Practical Agitation

by John Jay Chapman

Thirty years ago one-half of society thought that every Democrat was a rebel and a scoundrel. The world to that society was composed of two classes,—Republicans (righteous men), Democrats (villains). Twenty years of an almost steady growth in the power of self-government or of what the Germans would call civic consciousness, has barely sufficed to strike off the adjectives, but it has left mankind still divided, as before.

Meanwhile there has emerged a group of men who see the whole problem in a much simpler light. These men have carried forward the analysis which their fathers, or let us say their elder brothers, had begun, to such a point that there are no words in it which are meaningless, no factors which are not reduced to terms of human nature. They did nothing but add the last link to a chain of logic. Their predecessors discovered The Machine, and spent their lives in trying to belong to a party without strengthening its Machine. These latter men discovered that both parties were ruled by the same Machine. They see one issue, and only one issue in American politics, namely, the attack on that Machine.

Moreover, these men have political initiative; that is to say, they contemplate creating conditions, and not merely making transient use of visible conditions. Their idea is so simple that any one whose mind is not warped by the cant of party politics understands it at once.

“All this political corruption is a unity. Vote against it and you will beat it. Vote for any part of it and you strengthen it.” This sounds simple. But in practice the prejudices, the interests, the passions and political temperament of the whole population are against it. Every argument that the people understand is against this course. Everything that either party fears or hates in the other party is passionately pointed out as a reason against independent voting. According to Republicans, independent voting involves “allowing Croker to extend his rule over the entire State,” and “enabling Tammany Hall to control the judiciary,” and “endangering the cause of sound money.” According to Democrats, it involves the encouraging of Trusts, Tariffs, Pensions, Expansion and foreign conquest. According to both Democrats and Republicans, independent voting is “voting in the air,” and is at odds with the spirit of our institutions, which contemplate two parties and no more. And, finally, every one condemns the independent because he violates that thumb rule which slovenly thinkers regard as a summary of all political philosophy, “Between two evils choose the least.”

Now the answer to all these arguments is that they are the merest mirage. It makes no difference which of the two evils, Platt or Croker, has the name of ruling the State. At present they divide the rule between them. They can do no more. There is no argument that can be used against Tammany Hall which is powerful enough to make the Republican Ring trustworthy. There is no argument against Expansion so excessively convincing that it changes the moral character of the Democratic Party. These learned arguments are useless, ludicrous, pathetic, irrational, impotent, contemptible. They do but distract us from the real issue—which is personal corruption. Where shall a man cast his vote against it? If I turn out McKinley because he bleeds the natives, I put in a Democrat to bleed the natives. If the whitewashing of Alger arouses public indignation, Tammany Hall feeds at the trough. If Croker’s control of the judiciary arouses popular indignation, Platt’s pigs feed at the trough. As for sound money, we have already elected one Congress on the issue in 1895, just as in 1892 we elected a Congress on the tariff issue. What was done? Why, in each case that was done which the ring wanted done,—nothing.

Which national party stands for an idea to-day? The only shadow of reason for believing that either does, is that the Republicans cried sound money and won. They have done nothing. Had Bryan won, he would have done nothing, could have done nothing.

There are no issues in American politics save this one issue of common honesty. You cannot throw an issue into this whirlpool of vice, for your issue turns to cash by the contact. We need not waste our time reading the platforms drawn by Platt and Croker. We must not vote for any man who does not go into public life as their enemy, because we know that in so far as he is not their enemy he is ours. As for these dreadful consequences that are always about to follow from a refusal to support one end of the iniquity, they do not follow. We have the evils now. We are at the worst. The powers of darkness may conspire and heap all in ruins, but they must not prevent us from beginning upon a constructive line to draw together and build up the powers of light.

Nor is there the smallest distinction either in the evil or its cure, between the case of a village, of a State, or of the whole nation. Say you live in a town; you can only get a clean school-board by running men against both the regular parties. There is no other way of getting rid of Hanna and the Presidential Syndicate than by running an independent candidate for the Presidency. No form of Bryanism will oust it,—no rump Democracy nor any kind of Democracy. Democracy is finished. Republicanism is finished.

This is the zero point of party loyalty. It has been reached very slowly. It means open war. The citizen is now confronted with a third ticket, which is a deliberate insult to both the others. No matter what the conditions, it is an appeal which disintegrates the emotions of the voter. This is the very elixir of reform. People are forced to think. It hurts them. They cry out against those who create the dilemma, but they cannot escape it. The vote you poll will vary. If the party war-cries are intense and the party candidates promise fairly, very few men will see the point of your movement. But no one escapes its influence. Let us say that five thousand vote your ticket. These are the only men whose response is scheduled. But the political vision of five hundred thousand has been quickened. No atom of this influence is lost. The work was done when the vote was cast. Even if it be not counted at all, it will show in every political camp in the near future.

But do you ever have outward success? Does the time ever come when the standards of every one are so high that the parties themselves present candidates as good as your own, and there is no excuse for your existence? That depends upon the trend of the age. One thing only is certain, that by pursuing this course you are doing all that you can do. You are wasting no power. No part of your force is helping the enemy.