The word "politics" means two entirely separate things in England and in the United States. Understanding the word in its English sense, it is conspicuously untrue that the "best people" in America do not take at least as much an interest in politics as the "best people" take in England. Selecting as a representative of the "best people" of America, any citizen eminent in his particular community—capitalist, landed proprietor or "real-estate owner," banker, manufacturer, lawyer, railway president, or what not,—that man as a usual thing takes a very active interest in politics, and not in the politics of the nation only, but of his State and his municipality. He is known to be a pillar of one party or the other; he gives liberally of his own funds and of the funds of his firm or company to the party treasury[229:1]; he is consulted by, and advises with, the local committees; representatives of the national committees or from other parts of the State call upon him for information; he concerns himself intimately with the appointments to political office made from his section of the country; he attends public meetings and entertains visiting speakers at his house; as far as may be judicious (and sometimes much further), he endeavours by his example or precept to influence the votes and ways of thought of those in his service. The chances of his being sent to Congress or to the Senate, of his becoming a cabinet minister, being appointed to a foreign mission, or accepting a position on some commission of a public character, are vastly greater than with the man of corresponding position in England. So far from not taking an interest in politics, as Englishmen understand the phrase, he is commonly a most energetic and valuable supporter of his party.
But—and here is the nub of the matter—politics in America include whole strata of political work which are scarcely understood in England. When the English visitor is told in the United States that "our best people will not take any interest in politics," it is usually in the office of a financier, or at a fashionable dinner table, in New York or some other of the great cities. What is intended to be conveyed to him is that the "best people" will not take part in the active work in municipal politics or in that portion of the national politics which falls within the municipal area. The millionaire, the gentleman of refinement and leisure, will not "take off his coat" and attend primary meetings, or make tours of the saloons and meet Tammany or "the City Hall gang" on its own ground. As a matter of fact it is rather surprising to see how often he does it; but it is spasmodically and in occasional fits of enthusiasm for Reform, "with a large R." And, whatever temporary value these intermittent efforts may have (and they have great value, if only as a warning to the "gangs" that it is possible to go too far), they are in the long run of little avail against the constant daily and nightly work of the members of a "machine" to whom that work means daily bread.
I have said that it is surprising to see how often these "best people" do go down into the slums and begin work at the beginning; and the tendency to do so is growing more and more frequent. The reproach that they do not do it enough has not the force to-day that once it had. Meanwhile in England there is little complaint that the same people do not do that particular work, for the excellent reason that that work does not exist to be done. It would only be tedious here to go into an elaborate explanation of why it does not exist. The reason is to be found in the differences in the political structure of the two countries—in the much more representative character of the government (or rather of the methods of election to office) in America—in the multiplication of Federal, State, county, and municipal office-holders—in the larger number of offices, including many which are purely judicial, which are elective, and which are filled by party candidates elected by a partisan vote—in the identification of national and municipal politics all over the country.
Of all these causes, it is probably the last which is fundamentally most operative. The local democracy, local republicanism everywhere, is a part of the national Democratic or Republican organisation. The party as a whole is composed of these municipal units. Each municipal campaign is conducted with an eye to the general fortunes of the party in the State or the nation; and the same power that appoints a janitor in a city hall may dictate the selection of a presidential candidate.
Until very recently, this phenomenon was practically unknown in England. The "best person"—he who "took an interest in politics" as a Liberal or as a Conservative—was no more concerned, as Liberal or Conservative, in the election of his town officers than he was accustomed to take part in the weekly sing-song at the village public house. National politics did not touch municipal politics. Within the last two decades or so, however, there has been a marked change, and not in London and a few large cities alone.
Englishmen who have been accustomed to believe that the high standard of purity in English public life, as compared with what was supposed to be the standard in America, was chiefly owing to the divorcement of the two, are not altogether gratified at the change or easy in their mind as to the future. London is still a long way from having such an organisation as Tammany Hall in either the Moderate or Progressive party; but it is not easy to see what insuperable obstacles would exist to the formation of such an organisation, with certain limitations, if a great and unscrupulous political genius should arise among the members of either party in the London County Council and should bend his energies to the task. It is not, of course, necessary that, because Englishmen are approximating to the American system in this particular, they should be unable to avoid adopting its worst American abuses. But it will do no harm if Englishmen in general recognise that what is, it is to be hoped, still far from inevitable, was a short time ago impossible. If Great Britain must admit an influence which has, even though only incidentally, bred pestilence and corruption elsewhere, it might be well to take in time whatever sanitary and preventive measures may be available against similar consequences.[232:1]
Meanwhile in the United States there is continually being raised, in ever increasing volume, the cry for the separation of local and national politics. It is true that small headway has yet been made towards any tangible reform; but the desire is there. Again, therefore, it is curious that in politics, as in so many other things, there are two currents setting in precisely opposing directions in the two countries—in America a reaction against corruptions which have crept in during the season of growth and ferment and an attempt to return to something of the simplicity of earlier models, and, simultaneously in England, hardly a danger, but a possibility of sliding into a danger, of admitting precisely those abuses of which the United States is endeavouring to purge itself. The tendencies at work are exactly analogous to those which, as we have seen, are operating to modify the respective modes of speech of the two peoples. What the ultimate effect of either force will be, it is impossible even to conjecture. But it is unpleasant for an Englishman to consider even the remotest possibility of a time coming, though long after he himself is dead, when the people of America will draw awful warnings from the corrupt state of politics in England, and bless themselves that in the United States the municipal rings which dominate and scourge the great cities in England are unknown.
At present that time is far distant, and there can be no reasonable doubt that there is much more corruption in public affairs in the United States than in England. The possibilities of corruption are greater, because there are so many more men whose influence or vote may be worth buying; but it is to be feared that the evil does not exceed merely in proportion to the excess of opportunity. Granted that bribery and the use of undue influence are most obvious and most rampant in those spheres which have not their counterpart in Great Britain—in municipal wards and precincts, in county conventions and State legislatures—it still remains that the taint has spread upwards into other regions which in English politics are pure. There is every reason to think that the Englishman is justified in his belief that the motives which guide his public men and the principles which govern his public policy are, on the whole, higher than those which guide and inspire and govern the men or policies of any other nation. Bismarck's (if it was Bismarck's) confidence in the parole de gentleman is still justified. In America, a similar faith in matters of politics would at times be sorely tried.
Perhaps as good an illustration as could be cited of the greater possibilities of corruption in the United States, is contained in a statement of the fact that a very few thousand dollars would at one time have sufficed to prevent Mr. Bryan from becoming the Democratic candidate for the Presidency in 1896. This is not mere hearsay, for I am able to speak from knowledge which was not acquired after the event. Nor for one moment is it suggested that Mr. Bryan himself was thus easily corruptible, nor even that those who immediately nominated him could have been purchased for the sum mentioned.
The fact is that for a certain specified sum the leaders of a particular county convention were willing to elect an anti-Bryan delegation. The delegation then elected would unquestionably control the State convention subsequently to be held; and the delegation to be elected again at that convention would have a very powerful influence in shaping the action of the National Convention at St. Louis. The situation was understood and the facts not disputed. Those to whom the application for the money was made took all things into consideration and determined that it was not worth it; that it would be better to let things slide. They slid. If those gentlemen had foreseen the full volume of the avalanche that was coming, I think that the money would have been found.
