Most of all, it must be insisted that public opinion is all the time following up these excrescences on party life, and that public opinion presses forward year by year at an absolutely sure pace, and purifies the public atmosphere. All these evil conditions are easy to change. When Franklin came to England he was alarmed to see what fearful corruptions prevailed in English official life; such a thing was unknown at that time in America. Now England has long ago wiped out the blot, and America, which fell into its political mire a half-century later, will soon be out again and free; just as it has got rid of other nuisances. Every year brings some advance, and the student of American conditions should not let himself be deceived by appearances.
On the surface, for instance, the last mayoralty election in New York City would seem to indicate a downward tendency. New York two years previously had turned out the scandalous Tammany Hall gang with Van Wyck and his brutal extortionist, Chief of Police Devery, by a non-partisan alliance of all decent people in the city. New York had elected by a handsome majority Seth Low, the President of Columbia University, to be its mayor, and thereby had instated the principle that, the best municipal government must use only business methods and be independent of political parties. Seth Low was supported by distinguished reformers in both parties, and was brilliantly successful in placing the entire city government on a distinctly higher level. The public schools, the general hygiene, the highways, and the police force were all thoroughly cleansed of impure elements and reformed without regard to party, on the purest and most business-like principle.
And then came the day for another election. Once more the independent voters, including the best men in both parties, the intellectual leaders and the socially dominant forces of the city, were banded together again to save their city of three million inhabitants from party politics, and to insure by their co-operation a continuance of the honest, business-like administration. They made Seth Low their candidate again; he was opposed by McClellan, the candidate of Tammany Hall, the party which loudly declares that “To the victors belong the spoils,” and that the thousands of municipal offices are to be the prey of party adherents. This was the candidate of the party which admitted that all the hopes of the worst proletariat, of prostitution and vagabondage, depended on its success; the candidate of a party which declared that it would everywhere rekindle the “red light,” that it would not enforce the unpopular temperance laws, and that it would leave the city “wide open.” On the day of election 251,000 votes were cast for Mayor Low, but 313,000 for Colonel McClellan.
Now, does this really indicate that the majority of the city of New York consists of gamblers, extortioners, and criminals? One who read the Republican campaign literature issued before the election might suppose so. After reading on every street corner and fence and on giant banners the campaign cry, “Vote for Low and keep the grafters out,” one might think that 300,000 pick-pockets had united to force out a clean administration and to place corruption on the throne. But on looking more closely at the situation one must see that no such thing was in question. Seth Low had furnished a clean administration, yet not a perfect one, and his mistakes had so seriously disaffected many citizens that they would rather endure the corruption of Tammany Hall than the brusqueness and various aggravations which threatened from his side.
Of these grievances, a typical one was the limitation of German instruction in the public schools. From the pedagogical point of view, this was not wholly wrong; and leading educationists, even German ones, had recommended the step. But at the same time the great German population was bitterly offended, and the whole discussions of the school board had angered the German citizens enough to cool off considerably their enthusiasm for reform. Then on top of this, Low’s administration had rigorously enforced certain laws of Sunday observance which the German part of the population cordially hated. Here, too, Mayor Low was undoubtedly right; he was enforcing the law; but when two years previously he had wished to win over the German vote, he had promised more than he could fulfill. But, most of all, Seth Low was socially an aristocrat, who had no common feeling with the masses; and whenever he spoke in popular assemblies he displayed no magnetism. Every one felt too keenly that he looked down on them from his exalted social height.
Against him were the Tammany people, of whom at least one thing must be said: they know the people and their needs. They have grown up among the people. In contrast to many a Republican upstart who, according to the European fashion, is servile to his superiors and harsh with his inferiors, these Tammany men are harsh to their superiors—that is, they shake the nerves of the more refined—but are servile before the masses and comply with every wish. And most of all, they are really the friends of the populace, sincerely true and helpful to it. Moreover, just these great masses have more to suffer under a good administration than under the corrupt government which lets every one do as he likes. These people do not notice that the strict, hygienic administration reduced the death-rate and the list of casualties, and improved the public schools; but they notice when for such improvements they have to pay a cent more in taxation, or have to put safer staircases or fire-escapes on their houses, or to abandon tottering structures, or if they are not allowed to beg without a permit, or are forbidden to throw refuse in the streets. In short, these people notice a slight expense or an insignificant prohibition, and do not see that in the end they are greatly benefited. And so, when the day of reckoning comes, when the election campaigns are fought, in which distinguished reformers deliver scholarly addresses on the advantages of a non-partisan administration while the candidates of the people excite them with promises that they shall be free from all these oppressive burdens—it is no wonder that Seth Low is not returned to the City Hall, and that McClellan, who by the way is a highly educated and cultured politician, is entrusted with the city government.
Such an outcome is not a triumph for vice and dishonour. In two years the reformers will probably conquer again, since every administration makes its enemies and so excites opposition. But there can be no doubt that even on this occasion public opinion, with its desire to reform, has triumphed, although the official friends of reform were outdone; such a man as the former Chief of Police, Devery, will be impossible in the future. Public opinion sees to it that when the two parties stand in opposition the fight is fought each successive time on a higher level. And Tammany of to-day as compared with the Tammany of years gone by is the best evidence for the victory of public opinion and the reformers.
CHAPTER TEN
External Political Problems
The attitude of America in international affairs can hardly be referred to any one special trait of mind. If one were to seek a simple formula, one would have to recognize in it a certain antithesis of mood; an opposition which one encounters in the American people under the most varied circumstances, and which perhaps depends on the fact that it is a people which has developed an entirely new culture, although on the basis of the high culture of the Old World. When we come to speak of American intellectual life we shall have again to consider this extraordinary combination of traits. The people are youthful and yet mature; they are fresher and more spontaneous than those of other mature nations, and wiser and more mature than those of other youthful nations; and thus it is that in the attitude of the Americans toward foreign affairs the love of peace and the delight in war combine to make a contrast which has rarely been seen. Doubtless there is an apparent contradiction here, but this contradiction is the historical mark of the national American temperament; and it is not to be supposed that the contradiction is solved by ascribing these diverse opinions to diverse elements in the population, by saying, for instance, that one group of citizens is more warlike, another more peaceable; that perhaps the love of hostile interference springs from the easily excited masses, while the love of peace is to be sought in their more thoughtful leaders, or that perhaps, on the other hand, the masses are peaceably industrious while their leaders draw them into war.
Such is not at all the case. There is not any such contrast between the masses and the classes; personal differences of opinion there are and some individuals are more volatile than others, but the craze for expansion in its newest form finds strong supporters and violent opponents in all parties and occupations. The most characteristic feature is, that just those who show the love for war most energetically are none the less concerned, and most earnestly so, for the advance of peace. President Roosevelt is the most striking example of the profound combination of these opposing tendencies in one human breast.