Footnotes
[1]. For example, by covering Chapters i, ii, iv-xvi, xxviii-xxix, in the first term and Chapters iii, xvii-xxvii, xxx-xxxii in the second.
[2]. Charles Darwin, a distinguished English student of biology, was born in 1809, and died in 1882. His theory was set forth in two famous books, The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man.
[3]. The most interesting general account of the beginnings of life and the ancestry of man is that given in H. G. Wells’ Outline of History, Vol. I, pp. 3-103. A brief summary of the evidence on which the doctrine of evolution rests may be conveniently found in H. R. Burch and S. H. Patterson, American Social Problems, pp. 12-32.
[4]. For a discussion of these other factors see Vernon Kellogg, Darwinism Today.
[5]. There has been much discussion among scientists as to whether acquired characteristics can be transmitted at all. The best opinion seems to be against such transmission, but some biologists still hold to the belief that transmission is possible, particularly in the lower organisms. For a further discussion see W. E. Castle, Genetics and Eugenics, pp. 26-27.
[6]. One of the best things ever written is the chapter on “Habit” in William James’s Psychology. No one will regret the time spent in reading it.
[7]. The following table shows the increase, by decades, in round figures:
| 1790— 3,900,000 | 1840— 17,000,000 | 1890— 62,900,000 |
| 1800— 5,300,000 | 1850— 23,100,000 | 1900— 75,900,000 |
| 1810— 7,200,000 | 1860— 31,400,000 | 1910— 91,900,000 |
| 1820— 9,600,000 | 1870— 38,500,000 | 1920—105,000,000 |
| 1830— 12,800,000 | 1880— 50,000,000 |
From this it will be seen that the ratio of increase is declining. The population increased about one-third in each decade from 1790 to 1860; by about one-fourth in each decade from 1860 to 1890; by about one-fifth in the two decades from 1890 to 1910; and by less than one-sixth in the decade from 1910 to 1920.
[8]. It is customary to think of India and China as very densely populated; but both have fewer than 225 inhabitants to the square mile.
[9]. A map showing the progress of the center from East to West will be found facing this page.
[10]. Mr. H. G. Wells, in his interesting book entitled When the Sleeper Wakes, gives a picture of what the world will be like if all its inhabitants live in cities, and the country workers are carried back and forth by rapid transit.
[11]. In 1880, for example, only about four per cent of the immigrants were Italians while about thirty per cent were Germans; in 1910 the Italians had risen to more than twenty per cent while the German immigrants had declined to less than five per cent.
[12]. From 1783 to 1820 it is estimated that not more than 250,000 immigrants came to the United States. P. F. Hall, Immigration, p. 4. The total population in 1820 was ten millions.
[13]. The monotony of labor, however, is to some extent a matter of temperament. Some workers find even routine tasks interesting because they are constantly trying to attain greater expertness at the particular job. Others find work of a very varied character to be monotonous.
[14]. There are two other forms of productive organization, neither of them very common. One is the co-operative association, with or without capital stock; the other is the organization of production under the direct management of the public authorities. The organization of the postal service is an example.
[15]. The Lockwood Committee, which made its investigations during 1920 in New York, found that excessive costs of building construction were due in considerable measure to the existence of artificial monopolies among producers of building materials.
[16]. It has been suggested that instead of giving inventors the exclusive right to make and sell their appliances, this right should be given to everybody with a provision that a fixed rate of royalty should be paid to the inventor. This would afford an incentive to the inventor while preventing the creation of legal monopolies.
[17]. The doctrine of the divine right of rulers was based upon certain Biblical texts, particularly Romans xiii, 1-7, and was put forth in the Middle Ages to support the secular rulers against the Church. The Bourbon kings of France, especially Louis XIV, asserted it, as well as the Stuart kings of England. The House of Hohenzollern in Germany maintained the doctrine, and the former Kaiser on more than one occasion alluded to himself as a ruler by divine right. Those who are interested in pursuing this topic further will find a great deal about it in J. N. Figgis, The Divine Right of Kings (London, 1896) and in The Political Writings of James I (ed. C. H. McIlwain, Cambridge, 1915).
[18]. For example, E. L. Godkin, Unforeseen Tendencies of Democracy (N. Y., 1898), p. 46; Emile Faguet, The Cult of Incompetence (N. Y., 1911), pp. 35-36; A. M. Kales, Unpopular Government in the United States (Chicago, 1914); A. B. Cruikshank, Popular Misgovernment in the United States (N. Y., 1920), and Alleyne Ireland, Democracy and the Human Equation (N. Y., 1921), pp. 75-79.
[19]. Corporations, as well as individuals, are citizens in the eyes of the law. The Standard Oil Company of New Jersey is a citizen of New Jersey and as such is entitled to all the “privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States”.
[20]. Some children although born in the United States are not subject to American jurisdiction. The children of a foreign ambassador, serving in the United States, are for this reason not citizens, even though born here. Children born on board a foreign warship in an American harbor are not deemed to be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. But with a few unimportant exceptions of this sort all persons born in the United States are born within its jurisdiction, and hence are citizens by birth.
One may be an American citizen by birth, moreover, without having been born in the United States. The children of American parents, even though born outside the territory of the United States, have the right to claim this citizenship. Children of American parents, born on the high seas, or on American war vessels in foreign ports, or children of American ambassadors born abroad, are citizens of the United States by virtue of their parentage. Children of American parents, born on foreign soil, have the right to choose between American citizenship and citizenship of the country in which they were born.
[21]. On rather rare occasions a large body of people, not citizens by birth, have become citizens of the United States by what is called collective naturalization. When Louisiana (1803), Florida (1819) and Alaska (1867) were acquired, for example, the treaties which provided for their acquisition stipulated that all inhabitants of these territories should be admitted to American citizenship without becoming individually naturalized. On the other hand, when Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands were ceded to us by Spain in 1898 there was no such provision. In the case of the Porto Ricans,[Ricans,] citizenship was conferred by an act of Congress in 1917; in the case of the Filipinos the full status of American citizenship has not yet been granted. The Filipinos are called “nationals” of the United States, which means that they have the protection of the federal government, but are not entitled to all the other privileges and immunities of citizenship as provided in the constitution. Collective naturalization may thus be provided for by treaty or granted by act of Congress.
[22]. The leisure hours of pupils may also be utilized to secure excellent lessons in good citizenship. Unfortunately they are not always so used. Many of the recreations which are now popular with the young people of the United States afford neither physical exercise nor mental inspiration, neither do they conduce to the strengthening of character.
[23]. Attention should be called to the inducement which in some schools is given to broad civic training by awarding to pupils a rank which is based upon proficiency in all their activities, scholarship, athletics, debating, good influence upon others, qualities of leadership, and so on. Student self-government may also be used in schools to afford training in the fundamentals of good citizenship.
[24]. In doing this they do not take editorials, resolutions, and letters too seriously. Some newspapers merely reflect the opinion of their owners, not public opinion. Societies often adopt resolutions without hearing both sides of the case. Congressmen sometimes receive several hundred letters in a single day, most of them saying exactly the same thing, which means that they have all been inspired from the same quarter.
[25]. The President of the United States is to all intents and purposes chosen directly by the voters although as a matter of form the choice is made indirectly (see pp. 288-290).
[26]. The appointment of officials is sometimes made by legislative bodies, although this plan is not common. In a few states the judges are named by the legislature. In some others the legislature elects the state treasurer, the secretary of state, the comptroller, or the auditor. Where the commission form of city government has been adopted all appointments are made by the commission. The general theory of American government is, however, that the choosing of administrative and judicial officers should not be vested in the hands of a legislative body. It is regarded as undesirable that the body which enacts the laws should have anything directly to do with the selection of those officers who enforce or apply the laws. But this principle ought not to be applied inflexibly; there are good reasons at times for making exceptions to it.
[27]. Washington was not a party man and cared very little about the political views of men whom he appointed to public office. His immediate successors, Adams and Jefferson, did not preserve this strict impartiality; on the other hand, they were disinclined to treat public office as a mere means of rewarding their own supporters. They did not remove office-holders in order to make room for their own political friends.
[28]. The story is often told, and it may well be true, that at a critical time in the war a visitor to the White House remarked to Lincoln that the responsibilities of the great struggle must be a heavy burden upon his shoulders. “No,” replied the President, “it is not the war that is giving me the greatest worry at this moment. It is the problem of filling that postmastership at Little Rapids, Indiana.”
[29]. No method of appointment will secure the best results, however, unless it is accompanied by a fair system of promotions. This has not yet been arranged for on any large scale. Appointments are to a large extent based upon merit, but promotions are still determined, in many cases, by personal or party favoritism. Rarely is there any examination or other test to decide who will be promoted when a vacancy occurs higher up. It is desirable, therefore, that the merit system of appointment should be supplemented by a merit system of promotions. Many capable young men and women will not enter the public service today because there is no certain chance of promotion on the basis of ability and industry. A merit plan of promotion would help to attract better candidates. The public treasury, moreover, ought to provide pensions for those who retire by reason of old age after many years of faithful service. Some large private institutions are now doing this. The nation, state, and city ought to adopt the same practice, not only because it is the humane way of treating aged employees but because it would make the public service more attractive as a career.
[30]. In a sense, however, the terms initiative and referendum are merely new names for very old institutions. The right of petition, which is the foundation of the initiative, has always existed in the United States. The referendum, in other words the submission of questions directly to the people, is as old as the New England town meeting; indeed it goes back to the time of ancient Athens. All early democracy, in fact, was direct democracy; the people decided things without legislatures. But as communities grew in size this system of direct democracy became impractical; hence they resorted to representative government. Now, when representative government fails to satisfy, we go back again in a roundabout way to the old method.
[31]. Only five of these states, however, lie east of the Mississippi River. Why is it that so many of these new movements, political and economic, originate somewhere in the West? Direct legislation, the recall, woman suffrage, popular election of senators, free silver, the single tax, Populism, the Non-partisan League,—the list would be a considerable one if given in full. It is often said that the growth of industrial communities, with large bodies of propertyless workers, tends to promote radicalism; but the West is still predominantly agricultural. What new political or economic movements have had their origin in industrial states like Massachusetts, Connecticut, or Pennsylvania during the past twenty-five years?
[32]. Here are some of the matters submitted to the voters of a certain Western city at one election: to pension firemen; to grant a street railway franchise; to abolish grade crossings; to exempt certain city officers from being citizens of the United States; to define the powers of the municipal court; to exempt certain officers from the civil service rules; to regulate the sale of bonds; to change the method of passing ordinances; to allow the city to acquire property outside the city limits, etc. Is the average voter likely, or unlikely, to know much about things of this sort?
[33]. In 1921 the voters of North Dakota recalled Governor Frazier from office before the expiry of his term.
[35]. In England full suffrage has been granted only to women who are thirty years of age or over. This was purposely done in order that the male voters should be in the majority.
[36]. New York State in 1921 joined the list of states which impose the literacy test.
[37]. Various classes of people, although qualified by citizenship, age, and residence, are debarred from voting on other grounds. Among these are insane persons, criminals, and, in some states, those who have been convicted of bribery or other serious offences against the election laws. In some states, also, soldiers of the regular army and enlisted men of the navy are denied the right to register as voters on the ground that they are not really residents but merely representatives of the national government temporarily quartered within the state boundaries. Civil officials of the national government are not debarred.
[38]. This gives the party workers an opportunity to investigate all suspicious names on the list and be ready for action when election day comes.
[39]. Sometimes annual registration is required in the cities but not in small towns or rural districts. In Ohio there is an annual registration in cities of over 100,000 population; a registration every four years in smaller cities, and no general registration at all in the rural districts. In the latter the same list is used year after year with such individual changes as may be necessary.
[40]. In most cases they take the voter’s say-so as sufficient proof of his party allegiance.
[41]. At the New York state primaries of September, 1920, the candidate who won the Democratic nomination for governor received fewer than 200,000 votes; at the November election he received more than a million, and yet was not elected.
[42]. In a few cities, for example in Boston, there are no primaries before the municipal elections. Candidates for the office of mayor may be nominated by presenting a petition signed by not fewer than 5000 qualified voters; candidates for the city council must have at least 2500 signatures.
[43]. This roundabout way of fixing the election date is used in order to make certain that the election shall not take place on the first day of the month, a time when those who work in banks, offices, etc., are particularly busy.
[44]. It is sometimes arranged that local elections shall take place in the odd years, while national and state elections come in the even years.
[45]. A ward boss in a certain American city some time ago was urging his followers to vote the “straight ticket”, but knowing that some of them could not read and recalling the fact that the figure of an eagle stood at the top of his party column, he bellowed at them “Now when you go to the polls put your cross right under that chicken with the short legs”.
[46]. For a further discussion, with additional data, see C. A. Beard, American Government and Politics, p. 673.
[47]. Proportional representation should also be distinguished from limited voting and cumulative voting. Under the limited voting plan a voter is permitted to mark his ballot only for some smaller number of candidates than there are places to be filled. For example, if seven councilmen are to be chosen by the electorate of the city at large, each voter might be permitted to vote for not more than four. The outcome would very likely be that the strongest party would elect four councilmen and the next strongest three. This gives a certain amount of minority representation, but does not ensure proportional representation. Cumulative voting is an arrangement under which each voter is given as many votes as there are candidates to be elected but is permitted to allot all or any of his votes as he pleases. Thus, if three assemblymen are to be elected, the voter will have three votes. He may give all three votes to one candidate; or two votes to one candidate and one vote to another; or one vote to each of three candidates. This plan also gives reasonable assurance of minority representation, because the weaker party will concentrate its votes upon one candidate, but the usual outcome is that the majority, whatever its strength, will have twice as many representatives as the minority. It does not, therefore, ensure proportional representation. This plan has been used in Illinois.
[48]. In Ashtabula (Ohio), Boulder (Colorado), West Hartford (Connecticut), and Sacramento (California). Cleveland, the fifth largest city in the United States, adopted in 1921 a new city charter in which provision is made for using proportional representation at council elections. The first election under the new plan will be held in the autumn of 1923.
[49]. Various other things, not in themselves wrong, have been made illegal by statute because they are regarded as contrary to good public policy in that they tend to render an election undignified, or unfair, or unnecessarily expensive. Canvassing and distribution of campaign literature is forbidden within a certain radius of the polling place. Campaign advertisements must not be printed in some states unless they bear the name and address of a qualified voter. Candidates are required to file with the proper authorities a statement of their campaign expenses and it is illegal to spend more than a prescribed sum even for purely legitimate purposes, such as the hiring of halls and the printing of posters. The purpose of these provisions is not only to render the election a dignified affair, as becomes an exercise of popular sovereignty, but to give every candidate, rich or poor, as nearly equal a chance as the laws can ensure. These regulations are sometimes evaded, it is true, but on the whole they are well respected both by party organizations and by candidates. In Senator Newberry’s case the United States Supreme Court ruled that Congress could not limit the campaign expenses of candidates for election to the Senate or the House. Control of these elections rests with the several states.
[50]. They try to persuade the existing parties into helping them gain their object; if they fail in this, they frequently organize a new party. Thus the Liberty and Free Soil parties were organized to abolish slavery; the Prohibition party to get rid of the liquor traffic, and the Progressive party to put through various political and economic changes which the older parties would not father.
[51]. That, indeed, is what does actually happen at times in spite of the party system. A President, elected by one political party, negotiates a treaty; a Senate controlled by the other political party declines to ratify it. A governor insists that pledges made by him during the election campaign shall be carried out; but the legislature (having a majority of the opposite faith) declines to pass the necessary laws. A mayor tries to make an appointment, and his political opponents in the city council refuse confirmation. Such things happen now and then. As a general rule, however, when a political party gains control of one branch of the government it gains control of the other too.
[52]. There have been some critical issues at different times in American history, such as nullification, slavery, secession, reconstruction, green-backs, free silver, the regulation of trusts, imperialism, the league of nations, and so on. Most of the leading issues in recent years have been economic in character; they have been concerned with such matters as the railroads, the merchant marine, the regulation of industry, immigration, relations with Mexico, banking reorganization, the extension of aid to agriculture, conservation, budget methods, and international trade.
[53]. This is quite a contrast with what has happened in France, Germany, Italy, and the other countries of Continental Europe. In these countries there are several parties and they continue in existence for long periods of time. No two parties ever manage to get the field of politics largely to themselves. It is significant that the two-party system has flourished in the English-speaking countries, that is, in Great Britain, the British colonies, and the United States. Everywhere else there are from three or four to a dozen parties. Why should there be this difference?
[54]. Until recent years the state convention also had the function of nominating the party candidates for state officers, but in most of the states this prerogative has been taken away from the convention and the nominations are made by the party voters at state-wide direct primaries. In the others the nominations are still made by the conventions. Even where the primary is used, however, it is sometimes the practice of a convention to adopt an “unofficial” slate of candidates which it recommends to the voters for their endorsement at the primary (see p. [129]).
[55]. At the Republican national convention of 1880 it took thirty-six ballots to nominate Mr. Garfield. In 1912, at the Democratic national convention, Woodrow Wilson was not nominated until the forty-sixth ballot. Sometimes the very first ballot results in nominating the candidate as happened with Mr. Wilson in 1916. How many ballots were taken before the nomination of Mr. Harding at Chicago in June, 1920, and before the nomination of his opponent, Mr. Cox, at San Francisco, a few weeks later?
[56]. Rings and bosses are not American inventions. Pericles was a political boss, and a very successful one in his day. There were bosses in ancient Rome; they could even get together and form a ring (they called it a triumvirate). Simon de Montfort, the so-called “father of the House of Commons”, was a boss and a rather skilful one at that. Pitt, the younger, was a boss of the first order, a corrupt one, too. In America we have had many political bosses from Aaron Burr down, but most of them have operated in state and city politics. There is no national party boss; the field is too large for any one man to control. Perhaps the most notable of all American bosses was William M. Tweed, who dominated the politics of New York City a half century ago. “He was an American by birth, a chairmaker by trade, a good fellow by nature, a politician by circumstances, a boss by natural process of evolution, and a grafter by choice.” As the boss of his party he sold nominations openly, assessed public officeholders for contributions to his campaign funds, gave out contracts to his friends, looted the city treasury, and finally went to jail. New York’s experience with Tweed cost the city about fifty million dollars in less than five years.
[57]. The campaign fund of the Republican party, when it elected Abraham Lincoln in 1860, was a little over $100,000. The amount raised by the Republicans for the campaign of 1920 was about $4,000,000. The Democratic campaign fund was considerably smaller, but it also ran into the millions. The laws provide that the treasurers of these funds must publish, before the election, the names of all contributors who give more than $100, and after the election must file a statement of all moneys expended. Corporations are forbidden to contribute to any federal campaign fund.
[58]. These costs mount up quickly. A torchlight procession in a large city costs several thousand dollars. To send a single circular, with a one-cent stamp on the envelope, to every registered voter in a city the size of Boston costs for printing, stationery, stamps, and labor about $10,000. Some large halls cost $500 per night, yet halls for meetings have to be hired night after night during the latter part of the campaign.
[59]. In Louisiana, however, the counties are known as parishes.
[60]. The largest county in the United States is San Bernardino county, California, which covers more than 2000 square miles. The smallest is Bristol county, R. I., with about 25 square miles. Cook county, which includes Chicago, has the biggest population and Cochran county, Texas, with less than 100 people, has the smallest.
[61]. In some states he is known as the district attorney, state’s attorney, or county solicitor.
[62]. To discontinue a prosecution the prosecuting attorney files in court a statement known as a nolle prosequi, indicating that he does not wish to press the case to trial. The right to do this gives the official a great deal of power, which has been in some cases abused.
[63]. A deed is a document by which one person conveys land to another. It is the duty of the purchaser to make sure that his deed is valid and that the seller has a good title to the land which he sells. This he can ascertain by examining the records in the registry of deeds. In some states a plan known as the Torrens System is in operation. Intending purchasers submit their deeds to the registration official, who examines them. If he finds that the title is good, he registers the deed and thereafter the title may not be questioned. Where the Torrens System is not in operation a purchaser can get his title insured by paying a premium to a title insurance company.
[64]. There is a widespread impression that the government of the New England towns, being a close approach to a direct democracy, has been a great and consistent success. These towns have been pictured by some writers as little Utopias, free from state interference, and privileged to manage their own affairs in their own way. Unhappily this portrayal does not square with the facts. Small agricultural communities, such as the New England towns used to be, can manage their local affairs satisfactorily under almost any form of government. But when population grows, and factories come in, and local activities are multiplied—then the problems of a town are akin to those of a city and have to be handled in the same way.
[65]. In some of the New England states there are places of twenty, thirty, or even forty thousand people which are still governed as towns. (See p. [175].)
[66]. See the chart facing this page.
[67]. According to the census of 1920 these twelve cities are as follows: New York, 5,612,151; Chicago, 2,701,212; Philadelphia, 1,823,158; Detroit, 993,737; Cleveland, 796,836; St. Louis, 772,897; Boston, 747,923; Baltimore, 733,826; Pittsburgh, 588,193; Los Angeles, 575,410; San Francisco, 508,410; Buffalo, 505,875.
[68]. If you make your home in a rural community, you will become acquainted with most of your neighbors within a week; you will know all about them, and (if they can find it out) they will know all about you. But if you go as a stranger to live in a city apartment, with only thin walls separating you from your neighbors, you may remain there for months or even for years without becoming acquainted with any of them. You may not even know your neighbor’s name, save for seeing it on his door. Neighborliness is a trait of human nature which disappears in the great cities. In the city a man’s friends are not his neighbors as a rule, but persons of his own occupation or interests who may live a considerable distance away. This is an important difference, for it means that townships and villages have a unity which the wards and districts of large cities do not possess.
[69]. The shortest city charter ever granted is the charter of London, given by William the Conqueror in 1066. It contains exactly sixty-six words. The longest is the present charter of New York City, which fills a closely-printed book of 1478 pages.
[70]. It was understood that by applying a general charter law or municipal code to all the cities of a state, or to all the cities of a certain class, the legislature would be discouraged from enacting special laws for particular cities. But that is not what resulted. Legislatures adopted the plan of passing laws which were general in form but which by the nature of their provisions could apply to some one city alone. For example: The Ohio legislature on one occasion provided that “Any city of the first class, having a population of more than 150,000, wherein a public avenue of not less than 100 feet in width is now projected, to be known as Gilbert Avenue, is hereby authorized to issue bonds, etc.” This law, on its face, applied to all cities of the first class; in reality it gave special privileges to one particular city.
[71]. A few states, although unwilling to grant municipal home rule, have gone part way in that direction by establishing what is known as the Optional Charter system. The legislature, under this plan, draws up several different types of charter. A city may by popular vote adopt any one of these but is not permitted to make a special charter for itself. The merit of this plan is that it allows a city a considerable amount of choice without opening the door for all manner of rash local experiments, many of which bring controversy and lawsuits because they run foul of the state constitution or laws. The various optional charters are so framed as to be in harmony with the general laws of the state. This plan is used in New York, Massachusetts, and Virginia. Ohio has both the home rule and the optional charter system; in addition there is a general charter law for such cities as do not take advantage of the other opportunities.
[72]. Surprisingly few mayors have ever gone any higher in the public life of the state or nation. Most mayors, when they finish their terms, drop but of sight. There are some exceptions, of course, the most noteworthy being Grover Cleveland, who served as mayor of Buffalo before he was elected governor of New York and, later, President of the United States. Before becoming Secretary of War in President Wilson’s cabinet, Newton D. Baker served two terms as mayor of Cleveland, and Brand Whitlock was thrice mayor of Toledo before he became minister to Belgium. A few other mayors have become governors, ambassadors, or members of Congress; but when we remind ourselves that nearly 400 men have held the office of mayor in the fifty largest cities of the United States since 1900, we may well wonder what became of all the rest. Apparently the office of mayor is not a good political stepping-stone. Is the fault with the office or with the men who usually occupy it?
[73]. The objection may also be overcome by using the system of proportional representation described on pp. 134-136.
[74]. In September, 1900, a tidal wave swept in from the Gulf of Mexico and destroyed about a third of the city. Galveston was already overburdened with debt, and by this disaster, which wrecked much city property, became practically bankrupt. The leading citizens came together and decided that radical measures would have to be taken. They, therefore, petitioned the Texas legislature to abolish the old city government, placing entire charge of all municipal affairs in the hands of five trustees or commissioners. The legislature complied and the new plan went into effect in 1901.
[75]. The largest of these cities are Buffalo, New Orleans, and St. Paul. Among the 400 commission-governed cities there are only fifteen with populations exceeding 100,000. The plan has proved most popular in places of small and medium size.
[76]. See the diagram which faces p. [198].
[77]. The plan originated in Sumter, N. C., but the first large city to adopt it was Dayton, Ohio, about ten years ago. In the autumn of 1921 Cleveland adopted a city-manager charter which will go into effect in January, 1924.
[78]. For an example of the way in which the city’s administrative work is divided, see the diagram facing this page.
[79]. Some cities have established a central purchasing office which buys all supplies of every sort, thus securing a concentration of the work. A considerable saving is made in this way. But in most cities each department still does its own buying.
[80]. More than a hundred and twenty-five years ago, when it was decided to build the nation’s capital on the shores of the Potomac, President Washington sent to France for Major L’Enfant, an engineer who had served in the American army during the Revolution, and entrusted to him the task of laying out the new city. L’Enfant took great pains to provide for wide streets; he designated the location of the important public buildings (such as the Capitol and the White House) and left plenty of open spaces in his plan.
[81]. In Washington, thanks to L’Enfant’s sagacious planning, the streets occupy about one-half the entire area.
[82]. This plan also renders it easy to find one’s way about, and this is particularly true when the streets are known by numbers rather than by names.
[83]. See the illustrative diagram facing this page.
[84]. Pavements Arranged in Their Approximate Order of Desirability from Different Points of View
| Economy | Economy | Durability | Cleanli- | Noiseless- | Safety |
| in | in | ness | ness | ||
| construction | Repair | ||||
| Macadam | Granite | Granite | Asphalt | Wood | Granite |
| Asphalt | Brick | Wood | Brick | Macadam | Macadam |
| Brick | Wood | Brick | Wood | Brick | Brick |
| Wood | Asphalt | Asphalt | Granite | Asphalt | Wood |
| Granite | Macadam | Macadam | Macadam | Granite | Asphalt |
[85]. A common pretext is to allege that the lowest bidder is not a reliable contractor, or that he underpays his workmen, or that on some previous contract he failed to do a good job. Any such excuse is good enough for city officials who desire to favor their own friends at the public expense. City charters sometimes provide that contracts must be given to the lowest bidder, but a hard-and-fast requirement of this kind may sometimes lead to difficulties.
[86]. The unsightliness of the billboards is not their only objectionable feature. Unless they are firmly anchored in the ground they are often blown down by heavy winds; they afford places of concealment for footpads; and they become the nucleus of a rubbish heap. Land is rented for billboard space which otherwise would be improved and built upon. Billboard space is given over very largely to the advertising of non-essentials. If you will make a survey of say fifty billboards in your own community, you will find that by far the greater portion of the space is given to advertising luxuries. Local merchants use billboard advertising very little. Outside concerns take most of their surface.
[87]. Restrictions may legally be placed upon private property in the interest of the public safety, health, or morals. But people cannot be prohibited from using their own private property in ways which merely offend the public taste.
[88]. The watchmen were very unreliable. In London it was said that most of them spent the greater part of the night in the ale-houses while thieves prowled around in the streets. In order to keep the watchmen on their patrols it became the custom to have them call out the hours as they went along. These watchmen’s cries, “Three o’clock, a misty morning”, etc., were a quaint feature of London life a hundred years ago.
[89]. Sir Robert Peel, who established the first regular police force in England, made himself very unpopular for a time by this step. The members of the new police force, by way of ridicule, were called “peelers” and “bobbies”, and these nicknames persist in England to the present day. They wore (and still wear) blue coats with copper buttons, for which reason the London youngsters also referred to the policeman as “the copper”. In America we have shortened it to “the cop”.
[90]. In Berlin, for example, 98 per cent of the buildings are of brick, stone, concrete, or other fire-resisting material. In the average American city such buildings do not usually form more than 25 per cent of the total.
[91]. Take the income-tax amendment, for example; or the prohibition amendment. Both of them show a popular willingness to place great powers in the hands of the federal government. The people would not have agreed to direct election of senators a hundred years ago; but they did it in 1913.
[92]. Hawaii and Alaska are both governed in the same way, and exactly like one of the old territories. Porto Rico has a slightly different form of government, in that certain high officials besides the governor are appointed by the President. The government of the Philippines differs still further in that the higher administrative officials are appointed by the governor who, in turn, is named by the President.
[93]. During 1921 a study of Philippine conditions was made, at President Harding’s request, by Major-General Leonard Wood and the Hon. W. Cameron Forbes, former governor-general of the islands. These two eminent investigators, after a careful survey, found much to say in praise of the Filipinos; but their general conclusion was that the islanders needed further training in self-government under American supervision before they could wisely be given complete independence. The entire text of the Wood-Forbes report is printed in The Times “Current History” (January, 1922), pp. 678-694.
[94]. An area which is neither a state nor a territory, a zone nor an insular possession remains to be mentioned. This is Washington, or the District of Columbia as it is officially called, the home of the nation’s government. It has neither mayor nor aldermen. The government of the District is in the hands of three commissioners appointed by the President, one of them being an officer of the army. These three commissioners carry on all the work of municipal administration.
[95]. In some states, in Ohio, for example, the question of calling a constitutional convention must be voted upon every twenty years.
[96]. In some states the legislature, in proposing an amendment, must pass it in two successive sessions, or by a two-thirds vote, or must conform to some other special requirement.
[97]. See especially Art. I, Sec. 9; and Amendments I-XV, XIX.
[98]. These four propositions may perhaps be made more understandable by the accompanying table, which does not purport to be a complete enumeration but only an illustration of the way in which the propositions work out.
| Exclusively National Powers | Concurrent Powers | Prohibitions upon the Nation | Prohibitions upon the States | Exclusively State Powers |
| To conduct | To tax. | To abridge | To keep troops | To make and |
| foreign af- | freedom of | or ships of | enforce the | |
| fairs. | To borrow | worship or | war in time | ordinary |
| money. | of the press | of peace. | civil and | |
| To raise and | or of assemb- | criminal | ||
| support ar- | To promote | ly or of pet- | To entry into | laws. |
| mies. | education. | ition. | any treaty. | |
| To establish | ||||
| To maintain a | To encourage | To deny any | To coin money | and control |
| Navy. | agriculture. | of the other | or issue | local govern- |
| privileges | bills of | ment. | ||
| To regulate | To charter | enumerated | credit. | |
| foreign and | banks and | in the Bill | To conduct | |
| interstate | other corpor- | of Rights | To pass any | elections. |
| commerce. | ations. | (see Amend- | law impair- | |
| ments I-X). | ing the law | To regulate | ||
| To coin | To enforce the | of contracts. | commerce | |
| money. | Eighteenth | To permit | and industry | |
| Amendment. | slavery in | To lay any | within the | |
| To establish | any territory | tax or duties | state. | |
| a postal | To establish | within the | on imports. | |
| service. | and maintain | national jur- | To protect the | |
| courts. | isdiction. | To abridge | life, health, | |
| To grant pat- | the privi- | and morals of | ||
| ents and | To abridge | leges or im- | the people | |
| copyrights. | the suffrage | munities of | (the “police | |
| of citizens | citizens of | power”). | ||
| To admit new | on account | the United | ||
| states. | of sex. | States, or | ||
| deprive them | ||||
| To give prefer- | of life, lib- | |||
| ence to one | erty, or pro- | |||
| state over | perty without | |||
| another in | due process | |||
| matters of | of law or de- | |||
| commerce. | ny to persons | |||
| within their | ||||
| jurisdiction | ||||
| the equal | ||||
| protection of | ||||
| the laws. | ||||
| To abridge the | ||||
| voting rights | ||||
| of citizens on | ||||
| account of | ||||
| race, color, | ||||
| previous | ||||
| condition of | ||||
| servitude, or | ||||
| sex. | ||||
| To pass any bill of attainder or ex post facto law. To grant letters of nobility. To levy duties on exports. | ||||
[99]. A wide range of authority is included, for example, within the term “police power”, which is the power of the state to take measures for protecting the safety, health, and morals of the people.
[100]. Any member of the legislature may introduce a bill, but not many of them know how to draft one properly. That is not surprising, for state legislatures are not made up of lawyers alone but of farmers, shop-keepers, and other plain citizens who have had no previous experience in lawmaking. In order to help the members of the legislature some states have established legislative reference bureaus in charge of expert bill-drafters. These bureaus keep on file all the latest information concerning what is being done in other states, including copies of laws which have been passed there. At the request of any member the bureau officials will prepare a bill embodying the member’s ideas.
[101]. A good deal of the trouble is due to party leaders and to lobbyists who plague the members into voting for measures or against them. Lobbyists are paid agents of corporations, labor organizations, women’s leagues, reform associations, granges, and so on, who hang around the lobby and argue with the legislators, trying to influence their action by persuasion or threats as may seem likely to be most effective. At any state capitol one may count these lobbyists by the dozen.
[102]. In New York State the Supreme Court, paradoxically, is not supreme. Final authority among the state courts rests with a still higher court, known as the Court of Appeals.
[103]. The jurisdiction of the federal courts is explained on pp. [311-313]. All other cases besides those named in the constitution come within the authority of the state courts.
[104]. When a governor instructs these elective officials to do something, they frequently refuse. In one case a state treasurer kept large sums of money in banks which the governor and other high state officials believed to be unsafe. They urged him to withdraw these funds, but the treasurer declined to do so. A little later two of these banks were closed by order of the bank commissioner and half a million dollars of the state’s money was tied up.
[105]. See the diagram facing this page.
[106]. There were some notable absences. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were not there; both were serving their country as diplomatic representatives abroad, the one in France and the other in England. Nor was John Hancock, whose flashing signature first meets the eye among the signers of the Declaration. Neither was Patrick Henry present, for he was strongly opposed to the convention’s being held at all and declined to be a delegate from Virginia.
[107]. Three of these compromises, commonly known as “The Great Compromises”, stand out prominently and are fully described in all books of American history, so that they do not need to be given in detail here. There were compromises on many minor points as well.
[108]. North Carolina did not ratify, however, until 1789, and Rhode Island not until 1790.
[109]. A congressman who is elected in November does not take his seat until a year from the following December. This is because, although elected in November, his term does not begin until the ensuing fourth of March. By that time the winter session is over. Thus it happens that men who are defeated at the polls often continue to make the nation’s laws.
[110]. No one is eligible for election to the Senate unless he is at least thirty years of age. He must also have been a citizen of the United States for at least nine years and at the time of his election an inhabitant of the state from which he is chosen. The governor of the state may be empowered by the legislature to fill any vacancy which may occur through the death or resignation of a senator, this temporary appointment to be valid until a senatorial election is held.
[111]. The Vice President of the United States presides over the Senate when trying impeachments, as at other times; but when the President is being impeached the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court serves as temporary presiding officer. Who would preside in case the Vice President were impeached? The constitution does not say. Presumably the president pro tempore of the Senate would preside.
[112]. Nine civil officers of the United States have been impeached at one time or another during the past hundred and twenty-five years. The most notable case was that of President Andrew Johnson in 1868. He was charged by the House of Representatives with having violated the laws relating to appointments (particularly the Tenure of Office Act), but was acquitted. The Senate voted thirty-five to nineteen for his conviction, but this was one vote short of the necessary two-thirds majority.
[113]. Despite the desirability of keeping the membership down, there is a constant temptation to increase it in order that no state shall have fewer representatives than it has become accustomed to having.
[114]. When Elbridge Gerry was governor of Massachusetts in 1812, the state legislature rearranged the congressional districts in such a way that one of them had a dragon-like appearance. The boundaries of this district had been marked on a map in a local newspaper office. Gilbert Stuart, the famous painter, happened to come in and with his pencil added a head, wings, and claws to the figure. “That will do for a Salamander,” he said. “Better say a Gerry-mander,” replied the editor, and the outlandish name, thus accidentally coined, passed into the English language.
[115]. The plan at present (1922) is as follows: the Republican members of the House from each state select one of their members to represent them in choosing the committees. This representative from each state becomes a member of the Committee on Committees and at meetings of this committee casts a vote equal to the number of Republican Representatives from his state. This Committee on Committees selects the Republican members of the various committees. A caucus of the Democratic members of the House, sometimes through the medium of a Committee on Committees, selects the Democratic members of the Committees. Then the House as a whole accepts the joint list.
[116]. On many bills the committees do not even hold hearings; if they did, they would never get through with their work. Measures by the hundred are introduced each year by congressmen simply to please people in their districts and without the slightest expectation that they will ever be passed.
[117]. When bills are introduced in the Senate, they are considered there first and then sent down to the House. Except in the case of bills relating to revenue and expenditure any measure may be introduced in either chamber.
[118]. Another way to delay business is to keep continually asking for roll-calls to see if a quorum is present. Calling the names of 435 members takes a lot of time. Some years ago a bill was introduced to provide for the installation of electric apparatus by means of which every member could register “Yes”, “No”, or “Present” by merely pressing a button at his seat. On the wall there were to be electric bulbs set opposite each congressman’s name. Pressing the button would indicate the congressman’s answer to a roll call by flashing a red or white or blue light on the wall. Congress did not adopt the plan.
[120]. On the question whether members of the American cabinet should sit in Congress, see p. [302].
[121]. During the past year or two a group of congressmen, both senators and representatives, from the agricultural states has been voting solidly and without regard to party affiliations on many important measures. This group is known as the “agricultural bloc”. Its avowed aim is to see that the interests of the farmers are properly safeguarded in all legislation. For a brief discussion of this topic from a different angle, see p. [350].
[122]. James Bryce, American Commonwealth, Vol. I, Ch. VII.
[123]. When the constitution was finally drawn and made public many features of it were strongly criticized, but nowhere was there any objection to this method of electing the President. Everyone seemed to feel that this method of choice by an electoral college was an admirable one. Yet curiously enough it turned out to be one of the poorest things that the convention did. It has completely failed to work out as the convention intended. Direct popular election, which the constitution endeavors to avoid, is exactly what we have. The convention, moreover, placed no limit upon the number of terms which a President might have. But Washington set the example by declining a third consecutive term and no President since his time has ever served three terms. From time to time it has been suggested that the President’s term should be lengthened to six years and that he should then be made ineligible for re-election, just as, in some of our larger cities, the mayor is ineligible to succeed himself. This suggestion, however, has never found much favor.
[124]. If the original plan were now followed, this is about what would happen: After the presidential election in November the people and the newspapers would be discussing the probable attitude of the electors, wondering whom they would choose and making various suggestions to them. Some electors would be announcing their preferences; others would be keeping silent. With great interest we should await the meetings of the electors in January; the newspaper reporters would crowd outside the door to gain the first inkling of their decisions in each state; the returns would come in one by one from the forty-eight state capitals and would be figured up with breathless interest. But what actually does happen is very different from this. On the evening of the presidential election the fight is all over. Nobody knows, and nobody cares who the electors are. We only know that a majority of them will vote for the Republican or for the Democratic candidate when the time comes. In January they meet, almost unnoticed, cast their votes as a matter of form, and get a small paragraph somewhere on the inside pages of the newspapers.
[126]. The House votes by states; the Senate by individual members. See Amendment XII. In 1800 there was a tie, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, each having an equal number of votes. The House of Representatives decided the tie by electing Jefferson. Then the Twelfth Amendment was adopted. In 1824 no candidate received a majority, and on this occasion the House chose John Quincy Adams as President. The system worked thereafter without mishap for over fifty years, but in 1876 there was a serious muddle because twenty-two electoral voters were in dispute, namely, the votes of Oregon, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida. From each of these states two sets of electors claimed to have been chosen. The controversy was decided by a special commission of fifteen members, five from the Senate, five from the House, and five from the Supreme Court. By a vote of 8 to 7 this commission decided in favor of Rutherford B. Hayes and he became President.
[127]. In the Republican national convention of 1920, for example, General Leonard Wood and Governor Lowden polled the largest number of votes on the first ballot. Senator Hiram Johnson of California was third and Senator Harding of Ohio was fourth. But neither of the two leading candidates could obtain a majority although ballot after ballot was taken. Finally, when the delegates were becoming tired and impatient, some of their leaders came together and agreed to unite on Senator Harding. They advised their supporters to swing over to him and on a subsequent ballot he was nominated.
[128]. The delegates sometimes resent this attitude on the part of the leaders. They may make a strenuous fight in the convention or they may bolt altogether. Thus, in 1912, the leaders of the Republican convention decided to renominate President Taft and, after a hard fight, managed to get a majority of the delegates recorded in his favor. But a very strong minority desired to nominate ex-President Roosevelt, who was believed to be far more acceptable to the rank and file of the party throughout the country. When they failed in the convention they left the hall, formed a new party, and nominated Colonel Roosevelt as the Progressive candidate. But this merely split the Republican ranks wide open and made certain the success of the Democrats at the forthcoming election.
[129]. During the past fifty years there have been eleven presidents. Of these, six came from Ohio and three from New York. One came from Indiana (but was a native of Ohio), and one from New Jersey. Only four states, therefore, have contributed occupants to the presidential office during half a century.
[130]. England is a monarchy and the United States a republic, yet the English monarch has no veto power like that of the President. By usage the king must sign every bill that is laid before him. Someone has said that the king of England would be under obligations to sign his own death warrant if parliament should send it up to him. The President of the United States is given his far-reaching power to override the wishes of a majority in Congress because he is an elective officer and in the exercise of his veto acts for the people, not for himself.
[131]. When Mr. Harding was elected in November, 1920, President Wilson was slowly recovering from a severe illness. Great problems were awaiting attention and by many it was deemed unfortunate that the newly-elected President could not take hold of them for four months. So Mr. Bryan suggested that Mr. Harding should be appointed Secretary of State and that thereafter the President and Vice President should resign. This, under the rules of succession, would have enabled Mr. Harding to take office at once. But the suggestion was not accepted.
[132]. On assuming office in 1921 President Harding invited the Vice President to attend all meetings of the cabinet.
[133]. When President Wilson was ill in 1920 the Secretary of State, Mr. Robert Lansing, called the cabinet together to discuss some urgent matters of business. In due course the President heard of this action and resented it. In a letter to the Secretary of State he called attention to the fact that without the President there was nothing that the cabinet could legally do.
[134]. President Lincoln, for example, did not consult the cabinet in the framing of the Emancipation Proclamation; he merely read it to the cabinet after it was finished. General Grant treated his cabinet as though it was merely his general staff with the function of carrying out orders rather than giving advice. President Roosevelt usually had his own mind made up on matters of policy, and the members of his cabinet, although they differed from him in temperament, did not often differ from him in opinion. President Wilson, in choosing his cabinet, made it a point to get men whose minds ran along with his own. On the other hand, President Hayes, President Harrison, and President McKinley were considerably guided by the advice of their cabinets and consulted them freely.
[135]. The State Department deals chiefly with foreign and diplomatic affairs as well as with relations between the nation and the states; it also promulgates the laws passed by Congress. The Department of the Treasury collects the revenues, pays the government’s bills, attends to the borrowing of money when necessary, issues the currency, and has general supervision over the national banks. The War Department has charge of the armed forces, the land fortifications, the purchase of munitions, and the whole upkeep of the army. The Department of the Interior has functions of a very miscellaneous nature, so much so that it has been jocularly called the “department of things in general”. It has charge of national parks and forests, patents, pensions, the geological survey, and various other things which have little relation to one another. The Postmaster-General assumes the oversight of the entire postal service. The Department of Justice has an Attorney-General at its head. He is the government’s chief legal advisor and represents it in all legal controversies. The Navy Department has charge of all the nation’s armed forces afloat. The Department of Agriculture has to do with the promotion of agricultural interests throughout the country (see pp. 346-348). The Department of Labor has charge of immigration, naturalization, and the execution of the federal laws relating to labor. The Department of Commerce is concerned with the development of foreign and domestic trade, the inspection of steamboats, the publication of consular reports (see pp. 373-374), and so forth.
[136]. In addition to the ten regular departments there are other branches of the national administration whose heads are not members of the cabinet. These include such bodies as the Interstate Commerce Commission (p. [364]), the Federal Trade Commission (p. [391]), the Civil Service Commission (p. [103]), the Tariff Commission (p. [370]), besides various bureaus of one kind or another. Members of these boards and heads of the independent bureaus are all appointed by the President, responsible to him, and removable by him.
[137]. This is old French for Hear Ye! Hear Ye! The custom of opening a court session with these words goes back to the time of the Plantagenets in English history.
[138]. It may be well to explain briefly some of the terms commonly used in connection with the law and the courts. The parties to a suit at law are usually known as the plaintiff and the defendant. A criminal case is one in which some crime is charged; in a civil case, the issue concerns the private rights of individuals (for example, when a man is sued for debt). A court has original jurisdiction where cases come before it in the first instance without having already been heard by some other court; it has appellate jurisdiction when cases come up from some other court on appeal.
[139]. In more than one hundred and thirty years only one Supreme Court justice has been impeached and he was acquitted. The charges in this case, moreover, did not reflect upon the integrity of the judge.
[140]. Article III, Section 1.
[141]. A few cases come directly before the Supreme Court, for example, suits between two states of the Union; but the great majority of cases come up on appeal, or on writ of error, which is a method of appeal.
[142]. There are, in addition, some special federal courts, such as the court of claims, the courts which try cases in the District of Columbia, and the courts of the insular possessions.
[143]. These rules were gathered together and put into written form by various commentators, chief among whom were Glanvil, Bracton, Coke, Littleton, and Blackstone. Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Common Law of England, compiled before the American Revolution, is still the standard work, known to every lawyer.
[144]. The colonists looked upon the common law as a bulwark of individual freedom. Edmund Burke, in one of his speeches, mentioned as a significant indication of the colonists’ familiarity with the common law the fact that almost as many copies of Blackstone had been sold in America as in England. The Declaration of Rights adopted by the First Continental Congress in 1774 spoke of the colonies as entitled to all the provisions of the common law.
[145]. Where may these laws be found? Statutes passed by Congress are printed in the Statutes-at-Large, one or more volumes for each session. State statutes are printed in volumes known as Session Laws, or simply as Laws of Pennsylvania or Acts and Resolves of Massachusetts. From time to time, usually every ten years, these state laws are revised, rearranged, and consolidated into one general compilation, usually published as the Revised Statutes or Revised Laws. A similar publication is issued periodically containing the revised national statutes. City councils enact legislation by means of ordinances, which are put together in a volume of Revised Ordinances. When all the national or state laws relating to a certain subject (for example, criminal law, or civil procedure, or municipal affairs, etc.) are brought together into one compilation this is usually known as a code. Thus we speak of the Criminal Code or the Code of Civil Procedure or the Municipal Code.
[146]. In general, equity applies only to certain classes of civil actions and never to criminal cases; its procedure is simple; a jury is not ordinarily summoned to hear the facts; evidence in writing may be submitted; judgment is given by the issue of an order or decree and not by awarding a certain sum in damages. A further explanation may be found in the Cyclopedia of American Government, Vol. I, pp. 673-675.
[147]. Courts of law, in addition to awarding punishment in criminal cases and damages in civil cases are empowered to issue writs. Writs are orders or decrees commanding certain things to be done or left undone. They are addressed to other courts, or to public officials, or to individuals. The best-known of these writs is the writ of habeas corpus, an order issued to a jailor or other custodian commanding him to produce a person in court and show why he is held in custody. If the court finds that the person is wrongfully held in custody it orders his release. Another common writ is the writ of mandate (mandamus) issued to public officials to compel them to perform some duty which is imposed upon them by law. A writ of error is issued in order to carry a case from a lower to a higher court.
[148]. In some county courts the grand jury is not now used (see p. [172]).
[149]. These objections are called challenges. The judge decides whether they are well-founded. Both sides are usually allowed a certain number of peremptory challenges, that is, objections for which no reason at all need be given.
[150]. There are two or three things which you ought to remember when going on the witness stand. Tell what you know about the case simply and briefly; tell only what you actually know, not what you think, or what somebody told you. Don’t venture your own opinion unless you are asked for it. When you are being cross-examined, think over every question before you answer it. If you answer everything quickly and without thought you will probably fall into a trap and appear to be contradicting yourself. The opposing lawyer is playing a game of chess with you. Watch his moves and take your own time in making yours. If you make any slip, correct it there and then; don’t let it pass with the idea that it will never be noticed. The witness stand is a place where a man needs to have his wits about him.
[151]. If the case is not very serious the prosecuting attorney sometimes recommends that there be no further trial and the accused person is then freed.
[152]. For example, where the jury has disregarded the judge’s instructions on points of law or where the jurymen have reached their verdict in some improper way.
[153]. A prisoner was once charged with setting fire to his own home and burning it down, thus causing the death of his father and mother. The prosecuting attorney first put him on trial for the murder of his father; but the jury acquitted him. Another jury was then summoned and the attempt was made to place him on trial for the murder of his mother. The prisoner’s counsel argued that this was placing him on trial the second time (or in second jeopardy as it is called) for the same offence. The prosecuting attorney argued that it was a different offence, the murder of a different person. Which was right?
[154]. After the Revolution the different states claimed vast tracts of western lands but they ultimately surrendered these claims to the national government. The lands were surveyed and offered for sale at low prices. Many years later Congress adopted the homestead system by which actual settlers might get lands for almost nothing.
[155]. It is said that if all the available water power of the United States were put to use, it would take the place of all the coal that is now being used in supplying industries with power. “White coal” it is called, and there is an abundance of it.
[156]. In early days the slaughtering of cattle was done locally, but the use of refrigerator cars has led to the centralizing of the meat industry at a few great centers.
[157]. We have had a striking illustration of this in recent years. During the World War the prices of all agricultural products rose enormously and they continued high for a short time after the war came to an end. Then they dropped quickly to a low level and by so doing left the American farmer in a hard situation. Labor and supplies cost him nearly as much in 1921 as in 1919, while he received in some cases only half as much for the products of his land.
[158]. A large part of our nitrate supply comes from Chile, but owing to the lack of shipping during the war not much could be brought from that quarter. The United States government built a huge nitrate-making plant at Muscle Shoals, Ala., but it did not get into operation before the close of the war. It has now been offered for sale to private capitalists. There has been some discussion of the possibility of making nitrates by the electric fixation of the nitrogen which is in the air, using water power to generate the electric power cheaply. It is an interesting fact that certain types of bacteria gather nitrogen from the air at the roots of leguminous plants (peas, beans, alfalfa, etc.), and in order to ensure the presence of these bacteria the seed is frequently inoculated before planting.
[159]. An investigation of the exodus from Ohio farms a few years ago showed that as many as 60,000 men and boys left the rural districts in a single year, while fewer than 9000 went from the cities and towns to the farms.
[160]. There is a somewhat similar situation in Europe today. The various new states which were created at the close of the war all have their tariffs, their rivalries, and their jealousies.
[161]. They did it, sometimes, in this way: Suppose A and B are towns of about equal size and about the same distance from Chicago, or that A is a little further away.
A railroad desiring to build up A and make it an important industrial center would merely give it lower freight rates to and from the western metropolis, despite the greater distance.
[162]. The act further provides that all net profits above the rate of six per cent upon the valuation of the railroads, as fixed by the Interstate Commerce Commission, shall be divided in equal shares between the railroads and the government. The share received by the government is to go into a fund for the benefit of those railroads which are not able to earn the normal net income.
[163]. Of the nine members three are representatives of the railroad owners, three of the railroad employees, and three of the public. This board has its headquarters at Chicago, which by reason of its location may properly be termed the railroad capital of the country. When the board hears both sides in a labor dispute it makes its recommendations but has no power to enforce these recommendations. It is believed, however, that the pressure of public opinion will give sufficient force to its decisions.
[164]. Canal transportation, which declined after the railroads were built, seems now to be gaining a new lease of life. The State of New York is improving the Erie Canal and proposals have been made to enlarge the canals between the Great Lakes and the Gulf of St. Lawrence so as to permit through traffic from Europe to the Lake ports.
[165]. The general course of American tariff policy may be marked off into four main periods. The first, which extended from 1792 to the close of the War of 1812, was a period of relatively low tariff duties. The duties levied during these years did not greatly hamper imports. While the United States and England were at war, however, some new industries were established in America, and it was deemed advisable to afford these new industries protection against English competition when the war was over. Accordingly, a more strongly protective policy was adopted in 1816, and this action ushers in the second period, which lasted till about 1842. During the earlier part of this interval the duties on imported manufactures remained relatively high. The high duties created strong opposition, however, especially in the Southern states, and in time a reaction took place with the result that the rates were gradually lowered to a general level of about twenty per cent in 1842. From this date until the outbreak of the Civil War the duties remained low, so that the third period saw the virtual abandonment of protection in favor of a tariff for revenue only. Then the outbreak of the Civil War changed the situation. The need of a great increase in revenue became imperative, and high duties on imports seemed to be a ready way of obtaining national funds. A series of tariff measures put the rates higher and higher. When the war was over the high rates for the most part remained and they have remained relatively high throughout the fourth period, which carries us to the present day. Since 1865 many tariff measures have been passed by Congress; some have raised the duties, while others have lowered them. In 1913 duties were considerably reduced by the Democrats; in 1921 they were put up again by the Republicans. The question of tariff rates has been an issue at many national elections. But, with all its ups and downs, the tariff has remained protective both in its purpose and effect.
[166]. In 1920 Congress enacted two important measures to aid the revival of foreign trade. One of these measures relieved foreign trade from some of the anti-trust restrictions; the other authorized the lending of government funds to exporters.
[167]. Many of the commercial treaties which the United States has concluded with other countries contain what is known as the “most favored nation clause”. This is a provision that if either of the treaty-making countries should grant to a third nation any special trading privilege, this same privilege shall at once accrue to the other treaty-making country. For example, if the United States and Brazil conclude a commercial treaty containing the “most favored nation clause” and Brazil should subsequently grant to Mexico the privilege of shipping oil into Brazil without payment of duty, the United States would become forthwith entitled to the same privilege or favor.
[168]. In the days of wooden vessels, propelled by sail, America had natural advantages in shipbuilding, particularly in the abundant supply of ship-timber. Many such vessels were built and the once-famous American “clipper ships” carried our commerce to all parts of the world. During the period from 1815 to 1860 the American merchant marine reached its zenith in size and prosperity. In 1860 it was second to that of Great Britain and served not only to carry the entire commerce of the United States but the trade of other countries as well. The Civil War interfered greatly with the progress of American shipbuilding, however, and with the advent of iron vessels, propelled by steam, the United States began to drop behind in the construction of ships for ocean service. European countries, particularly Great Britain, forged far ahead during the period from 1865 to 1900. Of the tonnage which cleared for foreign countries from the seaports of the United States in 1900 less than one-fifth was American. This decline in the size of the merchant marine inspired the government of the United States to stimulate the construction of ships by the grant of subsidies, but no great success attended these efforts. The shipbuilding industry did not make renewed progress until it received a great impetus from the World War.
[169]. As a means of facilitating commerce the national government also maintains various aids to navigation. It provides lighthouses, buoys, landmarks, and lifesaving stations. It has made surveys of the coasts and furnishes charts for the use of navigators. It trains and licenses pilots and makes rules to ensure the safety of vessels entering or leaving American ports. Much money has also been spent by the national government in the deepening and improvement of harbors. Mention should likewise be made of the greatest enterprise ever undertaken by any country for the promotion of maritime commerce, namely, the building of the Panama Canal, which connects two oceans and cost the United States more than three hundred and fifty million dollars.
[170]. In illustration of this it may be mentioned that in all the years from 1000 A. D. to 1750 A. D. there were only three inventions of remarkable value or interest; namely, printing, gunpowder, and the steam engine. But what of the period since 1750? The railroad, the steamship, the telegraph, the cable, the telephone, radio communication, the electric light, the electric motor and the trolley, the submarine, the airplane, the cinematograph, the phonograph, the internal combustion engine and motor vehicles of all kinds, the X-ray, and so on. These, moreover, are only the landmarks of mechanical progress, which is a relatively small item in the sum-total of human advance.
[171]. The customary par value of a share is one hundred dollars, but it may be fifty, ten, or five dollars. Occasionally shares of no par value are issued.
[172]. The stockholders in the original corporation received “trust certificates” in place of their shares.
[173]. During the presidential campaign of 1896 there was a good deal of popular outcry over the asserted failure of the government to “curb the trusts”. When Mark Hanna, chairman of the Republican National Committee, replied, “There are no trusts”, he was laughed at from one end of the country to the other. But he was right, for most of the trusts had been converted into holding companies.
[174]. In the long run this action did not amount to much, however, for the companies reorganized in a way which kept them within the letter of the law.
[175]. In order to evade the provisions of the Sherman Act many large corporations resorted to the plan of “interlocking directorates”. While forming no combination, merger, or holding company, they merely arranged that the various companies should elect the same men to their respective boards of directors, thus placing control of the companies in the hands of the same group of men. To put an end to this practice Congress in 1914 enacted the Clayton Act, which provided, among other things, that no person may serve as a director in two or more large competitive interstate corporations except banks and railroads, these latter being under separate regulations.
[176]. The Federal Trade Commission is made up of five members, each appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, for a term of seven years.
[177]. For those who are willing to look at the matter in this light, bearing in mind the old adage concerning the kindliness of fate to those who help themselves, the following helpful books are suggested: Frederick J. Allen, A Guide to the Study of Occupations (Cambridge, 1921). A survey of all the best literature on the subject. Frederic M. Giles and I. K. Giles, Vocational Civics (N. Y., 1920). A brief, interesting account of the opportunities in different occupations.
[178]. The employer, in fact, was often a corporation with neither body nor soul. The factories were in charge of managers whose function was to earn profits, not to look after the well-being of the employees.
[179]. In America the unions also serve as schools of citizenship. They gather together into their membership men and women of all races and creeds, and they encourage their members to become American citizens.
[180]. The labor union movement began in England because it was there that the Industrial Revolution first brought in the factory system. At the outset the formation of unions was bitterly opposed by the employers and laws were enacted declaring such organizations to be illegal. In the closing years of the eighteenth century any English worker who joined an organization, in order to secure better wages or fewer hours of labor, was liable to be arrested and punished by the courts. In due course the labor organization movement spread to America, where also it encountered strong opposition during the first half of the nineteenth century. Attempts to secure better wages by forming labor associations were held to be conspiracies in restraint of trade and those who openly took part in the organization movement were frequently imprisoned. After 1830, however, the opposition began to grow less intense and by 1870 it had become generally recognized that labor organizations were here to stay. In one state after another they began to receive legal recognition and today the right of the workers to organize for the promotion of their own interests is not denied in any part of the country.
[181]. Most writers use the term “trade union” to include only such labor organizations as are composed of men and women who work in the same trade or occupation; but some employ the term to include all labor organizations whose object is collective action in the interest of their members.
[182]. Although this program does not contain anything that savors of violence, or of arbitrary control of industry by the workers, or of dictatorial methods towards the public it sometimes happens that individual labor organizations or their leaders are guilty of these things. While professing disapproval of violence, the labor leaders have on occasions (though not as a rule) tolerated it. Labor leaders, moreover, in some cases have exacted money from employers under threat of calling men off their jobs; the Brindell case in New York City is a recent illustration. On some notable occasions labor leaders have been convicted and sent to jail for resorting to organized terrorism against employers. All this, however, does not condemn the program of labor organizations as a whole. No body of men, particularly when it numbers several million members, can in fairness be judged by the wrongful acts of a few.
[183]. It should be borne in mind that not everyone who desires to work at a particular trade is entitled to membership in the trade union. He must apply for admission to membership and the initiation fee for membership is often as high as a hundred dollars or more. Moreover, he must satisfy the union that he is properly skilled in the trade, if the trade requires skill. Some unions, commonly called “open unions,” take in practically all who apply; but these unions exist, for the most part, in unskilled trades only.
[184]. In New Zealand, for example. For a time it was looked upon as a great success in that country, but in recent years it has not prevented numerous strikes.
[185]. This was the sequel to a strike on the part of the Kansas coal miners, which threatened to leave the people without fuel for the winter. When the strikers refused to return to work a call was sent out for volunteers and men of all occupations came forward to work in the mines. When the emergency was past the legislature decided that the rights of the public ought to be protected in the future against both employers and workmen.
[186]. These include all industries affecting food, clothing, fuel, and transportation.
[187]. “The children were kept working for fourteen, and even sixteen, hours a day; they were beaten for the slightest mistake or offence; and sometimes they were tortured by the overseers, who would tie them to a beam close over the whirling machines by way of teaching them to hold their feet up, or would rivet irons on their ankles and hips to teach them not to try to run away. Locked in the factory while they worked, and in neighboring barracks while they slept, these pitiful martyrs were as absolutely abandoned by their kind as though they had been adult convicts on the way to Botany Bay, or negro slaves on the middle passage.” G. H. Perris, The Industrial History of Modern England, p. 207.
[188]. Congress has established a Bureau of Child Welfare in the Department of Labor with the duty of encouraging the enactment of laws to protect children.
[189]. The Supreme Court has decided that this action also is unconstitutional.
[190]. Robinson and Beard, Outlines of European History, II, 640.
[191]. Many sorts of merchandise have been used as money at one time or another. In early times cattle often served as the standard of value. This was undoubtedly the case among our Indo-European ancestors, as is shown by the survival of certain words in the English language at the present time. The word “pecuniary,” for example, comes from the Latin “pecunia,” meaning money, which is in turn from “pecus,” cattle. The word “fee” is merely a rendition of the old German word “Vieh,” which also means cattle.
[192]. The Chinese use copper money, which they call “cash.” The coins have a hole in the center so that they can be carried on a string like beads.
[193]. That was what had to be done in the old days before gold and silver were stamped into coins of known weight and fineness. You remember the Scriptural story of the patriarch Abraham’s weighing out the four hundred shekels of silver to pay the sons of Heth for Sarah’s grave. If not, read it in Genesis, xxiii, 2-19.
[194]. The weight of the gold dollar, as fixed by law, is 23.2 grains of pure gold.
[195]. Anyone may take gold to these mints and have it coined. Pure gold would be too soft for use as money, however; so an alloy of silver is mixed with it. The mixed metals are then heated and rolled into strips. These strips are next put into a stamping machine which forms them into so many little gold cakes, ready to be placed in another machine which stamps an impression upon them. In the case of gold and silver coins the edges are “milled” to prevent their being clipped or scraped by dishonest people. In the United States this is in the form of a raised and serrated edge; in European countries an inscription is often printed on the edges of the coins. The German twenty-mark piece before the war had the legend, “Gott mit uns,” in this form. The silver, nickel, and copper for American currency is bought by the mint and made into coins at a profit. This profit is called seigniorage and it is sufficient to make all the mints self-supporting. The amount of metal in a nickel, for instance, costs only a fraction of five cents. When coins are lost or destroyed—by shipwreck, fire, etc.—the government is just so much to the good, and a great many coins are permanently lost or destroyed every year.
[196]. With a dual system of coinage the ratio at the mint must be exactly that of the open market, otherwise the metal which the mint overvalues is the only one which will come in to be coined. If mine-owners who produce silver, for example, can get more gold in exchange for it in the open market than they can get dollars for it at the mint, they will naturally exchange it in the open market. But it is difficult to keep the legal ratio in exact accord with the market value because the latter fluctuates somewhat from year to year.
[197]. In this same year a severe commercial panic took place and the action of the government in demonetizing silver was blamed for it. Hence the frequent reference in later years to “the crime of 1873.”
[198]. Provision for the coinage of silver on a limited scale was made by the Bland Act (1878) and the Sherman Act (1890). These acts merely provided that the Treasury should buy so much silver each year and coin it, a very different thing from free coinage.
[199]. Curiously enough there was another financial panic in 1893; but this had nothing whatever to do with the stoppage of silver coining.
[200]. The paper money is made at the Bureau of Engraving in Washington, not at the mints. Every working day in the year this Bureau turns out a million dollars or more in notes. A special kind of paper, made by a secret process, is used, and in the manufacture of this paper small strands of red silk are imbedded in the fabric. The notes are printed from mechanical copies of engraved plates, the originals of which are made by hand. It takes several expert engravers a whole year or more to make one of these originals, with its portrait, seal, symbols, and myriad of fine lines. All these precautions are taken to prevent counterfeiting. On its way through the presses the bills are counted and checked many times to make sure that none go astray or are pocketed by employees. So carefully is this done that only once in the last twenty years has a single bill been unaccounted for. When a paper note is permanently lost or destroyed after being issued Uncle Sam is very much the gainer, for it costs him, on the average, only about one cent to print a dollar bill. If the bill is only torn or partly destroyed, the government will redeem it. Full face value is given if at least three-fifths of the original bill is presented, or half the face value if two-fifths is handed in. If less than two-fifths of the bill is presented, it will not be redeemed except by proving the circumstances under which the rest of the bill was destroyed. When bills get dirty or worn the banks send them back to the Treasury. Some years ago the practice was to burn them in the furnace; but there was a rumor that charred pieces of the bills were in the habit of flying off through the chimney to be found by people who presented them for redemption. Now the worn money is put into a macerator or chewing machine, which masticates them to a pulp at the rate of about a million dollars a mouthful.
[201]. The German paper mark, for example, depreciated to less than one-fiftieth of its face value in gold; the Austrian crown depreciated even more. Even more striking has been the depreciation of the Russian paper rouble which has fallen more than a thousand-fold.
[202]. Money which, according to law, must be accepted in payment of debts, is called legal tender. Gold coin, silver dollars, and certain notes are legal tender up to any amount. Half dollars, quarters, and dimes must be accepted in payment up to the amount of ten dollars. Nickels and pennies are legal tender to the amount of twenty-five cents only.
[203]. The establishment of this second bank led to the raising of a very important constitutional question. The constitution, as has been said, contains not a word about banks. Hence the power to establish banks might be assumed to remain entirely with the states in view of the rule that powers not delegated to the nation by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. Congress having gone ahead, however, and established a bank, the State of Maryland proceeded to levy a tax on the bank’s paper money. This tax the cashier of the Baltimore branch of the bank, McCulloch, refused to pay, whereupon he was held liable by the courts of Maryland and appealed to the Supreme Court. The latter tribunal went into the whole issue thoroughly and rendered one of the most important legal decisions ever given in this country.
The decision in McCulloch vs. Maryland was that Congress, having been given by the constitution the express power to collect taxes, to borrow money, and “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers,” was thereby vested with implied authority to establish banks as a means of facilitating the collection of taxes or the borrowing of money. This being so, the Supreme Court decided, no state can be permitted to interfere with an instrumentality through which the national government is legally carrying on its work. They must not interfere by taxation or otherwise. “The power to tax involves the power to destroy,” declared Chief Justice Marshall in rendering this decision. If the states could tax one agency employed by the national government in the execution of its powers, the chief justice explained, they could tax every other one. They could tax the post office, the custom houses, the forts, the ships of war. By taxing these things heavily enough they could cripple the national government and eventually drive it out of existence altogether. The court was unanimous in affirming that Congress had the right to establish banks and that with such action no state could interfere.
[204]. Trust companies were established to act as trustees or guardians of funds belonging to widows, orphans, and others who could not look out for their own investments. Then they began the practice of accepting deposits from others and paying interest on these deposits, whereas national banks and most of the regular state banks usually paid no interest to their depositors. Gradually the trust companies became banks in every sense of the term, and they have gradually increased in number during recent years. As a rule they can do a wider range of business than is permitted to national or state banks.
[205]. The locations of these twelve federal reserve banks are as follows: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas, and San Francisco.
[206]. A further addition to the banking facilities of the United States was made in 1916, when Congress inaugurated the federal farm loan bank system. This is under the control of a federal farm loan board composed of the Secretary of the Treasury and four other persons appointed by the President. Two systems of lending money on mortgages are provided under the supervision of this board, one working through twelve farm land banks situated in different parts of the country and the other through joint stock land banks. Provision is also made for the forming of farm loan associations composed of farmers who wish to borrow money on the security of their lands. See also p. 348.
[207]. Retail prices represent prices of the principal articles of Food; wholesale prices include articles of all kinds.
Figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
[208]. For this reason it is often said that gold is not a good measure of deferred payments. For example, if somebody were to give you a note for a thousand dollars, payable five years from now in gold coin, the amount of goods which you will be able to buy with the proceeds of this note when it is paid may be much greater, or much less, than what you could buy today. Thus you would get your money back, but it would not have the same purchasing power, and purchasing power is what counts. To determine the actual purchasing power of gold at different dates, figures known as “index numbers” are compiled by various economic organizations. Index numbers are compiled in this way: Take a certain amount of various things which are in common use, say a barrel of flour, ten pounds of butter, a bushel of potatoes, so much steel, leather, lumber, and other commodities,—make the list long enough to cover the general range of prices. Add together the current prices of these things today and you have an index number. Ten years from now, if you take exactly the same amounts of exactly the same commodities and add together the prices, you will have another index number. By comparing them you can say that the purchasing power of money has gone up or gone down, as the case may be. The index number more than doubled during the years 1914 to 1919; that is to say, the purchasing power of money was cut in two.
[209]. People are in the habit of thinking that the high cost of living is due largely to “profiteering” and monopoly. To some extent, no doubt, this is true. But the three most important factors in the high cost of living are: (a) the inflation of money and credit; (b) decreased production; and (c) heavy taxes. It is these things that give the profiteers and monopolists their opportunity.
[210]. Bonds are promises to pay a certain principal sum at the expiry of a certain term of years. They are issued by governments and by business corporations. They bear interest annually or semi-annually. In the case of registered bonds the name of the bondholder is inscribed on the books of the government or company and a check for the interest is sent to him. Coupon bonds, on the other hand, are payable to bearer and small tickets or coupons must be cut off by the holder and presented on each interest date. Stocks are merely shares in a business corporation and do not carry an obligation to pay a definite sum at any given time. There are two kinds of stock, preferred and common. The preferred stock is entitled to a stated dividend; the common stock takes what is left of the net profits if there are any.
Bonds, as a rule, yield a smaller return than preferred stock, because the security is better. The man who holds common stock takes the greatest risk of all and for this reason expects the largest rate of dividend. When you invest money the income which you get from it is proportioned to the risk which you take. An absolutely safe investment like government bonds brings in only four or five per cent annually; the preferred stock of railroads or industrial corporations may yield six or seven per cent; the common stock of some companies pays as high as eight or ten per cent. When you find that an investment promises a large income you may be sure that the risk is proportionately large. All sorts of “get rich quick” schemes are placed before the public by promoters who promise high rates on “safe” investments. Such investments are not safe; if they were, the banks and large capitalists would put their money into them. To protect the public from these frauds, some states have passed “blue-sky laws,” which require that every stock-selling concern shall be investigated by the state authorities before it is allowed to take money from the people.
[211]. If anything, this estimate is probably too low. In 1921 the tax commissioner of Massachusetts estimated the tax burden in that state to be $117 per capita.
[212]. The cities spend a great deal more than the rural districts and the per capita burden there is consequently much heavier.
[213]. In the case of some heavily-taxed forms of merchandise, such as tobacco, more than half the price is made up of taxes.
[214]. There are some cases, of course, in which the tax cannot be shifted; for example, taxes on vacant or unimproved land, or taxes on fixed incomes and salaries. But all this is a small element in the total tax bill.
[215]. Many public services which are now paid for out of the general taxes were at one time supported by charging only those who made use of them. Many of the first macadam roads were built by private companies, which collected a few cents in toll from every person using them. Toll bridges were not uncommon a generation ago and they still exist in some places. Fees were charged in many places by the schools, so much per pupil. Before regular police forces were established, well-to-do people hired watchmen to patrol the streets around their property, the poorer sections of the city being left without any protection at all.
[216]. The French statesman, Colbert, chief minister of Louis XIV, once said that the art of taxing the people was like that of plucking a goose, namely, to get the largest amount of feathers with the least amount of squawking. There is more truth than fiction in that remark.
[217]. In a general way the distinction between real and personal property is simple enough, but the exact line between the two is not as a practical matter so easy to draw. For example: Is grain growing in the field real or personal property? Which is it after it is cut by the reaper? To which class do the trees in the forest belong (a) before they are cut down, (b) after they have been felled? Would it be correct to say that cattle grazing in the field are converting real estate into personal property?
[218]. Real estate is in plain sight and cannot be concealed from the taxing authorities; but stocks, bonds, notes, and so forth, are kept in a safe where no one sees them but the owner. There is no way of knowing how much taxable wealth a man has hidden away unless he is honest enough to tell. In some states the plan of taxing intangibles has been given up altogether on the ground that such taxes are too easy to evade. As a substitute these states impose a tax on the income from intangibles and require every person to make, once a year, a sworn statement of such income.
[219]. The exemptions, allowances, and rates change from time to time. The existing rules can be found in the latest edition of the World Almanac. They cannot be briefly stated without serious danger of inaccuracy.
[220]. See Cyclopedia of American Government, Vol. III, p. 492. The court held that a tax on land was a direct tax; that a tax on the income from land was in effect a tax on land, and hence also a direct tax.
[221]. During the years 1918-1921 these excises were also laid on railway tickets, telegrams, and sales at soda fountains. The excess profits tax, which also brought in a large revenue during the years 1918-1922 was levied upon all business profits above a designated standard.
[222]. Every state undoubtedly has power to lay such a tax. There is some doubt whether the national government also possesses it, because a tax on the products of labor is in reality a means of regulating the conditions of labor, and the constitution gives the national government no authority to regulate the conditions of labor; such authority belongs to the states. The question whether the national government can levy a tax on the products of child labor is now pending before the Supreme Court. See also p. [415].
[223]. People who have large fortunes may invest them in non-taxable investments, such as state and municipal bonds, thus evading the heavy surtaxes on incomes.
[224]. Henry George advocated that on all land a tax should be levied equal to the full amount of its ground rent (see p. [43]) and that all other taxes should be abolished. This, in effect, would do away with the private ownership of land, making the government the real owner. Mr. George endeavored to prove that nearly all our economic troubles are due to the private ownership of land and land monopoly. “What I therefore propose”, he said, “as the simple yet sovereign remedy which will raise wages, increase the earnings of capital, extirpate pauperism, abolish poverty, give remunerative employment to whoever wishes it, afford free scope to human powers, lessen crime, elevate morals and taste and intelligence, purify government and carry civilization to yet nobler heights, is—to appropriate rent by taxation.” Progress and Poverty, Book VIII, Ch. ii. This is a good example of the extravagant and Utopian hopes held out by reformers who are carried away by a single idea. If earth could be changed into heaven by merely taxing one thing instead of another, the transformation would have been made long ago.
[225]. President Harding, early in 1922, suggested the imposition of a sales tax as a practicable method of obtaining money with which to pay a bonus to veterans of the World War.
[226]. It was the custom to take such individual measures as were approved by the various committees and put them all together into what was called an “omnibus bill”, providing for many millions of dollars to be spent upon the erection of new post-offices, the dredging of harbors, and so on. In these bills every congressman expected to get something for his district, whether there was need or not. Such grants of money were commonly known as “pork barrel” appropriations. One way of keeping congressmen in Washington until the very last day of the session was to hold back these appropriations until just before adjournment. Every senator and representative would then stay at his post lest by some mishap his particular item might be dropped out.
[227]. About ten billion dollars of this total was loaned by the United States to England, France, and other countries to help them carry on the war (see pp. 613-614).
[228]. There are some exceptions. The income from the first issue of Liberty Bonds is entirely exempt from national taxation; the income from the other issues is exempt up to a certain amount for a designated period of years. All the bonds issued by the national government are exempt from state and local taxation. Bonds issued by states, counties, cities, and other municipalities are exempt from national taxation; they may or may not be exempt from state and local taxes, depending usually upon where the owner resides. For example, if a man owns bonds issued by the city of San Francisco and resides in California, the income from these bonds is exempt from state and local taxes; but if the owner resides in some other state which has an income tax, the income is taxable.
[229]. The debt of New York state is about one hundred and thirty-five millions; no other state has a debt half as large. A few states have no debts at all. The total net debt of the counties, cities, towns, villages, and other communities is nearly five billions. It would be conservative to say that the total public indebtedness of the American people today is about twenty-eight billions. From this may be subtracted, of course, the ten billions owed to the United States by other countries. But even allowing for this, the debt is about $700 per family.
[230]. It is a sound rule of public finance that bonds ought not to run for a longer period than the estimated life of a public improvement[improvement]. For example, if a new street pavement is estimated to be good for twenty years, the bonds should all be repayable within that term. Very often, however, the taxpayers of American cities have been paying off paving bonds long after the pavements have completely worn out.
[231]. The cost of any public service is made up largely of two items, overhead charges and running expenses. In the case of electric light the overhead charges include interest on the capital invested in power houses, machinery, wires and poles, conduits; also such things as insurance, taxes, and rentals, which go on whether the plant produces much or little. Running expenses include the cost of labor, coal, supplies, etc., and these things, of course, vary with the amount of business done. Overhead charges often make up half the cost of producing electric current; so if you double the overhead, the price to the consumer would go up, not down.
[232]. Public service companies, when the government gives them the power to take private property by right of eminent domain must pay just compensation for what they take. The government could not give a company power to take private property without compensation, for it does not itself possess that power.
[233]. Franchises were often granted in perpetuity. When the laws forbade the granting of perpetual franchises the attempt was sometimes made to evade this restriction by granting them for 999 years. Sometimes the grant of a franchise was put through the board of aldermen or the city council without any notice being given to the public. Loud protests then followed, but they availed little after the grant had been made.
[234]. These payments are arranged in a variety of ways. Sometimes a gas company pays the city so much per year for every mile of gas-mains or so much per million cubic feet of gas sold. Street railway companies occasionally pay so much each year per mile of track. More commonly the payment is based upon gross earnings or upon the value of the company’s capital stock, or upon the estimated value of its franchise. In some instances the franchise is sold to the highest bidder, that is the company which offers to pay most for the privilege of using the streets gets it.
[235]. The street railway system of Boston, for example, operates in more than twenty other cities and towns. A single telephone company sometimes controls the telephone service in all the cities and towns of the state or even in several states.
[236]. Fifty years ago these water supplies were usually controlled by private companies operating under franchises. Today there are very few public water-supply companies in the country. Among the sixty-five cities of over 100,000 population there are only six which do not have municipal ownership of this service.
[237]. The city of Glasgow, in Scotland, is sometimes cited as an example of a community which has gone the longest distance in the way of municipal ownership. The citizen of Glasgow, it is said, may be born in a municipal tenement, be fed on milk from the municipal dairy (which is warmed on a municipal gas stove), be transported to school on municipal tramcars, and when he dies be carried off in a municipal hearse to the municipal cemetery.
[238]. There are about thirty municipal gas plants and several hundred municipal electric lighting plants in the United States; but the great majority of them are in small communities.
[239]. There are municipal street railways in San Francisco, Seattle, and New Orleans. Public operation of street railways, without public ownership, is the policy of Boston and several other cities. These street railways are operated on a service-at-cost plan. The government of the state or city takes over the street railway, appoints officials to manage it, and charges whatever fares are necessary to pay the expenses of operation (including whatever rate of interest is to be paid to the owners of the street railway). When wages go up, fares go up. In some cases service-at-cost has been proved to be a costly plan. When wages went up during and after the war, fares rose correspondingly. But although wages have come down since 1920 in private employments, they have not been reduced to the same extent on publicly-owned street railways, hence the fares remain where they were. To be fair to the public, the system ought to work both ways.
[240]. The national, state, and municipal governments can borrow money at five per cent or less; the companies have to pay six or seven per cent under present conditions.
[241]. Notice the way in which gas and electric lighting companies try to increase their business by selling gas stoves, electric irons, and other appliances at low figures and on the installment plan. Telephone companies place public pay-stations in every nook and corner to pick up a few extra nickels and dimes. Telegraph companies give special rates on night letters to get messages which would be sent by mail if the regular rates were charged. Can you imagine the post-office keeping open at night in order to obtain more business?
[242]. By naming these three purposes of education, first, second, and third, it is not intended to imply that this is their order of importance. Some would put service to the community first of all. Over one of the main gates at Harvard University, through which the students pass out into the world after they have been graduated, is this timely inscription: “Depart to serve thy country and thy kind.”
[243]. The laws and the practice differ greatly from state to state, and sometimes from one community to another. It would be futile to attempt the task of presenting here even the most important variations. Those who desire to know exactly how the schools are controlled and managed in different parts of the country will find full information in S. T. Dutton and David Snedden, The Administration of Public Education in the United States.
[244]. In 1917 Congress provided that each year a grant from the federal treasury should be made to the several states in order to encourage vocational education. This money is distributed among the states on condition that each shall contribute an equal amount, the distribution being made, not by the Bureau of Education, but by a body known as the Federal Board for Vocational Education. This board is made up of seven persons, the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor, the Commissioner of Education and three other persons appointed by the President. A considerable part of its work for the present is connected with the providing of vocational training for American soldiers and sailors who were disabled in the World War.
[245]. The Smith-Towner Bill, now the Towner-Sterling Bill.
[246]. According to the census figures only one person in fifteen (above school age) is unable to write; but the experience of army officers with drafted men during the war showed that the proportion must be a great deal larger. The census enumerators take a man’s word for it; the army authorities at the various camps applied an actual test. They found that about one man in every five was unable to write a simple letter of a dozen lines.
[247]. The essential differences between grammar school and high school instruction are these: the work of the grammar school grades is practically all prescribed; in the high school there are some elective studies; in the grammar school grades one teacher gives the instruction in all the subjects, whereas in the high schools the various subjects are taught by different teachers, each one a specialist.
[248]. A proper system of vocational education involves three things: (a) a broad and practical foundation in elementary education of the ordinary type; (b) a study of the social and civic forces which control the life of the people; and (c) definite training in some particular vocation or trade. In order to help the pupil choose his life work more intelligently, many schools have made provision for vocational guidance. A vocational director or counsellor studies the special aptitudes and abilities of each pupil, points out what opportunities are open, and advises as to the best means of training for the work selected.
[249]. The demand for vocational education has come from several sources: namely, from parents who believe that education ought to be directly related to earning-power; from teachers who are convinced that there is little or no educational value in drilling pupils in studies which do not interest them; from the general public which thinks the schools would render a larger social service in training pupils to vocational efficiency; and from enterprising employers who see in this form of education a chance to get a supply of trained workers without having to break them in as apprentices. Organized labor at first looked with suspicion upon the movement, but is now more favorably disposed toward it. Vocational education should be clearly distinguished from manual training, which is merely a general education in the principles of skilful hand work without regard to any particular vocation or trade. Vocational education does not turn out a fully-trained worker, but only one who has practically finished the apprentice stage.
[250]. There is a current notion that those who stand highest in their studies at school or in college usually do poorly when they get out into the world, and that those who take a prominent part in school or college activities, even though their scholarship be very poor, are the ones who rise to the top in later life. The evidence is all to the contrary. Every investigation that has ever been made into this matter indicates that in the vast majority of cases the boy who does well at school does well in his college studies if he goes to college; and that students who stand high in their college studies are much more likely to succeed in later life than those who stand low. Three great Eastern universities, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, gave the nation three successive Presidents during the years 1901-1921, Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson. Nobody thought it worth while to mention that each of the three was a scholar of high rank at graduation; but if anyone of them had been graduated near the bottom of the list, we should have heard comment in plenty. The exceptions are too often singled out for notice; the instances that prove the rule are so numerous that they pass unobserved.
[251]. Measures for the promotion and protection of the public health have a marked effect upon the death rate. Fifty years ago it was not at all uncommon to find, in American cities and towns, an annual death rate of thirty persons per thousand of population. Today this rate has everywhere been cut in two. Even in large centers of population like New York and Chicago the annual death rate, in normal years, is now below fifteen per thousand. This means, of course, that the average duration of life, taking the population as a whole, has been lengthened. The lowered death rate has probably added seven or eight additional years to the average life-span. It is easy to see what an enormous gain this has meant to the productive power of the country.
[252]. Recall, for example, the passage in Homer’s Iliad, where the sun god in anger raised his terrible bow and with every twang of the bow-string sent men to their death by pestilence.
[253]. It was the same with many other things. The Romans, for example, used seals with which to stamp impressions on documents and coins. That is the essence of printing. Yet the world did not learn the next important step, how to print books, for a thousand years.
[254]. During the earlier years of the World War, before the armies of the Central Powers overran Serbia, that country was stricken with typhus from one end to the other. The Allied countries equipped a great sanitary expedition which went through the land and virtually disinfected the entire population. Trains of box cars were fitted up as bathing and delousing plants, with hot water and steam from the locomotive. These trains went along from village to village, stopping at each long enough to put the inhabitants, one by one, through the scrubbing process and their clothing through the steam vat.
[255]. In order that measures for preventing the spread of disease may be effective, they must be based upon a well-organized and accurate system of vital statistics. These statistics include figures relating to births, deaths, and illness. They are compiled in the offices of the health authorities from the reports sent in by physicians. These reports, to be of real value, must not only be accurate but prompt. By means of these statistics the health authorities can sense the beginnings of an epidemic, can often determine its source or cause, and can immediately set the machinery in motion to ensure its control. When one physician reports a case of typhoid this may not be of great significance; but if a dozen cases are reported on the same day, the necessity of an immediate investigation into the water and milk supplies becomes apparent.
[256]. The city of Glasgow obtains its supply of pure water from Loch Katrine, immortalized in The Lady of the Lake.
[257]. The choice between the two kinds of filtration depends upon local conditions. Where the raw water is excessively turbid or bad-colored, the rapid sand filter is more commonly used. The chemical treatment of water involves the use of chlorinated lime (better known as bleaching powder) or some other chemical disinfectant which kills the noxious bacteria. Only small quantities are required in proportion to the volume of water used. Chemical treatment is not commonly used except in emergencies; it is not regarded as a satisfactory permanent plan of water treatment.
[258]. These housing regulations now provide, as a rule, that houses designed to accommodate more than two families shall not occupy more than two-thirds of the lots upon which they are built, the remaining space being left for light and air. They also require that such houses shall not be of highly inflammable construction, that they be provided with lighted hallways, that sanitary equipment be installed, and that no rooms be used for ordinary living purposes unless they have one or more windows. A further provision in some of these tenement-house laws is that houses may be condemned as unsanitary if they contain less than so many cubic feet of air space for each person living in them. This last provision is difficult to enforce except by frequent inspection, yet it is very important because no matter how well a house may be constructed, there will be a danger to the public health if it is seriously overcrowded.
[259]. At the Peace Conference in 1919 the protection of the public health throughout the world was considered so important that provision for it was included in the Covenant of the League of Nations (see p. [638]).
[260]. An exception to this must be made in the case of the negro population of the South. The amount of poverty among the Southern negroes is large, although most of them live in rural communities.
[261]. Poverty, in a way, reproduces itself. Some years ago a New York social worker gave the following rather cogent description of the way in which one generation passes its poverty on to the next. “A child, reared in a poor home, is taken out of school and sent to work at an early age. He drudges away, brings home every cent of his pay, is allowed to keep little or none of it, and gets no fun out of life. After a while he gets tired of this; he meets some girl who has been brought up in the same way; they get married; but neither of them has saved any money nor has the slightest idea of how to manage a home. They rent a small flat, buy some furniture on the installment plan, and then find that they are not able to pay for it. They get into debt and when either falls sick or the husband is out of work there is nothing to eat. When children come they grow up on improper nourishment; they are slapped in the face and scolded at all hours; they get no home training and very little schooling; as soon as they are able to earn a few dollars a week they are hauled out of school and put to work—and so history just repeats itself.”
[262]. The marriage of feeble-minded or other mentally defective persons ought to be prevented, for the results of such marriages are bad for the whole community. They help to fill the poorhouses, the asylums, and the jails. There are some who believe that the government ought to go further and lend its influence towards the promotion of greater care in determining the marriage of persons who are not mentally defective. Marriage, as has been shown in an earlier chapter, is the basis of the home and hence the foundation of the whole social order. It is an institution of exceedingly great importance to the well-being of society. Yet we leave the whole thing to the caprice of individuals, or their passing fancy, or to the accidents of chance friendships. Whatever may be the inspiration to marriage it can truly be said that many unions of man and woman contribute nothing to the well-being of present or future society. Is it right that an institution of such importance to the human race, both present and future, should be so little controlled by law, by custom, or by public opinion and so largely left to the discretion of individuals? Can the race be improved in that way? Beyond preventing the marriage of mentally degenerate persons is there any further action that society ought to take?
[263]. Many explanations are offered for this. We are a relatively new country, with a population made up of many races. Court procedure is slow and cumbrous; it takes a long time to punish offenders, and they have a fair chance of escaping punishment altogether. Police have been under the control of politicians and have been lax in enforcing the laws. We have emphasized the idea of liberty so strongly that it has benefited even the criminal. We have not made punishment certain enough or severe enough to deter people from evil-doing. All these excuses have some force, no doubt, but do they fully account for our poor showing in comparison with other countries?
[264]. The reformer who first educated the public to this doctrine was Jeremy Bentham, an English writer on social topics who lived in the early years of the nineteenth century.
[265]. The most conspicuous figure in this branch of prison reform during recent years is Mr. Thomas Mott Osborne, who was for a time in charge of the state prison at Auburn, N. Y. Mr. Osborne entirely abolished the old system of discipline and established a scheme of self-government among the prisoners. But public opinion was not quite ready for such a radical experiment as Mr. Osborne inaugurated, and his work was bitterly criticised in many quarters, although it was commended in others. In the midst of the controversy he gave up his post and his successor did not continue his policy.
[266]. A good many people are beginning to wonder whether the reaction against the old-fashioned methods of dealing with offenders has not been carried too far. Persons charged with crime are now given a fair trial with liberal opportunities for appeal. When convicted they are frequently given indeterminate sentences and then, after a short term of confinement, are released on parole. In prison they are well housed, properly fed, given various privileges, provided with motion picture entertainments, and given other forms of recreation. The complaint is made that we have made the path of the transgressor altogether too easy and that the sort of punishment which is now meted out to offenders is inadequate to serve as a deterrent to crime. The increase in crime, particularly in the larger American cities, is by some attributed to this leniency of treatment.
[267]. One of the first of these courts, and the best known of them all, is the Juvenile Court of Denver, Colorado, which was for some years presided over by Judge Ben B. Lindsey. For a time the success of this court seemed to be remarkable, for Judge Lindsey possessed the knack of getting wayward boys to tell him the truth; but in his zeal for giving them a chance to reform he appeared to many citizens of Denver to be unduly lenient. The Juvenile Court was retained, but another judge was put in charge of it.
[268]. In number of divorces the United States, unhappily, leads the world. More divorces are granted each year in this country than in all other civilized countries put together. This is one of the things which gives us no occasion for boasting, because it points to a serious weakening in the stability and strength of the family as a social unit. Not only is the number of divorces very large, but it is rapidly increasing year by year. Fifty years ago the number per annum in the United States was only about twenty thousand; now it is over one hundred and twenty thousand. On the average there was one divorce for every thirty marriages in 1870; today the ratio is one in ten. At the present rate of increase it has been estimated that by 1950 no fewer than one-fourth of all marriages will be terminated by divorce, and if the same condition of affairs should continue until the end of the twentieth century, one-half of all the marriages would eventuate in that way. This would indeed be an ominous outlook were it not that conditions are likely, sooner or later, to undergo a change. When a social problem becomes very serious, as this one is now becoming, it is the habit of society to seek out and apply appropriate remedies.
[269]. Since its foundation in 1788 the national government has spent, in round figures, about sixty-seven billion dollars. Of this entire sum fifty-eight billions have been spent for war, that is, for maintaining the army and navy, for carrying on the nation’s various wars, for pensions, and for interest on war debts.
[270]. Theodore Roosevelt, Fear God and Take Your Own Part (N. Y., 1915), Ch. I.
[271]. History is full of examples to support this statement. When Carthage proved unable to defend herself against Roman aggression, the victors left not one stone upon another. Look at Poland, ripped apart during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by her avaricious neighbors and now restored to nationhood by the armed forces of France, England, Italy, and America. And what of China today? Are her four hundred million people happier and more prosperous because they happen to be citizens of a defenceless country?
[272]. The War of Independence was won by a volunteer army. On the conclusion of peace this army was disbanded, but the absence of a defence force was deemed a serious danger. Accordingly, when the constitution was framed in 1787, it provided that the new Congress should have power “to raise and support armies.” During Washington’s first term a Department of War was established in the national government and a small regular army was created under the supervision of this department. The size of this army was not above five thousand men of all ranks, barely sufficient to keep the Indian tribes from giving trouble. But the Napoleonic wars in Europe led Congress to increase its size as a measure of precaution, and during the War of 1812 an endeavor was made to raise the regular army, by enlistment, to about 35,000 men. Recruits, however, did not come readily because the war was unpopular in some parts of the country, and it therefore became necessary to call out the militia organizations of the several states. After 1816, when peace was made, the regular army was greatly reduced, and until 1860 it remained small with the exception of the years in which the United States was at war with Mexico. The Civil War necessitated a considerable expansion of the regular army, but the larger portion of the fighting force was obtained by calling out the state militia and by raising regiments of volunteers. When the war was over, Congress fixed the maximum strength of the regular army at 25,000, and there it remained until the outbreak of the war with Spain, when it was more than doubled. In 1916, during the World War, but before the United States entered the conflict, a further increase to a maximum of 175,000 was authorized. This figure subsequently rose to 225,000 but in 1921 it was cut down by Congress to 150,000, at which point it remains today, although a further reduction is now being considered.
[273]. Prior to 1916 the national guard could not be called upon for service outside the United States, but only for defence against invasion and for the suppression of internal disturbances. But in 1916 it was provided by the National Defence Act that whenever Congress authorizes the use of armed forces in addition to the regular army, the President may draft any or all members of the national guard into the service of the United States and may employ them outside American territory.
[274]. Theodore Roosevelt was serving as Assistant Secretary of the Navy when the war with Spain began in 1898. He offered to raise a volunteer cavalry regiment of cowboys from the cattle country and his offer was accepted by the government. Resigning his position in the Navy Department he organized this regiment of Rough Riders and became its lieutenant-colonel. The Rough Riders went to Cuba, where they gave a good account of themselves.
[275]. The actual organization and disciplining of the army during peace, as well as its movements and operations in war, are under the immediate direction of the General Staff. This body consists of a Chief of Staff, who is appointed from among the high officers of the army, and numerous other army officers who are detailed for this service. The General Staff is so organized that in the event of war one section of it can take charge of operations in the field while the other keeps building up the army at home. General Pershing, who commanded the American Expeditionary Forces in the World War is now Chief of Staff, his principal assistant being Major-General Harbord, who commanded the First Army overseas.
[276]. For minor offences an enlisted man is tried by summary court-martial before a single officer. For more serious offences a special court-martial of from three to five officers is convened. If the offence is very serious, or if the accused person is a commissioned officer, the trial takes place before a general court-martial of from five to fifteen officers, who must be, wherever possible, at least of equal rank with the accused. The verdict, or finding, of the court-martial, together with its recommendations for punishment in case of conviction, is transmitted to the officer by whose order the court was convened. This officer has power to diminish but not to increase the punishment recommended by the court-martial.
[277]. There is still another phase of military jurisdiction which must be distinguished from both military law and martial law. This is called military government. It may be explained as follows: When any territory is conquered and held by an invading army it must obviously be given some temporary form of government. The former government usually flees and something must be put in its place. Under such conditions the commander-in-chief of the occupying force sets up a temporary administration. In 1919, when a portion of the American Expeditionary Force advanced into German territory under the terms of the armistice, a military government with its headquarters at Coblenz was established for the area occupied by the American troops. A military government may even be set up in home territory during a civil war or insurrection. After the fall of the Confederacy military governments were maintained in the South until the state governments were reconstructed, hence we commonly speak of the “reconstruction” period. Military government is always a temporary arrangement, never intended to be permanent, although it may last for several years. It does not, like martial law, supplant the ordinary laws of the occupied territory, but merely means that the occupying army, through its commander-in-chief, takes over the administration.
[278]. The beginnings of the American Navy go back to the time of the Revolutionary War, when a few frigates were placed in service; but when the war was over these ships were sold and the navy abolished. In 1794, however, Congress authorized the building of six new frigates, and four years later a Department of the Navy was created, with a member of the Cabinet at its head. The number of vessels increased very slowly and when the War of 1812 began the United States had only sixteen war vessels, some of them too small to be of great usefulness. This small navy, nevertheless, gave a good account of itself during the course of the war at sea. From 1815 to the outbreak of the Civil War little attention was paid to the upbuilding of American naval strength, but during the course of this struggle a great expansion took place. The invention of the iron-clad Monitor revolutionized naval construction. But when the South had been subdued the Navy was once more allowed to dwindle and it was not until after 1885 that the United States again made a serious attempt to build up a strong naval establishment. Since that date naval progress has been steady and today the United States navy ranks second in point of size among the sea forces of the world. By the terms of the agreement concluded among the chief naval powers of the world at Washington in 1922 it has been arranged that the United States, Great Britain, and Japan shall each destroy certain war vessels now built or in process of building, and that each shall refrain from building new capital ships (except for purposes of replacement), during the next ten years. At the end of this period the navies of the United States and Great Britain will be approximately equal in strength, while that of Japan will be about three-fifths as strong. See also p. 577.
[279]. For the action of the conference with reference to matters in the Far East, see p. [619].
[280]. Brigadier-General Mitchell of the United States Army Air Service, in his testimony before a committee of Congress in 1920, declared that a few planes could visit New York City and rain down enough phosgene gas to kill every inhabitant “unless we provide some means of repelling them.”
[281]. See the quotations from various military authorities given in The Next War, by Will Irwin, pp. 46-66.
[282]. There is a tradition in England that if a person goes into Hyde Park, London (a large open space in the center of the city), he may gather a crowd around him and say anything he pleases, subject only to the chance that he may be roughly handled if his hearers do not like what he says. For this reason, Hyde Park is sometimes referred to as the “safety valve” of the English government. Anyone who has a grievance, real or imaginary, can go there and blow off steam. Having had his say, without let or hindrance, the speaker feels better about it. Somewhere in this country we ought to have a Hyde Park.
We must be careful not to judge the liberties of the citizen and the severity of a government by what may happen in war-time or in time of civil insurrection. War inflames popular passion and impels both the officers of government and the people to do unwise things, sometimes to violate the laws of the land in the name of patriotism. An excited nation, like an excited man, is entitled to some allowance. Nevertheless, it is the duty of all who understand the meaning of free government to stand firmly against the wrongful curtailment of personal rights at any time; for the true interests of free government are never promoted by resort to injustice or oppression.
[283]. This is a great and fundamental weakness of international law, that there is no executive authority to apply it and there are no courts to enforce its rules when nations disobey. During the World War the rules of international law were violated on many occasions, for example, in the use of poison gas, the bombing of hospitals, the sinking of hospital ships, the forcing of prisoners to labor on military works, and the illegal detention of neutral ships. Yet in spite of these violations international law emerged from the war stronger than it was before. The nations which violated international law most shamelessly were the ones that lost the war, and their defeat was due in no small measure to the resentment which was aroused throughout the world by reason of these violations.
[284]. Illustrations are too fresh in everyone’s mind to require any extended comment. In 1918 President Wilson took with him to the peace negotiations at Paris no member of the Senate. He did not keep in touch with the leaders of the majority party in this body. But in 1921 when President Harding appointed the four American delegates to the Washington Conference he named two of them from the Senate.
[285]. In addition to regular envoys, it is sometimes customary for a country to send an unofficial representative to conduct negotiations informally. During the years before the United States entered the war, Colonel Edward M. House, of Texas, was sent to Europe by President Wilson on at least two occasions in order that certain confidential discussions might be carried on without using the regular diplomatic channels. When unofficial representatives are sent in this way no public announcement is made.
[286]. Communications between diplomats and their own governments are not usually sent by mail if the matters dealt with are of great importance. They are sent by special couriers or messengers. When diplomatic communications are sent by telegraph or cable they are transmitted in cipher, that is, in a secret code of words which no outsider can read. Nations occasionally get hold of one another’s diplomatic codes and decipher communications which they are not supposed to read. For example, the German government in the spring of 1917, before the United States declared war, sent a wireless message to its official representative in Mexico, telling him in substance that if America entered the war, he was to stir up Mexico against the United States by promising that when the war was over Mexico would be rewarded with some American territory. This message was in secret code; but the American officials caught it from the air, deciphered it, and at the appropriate time put the German government in an embarrassing situation by publishing the message in plain English to the whole world.
[287]. When two countries go to war they at once withdraw their diplomatic representatives from one another’s capitals. The embassy or legation and its archives are put under the care of some neutral ambassador until the war is over. During the years 1914-1917 the American ambassador in Berlin and the American minister in Brussels looked after the interests of Great Britain at these two capitals. The work of Mr. Brand Whitlock at Brussels was notable, and the services which he rendered to the Belgian people during the years of their country’s captivity will long be remembered in that heroic little land.
[288]. In 1915, for example, the Austro-Hungarian ambassador to the United States, Dr. Dumba, endeavored to stir up trouble among certain Hungarian immigrants who were working in American munition factories, making weapons and military supplies for sale to Great Britain and France. When the United States government discovered these intrigues, Dr. Dumba was dismissed from the country.
[289]. The making of secret treaties continued, in fact, after the war began. By secret treaties France and Great Britain promised that Italy should have certain territories which were held by Austria and that Russia should have Constantinople. When the war was over the new government at Vienna permitted the publication of a whole volume of secret treaties that had been made during the preceding fifty years. The Bolsheviks in Russia also published all the secret treaties of the Czar that they could find.
In the covenant of the League of Nations it is provided that every treaty between nations which become members of the League must be registered and published.
[290]. There are some cases in which the approval of the House of Representatives is also needed before a treaty can go into effect. In the treaty which provided for the purchase of Alaska in 1867 and in the treaty which closed the war with Spain in 1898, provision was made for the payment of money by the United States. Now no money can be appropriated from the treasury without action on the part of the House, and if the House had declined to appropriate the money, the conditions of these treaties could not have been fulfilled. In both cases, however, the House did actually vote the necessary funds.
[291]. In 1870, for example, President Grant concluded with the government of San Domingo a treaty which provided for the annexation of that island to the United States. The Senate, after a hard fight, rejected the treaty altogether. Even more notable, of course, was the Senate’s action in declining to ratify the treaty which President Wilson signed at Paris in 1919.
[292]. The English government proposed that the United States and Great Britain should issue the declaration jointly, but President Monroe and his secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, thought it better that the United States should make the declaration alone.
[293]. At the Peace Conference in 1919 the European countries were willing to concede what was virtually a recognition of the Monroe Doctrine, and the covenant of the League of Nations contains a provision that nothing in that document shall affect the validity of “regional understandings, like the Monroe Doctrine, for securing the maintenance of peace” (Article XXI).
[294]. Hiram Bingham, The Monroe Doctrine: An Obsolete Shibboleth (New Haven, 1913).
[295]. No one knows exactly what it means today because its scope has been rather indefinitely extended at various times. No doubt it would be further extended if the occasion should arise. For example, the original doctrine was directed against European powers only. But if Japan should attempt to acquire territory in Central or South America, the Monroe Doctrine would unquestionably be invoked as applicable to an Asiatic power as well.
[296]. Washington was well aware that the United States might have to take a hand in European quarrels if they should assume an extraordinary importance. Notice the exact wording of the passage in his Farewell Address. “It would be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her (Europe’s) politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.” Washington was not in the habit of wasting words, and he did not twice insert the limitation “ordinary” without good reason. By the way, he did not use the phrase “entangling alliances”. That expression was first used by Jefferson in his inaugural address (March 4, 1801).
[297]. From 1815 to 1914 all the great wars were localized. The Crimean War (1854-1855), although five nations took part in it, was confined to the territories around the Black Sea; the War of 1859, in which the French and Italians on the one side fought the Austrians on the other, was settled in Northern Italy. The other important wars were, for the most part, individual duels between two nations or between two sections of a single nation.
[298]. The total amount loaned to European governments by the United States during the war was about ten billion dollars, of which nearly half was loaned to Great Britain.
[299]. The payments made by Germany to Great Britain, France, and Italy, as well as the payments made by these countries to the United States, must inevitably take the form of payment in goods. There is not enough gold in Europe to make payment in gold. All this means that so long as the reparations and loans are being liquidated large imports of goods from Europe are likely to come into this country.
[300]. By the terms of a supplementary treaty, this does not include the main Japanese islands themselves.
[301]. It is said that the Thirty Years’ War reduced the population in some sections of the warring states to one-half or one-third of what it had been when the struggle began. The losses of all the countries engaged in the World War have been estimated to be almost ten millions, more than the entire population of Canada from ocean to ocean. Millions more died from famine and under-nourishment at home. Is it not strange that nations should work for years with might and main to increase the size and prosperity of their populations, then turn around and undo a large part of what they have been able to accomplish? In peace nations labor to alleviate each others’ distress; in war they labor to cause it. Patiently through the decades men of science wrestle with the problem of relieving pain and suffering; then, in an instant, all their skill is devoted to killing, maiming, and suffocating men by the million! There is no wisdom like the wisdom of man, and no folly like it either.
[302]. The covenant was made an integral part of the peace treaty, largely at President Wilson’s insistence, for two reasons: First, because it was believed that this would be a surer way of obtaining the assent of all the great nations to the provisions of the covenant; second, because many of the terms of the treaty (for example, those relating to boundaries and mandates) were framed on the assumption that a League of Nations would be in existence to carry them into effect. Taken together, the treaty and the covenant make the longest international document ever framed, a printed book of 87,000 words—about half the size of this text-book. Nearly a thousand diplomats, experts, and clerks spent more than three months in drafting it.
[303]. Invitations were not extended to Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, Russia, or Mexico. Austria, however, has since been admitted to membership.
[304]. When, for example, a typhus epidemic broke out in Poland, and the Polish authorities found themselves unable to control it, the League sent a commission of health experts to assist them.
[305]. This is because not only Great Britain herself but India, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand are members of the League. It was assumed that the six British votes in the Assembly would always be cast together; but, as a matter of fact, the various British dominions insisted upon having separate votes in order that they might vote according to their own particular interests. In most international matters the interests of Canada, Australia, and South Africa are not at all certain to coincide with those of England.
[306]. Since the treaty and the covenant were joined together, the objections to one applied to the other. Concerning Shantung, see also p. 620.
[307]. The term “soviet” means council or meeting. The constitution of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic may be found in Frank Comerford, The New World, pp. 281-305.
[308]. Nikalai Lenin is now the head of this Council; Leon Trotzky is Minister of War in it. Each member of the Council is head of a department.
[309]. The breakdown was due in part, no doubt, to the disorganization wrought by the war and the internal revolts which broke out in Russia after the war. To make matters worse there were crop failures, with resulting famines, in some of Russia’s best grain-producing regions.
[310]. It is quite true that some men and women work because they like to work and dislike to be idle, or because they feel that what they do is of value to the community, or for some other reason not directly connected with their pay. They form, however, a very small fraction of the total body of wage-earners.
[311]. Voters.
[312]. Annulled by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments.
[313]. Superseded by the Seventeenth Amendment.
[314]. See Seventeenth Amendment.
[315]. See Sixteenth Amendment.
[316]. Superseded by the Twelfth Amendment.
[317]. Modified by the Eleventh Amendment.
[318]. Compare Fourteenth Amendment.
[319]. The first ten Amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, were adopted in 1791.
[320]. See Amendment XIV, Sec. 1, which extends part of this restriction to the States.
[321]. Adopted in 1798 to protect the sovereignty of the States.
[322]. Adopted in 1804, superseding Article II, Sec. 1.
[323]. Adopted in 1865.
[324]. Adopted in 1868.
[325]. Adopted in 1870.
[326]. Adopted in 1913.
[327]. Adopted in 1913.
[328]. Adopted in 1919.
[329]. Adopted in 1920.
Transcriber’s Note
The index entry regarding the duties of the Vice President refers to a note on p. 270, but no such note exists.
The index entry regarding compulsory arbitration in New Zealand refers to a note on p. 419. The note appears on p. 409.
Other errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original. Where the error is in a footnote, the original note is included and the line within it.
| [71.32] | protect a[rg/gr]iculture | Transposed. |
| [80.2] | It wa | Restored. |
| [82.34] | In the case of the Porto Ricans[,] citizenship | Added. |
| [105.10] | They are practical[ in] their nature. | Added. |
| [179.33] | and[ and] the county-manager plans. | Removed. |
| [193.7] | that i[s/t] encourages | Replaced. |
| [250.26] | [I/i]t could act only | Replaced. |
| [316.13] | many states[.] | Added. |
| [329.8] | restocking of lakes with fish)[.] | Added. |
| [353.33] | The Non-Partisan League, pp.269-283[;/.] | Replaced. |
| [379.33] | and future development[.] | Added. |
| [418.10] | a certain p[re/er]centage of the total | Transposed. |
| [465.12] | to the present taxpayers[.] | Added. |
| [468.n2.2] | life of a public i[n/m]provement | Replaced. |
| [470.10] | Public Finance, [pp. ]261-280. | Added. |
| [471.11] | p. 457.[)] | Added. |
| [618.6] | mastery of the Pacific[.] | Added. |
| [673.29] | I do solem[n]ly swear | Inserted. |
| [683.6] | a Senator or Represen[t]ative | Inserted. |