If, therefore, New York has not yet learned to govern itself, how can it be expected to be better governed by adding half a million to its population, and a great territory to its area, unless it be with the idea that a "little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." Is Brooklyn that leaven? If not, and if possibly "the salt has lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted?" Brooklyn is now struggling with this problem, it remains to be seen with what success; but meanwhile it is idle to consider the idea of getting rid of our common evils by adding them together.
Besides it is a fundamental axiom in politics, approved by the experience of older countries, as well as of our own, that the sources of power should never be far removed from those who are to feel its exercise. It is the violation of this principle which produces chronic revolution in France, and makes the British rule so obnoxious to the Irish people. This evil is happily avoided when a natural boundary circumscribes administration within narrow limits. While, therefore, we rejoice together at the new bond between New York and Brooklyn, we ought to rejoice the more, that it destroys none of the conditions which permit each city to govern itself, but rather urges them to a generous rivalry in perfecting each its own government, recognizing the truth, that there is no true liberty without law, and that eternal vigilance, which is the only safeguard of liberty, can best be exercised within limited areas.
It would be a most fortunate conclusion, if the completion of this Bridge should arouse public attention to the absolute necessity of good municipal government, and recall the only principle upon which it can ever be successfully founded. There is reason to hope that this result will follow, because the erection of this structure shows how a problem, analogous to that which confronts us in regard to the city government, has been met and solved in the domain of physical science.
The men who controlled this enterprise at the outset were not all of the best type; some of them, as we have seen, were public jobbers. But they knew that they could not build a bridge, although they had no doubt of their ability to govern a city. They thereupon proceeded to organize the knowledge which existed as to the construction of bridges; and they held the organization thus created responsible for results. Now, we know that it is at least as difficult to govern a city as to build a bridge, and yet, as citizens, we have deliberately allowed the ignorance of the community to be organized for its government, and we then complain that it is a failure. Until we imitate the example of the Ring, and organize the intelligence of the community for its government, our complaint is childish and unreasonable. But we shall be told that there is no analogy between building a bridge and governing a city. Let us examine this objection. A city is made up of infinite interests. They vary from hour to hour, and conflict is the law of their being. Many of the elements of social life are what mathematicians term "variables of the independent order." The problem is, to reconcile these conflicting interests and variable elements into one organization which shall work without jar, and allow each citizen to pursue his calling, if it be an honest one, in peace and quiet.
Now, turn to the Bridge. It looks like a motionless mass of masonry and metal; but, as a matter of fact, it is instinct with motion. There is not a particle of matter in it which is at rest even for the minutest portion of time. It is an aggregation of unstable elements, changing with every change in the temperature, and every movement of the heavenly bodies. The problem was, out of these unstable elements, to produce absolute stability; and it was this problem which the engineers, the organized intelligence, had to solve, or confess to inglorious failure. The problem has been solved. In the first construction of suspension bridges it was attempted to check, repress and overcome their motion, and failure resulted. It was then seen that motion is the law of existence for suspension bridges, and provision was made for its free play. Then they became a success. The Bridge before us elongates and contracts between the extremes of temperature from 14 to 16 inches; the vertical rise and fall in the centre of the main span ranges between 2 ft. 3 in. and 2 ft. 9 in.; and before the suspenders were attached to the cable it actually revolved on its own axis through an arc of thirty degrees, when exposed to the sun shining upon it on one side. You do not perceive this motion, and you would know nothing about it unless you watched the gauges which record its movement.
Now if our political system were guided by organized intelligence, it would not seek to repress the free play of human interests and emotions, of human hopes and fears, but would make provision for their development and exercise, in accordance with the higher law of liberty and morality. A large portion of our vices and crimes are created either by law, or its maladministration. These laws exist because organized ignorance, like a highwayman with a club, is permitted to stand in the way of wise legislation and honest administration, and to demand satisfaction from the spoils of office, and the profits of contracts. Of this state of affairs we complain, and on great occasions the community arises in its wrath, and visits summary punishment on the offenders of the hour, and then relapses into chronic grumbling until grievances sufficiently accumulate to stir it again to action.
What is the remedy for this state of affairs? Shall there be no more political parties, and shall we shatter the political machinery which, bad as it is, is far better than no machinery at all? Shall we embrace nihilism as our creed, because we have practical communism forced upon us as the consequence of jobbery, and the imposition of unjust taxes?
No, let us rather learn the lesson of the Bridge. Instead of attempting to restrict suffrage, let us try to educate the voters; instead of disbanding parties, let each citizen within the party always vote, but never for a man who is unfit to hold office. Thus parties, as well as voters, will be organized on the basis of intelligence.
But what man is fit to hold office? Only he who regards political office as a public trust, and not as a private perquisite to be used for the pecuniary advantage of himself or his family, or even his party. Is there intelligence enough in these cities, if thus organized within the parties, to produce the result which we desire? Why, the overthrow of the Tweed Ring was conclusive evidence of the preponderance of public virtue in the city of New York. In no other country in the world, and in no other political system than one which provides for and secures universal suffrage, would such a sudden and peaceful revolution have been possible. The demonstration of this fact was richly worth the twenty-five or thirty millions of dollars which the thieves had stolen. Thereafter, and thenceforth, there could be no doubt whether our city population, heterogeneous as it is, contains within itself sufficient virtue for its own preservation. Let it never be forgotten that the remedy is complete; that it is ever present; that no man ought to be deprived of the opportunity of its exercise; and that, if it be exercised, the will of the community can never be paralyzed. Our safety and our success rest on the ballot in the hands of freemen at the polls, deliberately deposited, never for an unworthy man, but always with a profound sense of the responsibility which should govern every citizen in the exercise of this fundamental right.
If the lesson of the Bridge, which I have thus sought to enforce, shall revive the confidence of the people in their own power, and induce them to use it practically for the election to office of good men, clothed, as were the engineers, with sufficient authority, and held, as they were, to corresponding responsibility for results, then, indeed, will its completion be a public blessing, worthy of the new era of industrial development in which it is our fortunate lot to live.