This interchange of national customs comes inevitably from the facilitated intercourse of our day, from the intimacy begotten by inter-marriage, by commerce, by travel. But it is sad if we are to borrow more than we lend, and if the balance of trade is to be perpetually against us. We must find or invent a remedy if republicanism is to survive. The widespread alarm felt among our humbler citizens shows how real the danger is. Take, for instance, the growing distrust of universal suffrage manifested by our cultivated classes. Certain journals, the organs of wealth and monopoly; social-science conventions, composed of pert specialists poisoned by caste feeling; even pulpits, which should be the guardians and exponents of democracy,—cautiously, tentatively, but as positively as they dare, discuss the propriety of restraining the ballot, and sigh for a property or an educational qualification.
Now, if there be one feature of American republicanism which is supremely characteristic, it is universal suffrage. This interpenetrates our political system as veins run through a block of marble. The patriots and sages who framed our Constitution grouted it with this principle. They believed and declared that it was safe to trust men with self-government. They recognized, of course, the fact that in every community there would be an element of ignorance and inefficiency. But by putting the ballot in every hand they deliberately took bonds of wealth and culture to enlighten this ignorance and train this inefficiency. They enlisted the self-interest of the Commonwealth on the side of popular education. They said, practically, to the well-to-do and to those who had interests at stake: See to it, if you would save your possessions, that you share them with the poorest and the lowest, at least to the extent of lifting them to the level of self-control and self-respect. In fact, this is the meaning of our free schools, of trial by jury, and of the ballot-box. Tocqueville, whose insight into republican institutions was marvellous, distinctly traces our prosperity, in his survey of American democracy, to universal suffrage, with all that it necessitates. So on the other side of the water, when, in 1867, Parliament doubled the English franchise, Robert Lowe leaped to his feet and cried, amid the cheers of the House of Commons: "Now the first interest and duty of every Englishman is to educate the masses." Previously, if the Court of St. James stooped to put intelligence on one side and morality on the other side of the cradle rocked by poverty and vice, it was pity that dictated the gracious act. Now it is self-preservation. Who does not know how much stronger self-interest is than pity as a motive? Who cannot see the far-sighted wisdom of our fathers in thus ingrafting this powerful motive upon the fundamental law?
Moreover, universal suffrage is educational in itself. Responsibility educates. Nothing else does. By throwing the responsibility upon the people they are necessarily lifted, sobered, broadened. Our women do not vote. What is the result? Not one woman in a thousand has any interest in, and not one in two thousand has any acquaintance with, political affairs. Their ignorance would be laughable were it not sad. Every father, husband, brother, can testify to the impenetrable ignorance of his feminine belongings concerning matters of public moment. It forms the topic of universal comment in male circles. It is not because women are naturally incapable. It is because having no responsibility they naturally have no interest. Why should a woman inform herself of what does not concern her? Occasionally, some woman, exceptionally placed, or born with a genius for politics, studies and masters state-craft. But exceptions do not invalidate, they prove rules. Women, like men, cannot be expected to take any intelligent interest in affairs that lie outside of their life.
Our men, on the contrary, are politicians down to the infant in the cradle. A boy baby cries, "Mr. Chairman!" as soon as he can talk, and calls the next crib to order. Men know that the maturing of politics, the selection of administrations, the distribution of offices, the adjustment of taxes, are their function. This knowledge whets the edge of interest. The significant fact is that it is not the people who are indifferent to politics. This indifference is found among merchants who are too busy making money to attend to the public weal; among scholars buried alive in their books, with no interest in any question that is not musty; among men of leisure, aping old world aristocracy, and out of touch with democracy; among those who say that all men are equal and are afraid they will be,—never among the people.
The plainer men are the greater is their political interest. Our naturalized citizens, shut out in their native land from all participation in government, and hence appreciating citizenship here, are among the most alert. These are they who crowd the halls during the recurring canvasses, and who are always early at the polls. And is it possible to overrate the instruction they get at meetings where they hear great questions discussed by master minds, when issues are torn open and riddled with light? Thus universal suffrage is itself a normal school, the people's college.
It is often said that, judged by its power to govern great cities, universal suffrage is a failure. This is true. The failure, however, is due to local causes. It does not come from the inherent incapacity of the masses, but is the spawn of accidental and removable evils. Chief among these is the corner grog-shop. This is the blazing lighthouse of hell. Here it is that morals and manners are debauched. It is over this counter that what an old poet calls "liquid damnation" is dealt out. If the quid-nuncs, instead of railing at universal suffrage, would combine to help shut that door, republicanism would speedily lose its reproach. The constituency of the grog seller is the ready made tool of the demagogue. A true democracy can only exist on the basis of sobriety. A drunken people cannot be trusted with the dearest rights and most vital possessions of freemen. Better the merciless tyranny of the Czar, or the military despotism of the Kaiser, far better the class rule of England, than the staggering, hiccoughing, bedevilled government of the groggery!
Aside from the great centres of population, the common people are more trustworthy than the corporations, the colleges, or the newspapers. The selfishness, the preoccupation, the anti-republicanism of these, are proverbial. We know that editors are echoes, not leaders, printing what will sell, not what is true. Landor declared that there is a spice of the scoundrel in most literary men. Everybody understands that a corporation's gospel is a good fat dividend. Who would exchange universal suffrage for college suffrage, or corporation suffrage, or newspaper suffrage?
Our danger to-day does not lie in universal suffrage. It lies in the steady encroachments of wealth, in the multiplication of monopolies, in the too rapid growth of fungus millionnaires, in the increasing number of well educated idlers, in the sinister prominence of the saloon in politics, in the tendency of the country to submit to bureaucracy, in the transformation of the national Senate into a club of rich men, housed and fed at the national expense, in the change of the House of Representatives into a huddle of clerks to register the decrees of greedy capital, in the chronic distrust of the people felt among book-educated and professional men; in one word, in the appalling gravitation towards government by "boodle" in the hands of unscrupulous minorities.
The only hope of deliverance lies in the people,—in their honesty, fair play, and decision, No; it is not universal suffrage that has brought disgrace on the country. If the rancor of party spirit, if the dry-rot of legislative corruption, if the tyranny of incorporated wealth, if the diabolism of intemperance are to be curbed, it is universal suffrage which must hold the reins. Talk of taking the ballot out of the hand of the poor citizen! As well fling the revolver out of window when the burglar is in the house. One of the keenest critics of American life has said: "Corruption does not so much rot the masses; it poisons Congress. Credit mobilier and money rings are not housed under thatched roofs; they flaunt at the capital." The real scum is the so-called better class. If anybody is to be deprived of a vote, it should be the railroad king, the mill owner, the indifferent trader, and the Europeanized Yankee who spends abroad what his father earned at home, and mistakes Paris for Paradise.
As another illustration of the un-republican trend, observe the obsequious attitude of our government towards monarchs and monarchies. We are to-day cheek by jowl with the despots of Europe. Instead of being the torch bearer of freedom we occupy a position of apology for what we are and of gaping admiration for what they are. When an opportunity offered the other day to recognize the new Republic of Brazil, the toadies at Washington equivocated and postponed. One would suppose that the disappearance of the last monarchy from the new world would have been greeted in the great Republic with the ringing of bells and the blaze of bonfires—would have been answered by a regular Fourth of July outburst. Bless you, no! The Czar was displeased. The Emperor of Germany was in the sulks. Queen Victoria put on mourning. Why should the Dons at Washington be out of fashion?