Popular misgovernment in the United States

by Alfred Byron Cruikshank

As for the political oligarchical managers at present in power, from them no aid can ever be expected in any good cause. They are mere time-servers. In fact the politician is the natural enemy of the propertied and capitalistic class. Already, there are plain indications that the universal suffrage governing oligarchy stands ready to sacrifice American property rights. For example, the Vice President of the United States once said in a public speech in the hearing of the writer that there is no natural right in children to inherit from their parents. Here is a glimpse of a politician’s heaven; where all the property in this country will be at the behest of these organized brigands. In fact, a step in the direction of confiscation of private property has already been taken, both here and in England, by the enactment of the lately invented Inheritance Tax Laws. Consider how that so-called tax can be made a ready means of Mexicanizing the nation by confiscating a large part of its accumulated capital, and by destroying at the same time much of the incentive to future accumulations. A nation which is supported by inheritance taxes is like a spendthrift living off his capital whose ultimate ruin is therefore sure. Let a large fortune pass three times through the Probate Court, which might easily happen in twenty years, and about half of it is gone in taxes, to be dissipated, squandered and stolen by politicians. The taste of blood is good to a hungry beast. After despoiling large fortunes they are already beginning to attack smaller ones. A full treasury encourages waste, and so it goes on. How many of the ne’er do wells whom universal suffrage calls to the polls, are aware or could possibly be made to realize, the value of stored up capital, or to understand that the accumulations of money called private fortunes which are thus being broken up and wasted, are the only sources from which enterprise is daily being fed, and millions of workmen and workwomen employed and paid?

Under a universal suffrage régime, government leadership in opposition to Bolshevism cannot be relied upon, and without such leadership it is doubtful if proper resistance to Bolshevism can be expected at the hands of the American people. They are utterly destitute of political power, are without organization and guidance or the material for either. They have never been able to effectually resist the bosses; politically they are a lot of sheep, accustomed to say “baa” and to follow the old bell wethers. It is probable that any party organization having control of the election and governmental machinery could speedily, if it chose, put the proletariat in possession of the government of the manufacturing states, such as New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Illinois. In case of government ownership of transportation and intelligence utilities, the party in power might, in aid of this purpose, get control of a couple of million additional votes. After that, who knows what next? It might then be too late for us to throw off the yoke; like the French of 1793, like the Russians of today, we might find ourselves a subjugated people. People say that in the end truth and justice must triumph; but that phrase “in the end” is portentous. The end of Bolshevism might be delayed for a half century of wasteful struggle, wherein the immediate generation and most of its belongings would probably perish.

To successfully meet the Bolshevist attacks whether made by propaganda or violence, we should thoroughly cleanse our politics and restore our government to its original high place in the respect of the people. It was said in our first chapter that the American democracy has not fulfilled its early promise of creating a government popular in the sense of good and economical public service. Had the political record of the first forty years of the Republic been equalled by that of the following ninety, it is possible that our example would have saved the world from organized Bolshevism. We may choose to shut our eyes to the story of corruption and inefficiency outlined in the foregoing pages, but the rest of the world has not failed to read it and to comment on it. Large numbers of the discontented classes of Europe have interpreted that dismal chronicle to mean the failure of democracy, and have turned to red radicalism. It is notorious that the principal leaders of Russian Bolshevism are native Russians who have lived in America; and the accounts of the falling off of democracy within this country, which were carried back home by them, and by thousands of their countrymen here, no doubt featured largely in the spread of Bolshevik doctrines there. They had heard the praises of American democracy trumpeted abroad, and they came here to see and take part in its perfect work; they found the country in the hands of sordid, corrupt and inefficient politicians, and they turned from democracy in despair. Seeing the misuse of money in our politics, they decided that the power of money should be abolished altogether. Like ourselves, they overlooked completely the fact that the real cause of the diseased condition of our American political life is not the purchasing power of money, but the existence of a purchasable electorate. Recently a man wrote to a New York daily paper, urging that the way to win immigrants to love America, was to teach them the lessons of patriotism found in American history. This patriotic writer only thought of history as found in the school treatises, and utterly ignored the fact that these immigrants are actually learning contemporary American history every day from our newspapers. He wanted them, he said, to be told of Washington, Franklin and Robert Morris. But the immigrant soon learns that not only are those great men dead, but that their successors in power are and are likely to continue to be, a lot of ignorant, greedy and unscrupulous modern politicians. As well tell the modern Greek to be satisfied with political rascality there, because Aristides the Just lived in Athens thousands of years ago.

No one can doubt that a similar feeling of political disappointment with the workings of our government, of hatred and contempt for our oligarchy of politicians, of want of faith in the honesty, integrity, ability and earnestness of those in power, is largely responsible for the progress of American socialism, for other organized protests against the democratic system and for that phenomenon frequently referred to as “popular unrest.”

Elihu Root in the North American Review for December, 1919, refers to Roosevelt, when president about twelve years ago, as recognizing the existence of this popular dissatisfaction, that “a steadily certainly growing discontent was making its way among the people of our country” and that millions were “then beginning to feel that our free institutions were failing.” But Roosevelt was too much of a politician himself to dare to touch the real sore spot, or to propose to cut out the cancer, and neither Root nor Roosevelt, nor any other noted politician has assigned any adequate cause for the unrest of these times. The fact is that the public has come to despise in its heart a political system in which weakness and rascality are so prominent. Roosevelt went up and down, says Root, making frantic appeals for obedience to law. The American people, of whom there are millions just as honest and common-senseful as Roosevelt, know that the law must be obeyed as a practical rule of business; but they refuse to implicitly believe in the wisdom, honesty or sanctity of statutes and ordinances promulgated by an oligarchy of place-hunting politicians. There is no substantial difference between the attitude towards this oligarchy taken by the thrifty honest working class and that of the honest mercantile or professional class; they are all dissatisfied with our governmental system for the same reason; namely, because it is morally and intellectually unworthy of the American people. Jealousy of great fortunes has been mentioned as a possible cause of the popular discontent. But the bulk of the American people are not so meanly and stupidly envious as that suggestion would imply. They are no more inclined to envy a man his honestly acquired wealth than his superior health, strength, musical talent or the acquisition of a foreign language. The honest rich live plainly; they work hard and they give munificently and wisely; they are not in power; the people know it and would much prefer them to the ruling horde which now afflicts us. Roosevelt himself was in the eyes of the masses a rich man, but he was very popular and all the more so because he was known to be pecuniarily independent. The cause of the public dissatisfaction is not the doings of the rich, but the misdoings of the grafting politicians. The latter go about wondering at the cause of what they call “unrest,” when they themselves are that cause. The intelligent workers of modest incomes, farmers, mechanics, traders, professional men, clerks, etc., see with their own eyes a lot of ignorant, sordid knaves obtain undeserved public offices and honors and graft themselves into wealth, and they partly envy and completely dislike and despise the whole lot. Thence it follows that transactions between the politicians and business men of all kinds become distrusted by the public, who are ready to suspect all railroad and other corporations, all importing and manufacturing interests which are affected by legislation or governmental action, whether tariff, taxation, rate regulation or otherwise, of bribery, fraud and corruption in all transactions with government or wherein government officials are concerned. The people are also dissatisfied because the office-holding class is weak and lacking in dignity and firmness. The attitude of a public official with his ear to the ground is low and brings him into contempt. The public finds too much smartness and cleverness and too little manly pride and directness in our machine-made rulers. They find that they lack courage to do affirmative justice with due speed; that they are able to do nothing without first being assured of a majority at their backs. Their decisions are governed not by the application of principles but by a process of additions and subtractions; they are not leaders of the people but followers of the rabble. And this slavish cowardice has been increased since the votes of women are being sought by new forms of pandering. If we want the people to respect and love the government we must give them one worthy of respect and love. To ensure the loyalty and devotion of the immigrant as well as of the native, we must make our political institutions as nearly perfect as possible; we must offer for the support of the American people a government like that of the Fathers; pure, patriotic and efficient, one that can command respect as well as enforce obedience.

We have reaffirmed our belief in democracy as a method of government and have asked the rest of the world to accept it, and we are therefore called upon to point to a method for its practical operation. The only method heretofore found practical, the only one we are prepared to offer, is representative government. Unless that system can be made to work well the experiment of democracy will have been a practical failure. We are bound to see to it that this does not happen, that representative government be made a working success, that it operate with justice, efficiency, economy and humanity. That it has not heretofore operated here or in any part of the world with anything near perfect satisfaction is admitted by its strongest supporters. The friends of democracy are therefore called upon to correct the situation; in the slang of the day, “it is up to us to make good.” This is a part of the national and world work which we Americans have undertaken; it is a continuation of the enterprise of making the world “safe for democracy.” Should it fail hereafter it will be as though it had failed in the German war, and the world would be left to Autocracy, Socialism and Bolshevism to divide between them. It is the claim of the enemies of representative democracy, who are numerous, and many of them very intelligent, that it never can be made successful; that it has failed not only in France, Italy, Spain and Greece but in Great Britain and the United States; and that its failure is due to lack of quality in the electorate, that is to say, in the mass of the population. And these critics are no doubt so far right, that whatever may be the practical shortcomings of the system of representative government they are due to that very cause. Therefore, it is plainly our business to make representative government a success by the only method practicable or possible, namely, by a reform, elevation and purification of the electorate.

Our second step in the way of preparation to meet the menace of Bolshevism is to take a definite stand for property rights, based upon the plain doctrine that our government is designed and intended to protect American civilization expressed as all civilization is expressed, in terms of property. If we did not believe that, if it were not true, then we might as well at once surrender to Bolshevism. But it is not enough that it is accepted as true by all the wise and thoughtful among us. To meet the exigency now before us we must formulate that doctrine, proclaim it, make a creed of it, and teach it to our children and to the ignorant. We cannot expect to destroy Bolshevism by merely using strong language about it. Its strength is partly due to its courage and consistency. To oppose it we must be courageous and consistent. We must meet the attack on property by arming property with weapons of self-defense. Political attack must be met by political action. When fundamentals are assailed foundations must be strengthened. We must weave property rights into the very fabric of our political life and make them an essential part of Americanism. Seven-eighths of our adult men are owners of or interested in property. They should take steps to make their rights therein absolutely secure by creating a private property electorate. Universal suffrage, manhood suffrage, and every other similar anti-social heresy should be expunged from our statute books. Manhood suffrage which formerly spelled merely thievery and plundering, now spells destruction. And female suffrage is even worse, a plain, palpable, odious and contemptible humbug and abomination, a malignant source of peril. The fight against Bolshevism can only be conducted on principles which exclude from the ballot box every form of practical inefficiency. There is no place for ignorance, dependency, and sentimentalism, feminine or other, in an efficient democracy.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE CASE IS URGENT; THERE SHOULD BE NO DELAY WHATEVER IN ESTABLISHING THIS GOVERNMENT UPON A PROPERTY BASIS.

Any demand for a qualified suffrage is certain to be met by a plea for delay. The temptation to postpone action is natural and springs at once to the heart of almost every man whose judgment counsels him to undertake anything new and troublesome. There is, too, an immense party interested in maintaining the present corrupt régime; including the politicians, office holders, political heelers and featherhead agitators, and a considerable predatory band who live off the pickings and stealings of politics. In opposing any effort to establish a voters’ property qualification these will be supported by some honest believers in the present system, as there are honest believers in all established systems; including in this case multitudes of visionaries and the inexperienced, especially the young. Even some of those most willing to admit the mischiefs attendant upon universal suffrage will make the plea of delay for delay’s sake; the plea of the indolent, the inert, the timid, the weak, the hesitating. The first answer to this plea is that the importance of the matter will not admit of delay. The health of the nation is involved, and with a nation as with a man the question of health is one of life itself. When the body is ill and suffering a deadly and poisonous infection not an hour’s delay should be tolerated in applying the necessary corrective. Who can say how soon the man or the nation may have to meet an attack that will strain his or its strength to the very utmost? Next, it is to be realized that there is no proposal of an alternative remedy; and no delay therefore is needed for the purpose of choice. No writer or publicist so much as suggests any other different medicine or treatment, nor is it possible to do so. The cause of the mischief is unlimited suffrage, and nothing but the removal of the cause will avail. There remains to be considered the appeal of those who say “leave it to time” to improve the situation. If there be those who really expect relief in this matter from the passage of time and from the changes that time unaided may bring, they are much mistaken. The same causes which have heretofore produced the mischiefs complained of are still operative and will continue to operate; they include the power of organization, human cupidity, and the existence of a controllable class of voters. The first two of these are permanent and continuous forces; the latter is what we propose to abolish. The political oligarchies never were as strong as they are to-day; the dearth of great and good men in political life was never so great as now; all the mischiefs referred to in this volume are in full blast, if not in one place then in another. One looks in vain into newspapers, books or magazines, one listens in vain to political speeches or private talks for any definite promise or even suggestion of relief from any quarter. The general attitude seems to be that nothing can be done to improve the situation. Each reader of this book is therefore warned that it is for him or some one like him to make the start. This book is an offering to the cause; who will follow it up by action?