Nor is it only in America that reform is necessary. The Press of Europe, also, has strayed so far from its origins as to be a danger to the State. In their inception the newspapers were given freedom, that they might expose and check the corruption and dishonesty of politicians. It was thought that publicity was the best cure for intrigue. For a while the liberty of the Press seemed justified. It is justified no longer. The licence which it assumes has led to far worse evils than those which it was designed to prevent. In other words, the slave has become a tyrant, and where is the statesman who shall rid us of this tyranny? Failure alone can kill what lives only upon popular success, and it is the old-fashioned, self-respecting journals which are facing ruin. Prosperity is with the large circulations, and a large circulation is no test of merit. Success is made neither by honesty nor wisdom. The people will buy what flatters its vanity or appeals to its folly. And the Yellow Press will flourish, with its headlines and its vulgarity, until the mixed population of America has sufficiently mastered the art of life and the English tongue to demand something better wherewith to solace its leisure than scandal and imbecility.
LIBERTY AND PATRIOTISM.
Guarding the entrance to New York there stands, lofty and austere, the statue of Liberty. It is this statue which immigrants, on their way to Ellis Island, are wont to apostrophise. To contemplate it is, we are told, to know the true meaning of life, to taste for the first time the sweets of an untrammelled freedom. No sooner does M. Bartholdi's beneficent matron smile upon you, than you cast off the chains of an ancient slavery. You forget in a moment the years which you have misspent under the intolerable burden of a monarch. Be you Pole or Russ, Briton or Ruthenian, you rejoice at the mere sight of this marvel, in a new hope, in a boundless ambition. Unconscious of what awaits you, you surrender yourself so eagerly to the sway of sentiment that you are unable to observe the perfections of your idol. You see only its vast size. You are content to believe the official statement that 305 feet separate the tip of the lady's torch from low water. You know that you gaze on the largest statue upon earth. And surely it should be the largest, for it symbolises a greater mass of Liberty than ever before was gathered together upon one continent.
For Liberty is a thing which no one in America can escape. The old inhabitant smiles with satisfaction as he murmurs the familiar word. At every turn it is clubbed into the unsuspecting visitor. If an aspirant to the citizenship of the Republic declined to be free, he would doubtless be thrown into a dungeon, fettered and manacled, until he consented to accept the precious boon. You cannot pick up a newspaper without being reminded that Liberty is the exclusive possession of the United States. The word, if not the quality, is the commonplace of American history. It looks out upon you—the word again, not the quality—from every hoarding. It is uttered in every discourse, and though it irks you to listen to the boasting of "Liberty", as it irks you when a man vaunts his honour, you cannot but inquire what is this fetish which distinguishes America from the rest of the habitable globe, and what does it achieve for those who worship it.
In what, then, does the Liberty of America consist? Is it in freedom of opportunity? A career is open to all the talents everywhere. The superstitions of Europe, the old-fashioned titles of effete aristocracies, are walls more easily surmounted than the golden barricades of omnipotent corporations. Does it consist in political freedom? If we are to believe in the pedantry that Liberty is the child of the ballot-box, then America has no monopoly of its blessings. The privilege of voting is almost universal, and the freedom which this poor privilege confers is within the reach of Englishman, German, or Frenchman. Indeed, it is America which sets the worst stumbling-block in the voter's path. The citizen, however high his aspiration after Liberty may be, wages a vain warfare against the cunning of the machine. Where repeaters and fraudulent ballots flourish, it is idle to boast the blessings of the suffrage. Such institutions as Tammany are essentially practical, but they do not help the sacred cause commemorated in M. Bartholdi's statue; and if we would discover the Liberty of America, we must surely look outside the ring of boodlers and politicians who have held the franchise up to ridicule. Is, then, the boasted Liberty a liberty of life? One comes and goes with ease as great in England as in America. There are even certain restrictions imposed in the home of Freedom, of which we know nothing on this side the Atlantic, where we fear the curiosity of the Press as little as we dread the exactions of hungry monopolies. Of many examples, two will suffice to illustrate the hardships of a democratic tyranny. Not long since the most famous actress of our generation was prevented by a trust of all-powerful managers from playing in the theatres of America, and was compelled to take refuge in booths and tents. Being a lady of courage and resource, she filled her new rôle with perfect success, and completely outwitted her envious rivals. The victory was snatched, by the actress's own energy, from the very jaws of Liberty. Far more unfortunate was the fate of M. Gorki, who visited America to preach the gospel of Freedom, as he thought, in willing ears. With the utmost propriety he did all that was expected of him. He apostrophised the statue in a voice tremulous with emotion. He addressed the great Continent, as it loves to be addressed. "America! America!" he exclaimed, "how I have longed for this day, when my foot should tread the soil where despotism cannot live!" Alas for his lost enthusiasm!
A despot, grim and pitiless, was waiting for him round the corner. In other words, the proprietor of his hotel discovered that Mme. Gorki had no right to that name, and amid the cheers of the guests he and his companion were driven shamefully into the street. Were it not for the wanton inconvenience inflicted upon M. Gorki, the comedy of the situation would be priceless. The Friends of Russian Freedom, piously enamoured of assassination, and listening intently for the exquisite reverberation of the deadly bomb, sternly demand of the Apostle his marriage-lines. The Apostle of Revolution, unable to satisfy the demand, is solemnly excommunicated, as if he had apostrophised no statue, as if he had felt no expansion of his lungs, no tingling of his blood, when he first breathed the air of Freedom. O Liberty! Liberty! many follies have been committed in thy name! And now thy voice is hushed in inextinguishable laughter!
The truth is, American Liberty is the mere creature of rhetoric. It is a survival from the time when the natural rights of man inspired a simple faith, when eager citizens declared that kings were the eternal enemies of Freedom. Its only begetter was Thomas Jefferson, and its gospel is preached in the famous Declaration of Independence. The dogmatism and pedantry upon which it is based are easily confuted. Something else than a form of government is necessary to ensure political and personal liberty. Otherwise the Black Republic would be a model to England. But Jefferson, not being a philosopher, and knowing not the rudiments of history, was unable to look beyond the few moral maxims which he had committed to memory. He was sure that the worst republic was better than the noblest tyranny the world had ever seen. He appealed not to experience but to sentiment, and he travelled up and down Europe with his eyes closed and his mind responsive only to the echoes of a vain theory. "If all the evils which can arise among us," said he, "from the republican form of our government, from this day to the Day of Judgment, could be put into a scale against what France suffers from its monarchical form in a week, or England in a month, the latter would preponderate." Thus he said, in sublime ignorance of the past, in perfect misunderstanding of the future. And his empty words echo to-day in the wigwams of Tammany.
All forms of government have their strength and their weakness. They are not equally suitable to all races and to all circumstances. It was this obvious truth that Jefferson tore to shreds before the eyes of his compatriots. He persuaded them to accept his vague generalities as a sober statement of philosophic truth, and he aroused a hatred of kingship in America which was comic in expression and disastrous in result. It was due to his influence that plain citizens hymned the glories of "Guillotina, the Tenth Muse," and fell down in worship before a Phrygian cap. It was due to his influence that in 1793 the death of Louis XVI. was celebrated throughout the American continent with grotesque symbolism and farcical solemnity. A single instance is enough to prove the malign effect of Jefferson's teaching. At Philadelphia the head of a pig was severed from its body, and saluted as an emblem of the murdered king.
"Each one," says the historian, "placing the cap of liberty upon his head, pronounced the word 'tyrant'! and proceeded to mangle with his knife the head of the luckless creature doomed to be served for so unworthy a company." And the voice of Jefferson still speaks in the land. Obedient to his dictate, Americans still take a sentimental view of Liberty. For them Liberty is still an emotion to feel, not a privilege to enjoy. They are willing to believe that a monarch means slavery. America is the greatest republic on earth, they argue, and therefore it is the chosen and solitary home of Freedom.