CHAPTER II.
THE TSAR-MAYOR.
The parallel which instinctively occurs to the mind of the observer is one of somewhat evil omen for the future of the American Commonwealth. The Roman Republic evolved the Empire very much in the same way that the Tsar Mayoralty of Greater New York has been evolved from the institutions which preceded it. The Roman Empire was not based upon a plébiscite of the citizens, but equally with the New York Mayoralty it ignored the principle of hereditary right. Occasionally the Imperial purple passed from father to son, but for the most part the throne was filled by the only kind of election possible in those days. The Emperor was the choice of men who wielded, not ballots, but swords.
A study of the corruption and despair which produced the Roman Empire will supply many curious parallels to the existing state of things in America. In ancient Italy, as in modern New York, elective institutions had been abused until the best citizens despaired of the Republic. The Third Napoleon, in his history of Julius Cæsar, writes concerning the way in which elections were managed in ancient Rome in terms which curiously resemble those employed by the Lexow Committee in explaining how elections were worked in modern New York:—
The sale of consciences had so planted itself in public morals, that the several instruments of electoral corruption had functions and titles almost recognised. Those who bought votes were called divisores; the go-betweens were interpretes; and those with whom was deposited the purchase-money were sequestres. Numerous secret societies were formed for making a trade of the right of suffrage; they were divided into decuries, the several heads of which obeyed a supreme head, who treated with the candidates and sold the votes of the associates, either for money, or on the stipulation of certain advantages for himself or his friends. These societies carried most of the elections, and Cicero himself, who so often boasted of the unanimity with which he had been chosen Consul, owed to them a great part of the suffrages he obtained....
This all was struck with decadence. Brute force bestowed power, and corruption the magistracies. Numerous elements of dissolution afflicted society; the venality of the judges, the traffic in elections, the absolutism of the Senate, the tyranny of wealth, which oppressed the poor by usury, and braved the law with impunity.—“Julius Cæsar,” by Napoleon III., vol. i., p. 3.
As a way of escape from the disasters which afflicted the Republic, there emerged in natural process of evolution, first, the dictatorship of Sylla, then the triumph of Marius, afterwards the ascendency of Cæsar, which led directly to the foundation of the Empire by Augustus. We are not within sight of the Augustan Empire in the United States, but the same causes which in the natural course of time ripened the Empire of the Cæsars are to be seen in full operation on the banks of the Hudson. The United States is happily at present without the legionaries whose supremacy enabled a succession of military commanders to establish the Roman Empire upon the grave of the Roman Republic. That element of danger may not be wanting in time to come. The growth of imperial ambitions at Washington is one of the most plainly marked signs of the times. A spirit which to-day annexes Hawaii, threatens Spain, and defies Europe with the Monroe Doctrine, will certainly be driven to increase its armaments or to abate its ambitions. These things, however, belong to the next century. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
The system of the Tsar-Mayor first came into operation at Brooklyn in 1882. It sprang, as did the Second Empire, from the timidity of the citizens. Mr. Seth Low, the first Tsar-Mayor, writing in the last edition of Bryce’s “American Commonwealth,” points out this very clearly. He said:—
The aim of the Americans for many years deliberately was to make a city government where no officer by himself could have power enough to do much harm. The natural result of this was to create a situation where no officer had power to do good.