Chapter Four: Congress…

Chapter Four: Congress

There is an avenue which leads from the White House in a direct line to the Capitol, the dominating architectural feature of Washington. On walking up the broad terraces one comes first to the great central hall, over which rises the dome; to the right one passes through the Hall of Fame and comes finally to the uncomfortably large parliamentary chamber, in which 386 Representatives sit together as the direct delegates of the people. Going from the central hall to the left one passes by the apartments of the Supreme Court, and comes finally to the attractive room in which the ninety state delegates hold their sessions. The room on the right is called the “House,” on the left the Senate; both together make up Congress, the law-giving body of the nation. When the thirteen states which first formed the Union in the year 1778 adopted the Articles of Federation, it was intended that Congress should be a single body, in which each state, although it might be represented by a varying number of members, should nevertheless have the right to only one vote. Nine years later, however, the final Constitution of the United States replaced this one simple system by dividing Congress into Senate and House of Representatives, doing this simply by analogy with the traditions of the state governments. Pennsylvania was the only state which had but one legislative chamber, while the others had taken over from England the system of double representation and had carried out the English tradition, although probably nothing was further from their intention than to divide their legislators into lords and commoners.

For the United States the dual division inevitably seemed the shortest way to balance off conflicting requirements. On the one side every state, even the smallest, should have the same prerogatives and equal influence: on the other side, every citizen must count as much as every other, so that the number of inhabitants must be duly represented. It was necessary, therefore, to create one chamber in which all States should have the same number of Representatives, and another in which every delegate should represent an equal number of voters. Furthermore, on the one hand a firm and conservative tradition was to be built up, while on the other the changing voice of the people was to be reflected. It was, therefore, necessary to remove one chamber from popular election and leave it to the appointment of the separate state legislatures. It was also necessary to put the age for candidacy for this chamber high, and to make the term of office rather long, and finally to contrive that at any one time only a fraction of the numbers should be replaced, so that a majority of the members could carry on their work undisturbed. The other chamber, however, was to be completely replaced by frequent direct popular elections. Thus originated the two divisions of Congress which so contrast in every respect. A comparison with European double legislative systems is very natural, and yet the Senate is neither a Bundestag, nor a Herrenhaus, nor a House of Lords; and the House of Representatives is fundamentally different from the Reichstag. One who wishes to understand the American system must put aside his recollections of European institutions, since nothing except emphasis on the difference between the American and European legislatures will make clear the traditions of Washington.

As has been said, the Senators are representatives of the several states; every state sends two. The State of New York, with its seven million inhabitants, has no more representatives in the Senate than the State of Wyoming, which has less than one hundred thousand inhabitants. Every Senator is elected for six years by the law-giving body of the individual state. Every second year a third of the Senators retire, so that the Senate as a whole has existed uninterruptedly since the foundation of the Union. Curiously enough, however, the Senators vote independently, and thus it often happens that the two Senators from one State cast opposite votes. A candidate for the Senate has to be thirty years old.

The members of the House are elected every two years and by direct popular vote. The number of delegates is here not prescribed by the Constitution. It is constantly modified on the basis of the ten-year census, since every state is entitled to a number of delegates proportionate to its population. While there were slaves, who could not vote, the slave states nevertheless objected to the diminution in the number of their representatives, due to the fact that the negro was not considered an inhabitant, and it was constitutionally provided to compute the number of Representatives on the basis that every slave was equivalent to three-fifths of a man. To-day neither colour nor race constitutionally affects the right to vote. On the other hand, the nation as such does not concern itself to consider who is allowed to vote, but leaves this completely to the different states, and requires only that for the national elections in every state the same provisions are observed which are made for the elections to the state legislature. Moreover, it is left to every state in what wise it shall choose the allotted number of Representatives at Washington. Thus, for instance, in those four Western States in which women are allowed to vote for members of the legislature, women have also the right to vote for Congressmen.

The first House of Representatives had 65 members, while the House of 1902 had 357, and the political centre of gravity of the country has so shifted that the states which originally made up Congress send now only 137 of the members. The number of delegates has recently been increased to 386. The age of candidacy is 25, and while a Senator must have lived in the country for nine years, only seven years are required of a Representative.

The differences in the conditions of election are enough to bring it about that the personal make-up of the two Houses, as had been originally intended, give very different impressions. The dignity of being Senator is granted to but few, and to these for a long time, and as it is bestowed by that somewhat small circle of the legislators of the state, is naturally accounted the highest political honour; it is thus desired by the most successful leaders of public life and the most respected men of the several states. The ideal condition is, to be sure, somewhat frustrated, since in reality the members of a state legislature are generally pledged, when they themselves are elected, to support this or that particular candidate for the Senate. Thus the general body of voters exerts its influence after all pretty directly; and, moreover, this distinction depends not a little, in the West and especially in the thinly populated states, on the possession of great wealth. Since, however, in these cases such wealth has generally been won by exceptional energy and keen insight, even in this way men come to Washington who are a good deal above the average voter, and who represent the most significant forces in American popular life earnestly, worthily, and intelligently.

In the last Senate the average age of ninety Senators was sixty years, and seventeen were more than seventy years old. Sixty-one of them were jurists, eighteen were business men, three were farmers, and two had been journalists. As to the jurists, they are not men who are still active as attorneys or judges. Generally men are in question who went over early from the legal profession into politics, and who have lived almost entirely in politics. Indeed, not a few of these lawyers who have become legislators have been for some years in commercial life at the head of great industrial or railroad corporations, so that the majority of jurists is no indication whatsoever of any legal petrifaction. All sides of American life are represented, and only such professions as that of the university scholar or that of the preacher are virtually excluded because circumstances make it necessary for the Senator to spend six winters in Washington. It will be seen that politics must have become a life profession with most of these men, since many are elected four and five times to the Senate. Among the best known Senators, Allison, Hoar, Cockrell, Platt, Morgan, Teller, and several others have been there for more than twenty-five years. Of course the conservative traditions of the Senate are better preserved by such numerous re-elections than by any possible external provision.

It is also characteristic of the composition of the Senate that, with a single exception, no Senator was born on the European continent. Nelson, the Senator from Minnesota, came from Norway when he was a boy. Thus in this conservative circle there is little real representation of the millions who have immigrated to this country. In the autobiographies of the Senators, two relate that, although they were born in America, they are of German descent; these are Wellington, the Senator from Maryland, and Dietrich, the Senator from Nebraska. The Senators are notoriously well-to-do, and have been called the “Millionaires’ Club”; and yet one is not to suppose that these men have the wealth of the great industrial magnates. Senator Clarke, of Montana, whose property is estimated at one hundred million dollars, is the single one who, according to American standards, could be called rich. Most of the others have merely a few modest millions, and for many the expensive years of residence in Washington are a decided sacrifice. And, most of all, it is certain that the Senators who are materially the least well-off are among the most respected and influential. The most highly educated member of the Senate would probably be the young delegate from Massachusetts, the historian Lodge, who is the President’s most intimate friend; but the most worthy and dignified member has been the late Senator from Massachusetts, the impressive orator, Hoar.

It is a matter of course that the social level of the House of Representatives lies considerably lower. Here it is intended that the people shall be represented with all their diverse interests and ambitions. The two-thirds majority of lawyers is found, however, even here; of the 357 members of the last House, 236 had been trained in law, 63 were business men, and 17 were farmers. The House is again like the Senate, since, in spite of the fact that the membership is elected entirely anew, it remains in good part made up of the same people. The fifty-eighth Congress contained 250 members who had already sat in the fifty-seventh. About one-tenth of the Representatives have been in the House ten years. The general physiognomy is, however, very different from that of the Senate. It is more youthful, less serene and distinguished, and more suggestive of ordinary business. The average age is forty-eight years, while there are some men under thirty. The total impression, in spite of several exceptions, suggests that these men come from the social middle class. However, it is from just this class that the notably clear-cut personalities of America have come; and the number of powerful and striking countenances to be seen in the House is greater than that in the German Reichstag. The Representatives, like Senators, have a salary of $5,000 and their travelling expenses.

What is now the actual work of these two chambers in Congress, and how do they carry it on? The work cannot be wholly separated from its manner of performance. Perhaps the essentials of this peculiar task and method could be brought together as follows: on the basis of committee reports, Congress decides whether or not to accept bills which have been proposed by its members. This is indeed the main part of the story. Congress thus passes on proposed bills; its function is purely legislative, and involves nothing of an executive nature. On the other hand, these bills have to be proposed by members of Congress; they cannot be received from the President or from members of his Cabinet. Thus the Executive has no influence in the law-giving body. The method of transacting business, finally, consists of laying the emphasis on the deliberations in committees, and it is there that the fate of each bill is virtually settled. The committee determines whether the proposed measure shall come before the whole House; and both House and Senate have finally to decide about accepting the measure. Each of these points requires further comment.

So far as the separation of the legislative and executive functions of the government is concerned, it is certainly exaggeration to say that it is complete, as has often been said. There is, to be sure, a somewhat sharper distinction than is made in Germany, where the propositions of the Executive form the basis of legislative activity; and yet even in the United States the ultimate fate of every measure is dependent on the attitude taken by the President. We have seen that a bill which is sent by Congress to the President can be returned with his veto, and in that case becomes a law only when on a new vote in both Houses it receives a two-thirds majority. A law which obtains only a small majority in either one of the Houses can thus easily be put aside by the Executive.

On the other hand, Congress has a very important participation in executive functions, more particularly through the Senate, inasmuch as all appointments of federal officers and the ratification of all treaties require the approval of the Senate. International politics, therefore, make it necessary for the President to keep closely in touch with at least the Senate, and in the matter of appointments the right of the Senators to disapprove is so important that for a large number of local positions the selection has been actually left entirely to the Senators of the respective states. The Constitution gives to Congress even a jurisdictional function, in the case that any higher federal officers abuse their office. When there is a suspicion of this, the House of Representatives brings its charges and the Senate conducts the trial. The last time that this great machinery was in operation was in 1876, when the Secretary of War, Belknap, was charged and acquitted; thus suspicion has not fallen on any of the higher officials for twenty-eight years.

The separation of the Legislative from the Executive is most conspicuously seen in the fact that no member of the Cabinet has a seat in Congress. At the beginning of the Congressional session the President sends his message, in which he is privileged politically to pour out his entire heart. Yet he may only state his hopes and desires, and may not propose definite bills. The Cabinet ministers, however, are responsible solely to the President, and in no wise to Congress, where they have no right to discuss measures either favourably or unfavourably. They do not come into contact with Congress. This is in extreme contrast with the situation in England, where the ministers are leaders of the Parliamentary party. The American sees in this a strong point of his political system, and even such a man as the former ambassador to Germany, Andrew D. White, who admired so much of what he saw there, considers the ministerial benches in the German and French representative chambers a mistake. It occasions, he says, a constant and vexatious disagreement between the delegates of the people and the ministers, which disturbs the order and effectiveness of parliamentary transactions. The legislative work should be transacted apart, and the popular representatives ought to have only one another to take care of.

We must not, however, understand that there are practically no relations existing between Congress and the ministry. A considerable part of the bills, which have to be discussed, consist, of course, in appropriations for public expenditures, so far as these come out of the federal rather than the state treasuries. Such appropriations included at the last time $139,000,000 for pensions, $138,000,000 for the post office, $91,000,000 for the army, $78,000,000 for the navy, $26,000,000 for rivers and harbours, and so on; making in all $800,000,000 for the annual appropriations, besides $253,000,000 for special contracts. Thus the total sum of appropriations in one session of Congress amounted to over $1,000,000,000, in America called a billion. This authorized appropriation has to be made on the basis of proposals, submitted by the members of Congress; but it is a matter of course that every single figure of such propositions has to come originally from the bureau of the army or navy, or whatever department is concerned, if it is to serve as the basis of discussion. Thus while the Executive presents to Congress no proposals for the budget, it hands over to the members of Congress so empowered the whole material; and this is, after all, not very different from the European practice. However, the voice of the Executive is indeed not heard when the budget is under debate. The members of Congress who are to receive the ministerial propositions through mediation of the Treasury, must belong to the House; for one of the few advantages which the House of Representatives has over the Senate is that it has to initiate all bills of appropriation. This is a remnant of the fundamental idea that all public expenditures should be made only at the instance of the taxpayers themselves, wherefore the directly elected members of the House are more fitted for this than are the Senators, who are indirectly elected. This single advantage is less than it looks to be, since the Senate may amend at will all bills of appropriation that it receives from the House.

Thus every measure which is ever to become law must be proposed by members of Congress. One can see that this privilege of proposing bills is utilized to the utmost, from the simple fact that during every session some fifteen thousand bills are brought out. We may here consider in detail the way in which the House transacts its affairs. It is clear that if more than three hundred voluble politicians are set to the task of deliberating in a few months on fifteen thousand laws, including all proposed appropriations, that a perfect babel of argument will arise which can lead to no really fruitful result, unless sound traditions, strict rules and discipline, and autocratic leadership hold this chaotic body within bounds. The American instinct for organization introduced indeed long ago a compact orderliness. Here belongs first of all that above-mentioned committee system, which in the House is completed by the unique institution of the Speaker. But one thing we must constantly bear in mind: the whole background of Congressional doings is the two-party system. If the House or the Senate were to break out in the prismatic variegation of the German parliamentary parties, no speaker and no system of committees would be able to keep the elements in hand. It is, after all, the party in majority which guarantees order, moulds the committees into effective machines, and lends to the Speaker his extraordinary influence.

The essential feature of the whole apparatus lies in the fact that a bill cannot come up before the House until it has been deliberated in committee. The chairman of the committee then presents it personally at some meeting. The presiding officer, the so-called Speaker, exerts in this connection a threefold influence; firstly, he appoints the members of all the committees, of which, for instance, there were in the last Congress sixty-three. The most important, and, therefore, the largest, of these committees are those on appropriations, agriculture, banking, coinage, foreign and Indian affairs, interstate and foreign commerce, pensions, the post office, the navy, railroads, rivers and harbours, patents, and finance. Both the majority and minority parties are represented in every committee, and its chairman has almost unlimited control in its transaction of business. All members of the more important committees are experienced men, who have been well schooled in the traditions of the House.

The Speaker is allowed further to decide as to what committee each bill shall be referred. In many cases, of course, there is no choice; but it not seldom happens that there are several possibilities, and the decision between them often determines the fate of the bill. In the third place, the Speaker, as chairman of the Committee on Rules, decides what reports, of those which have been so far prepared by the committees, shall come up for discussion at each meeting of the House. As soon as the committee has agreed on recommendations, its report is put on the calendar; but whether it then comes up for debate in the House depends on a good many factors. In the first place, of course, many of the proposed matters take naturally first rank, as for instance, the appropriations. The chairman of the Committee on Appropriations is given the floor whenever he asks for it; thus there are express trains on this Congressional railroad which have the right-of-way before suburban trains, and then, too, there are special trains which take preference before everything else. But aside from such committee reports as are especially privileged, a very considerable opportunity of selection exists among those which remain.

It is here that the really unlimited influence of the Speaker comes in. He is in no way required to give the floor to the committees which ask for it first. If the chairman of the committee is not called on by the Speaker for his report, he is said to be not “noticed” and he is helpless. Of course, whether he is noticed or not depends on the most exact prearrangement. If now a bill is finally reported to the House, it is still not allowed an endless debate, for the Speaker is once more empowered to appoint a particular time when the debate must end, and thereby he is able to come around any efforts at obstruction. If, however, the minority wishes to make itself heard by raising the point of no quorum, then not only those who are voting, but all those who are present in the House, are counted, and if these are not enough the delinquents can be hunted out and forced to come in. But in most cases there is little or no debate, and the resolutions of the committee are accepted by the House without a word. In certain of the most important cases, as in matters of appropriation or taxation, the House constitutes itself a so-called committee of the whole. Then the matter is seriously discussed under a special chairman, as at the session of an ordinary committee. Even here it is not the custom to make long speeches, and the members are often contented with a short sketch of their arguments, and ask permission to have the rest published in the Congressional Report. The speeches which thus have never been delivered are printed and distributed in innumerable copies through the district from which that speaker comes and elsewhere as well.

Thus if an ordinary Representative proposes a measure, which perhaps expresses the local wishes of his district, such a bill goes first to the Secretary and from him to the Speaker. He refers it to a special committee, and at the same time every Representative receives printed copies of it. The committee decides whether the bill is worth considering. If it has the good fortune to be deliberated by the committee it is often so amended by the members that little remains of its original substance. If it then has the further good fortune to be accepted by the committee, it comes on the House calendar, and waits until the Committee on Rules puts it on the order of the day. If it then has the exceptional good fortune of being read to the House it has a fairly good chance of being accepted.

But of course its pilgrimage is not ended here. It passes next to the Senate, and goes through much the same treatment once more; first a committee, then the quorum. If it does not there come up before the quorum, it is lost in spite of everything; but if it does finally come up, after all hindrances, it may be amended once more by the Senate. If this happens, as is likely, its consideration is begun all over again. A composite committee from both Houses considers all amendments, and if it cannot come to an agreement the measures are doomed. If the committee does agree, the close of the session of Congress may intervene and prevent its last hearing in the House, and in the next Congress the whole process is repeated. But if a measure has passed through all these dangers and been approved by both Houses, the President then has the opportunity to put his veto on it.

Thus it comes about that hardly a tenth part of the bills which are introduced each year ever become laws, and that they are sifted out and amended surely and speedily. Indeed, it can hardly be doubted that a large part of the fifteen thousand bills are introduced out of personal consideration for constituents, or even out of less worthy motives, with no expectation that they will possibly be accepted. Moreover, the popular tribunal, the House, spares itself too great pains, because it knows that the Senate will certainly amend all its provisions; and the Senate indulges itself in voting unnecessary favours to constituents because it relies on their negation by the House.

The Senate works on fundamentally the same plan. When a Senator brings his proposition, it goes likewise to the appropriate committee, then is read before a quorum, and is passed on to the other chamber. Nevertheless, there is a considerable difference in procedure; the House behaves like a restless popular gathering, while the Senate resembles a conference of diplomats. The House is a gigantic room, in which even the best orators can hardly make themselves heard, and where hundreds are writing or reading newspapers without paying any attention to the man who speaks. But the Senate is a parliamentary chamber, where a somewhat undue formality prevails. A strict discipline has to be observed in the House in order to preserve its organization, while the Senate needs no outward discipline because the small circle of elderly gentlemen transacts its business with perfect decorum. Thus the Senate tolerates no Speaker over it, no president with discretionary powers. In the Senate both parties have the right to appoint the members of the committees. The Chairman of the Senate must also not fail to notice any one who asks for the floor; whoever wishes to speak has every chance, and this freedom implies of course that the debates shall not be arbitrarily terminated by the Chairman. A debate can be closed only by unanimous consent. The influence of the Chairman of the Senate is, therefore, only a shadow beside that of the Speaker, and since the Chairman is not elected by the Senate itself, but is chosen directly by the people in the person of the Vice-President of the United States, it may happen that this Chairman belongs to the party in minority, and that he has practically no influence at all. Conformably with the extreme formality and courtesy of the Senate, majorities are counted on the basis of the votes actually cast, and not, as in the House, on the basis of members actually present. For both Houses alike it is possible for those who intend to be absent to be paired off beforehand, so that if one absentee has announced himself for, and another against, a certain bill, they can both be counted as having voted.

It is clear what the consequences of this unlimited exchange of Senatorial courtesy must be; the concessions in outward form must lead immediately to compromises and tacit understandings. If a debate can be closed only by unanimous agreement, it is possible for a single opposing politician to obstruct the law-making machinery. A handful of opponents can take the stand for weeks and block the entire Senate. Such obstructionist policy has to be prevented at any cost, and therefore on all sides and in every least particular friendly sympathy must be preserved. Of course, the opposition between the two parties cannot be obviated; so much the more, then, it is necessary for each man to be bound by personal ties to every other, and to feel sure of having a free hand in his own special interests so long at least as he accords the same right to others in theirs. Thus, merely from the necessity of preserving mutual good feeling, it too often happens that the other members close their eyes when some willing Senator caters to local greed or to the special wishes of ambitious persons or corporations, by proposing a Congressional bill.

This “Senatorial courtesy” is most marked in the matter of the appointment of officials, where matters go smoothly only because it has been agreed that no proposals shall be made without the approval of the Senators of the state concerned. Every Senator knows that if to-day one local delegate is outvoted, the rebellion may to-morrow be directed against another; and thus many a doubtful appointment, given as hush money or as a reward for mean political services, is approved with inward displeasure by courteous colleagues merely in order to save the principle of individual omnipotence. There is no doubt that in this way the individual Senator comes to have much more power than does a single Representative. The latter is really the member of a party, with no special opportunities for satisfying his individual wishes; while the Senator may have his personal points of view, and is really an independent factor.

If to-day the Senate, contrary to the expectation of former times, really plays a much more important rôle before the public than the House, this is probably not because more important functions are given to the Senate, but because it is composed of persons of whom every one has peculiar significance in the political situation, while the House is nothing but a mass-meeting with a few leaders. This increased importance before the public eye works back again on the Senator’s opinion of himself, and the necessary result is a steady increase in the Senate’s aspirations and the constant growth of its rights. Perhaps the most characteristic exhibition of this has been the gradual evolution of the part taken by the Senate in the matter of foreign treaties. The Constitution requires the ratification of the Senate, and the original construction was that the Administration should present a treaty all made out, which the Senate had to accept or reject as it stood. But soon the Senate arrogated to itself the right to amend treaties, and then it came about that the Senate would never accept a treaty without injecting a few drops of its own diplomatic wisdom. It might be that these would be merely a change of wording, but just enough to let the President feel the Senatorial power. The result has been that the treaties that are now presented to the Senate are called nothing but proposals.

Looking behind the scenes one discovers that at bottom, even in the Senate, only a few have real influence. The more recently appointed Senators earn their spurs in unimportant committees, and even if they get into more important ones they are constrained by tradition to fall in line behind the more experienced members. In the House there is half a dozen, and in the Senate perhaps a dozen men who shape the politics of the country. Here, as in all practical matters, the American is ready to submit to an oligarchical system so long as he knows that the few in question derive their power from the free vote of the many. In fact nothing but oligarchy is able to satisfy the profoundly conservative feeling of the American. Behind the scenes one soon discovers also that the Senatorial courtesy, which neutralizes the party fanaticism and encourages compromises to spring up like mushrooms, still leaves room for plenty of fighting; and even intrigue thrives better on this unctuous courtesy than in the coarser soil of the lower house. The sanctified older Senators, such as Allison, Frye, Platt, Aldrich, and Hale, know where to place their levers so as to dislodge all opposition. Perhaps McKinley’s friend, Hanna, who was the grand virtuoso in Republican party technique, knew how always to overcome such political intrigue; but even Roosevelt’s friend, Lodge, has sometimes found that the arbitrarily shaped traditions of the seniors weigh more than the most convincing arguments of the younger men.

The moral level of Congress is, in the judgment of its best critics, rather high. The fate of every one of the thousands of bills is settled virtually in a small committee, and thus, time after time, the weal and woe of entire industries or groups of interests depend on one or two votes in the committee. The possible openings for corruption are thus much greater in Congress than in any other parliament, since no other has carried the committee system to such a point. In former times political scoundrels went around in great numbers through the hotels in Washington and even in the corridors of the Capitol trying to influence votes with every device of bribery. To be sure, it is difficult to prove that there are no such hidden sins to-day; but it is the conviction of those who are best able to judge that nothing of the sort any longer exists. To be sure, there are still lobbyists in Washington, who as a matter of business are trying to work either for or against impending bills, but direct bribery is no longer in question. On the slightest suspicion the House itself proceeds to an investigation and appoints a committee, which has the right of collecting sworn testimony; and time after time these suspicions have been found to be unjust.

A different verdict, however, would have to be passed if only that delegate were to be called morally upright who surveys every question from the point of view of the welfare of the entire nation; for then indeed the purity of Congress will be by no means free from doubt. Few Americans, however, would recognize such a political standard. When great national questions come up for discussion Congress has always shown itself equal to the occasion, and when the national honour is at stake, as it was during the Spanish War, party lines no longer exist; but when the daily drift of work has to be put through it is the duty of every man to uphold as obstinately as possible the interests of his constituency. Especially the political interests of his party then become predominant, and, seen from a higher point of view, there are no doubt many sins committed in this direction. Many a measure is given its quietus by one party, not because of any real inexpediency, but simply in order to embarrass the other party, to tie up the Administration, and thus to weaken the hopes of that party at the next election. In recent years such party tactics on both sides have prevailed time after time. Most frequently it is the present minority, under its leader, Senator Gorman, which has resorted to this policy and held out against the most reasonable propositions of the Republicans, simply because these measures would have increased the Republican respect before the nation.

On the other hand, party lines are all the time being broken through by these or those local interests, and any one observing the distribution of votes cast in the House will see clearly how, oftentimes, the parties mingle while the issue lies perhaps between two different geographical sections. When oleomargarine is the order of the day the representatives of the farming districts are lined up against those from industrial sections. If it is a question of getting Congress to approve the great irrigation measures, whole troops of Democrats hasten to forget that, according to their fundamental principles, such an undertaking belongs to the state, and not to the federal, government; the representatives from all the Democratic states which are to be benefited by such irrigation, fall into sweet accord with the Republicans. Thus the party divisions are all the time being forgotten for the moment, and it looks as if this weakening of party bonds were on the increase. By supporting his party principles each Congressman assists toward the next victory of his party, but by working for the interests of his locality he is surer of his own renomination. The requirement that a candidate must reside in the district that elects him naturally strengthens his consideration for the selfish claims of his constituency. Thus it is only at notable moments that the popular representative stands above all parties; he generally stands pat with his own party, and if the voters begin to nod he may take his stand somewhat below the parties.

Yet, on looking at Congress as a whole, one has the impression that it accomplishes a tremendous amount of work, and in a more sober, business-like, and efficient way than does any other parliament in the world. There is less talking against time; in fact, there is less talking of any kind, and because the Administration is not represented at all there is less fighting. The transactions as a whole are therefore somewhat less exciting; a single Congressman has less opportunity to become personally famous. Yet no American would desire to introduce a ministerial bench at the Capitol, or to have the next Congress adopt Austrian, French, German, or English methods.

Chapter Five: Justice

Going from the hall beneath the central dome of the Capitol toward the Senate, in the left wing one passes by an extraordinary room, in which there is generally a crowd of people. The nine judges of the federal court, the Supreme Court of the United States, are sitting there in their black gowns, between Greek columns. The President and his Cabinet, the Senate, and the House of Representatives fill the American with a pride which is tempered by some critical judgment on this or that feature, or perhaps by a lively party dissatisfaction. But every American who is competent to judge looks on the Supreme Court with unqualified admiration. He knows very well that no force in the country has done more for the peace, prosperity, and dignity of the United States. In the constitutional make-up of the Federal Government, the Supreme Court is the third division, and co-ordinate with the Legislative and the Executive departments.

The jurisprudence of a nation forms a totality; and therefore it will not do to discuss the work of the nine men sitting at the Capitol, without throwing at least a hasty glance at the administration of justice throughout this enormous country. There is hardly anything more confusing to a European; and while the Englishman finds many features which are reminiscent of English law, the German stands helpless before the complicated situation. It is, most of all, the extreme diversity of methods which disquiets him. It will be quite impossible to give here even a superficial picture of the machinery of justice. A few hints must suffice at this point, while we shall consider many features in other connections, especially in discussing social problems.

The jurisprudence adopted by the United States comes from three sources. The average American, on being asked what the law of his country is, would say that it is “common law.” If we except the State of Louisiana, which by a peculiarity has the Napoleonic Code, this reply suffices for a rough idea. But if a German, having in mind perhaps the two German law books, the penal and the civil codes, both of which he can put so easily into his pocket, were to ask after some formulation of the common law, he would be shown a couple of huge bookcases with several hundred stout volumes. Common law is not a law book, nor is it a system of abstract formulations, nor yet a codification of the prevailing ideas of justice. It is, in fact, the sum total of judicial decisions. The establishment of common law signifies that every new case as it comes up is decided in conformity with previous decisions. The earlier decision may be a bad one, and very much offend one’s sense of justice; but if no superior authority has annulled it, it becomes historic law and determines the future course of things. American law came originally from the English. The early English colonists brought with them across the ocean the ideas of the English judges, and the states which have sprung up lately have taken their law from the thirteen original states. If to-day, in Boston or San Francisco, any one finds a piece of jewelry on the street and another snatches it from him, he can have the thief arrested, although the object found is not his property. The judge will decide that he has a right to the object which he has found until the original owner appears, and the judge will so decide because in the year 1722 a London chimney-sweep found a valuable ornament, out of which a jeweler later stole a precious stone; and the English judge decided in favour of the chimney-sweep.

The disadvantages of such a system are obvious. Instead of a single book of law embodying the will of the nation, the decisions handed down by single insignificant judges in different parts of the world, decisions which originated under wholly other states of civilization and from other traditions, still have final authority. Again and again the judge has to adapt himself to old decisions, against which his sense of right morally rebels. Yet the deep, ethical motive behind this legal system is certainly plainly evident. The Anglo-Saxon would say that a national code cannot be constructed arbitrarily and artificially. Its only source is in the careful, responsible decisions given down by the accredited representatives of the public will in actual disputes which have arisen. There is no right or wrong, he would say, until two persons disagree and make a settlement necessary, and the judge who decides the case creates the right with the help of his own conscience; but as soon as he has given his decision, and it is set aside by no higher authority, the principle of the decision becomes justice for all times. Every day sees new formulations of justice, because new conflicts between human wills are always arising and require new settlements; but up to the moment when a decision is made there exist only two conflicting desires existing in the matter, but nothing which could be called justice.

Although it seems at first sight as if a legal system, which is composed of previous decisions, would soon become antiquated and petrified, the Anglo-Saxon would say with firm conviction that just such justice is the only one which can be living, because it springs not out of rationalistic preconceptions, but from actual experience. The Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence is full of historical reality and of picturesque individuality. It has grown as organically as language, and is, in the estimation of the Anglo-Saxon, as much superior to a mere code as the ordinary speech of a people, in spite of all its historical inconsistencies, is superior to an artificially constructed speech like Volapük. And he would find many other points of superiority. He would say, for instance, that this is the only system which gives to every man on the judge’s bench the serious sense of his responsibility; for the judge knows that in every case which he decides, he settles not only the fortunes of James and John there present, but he influences for all times the conception of justice of the entire nation. He feels especially that the binding force of previous decisions reassures the public sense of right, and lends a continuity which could never be afforded by the theoretical formulations of an abstract code.

Another factor must be taken into account. A judicial decision which is forgotten as quickly as the voice of the judge who speaks it, can never have so considerable an influence on the public mind as one which itself creates law. In one sense, to be sure, the German judge creates law too; the penal code sets wide limits to the punishment of a criminal, and within these limits the judge assigns a certain penalty. He does in a sense create the right for this particular case; but the characteristic difference is, that in the German Empire no subsequent decision is in the least affected by such preceding decision. The German judge finds justice prescribed for him and he is its servant, while the American makes it and is its master. This gives to the judicial utterance an historical weight and enduring significance, which contribute vastly toward keeping judicial doings in the focus of the public consciousness.

The same is brought about in still another way. Since the decision of the judge is largely dependent on previous cases, the fate of the parties contending may depend on whether they are able to point to previous decisions which are favourable to their side. The layman cannot do this, and it falls to the counsel. In this wise a sphere of action is open to the American lawyer which is incomparably greater than that of any German Anwalt. The former has to concern himself not only with the case in hand, but he has to connect this concrete instance with the whole historic past. Thus the profession of the lawyer comes to have an inner importance which is unknown to the European, and which in many cases necessarily exceeds the importance of the judge, since he is bound to comply with the decisions adduced by the counsels for both sides. The judges are selected from the ranks of lawyers, and are, therefore, brought up in the idea that law is composed of former decisions, and that the decisions of the bench are admirable only so far as they are consistent enough with the earlier ones to force the conviction and respect of the lawyers. Thus barristers and judges are entirely at one, and are together entrusted with the public sense of right, as it has developed itself historically, and as it is day by day added to and perpetuated, so that it shall be a never-failing source of quickening to the conscience of the masses.

In the masses of the people, on the other hand, the natural tendencies are favourable anyhow for developing a lively sense of justice. It is a necessity devolving naturally on the individualistic view of things. The protection of individual rights and the inviolability of the individual person, with all that belongs to it, are the individualist’s most vital concern. Many outward features of American life may seem, indeed, to contradict this, but any one who looks more deeply will see that everywhere the desire for justice is the essential trait of both the individual and the nation; and the public consciousness would rather endure the crassest absurdities and misunderstandings in public affairs than the least conscious violation in the administration of justice. Again and again important trials go to pieces on small technical errors, from which the severe sense of justice of the American is not able to free itself. The public is always willing to endure any hardship rather than to tolerate any maladministration of justice.

On the finest square in Boston stands a large and magnificent hotel, erected by rich capitalists. The building laws provide that structures facing that square shall not exceed a height of ninety feet; but in violation of the law certain cornices and balustrades were added to this building above the ninety-foot line, in order to give an artistic finish to the structure, and still to turn practically every inch allowed by law to account for rentals, which are high in so palatial a building. Every one agreed that this ornamental finish was highly decorative and satisfactory in the æsthetic sense, but that it must, nevertheless, be taken down, because it violated the law by some seven feet. The cornice and balustrades have, therefore, been demolished at great expense, and a handsome structure has been made absolutely hideous—a veritable monstrosity. The best square in the city is disfigured, but every Bostonian looks on this building with gratification. Beautiful architectural detail may indeed have been sacrificed; but the public conscience has won, and it is on this that the nation rests.

It is merely incidental that very much, and indeed much too much, of that which the Germans account matters of justice, is relegated by the American point of view to other tribunals; some, for instance, are held to be political questions, and thus it often appears to the foreigner as if there had been a violation of justice where really there has been only some political abuse. But matters of that sort loom up whenever any nation tries to form an opinion about another. In Germany, indeed, the American seems to see many violations of justice, where the German would find only an historically established social or political abuse.

As we have said, American justice is based on the decisions handed down in earlier cases. But this is, after all, only one of the three sources of law. That form of law-making is also here recognized which in Europe is the only form; the law-making by the majority of the people’s representatives. We have seen how Congress passes every year hundreds of laws. Many of these are indeed special measures, with no universal application; not a few, however, are of very broad application and involve an unlimited number of possible instances. And just as the Congress of the United States, so also can the legislature of each state prescribe general regulations, applicable within the state. Such laws made by the legislature are technically called statutes. These are engrossed in the statute-books of the state, and supersede all opposed decisions which may then exist. The federal judge, like the judge in a special state, is therefore bound to earlier decisions only so far as these are not expressly annulled by statutes.

Here we find one of the main reasons for the extraordinary complexities of the American law; forty-five legislatures are making laws for their several states, and in this way they of course give expression to the diversity of local needs and the varying grades of culture. At the same time, the principle of law, based on earlier decisions, is always combined with the principle of the statute-book. In the cases, both of the laws of Congress and those of the separate states, the judges who first come to apply the statutes in practice, are privileged to make their own interpretation; and here, too, the interpretation handed down in the judge’s decision is valid for all future cases.

In both the federal and state courts a legal action may be carried from the lower to the higher courts, and the decision of the highest tribunal becomes definitely law. The forty-five-fold diversity refers thus not merely to the statutes of the separate states, but also to the interpretations of those statutes which have been given by the upper courts of those states.

The third source of law is the only one that prescribes absolute uniformity for all parts of the country. This is the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution must not be conceived as the creation of Congress; Congress was created by the Constitution. Therefore every provision of the Constitution is a higher law than any bill which Congress can pass, just as the law made by Congress is higher than the decision of any judge. No Congress can modify a clause of the Constitution. The assent of the entire people is necessary for such a revision. Congress can, however, propose an amendment to the Constitution, and a two-thirds majority in the Senate and the House suffice to bring the proposed change before the nation, to be voted on. It has then to be passed on by the forty-five state legislatures, and will become a law with the approval of three-quarters of the states.

At first glance it seems as if this were a judicial machinery which would be far too complicated to work smoothly; it seems as if sources of friction had been arbitrarily devised, and as if continual collisions between the authorities of the several systems would be inevitable. This is true in two instances especially; firstly, the judicial machinery, which carries out the federal laws, sometimes collides with that of the separate states. Then, secondly, the complicated system of Constitutional provisions, devised a hundred years since, may interfere with the progressive measures of Congress or the separate states; and this must be a source of much uncertainty in law. These are the actual difficulties of a legal sort. Everything else, as for instance the enormous diversity of the laws in the separate states, is of course very inconvenient, but gives rise to no conflicts of principle.

Neither of these two difficulties finds its counterpart in Germany. In no Prussian city is there a German tribunal side by side with the Prussian, no imperial judge beside the local judge; nor can one conceive of a conflict in the German Empire between the creators of the legal code and the law-givers who frame the provisions of the Constitution. This doubleness of the judicial officials is in every part of the Union, however, characteristic of the American system and necessary to it. The wonderful equilibrium between centripetal and centrifugal forces which characterizes the whole American scheme of things makes it impossible from the outset for either the whole Federation to become the sole administrator of justice, or for such administration, on the basis of federal law, to be left entirely to the separate states. As a matter of course, a clear separation of jurisdiction has been necessary. The Constitution provides for this in a way clearly made necessary by the conditions under which the Federation was formed. Justice in the army and navy, commercial policies, and political relations with other countries; weights and measures, coinage, provisions, interstate commerce, and the postal system, the laws of patents and copyrights, of bankruptcy, and of naturalization, the laws of river and harbour, cases of treason, and much else are left to the Federation as a whole. While all these matters fall naturally within the scope of federal law, there are, on the other hand, obvious reasons whereby certain classes of persons should be under the jurisdiction of the federal courts. These are, firstly, diplomatic ministers and consuls; secondly, either actual or legal parties when they belong in different states; thirdly, and most important, the states themselves. Wherever a state is party to an action, the Supreme Federal Court must hear the case and give the decision. On the other hand, the Constitution declares expressly that, wherever jurisdiction is not explicitly conferred on the federal courts, it pertains to the individual states; therefore, much the larger part of criminal law belongs to the states, and so the laws of marriage and inheritance, of contract, property ownership, and much else.

For the administration of cases within its jurisdiction, the Federation has divided the whole country into twenty-seven districts, whose boundaries coincide partly with state lines, and of which each has a district court. Groups of such districts form a circuit, of which each has a circuit court, which sits on the more important cases, especially civil cases involving large interests. And, finally, there is a court of appeals. These districts and circuits are now coincident with the regions lying in the jurisdiction of the several states. In their method of procedure the federal and the state courts resemble each other, especially in the general conduct of criminal cases, which is everywhere the same, because the Constitution itself has fixed the main features. Both state and federal courts are alike bound by the extraordinarily rigid rules framed by the Constitution in order to protect the innocent man against the severity of the law.

No criminal can be condemned except by a jury which has been sworn to perform its duty, and before he comes before this jury a provisional jury has to make the accusation against him. Thus one sworn jury must be convinced of the justice of the suspicion before a second jury can give its verdict. A person cannot be brought up for trial twice for the same crime; no one can be compelled to testify against himself; every one has the right to be brought before a jury in the district where the crime was committed, to hear all the testimony against him, to have counsel for his own defence, and to avail himself of the strong arm of the law in bringing to court such witnesses as would speak in his favour; cruel or excessive penalties may not be fixed, nor a man’s freedom or property interfered with except after due process of law. The Constitution provides this, and a good deal else, and thus makes the conduct of trials uniform. In other respects, however, there are not a few differences which are not so obvious in the courts. Among these is the circumstance that federal judges are appointed for life, while the judges of the separate states are elected for short periods of from four to seven years.

The relations between constitutional laws and legislative laws seem even more complicated. Here, too, in a way, the same province is covered by a two-fold system of laws. The fixed letter of the Constitution and the living decisions by a majority in Congress or in a state legislature, stand in opposition to each other. It is established that no legislature can ride over the Constitution; and if the interpretation of a court brings out a contradiction between the two systems, a conflict arises which in principle makes justice uncertain. If we now ask how it is possible that all such conflicts have disappeared without the least prejudice to the national sense of justice, how in spite of all these possibilities of friction no disturbance is seen, or how in a land which has been overrun with serious political conflicts, a jurisprudence so lacking in uniformity has always been the north star of the nation—the reply will be that the Supreme Court has done all this. The upper federal court has been the great reconciling factor in the history of the United States, and has left behind it a succession of honourable memorials. Its most distinguished chief justice has been John Marshall, who presided over it from 1801 to 1835. He was America’s greatest jurist, and contributed more than any one else toward impressing the spirit of the Constitution on the country.

The German reader who hears of the Supreme Court sitting at the Capitol, must not turn back in his mind to the Imperial Court at Leipzig. The Supreme Court is by no means the sole court of highest instance, for the suits in single states which properly fall within the jurisdiction of a state can go no higher than the highest court of appeal of that state. The Supreme Court in Washington is the court of last instance for federal cases; but in order to disburden the judges in Washington, there are large classes of civil cases pertaining to the federal courts, which can be carried no higher than the federal court of appeals of a given circuit. Much more important than the cases in which the Supreme Court is really the court of highest instance for federal suits, are those others in which it is at once the court of first and last instance; these are the processes which the Constitution assigns immediately to the Supreme Court. They are chiefly suits in which a single state, or in which the United States is itself a party, for the Supreme Bench alone can settle disagreements between states and decide whether the federal or state laws conflict with the Constitution. In this sense the Supreme Court is higher than both President and Congress. If it decides that a treaty which the Executive has concluded, or a law which has been passed by the Legislative, violates the Constitution, then the doings of both Congress and the President are annulled. There is only one way by which a decision of the Supreme Court can be set aside—namely, by the vote of a three-fourths majority of all the states; that is, by an amendment of the Constitution. There are some instances of this in the history of the United States; but virtually the decision of the nine judges of the Supreme Court is the highest law of the land.

The Supreme Court has annulled Congressional measures twenty-one times and state statutes more than two hundred times, because these were at variance with the Constitution. Many of these have been cases of the greatest political importance, long and bitterly fought out in the legislatures, and followed with excitement by the public. The whole country has often been divided in its opinion on a legal question, and even the decision itself of the nine judges has sometimes been handed down with only a small majority. Nevertheless, for many years the country has every time submitted to the oracle of the Supreme Court, and considered the whole issue definitely closed.

One is not to suppose that the Supreme Court occupies itself with handing down legal verdicts in the abstract and in a way declaring its veto whenever Congress or some legislature infringes the Constitution. Such a thing is out of the question, since theoretically the Supreme Court, although the equal is not the superior of Congress; most of all, it is a court and not a legislature. The question of law does not come up then before this tribunal until there is a concrete case which has to be decided, and the Supreme Court has always declined to hand down a theoretical interpretation in advance of an actual suit. As early as the eighteenth century, Washington was unable to elicit from the Supreme Court any reply to a hypothetical question. Even when the actual case has come up, the Supreme Court does not say that a certain law is invalid, but decides strictly on the one case before it, and announces on what principle of the law it has based its decision. If there is a disagreement between two laws, the decision of the Court simply lays the practical emphasis on one rather than on the other. It is true that in this way nothing but one single case is decided; but here the principle of common law comes in—one decision establishes a point of law, and the Supreme Court and all lower courts likewise must in future hand down verdicts conformable thereto. The legislative law so superseded is thus practically annulled and made non-existent. In the Supreme Court one sees again that the security of national justice rests on the binding force of former decisions.

It will be enough to point out two decisions which have been given in recent years and which have interested the whole country. In the year 1894 Congress passed a new tax law; one clause of this law taxed every income which was larger than a certain amount. It was taxation of the wealthy. So far as income was obtained by actual labour the tax was undoubtedly valid. But New York barristers doubted the constitutionality of this tax in so far as it was laid on the interest from securities or on rents; because the Constitution expressly says that direct taxation for the country must be levied by the separate states, and in such a way that the whole sum to be raised shall be apportioned among the different states according to their population. The counsels of the wealthy New Yorkers said this provision ought to apply here. The difference would be for every rich man in thickly populated states a very considerable one. If the tax was to be apportioned according to population, the poor states must also bear their share. While it came to be levied on the individuals the largest part of the burden would fall to the millionaires, who are grouped in a few states. The Supreme Court would say nothing so long as the discussion was theoretical. Finally, a case was tested; when the lawyers were prepared, a certain citizen refused to pay the income tax and let the matter go to court. The first barristers in the country were divided on the question, as was also the Supreme Court. The majority decided in favour of the citizen who refused to pay the tax, because in its opinion the tax was a direct one, and therefore the constitutional provision relating to direct taxation was in force. By this one decision the income tax was set aside, and instead of ten thousand new suits being brought, of which the outcome was already clear, the excess taxes were everywhere paid back. At bottom this was the victory, over both President and Congress, of a single eminent barrister, who is to-day the ambassador to England.

A still more important decision, because it involved the whole political future of the United States, was that on the island possessions. By the treaty with Spain, Porto Rico had become a possession of the United States, and was therefore subject to United States law; but Congress proceeded to lay a tariff on certain wares which were imported from the island. There were two possible views. On the one hand, the Constitution prescribes that there shall be no customs duties of any sort between the states which belong to the Union; and since Porto Rico is a part of the Union the rest of the states may not levy a tariff on imports from the island. On the other hand, the Constitution empowers Congress to regulate at its discretion the affairs of such territory as belongs to the United States, but has not yet been granted the equal rights of states; thus the other provision of the Constitution would not immediately apply to this island. The question had never before been decided, because the Indian territories, the Mexican accessions, and Alaska had never been treated as Porto Rico now was. Congress had previously taken for granted that the Constitution was in force for these territories, but now the imperialistic tendencies of politics had created a new situation, and one which had to be settled.

Here too, of course, the Supreme Court did not try to settle the theoretical question which was stirring the whole country; but presently came the action of Downes vs. Bidwell, a simple suit in which a New York commercial house was the complainant, and the New York Customs the defendant. In case the provisions of the Constitution were to hold for the entire domain of the United States, the tariff which Congress had enacted was unconstitutional, but if the Constitution was to hold only for the states, while Congress was sovereign over all other possessions, the tariff was constitutional. The Supreme Court decided for this latter interpretation by five votes against four, and the commercial house paid its tax. Therewith the principle was decided for all time, and if to-morrow the United States should get hold of Asia and Africa, it is assured from the outset that the new domain would not be under the Constitution, but under the authority of Congress—simply because Downes lost his case against Customs Inspector Bidwell, and had to pay six hundred dollars in duty on oranges.

This last case shows clearly that the decisions by no means always support the Constitution against legislative bodies; and statistics show that although in two hundred cases the verdict has been against the legislatures, it has been more often decided in their favour. The entire history of the Supreme Court shows that in a conservative spirit it has always done full justice to both the centralizing and particularizing tendencies. It has shown this conciliatory attitude especially by the firm authority with which it has decided the hazardous disputes over boundaries and other differences, between the several states, so that such disputes really come up no longer. For a century the Supreme Court has been a shining example of a federal tribunal.

Such complete domination of the national life could not have been attained by the Supreme Bench if it had not remained well above all the doings of the political parties, and that it does so may seem surprising when one considers the conditions under which the judges are appointed. The President selects the new judge whenever, by death or retirement, a vacancy occurs among the nine judges; and the Senate confirms the selection. Party factors, therefore, determine the appointment, and in point of fact Democratic Presidents have always appointed judges belonging to their own party, and Republicans have done the same. The result is that both parties are represented in the Supreme Court. That in political questions, such as the case of Porto Rico, which we have mentioned, party conceptions figure somewhat in the decision of the judges is undoubted. Yet they figure only in the sense that allegiance to one or the other party involves certain fundamental convictions, and these necessarily come into play in the judicial verdict. On the other hand, there is never the least suspicion that the judges harbour political schemes or seek in their decision to favour either political party. This results from the fact that it is a matter of honour with both parties to place really the most distinguished jurists in these highest judicial offices—jurists who will be for all time an honour to the administration which appointed them. They are almost exclusively men who have never taken part in technical politics, but who have been either distinguished judges elsewhere or else leading barristers, and who, from the day of their appointment on, will be only judges. Their position is counted among the most honourable which there is, and it would almost never happen that a jurist would decline his appointment, although the position, like all American official positions, is inadequately rewarded; the salary is ten thousand dollars, while any great lawyer is able to earn many times that sum. At the present moment there sits on the Supreme Bench a group of men, every one of whom represents the highest kind of American spirit. The bustle and confusion, which prevail in the two wings of the Capitol, does not invade the hall where the nine judges hold their sessions. These men are, in the American public mind, the very symbol of conscience.

We shall have occasion to consider later on the administration of justice by the nation, under various points of view. While in many respects this will appear less conscientious and more especially less deliberate, it will, nevertheless, recall not a few admirable features of the Supreme Court.

Chapter Six: City and State

The Constitution, the President and his Cabinet, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Supreme Court, in short all of those institutions which we have so far sketched, belong to the United States together. The European who pictures to himself the life of an American will inevitably come to think that these are the factors which most influence the life of the political individual. But such is not the case; the American citizen in daily life is first of all a member of his special state. The organization of the Union is more prominent on the surface than that of the single state, but this latter is more often felt by the inhabitants.

The quality of an American state can be more easily communicated to a German than to an Englishman, Frenchman, or Russian. The resident of Bavaria or Saxony knows already how a man may have a two-fold patriotism, allegiance to the state and also to the empire; so that he can recognize the duties as well as the privileges which are grouped around two centres. The essentials of the American state, however, are not described by the comparison with a state in the German Empire, which is relatively of too little importance; for in comparison with the Union the American state has more independence and sovereignty than the German. We have observed before that it has its own laws and its own court of last appeal; but these are only two of the many indications of its practical and theoretical independence. The significant organic importance of the state shows itself not less clearly if one thinks of the cities subordinate to it, rather than of the Federation which is superior to it. While the German state is more dependent on the Federation than is the American, the German city is more independent of the state than is any city in the United States. The political existence of the American city is entirely dependent on the legislature of its state. The Federation on the one hand and the cities on the other, alike depend for their administrative existence on the separate states.

It is not merely an historical relic of that time when the thirteen states united, but hesitated to give up their individual rights to the Federation; a time when there were only six cities of more than eight thousand inhabitants. Nothing has changed in this respect, and it is not only the Democratic party to-day which jealously guards state rights; the state all too often tyrannizes still over the large cities within its borders. There are some indications, indeed, that the state rights are getting even more emphasis than formerly—perhaps as a reaction against the fact that, in spite of all constitutional precautions, those states which have close commercial relations tend practically to merge more and more with one another.

On observing the extraordinary tenacity with which the federal laws and the local patriotism of the individual cling to the independence of each one of the forty-five states, one is inclined to suppose that it is a question of extremely profound differences in the customs, ideals, temperaments, and interests of the different states. But such is not at all the case. The states are, of course, very unlike, especially in size; Texas and Rhode Island, for instance, would compare about as Prussia and Reuss. There are even greater differences in the density of population; and the general cast of physiognomy varies in different regions of the country. The Southerner shows the character bred by plantation life; the citizen of the North-east evinces the culture bred of higher intellectual interests; while the citizens of the West attest the differences between their agricultural and mining districts. Yet the divisions here are not states, but larger regions comprising groups of states, and it sometimes happens that more striking contrasts are found within a certain state than would be found between neighbouring states. The state lines were after all often laid down on paper with a ruler, while nature has seldom made sharp lines of demarcation, and the different racial elements of the population are fairly well mixed. For the last century the pioneers of the nation have carried it steadily westward, so that in many states the number of those born in the state is much less than of those who have migrated to it; and of course the obstinate assertion of the prerogatives of such a state does not arise from any cherished local traditions to which the inhabitants are accustomed. The special complexion of any provincial district, moreover, is assailed from all sides and to a large extent obliterated, in these days of the telegraph and of extraordinarily rapid commercial intercourse and industrial organization.

The uniformity of fashions, the wide-spread distribution of newspapers and magazines, the great political parties, and the intense national patriotism all work towards the one end—that from Maine to California the American is very much the same sort of man, and feels himself, in contrast with a foreigner, to be merely an American. And yet in spite of all this each single state holds obstinately to its separate rights. It is the same principle which we have seen at work in the American individual. The more the individuals or the states resemble one another the more they seem determined to preserve their autonomy; the more similar the substance, the sharper must be the distinctions in form.

The inner similarity of the different states is shown by the fact that, while each one has its own statute-book and an upper court which jealously guards its special constitution, nevertheless all of the forty-five state constitutions are framed very much alike. The Constitution of the United States would by no means require this, since it prescribes merely that every state constitution shall be republican in form; and yet not a single state has taken advantage of its great freedom. The constitutions of the older states were modelled partly on the institutions of the English fatherland, partly on those of colonial days; and when many of these features were finally embodied in the Federal Constitution, they were reflected back once more in the constitutions of the states which later came to be. The new states have simply borrowed the general structure of the older states and of the Federation, without much statesmanlike imagination; although here and there is some adaptation to special circumstances. There are indeed some odd differences at superficial points, and inasmuch as, in contrast to the Federal Constitution, the state constitutions have frequently been reshaped by the people, a reactionary tendency or some radical and hasty innovation has here and there been incorporated.

The principles, however, are everywhere the same. Each state has framed a reduced copy of the Federal Constitution, and one finds a still more diminutive representation of the same thing in the American city charter. Yet we must not forget here that, although theoretically and constitutionally the state is greater than the city, yet in fact the city of New York has a population eighty times as large as the State of Nevada, with its bare 40,000 inhabitants; or, again, that the budget of the State of Massachusetts is hardly a quarter as large as that of Boston, its capital city.

Thus, like the Union, both city and state have a charter and an executive, a dual legislature, and a judiciary, all of which reproduce on a small scale all the special features of the federal organization. The city charter is different from that of the state, in that it is not drawn up by the inhabitants of the city, but, as we have said, has to be granted by the state legislature. The head of the state executive, the governor, is in a way a small president, who is elected directly by the people, generally for a two years’ term of office. In the city government the mayor corresponds to him, and is likewise elected by the citizens; and in the larger cities for the same period. A staff of executive officers is provided for both the mayor and the governor.

Under the city government are ranged the heads of departments, who are generally chosen by the mayor himself; New York, for instance, has eighteen such divisions—the departments of finance, taxation, law, police, health, fire, buildings, streets, water-supply, bridges, education, charities, penal institutions, park-ways, public buildings, etc. The most important officials under the state government are always the state secretary, the state attorney-general, and the treasurer. Close to the governor stands the lieutenant-governor, who, after the pattern of the federal government, is president of the upper legislative chamber. The governor is empowered to convene the legislature, to approve or to veto all state measures, to pardon criminals, to appoint many of the lower officials, although generally his appointment must be confirmed by the upper legislative body, and he is invariably in sole command of the state militia. The legislature of the state is always, and that of the cities generally, divided into two chambers. Here again the membership in the upper chamber is smaller than that of the lower and more difficult to obtain. Often the state legislature does not meet in the largest city, but makes for itself a sort of political oasis, a diminutive Washington. The term of office in the legislature is almost always two years, and everywhere the same committee system is followed as at the Capitol in Washington. Only a member of the legislative body can propose bills, and such propositions are referred at once to a special committee, where they are discussed and perhaps buried. They can come to the house only through the hands of this committee. The freedom given to the state legislature is somewhat less than that given by the Constitution to Congress. While all the parliamentary methods are strikingly and often very naïvely copied after those in use at Washington, the state constitutions were careful from the outset that certain matters should not be subject to legislative egotism. On the other hand the state legislature hands down many of its rights to inferior bodies, such as district, county, and city administrations; but in all these cases in which there is a real transfer of powers, it is characteristic that these really pertain to the state as such, and can, therefore, be withdrawn by the state legislatures from the smaller districts at any time.

The entire administration of the state falls to the state legislature; that is, the measures for public instruction, taxation, public works, and the public debt, penal institutions, the supervision of railroads, corporations, factories, and commerce. In addition to this there are the civil and criminal statutes, with the exception of those few cases which the Constitution reserves for federal legislation; and, finally, there is the granting of franchises and monopolies to public and industrial corporations. Of course, within this authority there is nothing which concerns the relation of one state to other states or to foreign powers, nor anything of customs revenues or other such matters as are enacted uniformly for all parts of the country by the federal government. The state has, however, the right to fix the conditions under which an immigrant may become a naturalized citizen; and a foreigner becomes an American citizen by being naturalized under the law of any one of the forty-five states. All this gives an exceedingly large field of action to state legislatures, and it is astonishing how little dissimilar are the provisions which the different states have enacted.

The city governments are very diverse in size, but in all the larger cities consist of two houses. The German reader must not suppose that these work together like the German magistrate and the municipal representative assembly. Since in America the legislative and executive are always sharply sundered, the heads of departments under the executive—that is, the German Stadträte—have no place in the law-making body. The dual legislative is, therefore, in a way an upper and lower municipal representative assembly, elected in different ways and having similar differences in function as the two chambers of Congress. Here too, for instance, bills of appropriation have to originate in the lower house. Oddly enough, the city legislative is generally not entrusted with education, but this is administered by a separate municipal board, elected directly by the people. One who becomes acquainted with the intellectual composition of the average city father, will find this separation of educational matters not at all surprising, and very beneficent and reasonable.

In general, one may say that the mayor is more influential in the city government than that body which represents the citizens; this in contrast to the situation in the state government, where the governor is relatively less influential than the legislature. The chief function of the governor is really a negative one, that of affixing his veto from time to time on an utterly impossible law. The mayor, on the other hand, can shape things and leave the stamp of his personality on his city. In the state, as in the city, it often happens that the head of the executive and a majority of the legislative belong to opposite parties, and this not because the party issues are forgotten in the local elections, but because the methods of election are different.

The division of public affairs into city and state issues leaves, of course, room for still a third group, namely, the affairs of communities which are still smaller than cities. These, too, derive their authority entirely from the state legislature, but all states leave considerable independence to the smaller political units. In local village government the historic differences of the various regions show out more clearly than in either state or city government. The large cities are to all intents and purposes cast in the same mould everywhere; their like needs have developed like forms of life; and the coming together of great numbers of people have everywhere created the same economic situation. But the scattered population gets its social and economic articulation in the North, South, and West, in quite different ways; and this difference, at an early time when the problems of a large city were so far not known, led to different types of village organizations, which have been historically preserved.

When the English colonies were growing up, the differences in this connection between the New England states and Virginia were extreme. The colonies on the northern shores, with their bays and harbours, their hilly country and large forests, could not spread their population out over large tracts of land, and were concentrated within limited regions; and this tendency was further emphasized by Puritan traditions, which required the population to take active part in church services. There naturally was developed a local form of government for small districts, which corresponded to old English traditions. The citizens gathered from all parts of every district to discuss their common affairs and to decide what taxes should be raised, what streets built, and, most of all, what should be done for their churches and schools, and for the poor. In Virginia, on the other hand, where very large plantations were laid out, there could be no such small communities; the population was more scattered, and affairs of general interest had necessarily to be entrusted to special representatives, who were in part elected by small parishes and in part appointed by the governor. The political unit here was not the town, but the county.

The difference in these two types is the more worthy of consideration because it explains how the North and South have been able to contribute such different and yet such equally valuable factors to all the great events of American history. New England and Virginia were the two centres of influence in Revolutionary times and when the Union was being completed, but their influences were wholly different. New England served the country by effecting an extraordinarily thorough education of its masses by giving them a long schooling in local self-government; each individual was obliged to meditate on public affairs. Virginia, however, gave to the country its brilliant leaders; the masses remained backward, but the county representatives practised and trained themselves to the rôle of leading statesmen. Between these two extremes lay the Middle Atlantic States, where a mixed form of town and county representation had necessarily developed from the social conditions; and these three types, the Northern, Southern, and mixed, worked slowly back during the nineteenth century from the coast toward the West. Settlers in the new states carried with them their familiar forms of local government, so that to-day these three forms may still be found through the country. To-day the chief functions of town governments are public instruction, care for the poor, and the building of roads. Religious life is, of course, here as in the city, state, and Union, wholly separated from the political organization. The police systems of these local governments in town and village are wholly rudimentary. While the police system is perhaps the most difficult chapter in American city government, the country districts have always done very well with almost none. This reflects the moral vigour of the American rural population. The people sleep everywhere with their front doors open, and everywhere presuppose the willing assistance of their neighbours. It was not until great populations commenced to gather in cities, that those social evils arose, of which the police system, which was created to obviate them, is itself not the least.

Any one overlooking this interplay of public forces sees that in town and city, state and Union, it is not a question of forcing administrative energies into a prescribed sphere of action. They expand everywhere as they will, both from the smaller to the larger sphere and from the larger to the smaller. Therefore, the Union naturally desires to take on itself those functions of state legislation in which a lack of uniformity would be dangerous; as, for instance, the divorce laws, the discrepancies in which between different states are so great that the necessity of more uniform divorce regulations is ever becoming more keenly felt. At present it is a fact that a man who is divorced under the laws of Dakota and marries again can be punished in New York for bigamy. A similar situation exists in regard to certain trade regulations, where there are unfortunate discrepancies. Many opponents of the trusts want even an amendment to the Constitution which will bring them under federal law, and prevent these huge industrial concerns from incorporating under the too lax laws of certain states.

Still easier is it for the states to interfere in the city governments. If the Union wishes to make new regulations for the state, the Federal Constitution has to be amended; while if the state wants to hold a tighter rein on city government it can do so directly, for, as we have seen, the cities derive all their powers from the state legislature. There is, indeed, considerable tendency now to restrict the privileges of cities, and much of this is sound, especially where the state authority is against open municipal corruption. The general tendency is increasing to give the state considerable rights of supervision over matters of local hygiene, industrial conditions, penal and benevolent institutions. The advantages of uniformity which accrue from state supervision are emphasized by many persons, and still more the advantage derived from handing over hygienic, technical, and pedagogical questions to the well-paid state experts, instead of leaving them to the inexperience of small districts and towns. There is no doubt that on these lines the functions of the state are being extended slowly but steadily.

Then again the cities and towns in their turn are tending to absorb once more such forces as are subordinate to them, and thus to increase the municipal functions. The fundamental principles which have dominated the economic life in the United States and brought it to a healthful development, leave the greatest possible play for private initiative; thus not very long ago it was a matter of course that the water supply, the street lighting, the steam and electric railways should be wholly in the hands of private companies. A change is coming into these affairs, for it is clearly seen that industries of this sort are essentially different from ordinary business undertakings, not only because they make use of public roads, but also because such plants necessarily gain monopolies which find it easy to levy tribute upon the public. In recent years, therefore, city governments have little by little taken over the water supplies, and tend somewhat to limit the sphere of other private undertakings of this sort—as, for instance, that of street-lighting. At the same time there is an unmistakable tendency for city and town to undertake certain tasks which are not economically necessary, and which have been left hitherto to private initiative. Cities are building bath-houses and laundries, playgrounds and gymnasiums, and more especially public libraries and museums, providing concerts and other kinds of amusements and bureaus for the registration of those needing employment; in short, are everywhere taking up newly arisen duties and performing them at public expense.

There is, on the other hand, a strong counter-current to these tendencies of the large units to perform the duties of the small—the strong those of the weak, the city those of the individual, the state those of the city, and the Union those of the state. The opposition begins already in the smallest circle of all, where one sees a strong anti-centralizing tendency. The county or city is not entitled, it is said, to expend the taxpayers’ money for luxuries or for purposes other than those of general utility. It should be generous philanthropists or private organizations that build museums and libraries, bath-houses and gymnasiums, but not the city, which gets its money from the pockets of the working classes. Although optimists have proposed it, there will certainly be for a long time yet no subsidized municipal theatres; and it is noticeable that the liberal offers of Carnegie to erect public libraries are being more and more declined by various town councils, because Carnegie’s plan of foundation calls for a considerable augmentation from the public funds. And wherever it is a question of indispensable services, such as tramways and street-lighting, the majority generally says that it is cheaper every time to pay a small profit to a private company than to undertake a large business at the public expense. From the American point of view private companies are often too economical, while public enterprises are invariably shamelessly wasteful.

The city pays too dear and borrows at too high a rate; in short, regulates its transactions without that wholesome pressure exerted by stockholders who are looking for dividends. Worst of all, the undertakings which are carried on by municipalities are often simply handed over to political corruption. Instead of trained experts, political wire-pullers of the party in office are employed in all the best-paid positions, and even where no money is consciously wasted, a gradual laxness creeps in little by little, which makes the service worse than it would ever be in a private company, which stands all the time in fear of competition. For this reason the American is absolutely against entrusting railroads and telegraph lines to the hands of the state. When a large telegraph company did not adequately serve the needs of the public, another concern spread its network of wires through the whole country; and since then the Western Union and Postal Telegraph have been in competition, and the public has been admirably served. But what relief would there have been if the state had had a monopoly of the telegraph lines, with politicians in charge who would have been indifferent to public demands? The wish to be economical, to keep business out of politics, and to keep competition open, all work together, so that the extension of municipal functions, although ardently wished on many sides, goes on very slowly; and it is justly pointed out that whenever private corporations in any way abuse their privileges the community at large has certainly plenty of means for supervising them, and of giving them franchises under such conditions as shall amply protect public interests. When a private company wishes to use public streets for its car-tracks, gas or water pipes, or electric wires, the community can easily enough grant the permission for a limited length of time, reserving perhaps the right to purchase or requiring a substantial payment for the franchise and a portion of the profits, and can leave the rest to public watchfulness and to the regular publication of the company’s reports. It is not to be doubted that the tendencies in this direction are to-day very marked.

Just as private initiative is trying not to be swallowed up by the community, so the community is trying to save itself from the state. So far as the village, town, or county is concerned, nobody denies that state experts could afford a better public service than the inexperienced local boards, and, nevertheless, it is felt that every place knows best after all just what is adapted to its own needs. The closest adaptation to local desires, as, say, in questions of public schools and roads, has been always a fundamental American principle. This principle started originally from the peculiar conditions which existed in the several colonies and from the needs of the pioneers; but it has led to such a steady progress in the country’s development that no American would care to give it up, even if here and there certain advantages could be had by introducing greater uniformities. There is a still more urgent motive; it is only this opportunity of regulating the affairs of the small district which gives to every community, even every neighbourhood, the necessary schooling for the public duties of the American citizen. If he is deprived of the right to take care of his own district, that spirit of self-determination and independence cannot develop, on which the success of the American experiment in democracy entirely depends. Political pedagogy requires that the state shall respect the individuality of the small community so far as this is in any way possible.

The relation between the city and the state is somewhat different; no one would ask the parliamentarians of the state legislature to hold off in order that the population of the large city may have the opportunity to keep their political interests alive and to preserve their spirit of self-determination. This spirit is at home in the streets of the great city; it is not only wide-awake there, but it is clamorous and almost too urgent. When, now, the municipalities in their struggle against the dictation of the state, meet with the sympathies of intelligent people, this is owing to the simple fact that the city, in which all cultured interests are gathered generally, has in all matters a higher point of view than the representatives of the entire state, in which the more primitive rural population predominates. When, for instance, the provincial members which the State of New York has elected meet in Albany, and with their rural majority make regulations for governing the three million citizens of New York City, regulations which are perhaps paternally well meant, but which sometimes show a petty distrust and disapproval of that great and wicked place, the result is often grotesque. The state laws, however, favour this sort of dictation.

The state constitutions still show in this respect the condition of things at a time in which the city as such had hardly come into recognition. The nineteenth century began in America with six cities of over eight thousand inhabitants, and ended with 545. Moreover, in 1800 those six places contained less than four per cent. of the population, while in 1900 the 545 cities contained more than thirty-three per cent. thereof. Since only a twenty-fifth part of the nation lived in cities, the greater power of the scattered provincial population seemed natural; but when now a third of the nation prefers city life, and especially the more intelligent, more educated, and wealthy third, the limitations to independent municipal rights become an obstacle to culture.

Finally, the states themselves are opposing on good grounds every assumption of rights by the Federation—the same good grounds, indeed, which the community has for opposing the state, and many others besides. It is felt that historically it has been the initiative of individuals rather than of the central government which has helped the nation to make its tremendous strides forward, and that this initiative should not only be rewarded with privileges, but should also be stimulated by duties. The more nearly one state is like another, so much the more energetically does it forbid the others to interfere in its affairs; and the more it is like the Union the more earnestly it seeks not to let its distinct individuality be swallowed up. Besides the moral effort toward state individuality, there is a powerful state egotism at work in many states which makes for the same end. Back of everything, finally, there is the fear of the purely political dangers which are involved in an exaggerated centralization. We have seen in this a fundamental sentiment of the Democratic party.

Thus at every step in the political organization centrifugal and centripetal forces stand opposite each other in the Federal Union, in the state, in the county, and in the city. And public opinion is busy discussing the arguments on both sides. Every day sees movements in one or the other direction, and there is never any let up. In all these discussions it is a question of conflicting principles, which in themselves seem just. There is, however, another contrast—that between principle and lack of principle. In the Union, the state, and the city, centralists and anti-centralists meet on questions of law; but in each one of these places there are groups of people working against the law and trying in every way to get around it. In these discussions there is a true and false, but in the conflicts there is a right and wrong; and here argumentation is not needed, but sheer resistance. If one does not purposely close one’s eyes, one cannot doubt that the public life of America holds certain abuses, which are against the spirit of the Constitution and which too often come near to being criminal. One can ask, to be sure, if that lack of conscience does not have place in every form of state in one way or another, and if the necessity of developing a sound public spirit to fight against abuse may itself not be an important factor in helping on the spirit of self-determination to victory.

Any one who should write the history of disorganizing forces in American public life will have the least to say about federal politics, a good deal more about those of the state, and most of all about those of the city. Certain types of temptation are repeated at every stage. There is, for instance, the legislative committee, which is found alike in Congress, in the state legislatures, and in the city councils. Bills are virtually decided at first by two or three persons who exert their influence behind the closed doors of the committee room; and naturally enough corrupt influences can much more easily make their way there than in the discussions of the whole house. If a municipal committee has a bill under discussion, the acceptance of which means hundreds of thousands of dollars saved or lost to the street railway company, then certainly, although the president and directors of the company will not themselves take any unlawful action, yet in some way some less scrupulous agent will step in who will single out a bar-keeper or hungry advocate or fourth-class politician in the committee, who might be amenable to certain gilded arguments. And if this agent finds no such person he will find some one else who does not care for money, but who would like very well to see his brother-in-law given a good position in the railway company, or perhaps to see the track extended past his own house.

Of course the same thing happens when a measure is brought before the state legislature, and the vote of some obscure provincial attorney on the committee means millions of dollars to the banking firm, the trust, the mining company, or the industrial community as a whole. Here the lobby gets in its work. The different states are, of course, very different in this respect; the cruder forms of bribery would not avail in Massachusetts and would be very dangerous; but they feel differently about such things in Montana. As we have already said, Congress is free of such taints.

Another source of temptation, which likewise exists for all American law-giving bodies, arises from the fact that all measures must be proposed by the members of such body. Thus local needs are taken care of by the activity of the popular representatives, and, therefore, the number of bills proposed becomes very large. Just as during the last session of Congress, 17,000 measures were proposed in the lower house, hundreds of thousands of bills are brought before the state legislatures and city councils. There is never a lack of reasons for bringing up superfluous bills. And since the system of secret committees makes it difficult for the individual representative to appear before the whole house and to make a speech, it follows that the introduction of a few bills is almost the only way in which the politician can show his constituency that he was not elected to the legislature in vain, and that he is actually representing the interests of his supporters. A milder form of this abuse consists of handing in bills which are framed by reason of personal friendships or hatreds; and the same thing appears in uglier form when it is not a question of personal favour, but of services bought and paid for, not of personal hatred, but of a systematic conspiracy to extort money from those who need legislation. The milder form of wrongdoing, in which it is only a question of personal favours, can be found everywhere, even in the Capitol at Washington, and the much-boasted Senatorial courtesy lends a sort of sanction to the abuse.

This evil is strengthened, as it perhaps originated, by the tacit recognition of the principle that every legislator represents, first of all, his local district. It is not expected of a senator that he shall look at every question from the point of view of the general welfare, but rather that he shall take first of all the point of view of his state. It has indeed been urged that the senator is nothing but an ambassador sent to represent his state before the federal government. If this is so, it follows at once that no state delegate ought to have any control over the interests of another state, and so the wishes of any senator should be final in all matters pertaining to his own state. From this it is only a small step to the existing order of things, in which every senator is seconded on his own proposals by his colleagues, if he will second them on theirs. In this way each delegate has the chance to place the law-giving machinery at the service of those who will in any way advance his political popularity among his constituents, and help him during his next candidacy. And then, too, a good deal is done merely for appearances; bills are entered, printed, and circulated in the local papers to tickle the spirits of constituents, while the proposer himself has not supposed for a moment that his proposition will pass the committee. Things go in the state legislatures in quite the same way. Each member is first of all the representative of his own district, and he claims a certain right of not being interfered with in matters which concern that district. In this way he is accorded great freedom to grant all sorts of legislative favours which will bring him sufficient returns, or to carry through legal intrigues to the injury of his political opponents. And here in the state legislature, as in the city council, where the same principles are in use, there is the best possible chance of selling one’s friendly services at their market value. If a railroad company sees a bill for public safety proposed which is technically senseless and exaggerated, which will impede traffic in the state, and involve ruinous expenditures, it will naturally be tempted not to sit idle in the hope that a majority of the committee will set the bill aside; for that course would be hazardous. It may be that all sorts of prejudices will work together toward reporting the bill favourably. If the company wants to be secure, it will rather try such arguments as only capitalists have at their command. And it has here two ways open: either to “convince” the committee or else to make arrangements with the man who proposed the bill, so that he shall recall it. If the possibility of such doings once exists in politics, there is no means of preventing dishonourable persons from making money in such ways; not only do they yield to temptation after they have been elected, but also they seek their elections solely in order to exploit just such opportunities.

Here we meet that factor which distinguishes the state legislature, particularly of those states whose traditions are less firmly grounded, and still more the city councils, so completely from the federal chambers in Washington. The chance to misuse office is alike in all three places, but men who have entered the political arena with honourable motives very seldom yield to criminal temptation. The usual abuses are committed almost wholly by men who have sought their political office solely for the sake of criminal opportunities; and this class of pseudo-politicians can bring itself into the city council very easily, in the state legislature without much difficulty, but almost never into Congress. If it were attractive or distinguished or interesting to be in the state legislature, or on the board of aldermen, there would be a plenty of worthy applicants for the position, and all doubtful persons would find the door closed; but the actual case is quite different.

To be a member of Congress, to sit in the House of Representatives or perhaps in the Senate, is something which the very best men may well desire. The position is conspicuous and picturesque, and against the background of high political life the individual feels himself entrusted with an important rôle. And although many may hesitate to transfer their homes to the federal capital, nevertheless the country has never had difficulty in finding sufficient Representatives who are imbued with the spirit of the Constitution. On the other hand, to serve as popular representative in the state legislature means for the better sort of man, unless he is a professional politician, a considerable sacrifice. The legislature generally meets in a remote part of the state, at every session requires many months of busy work on some committee, and most of this work is nothing but disputing and compromising over the thousand petty bills, in which no really broad political considerations enter. It is a dreary, dispiriting work, which can attract only three kinds of men: firstly, those who are looking forward to a political career in the service of the party machine and undergo a term in the state legislature only as preparation for some more important office; secondly, those who are glad of the small and meagre salary of a representative; and finally, those whose modest ambition is satisfied if they are delegated by their fellow-citizens in any sort of representative capacity. Therefore the general level of personality in the state legislature is low. Men who have important positions will seldom consent to go, and when influential persons do enter state politics it is actually with a certain spirit of renunciation, and not so much to take part in the business of the legislature as to reform the legislature itself. Since this is the case, it is not surprising that the most unwholesome elements flock thither, extortioners and corrupt persons who count on it, that in regard to dishonourable transactions, the other side will have the same interest in preserving silence as themselves.

We must also not forget that the American principle of strictly local representation works in another way to keep down the level of the smaller legislative bodies. If the Representative of a certain locality must have his residence there, the number of possible candidates is very much restricted. This is even more true of the city government, where the principle of local representation requires that every part of the city, even the poorest and most squalid, shall elect none but men who reside in it. To be sure, there is a good deal in this that is right; but it necessarily brings a sort of people together in public committee with whom it is not exactly a pleasure for most men to work. The questions which have to be talked over here are still more trivial, and more than that, the motives which attract corrupt persons are somewhat more tangible here; since in the rapid growth of the great city the awarding of monopolies and contracts creates a sort of spoilsman’s paradise. As the better elements hold aloof from this city government, by so much more do corrupt persons have freer play.

The relation of the city to both the state and Federation is even more unfavourable when one comes to consider not the legislative, but the executive, department. Whereas in Washington, for example, a single man stands at the head of every department in the administration, and is entirely responsible for the running of things, there has frequently been in the city administrations, up to a short time ago, a committee which is so responsible—this in agreement with the old American idea that a majority can decide best. Where, however, a single man was entrusted with administrative powers, he was selected generally by the mayor and the city council together, and they seldom called a real expert to such a position. In any case, since the administration depends wholly on party politics, and the upper staff changes with each new party victory, there is no such chance for a life career here as would tempt competent men to offer their services.

In this part of the government, moreover, there is more danger from the administration by committees than anywhere else. The responsibility of a majority cannot be fixed anywhere; and where the mayor and aldermen work together in the selection of officials, neither of the two parties is quite responsible for the outcome—which is naturally not to be compared with the closely guarded election of officials under German conditions. For in Germany the selection of the head of a city department will lie between a few similarly trained specialists, while the administration of a New York or a Chicago department, as, say, that of the police or of street-cleaning, is thought to presuppose no special preparation, and therefore the number of possible candidates is unlimited. It is not surprising that such irresponsible committees are not above corruption, and that many a man who has received a well-paid administrative position in return for his services to the party, proceeds to make his hay while the sun shines. It is true that there are many departments where no such temptation comes in question. It is, for example, universally believed that the fire departments of all American cities are admirably managed. The situation is most doubtful in the case of the police departments, which, of course, are subject to the greatest temptations; and here, too, there can be the worst abuses in some ways along with the highest efficiency in others. The service for public protection in a large city may be admirably organized and crime strenuously followed up, and nevertheless the police force may be full of corruption. Thieves and murderers are punctiliously suppressed, while at the same time the police are extorting a handsome income from bar-rooms which evade the Sunday laws, from public-houses which exist in violation of city statutes, and from unlawful places of amusement.

To be sure, we must again and again emphasize two things. In the first place, it is probable that nine-tenths of the charges are exaggerated and slanderous. The punishments are so considerable, the means of investigation so active, and the public watchfulness so keen, both on account of the party hostility and by virtue of a sensational press, that it would be hardly comprehensible psychologically, if political crime in the lowest strata of city or state were to be really anything but the exception. The many almost fanatically conducted investigations produce from their mountains of transactions only the smallest mice, and the state attorney is seldom able to make out a case of actual bribery. In this matter the Anglo-Americans are pleased to point out that wherever investigations have ended in making out a case which could really be punished, the person has been generally an Irishman or some other European immigrant. In any case, the collection of immigrants from Europe in the large cities contributes importantly to the unhappy condition of city politics.

In the second place, we must urge once more that the mere distribution of well-paid municipal positions to party politicians is not necessarily in itself an abuse. When, for instance, in a large city, a Republican is succeeded by a Democratic mayor, he can generally bestow a dozen well-paid and a hundred or two more modest commissions to men who have helped in the party victory. But he will be careful not to pick out those who are wholly unworthy, since that would not only compromise himself, but would damage his party and prevent its being again victorious. If he succeeds, on the other hand, in finding men who will serve the city industriously, intelligently, and ably in proportion to their pay, it is ridiculous to call the promise of such offices by way of party reward in any sense a plundering of the city, or to make it seem that the giving of positions to colleagues of one’s party is another sort of corruption.

The evils of public life and the possibility of criminal practices are not confined to legislative and executive bodies. The judiciary also has its darker side. One must believe fanatically in the people in order not to see what judicial monstrosities occasionally come out of the emphasis which is given to the jury system. The law requires that the twelve men chosen from the people to the jury must come to a unanimous decision; they are shut in a room together and discuss and discuss until all twelve finally decide for guilty or not guilty. If they are not unanimous, no verdict is given, and the whole trial has to begin over again. A single obstinate juryman, who clings to his particular ideas, is able, therefore, to outweigh the decision of the other eleven. And it is to be remembered that every criminal case is tried before a jury. The case is still worse if all twelve agree, but agree only in their prejudices. Especially in the South, but also in the West sometimes, juries return decisions which simply insult the intelligence of the country. It is true that the unfairness is generally in the direction of declaring the defendant not guilty.

The law’s delay is also exceedingly regrettable, as well as the extreme emphasis on technicalities, in consequence of which no one dares, even in the interests of justice, to ignore the slightest inaccuracy of form—a fact whose good side too, of course, no one should overlook. It is most of all regrettable that the choice of judges depends to so large an extent on politics, and that so many judicial appointments are made by popular elections and for a limited term. The trouble here is not so much that a faithful party member is often rewarded with a judicial position, since for the matter of that there are equally good barristers to be chosen from either party for vacant positions on the bench; the real evil is that during his term of office the judge cannot help having an eye to his reëlection or promotion to some higher position. This brings politics into his labours truly, and it too often happens that a ready compliance with party dictates springs up in the lower judicial positions. Only the federal and the superior state courts are entirely free from this.

In a similar way, politics sometimes play a part in the doings of the state attorney. He is subordinate to the state or federal executive, that is, to a party element which has contracted obligations of various sorts, and it may so happen that the state attorney will avoid interfering here and there in matters where a justice higher than party demands interference. Especially in the quarrels between capital and labour, one hears repeatedly that the state attorney is too lenient toward large capitalists. Then there are other evils in judicial matters arising from the unequal scientific preparation of jurists; the failing here is in the judicial logic and pregnancy of the decision.

Finally, one source which is a veritable fountain of sin against the commonwealth is the power of the party machine. We have traced out minutely how the public life of the United States demands two parties, how each of these may hope for victory only if it is compactly organized, and how such organizations need an army of more or less professional politicians. They may be in the legislature or out of it; it is their position in the party machine which gives them their tremendous powers—powers which do not derive from constitutional principles nor from law, but which are in a way intangible, and therefore the more liable to abuse.

Richard Croker has never been mayor of New York, and yet he was for a long time dictator of that city, no matter what Democratic mayor was in office, and remained dictator even from his country place in England. He ruled the municipal Democratic party machine, and therefore all the mayors and officials were merely pawns in his hands. Millions of dollars floated his way from a thousand invisible sources, all of which were somehow connected with municipal transactions; and his conscience was as elastic as his pocket-book. That is what his enemies say, while his friends allege him to be a man of honour; and nothing has really been proved against him. But at least one thing is incontestable, that the system of the party machine and the party boss makes such undemonstrable corruption possible. Almost every state legislature is in the clutches of such party mandarins, and even men who are above the suspicion of venality misuse the tempting power which is centred in their hands in the service of their personal advantage and reputation, of their sympathies and antipathies, and transform their Democratic leadership into autocracy and terrorism. In the higher sense, however, every victory which they win for their party is like the victory of Pyrrhus, for their selfish absolutism injures the party more than any advantage which it wins at the polls benefits it. Their omnipotence is, moreover, only apparent, for in reality there is a power in the land which is stronger than they, and stronger than Presidents or legislatures, and which takes care that all the dangers and evils, sins and abuses that spring up are finally thrown off without really hindering the steady course of progress. This power is public opinion.

Chapter Seven: Public Opinion

We have spoken of the President and Congress, of the organization of court and state, and, above all, of the parties, in order to show the various forms in which the genius of the American nation has expressed itself. It may seem almost superfluous to recognize public opinion as a separate factor in political affairs. It is admitted that public opinion is potent in æsthetic, literary, moral, and social problems, with all of which parties and constitutions have nothing to do. But it might be supposed that when a people has surrounded itself with a network of electoral machinery, supports hundreds of thousands of representatives and officials, has perfected parties with their armies of politicians and legislatures which every year discuss and pass on thousands of laws—it might be supposed that in regard to political questions public opinion would have found its complete expression along official channels, and in a sense would have exhausted itself. Yet this is not the case. The entire political routine, with its paraphernalia, forms a closed system, which is distinct in many ways from the actual public opinion of the country.

It is indeed no easy matter to find under what conditions the will of a people can most directly express itself in the official machinery of politics. Many Germans, for instance, entertain the notion that no government is truly democratic except the cabinet be in all matters dependent on a majority in parliament; and they are astonished to learn that in democratic America Congress has no influence on the election of the highest officials; that the President, in fact, may surround himself with a cabinet quite antagonistic to the political complexion of Congress. But no American believes that politics would represent public opinion any better if this independence of the Executive and his cabinet were to be modified, say in conformity with the English or French idea. The reasons for a discrepancy between public opinion and official politics lie anyhow not in the special forms prescribed by the Constitution, but in the means by which the forms prescribed by the Constitution are practically filled by the nation. In the English Constitution, for instance, there is nothing about a cabinet; and yet the cabinet is the actual centre of English politics. American politics might keep to the letter of the Constitution, and still be the truest reflection of public opinion. That they are not such a reflection is due to the strong position of the parties. The rivalry of these encourages keen competition, in which the success of the party has now become an end in itself quite aside from the principles involved. Personal advantages to be derived from the party have become prominent in the minds of its supporters; and even where the motives are unselfish, the tactics of the party are more important than its ideals. But tactics are impossible without discipline, and a party which hopes to be victorious in defending its own interests or in opposing others’ will be no mere debating club, but a relentlessly strict and practical organization. Wherewith the control must fall to a very few party leaders, who owe their positions to professional politicians—that is, to men who for the most part stand considerably below the level of the best Americans.

The immense number of votes cast in the Presidential elections is apt to hide the facts. Millions vote for one candidate and millions for the other, without knowing perhaps that a few months before the national convention some ten or twelve party leaders, sitting at a quiet little luncheon, may have had the power to fix on the presidential candidate. And these wise foreordainings are even less conspicuous in the case of governors, senators, or representatives. Everywhere the masses believe that they alone decide, and so they do between the nominees of one party and of the other, or sometimes between several candidates within the party; but they are not aware that a more important choice is made behind the scenes before these candidates make their appearance.

As with the incumbents, so it is with the platform. The party leaders practically decide what questions shall be made the political issues; and this is the most important function of all. We have seen that dissenting groups can hardly hope on ordinary occasions to make a break in the firm party organization, and though they may vigorously discuss questions which have not been approved by the party leaders, they will, nevertheless, arrive at no practical results. It therefore happens very often that voters are called on to decide issues which seem to them indifferent, or to choose between two evils, and can expect nothing from either candidate in the matters which they think most vital. They go to the polls merely out of consideration for their party. Thus, in reality, the people do not decide the issues on which they are to vote, nor on the candidates whom they elect, nor yet on the party leaders who do decide these things. Nor can the people, if discontented with the party in power, recall that party during its term of office. In Germany the government can dissolve parliament if new issues arise; in England the Cabinet resigns if it fails to carry a measure; but in America the party with a congressional majority has nothing to fear during its appointed term. In short, the political life of America is dominated by those forces which rule the parties, and only in so far as the nation is filled with the party spirit, is the official political hierarchy an expression of the nation’s will.

Now it is not in the nature of public opinion to nerve itself up to clear and definite issues. Unless worked on by party demagogues, it never formulates itself in a mere yes or no, but surveys the situation impartially, seeing advantages and disadvantages on both sides, and passes a conservative judgment. The man who thinks only of parties will often agree to a compromise which is unjust to both parties and in general unworthy of them; but the man who takes his stand above the parties knows that many problems are not fathomed with a yea or nay; he does not see two opposite sides between which an artificial compromise is to be found, but he appreciates the given situation in its organic unity and historical perspective. Historical understanding of the past and moral seriousness for the future guarantee his right judgment. He sees the practical opposition of interests, which is always more complex than the two-horned dilemma that the parties advertise, in a true light, and testimony of experts instead of politicians suggests to him the rational solution of the problem. The actual course of action to be followed may coincide with the plan of one or the other party, or may be a compromise between them, and yet it will be a distinct policy. In such decisions there lives ever the spirit of immediate reality; no artificial dichotomy nor any political tactics are involved, and the natural moral feeling of a healthy nation is then sufficient for every issue. Nowhere is this naïve moral sense more potent among the masses than in America; will then these unpartisan convictions have no weight in political life? Will they not rather strive to have an independent effect on the destinies of the nation? The centre and real expression of these politics for essentials is the system of public opinion.

We have seen that every American legislature has two parts, an upper and a lower house, which have different ways of procedure and different prerogatives. One might similarly say that the parties with all their paraphernalia are merely the lower house of the nation, while Public Opinion is the upper house; and only the two houses together constitute the entire national political life. The nation is represented in each branch, but in different senses. In a way the parties express quantitatively the will of the nation, and public opinion does it qualitatively. Whenever a quantitative expression is wanted, the issues must be sharply contrasted in order to separate clearly the adherents of each; all fine shades and distinctions have to be sacrificed to an artificial clearness of definition, much as is done in mechanics, when any motion is schematically represented, as the diagonal in a parallelogram of two other forces. As a quantity any yea or nay is as good as any other, and the intensity of any party movement is due to the accumulation of small increments. The great advantage of this lower house is, as of every lower house, that its deliberations can be brought to an end and its debates concluded. Every political election is such a provisional result.

It is very different in the upper house. Public opinion accepts no abstract schematizations, but considers the reality in all its complication, and in its debates no weight is given to any show of hands or other demonstration of mere numbers. Crass contrasts do not exist here, but only subtle shadings; men are not grouped as friends and foe, but they are seen to differ merely in their breadth of outlook, their knowledge, their energy, and in their singleness of heart. The end in view is not to rush politics, but to reform politics and in all matters to shape public events to national ideals. Here one vote is not like another, but a single word wisely and conscientiously spoken is heard above the babel of thousands. And here the best men of the nation have to show themselves, not with programmes nor harangues, but with a quiet force which shapes and unites public opinion and eventually carries all parties before it.

Public opinion may be responsible now for a presidential veto on a bill of Congress, now for the sudden eclipse of a party leader, or the dropping of a list of candidates, or again it may divide a party in the legislature. Public opinion forces the parties, in spite of themselves, to make mere party advantage secondary to a maturer statesmanship.

Germans will not readily appreciate this double expression of the popular will; they would find it more natural if party life and public opinion were one. For in Germany the conditions are quite different. In the first place there are a dozen parties, which express the finer shades of public opinion more adequately than the two parties can in America. And this division into many small parties prevents the development of any real party organization such as would be needed by a party assuming entire responsibility for the affairs of the nation. The nearest approach to two great parties is the opposition between all the “bürgerliche” parties on the one hand and the social democrats on the other. But the development of really responsible parties is hardly to be expected, since the German party is allowed only a small degree of initiative. The representatives of the people have the right to accept or reject or to suggest improvements in the proposals of the government; but with the government rest the initiative and the responsibility. The government stands above the parties, and is not elected by the people nor immediately dependent on them. It originates most of the legislative and executive movements, and therewith represents exactly that moral unity of the nation which is above all parties, and which is represented in America by public opinion; while in America the government is the creature of the parties.

One should not draw the conclusion that the public opinion of America is the quintessence of pure goodness. Public opinion in the United States would be no true indication of the forces at work in the nation if it did not represent all the essentials of the typical American. In order to find this typical man, it would be misleading simply to take the average of the millions; one leaves out of account the great herd of colourless characters, and selects the man who harmoniously combines in himself, without exaggeration, the most striking peculiarities of his countrymen. He is not easy to find, since eccentricity is frequent; one man is grotesquely patriotic, another moral to intolerance, another insipidly complacent, and another too optimistic to be earnest or too acquisitive to be just.

And yet if one goes about much in American society, one finds oneself now and then, not only in New York or Boston or Washington, but quite as well in some small city of the West, in a little circle of congenial men who are talking eagerly, perhaps over their cigars after dinner; and one has the feeling that the typical American is there. His conversation is not learned nor his rhetoric high-flown; but one has the feeling that he is alive and worth listening to, that he sees things in sharp perspective, is sincerely moral, and has something of his own to say. Party politics do not interest him specially, although as citizen he goes to a few meetings, contributes to the party funds, and votes on election day if the weather permits. But he speaks of politics generally with a half-smile, and laughs outright at the thought of himself running for the legislature. He sees the evil about him, but is confident that everything will come around all right; the nation is young, strong, and possessed of boundless resources for the future. Of course he understands the prejudices of the masses, and knows that mere slap and dash will not take the place of real application in solving the problems which confront the nation; he knows, too, that technical proficiency, wealth, and luxury alone do not constitute true culture. And herewith his best energies are enlisted; he contributes generously to libraries and universities, and very likely devotes much of his time to the city schools. But he is frank to confess, as well, that he has a weakness for good-fellowship and superficiality, preferring operetta to tragedy every time. He is not niggardly in anything; to be so is too unæsthetic. At first one is astonished by his insouciance and the optimism with which he makes the best of everything. One feels at once his good nature and readiness to help, and finds him almost preternaturally ready to be just to his opponents and overlook small failings. He envelops everything with his irrepressible sense of humour, and is always reminded of a good story, which he recounts so drolly and felicitously that one is ready to believe that he never could be angry. But this all changes the instant the talk turns from amusing stupidities or little weaknesses and goes over to indecency or corruption or any baseness of character. Then the typical American is quite changed; his genuine nobility of soul comes out and he gives his unvarnished opinion, not blusteringly, but with self-controlled indignation. One feels that here is the real secret of his character; and one is surprised to see how little he cares for political parties or social classes. He will fiercely condemn the delinquencies of his own party or the unfair dealings of his own social set. It now appears how honestly religious he is, and how far the inner meaning of his life lies beyond the merely material.

Such a good fellow it is, with all his greater and lesser traits, who may at any time voice undiluted public opinion. Thousands who are better, wiser, more learned, or less the spendthrift and high-liver, and the millions of inferior natures, will show one trait or another of the national character in higher relief. And yet the type is well marked; it is always optimistic and confident in the future of America, indifferent to party tactics, but enthusiastically patriotic. It is anxious to be not merely prosperous but just and enlightened as well; it is almost hilariously full of life, and yet benevolent and friendly; conservative although sensitive, without respect for conventions and yet religious, sanguine but thoughtful, scrupulously just to an opponent but unrelenting toward any mean intent. Probably the most characteristic traits of public opinion are a patient oversight of mistakes and weaknesses, but relentless contempt and indignation for meanness and lack of honour. This is in both respects the very reverse of the party spirit, which is too apt to hinge its most boasted reforms on trivial evils, and pass over the greatest sins in silence.

One element of public opinion should be suggested in even the briefest sketch—its never-failing humour. It is the antiseptic of American politics, although it would be better, to be sure, if political doings could be aseptic from the outset. But probably dirty ambition and selfishness are harder to keep down in a democracy than anywhere else. The humour of public opinion stands in striking contrast, moreover, to party life; as one cannot fail to discover on looking closely. Party tactics demand that the masses have hammered into them the notion that the sacred honour of the nation lies with their party, but that on the other side there lies hopeless ruin. The man who urges this dogma must keep a very solemn face, for if he were to bring it out with a twinkle in his eye, he would destroy the force of his suggestion. The voter, too, is serious in his duties as a citizen, and demands of the candidates this extremely practical mien and solemn party arrogance. But when the same citizen talks the matter over with his friends, he is no longer a stickler for party, but a voicer of public opinion, and he sees at once the humour of the situation. He punctures the party bubbles with well-aimed ridicule. So it happens that the population is more ruled by humour here than anywhere else, while the party leaders stand up, at least before the public, in the most solemn guise. Just as in some American states the men drink wine at home, but at official banquets call for mineral water; so out of the political harness one may commit excesses of humour, but in it one must be strictly temperate. This is, of course, the reverse of the well-known English method, where the masses are rather dull, while the leaders are famous wits and cynics. America would never allow this. When one meets leading politicians or members of the Cabinet in a social way, one is often amazed at their ready wit, and feels that these men have decidedly the capacity to shine as do their English colleagues. But that would wreck the party service. The people are sovereign; public opinion has, therefore, the right to ironical humour, and can smilingly look down on the parties from a superior height; while those who play the party game of government have still to keep demure and sober. In England it is the Cabinet, in America public opinion, which assumes the gentle rôle of wit. Hardly could the contrast between aristocracy and democracy be more clearly exemplified.

If some one should ask who makes public opinion, he might well be referred at first to that class which at present does not enjoy the suffrage, and presumably will not for some time to come—the women. The American woman cares little enough for party politics, and this is not so much because she has no rights. If she had the interest she probably would have the rights. But while the best people have no wish to see the women mix in with the routine of party machinery, this is not at all in order that they may not concern themselves with the public problems of the day. On the contrary, women exert a marked influence on public opinion; and here, as might be expected, it is not the organized crusades, like the temperance movement, which count, but rather their less noisy demonstrations, their influence in the home and their general rightness of feeling. Every reform movement which appeals to moral motives is advanced by the public influence of women, and many a bad piece of jobbery is defeated by their instrumentality.

If the boundaries between the sexes are forgotten in the matter of public opinion, so even more are those between the various classes. Public opinion is not weakened by any class antipathies. To be sure, every profession and occupation has its peculiar interests, and in different quarters the public opinion takes on somewhat different hues; the agricultural states have other problems than the industrial; the South others than the North; and the mining districts still others of their own. But these are really not differences of public opinion, but different sectors of the one great circle. In spite of the diverse elements and the prejudices which go to make up public opinion, it is everywhere remarkably self-consistent. This is because it is the voice of insight, conscience, and brotherly feeling, as against that of carelessness, self-interest, and exclusiveness. The particular interests of capital and labour, of university and primary school, of city and country, have not their special representatives at the court of public opinion. And least in evidence of all, of course, are the officials and professional politicians. These men are busy in strictly party affairs, and have no time to dabble in the clear stream of public opinion. At best, a few distinguished senators or governors, together with the President and an occasional member of the Cabinet, come to have an immediate influence on public opinion.

The springs of public opinion flow from the educated and substantial members of the commonwealth, and are often tinged at first with a very personal colouring; but the streamlets gather and flow far from their sources and every vestige of the personal is lost. Ideas go from man to man, and those which are typically American find as ready lodgment with the banker, the manufacturer, or the scholar as with the artisan or the farm-hand. Any man who appeals to the conscience, morality, patriotism, or brotherly feeling of the American, or to his love of progress and order, appeals to no special parties or classes, but to the one public opinion, the community of high-minded citizens to the extent of their disinterestedness.

Yet even such a public opinion requires some organization and support. Bold as the statement may sound, the American newspaper is the main ally of public opinion, serving that opinion more loyally than it serves either official politics or the party spirit. The literary significance of the newspaper we shall consider in another connection, but here only its public influence. An American philosophizing on the newspapers takes it as a matter of course that they serve the ends of party politics; and it is true enough that party life as it is would not be possible without the highly disseminated influence of the newspaper. A German coming to the country is apt to deny it even this useful function. He is acquainted in Europe with those newspapers which commence on the first page with serious leading articles, and relegate the items of the day to a back page along with the advertisements. But here he finds newspapers which have on the first pages not a word of editorial comment and hardly even a serious piece of politics—nothing, in fact, but an unspeakable muddle of undigested news items; and as his eye rests involuntarily on the front page, with its screaming headlines in huge type, he will find nothing but crimes, sensational casualties, and other horrors. He will not before have realized that the devouring hunger of the American populace for the daily news, has brought into existence sheets of large circulation adapted to the vulgar instincts of the millions, the giant headlines of which warn off the educated reader from as far as he can see them; that paper is not for him. But a foreigner does not realize the injustice of estimating the political influence of the press from a glance at these monstrosities, which could not thrive abroad, not so much because the masses are better and more enlightened as because they care less about reading. Moreover, he will come slowly to realize that what he missed from the front page is somewhere in the middle of the paper; that the street-selling makes it necessary to make the most of sensations on the outside, and to put the better things where they are better protected. And so he learns that the American newspaper does express opinions, although its looks belie it.

The better sort of American newspaper is neither a party publication nor yet merely a news-sheet, but the conscious exponent of public opinion. Its columns contain a tiresome amount of party information, it is true; but a part of this is directly in the interests of an intelligent public opinion, since every citizen needs to be instructed in all the phases of party life, of political and congressional doings, and in regard to the candidates who are up for office. It is to be admitted, moreover, that some of the better newspapers, although not the very best, are unreservedly committed to the leaders of some party—in short, are party organs. In the same way several newspapers are under the domination of certain industrial interests and cater to the wishes of a group of capitalists. But any such policy has to be managed with the utmost discretion, for the American newspaper reader is far too experienced to buy a sheet day after day which he sees to be falsified; and he has enough others to resort to, since the competition is always keen, and even middle-sized cities have three or four large daily papers.

It is perhaps fortunate that any such extreme one-sidedness is not to the commercial advantage of the newspapers, for in America they are preëminently business enterprises. Their financial success depends in the first place on advertisements, and only secondarily on their sales in the streets. The advertising firm does not care whether the editorials and news items are Republican or Democratic, but it cares very much about the number of copies which are circulated; and this depends on the meritorious features which the paper has over competing sheets. Newspapers like the German, which count on only a small circle of readers, and these assured, at least for the time being, by subscriptions, can far more readily treat their readers cavalierly and constrain their attention for a while to a certain party point of view. In an American city the daily sales are much greater than the subscriptions, and the sheets which get the most trade are those which habitually treat matters from all sides, and voice opinions which fall in with every point of view. Of course, this circumstance cannot prevent every paper from having its special political friends and foes, its special hobbies, its own style, and, above all, its peculiar material interests. But, on the whole, the American newspaper is extraordinarily non-partisan on public questions, notwithstanding the statements in many German books to the contrary; and the ordinary reader might peruse a given paper for weeks, except just on the eve of an election, without really knowing whether it was Republican or Democratic. Now one party and now the other is brought up for criticism, and even when the sheet is distinctly in favour of a certain side, it will print extracts from the leading articles of opposing journals, and so well depict the entire situation that the reader can form an opinion for himself.

While the newspapers are in this way largely emancipated from the yoke of parties, they are the exponents of a general set of tendencies which, in opposition to party politics, we have called public opinion. In other words, the papers stand above the parties with their crudely schematic programmes and issues, and aspire to measure men and things according to their true worth. Though ostensibly of one party, a journal will treat men of its own side to biting sarcasm, and magnanimously extol certain of its opponents. The better political instincts, progress and reform, are appealed to; and if doubtful innovations are often brought in and praised as reforms, this is not because the newspaper is the organ of a party, but rather of public sentiment, as it really is or is supposed to be. The newspaper reflects in its own way all the peculiarities of public opinion—its light-heartedness and its often nervous restlessness, its conservative and prudent traits, its optimism, and its ethical earnestness; above all, its humour and drastic ridicule. It is well known that the American newspaper has brought the art of political caricature to perfection. The satirical cartoon of the daily paper is of course much more effective than that of the regular comic papers. And these pictures, although directed at a political opponent, are generally conceived in a broader spirit than that of any party. The cap and bells are everywhere in evidence, and there is nothing dry or pedantic. From the dexterous and incisive leading article to the briefest jottings, one notes the same good humour and playful satire which are so characteristic of public opinion. This general humorous turn makes it possible to give an individual flavour to the most ordinary pieces of daily news, so that they have a bearing considerably broader than the bare facts of the case, and may conceivably add their mite to public opinion. And herewith a special newspaper style has come in, a combination of a photographically accurate report and the whimsical feuilleton. Thus it happens that the best papers editorially persuade where they cannot dictate to their readers, and so, apart from party politics, nourish public opinion and create sentiment for or against persons, and legislative and other measures, while ostensibly they are merely giving the news of the last twelve hours.

There is another distinctly American invention—the interview. Doubtless it was first designed to whet the reader’s curiosity with the piquant suggestion of something personal or even indiscreet. In Europe, where this form of reporting is decidedly rudimentary, it usually evinces neither tact nor taste; whereas in America it is really a literary form, and so familiar now as to excite no remark. It has come to be peculiarly the vehicle of public opinion, as opposed to party politics. The person interviewed is supposed to give his personal opinions, and it is his authority as a human personality which attracts the reader. A similar function is served by the carefully selected letters to the editor, which take up a considerable space in the most serious sheets.

The outer form of the newspaper is a matter really of the technical ability of the American, rather than of his political tastes; and it is to be observed at once that the general appearance, and above all, the whole system of getting and printing news rapidly, is astonishing. Every one has heard of the intrepid and fertile reporters, and how on important occasions they leave no stone unturned to obtain the latest intelligence for their papers. But the persistence of these men is less worthy of note than the regular system by which the daily news is gathered and transmitted to every paper in the land. With an infallible scent, a pack of reporters follows in the trail of the least event which may have significance for the general public. A good deal of gossip and scandal is intermingled, to be sure, and much that is trivial served up to the readers; but granted for once, that millions in the lower classes, as members of the American democracy, wish, and ought to wish, to carry home every night a newspaper as big as a book, then, of course, such a hunger for fresh printed matter can be satisfied only by mental pabulum adapted to the vulgar mind. The New York Evening Post will have nothing of this sort; it appeals more to bank directors and professors; but shop-hands prefer the World. It is the same as with the theatres; if the ordinary citizen is prosperous enough to indulge frequently in an evening at the theatre, then, of course, melodrama and farce will become the regular thing, since the common man must always either laugh or cry.

The lightning news service is, of course, somewhat superficial and frequently in error, not to say that it is served up often with the minimum of taste; but the readers gladly take the risk of mistakes for the sake of the greater advantage it is to public opinion to have a searchlight which penetrates every highway and byway, showing up every sign of change in the social or political situation, and every intimation of danger.

And if reporters are accused of being indiscreet, one must first inquire whether the fault does not really lie with some one or other who, while pretending to shrink from publicity, really wants to see his name in the paper. Anyone familiar with the newspapers of the country knows that he is perfectly safe in telling any editor, and even any reporter, whatever he likes if he adds the caution that he does not wish it given out. It will not be printed. The American journalist is usually a gentleman, and can be relied on to be discreet. The principal journalists and editors of the leading newspapers are among the ablest men of the country, and they often go over to important political positions and become even ministers and ambassadors.

The powerful influence of the American newspapers is outwardly displayed in the sumptuous buildings which they occupy. While in Europe the newspapers are published generally in very modest quarters, where the editors have to sit in dingy rooms, the buildings of the American newspapers compare favourably with the best commercial edifices; and the whole business is conducted on an elaborate scale. Scarcely less astonishing are their achievements in the way of illustration. While the most select papers decline on principle to appeal to the taste for sensation, many large papers have yielded to the demand, and have brought the technique of illustration nearly to perfection. A few hours after any event they will have printed a hundred thousand copies of the paper with pictures taken on the spot, and reproduced in a manner of which any European weekly might well be proud.

Taken all in all, the American press very worthily represents the energy, prosperity, and greatness of the American nation; and at the same time with its superficial haste, its vulgarity and excitability, with its lively patriotism and irrepressible humour, it clearly evinces the influence of democracy. The better the paper the more prominent are the critical and reflective features; while the wider the circulation, the more noticeable are the obtrusive self-satisfaction and provincialism, and the characteristic disdain of things European. Going from the East to the West, one finds a fairly steady downward gradation in excellence, although some samples of New York journalism can vie for crude sensationalism with the most disgusting papers of the Wild West. And yet the best papers reach a standard which in many respects is higher than that of the best journals of the Old World. A paper like the Boston Transcript will hardly find its counterpart in the German newspaper world; and much good can be said of the Sun, Tribune, Times, and Post in New York, the Star in Washington, the Public Ledger in Philadelphia, the Sun in Baltimore, the Eagle in Brooklyn, the Tribune in Chicago, the Herald in Boston, the Evening Wisconsin in Milwaukee, and many others which might be named. Even small cities like Springfield, Massachusetts, produce such large and admirable papers as the Springfield Republican. And to be just, one must admit that the bad papers could be condensed into tolerably good ones by a liberal use of the blue pencil. For their mistakes lie not so much in their not having good contributions as in their inclusion of crude and sensational material by way of spice. Very often the front page of a paper will be overrun with the most offensive scandals, caricatures, and criminal sensations, while the ninth and tenth pages will offer editorials and other articles of decided merit. The newspapers which care only for a large circulation will have something for everybody; and they are not far out of the way in calculating that the educated reader who looks first at the editorials and political dispatches, will have enough that is unregenerate in his soul to make him relish a sideward glance at the latest sensational reports. The newspaper is content on the whole not to bore its readers, and to hold a close rein on public opinion rather than on party politics.

With all this, it is not to be denied that there are lower motives which degrade journalism. One of the chief temptations lies in the amalgamation of newspaper politics and party activities. The editor who, in the interests of public opinion, scans all the parties with a critical eye and professes to be impartial, is for this very reason the more tempted to misuse his position for private gain. He may diligently support one party in the name of impartiality and fairness, while in reality he counts on a remunerative office if that party is successful; and from this point the steps are few to the moral state of those who attack a certain party or an industrial enterprise in order to discover the error of their position on receipt of a sufficient compensation. The energy with which some newspapers stand up for certain financial interests casts grave doubt on their personal independence; and yet direct bribery plays an exceedingly small role, and the government or a foreign country is never the corrupting influence. Very much more important are the vanity and selfishness of newspaper proprietors, who for one reason or another choose to lead the public astray. But such perversities are less dangerous than one might think, for the American newspaper reader reads too much and is politically too discerning to take these newspapers at their face value. The mood induced by one paper is corrected by another; and while the journalist is tickled at his own shrewdness in writing only what his readers will like, the reader slyly preserves his self-respect and belief in his own critical ability, by hunting out everything with which he does not agree and reading that carefully. If the journal is above the party, the reader is above the journal, and thus it is that the newspapers are the most influential support of public opinion.

In this, however, they do not enjoy a monopoly; beside them are the weekly and monthly papers. Here again we shall consider their literary merits in another connection, but their greatest significance lies in their influence on public opinion. The political efforts of the weekly papers are mostly indirect; they deal primarily with practical interests, religious and social problems, and literary matters; but the serious discussions are carried on as it were against a political background which lends its peculiar hue to the whole action. The monthly magazines are somewhat more ambitious, and consider politics more directly. In their pages, not merely professional politicians, but the very ablest men of the nation, are accustomed to treat of the needs and duties of city and state; and these discussions are almost never from a one-sided point of view. A magazine like the North American Review usually asks representatives of both parties to present their opinions on the same question; and a similar breadth of view is adopted by the Atlantic Monthly, the Review of Reviews, and other leading monthlies, whose great circulation and influence are hardly to be compared with similar magazines of Europe. The point of view common to all is that of a very critical public opinion, well above party politics and devoted to national reform and everything which makes for progress and enlightenment. Much the same can be said of those magazines which combine politics with literature and illustrations, such as the Century, Harper’s, Scribner’s, McClure’s, and many others. When McClure’s Magazine, for example, presents to its half-million readers month after month an illustrated history of the Standard Oil Trust, every page of which is an attack on secret evasions of the law, it is not serving the interests of any party, but is reading public opinion a lesson.

The spoken word vies with the printed. The capacity of Americans, and especially of the women, to listen to lectures is well-nigh abnormal. And in this way social and political propagandas find a ready hearing, although a purely party speech would not be effective outside of a party convention. The wit and pathos of the speaker generally reach a level considerably above mere matters of expediency, and appeal to public opinion from a broadly historical point of view. The dinner speaker is also a power, since he is not constrained, as in Germany, to sandwich his eloquence in between the fish and game or to make every speech wind craftily around and debouch with the inevitable “dreimal Hoch.” He is quite at liberty to follow either his whims or his convictions, and herein has come to be a recognized spring of public opinion.

Finally, somewhat the same influence is exerted by the countless clubs and associations, and the various local and national societies which are organized for specific ends. Every American of the better sort belongs to any number of such bodies, and although concerning two-thirds of them he knows no more than that he pays his dues, there is left a third for which he sincerely labours. There is much in these organizations which is one-sided, egotistical, and trivial, and yet in the most of them there is something which is sound and right. There is not one at least which fails to strengthen the conviction that every citizen is called to be the bearer of public opinion. Just as the parties complain that the voters neglect the routine duties of the organization, so to be sure do the strenuous reformers of the country complain that the ranks behind them informally break step. But the main thing is that behind them there is a host, and that public opinion is to-day as thoroughly organized as the official parties, and that it sees each day more clearly that its qualitative effect on the national life is at least equally important with the quantitative efficacy of the parties.

Every important question is treated by both organizations, public opinion, and the parties. At the approach of a great election the parties create such a stir and bustle that for a couple of months the voice of public opinion seems hushed. Party tactics rule the day. But on the other hand, public opinion has its own festivals, and above all, works on tirelessly and uninterruptedly, except for the short pause just before elections. Public opinion reacts equally on both parties, forces them to pass laws that the politicians do not relish, and to repeal others that the politicians would gladly keep; and, ignoring these men, it brings the public conscience to bear on the issues to be pressed, the candidates to be nominated, and the leaders to be chosen.

Chapter Eight: Problems of Population

We have surveyed public opinion and party politics as two distinct factors in the American national consciousness, as two factors which are seldom in complete agreement, and which are very often in sharp opposition, but which finally have to work together like an upper and lower legislative chamber in order to solve the problems of the day. We have not the space to speak minutely of all these problems themselves with which the American is at the present moment occupied; since the politics of the day lie outside of our purpose. This purpose has been to study that which is perennial in the American spirit, the mental forces which are at work, and the forms in which these work themselves out. But the single questions on which these forces operate, questions which are to-day and to-morrow are not, must be left to the daily literature. It is our task, however, to indicate briefly in what directions the most important of these problems lie. Every one of them would require the broadest sort of handling if it were to be in the least adequately presented.

So many problems which in European countries occupy the foreground, and which weigh particularly on the German mind, are quite foreign to the American. Firstly, the church problem as a political one is unknown to him. The separation of church and state is so complete, and the results of this separation are viewed on all sides with so much satisfaction, that there is nowhere the least desire to introduce a change. It is precisely in strictly religious circles that the entire independence of the church is regarded as the prime requisite for the growth of ecclesiastical influence. Even the relations between the church and party politics are distinctly remote, and the semi-political movements once directed against the Catholic Church are already being somewhat forgotten. There is no Jesuit question, and the single religious order which has precipitated a real political storm has been the sect of Mormons, which ecclesiastically sanctions an institution that the monogamous laws of the nation forbid. Even here the trouble has been dispelled by the submission of the Mormon Church.

As a matter of course, America has also never known a real conflict between the executive and the people. The government being always elected at short intervals by the people and the head of the state with his Cabinet having no part in legislation, while his executive doings merely carry out the wishes of the dominant political party, of course no conflicts can arise. To be sure, there can be here and there small points of friction between the legislative and executive, and the President can, during his four years of office, slowly drift away from the party which elected him, and thus bring about some estrangement; but even this would only be an estrangement from the professional politicians of his party. For experience has shown that the President, and on a smaller scale the governor of a state, is successful in breaking with his party only when he follows the wishes of public opinion instead of listening to the dictates of his party politicians. But in that case the people are on his side. One might rather say that the conflicts between government and people, which in Europe are practically disputes between the government and the popular representatives of political parties, repeat themselves in America in the sharp contrast between public opinion on the one hand and the united legislative and executive on the other; since the government is itself of one piece with the popular representation. Public opinion, indeed, preserves its ancient sovereignty as against the whole system of elections and majorities.

There is another vexation spared to the American people; it has no Alsace-Lorraine, no Danish or Polish districts; that is, it has no elements of population which seek to break away from the national political unity, and by their opposition to bring about administrative difficulties. To be sure, the country faces difficult problems of population, but there is no group of citizens struggling to secede; and in the same way the American has nothing in the way of emigration problems. Perhaps one may also say finally that social democracy, especially of the international variety, has taken such tenuous root that it can hardly be called a problem, from the German point of view. For although there is a labour question, this is not the same as social democracy. The labour movements, as part of the great economic upheaval, are certainly one of the main difficulties to be overcome by the New World; but the social democratic solution, with its chiefly political significance, is essentially unknown to the American. All this we shall have to consider in other connections. Although this and that which worry the European appear hardly at all in American thought, there is, on the other hand, a great sea of problems which have mercifully been spared to the European. It is due to the transitional quality of our time that on this sea of problems the most tempestuous are those of an economic character. The fierce conflicts of recent Presidential elections have been waged especially over the question of currency, and it is not until now that the silver programme may be looked on as at least provisionally forgotten. These conflicts were immediately preceded by others which concerned protection and free-trade, and the outlook is clear that these two parties will again meet each other in battle array.

Meanwhile the formation of large trusts has loomed up rapidly as a problem, and in this one sees the real influence of public opinion as against that of party politics, since both parties would doubtless have preferred to leave the trusts alone. At the same time the great strikes, especially that of the Pennsylvania coal districts, have brought the conflicts between capital and labour so clearly to the national consciousness that the public attention is strained on this point. Others say that the most serious economic problem of the United States is the irrigation of the parched deserts of the West, where whole tracts of land, larger than Germany, cannot be cultivated for lack of water; while American engineers, however, now think it entirely possible with a sufficient outlay of money to irrigate this region artificially. Still others regard the tax issue as of prime importance; and the circle of those who believe in single-tax reform is steadily growing. Every one agrees also that the status of national banks needs to be extensively modified; that the reckless devastation of forests must be stopped; and that the commercial relations between the states must be regulated by new laws. Some are hoping for new canals, others for the subvention of American ships. In short, the public mind is so filled with important economic questions that others which are merely political stand in the background; and, of course, political questions so tremendous as was once that of independence from England and the establishment of the Federation, or later, the slave question and the secession of the South, have not come up through four happy decades.

Besides the economic problems there are many social problems which appear in those quarters where public opinion is best organized, and spread from there more and more throughout political life; such are the question of woman’s suffrage, and the half economic and half social problem of the extremes between poor and rich, extremes which were unknown to the New World in the early days of America and even until very recent times. The unspeakable misery in the slums of New York and Chicago, in which the lowest immigrants from Eastern Europe have herded themselves together and form a nucleus for all the worst reprobates of the country, is an outcome of recent years and appeals loudly to the conscience of the nation. On the other side, the fatuous extravagance of millionaires threatens to poison the national sense of thrift and economy.

Among these social problems there belongs specially the earnest desire of the best citizens to develop American art and science at a pace comparable with the extraordinary material progress of the country. Doubtless the admirable results which have here been obtained, came from the extraordinary earnestness with which public opinion has discussed these problems. The great development of universities, the increase in the number of libraries and scientific institutions, the creation of museums, the observance of beauty in public buildings, and a hundred other things would never have come about if public opinion had let things go their own way; here public opinion has consciously done its duty as a governing power. Somewhat nearer the periphery of public thought there are various other social propagandas, as that for the relief of the poor and for improving penal institutions; the temperance movement is flourishing, and the more so in proportion as it gives up its fanatical eccentricities. Also the fight against what the American newspaper reader calls the “social evil,” attracts more and more serious attention.

Besides all these, there is a considerable number of purely political problems; first among these are the problems of population, and notably the questions of immigration and of the negro; then come internal problems of government, such as civil service and municipal reforms, which especially engage the public eye; finally, the problems of external politics, in which the watchwords of imperialism and the Monroe Doctrine can be heard shouted out above all others. At least we must briefly take our bearings, and see why these problems exist, although the treatment cannot be exhaustive.

The first issue in the problem of population is, as we have said, that which concerns immigration; and this is just now rather up before public opinion since the last fiscal year which was closed with the beginning of July, 1903, showed the largest immigration ever reached, it being one-tenth greater than the previous record, which was for the year ending in 1882. The facts are as follows: The total immigration to the United States has been twenty million persons. The number of those who now live in the United States, but were born in foreign countries, is more than ten millions; and if we were to add to these those who, although born here, are of foreign parentage, the number comes up to twenty-six millions. Last year 857,000 immigrants came into the country. Out of the ten millions of the foreign-born population, 2,669,000 have come from Germany, and 1,619,000 from Ireland.

The fluctuations in immigration seem to depend chiefly on the amount of prosperity in the United States, and, secondly, on the economic and political conditions which prevail from year to year in Europe. Up to 1810 the annual immigration is estimated to have been about 6,000; then it was almost wholly interrupted for several years, owing to the political tension between the United States and England; as soon as peace was assured the immigration increased in 1817 to 20,000; and in the year 1840 to 84,000. The hundred thousand mark was passed in 1842, and from then on the figure rose steadily, until in 1854 it amounted to 427,000. Then the number fell off rapidly. It was a time of business depression in the United States, and, moreover, the slavery agitation was already threatening a civil war. The immigration was least in 1861, when it had sunk to 91,000. Two years later it began to rise again, and in 1873 was almost half a million. And again there followed a few years of business depression, with its correspondingly lessened immigration. But the moment economic conditions improved, immigration set in faster than ever before, and in 1882 was more than three-quarters of a million. Since 1883 the average number of persons coming in has been 450,000, the variation from year to year being considerable. The business reverses of 1893 cut the number down to one-half, but since 1897 it has steadily risen again.

Such bare figures do not show that which is most essential from the point of view of public opinion, since the quality of the immigration, depending as it does on the social condition of the countries from which it comes, is the main circumstance. In the decade between 1860 and 1870, 2,064,000 European wanderers came to the American shores; of these 787,000 were Germans, 568,000 English, 435,000 Irish, 109,000 Scandinavians, 38,000 Scotch, and 35,000 French. Now for the decade between 1890 and 1900 the total number was 3,844,000; of these Germany contributed 543,000, Ireland 403,000, Norway and Sweden 325,000, England 282,000, Scotland 60,000, and France 36,000. On the other hand, we find for the first time three countries represented which had never before sent any large number of immigrants; Italy, Russia, and Austria-Hungary. In the decade ending 1870 there were only 11,000 Italians, 7,000 Austrians, and 4,000 Russians, while in the decade ending in the year 1900 the Russian immigrants, who are mostly Poles and Jews, numbered 588,000, the Austrian and Hungarian 597,000, and the Italian no less than 655,000; and the proportion of these three kinds of immigrants is steadily increasing. In the year 1903 Germany sent only 40,000, Ireland 35,000, and England 26,000; while Russia sent 136,000, Austria-Hungary 206,000, and Italy 230,000. Herein lies the problem.

A few further figures may help to make the situation clearer. For instance, it is interesting to know what proportion of the total emigration from Europe came to America. In round numbers we may say that since 1870 Europe has lost 20,000,000 souls by emigration, and that some 14,000,000 of these, that is, more than two-thirds, have ultimately made their homes in the United States of America. Of the German emigrants some 85 or 90 per cent. have gone to the United States; of the Scandinavian as many as 97 per cent.; while of the English and Italian only 66 and 45 per cent. respectively. It is worth noting, moreover, that in spite of the extraordinary increase in immigration, the percentage of foreign-born population has not increased; that is, the increase of native-born inhabitants has kept up with the immigration. In 1850 there were a few more than two million foreign-born inhabitants, in 1860 more than four millions, in 1870 there were five and a half millions, in 1880 six and a half millions, in 1890 nine and a quarter millions, and in 1900 ten and one-third millions. In 1850 these foreigners amounted, it is true, to only 11 per cent. of the population; but in 1860 they had already become 15 per cent. of the whole, and diminished in 1870 to 14.4 per cent., in 1880 to 13.3 per cent.; in 1890 they were 14.8 per cent., and in 1900 13.6 per cent.

The State of New York has the largest number of foreigners, and in the last fifty years the percentage of foreigners has risen steadily from 21 per cent. to 26 per cent. Pennsylvania stands second in this respect, and Illinois third. On the other hand, the small states have the largest percentage of foreign population. North Dakota has 35 per cent. and Rhode Island 31 per cent. The Southern states have fewest foreigners of any. These figures are, of course, greatly changed if we add to them the persons who were not themselves born in other countries, but of whom one or both parents were foreigners. In this way the foreign population in the so-called North Atlantic States is 51 per cent., and is 34 per cent. throughout the country. If a foreigner is so defined, the cities of New York and Chicago are both 77 per cent. foreign.

These figures are enough by way of mere statistics. The thing which arouses anxiety is not the increasing number of immigrants, but the quality of them, which grows continually worse. Just fifty years ago the so-called Know-Nothings made the anti-foreign sentiment the chief plank of their programme, but the “pure” American propaganda of the Know-Nothings was forgotten in the excitement which waged over slavery; and the anti-foreign issue has never since that time been so brutally stated. There has always been much objection to the undeniable evils involved in this immigration, and the continual cry for closer supervision and restriction of immigration has given rise to several new legal measures. Partly, this movement has been the expression of industrial jealousy, as when, for instance, Congress in 1885, in an access of protectionist fury, forbade the immigration of “contract labour,” that is, forbade any one to land who had already arranged to fill a certain position. This measure was meant to protect the workmen from disagreeable competition. But right here the believers in free industry object energetically. It is just the contract labour from the Old World which brings new industries and a new development of old industries into the country, and such a quickening of industry augments the demand for labour to the decided advantage of native workmen. The law still stands in writing, but in practice it appears to be extensively corrected, since it is very easily evaded.

The more important measures, however, have arisen less from industrial than from social and moral grounds. Statistics have been carefully worked up again and again in order to show that the poor-houses and prisons contain a much larger percentage of foreigners than their proportionate numbers in the community warrant. In itself this will be very easy to understand, owing to the unfavourable conditions under which the foreigner must find himself, particularly if he does not speak English, in his struggle for existence in a new land. But most striking has been the manner in which the magic of statistics has shown its ability to prove anything it will; for other statistics have shown that if certain kinds of crime are considered, the foreign-born Americans are the best children the nation has. The question of illiteracy has been discussed in similar fashion. The percentage of immigrants who can neither read nor write has seemed alarmingly high to those accustomed to the high cultivation of the northeastern states, but gratifyingly small to those familiar with the negro population in the South. One unanimous opinion has been reached; it is that the country is bound to keep out such elements from its borders as are going to be a public burden. At first idiots and insane persons, criminals, and paupers made up this undesirable class, but the definition of those who are not admitted to the country has been slowly broadened. And since the immigration laws require the steamship companies to carry back at their own expense all immigrants who are not allowed to land, the selection is actually made in the European ports of embarkation. In this wise the old charge that the agents of European packet companies encouraged the lowest and worst individuals of the Old World to expend their last farthing for a ticket to the New World, has gradually died out. Nevertheless, in the last year, 5,812 persons were sent back for lack of visible means of support, 51 because of criminal record, and 1773 by reason of infectious diseases.

The fact remains, however, that the social mires of every large city teem with foreigners, and that among these masses the worst evils of municipal corruption find favourable soil, that all the sporadic outbreaks of anarchy are traceable to these foreigners, and that the army of the unemployed is mostly recruited from their number. These opinions were greatly strengthened when that change in the racial make-up set in which we have followed by statistics, and which a census of the poorer districts in the large cities quickly proves: Italians, Russian Jews, Galicians, and Roumanians everywhere. The unprejudiced American asks with some concern whether, if this stream of immigration is continued, it will not undermine the virility of the American people. The American nation will continue to fulfil its mission so long as it is inspired with a spirit of independence and self-determination; and this instinct derives from the desire of freedom possessed by all the Germanic races. In this way the German, Swedish, and Norwegian newcomers have adapted themselves at once to the Anglo-Saxon body politic, while the French have remained intrinsically strangers. Their number, however, has been very small. But what is to happen if the non-Germanic millions of Italians, Russians, and Turks are to pour in unhindered? It is feared that they will drag down the high and independent spirit of the nation to their low and unworthy ideals. Already many citizens wish to require of the immigrants a knowledge of the English language, or to make a certain property qualification by way of precaution against unhappy consequences, or perhaps to close entirely for awhile the portals of the nation, or, at least, to make the conditions of naturalization considerably harder in order that the Eastern European, who has never had a thought of political freedom, shall not too quickly receive a suffrage in the freest democracy of the world. And those most entitled to an opinion unconditionally demand at the least the exclusion of all illiterates.

Against all this there stand the convictions of certain rather broader circles of people who point with pride at that great American grist-mill, the public school, which is supposed to take the foreign youth into its hopper, grind him up quickly and surely, and turn him out into good American material. It is, in fact, astonishing to look at the classes in the New York schools down on the East Side, where there is not a child of American parentage, and yet not one who will admit that he is Italian, Russian, or Armenian. All these small people declare themselves passionately to be “American,” with American patriotism and American pride; and day by day shows that in its whole system of public institutions the nation possesses a similar school for the foreign-born adult. Grey-haired men and adolescent youths, who in their native countries would never have emerged from their dull and cringing existence, hardly touch the pavement of Broadway before they find themselves readers of the newspaper, frequenters of the political meetings, and in a small way independent business men; and they may, a few years later, be conducting enterprises on a large scale. They wake up suddenly, and although in this transformation every race lends its own colour to the spirit of self-determination, nevertheless the universal trait, the typical American trait, can appear in every race of man, if only the conditions are favourable.

In the same direction it is urged once more that America needs the labour of these people. If Southern and Eastern Europe had not given us their cheaper grades of workmen, we should not have been able to build our roads or our railroads, nor many other things which we have needed. In former decades this humble rôle fell to the Germans, the Scandinavians, and the Irish, and the opposition against their admission was as lively as it now is against the immigrants from the south and east of Europe; while the development of the country has shown that they have been an economic blessing; and the same thing, it is said, will be true of the Russians and Poles. There are still huge territories at our disposal which are virtually unpopulated, untold millions can still employ their strength to the profit of the whole nation, and it would be madness to keep out the willing and peaceable workers. Moreover, has it not been the proud boast of America that her holy mission was to be a land of freedom for every oppressed individual, an asylum for every one who was persecuted? In the times then of her most brilliant prosperity is she to be untrue to her noble role of protectress, and leave no hope to those who have been deprived of their human rights by Russian or Turkish despots, by Italian or Hungarian extortionists, to disappoint their belief that at least in the New World even the most humble man has his rights and will be received at his true value? Thus the opinions differ, and public opinion at large has come as yet to no decision.

A curious feature in the immigration problem is the Chinese question, which has occasioned frequent discussion on the Pacific coast. The Chinaman does not come here to enjoy the blessings of American civilization, but merely in order to earn a competence in a short time so that he can return to his Asiatic home and be forever provided for. He does not bring his family with him, nor attempt in any way to adapt himself; he keeps his own costume, stays apart from his white neighbours, and lives, as for instance in the Chinese Quarter of San Francisco, on such meagre nourishment and in such squalid dwellings that he can save up wealth from such earnings as an American workman could hardly live on. A tour through the Chinese sleeping-rooms in California is in fact one of the most depressing impressions which the traveller on American soil can possibly experience. The individuals lie on large couches, built over one another in tiers, going quite up to the ceiling; and in twenty-four hours three sets of sleepers will have occupied the beds. Under such conditions the number of newcomers steadily increased because large commercial firms imported more and more coolie labour. Between 1870 and 1880 more than 122,000 had come into the country. Then Congress began to oppose this immigration, and since 1879 has experimented with various laws, until now the Chinese workman is almost wholly excluded. According to the last census there were only 81,000 Chinese in the whole United States.

More attractive than the yellow immigrants to these shores are the red-skinned aborigines of the land, the Indians, whom the Europeans found when they landed. The world is too much inclined, however, to consider the fate of the Indian in a false light, just because his manner of life captures the fancy and his picturesque barbarity has often attracted the poet. The American himself is rather inclined to see in his treatment of the Indian a grave charge against his own nation, and to find himself guilty of the brutal extermination of a native race. To arrive at such an opinion he assumes that in former centuries great tribes of Indians scoured the tremendous hunting-grounds of the land. But science has done away with this fanciful picture, and we know to-day that these millions of natives never existed. There are to-day about 270,000 Redskins, and it is very doubtful whether the number was ever much greater. It is true, of course, that between Central America and the Arctic Sea, hundreds of different Indian languages were spoken, and many of these languages have twenty or thirty different dialects. But the sole community in which such a dialect developed would include only a few hundred persons, and broad tracts of land would lie between the neighbouring communities. They used to live in villages, and wandered over the country only at certain seasons of the year in order to hunt, fish, and collect fruits.

As soon as the European colonies established themselves in the country the Indians used to take part in their wars, and on such occasions were supplied by the colonists with arms and employed as auxiliary forces. But the delights of these new methods of warfare, which they learned quickly, broke up their own peaceful life. The new weapons were employed for war between the Indian races, and eventually were turned by the Indians against the white settlers themselves. But, after all, the peaceful contact of Indians and whites was more productive of results. Only the French and Spanish permitted a mixture of the races, and in Canada especially to-day there is a mixed race of French and Indians; while in Mexico a large part of the inhabitants is Spanish and Indian. The truly American population sought above all else peaceably to disseminate its own culture; some Indian races became agricultural and devoted themselves to certain industrial pursuits.

Since the time when the United States gained actual possession of a larger part of the continent, a systematic Indian policy has been pursued, although administered largely, it must be admitted, in the American interests, and yet with considerable consideration of the natural inclinations of these hunting peoples. In various states, territories were set apart for them, which were certainly more than adequate to afford their sustenance; schools were built, and even institutions of higher learning; and through solemn treaties with their chiefs important rights were assigned to different races. To be sure, the main idea has always been to persuade the Indians to take up agricultural pursuits; to live merely by hunting flesh and eating wild fruits seemed hardly the thing at a time when millions of people were flocking westward out of Europe. Therefore, with every new treaty, the Indian reservations have been made smaller and smaller. The Indians, who would have preferred always to keep up their wild hunting life, felt, and still feel, that this has been unjust, and certainly many of their racial peculiarities have made it difficult to adapt American legal traditions fairly to their needs. The Indians had no idea of the private ownership of the soil; they considered everything as belonging to their tribe, and least of all had they any notion of the inheritance of property in the American sense. The Indian children belonged to the mother’s family and the mother never belonged to the tribe of the father.

Although all these sources of friction have led the Indian to feel unjustly treated, it is still true that there has been scarcely any actually destructive oppression. The very races which have been influenced most by American culture have developed favourably. Last year the Indian mortality was 4,728, and the number of births 4,742; the Indians are, therefore, not dying out. The largest community is in the so-called Indian Territory and consists of 86,000 people, while there are 42,000 in Arizona. The several Indian reservations together embrace 117,420 square miles.

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The Indian question is the least serious problem of all those which concern population in America; by far the most difficult is the negro question. The Indian lives within certain reservations, but the negro lives everywhere side by side with the American. So also the Indian troubles are narrowly confined to a small reservation in the great field of American problems, but the negro question is met everywhere in American thought, and in connection with every American interest. There could hardly be a greater contrast than that between the Indian and the negro; the former is proud, self-contained, selfish and revengeful, passionate and courageous, keen and inventive. The negro, on the other hand, is subservient, yielding, almost childishly good natured, lazy and sensual, without energy or ambition, outwardly apt to learn, but without any spirit of invention or intellectual independence. And still one ought not to speak of these millions of people as if they were of one type. On the Gulf of Mexico there are regions where the black population lives almost wholly sunk in the superstitions of its African home; while in Harvard University a young negro student has written creditable essays on Kant and Hegel. And between these opposite poles exists a population of about nine millions.

The negro population of America does not increase quite so rapidly as the white, and yet in forty years it has increased two-fold. In the year 1860, before the slaves were freed, there were 4,441,000 blacks; in 1870, 4,880,000; in 1880, 6,580,000; in 1890, 7,470,000; in 1900, 8,803,000. In view of this considerable increase of the negro, it is not to be expected that the problem will lose anything of its urgency by the more rapid growth of the white population. And at the same time the physical contrast between the races is in no wise decreasing, because there is no mixing of the white and black races to-day, as there very frequently was before the war. It will not be long before the coloured population will be twice the entire population which Canada to-day has. These people are distributed geographically, so that much the largest part lives in those states which before the war practised slavery. To be sure, an appreciable part has wandered into the northern states, and the poorer quarters of the large cities are well infiltrated with blacks. Four-fifths, however, still remain in the South, owing probably to climatic conditions; the negro race thrives better in a warm climate. But it belongs there economically also, and has nearly every reason for staying there in future.

Nevertheless, the negro question is by no means a problem for the South alone; the North has its interests, and it becomes clearer all the time that the solution of the problem will depend in large part on the co-operation of the North. In the first place it was the North which set the negro free, and which, therefore, is partly responsible for what he is to-day; and it must lie with the North to decide whether the great dangers which to-day threaten can in any way be obviated. Europe has so far considered only one feature of the negro question—that of slavery. All Europe read “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and thought the difficulty solved as soon as the negro was freed from his chains and the poorest negro came into his human right of freedom. Europe was not aware that in this *wise still greater problems were created, and that greater springs of misery and misfortune for the negro there took their origin. Nor does Europe realize that opposition between whites and blacks has never been in the history of America so sharp and bitter and full of hatred as it is to-day. Just in the last few years the hatred has grown on both sides, so that no friend of the country can look into the future without misgivings. “Das eben ist die Frucht der bösen Tat.”

Yet where did the sin begin? Shall the blame fall on the English Parliament, which countenanced and even encouraged the trade in human bodies, or shall it fall on the Southern States, which kept the slaves in ignorance, and even threatened to punish any one who should instruct them? Or shall it fall on the Northern States, which were chiefly responsible for immediately granting to the freedmen, for the sake of party politics, all prerogatives of fellow-citizenship? Or shall the fault be put on the negro himself, who saw in his freedom from slavery an open door to idleness and worthlessness?

For generations the white man has regarded the black man as merchandise, has forcibly dragged him from his African jungles to make him work in ignorance and oppression on the cotton, rice, and tobacco fields of a white master. Then all at once he was made free and became an equal citizen in a country which, in its abilities, its feelings, its laws, and its Constitution, had the culture of two thousand years behind it. How has this emancipation worked on these millions? The first decade was a period of unrest and of almost frightened awakening to the consciousness of physical freedom, in the midst of all the after-effects of the fearful war. The negro was terrified by Southern secret societies which were planning vengeance, and confused by the dogmas of unscrupulous politicians who canvassed the states which had been so savagely shaken by the war, in order to gather up whatever might be found; and he was confused by a thousand other contradictions in public sentiment. Nowhere was there a secure refuge. Then followed the time in which the negroes hoped to employ their political power to advantage; the negroes were to be prospered by their ballot. But they found this to be a hopeless mistake. Then they believed a better way was to be found in the public schools and books. But the negro was again turned back; he needed not knowledge but the power to do, not books but a trade. So his rallying-cry has shifted. The blacks have never lost heart, and in a certain sense it must in justice be added the whites have never lacked good-will. And yet, after forty years of freedom, the results are highly discouraging.

On the outside there is much that speaks of almost brilliant success. The negroes have to-day in the United States 450 newspapers and four magazines; 350 books have been written by negroes; half of all the negro children are regularly taught in schools; there are 30,000 black teachers, school-houses worth more than $10,000,000, forty-one seminaries for teachers, and churches worth over $25,000,000. There are ten thousand black musicians and hundreds of lawyers. The negroes own four large banks, 130,000 farms, and 150,000 homes, and they pay taxes on $650,000,000 worth of real and personal property. The four past decades have therefore brought some progress to the freedman. And yet, in studying the situation, one is obliged to say that these figures are somewhat deceptive. The majority of negroes are still in such a state of poverty and misery, of illiteracy and mental backwardness, that the negroes who can be at all compared with the middle class of Americans are vanishingly few. Even the teachers and the doctors and pastors seem only very little to differ from the proletariat; and although there is many a negro of means, it is still a question whether he is able to enjoy his property, whether the dollar in his hand is the same as in the hand of a white man.

A part of the black population has certainly made real progress, but a larger part is humanly more degraded than before the slaves were freed; and if one looks at it merely as a utilitarian, considering only the amount of pleasure which the negroes enjoy, one cannot doubt that the general mass of negroes was happier under slavery. Their temperament is crueller to them than any plantation master could have been. The negro—we must have no illusions on that point—has partly gone backward. The capacity for hard work which he acquired in four generations of slavery, he has in large part lost again during forty years of freedom; although, indeed, the tremendous cotton harvests from the Southern States are gathered almost wholly by negro labour. It must be left to anthropology to find out whether the negro race is actually capable of such complete development as the Caucasian race has come to after thousands of years of steady labour and progress. The student of social politics need not go into such speculations; he faces the fact that the African negro has not had the thousands of years of such training, and therefore, although he might be theoretically capable of the highest culture, yet practically he is still unprepared for the higher duties of civilization. Under the severe discipline of slavery he overcame his lazy instincts and learned how to work both in the field and in the shop, according as the needs of his master required, and became in this way a useful member of society; but he was relieved of all other cares. His owner provided him with house and nourishment, cared for him in illness, and protected him like any other valuable piece of property.

All this was suddenly changed on the great day when freedom was declared; no one compelled the negro to work then; he was free to follow his instinct to do nothing; no one punished him when he gave himself over to sensuality and indolence. But on the other side nobody now took care of him; in becoming his own master he remained his own slave. He was suddenly pushed into the struggle for existence, and the less he was forced to learn the less he was ready for the fight. There thus grew up an increasing mass of poverty-stricken negroes, among whom immorality and crime could thrive; and oftentimes the heavy weight of this mass has dragged down with it those who would have been better. Worst of all, it has strengthened the aversion of the whites a hundred-fold, and the best members of the negro race have had to suffer for the laziness, the sensuality, and the dishonesty of the great masses.

The real tragedy is not in the lives of the most miserable, but in the lives of those who wish to rise, who feel the mistakes of their fellow-negroes and the injustice of their white opponents, who desire to assimilate everything high and good in the culture about them, and yet who know that they do not, strictly speaking, belong to such a culture. The negroes of the lower type are sunk in their indifference; they while away the hours in coarse enjoyments, and are perfectly content with a few watermelons while they dance and sing. The onlooker is disheartened, but they themselves laugh like children. The better negroes, on the other hand, feel all the hardship and carry the weight of the problem on their souls. They go through life fully conscious of an insoluble contradiction in their existence; they feel that it is denied them to participate immediately in life, and that they must always see themselves with the eyes of others, and lead in a way a double existence. As one of them has recently said, they are always conscious of being a problem.

They themselves have not chosen their lot, they did not come of their own accord from Africa, nor gladly take on the yoke of slavery; nor were they by their own efforts saved from slavery. They have been passive at every turn of fortune. Now they wish to commence to do their best and to give their best, and they have to do this in an environment for which they are wholly unprepared and which is wholly beyond them in its culture They have not themselves worked out this civilization; they belong historically in another system, and remain here at best mere imitators. And the better they succeed in being like their neighbours, the more they become unlike what they ought naturally to develop into.

This feeling of disparateness leads directly to the feeling of embitterment. In the general masses, however, it is the feeling of incompetence to support the struggle for existence successfully which turns necessarily into a bitter hatred of the whites. And the more the lack of discipline and the laziness of the black cause the whites to hold him in check, so much the more brightly burns this hatred. But all students of the South believe that this hatred has come about wholly since the negro was declared free. The slave was faithful and devoted to his master, who took care of him; he hated work, but did not hate the white man, and took his state of slavery as a matter of course, much as one takes one’s inability to fly. A patriarchal condition prevailed in the South before the war, in spite of the representations made by political visionaries. Indeed, it is sometimes difficult not to doubt whether it was necessary to do away with slavery so suddenly and forcibly; whether a good deal of self-respect would not have been saved on both sides, and endless hatred, embitterment, and misery spared, if the Northern States had left the negro question to itself, to be solved in time through organic rather than mechanical means. Perhaps slavery would then have gone gradually over into some form of patriarchal relation.

It is too late to philosophize on this point; doctrinarianism has shaped the situation otherwise. The arms of the Civil War have decided in favour of the North. It is dismal, but it must be said that the actual events of the ensuing years of peace have decided rather in favour of the view of the South. To comprehend this fully, it is not enough to ask merely, as we have done so far, how the negro now feels; but more specially to ask what the American now thinks.

What is to-day the relation between the white man and the negro? There is a difference here between the North and the South, and yet one thing is true for both: the American feels that the cleft between the white and black races is greater now than ever before. So far as the North is concerned, the political view of the problem has probably changed very little. Specially the New England States, whose exalted ethical motives were beyond all doubt—as perhaps is not so certain of the Middle States—still sympathize to-day with the negro as a proper claimant of human rights. But unfortunately one may believe in the negro in the abstract, and yet shrink from contact with him in the concrete. The personal dislike of the black man, one might even call it an æsthetic antipathy, is really more general and wide-spread in the North than in the South. South of Washington one can scarcely be shaved except by a negro, while north of Philadelphia a white man would quite decline to patronize a coloured barber. A Southerner is even not averse to having a black nurse in the house, while in the Northern States that would never be thought of. Whenever the principle is to be upheld, the negro is made welcome in the North. He is granted here and there a small public office; he delivers orations, and is admitted to public organizations; he marches in the parades of war veterans, and a few negroes attend the universities. And still there is no real social intercourse between the races. In no club or private house and on no private occasions does one meet a negro. And here the European should bear specially in mind that negroes are not seldom men and women whose faces are perhaps as white as any Yankee’s, and who often have only the faintest taint of African blood.

At the very best the Northerner plays philanthropist toward the negro, takes care of his schools and churches, helps him to help himself, and to carve out his economic freedom. But even here the feeling has been growing more and more in recent years that the situation is somehow fundamentally false, and that the North has acted hastily and imprudently in accepting the emancipated negro on terms of so complete equality. The feeling of dissatisfaction is growing in the North, and it is not an accident that the negro population of the North grows so slowly, although the negro is always ready to wander, and would crowd in great numbers to the North if he might hope to better his fortunes there. The negro feels, however, intensely that he is still less a match for the energetic Northerner in the industrial competition than for the white man of the South, and that it is often easier to endure the hatred of the Southerner than the coldly theoretical sufferance of the Northerner when joined, as it is, with a personal distaste so pronounced.

In the South it is quite different. There could hardly be an æsthetic aversion for the race, when for generations blacks and whites have lived together, when all the servants of the home have been coloured, and the children have grown up on the plantations with their little black playmates. There has been a good deal in the easy good-nature of the negro which the Southern white man has always found sympathetic, and he responded in former times to the disinterested faithfulness of the slaves with a real attachment. And although this may have been such fondness as one feels for a faithful dog or an intelligent horse, there was in it, nevertheless, no trace of that physical repulsion felt by the Northerner. The same is fundamentally true to-day, and the rhetorical emphasis of the physical antipathy toward the black which one finds in Southern speeches is certainly in part hypocritical. It is true that even to-day the poorest white man would think himself too good to marry the most admirable coloured woman; but the reason of this would lie in social principles, and not, as politicians would like to make it appear, in any instinctive racial aversion, since so long as the negroes were in slavery the whites had no aversion to such personal contamination.

The great opposition which now exists is two-fold: it is on the one hand political and on the other social. The political situation of the South has been indeed dominated in the last forty years by the negro question. There have been four distinct periods of development; the first goes from the end of the Civil War to 1875. It was the time when the negro had first received the suffrage and become a political factor, the most dreary time which the South ever knew. It was economically ruined, was overrun with a disgusting army of unscrupulous politicians, who wanted nothing but to pervert the ignorant coloured voters for the lowest political ends. The victorious party in the North sent its menials down to organize the coloured quarry, and by mere numbers to outdo all independent activities of the white population.

One can easily understand why a Southern historian should say that the Southern States look back without bitterness on the years of the war, when brave men met brave men on the field of battle; but that they are furious when they remember the years which followed, when the victors, partly out of mistaken philanthropy, partly out of thoughtlessness and indifference, and partly out of evil intent, hastened to put the reins of government into the hands of a race which was hardly out of African barbarism; and thus utterly disheartened the men and women who had built up the splendid culture of the Old South. Perhaps there was no phase of American history, he says, so filled with poetry and romantic charm as the life of the South in the last ten years before the war; and certainly no period has been so full of mistakes, uncertainties, and crime as the decade immediately following. A reaction had to come, and it came in the twenty years between 1875 and 1895. The South betook itself to devious methods at the ballot-box. It was recognized that falsification of election returns was an evil, but it was thought to be a worse evil for the country to be handed over to the low domination of illiterate negroes. The political power of the negro has been broken in this way. Again and again the same method was resorted to, until finally the public opinion of the South approved of it, and those who juggled with the ballot-box were not pursued by the arm of the law, because the general opinion was with them.

There has been another and more important fact. Slowly all party opposition between the whites vanished, and the race question became the sole political issue. To be sure, there have been free-traders and protectionists in the South, and representatives of all other party principles; but all genuine party life flagged and all less important distinctions vanished at the ballot-box when the whites rallied against the blacks, and since the negroes voted invariably with the Republican party, which had set them free, the entire white population of the South has become Democratic. By this political consolidation, the power of the negro has been further restricted.

People have gradually become convinced, however, that political life stagnates when large states have only the one fixed idea, as if hypnotized by the race issue. The need has been felt anew of participating once more in all the great problems which interest the nation and which create the parties. The South looks back longingly on the time when it used to furnish the most brilliant statesmen of the nation. The South has become also aware that so soon as public opinion allows a systematic corruption of the ballot-box, then every kind of selfishness and corruption has an easy chance to creep in.

Let once the election returns be falsified in order to wipe out a negro majority, and they may be falsified the next time in favour of some commercial conspiracy. An abyss opens up which is truly bottomless. So a third period has arrived. In place of nullifying the negro suffrage by illegal means, the South has been thinking out legal measures for limiting it. The Constitution prescribes merely that no one shall be deprived of his vote by reason of his colour, but it has been left to the several states to determine what the other conditions shall be which govern the right to vote. Thus any state is free to place a certain property condition, or to require a certain degree of education from every man who votes; but all such conditions must apply to all inhabitants of the state alike; thus, for instance, in four states, and only in those four, do women enjoy the suffrage. Now the Southern States have commenced to make extensive use of this state privilege. They are not allowed to exclude the negro as a negro since the Northern States have added the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution, and there would be no hope of altering this. But so long as the educational status of the negro is so far behind that of the white man, the number of those who cannot read is still so large that a heavy blow is struck at negro political domination when a state decides to restrict the suffrage to those who can read and understand the Constitution. It is clear that at the same time the test of this which necessarily has to be made leaves the coveted free-play to the white man’s discretion.

The last few years have witnessed a great advance of this new movement. The political power of the negro is less than ever, and the former illegal measures to circumvent it are no longer needed. It cannot be denied that in two ways this works directly in the interests of civilization. On the one hand, it incites the negro population to take measures for the education of its children, since by going to school the negro can comply with the conditions of suffrage. On the other hand, it frees Southern politics from the oppressive race question, and allows real party problems to become once more active issues among the whites. The political contrast is, therefore, to-day somewhat lessened, although both parties regard it rather as a mere cessation of hostilities; since it is by no means certain that Northern political forces at Washington will not once more undo this infringement on the negroes’ rights, and whether once more, in case of a real party division between the Southern whites, the negroes will not have the deciding vote. If the doctrinarianism of the North should actually prevail and be able to set aside these examinations in reading and in intelligence which have been aimed against the negro, on the ground that they are contrary to the Constitution, it would indeed frustrate a great movement toward political peace. When the abolitionists at the end of the Civil War granted the suffrage to the negroes, they were at least able to adduce one very good excuse; they claimed that the Southern States would continue in some new form to hold the negro in subjection if he was not protected by either a military guard or by his right to vote, and since the army was to be disbanded the right to vote was given him. To-day there is no such danger; the legal exclusion of the Southern negro from the ballot-box must be accounted an advance.

The social question, however, is even more important to-day than the political one, and it is one which grows day by day. We have said already that the Southerner has no instinctive aversion to the negro race, and his desire for racial purity is not an instinct but a theory, of which the fathers of the present white man knew nothing. To be sure, the situation cannot be simply formulated, but it probably comes nearest to the truth to say that the white man’s hatred is the inherited instinct of the slave-holder. In all his sentiments the Southerner is dominated by the once natural feeling that the negro is his helpless subject. The white man is not cruel in this; he wants to protect the negro and to be kind, but he can allow him no will of his own. He has accustomed himself to the slavish obedience of the negro, as the opium-eater is accustomed to his opium. And to give up the paralyzing drug is intolerable to his nervous system.

The everywhere repeated cry that the purity of the race is in danger, if social equality is established, is only a pretext; it is in truth the social equality itself which calls forth the hysterical excitement. No white man, for instance, in the South would go into the dining-room of a hotel in which a single negro woman should be sitting; but this is not because a mere proximity would be disagreeable, as it would actually be to the Northerner, but because he could not endure such appearance of equality. So soon as a little white child sits beside the negro woman, so that she is seen to be a servant and her socially inferior station is made plain, then her presence is no longer felt to be at all disagreeable.

In his fight against social equality with the negro, the Southerner resorts to more and more violent means; and while he works himself up to an increasing pitch of excitement by the energy of his opposition, the resulting social humiliation increases the embitterment of the negro. That no white hotel, restaurant, theatre, or sleeping-car is open to the black is a matter of course; this is virtually true also in the North. But it has contributed very much to renewed disaffection, that also the ordinary railroad trains and street cars begin to make a similar distinction.

The South is putting a premium on every kind of harsh social affront to the black man, and relentlessly punishes the slightest social recognition. When the president of a negro college was the guest of a Northern hotel and the chamber-maid refused to put his room to rights and was therefore dismissed, the South got together, by a popular subscription, a large purse for this heroine. It is only from this point of view that one can understand the great excitement which swept through the South when President Roosevelt had the courage to invite to his table Booker T. Washington, the most distinguished negro of the country. Professor Basset, the historian, has declared, amid the fierce resentment of the South, that, with the exception of General Lee, Booker Washington is the greatest man who has been born in the South for a hundred years. But who inquires after the merits of a single man when the principle of social inequality is at stake? If the President had worked for several months from early to late at his desk with Booker T. Washington, the fact would have passed unnoticed. But it is simply unpardonable that he invited him to the luncheon table, and even very thoughtful men have shaken their heads in the opinion that this affront to the social superiority of the white man will very sadly sharpen the mutual antagonism.

We must not overlook in this connection the various minor circumstances which have strengthened the lingering feeling of the slave-owner. First of all, there is the unrestrained sensuality of the negro, which has led him time after time to attempt criminal aggressions on white women, and so contributed infinitely to the misery of his situation. It is a gross exaggeration when the Southern demagogue reiterates again and again that no man in the South can feel that his wife, his sister, or daughter is secure from the bestiality of the blacks; and yet it cannot be denied that such crimes are shockingly frequent, and they are the more significant, since the continual fear of this danger seriously threatens the growth of farming life with its lonely farm-houses. Here the barbarities of lynch law have come in, and the rapid growth of racial hatred may be seen in the increased number of lynchings during recent years. But every lynching reacts to inoculate hatred and cruel ferocity in the public organism, and so the bestial instincts and the lawless punishments work together to debase the masses in the Southern States.

It is not only a question of the immorality of the negro and the lynch courts of the white man, but in other ways the negro shows himself inclined to crime, and the white man to all sorts of lawless acts against him. The negroes are disproportionately represented in Southern prisons, although this comes partly from the fact that the black man is punished for the slightest misdemeanour, while the white man is readily let off. In fact, it is difficult in the South to find a jury to convict a white man of any crime done against a negro. This application of a two-fold standard of justice leads quickly to a general arbitrariness which fits only too well with the natural instincts of the slave-holder. Arbitrary privileges in place of equal rights have always been the essential point in his existence, and so it happens that even where no negroes are in question Southern juries hand down verdicts which scandalize the whole country. Indeed, there is no doubt that secret attempts have even been made, in all sorts of devious forms, to re-establish the state of slavery. For some small misdemeanour negroes are condemned to pay a very heavy fine, and to furnish this they have to let themselves out to some sort of contract labour under white masters, which amounts to the same thing as slavery. Here again the whole country is horrified when the facts come to be known. But no means have yet been thought of for lessening the bitter hatred which exists, and so long as the sharp social contrast remains there will continue to be evasions and violations of the law, to give vent to the hatred and bitter feeling.

What now may one look for, that shall put an end to these unhappy doings? The Africans have had their Zionists, who wish to lead them back to their native forests in Africa, and many people have recently fancied that the problem would be solved by forcible deportation to the Philippines. These dreams are useless; nine million people cannot be dumped on the other side of the ocean, cannot be torn from their homes. Least of all could they be brought to combine with the entirely different population of the Philippines. More than that, the South itself would fight tooth and nail against losing so many labourers; it would be industrially ruined, and would be more grievously torn up than it was after the Civil War, if in fact some magic ship could carry every black to the negro republic of Liberia, on the African coast. For the same reason it is impracticable to bring together all negroes in one or two Southern States and leave them to work out their own salvation. In the first place, no state would be willing to draw this black lot, while the white population of the other Southern States would suffer fully as much. The student of social politics, finally, cannot doubt for a moment that the negro progresses only when he is in constant contact with white men, and degenerates with fearful speed when he is left to himself.

Among those negroes who have been called to be the leaders of their people, and who form an independent opinion of the situation, one finds two very different tendencies. One of these is to reform from the top down, the other from the bottom up. The energies of Dubois are typical of the first tendency, Booker Washington’s of the second. Dubois, and many of the most educated and advanced negroes with him, believe in the special mission of the negro race. The negro does not want to be, and ought not to be, a second order of American, but the United States are destined by Providence to develop two great and diverse but co-operating peoples, the Americans and the negroes. It is therefore the work of the African not simply to imitate the white man’s culture, but to develop independently a special culture suited to his own national traits. They feel instinctively that a few great men of special physiognomy, two or three geniuses coming from their race, will do more for the honour of their people and for the belief in its possibilities, than the slow elevation of the great mass. They lay strong emphasis on the fact that in his music, religion, and humour the negro has developed strongly individual traits, and that the people who forty years ago were in slavery have developed in a generation under unfavourable circumstances a number of shining orators, politicians, and writers. Thus they feel a most natural ambition to make away for the best and strongest, to elevate them, and to incite them to their highest achievements. The ideal is thus, in the work of the most gifted leaders to present to the world a new negro culture, by which the right of independent existence for the black race in America may be secured.

Booker Washington and his friends wish to go a quieter road; and he has with him the sympathies of the best white people in the country. They look for salvation not from a few brilliantly exceptional negroes, but from the slow and steady enlightenment of the masses; and their real leaders are to be not those who accomplish great things as individuals, but rather they who best serve in the slow work of uplifting their people. These men see clearly that there are to-day no indications of really great accomplishments and independent feats in the way of culture, and that such things are hardly to be looked for in the immediate future. At the very best it is a question of an unusual talent for imitating an alien culture.

If, then, one can hardly speak of brilliant genius in the upper strata—and it is to be admitted that Booker Washington himself is not a really great, independent, and commanding personality—it would be on the other hand much more distorted to estimate the negro from his lowest strata, from the lazy and criminal individuals. The great mass of negroes is uneducated and possesses no manual training for an occupation; but it is honest, healthy, and fit social material, which only needs to be trained in order to become valuable to the whole community. First of all, the negro ought to learn what he has once learned as a slave—a manual trade; he should perfect himself in work of the hands or in some honest agricultural occupation, not seek to create a new civilization, but more modestly to identify his race with the destinies of the white nation by real, honest, thoughtful, true, and industrious labour. Brilliant writers they do not need so much as good carpenters and school-teachers; nor notable individual escapades in the tourney-field of culture so much as a general dissemination of technical training. They need schools for manual training and institutes for the development of technical teachers.

Booker Washington’s own institution in Tuskegee has set the most admirable example, and the most thoughtful men in the North and South alike are very ready to help along all his plans. They hope and believe that so soon as the masses of coloured people have begun to show themselves somewhat more useful to the industry of the country as hand-workers, expert labourers, and farmers, that then the mutual embitterment will gradually die out and the fight for social equality slowly vanish. For on this point the more thoughtful men do not deceive themselves; social equality is nothing but a phrase when it is applied to the relation of millions of people to other millions. Among the whites themselves no one ever thinks of any real social equality; the owner of a plantation no more invites his white workmen in to eat with him than he would invite a coloured man. And when the Southern white replies scornfully to any one who challenges his prejudices, with the convincing question, “Would you let your sister marry a nigger?” he is forgetting, of course, that he himself would not let his sister marry nine-tenths of the white men of his community. Social equality can be predicated only of small groups, and in all exactness only of individuals.

Thus it might be said that peace is advanced to-day chiefly by the increasing exertions for the technical industrial education of the black workman. But it is not to be forgotten that the negro himself, and with him many philanthropists of the North, comprehends the whole situation very differently from the Southern supporters of the movement. These latter are contented with recent tendencies, because the negro’s vote is curtailed in the political sphere, and because he comes to be classed socially with the day-labourer and artisan. The negro, however, looks on this as a temporary stage in his development, and hopes in good time to outgrow it. He is glad that the election returns are no longer falsified on his account, and that legal means have been resorted to. But of course he hopes that he will soon grow beyond these conditions, and be finally favoured once more with the suffrage, just as any white man is.

It is much the same in the social sphere. He may be satisfied for the present that the advantages of manual training and farm labour are brought to the fore, but this must only be to lead his race up step by step until it has developed from a mere working class to entire social equality. That which the negro approves for the moment is what any white man in the Southern States would fix as a permanent condition. And so it appears that even in this wise no real solution of the problem has been reached, although a cessation of hostilities has been declared. But all these efforts on the part of leaders and philanthropists, these deliberations of the best whites and blacks in both the North and South, are still far from carrying weight with the general public; and thus, although the beginnings toward improvement are good, it remains that on the outside the situation looks to-day darker than ever before.

Whoever frees himself from theoretical doctrines will hardly doubt that the leading whites of the Southern States have to-day once more the better insight, since they know the negro better than the Northerners do. They demand that this limitation of the negro in his political rights and in his daily occupation shall be permanent, and that thus an organic situation shall come about in which the negro, although far removed from an undeserved slavery, shall be equally far from the complete enjoyment of that civilization which his own race has not worked out. That is, he is to be politically, economically, and socially dependent. If this had happened at the outset, the mutual hatred which now exists would never have been so fierce; and if the African succeeds materially he will hardly notice the difference, while the white man will feel with satisfaction that his superiority has been vindicated. The condition of the island of Jamaica is a good instance in point. Its inhabitants are strikingly superior to the debased negroes of the Republic of Hayti.

But it is not to be forgotten that history has repeatedly shown how impossible it is for a people numbering millions, with limited rights, to dwell in the midst of an entirely free race. Oppression and injustice constantly arise from the limitation of rights, and thence grow retaliation and crime. And the hour in which the American people narrow down the rights of ten million blacks may be the starting-point for fearful struggles. The fact remains that the real solution of the question is nowhere in sight. The negro question is the only really dark cloud on the horizon of the American nation.