The Spirit of America

by Henry Van Dyke

Presidents Harrison and McKinley worked in the same direction. And President Roosevelt, whose first national office was that of Civil Service Commissioner from 1889 to 1895, has raised and strengthened the rules, and applied the merit system to the consular service and other important departments of governmental work.

The result is that out of three hundred and twenty-five thousand positions in the executive civil service one hundred and eighty-five thousand are now classified, and appointments are made either under competitive examination or on the merit system for proved efficiency. This is an immense forward step in the promotion of common order, and it is largely the result of the work of the Civil Service Reform Association, acting upon the formation of public opinion. I believe it would be impossible for any candidate known to favour the Spoils System to be elected to the Presidency of the United States to-day.

A moment of thought will show the bearing of this illustration upon the subject which we are now considering. Here was a big, new, democratic people, self-reliant and sovereign, prosperous to a point where self-complacency was almost inevitable, and grown quite beyond the reach of external correction and control. They had fallen into wretched habits of national housekeeping. Their domestic service was disorderly and incompetent. The party politicians, on both sides, were interested in maintaining this bad service, because they made a profit out of it. The people had been hardened to it; they seemed to be either careless and indifferent, in their large, happy-go-lucky way, or else positively attached to a system which stirred everything up every four years and created unlimited opportunities for office-seeking and salary-drawing. What power could save them from their own bad judgment?

There was no higher authority to set them right. Everything was in their own hands. The case looked hopeless. But in less than thirty years the voluntary effort of a group of clear-sighted and high-minded citizens changed everything. An appeal to the sense of common order, of decency, of propriety, in the soul of the people created a sentiment which was too strong for the selfish politicians of either party to resist. The popular will was enlightened, converted, transformed, and an orderly, just, business-like administration of the Civil Service became, if not an accomplished fact, at least a universal and acknowledged aim of national desire and effort.

It is to precisely the same source that we must look with hope for the further development of harmony, and social equilibrium, and efficient civic righteousness, in American affairs. It is by precisely the same process that America must save herself from the perils and perplexities which are inherent in her own character and in the form of government which she has evolved to fit it.

That boastful self-complacency which is the caricature of self-reliance, that contempt for the minority which is the mockery of fair play, that stubborn personal lawlessness which is the bane of the strong will and the energetic temperament, can be restrained, modified, corrected, and practically conquered, only by another inward force,—the desire of common order, the instinct of social coöperation. And there is no way of stimulating this desire, of cultivating this instinct, at least for the American republic, except the way of voluntary effort and association among the men and women of good-will.

One looks with amazement upon the vast array of “societies” of all kinds which have sprung into being in the United States during the last thirty years. They cover every subject of social thought and endeavour. Their documents and pamphlets and circulars fill the mails. Their appeals for contributions and dues tax the purse. To read all that they print would be a weariness to the flesh. To attend all their meetings and conferences would wreck the most robust listener. To speak at all of them would ruin the most fluent orator. A feeling of humorous discouragement and dismay often comes over the quiet man who contemplates this astonishing phase of American activity.

But if he happens also to be a conscientious man, he is bound to remember, on the other side, that the majority of these societies exist for some practical end which belongs to the common order. The Women’s Clubs, all over the country, have been powerful promoters of local decency and good legislation. The Leagues for Social Service, for Political Education, for Municipal Reform, have investigated conditions, collected facts, and acted as “clearing-houses for human betterment.” The White Ribbon, and Red Ribbon, and Blue Ribbon Clubs have worked for purity and temperance. The Prison Associations have sought to secure the treatment of criminals as human beings. The City Clubs, and Municipal Leagues, and Vigilance Societies have acted as unpaid watchmen over the vital interests of the great cities. The Medical and Legal Societies have used their influence in behalf of sanitary reform and the improvement of the machinery and methods of the courts.

There is no subject affecting the common welfare on which Congress would venture to legislate to-day until the committee to which the bill had been referred had first given a public hearing. At these hearings, which are open to all, the societies that are interested present their facts and arguments, and plead their cause.

Even associations of a less serious character seem to recognize their civic responsibilities. The Society of the Sons of the Revolution prints and distributes, in a dozen different languages, a moral and patriotic pamphlet of “Information for Immigrants.” The Sportsmen’s Clubs take an active interest in the improvement and enforcement of laws for the protection of fish and game. The Audubon Societies in many parts of the country have stopped, or at least checked, the extermination of wild birds of beauty and song for the supposed adornment of women’s hats.