Popular misgovernment in the United States

by Alfred Byron Cruikshank

ANSWER TO THE PLEA THAT THE PRIVILEGE OF SUFFRAGE BE GRANTED TO ALL AS A MEANS OF POLITICAL EDUCATION; AND HEREIN OF SILK PURSES MADE FROM SOWS’ EARS AND OF AMATEUR HARPING

Strange as it may seem to any one who has given any serious thought to the subject, the proposition has been, if not urged, at least put forward, by respectable writers, that the suffrage should be granted to all citizens without distinction, solely for the educational benefit they will receive from it. The voting booths are evidently viewed by these easy-going minds not as they really are, as judgment seats, as the beginnings and sources of actual government, but as schools for all comers in politics and patriotism; as practise grounds; experimental stations; where every clumsy dunce may try his hand, hit or miss. The author has not been able to find any well-worked-out argument in favor of this fantastic proposition, but it has been seriously presented by men who evidently thought they were uttering sense. The strongest plea in its favor heretofore published appears to be the following from Maccunn, which is quoted in full because the notion is such a queer one that it cannot safely be paraphrased.

“Doubters about democratic franchise are apt to insist that no man should have a vote till he is fit to use it. The necessary rejoinder, however, is that men can only become fit to have votes by first using them. There is no other way. Preparation there may be, in the home, in school, in industrial organization, in the conduct of business. But these will not suffice. Not so easily is the citizen made. It is as Aristotle has it; the harper is not made otherwise than by harping, nor the just man otherwise than by the doing of just deeds. How can it be otherwise here, how can the capable voter be made except by voting capably? Citizenship is, after all, but a larger art; and to teach men to do their duties to the State, the only finally effective plan is to give them duties to the State to do. It is for this reason that many a believer in Democracy is ready with an equanimity wrongly construed by his critics as levity or simplicity, to sit unmoved under the warning that a raw Democracy may mismanage; or that even an experienced Democracy may not be the best machine for governing.” (Ethics of Citizenship, p. 81.)

And again as stated by Professor Woodburn:

“It is the old truth that one learns to do by doing. There is no other way. Here is seen the unreason of the contention that no man is entitled to the enjoyment of political rights till he is proved fit to exercise them. It is an impossible requirement. Before he has political rights no man’s fitness for them can be proved. There are certain tests, educational and economic, which may be accepted as securities, but there is only one proof of fitness—the experimental proof which shows how men use their rights after they have them....”

“The ethical argument for a wide suffrage—as wide as personality and manhood—is that voting is involved in the right of self-government; that it promotes patriotism and leads to an interest in public affairs; that it tends to remove discontent and promote a feeling of partnership and responsibility; that civil and religious liberty depend upon power, and that the community or body of men who have no political power have no security for their political liberty; that the suffrage is an enlightening and educational agency and that only by active citizenship can the political virtues be developed.” (Political Parties, p. 342.)

This, which may be called the “harper theory,” is directly contrary to the doctrine herein advocated, that voting is a function of government to be operated solely for the benefit of the state, and by means of machinery as perfect and efficient as art and science can make it; the “harper” theory being that the election power house is a practise school for amateurs and blockheads, to be operated in the vague hope that the use of it may somehow improve their natures and understandings. The mere statement of this proposition ought to make its gross absurdity manifest to everybody. It would justify giving the suffrage to children sixteen years of age. As well propose to let boys snowball the passers by, because it would tend to give them exercise and raise their spirits; or to let the hens scratch in the garden, because they get such benefit from it.

The reasoning of the extracts above given strangely ignores the public interests directly involved, the mischiefs of unwise and corrupt voting and the real purpose and history of public elections in this country. Not a word as to the importance of selecting honest and competent men for office; not a hint at the notorious political scandals heretofore caused by the frequent election of fools and knaves; nothing said about the systematic use of the low voting class as organized political banditti. The notedly unfit must continue to vote knavery and folly into high places, and the honest and capable must be discredited and sent to the rear; peculation and blundering must continue indefinitely, in the hope that a set of ignorant, idle, shiftless, dissipated and worthless men may learn to do well by being trained by politicians to do evil. No doubt the act of voting will make even an incapable man think for a few minutes; possibly he may be tempted to wonder what it all means; his mind may be instructed as that of the small child who experiments with a hammer and a looking glass. We are told that the “harper is not made otherwise than by harping,” but his practising is conducted under the control of a master, and not at a public function. A better illustration than Aristotle’s harper would be the Irishman in company, who had never played the violin but was willing he said to do his best if desired. “How can the capable voter be made except by voting capably?” What is complained of is that he is voting not capably but incapably; and is being trained for that purpose. The assertion that men cannot be trained for any function except by the exercise of it is absurd. The universal practice of mankind is to the contrary. According to the “harper” theory, lawyers, doctors and engineers should be admitted to practise, and army officers granted commissions without preparation; since no man can prove his ability in anything until he has attempted its exercise. While it is perfectly true that no man’s fitness for any enterprise, profession or work can be finally ascertained except by actual test, and not always then, yet preparation may be required and preliminary tests made whereby the capacity of classes of men can be judged in advance; and the fear of the mischiefs that the ignorant or unskilled practitioner may do calls for the requirement of these wise precautions. It is well known that appropriate preparatory instruction and discipline tend to qualify men for certain duties, and the lack of them to disqualify them therefor; that a class of men trained for law, engineering, medicine, surgery, or the army will probably become competent officers, engineers, lawyers, doctors, etc., while untrained men will be absolutely incompetent. Laymen are not put on the bench, there to learn the law at the expense of a series of blunders. The same theory which is applied in licensing men for the professions and in selections for the judiciary is that which should be applied in establishing suffrage tests. Those who desire to be allowed to meddle with government should first be required to think; and if ignorant, to learn in some other way than at the expense of the public weal. The training of men as voters should be carried on in the school of life, where their mistakes will injure only themselves, and that to a small degree, and not the whole community or nation to a great degree. To permit people who have never practised thinking, to begin by experimenting in the making of laws to govern their neighbors, or in the appointment of officials, is preposterous. The late war and a hundred other similar experiences ought surely to have taught the most silly of our doctrinaires, and the most absurd of our demagogues, how dangerous it is for fools to meddle with the affairs of government, and how reprehensible it is for sensible people to permit the fools to do so.

What these writers above quoted must mean if they mean anything practicable, is that those who are already capable voters are stimulated by the actual exercise of the franchise into greater curiosity and knowledge of public affairs. This is undoubtedly true; the young doctor learns by practice, but only after he is qualified to practise. An untrained man would never become a competent physician by killing patients. The argument for the “harper” theory confuses the question; it ignores the difference in capacity between classes of citizens, and thus misses the point. It urges the educational value of the suffrage to all voters without making a proper distinction between the intelligent and propertied men and the unintelligent floaters and other controllable voters. But it is not proposed to disfranchise the former, and they do not need the suffrage for educational purposes. The question then is entirely confined to the venal and otherwise dangerous residuum, whether they shall be invited to take part in government merely in order to stimulate them to think on state questions. The answer cannot be doubtful. We may recognize the fact that the interest in politics of an already capable voter is probably stimulated by his taking part in an election; but the proposal that a dishonest or incapable man’s vote should be invited merely for the purpose of starting his dormant interest in politics, or in the hope of stimulating him to be more of a patriot and less of a rascal is ridiculous.

There is as already pointed out in a previous chapter a school of preparation and a test for voters in full operation, of whose valuable instruction the state may take the benefit; namely the school of business and the test of business success. In that school all may aspire to earn the certificate of diligence, industry and good judgment, which in the shape of a fair amount of material prosperity is given to all successful aspirants. This method will not be infallible any more than the graduate professional examinations; but it will establish the principle of fitness; it will purify and elevate politics and will afford a fairer test than any other at present known to the world.