Popular government; an inquiry into the nature and methods of representative government

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Preface

At a time when our institutions are being Aubjected to criticism and contempt, when the necessity for greater technical efficiency goes hand in hand with the increasing and restless demand for greater popular control, and when the fundamental theories of our government are menaced by a national myopia of political vision induced by the pressure of immediate need, an analysis of the tested principles of our constitutional system seems very opportime. In order to make this analysis both timely and concrete, the discussion is centered around the practical political problems that have claimed public attention in recent years.

The attempt here is to inquire into the inherent nature of popular government and to determine its fundamental limitations. We are concerned only incidently with considerations of form, but primarily with the forces of human nature as they function through the forms of democracy. How must they function if they function effectively, and if popular government is to be really popular? Are there any fixed and inherent limitations upon the exerdse of popular control which the architects of our political destiny dare not ignore? A consideration of these and similar questions should afford us some basis in fundamental principle for evaluating the modem tendencies in the modification of our system of representative government.

In his able and practical conception of public opiiuon, President Lowell has g^ven us a very valuable concept in the study of democracy of which the author has gladly and freely availed himself, and which forms the basis of approach in the present volume. The author has no

PREFACE

new contribution to offer, but hopes that the analysis and discussion of political problems in the light of the fundamental principles involved may, perhaps, help to give a better perspective to the political thinking of the public and to translate its maturer thoughts into a coherent body of political convictions.

In the preparation of the bibliography, the author has received indispensable assistance from his wife. He is also under great obligation to his colleague, Mr. Graham H. Stuart, for reading and correcting the manuscript.

Aknold Bennett Hall.

Madison, Wisconsin.

July 22, 1920.

Chapter I The Nature Of Popular Government

Popular government is a practical rather than a philosophical concept. Its existence is not determined by the application of political dogmas, the constitutional organization and distribution of its powers, or the qualifications of its electors. Its existence depends ultimately upon considerations that are more permanent, organic, and psychological. In the last analysis and for all practical purposes, popular government is that form of political organization in which public opinion has control. And this means that the existence of public opinion is the prime requisite of popular government. A country may be existing under democratic forms of government, with adequate machinery for the registering of public opinion, and yet there be an utter absence of political democracy. The constitution of Mexico affords ample machinery for popular expression, and yet no one would seriously contend that it is a real democracy, for there is no public opinion to assume control.

The identification of popular government with the machinery of popular elections has been an all too common error. Democracy is not so simple as the legal devices for registering majorities or counting hands. It implies the existence of those nationalistic and psychical traits that make possible a public opinion that can and will control. The electoral devices are the mere form, while public opinion is the substance of democracy.

I

Where the machinery of democraqr has been installed among peoples or over areas where public opinion did not exist, there have followed dictatorships, obligarchies, and despotisms under the forms of democracy. The experiences of some of the turbulent countries in the Caribbean, operating under the forms of constitutional democracy, with their succession of obligarchs and dictators, bear eloquent testimony to this fundamental truth. The reign of the ''carpetbaggers" in the South, following the enfranchisement of the negro, in some cases obliterated the last vestige of democracy. It was not until the negro, deprived of his constitutional right of suffrage, was made a politically subject race, and the control of government returned to the whites, among whom a public opinion prevailed, that popular government was restored. When one of our great cities has fallen temporarily into the hands of corrupt and vicious bosses, and true democracy has seemed to disappear, it has not been due to the failure of electoral devices to register correctly the votes of citizens, but^ generally, it has been due to a conspicuous lack of public opinion. The city*s population has frequently been composed largely of immigrants whose traditions, aspirations, and political convictions, inherited from different and alien lands, have lacked that unity of purposes and ideals that is essential to an effective public opinion. The great significance to be attached to the work of Americanization lies just here. Unless the great mass of our people can be impregnated with a common conviction as to the purposes of government and the fundamental means of their accomplishment, popular government is imperiled. During the World War, the great menace that seemed to confront us in the beginning was the possibility that we might fail to develop a public opinion behind the objects and purposes of the war, and that, as a consequence, our nation would divide into irreconcilable groups, none of which could permanently prevail.

It thus becomes clear that popular government cannot exist without public opinion. None of the devices of popular control can secure democracy, unless back of this machinery there is a public opinion that functions through it. On the other hand, where there is a dominant, virile public opinion, there will be some degree of popular government, though the electoral devices have not been adequately provided. The British Empire, with its hereditary monarch and its House of Lords, is nevertheless a democratic government. Nor would one question the popular nature of the government of Canada, merely because the Governor General is appointed by a Prime Minister overseas, and its senators hold office for life. Despite these factors, public opinion has worked out an effective method of expression, and democracy has been achieved.

If these observations are correct, public opinion becomes the basic conception of democracy. The problems of popular government can be approached, therefore, only through the analysis and understanding of this important concept. Moreover we must approach it from a practical rather than a philosophical point of view. We are concerned only with that public opinion which forms the basis of practical democracy. This has been most ably analyzed by President Lowell, who found the first requisite to be that the opinion must be really public. "Public opinion to be worthy of the name, to be the proper motive force in a democracy, must be really public; and popular government is based upon the assumption of a public opinion of that kind. In order that it may be public a majority is not enough, and unanimity is not required, but the opinion must be such that while the minority may not share It, they feel bound, by conviction not by fear, to accept it; and if democracy is complete the submission of the minority must be given ungrudgingly.'*^

The distinction between public opinion and popular majorities has been too rarely kept in mind, and yet it is fundamental. The credulity with which the idea of self-determination, as the means of solving the vexing problem of subject nationalities, has been generally received, is significant. It j¥Ould be easy to get a majority vote among the people of Ireland, for or against Irish independence, but could it be said that such a vote solved the problem, when the minority would begin civil war against the execution of the people's mandate? A popular majority might easily have been secured by a nation-wide referendum just before the Civil War, on the question of the extension of slavery and allied issues, but would anyone argue that such a decision would have been accepted by the losing side? Would any one suppose that such a vote would have prevented the appeal to arms to settle a problem upon which a national public opinion did not then exist? The facts are that the American people had not yet developed a deep conviction as to the unquestioned rights of the majority to rule in regard to all matters falling within the constitutional scope of their powers, and, therefore, that they did not feel bound to acquiesce. The Ci>dl War evidenced the temporary breakdown of popular government in America, due to the absence of a genuine public opinion.

The distinction between mere popular majorities and a genuine public opinion, in which the minority feels bound to acquiesce, is persuasively stated by President Lowell. "If two highwaymen meet a belated traveller

^Public Opinion and Popular Government, pp. 14-15.

on a dark road and propose to relieve him of his watch and wallet, It would clearly be an abuse of terms to say that in the assemblage on that lonely spot there was a public opinion in favor of a redistribution of property. Nor would it make any difference, for this purpose, whether there were two highwaymen and one traveller, or one robber and two victims. The absurdity in such a case of speaking about the duty of the minority to submit to the verdict of public opinion is self-evident; and it is not due to the fact that the three men on the road form part of a larger community, or that they are subject to the jurisdiction of a common government. The expression would be quite as inappropriate if no organized state existed; on a savage island, for example, where two cannibals were greedy to devour one shipwrecked mariner. In short, the three men in each of the cases supposed do not form a community that is capable of a public opinion on the question involved. May this not be equally true under an organized government, among people that are for certain purposes a community?"^

There can be a public opinion, therefore, only in those communities where the people have a strong sense of national unity, based upon a common conviction both as to the legitimate objects of government and the proper means of their attainment, and where they are scrupulously careful in the observance of such convictions. For it is only under these conditions that the minority will give ungrudging obedience to the dictates of the majority. If there has been any considerable number of people in Soviet Russia who were unwilling to render obedience to the mandates of the government, except as compelled to under threat of force, then there was a government by force rather than by public opinion. Nor a

would it make any difference if a majority voluntarily supported Soviet control; it would still be a government by force. It would not be a democracy in the sense that it was a government by all the people. Such could not exist until there was such a spirit of national unity that the minority would readily accept the rule of the majority.

The second essential of public opinion, according to President Lowell, is that it must be real opinion, as distinguished from "mere prejudice or meaningless impression.'* This does not mean that a blind prejudice, if widespread, may safely be ignored in politics, for it cannot be. It must be reckoned with, but it is not the kind of opinion which popular government is intended to express. On the other hand, a belief may be a real opinion, although not the product of the believer's intellectual processes. The old idea that man is a wholly rational being, ordering his life by intellectual processes entirely, has long since disappeared. Modem psychology has emphasized what a small part the individual's reason plays in belief and action. Convictions are more largely the product of suggestion and authority than of analysis and thought. President Lowell illustrates this by reference to religious beliefs. "The history of religious bodies shows that with the vast majority of men creeds are inherited ; or, to speak more strictly, accepted on the suggestion and authority of parents and teachers. It is incredible that if every one really thought out his beliefs for himself religious lines would remain from generation to generation so litde changed as they have, for example, among the Catholics and Protestants in Switzerland * ^ '^ in fact it would be safe to assert as a general rule that the members of every church have accepted its dogmas because they belonged to it, quite as much as they have dung to the church on account of a belief in its creed. Nor is this less true of other spheres of thought. It is manifestly the case in politics, where party affiliations have no less influence in fixing the principles of men, than the principles have in determining the membership of the parties."^

Nevertheless, President Lowell argues convincingly, such opinion adopted from others through the process of suggestion or authority may be real opinion, if it form an integral part of the believer's philosophy. For, as experimental psychologists have shown, man cannot generally by hypnotic suggestion be made to adopt an idea inconsistent with his own character and convictions. Conversely they are especially susceptible to opinions and beliefs that are consonant with their accepted philosophies. Thus the American public opinion against polygamy in Utah was not the result of a rational study of the relative merits of polygamy and monogamy, but was rather due to the consciousness that the practice of polygamy in Utah was antagonistic to the fundamental principles of the family upon which the whole social fabric rested. Thus "when an old conviction is retained or a new one is accepted, on account of its consonance with a code of beliefs, already in the mind, although without any sufficient process of reasoning or knowledge of the facts, it may be regarded as an opinion in a very different sense from an impression derived from authority or suggestion apart from any such connection with existing ideas."^

While such an opinion may not be very convincing evidence as to the truth of the propositions that are involved, it is nevertheless real opinion. For the test of what constitutes real opinion is not its reliability and accuracy, but the hold it has upon the lives and thought of the people. Does it afford the continuing basis of a unified purpose and thought that will constitute the cohesive unity and the community of object that are essential to the cooperative process that we call democracy? We can have popular government only where there is real public opinion to guide and rule. Unless this opinion is sufficiently grounded in the coniactions and consciousness of the people, it will have neither the continuity essential for effective government, nor the vitality and force to make itself supreme. Beliefs, therefore, that arise wholly from the conscious acceptance of authority or the unconscious process of suggestion are not likely to be real opinion — that is, held with sufficient firmness and conviction — unless such beliefs are right in line with the people's own established conceptions. There are many instances in Central America where dictators have aroused tremendous enthusiasm in behalf of democratic government, but it has rarely continued long enough to establish even a semblance of democracy. This popular manifestation was not real opinion, but merely a popular impression. Created by the authority and contagious personality of some dominant figure, there was no basic conviction of liberty, popular government, or orderly restraint with which the popular impression might establish a vital contact. There was no foundation of national unity, philosophy, or character upon which an enduring structure of democracy could be erected.

The nature of public opinion is well illustrated by American opinion in regard to foreign policy. The ignorance of our people regarding world politics is proverbial. We have taken the principle of isolation with such credulity and in such seriousness, that even the experiences of the great war do not seem to have shattered it materially.

We have, also, as a result of authority, suggestion, and traditional inheritance, a deep and abiding conviction as to the value of the Monroe Doctrine. This conviction is none the less firm and persistent by reason of the fact that a great majority of those who hold it could not possibly define the meaning and implications of the doctrine. As a consequence, when some new question of foreign policy arises, especially in connection with affairs of this hemisphere, the spokesmen are compelled to express it in terms of the Monroe Doctrine if they desire a popular hearing and support. This is necessary, since the great majority of our people are not sufficiently familiar with the facts to form an opinion of their own. The mere authority of our national spokesmen and popular leaders is not sufficient to create a real opinion behind the policy, unless that policy can be harmonized with the traditional doctrine of Monroe. The result is that our public men have brought in many things under this famous doctrine that have no logical or organic relation to it. Moreover, most of the public debate on new problems of foreign policy generally turn more on the question of whether it is a part of the Monroe Doctrine, than as to its ultimate wisdom and justice, although it is conceivable that the two may not be the same.

When the idea of a League of Nations began to receive popular discussion, immediately after the armistice, there was created a popular impression in its favor that seemed destined to ripen into true opinion, because it seemed to harmonize with the firmly established conviction of the American people that war is a wicked and wasteful institution, in the continuation of which we had everything to lose and nothing to gain. When President Wilson brought home the proposed covenant of the League of Nations, had the idea then received the approval of the few great leaders in each of the great politt* cal parties, as a feasible scheme for diminishing the chance of war, and one which either did not interfere with the Monroe Doctrine or which secured a better protection of those interests guarded by that doctrine, a public opinion in favor of the covenant would have been created that would have compelled the ratification of the treaty. For here the voice of authority, harmonizing with the convictions of the people, would have produced a genuine opinion that would ultimately have prevailed.

But, unfortunately for the treaty, it was the opposite that happened. There were as many differing opinions as there were prominent leaders of the people. They expressed varying convictions that ranged from the most hostile opposition to the treaty, as source of future wars rather than a guarantee of peace, to those who supported it in every detail as the only means of safeguarding America's fundamental interests. Consequently there is as yet no real public opinion upon the covenant. This is reflected in the indecision, the futile parliamentary maneuvers, and the almost hopeless impotence of the Senate's attempt to grapple with the problem. There seems to be a strong prevailing opinion that some form of international arrangement should be effected in the effort to safeguard the peace of the future, and that in such an arrangement the United States should not be asked to abandon the protection of the Monroe Doctrine. But as to whether the proposed covenant accomplishes this task, or as to what reservations or changes should be made, there seems to be an absence of well-defined opinion.

This does not mean, however, that a public opinion is impossible on this particular question. It merely means that when there is no dominant and accepted authority from which one can get one's beliefs, and where also the relation of the various beliefs to the citizen's convictions is not clear, no opinion can be formed until the public have gone through a process of reasoning and have acquired a certain number of material facts. This process requires time. The public are generally agreed as to the desirability of peace, the necessity of some kind of international organization to secure it, and the fundamental value of the Monroe Doctrine to the peace and security of the United States. The problem is how may these general principles, upon which there is a public opinion, be applied in this particular case ? Does the proposed covenant apply these principles? If not, what are the means by which these desired ends may be accomplished ? This case is typical of a vast number of problems, upon which a public opinion becomes essential, but which, in the words of President Lowell, ^Mo not present a question of harmony, with accepted principles, but the application of an accepted principle to a particular case, or the means to be adopted in attaining an end universally desired ; and these things usually require for their determination a considerable knowledge of the subject matter. In short, the question turns not on the abstract fitness of things, but mainly on the verification of facts, and in doubtful cases on ascertaining facts neither on the one hand self-evident nor on the other improbable."^

A real opinion cannot be formed on this complicated issue, therefore, until the public have had time to do some thinking and to inform themselves farther on the facts. They must come to some conclusion as to the relation of the covenant to the essential principles of the Monroe Doctrine. They must get some idea as to the international machinery that the covenant will establish, and as to its probable effectiveness. They must gain some conception of the general nature of European politics, of the idea of economic imperialism, of the history of recent efforts and achievements in the solution of international controversies by arbitration, inquiry, and conference. They must know something of the great European conferences of the past, in which conflicting national interests have been adjusted, as a basis of estimating the feasibility of the proposed function of the executive council. They must know something of the liabilities that America assumes by becoming a party to the league. They must gain some conception of the extent to which America has a vital interest in the peace of the world, in order to come to some conclusion as to whether the benefits received will compensate for the liabilities assumed.

These are some of the questions whidi must be met« This does not mean that all of them will be decided independently. Very few persons will have the sustained interest or the historic background to follow out each of the questions suggested to an independent conclusion. Many will accept the opinion of their favorite historian, public leader, journal, newspaper, or their best informed friends on some of the aspects of the problem. From a more or less careful analysis and comparison of the conclusions, facts, and opinions thus assembled, they will arrive at some opinion of their own. And this will be real opinion by the very reason that it is, partially at least, a product of their own intellectual life. By the process of thought thus involved, the conclusion reached will tend to become a part of one's intellectual equipment, and to deepen into convictions of such strength and permanence, that it will become real opinion, as distinguished from a merely passing impression.

How mere impressions, derived from authority or suggestion, may ripen into conviction through the process of thought is capable of abundant illustration. Very frequently a lawyer, who, upon the initial investigation of his client's daim, has considerable doubt as to its validity, loses that doubt and acquires a definite conviction as he develops his argument and builds his case. The client's point of view is reduced to terms of his own intellectual activity, he acquires an unconscious bias in its favor, and his honest doubt gives way to honest and even passionate conviction. Were he retained on the opposing side, he would reach just as clear a conviction, but to the opposite effect. Most of us can recall how some of our convictions that we hold today originated in some debate, or special paper or report, prepared in high school or in college, and which we have had no occasion to reexamine since. The mere process of thinking it out changed our impressions into opinions that still prevail.

The efficiency of the process of reasoning in the development of conviction is well understood by those whose business it is to develop public opinion. Those religious faiths which depend upon authority for their support, and which, therefore, find it essential to establish religious education among their young, have found the catechism a very valuable device. It gives the youth a process of reasoning in favor of the established creed which tends to deepen his convictions. It may be that the reasoning proceeds upon premises that are not scientifically sound, but if sufficiently plausible to harmonize with inherited prejudice, the believer's convictions gain immeasurably by the process. This is recognized by shrewd political managers, who desire to strengthen their party membership against the dangers of political heresy. They seek to establish plausible premises and significant facts, upon which to build an affective argument as to the superiority of the party or principle they represent. Frequently this of antagonistic races may thus prevent the existence of opinion that is really public* Illustrations are afforded by the negro population in the Southern states during the rule of the carpetbaggers, the French population of Alsace-Lorraine under German dominion, or the struggling, contentious races represented in the population of Austria-Hungary. Deep lines of religious and economic cleavage may so divide the people as to prevent popular opinions from being truly public as in the case of the Nationalists and the Unionists of Ireland. The importance of these factors increases, rather than diminishes, as the suffrage is extended to those lower in the intellectual and cultural scale, for as President Lowell has observed, '^religious intolerance and racial antipathy, the horror of the man with an unfamiliar form of worship, the instinctive dislike of the man who speaks a different tongue or pronounces his words in a strange way, usually increase as one descends in the social scale. The result is that deep-seated divergencies of this kind not only unfit a country for popular government, but an attempt to introduce it tends to magnify them. The strife of races has increased in the Austrian Empire with the growth of representative assemblies, and the Irish demand for Home Rule became louder with each extension of the suffrage."*

The second essential to the existence of public opinion is a community of basic political convictions, and a national unity of fundamental ideals, purposes, and objects. Groups may differ as to details, but if their fundamental purposes and convictions are in conflict, there is little opinion that is really public. For instance, in France the monarchists are in direct conflict with the rest of the public on the fundamental question of popular government.

^Public OpintoH and Popular Government, p. 36.

and while the monarchists may not rise in revolt, they do not accept the popular verdict in favor of democracy as final or binding. This prevents the adequate development of a true public opinion and weakens proportionately the democracy of France. If a democracy is to succeed, it would seem essential that the people should hold certain fundamental convictions in common, such as a profound belief in and devotion to the principle of liberty through law, and its coordinate concepts of toleration and self-re-* straint. They should have a common and firm belief in lawful evolution and against revolution as an efficient means of progress. They should share a common conviction as to what constitutes due process of law or the proper methods and occasions for governmental interference with individual rights. Since most of our public opinion is created by authority, conforming to the basic philosophy or convictions of the people, the importance of a conununity of fundamental conviction seems obvious. It is generally assumed that in America these convictions are commonly and uniformly held. While there is every evidence to believe that our people cling tenaciously to these concepts, when threatened by alien foes, they are not such an inherent part of our beliefs as always to prevail in domestic life. A people that will tolerate mob violence, accompanied by incredible barbarity, particularly when directed against the negro race, with apparent calm and indifference, cannot be said to be vitally devoted to the idea of individual right and liberty. The invidious discrimination against this race, both in legislation and administration, shows a popular disregard of the liberty and rights of others. It increases rather than diminishes racial antipathy. The public opinion that approves and secures these measures is not truly public, for the negro accepts them only under compulsion of force. In the meantime it is creating a group of irreconcilables and to that extent prevents our government from being really diemocratic. The recent race riots demonstrate the domestic dangers that inhere in the existence of such groups. When Mr. Victor Berger conducted his canvass for reelection to Congress, after having been refused his seat because he stood convicted of illegal conduct, pending an appeal, it is significant that his campaign, which was permeated with a spirit of hatred and resistance to our institutions, aroused the enthusiastic response of the colored race.

America is divided into many religious groups and faiths, and yet such lines of cleavage have rarely interfered with the forces of public opinion, for the sole reason that as a people we are more firmly grounded in religious liberty and toleration than we are in narrow secta^ rianism and religious bigotry. But who would doubt that, should we lose sight of that fundamental conviction as a people, and a majority interfere with the religious liberty of the minority, we would at once have a group of irreconcilables that would refuse to acquiesce or who might resist with force. Innumerable illustrations might be cited to show that the success of American democracy, operating over so large a territory, with so many differences in temperaments and beliefs, is only possible so long as underneath these differences there is a basic unity as to fundamentals.