The Valley of Democracy

by Meredith Nicholson

I

IF a general participation in politics is essential to the successful maintenance of a democracy, then the people of the West certainly bear their share of the national burden. A great deal of history has been made in what Lincoln called “the great body of the republic,” and the election of 1916 indicated very clearly the growing power of the West in national contests, and a manifestation of independence that is not negligible in any conjectures as to the issues and leadership of the immediate future.

A few weeks before the last general election I crossed a Middle Western State in company with one of its senators, a veteran politician, who had served his party as State chairman and as chairman of the national committee. In the smoking compartment was a former governor of an Eastern State and several others, representing both the major parties, who were bound for various points along the line where they were to speak that night. In our corner the talk was largely reminiscent of other times and bygone statesmen. Republicans and Democrats exchanged anecdotes with that zest which distinguishes the Middle Western politician, men of one party paying tribute to the character and ability of leaders of the other in a fine spirit of magnanimity. As the train stopped, from time to time, the United States senator went out upon the platform and shook hands with friends and acquaintances, or received reports from local leaders. Everybody on the train knew him; many of the men called him by his first name. He talked to the women about their children and asked about their husbands. The whole train caught the spirit of his cheer and friendliness, and yet he had been for a dozen years the most abused man in his State. This was all in the day’s work, a part of what has been called the great American game. The West makes something intimate and domestic of its politics, and the idea that statesmen must “keep close to the people” is not all humbug, not at least in the sense that they hold their power very largely through their social qualities. They must, as we say, be “folks.”

Apart from wars, the quadrennial presidential campaigns are America’s one great national expression in terms of drama; but through months in which the average citizen goes about his business, grateful for a year free of political turmoil, the political machinery is never idle. No matter how badly defeated a party may be, its State organization must not be permitted to fall to pieces; for the perfecting of an organization demands hard work and much money. There is always a great deal of inner plotting preliminary to a State or national contest, and much of this is wholly without the knowledge of the quiet citizen whose active interests are never aroused until a campaign is well launched. In State capitals and other centres men meet, as though by chance, and in hotel-rooms debate matters of which the public hears only when differences have been reconciled and a harmonious plan of action has been adopted. Not a day passes even in an “off year” when in the corn belt men are not travelling somewhere on political errands. There are fences to repair, local conditions to analyze, and organizations to perfect against the coming of the next campaign. In a Western State I met within the year two men who had just visited their governor for the purpose of throwing some “pep” into him. They had helped to elect him and felt free to beard him in the capitol to caution him as to his conduct. It is impossible to step off a train anywhere between Pittsburgh and Denver without becoming acutely conscious that much politics is forward. One campaign “doth tread upon another’s heel, so fast they follow.” This does not mean merely that the leaders in party organizations meet constantly for conferences, or that candidates are plotting a long way ahead to secure nominations, but that the great body of the people—the Folks themselves—are ceaselessly discussing new movements or taking the measure of public servants.

The politician lives by admiration; he likes to be pointed out, to have men press about him to shake his hand. He will enter a State convention at just the right moment to be greeted with a cheer, of which a nonchalant or deprecatory wave of the hand is a sufficient recognition. Many small favors of which the public never dreams are granted to the influential politician, even when he is not an office-holder—favors that mean much to him, that contribute to his self-esteem. A friend who was secretary for several years of one of the national committees had a summer home by a quiet lake near an east-and-west railway-line. When, during a campaign, he was suddenly called to New York or Chicago he would wire the railway authorities to order one of the fast trains to pick him up at a lonely station, which it passed ordinarily at the highest speed. My friend derived the greatest satisfaction from this concession to his prominence and influence. Men who affect to despise politicians of the party to which they are opposed are nevertheless flattered by any attention from them, and they will admit, when there is no campaign forward, that in spite of their politics they are mighty good fellows. And they are good fellows; they have to be to retain their hold upon their constituents. There are exceptions to the rule that to succeed in politics one must be a good fellow, a folksy person, but they are few. Cold, crafty men who are not “good mixers” may sometimes gain a great deal of power, but in the Western provinces they make poor candidates. The Folks don’t like ’em!

Outside of New York and Pennsylvania, where much the same phenomena are observable, there is no region where the cards are so tirelessly shuffled as in the Middle Western commonwealths, particularly in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kansas, which no party can pretend to carry jauntily in its pocket. Men enjoy the game because of its excitement, its potentialities of preferment, the chance that a few votes delivered in the right quarter may upset all calculations and send a lucky candidate for governor on his way to the Federal Senate or even to the White House. And in country towns where there isn’t much to do outside of routine business the practice of politics is a welcome “side-line.” There is a vast amount of fun to be got out of it; and one who is apt at the game may win a county office or “go” to the legislature.

To be summoned from a dull job in a small town to a conference called suddenly and mysteriously at the capital, to be invited to sit at the council-table with the leaders, greatly arouses the pride and vanity of men to whom, save for politics, nothing of importance ever happens. There are, I fancy, few American citizens who don’t hug the delusion that they have political “influence.” This vanity is responsible for much party regularity. To have influence a man must keep his record clear of any taint of independence, or else he must be influential enough as an independent to win the respect of both sides, and this latter class is exceedingly small. At some time in his life every citizen seeks an appointment for a friend, or finds himself interested in local or State or national legislation. It is in the mind of the contributor to a campaign fund that the party of his allegiance has thus a concrete expression of his fidelity, and if he “wants something” he has opened a channel through which to make a request with a reasonable degree of confidence that it will not be ignored. There was a time when it was safe to give to both sides impartially so that no matter who won the battle the contributor would have established an obligation; but this practice has not worked so satisfactorily since the institution of publicity for campaign assessments.

It is only immediately after an election that one hears criticisms of party management from within a party. A campaign is a great time-eater, and when a man has given six months or possibly a year of hard work to making an aggressive fighting machine of his party he is naturally grieved when it goes down in defeat. In the first few weeks following the election of 1916 Western Republicans complained bitterly of the conduct of the national campaign. Unhappily, no amount of a posteriori reasoning can ever determine whether, if certain things had been handled differently, a result would have been changed. If Mr. Hughes had not visited California, or, venturing into that commonwealth, he had shaken the hand of Governor Hiram Johnson, or if he had remained quietly on his veranda at home and made no speeches, would he have been elected President? Speculations of this kind may alleviate the poignancy of defeat, but as a political situation is rarely or never repeated they are hardly profitable.

There are phases of political psychology that defy analysis. For example, in doubtful States there are shifting moods of hope and despair which are wholly unrelated to tangible events and not reconcilable with “polls” and other pre-election tests. Obscure influences and counter-currents may be responsible, but often the politicians do not attempt to account for these alternations of “feeling.” When, without warning, the barometer at headquarters begins to fall, even the messengers and stenographers are affected. The gloom may last for a day or two or even for a week; then the chairman issues a statement “claiming” everything, every one takes heart of hope, and the dread spectre of defeat steals away to the committee-rooms of the opposition.

An interesting species are the oracles whose views are sought by partisans anxious for trustworthy “tips.” These “medicine-men” may not be actively engaged in politics, or only hangers-on at headquarters, but they are supposed to be endowed with the gift of prophecy. I know several such seers whose views on no other subject are entitled to the slightest consideration, and yet I confess to a certain respect for their judgment as to the outcome of an election. Late in the fall of 1916, at a time when the result was most uncertain, a friend told me that he was wagering a large sum on Mr. Wilson’s success. Asked to explain his confidence, he said he was acting on the advice of an obscure citizen, whom he named, who always “guessed right.” This prophet’s reasoning was wholly by inspiration; he had a “hunch.” State and county committee-rooms are infested with elderly men who commune among themselves as to old, unhappy, far-off things and battles long ago, and wait for a chance to whisper some rumor into the ear of a person of importance. Their presence and their misinformation add little to the joy of the engrossed, harassed strategists, who spend much time dodging them, but appoint a subordinate of proved patience to listen to their stories.

To be successful a State chairman must possess a genius for organization and administration, and a capacity for quick decision and action. While he must make no mistakes himself, it is his business to correct the blunders of his lieutenants and turn to good account the errors of his adversary. He must know how and where to get money, and how to use it to the best advantage. There are always local conditions in his territory that require judicious handling, and he must deal with these personally or send just the right man to smooth them out. Harmony is the great watchword, and such schisms as that of the Sound Money Democrats in 1896, the Progressive split of 1912, and the frequent anti-organization fights that are a part of the great game leave much harsh jangling behind.

The West first kicked up its heels in a national campaign in the contest of 1840, when William Henry Harrison, a native of Virginia who had won renown as a soldier in the Ohio Valley and served as governor of the Northwest Territory, was the Whig candidate. The campaign was flavored with hard cider and keyed to the melody of “Tippecanoe and Tyler too.” The log cabin, with a raccoon on the roof or with a pelt of the species nailed to the outer wall, and a cider-barrel seductively displayed in the foreground, were popular party symbols. The rollicking campaign songs of 1840 reflect not only the cheery pioneer spirit but the bitterness of the contest between Van Buren and Harrison. One of the most popular ballads was a buckeye-cabin song sung to the tune of “The Blue Bells of Scotland”:

“Oh, how, tell me how does your buckeye cabin go?

Oh, how, tell me how does your buckeye cabin go?

It goes against the spoilsman, for well its builders know

It was Harrison who fought for the cabins long ago.

Oh, who fell before him in battle, tell me who?

Oh, who fell before him in battle, tell me who?

He drove the savage legions and British armies, too,

At the Rapids and the Thames and old Tippecanoe.

Oh, what, tell me what will little Martin do?

Oh, what, then, what will little Martin do?

He’ll follow the footsteps of Price and Swartout, too,

While the log cabins ring again with Tippecanoe!”

The spirit of the ’40’s pervaded Western politics for many years after that strenuous campaign. Men who had voted for “Tippecanoe” Harrison were pointed out as citizens of unusual worth and dignity in my youth; and organizations of these veterans were still in existence and attentive to politics when Harrison’s grandson was a candidate for the Presidency.

I find myself referring frequently to the continuing influence of the Civil War in the social and political life of these Western States. The “soldier vote” was long to be reckoned with, and it was not until Mr. Cleveland brought a new spirit into our politics that the war between the States began to fade as a political factor; and even then we were assured that if the Democrats succeeded they would pension Confederate soldiers and redeem the Confederate bonds. There were a good many of us in these border States who, having been born of soldier fathers, and with Whig and Republican antecedents, began to resent the continued emphasis of the war in every campaign; and I look back upon Mr. Cleveland’s rise as of very great importance in that he was a messenger of new and attractive ideals of public service that appealed strongly to young men. But my political apostasy (I speak of my own case because it is in some sense typical) was attended with no diminution of reverence for that great citizen army that defended and saved the Union. The annual gatherings of the Grand Army of the Republic have grown pathetically smaller, but this organization is not a negligible expression of American democracy. The writing of these pages has been interrupted constantly by bugle-calls floating in from the street, by the cheers of crowds wishing Godspeed to our young army in its high adventure beyond the Atlantic, and at the moment, by stirring news of American valor and success in France. In my boyhood I viewed with awe and admiration the veterans of ’61-’65 and my patriotism was deeply influenced by the atmosphere in which I was born, by acquaintance with my father’s comrades, and quickened through my formative years by attendance at encampments of the Grand Army of the Republic and cheery “camp-fires” in the hall of George H. Thomas Post, Indianapolis, where privates and generals met for story-telling and the singing of war-songs. The honor which it was part of my education should be accorded those men will, I reflect, soon be the portion of their grandsons, the men of 1917-18, and we shall have very likely a new Grand Army of the Republic, with the difference that the descendants of men who fought under Grant and Sherman will meet at peaceful “camp-fires” with grandsons of the soldiers of Lee and Jackson, quite unconscious that this was ever other than a united nation.

There is a death-watch that occupies front seats at every political meeting.