Undercurrents in American politics; comprising the Ford lectures, delivered at Oxford university and the Barbour-Page lectures, delivered at the University of Virginia in the spring of 1914

Preface

In the spring of 1914 it was my privilege to deliver the Barbour-Page Lectures at the University of Virginia and the Ford Lectures at Oxford University. As the two courses dealt with kindred subjects, I am publishing them in a single volume.

The whole might well have been entitled ' ' Extra- Constitutional Government in the United States.'' The Oxford Lectures, on Property and Democracy, show how a great many organized activities of the community have been kept out of government control altogether. The Virginia Lectures, on Political Methods, show how those matters which were left in government hands have often been managed by very different agencies from those which the framers of our Constitution intended.

As the first three lectures were delivered to an English audience, they contain some explanations which are unnecessary for American readers; but it seemed on the whole better to print them in their original form.

vi PREFACE

When so wide a range of topics is treated in so small a book, it is impossible to give any adequate set of references to authorities. I have tried in the several lectures to make due acknowledgment to the men who have most nearly anticipated my lines of thought or have furnished me with the largest budgets of illustrative facts; but I have only been able to name a few among the many to whom I am thus indebted.

Yale University, New Haven April 1915

TABLE OF CONTENTS PROPERTY AND DEMOCRACY

Lecture I

The Gradual Development op American Democracy ..... 3

Colonial organization was essentially aristocratic ...... 3

Keligious exclusiveness in New England, 4. Large land grants in middle colonies, 6. Effect of slavery in south, 8.

Independence made no immediate change

in this respect ..... 10

Universal suffrage not adopted, 11. High property qualifications, 11. Leaders of both parties aristocratic, 13.

The turning point came in 1820 with the

advent of a new generation ... 14

Effect of political watchwords, 15. Effect of Hamilton's land policy, 16. Western type of man and commonwealth, 20. Andrew Jackson, 20. Political democracy established before 1840, 22.

The political change was attended with a social change, but not with an industrial one ....... 25

Contrast between Europe and America, 27. Absence of labor legislation, 27. Socialistic agitation not effective, 30.

viii CONTENTS

Lecture II

The Constitutional Position of the Property Owner . . : . . 32

The American political and social system is based on industrial property rights . 33 Traditional opposition between military and industrial classes in Europe, 33. No such tradition in America, 35. Working and fighting power in same hands, 36.

These rights have been protected by a constitutional compact .... 37

Character of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, 38. Balance between home rule party and federal party, 39. Immunities given to the property owner, 40. The American doctrine of sovereignty, 42.

No serious attempt has been made to amend the Constitutional provisions protecting property ...... 47

A democracy of small landowners, 48. Need of attracting capital, 49. Freedom of incorporation, 51. Constitutional guarantees of corporate independence, 53. The Dartmouth College case, 54. The Fourteenth Amendment and the San Mateo case, 55.

The Civil War produced industrial unrest,

but not industrial reform ... 56

Emancipation of slaves, 56. Currency agitation, 57. High protective tariff, 58. The competitive system in America, 59. Its effect on industrial efficiency, 62.

CONTENTS ix

Lecture III

Recent Tendencies in Economics and in

Legislation ..... 64

Competition did not protect shippers against abuse of railway power . . 65

Sudden discovery of this fact after the civil war, 66. The Granger movement, 67. Eailway commissions and the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, 71.

Failure of competition was not confined to railways ...... 72

Other public utilities put under control of commissions, 73. Attempt to enforce competition in productive industry, 74. The Sherman Anti- Trust Act of 1890 not enforced for several years after its passage, 75.

The present century has witnessed the first serious movement toward state socialism in America ..... 76

Humanitarian development in Nineteenth Century, 76. Labor agitation ineffective when it antagonized small landowners, 78. Change in Twentieth Century, 80. Small property owners now ranged against the money power, 81. Character of new laws passed since 1903, 86. Increased activity in enforcing old laws, 86. Symptoms of a reaction, 88. Practical limits to state control in America today, 90.

Contents

POLITICAL METHODS OLD AND NEW

Lecture IV The Growth of Party Machinery . . 97

The perversion of party government . 97