The question of boss rule is of national importance. The future of the country is at stake. Until this question is settled, all others are in abeyance. The fight against money is a fight for permission to decide questions on their merits. The last presidential election furnished an illustration of this. At a private meeting of capitalists held in New York City, to raise money for the McKinley campaign, a very important man fervidly declared that he had already subscribed $5000 to “buy Indiana,” and that if called on to do so he would subscribe $5000 more! He was greeted with cheers for his patriotism. Many of our best citizens believe not only that money bought that election, but that the money was well spent, because it averted a panic. These men do not believe in republican institutions; they have found something better.
This is precisely the situation in New York city. The men who subscribed to the McKinley campaign fund are the same men who support Tammany Hall. In 1896 they cried, “We cannot afford Bryan and his panic!” In 1897 the same men in New York cried, “We cannot afford Low and reform!” That is what was decided in each case. Yet it is quite possible that the quickest, wisest, and cheapest way of dealing with Bryan would have been to allow him and his panic to come on,—fighting them only with arguments, which immediate consequences would have driven home very forcibly. That is the way to educate the masses and fit them for self-government; and it is the only way.
In this last election the people of New York have crippled Platt. It is a service done to the nation. Its consequences are as yet not understood; for the public sees only the gross fact that Tammany is again in power.
But the election is memorable. It is a sign of the times. The grip of commerce is growing weaker, the voice of conscience louder. A phase in our history is passing away. That phase was predestined from the beginning.
The war did no more than intensify existing conditions, both commercial and political. It gave sharp outlines to certain economic phenomena, and made them dramatic. It is due to the war that we are now able to disentangle the threads and do justice to the nation.
The corruption that we used to denounce so fiercely and understand so little was a phase of the morality of an era which is already vanishing. It was as natural as the virtue which is replacing it; it will be a curiosity almost before we have done studying it. We see that our institutions were particularly susceptible to this disease of commercialism, and that the sickness was acute, but that it was not mortal. Our institutions survived.
SOCIETY