Open That Door!

by R. Sturgis Ingersoll

At the time of the founding of our Republic, in Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton we had three supreme students of government. Perhaps more than to any other one cause the success of our "American Experiment" is due to the profound knowledge and scholarly attainment of those three men. Upon them rested the responsibility of founding a government "of the people, for the people, and by the people" that would neither be subverted by the wiles of a demagogue or the power of an oligarchy, nor become chaotic through the unrestrained influences of the proletarian populace. To Jefferson we owe the Declaration of Independence, to Madison a great part of the thought and the wording of the Constitution, to Hamilton the body of the Federalist Papers. Their thought was not the thought of the minute, but of all time. In all their writings we can see their thorough grasp of the faults and virtues of the governments of almost every nation in past ages. They knew, as too few of our public men know, that the future cannot be made out of whole cloth, but must evolve from the past. They had studied men and the political needs and powers of men. The result has been the establishment of a government that has stood the shock of almost a century and a half, a period during which almost all other civilized governments have been the prey not to peaceful but to violent evolution. Upon the passing of the great Revolutionary triumvirate we were fortunate in having men of the intellectual calibre of John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster. They were thinkers as well as great orators, students of the past as well as guardians of the present.

It is a profitable study to read of the youth of great statesmen. Almost invariably you will find them as young men such as would to-day be sneered at as "book-worms." Napoleon, Pitt, Gladstone, Cavour, Mirabeau, the great Americans and many, many others before they entered public life were profound followers of the goddess of learning. It is not surprising to find that many of them obtained wisdom and enthusiasm from the pages of Plutarch's "Lives of the Ancient Greeks and Romans." It was in Greece and Rome that we find the origins of most of our laws and institutions, and in the lives of the men who helped to establish them we may read of the tests and needs in their development. Considering the studies of great men it is always amusing to read the calendar which, upon the request of Mr. Madison, Senior, it is said, Jefferson arranged for the working hours of James Madison, Junior. Please note that Madison's health broke down from overstudy while at Princeton, and it is not to be wondered at, for here is the schedule: until eight in the morning he should confine himself to natural philosophy, morals and religion; from eight until twelve, read law and condense cases, "never using two words where one will do"; from twelve to one, read politics in Montesquieu, Locke, Priestley, Malthus, and the Parliamentary Debates; in the afternoon relieve his mind with history, and when the evening closes in, regale himself with literature, criticism, rhetoric, and oratory.

In those days they indeed believed in thoroughly equipping themselves for public life!

A few years ago there was an agitation afoot in favor of establishing the systems of the Initiative, Referendum, and Recall. In the North, the South, the East, and the West it was hailed by the spellbinders as the cure-all for corrupt legislation and undesirable laws. It was argued that citizens, who did not have enough political acumen to elect honest and efficient representatives, would have enough to become their own law-makers. In the height of the political campaign Nicholas Murray Butler, the President of Columbia University, published a small book entitled "Why Should We Change Our Form of Government?" The author presented the hazardous risk that our profoundly important representative system would run of being subverted into a chaotic absolute democracy by instituting laws that would deprive the executive, legislative, and judicial departments of their independence and prestige. The republican forms would lapse back two thousand years to those democratic systems of the Grecian states that too invariably paved the way to the despotism of tyrants or the chaos of mob rule.

The title of the essay was rather startling to those who had been advocating the new measures without having thoroughly analyzed their true meaning and import. The distinguished scholar brought clear thinking to bear upon the situation, whereas before it had been befogged in the spread-eagle oratory of demagogues, and the catch-as-catch-can subtleties of ignorant theorists. Clear thinking, President Butler's and that of others, won the day and the measures are now well-nigh forgotten. I mention this as but an instance of the value to our nation of men who have political and historical knowledge with the ability to think clearly upon the important points of our social progress.

I heard President Wilson, some months before he entered upon his distinguished political career, address in an informal manner a group of University students. He said in part (my quotation is rather a paraphrase, as I would not dare to transcribe from memory the words of the most perfect stylist of our time): "Gentlemen, in many European countries in times of national crises and disturbances the nation looks to the Universities and the question is asked, 'What do the young men of the Universities think?' In America unfortunately this question is rarely asked, as all realize that the men at the Universities do not think."

This is a bitter arraignment of the intellectual life at our universities, and if the speaker's conclusion was correct the same must to a great degree be said of the intellectual life of our nation. The public's antipathy to broad political matters is the most dangerous vice that can undermine a republic, and it is the one that is most seriously affecting ours. It would be extraordinary, if it were not so pathetic, the way in which, without taking toll of the experience of the past, without drawing analogies nor seeking wisdom, we go muddling, blundering on into the future.

That there is nothing new under the sun is perhaps more true in matters pertaining to political problems than in any other branch of affairs. History repeats itself, repeats itself, repeats itself, as if it never grew tired of begging the world to learn true lessons. In proportion as the number of our citizens appreciate that truism and sincerely pursue its corollaries, we will have a sound political condition.

When Aristotle, a wise man in his generation, said that it was in the nature of human institutions to decay, he knew whereof he spoke. It is painfully apparent to the student of history and governments. What were the seeds of decay that smouldered and finally undermined the Grecian democracies, the power of Carthage and of Tyre, the world-embracing Roman Empire, the Venetian Republic, the Holy Roman Empire, proud Spain of Charles V, and France of the seventeenth century? Has the English Empire run its course to make way for the more vital power of the Germanic People? In each and every one of these decadences, if we wish our national life to retain its pristine spirit, there are lessons to be learned by the United States of America. Our experiment has not necessarily met the test of time. Our nation is not liable to be the exception from those that have slid down the path to ruin. There is a Germany, despotic yet powerful, that perhaps must some day be met in mortal combat; if the danger lies not there, perhaps it will be another. In any case our loins must be girt with power and strength, our citizenship must be hardy, our political fabric solid.

To retain our virtues, to preserve our national life from decay, is the responsibility upon the shoulders of our generation. It is for this that we must "read and reflect on history" and apply it directly to life. What an analogy may be drawn between the Roman Usurpers in the time of the Empire's decadence throwing money at the street crowds to obtain their support, and our modern politicians bidding for the old soldier vote by passing absurdly extravagant pension bills! This mulct of the treasury is now on the wane, but is the new power in politics, the labor unions, going to obtain legislation and favors because it can poll a large vote upon election day? Such things are signs of decadence. Must we not learn from the French Revolution that its failure as a constructive force was due to an attempt to legislate morality into existence—and yet we continue to pass as laws measures that have truly been dubbed "amendments to the Ten Commandments." How many of the great nations and institutions have had their backs broken through too excessive centralization, yet, to-day there are but few individuals and no political party that stand in opposition to our ever-increasing tendency towards federalism, in contradistinction to community government. Until the outbreak of the World War, England, Germany and Russia each had a terrible internal problem: England attempting to Anglicize Ireland, Russia to Russianize Poland, Germany to Germanize Alsace and Lorraine. There was this thorn in the side of each nation: by brute force they were trying to denationalize another country. England was failing after three hundred years of wasted men and resources, Russia was covering a volcano that had smouldered for generations, after over forty years Germany had as ugly a wound to nurse as in the beginning. Yet with these examples, good Americans, with confident smiles, for three years have been laughing at the Democratic administration on account of their Mexican policy. "Conquer Mexico," the wiseacres say. Yes, conquer Mexico the way England has tried and failed to conquer Ireland!