“But,” interposed the Professor with a bewildered air, “how came the People—the masses of the People—to ever submit to these changes?”
“Tut! Tut! The People!” exclaimed the Colonel contemptuously. “How much had they to say in the matter! The power of the People is one of those cant phrases, founded on a popular delusion, which have always existed. In theory, the power of the People is supreme; in reality, a myth. Take it during the past two thousand years. In all these centuries the great masses of the people have been poor, hardworking; their lives replete with stint and suffering. The Few have been rich, pampered, over-indulged and contented. Do you think the masses of the People were really satisfied with this order of things? Do you not believe that they, both as individuals and as a mass, would infinitely have preferred a more even distribution of the good things of this world? At any time and in any country, these masses, had they been organized and united in purpose, could in a day have changed the conditions and brought about this coveted distribution. But they never have been so organized and united, and the special class has ever governed the masses. True, there were your labor unions and your great strikes. Contractors and employers, great and small, were bullied and at times even beaten in the various struggles which ensued, but this really amounted to nothing. Whenever the People really began to grow dangerous and to threaten the existing order of things, the soldiers came forth—soldiers, mark you, drawn from the masses—and the trouble was promptly put an end to.”
“But how about the popular vote?” inquired the Professor.
“The popular vote,” echoed the Colonel with a sneer. “Another delusion! One set of professional politicians set up a platform against another platform devised by another set of professional politicians and both invite the popular vote. The good people would vote for the one, or for the other; but how much was the popular interest, or the popular will, really represented by either? It is true that from time to time reformers sprang up and sought to create new parties and new issues more closely representative of the popular weal and the popular will. How much headway did they make? Defeat by the trained political organizations, commanding ample means and patronage, was invariably the ultimate fate of any such efforts. The really able man preferred to accept the existing conditions and make the best of them. He realized the futility of such undertakings and understood that the rôle of Reformer and the rôle of Martyr were only too closely allied.”
“But in a supreme question,” objected the Professor, “such as the overthrow of the Republic, I should have thought that a naturally free, assertive people, such as the people of the United States, would have made their power felt.”
“Another popular fallacy!” laughed the Colonel. “The people of the United States are a brave people—valorous in war; pushing, clever, enterprising in times of peace. They exalt national heroes to the skies one day, only to pull them down the next. They are super-sensitive to adverse criticism and delight in being told they are the greatest and best of the earth. These are among their many little peculiarities, but to describe them as a people strongly assertive of their rights is to describe wrongly.”
“I can’t agree with you,” said the Professor bluntly.
“Look back fairly and impartially,” answered the Colonel gently, “and I think you will find my words borne out. Take New York—your own city and in your own times. Was ever in any land, or at any period, such arbitrary disregard of the People’s rights submitted to with practically not a murmur of dissent? Do you question this?”
“I will leave it to you to make out your own case,” retorted the Professor.
“Make out my case,” returned the Colonel with warmth; “very well, then! Is it or is it not true that valuable franchises belonging to the People were acquired by trick and device far below their actual value? Is it or is it not true that official corruption was openly and notoriously rampant on every side; that judges sat upon the bench because they were the political creatures of a political boss; nominated and elected, not because of their integrity, or knowledge of the Law, but at the behest of a party leader? The same conditions prevailed amongst the prosecuting officers, so that Justice itself was sullied at her very fountain head. Your police force was nothing more nor less than an organized banditti, clothed with the uniform of law and order and paid by the People; but dispensing oppression and levying blackmail right and left. Am I citing individual cases, or acts done occasionally and in secrecy? Indeed not! The chronicles of your time recite that all this was a matter of daily occurrence and common notoriety—that the very children making mud pies in your gutters knew of it. Then, too, the pages of municipal history are seared with the shameful record of an executive officer who, with others, manipulated a corner in a certain product necessary to the rich and poor. The chronicles record how the conspirators controlling the corner forced up the price at a time when the product was most needed to relieve suffering. The price was prohibitive to the poor. And the women and the little children in your teeming tenements laid down their lives—hundreds upon hundreds of them. But the corner was piling up money for your officer and his associates, and they heeded not the cries of death and despair. The papers of the time were replete with itemized accounts of the suffering, but none raised a hand to stop the iniquity. Is this true, or does history lie?”