The Americans

by Hugo Münsterberg

Now on a large scale such transactions can be no longer carried on directly. All the citizens of the state cannot come together to nominate the party candidate for governor. For this purpose, therefore, electors have to be chosen, every one by a strict majority vote, and these meet to fix finally on the candidates of the party. And when it comes to the President of the whole country, the voting public elects a congress of electors, and these in turn choose other electors, and this twice-sifted body of delegates meets in national convention to name the candidate whom the party will support in the final, popular elections. Through such a strict programme for nominations the duties of the voters towards their party are just doubled, and it becomes an art considerably beyond the ability of the average citizen to move through this regressive chain of elections without losing his way. It requires, in short, an established and well articulated organization to arrange and conduct the popular convocations, to deliberate carefully on the candidates to be proposed for nomination, and to carry the infinitely complicated and yet unavoidable operations through to their conclusion.

Finally, another factor enters in, which is once more quite foreign to the political life of Germany. Every American election is strictly local, in the sense that the candidate is invariably chosen from among the voters. In Germany, when a provincial city is about to send a representative to the Reichstag, the party in power accounts it a specially favourable circumstance if the candidates are not men of that very city, to suffer the proverbial dishonour of prophets in their own country, and prefers to see on the ballot the names of great party leaders from some other part of the empire. And when Berlin, for example, selects a mayor, the city is glad to call him from Breslau or Königsberg. This is inconceivable to the American. It is a corollary to the doctrine of self-determination that whenever a political district, whether village or city, selects a representative, the citizens shall not only nominate and elect their candidate, but that they shall also choose him from their own midst. But this makes it at once necessary for the party to have its organized branches in every nook and corner of the country. A single central organization graciously to provide candidates for the whole land is not to be thought of. The party organization must be everywhere efficient, and quick to select and weigh for the purposes of the party such material as is at hand. It is obvious that this is a very intricate and exacting task, and that if the organization were sentimental, loose, or undisciplined, it would go to pieces by reason of the personal and other opposing interests which exist within it. And if it were less widely branched or less machine-like in its intricate workings, it would not be able to do its daily work, pick candidates for posts of responsibility, nominate electors, and elect its nominees; and eventually it would sink out of sight. The American political party is thus an essentially complete and independent organization.

Two evils are necessarily occasioned by this invulnerable organization of party activities, both of which are peculiar and of such undoubtedly bad consequences as to strike the most superficial observer, and specially the foreigner; and yet both of which on closer view are seen to be much less serious than one might have supposed at first. After a party has grown up and become well organized in its purpose of representing these or those political principles and of defending and propagating them, it may at length cease to be only the means to an end, and become an end unto itself. There is the danger that it will come to look on its duties as being nothing else than to keep itself in power, even by denying or opposing the principles with which it has grown up. Moreover, such an organization exacts a colossal amount of labour which must be rewarded in some form or other; and so it will find it expedient, quite apart from the political ideals of the party, to exert its influence in the patronage of state and other offices. The result is that the rewards and honours conferred necessarily draw men into the service of the party who care less for its ideals than for the emoluments they are to derive. And thus two evils spring up together; firstly, the parties lose their principles, and, secondly, take into their service professional politicians who have no principles to lose. We must consider both matters more in detail, the party ideals and the politicians.

America has two great parties, the Republican, which is just now in power, and the Democratic. Other parties, as, for instance, the Populist, are small, and while they may for a while secure a meagre representation in Congress, they are too insignificant to have any chance of success in the presidential elections: although, to be sure, this does not prevent various groups of over-enthusiastic persons from seizing the politically unfitting and impracticable occasion to set up their own presidential candidate as a sort of figure-head. Any political amateur, who finds no place in the official parties, may gather a few friends under his banner and start a new, independent party; but the bubble bursts in a few days. And even if it is a person like Admiral Dewey, whose party banner is the flag under which he has sent an enemy’s fleet to the bottom, he will succeed only in being amusing. The regular, organized parties are the only ones which seriously count in politics. It sometimes happens, however, that a few months before the elections a small band of politically or industrially influential men will meet to consider the project of a third party, while their real aim is to create a little organization whose voting power will be coveted by both of the great parties. In this way the founders plan to force one or both of these to make concessions to the principles of their little group, since the most important feature is that Republicans and Democrats are so nearly equally balanced that only a slight force is needed to turn the scales to either side. In recent elections McKinley and Cleveland have each been elected twice to the Presidency, and no one can say whether the next presidential majority will be Republican or Democrat. On Cleveland’s second election the Democrats had 5,556,918, and the Republicans 5,176,108 votes, while the Populists made a showing of one million votes. But four years later the tables were turned, and McKinley won on 7,106,199 votes, while Bryan lost on 6,502,685. It is clear, therefore, that neither of the parties has to fear that a third party will elect its candidate; nor can either rest on old laurels, for any remission of effort is a certain victory for the other side. A third party is dangerous only in so far as it is likely to split up one of the two parties and so weaken it in an otherwise almost equal competition.

What, now, are the principles and aims of the Republican and Democratic parties? Their names are not significant, since neither do the Republicans wish to do away with American democracy, nor do the Democrats have any designs on the republican form of government. At the opening of the nineteenth century the present Democrats were called “Democratic-Republicans,” and this long abandoned name could just as well be given to all surviving parties. Neither aristocracy nor monarchy nor anarchy nor plutocracy has ever so far appeared on a party programme, and however hotly the battle may be waged between Republicans and Democrats, it is forever certain that both opponents are at once Democrats and Republicans. Wherein, then, do they differ?

The true party politician of America does not philosophize overmuch about the parties; it is enough for him that one party has taken or is likely to take this, and the other party that position on the living questions, and beyond this his interest is absorbed by special problems. He is reluctant enough when it comes to taking up the nicer question of deducing logically from the general principles of a party what attitude it ought to take on this or that special issue. The nearest he would come to this would be conversely to point out that the attitude of his opponents directly refutes their party’s most sacred doctrines. Those who philosophize are mostly outsiders, either sojourners in the country, or indigenous critics who are considerably more alive to the unavoidable evils of party politics than to the merits. From such opponents of parties as well as from foreigners, one hears again and again that the parties do not really stand for any general principles at the present time, that their separate existence has lost whatever political significance it may have had, and that to-day they are merely two organizations preserving a semblance of individuality and taking such attitude toward the issues of the day as is likely to secure the largest number of votes, in order to distribute among their members the fruits of victory. The present parties, say these critics, were formed in that struggle of intellectual forces which took place during the third quarter of the last century; it was the dispute over slavery which led to the Civil War. The Republican party was the party of the Northern States in their anti-slavery zeal; the Democratic was the party of the slave-holding Southern States; and the opposition had political significance as long as the effects of the war lasted, and it was necessary to work for the conciliation and renewed participation of the defeated Confederacy. But all this is long past. Harrison, Cleveland, Blaine, Bryan, McKinley, and Roosevelt became the standard-bearers of their respective parties long after the wounds of the war had healed. And it is no outcome from the original, distinguishing principles of the parties, if the slave-holding party takes the side of free-trade, silver currency and anti-imperialism, while the anti-slavery elements stay together in behalf of the gold standard, protection, and expansion.

It looks, rather, as if the doctrines had migrated each to the other’s habitat. The party which was against slavery was supporting the rights of the individual; how comes it, then, to be bitterly opposing the freedom of trade? And how do the friends of slavery happen to champion the cause of free-trade, or, more remarkably, to oppose so passionately to-day the oppression of the people of the Philippines? And what have these questions to do with the monetary standard? It looks as if the organization had become a body without a soul. Each party tries to keep the dignity of its historic traditions and at every new juncture bobs and ducks before the interests and prejudices of its habitual clientèle, while it seeks to outwit the opposite party by popular agitation against persistent wrongs and abuses or by new campaign catch-words and other devices. But there is no further thought of consistently standing by any fundamental principles. This hap-hazard propping up of the party programme is evinced by the fact that either party is divided on almost every question, and the preference of the majority becomes the policy of the party only through the strict discipline and suppression of the minority. The Republicans won in their campaign for imperialism, and yet no anti-imperialist raised his voice more loudly than the Republican Senator Hoar. The Democrats acclaimed the silver schemes of Bryan, but the Gold Democrats numbered on their side really all the best men of the party. Again, on other important issues both parties will adopt the same platform as soon as they see that the masses are bound to vote that way. Thus neither party will openly come out for trusts, but both parties boast of deprecating them; and both profess likewise to uphold civil-service reform. This is so much the case that it has often been observed that within a wide range the programmes of the two parties in no way conflict. One party extols that which the other has never opposed, and the semblance of a difference is kept up only by such insistent vociferation of the policy as implies some sly and powerful gainsayer. And then with the same histrionic rage comes the other party and pounces on some scandal which the first had never thought of sanctioning. In short, there are no parties to-day but the powerful election organizations which have no other end in view than to come into power at whatever cost. It should seem better wholly to give up the outlived issues, and to have only independent candidates who, without regard to party pressure, would be grouped according to their attitude on the chief problems of the day.

And yet, after the worst has thus been said, we find ourselves still far removed from the facts. Each separate charge may be true, but the whole be false and misleading: even although many a party adherent admits the justness of the characterization, and declares that the party must decide every case “on its merits,” and that to hold to principles is inexpedient in politics. For the principles exist, nevertheless, and have existed, and they dominate mightily the great to and fro of party movements. Just as there have always been persons who pretend to deduce the entire history of Europe from petty court intrigues and jealousies of the ante-room or the boudoir, so there will always be wise-heads in America to see through party doings, and deduce everything from the speculative manipulations of a couple of banking houses or the private schemes of a sugar magnate or a silver king. Such explanations never go begging for a credulous public, since mankind has a deep-rooted craving to see lowness put on exhibition. No man is a hero, it is said, in the eyes of his valet. Nations, too, have their valets; and with them, too, the fact is not that there are no heroes, but that a valet can see only with the eyes of a valet.

It is true that the party lines of to-day have developed from the conflicting motives of the Civil War. But the fundamental error which prevents all insight into the deeper connections, lies in supposing that the anti-slavery party was first inspired by the individual fate of the negro, or in general the freedom of the individual. We must recall some of the facts of history. The question of slavery did not make its first appearance in the year 1860, when the Republican party became important. The contrast between the plantation owners of the South, to whom slave labour was apparently indispensable, and the industry and trade of the North, which had no need of slaves, had existed from the beginning of the century and was in itself no reason for the formation of political parties. It was mainly an economic question which, together with many other factors, led to a far-reaching opposition between the New England States and the South, an opposition which was strengthened, to be sure, by the moral scruples of the Puritanical North. But the earlier parties were not marked off by degrees of latitude, and furthermore the Southerner was by no means lacking in personal sympathy for the negro. The question first came into politics indirectly. It was in those years when the Union was pushing out into the West, taking in new territories and then making them into states by act of Congress, according to the provisions of the Constitution. In 1819 the question came up of admitting Missouri to the Union, and now for the first time Congress faced the problem as to whether slavery should be allowed in a new state. The South wished it and the North opposed it. Congress finally decided that Missouri should be a slave state, but that in the future slavery should be forbidden north of a certain geographical line. Thus slavery came to be recognized as a question within the jurisdiction of the federal Congress. Wherewith, if Congress should vote against slavery by a sufficient majority, it could forbid the practice in all the Southern states. And this would mean their ruin.

It came thus to be for the interest of the Southern states, which at that time had a majority, to see to it that for every free state admitted to the Union there should be at least one new slave state; this in order to hold their majority in Congress. Now it happened at that time that the territories which, by reason of their population, would have next to be admitted, lay all north of the appointed boundary and would, therefore, be free states. Therefore the slave-holders promulgated the theory that Congress had exceeded its jurisdiction and interfered with the rights of the individual states. The matter was brought before the Supreme Court, and in 1857 a verdict was given which upheld the new theory. Thus Congress, that is, the Union as a whole, could not forbid slavery in any place, but must leave the matter for each state to decide. Herewith an important political issue was created, and a part of the country stood out for the rights of the Union, a part for those of the individual states. The group of men who at that time foresaw that the whole Union was threatened, if so far-reaching rights were to be conceded to the states, was the Republican party. It rose up defiantly for the might and right of the federation, and would not permit one of the most important social and economic questions to be taken out of the hands of the central government and left to local choice. It was, of course, not a matter of chance that slavery became the occasion of dispute, but the real question at issue was the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. The federal party won, under the leadership of Abraham Lincoln. His election was the signal for the slave states to secede, South Carolina being the first. In February, 1861, these states formed a Confederation, and the Union was formally cleft. In his inaugural speech of the following March, Lincoln firmly declared that the Union must be preserved at all cost. The Civil War began in April, and after fearful fighting the secessionists were returned to the Union, all slaves were freed, and the Southern states were reconstructed after the ideas of the Republican party. The opposing party, the Democratic, was the party of decentralization. Its programme was the freedom of the individual state but not the servitude of the individual man.