THE DARK SIDE OF REPUBLICANISM
The questions I know you will wish answered are, Whether this stupendous aggregation of States is a success? Does it possess advantages beyond those of the Chinese Empire? Does it fulfil the expectations of its own people? Frankly, I do not consider myself competent to answer. I have studied America and the Americans for many years during my visits to this country and Europe, and while I have seen many accounts of the country, written after several months of observation, I believe that no just estimate of the republican form of government can be formed after such experience. My private impression, however, is that the republic falls far short of what the men in Washington's time expected, and it is also my private opinion that it has not so many advantages as a government like that of England.
It is too splendid an organization to be lightly denounced. The idea of the equality of men is noble, and I would not wish to be arraigned among its critics. There is too much good to offset the bad. I have been attempting to amuse you by analyzing the Americans, pointing out their frailties as well as their good qualities. I tell you what I see as I run, always, I hope, remembering what is good in this spontaneous and open-hearted people. The characteristic claim of the people is that the Government offers freedom to its citizens; yet every man is quite as free in China if he behaves himself, and he can rise if he possesses brains.
Any native-born citizen in the United States may become the head of the nation has he the courage of his convictions, the many accomplishments which equip the great leader, and should the hour and the man meet opportunity. This is the one prize which distinguishes America from England. The latter in other respects offers exactly as much freedom with half the wear and tear; in fact, to me the freedom of America is one of her disadvantages. Every one knows, and the American best of all, that all men are not equal, never were and never can be. Yet this false doctrine is their standard, and they swear by it, though some will explain that what is meant is political freedom. Freedom accounts for the gross impertinence of the ignorant and lower classes, the laughable assumptions of servants, and the illogical pretenses of the nouveau riche, which make America impossible to some people. Cultivated Americans are as thoroughly aristocratic as the nobility of England. There are the same classes here as there. A grocer becomes rich and retires or dies; his children refuse to associate with the families of other grocers; in a word, the Americans have the aristocratic feeling, but they have no peasant class; the latter would be, in their own estimation, as good as any one. One class, the lower and poorer, is arraigned against the upper and richer, and the gap is growing daily.
But this would not prove that the republic is a failure. What then? It is, in the opinion of many of its clergymen, a great moral failure. No nation in history has lasted many centuries after having developed the "symptoms" now shown in the United States. I quote their own press, "the States are morally rotten," and you have but to turn to these organs and the magazines of the past decade, which make a feature of holding up the shortcomings of cities and millionaires, to read the details of the tragedy. Thieves—grafters—have seized upon the vitals of the country. St. Louis, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, great representative cities—what is their history? The story of dishonesty among officials, of bribery, stealing, and every possible crime that a man can devise to wring money from the people. This is no secret. It has all been exposed by the friends of morality. City governments are overthrown, the rascals are turned out, but in a few months the new officers are caught devising some new "grafting" operation.
I have it from a prominent official that there is not an honest State or city administration in America. What can a nation say when for years it has known that a large and influential lobby has been maintained to influence statesmen, a lobby comprising a corps of "persuaders" in the pay of business men? How do they influence them? The great fights waged to defeat certain measures are well known, and it is known that money was used. Certain congressmen have been notoriously receptive. I have seen the following story in print in many forms. I took the trouble to ask a well-known man if it was possible that it could be founded on fact; his reply was, "Certainly it is a fact." A briber entered the private room of a congressman. "Mr. ——, to come right to the point, I want the —— bill to pass, and I will give you five hundred dollars for the vote and your interest." The congressman rose to his feet, purple with rage. "You dare to offer me this insulting bribe? You infernal scoundrel, I will throw you out." "Well, suppose we make it one thousand," said the imperturbable visitor. "Well," replied the congressman, cooling down, "that is a little better put. We will talk it over."
The American Government had been attempting, since 1859, to build a canal across the Isthmus. I believe surveys were made earlier than that, but bribery and corruption and "graft" enabled the friends of transcontinental railroads to stop the canals. It would be a disadvantage to the railroads to have a canal across the Isthmus. So in some mysterious way the canal, which the people wished, has not been built, and will not be until the people rise and demand it. Corruption has stood on the Isthmus with a flaming sword and struck down every attempt to build the canal. The morality of the people is low. Divorce is rampant, the daily journals are filled with accounts of divorces, and daily lists of crimes are printed that would seem impossible to a nation that can raise millions to send to China to convert the "heathen." If they would only divert these Chinese missionaries from China to their own heathen and grafters, but they will not. The peculiar freedom of the country, which is nothing less than the most atrocious license, tends to drag it down.
The papers have absolutely no check on their freedom. Men and women are attacked by them, ruined, held up to scorn and ridicule, and the victim has no recourse but to shoot the editor and thus embroil himself. That it is a crime to ridicule a man and make him the butt of a nation or the world seems never to occur to these men. Certain statesmen have been so lampooned by the "hired" libelers that they have been ruined. The press hires a class of men, called cartoonists, usually ill-bred fellows of no standing, yet clever, in their business, whose duty it is to hold up public men to ridicule in every possible way and make them infamous before the people. This is called the freedom of the press, and its attitude, or the sensational part of it, in presenting crime in an alluring manner, is having its effect upon the youth of the country. Young girls and boys become familiar with every feature of bestial crime through the "yellow journals," so called, and that the republic will reap sorely from this sowing I venture to prophesy.
I asked one of the great insurance men why it was that great financial institutions took so strong an interest in politics. He laughed, and said, "If I am not mistaken, not long since your country repudiated its Government bonds, and they are not negotiable to any great extent among your people." Hearing this I assumed the American attitude and "sawed wood." "We take an interest in politics," he continued, "to offset the professional blackmailer and thief. Now in the case of your repudiation I understand all about it. The Chinese Government was in straits, and suddenly some seemingly patriotic citizen started a petition, stating to the Government that the subscribers offered their Government securities to the Government as a gift. By no means all the bondholders signed, but enough, I understand, to have justified your Government in repudiating the bonds—'at the request of the people'—thus destroying the national credit at home and abroad. Now in America that would be called 'graft.' The act would be done by a few grafters in the hope of reward, or by some unscrupulous statesmen to save the Government from bankruptcy during their term of office. I conceive this to be what was done in China. If we do not keep eternal watch we shall be bled every day. It is done in this way: a grafter becomes an assemblyman, and with others lays a plan of graft. It is to get up a bill, so offensive to our corporation that it would mean ruin if passed. The grafter has no idea that it will pass, but it is made much of, and of course reaches our ears, and the question is how to stop it. We are finally told that we had better see Mr. ——, in our own city. He is accordingly looked up and found to be a cheap and ignorant politician, who, if there are no witnesses, tells our agent plainly that it can be stopped for ten thousand dollars. Perhaps we beat him down to eight thousand, but we pay it. Hundreds of firms have been blackmailed in this way. Now we keep an agent in the State Capitol to attend to our interests, and we take an interest in politics to head off the election of professional grafters."
One of the most serious things in this phase of national immorality is showing itself in what are termed "lynchings"; that is, a negro commits a crime against a white woman, and instead of permitting the law to run its course, the people rise, seized with a savage craze for revenge, batter in the jails, take the criminal, and burn him at the stake. This burning is sometimes attended by thousands, who display the most remarkable abandon and savagery. Some African chiefs have sacrificed more people at one time, but no savage has ever displayed greater bestiality, gloated over his victim with more real satisfaction, than these free Americans in numerous instances when shouting and yelling about the burning body of some unfortunate whose crime has aroused their ferocity to the point of madness.