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DEMOCEAOY 
 
 A STUDY OF GOVERNMENT 
 
DEMOCRACY 
 
 A STUDY OF GOVERNMENT 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES HrHYSLOP, Ph.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND ETHICS IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER^S SONS 
 1899 
 
^H-\^ 
 
 0) \<Z\L 
 
 2 
 
 
 COPTRIGHT, 1899, BT 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 • -■ -^r^ES REG. ^,4^Q. 
 
 TROW DIRECTORY 
 
 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
THIS BOOK 
 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
 
 TO ALL THOSE WHO DESPISE POLITICS 
 
PEEFACE 
 
 Carljle, after showing Emerson the House of 
 Commons, thought he would annihilate his friend's 
 optimism in politics by abruptly asking him, 
 ^' Don't you believe in the Devil now?" The 
 memory of this incident, and the condition of 
 things in this country, suggested that the title for 
 the present essay should be " The Devil's Harness." 
 But publishers might fear a hon mot for a title, 
 and the advocates of popular government might 
 resent the imputations which it would seem to 
 carry against their idol. Yet tragedy and comedy 
 are sufficiently mingled in politics to justify a lit- 
 tle jeu d^esprit in the proposition to restrain some 
 of the tendencies of the age. Besides, it is hard 
 to resist the temptation to indulge in a little irony 
 at the expense of Mr. Lecky for his pessimism 
 respecting democracy, even if the sequel should 
 reveal more sympathy with his criticisms than 
 usually lurks in satire. I have considered Mr. 
 Lecky half right and half wrong: right in his 
 animadversions, but wrong in his implied demand 
 for a return to eighteenth century methods. Such a 
 verdict, however, while it allows a writer the privi- 
 
 ix 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 leges of a critic, also imposes duties tliat command 
 the consideration of remedies for the political evils 
 which it was not a part of Mr. Lecky's task to sug- 
 gest. Of mere criticism, by both classes of political 
 students, we have had enough, and more than 
 enough. It is high time that something positive 
 and constructive should be proposed. Barking at 
 the Devil is not sufficient. Wearied, therefore, 
 with the perpetual grumbling which is either un- 
 able to see a way out of the confusion, or too cynical 
 and hopeless to try an escape, I have thrown all 
 diffidence aside, and ventured, with an audacity 
 that may surprise others as much as it does myself, 
 to offer for debate a complete system of govern- 
 ment, which is neither a reaction toward monarchy 
 nor an acceptance of the status quo. If that con- 
 fession frightens the reader, I beg of him to re- 
 member two things: (1) That the complexity of 
 modern civilisation is so great that a single mod- 
 ification of political machinery will not suffice to 
 solve the whole problem. (2) That the two main 
 principles upon which the theory of government 
 should be based are the adequate and immediate 
 responsibility of the executive and legislative 
 branches, and the integration and differentiation 
 of functions which have operated so successfully 
 in the organic and industrial worlds. If these two 
 things are properly considered, there will be reason 
 to think charitably of so large an undertaking, 
 
PREFACE ai 
 
 especially that the author does not profess to regard 
 it as an object of immediate practical politics, but 
 only a conception of government which it is neces- 
 sary to have in mind when proposing measures of 
 reform. 
 
 It may interest some students of political ques- 
 tions to know that the reflections which instigated 
 this attempt to construct a system of government 
 were the result of my study of the poverty prob- 
 lem on the one hand, and of the exacting and 
 impossible demands of civic duty on the other. 
 N^ot that the outcome offers any cure for destitu- 
 tion, but that the study of it in connection with 
 universal suffrage and the growing tendencies to 
 Socialism convinced me that the solution of the 
 political problem was the key to much else besides. 
 What the poverty problem suggested was. the ne- 
 cessity of methods that would both diminish the 
 influence of a class which can neither govern itself 
 nor others, and secure more responsibility for pub- 
 lic oflicials, and with it more intelligence and hon- 
 esty in the execution of their duties. What our 
 exorbitant civic duties suggested was the necessity 
 of simplifying the functions of the citizen. A man 
 cannot be expected to spend every night at some 
 campaign committee meeting. On the one hand, 
 the people care very little for abstract politics, and 
 object to despotic powers only when they feel its 
 abuses personally. On the other hand, the citizens 
 
xii PREFACE 
 
 shirk their duties, partly because they feel powerless 
 to effect any reforms, partly because they cannot 
 understand the many problems that they are called 
 to solve, and partly because life has other pleasures 
 and obligations than talking politics and running 
 to the polls when the choice of rulers is between 
 knaves. This situation led to a study of modern 
 democracy and of political institutions whose de- 
 velopment has not kept pace with the general 
 growth of complexity in civilisation. I found no 
 way out of the labyrinth, therefore, but to search 
 for the principle upon which the regulation of com- 
 plex social conditions should be based, and then to 
 work it out in practical proposals which might at 
 least illustrate the theory of government, if they did 
 not offer a simple remedy for our troubles. We 
 may shake our heads at the magnitude of the 
 scheme which has been proposed, but the excuse for 
 it is the real magnitude of the problem itself and the 
 necessity for some general theory of government 
 which shall be different from the method of " checks 
 and balances," now obsolete, and which will offer an 
 intelligible goal to such reforms as the condition of 
 the age may make practicable and imperative. To 
 those, however, who may be tempted to look for 
 something simpler than the present proposals as a 
 whole, I may say that there is no demand for a 
 sudden revolution, or the casting of a whole new 
 constitution, in order to move toward the end here 
 
PREFACE 
 
 suggested. The last few pages of tlie work will 
 show how great reforms may be initiated by small 
 changes which may be left to grow. But I have 
 provided in the larger view of the problem an 
 articulated system of means for satisfying the com- 
 plex demands of government as a whole, and a 
 prin<!iple that may help to guide the development 
 which a few practical measures may initiate. This 
 is the apology for so large a speculation. The rest 
 may be left to a critical public, while I am willing 
 to see the work a scapegoat, if only it may set my 
 countrymen to thinking. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction 1 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 The Nature of the Problem .... 38 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Practical Remedies 121 
 
DEMOCRACY 
 
 CHAPTEE I 
 
 INTEODUCTION 
 
 Mr. Lecky's recent work on " Democracy and 
 Liberty " is more than a personal and isolated 
 opinion on the tendencies of democratic institu- 
 tions. It represents a wide-spread interest in the 
 developments of modern politics. This is evinced 
 by its reception among both friends and critics, 
 who are conscious of the grave problems before us, 
 but are undecided in regard to the remedy and 
 divide only when the question is raised whether 
 we should retrace our steps toward the political 
 methods of the past or continue in the general di- 
 rection in which we have started. I^or is Mr. 
 Lecky's work a mere pessimistic outburst of one 
 who does not like to witness political change, like 
 the immortal polemic of Burke against the French 
 Revolution, but it is a serious and grave accusa- 
 tion, supported by a large array of facts which are 
 well calculated to arouse the defenders of democ- 
 racy from their lethargic optimism. Few could 
 
 1 
 
2 DEMOCEACT 
 
 have imagined that such an immense and accumu- 
 lative mass of facts was accessible to gratify the 
 critic and to annoy the devotees of popular gov- 
 ernment. Thirty years ago such a work would not 
 have been possible, or if possible would hardly have 
 received more than a passing notice. Democracy 
 was then enjoying the full exuberance of youth, at 
 least in its modern form and in so far as the popular 
 enthusiasm was concerned, and only the few who 
 knew history and the theory of politics could have 
 restrained their allegiance to its ideals or appreci- 
 ated the need of caution. The ISTew World had 
 cut itself loose from the Old and attempted to work 
 out its own destiny without any conscious regard 
 to the past. The past had an influence on its in- 
 stitutions, but only a few master men in this early 
 history were either aware of it or could direct po- 
 litical tendencies in any conservative channels. 
 The majority of the people in the new continent 
 knew too little of the past to be consciously influ- 
 enced by its political ideals. This is even true of 
 nearly every feature of its life, but especially in 
 matters of religion and politics, and it has required 
 the acute analysis of nien like Sir Henry Maine to 
 discover any connection between our forms of 
 government and those of the mother country. 
 Even these seem to have been adopted without any 
 profound knowledge of their nature, and it has 
 required a century of experience and advancing 
 
INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 enlightenment to enable us to discover the tenden- 
 cies of our policy. Hence there are many observa- 
 tions in Mr. Lecky's volumes which could not have 
 been made a generation or more ago. Their gen- 
 eral distrust of democratic government is a char- 
 acteristic as old as political speculation, in fact a 
 maxim with Aristotle, and would not have dis- 
 turbed the easy contentment of the last generation, 
 for the reason that the alarming symptoms of the 
 present had not appeared, though Macaulay's warn- 
 ing that our institutions would be more severely 
 tested when we had our Manchesters and Liver- 
 pools, was given in time to make us think and even 
 pause. The times, however, have changed. Un- 
 foreseen events have altered the situation, popu- 
 lation has increased so as to heighten the struggle 
 for existence, industrial development has compli- 
 cated all social arrangements, customs, and morality, 
 the pauper and semi-pauper classes hold the balance 
 of power in politics with its blighting influences, 
 and assaults on popular government can no longer 
 be received with good-natured contempt and indif- 
 ference. Above all, the doctrine of evolution has 
 completely modified our ethical point of view from 
 that of equality and mercy to the right of the strong 
 and its aristocratic implications. Even the friends 
 of democracy have been forced either to call 
 for reforms or to acquiesce in their establish- 
 ment in order to arrest the rapid progress toward 
 
4 DEMOCRACY 
 
 destruction, and this very confession of solicitude 
 involved in such concessions affords some invigora- 
 tion for the forces of reaction. When the idolaters 
 of democracy begin to falter or to retreat it is time 
 for the philosophers to take courage. That the 
 status of political conditions is what it is here rep- 
 resented to be can best be shown by comparing 
 the work of Mr. Lecky with that of De Tocqueville, 
 and both with the political circumstances in which 
 they arose. 
 
 De Tocqueville's volumes on '^ Democracy in 
 America " are interesting on more than one ac- 
 count, and on none more than for their relation to 
 the personality of the man and to the age in which 
 he lived. He was an aristocrat by birth and educa- 
 tion, and in spite of the natural influence of such 
 antecedents upon his ideas he transcended his in- 
 herited prejudices in his estimation of democratic 
 institutions, not only so far as to treat them in a 
 tolerant spirit, beyond mere submission to the in- 
 evitable, but even to favour and to encourage their 
 hopes, while he sought to moderate expectation and 
 to warn the more adventurous among the sup- 
 porters of democracy against the rocks and shoals 
 that lay concealed in the path of its progress. It 
 was his moral sympathies with man as man, with 
 the plebs as well as with the nobility, that enabled 
 him to be just toward democracy, while his knowl- 
 edge of the vices and weakness of the classes that 
 
TNTIWDUOTION' 5 
 
 possess more rights than duties inclined him to 
 favour the aristocratic classes as the proper recipients 
 of political power if they could, even from motives 
 of self-interest, be induced to pay some homage to 
 justice. The predominant characteristic of his 
 mind was his sympathy with the rights of man and 
 his consciousness that only the few are qualified to 
 dispense impartially the justice which civilisation 
 demands. Hence he divided his allegiance between 
 the aims of democracy and the instruments of 
 aristocracy. But he could hardly foresee the exact 
 conditions which modern political students have to 
 consider when they are called upon to discuss the 
 problems of government. He was fresh from that 
 fiery ordeal which had destroyed the tyranny of 
 feudal institutions, and the most conservative, when 
 they remembered the terrible injustice of the pre- 
 revolutionary policy in France, and whatever their 
 fears about democracy, could hardly have wished 
 to see any return to the policies of Louis XIV. and 
 Louis XY. He saw that social, political, and relig- 
 ious conditions had changed and that traditional 
 methods could not meet the present exigencies of 
 government; hence he accepted democracy with 
 a tolerant though critical spirit, and indirectly, if 
 not directly, allayed among intelligent men some 
 of the suspicions naturally entertained against the 
 new regime and the spirit of revolt which it em- 
 bodied against the past — a spirit that seemed to 
 
6 DEMOCRACY 
 
 discriminate very little between the good and the 
 bad in traditional institutions and that, conse- 
 quently, was dominated by a desire to reconstruct 
 civil government upon entirely new and opposite 
 lines. He saw that the new tendency contained, 
 for the time at least, a cure for the evils which only 
 a hater of justice would defend or ignore, and 
 hence bespoke for it that favour and toleration 
 which human rights can claim as their legitimate 
 protection. He was neither an optimist nor a 
 pessimist in regard to democracy. The future of 
 it was too little known to make him the former, 
 and the conditions from which society had escaped 
 by the French Revolution prevented him from 
 being the latter. He recognised the evils of ar- 
 bitrary government and its want of regard for in- 
 dividual rights, and rather than encourage the 
 reaction which interested monarchists preferred, he 
 chose to admit at least the relative merits of insti- 
 tutions which offered the only immediate escape 
 from intolerable despotism. He therefore mediated 
 between the advocates and opponents of democracy 
 by refusing to indulge either in abstract speculation 
 or in adulation for feudal imperialism, and by ac- 
 cepting the claims of popular government to satisfy 
 the demands for better justice against the abuses 
 that were inseparably associated w^ith traditional 
 policy. It was evident that the first problem of 
 democratic government at that time was defensive 
 
INTR OD UGTION 7 
 
 of riglits wliose security could not be assured in 
 the hands of absolutists ; and whatever its weakness 
 in constructive policy, the necessity for securing 
 justice and liberty of any kind was so urgent that 
 apology for some natural defects was easy, if not 
 imperative, and the progress of civilisation ap- 
 peared possible only by preventing a return to 
 those political methods which would have been 
 doubly cruel and oppressive, because they would 
 not only have represented the principles of the past, 
 but they would have embodied a reactionary tri- 
 umph against the growth of liberty. De Tocque- 
 ville could therefore consistently uphold the spirit 
 of democracy while cautioning its advocates against 
 irrational enthusiasm for unfulfilled hopes and 
 against equally irrational antagonism to the past. 
 
 It was in a letter to a friend that he himself sum- 
 marised his own political convictions and sympa- 
 thies more satisfactorily than any one else could 
 do it for him. I therefore quote his own language. 
 " People/' he said, " want to make me a party man, 
 which I am not. They ascribe to me passions when 
 I have only opinions — or rather but one passion, 
 the love of freedom and human dignity. All forms 
 of government are in my eyes but means to satisfy 
 this sacred and lawful passion of man. Democratic 
 and aristocratic prejudices are alternately ascribed 
 to me. I should perhaps have had these or those 
 had I been born in another century or in another 
 
8 DEMOCRACY 
 
 country; but the accident of my birth has easily 
 enabled me to defend myself against either ten- 
 dency. I came into the world at the end of a long 
 revolution, which, after having destroyed the for- 
 mer state of things, had created nothing lasting in 
 its place. Aristocracy was already dead when I 
 began to live, and democracy was not yet in ex- 
 istence. No instinct, therefore, impelled me blindly 
 toward one or the other. I was an inhabitant of 
 a country which had been for forty years trying 
 everything and stopping definitely at nothing. I 
 was not easily addicted to political illusions. Be- 
 longing myself to the old aristocracy of my coun- 
 try, I had no natural hatred or jealousy of aristoc- 
 racy; nor had I any natural love of it, for people 
 only attach themselves to what is in existence. I 
 was near enough to judge it with knowledge, far 
 enough to judge it without passion. The same may 
 be said of the democratic element. I^o interest 
 gave me a natural or necessary propensity to democ- 
 racy; nor had democracy inflicted on me any 
 personal injury. I had no particular motive to love 
 it or to hate it, independently of my own reason. 
 In a word, I was so well balanced between the past 
 and the future that I did not feel myself naturally 
 and instinctively drawn toward one or the other, 
 and it was no great effort to me to take a tranquil 
 survey of both sides.'' 
 
 It was natural that an age of transition should 
 
INTJi OD UCTION 9 
 
 bring, even from an aristocrat wlio had the sense 
 of justice, some favourable expectations for democ- 
 racy. More than this also, the influence of habit 
 and tradition on mankind, which are the great con- 
 servative forces of social, religious, and political 
 life, would guarantee, as they did, that democracy 
 would not at once exhibit its inherent tendencies, 
 and that the momentum of what was best in pre- 
 vious civilisation would continue into the new age, 
 and carry its freight of blessing into the institutions 
 that claim no direct lineage with aristocracy and 
 would hardly acknowledge any inheritance from it. 
 But Mr. Lecky lives in another generation. The 
 destructive work of democracy has largely been 
 accomplished, and it has had to reconstruct the 
 order of society after the momentum of the tradi- 
 tions which half sustained it at first had exhausted 
 itself. The obstinacy and pride of aristocratic 
 ideas have either been destroyed or reduced to the 
 necessity of making favourable terms with the en- 
 emy, sometimes even wearing the mask of popular 
 institutions. Democracy has become triumphant, 
 in theory at least, if not in practice, and where its 
 fruits are not threatened by the ugly spectre of 
 anarchy and socialism. From being a militant 
 force against tyranny it has become the vehicle of 
 that power for which it was supposed to be a safe 
 substitute, and against which it was equally a pro- 
 test and a competitor. It has had a comparatively 
 
10 DEMOCRACY 
 
 free field for developing its policy and for fulfilling 
 the hopes and promises of its votaries. It has 
 undertaken its Herculean task in a sanguine mood 
 and applied its machinery with unswerving devo- 
 tion and confidence in its destiny. A century has 
 passed and it still keeps on with the zeal of a mis- 
 sionary. It has lost none of the momentum which 
 it received from the original impulse, and cherishes, 
 if anything, an increased fear and animosity against 
 monarchical power, though usurping and exercis- 
 ing functions quite as capricious, as irresponsible, 
 and as dangerous to human welfare and the best re- 
 sults of civilisation as the despotism for which it pro- 
 fessed to be a cure. Consequently the political 
 millennium seems to be as far off as ever, and democ- 
 racy has still to learn the lessons of its weakness 
 and failure in the constitutions of Greece and 
 Rome. Not that we are to consider Greece and 
 Rome as pure illustrations of either its beneficent 
 or its maleficent power, for they were in reality 
 aristocracies founded upon slavery and a limited 
 suffrage. But they conceded enough to popular 
 sovereignty to exhibit its tendency when the strug- 
 gle arose between free and slave labor on the one 
 hand, and the large and small landholders on the 
 other; so that their inevitable result was imperial- 
 ism, after avenging their wrongs upon aristocracy. 
 Ignorance and slavery were the weakness of ancient 
 democracy, as the former is of the present, while 
 
INTRODUCTION- 11 
 
 tliey were the nemesis against aristocratic pride 
 and distinction ; and though modern democracy has 
 not been handicapped to the same extent by either 
 of these forces, it has not been wholly exempt from 
 class envy and the vanities of social distinction, and 
 has at the same time managed to combine enough 
 of anarchic tendencies to disappoint the expecta- 
 tions of its friends and to confirm the accusations 
 of its enemies. There are many facts that indicate 
 this general feeling. The disgust with French 
 Republicanism, which is honeycombed with worse 
 corruption than most of the monarchies, and which 
 could not survive for a day except for the want 
 of a respectable aspirant to the throne; the union 
 of all parties in the world to suppress socialism and 
 anarchism; the attitude of Castelar toward the 
 Spanish monarchy after a life spent in the advocacy 
 of republicanism; the recent English elections 
 which revealed so much fear of radicalism; the 
 ominous tendencies of American politics as exhib- 
 ited in the recent presidential campaign — all these 
 are symptoms of a condition' that is far from the 
 Utopia which enthusiasts for democracy have 
 promised us. It is not that the monarchies of the 
 time represent any saintly virtues in their ambi- 
 tions and exercise of power, but that the social and 
 moral forces which democracy lets loose show no 
 conservative respect for justice, law, and order. 
 The government of our cities is the best evidence 
 
12 DEMOCRACY 
 
 of tliis tendency. But the features that concern 
 us more immediately are unjust taxation, costly 
 government, " machine politics," the organisation 
 of monopolies under state protective policy, de- 
 generacy in the type of public officials, socialistic 
 legislation, demagogic appeals to ignorance and 
 private greed and betrayal of the hopes thus en- 
 couraged, defiance of intelligent public opinion, 
 blackmailing of corporations, conferment of special 
 favours either openly or by indirection upon various 
 business agencies, and perpetual meddling with the 
 laws of trade and the rights of individuals. All 
 these, which it would require many pages or a vol- 
 ume to illustrate and prove, are the tendencies for 
 which monarchy would have very quickly paid the 
 penalty, and which are all the more dangerous in 
 that democracy can offer no resistance to them ex- 
 cept by changing its own character and moderating 
 its own power. Monarchy may be forced to reform 
 or abdicate by the sheer influence of numbers 
 against its aggressions, but democracy has no en- 
 emy but itself, and has to be reformed from within 
 and never from without. Democracy is made up 
 of the individuals to be governed, and if they are 
 the governors there will be no abdication and no 
 external agencies to reform it in its derelictions. 
 
 Mr. Lecky canvasses the development of demo- 
 cratic influences in all modern countries affected 
 by it in any form, as well as the laws, customs, and 
 
INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 institutions adopted or attacked by it. Its relation 
 to excessive taxation, to the corruption of the fran- 
 chise, to the decHne in legislative morality, to the 
 institution of private property which it was sup- 
 posed to securely protect, to municipal corruption, 
 to the exclusion of the best talent and character 
 from its legislative and executive councils, and to 
 laxity in public and private morals — all these sub- 
 jects are discussed at a length which cannot even 
 be summarised here to illustrate the nature of his 
 accusations. But I shall quote one passage in il- 
 lustration of the animadversions that are stored up 
 in his two volumes, even to the extent of prolixity. 
 " The government of cities," says Mr. Lecky, 
 quoting Mr. Bryce, " is the one consj)icuous failure 
 of the United States. The faults of the State 
 governments are insignificant compared with the 
 extravagance, corruption, and mismanagement 
 which mark the administration of most of the great 
 cities. For these evils are not confined to one or 
 two cities. There is not a city with a population 
 of 200,000 where the poison-germs have not sprung 
 into vigorous life, and in some of the smaller ones, 
 down to 70,000, it needs no microscope to note the 
 results of their growth. Even in cities of the third 
 rank similar phenomena may occasionally be dis- 
 cerned; though there, as some one has said, the 
 jet-black of ^ew York or San Francisco dies away 
 into a harmless gTay. It should be added," con- 
 
14 DEMOCRACY 
 
 tiniies Mr. Lecky, ^' that there is no country in the 
 world in which this question is more important 
 than in the United States^ for there is no country 
 in which town life during the present century has 
 increased so enormously and so rapidly. The pro- 
 portion of the population who live in towns of over 
 8,000 inhabitants is said to have risen in that period 
 from four to twenty-three per cent. 
 
 ^' Mr. Bryce has enumerated from good Ameri- 
 can sources the chief forms which this municipal 
 robbery assumes. There are sales of monopolies in 
 the use of public thoroughfares; systematic jobbing 
 of contracts; enormous abuses of patronage; enor- 
 mous overcharges for necessary public works. 
 Cities have been compelled to buy land for parks 
 and places because the owners wished to sell them; 
 to grade, pave, and sewer streets without inhab- 
 itants in order to award corrupt contracts for the 
 works; to purchase worthless properties at ex- 
 travagant prices; to abolish one office and create 
 another with the same duties, or to vary the func- 
 tions of offices for the sole purpose of redistributing 
 official emoluments; to make or keep the salary of 
 an office unduly high in order that its tenant may 
 pay largely to the party funds; to lengthen the term 
 of office in order to secure the tenure of corrupt 
 or incompetent men. When increasing taxation 
 begins to arouse resistance, loans are launched un- 
 der false pretences, and often with the assistance 
 
INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 of falsified accoiTnts. In all the cliief towns munici- 
 pal debts have risen to colossal dimensions and in- 
 creased with portentous rapidity. ^ Within the 
 twenty years from 1860 to 1880/ says an Ameri- 
 can writer, ' the debts of the cities of the Union 
 rose from about $100,000,000 to $682,000,000. 
 From 1860 to 1875 the increase of debt in eleven 
 cities was 270.9 per cent., increase of taxation 
 362.2 per cent.; whereas the increase in taxable 
 valuation was but 156.9 per cent, and increase in 
 population but 70 per cent.' The ^N^ew York Com- 
 missioners of 1876 probably understated the case 
 when they declared that more than one-half of all 
 the present city debts in the United States are the 
 direct results of intentional and corrupt misrule." 
 
 This is one concrete example of Mr. Lecky's 
 facts to prove his case, and I dare say that almost 
 any citizen can verify such allegations from his 
 own observations. In truth, volumes of them could 
 be produced in support of Mr. Lecky, if his asser- 
 tions are questioned. The history of the New York 
 and Erie Canal is one of the best instances of no- 
 torious corruption which democracy has not been 
 able to prevent, and it is only one of the thousands 
 of cases that prevent any mitigation of the sus- 
 picions against democracy. The instances are not 
 sporadic enough to relieve it of the distrust directed 
 against it. 
 
 It is against all such defects and fatal tendencies 
 
16 DEMOCRACY 
 
 as these facts betray that Mr. Lecky's work is an 
 impeachment without a remedy, and herein lies 
 both the strength and the weakness of his position. 
 Its strength appears in the circumstance that his 
 opponents must refute his facts instead of picking 
 flaws in a theory of government. On the other 
 hand, the weakness of his method lies in the fact 
 that it offers no cure for an evil which he implies 
 is menacing, if he does not pronounce it intolerable. 
 If Mr. Lecky had proposed a remedy involving 
 any revolutionary tendencies backward his com- 
 plaints would have gotten a very ready hearing and 
 received hostile criticism enough. But mankind 
 are indulgent even of evil when they see no way 
 out of it. Change of any kind that does not clearly 
 promise redemption from intolerable conditions is 
 often feared as a worse evil than the status quo. 
 We become adjusted to our environment and are 
 content to remain in the worst of circumstances, 
 in spite of complaint, if there is no hope of im- 
 provement. Men will bear the burdens they have 
 rather than rush into evils they know not of. 
 Hence they demand the promise of some paradise 
 as an incentive to action for the improvement of 
 the present in any respect. Mr. Lecky must, there- 
 fore, suffer from this instinct and inertia, which 
 will not move to change even conscious evil, unless 
 under the stimulus of hope and positive proposals. 
 This conservatism which attaches itself as readily 
 
INTR OB TICTION 17 
 
 to democracies as to other forms of society will set 
 about criticising any proposition to change, espe- 
 cially if it be reactionary, instead of reforming the 
 abuses laid to the charge of democracy. 
 
 But it is no refutation of Mr. Lecky to decry the 
 perils of monarchy. He has only assailed the op- 
 timism and rosy promises of those who have offered 
 society salvation from the injustice of the past by 
 popular sovereignty, but who now seem to have given 
 us a stone^ for bread. They are making the bitter 
 discovery that civilisation depends upon something 
 more than political machinery. It may be tantalis- 
 ing to be placed where the argument must be di- 
 rected against facts instead of against a theory, but 
 if the advocates of democracy are given the chance 
 to use a iu quoque reply as the only escape from 
 confusion, they are certain to evade the issue and 
 to run off into matters that will only throw dust 
 into our eyes. Mr. Lecky is therefore wise in his 
 policy of limiting the discussion to the facts that 
 impeach the value of democratic institutions, 
 though he seems to favor a return to the despised 
 politics of the last century. He can thereby en- 
 force attention to the first and most important issue, 
 which is the actual cause of present evils, whatever 
 the remedy, rather than to a political theory which 
 opponents of reform or change can easily assault. 
 
 It would require much space merely to sum- 
 marise Mr. Lecky's indictments against democracy. 
 
18 DEMOCRAOY 
 
 But it is neither desirable nor necessary to do so, 
 as the scope and object of this volume does not 
 demand a review of his criticisms. It suffices to 
 remark the nature and extent of his animadversions, 
 which turn upon every important function of gov- 
 ernment and social morality, and which reflect a 
 growing distrust of democratic machinery, espe- 
 cially in regard to the most fundamental principles 
 of civilisation, namely, the rights of private prop- 
 erty and of private contract, in order to see what 
 strength the attacks upon democratic institutions 
 have. Mr. Lecky's observations and convictions 
 are not advanced to prove the alleged defects, but 
 to show what the tendency is among thoughtful 
 men, and that it has to be met whether it is right 
 or not. Sir Henry Maine's reflections on the same 
 subject are equally suggestive. He also reminds 
 optimists in very trenchant language of the ob- 
 stacles that they have to overcome in sustaining the 
 alleged perfections of popular government, and 
 events themselves are forcing attention to the fact. 
 But if the critics of democracy, whether by asser- 
 tion or innuendo, think that we must return to 
 mediaeval policy as the only escape from anarchy, 
 they are hugging a delusion of a most inexcusable 
 kind and betray complete ignorance of the prin- 
 ciples from which reform can be expected. Not 
 that the writers above-mentioned are uncompromis- 
 ing sticklers for the virtues of the past, for they 
 
INTRODUCTION' 19 
 
 are mainly critics, but that they are exposed to the 
 suspicion of at least covertly harbouring motives 
 of this sort, because reaction is the natural resource 
 of thought when it finds its hopes regarding an 
 institution disappointed. History never goes back- 
 ward, even when it is supposed to repeat itself, and 
 though decline may seem to mark certain periods 
 of the process. Each step of change involves the 
 destruction of something that cannot be restored, 
 but, at the same time, the institution of some new 
 result that cannot be otherwise obtained. There 
 may be retrograde motion in some particulars, but 
 not in the whole mass of the social organism, unless 
 all progress is to be denied. IsTor is it that we are 
 to expect political redemption by continuing as we 
 are; for democratic government requires radical v,.^ 
 modifications, if it is to fulfil the pretensions of its // 
 admirers and to escape the present tendencies toward 
 anarchy. But it is just as true that the monarchical 
 institutions of the Middle Ages are as obsolete as the 
 Holy Roman Empire, and for the same reasons. 
 The development of individualism in state, church, 
 and industry; the complexity of our civilisation, 
 due to the solidarity of economic interests; the 
 diversity of sentiments, racial, social, and religious, 
 extending over large areas of territory, and the 
 deeply imbued jealousy against arbitrary power 
 which possesses the majority of mankind, have 
 made very doubtful, if not impossible, any return 
 
30 DEMOCRACY 
 
 to the past forms of government that are not ac- 
 companied by adequate limitations and security for 
 the intelligent and moral exercise of power. But 
 even if the social forces of to-day are not inclined 
 to accept reactionary measures of reform, this fact 
 proves neither the wisdom of developing unmodi- 
 fied our present tendencies nor the fitness of the 
 multitude to work out its own salvation without 
 a change of political machinery. Although the 
 masses have emancipated themselves from the po- 
 litical tyranny of the Middle Ages, at least as they 
 imagined it to be, they have not emancipated them- 
 selves from the tyranny of their own improvidence, 
 vices, and ignorance, which are not only quite as 
 hard masters as unscrupulous despots, but are cer- 
 tain to produce political powers of that type. Those 
 who cannot govern themselves cannot successfully 
 govern others. They may have removed certain 
 external restraints upon their freedom, which they 
 interpret without any regard to the rights of others, 
 but have not yet learned to exercise that liberty 
 either in behalf of their own interests or consis- 
 tently with the equal rights of their neighbors. 
 They have obtained liberty without the correspond- 
 ing intelligence and morality necessary to insure 
 happiness, and so have gained power without re- 
 sponsibility, an immunity that should belong only 
 to saints and gods. I do not mean to imply, how- 
 ever, that men should not have any liberty unless 
 
INTRODUCTION 31 
 
 they can avoid all mistakes and abuses of it. I 
 mean to draw a distinction between the liberty to 
 pursue one's own affairs and the liberty to exercise 
 the functions of government. Liberty and power 
 to govern others has far more limitations than the 
 liberty or right to compete freely with others in 
 the struggle for existence. In the latter case free- 
 dom may be the ciu-e for its own abuses, but power 
 to govern others or to determine social policy re- 
 quires a grade of intelligence and morality not 
 always commensurate with the right to personal 
 liberty in private matters. But these qualities do 
 not distinguish the multitude. They are short- 
 sighted and capricious in their political action, 
 moved by passion and selfish interest, inferior in 
 their ideals, intellectual and moral, to those who 
 are capable of keeping up the standard of civilisa- 
 tion, and while claiming the immunities and rights 
 of political power blindly follow the unscrupulous 
 leadership of demagogues and scoundrels. And it 
 neither refutes this accusation nor provides a solu- 
 tion for our political problem to say that their more 
 successful rivals for power often exhibit similar 
 defects of character: for too frequently the pos- 
 sessors of this poAver are merely their own bene- 
 ficiaries, and as far below the standard of high 
 civilisation as their constituency can make them. 
 Moreover, this multitude is moved more by per- 
 sonality than by principles, when the latter are 
 
22 DEMOCRACY 
 
 the condition of successful democracy if executive 
 functions are to be minimised. Furtherj the masses 
 refuse to share the economic risks of modern in- 
 dustrial life, as shown in the fact that labor com- 
 binations reject co-operation as a basis of social 
 reform; they are improvident in marriage and the 
 use of their incomes, this delinquency producing 
 the competitive conditions against which they com- 
 plain so bitterly; they are fully confident of their 
 ability to govern society, while they fail in self- 
 government, and though demanding the fruits of 
 knowledge are as fatally jealous of intelligence as 
 they are of political power. Add to this the fact 
 .that the franchise confers upon them a sovereignty 
 as absolute and irresponsible as any enjoyed by a 
 mediaeval monarch, while their ignorance makes 
 them as subservient to the arts of the demagogue 
 as the besotted Greeks who followed Alcibiades 
 and produced the Thirty Tyrants. This is a condi- 
 tion of things which requires to be escaped as well 
 as the much dreaded evils of monarchy, and it 
 avails nothing to escape Scylla by rushing into 
 Charybdis. 
 
 The problem is much more than one of political 
 machinery. It is also one of the ideas that furnish 
 the motive power behind the machinery. The 
 problem of constitutions is an important one, but it 
 is subordinate to the intelligence and morality of 
 the agencies that apply them. A constitution is an 
 
INTRODUCTION 23 
 
 agreed rule of procedure and assumes that the citi- 
 zen will treat it with respect and obey it. It is noth- 
 ing but a basis for calculating the future and in- 
 spiring confidence in those events that depend on 
 the conjoint action of citizens. Consequently it is 
 only an instrument for securing association in 
 action w^here individual initiative would only re- 
 veal many cross purposes without it. But its whole 
 efiiciency is conditioned upon the willingness of 
 citizens to abide by its requirements and upon the 
 character of their action in applying it. Intel- 
 lectual, moral, and economic conditions primarily 
 determine the forces which we have to take into 
 account in constructing the forms of government 
 and in interpreting their usefulness. These forces 
 express what the citizen will carry into effect. The 
 constitution must represent the power of the best 
 elements in the community, or it becomes merely 
 a formal instrument for the sport of those who 
 know how to evade it. It is an old maxim, too 
 often forgotten by political students, that, impor- 
 tant as machinery may be in the economy of gov- 
 ernment, its usefulness depends upon its concrete 
 embodiment of men and social forces in the lives 
 of its citizens. It is ideas, whether consciously or 
 unconsciously held, that rule human life, both 
 social and individual, and they constitute the real 
 forces that determine the efficiency of constitutions 
 and political machinery. To make any political 
 
24 DEMOCRACY 
 
 system successful for the object for which it is sup- 
 posed to exist, there must be a common social idea 
 to impel and govern it; otherwise, whether mo- 
 narchic or democratic, it becomes an instrument 
 either of anarchy or of despotism. This is to say 
 that the primary point of view is the moral one, 
 representing the forces behind the machine to make 
 it go, and summarised they involve the 'proper 
 adjustment of intelligence and character to power 
 and responsibility. This is, of course, a truism, 
 but we have to be reminded of it from time to time, 
 partly as a starting-point for political reflection and 
 partly because, simple as the maxim is, it is too 
 often ignored or forgotten. What, then, are the 
 ideas that govern modern life, and that make 
 reactionary policies as unwise as they make reform 
 imperative ? 
 
 The answer to this question requires a brief sur- 
 vey of history in regard to the great principles or 
 general ideas that have dominated different periods. 
 The great and fundamental difference between the 
 past and the present is the difference between the 
 economic and the ethical ideals'. The antithesis 
 between the two may be denied, and both may be 
 called ethical, if we like, but though they may be 
 ethical in the broadest sense of the term, they are 
 nevertheless of different types, the moral being 
 more inclusive, and it will be convenient here to 
 characterise them by the current antithesis between 
 
INTR OD UCTION 25 
 
 economics and ethics, because the objects of the 
 two kinds of volition are often different. But 
 whether we choose to express the radical distinction 
 between the past and the present by the prevailing 
 antithesis between the ethical and the economical, 
 there is certainly an important difference between 
 the types of life characterised by modern economic 
 impulses and mediaeval religious conceptions. The 
 Middle Ages were dominated by the religious, and 
 the present by the economic ideal. But what is 
 meant by them? 
 
 Eome bequeathed to mankind the idea of uni- 
 versal empire, and Christianity the idea of immor- 
 tality. One is a political and the other is a religious 
 ideal, either giving zest to the ethical ideal or ter- 
 minating in it. Their various characteristics will 
 come up in another connection. But both of them 
 in common represented two facts of great impor- 
 tance. The first was the necessity of some sacrifice 
 for the attainment of an end. The other was a 
 common social object which insured co-operative 
 action and which is possible only when men are 
 united in interest and ideas. The political ideal 
 involved the subjection or sacrifice of the individual 
 to the state, and the religious ideal involved the 
 sacrifice of the present to the future, a carnal to a 
 spiritual life. The realisation of the political ideal 
 required a central and imperial form of constitution 
 with a military organisation and its correlate of 
 
26 DEMOCRACY 
 
 absolute obedience. Hence tbe type of govern- 
 ment, whatever called, was monarchic. The real- 
 isation of the religions ideal demanded none of the 
 functions of government at all. Its end was the 
 perfection and the happiness of the individual, and 
 though it was associated with the sovereignty of 
 God and the affiliated idea of his government con- 
 ceived after the political type of the time, no sub- 
 jection to arbitrary human power was required to 
 attain its object, until church and state were united. 
 The kingdom of Gcd was in the individual; the 
 kingdom of this world was outside of him. But 
 born and bred in a condition of social chaos, when 
 the only hope of happiness lay in aiming at a tran- 
 scendental state of existence and in suppressing the 
 carnal or materialistic life, the religious ideal cul- 
 tivated spiritual aspirations and sacrifices that in- 
 volved a disregard of worldly pleasures and emol- 
 uments, of wealth and its enjoyments, and of all 
 the material glory, pomp, and power that were 
 embodied in the political conceptions of the age. 
 Ancient politics represented the materialistic con- 
 ception of life, though accompanied by institutions, 
 themselves supported by religion and morality, such 
 as the family, art, and science, which were destined 
 to modify its pretensions and authority. But in 
 spite of elements that were better than its im- 
 perialism, antiquity confined its main object to the 
 satisfaction of material and secular wants, and cul- 
 
mTR OB UCTION 27 
 
 tivated national glory in the interest of pure ma- 
 terialism, even if it was tinged with idealism, which 
 is as compatible with sensuous as it is with spiritual 
 ideals. The church, with its ideal of a paradisaic 
 existence hereafter, kept alive the sacrifice of pres- 
 ent enjoyment to immortality with its rewards, and 
 thus encouraged an ascetic life with spiritualism as 
 its philosophy. In its union with the state it com- 
 bined both tendencies, adopting the secular type of 
 social and political power and sustaining the sacri- 
 fice of the individual to the whole, while subordi- 
 nating the present to the future. 
 
 But the final triumph of scepticism changed this 
 situation. It both impaired the reverence for 
 authority on which imperialism was founded and 
 discredited the belief in immortality on which the 
 religious ideal rested. The impairment of author- 
 ity created the spirit of liberty, and the decline of 
 the belief in immortality stimulated the economic 
 ideal. Individualism became both political and 
 industrial. Both influences established or encour- 
 aged a spirit of jealousy against central and arbi- 
 trary power, the one to protect personal liberty and 
 the other to resist taxation. In this way began the 
 reaction against the past. The economic ideal of 
 the new age became the legatee of the materialism 
 of imperial politics and of the individualism of 
 religion, while democracy becomes the heir to the 
 value of the individual associated with immortality. 
 
28 DEMOCRACY 
 
 But in neither of these does the old spiritual ideal 
 find a place. This is left as an unprotected dower 
 to the church, which has itself become thoroughly 
 infected with scepticism. The economic ideal has 
 seized every department of human activity wher- 
 ever the slightest tinge of sceptical influence has 
 appeared. Corroborative of all this it is interesting 
 to remark that industrial development and the 
 growth of political liberty, if they do not mark 
 their birth, certainly received a strong impulse from 
 the Protestant Reformation and grew wherever 
 Protestantism gained the ascendancy. Both indus- 
 trial development and scepticism characterise an 
 ideal or ideals that antagonise every principle that 
 dominated the Holy Roman Empire; one of them 
 the ^^ divine right of kings," and with it the asso- 
 ciated imperialistic form of government, and the 
 other the spiritual life in the kingdom of God, in 
 so far as it was represented by a transcendental 
 world beyond the grave. Consequently, the eco- 
 nomic ideal which represents a purely secular type 
 of life sets in operation, free from the fear of the 
 gods, a whole system of motives opposed to the 
 ascetic civilisation of the Middle Ages and supports 
 them by the philosophic and political conceptions 
 of individualism. The satisfaction of material 
 wants has become the dominant aspiration of men. 
 Wealth, luxury, entertainment, sensuous enjoy- 
 ment, social caste and eclat based on property, and 
 
IN TROD UCTION 29 
 
 general devotion to material ideals liave been sub- 
 stituted for the spiritual hopes that had treated the 
 carnal life as a sin. The universe, regarded merely 
 as a vast mine or shop from which to draw the 
 means for purely physical satisfaction, wealth, and 
 power, presents the struggle for existence in all its 
 naked savagery, supplanting thereby the socialism 
 of primitive Christianity on the one hand and the 
 individualistic hope of a life to come on the other. 
 The egoism that had sacrificed the present to gain 
 a superior happiness hereafter, having emancipated 
 itself from the obligations of human brotherhood 
 by abandoning Christian socialism, simply changed 
 its highest good to the pursuit of wealth and sacri- 
 ficed the rewards of immortality to economic ma- 
 terialism. The singular foil to all this is modem 
 altruism which furnishes the moral force to social- 
 ism, and which is the inheritance saved from the 
 wreck of imperialism on the one hand and of the 
 belief in immortality on the other. But the release 
 of the natural appetites from the repressive influ- 
 ence of the old religious asceticism, hopes, and fears 
 has simply invested the economic ideal with an 
 egoistic tendency that will no more allow restraint 
 from imperial government than it will from theol- 
 ogy, and hence it is futile to look for political 
 salvation from a restoration of monarchical insti- 
 tutions. The jealousy against arbitrary power is 
 too intense, too deeply seated, and too widely ex- 
 
30 DEMOCRACY 
 
 tended, and the absence of a general social ideal 
 too apparent to encourage any hopes in that direc- 
 tion. Imperial methods with their vast powers of 
 taxation and patronage are too dangerous in a 
 civilisation as consolidated as ours is by territorial 
 unity over vast areas and by a similar unity of 
 economic interests. Industrial and property ar- 
 rangements, interconnected with large territories 
 and masses of population, are too delicately poised 
 to be put at the mercy of the arbitrary functions 
 of government, unless they are exercised by more 
 intelligence and morality than are visible at present. 
 The present complex condition of civilisation, with 
 its delicate relation between population and the 
 means for subsistence, requires for the adjustment 
 of human life the stability of natural laws and a 
 profound sense of justice. Monarchy may give 
 stability, but it pays too little respect to liberty and 
 justice. Democracy, if it has the sense of justice, 
 has no stability and no capacity for governing. 
 But whatever shortcoming we assign to democratic 
 polity, the economic ideal and individual liberty 
 must forever oppose a return to the simplicity of 
 monarchic methods. 
 
 All this is true in spite of the counter tendencies 
 to socialism, the nemesis of individualism, and 
 sought as a redress against the tyranny of those who 
 know how to direct democracy to their own uses, 
 and though it disguises the imperialism from which 
 
INTRODUCTION 31 
 
 egoism would escape. One of the strangest illusions 
 of the age is the belief of the socialist that, in the 
 present state of human development, liberty, equal- 
 ity, and fraternity are compatible with his political 
 scheme for curing poverty and attaining human 
 happiness. It is the heir to the sentimental philan- 
 thropy of the church and its conception of equality 
 and fraternity, but vainly supposes that it can 
 eliminate the struggle for existence by constitu- 
 tional forms and legislation, while the imperialism 
 lurking in the background of its method would easily 
 and quickly play havoc with the liberty which it 
 invokes for support. But liberty, equality, and 
 fraternity are inconsistent with each other as long 
 as man is not moralised and as long as he remains 
 infatuated with the economic ideal. They can be 
 harmonised only when men have resolved to rival 
 each other in prudence and virtue. Until then the 
 arts of peace and the importance of industrial and 
 political individualism will make men as cautious 
 about socialism as they are opposed to imperialism, 
 and reactionaries will be received as advisers who 
 do not understand their problem. Yet Socialism 
 is the natural product of the forces at work in pres- 
 ent political conditions. It is an unconscious ex- 
 pression of the failure of democracy to fulfil its 
 promises, while it rather inconsistently clings to the 
 forms of popular government for the attainment of 
 its ends. It is the revival of paternalism in the dis- 
 guise of democracy and freedom. 
 
33 DEMOCRACY 
 
 On one point, however, socialist and anti-socialist 
 are agreed. Tliey agree that the drift of present 
 tendencies is unendurable, and that it is not enough 
 to quarrel with Mr. Lecky's inclination to praise 
 the past. There are evils to be remedied which 
 will undoubtedly restore imperialism as the only 
 escape from anarchy, unless democracy can dis- 
 cover some means to correct its tendencies. This is 
 indicated by a variety of important facts. Among 
 the first is what is known as ^\ machine politics." 
 This is the most important symptom of danger, be- 
 cause it is actually imperialism in disguise. This 
 menacing agency does not require to be described 
 in this work, as men are sufficiently acquainted 
 with its methods to justify the omission of all de- 
 tails, and only to mention its relation to democratic 
 forms of government. As we shall ascertain later, 
 it is partly due to the unwieldy and inefficient 
 action of democracy and partly to the opportunities 
 which our institutions offer for escape from political 
 responsibility. Machine politics are completely 
 subversive both of democracy and of the principle 
 of responsibility for which democracy is supposed 
 to stand. It constitutes nothing except a system 
 of self-appointed rulers, and the principle of elective 
 representation of which we boast becomes a farce. 
 Public servants and officers can in some way, 
 usually, be made responsible for the administration 
 of government, but political bosses never, or at 
 
INTR OD UCTION 33 
 
 least not until they have retired with plunder 
 enough to live without politics. The despotism of 
 Russia can lay some claim to legitimacy. The Czar 
 obtains his throne and power by the forms of law 
 and has a healthy fear of something, but not so 
 with our bosses. They nominate our candidates 
 for office and mortgage their support, so that we 
 are ruled by men who are not elected to govern us 
 at all, our nominal officers being the mere puppets 
 of the machine. Public opinion is defied until its 
 patience is exhausted, when it is gratified in some 
 caprice, and it lapses back again into indifference 
 and the old game goes on. Property of all kinds 
 is blackmailed directly or indirectly, and business 
 terrorised. Even vice and crime come in for tribute, 
 as is well known. This is anarchy, not government, 
 and yet we indulge the pleasing illusion that democ- 
 racy is a paradise. 
 
 Another fact of which much complaint is made 
 that it presents a serious danger to our institutions 
 is the concentration of capital and business either 
 in the hands of monopolies or in those of large 
 corporations, who can exercise an undue infiuence 
 upon the lives and fortunes of the general popula- 
 tion. I do not sympathise with the widespread 
 opinion that great accumulations of wealth are an 
 intrinsic evil, for they are not. But when they add 
 to their natural advantages over others the pos- 
 session of political power, acquired by the defiance 
 
34 DEMOCRACY 
 
 of justice, they do certainly menace popular insti- 
 tutions. Wealth is a blessing or a curse, according 
 to the manner of its acquisition and its consump- 
 tion. Obtained by superior skill and intelligence, 
 under equal conditions, it offers no excusable temp- 
 tations to envy and jealousy, for it then represents 
 only what every man can claim as the natural and 
 legitimate reward of his labour. But when it is the 
 result of political influence upon the machinery of 
 government, such as protection, blackmail, legis- 
 lative favours, etc., which represent some surrepti- 
 tious form of taxation and police force, we are 
 threatened with the repetition of the old Roman 
 struggle between the proletariat and the property- 
 holders. This undue influence of wealth, however, 
 is not wholly caused by the selfishness of capital- 
 ists, but is quite as much the result of the necessity 
 for defending property against the propensities of 
 blackmailers elected to office by democracy. This 
 necessity for self-defence relaxes the austerity of 
 conscience even in those who would otherwise re- 
 spect its commands. All the power and temptation 
 are given those who have no regard for law under 
 any circumstances. Consequently, under the pres- 
 ent regime in democratic politics, with wealth com- 
 pelled to employ political subreption for defence 
 or enabled to use it for illegitimate advantages, it 
 comes in for all the jealousy that men have been 
 accustomed to entertain against imperialism, be- 
 
INTRODUCTION 35 
 
 cause it does represent something like tlie irrespon- 
 sibility of despotism in the exercise of its power 
 in the community. The existence of such an in- 
 fluence in society, especially when it contravenes 
 the sentiment of equality and is a perpetual menace 
 to justice, no matter what the form of government, 
 will create a demand for political reforms. 
 
 There are other facts of the same import and 
 pointing to the same conclusion. Among them are 
 the complexity of our civilisation and the inade- 
 quacy of present government agencies to meet the 
 responsibilities placed upon them. A small coun- 
 try, with a scanty population, few resources and 
 industries, and similar social sentiments, may go 
 on without much difficulty under democratic insti- 
 tutions. But a vast territory, with untold ma- 
 terial wealth waiting for labor, a growing popula- 
 tion, and with it an increase in the severity of the 
 struggle for existence, and the great diversity of 
 moral, economic, political, and social sentiments, 
 must call for government that corresponds to this 
 complexity. The increasing density of population, 
 the growing intensity of the struggle between capi- 
 tal and labor, partly the effect of population and 
 partly of the struggle for social position by the 
 aristocracy of w^ealth, and the infinite complexity 
 of the economic machine created by railways, 
 canals, marine commerce, the telegraph, telephone, 
 etc. — all these supply problems which the simple 
 
86 DEMOCRACY 
 
 institutions of tlie past cannot grapple with success- 
 fully, and something must be done to meet the new 
 conditions. Our constitution was made when the 
 conditions of life, economic, moral, and political, 
 were very simple as compared with the present, 
 and representatives could at least approximate the 
 requirements made upon them by their constituents. 
 But our constitutional methods are less elastic than 
 those of England, and adjustment to the immeas- 
 urable changes of political and economic circum- 
 stances is rendered almost impossible by the cum- 
 bersome machinery of amendment. Moreover, the 
 problems which confront our public agents require 
 almost omniscience to solve them, while a glance 
 at the beneficiaries of political honour and respon- 
 sibility is sufiicient to show how little of that quality 
 is present. Congress has duties which it is impos- 
 sible for the ordinary man to perform, however 
 conscientious he may be, and elected, as members 
 are too frequently, by a corrupt machine and an 
 ignorant proletariat, there are wanting in the condi- 
 tions that can insure a just exercise of power, and 
 such power as is possessed is usually employed to 
 satisfy either party or personal interests. The 
 consciousness of impossible tasks must appal any- 
 one who has the character to feel his duties to the 
 public and to withstand the influences for evil 
 arrayed about him. But the intelligent and honest 
 man's impotency is the scoundrel's opportunity, 
 
IN'TR OD VCTION 37 
 
 and official responsibilities are assumed only to show 
 that honesty cannot stand the competition with 
 demagogy, while the public pays the penalty of all 
 the vices which such a system must produce. To 
 state the case in a word, the machinery of govern- 
 ment is too simple for the problem which it is asked 
 to solve, and we cannot neglect its modification, 
 even if we dare not return to the monarchic methods 
 of the past. 
 
CHAPTEK II 
 
 THE NATUKE OF THE PKOBLEM 
 
 We have said that we cannot return to mon- 
 archy and that we cannot stop with our present 
 democratic methods. The reason is the same in 
 both cases. The machinery of government in both 
 a monarchy and our present system is too simple 
 to meet the responsibilities of a highly complex 
 civilisation. We must therefore reconstruct our 
 methods to suit the existing conditions and their 
 demands. But such a task requires us to deal with 
 the whole theory of government, and it is one of 
 great magnitude, as the history of theoretical poli- 
 tics abundantly proves. It will not be my purpose, 
 however, to treat the subject with that detail which 
 is the custom with political students, but to discuss 
 the most general principles which determine gov- 
 ernment of any kind and its forms. Politics have a 
 philosophic basis, or are intimately connected with 
 the general ideas that are the subject of philosophic 
 reflection, and hence are amenable to courts of 
 philosophic jurisdiction. As a consequence of this 
 fact it will be important to survey the general ideas 
 
 38 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 39 
 
 and moral forces that predetermine tlie movement 
 of both theoretical and practical politics. In this 
 way we may discover some clue to the kind of po- 
 litical reforms that the present situation demands. 
 If we look at history and philosophy we shall 
 find that the discussion of theoretical politics always 
 turns about the problems and conceptions of mon- 
 archy, oligarchy, and democracy, or the rule of the 
 one, the few, and the many. This is the division 
 adopted by Aristotle and perpetuated in philosophy 
 ever since. Oligarchy was made convertible by 
 him with aristocracy, though the literal interpreta- 
 tion of the term might not suggest that conception. 
 Associated conceptions, besides that of mere num- 
 ber in the other two forms of polity, helped to 
 produce this idea of oligarchy. But the principle 
 of classification noticeable in his system is that of 
 the mere number of rulers. I am going to con- 
 tend, however, that this conception is either false 
 or conceals from us the real problem involved in 
 the theory of government. Political students yet 
 need their Bacon to emancipate them from the 
 authority of Aristotle in the settling of the problem 
 which they attempt to solve. It is not a question 
 of the number, but of the kind, of rulers, whatever 
 the number may be, that society is to have if the 
 best results are to be attained. Back of the ques- 
 tion of the number of persons who shall participate 
 in the functions of government are two more im- 
 
40 BEMOCIiACY 
 
 portant questions: (1) The kind of rulers, and (2) 
 tlie adjustment between power and responsibility 
 in rulers. This latter principle has been at least 
 partly but inadequately recognised in modern de- 
 velopment of political theory and practice. But the. 
 two are prior in importance to all other considera- 
 tions in government^ while questions of how many 
 shall take part in politics should be postponed until 
 these are solved. 
 
 We have said that Aristotle classifies govern- 
 ments as monarchic, oligarchic, and democratic, 
 with the recognition of a composite form to be no- 
 ticed later. The first put power and the irrespon- 
 sibility that attaches to it into the hands of one 
 person, a despot ; the second, in the hands of a few, 
 the aristocrats; and the third, in the hands of all 
 the citizens^ the limitations of number in the last 
 class being determined by what the word ^' citizen " 
 should mean. In Aristotle's time the criterion of 
 citizenship was (1) free birth and (2) Greek nation- 
 ality. Slaves and barbarians were excluded. 
 Democracy in modern times, after the adoption of 
 the idea of universal brotherhood and equality, ex- 
 tends citizenship to nearly all members of the 
 community and correspondingly modifies the social 
 area occupied by the conception of popular govern- 
 ment. But in respect to the number of human 
 beings who have political rights and powers in 
 Aristotle's " democracy,'' it was in reality an oli- 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 41 
 
 garclij. But, though we must understand by the 
 term in his time a very different mode of govern- 
 ment from that of the same name to-day, yet the 
 classification of polities can remain the same. The 
 principle of democracy remains as it was with 
 Aristotle; namely, the distribution of political 
 power over a larger area of numbers than in either 
 a monarchy or an oligarchy. But in distinguishing 
 governments by the number of rulers, Aristotle had 
 in view, not that the agents and the beneficiaries 
 of government should be the same persons, which 
 constitutes the idea of 5e?/-government to-day, nor 
 again that the right to political citizenship should 
 coincide with manhood universally, but that irre- 
 sponsible power could be divided in three ways, 
 and legislation secured by three methods: namely, 
 (1) By a single ruler; (2) By a select portion of 
 the whole number of free native citizens; and (3) 
 By the whole number of such citizens. He also 
 recognises what we call a Republic, which he re- 
 garded as a combination of the others. This is 
 representative government, which even passes as 
 convertible with democracy. But Aristotle's 
 democracy was not representative at all. It was 
 direct legislation by the people after the type of 
 the referendum. It was at least partly represented 
 in the Athenian assemblies. 
 
 Political science, however, has not gone beyond 
 the conception of the forms of government as classi- 
 
42 DEMOCRACY 
 
 fied by Aristotle. His authority ruled the Middle 
 Ages in its philosophy as despotically as ever the 
 church has done, and political science seems still 
 to be under his sway in the matter of the general 
 conceptions which shall determine the forms of 
 government to be considered. It may be very 
 convenient for historical purposes, but it completely 
 conceals the true principles of politics which should 
 regulate the constructive efforts of philosophic stu- 
 dents. It is the failure to analyse the problem and 
 to break away from the authority of Aristotle that 
 prevents us from discovering the fundamental 
 principle that has moved political history. His 
 principle of classification was not philosophical, but 
 historical, and based the organisation of govern- 
 ment upon the number of persons who shall par- 
 ticipate in it. But I must contend that this is 
 wholly false for any scientific or philosophic pur- 
 poses. It is not the quantity of men, but the 
 quality of them that determines whether we shall 
 have good government or not, while the whole de- 
 velopment of history, reinforced at least by the 
 speculative principle of Aristotle, has been toward 
 the idea that good government can be obtained only 
 by extending the area of citizenship and political 
 power, regardless of the character which shall de- 
 termine political action. This tendency, however, 
 I must regard as a mistake, if it be interpreted as 
 the last word on the subject. I grant that the 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 43 
 
 evolution of better political institutions may not 
 have been able to take an easier course, and that the 
 simple criterion of mere numbers may have been 
 necessary to thoroughly purge the evils of ancient 
 aristocracy, but this is no final reason why we should 
 not seek for a new principle for government as did 
 those who wished to correct the tendencies of 
 aristocracy. The assumption of ancient polity was 
 the same as the present. It drew no distinction 
 between the agents and the beneficiaries of gov- 
 ernment. Reform accepted this assumption and 
 demanded democracy, or the extension of citizen- 
 ship and the suffrage. Aristocracy distributed 
 political power and rewards in favor of intelligence, 
 but at the expense of justice : democracy distributes 
 them at the expense of intelligence, while trying, 
 perhaps unsuccessfully, to satisfy the claims of 
 justice. But democracy stands for the universal 
 benefits of government, and hence in respect of the 
 beneficiaries of it the development of government 
 from monarchy through oligarchy to democracy 
 has been toward better things, at least in comparison 
 with the past. But it has not seen the necessity 
 for discriminating between the agents and the 
 beneficiaries of government, and hence the parallel 
 development of political institutions to secure the 
 right quality of men for citizens and officials has 
 not occurred. This is the more important prob- 
 lem, and though political philosophers have recog- 
 
M DEMOCRACY 
 
 nised the need for this desideratum they have been 
 too much enslaved by the quantitative basis of 
 pohtics to apply any ingenuity to discover a method 
 for securing a qualitative basis. We require a 
 system which will secure good rulers and universal 
 benefits; that is, a system based upon the quality 
 of men for citizens and quantity of them for the 
 benefits of society. How this can be effected is the 
 problem. At present, however, our democracy is 
 merely nominal. We have a kakistocracy of plu- 
 tocrat and proletariat for agents and beneficiaries, 
 the plutocrats usually being the beneficiaries and 
 I the proletariat being agents in their own deception, 
 j instead of aristocracy for our rulers and democracy 
 : for the beneficiaries. Whether the latter is possible 
 is the question, but it is certainly the ideal polity, 
 \ and if any machinery can be devised which will 
 adjust the quality of citizens and rulers to the larger 
 quantity of men to receive the benefits of govern- 
 ment it should be accepted with open arms, and a 
 new step in political evolution initiated. That, 
 however, is still the desideratum. To attain this 
 end we require to devise some means of fixing 
 political responsibility. In order to make this clear 
 I shall have to examine the development of political 
 theory, and while doing so analyse the problem as 
 I understand it. I cannot, however, go into the 
 subject with any great minuteness, but must treat 
 it in broad outlines. Moreover, I shall treat it from 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 45 
 
 the standpoint of the development of ideas with- 
 out much regard to chronological order. I wish to 
 exhibit the social and political influence of ideas 
 both as conscious and unconscious agencies in 
 moulding institutions. 
 
 Speculation on politics and forms of government 
 began very early in the history of intellectual cult- 
 ure, though not until physical philosophy and some 
 of the arts had considerably advanced, especially 
 those of poetry, painting, and sculpture. This 
 speculation represented the reflective stage of prog- 
 ress, when the mind turns back upon accomplished 
 facts and endeavours to analyse them, to discover 
 their law or raison d'etre, and to exercise some pre- 
 visionary consideration for the regulation of future 
 action. All conscious progress is dependent upon 
 this discovery. Consciousness of the forces, phys- 
 ical or intellectual, that make events is a great help 
 to action, in fact indispensable for all rational ad- 
 justment and development. But politics and gov- 
 ernment had long proceeded in their course without 
 the direction of theoretical knowledge in regard to 
 their forces, and hence upon assumptions which it 
 was the business of philosophy to discover or bring 
 into consciousness and not to create. Government 
 and its necessities antecede theories of it, and are not 
 created by them, though speculative ideas are addi- 
 tional aids to progress whenever they arise, in that 
 they facilitate adjustment to all the conditions 
 
46 DEMOCRACY 
 
 affecting development. It is important to remark 
 this retrogressive origin of all theory, and perhaps 
 even its subsidiary value compared with the actual 
 forces which it discovers and directs, in order not 
 to mistake the nature and functions of theoretical 
 knowledge which often obtains the credit of an 
 influence that it does not possess. It may modify 
 the direction of moral and physical forces, but it 
 cannot create them. Hence it is not the condition 
 of all government, but only of those incidents which 
 follow the conscious direction of forces to an end 
 which might escape the merely casual agency of 
 nature and unconscious action. Consequently, it 
 is interesting to remark that the forms of govern- 
 ment had gone through considerable development 
 before Greek speculation had touched upon them. 
 The worst forms of despotism had been thrown off 
 and large concessions made to the idea of democ- 
 racy before the theoretical and reflective operations 
 of philosophy had been applied to them, and hence 
 without its predetermining influence upon this de- 
 velopment. Hence it was that Aristotle's classifica- 
 tion of polities was historical and not philosophical. 
 But when philosophy began to test everything in 
 its alembic, politics could not escape its analysis. 
 This became especially true when, after Greece had 
 secured her independence or safety from foreign 
 invasion, she had to grapple with the problems that 
 were created by internal dissensions. Questions 
 
THE NATURE OP THE PROBLEM 47 
 
 regarding tlie forms of government and domestic 
 policy liave a minor interest and importance while 
 the community is engaged in the defence of its 
 existence against outside adversaries. But the case 
 is very different when the state has to contend with 
 domestic foes. Here the problem of governmental 
 institutions becomes one of great importance, and 
 only the consciousness that the military regime 
 which is adapted to defence against external ene- 
 mies is dangerous to domestic peace and industry 
 can divert the momentum of the ideas developed 
 by military life from their destructive tendencies. 
 Hence after Greece had escaped Persian conquest 
 and had developed some of the seeds of internal 
 corruption, her philosophers began to discuss the 
 best form of government to realise the ideals of the 
 community. Plato's Republic is the first definite ex- 
 pression of this interest, though Aristotle's Politics is 
 the more scientific. But Plato has a more correct 
 conception of the problem. He does not seek as Aris- 
 totle did to explain, but to reconstruct a political 
 constitution. In spite, however, of its Utopian 
 character, as it is often called, and of his failure 
 to devise practical machinery to attain its really 
 fundamental object; namely, recognition and dis- 
 tribution of justice among men, it was based upon 
 the correct conception of the problem, and sought 
 to place political power in the hands of intelligent 
 and just men. His ideal was, therefore, correct, 
 
48 DEMOCRACY 
 
 and lie failed to realise it only because lie did not 
 rise above his age in tlie practical macliinery tliat 
 he proposed and because he did not insist upon mak- 
 ing the area of the beneficiaries of government 
 larger than that of its agents. But Aristotle re- 
 mained almost wholly within the limits of his- 
 torical perspective in the treatment of political 
 theory, and could not transcend the principle of 
 mere number of citizens in the construction of po- 
 litical constitutions. Consequently, he only helped 
 to intensify and perpetuate the conceptions which 
 he discovered and the social forces which he made 
 self-conscious. 
 
 To see what these ideas aid forces were we have 
 only to return to the general character of Greek 
 civilisation, and here it is interesting to remark that 
 the same conceptions lay at the basis of both the 
 ante-reflective and the reflective stage of this early 
 period. This fact enables us to disregard philos- 
 ophy as such, and to examine the concrete elements 
 of Greek political life and consciousness as they are 
 related to the problem of government. The ideas, 
 then, which made Greek political institutions and 
 which made and limited the theories of them were 
 the same, and may be summarised in two proposi- 
 tions: (1) The assumption of enormous powers in 
 the hands of political authorities, and (2) The com- 
 plete subordination of the individual and his rights 
 to the state. The first of these ideas was at least 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 49 
 
 almost what theoretical politics would call absolute 
 sovereignty, or unlimited and irresponsible power. 
 It was the failure to place any value upon the in- 
 dividual that enabled the sovereignty of govern- 
 ment to be so absolute, and hence it was only when 
 civilisation began to recognise that value that any 
 permanent limitations or restraints were placed 
 upon what the idea of sovereignty represented. But 
 what is sovereignty, and what does its absoluteness 
 mean in the parlance of political science? 
 
 A complete answer to this question would take 
 us very far into speculative problems of politics, 
 and would, perhaps, involve much abstract discus- 
 sion. But I shall not indulge, nor do I require to 
 indulge, in any profound exposition of political 
 sovereignty. A very brief account of its import 
 for the theory of politics is all that is necessary. 
 
 In its strictest application ^^ sovereignty " is 
 simply irresponsible power. This is power without 
 restraint or limitation, and is usually conceived in 
 the form of absolute despotism, which is repre- 
 sented in the popular mind by the will of a single 
 ruler. But the conception of absolute sovereignty 
 is not limited to any particular number of rulers. 
 It extends to any possible form of government 
 within the threefold classification of Aristotle, and 
 hence applies to democracy as well as to monarchy. 
 Whatever the constitution, it is simply political 
 power without legal restraints of any kind. Greek 
 
50 DEMOCRACY 
 
 politics may not have represented this sovereignty 
 in its pure form, but strong government and vast 
 administrative powers were exercised with a free- 
 dom from restraint that modem civilisation will 
 not permit, except in extraordinary emergencies, 
 and even then are subject to a jealous and vigilant 
 scrutiny. That the range and intensity of political 
 sovereignty in Greek civilisation was very great 
 and merited the characterisation which I have given 
 it is supported by the authority of Bluntschli. He 
 says : " The Hellenic state, like the ancient state 
 in general, because it was considered all-powerful, 
 actually possessed too much power. It was all in 
 all. The citizen was nothing, except as a member 
 of the state. His whole existence depended on and 
 was subject to the state. The Athenians indeed 
 possessed and exercised intellectual freedom, but 
 that was only because the Athenian state valued 
 freedom generally, not because it recognised the 
 rights of man. The independence of the family, 
 home life, education, even conjugal fidelity, were 
 in no way secure from state interference; still less 
 of course the private property of the citizens. The 
 state meddled in everything, and knew neither 
 moral nor legal limits to its power.'' This was as 
 true of the period of the Athenian assemblies as 
 that of the earlier monarchies. It determined the 
 conceptions under which the philosophers had to 
 work, and with the philosophers' natural respect 
 
 i 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 51 
 
 for conservative habits, they remained in theory 
 what they were in historical practice; namely, ap- 
 parently the necessary assumptions for government 
 of any kind. ISTo such thing as limiting the sover- 
 eign power was thought of either in theory or 
 practice. The question only regarded the persons 
 who should possess it, or rather how many should 
 possess it. 
 
 There were reasons in the social and economic 
 conditions of the time for the existence of such 
 authority. In the economic world complete indi- 
 vidualism prevailed, in so far as each man or com- 
 munity was self-dependent. !N'o widely extended 
 commercial relations existed in the early period, 
 and when they arose the problem of government 
 changed. But the economic independence of the 
 community, in so far as the means of subsistence 
 were concerned, because the standard of living was 
 low, made it unnecessary to quarrel with political 
 power, however absolute, as long as it did not in- 
 vade personal interests and rights. This is of course 
 true in any age and conditions. But in this period 
 of which we are speaking the opportunities for 
 economic injustice were fewer than in our highly 
 developed civilisation. On the other hand, the 
 social conditions were not less effective in promot- 
 ing tolerance of absolutism. They represented the 
 militant type of life, when union was necessary 
 for defence against foreign enemies, or when mili- 
 
52 DEMOCRACY 
 
 tary organisation was required to carry on aggres- 
 sive conquest. Both defensive and aggressive 
 military operations demand absolute power and 
 authority in order to secure prompt and effective 
 action, as is even still apparent in our own civilisa- 
 tion. Hence tlie fact that early society began in 
 militant and military conditions shows what type 
 of government represented the model upon which 
 the institutions of Greece and Rome were built. 
 They borrowed their conception of sovereignty or 
 political power from the conditions of war which 
 required as much exemption as possible from 
 restraint and responsibility. Social and political 
 inertia, with a whole system of conservative in- 
 fluences, enabled absolutism to continue the mo- 
 mentum of its methods, both practically and 
 theoretically, far into the ages when it required 
 modification. In fact it determined the type and 
 impulse of imperialism ever afterward, just as 
 science, literature, and philosophy have been de- 
 termined by the same civilisation. 
 
 I have emphasized this characteristic of imperial- 
 ism in Greco-Roman polity and its influence upon 
 later ages wherever strong governnient was neces- 
 sary, because too many attempts to remedy the 
 evils connected with power of this kind have only 
 sought to change the persons who shall be invested 
 with imperial powers. Revolutions have directed 
 their efforts to the transfer of sovereignty from 
 
THE HATUME OF THE PROBLEM 53 
 
 monarchy to oligarchy, and from oligarchy to 
 democracy, instead of imitating the division of 
 labor observed in the economic and the organic 
 worlds. In the course of time this principle influ- 
 enced politics as well as other departments of 
 human activity, but the usual course in politics 
 was merely a change of one set of rulers for an- 
 other with unchanged powers, while the cause of 
 complaint remained the same. No adequate re- 
 vision of either the practice or the theory of sover- 
 eignty was undertaken, and hence in general the 
 theory never got beyond being truistic, and the 
 practice remained tyrannical when the sovereignty 
 was in a monarchy and inefiicient when it was in 
 a democracy. But the main trouble with both 
 theory and practice was the complexity of func- 
 tions that were associated together in the concep- 
 tion of sovereignty. Both require that there shall 
 be some ultimate court of appeal and authority 
 which shall not be unduly hampered by restraints 
 and limitations in the exercise of its power. But 
 the simplicity of ancient constitutions which often 
 combined legislative, judicial, and executive func- 
 tions in the same person, and disregard of the dis- 
 tinction between the abstract and concrete problems 
 of politics, led to confusion between the ruler and 
 the absoluteness of his power, between the sovereign 
 and sovereignty, or, in later parlance, between the 
 executive and its irresponsibility. Modern devel- 
 
54 DEMOCRACY 
 
 opments have done mucli to recognise or imply a 
 distinction between power and irresponsibility, 
 but they have not yet exhausted its fertility, and 
 it remains to receive the special attention of politi- 
 cal students in the future. But we are still, directly 
 or indirectly, under the influence of the idea that 
 power to govern must be irresponsible, or if not this, 
 that neither of them shall exist at all. Democracy 
 is not a contradiction of this assertion. It shows 
 a very marked tendency to make its ofiicials at least 
 nominally responsible, while it theoretically re- 
 tains, in flat contradiction with its jealousy of the 
 power of one man over another, the irresponsibility 
 which everywhere else is considered so dangerous, 
 and then in its own inability to use its powers in- 
 telligently and honestly results practically in the 
 irresponsibility of its representatives. Thus the 
 reaction against ancient policy fails to discover the 
 source of the difficulties in government. It is sim- 
 ply the attempt to make the sovereign and sover- 
 eignty, or the representative and irresponsible 
 power coincide. The one point to establish in the 
 theory of government is the responsibility of power. 
 This is sufficiently recognised in the modern theory 
 of politics, where the representative is said to be 
 responsible to the electorate, and perhaps also in 
 other constitutional arrangements. But it is not 
 carried out in detail as it may still be done. The 
 most important distinction to be made, both in 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 55 
 
 theory and practice, is that between the responsi- 
 bility of executives and representatives and the 
 limitation of their powers. The facts Avhich con- 
 cealed this distinction in the concrete operations of 
 government and which led to the establishment of 
 official responsibility by the limitations of powers 
 were the contradiction between the abstract ideas 
 of sovereignty and responsibility and the embodi- 
 ment of this sovereignty or imperial and irrespon- 
 sible power in the executive. But I am going to 
 insist upon the important distinction between the 
 limitation and the responsibility of power. It was 
 Hobbes and those who have followed and who have 
 not improved his position that gave the setting to 
 the theory which still conceals the method of real- 
 ising the object consciously and unconsciously in- 
 tended by the limitation of powers in the organisa- 
 tion of government. Hobbes defined sovereignty 
 as irresponsible power. He said sovereignty is 
 power, power is liberty, and liberty is irresponsibil- 
 ity. But Hobbes was not concerned with a merely 
 abstract problem. He was employed at a practical 
 scheme of politics, and because he feared the an- 
 archical tendencies of democracy he simply invested 
 the sovereign with irresponsibility instead of con- 
 ceding it to the Puritan's commonwealth. He saw, 
 as all political students must do, that irresponsibility 
 must devolve somewhere in the functions of gov- 
 ernment, and for the sake of the efficiency, de- 
 
56 DEMOCRACY 
 
 spatcli, and intelligent action in ruling society 
 preferred to locate sovereignty in tlie executive. 
 In his doctrine, therefore, sovereignty or irrespon- 
 sibility and the execntive were closely associated. 
 But if we divest ourselves of the abstract theories 
 of politics and think only of the concrete problems 
 of government, Avith human nature the determinate 
 factor in them, it will be possible to conceive, as 
 the elective tenure of the executive implies, that 
 the executive and other representatives can be 
 made responsible in a more effective way than at 
 present. To show how this can be done would be 
 to anticipate. But it has been necessary to indicate 
 that Hobbes was in reality giving theoretical ex- 
 pression to Greco-Boman imperialism, and that he 
 did it at a time which marked the crisis between 
 monarchy and democracy. But in the attempt to 
 establish the responsibility of the crown or the ex- 
 ecutive the reaction retained Hobbes's doctrine in 
 the sovereignty of the people, and sought to make 
 the executive and representatives responsible partly 
 by the limitation of their powers and partly by 
 elective tenure. In England it was sought only by 
 curtailing the powers of the crown : in America and 
 republics generally both elective tenure and limita- 
 tion of authority were applied. But in spite of the 
 large curtailment of their powers the executive and 
 legislative functionaries have their privileges and 
 duties very much affected by an irresponsible 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 57 
 
 electorate, on the one hand, and by their leadership 
 of the electorate, on the other. Taken in connec- 
 tion with '" machine politics " they are practically 
 irresponsible, except as occasional deference to 
 public opinion may be construed as responsibility. 
 But in reality neither this nor elective tenure are 
 responsibility at all when the rulers can manipulate 
 the electorate fo suit themselves. But whatever 
 the actual consequences, the resistance to imperial- 
 ism sought relief from its dangers and abuses by 
 limiting its powers and by adopting a system of 
 " checks and balances " which assumed a conflict 
 of interests as the only security against the pre- 
 dominance and tyranny of any one of them. Hence 
 w^e find the political movement from monarchy 
 through oligarchy to democracy, but with the lim- 
 itation of powers for responsibility and less differ- 
 entiation of structure and function than has oc- 
 curred spontaneously in the economic world. The 
 consequences of this will be examined again. 
 
 There were two principal reasons for the Greco- 
 Roman imperialism and for the length of time that 
 it prevailed. The first is that ancient civilisation 
 placed no value upon the individual, and the second 
 is that the problem of the legitimacy, or moral 
 equity, of political action had not been suggested. 
 The first of these reasons has already been men- 
 tioned, and requires no proof, since it is a common- 
 place of history. But the second is not so clear. 
 
58 DEMOCRACY 
 
 It is, however, a most important influence in de- 
 termining both tlie nature and the incidents of 
 ancient political institutions, in that the absence of 
 modern ethical ideas, which are founded upon the 
 value of the individual, left no other criterion for 
 political conduct than the maxim that might makes 
 right, embodied in national glory. This is clearly 
 proved by the moral doctrines of the Sophists as 
 well as by the actual practice of politics. Morality 
 had no reference to the personal worth of the in- 
 dividual which it was the business of the state to 
 protect, but was constituted by a purely social 
 content, what was called the welfare of the state, 
 and the only way to secure this was to command the 
 absolute obedience of the citizen. Any authority 
 that could effect this end was the object of neces- 
 sary allegiance. ISTo such thing as a divine law 
 above kings was recognised, except by the poets 
 and common people. The state had superior power 
 to determine ideals and obligations for it. As the 
 individual was to be sacrificed to it, no law existed 
 above the safety and glory of the state. Such a 
 thing as testing the legitimacy of political action 
 by the standards of individual worth and morality 
 was inconceivable. Of course, questions of justice 
 and right with individual reference, especially in 
 the development of Roman law, entered into the 
 political constitution as a subsidiary end, just as 
 they are a conscious element and the principal end 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 59 
 
 of modern life, but tliey were not the chief end of 
 man in ancient political action as they are intended 
 to be to-day. The exigencies of a military civilisa- 
 tion and a mnch less highly organised state of 
 society gave rather free scope to arbitrary political 
 power, governed by the expediency of the ruler 
 and his party, who knew as well as their successors 
 to-day how to combine personal interest with the 
 national glory, and consequently ancient civilisa- 
 tion had no other example for morality than the 
 rights of a commander and the virtues of a soldier. 
 The social and altruistic point of view, on the one 
 hand, and the subordination of everything, nature 
 and the state equally, to the rights of the individual 
 had not yet asserted themselves as the basis of all 
 action. 
 
 Christianity created a revolution in this respect. 
 It was a direct assault upon ancient morality and 
 an indirect assault upon its politics. This was 
 effected by changing the content and the direction, 
 but not the point of view of the individualism that 
 regulated ancient private life. I have said that 
 ancient morality was confined to civic ends. But 
 private conduct was under the dominion of per- 
 sonal interest, and this was materialistic, being 
 sensuous satisfaction and wealth based upon slavery. 
 Christian civilisation was spiritualistic and its in- 
 dividualism was not only concentrated upon im- 
 material ideals, but also required the sacrifice of 
 
60 DEMOCRACY 
 
 the present to the future and the subordination of 
 self to the welfare of others. This change in con- 
 tent and direction of conduct was accomplished by 
 its doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Usually 
 this belief is assumed to represent a purely religious 
 conception with no political importance whatever. 
 But it was in fact the profoundest political force 
 in history, and with its associated social and moral 
 conceptions was both a revolutionising and a re- 
 generating influence for higher civilisation. The 
 more we examine into the nature of this doctrine, 
 the motives to which it appealed, the moral equality 
 which it proclaimed even between master and slave, 
 the promises and hopes which it held out to the 
 poor, its contempt for riches and abandonment of 
 ancient political ideals and ends, the more we must 
 recognise the natural antagonism which it aroused 
 in pagan Rome with the prevailing devotion to 
 the secular and military ideal. Patriotism and the 
 virtues of soldiers and citizens directed only toward 
 material happiness and national glory were not 
 likely to characterise men whose aspirations were 
 occupied with a spiritual world beyond the grave. 
 Hence antiquity showed a perfectly natural and 
 logical instinct when it endeavored by all the means 
 in its power to crush the new society; for its con- 
 ception of the brotherhood of man, of human rights, 
 its indifference to politics, and the firmness and 
 austerity of its conscience were moral forces that 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 61 
 
 sounded the deatli-knell of a civilisation which was 
 based upon mere power. But I shall not dwell 
 upon this feature of the new force, as I wish merely 
 to summarise the conceptions which ultimately 
 revolutionised political institutions, and since I 
 have traced their lineage to the belief in the im- 
 mortality of the soul and associated ideas it remains 
 only to indicate how this doctrine effected such a 
 result. 
 
 The revolutionary influence which was exerted 
 by the doctrine of immortality was caused by the 
 value ivliich it put upon the individual. In Greek 
 thought all moral values were placed in abstract 
 institutions. The only approach to spiritual ideals 
 that Greco-Koman civilisation produced was found 
 in welfare of the state and the sacrifice of individual 
 life and conduct to it. But Christianity put this 
 value in the concrete individual for whom insti- 
 tutions existed, and not he for institutions. The 
 new movement withdrew from politics at the out- 
 set, seeking the '^ kingdom of God '' partly in the 
 voluntary association of its votaries and partly in 
 the purification and hopes of the soul. The mental 
 and .moral attitude of ancient thought, which had 
 subordinated the individual to the whole was here 
 completely reversed, and man was conceived as a 
 being to whose interests and perfection both nature 
 and government were to be contributory. In this 
 conception of the world and man all rights and 
 
62 DEMOCRACY 
 
 values belonged to the individual, and not to po- 
 litical and physical powers above him. Thus a new 
 centre of interest, social and moral, arose, making 
 the subject and not the sovereign the ultimate 
 reference of conduct. Hence it is no wonder that 
 Christianity was so violently attacked by Pagan- 
 ism. This inversion of the ancient political ideal, 
 the substitution of the spiritual kingdom of God 
 for the material splendour of civic grandeur, and the 
 installation of the rights of the individual against 
 the absolute rights of the sovereign were revolu- 
 tionary forces of incomparable magnitude, and 
 made modern democracy inevitable. Imperialism 
 and its military ideals were impossible where citi- 
 zens sought peace on earth, good-will toward men, 
 and supernal bliss in a transcendental world after 
 death. Political absolutism can thrive only in an 
 atmosphere of blind, passive obedience and belief 
 in the divine right of kings when the civic ideal 
 of Greco-Roman polity has vanished, and such a 
 condition arises only when the individual despairs 
 of salvation by personal faith and effort and de- 
 volves the task upon the state. 
 
 Paganism, however, did not die easily, and even 
 when the religious system over which Christianity 
 triumphed gave up the ghost, its political assump- 
 tions remained partly to antagonise and partly to 
 assist the aims of the Church. The Phoenix rose 
 from its own ashes. Ideas die only to live again 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 63 
 
 in some other form. The antagonism between the 
 secular and the religions order, between the ma- 
 terialistic and the spiritualistic view of individual 
 and political life, was not destroyed by the decline 
 of Paganism, but remained to torment the Church 
 throughout the Middle Ages, and sufficed often to 
 so corrupt society that during much of the time 
 no moral force whatever was left to protect social 
 order itself except the beneficiaries of political 
 power, who were still influenced by the glory of 
 the Greco-Roman civic ideals and the lights and 
 shadows which they reflected. The great struggle 
 was between the Church and the State to determine 
 which should be supreme. The fortunes of the 
 Church were varying until it finally triumphed, 
 swallowing up the political power in itself. But 
 the Church had no genius for government, for the 
 exercise of imperial functions. Both its constitu- 
 tion and its ideal were democratic. Its great object 
 being individual salvation, it had always to act 
 with this end in view, and hence its weapon had to 
 be persuasion instead of force. It had to convince 
 the subject as well as to govern him. Otherwise it 
 could get no farther than Paganism. Faith as well 
 as obedience was a condition of the salvation it 
 offered, and this faith had to be supplied by the 
 subject and not by the king. The Church often 
 degenerated from this ideal, and when it did the 
 imperial conception of Rome reappeared with a 
 
64 DEMOCRACY 
 
 theological dress in the doctrine of salvation by 
 worksj priestly confession, penance, indulgences, 
 and passive obedience to an external power, and 
 the true genius of Christianity had to recover its 
 original significance in the Reformation. In the 
 meantime, church and state were involved in po- 
 litical contests, each striving to obtain supremacy 
 over the other, the state to subordinate the ecclesi- 
 astical to the civil power and the church trying to 
 subject the civil to the ecclesiastical. But it is no 
 part of this discussion to dwell upon the details of 
 this struggle, especially as it disguises the real in- 
 tellectual and moral conceptions at the basis of it, 
 and which were the determining influences upon 
 the tendencies of both theoretical and practical pol- 
 itics. The church had inherited the obligations of 
 the Roman Empire and became responsible for the 
 social order which the decay of the civil power 
 threatened with dissolution, but her constitution, 
 her aims, and the class upon whose support she re- 
 lied were counter-forces to the imperialism which 
 she envied. Personal salvation and the inculcation 
 of dogma are not ends which readily commend 
 themselves to the methods of politics and remain to 
 work their way into human conviction by other 
 means than force. Hence as the profession of the 
 church did not suffer her to compete with imperial- 
 ism in her method, she had to gain her point by 
 scholastic philosophy and promises of salvation, and 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 65 
 
 instead of overpowering lier enemies by tlie sword 
 she set about converting them by logic and the 
 hopes of paradise. Her Founder had counselled 
 peace and good-will toward men, so that consistency 
 and tradition forbade the employment of her rival's 
 means for the extension of her territory, and con- 
 sequently enjoined, at least by indirection, the use 
 of some form of persuasion. In the kingdom of 
 God warfare was to be a lost art, and though the 
 contests in which reason has been engaged have not 
 always been either as respectable as they might 
 have been or fruitful in philosophic achievement 
 they have consciously or unconsciously cultivated 
 higher moral ideals than the animal struggles and 
 human warfare, even though this result was gained 
 by the decline of physical courage. The first step 
 in this movement was the intellectual controversy 
 between Greek philosophy and Christian dogma. It 
 was the struggle between faith and reason. Faith, 
 associated with the sense of an ultimate court of ap- 
 peal both for knowledge and conduct, stood for 
 authority and became the heir to the ideas that were 
 embodied in imperialism: reason stood for the in- 
 dividual rights of the subject as against foreign in- 
 trusion and infringement. In the end reason con- 
 quered, but only by substituting individual assent 
 for authority. Hence in spite of the dogmatism 
 that allied itself with the authority of faith, when 
 she used the court of reason, the church employed 
 
66 DEMOCRACY 
 
 a method which was destined to overthrow the spirit 
 that she had inherited from Rome. It was not the 
 nature of either reason or faith that determined the 
 difference between their alliances: for both are 
 compatible with either individualism or imperial- 
 ism. In its original impulse faith was an activity 
 that could be supplied only by the subject, and rea- 
 son in Greek thought was equally an individual 
 function of the man instead of an eternal influ- 
 ence. But the controversy with Greek philosophy 
 caused them to diverge in their implications. The 
 confessedly anomalous nature of Christian doctrine, 
 the theory of grace which, including the funda- 
 mental necessitv of faith for salvation, involved an 
 agency foreign to the subject for his redemption, 
 and the church's responsibility for social order, 
 which requires obedience to power if government 
 be necessary at all — these allied faith with the idea 
 of authority, and left reason with the duty to sus- 
 tain the rights of the individual. In respect to the 
 state the church's point of attack was the supremacy 
 of political power, and her claim lay in maintain- 
 ing the superior allegiance of man to God and the 
 church, and hence that the state was subordinate to 
 the object of the ecclesiastic power. As this object 
 was individual salvation, which the church could 
 offer as a reward for obedience, she was reasonably 
 sure of the victory and set the example of making 
 the political ideals pay tribute to the spiritual. In 
 
THE XATURE OF THE PROBLEM 67 
 
 this way she forced subserviency to conceptions 
 which, being democratic both in their logical ten- 
 dencies and in the hopes they inspired, nndennined 
 her covetous political ambition to wield the sceptre 
 of imperialism. But there were inherent contra- 
 dictions in the policy of the church. Her strict ad- 
 hesion to the principle of authority contradicted her 
 democratic constitution, and the intellectual habits 
 which her philosophy inculcated and encouraged 
 undermined faith and authority, on the one hand, 
 and stimulated individual liberty, on the other. 
 But the contradiction was at least to some extent ex- 
 cusable in the conditions of the age, which required 
 concessions to imperialism for the sake of social 
 order, until intelligence was more widely distrib- 
 uted, as it became after the invention of printing, 
 and until economic development availed to imify 
 interests that had previously enjoyed larger inde- 
 pendence. The railway, telegraph, and other in- 
 struments of commercial and economic solidarity 
 have consolidated social and political interests to 
 such an extent that the anarchic tendencies of 
 democracy are not so great to-day as they were when 
 intelligence was not widely distributed and individ- 
 ual communities were more self-sufficient than they 
 are to-day. Until this condition of greater solidar- 
 ity was created imperial methods had much to ex- 
 cuse them. But throughout this politico-economic 
 struggle the most important influence against im- 
 
68 DEMOCRACY 
 
 perialism was the demand that all institutions, 
 claims, and powers should justify themselves at the 
 conrt of reason. The very controversy between 
 faith and reason awakened an interest in mental hab- 
 its which faith did not represent and which sought a 
 de jure basis for conduct instead of the de facto 
 status of mere power. An appeal to reason to jus- 
 tify a policy is an abandonment of imperialism and 
 its use of force. It implies an internal resource for 
 persuasion instead of an external method of com- 
 pulsion. Force requires obedience; reason, assent, 
 and assent can be determined only by the subject. 
 Consequently, wherever rationalism sought to jus- 
 tify an institution or a law, it was forced to find its 
 principle in the individual whose assent it sought, 
 and not in external authority. Legitimacy was 
 thus a conception which subordinated might to right 
 and forced political power to get its sanction in the 
 individual claims of man to respect. Greco-Roman 
 civilisation was not exercised by any problems of 
 abstract legitimacy above the welfare of the state 
 as an organisation : Christian ages, even when they 
 simply reinstated in the hands of God the power 
 which they had refused to the civil ruler invested it 
 with the idea of righteousness, and substituted uni- 
 versal justice for the caprice of imperialism. After 
 idealising and spiritualising the Divine, the imperial 
 conception lost much that was repulsive in its 
 Greco-Roman embodiment, and formed a peaceful 
 
THE WATURE OF THE PROBLEM 69 
 
 alliance with reason to subordinate kings and their 
 power to the rights of man. Sovereign and subjects 
 became equals in the higher kingdom, reason being 
 the arbiter between men, whatever the authority 
 between man and his maker. The appeal to the 
 right and to reason w^as therefore to discard the 
 criterion of mere power, and though the church had 
 many delinquencies to account for, she initiated an 
 intellectual and moral influence that completely 
 substituted the idea of legitimacy for that of power 
 in the guidance of conduct. 
 
 It does not alter the position here taken to say 
 that the church was governed by as unscrupulous 
 men and aims as the state, and that it was anxious 
 for power, benefices, and pelf of all kinds as kings 
 and princes. For this accusation of corruption can 
 be conceded as true. But while the motive and con- 
 duct of the ecclesiastical organisation were as offen- 
 sive as those of the state, the priests and rulers of 
 the church, even when they were hypocrites in dis- 
 guise, and many were not this, used language that 
 fostered an ideal in the minds of their simple fol- 
 lowers which represented conceptions that were 
 radically opposed to the unchristian methods of 
 both political and ecclesiastical imperialism, and in 
 the growth of this moral ideal is found the force 
 that reformed both church and state. We do not 
 always find history on the surface. This is especially 
 true of ideas. They work below the surface, often 
 
TO DEMOCRACY 
 
 counteracting the influences wliich we suppose are 
 the only ones in play. Men of the world often un- 
 dermine their own systems of policy by cultivating 
 conceptions that appear afterward to be the real but 
 silent forces of history, though theirs is only a dem- 
 agogic intention to protect themselves in power. 
 They sow ideas broadcast with the expectation of 
 controlling their influence when they themselves 
 have secured power, and they may sometimes fool 
 their own generation, but in the end they are hoist 
 by their own petard. What Bastiat said of eco- 
 nomic forces is also true in political and ecclesias- 
 tical matters. It is what we do not see that often 
 means and effects more than what we do see. The 
 history of the struggle between the church and the 
 state shows the combatants on both sides often 
 equally unscrupulous in their motives and deeds. 
 But seldom did the state stand for anything more 
 than the traditional ideas of imperialism culminat- 
 ing in Machiavelli, while the church, however cor- 
 rupt the clergy and its rulers, which they often 
 were not, always claimed the power and authority 
 of God in its favour. Though its representatives 
 too often embodied little of the divine in their life 
 and conduct, the very opposition which it kept up 
 between imperialism in politics and the divine 
 rights of religion availed to give one term of the 
 antithesis all the colouring of the ideal. To the com- 
 mon people God was idealised and contrasted with 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 71 
 
 the character of earthly sovereigns, and this all the 
 more for the reason that he was never seen or felt 
 in material form. The dnalistic conceptions of the 
 age enabled the mind to throw all responsibility for 
 evil upon material agents and man. God, besides 
 being idealised and spiritualised, also took on the 
 Christian attribute of benevolence and appeared as 
 interested in man's welfare or salvation. Hence, no 
 matter what its motives in playing upon the hopes 
 and fears of the common people, the church was cre- 
 ating a moral force of great power and significance 
 for revolutionising the traditions of imperialism 
 both in the state and within its own domain. The 
 development of this idea did not need the sincerity 
 of those who appealed to it. It was sufficient that 
 the ideal was invoked in language and defined in 
 contrast with the secular power, and so left to grow 
 in the minds of the common people, until kings 
 learned to invoke the idea of justice instead of 
 power in their efforts to curb the influence of the 
 church. It was in this way that the church con- 
 quered by its ideas and not by its political policy. 
 But it conquered in precisely the same way in which 
 Rome conquered the northern nations of Europe. 
 The barbarians overthrew the empire, but only to be 
 silently conquered by Roman civilisation. Sim- 
 ilarly Rome vanquished Greece, but could not with- 
 stand the influence of her ideas. The church had 
 attacked the arbitrary imperialism of the state by 
 
72 DEMOCRACY 
 
 representing that political institutions were de- 
 pendent upon divine authority and subordinated to 
 the object which Christianity had placed under its 
 auspices; namely, the salvation of the individual. 
 Her first weapon was persuasion, but as she grew 
 stronger she imitated the policy of her adversary. 
 She failed, however, to conquer the political power 
 by usurping the methods of imperialism. Still she 
 might have succeeded even in this endeavour had 
 not the moral ideas in which she was not always 
 sincere conquered the state, or been employed by it, 
 in its own victory over the church. The state simply 
 won over the citizen by offering to be his servant, 
 and ever since political power has not the audacity 
 to claim any privileges except to defend its subjects. 
 The only diiference between the formula that repre- 
 sents the object of the state and that which defines 
 the aim of the church is that in one we speak of the 
 salvation and in the other of the welfare of man. 
 The secular and the religious ideas still differ, the 
 one aiming at the future and the other at the present 
 happiness of men, but they agree in their subordina- 
 tion of all institutions to the rights of the individual. 
 The church and the state divided the territory be- 
 tween them and imperialism became the prey of 
 democracy. 
 
 The tendency of all this is most clearly seen in 
 the political philosophy of Hobbes, in whose theory 
 of the state the final struggle between imperialism 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 73 
 
 and individualism is waged. The cliurcli liad not 
 been conscious of the anarchic tendencies inherent 
 in the idea of individual rights, the liberty of reason 
 and conscience, and the reformation which matured 
 the antagonism to imperialism within the church had 
 only unchained a set of forces that threatened to 
 shake the thrones of Europe to their foundations, 
 the political issue being incipient in the execution of 
 Charles the First, and ripening in the French Revo- 
 lution. In the meantime and before its consequen- 
 ces were fully realised, the policy of the Puritans in 
 England had frightened the philosophers of politi- 
 cal order, while it offended and united the interests 
 of both state and church against it. Hobbes thought 
 he saw his ^^ original state of war " coming again, 
 and fearing the consequences of the system in which 
 the rights of individual conscience were supreme, he 
 propounded his doctrine of sovereignty, which, 
 though not theoretically new, was simply a philo- 
 sophic expression for the '^ divine right of kings " in 
 the practical politics of his time, and exempted the 
 supreme civil authority from political responsibility. 
 The legal maxim or fiction that " the king can do no 
 wrong " is a practical formula for this conception of 
 absolutism. But the theory of Hobbes was the last 
 effort to revive despotism and to counteract the 
 tendencies toward democracy. Freedom had been 
 unchained and could not again be allured into am- 
 bush. 
 
74 DEMOCRACY 
 
 The view liere taken of Hobbes may easily mis- 
 represent him. It may cbaracterise him as the ad- 
 vocate of bad government, for which absohitism 
 appears to stand in the eyes of democracy. But it 
 was not the intention of Hobbes to defend despot- 
 ism at the expense of justice. Nor was there any 
 indirection in his methods. His work was not sur- 
 rounded with any of the suspicions that haunt the 
 name of Machiavelli. Hobbes had a perfectly in- 
 telligible problem. Theoretical politics had come to 
 grapple with the questions that had for so many 
 centuries baffled the resources of practical states- 
 men. Political science demanded a theoretical 
 basis of authority which did not confuse might with 
 right, on the one hand, and did not associate right 
 with anarchy, on the other. The struggle between 
 imperialism and individualism, both as a theoret- 
 ical and a practical problem, still remained unsolved. 
 There was no disposition to compromise their claims, 
 or to divide up the functions of social and political 
 action between them. Each asserted its right to 
 solve the problem alone. But in this method no 
 progress was made. History only reported the alter- 
 nate failures of despotism and democracy, and 
 Hobbes saw that the whole work of both theoretical 
 and practical government had still to be done. The 
 theoretical problem was the principle of legitimacy : 
 the practical problem was the method of securing 
 efficiency in the preservation of order. Hobbes un- 
 
THE NATVTtE OF THE PROBLEM 75 
 
 dertook to solve both problems at one stroke. He 
 endeavoured to correct the aberrations of democratic 
 individualism by showing the importance of a 
 supreme central authority, and to insure its freedom 
 and efficiency of action he endowed it with what is 
 known as '^ sovereignty " in political philosophy. 
 
 It will be necessary at this stage of the problem 
 to examine more fully what is meant by this doctrine 
 of ^^ sovereignty." It was not wholly new in polit- 
 ical science. Hobbes had been anticipated in the 
 main principle by Bodin a century before. This 
 author gave expression to the theoretical importance 
 of absolute power. '^ He is entitled/' says Sir Fred- 
 erick Pollock, '^ to share with Hobbes the renown of 
 having founded the modern theory of the state; 
 and it may be said of him that he seized on the vital 
 point of it at the earliest time when it was possible. 
 The doctrine referred to is that of political sover- 
 eignty. In every independent community gov- 
 erned by law there must be some authority, whether 
 residing in one person or several, whereby the laws 
 themselves are established, and from which they 
 proceed. And this power, being the source of law, 
 must itself be above the law: not above duty and 
 moral responsibility, as Bodin carefully explains; 
 but above the municipal ordinances of the particu- 
 lar state — the positive laws, in modern phrase — 
 which it creates and enforces. Find the person or 
 persons whom the constitution of the state perma- 
 
76 DEMOCB.ACY 
 
 nently invests with sucli authority, under whatever 
 name, and you have found the sovereign. ^ Sover- 
 eignty is a power supreme over citizens and subjects, 
 itself not bound by the laws.' This power some- 
 where is necessary to an independent State, and its 
 presence is the test of national independence. Such 
 is in outline the principle of sovereignty as stated by 
 Bodin, taken up a century later by Hobbes, and 
 adopted by all modern publicists with only more or 
 less variation in the manner of statement.'' The 
 most significant phrase in this passage is Sir Fred- 
 erick Pollock's qualification of this sovereignty by 
 ^^ duty and moral responsibility." Such a qualifi- 
 cation was possible only after the establishment of 
 Christianity, which put a certain morality above the 
 law. Ancient sovereignty, practical not theoretical, 
 did not distinguish between political and moral re- 
 sponsibility or irresponsibility. It did not confer 
 political irresponsibility and at the same time urge 
 the idea of moral responsibility. Both functions 
 were endowed with the same attribute. It was not 
 that an '' irresponsible " ruler had no duties, but 
 that, in the absence of democratic methods, there 
 was no theoretical or practical restraint upon his 
 authority which might be called ^' responsibility." 
 The whole tendency of the mediaeval period, with its 
 conflict between the principles of might and right, 
 between authority and legitimacy, was to insist upon 
 moral responsibility even when political irresponsi- 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 77 
 
 bility was conceded, and in the development of 
 theory it was merely a device to escape a logical con- 
 cession to despotism. This development, however, 
 forced Hobbes into a curious combination of the 
 ideas of sovereignty and social contract, with a lim- 
 itation upon the right of revising the contract that 
 committed him to sympathy with absolutism, and 
 so aligned him against democracy. His idea of sov- 
 ereignty is mediaeval imperialism pure and simple: 
 his idea of social contract is democracy pure and 
 simple, as we see in Rousseau. But he robbed it of 
 its sting by refusing it the right of changing its con- 
 stitution. This limitation upon the rights of the 
 social contract indicates very clearly that his de- 
 mocracy was only abstract. He would not permit 
 the concrete application of contract at the pleasure 
 of the citizens. Hence he virtually distinguished 
 between abstract and concrete democracy. But he 
 was not so scrupulous with his doctrine of sover- 
 eignty. Modern theory distinguishes between ab- 
 stract sovereignty, as absolute power somewhere, 
 and its practical application in a particular person 
 or place. ISTot so with Hobbes. His is as much a 
 practical as it is a theoretical problem, and he places 
 his sovereignty in a monarchical agent, though 
 deriving it ultimately from the social contract. 
 Summarising his doctrine Sir Frederick Pollock 
 says: ^^ The sovereign's authority is derived from 
 the consent of the subjects, and he is their agent for 
 
78 DEMOCRACY 
 
 the purj)ose of directing their united strength for 
 the common benefit ; but he is an agent with an nn- 
 Hmited discretion, and with an authority which 
 cannot be revoked. The subjects cannot change 
 the form of government, for that would be a breach 
 of the original covenant both toward the sover- 
 eign and toward one another. The sovereign can- 
 not forfeit his power, for he made no covenant, and 
 there is none therefore which he can break. Any 
 subject who dissents from the institution of the 
 sovereign thereby ceases to be a member of the com- 
 munity and remits himself to the original state of 
 war, in which anyone who can may destroy him 
 without violating any right. For similar reasons 
 the sovereign is irresponsible and unpunishable. 
 '^o man can complain of what his agent does within 
 the authority given him, and in the case of a politi- 
 cal sovereign all acts of sovereignty have been au- 
 thorised beforehand by all the subjects. Holders of 
 sovereignty may commit iniquity but not injustice. 
 The sovereign, again, is the sole judge of what is 
 necessary for the defense and security of the com- 
 monwealth, and, in particular, of the question what 
 doctrines are fit to be taught in it. There are like- 
 wise annexed to sovereignty the powers of legislat- 
 ure and judicature, of making war and peace, of 
 choosing counsellors and ofiicers, of rewarding and 
 punishing, and of regulating titles and precedence. 
 All these rights are indivisible and incommunicable; 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 79 
 
 the sovereign may delegate tliem, but cannot aban- 
 don them." 
 
 This language could be used to describe the ul- 
 timate authority in any form of governmentj pro- 
 vided that the terms '' sovereign " and ^^ sover- 
 eignty '' are taken in their abstract sense. But 
 Hobbes was anxious to hold that the '^ sovereign " 
 in England was the King, and this interest in the 
 concrete embodiment of absolute power gave his 
 theory an imperialistic import. Hence the practi- 
 cal politician and statesman seized the opportunity 
 to convert this theoretical position into the support 
 of tyrannical government. Hobbes's primary in- 
 tention was to qualify the anarchy of individualism 
 by the unlimited sovereignty of the central govern- 
 ment, and it was only an accident of practical poli- 
 tics that turned his doctrine into an apology for 
 despotism. But he himself encouraged this ten- 
 dency by the failure to distinguish between the ab- 
 stract theory of political power and the concrete 
 embodiment of it. He did not suspect the principle 
 which has gradually, though imperfectly, worked 
 its way into modem politics ; namely, the division of 
 functions, but assumed too readily that the problem 
 had to be solved on the lines of the opposition be- 
 tween monarchy and democracy. " It does not oc- 
 cur to him," says Sir Frederick Pollock, ^' as possi- 
 ble that sovereignty should be vested in a compound 
 as well as in a simple body." In his fear of anarchy, 
 
80 DEMOCRACY 
 
 Oil tlie one hand, therefore, and in the failure to 
 differentiate political functions, on the other, he 
 gained his point by denying the responsibility of the 
 crown, and this was done simply by making power 
 and liberty convertible conceptions. He defined the 
 complete antithesis between monarchy and democ- 
 racy by this simple identification of power and lib- 
 erty, and chose absolute monarchy as the only safe 
 type of government. Liberty meant to him irre- 
 sponsibility, and feeling that there could be no com- 
 promise between the liberty of the people and that 
 of the king, he thought that its possession by the 
 people could only result in anarchy. This is true in 
 the unlimited sense in which liberty is conceivable. 
 He therefore defended the irresponsibility of the 
 crown, partly as a necessity for his theory and partly 
 as a measure of practical politics in the interest of 
 efficient government, though as a concession to Eng- 
 lish history he did not oppose a limitation of the 
 crown's functions. Such powers as he left it, and 
 they were the most important, were absolute and 
 irresponsible. But his general theory both specula- 
 tively and practically was the last fruit of scholas- 
 ticism and imperialism in government, inasmuch 
 as he. endeavoured to unite the ideas and functions 
 of authority and legitimacy, might and right, in the 
 \ same power without the attribute of responsibility. 
 He was endeavouring to check the disintegrating ac- 
 cidents of the Reformation by asserting a function 
 for imperial powers. 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 81 
 
 But the tendencies of history would not tolerate 
 either the conception or the application of so much 
 arbitrary power. The English people had found it 
 necessary to place important restraints upon the au- 
 thority of the crown and would not submit to 
 a policy that represented a reaction against the 
 hardly won conquests of individual liberty. Instead 
 of leaving the functions of the crown intact, so far as 
 their scope is concerned, and introducing some ma- 
 chinery to make it responsible, they took away 
 nearly all power from the king, following Hobbes 
 and leaving him irresponsible in what he still pos- 
 sessed, and made the ministry responsible partly to 
 the crown and partly to Parliament, and both the 
 ministry and Parliament to the people. This re- 
 sulted in a natural movement toward democracy and 
 the transfer of irresponsibility from the king to the 
 people, depriving the crown of executive power, 
 until Parliament has become omnipotent and the 
 crown absolutel}^ impotent except as a distributor 
 of patronage. Parliament is even more powerful 
 than our own Congress, and can make and unmake 
 the constitution at will, while Congress is circum- 
 scribed both by the written constitution and the 
 Supreme Court. The omnipotence of Parliament 
 would have been the black beast of Hobbes, a Levia- 
 than of a more dangerous sort than the one he con- 
 templated. But it was only the logical outcome of 
 his theory of absolutism. The public had been 
 
82 DEMOCRACY 
 
 taught that the '' sovereign " was irresponsible, and 
 not being able to get justice from the crown it sim- 
 ply transferred the king's powers to itself. The 
 crown retained its irresponsibility at the expense of 
 its power, at least its executive power. The people 
 obtained both, at least in a theoretical sense. But 
 Parliament occupied a peculiar position. Besides 
 being responsible to the people, as an elective body, 
 it was also responsible to the crown which could dis- 
 solve it, and the ministry, appointed by the crown, 
 was responsible both to the crown and Parliament. 
 The ministry in fact inherited the executive func- 
 tions of the crown, so that this double responsibil- 
 ity of that power becomes a matter of extreme in- 
 terest. All this is a decided reaction against the 
 whole doctrine of Hobbes. Outside of England the 
 democratic tendency, which the reaction represents, 
 has been more toward the principle of " checks and 
 balances " than in the country which was its home. 
 The two Houses of Parliament serve somewhat at 
 least as checks upon each other. But the chief in- 
 terest to the political student lies in the peculiar 
 function of the crown to apply responsibility to 
 agencies which in this country are practically irre- 
 sponsible. We have tried to obtain responsibility 
 for the executive powers partly by constitutional 
 limitations and partly by elective tenure. These 
 restraints, however, are not effective, as they too 
 often prohibit instead of encourage action on the 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 83 
 
 part of those best qualified to administer govern- 
 ment. Hobbes and his school have so thoroughly 
 inoculated us with the assimiption that power and / 
 irresponsibility stand or fall together that we re- 
 strict the power to act and govern in order to secure , 
 responsibility. The true conception of government | 
 is power and responsibility, and not power and 
 irresponsihility , as Hohhes conceives it. It is along 
 the line of this assumption that I wish later to sug- 
 gest some reforms. In the meantime, however, I 
 wish to emphasise the sharpness of the distinction 
 between the two schools of political theory, and to 
 show that the reaction against the theory and prac- 
 tice of Ilobbes's time has not taken adequate ac- 
 count of the complexity of the problem. Both con- 
 ceive or represent it as a question of the locus of the 
 whole power of government. Hobbes aims at unity 
 and efiiciency of action as against the anarchy of 
 individualism, and his opponents prefer the irre- 
 sponsibility of the citizens to the imperialism of the 
 king. The struggle has been between absolute 
 monarchy and absolute democracy, with the latter 
 coming off victorious, some compromises having 
 been adopted to tide over immediate dangers. But 
 assuming that power meant liberty and irresponsi- 
 bility, the reaction against Hobbes sought to counter- 
 act tyranny by imposing prohibitions and restric- 
 tions upon central government agencies and by 
 making both executive and legislative bodies elec- 
 
84 DEMOCRACY 
 
 tive, a mere paper responsibility in hotli cases. The 
 whole tendency has been more and more to restrict 
 executive functions. We are as jealous of power as 
 mankind have ever been, and rather than allow our 
 rulers to possess any large amount of it, we make 
 mere figure-heads of them and leave the functions 
 of government to irresponsible deliberative assem- 
 blies. Consequently, with the loss of the efficiency 
 involved in Hobbes's idea, with the demand for it, 
 and with the inability of the masses to effect unity 
 and con^stancy of action necessary in our complex 
 civilisation, the emergency gives us Hobbes's doc- 
 trine in the very practical form of the irresponsible 
 " political boss." The dangers of his rule, the 
 anarchy of our legislatures, and the jealousy which 
 we entertain against large executive powers drive us 
 logically toward the referendum and initiative, 
 which will make intermediate legislative functions 
 and agencies merely vestigial in their nature, and 
 which is the last development of the idea that power 
 and irresponsibility go together. Theory and 
 practice fluctuate between the two extremes of im- 
 perialism and pure democracy. 
 
 The development of government away from 
 Hobbes's conception of sovereignty has taken two 
 directions. The first is an attempt to establish the 
 responsihility of executive and legislative officers. 
 It was quickly seen that irresponsible power could 
 not be tolerated in a social and industrial civilisa- 
 
TH£: NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 85 
 
 tion, but only in a military system, and tliat some 
 way had to be obtained to bring political agents to 
 account. A variety of influences contributed to this 
 result. But the main institution for the purpose 
 was elective tenure. This was probably as much 
 suggested by the policy of the church as it certainly 
 was by the idea for which the church stood ; namely, 
 the salvation and the welfare of the individual. 
 The church, as we have seen, had always been dem- 
 ocratic. It elected its officers and exacted of them 
 a life of service for others. When then it came to 
 making kings responsible elective tenure offered 
 the method and public service the object of political 
 institutions. But the development of politics soon 
 lost sight of the principle of responsibility which 
 had started its opposition to despotism and concen- 
 trated its attention upon the democratic object of 
 elective methods. Elective tenure, however, though 
 it may increase the power of the citizen, does not, 
 in the complicated action of modern society, effect 
 all that the principle of responsibility calls for, and 
 has also too often failed to secure an intelligent and 
 conscientious governing class. Something in addi- 
 tion to elective tenure is required to establish that 
 condition. What this shall be must be presented 
 again when we have discovered the principle that 
 is to direct the organisation of political machinery. 
 For the present we have only to remark the method 
 that has been employed to correct Hobbes's theory 
 
86 DEMOGRAGY 
 
 of sovereignty and the evils of mediseval imperi- 
 alism. 
 
 Tlie second tendency in the reaction against 
 Hobbes and his school was the limitation of the 
 sovereign which was accomplished partly by con- 
 stitutional restraints and partly by institutional 
 bodies endowed with the powers forbidden to the 
 sovereign. Written and unwritten constitutions il- 
 lustrate the first of these limitations. Legislative, 
 judicial, and ministerial agencies illustrate the sec- 
 ond, and suggest also the principle which we wish 
 to carry out here more fully, as the correct one to 
 govern the political student of the future. Though 
 such bodies were in a measure substitutes for im- 
 perialism and conceived as the incumbents of the 
 powder refused the sovereign, yet they were a recog- 
 nition, conscious or otherwise, of the division of 
 labor which, though needing still further develop- 
 ment, yet needs still more the supplementary and 
 correlative organisation of an agency to attain effi- 
 ciency and concentration of power not possible in our 
 legislative assemblies. This correlative need is the 
 integration of function in government to supple- 
 ment the differentiation which has been begun and 
 requires still further development. The manner in 
 which this was accomplished, however, did not fully 
 realise the end of which it is capable. The reason 
 for this was partly that the object of the transfer of 
 functions was not for the division of labor; that is 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 87 
 
 the development Avas not conscious of its own ten- 
 dency and meaning: partly that its application was 
 effected by the method of '' checks and balances," 
 which prevented the proper responsibility of the 
 agencies so constituted and consequently the organi- 
 sation of a central power which could make them 
 responsible. Monarchy, if it was irresponsible it- 
 self, made all the other agencies of government re- 
 sponsible; but in curbing its power society simply 
 transferred the irresponsibility of the monarch to 
 the several agencies substituted for it. Consequently 
 with its system of '^ checks and balances " it lost 
 both the principle of responsibility and the full de- 
 velopment of the division of labor, as it appears in 
 the industrial and economic field. ^Nevertheless, 
 the course of political theory and practice has pre- 
 sented us with at least a latent tendency to suggest 
 the principles which may serve to correct the evils 
 of democracy. They are the idea of responsibility 
 and the division of labor in government. Both may 
 be comprehended in the one formula of the inte- 
 gration and differentiation of function in the oper- 
 ations of government, though the suggestions to be 
 carried out here will make it convenient to keep the 
 idea of responsibility separate from the arrange- 
 ments adopted for securing the proper division of 
 political functions. The trouble with the past was 
 that it did not realise the complexity of the problem 
 before it, and assumed that a mere transfer of power 
 
88 DEMOCRACY 
 
 was sufficient to attain the object of government. 
 Our present tendency, influenced by the conceptions 
 of tbis past, is to limit sovereign powers in every 
 form except in the people themselves, as the only 
 escape from corruption and tyranny, with the conse- 
 quence that we sacrifice political efficiency in the 
 functions of government to the extension of de- 
 mocracy, while the old evils return in the " bosses," 
 who are simply the necessary result of the demand 
 for organisation and efficiency, and consequently 
 are the irresponsible and unconstitutional substi- 
 tutes for the legitimacy of the past. We have made 
 onr legitimate governors mere figure-heads because 
 of our jealousy of a strong executive and because 
 we have seen no way to connect responsibility with 
 power. Hobbes's conception still influences us even 
 when we abandon monarchy. We have deified 
 " checks and balances " for security and relied sole- 
 ly upon the electorate for our court of responsibility, 
 when the real want is a better organised subordina- 
 tion of government function and responsibility to 
 some agency additional to the electorate. I would 
 summarise, therefore, the principles of political 
 theory which will mediate between monarchy and 
 democracy in the following manner. They repre- 
 sent the philosophic basis of government in every 
 form that can prove permanently successful. They 
 are: (1) The adequate responsibility of the execu- 
 tive, legislative, and administrative powers, and (2) 
 
TEE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 89 
 
 The integration and differentiation of function in 
 the operations of government. 
 
 I have stated the problem in a form that implies 
 a connection between philosophic ideas and practi- 
 cal politics. There is always a relation between 
 them, whether it be one of cause and effect or mere 
 association. Actual institutions give rise to philo- 
 sophical systems about them, and philosophy reacts 
 upon them to modify or improve them. Hence it 
 will be interesting to remark this relation between 
 philosophical conceptions and the development of 
 social and political institutions. This is especially 
 true in regard to the two principles that have been 
 enunciated, and which represent, one of them at 
 least, the fundamental law of evolution or progress. 
 It is not, however, that philosophy always directly, 
 or even indirectly, determines our practical politics, 
 at least in its details, nor that politics will necessarily 
 determine any particular theory of philosophy; but 
 that the conditions that produce the one will also 
 often produce the other, though the changes and re- 
 actions in each of them are not always synchronous 
 with those of the other. There is always a complete 
 reciprocity between our ideas and our volitions, 
 both individually and socially. The only difficulty 
 is to determine what the prevailing social ideas are. 
 The opinions of individuals differ so much that we 
 cannot reason from any given philosophy to the con- 
 duct and institutions of society. In fact, among 
 
90 -^ DEMOCRACY 
 
 philosophers certam conceptions may prevail without 
 reflecting themselves upon social conduct, and the 
 community may act Avithout regard to any given 
 philosophy prevalent in the schools. But the mo- 
 ment that any system of ideas becomes general it 
 Droduces an influence upon political conduct, and 
 institutions reflect themselves in the philosophic 
 systems of the day. This reciprocity between ideas 
 and institutions, individual and social, enables us to 
 study the principles which rule our progress in the 
 types of philosophic thought, where we find man be- 
 coming conscious of the forces and ideas that de- 
 termine his destiny. It is only when man becomes 
 conscious of these forces that he can expect to 
 rationally aid the process of his development. 
 Otherwise it must be left wholly to the contingency 
 of natural selection. Hence if we can discover the 
 law of progress, which is only the means to the end, 
 we may be able to apply it in a way to improve or 
 hasten the course of development. This is the rea- 
 son why a philosophic principle may help us to see 
 our way through the difiiculties of our political 
 problem. Being the founder of those conceptions 
 which establish or represent the unity of nature, 
 philosophy reflects its connection with, and influence 
 upon, every department of human activity, and re- 
 sults in similarly unifying human volitions, whether 
 individual or social, and where it does not determine 
 them directly, it serves as a good index of the essen- 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 91 
 
 tial principles that do determine them. More es- 
 pecially that philosophy represents man's con- 
 sciousness of the influences and ideas about him, and 
 which he can turn to practical account, it may de- 
 termine for us the principle which should govern us 
 in the construction of political institutions, where 
 wisdom is so much demanded. For this reason it 
 may prove profitable to study briefly the connection 
 between philosophic ideas and both political theory 
 and practice. 
 
 Animism is perhaps the first as it is the simplest 
 stage of reflection in which the human mind at- 
 tempts to explain the world. It sees life everywhere, 
 but the conception of a cosmos, a unified whole, is 
 not clear, or perhaps does not exist in this stage. 
 Corresponding to it the social organisation is, at 
 least usually, as anarchic as the philosophic ideas 
 represent nature. But animism is an indefinite con- 
 dition out of which two wholly different types of 
 philosophy proceed, the direction of development 
 depending upon the question whether the mind 
 comes to the study of the forces of nature with a 
 disposition to unify them by a pantheistic or by an 
 atomistic hylozoism. That is to say, it depends upon 
 whether it conceives the world as a cosmos or a chaos. 
 If the life that animates nature is conceived to be a 
 single universal force, no importance will be at- 
 tached to the individual unit or phenomenon in it, 
 and we have variously monism, pantheism, and 
 
93 DEMOCRACY 
 
 monotlieism as the inevitable direction of philo- 
 sophic thought. On the other hand, if this life is 
 placed in the individual and no stress is laid upon the 
 unity of the cosmos, the direction of ideas is toward 
 polytheism in religion and atomism in philosophy. 
 Philosophically speaking, monism and atomism are 
 the two extreme opposite tyj)es of thought, and the 
 others are more or less only different applications of 
 one or the others. The order of development in 
 each case is not important for our purpose, but only 
 the logical tendency of the movement. The pre- 
 dominance of one or the other prevails according to 
 circumstances. At the same time both distinct 
 forms of thought may co-exist and develop side by 
 side in different persons, so that the general tendency 
 may either be indeterminate or a compromise of the 
 two movements. 
 
 The social equivalent of animism has no special 
 importance for us in the present work: but it is 
 interesting to observe that what is known as imperi- 
 alism; namely, the possession of large political 
 powers over extensive areas of territory and a di- 
 versity of tribes, seems everywhere to have followed 
 the decline of polytheism and the adoption of mo- 
 nistic or monotheistic conceptions. The reason for 
 this may not appear on the surface, but it is evident 
 to those who know what pantheism and monotheism 
 stand for in their conception of power and the sub- 
 ordination of the individual, with the social ten- 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 93 
 
 dencies that affiliate themselves with such ideas. 
 They favour, if they do not produce, central govern- 
 ment and the restriction of individual liberty 
 commensurate with its imperialism. But poly- 
 theism was in the ancient religious world what the 
 atomic conception was in the philosophic. It rep- 
 resented an individualistic idea of things, a system 
 of local and independent deities as the atoms were 
 independent forces. It marked the absence of all 
 such conceptions of the imity of nature as we find 
 in pantheism and monotheism, and hence of the 
 causal agency at the basis of it. Its social equivalent 
 was a vast system of warring tribes and families 
 without a highly organised central government. 
 The powers of the chief or ruler were absolute 
 enough, but their connection with military condi- 
 tions of life and small areas of population suggested 
 very little of the notion of empire, which requires 
 for its realisation a larger unity of sentiment and in- 
 terest than the existence of warring tribes would per- 
 mit. This unity is fostered, if not created, by those 
 conceptions of the world that transcend the limits 
 of polytheistic thought. Many gods meant as many 
 independent tribes and provinces, perhaps not nec- 
 essarily but as an associated fact, and hence ideas 
 which represented so little general unity physically 
 and socially as the polytheistic system could only 
 favour political institutions of a limited sort. How- 
 ever absolute power may have been within the tribe 
 
94 DEMOCRACY 
 
 or the jurisdiction of the local deity, its exercise 
 was limited partly by territorial considerations and 
 partly by the rival dangers of independent tribes. 
 But the departure from polytheism to monotheism 
 in religion and the substitution of monism for atom- 
 ism in philosophy illustrated, if it did not produce, a 
 tendency to bring independent forces, communities, 
 individuals into subordination to a higher and more 
 central authority, so that the social equivalent of 
 these ideas is a more imperial form of civilisation. 
 Polytheism in religion and atomism in philosophy 
 represented a system of independent individuals, 
 and society had little organisation. Monotheism 
 in religion and monism in philosophy represented 
 the subordination of these individuals to a universal 
 pov^er. Hence they indicate a conception of the 
 cosmos that confers great pov^er upon the supreme 
 cause v^hile establishing the unity of the world, and 
 so prepare the way for conceiving a common rela- 
 tion of all men to this agency, just as the individuals 
 of the family or tribe in the polytheistic stage were 
 subject to its tutelar deity. But the larger concep- 
 tion of monotheism and monism simply widened 
 the range of this subordination and equality, though 
 it lacked democratic significance because the em- 
 phasis was placed upon the relation of the individ- 
 uals to the whole instead of their relation to each 
 other. This subordination of the individual to the 
 supreme power created the whole content of virtue 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 95 
 
 and social obligation. It is therefore hardly an ac- 
 cident that we find that the idea of justice, so prom- 
 inent in the monistic philosophies of Plato and 
 Aristotle, was that of social^ not individual wel- 
 fare, and that the brotherhood of man sprang from 
 Stoic pantheism. This latter philosophy, however, 
 with its subordination of the individual to the ab- 
 solute, though it suggested the universal brother- 
 hood of man as one of its corollaries, could not give 
 it moral value and efficiency, simply because it 
 placed so little value upon the individual and em- 
 phasised his subordination to the supreme power in- 
 stead of his independent relation to his fellow. In 
 the golden age of Greek philosophy and politics the 
 universal or social and individual were conceived 
 in antagonism to each other, but when the atomic 
 philosophy took the place of the monistic systems 
 of the earlier period it democratised the relation be- 
 tween the social and the individual and justice 
 changed its content so that social and individual wel- 
 fare coincided. But in the transition from the in- 
 dividualism of the polytheistic stage to the monistic 
 period the social value of the latter's conception of 
 the unity of the cosmos was very great, in that it 
 determined a higher ideal than the atomic anarchy, 
 physical or political, of the earlier period. Polythe- 
 ism, of course, often remained among the common 
 strata of society, and even as a conception of de- 
 pendent and subordinate beings among other classes 
 
96 DEMOCRACY 
 
 who ]iad accepted monistic ideas, long after tlie 
 triumph of a monotheistic or pantheistic type of 
 thought. But as soon as the latter gains the ascen- 
 dency it begins to revolutionise social conditions, 
 and either institutes, or accompanies the institution 
 of, extensively centralised power, and polytheism 
 or atomic influences remain only as a limitation 
 upon the extent of its authority, or become an atro- 
 phied civilisation. 
 
 This movement of thought and conduct and the 
 various degrees of complexity and conflict among 
 the conceptions of philosophy and the forces of po- 
 litical life are apparent in the histories of India, 
 China, Greece, and Rome. They cannot be trav- 
 ersed here for lack of time and space to make the 
 proof adequate. But I may summarise results. In 
 them we should find that imperialism, with its ex- 
 tensive political power, was a concomitant of the 
 conceptions that represented the unity of the cos- 
 mos. It was the monism of religion and philosophy 
 that was the precursor of both the conception and 
 the reality of universal empire. The philosophic 
 principle of the unity of nature and of the suprem- 
 acy of a single force or deity over all others was 
 either the index or the concomitant effect of the 
 psychological and social conditions which supported 
 or created extensive political dominion. I do not 
 pretend that philosophic ideas are the only indices 
 or causes of the political institutions contemporane- 
 
THE NATURE OF TEE PROBLEM 97 
 
 ous with them: for there are other influences equal 
 or greater in importance in producing the same ef- 
 fect. Thus there can be no doubt that the substitu- 
 tion of slavery for the killing of captives was a 
 powerful influence tow^ard the creation of large em- 
 pires. It modified the functions of the ruler, in- 
 creased population to be provided for, and brought 
 into play the economic and social forces incident to 
 slavery and a denser population; namely, agricult- 
 ure and aristocracy, and was thus more immediately 
 the efficient cause of imperial tendencies. Other 
 ideas were also contributory to the same effect. But 
 the larger view of the world, which monistic ideas 
 initiated and instilled, tempered and encouraged 
 the spirit of conquest, though that spirit may have 
 arisen in economic necessities. Without it we might 
 never have seen the ambitious projects of Persia 
 under Xerxes, of Greece under Alexander, of Rome 
 under Caesar, of the Franks under Charlemagne, 
 of France under I^apoleon. These men and move- 
 ments were representatives of an idea which had its 
 inception in philosophy before it appeared to af- 
 fect the destiny of political life, and the part which 
 this idea played, whether successful or not, in all 
 the main purposes of the movement was that of 
 creating a common sentiment, enlarging the func- 
 tions of government and centralising the power that 
 had to rule over the conflicting forces of a diversified 
 society. In this way the idea of monarchy and its 
 
98 DEMOCRACY 
 
 concentrated power over large areas of territory be- 
 came the resource of social order, the means of keep- 
 ing the world with its denser population out of 
 anarchy, and as long as each group of social units, 
 the family, the tribe, the province, etc., was 
 economically sufficient for itself, and both po- 
 litical and industrial conditions were simple, this 
 form of government, with its absolute powers, 
 though somewhat limited by this very self-suffi- 
 ciency of the groups over which its power was ex- 
 ercised, was the best adapted to the situation: es- 
 pecially that the ignorance and superstition of the 
 masses disqualified them for dealing with common 
 interests independent of their own local affairs. 
 The centralisation of political power and its impe- 
 rial efficiency became a necessity for the mainte- 
 nance of any order at all. 
 
 But the conditions that necessitated and justified 
 ancient monarchy with its irresponsible sovereignty 
 and undifferentiated political functions no longer 
 exist. Individualistic modes of thought, modified 
 by the philanthropic impulses of Christianity, have 
 supplanted the socialism of ancient monistic concep- 
 tion, which offered no personal immortality to en- 
 hance the value of the individual, while the eco- 
 nomic interests of men have become so socialised or 
 reciprocally dependent upon each other that their 
 protection can be safely left to voluntary effort, at 
 least more safely than in conditions where interests 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 99 
 
 were conflicting. The self-sufficiency and individ- 
 ualism of ancient life were counteracted bj tlie so- 
 cialism of political ideas and power, while the social- 
 ism of modern economic life, with its automatic reg- 
 ulation of private interests exhibiting the solidarity 
 of parts in an organism, corrects the tendencies of 
 individualism, and imperialism becomes either dan- 
 gerous or useless, except as it may be made to sub- 
 serve a legitimate individualism against the tyranny 
 of socialism. Manufacture and commerce, railwaj^s 
 and telegraphs, science and literature, art and re- 
 ligion, have so revolutionised human knowledge and 
 sentiments, both extending the range of common 
 ideas and multiplying their differences, creating 
 great solidarity in some directions and equal diver- 
 sity in others, that the concentrated and arbitrary 
 power of ancient monarchy is either unequal to 
 the task of government, or would be in danger of 
 enslaving the individual in a worse manner than 
 antiquity. Moreover, military glory has succumbed 
 to the economic ideal ; the masses are educated and 
 the distribution of knowledge more nearly approxi- 
 mates the condition of equality, and the humblest 
 classes actually possess the franchise; the disposi- 
 tion to passive obedience which was once more com- 
 patible with the enjoyment of individual rights and 
 happiness has given place to self-assertion, freedom, 
 and independence which are now more necessary for 
 protection against arbitrary power because of the 
 
100 DEMOCRACY 
 
 present greater solidarity of economic interests; 
 freedom of conscience, of tliouglit, and of action has 
 been at least partly secured, and witli it tlie individ- 
 ualisation of almost every form of human energy 
 as the foil against imperialism, and all of them ac- 
 companied by that persistent jealousy of political 
 power which is not subject to the restraint of the 
 governed that makes any other than electoral insti- 
 tutions all but impossible. Just as the atomic phi- 
 losophy of Democritus and Epicurus was the anti- 
 dote to Eleatic monism and Stoic pantheism, so the 
 individualism of modern life, itself the outcome of 
 atomic physics and the value which the idea of im- 
 mortality has conferred upon the individual, is a 
 fatal obstacle to anything like the monarchical in- 
 stitutions of the past. Government must be divided 
 into a number of agencies in order to make it pos- 
 sible, on the one hand, and to escape the dangers of 
 omnipotent powers in a monarch, on the other, with 
 anything but omniscience to guide him. On the 
 other hand, the anarchy of individualism and its 
 multitude of irresponsible agents, limitations, and 
 restraints upon prompt action require a strong cen- 
 tral authority to maintain order and to save civili- 
 sation. As monistic conceptions are necessary to 
 correct the tendencies of atomic doctrines toward 
 chaos, so imperial functions in government are nec- 
 essary to co-ordinate the conflicting interests of 
 society and to secure prompt and efficient action in 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 101 
 
 important emergencies. The complexity of social 
 and economic interests, embodying as tliey do a 
 strange mixture of common and conflicting objects, 
 tlie one requiring liberty and the other regulation, 
 makes large central and executive powers indispen- 
 sable, if they can be made responsible at the same 
 time. Equally important will be the distribution of 
 government functions among a number of agents 
 or bodies, partly as a limitation to arbitrary author- 
 ity and partly as a release from impossible tasks and 
 responsibilities. A monarchy is too simple and a 
 democracy is too anarchic to properly accomplish 
 the object of government under such conditions. A 
 wholly different principle than either of them, 
 though combining the functions of both, is the key 
 to the situation. The policy of modern industrial 
 organisation, which has free development in this 
 respect far beyond the progress of legitimate poli- 
 tics, and itself only one illustration of the universal 
 law regulating both organic and social life, is the 
 type of institution which suggests the best remedy 
 for social ills. It is the concentration of power and 
 the division of labor, the integration and indifferen- 
 tiation of function, as Mr. Spencer calls it, charac- 
 terising the development of all complex organisms, 
 that offers a guide for the reconstruction of political 
 institutions, with an additional agency in govern- 
 ment to supply the place of competition in the 
 economic world. Briefly the thing wanted is large 
 
102 DEMOCRACY 
 
 executive powers without monarchy and made ade- 
 quately responsible, and the differentiation of func- 
 tions without democracy, wdiich, in its pure form, 
 is simply polyglot government without head or 
 brains. 
 
 I^ow just as a monistic philosophy conditioned or 
 supplied the clue to the political organisation that 
 put an end to anarchy, and as the atomic philosophy 
 exaggerated the importance of the individual, with 
 its tendency to disintegrate society while it corrects 
 the evils of monarchical despotism, so we may look 
 to modern philosophic thought, which endeavours 
 to harmonise monistic and atomic conceptions, for 
 the principle upon which to base the necessary in- 
 stitutional reforms of political life. It is not that 
 we can take philosophy as an infallible guide in the 
 pursuit of any object or end we please, much less as 
 an '^ open sesame " to the perplexities of political 
 problems without due regard to experience and prac- 
 tical insight. For of all persons who are most likely 
 to fail in such matters it is the abstract philosopher, 
 the man who is for ever grubbing in mere ideas of his 
 own making, ^o abstract principle will take us very 
 far into the problems of politics. They are too com- 
 plex for a simple solution. They demand for their 
 satisfaction the delicate adjustment and combina- 
 tion of a variety of principles which are forever 
 shifting their action and incidents. Only Utopias 
 grow out of supreme confidence in an abstract prin- 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PR OB LE IT 103 
 
 ciple which makes no account of otlier facts quite as 
 important as the one that so often catches the ec- 
 static glance of the philosopher. ^Nevertheless the 
 Avide general principles of philosophy can no more 
 be ignored with safety by the practical man than 
 the concrete facts of experience by the speculative 
 mind. Both should be combined for complete suc- 
 cess in anything. Ignorance of either will be fatal 
 to any project. Consequently , though general phil- 
 osophic ideas cannot alone determine for us the solu- 
 tion of the whole problem, they do serve as an indis- 
 pensable guide to the general policy necessary to 
 any institutions whatsoever. Modern philosophy 
 should do as much as the ancient to suggest a way 
 out of political difficulties. It is not that the gen- 
 eral conception of philosophy has changed, though 
 there is a natural tendency for the human mind, 
 like a pendulum, to fluctuate between two equally 
 absurd extremes of opinion: for the idea of uni- 
 versal unity of some kind remains as a permanent 
 assumption or conquest of knowledge, and equally 
 urgent or fixed is the conception of the multiplicity 
 and individuality of the forces constituting the 
 whole. These ideas are the commonplaces of all 
 philosophic doctrine. But there is one idea, associ- 
 ated with the theory of evolution, which has 
 smoothed the conflict between two intellectual ex- 
 tremes of thought, while it has added to reflective 
 knowledge a fact that possesses an importance be- 
 
104 DEMOCRACY 
 
 yond all measure for political students. This fact is 
 the law of that evolution. This law has already been 
 formulated several times, and represents that all 
 progress is due to the proper adjustment of the 
 integration and differentiation of structure and 
 function to the end and complexity of the life which 
 has to he preserved and developed. So abstract a 
 statement of the law, however, may not be clear 
 enough to the general reader, and much less its ap- 
 plicability to the forms and agencies of government. 
 It will be wise therefore to illustrate and explain its 
 operation in the phenomena of nature and history. 
 We observe in the growth of organisms two com- 
 plementary processes going on. As the individual 
 increases in complexity of nature and function there 
 occurs an increasing specialisation of organs, a di- 
 vision of labor among the agencies contributing to 
 the life and purpose of the whole. Simultaneously 
 there goes on a concentration, or integration, of gen- 
 eral functions in some one organ delegated with 
 increased power of co-ordination and control over 
 dependent members, adjusting their action to a 
 common end. In simple organisms this process is 
 not apparent, if it exist at all. The amoeba, for in- 
 stance, is almost a homogeneous substance without 
 individual organs either for locomotion or for di- 
 gestion, and without traces of a neural system. 
 There is so little differentiation of structure and 
 function in it that any part of the body can be ex- 
 
THE NAT TIB E OF THE PROBLEM ^ 105 
 
 temporised for hands, legs, moiitli, or stomach. But 
 as we advance higher in the scale of existence spe- 
 cial organs are developed for each of these purposes 
 and others assume general control of the special 
 members, adjusting them and the whole to a com- 
 mon end. This concentration of regulative power 
 is well illustrated by the nervous system in the 
 higher orders and the differentiation of structure 
 and function of a dependent kind by the limbs, 
 muscles, stomach, lungs, glands, etc. To compare 
 man with lower animals, we find this integration 
 and differentiation illustrated in a very interesting 
 manner. Man cannot use his hands for walking, 
 but has to limit their employment to the technical 
 arts connected with the supply of his Avants, his de- 
 fence against enemies, and his general culture. 
 These require increased knowledge and skill for 
 their use and to regulate and co-ordinate their ac- 
 tion while supplying adequate resources for intel- 
 lectual activity a corresponding increase of neural 
 matter is required and developed. On the other 
 hand, the apes use the hands or forelimbs equally 
 for walking and manual effort, though in such cases 
 these limbs make neither good hands nor good feet. 
 In the nervous system also this differentiation and 
 integration is very noticeable. The primitive ner- 
 vous organism was a simple ganglion or mass of cells 
 and this gradually altered into a spinal column. This 
 linear mass of cells in the simpler forms of life had 
 
106 DEMOCRACY 
 
 to perform all tlie neural functions incident to the 
 organism. But gradually a differentiation between 
 the reflex or unconscious and the deliberative or con- 
 scious activities arose and this was marked physi- 
 cally by the enlargement of one end of the spinal 
 column into a brain, the spinal cord remaining pre- 
 dominantly an organ for reflex actions connected 
 with the vital and reproductive functions, while the 
 brain became the medium for the intellectual and 
 voluntary activities. Then again the brain further 
 differentiates into a system of partly distinct centres 
 and organs for as distinct functions, as is illustrated 
 by the localisation of brain processes. At the same 
 time its unity and integration are kept up by a sys- 
 tem of commissural fl.bres connecting the various 
 centres so that co-ordination is effected partly by 
 the inhibitory influence of one centre upon another 
 and partly by the functional action of the organ as 
 a whole, acting as the central agency for regulating 
 all bodily functions. The nature and extent of this 
 process is illustrated in an interesting manner by the 
 effects of surgical and experimental operations on 
 the brain. In animals excision of the hemispheres 
 disturbs the exercise of important function often 
 only for a short period. The vicarious restitution of 
 such functions in other centres will often take place 
 with comparative readiness. But this is not so easy 
 in man. In him the differentiation has gone so far 
 that restitution of function after excision is not so 
 
THE XATURE OF THE PROBLEM 107 
 
 prompt, if it occur at all. The increase of integra- 
 tion makes the brain as a whole in man a much more 
 vital organ and it will not bear as much disturbance 
 as it does in the animal. The predominance of 
 man's intellectual life is a factor in the case as well 
 as the amount of integration. But it suffices for our 
 present purposes to remark the increase of inte- 
 gration and differentiation as the complexity of the 
 organism increases. So much for the physiological. 
 But it is not in organic life alone that we find this 
 process manifesting itself. The same law is appar- 
 ent in social and political institutions, though the 
 integration has hardly developed pari passu with 
 differentiation. With the growth in complexity of 
 the social system, which has been caused partly by 
 the density of population, partly by the complexity 
 and solidarity of economic interests and general rec- 
 iprocity between individuals and communities, and 
 partly by the territorial extension of government, 
 there has gone a constant multiplication of the 
 agencies necessary to perform functions which 
 would either overtax the central power or threaten 
 the individual with its mischievous influence. Il- 
 lustrations of this process are the tribe with 
 its single absolute ruler, then the larger com- 
 munity with administrative appointees under 
 the king, and lastly the modern state with 
 its executive, legislative, and judicial heads, and 
 various commissions and administrative subordi- 
 
108 DEMOCRACY 
 
 nates. In this country, for instance, we have first 
 federal and state governments, and each with their 
 executive, legislative, and judicial departments. 
 Then subordinate to the state are the county and 
 township political agencies. On the other hand, the 
 integration has not been so great. The various 
 agencies mentioned do not exhibit that relation of 
 subordination of one to another that is necessary to 
 central efficiency and control. They are all more or 
 less independent of each other, with no responsibil- 
 ity except to the people who have long pockets and 
 short memories. They have been organised mostly 
 on the idea of ^^ checks and balances," and so do not 
 represent much integration. But that this integra- 
 tion has to some extent occurred, though only in a 
 different interpretation of the constitution, is appar- 
 ent in the development of federal centralisation and 
 authority since the foundation of the government. 
 The Civil War put a practical end to the extreme 
 States' Rights doctrine, which represented a logical 
 tendency to pure democracy and the referendum, 
 and the Interstate Commerce Commission and fed- 
 eral interference in the Chicago riots indicate which 
 way the development tends. But this tendency does 
 not express itself in anything institutional, and be- 
 sides it is largely counteracted by the usurpations of 
 Congress and the democratic jealousy of executive 
 power, which is made formidable by its want of re- 
 sponsibility. The main difficulty, however, is the 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 109 
 
 fact that there is no provision for an automatic and 
 elastic supply of agencies to meet the situation 
 created by the increasing complexity of the social 
 system. Political institutions have not kept pacej 
 with the integration and differentiation manifested / 
 in the economic world. We have been forced to 
 apply the principle to some extent, but have been 
 governed too much by the conception of ^^ checks 
 and balances " to see the way out of our perplexities. 
 These instances of integration and differentiation 
 in structure and function, taken from both the or- 
 ganic and the social world, suffice to indicate the 
 law of progress as I have stated it. Students of poli- 
 tics are perhaps familiar enough with it as a fact, 
 and I have not called attention to it as a new or un- 
 known circumstance, but as a law wdiich requires to 
 become the conscious principle upon which to base, 
 or by which to regulate, political reforms. But this 
 proposition to adopt as a regulative principle of po- 
 litical institutions the law of evolutionary progress 
 must be accepted with some caution. The explana- 
 tion and illustration of the law may appear to be 
 arguing from the physical to the moral, from the 
 organic to the political world. It is objected that 
 such a procedure assumes that society is an organ- 
 ism, when as a matter of fact the identity between 
 an animal organism and society is merely metaphor- 
 ical. I agree that we cannot argue from the organic 
 to the social world in this way. I should even go 
 
110 DEMOCRACY 
 
 farther and maintain that no greater illusion can be 
 entertained than the belief that we can construct a 
 political theory solely upon the phenomena of or- 
 ganic life. The difference between animal organ- 
 isms and social communities is almost immeasurable. 
 There are very striking and important resemblances, 
 but there are also essential differences which make 
 it impossible to reason from one to the other. On 
 this account it is best not to apply the term ^^ organ- 
 ism " to the two sets of phenomena at the same time. 
 It has a different meaning in each case. It would 
 be better to call the animal an " organism " and so- 
 ciety an " organisation," though the latter term is 
 also equivocal in that it applies so frequently to vol- 
 untary and artificial combinations of men that it 
 might be taken to imply that society is only Thomas 
 Jefferson's social contract, which had to be renewed 
 every generation in order to make government le- 
 gitimate. But whether we can use this or any other 
 term without misunderstanding or not, it ought to 
 be evident that organic life and social bodies are so 
 different that it is dangerous to apply the principles 
 of one to the other without independent proof that 
 they are common laws of both realms. Society is 
 a collective whole : an animal is what I shall call an 
 organic whole. J^ow a collective whole is a group 
 of homogeneous units, individuals of the same kind: 
 an organic whole is a group of heterogeneous units, 
 individuals of a different kind, if we are entitled to 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 111 
 
 call it a group at all. It is constituted by parts which 
 we call membersj and we also call the individuals 
 constituting a community members of it. But the 
 units in a community can be classed as alike, essen- 
 tially alike each other, while the members of an 
 organism are distinctly unlike each other. Besides 
 making one to consist of homogeneous, and the other 
 of heterogeneous parts, the essential difference can 
 also be indicated in the fact that an organic whole 
 is spatially continuous, a collective whole not 
 spatially continuous. The members of the former 
 have no individual existence apart from the whole, 
 those of the latter can have an existence independent 
 of the collective group. The difference can also be 
 expressed by saying that an organic whole is an in- 
 dividual unit acting as an indivisible body, the parts 
 being merely spatial divisions : society is a collective 
 group of organic wholes, the parts being individual 
 units with an independent existence of their own. 
 This distinction, therefore, between organic and col- 
 lective wholes explains why it is not possible to rea- 
 son from one to the other. Neither have I done this 
 nor do I intend that it shall be done. I have been 
 careful to show that the law of integration and dif- 
 ferentiation actually occurs in both realms instead 
 of finding it in one and then trying to prove from 
 its existence in the organic that we ought to act on 
 its assumption in the social and political world. On 
 the contrary, it has been found to exist as a univer- 
 
112 DEMOCRACY 
 
 sal law of progress, and consequently the argument 
 is not from one class of phenomena to another quite 
 different in nature, but is for a more distinct and 
 conscious recognition of a method which has been 
 too much ignored for that of " checks and balances.'' 
 Such division of labor as has taken place in the past 
 has been little conscious of the principle on which 
 it has proceeded, while the idea determining con- 
 scious effort at reform has been that of Hobbes 
 minus the king. This led merely to a transfer of 
 power from one authority to another without any 
 regard to differentiation of functions, on the one 
 hand, or to responsibility of an efficient form, on 
 the other. That is to say, we have complained of 
 arbitrary power in the hands of a king and turned it 
 over to the mob of the legislature, with the elector- 
 ate a prey to every demagogue who wishes to play 
 upon its passions and ignorance. The distribution of 
 powers and duties incidental to the evolution of the 
 system has hardly been aware at all of the founda- 
 tion upon which it rested and no attention has been 
 paid to their subordination to some adequate court 
 of responsibility. Usually institutional changes or 
 modifications have been suggested by some specific 
 problem, witness the Interstate Commerce Commis- 
 sion, where the existing agency was overburdened, 
 and no regard was made to the general principle in- 
 volved, or to the complementary changes necessary 
 to obtain the desired results. That is to say, the 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 113 
 
 differentiation of function is adopted without the 
 required integration, and progress is too slow. 
 
 But whether this last statement be true or not, it 
 is certain that the law of integration and differentia- 
 tion as exhibited in both the organic and the politi- 
 cal world, incompletely in the latter, is the general 
 principle of progress, and that political students 
 must adopt it as the conscious and regulative idea 
 upon which proposed reforms are to be based. If this 
 assumption can be made, we have the major prem- 
 ise upon which to proceed in our practical efforts. 
 We have onlv to see that our concrete measures con- 
 form "rightly to our general principle. But that po- 
 litical development has not kept pace with the re- 
 quirements of this law is very clearly evinced by 
 a variety of facts. In the first place, the contrast 
 between political conditions and those of our eco- 
 nomic institutions, which have been free to adjust 
 themselves to natural law, is very marked. Organi- 
 sation has reached a high degree of perfection in the 
 industrial world. The combination of capital and 
 the division of labor have proceeded upon an enor- 
 mous scale, and have even excited strong jealousy 
 and opposition on the part of interests less organised. 
 This concentration of economic forces, on the one 
 hand, and the division of labor, on the other, have 
 shown themselves in all large organisations of busi- 
 ness, which are simply governments in parvo. 
 Large railway corporations, monopolies and trusts. 
 
114 DEMOCRACY 
 
 our vast department stores, immense manufacto- 
 ries, and similar bodies of industrial and commercial 
 importance are instances of the kind in view. They 
 are integrations or combinations of capital under a 
 central authority with large and untrammelled 
 powers, and differentiated into divisions or depart- 
 ments with complete responsibility to a chief. They 
 are perfect little kingdoms, and their success is due 
 partly to their economic value and partly, perhaps 
 mostly, to the large powers and intelligence of the 
 central management which has been left free to de- 
 velop according to the necessities of the case. The 
 evils that are incident to them are not due to their 
 nature and method of organisation, but to the sys- 
 tem of politics which enables certain classes of them 
 to obtain legislative favour and protection. The in- 
 stitutions of government have not kept pace with 
 I these organisations. As independent evidence of 
 Vthis view I may quote Mr. Godkin's Problems of 
 Democracy. Speaking of the practical working of 
 our political machinery, he says: ^^ In all these 
 things we are trying to meet the burden and re- 
 sponsibilities of much older societies with the ma- 
 chinery of a much earlier and simpler state of things. 
 It is high time to halt in this progress until our ad- 
 ministrative system has been brought up to the 
 level of our present requirements." If only politi- 
 cal methods could be made as elastic as the industrial 
 and economic conditions our problems could be more 
 
THE NATURE OF THE rROBLEAT 115 
 
 easily solved. This is to some extent the case in 
 England. There we find no written constitution to 
 hamper adjustment to new conditions. Parliament 
 and the Ministry, subject to their responsibility to 
 the crown, have the matter of adjustment entirely 
 in their own hands. Political conditions are as elas- 
 tic as the industrial. Political machinery need be 
 no more antiquated than public opinion. But the 
 political inertia in this country preventing the 
 prompt integration and differentiation of function 
 is due partly to the necessity of conforming to 
 a written constitution and partly to the jealousy 
 against sovereign powers in the hands of the ex- 
 ecutive. This jealousy succeeds in limiting the 
 exercise of executive authority just where it is 
 needed, instead of trying to leave it free to 
 act with responsibility. Its action is limited or 
 prohibited rather than made responsible. Re- 
 sponsibility is consistent with the freedom to act 
 while it limits only such actions as the properly con- 
 stituted authorities may regard as incompatible 
 with public welfare. Furthermore, this jealousy of 
 the executive, following the policy and precedents 
 of the reaction against Hobbes, only succeeds in in- 
 vesting either the legislature or the electorate with / 
 the powers denied to the executive and which their \ 
 nature as deliberative assemblies makes unwieldy, i 
 and in the absence of constitutional machinery for 
 adjusting government to new conditions, no ade-j 
 
116 DEMOCRACY 
 
 quate differentiation of functions can be instituted 
 without resistance from the legislature which tends 
 to usurp the powers of both the executive and the 
 electorate. Nothing is more evident than the tyr- 
 anny of our democratic legislatures, and there is 
 no way to restrict their power: for constitutional 
 amendments and changes must first pass through the 
 hands of the legislature itself. Consequently, when 
 they assume or possess the omnipotent powers of 
 government, which either they, or the constitution, 
 or public opinion refuses to the executive, there is 
 no method by which they can be made adequately 
 responsible. What is wanted, therefore, is a more 
 thorough application of the law of evolution to poli- 
 
 1 tics, both theoretical and practical. This law, which 
 I have shown to be the integration and differentia- 
 tion of function in correspondence with the increas- 
 ing complexity of the social ^' organism," involves 
 a further division of labor with fewer ^' checks and 
 balances," and an attempt to establish better condi- 
 tions of responsibility. The general plan by which 
 
 'this can be effected will be discussed in the next 
 chapter, but to summarise it the method involves 
 three considerations of a practical kind. They are : 
 (1) A division of the present executive functions so 
 as to enlarge them in one direction and to curtail 
 them in another. (2) The division of legislative 
 functions in a way to relieve the present bodies of 
 impossible duties. (3) The establishment of an in- 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 117 
 
 dependent inhibitive agency which will secure ade- 
 quate responsibility in both the executive and the 
 legislative branches of government. 
 
 The history of both theoretical and practical poli- 
 tics shows the need of some such modifications of our 
 institutional methods. On the one hand, the un- 
 wieldy nature of the present burdens and the per- 
 plexity of the problems which our present machin- 
 ery is called upon to solve make necessary a further 
 distribution of duties. I^either the legislature nor 
 the electorate is qualified to perform the tasks im- 
 posed upon it, and the executive is neither permitted 
 nor able to do it. Between the constitutional 
 disqualifications of the executive and the moral dis- 
 qualifications of the legislative power the tendency 
 seems to be straight toward chaos, and every one is 
 afraid to entrust the executive with the power to/ 
 organise a way out. In the absence of responsibil- 
 ity for such power this jealousy is legitimate enough. 
 Here we have to meet the fundamental difiiculty 
 w^hich every one feels with the theory of Hobbes. 
 We found that he made freedom and irresponsibil- 
 ity of action convertible, and proceeding upon that 
 assumption ever since we have found no alternative 
 between accepting despotism and refusing all power 
 and freedom to act at all. Afraid of central powers 
 we decentralise everything, and think because we 
 establish a policy which has a logical tendency to- 
 ward chaos that we are sustaining the moral liberty 
 
118 DEMOCRACY 
 
 and rights of man. But if we can distinguish be- 
 tween the abstract and the concrete conception of 
 sovereignty; that is, between the idea that there 
 must be some irresponsibility somewhere, whether 
 in society as a whole or in certain functionaries, and 
 the idea that all irresponsibility shall be in the exec- 
 utive, we may be able to solve our problem. JSTow 
 Hobbes, as we saw, did not distinguish between the 
 abstract irresponsibility of the state and the concrete 
 irresponsibility of the executive: in other words, 
 the sovereign and ^^ sovereignty " were combined 
 so that the powers and duties of government could 
 be exercised only on the condition that they were 
 irresponsible. In trying to avoid the dangers of this 
 doctrine, however, we have resorted to limitation or 
 prohibition of power instead of its responsibility. 
 But if we can only separate the idea of freedom to 
 act from that of irresponsibility we can find a way 
 out of the difficulty. The successful use of federal 
 authority in certain important emergencies, on the 
 one hand, and the existence of at least a large meas- 
 ure of free power to act in the case of certain admin- 
 istrative subordinates connected with responsibility, 
 on the other, are facts that might suggest a method 
 by which a proper adjustment of freedom and re- 
 sponsibility could be combined in the executive au- 
 thority of democracy. The freedom which I have 
 in mind here is perfectly consistent with responsi- 
 bility, but not with limitation, and had politics tried 
 
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 119 
 
 to determine this responsibility bj other means than 
 short and elective tenure, the one limiting absolute 
 power by time and the other by its transference, we 
 might have escaped the necessary tendencies toward 
 anarchy inherent in the exaggerated jealousy of ex- 
 ecutive power. Such power requires to be condi- 
 tioned, not prohibited, but the best way to do it is 
 to divide its duties, leaving each functional agent 
 freer than the executive is at present from either 
 the interference or the co-operation of co-ordinate 
 branches of government. Thus, for example, the 
 enormous powers of the executive which are so much 
 dreaded by democracy might be divided and dis- 
 tributed, so that the function of appointment only 
 shall belong to it and that of removal to another, es- 
 tablishing what I shall call an inhibitive agency in 
 government, equal in importance to the executive 
 and legislative and subordinating them to it. In 
 this way we could carry out the great law of evolu- 
 tion and recognise what is true in the speculative 
 theory of Hobbes; namely, the efficiency of im- 
 perialism for preventing the tendency of individual- 
 ism to anarchy. The doctrine of absolute sover- 
 eignty, aside from its abstract necessity somewhere 
 in pure theory, contains a practical truth of great 
 value. The form of it which satisfies this practical 
 conception is our Supreme Court, as I shall show 
 again, but which represents this sovereignty only in 
 a negative way. Here we have irresponsibility, but 
 
120 DEMOCRACY 
 
 not in the exercise of positive power. Hobbes was 
 right in his idea that government in order to be ef- 
 ficient and successful must represent great central 
 power, and it was only a misfortune that he did not 
 see, and that the political and intellectual condition 
 of his time did not permit or suggest the propriety 
 of organising a method of attaching responsibility 
 to what is known as the " sovereign " or executive 
 power. In the attempt to reach the responsibility 
 which every one saw was necessary development 
 turned tow^ard the doctrine and practice of constitu- 
 tional limitations of power and various '^ checks and 
 balances '' with incidental and imperfect differen- 
 tiation of function. This latter process, minus that 
 application of the principle of " checks and bal- 
 ances " which represented a mere transfer of irre- 
 sponsible power to a number of bodies, requires 
 further development, while it is equally imperative 
 that we find means to extend executive authority 
 without encountering its dangers. Is this possi- 
 ble? The answ^er to this question will be attempted 
 in the next chapter. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 PRACTICAL EEMEDIES 
 
 I have indicated in the discussion on the nature 
 of the problem that the direction of political reforms 
 should be that of integrating and differentiating the 
 functions of government, and of increasing the pow- 
 ers of the executive. I should also contemplate de- 
 cided modifications of the power and influence of the 
 legislature, though not by conferring them upon 
 the executive. This proposition, however, will seem 
 like proposing a reaction toward monarchical types 
 of government, though the differentiation of the 
 functions hitherto invested in the executive as a fact 
 actually discards this tendency. But anything like 
 a proposition to extend executive powers will appear 
 to rush in the face of the determined jealousy 
 against such increased powers as a restitution of the 
 despised past, and hence to be foredoomed to repudi- 
 ation without ceremony or consideration. The coun- 
 ter-proposition to institute a method of responsibil- 
 ity while conceding more influence to the executive 
 ought to dispel illusion and alarm on this matter, at 
 least until it is examined. Hence it is only fair to 
 
 121 
 
122 DEMOCRACY 
 
 demand some patience with the suggestion until the 
 scheme has been fully presented. But I am aware 
 that the momentum of the jealousy and suspicion 
 against arbitrary power so long associated with the 
 idea of a strong executive has a persistency w^hich 
 the present theory must face, though these feelings 
 in the present condition of democratic development 
 are only the demagogue's capital which he uses to 
 shield his own underground projects and irresponsi- 
 bility. Is^evertheless, in spite of the natural preju- 
 dices which such a proposition will excite I make 
 bold at the very outset to say that my fundamental 
 principle involves a vast extension of executive in- 
 fluence over the functions of government, and a cor- 
 responding limitation of the legislative, even though 
 this proposition be qualified by a new method of re- 
 sponsibility. Moreover I also recognise that the 
 suggested remedies are not in the direction of those 
 which present public opinion is inclined to adopt; 
 namely, the referendum and the initiative, as the 
 remedy for the same evils of which I have to com- 
 plain. The measures that I have to propose are, to 
 some extent at least, directly away from the tenden- 
 cies of democracy for a century while the referen- 
 dum and the initiative are simply its logical develop- 
 ment. 
 
 But I am not going to discuss the problem with 
 the intention of preventing the occurrence of the 
 referendum: for I recognise that it is most probably 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 128 
 
 the policy whicli will be tried, to some extent at 
 least, in tlie near fntiire, and I am inclined also to 
 think that democracy should run the logical course 
 of its development as the best and conclusive test of 
 its capacity or incapacity to solve the political prob- 
 lem. It is probable also that this tendency could 
 not be prevented from pushing itself forward to its 
 natural consequences, no matter how great its real or 
 imaginary evils. It is certain that the law of history 
 in politics has been to pass from one extreme to the 
 other. This is true in every department of human 
 activity, whether in literature, philosophy, religion, 
 or politics. Moreover, the various social and moral 
 forces represented in the hostility to imperial power 
 in any but the electors themselves and in the indi- 
 viduaFs supreme confidence in his ability to govern 
 both himself and the w^orld show that men will not 
 easily relinquish the presumed advantages of democ- 
 racy. He still insists upon pursuing his encroach- 
 ments upon the powers of government without ever 
 reflecting that the evils of which he complains in bad 
 legislatures and rulers are the direct results of his 
 own action. He insists upon electing his own rulers 
 and when his prayer has been granted he still clings 
 to the tradition that the ^^ king " is to blame and 
 not himself for his troubles. The momentum of an 
 idea or principle will not always stop at the discovery 
 of grievances. AYhen some political failure appears 
 the habit of throwing the responsibility upon the 
 
124 DEMOCRACY 
 
 government leads the individual to suppose that he 
 has not wholly purified the past from its power to do 
 evil, and flushed with victory over despotism and 
 supremely confident in himself he will not suspect 
 the weakness of democracy until, having abolished 
 all rulers, he has no one except himself to blame for 
 anarchy. As long as representative rulers exist they 
 can be made the scape-goats for evils for which the 
 citizen is loth to accept the responsibility himself. 
 Hence the natural and logical tendency will be to try 
 the referendum and initiative as the last resource of 
 democracy against political corruption and tyranny ; 
 and for one I cannot hope to prevent their develop- 
 ment by any proposition that I can offer. Present 
 tendencies in that direction are too strong to be 
 counteracted by an attempt to strengthen the execu- 
 tive, though qualified by a method of responsibility 
 that deprives the traditional prejudice against it of 
 cogency. 
 
 There are facts, however, which favour as well as 
 indicate this tendency of society to directly govern 
 itself. l!^ot only is the fear of centralised power 
 quite justified when we consider that in the present 
 condition of politics it is practically irresponsible, to 
 correct which has been the intention of the entire 
 democratic development, however defective its 
 method may be regarded; but the corruption and 
 tyranny of the legislature is so great that there seems 
 to be no escape from them except by granting the 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 125 
 
 electorate a direct voice in legislation as a substitute 
 for the representative system. It is worth remark- 
 ing, however, that the hostility to large powers in 
 the hands of a single person is only feigned by the 
 politician and is artificial and inconsistent among the 
 people : for it is irresponsible power that the politi- 
 cian is always seeking and the voters, while repeat- 
 ing the old phrases against kings and despots, blindly 
 hand over to men whom they ought to hang and 
 quarter the powers which would only excite hys- 
 terics if the possessor of them were called a king. 
 These voters cry out against monarchies, but say 
 and do nothing when they are governed by political 
 " bosses " and machines, which represent irrespon- 
 sible power of the very worst kind, because, in ad- 
 dition to being absolute, it has no constitutional 
 legitimacy. This situation only necessitates the 
 conclusion that things should take their natural 
 course. But this jealousy of executive power and 
 its freedom is after all not the natural propensity of 
 the electorate as a whole, but it is an artificial culti- 
 vation of the politician, who wishes to divert sus-, 
 picion from his own deeds to the constituted powers 
 and to usurp them in a form that cannot be reached 
 by the law. The electorate is naturally willing to 
 see strong government if only it is well administered, 
 but the demagogue, finding himself thwarted in his 
 nefarious schemes, seeks to avenge himself by sim- 
 ulating deference to public opinion, invoking prej- 
 
126 DEMOCRACY 
 
 udice against power in rulers, and encouraging tlie 
 voters' confidence in their own omniscience, all the 
 while covering up his own jobbery and rascality by 
 surreptitiously securing governors who will let him 
 alone. But this deference to public opinion, which 
 is the logical and necessary assumption of democ- 
 racy, in form at least, only encourages the masses to 
 believe that their own judgment is final and trust- 
 worthy in the most complicated affairs of govern- 
 ment. This is true in respect to the ends of govern- 
 ment. But it has not been the policy of limited 
 monarchies, nor even of so-called democracies or re- 
 publics hitherto representative, to defer anything 
 to the electorate except the choice of legislators or 
 rulers. The habit, however, of ascertaining public 
 opinion, of pretending when convenient that one is 
 only a representative of it and then ignoring it when 
 possible, only increases the distrust of the men who 
 thrive on abuses of their political power and stimu- 
 lates popular confidence in the direct control of leg- 
 islation. Moreover the whole policy of democracy 
 in the past when confronted with bad rulers has been 
 to take over to itself the powers that had been 
 abused, and hence when the compromise with mon- 
 archy, which the representative system was supposed 
 to be, has failed to work the precedents are in favour 
 of the referendum, so that if any concession is made 
 to the idea of governmental intermediaries at all it 
 will represent only the function of registering the 
 popular decrees. 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 127 
 
 Then again both the anarchy and the tyranny of 
 our legislatures point in the same direction. They 
 were intended primarily to be deliberative assem- 
 blies where debate is supposed to be free and ra- 
 tional, and where voting can be reached after a 
 reasonable amount of time has been allowed for 
 deliberation and discussion. But the majority of 
 our legislatures are either constituted or controlled 
 by men who either cannot or dare not discuss the 
 measures proposed by them. They maintain silence 
 against all reason and vote submissively in obedi- 
 ence to a " boss/' or they open their mouths only to 
 obstruct legislation and to make a ^^ strike." The 
 consequence is that our assemblies have come to the ' 
 pass where they must either cease to be deliberative 
 bodies and put themselves under the ^^ sovereign '' 
 power of the Speaker, a pretty pass for democracy, or 
 place themselves at the mercy of the unscrupulous 
 minority. This power of obstruction has no limits 
 except either revolution or the autocratic authority 
 of the Speaker, which is virtually a revolution 
 against democracy. Either this power of the minor- 
 ity to obstruct legislation and to prevent the ma- 
 jority from carrying its measures by exacting con- 
 cessions to the ^^ strikers " must be ruthlessly put 
 down, or the government is conducted by the minor- 
 ity. In either way the legislature becomes as tyran-' 
 nical as the institutions against which the people j 
 claimed the franchise. But not being inclined to 
 
128 DEMOCRAVY 
 
 return to anything called monarchy, though there 
 may he something worse than this in the autocratic 
 powers of the Speaker, there is no escape from both 
 this and the worse tyranny of the legislature except 
 the referendum. Moreover, the constant encroach- 
 ments of the legislative upon the executive power, 
 with the politician's hollow and hypocritical obse- 
 quiousness to the ignorant masses whose prejudices 
 he crowns with the dignified title of public opinion, 
 leads in the same direction. In fact, the whole ma- 
 chinery of politics with its clubs, mass-meetings, 
 organised bodies for the expression of individual in- 
 terests, and all forms of pressure brought to bear 
 upon representatives are so many concessions to the 
 principle of the referendum, and leave our rulers 
 nominally no other functions than those of clerks, 
 though really it implies that in all matters not so 
 expressly limited by promises to the electorate free 
 reins are given to every form of political debauch- 
 ery. The referendum is consequently the natural 
 and logical outcome of present conditions. I am 
 far from saying, however, that it will not be better 
 than the method of conducting our present soi- 
 clisant government. In fact, I can conceive that 
 much would be better done by the referendum than 
 it is now by men who are nothing but knaves in 
 their business. Honest men who are intelligent 
 enough to know that government of the proper sort 
 cannot be determined by the off-hand judgments 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 129 
 
 of the multitude do not want office at tlie price of 
 sacrificing their knowledge, and with the majority 
 of their compeers engaged in corruption of some 
 kind, if they did secure office neither their judg- 
 ment nor their votes would count for anything in 
 the system of blackmail and tyranny that make up 
 our average legislature's work. The referendum 
 might put an end to some of these things. It would 
 undoubtedly make some things harder that are now 
 easy. It is more than probable, however, that cor- 
 ruption would find means by which to gain its end 
 as it does in manipulating elections. 
 
 The problem of good government is to elect the 
 intelligent and honest man to administer it, and to 
 give him the power to do it when he is found. The 
 policy of the past, as I have shown, has been to es- 
 tablish such a system of limitations and obstacles to 
 efficient action that the suitable man when elected 
 could accomplish little or nothing where real gov- 
 ernment was required. Some process of selection, 
 natural or otherwise, should be secured by which the 
 proper men might be obtained and then invested 
 with the power to act. The condition, however, 
 upon which freedom to act shall be granted must be 
 some adequate method of determining responsibil- 
 ity other than an ignorant electorate. If this cannot 
 be done I admit that such power would not be desir- 
 able. But it is certain that the present system does 
 not secure it as needed, and equally certain it is, 
 
130 DEMOCRACY 
 
 from the irresponsible conduct of our legislatures, 
 that everything which can be said against monarchy 
 or hereditary institutions on this account can be 
 said against the referendum. The benefits claimed 
 for it in Switzerland are to say the very least quite 
 dubious, and many regard it as in reality a failure 
 even there. Such good results as have accompanied 
 its application in that country may not have been 
 due to the referendum as a method, but to other cir- 
 cumstances altogether, such as the fortunate coin- 
 cidence between the natural conservatism of the 
 common people and their knowledge of the special 
 case. Quite as often, however, this conservatism 
 has prevented reforms and improvements that more 
 intelligence would have unhesitatingly adopted. 
 But, admitting its success in Switzerland for the 
 sake of argument, neither the economic nor the so- 
 cial conditions in that country are to be compared 
 with the same in America and hence precedents of 
 that kind can hardly have much weight. But even 
 in Switzerland the largest part of the public business 
 of state is not administered by the referendum; the 
 distrust of popular sovereignty that is shown in the 
 election of any ofiicers at all proves some limits to 
 the usefulness of the referendum, not to say any- 
 thing of the time, intelligence, and moral will re- 
 quired to solve many of the social and political prob- 
 lems of civilisation. The referendum may be quite 
 satisfactory for determining the most general prin- 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 131 
 
 ciples of political policy, but it is not qualified to de- 
 termine administrative methods nor to select the 
 best agents for effecting good government. People 
 occupied with their private affairs, domestic and 
 social, demanding all their resources and attention, 
 as a rule have little time and often less intelligence 
 than is necessary to solve the complex problems of 
 national life. The referendum is a call to perform 
 all the duties of the profoundest statesmanship in 
 addition to private obligations which are even much 
 more than the average man can fulfil with any suc- 
 cess or intelligence at all, and hence it can hardly 
 produce anything better than the Athenian assem- ^ 
 blies which terminated in anarchy. Of course it • 
 might put a stop to mass-meetings every week which 
 have to be called together in the present system in 
 order to frighten public officers into the performance 
 of their duties and to prevent legislation that is no 
 better than piracy: but it will not secure dispatch 
 except at the expense of civilisation nor deliberation 
 except at the expense of intelligence. Very few 
 questions can be safely left to its councils and these 
 only of the most general kind. A tribunal that can j 
 be so easily deceived as the electorate can be in com- ' 
 mon elections certainly cannot be trusted to decide 
 intelligently the graver and more complicated ques- 
 tions of public finance, of private property, of ad- 
 ministration, and of justice. It may be honest and 
 mean w^ell, as I believe it would be; but such an 
 
 7 
 
132 DEMOCRACY 
 
 institution cannot govern., and it is government tliat 
 tlie majoritj of mankind need, provided that it is 
 wise and jnst, and this means as little interference 
 as possible with the rights and liberties of the citi- 
 zens. Most men are as willino; as thev find it neces- 
 sary to delegate the power to administer the func- 
 tions of government if only they have the proper 
 guarantee that justice shall be executed. The ref- 
 erendum is only a confession or a p^oof that this 
 guarantee has not been secured. 
 
 Moreover, it is important to observe that when- 
 ever the referendum is applied, as it is in certain 
 constitutional and other matters, it exhibits an as- 
 tonishing amount of indifference on the part of the 
 voters. In many cases the vote does not suffice to 
 carry even the reforms that intelligent public opin- 
 ion demands. It is true that most of the cases in 
 this country, in which the appeal is made to the 
 referendum, are instances like the adoption of a 
 charter or constitution, amendments thereto, or 
 some matter involving a public improvement, c^on- 
 stitutional instruments involve extremely abstract 
 questions and excite as little interest as they require 
 great intelligence to settle them rightly. But this 
 lack of interest shows either that the constituency is 
 not qualified for the duties imposed by the referen- 
 dum, or that it does not value the privilege which it 
 is supposed to confer, and hence it can only result in 
 leaving everything to the few who are interested in 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 133 
 
 government problems. If this few represent the 
 honest and intelligent classes the government will 
 be good, but otherwise if the balance of power falls 
 into the hands of knaves or fools. But the uninter- 
 esting character of constitutional problems is no ex- 
 cuse for the average voter, nor a reply to my accu- 
 sation against the referendum. It only proves my 
 contention. For, if our form of government be the 
 correct one constitutional instruments are the most 
 important part of it and should awaken a corre- 
 sponding interest when proposed for consideration. 
 But the majority of mankind are not often inter- 
 ested in abstract questions of this kind, and even 
 when they are they are not qualified to pronounce 
 judgment upon them. They are more attracted by 
 personalities than by abstract principles, and this 
 fact alone shows both that they prefer to be gov- 
 erned and that they do not care for constitutions if 
 they are rightly governed. In this matter their in- 
 stincts are correct : for government does not depend 
 mainly upon machinery, but upon the kind of men 
 who administer it. Machinery may be necessary, 
 but it works well or ill according to the honesty, 
 skill, and intelligence of the men who run it. 
 Hence hero-worship has its value if only the citizen 
 is able to choose his hero wisely. His primary in- 
 terests are in other matters than politics. In fact, it 
 may just as w^ell be recognised once for all that the 
 large majority of mankind do not naturally care a 
 
134 DEMOCRACY 
 
 picayune for what are called political questions, and 
 can be goaded into it only by the necessity of taking 
 part in politics for the sake of having social order of 
 some kind, or by the alarms of some demagogue 
 who has an axe to grind or a personal pique to sat- 
 isfy against government. Jobbery and the spoils of 
 office may easily be covered up under the pretence 
 of saving one's country. A man may seem very 
 patriotic for throwing a foreigner's tea overboard, 
 but patriotism may be a cloak for controlling the 
 market, and those who dance must pay the piper. 
 Those who are unselfishly interested in civilisation 
 and progress will always devote a fair share of time 
 and energy to public duties and social welfare, more 
 especially when the form of political constitution 
 imposes this responsibility. But the primary in- 
 stincts of the majority turn to domestic and social 
 life with their occupations and pleasures, and unless 
 forced to it by some real or imaginary danger to pri- 
 vate rights eschew politics as of the devil. The 
 kind of men who usually direct them are a complete 
 justification of this feeling. In fact, there are just 
 two subjects which are tabooed by all polite conver- 
 sation: they are religion and politics. Both are 
 affiicted with that bigotry and intolerance which so- 
 cial and humane beings cannot endure, and politics 
 adds to its burden of disrepute that contempt which 
 intelligent and free men have for all those who are 
 perpetually currying personal favours under the 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 135 
 
 guise of devoting themselves to the welfare of the 
 public. Besides, his private affairs are all that the 
 average man can undertake to manage, whether well 
 or ill, and a very large number cannot manage these 
 with any success, not to say anything of the more 
 delicate and complicated problems of government. 
 It is only the nondescripts and failures in other 
 forms of business, or men with personal ambitions to 
 satisfy, that run after office to live at the expense of 
 the public. The referendum, therefore, only 
 threatens to increase the citizen's responsibilities 
 without increasing his ability to perform, and inas- 
 much as the widest extension of it compatible with 
 organisation at all will not escape the necessity of 
 police and executive agents and centralisation of 
 some kind, I do not see that it can be utilised for 
 any purpose except to abolish the scandals of legisla- 
 tive fraud and tyranny by transferring the scoun- 
 drel's resources to the management of the mob. It 
 may be something to destroy the rottenness of our 
 legislatures by depriving them of their power, but 
 this does not dispense with the necessity of efficient 
 and intelligent deliberative assemblies, while the 
 referendum can only open wide the door to all the 
 turbulent elements of democracy. Once concede to 
 the masses the right of voting directly on legislation 
 of all kinds affecting the delicate political and eco- 
 nomic problems of civilisation and ignorance and 
 brute force, combined with the envy of intelligence 
 
 I 
 
136 DEMOCRACY 
 
 and success, which De Toqueville says is the fatal 
 vice of democracies, will hold the balance of power, 
 as they do now in general elections, and we can only 
 repeat the turbulent scenes of the ancient assem- 
 blies of Athens. 
 
 E'evertheless I shall not oppose the adoption of 
 the referendum and the initiative. They are, as I 
 have said, the logical consequences of democracy 
 and may have to be allowed to develop their course. 
 But what I have to propose in its place may be con- 
 sidered either as a reconstructive scheme to be ap- 
 plied after the referendum and the initiative have 
 been tried, or as a substitute for them which will be 
 more in accord with the very nature of successful 
 government. The policy which this substitute in- 
 volves, as the whole tone of this essay suggests, is the 
 increase of executive powers in some directions and 
 certain limitations of the duties of the legislative 
 bodies. Briefly, the plan is to enlarge the executive's 
 power of appointment, curtail its power of removal 
 by the establishment of an independent court of im- 
 peachment and removal, making this court the least 
 responsible agency in the system, with the exception 
 of the Supreme Court as at present, and modifying 
 ithe legislature's method of passing its laws. I intend 
 this court of removal to be the key to the whole sys- 
 tem of reform which I have to propose and shall dis- 
 cuss it in its place. But in the meantime I may refer 
 to an interesting physiological function which is the 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 137 
 
 best type of influence, by Avaj of analogy at least, 
 that suggests this agency. 
 
 This is the function of inhibition. In highly 
 organised beings the nervous system shows a unique 
 function called the inhibitive, and which co-ordi- 
 nates the action of all others, not so much by any 
 positive action of its own usurping theirs as by mere 
 prevention of overaction and disproportionate en- 
 ergy on the part of the others. In government we 
 have not yet succeeded in imitating this inhibitive 
 function. We have left both the positive and the 
 negative, the initiative and the inhibitive powers 
 in the hands of the executive, and naturally enough 
 we create jealousy against so dangerous a combina- 
 tion. But if we can divide or separate the initiative 
 and the inhibitive functions of government, so that 
 responsibility shall attach to the former more defi- 
 nitely than at present, we shall deprive this jealousy 
 of its excuse and need for vigilance, create a personal 
 motive for good government and enhance the effi- 
 ciency of the executive for better politics. The 
 scoundrel will never endure responsibility. The dis- 
 cussion of the system will show what value may at- 
 tach to the suggestion of an agency for making the 
 executive responsible, or amenable to public author- 
 ity. For the present we have only to keep in view 
 that its mere name is no safe indication of the part 
 which it may be made to play in good government. 
 The corollary proposals will be an application of the 
 
138 DEMOCRACY 
 
 differentiation of political functions witli some cor- 
 responding integration of them. 
 
 I have said that the problem of good government 
 is simply to secure the fit man and to qualify him 
 with adequate powers for the task. In other words, 
 it is to determine the method of combining power 
 and responsibility. But the solution of the problem 
 is not so easy as its statement. There are too many 
 facts to be taken into account to make the solution 
 an easy one. The complexity of social and economic 
 life makes the simplest form of government as im- 
 possible as it would be dangerous. Hence the need 
 of a division of labour, as it has been partly devel- 
 oped. But this differentiation of political functions, 
 as already remarked, has not kept pace with the same 
 process in the industrial and other agencies of mod- 
 ern civilisation. Though we have local govern- 
 ments, committees in Congress and our legislatures, 
 a commission for interstate commerce, campaign 
 committees, political conventions, etc., as necessary 
 means for preventing anarchy, yet there are no at- 
 tempts to modify executive and legislative functions 
 in a way to meet the demands upon them. On the 
 other hand, there are the omnipotence of Congress 
 and its committees, with their partisan politics, and 
 the small amount of knowledge for meeting their 
 responsibilities, the power of political machines to 
 put the voters between the devil and the deep sea in 
 the choice of public officials, the organisation of the 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 139 
 
 lobby, the incapacity of most voters to decide upon 
 the complicated problems of finance and politics and 
 their helplessness when they can decide upon them, 
 the limited influence of the executive and the cab- 
 inet upon legislation, the inadequate machinery for 
 securing intelligent and honest representatives, and 
 many other defects in our system of politics which 
 require a remedy. Mr. Godkin's recent book on 
 Unforeseen Tendencies of Democracy is a proof 
 of this accumulation of defects. One passage illus- 
 trating it and showing the tenor of the whole book 
 and the tendencies of politics will make this clear. 
 Speaking of the legislature, he says: 
 
 " If half the stories told about state legislatures 
 be true, a very large proportion of the members 
 meet, not with plans for the public good, but with 
 plans either for the promotion of their personal in- 
 terests, or for procuring money for party uses, or 
 places for party agents. 
 
 "' The collection of such a body of men, not en- 
 gaged in serious business, in the state capitol, is not 
 to be judged simply by the bills they introduce or 
 pass. We have also to consider the opportunities for 
 planning and scheming which the meetings offer to 
 political jobbers and adventurers; and the effect, on 
 such among them as still retain their political virtue, 
 of daily contact with men who are there simply for 
 illicit purposes, and with the swarm who live by 
 lobbying, and get together every winter in order to 
 
140 DEMOCRACY 
 
 trade in legislative votes. If I said, for instance, 
 that the legislature at Albany was a school of vice, a 
 fountain of political debauchery, and that few of the 
 younger men come back from it without having 
 learned to mock at political purity and public spirit, 
 I should seem to be using unduly strong language, 
 and yet I could fill nearly a volume with illustra- 
 tions in support of my charges. The temptation to 
 use their great power for the extortion of money 
 from rich men and rich corporations, to which the 
 legislatures in the richer and more prosperous 
 Northern states are exposed, is very great ; and the 
 legislatures are mainly composed of very poor men, 
 with no reputation to maintain, or political future to 
 look after. The result is that the country is filled 
 with stories of scandals after every adjournment, 
 and the press teems with abuse, which legislators 
 have learned to treat with silent contempt or ridi- 
 cule, so that there is no longer any restraint upon 
 them. Their re-election is not in the hands of the 
 public, but in those of the party managers, who, as 
 shown in the Payn case in New York, find that they 
 can completely disregard popular judgments on the 
 character or history of candidates." 
 
 This is a picture of only one side of legislative re- 
 sponsibility, while executive and other administra- 
 tive defects are not even mentioned in these accusa- 
 tions. But they come under consideration in the 
 course of the work. All of them show that simple 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 141 
 
 methods will not meet tlie case. One reform is not 
 enough, though this may be all that democratic 
 methods in their direct application can secure at 
 once. We require a whole articulated system of 
 them. In order, therefore, to satisfy the theoretical 
 requirements of the situation, providing an escape 
 from both monarchy and anarchy, one of which 
 must otherwise be the outcome of present tendencies, 
 I venture to suggest, perhaps a little audaciously, 
 such changes and additions in our present constitu- 
 tional system as may be classified under the follow- 
 ing heads. Explanation and discussion of them will 
 come in their order. 
 
 1. A permanent official class in subordinate ad- 
 ministrative positions: that is, civil service reform 
 extended to state and county governments, subject, 
 of course, to efficiency and good behaviour. 
 
 2. The establishment of a branch of government, 
 or court, for securing universal official responsibil- 
 ity, including both the executive and the legislative 
 functionaries, other than to the electorate. This 
 may be called a Court of Impeachment and Re- 
 moval. 
 
 3. The extension of executive powers of appoint- 
 ment and influence over legislation. Many officers 
 now elective could be made appointive. 
 
 4. The establishment of an agency partly for 
 limiting the abuse of executive powers in appoint- 
 ments and partly for preventing Congressional usur- 
 
142 DEMOCRACY 
 
 pations and interference in appointments by means 
 of political bargains and intimidation. 
 
 5. The adoption of the English system of rep- 
 resentation with some modifications in favour of 
 local conditions. 
 
 6. The further differentiation of legislative func- 
 tions so as to bring the duties of the legislature with- 
 in the limits of intelligent performance. 
 
 7. Compulsory service from all officials whether 
 appointed or elected. 
 
 8. The appointment of all judiciary incumbents. 
 
 9. The differentiation of the elective franchise. 
 Simply in outline these proposals look rather large 
 
 and formidable, and when the particulars and condi- 
 tions of their application are seen they will appear 
 still more formidable and radical, and the charge 
 will probably be made that they are not practicable 
 in the present state of public opinion. The probabil- 
 ity of such a criticism may just as well be anticipated 
 and met, because society is in the habit of doing but 
 one thing at a time in its attempts at reform. Com- 
 plicated readjustments of political institutions usu- 
 ally follow sudden revolutions, and are not easily ac- 
 complished in times of order. Hence I do not dis- 
 guise from myself, in any ignorant simplicity, the 
 audacious magnitude of the changes here proposed, 
 especially if it is imagined that there is any pretence 
 on my part that the scheme as a whole is immedi- 
 ately practicable, even if it be taken up and consid- 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 143 
 
 ered at all. The practical adoption of it might or 
 might not be possible according as men had or had 
 not the will to put it into effect. But it is undoubt- 
 edly too much to expect society all at once to adopt 
 some new and untried constitution, as this would be 
 accused of being, though this is not exactly the case, 
 because what is here suggested is nothing but the 
 adoption or modification of functions and institu- 
 tions already somewhere in use, excepting perhaps 
 the court of impeachment and removal, though I 
 shall undertake to show that even this is suggested 
 by some forms of actual practice in this country and 
 by certain features in the constitution of England. 
 As just said, reforms usually and rightly come one 
 at a time, since this method is best adapted to the 
 conditions of public intelligence. But when they 
 are wisely established it will generally be found that 
 they follow logically from some successful policy, 
 or institution already tried and found beneficial. 
 Hence there can be no harm in suggesting an artic- 
 ulated system of logical consequences from the bet- 
 ter principles of the social organism, at least for the 
 sake of theoretical completeness, just as if they 
 might be simultaneously applied, in order to see how 
 such a system will appear. Besides, this is a con- 
 venient way to show how complex the problem is 
 and how many reforms are necessary before any 
 proximate solution of the political questions of the 
 day can be obtained. "Whether it is practicable to 
 
144 DEMOCRACY 
 
 attain them all at once is not the question, nor even 
 whether any of them are immediately practicable, 
 but only whether, if adopted, they would help to 
 produce better government. Hence I am only en- 
 deavouring to outline methods which, in the light 
 of evolution and experience, might save a great deal 
 of reactionary speculation on the part of those who 
 are not satisfied with democratic institutions. Some 
 readers would be astonished if they knew how many 
 people say frankly that they believe a monarchy 
 would be better than our present methods of govern- 
 ment. But in my own conviction there are other 
 alternatives than the popular conception of mon- 
 archy and our present democracy. Theoretical elas- 
 ticity is not exhausted by the scholastic simplicity 
 of these two conceptions. The ingenuity of political 
 students ought to be able to devise any number of 
 schemes intermediate between these two extremes. 
 Certainly the remedy for present evils is not so 
 simple as the sympathisers with monarchy assume. 
 The problem is entirely too complex, as I have al- 
 ready asserted, for any single reform to solve, and 
 any man who expects political salvation short of 
 complicated changes does not understand his task. 
 The theoretical consideration of the whole complex 
 problem, therefore, will help to correct hasty infer- 
 ences in favour of obsolete or obsolescent forms of 
 government, and exhibit the tendencies of evolu- 
 tion along several coexistent lines. 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 145 
 
 Having conceded, then, that I entertain no illu- 
 sions in regard to the probable tendencies of democ- 
 racy toward the referendum and initiative and no 
 expectations regarding a speedy adoption of the sug- 
 gestions here made, I may proceed to discuss each 
 aspect of the scheme and its relation to every other 
 proposal. The system as an articulated whole will 
 come in for general consideration at the end. 
 
 The first measure proposed must not be misunder- 
 stood. Hence I have identified it with civil service 
 reform, not yet a fully accomplished fact anywhere, 
 and in state and county governments hardly thought 
 of at all. But it is important to guard against mis- 
 interpretation of the proposition to have a perma- 
 nent official class in the subordinate administrative 
 positions. It is not a demand for a permanent gov- 
 erning class. A permanent governing class after 
 the type of a hereditary monarchy is especially to be 
 avoided in the interests both of responsibility and of 
 adjustment to changed and changing social condi- 
 tions. But this is not the case with subordinate ofB.- 
 cers. They are responsible, on the one hand, and 
 are serviceable in proportion to their intelligence 
 and tenure of office, on the other. Hence the meas- 
 ure is only a demand for permanency of official 
 tenure for those whose work is clerical and subject 
 to the direction of administrative heads. It is sim- 
 ply a method of securing fidelity and capacity in the 
 fulfilment of duties not involving the organisation 
 
146 DEMOCRACY 
 
 of policies, but only the execution of the orders of 
 superiors. It applies natural selection to official ap- 
 pointments as this has been applied in industrial and 
 commercial occupations, and so realises one of the 
 laws of evolution upon which stress is here laid. 
 Consequently it is nothing more than what is known 
 as civil service reform, to be applied according to the 
 present intentions on the widest scale both in gen- 
 eral and local governments. 
 
 But since it is to some extent an accomplished fact 
 for the federal government, as evinced in President 
 Cleveland's recent extension of the merit system 
 and in the constitution of ^N^ew York state, and since 
 it commands the approval of all intelligent men, in 
 its main principles at least, it is not necessary to dis- 
 cuss it at length, or to give the reasons justifying it. 
 Its value may be assumed as self-evident. At any 
 rate, it has not been my intention to prove its merits 
 in proposing it as a condition of good government. 
 I have had an entirely different object in alluding 
 to it at all. This object has been to display or secure 
 the assumption which lies at the basis of civil service 
 reform, and which may serve as the key to all other 
 constitutional problems. Civil service reform when 
 secured is an admission and application of the idea 
 that goi^ernment can he successful only when iden- 
 tified with the service and amhitions of its hest men, 
 and when the mere politician, shorn of patronage 
 and its powers of mischief, is confined to his proper 
 
, PRAGTTCAL REMEDIES 147 
 
 duties. It is, therefore, the clearest concrete rep- 
 resentation of what the problem is and what must 
 be done to solve it, not so much by mere tenure 
 of office as by the application of intelligence and 
 honesty to the functions of government. 
 
 There are, however, other as23ects to civil service 
 reform that make it interesting in the study of the 
 problems of government. Its importance is a truism 
 to certain classes of men, but it is not suspected that 
 this importance is purely conditional upon the re- 
 tention of our present methods of politics. I have 
 said that its chief value lies in the assumption at the 
 basis of it; namely, that fitness should determine 
 the selection and tenure of men for office. But the 
 real nature of the problem involved is not under- 
 stood even by many of those who are in favour of it. 
 The more intelligent leaders of the movement in its 
 favour appreciate fully its importance for other re- 
 sults than the introduction of business methods into 
 politics, though I hope to show that even the spoils- 
 man, dishonest as his purposes are, unconsciously 
 stands for an important principle which the civil 
 service reformer does not see. Of this again. The 
 present intention is to show how the usual argument 
 for the reform conceals its true import. The argu- 
 ment with which we are most familiar is that it is 
 necessary to prevent constant disturbance and con- 
 fusion in the public business. This is purely an ad 
 liominem appeal to the ordinary business man, who 
 
148 DEMOCRACY 
 
 is in the habit of selecting and retaining the fittest 
 em'pJoyes that he can find for his work. He un- 
 derstands the importance of this method in his af- 
 fairs and can appreciate the value of applying the 
 same principles to government business. But this 
 argument conceals the moral and political problem 
 and consciously or unconsciously inculcates the idea 
 that the chief value of the reform is merely the 
 economic one; namely, the economical management 
 of public affairs. This is an important end, but 
 cheapness is not the most important matter in the 
 management of government. The public business 
 and finances may be conducted in perfect order, and 
 yet the government be morally rotten, though the 
 men who make their living by black-mailing corpora- 
 tions are not likely to respect business methods in 
 government any farther than is necessary to gain 
 the political positions which enable them to carry on 
 their nefarious schemes of black-mailing property. 
 Hence while it was necessary to adapt the argument 
 for civil service reform to the ideas and experience 
 of those whose support was required to secure it, the 
 real motive of its more intelligent advocates was 
 based upon an entirely different conception of the 
 problem involved in the adoption of their policy. 
 The real object of the defenders of civil service re- 
 form is or ought to be the removal of tJiose condi- 
 tions wliicli make the pursuit of office a mercenary 
 vocation. They saw that in the Roman Empire, 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 149 
 
 when office was sold to the highest bidder in the 
 army, or became an object to be sought for its op- 
 portunity to plunder the public, the social fabric 
 crumbled to pieces, and they have sought to pre- 
 vent the repetition of a catastrophe from which it 
 required five hundred years to recover. But they 
 could not effectively present so philosophical a con- 
 ception of the situation to the public who knew and 
 understood little or nothing of history and as little 
 of the abstract principles of government, and hence 
 have been compelled to put the case in a form to ap- 
 peal to personal experience, even if this method con- 
 cealed the most important aspect of the reform. 
 Behind it all, however, was the conception that office 
 must not be regarded as a position for exploiting 
 society, but as an opportunity for serving it, 
 whether as a vocation in which the quid 'pro quo 
 is a salary and security of tenure for faithful service, 
 or as a work of grace in which the quid pro quo, 
 if any, is the honor attaching to it. But such a con- 
 ception of public office is not the prevalent one, and 
 the very necessity of making an ad horninem argu- 
 ment in terms of the commercial ideal with its indi- 
 vidualistic and economic policy is evidence that the 
 real nature and importance of the reform is not 
 generally appreciated. The social feeling does not 
 exist in the majority in terms of which the appeal 
 for the reform can be made. The economic ideal 
 has seized the conception of public office, aided by 
 
150 DEMOCRACY 
 
 the socialistic demand for state assistance and pro- 
 tection in business and poverty, and by tlie same 
 socialistic spirit demanding the multiplication of 
 laws wbich imply a decline in the sense of liberty 
 and offer increased opportunities for deception and 
 black-mail. 
 
 The great cry of the enthusiasts for democracy is 
 that this country is the home of liberty and the para- 
 dise of the poor man. And '^ poor man " in this 
 conception means the socially as well as the econom- 
 ically poor. The sentiment of equality upon which 
 our institutions were founded came in to reinforce 
 these ideas and every man, wise or ignorant, rich or 
 poor, is said by the ignorant or poor man to be equal 
 to every other. This is true in respect to the right 
 to justice, to opportunities for the pursuit of happi- 
 ness, and to the protection of the law against the in- 
 fringement of his legitimate liberties ; but it is not 
 true in any other sense. But the feeling of equality 
 has ignored this distinction and extended itself to 
 the so-called right to hold office. The masses main- 
 tain that they have the same right to hold office and 
 to govern the social organism as the more intelli- 
 gent classes. I do not say ^' better " classes, nor 
 aristocrats, because these expressions are perpetually 
 misunderstood by the ignorant part of the popula- 
 tion. ^' Aristocrat " has come to mean only the rich 
 and has no flavour of social and moral quality which 
 once attached to the term. Unfortunately there is 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 151 
 
 too mucli truth in the changed conception: for our 
 modern " aristocrats/' as a class, are only rich and 
 anti-social, while their predecessors were both rich 
 and social, and the change has been as much due 
 to democracy as to any other influence. For 
 democracy has intended to level all distinctions, and 
 having raised the spirit of equality must expect it,; / 
 in the hands of" the indiscriminating, to extend its/' 
 claims from the right to justice to the alleged right 
 to govern. I grant again that the poor have the . 
 same right to govern as any other class, but only on 
 one condition; namely, tliat they should he as fit 
 and honest as the m,ore intelligent classes. The fact 
 is that they are not this, as is clearly proven by the 
 class of men they elect to serve society, these very 
 officials all the while creating the very conditions of 
 which the plebs complain so bitterly, by favouritism 
 toward corporations, by political corruption and 
 piracy, and by every form of cunning deception. 
 But this aside, the feeling of equality extends itself 
 from the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
 happiness to the use of power, and puts the claim to 
 office upon the same basis as all other rights, reduc- 
 ing it from a social function to an individualistic in- 
 terest, a personal instead of a political vocation in 
 the best sense of that term. To maintain the ap- 
 pearance of this equality the plebs insist that they 
 should elect the incumbents of office if they cannot 
 hold it themselves. If they elected or were capable 
 
153 DEMOCRACY 
 
 of electing the best men to political places no resist- 
 ance would be made to this claim. Biit on the plea 
 : of choosing one of their own kind they seem onl}- 
 to elect thieves and pirates to office. They are so 
 morbidly envious of what they call ^' aristocrats," 
 who in the proper sense of that term are the only 
 persons fit to exercise the functions of government, 
 that they ignore the part of intelligence and honesty 
 in the successful use of those functions. They are 
 just as nuich possessed with the economic ideal as 
 the plutocrats whom they affect to hate, and treat 
 public office as an economic pursuit; namely, as a 
 place for making a living without regard to the ques- 
 tion of service to the community. They regard it 
 from the egoistic instead of the altruistic point of 
 view, if I may borrow a distinction from ethics to 
 describe the moral temperament of the plebs. They 
 have simply carried over to the political world the 
 ideals and motives of the industrial field. Industrial 
 occupations are governed by egoistic impulses. I 
 do not assert or imply that selfishness is absolutely 
 necessary to industrial success, but only that, as a 
 matter of fact, selfishness is the predominant mo- 
 tive in the business or economical wjrld. The 
 one means by which we limit its power to do evil is 
 the enforcement of the right to exploit others under 
 the conditions of private contract. Service to the 
 community, however, is either not performed under 
 any contract, responsibility not being adequate, and 
 
PRAOTIGAL REMEDIES 153 
 
 hence requires an altruistic and honest will to ful- 
 fil social duties, or it should be placed under some 
 conditio7is of responsibility that mil perform the 
 function served in the economic world by the con- 
 dition of private contract, where whatever evils 
 occur are the consequences of the voluntary acts 
 of the subject instead of being the arbitrary im- 
 position of a foreign will. Hence we have no right 
 to treat public office as a place for any other func- 
 tions than the consideration and protection of other 
 interests than our own. But the plebs and their 
 representatives do not see it in any other light. 
 
 The whole difficulty lies in the failure to dis- 
 tinguish between three forms of exploitation of 
 which men are capable: (1) There is the exploita- 
 tion of nature, an undoubted case in which men can 
 be said to have an equal right. (2) The exploitation 
 of fellow men under the conditions of private con- 
 tract, a case where rights can also be equal, subject 
 to the limitation just mentioned and the principles 
 of morality. (3) The exploitation of fellow men by 
 the use of political power, a case in which no right 
 exists at all. But the right to hold office, under the 
 conditions mentioned, is confused with the right to 
 exploit nature. Men suppose that because they 
 have an almost unlimited right to make their living 
 from nature they have the same right to make it 
 at the expense of their fellows, which may be true 
 in a state of savagery, but not in contravention of 
 
154 DEMOCRACY 
 
 the social contract wliicli organised society is sup- 
 posed to represent. These distinctions of rights, 
 however, are not made, by the masses when urging 
 their equality with others, though it is hard to see 
 how their demands and conceptions differ much 
 from the plutocrats' claim to plunder the community 
 in the name of protection and the black-mailer's pol- 
 icy of legalising the plutocrats' piracy in return for 
 his freedom to share in the spoils and to plunder any- 
 body else he can. But this equality with knaves 
 and scoundrels of any kind only proves what I am 
 contending for ; namely, that the public service can- 
 not safely be put on the same basis as the economic 
 pursuits. It is not a place to make a living except on 
 the condition that the function he made adequately 
 responsible. Political office is a service for other 
 than personal objects. It has no resemblance to 
 economic industry, in so far as its object is con- 
 cerned, but only in regard to the intelligence neces- 
 sary to make it successful. It is for the protection 
 of social order and rights and so requires a wholly 
 different set of motives from the purely economic 
 impulses. The economic world permits a primary 
 reference to personal gain, even at the expense of 
 others, if only under the limitation of private con- 
 tract. The political world must repudiate this con- 
 ception or terminate in anarchy, unless it can apply 
 perfect responsibility to all its servants. Govern- 
 ment requires that order of mind and character 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 155 
 
 which can put the rights of others above personal 
 considerations and temptation to exploit society. 
 But the struggle for existence among the proletariat 
 shows them unfit for the exercise of any such quali- 
 ties. It represents above all the egoistic class, and 
 yet when society requires the limitation of exploi- 
 tation to operations against nature except under the 
 condition of private contract, this class still clings 
 superstitiously to the idea that office is one of the 
 inalienable rights which it possesses without either 
 intellectual or moral qualifications for it. I may 
 illustrate this by an interesting fact from the recent 
 municipal campaign in JSTew York City. 
 
 One of the Tammany leaders remarked after the 
 election that the success of the candidate for the 
 Citizens' Union " would have been the greatest dis- 
 grace and the greatest evil that can ever happen to 
 this country." I give his language as reported. It 
 sounds very strange to most of us, and perhaps ab- 
 surd or false. We can understand why Tammany 
 should desire to prevent the success of that move- 
 ment, but it seems strange that what most of the in- 
 telligent people all over the United States earnestly 
 worked for should be a disgrace and dangerous, as if 
 intelligence were poison. Ordinarily the ideas of 
 intelligent people, as that expression goes, would 
 be respected and require intelligent refutation. 
 But here they are characterised as producing only 
 disgrace and evil, and this by a Tammany tough! 
 
156 DEMOCRACY 
 
 When the devil assumes the garb ot virtue we can 
 only put our arms akimbo and gasp, supposing that 
 he is going to reform. But from the point of view 
 of this Tammany heeler his conception of the case 
 was entirely right. He with his kind look at office 
 as a vocation for making one's living, and so demand 
 that the proletariat have the same right to get it as 
 the more intelligent classes, or as the Tammany 
 heeler would say, the ^^ aristocrats," with a dash be- 
 fore the term. What he saw was that adoption of 
 the idea that special intelligence and morality are 
 required for public duties would discriminate 
 against him and his compeers, and overthrow the 
 assumption of the whole proletariat class; namely, 
 that the right to make one's living out of public 
 office is as much the privilege of the '^ plain people " 
 as of the " better classes." This assumption is true, 
 but only on the condition that this privilege be de- 
 nied to both classes. E'obody has any right to a 
 social function except on the condition that he es- 
 tablish his fitness to exercise it rightly. Such a 
 qualification is not required for the exploitation 
 of nature, in which rights are not limited. But 
 when it comes to a claim to exercise the powers of 
 government political rights are limited absolutely 
 to the disposition and the ability to serve the public 
 and cannot be conceded to any economic idea of of- 
 fice except on the condition of perfect responsibility. 
 This can be proved by the only two conceptions of 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 157 
 
 society possible. They are the individualistic and 
 the socialistic ideals. The individualist maintains 
 that government exists purely for the protection of 
 equal rights, to enforce the method of private con- 
 tract in men's dealings with each other; that is, to 
 prevent them from eating each other up. The so- 
 cialist maintains that government exists for the pur- 
 pose of taking care of its citizens instead of allowing 
 everyone to provide for himself subject to the equal 
 rights of others. K^ow it is clear that the socialistic 
 form of government must require that its rulers 
 shall look upon office as an opportunity for the ex- 
 ercise of benevolence and not for the exploitation of 
 anyone. This view is a logical consequence of the 
 '' plain man's " claim on government expropriation 
 of all property as an escape from the exploitation of 
 the capitalist. But the ruler must be either this 
 same capitalist who has no moral and benevolent 
 disposition to give up exploitation, having in his of- 
 ficial capacity the full powers of government, in ad- 
 dition to superior intelligence and prudence, to en- 
 force his personal interests without any limitations 
 by the principle of private contract; or he must be 
 some other man than this capitalist with the benevo- 
 lence in order to secure citizens against exploitation. 
 But if he, the latter, like the capitalist, looks upon 
 his office as a personal perquisite, a mere means for 
 making his living or improving his economic and 
 social condition, all the evils of the capitalistic sys- 
 
158 DEMOCRACY 
 
 tern would be restored without any of its benefits. 
 Consequently, on the socialist's conception of gov- 
 ernment there is no alternative to the conception 
 that office cannot be treated as an economic pursuit 
 except on the condition of perfect responsibility. 
 On the other hand, the individualistic system 
 equally requires a public spirit on the part of its 
 officials as a condition that their power is not used 
 for the exploitation of society, except again on the 
 supposition of adequate responsibility, which means 
 that we have a method of subordinating personal 
 motives in official conduct to the service of the 
 public. 
 
 All this shows very clearly that in a system where 
 the officials or executive agents of government are 
 not responsible moral character and intelligence are 
 the only guarantee of good service, and that any 
 other view of the matter only creates a paradise for 
 the spoilsman. The maxim in politics that ^^ to the 
 victor belongs the spoils " is only a direct applica- 
 tion of the principle that office and its opportunities 
 are the free power to live upon others. It is the 
 maxim at the basis of a military regime which is 
 anti-social in its organisation and government. Mil- 
 itary methods not onh^ represent absolute power in 
 the ruler, but also involve the coercive subordina- 
 tion of the minority and tend, by virtue of their ir- 
 responsibility, to create a disposition to exploit the 
 minority, unless the despot is benevolent. ISTow de- 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 159 
 
 mocracy deifies government by the majority and if 
 it adopts the maxim of military power with its dis- 
 regard of the minority it will construe public office 
 only as an opportunity to " spoil '^ others. Social 
 policy involves as much respect for the welfare of 
 the minority as for the majority ;, but the ^^ plain 
 people's " conception of it makes oflace nothing more 
 than the distribution of the chances to get at the 
 public '^ pap/' this " right " being the reward of 
 " political " warfare, the henchman's claim upon 
 the gratitude and power of the politician. The 
 whole force of the principle comes from the univer- 
 sal admission of the spoilsman's maxim in military 
 affairs and the assumption that government by ma- 
 jority shall imitate this policy. 
 
 ^ow I am not going to quarrel with abstract prin- 
 ciples. The real difficulty is not with the maxim, 
 but with the men that apply it. l^o one cares a pica- 
 yune about the forms and maxims of government, 
 except the scoundrel who is envious of power, if only 
 they secure honest men and good government. 
 Hence it should be the practical application of the 
 doctrine, that " to the victor belongs the spoils," 
 which should excite the opposition of the civil ser- 
 vice reformer. If there is anything ^vrong in the 
 principle this is wholly due to our democratic in- 
 stitutions. The practical results depend upon either 
 or both of two facts : (1) Who the " victor " is, and 
 (2) AVhat the spoils are. As to the first of these con- 
 
160 DEMOCRACY 
 
 siderations if the " victor " be a conscientious public- 
 spirited man no one but those who know that our 
 institutions are not likely to secure such men gener- 
 ally for their servants will object to the power in- 
 volved in the principle; because everyone can see 
 that such a person has the character and intelligence 
 to enforce respect for the public service. It is the 
 " victor '' who has no regard for society that deter- 
 mines the practical limits of the spoilsman's maxim, 
 while its theoretical limits are determined by the 
 fundamental defect in our democratic constitution 
 which provides no responsibility for the politician. 
 The real difficulty, both theoretical and practical, is 
 the fact that the rotatory system of appointments 
 makes subordinates responsible to men who neither 
 have any moral sense of responsibility to the public, 
 nor are subject to any adequate limitations of their 
 power to do evil by legal or constitutional agencies 
 other than the electorate who are themselves to he 
 governed. The whole problem here is the responsi- 
 bility of the appointing power. Moreover, taking 
 the second consideration, there are some things 
 which never come within the legitimate reach of 
 any victor, martial or political, and whether con- 
 scientious and public-spirited or not. Even warfare 
 limits the field of legitimate spoils. Napoleon was 
 not allowed to appropriate permanently for France 
 the art treasures of Europe on the ground that they 
 were not contraband of war, though still grant- 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 161 
 
 ing the retention of all that could be so regarded. 
 Consequently, the spoilsman's maxim is not so uni- 
 versally true as he would like to make us believe, 
 and certainly the liberty to exploit society is not 
 " contraband " for the politician, except that he can 
 be made amenable to social discipline. He must 
 show that the irresponsible power which he claims 
 is for the benefit of the community, and not that it 
 is a maxim of war, a curious analogy for politics. 
 1^0 man except a knave would attempt to claim this 
 power as an abstract right. But no other principle 
 animates our average politician. Hence what we 
 find in the use of his power when he obtains it is the 
 fact that he displays no sense of responsibility to the 
 public, and in the absence of adequate machinery 
 for controlling the action of both the executive and 
 the legislative incumbents, and not willing to under- 
 take the tremendous task either of converting an 
 indifferent public to a better theory of responsibil- 
 ity for higher officials, or of getting it, when found, 
 through our almost impossible methods of consti- 
 tutional change, the civil service reformers limit 
 their energies to the immediately practical problem 
 in which a direct interest is possible; namely, the 
 security of a permanent tenure for men in subor- 
 dinate positions who show their fitness for the duties 
 of their office. As I have shown, the reformers are 
 limited to the commercial argument in attracting 
 support. They are of course helped to their ends 
 
162 DEMOCRACY 
 
 by tlie scandals of the spoilsman's administration of 
 government. 
 
 But the civil services reformer, after all, by this 
 policy, simply rushes from the frying-pan into the 
 fire. In attempting to limit the power of executive 
 and administrative officers, and to secure indefinite 
 tenure for subordinates, to that extent he diminishes 
 the responsibility of the latter to their chiefs with- 
 out creating it in the superiors. He may create a 
 situation in which better men will be willing to take 
 public office, but he curtails the principle of re- 
 sponsibility to the same extent, and this is theoreti- 
 cally opposed to the very principle of democracy. 
 Security of tenure is the fundamental characteristic 
 of hereditary monarchy, and this is the hete noire 
 of democratic people. This limitation of the power 
 of appointment and removal, for civil service ex- 
 aminations, on the one hand, and security of tenure, 
 on the other, amount to this limitation, may prevent 
 scoundrels from effecting their purposes, from loot- 
 ing the public service and rewarding their hench- 
 men by treating office as a personal perquisite; but 
 it also prevents good officials from improving the 
 public service when they are in the position to do it. 
 I^ow if we succeeded in electing trustworthy rulers 
 in all cases there would be no demand for civil ser- 
 vice reform, so that the very existence of this de- 
 mand is unimpeachable proof that democracy has 
 failed to secure its best citizens for its rulers. Even 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 163 
 
 the partial adoption of it is testimony to the same 
 fact and also to the fact that in lien of obtaining re- 
 spect for the public in executive officials, or of con- 
 triving a method for making them responsible, we 
 have to be content with depriving them of their 
 power to make things worse, though we prevent the 
 honest man, whom in some unaccountable case of 
 good luck we may obtain, from making things bet- 
 ter. Hence I confess frankly that civil service re- 
 form, important as it is in the absence of a power 
 to control appointing officers and for the idea that 
 fitness is the only proper title to public office, has 
 totally failed to solve the problem which its advo- 
 cates put before themselves. It does not effect the 
 responsibility of the executive and diminishes that 
 of subordinates. Like the principle of " checks and 
 balances " it is only an increase of irresponsible 
 power in the operations of government. 
 
 The spoilsman, therefore, is right in his position: 
 I do not say in his intentions, but in his position. 
 For it would hardly be too severe or untrue to say 
 that the average spoilsman is a knave and a hypo- 
 crite when he is not a fool. He does not insist upon 
 the right of the victor to the spoils for the sake of 
 good government, but only for the sake of using an 
 accepted premise to enforce a conclusion which con- 
 ceals his real purpose. But stripped of the interpre- 
 tation and practical application which the politician 
 gives the formula, it still has at its basis the impor- 
 
164 DEMOCRACY 
 
 tant conception that subordinates slionld fee com- 
 pletely responsible to those who direct the govern- 
 ment. The executive should be able to remove and 
 appoint subordinates as the improvement of the 
 public service requires. He should be able to carry 
 out his policy without restraint, with the proviso of 
 course that he intelligently and honestly serves the 
 public, the fact that limitations to his power of ap- 
 pointment and removal have to be established only 
 proving that such officials cannot be often enough 
 obtained. But with adequate security for the proper 
 use of executive power this official should be allowed 
 to organise and direct the service under him with 
 all the efficiency and freedom from constitutional 
 and legislative restraints possible. The opponent of 
 civil service reform, therefore, stands for the princi- 
 ple of responsibility in government officials, though 
 this is not his avowed object, especially for himself. 
 On the other hand, the reformer has to sacrifice re- 
 sponsibility all around, in lieu of a method to estab- 
 lish it, in order to correct the abuses of the spoilsman, 
 and hopes that security of tenure may compensate 
 for the loss of responsibility by obtaining better sub- 
 ordinates and saving their experience, intelligent 
 and conscientious men being unwilling to place 
 their lives and fortunes at the mercy of the spoils- 
 man who does not respect fidelity to the public. 
 The way out of the difficulty is, at least theoreti- 
 cally, an easy one, and is to establish the responsibil- 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 165 
 
 itj of the executive, which I shall here attempt to 
 do in a practical way. But in the present situation 
 the spoilsman, for his own reasons and unconscious 
 of the real strength of his position, seeks the re- 
 sponsibility of subordinates at the expense of it in 
 himself, while his opponent, looking only at the 
 practical working of the present system, sacrifices 
 responsibility altogether and creates as serious a 
 problem as he solves. He requires to go much 
 deeper into the case and to make power with its 
 duties responsible instead of withholding it. But 
 his present policy, though it restricts bad appoint- 
 ments, also either checks necessary removals and 
 relaxes discipline or nullifies itself. If an executive 
 cannot use his discretion in the removal of subordi- 
 nates, but is hampered by the necessity of satisfying 
 everybody about the cause and by presumptions in 
 favour of permanent tenure, reforms may be pre- 
 vented or delayed: if he can remove at pleasure 
 civil service regulations amount to nothing, since 
 the power of removal at discretion involves the 
 same power of appointment. 
 
 That this is the situation is shown by a recent 
 decision of the Supreme Court.* In a case of re- 
 
 * Parsons versus the United States. — United States 
 Reports, Vol. 167, p. 324. After stating- the appellant's 
 case in favour of tenure as ag-ainst removal, the Eeport 
 says: " This could never have been the intention of 
 Congress. On the contrary, we are satisfied that its 
 intention in the repeal of the tenure of office sections 
 
166 DEMOCRACY 
 
 moval by the President an appeal was made to the 
 courts to show that he had not the right of removal 
 under the law, and the Supreme Court denied the 
 appellant's claim, maintaining that the right of re- 
 moval under the law remained intact. The spoils- 
 man won a legal victory in this decision, because 
 discretionary powers are a very indefinable thing 
 and the power of appointment must go with that of 
 removal; and consequently the whole fabric of the 
 reform was threatened by it, in so far as the law 
 was concerned. There was, therefore, no hope for 
 the reformers' policy except the intelligence and hon- 
 esty of the appoi7iting power. If the executive shall 
 thus be practically irresponsible the only guarantee 
 of good government must be the personal character 
 of the electorate's choice. The spoilsman has won 
 the abstract right of removal, with which goes the 
 right of appointment to fill vacancies, and unless 
 the decision is modified, he has now only to secure 
 
 of the Revised Statutes was again to concede to the 
 President the power of removal if taken from him by 
 the original tenure of office act, and by reason of the 
 repeal to thereby enable him to remove an officer when 
 in his discretion he regards it for the public good, al- 
 though the term of office may have been limited by 
 the words of the statute creating the office. This pur- 
 pose is accomplished by the construction we give to 
 section 769, while the other construction turns a statute 
 meant to enlarge the power of the President into one 
 circumscribing and limiting it more than it was under 
 the law which was repealed for the very purpose of 
 enlarging it." 
 
PRACTICAL RE MED FES 167 
 
 the election of executives who are in sympathy with 
 him. Hence if democrac}^ does not select for its 
 executives (as the very existence of civil service re- 
 form laws prove it does not) men who will volun- 
 tarily respect the reformers' ideal, then we shall be 
 forced to seek some other means to this end. The 
 determination of responsibility for the executive will 
 effect this object, if it is itself possible. Establish 
 this and we could sacrifice the present civil service 
 laws, fulfil the unconscious demand of the spoils- 
 man for complete executive efficiency, and secure all 
 the objects that the reformer hopes to get by security 
 and permanence of tenure. The whole problem, 
 therefore, is to contrive a method of applying re- 
 sponsibility to the executive without impairing its 
 efficiency for action in the interest of good govern- 
 ment while limiting its influence for evil. Is this 
 possible ? At any rate the problems associated with 
 civil service reform indicate very clearly that this 
 is one of the issues to be settled. 
 
 Before developing or proposing a plan for this 
 end I must indicate an important reform in the se- 
 lection of representatives and the differentiation of 
 legislative functions. The former is the fifth and the 
 latter the sixth of the general changes suggested. 
 The first of these, put in a concrete form, is a propo- 
 sition to adopt the English system of representation 
 with a slight modification, the change being a com- 
 promise with our policy. Much that is attempted 
 
168 DEMOCRACY 
 
 by civil service reform would be effected by this 
 metliod. It is the application of natural se^?ction to 
 the choice of representatives in Congress and the 
 legislatures. It can be embodied briefly in two 
 propositions. (1) Select candidates for the Lower 
 Houses without regard to residence, except that, in 
 Congressional representatives, they shall be citizens 
 of the state from which they are chosen. (2) Se- 
 lect members of the Senate or Upper Houses with- 
 out regard to residence, except that State senators 
 shall be residents of the state for which they are 
 chosen. 
 
 It is apparent at a glance what the modification of 
 the English system is. Concession is made to the 
 principle of local representation which is based upon 
 population, while both are extensions of present 
 policy to introduce competition among the best men 
 for honor and power. The system would offer a good 
 man the opportunity for vindication against the 
 whims of some local constituency, as it does con- 
 stantly in England, and for exhausting the resources 
 of corruption in the attempt to prevent honest men 
 from securing political power. The advantage of 
 it is found in the premium which it would place upon 
 intelligence and independence of the ignorant 
 masses, while it at the same time curtails the oppor- 
 tunities of unsavory political reputations, though it 
 may not suppress them. But in this country the in- 
 fluence of an overwhelming defeat in any constitu- 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 169 
 
 ency almost always means political death to an able 
 man. Generally, if he turns up with political power 
 and influence of any kind at all, it is not in the form 
 of a vindication of his judgment and action, as in 
 England, by an election from another constituency, 
 but in the form of an executive appointment as a 
 person to be ^^ taken care of '' by the party. This is 
 not the survival of the fittest, but encourages all 
 sorts of corrupt influences for killing off the best 
 men one by one in our legislatures, leaving accessi- 
 ble only those characters who are subservient to ma- 
 chines and lobbies. The practical difficulty, which 
 I fully recognise, in such a proposal is the actual 
 prejudice against any but local representatives. 
 But a systematic series of attempts to realise the sys- 
 tem might gradually educate the electorate to see its 
 merits, though it met only with failure at first. Its 
 value is well attested in the experience of the Eng- 
 lish Parliament. Mr. Gladstone would have been 
 retired long ago in our system. If our method had 
 been prevalent in England he might not have sur- 
 vived his defeat at Oxford early in his career. Sir 
 William Harcourt could not have secured re-elec- 
 tion after his recent defeat before an old constitu- 
 ency, and Mr. John Morley could not have been be- 
 sought to re-enter Parliament after his recent defeat 
 at E^ewcastle, had it not been that representative 
 men can have constituencies which are proud to 
 secure their services without regard to local resi- 
 
170 DEMOCRACY 
 
 dence when the accidents of political fortune are 
 against them in some other locality. In fact it is 
 comparatively easy for even distinguished Ameri- 
 cans to enter Parliament by election, and with 
 greater facility than they can enter their own Con- 
 gress. In this country the lack of such opportuni- 
 ties drove Judge Thurman from public life after a 
 defeat secured by corporate influences whose self- 
 ish aims he would not favour at the expense of the 
 public : and the same could be said of others whom 
 it may not be best to mention. But after the practi- 
 cal demonstration of its value in England it ought 
 to be perfectly clear that it is far superior to our 
 present method which is a concession to the idea 
 that all persons have the same right to office with- 
 out regard to intelligence or honesty, and so does 
 nothing to accomplish the survival of the fittest in 
 political life. On the contrary, it does the very op- 
 posite, and our politics are only an illustration of 
 the " devil's chicane.'' I do not propose it in the 
 pure form which it takes in England because this 
 country is so large that a greater diversity of in- 
 terests is noticeable and men have less opportunities 
 to be acquainted with various local conditions than 
 in England. Hence a larger concession has to be 
 made to the principle of local representation in this 
 country. But we have gone to the opposite extreme 
 in our system and offered too much encouragement 
 to the habit in a representative of considering only 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 171 
 
 the interests of his locahty, while we need the habit 
 of larger federal views, especially as social and 
 economic solidarity is extending its area far beyond 
 the old idea of local interests. The only value in our 
 present system is an unconscious one. In the ab- 
 sence of adequate responsibility for the executive 
 and imperial functions, and with the presence of 
 the conflict which the domination of local represen- 
 tation gives to legislative action, with its " check 
 and balance " on the sacrifice of one community 
 to another, we have an escape from socialism. But 
 with the responsibility of the executive, on the one 
 hand, and security for the election of more intelli- 
 gent representatives there is no reason why we 
 should not accept as much of the English system as 
 the conditions of our country will permit or allow. 
 
 It is the proposition to differentiate legislative 
 functions and to strengthen the influence of the ex- 
 ecutive over legislation that is one of the most im- 
 portant, and perhaps the majority of people would 
 think, one of the most dangerous innovations here 
 suggested. But the simple reason for this change 
 is the mixed corruj)tion and impotency of our legis- 
 latures in spite of their theoretical omnipotence. 
 Representatives are too often either absolutely un- 
 able or unwilling to meet the enormous responsibili- 
 ties resting upon their shoulders. In the early 
 period of our history their duties were more easy 
 of accomplishment, owing to greater simplicity of 
 
172 DEMOCRACY 
 
 social and economic conditions, and custom imported 
 from the mother country assisted in the choice of 
 better men. Machine politics and their concomi- 
 tants were not yet known. But the growth of com- 
 plexity in our industrial, social, and political in- 
 stitutions, with political '' bosses," methods of black- 
 mail by legislators, and facilities for jobbery of all 
 kinds have opened a thousand sources of indiscover- 
 able and unpunishable political actions, where rep- 
 resentatives are disposed to avail themselves of them, 
 and when they do this legislation demands of them 
 capacities for general knowledge that cannot be ac- 
 quired by the average man sent to Congress and the 
 legislatures for such short periods and with only a 
 little local experience to guide him. Congressmen 
 require considerable omniscience to fulfil their re- 
 sponsibilities, but they possess very little of that 
 qualification, and too often no honesty, public 
 spirit, or devotion to the real interests of the country. 
 Too poor to disregard the salary attached to the of- 
 fice, they must consider their personal interest to 
 secure a re-election, which puts them at the mercy 
 of any unscrupulous man or men who may hold the 
 balance of power in their districts and consequently 
 the man who will follow the " boss," or " work " 
 the proper portion of his constituents can get the 
 place and salary while the intelligent and conscien- 
 tious man who thinks less of the remuneration than 
 of his duty to the public must remain at home. The 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 173 
 
 timeservers, demagogues, and men T\4th an elastic 
 conscience are tlie successful bidders for tlie offices 
 and salaries. They know liow to use good senti- 
 ments and patriotism for votes, the voters all the 
 while running trustfully after the devil, who is sure 
 to draw them into the bottomless pit. Mephistoph- 
 eles always gets Faust at last. You may say that 
 Faust is finally saved. This is true: but it is not 
 by the devil. Bad politics the office-seekers know 
 well enough, but of state-craft they are as innocent 
 and ignorant as the people who send them to the 
 legislatures. But whatever their character, which 
 in many cases cannot be painted blacker than it is, 
 they are undoubtedly overburdened with responsi- 
 bilities which no body of men elected as they are 
 can possibly fulfil to satisfaction. Make them as 
 honest as we please, the complexity of human inter- 
 ests is so great with our large population, our rail- 
 ways, 'our vast and varied industries, that any body 
 of men, picked out by political methods worthy of 
 Pandemonium, cannot possess the knowledge to 
 meet such questions as taxation, banking, currency, 
 international affairs, political, social, and institu- 
 tional, and the thousand problems of justice involved 
 in them. Hence for the purpose of relieving them 
 of impossible duties, and securing better intelligence 
 and more independence, let us propose a method, 
 which divides the work of legislation and which is 
 recognised in principle by the appointment of Con- 
 
174 DEMOCRACY 
 
 gressional committees, and more especially by tlie 
 Interstate Commerce Commission. It is the latter 
 type of institution, however, which I suggest, as it 
 takes us outside the legislature altogether. The sus- 
 picion that it would be a form of bureaucracy is re- 
 moved by the fact that its powers will be neither 
 executive nor legislative, but deliberative. Exam- 
 ination of it will show this. The proposal, therefore, 
 is not new, as it has frequently been mentioned in 
 recent years for tariif problems. But the powers 
 which are here to be conferred upon them represent 
 a most important modification both of the legislative 
 system and of such a body as the Interstate Com- 
 merce Commission. What I would suggest, there- 
 fore, is a complete system of Commissions, covering 
 the whole field of legislative functions, appointed 
 by the executive, and qualified with an influence 
 over legislation to be defined and discussed again. 
 In general they are to have functions not unlike 
 the Parliamentary Commissions of England in 
 some respects, though as decidedly different in 
 others. I shall first enumerate them. 
 
 1. A commission on Banking and Currency. 
 
 2. A commission on Taxation and Revenues. 
 
 3. A commission on Appropriations and Internal 
 Improvements. 
 
 4. A commission on Industrial and Labour Prob- 
 lems. 
 
 5. A commission on General and Unclassified 
 Legislation. 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 175 
 
 In this scheme I have left the control of inter- 
 national aifairs as at present in the hands of the ex- 
 ecutive and the Senate. The modification of the 
 Senate to be considered later will justify the reten- 
 tion of the present powers in that direction. The 
 efficiency and usefulness of the Commissions, how- 
 ever, will depend wholly upon the method of their 
 appointment and the powers which they possess. 
 Even if they possessed no more powers than some of 
 the English Parliamentary Commissions, or our own 
 Interstate Commerce Commission, which are 
 largely advisory, they would be extremely useful. 
 Though our Commission has not solved many rail- 
 way problems, because its powers are restricted, it 
 has nevertheless collected an immense mass of im- 
 portant information for the guidance of public men, 
 and prevented a large amount of crude and hasty 
 legislation by Congress. This result is no mean 
 service when we consider either the ignorance or the 
 knavery of the average legislator in this country. 
 The need of such Commissions is suggested by this 
 condition of things and by the nature of Congres- 
 sional and legislative Committees. The fatal defect 
 of these latter committees is the fact that they are 
 purely political in their formation and motives, and 
 so are poisoned by that spirit which looks and per- 
 haps must look after votes for the retention of office 
 and its opportunities for gain. They are made up 
 of the very men whose resjDonsibilities are greater 
 
176 DEMOCRACY 
 
 than tlieir abilities, and whose powers are limited 
 by no check but the ill-will of the electorate, which, 
 however, is pliable enough to the arts of the politi- 
 cian. Congressional Committees are necessary and 
 I do not mean to wholly supplant them by the Com- 
 missions : for even party spirit, when responsible or 
 limited in power, may be useful. Congressional 
 Committees should be retained for the same reason 
 that they now exist; namely, for the division of 
 legislative labour and as a check on the anarchy of 
 the legislative bodies. The very existence of these 
 Committees is an illustration and proof of two facts 
 which sustain the proposals here made. They are: 
 (1) The operation and necessity of the law of dif- 
 ferentiation of functions, here made the basis of 
 further reforms, and (2) the fact that large bodies of 
 men are hetter voting and defensive than they are 
 deliherative and constructive agencies. Hence to 
 give the Commissions wdiich I propose adequate 
 powers for constructive work and influence over 
 legislation, I suggest the following constitutional 
 qualifications, reducing the constructive and 
 strengthening the defensive functions of legisla- 
 tive bodies. 
 
 1. Appointment by the President or Governor. 
 
 2. Tejiure of office during the executive term, 
 though subject to reappointment, and liable to re- 
 moval by the Court of Impeachment. 
 
 3. The presentation of all legislative bills to the 
 
phactical remedies 177 
 
 proper Commission and the right of initiation of 
 bills by the Commissions. 
 
 4. Compulsory report, favourable or adverse, on 
 all bills before the close of legislative sessions. 
 
 5. The right of participation in legislative delib- 
 erations and debate without the right of voting on 
 proposed legislation. 
 
 6. Meetings and deliberations of the Commis- 
 sions to be open to the public. 
 
 It is evident that this system introduces a power- 
 ful influence to limit the powers of the legislative 
 bodies as constructive agents, though only as powers 
 that are capable of enforcing intelligent deliberation 
 upon important matters of law and administration. 
 We have seen that the anarchic tendencies of legis- 
 lative debate and action have necessitated clothing 
 the Speaker with despotic powers either for pre- 
 venting legislation, or controlling the conduct of 
 the legislature, and also that Congressional and leg- 
 islative Committees are practically irresponsible, 
 doing their work in the dark and never being called 
 to account for it. These Commissions make the leg- 
 islatures deliberating assemblies, granting or refus- 
 ing the legislation desired by the executive and the 
 Commissions, and make unnecessary enormous ex- 
 tension of the present Speaker's powers, while they 
 also diminish the constructive duties of the legislat- 
 ure, though the Commissions themselves have 
 neither administrative nor voting powers in deter- 
 
178 DEMOCRACY 
 
 mining laws. But before further considering their 
 functions it is important to propose a further divis- 
 ion of labour, whose value will be determined by the 
 manner in which the two Houses are constituted, as 
 outlined later in the discussion. They will favour 
 dispatch and intelligence in the conduct of legisla- 
 tion, while enforcing the necessary deliberation on 
 matters requiring it, and all with the security that 
 comes from responsibility to the Court of Impeach- 
 ment and Eemoval, so that there will be the mini- 
 mum amount of apprehension from dangerous po- 
 litical action. To attain this end I would propose 
 the following distribution of powers and duties : 
 
 1. The submission of all bills on Banking and 
 Currency to the Upper Houses alone. 
 
 2. The submission of all bills on Appropriations 
 and Internal Improvements to the Upper Houses 
 alone. 
 
 3. The submission of all bills on Taxation and 
 Revenues to both Houses. 
 
 4. The submission of all bills on Industrial and 
 Labour Problems to both Houses. 
 
 5. The submission of all bills on General and Un- 
 classified legislation to both Houses. 
 
 6. Joint deliberations at pleasure of the Com- 
 missions on Appropriations and Taxation, and com- 
 bined action on bills to be reported, though a 
 majority of each Commission must be necessary 
 for a report. 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 179 
 
 7". The executive right to veto individual items of 
 expenditure in bills of appropriation. 
 
 The joint deliberation and action of the Commis- 
 sions on Appropriations and Taxation are in imita- 
 tion of the English and Continental methods where 
 there is no conflict between the money-collecting 
 and the money-spending agencies. The English 
 Exchequer, for instance, both makes up the budget 
 of expenses and suggests the taxation to meet them. 
 Two Commissions are named here in order to divide 
 the work of collecting the necessary information for 
 presentation of the special subject to the proper 
 House, and for the defence of the bill in the delib- 
 erations of the legislature. The control of appro- 
 priations is left to the Upper Houses alone because 
 expenditures should be regulated by the property 
 interests that have to bear them and by the most in- 
 telligent functionaries of government. How this 
 disposal of them will effect the desired result will 
 be apparent when we have considered the franchise 
 and the constitution of the Upper Houses. On the 
 other hand, all bills of taxation and revenue are to 
 be submitted to both Houses because the incidence 
 of taxation can be made to affect non-property 
 holders as well as others. Appropriations should 
 not be made by any parties that can black-mail 
 property and ignore intelligence in their conduct, 
 and taxation should not be imposed upon non-prop- 
 erty holders without an opportunity to prevent any 
 
180 DEMOCRACY 
 
 unfair distribution of it. Tins is simply a recogni- 
 tion of the intentions of the present system. Bank- 
 ing and currency should be in the hands of those 
 who have intelligence enough to manage the deli- 
 cate economic problems involved. If some general 
 principle fixing the interests concerned, such as a 
 prohibition upon the issue of irredeemable curren- 
 cies, should be embodied in the constitution, the 
 Supreme Court and the Court of Impeachment and 
 Removal could be relied upon to prevent abuses of 
 banking privileges. Moreover, the fact that the 
 constituency composing the electorate that chooses 
 the Upper Houses will consist of both debtors and 
 creditors, the labourer being neither unless he owns 
 property or borrows money, will be a decided check 
 against financial favours and monopolies, while the 
 exclusion of the proletariat from influence in mat- 
 ters about which they know nothing can only give 
 us the better currencies, lower rates of interest, and 
 more stable finances of Europe. The restraining 
 effect of giving the executive a veto power over in- 
 dividual items of expenditure in appropriation bills 
 is apparent without comment of any kind, save that 
 we may be permitted to remark that it must effectu- 
 ally put a stop to that " log-rolling '' and political in- 
 timidation on the part of individuals and minorities 
 holding the balance of power, by which such bills 
 are loaded down with shameful provisions as a con- 
 dition of getting even necessary appropriations made 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 181 
 
 at all. This veto power would force every item to 
 stand on its own merits. The disposition of Indus- 
 trial and Labor legislation, and of General political 
 matters involving the rights and personal liberties 
 of citizens and not affecting property interests, is 
 designed to consult all the parties concerned. All 
 questions of contract between different interests and 
 the use of police power should be referred to both 
 Houses. 
 
 The same general scheme can easily be adjusted 
 to municipal governments, with an increase of the 
 appointments to be made by both Governors and 
 Mayors to cover a number of offices now elective. 
 There would be no need for Commissions in munici- 
 palities ; the heads of departments would suffice for 
 this purpose, if appointed, as I should make them, 
 instead of elected. All officers, state and munici- 
 pal, except the legislative and executive may be 
 made appointive. The chief advantage of this 
 comes from its simplifying the duties and claims 
 made upon the elector. At present the multi- 
 plication of officers to be voted for, and the com- 
 plicated problems of administration to be con- 
 sidered, tax beyond all measure the intelligence 
 and abilities of the voter to determine wisely. 
 Yery few men have knowledge enough, either of 
 the subjects involved or the persons appearing as 
 candidates, to choose with equal wisdom the whole 
 number of officers in a large municipality like ISTew 
 
182 DEMOGMACT 
 
 York, Philadelphia, Boston, or Chicago. It is the 
 same with state officers other than the executive. It 
 requires much wisdom and knowledge of men and 
 things to choose a good Sheriff, a good Comptroller, 
 a good Recorder, a good Coroner, a good Commis- 
 sioner of Public Works, etc., and this knowledge is 
 not possessed by many of the voters. The most 
 highly educated men feel a difficulty here, if not in 
 regard to the kind of qualifications involved, cer- 
 tainly in regard to a personal knowledge of the 
 ability and character of so many candidates. The 
 masses do not lack in confidence regarding the mat- 
 ters, and are ever ready to assume the gravest re- 
 sponsibilities with a light heart. This is because 
 their only criterion of fitness for office is a ^' hail- 
 fellow-well-met " manner in their representatives 
 and the readiness of the latter to pander to their 
 vices, or to their self-confidence if not to their vices. 
 But wiser men would prefer to have their duties 
 proportioned to their knowledge. Hence, as it is 
 much easier to choose a fit man to make these ap- 
 pointments than it is for the electorate to ascertain 
 the qualifications of a dozen men for as many im- 
 portant departments of public service, the advisable 
 course is to make the executive elective and all other 
 officers appointees. The qualifications for appoint- 
 ing fit men to office are much more easily determin- 
 able than the executive abilities and general fitness 
 of men for special functions. I shall not settle at 
 
Practical remedies i83 
 
 present the question whether the mimicijoal legislat- 
 ure should consist of one or two bodies. This will 
 depend upon considerations to be discussed later 
 and when the limitation of franchise comes up for 
 notice. 
 
 It will be quite apparent from the scheme as thus 
 far developed that it enormously extends the influ- 
 ence of the executive, at least indirectly if not di- 
 rectly, over the course of legislation, and to the same 
 extent curtails the powers of the legislature. Here 
 is where the advocates of democracy may be ex- 
 pected to make their stand and to object most 
 vehemently. If nothing further were to be pro- 
 posed as a limitation of this influence the criticism 
 that it involves a dangerous increase of political 
 power would be admissible, or at least intelligible. 
 But there now comes that part of the system pro- 
 posed which includes a limitation of executive au- 
 thority without limiting its duties, an agency for 
 determining the responsibility of all government 
 officers, other than to the electorate, and a further 
 division of the functions now belonging to the legis- 
 lature. It consists of two independent courts which 
 may be denominated as follows : 
 
 1. A Court or Board of Confirmation. 
 
 2. A Court or Board of Impeachment and Re- 
 moval. 
 
 The Court of Confirmation is intended partly as 
 a restraint upon executive powers of appointment 
 
184 DESfOCRACY 
 
 and partly as a means of preventing the legislature 
 from bartering with the executive for favours. 
 With this limitation the executive cannot be arbi- 
 trary in the selection of his subordinates and the leg- 
 islature cannot dictate the terms upon which the 
 executive shall obtain necessary legislation. The 
 '' check and balance '^ system cannot under this 
 proposition have the temptation, or at least the same 
 temptation, to grant the necessary legislation on 
 condition that certain personal favours are conceded. 
 Thus, by taking away the Senate's power to confirm 
 executive appointments, except in one case, we 
 should restrict its power to do harm and should se- 
 cure a body of men equal in dignity with it and 
 qualified by its long tenure and circumscribed duties 
 to act in the interests of the public. The under- 
 ground politics of " bosses " and knaves demanding 
 a quid 'pro quo for serving the public cannot be so 
 easily carried on. It will be only a question of serv- 
 ing or not serving the public according to their 
 promises and the declared duties of their position. 
 The objection that the Court being appointed by the 
 executive, will not act as a restraint upon his action 
 will not weigh in the case, because the long tenure 
 of the Court will make it like the Supreme Court at 
 present in respect of independence, and in addition 
 the limited amount of duty imposed upon such a 
 Court will make it possible to have its services given 
 without a salarv and the selection of incumbents 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 185 
 
 made from men of intelliiience and leisure. Its con- 
 stitution and functions may be defined as follows : 
 
 1. Appointment by the executive. 
 
 2. Long tenure of office, twelve, sixteen, or 
 twenty years. 
 
 3. Confirmation in office by tlie Upper Houses. 
 
 4. Its function to be the confirmation or rejec- 
 tion of all appointments by the executive, except its 
 own members. 
 
 But it is the Court of Impeachment and Removal 
 that constitutes the most important of these two 
 functions of government, and that is the key, as I 
 have already remarked, to the whole scheme which I 
 have proposed, since it is the institution that intro- 
 duces a direct method of applying adequate respon- 
 sibility to the executive and legislative agencies 
 beyond the reach of the Supreme Court, the execu- 
 tive not being affected by this last Court at all. It is 
 intended also to divide the functions of the exec- 
 utive, so that the only interest which it will be safe 
 for that officer to cultivate will be the public service. 
 At present, as we know, the executive has the power 
 both to appoint and to remove subordinates at pleas- 
 ure, subject to the civil service regulations, which 
 we have seen in a large measure defeat themselves 
 if they destroy the power of removal and are saved 
 only by the personal character of the executive it- 
 self, so that the control of both appointment and re- 
 moval involves the opportunity to organise ad- 
 
186 DEMOCRACY 
 
 ministration in behalf of purely personal or party 
 objects, which last can be made to conceal personal 
 ambitions and profits. But if the sole interest of the 
 executive be to make appointments that are not 
 responsible to himself, and removals only with the 
 permission of the Court of Impeachment and Re- 
 moval, political motives will be largely eliminated 
 and w^e can expect a better use of the appointing 
 power, while this Court of responsibility super- 
 vises with almost absolute powers the conduct of 
 government officials. Instead, therefore, of giving 
 Hobbes's sovereignty to the executive, or limiting 
 its responsibility to the electorate, we propose to 
 give that '^ sovereignty," or irresponsibility, at least 
 almost this, to the inhibitive agents of government. 
 The constitution and functions of this Court, there- 
 fore, may be characterised as follows: 
 
 1. Appointment by the executive, and to consist 
 of three members. 
 
 2. Appointment of a certain number of persons 
 who shall not serve at the time, but shall succeed im- 
 mediately on the death, resignation, or removal of 
 serving members. 
 
 3. Life tenure of office, except in case of impeach- 
 ment. 
 
 4. Exclusion from appointment to any other of- 
 fice, even after resignation. 
 
 5. Confirmation of their appointment by the 
 Court of Confirmation. 
 
PRACTICAL BEMEDTES 187 
 
 6. Summary and absolute power of removal over 
 both elective and appointed officers (within the ter- 
 ritorial jurisdiction for which it is appointed), and no 
 power of appointment. 
 
 7. The power of suspension to remain in the ex- 
 ecutive, and also, with ilie consent of the Court of 
 Impeachment and Bemoval, the removal of officials 
 and the reorganisation of departments in the in- 
 terest of economy, efficiency, and the public wel- 
 fare. 
 
 8. Power to dissolve the legislative assemblies 
 and to order new elections. 
 
 9. The election of one of its own members as 
 President of the Court and in whom shall be vested 
 the absolute control of the military, except in 
 the conduct of international affairs and foreign 
 war,* though even in these its use by the executive 
 must be subject to the consent of this Court. 
 
 10. The division by the Court of its own super- 
 visory duties so that each member may exercise the 
 power of removal subject to the revision and ap- 
 proval of the President of the Court, except that 
 the dissolution of the legislatures, the ordering of 
 new elections, and the removal of the executive 
 shall be made by a majority vote of the Court. 
 
 11. Subject to removal only through impeach- 
 ment before the Supreme Court. 
 
 * The navy may at all times remain in the control of 
 the executive. 
 
188 DEMOCRACY 
 
 The second provision of this system is designed to 
 eliminate politics absolutely from the appointment 
 of the Court. In the first organisation of it this in- 
 fluence perhaps could not be wholly excluded, 
 though it would at least be minimised as at present 
 in the Supreme Court. Most of the other provisions 
 explain themselves. I have retained the executive 
 power of suspension and of conditional removal for 
 the purpose of maintaining all the possible efficiency 
 of that function in connection with its complete re- 
 sponsibility, while the Court has an independent 
 power of removal in order to strengthen the appli- 
 cation of responsibility to the whole public service. 
 Removals in the interest of the public could be made 
 which the executive might not be disposed to sug- 
 gest. 
 
 The value of some such general scheme for apply- 
 ing responsibility to the instruments of government, 
 and putting the " sovereignty " or irresponsibility 
 in the authority which shall mix as little as possible, 
 or not at all, in the positive functions of politics and 
 government must be justified. The general con- 
 ception of this court which I entertain, perhaps 
 with some modifications, is well illustrated by an 
 observation of Burke in the Reflections on the 
 Revolution in France^ apropos of the English 
 constitution. Speaking of those who led in the 
 English Revolution of 1688, he says: ^^ They 
 left the crown, what, in the eye and estimation of 
 
PMAGTICAL REMEDIES 189 
 
 law, it had ever been, perfectly irresponsible. In 
 order to lighten the crown still further, they aggra- 
 vated responsibility on ministers of state. By the 
 statute of the 1st of King William, sess. 2d, called 
 ^ tlie act for declaring the rights and liberties of the 
 subject, and for settling the succession of the crown/ 
 they enacted that the ministers should serve the 
 crown on the terms of that declaration. They se- 
 cured soon after the frequent meetings of Parlia- 
 ment, by which the whole government would be 
 under the constant inspection and active control 
 of the popular representative and of the magnate of 
 the kingdom." 
 
 There is here a remarkable recognition of the 
 principle for which I am contending; namely, the 
 adjustment of irresponsibility to the negative, and 
 of responsibility to the positive functions of govern- 
 ment. The crown is relieved of positive administra- 
 tive duties and granted the power to dissolve Parlia- 
 ment, while the principle of responsibility of the 
 Ministry and of Parliament to the crown is thus 
 recognised, as well as to the electorate. The Minis- 
 ters, who constitute the real executive in the Eng- 
 lish system, have a threefold responsibility; namely, 
 to the electorate, to Parliament, and to the crown. 
 The division of powers thus instituted, with the 
 choice of the ministry from Parliament in deference 
 indirectly to the principle of popular government, 
 has many resemblances to the institution which I 
 
190 DEMOCRACY 
 
 have here suggested with some important differ- 
 ences. What I have suggested is more easily ad- 
 justed to our present constitution and poHtical senti- 
 ment than the English method would be. I cannot 
 but think also that the success of the English consti- 
 tution has been due very largely to this adjustment 
 of functions in separate agencies, the responsibility 
 being placed upon the positive or executive, and the 
 irresponsibility upon the negative agent. There are 
 differences on which I cannot dwell at length, and 
 which prevent the analogy from being complete. 
 For instance, the responsibility of the Ministry or 
 executive to Parliament or the legislative is wholly 
 excluded from the system proposed here. The rea- 
 son for this is that our executive is directly elected 
 by popular vote. If the English system of electing 
 representatives were the same as our own, adapted 
 only to local abilities, the kind of men selected 
 would put the Ministry at their mercy as Congress 
 tries to do with the President. It might be said, 
 however, that the proposition to adopt the English 
 system of representation would supply the condition 
 of an improvement in representatives which would 
 prevent the harrying of the executive by demands 
 for patronage. This is true, but the omnipotence of 
 Parliament in the matter of determining the con- 
 stitution, there being no written law and no Su- 
 preme Court to limit Parliament, it is natural that 
 the English system should make the Ministry or real 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 191 
 
 executive responsible to itself. But for the inliibi- 
 tive powers of tlie crown the democracy of England 
 is more thorough than our own and may even be 
 more consistent already than our own. Without the 
 right of the crown to appoint the Ministry, however, 
 the responsibility of this executive to Parliament 
 would be dangerous under any system of representa- 
 tion, and as no power of appointing the executive is 
 given to the proposed Court of Impeachment and 
 Removal and the executive is elected by popular 
 vote, it would not be best to make this office directly 
 amenable to the legislative. If the English constitu- 
 tion as a whole were adopted the matter would be a 
 different one altogether. But all political develop- 
 ment and change must follow as closely as possible 
 the conditions and institutions in which they are 
 made. The method proposed here is a mean be- 
 tween the idea of imperialism which is so important 
 in all government, and the democratic idea of re- 
 sponsibility, the natural tendency of the English 
 system being to democratic responsibility alone. 
 The only thing in England that prevents the com- 
 plete consummation of this tendency is the appoint- 
 ing power of the crown, and in the United States, 
 the non-responsibility of the executive to the legisla- 
 tive. Abolish monarchy in England and tliat coun- 
 try would go to the referendum more rapidly than 
 we should do under the present system: abolish the 
 Presidency in this country and we should have noth- 
 
193 DEMOCRACY 
 
 ing but the referendum. The executive here has 
 some of the old monarchical irresponsibility with the 
 advantage of great efficiency but with the dangers of 
 corruption and tyranny. In England the executive 
 is responsible, but retains its efficiency partly by the 
 grace of more intelligent representatives and partly 
 by retention of the appointing power of the crown. 
 Why not, then, complete the development, as the 
 Ministry's responsibility to the legislative is counter- 
 balanced by the appointing power of the crown, by 
 giving the executive the efficiency which is limited 
 or destroyed by responsibility to the legislative, and 
 the responsibility of the Ministry to the crown with- 
 out that agent's appointing power ? That is, reduce 
 the " sovereign " to a court of responsibility with- 
 out any appointing privileges and give the execu- 
 tive all the efficiency that it can have subject to this 
 court with the legislative prescribing the lines of 
 executive action, but not its appointments. 
 
 tTust as the Court of Confirmation is intended to 
 be a body that shall have no patronage to buy and 
 no legislation to sell, thus making the action of both 
 the executive and the legislative more independent 
 of each other in one respect and imposing a limita- 
 tion upon the executive in another, so the Court of 
 Impeachment and Removal will operate as a power- 
 ful influence for good government by virtue of its 
 inability to cultivate personal interest in determin- 
 ing a positive policy of its own, on the one hand, and 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 193 
 
 of its power to make officials directly responsible to 
 intelligent public sentiment, on the other. The in- 
 tended value of the institution lies in the division of 
 power involved in the separation of the appointing 
 from the removing function. The executive, in this 
 conception, can use its power only in a positive direc- 
 tion and will be under fewer temptations to abuse it : 
 the Court of Impeachment can exercise no positive 
 functions in government, but only that of restraint 
 and punishment, so far as removal may be consid- 
 ered punishment. The objection to any such divis- 
 ion of functions, that deprivation of the power of 
 removal by the executive hampers his power for 
 good as much as it does that for evil is answered by 
 the fact that he still retains this privilege subject to 
 the approval of the Court. The objection to this 
 limitation upon the executive in our present system 
 obtains its force from the fact that when it exists no 
 one else is given any summary powers of discipline 
 and restraint. Besides civil service methods en- 
 deavour to limit both the powers of appointment and 
 removal, as I have shown, with their curtailment of 
 the principle of responsibility. Hence we have to 
 choose between the tendency to irresponsibility in 
 every government agent and the attempt to establish 
 responsibility in the executive by a division of 
 power, not by removing all of it. If we could ob- 
 tain political machinery that would guarantee with- 
 out failure the selection of absolutely trustworthy 
 
194 DEMOCRACY 
 
 men there would be no reason for separating tlie 
 appointing from the removing power, but experience 
 has taught us that a division of powers both hghtens 
 the task of government and weakens the power to 
 do eviL If then while limiting the executive's 
 power of removal we constitute a court of summary 
 procedure for this purpose, we ought to avoid the 
 evils of limiting removal as is attempted in our pres- 
 ent system, and accomplish all that civil service re- 
 form aims to do, while increasing executive effi- 
 ciency in the direction most important for good 
 government. 
 
 I think the principle here maintained can be sup- 
 ported by a comparison with the Supreme Court, 
 which I wish to interpret, not only as a restraint upon 
 the omnipotence of Congress, but also in the more 
 general sense of an institution which has no positive 
 functions in government, but is purely negative. 
 The Supreme Court simply prevents illegal, if I 
 may say so, or unconstitutional legislation. It has 
 no power to enact or to enforce legislation of any 
 kind, constitutional or otherwise. Hence it operates 
 merely as a restraint upon the irresponsibility of 
 Congress or the legislature. Its function is inhibi- 
 tive, not positive or constructive, and herein lies its 
 great strength and usefulness. It throws the whole 
 responsibility for legislation within the limits of 
 the fundamental law upon the law-makers, re- 
 sembling the Crown's power to dissolve Parlia- 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 195 
 
 ment and to test public sentiment, and encourages 
 as well as utilises the respect for the constitution 
 which is supposed to guarantee individual rights 
 and liberties as much against the tyranny of the 
 legislature as against the arbitrary power of mon- 
 archy. So strong does this make the Supreme 
 Court that it certainly would not have survived if 
 it had possessed any executive or legislative duties 
 from the outset of its history. The constitution is 
 assumed to be or to represent an agreement among 
 the citizens to abide by its provisions until altered 
 by the same method that adopted it. The Supreme 
 Court simply says that representatives must not alter 
 this instrument at their will, but that their duty is to 
 respect it until the '' sovereign " power, the people, 
 change the rules for the direction and limitation of 
 their representatives. Consequently, not being re- 
 sponsible for positive legislation, but only for the 
 constitutionality of the laws that are enacted, their 
 consistency with the fundamental law, it exercises 
 only a negative or inhibitive function against ten- 
 dencies to commit infractions upon this fundamental 
 law, and leaves society the choice between modify- 
 ing its constitution and shaping new legislation in 
 conformity with the existing instrument. With con- 
 structive or executive powers added to its present 
 irresponsibility it would have perished long ago, be- 
 cause it could not have withstood the onslaughts of 
 the public or the politicians demanding a policy 
 
196 DEMOCRACY 
 
 without regard to the constitution, which is sup- 
 posed to embody a large experience as well as an 
 agreement of these very people to carry out a defi- 
 nite course of action. But having no power to make 
 laws, only to unmake those that are inconsistent 
 with the fundamental law and to shift the respon- 
 sibility for political evils either upon the people who 
 make the constitution, or upon ignorant and irre- 
 sponsible legislators whose duty it is to conform to 
 this instrument, the Supreme Court both limits the 
 power of the legislature by enforcing its respect and 
 submission to law, and disarms the spirit that might 
 otherwise mass its opposition against such a court. 
 It thus enjoys the position of being the highest au- 
 thority in the government beyond which there is no 
 appeal, and consequently is invested with Hobbes's 
 " sovereignty " or irresponsibility, without being 
 liable to as much suspicion or assault from the per- 
 sistent jealousy which a democracy directs against 
 this kind of immunity, for the reason that it is not 
 constructive or executive. As a consequence its 
 value for a democracy is beyond calculation, and per- 
 haps this form of society could not long exist with- 
 out some such a body, simply because democracy 
 requires an institution to make its representatives 
 respect the law or to compel it to keep faith with its 
 own promises which a constitution is. At any rate, 
 it is an inliihitive agency in government and derives 
 its power and usefulness from that fact. 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 197 
 
 Tlie Court of Impeachment and Removal, wliicli 
 has been proposed, is precisely an analogous institu- 
 tion, and should be the organ for the irresponsibility 
 that attaches to the executive power as at present en- 
 dowed. It is not responsible for the positive func- 
 tions of government, as its specified qualifications 
 indicate, but its dutv will be the administrative 
 check against the abusive powers of appointees. It 
 establishes a direct responsibility for the executive 
 and subordinates, shifting public evils of an admin- 
 istrative sort upon the shoulders of those who act 
 or fail to act, and leaving to the legislature and the 
 electorate the duty of constructive work and no 
 power to intimidate or limit the action of the execu- 
 tive, except by law. The Court itself, it will be 
 noticed, is amenable to the Supreme Court for im- 
 peachment if necessary. This retains the latter as 
 the one central authority that is absolutely irrespon- 
 sible. The long tenure of the Court of Impeach- 
 ment and the various provisions mentioned will give 
 it independence, and its summary power of removal 
 which may be exercised in behalf of economy, effi- 
 ciency, and good behaviour in government, will in- 
 spire a wholesome respect for the public welfare. 
 In this way it may do much to substitute public 
 spirit for personal interest, being itself unable to di- 
 rect any action in any but the interest of society. 
 Consequently, it ought to put most decisive limita- 
 tions upon all executive and legislative attempts to 
 
198 DEMOCRACY 
 
 aggress upon society by policies that the electorate 
 has not directly or indirectly intended, or by such 
 executive piracy as we too often find in both state 
 and municipal administration. 
 
 The investiture of the Court of Impeachment 
 with the military power will act in the same direc- 
 tion as that which has been described. This asser- 
 tion will undoubtedly appear to involve a new con- 
 ception of the functions performed by the army in 
 the hands of the executive, but a little reflection 
 ought to show that the position here taken is in 
 reality the proper interpretation of what the mili- 
 tary should represent in government, and, in fact, it 
 actually does remain in the practical policy of de- 
 mocracy a force to be used, not for executive gov- 
 ernment in general, the police being the proper pro- 
 tection here, but as the power to maintain social 
 order against rebellion and anarchy. In a civilised 
 country, not engaged in foreign war, there is no use 
 for the military except to suppress insurrection and 
 riot. Democracies do not like to entrust the army 
 to the executive because they are afraid of its abuse 
 in the interests of monarchical or similar ambitions. 
 It has often been the instrument of tyranny in the 
 hands of the executive, and legislative bodies are 
 absolutely unfit to control it, for reasons that do not 
 require mention. Hence even democracies, recog- 
 nising the necessity for an army in certain emergen- 
 cies and the inability of the legislature, which is a 
 
PJ^ACTICAL REMEDIES 199 
 
 deliberative assembly, to represent any efficiency in 
 the control of the military, have been forced to put it 
 into the hands of the executive, with all the dangers 
 incident to the opportunities which disturbed social 
 conditions offer to unscrupulous men. In crises it 
 is a terrible force to possess. Hence since it is not 
 necessary for the executive and legislative work of 
 ordinary times, and its proper function is to suppress 
 disorder and anarchy, leaving to the people the re- 
 constructive work of society, it also should be inter- 
 preted as an mhihitive influence, both in times of 
 order and during and after disturbances which re- 
 quire more than the police to quell, and so turned 
 over to such a body as the Court of Impeachment. 
 Its sole duty in domestic affairs, leaving the contin- 
 gency of foreign wars out of account, will be to put 
 down mobs, rebellion and anarchy, as at present, and 
 not to take any part directly or indirectly in the 
 reconstructive work of society, whether executive 
 or legislative. By putting it into the hands of the 
 Court of Impeachment we could make the executive 
 solely a representative of the law in purely social 
 conditions and obtain far more prompt action in the 
 suppression of disorder. At present either the am- 
 bition of the executive or other personal interests 
 not so respectable and various political considera- 
 tions tempt the executive to avoid unpopularity by 
 withholding an appeal to military force until, often, 
 the loss of property and life is greater than should be 
 
200 DEMOCRACY 
 
 the case. In a democracy the executive must natu- 
 rally hesitate to employ the army to enforce what 
 will always appear to represent the policy of his 
 party rather than the interest of the whole. But in 
 times of riot and social disturbance there should be 
 no hesitation. Action should be prompt and vig- 
 orous. Only such a power as the Court of Impeach- 
 ment represents could avoid the embarrassment 
 from which the executive must suffer and the jeal- 
 ousy which the people show against force used to 
 carry out a political policy, because this Court by its 
 constitution cannot do any positive or constructive 
 work in the adjustment of order, but only keep op- 
 posing parties at bay until they agree to voluntarily 
 preserve the peace. It enforces the law only by say- 
 ing that it shall prevail until repealed by the people. 
 But with the military in the hands of the executive 
 it puts the power in that agency to maintain the law 
 against change. If the executive can in no case 
 force his policy on the public and if the mob can be 
 promptly checked in its attacks upon the law, which 
 the executive administers, without awakening sus- 
 picion and jealousy against that power in govern- 
 ment, the want of constitutional qualifications in the 
 Court of Impeachment for enforcing the desires of 
 either party in contention compels them to settle 
 their differences by some form of agreement, com- 
 promise, or arbitration. 
 
 An important argument for this Court may be 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 201 
 
 found in the working of tlie present power of im- 
 peachment conferred upon the legislature. The 
 right or necessity of a power of impeachment and 
 removal is already recognised by our system, even 
 the very irresponsibility of it, but it is not recognised 
 in any form that enables it to act as efficiently and 
 safely for the public welfare as the Court which I 
 have here proposed. It is combined with the legis- 
 lative function which cannot indulge in impeach- 
 ment and removal without exciting political animos- 
 ities and usurping the powers of the executive. The 
 power of the legislature to remove the executive 
 virtually carries with it the power to determine 
 executive action, while it is the real intention of 
 modern political institutions, in theory at least, to 
 confine legislative bodies to deliberation and the 
 enactment of laws which define the course and 
 limits of executive action, and not to administer 
 them. But then in the absence of responsibility 
 for the executive there seemed no way to con- 
 trol his action, to compel the execution of the 
 laws, except to put in the hands of the legislature 
 the additional power of impeachment in order 
 at the proper time to exert pressure upon the 
 executive to carry out the commands of the legis- 
 lature and the people. This was an attempt to ap- 
 ply to the executive the responsibility which the 
 whole movement of political history shows is desir- 
 able in some form. But to have the irresponsible 
 
303 DEMOCRACY 
 
 power to impeach and remove executive officers at 
 pleasure, while the power remains, as in our Con- 
 gress, to elect them, and at the same time to fix the 
 laws and to have neither the power nor the duty to 
 order new elections for an executive, favours the 
 tendency of the legislature to usurp influence and 
 power over the executive and to create further mo- 
 mentum toward the referendum and the anarchy 
 which it involves. In the responsibility of the Eng- 
 lish executive, or Ministry, to Parliament the power 
 of this legislative body to elect the executive, at 
 least directly, does not exist and hence the respon- 
 sibility of the Ministry to it is not so dangerous as 
 that of the executive to Congress in this country. 
 The power which makes the laws should not have 
 the right both to remove the executive and to elect 
 another, and the danger of its exercise, as the im- 
 peachment of one of our Presidents abundantly 
 shows, is the only thing that prevents its use even 
 when it is necessary. Such an act, even when most 
 necessary, would establish a precedent that might 
 not await equally necessary conditions for the exer- 
 cise of that power. Precedents are dangerous ex- 
 amples for the politician who may be interested in 
 extending his own power by limiting that of some 
 one else, and in order to effect his purpose will seize 
 upon any precedent without regard to differences 
 of circumstances, if only he rely on some analogy 
 for enforcing his claim. But with a separate Court 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 203 
 
 of Impeachment and Removal tliis temptation 
 would not exist. Having no power constitutionally 
 to increase or to usurp influence over government it 
 could safely exercise the function of removal with- 
 out creating the tendencies involved in our present 
 system, which show a perpetual disposition of the 
 legislative to usurp the functions of the executive. 
 When Parliament refuses a vote of confidence to 
 the Ministry, the crown can either appoint a new 
 executive in harmony with the legislature or dis- 
 solve the latter and order new elections. The re- 
 moval does not involve appointment by the party 
 that refuses confidence, and the appointment by the 
 crown involves either harmony with the legislature 
 or an election by the people. In our system the peo- 
 ple do not require to be consulted, and hence the 
 danger. But the plan which I have proposed, what- 
 ever else it does, keeps the legislature at its proper 
 functions and leaves to the electorate the choice of 
 the executive, a power which it at least shares in the 
 English constitution. 
 
 Another fact sustains this view. The state of 
 ISTew York endows the Governor with the power to 
 remove the mayors of municipalities but not to ap- 
 point new ones. This is as distinct a recognition of 
 my principle as could be desired, power of removal 
 without power of appointment. But it has two se- 
 rious defects. First, it violates the principle of home 
 rule. Second, it introduces politics into the question 
 
204 DEMOCRACY 
 
 of removals, so that tlie dangers accompanying tliis 
 influence will often prevent even justifiable action 
 in the use of such a power. Bnt the plan which I 
 have suggested conforms to home rule and excludes 
 politics from the exercise of the power of removal, 
 Avhile it embodies exactly the principle involved in 
 the effort to make municipal executives responsible. 
 The argument can also be reinforced by a further 
 comparison which states the case a little more fully, 
 and coincides with the interpretation just made of 
 the functions performed by the Supreme Court. I 
 have shown, or endeavoured to show, that the main 
 function of this court is inhibitive, and that the 
 Court of Impeachment and Removal is to serve the 
 same purpose. ]^ow the Supreme Court serves 
 partly to limit the arbitrary power of Congress by 
 keeping it within the lines of the constitution and 
 partly to strengthen its responsibility to the elector- 
 ate. It is consequently, as I have shown above, an 
 institution that recognises and applies, in a measure 
 at least, the principle here contended for; namely, 
 a definite and concrete body for inhibiting arbitrary 
 power and securing the responsibility which our in- 
 stitutions require and nominally supply, but not in 
 a concentrated and efiicient form. It is, to the ex- 
 tent indicated, a means of making the legislative 
 power responsible. But there is no similar limita- 
 tion or accountability for the executive except 
 liability to impeachment, which it is not safe to 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 205 
 
 apply with any frequency. All, therefore, that 
 my proposition for a Court of Impeachment and 
 Removal demands is a similar means of making 
 the executive responsible and of completing the re- 
 sponsibility of the legislature. The power of disso- 
 lution affects actions of the legislature which the 
 Supreme Court cannot reach, and prevents the dis- 
 regard of issues which the representatives were 
 elected to settle. The short period of representative 
 tenure in the lower House of Congress as at present 
 constituted in some measure limits this tendency to 
 evade issues involved in elections and to substitute 
 others, so that it could be said that the power of dis- 
 solution in the hands of the Court of Impeachment 
 is not necessary. This objection has some force. 
 But I introduce this proposed constitutional change 
 for two reasons. First, some control of the disposi- 
 tion to evade issues even in short periods of legisla- 
 tive tenure is necessary, while extraordinary emer- 
 gencies occur when it is necessary to send Congress 
 to the electorate. Second, the change is intended to 
 make possible a longer period of legislative tenure 
 in the lower House of Congress and state legislat- 
 ures, somewhat after the manner of the English 
 system. At any rate, my proposition only recog- 
 nises the same principle as the power of dissolution 
 by the crown, and certainly if the legislature re- 
 quires any inhibitive power against its tendency to 
 usurp authority, as is admitted by the Supreme 
 
206 DEMOCRACY 
 
 Court, which only holds it to the constitution and 
 does not prevent abuses within this limit, there is 
 nothing anomalous in establishing a similar court 
 for fixing responsibility upon the executive, while 
 enlarging its power of action, and strengthening the 
 application of the same principle to the legislature.* 
 
 * The sug-gestion or objection may be made that the 
 Court of Impeachment and Kemoval is only a restora- 
 tion of the old Koman Tribuni PlcMs, or Tribunes of the 
 Commons. This conception, however, is only partly 
 true, while it escapes or conceals the most essential 
 differences between the two institutions. This can be 
 best broug-ht out by a comparison between them. But 
 I must first state the nature and powers of the Tribuni 
 PleMs. I quote the language of Mommsen. 
 
 " The power of the Tribunes " (Plebis), says that his- 
 torian, " was of no avail in opposition to the military 
 imperium, that is, in opposition to the authority of the 
 dictator everywhere or to that of the consuls beyond 
 the city ; but it confronted on a footing of independence 
 and equality the ordinary civil powers which the con- 
 suls exercised. There was, however, no partition of 
 I)owers. The tribunes obtained on the one hand the 
 right to cancel any command issued by the magistrate, 
 by which the burgess whom it affected considered him- 
 self aggrieved, through a protest duly and personally 
 tendered; and on the other hand they obtained or as- 
 sumed the prerogative of pronouncing criminal sen- 
 tences without limit and of defending them, if an appeal 
 took place, before the assembled people. To these there 
 was very soon attached the further prerogative of ad- 
 dressing the people in general and of procuring the 
 adoption of resolutions. 
 
 " The power of the tribunes therefore primarily in- 
 volved the right of putting a stop at their pleasure to 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 207 
 
 There ought, perhaps, to be some means of 
 determining when this Court should interfere to 
 dissolve the legislature and order new elections. 
 As I intend its powers to extend to the removal of 
 individual representatives for any form of miscon- 
 duct, there might be few occasions for dissolving 
 
 acts of administration and to the execution of the law, 
 of enabling" a person bound to military service to with- 
 hold himself from the levy with impunity, of preventing- 
 or cancelling" the arrest of the condemned debtor or his 
 imprisonment during investigation, and other powers of 
 the same sort." 
 
 Now it is to be admitted that there is one important 
 resemblance between the Tribunes of the Commons and 
 my Court of Impeachment. The trihunatus plebis was an 
 inhibitive function exercised against the consuls. But 
 here the similarity stops, and the differences become 
 radical. Those differences may be classified as follows: 
 
 (1) The trihunatus plebis represented no partition of 
 powers between itself and the consuls, but rather a 
 conflict of them: the Court of Impeachment does repre- 
 sent such a partition between itself and the executive, 
 with the responsibility of the latter to the former. 
 
 (2) The Court of Impeachment and Removal cannot 
 interfere to prevent the administration of the law, but 
 merely to remove from office for the failure to attempt 
 its administration, for various malfeasances in office and 
 failure to meet the demands of the public service: the 
 tribunatus plebis could not remove from office the consuls 
 with whose administration it interfered. 
 
 (3) The Court of Impeachment can inflict no penalties 
 or punishment upon the men whom it can remove from 
 office, nor upon anyone else. 
 
 (4) The Court of Impeachment possesses the military 
 imperium, while the tribunatus plebis did not. 
 
208 DEMOCRACY 
 
 the legislature as a whole. iLvTevertheless, there 
 ought to be some criterion other than the apparently 
 arbitrary power of the Court. In England, as we 
 know, it is a defeat on some bill or a vote express- 
 ing a want of confidence in the Ministry that de- 
 termines when the crown can act. In the present 
 proposed system a similar vote of want of confidence 
 by both Houses against the Commissions might 
 enable the Court to interfere either to order the 
 appointment of a new Commission or to order a 
 
 (5) The trihunatus pleMs was based upon the distinc- 
 tion of classes and was intended to perpetuate it: the 
 Court of Impeachment assumes no such distinction. 
 
 These differences are fundamental and eviscerate at 
 least most of the objections that might be based upon 
 the abstract resemblance in the function of inhibition. 
 The trihunatus plebis seems to have been conceived after 
 the same principle which had introduced the constitu- 
 tional policy of two consuls, where there was a desire 
 to limit the power of a single ruler hy the dissent or 
 inhibition of another of the same rank. But in this 
 case, as in that of the tribunus plebis, it was merely two 
 rulers with the same powers and had all the defects of 
 such a system. It was the " check and balance " system 
 of antiquity, and failed as this always does. The inhi- 
 bitions of one consul simply made him the ruler, if he 
 succeeded in carrying- out his purpose, so that the ab- 
 solutism of the single consulate, which the dual con- 
 sulate was designed to prevent, simply returned under 
 an unconstitutional form. It was not a differentiation 
 and integration of functions, as it should have been. 
 The tribunatus plehis involved a conflict of " sovereignty " 
 with the consulate. This conflict with the executive is 
 avoided in the Court of Impeachment. 
 
PRACTICAL REMKDFES "00 
 
 new election of legislators with also tlie appoint- 
 ment of new Commissions. These conditions ought 
 to remove the objection just stated above and which 
 was admitted to have some force. 
 
 These general limitations upon executive and 
 legislative organs, and the necessity for securing in- 
 telligent and honest officials, as well as the estab- 
 lishment of responsibility for them, require that 
 compulsory service be exacted of both appointed and 
 elected agents. This requirement will seem to be a 
 hardship to many persons and strong objections may 
 be raised against it. Without the proper conditions 
 attached to the requirement I should admit the full 
 force of the objection. For it is hardly fair to ask 
 busy men who have large interests at stake and who 
 have no political ambitions to gratify, to give up 
 their time and labour to the public at a total sacrifice 
 of their private aft'airs, especially in a country that 
 means to grant complete freedom to its citizens in 
 the choice of activity. Hence, unless these rights 
 can be preserved with the requirement mentioned 
 they will be final in the matter and the exaction can- 
 not be fairly made. It is the spoilsman's conduct 
 that has created the dislike for office in the Republic. 
 Men who wish to make a success of life and a calling, 
 who prefer some regular vocation to the shiftless 
 career of a politician cast about by the whims of 
 popular elections, and who know that success and 
 usefulness as well as happiness depend upon perma- 
 
210 DEMOCRACY 
 
 nence of tenure in any vocation offering the oppor- 
 tunity for success, will not submit to a system that 
 intends to turn them out of office and a livelihood 
 without regard to the manner in which they have 
 served the public. Prudent and intelligent men 
 wish to calculate for the future. The spoilsman's 
 policy will not permit this. Hence there has grown 
 up in this country a disgust with public office that 
 will not look favourably upon a measure intending 
 to exact compulsory service from its citizens. But I 
 think that it is comparatively easy to evade the diffi- 
 culties which I have mentioned. First, it would not 
 be necessary to apply the requirement to all offices. 
 Second, proper civil service reform with its perma- 
 nent tenure for efficient and honest officials would 
 oifer inducements that would limit the necessity of 
 compulsion in the largest number of cases. Third, 
 all the positions that need to be put under such con- 
 ditions are those which are administrative in their 
 nature and represent heads of departments. Where 
 the man elected or appointed to such a position can- 
 not well devote all his time to official duties he can 
 be allowed to use his salary, or a part of it, for the 
 assistance of a competent person who shall do all 
 the work except that of the general direction of 
 affairs. But by far a better course would be to al- 
 low the incumbent the right of a secretary or assist- 
 ant of his own appointment, so that as little demand 
 as possible would be made upon the chief for time 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 211 
 
 and energy in anything but the executive direction 
 of affairs, while he is made responsible for the proper 
 performance of duty. What is wanted is the knowl- 
 edge and experience of the best men for the general 
 supervision and direction of administrative duties 
 by way of determining methods and applying the 
 proper discipline to subordinates. This will remove 
 the ordinary and well-founded objection to such a 
 policy and enable the executive to secure suitable 
 men for public service. The trouble with the present 
 policy is that fit men do not want office and nearly 
 all men that want it are not fit for it. The main 
 reason for it, of course, is the fear of the spoilsman. 
 But even after civil service reform has removed this 
 evil there will be positions which will demand the 
 abilities of men who do not require the emoluments 
 of office and who have no political ambitions, while 
 they have ample time and power to serve the public. 
 But not being able to compel service, executives 
 have to choose from those who seek office, and too 
 often, in the spoils system, these are the failures in 
 every other form of business. But government re- 
 quires abilities of the highest order and ought to be 
 able to command them either by the force of the 
 emoluments that it offers or by the force of its au- 
 thority, especially when we consider that it is the 
 very character of the social organism that renders 
 possible the leisure and resources of its more success- 
 ful citizens and it ought to be able to require some 
 
212 DEMOCRACY 
 
 quid fro quo for the advantages whicli they enjoy. 
 The same reasons that prevent the best men from 
 seeking office make it inviting to politicians with an 
 appetite for piracy and black-mail. But since re- 
 sponsibility to the Court of Impeachment makes 
 such positions less inviting to cupidity, or even ob- 
 jectionable, it is necessary that society should be 
 able to command the services of its best citizens. 
 This compulsion, practiced already in Germany if 
 I mistake not, will be wholly unobjectionable if or- 
 ganised in the manner described, which will respect 
 individual liberty as much as possible. 
 
 I come next to a proposition which is a much more 
 delicate problem to handle, that of differentiating 
 the franchise, and is yet one of the most important of 
 all the changes that I have suggested. When it is 
 stated it will at once be interpreted as a limitation 
 of the suffrage. But this view will be only half -true, 
 as that limitation is understood in common parlance. 
 I am willing to say, however, that I should not wince 
 under the accusation that I meant to restrict the 
 right of the suffrage, because those who usually 
 make objection to such a limitation are either dem- 
 agogues or labour under a wholly inexcusable illu- 
 sion in regard to the nature of this right. If any 
 one suggests the propriety of limiting the franchise, 
 a whole class of public hypocrites, newspaper editors 
 playing the part of Mephistopheles for the sake of 
 financial success, and men who ought to know bet- 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 313 
 
 ter, along with tlie ignorant electorate, taught to 
 believe that political salvation can be obtained by 
 allowing those who cannot govern themselves to 
 govern others — these raise the absurd cry that we are 
 proposing to rob men of their ^' rights," as if the 
 ■ privilege of voting were on a par with the right to 
 live, to work, to act in self-defence, etc., or what are 
 called natural rights by virtue of conditions not per- 
 taining to the franchise. But the fact is, dema- 
 gogues and politicians to the contrary notwithstand- 
 ing, that the suffrage is not, or ought not to be, a ] 
 natural right, possessed or possessable equally by all \ 
 persons alike. It is, like office, wholly subject to the I 
 interests of the community and ought to be con- 
 ferred or withheld according to the requirement of \ 
 those interests. There are two classes of wholly dis- J 
 tinct rights, which I shall call 'personal and political \ 
 rights. Personal rights are those in which the sub- 
 ject can claim immunity in self -activity in reference 
 to his own interests alone; that is, self-government. 
 Political rights are those in which the subject can 
 claim immunity in the exercise of power over others ; 
 that is, the government of others. In practice it 
 may be difficult to draw the line between the two 
 classes of rights, but only, perhaps, because we have 
 not sufficiently differentiated our institutions to en- 
 able us to avail ourselves of the distinction, which 
 is one of undoubted importance to theory, and only 
 awaits the intelligence to apply it in practice. 
 
214 DEMOVRAaY 
 
 Among the personal rights I would reckon Life, 
 Liberty, and Personal Property, or the product of 
 one's own labour: among political rights I would 
 reckon Property in Land (land in the economic 
 sense), or ISTatural Resources, the Franchise, and Of- 
 fice. It will be seen in this classification that I put 
 the suffrage on a par with the right to hold office and 
 so imply that it is subject to the same kind of condi- 
 tions, though perhaps not so general, if we diminish 
 properly the number of agents to be elected by the 
 citizens, as I have done in the present scheme. 
 
 It would be much better for society if this con- 
 ception of the franchise were more prevalent than it 
 is, and if public opinion were more ready to treat 
 those applications of it which are injurious to social 
 welfare as it treats minors, foreigners, and certain 
 criminals, not to say anything of women, who are 
 here unfortunately classed, but still the victims of a 
 wholly illogical policy. If the suffrage be a natural 
 right; that is, classed among those which I have 
 called personal rights, it cannot be excluded from 
 women, minors, foreigners, and criminals. The 
 tendency, or rather necessity, to treat it as such a 
 natural right is apparent in the agitation for female 
 suffrage and the logical difficulties encountered by 
 men in refusing this demand. But the conclusive 
 instances of minors and foreigners show either that 
 we should not place the limitation where it is or that 
 fitness to serve the public is the only legitimate title 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 215 
 
 to the privilege. Then having drawn the line we 
 ought to see that the question is not one of abstract 
 moral rights, based on the general nature of man, 
 but only public utility, and should limit it accord- 
 ingly by qualifications consonant with this end and 
 view of it as in fact a mere privilege. 
 
 But it is not necessary here to define the right to 
 vote, nor to defend the method of limiting universal 
 suffrage which characterised the policy of the past, 
 since the proposition which is to be advanced for 
 consideration in the present discussion does not aban- 
 don all appeals to it. ^or would I favour a total 
 abandonment of it for all the functions of govern- 
 ment. In some respects it has most desirable feat- 
 ures and ought to be retained for certain specific 
 purposes. This concession is not made as a sop to 
 Cerberus, because universal suffrage may be useful, 
 perhaps necessary, where it may serve as a defensive 
 measure against aggression upon personal rights, 
 but it is not a fit means for constructive ends. But 
 whatever its merits for the purpose mentioned, if 
 it have any, it is certain that the present system 
 fails to secure, as a general rule at least, perhaps 
 an almost universal rule, desirable men for office, 
 and is too expensive economically and too dangerous 
 morally to be continued much longer without some 
 guarantee of better government by some other 
 means, if not by the limitation of the suffrage. 
 
 ]^or does our escape from anarchy in the recent 
 
216 DEMOCRACY 
 
 presidential election by a million votes serve as a 
 defense of it. E"ot only was it secured by playing 
 upon conservative tendencies to support the status 
 quo in our financial policy and political institutions, 
 and upon fears that had no experience to guide the 
 voter in a new direction, but we have to consider 
 what the result might have been had the combina- 
 tion of circumstances been slightly different. For 
 instance, in the election mentioned the labouring 
 classes were interested in overthrowing '^ govern- 
 ment by injunction " and the agricultural classes, 
 supposed to be in the main the debtors, were pre- 
 sumably interested in free silver, so that both prin- 
 ciples were embodied in the platform of one of the 
 parties. As the labouring classes were supposed to 
 represent 52 per cent, of the population and the 
 agricultural classes 40 per cent, of it the game was 
 to unite the two and secure the election. But as 
 free silver would have depreciated the purchasing 
 power of wages, the labouring classes had a more 
 immediate interest in preventing the reduction of 
 their standard of living than in the remote question 
 of constitutional and Supreme Court problems and 
 the issue of wages divided the forces on the other 
 side, so that it seemed that we could yet trust the 
 humblest voter to decide the deepest questions 
 wisely. But had the matter of wages been out of 
 the way in the campaign we should have had fewer 
 reasons to congratulate ourselves upon the value of 
 universal suffrage. 
 
Pit AC TIC AL REMEDIES 217 
 
 Moreover in estimating the value of an unlimited 
 franchise we have to consider the price at which 
 such a victory was won. This price is made up of 
 several factors. There is the cost in money to carry 
 on such a campaign and to overcome the effects of 
 crass ignorance on a delicate and profound problem, 
 and this probably involved large sums for very 
 questionable purposes. Moreover the moral con- 
 sequences of feeling that this ignorance must either 
 be deceived or bought off, when it could not be 
 educated, are terrible, because such a situation cre- 
 ates a habit of mind which makes indignation at 
 bribery impossible or difficult. Self-preservation is 
 the first law of nature, and when envy and ignorance 
 make an assault upon property in violation of the 
 confidence which the laws had established, it is no 
 wonder that even sensitive minds resort to the in- 
 fluence of money instead of revolution for self-de- 
 fence. Such conditions sear the public conscience 
 and offer it too few opportunities to train itself to 
 delicacy and honor in matters requiring a lofty sense 
 of justice and respect for moral law. Then again 
 there are the sums of money that are lost by dis- 
 turbance to business, and these run up into many 
 millions every four years. But above and beyond 
 all this, the economic, social, and political problems 
 of government are too complicated for the limited 
 intelligence of the multitude to decide upon wisely, 
 especially when this multitude is little given to the 
 
218 BE MO GRAVY 
 
 calculation of remote consequences, and does noth- 
 ing to inform itself upon the fundamental princi- 
 ples of government and economics. The masses 
 either read the gossip, fabrications, deliberate lies 
 and ignorant newspapers, and are as credulous as 
 children of what is told them by politicians and 
 partisan journals, or they have come to believe that 
 newspapers are too often the paid hirelings of inter- 
 ests, political or otherwise, and thus feel compelled to 
 follow their own judgment, which is too often worse 
 than nothing in the problems of government. They 
 never study political questions until the excitement 
 of a campaign is on, and then they rush off to knaves 
 and mountebanks for wisdom upon the profoundest 
 problems of life. But even with all the wisdom de- 
 sirable, political campaigns neither offer the time 
 nor favour the temper of mind necessary for a calm 
 and scientific study of the questions of government, 
 and politicians are willing enough to spring sudden 
 issues and to produce a state of confusion in the 
 public mind: for this condition is a paradise for 
 their peculiar talents which prefer darkness to light 
 for their work. In the excitement of such a time 
 men have only a chance to consult their fears and 
 prejudices, and to follow demagogues who can make 
 the most and fulfil the fewest promises. And fur- 
 ther, when we consider that in the recent presiden- 
 tial election six out of thirteen millions of voters 
 voted either against their own previously confessed 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 219 
 
 principles out of mere partisan regularity, or against 
 the light of all reason and experience, no matter 
 how honest they may have been, we may safely ask 
 how many of the other seven millions were governed 
 by any better motives, or knew any more about their 
 side of the problem than their opponents. When 
 this is the condition of things we can well under- 
 stand why representatives and public officials are 
 not more intelligent and honest than they are. 
 Hence it is apparent from the manner in which the 
 suffrage is exercised that it only confers upon the 
 ignorant masses the same impossible duties that leg- t 
 islation demands of Congress, and we require to 
 limit these responsibilities for the same reason that 
 we feel it necessary to exempt legislators from the 
 demands of omniscience. A system is imperative 
 which shall place the main powers of government 
 in the hands of the intelligent and honest class of 
 citizens, while we can contrive at the same time a 
 means for making universal suffrage an instrument 
 of defence against the tyrannical use of power in 
 directions affecting the rights of all. The maxim 
 that a man who cannot govern himself should not 
 be allowed to govern others is a sound one, and until 
 we apply it in earnest we are certain to increase our 
 troubles. Government in its last analysis can only 
 be an illustration of the " survival of the fittest," 
 and we should see that the ^^ fittest '' are the intelli- 
 gent and honest as well as the strong. To obtain 
 
220 DEMOCRACY 
 
 the proper results we require a method that will 
 array the right on the side of might, or better, 
 might on the side of right, if we have to discriminate 
 between men to secure the result. But before giv- 
 ing further reasons for the modification of the fran- 
 chise, let me formulate the proposals to be discussed. 
 They include the following propositions. 
 
 1. The stricter and more extensive exclusion of 
 criminals from the recovery of citizenship. 
 
 2. The election of the Upper Houses by a 
 limited suffrage. 
 
 3. The election of the Lower Houses by univer- 
 sal suffrage. 
 
 4. The election of the executive by universal 
 suffrage, except the Mayors of municipalities, who 
 shall be elected by the limited suffrage. 
 
 The stricter exclusion of criminals from the re- 
 covery of citizenship is a most important entering 
 wedge in the determination of a limited franchise. 
 The exclusion ought also to be extended even to a 
 much larger number of crimes, at least for a period 
 and under severe conditions for redeeming it in 
 some cases and with the perpetual loss of it in others. 
 There is no class to whom the principles of a limited 
 franchise can be so reasonably applied, or in regard 
 to whom the maxim of civil rights can be made so 
 clear. This maxim is, in one form at least, that 
 civilisation cannot be regulated by its own parasites, 
 or that the class which requires to be governed by 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 221 
 
 jails and penitentiaries is not fit to act in the selec- 
 tion of civil officers. The same principle will apply 
 to vagabonds. The exclusion might be applied be- 
 yond the reach of recovery for habitual criminals 
 who should include all that have been convicted a 
 second time for penitentiary and other offences more 
 seriously affecting the life, liberty, and property 
 rights of fellow-men. If the system of indefinite 
 periods of punishment were adopted the courts might 
 restore citizenship to such as had shown sufficient 
 evidence of improved character and regular habits 
 after a definite number of years. Under such regu- 
 lations the scandals of our pardoning executives 
 would not occur, especially as the intention in the 
 present system is to deprive the executive of the 
 pardoning power and to have all judiciary incum- 
 bents appointed. But by this limitation alone a very 
 large number of men would lose their influence for 
 evil upon our politics while we should be imbuing 
 the public with a better idea of what the franchise 
 means. "^ 
 
 It may be asked why I make an exception of 
 municipal executives in the manner of their elec- 
 
 * In the recent Presidential election, where the issue 
 was largely the repudiation of public and private debts, 
 and the withdrawal of federal interference in labour 
 strikes against railways and enterprises inyolving pub- 
 lic interests, and perhaps all strikes whatever, the reg- 
 ular Democratic nominee of the Chicago Convention 
 supporting this demand, which threatened to lead 
 
222 DEMOCRACY 
 
 tion. Why not also choose them by universal suf- 
 frage ? Do not the same principles apply to them as 
 to other executives? I must answer this question 
 in the negative. The conditions are, in fact, very 
 different. The duties of municipal executives are 
 mostly those of an officer who supervises the gen- 
 eral administration of city appropriations and ex- 
 penditures. In some cases his appointing powers 
 are not large. In the present scheme they are very 
 large, and responsibility for the whole administra- 
 tion of city finances, public works, and police de- 
 partment would rest upon him. But the following 
 facts show that the same reasons that favour the elec- 
 tion of the Upper Houses by a limited franchise 
 apply to the choice of municipal executives: (1) 
 The control of public finances and improvements 
 which falls more to the mayors than to the councils 
 requires responsibility to the property holders. (2) 
 The inability of municipal governments, executive 
 or legislative, to affect in any material way the gen- 
 eral civil liberties of citizens. (3) The inability of 
 municipalities to impose such taxes as justify the 
 representation of the non-property holders in the 
 
 straig-ht to anarchy, the inmates of the New Haven 
 (Conn.) jail were asked their presidential preferences. 
 Of 291 prisoners, 284 were for the regular Democratic 
 nominee, and only 6 for the Republican, and one unde- 
 cided, he being" insane. It would have been interesting 
 to have obtained a general census of the preferences 
 among the criminals of the whole country. 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 223 
 
 choice of a municipal executive. Practically all 
 taxes are upon real estate or property of some kind, 
 and not upon either the necessaries or the luxuries 
 of life. The duties and responsibilities of the 
 mayor's office, therefore, pertain to the same kind 
 of interests that require direction by the classes who 
 have to furnish both the financial means and the 
 business ability for administration that affects the 
 personal liberties of the majority very little if any at 
 all. Universal suffrage in the election of the coun- 
 cils, assuming that it is to be retained in municipal 
 affairs, has all the control necessary over legislation 
 affecting municipal liberties. Also with a limited 
 suffrage for the choice of the mayors, and with the 
 initiative powers of the heads of departments to 
 serve instead of Commissions after the manner of 
 the state and federal governments, it might suffice 
 to have but a single legislative body in municipali- 
 ties. This problem, however, it is not necessary for 
 me to decide. If an Upper House be necessary or 
 desirable it should be elected by a limited franchise. 
 Three alternatives present themselves in regard 
 to the election of municipal legislative assemblies. 
 (1) Two Houses, an Upper and a Lower, elected 
 after the manner already outlined for federal and 
 state governments. This assumes that one House 
 shall be chosen by a limited and the other by uni- 
 versal suffrage. (2) A single House elected by 
 universal suffrage. As the present scheme proposes 
 
324 DEMOCRACY 
 
 that municipal executives shall be chosen by a lim- 
 ited franchise the conception of a single House 
 elected by universal suffrage would recommend 
 itself to those who believe in "" checks and bal- 
 ances/' and who give up the necessity for two 
 Houses. (3) A single House chosen by a limited 
 suffrage. The facts which favor this last proposi- 
 tion are the nature of municipal government and its 
 decidedly limited functions in regard to matters af- 
 fecting personal liberties. All the arguments in 
 favour of electing the municipal executive by a lim- 
 ited franchise also favour the election of the muni- 
 cipal legislature by the same method, if this body is 
 to be a single House. Neither matters of taxation 
 nor the problem of personal liberties stand in the 
 way of this last system. The administrative, finan- 
 cial, judicial and sanitary business of municipalities 
 is such that non-property holders are both incapable 
 of intelligently directing them by political influence, 
 and unable to plead personal interests in behalf of a 
 voice in them. I should myself incline to support 
 this alternative as the best of the three. The whole 
 history of municipal government in this country 
 sustains it. Under present conditions the future of 
 our institutions depends upon the success or failure 
 of government in the cities. They are the seats of 
 more corruption, if possible-, than any other forms of 
 our politics, at least if we can accept the united 
 testimony of competent observers and writers. The 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 225 
 
 fact coincides with the distribution and character of 
 their population, so that if any reason exists for a 
 limited franchise it is found in a conclusive form in 
 the status of our municipal governments. But be- 
 fore considering this question in the narrower field 
 its larger aspects must receive attention. 
 
 The first objection to the proposed policy would 
 probably be that, if the franchise is to be limited 
 at all, the simpler process would be to elect all of- 
 ficers by the limited suffrage. This is true, but as I 
 have admitted that there is a function for universal 
 suffrage, and as there are political duties which it 
 cannot perform, I see no alternative to that division 
 of duties which involves a differentiation of the 
 franchise which will assign to each class of citizens 
 its proper functions. The concentration of the most 
 important matters of legislation in the Upper 
 Houses, such as appropriations and internal im- 
 provements, finances, and an equal voice in all other 
 affairs, assumes that the intelligent and property 
 classes can best manage the legislation connected 
 with these matters. The power of these branches 
 also in the right of vetoing appointments to the 
 Court of Confirmation involves a demand upon bet- 
 ter men than we now obtain in our Senates and only 
 the intelligent classes can select the delegates fitted 
 to perform this service rightly. Hence there ought 
 to be a limited suffrage for their selection. Such a 
 limitation is practically implied in republican insti- 
 
226 DEMOCRACY 
 
 tutions, whicli simply limit the franchise for direct 
 legislation to their representatives. We already as- 
 sume that government must be conducted by the 
 more intelligent members of the community and 
 limit the legislative franchise to a few persons, and 
 if we do not make this assumption we have no right 
 to delay the referendum and the initiative. Ac- 
 cepting, therefore, the tacit admission of the very 
 principle for which I am contending in the very 
 nature of our institutions, the only further problem 
 is to apply it in a more consistent form than we do. 
 The differentiation of its functions should coincide 
 with the differences of abilities and duties in the 
 exercise of political power. 
 
 The second objection might be that, if limited at 
 all, the executive, with its enormous powers over ad- 
 ministrative appointments and legislation involving 
 the highest intelligence, should be elected by the 
 limited suffrage. If it were not for the Court of 
 Impeachment and Removal which the present pro- 
 posed system offers I should unhesitatingly admit 
 the force of this objection. But the check .of the 
 Court of Confirmation, of the Upper Houses elected 
 by a limited franchise, and the responsibility of the 
 executive to the Court of Impeachment make it 
 quite safe, in the writer's opinion, to entrust the 
 selection of the executive in all cases, except that of 
 municipalities, to universal suffrage, and besides it 
 will accord more distinctly with the English system 
 
PE ACTIO AL REMEDIES 237 
 
 which makes the Ministry responsible to the electo- 
 rate as well as to the crown. Bnt comparisons aside, 
 the interest of the whole people in the administra- 
 tion of justice, as involved in the appointment of the 
 judiciary more especially, might justify the appli- 
 cation of universal suffrage to the election of the 
 executive, especially that it is made adequately re- 
 sponsible and the Upper House can so effectually 
 protect property against "the black-mailing propensi- 
 ties of politicians who use universal suffrage for 
 power to control all financial affairs which the pro- 
 posed system puts into the hands of the classes that 
 have not only been the productive but also the pru- 
 dent members of the community and must have the 
 power to protect themselves against demagogues and 
 political pirates. But the administration of justice 
 is a different matter. It requires intelligence no 
 less than other functions of government, but it also 
 requires a regard to others which the economic sys- 
 tem under the rights of private contract does not 
 make necessary, though perhaps obligatory morally. 
 Hence it may be fair to apply universal suffrage to 
 the election of the executive, while its responsibility 
 with the power of the intelligent classes to restrain 
 abuses of administrative functions makes universal 
 suffrage less open to the objections that now incum- 
 ber it. 
 
 The third objection to the limitation of the fran- 
 chise is that it is now impracticable, after having 
 
228 DEMOCRACY 
 
 adopted it universally, because we should have to re- 
 sort to it to obtain its own restriction. Such an ap- 
 peal would appear to most persons as absurd as the 
 voluntary relinquishment of an important right 
 which had just been won by a hard fight. Put in 
 this form and without regard to the actual nature 
 of our institutions the objection seems to have much 
 practical cogency. But I am far from considering 
 the difficulty insurmountable, and much less do I 
 respect the intelligence of those who assume in this 
 objection that the franchise is not now subject to 
 both theoretical and practical limitations which are 
 impossible according to their arguments. I espe- 
 cially think the difficulties largely imaginary for the 
 reason that it is still possible, as at present, to use 
 universal suffrage for the legislative purposes de- 
 scribed and also for its own limitation. The forms 
 of applying the suffrage are not yet exhausted. 
 Moreover nothing is clearer than the fact that it is 
 now resorted to as a means of self -limitation. The 
 boasted freedom and independence of universal suf- 
 frage is an illusion. The election of executive, leg- 
 islative, and judicial officers is nothing but the self- 
 limitation of it. It gains some deference and the 
 semblance of power in the homage of hypocrisy with 
 which the politician conceals the real limitation of 
 the franchise. But it is of the very essence of rep- 
 resentative government appealing to universal suf- 
 frage that it should involve a self-limitation of the 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 229 
 
 franchise, and it is only the increasing impotency of 
 the executive and the equally increasing omnipo- 
 tence, anarchy, and tyranny of the legislative powers 
 that render that self -limitation ineffective, so that 
 the natural demand arises for the logical conse- 
 quence of pure democracy ; namely, the referendum 
 and the initiative, the only form of polity in which 
 the suffrage is unlimited. But these, if proposed for 
 all purposes, are universal suffrage run mad, unless 
 we assume that government is unnecessary and that 
 men are intelligent and honest enough to agree 
 upon some universal rule and to let it work itself 
 without an executive and police system. I confess, 
 however, that they would hardly be much worse 
 than the kind of government which political 
 '' bosses " and knaves generally, with their hypo- 
 critical wheedling and flattering of the electorate, 
 and irresponsible executives and legislatures are rap- 
 idly preparing for us. But in the end, between this 
 present tendency and the referendum, we shall be 
 obliged to choose some differentiation or limitation 
 of the franchise, and it is the business of political 
 students to provide a way for securing the better 
 of the two alternatives, which I regard as a qualified 
 suffrage. 
 
 The only difficulty which I admit is of a practical 
 nature, and even this applies only to the attempt to 
 introduce the qualification suddenly on a wide scale, 
 owing to the number of persons who would have to 
 
230 DEMOCRACY 
 
 be converted to tlie advisability of the limitation if 
 it involved the education and consent of the major- 
 ity of the voters in the whole country. There would 
 be a serious difficulty either in the attempt to amend 
 the constitution of the United States or in the enact- 
 ment of legislation limiting the franchise by the 
 federal government. I do not conceal from myself 
 the impossibility of this attempt at present. But, 
 although I am arguing for the differentiation of the 
 franchise on a large scale, representing it to be the 
 best way to exhibit the true theory of government 
 as I conceive it, fortunately we are not left by our 
 constitution to federal initiative in this limitation. 
 The states have full control over the extension and 
 limitation of the suffrage. A property qualification 
 once existed in many of them, and this policy still 
 survives occasionally in the poll-tax of some states 
 as a qualification.* Consequently it ought, on the 
 
 * The following statement from the New York Evening 
 Post is of interest as showing that a property qualifica- 
 tion still exists for the exercise of the franchise in 
 municipal affairs in Khode Island. " Ehode Island," 
 says this paper, " is the only state which has always 
 retained some sort of a property qualification for the 
 suffrage, and it seems loath to give it up. Formerly 
 every citizen must be possessed, in his own right, of 
 real estate worth $134, or renting for $7 a year, in order 
 to exercise the right of suffrage. In 1888 this provision 
 of the constitution was amended so as to remove the 
 property qualification as regarded all elections save 
 those for the choice of a City Council, or upon a propo- 
 sition to impose a tax, or for the expenditure of money 
 
PRACTWAL REMEDIES 231 
 
 principle of the poll-tax, to be comparatively easy 
 to reinstate a limitation on the suffrage in some 
 favourable state or locality. Perhaps it might even 
 be tried in the manner just suggested in some city, 
 suburb, or county as an experiment, and then ex- 
 tended or abandoned according to its success or fail- 
 ure. But for the sake of clearness and effectiveness 
 of argument I prefer to construct the theory of the 
 differentiation or limitation of the suffrage upon a 
 large scale, where its relation to vast and important 
 interests can be better appreciated, while the practi- 
 cal application of the system might begin on a small 
 scale. 
 
 It is incumbent upon political students advocat- 
 ing such a limitation of the franchise to provide some 
 practical criterion to determine it, and I proceed to 
 consider this question. It must be remembered that 
 the plan contemplates a limitation of the suffrage 
 only for those who elect the representatives of the 
 Upper Houses, or Senates, and the problem is to 
 
 in any town or city. A commission for revision of the 
 constitution is now (1897) holding- sessions, and it has 
 decided not only to maintain this qualification, but to 
 increase the amount from $134 to $300, which may be 
 either in real or personal property. Some members of 
 the commission held that the system had been out- 
 grown, and that a citizen was not more trustworthy 
 because he had property; but others insisted that the 
 old requirement had worked well, and ought to be 
 strengthened, rather than abolished, and they carried 
 the day by a vote of 9 to 5." 
 
232 DEMOCRACY 
 
 fix the qualification or method of determining the 
 class better fitted to select these bodies, while univer- 
 sal suffrage remains, as at present, to elect the exec- 
 utive (except the Mayors of cities) and the represent- 
 atives of the Lower Houses. 
 
 The qualification which seems to gain adherents 
 among those who are beginning to favour limitation, 
 and this of a universal sort, is the intellectual one, 
 to which resort is made because of the deeply 
 founded prejudice against the traditional property 
 qualification. But I regard the so-called intellectual 
 qualification, with the proposed methods of deter- 
 mining it, as opposed to free institutions, or as not 
 evading the frauds and injustice of our present elec- 
 tioneering practices. This method is some court or 
 body to decide whether some would-be voter can 
 read and write sufficiently to possess the franchise. 
 l^ot that an intellectual qualification, such as its 
 advocates mean would not secure better voters and 
 public officials, but that there is a vast difference 
 between the ^^ intelligence " which the advocates 
 of an intellectual qualification mean to assert as 
 necessary to good government and the " intelli- 
 gence '' which their method of limiting the fran- 
 chise determines. The ^' intelligence '^ which will 
 guarantee good government must imply or involve 
 honesty and morality. But the educational test is 
 no necessary indication of this additional quality. 
 The '^ intelligence " shown by it may be of the 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 233 
 
 most anti-soeial sort, as iu the average politician, 
 Avho is '^ intelligent " enongh, so far as shrewdness 
 and knowledge of his immediate wants are con- 
 cerned, but he too often has about as much honesty 
 as the devil. To see that the " intelligence '^ in- 
 volves morality also would require inquisitorial 
 methods that are worse than universal suffrage. 
 Moreover, the use of a court or public officers to de- 
 cide who can and who cannot read and write does 
 not give a self-determining method of limiting the 
 franchise. It puts the power of limiting it in the 
 hands of others than the subject of the right. The 
 method which I shall propose is self-determining, 
 and puts the whole responsibility for possessing or 
 not possessing the franchise upon the person who de- 
 sires it, and besides I maintain that it supplies a 
 criterion for both the intellectual and the moral 
 qualities necessary for good government. 
 
 There are two ways in which this limitation might 
 be imposed, one of which would be an appeal to 
 universal suffrage, and the other an application of 
 the principle implied in the poll-tax. The first of 
 these methods would require such a modification of 
 the constitution as would establish long intervals be- 
 tween the appeals to universal suffrage, in order to 
 secure in the limited electorate that it involves the 
 intelligence and character desired, if that be possi- 
 ble. Those who desire a limitation of the suffrage 
 for all purposes might consider this method, be- 
 
234 DEMOCRACY 
 
 cause, if practicable at all, it does not involve an 
 acceptance of any other features of the scheme 
 which I have proposed. Also if it has difficulties 
 and absurdities for the political student it never- 
 theless has the merit of creating as slight a devia- 
 tion from universal suffrage as common prejudice 
 might yield. The idea would be to fix upon a defi- 
 nite portion of the population, the nearest to a given 
 ratio, perhaps one-third or one-fourth, to serve as an 
 electoral college for a long period, say twelve or six- 
 teen years, and which must possess certain specific 
 qualifications and be elected by universal suffrage. 
 
 This plan, however, I do not regard as a satis- 
 factory one. It has no other merit than that of be- 
 ing a compromise with universal suffrage and with 
 the superstition that the franchise is a natural right. 
 The second plan, which is the one that I should 
 favour, and which follows precedent in its main 
 principle, is much simpler and more rational, and I 
 think more practicable, whether or not it is possible 
 to obtain it at once on a national scale. It is to 
 admit to the electorate all who pay an income tax 
 to he determined hy law. This electorate body 
 should have a permanent registry of its members, 
 with decrements caused by death and failure to pay 
 the tax and increments by fulfilment of the legal 
 conditions. Moreover, the right to exercise the suf- 
 frage should be limited to those who have paid their 
 income tax at least one year before the election in 
 
PR A CTICAL REMEDIES 235 
 
 which they are to participate. This provision is in- 
 tended to guarantee protection against those abuses 
 incident to the poll-tax which the politicians are in 
 the habit of paying, especially when this qualifica- 
 tion is put very low. At least some security must 
 be exacted that the elector has paid his own tax, 
 and that candidates for office have not paid it, and 
 I consider that a long and definite period before 
 issues and candidates have been determined as the 
 best form in which this security can be expressed. 
 
 It is important to remark that the concessions 
 which I make to universal suffrage at all are condi- 
 tioned upon the adoption of the Court of Impeach- 
 ment and Removal, the extension of the appointing 
 powers of the executive, and the limitation of leg- 
 islation pertaining to appropriations, banking, etc., 
 to the Upper Houses. These provisions so 
 strengthen the power of the intelligent classes that 
 the arguments for universal suffrage in the remain- 
 ing functions of government will appear more co- 
 gent and the objections to it less forcible. In fact, 
 if such reforms were not adopted the responsibili- 
 ties of the electorate would be so great that I should 
 favour the extension of the qualification that I am 
 advocating to the whole body of voters. Perhaps the 
 average political reformer might think it a simpler 
 process to limit the whole franchise in some such 
 way as I propose than to Avork out any articulated 
 system of constitutional changes. I should agree 
 
236 DEMOCRACY 
 
 that, if the responsibility for electing all our of- 
 ficers as at present, and leaving them with their 
 present quantum of power and irresponsibility shall 
 remain, the best process would be to adopt a univer- 
 sal qualification for the suffrage. But with the sim- 
 plification of the duties of the electorate involved 
 in the election of only an appointing power and rep- 
 resentative of the Lower Houses, and with the re- 
 sponsibility of the executive and legislative and all 
 subordinate administrative offices to the Court of 
 Impeachment, I would conceive it a legitimate pro- 
 tection to other classes, if not also a prudent prac- 
 tical concession to existing prejudices, to limit the 
 franchise in the manner proposed only for the Upper 
 Houses and municipal executives. But in the argu- 
 ment for a limitation of it I shall not assume uncon- 
 ditionally the system of other changes that I have 
 proposed, but adapt them to the general problem, 
 though defining the qualification in terms of an in- 
 come tax in both cases. If my system be practicable 
 then I should defend a differentiation, otherwise a 
 universal limitation of the franchise. 
 
 The cry, of course, which will be raised against 
 this form of restriction is that it is a property quali- 
 fication, and hence a resort to an institution that 
 has been tried and found wanting. But I have a 
 frank reply to this charge which will consist of two 
 assertions: First, I do not care if it is a property 
 qualification. That fact would not make it any the 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 237 
 
 worse for my estimation of it. In these socialistic 
 times everything associated with property is sup- 
 posed to be a Medusa head on which no political 
 student and reformer can look and live. I for one 
 am willing to accept the challenge which the ac- 
 cusation implies. Second, I deny that it is such a 
 qualification in any sense in which experience has 
 represented that policy. This is apparent from the 
 little noise made about the poll-tax limitation. 
 
 In regard to the first of these contentions I do not 
 know any fact which it is more important to keep 
 in view, whatever we think of property qualifica- 
 tions for the suffrage, than the fact that property 
 ultimately rules civilisation, no matter how much 
 we may endeavour to prevent it. It is bound to suc- 
 ceed. When it cannot do it by constitutional and 
 legitimate means, it will do it by unconstitutional 
 and illegitimate means, and there is no way to pre- 
 vent it. This is the experience of all history since 
 society emerged from savagery. It is not because 
 property represents mere brute power that it ac- 
 complishes this result, but because it invariably 
 joins superior intelligence to the fact of possession, 
 though this superiority may be nothing more than 
 the prudence which invests savings. Property is 
 power, but it is power combined with intelligence, 
 enterprise, and prudence, and if the laAV of evolu- 
 tion be true at all, it represents the survival of the 
 fittest, if not in each individual case judged accord- 
 
238 DEMOCRACY 
 
 ing to the standard of morality usually in vogue 
 certainly in the matter of economic prudence and 
 intelligence. Consequently it is bound to rule by 
 fair means or foul, wherever there is the struggle 
 for existence and as long as nature favours superior 
 intelligence, even if it be of no higher kind than 
 economic thrift. It is useless to antagonise property 
 in the abstract or as an institution: for whether 
 ideal or not, it represents the power which foresight 
 embodies against improvidence, and every effort to 
 invest the non-propertied class with political power 
 equal to that of the propertied class only succeeds 
 in producing unconstitutional methods for evading 
 its influence. Government of this kind is terribly 
 expensive and demoralising. But it is less costly 
 than anarchy, and obtains toleration in comparison 
 with this condition. One of the worst evils that 
 follow all attempts thus to suppress the influence, 
 not to say the rights of property, is that it forces a 
 combination of the moral class with the unscrupu- 
 lous and anti-social rich for the protection of the 
 very first condition of survival and civilisation, when 
 the two ought to be divided. Attack property and a 
 common interest arises between all property holders 
 to let their differences in morality alone, and the 
 unscrupulous rich will come to the helm because 
 they can buy, frighten, or deceive the proletariat in- 
 to granting them official power to further enrich 
 themselves at the public expense. When property 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 239 
 
 questions are not the issue the plutocrat and the 
 politician have universal suffrage to use, one of 
 them to threaten the rich with black-mail and 
 the other to buy off the politician and the plebs 
 in self-defence, and both to crush morality and 
 intelligence in the operations of government. But 
 if we should give property such a constitutional 
 recognition as the limited suffrage implies, assum- 
 ing that it is in reality such a recognition, we should 
 divide the social from the anti-social rich in politics, 
 eliminate the influence of the proletariat, and put 
 the competition for political power within the prop- 
 ertied class between those who respect morality in 
 their methods and those who do not, with a reason- 
 able chance that the former would carry the day as 
 they cannot in the present regime. Consequently, 
 I am not frightened by the ordinary objections to 
 the property qualification. I shall return to this 
 question again. 
 
 The second reply to the accusation is that the lim- 
 itation proposed is not a property qualification, as 
 that has been construed in the past. In antiquity 
 and until comparatively recent times land was the 
 title to civil rights, and this gave the definition to 
 property until the conception of real estate made it 
 broader, so as to include houses and buildings of all 
 sorts. The title to civil rights had to be some tangi- 
 ble object easily identifiable, and when real estate 
 came to be a source of revenue as well as land its 
 
240 DEMOCRACY 
 
 ready identification put it on the same plane. But 
 later civilisation had to extend the idea of property, 
 as a social and political influence, to what is known 
 as personal property, first chattels representing mov- 
 able things and then stocks, bonds, bills of credit, 
 and similar instruments. But the fluid nature of 
 personal property in every form prevented it from 
 being a safe criterion for civil rights of a special 
 kind, and hence with the increase of the number of 
 persons representing the second form of personal 
 property mentioned, which consists of claims on the 
 future production of land, the old qualifications had 
 to be abandoned and either a tax substituted for it, 
 or universal suffrage accepted as the alternative. A 
 property qualification to-day, based upon land or 
 real estate alone, would exclude, not only large num- 
 bers of property holders, but also a very large class 
 of intelligent persons who are equal or even superior 
 to all others in the judicial qualities necessary for 
 exercising the powers of government: (1) It would 
 exclude all those who trade in chattel and manufact- 
 ured goods. (2) It w^ould exclude all those who 
 own and depend upon instruments of credit which 
 bear income as well as real estate. (3) It would 
 exclude large numbers of the professional classes 
 who are at least equal to property owners in the 
 moral qualifications for civil rights and duties. It 
 was not land or real estate as such, but what it 
 implied in antiquity that constituted the real quali- 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 241 
 
 fication for citizenship and the franchise. This was 
 prudence and intelligence with the social qualities 
 involved and directed to ideals above physical satis- 
 faction alone. Or if the satisfaction was only physi- 
 cal it was above savagery. But these qualities to- 
 day belong in a greater degree to the commercial 
 and professional classes, commanding credit, on the 
 one hand, and intelligence on the other, and in a 
 less degree to those who depend upon rents. This 
 is apparent in the comparison of the two classes of 
 people. Land and real estate, when not used, one 
 of them for exploiting nature by personal labour, and 
 the other for the enjoyment of domestic life, but for 
 the exploitation of others by rents which put the 
 world's work upon one class and its leisure upon an- 
 other, do not to-day favour the social type of mind 
 upon which the best form of government must rest. 
 This is well illustrated by the majority of the mem- 
 bers of the English House of Lords of ancient stand- 
 ing. There are few of the hereditary peers, whose 
 claims are based upon estates, that show the social 
 and intellectual qualities suitable to the moral direc- 
 tion of modern government. As evidence of this 
 notice the small number of peers that take part in 
 the deliberations of the English Upper Chamber 
 and the large number of them that is entitled to do 
 so. They are largely a sporting class, enjoying the 
 community's contribution to their leisure and per- 
 forming no social duties in return. Those are the 
 
242 DEMOGRAOY 
 
 really social classes who either exploit nature alone 
 and live an independent domestic life, or lead that 
 commercial life in which the quid 'pro quo is mutual 
 services. The commercial and professional classes 
 represent these conditions more distinctly than land- 
 owners. IsTow it is the prudence and intelligence of 
 the higher classes, with the social qualities that are 
 encouraged by the principle of private contract in 
 economic relations, that should constitute the title 
 to citizenship and the exercise of the most important 
 civic functions. The only question is, how to ob- 
 tain a criterion for the most general possession of 
 this qualification. As real estate or land will not do, 
 with their loss of power to furnish social qualities, 
 and as the broad definition of property, including 
 even the whole range of personal possessions, will 
 often exclude the professional classes who have 
 every social quality to citizenship that property 
 owners can have, and will also often be as indeter- 
 minate a criterion as the educational test, the best 
 tangible index of intelligence and moral or social 
 qualities will be a tax on incomes, which the pro- 
 fessional classes can bear as well as property holders. 
 In thus admitting the professions to the limited elec- 
 torate, we should check the power of those who 
 merely live on rents, and prevent the frauds inci- 
 dent to a property qualification to be defined by 
 negotiable or transferrable values. That is to say, 
 the income-tax would represent the widest range 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 243 
 
 of intelligencej prudence, and moral or social quali- 
 ties making for civilisation and against barbarism, 
 thus enlarging the class that shall conduct the oper- 
 ations of government. Moreover, the system could 
 be made quite automatic, and by the size of the 
 income taxed, or by the rate of tax imposed, to ap- 
 proximate as nearly as possible to universal suffrage, 
 giving encouragement to economic prudence as a 
 condition for social and political privileges. On 
 the other hand, the prejudice against taxes could 
 be used for pushing the limitation as far up the 
 scale as possible, in order that the egoistic tempera- 
 ment might voluntarily relinquish his present politi- 
 cal power for the economical. If it be desirable to 
 call this restriction a property qualification, critics 
 are at liberty to do so, but I should simply insist 
 upon what I have already said about the history and 
 meaning of that qualification in the past and that 
 it imports something very different from that to 
 which objection is made when interpreted in terms 
 of landed property. By using an income-tax as 
 the criterion in the case we obtain all the combined 
 advantages of a property and an educational test 
 for the suffrage, and add also to these a system com- 
 pletely adjustable to the prejudices of the com- 
 munity. 
 
 But here again I am met with the old objection in 
 a new form. It is that my test is economic, not moral. 
 In the examination of this criticism I return to the 
 
244 DEMOCRACY 
 
 function of property in civilisation. The accusa- 
 tion, that a limitation of the suffrage by a tax in- 
 stead of some educational criterion is economic, not 
 moral, gets its cogency partly from the influence of 
 Cliristianity which has exalted moral and spiritual 
 ideals above the material, with a tendency to make 
 the material and the economic coincide, and partly 
 from the jealousy which the sentiment of equality 
 has cultivated against social distinction created by 
 mere wealth. The old opposition between spirit- 
 ualism and materialism here comes to the front in 
 political controversies, and idealism reluctantly 
 yields, or resists to the death, any claims that are 
 made for a superior value in material standards. 
 But the prevalent distinction between moral and 
 economic forces, a distinction that puts the moral 
 at the basis of the higher and the economic at the 
 basis of the lower civilisation, depends for its truth 
 upon one or the other of the following two assump- 
 tions: (1) That there is a complete and irreconcil- 
 able antithesis between economic and moral stand- 
 ards ; that is, that economic standards are not moral 
 at all. (2) That the moral and intellectual test for 
 citizenship which is supposed to be superior to the 
 economic is equally determinate and more general. 
 I deny both of these assumptions. I must therefore 
 take up this objection and show again more fully 
 what the " economic " criterion really represents in 
 the way of virtues qualifying for civil rights and 
 duties. 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 245 
 
 Assuming that the economic test at least repre- 
 sents property in the broad sense of the term, the 
 question is whether it does or does not represent also 
 at the same time a moral quality of any importance. 
 ]^o doubt there is a distinction between the moral 
 and the economic in common parlance. But it is not 
 one that involves any antithesis between them to the 
 extent of saying that the economic is never moral. 
 In so far as the economic represents material objects 
 and values in exchange, and the moral certain other 
 means of satisfaction not commercially exchangeable 
 there is a difference. But this difference in the data 
 which define the moral ideas beyond the sphere of the 
 physical does not imply that morality of some kind 
 is not coincident with the economic. It only makes 
 the common conception of morality a little more 
 comprehensive than that of economics. But even 
 this difference is only in the number of objects com- 
 prehended while the distinction of value is merely 
 relative. In fact the economic is the moral at a cer- 
 tain stage of its development, and is the absolute 
 condition of all realisation of ends beyond the satis- 
 faction of the physical appetites. In this way the 
 economic impulse becomes an ethical fact of tran- 
 scendent value, and would be appreciated as such 
 were it not that the conception of morality tends to 
 become identified with the objects which require 
 strong social pressure to get them respected, while 
 the economic impulses require nothing but the press- 
 
246 DEMOCRACY 
 
 lire of natural appetite. But it is not the kind of 
 pressure that is exerted upon the individual that de- 
 termines the moral: it is the part which any volun- 
 tary action whatsoever plays in the development and 
 improvement of the agent's condition and character 
 that constitutes morality. This makes the moral in- 
 clude the economic. 
 
 Property is the expression of the economic virtues 
 which are indispensable to all forms of government, 
 whether public or private, social or individual : that 
 is, whether government of self, or government of 
 others. Civilisation emerged from savagery and bar- 
 barism only on the condition of private property. 
 The intelligence that could extort from nature more 
 than her spontaneous production of food, the capac- 
 ity and willingness to work without social and politi- 
 cal pressure, and the prudence that would provide 
 for future wants and the responsibilities entailed by 
 the family, were virtues of such a high order, com- 
 pared with the savage condition, that the only se- 
 curity for them, as well as justice to the individual 
 for his labour, was the institution of private property. 
 Hence it came to represent the existence of those 
 qualities in men which are essential to survival and 
 progress, and which give the possessor of them 
 rights, rights by nature if that phrase be allowable, 
 that indolence, improvidence, and ignorance cannot 
 claim, especially when population begins to extend 
 beyond what the spontaneous products of nature will 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 247 
 
 support. Property is simply the reward of the man 
 who will work to sustain either a higher ideal than 
 nature alone will permit, or the population that 
 spontaneous products cannot satisfy. Hence it is 
 the index of the first and most important virtue that 
 brings man out of savagery. This virtue compre- 
 hends intelligence, prudence, and social habits if 
 only within the limits of the family. ]^o matter 
 whether property takes the form of real estate, per- 
 sonal possessions, or incomes, it embodies these virt- 
 ues in some degree and is entitled to that importance 
 and recognition in social and political life that is 
 commensurate with its influence upon human prog- 
 ress. Power has to be placed somewhere in gov- 
 ernment, and there are not two opinions as to the 
 virtues that should represent it, though we delude 
 ourselves with the idea that property is not an index 
 of them and that universal suffrage as applied to-day 
 excludes the undue influence of wealth. But the 
 fact is that the franchise without qualification is so 
 much power in the hands of those who do not possess 
 the virtues which property represents, power to 
 govern others when they have not the intelligence 
 and prudence to govern themselves. This class is 
 dominated by economic desires of the lower type 
 and is at the mercy of all who show superior intelli- 
 gence. Consequently, their political privileges only 
 confer power without the ability to use it rightly 
 even in behalf of their own interests, and enable any 
 
248 DEMOCRACY 
 
 set of men, Avhen well organised, to play upon cupid- 
 ity, prejudice, and envy for the power of public of- 
 fice, wliicli is used in forms of corruption past all 
 description. Our ruinously expensive government, 
 shameful system of national taxation, black-mailing 
 of individuals and corporations, and bribery at elec- 
 tions and in the legislatures, show clearly enough 
 that universal suffrage does not eliminate the in- 
 fluence of wealth from politics, or produce the mil- 
 lennium and paradise for any but scoundrels. In 
 fact, our present system only puts wealth, or the 
 power which it represents, into the hands of the un- 
 scrupulous who can always use the proletariat for 
 any irresponsible power that is wanted, and for 
 plundering the community in some form, whether 
 by taxation or black-mail. They have become so 
 bold that they do not discuss the problems of govern- 
 ment at all, but carry on their business with the au- 
 dacity of pirates and the immunity of saints. Uni- 
 versal suffrage is simply the useful instrument to 
 this end, and the boasted policy which was to cure 
 poverty and destroy the influence of wealth has only 
 increased its power and handed government over to 
 the anti-social classes, with a struggle between the 
 anti-social rich to plunder everybody else and the 
 anti-social poor to do the same. The proper limita- 
 tion of the franchise would cut off the sources of the 
 politician's influence over the proletariat and place 
 the balance of power in the great middle class whose 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 249 
 
 social and moral qualities are superior to tliose of the 
 rich who buy the plebs with a mess of pottage or 
 false promises in order to mulct society, and whose 
 intelligence and prudence are superior to those of 
 the proletariat. 
 
 I do not hesitate to say that every form of govern- 
 ment by the property classes is better than the mob 
 rule which is government by the non-propertied 
 classes and the logical consequence of the doctrine 
 that the ballot is a natural right. Mob rule as I 
 use the term here does not necessarily imply riot and 
 insurrection. Mob rule exists when the ignorant 
 and vicious classes select pirates and black-mailers 
 for our governors, and make honesty and fidelity to 
 the public impossible except at the expense of every- 
 thing honourable men prize. Mob rule may make 
 and then conform to bad laws because they are 
 shaped partly to satisfy the sense of vanity and 
 power in the masses, and partly to favour their eco- 
 nomic and social interests at the expense of the com- 
 munity. The property classes have never done any 
 worse than this, and when they can keep the egoistic 
 type of their own numbers out of political power they 
 have always done better. This is true in spite of the 
 fact that government by the property classes in the 
 past is marked by conspicuous failures. But this re- 
 sult was caused partly by the exclusion of intelligent 
 classes equal or superior in social qualities to the 
 owners of real property and hence by the undue 
 
250 DEMOCRACY 
 
 amount of power in tlie liands of the latter, and 
 mostly by tlie want of adequate means for making 
 the executive responsible for the use of its political 
 privileges. In the system which I have proposed 
 the conditions exist which will keep the competition 
 for political power wdthin the limits of the intelli- 
 gent and prudent classes, enabling the more social 
 elements of the community to prevail and prevent- 
 ing the anti- social rich irom overriding the moral 
 portion of society by purchasing or deceiving the 
 anti-social poor. The flexibility of the test for citi- 
 zenship, which I offer, concedes all that the most 
 ardent antagonist of the old system which universal 
 suffrage supplants can urge, while the inhibitive 
 functions still left to the whole population, outside 
 the jails and penitentiaries, in matters not pertain- 
 ing to the interests which the poor do not and will 
 not control, are all that the proletariat can legiti- 
 mately claim in behalf of the individual. Intelli- 
 gence, enterprise and prudence are qualities which 
 natural selection and the struggle for existence have 
 shown to have the right, as well as the power, to con- 
 trol the destiny of history, and it only hinders and 
 delays progress, or even produces ruin, to endow the 
 opposite characteristics with the police power to con- 
 vert economic forces into the channels of black-mail 
 and various forms of illegitimate exploitation and 
 evasions of just contribution to the world's necessary 
 work. The artificial selection of politics should aid 
 
PRACTICAL BE ME DIES 251 
 
 or imitate the natural selection of the cosmos. 
 Otherwise the cosmos will have its ow^n way, with 
 vengeance for neglect of its laws. Property is 
 power, and unless the rewards go to the legitimate 
 uses of this powder we shall be left with the brute and 
 internecine struggle foi existence as the only re- 
 source for intelligence and prudence to employ in 
 their self-defence. For might will always win, and 
 it will win against the more ideal right unless the 
 latter, giving up sentiment, is shrewd enough to 
 produce conditions in which it is the interest of mere 
 power to respect the claims of conscience. The im- 
 munities of political power should fall to the honest 
 as well as the intelligent, and universal suffrage, 
 especially in economic matters, only throws the bal- 
 ance of power into the hands of those who do not 
 know enough to use it in behalf of their own inter- 
 ests and are not willing or social enough to use it in 
 the service of the public: but becoming the dupes and 
 prey of the politicians, keep on producing the Pan- 
 demonium from which they profess a desire to es- 
 cape. But we cannot expect good government from 
 those who cannot govern themselves. '^ Self-indul- 
 gence," says Mr. F. H. Wines, " on the part of the 
 individual, if carried to excess, necessitates control 
 ab extra. This extraneous control may be parental, 
 monarchical, or legislative. The struggle between 
 opposing forces for a greater or less measure of com- 
 munal restraint assumes largely the form of a con- 
 
25!^ DEMOCRACY 
 
 flict between the principles of individnalisni and 
 collectivism in social organisation, tlie result of 
 wliicli is to assure the individual so much personal 
 freedom as he is capable of using to his own advan- 
 tage and that of the community, but no more. Self- 
 control is the condition of freedom, and the degree 
 of growth in self-control is the standard of prog- 
 ress/' * The whole philosophy of government is 
 embodied in this statement, and unless the suffrage 
 be based upon this principle democracy cannot suc- 
 ceed in anything except the extension of freedom 
 at the expense of morality and good government. 
 Limit the franchise, therefore, in some such way 
 as I have proposed, adjusting it as the social condi- 
 tions require, if need be by a graduated income-tax, 
 w^hicli may draw the line between those who are 
 interested in social institutions and those who are 
 not, and political power will not be controlled by 
 the ignorant, improvident, and vicious, but will be 
 held by those whom neither bribery nor deception 
 can influence and who always stand as strong bar- 
 riers against the two anti-social extremes of society, 
 the conscienceless rich and tbe incompetent poor. 
 
 An important reason for putting political power 
 into the hands of the middle classes is the fact that 
 they furnish the best combination of moral qualities 
 for the purposes of evolution and progress. They 
 supply the best quality of population and in propor- 
 * Charities Review, Vol. VII., p. 721. 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 253 
 
 tion to their abilities to support it. The plutocrats 
 furnish prudence, but neither population nor social 
 habits and instincts: the proletariat, who are the 
 majority, furnish population, but neither prudence 
 nor intelligence, and often no better social instincts 
 than the rich. Good government depends as much 
 upon social and moral qualities as upon the intel- 
 lectual, and so should fall to the class that combines 
 them. But if the anti-social classes, whether rich 
 or poor, are free to secure, one of them the wealth 
 and both of them the political power of society, the 
 morality of the world will be ground to pieces be- 
 tween them. ]^ow as all forms of government, ex- 
 cept that of the referendum or pure democracy, rep- 
 resent a very small majority, which by virtue of a 
 constitution written or unwritten, has all the power 
 to make the laws and to do the governing, their suc- 
 cess depends wholly upon the wise and just use of 
 that power. There is, therefore, no inherent objec- 
 tions to the possession of political power by the few 
 as such, but only to the machinery that makes this 
 few anti-social. If then the franchise and political 
 power be confined to the class with the largest por- 
 tion of intellectual and moral qualities we should ex- 
 pect in this policy, and in this alone, the best results 
 of government. The only problem is to find an ade- 
 quate criterion for the existence of these qualities, 
 not necessarily in every individual, but in the class 
 from which the selection for official functions is to 
 
254 DEMOCRACY 
 
 be made. The virtues that produce property and 
 support the family and other social institutions are 
 this criterion, and an income-tax is the best method 
 for showing the widest distribution of them. 
 
 The distinction between the right to exercise 
 political power in governing others and the right to 
 liberty in the regulation of one's own conduct, which 
 has already been mentioned, has an important bear- 
 ing upon the problem of the franchise. The dis- 
 tinction cannot be too strongly insisted upon in this 
 connection, since it has either not been recognised 
 at all or has been ignored too much by political stu- 
 dents. It is natural that it should be forgotten when 
 we come to consider both the way that history is 
 usually made and the mental laws that influence 
 the application of general ideas. When we examine 
 political history closely we shall discover that its 
 struggles have a double aspect. This has been vir- 
 tually hinted at in showing that resistance to any 
 given government usually takes the form of a trans- 
 fer of power rather than a mere modification of leg- 
 islation. When nations undertook to secure exemp- 
 tion from offensive laws they transferred sovereignty 
 from the king to the subjects. Government had so 
 often interfered with personal liberties in private 
 matters, thus transgressing the police functions of 
 political institutions and exploiting the citizen, that 
 the only cure for the evil seemed to be a privation 
 of power. But this was effected by a transfer of it. 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 255 
 
 or of the sovereignty adhering in the state, to the 
 citizen with all the political influence that it implies. 
 It may have been necessary, owing to social and 
 other conditions, that political power, the right to 
 exercise the functions of government, should be 
 conferred in order to secure personal liberties and 
 exemption from, oppressive legislation. But an ex- 
 pedient necessary to secure an immediate and impor- 
 tant end does not carry with it the same imperative- 
 ness for all conditions of life. It is possible to draw 
 a line between the range of political and the range 
 of personal rights, as is already done in some cases. 
 But however important it may seem to many politi- 
 cal students that the defence of individual rights 
 should be placed in the possession of civil and politi- 
 cal rights, it is certain that republican institutions, 
 or representative governments, do not treat political 
 and personal rights and liberties as convertible either 
 in their character or their extent. The fundamental 
 assumption of representative government is that the 
 ruler is better qualified to exercise political power 
 than the citizen. If this is not true the referendum 
 is the only condition in which the ordinary theory 
 of the relation between political rights and the de- 
 fence of private and personal liberties can be main- 
 tained. Either our present institutions are wrong 
 or the referendum is so according to the common 
 standard. If the referendum is a redudio ad ah- 
 surdum of government, the distinction which pres- 
 
356 DEMOCRACY 
 
 ent institutions imply between civil and personal 
 liberties must be the one upon which to base the 
 practical operations of government. 
 
 But aside from this ad hominem argument the 
 case can be stated more effectively in the clear fact 
 that the right to freedom in the regulation of one's 
 own personal matters does not involve the right to 
 govern or regulate the liberties of others. Some 
 measure of political or civil rights may be necessary 
 to protect private liberties, but there is no absolute 
 necessity that they should involve as much power to 
 govern others as the present system confers. The 
 proposition in this work to separate somewhat 
 the functions of Upper and Lower Houses, to limit 
 the number of elective officers, and to strengthen the 
 executive, is based upon the distinction here assumed 
 and asserted between political and personal liberties, 
 while it yields the protection of personal rights by 
 the possession of the civil to that extent, but re- 
 stricts the liberty to exercise government functions 
 over others. The limitation of the franchise also 
 as here proposed is based upon the same function in 
 so far as governing power is concerned. But I do 
 not desire self -consistency to be any argument for 
 a limitation of the suffrage. I make the appeal only 
 to throw the case theoretically back upon the prin- 
 ciple itself, and if it can be seen to be certainly true 
 the issue is won. 'Now in private life and conduct 
 affecting only the welfare of the individual himself 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 257 
 
 there can be a very wide range of liberty, and the 
 individual can have as many rights as you please to 
 conceive. As society and government are consti- 
 tuted we can rely u]3on the demand that his social 
 and commercial relations with others shall be sub- 
 ject to the conditions of private contract. This con- 
 dition establishes a limitation upon both parties to 
 social intercourse, or mutual responsibility, in which 
 the only inequality between the two shall be the nat- 
 ural one determined by the struggle for existence. 
 But it is not so with political rights which confer 
 the functions of government upon the citizen. They 
 add police powers to personal liberty, and in the 
 present system which does not adequately recognise 
 executive responsibility the conferment of power to 
 govern without a check similar in effectiveness to 
 the principle of private contract in personal matters 
 only applies in government the irresponsibility 
 against which in the doctrine of Hobbes and abso- 
 lutism democracy was a revolt. The opposition to 
 irresponsible imperialism was based upon just this 
 complaint that it involved no limitation upon gov- 
 erning powers similar to the principle of private con- 
 tract in individual life, but added the power of the 
 police to personal immunity in the exercise of gov- 
 ernment over others. The reaction against this ideal 
 of government has simply carried this conception of 
 power and immunity over to the citizen, instead of 
 establishing the proper responsibility of the rulers 
 
258 DEMOCRACY 
 
 and securing a criterion to distinguish between those 
 wlio are qualified to govern others and those who 
 may be free to govern themselves. The limitation 
 of the franchise which is here proposed is an at- 
 tempt to supply such a criterion, and if it eliminates 
 the ignorant and anti-social classes so as to qualify 
 the right to political power by social character it 
 effects the desired end and conforms to the distinc- 
 tion between political and personal liberty, or to put 
 it otherwise, the distinction between the right to 
 govern others and the right to govern one's self. We 
 talk about democracy being self-government. It is 
 nothing of the kind, unless there is no police agen- 
 cies at all and the referendum is the only source of 
 all legislation. Democracy, as it is applied in this 
 and all other countries, involves, to consider it from 
 the stand-point of universal suffrage, the government 
 of the prudent, the intelligent, the property and the 
 social classes by the imprudent, the ignorant, the 
 non-propertied and the anti-social classes; and to 
 speak of it from the stand-point of constitutional 
 methods it involves, theoretically at least, the ex- 
 clusion of the right to directly govern others from 
 the masses and the limitation of it to those who are 
 presumably best qualified for such duties. 
 
 That the right to govern self and the right to 
 govern others are not convertible or coincident can 
 be sustained in another way which will bring out 
 the incompatibility of socialism with democracy. 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 259 
 
 In economic, social and political conditions where 
 industry is not highly concentrated; where com- 
 munities and individuals are more independent of 
 each other in their interests than in modern times; 
 where this independence affords an adequate 
 check upon the abuses of political power; where 
 the exercise of government functions can be 
 tyrannical only when it interferes with personal 
 rights and liberties, it is natural and legitimate 
 enough to link the protection of the latter with the 
 possession of the former. But in a social system 
 where industry is highly organised and concen- 
 trated, so as to represent a vast number of imperia 
 in imperio; where social and economic solidarity is 
 widely distributed, connecting places like 'New 
 York, San Francisco, London, and Calcutta more 
 closely than ever were Athens and Sparta; where 
 government interference and action either affects 
 social interests more than those of the individual or 
 compensates the infringement of personal rights in 
 individual cases by some equivalent benefit to 
 others; where, consequently, there are no adequate 
 checks upon abuses of political power, the majority 
 being able to exploit the minority with impunity; 
 where political power is sought, not for adjusting 
 the competition between individuals upon the prin- 
 ciples of justice, but for the opportunities which it 
 affords to escape the individual struggle for exist- 
 ence by sharing in the exploitation of others; and 
 
260 DEMOCRACY 
 
 where pro23er government can be secured only by the 
 social as opposed to the individualistic moral tern 
 perament — in these conditions we have to establish 
 some criterion for distinguishing between social or 
 political and personal liberties. E'othing but a 
 limited franchise will accomplish this unless men 
 are made intellectually and morally equal. Assum- 
 ing, then, that economic prudence is the most gen- 
 eral index of the intelligence and moral character 
 which the social man possesses, we have in some such 
 proposal as I have advanced a measure of a nec- 
 essary political reform. The socialist cannot escape 
 this view of the case. He pleads in behalf of his 
 system the solidarity of economic interests on the 
 one hand and the tyranny of individualistic govern- 
 ment on the other, while clinging to a democratic 
 suffrage which provides the very government invok- 
 ing his hostility. He would immensely enlarge the 
 functions of government and the range of its benev- 
 olence, though suggesting nothing to secure the 
 agents who respect the socialistic ideal. But the 
 socialistic ruler must be the social man, while our 
 present system only gives us the anti-social man for 
 governor. Hence the socialist must choose between 
 the limitation of the franchise and the failure of his 
 system. 
 
 As a further reason for limiting the suffrage to the 
 more intelligent classes, at least in the matter of the 
 more important functions of government, I may call 
 
PE ACTIO AL REMEDIES 261 
 
 attention to the revolution which has taken place 
 in modern ethical ideals, a revolution that has oc- 
 curred only in the last generation. The conscious- 
 ness of this change is not so general as might be ex- 
 pected. Those who were educated and lived under 
 the ideals of the past generation still show a fixed 
 disposition to judge the present age by the standards 
 of one that has vanished. This conflict between the 
 old and the new ideal is a most interesting object of 
 observation and reflection. The old ideal had its 
 origin in Christianity, the new one in the doctrine 
 of evolution. I have already remarked more than 
 once the influence of the belief in immortality in 
 creating a consciousness of the value of the individ- 
 ual. It was associated with and reinforced by the 
 social ideal of human brotherhood, which grew into 
 the sentiment of equality. The whole mediaeval 
 and modem system of benevolence embodies this 
 ideal and petrified it into a generous sympathy for 
 the weaker classes. The Church fostered and still 
 fosters it. Liberty, equality and fraternity are the 
 shibboleths of this comprehensive conception. It 
 was this sentiment alone that overthrew slavery in 
 this country and intensified the momentum as it pre- 
 served the consistency of democratic impulses: for 
 it turned the balance of judgment and purpose in 
 the logical conflict between the constitutional prin- 
 ciples in favour of freedom and the disposition of 
 the aristocratic to use force with the weaken mem- 
 
263 DEMOCRACY 
 
 bers of the race in commercial dealings with them. 
 For eighteen hundred years, in so far as it could free 
 itself from the dominion of imperialism which was 
 the survival of the Greco-Roman polity of might 
 against right, of power against weakness, the whole 
 machinery of civilisation was directed to protect the 
 rights and interests, not only of the individual, but 
 of the inferior classes. Society represented and was 
 pervaded by a divine-like mercy toward the unfortu- 
 nate, even though it was dictated by the prudential 
 motive of personal salvation. While the primary 
 virtue of antiquity was courage, that of later times 
 was benevolence. But this beautiful idyllic dream 
 of Christianity was ruthlessly shattered by the con- 
 quests of scepticism and physical science. First 
 came Copernican astronomy, then l^ewtonian gravi- 
 tation, and lastly Darwinian evolution. The first 
 of these conceptions removed the last vestiges of that 
 belief, originally Greek and partly Christian, which 
 had spiritualised the whole celestial system: the 
 second extended natural and mechanical causes into 
 the structure and formation of a universe made 
 physical by Copernicus ; and the last left us with the 
 struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest, 
 the sole right of the strong, for our ethical norm in 
 so far as it was reflected in the course of the physical 
 universe, l^ature, which had been the poet's type 
 of paradisaic beauty and happiness, was turned into 
 the shambles of omnipotence. The golden age 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 263 
 
 wliicli had been A^ariously placed beliind and before 
 the human race vanished into the limbo of fancy and 
 mythology, while the awful spectacle of evolution 
 gave no lustre to the speculations of either history 
 or hope. It is this conception which has done so 
 much destructive work against the moral ideal of 
 Christianity and substituted the right of the strong 
 for the ideas of equality and fraternity, until there 
 is little respect for the principles which had de- 
 veloped and sustained a policy of both justice and 
 benevolence toward the weaker classes. This is 
 evinced by a large number of facts, connected, some 
 of them at least, with other and co-operative influ- 
 ences at the same time. For instance, the reaction- 
 ary policy of the Republican party in its indifference 
 to the constitutional rights of the negro, the mad 
 progress of ^imperialism'' in which inferior races are 
 to be exploited for the benefit of the commercial 
 classes, the growth of lynch law, and such action as 
 that of the present Governor of Illinois in his direct 
 infraction of the constitution of the United States 
 without protest or interference from an indifferent 
 and pusillanimous public — all these and a thousand 
 other facts show what havoc has been made of the 
 old ethical ideal by the fundamental conception of 
 evolution, which has not received any general cor- 
 rection by the famous concession of Mr. Huxley in 
 his Romanes lecture. What modification of it the 
 future may have in store it is not necessary to con- 
 
264 DEMOCRACY 
 
 sider here, as we have only to remark at least its 
 temporary opposition to the moral ideal of the dem- 
 ocratic past. 
 
 I^ow if the doctrine of evolution is to hand ns over 
 to institutions that are to embody the rights of the 
 strong against the weak, the supremacy of the 
 '' higher " over the '' lower "classes, we must have 
 some method of making " higher " mean moral as 
 well as strong. We do not discover this influence 
 in the ignorant and vicious classes who seem to be 
 the predominant factors in the exercise of the suf- 
 frage and in stimulating the spirit of imperialism. 
 They prefer gambling dens, brothels, saloons, horse- 
 racing and prize fighting to pure politics, and are 
 ever ready to cultivate a martial spirit when the 
 politician manufactures some foreign complications 
 for his subterranean purposes. This class cannot be 
 entrusted with the balance of power in any imperial 
 policy. If we are to have that system we must con- 
 trive a method of joining social instincts and inter- 
 ests to power. Otherwise we shall be governed by 
 ITeros and Caligulas. 
 
 In fixing upon a qualification for the franchise it 
 is always necessary to choose a perfectly simple cri- 
 terion, capable of application or determination b^ 
 the subject of the right and not by a foreign power, 
 one which philosophy would call an objective test. 
 The intellectual and moral qualification is the one 
 constantly spoken of as the best by all who cannot 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 265 
 
 persuade themselves to accept a property qualifica- 
 tion, and this is unquestionably true, as already re- 
 marked. But what is the evidence of its posses- 
 sion? ^Ro one will trust a court to decide the mat- 
 ter, while the economic test can be made quite au- 
 tomatic, and as I have shown the economic criterion 
 is a moral one, or the symbol of it. But whether 
 the qualification be intellectual and moral, or eco- 
 nomic, it must fulfil three conditions in order to be 
 successful as a qualification for the suffrage: (1) It 
 must be general enough to support the beneficiaries 
 of political power with sufficient physical force to 
 sustain the law. (2) It must be a primary condition 
 for survival in the struggle for existence. (3) It 
 should be an external fact patent to all and equiva- 
 lent to the services which society renders the indi- 
 vidual. The economic qualification fulfils all three 
 of these conditions, while the intellectual and moral 
 test without it violates either the second or the 
 third, or both conditions, and in addition limits in- 
 dividual liberty to a greater extent in the acquisition 
 of the right by leaving it in the hands of a court. 
 Moreover, the economic test is the easiest applied, 
 is sufficiently elastic to approximate universal suf- 
 frage, if desirable, which I think it is not, and can 
 be made to reach the material conditions of society 
 which are the first demands to be satisfied in the 
 support of population before any other ideals are 
 possible. It is the index of the one virtue ; namely, 
 
266 DEMOCRACT 
 
 prudence, which, though it does not always insure 
 the cultivation of higher ideals than wealth, never- 
 theless is the necessary condition of their possibility 
 and of the opportunity to pursue them. This gives 
 it the highest value as a political instrument, and 
 when it promises at the same time to secure the in- 
 telligence which is commensiu'ate with the demands 
 of good government, we ought not to be frightened 
 at the politician's cry that it is dangerous to limit 
 the suffrage. He has his reasons for this fear. With 
 his peculiar notions of what is practical in politics, 
 which is to let civilisation go to the dogs while the 
 proletariat learns to behave itself, he can never rise 
 to the dignity or honesty of educating the masses to 
 a method that is best adapted to their interests, but 
 knows only how to lick the dust off their feet while 
 he secures the power to rob them. The sooner that 
 we ]eam that the so-called ^^ practical " politician is 
 either a fool or a knave, or both, the better for us, 
 and when we have learned it we shall place some con- 
 fidence in the scientific truth about politics and 
 cease to fawn upon our masters for the sake of sav- 
 ing a small remnant of civilisation from wreck and 
 ruin. The privileges of government are very dubi- 
 ous when sycophants are the kings and the favour of 
 mobs is the title to power. 
 
 Before indicating what I assume to be the ad- 
 vantages of the scheme as a whole, as outlined above 
 with its differentiated franchise, I must anticipate a 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 267 
 
 question which many political students will ask with 
 a view to insinuating that I have not considered and 
 provided against the worst evil in modern political 
 life. The question is this: A^Tiat means have you 
 to suggest for nullifying or destroying the power 
 and influence of the '^ boss '' and ^^ machine? " I 
 admit frankly and without reserve the extreme im- 
 portance of this question, especially as it relates 
 to the one objective point which occupies almost the 
 whole attention of political students. 
 
 In answering this question I have only to say that 
 I have had this very evil in view when proposing 
 the comprehensive system that I have outlined. 
 But I did not assume that the end was to be di- 
 rectly attained, or that the theory of government 
 involved nothing but a discussion of " bosses." I 
 had also a constructive purpose in view that went to 
 the foundations of every form of successful polity. 
 Once obtain a method for good government that will 
 put the balance of power in the intelligent and moral 
 classes, and there will be neither excuse nor op- 
 portunity for the existence of " bosses " and ^^ ma- 
 chines.'' There are just two of the provisions of 
 the proposed modifications of our constitution that 
 wdll tell directly against " boss " government. They 
 are: (1) The Court of Impeachment and Removal, 
 which applies responsibility to public officials in a 
 way that makes ^^ boss " and " machine " control 
 of them impossible. (2) The limitation of the 
 
268 DEMOCRACY 
 
 f rancliise for tlie election of the Upper Houses tliat 
 sliall have control of all appropriations and expendi- 
 tures and public improvements, the one source of 
 the '^ bosses' " power and ambition. These are 
 strong checks against them. 
 
 I cannot go into any elaborate study of machine 
 politics, but I may look at the surface of them 
 briefly and examine a few of the general causes for 
 their existence. The defence of the ^' machine " 
 and its " boss/' whether he shall be called by so 
 disreputable a name or not depending upon his 
 conduct and character, is that some such compact 
 organisation is necessary in our present political con- 
 ditions in order to secure efficiency in the manage- 
 ment of elections and the various duties connected 
 with them. This is true. But it does not represent 
 the real motive for its organisation. It is not the 
 compactness of the machine and its organisation, nor 
 the imperious nature of its conduct and power that 
 gives the system its bad name and associations. ]^o 
 one would object to it in the interests of justice and 
 good government. It is the insolent disregard of 
 public welfare, the deliberate exclusion of intelli- 
 gent and honest men from office, the refusal to rea- 
 son about public policy, the shameless corruption 
 of its leaders, its organised methods of deception, 
 bribery, and black-mail with public jobbery and 
 frauds upon the tax-payers, that make machine poli- 
 tics so despicable in the estimation of the public 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 269 
 
 conscience. This authority in the right hands 
 would be a blessing. Hence the need of organisa- 
 tion is neither an explanation nor an apology for 
 " bosses " and ^' machines." They arise from con- 
 ditions that have a long and complex history, and 
 that involve both the general supremacy of the eco- 
 nomic ideal in modern life and the special social de- 
 velopment that this ideal has received in this coun- 
 try. Nowhere in the world have there been such 
 golden opportunities for the pursuit of wealth as in 
 this continent. The enterprising of the old world 
 emigrated hither and having cut loose from the so- 
 cial, intellectual, aesthetic, and moral ideals of Eu- 
 rope, had but one object to attain and one ambition 
 to satisfy. This was the accumulation of wealth, or 
 the satisfaction of the economic ideal. On the other 
 hand, the absorption of one class in this pursuit, so 
 that it will take no part in politics, and the possession 
 of the franchise by the proletariat who have votes 
 to sell at some price, enabled the shrewd politician 
 to come between and to use the poor with their eco- 
 nomic aspiration to plunder the rich. Hence it is 
 the opportunity and desire for public pelf, directly 
 or indirectly, and for gratifying personal ambition 
 without reference to public service, that are the 
 most potent influences in the formation and cohesive- 
 ness of the '^ machine." The slightest real interest 
 in the public would either create diiferences of opin- 
 ion regarding the policy best adapted to this end, 
 
270 DEMOCRACY 
 
 or in unifying the agency, when differences do not 
 exist, for a good purpose and no outcry would be 
 raised against it. But the single purpose that ani- 
 mates the average politician is the same that inspires 
 the beggar or the thief. Either he has failed for 
 want of ability of an honest kind in legitimate meth- 
 ods of business and in competition with his fellows, 
 and seeks a public salary with freedom to indulge 
 his natural indolence, or he uses his ingenuity and 
 abilities to secure the irresponsible power to plunder 
 the public with impunity. 
 
 These being the causes that produce " bosses " 
 and ^^ machines,'' it ought to be apparent how they 
 will be affected by the comprehensive scheme that 
 I have proposed. But I shall summarise the forces 
 that should act as deterrents of machine politics. 
 (1) The adoption of civil service reform; or per- 
 manent official tenure in the subordinate service, 
 subject to good behavior, which will limit the power 
 of spoils to corrupt public life. (2) The extension 
 of the executive's appointing power which will make 
 him more independent of the " machine " in the di- 
 rection of his policy, while it makes him more sensi- 
 tive to public opinion and his responsibilities. (3) 
 The subjection of the executive, legislative, and all 
 administrative officers to the Court of Impeachment 
 and Removal and its absolute powers of discipline 
 and purgation. (4) The influence of the Court of 
 Confirmation in limiting the appointing power of 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 271 
 
 the executive. (5) The removal of the control by 
 universal suffrage over public appropriations and 
 improvements, so that property interests will not be 
 at the mercy of those who are disposed to prey upon 
 them without a return of equivalent services. 
 
 These conditions would exercise a very powerful 
 influence against machine politics, and if we wished 
 to strengthen them we might entertain the propo- 
 sition to subject campaign committees and candi-. 
 dates for office to the Court of Impeachment. But 
 1 hardly think this necessary with the restraints 
 already indicated, especially if a public accounting 
 of all campaign expenses, individual and collective, 
 be required. There is, however, another feature 
 of the existing system which I have not noticed and 
 which occupies the attention of political students al- 
 most as much as any other weakness in it. This is 
 the primary election. It is in the primary that our 
 government is really determined. It is here that 
 the '' boss '' and the " machine " get in their work; 
 it fixes the candidates which the " boss '' expects to 
 use for his purposes. The public can work up no 
 interest in the primaries, because it assumes with- 
 out the slightest intelligence regarding the real 
 genius of our institutions that the policy of authori- 
 ties is determined by the regular elections, when 
 in fact both the men and the policy are determined 
 by the underground methods of the primary, large 
 numbers of the citizens taking no part in them be- 
 
273 DEMOCRACY 
 
 cause they have not been made to feel its impor- 
 tance as they do the constitutional, or compulsory 
 method of the law. Consequently, those who make 
 their living by politics control public office at its 
 foundations by putting the voter between the devil 
 and the deep sea in the regular elections. Hitherto 
 I have said nothing of this system, and have pro- 
 posed no means for correcting it. Most persons 
 would say that it is here that the reform must be- 
 gin. But I should contend that the system which 
 I have proposed, in destroying the chief resources 
 of the '^ boss's " expectations and power, must 
 take away his interest in the primaries. If he 
 cannot make his henchmen responsible to him- 
 self when in office, and if he cannot use universal 
 suffrage as capital for purchasing the power to prey 
 upon property, his vocation is gone. But as uni- 
 versal suffrage is still to remain for the selection 
 of the Lower Houses and the legislatures, I would 
 suggest the following regulation of the primary 
 election system. This is to conduct the primaries 
 precisely as the regular elections are conducted 
 under the so-called Australian system. The main 
 practical difficulty with the present system is the 
 fact that a man has to declare his party affiliations 
 before he can enroll for the primary and to promise 
 to support the ticket nominated. It is often against 
 his business interests to make these preferences 
 known in this way. Hence only those who have 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 273 
 
 notldiig to lose and those who make politics a 
 business are willing to accept publicity in their 
 party aflS.liations. But the plan of putting the pri- 
 maries under the law and conducting them in the 
 same way that the regular elections are managed, 
 if the ballots ivithin the party lines are counted 
 against each other, and not against hallots hy other 
 parties, the following conditions could easily be ful- 
 filled: (1) The use of the same registry of the 
 voters as is used in the regular elections. (2) The 
 omission of all declarations of party preferences and 
 promises to support a particular party. (3) The 
 casting of a single ballot, so that the choice is def- 
 initely for one and against all other candidates for 
 nomination. (4) The secrecy of the ballot. (5) 
 That the candidate nominated by any party shall 
 represent a certain percentage of all the votes cast 
 by that party. 
 
 I do not decide in these provisions whether the 
 nominations thus made shall be of the candidates for 
 office, or of the members of the conventions that 
 shall make the nominations. I am willing to leave 
 the decision of this question to others, though I think 
 I would prefer that the members of the convention 
 should be elected in this way. The main point is 
 to secure more respectable methods for the prima- 
 ries, and a way out of the difficulty encountered in 
 the reluctance of voters to declare publicly their 
 party affiliations and to pledge themselves to sup- 
 
274 DEMOCRACY 
 
 port this party's nominee whoever he may be. 
 There are other and corollary questions to be con- 
 sidered in the perfection of this method, but they 
 are subsidiary and unimportant in comparison with 
 the main problem. 
 
 The last provision in the system I have proposed 
 has to be considered. It is the appointment instead 
 of the election of all judiciary incumbents. Both 
 theory and experience are in favour of this policy, 
 and I shall not undertake to argue it at any great 
 length. If there is any general scepticism on this 
 point, I have only one fact to mention, and it is the 
 superiority of all courts in which the judges are 
 appointed as compared with those in which they 
 are elected by popular vote. Long tenure is also 
 an important factor in this result. But of this again. 
 The main issue at present is the method of securing 
 judges fit to do the work required of them, and ex- 
 perience has shown that appointments to the judi- 
 ciary by the executive have uniformly been better 
 than the popular election of them, this judgment 
 perhaps being modified somewhat by the influence 
 of long tenure in cases of elective appointment. 
 But other things being equal judicial appointments 
 are superior to their election. The reason for this is 
 clear. If elected by popular vote the position is 
 put at the mercy of men who are not qualified to 
 decide upon fitness for judicial duties, but at most 
 only of personal qualities which have no necessary 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 2'7b 
 
 connection with the ability and readiness to dis- 
 pense justice. On the contrary, those quahties are 
 more likely to exclude the historical characteristics 
 that attach in the public's estimation to a judge. 
 Judicial positions require a wholly different talent 
 from that of the electioneering politician; and if 
 they require anything different at all these qualities 
 will be the very opposite to those in the bidder for 
 votes. The politician must be a hail-fellow-well- 
 met sort of a man, suave, courteous even to people 
 he despises, and capable of promising everything to 
 every man he sees. The judge between man and 
 man must possess the characteristics which have 
 made the world describe justice as cold and impar- 
 tial. These qualities do not fit a man for conciliat- 
 ing the passions and prejudices of the populace, and 
 the man who has them, with the sense of honour 
 and conscientiousness that belongs to them, is not 
 likely to meet with favour in comparison with the 
 sharp campaigner who can tell funny stories and in- 
 dulge in familiarities of all kinds with his constitu- 
 ency, while he secretly despises them and expects 
 to mulct them when he can. ^or can the argument 
 that my system permits the election of the executive 
 by the popular vote apply to the judiciary, because 
 the two offices are wholly distinct in their nature. 
 Judges have to interpret the law without regard to 
 the interests of either side to a controversy, and to 
 consider the complicated problems of evidence. 
 
276 DEMOCRACY 
 
 which requires a scientific order of mind as well as 
 freedom from passion and interest: the executive 
 requires tact and sympathy with all persons with 
 whom he deals in the administration of the law. 
 Popular personality has a real value in the exercise 
 of this function, as it disposes less to tyrannical ad- 
 ministration. But I do not require abstract argu- 
 ment to make the case clear. The Supreme Court 
 of the United States is a conclusive illustration of 
 my contention. Moreover in conversation with one 
 of the chief authorities on constitutional law in this 
 country I was told by him that my proposition is one 
 of the first and most important reforms that the im- 
 mediate future should consider. He had noticed 
 that the courts had deteriorated with the degenera- 
 tion from the former policy of appointment of 
 judges that had prevailed in some states to their 
 election by popular vote. 
 
 In regard to tenure it is quite as important as ex- 
 ecutive appointment that the judicial tenure of 
 ofiice should be long in order to secure the men best 
 qualified for its duties. Men of ability and with 
 high ideals will not engage in any vocation that has 
 the precariousness of a political career in the present 
 system: nor will they do it in any order of things 
 that necessitates uncertainty and anything like shif t- 
 lessness. This is a truism in trade, in medicine, in 
 law, in teaching, or in any other profession. Hence 
 men who have made a success in the legal profession 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 2Ti 
 
 are not going to sacrifice their practice and clientage 
 for the sake of two or three years of judicial honours 
 and loAv pay to be left afterward without any re- 
 sources except the chance to build up a new practice, 
 especially when the office has to be obtained by 
 methods that are a prostitution of honour, dignity, 
 and the qualities which are necessary to the dispen- 
 sation of justice. Consequently, only nondescripts 
 can be secured to-day for the minor judicial places. 
 To improve the courts, therefore, the policy in some 
 states during recent years, ^ew York State for in- 
 stance, has been to fix a long tenure for the most 
 important judicial positions like the Supreme Court. 
 The consequence has been that it secures better men 
 than under the old system. But in addition to long 
 tenure we should have their appointment instead of 
 their election, and all our courts might have the 
 character that justice has given them in England 
 and the decisions of the United States Supreme 
 Court in this country. 
 
 There is also a modification of our methods of 
 amending constitution desirable, if we are to leave 
 universal suffrage intact. But as the system pro- 
 posed makes this less imperative no great impor- 
 tance will be attached to the problem, except to 
 show where the defects of our present system are in 
 this respect. A constitution is supposed to define 
 the powers and rights of the various departments of 
 government, the executive, legislative, and judicial, 
 
378 DEMOCRACY 
 
 with their limitations. ISTow it is essentially absurd 
 to leave, as our present method does, the duty to 
 suggest and prepare amendments and changes of 
 this fundamental law. With a tendency to obtain 
 and use all the powers that they can secure, it can- 
 not be expected that such bodies will be much in- 
 terested in the imposition of limits upon its powers. 
 It is in its very nature absurd to leave the suggestion 
 and organisation of constitutional reforms and 
 changes to the initiative of the executive and leg- 
 islative branches of government. They are the 
 parties to be governed by such instruments. A 
 special body of men should be provided for this pur- 
 pose independent of the directly governing agen- 
 cies. This could be done without any political com- 
 plications and without any expense to the state. 
 But with the thorough responsibility of public of- 
 ficials I imagine that there would be little reason to 
 be tampering with the fundamental law as at pres- 
 ent. The constant demand which we see on the part 
 of citizens for constitutional amendments is only 
 a further proof that our institutions are a failure, 
 and that we have no adequate means for making 
 public men responsible, or respectful of the service 
 of the community. Establish their responsibility 
 and we should need constitutional tampering as lit- 
 tle as in England. 
 
 Such would be my reply to Mr. Lecky: not by 
 denying the justice of his complaints against the 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 279 
 
 work of democracy, nor by defending its present 
 form as the final stage of evolution/ but by admit- 
 ting its many faitees and proposing the means of 
 differentiating and integrating its functions, so that 
 we may obtain the strength and conservatism of 
 monarchy without the irresponsibility of its power, 
 and the wider distribution of justice and liberty in 
 democracy without its anarchy. Monarchy, or a re- 
 turn to mediaeval types of government, is possessed 
 of two ineradicable evils: (1) There is the per- 
 manent tenure of executive power with little or no 
 responsibility to either the people or any other con- 
 stitutional check. This permanence of tenure with- 
 out responsibility tends to aristocratic tastes and 
 habits, nepotism in appointments, and indifference 
 to human rights and justice. Some of these evils 
 are the characteristics of the incumbents of political 
 power in any form of government, but are more 
 easily corrected in democracy than in monarchy, 
 because, as in the scheme outlined above, per- 
 manence of tenure does not belong to appointing or 
 executive power, in fact, to no one at all except on 
 condition that the interests of the public are main- 
 tained by it. Even permanence of tenure is offered 
 only to administrative subordinates (with responsi- 
 bility to the Court of Impeachment), to the Su- 
 preme Court, and the Court of Impeachment, all 
 of which are non-executive offices and without 
 powers of appointment. That it is the permanence 
 
280 DEMOCRACY 
 
 of tenure with exemption from responsibility tliat 
 creates the main evils of government is shown posi- 
 tively by the career of the present emperor of Ger- 
 many, by the history of Russia, and in our own 
 country by the irresponsibility of the " boss," and 
 negatively in England by the crown's relinquish- 
 ment of many of its functions, especially of its chief 
 executive duties. (2) There is in hereditary mon- 
 archy, with its usual family life, connections, pri- 
 vate habits, and social limitations generally, a 
 tendency to the physical, intellectual, and moral 
 degeneration of types that are to be the legatees of 
 political power. Not that this tendency cannot be 
 overcome, nor that recuperative influences are not at 
 work to prevent the worst consequences : for family 
 ambitions, personal interests in social honours and 
 attentions, and a wholesome fear of revolution 
 operate to check the worst form of degeneration in 
 so far as dynastic questions are concerned. But the 
 traditions of blood, the preservation of aristocratic 
 dignity, and the antagonism to democracy require 
 a vigilant exclusion of anything like an infusion of 
 democratic blood and tastes into its veins. The worst 
 effect of this is the moral one, in that both the ex- 
 emption from responsibility and the withdrawal 
 from common life, with its social commerce, create 
 an intense selfishness and an utter inability to ap- 
 preciate the demands of justice. Consequently, 
 monarchy prevents us at all times from having the 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 281 
 
 intelligence and moral character, born of the strug- 
 gle for existence and social ideals of the middle 
 classes, that are necessary to meet large responsibili- 
 ties, and democracy is only an attempt to secure 
 these qualities and to evade the evils of despotic 
 government, though, as in our own case, it may eas- 
 ily be nothing more than rushing from the frying- 
 pan into the fire, as any retention of irresponsibility 
 in governing powers must occasion. 
 
 But in forbidding permanence of tenure for ex- 
 ecutive functionaries in order to escape the evils of 
 monarchy, we require either to have a satisfactory 
 method of electing men to such places who can be 
 trusted with the irresponsible powers that such po- 
 sitions demand, or to deprive them of these powers 
 and put them into the hands of the legislatures, or 
 to make the executive responsible, lea\dng it with 
 its large powers to direct the government. With 
 the proper arrangements this last can be done. 
 Monarchy is right in its conception of the power 
 which it confers upon the central function of govern- 
 ment, as is shown by its efficiency wherever pos- 
 sessed, a fact also proved by the efficiency, if not 
 the virtues, of machine politics, and it has only been 
 a misfortune that this power had not been earlier 
 separated from irresponsibility and permanence of 
 executive tenure. But in abandoning monarchy 
 and an irresponsible executive to hand their power 
 over to the organised mob of our legislatures, the 
 
363 DEMOCRACY 
 
 subterranean methods of legislative committees, the 
 " scratch-me-and-I'll-scratch-you " policy of repre- 
 sentatives with its refusal to serve the public except 
 on the condition that personal interests are first fully 
 subserved, the bribery, black-mail, and lobbying of 
 legislators, the petty rivalries of politicians, machine 
 politics, and the anarchic mode of selecting our of- 
 ficers, are the penalty we pay for our unwillingness 
 to simplify government by a better imitation of the 
 development which has gone on in the system of 
 industrial organisation, where integration and differ- 
 entiation have occurred automatically and in re- 
 sponse to the needs and interests of economic pro- 
 duction and distribution. The whole process of nat- 
 ural development inclines to put the larger powers 
 in the hands of single agents, the check in the eco- 
 nomic world being competition as well as honesty 
 where the interests are complicated. Competition 
 is an inhibitive process on the abuses of centralised 
 power, whether in government or private enterprise, 
 and if no political machinery can be obtained either 
 to supply some form of competition within the social 
 organism, or its alternative, honesty and public spirit, 
 these being its only substitutes where competition 
 and responsibility cannot be secured, the jealousy of 
 strong executive powers will keep us in the direction 
 of anarchy, because of that solidarity in the socio- 
 economic system which makes irresponsible power 
 so dangerous, and we shall have to put up with ir- 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 283 
 
 responsible "" bosses " and the increasing number of 
 imperia in imjjerio characterising the organisation 
 of economic forces under the favour of some form of 
 protective, one had better say piratical, legislation. 
 If centralisation and efficiency are cause and effect 
 in economics they are the same in politics, and the 
 existence of them in one will end naturally and in- 
 evitably in the other, owing to the enormous eco- 
 nomic interests that are involved in the very con- 
 stitution of the social organism, and unless we can 
 adjust our political institutions, the executive and 
 legislative powers, to some adequate method of re- 
 sponsibility, as they must be in order to correct 
 present evils, we shall have to choose between So- 
 cialism and anarchy: for the irresponsible tyranny 
 of machine politics and of economic monopolies 
 under their protection must end in one or the other 
 of them. We have just three alternatives to Social- 
 ism: (1) We may organise all the interests of the 
 economic world so as to set off one of them against 
 the other. Whether this be possible or not I do not 
 care or require to decide. It is simply one con- 
 ception of the problem. (2) We may insist upon 
 universal competition and the suppression of mo- 
 nopolies by the principles and policy of free trade. 
 It is not necessary to speculate upon the methods 
 for accomplishing this result. (3) We may shape 
 the powers of government with a view to larger 
 executive functions and more perfect responsibility, 
 
284 DEMOCRACY 
 
 SO that we may either prevent the political and eco- 
 nomic evils which give so much trouble or be pre- 
 j)ared by the ability to secure better officials for the 
 natural development which social and economic ten- 
 dencies are supposed to necessitate. The system 
 which I have proposed is at least an attempt to sup- 
 ply what is required by the last alternative, and 
 while it does not exclude absolutely the assumption 
 of government functions on a larger scale than at 
 present, it may make Socialism either unnecessary 
 or incapable of doing injury. But if men cannot 
 get justice and freedom from the corruption of the 
 present system without more powerful government, 
 they will accept Socialism as an attempt to secure 
 their ends. Mr. Spencer, after years of hope 
 that this would not be the direction of development, 
 has at last admitted in despair that it seems inevi- 
 table. "We must have the political machinery either 
 to conduct that system rightly, or to prevent its oc- 
 currence. 
 
 I have no a priori objections to Socialism as an 
 abstract system of government. In fact it is theo- 
 retically ideal, but practical only if you have a suf- 
 ficient number of ideal men to guide its operations 
 rightly and to prevent mistahes and injustice. 
 But we certainly either do not possess tbese requi- 
 sites for any kind of Socialism, voluntary or involun- 
 tary, or we have no means of making unideal men 
 responsible in the exercise of the enormous powers 
 
PM ACTIO AL REMEDIES 285 
 
 required by such a polity. Until one or tlie other 
 of these conditions is fulfilled we must regard So- 
 cialism as a system which disguises the methods of 
 despotism under the cloak of humanity, and puts 
 its powers in the hands of the " boss " and the mob."^' 
 
 *As an illustration of the kind of officers we get for 
 municipal government, and that democratic Socialism 
 would give us, I may be permitted to quote from the 
 International Journal of Ethics a passage by the man- 
 ager of Hull House, Chicago, describing the career of 
 one of the city's aldermen. 
 
 " The alderman of the Nineteenth Ward owns several 
 saloons, one downtown, within easy access of the City 
 Hall, where he can catch the more important of his 
 friends. Here again he has seized upon an old tradition 
 and primitive custom — the good-fellowship which has 
 long been expressed when men drink together. The 
 saloons offer a common meeting ground, with stimulants 
 to free the wits and tongues of the men who meet there. 
 
 " Last Christmas, our alderman distributed six tons 
 of turkeys, and four or more tons of ducks and geese; 
 but each luckless biped was handed out either by him- 
 self or one of his friends with a ' Merry Christmas.' 
 Inevitably some families got three or four apiece, but 
 what of that? He had none of the nagging rules of the 
 charitable societies, nor was he ready to declare that, 
 because a man wanted two turkeys for Christmas, he 
 was a scoundrel who should never be allowed to eat 
 turkey again. 
 
 " There is an old story which the writer has many 
 times heard, to the effect that a respectable candidate 
 once tried to run against this popular alderman of ours, 
 and was somewhat embarrassed by receiving an offer 
 of help from the president of a large temperance society. 
 He knew it would make him unpopular to be thus be- 
 friended, but he did not quite dare to refuse so moral 
 
286 DEMOCRACY 
 
 Monarcliy was under some responsibility in tlie 
 love of its emoluments wliich could remain perma- 
 nent on good behavior and respect for justice. But 
 democracy, in its present state of development, has 
 no restraints, as it does not fear itself and has no 
 
 a backing-. The president and several of the members 
 made a vigorous campaign, speaking in his behalf al- 
 most every night at the various meetings, and impres- 
 sively asserting that, if the reform candidate were 
 elected, he vs^ould soon have all the saloons of the v^ard 
 closed at ten o'clock at night. The candidate ventured 
 to protest once or twice that he had not thought of 
 going to that extreme, but this protest so shocked the 
 temperance orators that he at last gave it up. Such 
 a campaign naturally made him very unpopular, and 
 he lost heavily. On the day of the election he was 
 surprised to see the president of the temperance society 
 at the polls, openly working for his rival. He was quite 
 nettled enough by that time to challenge him fiercely, 
 only to receive the spirited reply, ' I hope you weren't 
 fool enough to think that I made those temperance 
 speeches to help you along. I made them for the other 
 man.' Of what use to protest? The president was 
 quite willing to retire, both from the society and from 
 temperance, for he had received an otfice in the City Hall. 
 " The alderman's wisdom was again displayed in pro- 
 curing from downtown the sum of three thousand dol- 
 lars wherewith to uniform and equip a boys' temper- 
 ance brigade which had been formed in the ward a few 
 months before his campaign. The question does, of 
 course, occur to many minds. Where does the money 
 come from with which to dramatise so successfully? 
 The more primitive people accept the truthful state- 
 ment of its sources without any shock to their moral 
 sense. To their simple minds he gets it ' from the 
 rich,' and so long as he again gives it out to the poor, 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 287 
 
 emoluments to defend except its passions and vices. 
 If Socialism, then, is going to be the future type 
 of government, with its control over industries and 
 every function of civilisation, why not either pre- 
 vent it, if dangerous, or make it harmless, if nec- 
 essary, by that adjustment of integration and dif- 
 ferentiation of political functions which will secure 
 responsibility, intelligence, and honesty on the one 
 hand, and a diminished influence for the mob on the 
 other. The differentiated franchise, the increased 
 powers of the executive, and the enormous influence 
 of the Court of Impeachment are attempts to meet 
 these demands, and I must leave both their theoreti- 
 
 as a true Eobin Hood, with open hand, they have no 
 objections to offer. Their ethics are quite honestly 
 those of the merry-making- foresters. The next less 
 primitive people of the vicinage are quite willing to 
 admit that he leads the ' gang" ' in the city council, and 
 sells out city franchises; that he makes deals with 
 the franchise-seeking companies; that he guarantees 
 to steer dubious measures through the council, for 
 which he demands liberal pay; that he is, in short, 
 a successful boodler. But when there is intellect enough 
 to get this point of viev^, there is also enough to make 
 the contention that this is universally done; that all 
 the aldermen do it more or less successfully, but that 
 the alderman of the Nineteenth Ward is unique in being 
 so generous; that such a state of affairs is to be de- 
 plored, of course, but that is the way business is done, 
 and we are fortunate when a kind-hearted man who is 
 close to the people g-ets a large share of the boodle. 
 It is again the justification of stealing from the rich 
 to give to the poor." 
 
288 DEMOCRACY 
 
 cal and their practical value to the judgment of 
 political students. 
 
 If I am asked how I expect to get so large a 
 scheme adopted, I can only reply that this is not 
 my problem. 1 am simply engaged in the task of 
 every political student who offers a conceivable 
 remedy for some existing evil. He presents his 
 theory of government and the machinery for run- 
 ning it, and leaves its adoption or rejection to so- 
 ciety. I am not engaged in showing how men can 
 be induced or compelled to accept any proposition 
 for political salvation. My task is to propose a 
 policy, not to beg votes. I have prescribed the 
 medicine, and leave it to the patient to be taken or 
 not as he pleases. The system may not recommend 
 itself to those who fear to tell the truth to the masses. 
 But if the intelligent classes became convinced that 
 such a system as I have suggested is adequate to the 
 purpose for which it is intended they might find 
 the means to secure its adoption. If it be what is 
 really needed it is absurd to say that we cannot 
 get it. We never get anything except by hard 
 work, especially in a democracy. The old adage, 
 " Where there is a will there is a way," is as 
 good in politics as in morals. Intelligent men 
 ought to have as much courage to act vigorously 
 in behalf of any approved scheme for good gov- 
 ernment as the mob has for its objects. The only 
 criticism that can weigh is that the system is 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 289 
 
 worthless. If it is not strong enough to bear 
 analysis and not good enough to accomplish its ob- 
 ject, and if universal suffrage with its prospective 
 appendages, the referendum and the initiative, and 
 the universal election of all officials be the best re- 
 sult of experience, I should not care to be found 
 against the proper tendency of evolution. But if 
 the study of the political problem shows that some 
 such institutions, involving the integration and dif- 
 ferentiation of functions, as I have outhned them, 
 are necessary and effective, the difficulties of the 
 '' practical '' politicians, who know only to wheedle, 
 flatter and deceive their constituents, will have to 
 be overcome and their place supplied by men who 
 have the courage either to educate the masses into 
 the naked truth or to organise a revolution. If the 
 system be the right one, and if nothing stands in 
 the way of its adoption except the cowardice of the 
 politicians and the headlong determination of the 
 people to rush with the current over the precipice 
 into anarchy, I for one do not care to rescue men 
 from the consequences of their folly and madness. 
 On the contrary, I should watch them plunge over 
 into the gulf with a most malicious and vindictive 
 pleasure. Once grant that civilisation can be saved 
 by the reforms suggested, and intelligent men ought 
 to discover a way to initiate them. They may not 
 succeed by mere reasoning about the matter. If 
 the politicians reasoned about government there 
 
390 DEMOCRACY 
 
 would be some hope. But theirs is a policy of '^ ad- 
 dition, division, and silence/' of caucus, demagogy, 
 " pull," and defiance, of carrying on an absolute 
 despotism under the forms of law; while the lovers 
 of order and civilisation are trying a policy of 
 "' sweet reasonableness '' on an army of brigands. 
 " Bosses " and politicians do not reason : they act, 
 and their opponents will have to adopt a similar 
 policy. But the real problem for this work is 
 whether such a scheme as I have proposed has any 
 merits at all in the line of the evolution to which 
 I appeal, and not whether it is practical after its 
 theoretical value has been admitted. The true can 
 always be made practical when it has been j)roved 
 to be the truth. 
 
 I confess that my own doubts regard just this 
 question, whether the system correctly conceives the 
 proper tendencies of evolution. For, on the one 
 hand, owing to the solidarity of social and economic 
 interests established by our civilisation, the power 
 of wealth has enormously increased in spite of dem- 
 ocratic desires to restrain it, while it has cultivated 
 many of the anti-social vices incident to intellectual 
 and class pride, and some incursions upon the best 
 results of the family, both of which, if true, might 
 serve as a basis for doubt about the propriety 
 of applying an economic qualification to the fran- 
 chise and devolving more power upon the aris- 
 tocratic classes of society. The intellectual classes 
 
 r 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 291 
 
 are often no better morally than the proletariat. 
 Their ideals, which involve the pursuit of phil- 
 osophy, of literature, of art, and various refined lux- 
 uries, while they live on salaries or judicious in- 
 vestments that make active co-operation in the 
 world's work and the struggle for existence unnec- 
 essary, are too often purchased at the expense of the 
 family and are often as selfish as the avaricious aims 
 of the plutocracy, while they are mixed with an aris- 
 tocratic pride and vanity that a healthy civilisation 
 cannot tolerate in the management of its political 
 aifairs. On the other hand, the fact that the best 
 social instincts are supplied by those who keep up 
 population and who require protection against the 
 abuses of political power that have been identified, 
 in the past at least, with economic interests and 
 class pride is a consideration in favour of a system 
 that guarantees this portion of the community a 
 chance in the struggle for existence. An aristoc- 
 racy of intellect like an aristocracy of wealth often 
 proves infertile as well as negligent of healthy 
 physical and social life, while the disfranchised 
 classes supply population and social instincts. 
 Hence there is something to say for the retention 
 of political power in the hands of the people who 
 furnish the social as opposed to the individualistic 
 elements of life. This principle I fully admit. But 
 I should claim that the conditions which it represents 
 are not found in either the plutocracy or the prole- 
 
392 DEMOCHAGY 
 
 tariat. There is a limit to the social contributions of 
 the proletariat, on the ground that it supplies popula- 
 tion, and this is where it merges into the pauper 
 and criminal classes. The proper supply of social 
 instincts requires more than ability to furnish popu- 
 lation. It includes the intelligence and ability to 
 support it, moral willingness and economic capacity 
 to meet responsibility, qualities which too many of 
 the proletariat show no disposition to cultivate. On 
 the other hand, there is also a limit to the individual- 
 ism of the intellectual aristocracy, and this is where 
 the economic interests have compromised with the 
 family. It is the great middle class with its combi- 
 nation of economic and social interests that creates 
 the hope of civilisation and good government. Con- 
 sequently, the method of limiting the franchise 
 which has been proposed is perfectly adjustable to 
 these conditions, and will put the balance of power 
 in that class which keeps the economic and social 
 instincts in proper proportion. The complexity of 
 the scheme does not seem an objection, because the 
 problem is complex, and a simple solution of it im- 
 possible. The remedy must be commensurate with 
 the difficulties to be removed. The principle of the 
 remedy is simple enough, and it is only its applica- 
 tion to several reforms at once that gives it either the 
 appearance or the reality of complexity; especially 
 to those who are accustomed to seeing only one thing 
 done at a time. - 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 293 
 
 But I shall concede a point to critics whom I may 
 anticipate. I have worked out the system to com- 
 pleteness for the sake of recognising how much has 
 to be done. I am aware that so large a scheme cannot 
 be adopted at once without the offer of one of those 
 emergencies that follow an abrupt determination to 
 make radical changes in a constitution. Gradua- 
 tion, continuity, and cautious experiment in limited 
 changes are the best policy that does not involve vio- 
 lence against the prejudices and passions of the time. 
 Hence either as an entering wedge to the general 
 adoption of such a system, or as a reform which does 
 as little violence as possible to the feelings of the age, 
 though looking in the direction I suggest and afford- 
 ing an opportunity for useful experiment, the fol- 
 lowing measures might be adopted: (1) The uni- 
 versal adoption of civil service reform. (2) The 
 appointment of legislative commissions with powers 
 of investigation and report. (3) The establishment 
 of a Court of Impeachment and Removal in munici- 
 palities with an increase in the mayor's powers of ap- 
 pointment. (4) The limitation of the franchise for 
 the election of municipal officers. Put in this form 
 the system will appear less formidable to theoretical 
 critics and practical statesmen, and provision will 
 be made for experience and development. If two 
 or three of the measures proposed satisfy the con- 
 ditions of the general problem and prove the value 
 of more to complete its solution, they will be de- 
 
294 DEMOCRACY 
 
 manded witli sufficient energy to secure their adop- 
 tion. But to indicate the magnitude and complex- 
 ity of the problem to be solved, the varied condi- 
 tions under which action has to be taken, and the 
 many radical reforms necessary to correct our ten- 
 dency to anarchy, a whole scheme of government 
 had to be presented for consideration, even at the 
 risk of suspicion for its impracticability. 
 
 But whatever be thought of it as a practical 
 scheme, it reflects a widespread feeling among the in- 
 tellectual classes that our political institutions are not 
 fulfilling the promises of their founders, and that 
 something must be done to save the best conquests 
 of civilisation. Having watched and nurtured laws 
 and institutions that were intended to protect the 
 rights of the individual against their sacrifice to 
 some state Moloch on the one hand, and to political 
 mercenaries on the other, they do not view democ- 
 racy setting in thunder clouds without some fears 
 for the future. They wish to retain, if not demo- 
 cratic forms of government, certainly democratic 
 objects; namely, freedom and justice, and when 
 they look at the menacing approach of political anar- 
 chy from experience with universal suffrage, they 
 must be pardoned for their concern and condemned 
 if they do not propose a way out of it. The present 
 situation has been described over and over again. 
 Briefly, it is constant encroachments by the legis- 
 lature upon the executive, legislation under irre- 
 
PRACTICAL REMEDIES 295 
 
 sponsible ^^ bosses " for personal ends, black-mail- 
 ing of corporations by politicians, and of society by 
 corporations to recoup the plunder of the politician, 
 or to accumulate ill-gotten gain, both of them very 
 good imitations of the Spanish policy in the colonies 
 which is terminating in the ruin of an empire; 
 favours shown to special forms of business and in- 
 dustry, unjust taxation, the irresponsible conduct 
 of our legislatures whose deliberations are the signal 
 for alarm and confusion in the commercial world, 
 and mass-meetings every week to frighten politi- 
 cians into submission, libel, bribery, and lying in 
 campaign work, government by perjurers, pugilists, 
 and pimps, and political leadership by men who 
 know no arts but those of Alcibiades and Catiline — 
 all these and a hundred other facts like them create 
 a profound and justifiable suspicion of institutions 
 that confer the supreme power upon those who are 
 equally unfit to govern themselves and others. The 
 concern is all the more impressive and justifiable 
 when we look at the present blind progress toward 
 imperialism and colonial expansion without the 
 slightest constitutional equipment for carrying 
 out such a policy. If anything would establish the 
 absolute unfitness of Congress to undertake this 
 business, it is the ignorance, demagogy and fatuous 
 inconsistencies which that body displayed in its 
 haste to bring about the present war with Spain. 
 Only a little piece of good fortune exists that can 
 
296 DEMOCRACY 
 
 save Congress from Tiniversal reprobation. It can 
 take an ex post facto shelter from tlie judgment 
 upon its own iniquity by referring to the corruption 
 and inhumanity of Spanish colonial policy. Such 
 a body cannot safely enter upon empire with uni- 
 versal suffrage for capital and " bosses " for rulers. 
 But this solicitude for civilisation and its inheri- 
 tance is not a craving for arbitrary government. It 
 is merely a warning fear that society cannot be 
 saved by peaceful and constitutional methods. The 
 situation is one that calls for action. If we parley 
 we are lost. We have to choose, with the growing 
 density of population and complexity of socio-eco- 
 nomic interests, between government by intelligence 
 and government by the mob under mercenary politi- 
 cians. With tendencies running rapidly toward the 
 latter, though nominally in constitutional forms, 
 but really excluding every moral qualification for 
 good government, intelligent men have no time to 
 waste in merely barking at them. They have at 
 least to propose a possible remedy for trial as the 
 only alternative to violent revolution, which, though 
 it be a century distant, can only bring the man on 
 horseback for a law-maker. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Alcibiades, 22, 294 
 Alexander, 97 
 Animism, 91 
 Aristocracy, 39, 43 
 Aristotle, 3; work of, 39- 
 
 41, 95 
 Atomism, 92 
 
 Bluntschli, 50 
 
 Bodin, 75, 76 
 
 Bosses, political, 32, 84, 
 
 125, 265-272 
 Bryce, Mr., 13-15 
 Burke, 1, 188 
 
 Caesar, 97 
 
 Castelar, 11 
 
 Catiline, 294 
 
 Charlemagne, 97 
 
 Checks and balances, 82, 
 
 87, 112, 120, 163 
 Christianity, 25, 59, 61 
 Church and state, 63-69 
 Civil service reform, 146- 
 
 167 
 Cleveland, President, 146 
 Commission, Interstate 
 
 Commerce, 112, 175 
 
 Commissions, 174-181 
 Confirmation, Court of, 
 
 183-185, 192, 225 
 Court of Confirmation, 
 
 183-185, 192, 225 
 Court of Impeachment and 
 
 Eemoval, 141, 176, 180, 
 
 183, 185-211, 225, 266, 292 
 Court, Supreme, 119, 136, 
 
 165, 180, 194-196 
 
 Democracy, 1; economic 
 and other changes af- 
 fecting, 3 ; DeTocqueville 
 on, 4-9; in Greece and 
 Eome, 10; compared 
 with monarchy, 12, 30, 
 101; present conditions 
 under bosses, 31-32 ; 
 modern, 40; nature and 
 objects of, 43; logical 
 tendency of, 123 
 
 Democritus, 100 
 
 De Tocqueville, 4; attitude 
 on democracy, 4-9, 136 
 
 Differentiation of func- 
 tion, integration and, 
 103-109, 116 
 
 29T 
 
298 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Economic ideal, 24, 28-29, 
 99 
 
 Empire, Holy Eoman, 19, 
 28 
 
 England, 56, 82 
 
 Eng-lish Parliament, 81-82, 
 114, 189; system of rep- 
 resentation, 142, 168-171 
 
 Epicurus, 100 
 
 Erie Canal, 15 
 
 Evolution, law of, 103-109, 
 116; ethics of, 261-263 
 
 Franchise, the, 211-265; 
 manner of applying, 219, 
 233; property qualifica- 
 tion for, 238; criteria of 
 a limited, 264 
 French Kepublicanism, 11 
 French Eevolution, 1 
 
 Gladstone, Mr., 169 
 Godkin, Mr., 114, 139 
 Government, right to par- 
 ticipate in, 20-21 
 Greece, 10 
 
 Harcourt, Sir William, 169 
 
 Hobbes' doctrine of sover- 
 eignty, 55, 75-80, 118, 
 119, 186; theory of the 
 state, 72-75 
 
 Holy Koman Empire, 19, 
 28 
 
 Houses, Lower, 179, 180, 
 219; Upper, 230 
 
 Ideals, economic and ethi- 
 cal, 24, 28-29 
 
 Ideas and political ma- 
 chinery, 22-24, 38, 71 
 
 Immortality of the soul, 
 relation of, to democ- 
 racy, 25, 27; influence of, 
 on the value of the indi- 
 vidual, 61, 98 
 
 Impeachment and Remov- 
 al, Court of, 141, 176, 180, 
 183, 185-211 
 
 Imperialism, 25; in Greece, 
 48, 50; Greco-Eoman, 57 
 
 Individual liberty, 28, 30 
 
 Individualism, 27, 59 
 
 Inhibition, 119, 137 
 
 Initiative, referendum and, 
 122-137 
 
 Integration and differen- 
 tiation of function, 103- 
 109, 116 
 
 Intelligence and charac- 
 ter, relation of, to gov- 
 ernment, 24, 129, 138, 151, 
 166 
 
 Judiciary, 142, 273-276 
 
 Lecky, Mr., 1, 4, 12, 32, 277; 
 
 quotes Mr. Bryce, 13-15; 
 
 nature of his work, 15-18 
 Lower Houses, 179, 180, 219 
 
 Macaulay, 3 
 
 Machiavelli, 74 
 
 Machine politics, 32, ^65; 
 
 correction of, 265-273 
 Maine, Sir Henry, 2, 18 
 Masses, the, 19-22 
 
INDEX 
 
 299 
 
 Materialism of ancient civ- 
 ilisation, 26 
 
 Middle Ages, 19-20 
 
 Military power, 187, 197- 
 200 
 
 Mommsen, 205 
 
 Monarchy, 12, 30, 87, 101, 
 278-280, 285 
 
 Monism, 92 
 
 Morley, John, 169 
 
 Napoleon, 97 
 
 Organism, nature of social, 
 
 109-112 
 
 Paganism, 62 
 Parliament, 81-82, 114, 189 
 Philosophy and politics, 
 
 38, 45, 89-104 
 Plato's Eepublic, 47, 95 
 Political " bosses," 32, 84, 
 
 125 
 Political machinery and 
 
 ideas, 22-24 
 Political rights, 20-21, 150, 
 
 212, 253-259 
 Pollock, Sir Frederick, 75, 
 
 77, 79 
 Polytheism, 94, 95 
 Power and responsibility. Pome, 10, 25 
 
 24, 40, 54, 73, 83; reaction 
 
 against Hobbes' doc- Socialism, 30-31, 259, 282- 
 
 trine, 84-88; in office, 153, 287 
 
 154 Sovereignty, 49-59; origin 
 
 Primary election reform, of conception in military 
 
 272 civilisation, 52, 58-59; 
 
 Property and its relation 
 to civilisation, 242-251 
 
 Property qualitication for 
 the suffrage, 238 
 
 Protestant Reformation, 
 28 
 
 Quantity and quality of 
 rulers, 42-44 
 
 Referendum and initiative, 
 122-137 
 
 Reform of the primaries, 
 272 
 
 Reformation, Protestant, 
 28 
 
 Removal, Court of Im- 
 peachment and, 141, 176, 
 180, 183, 185-211 
 
 Representation, English 
 system of, 142, 168-171 
 
 Responsibility, power and, 
 24, 40, 54, 73, 160; reac- 
 tion against Hobbes' 
 doctrine, 84-88, 117-118; 
 " bosses " and, 125; in of- 
 fice, 153, 154, 162 
 
 Roman Empire, 148 
 
 Roman Empire, Holy, 19, 
 28 
 
300 INDEX 
 
 nature of conception, 75- Tribunes of the Commons, 
 
 80; English Parliament 205-208, note 
 
 and, 81-82; limitation of, 
 
 86 Upper Houses, 179, 180, 
 
 Spencer, Mr., 101, 283 219, 230, 266 
 Supreme Court, 119, 136, 
 
 165, 180, 194-196, 275 Wines, Mr. F. H., 250 
 
 Thnrman, Judge, 170 Xerxes, 97 
 
JAN Id »»99