"Come down to the club to-night; we are going to talk over the coming campaign," said one man to another in an American city of moderate size and ideal conditions.
"Excuse me," was the answer; "we have a theater party on hand to-night."
Yes; but while the elegant gentleman of society enjoys the witty conversation of charming women, and while the business man is attending to his personal affairs and nothing else, the other fellows are determining nominations, and under the direction of able and creative political captains shaping the policies of parties, and in the end the fate of the Nation.
Of course that is all right if that is your conception of American citizenship. But if this is going to be "a government of the people and by the people," you, as one of the people, have got to take part in it. That means you have got to take part in it all the time.
Occasional spasms of violent civic virtue amount to little in their permanent results. They only scare bad men for a day or two. Their very ardor soon burns them out. The citizen has got to do more than that—he has got to take an every-day-and-every-week interest in our civic life. If he does not, our brave and beautiful experiment in self-government will surely fail and we shall be ruled not even by a trained and skilful tyrant, but by a series of coarse and corrupt oligarchies.
In ancient Israel a certain proportion of the year's produce was given to the Temple. In like manner, if popular government means anything to you, you have got to give up a certain portion of your time and money to being a part of this popular government.
Just this is the most important matter in our whole National life. Recently there died the greatest master of practical politics America has produced. Firmly he had kept his steel hand upon his state for thirty years. A dozen times were mighty efforts made to break his over-lordship. Each time his resourcefulness, audacity, and genius confounded his enemies. But finally that undefeated conqueror, Death, took this old veteran captive.
He left an able successor in his seat of power, but a man without that prestige of invulnerability which a lifetime of political combat and victory had given the deceased leader. "Here," said every one, "is an opportunity to overthrow the machine." Within a few months an election occurred—not a National election, but one in which the "machine" might have been crippled.
But, mirabile dictu, the "good people," the "reformers," the "society" and "business" classes, did not come out to vote. They not only formed no plans to set up a new order of things, they did not even go to the polls. Yet these were the descendants of the men who founded the Nation and who set free institutions in practical operation.
This shows how American institutions, like everything else, have in themselves the seeds of death if they are not properly exercised. When the great body of our citizens become afflicted with civic paralysis, it is the easiest thing in the world for the strong and resourceful "boss," by careful selection of his precinct committeemen and other local workers all over his state, to seize power—legislative, executive, and even judicial. It has been done more than once in certain places in this country.