The Americans

by Hugo Münsterberg

As with the incumbents, so it is with the platform. The party leaders practically decide what questions shall be made the political issues; and this is the most important function of all. We have seen that dissenting groups can hardly hope on ordinary occasions to make a break in the firm party organization, and though they may vigorously discuss questions which have not been approved by the party leaders, they will, nevertheless, arrive at no practical results. It therefore happens very often that voters are called on to decide issues which seem to them indifferent, or to choose between two evils, and can expect nothing from either candidate in the matters which they think most vital. They go to the polls merely out of consideration for their party. Thus, in reality, the people do not decide the issues on which they are to vote, nor on the candidates whom they elect, nor yet on the party leaders who do decide these things. Nor can the people, if discontented with the party in power, recall that party during its term of office. In Germany the government can dissolve parliament if new issues arise; in England the Cabinet resigns if it fails to carry a measure; but in America the party with a congressional majority has nothing to fear during its appointed term. In short, the political life of America is dominated by those forces which rule the parties, and only in so far as the nation is filled with the party spirit, is the official political hierarchy an expression of the nation’s will.

Now it is not in the nature of public opinion to nerve itself up to clear and definite issues. Unless worked on by party demagogues, it never formulates itself in a mere yes or no, but surveys the situation impartially, seeing advantages and disadvantages on both sides, and passes a conservative judgment. The man who thinks only of parties will often agree to a compromise which is unjust to both parties and in general unworthy of them; but the man who takes his stand above the parties knows that many problems are not fathomed with a yea or nay; he does not see two opposite sides between which an artificial compromise is to be found, but he appreciates the given situation in its organic unity and historical perspective. Historical understanding of the past and moral seriousness for the future guarantee his right judgment. He sees the practical opposition of interests, which is always more complex than the two-horned dilemma that the parties advertise, in a true light, and testimony of experts instead of politicians suggests to him the rational solution of the problem. The actual course of action to be followed may coincide with the plan of one or the other party, or may be a compromise between them, and yet it will be a distinct policy. In such decisions there lives ever the spirit of immediate reality; no artificial dichotomy nor any political tactics are involved, and the natural moral feeling of a healthy nation is then sufficient for every issue. Nowhere is this naïve moral sense more potent among the masses than in America; will then these unpartisan convictions have no weight in political life? Will they not rather strive to have an independent effect on the destinies of the nation? The centre and real expression of these politics for essentials is the system of public opinion.

We have seen that every American legislature has two parts, an upper and a lower house, which have different ways of procedure and different prerogatives. One might similarly say that the parties with all their paraphernalia are merely the lower house of the nation, while Public Opinion is the upper house; and only the two houses together constitute the entire national political life. The nation is represented in each branch, but in different senses. In a way the parties express quantitatively the will of the nation, and public opinion does it qualitatively. Whenever a quantitative expression is wanted, the issues must be sharply contrasted in order to separate clearly the adherents of each; all fine shades and distinctions have to be sacrificed to an artificial clearness of definition, much as is done in mechanics, when any motion is schematically represented, as the diagonal in a parallelogram of two other forces. As a quantity any yea or nay is as good as any other, and the intensity of any party movement is due to the accumulation of small increments. The great advantage of this lower house is, as of every lower house, that its deliberations can be brought to an end and its debates concluded. Every political election is such a provisional result.

It is very different in the upper house. Public opinion accepts no abstract schematizations, but considers the reality in all its complication, and in its debates no weight is given to any show of hands or other demonstration of mere numbers. Crass contrasts do not exist here, but only subtle shadings; men are not grouped as friends and foe, but they are seen to differ merely in their breadth of outlook, their knowledge, their energy, and in their singleness of heart. The end in view is not to rush politics, but to reform politics and in all matters to shape public events to national ideals. Here one vote is not like another, but a single word wisely and conscientiously spoken is heard above the babel of thousands. And here the best men of the nation have to show themselves, not with programmes nor harangues, but with a quiet force which shapes and unites public opinion and eventually carries all parties before it.

Public opinion may be responsible now for a presidential veto on a bill of Congress, now for the sudden eclipse of a party leader, or the dropping of a list of candidates, or again it may divide a party in the legislature. Public opinion forces the parties, in spite of themselves, to make mere party advantage secondary to a maturer statesmanship.

Germans will not readily appreciate this double expression of the popular will; they would find it more natural if party life and public opinion were one. For in Germany the conditions are quite different. In the first place there are a dozen parties, which express the finer shades of public opinion more adequately than the two parties can in America. And this division into many small parties prevents the development of any real party organization such as would be needed by a party assuming entire responsibility for the affairs of the nation. The nearest approach to two great parties is the opposition between all the “bürgerliche” parties on the one hand and the social democrats on the other. But the development of really responsible parties is hardly to be expected, since the German party is allowed only a small degree of initiative. The representatives of the people have the right to accept or reject or to suggest improvements in the proposals of the government; but with the government rest the initiative and the responsibility. The government stands above the parties, and is not elected by the people nor immediately dependent on them. It originates most of the legislative and executive movements, and therewith represents exactly that moral unity of the nation which is above all parties, and which is represented in America by public opinion; while in America the government is the creature of the parties.

One should not draw the conclusion that the public opinion of America is the quintessence of pure goodness. Public opinion in the United States would be no true indication of the forces at work in the nation if it did not represent all the essentials of the typical American. In order to find this typical man, it would be misleading simply to take the average of the millions; one leaves out of account the great herd of colourless characters, and selects the man who harmoniously combines in himself, without exaggeration, the most striking peculiarities of his countrymen. He is not easy to find, since eccentricity is frequent; one man is grotesquely patriotic, another moral to intolerance, another insipidly complacent, and another too optimistic to be earnest or too acquisitive to be just.

And yet if one goes about much in American society, one finds oneself now and then, not only in New York or Boston or Washington, but quite as well in some small city of the West, in a little circle of congenial men who are talking eagerly, perhaps over their cigars after dinner; and one has the feeling that the typical American is there. His conversation is not learned nor his rhetoric high-flown; but one has the feeling that he is alive and worth listening to, that he sees things in sharp perspective, is sincerely moral, and has something of his own to say. Party politics do not interest him specially, although as citizen he goes to a few meetings, contributes to the party funds, and votes on election day if the weather permits. But he speaks of politics generally with a half-smile, and laughs outright at the thought of himself running for the legislature. He sees the evil about him, but is confident that everything will come around all right; the nation is young, strong, and possessed of boundless resources for the future. Of course he understands the prejudices of the masses, and knows that mere slap and dash will not take the place of real application in solving the problems which confront the nation; he knows, too, that technical proficiency, wealth, and luxury alone do not constitute true culture. And herewith his best energies are enlisted; he contributes generously to libraries and universities, and very likely devotes much of his time to the city schools. But he is frank to confess, as well, that he has a weakness for good-fellowship and superficiality, preferring operetta to tragedy every time. He is not niggardly in anything; to be so is too unæsthetic. At first one is astonished by his insouciance and the optimism with which he makes the best of everything. One feels at once his good nature and readiness to help, and finds him almost preternaturally ready to be just to his opponents and overlook small failings. He envelops everything with his irrepressible sense of humour, and is always reminded of a good story, which he recounts so drolly and felicitously that one is ready to believe that he never could be angry. But this all changes the instant the talk turns from amusing stupidities or little weaknesses and goes over to indecency or corruption or any baseness of character. Then the typical American is quite changed; his genuine nobility of soul comes out and he gives his unvarnished opinion, not blusteringly, but with self-controlled indignation. One feels that here is the real secret of his character; and one is surprised to see how little he cares for political parties or social classes. He will fiercely condemn the delinquencies of his own party or the unfair dealings of his own social set. It now appears how honestly religious he is, and how far the inner meaning of his life lies beyond the merely material.

Such a good fellow it is, with all his greater and lesser traits, who may at any time voice undiluted public opinion. Thousands who are better, wiser, more learned, or less the spendthrift and high-liver, and the millions of inferior natures, will show one trait or another of the national character in higher relief. And yet the type is well marked; it is always optimistic and confident in the future of America, indifferent to party tactics, but enthusiastically patriotic. It is anxious to be not merely prosperous but just and enlightened as well; it is almost hilariously full of life, and yet benevolent and friendly; conservative although sensitive, without respect for conventions and yet religious, sanguine but thoughtful, scrupulously just to an opponent but unrelenting toward any mean intent. Probably the most characteristic traits of public opinion are a patient oversight of mistakes and weaknesses, but relentless contempt and indignation for meanness and lack of honour. This is in both respects the very reverse of the party spirit, which is too apt to hinge its most boasted reforms on trivial evils, and pass over the greatest sins in silence.

One element of public opinion should be suggested in even the briefest sketch—its never-failing humour. It is the antiseptic of American politics, although it would be better, to be sure, if political doings could be aseptic from the outset. But probably dirty ambition and selfishness are harder to keep down in a democracy than anywhere else. The humour of public opinion stands in striking contrast, moreover, to party life; as one cannot fail to discover on looking closely. Party tactics demand that the masses have hammered into them the notion that the sacred honour of the nation lies with their party, but that on the other side there lies hopeless ruin. The man who urges this dogma must keep a very solemn face, for if he were to bring it out with a twinkle in his eye, he would destroy the force of his suggestion. The voter, too, is serious in his duties as a citizen, and demands of the candidates this extremely practical mien and solemn party arrogance. But when the same citizen talks the matter over with his friends, he is no longer a stickler for party, but a voicer of public opinion, and he sees at once the humour of the situation. He punctures the party bubbles with well-aimed ridicule. So it happens that the population is more ruled by humour here than anywhere else, while the party leaders stand up, at least before the public, in the most solemn guise. Just as in some American states the men drink wine at home, but at official banquets call for mineral water; so out of the political harness one may commit excesses of humour, but in it one must be strictly temperate. This is, of course, the reverse of the well-known English method, where the masses are rather dull, while the leaders are famous wits and cynics. America would never allow this. When one meets leading politicians or members of the Cabinet in a social way, one is often amazed at their ready wit, and feels that these men have decidedly the capacity to shine as do their English colleagues. But that would wreck the party service. The people are sovereign; public opinion has, therefore, the right to ironical humour, and can smilingly look down on the parties from a superior height; while those who play the party game of government have still to keep demure and sober. In England it is the Cabinet, in America public opinion, which assumes the gentle rôle of wit. Hardly could the contrast between aristocracy and democracy be more clearly exemplified.