The man in the street: Papers on American topics

by Meredith Nicholson

Our hearts throb indignantly as we ponder this. The types have a queer look. Such an accusation is an unpardonable sin against American institutions—against an intelligent, high-minded citizenry. It can, however, do no harm to view the matter from various angles to determine whether anything really may be adduced in support of it.

II

In theory the weight of the majority is with the fit. This is the pleasantest of ideas, but it is not true. It is not true at least in so great a number of contests as to justify any virtuous complacency in the electorate. It is probably no more untrue now than in other years, though the cumulative effect of a long experience of government by the unfit is having its effect upon the nation in discouraging faith in that important and controlling function of government that has to do with the choice and election of candidates. Only rarely—and I speak carefully—do the best men possible for a given office ever reach it. The best men are never even considered for thousands of State, county, and municipal elective offices; they do not offer themselves, either because office-holding is distasteful, or because private business is more lucrative, or because they are aware of no demand for their services on the part of their fellow citizens. By fitness I mean the competence produced by experience and training, fortified with moral character and a sense of responsibility. I should say that a fit man for public office is one who in his private affairs has established a reputation for efficiency and trustworthiness.

In assuming that a democracy like ours presupposes in the electorate a desire, no matter how feeble, to intrust public affairs to men of fitness, to first-rate men, it would seem that with the approach of every presidential campaign numbers of possible candidates would receive consideration as eligible to our highest office. It will be said that just as many candidates were available in 1916 as at any other period in our history, but this is neither conclusive nor heartening: there should be more! It cannot be pretended that public service does not attract thousands of men; it can, however, be complained that the offices fall very largely to the inferior.

We have just witnessed the spectacle of a great republic, which confides the broadest powers to its chief executive, strangely limited in its choice of candidates for the presidency to a handful of men. No new commanding figure had sprung forward from the ranks of either party in the most trying period the country has known in fifty years. If Mr. Wilson’s renomination had not been inevitable, it would be very difficult to name another Democrat who, by virtue of demonstrated strength and public confidence, would have been able to enter the lists against him. Our only Democratic Presidents since the Civil War stepped from a governor’s seat to the higher office; but I know of no Democratic governor who, in 1916, could have entered the national convention supported by any appreciable public demand for his nomination. And no Democratic senator could have debated Mr. Wilson’s claims to further recognition. Speaker Clark, with the prestige of his maximum five hundred and fifty-six votes on the tenth ballot of the Baltimore Convention, might have been able to reappear at St. Louis with a similar showing; but the Democratic range of possibilities certainly had not widened. To be sure, Mr. Bryan would have remained to reckon with; but, deeply as the party and the country is indebted to him for his courageous stand against the bosses at Baltimore, he could hardly have received a fourth nomination.

The Republicans were in no better case when their convention met at Chicago. The Old Guard was stubbornly resolved, not only that Mr. Roosevelt should not be nominated, but that he should not dictate the choice of a Republican candidate. A short distance from the scene of their deliberations, the Progressives, having failed to establish themselves as a permanent contestant of the older parties, tenaciously clung to their leader. Mr. Roosevelt’s effort to interest the Republicans in Senator Lodge as a compromise candidate fell upon deaf ears. Mr. Hughes’s high qualifications may not be seriously questioned. He is a first-rate man, and the lack of enthusiasm with which his nomination was received by the perfectly ordered and controlled body of delegates is not to his discredit. Sore beset, the Old Guard put forth a candidate little to their taste, one who, if elected, would, we must assume, prove quite impatient of the harness fashioned for Presidents by the skilled armorers of the good old days of backward-looking Republicanism.

In taking from the bench a gentleman who was “out of politics” the Republicans emphasized their lamentable lack of available candidates. Nothing was ever sadder than the roll-call of States for the nomination of “favorite sons.” Estimable though these men are, no one could have listened to the nominating speeches and witnessed the subsequent mechanical demonstrations without depression. None of these nominees had the slightest chance; the orators who piped their little lays in praise of them knew they had not; the vast audience that witnessed the proceedings, perfectly aware of the farcical nature of these banalities, knew they had not, and viewed the show with contemptuous amusement.

The heartiness of the reception accorded Messrs. Depew and Cannon, who were called upon to entertain the audience during a lull in the proceedings, was not without its pathos. They dwelt upon the party’s past glories with becoming poignancy. Mr. Borah, tactfully projected as a representative of a newer order of Republicanism, was far less effective. The convention was greatly stirred by no new voice; no new leader flashed upon the stage to quicken it to new and high endeavor. No less inspired or inspiring body of men ever gathered than those who constituted the Republican Convention of 1916.

I asked a successful lawyer the other day how he accounted for the lack of presidential timber. “It’s because the average American would rather be president of the Pennsylvania Railroad than of the United States,” he answered. And it is true, beyond question, that our highest genius is employed in commerce and business rather than in politics. If we, the people, do not seek means of promoting administrative wisdom and efficiency in our government we shall pay one of these days a high price for our indifference. There is danger ahead unless we are disposed to take our politics more seriously, and unless more young men of the best talent and the highest aims can be lured into public life. The present showing is certainly not encouraging as to the future of American statesmanship; and to say that the fit have always been few, is not a particularly consoling answer.

It is true of a period still susceptible of intimate scrutiny—say, from the Civil War—that presidential candidates have been chosen in every case from a small group of potentialities in both parties. We have established (stupidly in any large view of the matter) geographical limitations upon the possible choice that greatly narrow the field. Candidates for the presidency must be chosen with an eye to the local effect, from States essential to success. Though Mr. Blaine’s candidacy was surrounded by unusual circumstances, it emphasizes, nevertheless, the importance to the parties of nominating men from the “pivotal” States. We have had no New England President since Franklin Pierce. This is not because the New England States have not produced men of fitness, but is attributable solely to the small representation of the Northeastern States in the Electoral College.