same category. In 
 fine, people who hold that the state should by 
 its government seek not merely the negative se- 
 curity of the citizen but also his positive welfare, 
 through positive acts of legislation, naturally be- 
 long to and contribute their part to give tone to 
 the Republican party. 
 
 The socialistic notion that the government 
 should act to promote the interests of individuals 
 or classes has developed a policy which marks the 
 chief difference between the two most conspicuous 
 political divisions to-day. A protective tariff for 
 
6o POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 the sake of protection as an economic measure, 
 and a tariff for the exigencies of revenue only, are 
 the leading propositions upon which the Republi- 
 can and Democratic parties respectively stand be- 
 fore the country, and have constituted the most 
 important issue on which two presidential cam- 
 paigns have been fought out. Without here enter- 
 ing upon a discussion of these two policies, it is 
 sufificient to observe that the attitude taken by the 
 two parties on this question is quite consistent 
 with the fundamental characteristics of each, and 
 emphasizes the prominent traits of the one and 
 the other. 
 
 The Democratic party, to sum up, is the advo- 
 cate, in principle, of the greatest amount of indi- 
 vidual freedom consistent with security to the 
 rights of all to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
 ness. By this rule the office of government is to 
 be limited, and no respect for its supposed sanctity 
 is to permit it to transcend its proper limits. The 
 party also is the opponent of aristocracy in any 
 form, and a believer in the control of government 
 by the masses of the common people. The Re- 
 publican party upholds the policy of positive bene- 
 ficence on the part of the government, not merely 
 negative protection, and favors the extension of 
 its activity to the promotion of industry by govern- 
 ment assistance. It likewise is aristocratic in its 
 
DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN PARTIES. 6 1 
 
 tendencies, and disposed toward the concentration 
 of governmental functions in the hands of those 
 more favored in wealth, education, and social prom- 
 inence. 
 
 It has been said sometimes that the Democratic 
 party is iconoclastic, and the Republican conserv- 
 ative. This is no doubt true, in a sense. Social- 
 istic movements are constructive, and the party 
 opposing them necessarily will be occupied largely 
 with pulling down their edifices. But if the pres- 
 ervation of individual liberty, and of equality, be 
 the aim, the iconoclasm may be like the destruc- 
 tion of unhealthy buildings upon a suburban 
 water-shed, with the result that a whole city may 
 thereby be saved from disease. Mr. Buckle has 
 well remarked : " Every great reform which has 
 been effected has consisted not in doing some- 
 thing new, but in undoing something old." 
 
 Although I believe the foregoing characteriza- 
 tions of the two great political parties in the 
 United States are generally accurate, and display 
 the woods, if not all the particular trees, it must 
 not be supposed that, in either party, its avowed 
 principles always control action, nor even that 
 they are believed in by everybody. It often hap- 
 pens that, both at general elections, in legislative 
 and in executive action, party doctrines and plat- 
 forms are wholly ignored or disrespectfully tram- 
 
62 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 pled under foot. The Democratic legislature of 
 1893 in New York devoted itself very largely to 
 attempts at interference with the local govern- 
 ment of cities, and in some of these attempts it 
 was flagrantly successful. For aberrations and 
 inconsistencies in both parties alike, two causes 
 are prominently discernible : one, the politician's 
 natural desire for the success of his party over its 
 antagonist ; and the other, that virus of private 
 interest, to which reference has been made so fre- 
 quently in the preceding pages. In the one case 
 concessions are allowed to the ideas of special 
 classes of doubtful voters, relying upon the faith- 
 ful to support " the party, right or wrong." In 
 the other instance, it may be a matter of bal- 
 ancing one private interest against another, or of 
 selling out principle for private gain. Such things 
 occur more frequently in local elections, in State 
 legislation, and in what may be called private con- 
 gressional legislation. But, despite all unfaithful- 
 ness and corruption, the two parties still represent 
 principles to which they are tolerably constant. 
 The interactions and interferences of public and 
 private interests in the exercise of administrative 
 functions can better be understood in the illustra- 
 tion of Government by Syndicate, to which we 
 now proceed. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 TAMMANY HALL. 
 
 \y Tammany Hall is the most perfectly con- 
 structed and the most effective for its purposes 
 of the so-called " machine " local organizations in 
 the United States. It is the most conspicuous 
 example of syndicate government to be found in 
 the country. It is the most ancient society of the 
 kind. It is the most powerful and the most suc- 
 cessful. It is a local organization which has been 
 always afifiliated with the Democratic party, 
 though now and then rebelling against the regular 
 candidates. For its independence it has some- 
 times been thrown out of State and national coun- 
 cils, but has always returned, been received, and 
 even allowed to control the party. 
 
 Probably no political organization has been so 
 widely and thoroughly abused, none more sav- 
 agely assailed as possessing all the political vices, 
 none so little defended by political philosophers. 
 Nevertheless, it has thrived on condemnation. 
 Movements against it have been time and again 
 inaugurated with no success, and in 1890 the most 
 formidable combination ever made against the 
 
6a politics in a democracy. 
 
 present regime of Tammany was effected, and, 
 after a vigorous campaign of " education," was 
 defeated at the polls by a plurality of 23,199 
 out of a total of 216,252 votes.* Some excellent 
 persons argue from this a complete and hopeless 
 moral and civic degeneracy. It is always easy to 
 charge social and political conditions upon sin 
 and the devil; but this has generally been the 
 special privilege of the clergy, and is an explana- 
 tion surprising to find advanced by political 
 thinkers. That the people are responsible to 
 themselves for such a state of things, there is no 
 manner of doubt. That for some years they have 
 preferred, and still prefer, the government of 
 Tammany Hall, is certainly evident. Such being 
 the fact, the name of Tammany being so many 
 times cited as typical of misrule must needs ex- 
 cite wonder. Is it possible that the inhabitants 
 of the greatest city in America are of the mind of 
 that man in the barber's shop, who, on being told 
 he needed shampooing, as his head was very dirty, 
 briskly replied, " I like it so " ? The patent con- 
 tradiction between the supremacy of Tammany 
 Hall with the voters and the bad name attached 
 to it very extensively throughout the country, 
 demands a more careful examination of its meth- 
 
 * Grant, Mayor (Tarn), 116,581 ; Scott (Combination), 93,382. 
 
TAMMANY HALL. 65 
 
 ods of action, its results, and its relations to the 
 voters, than is usually accorded. 
 
 It is clear to the most superficial observer that 
 Tammany Hall is not within itself democratically 
 conducted. It is not ruled by the masses who 
 vote its tickets, nor by a majority of them. Its 
 power emanates from a central nucleus, and is 
 projected outward and downward. It must, in- 
 deed, satisfy its followers to an extent sufficient 
 to make them vote the ticket, but its methods of 
 action are autocratic or aristocratic. Nevertheless, 
 its sympathies are undeniably and unquestionably 
 with the Democratic party and its principles. In 
 character, in political ideas, in controlling senti- 
 ments, the members of Tammany Hall are thor- 
 ough Democrats. Here, then, we find illustra- 
 tion of that anomaly referred to in Chapter VII., 
 the remarkable case of an association of men of 
 the most individualistic type, and favoring the 
 most individualistic political principles, yet by the 
 spirit of combination and organization consoli- 
 dated into a hierarchy in which a half dozen per- 
 sons have apparently almost absolute poAver. I 
 say apparently, for, after all, the tenure of ofifice 
 of the leaders depends upon their competence 
 and good behavior. Their action must necessarily 
 be more or less constrained ; but so long as they 
 maintain their position their word is authoritative. 
 5 
 
66 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 Counsel, indeed, they may take, but the votes that 
 count are theirs. 
 
 The central nucleus, of which I have just spoken, 
 consists of an Executive Committee upon which is 
 placed the leader of the party in each Assembly 
 District. There are now thirty of such districts in 
 the city of New York, each entitled by law to send 
 one member to the State Assembly, or lower house 
 of the legislature. The Assembly District is, 
 hence, the political unit for calculation, as the dollar 
 is for currency. The district leader is the chair- 
 man of the General Committee of Tammany Hall 
 in his district. This General Committee consists of 
 an indefinite number of voters who constitute " the 
 organization " in that district. The committee 
 controls and regulates its own membership. Each 
 district is, however, entitled only to a limited num- 
 ber of votes in the whole committee. The commit- 
 tee has its subordinate ofificers, and particularly its 
 " Captains," one of each election district in the 
 Assembly District, whose duties are to look after 
 the interests of the regular candidates at elections, 
 within their respective precincts. The total voting 
 membership of the General Committee of Tam- 
 many Hall for all the districts is in 1893 about 
 3,500; the whole membership about 11,440. 
 
 The district leaders are not, as might at first 
 be supposed, elected by their General Committees. 
 
TAMMANY HALL. 6/ 
 
 They are selected and removed by the central 
 authority at its pleasure. They make their re- 
 ports to the Executive Committee, and are respon- 
 sible to it for the interests of Tammany Hall in 
 their respective districts. The committees in those 
 districts they substantially control. Each leader 
 is an originator of business at the committee meet- 
 ings, like a government minister in the House of 
 Commons. The committee ratifies by vote what 
 he proposes, and he exercises a veto power over 
 other action of the committee, like the setting 
 aside of a verdict by a judge. The wise leader, 
 however, avoids the appearance of dictation and is 
 not overbearing, relying rather on the sentiment 
 of loyalty which prevails to enable him to carry 
 through the measures he desires. Thus, the com- 
 mittee votes, but the chairman governs. 
 
 The Executive Committee in its turn is subjected 
 to centralizing influences. By a process of com- 
 mon consenting its powers and authority become 
 concentrated in a few men, who are not district 
 leaders, but are made ex officio members of the 
 committee on account of their prominence in the 
 organization in general, occupying, as they gener- 
 ally do, the chairmanships of important commit- 
 tees. By still further consolidation that authority 
 becomes practically vested in one man, who is 
 acknowledged as the leader of the whole organi- 
 
68 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 zation. While matters of importance are sub- 
 mitted to and voted upon by the Executive Com- 
 mittee, it generally happens that they are settled 
 beforehand. The chief leader sends for and con- 
 sults with as many members of the committee as 
 he deems best, makes up his mind what is to be 
 done, and passes the word, which is seldom disre- 
 garded. The whole spirit of the organization is 
 one of waiting for orders and readiness to obey 
 them. Whatever be the forms of deciding by 
 suffrage, it is the few who determine what the 
 decision shall be. 
 
 Of course this submission to the mandate of 
 the leaders is voluntary. Nobody is obliged to 
 belong to the organization. His rights will not 
 be infringed nor his liberties be invaded if he is 
 not a member of Tammany Hall, nor even if he 
 be a decided opponent. And within the society 
 there is nothing to prevent his opposing the 
 powers that be. He does this at his own risk, 
 however, and if not successful, will naturally lose 
 favor. So long as Csesar reigns, it cannot be ex- 
 pected that he will reward those plotting against 
 his rule, or bring into prominence as a counsellor 
 a man whose ideas he cannot adopt. But differ- 
 ence of opinion, and the expression of it, are com- 
 mon enough without any disfavor to anybody. 
 Action, however, is crucial. In this, fidelity to 
 
TAMMANY HALL. 69 
 
 " the organization," as embodied in the decrees of 
 the leaders, is required. It is the common senti- 
 ment of the association, that its workings shall be 
 on the principle of leaving the general manage- 
 ment to a few, or even to one person, the rest 
 obeying orders and submitting gracefully to what- 
 ever is decreed. If, then, membership in Tam- 
 many Hall is a slavery, it is servitude of the same 
 nature as that of volunteer soldiers who place 
 themselves under a captain and obey his com- 
 mands, believing that in this way the battle can 
 best be won. 
 
 It is evident that leadership, in order to be 
 maintained under such conditions, must be suc- 
 cessful. Success means keeping the organization 
 in ofificial power. This can only be done by secur- 
 ing the requisite votes. The total vote in New 
 York City in presidential election years has lately 
 been as follows: 1892, 284,984; 1888, 269,204; 
 1884, 223,250. In 1890, which is the year in which 
 a full combination of all factions was made against 
 Tammany, we saw that the Tammany candidate, 
 who was elected by 23,199 plurality, polled Ii6,- 
 581 votes out of 216,252. The total vote for 
 governor in 1891 in New York City was 239,048. 
 If the vote in 1890 be taken as an index of the 
 voting strength of Tammany in a contest directed 
 specifically against that organization, it will be 
 
70 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 seen that in such case the society fails to secure a 
 majority of the whole number of voters of the city. 
 Of course no one can say how the absentees from 
 the polls would have voted, but even if all voted 
 the Tammany ticket (an almost impossible suppo- 
 sition), the fact that they did not vote is signifi- 
 cant. And although in 1892, when the Democratic 
 opposition to Tammany had collapsed (the whole 
 attention being also concentrated upon the presi- 
 dential election), Mr. Gilroy, the Tammany candi- 
 date for mayor, polled 173,510 out of a total of 
 284,984, the lesson of 1890 remains, which is, that 
 the organization is not so secure but that wisdom 
 and energy must be constantly employed to in- 
 sure success. There are two chief ways in which 
 this may be attained. 
 
 In the first place, the stanch and faithful 
 adherence of the organization to the State and 
 national Democratic party is of the utmost con- 
 sequence. Among the voters in New York City 
 are many thousands who are Democrats in senti- 
 ment, who always have been Democrats, as were 
 their fathers before them, and who always will be 
 Democrats. If, then, Tammany Hall, in national 
 matters especially, is loyal to the Democratic 
 party, it has a tremendous hold upon voters who, 
 for the sake of its Democracy, will forgive it a 
 multitude of municipal sins. In the presidential 
 
TAMMANY HALL. 71 
 
 campaign of 1892, in common with the rest of the 
 regulaf organization of the party in the State, it 
 found itself arrayed in most strenuous opposition 
 to the will of the Democracy of the nation. It 
 made its contest, was defeated, was forced to eat 
 its own words, was humiliated and discredited. 
 But, nevertheless, it accepted the situation, worked 
 diligently and faithfully for the ticket, and on 
 election day rolled up a magnificent vote for the 
 national Democratic candidates. There is no doubt 
 that Tammany Hall was greatly strengthened at 
 home by this action, and gained an increased re- 
 spect all over the country. 
 
 The second requisite to success lies in its chosen 
 field. It must furnish a good municipal adminis- 
 tration. As to what constitutes excellence, opin- 
 ions will differ widely. Whether or not a respect- 
 able standard is reached, will always be a matter 
 of antagonistic discussion. But at least its ad- 
 ministration must be good enough to hold the 
 voters to its support. Its leaders must either 
 supply good government, or persuade the people 
 that they are doing so. This they cannot do in 
 the face of any very alarming derelictions. When- 
 ever these have occurred, retribution has been 
 swift and sure, as in the case of the Tweed ring. 
 
 Although it must be mentioned, it would go 
 without saying that in order to preserve efificiency 
 
72 POLITICS m A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 the organization itself must be kept healtliy. 
 There are also two ways in which this may be 
 accomplished. The first and most important is 
 the judicious distribution of patronage, which is 
 its bread and meat. But multitudinous as are the 
 ofificial positions and employments in a great city, 
 the demand always exceeds the supply. The ut- 
 most tact in distribution must, therefore, be dis- 
 played. There are many keen eyes on the watch 
 for irregularities and inequalities. With thirty dis- 
 trict leaders, all of whom are besieged with applica- 
 tions for every kind of a position from a judgeship 
 to that of crossing-sweeper, it is no easy task to 
 apportion satisfactorily. If the followers are 
 dissatisfied, the leader cannot control their votes. 
 If the votes fall off conspicuously under his man- 
 agement, he is cashiered at headquarters. Under 
 such circumstances it may well be supposed that 
 love and harmony do not always reign in " the 
 wigwam." But here the necessity of a strong 
 central authority becomes very clearly apparent. 
 If it were not for this, the rivalries of the districts 
 would disintegrate the organization. But by the 
 habit established of accepting the decisions of the 
 chiefs without rebellion, the leader's position is 
 improved in the eyes of his constituents, and the 
 solidarity of the association preserved. 
 
 Another and very potent method of unifying 
 
TAMMANY HALL. 73 
 
 and amplifying the organization is on the social 
 side. Collateral with the Tammany Hall political 
 organization is the Tammany Society, which was 
 established in 1789 for benevolent and social 
 purposes. From this society is taken the quaint 
 Indian nomenclature applied to Tammany digni- 
 taries. It is from this society, too, that the chiefs 
 of the political organization spring, and upon and 
 around it the social auxiliaries are focussed. The 
 social development of Tammany latterly has been 
 very decidedly increased. Every district has its 
 headquarters always open for social purposes. 
 Most of the districts have club houses, some of 
 which are exceedingly comfortable and elegant, 
 with bowling alleys, billiards, card and smoking 
 rooms, cafds, and all the usual accommodations, 
 furnished at a very low rate of dues. Here the 
 meetings of the General Committee are held, and 
 every evening there is a greater or less attendance 
 of members, who talk nothing if not politics. 
 
 In addition, there are many special social oc- 
 casions in which the families of the voters take 
 part. Dances, balls, picnics, excursions, outings 
 of all sorts are frequently devised, and are almost 
 invariably successful. That the social enthusiasm 
 thus aroused is a valuable help in the way of 
 strengthening the political power of Tammany 
 Hall, cannot be doubted. In this connection it 
 
74 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 may be stated that there is exercised no little 
 amount of active benevolence in the different 
 districts by officials and those who hope to be ; 
 who, though their motives may be selfish, are 
 surely entitled to some credit for their practical 
 philanthropy. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE SUPPORTERS OF TAMMANY HALL. 
 
 The Tammany Society, organized in 1789, was 
 established by William Mooney, an Irish-Ameri- 
 can, as a benevolent order of a fraternal character. 
 The political organization, formed by the same 
 set of people, and as collateral to the Tammany 
 Society, was begun in 1800. In 1812 the political 
 influence of the organization for that purpose 
 became conspicuous. It was supported by local 
 business men of good character and standing. In 
 those days it appears to have concerned itself with 
 the morals of the community, for in 1817 the 
 society issued an address deploring the spread of 
 the foreign game of billiards among the young 
 men of the upper classes ! The General Com- 
 mittee of Tammany Hall appeared in 1822, and 
 consisted of thirty-three members. In 1836 the 
 Committee numbered seventy-five. The present 
 Assembly District organization did not occur till 
 1871. In 1834 Tammany became dominant in 
 city politics, and has since continued so in the 
 main, with occasional defeats, some of a severe 
 character, as that by Mozart Hall in 1859. B"* 
 
76 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 out of fifty years of mayors, Tammany has held 
 the mayoralty thirty-two years.* 
 
 Tammany has generally found its voting strength 
 among what may be termed the lower middle 
 class. Unquestionably it has always drawn the 
 sympathies of the lower classes generally, rather 
 than the upper — the masses of plain, common, poor 
 people, whom, it is said, God must love because 
 he made so many of them. Those who work 
 with their hands for daily wages, if they are of 
 the Democratic persuasion, are very likely to be 
 Tammany men. In the earlier times there was 
 a substantial alliance between the Hall and the 
 business community. At a later date, " business 
 men's " and " citizens' " movements generally 
 have been against Tammany. The liquor-deal- 
 ers have for the most part been on the side of 
 Tammany, on personal liberty, anti sumptuary law 
 principles. No doubt their influence has carried 
 with it the sympathy of those in the community 
 who find their social life in the saloons. Since 
 the city is overwhelmingly Democratic, and Tam- 
 many Hall the largest Democratic faction, and 
 now the only one, it is easy to argue that all 
 
 * These facts are taken from a^-'«rticle entitled " Tammany 
 Hall," by Talcott Williams, in " Lalor's Cyclopedia of Political 
 Knowledge," and an " Historical Sketch of Tammany Hall," by 
 Hon. Nelson Smith (iSg2). 
 
THE SUPPORTERS OF TAMMANY HALL. 77 
 
 the liquor-drinkers, bummers, loafers, toughs, and 
 actual or would-be criminals belong to Tammany, 
 and control its policy. But no more of this class, 
 relatively, are Tammany adherents than are 
 Republicans. If we take any ward of the city in 
 which the lowest classes of voters preponderate, 
 we shall find that, in proportion to the total vote 
 of the two parties with respect to each other, 
 there are just as many Republican " toughs " as 
 there are Tammany "toughs." Toughness /^r se 
 does not make a person a Tammany man. Demo- 
 cratic ideas will make people Democrats ; and if 
 a man, being a Democrat, has toughness added 
 unto him, it is not his toughness but his Democ- 
 racy that makes him join Tammany ; or it may 
 be his hope to get more from the dominant 
 party than from the other — but it is not alone 
 toughs who are actuated by this motive. In 
 short, Tammany Hall has relatively no more 
 voters from the idle, semi-criminal, and criminal 
 classes than come from the preponderance of the 
 Democratic vote in the whole population, and 
 the fact that Tammany is the only or the chief 
 Democratic organization. 
 
 It never has been considered an objection to a 
 man in the Tammanj^Mganization, that he hap- 
 pens to be an Irishman. One of the earlier 
 objects of the association was to see that foreign- 
 
78 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 born citizens were not ostracized from political 
 office ; and this aroused a good deal of antipathy 
 on the part of those who favored a " native- 
 American " or " Know-Nothing " policy, of put- 
 ting in office none but native-born citizens. The 
 dislikes arising from this cause have not yet died 
 out. But whatever the opposition, the sentiment 
 of the organization has not changed, and Irish 
 or Irish-Americans (in nativity) have generally 
 formed the controlling power in Tammany Hall. 
 Home Tooke, I think it was, propounded an 
 argument that " the being an Irishman " was the 
 cause of republicanism in an individual, meaning 
 by republicanism a democratic spirit. While we 
 can scarcely ascribe to Irish immigrants the for- 
 mation of American democracy, they certainly 
 have done their share in managing it since it 
 was established, sometimes for better, sometimes 
 for worse, but always with energy and skill, 
 displaying to a remarkable degree that knowl- 
 edge of human nature so necessary to the practi- 
 cal politician. 
 
 The German element in the Tammany host is 
 by no means an inconsiderable one, and has lat- 
 terly been increasing. It has a good representa- 
 tion in the councils of the organization, and its 
 vote is intelligent and loyal. The Hebrews are 
 well represented ; the French and Italians also. 
 
THE SUPPORTERS OF TAMMANY HALL. 79 
 
 Among all the foreign-born population or their 
 immediate descendants, Tammany, has an influ- 
 ential share of voters. 
 
 It will greatly aid the reader to form an idea of 
 the sources of the regular Tammany vote, which 
 may be depended on in case of emergency, if we 
 give a rdsumd of the different Assembly Districts, 
 showing the character of their population, and the 
 Tammany vote as compared with the total for 
 mayor in the election of 1890, when the last com- 
 bination of anti-Tammany forces was made, and 
 attention especially directed to local issues.* 
 
 First Assembly District. — Business portion 
 of the city below Canal Street west of Broadway 
 and below Spruce Street on the east. Immigrant 
 hotels, poor tenements ; many janitors and watch- 
 men. Irish, Germans, Scandinavians, mingled with 
 native Americans. 
 
 Total vote, 5,057; Grant, Tammany, 3,320; 
 Opposition, \ 1,737. All the election districts were 
 carried for Grant. 
 
 Second District. — South of Canal Street 
 and east of Broadway, south of Catharine Street 
 to Spruce. Tenements and factories, the former 
 
 * For valuable assistance in preparing this risums I am 
 indebted to Hon. Charles G. Wilson, President of the Board of 
 Health. 
 
 f Including scattering, blank, and defective ballots. 
 
8o POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 of a very poor quality ; sailors' boarding-houses 
 and cheap lodging-houses. Very poor people. 
 Large Italian colony ; many Chinese and Japan- 
 ese ; many Jews, particularly Polish ; Irish and 
 natives gradually diminishing. 
 
 Total vote, 5,870 ; Grant, 4,528 ; Opposition, 
 1,342. All the election districts were for Grant. 
 
 Third District. — Between Broadway and the 
 Bowery and Third Avenue, above Canal Street 
 and below East Twenty-third Street. Business 
 property and residence intermingled, the latter 
 of poor quality in lower part and fair and good 
 above Bleecker Street. Tenements and boarding- 
 houses abound. In the lower part there are 
 many Italians, rag-pickers and scavengers ; in the 
 middle portions Italians, Irish, Germans ; in the 
 upper streets, Irish and natives. This is a very 
 mixed district, both as regards population and the 
 character of the buildings. 
 
 Total vote, 5,756; Grant, '^,^77 ; Opposition, 2,179. 
 It is interesting to notice that in the election 
 districts below Great Jones Street, Grant polled 
 2,276 votes, while his opponent, Scott, received 
 816 ; whereas in the districts above. Grant polled 
 1,301 to Scott's 1,279; while in the seven election 
 districts north of Fourteenth Street, Grant's vote 
 was only 673 to Scott's 1,041. Scott carried six 
 election districts out of twenty-six. 
 
THE SUPPORTERS OF TAMMANY HALL. 8 1 
 
 Fourth District.— The East River front 
 south of Division and Grand Streets and north of 
 Catharine. Tenements and middle-class dwell- 
 ings. Irish, Russian Jews, and natives. 
 
 Total vote, 8,029 ; Grant, 5,243 ; Opposition, 
 2,786. The vote ran very evenly through the 
 different election districts. It may be assumed 
 that this is the case except where special mention 
 is made. Scott carried one election district out 
 of thirty-seven. 
 
 Fifth District. — West side of Broadway be- 
 tween Canal on the south, Houston and Bleecker 
 Streets on the north. Business property, tene- 
 ments, and small dwellings. The " French quar- 
 ter ; " also many Italians and negroes ; natives in 
 the western part. 
 
 Total vote, 5,492; Grant, 3,317; Opposition, 
 2,175. In one election district only did Scott 
 receive a plurality (127 to Grant's 124). This was 
 the sixth, bounded by Hudson, Broome, Dominick, 
 and Clark Streets. 
 
 Sixth District. — East of Norfolk Street, and 
 between Rivington and Stanton on the north, and 
 Grand and Jackson Streets on the south. Tene- 
 ments and factories. Germans very largely, Jews 
 and natives. 
 
 Total vote, 7,159; Grant, 3,885; Opposition, 
 3,274. Scott obtained a small plurality in six 
 6 
 
82 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 election districts in the eastern portion of the 
 Assembly District. 
 
 Seventh District. — West of Broadway be- 
 tween Bleecker Street and West Twenty-third 
 Street, extending to the west irregularly as far 
 as Sixth Avenue (at the south end), West Fourth 
 Street, Eighth Avenue, Sixteenth Street, and 
 thence Seventh Avenue to Twenty-third Street. 
 Below Fourteenth Street this includes business 
 property, tenements, small residences, and many 
 boarding-houses ; below Washington Square, bus- 
 iness blocks, cheap boarding-houses, a portion of 
 the French quarter. Above V/ashington Square 
 east of Sixth Avenue, and below Fourteenth 
 Street, fine residences and business houses. 
 Above Fourteenth Street the cross streets are 
 fine residence streets and the avenues devoted to 
 business. The inhabitants south of Washington 
 Square are largely French, Italians, and negroes ; 
 north, natives and Irish ; eastern portion, many 
 wealthy citizens ; western part, well-to-do people 
 of middle class. 
 
 Total vote, 7,393; Grant, 3,119; Opposition, 
 4,274. In this district we find the situation re- 
 versed. Grant received a plurality in only eight 
 out of thirty election districts. These were the 
 first and second (south of Washington Square), 
 in which the vote was, respectively, Scott, 100, 
 
THE SUPPORTERS OF TAMMANY HALL. 83 
 
 Grant, 104; Scott, 65, Grant, 127. Also the four- 
 teenth, the triangle between Greenwich Avenue, 
 West Eleventh and West Tenth Streets ; Scott, 
 106, Grant, 129. Also the nineteenth, between 
 Sixth and Seventh Avenues and Eleventh and 
 Thirteenth Streets : Scott, 123, Grant, 125. Also 
 the twenty-third (S., 85, G., 115) and twenty- 
 fourth (S., 147, G., 166), between Fifth and 
 Seventh Avenues and Fourteenth and Eighteenth 
 Streets. Also two districts directly north of 
 these last, one of them reaching to Twenty-third 
 Street (twenty-seventh : Scott, 54, Grant, 107 ; 
 twenty-eighth : Scott, 107, Grant, 149). 
 
 Eighth District. — East of the Bowery as far 
 as Norfolk Street, between Stanton and Division 
 Streets. Large crowded tenements. Foreign pop- 
 ulation, very largely Hebrews, and some Germans. 
 
 Total vote, 6,257; Grant, 3,696; Opposition, 
 2,561. Scott received a plurality in no election 
 district. 
 
 Ninth District. — On the North River, from 
 West Houston to West Sixteenth Street, extend- 
 ing on the east to the line of West Fourth Street. 
 Formerly Greenwich Village. Small houses, tene- 
 ments, and middle-class dwellings. Inhabitants 
 include many old residents, some Irish, and Ger- 
 mans. 
 
 Total vote, 8,006; Grant, 4,312; Opposition, 
 
84 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 3,694. Scott received a plurality in ten out of 
 thirty-seven election districts. 
 
 Tenth District. — East of the Bowery as far 
 as Avenue B, between Stanton and Eighth 
 Streets. Tenements, boarding-houses, and some 
 private houses. A distinctively German neigh- 
 borhood. 
 
 Total vote, 8,672 ; Grant, 4,400 ; Opposition, 
 4,272. Scott had a plurality in fourteen out of 
 forty-five election districts ; most of the remain- 
 der were close. 
 
 Eleventh District. — Between Twenty-third 
 and Fortieth Streets and Seventh and Lexington 
 Avenues. A " brown-stone " district. Fine ho- 
 tels, business blocks, theatres, and elegant private 
 residences, homes of wealthy citizens. West of 
 Sixth Avenue, however, poor tenements ; many 
 negroes and Irish. 
 
 Total vote, 5,313; Grant, 1,737; Opposition, 
 3,576. Grant received a plurality in no election 
 district. His largest vote was 141 to Scott's 172 
 in the eleventh district, which is west of Sixth 
 Avenue between Thirtieth and Thirty-second 
 Streets. His smallest was 41 to Scott's 202 in 
 the seventeenth district, which is west of Sixth 
 Avenue between Thirty-fourth and Thirty-sixth 
 Streets. 
 
 Twelfth District.— Between Avenue B and 
 
THE SUPPORTERS OF TAMMANY HALL. 85 
 
 the East River, and between Stanton and East 
 Eleventh Streets. Tenements, factories, gas- 
 houses. Inhabitants mostly Germans ; a few Bo- 
 hemians, Hungarians, and Poles. 
 
 Total vote, 6,810; Grant, 3,042; Opposition, 
 3,768. Scott's vote was 3,381, and 278 were cast 
 for August Delabar, Labor candidate. Scott 
 received a plurality in twenty out of thirty-five 
 election districts. Grant's strength was between 
 Houston and Stanton Streets and between Ave- 
 nues B and C, the southern and southwestern part 
 of the district. 
 
 Thirteenth District. — West of Seventh 
 Avenue between Sixteenth and Twenty-sixth 
 Streets. Stores, tenements, and largely private 
 houses. Formerly Chelsea Village. Inhabitants 
 old residents, natives and Irish. Along the river 
 front, poorer class of population ; east of that, 
 well-to-do people. 
 
 Total vote, 8,231 ; Grant, 3,981 ; Opposition, 
 4,250. Scott carried fifteen election districts out 
 of thirty-six. Grant carried districts lying along 
 Sixteenth and Seventeenth Streets, three or four 
 along Seventh Avenue, and five lying between 
 Eighth and Tenth Avenues and north of Twenty- 
 fourth Street. Grant also carried the twentieth 
 district (128 to 120), which contains a large apart- 
 ment house, "The Chelsea," inhabited by voters 
 
86 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 of very superior intelligence and highly moral 
 character. 
 
 Fourteenth District. — East of Third Av- 
 enue to the East River, and between Eighth and 
 Eleventh Streets on the south and Fourteenth 
 on the north. Tenements, lodging-houses, board- 
 ing-houses, and some private houses. Inhabi- 
 tants largely Germans, with Hungarians and 
 natives. 
 
 Total vote, 5,862 ; Grant, 3,233 ; Opposition, 
 2,629. Scott received a plurality in only four out 
 of twenty-eight election districts. 
 
 Fifteenth District. — West of Seventh Av- 
 enue and between West Twenty-sixth and West 
 Fortieth Streets. Tenements and private houses, 
 with fat-rendering establishments, slaughter-houses, 
 and factories along and near the North River. 
 Many good residences, but also many very poor 
 tenements. Inhabitants Irish and natives, also 
 negroes. 
 
 Total vote, 9,211; Grant, 5,074; Opposition, 
 4,137. Scott carried eight out of forty-five elec- 
 tion districts, all but one lying together between 
 Seventh and Eighth Avenues between Thirty- 
 second and Fortieth Streets. 
 
 Sixteenth District. — East of Third Avenue 
 to the East River, between Fourteenth and 
 Twenty-sixth Streets. Tenements and private 
 
THE SUPPORTERS OF TAMMANY HALL. 8/ 
 
 houses, factories and gas-works. Germans and 
 Irish largely ; laboring class of people. 
 
 Total vote, 7,365 ; Grant, 4,391 ; Opposition, 
 2,974. Scott received a plurality in only two out 
 of thirty-six election districts. 
 
 Seventeenth District. — West of Seventh 
 Avenue and between Fortieth and Fifty-second 
 Streets. Factories and rendering establishments 
 along the river front ; farther east, tenements and 
 private residences ; middle-class residence neigh- 
 borhood. Many Irish and negroes ; also native 
 population. 
 
 Total vote, 11,246; Grant,- 6,274; Opposition, 
 4,972. Scott had a plurality in ten out of fifty- 
 one election districts. 
 
 Eighteenth District. — East of Lexington 
 Avenue between Twenty-sixth and Forty-second 
 Streets. Tenements and private houses. Slaugh- 
 ter-houses, gas-works, and factories near the river. 
 Irish, Germans, and native population. 
 
 Total vote, 8,276 ; Grant, 4,989 ; Opposition, 
 3,287. Scott polled a plurality in only one out of 
 forty-two election districts. 
 
 Nineteenth District. — From Fifty-second 
 Street, along the west side of Central Park to 
 Spuyten Duyvil. Apartment houses, tenements, 
 family hotels, private houses. Many fine resi- 
 dences, homes of wealthier class. Poor tene- 
 
88 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 ments near the river. Native population largely ; 
 some Irish and Germans. 
 
 Total vote, 19,715; Grant, 9,694; Opposition, 
 10,021. The vote for Scott, however, was only 
 9,508, there being 156 blank and defective ballots, 
 and the rest being cast for Labor and Prohibition 
 candidates. Out of sixty-nine election districts 
 Grant carried thirty-eight. Scott's strength was 
 mainly between Sixty-eighth and One Hundred 
 and Twenty-fifth Streets, in the fine residence 
 neighborhood west of Central Park. 
 
 Twentieth District. — East of Lexington Av- 
 enue between Forty-second and Fifty-ninth Streets. 
 Tenements, flats, private houses. Germans, Irish, 
 and native population of the working classes. 
 
 Total vote, 8,387; Grant, 5,081 ; Opposition, 
 3,306. Scott carried no election district. 
 
 Twenty-first District. — Between Third and 
 Sixth Avenues, Fortieth and Eighty-sixth 
 Streets. Fine residence neighborhood, except 
 on the east bordering on the railroad. Hotels, 
 apartment houses, and homes of wealthiest resi- 
 dents. 
 
 Total vote, 8,063; Grant, 2,855; Opposition, 
 5,208. Out of twenty-seven election districts 
 Grant carried only two. These were the ninth 
 (143 to 96), between Fifth and Sixth Avenues 
 and Fifty-first and Fifty-fifth Streets; the fif- 
 
THE SUPPORTERS OF TAMMANY HALL. 89 
 
 teenth (147 to 119), between Lexington and Fifth 
 Avenues, Fiftieth and Fifty-third Streets. 
 
 Twenty-second District. — East of Lexing- 
 ton Avenue and between Fifty-ninth and Ninety- 
 first Streets. Tenements and private houses. 
 Factories along river front. Population native, 
 German, Bohemian, Irish, German Jews; foreign 
 population predominating. 
 
 Total vote, 17,888 ; Grant, 9,632 ; Opposition, 
 8,256. Scott's vote was 7,146 ; 864 votes were cast 
 for the Labor candidate. Scott carried twelve out 
 of seventy-five election districts. 
 
 Twenty-third District. — North of Ninety- 
 first Street and east of Seventh Avenue. A very 
 mixed district. On the east side and southerly, 
 tenement property, poor class of dwellings, facto- 
 ries ; on the west and north sides, good business 
 property and fine residences. Population on the 
 west side native ; on the east, Germans, Jews, and 
 a large Italian colony. 
 
 Total vote, 21,076; Grant, 10,676; Opposition, 
 10,400. There were cast for Scott 9,671 ballots, 
 and 393 for the Labor candidate. Out of eighty- 
 one election districts Scott received a plurality in 
 but twenty-three. Of these, seventeen are located 
 north of One Hundred and Fifteenth Street, and 
 most of them near Mt. Morris Park and north- 
 ward along Seventh, Lenox, and Fifth Avenues. 
 
<P POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 But in this same region Grant also carried twelve 
 or thirteen districts, including that contiguous to 
 Mt. Morris Park on the west, north, and south — 
 the best residence neighborhood of Harlem. 
 
 Twenty-fourth District. — The city north 
 of the Harlem River. Suburban region of mixed 
 character. Many private houses, small dwellings, 
 stores, factories, and all classes of houses. Popu- 
 lation mixed ; natives, Irish, Germans, and various 
 nationalities. 
 
 Total vote, 12,675; Grant, 6,525; Opposition, 
 6,150. Scott received 5,703 votes; the Labor can- 
 didate, 231. Scott carried sixteen election dis- 
 tricts out of forty-one. 
 
 The foregoing facts and figures will tell the 
 story of Tammany strength to the reader who is 
 familiar with New York City, and will be of con- 
 siderable assistance to the non-resident. It will 
 be noticed that in a crucial year, when a deter- 
 mined effort was made to defeat Grant, the Tam- 
 many candidate, for reelection as mayor, and a 
 combination was effected of all parties and fac- 
 tions (saving two or three polling an insignificant 
 vote), the Tammany ticket carried all but six out 
 of twenty-four Assembly Districts. Of these six, 
 the twelfth and thirteenth were nearly even, while 
 in the nineteenth Scott, the Combination can- 
 
THE SUPPORTERS OF TAMMANY HALL. QI 
 
 didate, was behind ; the Labor, scattering, and de 
 fective vote, counted as Opposition, throwing the 
 balance that way. The decided anti-Tammany dis- 
 tricts were, then, the seventh, eleventh, and twenty- 
 first. That is, a narrow belt, of which Fifth Avenue 
 is the centre, extending from Washington Square 
 to Central Park, and thence along Fifth Avenue 
 to Eighty-sixth Street, is the locality where the 
 anti-Tammany voters are found to preponderate. 
 It will be noticed, also, that the supporters of 
 Tammany Hall are confined to no nationality, nor 
 even to foreign-born or foreign-descended citizens. 
 In the second district, which contains Italians 
 and Jews largely; in the third, containing a vari- 
 ety of nationalities ; in the French quarter, in the 
 German districts, in Greenwich Village, abounding 
 in old native residents ; among the negroes, along 
 the west side in good residence neighborhoods, in 
 Harlem, in the " Annexed District," filled with a 
 very heterogeneous population, Tammany Hall re- 
 ceived a plurality of votes. The only thing which 
 is evident, as marking lines of separation, is the 
 fact that the more wealthy and aristocratic people 
 of the city are either indifferent or anti-Tammany, 
 It may then help us to understand who are the 
 Tammany supporters, if we adopt the method of 
 contrast, and turn now to consider who are its 
 opponents. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE CRITICS AND OPPONENTS OF TAMMANY 
 HALL. 
 
 It would naturally be supposed that the chief 
 opponent of Tammany Hall would always be the 
 Republican organization. The Republicans polled 
 in 1893, 98,967 votes out of 284,984. They are of 
 the opposite political party in national affairs. 
 But they are not numerous enough to take the 
 lead in fighting Tammany. Their position is such 
 that often they will gain more for themselves by 
 alliance and combination with it. Moreover, their 
 own organization is very like that of Tammany 
 Hall, though vastly less efficient. In this is a 
 common ground of sympathy between them. 
 Hence, on occasion the two will be found work- 
 ing together. Whether they are allies or other- 
 wise, it is not from the Republican or any other 
 " machine" organization that arises the sentiment 
 of strong condemnation which one finds existing 
 against Tammany and its methods. 
 
 If any one has taken pains to watch the rise 
 and progress of movements in the city of New 
 York, in the last twenty years, avowedly for muni- 
 
THE OPPONENTS OF TAMMANY HALL. 93 
 
 cipal reform, he will have been impressed with a 
 singular circumstance, which, if he be a thoughtful 
 student of political affairs, will be extremely sug- 
 gestive. The present writer has observed with a 
 good deal of care all these attempts, and found 
 they invariably assume at the outset that their 
 first and chief business is to defeat Tammany 
 Hall. It is taken for granted that, the organi- 
 zation once overthrown, the victory will be won. 
 Thus reform agitation means simply the establish- 
 ment of an anti-Tammany party, under the idea 
 that Tammany government is inherently vicious, 
 while anti-Tammany government will be certain 
 to be virtuous. Those who are believed to be 
 actuated by higher principles respecting political 
 action are invited, not to assist in particular re- 
 forms, not even to work for improvement without 
 reference to party, but to join in organizing an 
 anti-Tammany party. Non-partisan though such 
 movements may be claimed to be, they ultimate 
 in the formation of as strong an association as can 
 be established, whose prime object is to overthrow 
 the power of Tammany Hall. They imitate Tam- 
 many methods of organization and electioneer- 
 ing, and the result of their efforts, if successful, 
 would be to substitute for the Tammany machine 
 another machine, whose chief characteristic is op- 
 position to Tammany. 
 
94 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 The significance of these facts is that the oppo- 
 sition is founded on something deeper than reason- 
 able and legitimate criticism of civil adminis- 
 tration ; otherwise we should sometimes find 
 reformers supporting Tammany. For it is not 
 conceivable that such an organization, in power 
 by sufTrage, should be wholly bad at all times and 
 as respects all its candidates. The aversion is like 
 a religious or a racial antipathy. A Frenchman 
 dislikes a German because he is a German, not 
 because he is a depraved man ; or; perhaps, the 
 Gaul determines that the Goth is depraved because 
 he is a German. A Catholic in the times of the 
 Inquisition thought that a Protestant must be 
 Satanic in character because he was a Protestant. 
 So a Tammany man in the eyes of anti-Tammany 
 must be a renegade ipso facto. When charges of 
 various financial derelictions (since dismissed as 
 unfounded) recently were brought in his own 
 church against a prominent minister in New York, 
 a newspaper, in commenting upon them, argued 
 that they must be true, because the clergyman 
 in question was a supporter of Tammany Hall, 
 which fact was a certain indication of moral 
 depravity ! 
 
 What, then, are the underlying causes of this 
 deep-rooted antipathy? To some extent, no 
 doubt, it is really race prejudice, for the Irishman, 
 
THE OPPONENTS OF TAMMANY HALL. 95 
 
 SO prominent in Tammany councils, is not a favor- 
 ite with everybody. Allied with this is often a 
 dislike of the Roman Catholic Church, to which 
 the Irish and Irish-Americans largely adhere. But 
 the more deeply one looks into the matter, the 
 more thoroughly will he be convinced that the 
 difficulty is nothing else than the old quarrel 
 between aristocracy and democracy, the disgust 
 that common, plain, ordinary people of the 
 " lower class " should control public affairs. It is 
 Federalism over again. It is the paternal theory. 
 It is the negation of the doctrine of equality. It 
 is practical disbelief in the rule of the people. 
 
 I am quite aware that objection will at once 
 be taken against the foregoing assertions on the 
 ground of the despotic and oligarchical methods 
 of the Tammany syndicate in dealing with its own 
 followers. But I hope I have made it clear in the 
 preceding pages that this government by the few 
 does not spring from a sentiment of the natural 
 relations of human beings in society, but is merely 
 a business method which experience has shown 
 to be the best to insure success. Outside of the 
 affairs of the organization there is no class supe- 
 riority or man-worship. The force of authority 
 does not accumulate or extend. It is applied 
 to the business in hand and kept there. The sup- 
 porters of Tammany Hall understand this very 
 
96 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 well ; they know that the sentiments of the leaders 
 themselves are uncompromisingly democratic, and 
 that they do represent the interests and wishes 
 of the masses of the people. There is no danger 
 of loss of political liberty through them, nor of 
 improper usurpation. The reason why this is so 
 has been pointed out by President Seth Low, of 
 Columbia College, in a discussion of municipal 
 government in Bryce's " American Common- 
 wealth." * He shows how the former theory that 
 cities are little states has given place to the more 
 accurate notion that they are large corporations. 
 He then goes on to remark: "Americans are suf- 
 ficiently adept in the administration of large 
 business enterprises to understand that in any 
 such undertaking some one man must be given 
 the power of direction and the choice of his chief 
 assistants ; they understand that power and re- 
 sponsibility must go together from the top to the 
 bottom of every successful business organization. 
 Consequently, when it began to be realized that a 
 city was a business corporation rather than an 
 integral part of the State, the unwillingness to 
 organize the city upon the line of concentrated 
 power in connection with concentrated responsi- 
 bility began to disappear." 
 
 * Third ed., 1893; part ii. chap, lii., vol. i. p. 656. 
 
THE OPPONENTS OF TAMMANY HALL. 97 
 
 The aristocrat, on the other hand, as distin- 
 guished from the business organizer, believes in 
 class superiority, and has an ingrained contempt 
 for those whom he considers below him in social 
 position, in character, or knowledge. He may- 
 have been educated to believe in liberty and be a 
 foe to monarchical institutions. But still, aristo- 
 cratic ideas possess him, control his feelings, and 
 largely determine his action. He thinks his supe- 
 riority ought to be conceded, and that he should 
 be looked up to with some degree of reverence 
 because of his position or excellence. 
 
 The aristocracy of social position has nothing 
 but contempt for an organization like Tammany 
 Hall. This disdain, indeed, frequently extends 
 to all political association and all political action ; 
 but the sentiments of people of this sort are, to 
 a very large extent, anti-Tammany. Theodore 
 Roosevelt, in one of his " Essays on Practical 
 Politics,"* states "that four out of five of our 
 wealthy and educated men, of those who occupy 
 what is called good social position, are really- 
 ignorant of the nature of a caucus or a primary 
 meeting, and never attend either; and this is 
 specially true of the young men." He goes on 
 to give reasons for this, among which is the fact 
 that this class " is often out of sympathy^ — or, at 
 * New York, 1888, p. 26. 
 
98 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 least, its more conspicuous members are — with 
 the feelings and interests of the great mass of the 
 American people ; for it is a sad and discreditable 
 fact that it is in this class that what has been 
 recently most aptly termed the ' colonial ' spirit 
 still survives." It will not be forgotten that New 
 York, at the time of the Revolution, was substan- 
 tially a Tory city, and from that time to this the 
 social aristocracy of the place has had little in 
 common with the democratic masses. It cannot 
 be expected that the inhabitant of the brown- 
 stone or marble front on Fifth Avenue will con- 
 sort with his janitors and their friends in the First 
 Ward. Contact with them would sully him in his 
 own estimation. A political society of which 
 they are members would be inevitably objection- 
 able to him. An examination of the localities in 
 which the Tammany vote is strong, and of those 
 in which it is weak, reveals at once the truth of 
 these assertions. The wealthy, the ease-loving 
 men of leisure, who are socially exclusive ; those 
 in whom pride of ancestry is a prominent trait ; 
 those who hate to be involved in the rough-and- 
 tumble of life ; those who do not like a position 
 where they will be on an equality with the 
 butcher and the groceryman, to say nothing of 
 stevedores and day laborers, will, for the most 
 part, be found among Tammany's foes. In the 
 
THE OPPONENTS OF TAMMANY HALL. 99 
 
 main they are blind opponents and ignorant crit- 
 ics. They have not the slightest conception of 
 the value of government by the people, nor do 
 they believe in it practically. With the wage- 
 earner they have little sympathy in his strife for 
 recognition as an integral part of the community. 
 What is bestowed on him is largesse, springing 
 from gracious magnanimity ; that his will should be 
 heeded in affairs of government, is a proposition 
 the force of which they can never realize. Popu- 
 lar sovereignty they may theoretically indorse, but 
 they are forever claiming, " We are the people." 
 
 Another group of antagonists to the ancient 
 society we are considering may be styled the 
 aristocracy of religious morality. Its members 
 oppose Tammany Hall because of alleged wicked- 
 ness. Here sin is incarnated. The organization 
 is supposed to live and derive its nourishment 
 from thieving, drunkenness, gambling, and har- 
 lotry. Its wages are the wages of sin, to accept 
 which destroys the soul. They seldom ask what 
 would be the degree of morality of any other 
 syndicate that might control the city govern- 
 ment. It is enough that they can find plenty 
 of fault with the existing regime. Without 
 weighing the probabilities of better things under 
 a new order, they unhesitatingly use their influence 
 against the present rule. 
 
lOO POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 This class is made up of clergymen and church- 
 going people of the Protestant faiths. As we saw 
 in the last chapter, the Roman Catholic Church, 
 generally speaking, supports Tammany Hall. 
 This very fact explains some of the Protestant 
 clerical antagonism against that association. But 
 quite apart from this, the idea of the wickedness 
 of a great city being fostered by the dominant 
 political powers so possesses the minds of many 
 religious people that they lose all ability to get at 
 facts because of the strength of their antipathy. 
 Besides, the depravity theory saves a vast amount 
 of trouble to minds not strong enough to bear the 
 strain of accurate inductive reasoning. Hence 
 clergymen frequently indulge in denunciation, 
 and often in the most unbridled vituperation, 
 against the rulers of their city, thinking that by 
 so doing they serve God and their fellow-citizens. 
 Of course the influence of a crazy-brained zealot 
 like one who commenced a crusade on vice in the 
 metropolis by attacking and thoroughly antago- 
 nizing the police department, his natural and 
 only effective ally, cannot count for much, but it 
 always affects the minds of some who are accus- 
 tomed to take their opinions from the pulpit, or 
 who feel bound to support their spiritual guide in 
 secular matters as well. 
 
 Still another class of enemies of Tammany Hall 
 
THE OPPONENTS OF TAMMANY HALL. lOI 
 
 consists of intellectual aristocrats. Educated 
 men who believe that the government should be 
 administered by those highly cultivated and intel- 
 lectually trained, do not as a rule find much satis- 
 faction with the methods of syndicate government. 
 With them the training and intellectual habits of 
 a person have a great deal to do with his fitness 
 for ofifice. It does not seem proper that a liquor- 
 dealer, or a frequenter of saloons, or a gambler, 
 or an ignorant tradesman, or a " roaming tough," 
 should hold any municipal office, much less an 
 important one. The argument that he will dis- 
 charge the duties of a position well is not held 
 sufficient. He must have the backing of respect- 
 able antecedents, and suitable preparation, to fit 
 him for public duties. Even in the office of hog- 
 reeve they would prefer that a Ralph Waldo 
 Emerson should serve rather than a Patrick 
 O'Flaherty.* They want the " best men," which 
 always means men of a high degree of intelligence 
 and cultivation. They exclude from the eligible 
 lists a large proportion of those who are habitu- 
 ally nominated by Tammany Hall for official 
 position. Their ideals of good government are 
 lofty, and they are inclined to insist on their 
 standards uncompromisingly. 
 
 * See Bryce's " American Commonwealth," part ii. ch. xlviii. ; 
 3d ed., vol. i. p. 596. 
 
102 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 It sometimes seems unfortunate that human 
 nature should be so constituted as to make true 
 the assertion of Bishop Brooks quoted in a former 
 chapter,* that the largest education of human 
 nature is not an instruction but a friend. Yet the 
 sciences of anthropology and sociology establish 
 its truth. So does history ; and, indeed, the whole 
 theory of the Christian religion is based upon it, 
 which was the lesson enforced by the bishop from 
 his statement. Such being the case, it is not to 
 be wondered at, though it may be regretted, that 
 the best ideas will have little chance with the 
 mass of the people without the attraction of 
 personal sympathy. The practical man who 
 distributes turkeys at Christmas throughout his 
 district will generally be elected against the most 
 pure-minded and able scholar in politics who ever 
 lived. To the latter the gift of turkeys will be 
 wholly repugnant. He will consider it bribery, 
 or, at the very least, he will regard it as using an 
 argument wholly irrelevant. But to his constitu- 
 ency it is not irrelevant, but extremely pertinent. 
 They are not only quite willing to be bribed in 
 that way, but they will be apt to suggest and in- 
 sist on something of the sort. They will not rec- 
 ognize the " better element," nor take the " best 
 
 * Chap. vi. 
 
THE OPPONENTS OF TAMMANY HALL. IO3 
 
 men," proposed by that element. They prefer to 
 trust their interests to one of themselves rather 
 than to one who will regard himself as their supe- 
 rior and expect them to follow his behests. Un- 
 fortunate are these facts, it may be contended, 
 but who shall say this is not democracy? 
 
 The character of many men of the class now 
 before us is such, it must be allowed, as to inten- 
 sify the natural feeling of want of sympathy 
 which arises from the difference of associations. 
 The " superior person " is rarely friendly without 
 being patronizing to the one he considers his infe- 
 rior. And nothing is more quickly perceived and 
 more angrily resented by the most of " common " 
 people than any assumption of superiority. If the 
 " superior person " reasons with the other in the 
 strain, " My good fellow, I have thought this all 
 out, and you must see I am right," the "good 
 fellow " will at once see that the opposite proposi- 
 tion is the one which is right, and act accordingly. 
 Moreover, the chances are that he will deal in the 
 same way with every suggestion the " superior 
 person " makes at that time and forever afterward. 
 Jealousy of assumed greater intelligence is ex- 
 tremely powerful, and it is amazing to behold the 
 fatuity of educated and enlightened men in over- 
 estimating their ability to accomplish results by 
 the direct impact of their personality upon others 
 
I04 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 less favored than themselves, and in underestimat- 
 ing the good sense lying in the minds of the more 
 common people, inconsequential and unreasonable 
 as the latter may sometimes appear. If monarchy 
 is so far away as not longer to arouse ire, the dis- 
 like of aristocracy of any kind is still very preva- 
 lent and strong. This is almost as true of an aris- 
 tocracy of intellect as of wealth. Any apparent 
 pride of intellect will quickly antagonize the voter 
 who toils with his hands all day, but reads his 
 penny paper and settles the affairs of the nation 
 at the ale-house in the evening. Certainly it is 
 a healthy sign when men are jealous of the right 
 to form their own opinions, crude and superficial 
 though these opinions be. If then such men, in 
 the light of superior intelligence, are treated with 
 scorn, or even — for human nature is sensitive — • 
 with want of respect, all attempts at conversion or 
 education might as well be abandoned. The tur- 
 key distribution will be found much more effica- 
 cious than preaching the soundest doctrines, under 
 such circumstances. The workingman will be edu- 
 cated, not by a counsel of perfection, but by the 
 words of a friend, who has shown himself such by 
 actions which appeal to human emotions. 
 
 General intelligence in regard to political affairs 
 is widely diffused among the laboring classes, and 
 their minds are active on the subject. Their mem- 
 
THE OPPONENTS OF TAMMANY HALL. 105 
 
 bers believe that the intellectual aristocracy of 
 which we are speaking cannot be trusted to pro- 
 tect their rights. Moreover, they believe it the 
 intention to keep the reins of government in the 
 hands of an aristocratic and exclusive class, not 
 in close sympathy with them. They also believe 
 that the zeal and enthusiasm displayed by these 
 aristocrats depend largely upon whether the lat- 
 ter are advanced in power and influence and main- 
 tained in positions of leadership. Their beliefs 
 seem to them justified by the arrogance and self- 
 assertion of the " better element," its intolerance 
 of anybody below its standard, and its unwilling- 
 ness to work with others in subordinate positions. 
 For chieftainship it is always qualified ; for serving 
 in the ranks, never. It is to be regretted that 
 these notions have a good deal of truth for their 
 basis. The writer well remembers how, in a cer- 
 tain reform movement, half a dozen men who had 
 taken the lead in formulating the measures pro- 
 posed, and in public advocacy of them, issued an 
 appeal for financial assistance, in which they said 
 that while it was true that those who had been 
 leading the movement in other respects were the 
 best fitted also to collect funds, all the work could 
 not be done by this few, who were hence com- 
 pelled to ask the personal efforts of their friends 
 in the direction indicated ! The force of arrogance 
 
Io6 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 and insolence could no farther go. And yet such 
 men wonder why their reform movements do not 
 succeed ! If they would diligently read the Gos- 
 pels, and note how Jesus of Nazareth succeeded, 
 they might find a lesson to be applied to them- 
 selves. 
 
 Having now specified the classes in the com- 
 munity opposed to Tammany constitutionally, 
 so to speak, from congenital differences of senti- 
 ments and character, it remains to observe that 
 both from these classes, and without their pale, are 
 opponents who, uninfluenced by bias of the kind 
 just referred to, are disbelievers in the system, 
 and think that the civil administration afforded 
 under the auspices of Tammany Hall is bad ser- 
 vice to the people, is corrupt, indefensible, and 
 dangerous. Many honest and intelligent men 
 occupy this position, and wherever they, in any 
 spirit of fairness, charge bad government upon 
 facts which they can present, their words ought 
 always to be heeded, their accusations investi- 
 gated ; and if the indictment be sustained, punish- 
 ment ought to follow. This result is certain, 
 sooner or later. No association of men can long 
 control the government of a large city unless 
 they govern reasonably well. The fact that 
 Tammany Hall has succeeded in holding the 
 popular vote against determined opposition is 
 
THE OPPONENTS OF TAMMANY HALL. I07 
 
 strong evidence of its efficiency as a governmental 
 institution. 
 
 There are very many people who oppose the 
 Tammany administration from less worthy mo- 
 tives than these last. All those who are outs and 
 have the desire to be of the ins are always ready 
 to fight the dominant party and dethrone it if they 
 can. These comprise sore-heads within the organ- 
 ization, who are dissatisfied with the distribution 
 of patronage, and ambitious men of all other 
 factions and parties, who think that in a change 
 of administration their chances for emolument or 
 preferment would be improved. Every successful 
 party has this kind of opposition. Sometimes it 
 becomes formidable, but it has no special signifi- 
 cance. It represents no principle or policy. It 
 is glad to seize upon any pretext to inaugurate a 
 campaign, and to circulate any falsehood which it 
 believes will contribute to success in its antago- 
 nism. If, however, there be failure, the same peo- 
 ple who are loud in their condemnation will often 
 be found repentant and humble suppliants for 
 favor at the hands of the victors. One of the 
 current criticisms upon the present Tammany 
 management is that too many of this class have 
 been taken into the fold and rewarded at the 
 expense of the faithful and constant veterans of 
 the organization. 
 
CHAPTER XII, 
 
 THE EVIL AND THE GOOD IN TAMMANY 
 GOVERNMENT. 
 
 The advantages of government by syndicate 
 emanate from what President Low sets forth as a 
 necessity for the efficient management of large 
 corporations — concentration of power in connec- 
 tion with concentration of responsibility.* Its 
 evils arise principally from the commercial charac- 
 ter of the undertaking submerging the sentiment 
 of duty to the community in the eagerness of pri- 
 vate interest. Tammany Hall exemplifies both 
 the good and the evil thus flowing from this form 
 of municipal administration. As to which is in 
 the ascendant, there will be a difference of opin- 
 ion. But it seems to me a careful and judicial 
 examination of facts will convince an unprejudiced 
 mind that the good preponderates. 
 
 In order to preserve itself from disintegration 
 the organization must put into office men who 
 have been serviceable to it. It naturally happens 
 that service thus rendered often takes precedence 
 of considerations of fitness. Hence the public 
 * See chap, xi., p. g6. 
 
EVIL AND GOOD IN TAMMANY. IO9 
 
 interest suffers. A man who may be exceedingly 
 popular in his district and able to control a large 
 vote may be wholly destitute of those qualities 
 which would be necessary for high public office. 
 Nevertheless, the ambition of that man may de- 
 mand recognition and the leaders be forced to give 
 it to him. This frequently has occurred, and cre- 
 ated scandal. It is liable to take place at any 
 time. The check upon it from within the society 
 is the superior law of self-preservation. The 
 organization cannot afford to keep in office men 
 flagrantly unfit. What frequently happens is that 
 a person whose antecedents are such as to create 
 distrust is allowed to take official place and is put 
 upon his good behavior. Sometimes this has 
 worked very well, but that it is a dangerous rule 
 of procedure cannot be doubted. Yet it ought to 
 be said that the greater part of the criticism di- 
 rected against Tammany Hall is made upon the 
 appointment or nomination of men who, from 
 their past record, are deemed below the standard 
 the critics set up, rather than upon any actual 
 malfeasance in office. If the latter occurs, it is 
 rebuked by the organization itself as well as by 
 the public in general. Sometimes the rebuke 
 comes "pretty late, but certainly no later than it 
 would from any political party, which is naturally 
 loath to discredit its own nominees. 
 
no POLITICS IM A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 The use of public office for private gain is 
 another evil made more likely by following the 
 principle of rewarding fidelity to the organization 
 without due regard to qualifications for the duties 
 of the position. That the ultimate aim with men 
 who are elected or appointed is selfish in the large 
 majority of instances, cannot be denied ; but 
 unless they are wofully lacking in intelligence 
 they know the necessary limitations upon ambi- 
 tion. If their purposes are dishonest, they will 
 rarely dare to go to the point of open defiance of 
 law. Indictable offences are not frequently com- 
 mitted by Tammany Hall officials. The greatest 
 municipal scandal of recent years — that of the 
 Broadway railroad franchise — was chargeable upon 
 the County Democracy, at that time a formidable 
 opponent of Tammany Hall. The result of this 
 was the utter ruin of the County organization ; 
 while the vote cast against the franchise in the 
 Board of Aldermen by Hugh J. Grant, of Tam- 
 many Hall, was the beginning of that gentleman's 
 rise to municipal eminence, culminating in two 
 terms of the mayoralty. 
 
 Unquestionably the making of money indirectly 
 through the opportunities afforded by municipal 
 office is very common. Some of this may be per- 
 fectly legitimate, so long as official duties are not 
 neglected. How much is made dishonestly, no 
 
EVIL AND GOOD IN TAMMANY. Ill 
 
 one can say ; but if any be made at all, the fact 
 must be carefully and skilfully concealed. It is 
 commonly charged that the police force has for 
 years maintained a system of blackmail upon 
 saloons, gambling houses, and brothels. But 
 when, during the past year, the Society for the 
 Prevention of Crime made the most diligent efforts 
 to get evidence of such dereliction on the part of 
 the police, the only result was the conviction of 
 their own chief agent of this very crime! The 
 reasonable conclusion in the matter is that such 
 blackmailing does transpire, and always has under 
 every administration, but that it is not as exten- 
 sive nor as flagrant as is claimed. 
 
 Direct peculation does not occur, nor under the 
 present system is it easy to see how it can occur, 
 so many and so efficient are the checks upon all 
 municipal officers. Nor are sinecures numerous 
 in proportion to the number of offices. It may 
 be said, though, that in this category should be 
 placed the heads of some departments, who draw 
 large salaries, and have their work done by depu- 
 ties who are also paid by the city, the chiefs giv- 
 ing their time more to politics than to municipal 
 business. A considerable portion of their salaries, 
 also, finds its way into the treasury of Tammany 
 Hall, in the form of contributions and assessments. 
 Hence there is, no doubt, a waste of city funds 
 
112 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 arising in this manner, greater or less throughout 
 the whole government. It is a charge upon indi- 
 viduals, who in turn are rewarded with salaried 
 offices, and pay this charge out of their salaries. 
 But when we go over the municipal list, we can- 
 not say that, all things considered, salaries are 
 excessively high for the most of the offices. Prob- 
 ably the two positions most obnoxious to criti- 
 cism of this kind are the ofifices of Sheriff and 
 County Clerk ; but in both of these, important 
 and substantial reforms have been made in recent 
 years — and that, too, under Tammany govern- 
 ment. 
 
 While any fair-minded person can see the im- 
 perfections in the municipal administration of 
 New York City, he will also perceive, if he be 
 fair-minded, that they are habitually exaggerated 
 by journalistic and other critics, and by opponents 
 of the ruling powers springing from the various 
 classes mentioned in the last chapter. In many 
 instances the broad statements made of corrup- 
 tion and misrule are absolutely untrue. In spe- 
 cial cases the facts are frequently perverted and 
 explanatory facts are suppressed. In general, the 
 tone and color of comment from these critics is 
 such as to give to any outsider a wholly false idea 
 of the condition of affairs in the city. He would 
 suppose that New York was governed by a set of 
 
EVIL AND GOOD IN TAMMANY. II3 
 
 thugs ; that robbery of public funds was an every- 
 day occurrence ; that crime went unpunished ; 
 that Hfe and property were not safe ; that poHti- 
 cal chaos existed. That such is the opposite of 
 the truth is clear to the man who knows. If one 
 takes pains to compare the tax rates of New York 
 City with those of other cities in the country, he 
 will find ample food for reflection, the issue of 
 which will not be to the discredit of New York. 
 Nor is it true that the valuation is disproportion- 
 ately high, or that it has been raised for the sake 
 of lowering the rate. As to the other matters, 
 there is no city in the United States where con- 
 viction and punishment for crime are so certain, 
 none where life and property are so safe. To-day 
 the various municipal departments are in a sound 
 condition, while some of them — notably the Police, 
 the Fire, and the Health — are conspicuous for 
 their excellence of management and their effect- 
 iveness. Despite all shortcoming and all acts of 
 positive misfeasance. New York City has been 
 well-governed during the present period of Tam- 
 many supremacy. And this is the opinion of a 
 majority of those who care enough about the city 
 to cast their ballots at election time. 
 
 Professor James Bryce has recently published 
 a revised edition of Volume I. of his valuable 
 book entitled " The American Commonwealth." 
 8 
 
114 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 I venture to think his work would have been 
 greatly improved if he had revised Chapter LI., 
 " The Working of City Government," a little more. 
 In this chapter he takes New York as the worst 
 example of " extravagance, corruption, and mis- 
 management " in municipal administration. Politi- 
 cal vices in New York " have revealed themselves 
 on the largest scale. They are ' gross as a mountain, 
 open, palpable.' " * The author supports his con- 
 clusions by the report of Governor Tilden's com- 
 mission of 1876. He should have considered that 
 this is ancient history. The report, which is itself 
 retrospective, so far as it applies to the city of 
 New York is based upon the occurrences of the 
 Tweed regime. Decided changes for the better 
 have occurred since that date. For example, the 
 debt of the city in 1876, mentioned by Mr. Bryce 
 at the figure of ^113,000,000, is shown on the pre- 
 ceding page of his book to have been reduced 
 in 1891 to $97,857,230. Improvements in the 
 methods of election have come in. The concentra- 
 tion of power and responsibility has been going 
 on. The departments have been purified, and 
 from year to year been placed upon a better busi- 
 ness foundation. The past seventeen years have 
 been years of notable progress. President Seth 
 
 *3d ed., vol. i., p. 637. 
 
EVIL AND GOOD IN TAMMANY. II5 
 
 Low, in the chapter of Mr. Bryce's book immedi- 
 ately following the one I have been criticising, 
 gives a much more just statement of the condi- 
 tion of affairs. He says, and he certainly speaks 
 from a point of view which includes the observa- 
 tion of New York, that cities are not going from 
 bad to worse. " There is substantial reason for 
 thinking that the general tendency, even in the 
 larger cities, is toward improvement. Life and 
 property are more secure in all of them than they 
 used to be. Certainly there has been no decrease of 
 security such as might be expected from increased 
 size. Less than a score of years ago it was im- 
 possible to have a fair election in New York or 
 Brooklyn. To-day, and for the last decade under 
 the present system of registry laws, every election 
 is held with substantial fairness. The health of our 
 cities does not deteriorate, but on the average im- 
 proves. So that in the large and fundamental aspect 
 of the question the progress, if slow, is steady 
 in the direction of better things." * " It is proba- 
 ble that no other system of government would 
 have been able to cope any more successfully on 
 the whole with the actual conditions that Ameri- 
 can cities have been compelled to face. . . . 
 Whatever defects have marked the progress of 
 
 * 3d ed., vol. i., p. 664. 
 
Il6 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 such cities, no one acquainted with their history 
 will deny that since their problem assumed its 
 present aspect, progress has been made, and sub- 
 stantial progress, from decade to decade." * 
 
 It is quite evident that foreign writers, even of 
 the thorough and impartial abilities of Mr. Bryce, 
 receive impressions which unduly exaggerate polit- 
 ical vice and corruption in the United States ; 
 and they get them from Americans themselves, 
 of the Pharisaical and aristocratic classes, who do 
 not believe in their own theory of government. 
 This clearly appears from Mr. Bryce's chapters on 
 city governments. He comments on the circum- 
 stance that the admirable satisfaction of the people 
 of the United States with their own institutions is 
 wholly absent as regards municipal administration. 
 " Wherever there is a large city there are loud 
 complaints." " What Dante said of his own city 
 may be said of the cities of America ; they are 
 like the sick man who finds no rest upon his bed, 
 but seeks to ease his pain by turning from side to 
 side." f There is no one more to blame for the 
 erroneous ideas which foreign students, and peo- 
 ple outside of New York generally, entertain, than 
 the citizens of that city themselves, of cultivation 
 and intelligence, who, having no civic pride, no 
 
 * 3d ed., vol. i., p. 666. 
 f Ibid., p. 649. 
 
EVIL AND GOOD IN TAMMANY. 11/ 
 
 sympathy with the mass of the people, no com- 
 prehension of the logic of events, no toleration of 
 imperfection, keep up a constant fire of hostile 
 criticism, caricature, and invective against the or- 
 ganization to which the voters have chosen to 
 intrust municipal power. There are some jour- 
 nals, which undoubtedly have more weight with a 
 writer like Mr. Bryce from the fact that they 
 claim to be non-partisan, whose articles systemati- 
 cally charge upon Tammany Hall every political 
 vice, every official misconduct or shortcoming, 
 and never allow it the slightest credit for any suc- 
 cess or any rectitude of action upon the part of 
 its appointees. If a Tammany referee or special 
 commissioner has his bill cut down by the court, 
 it is always a " rebuke to Tammany greed," the 
 newspaper never calling attention to the fact that 
 it is a Tammany judge who administers the re- 
 buke. If a Tammany mayor appoints to office a 
 man of unsavory antecedents, it is the occasion of 
 fierce denunciation of the Hall. But nothing is 
 said when another Tammany mayor keeps the 
 same man out of office, against the demands of 
 his organization, except that the latter mayor, 
 though just as villanous, had not the courage to 
 face public sentiment ! If the tax-rate has been 
 lowered by Tammany administration, the valua- 
 tion has been put up to deceive the people. If a 
 
Il8 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 watchful and able official is found who has been 
 indorsed by Tammany Hall, it is because the or- 
 ganization dared not set him aside. If a man gets 
 into a street brawl, who happens to be on the 
 General Committee, he is a sample of the rulers 
 who govern " this God-accursed, Tammany-ridden 
 city." And even if the mayor and other city 
 officials attempt to show civility to distinguished 
 visitors, their wives and daughters are shamefully 
 disparaged, the " better element " regarding this 
 as an attempt of Tammany to sneak into good 
 society, and being forced " to hang its head in 
 shame" that people of other lands should be 
 obliged to meet this " Tammany gang " as repre- 
 sentatives of the metropolis ! 
 
 Such vituperation, in some quarters, is incessant 
 and malignant. It is greatly to the credit of the 
 Tammany leaders that they are not given to re- 
 torting abuse on their opponents. Their feeling 
 is that the vote is a sufficient answer. Mr. Richard 
 Croker declares of the organization in an article 
 in the North American Review : " While it does 
 not claim to be exempt from error, it does claim 
 to be always aiming at success by proper and law- 
 ful methods, and to have the good of the general 
 community always in view as its end of effort. 
 Such an organization has no time or place for 
 apologies or excuses ; and to indulge in them 
 
EVIL AND GOOD JN TAMMANY. II9 
 
 would hazard its existence and certainly destroy 
 its usefulness." Whatever may be said of the 
 necessities of justification, this statement shows 
 certainly a more dignified attitude than that dis- 
 played by the journalistic and other representa- 
 tives of the " better element." It is high time 
 that this indiscriminate, wholesale, and unjust 
 abuse of Tammany Hall, among people of educa- 
 tion and refinement, were stopped. Come, now, 
 gentlemen, you who are all the time complaining 
 of the selfish, unpatriotic, corrupt character of the 
 organization you denounce, do you show much 
 civic loyalty, much patriotism, much respect for 
 your neighbors, or regard for their reputation or 
 welfare, when with so great animosity you perse- 
 vere in a course of misrepresentation and abuse, 
 which does no good at home, and which can only 
 result in making the city in which you and your 
 families dwell a stench in the nostrils of the out- 
 side world within the sphere of your influence? 
 
 There are many earnest students of political 
 movements who, while recognizing the fact that 
 an able and honest administration of the city's 
 affairs may occur under Tammany management, 
 deprecate the system itself and believe it ought to 
 be eradicated, root and branch, as undemocratic, 
 uncertain in its operation, and dangerous to liberty 
 and security. To such I would respectfully com- 
 
I20 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 mend for consideration the matters suggested 
 in the earlier chapters of this essay. They will 
 force us to the conclusion that whether or not 
 the system of government by syndicate is 
 ideally the best, it is, under present conditions, 
 inevitable in great cities. The tendency to com- 
 bination and to specialization of function is so 
 universal and so strong that it cannot successfully 
 be resisted. If Tammany be thrown out of power, 
 it can only be done by another organization of a 
 similar character. It may, indeed, now and then 
 be defeated by a popular uprising, occasioned by 
 some piece of bad management or some scandal- 
 ous official behavior ; but this will only be a 
 temporary check. For its permanent subjugation 
 another syndicate would be required, based upon 
 like ideas, held together by like purposes and like 
 interests. Of whom must such an association be 
 composed ? There is no one else to be found 
 except the same class of people that belong to 
 Tammany Hall. The " better element " cannot 
 be relied upon for two principal reasons ; the one 
 that its members are too independent for combined 
 action, the other that not enough of them can be 
 induced to take the requisite interest in politics. 
 Moreover, it is doubtful if they are numerous 
 enough to give the tone to a political organization 
 which would be of practical strength. Hence, the 
 
EVIL AND GOOD IN TAMMANY. 121 
 
 constituency of Tammany Hall would have to be 
 drawn from to establish a new successful organi- 
 zation. If established, it could only be maintained 
 by the same methods as the old one. Where, 
 then, is the gain to the public? In the revolution 
 which would overthrow Tammany Hall, new men 
 would come to the front, a flood of new legislation 
 would be poured upon the city, the departments 
 would be unsettled by removals, new appoint- 
 ments, and the uncertainties of a new regime. 
 While, here and there, better men might be put 
 into office, the general result would be no improve- 
 ment. Add to this the probability that the new 
 order would be but temporary, with further con- 
 fusion and change to follow, in the outcome there 
 will be found to be a loss and not a gain as regards 
 the interests of the community. If there is to be 
 " machine " government, the old machine, tested 
 by long practical operation, is preferable to the 
 new one, respecting whose excellence of construc- 
 tion and working capacity we must be uncertain. 
 
 If it be true that the ignorant and criminal 
 classes, crude foreigners, lawless citizens, and 
 "plug-uglies" flock to the support of Tammany 
 Hall and vote its tickets with regularity, the 
 respectable public at large ought to be very grate- 
 ful for the perfection of that despotic system by 
 which the whole body is controlled by a few lead- 
 
122 P0LI7VCS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 ers. That Tammany has its share of voters of 
 the above description, there is no doubt. But it 
 has no monopoly of them. The Republican and 
 the other Democratic organizations have always 
 had their quota. Yet, conceding that Tammany 
 controls the vote of what the " better element " 
 would call the " lower classes," and considering in 
 any event the heterogeneous character of its sup- 
 porters, the discipline under which the organiza- 
 tion is controlled from the top is most admirable 
 for the public interest. If measures were pro- 
 posed and candidates nominated by undirected 
 and unrestrained suffrage, without reflection and 
 comparison, does any one suppose that the result 
 would be as satisfactory as the present scheme ? 
 It is far better in every way for the city that half- 
 educated, wholly illiterate, and newly naturalized 
 voters should be held, if they can be, under the 
 influence and sway of a strong, well-compacted, 
 and centralized organization ; that they be taught 
 an allegiance to it, and learn to obey the behests 
 of its commanders. The importance of this for 
 the public weal should not be overlooked. When 
 the tyranny of the leaders is reprobated, it should 
 not be forgotten that dictation and a firm hand in 
 supporting it are not only necessary for the politi- 
 cal society, but are of no mean value to the com- 
 munity at large. 
 
EVIL AND GOOD JN TAMMANY. 1 23 
 
 However contrary to the theory of democracy 
 it may be, it is truly a fortunate circumstance 
 that the concentration of power and responsi- 
 bility has been carried to such a degree in an 
 organization wliich, lil<e Tammany Hall, has 
 gained supremacy in the politics of a great city. 
 Whether, then, its government be good or bad, 
 depends upon its leaders. If they are sagacious 
 men, if they understand the conditions under 
 which their syndicate government can alone exist, 
 if they restrain the greed of their followers and 
 moderate their own ambitions, if they can pre- 
 serve the organization and serve the public inter- 
 est — a thing by no means easy of accomplishment 
 — if they can educate their followers to sufficient 
 loyalty and a high enough appreciation of their 
 association to act upon the truth that the best 
 service to party is to render the best service to the 
 city, they will continue to maintain their power, 
 despite hostile combinations, and the criticism 
 and hatred of the aristocracy of wealth, position, 
 and intellect. But the success of Tammany Hall, 
 as I have before stated, will yet be dependent both 
 on its loyalty to the Democratic party and on its 
 furnishing the city with a good administration of 
 municipal affairs. Not even an organization as 
 powerful as this could stand against flagrant mal- 
 feasance in office. The implied contract with the 
 
124 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 people must be respected. If not, there will be 
 retribution, inevitable and severe. Such words 
 as the following, which were addressed to and 
 read in Tammany Hall at the Independence Day 
 celebration of 1893, are always pertinent and in 
 order, and furnish a thoroughly sound rule of 
 practical politics : 
 
 " If those who now celebrate the anniversary 
 of American Independence guard against the 
 sordid struggle for unearned wealth that stifles 
 patriotism ; if they exact from public servants the 
 strictest accountability in the performance of pub- 
 lic duty; if they hold fast to the American idea 
 that work is honorable and economy a virtue ; if 
 they insist that there should be honesty and truth- 
 fulness and cleanliness in politics, and if they 
 refuse to encourage expedients that endanger the 
 foundations of sound national finance, those who 
 follow us will joyously celebrate the day in cen- 
 turies yet to come." * 
 
 From what has been said I hope it may appear 
 that government by syndicate is not necessarily 
 bad government, that it may on the contrary be 
 good government, and that it is at present inevi- 
 table in large cities. The actions of such a syndi- 
 cate must be judged not by an absolute but a 
 
 * Giover Cleveland. 
 
EVIL AND GOOD IN TAMMANY. 1 25 
 
 relative standard. If the ideal is not attained, it 
 is perfectly relevant to inquire, " Who can do bet- 
 ter ? " And the measure of success must be deter- 
 mined by an examination of existing conditions. 
 How to improve those conditions, we are now 
 prepared to consider to some extent in the fol- 
 lowing chapters. But, before passing on, there is 
 one point more upon which we ought to touch. 
 
 The peculiar province of syndicate government 
 is a large city, which, as President Low well puts 
 it, is not a small state but a large corporation. 
 The extension of the same system to the State 
 presents new considerations. It is safe to say 
 that the syndicate plan never can prevail to any 
 great extent in national politics. The interests 
 are too vast, too divergent, too little susceptible of 
 close-corporation management, to be represented 
 and controlled otherwise than by the political 
 party in the larger sense. But in the State 
 governments the syndicate has made its appear 
 ance, and conducted its operations with success in 
 many cases. Now it is a railroad ring, now a 
 canal ring; here a mining ring, there a manu- 
 facturing ring. Through their various manipula- 
 tions private measures have occupied the import- 
 ant part of the attention of legislatures, and the 
 balancing of pri-vate interests has been the main 
 thing to b^,atcomplished in order to carry through 
 
126 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 any legislation. But this has been happening, 
 more or less, in all the country's history. The 
 special condition to be deprecated is the applica- 
 tion of the system of giving and taking orders, as 
 between legislators and the leaders of local organi- 
 zations. With this, of course, goes that transfer 
 of responsibility from the individual to which I 
 made reference in Chapter VII. This is in entire 
 opposition to the whole scheme of representa- 
 tion. It destroys the independent sovereignty of 
 the legislature within its sphere, and threatens 
 the foundations of State government. Better the 
 lobby, with its possibilities of corruption of indi- 
 viduals, than a set of members upon whose souls 
 rests no sense of personal responsibility to the 
 people as lawmakers. Not the least of the evils 
 of such a method of procedure as makes the legis- 
 lator a mere registering machine, is that men of 
 the most competence for legislative work will not 
 under such circumstances accept place in the legis- 
 lature. There it is their right and their duty to 
 regard themselves as beyond the position of a 
 subordinate in managing the affairs of a large cor- 
 poration. They must be allowed autonomy, and 
 if they do not have it, they will not serve. This 
 certainly is the tendency of things, and it is en- 
 tirely contrary to Democratic principles in a field 
 where Democracy has not yet abdicated its throne. 
 
EVIL AND GOOD IN TAMMANY. 12/ 
 
 The Speaker of the New York Assembly of 1893 
 remarked, in a public meeting, of the work of the 
 legislature : " All legislation emanated from Tam- 
 many Hall, and was dictated by that great states- 
 man, Richard Croker." This was uttered in the 
 presence of Mr. Richard Croker, who made no dis- 
 claimer; but it would have been a good stroke of 
 practical politics if he had immediately spanked 
 the Speaker and sent him to bed. The statement 
 was certainly a little broader than leading men in 
 other parts of the State would be willing to in- 
 dorse. But the general course of things has been 
 recently toward absolutism on the part of local 
 leaders with respect to members of the legislature 
 from their districts. It is wrong in principle, it is 
 dangerous in practice to those who employ it, not 
 likely to be successful for long, and inimical to the 
 interest of the larger political party whose repre- 
 sentatives are involved. Action must be adapted 
 to circumstances ; and that course which is practi- 
 cable and successful for the municipality is not, 
 therefore, to be unhesitatingly and unthinkingly 
 adopted as wise for a wider field and different 
 conditions. 
 
 It is not my purpose to maintain that there 
 are no imperfections or iniquities in the system 
 of municipal government in vogue in New York 
 City. Nor do I claim that the Tammany admin- 
 
128 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 istrations have given no ground for just criti- 
 cism. But for reasons which have been stated, 
 it is apparent that there is commonly formed 
 an unjust estimate of the extent of the evils 
 suffered under the present regime. Equally cer- 
 tain is it that whatever blame is to be charged 
 is ordinarily not fairly distributed. The truth of 
 the matter is that the business community is 
 primarily and chiefly responsible for political cor- 
 ruption of all sorts, and particularly with inter- 
 ferences with legislation for private ends. This is 
 not only true of the city of New York, but of all 
 our cities. With far too many, business is war, 
 which must be conducted according to customs, 
 indeed, but is without moral quality. This con- 
 dition of affairs we detailed at the outset. No 
 advantage is too mean or contemptible to be 
 taken, no hardship too great to be inflicted, in the 
 course of industrial competition. There is not the 
 slightest hesitation on the part of reputable mer- 
 chants or large corporations to defraud the govern- 
 ment, if they can do it successfully. Nor is there 
 any reluctance to spend money to purchase politi- 
 cal favor. And the very men who are willing to 
 do these things are loudest in their denunciations 
 of municipal corruption. If they were the only 
 people concerned, the government of Tammany 
 Hall would be infinitely too good for them. Be 
 
EVIL AND GOOD IN TAMMANY. 1 29 
 
 that as it may, the weight of blame for whatever 
 maladministration occurs in the city, or for ini- 
 quitous legislation at Albany, should not be cast 
 upon the Tammany system, or upon the organi- 
 zation, but upon the citizens themselves, or a large 
 class of them, who are ready at any time to use 
 the powers of government for their own advan- 
 tage, and habitually attempt to do so. Until, then, 
 we so modify industrial warfare as to introduce a 
 sense of duty into commercial dealings by which 
 the seller feels that he is in some degree concerned 
 with the buyer's interests, that he is to give value 
 for what he receives, that he is in a measure his 
 brother's keeper, we shall hope in vain for any 
 perfection of government. No doubt improve- 
 ment in these respects will tend to repress what 
 we call " enterprise ; " but when enterprise gets to 
 producing vicious results, it is time it were re- 
 pressed. To this end, more profoundly than any- 
 thing else, do we need a curbing of that restless 
 activity for success and domination which urges 
 on to the attainment of something, we scarcely 
 know what, except that it is, as we think, better 
 and bigger than anything our neighbor gets. It is 
 this striving which makes us trample on the weak, 
 and callous to fraud. It gives us shrivelled souls. 
 It produces what Goethe calls " problematic char- 
 acters," " who are not equal to any situation in life 
 9 
 
I30 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 and whom no situation satisfies." It disorganizes 
 society, and it prevents, too, the realization of in- 
 dividual happiness, for it especially forecloses en- 
 joyment of the many pleasant things of life near 
 at hand, within the reach of every one in any 
 sphere, if only there be the eye to see them and 
 the heart to appreciate them. These are lost in 
 the mad rush for wealth or fame, and no adequate 
 compensation is supplied. If we start on a race 
 over the world, wishing that the devil may take 
 the hindmost, and in our enthusiasm run too fast, 
 we shall find, mayhap, when we have made the 
 circuit of the globe, and the devil appears, that, 
 because of our very haste, it is ourselves who are 
 bringing up the rear of the procession ! 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SOME SPECIAL COUNTERACTIVES AGAINST EVIL. 
 
 Because political affairs are not in so bad a 
 condition as they seem, is no reason why they 
 should not be bettered if they can be. But unless 
 the causes of any particular situation are studied 
 and the motive forces of human nature involved 
 in it are reckoned with, efforts toward change are 
 blundering and useless. Hence associations which 
 partake, or are thought to partake, of the " holier- 
 than-thou " character, must be managed with the 
 utmost care, or they will defeat their own end. 
 They will not commend themselves to the masses, 
 and must not expect to succeed if they enter the 
 lists with candidates of their own ilk. The idea 
 of perpetuating a " mugwump " movement by 
 organization is a dream which has not even the 
 charm of iridescence. It is self-contradictory. Vic- 
 tories obtained through the independent voters 
 are cataclysmic in their nature, and cataclysms 
 cannot happen every day. The effect of such tri- 
 umphs is that of a protest, followed by a reversal, 
 or some decided modification, of action. When 
 the immediate purpose is accomplished, through 
 
132 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 good organization it may be, permanence of that 
 organization can only mean achieving success, if 
 at all, by adopting and maintaining precisely the 
 same methods and using exactly the same mate- 
 rials as employed by the enemy against which the 
 original uprising took place. Then the argument 
 employed in the last chapter again comes into 
 use. Of what benefit to the public is the new 
 organization? A new "machine" is created, no 
 better than the old one. No doubt citizens' 
 movements are excellent upon occasion, as a cor- 
 rective. But that occasion does not arrive every 
 year. If, however, the movements do, or if they 
 hold over, they will lose their moral effect, and 
 not only fail of success, but make such agitation, 
 when really needed, much more difficult and 
 doubtful. And when an organization of the " bet- 
 ter element," like the People's Municipal League 
 in the New York City election of 1890, knowing 
 its weakness, seeks some measure of success by 
 combining with one or more factions of what it 
 considers the " worse element," upon the principle 
 of farming on shares, it simply sells its birthright 
 for a mess of pottage, which is not a very soul- 
 satisfying performance — especially if one does not 
 get the pottage ! In the case just mentioned there 
 was a combination against Tammany Hall, made 
 by an independent " citizens' " association, the 
 
SPECIAL COUNTERACTIVES AGAINST EVIL. 133 
 
 County Democracy machine, and the Republican 
 party machine, with a division of offices upon the 
 ticket between the three elements. There was no 
 true reform in the combination, and it deserved to 
 be defeated. So the voters thought when election 
 day came. 
 
 In the city of New York, the methods adopted 
 to secure changes in the government seem to 
 have had the effect to solidify and strengthen 
 Tammany Hall within itself, and increase the 
 power of that organization in the community. 
 This is always the case with intemperate and un- 
 reasonable opposition. Moreover, from the an- 
 tagonisms thus generated, reforms no doubt have 
 been defeated or delayed which might have been 
 effected if urged skilfully and carefully. It seems 
 certain that the first thing to be done to improve 
 conditions in New York, or to maintain good ad- 
 ministration, is for reformers to cease abuse of 
 Tammany Hall and refrain from always turning a 
 reform organization into an anti-Tammany party. 
 Particular measures can be advocated and pro- 
 moted by organization. Officials can be watched 
 and criticised. Maladministration can be ex- 
 posed, and movements made against dishonest or 
 incompetent officials. Pressure can be brought 
 for the enforcement of laws, and resistance pre- 
 sented to improvident actions. All this is quite 
 
134 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 practicable without bringing a wholesale indict- 
 ment against a party, the sure effect of which is 
 to arouse in that party all the instincts of self- 
 preservation. We do not reform a man very fast 
 when we start out with a gun to kill him. 
 
 The tendency toward specialization of functions, 
 to which I have frequently referred, finds another 
 illustration in a fact which is of great importance 
 to the public as furnishing a most efficient check 
 upon bad government. The newspapers have 
 assumed the task of keeping watch over the pub- 
 lic interests in all the branches of government. 
 Time was when the press was almost universally 
 the servant of party, and was muzzled as to any- 
 thing reflecting upon its masters. Nor did it have 
 its present enterprise, skill, and resources in ferret- 
 ing out news. But the great metropolitan jour- 
 nals are now conducted on the idea that journal- 
 ism is a business which can be perfected only by 
 the fullest development of publicity in regard to 
 everything. This has its reprehensible effects, 
 to be sure ; but these we need not now consider. 
 It is enough to note that they have become 
 much more, and in some cases totally, independ- 
 ent of party or syndicate, in their news-gather- 
 ing and news-dispensing departments. They can 
 rarely be bought to conceal news. Thus, they 
 have become inspectors and accusers in behalf 
 
SPECIAL COUNTERACTIVES AGAINST EVIL. 135 
 
 of the people, whose power is recognized and 
 feared by public ofificials from the highest to the 
 lowest. They have found this much more re- 
 munerative than the old style of journalism, and 
 there is no danger of their returning to former 
 methods. So, to counterbalance the increasing 
 lack of interest on the part of the people, espe- 
 cially of the better class, in the affairs of govern- 
 ment, there has arisen a set of censors, far more 
 efficacious than any that could be constituted 
 by authority. Their action is incessant, and 
 their vigilance does not sleep. The improved 
 condition of government in our cities which has 
 unquestionably taken place within the past twenty 
 years is due more to the great extension in the 
 scope and energy of journalism than to any other 
 cause. 
 
 It may not occur on first thought, but it is 
 certainly true, that the spirit of combination and 
 organization, which has led to the concentration 
 of power in the hands of rings and bosses in the 
 political party and the syndicate, has developed 
 along with itself its own counteractives. The 
 complex organization of the newspaper is a case of 
 machine against machine. But centripetal force 
 has also set in operation disintegrating forces. 
 The independent voter, the " mugwump," has been 
 made numerous by the accumulation of political 
 
136 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 power in the hands of a few. When this com- 
 menced, the old loyalty to the party, in which the 
 voice of the majority was the voice of the people, 
 began to decay. In relinquishing to a few man- 
 agers the control of political affairs, the feeling of 
 duty to support propositions or candidates respect- 
 ing which or regarding whom they had no voice of 
 approval or disapproval, necessarily tended to die 
 out in the breasts of a great number of those who 
 liked to think for themselves and were intelligent 
 enough to do so. This, of course, has prevented 
 the omnipotence of the bosses. Even though not 
 actively exercised, the reserve power thus created 
 is sufficient to make party management careful. 
 Every now and then an occasion arises when this 
 independent vote spontaneously concentrates with 
 most astonishing results, bringing dismay to those 
 who believed themselves strongly intrenched in 
 power. It is the failure to understand such a sit- 
 uation that makes many "practical politicians" so 
 fatuously impractical. But often whom the gods 
 destroy they first make mad, and the pride of 
 power in actual enjoyment notoriously contracts 
 the vision. Yet though the young braves of the 
 party may shout derision and contempt for the 
 independent voter, the old chiefs lie low and 
 think it better not to wake a sleeping lion. 
 Especially is the importance of the independent 
 
SPECIAL COUNTERACTIVES AGAINST EVIL. 137 
 
 voter established by the introduction of ballot re- 
 form. Against the power conferred by this mode 
 of expressing opinion, persuasion and intimidation 
 are of no avail. Dictation does not count, and 
 bribery is generally futile ; at least, it is so uncer- 
 tain as not to be depended on. If nominations 
 could be made more freely, the independent voter 
 would have a better chance to make his influence 
 felt ; but as it is, the practical politician, if he is 
 fit to manage his business, will never ignore in his 
 calculations the mugwump element in the voting 
 population. Hon. John A. Taylor, ex-corpora- 
 tion counsel of Brooklyn, in an essay entitled 
 " The Independent in Politics,"* observes : " In 
 the campaign of 1884 it was noticeable that while 
 the party organs could scarcely detect the exist- 
 ence of any considerable body of mugwumps in the 
 State of New York, there was an actual personal 
 enrollment of fifty thousand bolters from the Re- 
 publican party in the possession of the managers 
 of the independent revolt. And in the election 
 for the mayoralty which took place in this city 
 [Brooklyn] in 1885, more than thirteen thousand 
 voters left their party lines to vote under condi- 
 tions which assured to them no other success at 
 the polls than their enumeration as men who dis- 
 
 * Brooklyn Ethical Association: "The Man and the State." 
 D. Appleton & Co., 1892, p. 497. 
 
138 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 dained to follow their party in what, in their 
 judgment, were policies prejudicial to the best 
 interests of the city. Surely the tyranny of no 
 party majority can be very dangerous with so 
 large a body of independent voters ready to ad- 
 minister a prompt rebuke to its pretensions." 
 
 Mr. Albert Stickney, in a work entitled 
 " Democratic Government,"* puts forth, as the 
 basis of true democracy, the public meeting, in 
 which each person has one voice, freely uttered 
 and considered for its reasonable value. The 
 New England town meeting is, perhaps, the best 
 example of this democratic society. But else- 
 where, and particularly in crowded centres, gen- 
 uine democracy has failed. The people do not 
 care to discharge their duties as citizens, but pre- 
 fer to allow others than themselves to undertake 
 the tasks of government. Under a militant 
 regime, as we have before remarked, this would 
 be fatal to liberty. In our country it is not even 
 dangerous. The newspaper takes the place of 
 the town meeting. The independent, secure in 
 his vote by the secret ballot, holds an effective 
 check upon party corruption and greed. But in 
 order to make the regulative power complete, 
 some system of freer nominations ought certainly 
 
 * Harper & Bros., 1885. 
 
SPECIAL CO UNTERA CTl VES A GAINST E VIL. 1 39 
 
 to be devised. It is now a difficult and ponderous 
 matter to accomplish independent nominations to 
 office. Hence, the independent is handicapped. 
 Efforts in the way of remedying this state of 
 things certainly would be well-directed. 
 
 But the most important matter of all at the 
 present juncture is limiting the power of legisla- 
 tures to do harm. The organic law is well settled 
 for all the purposes of security, and the great 
 danger is that it will be interfered with. Besides, 
 the legislature has become in many States of the 
 Union only a market-place for the purchase and 
 sale of private emoluments, so much so that the 
 people are always relieved when the two houses 
 adjourn. In many States this condition of things 
 has led to the adoption of biennial sessions, to the 
 great gain of the public. The State of New York 
 has suffered as much as any from this evil, and if 
 the constitutional convention to assemble next 
 year can devise amendments to the fundamental 
 law which will stop legislative interference with 
 local government and put substantial checks 
 upon private legislation, it will accomplish a work 
 greatly needed, and confer a lasting benefit upon 
 the commonwealth. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 GENERAL REMEDIES AND ULTIMATE 
 TENDENCIES. 
 
 Turning now from concrete examples, and re- 
 curring to the thoughts of the earlier chapters 
 of this essay, we are again impressed with the 
 great and final lesson that all the evils of our 
 political life emanate, not from any system of 
 government, not from the dominance of any party 
 or syndicate, but from the character of the peo- 
 ple, which has been affected by changes of civil- 
 ization in the way I have described. Hence no 
 special reformatory measures are of avail till 
 character in the citizen is so changed that some- 
 how there is a restoration of the sense of duty as 
 a motive force. Our people are too solicitous 
 about their rights ; too little concerned about 
 their duties. It is not thus in every democracy. 
 Mr. Bryce, in an article entitled " The Teaching 
 of Civic Duty," * relates the following incident : 
 " Some years ago, in a lovely mountain valley 
 in the canton of Glarus [Switzerland], I was 
 
 * New Yoik, The Forum, July, 1893. 
 
REMEDIES AND ULTIMATE TENDENCIES. I4I 
 
 conversing with a peasant land-owner about the 
 Landesgemeinde (popular primary assembly), 
 which regulates the affairs of the canton. After 
 he had given me some details, I asked him 
 whether it was not the fact that all citizens had 
 the right of attending and voting in this assem- 
 bly. ' It is not so much their right,' he replied, 
 ' as their duty.' " Professor Bryce adds : " This is 
 the spirit by which free governments live." 
 
 Neglect of the cultivation of the sense of duty 
 takes the heroic out of human nature. No doubt 
 there is some truth (though not unqualified truth) 
 in the charge that in the American democracy 
 great men have ceased to be and can never more 
 arise. For, it is argued, if the leader be only a 
 follower, an observer and not an originator, occu- 
 pied with the state of mind of his own army in- 
 stead of planning against the enemy, he will tend 
 to become an ordinary time-server, incapable of 
 great deeds. But this argument is based upon 
 the military idea of greatness. The destinies of 
 people are not, in our happier country at least, 
 determined by the clash of arms. Such power as 
 once, on the Plains of Abraham, a young man of 
 thirty-three, with less than ten thousand soldiers, 
 was able to wield, to win a great empire on this 
 continent, can only be employed by young men 
 of our day in a thousand differentiations, scat- 
 
142 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 tered here and there, apparently wasted in ex- 
 hausting and disheartening details. Yes, we may- 
 lament, the giants are dead ! No " god-like Achil- 
 les " walks on heroic ground, with impetuous 
 tread, glorious for aggressive warfare ; no William 
 the Silent, " tranquil among the raging billows," 
 emerges triumphant through his steadfastness in 
 defence, bringing freedom to his nation and excit- 
 ing the wonder of the world. Grant, Sherman, and 
 Sheridan have passed away, and did they live, their 
 glory would be of the past. Indeed, when by 
 death all things are consecrated, there is not even 
 left the opportunity and pleasure of dying well. 
 Yet after all should we wish for the deadly com- 
 bat in which many must perish unnoticed that we 
 may win honor and fame ? Should we raise the 
 storm with its dangers and its destruction in order 
 that our greatness may shine forth ? The mate- 
 rial of which heroes are made can exist in any 
 time and almost any circumstances ; and no true 
 hero ever wished glory at the expense of disaster 
 to others. The truly great are they who most 
 perfectly adapt themselves to their age, and who, 
 with the willingness to serve, find their opportu- 
 nity in some phase of the life which goes on 
 around them. Then, if a wider prospect be opened 
 to them, they are able to avail themselves of it 
 successfully ; if the circumstances allow, they are 
 
REMEDIES AND ULTIMATE TENDENCIES. HS 
 
 as certain to develop into the heroic size as any 
 whose deeds have made them immortal. Abra- 
 ham Lincoln never thought of glory ; but when 
 the occasion arrived, he came out from his simple 
 and prosaic life and sat where the eyes of the 
 world gazed upon him, where thrones were below 
 him, and where all the honor of the nations was 
 brought unto him. 
 
 Nevertheless, the fact is painfully evident in 
 our own country, that when men are put into 
 places of prominence they do not expand to 
 heroic proportions with that degree of uniformity 
 one could wish. The men who dignify ofiSce are 
 few, for those who would dignify it are not put 
 into office. If the " simple great ones," of whom 
 Tennyson declares that they have " gone forever 
 and forever by," were now to occupy official 
 station, they would not be tolerated, for they 
 would not recognize the truth that to be a master 
 one must be an apt and obedient servant. In- 
 deed, they would probably be as ridiculous as 
 Don Quixote, high-minded and chivalrous, but an 
 impractical " crank." It is perfectly true that the 
 men who succeed in official station are those who 
 know how to adapt means to ends ; to placate, 
 to satisfy, to harmonize conflicting interests ; to 
 fry out from the fat the oil with which the wheels 
 may be greased to make the machine run more 
 
144 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 easily. If they are able to do these things, it is 
 also deemed irrelevant whether they are fit to 
 conduct a Sunday-school or a concert garden ; 
 whether they are able to earn a living in business 
 or only capable of adorning a street corner or a 
 rum-shop. Nor is the fact either that they are 
 powerful in prayer and exhortation, or are strong 
 at the whiskey bottle, any objection to their eligi- 
 bility to office, so long as they do what is re- 
 quired and serve faithfully their masters. 
 
 Since when we want a man to build a house we 
 do not care whether or not he is able to paint a 
 portrait, and when we need a shoemaker we do 
 not inquire if he can play the piano, it might be 
 thought that this specialization of function would 
 be wholly a good thing. So it is, no doubt, as we 
 have argued, but still within limits. If nothing 
 else be thought of, however, a time comes when 
 we are startled to discover where we are. The 
 Alpine tourist who takes that smooth and grassy 
 path down the mountain is sometimes appalled at 
 finding that he is on the brink of a precipice. 
 To save himself, his full energies are required. So, 
 under all circumstances, it is often the case that 
 though the direct path be enticing, the longest 
 way round is the shortest way home. 
 
 The ancient Hebrews, in their rude and bar- 
 barous way, \fashioned certain rules of conduct 
 
REMEDIES AND ULTIMATE TENDENCIES. 145 
 
 which they believed emanated from a supreme 
 and divine Source of ail law.) Among these was 
 the injunction, " Thou shalt not steal." This 
 somehow, for many centuries, has been adopted 
 as an excellent, thoroughly practical, and very 
 satisfactory rule to govern conduct. It has been 
 reserved for commercial enterprise to discover 
 that it is altogether too theoretical. 
 
 So, if we consider ordinary practices in the 
 business community, there seems to be need of 
 a revision of the Decalogue, striking out here 
 and there a commandment, or modifying some of 
 them, as the eighth, so as to make it less universal 
 and to exclude certain classes from its operation. 
 Or, better, perhaps, abolish the whole scheme as 
 antiquated and obsolete. Then the Sunday-school 
 superintendent will no longer be embarrassed to 
 explain his conduct when on Sunday he solemnly 
 reads to his pupils the injunction, " Thou shalt 
 not steal," and on Monday he meets his honored 
 friend, the defaulter or the public robber, on the 
 street, grasps his hand warmly and beams upon 
 him admiringly, and even lends him his pocket- 
 book for political disbursements. Then, too, what 
 a relief it will be for all of us to be able to recom- 
 mend frankly, and with the innocence of Eden, 
 Mr. So-and-so to Mme. Grande Dame at a recep- 
 tion, with words of compliment like these : " He 
 
146 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY, 
 
 is such a polished and charming man, and, you 
 know, he is such an accomplished thief." Thus 
 we might go on ; after having struck out all the 
 " nots " from the commandments, lest they be 
 homeless and useless, we might as well put them 
 into the beatitudes : " Blessed are those who are 
 not meek ; " " Blessed are they that are not merci- 
 ful ; " " Blessed are they that are not poor in 
 spirit ; " " Blessed are they that do not hunger 
 and thirst after righteousness." Thus renovated, 
 the commandments and the beatitudes would be- 
 come truly practical to the minds of those who 
 are educated to believe that " every man for him- 
 self " furnishes a complete and satisfying rule of 
 conduct. 
 
 We cannot deny that in the eyes of the 
 civilized world one of the most characteristic 
 American traits is venality. Our enterprise, our 
 progressiveness, is recognized, but the taint of 
 corruption is attached. The almost inevitable 
 outcome of venality and aggressive competition 
 is dishonesty. And we should not disguise from 
 ourselves that this accusation is in some meas- 
 ure true. Corruption is in the atmosphere and 
 in the act. I remember my admiration, and also 
 my mortification for my own country, over an 
 incident which occurred during my first visit to 
 England fourteen years ago. A corporation was 
 
REMEDIES AND ULTIMATE TENDENCIES. 147 
 
 seeking a franchise to build a bridge over the 
 Tliames near the Tower of London. The custom- 
 ary hearing was in progress before a committee 
 of the House of Commons, with counsel for the 
 the petitioners and the opponents. One morning 
 lawyers for those seeking the franchise handed to 
 their adversaries a letter tlieir clients had received 
 offering for suitable recompense to secure a favor- 
 able report from the committee. A great scandal 
 was created by what is an ordinary occurrence in 
 our own land. Investigation followed, the writers 
 of the letter were found out, brought to the bar 
 of the House of Commons, and imprisoned for 
 contempt. I could not help but wonder how 
 many attorneys at Albany or Washington had 
 received such letters : how many had answered 
 them ; how many had paid the bribe ; moreover, 
 how many had been approached by legislators 
 themselves offering to sell their influence and 
 vote. I have heard of many such ; but I never 
 yet have learned of one who considered it his 
 duty to initiate the prosecution of a person who 
 offered to secure the ends desired by his clients 
 through meretricious influence. The most I have 
 known a lawyer to do is to decline the offered 
 aid. Fortunately this is by no means uncommon. 
 Unfortunately the acceptance is perhaps more 
 common. If anything is to be done, money is 
 
148 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 required. This our business men understand per- 
 fectly, and if they want anything they expect to 
 pay for it. What they desire is results ; the inter- 
 mediate steps they care nothing about, nor will 
 they make inquiry. Then if it happen that 
 through the wickedness of men bribery is accom- 
 plished, there is left the opportunity of being 
 terribly surprised and shocked. 
 
 The absence of that keen sense of honor exem- 
 plified in the English bribery case just spoken of, 
 and the presence of a callousness to moral obliga- 
 tion which indicates a serious depravation of char- 
 acter, occur in some things and in some persons 
 where the incongruity is very startling. We all 
 know the disgraceful position the United States 
 held for a long time with regard to international 
 copyright, and we all know how universally the 
 sentiment still obtains that with respect to foreign 
 books stealing is no robbery. But, as just said, 
 we have reached the point where theft seems 
 somehow incongruous. The Sunday-school super- 
 intendent may indeed be the ally of the public 
 robber and not himself be a thief. Yet if, for 
 instance, the superintendent and the pastor of 
 his church were to unite in a scheme for robbing 
 foreign authors and publishers, however natural it 
 might appear on close analysis, it still seems incon- 
 gruous — not altogether in accordance with the fit- 
 
REMEDIES AND ULTIMATE TENDENCIES. 149 
 
 ness of things, not convenable, not quite in good 
 form. But not long ago we could have found a 
 clergyman, at the head of a convocation of churches 
 belonging to a numerous and prominent religious 
 denomination, endeavoring to get the ministers 
 of his faith to join him in the theft of an English 
 work on Egypt, the book being, in his opinion, too 
 dear in its original form for the most of religious 
 people. So, also, we might have noticed a firm 
 publishing exclusively religious books, as the offi- 
 cial representatives of a great denomination, pro- 
 posing to steal an English edition of the Bible, 
 containing, as they tell us, about fifty-six thousand 
 references, indexes, maps, a glossary and diction- 
 ary, and a large number of learned illustrative 
 articles, which cost the owner a large amount of 
 money ! Very pertinent is the remark of a daily 
 journal upon this transaction : " Fancy the diffu- 
 sion of religious ideas through the medium of 
 stolen Bibles sold by religious teachers." " How 
 like it is to that story of the negro revival meet- 
 ing in one end of a barn, while water was boiling 
 in the other to scald a stolen hog ! " Again, and 
 to cap the climax, we beheld a doctor of divinity, 
 minister of that gospel which adds more severe 
 imperatives of duty to the Ten Commandments, 
 a conductor of religious periodicals, not only lead- 
 ing in a monumental piratical enterprise, but also 
 
ISO POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 claiming that, in self-protection, stealing first, and 
 then, if one feels like it, paying over what he 
 pleases as conscience money, is " the nearest ap- 
 proach practicable to an equitable working plan, 
 until our nation has recovered from its collapse of 
 conscience on the international copyright ques- 
 tion ! " The serious side of all this is apt to 
 escape us, and we are moved to exclaim, as did 
 the Western farmer when, on his return from a 
 journey, he found his house, his barn, his wife, his 
 children, and his well-sweep whirled to destruction 
 by a cyclone — " This is too ridiculous ! " 
 
 Noticing things like these we have just been 
 instancing, occurring among a class of people who 
 might be supposed to have the highest sense of 
 honor, and considering the general venality and 
 low-principled methods of action in all classes, 
 thoughtful men cannot help asking. Whither do 
 all these things tend ? Can we hope for a better 
 order ? Are we going from bad to worse ? If not, 
 what encouraging signs are there ? And what 
 will be the final outcome? Of course, these eager 
 queries cannot be answered with certainty, and 
 how they are answered in any wise will depend 
 largely upon the optimistic or pessimistic char- 
 acter of the one answering. But optimism is 
 much more natural than pessimism in a democ- 
 racy. This very fact is a most significant and 
 
REMEDIES AND ULTIMATE TENDENCIES. 151 
 
 encouraging one. It indicates that the sources of 
 life have not yet been drained. So long as the 
 social condition is such that the natural initiative 
 of man's energy has free scope, progress will con- 
 tinue. And this is the advantage of a democratic 
 country like our own, that it does give this free- 
 dom for spontaneous action, unhindered save by 
 the necessities of the common freedom. If this 
 shall always be so, we are safe. 
 
 A great many men of what we are accustomed 
 to call " the older school " in pohtics are apt to 
 take a much darker view. The last-published 
 volume of James Russell Lowell's poems* is pre- 
 faced by these lines : 
 
 " Along the wayside where we pass bloom few 
 Gay plants of heartsease, more of saddening rue ; 
 So life is mingled." 
 
 In the utterances that follow this inscription, and 
 in almost all the expressions of the poet's mind 
 during the latest part of his life, there is evident 
 such a disapproval of present social and political 
 conditions, such a discouragement of mind, that 
 his spirit seems to have entered some abode of 
 gloom before the doors of which he had been 
 commanded to leave hope behind. In one of 
 great faith, whose disposition was cheery and 
 
 * " Heartsease and Rue.'' 
 
152 POLITICS JN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 voice strong, over whose country the sun was 
 always rising, never setting, until these last years, 
 a change so evident, even though partially con- 
 cealed by effort, and fought against, as shown by 
 occasional outbursts, is extremely significant. It 
 is brought home to our thought with many a 
 query, now that so remarkable a man, eminent 
 both as a political thinker and an active patriot, 
 has gone to his final rest. 
 
 With the failing energies of approaching old 
 age conservatism is usual enough, but generally it 
 is rather optimistic than the reverse. The things 
 which are, seem sufificient ; and if it appear hope- 
 less to effect change, the thought is quick to spring 
 up that change itself would be useless or worse. 
 With finer and m.ore reflective minds, however, 
 whose ideals are set high, and in comparison with 
 which all things actual appear mean and con- 
 temptible, a keen appreciation of how much bet- 
 ter things might be is accompanied by a great 
 despair at one's impotence to improve them. The 
 fruitless striving to do something, or at least to 
 point out the way, baffled as it ordinarily is, in 
 itself intensifies the feeling that matters are at 
 their worst, or, if not, that ruin is close and inev- 
 itable. Of the latter sort, no doubt, was the soul- 
 weariness of him who fought so well in the o-ood 
 fight against slavery, who maintained in such 
 
REMEDIES AND ULTIMATE TENDENCIES. 1S3 
 
 sensible and graceful words the excellence of the 
 democratic theory of government at Birmingham 
 in 1884, and who in 1887 writes to Curtis : 
 
 " I mount no longer when the trumpets call ; 
 My battle-harness idles on the wall, 
 The spider's castle, camping ground of dust. 
 Not without dints, and all in front, I trust. 
 Shivering sometimes, it calls me as it liears 
 Afar the charge's tramp and clash of spears ; 
 But 'tis such murmur as might be 
 The sea-shell's lost tradition of the sea." 
 
 We must not forget that the poets always 
 have been soothsayers and seers. They are our 
 prophets both of good and evil, sentries quick to 
 give the alarm when their acute senses apprehend 
 danger. They should always be listened to and 
 sought, at least for omens. They are good barom- 
 eters to foretell tempests, even though they can- 
 not predict the extent, the duration, or the destruc- 
 tiveness of the atmospheric commotion ; and even 
 if telegraphic communication from a hundred dif- 
 ferent points is more extensively useful, we must 
 also know the local atmospheres in order to get 
 the data for our generalizations. 
 
 But there is a broader vision, to which the eyes 
 of men like Mr. Lowell seem to have been closed 
 — a vision wherein the evil becomes dwarfed in a 
 widening and intensified stability, under the struc- 
 
154 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 tural bands of which is accumulating a power 
 unfailing and sure to give forth all good things. 
 If politics has become a matter of barter and 
 trade, if office be but the spoils of the victor, if the 
 best men eschew political life, if wealth and leisure 
 concern themselves little with the affairs of the 
 nation, if the Astors " have no political interests 
 in New York" — this condition of things is not 
 symptomatic of mortal disease. It is measles and 
 not the plague. It seems to me that to the care- 
 ful observer it must appear that every day the 
 social organism is on the whole becoming more 
 solidified, and the power of disintegrating forces 
 is growing less. The fact that so much is endured 
 that is seen to be bad, and endured without 
 materially affecting the general happiness and 
 prosperity, is the strongest kind of proof of the 
 truth of these statements. Nor can we explain 
 the apathy and laisses-faire of so many of the 
 best citizens in regard to the movements of poli- 
 tics wholly on the theory of the hopeless and ruin- 
 ous depravity they find therein. Supposing they 
 do find it, they would not be prevented from inter- 
 fering if their liberty or their property were seri- 
 ously endangered. When great peril is scented, 
 how quickly people of this class of voters bestir 
 themselves ! But they have come to see the 
 truth that, in America at least, the perfection of 
 
REMEDIES AND ULTIMATE TENDENCIES. 155 
 
 government is no longer an index of the strength 
 of the organism. It is becoming less indispensable 
 as the general level of intelligence and character 
 rises ; and that such level is continually rising ad- 
 mits of no doubt. If, then, people speak little and 
 seem to care less about "loyalty" and "patriot- 
 ism," the watchwords of a past generation, it is 
 at the present in America not wholly a sign of 
 decadence, but rather evinces an evolutionary 
 movement onward to the point where govern- 
 ment is superseded by the harmonious self-rule 
 of individuals. We are sometimes told that the 
 politicians are our rulers. I should rather say 
 they are makers of officials who are servants, not 
 masters ; bad servants, it may be true, but still un- 
 deniably servants. As the soldier in this country 
 has become merely a policeman, so the public 
 ofificer has become a dienstmajin or commissionaire. 
 No fault should be found with this in itself. The 
 trouble lies in the fact that too often he is the 
 servant, not of the whole, as he should be, but 
 only of a few, who control his actions for their 
 advantage and emolument, though all contribute 
 to pay him. 
 
 The presence of anarchical manifestations, 
 therefore, need not discourage or alarm us. As 
 our contention is, they are the natural outcome 
 of the notion of individual liberty for which the 
 
156 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 forefathers struggled. The very theory of the 
 right to suffrage, which has been so much urged 
 and insisted upon, easily becomes in the minds even 
 of some intelligent persons a justification for cor- 
 rupt dealing. For if the right to vote belongs to 
 a man because he is a man, it is his property, and 
 hence he may sell it as anything else which is his 
 own. He does not reflect that though suffrage 
 be universal the right is a qualified one, like that 
 of eminent domain in a corporation, subject to 
 the condition that it shall be exercised always 
 and only for a public use. This, however, is a 
 matter of education ; and we do not wait for 
 education before conferring the right. If we are 
 consistent in our belief in democratic institutions, 
 we shall not begrudge the ignorant or reckless 
 man the ballot, though he sometimes use it im- 
 properly. Nor should we be very much disturbed 
 if men of a class we consider lower than ourselves 
 be elected to office. The constituency must 
 always be considered. The best the conditions 
 allow is what should be sought and all we can 
 get ; and if this is not very good, we must possess 
 our souls in patience till the schoolmaster " gets 
 in his fine work," even if we have to wait for 
 a younger generation to come upon the stage. 
 For argument is of very little use with the adult 
 mind. It generally is a waste of time and energy 
 
REMEDIES AND ULTIMATE TENDENCIES. 157 
 
 for a person to set about convincing an adversary 
 by elaborate reasoning, still less by satire or rep- 
 artee. It reminds one of Father Tom's attempts 
 to " catapomphericate " the pope, and is apt to 
 end as did his controversy, with some offensive 
 malediction, either expressed or suppressed. Con- 
 viction is accomplished best by that which merely 
 suggests and sets the mind in motion, allaying 
 instead of generating antagonism, appealing to 
 the sympathies and guiding without seeming to 
 do so. People are ruled by their sentiments, 
 which create, perhaps unconsciously, their opin- 
 ions, and which are made up by their interests, 
 their traditions, their personal likes and dislikes, 
 mingled in measures that differ comparatively 
 with each new individual, and are extremely diffi- 
 cult to estimate or understand. But their minds 
 are not inactive, and the educating process goes 
 on the more rapidly the more material comfort 
 increases. The masses of the people appreciate 
 that violence destroys the chance of obtaining those 
 things which they have come to believe of the 
 most value to themselves. And while it is true 
 that the greatest evil at present is what Mr. Her- 
 bert Spencer calls " a militant industrialism," its 
 excesses and evils will be abated by the very con- 
 dition of freedom which has produced them. I 
 find a pertinent statement on this point in the 
 
158 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 second volume of the " Principles of Ethics," just 
 published : * " Our existing social regime, with its 
 vast amounts of property in relatively few hands, 
 though a regime appropriate to the existing type 
 of humanity, and probably essential to it, is one 
 which we may rightly regard as transitional. Just 
 as modern times have seen a decrease in those great 
 political inequalities, and accompanying inequali- 
 ties of power, which characterized earlier times ; 
 so future times will most likely see a decrease in 
 those great pecuniary inequalities which now pre- 
 vail. Having emerged from the militant social 
 type, we appear to be passing through a social 
 type which may be distinguished as militant 
 industrialism — an industrialism which, though 
 carried on under the system of contract, instead 
 of under the system of status, is in a considerable 
 measure carried on in the old militant spirit; as 
 indeed it could not fail to be, seeing that men's 
 characters and sentiments can be changed only in 
 the course of long ages. Though pecuniary ine- 
 qualities — some of them perhaps not inconsidera- 
 ble — may be expected to characterize the future, 
 reasserting themselves after socialisms and com- 
 munisms have temporarily triumphed ; yet we may 
 infer that under higher social forms and a better 
 
 *P. 348. 
 
REMEDIES AND ULTIMATE TENDENCIES. 159 
 
 type of humanity they will be nothing hke so 
 marked as now." 
 
 It may then be claimed with good reason that 
 the degradation of law and disrespect for govern- 
 ment will not land us in a condition of militant 
 anarchy, wherein bloodshed and ruin will prevail 
 as in the old times, but in a stable order, in which 
 anarchy, in the sense of absence of government, or 
 the minimum of government, will be the charac- 
 teristic feature. If democracy be ultimately suc- 
 cessful and work out its own theory perfectly, this 
 will surely be the finality. 
 
 When the domination of monarchy and aristoc- 
 racy is overthrown, there is confusion and dis- 
 order from the removal of restraint, sometimes 
 issuing in the most dreadful crimes and tremen- 
 dous catastrophes. But if it be true, and I think 
 it is, that the cure for the evils of liberty is more 
 liberty, the need of individual security after a 
 little while becomes paramount, even in the minds 
 of people having only a moderate amount of in- 
 telligence. Hence is produced a restraint upon 
 conduct more and more effective as affairs settle 
 themselves. Then, if the idea of the common 
 liberty becomes thoroughly pervasive, the neces- 
 sity for government grows less. As society im- 
 proves, public functions become of inferior im- 
 portance, and if the ideal involved in the true 
 
l6o POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 conception of democracy ever be realized, govern- 
 ment will disappear altogether. The celestial 
 city will neither need nor have any policemen or 
 jails. 
 
 But though in a society founded upon the 
 principle of individual liberty the reverence for 
 kings and princes becomes extinguished, the 
 notion of "inherent sacredness " in any institu- 
 tion is dissipated, and even the sentiment of 
 loyalty, so powerful in monarchical countries, 
 abates to a very noticeable extent ; yet, with the 
 advance of civilization and the increase of mate- 
 rial prosperity, we have been forced to notice 
 that the sense of the value of combination and 
 concentration is more strongly developed. The 
 future employment of governmental power for 
 purposes of public convenience hence suggests 
 itself in a thousand ways, the extent of which 
 readers of Edward Bellamy's " Looking Back- 
 ward " will easily picture. Various forms of 
 socialism are everywhere securing popularity, and 
 there are many who would make the government, 
 which was once a kingship hedged about with 
 divinity, a universal pack-horse to carry every- 
 body's burdens, or a mill to grind every man's 
 grist, if not also a granary to supply him with 
 corn. In a highly interesting and indeed remark- 
 able work, just published, entitled, " National 
 
REMEDIES AND ULTIMATE TENDENCIES. l6l 
 
 Life and Character : A Forecast," * Mr. Charles 
 H. Pearson expresses the belief that some form 
 of state socialism is the prevailing destiny of the 
 civilized nations. He argues from somewhat the 
 same premises as those expressed in the earlier 
 chapters of this essay. Furthermore, he endeav- 
 ors to show that civilization is making no head- 
 way, and can make no permanent headway, 
 against the increase in numbers and material 
 strength of the inferior peoples — Mongolians and 
 Africans especially. That, when the impact of 
 civilized energy has exhausted itself and met with 
 inevitable check from these lower races, it will be 
 thrown back upon itself, and progress will tend 
 to become stationary, individual life will become 
 aimless, spontaneity will abate, and the burden 
 thrown upon the state to take care of its citizens 
 ■ — in short, that at length invincible natural condi- 
 tions will create a despotism of social causes, 
 which will reduce existence for the mass of the 
 people to the same degree of hopelessness as 
 under the worst tyranny of absolute monarchy. 
 The writer does not apply his conclusions in 
 terms to America, and some distinctions he draws 
 here and there, with reference to the United 
 States, would seem to indicate that he would hes- 
 
 * Macmillan & Co., 1893. 
 
1 63 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 itate to do so. To me, at least, it does not seem 
 as within the range of probabilities that a country 
 which has grown up under the education of uni- 
 versal manhood suffrage ever can be ruled by the 
 methods of state socialism. The ballot fosters 
 individualism ; and though, as a reaction from the 
 separatism of individual liberty, combination and 
 organization for all sorts of purposes, political 
 and other, have been prevalent and been carried to 
 a high degree of perfection, the ballot is still an 
 efficacious solvent. The power of combinations 
 is everywhere watched with a jealous eye. It is 
 met, indeed, by counter-combination ; but this 
 shows the disposition to reduce too great an ac- 
 cumulation of strength, wherever it occurs. And 
 the same disintegrative action, which now oper- 
 ates in the direction of producing equality of 
 power, would be put forth with tenfold the force 
 against any enlarged and comprehensive scheme 
 to use government for purposes of positive benefi- 
 cence. Doubtless, legislation to check the in- 
 fluence of great corporations, and to relieve 
 against monopoly, suggests the expediency of the 
 government superseding such organizations, in 
 itself assuming the work they do for the commu- 
 nity. Very likely, too, the scope of governmental 
 administration may be enlarged, so as to include 
 some of these offices. The government owner- 
 
REMEDIES AND ULTIMATE TENDENCIES. 1 63 
 
 ship of railroads, for instance, has been found 
 beneficial in some countries, though chiefly for 
 military purposes. But regulation is one thing, 
 ownership another ; and there is as yet no indica- 
 tion of any public sentiment in the United States 
 which would allow of the latter. Wherever move- 
 ments have been made along socialistic lines, the 
 experiment has been abandoned, the tide of pub- 
 lic feeling sooner or later setting decidedly against 
 it. I repeat, then, so long as each man has one 
 voice and vote, any extended plan of socialistic 
 government cannot be established, and could not 
 be maintained if it were. And abridging the 
 right of suffrage is the last thing any intelligent 
 student of American life, social and political, 
 would venture to predict as likely to occur. 
 
 Our conclusions are, that we should not lose 
 faith in the democratic idea as the most effica- 
 cious for human progress and the welfare of the 
 human race. We should continue to act under 
 its inspiration in the direction of the equalization 
 of material and social conditions. For security of 
 the individual there must be equality of rights ; 
 for equality of rights there must be equality of 
 power. Movements to do away with inequalities, 
 of wealth especially, as the chief source of power 
 in a democracy, are all the while going on. But 
 the chief desideratum is the improvement of 
 
164 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 character by restoring the sense of duty. One 
 would think the clergy would be of the most use 
 of any class in this work ; yet it is a question if 
 they are not as much of a hindrance as a help. 
 Their blind and obstinate insistence on utterly 
 worn-out and valueless dogmas, their childish con- 
 tentions about heresies, their unchristian and 
 savage attacks upon each other, their inability to 
 learn anything from observation of their own 
 times, make them generally — with, however, con- 
 spicuous and noble exceptions — worthless either 
 to declare what morality is or to persuade men 
 to practise it. But it must be taught, neverthe- 
 less, as a matter of practical consequence — a 
 charity which begins at home and is never out 
 of place abroad. 
 
 From the foregoing observations, the true polit- 
 ical philosophy would seem to be to maintain as 
 an ideal a state wherein there is no government 
 whatever ; and to the end of its realization to 
 curtail and restrict the operations of government 
 wherever and whenever possible, instead of seek- 
 ing to enlarge its functions. For my own part, I 
 believe the lines of practical effort at present to 
 lie in the direction of abolishing, as fast as it is 
 safe to do so, all legislation for the benefit of par- 
 ticular individuals or classes of persons ; to reduce, 
 to its minimum, state or municipal interference 
 
REMEDIES AND ULTIMATE TENDENCIES. 165 
 
 with personal liberty; and to insist with increasing 
 stringency that officials are public servants, to be 
 held to the same standards of duty as any private 
 employee to his employer. It is a most encour- 
 aging sign of the times, that the last is becoming 
 more and more required, and there is abundant 
 reason to believe that it will be still more strin- 
 gently demanded. 
 
 Beyond all these things and like reforms is 
 the supreme importance of educating character. 
 I say supreme importance, not because it relates 
 to any special emergency, not because it protects 
 any particular industry, not because it corrects any 
 one preeminently flagrant abuse, but because it 
 furnishes the force for all emergencies, the protec- 
 tion for all industries, the corrective for all abuses. 
 This is true not only because a self-controlled and 
 self-regulated character in the citizen is the best 
 security for the permanence of any form of gov- 
 ernment, but also because it is the sole condition 
 upon which human beings can dwell together in 
 society at all. In whatever degree it exists there 
 is a social order, and exactly in the proportion 
 that it is well developed is there such a thing as 
 a successful community or nationality. In his ad- 
 dress on " Democracy," Mr. Lowell summed it up 
 when he concluded : " Our healing is not in the 
 storm or in the whirlwind, it is not in monarchies, 
 
l66 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 or aristocracies, or democracies, but will be re- 
 vealed by the still small voice that speaks to the 
 conscience and the heart, prompting us to a wider 
 and wiser humanity." 
 
 This voice will not be made to speak through 
 the reading of one of Daniel Webster's orations, or 
 the Declaration of Independence, or even a chap- 
 ter in the Bible. And it is only he that hath ears 
 to hear who hears. There must be in the disposi- 
 tion of the man himself something which responds 
 to the calls of patriotic duty. This is alone found 
 where it has been grown by processes of planting 
 and watering, and where the weeds threatening to 
 choke it have been kept down. Such a work of 
 cultivation has, of course, been going on through 
 our national history, else we never would have 
 prospered. But as our empire becomes vaster, 
 our population more heterogeneous, there is need 
 of enlarged effort and of extending the sphere of 
 operation in every new direction that presents 
 itself. More especially is this true at a time like 
 the present, when the bonds of authority are every- 
 where loosening, when government seems to be 
 weakening, when the restraints of religion are of 
 diminished force, and when anarchical manifesta- 
 tions are displaying themselves before we seem 
 ready for them. In such a situation, to cure the 
 evils arising and threatened, the education, not of 
 
REMEDIES AND ULTIMATE TENDENCIES. 167 
 
 intellect merely, but of character, is the only com- 
 plete and effective remedy, in comparison with 
 which even the best political measures that can 
 be devised are merely palliatives. 
 
 The wisest teachers from the most ancient times 
 to the present, whether Asiatic or European, Jew, 
 Greek, Buddhist, or Christian, have understood and 
 declared with emphasis the doctrine that the king- 
 dom of God is within us. This truth we are every- 
 where forgetting to-day. The biblical expression 
 is not the formula of a particular religious creed, 
 but the statement of a universal fact of human 
 nature. That satisfaction which every one craves 
 in life is never found in his external possessions, 
 but in the accumulation within himself of a fund 
 of contentment. Not what he has, but what he 
 is, makes his happiness. To be sure, what he has 
 may contribute powerfully to his enjoyment, if he 
 knows how to value it and use it aright ; but un- 
 less he does, it fails to bring the peace entirely 
 feasible for his neighbor to secure who has none 
 of this world's goods at all. 
 
 I am by no means sure that one may not de- 
 rive more happiness from life by doing nothing 
 whatever, than from any form of activity ; but his 
 environment must be favorable. Climate has a 
 great influence upon the characters of people ; 
 and in Africa and India, for example, where lazi- 
 
I68 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 ness is the fashion, and rather necessitated, I 
 should not wonder if the vegetative life, with no 
 property interests — not even clothes — were hap- 
 pier than the bustling, worrying existence of more 
 advanced civilizations. Sir Edwin Arnold seems 
 to like it better than managing a newspaper ; and 
 I think most of us would, too! When I read the 
 " Light of Asia," the Indian sacred writings, the 
 Zend-Avesta, Omar Khayyam, Confucius, or even 
 the sayings of Socrates in Plato, I feel more 
 inclined to believe in lotus-eating, and in the 
 sitting-around-and-liarp-playing notion of heaven 
 which has been so much disparaged. When, how- 
 ever, we find inaction carried as far as it is in 
 China, where people lolling on the bank of a 
 river will see a person drown before their eyes 
 without making any effort to rescue him, we are 
 rather inclined to revert with a sense of relief to 
 the vanities and venalities of the Occident. 
 
 But if in our day and generation and environ- 
 ment we are condemned to toilsome activity, one 
 or two things are certain. Our lives must con- 
 form to a standard of excellence within us, quite 
 irrespective of our prominence in the eyes of 
 others, else we shall be gnawed with discontent 
 to the last hour. If we do not esteem it better to 
 deserve success than to obtain it, we shall always 
 find something lacking. It is the anxiety to give 
 
REMEDIES AND ULTIMATE TENDENCIES. 1 69 
 
 full value, instead of eighty cents' worth or less, 
 for a dollar, that makes the man, and " want of it 
 the fellow." It is the sense that he is doing his 
 very best upon anything on which he tries his hand 
 that alone satisfies. Under a devil-take-the-hind- 
 most policy there is no time to be thorough. The 
 wit expended in getting ahead of the other man 
 is often sufficient, if properly applied, to make a 
 true master of the art. And a real master knows 
 that the only superiority in any wise secure and 
 worth having is that which, spite of jealousy and 
 competition, commands success because of su- 
 preme excellence. 
 
 It is a painful spectacle in connection with the 
 agitation of labor against capital, to observe how 
 laboring men become so intent upon their rights as 
 to be unmindful of their duties. It seems almost 
 impossible to get honest, whole-hearted, full-meas- 
 ured work done in these days. Everything is given 
 grudgingly ; not a moment of extra time is ac- 
 corded, not a stroke of extra labor. If the plumber 
 be called and the driving of a nail is needed, it is 
 the carpenter's business, not his. Unless the ut- 
 most care is taken, everything is scanted in time, 
 labor, and material. The old idea of doing " a 
 good job " is subordinated to the demands of labor 
 politics. Is this what our public orators mean 
 when they talk about " the nobility of labor " ? 
 
I/O POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 If such charges as these be brought against the 
 workingman, he may indeed retort against the 
 capitahsts and wage-givers that they are always 
 grinding the face of the poor. However just the 
 claim may be, it is no justification for the Avage- 
 earner to regard his employer as an enemy, to 
 beat anything out of whom is a merit. But 
 oppression of capital, no doubt, is largely respon- 
 sible for the laborer's discontent ; therefore it is 
 well that the capitalist be made to feel this and 
 be induced to make concessions and practise 
 humanity toward those who are weaker than him- 
 self, and who are at all times the bond-slaves of 
 poverty. It is quite impossible to attach all 
 blame to the one side and all innocence to the 
 other. The only thing to be done is to repress 
 and condemn the wrong spirit wherever it exists, 
 whether in plutocrat or knight of labor. 
 
 As our country grows older, we shall find the 
 true meaning of the inculcation of patriotism to 
 be not so much inspiring youth with devotion to 
 the American flag and American forms of govern- 
 ment as inherently admirable and superior to all 
 others, as in teaching the necessity of a more 
 perfect understanding of and adaptation to the 
 conditions of social life in general. In this way 
 only can the end and aim of democracy — to 
 secure the individual man from the domination 
 
REMEDIES AND ULTIMATE TENDENCIES. I /I 
 
 and oppression of his fellow — be accomplished. 
 There can be no such adaptation until it is 
 appreciated that not only the nobility but the 
 success of labor, high or low, consists in the mas- 
 tery which of itself distances competition, and not 
 in exercises of activity to push beyond others, or 
 circumventing them through trick and device. A 
 recent journalistic writer has well expressed this 
 truth in saying,* " The man who forgets most 
 completely his own vanity, and in a sense his own 
 interest in the accomplishment of his work, and 
 identifies himself with the work, secures in the 
 end the very highest personal returns from that 
 work, because by his very self-abnegation he 
 makes himself a master of his craft." This doc- 
 trine must be more strongly insisted on. It is a 
 thoughtless and dangerous way of teaching, to 
 tell boys in school, as instructors often do, that 
 any one of them can become President of the 
 United States if he will only resolve to "get 
 there," one man in this favored country being as 
 good as another. This is dreadful heresy. It 
 never has been nor ever will be true. Though 
 all men in America have in theory equality of 
 protection and security, they are not equal, and 
 never should expect to be regarded as equal. 
 
 * The Christian Union, Sept. 13, 1891 : " A Test of Criticism." 
 
1/2 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 Youth should be taught that their power and 
 happiness depend not on office, but on what they 
 themselves are, and are able to do better than 
 others in anything within their immediate sphere 
 of opportunity, even if it be only boot-blacking. 
 It should not be their design to enter one em- 
 ployment with the idea of unfaithfully using their 
 opportunities merely as a stepping-stone to some 
 other while neglecting their duties ; but rather to 
 rise from it, if at all, irrepressibly and irresistibly, 
 by reason of a force accumulated through con- 
 spicuous fidelity and skill in the labor of the 
 lower station. If this be done, no position is 
 "low"; without it, nothing is high. 
 
 To this idea of the loss of self in one's work 
 there needs to be added another element for that 
 personal character required in the ideal citizen. 
 The kinship between art and morals is much 
 closer than often supposed. The great artist, 
 indeed, is a glory to humanity when, by his devo- 
 tion of mind and hand to the object before him, 
 forgetting self, intent only on perfecting the prod- 
 uct of his genius, he introduces into the world 
 some immortal creation to delight the senses and 
 inspire the souls of men. In this he truly serves 
 humanity. If now the impulses of art are clothed 
 on with a spirit which finds its true purpose in 
 that loss of self whose object is not some material 
 
REMEDIES AND ULTIMATE TENDENCIES. 173 
 
 symbolical creation on canvas or in marble, in 
 music or in poetry, but whose end is the welfare 
 of human personality itself, wherein nature and 
 art blend, we have exactly the character which the 
 social state demands, and the only one with which 
 it can rest satisfied. 
 
 I do not advance this as a religious precept, 
 but as a universal principle deeper than any par- 
 ticular religion, because it lies in the constitution 
 of human nature itself. It is a conclusion of 
 psychological, anthropological, and historical sci- 
 ence, and it surely is not injured thereby if it also 
 be a teaching of religion. In fact, it affords the 
 ground of reconciliation of science and religion 
 wherever there may be antagonism between the 
 two. The social state of mankind is patent. Hu- 
 man beings dwell in society, be it more or less 
 extensive ; be it family, town, tribe, state, nation ; 
 and within the community limits, however small 
 the circle, there must be that self-abnegation 
 wherein the individual finds his happiness in the 
 happiness of others. The wider the sphere, the 
 more complete the sentiment, the larger the so- 
 ciety thereby created. Only as the altruistic dis- 
 position grows in extent or intensity, does the 
 common liberty become more perfect ; and as it 
 wanes, tyranny, autocracy, and the rule of force 
 increase. But the effect of civilization and the 
 
174 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 annihilation of distance has been to create a 
 necessity for the mutual aid and comfort derived 
 from the social order, on the part of families with 
 families, villages with villages, cities with cities, 
 states with states, and nations with nations. The 
 tendency of this is to destroy the barriers separat- 
 ing nationalities, to break down old monarchical 
 and aristocratic institutions, and to establish in 
 power what is called the Avill of the people. It 
 does not require any uncommon prophetic gifts 
 to discern, then, that the whole civilized world, at 
 any rate, with frequent additions from the uncivil- 
 ized, is daily coming more completely within the 
 requirements of the ideal community comprised 
 in the demand that each individual shall be at 
 once the means and the end of all the rest. This 
 is the recognition of the intrinsic value of human 
 personality, the security for all the fundamental 
 rights of man. How important, in view of this, 
 appears the formation and perfection everywhere 
 of that character of the citizen which it has 
 been our aim to describe, which is the only sure 
 guarantee of liberty, order, material and intel- 
 lectual progress, and all the blessings of civilized 
 life! 
 
 To epitomize the thought I have endeavored 
 to convey in this chapter : The ideal of the per- 
 fection of democracy as a form of government 
 
REMEDIES AND ULTIMATE TENDENCIES. 1/5 
 
 merges in that of a situation where there is no 
 government at all. Depreciation in the import- 
 ance of governmental functions does not neces- 
 sarily indicate danger of social disorder and loss 
 of liberty. In the United States, conditions are 
 such that the prevailing apathy of large numbers 
 of the most intelligent people regarding politics, 
 and the consequent low standard of political ac- 
 tion and administration, is symptomatic of an evo- 
 lutionary movement of progress toward a point 
 where government will cease because unneces- 
 sary. If this be so, the course to be pursued is 
 not to multiply but to diminish as far as pos- 
 sible the activities of government, to limit its 
 sphere, to reduce its functions, insisting all the 
 while that a public officer is an agent and a ser- 
 vant, to be held accountable as such to his em- 
 ployers — all who pay for his services, not a part 
 or a few of them, or those who do not pay at all. 
 In furtherance of this policy we must not rely 
 mainly on legislation. It is supremely important 
 to secure in every direction a complete and thor- 
 ough education of character. This consists in 
 establishing as a controlling sentiment the knowl- 
 edge that the source of human happiness is 
 within, not in outward circumstances ; that such 
 happiness can be obtained not by what one gets, 
 but through what he is ; that self-forgetful devo- 
 
176 POLITICS IN A DEMOCRACY. 
 
 tion to whatever a man's hand finds to do is the 
 secret of success, and that the disposition from 
 wliich a person finds his pleasure and good in 
 the welfare and pleasure of others is the onl> 
 self-satisfying condition of life, the only substan^ 
 tial guarantee of peace and order in the com- 
 munity. 
 
 Thus, because man is so made and the worlc 
 so constituted, it is universally true that not onlj. 
 he who is willing to be a good citizen and wishes 
 his neighbors to be, but he who desires to get 
 out of life the best there is in it, must so act that 
 he can sincerely and truthfully say : 
 
 " Mine be the love that in itself can find 
 Seed of white thoughts, the lilies of the mind — 
 Seed of that glad surrender of the will 
 That finds in service self's true purpose still."* 
 
 * Lowell : " Endymion." 
 
CRITICAL NOTICES. 
 
 A SYSTEM OF PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 BY DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON, 
 
 2 vols., 8vo, 1226 pages. 
 
 The Leeds {England) Mercury. 
 This is a very comprehensive and important work. 
 
 The Journal of Mental Science {England). 
 Mr, Thompson's work accomplishes its aim in a very successful manner. 
 The book may without hesitation be pronounced a g-ood one. 
 
 The Edinburgh Scotsman. 
 
 In the seventy-five chapters of these bulky volumes a more detailed and 
 systematic account is given of the genesis and development of states of 
 consciousness than can be found in any other single work in the language. 
 
 Mr. Thompson is an accomplished and earnest searcher after truth. 
 
 The N. V. Popular Science Mofithly. 
 It is undoubtedly the raost important contribution to psychological science 
 that any American has yet produced ; nor is there any foreign work with 
 which wc are acquainted that contains so exhaustive, so instructive, and 
 well presented a digest of the subject as this. 
 
 The Academy {England). 
 Mr. Thompson's treatise, though named A System of Psychology .^ is in 
 reality, in outline at least, a system of philosophy. 
 
 While following the most plainly marked track in the fields of English 
 thought, Mr. Thompson is independent, and now and again impressively 
 original. 
 
 The Contemporary Review {England). 
 
 Mr. Thompson is an acute and careful observer himself, and a systematic 
 student of the results put forward by other workers. 
 
 The author has amply made good the modest claim he puts forward for 
 himself as an independent student.— A. Seth. 
 
Mind {England). 
 
 The passages that have been referred to must, of course, be taken merely 
 as specimens of Mr. Thompson's contributions to psychology, not as a 
 complete account of all that he has done ; but they are sufficient to show 
 that if he has not systematized the science from any new point of view, he 
 has at least carried the analytical methods of the older psychology further 
 in various directions. 
 
 Nature (^England). 
 
 In criticising any new book, we ought to ask whether the author has 
 made any advance on his immediate predecessors. We ought, in fact, to 
 apply to the particular author we are criticising the test of progress to 
 which psychology as a whole maybe submitted. Mr. Thompson's book 
 will emerge successfully from an examination such as that which is here 
 suggested. In dealing with many special questions he goes beyond the 
 later English psychologists, just as they themselves have gone beyond 
 Locke. 
 
 We may conclude by saying that, although in some respects an unequal 
 book, it is decidedly an important contribution of America to the treatment 
 of psychology on the lines with which English readers are most familiar. 
 
 The Index {Boston^ Mass.). 
 
 It is recognized as a standard work at once. {First notice) 
 
 This work proves the author to be a man of large intellectual grasp, of 
 keen critical and analytical ability, and at the same time of large construct- 
 ive power and capacity for generalization, of ample acquaintance with 
 philosophy and literature. 
 
 One need not assent to all that Mr. Thompson advances in order to 
 appreciate his robust thought, his masterly reasoning, his clear, strong 
 style and truly philosophic spirit. {Second notice) 
 
 It is without doubt the most profound, extensive, and original work on 
 psychology that this country has produced. {Third notice .) 
 
 Revue Philosophigue {Paris). 
 
 We consider that Mr. Thompson has rendered a great service to psychol- 
 ogista in undertaking to systematize results actually attained ; he has suc- 
 ceeded in presenting them in clear and precise form ; he has in many places 
 added useful information, and the reading of his work is eminently su<^- 
 gestive. It seems to us, above all, that he has the great merit of producing 
 a work almost entirely psychological.— F. Pica. vet. 
 
THE PROBLEM OF EVIL. 
 
 BY DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. 
 
 8vo., 281 pages. 
 
 Tke yournal 0/ Education {England). 
 
 Mr, Thompson has already made a name for himself as a psychologist, and 
 he handles the questions of moral science with an acuteness which will sus- 
 tain his reputation. 
 
 The N. v. Popular Science Monthly. 
 
 A multitude of the pressing problems of our social life are suggested and 
 discussed in this compact volume with such frankness, sincerity, ability, and 
 good feeling that we can heartily commend it not only to the professional 
 scholar, but to all thoughtful men and women. 
 
 The Open Court {Chicago, III.). 
 
 The style of our author is admirably clear, and the general tone of the 
 discussion, covering, as it does, a wide range of practical questions which 
 are uppermost in the thought of millions at the present day, will doubtless 
 secure for Mr. Thompson's book a wide circle of intelligent readers. 
 
 The Guardian {England). 
 
 We admire his [the author^s] originality and analytical power, his obvious 
 desire to be true to facts, his almost omnivorous tastes in literature, and, 
 above all, his extreme modesty and self-effacement. Even when we come 
 to the end and remember that we disagree with his first principles, there 
 remains with us a consciousness of much that is true and some things which 
 are new, while in lucidity of exposition and fearlessness of statement Mr. 
 Thompson reminds us' more of John Stuart Mill than of any other of his 
 chosen leaders. 
 
 Knowledge {England). 
 
 Mr. Thompson, in the very able and important work before us, investi- 
 gates the nature and origin of evil, and essays to point out the most hopeful 
 means for its elimination. He discusses at length the suggested 
 
 methods (social, political, and ecclesiastical) for reducing evil to a mini- 
 mum, which have been and are still advanced, and shows trenchantly the 
 fallacies which underlie them all. , We will not diminish the pleas- 
 
 ure with which the reader will peruse this volume, by any more detailed 
 analysis of its contents ; suffice it to say that Mr. Thompson has made a 
 real and enduring contribution to ethical philosophy. 
 
THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS OF THE HUMAN 
 MIND. 
 
 BY DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. 
 
 8vo, 184 pages. 
 
 The Popular Science Monthly {New York). 
 
 In the volume before us Mr. Thompson has entered upon a fruitful field 
 of thought and discussion; one, moreover, which requires great tact and 
 delicacy in its cultivation, if the author would secure the sympathetic and 
 respectful attention of his readers. In this respect, Mr. Thompson has 
 been notably successful. His treatment of his topic is calm, temperate, 
 philosophical, free from bias, appealing to reason rather than to theological 
 or anti-theological prejudices. While his discussion of the religious prob- 
 lem is entirely frank, manly, and unconventional, it is also duly considerate 
 of those conceptions which he is compelled to discredit and oppose. 
 The book, as a whole, stimulates thought and holds the attention of the 
 reader. In connection with '' ASystemof Psychology" and "The Problem 
 of Evil," it justifies us in ranking its author among our ablest philosophical 
 thinkers. 
 
 The Manchester {England) Exafniner. 
 
 Readers of the more thoughtful type who are acquainted with Mr. Daniel 
 Greenleaf Thompson's " System of Psychology," and his very suggestive 
 treatment of " The Problem of Evil," will extend a hearty welcome to his 
 new work. Though his work cannot be compared with the recent 
 
 magnificent contribution to the literature of the same great theme by Dr. 
 James Martineau, it is full of acute, sound, and penetrating thought. Of 
 the four sections into which the book is divided, perhaps the second . 
 is the richest in interest ; but the work, from first to last, is well worthy of 
 careful study. 
 
 Mind, 
 
 Mr. Thompson's present work is a study of the science, not of religions 
 as they exist or have existed, but of religion as a general fact of conscious 
 experience. His aim is rather to determine what beliefs can rationally be 
 held about the supernatural than to describe the process by which the super- 
 natural comes to be believed in ; though, in accordance with his tradi- 
 tional view of philosophic method, he makes an investigation of this prelim- 
 inary to his determination of the limits of rational belief, and more generally 
 bases his religious philosophy on his previous work in psychology and 
 ethics. 
 
SOCIAL PROGRESS. 
 
 BY DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. 
 
 8vo, 182 pages. 
 
 New York Times. 
 There is a matter of exceeding interest to be found in this volume, which 
 is a cool and dispassionate analysis of human actions. 
 
 Boston Transcript. 
 The book is full of meat for thoughtful readers. . . We commend it to 
 the reading of every man who wishes to see the way clearer to political and 
 social reform in our own country. 
 
 Edinburgh Scotsman. 
 An admirable, clear, and logical exposition of those principles which 
 are now generally recognized as the essential conditions of national and 
 individual well being. 
 
 Science. 
 
 The author's style is clear and flowing, so that the book is easy and 
 agreeable to read ; and there is much in it that thinkers of all schools will 
 agree with . 
 
 The Epoch. 
 
 Mr. Thompson shows great analytical power, clearness of statement, 
 moderateness of view, and frequently originality. This book might well 
 "96 read by every American citizen, for even old thoughts are put in a for- 
 cible, and often original, way. 
 
 T/ie Christian Union. 
 The best part of Mr. Thompson's book is that in w^hich he discusses 
 moral and religious ideas. He urges the duty of intellectual hospitality, 
 and himself recognizes it in his treatment of Christian ideas which he does 
 not accept. He urges upon Christian people a willingness to let those who 
 differ with them in faith unite with them in good works, reminding them 
 of the Scripture teaching that those who "do the will " shall "know the 
 doctrine. 
 
 A merican Hebrew. 
 
 An important and valuable contribution to political science. He evinces 
 a masterly logical equipment. His eduction of the principles of liberty 
 and equality is certainly to be classed with the very best specimens of close 
 reasoning upon abstract subjects. Mr. Thompson has contributed a worthy 
 addition to the literature of philosophical thought ; his speculative genius 
 is profound and broad enough to give him high rank not only among the 
 few elect thinkers in America, but among the acutest metaphysicians of 
 our time. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FICTION IN 
 LITERATURE. 
 
 BY DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. 
 
 i2mo, 226 pages. 
 
 Scottish Leader. 
 A thougfetful and conscientious attempt to state a theory of the novel. 
 
 Sheffield and Rotherhehn Independent (England). 
 A book which cannot fail to attract and edify. 
 
 London Tiines. 
 Those who like reading books about books will find much to interest and 
 instruct them. 
 
 Sunday Times (England). 
 The author knows his subject exceedingly well, and many of his crit- 
 icisms are just and luminous. 
 
 National Observer (England). 
 The book is short, but it contains not only nearly all there was to be 
 said about fiction as a fine art, but perhaps most of the good things about 
 it which were worth repeating. 
 
 The Scotsman (Edinburgh), 
 The essay displays the same ability as is shown in this writer's contribu- 
 tions to psychology and ethical philosophy. 
 
 The Academy (England). 
 His criticisms of M. Zola's method, from the purely artistic point of 
 view, as a method which sacrifices vital truth by ignoring the perspective 
 of life, are admirable and, it seems to us, unanswerable. 
 
 The Neiv York Herald. 
 
 The book is a thoughtful and fair analysis of novels and novel readers, 
 
 and a body of wise counsel as to what a book should contain besides a story. 
 
 The New York Tribtmc. 
 Mr. Thompson, in his ingenious and carefully-written essay, takes views 
 of the philosophy of fiction with which we find ourselves in the main 
 accordant. 
 
The New York Times. 
 Mr. Thompson is perfectly familiar with a wide range of fiction, in 
 English and French at least, and his illustrations are always apt. 
 
 The Cojuniercial Advertiser. 
 The author is a philosopher who uses philosophy, not to promulgate pre- 
 conceived theories, but to discover basal truths and to formulate correct 
 hypotheses. His freedom from doctrinal bias puts him in the same mental 
 attitude with the popular reader. To such a reader the results he has 
 attained will seem reasonable, indeed would seem axiomatic were they not 
 often contradicted or disregarded by doctrinaires. 
 
 Public opinion (New York). 
 The author has contributed to the discussion of fiction in this volume in 
 a very suggestive and valuable way. . His work is clear, compre- 
 
 hensive, sensible, and helpful. 
 
 The Critic. 
 His task he has w^ell performed; his method is free from pedantry, his 
 attitude moderate and judicial. 
 
 The Christian Union. 
 Mr. Thompson is a very thoughtful v/riter who makes his appeal directly 
 to thoughtful readers, . . One of the most interesting chapters, and 
 one of the most suggestive in the volume, is that on " Realism and Ideal- 
 ism," a chapter full of good sense, clear judgment, and excellent critical 
 insight. It is impossible not to recognize at every point the candor 
 
 of his temper and the catholicity of his spirit. 
 
 The Independent. 
 Mr. Thompson, we are glad to see, has no sympathy with the demoral- 
 izing faction for whom morality ends where art begins. . . His dis- 
 cussion of the question is bold, sincere, liberal, and broad. 
 
 The Brooklyn Eagle. 
 The work done by Mr. Thompson can scarcely be too-hlghly valued. 
 
 The Beacon (Boston). 
 The book will be read to advantage by those who are concerned with the 
 consumption, as well as with the production, of current novels and 
 romances, and it holds up an artistic ideal which in these degenerate days 
 is too often lost sight of. 
 
The Boston Globe. 
 Mr. Thompson reaches the purest definition of the art and the purpose of 
 fiction, and has something worth saying about it ; something indeed that 
 will refine the taste of all who listen to him. It is pleasant to follow him, 
 for his thought is clean-cut and simple in expression. 
 
 The Traveller {Boston). 
 This book will be found to possess permanent literary value. 
 
 The Atnericaii ( BaltiTJiore ) . 
 It is a concise, trenchant work, and the author has expressed himself, 
 regardless of opinion, either favorable or otherwise. 
 
 The Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 Mr. Thompson's work is replete with fine thought, the tone is elevated, 
 and the style that of a scholar and a writer of taste. 
 
 The Herald (Chicago). 
 Mr. Thompson has written a work of supreme excellence, w^hich cannot 
 fail to be of value to every student of literature, no matter what his special 
 vocation in that line may be. 
 
 The Dial (Chicago ) . 
 No more important contribution to literary criticism has been found in 
 recent years than the essay, etc. It is clean-cut, sensible (no mean 
 
 praise), unprejudiced, sound. It treats plainly, yet justly, questions which 
 the novelists or their admirers can never handle without showing the bias 
 of a school. It is never dogmatic, never vacillating, yet is just to each and 
 every coterie of fiction-producers.