"He shall have my vote," says the hay and grain dealer.
As for the twenty-five thousand hide-bound partisans, I will state to begin with, my optimistic correspondent, that if this drama were concerned with any election but a city election, their number would be larger. But these make up in unswerving fixity of purpose for any diminution of their forces due to municipal considerations. They are content to have their thinking done for them in advance by a packed caucus, and they go to the polls snorting like war-horses and eager to vindicate by their ballots the party choice of candidates, or meekly and reverently prepared to make a criss-cross after every R or D, according to their faith, with the fatuous fealty of sheep. Bigotry and suspicions, ignorance and easy-going willingness to be led, keep their phalanx steady and a constant old guard for the protection of comedians and villains.
In another corner of the stage stand the ten thousand superior, self-centred souls who neglect to vote and despise politics—the mixed corps of pessimists, impractical dreamers, careless idlers, and hyper-cultured world-disdainers, who hold aloof, from one motive or another, from contact with common life and a share in its responsibilities—some on the plea that universal suffrage is a folly or a failure, some that earth is but a vale of travail which concerns little the wise or righteous thinker, some from sheer butterfly or stupid idleness. Were they to vote they would help to offset that no less large body of suffragists—the active enemies of order, the hoodlum, tobacco-spitting, woman-insulting, rum-drinking ruffian brigade. There are only left the ten thousand conscientious citizens, real patriots—a corporal's guard, amid the general optimistic sweep toward the polls. These mark their crosses with care against the names of the honest men and perhaps some of the pretty honest, only to read in the newspapers next morning that the big four have been returned to power and that the confidence of the plain and sovereign people in the disinterested conduct of their public servants has again been demonstrated.
"Ho, ho, ho," laugh the low comedians. "Mum's the word." The faces of the big four are wreathed in self-congratulatory smiles. At the homes of Peter Lynch and Jeremiah Dolan, those experienced individuals without occupation, there are cakes and ale. It is a mistake to assume that because a citizen is an Alderman he is not human and amiably domestic in his tastes. Jeremiah loves the little Dolans and is no less fond of riding his children on his leg than Thomas Barnstable, or any of the leading villains. When their father looks happy in the late autumn, the children know that their Christmas stockings will be full. Jeremiah is at peace with all the world and is ready to sit with slicked hair for his photograph, from which a steel (or is it steal?) engraving will shortly be prepared for the new City Government year-book, superscribed: "Jeremiah Dolan, Chairman of the Board of Aldermen." A framed enlargement of this will hang on one side of the fire-place, and an embroidered motto, "God Bless Our Home," on the other, and all will be well with the Dolans for another twelve months. In his own home Jeremiah is a man of few words on public matters. Not unnaturally his children believe him to be of the salt of the earth, and he lets it go at that, attending strictly to business without seeking to defend himself in the bosom of his family from the diatribes of reformers. Still, it is reasonable to assume that, under the fillip of the large majority rolled up in his favor, he would be liable to give vent to his sense of humor so far as to refer, in the presence of his wife and children, to the young man who was willing to become an Alderman while waiting to be Senator, as a T. Willy.
If you have read "The Hon. Peter Stirling," you will remember that the hero rose to political stature largely by means of attending to the needs of the district, befriending the poor and the helpless, and having a friendly, encouraging word for his constituents, high or low. The American public welcomed the book because it was glad to see the boss vindicated by these human qualities, and to think that there was a saving grace of unselfish service in the composition of the average successful politician. It would be unjust to the big four were I not to acknowledge that they have been shrewd or human enough to pursue in some measure this affable policy, and that the neighborhood and the district in which they live recognize them as hustlers to obtain office, privileges, and jobs for the humble citizen wishing to be employed by or to sell something to the City Government. To this constituency the comparative small tax levied seems all in the day's work, a natural incident of the principle that when a man does something, he ought to be paid for it. To them the distinction that public service is a trust which has no right to pecuniary profit beyond the salary attached, and a reasonable amount of stationery, seems to savor of the millennium and to suggest a lack of practical intelligence on the part of its advocates. They pay the lawyer and the doctor; why not the Alderman?
III
I am reminded by Josephine that I seem to be getting into the dumps, which does not befit one who claims to be an optimistic philosopher. The drama just set before you is not, I admit, encouraging as a national exhibit, and I can imagine that you are already impatient to retort that the municipal stage is no fair criterion of public life in this country. I can hear you assert, with that confident air of national righteousness peculiar to the class of blind patriots to which you belong, that the leading politicians of the nation disdain to soil their hands by contact with city politics. Yet there I take issue with you squarely, not as to the fact but as to the truth of the lofty postulate seething in your mind that the higher planes of political activity are free from the venal and debasing characteristics of municipal public service—from the influence of the money power operating on a low public standard of honesty.
Most of us—even philosophers like myself—try to cling to the fine theory that the legislators of the country represent the best morals and brains of the community, and that the men elected to public office in the Councils of the land have been put forward as being peculiarly fitted to interpret and provide for our needs, by force of their predominant individual virtues and abilities. Most of us appreciate in our secret souls that this theory is not lived up to, and is available only for Fourth of July or other rhetorical purposes. Yet we dislike to dismiss the ideal as unattainable, even though we know that actual practice is remote from it; and patriots still, we go on asserting that this is our method of choice, vaguely hoping, like the well-intentioned but careless voter, that some day we shall get a decent government, municipal, state, national—that is decent from the stand-point of our democratic ideal. And there is another theory, part and parcel of the other, which we try to cling to at the same time, that our public representatives, though the obviously ornamental and fine specimens of their several constituencies, are after all only every-day Americans with whom a host of citizens could change places without disparagement to either. In other words, our theory of government is government by the average, and that the average is remarkably high. This comfortable view induces many like yourself to wrap themselves round with the American flag and smile at destiny, sure that everything will result well with us sooner or later, and impatient of criticism or doubts. As a people we delight in patting ourselves on the back and dismissing our worries as mere flea-bites. The hard cider of our patriotism gets readily into the brain and causes us to deny fiercely or serenely, according to our dispositions, that anything serious is the matter.
Yet whatever Fourth of July orators may say to the contrary, the fact remains that the sorry taint of bargain and sale, of holding up on the political highway and pacification by bribery in one form or another, permeates to-day the whole of our political system from the lowest stratum of municipal public life to the Councils which make Presidents and United States Senators. To be sure, the Alderman in his capacity of low comedian dictating terms to corporations seeking civic privileges is the most unblushing, and hence the most obviously flagrant case; but it is well recognized by all who are brought in contact with legislative bodies of any sort in the country that either directly or indirectly the machinery of public life is controlled by aggregations of capital working on the hungry, easy-going, or readily flattered susceptibilities of a considerable percentage of the members. Certainly our national and State assemblies contain many high-minded, honest, intellectually capable men, but they contain as many more who are either dishonest or are so ignorant and easily cajoled that they permit themselves to be the tools of leading villains. Those cognizant of what goes on behind the scenes on the political stage would perhaps deny that such men as our friend Thomas Barnstable or his agent, Dowling, attempt to dictate nominations to either branch of the legislature on the tacit understanding that a member thus supported is to advocate or vote for their measures, and by their denial they might deceive a real simon-pure philosopher. But this philosopher knows better, and so do you, my optimistic friend. It is the fashion, I am aware, among conservative people, lawyers looking for employment, bankers and solid men of affairs, to put the finger on the lips when this evil is broached and whisper, "Hush!" They admit confidentially the truth of it, but they say, "Hush! What's the use of stirring things up? It can't do any good and it makes the public discontented. It excites the populists." So there is perpetual mystery and the game goes on. Men who wish things good or bad come reluctantly or willingly to the conclusion that the only way to get them is by paying for them. Not all pay cash. Some obtain that which they desire by working on the weaknesses of legislators; following them into banks where they borrow money, getting people who hold them in their employ or give them business to interfere, asking influential friends to press them. Every railroad corporation in the country has agents to look after its affairs before the legislature of the State through which it operates, and what some of those agents have said and done in order to avert molestation would, if published, be among the most interesting memoirs ever written. Who doubts that elections to the United States Senate and House of Representatives are constantly secured by the use of money among those who have the power to bestow nominations and influence votes? It is notorious, yet to prove it would be no less difficult than to prove that Peter Lynch, Alderman for ten years without occupation, has received bribes from his fellow-citizens. How are the vast sums of money levied on rich men to secure the success of a political party in a Presidential campaign expended? For stationery, postage stamps, and campaign documents? For torchlight processions, rallies, and buttons? Some of it, certainly. The unwritten inside history of the political progress of many of the favorite sons of the nation during the last forty years would make the scale of public honor kick the beam though it were weighted with the cherry-tree and hatchet of George Washington. In one of our cities where a deputation of city officials attended the funeral of a hero of the late war with Spain, there is a record of $400 spent for ice-cream. Presumably this was a transcript of petty thievery inartistically audited. But there are no auditings of the real use of the thousands of dollars contributed to keep a party in power or to secure the triumph of a politically ambitious millionaire.
(Note.—Josephine, who had been sitting lost in thought since the conclusion of the drama, and who is fond of problem plays, inquired at this point whether I consider the low comedians or the leading villains the most to blame for the existing state of things.