Popular misgovernment in the United States

by Alfred Byron Cruikshank

Consider now the interest of Society in the proper regulation of the suffrage as the source and foundation of the State. Not alone is she vitally interested in the maintenance of the present civilizing forces which are sending us forward day by day on the march to higher planes of life; but also in preserving the material and intellectual inheritance of all the ages. This inheritance includes all the accumulated acquisitions of the civilized human race; its property, treasures, achievements and traditions; all the products of its mental and physical endeavor, the fruits of its art, literature, science and industry. These constitute the body of civilization in which its soul and mind are preserved, nourished and kept alive; they form a social trust for ourselves and for posterity. “Civilization,” said Burke, is “a triple contract between the noble dead, the “living and the unborn.” And by that contract we are forbidden to live or to legislate so as to cheat those who come after.

Society’s process for the preservation of our intellectual inheritance is called education; her method for the preservation of our material inheritance is the institution of private property rights. Humanity, property and education combined, constitute the material endowment of society, wherewith she works for the advancement of the human race, or as otherwise expressed for the promotion of civilization. Obviously she is justified in adopting all possible precautions to guard and preserve this precious deposit committed to her charge, nor can it be doubted that she should carefully select its custodians and overseers. Equally plain is it that since the civilization of the nation is and has been produced entirely by the thrifty members of the Social Commonwealth and remains in their guardianship, they and they alone, as constituting the class who have produced and cared for the same should be continued in its care as the representatives of Society and in her behalf; and should be authorized to formulate the laws and measures which make for its protection and advancement. To this end and purpose Society is constantly endeavoring. A volume could be written illustrating the exercise of her steady and mighty influence in placing the scepter in the hands of her chosen ones. Rome was the ancient conservator of civilization, and to her was given sway for centuries; England of all modern nations has been most devoted to preserving the best of the product of the generations as they pass on, and she and her race were made foremost among nations and peoples. Look at the community where you live and you will easily note how Society bestows influence, authority, distinction and esteem upon her own workers, the builders and creators of civilization and upon their children, and passes contemptuously by the unsocial and anti-social. You cannot fail to observe her disdain of the mere talkers and wasters and how she brings to naught the works and cheap distinctions of a manhood suffrage constituency. To the silly French Jacobin scheme of ascertaining the best by counting noses, Society opposes her own never failing system of continuous study, training and selection. She does not favor, on the contrary, she discourages the absurd and impossible purpose of modern liberalism of giving expression to ignorant individual wills with all their clashing selfishness and brutality. She does not favor the politician’s purpose of perpetuating moral feebleness and incapacity, nor of forwarding the foolish aims and ideas of the weak and the worthless. She is far from giving office or power to such or from even hearkening to their prattle and humbug. She has much to overcome. The power that makes for righteousness is not permitted to operate without the opposition of fools and charlatans; and it is within Society’s function to master this opposition, which she invariably does in the end. She constantly refuses to descend as manhood suffrage does to the level of the ignoble; on the contrary when they presume to oppose her in her momentous business she undertakes either to conquer them by reclamation or to see that they are hanged or otherwise removed out of her implacable path.

It is the crime of manhood suffrage that it constantly endeavors to oppose and thwart this all beneficent social tendency; that it pushes to the front and seeks to give power in civic affairs to the non-social and anti-social classes, consisting of men devoid of the instinct for the creation and preservation of the useful and the beautiful, and who cannot safely be trusted as their guardians. In so doing it perverts the State from its proper functions. The State has no rightful authority over men’s lives except as the deputy of Society, and its every legitimate act should and must be for the promotion of beneficial social objects. It is its clear duty as such deputy to place political control in the hands of those gifted with distinguished social attributes; and an essential and the first step in that direction is the discarding of manhood suffrage and all similar unnatural political stupidities which inevitably lead to Jacobinism, Bolshevism, anarchy, ruin and death.

CHAPTER V

THE CAPACITY TO CREATE AND PRESERVE PRIVATE PROPERTY IS THE PROPER TEST AND PROOF OF QUALIFICATION FOR ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP IN AN ADVANCED DEMOCRACY.

There are two principal arguments in favor of a property qualification for voters; one the argument of fitness, that the propertied class are the most capable of passing upon affairs of state; the other the argument of justice, that the business of government principally concerns property, namely, the belongings and the productions of propertied people. Both these arguments assume that what is wanted is an honest and efficient government, not a corrupt and inefficient one.

The demand for a property qualification for voters is predicated upon the theory that there is an obligation on the part of the citizens of a state to contribute towards its material prosperity; a duty of such importance that the state cannot flourish in the face of its neglect; that the class of men who are incapable of creating and preserving property is unfitted to form part of the electorate; and that neither native birth nor the taking of a naturalization oath is sufficient qualification for the duties and function of active citizenship in a genuine democracy. There may be valid excuses such as ill health, ignorance, etc., for the individual’s failure to perform his part in the work of civilization, but such excuses do not disprove the existence of the obligation in others, but rather emphasize it. It is not well fulfilled when the citizen only produces enough from day to day for his immediate support, or wastes the surplus, leaving the burden upon others to provide for the time of old age, sickness and incapacity. Its proper performance therefore involves the exercise of the virtue known as prudence, a systematic saving or accumulation of property for the joint benefit of the individual and the State. The practice of this virtue is incumbent not merely upon good citizens but upon every citizen and tends to qualify for active citizenship. Like cleanliness, it is not a superfluous but an essential virtue. The neglect of home cleanliness may breed a pestilence; the neglect of home prudence may unfairly burden the community; such neglect is an act of disloyalty to Society and to the State, and is a proof of such civic incapacity and indifference as to require in any well regulated political community, the placing of the offender in the class of passive citizens who are not entitled to the suffrage. His country’s protection is a sufficient reward for one of that class for merely taking the trouble to be born in her domain. Let him be content to be what Sieyes called a passive citizen till he has proved his qualification to be an active one. If there be, which is doubtful, exceptional cases of men such that neither they nor their forefathers were actually able to earn more than enough to support them, or having earned it to take care of it, and yet are capable of directing affairs of state they are so few as to be negligible. Such men need the spur of disfranchisement to make them go ahead, and meantime the thrifty can legislate for them. Constitutional legislation can only deal with groups, or classes, and cannot properly attempt to provide for such extraordinary exceptions.

Democracy is an ideal form of government for none but a highly capable people; a representative government of a worthless or a politically indifferent constituency will be a worthless government, the more representative the more worthless. Witness Hayti, San Domingo, Mexico, and certain Central American or South American democracies. These are totally incapable because their electorates are totally incapable, and in this country the democracy, though not a complete failure, is a partial failure, namely, to the extent that its life is vitiated by an inferior constituency. There are thousands of men, not to speak of women, on our voting list who are as incompetent to exercise the functions of voters as the inferior orders of Mexico or Hayti. Many of the improvident classes have minds absolutely childish and utterly incapable of foresight or serious reflection. At an election held in Ashton in England under the recently extended suffrage system, a theatrical man named de Freece was elected to Parliament not because of his political views, but because of the amusing performances of his wife, a noted vaudeville actress. We quote from a newspaper:

“Vesta Tilley, the most popular male impersonator London has known in decades, took a prominent part in the campaign. Her ‘Picadilly Johnnie with the little glass eye’ and other popular songs, it was admitted played a far greater part in the election than her husband’s political views.” We may be sure it was the unpropertied and non-tax-paying rabble whose vote went in favor of “Picadilly Johnnie.” Lord Bryce’s description of the indifferent or incompetent British voters applies well enough to our own:

“Though they possess political power, and are better pleased to have it, they do not really care about it—that is to say, politics occupy no appreciable space in their thoughts and interests. Some of them vote at elections because they consider themselves to belong to a party, or fancy that on a given occasion they have more to expect from the one party than from the other; or because they are brought up on election day by some one who can influence them.... Others will not take the trouble to go to the polls.... Many have not even political prepossessions, and will stare or smile when asked to which party they belong. They count for little except at elections, and then chiefly as instruments to be used by others. So far as the formation or exercise of opinion goes, they may be left out of sight.” (American Commonwealth, Vol. II, pp. 319-20.)