PUBLIC MEN IN LITERATURE.
Until recently Americans have had good grounds for complaining that their public servants were almost a minus quantity in literature. The complaint had an especially sharp edge in view of the fact that at an earlier period our Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, and others, had been among the foremost writers of the country; and it was still further aggravated by the contrast we seemed to present to France, England, and Germany, where a public man is usually also a literary man. The rule in France is that an eminent politician is an author, and the most distinguished statesmen and princes have written books. Even Louis Napoleon wrote a book on Cæsar, and one of the best accounts of our late war is the stately volumes of Count de Paris. In England, the rule is the same. The queen herself takes pride in the books she has produced. John Bright is almost alone in having no literary tastes, but his speeches will long survive in the volumes they will fill. Disraeli and Gladstone, Bulwer and Macaulay, Fawcett and Dilke, are only a few contemporary names in along list of distinguished statesmen who have excelled as writers for periodicals and as producers of books. In this country, from about 1830 to 1880, our public men wrote little. Benton’s “Thirty Years,” Webster’s speeches, and Sumner’s orations, and some other less famous works, do indeed redeem the half century; but when we have said all that can be said in praise of exceptions, the rule seems to have been that an American politician was not a writer, and a phrase of contempt attributed to an eminent Senator expresses the feelings of our politicians against “them literary fellers” in a form which is full of a significance from which we prefer to turn away our ears. Too many of our public men have despised literature, and justified literature in returning the sentiment with interest.
We are entering upon a happier period. The American statesman is returning to authorship. It is a wholesome change. Mr. Blaine’s history will occur to many readers as an illustration. It is hardly less noteworthy that his late associate on the Republican ticket has written for The Chautauquan able papers on a public question which is a living issue. A very long list might be made of public men who are in good fame as writers. The witty S. S. Cox will at once occur to all our memories, and another eminent Democrat is said to be writing a history of his times. General Grant finds relief from the terrible strain of his financial misfortunes in writing the history of his battles. We have employed some of our most gifted authors as diplomats; as, for example, Motley, the historian, James Russell Lowell, the poet and literary critic, and George P. Marsh, the man of universal knowledge; but it may, probably will, come to pass that some of their stamp will more and more appear in our public life at home. We have kept poets, philosophers, and novelists alive by giving them clerkships in Custom Houses. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Howells, “Ik Marvel” (Donald G. Mitchell), and others, rose to the dignity of consulships. Francis Lieber was tolerated in a Custom House clerkship in New York. We are probably coming to the time when such men may be members of Congress and shape the legislation of the country. Literary men are usually the most practical of men; that they are dreamers of impossibilities is the strangest of our popular delusions. A few exceptions have been carelessly considered as making the rule for the class. The sort of practicality—tempered by philosophy—which the literary man brings to affairs is what our public life most needs. All clean knowledge is a light where it abides, and the value of unclean knowledge (such as some practical politicians boast themselves in), is a forlorn minus quantity.
The advantages to be anticipated from the increase of the literary spirit in our public men are too numerous to be here set forth in detail. A few suggestions must suffice for our present purpose. In the first place, public men are experts, and have therefore valuable knowledge to impart. We are all well aware that General Grant knows important things about his battles which other men do not know. It is equally true that any clerk in a department, or any member of Congress has an intimate acquaintance with many concernments of considerable moment. A man who has served ten years in Congress could instruct and please us all if he had the art of describing the methods of law making. It is not a pleasant fact that the writing of a book on “Congressional Government,” which is at once philosophical and entertaining, should have been left to a college professor; nor is it pleasant to feel that the author of this book, Professor Woodrow Wilson, is probably the last man whom Baltimore will think of sending to Congress. The men who see the meaning of things and connect them with principles, and align them with historical precedents, are needed in Congress to give it dignity and character. In short, we ought to send our best men to Congress, and we are approaching an era when “best men” will generally be possessed of literary tastes and habits. Our public life is rich in materials for useful books and entertaining novels. Most of these materials lie neglected because we send inferior men to our public work. Another distinct advantage will be found in the preservation of many bright men whom we send to Congress from rusting out of intellectual brightness and becoming mere political workers. The majority of men sent to Congress are college men; they have had some literary tastes and habits. They have often been journalists. The public opinion which hedges them in converts them into office hunters and office peddlers, and consumes their lives in routine and political anxiety, to the detriment of all generous and aspiring manhood. The man whose brain work, in periodicals and books, will secure his position before his constituents, is a man saved.
The change which is going on is mainly the work of the enterprising managers of periodicals. Most good literary work in our day first reaches the public in periodicals. Much excellent work is found only in periodicals. The editors have discovered that there is valuable matter to be had by encouraging public men to write. Our articles by General Logan, for example, contain a view of a great question which is best seen in all its aspects by a public man who has seen all sides of it in a Congressional committee. Many similar articles have in recent years appeared in literary periodicals. An invitation to present his views to the public through such a periodical as The Chautauquan is a challenge to candor and a stimulus to thoroughness. The work done educates the statesman while it informs the people. It creates an intelligent sympathy between public servants and those whom they serve. It carries on that form of education in which light and wisdom are put into the first place, while turgid bombast and self-seeking buncombe are rendered odious to the people whom they have deceived.