Evolution 
 
 t at 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 DR. JOSEPH LECONTE. 
 
 GIFT OF MRS. LECONTE. 
 
 .No. 
 
MAN AND THE STATE 
 
 STUDIES IN APPLIED SOCIOLOGY 
 
MAN 
 AND THE STATE 
 
 STUDIES IN APPLIED SOCIOLOGY 
 
 POPULAR LECTURES AND DISCUSSIONS 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 BROOKLYN ETHICAL ASSOCIATION 
 
 (UN 
 
 
 NEW YORK 
 D, APPLETGN AND COMPAN 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1892, 
 BY THE BROOKLYN ETHICAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
TO 
 
 BENJAMIN HARRISON 
 
 AND 
 
 GROVER CLEVELAND 
 
 EMINENT CITIZENS OP THE REPUBLIC, AND 
 CHOSEN LEADERS OF THE PEOPLE IN A GREAT POLITICAL CONTEST 
 
 THIS HUMBLE EFFORT 
 TO ELEVATE QUESTIONS OF PUBLIC POLICY INTO THE FIELD 
 
 OF SCIENTIFIC DISCUSSION 
 IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE topics herein discussed, though following naturally those con- 
 sidered in the previous volumes on Evolution, Sociology, and Evolu- 
 tion in Science, Philosophy, and Art, were selected for treatment at 
 this time in view of our approaching presidential contest. Treating, 
 as they do, of the relations of the individual to the State as illus- 
 trated in the practical issues of current American politics, it was not 
 without consultation with those whose wisdom and judgment will be 
 recognized by all intelligent Americans that the trustees of the Brook- 
 lyn Ethical Association finally decided upon the adoption of this pro- 
 gramme. 
 
 Among those who were thus consulted was the Hon. Andrew D. 
 White, ex-president of Cornell University and now the United States 
 Minister to Russia, who gave the proposition his cordial indorsement 
 and encouragement. " I find my thoughts more and more conform- 
 ing themselves to the idea of an evolution of humanity," he wrote ; 
 " more and more everything I work out takes shape with reference 
 to this. Hence I shall look with increasing interest to the result of 
 your effort in Brooklyn during the coming year. . . . Persevere by all 
 means." Prof. John Fiske also gave the plan of the association his 
 hearty approbation. " I have carefully read the inclosed synopsis," he 
 affirmed, " and call it a noble scheme. Such lectures and discussions 
 are just what is needed." The Hon. James S. Clarkson, the Hon. 
 George Hoadly, and others of various party connections, actively in- 
 terested in the practical aspects of our political situation, personally 
 and in an extensive correspondence also expressed their profound 
 interest in our work, and their confidence in its supreme importance 
 as a means of political education. 
 
 Superficially it may appear that we already have an embarras de 
 richesses of political discussions, particularly in our presidential years, 
 The projectors of these lectures, however, had quite another object in 
 view than that of adding to the literature of partisan debate. Their 
 aim has been to approach the current topics of political controversy 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 from an entirely different point of view that of the scientific method 
 as exemplified in modern evolutionary sociology. 
 
 The ordinary modes of political discussion on the one hand are 
 empirical, appealing to superficial, one-sided, and half-digested facts 
 of our existing social status, and on the other hand a priori and meta- 
 physical, deducing partisan dogmas from assumed universal postu- 
 lates of ethics, economics, and social science. The writers upon these 
 topics have hardly caught the first gleam of the light which has 
 thrown its saving beams upon other fields of research and investiga- 
 tion the light of a true historical method based upon the perception 
 that society and institutions are growths, not manufactures, and that 
 genuine progress and improvement in politics and government can 
 only come through recognition and obedience of the scientifically 
 ascertained laws of social growth. 
 
 The manifest failure of political parties to secure the amelioration 
 and cure of evils universally recognized in our present social condi- 
 tions evils of poverty, of crime, of taxation, of immigration, of race 
 conflict, of land exhaustion, of municipal maladministration, of the 
 unstable and unscientific relation and adjustment of public and pri- 
 vate enterprise and the tacitly confessed inability of the advocates 
 of the two diverse and discredited methods of political discussion 
 above described to meet on common intelligible ground and convince 
 rational minds of the wisdom and efficacy of either mode of pro- 
 cedure, has given rise to a medley of political theorizing and experi- 
 mentation socialistic, nationalistic, anarchistic, and what not ex- 
 ploited by political conjurors, aiming by the magical talismans of me- 
 chanically devised panaceas to " abolish poverty " and revolutionize 
 society, but even more unscientific and futile in their schemes for 
 social amelioration than the older partisan advocates. 
 
 This volume proposes no such magical panacea for our social and 
 political ills. It does not assume to definitively indicate the final set- 
 tlement of the questions herein discussed. It is. rather the modest 
 John the Baptist of a new political method the method of science 
 and evolution. Recognizing the relativity of knowledge in this as in 
 other fields of discussion, this method constitutes the only ground 
 whereon people of diverse views and philosophic students of societary 
 problems can amicably meet with a rational hope of ultimate substan- 
 tial agreement in matters of public policy. On the intelligent accept- 
 ance of this method we firmly believe depend not only the unity and 
 prosperity of our own beloved America, but of all the nations of the 
 world. Its blind or willful rejection means the progressive decay of 
 civic virtue and the steady decline and final extinction of national 
 life. 
 
Preface. ix 
 
 Questions dividing the public mind have herein, as far as possible, 
 been presented from contrasting points of view with candor and fair- 
 ness, the advocates of each aiming to justify their positions by appeals 
 to the scientific method and the recognized principles of social evo- 
 lution. This we believe renders these lectures in their printed form 
 adapted to sustain the interest of the reader as they did that of the 
 large and intelligent audiences which attended their oral delivery, and 
 to provoke fruitful thought and wise action on political issues as cer- 
 tainly as the ordinary heated appeal of the emotional orator, unhap- 
 pily too familiar in our political campaigns, serves to produce the 
 contrary effect of intensifying preconceived and unscientific partisan 
 prejudices. 
 
 Recognizing with Mr. Herbert Spencer that "the end which the 
 statesman should keep in view as higher than all other ends is the 
 formation of character," the ethical bearing of the topics under dis- 
 cussion has been kept steadily in mind. Nor have we failed to remem- 
 ber with Prof. Le Conte that " the most potent factor in human prog- 
 ress is not found in organic evolution, but in the voluntary co-opera- 
 tion of man in his own evolution." 
 
 Nobly to inspire such voluntary co-operation and rightly to guide 
 the activities flowing from it has been the aim, we are sure, of all 
 who have contributed to these discussions. It is confidently hoped, 
 therefore, that they may not only be immediately helpful in suggest- 
 ing the true solution of the problems now at issue in America, but 
 permanently useful in educating the public mind and inspiring con- 
 fidence in the method of science and evolution as the efficient means 
 of promoting fullness of life and lasting prosperity in the nation as 
 well as in the individual citizen. With this hope, this book is com- 
 mended not only to the attention of the individual reader, but also to 
 political clubs, leagues, and schools of political science throughout 
 the country. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Preface, . . vii 
 
 THE DUTY OF A PUBLIC SPIRIT, 3 
 
 Relation of religion to citizenship ; evil influences in modern 
 society; various forms of anarchism; a religious secularism 
 advocated. , 
 
 BY E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS, D. D., LL. D. 
 
 THE STUDY OF APPLIED SOCIOLOGY, 23 
 
 Nature and need of a social science; difficulties, objective and 
 subjective; various kinds of bias; preparation necessary for 
 this study. 
 
 BY DR. ROBERT Gr. ECCLES! 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT, 55 
 
 Its historical evolution; the Witenagemote and the English 
 Parliament : Puritan influence ; proportional representation ; 
 individual virtue necessary. 
 
 BY EDWIN D. MEAD. 
 
 SUFFRAGE AND THE BALLOT, 85 
 
 The machinery of representation; the spoils system; party 
 election and nominating: machinery; the 
 
 >t, and the second cl* 
 
 The en; 
 
 natural r land ta:, 
 
 > the land. 
 
 ;t OTIS T. . 
 
 . 
 . 
 
xii Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 machinery; the bicameral system; home rule; limitation of 
 corporate functions. 
 
 BY DR. LEWIS G. JANES. 
 
 TAXATION AND REVENUE : THE FEEE-TEADE VIEW, 195 
 
 Moral status of the question ; self-interest ; the wages argument ; 
 diversification of industries ; cheapness ; the historical argu- 
 ment ; free trade and social reform. 
 
 BY THOMAS G. SHEARMAN. 
 
 TAXATION AND REVENUE : THE PEOTECTIONIST VIEW, 231 
 
 Protection . a factor in social evolution ; differentiation of 
 national types ; the policeman function in society ; necessity 
 of guarding the wage-level; cosmopolitan character of scien- 
 tific protection. 
 
 BY PROFESSOR GEORGE GUNTON. 
 
 THE MONETABY PEOBLEM, 255 
 
 Evolution of a currency; the precious metals as money; fluctu- 
 ating ratios of value ; gold and silver standards ; bimetallism ; 
 Gresham's law ; banks and banking ; dangers of a depreciated 
 circulation. 
 
 BY WILLIAM POTTS. 
 
 THE IMMIGRATION PROBLEM, 291 
 
 Influence of immigration on American institutions ; right of the 
 nation to exclude dangerous classes; statistics of immigra- 
 tion ; Chinese and Italian immigrants ; ethical, economic, 
 ethnic, and political aspects of the problem. 
 
 BY Z. SIDNEY SAMPSON. 
 
 EVOLUTION" OF THE AFRIC-AMERICAN", . . . . . 317 
 
 Historical aspects of the problem ; the negro in slavery and 
 freedom: his ethical, intellectual, and industrial progress; 
 testimony of Southern educators ; future of the colored race in 
 America. 
 
 BY REV. SAMUEL J. BARROWS. 
 
 THE RACE PEOBLEM IN- THE SOUTH, 349 
 
 Scientific method necessary in its treatment; ethnological 
 aspects of the problem ; the laws of race-contact ; principles 
 of race improvement: destiny of the lower races; political 
 and ethical aspects of the problem. 
 
 BY PROFESSOR JOSEPH LE CONTE, LL. D. 
 
 EDUCATION AS RELATED TO CITIZENSHIP, .... 405 
 
 Vital relation of intelligence to free institutions ; educational 
 statistics m America ; socialism and the public school ; private 
 
Contents. xiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 and parochial schools; moral and religious education; edu- 
 cation in the duties of citizenship. 
 
 BY KEY. JOHN W. CHADWICK. 
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, 435 
 
 Its origin, history, and fundamental doctrines ; limitation of 
 governmental functions ; home rule and economy ; relation 
 to slavery and the tariff : finance, the silver question, and civil- 
 service reform ; relation of Democracy to Puritanism ; present 
 attitude and prospects of the party. 
 
 BY EDWARD M. SHEPARD. 
 
 THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, 405 
 
 Its relation to the Federal and Whig parties ; its opposition to 
 State rights; its antislavery attitude and accomplishments; 
 its advocacy! jf hard money, internal improvements, and a pro- 
 tective tariff ; its present attitude and prospects. 
 
 BY HON. ROSWELL G. HORR. 
 
 THE INDEPENDENT IN POLITICS, .483 
 
 Individual responsibility of the citizen in a free government ; 
 tyranny of party majorities ; supremacy of conscience in 
 determining individual action ; party responsibility a delusion ; 
 personal independence the goal of evolution. 
 
 BY JOHN A. TAYLOR. 
 
 MORAL QUESTIONS IN POLITICS, 509 
 
 The new point of v;ew; evolution's definition of moral questions; 
 objections to man's meddling with such questions; law and 
 the state; change of sentiment in regard to law; imperfections 
 of the political method ; superior excellence of the moral 
 method ; relation of the two methods under evolution's law of 
 relativity. 
 
 BY REV. JOHN C. KIMBALL. 
 
THE 
 >ITTY OF A PUBLIC SPIRIT 
 
 BY 
 
 E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS, LL. D. 
 
 PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY 
 
COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED: 
 
 Bryce's The American Commonwealth ; Storey's Politics as a Duty 
 and as a Career ; De Tocqueville's Democracy in America, and Ameri- 
 can Institutions ; Stickney's Democratic Government ; Spencer's Jus- 
 tice ; Fiske's Civil Government in the United States ; Lieber's Political 
 Ethics ; Macy's Our Government ; Tiedeman's The Unwritten Consti- 
 tution of the United States ; Sidgwick's The Elements of Politics. 
 

 THE DUTY OF A PUBLIC SPIRIT. 
 
 BY E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS, D. D., LL. D. 
 
 IN an old Jewish chronicle there is depicted a beautiful 
 scene, which suggests a deal of gospel for our day. The 
 great prophet of Israel, Elijah's successor, lies upon his 
 death-bed. King Joash bends over him, and, mindful of 
 the eminent and unremiUing public service of the man, who 
 will have no successor in this, cries out in agony that Israel's 
 central hope, the main defense of the state, is depart- 
 ing, its standing army, as it were for the war-chariot was 
 in Israel now the chief arm of military strength " My 
 father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen 
 thereof vanish in thy death ! Our army is no more. We 
 are a prey to our foes soon as thou, with thy wise counsels 
 and thy patriotic heart, art gone." 
 
 Elisha was worthy of this tribute. Unlike Elijah, he was 
 no monk. With him duty meant not meditation, still less 
 moping, but life earthly life, too actively, practically lived. 
 According to his creed, the perfection of walking with his 
 Maker was usefully to walk with men. He had not im- 
 mured himself in a cave in order to be at peace with his 
 conscience. His goodness had shown itself rather in all 
 sorts of acts useful to his fellow-men. According to the 
 story, which is unquestionably a good analogue of the exact 
 facts of Elisha's life, it was his joy, when need arose, to in- 
 crease a widow's stock of provision. At his intercession, a 
 dear child given up for dead had been laid back living into 
 its mother's arms. He had furnished food for one hungry 
 company, and rendered innocuous that of another when it 
 had been poisoned. 
 
 Not alone kindness and charity to special individuals 
 marked the temper of this religious hero, but still more an 
 intense civic spirit, broadening out into philanthropy, a zeal 
 for the welfare of men far and wide. A benign act, at 
 the request of the citizens of Jericho, purifying their water- 
 supply, began his prophetic career. Though not a fighting 
 man, he took the field with the armies of his country, plac- 
 ing all his natural and all his prophetic skill at the service 
 
4 The Duty of a PuNi 
 
 of kings and generals. Once, when the forces faced the 
 enemy but were dying of thirst, he won the campaign by re- 
 vealing copious supplies of water. In civil matters as well 
 he was always ready with his aid. Prophet, he was often 
 virtually prime minister. Imperfect, unrighteous, irrelig- 
 ious, idolatrous as his country and its institutions were in 
 his age, he would not desert or renounce them. Even when 
 siege and famine pressed and men were dying by scores 
 on every hand, Elisha remained by, content to fare nay, 
 determined to fare no better than the rank and file of Israel 
 fared. 
 
 Stanch patriot that he was, the prophet had an enthu- 
 siasm for humanity, overleaping the bounds of his own land 
 and nation, which for those times was veritably miraculous. 
 It made him cosmopolitan in his feeling. He healed of a 
 deadly disease the chief captain in the host of his nation's 
 worst enemy, Syria, sending him back to his home and his 
 sovereign whole and happy. Having captured a hostile 
 force by special stratagem and not by superiority in war, 
 he forbade that they should be smitten, but ordered them 
 fed and set free to march back to their own camp. In re- 
 turn, when on one occasion he visited the court of King 
 Ben-Haded of Syria, he was received with rare honor, and 
 consulted in reference to the high affairs of that foreign 
 state. 
 
 From this brief survey of Elisha's manner we see what 
 an idea he had and carried out touching the attitude which 
 a good man ought to hold toward public matters. He was 
 a devotee of religion, specially called to teach the divine 
 will, to promote righteousness in the land ; but, notwith- 
 standing this, or rather just on this account, he was in- 
 terested in everything that went on in the state if it was 
 good, to promote it; if evil, to denounce it and put it 
 down. He thought of his public spirit not as inimical to 
 his religious experience or influence, or as a lingering 
 manifestation of depravity to be tolerated like the imper- 
 fect morality of the Mosaic law, but as the direct and most 
 precious product of the Eternal Spirit manifesting itself 
 in him. 
 
 Herein this distinguished Old Worthy beautifully an- 
 ticipates modern Christianity. Both in his precepts and 
 in his example of living to do good, the founder of Chris- 
 tianity enjoins men to make all human interests their care. 
 We are to love our neighbors as ourselves. No fussy inter- 
 
The Duty of a Public Spirit. 5 
 
 ference with others' concerns is commanded, but a positive, 
 outgoing, brotherly kindness, leading a man to do for oth- 
 ers all the good he can, spending himself for his kind 
 and dying for them, if need is. Even to Caesar we are to 
 render what is his, never grudging. The disaffection toward 
 human government which the Church of the second and 
 third centuries betrayed, leading Tertullian, among others, 
 to identify the Eoman Empire with Satan's kingdom and 
 placing the Church during some ages in most unpleasant 
 contrast with contemporary Stoic philosophy that was not 
 from Jesus Christ, but diametrically opposed to his teach- 
 ing. 
 
 The Apostle Paul knows this. He preaches that whoso 
 resisteth the power which then was the Roman power 
 resisteth the ordinance of God ; and he suits his action to 
 this doctrine of his. When pressed by the bloodthirsty 
 bigots of his race and religion, he appeals to Caesar to save 
 him from death at their hands. In Elisha's creed, con- 
 structive, making religion holily secular, prophet, apostle, 
 and Great Teacher are perfectly at one. 
 
 I need not say that this view of righteousness is in our 
 time exceedingly rare. "With most men who call themselves 
 religious, the Church is the only field of God's immediate 
 activity. Many secular moralists feel much the same way. 
 The state, society, the busy life of mankind, they despise as 
 something mean and of trifling consequence, if not devil's 
 affairs out and out. Men not serious at all, noticing the 
 indifference of so many professedly and actually conscien- 
 tious people toward all purely public matters, are confirmed 
 in their selfish tendency to let society go its way alone, so 
 that they ignore its interests save when they see chances to 
 advantage themselves by manipulating them. 
 
 It thus comes to pass that unselfish and constant regard 
 for public affairs is a phenomenon. There is occasional in- 
 terest. We love our country. At elections we cheer our- 
 selves hoarse for our candidates and platforms, and by no 
 means all that is selfish. Let our country be attacked by 
 traitors from within or by enemies from without, mighty 
 armies would rise in a day of men ready to die for her. 
 But zeal of this sort is sporadic, unsteady, intermittent. 
 Would-be good citizens forget that peace needs its heroes no 
 less than war, that the social structure may fall from dry 
 rot as well as from a cannonade. They imagine that the 
 state no less than the soul has a necessary immortality ; that 
 
H The Duty of a Public Spirit. 
 
 like a cork it may dance about upon the water, now tossed 
 up and apparently unsupported, and again for an instant 
 submerged, but can not sink. 
 
 I have hinted that much of this coldness toward public 
 affairs comes from men's sheer selfishness, narrow-hearted- 
 aess, disposition to care for nothing that does not palpably 
 and closely concern themselves. But you can not trace it 
 all to that source. It is due in large measure to certain 
 false views, partly religious and partly philosophical, which 
 have had and still have alarming vogue. 
 
 On the religious side we have been trained for genera- 
 tions sharply to distinguish between the sacred and the 
 secular, and to place political and social duties in the secu- 
 lar class. It is of course urged that a good man should 
 carry his morality everywhere, always be honest, do all the 
 good possible, set a helpful example, and so on ; and not 
 seldom nowadays are we explicitly admonished by relig- 
 ious teachers that there are no hemispheres to a good man's 
 life : that it is all one continent, solid and continuous. But 
 this is not yet the general tone of religious speech, and no- 
 where has it sufficiently taken effect. Sunday is the Lord's 
 day; Monday, not Satan's exactly, but neutral, somehow. 
 The prayer is religious, the trade is what it is. If I de- 
 voutly attend church, I advance myself toward heaven ; if I 
 plunge into business, however legitimate, strange if I am 
 not reputed a worldling, spite of sincerest piety on my part. 
 
 Equally strenuous has been the dogma of the Church to 
 the effect that heaven, eternity, is the final cause of man's 
 life on earth. This existence, it is held forth, has meaning 
 only for the next. So persistently has this doctrine been 
 inculcated that most of us believe it and act upon it, not- 
 withstanding the protests we inwardly make in our more 
 spiritual moments. In vain' do we reflect that a piece of 
 time well used here on earth in the active love of man 
 must be as beautiful a thing as any equal measure of eter- 
 nity can be. In vain do we consider the earthly life of Jesus 
 Christ so rich that, do our best, we can not conceive his sub- 
 sequent or any existence a whit richer it is a second na- 
 ture with us to subordinate the present state in importance 
 unit by unit to the world to come. 
 
 Now, the state, politics, society, the eager life of man 
 among men, confessedly belong to this world. They are 
 relations which, in their present form, seem finite and tem- 
 porary. No wonder that we despise them ; no wonder that, 
 
The Duty of a Public Spirit. 7 
 
 with all our contempt for tKe monkery of old, we are of the 
 monk's own spirit still, living each of us in his cell, only a 
 little wider than once, and with glass doors through which 
 we may look at a little of the world. A great deal of secu- 
 lar teaching confirms people in these false ideas. 
 
 Very prevalent still is the mistake which the political 
 philosophy of a crude age bequeathed us, of society and the 
 state as arbitrary creations/ not attaching to man in a con- 
 dition of nature, but artificially fadged on later. Nothing 
 could be shallower than this theory ; nothing more contra- 
 dictory to common sense or history. Very deep, when un- 
 derstood rightly, is that thought of the Old Testament that 
 society was instituted by God himself, who deemed it " not 
 good for man to be alone " a sentence whose main refer- 
 ence is not to the single family, but to the greater family of 
 mankind. It means that the origination of the social state 
 is no less than the production of man himself, one of the 
 nodes, ganglia, or starting-points in the evolution of the 
 universe. In the doctrine of man as a political animal 
 Moses anticipates Aristotle, as Aristotle anticipates modern 
 sociology. 
 
 The New Testament utters the same thought when it 
 says that the powers that be are ordained of God ; not the 
 special type of civil rule which happens to exist at any 
 given time republic, aristocracy or monarchy for each of 
 these is compatible with the thought ; but the essential 
 powers of government, which any of these forms of polity 
 must use in order to do its work. 
 
 Kindred is the error of supposing that the social organism 
 exists simply for the sake of the individual. Even were 
 that true, social order would be very precious, for one could 
 still point out that only through others can you or your 
 neighbor attain the development worthy of a man. Still, 
 the notion of the social body as important instrumentally 
 and no otherwise always lowers public spirit. Society is in 
 part an end in itself. Man is greater and more glorious 
 than any man. Final humanity is to be a kingdom, not 
 simply a lot of perfected individuals. The totality of hu- 
 man relations, as a totality, is a splendid product, worthy of 
 Almighty effort. Far from being accidental, mere scaffold- 
 ing or instrumentality, it is the innermost, essential part of 
 creation, destined to stand forever. 
 
 What, then, is the gospel for the day? It is this that 
 we need a larger, heartier recognition of men's dependence 
 
8 The Duty of a Public Spirit. 
 
 upon one another, and of the moral and religious duties 
 springing out of this close relationship. As no man can 
 live to himself, so none ought to wish to do so. We are 
 members one of another, and should so regard ourselves. 
 If one suffers, all are hurt. The true weal of one is a bless- 
 ing to the rest. 
 
 Men pride themselves upon family, blood, estate. You 
 scorn to associate with so-and-so because he is of plebeian 
 stock. Friend, in ten generations your blood will flow in 
 the very same veins with his, and in less time than that de- 
 scendants of yours will be serving descendants of his for 
 wages. With absolute literalness is it true that men are 
 made out of one blood to dwell on all the face of the earth. 
 
 The water which supplies the power for the new mills at 
 Kearney, Nebraska, has a peculiar source. As you follow it 
 up-stream, all at once the canal ends, and you wonder how 
 on earth it is kept continually full. No lakes or ponds ap- 
 pear in the vicinity, yet, summer and winter alike, that 
 mighty tide sweeps forward with steady volume. Travelers 
 have journeyed thousands of miles to see this supposed freak 
 of nature. But to the geologist it is no mystery. The canal 
 simply unearths waters of the distant Platte Eiver, which 
 are now known to course underground far on both sides of 
 the visible channel. Canal and river seem diverse, yet are 
 in fact but one stream in two parts, starting up in the 
 eternal snows above, and meeting again at the mouth of the 
 Kearney flume, to roll on together down to the infinite sea. 
 Even so it is with your blood and that of the poor pariah 
 whom you spurn from your door. 
 
 The operative in yon cotton factory, if asked why he can 
 earn, say, two dollars a day, would reply that it is because 
 he has such and such strength, skill, and fidelity, making 
 reference to no condition not inhering in himself. But look 
 closer. That he may earn such wages, the factory must be 
 there, with its owners and their capital. Builders of fac- 
 tories and machinery must exist, with their respective plants 
 and groups of workmen, each man in all these groups being 
 bound in the same meshwork of relationships as the opera- 
 tive in question. There must, still further, be men working 
 Southern cotton-fields, every one dependent upon outside co- 
 operation in this same way ; people engaged in the manu- 
 facture of implements for cotton-raising; people building 
 and running steamboats and railways to transport the vari- 
 ous wares mentioned ; human beings in all lands who wish 
 
The Duty of a Public Spirit. 9 
 
 cotton fabrics and have means to buy them ; morality, cus- 
 toms, and laws making traffic and possessions secure ; and 
 preachers, teachers, writers, legislators, judges, police, and 
 army, giving sustenance to laws and morals. Let any one 
 of these conditions fail, and the forturr, of that workman is 
 lowered, though his powers and wishes were to remain abso- 
 lutely the same. 
 
 Society is in this same way a co-operator with every one 
 in all that he is and does. What you think you accomplish 
 is not wrought by you, but by you environed and helped as 
 you are. 
 
 Intelligently viewed, the purely political aspect of social 
 organization is immensely impressive. Human government 
 is a wonderful thing as complex and unfathomable as it is 
 indispensable. Government is of course much more than 
 administration. The Legislature and the Executive together 
 are far from comprising the Government. The constitution 
 must be reckoned in, and the courts, the great body of laws, 
 customary and statute, the imposing array of legal maxims, 
 traditions, and decisions, and, not least, the morality and 
 political genius of the people, disposing them to law, order, 
 and united action. All this in effect goes to make up gov- 
 ernment. Now, when a social-political structure of this sort, 
 such a mighty sum of delicate relations, exists as the herit- 
 age of any people, whether they are aware of it or not, it is 
 about the most precious possession which can possibly be 
 theirs. The greatest earthly gift God can bestow on any of 
 us is that of being born into a civilized community. All 
 that you possess, whether of mental or of material stores, 
 beyond what would be yours had you always lived in Cen- 
 tral Africa, is due to society. It measures what other men 
 are to you, not as so many individuals, but as men organic- 
 ally related. It is estimated that through this co-operation 
 and the consequent amassing of wealth one man may to- 
 day, through his own efforts, enjoy more satisfaction than 
 he could earn in ten centuries were he obliged to begin and 
 work without such aid. 
 
 We are more apt to value social organizations in general 
 than we are its authoritative aspect, referred to already as 
 government But government too is invaluable. A very 
 poor government over a state is an infinite blessing com- 
 pared with anarchy. What thoughtful citizen of the United 
 States has not again and again thanked God that we are not 
 as Central and South America in this respect? 
 
10 The Duty of a Public Spirit. 
 
 Nor will government ever become unnecessary. The well- 
 meaning reformer who wishes and expects to reduce it to 
 mere business administration, taking from it its political 
 character and every element of authority, is laboring under 
 a delusion. Some power of coercion will always have to be 
 kept up among men, not because there will forever be 
 wicked ones in their number, for we hope that all may by 
 and by be converted, but because men will never cease to 
 be finite in wisdom. The best men, just because they are 
 good, it may be, will quarrel over their supposed rights, 
 stopping the wheels of industry. There must be the right, 
 if necessary, to coerce them to break such a deadlock. 
 
 And, further, these infinitely valuable treasures society 
 and the state are not the creatures of a day, but of all time. 
 They are not century plants : it takes millenniums to bring 
 them to blossom. No people by itself ever created its gov- 
 ernment in the large sense we have indicated. As Mr. 
 Spencer has well pointed out, while the materials and in- 
 strumentalities of government are of individual origin, its 
 structure as a whole, and its final effects, are due to a higher 
 intelligence. 
 
 We glory no man living more than I in Washington, 
 Franklin, and the other founders of our Constitution ; but 
 they did not originate this nation. They started with a 
 civic order which already had its foundations. The Eng- 
 lish Constitution and a century of rich political develop- 
 ment in these colonies were back of them. No more did the 
 barons of the Great Charter found the English state. They 
 too built upon old substructures, particularly upon a very 
 positive tradition of free manhood, which hailed from the 
 German forest. 
 
 Just so touching other elements of our civilization. Lit- 
 tle of it is new save in setting. Its roots run back through 
 ages. We have the doctrine of human brotherhood from 
 Jesus Christ, systematic education and aesthetics from 
 Greece, ecclesiastical organization and the best parts of 
 our municipal law from secular Rome, international law 
 from the papacy, navigation partly from the Phoenicians, 
 partly from the Norsemen, rhyme and the pointed arch per- 
 haps from the Arabs, the brick from Assyria, and the bar- 
 rel from Phoenicia. Thus has humanity swept onward 
 through the ages past, every people and century, from 
 hoary, prehistoric antiquity down, contributing its peculiar 
 product to make us what we are to-day. 
 
The Duty of a Pullic Spirit. 11 
 
 From this point of view it is easier than when we began 
 to understand the truth that the present social body is no 
 individual's work ; that in bringing it into beiifg men have 
 for the most part wrought as instruments, like coral insects 
 building their reefs, not as agents, with clear thought of the 
 end to be attained. 
 
 But that society has been thus far, as it were, mechanically 
 evolved, does not imply that it is always to grow in that way. 
 Just as the appearance of the j)ower of abstract thought was 
 a turning-point in evolution in general, so now, in social 
 evolution, we are at a turning-point, which is characterized 
 by the application of conscious thought to the direction of 
 society. Spite of ourselves, we as individuals are to be par- 
 ticipants in social development, to make or to mar. We 
 may do our part in a half-conscious, listless, and slovenly 
 way, rendering human society a clog to life, or conscious of 
 our calling as partners with the divine, so as to render life in- 
 creasingly rational and blessed. More than ever manifest in 
 pur day is the need of a conscious human guidance to society 
 in its evolution. As the world grows older, the Great Ruler 
 above more and more takes man into his counsel in directing 
 it. Idle trust in God and in the so-called natural laws of social 
 growth was once not so unsafe ; but now, as population con- 
 denses, men's life together requires increased thoughtfulness 
 on the part of men themselves. Angry problems arise that 
 once had no existence. They will not down, nor will they 
 solve themselves. If given efforts to reform, shape, and 
 manage society suffer shipwreck, the proper inference is not 
 that a let-alone policy is best, but that we need in this field 
 still deeper study and a more consummate art. 
 
 It is a dreadful but quite necessary reflection that these 
 inestimable gifts may be lost. The best government on 
 earth may fall ; civilization itself may suffer eclipse. Egypt 
 was; Athens was; Rome was. Will our beloved America 
 continue to tread the exalted road which has witnessed her 
 career thus far, or is she one day to halt in her mighty march 
 and then droop and perish like all the republics before her ? 
 
 Such a question is forced upon one scanning certain un- 
 social and anarchic tendencies, in word, deed, and attitude, 
 which obtrude themselves upon our notice in these days. 
 You will doubtless expect me to mention as foremost among 
 these the lawlessness of ignorant immigrants. Not at all. 
 Head and front of all our dangers in this kind is the apathy 
 among our best people toward social and political obliga- 
 
12 The Duty of a Public Spirit. 
 
 tions. Mark, I do not name political obligations alone. It 
 is not enough for all to attend caucuses and vote, helpful as 
 that might be. We need an intenser spirit of co-operation 
 in everything that concerns our united life. Public jobs, 
 intended to rob us all, we of course reprobate. But there is 
 a narrow spirit in conducting legitimate business, which, 
 though it may perhaps help you to become rich, desperately 
 hinders the public good. Trades-unions often plan to ad- 
 vantage their members, ignoring worthy men outside, and 
 utterly regardless of the community's weal. Any body of 
 human beings needs an immense amount of general work 
 for which money or political preferment does not and could 
 not pay. Too few are the men and women willing to en- 
 gage in it. It is a shame that so many of our fellow-citizens 
 shirk jury-duty, for instance, availing themselves of every 
 possible excuse, often adding insult to injury by ridiculing 
 the jury system and cursing the courts for the defeat of 
 justice. To cheat the assessor or the tax collector many 
 think well-nigh a virtue. Can such people remember that 
 every cent they escape paying must come out of some one, 
 and that widows, orphans, and the poor are surest to suffer 
 from their fraud ? 
 
 Unmeasured time and toil have to be spent by many, 
 wholly without pecuniary return, in the work of institutions 
 lacking which no community can continue civilized. Just 
 about us, for instance, there are the city government and 
 school committee, the directors of banks, savings banks, and 
 other financial corporations, of hospitals and infirmaries, 
 various State commissions, and the Board of Education, of 
 Charities and Corrections, of Health, and many others, to 
 say nothing of orphans' guardians, or of care for church and 
 fraternity ^nterests. Gigantic is the labor which all these 
 entail ; priceless is the good they do. 
 
 Well have I known business men and lawyers, after pass- 
 ing the day in the confining work of office, counting-room, 
 or store, to bend at night over the accounts of some poor- 
 fund, in which they had no earthly interest save that 
 prompted by human kindness, and spending their hours 
 and their best talents in hard figuring to save all the pen- 
 nies for the unfortunates needing them carrying to this 
 work the same rigorous methods which they would have 
 used had they expected it to win them millions. 
 
 Tasks of all these sorts have to be done or society goes 
 to pieces ; and he who will not participate in them when 
 
The Duty of a Public Spirit. 13 
 
 necessary is, negatively if in no worse sense, an anar- 
 chist. (" 
 
 Another set of anarchists are those who incessantly decry 
 all efforts at social reform, maintaining that the general 
 welfare can never by any possibility be much if any greater 
 than it is. Certainly, a vast deal of evil is abroad, and no 
 one can say that the necessity of it is self-evident. Not till 
 all possible plans of reform have been tried and have failed 
 ought one to despair of the state ; and to preach despair be- 
 fore that bespeaks a bad spirit. Criticism is right and a 
 duty. We are not called to praise movements which we are 
 sure ought to be condemned. But indiscriminate condem- 
 nation, always to find fault when men are trying to mend 
 wrongs, is not criticism but the death of it. We must of 
 course prove all things, but let us not fail to hold fast that 
 which is good. If it is a sin to call evil good, it is surely no 
 less so to call good evil. 
 
 Anarchic in its eifect is it also when you impeach the 
 motives or deny the patriotism of immense classes of citi- 
 zens. We should distinguish sharply between an organiza- 
 tion and its members. You have a perfect right to distrust 
 the principles of a political party, but only bigots can doubt 
 the motives of a party's entire membership. To denounce 
 as disloyal the members of a political sect which may at any 
 time be in a majority, is virtually to despair of the state, and 
 that is next door to treason. 
 
 The same of great ecclesiastical or benevolent fraternities. 
 Their creeds and platforms may contain much that is false, 
 and all dubious utterances here as elsewhere should be dis- 
 cussed with perfect freedom. The bodies themselves may 
 work great evil, so that one may wish them broken up and 
 use all his influence to that end ; but it is a different and 
 much graver matter to insinuate that they contain no good 
 men. 
 
 Doctrines are daily taught in the name of politics, phi- 
 lanthropy, and religion which, could they be carried out, 
 would be the death of all human hopes ; and for the time 
 many accept these doctrines as true. But they can never 
 be carried out, and should effort be made to that end, so 
 soon as their real nature appeared, multitudes of their most 
 ardent adherents now would turn their bitterest foes. That 
 men profess evil tenets, or even follow vicious leaders, is no 
 final proof that the men themselves are bad. 
 
 The point is not that sweeping criticism, the impeach- 
 
14 The Duty of a Public Spirit. 
 
 ment of whole classes, is an error of judgment. As I said, 
 it is anarchic. It pulls society and the state hopelessly 
 apart and tends to subvert the best work of past generations. 
 You can co-operate with your neighbor, however strongly 
 you and he are opposed in views, so long as you and he 
 trust one another's motives ; but let that condition be want- 
 ing, and you feel yourselves foes, held asunder by indomita- 
 ble repulsion. 
 
 Anarchism hardly less vicious than this of vituperating 
 all who differ from you in faith or in politics, is chargeable 
 upon those who regularly decry politics and public men. 
 That there are venal people in political places is a sad, sad 
 fact. When you are sure of your guilty official on valid 
 evidence which must be more than the speech of the street 
 then condemn him and his deed as you will, and follow 
 up your sentence by voting against him at the next election. 
 But here also we are apt to judge very loosely. We con- 
 demn processes when we ought to condemn only the abuse 
 of them, and we too often denounce our public servants in 
 the mass for the faults of a very few. 
 
 From much observation I am satisfied that a very large 
 majority of the men in office in our country mean well. 
 The villains are not numerous. Most who serve us in 
 courts, in Congress, in legislatures, and in the various ex- 
 ecutive positions, however lacking in skill, are faithful, pa- 
 triotic, industrious citizens, toiling according to their best 
 light for the welfare of the rest of us. For my part, I can 
 not but admire the patience and geniality which character- 
 ize most of them. And, knowing the good work they do 
 with all that is not so good when I think what slender 
 thanks they get, how flippantly we call them fools and 
 knaves, groaning when they convene and cheering when 
 they adjourn, I wonder that more of them do not turn 
 plunderers, vowing to have the game as they have the name. 
 
 The crime of such slander is so much the greater in that 
 it mainly proceeds from people who contribute nothing but 
 speech toward the correction of the abuses, real or alleged, 
 which they decry. The only sort of political independence 
 I can admire and this kind I admire greatly is that 
 which is active, brave, always abounding in positive efforts 
 for the betterment of affairs, efforts that are truly costly to 
 those who make them. Words are cheap. Pulmonary pa- 
 triotism, objurgation, inveighing, calling names these will 
 never make parties or their methods better. Even to adver- 
 
The Duty of a Public Spirit. 15 
 
 tise beautiful ideals, unless you do something to realize 
 them, will hardly render you a public benefactor, fit will 
 never convert the world. 
 
 There are many reasons for branding the wholesale abuse 
 of public men as anarchism, among which perhaps the 
 strongest is that, more than aught else, it precludes us from 
 getting the very best men into office. This does not, how- 
 ever and here we come upon another anarchic habit of our 
 time render it right for good citizens to decline office. 
 No more useful career is possible for good men in this dis- 
 tressed age of ours than is presented by politics conscien- 
 tiously prepared for and pursued. The common thought 
 upon this point that it is mean to seek office, and a dis- 
 grace to accept an office unless it has sought the man, is 
 wholly perverse. We need that hosts of thoroughly able 
 and moral young men, well trained in political and social 
 science, including ethics, should set politics before them- 
 selves as their life-work. Do not sneer at professional poli- 
 tics if only it be of the right kind. Politics ought to be a 
 profession. Rightly followed, it would be a noble one. 
 
 That these necessary changes may come to pass, a more 
 elevated thought is required touching the ideal of official 
 service. The notion of office as a public trust is much finer 
 than usually prevails, but it is decidedly not the highest. 
 Why should not any of us enter upon a public position 
 with a truly philanthropic thought in his heart, taking the 
 place not merely to do honestly what is expected of him, 
 but to advance his community, his country, and the race in 
 virtue and happiness ? I pray for the day to come when 
 every Saul will be among the prophets rulers ruling and 
 judges judging, under precisely the same motives which 
 now lead enlightened missionaries to enter their calling 
 viz., passionate love for God and for men. 
 
 To be a public servant after that fashion requires extraor- 
 dinary grace. To succeed, one must religiously cultivate 
 the hard side of his nature, nerve to face wicked men, 
 kindly to endure lies, libels, and the whole contradiction of 
 the wicked against him, to have temper and yet hold his 
 temper, to give blows of course always in the spirit of love 
 as well as take them. We are in the age of the Church 
 militant, and must fight if we would reign. Jehovah is a 
 man of war, saith an old Scripture. With the froward he 
 will show himself froward. We are to do the same, in the 
 same spirit. We must, like the Great Nazarene, know what 
 
16 The Duty of a Public Spirit. 
 
 is in men. The face which Jesus Christ wears in the won- 
 derful picture of Titian's, the Tribute Money betraying 
 perfect worldly wisdom and firmness, coupled with all 
 heavenly love the serpent's cunning with the dove's inno- 
 cence that face speaks volumes for the sort of virtue I 
 here commend. 
 
 But the most dangerous and reprehensible anarchy of 
 all consists in debauching the ballot, the purity of which 
 is vital to a free polity like ours. No Hungarian gov- 
 ernment-haters, no Italian Mafia, no Irishmen fresh from 
 the bog, are able to do the mischief to our American 
 institutions which is done by reputable citizens in breaking 
 down by the use of money the civic virtue of the masses. 
 There is no excuse for this. The best people who do it, do 
 it thinking thereby to elect the right men and secure good 
 laws. It will be in vain. Any temporary and apparent vic- 
 tory gotten so must be at the risk of a fearful reaction. 
 You can not secure good laws by processes which inevitably 
 kill out the spirit of law. Lawlessness must follow that 
 course sure as night the day, and those who have thus sedu- 
 lously prepared for it can not complain when they find that 
 they themselves are the victims. When they see their prop- 
 erty and their rights voted away, or it may be even their 
 houses burned down, they will have themselves to thank, in 
 that they did not trust our good old republican principles, 
 and try as they should have done to educate the masses up 
 to the level of them, but deliberately bribed the ignorant 
 and the immoral, not to become good citizens, but to be and 
 continue law-breakers and immoral. If the time shall ever 
 come when free government, when government by the peo- 
 ple, has to be relinquished in this goodly land for the 
 tyranny of monarchy on the one hand, or the worse tyranny 
 of a mob on the other, the guilt will lie mainly at the doors 
 of those, high and low, who, knowing better, have, with 
 money, directly or indirectly helped to eradicate in igno- 
 rant voters their already too slender sense of political 
 duty. 
 
 I take it to be the great obligation of the hour to cultivate 
 a conscientious secularism, a Christian worldliness, a right- 
 eous, ardent zeal for society and state, that shall devote 
 each of us, for weal or woe, for life or death, to his fellow- 
 men, not alone as so many individuals, with characters to 
 be developed, but as a brotherhood, a society, a nation, sus- 
 ceptible of infinite development in all high forms of weal. 
 
The Duty of a Public Spirit. 17 
 
 We need public spirit in ourselves, and the purpose and 
 power to evoke the same in others. 
 
 When Admiral Foote, in Eastern waters, invited a hea- 
 then prince to dine with him on his flagship, and himself 
 said grace, the heathen remarked : " That is what the mis- 
 sionaries do." " Well," said the gruff but godly admiral, 
 " I, too, am a missionary." 
 
 I would that in matters of our community life we might 
 all be missionaries. 
 
 I honor the religious missionary who goes among the 
 heathen to acquaint them with those nobler views of life 
 which it is our good fortune to have come by earlier than 
 the peoples of Central Africa or East Asia ; nor can I ac- 
 count as other than shallow the people who sneer at the 
 work, splendid in the main, which missionaries are at this 
 moment accomplishing in the civilization of our human 
 brethren and sisters in foreign parts. Heaven prosper their 
 efforts. 
 
 I honor the social missionary, who, braving the jibes 
 and contumely of the so-called " cultivated," espouses the 
 cause of the poor, and, on the platform, in the press, or by 
 personal work among them, proves his ardent love for un- 
 titled humanity in its struggles against forbidding social 
 conditions. God bless every man and woman in the noble 
 army of those who are doing this. 
 
 The world painfully needs two more classes of mission- 
 aries still social missionaries to the rich, and political mis- 
 sionaries. Where are the young men and women of means 
 and leisure who will duly study the social problems of our 
 time and help to their solution ? Where are the consecrated 
 sons and daughters of wealth ready to preach to their peers 
 the obligations resting upon them ? 
 
 Where are the men who will covet political careers with 
 an evangelical spirit, preparing for, and if possible entering, 
 public life with a determination to make it purer and more 
 efficient, not waiting to be asked and urged to this, but 
 seeking places of trust, competing with selfish schemers for 
 chances to exert great power in the capital affairs of men ? 
 
 May every one who can do good in any of these ways hear 
 the voice which searched the soul of the youthful Buddha : 
 
 " Oh, thou that art to save, thine hour is nigh, 
 The sad world waiteth in its misery, 
 The blind world stumbleth on its round of pain ; 
 Rise, Maya's Son, wake, slumber not again ! " 
 
18 The Duty of a Public Spirit. 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 
 
 REV. JOHN W. CHAD WICK : 
 
 I wish first to commend the genial optimism of the speaker and his 
 deprecation of party spirit. It is a common mistake to confound party 
 spirit with public spirit. James Russell Lowell was one of those who see 
 the distinction. He was pre-eminently public-spirited, but free from the 
 bias of partisanship ; and because he loved his country, he " loathed 
 her public shame " of party corruption. With some, public spirit is 
 restricted to the nation and not applied to the city. In the past 
 there has been much civic pride. Men have thought of their city as 
 having a personal life as a creature with a soul, to be loved, and not 
 merely as so many miles of streets and crowds of people. Historically, 
 Brooklyn has but little to be proud of. She has no beautiful public 
 buildings or great public works. But not long ago our city took the 
 lead in civic government in the United States, and our people away 
 from home were not ashamed to be known as Brooklynites they 
 ceased to sign their names to hotel registers as from New York. Lack- 
 ing history and beauty to bind us, we can have a high civic ideal, and 
 for that be proud of our city. A high development of political moral- 
 ity is better than fine buildings or traditions. Another point is the re- 
 lation of the public life of the citizen to his domestic life. We can not 
 have noble and beautiful domestic life where there is no public spirit. 
 The best home life is reserved for those who come to it tired with 
 work for others in the great stream of life outside. An instance in 
 point is the home life of James and Lucretia Mott, who by their labors 
 in great public causes gained strength, beauty, and divineness of char- 
 acter. We acquire new value for each other by devotion to large pub- 
 lic ends. 
 
 MR. JOHN FRET WELL : 
 
 Mr. Fretwell, being introduced as an Englishman, said: I speak 
 upon this question not as a foreigner, but as an American citizen of 
 English birth. For, after a residence of nineteen years in this coun- 
 try, I have lately become a citizen in order to encourage my fellow- 
 countrymen in Massachusetts to do likewise, and take part in solving 
 the important political issues now before the country. Mr. Parke 
 Godwin, at the recent celebration of the anniversary of the settlement 
 of Germantown, told the Germans that they had a good deal to forget 
 
The Duty of a Public Spirit. 19 
 
 in coming to this country. But he failed to recognize the fact that 
 public spirit is not confined to any one country. The Emperor of 
 Germany and the Queen of England are doubtless as public-spirited 
 as any one in America. If the common people are not, they will 
 doubtless become so as their interests in the government are extended ; 
 though we are warned by the terrible example of the French Republic, 
 seeking alliance with the basest elements, that we must not cast off our 
 old institutions too quickly. Europe can to-day furnish us with some 
 good object-lessons. For examples of the best municipal government 
 we do not look to Tammany-ridden New York, or to San Francisco 
 with its " boss," but to the German Berlin and the English London. 
 Mr. Fretwell deprecated the interference with individual liberty by 
 such laws as the prohibitory liquor law, saying that it is openly dis- 
 regarded in communities where it has been placed upon the statute 
 books even by officials whose duty it is to enforce it ; and the open 
 disregard of one law by a man in public life leads other citizens to 
 think they can break the laws with impunity. Legislation of this 
 kind tends to undermine a genuine public spirit. 
 
 DR. ANDREWS replied briefly, emphasizing some of the points which 
 he had made in his address. 
 
THE STUDY 
 OF APPLIED SOCIOLOGY 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT G. ECCLES, M. D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE EVOLUTION OP MIND, THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE, ETC. 
 
COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED: 
 
 Spencer's The Study of Sociology ; Bascom's Sociology ; Ward's 
 Dynamic Sociology ; Bagehot's Physics and Politics ; Harris's Method 
 of Study of Social Science, in Journal of the American Association of 
 Social Science, 1879 ; Giddings's Province of Sociology, in Annals of 
 American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1890 ; Atkinson's 
 The Study of Politics; Fronde's Short Studies in Great Subjects (The 
 Science of History and The Cat's Pilgrimage) ; Lubbock's Prehistoric 
 Times. 
 
THE STUDY OF APPLIED SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 BY R. G. ECCLES, M. D. 
 CAN WE HAVE A SCIENCE OF SOCIETY? 
 
 i 
 
 MANY intelligent persons have seriously questioned the 
 possibility of our being able to construct a science out of the 
 material at our command as found in the history of human 
 experience. Froude, the historian, is a notable example of 
 this kind of skeptic. Of course, if such a science can not be 
 constructed, the subject is worth no further attention. Is 
 there, then, any rational hope of our gaining knowledge of 
 society susceptible of systematic classification? Are there 
 discoverable natural laws underlying the growth of nations 
 and the collective deeds of men ? Are the forces that take 
 part in this growth and in these movements interchange- 
 able with the other forces of Nature ? Can we ever hope to 
 be able to make an approximate estimate of quantity re- 
 garding the same ? If miracles and special providences step 
 in to overturn the causal continuity and introduce new 
 additions of freshly created energy, such a science is an 
 absurdity. If at every fresh act of human will the conser- 
 vation of energy is violated, there can be nothing calculable, 
 knowable, or classifiable. Creative caprice and prescient 
 knowledge are irreconcilable things. This being the case, 
 the attitude every individual will assume must depend upon 
 his philosophical convictions or theological belief. 
 
 Mr. Froude asks if we can imagine a science that would 
 have foretold Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Mormonism, or 
 Christianity, or of one that could discover the lost secret 
 of the founding of Rome. He says: "The greatest of 
 Roman thinkers, gazing mournfully at the seething mass of 
 moral putrefaction around him, detected and deigned to 
 notice among its elements a certain detestable superstition, 
 so he called it, rising up amid the offscouring of the Jews, 
 which was named Christianity," and then asks if Tacitus 
 " could have looked forward nine centuries to the Rome of 
 Gregory VIII and beheld the representative of the Caesars 
 holding the stirrup of the pontiff of that vile and execrated 
 3 
 
24 The Study of Applied Sociology. 
 
 sect," whether " the spectacle would have appeared to him 
 the fulfillment of a rational expectation or an intelligible 
 result of the causes in operation around him." (Short 
 Studies in Great Subjects The Science of History.) 
 
 The power of prevision in every science is limited. The 
 unexpected occurs in them all. If Froude's objections are 
 insuperable barriers to the erection of a science of sociology, 
 they can find their counterparts in physics, chemistry, and 
 biology, so that these too should be impossible. Was the 
 production of electric telegraphs, telephones, and electric 
 motors from the simple force developed by rubbing amber 
 the fulfillment of any rational expectation? Are the brill- 
 iant colors now imparted to silks and woolens by aniline 
 dyes and the sweet taste of saccharine probable products of 
 the contents of black coal-tar? What biologist would ever 
 have dreamed that Anacharis canadensis, so innocent of 
 harm at home, should, on introduction to European waters, 
 exterminate native water-plants there and block up navi- 
 gable streams ? There is no department of inductive science 
 where, prior to the acquisition of experience of a given type, 
 prevision concerning that type is possible. In every such 
 case the unexpected is sure to occur. 
 
 THE DATA OF SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 That society is an orderly growth, subject to conditions 
 that are often predictable and obeying determinable, natural 
 laws, is manifest by a study of its present structure and a 
 comparison with its past. The highly complex division of 
 labor now apparent is found to steadily diminish in complex- 
 ity backward in time ; and the arrested forms from nomadic 
 savagery, through barbarism and states of semi-civilization 
 up to our present condition, indicate this same growth and 
 obedience to the law of evolution. The growths of language, 
 customs, and legislation all show effects following distinctly 
 traceable causes. No element of caprice can be found break- 
 ing the chain or upsetting the orderly sequence. 
 
 In his unsocial, wandering life early man was at the 
 mercy of his environment. Each successive step of associa- 
 tive co-operation lent him a new power to overcome his 
 foes. Those that refused to co-operate, in regions where 
 single-handed they were unable to cope with their adversa- 
 ries, necessarily became exterminated. Cohesions that were 
 non-adapted after a time would either split up again or be 
 
The Study of Applied Sociology. 25 
 
 destroyed by internal dissension. Natural selection was 
 thus constantly at work, both in the environments of societies 
 and within their structures, killing out the unfit and pre- 
 serving the fit. The more profound and thoroughly organ- 
 ized the internal adaptations became, the more certain was 
 the survival of the society. The larger the number of per- 
 sons that could establish a thoroughgoing harmony among 
 themselves, the more formidable they became to their outer 
 foes and the greater became the happiness among them- 
 selves. The greater the division of labor, the better the 
 work was done and the more satisfactory the results in the 
 total. The lesson of all time, everywhere enforced, is that it 
 is better to do one thing well than a hundred things badly ; 
 and if an individual or class tries to do a hundred things 
 instead of one, they are sure to be done badly. Progress is 
 always from diffusion of function to centralization of func- 
 tion, and retrogression from limitation to diffusion. When- 
 ever any one advocates the taking of any duty from the few 
 and giving it to the many, he is advocating retrogression. 
 All functioning began in diffusion, and with the flight of 
 time has ever been becoming more and more restricted save 
 where stagnation, disease, and death were entering. 
 
 To build up a science of society we must study social 
 growth and the causes that conspire to bring it about. We 
 will thus discover what kinds of acts are desirable and what 
 injurious. We will observe that some movements lead in- 
 evitably to strength, stability, and happiness, while others 
 with equal certainty bring weakness, discomfort, and de- 
 struction. Such knowledge, once acquired, will enable its 
 possessors to foresee the probable consequences of movements 
 about to be made and enable them to discriminate between 
 practicable and Utopian ideas. It will show them that 
 every legislative act is either in agreement with the normal 
 direction of growth or against it, and therefore to be com- 
 mended or condemned by a far-seeing and accurate standard 
 rather than by a narrow and unreliable one. It will teach 
 them that social laws are as fixed and inviolable as gravity, 
 and that therefore legislative bodies, instead of trying to 
 " make " laws, should gather together facts and, from a study 
 of these, discover them. 
 
 In this, as in every other science, before any attempt can 
 be made at reaching conclusions the phenomena must be 
 mastered in detail. The building material of society must 
 be critically examined and the forces capable of playing 
 
26 The Study of Applied Sociology. 
 
 upon it measured as to quantity and quality. An engineer 
 who should attempt to build a Brooklyn Bridge without a 
 knowledge of steel cables, the strain they are capable of 
 bearing, and the forces they must resist, could not be ex- 
 pected to give us good results. The man who aspires to a 
 scientific study of society must know the stuff out of which 
 society is built, through and through. He must know 
 every human point of weakness and strength. Physiologi- 
 cal psychology he must be master of. The strength and 
 weakness of every prejudice of importance, the power of 
 every superstition, the amount of control logic can exert on 
 different classes, the effect and persistence of habits ac- 
 quired and hereditary, the biases of class, education, and 
 patriotism, the physiological and educational basis of moral- 
 ity, and the laws of biological adaptation, must be known. 
 He must be able to gauge the probable volume of passion, 
 fear, or enthusiasm likely to be let loose by certain acts 
 or doctrines. He must know something of the structure 
 of the nervous system, must have learned how we have 
 acq aired the sympathetic and moral natures we possess, 
 must be able to perceive the different capacities of differ- 
 ent races and nationalities as well as the most pronounced 
 mental and physical differences in the sexes. Without 
 knowing how man came to be moral, he would be likely to 
 defend systems that would reverse the nervous conditions 
 that have made us moral, and so lead the race toward a uni- 
 versal immorality. There are conditions that must be obeyed 
 or life is impossible ; there are others that must be obeyed 
 or society is impossible, and there are still others that make 
 certain forms of society possible. There are individuals 
 whose natures and training forbid their harmonizing with 
 certain forms of society. Every well-established society is 
 the form of greatest stability for the units composing it. To 
 alter such societies would require a corresponding alteration 
 in the dispositions and training of its units. No one would 
 think of trying to build a perpendicular wall of cannon-balls. 
 No one should think of trying to build a smooth and perpen- 
 dicular social structure from the rough cobble-stones of hu- 
 manity. Every chemist knows how different are the crystals 
 which are formed by different kinds of matter. They all coa- 
 lesce in their own distinctive forms of greatest stability as de- 
 termined by the natures of their molecules. Societies are 
 built of individuals as crystals are of molecules, and though 
 you tore them down a thousand times with the hope that 
 
The Study of Applied Sociology. 27 
 
 they would come together again according to some precon- 
 ceived ideal, if they withstood the ordeal they would only 
 drop back again and again into the old ruts. With the 
 same absolute fidelity that this written page has to the pres- 
 ent contents of my mind is the present structure of society 
 to its inherent forces. Nor is it possible to easily or rapidly 
 alter either the forces or the individuals. 
 
 HABIT AND EDUCATION. 
 
 We are all creatures of habit, and our habits are usually 
 fastened upon us by education. Most things we do and say 
 are but part of the mechanical propulsion of social move- 
 ment. Thoughts and deeds that circumstances have forced 
 a frequent repetition of get woven into our nervous struct- 
 ures as second nature. In school, in the street, in the 
 workshop, at the counter, everywhere and throughout our 
 lives, we are directed and forced into the fixed methods of 
 the social treadmill. The structures we receive at birth 
 have a certain degree of mobility so that we can be adapted 
 to the whole range of permanent events within the activi- 
 ties of our race. A child can not be adapted to the life of a 
 fish, a bird, or a monkey. A civilized child can not be 
 adapted to the life of the lower savages. It can, however, 
 become fitted to almost any form of society from barbarism 
 up to the upper limit fixed by its structure. The upper 
 limit varies widely with the inherent latent intelligence. 
 Adapt a child to any form of life within the limits of its 
 inherent capabilities, and on reaching manhood the power 
 to change to other forms is almost or entirely lost. Children 
 take to superstitions or dogmas of the not too distant past 
 because they are on a level with their mental growth. In 
 fact, they inherit a bias toAvard them. Keep them ponder- 
 ing on such matters till age creeps on, and a hardened brain 
 will then refuse to open up new nerve paths. Aged people 
 can not change from the habits and methods of thought of the 
 past except within very narrow limits, in spite of their ma- 
 turity of thought. Children travel in the way adults direct, 
 not having mental capacity even to conceive of new routes. 
 We can not have wise and non-superstitious children till 
 we have wise and non-superstitious adults to teach them. 
 We can not have wise and non-superstitious adults as teach- 
 ers till we have children trained in wisdom and against 
 superstition. The habits of the past are upon the teacher, 
 
28 The Study of Applied Sociology. 
 
 and he fastens them upon the pupil. Even where teachers 
 have broken the crust of habit, parents will not tolerate the 
 teaching to children of things that run counter to their own 
 early education. The past holds the present in a grasp of 
 iron. The task which the owl gave the cat, in Froude's 
 Oat's Pilgrimage, is the puzzle the sociologist has inces- 
 santly laid before him. Pussy wanted the owl to tell her 
 how to be happy. " Meditate, Cat ! meditate," said the 
 owl. " From the beginning our race have been considering 
 which first existed, the owl or the egg. The owl comes 
 from the egg, but likewise the egg from the owl. From 
 sunrise to sunset I ponder on it, Cat ! When I reflect 
 on the beauty of the complete owl, I think that must 
 have been first, as the cause is greater than the effect. 
 When I remember my own childhood, I incline the other 
 way." 
 
 All existing social conditions are related to all past social 
 conditions as is the owl to the egg. Reformers who want 
 new types of social birds often forget that they have no cor- 
 responding eggs to hatch them from. They think they can 
 start de novo. Like the owl, they believe that one or other 
 must come first. The fact is that nothing ever has been or 
 ever can be started in this way. All of Nature's processes 
 are evolutionary. By slow modification she steadily changes 
 both bird and egg till the proper pattern finally appears. 
 Neither owl nor egg was first. From the limitless depths 
 of time, egg and bird have changed and changed in in- 
 finitesimal amounts until at last from a common pair 
 have come owls and crows, hawks and eagles, sparrows and 
 mocking-birds. Do you wish to see the race freed from su- 
 perstition ? Then help to modify the egg being hatched in 
 the schoolboy's mind by slightly modifying the bird that 
 lays it. Do not waste effort in trying to develop a full- 
 fledged new and before unknown bird, for you can not do it. 
 Do you seek Civil Service Reform ? Never expect a race of 
 white blackbirds to develop suddenly among black black- 
 birds. Even if a white sport should suddenly and apparent- 
 ly by accident appear, do not hope for its permanence. 
 Years and years of natural selection is the only thing to rely 
 upon. You must have white blackbird eggs from white 
 blackbirds before you can hope for permanence. We hope 
 by magic to emancipate all from poverty, but the same old 
 bird of poverty keeps on hatching broods of its own kind. 
 We try to vote down professional politicians and put work- 
 
The Study of Applied Sociology. 29 
 
 ingmen in their stead, only to find at last that we have 
 hatched another brood of professional politicians. 
 
 Average man, like the average material of an owl's egg, is 
 only capable of producing corresponding results. We can 
 by patient, slow, and patience-trying effort modify, bit by 
 bit, but we can make no leaps. The pain, the sorrow, the 
 misery, the poverty, the hunger, and the slavery complained 
 of are the birds hatched from the eggs which have been 
 laid. Human immoralities are the eggs, misery and suffer- 
 ing the birds. As rapidly as we are able to modify selfish- 
 ness into altruism and the desire for liquor into a desire for 
 cleanliness, so rapidly will we rid the world of poverty, but 
 in no other way and with no greater speed. Immorality 
 produces poverty, and poverty produces immorality. They 
 are related to each other as owl and egg. We can not legis- 
 late selfishness or habits of personal vice from men, and 
 as long as these exist we must endure their progeny. No 
 social paradise can be constructed from the kind of beings 
 that at present people the earth. We can go on endeavor- 
 ing to institute reforms and modifying existing conditions, 
 but we must then wait for the slow passage of time. The 
 old proverb of " the more haste the less speed " is particu- 
 larly applicable here. The methods of reformers are very 
 often methods calculated to retard progress and lead retro"- 
 gressionward. The desire for hasty results introduces an 
 element of impetuosity that hinders, and their determina- 
 tion to produce independent organizations is a fatal blunder. 
 The laws of social growth are in antagonism to their ways. 
 It would be folly to hope to rapidly modify the polity of the 
 earth by taking up our abode in Mars, or to sway the social 
 currents of the United States by residing in Germany. You 
 might write, talk, and scold till you were gray, and you 
 would never get a step nearer your destiny. Whoever wants 
 to improve politics must begin and continue his work within 
 the old parties, or he can never do it well. If you seek to 
 advance religion properly you must be a church member. 
 If you want to improve any society at a maximum rate of 
 speed you must be a member of the same. Do you seek to 
 materially improve the social condition of the poor, then 
 get within touch of the poor by associating with them. If 
 you want to save a soul from destruction you must get into 
 heartfelt sympathy with that soul. The secret of the power 
 of the Irish people in American politics lies in their working 
 within one of the great parties. Had they organized a party 
 
30 The Study of Applied Sociology. 
 
 of their own they would have remained ciphers in national 
 affairs. Freethinkers imagine themselves the destroyers of 
 superstition and conventionalism. They are nothing of the 
 kind to any great extent. Most of this kind of work is done 
 by the liberal-minded men within the Church. Mugwumps 
 do little toward advancing purer politics when out of the 
 old parties. Progress is due to the liberal-minded men who 
 cling to the organized forms of the old parties. Neither 
 eggs nor owls can be made de novo, and you can only mod- 
 ify them toward higher forms by coming near enough to 
 touch them. A great majority of those who cling to anti- 
 quated forms are totally unfit for higher. To talk such 
 people into the new order of things does not really cause 
 them to progress. The gain is only superficial and appar- 
 ent. A parrot has really made no progress by being taught 
 to speak. It can not understand its own words. Multi- 
 tudes of people are by education made to imitate the parrot. 
 Every teacher in a college has often met students that could 
 answer correctly all or most of their questions, and yet they 
 have been morally certain that these same students under- 
 stood nothing of the principles and facts they could so 
 glibly enunciate. Edison's phonograph can repeat whole 
 sermons and the wisest sayings of sages. Yet it is utterly 
 unconscious of the meaning of what it is able to say. 
 School children are constantly taking in knowledge as a 
 sponge does water, and yet have no capacity fitting them to 
 really understand such knowledge. Indeed, a very careful 
 examination would show us that everybody does this to some 
 extent. There are all degrees of the habit. The best of us 
 are often apt to utter thoughts that are not ours, and quar- 
 rel about opinions we have no adequate conception of. Our 
 ways of thinking, like the words we use in talking, are a 
 heritage of the race which, in a few of us, have been modi- 
 fied by environment. Like the clothes we wear, our 
 thoughts have a definite pattern fixed upon them which we 
 dare not choose to alter. "When we greet a friend with 
 " Good morning," what do we mean ? It seems a senseless 
 piece of jargon. It is a habit we have been drilled into and 
 is abbreviated from " God be with you this morning." If 
 these are not parrot-like acquired expressions it would be 
 difficult to find any. Most men follow the religion of the 
 place where they spend their childhood, instead of trying to 
 have an independent opinion on such matters. Men and 
 women who have been raised in Christian communities think 
 
The Study of Applied Sociology. 31 
 
 as Christians, talk as Christians, and reason like Christians, 
 even after they have discarded the distinctive tenets of 
 Christianity. Those raised in the Mohammedan countries 
 are subject to all the limitations and enslaved by all the 
 methods of the Mohammedans. Some of us vainly imagine 
 ourselves emancipated from this servility, but it is mere self- 
 delusion. In gathering data for sociology such facts must 
 receive due consideration. To expect a man who has been 
 educated a Brahmin to reach the same conclusions from 
 the same presentation of facts as one would who had been 
 trained as a Christian, is to look for results that are very un- 
 likely ever to occur. It is easy enough, after ascertaining 
 the habits of thought of an individual or race, to predict the 
 conclusions that may be arrived at by them from given 
 facts, but not before. 
 
 THE BEARING OF STATISTICS OK THE PROBLEM. 
 
 Whatever our belief may be concerning the power of the 
 will, these facts of established habit show pretty plainly 
 that some of our doings are as automatic and predictable as 
 those of a machine. When the statisticians average up the 
 multitude, a good deal of rather unexpected order is seen to 
 reside in events that look most capricious. The number of 
 absent-minded people seems to be a pretty constant one, and 
 the queer acts they do during their fits of abstraction equally 
 as constant. We can tell in advance, within a narrow margin, 
 the number of undirected, misdirected, and imperfectly di- 
 rected letters that will be mailed in a year. We can foresee 
 the average number of such that will contain money, checks, 
 and other valuables. We know about how many people will 
 commit suicide and how they will do it. The proportion of 
 deaths to births and to the total population is so steady a 
 quantity that an error of the census-taker can be discovered 
 by a display of vital statistics. It can not be much of a sur- 
 prise to learn that a given number of people will consume 
 a given number of hats, coats, pantaloons, or pairs of shoes, 
 but what can we think of the statistics of drug importations 
 when we learn that the amount of physic used, of any given 
 kind, is so constant that, with few exceptions, it can readily 
 be foretold from year to year. Book publishers, after a little 
 experience, soon come to know how large an edition can be 
 consumed of a given cast of novel, history, or work in sci- 
 ence. The number of crimes oi a given kind is a pretty 
 
32 The Study of Applied Sociology. 
 
 constant one from year to year for the same region, unless a 
 great social wave of some kind comes along, when they may 
 be expected to increase or diminish according to the char- 
 acter of such change. 
 
 Besides the steady ebb and flow of predictable events of 
 the kinds enumerated there are others that at first seem to 
 defy all law. They come as fashions. The fashion once 
 begun, rises to a maximum and finally wanes. They come 
 and go like contagious diseases. There are fashions in the 
 choice of method that will be used by suicides in destroying 
 themselves, by murderers in how they shall take the lives of 
 others There are fashions in the kinds of books that will 
 be published and read, in the kinds of plays that will attract 
 the public to theatres, in the kinds of songs that will be 
 sung, and in the kinds of medicines doctors will prescribe 
 for their patients, just as much as there are fashions in the 
 dresses ladies wear. When these fashions appear it is easy 
 to predict that, as a rule, conservative people will be the last 
 to consider and adopt them and radical people first. In 
 making such predictions we are following the scientific 
 method of inductive reasoning. Instead of drawing con- 
 clusions from things as we think they ought to be, we find 
 out just how they are. Learning that under given circum- 
 stances certain things have occurred, we assume that under 
 the same circumstances a repetition is highly probable. 
 
 THE DIRECTION OF SOCIAL MOVEMENT. 
 
 All movement, social as well as physical, is in the direc- 
 tion of least resistance, or of greatest traction. The whole 
 race is seeking the way of greatest self-interest, and what- 
 ever may be the average decision as to what is deemed this 
 way, out of the contending struggle has come progress. A 
 narrowly ignorant and selfish man thinks that his interests 
 demand looking out purely for self, regardless of conse- 
 quences to others. A more liberal-minded individual sees 
 in self-sacrifice a surer road to true self-interest. In both ex- 
 tremes and all the means lies the impulse that, like the steam 
 of a locomotive, urges the race along either to happiness or 
 to misery. If narrow selfishness best suited the require- 
 ments of the race, the narrowly selfish man would have the 
 advantage of his fellows in the struggle for existence. He 
 would, on the average, make more friends than any one else, 
 and as the reaction of friendship is prosperity, he would be 
 
The Study of Applied Sociology. 33 
 
 favored in the struggle for existence. Natural selection 
 would kill off and make poor more of those unlike him than 
 of those like him. But people do not like narrowly selfish 
 people. Even those narrowly selfish themselves detest nar- 
 row selfishness in others. Other things being equal, there- 
 fore, narrow selfishness is likely to pull down its possessor 
 in the fight. But self-sacrifice is not always a virtue. To 
 try to be perfectly self-sacrificing in a world where those 
 around us are not equally intent on the same object is to try 
 to commit suicide. In theory it is fashionable for us to 
 commend unselfishness always and everywhere, and to con- 
 demn selfishness as wholesalely. In practice we are much 
 more sensible. Extreme unselfishness can lead to as bad 
 consequences for the individual or the race as extreme self- 
 ishness. Natural selection is constantly tending to weed 
 out both extremes, because they put themselves at a disad- 
 vantage in the struggle. People with both lines of bias ex- 
 ist, but the scythe of death is constantly trimming the bor- 
 ders, and the balanced individuals who are neither too virtu- 
 ous nor too vicious in the mean time augment in numbers. 
 He is the best man who can best adjust himself to his envi- 
 ronment. Nor must he be a time-server, for the endurance 
 of life is more than a day. His present attempts at adapta- 
 tion must ever point futureward. The race is progressing, 
 and what he does and says must always be adapted to such 
 progress. In the great world of mechanics this vast globe 
 of ours in spite of volcanoes, earthquakes, cyclones, and all 
 apparent inequalities, there is an incessant strain toward 
 equilibrium. In fact, these forces, while seeming to increase 
 inequality, are actually slowly but surely leading toward the 
 same. In the social world, in spite of revolutions, political 
 overturnings, and heartburnings, the main current of change 
 points persistently toward personal freedom and equity. 
 Indeed, the very forces that we sometimes think are leading 
 away from this are steadily working us toward it. Life is 
 one long series of adjustments and adaptations to changing 
 conditions. This incessantly demands reciprocal submission 
 between man and man under the penalty of extinction for 
 non-compliance. In the long run, we find a continuously 
 increasing proportion of such adjustments along the line of 
 equity. The growth of intelligence demands justice for self 
 by every individual. An intelligent man knows when he is 
 imposed upon and resents it. The growth of altruism com- 
 pels us to demand justice for others even when they are 
 
34 The Study of Applied Sociology. 
 
 helpless in seeking it for themselves. We may be often the 
 sufferers from doing a deed of justice, but as a rule of con- 
 duct we will suffer far less by pursuing a just than an unjust 
 course. The average of the reactions always brings a large 
 return of comfort for a large expenditure of justice. " What 
 you sow that shall ye also reap." Equity and truthfulness 
 are the conditions of social stability. Without these so- 
 ciety would go to pieces. That society which possesses most 
 of these qualities is in every way the most substantial and 
 in a contest of power the most formidable. Every living 
 soul insists upon justice and truthfulness for himself from 
 others. Many of us may be willing enough to lie to others 
 or to cheat others when our altruistic sentiments are im- 
 perfectly developed, but we are not willing that others shall 
 do the same to us if we know it and can help it. All 
 through society the balance of strain is toward justice ; be- 
 cause it is the united sentiment of all we must have it for 
 ourselves. Since we are to this extent all of one mind, the 
 trend can readily be seen. 
 
 EACTS, NOT WISHES, THE BASIS OF SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 Turning to the numberless whims, fancies, and ill-found- 
 ed hopes we possess, this uniformity of trend can no longer 
 be seen. In all else, except this trend toward justice and 
 truth with the concomitant sympathy for others, the ma- 
 chinery of evolution relentlessly grinds its grist regardless 
 of our desires. These grand things are traveling toward 
 perfection, with little respect for our plans to hasten them 
 along. If our scheme of bringing them about is not the 
 one Nature balances herself toward, we may hope, pray, fret, 
 curse, or denounce, yet when they come we will not have 
 aided them a bit. If enough of us combine and so suc- 
 ceed in shunting society upon our ideal side-track, we can 
 seriously retard progress, but we can not aid it save by 
 maintaining favorable conditions. The enemy of all science 
 everywhere and at all times has been a priori reasoning 
 based on introspective data. Ignorance has, in all ages, 
 imagined itself able, like a spider, to spin out of the contents 
 of its own consciousness a perfect description of the uni- 
 verse, its processes and contents. The growth of the physi- 
 cal sciences has now nearly banished such vainglory from 
 the more intelligent so far as the physical world is con- 
 cerned. When, however, we turn to the field of sociology, 
 
The Study of Applied Sociology. 35 
 
 the same ridiculous and wholly erroneous method is pur- 
 sued. People never think that their hopes are wholly un- 
 adapted to the race. What they wish for they imagine 
 everybody else should wish for, and that it would be good 
 for everybody else. But few persons can divest themselves 
 of this utterly unscientific habit. They do not seem to ap- 
 preciate the fact that the virtue of the world is not to be 
 commended or supported because they like it or because 
 anybody else likes it, and wishes for its increase. The rea- 
 son why a scientific mind supports virtue is because it is 
 a condition of social stability. Now, there are any number 
 of people in the world who would no more understand this 
 than Greek. They can not frame the thought in their 
 minds. They can not see that society would go to pieces 
 without virtue. To them a sin is a sin because it is a sin. 
 They support virtue and oppose vice because they feel that 
 the one is right and the other wrong. It is with them 
 wholly a superstition. To try to teach such people sociolo- 
 gy is like trying to teach a man who has been born blind 
 how to tell green from red. Where they have been trained 
 to believe that eating meat on Friday is a sin they have ex- 
 actly the same reason or feeling for loyalty to this habit as 
 for loyalty to personal purity, truth, or honesty. No reason 
 except a reason of feeling has a particle of weight with 
 them. 
 
 Logic and facts with the accuracy of mathematics have 
 no more power of affecting their judgments than water has 
 to penetrate the back of a duck. It is perhaps an unfortu- 
 nate fact, but nevertheless a true one, that the great major- 
 ity of human beings and this too includes the educated 
 are utterly unable to reason on social matters in any other 
 method than the superstitious one. As the Catholic girl who 
 is devoted to her religion delights in refraining from eating 
 meat on Friday, and would feel as bad or worse at an omis- 
 sion of this duty, from forgetting the day, as for a lapse from 
 virtue, so many a Protestant feels that he has done a great 
 wrong when violating the commands of the decalogue even 
 where there is as little real reason for their support. Feel- 
 ings like these some of us have after seeing the new moon 
 over our left shoulders. In all such cases the directing 
 force is the same in kind. It is easy enough to show a 
 Protestant the superstitious traits of a Catholic, or a free- 
 thinker those of a Protestant, but it is usually impossible to 
 convince any one of them that he or she has superstitious 
 
36 The Study of Applied Sociology. 
 
 ways. Every person who is satisfied with a feeling instead 
 of a reason is just as superstitious, to the extent of that in- 
 clination. And who is wholly free from this ? When we 
 think that a given social change should be brought about 
 because we feel that it would be right or best, we are in the 
 clutches of superstition. The change may or may not be 
 right, but our bias forbids our being able to decide honestly 
 on the evidence. Not long ago the author was discussing 
 Looking Backward with a lady of unusually high intelli- 
 gence, and was more than surprised to find that the argu- 
 ment which she deemed most conclusive was of this kind. 
 A very dear friend of hers, after spending a useful life, was 
 in old age suffering from penury. She desired a system 
 that would care for such cases and give old age general- 
 ly an assurance of comfort to the last. It never occurred 
 to her that reasons like this depending solely on sentiment 
 were as unsafe as those of the Catholic who suffers agony if 
 inadvertently a little meat happens to be eaten on Friday. 
 Her feelings having prompted her conclusions, made her con- 
 strue them into a solution of society's whole duty. Such 
 sentiments of course do credit to the hearts of those who 
 present them, but are woefully out of joint with careful 
 judgment. In science, when feeling steps in, beware. Sci- 
 entific minds are more critical of conclusions in proportion 
 to their agreement with wishes or desires. No truly scien- 
 tific mind ever believes in its own conclusions when the 
 strong sway of hope, desire or other emotion has intervened. 
 Such conclusions may be right, but they are far more likely 
 to be totally wrong. Everybody desires just such conditions 
 as will harmonize with his or her own psychical make-up. 
 Every man V ideal for the future, where the inductive meth- 
 od is not supreme, is an exaggerated picture of his own de- 
 sires. Ingersoll once said that " an honest God is the 
 noblest work of man." The sociologist might say that, 
 with the masses, an honest Utopia is the master-work of 
 man. This dreaming of the future and building up schemes 
 of social salvation would be all right if we were body and 
 soul products of the future. Unfortunately, we are not. 
 We were made in the past and by the past. Our structures 
 harmonize with conditions that have gone and are going. 
 We harmonize slightly with the immediate future, less with 
 the somewhat remote future, less still with the more remote 
 future, and scarcely at all with the very remote future. We 
 harmonize with the future only in those things in which 
 
The Study of Applied Sociology. 37 
 
 the future resembles the past. As the resemblance disap- 
 pears, the harmony of our present structures becomes less 
 and less that of the future. This is, was, and promises 
 ever to be, a changing universe. Conditions of adaptation 
 in one age are those of maladaptation in the next. For this 
 reason we can usually be pretty certain that the things and 
 conditions that are coming are things and conditions that 
 in many particulars we do not want. Indeed, we can not 
 want them. They are antagonistic to our present natures. 
 It has always been the experience of the race that the 
 things most desired were the very things that did not come. 
 It is as natural for us to wish for an extension and augmen- 
 tation of our whims, prejudices, superstitions, and desires as 
 for us to breathe. We simply can not help it except we 
 put ourselves under intense restraint, and then it can only 
 last for a little while. Indeed, we seldom know how to re- 
 strain ourselves, for we do not usually know our prejudices 
 from our highest nights of wisdom, nor our whims from our 
 most carefully constructed logic. When we deem ourselves 
 free from such things we are quite certain to be enslaved 
 most foully. The man who thinks he has no prejudices 
 and no whims is the man who is most fully charged with 
 them. Since on whim and prejudice or soft-hearted desire 
 we build our ideal future, it can not be wondered at that 
 the race has ever met with disappointment. Such founda- 
 tions of sand can never stand even if we do think them the 
 rock of eternal truth. If history emphasizes any one thing 
 more than another it is that human ideals are everlastingly 
 ignored by the laws of evolution. One by one they are 
 swept into the great abyss of forgetfulness, despite the de- 
 spair of their votaries, and their places are finally taken by 
 a new-formed satisfaction with the inevitable. Adaptation 
 is happiness, and perfect adaptation, if it could be acquired, 
 would be the beatitude of perfect happiness. Wherever we 
 are placed and whatever the condition, our heaven is made 
 by fitting ourselves for that place and that condition. 
 Whatever the future has in store for us, if we adapt our- 
 selves to it we will be happy. 
 
 The Puritan's ideal Sabbath, for which he fought so he- 
 roically, is gone, and one that would have filled his soul with 
 holy horror has taken its place. The dreaded black arts of 
 chemistry and physics that our fathers thought Beelzebub 
 was responsible for, and which they fought so hard to extin- 
 guish, are now taught to our children in schools and col- 
 
38 The Study of Applied Sociology. 
 
 leges. The pomp and show of dress with pride of heart 
 that appalled them are now commended. Women that 
 were taught, like children, to be seen and not heard when 
 their supposed betters were around, no longer keep silent in 
 churches, or stop to ask knowledge from their husbands at 
 home. They are now the teachers and preachers of the age. 
 The short hair that was as disgraceful as a lapse in virtue for 
 women is now getting to be quite fashionable. Education, 
 that kings and people despised and declared contemptuous- 
 ly was disgraceful to all but cloistered priests, is now well- 
 nigh universal. To-day we are no nearer the millennial 
 reign than when Isaiah prophesied and Jeremiah lamented. 
 Where are the religions, creeds, theories, and superstitions 
 that men bled for, were burnt at the stake for, and in many 
 ways laid down their lives for ? Each had an ideal of a re- 
 deemed race cut after its own pattern in manner of thought 
 as well as of dress. Now they are all gone, but they did 
 not disappear until another brood of kindred type had taken 
 their places. 
 
 The ideals of savage man are the very reverse of those of 
 civilized man. To the former a prospective view showing 
 our methods and life would only give a demonstration of 
 retrogression. Our kindness to each other, ordinary polite- 
 ness, and refusing to mutilate and enslave our foes would 
 be evidence of cowardice. Our giving up a nomadic for a 
 settled life and that of hunter for husbandman would be 
 sure signs that we had gone backward instead of forward. 
 Indians think the habits of industrial men are habits fit 
 only for squaws. To foresee a civilization like ours as the 
 fate of their descendants would certainly not have made the 
 early aborigines feel elated. The low tribes of the South 
 Pacific and of Central Africa deem lying, stealing, and mur- 
 dering of any one not of their own tribe as accomplishments 
 worthy of emulation. At no time and in no condition of 
 life has there ever been any cause for sympathy with the 
 future except during the expansion of some newly acquired 
 trait after habit had fixed its seal of approval. Progress 
 comes, not by man's effort but in spite of it. Every step 
 of progress has been contested inch by inch by man. The 
 forces of progress, like a stream, have flowed along, and one 
 by one taken in an individual at a time from the midst of 
 the contending, denouncing, and decrying mass. One indi- 
 vidual perceives the drift before the rest and calls upon all 
 to enter it, but they scout him. Before entering, he con- 
 
The Study oj Applied Sociology. 39 
 
 tested the ground with himself till Nature forced him to see 
 that he was wrong and the whole race wrong. As others 
 gain like experiences from Nature they become able to 
 understand him and enter the stream. Events conspire to 
 make men think. Until they do, proper cerebration can not 
 occur. When such cerebration occurs they can not refrain 
 from doing their part. Until it does occur there is nothing 
 in the brain that can unfold a true system of the future. 
 Until future changes have already begun men take no con- 
 scious part in their production. Deductive reasoning is, 
 therefore, childish. It is well enough to conjure up fairies 
 and good angels with magic power to establish our ideals 
 and grant our whims, but it is foolishness to label it Science 
 or have the least hopes of realization in fact. Children 
 delight in building castles in the air, stringing them out 
 hours at a time. It is a happy pastime. They foresee 
 themselves discovering buried treasures or entering caves 
 filled with rich gems a V Aladdin. As years creep on, the 
 dreams become less and less sweeping. They become con- 
 tent with smaller things. Finally, in full manhood they set- 
 tle contentedly down to fight for just what they can wring 
 from Nature day by day. As with the man, so with the race. 
 In the problems of sociology very many are yet in the stage 
 of green, inexperienced youth. They picture great changes, 
 and all harmonizing with their most selfish desires. Earth 
 is going to become a paradise. "Houris for boys, omni- 
 science for sages, and wings and glories for all ranks and 
 ages." Their hopes are boundless and their dreams grand. 
 They depict their Utopias without stint or fear of surfeit, 
 never once stopping to ask whether in the equilibration of 
 social forces such things are foredoomed. Such dreaming 
 unfits us for the earnest work of real coming life. It causes 
 us to attempt the execution of crazy plots fit only for a mad- 
 house. It makes us neglect facts, and, worse still, suppress 
 facts that ought to be known and fully weighed. Full- 
 grown minds relinquish all such air-castle building. They 
 have discovered that their wishes are far from being Nature's 
 decrees. They make the question, " What ought we to do?" 
 subordinate to "What can we do?" 'They seek to get as 
 near the " ought " as possible, but in discovering what the 
 " ought " should be they consult objective facts, not subject- 
 ive fancies. It is a very great pity that so many educated 
 men and women educated as education now goes waste 
 brain power lingering in the delirium of the enchanting 
 4 
 
40 The Study of Applied Sociology. 
 
 pastime here depicted. So deluded indeed are they that 
 they come to consider it superior, as science, to the substan- 
 tial structure of a sociology built upon objective facts that 
 assumes nothing, wishes nothing, and makes no ideals. 
 Like Jesus in Gethsemane, true sociologists are content to 
 say : " Not my will, but thine, Nature, be done." 
 
 SOME MISLEADING FANCIES. 
 
 Ignorance is never conscious of itself as such. We all 
 have a weakness for having an opinion of our own on mat- 
 ters of which we know nothing, and we are usually free to 
 back that opinion with considerable vim. We are honest 
 in this and really think that others are as much in the dark 
 as ourselves. As we come in contact with others who have 
 made a special study of such subjects and we gradually ab- 
 sorb a few of their facts, it dawns upon us that possibly 
 they were right after all. This renders us less belligerent 
 and perhaps wholly passive. Toward physical science a 
 very large proportion of intelligent men now occupy this 
 passive attitude. The crassly ignorant are still ready to 
 contest the conclusions of the whole scientific world. To- 
 ward social science the passive state has only been reached 
 by a few. The great majority are still at war with its sim- 
 plest and most readily verified conclusions. This is not to 
 be wondered at when we consider the character of our past 
 training and how it is at war with our dearest prejudices. 
 While this state of passive neutrality is a better one than 
 that which preceded it, we can not consider it wholly safe 
 or good. The scientific charlatan takes advantage of it and 
 through arrogant pretensions misdirects and confuses the 
 men of a little learning. When legislative bodies represent- 
 ing States and even the whole nation can be gulled, where 
 deception should be impossible, what can we hope for where 
 ignorance is dense? If the men who should be thoroughly 
 scientific in their training, and who are trusted by over sixty 
 millions of people to make their laws, can be led into spend- 
 ing the nation's money in idiotic experiments for the pro- 
 duction of rain in arid, regions, what hope can we have from 
 the far less favored masses? We have plenty of expert 
 meteorologists in and out of the Government's employ. 
 Any one of these could have told them how futile such at- 
 tempts would prove. The trouble was that they thought 
 their own judgments superior where they imagined there 
 
The Study of Applied Sociology. 41 
 
 existed a difference between authorities. They could not 
 differentiate the ignorant pretender from the honest and 
 well-posted expert. If they will not accept the dicta of 
 physical science where they know enough of it to know that 
 they are ignorant, how can we hope to have them accept 
 the conclusions of social science where they really believe 
 they know more than anybody else? The wise Solons of 
 our own State of New York, not so very long ago, voted a 
 large sum of money to pay a quack for a hydrophobia-cur- 
 ing remedy. Any physician could have told them it was a 
 humbug. They thought they knew more than the doctors. 
 Our farming population and many legislators believe they 
 know more of finance than bankers who have made it a life- 
 study. 
 
 We all should know that people whom we happen to love 
 or respect are just as likely to do wrong as those we do not 
 know. The fact that we know them or that we respect 
 them does not make saints of them. Where our opinions 
 of individuals are based upon selected experiences of a test 
 quality and our love or affection has come as a consequence 
 of these we are not likely to be often, if ever, surprised by 
 lapses in their conduct. But where we draw our conclu- 
 sions solely because we like them and wish them to be good, 
 concluding that therefore they are good, we are the victims 
 of misleading fancy. This condition of mind is usually 
 seen in an exaggerated form among mothers toward their 
 children. The maternal affection will not allow them to 
 think that in a quarrel their children are to blame. It is 
 always assumed that somebody's else was in fault. Physi- 
 cians and teachers are often embarrassed by this form of 
 bias. In patriotism it likewise appears. Any trouble that 
 arises between our own country and another causes us at 
 once to assume that ours must be in the right. Even if the 
 evidence is conclusive that we were wrong, we still endeavor 
 to make it appear otherwise. In comparing our country 
 with others the same misdirection of judgment through 
 feeling occurs. To us the great men of other countries are 
 pygmies as compared with ours, their literatures insignifi- 
 cant, their soldiers poltroons, their methods and discipline 
 inferior, their prowess small, their education contemptible, 
 and their religion drivel. The same deeds that when done 
 by our own people display heroism or wise expediency, if 
 done by another nation are distorted into cruelty, savagery, 
 or treachery. If we are angered with the ruling powers of 
 
42 The Study of Applied Sociology. 
 
 our own country an antipatriotic bias comes forth that is 
 equally pernicious. In politics and in religion this same 
 type of bias obtrudes itself. Our political antagonists are 
 all and always deemed wrong. Their platforms may be the 
 very same as those of our own party in another State, yet 
 we will denounce them in unmeasured terms. Our religious 
 foes are heretics and heathens. As Christians we feel called 
 upon to consider Mohammedans, Buddhists, and Brahmins as 
 horribly depraved creatures. Because an occasional acci- 
 dent has happened during the passage of the triumphal car 
 of Juggernaut, or because an occasional suicide through 
 insanity has been committed under its ponderous wheels, 
 our Sunday-school books have given us harrowing accounts 
 of the utter darkness of the heathens who sacrifice each 
 other to appease a supposed angry idol. The facts when 
 freed from theological bias proved to be quite diiferent. 
 Juggernaut, as believed in by Hindoos, opposes human 
 sacrifice and advocates kindness and charity. All our de- 
 scriptions of the religious rites of people other than Chris- 
 tian have been distorted in this manner. Protestants mis- 
 represent the tenets of Catholics, and Catholics those of 
 Protestants. Infidels, with an anti-theological bias that 
 discredits their claims to liberality, deal in the same unscien- 
 tific method with the churches, and the latter with true 
 theological acrimony retaliate. So intense is this hateful 
 and groundless feeling of bias that it leads to trouble in 
 every direction. Wherever we find and analyze it we dis- 
 cover that it is but a highly exaggerated form of indirect 
 self-conceit. Our personal deeds, thoughts, and words, and 
 the deeds, thoughts, and words produced by or emanating 
 from our family, our tribe, our clique, our faction, our 
 party, our country, our class, our friends, our club, our 
 church, our society, or our anything else, must be right, 
 while the same things of the other fellows must be wrong. 
 Whoever agrees with us is our fellow, but if he fails to do 
 so he is not. This form of misdirected egoism leads its 
 possessor into all forms of misdirected judgment and in- 
 cessantly reacts to his own injury. The rich, by defending 
 the rich, right or wrong, bring upon themselves adverse 
 legislation. The poor, in defending the poor, right or wrong, 
 bring upon themselves increased difficulties of life. The 
 Church, as the defender of the faith, by its excessive defense 
 has lowered its dignity and destroyed its power for good. 
 It is a difficult or perhaps impossible thing to get the rich 
 
The Study of Applied Sociology. 43 
 
 to see and appreciate the fact that they only exist as a 
 distinct class because it is best for the whole nation. There 
 is no more divine right for aristocracy than there was a 
 divine right for kings. Kings exist now and always had 
 their existence because they were a necessity of the con- 
 ditions of their times. The nations having them were the 
 better for them. They survived because they were fit, but 
 as soon as such a form of government ceased to be fit they 
 disappeared. We have people now that are immensely 
 wealthy, and others abjectly poor. These two extremes are 
 here because they are a necessity of man's present develop- 
 ment in morality and knowledge. This is the condition of 
 greatest social stability possible with men constituted as the 
 race is. As soon as they improve, their relative conditions 
 will change, and always in about the proportion of their 
 moral and intellectual improvement. All hasty and ill- 
 advised changes, however desirable they may appear to be, 
 can only end in injury if premature. The question of right 
 and wrong in this can not be settled by an appeal to feeling. 
 What we feel to be right is not always right, and what we 
 feel to be wrong is often proved right. A broader outlook 
 must be taken. 
 
 One of the greatest boons that a true sociology could 
 bring would be the sweeping away of the intense rancor 
 that is born of ignorance in matters social. How unfortu- 
 nate it is that men can not control their tempers in debat- 
 ing such topics ! This bitterness, no doubt, was a highly 
 laudable condition when the issues were of life and death. 
 Even when we view the matter from the early theological 
 standpoint a benefit can be seen to arise. If nothing else, 
 it betrayed the sterling candor of those having it. Calvin 
 never would have permitted Servetus to be burned at the 
 stake had he not sincerely believed that he was endanger- 
 ing the salvation of thousands of souls. He thought it a 
 less evil to have Servetus die thus than to have myriads 
 deceived by him and cast into eternal torture. Much of 
 the ill will that is now evoked is classified as righteous 
 indignation. True sociology will show the world that dis- 
 honesty of purpose is how the exception and not the rule. 
 Only a short-sighted mortal who deserves the name of bigot 
 will in future denounce every one who disagrees with him 
 as dishonest. Every party in politics, every creed in re- 
 ligion, and every class in business is in the main actuated by 
 honesty of purpose. They may be misled or deceived, but a 
 
44 The Study of Applied Sociology. 
 
 multitude can not be brought together in which all are 
 either fools or knaves. All the truth is seldom or never on 
 one side. Both have part and are but supplement and com- 
 plement of each other. As our earth maintains its orbit, 
 and as the harmony of the spheres is kept up by the balanc- 
 ing strain of opposite currents of energy, so social develop- 
 ment moves along a similar line of balance between all the 
 heterogeneous opinions of society's units. The theological 
 bias is corrected by an antitheological, and all the biases are 
 checked and counter-checked by one another. Two wrongs 
 thus often make a right and two errors balance us into truth. 
 Sometimes for a season movement is lopsided because an 
 overwhelming majority goes one way, but this is soon self- 
 correcting. The orbit of the earth is not a perfect circle. 
 Sometimes one force predominates and sometimes another. 
 Conservative people check the too radical, and radical people 
 check the too conservative. Give gravity a chance and it 
 would wreck the solar system. Give tangential energy an 
 opportunity, and we should fly into unknown space orbitless. 
 Give theologians a chance, and we should be run into a cur- 
 rent of involution and wrecked. Give freethinkers a chance, 
 and we should fly off into utter intellectual chaos. Give the 
 Democratic spirit a chance, and we should split into riotous 
 mobs. Give the Republican spirit a chance, and we should 
 fuse into a national tyranny. Give the minor parties and 
 minor creeds the opportunity they seek, and a thousand 
 eccentric paths would mark our flight and part us worse 
 than the asteroids. Until men have learned that truth has 
 a dual aspect and that the two halves are quite likely to be 
 contradictions from the individual's standpoint, they will not 
 be willing fully to dwell in peace with one another. Social 
 science will teach them this. When its tenets are diffused 
 we will cease to see the silly habit indulged in of refusing to 
 listen to the arguments of an opponent or to give weight to 
 conclusions that happen to be unlike our own. Legislators 
 will no longer strive to pass laws favored by their constitu- 
 ents, right or wrong. Parties will try to agree upon a policy 
 for the common good instead of trying to misdirect and de- 
 ceive for the purpose of carrying put whims. Our statute 
 books are full of absurdities and inconsistencies that need 
 correcting, but neither party dares to touch them for fear of 
 the other. Take, for instance, a single example from our 
 patent laws. Foreigners can come here and take out patents 
 for their inventions and then refuse to make them in this 
 
The Study of Applied Sociology. 45 
 
 country. Fictitious prices are fixed upon their goods which 
 we have to pay as the cost of labor and profit that is spent 
 abroad. This is seen in the patents on antipyrine, sulphonal, 
 and phenacetine. In Germany, where they are made, they can 
 be bought for one fifth the price we are compelled to pay. 
 The German Government refuses to give Dr. Knorr a whole- 
 sale monopoly on antipyrine, and as a consequence it sells in 
 Germany at twenty-five or thirty cents an ounce. We Ameri- 
 cans are so very kind that we give him a monopoly here and 
 he charges us a dollar and a quarter per ounce. This dollar 
 and a quarter is paid by the sick and suffering of America 
 to make rich a German in Germany and to pay for the work 
 of German workmen. We could make it and sell it at 
 home for twenty-five cents per ounce, but our absurd laws 
 will not let us do so. We are not permitted by Ameri- 
 can law to employ American workingmen in what should 
 be a legitimate business. We are not allowed to lower the 
 price of a necessary article for relieving the torture of our 
 most agonizing diseases to a figure that will permit the 
 poor to use it. Germans refuse to be as kind to Germans 
 as we are to them. Our display of national altruism is au- 
 gust indeed in its stupidity, but our political leaders pre- 
 fer to quarrel about who sent the World's Fair to Chicago 
 in preference to endeavoring to right such glaring wrongs. 
 All this, too, is due to fear of consequences. A little true 
 social science introduced here will be of very great bene- 
 fit. It will show our legislators that they ought to study 
 the principles underlying social aggregation and con- 
 struct laws in accordance therewith. Laws should be 
 discovered, not manufactured to suit occasions or to please 
 cliques. It will give over-zealous reconstructionists a lesson 
 of patient waiting. Nothing starts in the new. Every- 
 thing evolves from past things and every condition from 
 past conditions. It will tell those who look for future uni- 
 formity that that has never yet been Nature's method and 
 is not likely to be in the future. All evolution is differen- 
 tiation. Social evolution must be the same. There not 
 only will always be differences in men, but these will become 
 more and more marked. Some will vary one way, some an- 
 other, and the links uniting them will in time be broken. 
 The world still has its radiates, articulates, molluscs, fishes, 
 birds, quadrupeds, quadrumana, and men. Of the latter it 
 still has its savages, barbarians, semi-civilized, and civilized. 
 In religion, Fetichism, Brahminism, Buddhism, Hebrewism, 
 
46 The Study of Applied Sociology. 
 
 and Christianity still survive. The lowest rounds of the 
 ladder are most numerously represented. The fruits of 
 evolution all lie in relation to each other like different lev- 
 els of an ascending pyramid. At the base and occupying 
 immensely the greater room are the lowest forms. At the 
 apex and contracted are the higher. There are more hea- 
 thens than Christians, more Catholics than Protestants, and 
 more conservatives than liberals. Have we any reason for 
 believing that this will ever be reversed ? If we have, are 
 we quite sure that our schemes will reverse it ? Wherever 
 and whenever any form became more numerous than the 
 preceding form, it was always through survival in a struggle. 
 The unfit were killed off. We have no example of the fit 
 bearing the burdens of the unfit and both surviving on an 
 equality. Unfitness tends always to generate parasitism. 
 The parasite is a disease-producer and pulls down its host, 
 lessening its chances in the struggle. Everything that re- 
 lieves any creature of the results and consequences of its 
 own conduct trains it to become a disease-producing para- 
 site. What reasoning have we for believing that there is 
 any mitigation among men of the rigorousness of this law ? 
 If those plants or animals that are tending toward parasit- 
 ism are forced to depend upon their own resources with no 
 other help than a slight release from a too intense struggle, 
 they survive and improve. Is it not equally so with men ? 
 Helplessness that can be helped to helpfulness deserves, and 
 is always likely to receive help, among human beings. Help- 
 lessness that can not be so helped cumbers the ground that 
 might be used by its betters. Nature everywhere works 
 toward increasing strength and diminishing weakness. It 
 does so in society as it did so before there was any society. 
 Strength of intellect gives its possessor an advantage over 
 all otherwise equally endowed. Strength in self-abnegation, 
 strength in truthfulness, strength in virtue, strength in 
 every quality that is fitting, is being incessantly selected. 
 We denounce cunning, but so long as it benefits the creat- 
 ure possessing it more than our denunciations hurt it, cun- 
 ning will survive and multiply. We commend dogged per- 
 sistence, but so long as being what is called " game " injures 
 us in the struggle for life, so long will the quality of being 
 " game " become less and less. We denounce a love of 
 wealth and deference to the wealthy. But so long as these 
 aid the sycophant, sycophancy will multiply. It is not 
 what we like or dislike, what we denounce or adore, but 
 
The Study of Applied Sociology. 47 
 
 what adds to the chances of life, that goes to make up the 
 conditions of futurity. One at a time men see these condi- 
 tions, and, obeying Nature's trend, save themselves from the 
 errors of their fellows. Everybody first opposes the trend 
 for reasons already pointed out. To this trend of things 
 thoughts must conform. This trend is the equilibration of 
 all forces social, psychical, and physical, but mainly physi 
 cal. Sanity consists in conforming thoughts to things. So- 
 ciological reasoning is the reasoning of sanity. All human 
 beings first fight progress, but are wheeled into line by be- 
 ing convinced that Nature is against them. They see that 
 they must conform to progress or suffer. They convince 
 others by adducing evidence that Nature is going that way 
 and not by appealing to their whims or prejudices. Nature 
 does not adjust herself to man, as so many believe. Man 
 must adjust himself to Nature. The function of propa- 
 gandism in progression is to try to teach our fellows to 
 rightly adjust themselves rather than to help Nature bring 
 about growth Nature can take care of herself ; we must 
 take care of ourselves. If as a nation we violate the laws 
 of proper equilibrium, we suffer or die. If as an individual 
 we do the same, a like fate awaits us. To travel in Nature's 
 channel is health and life. To get out of that channel is 
 disease and death. Our constant natural trend has been to 
 get out of the proper channel, but Nature has hitherto 
 always succeeded in whipping us back into it again. If we 
 stubbornly refuse to go back, our doom is sealed. We must 
 perish. That channel we do not make. It is made for us. 
 The millions of contending fancies and whims neutralize 
 each other and can not be realized. None of them can, if 
 based on human desire instead of objective fact. Whatever 
 we do that is not in Nature's preordained channel only re- 
 tards and brings more evil than good. It is not generally 
 known that in all human experience the outer margin of 
 adaptation is flanked with maladjustments. The act that 
 benefits one individual, nation, or race, injures another. No 
 law can be passed, no social action taken, however good, 
 that does not bring evil with it somewhere. Improvement 
 is not from bad to good, but only from bad to a little bet- 
 ter. What a blessing it would be to the community if legis- 
 lators, governors, and presidents could have this fact fully 
 impressed upon them ! Every session of the Legislature in 
 our State starts forces that bring poverty, hunger, disease, 
 and death to hundreds of our fellow-citizens. In the most 
 
48 The Study of Applied Sociology. 
 
 flippant manner and with their yeas and nays they are con- 
 stantly decreeing death and desolation, even when they 
 imagine they are bringing only blessings to their fellows. 
 There is but one proper justification for the passage of a 
 new law or the repeal of an old one. It should bring more 
 good than evil. How often do legislators take pains to dis- 
 cover all possible evils that might result from a proposed act ? 
 Do they ever try to trace the ramifications of consequences 
 and to see how many have been injured directly and indi- 
 rectly by the change ? No two bodies can occupy the same 
 space at the same time, and when one body is forced into 
 the previously occupied space of another, a chain of conse- 
 quences, both good and ill, must result from the successive 
 series of unforeseen changes that followed. Do not our 
 legislators and reformers usually try to bury out of sight 
 whatever might suggest possible ill consequences? In urg- 
 ing their schemes upon the people, do they ever try to make 
 clear the myriad wrongs, injustice, and damage that must 
 occur somewhere by the adoption of their scheme? In 
 pointing out only the good, they deceive. The very worst 
 and most diabolical social scheme possible, if adopted, 
 would bring some new benefits and new good to us and cor- 
 rect some existing evils. Any change, however bad, must 
 bring new good. The converse is equally true. Any 
 scheme, however good, must bring some new evil. It is 
 evident, therefore, that to only show the good that is ex- 
 pected from a proposed change, tells us really nothing of 
 the value of such a change. The worst possible scheme can 
 thus be justified. Truth can never be reached in this one- 
 sided manner. As the merchant determines his standing 
 by a comparison of the debit and credit sides of his ledger, 
 so the seeker after sociological truth can only gain it by a 
 similar process. All new schemes should be tried by this 
 process, and every man who endeavors to suppress, hide, or 
 mitigate adverse facts should be deemed a public enemy. A 
 knowledge of the evils done is really of as much or more 
 value than is that of the good. Without such knowledge 
 correct conclusions are impossible. It can always be set 
 down as a fact that when a system is urged as being free 
 from danger and devoid of evils, its advocates either do not 
 know what they are talking about or they are trying to de- 
 ceive. In the very nature of things every possible scheme 
 must have its defects and drawbacks as well as its advan- 
 tages. No scheme can be wholly good, neither can it be 
 
The Study of Applied Sociology. 49 
 
 wholly bad. When only the good in schemes of change is 
 told, the very worst of them can be made to appear as if as 
 brilliant as the very best, and when only the bad is present- 
 ed, the very best will be horrible indeed. With such one- 
 sided presentations truth can not be discovered. The tem- 
 perance men and total abstainers are of great value to prog- 
 ress in gathering the favorable facts of their schemes, but 
 their foes are of equal, and we might with safety say of 
 
 freater, value in that they present the defects and dangers. 
 Without both, action would be unsafe and attempts at prog- 
 ress dangerous. It is exactly the same with all would-be 
 meddlers of present conditions and all excessively conserva- 
 tive people. Free-traders and Protectionists, Women's 
 Righters and Anti- Women's Eighters, Greenbackers and 
 gold-bugs, each alike hides part of the truth and always the 
 good of the schemes of their foes and the bad of their own. 
 None of them seems at all anxious to get at the truth. 
 Laws are passed by legislators with the same reckless dis- 
 regard for what is right and what is wrong. There is no 
 weighing of pros and cons. It is all benefit and no harm, 
 or they will have nothing to do with it. Perplexing prob- 
 lems are ruled out, and, with the simplicity of a young 
 robin, all are expected to open their mouths and swallow. 
 Social science will in time alter all this and raise up stu- 
 dents who will take pleasure in discounting their own false 
 conclusions. 
 
50 The Study of Applied Sociology. 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 
 
 MR. DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON : 
 
 In listening to this paper, one is impressed with the great changes 
 which have taken place within one's own recollection in the treatment 
 of such subjects. Twenty-five years ago it would have been impossi- 
 ble to have such a subject discussed along the lines that Dr. Eccles has 
 chosen. There has been everywhere an entirely different method of 
 treating subjects relating to the state or to society. From the time of 
 Aristotle the idea has prevailed that society is to be studied as a cre- 
 ation, different in kind from the phenomena of the natural world, and 
 to be treated by different methods. Dr. Eccles has stated the difficulty 
 in arriving at correct results, due to a priori reasoning. The trouble 
 has been, in one word, the tyranny of institutions. The most promi- 
 nent of these are the Family, the State, and the Church. Each of 
 these, before the scientific method of study was adopted, was simply a 
 fetich. All were supposed to be of supernatural origin. It has been 
 the tendency to make each an end to itself, not a means to an end, 
 which has brought such chaos. The family is of value only as it serves 
 the people who compose it. It may become, as in ancient Rome, a 
 means of tyranny to individuals. With the state the difficulty is more 
 obvious and widespread. It was the old idea that everybody exists for 
 the state. So with the Church : it can not be criticised. It is some- 
 thing divine ; everything else must be subservient to it. The study of 
 institutions as ends, not means, has been a hindrance. When people 
 are no longer deluded by the idea that knowledge is given on authority, 
 the idea of the relation of man to the state begins to change, which 
 makes possible the science of sociology. Evolution teaches that nothing 
 is permanent, and that changes are both constructive and destructive. 
 We see, therefore, that mucK work is to be done ; it is still necessary to 
 be on our guard against the tyranny of institutions. We must preserve 
 the spontaneity of the individual, and let him take the initiative in the 
 formation of a state in which all may have the most perfect freedom. 
 
 MR. Z. SIDNEY SAMPSON: 
 
 My attention has recently been called to a peculiar form of sociologi- 
 cal bias it is the so-called " liberal " bias ; that is, the bias that in- 
 spires some to decry and belabor the opinions which they formerly 
 held and have now outgrown, arid which others still hold. I have met 
 many people who would utterly erase every vestige of what has pre- 
 
The Study of Applied Sociology. 51 
 
 ceded them in religion, politics, or sociology. Mr. Spencer ably treats 
 this subject in his chapter on The Theological Bias, in the Study of So- 
 ciology. He shows how this extreme iconoclastic spirit renders true 
 judgments in sociological questions impossible. (Mr. Sampson then 
 read several extracts from the chapter referred to.) 
 
 PROF. GEORGE GUNTON: 
 
 In the paper of Dr. Eccles a few points were forced to the front 
 and unduly emphasized, leaving an unsatisfactory result. For in- 
 stance, the speaker emphasized particularly the point that all progress 
 is made, not by virtue of man's efforts and desires, but in spite of 
 them. Then he blamed the legislators for what goes on, though, by 
 his theory, it goes on in spite of them. It is not true that there is no 
 priority between the owl and the egg. There is an initiative. There 
 is a movement onward or there could be no evolution. The problem 
 is not insoluble. To say that society goes on in spite of mankind is to 
 take the subject out of science altogether. What is the difference be- 
 tween ignorance and knowledge if all goes on in spite of us 1 If it is 
 true that things go on in spite of man, why haven't all nations gone 
 on alike ? Asiatics as fast as Europeans ? The truth is just the re- 
 verse. The evolution of society goes on because we want it to. All 
 progress depends upon human desires. Let the desire for change stop, 
 and progress stops. Who oppose what comes ? Only those whose de- 
 sires lag behind those who wish for no change. First, a few have de- 
 sires for something new and begin to work for it. By presenting its 
 advantages they affect others, and so on. The addition of social force 
 goes on until about thirty per cent of the people are convinced, and 
 then the machinery of society begins to move. New movements in 
 society are initiated because the governing portion of the community 
 have worked for it. As to the " Mugwumps " or independents, Dr. 
 Eccles left no excuse for their existence, while really they are a gilt- 
 edged, pretty lot, and ought to be useful. The Doctor says the way to 
 improve politics is to work inside the existing party machinery. But 
 the function of the " Mugwump " is to agitate things outside and pre- 
 vent the machine from crystallizing all over. The Mugwump as a di- 
 rector of affairs would make a lamentable failure ; but he does good 
 work as an agitator outside the parties. 
 
 DR. LEWIS G. JANES: 
 
 Prof. Gunton's defense of the political independent almost leads me 
 to exclaim, " Save me from my friends !" I am not quite sure that I 
 am a " Mugwump " : I do not know exactly what is implied by the 
 word, but I am very sure that I am an independent. And it seems to 
 
 ^ 
 ^X^ '** ** -* ** V^V. 
 
 A 
 
 (UNIVERSITY) 
 
 '' 
 
52 TJie Study of Applied Sociology. 
 
 me that he who fails to recognize in history the power of the inde- 
 pendent in molding the course of affairs is blind in one eye at least. 
 Did Garrison and Phillips have no influence in abolishing slavery ? 
 Have Gough and Father Matthew done nothing to make drunken- 
 ness odious 1 Could Luther and Calvin and Melanchthon have re- 
 mained in the Catholic Church and fought out there the battle for the 
 right of private judgment f Has the influence of Jesus of Nazareth 
 been less than it would have been had he remained within the pale of 
 orthodox Judaism f Would Herbert Spencer have done a greater work 
 had he wrought as a theologian in the Church or as a politician in par- 
 liament ? Evolution teaches that institutions are made for man, not 
 man for institutions ; and the strong man, the kingly soul, the leader 
 of society, is he who will not barter his manhood at the behest of the 
 machine be it sectarian or political. Nor does man inherit only the 
 static qualities of past social conditions, as Dr. Eccles would have us 
 infer. The tendency to push forward, to seek for better things, is a 
 most important part of his inheritance. As Mr. Powell phrases it, 
 "The eyes of Evolution are in its forehead." I agree with Prof. 
 Gunton that all progress comes through the desires and efforts of in- 
 dividual workers. Mr. Spencer shows that the highest morality con- 
 sists in doing right freely, not under compulsion, in accordance with 
 our desires. In Luther's phrase, " God needs strong men " to effect 
 his purposes for social regeneration. 
 
 DR. ECCLES, in reply : The criticism of the last two speakers is due 
 to a misapprehension. I agree that it is much higher to like virtue 
 than to accept virtue as a necessity ; but my contention is that in so- 
 cial science such a course of reasoning is superstitious and will lead us 
 astray. So, also, the Mugwump who takes himself out of the old party 
 loses his grip. He reduces his opportunities for good. If the independ- 
 ent stayed inside his party he would finally become a majority and exert 
 more influence for what he regards as right. Prof. Gunton is laboring 
 under a delusion in believing that social changes are primarily obedient 
 to our desires. I repeat that all progress is at the start in spite of man's 
 hopes, ideals, and desires. Man is a product of the past ; he has noth- 
 ing in common with the future except what the past gives the future. 
 All changes result from a balancing of forces. Nature's laws are im- 
 mutable ; man can only conform to their behests. Every social change 
 hurts somebody, even when it is for the better. Every true sociologist 
 knows this. We should therefore try to see both sides of the ledger 
 the debit as well as the credit side and not deceive ourselves by sup- 
 pressing the evil, and believing the course we advocate will be product- 
 ive only of good. 
 
REPRESENTATIVE 
 GOVERNMENT 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWIN D. MEAD 
 
 EDITOR OF THE NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE 
 
COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED: 
 
 Bryce's The American Commonwealth ; Spencer's Justice, and Man 
 vs. the State ; Lieber's Civil Liberty and Self-Government ; Guizot's 
 History of the Origin of Representative Government in Europe; 
 Maine's Popular Government ; Mill's Considerations on Representative 
 Government; Sterne's Constitutional History and Political Develop- 
 ment of the United States ; Cocker's The Government of the United 
 States; Fiske's Civil Government in the United States, and American 
 Political Ideas ; Macy's Our Government ; Mowry's Studies in Civil 
 Government ; Woolsey's Political Science ; Wilson's The State ; Free- 
 man's Comparative Politics ; Pollock's Introduction to the Science of 
 Politics ; Burgess's Political Science and Comparative Constitutional 
 Law ; Sir John Lubbock's Representation ; Hare's The Election of 
 Representatives, Parliamentary and Municipal. 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 BY EDWIN D. MEAD. 
 
 I CONGRATULATE this society, in undertaking such a course 
 of lectures as the present, upon its return to more orthodox 
 practices than have lately been common among us. In our 
 extreme jealousy of any kind of union of Church and State 
 we have often fallen into a very miserable and mischievous 
 avoidance of any association of religion with politics. This 
 was not true with the men who lived the Bible which we 
 read ; and it was not true of our own great Puritan fathers. 
 It is hard to distinguish what is politics and what is religion 
 when we have to do with Moses and David. Almost the 
 whole of Jewish prophecy is politics. We have made their 
 politics our religion. It is high time that we do that, to some 
 extent, with our own. It was natural for our Puritan 
 fathers to vote on Monday in the same meeting-house where 
 they prayed on Sunday, because their voting and their pray- 
 ing, the affairs of the community and the affairs of the con- 
 gregation, had much closer affinity than is the case to-day, 
 I fear, in Brooklyn and Boston. It is on Sunday that the 
 sturdy, independent freemen of those little Swiss cantons 
 the men of Uri and the men of Appenzell come together 
 to elect their magistrates and transact their public business ; 
 and before they rally at the voting place they crowd the 
 church for morning prayer. I do not think that they vote 
 the worse because of that morning prayer in the church, and 
 I do not think they pray the worse because they are to pass 
 from praying to voting. " Where the spirit of the Lord is, 
 there is liberty," is the old Bible text which Freeman recalls 
 when, in one of his books, he remembers this Swiss custom ; 
 and I think it is time for us to remember in America that, 
 if we are to expect to see true liberty live and grow here, 
 then we must see to it that our politics is pervaded and con- 
 trolled by the highest ideals and the highest spirit which we 
 have. If there is that in our politics which makes us feel 
 that it is a sacrilege and a shame to come into our churches 
 with it, then it is time for us to ask searching questions and 
 to urge some thoroughgoing reforms; and it is always 
 5 
 
56 Representative Government. 
 
 time to remember that religion is here in the world for 
 nothing at all if it is not here to be brought directly to bear 
 upon the life of the people to-day. I am glad to see church 
 doors flung open that men may come into the most sacred 
 places to consider their duties to the state. 
 
 Emerson has said that every man is eloquent at least once 
 in his life. This is a course of lectures not meant much, I 
 think, for eloquence, but for instruction, and you do not 
 expect me to be eloquent upon the subject of representative 
 government. Yet, when one thinks of the great name with 
 which the idea of representative government is more closely 
 associated in history than with any other name, one is 
 strongly tempted to let the one eloquent time in his life 
 come then and there. For there are few figures in English 
 history, at least, more stirring or heroic than that of Simon 
 de Montfort, who is properly called the founder of the House 
 of Commons, and who gave to the English Parliament, and 
 so to representative government in England, its full, strong 
 outlines. It was De Montfort who, first turning to the barons 
 for help in the reforms which were imperative in England, 
 turned then to the middle class, to the land-holders of the 
 country, and especially to the freemen of the rising towns ; 
 and by his consolidation of the representatives of these, Par- 
 liament was fully born. It has certainly grown since rep- 
 resentation has been gradually extended but it was now 
 fully born. 
 
 England had certainly not been without a parliament of 
 some kind before De Montfort. The old Witenagemote was a 
 parliament that assembly of wise men which we find in some 
 shape wherever we find Teutons at all. The constitution 
 of the Witenagemote was rather informal ; it is sometimes a 
 little difficult to determine just how much power, or property, 
 or prominence made one a proper member, and just what 
 excluded another ; but its powers at times were surely very 
 great, extending to the repression of every abuse, and even 
 to the deposing of kings. These wise men were not proxies ; 
 their assembly can not be called a part of representative 
 government ; but it was a great safeguard of justice, of pub- 
 lic right, and even of equality. Originally all free men 
 might enter the Witenagem.ote, although later membership 
 was restricted to landed proprietors. It was in earliest times 
 a most democratic institution, and great crises always tended 
 to make it democratic again. Eights fell into disuse and 
 had to be reasserted. The great reformations of the world, 
 
Representative Government. 57 
 
 the great revolutions of the world, have over and again been 
 the reassertions of privileges which, through political indo- 
 lence or negligence, have been allowed to lapse. This was 
 largely true in the case of Magna Charta itself, and wholly 
 true of other charters. It was true of the " Great Privilege " 
 of Holland. The election of William and Mary in 1688 
 (for election it was) was simply a return to ancient English 
 procedure, a new assertion of the old doctrine that kings 
 ruled by the will of the people. 
 
 Much as William the Conqueror and his Norman barons 
 did to curtail the old Saxon freedoms, there was still a 
 great family likeness between the councils summoned by 
 the kings after the conquest and the old Wit enag emote ; and 
 in those early charters, which kept getting born out of the 
 midst of the sundry oppressions, we feel much of the old 
 Saxon spirit. The last article of Magna Charta was an 
 article providing for enforcing the provisions of the charter, 
 and twenty-five barons were to be elected from the body of 
 the barons to attend to this matter. Here we have a notable 
 step, at least, toward representative government. The con- 
 firmations of the charter which successively followed its suc- 
 cessive violations showed how unsafe tyranny was becoming ; 
 and Edward I's direct manifesto to the people in an impor- 
 tant exigency showed how powerful a factor in the govern- 
 ment public opinion had already become. 
 
 It was not the barons alone who had place in Parliament, 
 even at the time of Magna Charta ; knights were elected to 
 Parliament in the county courts. Here, indeed, in these 
 institutions connected with the county courts, we may almost 
 say that we find the beginnings of representation proper in 
 England. The knights played many parts. Long allies of 
 the barons, they then became, in exigencies, the allies of the 
 Crown, and then the allies of the burgesses. These repre- 
 sentatives of the counties did not deliberate at first with 
 the representatives of the boroughs, but belonged rather to 
 the "Upper House"; as Parliament developed its power, 
 however, they gravitated to their proper place with the bur- 
 gesses, and the union of these two elements made the modern 
 House of Commons. 
 
 The barons, in those old times of the Edwards and the 
 Henrys, played various parts, now standing in the way of 
 the advancement of the people's rights, and now being real 
 leaders for liberty, encouraging by their resistance the peo- 
 ple's resistance, and giving the people their political educa- 
 
58 Representative Government. 
 
 tion. Perhaps the Parliament of De Montfort represented 
 in a roughly fair way what was then the political nation, 
 giving voice and rights to almost all that had real capacity. 
 But presently such movements as that of Wat Tyler gave 
 evidence of a class not represented, which yet had power 
 and had the sense of rights ; and such classes have gone on 
 clamoring for power in England, and getting power, until 
 at last the House of Commons has become in a very high 
 degree a body really representing the people of England. 
 
 I have said that the Witenagemote was, in a certain sense, 
 continued in the House of Lords. After the Conquest, the 
 great barons could here appear by individual proxies ; the 
 town and county representatives were proxies of the people. 
 This became the ground of division into two houses. The 
 original separation was between the counties and the bor- 
 oughs. No idea of public right had anything to do with 
 the formation of the House of Lords : it was the personal 
 importance of certain individuals that created that house 
 and gave individuals their place there. The English Par- 
 liament does not have its present constitution in obedience 
 to any general theory, but simply as a result of certain his- 
 toric facts. In different times and places there have been 
 three or four, or even more " chambers " in legislative as- 
 semblies. The town's delegates, the representatives of the 
 " third estate," deliberated separately in the Assembly which 
 Philip the Fair, of France, summoned in 1302. There 
 were six bureaus in the French deliberations of 1484. The 
 old French parliaments were not, in any strict or true sense, 
 representative bodies. It was Turgot who first looked 
 on representation with something of an Englishman's eye. 
 Turgot, if anybody, must be called the French De Mont- 
 fort. 
 
 In England we see a rapid decadence of the power of 
 Parliament under the Tudors and the Stuarts. There were 
 other reasons for it besides the personal strength of the 
 Tudor monarchs, but we will not enter into these. It was 
 by the Puritans, in the Commonwealth, that Parliament was 
 made supreme in England : Crown was abolished, House 
 of Lords was abolished ; the House of Commons alone, a 
 single chamber, representing the whole people of the state, 
 became the sole legislative power. 
 
 The English Commonwealth was a great prophecy, an 
 epoch three centuries before its time in England, and Eng- 
 lish history from that time to this has been a struggle to 
 
Representative Government. 59 
 
 realize in a broader and a better way what its great dream- 
 ers dreamed, and what, with those limitations of their age 
 from which it was impossible that they should free them- 
 selves, they resolutely tried to do. 
 
 Out of that England and that epoch were born New 
 England and America. The founders of New England 
 Winthrop and Bradford and Endicott and Hooker and Roger 
 Williams were men trying to do here what Hampden 
 and Pym and Cromwell and Milton and Vane were trying 
 to do there. " It seems to me sometimes," says Maurice in 
 his noble lectures on Representation, " as if New England 
 were a translation into prose of the thought that was work- 
 ing in Milton's mind from its early morning to its sunset." 
 
 It was not the time of the Commonwealth the political 
 dream of the Puritan however, which chiefly influenced 
 the thought of Hamilton and the men most influential at 
 the time of the adoption of our own American Constitution ; 
 but the time ushered in by William and Mary the dream 
 which satisfied the Whig. This is something not unim- 
 portant to remember. The fact that this is a federal repub- 
 lic, that we are a union of states as well as one great people, 
 constitutes, indeed, a natural reason for a Congress such as 
 ours, with its Senate and its House of Representatives. Yet 
 it may be questioned whether that Congress would have 
 been viewed as it was by Hamilton and Madison and Jay 
 had their minds not been so powerfully influenced by the 
 constitution of the British Parliament with its Lords and 
 Commons. 
 
 The history of the English Parliament itself, from the 
 time of William and Mary to the time of Gladstone, has 
 been the history of the extension of representation, the 
 Reform Bill of 1831 working the most conspicuous correc- 
 tion of abuses, and the extension of suifrage in the last dec- 
 ade creating at last a Parliament which, as I have already 
 said, may fairly be considered representative of the English 
 people. There have been no better discussions df the prin- 
 ciples of suffrage than those which have accompanied the 
 later efforts for its extension in England, the discussions 
 especially between Mr. Lowe and Mr. Gladstone Mr. Lowe, 
 as representative of the idea that the suffrage must be care- 
 fully guarded, kept strictly in the hands of the most respon- 
 sible and most intelligent ; and Mr. Gladstone, as represent- 
 ative of the idea that that nation is strongest which enlists 
 the greatest possible number of its own elements responsibly 
 
60 Representative Government. 
 
 in its own interests, and that wealth and culture alone do 
 not constitute the sole qualifications for the best political 
 judgment, often carrying with them a selfishness that is 
 more than an offset for the intelligence which may go with 
 them. By virtue of the fact that the ministry, the real ex- 
 ecutive of the English government, belongs always to the 
 party having a majority in the House of Commons, chang- 
 ing from party to party as that majority changes, the Eng- 
 lish government is more strictly a representative govern- 
 ment at every time than is our own, the ministry always 
 representing the forces actually ascendant in Parliament 
 to-day. 
 
 I have dwelt at this length upon the subject of represent- 
 ative government in England because England is really 
 the great exponent of the idea of representative government 
 in the world. It is England that through the centuries has 
 worked out the idea of representative government, and given 
 it control ; and through the example of England that that 
 idea and control have passed to America, and in varying 
 degrees to the states of Europe. 
 
 Dwelling upon the history of representative government 
 as shown in the development of Parliament, I have hardly 
 spoken of the idea as finding expression earlier often in 
 local and smaller institutions in the shiremote and the 
 hundredmote. But it is in these local institutions that we 
 really find the germ of the idea. The history of the begin- 
 nings of the jury system is really a chapter in the history 
 of representative government. The jury was an institution 
 which at the beginning had almost greater interest and 
 value from the political standpoint than from the strictly 
 legal standpoint. Securing to men, as it did, trial by their 
 peers, and standing as a bulwark against the oppressions of 
 superior classes, it played a great part in the development 
 of liberty and of equality. It may be questioned whether 
 its value and necessity have not decreased in just the pro- 
 portion that its political aspect has become unimportant, 
 and whether much of the high regard in which the jury is 
 commonly held among us is not now a superstition. 
 
 As in the early local institutions of England and of 
 Europe we find the germs of representative government, so 
 do we find them notably in the Church. The service of the 
 Church, not only for the principle of representation, but for 
 democracy altogether, is something to be carefully con- 
 sidered. The spectacle of a great organization like the 
 
Representative Government. 61 
 
 Church, in the tenth and twelfth and later centuries, with 
 men rising from the humblest walks of life to ecclesiastical 
 positions where they wielded power equal to that of baions 
 and of kings, was a spectacle which could not have been 
 without deep and universal influence ; and the parallelism 
 of theological and political thought in the case of every such 
 reformer as Wiclif and Calvin and Robert Brown should 
 never be lost from sight by the student of the development 
 of liberty in Europe. 
 
 If I have confined myself chiefly to England in this 
 historical survey, I surely would not give the impression 
 that the struggles for liberty and the struggles toward the 
 representative idea, which were going on elsewhere in 
 Europe quite independent of English influence, were un- 
 important. The history of Holland, from the earliest times, 
 has great significance here. The influence of Holland on 
 England, through her close relations with England in the 
 conflict with Spain, through the men who crossed from 
 England to help her fight her battles, and through her own 
 people who to escape Spanish oppression flocked across to 
 Norfolk and Suffolk and Essex, was much greater than most 
 of us are in the habit of thinking. Her influence upon our 
 own colonial thought, upon New York especially, but also 
 upon Connecticut and other sections, was important. She 
 influenced not only our colonial, but also our constitutional 
 period. The principle that all men are created equal, the 
 principles of the separation of Church and State, of local 
 self-government as we understand it, of public schools, of a 
 Senate, of a Supreme Court, of the written ballot, and of 
 the federal system, are Dutch principles rather than Eng- 
 lish principles. It was not for nothing that our fathers 
 lived in Holland.* 
 
 We have in Switzerland the most striking example of a 
 free democratic government, steadily developed almost 
 without interruption, on the continent of Europe. The 
 place of Switzerland in the history of liberty and of repre- 
 sentative government is a remarkable one. Indeed, wher- 
 ever we find a Teutonic people, wherever we find an Aryan 
 people, we find institutions which give hints of what we call 
 representative government. I think it was Guizot who re- 
 marked that the idea of representative government has 
 hovered over Europe ever since the founding of modern 
 
 * I would call attention to the very thorough and able pamphlet on the In- 
 fluence of Holland upon England and America, by Rev. William Elliot Griffls. 
 
62 Representative Government. 
 
 states. The idea in embryo hovered over Europe earlier far 
 than that. We never come to sharp beginnings in history. 
 Back of every institution we find something which was a 
 prophecy and a preparation. In the Spartan Ephors we 
 find something that even suggests the English ministry, 
 those officials really representing the people as against the 
 kings. In the Amphictyonic Council already we find a 
 forecast of federalism ; and we may properly ask ourselves 
 whether that which finally robbed the Amphictyonic Coun- 
 cil of its binding force the equal voice accorded in its votes 
 to the large and the small tribes is not that which may 
 work the enfeeblement and final overthrow of our own Sen- 
 ate. In Rome we have a germ of representative government 
 in the institution of the Tribunes the Tribunes being 
 elected by the plebeians and really their representatives in 
 the state. 
 
 Turning from history to the present, may we not say that 
 wherever we see representative government to-day there we 
 see government by parties ? The rise and power of political 
 parties becomes a cardinal factor in the history of repre- 
 sentative government ; and perhaps the great question to- 
 day in connection with representative government is that 
 which is raised by this aspect of it the question of the 
 rights of minorities. " If ever the free institutions of 
 America are destroyed," wrote De Tocqueville, " that event 
 may be attributed to the unlimited authority of the major- 
 ity, which may at some time urge the minorities to despera- 
 tion and oblige them to have recourse to physical force. 
 Anarchy will then be the result; but it will have been 
 brought about by despotism." To the same effect writes 
 Hamilton in the Federalist, and Jefferson in his letters to 
 Madison. And no one can face the problems raised on 
 election day, in a great city like New York, with the subsi- 
 dized ignorance pouring out of Bowery lodging-houses in 
 streams large enough to submerge the body of intelligent 
 voters, without seeing that we here touch the danger-spot in 
 America. The tendency to truckle to this ignorance, and 
 of letting commonplace men monopolize important offices 
 in the city and the state, may easily go so far as to disgust 
 the better element with the results, to an extent that might 
 work such revolutions in our polity as we do not like to talk 
 about. The gerrymandering processes so common in all 
 our states, whereby a dominant majority fortifies itself and 
 perpetuates injustice, is another most serious menace to the 
 
Representative Government. 63 
 
 stability of our republican institutions, practically robbing, 
 as it so often does, great sections of the people of their po- 
 litical rights. " Pure democracy," says Thomas Hare, " is 
 the government of the whole people by the whole people ; 
 whilst false democracy is the government of the whole people 
 by a mere majority of the people acting through representa- 
 tives elected by that majority, the minority having no rep- 
 resentation at all and being, in fact, practically disfran- 
 chised." 
 
 The mention of the name of Thomas Hare suggests the 
 most serious and important essay which has yet been made 
 by any political thinker toward a system which shall secure 
 the rights of minorities, which are so jeopardized in our 
 modern democracies.* Mr. Hare's plan is so original, so 
 revolutionary, and so thorough as to quite justify Mill's high 
 praise of it in his work on Representative Government, still 
 the most valuable single work on representative government 
 which can be given our students, as " among the very great- 
 est improvements yet made in the theory and practice of 
 government." 
 
 The great features of Mr. Hare's book are its exposure 
 of the unsuitableness of the principle of geographical divis- 
 ion in politics, and its elaboration of a system whereby men 
 may easily combine for the causes which they have most 
 at heart, without a waste of votes. Representation, as Mr. 
 Hare justly urges, is designed to collect the diversities of 
 opinion in the state, not to record the preponderance of one 
 out of two or three opinions. What really most interests 
 each of us, citizens of Brooklyn or of Boston ? Is it to have 
 one out of two doctrines which happen to be prominent in 
 Brooklyn or in Boston represented in the New York or 
 Massachusetts legislature ? Or is it to have represented there 
 some cause dearer to us than either of the two, which we 
 may hold in common with men in Rochester and Buffalo, 
 or in Springfield and Worcester ? The effort in modern 
 democracy should be to make it easy for men throughout a 
 state to combine in behalf of the cause which they count 
 most important, and to make every vote effectual for that 
 cause. There is no lack of disposition to such combination. 
 Everywhere we see the disposition to voluntary association 
 in fraternities and guilds of every sort. It is only necessary 
 
 * The Election of Representatives, Parliamentary and Municipal. By Thomas 
 Hare. London, 1859. Fourth edition, with appendix, 1873. The seventh chapter 
 of Mill's Representative Government is an exposition of Mr. Hare's work. 
 
64 Representative Government. 
 
 in our politics to resort to those simple aids which educa- 
 tion and science now afford us. Our methods of political 
 combination are far behind the time, suited to an age and 
 to conditions we have long since transcended. Montesquieu 
 believed that only small republics would ever be possible, 
 and Rousseau believed the same, because they saw no way in 
 which people over large areas could be united with that 
 closeness necessary for vital public spirit and efficient public 
 action. But great and small are purely relative terms ; and 
 the railroad, the newspaper, and the telegraph have brought 
 it to pass that the United States of America in 1891 is not 
 politically so large as New England in 1789. Yet in our 
 voting we make no use of all those helps to intelligent and 
 varied combinations which our modern conveniences furnish. 
 
 What Mr. Hare's system would secure the voter is the 
 privilege of indicating his first, his second, and his third 
 choice. If a hundred thousand voters are to have ten rep- 
 resentatives, then voters from everywhere should be per- 
 mitted to combine for the ten thousand necessary for each 
 representative ; and when, in the counting of votes, the 
 number of ten thousand is reached in the first choice of 
 the voters, then any excess should go to the second choice, 
 and thus no votes be wasted. Under our representative 
 system it often happens that fifteen thousand or more 
 votes go to the successful candidate, in such a case as that 
 supposed five thousand of the votes being thus thrown 
 away. 
 
 A slight examination of the system proposed by Mr. Hare 
 will show the student that its operation would be exceed- 
 ingly simple. Such objections as have been urged against 
 it on practical grounds have been overwhelmingly answered 
 by Sir John Lubbock and other defenders of the system.* 
 
 There was formed in England several years ago a Pro- 
 portional Representation Society, with Sir John Lubbock 
 as its president, the object of which was to establish Mr. 
 Hare's system of voting in England ; and the members of 
 this large society are not chiefly mere political theorists, but 
 members of Parliament and practical politicians. 
 
 * The reader is referred to an article in the Nineteenth Century for April, 1884, 
 by Mr. H. O. Arnold Foster, showing how a test election arranged by him in one 
 of the public schools of Westminster proved that Mr. Hare's system was instant- 
 ly understood and easily put into practice by the ordinary pupils of an English 
 school. Mr. Hare's statement of his theory has been simplified in a pamphlet by 
 the late Prof. Fawcett. The best brief work, however, upon the subject of Pro- 
 portional Representation is the little book by Sir John Lubbock, the contents 
 of which are substantially the same as those of his article upon the subject in 
 the Nineteenth Century for April, 1884. 
 
Representative Government. 65 
 
 Nowhere are the evils of our present representative system 
 so sharply exposed as by Sir John Lubbock in his arguments 
 for proportional representation. He shows how a majority 
 of twelve thousand in a Birmingham constituency might 
 and this may still be true effect no more than one thousand 
 in another place. From 1868 to 1880 Lancashire had not 
 a single Liberal representative in Parliament, although forty- 
 six per cent of the voters were Liberals. These are instances 
 taken almost at random from multitudes equally striking 
 cited by Sir John Lubbock. 
 
 " America," says Lubbock, " might have been spared a 
 terrible civil war if the principle of proportional representa- 
 tion had been recognized in the composition of the House 
 of Representatives. This was forcibly pointed out in the 
 report unanimously adopted by the committee of the United 
 States Senate appointed in 1869 to consider the question of 
 representative reform. 4 The absence of any provision for 
 the representation of minorities in the states of the South, 
 when rebellion was plotted, and when open steps were taken 
 to break the Union,' says that report, ' was unfortunate, for 
 it would have held the Union men of those states together, 
 and have given them voice in the electoral colleges and in 
 Congress. But they were fearfully overborne by the plural- 
 ity rule of elections, and were swept forward by the course 
 of events into impotency or open hostility to our cause. By 
 that rule they were shut out of their electoral colleges. 
 Dispersed, unorganized, unrepresented, without due voice 
 and power, they could interpose no effectual resistance to 
 secession and to civil war.' " 
 
 Mr. Garfield, speaking in Congress in 1870, said : " When 
 I was first elected to Congress in the fall of 1862 the state 
 of Ohio had a clean Republican majority of about twenty- 
 five thousand, but by the adjustment and distribution of 
 political power in the state there were fourteen Democratic 
 representatives upon this floor and only five Republicans. 
 The state that cast a majority of nearly twenty-five thou- 
 sand Republican votes was represented in the proportion of 
 five Republicans and fourteen Democrats ! In the next 
 Congress there was no great political change in the popular 
 vote of Ohio a change of only twenty thousand but the 
 result was that seventeen Republican members were sent 
 here from Ohio, and only two Democrats. We find that 
 only so small a change as twenty thousand changed their 
 representatives in Congress from fourteen Democrats and 
 
66 Representative Government. 
 
 five Republicans to seventeen Republicans and two Demo- 
 crats ! Now no man, whatever his politics, can justly defend 
 a system that may in theory, and frequently does in practice, 
 produce such results as these." 
 
 The appeal as to the feasibility and the success of a sys- 
 tem like that commended by Mr. Hare is not simply to the- 
 ory ; the appeal is also to fact. A system substantially the 
 same has been in successful operation in Denmark for more 
 than thirty years.* We need not, as Americans, be sur- 
 prised to find ourselves in a matter of such signal impor- 
 tance so far behind a country like Denmark. The truth is 
 and the quicker we find it out the better for us we are 
 behind most civilized countries in a hundred things in po- 
 litical administration. We have just now, it is to be feared, 
 much more to learn from other countries than we have to 
 teach them. We are vastly behind England and Germany 
 and France in the fundamentally important matter of mu- 
 nicipal organization. We are behind even a new country 
 like Australia in a score of things. It is from Australia 
 that we have recently borrowed our new ballot method. 
 We might wisely borrow from Australia much besides. Aus- 
 tralia has what we have not an eight-hour law ; the Austra- 
 lian state owns its own railroads, and generally makes the 
 ends of government the good of the people to an extent 
 which we do not approach. We may take satisfaction, as 
 Americans, in remembering that the ideas of Mr. Hare in 
 England were really anticipated to a great extent in a little 
 book by Mr. J. Francis Fisher, of Philadelphia. It would 
 be far more creditable to America, however, if she would 
 anticipate England in putting into operation this system of 
 representation, which, when once put into operation, will, 
 like the Australian ballot system, make us blush and won- 
 der at our old clumsiness. 
 
 Nothing could be better calculated than the Hare system 
 to break up the sharp party divisions which are the curse of 
 our present political life, with their exaggerated and ficti- 
 tious antagonisms. Of special service would it prove in the 
 municipal field, which is, to my thinking, the most critical 
 field with us in America at present. Nowhere is representa- 
 tive government such a sham as in our cities. With the fa- 
 cilities afforded by a system of proportional representation, it 
 
 * The father of the Denmark system is Mr. Andrae, who was at the time of its 
 inauguration (1855) the Minister of Finance. A full account of its operation may 
 be found in the appendix to Sir John Lubbock's book. Reference to it may also 
 be found in the preface to the third edition of Mr. Hare's own work. 
 
Representative Government. 67 
 
 would be possible for all the good elements in a city to com- 
 bine in ways that should make every vote count ; and ten 
 good men in a council are always a match for twenty bad 
 ones such is the law of intelligent force. 
 
 One can not fail to notice how admirably this Hare system 
 is adapted, also, to those ends proposed by the socialistic 
 thinkers of our time. As we look backward to the great 
 towns of the later middle ages, we are struck by the great 
 part which the trade guilds played in their organization and 
 government ; the trade guilds almost take the place, with 
 respect to representation in the government, which our par- 
 ties take to-day. They were much nearer right than we. 
 A Republican or a Democrat, as such, has no proper place 
 in the Common Council of Brooklyn or of Boston, because 
 the governments of Brooklyn and of Boston have nothing 
 whatever to do with any party question, and the perpetua- 
 tion or tolerance of a system which assumes that they do 
 accuses us of incapacity and childishness. We want to see 
 represented in our Common Councils real and not fictitious 
 interests ; and we want to make it easy for all good men to 
 combine for the representation there of the interests which 
 for the time they deem the most important, be they the in- 
 terests of labor, the interests of education, or the interests 
 of some particular public work. 
 
 Think as we may of socialism, it can not well be denied 
 that most of the wise legislation of our day is of a socialistic 
 character ; and whatever else a system of representation 
 may be, it must be of a kind not unsnited to this tendency. 
 We shall get over fearing socialism when we get over fear- 
 ing names and think of things. Paternalism is a name that 
 scares many estimable folk. Socialism under a despotism 
 may be paternalism, and may even be the means of consoli- 
 dating tyranny. Socialism in a true republic is simply the 
 efficient exercise of fraternalism a people's way of doing 
 its own business economically and kindly, instead of selfish- 
 ly and wastefully. The State is not something outside of 
 us, although, still victims of tradition and schooled in litera- 
 ture born of other political conditions, we sometimes permit 
 ourselves to think of it so. The State is simply ourselves in 
 our corporate capacity. " Socialism," said Lowell, " is the 
 practical application of Christianity to life " ; and Emerson, 
 in other ways, has said the same. " For my own part," 
 said Mill, " not believing in universal selfishness, I have no 
 difficulty in admitting that communism would even now be 
 
68 Representative Government. 
 
 practicable among the elite of mankind, and may become so 
 among the rest." Whatever names we like to use, it is very 
 sure that everywhere a higher view of the State is dawning, 
 and that men everywhere are sick of the presupposition in 
 politics of universal selfishness. We must begin from now 
 on to ask ourselves in our politics where the presupposition 
 of brotherhood will lead, and what system and method will 
 best fit that. 
 
 The rights of minorities, then the proportional repre- 
 sentation of every class and every cause is one great ques- 
 tion connected with representative government to-day. An- 
 other is the question of proper qualification for suffrage. 
 How shall this be settled so as to best serve at once the in- 
 terest of order and the interest of progress the two inter- 
 ests which every intelligent state has always to consider to- 
 gether ? 
 
 " The suffrage," says Mr. Hare, " should be regarded as a 
 right of value, and one not thrown heedlessly to every man. 
 It should be felt that it is a right that the State reserves 
 for its worthiest citizens, and in conferring which it adopts 
 all the tests of quality and of worth that are consistent with 
 placing the suffrage on a broad and comprehensive basis." 
 This statement will pass well enough as that of the position 
 also of Mr. Mill ; and it is a good enough statement of what 
 I conceive to be the true doctrine of suffrage, if we define 
 clearly what we mean by a "broad and comprehensive 
 basis." The doctrine is, that a man should not be allowed 
 to have a voice in public matters by mere virtue of being a 
 man, but only by virtue of capacity and character. No bar- 
 riers to suffrage should be erected or permitted which every 
 earnest man or woman may not easily transcend ; but no 
 principle of true democracy commands, and no principle of 
 common-sense excuses, the indiscriminate gift of political 
 power to ignorance and vice. We value in this world what 
 we earn. We value that which public opinion and public 
 usage stamp as valuable and serious and sacred ; and we 
 have dealt with the suffrage in America in a careless way 
 not calculated to make those who come to its exercise feel 
 that it is a sacred or a serious thing. But we have begun, 
 as Lowell wrote in the most patriotic and American of his 
 essays, "obscurely to recognize that things do not go of 
 themselves, and that popular government is not in itself a 
 panacea, is no better than any other form except as the vir- 
 tue and wisdom of the people make it so, and that when 
 
Representative Government. 69 
 
 men undertake to do their own kingship, they enter upon 
 the dangers and responsibilities as well as the privileges of 
 the function. At present, we trust a man with making 
 constitutions on less proof of competence than we should 
 demand before we gave him our shoe to patch. We have 
 nearly reached the limit of the reaction from the old no- 
 tion, which paid too much regard to birth and station as 
 qualifications for office, and have touched the extreme point 
 in the opposite direction, putting the highest human func- 
 tions up at auction to be bid for by any creature capable of 
 going on two legs. We have got to learn that statesmanship 
 is the most complicated of all arts, and to go back to the 
 apprenticeship system, too hastily abandoned." It is, I be- 
 lieve, unsafe and wrong a wrong to the State and a wrong 
 as well to every individual concerned to confer the suffrage 
 upon any in this republic who, with the facilities which every 
 state provides or should provide, can not read the newspa- 
 pers ; and it is unsafe and wrong to confer it upon any com- 
 ing from foreign lands to be fellow-citizens with us until 
 they shall have lived here long enough to understand our 
 institutions and to have become at home in the political 
 situation. It is not by suffrage alone that good opinion 
 makes itself influential, and any condition that might be 
 severe for a few individuals should and would be willingly 
 accepted by them for the sake of the common good. A 
 property qualification for suffrage, such as has until recently 
 existed in Rhode Island, is not in harmony with the spirit 
 of our time, no more than Mill's doctrine of giving extra 
 votes to superior persons persons of high culture and posi- 
 tion ; but the grounds on which many arguments against the 
 Eoll tax are urged are not, to my thinking, valid or pro- 
 Hind, not based upon the truest or the most democratic 
 theory of the State. Is not such a tax, small as it is, a salu- 
 tary recognition and reminder of the costly benefits which 
 the state confers upon even the least fortunate citizen, and 
 is not the obligation to its payment a continual education 
 in independence, a continual symbol and sacrament of inde- 
 pendence, for which the exemption from it is a poor offset ? 
 Nothing here said is inconsistent with the maintenance 
 of the suffrage on a " broad and comprehensive basis." In 
 such a basis I earnestly believe. I do not believe in any 
 aristocracy in a republic, be it an aristocracy of scholars or 
 any other. A broad basis of suffrage is the best and is the 
 safest, because it is the best basis of political education, and 
 
70 Representative Government. 
 
 that is the best government which does best educate its peo- 
 ple. But as every good system of education has its stand- 
 ards, and is strict and sensible in their application, leaving 
 nothing at loose ends, so should it be in the great school of 
 the nation, in the education which comes through politi- 
 cal responsibility. The importance of political responsibility 
 to political education must never be forgotten. He who 
 keeps in close touch with the people during the great politi- 
 cal campaigns, witnessing the intentness with which, at the 
 party rallies and mass meetings, the most searching and 
 thorough discussions of issues upon which judgment must 
 presently be passed at the polls are followed by the thou- 
 sands of all sorts and conditions, to whom such discussions 
 under other conditions would be dull and impossible, is not 
 likely to forget this. The educational value of the suffrage 
 has been most wisely emphasized, indeed, by those political 
 thinkers who have realized most keenly the importance of 
 keeping the suffrage intelligent and pure by proper safe- 
 guards. " It has long, perhaps throughout the entire dura- 
 tion of British freedom," says Mill, " been a common form 
 of speech, that if a good despot could be insured, despotic 
 monarchy would be the best form of government. I look 
 upon this as a radical and most pernicious misconception of 
 what good government is. Setting aside the fact that for 
 one despot who now and then reforms an abuse there are 
 ninety-nine who do nothing but create them, those who look 
 in any such direction for the realization of their hopes leave 
 out of the idea of good government its principal element, 
 the improvement of the people themselves. One of the 
 benefits of freedom is that under it a ruler can not pass by 
 the people's minds and amend their affairs without amend- 
 ing them." 
 
 Besides the question of proper qualification for suffrage 
 and the question of the rights of minorities, there is a third 
 question of the highest importance everywhere to-day in 
 connection with representative government, and especially 
 important here in America: the question of the proper 
 adjustment of executive and legislative power. " All real 
 government is personal," says Frederick Harrison, in his 
 book on Order and Progress, making the thesis the sub- 
 ject of a chapter. I believe it to be true at least that there 
 can be no efficient government where the executive is not 
 intrusted with large powers, and that no democracy is yet 
 well educated which is not disposed to intrust its executive 
 
Representative Government. 71 
 
 with large powers and keep from meddling with smaller 
 matters. Said Tacitus, speaking of the political customs 
 of our Teutonic forefathers, " On smaller matters the chiefs 
 debate ; on greater matters, all men " ; and the description 
 is a good definition of a true democracy, if by chiefs we 
 understand the executive committee that is charged with the 
 transaction of public business. That is not a true or well- 
 educated democracy which is meddlesome and restless, and 
 which does not respect and insist upon knowledge and ex- 
 perience and discipline and skill in its important offices; 
 whose citizens are not able to bring to bear upon their poli- 
 tics principles as sound and sensible as those which they 
 apply to their business and the common affairs of life. In 
 every province and phase of our political life we see this 
 lack of the common sense which our people use in other 
 provinces. Each new election and each political campaign 
 forces upon our attention the rapid growth among us of 
 one of the greatest of such political evils that of quick and 
 sudden rotation in office, involving as it does the keeping of 
 our public affairs more and more in the hands of inexperi- 
 enced men. The City Council, the State Legislature, the 
 national House of Representatives, is made up in ever and 
 ever greater proportion of men new to the duties, men serv- 
 ing but a single short term, men not re-elected. These 
 offices are coming more and more to be looked upon not as 
 places for service simple, hard, and faithful service for the 
 people but as goals of personal ambition, as dignities and 
 honors to decorate the official, as stepping-stones to higher 
 things. From the little circle in the ward, on and up, the 
 imperious feeling is that each in the ambitious set must 
 have his turn ; and this feeling demands that the present 
 servant shall make way just as he has acquired that degree 
 of experience which is calculated to make his service valu- 
 able. The result of all this is that our government in all 
 its branches, from municipal to national, is rapidly becom- 
 ing a government of amateurs. The permission in the other 
 affairs of life of the methods which we permit in our politi- 
 cal business would be regarded as trifling and well-nigh in- 
 sane. In our politics itself, it is bringing it to pass that 
 the strong men of the city no longer sit, in any large num- 
 ber, in the council in this respect how lamentably behind 
 Birmingham and Manchester and London are Boston, New 
 York, and Chicago ! and that our legislatures are deteri- 
 orating. The strong man does not come up there again 
 6 
 
72 Representative Government. 
 
 and again from the country town. He ought to come. 
 When we get a good man into office, we ought to keep him 
 there, instead of dismissing him just as he has learned the 
 ropes and knows how to serve us well. It is ridiculous to 
 make a new man mayor of the city each new year. No 
 man can learn the city's business and fit himself to direct 
 it in a year. Keep him there six years then we shall have 
 Quincys there. Keep the good governor twenty years, if he 
 will serve then we shall have Bradfords and Winthrops. 
 But a democracy that can not be practical, that does not 
 appreciate experience, that keeps the sophomore in the 
 majority, advertises its incompetence and invites disaster. 
 
 This society has devoted much time, in years past, to the 
 study of Herbert Spencer. Herbert Spencer wrote an article 
 on ^Representative Government for the Westminster Keview 
 thirty years ago or more (1857). He said in that article : " To 
 the question. What is representative government for? our 
 reply is : It is good, especially good, good above all others, 
 for doing the things which a government should do ; it is 
 bad, especially bad, bad above all others, for doing the 
 things which a government should not do." Carlyle him- 
 self could not arraign democracy for its weaknesses and sins 
 more sharply than Mr. Spencer does in this article ; but he 
 exposes with equal eloquence and with equal detail the evils 
 of despotism, which Carlyle was not often disposed to do. 
 He recognizes the great services of representative govern- 
 ment everywhere in securing justice ; but he thinks he de- 
 tects everywhere among those peoples where the system 
 obtains, a tendency to over-legislation and constant meddling 
 with a thousand things with which the great body of those 
 so meddling are not able to deal wisely or expertly, yet 
 which they are unwilling to intrust to those who are, or to 
 leave to take care of themselves in natural order, outside of 
 politics. Thus Mr. Spencer finds here an illustration of his 
 theory, that gain in one function is loss in others. The 
 article, as a whole, is of the same character as many that Mr. 
 Spencer has written since, the purpose and spirit of it the 
 same as those of the discussion in his recent work, " Man 
 versus the State." It is strongly opposed to the more or less 
 socialistic drift of most of the significant political thought 
 of our time, and it does not, to my thinking, reflect the 
 highest and truest conception of the State ; but it does show 
 with power that the success of a democracy must lie in its 
 power of self-control and self -education, and in the intelli- 
 
Representative Government. 73 
 
 gent and business-like delegation of political offices. And 
 this is what almost every sagacious man is urging, who deals 
 with the problems of democracy to-day. It is urged in a 
 score of recent books, like Mr. Stickney's "A True Republic " ; 
 it is urged by Mr. Low with reference to municipal govern- 
 ment in New York and Brooklyn ; it is urged by Governor 
 Russell with reference to state government in Massachu- 
 setts. But the whole point was put by Mr. Mill, in the fifth 
 chapter of his work on Representative Government in 
 many respects the greatest chapter of that great work with 
 a distinctness and completeness which have not since been 
 surpassed. " No progress at all can be made toward a skilled 
 democracy," said Mr. Mill, " unless the democracy are will- 
 ing that the work which requires skill should be done by 
 those who possess it " ; and he makes plain the radical dis- 
 tinction between controlling the business of government and 
 actually doing it. It is the failure to recognize this distinc- 
 tion that constantly betrays democracies into the bad habit 
 of voting for large numbers of officers, concerning whom it 
 is impossible that any large number of voters should have 
 adequate knowledge. So far from enabling a community to 
 effectually control its business, this is the very means to pre- 
 vent effectual control and to make easy such combinations 
 among political workers as shall defeat the desires and will 
 of the people. A true democracy will elect few officers, will 
 give these great powers, and will thus be able to hold them 
 to clear and strict responsibility. The best government in 
 America to-day is the national government better than 
 any state government or any city government, and better 
 precisely because its officials, who have great duties, have 
 great powers, and responsibility can always be accurately 
 fixed. A true democracy needs no safeguard, no veto, and no 
 weapon but the next election. 
 
 What is representative government in its essential nature ? 
 Is it simply an instrument of convenience, by which a large 
 democracy does the things which a large democracy can do 
 only so, but which a small democracy does otherwise ? An in- 
 strument of convenience it certainly is, the only system by 
 which large communities to-day can have self-government. 
 It is a system which has schooled democracies to breadth : for 
 representative government is impossible to a people that can 
 not look beyond parochial and petty affairs to general and dis- 
 tant interests. And while rational society is still in the 
 making, representative government is practically at least, 
 
74 Representative Government. 
 
 what such thinkers as Guizot hold it to be essentially and al- 
 ways, a method of creating a governing class better than the 
 general body politic. " Representation," says Guizot, " is not 
 an arithmetical machine to collect and count individual 
 wills " the individual will, as he justly argues, is not the test 
 in anything " but a process by which public reason may be 
 extracted from the bosom of society." The representative 
 body, according to this thought, is something which stands 
 between an absolute executive and the demos. The holders 
 of this theory in its extremest form are the stout defenders 
 of the bicameral system, with great stress upon the exclu- 
 siveness and power of senates, and the advocates of double 
 elections, electoral colleges, and all those institutions and 
 processes whereby "public reason" is boiled down and 
 strained, and finds efficient expression as far as possible from 
 its original source. 
 
 I do not conceive this theory of representative government 
 to be the truest one ; and it is not that which can make the 
 best appeal to the logic of events and tendencies to-day. 
 As conveniences become perfected and multiplied, and the 
 people are brought into close and easy relations with the 
 political machinery, we see everywhere their tendency to 
 assume immediate control of it, the tendency everywhere to 
 do away with what is mediate and complex. The electoral 
 college so painfully elaborated by the framers of our Constitu- 
 tion for the election of the President has become a farce. 
 The wires which carry messages each hour from capital to 
 capital, and from continent to continent, are reducing envoys 
 extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary to the merest 
 clerks. The conditions of diplomacy in the days of Benja- 
 min Franklin and John Jay were a whole world removed 
 from those of the time of Robert Lincoln and Whitelaw 
 Reid. All matters of moment between nations are settled 
 now directly by their state departments, and it is a question 
 even whether the now almost empty form of diplomatic resi- 
 dence will much longer be kept up. In matters of legislation 
 we see some very significant phenomena most significant, 
 perhaps, that of the referendum in Switzerland, the provision 
 whereby, upon the petition of a certain number of voters, at 
 present I think thirty thousand, any act of the national legis- 
 lature must be submitted to the popular vote for approval or 
 disapproval. This provision, contrary to many prophecies, 
 has not encouraged anything disorderly or radical in politi- 
 cal procedure; it has almost always been invoked, it is 
 
Representative Government. 75 
 
 conceded, in conservative interests and perhaps a sufficient 
 safeguard against its too free exercise will always lie in the 
 discredit at caching to a party or cause which invokes it 
 rashly or disastrously. In the latest state constitutions in 
 our own republic, as, for instance, those recently adopted by 
 North and South Dakota, Washington, and Montana, the ex- 
 ecutive powers are made very large, although many execu- 
 tive offices I believe mistakenly are made elective ; while 
 the legislative power is greatly limited by the extremely 
 numerous and detailed provisions of the constitutions, ex- 
 tending to so much which in the older states has been left 
 to the realm of statute law. In the newer city charters we 
 see the disposition to dispense with second chambers and to 
 plan how to give the most efficient constitution to a council 
 of a single house. 
 
 All this points to a much more direct control of the gov- 
 ernment by the people, and to an approach, through the 
 modern conveniences, back to the standpoint and practice 
 of a pure democracy, and suggests the inquiry whether rep- 
 resentative government, so far as it be anything other than 
 an instrument of convenience, is other than a school wherein 
 pure democracy can broaden itself and train itself to the 
 capacity to dispense with it whether, in a word, when a 
 democratic society or state has become mature and wholly 
 rational, its forms will not be of a character much more like 
 those of a pure and primitive democracy than like those of 
 any subsequent period in the educational process. I am 
 speaking of ultimate things and general principles ; but 
 general principles upon the theory of government are what 
 each citizen should endeavor to settle for himself, and let 
 them govern him in his dealings with particular and proxi- 
 mate reforms. Pascal said : " Plurality which does not reduce 
 itself to unity is confusion ; unity which is not the result of 
 plurality is tyranny." It is one of the best expressions of 
 the idea of perfected representative government, and of per- 
 fected democracy. A question always profitable in deter- 
 mining our theories and in determining the direction of 
 our influence is the question : How would it be if the whole 
 mass were in accord with right ? 
 
 If we ask what important contributions the United States 
 has made to the development of representative government, 
 we may say that one contribution of the highest importance 
 is our federal system, surpassing in extent, in flexibility, and 
 in strength all similar efforts in history. Arising naturally 
 
76 Representative Government. 
 
 out of the historical conditions of our colonial existence, the 
 system has extended itself across a continent, as tract after 
 tract has been added to the national domain ; and the bal- 
 ance of national and local powers as adjusted by the fathers 
 seems suited to universal application, pointing the way to 
 the federation of the world of which the dreamers dream 
 and poets sing. Does not our Supreme Court also, a cre- 
 ation of bold originality and of the greatest importance in 
 our political system, adjusting differences between state and 
 state and state and nation, point the way to the interna- 
 tional tribunal which must play a part so prominent and 
 powerful in that greater federation ? 
 
 With reference to the American federal system one seri- 
 ous problem does, I believe, confront us, or will confront us 
 in a near future the problem of the Senate. Whatever 
 the necessities which compelled an equal ranking of the 
 states in the Senate at the time of the adoption of the Con- 
 stitution, the concession there to-day of the same power to 
 small states and great, to Delaware and Illinois, to New 
 Jersey and New York, can not well be defended as theoreti- 
 cally right ; and it surely is not difficult to imagine exigen- 
 cies which would provoke most serious disaffection with the 
 system. This disaffection would be tempered if the charac- 
 ter of the Senate itself remained high, for the personal ele- 
 ment is always of great import in politics, successfully coun- 
 teracting the most serious systematic opposition. But, un- 
 fortunately, there is no phenomenon in our political life at 
 present so striking or so mournful as the decay of the Sen- 
 ate, in ability and character. The Senate is surely not with- 
 out men of ability and character we do not forget such 
 men as Mr. Sherman and Mr. Hoar ; but such men are rap- 
 idly becoming lost from sight in the great crowd of advent- 
 urers and millionaires, who constitute so startling a contrast 
 to the dignified body of half a century ago. A startling 
 thing it surely is to see a man like Mr. Evarts succeeded 
 here in the Empire State dead as Mr. Evarts has been in 
 the Senate by a man like Mr. Hill, a man who never 
 spoke a significant word, never took lead in any significant 
 public cause, and never showed the commonest symptom of 
 any kind of greatness. In Pennsylvania the Keystone 
 State, as we call it the case is as bad as in New York, both 
 its senators men who never said one word or did one good 
 thing that any man remembers, the one a notorious political 
 spoilsman, the other a rich man, merely that and nothing 
 
Representative Government. 77 
 
 more. Passing to our third state in rank Ohio the cir- 
 cumstances attending the entrance of Mr. Payne and Mr. 
 Brice to the Senate are too fresh in your recollection to 
 need recounting ; and at this time we see a disposition in 
 nearly half the Republicans of the Ohio Legislature to elect 
 Mr. Foraker to the Senate instead of John Sherman. I 
 will not proceed with this unpleasant bill of particulars. 
 The main point is not that mediocrity and adventurism 
 gravitate to the Senate as they do. The main point is that 
 the domineering moneyed interests of the country, the bar- 
 ons of our great monopolies, are pushing their way into the 
 Senate, as the place where influence is most concentrated, to 
 an extent that bids fair to soon make the Senate chiefly a 
 gathering of millionaires, a rich man's club, a House of 
 Lords. Only such a House of Lords, with simply cash cre- 
 dentials, would be far less venerable for a hundred reasons 
 than its English prototype, which progressive Englishmen 
 are now planning how to get rid of reasons such as moved 
 a radical like Cobbett, contemplating the mournful increase 
 of a vulgar and absorbing commercialism among the Com- 
 mons, to exclaim in a mood which we can at least under- 
 stand : " Thank God, we have a House of Lords ! " 
 
 It has been rightly said that the character of a repre- 
 sentative government is fixed in the long run by the consti- 
 tution of the popular house. It will become more and more 
 important with us what kind of men we send to the House 
 of Representatives. It is unlikely that we shall see the Sen- 
 ate abolished, at least at any date so early as to make it 
 necessary for me to discuss that contingency here, although 
 some of us may live to see changes in its constitution ; and 
 it is doubtful whether we want to see it abolished whether 
 a second house properly constituted is not a factor of per- 
 manent advantage in a national government like ours. If 
 our Congress should ever be reduced to a single chamber, 
 the result would be a more deliberate mode of procedure and 
 a higher standard of membership than we now see in the 
 House of Representatives, and such provision for elections 
 and terms of service as would secure the presence in the 
 House at all times of a great body of experienced men, not 
 likely to be moved by passing flutters. 
 
 But at the end it is necessary to say, and we can never 
 say it too often, that the best political system in the world is 
 good for nothing unless behind the system is individual 
 virtue. The test of the government at last is the test of 
 
78 Representative Government. 
 
 the citizen. It is in politics as it is in business, and as it is 
 all through life. In Boston we have just had, as is known 
 to the business men among you, a great financial crash ; the 
 directors of the Maverick Bank betrayed their trust, and a 
 million dollars are gone. It was a national bank, and so 
 inquiry has gone on and on from the national bank examiner 
 clear to the Secretary of the Treasury at Washington. And 
 the Secretary of the Treasury has said what is worth re- 
 peating. He finds no examiner to blame. Each had done 
 his duty in his sphere, but all had been kept from the truth 
 by the easy devices of designing men. ~No system, says the 
 Secretary, is clever enough or strong enough to insure pro- 
 tection against the devices of designing men ; there is no 
 security in business, there is no safety for the community, 
 except in honest men. 
 
 So it is in the State. We are safe if we are virtuous and 
 if our virtue is alert, if there are enough active good men 
 in the community to overcome the influence of selfish men. 
 " An indolent majority," says Mill, " like an indolent in- 
 dividual, belongs to the person who takes most pains with 
 it." Are good citizens willing to take pains ? That is where 
 it all comes to in the end. If not, then they must be pre- 
 pared for the inevitable consequences. A people that will 
 not do its duty will surely lose its privileges, and will 
 deserve to lose them. 
 
 I rejoice to see in so many quarters signs of a higher 
 devotion to political duties and to political studies. I re- 
 joice to see higher definitions of citizenship. I rejoice to 
 see men coming, as you come to-night, into the church to 
 reflect upon their duties as citizens of a free commonwealth 
 in the place where they are wont to reflect upon their stand- 
 ing in the Kingdom of God ; for " where the spirit of Grod 
 is, there " and there alone permanently " is liberty." 
 
Representative Government. 79 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 
 
 MR. FREDERIC W. HINRICHS: 
 
 Doubtless most intelligent men will agree with the lecturer in 
 nearly all he has said. But when he speaks of restricting the suffrage 
 I must take issue with him. That is hardly a practical question, 
 however, for it is scarcely within the bounds of possibility that his 
 suggestions shall be adopted. History shows that the extension of the 
 suffrage is inevitable, and once granted, it will be permanently held. 
 Universal suffrage will surely come ; we haven't it yet, even in this 
 country, for women are deprived of the right. To show the defect of 
 our present plan of representation, take an example. In a county in 
 which 100,000 voters are to elect ten representatives, if the districts are 
 equally divided, and the vote in each should be 6,000 for one party 
 and 4,000 for the other, it would be quite possible for one party to 
 elect all the representatives without gerrymandering. The large 
 minority would be entirely unrepresented. Now, by the Hare system, 
 every voter would put upon his ballot the names of several men 
 representing his views. The total votes of the parties would deter- 
 mine the number from each that would be elected : six for one and 
 four for the other, those receiving the greatest number of votes in 
 either party having the preference. The representative need not be a 
 resident of the district from which he is chosen. There is no reason 
 why a Brooklyn voter should not be represented in our State Legisla- 
 ture by a resident of Elmira if he is the best representative of his 
 views. Our present system is monstrous. Large minorities are ab- 
 solutely unrepresented ; and great questions may actually be settled 
 by a minority of the people. There are some evolutionists who be- 
 lieve because all things are developed by natural processes of growth, 
 whatever is is right, and it is of no use to devise systems of improve- 
 ment. Others say it is a matter of choice. We must believe in the 
 efficacy of education and human volition, or we should not institute 
 and attend such a course of lectures. 
 
 MR. HENRY ROWLEY : 
 
 It is well that these important topics should be discussed apart from 
 the heat of party politics, calmly and scientifically. While agreeing 
 in the main with the lecturer, I will submit one or two points of 
 criticism. 1. Mr. Mead says the English House of Lords originated 
 
80 Representative Government. 
 
 in the Saxon Witenagemote. Guizot, in his Representative Govern- 
 ment in Europe, shows that the House of Lords belongs to the barons, 
 who were of Norman origin, and has nothing to do with Saxon insti- 
 tutions or influence. The Witenagemote was an assembly on a small 
 scale, and at first was attended by everybody. Later it was confined 
 to the rich, because the poor man, the small holder, could not spare 
 the time and money to attend. But the House of Lords is a thing of 
 the barons, grown up upon military power a ridiculous thing, an 
 utterly useless and obstructive feature in the British system which 
 they can not always tolerate. 2. Mr. Mead says the principle of 
 popular representation came into vogue during the Commonwealth. 
 It may have existed since then in name, but never in fact until 1885. 
 The minority always ruled, because of gerrymandering and unfair 
 distribution of seats. The last questions raised are of great interest. 
 The Hare system was backed by Mill in his book, but not in Parlia- 
 ment. Mill is a theorist; his methods are geometrical rather than 
 practical. Lubbock also is a theorist. The system was once tried in 
 London, but has been superseded by that of district representation. 
 If ideas were represented instead of men, we should have legislatures 
 filled with impractical theorists. If an idea is worth representa- 
 tion, it will, in nine constituencies out of ten, ultimately find a 
 majority in its favor. Nearly all legislation is simply the transaction 
 of business, and our legislators should be practical men. Though 
 chosen by a majority vote, each representative, under our theory, acts 
 for his entire constituency. The minority, therefore, is not unrepre- 
 sented. The best way to secure responsibility in the voter is to edu- 
 cate him not to disfranchise him because he is ignorant. Begin 
 with the children educate them, and democracy will take care of 
 itself. The English system, which compels a ministry to retire when 
 defeated, is more truly democratic than our own. We can only have 
 a true democracy when all the people have a full right to cast their 
 ballots in the most practicable way, without let or hindrance, and 
 those in authority simply carry out the will of the people so expressed. 
 
 DR. LEWIS G. JANES: 
 
 Mr. Mead has shown that in representative government as it origi- 
 nated in England the representation was of classes rather than of men. 
 Before our own Government was constituted I am not aware that 
 manhood representation was ever successfully attempted on a large 
 scale. As an evolutionist, I recognize that all forms of government 
 are proper in their place any form exists, or should exist, only as the 
 people are fit for it. In a perfect community manhood suffrage (and I 
 include woman in the term) is the ideal thing. But manhood suffrage 
 
Representative Government. 81 
 
 in Central Africa would be an absurdity. Have we reached the social 
 state wherein manhood suffrage is safe and practicable "? It is a question 
 in some mmds whether we have, but I have not concluded that our 
 method is a failure. Our foreign population is admitted to suffrage 
 easily, but less easily assimilated by our body politic. In two or three 
 generations, however, the descendants of immigrants make as good 
 voters as any. The suffrage is a great educating power. I agree with 
 Mr. Hinrichs that we can take no backward step toward the limita- 
 tion of suffrage by a property qualification, for instance save by an 
 absolute revolution. 
 
 MR. MEAD, in closing, said : I do not wish to be understood as de- 
 fending the House of Lords. It is " useless, dangerous, and ought to 
 be abolished." But when one sees the rapidity with which the Ameri- 
 can Senate is becoming the representative of the great money interests, 
 one may rightly compare it with the House of Lords to see how, in 
 that body, even as Cobbett saw, are qualities and credentials more 
 dignified than those which so often get approval among us. As to the 
 origin of the House of Lords in the Witenagemote : it is truo a great 
 part was played by the Normans, but the old Saxon institutions ivere 
 gradually merged with the Norman. The historical view is excel- 
 lently presented by Mr. Freeman in his little book on the English 
 Constitution. The Witenagemote did not deal simply with the affairs 
 of the locality, but also with those of the realm. It is true, too, that 
 it is only in our time that the English have had a fair representation. 
 The principle was forecast by the men of the Commonwealth. In 
 comparing our system with that of England we must not forget that 
 the Crown does exercise real power in times of change. The Crown is 
 the hinge on which ministries turn, and we have no such feature in 
 our system. Just there the French constitution, I believe, will wreck. 
 It can exist as long as they have Presidents like Grevy and Carnot 
 able to work with ministries of varying complexions. Men like Gam- 
 betta could not do it ; such men have too strong feelings to permit 
 them to work with those sharply opposed to themselves. I believe 
 that there was great danger of revolution in France under Macmahon. 
 My idea of a restricted suffrage is certainly not to make it small, but 
 to guard against ignorance and too easy naturalization. The Hare 
 system, I wish to say, is not backed by political theorists exclusively. 
 Two or three hundred members of Parliament have declared in favor 
 of it, and the general principle of proportional representation had the 
 unanimous approval of a committee of the United States Senate ap- 
 pointed at one time to consider the matter. 
 
SUFFRAGE 
 AND THE BALLOT 
 
 BY 
 
 DANIEL S. REMSEN 
 
COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED: 
 
 Bryce's The American Commonwealth ; Fiske's Civil Government 
 in the United States ; McMillan's Elective Franchise in the United 
 States ; Sir John Lubbock's Representation ; Sterne's Representative 
 Government and Proportional Representation; Buckalew's Propor- 
 tional Representation; Bowker's Electoral Reform; Ivins's Machine 
 Politics; Lawton's American Caucus System; Whittridge's The Cau- 
 cus System ; Roosevelt's Essays on Practical Politics ; Hare's Election 
 of Representatives, Parliamentary and Municipal ; Mill's Considera- 
 tions on Representative Government. 
 
SUFFRAGE AND THE BALLOT. 
 
 BY DANIEL S. REMSEN. 
 
 As the suffrage and the ballot are at the foundation of 
 our national life, they demand both a careful and a religious 
 consideration. 
 
 Suffrage is the act of voting. The right to perform that 
 act is known as the right of suffrage or the elective fran- 
 chise. This right is secured to certain persons by the Con- 
 stitution of the United States as well as by those of the sev- 
 eral States. I will not touch upon the propriety of extend- 
 ing the right of suffrage to women, or of restricting it 
 further in case of resident aliens, as other essays to be 
 read before you will deal with those points. 
 
 REPRESENTATION". 
 
 Under every form of government where people have the 
 right to vote, some form of representation is necessary. 
 Few public duties can be performed by the whole body of 
 the people. Most public duties devolve on individuals 
 acting for the whole. Persons performing those duties on 
 behalf of the public are called officers or officials, and in 
 popular governments they are said to " represent " the 
 people, as they act for them. With reference to representa- 
 tion, officials may be divided into two classes. One class 
 is composed of the single officers, such as governor, mayor, 
 sheriff, and the like, each acting alone for all the people 
 within a particular State or district. 
 
 The other class is composed of the plural officers, such as 
 senators, members of assembly, aldermen, and the like, who 
 act together in performing the duties of their offices, which 
 are generally legislative in their nature. 
 
 With these two classes of officials in mind you will read- 
 ily see that where a single official for example, a governor 
 is elected by a slight majority, he in one sense represents 
 only those who voted for him, while in another sense he 
 represents all. In the last sense he represents all, not 
 because he is chosen by all, but because he must act for all. 
 
86 Suffrage and the Ballot. 
 
 Where, however, the duties to be performed fall into the 
 hands of a body of officers, and not to a single individual, 
 there is opportunity for what is more properly termed rep- 
 resentation. 
 
 To represent, in its proper sense, is to stand for or act for 
 another in any transaction. If, for instance, in the election 
 of assemblymen, a certain number of voters residing any- 
 where throughout the State, without reference to district, 
 were allowed to agree upon a particular person to act for them 
 in the Assembly, such voters would be represented in the full- 
 est and best sense of the word, as their representative would be 
 a man of their choice. A legislature elected in that manner 
 would be a miniature of the people. This method of repre- 
 sentation is what is known as personal representation, and is 
 probably the most perfect that can be devised. Some twenty- 
 five years ago an endeavor was made by David Dudley Field, 
 Simon Sterne, and others, to have that method of representa- 
 tion adopted in this State. That method, however, is not 
 generally understood, and consequently it is not appreciated. 
 The present method of representation is very different. It 
 is what is known as the single-district system. The State 
 is divided into districts, and the voters in each district are 
 allowed to send one representative to the Legislature. As it 
 is impossible to bring all the inhabitants of any district to 
 agree on the election of one representative, it follows that all 
 who do not vote for the successful candidate have no chosen 
 representative to speak for them. This fact has given rise 
 to a demand for some form of minority representation in 
 legislative bodies. The imperfect representation which is 
 unavoidable in the election of a single officer, such as a 
 governor or mayor, has been unnecessarily extended to the 
 election of legislative bodies by the use of the single-district 
 system. Added to this we have what is familiarly known as 
 the gerrymandering of districts, whereby bad representation 
 becomes misrepresentation. 
 
 While there are other forms of representation, we will 
 not stop to consider them. But if we look generally over 
 the field of elections, we will notice that most officers chosen 
 are such as hold the only position of the kind within the 
 particular State, municipality, or district. That is, aside 
 from presidential electors, and in this city aldermen, prac- 
 tically all voting is for single officers, such as a governor, 
 mayor, a State senator, assemblyman, sheriff, and the like. 
 As that is the general rule in this and other States, my 
 
Suffrage and the Ballot. 87 
 
 remarks will be confined to single elections or elections 
 of single officers. 
 
 THE SPOILS SYSTEM. 
 
 Before proceeding further I wish you to understand how 
 the faulty representation incident to single elections fosters 
 and encourages what is known as the spoils system. The 
 election of a single officer is secured by the united action of 
 a fraction of the voters not all the voters. Hence the per- 
 son elected ordinarily feels indebted to that fraction of the 
 community, and if he does not do all in his power as a pub- 
 lic officer to reward his supporters, he is looked upon as un- 
 grateful. Thus has grown up a system of vassalage, or a 
 feudal tenure of office. In this way, after parties have come 
 into power, their ability to dispose of patronage acts as a 
 cement to keep the party together. 
 
 New parties are always formed about some political prin- 
 ciple or policy of government. At first they draw their 
 support and increase, if any, from other political parties by 
 detaching from them voters who believe in the new prin- 
 ciple and are not attached to the old party by office or the 
 hope of it. I do riot mean to say that none come from self- 
 ish motives. Undoubtedly many do when there is hope of 
 success, but the spoils system plays no part in party manage- 
 ment until there is some measure of success. As soon as a 
 party succeeds in electing its candidate to office, there are 
 plenty within its ranks to look about for loaves and fishes. 
 And the more power the officer has to distribute good things 
 by creating or filling vacancies in minor offices, the more he 
 is besieged and the more likely he is to serve his party rather 
 than the people in the administration of his office. The 
 result of the spoils system is that many elections, involving 
 no policy of government except the honesty and ability of 
 the candidates, degenerate into desperate struggles between 
 members of two parties for a means of livelihood. In any 
 consideration of the spoils system it is important to examine 
 its cloak 
 
 THE NATIONAL ISSUE IN LOCAL AFFAIRS. 
 
 How absurd it is to drag national politics into local elec- 
 tions ! to elect a mayor because he favors tariff reform or to 
 defeat a candidate for constable because he thinks the 
 7 
 
88 Suffrage and the Ballot. 
 
 National Government should enter upon the free coinage of 
 silver ! Such a practice can not be excused except from a 
 party standpoint. For it I can see but two motives : First, 
 the securing of office and patronage as spoils, and, Second, 
 the holding of voters together so that they can be relied 
 upon when national issues do arise. 
 
 The first motive is entirely selfish, and the last is not 
 above criticism, besides being uncomplimentary to the intel- 
 ligence of the voter. A marked instance of this confusion of 
 issues was exhibited in the last campaign when certain citi- 
 zens and newspapers supported the Democratic candidate 
 for governor and other candidates on national issues, lest the 
 election of a Eepublican governor should lead the public to 
 believe that the State of New York favored the policy of 
 the present administration in tariff legislation. In Ohio 
 and Massachusetts it is reported that campaigns were fought 
 and won on national issues. Even in municipal .elections 
 irrelevant issues were raised and determined the election. In 
 this way many a person who would be the choice of the peo- 
 ple to perform the duties of an office has been defeated, 
 much to the detriment of the public service. The existence 
 of these facts indicates a weakness in our election machinery 
 which should not be overlooked, and to which I will recur 
 at the end of this paper. 
 
 THE BALLOT. 
 
 In the consideration of suffrage and the ballot our atten- 
 tion is drawn most naturally to the act of voting by means 
 of the ballot. And we will endeavor to consider it from 
 the practical rather than from the historical point of view. 
 
 Originally, as you all know, the ballot was a ball, a shell, 
 or other symbol by which the voter indicated whether he 
 was in favor of or against a particular proposition. That 
 old style of voting is still popular and serviceable in clubs 
 and societies for speedy action on simple questions. After 
 the invention of printing came the printed paper ballot in 
 various forms, until what is probably the most perfect form 
 of ballot yet devised has made its appearance the blanket 
 ballot of the Australian system. There the names of all the 
 candidates for a given office are arranged alphabetically on 
 a single ballot and the voter is allowed to mark the name of 
 the person for whom he votes. By the use of the Australian 
 system of voting the danger of 
 
Suffrage and the Ballot. 89 
 
 BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION 
 
 in elections has been overcome to a considerable extent. 
 The secrecy enforced in voting is the point of safety. By 
 that simple device the would-be purchaser of a vote is de- 
 prived of a means of absolute certainty that the vender of 
 a vote voted according to contract. But, notwithstanding 
 the secrecy incident to voting, practical politicians assert 
 that many votes are still bought. Probably the instruments 
 now most conducive to the purchase and sale of votes in 
 this State are the separate party ballots and the paster bal- 
 lot. But as these are already in much disfavor, it is to be 
 hoped that they will soon disappear. Another recent im- 
 provement in laws relating to elections is the 
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES ACT. 
 
 While our State legislation on this subject is not wholly 
 satisfactory, it is a great improvement on former statutes. 
 Formerly, only the ordinary gift or promise of money or 
 thing of value as a consideration for voting or withholding 
 a vote constituted bribery. Now, however, bribery may 
 consist in promising office or employment, or to make 
 endeavor to procure office or employment, for any person as 
 a means of influencing votes. Indeed, I am not sure that 
 the words of this statute do not make it unlawful to employ 
 workers at the polls for hire. 
 
 Under another wholesome provision of this act the public 
 is able to form some idea of the part played by money in 
 political campaigns. Each candidate is required to file an 
 itemized statement showing in detail all the moneys con- 
 tributed or expended by him, directly or indirectly, in aid 
 of his election. Under this law the 'favorite method is for 
 candidates to contribute to a campaign committee and to 
 file a statement to that effect. What becomes of the money 
 subsequently is, of course, unknown. Committees are not 
 obliged to make any showing as they should, and probably 
 soon will be. The saddest spectacle in the last campaign 
 was the enforced contribution by able and honorable men 
 who were candidates for several of the most important judi- 
 cial positions within the gift of the people. Their enforced 
 contributions ranged as high as ten thousand dollars. One 
 political organization in this way gathered in from success- 
 ful candidates for judicial positiona something like thirty 
 
90 Suffrage and the Ballot. 
 
 thousand dollars, one of the candidates for civil justice 
 having contributed $500 more than one year's salary, which 
 is $6,000. These enforced contributions on the part of the 
 candidates must be regarded either as blackmail on the can- 
 didate or as a price paid for the office. That such a con- 
 dition of affairs should exist under any form of government 
 is simply scandalous. 
 
 Michigan has passed a law on the lines of the New York 
 statute, but has extended the provisions in regard to sworn 
 statements so as to include the account of moneys expended 
 by campaign committees.. It also prohibits treating and 
 certain other forms of expenditure of campaign funds. In 
 Minnesota a bill has been proposed containing a provision 
 limiting the amount that can be expended by candidates for 
 the several offices. This is on the plan of the English stat- 
 ute, which has worked very satisfactorily. When to these 
 provisions is added some form of judicial inquiry as to the 
 use of the funds, where deemed advisable, which I believe 
 is proposed in Massachusetts, legislation on this point will 
 be quite satisfactory. Even then there is one matter which 
 should not be overlooked. That is the practice of 
 
 TRADING VOTES. 
 
 " If you will vote my ticket for mayor I will vote your 
 ticket for governor." How often is such a proposition made 
 and accepted between voters of good standing in the com- 
 munity, but of opposite politics ! Such a transaction does 
 not come within the statute relating to bribery ; but I do 
 not believe it can be defended from an ethical point of view. 
 If, as is generally conceded, the State can rightfully claim 
 that it is the duty of citizens to vote, it necessarily follows 
 that each voter is under obligations to pass upon each mat- 
 ter according to his best judgment. What would be thought 
 of a judge if he should announce that he would decide a 
 certain case upon the merits of some other ? If judges can 
 not properly trade decisions, voters should not trade votes. 
 
 Let us now pass from the means of voting and the pro- 
 tection of the sacred character of the ballot to the joint 
 action of voters. 
 
Suffrage and the Ballot. ' 91 
 
 THE UNITED ACTION OF VOTERS 
 
 is absolutely necessary. Whatever may be the method of 
 voting, it is almost useless for voters to participate in the 
 modern election without taking some preconcerted action. 
 This was well illustrated some years ago by the late Howard 
 Crosby. He had been reported as having voted for John 
 Morrissey for State Senator, and a reporter was sent to as- 
 certain as to the truth of the story. Dr. Crosby was 
 met as he was leaving his home, and when asked about the 
 matter he hurriedly replied : " I did not vote for Mr. Schell 
 (Mr. Morrissey's opponent) because he represented Tam- 
 many Hall, and I did not vote for John Morrissey because 
 he is a gambler." "But you did vote ?" queried the re- 
 porter. " True," answered the doctor, " I voted for Prof. 
 Doremus, of course not with any expectation of electing 
 him, but simply to express my individual preference. I 
 knew it was all moonshine ; I simply threw away my vote 
 for the reasons mentioned." 
 
 MEANS OF UNITING VOTEES. 
 
 This little incident will serve to impress on the mind the 
 absence of any means provided by law tending to bring 
 about united action by voters. Citizens are left to their 
 own expedients. They are at liberty to combine in any way 
 they shall see fit. The result is that two forms of combina- 
 tion have appeared : first, the combination among individ- 
 uals, called parties, and, second, the occasional combination 
 between parties, called fusions. 
 
 I will first speak of 
 
 PARTY COMBINATIONS, 
 
 or fusion tickets as a means of uniting voters. Where 
 there are but two parties, if the election does not result 
 in a tie the candidate of one party necessarily secures more 
 than half the votes. In that case he is said to be elected 
 by a majority. Where there are more than two parties in 
 the field it very frequently happens that they are nearly 
 evenly divided. According to the method ordinarily used 
 in public elections, the candidate receiving the greatest 
 number of votes would be elected, notwithstanding the 
 fact that the combined strength of the other two candi- 
 
92 Suffrage and the Ballot. 
 
 dates might be almost double his vote. To illustrate : If 
 in the election of a president of this association one candi- 
 date should receive thirty-four votes, and two other candi- 
 dates each thirty-three votes, the one receiving thirty-four 
 votes would, under the rules applied to public elections, be 
 elected to the office. 
 
 In Europe elections by a minority are not so common 
 as in this country. The means ordinarily employed to se- 
 cure a majority is to have a second election between the 
 two highest candidates, which necessarily secures the de- 
 sired result. That plan, however, in this country is not 
 generally adopted, and elections are frequently decided by a 
 minority vote where there are more than two candidates in 
 the field. 
 
 As we all know, scattering votes are of no importance 
 in determining an election. Likewise the voters of a third 
 party have no affirmative effect on the result. Indeed, if 
 the state has an interest in having all vote who are entitled 
 to do so, it has an equal interest in having every vote counted 
 for one of the two principal candidates, for then, and not 
 otherwise, a vote aids in determining an election. 
 
 These considerations have given rise to the occasional 
 practice of the principal minority parties agreeing before an 
 election on what is termed a fusion ticket. They agree for 
 the time being to join their forces with the hope of together 
 securing a majority vote. In order to do this, however, it 
 is necessary for one or the other party, or perhaps both, to 
 abandon temporarily, or to some extent, its party organ- 
 ization. To this there are many objections from a party 
 standpoint. The result is that many voters are lukewarm 
 in support of a fusion ticket or do not vote at all. Election 
 machinery should tend to the unification of all voters. The 
 present election machinery, however, does not make any 
 provision for aiding the voters of different parties to unite 
 at an election without at least some of the voters abandon- 
 ing their party to support a fusion ticket. This, it seems 
 to me, is one of the weakest points in our present election 
 laws and one which can be remedied in the manner hereafter 
 to be described. 
 
 We now come to 
 
Suffrage and the Ballot. 93 
 
 THE PARTY AS A MEANS OF UNITING VOTERS. 
 
 The party as a political force sprang up very early in the 
 history of this country. It still exists, and probably always 
 will. A similar condition of affairs appears to be present 
 wherever it is necessary to ascertain the popular will. A 
 political party is an association of voters for the purpose of 
 securing the adoption of some favorite policy in the admin- 
 istration of government. Its function is to bring about 
 united action among voters in favor of its principles. 
 "While a party is generally put to a different use, it in some 
 particulars reminds one of the sand-bag sometimes used by 
 highwaymen. Its strength and utility lie in small particles 
 closely confined and arranged into a convenient form of 
 club. The knowledge of each voter that if he does not act 
 with a party he is practically disfranchised is perhaps one 
 of the greatest agencies in holding a party together. Few 
 care to imitate Dr. Crosby, and vote simply for " moon- 
 shine." 
 
 On the formation of a party and ever afterward some 
 agency must be provided for 
 
 DETERMINING THE LINE OF PARTY ACTION. 
 
 The means originally employed in this country for that 
 purpose was the caucus, which some say derived its name 
 from meetings of ship calkers held in Boston shortly prior 
 to the Revolution. But, without going into the origin of 
 the name, we find the methods of the caucus employed in 
 the Plymouth Colony at the election of a governor in 1635. 
 This, Mr. Hildreth says, in his history of the United States, 
 is the first instance of the caucus system on record. Mr. 
 Lawton, however, in his work on the American Caucus 
 System, claims that the historian is in error. He refers to 
 the case of Abimelech, one of the sons of Gideon, who 
 desired the judgeship vacated by the death of his father, 
 and says that when Abimelech took advantage of the kin- 
 ship of his mother, who was a Shechemite, and "com- 
 muned" with his mother's relatives, this communion was 
 simply a caucus. 
 
 However interesting such speculation may be, it is prob- 
 ably true that the caucus system, as applied to parties, is 
 essentially an American institution, and had its rise, or 
 came into general use, shortly after the adoption of the 
 
94 Suffrage and the Ballot. 
 
 present Constitution of the United States. In its primitive 
 form it may be said to have resembled the famous town 
 meetings of New England, in which a century or so ago 
 were gathered some of the most noted persons in American 
 history to discuss public questions with the greatest de- 
 liberation. Hon. Thomas M. Cooley, so well and favorably 
 known to the people of the United States, has said of the 
 caucus : " Theoretically, it may be denned as a deliberative 
 meeting of citizens for consultation, with a view to deter- 
 mine the course of public action," but practically he takes 
 a very different view of it. As the town meeting has 
 become obsolete in populous communities, so the caucus in 
 its original use has very largely passed away. In our large 
 cities a caucus of all the voters within a party would be 
 impracticable ; hence the primary election and nominating 
 convention have been substituted, and the caucus is left to 
 the party leaders. I need not take your time to describe 
 how the voters in each party organize in each ward and 
 elect delegates to a county or State convention for the 
 nomination of officers. That is well known to all. The 
 machinery of these organizations, however, is generally 
 more or less complicated, and political leaders become very 
 expert in its manipulation. 
 Let us now look at 
 
 PARTIES AS THEY ABE MANAGED. 
 
 Perhaps the most distinguished and at the same time 
 the most disinterested witness that could be called on this 
 point is Prof. Bryce. In his American Commonwealth he 
 says of the parties and their management in this country : 
 "Parties go on contending because their members have 
 formed a habit of joint action, and have contracted hatred 
 and prejudices, and also because the leaders find it to their 
 advantage in using these habits, and playing upon these 
 prejudices. The American parties continue to exist because 
 they have existed. The mill has been constructed and its 
 machinery goes on turning, even where there is no grist to 
 grind. But this is not wholly the fault of the men, for the 
 system of government requires parties just as that of Eng- 
 land does. These systems are made to be worked, and 
 always have been worked, by a majority. The majority 
 must be cohesive, gathered into a united and organized 
 body. Such a body is a party." 
 
Suffrage and the Ballot. 95 
 
 One of the most severe arraignments of party manage- 
 ment which has come to my notice was recently put forth 
 by a body of very respectable citizens in the city of Phila- 
 delphia. They say : " In a commonwealth of over five 
 millions of people, the industrious citizen, occupied by busi- 
 ness, by domestic or social responsibilities, has insensibly 
 permitted the formation of a political clique, which has 
 been guided largely by two considerations self-interest, and 
 the perpetuation of personal power. ..." He "has been 
 sometimes cajoled, sometimes deceived, sometimes con- 
 ciliated, but the process of perfecting the machinery of the 
 political organization for the convenience of its clever 
 artificers has gone steadily forward. . . . There is a pre- 
 mium placed upon political subservience, but not upon 
 political independence, however sincere its spirit, however 
 essential to our progressive civilization." They also say 
 that the consequence is that few men of distinguished 
 merit enter public life. 
 
 In another State it is asserted on good authority that the 
 principal nominations in both parties are dictated by one 
 and the same person, or coterie of persons who are acting 
 together for their individual interests. 
 
 Let me read an extract from a letter received from one 
 of the best-known and most public-spirited men in the 
 United States. He has held many responsible public offices. 
 His name is known to you all, but, as I can not use it, I will 
 say that it commands respect in all parties. He says 
 briefly : " The evil to be remedied is the dictation of the 
 political boss. As parties are now constituted, nominations 
 are made, not by the community or any considerable portion 
 of it, but by a single man, who, for the time being, is in 
 control of the party machine. I never held office except by 
 the consent of such a boss, and when I rebelled against him 
 I was defeated. I know of no remedy for this state of 
 things, because the public stand idly by and permit the 
 dictation, and seem rather to enjoy the results of it. Edu- 
 cation and intelligence have always been put forward as 
 the proper antidotes for political evils, but my observation 
 leads me to think that the educated portion of the com- 
 munity is more apt to follow the machine than any other 
 portion of it, because the uneducated can be purchased, 
 while the enlightened are probably beyond the reach of 
 that temptation." 
 
 This form of criticism is not confined to any one party. 
 
96 Suffrage and the Ballot. 
 
 The complaint is general and practically unanimous among 
 thinking men that party management has become so cen- 
 tralized in persons controlling the patronage that they make 
 the party nominations. 
 Let us now inquire, 
 
 WHY is PARTY MANAGEMENT UNDULY CENTRALIZED? 
 
 When criticism is offered on this point, the first retort one 
 hears is : " Whose fault is it ? " There is no attempt at 
 denial, but the sins of all are laid at the door of those who ab- 
 stain from attendance at the primaries. But who are those 
 people who so sadly neglect their political duties ? I believe 
 the answer given to this question by Mr. Joseph H. Choate 
 is generally accepted as correct. He says they are " the great 
 body of the educated men of the country and the still greater 
 body of business men of the country." The reasons for 
 this neglect are manifold. The citizens referred to by Mr. 
 Choate are busily engaged throughout the day in an exhaust- 
 ing pursuit of their private business, and when night comes, 
 which is the time when most political organizations take 
 action, they are fatigued, and their home, or some place of 
 amusement, is more congenial to their tastes. Besides, 
 when they are induced to attend, they find the surroundings 
 not at all pleasing. As they seldom attend the meetings, 
 they are unknown to their associates. Consequently they 
 have very little weight in the organization. They are will- 
 ing to do what they can, but they do not know how to go 
 about it, and have not the time or the inclination to enter into 
 any heated contests for the control of the primary organiza- 
 tion. On the other hand, those voters who are not accus- 
 tomed to spend their evenings at home are out in full force, 
 as the political organization is to them more or less of a club 
 home. They know the frequenters of the primary, and are 
 well known. Their evenings at the primary are spent more 
 or less congenially, and thus it happens that they become 
 attached to the leaders of the organization, and between 
 them there is more or less fellowship. This is only natural. 
 In any sort of organization the work is apt to devolve on a 
 few, and as the work falls on a few, the management is 
 likely to drift into their own hands. The less work that is 
 done by any member, the less 'he is likely to be called upon to 
 take any active part. 
 
Suffrage and the Ballot. 97 
 
 THE EEMEDY NOW IN USE 
 
 for the neglect of the primary is described by Mr. Theodore 
 Roosevelt in his essay on Practical Politics. Under the 
 head of Beating the Machine he says : " In the better 
 wards the difficulty comes in drilling a little sense and 
 energy into decent people. They either do not care to com- 
 bine, or else refuse to learn how. In one district we did at 
 one time, and for a considerable period, get control of affairs 
 and elect a set of almost ideal delegates and candidates to 
 the various nomkiating and legislative bodies, and in the 
 end took an absolutely commanding, though temporary, posi- 
 tion in the State, and even in national politics. This was 
 done by the efforts of some twenty or thirty young fellows 
 who devoted a large part of their time to thoroughly organ- 
 izing and getting out the respectable vote." 
 
 If, then, we are to assume that the primary political 
 organizations are not what they should be, and that the only 
 present remedy, as Mr. Roosevelt puts it, " is by the united 
 and persistent effort of those who are least likely to engage in 
 that pursuit," is it not time to recognize the fact that that 
 agency can not be relied upon ? I think it is. The facts 
 have proved it a hundred times, and all admit it. This brings 
 up the question : " What shall be done ? " To this point I 
 will recur before closing. 
 
 RECIPROCAL DUTIES OF STATE AND CITIZEN. 
 
 In order to make effective the remedy referred to by Mr. 
 Roosevelt, it seems to be necessary for citizens to devote not 
 only a considerable portion of their time, but to do so in an 
 employment which is not congenial to their tastes. That it 
 is the duty of each citizen to give a reasonable amount 
 of his time, and to expend a reasonable amount of en- 
 ergy, in securing proper nominations to public office, all 
 will admit. Each citizen undoubtedly owes this duty to the 
 State, and owing to this duty to the State, the State in turn 
 is obligated to furnish him with the means whereby the 
 time and energy which duty requires him to give shall be 
 expended in a manner that shall make his effort felt in the 
 result. It can not justly require him to give up a large por- 
 tion of his time and require him to study and practice what 
 has become a profession in order that his influence shall be 
 felt in making nominations. The State has also a duty to 
 
98 Suffrage and the Ballot. 
 
 the citizen growing out of the fact that it prints the ballots. 
 It should see to it that the names of the candidates which it 
 prints upon the ballots to be cast by the voter are not chosen 
 through fraud and trickery. As it is useless for single 
 individuals to go to the polls without prior organization in 
 the hope of electing an independent candidate to office, it is 
 the duty of the State to see to it that the organizations 
 among voters, so far as they operate to place candidates in 
 nomination, conform to fair and reasonable rules. 
 
 Thus far we have considered the present means of voting, 
 and present means afforded voters for united action. Let 
 us now turn our attention to 
 
 REMEDIES. 
 
 These we will treat in two chapters : one relating to so- 
 called election machinery and the other to nominating ma- 
 chinery. 
 
 If any one expects to have provided an infallible remedy 
 for all political evils, he will do me a favor by laying aside 
 such a violent supposition. The best that can properly be 
 expected is something in the nature of suggestions which, 
 let us hope, may be worthy of consideration. 
 
 The first improvement I wish to urge in relation to 
 
 ELECTION MACHINERY 
 
 is the adoption of a means whereby voters of different par- 
 ties can unite at an election without the voters of either 
 party abandoning their candidate. In other words, a means 
 whereby each party can support its own candidate, and at 
 the same time unite with another to defeat a third, and 
 thus prevent minority elections. The means I wish to 
 advocate for this purpose is very simple. It is this : Per- 
 mit each voter to indicate on his ballot his second choice 
 as well as his first choice candidate. This he can do very 
 easily where the genuine Australian blanket ballot is used. 
 The voter would simply have to mark the figure 1 opposite 
 the name of his first-choice candidate, and the figure 2 
 opposite his second choice. Then, when the time comes 
 to count the votes, let each ballot be counted according 
 to the first choice, and without any reference to the second 
 choice. If the result of this count should be that no 
 candidate received a majority of all the votes cast, let the 
 
Suffrage and the Ballot. 99 
 
 candidate having the least number of first-choice votes re- 
 tire from the race, and then let the ballots cast by the 
 persons who supported him be redistributed according to 
 the second choice marked on each ballot. 
 
 Perhaps you can better understand by an illustration. 
 Suppose in an election A received five votes, B four, and C 
 three. If we stop here, A would be elected. Suppose, how- 
 ever, that each person who voted for had written on his 
 ballot these words : " I give my vote for C unless he proves 
 to be the least popular candidate ; in that case I vote for 
 B." Now, if these three ballots cast for are to go as they 
 are marked, B will have seven votes, and be elected, while A 
 will have only five. Without resorting to numbers, an apt 
 illustration can be made by extending the last three fingers 
 on one hand. In that case the middle finger would represent 
 the greatest number of votes cast for a candidate ; the third 
 finger the next lower, and the little finger the number of 
 votes cast for the candidate having the least number of sup- 
 porters. By this illustration it will be seen that if the 
 length of the little finger be added to the length of the third 
 finger, the combined length would greatly exceed that of 
 the middle finger. Thus the candidate represented by the 
 third finger would be elected by a large majority. 
 
 Lest further details might not prove interesting on this 
 occasion, we will pass this topic, leaving those who care to 
 do so to examine this point more fully by reading the arti- 
 cle entitled Election by the Majority, in the December, 
 1890, number of the Century Magazine. Another descrip- 
 tion may also be found on page 4 of the New York Trib- 
 une of October 28, 1891, under the head of A New Method 
 of Voting. 
 
 In approaching the second suggested method of improve- 
 ment, I wish to recall to your mind the part played in local 
 elections by the introduction of national or other irrelevant 
 issues. I wish you to call to mind, also, the motives for 
 bringing forward such issues. There seem to be but two. 
 One is to make use of a confusion of issues as a means of 
 securing spoils. Another is to hold a party together for 
 action when an issue is properly presented. 
 
 While it may be perfectly proper to keep a party together 
 for use as occasion may arise, it is certainly improper to use 
 a national issue as a means of inducing voters to support 
 unworthy candidates in local elections for the purpose of 
 securing the spoils of office. 
 
100 Suffrage and the Ballot. 
 
 The best remedy for this state of affairs which has oc- 
 curred to me would be to allow each party to have its party 
 principle printed at the head of the blanket ballot furnished 
 by the State, and thus submit the same to the voters for 
 their approval or rejection by a direct vote. For example, 
 the principles at the head of the blanket ballot might read : 
 
 Free Coinage, j 
 Free Trade, j 
 Prohibition, 
 
 Then, when the voter came to vote, he would be enabled 
 to approve the principle put forth by one party, and at the 
 same time support the candidate of another party without 
 danger of his vote being misconstrued, thus affecting a 
 national issue in a manner he may wish to avoid. Then, 
 too, a direct expression of principle on the part of voters 
 generally would be far more satisfactory than the present 
 speculative inferences. Such an expression would be some 
 sort of a guide to legislative bodies, and an index to the 
 feeling of the public on the most prominent issues of the 
 day. Of course such voting would be of no effect other 
 than advisory, but that is sufficient. It is now thought de- 
 sirable to fight whole campaigns to obtain the same result 
 by indirect means. Many elections are now fought and 
 won on the points that would be involved in such a vote. 
 It seems to me, therefore, that, to say the least, no harm 
 could be done by trying the experiment. I believe, with 
 proper provisions for ascertaining the result, it could be 
 made to take the national issue out of local affairs, and 
 would at the same time rob the spoils system of a most 
 effective cloak. 
 
 The remainder of what I shall say on remedies will be 
 devoted to the means by which nominations should be 
 made. That means is often called 
 
 NOMINATING MACHINERY. 
 
 To recall to your minds the present method of making 
 nominations, permit me to quote the remark of a prominent 
 
Suffrage and the Ballot. 101 
 
 politician made to me a few days since. He said : " It's 
 great sport to see people go to the polls in herds and vote 
 like cattle for the ticket we prepare. Reformers don't begin 
 at the right point. They should begin at the place where 
 nominations are made. The people think they make the 
 nominations, but we do that business for them." 
 
 Let us now aim at the point where nominations are made. 
 To this end we will proceed to the next suggested remedy, 
 viz. : If the parties do not voluntarily do so, let the State, 
 by a law, provide a set of just and equable rules under which 
 all party nominations must be made. If we would call 
 such a set of rules a machine, let it be so perfect in its 
 operation that the product shall be the result in equal pro- 
 portions of the will of each person who votes in the primary. 
 Let the product be not the will of any one man more than 
 another, except so far as that will may be supported by a 
 number of persons of like mind. The construction of such 
 a machine, or set of rules, would be a task of no mean im- 
 portance. The first attempt would probably show many 
 points of weakness which would become manifest by use, 
 and would have to be cured subsequently. When a nomi- 
 nation is believed to be thoroughly representative, and to 
 be the result of the true sentiment of the party, voters will 
 loyally support the nomination. And the contrary result 
 has also been observed on numerous occasions where the 
 nomination was believed to have been brought about by too 
 great centralization of power. Therefore, even from a 
 party standpoint, it is for a party's interest to provide suit- 
 able means to insure to the rank and file of the party a 
 proper participation in nominations. If all parties should 
 pursue that course it would be unnecessary for the State to 
 take any action for that purpose. But they will not, as 
 many politicians will claim that the present party machinery 
 works equably and justly to all. 
 
 It is a principle of our government to allow to each 
 citizen, as far as practicable, the largest liberty in the con- 
 duct of his personal and political affairs. For that reason it 
 would be best to leave, as far as possible, the management 
 of the details of nominating machinery to the members of 
 the party putting the same in operation. But while it is 
 proper to leave the details to individual action, it is also 
 proper that certain essentials should be required by the 
 State. As to what are those essentials we will now proceed 
 to inquire. 
 
102 Suffrage and the Ballot. 
 
 In the present law relating to primary elections there are 
 many salutary provisions which are designed and have 
 operated to improve the management of primary elections, 
 but its provisions should be extended. I will mention only 
 such essentials as it seems to me should be added to the 
 present law. First, in order to entitle the party to file a 
 certificate of nomination, it should be required to proceed ac- 
 cording to the law governing primary elections, and to make 
 proper proof of that fact. Second, that law should provide 
 that nominations to office should be made by a direct vote 
 within the party under the Australian system, with the ad- 
 ditional feature that the voters be given the benefit of a 
 second choice. The idea of making nominations by a direct 
 vote within the party is not new. It has been in use many 
 years in some parts of Ohio, where it is known as the Craw- 
 ford County system. It has generally worked well. I am 
 informed, however, that the greatest difficulty is that several 
 candidates for the nomination have sometimes received 
 almost an equal number of votes. On that point there has 
 been some discussion in Ohio about adopting the system to 
 which I have already alluded, whereby a voter is allowed to 
 express his second choice. By the adoption of that system 
 of election at the primaries in connection with the Austra- 
 lian system, I have no doubt that the evil complained of 
 would be overcome. 
 
 Under the Australian system of voting, candidates for a 
 party nomination would be presented to the primaries by 
 means of nominating papers signed by individuals. If the 
 number of names required to be appended to such papers 
 was sufficiently large it would prevent an undue multiplicity 
 of candidates. Conventions, however, might be retained for 
 the purpose of adopting platforms, or, if it were thought 
 best, instead of abolishing the nominating feature of the 
 convention, that institution might be used to present several 
 names from which the members of the party should select a 
 candidate. The third essential is an adequate provision to 
 insure a full vote within the party. To this end the polls 
 might be required to remain open a certain length of time 
 for every one hundred persons entitled to vote at the pri- 
 mary, or the polls might be required to remain open a certain 
 number of nights, or until the voters on any one night 
 should fall below a certain number. If a full vote within 
 the party could not be secured by other means, possibly it 
 would be wise to make some provision whereby absentees 
 
Suffrage and the Ballot. 103 
 
 could vote by mail or special messenger. In that case, how- 
 ever, the ballot might be sealed in a wrapper and have in- 
 dorsed thereon an affidavit of the voter that the ballot had 
 been prepared secretly, and sealed in the wrapper without 
 being exhibited to any other person, and such other matters 
 as might be deemed advisable, showing, of course, that the 
 voter was duly qualified to vote at the election. TheTi the 
 wrapper might be opened in the presence of the officers at 
 the primary and the vote might be deposited in the box with- 
 out being examined by any person. While I do not care to 
 commit myself at the present time to the advisability of 
 permitting absentees to vote, I wish to make note of the 
 point. I presume that such a method of voting would be 
 open to criticism unless the same should be surrounded by 
 very judicious safeguards. If such provision could be made, 
 which would prove unobjectionable, it would render it easy 
 for a voter to take part in the primary political organiza- 
 tion, and that, I believe, according to Mr. Roosevelt and all 
 the authorities I have been unable to consult, is the point 
 at which our present primary organizations need correction. 
 On the whole, I am convinced that no important advance 
 can be made in doing away with the centralized power in 
 party organizations until the State, or each political party, is 
 induced by some organized effort to require party nomina- 
 tions to be made by a direct vote within the party under 
 rules insuring a full, fair, and effective vote. 
 
 Hoping such an effort will be made in the near future, 
 and thanking you for the courtesy I have received, I will 
 leave the subject to the speakers who are to follow. 
 
104 Suffrage and the Ballot. 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 
 
 MR. WALTER S. LOGAN: 
 
 I agree with Mr. Remsen very heartily in all* that he says in favor of 
 a fair representation and an honest ballot. These are at the founda- 
 tion of our national life, and are the basis of all our hope for a higher 
 civilization. One is as important as the other. An honest represen- 
 tation must precede an honest ballot. You can never get the latter 
 until you grant the former. You can never persuade the people of 
 the enormity of buying or selling a vote while the Constitution and 
 laws themselves provide for stealing away its force and effect. If 
 there is any difference in the degree of the wrong, unfair representa- 
 tion is worse than a dishonest ballot. Dishonesty in voting is the 
 crime of an individual ; dishonesty in representation is a crime of the 
 community itself. Take the present laws of Connecticut and New 
 York, for example. It is well known that our system of representa- 
 tion is so unjust that thousands of voters are practically disfran- 
 chised, and State legislatures, and even State governments, as at 
 present in Connecticut, are controlled by a minority. I agree with 
 Mr. Remsen in advocating the Australian ballot and the Corrupt 
 Practices act. But there are some particular reforms on which he 
 seems to have a patent of his own which do not commend themselves 
 to my judgment. First, his proposition that the voter should be 
 allowed to vote for a second as well as a first choice of candidates. 
 This might work in a company of angels, but not in New York or 
 Brooklyn. It would encourage third parties and third candidates, 
 and I do not believe in third parties. Each campaign should present 
 a distinct issue, and citizens should choose one side or the other. In 
 1892 I hope to see the campaign of 1888 fought over again, only more 
 earnestly, and with a different result with James G. Blaine as the 
 candidate on one side, and Grover Cleveland on the other. The 
 second-choice device would afford colossal opportunities for fraud. 
 It would be easy for those who manipulate the ballots to insert a 
 figure " 2 " in such a manner as to favor their candidates. I regard 
 the seller of votes as a greater criminal than the buyer. I would by 
 no means remove the penalty from the vote-buyer, but I would place 
 the heavier penalty on the vote-seller. If either was to be relieved 
 from punishment in order to convict the other, I would let the vote- 
 buyer go free, and convict, condemn, and punish, with all the penalties 
 
Suffrage and the Ballot. 105 
 
 of the law and all the terrors of social ostracism combined, the 
 ingrate and dastard who betrays for money and for private gain the 
 highest trust which has ever been imposed upon man. 
 
 MR. WILLIAM H. WILLIAMS : 
 
 I am not one who believes that whatever is, is right. Still, I do not 
 find enough fault with the present system to demand the changes 
 suggested. When a party is formed, one of its first acts, in conven- 
 tion of the whole, is to adopt rules and regulations for its government, 
 which are from time to time amended. The Republican party is now 
 working under such rules. In each ward there is an enrollment of 
 the citizens who recognize the principles of the party, and voted its 
 ticket at the preceding election. A new-comer in Brooklyn, by 
 stating that he voted for the Republican Governor at the last election, 
 can get his name enrolled. In my ward less than half the voters are 
 members of the ward organizations. Prior to an election the wards 
 comprising an assembly district meet and select delegates to a con- 
 vention which nominates an assemblyman. If the candidate is a 
 Senator, the delegates are from the wards that make up the senatorial 
 district and so forth. Every member of the party has a right to go 
 to the meetings for choosing delegates. I do not see how the changes 
 suggested can improve upon this method. The great evil is that so 
 large a number of members of the party do not attend the meetings. 
 If a sense of public duty is not sufficient, I can not see how legislation 
 can improve this. The remedy is in educating public sentiment so 
 that each shall regard this as a fundamental duty which he owes to 
 his country. I am inclined to think that voting ought to be made 
 compulsory. This rule has worked well as applied to the jury system. 
 Why not make the same law applicable in politics ? I do not believe 
 in the stay-at-home theory, nor do I believe in dissociating national 
 and local questions. We must not divide a people into too many 
 parties. Election statistics show that the less the importance of the 
 office the smaller is the vote. With separate election days we should 
 find the vote for President very full, and that for aldermen very 
 small. It is the people who are close to the line which divides the 
 parties who determine elections. Whatever education or legislation 
 will make every individual feel it his duty to have a choice between 
 parties and public policies, and express it by ballot, ought to be 
 adopted. If all would do so, they would find the good people to be in 
 the majority, and the evils of which we complain would be corrected. 
 
106 Suffrage and the Ballot. 
 
 DR. ROBERT Gr. ECCLES: 
 
 I should like to ask the lecturer how the blanket ballot would pre- 
 vent the indirect buying of votes by paying men for not registering. 
 
 MR. JOHN A. TAYLOR: 
 
 When the palaeontologist of the twentieth century looks back on 
 these times, I think one of the most surprising things to him will be 
 the utter absurdity of our ballot systems, and the fuss and fury we 
 , have about voting. Our fathers shed their blood for the sacred right 
 of representation, but we trample it under foot. I would rather trust 
 the government of the city of New York to-day to the people who do 
 not vote than to those who do. Yet if any attempt were made to 
 abridge the suffrage there would be armies and battles and bloodshed 
 in its defense. We have heard to-night of devices to secure " minority 
 representation." Why, we have it already, and nothing else. I can 
 name ten men in this city who can say who will be the next mayor. 
 With their support, I should be mayor myself ; and I should repre- 
 sent the minority. Mr. Logan opposes the second choice, but the 
 second is often superior to the first. I consider this device of Mr. 
 Remsen's an excellent one. In Rhode Island an absurd law compels 
 them to hold elections over and over again, until some candidate 
 obtains a majority of all the votes. Mr. Remsen's device would avoid 
 this. We need an honest ballot ; everybody believes in that. But we 
 shall never have it until we begin at the other end. I would have 
 registration for the primaries. At the election we can choose only one 
 of two candidates often our choice is one of two evils. The delega- 
 tion to the nominating convention really determines the election, and 
 the power behind the throne controls the delegation. Let us have 
 attendance at the primaries compulsory. I don't want to join any 
 party for all time, but I am willing to attend the primaries if others 
 will. I should like to have those who believe in reforming the parties 
 from the inside refer to a single case where such a reform has been 
 accomplished. There is not a great moral influence of the age which 
 has come from the inside. It is the independent, who will not submit 
 to party dictation, who compels reform. I believe with the other 
 speakers in educating public sentiment. This must be our final de- 
 pendence in effecting political reforms. 
 
 MR. REMSEN, in closing : The argument that voters can be bribed 
 to stay at home does not reflect against the blanket ballot. That can 
 be done under our present system. I am obliged to Mr. Logan for 
 admitting that the second choice would work well in a community 
 
Suffrage and the Ballot. 107 
 
 of angels. I do not claim it will work better among thieves than the 
 present system of election. In the recent municipal election in New 
 York, if the voters had had a second choice, the 30,000 registered 
 voters who staid at home would undoubtedly have voted. Compulsory 
 voting would be of no use unless the voter had the second choice, for 
 although a voter may be compelled to go to the polls, he can not be 
 compelled to vote for one of the two principal candidates. And if 
 an elector's vote is not to be counted for one of the two principal 
 candidates, he might as well stay at home. 
 
THE LAND PROBLEM 
 
 BY 
 
 PROF. OTIS T. MASON", PH.D. 
 
 CURATOR OP THE DEPARTMENT OF ETHNOLOGY IN THE 
 
 NATIONAL MUSEUM, .WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 PRESIDENT OP THE AMERICAN FOLK-LORE SOCIETY 
 
COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED: 
 
 Carey's Principles of Social Science, and Past, Present, and Future ; 
 Walker's Land and its Rent; Gunton's Wealth and Progress; Kin- 
 near's Principles of Property in Land ; Spencer's Justice ; Tylor's 
 Primitive Culture ; Lubbock's Origin of Civilization ; Maine's Early 
 History of Institutions, and Village Communities; Seebohm's The 
 English Village Community ; Laveleye's Primitive Property ; George's 
 Progress and Poverty, and The Land Problem ; Patten's Malthus and 
 Ricardo ; Wallace's Land Nationalization ; Phillips's Land, Labor, and 
 Law ; Davis's Why the Farmer is not Prosperous, When the Farmer 
 will be Prosperous, Exhaustion of Arable Lands, and Probabilities 
 of Agriculture, in Forum, April, May, June, and November, 1890. 
 Fustel de Coulanges's The Origin of Property in Land. 
 
THE LAND PROBLEM. 
 
 BY PROF. OTIS T. MASON, PH. D. 
 
 THE land question is a problem involving at this stage of 
 the world's progress many unknown quantities, to the solu- 
 tion or satisfaction of which the acutest minds have de- 
 voted their best thoughts. It was a very simple problem at 
 the beginning of human history, as we shall see ; but it will 
 never be a very simple problem again. On the contrary, 
 as the years go by it will become only the more complex. 
 Upon many of its factors, you will agree, too much effort 
 has been bestowed. To offer an original idea upon these 
 is scarcely possible. Daily journals, periodicals, transactions 
 of societies, blue-books, national records, reports of com- 
 missions and of bureaus, are the repositories of an illimit- 
 able literature upon the separate parts of the structure in 
 its finished and highly complex condition. 
 
 In ordinary parlance, the land is that part of the earth's 
 surface which Lord Byron has characterized mankind as 
 marking with ruin. In all of our school-books we learned 
 that the surface or skin of the earth is divided into land 
 and water, giving the latter the lion's share. 
 
 But when men discuss the land question and seek to legis- 
 late about it, they accept no such boundaries for the term, 
 but persistently give to it a wider inclusion and lay their 
 maps and charts and deeds over the entire surface of the 
 globe, its waters as well as its lands. They sink their shafts 
 thousands of feet down into its strata, dredge the bottom 
 of the seas, pierce the air with shafts and chimneys, dis- 
 charging their grimy sewage into the very fountain of life, 
 and by many selfish devices veil the lace of the sun from 
 millions of their fellow-creatures. We may therefore pro- 
 ceed to accept their practical interpretation of the term 
 land, and ask what all these things have to say of the past, 
 and what their plans may be for the future welfare or 
 misery of humanity. If possible, we may withhold our gaze 
 altogether from the present legal and political elements of 
 the problem the adult stage and regard the testimony of 
 the earth itself much in the spirit of the archaeologist or the 
 
112 The Land Problem. 
 
 palaeontologist. Surely, if the earth has witnessed a great 
 series of economic and industrial phenomena, it has some 
 marks thereof left upon itself, and is now receiving some 
 impressions therefrom. These we may study one by one 
 with profit, just as our scientific friends, legislators, and 
 business men draw their wisdom from the experiences of 
 others and from the past. 
 
 In this inquiry, the land or the earth as modified by and 
 modifying human life its thoughts, its industries, its arts, 
 its speech, its customs, its societies, its laws, its beliefs, its 
 cults includes the land surface down to the bottom of the 
 deepest possible mine or artesian well ; all the aqueous mass, 
 that is, every drop of water in the seas and out of them, 
 for there is "no telling when any drop may enter the circle 
 of human agencies and ownerships ; the circumambient air, 
 every gallon of that aerial ocean which swathes the world 
 and vitalizes all living things, the common carrier of clouds 
 and birds, of health and disease, of music and perfumes, 
 of industry and commerce. As modifying and modified by 
 human conduct, as subject of preemption and monopoly, 
 not only the masses just mentioned are included, but mo- 
 tions and powers, even gravity, mechanical properties, physi- 
 cal forces, chemical activities, vital phenomena of plants and 
 animals, may all be covered by patents, and their uses be- 
 come a matter of legislation. I had almost said men them- 
 selves and women, when I remember how like things and 
 chattels they frequently are, and how their motions and 
 thoughts are at the command of other fellow-beings. 
 
 These constitute the earth, the land of my definition 
 together with such sunlight and moonlight and starlight 
 and cosmic forces as our race may subdue and preempt. 
 Some of these things are still beyond our caveats and pre- 
 scriptions ; they are still untrammeled, and with these at this 
 time we have naught to do. There is no patent on them ; 
 each human being has unlimited access thereto. 
 
 From one point of view, the earth appears to us as a reser- 
 voir, a store-house, a larder. Emerson tells us that " there 
 is nothing great but the inexhaustible wealth of Nature." 
 It is possible, however, in the examination of this store-house, 
 to find out that many articles in the account of stock are 
 extremely rare and high-priced. Many of them may be 
 wasted irrecoverably, many of them are capable of recuper- 
 ation, many of them are susceptible of irremediable con- 
 tamination and deterioration. This subject is not a matter 
 
The Land Problem. 113 
 
 for poets, but for business men. The race are the owners of 
 the earth, which is all they have. It is their heritage. 
 Each piece of property in the manifest has values, and 
 these values are in their keeping. The thin layer of arable 
 land is one of these. 
 
 You are well aware that in our day the land-battle is 
 waged quite unequally over the things and forces that I 
 have described. The contest is chiefly over what Mr. McGee 
 has expressively characterized as the thin veneering of soil 
 upon which so much human industry is expended. This is 
 one item and a very valuable one, but not more so than some 
 others, the facility of which for waste, the difficulties of 
 which of recuperation, the possibilities of which, are greater 
 still. 
 
 " The chief wealth of the world comes from the soil. 
 Some food is gathered in the waters, materials for shelter 
 and apparatus are yielded by quarries and mines, fuels and 
 illuminants are from the earth, but the materials of food 
 and fabrics are from the soil. The sustenance of man and 
 his beast friends of the remotest kind, the productions of 
 the forests, all fibers and nutritive plants, even the stuffs of 
 skin, wool, fur, hair, silk, are derived from the land. The 
 manipulation and commerce of all these depend on wind 
 and water and coal and metals, but the most precious of all 
 resources is that extremely thin cover of arable soil that is 
 so easily dissipated and so hardly recuperated." * A similar 
 panegyric and caution could be framed for the other re- 
 sources of the earth. 
 
 Now, let us take another point of view, a more advan- 
 tageous situation for comprehending the earth truly. All 
 the items named in my definitions are not so many articles 
 in a variety store or in a wholesale jobbing establishment. 
 The material earth, the waters, the atmosphere, the forces 
 and activities of Nature, are a complex unit, like a machine, 
 " a great factory or shop of power, with its rotating times 
 and tides."! Each wheel has reference to every other 
 wheel, each part to every other part. So that as history 
 has progressed, men have come to know that in their ad- 
 justments of the things to be done in one direction they 
 must study the bearings of this change upon the whole 
 mass. The geographers of our childhood Humboldt, Kit- 
 
 * McGee. Mississippi Old Fields, A. A. A. S., Washington, 1801. 
 t Emerson. Letters and Social Aims. Boston, 1883, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 
 p. 135. 
 
114 The Land Problem. 
 
 ter, Guyot never tired in speaking of the earth as a whole, 
 systematically constructed of many related parts, a cosmos, 
 a very complex unit, whose land and water areas and con- 
 figurations, whose elevations and depressions, whose fertile 
 and arid lands, whose arctic and temperate zones, whose 
 animal, vegetal, and mineral resources, whose enfolding 
 atmosphere, are almost indispensable to one another. A 
 great change in one of these in the past history of the 
 globe has materially influenced the others more or less, and 
 often transfigured the whole face of Nature. These changes 
 may come about from secular causes, but they may also be 
 wrought by the hand of man. The miner ruins the land 
 for the farmer, the forester disturbs the relations of plant 
 and animal life, the manufacturer contaminates the waters 
 for the fisherman, the careless filling of a harbor impover- 
 ishes a whole State, the disturbance of insect or bird life 
 destroys millions of wealth, the exhaustion of the soil de- 
 populates vast regions. 
 
 " The first tide of settlement entered Louisiana and Mis- 
 sissippi from the South, and its influence was practically 
 confined to the lowlands. The first upland population, whose 
 implements were the rifle and the hunting-knife, lived the 
 savage life of the Indian. The men of the second genera- 
 tion subsisted on the products of the soil and of the chase. 
 In the third generation the slave-holder not only subsisted 
 on but exported the products of the soil. The civil war im- 
 poverished the farmer, liberated his slaves, and cultivated 
 acres were abandoned by thousands. The hills were at- 
 tacked by the rains and fertile fields were invaded by gul- 
 lies, until the soil of a thousand years' savings melted into 
 the streams, and fair acres became bad-lands. Over thou- 
 sands of square miles the traveler is never out of sight of 
 glaring sand-wastes where once were fertile fields. It is 
 within the truth to estimate that ten per cent of the west- 
 ern uplands of Mississippi have been ruined to agriculture. 
 No one can traverse the territory so terribly invaded with- 
 out feeling that the State loses each year in value of real es- 
 tate more than she gains from all sources. 
 
 " Furthermore, this erosion is carried into the valleys to 
 overwhelm bridges, invade roadways, convert fertile low- 
 lands into treacherous quicksands or blistering deserts. 
 Not only is the humus carried away, but the veneer of brown 
 loam is also removed, leaving only inferior soil stuff. The 
 destruction is irremediable by human craft ; the fertile loam 
 
The Land Problem. 115 
 
 once removed can never be restored. The creation of for- 
 c.4-rlad hills and prairie in the prehuman period estab- 
 lished a stable equilibrium which is rudely broken when 
 cultivation 011 a large scale is attempted." * 
 
 I think we may take a still more exalted view of the 
 earth, looking upon it not only as a pile of available re- 
 sources, or even as an orderly arranged mass ; but, from the 
 point of view of the botanist, the zoologist, the anthropolo- 
 gist, the evolutionist, we may almost regard it as an organ- 
 ized collection of parts, having had a germinal period, peri- 
 ods of transformation and fructification in short, its on- 
 togeny or individual evolution. We are not dealing with a 
 homogeneous mass when we talk of dividing it up or of ap- 
 propriating portions of it. Nor is it sufficient merely to 
 .scrutinize it as an orderly cosmos when we proceed to legis- 
 late about it. These are well and they are necessary, but a 
 more exalted idea still is demanded on the part of those 
 who bring the earth into the arena of political philosophy. 
 
 Whatever our theory of its origin, the earth may be dis- 
 cussed as a living, thinking being, capable of teaching cause 
 and effect, of rewarding the wise and of punishing the un- 
 wise, capable of barbarizing and being barbarized, of civiliz- 
 ing and of being civilized, f And this discussion is regard- 
 less of our theory of its origin. If we are creationists, then 
 we have only to transfer the personality to the ever-present 
 Creator whose servant the earth is. If we are theistic evo- 
 lutionists, then we conceive that this ever-present Intelli- 
 gence has manifested Himself in the earth as its vivifying, 
 organizing force. If we are agnostic evolutionists, then we 
 regard the power as residing in Nature itself to confer these 
 ethical qualities and prerogatives, though we know Him 
 not. If we are atheistic evolutionists, the earth is only the 
 more exalted in our thoughts and endowed with absolute 
 power. With some of the older thinkers we may believe in 
 a soul of the world, the Welt-geist. Then, when we compass 
 the results that have been achieved, we are still in a rever- 
 ential mood before a being of such cleverness and power. 
 
 In any event, and we need to dwell upon the subject no 
 longer, the highest conceptions of the earth or land ques- 
 
 * McGee. On the Mississippi Old Fields, A. A. A. S., 1891. 
 
 tl have been a thousand times interested to notice how often in the Old 
 Testament the earth is referred to as the delegated agent of God. with plenary 
 powers, to brin;; forth living things (Gen. i, 11); as making covenants (ib. ix, 13) ; 
 as d.-vouriiig men (in many references); as executing judgment (Job, xx, 27); as 
 enriching <Ps. l.wii ; Ezek. xxxiv, 27), etc. Consult any concordance under the 
 word " earth " or its synonyms. 
 
116 The Land Problem. 
 
 tion demand the recognition of order and consequences, of 
 largess and property, of bounty and retribution, of disease 
 and recuperation. We are in presence of a something, no 
 matter what, that has come to be what it is, has grown ; 
 that can be sick and recover or make sick and cause to re- 
 cover ; that can measure out justice and call the guilty to 
 account. No earthly government has ever had such a con- 
 sistent legislature, such incorruptible judges, such a power- 
 ful and effective executive, with its ever vigilant police and 
 executioners, or such a bountiful treasury for the reward of 
 the good.* 
 
 Now, nearly all of the books that I have read view the 
 subject as a question of immediate results and expedients ; 
 but a few writers take it up from the side of the earth, as a 
 something that has had a long evolution and that has never 
 been unmindful altogether of human history. It is far more 
 easy to find a paper devoted to some immediate pain or 
 wound of society associated with the ownership of the soil 
 than to find one discussing the claims of the earth on us 
 drawn from a study of the correlations of earth and man 
 through all the ages. So far as the earth has acted, as trans- 
 formed and transforming, it opens a vast anthropological 
 study. Do you believe that the digging-stick and the dig- 
 ger had any mutual duties in savagery ? That each could 
 improve and be improved by the other, until at last the 
 one becomes the steam plow and the other lord of many 
 thousand acres ? Do you think that the first savage who 
 carried a burden had any moral and prudential relations to 
 his burden strap ? So that each could help and improve, 
 could be helped and improved by the other, blessing and 
 blessed, until one became the great burden-train the other 
 a railroad magnate ? Once more, for the illustrations have 
 no limit, the desolate creature who millenniums ago con- 
 jured the Promethean spark from two dried sticks, was he 
 not interested in every way to improve his fire-sticks, and 
 was he not pari passu improved through them, until by 
 and by he could dispense with the moon and stars by night, 
 the sun by day, and could convert the light of his torch into 
 the motion of his wheels ? 
 
 * Assuming this point of view, the Ethical Society is an institution for inquir- 
 ing into duties, founded on law, obedience to which may or not make us happy. 
 We must obey, to live. If we disobey, we die. And this is just as true of soci- 
 eties and nations as of men. The one saving clause, which in the struggle for 
 resistance has given our race such preponderating momentum, is the fact that 
 in the vast majority of cases obedience is followed by pleasure. 
 
The Land Problem. 117 
 
 Now, all human inventions whatsoever, the conversion 
 of all earthly materials into means of existence and happi- 
 ness, have passed into their anthropological stage. The first 
 projectile was a rude stone thrown from the hand of a sav- 
 age, the last is more complex than the human frame, requir- 
 ing hundreds of trained workmen many months to prepare 
 it for its momentary errand of destruction. If these sepa- 
 rate pieces of mechanism for many hundreds of years have 
 been associated with men as mutual friends, helping and 
 helped, blessing and being blessed, the relations of one to 
 the other becoming more and more complex, there is no es- 
 caping the conclusion that the earth itself, the land out of 
 which the material came, over which it was invented to 
 travel, for whose further research and upturning many of 
 them were devised, has stood in a similar but more intense 
 relation. The earth has helped and has been helped, im- 
 proved and been improved, rejoiced and given joy. 
 
 Again, it is all-important to bear in mind that only a 
 small part of this world's largess lies on the surface. Its 
 endowments are promises and potentialities, not free gifts. 
 " The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension 
 ready to be struck." '' At the dawn of humanity there were 
 only two or three favored spots on all this globe equipped to 
 keep alive our race for a single generation. The north was 
 too cold, the equator was too hot ; this region too dry, that 
 too wet ; this too poor, that too rich. Here were noxious 
 and venomous creatures, there the deadly miasma. 
 
 Not only was standing room limited, but natural grains 
 and fruits were at their poorest. The beasts of the field, 
 the fowls of the air, as natural resources, were at their worst, 
 and could be procured only at the greatest expenditure of 
 time and energy, and transported only on the backs of men 
 and women. The possibilities hidden away even under un- 
 favorable locations to our progenitors we are just beginning 
 to guess. There were materials and advantages spread on 
 the surface just abundant enough to keep man alive, and 
 just concealed enough to whet his appetite. The cosmos 
 appears to us in the light of a wise provider, who gives to 
 him that earns, discloses to him that searches, rewards and 
 crowns him that wins. As a magazine, the earth is to be 
 explored and its amounts and locations of resources and 
 forces conned. As a machine, the power and relation of 
 
 * Emerson, op. ct'f., 133. 
 
118 The Land Problem. 
 
 parts are to be closely studied. As a teacher and a moral 
 force, its laws must be searched out and its purposes known, 
 its punishments understood, and its promises appreciated. 
 
 Again, to revert to the appliances of culture. All the 
 peoples of the earth have not advanced equally in the mat- 
 ter of bettering their opportunities. Along the march of 
 history, whole tribes, nations, races, have ceased to improve 
 their apparatus they have made them worse from year to 
 year. And these had their revenge. They have made their 
 owners more miserable in return. If poor farmers build 
 wretched barns and fences, these are not slow in making 
 farmers poor and wretched. If the carpenter works with 
 dull tools, then will his patronage be dull. If the smith 
 hammers cold iron, he will soon have to eat a cold dinner 
 for his neglect. So the rule holds good both ways. The 
 appliances of life are degraded and degrade ; are impover- 
 ished and made poor, are wasted and their owners starve. 
 
 In a remarkable lecture by President Gilman on maps 
 and history he declares with great emphasis that the true 
 relation of the earth to civilization and politics and vice 
 versa will be understood and studied with pleasure only 
 when we have better maps. By this he means that in the 
 past the earth has been the marshaler of nations, has spread 
 out homogeneous stocks over the great plains of the conti- 
 nents, has packed the mountain valleys with kindreds and 
 tongues and nations, has opened easy highways between 
 some and separated others by deserts and oceans, has led 
 the ambitious and vigorous into fertile and productive areas, 
 and packed the feebler races into the suburbs of the world. 
 A well-trained student in geography and geology may al- 
 most write the human history of a land whose people he has 
 never seen. Mark how many times the map of Europe has 
 been changed in the historic period since the " earth-spirit " 
 drew the natural boundaries. Only once in an age do 
 mountains rise and new rivers run. This is a serious event, 
 and is coupled with the extinction of myriads of genera of 
 living things and the recreation of the face of Nature. 
 Less than centuries are sufficient to efface political bound- 
 aries. Forms of government do not appear so stable as per- 
 sonal and family occupation. Nations come and go ; but 
 any student of ethnology knows that, more now than ever, 
 mankind are following these great leading strings of prog- 
 ress set by the earth itself. 
 
 In relation to these resources, this cosmos, this organized 
 
The Land Problem. 119 
 
 something, our race has passed through a series of epochs 
 quite similar to those into which plant and animal life have 
 been divided. For convenience we may say there have been 
 eight such periods. Each period is marked by certain char- 
 acteristic phenomena, and, after the first or second, each 
 period not only takes on new characteristics, but retains, in 
 a more or less modified condition, those of all the preceding 
 periods. The plant life of to-day is a comprehensive series 
 of all the plant life of the globe from the beginning. The 
 animal life of all palaeontologic time is studied in the light 
 of creatures now living on the earth. I mean, therefore, 
 that the land problem, or the question of legislating about 
 the earth, involves the study of every question that has 
 arisen in the ages regarding this same subject. Its true 
 solution sets the value of all the comprehensive interests of 
 the world's societies.* 
 
 In the first period man was absent ; he was present only 
 as a promise. It was a time of earth-building, and, if you 
 will not admit that preparation was being made specially 
 for him, all the materials out of which he would ever build 
 his nest, clothe and feed himself, develop his industries and 
 fine arts and find exercise and expression for his activities 
 and thoughts, were here. So far as our present needs go, 
 the surface of our planet had come to a tolerably stable 
 equilibrium. And if great changes took place, they .were 
 not so much due to intelligent animals as to minute organ- 
 isms and physical forces. All of those agencies through 
 which men have since modified the earth were in existence, 
 but their activities were uniform. 
 
 In the second period, the first in the history of humanity, 
 the earth movements continued, and to these were added 
 the modifications produced by a being in the rude stone 
 age, who lived in caves and under shelters, who took from 
 the bounty of the air, the land, and the waters what his 
 daily cravings demanded, who thought that all things were 
 alive like himself, whose marriage was a slender bond, and 
 whose family life was little above that of the brute. His con- 
 duct was entirely based on the interests of the hour, and 
 for the earth he had no special thought in the lines here 
 marked out. Little change was made on the earth by him. 
 He sat on Nature's lap, and ate the food that she dropped 
 into his mouth. 
 
 * Compare Spencer's Atlases of Sociology, Morgan's Ancient Society, Mason's 
 What is Anthropology ? for an elaboration of the periods of civilization and 
 their accompanying conducts ou the part of man: 
 
120 The Land Problem. 
 
 In the third period much of the earth remained as at 
 first. In a few areas primitive peoples continued without 
 progress, but in the most favored spots our race discovered 
 fire the Promethean spark. Blessed and fatal gift ! With 
 fire came a long train of blessings ; the light of heaven was 
 let in upon the dwelling ; discouraging forests and jungles, 
 with their malaria, noxious insects, venomous serpents, and 
 ravening beasts, were subdued or removed. Arts sprang up, 
 better houses were built, more convenient tools were in- 
 vented, a little navigation ventured upon the waters. Social 
 life was modified in its marriage, family, government, and 
 customs. But chief of all, for our argument, man attacked 
 the resources of earth with firebrands.* Climate was modi- 
 fied a little, and the battle began to be earnest. 
 
 In the fourth period there remained unknown lands, 
 primitive tribes, fire-using peoples like the Australians ; but 
 in a more favored spot was invented the bow, first of that 
 long series of devices which conquer distance and time and 
 brute force. As a matter of course, other arts improved as 
 well ; but the special thought in mind now is the on-going 
 of that battle, in the progress of which men attacked the 
 treasures of the earth and began to modify it. In the chase 
 and in war the feathered messenger of death plucks its vic- 
 tories from the air, the earth, and the sea. Animal life is 
 now to be profoundly modified until all brute creatures 
 shall be extinguished or subdued. The evolution of morals 
 and skill kept pace with these epoch-making inventions, 
 and we may almost hear the first expression of tender com- 
 passion in the twanging of the bowstring that gave a man 
 more of the most wholesome food than he could devour. 
 
 In the fifth period, while the other characteristics con- 
 tinued, a new art sprang up a very little art, but the germ 
 of mighty industries. Man became an explorer into the 
 earth. He scratched its surface here and there, to plant a 
 seed or to dig some nutritious root; he quarried clay for 
 pottery, stone for his implements and ornaments, and cop- 
 per and galena for his rude industries. The possibility of 
 having a week's provision with him, of landing and cook- 
 ing it anywhere, of being somewhat independent of Na- 
 ture's daily supply, set in motion a long train of useful arts. 
 
 * There is a system of cultivation used in India to-day, especially on the eastern 
 frontier of Bengal, in which a tract of forest land is cleared by fire, cultivated 
 for a year or two, and then abandoned for a new tract. In southwestern India 
 it is called Coomry, and in Ceylon it is known as Chena. (Yule & Burnell, quoted 
 in Cent. Diet.) 
 
The Land Problem. 121 
 
 For our purpose, however, it is enough that he began to 
 tear up the earth and to use up her mineral resources. 
 Art, music, thought, religion, and morality moved upward 
 with the new treatment of the earth. 
 
 In the sixth period animals were domesticated ; the horse, 
 ass, camel, ox, sheep, goat, dog, llama, poultry, were exten- 
 sively used. Cyclopean walls were built. Engineering was 
 begun. Canals, roads, causeways, and bridges were planned. 
 The winds, the waters, the mechanical powers were yoked. 
 Almost all of our peaceful industries were in vogue as 
 handicrafts. Language progressed to the written stage, and 
 a symbolic record at least was known. The priestly caste 
 was differentiated, a pantheon set up. Monogamy was 
 elaborated, father-right prevailed, and personal property 
 was recognized. The smelting of bronze was the most 
 marked characteristic, since it added the search for precious 
 metals, which scarifies the ground, turns the neighborhood 
 into a desert, and then removes the fickle population, whose 
 desire was not to find a home, but suddenly to enrich them- 
 selves. 
 
 The seventh period is still in flourishing existence over 
 the best parts of Asia, in northern Africa, in eastern Eu- 
 rope, and in much of Latin America. Its glory reached its 
 climax in the great empires about the beginning of the 
 Christian era and in the splendor of the Middle Ages. The 
 patriarchal family was more or less established, with polyg- 
 amous marriage. The arts were still largely handicrafts. 
 Transportation was over the water and by beasts of burden. 
 Machinery was in its infancy, the race was as busy as now, 
 but space and time and resistance were slowly overcome. 
 Great improvement was made in government and the art of 
 war, depending on the increased production of supplies by 
 artificial means. Nations and national boundaries were es- 
 tablished It was the iron age. 
 
 And now we are in the eighth period, with mariner's 
 compass, printing press, gunpowder, but pre-eminently with 
 coal. It is the age of machinery and all that this implies. 
 We are in the carbon age. All the wealth, all the learning, 
 all the experience, all the crime of the past are upon us. 
 The Andamanese, the Australian, the roving savages, the 
 sedentary barbarians, the semi-civilized, the civilized after 
 old standards all survive even in Brooklyn, and the age of 
 coal has touched only a small share of our race. The prog- 
 ress of life has noted the evolution of morals as the indi- 
 
122 The Land Problem. 
 
 vidual has acquired the means of dispensing freely a por- 
 tion of his gain to bless his fellow. The disposition of the 
 earth and rules of the earth's conduct are becoming more 
 familiar. 
 
 In all of these periods there existed five sets of phe- 
 nomena that our enquiry commands us to observe carefully : 
 Land tenure ; land waste ; land recuperation ; land evo- 
 lution * (elaboration of the earth's crude resources) ; land 
 ethics. 
 
 In the first period, man being absent, land tenure was the 
 struggle for existence and the survival of the best fitted to 
 survive. Waste was geological, recuperation the work of 
 minute organisms, evolution was vegetal, and animal prog- 
 ress and conduct were " doing the best for self-preservation." 
 It is interesting to note how many of our intellectual activi- 
 ties, feelings, wishings, choosings in short, how much of 
 our conduct was foreshadowed in this period by our ani- 
 mal predecessors. 
 
 In the second period, the first of humanity, there was 
 probably but one area of occupation, where men huddled 
 for self -protection and the tenure was absolutely commer- 
 cial. Waste was increased only by the omnivorous habit of 
 man ; he did nothing consciously to recuperate the earth 
 and was ignorant of its wonderful capabilities under domes- 
 tication. The most marked ethical improvement was the 
 altruism engendered by the prolongation of helpless in- 
 fancy. 
 
 In the third period, land tenure was of the horde, and 
 tribal boundaries were natural boundaries. Each man had 
 unlimited access to the tribal territory, in the air, the water, 
 the land. The question of disputed boundaries was settled 
 by personal or clan encounter. The utmost prodigality 
 prevailed. No thought of recuperating wasted resources 
 existed, and as yet the possibilities of becoming, lying dor- 
 mant in the air and land and sea, were undreamed of. On 
 
 * I should explain more fully what is intended by this phrase, land evolution. 
 Every one must have noticed the difference between a lump of ore and a cambric 
 needle, a wild grape and a garden grape, a wolf and a pointer dog. Now, all 
 power of coming to be the latter in each case existed in me former. From one 
 point of view it seems like the simple letting loose of native characteristics, giv- 
 ing opportunity to a progressive spirit in Nature. The one becomes the other 
 by personal unfoldings. That would be evolution. From another point of view 
 it is the inventive, creative genius of man that transforms in each case, and the 
 latter is not eroh<ed, but elaborated, from the former. In both cases, however, 
 it is in Nature's shop or garden or zootechnic establishment, in the path of Na- 
 ture's lines of action, that the results are achieved. Now, all that man has done 
 to coax or compel Nature into these new revelations of herself, to cultivate and 
 perfect and renew her, is land evolution or elaboration. 
 
The Land Problem. 123 
 
 the contrary, whole regions deprived of fruit and game by 
 remorseless fires were abandoned to Nature. 
 
 To morality this was added : clan marriage prevailed in 
 the tribes, so that to every individual thought worthy to 
 survive, possessing a clan standing, support and defense 
 were assured. This assurance of daily supply must have added 
 greatly to longevity. A sort of forced respect for the earth 
 had for its reward an increased momentum of human life. 
 
 In the fourth period, the ownership of land, still respect- 
 ing natural boundaries, began to assume a more artificial 
 form by reason of improvements in the apparatus of war. 
 The possession of the bow enabled the advanced tribes to 
 draw their lines about the game animals, the bird resorts, 
 the fishing grounds. To mountains and impassable waters 
 were added other fences. Waste was more rapid, owing to 
 the increased means of gratifying new desires. Mammals 
 and birds and fishes were slain in sport, and often only the 
 dainty parts consumed. The dog became a domestic ani- 
 mal and a few other creatures disclosed the secret of Na- 
 ture's capabilities of education. No effort at recuperation 
 was needed and none was made. Man's attitude toward his 
 fellows was beginning to be just, and blood or clan re- 
 venge and kindness to brutes were the contributions of the 
 age to morality. 
 
 The age of pottery and of polished stone, of agriculture 
 as well, brought sedentary life and a brand-new style of 
 ownership clan right of tenure. The tribal territory was 
 fixed somewhat. The clan portion for culture was marked 
 off and the patch or portion which each little group might 
 occupy was settled temporarily. There being no interna- 
 tional law, all this was in a state of flux. The waste of ex- 
 hausting fertile fields, abandoning them and then skimming 
 others, began, and' I am told that some of our New England 
 tribes actually put fish around their corn hills to manure 
 them. This, so far as I know, is the first attempt to pay 
 back to Nature a matter of rent. In Peru and other lands 
 of this grade, breeds of dogs and other domestic animals 
 show that the people had been told some of Nature's dor- 
 mant resources. I can not find, however, that any people of 
 this culture-status had dreamed of the time when their 
 natural supply would disappear altogether. The ethical 
 contribution of this period was the introduction of forms of 
 justice, civil processes, personal rights, somewhat of the 
 safety and importance of the citizen. 
 
124 The Land Problem. 
 
 The sixth age and the doctrine of divine sanction devel- 
 oped a new element of tenure, well set forth in the early books 
 of the Bible. Before that, trespass was of man alone. But 
 in this time domestication of animals became the leading 
 industry, and the earth must now be carved and staked off 
 differently. " Let there be no strife between my herdsmen 
 and thy herdsmen " was the key-note of a land survey which 
 had for its objective point a well or a spring. The pockets 
 of natural resources were the centers around which the cir- 
 cle was drawn. No grass seems to have been sown, but the 
 greatest varieties of stock were raised and every industry of 
 the world was stimulated. The mining and smelting of 
 bronze also introduced waste without recuperation, by a 
 mighty stimulus to inventive genius. The most beneficent 
 result of this age was the improvement of morals. Over and 
 over again the tribes or clans of herders have been kept from 
 bloody wars by realizing that war would be the end of all their 
 wealth. So they paid tribute and tithes and taxes, and stayed 
 at home. They invented fortified corrals and entered into 
 treaties with other nomads, and established pueblos and 
 walled villages that were the protection of the joint com- 
 mune. 
 
 The seventh period is the iron age of history, lasting 
 three thousand years at least of time. It is also the age of 
 feudalism, the age of reckless waste, the age of ruins. Over 
 the areas of this period Volney cast his eye when he said : 
 " I will go and dwell amid the ruins of cities : I will inquire 
 of the monuments of antiquity what was the wisdom of the 
 former ages." * And yet in this period the fertile lands of 
 the Eastern continent were disclosed, and in its last century 
 the whole world was given to the human race. Artificial 
 propagation of birds, of land animals, of plants, especially 
 the cereals, began so early that we do not know the natural 
 sources of most of them ; even pisciculture was common in 
 China and Japan, and irrigation was better understood than 
 it is now. Land recuperation also was practiced, and in 
 China systematically carried on so well that we may take 
 lessons therefrom. In ethics, at the beginning of this 
 epoch, the groundwork of conduct was established in the 
 widespread publication of the Golden Rule. Confucius, 
 Buddha, Zoroaster, Christ, the philosophers of the West- 
 ern nations, had breathed upon them or into them this 
 benign lesson. To do unto others as one would have 
 
 * Ruins, etc., Philadelphia, 1799, Lyon. 
 
The Land Problem. 125 
 
 them to do unto him was the pearl in the crown of this 
 period. 
 
 In our day, the eighth period, the age of coal, the age 
 of domestication, the tenure of the earth is no longer feudal, 
 but individual or technic. If every man has not his vine 
 and fig tree, at least every vine and fig tree has its owner or 
 owners. The earth has undergone a political, national, 
 social, and individual gerrymandering to adjust it to the new 
 carbon-wasting period, the age of machinery. The waste of 
 the nineteenth century has equaled that of all other cent- 
 uries. The census reports the value of minerals consumed 
 in the United States in 1890 at $600,000,000 (David T. 
 Day). The waste of forests and consequent disturbance of 
 other natural phenomena has called for legislation in every 
 civilized state. Practically, our waters have been cleared of 
 their natural supply of fishes, and game is almost a thing of 
 the past. 
 
 The air is no longer in our cities a mixture of oxygen 
 and nitrogen, but a sewer into which is poured the waste of 
 industries. Our old fields in the South turn more fertility 
 into the rivers than the whole production amounts to. The 
 disturbance of the equilibrium of insect life has depopu- 
 lated vast areas and more than once presaged famine. The 
 filling up of rivers and harbors has made the borders of these 
 streams uninhabitable by reason of malaria, and silted up 
 their mouths so that already we have hundreds of ruined 
 towns within the borders of this youngest nation, and at 
 least one State Nevada. The waste of the soil has been 
 accompanied by the disappearance of scarce and precious 
 materials that have, for example, moved the wheat-belt from 
 New York to the State of Washington. 
 
 At the same time the recuperation and evolution of new 
 sources of supply have gone faster, and we do not care for 
 wild harvest-fields. For the first time in history our century 
 has been asking the earth, What wilt thou have me to do ? 
 and what is the best that thou canst do? In the use of 
 drainage and terracing, of transplanting and selecting out 
 weak plants, of utilizing manures and sewage and other 
 waste, of saving the sun-heat by glass and fermentation, of 
 artificial heat, of irrigation, we have been able to obtain 
 from six to ten crops a year from the soil. " In the hands 
 of men there are no infertile soils. The most productive 
 soils are not in the prairies of America, nor in the Russian 
 steppes ; they are in the peat bogs of Ireland, on the sand 
 
126 The Land Problem. 
 
 downs of the northern coast, on the craggy mountains of the 
 Rhine, where they have been made by man's hands." * 
 
 In this good work of elaborating and recuperating the 
 earth we still have found no way to bring back the coal and 
 metals we are wasting at such a fearful rate ; but the pre- 
 cious nitrogen may be economized and restored by using 
 less meat and calling in more of the product of the sea. 
 The chemical processes by which potash and nitrogen may 
 be got in available form for plant life are now being in- 
 volved to produce by synthesis our most desirable food ele- 
 ments, without the long process of vegetation. By legisla- 
 tion the contamination of the atmosphere is restricted and 
 poisoning of waters prevented. Immense sums of money 
 are by government expended in experiment stations for the 
 purpose of getting the most product for the least outlay, 
 and of controlling insect life for the good of man. This is 
 a kind of co-operative altruism in which all are taxed for 
 the benefit of the land- worker. 
 
 Now, what will this period add to the ethics of the land 
 problem, and thereby to the advancement of society ? What 
 ought it to do for tenure, for waste, for recuperation, for 
 elaboration, for conduct ? 
 
 1. It should profit by all the past, borrow its excellences, 
 but not return to it. I therefore modestly suggest that 
 communism and all other forms of the clan system in legis- 
 lation concerning the relationship of society to the globe are 
 retrogression. 
 
 2. Forms of tenure are really not so important as modes 
 of treatment. That form of tenure which leads men to pre- 
 vent waste, to repair past damage, to domesticate and de- 
 velop Nature's resources, to cherish benevolent feelings and 
 a profound interest in posterity through the land, is best. 
 But I am trying to enforce the idea that, after all, the 
 earth is the landlord and that we are the tenants. 
 
 3. The capacity of the earth is ample, and its resources 
 abundant for all time, if she be interrogated in a true spirit. 
 More instruction and a refinement of conscience will point 
 the way. 
 
 4. It can glorify and magnify the Golden Rule by the 
 scientific study of what we ought to desire others to do for 
 and unto us and unto themselves, and unto this royal heri- 
 tage. Then it can magnify the doing unto others. The 
 
 * Prince Krapotkin, quoted by A. D. Atwater, Cent. Mag., Nov., 1891, 105 and 
 elsewhere. 
 
The Land Problem. 127 
 
 golden rule, the highest altruism, will be doing the very 
 best to others that can be done, or that with all possible 
 light others could dream of doing for our highest and 
 noblest good. The life and death of the founder of Chris- 
 tianity taught mankind that our own highest happiness lies 
 in this most exalted consecration to others. " Love and 
 serve," on the monument of Shaftesbury, " more sweetness 
 and more light," on the lips of Matthew Arnold, are our 
 watchwords. The Golden Rule has had and will have its 
 own evolution. 
 
 In reply to one question propounded by your committee 
 " How can the capacity of the land for production be main- 
 tained in correspondence with the increase of population ? " 
 the answer is easy after what has been said. By the im- 
 provement of land ethics, by the bettering of conduct to- 
 ward the earth, by domesticating the powers of Nature. If 
 the question were propounded to any young clerk in Brook- 
 lyn: How do you expect to rise in your employer's favor? 
 he would reply : By studying how to make him richer and 
 more able to raise my salary. The capacity of amassing 
 fortunes through the fidelity of employes is no more un- 
 limited than the capacity of the earth to develop new re- 
 sources of human happiness. 
 
 RELATION OF CLASSES OF SOCIETY TO THE LAND. 
 
 It is not the farmer alone who is profoundly interested in 
 the treatment of the earth, the air, and the waters. Every 
 man, woman, and child is interested, for the sake of knowl- 
 edge, for the sake of health and long life, for our own sake, 
 for the sake of every human being present and to come. 
 As all parts of the earth are united, as all human society 
 has its international laws, so men are all bound to the earth, 
 and no man can defile or waste it without striking every 
 other man that shall ever stand upon it. 
 
 THE QUESTION OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE OWNERSHIP. 
 
 In the lowest savagery land ownership is communal, 
 in barbarism it is feudal, in civilization it is individual. 
 K thirdly, that system is right which encourages and effects 
 the least waste, the greatest recuperation, and the most suc- 
 cessful familiarity with and control over Nature's concealed 
 possibilities. As I have said, forms of tenure are not so 
 
128 The Land Problem. 
 
 important as mode of treatment. If men are worthy to 
 enjoy individual tenure they should have it. It is the 
 highest good. When they abuse it they get in debt to the 
 rich, who reduce them to feudalism ; and if the rich should 
 move away, a kind of clan system or communism would 
 ensue. 
 
 TAXATION OF LAND VALUES. 
 
 In the first period the percentage of taxation was high- 
 est ; in our eighth period it is lowest. The form of law 
 that does not decrease the amount of taxation proportion- 
 ally to the yield per acre is not in the line of progress ; 
 therefore the true principle of the taxation of land will lie in 
 the way of reward ; as the productive value of the land is in- 
 creased, the rate of taxation will be decreased. I am speak- 
 ing now of intrinsic values. Extrinsic values, created by 
 the public, belong to the public and they may tax them as 
 they will. But any law that punishes a man with taxation 
 for preventing waste, recuperating worn acres or developing 
 the latent resources of Nature, is wicked. 
 
 THE LAND WORKER COMPARED WITH OTHER WORKERS. 
 
 Every tool and industry and implement of man has had 
 its evolution. The wood worker, the metal worker, the 
 navigator, the land tiller, has had his inventive genius taxed 
 to the utmost, and so you behold one with stone saw or 
 planing mill, another with stone hammer or trip hammer, 
 a third with " bull boat " or ocean steamer, the fourth with 
 bone hoe or steam plow. True ethics demands for the 
 one what we give to the other reward to the progressive, 
 starvation to the retrogressive. If we never think of legis- 
 lating to persuade men to prefer the old spindle to the spin- 
 ning jenny, there ought to be no help for the man who 
 looks back to the good old days of the digging stick and the 
 land wasting. 
 
 EELATIVE EARNINGS AND HOURS. 
 
 In agriculture, as in all industries, work or momentum is 
 equal to time multiplied by rate and weight or units of 
 power. The farmer who insists on following cow-paths 
 with public roads and in doing all his work regardless of 
 velocity, must expect to find himself often on the road 
 
The Land Problem. 129 
 
 after dark. In savagery a moon, in barbarism a day, in the 
 iron age an hour, in the age of coal a minute, is the unit of 
 time. Thooe who work to the minute have short days ; 
 those who do not care for an hour will continue to work 
 long days. It is not legislation that such people need, but 
 education and moral teaching. 
 
 Tariff, in this view, paid on foreign luxuries by the con- 
 sumer for the support of the Government, is an easy way to 
 raise revenues and does not interfere with the ends here 
 laid down. Tariff for the encouragement of an industry is 
 an experiment or a patent and should be limited in time. 
 If it bring honest people and skill and consumers and 
 diversified industries to our doors, then the experiment has 
 succeeded ; if it impoverish the whole merely to create a 
 monopoly, then it belongs to the middle ages and should be 
 abandoned. 
 
 THE OUTLOOK. 
 
 Consider for one moment the first human family as 
 they stood millenniums ago in front of their cave-dwell- 
 ing, without clothing or furniture of any kind ; chips of 
 stone and fragments of bone or horn or wood were their 
 only appliances. They were without experience. The 
 simplest tools such as hammers, saws, gimlets, planes, 
 adzes were unknown to them. No one had dreamed of 
 the mechanical powers, except the inclined plane. The 
 wedge, the roller, the wheel, the wheel and axle, the pulley 
 and the screw, were far, far in the future. No commerce ex- 
 isted but the simplest barter, and all transportation was on 
 human beasts of burden. This naked creature seemed also 
 poorly provided physically for the common struggle. With- 
 out a hairy covering, having feeble jaws and nails, his agil- 
 ity in climbing lost without corresponding addition of fleet- 
 ness of foot, he will, apparently, be outwitted and devoured 
 in the next generation by the combination of his enemies. 
 
 But when we consider that this same creature has at last 
 come to master the whole earth by exploration and by ac- 
 quaintance with its laws and activities, has acquainted him- 
 self with the weight and motion and composition of the 
 heavenly bodies, has projected his imagination into systems 
 beyond all these and out of sight, dreams of infinite time 
 and space and motion and creates conditions of things in 
 his fancy that can have no possible existence in fact, and 
 finally expects for himself an unlimited existence in a spir- 
 
130 The Land Problem. 
 
 itual sphere transcending all that his present life can ex- 
 perience or hope for, we are prepared to believe that the 
 chances for his success must have immensely outweighed 
 those for his destruction. No other creature has so pro- 
 gressed ; the whole animal kingdom has not traveled so far 
 upward from the nomad to the anthropoid. 
 
 Now, if all this splendid progress was made under the 
 old feral system of bad tenure, waste, absence of recupera- 
 tion, and little elaboration of latent resources, what do you 
 think will be the pace under the new regime of culture and 
 higher ethic ? The earth is no longer able to support its 
 human population as grazers, as hunters, as fishers, as no- 
 mads. But the ingenious mind of man will devote its ener- 
 gies henceforth to the new culture, and literally make the 
 desert blossom like the rose.* 
 
 * In the preparation of this paper I have consulted men rather than books. I 
 shall always have a filial affection for Marsh's Man and Nature ; Guyot's Earth 
 and Man ; Hitter's geographic publications ; Maury's Physical Geography of 
 the Sea ; Humboldt's Kosmos ; Klemm's Culturgeschichte des Menschen, and 
 a few others of the older anthropogeographers. My present obligation is 
 here expressed to Dr David T. Day, of the Census Office, for information 
 concerning the output and waste of coal and metals ; to Prof. F. W. Clarke, 
 of the United States Geological Survey, for assistance in the study of man's 
 share in the irremediable dissipation of physical and chemical energy ; to 
 Prof. Wiley, of the Department of Agriculture, for the outlook along the line of 
 recuperating the precious elements of plant production in the worn-out lands ; 
 to Prof Fernow, of the same Department, for accurate knowledge concerning 
 the forestry problem as it now stands; to Colonel Marshall McDonald, Commis- 
 sioner of Fish and Fisheries, for information concerning the destruction of the 
 natural fish supply and the immense advantage gained by saving our waste over 
 the vast pasture lands of coastal waters; to Prof. Cleveland Abbe and the 
 Weather Bureau for help in studying the nature of atmospheric contamination 
 and the line of its true remedies; to Prof. W J McGee, of the United States Geo- 
 logical Survey, for permission to examine and quote from his unpublished manu- 
 script concerning the Southern Old Fields; to Prof. C. V. Riley, for many conver- 
 sations respecting the myriad relationships existing between human happiness or 
 misery and the insect world ; to the Coast Survey and Hydrographic Office for 
 the privilege of examining their series of charts with reference to the silting up 
 of harbors; to Prof. G. L. Goodale, whose studies on the useful plants of the fu- 
 ture are exactly in the line of the present paper. (American Journal of Science, 
 vol. xlii, October, 1891.) I have been much interested also in a work by Colonel 
 C. C. Jones, entitled The Lost Towns of Georgia, and various statements in cur- 
 rent literature about the decline of agriculture in many of our older States. 
 
The Land Problem. 131 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 
 
 MR. JAMES A. SKILTON: 
 
 "While we are laying foundations, beginning work in our field some- 
 what on the lines of the Smithsonian Institution and waiting for our 
 Smithson to appear, it is a pleasant coincidence that we have with us 
 and helping us one of the prominent workers in connection with that 
 institution. 
 
 Prof. Mason has, no doubt intentionally, left open for further dis- 
 cussion the economic and political implications and applications of 
 the land problem, to which it is our plan for this season to pay special 
 attention. 
 
 If it be true, as Tyndall says, that the promise and potency of every 
 form and quality of life may be discerned in matter, then we may con- 
 clude that the promise and potency of a proper system of the conduct 
 of life may also be discerned in matter, and probably was discernible, 
 had a discerner been present, even in the nebular age. Consequently, 
 coming down to our own time and the subject of the evening land, 
 whether in its narrow or in its broader definition we may expect 
 to find that there is at least the beginning of a system of morals inte- 
 grated with matter and with the physical, chemical, and vital laws 
 concerned in the action and use of land. 
 
 Borrowing the words of Dr. Janes in the Popular Science notice of 
 Justice, recently published : " Mr. Spencer shows that we must seek 
 for the germs of morality in the animal world. He even goes further, 
 and shows that human morality is based upon laws which are as 
 universal as life itself, and are active and potent in the development of 
 all living things." To which I add that morality and justice are condi- 
 tioned in and by the laws that were already at work at the time when 
 life was mere potency and promise, and have therefore become framed 
 into the very structure of the earth, and that in a very complete and 
 important sense morality and justice are based upon laws which are 
 as universal as the physical universe and to which biological princi- 
 ples and action are subordinate. If this be true, then human justice is 
 not simply a development of " subhuman " justice, as limited to the 
 biological field, but also of subanimal justice, including justice to and in 
 land, the approximate source and store-house of all life materials and 
 forces ; which is the beginning of all right-eousness. 
 
 Indeed, a mere cursory glance at the history of nations arouses suspi- 
 
132 The Land Problem. 
 
 cion that land requires not only that justice shall be done to it by man, 
 but that it finds a way of punishing him if that justice be withheld. 
 
 The ancient boast was that all roads led to Rome ; which meant, 
 in part at least, that the land products of the then known world stead- 
 ily moved toward Rome. The inevitable result of this movement was 
 that eventually the outlying lands grew continually poorer and less 
 able to produce, while the lands at the center of the movement about 
 Rome became congested with the elements of fertility, the outlying 
 lands approaching the condition of wilderness or desert, and Rome it- 
 self becoming imbedded in the pestilent Campagna. In the light of evo- 
 lutionary science and philosophy, why need we to go further in search 
 of the cause of the decline of Rome, the decay of civilization, the dark 
 ages, and all the remainder of the terrible story 1 And why do we 
 need further suggestion that injustice to land eventually caused or 
 promoted the degradation of the intellect, the morals and the religion 
 of Europe, and that we in America inherit our share of that degrada- 
 tion? 
 
 But the discovery of America brought new land into use, and in 
 some very -large sense the upward progress of civilization in all these 
 directions since that event is attributable to the substitution of the 
 new lands of the New World as the new source of supply in place of the 
 worn-out lands of the Old World. The approaching close of the fourth 
 century since that discovery would seem to make it a fit time for ask- 
 ing ourselves how we are treating these new lands ? Are we repeating 
 or permitting the policy of Rome, and slowly but surely earning the 
 same result I Are we doing justice to the land f Are we maintaining 
 its fertility by returning to it the elements of fertility, or are we rob- 
 bing the land and preparing for the day when it will drive us or our 
 successors out as Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of 
 Eden? Unquestionably, the general view is, that the land has no 
 rights that any man is bound to respect. The crops it produces are sent 
 far away to be used ; little or no thought is taken or provision made 
 for the return of the elements of food and other products of the land 
 after they are used ; no man realizes that what he properly purchases 
 in the market is the mere usufruct, and that unless the elements of the 
 once-used food are returned to the land, he is participating in a gigantic 
 system of waste that would be actionable as such if practiced by his 
 tenant upon his land. 
 
 Taking a larger view, we discover that the new age has a new Rome 
 in London, to which all modern roads lead, whether on land or sea ; 
 where practically the price of the productions of the land of the whole 
 earth are fixed, and in which are intrenched a nation, a commerce, a 
 banking and an economic system, and all the paraphernalia for their 
 
The Land Problem. 133 
 
 maintenance, which, taken together, are more effective than ever the 
 legions of Rome could dream of being in directing the steady streams 
 of products of the world toward one common center, and in bringing 
 again upon the world the same dire consequences. Furthermore, we 
 find at work everywhere the inventive energies of an inventive age, by 
 steamship, railroad, and canal, by improved agricultural implements of 
 all kinds, by telegraphic, telephonic, and improved postal means of com- 
 munication with the whole world, and by the aid of machinery set in 
 motion by steam and electricity, assisting so effectually that, whereas 
 it took Rome centuries to do its destructive work, the world may now 
 be once more looted in a few short decades. And Africa even having 
 now fallen into the clutches of this globe octopus, we may well weep 
 to learn that there are no more new worlds, not for our conquering, 
 but for the resupply and relief of mankind, when all the accessible out- 
 lying lands have been reduced to wilderness or desert. 
 
 At this point I ask permission for a digression. There are those in 
 this audience doubtless, perhaps members of the association, who have 
 already answered what I have said as well as what I have yet to say, 
 by the easy assumption that the elements thus taken from the soil will 
 somehow be returned thereto through the air, 'on the wings of gases, 
 and that in that way the circuit will be completed through which due 
 conservation of energy will take place, and that the land, mankind, and 
 civilization will not suffer. To such, and to those who think that a 
 change of crops will do the business, that the " modern improvements " 
 through which the sewage and waste of every house and of the streets 
 of all the cities of the civilized world are constantly thrown into the 
 river, and thence flow into the sea, never to return to the land until in 
 some far-off geologic age the continent is again dipped in the sea, are 
 improvements : and who think that conduits leading direct from this 
 mass of filth and infection into their sleeping and sitting rooms are the 
 perfection of modern science and engineering to such it is pretty cer- 
 tain I have no message. 
 
 For those who, discussing the means of maintaining land fertility 
 in parlors and clubs, suggest the change of crop theory, I have the 
 suggestion to make that when they can show me a practical working 
 scheme for keeping their bank accounts in a satisfactory condition by 
 merely changing the color of their checks and without making depos- 
 its, then I shall be ready to consider schemes for maintaining the fer- 
 tility of land by changing the kind of plant life by which the soil is 
 each year drawn upon and exhausted. 
 
 But it is my purpose to bring the proposition that soil exhaustion 
 means barbarization to the people and nation that permit it to the 
 test of fact and history. 
 
134 The Land Problem. 
 
 Time limitations compel me to confine my remarks in the main to 
 an application of the principle I have laid down in the study of a 
 phase of near-by American history. 
 
 About one hundred years ago selfishness, which had from the be- 
 ginning largely governed the human and subhuman world, was re- 
 duced to at least the beginning of a science in the writings of Smith, 
 .Eicardo, and Malthus. Almost simultaneously the United States be- 
 came a nation, the foundation principle of which was political free- 
 dom if not the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, 
 which later became disputed. For nearly one hundred years now we 
 have had the application of the economic science of selfishness in the 
 affairs of a people whose leading political principle was largely altru- 
 istic, and therefore the history of our country will furnish a favorable, 
 or at least a not unfavorable, object lesson for the study of the effects 
 of the application of that science. 
 
 At the time of the Revolution, and after, the people and the leaders 
 of the Southern States were as stanch believers in and supporters of 
 freedom as those of the Northern States. The writer of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence was a Virginian ; the Mecklenburg resolutions,* 
 which are said to have antedated, and furriished its pattern or outline, 
 were framed and adopted by citizens of North Carolina ; and, long 
 before this, leading citizens of Georgia had strongly protested against 
 the introduction of slavery into that colony. Tobacco was the great 
 exporting crop of the South, and its effects on the soil are well known. 
 The characteristic South had and has no perennial grass or hay crop. 
 Wheat, rye, oats, and corn did not and do not either grow well or 
 produce large crops there. Then, as now, no shipping interest of its 
 own of any magnitude existed there. In Georgia and South Carolina 
 they raised and produced rice and indigo, which were the resources 
 through which money was mostly obtained ; but the people lived con- 
 tented in the main with yams, sweet potatoes, and corn for food, and 
 were true as steel to the cause of independence. The businesses of ex- 
 portation and soil destruction were then in their infancy. 
 
 When the time came to adopt a constitution the representatives of 
 the Southern States refused to consent unless the Constitution was so 
 framed that no export duty could be imposed and no interference 
 made with the export trade of the Southern and other export States. 
 The no export duty clause was presented and insisted upon as neces- 
 sary to the protection of slavery in the Southern States. Over the 
 
 * The so-called " Mecklenburg Declaration " of May 20, 1775, has been shown 
 to be spurious. It was first made pTiblic in the Raleigh, N. C., Register, of April 
 30, 1819. The North Carolina resolutions of May 31, 1775, the genuineness of 
 which is not questioned, bear little resemblance to the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence. Ed. 
 
 
The Land Problem. 135 
 
 strong protests of Washington and Madison this limitation of the 
 powers of the nation was accepted and adopted in the Constitution 
 by a bare majority. The votes of members from the commercial and 
 shipping States of the North made that majority. The change of one 
 vote by Mason, Randolph, or Blair, of Virginia, would have fixed the 
 power of levying an export duty in the Constitution. 
 
 Presently the cotton and later the sugar crop began to be added to 
 the tobacco crop as great crops of the South, all of them export crops, 
 cotton and tobacco particularly exhausting and destructive to the soil, 
 and rice and sugar requiring soil renewed by overflow like the product- 
 ive lands of Egypt, but continued as crops under many limitations 
 as unhealthiness, strong competition in the tropics, small production 
 because these crops were not perfectly suited to the soil and climate, 
 and the difficulty of getting free men to work them. Then came the 
 invention of the cotton-gin, followed by the increase and supremacy of 
 the cotton crop as a Southern and an export crop, and by many other 
 consequences. 
 
 In the discussions of the last fifty years in regard to slavery the 
 cotton-gin has always been cited as accounting for the failure of the 
 hopes and beliefs of the fathers at the time of the adoption of the 
 Constitution that slavery would die out by natural processes. So far 
 as I know, the explanation has always stopped with that citation. 
 But how could the cotton-gin strengthen slavery and weaken freedom ? 
 
 I answer, by the effects it produced in helping soil exhaustion and 
 barbarization ; through increased exportation of cotton and its barbar- 
 izing effects on the soil, the commerce, and the people of the South. 
 Standing alone, the mere citation throws the discussion into the arena 
 of economics. In the Northern States slavery died a natural death, 
 as it was expected to do throughout the country. The cotton-gin, 
 though invented by a Northerner and manufactured in the North, did 
 not save slavery there. The results observed were therefore due some- 
 how to the effects of its use in and upon the Southern States, land and 
 people. 
 
 To one visiting the South for the first time nearly forty years ago, 
 after having become familiar with the reckless expenditure of typical 
 Southern planters at Saratoga, and with their constant boasts that 
 they were the favored people of the earth, because they produced its 
 great export crops and brought all the foreign money into the country, 
 which crops the world must have or perish, it was a profound surprise 
 to discover that these same planters, many of them, when at home, 
 lived in poorly built wooden houses, supported a few feet above the 
 ground on wooden blocks ; that these houses were most generally built 
 like the old log-houses of the North a century or two ago, only the 
 10 
 
136 The Land Problem. 
 
 logs were mere poles poorly put together, with the cracks between 
 sometimes plastered with mud, sometimes left open ; the floor-boards 
 in many cases placed an inch apart at the edges for convenience in 
 sweeping; the chimney built of sticks split from short and small 
 pieces of pine and plastered with mud ; the windows unprovided with 
 glass and closable only by a solid rough pine blind or door ; the fur- 
 niture of the house to the last degree simple and rough, except, per- 
 haps, as to a three- or four-hundred-dollar piano imported from the 
 North. Looking further, everything else about the plantation was 
 found to be of the same order ; the adjacent villages and cities, except 
 possibly a half-dozen of the last, were mere travesties of the names, 
 and all of the latter were singular, shrunken, and inferior, considering 
 their ages and their positions as centers of Southern commerce.* Ex- 
 tending observation to the people themselves, they appeared to be 
 suited to and satisfied with their surroundings, not only, but were, with 
 rare exceptions, to the extreme provincially boastful of the superiority 
 of their civilization over all others. The chief occupations of a large 
 portion of the young men in every community seemed to consist in 
 carrying around large pistols and knives, which they used with cheer- 
 ful frequency upon the persons of their friends and associates. The 
 grocery at the cross-roads was their club-house, and chasing negro 
 girls at night their real business. 
 
 Almost no lawyer, doctor, minister, or even teacher, supported him- 
 self and family on his professional income, but always added planting, 
 there being practically no other reliable source of income known in 
 the country. 
 
 As to dress, the men of the South bought expensive clothes, but, as 
 a tailor once sadly remarked to me, " they never know how to put 
 them on." Now and again you would meet a man with frills for his 
 shirt bosom, and on his shirt sleeves in the place of cuffs, and there 
 would be about him an air as if, could you but make a full examina- 
 tion, there would be a disclosure of frilled pantalets somewhere, in a 
 more or less rudimentary form, in this respect showing the only partly 
 aborted garments of the cavalier from whom he claimed descent, like 
 the partly discarded toes in Prof. Huxley's and Prof. Marsh's fossil 
 horse. At the same time it was easy to detect many noble and engag- 
 ing traits of character inherited from the same cavalier source. 
 
 Looking into the conditions of land titles, it then appeared that 
 there was a carelessness about them indicating an approach toward 
 treating land as personal property, the sufficient title to which lay in 
 
 began to be settled, we already have a considerable book on library shelves en- 
 titled The Lost Towns of Georgia. 
 
The Land Problem. 137 
 
 possession, while negro property was much more carefully guarded as 
 to title, as if slaves were the real property of the country. And look- 
 ing into actual land conditions, it appeared that almost all the land 
 occupied in the early settlement of the country had long since been 
 abandoned to wilderness and grown up to forest, and that successive 
 sections occupied subsequent to the Revolution had been robbed of 
 their capacity for production and abandoned as worthless, new lands 
 being ever the resort, and no effort at keeping up fertility being either 
 attempted or possible. In fact, the whole country, so far as devoted to 
 the chief staple of the South cotton seemed destined to undergo this 
 change, and be eventually relegated to wilderness, and the people 
 either to emigration, barbarism, or extinction. 
 
 Out of this chronic status of decline and decay came the necessary 
 consequences of want of employment, and of any and all opportunity 
 for either a career, or even a meager support, for the young men who 
 had not and could not come into possession of slaves. There was liter- 
 ally nothing for the large majority of them to do except to engage in 
 fortune-hunting or filibustering. The former was, we may advisedly 
 say, reduced to a science, for intending lovers first sought the facts of 
 the case by consulting the records and ascertaining how much " stock" 
 the old man owned before taking any steps to win the young lady. 
 And the young ladies were not far behind the huntsmen of the other ' 
 sex in this respect. Between 1850 and 1860 the numerous filibuster- 
 ing schemes in the South were largely due to this cause of unrest 
 want of opportunity for a career as later it became the actual cause 
 of the rebellion and of all that the rebellion implies. 
 
 Next let me say that the growth of slavery in the South, where its 
 decay had been expected and hoped for by the fathers, was due to the 
 same cause the continued impoverishment of the soil, due to the ex- 
 portation of its annual product direct from the plantation, the owner 
 of the land living, in fact, on his capital, so far as it was invested in 
 land, eventually to be driven out an exile to seek new lands in new 
 places or new States, there, by the aid of his slaves, to repeat the opera- 
 tion and barely maintain the low order of civilization which was the 
 necessary result of his method of treating the land. 
 
 The rebellion also was due, not to slavery, as almost universally 
 supposed, but to the same cause land impoverishment, and the want 
 of employment for the young men thereby caused, together with a cer- 
 tain jealousy on the part of the young men of the South, which had 
 for its object the young men of the North and their greatly more abun- 
 dant opportunities. 
 
 Property in the South, as elsewhere, was conservative, and the prop- 
 erty of the South was in the hands of the slave-holders. But when it 
 
138 The Land Problem. 
 
 appeared, as it gradually did during the fall of 1860 and the early 
 months of 1861, that the young men of the better families of the South 
 would at last find a vocation as officers of the large army and navy that 
 would be required to cope with the United States and the North, re- 
 sistance to rebellion declined where it previously controlled, and re- 
 bellion first became a possibility and was eventually accepted as a boon 
 and a solution. In this new scheme of a new nation slaves were to be 
 the workers. This was the secret of the sudden change of front made 
 by Alexander Stephens when he sanctioned the formation of the new 
 government on the foundation rock of slavery. I speak as a witness 
 rather than as a philosopher. 
 
 Slavery itself was militant in type in the evolutionary sense, and the 
 Southern people in going into rebellion suddenly saw, or thought they 
 saw, the opportunity to complete the type in a symmetrical whole the 
 origin of it all being found in the treatment of Southern soil for the 
 purpose of sustaining a foreign trade made free and possible under the 
 clause of the Constitution that prevents the levy of an export duty. 
 
 When we take up the race question in the South, I expect to be able 
 to show you why emancipation and reconstruction, which have both of 
 them ignored the real causes of Southern conditions, if my conclusions 
 are correct, have not disposed and can not dispose of the Southern 
 question, but are destined to create greater difficulties and disasters 
 than those they were used to remedy or we have yet begun to imagine. 
 
 Let us now turn to the North for the purpose of ascertaining why, 
 under the same Constitution and the same laws, the same results did 
 not there occur. 
 
 Contrasting tobacco, cotton, rice, and sugar of the South with North- 
 ern wheat, corn, rye, oats, hay, and all the other products that leave the 
 farm substantially in the original crop condition, one would say wealth 
 was concentrated in the one and diffused in the other, and the puz- 
 zling question inevitably arises, Why, then, should the South be poor 
 and the North rich the South unable to find room either for immi- 
 grants or for its own children, while the North was able to abandon 
 vast fields of labor to immigrants while the natives moved up into 
 lighter and apparently more lucrative and desirable occupations I 
 
 Further observation discloses, however, that whereas the largest of 
 rich Southern products were practically all sent abroad, after first 
 taking this superior richness from the soil, the poorer Northern prod- 
 ucts were mostly and necessarily consumed and used at home. And 
 here we shall find the secret of the whole business. Nature took care 
 of the North by making it impossible to export much of the crops 
 that were so heavy in proportion to value, while it left the South to 
 its own inventions and its beautiful theory as to growing rich on free 
 
The Land Problem. 139 
 
 trade based on the no-export-duty clause of the Constitution. In 
 other words, the North can not plume itself for its success, because, 
 against its will and without its knowledge, it has been saved by the 
 great cost of transportation of its heavy products, which, acting as a 
 natural export duty in the absence of a constitutional one, prevented 
 exportation, kept the products at home to be largely consumed on the 
 farms where the manure would help maintain and in some cases in- 
 crease the fertility of the soil, protected the land owner, and therefore 
 gave an increased return for the labor bestowed upon the land, its 
 products finding a market at home without the deduction of the cost 
 of transportation abroad. 
 
 The consequence has been that, instead of at once exporting and get- 
 ting rid forever of its agricultural capital as found in the productiveness 
 of the soil, like the South, the North has been able to use it over and over 
 again on true principles of conservation of energy, because each time, 
 after doing its proper work as food of men and animals, the waste or 
 manure it makes has been restored to the soil as so much saved capi- 
 tal, to presently be returned to the land owner and worker in new and 
 larger crops, food or other. To the somewhat occult, or at least disre- 
 garded or unrecognized, causes of its own prosperity, it is due in part 
 that the North has seemed to be almost afflicted with imbecility or 
 paralysis in its conduct toward the South and its problems. 
 
 In other words the North owes its salvation its temporary salva- 
 tion to time, space, distance, and the law of gravitation, by the aid of 
 which the North peacefully emancipated its slaves on evolutionary 
 principles ; but not recognizing the source of its success in the moral 
 implications of physical law and matter, it has been, so far, unable to 
 show the South how to solve its problem. 
 
 During the past sixty years the progress of the age has, however, 
 produced the railroad and the steamship, whereby the cost of trans- 
 portation and the time consumed in reaching market have been 
 greatly lessened, thus reducing the natural export duty, increasing the 
 facilities for looting the continent through manipulations of a system 
 known under the euphonious title of foreign commerce, bringing the 
 North under the influence of English economic theory and practice 
 and reducing the North to semi-Southern conditions as to land, peo- 
 ple, and individual character. 
 
 To this general line of causes I attribute the decay of the farming 
 interest, East, West, and in the Middle States ; the development of a 
 new class of nabobs and aristocrats recognized as railroad millionaires ; 
 the gravitating tendency of population toward cities and city life; the 
 importation of laborers of an ever-declining mental and normal status ; 
 the admitted failure of republican methods' of government as applied 
 
140 The Land Problem. 
 
 to cities (the problem with which our worthy president will deal at 
 our next meeting) ; the modern dominance of the saloon in all branches 
 of politics ; the demand for the increase and development of all kinds 
 of eleemosynary institutions ; the labor agitations, in so far as they may 
 have a just foundation in an unfair distribution of the compensation of 
 labor ; the growth of poverty ; the want of money capital in the South, 
 West, and agricultural regions generally, its concentration in the ex- 
 porting cities and centers, and the demand now being made the chief 
 political question of the campaign for a more equal distribution of the 
 money instrument of exchange ; and also, to a large extent, the devel- 
 opment of disease. 
 
 With suggestive variations in the rapidity, nature, and location of 
 development, these new conditions have kept pace and maintained 
 active relations with the increase and cheapening of railroad and other 
 transportation facilities at the North. 
 
 Disease is a subject worthy of independent treatment, but I can 
 only hint and suggest for your further study. With the decline of 
 fertility, plant life is weakened in vitality, and becomes the prey of all 
 kinds of insect and germ life, finally yielding to its foes and giving 
 up the fight. Coincidently and co-ordinately, associated animal and 
 human life on the farm and in the city becomes weakened and afflicted 
 in similar ways, losing the power to cope with its foes, which make 
 their .attacks from every possible direction of approach in the form of 
 an infinite number of germs, to which weakened humanity succumbs. 
 Along with these follow intellectual and moral decline, the entire 
 drift being toward extinction or non-survival because of unfitness, the 
 beginning of which is injustice to land, soil exhaustion, and diminished 
 return for labor. Much more might be added if time permitted, which 
 it does not. 
 
 I have received from a gentleman (who states that he is a son of a 
 founder of this church and is deeply interested in the solution of the 
 problems of poverty) a courteous letter calling my attention to an in- 
 closed copy of the " single-tax platform," and asking me to consider 
 it in dealing with this subject. 
 
 I could not, for want of time, enlarge upon the scheme of Henry 
 George and its recent modification. Nearly twenty years before George 
 wrote, and as far back as my law-school experience, I studied the fun- 
 damentals of his system, which, as he finally discovered, had often been 
 studied, treated, and abandoned before he was born. When his book 
 appeared I welcomed it, not because I found in it any solution, or any- 
 thing new, but because I judged that it would attract the attention of 
 those who could probably in no other way be aroused to a study of the 
 pressing problems of the time. For such uses I welcome it still, although 
 
The Land Problem. 141 
 
 I begin to see the arrogances of supposed omniscience, and the conse- 
 quent inability to learn further, cropping out here and there among the 
 truly true believers in George's theories. It would be, or seem, discour- 
 teous if I should say that Mr. George impresses me as if he had gone to 
 sea to study the land question and had developed a scheme of the all- 
 at-sea character. This form of criticism, however, expresses my view 
 of it as a whole. He has first of all taken his case into the wrong court, 
 into the wrong forum. The proper action is an action for waste, for a 
 misuse of the source of all production, and it is not a quarrel over the 
 division of wealth already in assured but wrongful possession, as his 
 tax method implies. The question is one of production first and of 
 destruction afterward, and in this fact lies a part of the significance of 
 biological principles so much insisted on by Mr. Spencer. 
 
 But if the facts I have assumed to present are facts, then the system 
 of Mr. George has a fatal error in its proposed remedy of " perfect free- 
 dom of trade with all the world," because such freedom under present 
 conditions permits the excessive exportation of land products, causes 
 the exhaustion of the soil, and inevitably produces poverty and the 
 whole Pandora-box full of evils that follow in its train. 
 
 I am entirely aware of the strain my alleged facts in regard to the 
 South and the causes of rebellion will put on your opinions, although 
 my testimony is the testimony of a witness to what I do know as 
 facts. And let me say that I neither expect nor wish you to accept 
 them without such further study as shall put you in possession of 
 them as admitted or as demonstrated facts, and also of a co-ordinated 
 system of thought applicable to the subject. 
 
 To assist you in the study let me state some other facts that are 
 easily capable of verification. And first this: In framing the Con- 
 federate Constitution the South abandoned the no-export-duty prin- 
 ciple and gave the Confederate Government the power to levy export 
 duties, and its first loan the so-called cotton loan was secured by 
 the pledge of such a duty on cotton. The origin, motive, and history 
 of this clause of the Confederate Constitution form a most interest- 
 ing subject of study for the evolutionary sociologist and statesman. 
 Second, under the influence of this export duty, in combination with 
 the semi-Chinese wall of the blockade, which our foreign friends were 
 not entirely able to surmount and overcome, its nature being that of a 
 prohibitive export duty, manufactures grew and developed wonder- 
 fully in the South for the first time during the war, giving employ- 
 ment to manufacturers and mechanics in large numbers. Third, these 
 became the special favorites of the Confederacy for obvious reasons, 
 and in the last year of the war they met in convention at Richmond 
 and passed resolutions in which they undertook to instruct the plant- 
 
142 The Land Problem. 
 
 ing class in regard to its duty to the Government. Thus in four short 
 years the " greasy mechanic " and " mudsill " became a leader in the 
 new state under a new Constitution that gave him protection. Ac- 
 companying these changes of condition were co-ordinate modifications 
 of the conditions of slave labor clearly pointing to evolutionary eman- 
 cipation within the Confederacy. And fourth, the moment the Con- 
 federacy was overcome and the supremacy of the United States Con- 
 stitution with its no-export-duty clause was restored in the South, the 
 manufactures which had engaged these men were swept away like 
 writing on a slate with a wet sponge. These four items are worthy of 
 complete treatment, which I can not here give them. I commend 
 them in their present form for use in the pipes of all free-traders. 
 They will prolong the smoke materially. And I further suggest that 
 when later you come to this place to hear free trade, protection, the 
 Democratic and Eepublican parties, immigration, the monetary prob- 
 lem, etc., discussed, you bear them in mind and watch the essayists to 
 see how their theories fit into these facts, which in the mean time you 
 will be able to verify if necessary or disprove. 
 
 The question naturally occurs whether in presenting this view we 
 have wandered from the paths laid out and guide-boarded by the 
 Master. He says, in Justice : " For the health of the social organism 
 and the welfare of its members a balance of functions is requisite." 
 While he lays down this principle in dealing with the question of 
 representation, it is evident that it applies with all the more force to 
 those activities of individuals which alone organize the social organism. 
 
 He also says : " The end which the statesman should keep in view 
 as higher than all other ends is the formation of character. And if 
 there is entertained a right conception of the character which should 
 be formed, and of the means by which it may be formed, the exclusion 
 of multiplied state agencies is necessarily implied." And in Data of 
 Ethics he says in substance that egoism without altruism, and altruism 
 without egoism, are immoral ; and if this is true in morals, it must be 
 all the more true in economics and statesmanship.* 
 
 * Prof. John Fiske, undoubtedly the American leader both as a writer and 
 thinker in the field of evolution, to whose instructive words delivered from our 
 platform we have listened with delight and with whom we rejoice to enroll our- 
 selves as fellow-workers, has treated the critical period of American history out 
 of which the Constitution of the United States was evolved. A perusal of his 
 book clearly discloses the fact that he would not agree with the views here only 
 partially expressed and explained. He eulogizes Adam Smith and The Wealth 
 of Nations, regrets that the principles he therein announced were not more fully 
 carried out in our fundamental national law, and commends the limitations of 
 the Constitution in the matter of the power to levy an export duty as so much 
 gain to human progress. It seems to me he has not fully considered the subject 
 or applied thereto the fundamental principles laid down by Mr. Spencer him- 
 self. As Mr. Buckle amply showed, Adam Smith, in writing his first book, A 
 Theory of the Moral Sentiments, confined himself to the sympathetic or altru- 
 istic view, and in writing the Wealth of Nations confined himself to the egoistic 
 
The Land Problem. 143 
 
 Soil exhaustion is but one of the hydra-headed progeny of unre- 
 strained egoism. The effect of it is to take away what our friend 
 Gunton calls 'opportunity," and with it goes all possibility of the 
 formation of rightly conceived individual character. Of this loss of 
 opportunity every citizen becomes a victim, whether he lives in a city 
 and has more [indirect relations to land, or on a farm which he owns 
 and upon which he labors, and from which he seeks the return for that 
 labor. The direct and necessary effect of soil enrichment, however, 
 and of the system of conduct thereby implied, is to increase every 
 possible " opportunity " of every citizen. 
 
 My conclusion, then, is that no scheme of society or its reform what- 
 ever can be made to work toward righteousness and the progress of 
 man and the state unless it begins or has its foundation in absolute 
 justice to the land. 
 
 DR. ROBERT G. ECCLES: 
 
 All I can do is to indorse and confirm the positions taken by the 
 speaker and by Mr. Skilton. In speaking of the exhaustion of the 
 soil caused by the free-trade policy, the latter has given the advocates 
 of that policy a very tough nut to crack. The direction of an indus- 
 try of a nation is the direction of its intercourse ; and this is the di- 
 rection of its strength. If a nation trades with other nations inter- 
 marries abroad, as it were its home interests are weakened ; but if it 
 trades with itself, the bonds of consanguinity are strengthened. Under 
 free trade the United States would do as Brazil is about to do break 
 up into two nations, or rather four or five. 
 
 The lecture of this evening was a poem, but also clear-cut and brimful 
 of science. The lecturer adopted the true scientific method. He be- 
 gan at the beginning of the problem. He adopted the plan of Coper- 
 nicus and Galileo in the study of the solar system, and not the crude 
 way of the ignorant observer. He has regarded the problem from 
 every point of view, and pointed to the interlocking of all its features. 
 In this way only can we solve any social or scientific problem. What 
 
 or selfish point of view, being at the time when he wrote unable to combine the 
 two views in one synthesis, because of the then imperfect state of human knowl- 
 edge. Here, too, Buckle and his work broke down and failed. Mr. Spencer, 
 however, has done what Adam Smith confessedly could not do, and has presented 
 us with a system in which the opposite egoistic and altruistic views are harmo- 
 nized in one and a higher view. And in so doing he has given us the new scien- 
 tific gospel of the coming civilization. This higher view I have attempted, with 
 what I know is but imperfect success at the best, to apply in the discussion of 
 this t. >pic. But I venture to ask, with sufficient modesty, whether enough has not 
 been developed to show that it is necessary for the mass of the American people 
 and their political parties to reconsider, not simply the questions of protection 
 and free trade, but all the other affiliated questions, in the light of the new prin- 
 ciple laid down by Mr. Spencer and of the history of a hundred years and more ; 
 and also whether the same reconsideration should not be made by the leaders of 
 evolutionary thought and the teachers of the people in the application of that 
 thought to the practical politics of the time 1 
 
144 The Land Problem. 
 
 should we know about botany without chemistry, or about chemistry 
 without physics? Another grand point of the lecturer was the em- 
 phasis he laid upon the fact that true progress can only be attained 
 by allowing every human soul to suffer the effects of its own conduct. 
 The only way to civilize a man is to let him suffer the natural punish- 
 ment of his acts. I regret that the lecturer did not go further into 
 the question of land values and point out the fact that the " unearned 
 increment " we hear so much about from those who study this as a 
 distinct problem constitutes all there is of value to anything. There 
 is no value in existence that is not unearned increment. This is dem- 
 onstrated by examining the nature of value in exchange. Labor does 
 not constitute it. Labor is a subsidiary element, but not the law of 
 value. A man in Africa who picks up a valuable diamond has ex- 
 pended but little labor. Value depends solely on human desire it is 
 the measure of your desire as compared with mine. When we exchange 
 a hat and a dollar, the desire for each is nearly equal on both sides. 
 All this desire is unearned increment, for if I alone desire a thing it 
 has no value, no matter how much labor has been expended in its pro- 
 duction. Its value increases as the multitude which desires it. If we 
 are to tax away the unearned increment of land, let us be consistent 
 and tax the unearned increment of everything else. 
 
 MR. J. WHIDDEN GRAHAM : 
 
 I could wish that the lecturer had paid more attention to the politi- 
 cal aspect of this question to the phase presented to us in every-day life, 
 and emphasized in the single-tax movement. We have had a unique 
 theory of the effects of free trade set forth to-night, as a tough nut to be 
 cracked, but modern science has given us nut-crackers to use instead of 
 teeth, and the breaking of this nut is no hard matter. It has already 
 been done, and the kernel is found to be quite moldy. It is said that 
 free trade impoverishes the soil that this is the result of cotton ex- 
 portation. Now, it makes no difference to the cotton-grower whether 
 he ships his crop to England or to Massachusetts. The crop goes away 
 from his farm, of necessity, and as there is no way to convert the cot- 
 ton into fertilizers at home, it might as well go. The evil must be 
 remedied in some other way, as it is done in Europe, by more scientific 
 attention to the problem of fertilization. 
 
 The speaker of the evening is in practical accord with Henry George. 
 The public has a right to take as taxes the value which the public 
 creates, but it is absurd and iniquitous to tax those who improve the 
 land for their improvements. I disagree with the speaker when he 
 says that the system of land tenure is not important. Is the present 
 system just or equitable ? When we see vacant lots along our well- 
 
The Land Problem. 145 
 
 paved, lighted, and protected streets, there" is something wrong. A 
 system which permits the locking up of land for speculation is bad. 
 Taxing land values does not interfere with private ownership, but 
 combines it with the recognition of the right of the public to the value 
 it creates. It permits the best use of the land, and it does not permit 
 the individual to hold the land unless he makes such use of it. 
 
 The definition of value given here this evening is new to me. If men 
 could pick up diamonds on the streets, they would have no value. The 
 average amount of time and labor required to find a diamond deter- 
 mines its market value. The labor cost has, up to this time, entered 
 into all values. Henry George lays stress upon the fact that produc- 
 tion is depressed and diminished under the present system of land 
 tenure. Unoccupied coal lands and farm lands should not be allowed. 
 It is curious that free trade should be attacked because foreign coun- 
 tries would be benefited by it. Would we not benefit by their trade 
 as much as they by ours ? Are not all such benefits mutual f Is it not 
 to our interest that the whole world should be prosperous, so that every 
 one can afford to buy our goods, and thus increase our own prosperity ? 
 
 PROF. MASON, in closing : There is one thought I wish to leave with 
 you. Look around you in New York and Brooklyn, where there is so 
 much wealth and thrift and intelligence, and then look back to the 
 beginnings of history at the poor little groups of human beings without 
 experience or teachers or advisers, and reflect upon the rude and care- 
 less way in which the resources of life have been handled by man 
 then think with what rapidity he may go forward in the future, when 
 he shall have begun to husband his resources. It took a millennium 
 to make the stone hammer, but now we work more rapidly. It is a 
 laudable ambition and hope to have some part in the new gospel of 
 progress. If one can not himself invent a new machine, or discover 
 the true method of working, he may at least be a colporteur to those 
 who are less informed than himself. In a city all ages and conditions 
 of men are represented. It is but a small portion of the nineteenth 
 century which is in the nineteenth century ; the rest is scattered back 
 along the ages. The noblest ambition of our lives should be to take 
 one individual out of the eighteenth century and bring him into the 
 nineteenth, or to take the savage by the hand and lead him to civil- 
 ization. Doing this, the problems we are studying will vanish like 
 the snow before the sun. 
 
THE PROBLEM 
 OF CITY GOVERNMENT 
 
 BY 
 
 LEWIS 0. JANES 
 
 AUTHOR OP A STUDY OP PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY, THE EVOLUTION OP MORALS, 
 LIPE AS A FINE ART, ETC. 
 
COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED: 
 
 Bryce's The American Commonwealth ; Fiske's Civil Government in 
 the United States; Ely's Taxation in American States and Cities; 
 Fothergill's The Town Dweller, his Needs and his Wants ; Allinson 
 and Penrose's Philadelphia : a History of Municipal Development ; 
 Bugbee's City Government of Boston ; Howe's City Government of 
 New Orleans ; Bernard's Establishment of Municipal Government in 
 San Francisco; Shaw's Municipal Government in England; Snow's 
 City Government in St. Louis ; Levermore's New Haven ; Low's The 
 Problem of City Government (Johns Hopkins University Series); 
 Firth's Municipal London ; Shaw's Glasgow : a Municipal Study, in 
 Century, March, 1890, How London is Governed, Century, November, 
 1890, and Municipal Government in Great Britain, Political Science 
 Quarterly, June, 1889 ; Ivins's Municipal Government, in Political Sci- 
 ence Quarterly, June, 1887; Amos Parker Wilder's The Municipal 
 Problem ; A Plea for Liberty. 
 
THE PROBLEM OF CITY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 BY DR. LEWIS GK JANES. 
 
 THE ANCIENT AND THE MODERN CITY. 
 
 THE future historian who shall write the story of the 
 modern city, and of the American municipality in particu- 
 lar, as Fustel de Coulanges and Sir Henry Maine have traced 
 the evolution of the ancient city, will find ample scope for 
 his genius and his industry, and by their exercise will ren- 
 der all subsequent students of social science his debtors. 
 But the time for such an historical accomplishment is not 
 yet come. American cities are not yet made ; they are still in 
 the making. Our municipalities are like lank and overgrown 
 youths, who have expended their vitality in simply growing, 
 at the expense of grace, symmetry, and healthful, manly 
 vigor. We have great aggregates of population, but no 
 genuine corporate individuality and life. In the growth of 
 our cities the mechanical processes of aggregation and dif- 
 ferentiation have outstripped the vital and assimilative process 
 of integration, and our urban populations, for the time being, 
 are sufferers from the evils of this one-sided, unsymmetrical 
 development. 
 
 Looking at this question historically, we first note that 
 the modern city and the ancient city are by no means iden- 
 tical in their origin, structure, or institutional equipment. 
 The ancient city was the nucleus and creator of the state. 
 The cities of Greece antedated and formed the Alexandrian 
 Empire. Rome preceded and created the Roman Em- 
 pire. The modern city, on the contrary, is the creature of 
 the state, on which it depends for its corporate life. The 
 ancient city was essentially militant in its structure. The 
 modern city is essentially industrial. The site of the ancient 
 city was usually chosen for strategic reasons; that of the 
 modern city almost always for commercial reasons. The 
 ancient city was governed by a military autocracy, or, when 
 the form was nominally republican, by a small minority of 
 free men. A large majority of its population were slaves, 
 possessed of no civil rights. The modern city, in so far as 
 
150 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 its local autonomy is guaranteed, is governed by popular 
 suffrage. Its only servile class is composed of those hide- 
 bound partisans who "always vote the straight ticket," 
 obedient to the dictation of the party boss or political 
 caucus. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE CITY ON CIVILIZATION. 
 
 Yet beneath these obvious differences there are certain 
 fundamental features of resemblance between the ancient 
 and the modern city. Each is the standard-bearer of social 
 and individual progress. Each exemplifies the high-water 
 mark which civilization has reached at the period of its ex- 
 istence. Before the ancient city, men dwelt in tents and 
 wandered from place to place as nomads rolling stones 
 which gathered no moss of wealth, culture, or civic virtue. 
 They combined in families, clans, or tribes, bound together 
 by the fact or fiction of blood-relationship. When they 
 ceased to be hunters and became agriculturists, they sought 
 for themselves fixed habitations, and arduously wrung a 
 scanty living from the reluctant soil. In the constitution 
 of the city men first recognized that the ties of human 
 brotherhood were of wider scope than those of blood-rela- 
 tionship. Here different religions met and laid the founda- 
 tions of mutual toleration. Here were the beginnings of art, 
 of education, of a true cosmopolitan spirit. Examples of 
 those forms of social organization which antedated the city 
 still survive and furnish the scientific data for comparison. 
 They will never become wholly extinct. The family is and 
 must continue the germ of all societary forms; but the 
 ethical life of the isolated family rapidly degenerates toward 
 the rudeness, narrowness, and egoism characteristic of primi- 
 tive man. The agriculturist we can never do without, 
 unless, as Dr. Eccles intimated in his lecture on The 
 Evolution of Chemistry,* the chemist is finally to supplant 
 him as the food provider of the race. Even the nomad sur- 
 vives in America in our roving bands of Indians and gyp- 
 sies, and in the modern tramp, the true nomadic product 
 of our latter-day civilization. 
 
 Despite the present tendency in America to disparage the 
 city as the source and center of influences which threaten 
 the peace and stability of society, thoughtful writers on 
 
 * In Evolution in Science, Philosophy, and Art, pp. 125-150. 
 
The Problem of City Government. 151 
 
 social science are agreed in recognizing its pre-eminent place 
 in the van of human progress. " Man, the molecule of 
 society," says Henry 0. Carey, " is the subject of social science. 
 . . . His greatest need is that of association with his fel- 
 lows. ... Of all animals he is the most gregarious ; and the 
 greater the number collected in a given space, the greater 
 is the attractive force that is there exerted, as was shown in 
 the cities of the ancient world Nineveh and Babylon, 
 Athens and Rome ; and as is now shown in Paris and Lon- 
 don, New York and Philadelphia. . . . History furnishes 
 evidence that the tendency to association, without which the 
 human animal can not become the true MAN", has every- 
 where grown with the growth of local centers of attraction 
 and declined with their decline." * 
 
 The free cities of Europe were the source of all the liber- 
 ties which are now the common property of the civilized 
 world. Prof. Gunton declares their establishment to be 
 " the first real step toward progress and freedom " ; and 
 adds : " As the towns increased more rapidly in population 
 and prosperity, they naturally developed a spirit of inde- 
 pendence. . . . The burghers, having had a taste of wealth 
 and social freedom, were ready to risk them all to retain 
 these benefits." \ " In the middle ages," says Charles Sum- 
 ner, our most thoughtful and scholarly statesman of the 
 last generation, " the cities became the home of freedom and 
 the bridle of feudalism." J Adam Smith also declares : 
 " Order and good government, and along with them the 
 liberty and security of the individual, were established in 
 cities at a time when the occupiers of the land were exposed 
 to every sort of violence." And Herbert Spencer, speak- 
 ing of the gradual liberation of industrial workers in Europe, 
 adds his testimony to the influence of cities in promoting 
 civilization : " Growing more numerous, more powerful, and 
 taking refuge in towns where it was less under the influence 
 of the militant class," he says, " this industrial population 
 carried on its life under the system of voluntary co-opera- 
 tion. Though municipal governments and guild regula- 
 tions partially pervaded by ideas and usages derived from the 
 militant type of society were in some degree coercive, yet 
 production and distribution were in the main carried on 
 
 * Social Science, pp. 37-39. 
 t Principles of Social Economics, pp. 84-37. 
 
 t Speech on The Representative System and its Proper Basis, in the Massa- 
 chusetts House of Representatives, July 7, 1853. Works, vol. iii. 
 Wealth of Nations, Book III, chap, ii, p. 308. 
 
 11 
 
152 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 under agreement alike between buyers and sellers, and 
 between masters and workers. As fast as these social rela- 
 tions and forms of activity became dominant in urban 
 populations, they influenced the whole community." * 
 
 With the fall of the free cities, and the extinction of 
 local self-government in Spain, Italy, France, and Germany, 
 liberty and civilization received a blow from which they 
 have not yet recovered. " The poverty and wretchedness 
 which followed this decay of the Christian and violent over- 
 throw of the Moorish cities of Spain," says Prof. Gunton, 
 " are almost indescribable. ... By the close of the fifteenth 
 century their representation in the Cortes, and with it their 
 industrial and social freedom, was practically extinct. From 
 this time Spain rapidly declined, and soon fell from the 
 position of one of the strongest to that of one of the weak- 
 est nations of Europe a fall from which she has never 
 since recovered." \ Surely here are lessons full of signifi- 
 cance to us. No perfection of the details of municipal ad- 
 ministration under an autocratic system should blind us 
 to the real meaning and ultimate effect of the loss of local 
 self-government. When we are informed, as we were by a 
 candidate for municipal honors in our recent political cam- 
 paign happily, he was not elected that self-government in 
 our cities is a failure, and are advised to return to the anti- 
 quated method of government by commissions appointed 
 by the Governor or elected by the State Legislature, remem- 
 bering the lessons of history and experience, we should 
 firmly decline to follow such advice. 
 
 THE CITY JUDGED BY THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY OF 
 EVOLUTION. 
 
 Here let us pause to note that this foremost position of 
 the city in the van of civilization is precisely what we should 
 expect to, find it according to the social philosophy of evo- 
 lution. In the city the structure of society is more complex 
 and highly evolved than in any other form of social com- 
 bination. In the life of the nomad each individual strongly 
 resembles every other individual. Every man is a " jack of 
 all trades and master of none," not even of the art of war, 
 which is the natural avocation of all nomadic peoples. In 
 agricultural communities society remains relatively homo- 
 
 * Introduction to A Plea for Liberty, p. 9. 
 t Principles of Social Economics, p. 40. 
 
The Problem of City Government. 153 
 
 geneous. Occupations are but little diversified. Men and 
 women have common and narrow interests, common objects 
 of thought, and culture does not rise above a certain dead- 
 level of uninspiring mediocrity. The agriculturists of 
 former times were slaves or serfs until contact with civic 
 life inoculated them with the love and hope for liberty. So 
 also in our own day the country relies upon the city for in- 
 tellectual stimulus and ethical regeneration. The salvation 
 of the farmer, as well as of the farm, lies in the proximity of 
 cities and large towns. This vital contiguity has an impor- 
 tant bearing on some of the problems of city government, 
 as we shall hereafter see. No purely agricultural com- 
 munity ever reached or ever can reach a high degree of 
 culture or civilization. Though by no means an advocate 
 of high protective tariffs, I go as far as any " protectionist " 
 in emphasizing the importance of the proximity of large 
 towns to agricultural communities. If necessary to se- 
 cure this co-ordinate growth of city and country, side by 
 side, I am not prepared to say that I would not justify the 
 erection of 'Chinese walls or the infliction of prohibitory 
 tariffs. I differ, however, from the advocates of this policy 
 of exclusion in that I do not believe it to be necessary in 
 America and in the present stage of civilization. The 
 proximity of the city, and daily contact with its pulsing 
 tides of thought and life through personal intercourse, and 
 through the city newspaper of the better class, is essential 
 to preserve our farming populations from intellectual stag- 
 nation, a fossilized conservatism, and final extinction through 
 the exhaustion of both their physical and their intellectual 
 resources. We are told that " God made the country and 
 man made the town " ; and no one better than myself ap- 
 preciates the benefits to the town-dweller of frequent es- 
 capes to the freer air and brighter sunlight of sea-shore and 
 mountains to the peace and quiet of the country hamlet 
 or the upland farm. But the gifts of Nature were bestowed 
 upon man, not as talents to be buried, but as opportunities 
 to be improved ; and though the city is indeed man-made, 
 it is no less the fulfillment of the divine purpose, as all art 
 is the crown and glory and final justification of Nature. 
 
 In the growing village we already have the germs of a 
 larger and more vigorous intellectual life. If the country 
 gives freedom to limbs and lungs, the town liberates the in- 
 tellect and sharpens and develops all the higher human facul- 
 ties. Here wealth accumulates and men'do not decay, at least 
 
154 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 not morally or intellectually ; the fact is, they never do de- 
 cay save under the grinding stress of poverty and the dead- 
 ening influence of a prevailing uniformity of thought and 
 life. As the village becomes a city, all the forces by means 
 of which civilization advances increase. Occupations be- 
 come more diversified. The differentiation of society 
 rapidly progresses. Men become individuals, each thinking 
 his own unborrowed thought, seeking his congenial asso- 
 ciates, doing his chosen work, in which he becomes expert, 
 thus rendering the greatest possible service to society and 
 securing for himself a maximum compensation. The mod- 
 ern city has something of the effect upon individual and 
 social life which that city of God the New Jerusalem 
 will have upon the ransomed spirit according to the Sweden- 
 borgian philosophy. Here every one goes to his own place : 
 the righteous seek the righteous for associates, the vicious 
 seek the vicious. If vice becomes segregated and intensi- 
 fied, so also does virtue. By their very intensity and pub- 
 licity vicious influences become easier to avoid and easier to 
 counteract. If the city contains centers of vice and crime, 
 it is the center from which flow all the beneficent influences 
 which tend to elevate, instruct, and benefit mankind. It is 
 true that there is another side to this question that serious 
 evils attend the too rapid growth of urban populations 
 that physical degeneracy goes hand in hand with intellectual 
 culture and general material prosperity. Later on we shall 
 consider this aspect of our subject more fully ; shall seek 
 for the causes of these evils, and endeavor to prescribe their 
 proper remedies. 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AND THE AMERICAN CITY. 
 
 As there are features of difference, and also of resem- 
 blance, between the ancient city and the modern city, indica- 
 tive of corresponding modifications in the structure and 
 form of their governmental machinery, so also similar dis- 
 tinctions, as well as resemblances, must be noted between the 
 European and the American city. We can not remedy the 
 defects in our municipal systems by noting the superior ex- 
 cellence of European methods, and copying the examples 
 set up for our emulation in Paris, Glasgow, or Berlin. So- 
 cial institutions are not made ; they grow. Their roots run 
 down deep into the ultimate structure of the society which 
 constitutes the soil in which they are planted. What Mr. 
 
The Problem of City Government. 155 
 
 Fiske affirms of the Government of the United States is 
 equally true of the government of our corporate munici- 
 palities : it " is not the result of special creation, but of evo- 
 lution." * Democratic America must solve its own problems 
 in its own way, using the forces and materials at its com- 
 mand. I would by no means underrate the value of those 
 admirable monographs on the government of European 
 cities which Dr. Shaw, Mr. Sylvester Baxter, Prof. Lever- 
 more, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Prof. 
 Adams and Prof. Ely, of Johns Hopkins University, and 
 others have furnished us. It is surely worth our while to 
 know that excellent results have been accomplished else- 
 where, and by what means they have been accomplished ; 
 and we may thence sometimes derive valuable suggestions 
 for our own guidance What I desire to emphasize is the 
 fact that we are working under conditions radically differ- 
 ent in many respects from those under which European cities 
 have developed, and we can not work out our own munici- 
 pal salvation by becoming servile copyists of European 
 methods. 
 
 Our problem is much more complex than that of Euro- 
 pean cities. If we ask what is the form of municipal gov- 
 ernment in England, Germany, or France, for example, the 
 question is easily answered. In England the municipal 
 borough is a corporation deriving its charter directly 
 from the national Parliament, as the German city does 
 from the Reichstag, and the French city from the National 
 Assembly: In each country we find certain local modifica- 
 tions in governmental methods adapted to local differences 
 in the social and political environment. A given city in 
 either country, however, is a type of all the rest. With 
 slight variations growing out of the special necessities of 
 different municipalities, governmental methods are alike in 
 all. In this country, however, we find an immense diversity 
 of method and machinery instead of a relative uniformity. 
 The American city derives its corporate life from the State, 
 not from the National Government. Each State regulates 
 this important matter for itself, and the methods in vogue 
 are about as diverse as the number of States. Moreover, in 
 those States where cities are incorporated by special charter, 
 eachcity has its own particular methods, which are not ne- 
 cessarily or usually identical with those of any other. And 
 in some States where general laws are theoretically substi- 
 
 * Civil Government in the United States'. By John Fiske. 
 
156 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 tuted for special charters, the classification and subdivision 
 of cities into different grades, to each of which is assigned a 
 varying governmental machinery, gives rise to a diversity 
 almost as complex ; so that the laws governing our munici- 
 pal administration may well be described in the language of 
 Carlyle : " The sound of them is not a voice, conveying 
 knowledge or memorial of any earthly or heavenly thing ; it 
 is a wide-spread, inarticulate, slumberous mumblement." * 
 
 QUASI-MILITANT STRUCTURE OF THE EUROPEAN ClTY. 
 
 Moreover, the cities of Europe, both in their origin and 
 in their present methods of municipal government, are 
 quasi-militant rather than purely industrial. While the 
 struggle for better means of subsistence was undoubtedly 
 the motive which always impelled men to gather in towns 
 and cities, as it has been the dominant incentive to all social 
 advancement, the location and political administration of 
 European cities were often determined by the necessity for 
 compromise with existing militant conditions. These cities 
 either grew out of the original Eoman trading colonies, and 
 were patterned in their political structure upon Eoman im- 
 perialism, or they were created by the clustering of popula- 
 tions around the castles of the feudal barons. At first forced 
 to pay tribute to the barons for protection against local ma- 
 rauders, as they grew in strength and acquired a desire for 
 larger liberty, they were compelled to win it by conflict 
 with their feudal masters, and thus developed a militant or- 
 ganization of their own societies. Paris and Berlin, repre- 
 sentative cities of the European continent, have not yet 
 wholly outgrown the militant features of their civic life. 
 The Parisian gens tfarmes, and the Berlin police force, as 
 well as the fire departments of many European cities, are 
 local arms of the national military service, appointed and 
 officered by the central or imperial government, having no 
 responsibility to the local administration. The great city 
 of Paris, though under a regime nominally republican, has 
 no administrative head chosen by its own citizens or by their 
 deputies. The Prefect of the Seine, who is the nearest rep- 
 resentative of the mayor of our American cities, is appointed 
 by the General Government and is wholly irresponsible to the 
 citizens of Paris. The true corporate life and individuality 
 of Paris and of other French cities resides in the communes, 
 
 * Introduction to Cromwell's Letters and Speeches. 
 
The Problem of City Government. 157 
 
 which are artificial territorial divisions not coincident with 
 the natural centers of population, in the cities correspond- 
 ing somewhat with our wards. Each commune has its own 
 resident maire and a sort of local autonomy. 
 
 Perfect as are some of the municipal regulations of the 
 European cities, it is evident that we in America can never 
 reach a like perfection by copying their methods. Take 
 the police system, for example. The citizens of New York 
 and Brooklyn are not likely, I think, to attempt an im- 
 provement of their police force by resorting to the old ex- 
 periment of a metropolitan body appointed by the State 
 still less to the espionage of a force owing its supreme allegi- 
 ance to the Government at Washington. Yet it can not be 
 denied that the European system is admirably perfect in its 
 workings. A friend of mine recently purchased a book in 
 a Berlin bookstore, having arrived in that city, where he 
 was a stranger, scarcely three hours previous. Having an- 
 other engagement farther on, he left the book in the store, 
 without name or address, remarking that he would call for 
 it on his way home. He was detained beyond his expecta- 
 tion, and found the store closed when he returned ; but, to 
 his surprise, on reaching his hotel he perceived the package 
 leaning against the door of his room. On inquiring the 
 next day at the store how they knew where to send it, he 
 was informed that the policeman instructed them. The re- 
 sult in this instance was convenient ; but the knowledge of 
 such espionage is not agreeable, I think, to the free-born 
 American citizen. Moreover, some of the most excellent 
 features in the local government of European cities have 
 been achieved by an approximation to our own democratic 
 methods. When we envy Berlin her perfect pavements 
 and clean streets, we should remember that these admirable 
 results have only been accomplished within the last sixteen 
 years, and are due, as Mr. Baxter tells us, " to a change of 
 administration from the state to the city," or, in other 
 words, to the application of the principle of local self-gov- 
 ernment. And the marked progress made in other Euro- 
 pean cities in recent years has been coincident with a steady 
 tendency to the widening of the suffrage. 
 
 RELATION- OF INSTITUTIONS TO THE INDIVIDUAL. 
 
 In treating of the problem of city government in Amer- 
 ica, I must premise that I by no means' assume that the ad- 
 
158 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 mitted evils under which we labor are wholly due to defects 
 in our municipal machinery, or are to be completely reme- 
 died by the correction of these defects. This problem 
 is but a part of a much larger social and political problem 
 given us for solution. The conditions of city life are every- 
 where interwoven with circumstances which reach beyond 
 the boundaries of the corporate municipality, and react 
 upon the conditions of our civic life. And back of the 
 superficial phenomena of our society they rest upon laws 
 and conditions inherent in human nature itself, and even in 
 the structure of the physical universe. As an evolutionist I 
 believe in a science of sociology, the laws of which are 
 measurably discoverable, and upon obedience to which all 
 true social advancement is dependent. To the discovery 
 and application of these laws I look, therefore, for the rem- 
 edy of the present ills of society not to any of the pana- 
 ceas proposed by the various empirical schools of social 
 reform. The faults of our civic government are primarily 
 faults of human nature itself, of individual indifference, 
 unwisdom and immorality ; and these must be corrected by 
 the slow processes of ethical and intellectual culture before 
 we can expect perfect institutions. You can no more se- 
 cure a perfect society by perfecting its governmental ma- 
 chinery than you can make a moral and every way admira- 
 able man by dressing him in a perfectly fitting suit of 
 clothes. Nevertheless, the first thing in a municipal system, 
 as in a suit of clothes, is to have it fit to adapt the institu- 
 tion to the requirements of the situation. A good lady of 
 Concord once said to Mr. Emerson that "the consciousness 
 of being dressed in a nice, well-fitting gown was superior to 
 the consolations of religion " ; and it can not be denied 
 that the consciousness of living in a well-governed city 
 would be a constant stimulus to individual self-respect and 
 civic pride. Man is greater than institutions ; but institu- 
 tions react upon the man, and either dwarf or stimulate 
 his natural, healthful evolution. It is not a matter of small 
 moment, therefore, whether the institutions " fit " or not. 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD TO THE 
 MUNICIPAL PROBLEM. 
 
 In an hour's discussion a detailed statement of the evils 
 of municipal administration will not be expected. We all 
 know that we have a cumbrous and expensive machinery of 
 
The Problem of City Government. 159 
 
 civic government, badly managed, as a rule, by incompe- 
 tent officials; enormous taxes and municipal debts; over- 
 crowded tenements and public conveyances ; dirty streets ; 
 costly illumination ; and a score of other valid sources of 
 complaint. These evils are patent to every intelligent citi- 
 zen ; and the proposed infallible remedies are about as nu- 
 merous as the advertised specifics for physical ailments, and 
 would doubtless prove nearly as dangerous in their experi- 
 mental application. It is not my purpose to add one more 
 to these proposed specifics. The aim of this paper, on the 
 contrary, is to present the results of a scientific study of 
 our municipal methods, some of which do not appear to be 
 generally comprehended ; to note certain tendencies hereto- 
 fore manifested in the variation of the machinery and 
 methods of our city governments as they adapt themselves 
 to the growing life of our American municipalities ; and, by 
 a due consideration of the forces potent in producing these 
 variations, to discover, if possible, the natural trend of insti- 
 tutional development, and the consequent scientific direc- 
 tion of genuine remedial efforts ; and, finally, to estimate 
 the probable form which our city governments will assume 
 in the near or proximate future. 
 
 IMPORTANCE AND COMPLEXITY OF THIS PROBLEM IN 
 AMERICA. INTERESTING FACTS. 
 
 A hasty glance at a few pertinent facts will enable us 
 better to understand the importance and immense com- 
 plexity of this problem. By a recent census bulletin, the 
 towns and cities in the United States of over eight thou- 
 sand inhabitants contain 29-12 per cent of the entire popu- 
 lation. This is nearly double the proportion of the urban 
 population in 1860, and about ten times as great as it was 
 a century ago. In the North Atlantic division, including 
 New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, 
 the urban population constitutes about one half the total 
 number of inhabitants. This, however, is not so remark- 
 able as the condition of things in some of our newest States. 
 In Washington, for example, on our extreme Northwestern 
 border, fully one third of the inhabitants dwell in incor- 
 porated cities, mainly in the four flourishing towns of 
 Tacoma, Seattle, Spokane Falls, and Fairhaven, which had 
 hardly won recognition on the maps ten years ago. 
 
 As affecting the matter of municipal government, how- 
 
160 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 ever, the census statistics are extremely defective. The 
 population bulletins do not accurately distinguish between 
 incorporated cities and large towns otherwise governed. 
 No adequate information concerning the nature and struct- 
 ure of our city governments is obtainable from the census 
 returns. Nor has this information been elsewhere collated, 
 that I can discover, save as to a few of our leading cities in 
 the admirable monographs of the Johns Hopkins series, 
 and in an occasional sporadic magazine article. I was 
 therefore forced to seek this information directly from the 
 mayors of our larger cities in every State and Territory of 
 the Union. To them I addressed circular letters, and am 
 in receipt of about 350 interesting replies. From the infor- 
 mation thus obtained I can only formulate a few salient 
 and important facts, statistics, and conclusions. 
 
 Of the 443 towns of more than 8,000 inhabitants enumer- 
 ated in the census bulletin before mentioned, for example, 
 about sixty-five are not incorporated cities, but either large 
 New England townships, which often contain several sepa- 
 rate villages, or else they are examples of those inchoate 
 cities which in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Connecticut 
 are called " boroughs " a term borrowed from English 
 usage, originally meaning a walled city* in New York, 
 " incorporated villages " ; and in other States, " towns," as 
 distinguished from " townships," " civil districts," " justice 
 districts," " magisterial districts," " militia districts," " pre- 
 cincts," " wards," and " beats " as the minor civil divisions 
 are variously designated in diiferent States which comprise 
 definite allotments of territory without regard to population. 
 The large towns of New England, in other States usually 
 designated " townships," are still under the democratic ad- 
 ministration of the " town-meeting." f The boroughs and 
 incorporated villages possess certain corporate privileges of 
 a simple character, and are usually governed by a small 
 board of "trustees" or " burgesses," with a president or 
 chief burgess at their head. Both legislative and executive 
 functions are vested in this single representative body. In 
 Pennsylvania, some villages of more than 15,000 inhabit- 
 ants are still controlled by this simple governmental ma- 
 chinery. 
 
 On the other hand, there are many incorporated cities in 
 
 * This word is a survival indicative of the original militant structure of the 
 European city. In England the " city " is the cathedral town, whatever its popu- 
 lation or government. The incorporated municipality is a " borough. 11 
 
 t Sometimes, owing to their size, they are divided into several voting districts. 
 
The Problem of City Government. 161 
 
 all parts of the country, and especially in the South and 
 West, possessing the complete machinery of municipal gov- 
 ernment, thr^t contain populations of much less than 8,000 
 inhabitants. In the Atlantic States, with the exception of 
 Pennsylvania, cities are usually incorporated by special 
 charters, granted by the State Legislatures, and such charters 
 are seldom bestowed except upon villages of considerable 
 size ; though the ancient city of Vergennes, Vermont, incor- 
 porated in 1788 sometimes, though erroneously, called the 
 smallest city in the Union contains but 1,773 inhabitants. 
 Under the system of special charters there is necessarily a 
 great diversity of administrative machinery. This system 
 prevails in our own State, though it was condemned by the 
 able commission appointed by the late Governor Tilden, and 
 has been more recently criticised and denounced by the 
 committee of our State Senate of which the Hon. Jacob 
 Sloat Fassett was the energetic chairman. 
 
 Many of the Western States, and also Pennsylvania, have 
 general laws governing the incorporation of cities ; these 
 are usually classified in divisions and subdivisions, accord- 
 ing to the population, all cities of a given grade being 
 governed by the same administrative machinery. In Ohio, 
 for example, cities are divided into a First Class, subdi- 
 vided into three grades, and a Second Class, subdivided into 
 four grades ; and the law provides that any town of 5,000 
 inhabitants may, by a vote of a majority of its citizens, 
 become a city of the lowest grade. There are many cities 
 of this size in the State. Below the lowest grade of cities, 
 villages and hamlets are also classified. In some States 
 there seems to be no inferior limit set for the population of 
 cities. Kansas now contains no less than 362 incorporated 
 cities, only sixteen of them having more than 5,000 inhabit- 
 ants. The remaining 346 would not be eligible for muni- 
 cipal honors in Ohio. Of these, 315 have less than 2,000 
 inhabitants, 266 have less than 1,000, and ten have less 
 than 100 ! The flourishing municipalities of Avilla and 
 Appomattox in Kansas have a total population of thirty-four 
 inhabitants each not voter s, but inhabitants of both sexes 
 and all ages, including paupers, criminals, and " Indians not 
 taxed." One would suppose there should be little strife for 
 municipal honors in these cities. Each qualified voter could 
 appropriate two or three offices for himself, and still leave a 
 number vacant as an inducement to immigration. In view 
 of these facts, the advice of Horace Greeley may appropri- 
 
162 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 ately be tendered as a soothing balm to the defeated candi- 
 dates in our recent municipal contests : " Go West, young 
 men ; go West ! " 
 
 NUMBER OF AMERICAN AS COMPARED WITH EUROPEAN 
 
 CITIES. 
 
 The total number of incorporated cities in the United 
 States, as indicated by the census bulletins, with such cor- 
 rections as I have been able to make by personal investiga- 
 tion and correspondence, is 1,667. This number may be 
 accepted as closely approximating the true figures. The num- 
 ber varies from month to month, however, and is constantly 
 increasing. It is safe to say that fully one third of the people 
 of the United States are now living in communities possess- 
 ing a local autonomy guaranteed by corporate charters or 
 general legislative enactments. This proportion is greatest 
 in the North and East, least in the South. It is greatest in 
 manufacturing and commercial centers, least where agri- 
 culture is the dominant interest, except in the remarkable 
 and exceptional instance of Kansas. 
 
 The special importance of the problem of municipal 
 government in the United States may be further illustrated 
 by one or two comparisons. Though the tendency to con- 
 centrate in cities is a world-wide feature in our progressive 
 civilization, our own rapid and, in some respects, abnormal 
 strides in population have carried us ahead of most European 
 nations. By the latest census the number of corporate 
 boroughs in England was about 250. In the United States 
 there are more than double this number of cities containing 
 over 5,000 inhabitants. Three hundred and fifty-three 
 cities and towns in the United States contain more than 
 10,000 inhabitants each. The German Empire has now 
 about thirty cities of upward of 50,000 population ; England 
 has sixty-two ; the United States has fifty-eight. We have 
 167 cities with more than 20,000 inhabitants ; Germany has 
 less than 100. A similar comparison might be made with 
 France and other European nations. The rapid growth of 
 our larger cities is not more significant than is the constantly 
 accelerating development of our villages to proportions 
 worthy of municipal honors. The causes of this tendency 
 to city growth are world-wide, arid as enduring as our 
 civilization. We can not prevent it if we will, and as evolu- 
 tionists we should not desire its absolute prevention, but 
 
The Problem of City Government. 1G3 
 
 merely to check the abnormal rate of urban development, 
 which is a necessary accompaniment of the wasteful neglect 
 and impoverishment of our farming lands. We should waste 
 no time in attempting to stem this irresistible tide by arti- 
 ficial measures, but aim rather, by such rational means as 
 we can command, to ameliorate the inevitable evils that ac- 
 company the too rapid development of a tendency which in 
 itself is civilizing and beneficent. 
 
 VARIATIONS IN GOVERNMENTAL MACHINERY. 
 
 The great differences in population and territory between 
 our larger and smaller cities naturally give rise under our 
 methods to innumerable variations in governmental ma- 
 chinery. These variations furnish an admirable opportunity 
 for the operation of the law of natural selection, and if not 
 interfered with by unwise experimentation with socialistic 
 panaceas, we may confidently anticipate that a form of muni- 
 cipal government adapted to our needs will ultimately be 
 evolved. In the States where cities are incorporated under 
 general laws the larger ones are usually so classified that 
 each one constitutes the sole representative of its particular 
 grade. In Pennsylvania, for example, Philadelphia is the 
 only city of the highest grade, for which a population of at 
 least 300,000 is requisite. In Ohio, Cincinnati is the sole 
 representative of its grade, as are also Toledo and Cleveland 
 of their respective grades. In Ohio cities entitled to advance 
 to a higher grade by increase of population can only do so 
 by a vote of their qualified electors. As a result of this pro- 
 vision, it follows that the actual population of a city by no 
 means determines its present municipal status. Cities some- 
 times decline to accept the promotion to which they are en- 
 titled, to avoid the necessity of changing their form of 
 government. This is a serious defect in general legislation 
 when it descends to minute particulars a defect which 
 might in part be remedied by making the passage to the 
 higher grades compulsory, but which it would seem bet- 
 ter to .avoid by more general and flexible enabling acts. 
 Under this system the Legislature may grant to single 
 cities what are practically special charters as was recent- 
 ly done for Cincinnati, Cleveland, and other Ohio cities 
 under the form of general laws adapted to their re- 
 spective grades. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has 
 declared minute subdivision in municipal gradation to be 
 
164 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 unconstitutional, since it amounts, in effect, to special leg- 
 islation. 
 
 EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS IN AMERICAN CITIES. 
 
 To particularize concerning the various forms of adminis- 
 trative machinery in our American cities is manifestly im- 
 possible in an hour's discussion. The chief executive officer 
 in our cities is usually termed the Mayor, and in most in- 
 stances is elected by popular vote. In some cities, however, 
 as in Jacksonville, Fla., he is chosen by the City Council. 
 Sacramento, the capital of California a city of more than 
 30,000 inhabitants has a municipal government of the 
 simplest possible character. The entire executive and legis- 
 lative functions of the city are vested in three trustees, one 
 only being chosen annually for a term of three years. The 
 first trustee is Mayor ex officio ; the second is street com- 
 missioner, and the third superintendent of the water-works. 
 These constitute the heads of all the executive departments ; 
 and, acting together as a board of trustees, they perform all 
 the legislative functions of the city government. This sys- 
 tem has been in operation twenty-nine years, and the Mayor 
 says it gives good satisfaction. 
 
 In many American cities the Mayor possesses legislative as 
 well as executive functions, being in some instances a mem- 
 ber of the City Council, and in others the presiding officer of 
 the council, if a single body, or of the upper house if the 
 bicameral system prevails ; having the right to take part in 
 debate, and a casting vote in case of a tie. On the other 
 hand, the members of many and perhaps of most of our city 
 councils or aldermanic boards, either as individuals or as 
 self-constituted committees, exercise executive as well as 
 legislative functions. In such cases the Mayor, unless he is 
 a member of the council, is often a mere ornamental figure- 
 head, without the veto or the power of choosing subordinate 
 executive officials. In Ohio neither the Governor of the 
 State nor the mayors of the cities can exercise the veto 
 power. In Key West, Pensacola, and perhaps other cities of 
 Florida, there are no municipal officers chosen by the people. 
 Each of these cities is satisfactorily governed by a board of 
 commissioners appointed by the Governor of the State. 
 Popular government may be said to have proved temporarily 
 a failure in these cities, owing to the peculiar character of 
 their populations ; in the homely but expressive phrase of a 
 
The Problem of City Government. 165 
 
 leading official, it has " played out." Our national capital, 
 the city of Washington, is likewise admirably governed by a 
 commission appointed under the authority of Congress, after 
 experimenting with the elective system. The circumstances 
 of these cities, however, are peculiar, and similar methods 
 of government are not likely to prevail generally in this 
 country. One Western city is practically in the hands of a 
 receiver, its mayor and council being deposed, and its gov- 
 ernment vested in a so-called board of street commission- 
 ers, appointed by the Governor of the State, pending the 
 issue of a certain railroad litigation in which the city is 
 involved. 
 
 SINGLE AND BICAMERAL LEGISLATIVE BODIES. 
 
 In New England (except the State of Vermont) and in 
 Pennsylvania the bicameral system prevails, with some ex- 
 ceptions, in the constitution of the city legislatures. These 
 are usually divided into two independent bodies called the 
 Board of Aldermen and Common Council, or Select and 
 Common Councils. In St. Louis, where this system also 
 prevails, they are termed the Council and House of Dele- 
 gates. These bodies are generally elected by wards, the 
 lower house being larger than the upper. No legislation 
 can be effected in these cities without the concurrent action 
 of both houses. It is usually assumed that this is the pre- 
 vailing mode of city government in this country, at least in 
 our larger cities. So careful a student of our civic institu- 
 tions as Prof. John Fiske, in his exceedingly valuable 
 manual on Civil Government in the United States, asserts 
 (p. 116) : " The City Council is a legislative body usually 
 consisting of two chambers, the Aldermen and the Common 
 Council, elected by the citizens ; but in many of the small 
 cities and a few of the largest, as New York, Brooklyn, 
 Chicago, and San Francisco, there is but one such chamber." 
 And Prof. Bryce, whose American Commonwealth is uni- 
 versally and justly recognized as the ablest exposition of the 
 principles and methods of our Government which has yet 
 been written, says, somewhat more cautiously (vol. i, p. 594) : 
 " We find in all the larger cities ... a legislature con- 
 sisting usually of tiuo, but sometimes of one chamber, 
 directly elected by the city voters." And again (p. 596) : 
 " The city legislature usually consists in small cities of one 
 chamber ; in large ones, of two, the upper of which gener- 
 
166 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 ally bears the name of the Board of Aldermen, the lower 
 that of the Common Council." 
 
 The fact is, on the contrary, that both in the large cities 
 and in the small ones the bicameral system constitutes the 
 exception instead of the rule. Of our five chief cities, three 
 New York, Chicago, and Brooklyn are governed by a 
 single legislative body. Philadelphia and St. Louis adhere 
 to the bicameral system. The same proportion holds good 
 in our ten largest cities. Of the seventeen American mu- 
 nicipalities having upward of 200,000 inhabitants, eleven 
 have but one legislative body and six have two. Of the 
 twenty-eight cities containing over 100,000 inhabitants, 
 eighteen adhere to the single, ten to the dual system. Of 
 the 376 incorporated cities of more than 8,000 inhabitants, 
 294 prefer the single, and only 82 the bicameral system, 
 while the remaining cities of the 1,600 or more in the United 
 States are almost without exception governed by but one 
 legislative body. 
 
 SCHOOL BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS. 
 
 In nearly all our cities the control of the public schools is 
 intrusted to a separate body called the School Committee, 
 or Board of Public Education, sometimes appointed by 
 the Mayor, sometimes elected by the people, and usually 
 possessing certain independent legislative and executive 
 functions. As our cities have attained a considerable size, 
 necessitating an increase in the number of administrative 
 departments, this need has often been met by the creation 
 of commissions, usually composed of several members, some- 
 times elected by the councils or appointed by the Mayor, 
 but frequently acting independently of Mayor and Council, 
 by the appointment and authority of the Governor or State 
 Legislature. These commissions divide the executive func- 
 tions with the Mayor, and often have certain independent 
 legislative powers within their special provinces. Such, in 
 the barest outline, are the leading features of the diverse and 
 contradictory methods of governmental machinery now 
 prevalent in our American municipalities. 
 
 EVOLUTIONARY TENDENCIES : POPULAR GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Looking over the broad field of municipal life in Amer- 
 ica, the impression at first is chaotic indeed ; but as we study 
 
The Problem of City Government. 167 
 
 it historically and note the trend of institutional develop- 
 ment, certain general but well-defined tendencies will be 
 made manifest. 
 
 Some of our earliest municipalities, like Philadelphia, 
 and Annapolis, Maryland, were originally created as close 
 corporations, their trustees or councilmen being appointed 
 for life, with the power of self-perpetuation by choosing 
 their own successors. This system was copied from that of 
 England, where most of the municipal boroughs retained 
 this form until 1835. It was short-lived in America, and 
 gave place to the democratic method of election by the 
 people, for definite terms of office, usually for a single year. 
 Of late there has been a decided tendency to lengthen the 
 terms of office for Mayor and councilmen to two, three, or 
 foui years, thus securing greater permanence and stability to 
 the government. Looking toward the same end, council- 
 men, in some cities, are now divided into two or three 
 classes, one half or one third being elected annually. This 
 promotes a more thorough acquaintance of the legislators 
 with the affairs of the city, and prevents sudden revolutions 
 in municipal policy. Both of these tendencies appear to be 
 in the direction of better and more stable government. 
 
 DIFFERENTIATION OF FUNCTIONS. 
 
 In the earlier history of our cities not only legislative and 
 executive, but also judicial functions, were often united in 
 the governing body. The Mayor and aldermen frequently 
 possessed, and still exercise in some cities, the functions of 
 justices of the peace or city judges. This custom also 
 was borrowed from English usage. There was an early 
 tendency to the differentiation of judicial functions, which, 
 in our larger cities, are now almost always relegated to 
 properly constituted courts of law. Latterly there has been 
 a decided advance in the differentiation of executive and 
 legislative functions, tending to make the Mayor an execu- 
 tive officer exclusively, save when he retains the veto power 
 as a check on hasty legislation, and to confine the council 
 to purely legislative duties. In some instances the check 
 upon the powers formerly exercised by the council has been 
 carried so far as to render it almost a superfluous feature in 
 our municipal machinery, its functions being vested in 
 commissions, or bestowed upon the Mayor or heads of de- 
 partments by legislative authority. Though, perhaps, war- 
 12 
 
168 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 ranted to some extent by the character or want of charac- 
 ter in our municipal legislatures, this extreme tendency is 
 unscientific, autocratic, and unrepublican, and can have 
 only a local and temporary justification in the growth of 
 our municipal system. The differentiation of executive 
 from legislative functions, however, seems to be a natural 
 result of the growing complexity of our civic life as cities 
 increase in size, and will, doubtless, continue in the future. 
 
 ABOLITION OF THE BICAMERAL SYSTEM. 
 
 There has been a marked tendency in recent years to sim- 
 plify the legislative machinery in our city governments by 
 the abolition of the bicameral system. This system, in fact, 
 was always local, confined mainly to certain of our older 
 States, where it appears to have been copied from our dual 
 State Legislatures. These, in turn, apparently derived it from 
 the two houses of the British Parliament. In pur National 
 Congress, on the contrary, the growth of the bicameral sys- 
 tem was natural and inevitable. The Senate of the United 
 States has a definite status and meaning, standing as it does 
 for the equal autonomy of the States ; and the debates pre- 
 ceding the adoption of our Federal Constitution show that 
 it would have been impossible to form any union at all 
 except by the introduction of this feature in our federal 
 system. In the city government, however, the two houses 
 are cumbrous, expensive, and an impediment to legislation. 
 I can not learn that this system has any general sanction in 
 Europe certainly not in England. " In no English borough 
 or city," says Prof. Bryce, "do we find a two-chambered 
 legislature." * New York and Brooklyn formerly had their 
 supernumerary boards of assistant alderman ; New Orleans, 
 Cincinnati and Cleveland, Ohio, Camden, N. J., and other 
 cities once governed by the bicameral system, have abolished 
 the second board. The Mayor of Providence, R. I., last year 
 recommended its abolition in his inaugural message. Quincy 
 and Waltham, Mass., two of the most recently incorporated 
 cities of that Commonwealth, have departed from the ancient 
 New England tradition and declined to be burdened with 
 the dual legislature ; while the mayors of Fall River and 
 Brockton, Mass. ; Belfast, Gardiner, Hallowell, and Rockland, 
 Me. ; Manchester, Dover, and Portsmouth, N. H., and 
 Scranton, Reading, and Lebanon, Pa., in the home of the 
 
 * The American Commonwealth, vol. i, p. 596, foot-note. 
 
The Problem of City Government. 109 
 
 bicameral system, strongly urge its abolition. The argu- 
 ment usually raised in its behalf is that one house acts as a 
 check upon che other in matters of hasty legislation and un- 
 wise expenditure. For this reason, as a protection to the 
 tax-payer, it was advocated by the Tilden Commission, under 
 the leadership of the Hon. William M. Evarts. In fact, 
 however, the opposition of the two houses more frequently 
 appears to encourage corrupt bargaining and legislative " log- 
 rolling." Together with the power of confirming appoint- 
 ments vested in the aldermen or council, which is often 
 similarly abused, it seems destined to disappear in the future 
 evolution of the American city. When we reflect that the 
 city is a business corporation and the duty of its government 
 is simply to administer its affairs in a business-like manner 
 for the best interests of the citizens, the bicameral system 
 seems a superfluous absurdity. What railroad corporation, 
 bank, manufacturing concern, or other business institution, 
 would ever think of adopting the cumbrous expedient of a 
 dual board of trustees 01 directors, one to act as a check 
 upon the other ? The prime qualities in a business enter- 
 prise are, first, responsibility ; second, efficiency ; and third, 
 facility in effecting results ; and these are the qualities we 
 should aim to establish and perpetuate in our city govern- 
 ments. 
 
 EXECUTIVE EESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 As regards the executive power, the tendency is more and 
 more to simplify our present confused methods, to make the 
 Mayor directly responsible to the people, and invest him with 
 the full authority of appointing the heads of departments, 
 whose terms of office should be the same as his own. Each 
 department should have but a single head, who should be 
 held responsible for the action of his subordinates. The 
 Mayor and councilmen only should be elected by popular 
 vote. The Mayor should be subject to impeachment and 
 removal from office by the highest court of the municipality, 
 on presentation of the council, for any violation of law or 
 gross abuse of his prerogatives. In English cities the 
 Mayor never possesses the veto power, nor is he directly 
 responsible to the people. He is, in fact, with other ex- 
 ecutive officers, the creature of the council, which con- 
 trols the city as Parliament controls the nation, with no 
 check save those interferences that Parliament itself im- 
 poses. These are often sufficiently serious, claiming as it 
 
 y' 
 I w 
 
 lU Ml w r n o t- \* 
 
170 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 does the right to dictate the terms of contract with private 
 corporations as in the matter of street illumination and 
 to bestow independent powers of legislation on the boards 
 of trade. Our experience is, I think, confirmatory of the 
 wisdom of giving the veto power to the Mayor, and of so 
 defining it that he may veto a particular objectionable feat- 
 ure in a public ordinance or law without imperiling the 
 entire enactment. This is in harmony with our general 
 theory of government, which, while guaranteeing plenary 
 powers, limited only by the terms of the organic law, implies 
 a direct responsibility to the people. This system is really 
 more democratic than one which multiplies elective officers, 
 and divides and dissipates responsibility. 
 
 APPOINTMENT AND TENURE OF SUBORDINATE OFFICIALS. 
 
 The recognition of the city as a business corporation, to be 
 administered on business principles, also implies the selection 
 of clerks and subordinate officials for character and compe- 
 tency as a merchant would choose his employes, instead of 
 their appointment as a reward for political services. This sys- 
 tem has made great advances in recent years, though we are 
 still far from its general recognition. Such appointments 
 should be made under sensible and practical civil-service 
 regulations, having due regard for character and special 
 qualification for the duties to be undertaken, as well as for 
 general intelligence. Subordinate officials should hold office 
 during good behavior, being responsible to the heads of their 
 respective departments, and removable by them for cause. 
 Surliness of demeanor, and lack of promptness, politeness, 
 and accommodation in serving the public virtues now con- 
 spicuously lacking in officials possessing a political " pull "- 
 should constitute an all-sufficient cause for removal. The 
 civil service of the city would thus open up a worthy career 
 for all ambitious to enter it a life-work as secure in its 
 tenure as that offered in mercantile or professional occupa- 
 tions, instead of being, as now, an asylum for decayed poli- 
 ticians. 
 
 DIVORCE OF MUNICIPAL FROM STATE AND NATIONAL 
 POLITICS. 
 
 Heretofore our elections for municipal officers have usual- 
 ly been conducted by means of the partisan machinery of 
 
TJie Problem of City Government. 171 
 
 national politics. It is evident, however, that the qualifica- 
 tions for the position of mayor or alderman do not depend 
 at all upon the judgment of the candidates concerning 
 national political issues. " When the true essence and 
 meaning of the modern city shall be generally compre- 
 hended," says Prof. Levermore, " there will be a wondrous 
 reformation in city administration. A mayor will be chosen 
 as a railway corporation chooses its superintendent for 
 good character and business ability and there will be no 
 more attention paid to his views about the tariff or States' 
 rights than to his opinion concerning predestination and 
 original sin." The increasing independence of our voters 
 in municipal elections shows, I think, a distinct tendency 
 toward the recognition of this common- sense principle, 
 though we are far enough yet from its complete realization. 
 We shall always have a politics of the municipality as well 
 as of the nation, and we shall have parties in our municipal 
 contests ; but the diverse issues of national and city policy 
 should be kept entirely distinct. With this end in view, city 
 elections should be held at a different date from State and 
 national elections. The obvious objection to this proposition 
 is the cost of holding an additional election, but these need 
 not occur oftener than biennially, and the result, I think, 
 would be worth all it cost. This complete divorce of muni- 
 cipal from national politics would do much to break up the 
 disgraceful deals and wholesale trading of votes between 
 political bosses and machines which have so often disgraced 
 our elections, f While we must continue, perforce, to use 
 the machinery of national politics in our city elections, the 
 salvation of our municipalities lies mainly with the inde- 
 pendent voter. All which has thus far been gained in this 
 country for pure government in our cities has been gained 
 by the action of the independent voter. To cultivate the 
 spirit of independence in men of all parties to induce them 
 to work outside the machines, carefully avoiding third-party 
 affiliations, for common patriotic ends, thus finally forcing 
 the machines to accept the policy of reform, and ultimately 
 to commit felo de se for lack of the spoils of office should 
 be the endeavor of all the earnest friends of municipal prog- 
 ress. 
 
 * " To elect a city magistrate because he is a Republican or a Democrat is 
 about as sensible as to elect him because he believes in homoeopathy or has a 
 taste for chrysanthemums. 11 John Fiske, in Civil Government. 
 
 t " It is worthy of note that the degradation of so many English boroughs and 
 cities during the Tudor and Stuart periods was chiefly due to the encroachment 
 of national politics on city politics. 11 Ibid., p. 135. 
 
172 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 RESTORATION OF HOME RULE. 
 
 The tendencies thus outlined and already at work, though 
 far from complete realization, are all, I think, in the direc- 
 tion of a business-like, economical, non-partisan municipal 
 system. In order to facilitate the attainment of this end, 
 however, we must say to the State : " Hands off ! " and de- 
 mand and secure the privilege of working out our own 
 municipal salvation, free from the petty interference of 
 charter tinkering, special legislation, and the bucolic admin- 
 istration of city affairs. To this end, all special legislation 
 for cities, including the granting of charters, should be for- 
 bidden by constitutional amendments, as in the case of other 
 corporations organized under general laws. The Legis- 
 lature of New York adopted, I believe, some three hundred 
 and fifty-seven pages of amendments to city charters, and 
 other special legislation for cities and villages, during the 
 session of 1890.* This constitutes fully one third of the 
 entire legislation for the year. It ought to be engaged in 
 better and more appropriate business. The State Legislatures 
 should be authorized to pass enabling acts for the incorpo- 
 ration of cities, whose provisions should be general in their 
 character and sufficiently flexible to meet the requirements 
 of different localities and populations, permitting each city, 
 under certain uniform conditions, to create its own adminis- 
 trative machinery. The right of local self-government should 
 be distinctly recognized, and, if necessary, guaranteed by 
 constitutional provision. The change from State to local 
 control in municipal administration is in the direction 
 of true progress as indicated by the social philosophy of 
 evolution, tending as it does toward the liberation of the in- 
 dividual and community from the minute supervision of the 
 central governmental authority. Local self-government is 
 alone consistent with the preservation of individual liberty. 
 
 CONVENTION FOE CONSULTATION: A SUGGESTION. 
 
 To secure as far as practicable a uniform system, the wisest 
 possible in its provisions, for the incorporation and govern- 
 ment of cities, a general convention might be called to which 
 each State and each city containing upward of ten thousand 
 inhabitants should be entitled to send a delegate. These 
 
 * Relating to cities, 207 pages ; to incorporated villages, 150 pages. (Statutes 
 of 1890.) 
 
The Problem of City Government. 173 
 
 delegates should include the most careful students of the 
 science of government, as well as a fair proportion of practi- 
 cal business men, so that the best thought of the time may 
 be brought to bear upon the problem. Their consultation 
 should be deliberate, taking into consideration all the complex 
 features of our municipal life ; and their final recommenda- 
 tions would doubtless have great weight when properly 
 brought before our State Legislatures, provided that the 
 natural laws of development were recognized in their inves- 
 tigations and in the formulation of their conclusions. This, 
 however, is merely a suggestion by the way. I have no ex- 
 pectation that this question can be finally settled in caucus 
 or convention. Such an assembly would be chiefly useful 
 in concentrating public attention and as a mode of public 
 education. 
 
 SUFFRAGE : MINORITY REPRESENTATION ; THE PROPERTY 
 QUALIFICATION. 
 
 Whatever may be the future form of our city government, 
 in regulating the choice of aldermen or councilmen, some 
 well-considered plan of minority representation is exceedingly 
 desirable, if it be not an absolute necessity. The selection 
 of these representatives should be taken out of the corrupt 
 stream of ward politics, and an opportunity should be 
 given for the choice of at least an influential minority of 
 intelligent and incorruptible men. The proposition to 
 limit the number and improve the quality of the electors 
 for city officers through a property qualification seems 
 to me both unwise and impracticable ; nor is any tendency 
 in this direction observable in our politics. It is un- 
 wise because it creates a new class of irresponsible citizens 
 outside the body politic, whereas our salvation from political 
 evils lies in increasing direct individual responsibility among 
 all classes of the people. Wendell Phillips may not have 
 been always a safe counselor in public affairs, but his asser- 
 tion that " an ignorant body of voters is a dangerous class in 
 the community, but a similar body disfranchised is more 
 dangerous," seems to me a sound bit of political wisdom. 
 An extension of suffrage under our. form of government, as 
 universal experience shows, is an evolution which never goes 
 backward. A class once enfranchised can never be disfran- 
 chised save by a revolution which would produce greater 
 evils than it would be designed to cure. The steady tend- 
 
174 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 ency in this country is toward the abolition of property 
 qualifications, as recently shown in Ehode Island. As a 
 matter of fact, it has not been found a protection against the 
 prevalent evils of municipal administration. Historically, 
 as Prof. Jameson has shown, it is a relic of the period of 
 Edward VI of England, where it was introduced with the 
 express object of creating a social distinction between the 
 rich and the poor. In this country some qualification of this 
 kind was formerly quite general ; now it is exceedingly rare.* 
 In England, and on the continent of Europe, though some 
 such restriction still generally prevails, there has been a con- 
 stant tendency in recent years toward the widening of the 
 franchise in the direction of manhood suffrage, thus far with 
 no evil results. 
 
 In his recent lecture before the New York Historical 
 Society, President Low, of Columbia University, than 
 whom we have no more conscientious and conservative 
 student of city government, declared that since 1850 there 
 had been a marked advance in the city of New York in 
 many respects. The present charter, he says, is a great 
 improvement on previous ones. Substantially the same 
 causes of complaint existed forty years ago as now, some of 
 them in an aggravated form. " It was popular," he said, 
 " to attribute the shortcomings of the city government to two 
 things universal suffrage and immigration. Yet in 1850 
 there was not universal suffrage. It could be stated that the 
 government of the city, resting on restricted suffrage, was 
 not satisfactory at a period when immigration had not con- 
 tributed anything to the result. There had been great im- 
 provement since 1850 in the matter of elections. Repeating 
 had been largely put down." f The judgment of this wise 
 and careful observer agrees with my own, based on a resi- 
 dence in the cities of New York and Brooklyn of more than 
 half the period covered by his survey. Mr. Emerson says 
 that " at short distances the senses are despotic." An acute 
 sense of present ills often prevents us from recognizing the 
 actual progress that has been made. The condition of things 
 in New York at the present day is hardly as bad as that in 
 Philadelphia, but even in the latter city it is doubtful 
 whether it is worse than it was formerly. Before the adop- 
 
 * The property-qualification may yet have some raison d'etre in our South- 
 ern States, and in communities possessing large illiterate populations ; yet even 
 here a proper educational qualification will usually be more just and equally 
 effective. 
 
 tN.Y. Times Report. 
 
The Problem of City Government. 175 
 
 tion of manhood suffrage there was great political corruption 
 in the City of Brotherly Love. It was the common practice, 
 we are told, for the members of the Council to award all 
 lucrative contracts to themselves.* 
 
 The educational influence of the ballot and the political 
 campaign is great and beneficent, even on the most unin- 
 telligent voters, and I am not yet prepared to declare man- 
 hood suffrage a failure in our cities. England has gone a 
 step beyond us in one respect, granting municipal suffrage to 
 women who are single or heads of families on the same terms 
 as men ; and it is noticeable that Mr. Spencer, though tak- 
 ing a conservative and somewhat pessimistic view of this 
 whole question, and deprecating the extension of parlia- 
 mentary suffrage to women, carefully excludes the municipal 
 suffrage from the range of his objection, f I can not learn 
 that any party in England favors the withdrawal of this 
 privilege. The presence of intelligent women on our 
 school boards, also, can but have the most beneficent results. 
 When our public schools are happily removed from the con- 
 taminating control of politics, women will doubtless find 
 their proper place and influence in their management, as 
 they already have in many of our cities. 
 
 LIMITATIONS OF THE CITY'S CORPORATE FUNCTIONS. 
 
 With the recognition of the city government as a business 
 corporation, and the readjustment of our municipal politics 
 in accordance with this idea, certain questions of a practical 
 character bearing upon the proper limitation of its corpo- 
 rate functions will doubtless press forward for consideration. 
 Indeed, they are already clamoring for attention. Should 
 the city own its own plants and conduct its own work in 
 the matters of public illumination, street-cleaning, the con- 
 trol of street-railroads, etc., or should it assign these duties 
 to private corporations and individuals ? Under the preva- 
 lent methods of machine politics, municipal rings, and gen- 
 eral maladministration of public affairs there are grave ob- 
 jections to the enlargement of the office-holding constitu- 
 ency, and abundant grounds for assuming that the public 
 would be best served by private contractors, provided their 
 selection can be fairly secured, without party favoritism or 
 
 *See Philadelphia: a History of Municipal Development. By E. P. Allinson 
 and Boies Penrose (Johns Hopkins University Pamphleta). 
 
 t Justice. Chapters on The Rights of Women and The Constitution of the 
 State. 
 
176 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 official participation in the spoils of the public service, and 
 provided also that they render a proper compensation to 
 the city for their privileges. With the reform of our ad- 
 ministrative methods and the purification of our civil serv- 
 ice, however, this particular objection would be removed. 
 The solution of these questions would be left for decision 
 in the court of experience. The Spencerian evolutionist, on 
 general principles, is in favor of leaving public service as 
 far as possible to individual enterprise. He holds with 
 Prof. Grunton that government " should be the guardian of 
 the interests of the community without assuming business 
 responsibility." The average citizen, however, cares little 
 for theory; his judgment is influenced mainly by ascer- 
 tained experiential data. Under the law of relativity, even 
 the evolutionary sociologist can hardly object to the rigid 
 application of such tests. 
 
 MUNICIPAL LIGHTING. IMPOKTANT FACTS AND 
 STATISTICS. 
 
 According to statistics gathered by Mr. Sylvester Baxter, 
 of Boston, and the Advance Club of Providence, R. I.,* an 
 organization which has no partisan bias or other interest 
 than that of promoting the true welfare of that city, the ex- 
 perience of twenty-four American cities which own and con- 
 trol their electric-lighting plants, as compared with one 
 hundred and thirty-one representative cities which are 
 served by private corporations, shows that the cost by the 
 former method is only about one half the price paid for pri- 
 vate service. These figures, however, have been vigorously 
 contested by Mr. M. J. Francisco, in a paper read before 
 the National Electric Light Association, f Mr. Francisco 
 claims that important items in the cost, including interest 
 on the value of the plant, annual depreciation, salary of ne- 
 cessary employes, etc., have been omitted in the statistics 
 furnished by cities owning their own plants ; and that a fair 
 estimate, based on records obtained from fifty cities, includ- 
 ing all or nearly all those quoted by Mr. Baxter, and more 
 than as many more, shows that the expense of public man- 
 agement is at least as great as that for private service. Mr. 
 Francisco's estimates for Chicago, where the system of mu- 
 nicipal lighting prevails, were, however, at once denounced 
 
 * See Advance Club Leaflets, Nos. 1, 2, and 3. 
 t See Report in Electrical World, August 30, 1890. 
 
The Problem of City Government. 177 
 
 as unreliable by Prof. John P. Barrett of that city, an elec- 
 trician of eminence and a gentleman of acknowledged prob- 
 ity. Due allowance should be made for the natural bias of 
 professional electricians, not in the employ pf a municipal- 
 ity, against the system of public lighting, and, on the other 
 hand, for the fact that the pleas in its favor are usually 
 urged by gentlemen who have no practical experience in 
 electrical affairs, and who may be influenced by a socialistic 
 bias.* 
 
 Statistics, apparently reliable, show that in Great Britain 
 about two hundred municipalities manufacture their own 
 illuminating gas, and cities like Birmingham and Manches- 
 ter reap a profit of about a quarter of a million dollars a 
 year from private consumers, besides giving them extremely 
 cheap gas, and securing free illumination for municipal 
 purposes. In Glasgow, private consumers are furnished 
 with excellent gas at sixty-six cents per thousand feet, while 
 that city not only lights its public thoroughfares, but also, 
 as a police measure, all common halls and stairways in tene- 
 ment-houses, at small expense. In Berlin " the municipal 
 gas-works yielded, at last accounts," says Mr. Baxter, " some- 
 thing like eighteen per cent of the entire annual expendi- 
 ture of the city as a profit." f In Great Britain, where the 
 cities are dependent on special acts of Parliament for the 
 authority to own and conduct their gas and electric plants, 
 and where Parliament, by special legislation, minutely 
 specifies the conditions under which they shall deal with pri- 
 vate corporations, it is said that gas-owning municipalities 
 are unduly slow in introducing electricity or other improve- 
 ments. | As to the relative economy of public and private 
 ownership, however, the accessible evidence seems to bear 
 strongly on the side of public ownership. 
 
 CONTROL OF STREET RAILWAYS. 
 
 The control of the city over its streets and public thor- 
 oughfares also implies the right to own and control the 
 street railroads, if this system is found to be more satisfac- 
 tory and economical than that of grants to private corpora- 
 tions. If the latter method is preferred, however, for theo- 
 retical or other reasons, the contracting corporations should 
 
 * Mr. Baxter, we are informed, is an ardent " Nationalist, 11 or advocate of the 
 socialistic theories of Mr. Edward Bellamy. 
 
 t Berlin : a Municipal Study. By Sylvester Baxter, 
 t A Plea for Liberty. 
 
178 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 pay the city well for their privileges. This all experience 
 shows that they are abundantly able to do. No repetition 
 of the Broadway railroad steal should be tolerated for a mo- 
 ment in any American city. In Toronto, Canada, where 
 about seventy miles of street railroads are in operation, the 
 contractors are bound to pay the city $800 per mile for 
 every mile of single track, and $1,600 per mile for every 
 mile of double track operated, in lieu of which amount the 
 contractors voluntarily offered the city the gross sum of 
 $136,000 per year ; and, in addition, they are also bound to 
 pay the city eight per cent on their gross receipts up to 
 $1,000,000 per annum; ten per cent between $1,000,000 
 and $1,500,000 ; twelve per cent between $1,500,000 and 
 $2,000,000 ; fifteen per cent between $2,000,000 and $3,000,- 
 000 ; and twenty per cent on all receipts above $3,000,000 
 per annum. 
 
 Some European cities own the railroad tracks, and lease 
 them to corporations running the cars ; in this way, by the 
 conditions of the lease, controlling the paving, cleaning, and 
 care of the streets, preventing overcrowding in the cars, and 
 limiting the fares in the interest of the public. 
 
 THE SEWAGE PROBLEM AND OUR FOOD SUPPLY ; START- 
 LING FACTS. 
 
 The question of the care and disposal of the public sew- 
 age is also one of immense practical importance, not only 
 to the city, but likewise to the surrounding agricultural dis- 
 tricts. Here, indeed, we strike down to those general laws 
 which affect the welfare of the whole community, laws 
 which are physical and biological, as well as local and socio- 
 logical, in their character. Under the methods at present 
 prevailing in this country, as Mr. Skilton has shown, our 
 cities are rapidly exhausting the resources of the land, and 
 this in turn compels an abnormal flow of population from 
 the country to the city. That which should be returned to 
 the soil for its enrichment is emptied into rivers, contami- 
 nating the sources of our water and ice supply and propa- 
 gating the germs of disease, or into the ocean, where its 
 effects, if less injurious, are still ruinously wasteful. This 
 is unquestionably true, though it may be a fact, as Prof. 
 Atwater claims,* that to some extent sea- vegetation is nour- 
 
 * The Food Supply of the Future. By W. O. Atwater. Century, November, 
 1891. 
 
The Problem of City Government. 179 
 
 ished thereby, and this, becoming the nutrition of fishes, 
 improves our food supply derived from the seas ; while some 
 portion of the free nitrogenous elements may be, as he as- 
 serts, restored to the soil through the atmosphere. 
 
 So abundant are the resources of Nature, when supple- 
 mented by the aid of chemistry, that I have no apprehension 
 of any immediate impending danger of a complete failure 
 of our food supply ; but the abandonment of farms in New 
 England, in our own State, and even in communities far- 
 ther West, on account of the exhaustion of the soil, and 
 the still greater evils of this sort notoriously exemplified in 
 the South, as graphically described by Prof. Mason and Mr. 
 Skilton,* should warn us against all unnecessary waste. 
 Nor are these local effects the most serious evidences that 
 this exhaustion is already bearing heavily on the vitality 
 and prosperity of our people. Dr. Milner Fothergill, in his 
 suggestive monograph on The Town Dweller, calls attention 
 to the physical deterioration of people living in cities, which 
 in the second and third generation induces an actual in- 
 heritance of impaired vitality. And Prof. Atwater, a com- 
 petent chemist who has thoroughly investigated this ques- 
 tion, traces much of this deterioration to the sources of our 
 food supply By estimates, founded on numerous experi- 
 ments, he assures us that, by reason of the exhaustion of 
 nitrogenous elements from the soil, all our grains and food- 
 products grown in this country have actually deteriorated 
 from twenty-five to forty per cent or more in their proteins 
 or tissue-making elements, as compared with similar prod- 
 ucts of the soil grown in European countries. This entails 
 a like deterioration in our meat supplies, and also in 
 our own bodily tissues. This is surely a matter of supreme 
 importance to the present and future populations of both 
 city and country. That this waste can be prevented by the 
 imposition of tariffs or export taxes, as Mr. Skilton argues, 
 I do not believe, since his method fails unless the products 
 of the soil are actually consumed and their fertilizing ex- 
 creta deposited in situ. This is, of course, utterly imprac- 
 ticable. The remedy must be sought in other and more scien- 
 tific ways, as it has been sought and discovered in Europe. 
 
 In the city of Glasgow, which owns its sewage plant and 
 conducts its own street-cleaning and sewerage service, a 
 
 * The Land Problem. A Lecture before the Brooklyn Ethical Association. By 
 Prof. Otis T. Mason, Curator of the Department of Ethnology in the National 
 Museum, Washington, D. C., with discussion by James A. Skilton and others. 
 
180 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 considerable revenue is derived from the sale of manures, 
 obtained from these sources, to farmers twenty miles around ; 
 by this means the fertilizing elements are restored to the 
 neighboring soil, and the cost of this entire service, in a 
 city of over 600,000 inhabitants, is reduced to about $190,- 
 000 a year, or thirty-five cents per capita* Brooklyn pays 
 rather more than three times as much, and New York eight 
 times as much, according to recent statistics, f for the same 
 service performed in a vastly inferior manner, and with no 
 precaution against this destructive waste. The comparison 
 between our own and many continental cities would be simi- 
 larly instructive. Such facts should put our American cities 
 to shame, and spur us forward to better things. 
 
 STATE SOCIALISM; METHODS OF TAXATION. 
 
 However it may be in England, where the conditions of 
 parliamentary control and interference greatly modify the 
 problem, as is shown by the writers in A Plea for Liberty, 
 in our own country the recognition of the right of the 
 municipality to control its own gas and electric systems, its 
 street railroads, and its sewage plants, should not necessarily 
 be regarded as a step in the direction of state socialism, 
 when compared with existing methods. Our present system 
 is not uniformly one of contract with competent parties under 
 free competition, but often of special privileges exclusively 
 granted to private corporations which have a political " pull, ' 
 generally with no adequate compensation to the public, whose 
 servants they are. The change would simply involve the 
 resumption by the citizens of their individual and corporate 
 rights as against private corporate monopolies. Neverthe- 
 less, the consistent evolutionist looks askance upon all propo- 
 sitions for the assumption of public control over matters 
 which can properly be left to private enterprise. This en- 
 tire question should be scientifically investigated in all its 
 aspects, with reference to the ultimate as well as the imme- 
 diate effects of public ownership, before this policy is finally 
 determined upon. 
 
 There is no reason why, even under our present methods, 
 many existing evils should not be speedily abated ; why, for 
 example, our streets should not be cleaned, and ashes and 
 garbage removed from our houses, exclusively by night ; nor 
 
 * Glasgow : a Municipal Study. By Albert Shaw. Century, March, 1890. 
 t See Census Bulletin No. 82, issued June 22, 1891. 
 
The Problem of City Government. 181 
 
 why this service should not be as well done in New York 
 and Brooklyn as it is in Glasgow and Berlin. Nor is there 
 any excuse for the continuance of our present crude and 
 inequitable methods of municipal taxation. There surely 
 should be sufficient civic and financial wisdom to invent an 
 equitable method of levying and collecting taxes in place of 
 the unjust methods now in vogue. Every one familiar with 
 our system of taxing personal property knows that its re- 
 sults are farcically inequitable ; it is scarcely better, in fact, 
 than a legalized system of blackmail on those who are hon- 
 est enough and innocent enough to make true returns of 
 their taxable property. Great abuses have also arisen in 
 conne ction with the forced sale of real estate for the non- 
 payment of taxes. The abuses of taxation on personal 
 property place a strong argument in the mouths of the ad- 
 vocates of the single tax on land values, which at least has 
 the merit of simplicity, and ease and certainty of assess- 
 ment It appears to be open, however, to grave objections 
 on the score of equity as applied to municipal taxation. 
 Mr. Potts has shown from statistics, the accuracy of which 
 has not been successfully questioned, that it would bear with 
 unjust severity on the poorer classes in our cities, since the 
 ratio of the value of improvements to that of the land is 
 greater in the wealthy than in the poorer neighborhoods.* 
 Some system more equitable and economical than the 
 present, however, is surely devisable. The whole subject 
 of municipal taxation needs thorough scientific analysis and 
 investigation. 
 
 INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER AND GOOD CITIZENSHIP. 
 
 Looking deeper than all these questions of civic machin- 
 ery and administrative methods, we are thrown back at last 
 upon the more serious and fundamental problem of the best 
 ways of developing the physique, intelligence, character, and 
 conscience of the individual citizen. The poorest system 
 will yield reasonably satisfactory results under a wise, intel- 
 ligent, and conscientious administration, and the best will 
 fail under a corrupt administration. How to get good pub- 
 lic servants is our most serious difficulty, and back of this is 
 
 * These statistics are derived from Boston and other Massachusetts cities, where 
 tlic value of the land is estimated separately from that of the improvements. 
 This system of ass.-ssmrnt should be introduced everywhere. See Evolution and 
 Social Reform : the Socialistic Method. By William Potts, in Brooklyn Ethical 
 Association Lectures on Sociology. 
 
182 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 the prime necessity of getting good citizens, actively inter- 
 ested in public affairs. Our problem is unquestionably ren- 
 dered more serious than that of European cities by the 
 rapidity with which our city populations change, through 
 immigration, which introduces a vast foreign element, often 
 ignorant and debased, always unacquainted with our modes 
 of thought and life and with our political institutions, and 
 also from other causes. It may be said with truth, however, 
 that if our intelligent, well-to-do American-born citizens 
 took a vital interest in public affairs, the desired reforma- 
 tion of abuses might be speedily accomplished in spite of 
 this difficulty. It is a notorious fact that they do not, as a 
 rule, manifest such an interest. This, as Dr. Andrews as- 
 sured us,* is the most serious form of anarchism which we 
 have to combat far more serious than the anarchism, 
 the ignorance, or the depravity of the foreign-born popula- 
 tion. What is the cause of this apathy of the well-to-do 
 citizen ? Where shall we look for its cure ? 
 
 THE CITY AXD THE STATE : HOME EULE AS A CUKE FOR 
 APATHY. 
 
 This apathy, as it relates to municipal aifairs, is doubtless 
 in part due to a serious defect in our system to the fact 
 that the city is the creature and puppet of the State, practi- 
 cally deprived of its right of self-government. It must 
 appeal like a pauper to the State Legislature for privileges 
 which every New England town enjoys as a fundamental 
 right. Its citizens have no guaranteed security for home 
 rule, no opportunity for direct criticism and discussion of 
 municipal policies, no real responsibility for the manage- 
 ment of their own aifairs. The vitality of our American 
 system resides in the immediate contact of the voter with 
 the problems of local government, as in the New England 
 town meeting. This makes him directly responsible for 
 results, and educates him for the duties of citizenship. So 
 long as the State possesses the power of charter-tinkering 
 and constant interference with the city's affairs, so long as 
 our political machines usurp the proper functions of the in- 
 dividual, this direct influence and responsibility of the 
 citizen is impossible. Our municipal affairs are, therefore, 
 at the mercy of partisan cliques and rings, often operating 
 
 * The Duty of a Public Spirit. A Lecture before the Brooklyn Ethical Associ- 
 ation, by E. B. Andrews, D. D., LL. D., President of Brown University. 
 
The Problem of City Government. 183 
 
 at the State capital, remote from the surveillance of the 
 citizen. The intelligent voter sees this and is discouraged. 
 
 LEGALIZED PKIMABIES AND WARD COUNCILS. 
 
 The constitutional guarantee of local self-government 
 which I have already recommended should, therefore, be 
 supplemented by the legalization of the primary assembly 
 at which nominations are made, throwing around the voter 
 in the preliminary caucus and convention, as well as at the 
 polls, the protection of the secret official ballot. Every pos- 
 sible moral influence and increase of responsibility in govern- 
 mental methods should be brought to bear on the voter to 
 induce him to take 'an active interest in public affairs. In 
 Berlin citizens are fined or imprisoned for declination of 
 office. This, however, is a feature of the dominant mili- 
 tantism in European cities which Americans would not, and 
 evolutionists should not, tolerate. We should stimulate the 
 interest of the voter by increasing his direct responsibility 
 and influence on public affairs. Each ward or district from 
 which councilmen are elected should have its public hall or 
 ward room, as in some of our Eastern cities, where, upon a 
 designated day, at least once a month, the citizens should 
 meet their representatives for consultation, counsel, and in- 
 struction. In this manner, and by the legalizing of the 
 primary, much of the virtue of the town meeting may be 
 restored to our municipalities. The primary and ward meet- 
 ing would become educational influences of great value, pre- 
 paring the voter for the higher duties of citizenship. Here 
 the laboring man would meet the capitalist on terms of per- 
 fect equality, and each citizen would have his due weight 
 and influence in shaping the public policy. Social classes 
 would learn to know each other better and to respect each 
 other's motives. Causes of social friction and distrust would 
 be removed or alleviated. The light of public discussion 
 would be thrown upon all jobs and underhanded methods 
 in municipal legislation, and corrupt practices would thus 
 be nipped in the bud. 
 
 If the ward meeting should be termed a " Council," and 
 the central representative body the " Legislative Assembly," 
 these designations would properly indicate the respective 
 functions of those bodies. In the first, the voters would 
 consult directly with each other and with their represent- 
 atives, and, if necessary, instruct the latter as to their will 
 13 
 
184 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 in matters of public policy.* The second or representative 
 body alone would possess legislative powers. Instead of 
 emasculating the legislative body of its functions, as has 
 been latterly attempted, it should be invested with all the 
 authority possessed by the trustees or directors of a private 
 corporation, subject only to the veto of the Mayor and the 
 provisions of the general law governing such bodies, thus 
 adding to the dignity and responsibility of the office and 
 making it worthy of the most intelligent and respectable 
 incumbency. If necessary, the right of the Assembly to 
 create indebtedness should be limited by general law, and 
 an annual budget of expenditures prepared by duly author- 
 ized officials, as a check on municipal extravagance. The 
 principle of the referendum, or submission of important 
 public measures to the popular vote, might also be intro- 
 duced under proper restrictions. These precautions would 
 be far less demanded, however, under the system of respon- 
 sibility herein advocated than under our present irrespon- 
 sible methods. 
 
 Some of the foregoing propositions, if taken separately 
 and independently, will doubtless be regarded as open to 
 criticism; but it should be remembered that they are in- 
 tended to act co-operatively; and so viewed, they will be 
 found, I think, parts of a consistent whole. After the 
 signing of our Declaration of Independence a delegate said 
 to Benjamin Franklin : " Now we must all hang together ! " 
 " Yes," was the reply, with a suggestive gesture, " or we shall 
 all hang separately." So, if any of these suggestions, when 
 taken separately, seems worthy of summary execution, let 
 the critic first examine whether it hangs together with the 
 rest. 
 
 SUMMARY OF NATURAL REMEDIES. 
 
 It should be evident, I think, from the foregoing consid- 
 erations, that the problem of municipal government is but 
 a part of that larger social problem which is pressing upon 
 us for solution ; that it can not be wholly separated from 
 conditions which arise outside our cities, and to which it is 
 vitally related. Like the larger social problem, its ultimate 
 solution depends upon the improvement of individual char- 
 acter and intelligence. Like it, its roots reach down into 
 the very soil beneath our feet, and depend for their nourish- 
 
 * This would permit the voter to take the initiative in the introduction of pub- 
 lic measures, as in the system prevailing in the Swiss cantons. 
 
The Problem of City Government. 185 
 
 ment not only upon the laws of human nature, but of physi- 
 cal nature also. City waste impoverishes country vegetation, 
 and this in turn fails properly to nourish the inhabitant of 
 city and country alike. Agriculture thus becomes less lucra- 
 tive, and thousands of farm laborers are forced to seek the 
 city for a living, causing an unnatural congestion of popula- 
 tion at the urban centers. Bad air, bad drainage, poor food, 
 insufficient sunlight, and lack of equally distributed physical 
 exercise help to undermine the constitutions of city dwellers, 
 so that their children enter the world dwarfed and with im- 
 paired powers of digestion and assimilation. That physical 
 ills react upon the mental and moral stamina of the people 
 we can not doubt. From a tenement-house and bar-room 
 atmosphere we can only expect tenement-house and bar-room 
 politics. If we want good citizens, we must cultivate the 
 mens sana in corpore sano. To offset the tendencies to 
 vital deterioration which now prevail we must have wider 
 streets, better houses for the poorer classes, open to the light 
 and air, more numerous and extensive parks the lungs of a 
 great city and, above all, easy access by rapid transit to 
 suburban homes. We must have good schools for our chil- 
 dren, wherein due attention is paid to physical and moral 
 culture, manual training, and the duties of citizenship, as 
 well as to the training of the intellect. We must have purer 
 foods, supplying all the materials essential for healthful 
 nutrition, We must restore to the soil those vital elements 
 necessary to the growth of our food supplies. By systematic 
 exercise, scientifically devised and applied, we must offset the 
 lack of all-around physical development necessitated by our 
 civic life. A German poet has truly said : 
 
 "E'en from the body's purity 
 The mind derives a secret, sympathetic aid." 
 
 And so this higher creation of physical manhood shall help 
 us in our efforts rightly to solve the problems of society. 
 
 THE AMERICAN CITY IN THE FUTURE. 
 
 Looking at the narrower problem of municipal adminis- 
 tration, we see certain well-defined tendencies in the evolution 
 of our political methods already at work, and along the lines 
 of these tendencies, in so far as they offer opportunities for 
 the free activities of the individual citizen, must we seek its 
 rational solution. These tendencies indicate that the future 
 
186 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 American city will be a natural growth, not an artificial 
 creation ; that it will adapt itself to the structure and 
 genius of our democratic institutions ; that it will reclaim 
 the right of self-government which was an original endow- 
 ment of our local communities ; that it will exercise this 
 right in accordance with business principles, not as a mere 
 annex to the machinery of national politics. It will simplify 
 its methods by the abolition of supernumerary boards, com- 
 missions, and dual legislative bodies ; it will abolish unneces- 
 sary elective offices and clothe its executive with the full 
 power of appointing the heads of municipal departments, 
 thus making him directly responsible to the people. It will 
 open up a career for those who are laudably ambitious to 
 serve the city, by making permanent the tenure of subordi- 
 nate positions, subject to removal for cause ; while it will 
 completely differentiate executive from legislative functions 
 in our larger cities, restoring to the Government the full 
 powers and responsibility belonging to the trustees of a cor- 
 poration. Such a responsible government, resting upon the 
 will of the people, inviting and receiving the free criticism 
 and advice of the citizens in the ward or district councils, 
 will be readily responsive to an enlightened public sentiment, 
 and embody its will in a policy at once economical and pro- 
 gressive, worthy of the most advanced civilization of the age.* 
 
 * I am indebted to the Hon. Hiram Howard, of Providence, R. I., for wise sug- 
 gestions, and the opportunity of access to important statistical information, bear- 
 ing on the problem of municipal government. My thanks are also due to the 
 mayors of many of our American cities for valuable information in regard to 
 local municipal methods. 
 
The Problem of City Government. 187 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 
 
 HON. JOHN A. TAYLOR : 
 
 I regard the lecture to which we have listened as a most valuable 
 contribution to the literature of this subject. I find nothing in it 
 with which I substantially disagree. I will therefore supplement it by 
 calling attention to some elements which make our present municipal 
 methods ineffectual. First, there is the lamentable ignorance, on the 
 part of the citizens, of the workings of the city government. I will un- 
 dertake to say that in this intelligent audience there are not more than 
 five men who could name the aldermen who legislate for the city ; and 
 I doubt if there are as many who could name the aldermen for their 
 own and adjacent wards. I also undertake to say that I could easily 
 choose from this audience five men who would give us a better gov- 
 ernment than we have ever enjoyed in this city. Yet the faults of our 
 administration are not wholly due to those who fill our municipal 
 offices. 
 
 We often blame officials for faults that are inherent in the system. 
 There is much unjust criticism of public officers. We are inclined to 
 expect impossibilities of a man because he holds office. It is true, how- 
 ever, that our municipal government has been largely given over to 
 the professional politicians. A person accidentally stepping into a 
 meeting of the legislature of this city would be surprised to learn 
 that these men had the administration of the affairs of the city in 
 their hands. He would be likely to suppose himself in some brewers' 
 association, with a lunatic or two and a few Mugwumps thrown in 
 by way of variety. 
 
 One reason that we have this kind of business is that the better 
 class of citizens who occasionally step in and try to effect reforms are 
 too slow. In October they say : " Let us have a meeting of the decent 
 men, and nominate a better class of candidates." They send out no- 
 tices, meet, resolve, and then find out that in the previous September 
 primary meetings have been held in which it has been practically de- 
 termined who is to be mayor and who are to be the aldermen. The 
 greatest absurdity in our present situation is the admixture of national 
 politics with city government. It is ridiculous that a man's view on 
 bimetallism should influence his vote for a man to clean our city 
 streets. 
 
 Our crude system is the natural outgrowth of the present state of 
 
188 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 civilization in our country. The absorbing thing with men is to bet- 
 ter their condition, and they can not afford to attend to the govern- 
 ment, which is therefore remitted to a small class of politicians. This 
 is in. part necessitated by the complexity of the system and then we, 
 at oui leisure, berate the officials. There is no panacea for the evils 
 noted. In a general way, the remedy is to make the citizens more 
 worthy, to cultivate patriotism, and not ignore the fact that there is 
 just as much patriotism among the ignorant voters and practical poli- 
 ticians as among the well-to-do who stand aloof from the machine. 
 There is something in the idea of going back to the town-meeting system, 
 and substituting for the meeting of all the citizens in one place, which 
 is impracticable, a division into small districts and the selection in each 
 of one person delegated with the power of two or three hundred. The 
 advantage of the town meeting was that there each man counted for 
 all he was worth in character ; he was weighed as well as counted. 
 
 We need to cultivate a municipal spirit a civic pride in that which 
 pertains to our own city to feel that our city is the best spot on 
 earth, to be proud of our neighborhood and willing to work for it and 
 protect it. 
 
 HON. CHARLES S. FAIRCHILD: 
 
 I have but little to say in criticism or opposition, and, like Mr. Tay- 
 lor, I shall be obliged to speak upon the subject somewhat generally. 
 First, of the tendency of population to our cities. I have been look- 
 ing at the census of my native county, Madison. The total popula- 
 tion of the county has diminished about 1,200 in ten years. At the 
 same time the villages of the county there are no cities increased 
 over 4,000. Hence there has been a decrease of rural population of 
 from 5,000 to 6,000, or about seventeen per cent. A large portion of 
 this population has gone away from the county, and another large 
 portion into the villages. I notice the abandonment of small holdings 
 of lands. There used to be plots of from three to five acres within a 
 mile or so of the villages owned and occupied by laborers, who, when 
 otherwise unemployed, worked on their land. These are being aban- 
 doned, and the people are crowding into two- or three-story houses in 
 the villages. This being the general condition of things, the problem 
 of municipal government is most important and vital to the people of 
 this country. 
 
 I have thought how strange is the evolution of government from 
 that primitive condition which leaves the settlement of questions of 
 right between one's self and one's neighbor in one's own hands, 
 and that where other powers step in and alter the relations. If the 
 three men on this platform owned one thousand acres of land, we 
 
The Problem of City Government. 189 
 
 might lay drains, build roads, and perhaps houses for the laborers to 
 live in, as we saw fit. But if we went on building houses and letting 
 them, presently the drains would become sewers ; the roads, streets ; 
 lanterns, lamps ; the well a system of pipes from the spring or lake on 
 the hillside. The people would get a city charter, and then all the 
 management would pass from our hands into theirs. This is inevita- 
 ble and necessary ; but there is nothing in the management of such 
 affairs from first to last that is properly called government ; it is busi- 
 ness. 
 
 One of the greatest of municipal problems is how to educate the peo- 
 ple. I do not mean the education that comes from books or schools, 
 or even through the newspapers ; but the kind which comes from per- 
 sonal contact of one man with his neighbors. In a small community 
 one man may influence all the others, while in New York the same 
 man may not exert the same influence even on fifty others. We sepa- 
 rate ourselves according to our means and taste, and are deprived of 
 almost all the education which comes from association. In our village 
 of 2,000 inhabitants, in the election of trustees there is no thought of 
 politics; yet in national affairs the political feeling is very intense. 
 In connection with charitable organizations, with which 1 am familiar, 
 I see no solution of this problem. Guilds, college settlements, etc., 
 tend in the right direction, but are woefully inadequate. The plan 
 suggested to localize affairs is good. Let the people in a certain por- 
 tion of the city, for instance, see that the streets of that part are kept 
 clean. There are difficulties in the way, such as the duplication of 
 plants, etc., but there is no objection sufficient to overcome the great 
 advantage of any system that would give this mutual contact and edu- 
 cation. The prevailing lack of confidence of the poor in the wealthy 
 might be supplied by the village association which we have lost. 
 
 HON. JOSEPH 0. HENDRIX : 
 
 I am reminded of the dying man who called his son to his bedside 
 and said : " My son, I have had an awful lot of trouble in my life, but 
 it never amounted to anything." Undoubtedly, we have a good deal 
 of trouble with our city governments ; but I do not think it amounts 
 to much, after all. Napoleon said that three fourths of govern- 
 ment was in the imagination. There are defects, of course, in our 
 Government, but we have difficulties also in our households, in our 
 business, and everywhere. We should not approach these questions 
 forgetting that we are dealing with people of flesh and blood, with 
 the usual human frailties. The people whom we call the lower class 
 have a keener interest in the affairs of the city than some of the oth- 
 ers. The representatives whom they choose 'are more above the level 
 
190 The Problem of City Government. 
 
 of the population than the representatives of the better portions of 
 the city. The dangerous class is not the great mass of poor and un- 
 educated, but the respectable class, the laissez-faire people, who want 
 to enjoy the benefits of our institutions without working their pas- 
 sage. They engage in fashionable frivolities, and send money to the 
 heathen, and find fault with municipal affairs which they do nothing 
 to remedy. Things are pretty well managed now in our cities. We 
 can not expect the results which have been attained in European cit- 
 ies. If we attempted to keep our city in the condition of Paris by the 
 methods of Paris, the people would rebel. There is much to be done, 
 but much has already been done. Those in the community who 
 should set the example neglect their duties. If all the gentlemen 
 here and the rest of their standing should attend the primaries that 
 are to be held this week, the so-called professional politicians would 
 pull down their signs and go out of business. 
 
 MR. WILLIAM POTTS (in the Chair) : 
 
 It is not practicable for all men to go to the primaries, for, in order 
 to do so, one must be a member of the party organization. If he has 
 voted independently in the previous election, he would be black-balled 
 and disqualified. 
 
 DR. JANES, in closing : I sympathize with the optimism of Mr. Hen- 
 drix, but do not agree with him that our present methods offer ade- 
 quate opportunities for the cure of existing evils. In one respect I am 
 even more optimistic than he is I believe that we can have our streets 
 as clean and our business as well managed as in European cities ; but 
 not while we tolerate the present absurd admixture of national and 
 municipal politics. 
 
 The first speaker favored small representative districts. This would 
 probably be an improvement, but if the system were purely representa- 
 tive, as at present, the method would still be wholly inadequate. We 
 should then have a large and cumbrous body of representatives to deal 
 with, and the city would be split up into numerous sections with a 
 variety of interests and administrative regulations. I should favor 
 districts somewhat larger, with a consulting assembly of the whole 
 people in each, and a single legislative body for the entire city. Ward 
 or district assemblies would in a great measure restore the educational 
 influences of the town meeting which is the ideal of Mr. Fairchild ; 
 and they can be restored in no other way. This is undoubtedly one of 
 the most serious elements in our problem, which I have endeavored in 
 this way to meet. Such voluntary associations of the citizens as this 
 in which we are laboring should also spring into existence all over our 
 
The Problem of City Government. 191 
 
 great cities, aiming to stimulate thought and encourage wise activi- 
 ties along scientific and evolutionary lines. The churches afford the 
 opportunity but are they wise enough thus to reduce their religion 
 to practice ? In the consulting assemblies we should receive assistance 
 from the poorer and less educated classes, and the manual laborers, 
 who, as has been truly said, are often our superiors in civic virtue. I 
 think, therefore, if the plan which I have suggested, which seems to be 
 already in process of evolution, could be carried out including the 
 vital feature of the popular consulting assembly we could have the 
 virtues of the town meeting restored, and the different classes of our 
 citizens would learn to know each other better, and to respect each 
 other's motives. 
 
 A more ethical treatment of the land, which would render agricult- 
 ural pursuits remunerative, would stop the excessive flow of popula- 
 tion to our cities and somewhat relieve the congestion of our urban 
 centers. Men seek the cities because they think and they are usually 
 right they can make a better living there. The cityward flow can 
 not be checked unless we can greatly improve the prospects of the 
 farmer. That it can be altogether checked or reversed, even in this 
 way, I do not believe to be either possible or desirable ; but we are un- 
 doubtedly suffering at present from a forced and unnatural tendency 
 in this direction, for which I can see no remedy except that already 
 indicated. 
 
TAXATION AND REVENUE 
 
 THE FREE-TRADE VIEW 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS G. SHEARMAN 
 
COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED: 
 
 Spencer's Justice ; Mill's Principles of Political Economy ; McCul- 
 loch's Principles of Political Economy ; Walker's Political Economy ; 
 Taussig's Tariff History of the United States ; Ely's Problems of To- 
 day ; George's Protection or Free Trade ; Fawcett's Free Trade and 
 Protection ; Bastiat's Sophisms of Protection ; Wells's Practical Eco- 
 nomics ; Talbot's Tariif from the White House ; Wright's Scientific 
 Basis of Tariff Legislation; Sumner's History of Protection in the 
 United States, and Protectionism the " ism " which teaches that Waste 
 makes Wealth ; TrumbulPs The American Lesson of the Free-Trade 
 Struggle in England ; Atkinson's Common Sense of the Tariff Ques- 
 tion, in Popular Science Monthly, August and September, 1890 ; Tariff 
 Message of President Grover Cleveland. 
 
TAXATION AND REVENUE: 
 
 THE FREE-TRADE VIEW. 
 BY THOMAS G. SHEARMAN. 
 
 WHAT is free trade ? 
 
 It is simply one application of that general law of human 
 liberty upon which our American republic is founded, and 
 which lies at the basis of all modern civilization. It is the 
 recognition of the right of every man, not only to life, but 
 also to liberty and to the pursuit of happiness in his own 
 way, so long as he does no injury to the similar rights of 
 others. 
 
 The right of free trade means the right to- exchange the 
 products of our industry with the products of others, with- 
 out any dictation on the part of the state as to the persons 
 with whom we may or may not exchange, so long as our 
 transactions are not inconsistent with good morals and good 
 order. 
 
 These rights being conceded by our own people as to 
 transactions between each other, free trade has come to mean 
 in our country simply the extension of the same liberty to 
 our foreign commerce which is secured to our domestic 
 commerce. It may therefore, for the present purpose, be 
 defined as the right of every citizen of one country to trade 
 with citizens of every other country as freely as he may with 
 his own fellow-citizens. 
 
 Commerce between different nations is one of the highest 
 developments of evolution. In the earliest stages of the 
 human race there could have been no trade, because each 
 family was isolated. As soon as the smallest clan was 
 formed, exchanges of products must have come into use ; and 
 so trade began. With the successive formations of the 
 tribe and the nation trade extended its sphere ; but it was 
 kept within narrow limits by the universal prevalence of 
 that savage feeling which for ages made the name of 
 " stranger " mean the same thing as " enemy." Every thor- 
 oughly savage tribe has always maintained the most 
 thorough protection to its native industries by the strict ex- 
 
196 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 elusion of all foreign competition. The savages of interior 
 Africa and Brazil are far better guarded from the flood of 
 foreign goods than we can ever be; and no products of 
 foreign pauper labor ever disturb the symmetry of their 
 domestic manufactures. Poisoned arrows supply the place 
 of a tariff, and clubs are more effective than navigation laws. 
 
 The evolution of human society and the evolution of 
 trade have gone on side by side. The one is impossible 
 without the other. A family, a tribe, a village community, 
 a city, a state, a nation, among whose members there is no 
 exchange of products or services, is an impossibility. It has 
 never existed and can never exist. But the elimination of 
 the savage element has been slow ; and therefore even trade 
 between different towns has only become free within a com- 
 paratively recent period. Trade is not entirely free even 
 yet between all the cities of France or of Italy or of Ger- 
 many. Little more than a century ago France had scarcely 
 any free internal trade. 
 
 But wherever social organization has reached its full de- 
 velopment, as in the United States and Great Britain, trade 
 between all members of the same society is absolutely free. 
 Some of our own States are backward in civilization ; and 
 there it is noticeable that efforts are still made to hinder 
 trade with other Americans, which have to be resisted by 
 our national Supreme Court. Where civilization has 
 reached its highest point no such efforts are made. 
 
 The widespread inclination to restrict trade between 
 foreign nations is simply a survival in civilized man of the 
 prejudices of his savage ancestors. There is no argument 
 made in opposition to free trade between America and 
 England which is not at least equally applicable to free 
 trade between Massachusetts and the Carolinas. Is free 
 trade injurious to America because wages in England are 
 lower than here ? Wages in the Carolinas are lower still. 
 Or is it because the rate of interest is lower in England than 
 here ? The difference between rates of interest in Massa- 
 chusetts and the Carolinas is greater still. So Massachusetts 
 seems to need protection against the Carolinas on account 
 of their pauper labor, while the Carolinas need protection 
 against her on account of her lower rates of interest, greater 
 capital, and longer experience. 
 
 Should the fact that Englishmen do not pay any of our 
 taxes have any weight as an argument against free trade ? 
 Then it applies with far more force to the other case ; for 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 197 
 
 taxes in Massachusetts are much more heavy than in the 
 Carolinas, and certainly the Carolinas do not help to pay 
 Massachusetts taxes. 
 
 The tax argument, the labor argument, the interest argu- 
 ment, the argument from the advantage supposed to attach 
 to long experience in short, all the arguments used to justify 
 the prohibition of free trade between Massachusetts and 
 Lancashire apply with double force to condemn free trade 
 between Massachusetts and any Southern State. 
 
 These differences have always existed. They were far 
 greater than now when, in 1814, the Carolinas were ready to 
 invade Massachusetts in order to keep her in the Union ; or 
 when, in 1864, Massachusetts did invade the Carolinas to 
 keep them in the Union that union having no material ad- 
 vantage to either side, except as a guarantee of mutual free 
 trade. 
 
 Thus we Northern philosophers organized a powerful 
 army to shoot Virginians into accepting free trade with us, 
 while we maintain a small army on our frontier to shoot 
 Canadians who attempt free trade with us. 
 
 FREE TRADE A PART OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 The simple obvious truth is that the only substantial foun- 
 dation for the prejudice against free trade among the vast 
 majority of those who entertain it is that instinctive hatred 
 of foreigners which we inherit from our barbarous ancestors 
 of remote ages. Let the sweet wisdom of Jesus prevail 
 let Christians once practice his precepts of universal love, 
 and there would not be an hour's question as to the estab- 
 lishment of free trade. 
 
 For Tolstoi has beautifully shown the true meaning of 
 those words of Jesus : " Love your enemies." Jesus meant 
 what we understand by those words ; but he also meant 
 something more. The words " enemy " and " foreigner " 
 meant originally the same thing. So Jesus reminded the 
 Jews that they had heard it said : " Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor and hate the foreigner." Against this he declared : 
 " Love the foreigner. Yes ! love your foreign enemies. 
 Yes ! love all your enemies, whether native or foreign." 
 
 Again he amplified and illustrated the command " Thou 
 shalt love thy neighbor as thyself " by teaching plainly that 
 the word " neighbor " was to include foreigners ; and not 
 merely friendly foreigners, but -also the most hateful, hostile, 
 
198 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 detestable foreigners the Samaritans, whom the Jews hated 
 even more than we hate the pauper labor of Europe. 
 
 Free trade, as a principle, is an inherent part of Christi- 
 anity. No one can be a logical and consistent Christian 
 without being also a free-trader. A Christian love which 
 does not take every human being into its clasp is by just so 
 much not Christian. One may be a good family man, and 
 love none but his family. He may be a good citizen, yet love 
 only his own city. He may be a good patriot, yet love only 
 his own country. But he can not be a good Christian unless 
 his love takes in the whole world and seeks the best things 
 for every human being. Fortunately for all of us, illogical 
 and inconsistent Christians are not shut entirely out of the 
 Kingdom of God. 
 
 Suppose Jesus should return to earth to-day, settling in 
 some European city. He would be an artisan, as he was 
 1900 years ago. He would almost certainly be engaged in 
 manufacturing some articles suited for export to this coun- 
 try. Suppose this fact were known, and, while American 
 pilgrims thronged by the hundred thousand across the 
 ocean, to kiss the hem of his garment, our devout Presi- 
 dent Harrison, who believes that Jesus is very God of God, 
 should find before him a little McKiiiley bill, imposing a 
 tax of 400 per cent, on the productions of the Divine Arti- 
 san. What should he do ? Sign a bill the inevitable effect 
 of which would be to drive into starvation his Lord and 
 Master ? Sign it for that very purpose with that deliber- 
 ate intent ? 
 
 I put this question once to a Calvinistic Doctor of Divin- 
 ity ; and, after much wriggling, but with a very red face, 
 he declared that he would do just that thing. I respected 
 his logic, if not his principles, and only drove the lesson 
 home by quoting the words of his Master : " Inasmuch as 
 ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, 
 ye have done it unto me." 
 
 FREE TRADE DICTATED BY SELF-INTEREST. 
 
 The moral aspect of free trade is to me the supreme con- 
 sideration ; and no argument which ignores this makes any 
 impression on my mind. But since there are, unfortunately, 
 multitudes of nominal believers in a Divine Father to 
 whom the brotherhood of man is an empty phrase, possibly 
 a repulsive one, and multitudes of nominal republicans 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 199 
 
 who love liberty only for themselves, it is necessary to de- 
 scend to their level and to show that free trade is dictated 
 not only by religion and morality, but also by enlightened 
 self-interest. 
 
 Free trade means simply freedom for yourself in com- 
 mercial affairs. To insist that foreigners shall set them- 
 selves at liberty before we will accept liberty for ourselves 
 is what is called reciprocity, or fair trade. Secure absolute 
 freedom for yourself, and you will secure free trade for 
 your whole country. Deny free trade to your country, and 
 you are forced to reduce yourself to partial slavery. This is 
 precisely what happens under the system of restriction. 
 For the sake of depriving your fellow-countrymen of lib- 
 erty, you first of all deprive yourself. 
 
 Eestriction upon trade is unpatriotic. The only nation 
 which we can exclude from the liberty of commerce is our 
 own. The only way in which we injure other countries by 
 commercial restrictions is by inflicting greater injury upon 
 our own. For no one is really anxious to sell ; the desire of 
 every one is to buy. Selling is an unpleasant necessity, im- 
 posed by natural law, as a condition of buying. The very 
 peddler who besieges you with clamorous offers to sell you 
 oranges would be only too glad if you would let him take 
 your dollar without selling you a single orange. Your 
 grocer would be delighted to keep his groceries for his own 
 family if you will only let him buy his clothing and fuel 
 from you, without asking him to sell you anything in ex- 
 change. Your very servant girls would gladly accept all 
 the food and clothes which you will give them, without the 
 disagreeable necessity of selling their services. I repeat : 
 No one wants to sell ; every one wants to buy. 
 
 Therefore, when we put a tariff on imports across the 
 path of commerce, we simply put fetters on our own coun- 
 try. No foreigner wants to send his goods to us ; he would 
 much prefer to keep them himself, if only we would pay 
 for them without receiving them. The reason why he' dis- 
 likes our tariff is that he finds from experience that he can 
 not buy from us if we will not buy from him. He sends 
 us nothing but what we want to have ; and when we refuse 
 to take it, we are so much the poorer. The foreigner suf- 
 fers, it is true ; but only because our self-inflicted poverty 
 makes us unable or unwilling to send good things to him. 
 
 Our exports are so much lost to us ; our imports are so 
 much gained. If we could receive imports without making 
 14 
 
200 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 any exports, we should grow rich and lazy. Nature wisely 
 prevents us from thus falling into idleness, by making it 
 impossible for us to import without exporting an equiva- 
 lent. 
 
 But how can both sides grow rich by foreign trade, if we 
 export as much as we import ? Simply because what we ex- 
 port is of less value to us than what we import ; while it is 
 of more value to foreigners than what they send to us in ex- 
 change. Thus, Americans raise more wheat than they can 
 possibly consume ; and all the surplus is absolutely useless 
 to them. But German artisans make more cloth than they 
 can wear, and this is useless to them. The Germans want 
 the wheat, and the Americans want the cloth. The ex- 
 change is very profitable to both sides. 
 
 This exchange of products, which goes on continually, is 
 to the civilized social organization what the circulation of 
 the blood is to the body. If stopped entirely, civilization 
 perishes. If artificially obstructed in any way, society be- 
 comes diseased. Nobody states this more strongly than 
 Henry C. Carey, the great apostle of American protection- 
 ism. He puts it in large words, saying that the progress of 
 civilization depends upon the rapidity and freedom of 
 societary circulation. But this, translated into plain Eng- 
 lish, means nothing less and nothing else than that the 
 prosperity of every nation depends upon the freedom of its 
 trade. 
 
 How, then, does the greatest protectionist justify protec- 
 tion ? By insisting that trade will not be so free, if left to 
 itself, as it will be if guided by legislation. Because ex- 
 changes between places near to each other can be made 
 more rapidly than between distant places, he maintains that 
 the rapidity and freedom of trade will be best promoted by 
 laws partially prohibiting trade between countries remote 
 from each other. 
 
 If this is true, then the rapidity and freedom of the cir- 
 culation of blood in the human body will be promoted by 
 tying up some of the arteries, so as to save the loss of time 
 and energy involved in the journey of blood from the head 
 to the feet. Let the blood of the brain be kept for use^in 
 the brain ; and blood in the feet confined to the feet, in- 
 stead of losing the time occupied in the long journey from 
 one to the other. 
 
 You answer that Nature takes care of this, far better than 
 we can. But it is equally true that Nature takes care of 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 201 
 
 trade and commerce, far better than we can. Can any one 
 of us give useful advice to any one else as to where he 
 should buy or sell ? Can any congressman, or all Congress 
 together, tell your wife which is the best place for her pur- 
 chases of groceries or clothing ? Can any number of men, 
 be they ever so wise, despotically guide your affairs for you 
 without bringing you to ruin ? 
 
 How can any Congress have wisdom enough to do for 
 the whole country that which it certainly can not do for 
 you alone ? Yet you, who would not tolerate the dictation 
 of Congress as to where you should buy one suit of clothes, 
 accept as a matter of course the dictation of Congress as to 
 where 60,000,000 of us shall all buy all our clothes. 
 
 THE WAGES ARGUMENT. 
 
 The most effective argument for restricted trade in this 
 country is that our highly paid laborers need a tariff to pro- 
 tect them from the competition of foreign pauper labor. 
 And we are often told that the protective tariff is main- 
 tained for this purpose alone. Considered as an argument 
 for a tariff on goods manufactured by machinery (and it is 
 from the manufacturers of such goods that our protective 
 system receives all the support which gives it any vitality), 
 the absurdity of this claim can be shown by any one of 
 many simple facts. Some of these facts answer the claim 
 as to all classes of articles. 
 
 Every tariff is a tax upon anything which is imported 
 under it. When protectionists deny that the tariff is a tax, 
 they mean that it is not a tax upon Americans. Their claim is 
 that the tax is paid by the foreigner who sends the goods here. 
 When $200,000,000 have been annually collected by our Gov- 
 ernment from the tariff, it is clear that it is a tax on some- 
 body. We need not waste time upon any one who is so dull 
 as not to see that. If this enormous tax, amounting to more 
 than half the market value of the goods, is really paid by 
 foreigners for the privilege of selling here, then these for- 
 eigners would make a profit of 50 to 100 per cent upon their 
 goods, if the tariff were repealed. We may be certain that 
 such profits would draw a rush of capital into such profitable 
 employment, and that competition would speedily reduce 
 profits to less than ten per cent. Three Brooklyn firms 
 would do the whole business for a profit of five per cent. 
 Therefore, Americans would quickly get all the benefit of a 
 
202 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 repeal of their tariff. So they lose just as much by making 
 the foreigner pay these taxes, as if Americans paid all the 
 tax themselves. 
 
 But it is utterly absurd to suppose that foreigners pay the 
 whole tariff tax. No half-intelligent protectionist writer 
 pretends that this is true. The utmost claim that is honestly 
 made in this direction is that foreigners pay about one third 
 of these taxes ; and even this is not true. But, true or false, 
 it makes no difference. Americans either pay the tariff taxes 
 themselves, or they could gain the same amount by the 
 effects of competition, if the tariff were repealed ; and in 
 either case the result is the same. 
 
 Americans, therefore, either pay directly the whole of this 
 tax or lose the same amount, through the exclusion of com- 
 petition. What class of Americans bear this loss ? Seven 
 eighths of it falls upon the laborers the very class for whose 
 benefit you say that the tax is laid. For the amount of 
 duties collected from other classes, by means of taxes upon 
 imports, never amounts to enough to pay one tenth of the 
 Government expenses. So you make the laborers pay all the 
 taxes by which their wages are to be increased. Would it 
 not be better to leave them untaxed, to take their chances as 
 to wages ? 
 
 The competition which is feared by American manufact- 
 urers does not come from those countries in which wages are 
 lowest. What manufacturer of cotton, woolen, or metals is 
 in danger of competition from the ten-cent labor of China 
 or the twenty-five-cent labor of Eussia? What Northern 
 manufacturer was ever afraid of the competition of Southern 
 slave labor? Our manufacturers would gladly consent to 
 free trade with any country where wages are below thirty 
 cents a day. It is the seventy-cent labor of Germany and 
 France which makes them anxious ; and it is the dollar-and- 
 a-quarter labor of England of which they stand in terror. 
 
 All over the world a low rate of daily wages means ineffi- 
 cient and therefore costly labor. The higher the average 
 rate of daily wages, the smaller is the cost of production. 
 This is always true of machine products, and is largely true 
 of everything else. The employer of slave or pauper labor 
 really needs protection against the products of free and well- 
 paid labor. All over Europe every protective tariff is 
 avowedly framed upon this principle. 
 
 The free importation of all goods would instantly produce 
 a great rise in wages. Suppose free trade were established 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 203 
 
 to-morrow. Suppose $500,000,000 worth of goods were im- 
 ported next year, in addition to those now imported a most 
 extravagant estimate. How would these be paid for ? Not 
 by bank notes or greenbacks, for no foreigner would accept 
 these. Not in gold, for we could not send out any more 
 than we send now ; and, moreover, foreigners can not eat gold 
 or wear gold any more than we can. They would want our 
 grain, our flour, our cotton, our beef, our pork. Our farmers 
 would be made rich. The price of manufactured goods 
 would be reduced, of course. But, at lower prices, the mass 
 of the people could and would buy vastly more. Manufact- 
 urers might have to be content with smaller profits on each 
 sale ; but this would only make them anxious to multiply 
 their sales. At least $500,000,000 worth of domestic goods 
 could be sold, at the lower prices, in addition to what were 
 sold before. Wages would rise rapidly upon farms, because 
 of the immense demand for farm products with which to 
 pay for the new imports. Wages would rise also in factories, 
 because of the vastly greater demand which would be caused 
 by the fall in prices. Wages never rise merely because 
 prices are high. They rise only when employers make more 
 goods. And every permanent fall in prices widens the 
 demand for goods. 
 
 It will be said that all this is mere theory. But it is 
 exactly what happened, on a smaller scale, in 1847, when a 
 small reduction was made in protective duties. And pre- 
 cisely the reverse happened when tariff taxes were increased 
 in 1842, 1861, 1883, and 1890. In each instance the general 
 rate of wages fell at once, and the prosperity of the country 
 was manifestly checked. The twelve months immediately 
 following the adoption of the high tariff of 1890 have been 
 the most disastrous to the general business community, out- 
 side of large corporations, for the last thirty years. The 
 number and amount of private bankruptcies were the 
 largest in all American history. 
 
 To exclude foreign goods is simply to exclude so much 
 wealth. How can wages be made any higher by having less 
 wealth to divide all around? It will be answered that 
 domestic production will be reduced by as much as the im- 
 ports amount to. This is absurd, because these imports 
 must and will be paid for immediately by American goods 
 produced from American soil, by American laborers receiving 
 the American rate of wages. For every dollar's worth of 
 foreign goods imported, a dollar's worth of purely American 
 
204 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 productions must be exported. It is absolutely impossible 
 that any American laborers could be deprived of employ- 
 ment by imported goods in excess of the number who will 
 gain employment from the same cause. Reasons have been 
 given to prove that many more will gain employment in this 
 way than can lose it. Therefore wages can not possibly be 
 reduced by free trade, while it is almost certain that they 
 would be greatly increased. 
 
 THE DIVERSIFICATION OF INDUSTRIES. 
 
 The gentleman who is to follow in this course, on behalf 
 of protection, abandons the wages argument as quite unten- 
 able, and plants himself on the older Hamiltonian theory of 
 the necessity of restriction upon commerce in order to 
 secure diversity in our industries. Passing over the undeni- 
 able fact that the growth of wealth and rise in wages were 
 much more rapid in Calif ornia and Australia, when they had 
 practically only one industry, than they ever were before or 
 since, let us mention only a few of the diversified industries 
 which every one can see must exist in this country under 
 absolute free trade. 
 
 It would be utterly impossible for all the nations of the 
 world to supply a hundredth part of the things furnished or 
 services rendered by our farmers, cotton-growers, meat-pro- 
 ducers and packers, fruit-growers, bakers, grocers, tailors, 
 dressmakers, milliners, carpenters, masons, plumbers, build- 
 ers, merchants, retail dealers, teachers, doctors, clergymen, 
 domestic servants, clerks, railroad men, stage and wagon 
 drivers, repairers, day laborers, etc., who constitute more 
 than nine tenths of our people. 
 
 The census enumerates nearly 500 different employments 
 deemed of sufficient importance to be worthy of separate 
 statistics. And, as it does not distinguish different classes 
 of farmers, of cotton manufacturers, woolen manufacturers, 
 etc., from each other, while, as we all know, each of these 
 classes represents many distinct branches of business, it is 
 safe to say that there are more than 1,500 easily distinguish- 
 able and distinct forms of industry in our country. Of these, 
 more than 1,400 would be carried on successfully if free trade 
 were established to-morrow, and the worst anticipations of 
 any sensible protectionist were realized. What need is there 
 for artificial methods of diversifying industries when we can 
 have 1,400 varieties, without any government interference ? 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 205 
 
 Indeed, the ablest protectionists, such as Governor Hoyt, 
 of Pennsylvania, have abandoned the old-fashioned argument 
 that foreigners would, under free trade, supply us with all 
 or with any considerable part of the manufactures which we 
 need, and insist, as strongly as we do, that nine tenths of our 
 manufactures must be made at home or not at all. But 
 they then jump to the conclusion that American manufact- 
 urers would be driven out of business altogether by foreign 
 competition, and that, as foreigners could not and Americans 
 would not supply us, our people would have to go without 
 clothes and other manufactures. The utter absurdity of this 
 conclusion, however, ought to be palpable to a school-boy. 
 The moment that all or most American manufacturers 
 stopped their supply, under this terrible apprehension of a 
 free-trade panic, the deficiency in supply would become so 
 great as to send prices up tremendously. Would the Amer- 
 ican producers be so silly as not to resume work forthwith 
 under such prices ? The simple fact is that, if it were pos- 
 sible for this imaginary free-trade panic ever to occur, shut- 
 ting up all American mills, it would be followed within 
 twenty-four hours by such a rise in prices as would cause a 
 buying panic, reopening every American mill and setting 
 its machinery at work with greater activity than ever. 
 
 Indeed, the probabilities are decidedly in favor of a greater 
 diversity of industries under free trade than under a restrict- 
 ive policy. For so-called protection never begins with cre- 
 ating an industry, but always begins with destroying or crip- 
 pling several. It prevents, and is meant to prevent, some 
 American citizens from carrying on occupations from which 
 they earn their living. To begin with, it deprives American 
 ships of a large part of their cargoes, and thus drives some 
 of them out of business altogether. Then the demand for 
 new ships falls off, and shipbuilders are thrown out of em- 
 ployment. American importers, store-keepers, cartmen, 
 laborers, salesmen, and clerks are thrown out of work, 
 because the foreign goods which they formerly handled are 
 excluded. Thousands of such persons are thrown out to- 
 day in these two cities in this very manner. Scores of 
 large houses are going out of business now in this way. As 
 three quarters of the things which are or would be imported 
 are used as materials for manufactures of some kind, 
 the exclusion of these things throws out of work all the 
 mechanics and artisans who were employed in working them 
 up. The very first effect of any increase of protective taxes, 
 
206 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 therefore, is to throw men out of work, to reduce wages, 
 and to make industries less diversified than before. No 
 doubt, in many cases, after the lapse of some time, Ameri- 
 cans who have thus been thrown out of work learn to make 
 at home the things which they used to import. But they 
 are not as familiar with this new work as they were with the 
 old ; and a crowd of foreigners pour in, to whom the new 
 business is familiar, and who secure all the best places. So 
 well recognized is this fact that the alien labor law express- 
 ly allows foreign laborers to be imported under contract 
 for a new industry. So that, whenever the tariff really 
 does succeed in encouraging a new industry, and thus di- 
 versifying our industries, all the benefit of it, so far as 
 workmen are concerned, goes to freshly imported for- 
 eigners. 
 
 The tariff does just as much toward diversifying our in- 
 dustries as would a cyclone which tore down our factories 
 and diversified the labors of the factory hands by forcing 
 them to turn hod-carriers and helpers to more experienced 
 builders. Its benefits are of the same kind as those which 
 have come from the twelve thousand bankruptcies which 
 have followed the McKinley tariff. For the hundred thou- 
 sand people thus thrown out of work have been driven to 
 diversify their industries, after an agreeable vacation from 
 work, from wages, and from the usual comforts of life. 
 
 THE ARGUMENT FROM CHEAPNESS. 
 
 The defenses interposed for the system of fetters and 
 chains upon commerce are so contradictory and inconsistent 
 as to make it almost impossible to follow them. The very 
 same orator who at one moment tells us that a cheap coat 
 means a cheap man inside the coat, at another moment tells 
 us that protection has made coats cheaper than they ever 
 were before. Another, who solemnly informs us that cheap 
 goods mean cheap men, and that this was not the kind of 
 republic which our fathers builded or which their sons will 
 maintain, is jubilant over the alleged extreme cheapness of 
 wire nails, steel rails, and salt. When we answer one of 
 these arguments, we are reproached for not having answered 
 the other ; and if we answer both, a third is brought for- 
 ward, with apparent entire unconsciousness of the fate of 
 the first and second. 
 
 Cheapness is not a bad thing : it is a good thing an ex- 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 207 
 
 cellent thing a grand thing. It is at once the achievement 
 and the life of modern civilization. The most costly coats 
 cover the most worthless men. The cheapest coats have the 
 most valuable men inside them. The coat of the savage 
 and the cloak of his squaw are, in comparison with their re- 
 sources, enormously expensive. They have cost more time 
 and labor than the finest coat in this room has cost its maker 
 or owner. Even among civilized men we see the same law 
 working out. The philosophers, the scientists, the invent- 
 ors, the really great statesmen, all wear cheap clothes. The 
 gamblers, the rakes, the idle and worthless nobles who cum- 
 ber the earth, all wear expensive clothes. The more 
 feather-headed and useless is a woman, the more expensive 
 is her clothing. Many wise and sweet-hearted women are 
 compelled to dress themselves in more costly raiment than 
 they desire, because they fear that some man, unworthy of 
 their love, but whom they can not help loving, will not love 
 them unless he sees the outward signs of graceful feminine 
 feather-headedness. 
 
 The very object of all inventions, of all progress, of all 
 practical science, is to make things cheaper and cheaper. 
 Civilization, Christianity, all movements for the uplifting of 
 mankind even ethical societies advance only as cheapness 
 advances. For cheapness means that the benefits of art, 
 science, literature, morality, and religion are put within the 
 reach of the masses of men. The one man, Dr. Campbell, 
 who forced the Queen's printers to issue cheap Bibles fifty 
 years ago, did more for the cause of the Christian religion 
 in England than all the bishops that ever lived. The man 
 who can invent a method of building, so cheap that every 
 family can afford its own little separate home, with room 
 for the children to play and the mother to rest, will do more 
 for the promotion of good morals and sound religion than 
 all the preachers and Sunday-school superintendents com- 
 bined. Every step toward cheapness is a step toward heaven. 
 For what is our ideal of heaven ? Simply a place where 
 every good thing may be had, as the good book says, " with- 
 out money and without price." 
 
 So our protectionist friends swiftly eat their words and 
 declare that they are the best friends of cheapness, and that 
 their great aim in taxing us one hundred per cent, is to 
 make things cheaper. They point to the great fall which 
 has taken place in all manufactures and assume that this is 
 entirely the result of their big 'taxes. To this there are sev- 
 
208 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 eral conclusive answers, only part of which can be even sug- 
 gested here. 
 
 This fall in the price of manufactures is the result of 
 constant development of machinery, and goes on, all over 
 the world, wherever machinery is largely used, whether pro- 
 tection or free trade rules the state. It is most rapid where 
 the nearest approaches are made to free trade. Protection 
 only hinders this progress toward cheapness ; and the sin- 
 cere and intelligent advocates of protection avow that it is 
 intended to do so. They assign reasons for this policy 
 which it would take too much time to follow here. Suffice 
 it to say now that obstructions to freedom of trade never did 
 and never can encourage the invention of new machinery, 
 and therefore never promote cheapness. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the decline in prices has been more 
 rapid and steady in England under partial free trade than 
 in America under protection. In the vast majority of cases 
 protected manufactures have never been sold here as cheaply, 
 for any important length of time, as in England. But un- 
 protected manufactures that is, those upon which either no 
 duty has been levied, or one entirely inadequate to compen- 
 sate for the tax on materials have fallen in price here as 
 much as anywhere. Thus aluminum, while imported free 
 of all tax, was made in this country by improved processes 
 until it has fallen from $20 a pound to $1. Quinine, under 
 free imports, has fallen from $3 an ounce to 40 cents, and 
 still more is made in this country than ever before. Road 
 wagons and farming machinery, which always have been en- 
 tirely independent of foreign competition, because foreign- 
 ers never could learn to make what we want, and which 
 have, therefore, derived no benefit from tariffs, have de- 
 clined in price as much as other articles. Tin plates, which 
 have never been made to any appreciable extent in this 
 country, because the materials of which they were made 
 were too heavily taxed, declined in price until the McKinley 
 bill was introduced, as much as any other kind of sheet iron 
 or steel. On the other hand, pig iron, bar iron, steel, glass, 
 and many other highly protected products have fallen in 
 price in Europe much more than they have here. Such 
 cheapness as we have, therefore, is not due to protection. 
 
 Many articles the cheapness of which is loudly extolled 
 are not even now, after many years of invention and im- 
 provement, furnished as cheaply to us as we might have had 
 them years ago under free trade, and, of course, not at all 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 209 
 
 as cheaply as they might now be had. This is true of nearly 
 all forms of iron, steel, glass, earthenware, woolen and linen 
 goods, besides many others. Much of the boasted cheapness 
 of clothing consists merely in the degraded quality of its 
 materials. Not one American in ten wears a genuine all- 
 wool suit. Not one in a hundred wears such a suit made 
 of American cloth. When a Massachusetts free-trader com- 
 plained in Congress that American makers of all-wool goods 
 were handicapped by heavy taxes on wool, the leader of the 
 protectionists informed the House, quite correctly, that by 
 far the most of "all-wool" American goods consisted of 
 shoddy and cotton. 
 
 The enormous and permanent cost of any cheapness which 
 could be attained through protective taxes fails to be under- 
 stood, because not one person in a thousand knows anything 
 about the effect of compound interest. Whatever we pay 
 this year for the sake of getting things cheaper in future 
 years must be reckoned at compound interest until the 
 time of cheapness arrives. Then we must gain so much in 
 cheapness as to compensate us for all that we have lost, with 
 compound interest. A French mathematician has calculated 
 this for us. At the end of twenty-five years of protection, 
 if we are to gain anything from it, we must save three and 
 a quarter times as much, every year and forever, as the 
 amount which we annually lost. 
 
 Take, then, the single article of iron and steel. The price 
 of these metals has been increased for more than twenty-five 
 years to the amount of, at the very least, $40,000,000 annu- 
 ally by a protective tariff. The mere Government tax has 
 averaged about $15,000,000 a year. Well, the twenty-five 
 years are up, and does any one pretend that we are saving 
 $130,000,000 a year on the prices of iron and steel ? On the 
 contrary, we are still paying at least $30,000,000 a year for 
 these metals in excess of what we could have them for under 
 free trade. And it is only within the last two years that we 
 have got iron as cheaply as we had it thirty years ago, before 
 this wonderful cheapening tariff tax was put on. 
 
 THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT. 
 
 Driven completely out of the field of reason, the enemies 
 of freedom take refuge in the historical argument. They 
 say that free trade may be very well in theory, but that it 
 will not work in practice. They assert that history shows 
 
210 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 that prosperity lias always accompanied the slavery of com- 
 merce, while disaster has always come from freedom. They 
 claim, as a fact beyond dispute, that the development of 
 manufactures and increase of wages have come with com- 
 mercial restrictions and as their effect, and that every step 
 toward freedom has hindered both. 
 
 It is, in the first place, utterly absurd to say that any theory 
 is correct which will not work in practice. If the enemies of 
 freedom can not prove in argument that freedom necessarily 
 must bring with it those disasters which they pretend that 
 it actually does bring, they simply confess either that they 
 have not intellect enough to explain the facts, or that the 
 facts are due to another cause, or that the pretended facts 
 do not exist. 
 
 In the next place, the alleged facts, for the most part, do 
 not exist. And finally, so far as there are any such facts, 
 they are due to other and totally different causes. 
 
 No disastei has ever happened to this or any other com- 
 munity, as a whole, from free trade or from any step in that 
 direction. Disasters have befallen individuals from that 
 cause, of course. Every step toward freedom of any kind 
 brings disaster to those who have been living comfortably on 
 other men's shoulders. Emancipation brought ruin to 
 slave-holders, as such, but it has brought immense prosperity 
 to the Soutk. So the abolition of protective taxes brings 
 loss to those who have been making fortunes from the 
 tribute of their fellow-citizens, but it brings gain to all the 
 others. It has injured a very few hot-house branches of 
 manufacture, but manufactures, as a whole, have flourished 
 under freedom more than ever. 
 
 Disasters have happened and will happen to the entire 
 community under free trade as well as under protection, 
 without doubt. The free-trader does not pretend to have a 
 panacea which will prevent failures of crops, pestilence, 
 storms, or wild speculation. He offers you nothing but your 
 own liberty. Accordingly, when the terrible drought of 
 1854, lasting for three months, diminished our wheat crop 
 and destroyed half of our corn, while cattle had to be 
 slaughtered wholesale for want of water, no free-trader 
 expected anything but that which happened a sudden and 
 severe depression of business until the next crop was assured 
 of success, after which prosperity returned in greater force 
 than ever. Again, in 1857, when the wheat crop was a 
 comparative failure, when a wild spirit of speculation in 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 211 
 
 vacant land and premature railroads had swept over the 
 country, and wildcat banks poured forth a worthless cur- 
 rency, neither free trade nor protection, nor anything which 
 human wisdom could devise, could prevent a panic from 
 coming. Yet, if the banks of New York city had not 
 acted in a spirit of blind selfishness, and had shown half the 
 courage and good sense which they showed in 1890 or in 
 1884, under much more imminent danger, they could have 
 passed through 1857 without suspension. 
 
 And the panic of 1857 the only panic which ever took 
 place under a low tariff, except, of course, that of December, 
 1860, caused solely by the secession of the South and the evi- 
 dent approach of war passed over more quickly than any 
 of the panics which have repeatedly occurred under the 
 high tariffs of the last thirty years. Its effects were not vis- 
 ible in the general prices of the next year, except in iron ; 
 and by 1859 all manufactures, including iron, were going 
 on upon a greater scale than ever. The years 1859 and 1860 
 were by far the most prosperous years which our country 
 had ever known, especially in manufactures. This is the 
 testimony of the census, and also of Senator Morrill and 
 President Garfield. 
 
 Contrast with this brief interruption the fearful record of 
 the five years of high tariff from 1873 tp 1878 each worse 
 and worse the three years from 1883 to 1886, and the black 
 year which has just passed under the McKinley bill, marked 
 by greater destruction among business men, outside of the 
 great railroad corporations, than any year in American 
 history. 
 
 The panic of 1837 is constantly cited by those who know 
 nothing about its history. It occurred under a tariff higher 
 than the Morrill tariff ; and it was directly brought about 
 by the enormous surplus which had accumulated under ex- 
 cessive duties, levied avowedly for protection, which had to 
 be squandered in loans to land speculators, to get rid of it. 
 The result was, first, the wildest, most gigantic, and most 
 insane speculation in vacant land ever known in our history, 
 and next, as a matter of course, the worst collapse. Such 
 collapses always did and always will follow excessive specu- 
 lators in land values, which usually follow inflations of the 
 currency. I can afford to be candid and to say that great 
 panics are caused by currency inflations, almost exclusively, 
 and that protective tariffs are generally responsible for panics 
 only so far as they bring about an accumulation of surplus 
 
212 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 and a consequent inflation or contraction of currency. But 
 free trade never is or can be the cause of anything of the 
 kind. 
 
 The steadily increasing wealth and prosperity of the United 
 States, in spite of the maintenance of a high tariff, are 
 easily accounted for upon free-trade principles; and they 
 can not be accounted for in any other way consistently with 
 the facts. For the fact is that this country has, in spite of 
 its tariff, a greater amount of free trade than any other 
 country, and that its trade grows more free with each suc- 
 ceeding year, except in those years in which a great increase 
 is made in tariff taxes, the effect of which may take a year 
 or two to neutralize. 
 
 We have a larger territory of productive land than any- 
 other civilized nation. This territory has the greatest vari- 
 ety of products of almost any country in the world. There 
 are greater differences between the races of people inhabit- 
 ing it, between the rates of wages, the rates of interest, the 
 amount of capital, the experience and skill in manufactures 
 and the fitness of the people for manufactures, in the differ- 
 ent districts of this country, than those which exist between 
 this country as a whole and England, or between England 
 and France. The reasons which might be adduced against 
 free trade between different sections of the United States are 
 much stronger than any which can be adduced against free 
 trade between America and Europe. Yet we have here ab- 
 solute free trade within our own national limits ; and we all 
 recognize its immense value so well that we would fight to 
 the death rather than sacrifice it. 
 
 The so-called protection afforded by a tariff is simply the 
 effect of its obstruction to trade. The absence of ships and 
 roads would afford a vastly more effective protection to do- 
 mestic producers against foreign competition than the most 
 protective tariff ever imagined. With every new steamship 
 or railway, with every invention which cheapens transporta- 
 tion, with every new facility given to commerce, the protec- 
 tion afforded by the tariff is cut down. Sixty years ago the 
 cost of carrying English iron to Pittsburgh was $80 a ton. 
 It can now be sent there, duty paid, for $10 a ton. Yet the 
 manufacture of iron has increased around Pittsburgh more 
 and more rapidly, exactly as this natural and most efficient 
 protection was destroyed by improvements in transportation. 
 Thirty-one years ago, under a duty of less than $2.50 per 
 ton, it cost much more to get English iron to Chicago than 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 213 
 
 it does now under a duty of $6.72. Illinois, Michigan, and 
 Wisconsin are far less protected now than they were under 
 the lowest tariff of American history. Yet the iron manu- 
 facture has grown at a tremendous pace under this rapid 
 removal of the old protection. Oddly enough, if there is 
 any truth in the protective theory, the manufacture of iron 
 and steel is dwindling in the only parts of our country where 
 the increase of duties has not been completely neutralized 
 by natural causes, while it has grown with giant strides in 
 those sections where the high tariff of the last thirty years 
 has been nullified by cheap transportation. 
 
 Moreover, if the infant industries of the West needed pro- 
 tection against Europe, they needed far more protection 
 against the competition of the experienced, wealthy manu- 
 facturers of the Eastern States, with all the advantages of 
 abundant capital, low interest, long experience, and cheaper 
 labor. Yet the infants of the West have paid double rates 
 of interest and fifty per cent higher wages, and still have so 
 effectually beaten the old-established giants of the East, 
 under absolute free trade, that three fourths of the iron and 
 steel manufactures have gone West of the Alleghanies, and 
 the iron manufactures of the East are said by one of their 
 foremost representatives to be " in the throes of dissolution." 
 In New England they are practically dead. Here is a his- 
 torical demonstration that, under free trade, manufactures 
 tend to go where wages and interest are high and the busi- 
 ness, as well as the country, is new. 
 
 I do not censure protectionists who are unmoved by the 
 historical argument, because I could not be convinced by it 
 myself, even if it appeared to sustain the theory of restric- 
 tion. The historical argument has always been used effect- 
 ively against freedom; but no true lover of liberty ever 
 allowed himself to be moved by it. In ancient times the 
 historians and philosophers could not conceive of a state 
 without slavery. No such state had ever existed ; and there- 
 fore none such ever could or ought to exist. In my early 
 days we were overwhelmed with historical arguments for 
 slavery. Statistics showed that wealth grew rapidly, that 
 military power was developed, that men were more manly 
 and white women more virtuous under slavery. So, in 
 Europe, history was made to show the vast advantages of 
 despotism over freedom Carlyle devoted his utmost energy 
 to setting forth the folly of giving votes to base mechanics, 
 and the supreme wisdom of putting the life, liberty, and 
 
214 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 property of every nation at the absolute mercy of one wise 
 man, whose wisdom was to be judged only by himself. Un- 
 til a very recent period, all the literature of this question of 
 liberty was on one side, and that the side of despotism and 
 slavery. Yet where was the man who was ever convinced 
 that he ought to be a slave ? Where is there one to-day 
 who will acknowledge that he could be convinced by any 
 argument, theoretical or historical, that he ought to be a 
 slave, and that his wife and children ought to be the chattels 
 of a wise master ? Where is the American who could be 
 convinced by any argument that this country should be 
 placed under the government of a benevolent czar ? Where 
 is the American who can be induced to listen to any argu- 
 ment in favor of even allowing Congress to decide whether 
 he shall be a freeman, whether he shall have the right to 
 earn a living in his own way, to spend his own earnings, to 
 select his own clothing, to choose his own religion, to marry 
 the woman of his own choice ? A divinely planted instinct 
 rebels against all reasoning upon such subjects, and de- 
 mands liberty, no matter what historians, or philosophers, 
 or statesmen, or scientists may say to the contrary. And 
 while all these classes of wise men once condemned this 
 universal human instinct as insane and absurd, they all 
 now agree that on these questions the plain people were 
 right and the wise men were wrong. 
 
 Arguments against human freedom in any form and upon 
 any ground, whether historical or otherwise, are necessarily 
 false and empty. It would not be of the smallest impor- 
 tance if it could be shown conclusively that the wealth of 
 the community increased more rapidly under slavery than 
 under freedom ; no, not even if the slaves themselves en- 
 joyed more of the comforts and luxuries of life than they 
 could if freemen. The moral dignity, the mental strength 
 which come from freedom, and which can never come under 
 slavery, far outweigh all possible considerations on the other 
 side. It is just as certain that freedom of trade, which is 
 an indispensable part of human liberty, is a right, the loss 
 of which can not be atoned for by any conceivable increase 
 of wealth either to the community or to the individual. It 
 is a question of manhood, which admits of no compromise. 
 If I have a right to choose my own method of earning an 
 honest living, I have an equal right to exchange my prod- 
 ucts with those of every other human being. To forbid 
 me to exchange at all would be the same thing as to forbid 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 215 
 
 me to earn anything, for my products have no value what- 
 ever if they may not be exchanged. To put restrictions 
 upon my right to exchange is precisely the same thing as to 
 restrict my right to produce. It is partial slavery, and 
 should be resisted and denounced as such, with no toler- 
 ation for any of the plausible excuses by which total and 
 partial slavery have in all ages been defended. 
 
 FREE TKADE INDISPENSABLE TO SOCIAL REFORM. 
 
 I have thus sketched, with extreme brevity, the argument 
 for free trade from the standpoint of international morals 
 and from the standpoint of general national prosperity. 
 But these considerations are far from being the most im- 
 portant practical ones, because the human instinct for free 
 trade is strong enough to override obstructive laws and 
 largely to nullify all tariffs. Our tariff does not probably 
 cost us, as a nation, in mere loss of foreign trade, as much 
 as ten per cent, of our annual earnings. The great crime 
 of our tariff is that which is inherent in every tariff. It is 
 the most ingenious and effective means ever devised for the 
 plunder of the poor and the enrichment of the rich. I do 
 not now refer merely to the direct robbery of the poor for 
 the benefit of the rich, through so-called protective and pro- 
 hibitory measures. I refer to the whole system of indirect 
 taxation, which is founded upon tariffs and could not exist 
 for a day without them. 
 
 Indirect, or, as I always prefer to call it, crooked tax- 
 ation, was invented in days when the mass of the people 
 had, as a famous bishop boastingly said, " nothing to do 
 with the laws except to obey them." It owed its origin to 
 the grasping desire of despotic governments and their agents 
 to extort as much as possible from the people. The wealthy 
 classes had a power of resistance which made it dangerous 
 to push them very far. The tax-gatherers attempted to 
 collect direct taxes from the people at large, but found the 
 task too laborious and costly ; just as in Boston to-day the 
 collection of poll-taxes from the poor costs more than the 
 entire receipts from the poorer class. Then it occurred to 
 them that, by taxing the food and clothing of the people, 
 they might compel the poorest to pay tribute out of their 
 misery. As soon as the new idea was put into practice it 
 was found that taxes upon consumption were productive of 
 far greater revenue, with far less resistance upon the part 
 15 
 
216 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 of tax-payers, than any form of straightforward taxation 
 which had ever been tried. So it was very acceptable to 
 tax-gatherers. 
 
 After a short experience of crooked taxation, rich men 
 everywhere realized that it relieved them from most of the 
 burdens of government; and as they were gradually ad- 
 mitted into some share in public administration, they in- 
 sisted upon the abolition of direct taxes and the substitu- 
 tion of crooked ones. In England, prior to 1660, the 
 greatest part of the revenue was raised by direct taxes upon 
 property owners. When Charles II was restored to his 
 throne the Parliament made a bargain with him to sur- 
 render all the royal tribute upon land owners, in consider- 
 ation of an excise tax upon articles used by all the people. 
 In this way taxes, of which every penny was paid by the 
 rich, were exchanged for taxes nine tenths of which were 
 paid by the poor. Parliament consisting, then and for two 
 centuries afterward, entirely of land owners, this precedent 
 was followed more and more, until nine tenths of all the 
 revenues were raised by crooked taxes, paid chiefly by the 
 poor. 
 
 In France and Spain the same methods were adopted, 
 and carried even further. The nobility were exempted 
 from all direct taxes ; and the number of such exempts con- 
 tinually increased. Crooked taxation was carried to its 
 utmost limits, with the well-known result of commercial 
 and political ruin to both nations, until France shook off 
 her fetters in 1789. The very first step which the new 
 France took in the direction of liberty was to sweep away a 
 multitude of crooked taxes and to make direct taxation uni- 
 versal, although, unfortunately for France, not exclusive. 
 
 Taxes upon food, clothing, furniture, buildings, and other 
 necessaries of life, whether levied by a tariif upon imports 
 or a tax upon home productions, are what are known in 
 economic science as taxes upon consumption ; and it is in- 
 evitable that such taxes should be paid principally by the 
 poorer classes and only to a trifling extent by the rich. 
 This is easily understood upon a few moments' reflection. 
 If bread is taxed, the 40,000 families who own half the 
 wealth of this country can not eat more bread than 40,000 
 day laborers' families, if as much. The 10,000,000 families 
 who own less than one quarter of the national wealth will 
 pay five hundred times as much of the bread-tax, in propor- 
 tion to their means of payment, as will the 40,000 favored 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 217 
 
 ones. A single hungry newsboy will pay as heavy a bread 
 tax as a multi-millionaire. But allow twenty newsboys as 
 a set-off to the millionaire's family and attendants, and 
 still those newsboys will pay, in proportion to their wealth, 
 500,000 times as much as Mr. Astor or Mr. Rockefeller. 
 Allow each of these gentlemen to have one hundred per- 
 sonal attendants, and still every newsboy would pay 100,- 
 000 times as much of the tax, in proportion to his means. 
 
 What is true of bread is true, to a slightly less degree, of 
 every other thing which is made the subject of crooked 
 taxation. It will be said that luxuries are taxed, and that 
 such taxes are paid only by the rich. But the amount of 
 taxes which are or can be collected upon pure luxuries, used 
 only by the rich, is ridiculously small, compared with the 
 entire public revenue. What are called luxuries are largely 
 used by the poor ; and the attempt, sometimes made, to 
 justify taxes upon the poor sewing girl's ribbons, gloves, bits 
 of lace and tiny ornaments, as superfluous luxuries, is an act 
 of purse-proud arrogance and impudence, for which no 
 words are hot enough. Beauty and ornament are necessa- 
 ries to every woman ; and when any tax-eater dares to assert 
 that poor girls have no right to these simple little ornaments 
 without paying tribute to his avarice, my soul is filled with 
 such burning indignation as is probably unsuited for ex- 
 pression before an ethical society. 
 
 There never has been, there is not now, and there never 
 will be, any system of taxation upon consumption which 
 does not bear ten times as heavily upon the great mass of 
 the hard-working people as it does upon the rich and pros- 
 perous, or which does not bear a hundred or a thousand 
 times as heavily upon day laborers and sewing women as it 
 does upon the few men in whose hands many millions are 
 concentrated. 
 
 The result is, of course, that the small savings of the 
 hardest working class are almost entirely swept away by 
 crooked taxation, while the savings of the very rich are 
 almost entirely untouched. Year by year the concentra- 
 tion of wealth in few hands goes on at ever-accelerating 
 pace. Grant that, in the struggle for existence, the work- 
 ing classes do not actually fall behind in prosperity, yet 
 they do fall far behind relatively. Suppose the 10,000,000 
 families who live by daily toil are better off than they were 
 thirty years ago by even one hundred dollars each ; that 
 would only give them $1,000,000,000 more than in 1860. 
 
218 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 What has become of the remaining $43,000,000,000 which 
 Mr. Blaine assures us have been added to the national wealth ? 
 Give them each, in imagination mechanics, small farmers, 
 hod-carriers, sewing girls, and all a thousand dollars each 
 of the increase of wealth an estimate which justly makes 
 you laugh, it is so utterly beyond possibility. What has be- 
 come of the remaining $33,000,000,000 ? No one can doubt 
 that seven eighths of the increase in our national wealth has 
 gone to much less than one eighth of the people. My own 
 judgment is that more than nine tenths of it has been ab- 
 sorbed by less than one fiftieth part of the people. 
 
 This is the invariable and inevitable result of long-con- 
 tinued crooked taxation. The same process has gone on 
 wherever this system has been maintained. It has always 
 been checked when the proportion of direct taxation has been 
 increased. Thus, in England, although the disproportion 
 between the rich and the poor is still enormous, it is by no 
 means so great as it was before a large number of crooked 
 taxes were swept away and a small amount of direct taxes 
 substituted. The reason why the great chasm continues 
 there is that by far the greater part of the taxes are still in- 
 direct, levied upon consumption, and therefore chiefly paid 
 by the poor. 
 
 What stands in the way of this greatest of all conceivable 
 blessings to our own American people ? The tariff. Not 
 merely the McKinley tariff, but the Mills tariff. Not merely 
 such a tariff as Speaker Reed forced through, but also any 
 such tariff as Speaker Crisp will allow to go through. Not 
 merely a Harrison tariff, but a Cleveland tariff. 
 
 What is the first condition and the only important condi- 
 tion to the deliverance of the poor from this plunder ? Free 
 trade absolute, unqualified, unconditional, immediate. For 
 it would be utterly impossible to maintain any tax upon 
 domestic productions for twenty-four hours after the adop- 
 tion of free trade in foreign productions. Direct taxation 
 must and would come in with absolute free trade. Wealth 
 would pay all taxes, and poverty would be exempt. The 
 wealth of the wealthy would be but little diminished ; but 
 the poverty of the poor would be rapidly transformed into 
 comparative wealth. Conceive, if you can, of the tremen- 
 dous strides which this whole country would take toward 
 prosperity under a system which relieved every productive 
 enterprise from the burdens of taxation, which left all the 
 earnings of every farmer, mechanic, artisan, and laborer free 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 219 
 
 of tax, which assured to the working classes an increased 
 power of saving to the extent of a thousand millions annu- 
 ally, or left them free to add half that amount to their com- 
 forts. What an impulse there would be to industry ! What 
 new energy would fill the heart of every willing worker ! 
 What new sense of security would be given to the untaxed 
 manufacturer, as well as to the untaxed merchant ! What a 
 vast demand for new laborers in new forms of labor ! What 
 new prospects would be opened to every laborer in the knowl- 
 edge that for the first time in his life every penny which he 
 honestly earned would be absolutely his own ! 
 
 It will be asked what form of taxation I propose in place 
 of tariff and excise duties. I do not feel called upon now to 
 answer. Any form of absolutely direct taxation, collected 
 from those who have, and not from those who have' not, will 
 produce all the results which have been here suggested 
 Whatever form is adopted, it must be such as can not possibly 
 be collected over again by the original tax-payer. That there 
 are such methods of taxation is very well known. When the 
 American people are determined to have free trade, their 
 Congress will speedily discover a method of direct taxation. 
 
 Because I believe in the emancipation of the American 
 laborer from all unequal burdens ; because I believe that he 
 will gain a thousand times more through justice than through 
 charity; because I believe in more freedom as a cure for 
 social ills rather than in more meddling ; because I believe 
 in the solidarity of the human race ; because I believe that 
 alienation between the laboring classes of different nations 
 only makes them the ready victims of tyrants and extor- 
 tioners ; because I believe that the poor can never gain by in- 
 justice to each other or separation from each other ; because 
 I believe that the prosperity of every nation inevitably pro- 
 motes the prosperity of every other ; because, with all my 
 heart and soul, I hate human hatred and love human sym- 
 pathy ; because I love the whole world, and America the best 
 of all I am for free trade, absolute, unconditional, and im- 
 mediate. 
 
 For absolute free trade means the end of war, the end of 
 international jealousies and quarrels, the union of honest 
 toilers in all lands, the solution of the great social problem, 
 the emancipation of the poor, and a state of society in which 
 the rich will not grow poorer, but the poor will become 
 comparatively rich. 
 
220 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 
 
 HON. ROSWELL G. HORR : 
 
 I feel somewhat embarrassed in attempting to answer such a la- 
 bored and elaborate discourse as we have listened to to-night, nor 
 would I attempt it, were it not for the fact that a large portion of the 
 statements made by the gentleman are not new to me. It is a kind 
 of straw that I have thrashed over and over again until I have grown 
 weary in the work. There is no half-way place between Mr. Shearman 
 and myself. He is either all right and I am all wrong, or else I am all 
 right and he is woefully wrong, don't you see f You know in theology 
 you can sometimes get a sort of half-way place. If Calvin should get 
 a location a little too warm to be perfectly comfortable for the modern 
 theologians, without attempting the abolition of the place entirely, 
 they would find some way of moderating the temperature. But there 
 is no such half-way place between Brother Shearman and myself here 
 to-night. I am a firm believer in the doctrine of protection. I believe 
 in it because I believe it is in the interest of the United States, and I 
 am for this nation first and the rest of the world afterward. I am in 
 favor of protection because my method of theorizing is radically dif- 
 ferent from that of my friend here. I only regret that I have not 
 time to take up this subject and give you thoroughly the philosophy 
 of protection, so you would all understand where my friend's free 
 trade would lead this nation. I think in a moment I can state to you, 
 so that you can see it, the distinction between the free-trader's method 
 of levying duties and the protectionist's, for there is no country in the 
 world that has free trade as Mr. Shearman wants it. I was glad he 
 commented on the difference between England and America. Eng- 
 land levies her duties on articles which she does not produce, and we 
 do not. No nation on the face of the globe is a free-trade nation, no 
 country has abolished custom houses and duties entirely. England 
 levies and collects every year one hundred millions of dollars by tariff 
 duties, but she collects them on articles which she can not produce. 
 She collects twenty millions on tea, which she can not produce ; twenty 
 millions on tobacco last year ; for while her people might raise it, she 
 prevents by law the production of tobacco in order to derive a revenue 
 from taxing the foreign product. The protection theory is the oppo- 
 site of this. On luxuries we levy duties for revenue only ; on necessa- 
 ries we put every article we can not produce ourselves on the free list- 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 221 
 
 We put it on the free list, because by the English method the tariff is 
 paid by the people of England. If you levy a duty on an article you can 
 not prod ace in your own country, you increase the tax. Now, we don't 
 levy duties that way. The protectionist says : Put all articles of neces- 
 sity that we can not produce on the free list. "We levy our duties on 
 articles we can produce, and thus stimulate production in this coun- 
 try, encourage competition, and so reduce prices. My friend says this 
 is not so ; if you do that it is just like a duty levied on an article you 
 can not produce it is also a tax, it raises prices and robs everybody 
 who consumes the article. If that is true, if we increase the price of 
 the article, my friend is right and I am wrong. But if, on the other 
 hand, we invariably get up a new industry and cheapen the goods for 
 the people who consume them, I am right and he is wrong. Now, the 
 facts are on my side. I could name many articles which have been 
 thus cheapened through the action of the protective tariff. This is a 
 fact, and one fact is worth a bushel of theories. Now, for instance, we 
 are going to make tin plate in this country, and to make it cheaper. 
 He said tin plate is now going up, on account of the McKinley bill I 
 think you said so, I know you did. He stated that tin plate had been 
 growing cheaper from the war like other steel goods. He hadn't looked 
 at the figures correctly. Tin plate hasn't, been growing cheaper ; all 
 other kinds of steel and iron goods have been growing cheaper. All 
 other steel goods have gone down ; tin plate hasn't. Why *? Because 
 we haven't made it. We have been in the grip of the foreign manu- 
 facturer. We have now put a duty on tin plate for the purpose of 
 building up that industry in the United States, and we are going to do 
 it. Now, my friend Shearman will deny this ; the moment that bill is 
 passed he goes into his study, gets out his Times and his Evening 
 Post, and by the light of his free-trade theories decides that this can 
 not be done ; therefore he tells you it can not be done. Now he be- 
 lieves it. I believe he is mistaken. I have been around a little, you 
 know, and I've seen some things with my own eyes. I have been all 
 over the United States trying to find out whether we were making tin 
 plate or not ; the newspapers said we weren't ; I found out that we 
 were. I have been in nine factories where they were making it, and 
 after I have seen a ton made it would take a free-trader more than an 
 hour to convince me that we are not making it. Here in this city of 
 Brooklyn is an enormous factory being erected by Summers Brothers, 
 that is to cost $250,000. I went to that establishment, and went 
 through it, and found out they are going to make tin plate here in 
 spite of all the theories. It will give employment to many workers in 
 this great city. Now, I will make the issue plain between myself and 
 Mr. Shearman 1 We are going to make tin plate in the United States, 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 cheaper than it has ever been sold in this country, within the next 
 twenty years, and we will make it cheaper, not by lessening the wages 
 of labor, but by our American ingenuity in devising new and im- 
 proved machinery. If we don't, I will never preach protection again, 
 provided Brother Shearman will stop preaching free trade if we do. 
 In one of the factories in this city you will find a little machine nearly 
 completed that will do work which on the other side of the ocean it 
 takes twenty men to do. We are going to furnish labor in the United 
 States for thirty thousand human beings, and furnish it for better 
 wages than they can get in any other spot on the globe. And there 
 are twenty-nine other factories being built under this bill, and yet my 
 friend here informed you that industry would be killed by protection. 
 I get tired of hearing that kind of talk. 
 
 Mr. Shearman labored to show that cheapness is a good thing. My 
 friend's statement is true, but with one limitation; and that is so 
 much more important than the statement that I wonder he forgot it. A 
 cheap overcoat is good, unless it makes a cheap man inside it. Cheap- 
 ness is too cheap when it makes cheap men and women. You must 
 make it so that the men who do the labor can live decently and 
 respectably. We don't want men so cheap that they can't earn a good 
 comfortable living in this country. 
 
 Why do people keep coming here from free-trade England if they 
 are better off in that marvelous good country ? Why do they stay 
 here when they find we have a tariff ? Why is it, if this country is in 
 such a bad way as Mr. Shearman says it is, and all because of the tariff ? 
 Capital is robbing labor in this country, we are told, yet they come by 
 thousands ; but after they get here, after they find out how they are 
 being robbed, and when they recollect what good times they used to 
 have, why don't they go back f They come here because wages are 
 better here than anywhere else in the world because a man has a 
 better chance to make a comfortable home for his wife and children. 
 Nobody knows it better than my friend here. People come to this 
 country because we have a higher grade of labor ; we pay better wages 
 than are paid anywhere else [Mr. SHEARMAN : " Except in Australia "] 
 and that is the reason I believe in a protective tariff ; it keeps up the 
 grade of labor, and that is the important thing. 
 
 Mr. Shearman says nobody wants to sell, but everybody wants to 
 buy. Now, 1 have heard that before, and if I didn't know anything 
 about the facts I might believe it ; but I have been in a place where I 
 wanted to sell a great deal more than I wanted to buy, and I think 
 we've all been occasionally in such a place. 
 
 You state that this year has been disastrous to commerce. Have you 
 studied the statistics ? You say we are doing less business. The fact 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 223 
 
 is, on the contrary, we have increased both exports and imports. We 
 have increased both. Imports have been increased and the amount of 
 duty paid has decreased. You say that since the McKinley bill went 
 into effect the country has been growing worse and worse off, and that 
 business is being ruined and the outlook is fearful. I say there has 
 never been a more prosperous year in the history of the country. Now, 
 I can see how my friend, from his office, where he is studying free- 
 trade theories, can make that statement, but I have been in twenty- 
 one of the States since the McKinley bill was passed ; I have talked 
 with business men everywhere ; and the opposite is true. We have 
 had one of the best years, since that bill went into effect, since the na- 
 tion was founded. Mortgages have been paid off, and the people are 
 becoming prosperous, and in spite of this bill. He could not have said 
 what he did if he had seen what I have seen all over the United States. 
 
 I object to this free-trade business. It compels a man to be con- 
 stantly running down his own country. He is constantly laboring 
 for the rest of the world. The first part of Mr. Shearman's lecture was 
 beautiful, but practically it doesn't mean very much. Practically, men 
 have to take care of themselves first in this world, and if they don't, 
 there won't anybody else do it for them ; and so with nations. Now, 
 1 won't train with a crowd that any time we try to do anything in this 
 country says we can't do this and we can't do that. If it is linen we 
 want to make, American flax is not good ; if we try to make glass, the 
 sand is not the right kind ; and yet we put a duty on plate glass, and 
 we are selling to-day the finest plate glass made on the face of the 
 globe for seventy cents a square foot which used to cost two dollars 
 and twenty-five cents before we put that tariff on ; for we have found 
 out that we were shipping sand by the barrel-load to France and 
 England to make plate glass with, and it is the very best kind of sand. 
 No matter what we try to do in this country, there is always something 
 wrong. 
 
 My rule is to look over the entire list of articles produced, and when 
 I can find an article like tin plate I find out what it is made of, and 
 find that the bulk of it is iron or steel. Then I say we have plenty 
 of iron and steel ; how about tin ? That is an imported article, so we 
 put it on the free list. Then I say, Why don't we make our own 
 tin plate t Why not send and buy the little amount of tin and do the 
 rest ourselves <? One great reason is that our manufacturers pay two 
 or three times as much for labor as workmen are paid on the other 
 side, and we levy the duty to protect them in paying good wages, and 
 we know they will introduce new machinery and in twenty-five years 
 we would make better tin plate than has ever been made. Is there 
 any other method that is sensible ? ' 
 
224 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 Mr. Shearman talks a great deal about the moral side of the question 
 Now, that just suits me. I am always glad to discuss this side of the 
 question. I have a passion for morality. The ethical side is just what I 
 am after. Now, I am against free trade and in favor of protection for this 
 reason : 1 want the United States run on a plan of morality that will 
 furnish a place 'for every human being in it, give every man a chance 
 to be a good citizen and have a decent home. I want to diversify 
 industry so that every man can have an occupation suited to his taste 
 and talents. If there is a fellow who has got genius and a cunning 
 hand so that he can make a watch, I'd have a place where he can go 
 and make it. If he can make a locomotive or a steam engine, I would 
 have a place where he could go and make that. I would furnish good 
 work for every human soul. Every man who builds up a new industry 
 in this country does the nation a wonderful amount of good. He is a 
 public benefactor, and I would rather have his chance in the next 
 world than that of one who preaches doleful sermons about free trade. 
 I merely wish to suggest to this audience that when you have said all 
 and done all, there are two sides to this question ; that is, if there is 
 any side for my friend Shearman. They have been laboring on this 
 free-trade business ever since I was a boy, and they don't seem to be 
 making many converts yet. I have heard it preached from my earliest 
 memory. You would think, if what my friend says is true, that every- 
 thing that is bad would disappear before this system of free trade. 
 Then why isn't there a free-trade nation on the globe I Even Eng- 
 land is beginning to weary of her kind of free trade. The British 
 Minister tells us that, to his great regret, free trade is losing ground and 
 protection is sweeping the whole world. 
 
 I have said all I expected to, but not all I would like to, for the sub- 
 ject is truly inexhaustible. I would like to show you where we have 
 cheapened articles all over the United States and furnished homes for 
 people in this country. I have been in more than two hundred insti- 
 tutions and asked the men what wages they were getting. Some had 
 worked abroad. Take a man who has worked in both places ; he knows, 
 and I would take his testimony before any other. I have talked with 
 them all over the country, and every one of them tells me that they 
 are here because their wages are such that they can live better and 
 enjoy blessings they could not anywhere else, and because it is the 
 place for workingmen to do well. I am going to stand by the system 
 that enables them to say this about our country and to tell the truth. 
 
 PROF. H. J. MESSENGER: 
 
 I find myself in an unfortunate position in this discussion. There 
 seems to be a place for both the free-trader and the protectionist, but 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 225 
 
 not for me. While sympathizing with revenue reform, I confess that 
 I would rather see the McKinley bill stand than to see immediate and 
 unconditional free trade. A sudden change like that would be op- 
 posed to evolutionary principles. Evolution implies a gradual change 
 of conditions. Some of Mr. Shearman's positions are not assailable ; 
 some of Mr. Horr's are also unassailable. There are two extreme 
 schools in regard to every debatable question ; they have been repre- 
 sented here to-night. The work of science is to take the truths in each 
 of the extreme schools and harmonize them into a new and deeper 
 truth. All great questions, by the law of relativity, have to be com- 
 promised in their practical solution. In the first part of this discourse 
 the lecturer dealt with the problem before us from the standpoint of 
 the Sermon on the Mount ; this is to-day an impracticable standpoint. 
 Under certain conditions, the general principle and demand for pro- 
 tection from outside aggression is dominant and necessary. The tariff 
 is one form of this protection. Evolution means differentiation and 
 integration, and this is true in the evolution of nations as well as of 
 individuals. In the simplest forms of life there is no specialization of 
 functions or organs ; in the higher forms, specialization of functions is 
 developed, and each organ does its part in the economy of life. So 
 with states and nations. The nation which illustrates the highest 
 civilization is that in which the functions are most highly differen- 
 tiated and specialized, and it is right to throw around it such barriers 
 as are necessary to protect it from social disintegration. It is not 
 right, however, to aim at the injury of other nations in our tariff regu- 
 lations. We can not injure another person without injuring ourselves, 
 and so also of nations. The tendency, therefore, should be constantly 
 toward freer trade, and this tendency should be pushed as far and as 
 rapidly as is consistent with increasing differentiation and specializa- 
 tion. 
 
 DR. ROBERT G. ECCLES : 
 
 If the lecturer had followed the scientific method he would have 
 shown the evils as well as the benefits of free trade ; the method which 
 he adopted has resulted in showing only the good. There must be a 
 debit as well as a credit side to every account ; the credit side only has 
 been shown to-night. There must be evils connected with every socio- 
 logical state whatever, and the true sociologist would endeavor to as- 
 certain these evils. In a scientific discussion both sides must be shown ; 
 the good and evil must be balanced. From a biological standpoint, 
 much can be said in favor of protection. The lecturer has spoken of 
 free trade as akin to the free circulation of the blood in living creat- 
 ures. But the analogy would demand that there should be circulation 
 
226 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 not only in the individual organism, but between all individuals of the 
 same species. This we know is not the fact. In monocellular organ- 
 isms there is no exchange of blood with one another ; but in a multi- 
 cellular organism there arises a community circulation, confined to 
 the limits of the individual structure. Society is a picture of the 
 multicellular individual. There must be a community circulation. 
 Will society progress more rapidly by absolute free trade? This 
 might be so if all peoples constituted one community, under one head ; 
 but as long as we are separated by racial and national boundaries, free 
 circulation can only be maintained within racial or national limita- 
 tions. As to the questions of liberty, the tariff does not interfere with 
 that at all. You may trade with any one you please. The only pro- 
 viso is that in certain cases you must pay taxes for the privilege. The 
 Government must be supported ; the taxes must be raised in some 
 way, and it makes no essential difference whether you pay them in 
 one way or another. A tariff increases the population of a country. 
 The tax on tin plate, for instance, causes workmen in that industry to 
 come to this country, and it raises wages because it creates a demand 
 for those workmen. The lecturer stated that some fourteen hundred 
 industries could be maintained in this country under free trade. This 
 may be true ; but it would not be had free trade been established ear- 
 lier in our history. Free trade would have given us a nation of farm- 
 ers, and, as farming requires more land than other industries, our 
 population would have been more sparse. Protection has covered the 
 country with railroads in all directions, binding the nation together. 
 Free trade would have given us railroads only East and West, carry- 
 ing farm products to the seaboard to interchange with Europe, and 
 thus the different sections would have remained disunited and insular. 
 
 DR. LEWIS G. JANES : 
 
 With the judicial fairness proper in a presiding officer, I propose to 
 make a brief criticism on each of the principal speakers. In largely 
 ignoring the historical method, and affirming, in substance, that evolu- 
 tion can be of little assistance in the settlement of this vexed question, 
 I think Mr. Shearman gravely errs. We do not study the lessons of 
 history in order to copy and imitate the methods of the past, but rather 
 to observe social tendencies, to obtain pointers in the direction of future 
 progress, which will enable us to work with Nature, in harmony with 
 the trend of her great evolutionary forces, and not against them. 
 Studied in this spirit, history seems to me not only a fruitful source of 
 information upon topics of this character, but the only safe and relia- 
 ble guide. And history, thus studied, is but another name for evolu- 
 tion. In neglecting this field of study, and basing his argument so 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 227 
 
 exclusively upon a priori data, I feel that the lecturer has unnecessa- 
 rily weakened his case. 
 
 On the other hand, I was greatly surprised to hear Mr. Horr's affir- 
 mation that the past year has been the one of our greatest national 
 prosperity. This statement is contrary to my own experience, and to 
 the testimony of the practical men of affairs with whom I have come 
 in contact. A successful manufacturer a consistent Republican and 
 protectionist in politics declared in my presence yesterday that only 
 the unexampled prosperity of our agricultural interests our abundant 
 crops had saved us from the most serious financial crisis of recent 
 years. I believe this statement is substantially true. The past year 
 has not been one of great business prosperity, but the contrary. 
 
 MR. SHEARMAN, in closing : As to the superiority of personal obser- 
 vation in obtaining data for the discussion of this subject, in a country 
 like ours, it is impossible for one man by mere personal observation to 
 gain a correct idea of the course of business and industry. I do not 
 set any value on the mere individual observation of any one man 
 least of all myself in these matters. One man's experience is only 
 one rill in thousands which go to make up the great current of statis- 
 tical information. I may not have had the advantages of Mr. Horr in 
 going around among the rich manufacturers and hearing from them 
 that things are about as they want them. But I have taken the reports 
 of the great commercial agencies Bradstreet's and Dun's concerns 
 which have thousands of correspondents in all parts of the country, and 
 I find that in the twelve months following the passage of the McKin- 
 ley bill (and that is what I said not " the past year," as Mr. Horr 
 assumed) these agencies report 12,000 failures throughout the country, 
 representing liabilities of over $225,000,000. And I repeat my state- 
 ment that this was the most disastrous business year we have ever 
 had. [A voice : " Give us the pro rata figures."] If you mean the 
 amount of failures as compared with the population, there were only 
 two years 1857 and 1873 in which the record (omitting the rail- 
 roads) was blacker than the year of which I speak. As Dr. Janes has 
 said, we were saved from the greatest financial crash in our history by 
 the enormous crops of the past year and the unprecedented demand 
 for them. The condition of the iron trade is a good index of business 
 in general, and there was a great falling off in the production of pig 
 iron in the year after the McKinley bill was passed. As to the reduc- 
 tion in the price of plate glass, in 1861, when the duty was first put on 
 it, it was selling here for $1.10 a square foot, and for 80 cents in Europe. 
 Now we can get it here in large quantities for 70 cents, while in 
 Europe it sells for 35 or 40 cents. And this result we have obtained 
 
228 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 by taxing ourselves for thirty years at the rate of 100 per cent. As to 
 the tin factories, they must have imported help, and with the improved 
 machinery of which Mr. Horr has spoken they can give very little em- 
 ployment to American labor. If each of these factories costs as much 
 as the one in Brooklyn ($250,000) a wildly extravagant figure for the 
 average of these factories all of them would cost $7,500,000. Now 
 we are taxing ourselves $16,000,000 a year to build these factories. So 
 we could afford to pay the entire cost of building them and yet save 
 $8,000,000 a year by the operation, if we abolished the tariff on tin 
 plate. But we are asked : " What nation has adopted free trade 1 " 
 This is the same old argument I heard on the slavery question when I 
 was a boy. I regard the tariff question as one of liberty and honesty. 
 Shall we seriously discuss whether on the whole it is better to be honest ? 
 There have been men who could not see the advantages of liberty. 
 Noble men held slaves. Conscientious men far better than I per- 
 secuted horribly their fellow-creatures for religion's sake. So sincere 
 and conscientious men are protectionists. I have never doubted that. 
 But if you really want a historical argument of that sort I am pre- 
 pared at any time to give you seven times as many facts and figures as 
 my friend Horr, and twenty times as many as my friend Dr. Eccles. 
 
 As to Prof. Messenger's position I have to answer three protection- 
 ists to-night, for I don't call that man a free-trader who would rather 
 live under the McKinley bill than have it abolished at once I would 
 rather the McKinley bill should remain the law than have any such 
 half-hearted changes as Prof. Messenger proposes. I am just as much 
 an evolutionist as any of you, but evolution doesn't always work slowly. 
 If Prof. Messenger had a toothache, would he tell the dentist that he 
 wanted a slow, evolutionary process of cure that would take three 
 quarters of an hour instead of curing it in ten seconds I If you were 
 to abolish the tariff to-morrow, the cable would be crowded with orders 
 for European goods. There would be a quick advance of prices there 
 and a slight decrease here. More people would be supplied with com- 
 forts and luxuries, while the manufacturers would do a much greater 
 business at the lower prices. All of Europe could not supply one 
 eighth of our wants while supplying her own, and it is folly to think 
 of her supplanting us. The way to bring about an era of prosperity 
 such as we have never known is by getting rid of our hampering tariff 
 laws at once, and inaugurating an era of complete commercial 
 freedom. 
 
TAXATION AND REVENUE 
 
 THE PROTECTIONIST VIEW 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE GUNTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF WEALTH AND PROGRESS, THE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS, ETC. 
 
COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED: 
 
 Carey's Principles of Social Science, Past, Present, and Future, and 
 Harmony of Interests ; Thompson's Political Economy, and Protection 
 to Home Industry ; Gunton's Principles of Social Economics ; Hoyt's 
 Protection and Free Trade ; Kelley's Industrial and Financial Ques- 
 tions; Roberta's Government Revenue; Patten's Economic Basis of 
 Protection, and Premises of Political Economy ; Byles's Sophisms of 
 Free Trade ; Tariff Messages of Republican Presidents. 
 
TAXATION AND REVENUE. 
 
 THE PROTECTIONIST VIEW. 
 BY PROF. GEORGE GUNTON. 
 
 IT is generally assumed that the doctrine of evolution is 
 synonymous with the doctrine of laissez faire, and that con- 
 sistent evolutionists should therefore be free-traders. I 
 shall venture this evening to controvert that position and 
 endeavor to show that protection is a fundamental principle 
 in the law of evolution, and that in economics and sociology 
 scientific protection is the true means of securing the " sur- 
 vival of the fittest." 
 
 It is commonly urged in favor of the free-trade view that 
 it has the support of the intellectual class, and that only 
 short-sighted shop-keepers and manufacturers who have a 
 selfish end in view favor protection. There is considerable 
 truth in this claim, but is there not something peculiar and 
 even suspicious about a position in which all the learning is 
 on one side and the common-sense men of affairs on the 
 other? Whenever we see abstract theory arrayed against 
 universal experience, we are warranted in seriously question- 
 ing the validity of the theory. After all, human experience, 
 as recorded in' the history of society, is the safest basis for 
 generalization and the only basis scientific evolution can ac- 
 cept. Society has been wrong many times, but I doubt if 
 all the human race were ever all wrong at once, and persisted 
 in being wrong. Whenever mankind persists in doing a 
 certain thing, we may safely conclude that some beneficial 
 results are derived from that policy. Protection is a policy 
 that all mankind have adopted in some form or other, and 
 no nation has yet entirely abandoned it. 
 
 It must not be assumed from this, however, that those who 
 have advocated a protective policy have always understood 
 the economic principle underlying it. On the contrary, they 
 have acted from their sense of interest. Indeed, it is a part 
 of the general history of social evolution that we do things 
 before we understand them. Nearly all scientific generali- 
 zation is the philosophical explanation for what has previ- 
 16 
 
232 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 ously occurred. In short, man first does things, and then 
 learns to explain why he did them. 
 
 The traditional theory of political economy of which free 
 trade is a cardinal doctrine proceeds in an almost opposite 
 direction. It begins with certain postulates or assumptions 
 which it calls general principles, and so long as these postu- 
 lates remain intact it pays very little attention to experi- 
 ence. 
 
 Two weeks ago the lecturer representing the other side 
 presented the free-trade view in its extremest aspect, and he 
 did it in the old-fashioned metaphysical style. He affirmed 
 without qualification that absolute free trade is the essence 
 of freedom, the embodiment of the Golden Rule, which 
 makes all mankind brethren, and even went so far as to in- 
 sist that no protectionist could be a Christian. 
 
 Now, I take substantially the opposite view, and contend 
 that protection is a fundamental principle in society, and, if 
 it were necessary to extend the discussion, I might say in all 
 nature. There is no feature in man's social development 
 which is more continuous and marked than his constant 
 effort to protect himself, his family, his property, and his 
 nation, and here is the radical difference between the evolu- 
 tionist's or protectionist's view and the free-trade view. 
 
 From the free-trade view national development is com- 
 paratively unimportant and national boundaries are regarded 
 as arbitrary limitations which should be obliterated. This 
 is contrary to the whole trend of social evolution. Every 
 movement in the progress of society is toward greater indi- 
 viduality of form and diversity of character, and therefore a 
 great distinctiveness in the characteristics of groups or na- 
 tions. If we could multiply this audience a million times, 
 it would be difficult to find two faces alike, but if we should 
 take a like number of Chinese they would be so similar 
 that it would be difficult to distinguish men from women ; 
 and if we go still lower into the tribal conditions we find the 
 uniformity even greater and the individuality less. This is 
 true throughout the whole range of physical and social 
 phenomena. Therefore, instead of nations being unimpor- 
 tant, they are the embodiments of individuality in sections 
 of the human race ; they develop types of civilization. 
 
 The preservation of a nation is therefore just as important 
 to individual development as the opportunity of classes in 
 gymnastics is to muscular growth. I suspect that even the 
 most inveterate free-trader would admit that we should 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 233 
 
 have an army and navy to protect ourselves against Russia, 
 Mexico, England, or any other nation from invading this 
 country. But why do we want to maintain our individuality 
 as a nation ? Of what importance to civilization or humanity 
 is the United States unless it furnishes some opportunities 
 for advancing civilization that could not exist without it ? 
 If this progress would go on just as well if England and 
 America were merged together or if Russia took possession 
 of this country, there would be no reason whatever for main- 
 taining the integrity of our public institutions. 
 
 The evolutionary reason for maintaining the Republic is 
 that it furnishes conditions for diiferentiating influences in 
 the social life of the people. Now, the social status of any 
 people depends chiefly upon their industrial life. Agricult- 
 ural and raw-material producing occupations that isolate 
 laborers are non-socializing and non-civilizing. Who ever 
 heard of an agricultural nation being in the front rank of 
 civilization? Throughout human history civilization has 
 always followed the lines of manufacturing and commercial 
 industry, for the obvious reason that this class of industry 
 creates the industrial and social environment necessary to 
 intellectual political advance. 
 
 Where in our own country in any country are the ad- 
 vanced ideas, where are the centers of civilization, where are 
 the social incentives for new methods and intellectual fric- 
 tion and investigation and philosophizing ? Are they on the 
 rural farms ; are they out on the ranch ; are they in the 
 Black Hills ; are they where the population is scattered, and 
 people see each other once a week or once a month ? No. 
 They are in the centers where the people touch, where their 
 industries bring them together, and where they become in- 
 terdependent on each other for everything they do and 
 have ; where social life is brightened automatically by con- 
 tact with their fellow-men. The only force that brightens 
 human beings is contact with other human beings. Isola- 
 tion is the very source of stagnation and social arrest. 
 
 As a part of the claim that free trade is the only policy that 
 can secure the survival of the fittest, we are told that if 
 America is superior to other nations it ought to prove its 
 superiority by its ability to survive without paternal aid. 
 This is another metaphysical assumption. While it is true 
 that no policy can be regarded as scientific which does not 
 enable the fittest to survive, it should be remembered that it 
 is one of the characteristics of superiority and fitness to be 
 
234 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 able to provide the means for one's own protection and 
 preservation. In biology this protection or test of fitness 
 sometimes takes the form of special organic functioning 
 and concomitant muscular power, as in the teeth and claws 
 of the tiger. In society it frequently takes the form of 
 devising weapons of defense, as armies and navies ; in civil 
 life, the institution of a police force, a judiciary, and jails ; 
 and in industry it sometimes takes the form of tariffs and 
 restrictions to immigration. To be able to devise a means 
 of protection through political institutions is surely as good 
 evidence of fitness as is the ability to protect one's self by 
 brute force. 
 
 Indeed, that form of social organization or political polity 
 is most fit to survive which devises means for its own pro- 
 tection without using physical violence. Every higher form 
 has to develop its own means of protection, and when it 
 reaches the point where it can not devote all its energies to 
 self -protection, it differentiates special protective functions. 
 In society this is what may generally be designated as the 
 policeman function ; whether it takes the form of army and 
 navy, courts of justice or policemen, it is all the same, differ- 
 ing only in detail of application. Now, this specialized pro- 
 tective function in society is always called into use to protect 
 a superior against a lower form of social organization. It 
 was not until a certain proportion of society had learned 
 to devote its energies to industry that armies as a separate, 
 completely differentiated, civilized class were organized ; and 
 policemen and courts of justice, which are much more 
 modern forms of protection, were not developed until a 
 considerable number of individual citizens had advanced 
 past the point of fighting their own battles individu- 
 ally. In other words, it was not until individual citi- 
 zens had risen above the barbarism of individually con- 
 ducting their own protection that society differentiated a 
 collective protective function. And this became necessary 
 because as people devoted themselves to more civilized pur- 
 suits, they lost the capacity to successfully use brute force. 
 Hence, to the extent that force was necessary to protect 
 them, it had to be furnished by society, otherwise progress 
 would have been arrested. To insist that the superior shall 
 continue to protect themselves on the plane and by the 
 methods of the inferior is to insist that they shall descend to 
 a lower level. And, on the other hand, if we insist that the 
 inferior shall deal with the superior only by rising to the 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 235 
 
 higher plane of the latter, we then make the progress of the 
 inferior necessary in order to enable them to have any rela- 
 tions with the superior, which not only preserves the higher 
 but tends constantly to develop the lower. 
 
 Economic protection is but the scientific application of 
 this principle to the industrial intercourse of nations. 
 Properly understood, a protective tariff is the economic use 
 of the policeman function. It is important to carefully ob- 
 serve the line of demarkation between the inferior and su- 
 perior in the economic development of nations. The civili- 
 zation of any nation is superior or inferior according to the 
 social well-being of its own people not of its royal courts, 
 its aristocracy, or its literary class, but of the masses. This 
 is indicated by the rate of real wages or the permanent daily 
 income of the laboring classes. Since the difference in real 
 wages measures the difference in civilization, in order to 
 apply the protective principle to industry so as to guard a 
 higher civilization against the influence of a lower, we must 
 protect the wage-level of the more advanced country. 
 
 How can this be accomplished through the use of the tax- 
 ing power without interfering with the industrial freedom 
 and restricting the survival of the fittest ? I answer : By 
 imposing a duty on foreign products equivalent to the dif- 
 ference in wages or the labor cost of their production. This 
 would practically announce that all who desire to sell their 
 products in our market must compete on our level or not at 
 all. If their wages are lower than ours, they must pay the 
 difference as a premium for the privilege of entering our 
 market. Their competition would then be made to depend 
 on their superior economic skill, just as is the competition 
 between American producers. 
 
 If this principle were adopted in all countries, then the 
 home market in every country would be open to the pro- 
 ducers of all nations on the basis of its own wage-level. 
 The markets of the world would then be free to all who 
 could compete with the home producer through the use of 
 superior machinery or economic methods; that is to say, 
 through economy in machinery and natural forces, and not 
 through the use of mere barbarism or lower-paid labor. 
 Lower prices resulting from lower civilization are uneco- 
 nomic. There is nothing so dear as barbarism, nothing so 
 cheap as civilization. Nothing is cheap to any nation that 
 degrades its people in order to obtain it. The test of econo- 
 my is the production by methods which shall make wealth 
 
236 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 cheap without cheapening man methods that make wealth 
 cheap by science, that make Nature do the work, thus allow- 
 ing civilization to advance and real cheapness to be attained. 
 If England, or France, or Germany can produce more 
 cheaply than America on that basis, they should have our 
 market, but on no other conditions. Only better machinery 
 represents more scientific and economic methods of industry, 
 and that is an indication of fitness to survive. He is most 
 fit to serve mankind who serves them best. And in eco- 
 nomics this always depends upon using the most civilized 
 methods in doing the work. 
 
 Our free-trade friends insist that the great thing needed 
 is cheapness, but they make the mistake of confounding 
 cheapness with low prices, whereas the two are not neces- 
 sarily identical at all. Suppose, for illustration, shoes were 
 fifty cents a pair in India and wages ten cents a day, and 
 two dollars a pair in America with wages two dollars a day. 
 It would take five days' labor to obtain a pair of shoes in 
 India and only one day's labor to obtain a pair in America. 
 The shoes would be five times as dear in India as in America, 
 although the price was seventy-five per cent less. Dear ness 
 and cheapness are measured not by pennies but by labor. 
 Wealth is only cheap when a large amount of it can be ob- 
 tained for a day's work. No matter how few pennies I may 
 give for a thing, if I give more labor to obtain it, then it is 
 dearer. Nothing really brings cheapness which does not 
 give lower prices without lower wages. Therefore, to supply 
 our products at a lower price by virtue of lower wages is 
 simply to lower our civilization without cheapening our 
 wealth. They have low prices and low civilization in South 
 America, China, India, and Russia, but they have dear 
 wealth, and therefore are poor. Since nothing can cheapen 
 wealth which does not reduce the cost of production with- 
 out diminishing real wages, it follows that the true economic 
 basis for international competition is the wage-level of the 
 dearer-labor country. A tariff policy based upon this prin- 
 ciple would protect a superior against injury from an in- 
 ferior, without affording the slightest monopolistic impedi- 
 ment to economic rivalry. Instead of restricting wholesome 
 competition, this would simply protect the competitive op- 
 portunity for the " fittest to survive," the test of fitness 
 always being the ability to furnish low-priced wealth with- 
 out employing low-priced labor. Under such conditions 
 the products of foreign countries could never undersell those 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 237 
 
 of home industry, except when their lower prices are due to 
 the use of superior labor-saving and not labor-cJieapening 
 methods. Thus competent producers would have access to 
 all the markets of the world, and only the incompetent or 
 less economic would be excluded. In short, this would 
 guard every home market against the products of a lower 
 civilization without depriving it of the benefits of a higher 
 civilization. 
 
 Under these conditions no country would require a tariff 
 against America. India would not fear competition from 
 the United States, because the United States has nothing 
 to give that is not better than what India has. If we per- 
 mitted England to undersell us by reason of her lower wages, 
 we should be compelled to readjust our industrial condi- 
 tions to the English basis or else give England the monop- 
 oly of the American market. This would simply be handi- 
 capping our manufacturers, because the element by which 
 they would be defeated is something that our very civiliza- 
 tion has excluded. Hence America would be permanently 
 injured. Whereas, on the other hand, if America under- 
 sold the English in England, English industry would have 
 to be readjusted on the American basis, which is a basis of 
 superior methods, and consequently England would be per- 
 manently benefited by the change and nobody would be in- 
 jured. 
 
 There are three important reasons why home markets are 
 superior to foreign markets, .and why domestic trade and 
 manufacture should always be encouraged in preference to 
 foreign : (1) Foreign trade is essentially wasteful, because it 
 necessarily tends to maximize instead of minimizing the 
 distance between the raw material and the factory, and be- 
 tween the factory and the market. For instance, before the 
 development of cotton manufacture in this country our 
 cloth was made in England. The raw cotton was produced 
 in South Carolina, sent to England to be manufactured, 
 then brought back to America. Consumers of cotton cloth 
 in this country had to pay the cost of transporting it 
 twice across the Atlantic, which was so much waste made 
 necessary by uneconomic conditions. To carry a product 
 six thousand miles in order to deliver it to customers a 
 hundred miles away is to perpetuate uneconomic ways of 
 working. 
 
 Nothing can justify such waste except absolute inability 
 to avoid it. The mere fact thai England could, under ex- 
 
238 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 isting conditions, do manufacturing at so much less cost than 
 we as to be able to pay the transportation both ways, was 
 no economic justification for our continuing to buy cotton 
 cloth from her instead of developing the methods for mak- 
 ing it ourselves. Indeed, such a policy would have been as 
 obviously uneconomic as to have persisted in using hand- 
 looms and stage coaches in preference to factories and rail- 
 roads. The question in that case was not, Can England, 
 under existing conditions, supply our cotton cloth cheaper 
 than we can make it ? But can we, by any change of con- 
 ditions, develop the means for making it as cheaply for our- 
 selves as she can make it for us, and thus eliminate for all 
 time the unnecessary cost of double transportation ? This 
 question was answered in the affirmative, and to-day cotton 
 cloth can be made as cheaply here as in England, and 
 more cheaply than in any other country, notwithstanding 
 our wages are so much higher. Consequently, that eco- 
 nomic waste is saved not only to us, but to all future genera- 
 tions, to say nothing of the social advantage of developing 
 the industry in our own country. 
 
 It may be laid down as a fundamental principle in eco- 
 nomic production that all commodities should be manufact- 
 ured as near as possible to the raw material, or the market 
 for finished products. If a nation possesses the raw material 
 for a given article, it should always develop the facilities for 
 manufacturing the finished product for its own consump- 
 tion ; and any public policy which does not tend to promote 
 this end is inimical to national development. Therefore, 
 instead of constantly encouraging foreign trade, it should 
 ever be a cardinal principle in statesmanship to develop do- 
 mestic trade and home manufacture. 
 
 (2) Another disadvantage of foreign as compared with 
 home markets is that they divorce the economic interest of 
 employers and the employed. To the extent that any pro- 
 ducers in a given community rely upon a foreign market 
 for their wares will employers cease to have any economic 
 interest in the welfare of their own laborers. Whenever 
 employers are independent of the laborers of their own 
 country as consumers they have an apparent interest in keep- 
 ing down wages, because, under those circumstances, every 
 reduction in wages is an increase of profits. Suppose, for 
 instance, American shoe manufacturers sell all their product 
 in Europe at a dollar a pair ; it is quite obvious that if they 
 can obtain labor at ten per cent less it would be so much 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 239 
 
 addition to their profit, because a reduction in wages would 
 in no way affect the consumption of their shoes, they being 
 sold in another country where wages remain the same. 
 
 Under a home-market regime the case is very different, 
 because in domestic trade there are no influences that mili- 
 tate against the material welfare of laborers which do not 
 react upon that of the employing class. The obvious reason 
 for this is that no market for factory-made products can be 
 permanently sustained without consumption by the laboring 
 classes. Consequently, when the employing class in any 
 country have to rely upon a home market to sell their prod- 
 ucts, their own prosperity depends directly upon the con- 
 suming capacity, and hence the wages, of laborers in their 
 own country. Under such conditions, whatever reduces 
 wages and impairs the purchasing power of laborers dimin- 
 ishes the market and undermines the prosperity of employ- 
 ers. Thus, under a home-market regime, an employer's suc- 
 cess is dependent upon and commensurate with the pros- 
 perity of the laboring classes, because their consumption de- 
 termines the market basis for his production. 
 
 (3) The third, and by no means the least important, rea- 
 son why home markets are preferable to foreign markets is 
 that they more surely promote the diversification of produc- 
 tion and the socialization of employments. One of the pop- 
 ular notions regarding foreign trade is that the prosperity 
 of a nation is indicated by the amount of its exports that 
 it is rich by what it sells. This is a great mistake. Noth- 
 ing indicates the prosperity and well-being of a people but 
 what they consume. A nation may produce extensively 
 and export largely and the mass of its people remain very 
 poor. To the extent that more manufactured products are 
 exported from any country than imported to it, are its prod- 
 ucts not consumed by those who produce them. The pros- 
 perity of a nation, therefore, can not be measured by the 
 wealth it exports to other countries, nor by the wealth it 
 receives through the profits of foreign trade, but only by 
 the wealth its own people consume, since that is all which 
 really enters into their social life. Thus the extent of do- 
 mestic consumption the home market is the real meas- 
 ure of the social status. 
 
 Moreover, a home market supplies a double social current, 
 whereas a foreign market for the same products only supplies 
 a single current. In addition to the socializing effect of manu- 
 facture upon industry, the home use of manufactured articles 
 
240 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 tends to increase and diversify the market for such products 
 by the social conditions necessarily connected with their con- 
 sumption. For instance, the consumption of carpets, pict- 
 ures, millinery, etc., implies more or less refined social rela- 
 tions, which stimulate not only the desire for more of the 
 same kind of things, but also create tastes and desires for 
 fresh varieties of products. Thus, while manufacturing 
 industries always socialize, their socializing influence is al- 
 ways greater where they produce for a home market. This 
 must not be interpreted to mean that foreign markets are a 
 disadvantage under all conditions, but only that wherever 
 the development of a home market is possible it is always 
 preferable to a foreign market. In other words, foreign 
 trade is ultimately a disadvantage to a nation unless it can 
 take place without substituting simpler for relatively com- 
 plex industries or lowering wages, and should be encouraged 
 under no other conditions. 
 
 Perhaps the most specious argument employed in favor 
 of a free-trade policy is that it is cosmopolitan in its charac- 
 ter, that it rises above local, sectional, or even national con- 
 siderations, treating all mankind as brethren, while protec- 
 tion is pre-eminently a local policy that endeavors to dis- 
 criminate against the people of all other countries in favor 
 of its own. It may be admitted that any policy which pro- 
 motes the welfare of one country at the expense of another 
 is essentially unphilosophic, and the best policy for any- 
 country is the one whose beneficial effects are most uni- 
 versal. The economic character of a public policy, however, 
 should never be judged by its immediate or temporary effect, 
 but always by its permanent and ultimate influences. Meas- 
 ured by this standard, it is not difficult to show that a pro- 
 tective policy is pre-eminently cosmopolitan in its character. 
 
 It may be regarded as a self-evident proposition that he 
 who would help others must first develop the best in him- 
 self, since not to develop his own capacities is to limit his 
 own usefulness. The most altruistic effects are usually pro- 
 duced by efforts to broaden and elevate our own social life, 
 because every addition to our own life embraces more of the 
 efforts, interests, and well-being of others. In proportion 
 as the interests of others become identified with our own will 
 our efforts be directed to promoting their welfare as well as 
 our own. In other words, in proportion as we become 
 socially interdependent do our efforts become altruistic and 
 cosmopolitan. Indeed, it is only by increasing man's interde- 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 241 
 
 pendence upon his fellow-man that the solidarity of the 
 human race will ever be realized, and the altruism which 
 shall make every man's happiness include that of all man- 
 kind become an established fact. 
 
 This is as true of nations as of individuals. The nation 
 which would contribute most to the advancement of human 
 progress must develop its own civilization. We might as 
 well expect the weak to carry the strong as barbarism to aid 
 civilization. That nation which most completely develops 
 its own industrial and social possibilities creates the most 
 improved methods of production. In this way it is not only 
 able to obtain its own wealth cheap, but ultimately to pro- 
 duce many commodities at less cost than can be produced 
 by the cheap labor of less civilized countries. Upon the 
 principle that whatever undersells succeeds, the less civilized 
 countries are compelled to adopt the superior methods. 
 Thus the benefits of inventions which result from a higher 
 civilization are automatically transferred to a lower, and the 
 socializing influences of improved methods of production 
 become cosmopolitan. 
 
 This is clearly demonstrated by the adoption of various 
 kinds of American machinery abroad, without the use of 
 which many European products would have been undersold 
 by ours. Nor are the benefits which more highly civilized 
 countries confer upon the lower limited to what is forced 
 upon them by competition in commodities which they both 
 produce. A still greater benefit arises from the introduc- 
 tion of new commodities, which more diversified tastes and 
 more complex social life of the more highly civilized coun- 
 try bring into existence. As a demand for new commodi- 
 ties increases, labor-saving appliances are invented to reduce 
 the cost of their production, until they can be sold in foreign 
 countries at merely nominal prices. In this case the prod- 
 ucts of a higher civilization are not competing with those 
 of a lower, but new products are being introduced into less 
 civilized countries ; this stimulates a taste for articles they 
 have not hitherto used, thereby introducing new elements 
 into their social life. Just as fast as a demand for such new 
 commodities is created, the social life is diversified, the 
 standard of living is raised, wages are increased, and a mar- 
 ket basis for new industries is established. This is what the 
 diversified tastes and inventive genius of America have been 
 doing in Europe and South America to an increasing ex- 
 tent during the last quarter of a'century. 
 
242 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 Another advantage of scientific protection is that it tends 
 to promote the economic selection of industries, thereby 
 establishing the only conditions upon which free trade be- 
 tween nations can ever take place without injury to the 
 higher- wage country. 
 
 The postulate, so frequently emphasized by the advocates 
 of laissez faire, that nations, like individuals, should be en- 
 abled to adopt those industries for which they are best fitted, 
 is unexceptionable. But, in order to obtain this result, it is 
 necessary to secure opportunities for developing the eco- 
 nomic possibilities of the people. It should be remembered 
 that the most effective force in society is human invention, 
 and not natural resources, as is commonly assumed. For 
 reasons already explained, labor-saving inventions can be 
 developed only under the influence of socializing and diver- 
 sified industries. These conditions, without which a truly 
 economic selection of industries is impossible, are what pro- 
 tection furnishes. 
 
 Although it may be possible for these conditions to exist 
 without protection, history does not furnish an instance 
 where such a thing has occurred. Take our own country. 
 If protection had not been introduced we probably should 
 have had very few manufacturing industries for a century 
 to come, if at all, because by the lower prices that would 
 have prevailed through the low wages and highly perfected 
 machinery in England, we should probably have remained 
 chiefly an agricultural people with a sparse population in 
 which case we should have had neither the socializing in- 
 fluence nor individual genius that large manufacturing 
 centers have furnished, nor the extensive immigration which 
 our high wages have attracted, and without these our im- 
 mense railroad system could not have been developed. 
 
 The way in which protection promotes this is easy to 
 understand. In the first place, it raises the basis of inter- 
 national competition to the plane of the higher wage-level, 
 and thus it prevents the lower-paid labor from one country 
 from being made the means of checking the growth of 
 manufacturing industries in another. This secures a home 
 market for domestic products, and furnishes an economic 
 basis for a diversification of socializing industries in the 
 higher-wage country. The greatest incentive is thus fur- 
 nished for developing the most economic methods of pro- 
 duction. With concentrated capital, the use of highly per- 
 fected machinery, and the development of specialized indus- 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 243 
 
 tries, a truly economic selection of industries becomes pos- 
 sible. The conditions will then exist for determining what 
 things a nation can most economically produce, by reason of 
 its peculiar character, natural resources, and civilization. 
 
 When this point is reached, protection will be economi- 
 cally necessary only to the extent of preventing the substitu- 
 tion of simple for complex industries. It will then be to 
 the advantage not only of that nation, but of the world, that 
 it should devote its productive energies to those industries 
 for which it has developed the best capacity, and to relin- 
 quish all others for countries for which they are better 
 adapted. Just in proportion as this takes place protection be- 
 comes unnecessary -provided, however, that this change does 
 not involve the substitution of simple for complex industries. 
 For example, if America becomes highly proficient in the 
 manufacture of jewelry and relatively deficient in the manu- 
 facture of silk, capital will naturally go to the former and 
 away from the latter industry. Foreign silk might then be 
 admitted free of duty without injury to the American 
 laborer. It will thus be seen that protection, as here con- 
 sidered, not only prevents a less civilized country from 
 checking the progress of a higher, but, by promoting the 
 substitution of economic (intelligent) for natural (blind) 
 selection of industries, it tends ultimately to make a mutu- 
 ally advantageous free trade possible. 
 
 Thus a protective policy is not necessarily narrow and ex- 
 clusive, but, when philosophically applied, is a most truly 
 cosmopolitan doctrine of industrial relations, because it tends 
 first to develop home industry and civilization without in- 
 juring others, and, second, to automatically extend these 
 beneficial results to all mankind. 
 
244 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 
 
 MR. LlNDLEY VlNTON : 
 
 I have been waiting to hear to what I should have to reply on the 
 subject of taxation and revenue. I have heard nothing of taxation 
 and nothing of revenue, but merely a general eulogy of the protective 
 system. It has not been stated whether this tax is just or not, but 
 simply that protection has built up the country and that without pro- 
 tection we should return to barbarism. I was surprised to hear that 
 all the practical or "common-sense" men are on the protectionist 
 side. I had supposed that it was otherwise. I myself learned the 
 trade of machinist and I am now a president of a manufacturing con- 
 cern, and yet I am as strong if not as eloquent a free-trader as Mr. 
 Shearman. I must have been mistaken ; I am the prof essor the mere 
 theorist and the professor is the president of the manufacturing 
 company. 
 
 The free-trade movement in England had for its champion as prac- 
 tical a man of affairs as John Bright, himself a manufacturer. Benja- 
 min Franklin, a practical business man, the ideal embodiment of 
 " common sense," desired that England and America should be united 
 in trade if not in government. Present instances of successful manu- 
 facturers and business men who are free-traders are also numerous. 
 In my own town in Indiana three out of five heads of manufacturing 
 companies are ardent free-traders. Workingmen all over the country 
 are changing over to the free-trade side because they find that pro- 
 tection does not protect. 
 
 I wish we could get rid of the two words " protection " and " free 
 trade." People say "protection" when they should say "a system of 
 enactments to limit the natural rights of man." Free trade means 
 equal rights to all. Protection means that a law shall be enacted 
 which says to the manufacturer : " You shall have the right to charge 
 extra prices for your goods." Protection says that congressmen are 
 wise enough to establish our business relations with other nations by 
 an arbitrary fiat. Protection says that when I go into business I may 
 choose my own partner; but I must also receive into partnership a 
 third party who comes without asking and who comes to stay the 
 Government of the United States. This, I hold, is outside of the true 
 province of government. 
 
 The professor says we must have a nation to protect us in our rights, 
 
{ U N i V E R 8 
 
 245 
 
 and that if free trade were established the national existence would be 
 imperiled. England is still a nation, however, and England has had 
 practical free trade for half a century. The nation has other func- 
 tions besides those of the policeman. I have heard various theories 
 propounded in defense of protection infant industries, industries that 
 are no longer infants, and all that but here we have something new. 
 " Any occupation in which our people are getting no better wages 
 than those of other nations shall not be protected ; but if wages else- 
 where are lower than in our own country, then we must have protec- 
 tion." But are we to reckon wages by the daily product of labor, or 
 by the per diem price? It would give us as much trouble to keep the 
 tariff straight under that method as we have now. 
 
 The points I wish to make are, first, that the industries of the United 
 States were not built up by protection, and, second, that the industries 
 of the United States do not need protection to maintain them. The 
 professor, it is true, made the statement that there would have been 
 industries had there been no protection, and with this I agree. I 
 agree also with the conclusions from his jewelry and silk illustration ; 
 that was a very happy free-trade argument. The industries of the 
 United States were built up because the country was fitted for them, 
 and because we needed them. People came to the United States 
 and found fertile fields; they left the crowded countries of the Old 
 World and came where land was plenty and cheap, and labor, con- 
 sequently, high. They sought, therefore, to find ways to make one 
 man do two men's work. In the old country it wasn't worth while to 
 increase a man's productiveness. Driven by necessity, they made im- 
 provements in their implements. The farmer went to the blacksmith 
 to have his improved plow made; the blacksmith became busy; labor 
 was high ; he couldn't afford to do his work with the old tools. So 
 new ones were invented, and new industries were set to work. The 
 improvement and invention of machinery has gone along with the 
 diversification of our industries. At last came Eli Whitney, the in- 
 ventor of the American system of manufacturing. Having a contract 
 for a large quantity of arms, he could not find enough gunsmiths 
 men who understood all the various operations of making a gun but 
 he could get men to do this or that, and by setting different gangs to 
 work on different parts, and inventing a machine to do some of the 
 work, he started the American system. The industry had arisen, not 
 because of protection, for you can't protect what doesn't exist, but 
 because of the needs and genius of our people. 
 
 Take the iron industry, for example. England had " protection " 
 until her forests were wiped from the earth. Then to get iron for her 
 forges she opened her ports and encouraged shipments from the colo- 
 
246 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 nies. We manufactured more iron than England before we became a 
 nation. England opened her doors because her industry had been 
 crushed crushed by "protection." Every invention that tends to 
 make iron better and cheaper was made under free trade, and the 
 United States under protection doesn't lift a hand to help it. The 
 same is true of cotton. This industry was started in the United 
 States, not only without protection, but against the strongest efforts of 
 England by prohibiting the exportation of machinery to this country, 
 etc. to prevent it. It was not by law, but by the working out of 
 evolution, that this industry grew. 
 
 Admitting that we need protection at all, the protection that we 
 want is not against the paupers, but against the high- wage workers of 
 England. The professor's contrary theory does not stand the test of 
 facts. If 1 find my neighbor paying a man five dollars a day I think 
 there is something going on ; he has superior skill or knowledge at 
 his command, and is a dangerous rival. The cheapness of labor is not 
 a matter of the number of dollars per day the laborer receives, but 
 of working power per unit of production. 
 
 I should like to have the professor explain the second step in his 
 method of protection. The first is to get the law passed. The second 
 is to see that the manufacturer gives the differences in prices allowed 
 by the increased tariff to his men. I do not do it and others do not ; 
 often wages are lowered instead of raised. The rule of business is : get 
 it yourself if you can. I am tired of hearing men say : " Let us tax 
 you, and we'll give the proceeds to the other men." They always forget 
 the second part. The professor's quiet assumption that the foreign 
 competitors pay the difference in prices caused by the tariff for the 
 privilege of introducing their wares is amusing, but will deceive 
 no one. 
 
 Variety of industries is good, and it will come in the natural evolu- 
 tion of our industrial system whether we have protection or not ; but 
 if we produce it by artificial stimulation it may cost too much. In the 
 matter of tin plate, for example, it would be cheaper to offer a purse 
 of $5,000,000 for producing an establishment for the manufacture of 
 tin plate than to have the present tariff ; but that would disgust the 
 people. As soon as the people understand that protection is not pro- 
 tection, but special legislation for the benefit of four per cent of the 
 people at the expense of the rest, there will be a change. 
 
 Industries have not gone to pieces when the tax has been taken off ; 
 witness quinine, sugar, etc. I don't know of an industry in the United 
 States connected with the manufacture of iron that would not be 
 benefited by the removal of the tax. It costs less to make iron here 
 than it does to make it in England. There coke costs $5 a ton ; in the 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 247 
 
 United States it costs $1.25. And with convict labor at 25 cents a day 
 (think of that, in a protected industry in America !) we have the advan- 
 tage over England in that item of cost. 
 
 They say we must have protection to "start new industries. That is 
 contrary to everything we know in the history of this country. In the 
 South, after the war, there was no capital, no business, no skilled labor. 
 Capital from the North went down there, found iron and coal, built 
 furnaces and cotton mills, in spite of the free competition of New Eng- 
 land and Pennsylvania. Alabama was built up without protection 
 against New England. Capital will always take the risk of starting new 
 enterprises if it ought to do so. No new industry will pay at once, and 
 those who start it do not expect it to. If a newspaper is started in 
 New York $200,000 must be spent before anything is earned. Yet pa- 
 pers are started. 
 
 Turning to the real topic of the evening Taxation and Revenue I 
 will say that I believe in direct taxation. I want to know what I pay 
 and to whom, and 1 want what I pay to go into the public treasury and 
 not into the pockets of individuals. Taxation should be in proportion 
 to the ability of the individual to pay and to the services which the 
 Government renders and the special privileges which it grants. As to 
 revenue, I believe it can be raised in such a manner that no duty shall 
 be put upon any [article the taxing of which will affect the manu- 
 facturers in this country. It should not be raised in any way that 
 will interfere with business, or put money in the pockets of the manu- 
 facturer. 
 
 ME. ROBERT W. TAYLEE : 
 
 If I have any criticism to offer on the modes of discussion adopted 
 by free-traders, it is that they are open to the charge of intolerance. I 
 venture to assert that the average individual with strong convictions 
 in favor of free trade is more ignorant of the philosophical grounds 
 assumed by every protectionist in the establishment of his position 
 than a child of five years is of decimal fractions. We have had a vivid 
 illustration of this fact to-night. Prof. Gunton's philosophical discus- 
 sion of the doctrine of protection on the basis of the equalized cost of 
 labor production was to the last speaker a novelty. He could only 
 meet it by ridicule and by the assertion that the speaker had evaded 
 the subject of the evening. Yet I believe this to be the only ground 
 on which the doctrine of protection can be logically sustained. 
 
 The protectionist claims that all industries should have the oppor- 
 tunity to start fairly, on grounds of equality. He holds that what- 
 ever is dug from the ground, grown in the soil, or produced in the 
 factory at the same expenditure of human effort, should have an 
 17 
 
248 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 equal chance in the markets. Protection does not stand on any ground 
 of advocating a hot-house culture it admits that some commodities 
 can be better produced in one country than in another. Protectionists 
 claim, however, that there is no opportunity to test the productive 
 facilities of a country fairly and freely unless its labor is protected 
 from ruinous competition with that of other nations, whose standard 
 of living and of civilization is lower than its own. Protection aims 
 merely to secure fair play and a true economical expenditure of effort. 
 
 It is a fundamental law of protection that one country our own, for 
 instance can afford to have free trade with another only when the 
 conditions of existence of the people in the other are as high as, or 
 higher than, our own. The free-trader equalizes these conditions by 
 lowering the standard of the higher. The protectionist equalizes them 
 by a tariff on the product of the lower. 
 
 In this day and generation we must remember that a man is not 
 only a creature of so many foot-pounds or horse-power, but a man in 
 all that the term implies, with a soul and a heart, with hope and 
 ambition, with fears and affections. 
 
 The protectionist protests against the sinful waste of human effort 
 in transporting products across the seas which can be produced equally 
 well or better on our own soil. The measure of cost is not dollars, 
 but the amount of human effort expended in producing an article and 
 laying it at the door of the consumer. An unnecessary expense of 
 such labor is waste, and waste has never been justified. 
 
 ME. HENRY ROWLEY : 
 
 It is a little curious to me that in philosophy and politics and 
 economics those questions which are considered fundamental present 
 the greatest number of controversial points. Everything is " funda- 
 mental." The free-trader says : " No tariff." The protectionist says 
 we must have a tariff as a police ; but before Prof. G-unton's sliding 
 scale all these things are temporary and shall pass away. No one 
 agrees with any one else ; therefore intolerance and bigotry are out of 
 place. Any view should be advanced tentatively. Dogmatism is not 
 in order. 
 
 Mark what attacks were made on free trade as a metaphysical view 
 of the subject. The protectionist view is held up as scientific ; but 
 the scientific thing called " protection " was boldly assumed. When 
 speaking of protection generally, we don't mean the police, nor a coat 
 of mail, but the tariff, and protection in its commercial bearings. 
 
 If the professor goes down to the Bowery and meets his " sixteen- 
 round " man, declines his invitation to defend his property with his 
 fists, and hands over the dirty work to the police, morally he is as bad 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 249 
 
 as if he did it himself. Now, he regards the tariff as a policeman, and 
 every other nation as a " sixteen-round " man. He profits by the tariff 
 club, and lowers himself by its use ! He says that the kind of protec- 
 tion which he wants is that which creates an understanding between 
 the nations as to the levels of wages. It is different from all other 
 kinds ; it is to be commended for its greater excellence ; but it contra- 
 dicts his theory of a natipn. If a nation is a highwayman, and we 
 seek to create an understanding and equality with it, we place our- 
 selves on the highwayman's level. 
 
 The professor was correct in leaving the subject of taxation severely 
 alone. The logical result of protection is to stop importations ; thus 
 you stop the revenue, and must find it from other sources. It is the 
 duty of the protectionist to devise another scheme of taxation if he 
 would carry out his theory to its logical results. 
 
 While you are adjusting the wages level, how are you to deal mean- 
 time with the large proportion of people who can never get the benefit 
 of protection the 60, 70, 80, or even 90 per cent, who are altogether 
 outside the possibility of getting protection ? They can buy Ameri- 
 can corn or cheese cheaper in London than in New York. What is to 
 come to America in return while we are adjusting the wage-level ? 
 
 The protectionist concedes that it is not how much money is paid, 
 but how much human effort is necessary to produce a certain article 
 that determines its value. In this country we have produced nothing 
 extravagantly, but everything naturally ; the soil is rich, minerals lie 
 near the surface, coal for smelting iron is here ; no more human effort 
 is necessary here than in England or on the Continent. Hence we are 
 not at a disadvantage so far as human effort goes. 
 
 There may not be any way by which we can get entirely free trade 
 or perfect protection ; but let us hope that the future policy of the 
 nation will be based upon broad lines of free exchange. 
 
 MR. WILLIAM POTTS : 
 
 I wish to make a demurrer to a historical statement of the lecturer 
 as to the relation between prices and wages. The lecturer said that 
 wages rise with prices. Unless I have sadly misread history, wages 
 follow prices, rising slowly and inadequately. 
 
 PROF. GUNTON, in closing : The last shall be first in my reply : Let 
 me first answer the criticism of Mr. Potts by repeating my statement 
 about wages. I quoted Mr. Shearman, who said that " wages do not 
 rise because prices rise." I say wages always follow prices ; they do 
 not rise with prices nor do they fall with prices. The laborer doesn't 
 make his fight for higher wages until he is affected by the rise in 
 
250 Taxation and Revenue. 
 
 prices. But the history of the last four hundred years shows that 
 wages do follow prices. And if Mr. Potts doubts that fact he need 
 only consult Rogers, Eden, Tooke, or any other reliable history of 
 prices. 
 
 Mr. Vinton complained that I did not talk about specific means of 
 levying taxes and raising revenue. I was invited here to speak on the 
 subject of protection from the standpoint of evolution. Hence it was 
 protection as a sociological principle that I discussed. Had time per- 
 mitted I would gladly have discussed the incidents of taxation. On the 
 matter of levying taxes myjposition is just about opposite to that of the 
 free-traders, and especially Mr. Vinton. He is opposed to a tariff except 
 for revenue ; I am entirely opposed to a tariff except for protection. 
 Import duties are among the most clumsy, expensive, and offensive 
 means of collecting revenue, and can never be economically justified ex- 
 cept for the purpose of protection, which is always far more important 
 than revenue. The gentleman, like all free-traders, favors direct taxa- 
 tion, and thinks taxes should be levied on the land. He evidently needs 
 to begin his study of taxes over again. A land tax, instead of being 
 direct, is the most indirect tax that can be levied, because it begins at 
 the source of raw material and goes through every other product until 
 it reaches the consumer. People who talk about concentrating taxes 
 on land because they want direct taxation show an inability to dis- 
 tinguish between direct and indirect taxation. A direct tax is one 
 which is so levied that it is finally paid by the man who advances it, 
 which is one of the worst forms of taxation conceivable. It gives the 
 greatest inducement to all the forms of tax-dodging and is essentially 
 immoral in its effects. It is an evidence of confused thinking to mix 
 the questions of protection and revenue. They have so little in com- 
 mon that they should never be considered together. Taxation for 
 protection has nothing to do with revenue. If it yields revenue, that 
 is the incident. It should be levied solely for the protection of our 
 civilization, just as an army or navy should be maintained. Taxation 
 for revenue is the reverse. That should be levied in the simplest man- 
 ner, with the view of the minimum cost of collection and the least 
 possible inconvenience to the citizen, and to do this it should be levied 
 in the most indirect form possible instead of the most direct. 
 
 By indirect taxation we secure public improvements, clean cities, 
 free kindergartens for the children, etc., and for these public benefits 
 we make the surplus-receiving portion of the community pay. With 
 direct taxation every one thinks he pays himself and sees to it that he 
 pays as little as possible so public improvements languish. 
 
 The machines and inventions referred to by the first critic are all 
 agricultural plows, spades, etc. Nothing was said about the inven- 
 
Taxation and Revenue. 251 
 
 tion of watch machinery, cotton machinery, and the other machinery 
 of manufactures. If he says we had these before we had protection 
 he will have to revise history. 
 
 In general, my statement that the theorists favor free trade and 
 the practical men favor protection is true. The history of the dis- 
 cussion of the question for the last hundred years shows that the 
 colleges are for free trade and the statesmen for protection. I en- 
 deavored to present protection as a workable principle, recognized in 
 all governmental affairs, not confining it to the tariff. 
 
 Mr. Rowley repeats the oft-exploded error that " the logical result of 
 protection is to stop importations." Now, from the principle of protec- 
 tion I have presented this evening, the logical result is nothing of the 
 kind. Importations may continue indefinitely under such protection. 
 To levy a tariff equivalent to the difference in wages simply raises the 
 plane of competition up to the level of the labor cost in this country. 
 Under such a tariff everybody would be free to import goods on that 
 basis. If they could furnish the articles cheaper than American pro- 
 ducers, after eliminating the difference in wages, they would be free to 
 do so. In other words, our market is free to all foreign producers who 
 can produce as cheaply as we can in America without paying lower 
 wages. In a word, such a system of protection would keep out nobody 
 except those whose low prices resulted from a lower civilization. To 
 say protection is identical with prohibition is to misunderstand the 
 economics of both protection and competition. 
 
 As a general business principle, whatever undersells succeeds. 
 Whatever succeeds will establish its methods and vindicate them be- 
 fore the world low wages or high, cheap living or dear, servility or 
 manhood. If it succeeds by reason of superior methods, it will estab- 
 lish superior methods, and the world will have to follow its example. 
 Such an example America is setting for the world, by reason of its 
 adherence to the protective policy. 
 
THE MONETARY PROBLEM 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM POTTS 
 
 AUTHOR OF EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL REFORM : THE SOCIALISTIC METHOD 
 FORM AND COLOR IN NATURE, ETC. 
 
COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED: 
 
 Jevons's Investigations in Currency and Finance, and Money and 
 the Mechanism of Exchange ; Walker's Money, and Money in its Re- 
 lation to Trade and Industry ; Poor's Money and its Laws ; Sumner's 
 History of American Currency ; Laughlin's History of Bimetallism in 
 the United States ; Price's History of Currency and Banking ; Soet- 
 beer's Precious Metals ; Bagehot's Lombard Street ; Cleveland's Bank- 
 ing System of New York ; George's Short History of Paper Money 
 and Banking in the United States ; Mowry's Studies in Civil Govern- 
 ment; Andrews's An Honest Dollar; Wallace's Bad Times; Knox's 
 Pamphlets on the Silver Question ; Peffer's The Farmer's Side ; Alli- 
 ance Tract on the Seven Financial Conspirators ; Gunton's Principles 
 of Social Economics. 
 
THE MONETARY PROBLEM. 
 
 BY WILLIAM POTTS. 
 
 IT has been said of some one was it not of Mr. Glad- 
 stone ? that he could make numbers sing. I wish that I 
 also could make numbers sing to-night ; and indeed, if I 
 were able to do my subject justice, I should make numbers 
 sing, for, believe me, there are few other subjects around 
 which clings so much that is interesting, romantic, and 
 poetic. But the restriction upon my time is such that I 
 can do little more than give you a statement of facts and 
 principles and let you make your own deductions. 
 
 When one small boy in the country has an excess of ap- 
 ples and another an excess of marbles, it is not an uncom- 
 mon thing to have this disparity rectified by an exchange 
 of commodities, and similar transactions have been known in 
 the experience of most of us. The boys who haven't much 
 time call this a " swap," but the books dignify it by giving 
 it two syllables and naming it barter. Now, I suppose that 
 no one has any doubt that in the earliest times barter was 
 the process by which one person became possessed of the 
 goods of another, when he was so unfortunate as to be un- 
 able to appropriate them without giving an equivalent, 
 which was a still simpler method, formerly very common 
 and not yet wholly out of vogue. 
 
 But pure barter was only practicable when each of the 
 parties to the transaction immediately desired that which 
 the other had. This condition frequently existed, but in ^ a 
 much larger number of cases a strong desire for a certain 
 article was felt by one who had nothing to give^ in return 
 for which the other party to the transaction had immediate 
 need, on its own account. There were, however, certain 
 things for which a use was sure to arise ultimately, and 
 hence came a custom of employing such articles as inter- 
 mediaries in exchange ; they became currency that is, they 
 would run hither and thither, and this was particularly the 
 case when they happened to be in the form of live stock. 
 A vast number of commodities have been thus used at vari- 
 ous times and in various places. Furs or skins were proba- 
 
256 The Monetary Problem. 
 
 bly among the earliest so used, and they are doubtless still 
 employed in some parts of the world. During the earlier 
 period of the white settlement of this country they were the 
 most common currency, under the name of peltry. During 
 the pastoral stage oxen were the usual means of exchange, 
 but you will probably agree that they were not readily sub- 
 ject to division, either decimally or otherwise, without in- 
 jury to their value. But oxen as currency have this special 
 interest : that, being counted by the head or caput, they ap- 
 pear to have given the title to accumulated means, as " cap- 
 ital." Slaves have been used from time to time as a means 
 of facilitating exchange in this way, and it is hinted that 
 this formerly occurred even in England. 
 
 The grains, corn, wheat, barley, etc., have been largely 
 used as currency, and it is surprising that the advocates of 
 the sub-treasury scheme do not appear to have noted that 
 " in Norway corn is even deposited in banks, and lent and 
 borrowed." In the colonial period in this country corn, 
 tobacco, and dried codfish were in common use. These are 
 all articles for which there is a great and constant demand 
 to gratify human needs. I will except tobacco, for which I 
 can not imagine any legitimate need upon the part of any 
 human being. But I know that all do not agree with me. 
 
 Other articles have been serviceable, and among the most 
 common some whose value was as ornaments, such as the 
 cowrie and other shells, which, in the form of wampum or 
 otherwise, have been largely used by barbarous peoples, and 
 by those dealing with them. It is said that the Yankee 
 traders with the Indians showed an ingenuity worthy of the 
 heathen Chinee in the preparation of wampum, and through 
 their industry provided so large a supply of currency that it 
 should have satisfied the Alliance of that day, which I take 
 to have been " the Six Nations." 
 
 These various commodities have often been in turn the 
 almost exclusive currency or money of the people who used 
 them, but frequently no such common money was recog- 
 nized. 
 
 M. Wolowski, a French economist, prints a letter from a 
 certain Mademoiselle Zelie, who in the course of a tour round 
 the world gave a concert in the Society Islands. When she 
 came to reckon up her share of the proceeds this is what she 
 found : " Three pigs, twenty-three turkeys, forty-four chick- 
 ens, five thousand cocoa-nuts, besides considerable quanti- 
 ties of bananas, lemons, and oranges." Whether the chick- 
 
The Monetary Problem. 257 
 
 ens were old and tough, or whether they were legal-tender, 
 is not stated. 
 
 At a very early period the metals came into use, mainly, 
 doubtless, for two reasons their comparative durability, and 
 their intrinsic value. The same characteristics are found in 
 jewels and precious stones, the ordinary use of which was of 
 course almost wholly in ornament. These, however, had a 
 special value in turbulent times, because, having become 
 greatly prized at an early period, they would represent much 
 other property in exchange, and, being very compact, they 
 could be easily concealed and preserved from depredation. 
 But these naturally became quickly the property of the 
 chiefs of various orders, and the strong and shrewd, while 
 the metals, being in common use by all, and of less ex- 
 changeable value relatively, although much more useful, 
 soon came to move freely among the people at large ; and 
 this is true of all the familiar metals, though iron and 
 bronze, being the earliest in common use, came earliest into 
 use as currency. 
 
 At first they were exchanged in shapeless masses by 
 weight or by bulk, but this custom gave place to a more 
 regular form and amount, one of the earliest appearing to 
 have been that of nails or spikes, each of which was called 
 by the Greeks an obolus, a handful of six forming a 
 drachma. 
 
 As the metals became more common, and property ac- 
 cumulated so that exchanges became more numerous and 
 more extensive, the cheaper metals tended to give place to 
 the scarcer, and those which were subject to rapid oxidation 
 and change to those less easily affected by atmospheric con- 
 ditions or other kinds of exposure. While all the metals 
 which are commonly known appear to have been tried in 
 turn in various places, and a number are still used either 
 separately or in combination, everywhere the choice for the 
 principal currency has finally fallen upon gold and silver, 
 for perfectly satisfactory and conclusive reasons. 
 
 Though widely disseminated in very considerable quanti- 
 ties, and to be found in almost every locality even in the 
 soil of our own city they have ordinarily been obtained only 
 slowly and with much labor, so that the production is re- 
 stricted ; they are bright and pure in color, and not easily 
 affected by chemical action; they are very malleable, are 
 not brittle, and are well adapted for use in making a vast 
 variety of articles, and have always been greatly prized by 
 
258 The Monetary Problem. 
 
 all peoples for this purpose. Thus they have a constant 
 value constant in the sense of persistent, though not equal 
 or similar at one time with another. Their value, in fact, 
 appears to have varied greatly in several ways differing in 
 each case between one period and another, differing in their 
 relative value to each other in the same place at different 
 times, and differing in their relative value to each other in 
 different places at the same time. Thus it appears that in 
 early times silver was more valuable than gold in Arabia. 
 " In the reign of Darius, son of Hystaspes, gold was thirteen 
 times as valuable as silver ; in the time of Plato, twelve ; and 
 in that of the comic poet Menander it was only ten. In 
 the epoch of Julius Cassar the ratio of gold to silver fell to 
 9 for 1." In England in 1262 it was between 9 and 10 for 
 1, while thirty years later it was 12^- for 1. In 1485 it was 
 13f for 1. 
 
 With the discovery of America in 1492, and especially 
 with the conquest of Mexico in 1521, the production of the 
 precious metals rapidly increased, and their relative values 
 changed. In Spain at this period the recognized ratio was 
 a little more than 10 to 1 ; in 1537 it was about 10 to 1 ; 
 during the reign of Philip II it was a little over 12 to 1 ; 
 during the reign of Philip III, 13^ to 1 ; during the reign 
 of Charles II, a little over 15 to 1 ; and in 1779 it was 
 fixed at 16 to 1. (I follow Prof. Leone Levi, as quoted 
 by Prof. Walker.) Various fluctuations occurred at a later 
 date in the recognized ratio, at the present time that of 
 the " Latin Union," so called (comprising France, Bel- 
 gium, Italy, and Switzerland, to which have been added 
 Greece, Koumania, Servia, and Spain), being 15-J to 1 ; that 
 of the United States about 15*99 to 1 ; while the actual mar- 
 ket value of the metals is at this time as 22-22 to 1. Within 
 our own time the relative values in Japan were 4 to 1, but 
 the avidity with which American and British traders sought 
 to make exchanges at this rate very quickly taught the 
 Japanese the necessity of a modification of their currency. 
 
 First passing from hand to hand in crude masses, then in 
 the form of nails or spikes or rings or chains, at a very early 
 period it became customary to divide the metals into definite 
 portions, and to impress upon these some distinguishing de- 
 vice. This process of coinage has usually, although not in- 
 variably, been held to be a prerogative of the ruler or the 
 state, and at times the effigies upon coins have been of a 
 high artistic value. This may be said of certain coins even 
 
T/ie Monetary Problem. 259 
 
 now ; of our own, however, perhaps it may be just as well 
 not to speak. 
 
 Of the amount of the precious metals in the possession of 
 the nations, or in use in the coinage at any period in the 
 remote past, it is impossible to form any accurate or even 
 closely approximate estimate upon which reliance can be 
 placed. The amount has been continually changing by 
 a constantly fluctuating rate of production upon the one 
 hand, and by consumption in the arts and the abrasion of 
 coin in use upon the other. All these factors are impor- 
 tant the last, which at first thought might seem slight, 
 being, on the contrary, of great moment, varying within wide 
 limits according to the purity of the metals or the alloys 
 employed. Thus, during the reign of Augustus, there was 
 a vast store of gold and silver held as treasure in the Roman 
 Empire. Within the following century great amounts of 
 this had been thrown into active circulation, and, because of 
 the inferior character of the alloys used, the loss by depre- 
 ciation in weight became very large. This loss appears to 
 have continued for a long period many hundred years 
 during which period it was made more evident in Europe 
 by a constant drain of silver to the East, where a relative 
 preference for that metal has always existed. 
 
 Mr. Jacob, the leading authority upon this subject, esti- 
 mates the stock of money in the empire on the accession of 
 Augustus at 358,000,000 sterling, equal to $1,790,000,000. 
 He supposes that for about eight hundred years the net loss 
 to the coinage through abrasion, etc., was at the rate of 
 about ten per cent every thirty-six years, so that the stock 
 had sunk in 806 to less than 34,000,000 sterling, or $170,- 
 000,000, less than one tenth the amount in circulation at 
 the time of the accession of Augustus. For the next seven 
 hundred years Mr. Jacob estimates that the coinage was 
 kept at about the same amount by the increased yield of 
 the mines. 
 
 But then came the flood. At first in pattering drops, it 
 did not seem likely to be much of a shower ; but the dis- 
 covery of America, followed by the conquest of Mexico and 
 Peru, with the opening of the mines of Potosi and the dis- 
 covery by Medina of the process of amalgamation, brought 
 on the torrent. The estimated production of the New 
 World up to 1545 was over 17,000,000, or half as much as 
 the entire estimated stock on hand at the time of Colum- 
 bus's first voyage. Mr. Jacob 'estimates that the stock of 
 
260 The Monetary Problem. 
 
 money current in Europe had increased during the century 
 up to the year 1600 from 34,000,000 to 130,000,000, 
 that the next hundred years increased it to 297,000,000, 
 and the following one hundred and ten years, onward to 
 1810, had brought it up to 380,000,000. And this after 
 making ample allowance for abrasion, and an allowance of 
 440,000,000 as consumed in the arts, etc., and 400,000,000 
 as passed onward to Asia. 
 
 Properly, to complete this portion of our history, I should 
 say that after 1810, for a considerable number of years, the 
 demand of the arts and the drain to the East, taken together, 
 were so great as seriously to diminish the amount of the 
 precious metals in circulation, and to excite an apprehen- 
 sion of a currency famine, a period of twenty years appar- 
 ently showing an actual loss of over 60,000,000 sterling. 
 But this period was followed by a greatly increased pro- 
 duction of gold in Kussia and Siberia, and this in turn by 
 the enormous discoveries in California, in Australia, and in 
 southern Africa, which have wholly changed the situation. 
 If we had a flood following the discovery of America, what 
 shall we say of the deluge which has poured over the world 
 since 1848 ? The value of the gold and silver produced in 
 the twenty years following that date has been calculated at 
 over 1,000,000,000 sterling, or $5,000,000,000, about two 
 thirds of which was gold and one third silver. Since 1868 
 the production has been nearly, if not quite, as great, the 
 value of the silver product being about equal to that of the 
 gold. But, whereas, in 1849, if the figures of Prof. Kay- 
 mond and the Director of the Mint are to be trusted, the 
 total value of the gold mined in the United States was eight 
 hundred times the total value of the silver so mined, in 
 1890 the ratio of production had so far changed that the 
 value of the silver mined was 78 per cent greater than that 
 of the gold. That is, whereas, in 1849 the total production 
 in the United States was of gold about 59^- tons and of sil- 
 ver about 1-J- tons, in 1890 the total production of gold was 
 about 44^ tons and the production of silver over 1,500 tons. 
 Try to realize this if you can, and think of the Herculean, 
 the impossible effort called for in the attempt to maintain 
 the old ratio of values between these metals. 
 
 The use of the metals as money in exchange at first, as 
 we have seen, spontaneous and irregular as society has ad- 
 vanced has tended to become steadily more precise and defi- 
 nite, and to come under the absolute control of the domi- 
 
The Monetary Problem. 261 
 
 nant authority in each state. Premising that all other 
 metals than gold and silver are now used only incidentally 
 and in the minor currency, we may divide the nations into 
 three classes : those which are upon a silver basis, or whose 
 recognized standard and legal tender is silver ; those which 
 are upon a gold basis ; and those which have a mixed coin- 
 age, or so-called double standard. 
 
 A silver standard practically prevails throughout Asia and 
 the East India Islands, parts of Africa, the West Indies, 
 Central America and Mexico, the stationary, semi-civilized, 
 or barbarous nations. (The actual unit of value in China, 
 however, is, I believe, the cash, a small coin composed of 
 copper, iron, and tin.) The gold standard exists in Great 
 Britain and many of her dependencies, such as Australia and 
 New Zealand, in the German Empire, Denmark, Norway, 
 Sweden, Portugal, Turkey, Egypt, Chili and Brazil, and 
 some other South American countries. The double or mul- 
 tiple standard, so called, is nominally maintained by France, 
 Italy, Belgium and Switzerland, Spain, Greece and Kou- 
 mania, connected in the Latin Union, and by Peru, Ecuador, 
 New Granada, and the United States. In Europe, however, 
 the coinage of silver is so closely restricted in amount (hav- 
 ing in fact been nearly or quite abandoned for many years) 
 as to establish what is called a " limping standard," by pro- 
 ducing a condition somewhat similar to that which exists 
 under the single gold standard, and which existed in this 
 country a few years ago, silver and other metals being used 
 as a subsidiary coinage, only in limited amounts, made pur- 
 posely of metal worth less than their face value, and a legal 
 tender only for very small sums. This is what is called a 
 "token" currency, and is readily maintained as a conven- 
 ience in exchange by closely limiting its extent. 
 
 In this distribution of the diiferent standards I have fol- 
 lowed the authorities accessible to me ; it is possible that in 
 one or two instances changes may recently have taken place. 
 
 In the beginning of the United States coinage, in 1792, 
 
 S)ld and silver were both adopted, with a ratio of 15 to 1. 
 old, being underrated, according to the values at that date, 
 quickly disappeared from the circulation and commanded a 
 premium, and in 1836 the Secretary of the Treasury said 
 that two years before, of all the gold which had been coined 
 since the establishment of the Mint, not over $1,000,000 re- 
 mained in the country, and only a very diminutive portion 
 of that was in active circulation. In 1834 the ratio was 
 
262 The Monetary Problem. 
 
 changed to 16 to 1, and in 1837 it was again changed to 
 about 15-99 to 1. Silver, being undervalued, went out of 
 circulation, giving place to gold, so that, though the Mint 
 continued to coin silver, it immediately disappeared, leaving 
 the old worn pieces and the weather-beaten coins of Spain 
 and Mexico, upon which it was sometimes impossible, as I 
 well remember, to distinguish any trace of the original marks 
 of the die. In 1853 the effort to make the coins circulate 
 together was practically abandoned ; the value of the smaller 
 silver coins was reduced considerably below their represent- 
 ative value, thus making them a subsidiary coinage, and 
 they were made a legal tender only in sums of five dol- 
 lars or less. In 1873 the gold dollar was made the unit of 
 value, and all silver coins were made subsidiary, thus abol- 
 ishing the double standard. The ridiculous charge has been 
 often made that this change was effected maliciously by in- 
 terested parties, surreptitiously, and without any under- 
 standing as to its meaning, the fact, however, being that 
 the bill was drawn three or four years before it was passed, 
 that it was printed thirteen times by Congress, and that its 
 provisions were finally considered and discussed for several 
 days, their bearing being distinctly stated ; and, moreover, 
 neither gold nor silver was in circulation or had been for 
 eleven years previous, and neither came into circulation for 
 more than five years after the passage of the bill. 
 
 It is now proper that I should call your attention to one 
 or two definitions and distinctions which are important. In 
 economical discussion, as in discussions upon other topics, 
 many if not most of the differences which arise come from 
 lack of precision in the use of terms. We can not undertake 
 to settle any disputed points in nomenclature here, but we 
 can at least avoid confusion by stating clearly our own 
 meaning. 
 
 In the first place, what is money ? Various definitions 
 have been given to this apparently simple term. Let us adopt 
 that of General Francis A. Walker, than which I think that 
 it would be difficult to find a better (I quote at second 
 hand from the Encyclopaedia Britannica) : " That which 
 passes freely from hand to hand throughout the community 
 in final discharge of debts and full payment for commodi- 
 ties, being accepted equally without reference to the char- 
 acter or credit of the person who offers it, and without the 
 intention of the person who receives it to consume it or 
 enjoy it or apply it to any other use than in turn to tender 
 
The Monetary Problem. 263 
 
 it to others in discharge of debts or payment for commodi- 
 ties." 
 
 Now, why have the various articles which at sundry times 
 and places have been used as money been called into exist- 
 ence ? What is the special need which they satisfy ? As 
 money, we can not eat them or drink them, or cover our- 
 selves with them, or use them as ornament. Perhaps I am a 
 little too fast in the latter particular ; coins have not been 
 an uncommon decoration in Africa and Polynesia, and, if I 
 mistake not, I have within a moderate number of years seen 
 them so used by maidens of Yankee birth. But this can 
 hardly be considered an important use. Money is a tool 
 with which certain functions are performed, just as a 
 spade is a tool for the performance of certain other func- 
 tions. These functions are various, and they are not always 
 necessarily united in the one instrument. 
 
 In the first place, money is a medium of exchange to fa- 
 cilitate barter. It is not the money in which we are inter- 
 ested ; it is the articles or services which we give for it in 
 order that we may readily and at our pleasure obtain other 
 articles or services upon its surrender. While we have it, it 
 is of no value to us or is of merely a nominal value, which 
 becomes real as we get rid of it. In order to perform this 
 function to the full, it is absolutely essential that it should 
 be held at the same value by him who gives and by him who 
 takes it I mean the same value in exchange. For mark 
 you, money under the definition which we have adopted 
 has not necessarily any value excepting in exchange. But 
 how does it acquire this value in exchange ? In one of three 
 ways : it must have an intrinsic value for which it will pass 
 from hand to hand ; or, second, it must be by its conditions 
 exchangeable into some particular thing which has intrinsic 
 value ; or, third, it must be of limited amount and receiv- 
 able by the Government in settlement of certain extensive 
 claims, such as taxes ; this is really a form of the second 
 condition. 
 
 This brings us to the question, What is a standard of 
 value ? A standard or measure of value is that which is 
 used to determine the exchangeable values of other com- 
 modities or services. This can at any one time be only one 
 article, in the nature of things. A double standard is a 
 misnomer. The buyer and the seller of a piece of cloth 
 must either use the same yardstick, or one yardstick must 
 be calculated in terms of the other. But this shows us that 
 18 
 
264 The Monetary Problem. 
 
 a certain article which is truly money in the sense of our 
 definition is not necessarily the standard of value, but merely 
 has, from some cause, a definite relation to that standard, 
 which must itself have an intrinsic value, else there is no 
 means of determining its relation to the value of other 
 things. This standard is of special importance in its rela- 
 tion to the third function of which I have to speak that is, 
 as a means of regulating deferred payments, or the settle- 
 ment of accounts which are in the nature of debts, which, 
 instead of being instances of immediate barter, are cases of 
 barter in the consummation of which months, years, or even 
 generations may intervene. In performing this function, 
 as we shall shortly see, all commodities which have been in 
 use hitherto as money have been most defective. 
 
 I have shown that gold or silver, or gold and silver, have 
 been settled upon by civilized nations as the standard or 
 standards of value, with a strong and increasing tendency, 
 as I believe history conclusively shows, to the final choice 
 of gold alone. Now, what is it that determines the values 
 of these metals ? What is it that determines the value of 
 any commodity or service ? This is a complex question and 
 could only be answered approximately by introducing many 
 suggestions and stating many relations. Why a pound of 
 gold should be considered worth so many dollars, and not 
 one tenth as many or ten times as many, is simply to call 
 .for the answer that it has been decreed that a pound of 
 gold should be divisible into so many parts, to each of which 
 the name dollar is given. But why a pound of gold will 
 buy just so much beef, or so much mechanical labor, or so 
 many sermons, is quite another question. It is sufficient to 
 say that the actual present exchangeable value of all sorts 
 of commodities is the outgrowth of human experience 
 through human labor, human needs, and human whims, 
 and the establishment of human customs. The socialist 
 will tell you that the basis of all value is labor, and labor 
 only, and that exchangeable value results from this fact, 
 and that in the coming socialistic state the prices of all 
 commodities will be easily fixed by the chosen authorities 
 upon this principle. Statements like this, so freely made 
 and so easily swallowed, to use the convenient, expressive, 
 and picturesque phrase of the street, " make me tired." 
 Nothing is easier to prove than that existing prices are not 
 solely the result of labor, and nothing is easier than to show 
 that the determination of the labor value of all commodities 
 
The Monetary Problem. 265 
 
 is impossible to the wisest of human beings or any collec- 
 tion of the wisest of human beings to say nothing of the 
 Board of Aldermen of the city of Weissnichtwo. Suppose 
 a commodity is raised from the mines under certain con- 
 ditions of labor in one quarter of the globe ; it is then trans- 
 ported on human backs over rocky mountains, or upon 
 railroads, or upon broad rivers, or upon the ocean, or upon 
 all in turn ; it is passed from hand to hand ; it is lifted and 
 lowered and forged and hammered ; it is manufactured sim- 
 ply by human strength and skill, or it is worked over in a 
 great mill with numberless labor-saving appliances; it is 
 again transported and exchanged, and made over into new 
 combinations ; it goes from hand to hand and from land to 
 land, and finally enters into the construction of some article 
 which is offered for sale in the communal storehouse of the 
 great city of Weissnichtwo, at its labor value to be calcu- 
 lated by our wise fathers of the people chosen by popular 
 vote. I think that we may turn this suggestion down. 
 
 No ; it is sufficient to say that by hard labor and by hard 
 knocks, by the competition of production and the compe- 
 tition of desire, by superstitious fancies rubbing upon philo- 
 sophical speculations and ground against practical needs 
 modified by acquired habits, commodities have gained a 
 certain more or less stable relation of value to each other, 
 and of price as measured by the standard of exchange. It 
 is with price that we now have to do ; that is, the exchange- 
 able ratio of articles as expressed in money. 
 
 At this time the price of articles in most civilized nations 
 is their exchangeable value as expressed in terms of gold, 
 and the exchangeable value of gold (as of silver also) is 
 based upon the desire of mankind for it, for its use in the 
 arts and its use in coinage. This value, as we have seen, has 
 differed greatly at various periods (as has the value of silver) 
 from various causes, but largely on account of the greater or 
 less amount of it available. Now, for the performance of 
 two of the three functions which I have defined, gold and sil- 
 ver are very satisfactory : first as media of exchange, and 
 second in either case, though not in both at once, as a stand- 
 ard or measure of value for immediate purposes. They are 
 in each case only moderately satisfactory or are quite unsat- 
 isfactory as a standard of value for deferred payments, or 
 what I have described as suspended barter, according to the 
 length of the period covered, because of the fluctuations in 
 their own value, and for this reason : that if their value rises, 
 
266 The Monetary Problem. 
 
 a return must be made at a greater cost than the original 
 investment, while if their value falls, the return is inadequate. 
 Very serious injustice has been inflicted in times past by 
 changes of this character, although I believe these changes 
 have hitherto been incidental and unintentional, except in 
 the cases of criminal debasements of the coinage by rulers 
 when short of funds. It has remained for the bucolic re- 
 formers of our own country and our own time deliberately 
 to propose a wholesale confiscation of a large percentage of 
 the property of others in this way, as I shall indicate pres- 
 ently. 
 
 Instead of seeking methods of increasing the injustice 
 which is now possible even under ordinary careful manage- 
 ment, economists have sought to devise means by which it 
 may be reduced. Perhaps the most hopeful scheme is that 
 suggested by Prof. Jevons. I think he conclusively shows 
 that, were it possible for the nations to agree upon bimetal- 
 lism at a certain fixed ratio and to adhere to it, the fluctua- 
 tion in the standard would be less than at present, because 
 the metals vary in value irregularly, and the actual standard 
 being by Gresham's law always the less valuable metal, the 
 variations would be less wide, with a steady tendency, how- 
 ever, toward a depreciation of the currency and an increase 
 in prices. (Gresham's law, as it is called, is simply a deduc- 
 tion from experience that when two metals are associated in 
 the currency, and one of them is produced in excess or a 
 greater demand arises for one than the other, unless some 
 unusual or abnormal influence should interfere, the less val- 
 uable metal will become the actual currency, the more val- 
 uable being hoarded or otherwise withdrawn from circula- 
 tion.) But to my mind it is perfectly clear, however it may 
 be to others, that there is not the slightest chance in the 
 world, at least within any reasonable period, that the nations 
 will reach such an agreement and maintain it. And with- 
 out such a common agreement it is, in my judgment, as in- 
 evitable as the rising and setting of the sun that sooner or 
 later, from a nation which uses vast quantities of two metals 
 in its currency, of which one is greatly overvalued, as is the 
 case in the United States to-day, the more valuable will flee 
 away into foreign parts and the less valuable will be left 
 master of the field. 
 
 Prof. Jevons, following Mr. Joseph Lowe and Mr. G. 
 Poulett Scrope, proposes the establishment of a government 
 department the officers of which " would collect the current 
 
The Monetary Problem. 267 
 
 prices of commodities in all the principal markets of the 
 kingdom, and, by a well-defined system of calculations, would 
 compute from these data the average variations in the pur- 
 chasing power of gold. The decisions of this commission 
 would be published monthly, and payments [that is, deferred 
 payments] would be adjusted in accordance with them. Thus, 
 suppose that a debt of one hundred pounds was incurred 
 upon the 1st of July, 1875, and was to be paid back on the 
 1st July, 1878; if the commission had decided in June, 
 1878, that the value of gold had fallen in the ratio of 106 to 
 100 in the interval, then the creditor would claim an increase 
 of six per cent in the nominal amount of the debt," and 
 vice versa if the value of gold had risen. 
 
 Before I leave this branch of my subject let me just allude 
 to a matter which has been much debated, and in regard to 
 which apparently little more than a petty national jealousy 
 has hitherto prevented the consummation of a great reform : 
 I mean the establishment of a convenient international 
 money by the adjustment of the values of the several cur- 
 rencies. A reduction of the value of the American dollar, 
 and a similar reduction in other American coins of about 
 three and a half per cent, would make our half -eagle of pre- 
 cisely the same value as the French napoleon, and a reduc- 
 tion of less than one per cent in the value of the English 
 sovereign would make it an exact equivalent also. Simi- 
 lar adjustments could readily be made in the coins of other 
 nations, the whole resulting in a great simplification of all 
 commercial exchange. 
 
 The exchangeable value of commodities having been set- 
 tled upon by the use of some standard of value, it is not at 
 all necessary that the commodity or commodities which form 
 the standard should be used in the exchange. That is a 
 matter of very minor importance, and it is the lack of recog- 
 nition of this fact which is at the bottom of almost all the 
 financial heresies of the day, and of any day. Instead of the 
 currency, of whatever kind, a page of a book, or a sheet of 
 pupur, with pen and ink or a lead-pencil, or the side of a 
 barn or a saloon window and a piece of chalk, or even a 
 good memory, will do perfectly. Suppose I buy from a 
 farmer hay, and wheat, and butter, and eggs, and beef, and 
 mutton, and strawberries, and apples, and I put down upon 
 a memorandum book the articles that I buy and the prices 
 at which I buy them. And the farmer buys from me spades, 
 and plows, and harrows, and forks, and mowing machines, 
 
268 The Monetary Problem. 
 
 as he wants them, and I put them down with their prices 
 upon my memorandum book ; when I get to the foot of the 
 page or to the end of the month or the year, I find that the 
 two sides balance, and the farmer and I are quits ; or I find 
 that he still owes me a sum of money, and I send word to 
 him that I am ready for my winter's supply of potatoes. 
 This is a type of a myriad of transactions of a number far 
 beyond computation. 
 
 And this brings us to the consideration of banking and 
 paper money two things which are classed together, but 
 which have no necessary connection, and which I am inclined 
 to believe, in the most healthy condition of money and ex- 
 change relations, would have no connection whatever. We 
 are so accustomed to bank-notes in this country that many 
 people undoubtedly, I imagine, the vast majority of the 
 agitators of the land at least suppose that the issue of cur- 
 rency is the principal function of the banks. Nothing could 
 be farther from the truth, although, curiously enough, it 
 seems to have crept into the syllabus which has been pro- 
 vided for my lecture ; at least that is what seems to me to 
 be implied by the sentence, " What is the true banking sys- 
 tem for the American nation ? " I presume that what is 
 mainly meant is : In what manner, if in any, should paper 
 money be issued in the United States ? For the purpose of 
 making this clear, let us examine into the true function of 
 banking and into the nature and peculiarities of paper 
 money. 
 
 What is a bank ? It is an institution which receives from 
 its customers and cares for the funds of which they have no 
 immediate need, and it makes its profit by loaning to its cus- 
 tomers at interest such portion of these funds as experience 
 has shown that it can judiciously part with, reserving, how- 
 ever, beyond that which is likely to be drawn, a considerable 
 additional amount as a margin of safety. It usually pays no 
 interest to its depositors, and as in case it is successful it re- 
 ceives a large amount of interest from its borrowers, it fre- 
 quently makes handsome profits. It earns its money honest- 
 ly, for it is serviceable both ways ; it relieves its depositors 
 of irksome care,' while it is bound to deliver their money the 
 moment it is called for, and it furnishes money to those who 
 are in need at the market rate, or often below the market 
 rate. 
 
 I have given a very brief description of a bank as a busi- 
 ness institution. But such a description gives very little 
 
The Monetary Problem. 269 
 
 idea of its importance as an agent in the modern business 
 community. The depositor, when he has once placed his 
 money in bank, does not usually go after it again when he 
 wishes to use it ; he merely gives a check or order upon the 
 bank to the party to whom he desires to convey the money. 
 Nor does this man usually go to the bank for the money ; 
 ordinarily he either hands the check to another party to 
 whom he wishes to pay money, or he deposits it to his own 
 credit in the same or another bank. If he deposits it in the 
 same bank, the clerk of the bank simply makes the proper 
 charges upon the books, and the transaction is closed, as I 
 have already shown in the transactions between the farmer 
 and myself, without payment of any money. If the check 
 is deposited in another bank, then the transaction is closed 
 in a similar way through the clearing house. 
 
 The clearing house is the bank of the banks. In New 
 York, for instance, every morning clerks from each of the 
 associated banks proceed to the clearing house, carrying 
 along with them in classified packages the checks drawn 
 upon other banks which were received on deposit the pre- 
 vious day. These packages are there exchanged, and each 
 bank has its account stated just as I had with the farmer in 
 the former case. If I represent bank No. 1, the clearing 
 house owes me for all the bundles of checks which I present, 
 drawn upon banks Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, etc., and in turn I owe the 
 clearing house for all the bundles of checks upon bank No. 
 1 presented by the clerks from banks Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. 
 My account is footed, and results in a balance owing ^ to or 
 by my bank as the case may be, and this balance is adjusted 
 by the exchange of certificates representing gold coin de- 
 posited in the United States Treasury, and by a small 
 amount in legal tenders and in gold coin itself. The 
 amount of ordinary money used in these stupendous trans- 
 actions is almost infinitesimal. You will get some idea of 
 the magnitude of the operations involved from this extract 
 from a letter from my friend Mr. William A. Camp, man- 
 ager of the New York Clearing House : 
 
 "The transactions of this city, Brooklyn, and Jersey 
 City, as settled by checks passing through the New York 
 Clearing House, have averaged per year for the past five 
 years $34,449,577,235.15. The average balances resulting 
 from these exchanges were $1,647,027,594.22. 
 
 " The average exchanges per day for the same period were 
 $113,019,011.01, and the balances $5,403,941.40.* 
 
270 The Monetary Problem. 
 
 The exchanges for yesterday, Saturday, January 23, 1892, 
 amounted to $139,511,549,28, and the balances to $4,102,- 
 630.20. 
 
 I greatly regret that I am compelled to make the briefest 
 possible mention of the last and most powerful device of 
 modern banking. This is the combination of the associated 
 banks in times of panic and business stress, under a compact 
 by which they agree to make common cause in support of 
 public credit, through the issue of clearing-house certifi- 
 cates to such of their members as may be threatened with 
 disaster because of inability to meet instantly such demands 
 as may be made upon them. It seems not too much to hope 
 that through this expedient a money crisis may hereafter be 
 usually brought to a halt in its early stages unless bad busi- 
 ness methods and actual insolvency should be at the root of 
 the trouble. 
 
 To give some idea of the relative importance of certain 
 items in the accounts of the banks, without going into con- 
 fusing details, I may say that for the week ending yesterday 
 the banks in the New York Clearing House had in their 
 vaults, on the average, specie and legal tenders amounting 
 to $157,371,000, while they owed their depositors $497,472,- 
 400, and their total circulation amounted to $5,566,700, 
 numbers of the banks having none and most of them hav- 
 ing less than $50,000 apiece. They have so little because it 
 is not profitable to them, and they only have so much be- 
 cause upon the national banks the law seeks to urge it. 
 This is a somewhat significant fact when taken in connec- 
 tion with the cry of the demagogue against the national 
 banks because of the enormous privilege which they enjoy 
 in the issue of circulating notes. 
 
 In 1861, at the beginning of the war, there were in cir- 
 culation in this country more than 10,000 different kinds of 
 notes " issued by the authority of thirty-four different States 
 and under more than forty different statutes." The circula- 
 tion amounted to $202,000,000, and bad enough a great deal 
 of it was. " Wild-cat " banks were organized in all sorts of 
 out-of-the-way places, merely for the purpose of foisting 
 their notes upon the people, and all sorts of schemes were 
 adopted to get these notes into circulation. And, of course, 
 the loss by the failure of the banks to redeem their notes 
 was enormous, and, as in all cases of an imperfect or bad 
 currency, the greatest sufferers were the poorest and most 
 needy of the people. 
 
The Monetary Problem. 271 
 
 When the National Bank Act was passed, all these bank 
 issues were taxed out of existence, and they were gradually 
 replaced by the notes of the national banks, which at one 
 time amounted to $352,394,346, and now amount to about 
 $173,000,000. They can be increased to any extent, pro- 
 vided the banks are willing to pay the cost of issuing and 
 circulating them. 
 
 These notes are receivable for taxes and all other dues to 
 the United States Government excepting duties on imports, 
 and are secured by a deposit of United States bonds, worth 
 more than the value of the notes. The banks are obliged 
 to redeem them on presentation in " lawful money," which 
 means coin or legal tenders. In case the banks fail to re- 
 deem them, the Government undertakes to do so. They are, 
 therefore, safe, if the Government is financially solvent, and 
 they pass freely all over the country, although, of course, 
 not outside of it excepting by special contract. They are, 
 therefore, beyond comparison, better than those which they 
 superseded. If we must have a currency consisting in part 
 of bank notes, it will be difficult to devise anything superior 
 to these. 
 
 Now let us turn to Government issues of paper currency. 
 Of these the history is long, and, truth to say, it has been for 
 the most part a sad, sad history of disaster, of broken for- 
 tunes, and of broken lives and broken hearts. 
 
 I believe our first record dates back to the beginning of 
 the ninth century, and our chronicler is the traveler Marco 
 Polo, who found in China a currency called " chao," made 
 of the inner bark of the mulberry tree, the pieces having 
 value according to their size, and being issued "with as 
 much solemnity and authority as if they were of pure gold 
 or silver." This money was issued in enormous quantities 
 and rapidly depreciated in exchangeable value, so that in 
 1448 it was worth 0-003, and after 1455 it ceases to be men- 
 tioned. 
 
 The Persians followed about 1294 with a paper money in 
 which they imitated the Chinese, and which they called by 
 the same name. " After two or three days of enforced cir- 
 culation the markets were closed, the people rose, the offi- 
 cials were murdered, and the project was abandoned." 
 
 Passing by the experience of other nations and coming 
 across seas, we find the various American colonies also buy- 
 ing their experience. It is strange how peoples as well as 
 people so generally desire personally " to see the folly " of 
 
272 The Monetary Problem. 
 
 those things of which their fathers tell them. They do not 
 seem to realize the advantages of the discrimination which 
 was so well expressed by a certain brilliant lawyer and promi- 
 nent New York Republican when he said : " I may be a 
 Eepublican, but it does not necessarily follow that I am 
 
 always a fool." The nations seem to be pretty much 
 
 always fools when it comes to certain questions. 
 
 One after another the several colonies undertook to eke 
 out their slender supply of currency by the use of paper 
 notes. These bills were usually issued at first in small 
 amounts ; then came by degrees greater and greater issues ; 
 " new tenors " would be issued to take up " old tenors " at a 
 specified rate, and these again would perhaps be followed by a 
 third. And of course it was nuts to the politicians, as it is 
 to-day,' and has always been. As General Walker says, speak- 
 ing of Ehode Island : " ' Governors were elected and turned 
 out, as the different interests' happened to prevail.' The 
 debtor party needed only to come into power once in ten or 
 five years to secure the privilege of paying their creditors 
 off at pretty much any rate they might choose to fix as con- 
 venient and agreeable to themselves." What the debtor 
 party now propose we shall see when we come to consider 
 Senator Peffer and the Farmers' Alliance. The Rhode 
 Island notes were finally redeemed at the rate of 6 shillings 
 lawful money for 8 old tenor notes, and this is a fair sam- 
 ple of the result elsewhere. 
 
 In Pennsylvania the paper money was based upon the 
 land, and Governor Pownall wrote : " I will venture to say 
 that there never was a wiser or a better measure, never one 
 better calculated to serve the uses of an increasing country ; 
 that there never was a measure more steadily or more faith- 
 fully pursued for forty years together than the loan office in 
 Pennsylvania." Yet this currency depreciated so that in 
 1748 exchange on London was at 180 or 190. 
 
 With the outbreak of the war for independence came a 
 new flood of bills from the presses of the colonies, as well 
 as a continental currency issued by the authority of Con- 
 gress. Of these new colonial bills I happen to have speci- 
 mens on the desk before me which I have had in my posses- 
 sion more years than I care to mention. They are dated in 
 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1776. I did not receive them until after 
 those dates. You would probably be interested in examin- 
 ing them, but they are too frail now for it to be safe to pass 
 them around the room. These which I hold in my hand 
 
The Monetary Problem. 273 
 
 were issued by the Colony of New Jersey, these by Mary- 
 land, these again by Pennsylvania, and these by the coun- 
 ties of New Castle, Kent, and Sussex upon Delaware ; of 
 the latter, this for 10 shillings was printed by Benjamin 
 Franklin and D. Hall. It has upon one side of it an im- 
 posing procession, consisting of a stork or pelican or bird of 
 that ilk, followed by an elephant not quite so tall, and a 
 beast which I am not quite sure of, but which is either a 
 contemplative cat with its finger in its mouth, or an owl, or 
 something of that sort. And it also has upon it the usual 
 inscription, " To counterfeit is death." 
 
 The issue of continental currency began in June, 1775, 
 with $2,000,000. By December, 1776, there were $25,000,- 
 000 outstanding, and the bills were at fifty per cent discount. 
 In December, 1778, when the issue amounted to over $100,- 
 000,000, Congress issued an address in which it was written : 
 " We should pay an ill compliment to the understanding 
 and honor of every true American were we to adduce many 
 arguments to show the baseness or bad policy of violating 
 our national faith, or omitting to pursue the measures ne- 
 cessary to preserve it. A bankrupt, faithless republic would 
 be a novelty in the political world, and appear among reputa- 
 ble nations like a common prostitute among chaste and re- 
 spectable matrons. . . . Apprised of these consequences, 
 knowing the value of national character, and impressed with 
 a due sense of the immutable laws of justice and honor, it 
 is impossible that America should think without horror of 
 such an execrable deed." Strong words ! The issues were 
 heavily increased during the year 1779. In January, coin 
 was worth 8 to 1 ; in May, 24 to 1 ; in October, 30 to 1 ; in 
 November, 38 to 1. In March, 1780, certificates were issued 
 at the rate of 1 to 40, and these new certificates soon sank 
 to one eighth of -their value. The greater part of the 
 original issue was not brought in for redemption, but after 
 about a year more fell to 1,000 to 1, and then, as Dr. Ram- 
 sey says, " Like an aged man, expiring by the decays of Na- 
 ture, without a sigh or a groan, it gently fell asleep in the 
 hands of its last possessors." The total war issues of colonial 
 and continental currency up to 1783 were about $450,000,- 
 000. Dr. Ramsey states the results thus : " The property 
 of the inhabitants, in a considerable degree, changed its 
 owners. Many opulent persons, of ancient families, were 
 ruined by selling paternal estates for a depreciating paper 
 currency, which in a few weeks would not replace half of 
 
274 The Monetary Problem. 
 
 the real property in exchange for which it was obtained. 
 Many bold adventurers made fortunes in a short time by 
 running in debt beyond their abilities. Prudence ceased to 
 be a virtue and rashness usurped its place." 
 
 One more illustration before we come down to our own 
 time. In this I shall mainly condense from Prof. Walker, 
 whom in many cases I have followed heretofore. 
 
 In 1789 revolutionary France was hard pressed for money ; 
 the Minister Neckar opposed the issue of paper. The ex- 
 perience of France under John Law had been bitter ; the 
 struggle was long. But the advocates of paper money pre- 
 vailed. A speaker argued before the Constituent Assembly : 
 " Paper money under a despotism is dangerous. It favors 
 corruption ; but in a nation constitutionally governed, which 
 itself takes care of its own notes, which determines their 
 number and their use, that danger no longer exists." Have 
 we not heard something similar to this in more recent times ? 
 
 It was determined to make the paper absolutely safe. It 
 was based upon the church and other lands which had been 
 confiscated and made the property of the state. Mirabeau 
 said it was in vain to " assimilate assignats, secured on the 
 solid basis of these domains, to an ordinary paper money 
 having a forced circulation. They represent real property, 
 the most secure of all possessions, the soil on which we 
 tread." Have we not recently heard something like this 
 also ? Mirabeau said : " This paper money can never become 
 redundant, any more than the humidity of the atmosphere 
 can become excessive, which descends in rills, finds the river, 
 and is at length lost in the mighty ocean." 
 
 The first issue of 400,000,000 francs was followed in 1790 
 by a further issue of 800,000,000. It was provided that the 
 paper paid into the Treasury should be burned, and solemnly 
 decreed that the total amount should never exceed 1,200,- 
 000,000 francs; and in the middle of the following year 
 600,000,000 more were issued. Then coin began to disap- 
 pear and industry collapsed. Factories were closed and 
 " vast numbers of workmen, in all parts of the country, were 
 thrown out of employment." Capitalists declined to em- 
 bark in business, and the " demand for labor was still further 
 diminished." " The business of France dwindled to a mere 
 living from hand to mouth." President White says : " Com- 
 merce was dead ; betting took its place." As always when 
 the currency is inflated, the poor were the worst sufferers, the 
 gamblers and the speculators the ones who reaped a profit. 
 
The Monetary Problem. 275 
 
 The debtor class came forward with a demand for further 
 issues to ecale down their debts ; 300,000,000 more were put 
 out, and to them were added in '92 another 600,000,000. 
 " Still, as the assignats poured from the Treasury in increas- 
 ing volume, the cry of the scarcity of the circulating 
 medium grew louder." Then the cry became : " Bread or 
 blood." The Government felt that the depreciation in the 
 currency must be stopped : " the purchase of specie was 
 forbidden under penalty of six years in irons." " Then 
 came a law prohibiting the sale of assignats below their 
 nominal value, on penalty of twenty years in chains. Soon 
 came another law, punishing with death investment of capi- 
 tal in foreign countries." (Do you remember that in 1864, 
 under the lead of Thaddeus Stevens, the United States 
 Congress forbade the purchase and sale of gold on time, with 
 the immediate effect of increasing the premium with such 
 rapidity that the act was repealed within fifteen days ?) By 
 the end of 1794, 7,000,000,000 francs had been issued ; by 
 about a year later 45,000,000,000 had been issued, of which 
 36,000,000,000 were in actual circulation about $20 worth 
 of which would have bought a five-cent measure of peanuts 
 if they happened to be in the market. 
 
 Then came the " new tenor." " Territorial mandates " 
 were issued for assignats at the rate of 1 to 30. These rap- 
 idily depreciated until they were worth one one-thousandth 
 of their nominal value, making the assignats worth about 
 one thirty- thousandth. This was the end. July 1, 1796, 
 about seven years after the first embarkation upon this peril- 
 ous voyage, a decree was issued authorizing every one " to 
 transact business in the money and on the terms he chose." 
 Specie immediately reappeared in circulation, goods and 
 commodities of all sorts became very cheap, the exchanges 
 turned in favor of France, a metallic currency was perma- 
 nently restored, " and during all the terrific wars of Napo- 
 leon the metallic standard was always maintained at full 
 value." 
 
 Within the present century many nations have gone 
 through the delectable experience of an inconvertible paper 
 currency France, Russia, Austria, Italy, certain countries 
 of South America, and the United States and many of them 
 are still wrestling with it. Our own experience is unfamiliar 
 only to the younger of you, and yet, so short is memory, it 
 seems that the story must be explicitly recalled to prevent 
 our again lapsing into the same condition, without the 
 
276 The Monetary Problem. 
 
 slightest justification under heaven excepting the hope on 
 the part of certain political farmers, political merchants, or 
 political bankers, that they may in the resulting scramble 
 be able to get the better of those to whom they now owe 
 money, or reap a profit out of the gambling which must 
 inevitably result. 
 
 The rebellion overtly began in April, 1861. The bill 
 authorizing the issue of legal-tender currency to the amount 
 of $150,000,000, subsequently increased to $400,000,000, 
 became a law in February of the next year. By July gold 
 was at 20 per cent premium ; six months later it was at 60 
 per cent premium ; in another month it was at 72 per cent ; 
 then it fell off for a while, but in April, 1864, it was at 78 
 per cent ; June 15, it was at 97 per cent ; fourteen days later 
 it was at 150 per cent ; and July 11, it was at 185J per cent 
 premium, its highest point. All prices were deranged, fami- 
 lies were impoverished, speculation became wild ; conserva- 
 tive, careful business men in great numbers were ruined, 
 reckless gamblers accumulated enormous fortunes. 
 
 But the worst results experienced in previous cases were 
 not reached. A limit to the issues was put and maintained ; 
 subsequently, under the wise management of Secretary Mc- 
 Culloch, the amount outstanding was even reduced to $356,- 
 000,000, and, though the contraction was there stayed, the 
 nation nerved herself to the re-establishment of her credit, 
 and upon the first of January, 1879, specie payment was 
 resumed. 
 
 As we have seen, six years earlier we had placed ourselves 
 nominally upon a gold basis ; but in the February preceding 
 the resumption of specie payments the coinage of the legal- 
 tender silver dollar had been re-authorized at the rate of 
 $2,000,000 per month. This rate has been changed from 
 time to time, and the amount of silver purchased by the 
 Treasury is now 4,500,000 ounces per month, or more than 
 the total amount of silver at present produced in this coun- 
 try. The Treasury pays the market price for the silver, 
 which is now 71^- cents for the amount contained in a dol- 
 lar, and gets it off at par into circulation when possible, or 
 issues paper currency representing it. It has been found 
 impossible to circulate any large amount of the metal itself, 
 and the Treasury Department has been compelled to con- 
 struct warehouses to store it in. The amount now so stored 
 and in circulation is between four and five hundred millions 
 of dollars. As Mr. David A. Wells graphically describes it, 
 
The Monetary Problem. 277 
 
 it would require an army of much more than 200,000 men, 
 each bearing more than 100 pounds of metal, to carry it. 
 
 Now, in this situation there are two things to be consid- 
 ered : First, the amount of our circulation to-day, coin and 
 paper together, is vastly greater than at any previous period. 
 I am aware that Senator Peffer states the contrary, but this 
 is only one of the innumerable misstatements and misrep- 
 resentations with which his book is filled from cover to 
 cover. The Secretary of the Treasury, in a letter to the 
 recent Bankers' Convention at New Orleans, said: "The 
 amount of money in circulation is greater than at any pre- 
 vious time in the history of the country, and more per 
 capita than in any of the leading commercial nations of the 
 world except France." It is stated that in 1860 our per 
 capita circulation was $13.83. It was $10.23 in 1862 ; $20.57 
 in 1865 (Peffer says $58.95); $17.50 in 1870; $15.32 in 1878, 
 and it is now calculated at from $23.45 to $24.56. 
 
 Since 1880 the per capita circulation has increased from 
 $18.79 to, say, $23.45. During the same period the rate of 
 failures in business has increased from 1 in 158 in 1880 to 
 1 in 102 in 1890. 
 
 The circulation is much greater per capita than that of 
 Great Britain, the leading commercial nation. And yet the 
 cry is now, as during the issue of French assignats, Oli- 
 ver's cry for " more." One bill that I have before me calls 
 for $2,000,000,000 of paper, each bill being absolutely money 
 and not in the form of promise. Colonel Livingston, of the 
 Georgia State Alliance, says : " All that we insist upon is 
 thus briefly stated : We demand that the amount of circu- 
 lating medium be speedily increased to not less than $50 
 per capita." Senator Peffer presents a bill for the issue of 
 notes in twenty-eight different denominations from one mill 
 to $5,000. Now, how large a proportion of the population, 
 think you, habitually carry around with them on the aver- 
 age $10 apiece, or would have any possible need to do so ? 
 With our modern credit system and banking facilities, the 
 need of money in hand, instead of being increased, has been 
 vastly reduced, immeasurably reduced. I had expected to 
 spend some time upon this point, but my restrictions ren- 
 der this impossible. You must draw your own inferences 
 from what I have said of the banking system. 
 
 Mr. Peffer, who has been lifted into the prominence of 
 the United States Senate, where he appears as the repre- 
 sentative of the movement whicH is called the Farmers' Al- 
 
278 The Monetary Problem. 
 
 liance, tells us what is to be done with the new " money," 
 as he calls it. It is to be loaned at one per cent interest to 
 farmers to enable them to pay off their debts. And he 
 says : " The object of this writing is to show an honorable 
 way out by helping the poor and doing no wrong to the 
 rich." " ' The way out ' proposes to help debtors not to get 
 rid of their debts, but to pay them, and in good money." 
 History has shown us the value of this " good money." The 
 excuse which is offered is that the debts were made when 
 the circulation was larger, and that their payment in the 
 present circulation would be an unjust burden. This is 
 absolutely false. The majority of these debts were made at 
 a time when the per capita circulation was much smaller 
 than at present. 
 
 The assumption that an inflated circulation would aid the 
 farmer and the laborer is the wildest absurdity. All history 
 disproves it. It is the speculator, the gambler, who is prof- 
 ited by it. It is customary to fling at Wall Street as some- 
 thing especially hideous. Peffer's book is full of such 
 flings. Now, if I had time, I should not have the slightest 
 difficulty in showing that Wall Street is the axle upon 
 which the business wheel of the country turns ; that, rela- 
 tively to the amount of business transacted, there is less 
 financial dishonesty in Wall Street than anywhere else in 
 the country; and after many years' experience in Wall 
 Street, I can earnestly say that the strongest lesson which it 
 conveys to my mind is that of the essential honesty of human 
 nature. I speak of Wall Street now, however, to say that 
 Wall Street opposes all schemes for inflation, notwithstand- 
 ing that Wall Street would inevitably profit by such 
 schemes. 
 
 Now, it is impossible for me to stop to give the data, but 
 it is a notorious fact of history, of which any of you can 
 assure himself by a very moderate amount of study, that 
 when the circulation has become very meager, in proportion 
 to the extent of the demand upon it for exchanges, prices 
 have fallen to a very low point, while, contrariwise, when 
 the circulation has been abundant or excessive, prices have 
 become very high.* This statement will be recognized as 
 
 * It should be observed that I have endeavored to qualify this statement in such 
 a way as to avoid misconstruction. I have no disposition to enter into the long 
 discussion upon the " volume of currency." My friend Mr. Cowperthwait, whose 
 little volume, just come to hand, is certainly one of the most valuable of the year, 
 appears to me to spend an unnecessary amount of space upon it. I whollv agree 
 with him that the extension of banking and the credit system are relegating the 
 matter of the volume of the currency to a position of very minor importance, and 
 
The Monetary Problem. 279 
 
 almost a truism ; it is a fact within the experience of most 
 of you. It is as familiar a fact that the rise and fall are 
 extremely irregular in their course and effect in regard to 
 different commodities and different services, and that by 
 such fluctuation in the currency some are profited and 
 others greatly damaged. Further, there is not the slightest 
 reason to expect the rate of interest to be less with a steady 
 circulation of five thousand millions than with a steady cir- 
 culation of one thousand millions. Of course, with a fluc- 
 tuating currency everything is different. 
 
 The reason that laborers and farmers suffer from an in- 
 flated currency is that wages are always slow to rise and 
 easy to fall ; that retail prices, and especially the prices of 
 foreign goods, quickly advance, while farm products advance 
 but slowly and unevenly. Prof. Perry says: "Wheat was 
 no higher in currency in 1873 than it was in gold in 1860; 
 hams were not ; lard was not ; and salt pork was not. . . . 
 But harnesses, boots and shoes, hats and caps, blankets, all 
 manner of clothing, were much higher in 1873 than they 
 were in 1860. These manufactures are what farmers have 
 to buy. . . . The shrewd ones always take advantage of the 
 ignorant ones and the dishonest ones of the honest ones. 
 . . . But farmers always have been and always will be the 
 greatest losers from rag money ; partly for the reason that 
 I have just given . . . and partly, also, because it takes the 
 farmer almost a year to realize on his crops, and he can not 
 meanwhile insure himself against the inevitable changes in 
 the currency." 
 
 The second thing to be considered in the existing situ- 
 ation and in connection with the proposed passage of a bill 
 for the unlimited free coinage of silver at the assumed value 
 of $1-2929, instead of the present market value of 93 cents 
 per ounce, is this : In the first twenty years following 1849 
 the proportion of silver to gold in the production of the 
 mines was about one to two in value. In the time which 
 has since elapsed the proportion has been pretty nearly re- 
 versed, and the increased ratio of the silver production, com- 
 bined with the change of standard upon the part of Ger- 
 many, and perhaps some other causes, have greatly reduced 
 the market value of silver. Since 1873 the value of silver 
 has fallen 37 cents per ounce. During the previous forty 
 
 I suppose no wise man would contend that changes in price and changes of vol- 
 ume have been constant companions. But I think that he who fails to se_e that 
 there has been an important relation between these two things misreads history. 
 
 19 
 
280 The Monetary Problem. 
 
 years the extreme fluctuations in value had been within 5f 
 cents per ounce. That we are on the brink of testing to 
 our sorrow the truth of Gresham's law can not be gainsaid. 
 
 It is quite true that the purchase of silver by the United 
 States Government has proceeded very much farther with- 
 out apparent disaster of a serious character than any econo- 
 mist supposed in advance that it could be carried. But, as 
 the distinguished president of a leading university said to 
 me the other day, quoting the characteristically irreverent 
 modern form of an old saying : " The mills of the gods 
 grind slowly, but they get there just the same." Last win- 
 ter, week after week, we saw gold leaving the country by the 
 hundreds of thousands and the millions, and though a most 
 extraordinary harvest has for a time caused the current to 
 set the other way, and in part to fill up the void created, 
 there is a constant danger impending of a renewal of the 
 movement. Moreover, to me as a banker it seems perfectly 
 plain that already for more than a year past the business of 
 the country has been suffering, and suffering severely, from 
 the over coinage or overpur chase of silver. 
 
 I am loaning considerable sums of money upon real 
 estate ; but how do I loan them ? I am doing what every 
 careful banker must do. The loans are to be returned dur- 
 ing a period of eight or ten years. The uncertainty of what 
 may occur within that period is too great to be risked ; I am 
 therefore making these loans upon the express stipulation 
 that they are to be returned in gold coin of the present 
 standard of weight and fineness. Now, without some con- 
 dition of this kind, little business can be done which in its 
 nature involves considerations of time. Confidence is shaken ; 
 business enterprises are halting ; capitalists hesitate to make 
 time loans, and the market is flooded with funds loanable on 
 demand, while prices are fluctuating violently and specula- 
 tion, especially in real estate, is rampant. 
 
 In my judgment, an " elastic " currency is a serious evil, 
 although at times it may be a seeming good, for the reason 
 that its elasticity is only sufficiently great to make it an aid 
 in stimulating and supporting speculation in periods of great 
 extension of credit, while not great enough to relieve the 
 strain in periods of collapse. Moreover, the elasticity of the 
 credit system, which is inevitable, makes the elasticity of any 
 currency the merest child's play. And the changing of the 
 extent and character of the currency by political majorities 
 by majorities for the most part absolutely ignorant of the 
 
The Monetary Problem. 281 
 
 principles of economics and of the teachings of history, and 
 swept momentarily hither and thither by supposed personal 
 interest is an immeasurable evil. In my judgment, the busi- 
 ness of the nation would be much healthier and more steadily 
 prosperous should all bank notes be finally retired, excepting 
 possibly restricted issues for isolated localities, should the 
 further purchase of silver be prohibited, and a considerable 
 part of that now held in the Treasury (the accumulation of 
 which has already established a danger of the first magni- 
 tude) be sold, if and as it can be sold, and consumed in 
 the arts ; and should the legal-tender currency be limited 
 within its present amount or even narrower bounds by con- 
 stitutional provision, except as representing coin actually on 
 deposit, dollar for dollar. What is now seriously proposed 
 in Congress is for the United States Government that is, for 
 ourselves to take all the silver in the world that may be of- 
 fered at $1.2929 per ounce, notwithstanding the market 
 price is but 93 cents; that is, to offer to pay 39 per cent 
 more than it is worth for the world's stock of silver, for that 
 would be the result so long as we possessed gold or could pay 
 gold values. So far as I am aware, this is the only instance 
 in history where a nation has said, or proposes to say : " Here 
 is a commodity which is to be had in enormous quantities 
 at a certain price ; come, let us pay for it a vastly higher 
 price, amounting in the aggregate to one, two, three hundred 
 millions of dollars." 
 
 Should this be done, there are three alternative results 
 conceivable : 1st, that the market price of silver throughout 
 the world should not rise ; 2d, that the price should rise to 
 $1.2929 ; and 3d, that, owing to the fact on the one side that 
 there would be a customer in the market for all the silver 
 extant or producible at an upset price, and on the other to 
 the counter fact that there would be a large number of com- 
 peting sellers, all anxious to obtain the profit, and all per- 
 fectly certain that the production of silver remaining as at 
 present and the production of gold not greatly increasing 
 no power upon earth could raise the price to $1.2929 and 
 keep it there, the price would constantly fluctuate with the 
 course of speculation, but below the higher figure. That 
 the last-named result would inevitably follow, I think there 
 is no room for any doubt on the part of any sane man. And 
 two further results are just as inevitable : First, that all prices 
 would become irregular and all business speculative and un- 
 certain, and, second, that the currency would be depreciated 
 
282 The Monetary Problem. 
 
 to at least the extent of the difference between the market 
 price of silver and $1.2929, and all persons to whom debts 
 are owing would be deliberately swindled out of that portion 
 of their claims swindled, that is to say, not by their individ- 
 ual debtors, but by those carrying through the undertaking 
 for that avowed object. This is a beautiful scheme for a 
 civilized people for those claiming to be " in the fore- 
 most files of time." 
 
 Some nights ago, after several hours of close application 
 in the preparation of this essay, I was, as not infrequently 
 happens on such occasions, vainly endeavoring to compose 
 myself to rest. I suddenly found myself climbing an Alpine 
 height along the sharp edge of a cliff, guided by a peasant 
 woman who was some distance above me. I stumbled and 
 fell, and meantime my guide continued the ascent and dis- 
 appeared. When I recovered my footing, I saw her ap- 
 proaching me and making some explanation regarding the 
 impracticability of the way. As she did so, she made an in- 
 cautious step, and, her foot slipping, she shot over the edge 
 of the precipice, and as I leaned forward my eye followed 
 her down down down down, until noiselessly she 
 stopped, a shapeless blot on the rock a thousand feet below. 
 I woke, shuddering with inexpressible horror and seeming to 
 hear ringing in my ears my own shrill agonized cry, and like 
 a flash I realized before me the gulf upon the edge of which 
 we are now standing. 
 
The Monetary Problem. 283 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 
 
 MR. STARR HOYT NICHOLS : 
 
 It would be difficult to find fault with the sound and logical lecture 
 we have listened to this evening. The speaker's conclusions are justi- 
 fied in the minds of most thinking men. In discussing this subject, we 
 must first have a clear idea of what money is. General Walker's defi- 
 nition is defective in that it does not take into account the large amount 
 of private money there is in the world. By private money I mean 
 checks, drafts, etc., which are used to settle obligations between those 
 who are known to each other as reliable. Inasmuch as 95 per cent of 
 all money is private, a definition which does not include this is not suf- 
 ficient, and we must get another. All money is a form of credit, and 
 there are two kinds public money, which is currency, and private 
 money, which is not. Money in itself is a tool a form of credit for 
 incomplete transactions. Money represents service. We desire to 
 have it because by its use we can secure the services of others. At 
 present, 95 per cent of all our transactions are made with private 
 money, and for this reason a small amount of gold bearing the Gov- 
 ernment stamp answers for an enormous amount of business. Private 
 money is always here, and the proportion of it may increase to 96 or 
 98 per cent, and this would be of no consequence. It is not necessary 
 or desirable to call upon the Government to give us more money, for 
 it can only add its little 5 per cent. Better were it to add to the 95 
 per cent to increase the amount of private money. The tendency is 
 not to increase the amount of public credit, but of private credit. The 
 movement in Congress to increase the circulating medium is wrong in 
 principle. What we really need is no public money at all, but all pri- 
 vate money. Then the currency would be perfect, and the question 
 would be taken out of politics. Nothing ever goes current but service. 
 If the Government issues money and gives it out for nothing, it is not 
 money ; it has no real value ; it is simply a " give-away." 
 
 How came gold to be taken as the final standard ? Gold has value, 
 and has it for the same reason that wheat and other commodities have 
 values ; because it represents the amount of work it takes to produce 
 it. Silver falls because it can be produced more cheaply. Service is 
 at the bottom of all value. Gold is a better standard than silver be- 
 cause the cost of production remains more nearly stable. Paper has 
 no value except as the Government says there is behind it so much 
 
284 The Monetary Problem. 
 
 human service. Our silver certificates do not represent as much human 
 service as our gold certificates. For the effect of our present policy 
 we have only to look at what went on in Paris with the copper syndi- 
 cate. The syndicate agreed to take all the copper at a little above the 
 market price. Immediately all the small mines that couldn't be made 
 to pay at the market price went to work. There was a flood, and then 
 a break. It makes no difference whether it is the Government or a 
 syndicate, copper or silver. As the value of silver falls, more is pro- 
 duced, because the profit is greater ; it pours in, and the Government 
 will break in time just as the syndicate did. 
 
 I am not surprised that the movement for free coinage is so strong 
 in the South. A Southern friend said to me : " We are opposed, tooth 
 and nail, to the false financiering of Mr. Sherman." The people there 
 have no knowledge of finance ; they are backward in all that makes 
 for civilization. It takes a vast experience in large operations to get a 
 knowledge of the subject, and we can not expect a farmer to under- 
 stand finance any more than he does the sailing of a ship. Every sil- 
 ver certificate should bear on it not " This is one dollar," but " This is 
 good for a dollar's worth of silver " whatever the price may be. The 
 tendency is more and more toward private money. When clearing- 
 house certificates were issued, this was an addition to our private 
 money. A panic was thus prevented, no one was injured, and the Gov- 
 ernment was not called upon to interfere. 
 
 DR. ROBERT G. ECCLES : 
 
 In regard to public and private money there is no difference be- 
 tween us. As to paper money, 1 occupy the ground of Prof. Jevons, 
 which has not been represented here to-night. The great danger is 
 in allowing the inflationist to hold a truth which we deny. The in- 
 flationists are right in regard to paper money. The Government can 
 support a large amount without a cent behind it. The danger is in 
 having that money in such shape that it may become too excessive or 
 too short for the demands of business, so that it is like a rod of iron, 
 not expanding and contracting as business does. This danger is 
 avoided so long as the paper is only issued to meet the demands of 
 commerce. Such a condition exists in the circulation of the national 
 banks. People take out the paper when business demands it and they 
 can afford to pay the interest ; and when business does not want it, it 
 goes back. When the nation issues money, some one has to say how 
 much, and we are likely to have $200,000,000 issued when we only 
 need $100,000,000. 
 
 Labor puts no value on anything, as the last speaker has asserted. 
 It is desire, human desire, that gives value. A laborer may spend 
 
The Monetary Problem. 285 
 
 years upon a thing that no one wants, and his labor is lost. Its prod- 
 uct has no value. Or in five minutes he may produce or invent 
 something that is wanted, and then it will have great value. 
 
 Paper money is in demand by those who can not use checks. Its 
 utility will float it, just as utility floats gold and silver. It will float 
 paper with the assurance that the amount shall not expand or contract 
 beyond the needs of business. The way to secure this is to have a 
 fund to redeem the surplus. It is not necessary to have dollar for dol- 
 lar, because we can not retire all the paper, and there is no use in hav- 
 ing idle gold and silver lying behind it. As regards the depreciation 
 of Government money, the greenbacker would say that during the 
 war there were other issues of paper money as well as the green- 
 backs. The Government dishonored greenbacks by refusing to take 
 them for duties. There was a certain amount of Government money 
 that was full legal tender, and that money kept up to par, and even 
 went above par, because it was more convenient, on account of weight, 
 than coin. Mr. Potts should have recognized this. 
 
 COLONEL J. HOWARD COWPERTHWAIT : 
 
 I have been much interested in the history and explanation of 
 money to which we have listened, but the real problem which con- 
 fronts the country has not been stated. The problem is not how to 
 avoid free coinage, but how to get rid of the present law. We can 
 easily believe that a free-coinage bill will not be passed, and there is 
 little doubt that the President would veto it if it should pass. But to 
 get rid of the present law we must have majorities in both Houses, and 
 the President's signature in addition. To avoid financial disaster we 
 must get rid of the present law. 
 
 Let me correct what appear to me to be one or two errors which 
 have crept into this discussion. The speaker said that changes in 
 prices necessarily go with changes in the volume of money. In the 
 last twenty years the volume of money has increased about 90 per 
 cent, or $20 per capita ; but prices have fallen on an average of one 
 third. Not only so, but prices have fluctuated widely while the vol- 
 ume of currency has been steadily increasing. Just after the war the 
 volume of money was nearly stationary, but prices fluctuated greatly. 
 
 The West and South demand more money. They say : " Our prod- 
 uce sells for six hundred millions a year, while it used to bring only 
 half this, and something ought to be done to make money more plenti- 
 ful, so that we can get more." Under these circumstances, how are you 
 going to effect a repeal of the present law ? There are four hundred 
 millions of silver dollars in the Treasury, and against that nearly as 
 large an amount of silver certificates and Treasury notes have been is- 
 
286 The Monetary Problem. 
 
 sued. The former represent silver dollars, the Treasury notes represent 
 coin, and it is optional with the Secretary of the Treasury whether they 
 shall be paid in gold or silver. It is not true that back of every dollar 
 note there is a dollar in silver. 
 
 I do not think that free coinage means flooding the country with 
 silver. We do not buy silver with gold, but exchange silver dollars 
 for silver bullion. The coins issued for the silver are worth no more 
 than the bullion in the markets of the world. The silver dollar would 
 fall to the bullion value when gold is at a premium. So no one would 
 bring silver from other countries, because the coin would be worth no 
 more than the bullion. But those who argue in this way do not want 
 the Government to remain on a gold basis. They are hard up, and 
 something must be done for their relief. It is well enough for the 
 New York banker to note that money is plentiful in New York ; but 
 in the South and West money is scarcer than ever before. Cotton is at 
 the lowest price it ever touched. When you tell a planter that money 
 is plenty, he replies : " That may be, but you in New York have got it 
 all." The Southerner says : " If you will devise some way for us to ob- 
 tain money, we do not care for free coinage." A bill has lately been 
 proposed by Congressman Harter which may possibly satisfy the West 
 and South, and induce them to consent to repeal. The proposition is 
 to repeal the law that prohibits (by a tax of 10 per cent) the State 
 banks from issuing money. This would permit banks in far-away 
 places to issue money for use in the neighborhood, or let the men in 
 those neighborhoods that want money issue it under such restrictions 
 as seem best. The money thus issued would have only a local par 
 value, and would thus remain in the vicinity, where it is wanted. 
 This may not seem a very good thing to do, but under the circum- 
 stances it is the best. We must do something to get rid of the present 
 law ; no law that can be passed would be as bad as the present law. 
 
 MB. POTTS, in reply: If it pleases Mr. Nichols to call a certain 
 variety of credit checks, drafts, etc. private money, 1 have no ob- 
 jections. It makes no change in the situation. I am glad Dr. Eccles 
 so conclusively answered Mr. Nichols as to the value of gold. It is 
 not labor that gives value. I can hardly understand how he had the 
 hardihood to make such a statement. Mr. Nichols suggests issuing 
 paper calling for a dollar's worth of silver instead of for a silver dollar ; 
 that is, for the Government to take in storage a commodity for which 
 it issues certificates to deliver on demand at market rate, and run the 
 risk of being bankrupted by having all the silver called for when the 
 price is low, and having certificates left over. 
 
 Dr. Eccles says the gold notes issued during the war kept at par. 
 
The Monetary Problem. 287 
 
 But those notes couldn't go out of the country, being in demand for 
 paying duties ; and couldn't depreciate in value, because only a very 
 limited number were issued. 
 
 Colonel Cowperthwait tried to show that changes in prices do not fol- 
 low changes in the volume of currency. That prices do not accurately 
 and quickly follow is true ; but in the long run they do, as all history 
 shows. And history also shows that these changes in prices are irregu- 
 lar and do not affect all commodities alike, and that makes the trouble. 
 If they were regular and affected all alike, no harm would be done. 
 
 It is undoubtedly the case that money is scarce in the West and 
 South, and I doubt if we can make it otherwise under present circum- 
 stances, unless we can make money that will not pass as easily outside 
 the locality in which it is issued. If it will pass in New York, it will 
 drift this way. We don't look at our bank notes to see where they 
 come from, and they will not stay in the West and South. We need 
 some style of paper money, issued by local banks, that will be known 
 and will pass there and not elsewhere. 
 
 I think if Colonel Cowperthwait will read the law regarding the pur- 
 chase of silver he will find that the silver certificate calls for a silver 
 dollar, and the silver dollar calls for a gold dollar. We do agree to 
 pay the value of the gold dollar for the silver bullion. 
 
THE 
 IMMIGRATION PROBLEM 
 
 BY 
 
 Z. SIDNEY SAMPSON 
 
 AUTHOR OP PRIMITIVE MAN, THE EVOLUTION OF Ml SIC, ETC. 
 
COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED: 
 
 Richmond Mayo-Smith's Emigration and Immigration ; BromwelPs 
 Histor j of Immigration into the United States ; Dilke's Problems of 
 the Greater Britain ; Seward's Chinese Immigration in its Social and 
 Economical Aspects ; Williams's Chinese Immigration, in Journal of 
 American Social Science Association, 1879 ; Rounds's Immigration 
 and Crime, in Journal of Social Science, 1889 ; White's Invasion of 
 Paii/per Foreigners, in Nineteenth Century, March, 1888 ; Schuyler's 
 Italian Immigration, in Political Science Quarterly, September, 1889 ; 
 Mayo-Smith's Theory of Immigration, in Quarterly Journal of Eco- 
 nomics, January, 1891 ; Walker's Immigration, in Forum, August, 1891. 
 
THE IMMIGRATION PROBLEM. 
 
 BY Z. SIDNEY SAMPSON. 
 
 THE immigration problem becomes increasingly complex 
 from year to year. Especially during the last two decades 
 its various phases have been forced upon the serious atten- 
 tion of the country by reason of the essentially undesirable 
 character of a large percentage of those who seek not only 
 the advantages of improved industrial conditions, but ad- 
 mission to the highest privileges which any government can 
 bestow those of citizenship and suifrage. It has become a 
 pressing and anxious question whether American institu- 
 tions, with all their flexibility and their facility of applica- 
 tion to new social conditions, will continue to endure the 
 strain put upon them by the rapid and ceaseless introduc- 
 tion of foreign elements, unused, and wholly unused in great 
 measure, to a system of government radically differing from 
 those under which they have been educated. Can these 
 diverse elements be brought to work in harmony with the 
 American idea ? The centuries of subjection to absolutism, 
 or even despotism, to which the ancestors of many of the 
 immigrant classes have been accustomed, has formed a type 
 of political character which can not, except after long train- 
 ing, be brought into an understanding of and a sympathy 
 with republican principles. 
 
 An examination of all the objections which have been 
 made to unrestricted immigration will disclose that this is 
 by far the most important aspect of the question, and much 
 more so than questions of industrial competition. If the 
 republic will not ultimately endure harm, industrial ques- 
 tions will slowly but surely right themselves ; if otherwise, 
 none even of the wisest can foresee the outcome. 
 
 Mere ignorance of our institutions is not, therefore, the 
 most important circumstance of the case. It is a question 
 of the possibility of absorbing into a common American 
 nationality these diverse elements. Ignorance of our sys- 
 tem of government may, and certainly does, in many cases, 
 coexist with a disposition fully to accept that system and 
 yield it a ready obedience. The 'question here suggested 
 
292 The Immigration Problem. 
 
 has application mostly to the character of much of the for- 
 eign populations which we have received since the civil war. 
 The Teutonic and Celtic peoples unite with us readily, but 
 whether the Hungarian, Italian, and Bohemian peoples are 
 capable of assimilation is a problem yet to be determined, 
 upon the solution of which the future of the country largely 
 depends. 
 
 It is not the ignorance particularly of the American gov- 
 ernmental systems which confronts us, but the absolute 
 and dense general ignorance of the lowest classes of Euro- 
 pean immigrants. In fact, many well-educated Ameri- 
 cans might be at a loss, if suddenly asked, to give a clear 
 idea of the constitution and policy of foreign governments, 
 and, on close examination, they might even fail to give an 
 entirely satisfactory account of the history of their own 
 institutions, or the existing federal system, or the adjust- 
 ment of political rights as between national and State juris- 
 dictions. 
 
 Our discussion of the subject must not be obscured by 
 incorrect views as to the position and authority of the state 
 in relation to movements of both emigration and immi- 
 gration. There prevails, among no inconsiderable num- 
 ber, what may be called an historical-ethical sentimental- 
 ism on this question. It claims that any attempt at state 
 control and interference in these matters is not only unwise, 
 but unjust ; that freedom of exit or entrance into or from a 
 nation is a personal and individual natural right, coequal 
 with the natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
 happiness, and superior to any state regulation. This idea, 
 however, is born of modern times, and has evolved with the 
 enormous expansion of facilities of international communi- 
 cation by railroad, telegraph, interchange of thought upon 
 all topics between all cultured nations, and the silent growth 
 of the cognate idea of a possible federation of all states, 
 and, in the distant future, a universal commonwealth rest- 
 ing upon the brotherhood of man. But it was a right 
 everywhere denied in mediaeval times, not recognized by any 
 modern state, and it is based upon an insufficient compre- 
 hension of the idea of the state. The state, as a corpo- 
 rate political unity, under whatever form it may exist re- 
 publican, monarchic, or autocratic exists not only for im- 
 mediate administrative purposes, but also in and for the 
 obtaining for its citizens the highest attainable political, 
 economic, and social well-being; and this it has an un- 
 
The Immigration Problem. 293 
 
 doubted right to secure, through any such legislative and 
 executive action as it may from time to time judge expe- 
 dient. It possesses the same unquestionable right to de- 
 termine who shall be admitted within its boundaries, and 
 to the privileges of citizenship, and to the benefit and pro- 
 tection of its laws, as the family, the social unit, has to de- 
 cide who shall be entitled to its companionship and hospi- 
 tality. The state, in other words, has a right to self -pro- 
 tection and self -development. 
 
 Says Dr. Lieber, in Civil Liberty and Self-Government : 
 " The right of locomotion, or of free egress and ingress, as 
 well as free motion within the country, is another important 
 and individual right and element of liberty. It is a precious 
 right of every one to seek that spot on earth where he can 
 best pursue the ends of life, physical and mental, religious, 
 political, and cultural." 
 
 Yes, in subordination to the exigencies or well-being of 
 the state, not otherwise. Whether native to the country or 
 accepting the benefit of its naturalization laws, there arises 
 the relation of implied contract between state and citizen 
 that the latter shall not assert individual freedom to the 
 detriment of public interest ; and if the latter apprehend 
 injury from movements either of emigration or immigration, 
 restrictive measures are proper. This is manifestly true of 
 emigration, which might take place to such an extent as 
 would seriously weaken the military resources of a nation ; 
 and Germany, of all the nations from which our immigra- 
 tion is drawn, has had reason to apprehend danger from 
 this source. Evasion of military duty has been an impor- 
 tant factor in inducing German emigration. But would not 
 the same principle hold good if the social and industrial 
 welfare of the state were threatened or its development 
 arrested or paralyzed by the expatriation of a large percent- 
 age of its capitalist or working classes ? That the question 
 has not arisen, probably never will arise, in this country, 
 does not prove that the state may not in such emergency 
 forbid such wholesale deportation, and thus revert, partially 
 at least, to the mediaeval idea of the duty of the citizen to 
 the state. 
 
 I have called this feeling an historical sentiment. Amer- 
 ica has been regarded as the " asylum of the oppressed," 
 " the refuge of the nations." Such it was, in its earlier 
 history, when the pressure of odious and tyrannical govern- 
 ments compelled a resort to flight, though by no means to 
 
294 The Immigration Problem. 
 
 the extent generally supposed. But this motive has not 
 operated to any considerable extent during the present cent- 
 ury, taking into account the entire bulk of our immigra- 
 tion. The motive has been quite wholly individual the 
 betterment of social conditions, increase of wages, larger 
 opportunity for work. If this motive were allowed to oper- 
 ate of itself, and if immigration were not stimulated by 
 factitious means, we should not have so much reason to 
 complain. The well-known fact is, however, that steamship 
 companies (for purposes of their own gain and without the 
 slightest regard to the quality and character of those they 
 bring, and through agents abroad, of whom it is reported 
 the Inman line alone has 3,500) foment this movement to 
 an abnormal extent, and are largely responsible for flooding 
 this country with the most ignorant and undesirable of the 
 masses of Europe. 
 
 We discover here, therefore, a sound political principle 
 which rightly controls all state action upon the immediate 
 question before us. The state may exclude dangerous, 
 ignorant, criminal, and vicious persons from its borders. 
 It may go farther it may justly exclude entire classes 
 whose presence would be fatal to its homogeneity as a na- 
 tion, which would introduce elements impossible of amal- 
 gamation with its people, and thereby, possibly, subversive 
 of its political institutions, whether such fears be well 
 grounded or not. The state is not omniscient, and it may 
 make blunders in legislation. In regard to any future 
 effects of unrestricted immigration, it can act only upon 
 probabilities, precisely as the individual judges as to future 
 transactions in his business. 
 
 The right being granted, it does not follow that the state 
 may deem best to exercise it ; but the time may come when 
 restriction may be put in force. With a change of con- 
 ditions the policy of government may change. The his- 
 tory of immigration into the United States is extremely sug- 
 gestive on this point. Prior to 1880 the doctrine of full and 
 unqualified freedom of migration to America had been not 
 only uniformly sustained here, but we had insisted that for- 
 eign governments should recognize in favor of this country 
 the right of their own citizens to expatriate themselves a 
 right which for centuries had been steadily denied by them. 
 So far was this insistence carried that, with limited restric- 
 tions in some countries, the right of expatriation has been 
 accorded by treaty by all European nations from which the 
 
The Immigration Problem. 295 
 
 bulk of our immigration is drawn. America has had use 
 for hewers of wood and drawers of water. The intelligent 
 class of native Americans, partly by force of immigration 
 itself, which had been mostly recruited from the lower 
 classes abroad, and partly by the law which draws the better 
 educated into the more responsible positions, had with- 
 drawn largely from the sphere of unskilled labor, and the 
 immense expansion of the country westward, necessitating 
 extensive railroad and other great constructive enterprises, 
 the building of cities, the opening of mines, and great agri- 
 cultural interests, had given scope and verge enough for all. 
 As late as 1868 Congress declared by resolution that " any 
 declaration, instruction, opinion, order, or decision of any 
 officer of the United States which denies, restricts, obstructs, 
 or questions the right of expatriation is declared inconsistent 
 with the fundamental principles of the republic " ; and in 
 a treaty made in the same year with China it was declared 
 that " the United States of America and the Emperor of 
 China cordially recognize the inherent and inalienable right 
 of man to change his home and allegiance." 
 
 Within twenty years from that date the United States 
 turned its back squarely upon these principles. During 
 this period the Chinese question came rapidly to the front. 
 Chinese cheap labor, it was alleged, was undermining fatally 
 the interests of the working classes on the Pacific coast. A 
 labor invasion was threatened. The Chinaman worked will- 
 ingly for low wages, made out to live comfortably, after his 
 fashion, on these, and to lay up something besides. Through 
 agitation of the question the matter was brought into Con- 
 gress, after various exclusion acts of the California Legisla- 
 ture had been declared by the Federal courts unconstitu- 
 tional. Commissioners were appointed, the subject was 
 investigated, and the outcome of the inquiry was the act of 
 Congress of 1888, which provided that " it shall be unlawful 
 for any Chinese laborer who shall at any time heretofore 
 have been, or who may now or hereafter be, a resident within 
 the United States, and who shall have departed, or shall 
 depart, therefrom, and shall not have returned before the 
 passage of this act, to return to, or remain in, the United 
 States." Prior to this, pursuant to treaty stipulations, the 
 United States had suspended the right of the Chinese laborer 
 to enter the country for a period of twenty years, which will 
 probably be still further extended. 
 
 What now are we to say as to tliis apparently contradict- 
 20 
 
296 The Immigration Problem. 
 
 ory action of the Government ? This only, in view of the 
 principle we have insisted upon : that it was suddenly con- 
 fronted with a new problem, and was compelled, as a mat- 
 ter of self-preservation, or supposed necessity for self-preser- 
 vation, to abandon the doctrinaire principle of " America 
 for everybody," and insist upon the exclusion of an element 
 which some of the most able of the anti-exclusionists them- 
 selves admitted to be hostile to the highest well-being of the 
 state an element incapable of assimilation incapable, if 
 coming, as they threatened to come, in great numbers, of 
 adjusting themselves to those governmental ideas and politi- 
 cal principles which have been here laboriously wrought 
 out and established. It is argued that the whole business 
 bears the ear-marks of demagogism, that it was a senseless 
 outburst of ignorant labor agitators. I do not believe this 
 to have been so, as a rule. It makes no difference whether 
 it was or not, in view of what we are asking here, viz. did 
 unrestricted Chinese immigration threaten danger ultimately 
 to the state ? I believe it did. The state, as we have said, 
 must act, as to possible future emergencies, upon probabili- 
 ties. This apprehended danger was not chimerical. In an 
 able paper recently contributed to the Nineteenth Century, 
 Mr. Arnold White, discussing the baleful effects upon na- 
 tive English labor of the influx of German and Eussian 
 Jews into London, and the necessity of governmental in- 
 terference, asserts : " Were a million Chinese, during next 
 month, to arrive equipped with no skill, knowledge, or fit- 
 ness other than mere physical fitness to engage in mechan- 
 ical task work, the evil would exist in a form sufficiently 
 acute to engage the earnest attention of Parliament and the 
 country " a wholly incidental affirmation of the justness of 
 the American position. 
 
 To return : I have referred to the Chinese question as an 
 apt illustration of the abiding right of the state to self- 
 preservation to self -protection not to be confounded with 
 the protective system, as illustrated in the tariff. The im- 
 migration question is a question of fact, not of abstract 
 right. It is the question what is for the greatest good of 
 the greatest number. No state can act upon any other 
 principle. A system of legislation is not a system of phi- 
 losophy or logic ; and, as to that, all the philosophies and 
 logics are at loggerheads. The particular measures of legis- 
 lation must have constant reference to time and place, and 
 are thus relative and subject to revision. Such is profess- 
 
The Immigration Problem. 297 
 
 edly the theory of English legislation, and, when put to the 
 stress, we have seen that in our own case our famous doc- 
 trine of absolute rights in the individual must yield to the 
 necessity of unforeseen situations. 
 
 Before proceeding to a consideration of special objections 
 to certain classes of immigrants, and special measures which 
 have been adopted to obviate them, a few statistics will be 
 instructive, which I have taken mostly from Prof. Richmond 
 Mayo-Smith's valuable and comprehensive treatise on Emi- 
 gration and Immigration. 
 
 We have no statistics of immigration prior to 1820. Vari- 
 ous computations have been made of the then existing pro- 
 portion of native and foreign-born population, but the con- 
 clusions are not material to the present state of the question. 
 Immigration on a large scale commenced with the date of 
 the Irish famine 1846. Since 1820 we have received more 
 than fifteen million immigrants, distributed as follows : 
 3,387,000 from Ireland ; 1,529,000 from England and Wales ; 
 313,000 from Scotland ; 4,359,000 from Germany ; 857,000 
 from Norway and Sweden ; 127,600 from Denmark ; 357,000 
 from France ; 160,200 from Switzerland ; 321,000 from Italy 
 this up to 1890. Of late years the German contingent 
 has exceeded the Irish. Over 700,000 people left Europe 
 in the years 1887 and 1888 to locate elsewhere, the great 
 majority belonging to the class of permanent emigrants 
 who leave with no expectation of returning. 
 
 A close analysis shows that Austria-Hungary in 1888 
 contributed 82,400. From this source we receive our Slavic- 
 Bohemian element. To within a recent period the Jewish 
 immigration came to us largely from Poland. The edict of 
 expulsion now in process of enforcement in Russia is bring- 
 ing to us 7,500 Russian Jews per month. So hardly has 
 this pressed upon the Hebrew charities of New York that 
 they have been compelled to ask assistance from the public 
 at large ; and the effect of this particular class of immigra- 
 tion upon economic conditions is arousing a widespread and 
 serious interest among economists and the working masses. 
 
 What is to be the outcome of this movement of the na- 
 tions upon American political and industrial life is a ques- 
 tion which confronts us with a problem never before pre- 
 sented in the world's history. It involves so many and 
 varied and perplexing facts and possibilities that I doubt 
 whether the most expert student- of sociologic questions 
 would venture a prophecy ; for it is quite probable that the 
 
298 The Immigration Problem. 
 
 movement has not yet approached its culmination, and 
 whatever forecasts we might venture upon to-day might be 
 vitiated by the experience and results of the next one or 
 two decades. 
 
 The most that can be done is to study the question in the 
 light of the past, expose the elements which have proved 
 unfavorable, and direct governmental and individual action 
 toward the most available remedies. 
 
 The objections which have been urged against unrestricted 
 immigration are of four kinds : 1. The moral. 2. The eco- 
 nomic. 3. The ethnic. 4. The political. These, of course, 
 are closely related, and the discussion of any one raises is- 
 sues common to all, but the distinctions are convenient for 
 discussion. 
 
 What I have called the moral objection is that which is 
 directed against the deportation to America of the vicious 
 and criminal classes. But who, you will ask, are to decide 
 as to viciousness ? Viciousness is a moral quality, the exist- 
 ence of which in any particular case is impossible of deter- 
 mination, especially where the social standing of the indi- 
 vidual appears to guarantee his virtue. The worst vices are 
 not the vices of the masses. Street brawls and drunkenness 
 and disorderly conduct do not approach in degree of inten- 
 tional vice, or in danger to the social order, the wrecking of 
 banks and trust companies, and the widespread demoraliza- 
 tion of fierce financial competition and reckless speculation. 
 With the criminal classes those of the vicious classes who 
 have been branded as criminal by the judgment of courts 
 the case is different. Something may be done toward their 
 exclusion, as their guilt is a matter of record, but their detec- 
 tion is a matter of great difficulty. The London Times of 
 January 31, 1889, says : " That the Prisoners' Aid Society 
 assists convicts to emigrate everybody knows, and probably 
 the United States receives its full quota of the persons so 
 aided." 
 
 By act of Congress of 1882 it is provided " that all for- 
 eign convicts, except those convicted of political offenses, 
 shall be sent back to the nations to which they belong, the 
 expense to be borne by the owners of the vessels in which 
 they came." With all possible exercise of care, doubtless 
 many of the criminal classes succeed in landing, and the 
 evil which, from this particular source, is probably not very 
 large, can only be mitigated. 
 
 Immensely the more important question is as to the effect 
 
The Immigration Problem. 299 
 
 upon public morals of low-class immigration. Here we 
 are assisted by careful and exact records, so far as these 
 are obtainable from the courts. In Massachusetts in 1885, 
 while 27 per cent of the total population were foreign-born, 
 40-6 per cent of the prisoners and nearly 39 per cent of 
 the convicts were foreign-born. Of the whole number of 
 prisoners, 17 per cent had both parents native-born, and 
 60-25 per cent had both parents-foreign born. Of the con- 
 victs, 19 -7 per cent had both parents native-born, and 51 
 per cent had both foreign-born. These statistics are not 
 encouraging to the citizen who believes that the vitality 
 of republican institutions rests upon individual character. 
 Education may accomplish much, give it time to work. The 
 lowest classes may, in the course of a generation, be mate- 
 rially elevated and prepared for the duties of citizenship, 
 but this ceaseless influx of ignorance and illiteracy neu- 
 tralizes the most active educational work and enterprise, 
 because a vast proportion of immigrants come here simply 
 and avowedly for money, utterly oblivious of educational 
 advantages ; in fact, caring for them not at all. The total 
 number of illiterates in Massachusetts in 1885 was 122,000 ; 
 of these, but 13,900 were native-born and 108,300 foreign- 
 born. There were 18,200 of the latter who could read and 
 write French, 6,500 German, 900 Italian, 850 Portuguese, 
 3,150 Swedish, none of whom could read and write Eng- 
 lish. This is certainly a deplorable state of facts. If these 
 statistics (and doubtless the statistics of other States, at 
 least of many others in the North, would offer the same ex- 
 hibit) if these statistics, I say, were the last statement or 
 conclusion we had to suggest or present upon the question 
 of the possibility of preserving an essential national unity, 
 the case would appear hopeless ; but we shall revert to this 
 point hereafter. 
 
 The second objection is the economic. This embraces, 
 broadly, two subjects: First, the immigration of paupers 
 and imbeciles ; Second, the effect of immigrant cheap labor 
 upon the interests of American workmen. That there has 
 existed for some years past a regulated and systematic effort 
 on the part of certain European nations to deport their 
 pauper class to America and elsewhere is now an ascertained 
 fact. This is known generally as " assisted emigration." 
 European communities suffering from overstocked popula- 
 tion, from the burden of poor rates, and severe economic 
 conditions resulting in a struggle merely for existence 
 
300 The Immigration Problem. 
 
 among a large percentage of the working classes, have re- 
 sorted to assisted emigration as a partial relief, careless of 
 the effects of this upon the social well-being and advance- 
 ment of the corresponding classes in the nation to which 
 they are expatriated. As far back as 1849 poor-law guardi- 
 ans in Ireland were empowered to borrow money for this 
 purpose. By the year 1855 one thousand Swiss emigrants 
 out of two thousand had received aid from the Swiss 
 Government and benevolent societies for the same object. 
 The evil increased to such proportions that the United 
 States were compelled to protest. The situation is so ad- 
 mirably summed up by Secretary Bayard in an answer to 
 the British Minister, who had requested to know whether 
 the United States Government would object to receiving 
 immigrants forwarded by the Local Government Board at 
 Dublin, provided such immigrants had friends in this coun- 
 try who would receive and assist them, that I quote his 
 words : " The mere fact of poverty," says the Secretary, 
 " has never been regarded as an objection to the immigrant, 
 and a large part of those who have come to our shores have 
 been persons who relied for their support solely upon the 
 exercise of thrift and manual industry. But persons whose 
 only escape from becoming and remaining a charge upon 
 the community is the expected but entirely contingent 
 voluntary help and support of friends, are not a desirable 
 accession to our population, and their exportation hither by 
 a foreign government, in order to get rid of the burden of 
 their support, could scarcely be regarded as a friendly act, or 
 in harmony with existing law." 
 
 Under the second branch of this objection we have to 
 consider the effect upon American industries of the cheap 
 immigrant labor of the most overworked, underfed, and 
 wretchedly paid working classes of Europe. This question 
 has only of late years come prominently to the front. It 
 is the " Chinese cheap labor " question over again in 
 another form. The gradual improvement of social condi- 
 tions among the American working classes during the last 
 half -century, the increasing self-respect of the American 
 laborer, due to education, political independence, and im- 
 proved sanitary conditions, has elevated him to a relative 
 civilization which the nation, out of regard to its future 
 well-being, can not afford that he should lose by an under- 
 mining of his economic value to the state through cheap- 
 labor competition. 
 
The Immigration Problem. 301 
 
 The one security for the state is the existence of an in- 
 dustrial class receiving adequate compensation for its labor, 
 relieved, as far as possible, by a fair wage system, from the 
 pressure of want, thus giving opportunity for the expansion 
 of individual ability, and fostering a just desire for im- 
 proved social conditions. If there has been one circum- 
 stance in American history potent to strengthen the bonds 
 between state and citizen, it has been the feeling of grati- 
 tude evoked by the unlimited opportunities for advance- 
 ment afforded by American institutions, unchecked by 
 social caste or imperial interference. But this advantage 
 can be hoped for only, as we have said, on the basis of the 
 financial prosperity of wage-earners. It is certainly dif- 
 ficult to prognosticate the results of the present increas- 
 ingly complex problem of industrial competition. The 
 sweating system, under which the contractor takes one half 
 the entire profits which he makes out of his contract and 
 divides the balance among his employes, the latter working 
 under sanitary conditions in tenement houses which are a 
 constant menace to the public health and fertile breeders 
 of disease and immorality, is fully established among us. 
 In London it is an old affair and has called for the repeated 
 interference of Parliament and the London County Council. 
 The class subject to this system are mostly low-class Ger- 
 mans and German Polish Jews, who subsist stealthily upon 
 food which in any reputable household would be consigned 
 to the offal heap. The trades in which they work are mostly 
 tailoring and boot and shoe making. The wages of sewing- 
 women in London have been reduced by this unfair compe- 
 tition to a shilling for fourteen hours' work. A similar 
 effect is gradually being produced here. If these incoming 
 cheap workers manifested ambition for improved social or 
 sanitary conditions it would be an alleviation of the evil ; 
 but they are apparently satisfied with long hours, low wages, 
 and living in utter disregard of the ordinary decencies of 
 life. 
 
 The question has been further complicated by the in- 
 creasing tide of Italian immigration ; but I do not regard 
 the industrial system by any means so unfavorably affected 
 thereby as by the competition in skilled labor forced upon 
 us by the class we have just considered. In considering this 
 phase of the matter it is interesting to note the positions 
 into which native American labor has been gradually forced 
 by the exigencies of new situations. During the first quar- 
 
302 The Immigration Problem. 
 
 ter of the century, and we may say until the years of the 
 Irish famine and consequent immense increase of arrivals, 
 the American, at least in the North, felt no degradation in 
 taking part in manual labor. With the advent of the Irish 
 he was displaced as an ordinary laborer ; and brought thus 
 into competition with an ignorant Irish peasantry, who 
 could underbid him constantly in wages, there was born a 
 repugnance to association with him upon the same class of 
 work and on equal terms, and he withdrew into the class of 
 skilled laborers or utilized his superior education in manu- 
 facturing enterprises and commercial pursuits. The effects 
 of this transformation are strongly pictured by Prof. Walker 
 in his article on Immigration and Population, in the Forum 
 for August, 1891 : " Throughout the New England and 
 Northern Middle States, into which the new-comers poured, 
 the standard of material living, of general intelligence, of 
 social decency, had been singularly high. Life, even at its 
 hardest, had always had its luxuries the growing child had 
 been decently dressed, the house in order, the gate hung, 
 and the shutters in place. Then came the foreigner, bring- 
 ing not only a vastly lower standard of living, but too often 
 an actual present incapacity even to understand the refine- 
 ments of life and thought in the community. Our people 
 had to look upon houses that were mere shells for human 
 habitation, the gate unhung, green pools in the yard, babes 
 and young children rolling about half naked, or worse, neg- 
 lected, dirty, unkempt." 
 
 Not only is this so, but the distinctive features of New 
 England communities have been seriously and radically al- 
 tered. In Boston, in 1885, only 31 per cent of the popu- 
 lation were of native birth i. e., born in the United States ; 
 in Lowell, only 30 per cent ; in Lawrence, 22 per cent ; in 
 Fall River, 17 per cent ; and in the small city of Holyoke, 
 but 16 per cent. Many of our factory towns and cities 
 are really foreign so far as the nationality of their in- 
 habitants is concerned. Many of the large manufactur- 
 ing centers are politically at their mercy. The extremely 
 liberal educational facilities and institutions of the Eastern 
 States of Massachusetts especially can not cope with the 
 increasing flood of ignorance and the low degree of men- 
 tality of the average immigrant. Especially is this true of 
 the French Canadian element. The employment of French 
 Canadians for factory work is comparatively a recent feat- 
 ure in the industrial history of the United States. They 
 
The Immigration Problem. 303 
 
 work in the summer, returning home, many of them, in the 
 winter. Their sole object is the accumulation of a small 
 amount of money, with which they may purchase a small 
 farm in their own country, and there return to settle. They 
 possess no public spirit, care little or nothing for education, 
 nothing for American political life or institutions. Their 
 standard of living is low. The entire family, parents and 
 children, work together, and the tendency of their influence 
 in the Eastern States is still further to depreciate social con- 
 ditions, and hinder the social advancement of the mass of 
 the working classes. 
 
 What shall be said generally of this immensely complex eco- 
 nomic question ? That it must be allowed to work itself out 
 under the operation of the natural sociologic laws of cause 
 and effect ; by adjustments between employer and employed ; 
 by gradual improvement in social conditions, aided by pri- 
 vate philanthropy, if necessary ; by education ; by the rais- 
 ing of the standard of self-respect among newly arrived 
 immigrants ; by converging upon the solution of the ques- 
 tion the results of the best sociologic study, and by the per 
 sonal and direct influence of the better-educated. This 
 problem can not be solved by governmental interference it 
 never fails to work greater confusion. Legislative action 
 can not be adjusted to economic issues of this class, variable 
 and fluctuating as they are, and will continue to be, were 
 every congressman a professor of sociology. 
 
 The third objection to uncontrolled immigration is based 
 upon ethnic grounds that is to say, it demands the exclu- 
 sion of all nationalities which are so diverse from our own 
 people in racial characteristics that such diversity appears 
 an insuperable barrier to racial amalgamation. The case of 
 the Chinese we have discussed. While the opposition was 
 professedly organized upon industrial grounds, there existed 
 behind and beyond these a justifiable apprehension that the 
 Mongolian could not be assimilated so far as to work in 
 harmony with the social and political features of the coun- 
 try. It is difficult to say where the line shall be drawn 
 what nations shall be included and what excluded. The 
 question must be answered, as far as possible, in the light of 
 history; and from historical considerations it would seem 
 that the Germanic, or, if you prefer, Teutonic, and Latin 
 races possess the characteristics most readily fusible with 
 our own nationality generally speaking, the Indo-European 
 stock. The problem has never yet been so sharply pre- 
 
304 The Immigration Problem. 
 
 sented to us as in the case of the Chinese. But there is a 
 growing apprehension that the increasing volume of Bo- 
 hemian-Hungarian immigration is distinctly unfavorable to 
 American social unity. The immigration has not yet 
 reached such proportions as to call for action by the state, 
 if, indeed, such action will ever be found necessary. This 
 phase of the problem (I mean the exclusion of races other 
 than the Chinese) is a matter upon which we can only 
 speculate, and upon which speculations will vary widely. In 
 this connection, however, the question of ultimate racial 
 mixtures and racial amalgamation in this country may be 
 considered. A mixture of races is held by many to be a 
 source of national strength and character. Mixed races, 
 according to this doctrine, are the strongest. Now, if this 
 means that in these United States there may be, or should 
 be, a complete fusion of nationalities, which shall absorb 
 and submerge completely the peculiar features of all, result- 
 ing in one homogeneous and, in evolutionary phraseology, 
 undifferentiated social structure, I say that such will never 
 be the case. Large quotas of our present and future popu- 
 lation will always refuse to blend in this manner. The col- 
 ored race, which is by no means dying out, of course is ex- 
 cluded. The millions of Hebrews will not amalgamate with 
 us. The statistics of marriages do not show any considera- 
 ble tendency toward racial fusion. In localities where a 
 particular nationality prevails largely, men prefer wives of 
 their own race. Out of 10,000 Irishmen living in New York 
 city, over 9,400 chose wives born in Ireland ; 393 had native- 
 born wives. The same fact appears among the Germans. 
 Intermarriages among the Slavic and Italian races or of 
 these with native Americans will be so infrequent as never 
 to become a factor in the case. But while there will, prob- 
 ably, never be complete fusion, this does not preclude the 
 establishment of complete political unity, of a nationality 
 based upon the full and willing acceptance by all of Ameri- 
 can political institutions, which shall develop a patriotic 
 sentiment and a strong co-operative national life. It may, 
 in fact, be questioned whether complete absorption would 
 be desirable. Nations progress by the interaction of vary- 
 ing social forces. You will find complete homogeneity only 
 in savage tribes or among the most backward nations. 
 Conflict of social elements, provided these can be held in 
 reasonable political subordination, conduces to the highest 
 social type in the long run. The test of a vigorous nation- 
 
The Immigration Problem. 305 
 
 ality is the readiness with which all its elements, be they 
 ever so heterogeneous in origin, will consolidate for defense 
 of the nation in serious emergencies, such as war or threat- 
 ened invasion. 
 
 If no other benefit had accrued from the recent sectional 
 strife in this country than the demonstration how far for- 
 eign elements had been wrought into the national life, and 
 how sensitive these had become on the question of the pres- 
 ervation of national unity, we could have been thankful for 
 the lesson. It is no longer any sort of question whether 
 Germans or Irish can be brought into harmony with what I 
 have called the American idea. The civil war settled that. 
 It is a question now of the Italian-Bohemian-Hungarian 
 factor. As to the former, the question and answer have 
 passed into history ; as to the latter, we can only leave it to 
 the future. 
 
 Fourth, let us consider the question from the political 
 side. Does immigration threaten American political insti- 
 tutions ? This is really the test question. While it is true 
 that institutions are made for man, and not man for insti- 
 tutions, yet it is equally true that it is only under satisfactory 
 political institutions that social, moral, and economic prog- 
 ress is possible. We contend that the American idea offers 
 the best vantage ground upon which these may be evolved. 
 So far as the preservation of republican government is con- 
 cerned, I think the danger is exceedingly remote. But the 
 claim is that the standard of political morals has been ma- 
 terially lowered, especially in large centers of population, 
 and that the suffrage has been demoralized ; that local par- 
 tisan politics are corrupted, that the boss system is a stand- 
 ing menace to that free political action which the state 
 demands of its citizens, and that this system nourishes among 
 us by taking advantage of the ignorance and illiteracy of 
 the immigrant class. Let the fact be acknowledged. What 
 I mostly wonder at is that with this swarm of ignorance 
 and illiteracy infesting our large cities we have succeeded 
 as well as we have. It is only in the surmounting of diffi- 
 culties that progress is really measured, and I consider it an 
 extraordinary tribute to the generous wisdom and abundant 
 vitality of American institutions that our municipal govern- 
 ments have succeeded as well as they have. Lapses from 
 political virtue are lamentably frequent, but these have 
 never yet failed to develop a powerful reaction in support of 
 political honor, and not seldom have these reactions been 
 
306 The Immigration Problem. 
 
 due in large measure to leaders who have been themselves 
 of the immigrant class, or but one generation removed, 
 The fact is that not only does the political freedom of Ameri- 
 can life afford wide opportunity for fraud and peculation, 
 but it at the same time gives free play and still greater op- 
 portunity for the honest elements to mass their sentiments 
 in favor of honest government, and bring them to bear at 
 once, and with immediate and overpowering effect, unham- 
 pered by aristocracies or bureaucracies. 
 
 As to anarchistic and ultra-socialistic views, we have no 
 great reason to apprehend any widespread serious conse- 
 quences. The fact is admitted by anarchists themselves 
 that this country is one of the most unpromising for the 
 propagation of root and branch ideas. Every laborer who 
 acquires a small savings-bank account is a capitalist. Possi- 
 bilities of accumulating property here completely nullify 
 anarchistic ideas. It is as easy to overturn the pyramids as 
 a commonwealth so thoroughly broad-based upon the peo- 
 ple's will as our own. The outbreaks in Chicago and New 
 Orleans were wholly local, and indicate no unrest among 
 the masses in the direction of dangerous socialism. It is 
 the most important safeguard which American institutions 
 possess, that the right of individual property, right to pur- 
 chase, hold, and benefit therefrom, unhindered by artificial so- 
 cial conditions, is guaranteed to all, without reserve. Trades- 
 unions, once regarded unfavorably as opposed to capital, are 
 now' found to be ranged directly in line with capital and 
 forming one of its very bulwarks. The opportunity for dis- 
 ruption of American institutions by foreign radicals of the 
 immigrant class is of the slightest. 
 
 In view of the complications of the immigration problem, 
 it is natural to ask, What is the remedy ? The answer is, 
 that there is no one specific remedy which promises to cure 
 the difficulty. There are two courses which suggest them- 
 selves prohibition and regulation. The former it is im- 
 possible to enforce, at least as against Europeans, and we 
 are therefore confined to the latter. Enlargement of exist- 
 ing laws, greater restrictions upon wholesale immigration 
 regardless of the character of the immigrant, the full en- 
 forcement of inspection laws these and similar measures 
 thoroughly administered will alleviate the difficulty. But 
 it will readily be seen that the problem must be solved as 
 difficulties arise. That there is in existence among Ameri- 
 cans a large and rapidly increasing body of opinion adverse 
 
The Immigration Problem. 307 
 
 to this practically unlimited flow of immigration is unde- 
 niable, and that it will make itself felt is certain. 
 
 Yet upon a review of the entire present situation I think 
 we may be optimists. Notwithstanding all unfavorable feat- 
 ures, there are antagonizing elements constantly at work, 
 not the less potent because they work silently. We may 
 attach undue importance to statistics merely. We may not 
 sufficiently observe the influences in fact, the immigrant 
 himself may not be conscious of them which year after 
 year tend to adjust his habits of thought and his political 
 views and actions to his new environment. Freedom of 
 suffrage, educational advantages, improved industrial con- 
 ditions, the dignity of citizenship, equal laws, protection of 
 property all these nourish in him an increasing respect for 
 the American system ; and we have reason to believe that, 
 under proper legislation, the combined influence of all of 
 these will in the long run fully neutralize the distinctly un- 
 favorable results of future immigration. 
 
 NOTE. In addition to the collateral readings suggested in connection with 
 this lecture, we mention a recent valuable article in the Forum for March, 1892, 
 by Senator Chandler, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Immigration, on 
 restrictions upon immigration. The radical divergence of the various opinions 
 called forth in answer to inquiries as to how far restriction should be carried 
 indiqates the unsettled state of opinion in the country on this most important of 
 all present national questions. For those who would examine more in detail 
 into the question, which can here be treated in the merest outline, reference is 
 made to the valuable bibliography at the close of Prof. Mayo-Smith's work above 
 quoted. 
 
308 The Immigration Problem. 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 
 
 CHARLES B. SPAHR, PH. D. : 
 
 It would be embarrassing to talk on this question since I hardly 
 know where I stand myself if I didn't know that agnosticism is tol- 
 erated here. There was a time when I did know something about this 
 question or thought I did but that was long ago. I have no doubt 
 that when the restriction of Chinese immigration was first proposed 
 most of us felt it to be in violation of the teachings of Christianity 
 and the spirit of our American institutions. But I have no doubt that 
 now four fifths of this audience believe that Chinese exclusion is right. 
 I am for the protection of American civilization against the Asiatic. 
 We have here a certain territory, and in it we have a high state of civ- 
 ilization or a low one. As in former days we had a class favoring the 
 introduction of slavery into new States and Territories, and another 
 opposing it, so now we have a class opposing the introduction of Chi- 
 nese labor and the sweating system. When Thomas Jefferson urged 
 the exclusion of slavery from the Northwest Territory the land-owners 
 were not on his side. The land-owners of Indiana wanted population 
 and cheap labor. The land-owners of the East want cheap labor, and 
 so they favor unrestricted immigration. Because not only the land- 
 owners and employers, but also the laboring men, make political senti- 
 ment in this country, there has been a great change in public senti- 
 ment on this question. Ten years ago Mr. Beecher disposed of this 
 question in a single sentence. He said : " An ox eats hay ; but the ox 
 does not turn into hay ; the hay turns into ox." And so it was thought 
 we could receive, without hurt, unlimited immigration from every 
 country on the globe. But we have found one kind of immigrant that 
 can not be turned into ox. The Chinese ranks not as hay, but as gar- 
 bage, and if the ox takes too much, the change takes place in the 
 wrong way. 
 
 One class says we ought to allow unrestricted immigration; 
 another that foreigners should be prevented from voting until after a 
 residence of fifteen years. Against extreme positions like these it 
 would be easy to open discussion. But in reply to the thoroughly sen- 
 sible talk to which we have listened to-night there is nothing for me 
 to say. I agree that the evils of foreign immigration and citizenship 
 can be greatly exaggerated. In Fall River, statistics show that only 
 31 per cent, of the voters are native-born ; but the Irish are so Ameri- 
 
The Immigration Problem. 309 
 
 canized that they have adopted public measures which 1 doubt if 
 this audience is quite up to. By the Irish vote every dram-shop 
 in the city was closed up. On the temperance question the Irish of 
 Fall River are ten years ahead of the Americans of New York and 
 Brooklyn. 
 
 The only point on which I absolutely disagree with the speaker is in 
 regard to the statistics of Massachusetts, showing that a greater per- 
 centage of criminals were foreign-born than of the entire population. 
 The figures are correct but misleading. The Evening Post, in an edi- 
 torial upon the disappearance of the native race, compares the number 
 of marriages and deaths among the foreign and native born and finds 
 an alarming excess of deaths over marriages among the native-born. 
 But as children of foreign-born parents are counted as native Ameri- 
 cans, and as over one half the deaths are of children under five years 
 of age, the Post's conclusions are manifestly erroneous. So, too, the 
 children produce practically no criminals. A more careful examina- 
 tion shows that of all over eighteen years of age the foreign popula- 
 tion produces a smaller percentage of criminals than the native-born. 
 The foreigners are not so immoral as they are painted. The most for- 
 eign town that I ever was in in America is the only town of its size 
 that I know where there is no open house of immorality. The im- 
 morality in the foreign parts of New York city is less than in other 
 parts. 
 
 The rapidity with which foreigners become Americanized is illus- 
 trated by the experience of a gentleman in Boston. In his philan- 
 thropic work on the east side he had gotten quite a hold on the Italian 
 population. A small boy once asked him : " Are you a Protestant \ " 
 He said " Yes," and the boy seemed much disappointed. But presently 
 he brightened up and said : " You are an American, ain't you 1 " 
 " Yes." " So am I," with satisfaction. Children become American to 
 that extent that they don't like to have it known that they have for- 
 eign parents. One little girl of German parentage, speaking of her 
 teacher, said : " She's a lady she can't speak German at all." 
 
 The Hungarians are not assimilated, I know. The importation of 
 Hungarians into Hocking Valley was an evil. But we have the power 
 of assimilating immigrants from most European countries. Like the 
 speaker, I ani not in favor of the more drastic measures to prevent im- 
 migration. But I believe that the steamship companies that decoy 
 immigrants ought to have the penalty of the law before them. Any 
 steamship company bringing over one of the prohibited class should 
 not only take him back free, but pay back the price of passage. They 
 are like the old slave-traders, bringing over men merely for the sake of 
 money. 
 
310 The Immigration Problem. 
 
 I do not quite agree with the lecturer about the unwisdom of Con- 
 gress. The sociologist and scientist do have to take the background 
 and admit that progressive thinking on social questions comes from 
 the backwoodsmen. On the temperance question, labor question, etc., 
 they are ahead. Congress in the long run does act upon the ideas that 
 the hard knocks of experience have taught to the men of the country. 
 All of these questions are really labor questions. The introduction of 
 a low class of labor keeps production in America at a low level. It 
 may be a temporary benefit to the land-owner to bring in slaves, but 
 with such cheap labor there is never any inducement for the introduc- 
 tion of improvements in methods and machinery. The immigrants of 
 '53 brought with them an average of three hundred dollars per family. 
 Last year the average was seventy-five dollars. We are not getting as 
 high a type as formerly. This question has got to be settled in the 
 interest of civilization and of the country, so as to raise the standard 
 of living among laborers. The position the trades-unions have taken 
 has been good. There is a vast amount of wealth in the country, and 
 the question is not how to make sixty billions or one hundred and 
 twenty billions more, but how the next sixty billions can be used to im- 
 prove the condition of the poor. 
 
 DR. ROBERT G-. ECCLES : 
 
 This is a problem somewhat difficult for me to discuss, as I came 
 here a foreigner myself. I have noticed that when a street-car is 
 crowded it is the last man who enters that makes the most fuss when 
 his toes are trodden on, and so it is with the immigrants. It is not 
 the native Americans, but the Irish, who are most bitter against the 
 Italians and the Chinese. In this problem we may take either of two 
 standpoints : one is the ethical, which has been lost sight of to-night ; 
 the other that of expediency, which is based on pure selfishness. It is 
 evident that we in America have to act upon the ground of expe- 
 diency ; but we ought not to lose sight of the ethical. So long as the 
 country has room enough for the population to expand and grow, I 
 don't believe the introduction of any man will harm it not even if he 
 be a Chinaman. The country would not be what it is now if it were not 
 for Chinese immigration. The Chinese built the Pacific Railroad, and 
 were largely instrumental in building up the Pacific slope, and now it 
 is the Pacific slope which is fighting them. I do not advocate Chi- 
 nese immigration, but from the standpoint of ethics we have no right 
 to exclude immigrants from any nation. From the standpoint of ex- 
 pediency, on the other hand, we have a right to protect ourselves from 
 every nation. Let us put an import duty on the laborer as we do on 
 goods. If every one, without regard to his nationality, has to pay one 
 
The Immigration Problem. 311 
 
 hundred dollars tax when he lands, we will get rid of the helpless and 
 shiftless and allow only the worthy to come in. 
 
 Let us look at a nation, as Herbert Spencer does, as an organism 
 an evolved being and we shall see that that being has a system like 
 our own. It has a circulatory system railroads, canals, etc. ; a nerv- 
 ous system telegraphs, telephones, etc. ; definite depots for the pro- 
 duction of things necessary for its support, which correspond with 
 the vital portions of the human organism. Dangers to the nation are 
 similar to those which threaten the health of the individual. If the 
 thing I take in is on a much lower plane of development than my own 
 structure, and of a type not stable not fully alive but decaying the 
 danger is great. The danger to health comes not from individual 
 bacteria, but from bacteria settling in certain localities in colonies, 
 and there breeding and increasing. All dangerous diseases begin in 
 such colonies and spread through the body. The analogy holds good 
 in the nation. The danger from foreigners comes when they form a 
 nidus, as it were when the Chinese cluster together as they do in San 
 Francisco and defy our Government and civilization, and send out 
 thence a poisonous influence, just like the bacteria in our bodies. 
 Such performances as those of the Clan-na-Gael in Chicago, and of the 
 Irish in New York on St. Patrick's Day, are examples. We should not 
 allow foreigners to foster foreign ideas in this country. As long as 
 they do it we are in danger from such organizations as the Mafia in 
 New Orleans. The concentration of foreign elements from one nation 
 in one place and the development there of their national characteristics 
 is dangerous. Our safety lies in letting the evil tendencies of different 
 nations check each other. Let one evil kill another. Let the mean, 
 selfish characteristics of the Irish clash with and kill the mean, selfish 
 characteristics of the Germans, and so forth. Immigration free and 
 unrestricted, save by the imposition of the tax of which I spoke, means 
 safety and improvement of the standard of American people. " As- 
 sisted " immigrants should be sent back home. 
 
 MR. ALFRED J. WOLFE: 
 
 I am a member of the Knights of Labor, and this organization is 
 discussing a question upon which I would like to have the views of the 
 speaker. Some hold, with T. V. Powderly, that to restrict immigra- 
 tion for ten years by means of a tax would produce amelioration in 
 the condition of the laborer, and a rise of wages. Others oppose this 
 view. I should like to be enlightened. 
 
 21 
 
312 The Immigration Problem. 
 
 DR. LEWIS G. JANES : 
 
 A word in regard to certain classes of foreign-born laborers in our 
 own community may be of interest. The Chinese question in New 
 York and Brooklyn is not sufficiently serious for governmental inter- 
 ference, though in California it may be. The Chinese here are usually 
 good citizens. They are industrious, they charge a fair price for their 
 work, and do good work which meets a demand. The Italians are ob- 
 jected to because they work for low wages ; but as citizens they are 
 not usually objectionable. They are frugal and do not come on the 
 community for support. A gentleman in the employ of the charity 
 organization tells me that no Italians apply to them for help, and but 
 few colored people. The applicants are mostly Irish. I agree with 
 the lecturer that in one or two generations nearly all who come to this 
 country are transformed into good American citizens. 
 
 MR. SAMPSON, in closing : I am obliged to Mr. Spahr for supplement- 
 ing the lecture in the matter of criminal statistics, but do not remem- 
 ber that I have anywhere spoken disparagingly of congressional action. 
 
 We may easily be mistaken as to the average of morality among 
 the immigrant classes if we hold too closely to statistics. Mr. Eugene 
 Schuyler, a resident for three years in the vicinity of Genoa, reports 
 that in that community doors were habitually kept unlocked, that no 
 murder had been committed in three years, and that the lower classes 
 were everywhere law-abiding. It is true that the Italian is quick to 
 use the stiletto, but that is a habit due to the inheritance of centuries. 
 The vendetta, as practiced among them, is due to the same cause ; it 
 dates back to the old blood-feud theory, as not only allowed, but incul- 
 cated as a sacred family duty among our own Teutonic ancestry, and 
 still practiced among the Sicilians, Corsicans, and Sardinians, though 
 not at present for so good a reason. 
 
 I thought I had given much of my lecture to consideration of the 
 ethical aspects of this question, and am quite surprised at Dr. Eccles's 
 criticism. The entire lecture has dealt with rights as between nation 
 and nation and the nation and the individual. Mr. Spencer's theory 
 as to the effect upon national life of the formation of what he calls the 
 nidus of unhealthy germs is quite true ; but then the question arises, 
 How shall we break up and distribute this nidus f Like will always 
 seek like, and these diseased spots can be counteracted only by strength- 
 ening the social system and social order. 
 
 It is possible that a temporary exclusion of foreigners might have a 
 favorable effect on labor ; but immigration has been going on too long, 
 and has gone too far. No power on earth can now stop it. Consider 
 the family relations between those here and those left behind. The 
 
The Immigration Problem. 313 
 
 nexus between this country and the old is like roots in the ground, and 
 it is impossible to break it off. If it could be done, very likely wages 
 would rise. But another law would step in. Would not the members 
 of the trades-unions have to pay more for what they buy f It seems 
 to me to be a general law that in the long run when wages are high 
 prices are high. I do not think that the plan proposed would ulti- 
 mately be for the benefit of the laborer. 
 
THE EVOLUTION 
 OF THE AFRIC -AMERICAN 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL J. BARROWS 
 
 EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN REGISTER. 
 
COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED: 
 
 Williams's History of the Colored Race in America ; Brackett's The 
 Negro in Maryland, and Notes on the Progress of the Colored People ; 
 Fortune's Black and White ; Cable's The Negro Question, and The 
 Silent South ; Mayo's Third Estate at the South ; Grady's In Plain 
 Black and White, in Century, April, 1888 ; Bruce's The Plantation 
 Negro as a Freeman ; Blair's The Prosperity of the South Dependent 
 on the Elevation of the Negro ; Godkin's The Republican Party and 
 the Negro, in Forum, May, 1889 ; Stetson's Problem of Negro Educa- 
 tion ; Census Statistics bearing on the Increase and Illiteracy of the 
 Colored Race ; Statistics relating to Negro Labor in Southern Manu- 
 factures, in Chattanooga Tradesman, 1891. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE AFRIC- 
 
 AMERICAN. 
 
 BY REV. SAMUEL J. BARROWS. 
 
 IT is a curious coincidence in American history that about 
 the same year the Mayflower landed at Plymouth the first 
 slave ship sailed up the James River. The Pilgrims, when 
 they landed, met the race problem in the shape of the In- 
 dian. The slave ship brought a new race and a new prob- 
 lem to our shores. White, red, black, were three race col- 
 ors which early revealed themselves in our colonial history a 
 narrow coast ribbon of white, a little speck of black, and a 
 broad expanse of red of varying hue, rather thinly laid on, 
 but tinging the map from ocean to ocean. After two hun- 
 dred and seventy years, when we draw again an ethnological 
 map of the United States, the three colors are still there. 
 But what a change in their proportions ! The fringe of 
 white has become a great sheet, spreading over the continent 
 and represented by sixty millions of people. The little speck 
 of black has become a broad belt, the girdle of the Gulf 
 States, representing seven millions of people ; while the red 
 is reduced to a few pathetic patches in the far West, repre- 
 senting but two hundred and fifty thousand Indians, which, 
 if distributed, would only assign nine Indians to a county 
 throughout the United States ; while on the Pacific coast a 
 fringe of yellow is added to the original three colonial col- 
 ors. Europe, Asia, and Africa share with the red man the 
 continent the four hundredth anniversary of whose discov- 
 ery we are soon to celebrate. 
 
 From the first the white collided with the Indian, as he 
 has since collided with the Negro ajid the Mongolian. The 
 collision with the Indian was the collision of civilization 
 with savagery ; with the Mongolian the collision has been 
 industrial and social ; with the Negro there was practically 
 no collision until emancipation. Up to that time he was 
 not an industrial, social, or a political competitor ; he was a 
 slave. 
 
 The traveler through the South is struck with the strange 
 fact that the Indian race is known only by the tombstones 
 it has left behind. There are swarms of Indian names, 
 
318 The Evolution of the Afric- American. 
 
 but the towns they designate are held only by colored peo- 
 ple and whites. The Indian is no longer a menace to our 
 civilization. We have continually pushed him outside of it. 
 But a great strip of dark Africa has been woven into the 
 tissue of our republic. Can it be unraveled ? 
 
 It was the white man North as well as South that in- 
 vited the Negro to come. The Negro came not because he 
 wanted to, but because he could not help it. And now after 
 two hundred and seventy years' residence in this country, 
 and an increase to over seven millions of people, it is idle 
 to ask the question, Has he come to stay ? The Negro has 
 come to stay just as certainly as the Pilgrim who came at 
 the same time. But he has not come to stay as a Negro any 
 more than the Pilgrim came to stay as a Pilgrim. So long 
 as the slave trade continued, fresh importations of Negroes 
 poured into this country the raw and undigested material 
 of African savagery. But when that stream was shut off, 
 and later when manumission followed, the dark race in this 
 country was committed to the operation and modification of 
 the great forces of social, industrial, and religious evolution 
 which are molding and developing American civilization on 
 this continent. 
 
 To the Brooklyn Ethical Association, which has devoted 
 itself so earnestly and profitably to the study and diffusion 
 of the doctrine of evolution, I need not spend a moment 
 in justifying the doctrine itself. It is rather my task to 
 show its application in some measure to the dark race in 
 this country. A few papers that have been written upon 
 the future of the Negro base their hopeless view almost 
 entirely upon what he is and has been in Africa, removed 
 from the pale of civilization. Heredity is of course a great 
 factor in social and individual development; but every 
 student of evolution knows that you can not determine the 
 future of an animal wholly by studying him in the egg. 
 And those who declare that the Negro can not in this 
 country outgrow the conditions of savagery which have 
 marked him in Africa, utterly ignore the existence and op- 
 eration here of mighty forces which did not operate upon 
 him there. They neglect one of the most potent of evolu- 
 tionary factors the power of a new environment, and the 
 Positive forces it may represent. Thus I have seen a Sioux 
 ndian, with no particle of white blood in him, taken right 
 from the woods, put upon a railroad and carried from his 
 home into the midst of white civilization. The difference 
 
The Evolution of the Afric- American. 319 
 
 in his environment between his white home and his forest 
 home measured on the map was two thousand miles ; meas- 
 ured in human history, it was twenty or more thousand years. 
 That Indian has gone through the schools with white boys ; 
 taken a high rank in a New England college ; repeated his 
 success in a medical college ; graduated as a full-fledged doc- 
 tor, and married a white lady of some literary reputation. 
 With such amazing rapidity can the transition be sometimes 
 made by a single individual from the barbarism of twenty 
 thousand years ago to a rank far in advance of the average 
 man in the civilization of our day. So potent are the forces 
 which environment and education may represent. 
 
 Hence I have not thought it worth while to spend much 
 time in showing what the Negro is or has been in Africa. 
 Such a study is valuable mainly to show what are the racial 
 characteristics with which the new civilization has to deal. 
 The more important question is, What do facts show it is 
 possible to do with the African in this country ? It is a 
 short historic journey back to the barbarism of our Anglo- 
 Saxon ancestors ; if they had not been caught up and in- 
 cluded in the spreading stream of Greek and Eoman civil- 
 ization we should probably have been living in rude cabins 
 surrounded by domestic animals and drinking not from 
 Dresden or Eoyal Worcester, but from rude pottery or the 
 skulls of our enemies. The Afric- American race in this 
 country is being merged in the same historic stream, and 
 the question is, Will it sink or swim ? I have no hesitation 
 in saying that it will swim. 
 
 The remarkable difference which environment will pro- 
 duce upon a race is nowhere better illustrated than in the 
 different fortunes of the Negro and Indian races in this 
 country. A few tribes of Indians were absorbed by the 
 whites and lost their racial distinction. But the majority 
 were kept wholly outside of the pale of white civilization. 
 They were penned in reservations and left to their language 
 and their traditions. The Negroes, on the contrary, were not 
 imported tribe by tribe, and no tribal lines were preserved. 
 They were diffused through the civilization of the whites. 
 They worked in the white man's field, lived in his home, 
 learned his language, and copied, as far as permitted, his 
 institutions. Without waiting for act of Congress, the 
 imported heathen African eventually became a naturalized 
 American. The average colored boy of the South no more 
 thinks of Africa as his home than the son of the Pilgrim 
 
320 The Evolution of the Afric- American. 
 
 thinks of England as his home. The term Negro is no 
 longer an appropriate scientific term to apply to the dark 
 race in this country. The Afric-American or the colored 
 American is the truer designation. The Negro is a purely 
 African product. The Afric or colored American is the 
 Negro plus the environment and development represented 
 by periods of ancestral residence varying from fifty to two 
 hundred and fifty years. 
 
 What, then, has been the influence of his life in this coun- 
 try upon the African? 
 
 His history in this country is divisible into a period of 
 slavery and a period of freedom. The period of slavery 
 covers over two centuries. The period of freedom is less 
 than thirty years. 
 
 I. His life under slavery was marked by important 
 changes in his physical condition. The Negroes imported 
 to this country were not all of one type. Though largely 
 from the coast, they represented different tribes of varying 
 intelligence brought from the interior in the slave trade. 
 One of the effects of redistribution in this country has been 
 to blend more or less these different tribes and to extinguish 
 all sense of tribal heritage or division. Thus the pure- 
 blooded Africans in this country are far more homogeneous 
 than the Indians who are separated by ancient tribal ani- 
 mosities and by boundaries of custom and speech. 
 
 But there is another physical fact which the ethnologist 
 must recognize ; it is that a new race, which is neither white 
 nor black, but which partakes of the qualities of both, has 
 sprung into being on this continent. Two centuries ago 
 there was a black band and a white band ; now there is a 
 shaded Afghan. It is impossible to tell where white begins 
 and black ends. You can not draw absolutely the color 
 line, because there is no color line left ; there is simply a 
 blending of shades. The extremes, the pure-blooded white 
 and the pure-blooded African, may be identified ; but you 
 may place a row of men between them of varying shades 
 who can not be said to belong to either race because they 
 belong to both. They are not Africans or Europeans ; 
 they are Afric-Americans. This is one of the most im- 
 portant results of the colonization of the African in this 
 country. The question is raised, Shall the races mix ? The 
 answer is, They have mixed. And the question, Shall they 
 continue to mix ? will probably be answered in the future 
 to some degree as it has been in the past. This is one of 
 
The Evolution of the Afric- American. 321 
 
 the most important contributions which the Southern white 
 man has made to the problem the contribution of his own 
 blood. Laws were early passed against the intermarriage of 
 whites and blacks, but how little they availed is seen in the 
 vast population of mulattoes and octoroons through the 
 South. Undoubtedly amalgamation would have gone on 
 had both races been entirely free. The rigid caste lines 
 drawn by slavery tended to prevent it, but the fact that the 
 slave was only a piece of property, like a horse or a cow, 
 tended to promote it. And one of the most terrible features 
 of slavery as it now appears to us was, that under the system 
 of slave concubinage men held their own offspring, a race of 
 semi-white slaves, in bondage, and even sold them as mer- 
 chandise. 
 
 But the forces which operated upon the Negro in slavery 
 were not only physical ; they were intellectual, social, and 
 moral. There were forces which hindered and there 
 were forces which helped. To note the hindrances we 
 need only to turn to the statute books of the Southern 
 States in slave times. It is very evident that all influ- 
 ences were to be withheld from the Negro which should 
 prevent him from ever being anything but a slave. It 
 was possible to buy his personal freedom ; but his intel- 
 lectual, social, and political freedom were to be forever with- 
 held. In the case of several of the States it was a penal 
 offense to teach slaves the elements of common learning. 
 In Virginia the fine for teaching reading or writing to 
 slaves, or even to free colored persons, was from $10 to $100 ; 
 in Alabama from $250 to $500 ; in Mississippi the punish- 
 ment was imprisonment for one year ; in South Carolina, 
 Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi no one could emancipate 
 a slave except by authority of the Legislature. " In Georgia 
 a will setting free a slave was null and void ; any person at- 
 tempting to execute it was fined $1,000." The discrimi- 
 nations against the Negro extended to the criminal code. 
 There was one set of laws for the white and another for the 
 black. That the Negro made little progress in education in 
 two hundred years of slavery is easily explained the white 
 man did not mean that he should. He was looked upon as 
 under a divine curse which it was only the duty of the white 
 man to perpetuate. " He was doomed," as Judge Ruffin, of 
 North Carolina, sorrowfully declared, " to live without knowl- 
 edge and without the capacity to make anything his own, 
 and to toil that another may reap the fruits." 
 
322 The Evolution of the Afric- American. 
 
 Yet if there were forces which hindered there were also 
 forces which helped. It was impossible for the white man 
 to make the Negro an efficient slave without in some way 
 contributing to his development. The Negro came into 
 contact with a race of greater intelligence. He learned 
 its language. He acquired some of its arts and indus- 
 tries. He was taught to work. He exchanged tribal organ- 
 ization for family life, the authority of a petty barbarian 
 chieftain for that of a master who, though sometimes a white 
 barbarian, was as often a kind and considerate patriarch. 
 Two qualities the Negro brought with him from Africa : one 
 was a native imitativeness which gave him remarkable facil- 
 ity in copying the life he entered ; the other was a natural 
 docility and affection which easily yielded to superior 
 authority, and which clung with loyalty and devotion to 
 the oak around which it climbed. The patriarchal element 
 in slavery brought out this loyalty and devotion in the 
 highest degree. The master was often looked up to as a 
 kind father and friend by the serfs that clustered around 
 him. With all the horrors of slavery, there are nowhere to 
 be found more beautiful instances of devoted personal at- 
 tachment than those which existed between masters and 
 slaves. And in all history the loyalty and affection of the 
 Negro was put to no severer test than it was in the war. As 
 a Southern general said to me : " When we went to the war, 
 our wives and daughters were all at their mercy on the 
 plantations ; there was nothing to prevent the slaves from 
 annihilating them. But their loyalty deserves our everlast- 
 ing gratitude." 
 
 Nor must we overlook the influence on the religious life 
 of the Negro which was exerted during slavery. It was 
 piety not closely combined with morality ; it was strongly 
 infused with superstition, some of it black and a good deal 
 of it white ; but it was about the only form of associated 
 activity permitted to the Negro ; it helped to restrain his 
 hand during the war, and it laid the foundation for his re- 
 markable religious development under freedom. 
 
 It was not from slavery as an institution, but from con- 
 tact with the forms, spirit, and forces of civilization, that 
 the Negro derived these advantages. His slavery was the 
 price he paid for it. It was as expensive to the white man 
 as it was to the Negro. The war which freed the slave 
 freed the white man from the curse of the same system. 
 Nominally, the Negro has been free for twenty-nine years. 
 
The Evolution of the Afric- American. 323 
 
 But it was not until the war closed and both armies were 
 disbanded, and social and industrial reconstruction began, 
 that his freedom became operative. One fourth of a cen- 
 tury covers his experience with freedom. What has he done 
 with it, and what has it done for him ? 
 
 In an extensive trip through the South last spring, I en- 
 deavored to obtain a body of evidence on this subject. My 
 testimony was taken from both whites and Negroes in every 
 station of life rural, urban, industrial, and domestic. I 
 visited the colored people in their homes, schools, and 
 churches, in the thickly populated regions of the Black 
 Belt. In two annual sessions of the Mohonk Indian Confer- 
 ence I have had opportunities for conference with represent- 
 ative men from all parts of the South, most of them educa- 
 tors of the colored people. My object has been to compare 
 the condition of the colored people immediately after the 
 war as I knew it personally, and as any one may know it 
 who studies the record, with their present condition and 
 prospects after twenty-five years of freedom. In an article 
 in the Atlantic Monthly for June, 1891, I have treated one 
 phase of that question, namely : What the Southern Negro 
 is doing for Himself. I refer to the details there given, and 
 also to a paper read before the Mohonk Negro Conference 
 in June last on The Situation of the Negro, and the Negro's 
 View of the Situation, in general support of my position. 
 In preparing this paper, however, I have for some weeks 
 past been engaged in collecting a fresh body of testimony 
 concerning various aspects of this problem. 
 
 When the slave became a freed man two great evolution- 
 ary forces were free to operate upon him as they had not 
 been before. One was industrial, the other educational. 
 When he became free to labor for himself, to acquire and 
 hold property, he felt the impulse and allurement of new 
 and powerful motives. When he became free to learn all 
 that he was capable of learning, and when the white man, 
 too, became free to teach him all he was capable of teaching 
 him, the colored man was brought out from the gray dark- 
 ness of slavery into the intellectual sunburst of the nine- 
 teenth century. A new set of ethical motives began to 
 operate upon him and he began to respond to them. The 
 result has been that no race in the history of the world of 
 which we have any knowledge has made more progress in 
 twenty-five years. 
 
 Of these great evolutionary forces and methods, the indus- 
 
324 The Evolution of the Afric- American. 
 
 trial one is that which as yet is the most far-reaching and 
 effective. It lies at the very basis of the solution of the 
 problem for the Negro and for his white brother. In my 
 trip through the South I was surprised at the extent to 
 which the Negro had become a land-renter and a land-owner. 
 I regret that the Census Bureau has not as yet classified the 
 statistics on this subject. There are sections of the South 
 in which the nickering light of the common school has done 
 but little for the Negro, and where he is still wrapped in in- 
 tellectual darkness concerning the three R's ; but there is 
 hardly a section of the South where this industrial stimulus 
 is not found. The colored man in the most secluded re- 
 gions of the Black Belt may not be able to hold a pen ; he 
 can hold a plow. He may not be able to read a book, but 
 he can read the face of Nature, and knows how to cultivate 
 her smile. In a large portion of the South to be sure the 
 Negro is still only a tenant farmer ; and he gets his living 
 under a system of monstrous exaction which is but another 
 form of commercial slavery. But this very exaction is over- 
 reaching itself. The colored man pays such a large rental 
 for the farm in proportion to its selling price that he is 
 tempted to buy it, and often succeeds in doing it. Prof. 
 J. B. Clark, of Smith College, Massachusetts, one of our 
 ablest economists, in a paper on the Industrial Future of 
 the Negro, says : " At the outset of this work it was evident 
 to every observer that, however wisely funds might be used, 
 and however large they might be, there would be a great 
 unreached residuum of the Negro population." Is there 
 any great natural force by which this vast residuum can be 
 reached? Prof. Clark finds it in "land-hunger." "The 
 census may not show," he says, " that a large numerical pro- 
 portion of the colored race hold land ; but it will probably 
 show that the proportion has lately been increasing, and that 
 under conditions relatively discouraging." He ventures the 
 opinion that " the great Negro problem will be found to be 
 practically solved if we put the right construction on the 
 forthcoming volume of the census report." In Alabama I 
 had at Tuskegee a conference with teachers and students 
 from all parts of the State and from several other States. 
 Two things were evident : first, the hard commercial condi- 
 tions under which the colored man gets his land; and, 
 secondly, that he was breaking through them and buying 
 farms and rearing homes. 
 
 One of the blackest States in the Black Belt is Missis- 
 
The Evolution of the Afric- American. 325 
 
 sippi. It is one of the three States in which the Negro popu- 
 lation has been increasing faster than the white during the 
 last ten years, and this notwithstanding the assumption that 
 Mississippi is a pretty hard place for a colored man to live 
 in. President Woodworth, of the Tougaloo University, con- 
 ducted last year an extensive inquiry covering the whole 
 State concerning the industrial and social condition of the 
 Negroes. The result of his investigation led him to the con- 
 clusion that many in every part of the State are owning 
 homes of their own. Five per cent for the country dis- 
 tricts, he thinks, would not be an overestimate. The town 
 reports indicate that not far from twenty per cent own the 
 places which they occupy. The average size of plantations 
 is not far from one hundred acres. He had reports from 
 many plantations of four hundred acres and over ; some 
 of one thousand to one thousand six hundred acres. Out 
 of twenty replies made to him by intelligent colored men, 
 one report said that the Negroes have difficulty in obtaining 
 land ; one says that there is some difficulty ; the other eight- 
 een report essentially that the Negro has no more difficulty 
 than the white man in getting land. One of the most im- 
 portant questions asked by him was : " Has the Negro, if not 
 lazy and shiftless, a fair chance to make a living and save 
 money ? " Seventeen answers were emphatically " Yes " ; 
 only three replied " No." 
 
 Similar testimony I gathered from the conferences I held 
 and from individual witnesses. The Negro is nowhere 
 wanted so much as he is in the South. Nowhere are his in- 
 dustrial opportunities so good. All trades are now opened 
 to him. While social lines are very sharply drawn in the 
 South, there is great industrial freedom and affiliation. 
 The colored man and the white man work side by side. Not 
 a few colored men testified to me that the industrial pros- 
 pects of the colored people are better in the South than in 
 the North. It is evident to the educators of the colored 
 people and most intelligent and influential leaders that the 
 education which the Negro is to receive to fit him for his op- 
 portunities must be mainly industrial, and all the large 
 schools and colleges are making attempts in this direction. 
 
 Turn now to consider the educational forces represented 
 in the school and the college. 
 
 Before the smoke of the war had cleared away, while yet 
 the cannon were still booming, the Northern teacher had 
 begun to teach the African his alphabet ; she had armed 
 
326 The Evolution of the Afric- American. 
 
 him with pen and pencil. Noble and wonderful was the 
 devotion of the women who carried this gospel to the freed- 
 men; and rich were the fruits of their sacrifice. The 
 question whether the colored boy or girl could learn or 
 would learn was not long left in doubt. Indeed, men and 
 women, some of them advanced in life, showed a surprising 
 intellectual hunger and learned to read and to write. I re- 
 call the figure of an old colored man, a messenger in the 
 State Department immediately after the war, who, while 
 the weighty affairs of State were being handled in the Sec- 
 retary's room, sat not far away from the entry spelling out 
 his Bible letter by letter and word by word. He would 
 make a frightful wreck of some Hebrew proper name, but 
 would pick up the pieces and go on. He could not read with 
 freedom, but he thanked heaven that he had the freedom to 
 read. Many stories might be told of the remarkable sacri- 
 fices which individuals of the colored race are making to 
 get an education, but more important is it to know the ex- 
 tent to which the race as a whole is availing itself of this 
 privilege. The best answer is furnished in the statistics of 
 education compiled by the United States Bureau of Educa- 
 tion, and in an analysis of these statistics prepared by the 
 Commissioner, Dr. W. T. Harris. " In the thirteen years 
 for which separate statistics for the white and the black 
 races in the South are accessible, the white children enrolled 
 in the public schools have increased from 1,827,139 to 3,197,- 
 830, or about seventy-five per cent, while the increase of 
 the white population as a whole has been only thirty-four 
 per cent. The school attendance has increased more than 
 twice as fast as the population. . . . But the education of 
 the colored race," says Dr. Harris, " has a still better record 
 to show. In the thirteen years the enrollment has increased 
 from 580,017 to 1,238,622, an increase of more than one 
 hundred and thirteen per cent ; while the colored popula- 
 tion as a whole has increased only twenty-seven per cent 
 during the period. In other words, the school attendance 
 of colored children over the whole South has increased more 
 than four times as fast as the entire colored population. 
 And this increase has been constant and steady." The 
 Superintendent of State Education in Alabama, a former 
 Confederate major, said to me : " The colored people are 
 more interested in education than the whites." While the 
 enrollment is large, the length of the school session is small, 
 averaging only ninety-five days of the year in the South At- 
 
The Evolution of the Afric- American. 327 
 
 lantic division of States, while in the North Atlantic the 
 average was one hundred and fifty-seven (Jays. The colored 
 people are doing something to " supplement " the school 
 fund and lengthen the school session by private contribu- 
 tions. 
 
 One of the interesting questions which the opening of 
 education to the Negro presents to the ethnologist is : What 
 is the relative capacity for education of the pure-blooded 
 Afric- American and the mulatto or mixed race ? On this 
 subject I have written to the presidents of all the colored 
 colleges in the country. The experience of many of them 
 has extended over a period of twenty-five years. Several 
 thousand colored students have passed under their observa- 
 tion. I can only give you the briefest digest of their replies. 
 The testimony is not unanimous, but for the most part it 
 points to the conclusion that the difference in intellectual 
 capacity between mulattoes and pure-bloods is not manifest 
 as a class. The president of Fisk University says : " I 
 think the proportion of bright pupils among the mulattoes 
 is greater than among pure-blooded negroes ; yet some of 
 the very best and ablest men and women that we have grad- 
 uated from Fisk University were of the latter class." The 
 president of Morgan College, Baltimore, says : " I should 
 say that the infusion of the whites quickened and intensi- 
 fied the aptitudes, while nothing might be added to their 
 capacity or strength. This would, of course, favor the mu- 
 latto in point of time in which to accomplish a given task ; 
 but leave out the element of time or give the Negro all the 
 time and training necessary, and he will learn as thoroughly 
 and retain as tenaciously as the mulatto." Several say that 
 they discover no difference whatever ; that when they enjoy 
 the same advantages their success is about the same. Miss 
 Martha Schofield, of Aiken, S. C., who has been twenty- 
 seven years in this work, says : " Good Negro blood is far 
 superior to the poor white and Negro mixed." The fullest 
 answer to the question comes from Hampton, and is given 
 in detail in its account of its twenty-two years' work : " Of 
 fifteen colored-girl salutatorians, four were bfack, three 
 dark, seven light, and one apparently white. Of the fifteen 
 young-men valedictorians, seven were black, one dark, and 
 seven were light. In other words, of young women, seven 
 were dark and eight light ; of young men, eight were dark 
 and seven light ; which divides the honors as nearly as pos- 
 sible fifteen to the dark and fifteen to the light. After 
 22 
 
328 The Evolution of the Afric- American. 
 
 the first decade of the school, investigation was made with 
 a precisely similar result. That it should appear again over 
 the whole period of seventeen years is surprising and seems 
 significant. " 
 
 This testimony could be greatly multiplied. The presi- 
 dent of Storer College, Harper's Ferry, says : " From eighty 
 to ninety per cent of our graduates have a marked tincture 
 of white blood. The very dark ones who pursue the course 
 are about up to the average." A few declare that the mulat- 
 toes are brighter. Another that the difference is only one 
 of application, and as frequently in favor of the black as the 
 mulatto. 
 
 It has been recently argued by a Southern writer on this 
 question that the Negroes get most of their intellectual 
 power from an infusion of white blood, and that there is 
 danger of breeding back to the full-blooded type. If this 
 be so, then it might be argued that the best thing for the 
 South to-day would be to repeal the laws on its statute books 
 forbidding the intermarriage of the races. But a very 
 ample array of testimony shows that the question of race 
 mixing is not complicated by degeneracy. The mixed- 
 blooded stand as high in the schools as the pure-bloods. On 
 the other hand, the fortunes of the pure-blooded do not de- 
 pend upon race mixing, for the capacity of the pure- 
 blooded appears to be as great as that of the mixed race. 
 The question of race mixing is to be decided, therefore, on 
 other grounds than that of the intellectual fortunes of the 
 race. It may be, and I hope ultimately will be, left to the 
 natural affinities of the races, not hindered by arbitrary and 
 unnatural legislation. 
 
 Another question which I submitted to the educators of 
 the colored people was relative to the special aptitude of the 
 races. The general testimony seems to be that there is as 
 much diversity of capacity among them as among the 
 whites. They succeed well in English and in imitative stud- 
 ies. Some teachers report a lack in power of generalization, in 
 the power to see things in their relative proportions. Some 
 report better success in English than in mathematics ; others 
 report that some of the most acute mathematicians they 
 have ever seen have been Negroes. Their capacity for Eng- 
 lish is generally conceded. Concerning this, Prof. Shaler 
 says : " The Negro has mastered the English in a very re- 
 markable manner and without deliberate instruction by any 
 form of schooling, and by so doing has given better proof 
 
The Evolution of the Afric- American. 329 
 
 of his natural capacity than by any other of his accomplish- 
 ments in this, to him, very new world. There are tens of 
 thousands of untrained blacks in this country who by their 
 command of English phrase are entitled to rank as educated 
 men." " I believe in general," he adds, "that our Negroes 
 have a better sense of English than the peasant class of 
 Great Britain."* 
 
 But I do not forget that I am addressing an ethical asso- 
 ciation. And one of the points upon which emphasis was 
 laid in the syllabus furnished me was the ethical condition 
 of the Negro. Upon this I have taken special pains to se- 
 cure fresh and competent evidence. 
 
 Let it be remembered that the Negro started with a very 
 rude and primitive savage code. Let it be remembered also 
 that the code, both legal and ethical, into which he was intro- 
 duced in this country was not as high as it is now. Under 
 the system of slavery certain ethical distinctions were 
 blurred. This was so concerning the rights of property 
 and the relation of the sexes directions in which the Negro 
 is supposed to be naturally weak. Nor was temperance a 
 virtue that was cultivated in early days either North or 
 South as it is now. We must not forget that the white 
 man has developed as well as the Negro, and that we are 
 judging the colored man by new standards to-day into which 
 freedom has ushered him. 
 
 Under the slave system the Negro owned nothing, not even 
 himself. It was impossible that an adequate conception of 
 the rights of property could be developed when the sense of 
 personal ownership was lacking. A story told by my friend 
 General E. Whittlesey will illustrate this. On his march 
 with Sherman to the sea his horse became disabled. He got 
 into an ambulance and rode with a colored driver. He asked 
 him how he managed to get along as a slave whether he 
 had enough to eat. " Oh, yes, massa, plenty to eat." " Well, 
 you don't mean to say that you stole and ate your mas- 
 ter's pigs ? " " Oh, no, massa, I didn't stole none. Dem pigs 
 was massa's and I was massa's, and when I ate one of dem 
 pigs dat pig was still massa's." 
 
 I am inclined to think that it is just as easy to justify the 
 slave's right to that pig as the master's right to the slave. 
 The human larceny has been given up and the larceny of 
 the pigs is disappearing with it. On this important point I 
 can not do better than to give you some of the testimony I 
 
 * Arena, 1891. 
 
330 The Evolution of the Afric- American. 
 
 have gathered from the South. The president of Fisk Uni- 
 versity writes : " The higher standard of instruction in the 
 churches and the higher ideas of the family relation are the 
 best illustrations of the improvement made in the ethical 
 development of the Negro." 
 
 The president of Morgan College, Baltimore, says : " There 
 is a higher estimate of character, a growing regard for the 
 truth, a clearer recognition of the rights of ownership, an 
 earnest class of leaders in the ministry and among the 
 teachers, who insist upon the recognition of pure ethics." 
 
 Another says : " I find a marked growth in integrity, the 
 meeting of obligations. This is especially true among the 
 laboring classes. They have certainly been impressed with 
 the sanctity of marriage." 
 
 Eev. J. E. Jewett, of Glenwood, S. C., says : " When we 
 consider all their antecedents, the degradation of slavery, the 
 immoral examples which have been placed before them by 
 the white race, and all the obstacles and disadvantages they 
 had to struggle against, I think their moral condition is all 
 that we could reasonably expect. They are an emotional 
 and religious people, but the majority have not yet learned 
 that morality and temperance are among the best parts of 
 religion." 
 
 The principal of the Normal and Industrial School of 
 Huntsville, Ala., says : " A more enlightened method of re- 
 ligious worship, increasing respect for home and its respon- 
 sibilities, a more general observance of the law of contract 
 and rules of enlightened society, are facts which illustrate 
 the ethical development of the Negro." 
 
 President Mitchell, of Leland University, New Orleans, 
 says : " The ethical development proceeds upon the line of 
 his education ; the facts which illustrate this are too nu- 
 merous to be detailed here." 
 
 The president of the Central Tennessee College says: 
 " The Negroes have better churches ; they are more regular 
 in their family arrangements, have better homes, observe 
 the marriage relation better than formerly. In some places 
 there is less stealing, fewer illegitimate children, and higher 
 ideas of female virtue more disgrace to be impure." 
 
 The principal of the Normal College at Pine Bluff, Ark., 
 mentions their improved homes with separate apartments, 
 their fine churches, and as an evidence of their growth in 
 self-respect, says : " A good many of them, if you refer to 
 them as * freemen,' will inform you that they were never 
 
The Evolution of the Afric- American. 331 
 
 slaves. Should you offer them clothes, they would inform 
 you that they were not paupers and did not need old 
 clothes." 
 
 President Hickman, of Clark University, Atlanta, says : 
 " They are coming more into honest and business methods 
 of trade. They are home-loving, and many of them keep 
 the marriage vow holy. They are liberal and kind to the 
 suffering." 
 
 Principal Crosby, of the Normal School, Plymouth, N. C., 
 says : " We can not expect very great moral improvement in 
 twenty-five years considering the poverty and ignorance 
 and the slavish customs of the Negroes." He thinks the 
 ethical development of the mass is slow. 
 
 The principal of the Washington Normal School, Miss 
 Lucy E. Moten, says : " Our school statistics and reports 
 show a steady development and growth in all the moral vir- 
 tues, as politeness, truth, honesty, integrity, kindness, for- 
 bearance, helpfulness, teachableness, promptness, cheerful- 
 ness, and love. There is decided growth and earnest effort." 
 
 President Dunton, of Claflin University, S. C., one of the 
 largest colleges for colored people in the country, says : " That 
 the Negro is improving no one can doubt. As a proof we 
 would mention improved home life ; the education of the 
 children ; the Sunday-school ; the financial conditions of 
 the people ; the realization of the fact that if they would 
 rise they must make corresponding effort." 
 
 President Thirkield, of Gammon Theological School, At- 
 lanta, Ga., gives this instance : " At Bust University, Holly 
 Springs, Mississippi, the main college building was destroyed. 
 Three hundred students had to be sent out to board in the 
 town. During the year there was but one case of discipline 
 for immorality." 
 
 President Russell, of the Southland College and Normal 
 Institute, Helena, Ark., gives similar testimony: "In re- 
 gard to ethics there is great deficiency, yet there is develop- 
 ment. Our professors, who are white, say that they fre- 
 quently loan two to four pencils per day, yet almost every 
 one comes back. Nearly every day handkerchiefs and pencils 
 are put upon the desk to await an owner. Our school- 
 house and chapel stand unlocked nearly all the time. 
 Things are left undisturbed. Our carpenter shop with tools 
 of value stands unlocked much of the time ; nothing has been 
 taken that I know of. The washing for all of the students 
 is done at the college, the clothes left on the lines at night, 
 
332 The Evolution of the Afric- American. 
 
 and scarcely ever is anything missed. I do not think it 
 would be safe to leave cooked sweet potatoes or roasted pork 
 lying around loose." 
 
 The testimony from Hampton as rendered by Vice- Princi- 
 pal Rev. H. B. Frissell is that the colored man pays his 
 debts. " Years ago it was difficult for us to collect the bills 
 our students owed when they went out from the school ; we 
 now have no trouble. The same thing is shown in the im- 
 proved honesty of the treasurers of the Negro societies about 
 us. Our students report a marked improvement in the 
 matter of purity in the country districts from which they 
 come, and a marked decrease in the number of births of 
 light children. I have myself noted the very great diminu- 
 tion in crime in the country districts of Virginia. This 
 fact is borne witness to by the sheriff, especially in the 
 matter of thieving." 
 
 The religious development of the colored people so far as 
 concerns their growth out of superstition has been slow, 
 as has been the religious development of the white people in 
 the same direction. But the development of religion as an 
 organized institution among the colored people has been re- 
 markable. It has been assumed that the Negro has no power 
 of organization ; but the wonderful extent to which they 
 have organized their religious bodies, as seen in the great 
 Methodist and Baptist denominations, is a refutation of this 
 idea. With the growth of intelligence and the slow but 
 sure development of an educated ministry, the colored peo- 
 ple are gradually reaching a plane of religious development 
 which will compare favorably, at least, with that of the white 
 religious bodies around them. 
 
 There are thus abundant proofs that the colored people 
 are gradually freeing themselves from their ancient bar- 
 barism and from the degradation and mental servitude in 
 which slavery held them. Has this any bearing on their re- 
 lations to their white neighbors ? We have seen that it was 
 the policy of the slave-holder to keep the Negro in igno- 
 rance. About the only Southern people now who believe in 
 the continuance of such a policy are, with few exceptions, 
 poor whites, who on the average are more ignorant than the 
 Negroes themselves. The great majority of intellectual and 
 influential Southern men are committed to the policy of 
 Negro education. They are far from conceding the co- 
 education of the races ; there are even laws against it ; but 
 they are willing that the colored people should have some 
 
The Evolution of the Afric- American. 333 
 
 share of the current funds, even beyond the amount which 
 the colored people themselves contribute. The insistence 
 on separate schools has occasioned discrimination concern- 
 ing the division of the school funds ; and in some communi- 
 ties the method of division has not been equitable. But 
 this condition of affairs is gradually improving. The Com- 
 missioner of Education tells us " that $216,000,000 have been 
 paid from the public taxes during the period of thirteen 
 years for the support of schools, white and colored, and, as 
 nearly as can be estimated, the colored people have received 
 nearly fifteen millions of the whole. This is not quite a pro- 
 rata share, but it approximates it. The regular increase of 
 the amount paid for schools in the South is noticeable. In 
 1877 it amounted to $11,231,073, while in 1889 it had 
 swelled to $23,226,982, or to 107 per cent more than was 
 expended thirteen years ago." Thus the Negro is getting a 
 fair share of his educational rights. 
 
 As to his political rights, Southern white men very freely 
 admit that the colored American does not, is not permitted 
 to, exercise them. There is but little intimidation practiced, 
 but a good deal of counting out and vote buying. The 
 staple argument by which this is defended is that the col- 
 ored people are so ignorant that to permit them to rule 
 would be fatal ; that they are still a race of minors. The 
 colored man, too, has not come to understand the relation 
 which his vote bears to the public welfare. He will too often 
 sell it for a glass of whisky ; or he may be too indifferent to 
 exercise it at all. In some districts of the Black Belt I dis- 
 covered black men who had not voted for several years not 
 because they were counted out, but for the same reason that 
 many white people do not vote in Brooklyn ; they had be- 
 come indifferent to it ; they had discovered that the ballot 
 did not pay their mortgage or increase their crop. A good 
 many of the colored men with whom I talked, especially the 
 better educated, were confident that their people will have 
 their political rights as soon as they are sufficiently educated 
 to exercise them. The division of the white vote and the di- 
 vision of the colored vote in local elections has taken place 
 in some Southern cities with the result of bringing out the 
 full vote on both sides. There has been a fusion of the black 
 and white votes in the result. Thus in some districts whites 
 and blacks have united to elect a white or black candidate. 
 The question of political rights will be settled with the 
 growth of the Negro and the growth of the white man. 
 
334 The Evolution of the Afric- American. 
 
 On no subject was I at more pains to get evidence all 
 through the South than this concerning the relations of 
 the two races. In all the colored conferences I held, the 
 general testimony was of the improved state of feeling. This 
 is supplemented by important testimony I have received in 
 the last few weeks from principals and presidents of col- 
 ored colleges. I regret that there is not time to present 
 this evidence in detail. Out of twenty-eight answers on 
 this subject from all parts of the South, only five were 
 doubtful concerning the improved relationship. The other 
 twenty-three gave clear and positive testimony. Prof. 
 Booker T. Washington, of Tuskegee, Ala., one of the ablest 
 colored men of the South, says : " I consider that the rela- 
 tions between the colored and white people are growing 
 more friendly from year to year. At present there is a large 
 
 Eroportion of the best class of white people who are now in 
 ivor of educating the colored people. This was not so a 
 few years ago ; and the number in favor of educating the 
 colored people is growing. It is now not infrequent that 
 individuals are found willing to co-operate in and to con- 
 tribute to the education of the people. For example, a man 
 in Lowndes County, Ala., has recently given ten acres of 
 land to start a school. I could give other examples to illus- 
 trate this fact." Other colored men testify to the same 
 effect. 
 
 No Southern white man is a greater friend of the Negro 
 than Bishop Haygood, and no one more thoroughly under- 
 stands the attitude of the Southern white people. Con- 
 cerning this he says : " History records no instance more 
 remarkable than the changes that have taken place and are 
 now going on in the minds of the Southern people." 
 
 Of almost equal unanimity is the testimony of this body 
 of educators concerning the true solution of the whole prob- 
 lem. With hardly an exception, they find it in the great 
 forces of moral, intellectual, and industrial, education. The 
 same forces of evolution that have brought the colored man 
 where he is are bound to take him further. They will take 
 the white man along with him. 
 
 I have spoken to you of the evolution of the colored man ; 
 but we must not forget that another chapter could be writ- 
 ten on the remarkable evolution of the white man. When 
 down in the heart of Alabama I conversed with one of the 
 leading physicians of the State. I found him to be a strong 
 believer in the philosophy of Herbert Spencer. " We have 
 
The Evolution of the Afric- American. 335 
 
 passed," he said, " through one stage of evolution. Slavery 
 was wrong. We did not know it then ; we do know it now. 
 A generation hence will find us further than we are now." 
 
 One of the most potent influences in bringing about a 
 better feeling between the races is the business and indus- 
 trial relations which are established between them. On 
 the very day on which I was in a certain Alabama town a 
 meeting held to keep down the colored vote was defeated 
 by the white men of the place, whose business relations 
 with the colored people rendered such a step inexpedient. 
 
 Another important element in the solution of the prob- 
 lem is the fact that the Southern white man has no personal 
 prejudice against the Negro. The prejudice that exists is 
 conventional and social. The association of the two races 
 has been intimate. I have been struck with the personal 
 affection which Southern white men have entertained for 
 the colored " aunties " who had nursed them under the old 
 regime. At the North, though the Negro has his legal 
 rights, he is not brought into such close relationship with 
 the whites as in the South. No Southern white boy six 
 years of age would ask the question which a little boy asked 
 when he first saw some colored waiters on the Hudson Eiver 
 boat " Won't the black rub off on the dishes ? " 
 
 The color lines drawn at the South are arbitrary and con- 
 ventional. They are rigid social lines, such as in the army 
 separate officers and men. They are caste lines, but they 
 are not personal lines. As a colored man in Virginia said 
 to me : " As soon as a colored man gets land and a horse and 
 a wagon he gets something that white people want. The 
 white man will not allow the colored man to come in and 
 eat breakfast with his family, but if the colored man has a 
 home and a horse and wagon, or something of that kind, the 
 white man might come in his house and eat breakfast with 
 him; it depends upon what the man is." 
 
 During the excitement at the beginning of the war an in- 
 sane man said to a friend of mine : "Do not be troubled ; I 
 have discovered a remedy for the whole matter. I have 
 ordered 2,000 buckets of whitewash and 2,000 brushes, and 
 I mean to whitewash the colored race and avert the war." 
 This original prescription would have changed the Negro's 
 skin without changing his blood, but the forces which are 
 at work now are working from within outward ; they are 
 changing the white man and they are changing the Negro. 
 
 The main difficulties in the future are to come between 
 
336 The Evolution of the Afric- American. 
 
 the poor and ignorant white and the ignorant Negro. The 
 intelligent and refined men of both races will get on together. 
 The colored people are developing more race pride ; they 
 are not asking for social equality. This is something that 
 must be left to settle itself. It must not be forgotten that 
 there are vast numbers whose interest in both races is about 
 equally divided. A witty orator in the South, a mulatto, in 
 addressing an audience, said : " You talk about the race ques- 
 tion [then pointing to himself] ; there is no conflict between 
 us ; we are both here ; we get on perfectly well together." 
 Whether amalgamation is to be the solution or not I will 
 not affirm. But I believe the two races will eventually get 
 on perfectly well together whether they are blended in one 
 person or race, or separated in two. Were the intermarriage 
 of the races permitted, there would be many happy mar- 
 riages where now there are illegal relations. 
 
 The mass of facts I have gathered on this problem would 
 fill a large volume. I have only given an outline of the 
 conclusions to which they point. Much needs to be done 
 for the colored American, and much needs to be done for 
 his poor white brother. But the colored American is rec- 
 ognizing, what does not seem to be so evident to the poor 
 white, that his destiny is largely in his own hands. This is 
 the burden of the exhortation of the colored leaders to their 
 people. 
 
The Evolution of the Afric- American. 337 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 
 
 MR. T. McCA> T TS STEWART, the well-known colored lawyer and mem- 
 ber of the Board of Education, led in the discussion that followed. 
 He said : 
 
 The Brooklyn Ethical Association is doing much good in stimulat- 
 ing thought and fixing attention upon vital questions affecting the 
 best interests of the people everywhere. Important as are the sub- 
 jects contained in this year's course of study, none is more important 
 than the race problem which is before us. In preparing to open this 
 discussion I was, unfortunately, without a copy of the paper just read 
 by Dr. Barrows. I did not want to come here to talk entirely offhand 
 and on general principles ; hence I had to confine myself to the out- 
 lines of this subject appearing in your elaborate programme-pam- 
 phlet, which shows what the discussion is to cover ; and now I quote its 
 words : " The bequest of slavery to the American nation. Ethnologi- 
 cal, climatic, and economic aspects of the problem. The Negro in 
 Africa and elsewhere. What sociology says as to his suitable Ameri- 
 can habitat. His capacity for ethical and intellectual culture. His 
 true relations to the American Republic. The question viewed from 
 the standpoint of evolutionary sociology." Being limited for time, I 
 can not discuss the questions at issue with satisfaction even to myself ; 
 but I shall aim in the course of a few minutes to state some views 
 which may lead to investigation on your part, perhaps to discussion 
 now, or at the next meeting. We start with the assumption that no 
 one who accepts the Bible as inspired, or, as historic authority, be- 
 lieves that the Negro is in the world by special creation ; that he is not, 
 like the other races, a descendant of Noah. You believe, do you not, 
 that out of one blood God created all nations to dwell upon the face 
 of the earth? I assume that you do and consider the point res adju- 
 dicata. Upon another point, the ethnographic account contained in 
 the tenth chapter of Genesis is reliable, and it is invaluable in a dis- 
 cussion of the negro problem. Rawlinson said of this chapter : " The 
 Toldoth Beni Noah is undoubtedly the most authentic record we pos- 
 sess for the affiliation of those branches of the human race which 
 sprang from the triple stock of the Noachidae. We must be cautious 
 in drawing direct ethnological inferences from the linguistic indica- 
 tions of a very early age. It would be far safer, at any rate, in these 
 early times, to follow the general scheme of ethnic affiliation which is 
 
338 The Evolution of the Afric- American. 
 
 given in the tenth chapter of Genesis." Now, if we accept Moses as a 
 reliable ethnographist, it is clearly established that in earliest historic 
 times, when Japhet and Shem were inactive, Gush, the eldest son of 
 Ham, the Negro's fons et origo, was building cities and establishing 
 kingdoms. At the dispersion of the races from the plains of Shinar, 
 the sons of Ham went down into Africa and founded Ethiopia and 
 Egypt. "Were they black, real Negroes'? Why, certainly. Perhaps 
 many of you say, No ; and you are not without authorities ; but remem- 
 ber that white men, often unconsciously influenced by prejudice, wrote 
 the Negro, with black skin and woolly hair, out of his true place in 
 ancient history. Your scholars were both judge and jury. We were 
 often the victims of lynch law. A Negro scholar, Dr. Martin R. De- 
 laney, in a work published ten years ago, called The Origin of Races 
 and Color, contended that the entire human race was originally of a 
 dark complexion ; that the word Adam signifies dark, as the word 
 Ham signifies the same thing. Dr. Boisgilbert (Ignatius Donnelly), 
 in his recent interesting book, Doctor Huguet. advances the same 
 view. But even if you do not concede that the entire human race was 
 originally of a dark complexion, it can not be successfully disputed 
 that the Hamites were a dark people, for both of the words Ham and 
 Ethiopia signify, etymologically, swarthy, burnt, dark. Was the an- 
 cient Negro woolly haired I Well, some say, No. I have read of a man 
 who said, Yes ; and who, in a meeting like this, argued from that fact, 
 that the Negro is of entirely different origin from the white man, who 
 has straight hair and not wool. A colored man opened the discussion 
 and brushed his opponent aside with the remark : " One thing I am 
 sure is clear, that God put the wool on the outside of the Negro's 
 head, but on the inside of the head of the gentleman who preceded 
 me." I read of a Southern colored preacher who said : " Yes, the 
 Negro's hair from the beginning of creation was always woolly," and 
 upon this statement he sought to impress upon his hearers the doctrine, 
 that the woolly hair marked the Negro as God's chosen people, elected 
 and preordained for his glory, and that, at the last day, the Negro race 
 would be the only people saved. " God," said this ignorant colored 
 preacher, " would divide de sheep, we Negroes wid de woolly hair, from 
 de goats, which am de white man wid de straight hair, an' recebe us 
 into eberlasting glory." But, to be again serious, Herodotus, who 
 traveled in Africa and made personal investigations of the land and 
 people, declares that the Ethiopians were of black complexion and 
 woolly hair. Rawlinson says that this fact is confirmed by archaeolog- 
 ical and philological researches. I have dwelt upon these matters be- 
 cause they are too often overlooked in racial discussions and in deal- 
 ing with the modern and present Negro problem. Knowing that Dr. 
 
The Evolution of the Afric-American. 339 
 
 Barrows holds liberal views concerning the Negro, and anticipating 
 from him an exhaustive treatment of the subject in its present practi- 
 cal bearings, and expecting that he would suggest remedies for exist- 
 ing evils, which thoughtful people everywhere deplore, I prepared to 
 go back somewhat to first principles, even at the risk of being consid- 
 ered scholastic and as dealing with matters of no practical interest. 
 Let us briefly inquire if the present central tropical African Negroes 
 are the descendants of the people who led the world and were the 
 pioneers of mankind in the various untrodden fields of art, literature, 
 and science. I answer, Certainly they were. Prof. Owen, in his fifth 
 edition of Homer's Odyssey, gives this note from Prof. Lewis, of 
 the New York University, in reference to the localities to which Ho- 
 mer's Ethiopians should be assigned : " I have always, in comment- 
 ing on the passage to which you refer, explained it to my class as 
 denoting the black race (or Ethiopians, as they were called in Homer's 
 time), living on the eastern and western coast of Africa the one class 
 inhabiting the country now called Abyssinia, and the other that part 
 of Africa called Guinea or the Slave Coast." A writer in the Prince- 
 ton Review says: "The Ethiopian race, from whom the modern 
 Negro or African stock are undoubtedly descended, can claim as early 
 a history, with the exception of the Jews, as any living people on the 
 face of the earth. History, as well as the monumental discoveries, 
 gives them a place in ancient history as far back as Egypt herself, if 
 not further." Other authorities could be cited. What, if my conten- 
 tion is true, ails the central tropical African Negroes of to-day, who 
 are so far behind the other races in civilization and from whom the 
 colored people of America are undoubtedly descended 1 I will tell 
 you. First, man has never amounted to anything in extreme heat or 
 extreme cold. The Esquimaux and the Guinea Negro are alike the 
 victims of an unfavorable habitat ; one is subjected to too much cold 
 and the other to too much heat and malaria. Both stunt the mind. 
 For centuries climate has been against the Negro. Dr. Boisgilbert 
 (Ignatius Donnelly) says that Nature, in order to protect the central 
 tropical African Negro's brain from the sun, thickened the cranium, 
 contracted the brain, and thus caused mental deterioration. The white 
 Southerner will never be the equal of the white Northerner in intelli- 
 gence, vigor, acumen, productiveness. Put a New Englander under 
 the torrid sun of Florida and Louisiana, and in their swamps and 
 under the effect of climate and the laws of heredity and evolution his 
 children will degenerate and become inferior to his brother's descend- 
 ants whose habitat is around Boston and Springfield and Providence 
 and New Haven, or in the far West under a stimulating climate. Sec- 
 ond, migrating from northern down into central tropical Africa, the 
 
340 The Evolution of the Afric- American. 
 
 Negroes cut themselves off from civilization, and that in itself was 
 enough to cause degeneracy. Experiments in natural history show 
 that if irrational animals are excluded from contact with their kind 
 and bred alone they will develop radical differences from the parent 
 or original stock. I have read that there are certain districts in Lei- 
 trim, Sligo, and Mayo, in Ireland, chiefly inhabited by the descend- 
 ants of the native Irish, driven by the British from Armagh and the 
 south of Down about two centuries ago. These people, whose an- 
 cestors were well grown, able-bodied, and comely, are now reduced in 
 stature, are bow-legged and abortively featured, and they k are especially 
 remarkable for open, projecting mouths, and prominent teeth and ex- 
 posed gums, their advancing cheek bones and depressed noses bearing 
 barbarism in their very front. In other words, within so short a 
 period, they seemed to have acquired a prognathous type of skull, like 
 the Australian savages. Mahew, in a book called London Labor and 
 Poor, says that the poorest people of London, especially those that 
 partake of a pure vagabond nature, doing nothing whatever for their 
 living but moving from place to place, preying on the earning 
 of the more industrious, have high cheek bones and protruding 
 jaws like the Malayo-Polynesian races. Finally, so far as my ex- 
 planation of Negro degeneracy goes, remember, that for centuries the 
 Negroes of central tropical Africa have been the victims of the cupidity 
 and inhumanity of the white race. Peaceful villages have been raided, 
 robbed of their inhabitants, and destroyed. The milestones for ages 
 have been, even as Stanley found them, the bleaching carcasses of men, 
 women, and children murdered because they were too feeble to go along 
 with their white brother who stole them to enslave them, to sell them 
 for gold. Good heavens ! when we think of what Africa has suffered 
 in these Christian centuries from the slave trade and the rum traffic, 
 we have all the explanations we need of the degeneracy of its people, 
 and looking to climatic and other agencies seems to be hollow mock- 
 ery. "We blush as we note what Montgomery says : 
 
 " Freighted with curses was the bark that bore 
 The spoilers of the West to Guinea's shore ; 
 Heavy with groans of anguish blew the gales 
 That swelled that fatal bark's returning sails ; 
 Loud and perpetual o'er the Atlantic's waves, 
 For guilty ages rolled the tide of slaves ; 
 A tide that knew no fall, no turn, no rest- 
 Constant as day and night from East to West, 
 Still widening, deepening, swelling in its course, 
 With boundless ruin and resistless force." 
 
 Foote says : " The Negro arts are respectable (and he is here refer- 
 ring to the Negroes now living in central tropical Africa), and would 
 
The Evolution of the Afric- American. 341 
 
 have been more so had not disturbance and waste come with the slave 
 trade." Five hundred years ago, when the Portuguese explorers dis- 
 covered the west coast of Africa, they found the Negroes in compara- 
 tive peace, comfort, and prosperity. There were well-laid-out towns, 
 though rude and small, cultivated fields, flocks upon the hillside, and 
 the forge and the loom broke the stillness of the forests. The Negroes 
 were in about the same condition as were the European tribes in the 
 early centuries. Certainly the Negroes were in better condition than 
 were the Britons when the Romans raided their country. The Ne- 
 groes, whom the Portuguese discovered and whose descendants are 
 under discussion to-night, were fit for slaves. When the Romans 
 found the Britons and took them home they were a drug even in the 
 slave market because of their stupidity. At least the proud Romans 
 said that they were too dull to learn. Cicero, in writing to Atticus, 
 holds this language concerning the ancestors of the white Americans : 
 " Neque ullam spem praedae nisi ex mancipii, ex quibus nullos puto te 
 litteris, aut musicis erudites exspectare." I have no patience with those 
 who declare that slavery was intended of God to elevate the Negro. 
 Slavery has not been a blessing ; it has been a curse. It demoralized 
 and degraded the Africans in Africa, and it robbed the American 
 Negro of his manhood and left him poor indeed. The Negroes in the 
 United States have profited from slavery so far as imbibing some of 
 the elements of Caucasian civilization ; but in so far as that civilization 
 has robbed him of his manhood, it has been hurtful and it places him 
 beneath the Negro in Africa. The African Negroes are not universally 
 the degraded beings that we too often and generally think they are. 
 Take the Veys, for example. They are barbarians, or heathen, or sav- 
 ages magis natione quam ratione. In what makes manly character, in 
 what makes intellectual strength, the Veys rank with any people. They 
 have invented their own alphabet, constructed their own written as 
 well as spoken language, and they are slowly creating a literature. 
 They use a pen and an indelible ink that they make themselves. I 
 admire the Mandingoes of the west coast of Africa, because they are 
 learned in the Koran and other Arabic writings ; but their literature 
 is borrowed. I go into inexpressible enthusiasm over the Veys, because 
 they have invented a language. My impression is, that, taken as a 
 whole, these African Negroes are superior to the average American 
 Negroes who have been crushed by the monster slavery. But I do not 
 think that there is any occasion for wonder or surprise at these state- 
 ments. Remember that Theodore Dwight says, in an article in the 
 Methodist Quarterly Review for 1869, that between 1770-75 a re- 
 port reached England that a young African slave in Maryland could 
 read and write Arabic, and was well versed in Arabic literature. His 
 
342 The Evolution of the Afric- American. 
 
 name was Job-ben-Solomon. He was released, sent to England, and 
 there assisted Sir Hans Sloan, the able scholar and founder of the Brit- 
 ish museum, in translating several Arabic works. Now, I have en- 
 deavored to make the races of one common origin, to show that black- 
 faced and woolly-haired people gave the world its earliest civilization, 
 that from these people the present Negroes now dwelling in central 
 tropical Africa have descended, and their present degeneracy is the 
 result of climate and other causes. Many white and all colored people 
 agree with my conclusions ; and those of us who hold such views see 
 no inherent difficulties in the Negro problem as we have it in the South 
 land. The Negroes in the United States are not ethnologically the 
 same as the Negroes in Africa. There is a more general admixture of 
 blood than we commonly think ; and then, too, climate and food have 
 produced differentiations. " The man without a race " is a character- 
 ization which may be applied very generally to the Negroes in the 
 United States, and, recognizing this difference between the Negroes of 
 Africa and the Negroes of the United States, we have a term which one 
 of our leading writers, Mr. T. Thomas Fortune, the editor of the New 
 York Age, has brought into very general use and which we apply 
 to ourselves. It is Afro- American. My references hereafter to the 
 American Negro will be under that term. The capacity of the Afro- 
 Americans for ethical and intellectual culture (I quote your pro- 
 gramme) is beyond question. No race is a better subject for develop- 
 ment on the moral side. They are not avaricious or bloodthirsty. In- 
 deed, of all the races, they possess fewest of those traits that conflict 
 with the Ten Commandments, which are the epitome of the highest 
 morality possible in man. Why, only a year or two ago this record 
 was made by Afro-Americans, excelling the brightest minds of the 
 white race : Minton was class orator at Phillips Academy in 1891 ; 
 Handy was class orator of the College of the City of New York, same 
 year ; Du Bois won the Boylston prize for scholarship at Harvard in 
 1890 ; the best man at Cornell the same year was a colored man ; and 
 a black young man, Clement G. Morgan, was in 1890 class orator at 
 Harvard. And these are not monstrosities, exceptional cases, which 
 signify nothing. They are typical of the progress Afro-Americans are 
 making throughout the country. Though handicapped in many ways, 
 we are keeping step with our brother in white wherever the conditions 
 are favorable. It is generally conceded that Afro- Americans are pro- 
 gressing everywhere. Even the most prejudiced white men of the 
 South admit the fact, though they often do so with a qualification. 
 Indeed, some of them voluntarily proclaim it, and say this very progress 
 on the part of the colored people makes the situation serious, creates 
 an important problem, for these people will in time become on 
 
The Evolution of the Afric-American. 343 
 
 general principles, our equals, and then these Southerners ask, and it 
 is often a serious question with some Northerners, Can the two races 
 live together harmoniously as equals ? That is the practical question 
 which you are considering now and which is down for your next meet- 
 ing, It is contended by some that Afro- Americans should not remain 
 in this country ; that they were brought here by force and that it is 
 not their natural habitat ; that God created them for Africa and that 
 they should return there and develop themselves in a climate for which 
 God intended them. I smile at that kind of argument. Why, God 
 never created the Negro in Africa. He was created in Adam and Noah 
 in Asia. So if there is to be an exodus, it should be to the land of the 
 Japs and the olive-eyed Chinese. But even if God did create the 
 Negroes at the headwaters of the Nile, he did not create the Aryan 
 race here in the United States, nor the Jew, nor the Chinese. If, then, 
 Afro-Americans should return whence their ancestors were created, 
 why should not the white people go back where they came from ? But 
 if the Negro, as you call us, is to go to Africa to get in a natural cli- 
 mate, what is the objection to settling us in Florida and Louisiana and 
 other parts of the South land where the climate and physical condi- 
 tions are similar to Africa f But, pshaw ! this deportation of Afro- 
 Americans is pure nonsense. Speaking through me, they tell you that 
 they do not want to go out of this country and back to Africa, and, 
 more, that they will not go ; that they are here to stay. To remove 
 them under the circumstances, and with this spirit on their part, is 
 absolutely impossible. What matters it how they came here f Many 
 of the early settlers of this republic were sent here into involuntary 
 and often penal banishment. They did not want to come when they 
 were sent under vagrant and debtors' laws ; and when here, they were 
 held in bondage. Eggleston, in his History of the United States and 
 Its People, says : " During the time of their bondage they could be 
 bought and sold like slaves." So, if you want to get at the descend- 
 ants of people who were brought here against their will to send them 
 away because they have no right here, you will have to deport many 
 white people, especially from proud old Virginia and Georgia. It seems 
 to me to be foolish and inexcusable to be constantly discussing make- 
 shifts in connection with such an important matter as what you call the 
 Negro problem. There is no Negro problem in the North. There is a 
 Negro problem in the South, and the solution of it depends upon time, 
 educat ion, evolution. There is very little trouble now except, mainly, 
 in polit it-s, and in the enjoyment of public rights. So far as politics is 
 concerned, there should be an educational or property qualification, or 
 both, applicable to all races alike. As to the enjoyment of public 
 rights on public conveyances and in public places existing under pub- 
 23 
 
344 The Evolution of the Afric- American. 
 
 lie license or supported by public funds, the white South should act 
 upon the principle that a colored man is as good as a white man even 
 if they put in, " if he behaves himself," as some of our friends at the 
 North do. There is no remedy, there is no solution for the race prob- 
 lem in the South, outside of the Bible, the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence, and the Constitution of the United States. To these we must re- 
 sort, and by the rules laid down in these we must work, and as reason- 
 able men, considering the limitations of human nature, its imperfec- 
 tions and its weaknesses, we should work patiently together upon this 
 important problem, and until we have settled and removed it. Be as- 
 sured that this problem will confront us until Afro-Americans shall 
 have been subjected to generations of intellectual and ethical evolu- 
 tion, and until the white race get Christianity enough to eradicate 
 their race pride and exclusiveness, and democracy enough to practi- 
 cally subscribe to what Abraham Lincoln said this country is " a land 
 where every man has a right to be equal with every other man." 
 
 MR, T. THOMAS FORTUNE : 
 
 Being unexpectedly invited by the president, Mr. Fortune said : I 
 had not the remotest idea of saying anything this evening. I think 
 on the historical side of the question Mr. Stewart has indicated fully 
 our position ; and Dr. Barrows has placed the situation in the South 
 before you just as it is. I am very sure the slow processes of evolu- 
 tion judging by the indisputable evidences to be seen in the South, 
 as applied to both white and black will ultimately work out the same 
 result as in the mingling of any two European nations on Manhattan 
 or Long Island. I thank you for the opportunity to say these few 
 words. 
 
 MR. BARROWS, in closing: I thank the speakers for their warm 
 commendation of the lecture. The milder elements in the character 
 of the Afric- American have force in the solution of this question. 
 Take this fact for illustration : An able colored gentleman in a South- 
 ern city bought a lot of land alongside of the lot of a white man. 
 The white man was very angry, used bad language, and wanted to 
 buy the colored man's lot ; but the colored man refused to sell. The 
 colored man began improving his lot ; then he put up a house about 
 as good as that of his white neighbor. One day the white man strayed 
 in to see what was going on. The colored man said he wanted to have 
 things nice, and hoped he wouldn't be a nuisance. The white man 
 became interested, and made suggestions about the house. After a 
 while the question of a fence between the lots came up. The white 
 man said : " I suppose we've got to have a fence, but let it be a low 
 
The Evolution of the Afric- American. 345 
 
 one j us t enough to mark off the lots." By and by the black woman 
 and the white woman were talking together over the fence, as women 
 will. One night the colored man came home and noticed some strange- 
 looking bread on the table ; his wife told him to guess where it came 
 from. He guessed all his colored neighbors, but was told that his 
 white neighbor sent it. Then the colored man raised some fine toma- 
 toes, and sent some in to the white man. His children had the usual 
 children's ailments, and the white woman came in to make suggest- 
 ions and give advice out of her larger experience. All of which shows 
 that it is quite possible for the two races to live together. Of course 
 there was no " social equality," oh, no ! but brown bread and toma- 
 toes had done what the ballot and bullet could not do. 
 
 I know of another case where a white man had a stable adjoining 
 a colored man's house. Finding the colored family to be decent and 
 respectable, and fearing the stable would be a nuisance, he voluntarily 
 removed it. 
 
 In Boston there was a family which received assistance from the 
 Associated Charities an Irish woman with a drunken husband, who 
 lived in the basement of a house owned by a Jew. In the upper part 
 of the house was a colored family Shem, Ham, and Japhet all to- 
 gether. I heard once that the Irish woman couldn't pay her rent, and 
 went down to see about it. The Jew had said the Irish family must 
 go out, but the colored woman said : " No ; I'll pay the rent," and she 
 gave the Irish woman some of her washing. Then I thought of the 
 outrages against the colored people here in New York during the war, 
 and thanked God that the colored people are forgiving. It is this 
 spirit of peace and good will more than that of hate and war which will 
 give them the victory. 
 
THE RACE PROBLEM 
 IN THE SOUTH 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH LE CONTE, LL. D. 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOB THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE 
 AUTHOR OF EVOLUTION AS RELATED TO RELIGIOUS THOUGHT, ETC. 
 
COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED: 
 
 Williams's History of the Colored Race in America ; Brackett's The 
 Negro in Maryland, and Notes on the Progress of the Colored People ; 
 Fortune's Black and White ; Cable's The Negro Question, and The 
 Silent South ; Mayo's Third Estate at the South ; Grady's In Plain 
 Black and White, in Century, April, 1888 ; Bruce's The Plantation 
 Negro as a Freeman ; Blair's The Prosperity of the South Dependent 
 on the Elevation of the Negro ; Godkin's The Republican Party and 
 the Negro, in Forum, May, 1889 ; Stetson's Problem of Negro Educa- 
 tion ; Census Statistics bearing on the Increase and Illiteracy of the 
 Colored Race ; Statistics relating to Negro Labor in Southern Manu- 
 factures, in Chattanooga Tradesman, 1891. 
 
THE RACE PROBLEM IN THE SOUTH. 
 
 BY JOSEPH LE CONTE, LL, D. 
 PEKSONAL KELATION TO THE PBOBLEM. 
 
 ON a subject which has been discussed with so much pas- 
 sion and from such opposite points of view, it is absolutely 
 necessary that one who undertakes to enlighten others 
 should first vindicate his own right to be heard by showing 
 his opportunities for knowing the facts at first hand, and 
 also his ability to form an unbiased judgment. This is my 
 excuse for bringing forward some points in my own per- 
 sonal history which might otherwise seem out of place. 
 
 I was born in 1823, on a large plantation near the coast 
 of Georgia. Until approaching manhood I lived surrounded 
 by at least two hundred blacks. In early life, therefore, I 
 knew no other relation between whites and blacks than that 
 of master and slave. My father managed his plantation 
 himself, and exercised authority with firmness and kind- 
 ness. The property, which had been inherited through sev- 
 eral generations, grew by natural increase alone, none of 
 the slaves, during my recollection, having been either bought 
 or sold. Their moral and religious instruction, moreover, 
 were carefully looked after. I have never known a laboring 
 class more orderly, contented, and happy. I do not mean, 
 however, to deny the great evils inherent in slavery, but of 
 these I became aware only by wider experience at a later 
 period. 
 
 With the exception of a few years spent in completing 
 my medical and scientific education, I continued to live at 
 the South until 1869, when I removed to California. I 
 therefore saw and suffered the chaos of emancipation and 
 reconstruction. Since removing to California I have sev- 
 eral times returned and spent several months, each time, at 
 the South. I have watched with interest the effect of 
 emancipation on the Negro, and compared the results of 
 slave labor and free labor. 
 
 So much for opportunities for knowing the facts. But 
 such opportunities often prejudice the mind and incapaci- 
 tate it for unbiased judgment. ' It is necessary, therefore, 
 
350 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 to show that, in some degree at least, I have freed myself 
 from such prejudices. 
 
 From 1844, when I came in possession by inheritance of 
 a portion of the property described above, until 1865, when 
 the slaves were emancipated, at any time it would have 
 been very greatly to my advantage to have sold out and 
 changed the form of investment. I refused to do so only 
 because I felt personally responsible for the welfare of the 
 Negroes. At any time during the same interval it would 
 have been very greatly to my advantage to have moved the 
 property westward. I refused this also only because the 
 Negroes were attached to the old place, and some family 
 ties would have to be broken. Nor was my own case unique. 
 Such sacrifice of self-interest was common in the South. It 
 is evident, therefore, that in proportion to the conscientious- 
 ness of the owner, is this form of property a dead weight to 
 enterprise. It is not property in the absolute sense, nor was 
 it regarded as such. The proverbial lack of enterprise of 
 the Old South was partly the result of the large amount of 
 property in this form, and her conscientiousness in the 
 treatment of it. It was to her credit that she was not more 
 enterprising. 
 
 The catastrophe of the war and the resulting emancipa- 
 tion of course swept clean away everything I owned as prop- 
 erty. The land remained true, and still remains; but, 
 partly on account of its situation and partly for other 
 causes to be explained hereafter, it has never made me a 
 cent from that day to this. Yet this total loss did not 
 cause me any distress. On the contrary, I felt an inex- 
 pressible sense of relief and almost joy. I mention these 
 facts to show that I had not even then any strong prejudice 
 in favor of slavery, nor was I unprepared to welcome eman- 
 cipation if it had come in the right way. 
 
 But further. Perhaps no one ever wholly frees himself 
 from the effects of early influences and prejudices ; but this 
 much I can say with confidence : From earliest manhood, 
 partly by reason of inherited character and partly by con- 
 scious individual effort, I have set before myself as the chief 
 end of culture the purging of the mind of every influence 
 that might cloud the judgment, that might dim the clear- 
 ness of intellectual vision not only on this, but on all other 
 subjects. With this end in view, while living in New York 
 (1843-'45), completing my medical education, and in Cam- 
 bridge, Mass. (1850 and 1851), completing my scientific 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 351 
 
 education, I lost no opportunity of discussing earnestly but 
 dispassionately the subject of slavery with some of the fore- 
 most thinkers of America. It is true our subject now is 
 not slavery ; but the close connection of this question with 
 the race problem is sufficiently evident. 
 
 The audience will pardon me the recital of these personal 
 details. It seemed to me necessary to vindicate my right 
 to speak at all on this subject. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD NECESSAKY. 
 
 Next . in importance to an unbiased mind is a scientific 
 method of treatment. There was a time when Science con- 
 cerned herself only with material Nature. Questions re- 
 lating to man in his higher activities, and therefore all 
 questions of social organization, politics, ethics, etc., were 
 regarded as hopelessly beyond her domain. The phenomena 
 involved in these questions belonged, it was said, to a higher 
 order, and were far too complex to be reduced to law by her 
 methods. But meanwhile Science, laying first the founda- 
 tions of rational knowledge in the simplest departments, 
 has risen steadily higher and higher, reducing from chaos 
 to order more and more complex subjects, until now at last 
 she invades the very highest. Thus she passed from mathe- 
 matics to mechanics, then to astronomy, then to physics, 
 then to chemistry, reducing all to law ; then, only in the 
 present century, to biology ; then, only recently, to psychol- 
 ogy, and finally, even now, to sociology the science of so- 
 cial organization and social progress, the highest of all. 
 Again, the recent introduction of the idea of evolution by 
 Darwin, and its extension by Spencer to every department 
 of Nature, has revolutionized the philosophy and methods of 
 every department of thought, especially that of sociology. 
 It is almost needless to say, therefore, that our subject will 
 be treated as much as possible by the scientific method, and 
 especially in the light of the theory of evolution. The time 
 has now come when it would seem that the further advance 
 of civilization, and even the conservation of that which we 
 have already achieved, is strictly conditioned on the use of 
 more rational i. e., of scientific methods. This point is so 
 fundamentally important that I stop for a moment to ex- 
 plain and enforce. 
 
 Art is the material embodiment of certain underlying 
 rational principles. Science is the formal statement and 
 
352 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 discussion of these same principles. Thus art may be re- 
 garded as the embodiment or application of science. Many 
 therefore think that science is the mother of art, and there- 
 fore must precede art. But not so. Science is rather the 
 offspring of art. In nearly all cases art precedes science 
 and is its condition. Levers and pulleys and inclined planes 
 were used before the mechanical principles involved were 
 understood. The arts of pottery, of agriculture, and of 
 healing were practiced long before the corresponding sci- 
 ences existed. Art, then, leads to science, not science to 
 art ; but when Science is sufficiently advanced she turns 
 again and perfects art. But there is a transition stage, when 
 an imperfect but arrogant science may interfere with the 
 truer results of empiricism and do infinite harm. This is 
 especially true in the more complex departments. In this 
 stage Science ought to be strictly subordinate to a wise em- 
 piricism. She must whisper suggestions rather than utter 
 commands. Such is the relation of science to art in agri- 
 culture and medicine to-day. To illustrate : Science is the 
 daughter of art heavenly daughter of an earthly mother 
 but when she is sufficiently grown she turns again like a 
 good daughter and helps her mother, and even takes control 
 of the work. But let her beware lest, in her childish vanity, 
 her unskillful and meddlesome hands do harm instead of 
 good. 
 
 Thus, then, there are two kinds of art empirical art and 
 scientific or rational art. Empirical art precedes science 
 and is its condition ; rational art comes after science and is 
 its embodiment. Empirical art is the outcome of the use 
 of the intuitive reason, which works without understanding 
 itself, and which in its highest forms we call genius. Sci- 
 entific art is the outcome of the use of the formal reason 
 which analyzes and understands the principles on which it 
 works. Empirical art may indeed attain great perfection, 
 but sooner or later it reaches its limit and either petrifies or 
 decays. Scientific art, because it understands itself, is of 
 necessity indefinitely progressive. All art, by evolution, 
 passes through these two stages, but more slowly in propor- 
 tion as the principles involved are more complex. Many 
 arts are still in the empirical stage. 
 
 Now the highest, the most complex and difficult of all 
 arts is the art of government of politics, of social organiza- 
 tion. This art, of course, preceded the science of sociology, 
 for it is the necessary condition not only of the science of 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 353 
 
 sociology but of civilization itself. This art has thus far 
 perfected itself wholly by empirical methods. But there is 
 one peculiarity about this art which makes advance by em- 
 pirical methods irregular and doubtful. In all other arts 
 the material is foreign to the artist ; in this, artist and mate- 
 rial are identified. Society makes itself. In this regard it 
 is a product of evolution, not a manufactured article. But 
 again, this evolution differs from all other kinds in this : 
 all other evolution is by necessary law without the co-opera- 
 tion of the thing evolving ; social evolution is mainly deter- 
 mined by the co-operating will of society itself. Thus it is 
 both a product of art and of evolution. If it were the result 
 of pure evolution by necessary law, it would be quiet and 
 peaceful ; if it were the result of pure art exercised on pas- 
 sive, plastic, foreign material, it would equally be peaceful. 
 But the mingling of these two elements in varying propor- 
 tion produces eternal conflict. In early stages the conflict 
 is between classes or factions, and is violent and revolution- 
 ary ; in later stages it is between parties and far less violent. 
 But in all cases it is more or less blind, unreasoning, pas- 
 sionate conflict. But social evolution and the art of govern- 
 ment have now reached a point beyond which they can not go 
 by the use of empirical methods alone. There really seems, 
 in this country at least, to be serious danger of retrogression 
 in politics unless scientific methods are introduced unless 
 we understand the principles of sociology and try to apply 
 them to the art of government. On the other hand, how- 
 ever, it is evident, from what has already been said, that the 
 application must be made with the greatest caution and 
 modesty, and in strict subordination to a wise empiricism. 
 Science must be introduced into politics only as suggesting, 
 counseling, modifying, not yet as directing and controlling. 
 Hitherto social art has advanced in a blind, blundering, 
 staggering way, feeling its way in the dark, retrieving its 
 errors, recovering its falls. But now, under the light of 
 science, even though it be yet dim, it must advance more 
 steadily, seeing as well as feeling its way. The Ethical 
 Association has invited discussion of political and social 
 questions from a scientific and especially an evolution point 
 of view. I regard this as a most hopeful sign of the times 
 as the beginning of a new era in politics. It is from this 
 point of view that I desire to discuss the race problem in 
 the South. I can not hope, of course, to solve so difficult a 
 problem. All I can do is to lay' down some scientific prin- 
 
354 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 ciples on which a solution must be based, and in all modesty 
 to suggest some practical methods of application of these 
 principles. 
 
 OUR BEQUEST OF SLAVERY. 
 
 No subject can be scientifically understood until studied 
 in the light of its history. This is the historic method the 
 evolution method, so much used in modern research. It is 
 necessary, therefore, first of all to give a brief outline of the 
 history of this problem. 
 
 There was a time, and that not more than a century ago, 
 when slavery was universally regarded as the normal, and 
 indeed the necessary, result of the close contact of civilized 
 with savage races. This view may be regarded as the nat- 
 ural one, as the survival of the law of force and the right of 
 the strongest, inherited by man from the animal kingdom. 
 It is doubtful whether in early stages of ethical evolution 
 any other relation was possible or even desirable ; since the 
 only alternative would have been extinction of the weaker 
 race. The relation of master and slave, then, is a natural 
 one under the conditions given above. Now, let it be re- 
 membered that whatever is natural can not be wholly wrong ; 
 that the function of reason is not to despise or destroy or 
 reverse Nature but to transform it into higher modes. But 
 no more of this now ; we will recur to it later. In any case, 
 it will be admitted that the present century was not respon- 
 sible for the existence of slavery at the South previous to 
 the late war. It was a bequest from the previous century. 
 Again, we must sharply distinguish between the introduc- 
 tion of slavery and its continuance after it was introduced. 
 All will admit the iniquity, the incredible horror of the 
 slave trade, but the possession and use of inherited slaves is 
 consistent with, and may be even conducive to, the highest 
 morality. We, therefore, say nothing more concerning the 
 introduction of slavery into the United States. Americans 
 were no more responsible than other civilized peoples. The 
 South especially was, if possible, less responsible than others, 
 for the slaves were brought not in her ships, but in those of 
 other countries or other parts of our own country. Before 
 the war, and the resulting emancipation, the question with 
 the South was not as to the right or wrong of the introduc- 
 tion of slavery. That was a dead issue of a dead genera- 
 tion. " Let the dead bury their dead." The Negroes were 
 already there ; what relation must they sustain to the whites ? 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 355 
 
 So, also, since the war, and consequent emancipation, the 
 question now is not whether emancipation was right or 
 wrong, nor, if right, whether it came in the best way. That 
 also is a dead issue. The question now is, Being emanci- 
 pated, what is best to be done with the Negro ? I have called 
 these questions dead, but they are not dead in the sense of 
 being without living progeny. The living, in this as in all 
 cases, has been evolved out of the dead, and must be studied 
 in connection with the dead. This is the historic or evolu- 
 tion method spoken of above. 
 
 It is necessary, also, to trace briefly the history of the 
 change of sentiment on the subject of slavery. 
 
 Immediately after the War of the Revolution all the 
 States, unless we except Massachusetts, tolerated slavery. If 
 slaves were more numerous in the South, it was only be- 
 cause the climate was more congenial and their labor more 
 profitable there. For the same reasons there was a contin- 
 ual transfer of slaves from the North toward the South ; so 
 that the disparity became greater with time. As the blacks 
 became fewer in number, and their labor less profitable, 
 emancipation laws were enacted in the Northern States suc- 
 cessively. It is doubtful if the same result would have fol- 
 lowed, at least so soon, if slaves had been more numerous 
 and more profitable. Thus, the difference between the two 
 sections in regard to the presence or absence of slavery was 
 due wholly to physical causes, and not to any difference in 
 the moral character of the people. 
 
 Now, the same was true in regard to the difference of 
 sentiment on the subject of slavery which gradually devel- 
 oped in later times. It was purely the result of circum- 
 stances. Immediately after the War of Independence there 
 was no difference of sentiment on the subject of slavery in 
 different sections of the country. In fact, the sense of the 
 evils of slavery, and the hope of abolishing it, seem at that 
 time to have been stronger in Virginia and South Carolina, 
 and other Southern States, than in the North.* But here, 
 again, commencing from a common ground, there was a 
 gradually increasing divergence. The same was true of 
 many other questions closely connected with one another, 
 
 * Washington, Jefferson, and Madison expressed hopes of the abrogation of 
 slavery. 
 
 Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee were taking steps looking toward gradual 
 emancipation when checked by the abolition agitation. 
 
 In the first draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson introduced a 
 clause reprobating the slave trade. This was withdrawn on account of objections 
 from some of the colonies. Lunt, Causes of the War of '61, pp. 10-30. 
 
356 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 and all undoubtedly contributing to the catastrophe of the 
 war of '61. For example : Starting from a common ground, 
 there was an increasing divergence of views on the subject 
 of the tariff, the natural result of diversity of industries. 
 Similarly there was an increasing divergence of views in 
 regard to the relative claims of national and State sover- 
 eignty, the natural result of the increasing population of 
 the Northern States, and the desire to use the national 
 power in their own behalf. Similarly, an increasing diver- 
 gence of views as to the strict or literal construction of the 
 National Constitution, the South being ever on the defen- 
 sive, and therefore strict constructionists. The same was 
 true, and even more true, of the question of slavery. At 
 first slavery was tolerated everywhere. Then, wherever the 
 question could be viewed abstractly and disinterestedly, slav- 
 ery was regarded as a social evil and a social danger, but no 
 longer avoidable. We must make the best of it. Then the 
 sentiment of the world against it became ever stronger, and 
 it was regarded as not only a social but a moral evil-/-wimt 
 / at all hazards ought to be removed. Then it became a mor- 
 tal sin, then a crime, then the sum of all crimes ! Then, of 
 course, there commenced a holy crusade against it. 
 
 In the mean time a contrary movement of sentiment 
 was going on at the South. As slave labor became more 
 and more profitable, chiefly by the increasing culture of 
 cotton and rice, which, more than any other products, re- 
 quire the control of labor ; as the number of slaves became 
 greater and greater, partly by congeniality of climate, 
 partly by migration from the North, but chiefly by the 
 better care of the slaves and their increased reproduction 
 the emancipation of the slaves became more and more diffi- 
 cult, partly on account of the enormous amount of property 
 in this form, but especially on account of the extremely 
 grave social question involved. Now, as emancipation 
 seemed more and more impossible, slavery more and more 
 fixed, the South, as was natural, set herself to finding some 
 rational grounds for the defense of slavery, and many even 
 persuaded themselves that, instead of a curse, it was a bless- 
 ing, and even the sum of all blessings. 
 
 But, in spite of these attempts to defend and even to 
 apotheosize slavery, in the minds of thinking men there 
 was an uneasy and even painful sense of isolation from the 
 rest of the civilized world and a consequent stagnation of 
 the current of progre'ss. It was easily perceived that in 
 
The Race Problem in tlie South. 357 
 
 many ways slavery was a blight on the prosperity of the 
 South. Thirty years before the war the South was fully 
 abreast of the foremost of the Northern States in enterprise, 
 both commercial and manufacturing, in literature and in 
 art, and, in fact, in all that constitutes a vigorous progressive 
 civilization. But these thirty years were years of complete 
 revolution in the world's sentiment on the subject of slavery. 
 They were also years of prodigious advance everywhere ex- 
 cept in the South. She stood still while the rest of the 
 world rushed on. That the cause of this was slavery there 
 could be no doubt. No people can with impunity cut 
 itself off from sympathy with the rest of the civilized world. 
 It must be left behind in the race. Civilization is no longer 
 national, nor even racial. It must be human. 
 
 Such was the condition of things in 1861. Such is a 
 brief history of the growth of the " irrepressible conflict " 
 between the North and the South. I will not stop to dis- 
 cuss the causes of the war. Others can do this better than 
 I ; and, besides, that is not the subject now in hand. Cer- 
 tain it is, however, that it was the natural result of increas- 
 ing divergence of interests and sentiment on many subjects 
 already mentioned, until finally parties became essentially 
 sectional. Undoubtedly, however, by far the most funda- 
 mental of these, and perhaps the determining cause of 
 all the other divergences, was the question of slavery. But 
 still more fundamental than this than all these in fact, 
 the underlying cause of all revolutions is the irrational, 
 unscientific, empirical methods of politics, already described. 
 If revolutions are to be prevented in future, it must be 
 by the use of more rational methods, by understanding the 
 laws of sociology, and the wise application of these laws in 
 politics. 
 
 OP SLAVES AS PROPERTY. 
 
 I have already spoken of the overwhelming loss of prop- 
 erty suffered by the South as the result of the war and con- 
 sequent emancipation. This leads me to say something on 
 the economic question of slaves as property. Let it be 
 understood, however, that what I say on this subject is the 
 result of my own thoughts only, and carries no authority 
 with it except its reasonableness. I do not profess to be a 
 political economist. It may be that the views I am about to 
 express are those of political economists generally, but I am 
 sure they are not usually held by intelligent people. 
 
358 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 When the war was ended and emancipation accepted, 
 everybody regarded the situation at the South as that of so 
 many thousand million dollars' worth of property complete- 
 ly annihilated, gone out of existence like that which takes 
 place in the burning of a house. Now this, I am convinced, 
 is not true. I well remember at that time astounding some 
 of my friends by asserting that, under favorable conditions 
 and a due relation between the amount of land and slaves, 
 there would be no loss at all, but only a change of form of 
 labor. I illustrated this then, and I would illustrate it 
 now, as follows : Suppose I own a certain amount of land, 
 and slaves enough to work it ; obviously the value of the 
 whole property would be determined by the resulting aver- 
 age income. But it will be admitted, and subsequent events 
 have proved, that the same land worked faithfully by free 
 hired labor would make fully as much income. Evidently, 
 then, the value of the property would be unchanged ; the 
 value of the land alone after emancipation would be equal 
 to the value of land and slaves before. In other words, the 
 whole value of the slaves would be transferred bodily over 
 to the land. I repeat, then, that if after emancipation the 
 Negroes had continued to work faithfully for wages, the 
 products of the land would have been undiminished, and 
 therefore there would have been no perceptible loss of prop- 
 erty at all. The great loss of property and the awful pros- 
 tration of the South was wholly the result of the complete 
 disorganization of the labor system. An old system had 
 been destroyed, the new had not yet been established. The 
 whole trouble was the unfortunate suddenness of the change 
 and the time necessary for readjustment. It is impossible 
 on any other view to account for the rapid recuperation of 
 the South. In many places, it is true, the recuperation was 
 slow ; in some places the recuperation has not taken place at 
 all ; but this is only because the reorganization of labor has 
 been slower or has not taken place at all. This is the case, 
 for example, on the coast of Georgia already mentioned, 
 and in many other places. The number of blacks in these 
 places is too great to feel the influence of the whites. The 
 community is essentially African, and therefore with little 
 or no ambition to improve. Living is easy with even a 
 minimum of labor. The Negroes are unwilling to work for 
 wages. The whites in despair have mostly moved away and 
 abandoned the cultivation of their lands. On this view it 
 is easy to account for individual cases of utter loss of re- 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 359 
 
 duction from affluence to abject poverty. But such cases 
 are exceptions. 
 
 It is evident, then, that slaves are not property at all in 
 the sense that other things are property. They are not, and 
 never were, regarded at the South as mere chattels, though 
 doubtless too much so in many cases. Slavery is only the 
 right, or at least the power, to control labor. Wherever 
 capital controls labor there is slavery. If sla\re labor in any 
 case is more profitable than free labor, it is only because it 
 is more controllable. 
 
 ETHNOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM. 
 
 Under this general head come several questions of funda- 
 mental importance. Among these I discuss, first 
 
 (a) The Laws of the Effects of Race Contact. 
 
 The laws determining the effects of contact of species, 
 races, varieties, etc., among animals may be summed up 
 under the formula, " The struggle for life and the survival 
 of the fittest." It is vain to deny that the same law is ap- 
 plicable to the races of man also. All the factors of organic 
 evolution are carried forward into human evolution, only 
 they are modified by an additional and higher factor, 
 Reason, in proportion to the dominance of that factor i. e., 
 in proportion to civilization. In organic evolution the con- 
 tact of two diverse forms determines either the extinction of 
 the weaker or else its relegation to a subordinate place in 
 the economy of Nature ; the weaker is either destroyed or 
 seeks safety by avoiding competition. In human evolution 
 the same law must hold, with a difference to be determined 
 by reason. At the outset of this discussion, therefore, it 
 is necessary to lay down a fundamental proposition which 
 must underlie all our reasonings on this subject : Given two 
 races widely diverse in intellectual and moral elevation, and 
 especially in capacity for self-government i. e., in grade of 
 race evolution ; place them together in equal numbers and 
 under such conditions that they can not get away from 
 one another, and leave them to work out for themselves 
 as best they can the problem of social organization, and the 
 inevitable result will be, must be, ought to be, that the 
 higher race will assume control and determine the policy 
 of the community. Not only is this result inevitable, but 
 24 
 
360 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 it is the best result for both races, especially for the lower 
 race. 
 
 To illustrate : Suppose there be cast on a desert island 
 100 grown-up people and 100 children of, say, ten years 
 old, but having no blood relationship the one set with the 
 other, and a community be there organized. Is it not 
 inevitable is it not best for all parties, but especially for 
 the children that the grown-up people should assume entire 
 control and determine the policy of the community, while 
 the children should be subordinated to their authority ? Is 
 not this just, is it not right ? Talk about violation of the 
 rights of the weaker ! The sacredest of all rights, because 
 the right most apt to be violated, is the right of the weak 
 and the ignorant to the control and guidance of the strong 
 and the wise. Would not even compulsory service in pro- 
 portion to ability and in return for protection and guidance 
 be better than neglect and consequent extermination ? 
 
 Or suppose 1,000 Anglo-Saxons and the same number of 
 Australian blacks be put together in the same place and 
 surrounded by an unscalable wall so that they could not 
 run away from the experiment. Is it not evident that the 
 founding of a civilized community is strictly conditioned on 
 the complete supremacy of the white race ? The disparity 
 between the two classes in this case is fully as great as in 
 the last, but the problem would be far more difficult, be- 
 cause of the physical strength and animal ferocity of the 
 Australian as compared with the physical weakness, and 
 especially the docility, of the children. But in some way 
 peaceable if possible, forcible if necessary the higher race 
 must control and determine the policy of the community. 
 Here again even compulsory service, if necessary, in propor- 
 tion to ability and in return for protection and guidance, is 
 best for both races, but especially for the lower race ; for the 
 only alternative for them is extermination. You may call 
 it slavery if you like. If so, then slavery under certain con- 
 ditions is right. But the relation, if kindly and wisely ad- 
 ministered, is not slavery in any philosophic sense. 
 
 We have said above that the inevitable result of such con- 
 tact is either subordination of some kind or degree, or else 
 extermination. Which it will be, depends on the char- 
 acter of the two races, especially the lower. If it be in the 
 early stages of race-evolution, and therefore plastic, docile, 
 imitative, some form of subordination will be the result ; 
 if, on the other hand, it be highly specialized and rigid, 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 361 
 
 extermination is unavoidable. The Negro is probably the 
 best type of the former and the American Indian of the latter. 
 Now, the condition of things at the South to-day, though 
 certainly not identical, is similar to that described above. 
 Here we have two races widely different in grade of evolu- 
 tion, in nearly equal numbers in the same place. The dif- 
 ference in grade may not be as great as that described 
 above ; but, if not, we owe it to the previous condition of 
 subordination to the white race. The result, therefore, 
 must be similar, though certainly not identical with the 
 cases described above. As a broad general fact, control of 
 some kind or degree must be in the hands of the superior 
 race. I do not say that the best form of such control is 
 slavery. If it ever were the best form (as it probably once 
 was), it is not so now. The Negro under slavery, and by 
 means of slavery (for in no other way was close and peace- 
 able contact of the two races possible), has been developed 
 above slavery. Slavery was probably at one time the only 
 natural or even possible relation between the two races, and 
 was therefore right. The evils were not in the institution, 
 but in its abuses. But by race-evolution of the Negro this 
 relation became less and less natural, and therefore less and 
 less right. It was probably becoming wrong before the war. 
 Even without a war, and an emancipation proclamation, I 
 believe slavery would certainly have come to an end, not by 
 the external pressure of a foreign sentiment, but by the in- 
 ternal pressure of race-growth. The race-evolution of the 
 Negro had gone as far as it was possible under the condi- 
 tions of slavery. Freedom in some form or degree was 
 necessary for its further evolution. I say " some form or 
 degree " ; for the right to freedom, as we understand it in 
 this country, has not yet been achieved by the Negro race in 
 the South, as a whole. By slavery the Negro has been edu- 
 cated up to the right to some measure of freedom, but not 
 as a race to complete freedom. Some form or degree of 
 control by the white race is still absolutely necessary. I 
 mean not personal control, but control of State policy. 
 There can be no doubt that some device by means of which 
 the policy of the community shall be substantially under 
 the control of those alone who are most capable of self-gov- 
 ernment is the absolute condition of civilization there. What 
 is the best legal device for this purpose is just the problem 
 to be worked out by the Southern people, and they will 
 work it out if let alone. 
 
362 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 The Wide Significance of the Problem. 
 
 It is impossible to exaggerate the importance to the South 
 of this problem, for the very existence of a civilized com- 
 munity there is conditioned on its successful solution. But 
 it is also a problem of widest application, affecting all the 
 races on the face of the earth. Everywhere the white race 
 is pushing its way among lower races. Everywhere, now 
 that slavery is inadmissible, the result is gradual extinction 
 of the lower race. And this tendency to destroy lower 
 races is steadily increasing with the increased energy of 
 modern civilization. Is this result inevitable ? If not, 
 how is it to be avoided ? Nowhere are the opportunities 
 for the successful solution of this question so favorable as 
 at the South to-day. In the first place, the problem is 
 a more pressing one there than anywhere else ; it must be 
 solved, and that speedily. In the second place, the Negro 
 is the very best race that could be selected for the pur- 
 pose. As this is an important point, I stop a moment to 
 explain. 
 
 In this regard the inferior races may be divided into two 
 groups viz., those which are inferior because undeveloped, 
 and those which are so because developed, perhaps highly 
 developed, in a limited way or in a wrong direction. Races 
 of the first group may be called generalized ; they are plas- 
 tic, adaptable to new conditions, and therefore easily molded 
 by contact with higher races. Those of the second group 
 are specialized ; they are rigid, unadaptable to new condi- 
 tions. The Negro is the best type of the first group, and 
 perhaps the Chinese of the second group. The Chinese 
 are a highly developed race, but extremely rigid under the 
 influence of other races. The Japanese are far more plastic. 
 The Negro has many fine and hopeful qualities. He is plas- 
 tic, docile, impressionable, sympathetic, imitative, and there- 
 fore in a high degree improvable by contact with a superior 
 race and under suitable conditions. It is doubtful if any 
 other race could have so thrived and improved under slavery 
 as the Negro has done. But, although the Negro by means 
 of slavery has been raised above slavery, it would be a great 
 mistake to suppose that he has yet reached the position of 
 equality with the white race that unassisted he can found 
 a free civilized community. The question, therefore, still 
 remains, What is the just and rational relation that should 
 subsist between the two races ? It is the problem of race- 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 363 
 
 contact everywhere, but here under conditions most favor- 
 able for successful solution. 
 
 Objections. 
 
 Doubtless many objections will be raised against the fore- 
 going positions. Many persons will not even admit the 
 gravity of the problem, or that any solution is necessary. 
 For them, the formula, " All men are born equal," is a suf- 
 ficient solution. They say that the Southern people are 
 wholly wrong in imagining any difficulty in the matter 
 that elsewhere among civilized peoples, as, for example, in 
 Europe and in New England, Negroes are treated much like 
 
 Cple of other and whiter color. True ; but it must be 
 ne in mind that relative, numbers is a prime factor in 
 the question. If there be only a few of a lower race scat- 
 tered about in a community, we can afford to recognize, nay 
 more, to patronize nay more, if it serves any purpose, to 
 lionize them. But when the numbers are equal or nearly 
 so, when there is a struggle between the two races for con- 
 trol of the policy of the community, the case is very differ- 
 ent. The higher race must iake control. There is not a 
 civilized community in the world that would not demand 
 this. The Hindu visitor in England is treated with respect, 
 and even lionized, but in India the race line is drawn nearly 
 as sharply as it is at the South, and yet the Hindu is a 
 Caucasian aye, even an Aryan people. See, again, the rela- 
 tion between the English and the aboriginal Australian or 
 the New Zealander whenever they come in close contact. 
 If the problem is not so serious in these countries, it is only 
 because there is still room enough and to spare the lower 
 race may withdraw itself from close contact, if it so desires. 
 It is evident, then, that the feeling which draws the race 
 line is not peculiar to the South, but is found everywhere 
 under similar conditions. Nor is it a matter of political 
 party. Northern Republicans, settling at the South, soon 
 catch the infection. 
 
 But it will be objected again that any relation between 
 the races other than that of complete equality in all re- 
 spects is manifestly in conflict with the fundamental law of 
 the nation, and especially the recent amendments of the 
 Constitution. I sincerely hope not. I hope and believe 
 that there may be found some lust and rational method of 
 solving this problem which will not be in conflict with 
 
364 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 fundamental law. But if not if there be indeed a radi- 
 cal discordance, an irreconcilable conflict between funda- 
 mental law and the position taken above then I do not 
 hesitate to say, So much the worse for the fundamental law 
 and the constitutional amendments, for it only shows that 
 these are themselves in conflict with the still more funda- 
 mental laws of Nature, which are the laws of God. If it be 
 so, then the South is very sorry, but it can't be helped. 
 There is a law of self-preservation for communities as well 
 as for individuals, and this law takes precedence of all other 
 laws. It is a higher law if you like. It will be remembered 
 that in 1850 Massachusetts, too, preached a higher law than 
 the Constitution. If ever there were a case in which the 
 doctrine of a higher law was justifiable, surely it is this. It 
 is true that sacrifice of the individual freely to the State is 
 noble. It is true that Socrates not to mention a still 
 higher and diviner example subordinated the law of self- 
 preservation itself to the laws of the State, and we reverence 
 him for so doing. But remember, first, that this was done 
 on high ethical, not legal, grounds; and, secondly, that 
 when, as in this case, the question is that of preservation, 
 not of the individual, but of the community, of civilization, 
 of the interests of humanity, the law of self-preservation 
 stands on the highest ethical as well as the strictest legal 
 grounds. In this case the right of self-preservation becomes 
 the duty of self-preservation. 
 
 The whites, I believe, desire earnestly more earnestly than 
 can be well imagined by those at a distance the real best 
 interests of the blacks. They earnestly desire their elevation 
 both by education and by acquisition of property. There can 
 be no better evidence of this than the fact that nearly the 
 whole expense (ninety per cent in South Carolina) of the 
 education of the blacks is borne by the whites. They would 
 grant, I am sure, every just right ; but all on the one con- 
 dition that in some way the whites shall, for the present at 
 least, substantially control the policy of the State. This is 
 an absolute necessity at present and until some better solu- 
 tion of the problem be devised, until some better line than 
 the race-line be drawn between the capables and the 
 incapables. That this is true is plainly shown by the dis- 
 astrous results of the brief reign of carpet-baggers sustained 
 by Negro votes after the war, and the immediate restoration 
 of order and prosperity so soon as the whites again assumed 
 control. 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 365 
 
 But it will be objected again that the race-line is artifi- 
 cial, and therefore unjust and irrational, and that there 
 are many blacks more capable of intelligently directing the 
 policy of the State than some whites. Yes, this is true. 
 But are not all lines more or less artificial ? Can there be 
 anything more artificial than the age-line ? Are there not 
 many persons under twenty-one more capable than many 
 over twenty-one ? In this case, it is true, the admitted in- 
 justice will be speedily removed by advancing age. But so 
 in the other, also, the admitted injustice will, we hope, be 
 removed, though not so speedily, by race-growth, race-educa- 
 tion. In both cases it is an age-line in the one case of the 
 individual, in the other of the race. The one is no more 
 unjust than the other. 
 
 But again it will be objected that the race-line is wholly 
 the result of race- prejudice, and this in its turn only a rem- 
 nant of slavery. It may, indeed, be partly the result of 
 race-prejudice, but not, I think, a remnant of slavery. The 
 race-prejudice is not confined to the South. On the con- 
 trary, it is probably less there than elsewhere. But race- 
 prejudice or race-repulsion, to use a stronger term, is itself 
 not a wholly irrational feeling. It is probably an instinct 
 necessary to preserve the blood purity of the higher race. 
 But of this I shall have more to say hereafter. 
 
 (b) The Principles of Race-improvement. 
 
 1 have spoken of the color-line as a race-age-line, which, 
 even though no better line could be drawn, would not re- 
 main, but be eventually removed by race-development. This 
 leads me to speak of the principles of race-improvement. 
 
 It has been imagined by many over-sanguine persons that 
 the whole race problem will be speedily solved by public- 
 school education. This, I suppose, is the form of solution 
 present in the minds of most people. I am quite sure this 
 is to some extent a delusion. Education has done much 
 lor the Negro, but it will not solve the problem in this gen- 
 eration, nor in many generations. The education of the 
 individuals must not be confounded with the evolution of 
 the race. There can be no doubt that the evolution of 
 races is largely determined by the same factors that deter- 
 mine the evolution of the organic kingdom. Now, there 
 are some biologists of highest rank who go so far as to deny 
 that individual acquirements can be inherited at all. If 
 
366 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 these biologists are right, then education of individuals does 
 not improve the race at all. I do not agree with these biolo- 
 gists, and have given my reasons in a previous article.* 
 Nevertheless, it is certain that in animals, and also in man, 
 the whole improvement of the individual is not carried 
 over bodily into the next generation by inheritance, but 
 only a very small part. A small part of the improvement 
 of each generation is carried over by inheritance to the 
 next, and this, accumulating from age to age, constitutes 
 the gradual evolution of the race. Thus the education of 
 the individual is one thing and the evolution of the race is 
 another and very different thing. The one is a question of 
 a few years, the other a question of centuries, perhaps mil- 
 lenniums. The truth is, education i. e., school education, 
 book education is usually regarded as a panacea for all the 
 evils of society. But this is a false and very pernicious 
 view. The experimental philosophy of the last age, and 
 still prevalent in this, would make the whole intellectual 
 and moral capital of every individual the result of his own 
 individual acquirement. This is an arrogant philosophy. 
 It exalts too much the importance of the individual, and 
 has had much to do with many of the evils of society of the 
 present day. But one of the most important recent modifi- 
 cations of our philosophy of life, forced upon us by the 
 theory of evolution, is the recognition of the fact that a 
 very large part of every man's intellectual and moral capital 
 comes by inheritance. In animals all or nearly all is in- 
 herited ; in man a part is inherited and a part individually 
 acquired. The higher the race, the larger is the proportion 
 of individual acquirement. But in all cases the inherited 
 bank account is continually growing from generation to 
 generation by small additions from individual acquisition. 
 The growing inheritance constitutes the evolution of the 
 race. 
 
 But some will object that, so far as the evidence of the 
 schools is concerned, there is no sufficient reason for regard- 
 ing the Negro as at all lower than the white race. On the 
 contrary, the Negro pupils show remarkable brightness. This 
 is probably true. They do indeed show brightness, quick- 
 ness of memory, keenness of senses, precocity of perceptive 
 faculties. These qualities are very characteristic of nearly 
 all lower races (and, indeed, also of animals) ; but they 
 must not be confounded with the reflective, originating, 
 
 * The Factors of Evolution, etc. The Monist for July, 1891. 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 367 
 
 rational faculties which develop late, and show themselves 
 in active life rather than in school. It is in these highest 
 faculties alone that the great difference exists. 
 
 Again : In these modern times there is a strong tendency 
 to exaggerate the importance of formal education (i. e., 
 school education, book education) as compared with informal 
 education. Now, in all of us, but especially in lower races, 
 it is the informal education that which comes by contact 
 with higher individuals and higher races that is by far the 
 most important in the formation of character, and there- 
 fore for self-government and fitting for citizenship. The 
 simple contact with the white race in slavery times, and the 
 same contact together with the necessity of self-support 
 since emancipation, has done more for the elevation of 
 the Negro than school education alone could possibly 
 have done. Not only has the Negro been elevated to his 
 present condition by contact with the white race, but he is 
 sustained in that position wholly by the same contact, and 
 whenever that support is withdrawn he relapses again to his 
 primitive state. The Negro race is still in childhood; it 
 has not yet learned to walk alone in the paths of civilization. 
 In the South to-day wherever the whites predominate, so 
 that the policy of the community is determined by them 
 alone, the Negroes are industrious, thrifty, commencing to 
 acquire property, and, in fact, improving in every way. But, 
 on the contrary, wherever the Negroes are largely in excess, as 
 in some portions of the coast regions of the South Atlantic 
 and Gulf States, so that the influence of the whites is 
 scarcely felt and the community is essentially African, the 
 Negroes are rapidly falling back into savagery, and even re- 
 suming many of their original pagan rites and superstitions. 
 
 (c) Principles of Race-mixture. 
 
 Another proposed solution of the problem is complete 
 race-mixture. Eace-mixture often produces good effects : 
 why not this ? I know of no American writer of distinc- 
 tion who has proposed this solution, but some thoughtful 
 English writers see no other solution possible. This brings 
 me to discuss this subject in the light of biology, and 
 especially of evolution. 
 
 In a previous article, on Genesis of Sex (Popular Science 
 Monthly, November, 1879), I, have treated this subject 
 more fully on the biological side, and in another article, 
 
i 
 
 368 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 on Mixture of Eaces (Berkeley Quarterly for April, 1880), 
 I have applied the biological principles to the subject of 
 human progress. I can here only give a brief resume^ re- 
 ferring the reader for fuller details to the articles men- 
 tioned. 
 
 Darwin, by abundant and conclusive experiments, has 
 shown that in plants in which the flowers are bisexual i. e., 
 contain both stamens and pistils-j-and are thus self -fertil- 
 izing/ if self-fertilization be prevented and cross-fertilization 
 between different flowers of the same plant, or, still better, 
 between flowers of different plants of the same species, be 
 effected, the result will be more and larger seeds, and there- 
 fore more and healthier offspring, than in the case of self- 
 fertilization. Now, this experiment undoubtedly furnishes 
 the key to the explanation of the advantages of sexual over 
 other forms of generation, and the object of its introduc- 
 tion, as well as of much else in the process of evolution. 
 There can be no doubt that non-sexual preceded sexual 
 modes of generation, and that the sexual modes were intro- 
 duced in order thereby to bring about cross-fertilization ; 
 and, furthermore, that throughout the whole evolution of 
 the organic kingdom the constant effort of Nature has been 
 to bring about an increasing diversity of the crossing indi- 
 viduals up to a limit which will be presently explained ; 
 and, finally, that the object of all this, or at least its effect, 
 has been to produce better and better results in the off- 
 spring. 
 
 The steps of this process were briefly as follows : (1) 
 First there was only the simplest conceivable form of gen- 
 eration, viz., that by fission fissiparous generation. Here 
 there is not even the distinction between parent and off- 
 spring. (2) Next there was generation by budding 
 gemmiparous generation but from any part alike. Here 
 first emerges the distinction of parent and offspring, for 
 the bud is but a small part of the original organism. (3) 
 Then, by the law of specialization, the function of budding 
 is relegated to a particular part, and we have a budding 
 organ. (4) Then by another general law the budding or- 
 gan is transferred for greater safety to an interior surface, 
 and thus simulates an ovary, though not a true ovary. (5) 
 Then this organ develops two kinds of cells sperm-cell and 
 germ-cell. Here for the first time we have the sexual ele- 
 ments male and female which by their union produce the 
 ovum, which in its turn develops into the offspring. This 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 369 
 
 is the lowest form of sexual generation. We have male and 
 female elements, but not male and female organs, much less 
 male and female individuals. (6) The next step is the 
 separation of the two organs, male and female spermary 
 and ovary which prepare the two elements, sperm-cell and 
 germ-cell ; but these organs yet remain in the same indi- 
 vidual. This is hermaphroditism, almost universal among 
 plants and very common among lower animals. (7) The 
 next step is the introduction of devices of many kinds to pre- 
 vent self-fertilization and insure cross-fertilization between 
 different hermaphroditic individuals. (8) The next step is 
 the separation of the sexual organs in different individuals, 
 thus entirely preventing self-fertilization ; and the introduc- 
 tion of sex-attraction, insuring cross-fertilization. (9) The 
 next step is the gradually increasing diversity of the crossing 
 individuals i. e., of the males and females. (10) The last 
 step, and the one which specially concerns us here, is the 
 crossing of males and females of different varieties of the 
 same species. These are the principal steps ; but of course 
 there are many gradations between. 
 
 Now, the effect, and therefore the object, of this whole 
 process of gradual differentiation is the bringing about of 
 better results in the offspring. Why the results are better, 
 is more obscure. It is undoubtedly due in some way to the 
 increasing diversity of the qualities inherited by the off- 
 spring from the two parents the funding of diverse quali- 
 ties in a common offspring. This may improve the off- 
 spring in two ways : First, by the struggle for life among 
 the many qualities, good and bad, strong and weak, inher- 
 ited from both sides, and the survival of the strongest and 
 best qualities. Secondly, diversity of inheritance tends to 
 variation of offspring, and this furnishes materials for nat- 
 ural selection, and thus hastens the process of evolution. 
 But there is a limit to the good effects of this differentiation 
 of uniting individuals ; for the union of individuals of dif- 
 ferent species is either less fertile or wholly infertile. In 
 other words, when the difference between the uniting indi- 
 viduals reaches the extent which we call species, then Na- 
 ture practically forbids the bans. I say practically forbids. 
 There are many degrees of fertility and infertility between 
 species. In most cases the infertility is absolute i. e., the 
 union is without offspring. In some there is offspring, but 
 the offspring is a sterile hybrid which dies without issue. 
 In some the hybrid is fertile, but its offspring is feeble, and 
 
370 The Race Problem in the Soirih. 
 
 therefore quickly eliminated in the struggle for life with 
 the pure stock, and becomes extinct in a few generations ; 
 or else it is more fertile with the pure stock than with 
 other hybrids, and therefore is absorbed into one or other 
 of the parent stocks, and the original species remain dis- 
 tinct. If this were not so, there would be no such thing as 
 species at all. 
 
 Now, to sum up and apply : It is well known that in the 
 higher animals close, consanguineous, in-and-in breeding 
 continued for a long time weakens the stock, while judicious 
 crossing of varieties strengthens the stock. But there must 
 be a limit beyond which the effect again becomes bad ; for 
 when the difference between the uniting individuals reaches 
 the extent of species, Nature forbids the bans i. e., there is 
 no result at all. It is evident, therefore, that we may repre- 
 sent the effect of cross-breeding among higher animals by a 
 sinuous curve, as shown below : 
 
 CL v .^^^^>^b qq 
 
 DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATING THE EFFECTS OF CROSS-BREEDING. 
 
 In this diagram the horizontal line represents the average 
 results of indiscriminate breeding, or the ordinary typical 
 condition of the species. Distance of points on this line 
 represents the amount of diiference of uniting individuals, 
 and the sinuous line represents the varying effects of cross- 
 ing of selected varieties. Where this line passes below the 
 horizontal line it shows effects below the average; when 
 above that line, effects above the average. By inspection it 
 is seen that close in-and-in breeding, a a, produces bad ef- 
 fects ; b b represent ordinary individual differences, the cross- 
 ing of which produces average results, and tends to main- 
 tain the average level ; v v represent varieties, the crossing 
 of which produces good results, which rise to a maximum 
 at v' v', and then declining again, become bad or below the 
 average at v" v" ; until, finally, when the difference of the 
 uniting individuals reaches the extent which we call species, 
 s s, then the result becomes infinitely bad i. e., produces 
 no offspring. In a general way, therefore, the diagram rep- 
 resents the facts of cross-breeding. 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 371 
 
 Now, there can be no doubt that the above law applies 
 also to man, with perhaps some modifications, to be deter- 
 mined by investigation. There can be no doubt that long- 
 continued consanguineous, in-and-in breeding has a bad ef- 
 fect also in man, and probably even more so than in animals. 
 I am well aware that some recent writers have contested 
 this statement, but the examples cited are those of isolated 
 communities under peculiarly healthy conditions ; and, 
 moreover, the argument relates only to the physical and not 
 to the psychical nature. But it is the psychical nature 
 which is peculiarly sensitive, and which we are specially 
 concerned with here, for we are discussing the effects on 
 human evolution or progress. Bodily health and strength 
 are, of course, a necessary underlying condition ; but human 
 evolution is spiritual, not bodily. Organic evolution is by 
 change of form and making of new species, in order to 
 come into harmony with an ever-changing environment. 
 Man, on the other hand, changes the environment so as to 
 bring it into harmony with himself and his wants; and, 
 therefore, his evolution is not by change of form or making 
 of new species of man, but by change of character and ele- 
 vation of the plane of his activity. 
 
 But to return. There can be no doubt that consanguin- 
 eous breeding of families, true breeding in isolated com- 
 munities, and even continuous breeding within the limits of 
 a national variety, tend in various degrees to fixedness of 
 character, customs, laws, modes of thought and feeling, and 
 thus, finally, to rigidity and arrest of development ; while, 
 on the other hand, the crossing of family bloods, communal 
 bloods, and national bloods tends not only to strengthen 
 physically and mentally by the survival of the best qualities 
 inherited from both sides, but also, and much more, to pre- 
 vent fixedness of character and arrest of development, to 
 confer plasticity, comprehensiveness, many-sidedness, and 
 thus to promote progress. No doubt commerce, travel, edu- 
 cation, all tend in the same direction, but mixture of blood 
 and diverse inheritance is the most direct and potent means 
 
 of accomplishing this result. 
 It is evident, th< 
 
 , that the effect of mixing human varie- 
 ties is similar to the effect of mixing animal varieties, and 
 that in a general way both are truly represented by the dia- 
 gram. The only question that remains is : What amount 
 of difference produces maximum results ; and where, if any- 
 where, do bad results begin? 'This question can not be 
 
372 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 answered with certainty; but it seems probable that the 
 crossing of national varieties, and perhaps of all varieties 
 within the limits of the four or five primary races, may pro- 
 duce good effects ; but that the crossing of these primary 
 races themselves produces bad effects. It seems probable 
 that in the evolution of man from the animal kingdom 
 there was a differentiation into varieties so strong that they 
 may be regarded as incipient species. If so, then the di- 
 vergence between these primary races has passed the limit 
 within which crossing has a good effect. The results of 
 such crossing partake somewhat of the nature of hybrids 
 they are less strong than either of the pure races. Eace- 
 aversion which certainly exists, though it may be over- 
 leaped by passion is probably a sign of a difference ap- 
 proaching specific. 
 
 This conclusion, reached by general considerations alone, 
 is substantially confirmed by such loose observations as have 
 been made on such crosses. Opportunities of widest ob- 
 servation on this point occur at the South ; but, unfortu- 
 nately, they have not been as careful and scientific as we 
 would desire. There seems little doubt, however, that mu- 
 lattoes have not the strength and endurance of either of the 
 pure races. It is certain that they are much more liable to 
 hereditary diseases, especially the different forms of scrof- 
 ula. It is almost certain that when they marry among them- 
 selves the next generation is even still feebler; and it is 
 probable, though not certain, that in a few generations they 
 would die out unless re-enforced by the stronger blood of the 
 pure races, in which case, of course, they would disappear 
 by absorption into the one race or the other. In intellect 
 the mulatto is certainly superior to the Negro; but it is 
 doubtful if he attains even the mean between the two races ; 
 it is doubtful whether the white blood does not lose more 
 than the black gains by the mixture. These conclusions have 
 been reached by nearly all observers, as, for example, by 
 Morton, Nott, Glidden, Gobineau, Ferrier, etc. I know of 
 but one writer Quatrefages who contests them. The ques- 
 tion is a very complex one. Moral influences may have 
 much to do with the dying out of a race. The anomalous 
 position of the mulatto, recognized by neither race, may 
 have its effect. But this again is only another evidence 
 that successful mixing is impossible. 
 
 But some, even here in America, have thought that, 
 whether we like it or not, whether the effect of mixture be 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 373 
 
 good or bad, the problem is going to solve itself in this 
 way. I am not sure, but I think they are mistaken. The 
 mixing 01 the races has been greatly exaggerated because 
 observed mostly in the cities. On the plantations the mixed 
 breeds have always been rare. In the next place, the mixing 
 is becoming less and less every day. In proportion as the 
 Negroes become more self-respecting, they withdraw more 
 and more from this kind of relation with the whites, and 
 to some extent from the mixed breeds. The mixed breeds 
 are not increasing in number, and, as already said, they will 
 either die out or be absorbed into one or other of the pure 
 races. In addition to this natural and spontaneous with- 
 drawal, nearly if not quite all of the Southern States have 
 passed laws forbidding mixed marriages. In this regard, 
 therefore, the color-line is likely to be permanent.* 
 
 DESTINY OF THE LOWER RACES. 
 
 The extreme interest of the general question of the des- 
 tiny of the lower races, and its close connection with the 
 question in hand, induces me to digress here in order to dis- 
 cuss it very briefly. 
 
 If the views presented above be true, then for the lower 
 races everywhere (leaving out slavery) there is eventually 
 but one of two alternatives viz., eitner extermination or 
 mixture. But if mixture makes a feeble race, then this also 
 is only a slower process of extermination. Is extermination, 
 then, the inexorable fate of all the lower races ? Shall the 
 pitiless law of organic evolution the law of destruction of 
 the weak and the survival of only the strongest races be the 
 law of human evolution also ? It may indeed be so, but let 
 us hope not. It may be that there is a way of escape. Let 
 us see. 
 
 I suppose the blue-eyed, fair-haired Teuton on the one 
 hand, and the black on the other, may be regarded as ex- 
 treme types, and that their mixture will produce the worst 
 results. The mixture of the Spaniard and Indian in Mexico 
 and South America has produced a hardy and prolific race, 
 although it must be acknowledged that the result in social 
 
 * Some years ago it was believed and stated that the blacks were increasing 
 much faster than the whites. If this were true, they would soon overrun not 
 only the South, but the whole country. But it is not true. The belief was based 
 on false statistics which are now corrected. The problem is serious enough 
 without this aggravation. They are not now increasing as fast as the whites, on 
 account of the much higher death-rate. 
 
374 Tin- !!<<> 1'nthlnn in Hit' 
 
 and social progress has not been encouraging. 
 But if we admit Mie result in this rase a ; more favorable 
 than <h;it in the case of the mixture of the A.nglo-8aXOI) 
 and the Neijro, may \\ e nol in (his fuel, glimpse M. hope for 
 the lower races in ivneral V The primary races, though wide 
 apart in their extreme l\ pes, approach each ol her on their 
 margins. Is it nol. possible lh;it these ni:ii^iii;il vnriclics 
 of primary r:i<vs IM;IV ;ippro:icli sulliricuMy nr:ir (<> mix with 
 ad Vantage, and lluis IMMV lc foi-nn-d sccoiuhn-y Ivprs Hint 
 IIKIV nii\ Biiccossfully with CMMI the cxIrciHc types? To 
 illustrate: If llu* coinuM-tion lu-twrcn Ilic cxti-cinc types 
 form an arch loo \vi<le <o ln> slnhle, ni;iy not cadi extreme 
 connect with ;i mon^ intenncdi.-il^ type <>n r:ich side, and 
 form two stahle arehes which shall he the ahnl ineuls of ;i, 
 still lii^lu-r cenlral arch? If mixing is possible at all, it, 
 would serin lhal it must be by such gradual approaches. 
 
 \o\v, there are many reasons for helievini;- thai if success- 
 ful mixing lx at all possible, such mixing would he heller 
 for humanity than extinction of the lower races and the 
 survival of the white nice alone. There are valnahle <|tiali- 
 ties ill the lower races which ou^ht not to he lost, which 
 ought to be incorporated into the perfect ideal humanity 
 for which we hope; and this can he done only, or at least 
 most directly, by mixture. The elTcct of true breeding us 
 already seen mav be excellent, in one direction i. e., in per- 
 fecting certain limited qualities but tends to fix and finally 
 to petrify character and arrest progress. Mixing produces 
 
 a more plastic material, a better olajianioregeneraliidd and 
 
 therefore a more progressive type. Therefore it may well 
 be that, after the best results of breeding within the limits 
 of the primary races have been attained in the production 
 of tin* hi-hot race ci\ ili/.ations in several direct ions, t hen 
 the judicious mixt lire, as explained above, of these perfected 
 varieties, will produce a ^enerali/ed t\pe capable of indeli- 
 nito progress in all directions. Civili/ation, then, will 
 no longer be An^lo-Saxon, or Teutonic, or Kuropcan, or 
 Aryan, or Caucasian, but human. If something like this 
 bo not possible, then are the lower races indeed doomed. 
 
 Or, to put it another way : Any ci\ ili/.at ion is lon^-livcd 
 in proportion as it is genera! i. e., as it includes more of 
 the elements of a complete humanity. (Ireek civilization 
 was admirable, but simple, narrow, national. Therefore, 
 like an annual plant, it ^rew up rapidly, {lowered and fruited 
 gloriously, and died quickly. .Roman civili/ution was more 
 
//"" Problem in flu South. 375 
 
 M)t national hut, Mediterranean. I 
 
 'ink more .-olid hut not perennial. It 
 
 bed Modern cjvili/;r Aryan. It is still 
 
 ml, more eompi- iins mor- ;itg of 
 
 humanity, an-! fore .-.till lon^cr-lr But unless it 
 
 .'Mcnts of a perfect humanity, it also 
 
 If there he indeed valuable Dualities in the 
 
 of them which ou^ht to be 
 
 incorporated in a perfect humanity, then the ideal Civiliza- 
 tion D -,se also. The final civilisation will 
 i.-.ive witlj human nature, with tlie earth sur- 
 t.he life of humanity. 
 
 II <Ji^re.-.-ion on tlje general ^ur-.-:t.ion of the des- 
 tiny of the lower race.-, ;fe subject 
 in ha: - the adjuHtment, in the li{(ht of the pr<-eeefing 
 princi two races in the 
 South on a ju.-t and rational basin. On this strictly prae- 
 ibject I Khali he brief, ber-;iu-. ;?i object is the 
 . tion of principles, not their application in }>ractical 
 politicH. If the o^je.-.tion be on! in the ri^ht spirit 
 and from the .vcientific Htandpomt, it will be quickly solved 
 by practical men. 
 
 Jem flivi'le.H it-elf into two main branches viz., 
 the political and ' il. The political is the more 
 
 irnrnerliate and urgent, and therefore Uiken up first; but the 
 ethical is more fundam> 
 
 THF: I'OMTK \ i. PROBLEM. 
 
 Before taking up any special mode of solution, it is neces- 
 sary to a import al principle. The race 
 problem, like all complex .-:ocial prof;. ot to be solved 
 at once out. o f hand, M many think. We have had far too 
 much of thin kind of Holution of political problems already 
 'ory. A true solutio:; -v firocr-.-:.-: of evolution, 
 
 The final Holution is om'v : ndition of 
 
 by a Question sol'. 
 
 The only ^uention at any moment i- : \\ . best thin# 
 
 to be done- now un . - 
 
 ..ition, reojui;. solution. 
 
 if, What is th- 
 
 e that all that is necessary to H prob- 
 
 lem i.-, to bre;ik up the "solid South" that parties should 
 25 
 
376 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 divide as elsewhere on other lines than the color-line. This, 
 like many other pretended solutions, is a mere ignoring of 
 the problem. Eventually, doubtless, parties must so divide, 
 but not now, nor until some other or better line between the 
 capables and the incapables be drawn and recognized. The 
 Negro race as a whole is certainly at present incapable of 
 self-government and unworthy of the ballot ; and their par- 
 ticipation without distinction in public affairs can only re- 
 sult in disaster. The Negroes themselves are beginning to 
 recognize this. They are withdrawing themselves more and 
 more from politics. Everywhere the black vote is small in 
 proportion to their numbers. And this is due not wholly to 
 intimidation, as many think. Doubtless intimidation has 
 been used in the South as elsewhere ; perhaps more than 
 elsewhere, for the motive was stronger viz., the existence of 
 a civilized community. But this is not the only nor indeed 
 the principal cause. The Negroes now see that their first 
 hopes of the magical power of the ballot were fallacious. 
 They are now beginning to believe that the whites are not 
 their enemies but their friends, and are better able to take 
 care of their interests than they are themselves. Thus, even 
 in the sea-coast counties of Georgia, which I have recently 
 visited, where the blacks outnumber the whites in some 
 parts ten to one, and where intimidation is impossible and 
 never was attempted, the county is now represented in the 
 Legislature by white men alone. The same thing is shown 
 by the fact that the law making the payment of a poll-tax 
 of one or two dollars a qualification for voting practically 
 disfranchises nearly all the blacks ; not because they can 
 not pay it, but because to them the privilege is not worth so 
 much. 
 
 I repeat, then, that the blacks as a whole are unworthy 
 of the ballot. The South is not solid against the North or 
 against any party as a party, but she is solid for self-govern- 
 ment by the white race as the only self-governing race. 
 Until some better line be drawn defining a self-governing 
 class, she is obliged to be solid. That some such better line 
 will be made I can not doubt, for the color-line pure and sim- 
 ple can not continue. It is not only manifestly unjust, and 
 therefore debauching to the political honesty of the whites, 
 but is a constant source of irritation, and therefore fraught 
 with danger. 
 
 But the question returns : By what just and legal means 
 can we secure government by a self-governing class alone ? 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 377 
 
 I answer without hesitation : By a limitation of the ballot, 
 by a qualification for voting, both of education and of 
 property. I see no possible solution but this, and this I 
 believe would be effectual. It would be perfectly just and 
 perfectly rational. It would exclude many whites, but only 
 such as should be excluded. It would include many blacks, 
 but only such as are fit to vote. I said a qualification both 
 of education and of property. Perhaps most persons will 
 agree to the justice of the former ; but I regard the latter 
 as by far the more important. It is so not only nor mainly 
 on the ground usually assigned viz., its conservative tend- 
 ency but also and chiefly because it is the best index of a 
 self-governing capacity. In the higher races, in advanced 
 stages of civilization, and in highly cultured communities 
 there are doubtless many men who take no heed to accumu- 
 late property, not, however, from shiftlessness, but because 
 they have higher and better things to do. They are so busy 
 with higher and better things that they have no time to 
 make money. But in uncultured men generally, and es- 
 pecially in lower races, there is no better, I might almost 
 say there is no other, evidence of character necessary for 
 the exercise of the ballot than the steady industry and self- 
 denial necessary to accumulate property. Mere book edu- 
 cation, on the contrary, though easily acquired by the 
 Negro on account of his quick apprehensiveness, has little 
 effect on character, and is but small guarantee for self- 
 governing capacity. 
 
 I would make the qualification of both kinds small as 
 small as is at all consistent with effectiveness because I recog- 
 nize the powerfully educating effect of the ballot itself. 
 Freedom educates for freedom, and therefore should be 
 given even in larger measure than deserved. Privilege 
 educates for the right use of privilege, and therefore as 
 much should be given as is consistent with safety. This is 
 a true principle in all education, whether of individuals, of 
 communities, or of races. But although the ballot educates 
 for the right use of the ballot, yet its reasonable limitation 
 is a still more potent educator ; for it is the most powerful 
 of all inducements to improvement of all kinds. 
 
 The golden opportunity for the introduction of these 
 qualifications was certainly at the time of the reconstruc- 
 tion of the Southern States immediately after the war. 
 I well remember that when the constitutional convention of 
 South Carolina under the call of President Johnson met at 
 
378 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 Columbia, although, not myself a member of that conven- 
 tion, I urged on my friends who were members the necessity 
 of opening at once the franchise to both races, without dis- 
 tinction, but making an educational and property qualifica- 
 tion. But the sentiment of the South was not yet ripe for 
 such a policy. If such qualifications could have been made 
 at that time, the South would have been saved all the hor- 
 rors of carpet-bag rule. But it is vain to indulge regret. I 
 suppose it was impossible at that time, not only because the 
 South was unprepared, but also because even if it had been 
 done it would not have been accepted by Congress. Now, 
 however, that the State governments are fully established, 
 it can be done if the whites really desire it. Some qualifi- 
 cation separating the capables from the incapables, the 
 worthy from the unworthy, is probably the greatest want of 
 the country everywhere. It can be done more easily at the 
 South than anywhere else, because the necessity is greater, 
 and because of the wider difference between the intelligent 
 and unintelligent classes there. 
 
 Some feeble attempts have been made in this direction 
 in certain parts of the South, and always with the best 
 effects. In many States a law making payment of a small 
 poll-tax of one or two dollars a condition of voting dis- 
 franchises a large majority of the ignorant blacks. It dis- 
 franchises some whites, too, but this is no objection. 
 Other and less justifiable but legal means have been used to 
 diminish the incapable vote, such as the eight-ballot-box law 
 in South Carolina. Mississippi alone has gone still farther 
 in this direction, and that because the necessity was greater 
 there than in most States. In the recent constitution of 
 that State there is a qualification for voting, including the 
 ability to read, or else to understand and interpret the con- 
 stitution and laws (a much harder condition than mere 
 ability to read, but too indefinite), and also the payment of 
 all taxes, including a poll-tax of two dollars, for the two 
 preceding years. May we not hope that these qualifications 
 will be increased in amount and extended throughout the 
 South, and that they will become an entering wedge to 
 accomplish the same result throughout the whole country ? 
 
 It was thought by some that limitation of suffrage would 
 diminish representation in Congress. This is still an open 
 
 question, but probably it would not. (See Cooley, General 
 Pro-visions o f Constitutional Law, pp. 263, 264.) But, in 
 any case, if the South is not willing to sacrifice some- 
 
The' Race Problem in the South. 379 
 
 thing for the sake of good government, she does not de- 
 serve it.* 
 
 SOME PRINCIPLES OF THE ETHICAL PROBLEM DISCUSSED. 
 
 The classes of society, the principles on which they are 
 based, and how far they are rational and just, this is the 
 question which must now be discussed, for the so-called 
 race-line is of this nature. The whites and blacks at the 
 South are absolutely separated in society. They have sepa- 
 rate churches, separate schools, separate colleges, and in 
 large measure separate cars, separate hotels, etc. In the 
 present state of feeling the Negroes themselves many of 
 them prefer it so. Is the state of feeling right ? It is evi- 
 dent that this question requires a discussion of some very 
 fundamental ethical principles. 
 
 Nature is so complex that it can not be understood until 
 simplified by classification. Things and phenomena can not 
 be dealt with as individuals, for they are too numerous and 
 diversified ; they must be dealt with in groups or classes. 
 The grouping of forces and phenomena constitutes physical 
 science ; the grouping of forms and objects, natural history. 
 The process of grouping in physical science is called gen- 
 eralization, in natural history classification. This grouping 
 is the most fundamental process in the construction of sci- 
 ence. Either name would do, but we shall usually call it 
 classification, because we will deal with grouping of forms 
 and objects. 
 
 Now, man's mission on the earth is to understand Nature. 
 But see the dilemma in which the human mind finds itself. 
 It is impossible to advance a single step in science i. e., 
 in the rational comprehension of Nature without classifica- 
 tion ; and yet a true classification i. e., one that expresses 
 the true relations of things is impossible without complete 
 scientific knowledge. Therefore he is compelled to make 
 an arbitrary, artificial, provisional classification of some sort, 
 to enable him to manage his material. Any classification 
 is better than none ; any kind of order is better than chaos. 
 By the use of this provisional classification science or ra- 
 
 * Colonization has been proposed as an easy solution of the problem. Some 
 of the most intelligent of the Negroes themselves for example, Bishop Turner, 
 of the African Methodist Church earnestly advocate this plan. I say nothing 
 of this plan, (1) because the Negroes very naturally refuse to colonize, (2) be- 
 cause the whites themselves would be loath to lose so valuable a laboring class, 
 and (3) because this method would not touch the general question of race-con-' 
 tact. 
 
380 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 tional knowledge is gradually accumulated, and this knowl- 
 edge becomes, in its turn, the basis of a natural classifica- 
 tion. But, unfortunately, often, especially in higher and 
 more complex departments of thought, the provisional char- 
 acter of the first classification is not recognized, and the 
 change into a more natural classification, which ought to 
 take place gradually as science advances, is resisted by a too 
 rigid conservatism, and, therefore, can only take place by 
 revolution. 
 
 This law of the advance of rational thought is so funda- 
 mental and important that I must try to make it clear by 
 illustrations. I might use for this purpose any department 
 of science, but I select botany as the best. 
 
 The object of the botanist is to make a perfect natural 
 classification of plants i. e., a classification which shall ex- 
 press perfectly the natural affinities or degrees of kinship, 
 or order of evolution of all plants. But, on the one hand, 
 it is impossible to make such a classification without ex- 
 haustive knowledge of plants ; on the other, it is impossible 
 to begin to acquire such knowledge without a previous 
 classification. How did the botanist emerge from this di- 
 lemma ? He made first an artificial classification. Under 
 the light and guidance of this, scientific knowledge became 
 possible, and by the co-operation of an army of workers in 
 every part of the world it was steadily accumulated. In 
 proportion as knowledge of true relations of plants increased 
 a natural classification based on these became possible and 
 gradually displaced the artificial, though at first not without 
 some resistance. 
 
 Observe now the difference between these two kinds of 
 classifications. The one is the condition of rational knowl- 
 edge, and the agent of its initiation, and the other is the 
 compendious expression of rational knowledge, and the agent 
 of its continuous advance. The one is of necessity perfect, 
 rigid, made at once out of hand, as all artificial things are ; 
 the other is never perfect, but ever growing, evolving, as all 
 natural things do, in order to adapt itself to an ever-grow- 
 ing knowledge, until finally it again disappears in the light 
 of a perfect knowledge of individuals and their relations. 
 Thus, when rational knowledge is perfect, like that of God, 
 then classification or generalization will have done its per- 
 fect work and disappear. Or, to put it in another way : In 
 artificial classification the division lines between classes are 
 sharp, hard, and fast ; in natural classification, and in pro- 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 381 
 
 portion as it is natural, classes shade into each other more 
 and more until the division lines disappear. Thus, the hu- 
 man mind starting from animal sense-perception of indi- 
 viduals without relations, passes through classification, and 
 finally reaches perfect rational perception of individuals and 
 their relations from chaos through artificial order to ra- 
 tional order. 
 
 This law meets us in every department of thought and of 
 human activity. It meets us, therefore, in the classification 
 of society. The relations of individuals to one another are 
 so numerous, diverse, and complex that they form at first a 
 bewildering chaos. Now, man is put here in this world 
 and the problem given him to solve is a rational classifica- 
 tion or organization of society. But, on the one hand, such 
 an organization is impossible without a complete knowledge 
 of human relations i. e., a complete sociology; on the 
 other, such knowledge is impossible without a previous or- 
 ganization. Therefore, the first step in civilization is the 
 classification of individuals on some obvious basis, however 
 artificial and arbitrary, as the very condition of civilization 
 and of rational knowledge. Any classification is better 
 than none. It may be based on conquest, or on race, or on 
 wealth, or on family, or on pursuit in life, or on any other 
 obvious distinction. Then, with the advance of science or 
 rational knowledge this classification must be modified and 
 made more and more rational. In the ideal society, when 
 sociology is complete and the moral nature of man perfect, 
 when rational knowledge of human relations and the will 
 to act in accordance with these relations is perfect, then I 
 suppose classes of society, as we now know them, will have 
 served their purpose and disappear. In other words, every 
 man's position in the estimation of his fellow-men will be 
 determined wholly by his real worth in every way, but espe- 
 cially his intellectual and moral worth. The non-recogni- 
 tion of this law is the cause of all revolutions. 
 
 Now, this law applies, of course, to the classes or castes of 
 society as they exist to-day, and is their sufficient justifica- 
 tion. In early stages of society these are arbitrary, artificial, 
 rigid, separated by hard and fast lines impossible to over- 
 pass. In so far as they are so, they are unnatural and oppress- 
 ive. ^ But they were thoroughly recognized and regarded as 
 inevitable, and society was therefore comparatively peaceful. 
 They are now becoming less and less rigid, less and less 
 impassable, especially in this country ; but also their artifi- 
 
382 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 ciality, their irrationality, and therefore injustice, are more 
 and more recognized, and therefore society is becoming 
 more and more restive. The time has come when classes 
 of society must on the one hand be put on a more rational 
 basis, and on the other must be recognized as a necessary 
 condition of civilization. 
 
 Now, race-classes not only come under the same head, 
 but are more natural and rational than many others, be- 
 cause founded on a real natural difference i. e., a difference 
 in the grade of evolution ; and, moreover, where the differ- 
 ence is as great as it is between the Anglo-Saxon and the 
 "Negro, the class-distinction seems absolutely necessary, at 
 least for the present. This class-distinction, therefore, is 
 peculiar, in that it is more rational than others in so far as 
 it is more natural, but less rational in so far as the separat- 
 ing line (race-line) is more rigid and impassable, and par- 
 takes of the nature of caste. This natural caste-line can 
 not be broken down, and, as it seems to me, ought not, until 
 we understand better than we now do the laws of the effects 
 of race-mixture. If the effects of the mixture of the ex- 
 treme primary races be bad, not only immediately, but for 
 all time and under any mode of regulation, then the law of 
 organic evolution, the law of destruction of the lower races 
 and the survival of only the higher, must prevail and the 
 race-line must never be broken over. If, on the other hand, 
 mixture of the extreme primary races can in any way and 
 by any rational mode of regulation be made to elevate the 
 human race, then the race-line must and ought to be broken 
 down and complete mixture must eventually take place. 
 We are not yet prepared to speak confidently on this subject. 
 
 Meanwhile, the exercise of mutual forbearance and kind- 
 ness in other words, of a true rational spirit will do 
 much eea to mitigate or even to remove entirely the evils 
 of the race-line. We must wait and let the problem solve 
 itself. If only the spiritual brotherhood be realized, it will 
 matter little if the physical distinction remain. 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 383 
 
 'XUv-^ 'fiA^-* 
 
 . ~^-~~ 
 
 - /^-^i^U^-ta rt-C-C*^ ? ^U-^~ *-, 
 
 [ ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 
 
 MR. JAMES A. SKILTON: 
 
 I was extremely fortunate in having the privilege of opening the 
 discussion of the paper read by Prof. Mason on the Land Problem, 
 and am not less so in having the privilege of opening the discussion of 
 the thoroughly scientific and very valuable paper read this evening by 
 the distinguished president of the American Society for the Advance- 
 ment of Science. 
 
 Prof. Le Conte has treated the subject not only from the scientific 
 and evolutionary point of view, but also from the point of view of the 
 sincere and thoughtful man of Southern birth and experience. It has 
 been my fortune, however, to have approached the subject from the 
 opposite point of view of Northern birth and experience, supple- 
 mented by an extended and unique experience in the same Southern 
 State, in the " black belt," and practically in the locality of Prof. Le 
 Conte's birth and early life, where before the war I took an organized 
 force of white laborers and had the immediate control at different 
 times of free white labor and slave labor, with abundant opportunity 
 for instructive study and comparison. In so far as I was capable, I 
 then, and have since, applied to the study of the subject scientific and 
 evolutionary principles, and, as for my own candor and sincerity, it is 
 sufficient to say that these may be considered as necessarily implied in 
 the application of such principles. 
 
 It was my fortune to begin to study Southern conditions on the spot 
 in December, 1852, and to approach the subject with caution, followed 
 by years of deliberation, only to reach the broader conclusions I shall 
 present to you under the illuminating processes and effects of growing 
 secession and war and what has since developed from them. When 
 every man of my white force was struck down with malarial fever and 
 I was left alone and unaided to take care of my house, stock, and 
 crops, I began to feel that my tuition in Southern conditions was com- 
 mencing in earnest ; and when forced to hire slaves to take their 
 places or quit, I faced the situation, hired the slaves, and in due time 
 got my practical experience on the slave-labor side as I had before 
 done on the free-labor side, both in a Southern locality. Furthermore, 
 with the slaves employed to take the places of white men disabled by 
 malarial fevers, I not only came into direct contact as master by hire, 
 but, being recognized by them as coming from the land of freedom, had 
 
384 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 to an unusual degree their confidence and trust in general, and fre- 
 quently as to the deeper experiences of their personal and family 
 lives. 
 
 It is usually very instructive, after having been put through a hard 
 curriculum and learned your lesson, to watch others those of differ- 
 ent types, origins, and capacities while they are being put through 
 the same curriculum. This advantage I had in scores if not in hun- 
 dreds of instances where the new scholars were Northern men or for- 
 eigners, newer or later comers in the South than myself, and thus have 
 been able to review, reconsider, or verify my own observations and con- 
 clusions times without number. 
 
 Let me claim, then, that what I have to say is not presented as the 
 view of a man of Northern birth who has recently begun the study of 
 the subject, and, fresh from his first excursion, attempts to solve the 
 Southern problem through the opportunities of a week's travel and of 
 glimpses caught through the windows of a railroad car or of lessons 
 learned in conversation with casual fellow-travelers. Having lived 
 there and engaged in business, become a citizen, a voter, and subjected 
 myself to all the influences of the Southern environment, I certainly 
 have had the opportunity of obtaining an insight deeper than that of 
 a transient person and of learning to understand and sympathize with 
 the Southerner in the stupendous difficulties of his problem. In so 
 doing I am glad to be able to say, nevertheless, that, scientific and evo- 
 lutionary principles aiding me, 1 have never found myself compelled 
 to sacrifice the broader Northern principles, properly so called, in 
 which I was born and bred ; certainly not my faith in freedom. 
 
 The truth of the matter is, the usual or current Northern and South- 
 ern views are neither of them sound or correct, and they never have 
 been so. The real truth consists, and always has consisted, in a newer 
 composite view that takes in parts of each, mainly the facts of the 
 Southern view and the aspirations and hopes of the Northern view. 
 
 I have dwelt so much upon preliminaries because many years of ex- 
 perience have shown me the futility of the attempt to aid people to 
 understand the real South unless they can be somehow, at least tem- 
 porarily, dislocated from contemplation of the old view and so pre- 
 pared to consider a different view. 
 
 To me, then, this opportunity is so unique that it can not well be re- 
 peated. I shall therefore spend no time on direct criticism of the 
 paper of Prof. Le Conte in detail, but, hoping to equal him only in 
 candor and sincerity, prefer to start from the opposite geographical 
 point of the compass, and, in so far as the time permits, place my 
 own thought parallel with his for the purposes of comparison as the 
 method most likely to be instructive and beneficial ; for then in those 
 
Tfie Race Problem in the South. 385 
 
 matters in which there is agreement there will be re-enforcement, and 
 in those matters in which there is disagreement, if any, there will be 
 opportunity for further study if necessary. 
 
 From my own point of view the race question may be treated in- 
 deed, must be treated as a continuation or extension of the land ques- 
 tion.* Either actually or by implication the facts of the race question 
 and race conditions being placed alongside of or correlated with those 
 of land questions and conditions, which as the product of an almost 
 purely selfish commercial policy have resulted in destroying oppor- 
 tunity for proper growth and development, the inference will be either 
 drawn or held in mind that the very existence of a race question is 
 due to the mismanagement or misdirection of economic forces, and 
 that the solution of the question can only be found in a change of 
 commercial policy dictated by rightly managed and directed economic 
 principles and forces; and I shall further proceed on the larger gen- 
 eralization advanced by Dr. Lyman Abbott, in his letter read at the 
 last meeting, to the effect that our race question is " simply the prob- 
 lem of man," and no mere negro question or Afro or Afric-American 
 question. 
 
 But here let me dispose of one branch of the topic in a word. If the 
 system of land barbarization, which beyond question has located the 
 negro where he is and to some extent made him what we find him 
 there, is to continue, then for me the race question is already settled 
 I do not wish to see the white man enter a contest the goal of which 
 is permanent barbarism. By all means let the most barbarous or the 
 least civilized race capture and possess that goal without contest on 
 the part of the race to which I belong, if natural or climatic law, the 
 laws of commerce or society, present no alternative. 
 
 The really difficult parts of the race problem are chiefly due to hal- 
 lucinations or misinformations. When these are disposed of it may 
 be a matter of doubt whether any race problem remains. When we 
 get below them and among the real facts of the case, we find that the 
 negro is as much the product of evolution as any other race, that he 
 belongs by nature and by history to the hotter and necessarily more 
 backward regions of the world, to and in which he is constitutionally 
 suited and the white race totally unsuited. Indeed, these facts show 
 that while the blacks may not have the qualities required to civilize 
 the temperate zones, the whites have shown no capacity for civilizing 
 the tropics, and that the two races are therefore quits. Seemingly, we 
 would prefer to take the negro out of his natural domain, in violation 
 of evolutionary law and result, and force him to adapt himself to a new 
 habitat instead of building on what has been done by Nature in the 
 
 * See The Land Problem, pp. Ill and 131. 
 
386 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 past and helping to civilize his habitat and thereby the man and the race. 
 If the white race would first really develop the fit civilization of its own 
 habitat by following the true lines of sociological growth, it would 
 then be in a position to assist the negro to do the same thing where he 
 belongs, each thus aiding and neither hindering the other. Looking at 
 the matter in this way, we may see that our duty is to build on the negro 
 as he is rather than to attempt to reconstruct him on the plan of the white 
 man. It is certain that the negro is in the world for a purpose, with a 
 fitness at least to accomplish beneficent ends, if we can manage to un- 
 derstand, respect and aid in the application of the necessary means to ac- 
 complish those ends. And when we look him over and over and through 
 and through, glancing our eyes between times at the conditions and pos- 
 sibilities of the hotter regions of the world to which he belongs, we will, 
 if sufficiently clear-sighted, begin to suspect that about the worst use we 
 could put him to would be to make him over on the white man's pattern ; 
 unless it be the substitution of a mongrel race in the place of the two races. 
 
 There is one almost universal hallucination lying here at the thresh- 
 old and requiring removal before we can even properly enter upon 
 discussion. In the first place, slavery was essentially a condition. It 
 never was essentially an institution. It has been our great mistake 
 that we have treated it as such, and only as such. It was a growth 
 in fact, an evolutionary growth. And as a condition it never was 
 destroyed, never can be destroyed, either by a proclamation of emanci- 
 pation, by a mere constitutional amendment, or by any other mere 
 institutional means or method. Without going into an explanation 
 of these statements, it is sufficient to quote the words of the master : 
 
 " No one can be perfectly free till all are free ; no one can be perfectly 
 moral till all are moral ; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy." 
 
 In other words, freedom, morality, and happiness must be universal 
 or they can not exist. They must be the product of a universal con- 
 dition a condition in which the unity is created out of diversity by 
 growth, by evolution. 
 
 While the ex-slaves of the South have since emancipation, so called, 
 come into a time when they can claim political freedom and point to 
 the fundamental law in support of that claim, they still remain under 
 the dominion of the same economic and industrial law and condition 
 in and by which they were originally made slaves, and can never be- 
 come in fact free men without something more than mere institu- 
 tional change. Having no genuine economic freedom, they can have 
 no real political or social freedom. 
 
 There is another point that needs clearing up to the Northern mind. 
 Under slavery the slave was in essential particulars the pet of the sys- 
 tem. His white master, the master's wife, and their children looked 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 387 
 
 after him with the most earnest and incessant care ; not only did the 
 lady of the plantation personally attend and nurse him when sick, but 
 when he was assaulted the slave had his master for a protector ; and I 
 have myself seen an avenging master pursuing the white murderer of 
 his slave, pistol in hand, with the same terrible expression on his face 
 that he might have had if his son instead of his slave had been the 
 victim of attack. In slavery, therefore, the position of the slave was 
 in essential respects ostensibly better than that of the poor white who 
 lived on his little clearing near by, and had no protector or avenger 
 but himself. For the slave was assisted by his master in his struggle 
 for survival and elevation in the scale of life. So far as this is con- 
 cerned, therefore, emancipation threw the slave back on to the same 
 level with the poor white, leaving him only the aid of the past benefits 
 and protection of slavery to give him help in the battle of the future, 
 certain to be of doubtful value. 
 
 And, fruitful as this age has been in opera bouffe, it is doubtful if 
 any production in that line equals the performance of the abolitionists 
 when, immediately after the war, they assembled in solemn council, 
 disbanded their abolition societies, delivered their orations of self- 
 praise, and marched off from the battle-field with drums beating and 
 banners flaunting the air, at the very moment when the results of the 
 war furnished them the opportunity to begin the battle for freedom 
 as a condition in the South. No history of the past and no working 
 scheme for the elevation of the negro in the future can miss or ignore 
 the deep significance of this point and be of any value whatever. 
 Practically the abolitionists treated freedom as well as slavery as insti- 
 tutional in character and origin ; they understood neither the ultimate 
 cause nor the cure of slavery, but left the matter of its abolishment in 
 such confusion that we may credit them with the creation of the prob- 
 lem we are discussing, and for which no clear solution of their sugges- 
 tion yet appears after more than a quarter of a century of further 
 study and experience. In fact, the negro was practically abandoned by 
 his so-called friends and left to the tender mercies of his so-called 
 enemies and former masters ; and, notwithstanding the masters had 
 insisted that they could frame no theory or system according to which 
 the industries of the South could be conducted on the basis of freedom, 
 both the abolitionists and others at the North abandoned the negro, 
 substantially, to his own devices, after giving him the franchise as the 
 sole and sufficient panacea for all his ills past and to come. 
 
 The point I make is that, like the slave-holders, the abolitionists had 
 no practical and just solution to offer, and that they ran away and 
 turned the problem over to others, while claiming credit for a solution 
 that was no solution. Not only was there no recognition by abolition- 
 
388 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 ists then that slavery was the product of economic action, but, as 
 many notable examples show, the economic policy* frequently, if not 
 generally, advocated by them before and since the war was exactly 
 that which took away " opportunity," and thereby produced slave con- 
 ditions in the one case and actually prevented the development of free 
 conditions in the other. 
 
 The dominant Southern idea before, during, and for a time after the 
 war was that under emancipation and freedom the negro would cer- 
 tainly perish. Historical facts and evolutionary principles coincide 
 with the proposition that the laborer is the member of society in and 
 through whom that society survives, and that the so-called aristocrat 
 is the man who perishes. If, therefore, the solution of the race prob- 
 lem in the South is the answer to the question, who will survive and 
 eventually rule the region now occupied by the negro, mainly in the 
 black belt, as a mere race contest in the midst of unchanged economic 
 status and action ! The only thing left to be said is that the negro 
 will unquestionably survive and possess the land, and the relative 
 status of the two races in that region will eventually be changed in 
 his favor. That is to say, if the industrial and economic conditions 
 that have caused his numerical predominance in that region are to 
 continue, he as their fit product will certainly survive and win ; and 
 with him an ethical, intellectual, and social standard of a co-ordinate 
 character, tempered by the limited and inadequate eleemosynary aid 
 of his Northern friends, will also win. For, as these friends are only 
 now beginning to discover, they have labor problems at home at the 
 
 * I mean the free-trade policy, and have particularly in mind my friend 
 and pastor Henry Ward Beecher and his immediate followers. Even now that 
 he is dead, I believe that, unless his influence in this direction can be checked and 
 counteracted, far greater injury will come (not only to the ex-slave, so called, 
 but to mankind) than of service from his life and work, great as that service 
 seems to me to have been. I do not undertake to decide the question, but only 
 to raise it for consideration, and this in the interest of his future fame as the 
 ages come and go. 
 
 The history of the nomenclature of abolition, itself and alone, sustains, if it 
 does not establish, my view. Primarily and derivatively abolition is abolescence, 
 or growth from the thing abolished. Webster so derives and defines the word. 
 But The Century Dictionary distinctly shows the influence and effect of aboli- 
 tionist philosophy and action during the past fifty years, in the all but complete 
 elimination of the idea of growth from the current definition of the word, and 
 the substitution of ideas purely mechanical and artificial in its place. 
 
 The favorite word emancipation, defining the abolitionist achievement, com- 
 pletes the demonstration. Whether the release be from the hand of purchase or 
 from that of capture, the expression is entirely and carefully mechanical, and it 
 follows the hard, unyielding Roman law out of which the stiff, wooden system of 
 our present social structure has been largely built, and into which it is one of our 
 objects to somehow breathe the breath of something like life and growth. Abo- 
 litionism has, therefore, not only failed to apply the necessary evolutionary prin- 
 ciples of growth to the solution of the slavery and race problems, but, in addition 
 to debasing our political methods to the level of the inorganic, has done the same 
 thing for the English language and the nomenclature of the subject, and even 
 for its very name. In other words, abolitionism has betrayed the fundamental 
 principle of its propaganda as expressed in the title it so proudly wears. And as 
 to method, it set the bad example which other reforms are now fatally following 
 because of its supposed success. 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 389 
 
 North to solve, for which no solution yet appears, that must tax 
 Northern resources to the verge of failure at least. That region will 
 then become substantially only a possibly better Africa, with which 
 American statesmanship must deal on that comparatively low level ; 
 for the Southern poor white, although always free politically, has 
 not been able to rise above and out of the characteristic Southern 
 status. Nor will the man of the inferior race be able to do so, as we 
 must conclude when we consider the lesser opportunities he has had 
 here and elsewhere for ages past. 
 
 The significant fact mentioned by Prof. Le Conte as to the want of 
 return to him, ever since emancipation, from lands that had supported 
 his ancestors and their slaves for generations, shows at least a tend- 
 ency toward the disappearance of the white man and his civilization 
 from the black belt first of all. 
 
 But does that portion of the United States ultimately belong to 
 the negro through ethnological, climatic, economic, and industrial, or, 
 in other words, through ultimate evolutionary title deeds f That ter- 
 ritory was not his original habitat ; he was dragged into it by the 
 force of barbarous economic principles and practice. In climate and 
 in almost every other respect it is unlike any other habitat in which 
 unmodified evolutionary law and development have located him. His 
 African home lies between the isothermal lines of 68 F. The black 
 belt lies entirely above and outside of that line and in the climatic 
 home of the white race. That region belongs climatically either to 
 the white man or to one of the other races ; primarily to the red race, 
 whose problem is being rapidly decided by extinction, somewhat on 
 the theory of General Sherman that the only good Indian is a dead 
 Indian. And in so far as the red man had prior title, the white man 
 is his natural heir and successor, and not the black man, notwithstand- 
 ing the white man, like the black man, belongs to an imported race. 
 As to the future and the right of the negro to continue in dominant 
 occupancy of the South, or any part of it, as before intimated, it de- 
 pends, I may say, entirely on the highest ideal status of civilization 
 possible of achievement in that region. 
 
 As for myself, that question was experimented with and decided 
 on the spot in favor of the white man more than thirty years ago, and 
 the development of evolutionary science and philosophy within that 
 time has furnished a succession of confirmations of the conclusion. 
 After myself working in the field with white men, and also with slaves, 
 I am prepared to say that the only seemingly natural and important 
 obstruction or hindrance to the occupation of that country and to the 
 performance of the necessary labor everywhere for its development by 
 the white man, is, not high temperature, but the presence in many lo- 
 
390 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 calities of malaria, to which the white man is only less resistant * than 
 the black man. And it is both a scientific and a historical fact that 
 the malaria is the direct product of a barbarous economic system 
 which produces the land barbarization, and slavery, of which it is a 
 symptom. It has not always been dominant there in the past, and 
 therefore may not continue to be dominant in the future, under a dif- 
 ferent system. It has increased co-ordinately with slavery. 
 
 Does it seem possible or probable that a region of country located so 
 near elevated regions manifestly the natural home of the white man, and 
 the white man of civilization, can belong scientifically and naturally, in 
 this age, to the black man. as its dominant occupier and exploiter 
 
 What then is to be said about the physical degeneracy of Confeder- 
 ate soldiers of those regions who outmarched and outfought Union 
 soldiers so frequently during the war? 
 
 What about the lecturer of the evening, president of the leading 
 scientific association of America, a leader in evolutionary study and 
 thought, indeed, in important departments the leader, in America, 
 and known to be such throughout Europe ; and, besides, a long list of 
 distinguished names of several generations in the same family ? This, 
 too, not an isolated, exceptional instance. Liberty County, Georgia, 
 where he was born and bred, was, many generations since, settled by 
 people from New England, who started from good old Dorchester, 
 Mass., as did the first settlers of Windsor and Hartford, Conn., re-en- 
 forced by a strong contingent of Huguenot blood. I venture to say 
 that no purely agricultural county in the United States has produced 
 a greater number of distinguished men than that county. Early in 
 the fifties I became acquainted with a number of its inhabitants, saw 
 many more, and learned their history. Liberty County touches salt 
 water between the Savannah and Altamaha Rivers. It is marked on 
 the map as black as the blackest in the black belt, its oldest town Dor- 
 chester. As I saw and knew them, they were large, finely built, red- 
 cheeked, masterful men more like the original type of New England 
 settler than any other men I ever saw, even in New England. 
 
 Of course the uneducated mind accepts what is as what must be ; 
 but the mind imbued with evolutionary ideas recognizes it as a funda- 
 mental principle that what now is can not continue to be ; for, unless 
 progress is made, decline is inevitable. The causes which have bar- 
 barized land and the people living on it continuing, through increased 
 soil exhaustion, deeper barbarism is certain to be reached. 
 
 * The negro's power of resisting malaria seems to have declined in his new 
 home in the South. I found the chief difference between the two races in the 
 matter of resisting malarial poisons to be that whereas the white man could 
 neither work nor eat, the negro could eat but not work. And in this fact, also, 
 we may find a hint as to survival and eventual lapse into savagery and wilder- 
 ness if the conditions continue. 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 391 
 
 There was a time in the early history of the black belt in its 
 eastern part before land barbarization had done its work and the 
 slave system had been developed, when malaria did not prevail, and it 
 is only a question of a possible civilized and civilizing method of 
 treating the soil as the result of which malaria may be eliminated. 
 When that method is adopted, the atmospheric temperature of the 
 country will be found not unsuitable or deleterious to the white 
 laborer, and the superior value of the Southern products will give the 
 white man a much greater return for the same labor, as compared 
 with the grain-producing regions of the North. When to the opportu- 
 nities of the field are added those of the factory, and the manufacture 
 of cotton in or near the place of its production, an enormous increase 
 of white population will certainly take place ; and rich as the region is 
 in deposits of phosphates and other marine products, capable as it is of 
 producing enormous crops of vegetable food suitable only for con- 
 sumption near its place of production, and fit to give the white man 
 physical strength and intellectual force, it certainly may be expected 
 that, even with no removal of the negro as a race, the country will be- 
 come possessed by the white man in such force and numbers as to place 
 the negro in the same relative position that he occupies at the North. 
 This will keep the political and social power of those regions in the 
 hands of the race occupying the Eastern, Middle, Western, and Pacific 
 States one and homogeneous, and settle the race question in the 
 South as it has done elsewhere. 
 
 Under the exigencies of the war, mechanics were in great demand 
 in the South, and the " black belt," even, became dotted with develop- 
 ing manufacturing enterprises which continued to flourish down to 
 Appomattox day, and under a proper system there is no reason why 
 they should not be revived and become permanent. 
 
 It will be impossible on this occasion to even catalogue the forces 
 and principles that will support that movement in civilizing this 
 region when once the corner is turned. The story of the Garden of 
 Eden does not furnish the principal evidence that through degrada- 
 tion man and vegetation suffer together, while thorns and thistles 
 flourish. Science teaches the same lesson. The history of the South 
 confirms it. The barbarization of the land and its people is found to 
 be both coincident and co-ordinate with the deterioration of the fiber 
 of the cotton in length, quality, and value, as the strength of the soil 
 diminishes. When the system is changed and soil enrichment takes 
 the place of soil impoverishment, exactly the opposite will occur, the 
 staple will be increased in length of fiber, improved in quality and 
 quantity, other kinds of plant life will also thrive and improve, and, 
 step by step, the problems of man, society, and the state will be co- 
 26 
 
392 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 ordinately and coincidently advanced and solved. No such develop- 
 ment, however, can occur except with and through an entire abandon- 
 ment of the old system and an increase of common interest and com- 
 mercial relations between the farms and shops of the North and the 
 farms and shops of the South, and also between the cities of the North 
 and the cities of the South ; in fact, between the two hitherto diverse 
 and antagonistic civilizations. The result of this diversity which 
 includes diversity of interests has been war in the past and will in- 
 evitably be war in the future, in one form or another, unless a law of 
 harmony is discovered and put in practice. A result of proper in- 
 creased commercial exchange between the North and the South would 
 be a tendency to check soil exhaustion, effect soil enrichment in both 
 regions, and bring about unity of interests. But a most important 
 and further effect of a dominant white civilization, not only in the 
 upland region of the South but also in the cotton and lowland region, 
 must be the development of increased commercial interchange between 
 the people of these regions and the adjacent peoples of the West 
 Indian, Mexican, Central American, and South American regions, the 
 more accessible and near-by portions, of course, having the advantage, 
 other things being equal. One of our statesmen said, during the San 
 Domingo debate, that republics should " beware of the tropics," refer- 
 ring evidently to the effects of the overmastering power of vegetal 
 growth in preventing or checking the development of man and society. 
 Evolutionary economics clearly points to the gradual movement to- 
 ward equilibration of agricultural wealth between the lands of the 
 tropic and the temperate zones as the means of benefiting the peoples 
 of both, and therefore to the true basis for a scientific commercial 
 system not only for America but for the world. Such commercial re- 
 lations will inevitably be beneficial to the West Indies, and must lead 
 to the ending of European domination therein, to more and more 
 affiliation with the people of the United States, and eventually to the 
 furnishing of a market and opportunity for the free black labor of the 
 South to emigrate to the West India Islands, there to find increased 
 reward and a more natural climate, through the increased demand in 
 the near-by South for all sorts and kinds of tropical productions, and 
 a counter-demand in those islands for the productions of all parts of 
 the United States. Under this condition of things there would be a 
 tendency and movement of agricultural products, and the means they 
 furnish for the enrichment of the soil, from the tropical regions of the 
 farther south to the Southern portion of the United States first, and 
 eventually to the Northern portion of the United States. 
 
 The history of Florida and its renewed relations with the North 
 and its people since 1865 is an instructive study in this connection. 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 393 
 
 In 1835 these relations were cut or destroyed by the ruin of the orange 
 groves in that year, the effects of which lasted for thirty years. As the 
 increasfi^j^op of Florida fruit has found an increasing market at the 
 North since 1865-'66, Northern people have more and more found 
 occupation and homes in Florida, largely neglecting the intermediate 
 regions that furnish no such products. The same principle will apply 
 on the larger scale, including the West India Islands, in the develop- 
 ment of dominant commercial movements on north and south lines 
 substantially at right angles to those of dominant commercial move- 
 ment under the present system. 
 
 This would develop a commerce based on soil enrichment and 
 higher civilization everywhere in the United States, as against a sys- 
 tem of commercial interchange based on soil exhaustion and conse- 
 quent barbarization, as now, under what I may call the English sys- 
 tem, although it has become the system of the world. So far as this 
 country is concerned, at least, that system insists and must insist on 
 commercial movements on east and west lines, whereby, through the 
 continually cheapening cost of transportation, our agricultural prod- 
 ucts are removed forever from the country and exchanged for Brum- 
 magim and other wares, which, however they may be disposed of, and 
 whatever may be their value otherwise, certainly can not do much in the 
 way of refertilizing our wheat and grain fields or the cotton fields of the 
 South. Necessary result, the destructive competition of like with like. 
 
 Our fathers started out to establish an American continental sys- 
 tem in and under which the rights of all men should be respected. 
 Their children have been in the main content to undertake and con- 
 tinue to manage a continent on parochial principles, and these in- 
 extricably and intentionally confused by constant and universal Euro- 
 pean interference. This sufficiently explains the failures of the past 
 and the hopes and possibilities of the future. 
 
 There are two ways of stating my position : 
 
 1. There is no race question except as we make one through our 
 failure to recognize and apply the scientific principles of an advancing 
 civilization in their land and ethnological relations and implications, 
 working harmoniously to the desired end. 
 
 2. The solution of the race question is to be found by giving to each 
 race its own fit habitat and the opportunities belonging to each, in 
 which each race will help others without antagonisms, either political 
 or social, each furnishing a market for the products of the other. 
 
 Under a system of this kind, so rich in possibilities is the black-belt 
 region that it could support a population as large as the present popu- 
 lation of the United States, of which only a small and unobtrusive 
 fraction would be black, while the West Indies and Central America 
 
394 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 would fill up with a black race partly composed of emigrants from the 
 United States constantly growing in civilization through the necessary 
 effects of "opportunity" furnished by a near-by market. It would 
 matter little whether the two races worked under the same flag or not, 
 so long as they worked in peace and prospered through the results of 
 a common interest in a commerce scientifically based on the different 
 natural productions of different soils, climates, and regions. Only a 
 continental system could accomplish such results. A continental sys- 
 tem is impossible so long as any part of the continent or of the adja- 
 cent islands is occupied and held under European dominion and gov- 
 erned by European ideas, North or South ; and here we reach the root 
 of the whole matter. It is not plain piracy and plunder now as for- 
 merly, but the European idea is that America must be held in a com- 
 mercial sense tributary to Europe for the purpose of aiding European 
 governments in governing European peoples on European plans and 
 principles, whatever may become of American governments, peoples, 
 and plans. We have accepted that relation not only as to commerce 
 in goods, but also in the commerce of ideas, which they supply in sup- 
 port of their plans and principles and which we accept and adopt al- 
 though they attack and overthrow American plans and principles. 
 Not so was it with the fathers. They saw the need if not the oppor- 
 tunity of setting up an independent continental system and elected a 
 Continental Congress to begin with. When their descendants have 
 wisdom enough and force enough to complete the plans of the fathers 
 in a continental system with which Europe is not allowed to injuri- 
 ously interfere, then we shall find solutions not only for race problems, 
 but for many other problems that are now not much less vexing and 
 obscure. When that day comes there will be no fine questions to dis- 
 cuss as to the effects of the mixing of races and race contacts, because 
 there will be a common and universal interest in keeping the races 
 pure and unmixed until at least an equal culture, wealth, and social 
 status shall remove the natural and beneficent race prejudice if they 
 ever do. Independent race improvement for each in its own natural 
 habitat may then proceed in an orderly and peaceful manner, the com- 
 bative instincts of men being directed to the subduing or at least 
 training and using the forces of Nature as the true policy of progress. 
 Freedom from European commercial and economic interference is 
 the most important factor in the solution of this as of many other 
 problems. 
 
 If Europe and European methods and ideas could be persuaded or 
 forced to let go their deadly grip on the people of all outlying coun- 
 tries of the world, it is by no means impossible that something more 
 than a destiny of destruction might be found for the so-called lower 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 395 
 
 races of other types without intermixture of blood or absorption 
 even. 
 
 Necessarily, in the presence of such a solution the political and as- 
 sociated moral difficulties of the problem would largely disappear. 
 
 Here, as throughout, the key to the situation is justice. Justice be- 
 tween men, and justice or obedience to the law of right toward land 
 in its broadest interpretation, failing which the land has its own slow 
 but sure system of punishment for wrong-doers. 
 
 But injustice to land and to the negro is not the only injustice that 
 has had to do with the creation of this question. There is, in fact, 
 another question of race or part of a race still more obscure than the 
 negro race question, upon which the solution of the latter absolutely 
 depends. In spite of slavery and the conditions in which it flourished, 
 a distinct type of men had been developed there which naturally affili- 
 ated with the peoples of the North to a marked degree in their ideas 
 and aspirations about freedom, union, and related topics. These men 
 doubted the beneficence of slavery and would have been glad to join 
 the North in some reasonable plan for getting rid of it. Singularly 
 enough, no discussions note or explain the total absence of this one 
 important factor in the solution. In nearly all the seceding States 
 Union men were in the majority in 1860. These Union men were not 
 only the natural allies and friends of the Union before the war, but 
 they were also the natural leaders of reconstruction and the natural 
 friends, teachers, and leaders of the negro in his induction into polit- 
 ical opportunity and the new status. They seem to have disappeared 
 from the face of the earth as effectually as the ten tribes of Israel, all 
 in one generation, leaving no sign. What happened to them and what 
 has become of them ? Having clearly seen the opportunity they were 
 possibly to have after the war, as early as the fall of 1860, having been 
 one of them myself, having been an observant witness of the deep 
 damnation of their taking off, and having done my best to prevent it 
 at the time, there is a certain duty of explanation laid upon me. 
 
 In some minds before the election, and in many within forty-eight 
 hours after it, the great and urgent questions were : If we have sepa- 
 ration in peace, what will be the status and fate of Union men f If 
 secession is followed by war, what? Between the upper and nether 
 mill-stones of the contention, how are we and our rights to fare ? And 
 when it is all over, who is to rule in these Southern States and who is 
 to be ruined, the Secessionist or the Unionist, especially if the Union 
 conquers? Will not the Government ignore us, make terms with 
 their enemies and ours after the war, and put us under their heels for- 
 ever ? These were the supreme questions to the Southern Unionist. 
 
 It was at once seen by myself and many others that England, repre- 
 4 
 
396 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 senting herself and foreign interests in general, would probably ex- 
 ercise as much influence in settling our fate and that of the negro as 
 either the Confederacy or the United States, perhaps more and more 
 it turned out to be. 
 
 International law and the laws of war have been established by gov- 
 ernments of the imperial order and conform to their interests and 
 principles ; and against them we seem to have no courage to protest. 
 In that system whatever the king does every one of his subjects con- 
 structively does and may be held responsible for accordingly by the 
 king of the nation with which their king may be at war. But American 
 citizens never were subjects of any king. They were and are sover- 
 eigns, each in his own right. How, then, could any man or combina- 
 tion of men, minority or majority, by setting up a State or Confederate 
 government in rebellion and committing treason for themselves, also 
 commit treason and work forfeiture of rights of any kind property, 
 life, franchise, representation, protection of every kind for any other 
 citizen and sovereign, and especially for a Union citizen who opposed 
 them with all the powers the Government placed in his hands, and 
 more besides, when even the Government itself was powerless to pre- 
 vent rebellion and treason by any means at its command I 
 
 Starting from this foundation during the winter of 1860-'61, I per- 
 sonally originated and worked out a plan for the protection of the 
 Southern Unionist and to enable him to aid the United States in put- 
 ting down rebellion, preserving the State autonomy in himself and his 
 class, taking in hand the management of the States in reconstruction, 
 and generally showing the South how to enter upon the new civiliza- 
 tion of freedom, peace, and Union after the war. It included a plan 
 to enable the Government to separate the sheep from the goats when 
 the day of victory and judgment should come. 
 
 My plan rested upon the claim that, unless forfeited by some act of 
 the individual, the right of representation in Congress remained to the 
 Union man of the South ; that no rights of the Unionist could be for- 
 feited by residence within the States in which rebellious citizens had 
 attempted to establish a new State government or a new general gov- 
 ernment, not even when de facto successful in that attempt ; and that 
 the property of Union men was protected by the Constitution and 
 could not be confiscated for constructive treason even when running 
 the blockade outward, especially if done in obedience to a proclama- 
 tion of the President calling upon Southern citizens to withdraw them- 
 selves and refrain from aiding and abetting treason and rebellion. 
 Two months or more were spent in Washington during June, July, 
 and August, 1861, in pressing these and related points upon the atten- 
 tion of the executive, legislative, and judicial departments of the Gov- 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 397 
 
 ernment. Among those personally approached were Mr. Lincoln, 
 Thad. Stevens, Judge Wayne, Senator Ira Harris, of New York, and 
 Mr. Dawes, of Massachusetts, the latter occupying the controlling posi- 
 tion of chairman of the Committee on Elections of the House. The 
 first four were prompt to see the importance of the suggestions made, 
 and Mr. Stevens, then chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, 
 embodied the suggestion to put a tax on cotton, intended to act prac- 
 tically like an export duty, which was subsequently declared uncon- 
 stitutional after some seventy-five millions had been collected, which 
 still remain in the United States Treasury. Mr. Dawes (looking at the 
 matter with the eyes of parochial statesmanship) saw a deep-laid plot 
 of treason in giving Southern Unionists their right of representation 
 even for the purpose of keeping the South divided into two parties, 
 one for and the other against the Government, and used his influence 
 on the floor of the House and elsewhere to prevent it. 
 
 Others besides myself were urging the same policy for similar rea- 
 sons ; but Union representation from seceded States was denied and 
 the Union elements were abandoned to their fate, many of them to be 
 forced to co-operate with the secession elements, however unwillingly, 
 thereby practically uniting the South in the compact body which re- 
 sisted so long and cost so much to conquer. 
 
 The fatal influence that produced this result was that of the Eng- 
 lish Government, with its watchful eyes on the blockade and South- 
 ern trade and its policy of embarrassment in order to make the re- 
 bellion successful. It became evident that if Southern Unionists were 
 represented in Congress, British ships would insist on* entering South- 
 ern ports in order to trade with the Southern people, on the theory 
 that under a de facto government all or none were in rebellion. That 
 is to say, the commercial system which resulted in slavery and re- 
 bellion through soil exhaustion had established relations that made or 
 seemed to make it the interest of England to destroy the Union and 
 the Union people of the South. The same relations still continue and 
 furnish one of the great obstacles to the solution of our race and other 
 problems. 
 
 The consequence was that, in spite of the fundamental principles of 
 justice and without voluntary acts of treason on which to justify the 
 treatment, the United States in all its departments executive, judi- 
 cial, and legislative treated its friends, the Union men in the South, 
 as just as guilty as its enemies, emancipating their slaves without 
 compensation, confiscating their property as that of public enemies, 
 taking away their right of representation, and finally, without making 
 the slightest distinction between friends and foes, tendering to those 
 who had never committed treason an amnesty oath, in which without 
 
398 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 charge, trial, jury, or benefit of clergy even, they were made to confess 
 treason and surrender all political rights and all property rights over 
 twenty thousand dollars in value, as the sole condition and only means 
 whereby they could take their letters from the post-office, do any busi- 
 ness whatever, or continue to live in the South ; and this amnesty oath 
 was to be and was filed in the State Department at Washington, there 
 to be held as proof in all coming time of crime against the Government, 
 whether any such crime had ever been committed by the individual 
 signing it or not. Even discharged soldiers and officers of the Union 
 army who helped to put down the rebellion and had the proof of 
 wounds on their bodies and of their discharges in their pockets were 
 compelled to take the same oath. Indeed, it is quite possible, I believe 
 certain, that the Government is now paying pensions to men whose 
 amnesty oaths confessing treason are at this moment on file in the 
 State Department. Such are the travesties of governmental adminis- 
 tration and justice. 
 
 This was the treatment, in outline, that destroyed Unionism in the 
 South and deprived the emancipated slave of his natural and native 
 friend, and also the Government itself. 
 
 I was one of ten persons summoned, by suggestion from Washington, 
 to meet for the purpose of organizing the Republican party in the State 
 of Georgia under the provisional Governor appointed by President 
 Johnson with a view to the election of the first State officers and a 
 legislature. We had one meeting and adjourned sine die. There was 
 no other course to pursue. No Republican party was then organized. 
 The secession element, after slight surprise and hesitation and finally 
 amusement over the preposterous folly of the Government policy, took 
 the amnesty oath, elected their sort to office, and started in at once to 
 nullify the results of the war. Why not ? 
 
 At this point Congress stepped in, gave the negro political rights,, 
 the secession elements retired, the Union elements existed no longer 
 had been destroyed by the Government's own acts and the only 
 element left was the famous carpet-bag contingent, the fit survival of 
 the fittest out of all this combined burlesque and travesty of states- 
 manship. 
 
 Under such auspices as these did the solution of the race and other 
 Southern problems commence. Should we wonder at the results we 
 have seen and now see? The United States Government, that for 
 which the North was and is responsible, destroyed first the Union, and 
 then the Disunion party of the South, leaving the field to transients. 
 The carpet-bagger, who practically did all the work of restoration, has 
 been blamed for all the blunders and crimes of the period, and his fate 
 at the hands of the historians we may anticipate. But in fact he is 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 399 
 
 only a convenient and somewhat amusing scarecrow in the Southern 
 corn-field, rigged out in the tattered and torn mistakes and misfits of 
 both sides to the original controversy. Neither side knowing what to 
 do with the negro, then as now, and not offering to do anything, pretty 
 much all the fault has been heaped upon him for doing something, all 
 that was done, the best he knew of what to do. His answer to all the 
 charges is most complete and sufficient. Like other scarecrows, of 
 other corn-fields, he has been found capable of enduring all the storms 
 and peltings that have fallen upon him, in silence, without giving any 
 sign of any attempt at self-defense. This tactics on his part is sure to 
 tire out his enemies eventually ; and then will come their season for 
 self -investigation, and the investigation of the race problem on its own 
 separate and independent merits. Not forever will the real culprits, 
 North and South, be able to unload their own faults and crimes upon 
 the back of the wretched carpet-bagger.* 
 
 The significant fact remains as a perpetual lesson, that whereas be- 
 fore the war the whites were divided into two political parties, one of 
 them favoring the Union and frequently in the majority, there is now, 
 as the result of the insane injustice of the Government itself, practi- 
 cally but one party, which no " force bill " and no standing army can 
 ever divide, because neither of them can touch the cause of that unity, 
 but must instead substitute aggravation for remedy. A necessary pre- 
 liminary to the solution of the negro race question in the South is the 
 resurrection of the Union type of men in something like the old pro- 
 portions by the sustained development of an economic policy that will 
 permit su*ch men to live and prosper there. That policy is the neces- 
 sary policy of a higher civilization which has in it the energy to meet 
 and overcome the policy of barbarization in the struggle for survival. 
 
 There is but one remedy the establishment of the conditions of 
 freedom and race co-operative unity. To establish these the United 
 States must take the control of the interests of its own people at the 
 
 * But the carpet-bagger robbed the South, they say. Well, I am afraid he did. 
 Doubtless when he saw shipwreck ahead he grabbed what he could lay hands on 
 and got ashore, or North, the best way he could. But I venture to say, in all 
 seriousness, and out of abundant opportunity of knowledge, that for every dollar 
 he stole from the South, the South stole ten from him at least. Prof. Le Conte 
 mentions the quick recuperation of the South after the war, notwithstanding the 
 <lis< organization of labor. Largely the money of the carpet-bagger did it. Money 
 was thm abundant. Crowds of men went South to invest it and help rebuild on 
 the new foundations. The chances are that ninety-nine out of every hundred 
 dollars of that money was permanently invested there, and that the remaining 
 
 car pet -bagged out of the South before the negro regime began, impelled l>y un- 
 speakable sorrow and disgust over the impending fiasco. But I know the history 
 of hundreds of others, and I know of none who brought away more than a small 
 fraction of what they took there. I further Ijnow of very many who never got 
 away with their lives even, much less with their money. 
 
400 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 bottom by breaking the hold of English commercial policy upon those 
 interests, through some system of protection for the South against soil 
 exhaustion and the removal of the " opportunities " of freedom, and 
 this on some comprehensive continental plan, either of war or peace, 
 or both, that shall eliminate English political, military, and commercial 
 dominion from this continent and from all the adjacent islands. 
 
 It has been said by economists that if all the personal property of 
 a civilized community should be destroyed, about three years' labor 
 would furnish the means of restoration. The destruction of property 
 in slaves by emancipation was not as disastrous as expected, in part 
 because labor thereby became free to move, and did in part move, to 
 more productive lands, thereby speeding recuperation, only to repeat 
 the same old round of land destruction, however. But, under a system 
 permitting soil enrichment from year to year, the capital in buildings, 
 fences, and other improvements would be saved, and also that required 
 to pay for new improvements on new lands, while the accompanying 
 improved agriculture would require and develop superior intelligence 
 and growing morality in the labor employed. This is the true line of 
 march out of slavery into freedom, as also into freedom from race an- 
 tagonisms. 
 
 Precisely here are to be found the origin and remedy of the unex- 
 pected race problems with which the North is beginning to be afflicted. 
 A policy of soil exhaustion under the control of unchecked transporta- 
 tion interests and action on behalf of the owners and manipulators of 
 railroads must create a demand for and assist the supply of an ever- 
 deteriorating class of laborers, constantly lowering the standard of 
 American citizenship everywhere. An opposite policy would have an 
 opposite effect upon that standard, and would have a further effect to 
 check the current tendency to railroad wrecking, trusteeships, reorgani- 
 zation, and general decline in value. It would also check the spirit of 
 railroad conflict, competition, and homicide. Belief of race problems 
 by education and improved morality depends upon increased return 
 for labor, better wages. Cause and effect are found on both sides of 
 the equation, but still the destruction of the poor is everywhere their 
 poverty. The wages of workers are to society what food is to the 
 body they enrich, strengthen, and make healthy the life-blood of the 
 social organism. 
 
 In these propositions will be found the answer to the question of 
 Prof. Le Conte : " What is the best next step f " And all the answers 
 may be summed up in a universal policy of land protection protec- 
 tion against land destruction by the insidious effects of both foreign 
 and domestic policies that rob the American worker of the material 
 things on and by which alone his work can be employed, expended, 
 
The Race Problem in the South. 401 
 
 and made fruitful. To accomplish this the continent must be sur- 
 veyed, and out of its diversities a consistent continental policy of unity 
 and harmony framed, adopted, put in practice, guarded against foreign 
 and domestic interference ; these steps to be repeated as often as en- 
 lightened progress may demand and permit. 
 
 The history of the rebellion, its antecedents and sequences, is so full 
 of studies and instruction for the evolutionary sociologist, and this 
 opportunity is so unique and little likely to be repeated, that one who 
 was a witness with eyes wide open is loath to drop the subject. Let 
 me refer briefly to one or two more points. 
 
 I have said elsewhere, substantially: Secession never won in the 
 South until it appeared at last that the new autonomy would furnish 
 opportunity to the young men of the South in the army and navy of 
 the Confederacy. The new autonomy was the result of what natural- 
 ists know as propagation by fission, which takes place when the organ- 
 ism can no longer supply itself with the necessary amount of food. It 
 might be called propagation by starvation or by poverty, and its appli- 
 cation here would be more apparent by the use of either of these terms. 
 
 Now, portions of the Northern States are at this moment uncon- 
 sciously getting ready for splitting up, propagating by fission, for the 
 same reasons. New England, having exhausted its soil and other natu- 
 ral resources, is beginning to demand free trade, in order to obtain 
 cheap Nova Scotia coal and hold her manufacturing enterprises. 
 Meantime Quebec has largely annexed New England by sending over 
 four hundred thousand French Canadians there, who propose to ap- 
 propriate and control the whole of it through the effects of another 
 form of propagation the natural one raised to the highest power 
 under skillful priestly direction. Here we have the almost complete 
 conditions for the formation of a new confederacy or dominion, in- 
 cluding Quebec, New England, and that portion of the Dominion lying 
 east of the St. Lawrence. Meanwhile our Protestant priesthood are 
 squabbling over creeds and higher criticism, sacrificing birthright for 
 pottage again. 
 
 Further, the combination of Union States was always wasp-waisted 
 at or about the region of Ohio. But for the strong breed of New Eng- 
 landers who first settled the northern part of that State, and the ne- 
 cessities of east and west commercial movement, a point for another 
 fission might have been found there long since. When this east and 
 west movement begins to decline, as it must before long, if it has not 
 done so already, another danger spot, with or without a danger signal^ 
 will be found in Ohio. Further study would show other danger spots, 
 if opportunity permitted. 
 
 What our fathers called Providence, and we may call evolution- 
 
402 The Race Problem in the South. 
 
 ary protection, or provision by compulsion the necessity of raising 
 revenue by taxing the foreigner through an export duty put into the 
 Confederate constitution the means for destroying slavery by slow 
 evolutionary action, and for building up a strong and prosperous peo- 
 ple. This means the success of Union arms destroyed. It is for us to 
 take a lesson out of the same book. When we have done so, and en- 
 larged the teaching to cover a continental system, we may flatter our- 
 selves that we have begun to solve our race problems, and many other 
 equally important problems ; and not till then. 
 
 DR. LEWIS G. JANES : 
 
 I wish to correct what I think might be a false impression from 
 the criticism of Mr. Skilton on the action of the abolitionists in dis- 
 banding their organization after the war. As I was brought up after 
 the strictest sect of the abolitionists, and read the discussions in their 
 papers when this action was taken, I think I can speak with authority 
 concerning their motives. They did not consider that their work was 
 done that they had no further obligation to help the colored people, 
 as Mr. Skilton assumes. But they found themselves then in substan- 
 tial agreement with a large section more than half of their fellow- 
 countrymen. It seemed to them that they could exercise a wider 
 influence, and do better and more effective work for the colored man, 
 by breaking down the barrier of their exclusive organization and 
 joining hands with all those who were working for the same ends. 
 Whether they were right or not I will not argue ; but I believe the 
 truth of history will recognize the purity of their motives, and their 
 life-long devotion, as individuals and citizens, to the welfare of the 
 colored race. I know personally that many of them had a wiser fore- 
 sight of the difficulties succeeding emancipation than most of their 
 Northern fellow-citizens. Many of them have since devoted years of 
 faithful service to the education and improvement of the freedmen. 
 Without arguing the question, I must also dissent from his policy of 
 expatriating the colored people, which it clearly seems to me would 
 result, not in their civilization, but in their relapse into utter bar- 
 barism, as in San Domingo. 
 
 PROF. LE CONTE, in closing : At this late hour I will not detain 
 the audience by further remarks. I desire merely to extend my thanks 
 to the audience for their courteous attention, and especially to express 
 my great interest and general agreement with the remarks of Mr, 
 Skilton. It appears to me, speaking off-hand and under the impulse of 
 my present feeling, that he has indicated very nearly the true solution 
 of this problem. 
 
- <V-*JS Ofc^t- 
 
 
 oC^--^ ^"^ 
 
 - * "* 
 
 EDUCATION AS RELATED 
 TO CITIZENSHIP 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. JOHN W. CHADWICK 
 
 AUTHOR OP THE BIBLE OF TO-DAY, CHARLES DARWIN, EVOLUTION 
 RELATED TO RELIGIOUS THOUGHT, ETC. 
 
COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED: 
 
 Spencer's Education, Justice, and Introduction to A Plea for 
 Liberty; Alford's Free Education, in A Plea for Liberty; Craik's 
 The State and Education; Fiske's Civil Government in the United 
 States ; Howry's Studies in Civil Government ; Dr. Mott's Intel- 
 lectual Evolution in its Relation to Physiological Dissolution ; Bryant's 
 Educational Ends ; Peaslee's Moral and Literary Training in Public 
 Schools; Leland's Practical Education; Beesan's The Spirit of Edu- 
 cation ; Henderson's Thomas Jefferson's Views on Public Education ; 
 Horace Mann's Lectures on Education ; Jacob Abbott's The Teacher ; 
 Trenholm's Moral Principle in Public Affairs, in The Forum, vol. v, 
 p. 545 ; Bishop Potter's The Scholar in Politics, in The Forum, vol. 
 vii (1889), p. 467 ; Dwight's Education in Boyhood, in The Forum, vol. 
 ix, p. 133. 
 
EDUCATION AS RELATED TO 
 CITIZENSHIP. 
 
 BY REV. JOHN W. CHAD WICK. 
 
 CITIZENSHIP is that part of civilization which concerns 
 men and women in their relation to the state. The relation 
 of education to citizenship is foreshadowed by the general 
 course of history even in those primitive forms which have 
 in them very little of those honors and responsibilities which 
 the term citizenship suggests to the modern mind. There 
 must be nations before there can be citizens, and nations 
 are " like bodies of men, because of their likeness capable of 
 acting together and obeying similar rules." The process 
 by which these bodies are formed is not less educational be- 
 cause it has not the incidents of the school-house, the text- 
 book, the formal teacher, and so on. It is the most in- 
 teresting paradox of political history that what was most 
 necessary to be done in the first stage of that history was 
 most necessary to be undone in the secpnd. In the first a 
 rule, a law, a custom Mr. Bagehot's " cake of custom " 
 must be formed, and formed so hard that it can not easily 
 be broken ; in the second it must somehow be broken or 
 there is no further progress possible. The first necessity is 
 as imperative as the embryonic chicken's shell, the second 
 hardly less important than the breaking of that shell ; for 
 that people's life in which it remains unbroken is, at best, a 
 living death. As for the principal ingredient of the original 
 "cake of custom," I doubt not Bagehot was right in his 
 opinion that it was of a piece with that same imitativeness 
 which makes all the writers for a great journal write like its 
 strongest man. As to the breaking of the " cake " which 
 was essential to the second stage of civilization, we shall all 
 agree that wars between nation and nation had a great deal 
 to do with it. The doctrine that "every man is a rascal 
 who speaks two languages " thus got a sharp rebuff. The 
 number of rascals of this sort was greatty multiplied. Con- 
 quering races imposed their religious and political ideas on 
 the conquered races or they went to school to these : this 
 of tener than the other, when it was brute strength that con- 
 quered. But generally it was not' so, and here we have a 
 
 (405) 
 
406 Education as Related to Citizenship. 
 
 proof that even in those times when war seemed to decide 
 everything, war was itself a rude measure of degrees of in- 
 tellectual and moral education. It was the intellectual and 
 moral races that had most success in war. Then, too, war 
 facilitated that exchange of ideas which is carried on by 
 international literature and travel in the modern world. 
 Douglas Jerrold or was it Heine? explained the insipidity 
 of his talk on one occasion by saying that he had just been 
 exchanging ideas with So-and-so, a person remarkable for 
 his stupidity ; but the " exchange of ideas at the cannon's 
 mouth " or at the point of spears has often been a mutual 
 advantage. 
 
 But war was not the only nor the most invincible icono- 
 clast that broke the images of ancient custom into fragments 
 and beat them into dust. There was another which, com- 
 pared with war, took down those images so tenderly from 
 their shrines as almost to do them reverence. (I trust you 
 recognize the variant phrase). It was the era of discussion, 
 the necessity of a free state, first necessary for its origin and 
 then for its perpetuation. To think upon these lines and 
 not in Bagehot's tracks is quite impossible. " Once effectu- 
 ally submit a subject," he says, " to the ordeal of discussion, 
 and you can never withdraw it again ; you can never clothe 
 it again with mystery or fence it by consecration; it re- 
 mains forever open to free choice and exposed to profane 
 deliberation." And "the only subjects which till a very 
 late age of civilization can be submitted to discussion in the 
 community are the questions involving the visible and press- 
 ing interests of the community ; they are political questions 
 of high and urgent import." 
 
 We have a capital illustration of this in Athens at the 
 height of her renown. Read Aristotle's newly discovered 
 Constitution of Athens and see how modern it is. It might 
 have been written yesterday by one of our gravest states- 
 men ; it could not be written to-day by some of their suc- 
 cessors, men without culture, without ideas, without con- 
 victions, without anything but gold or brass. But this 
 treatise was written for a community in which just before 
 its noble Socrates, its wisest man, had condemned the study 
 of physics as impibus and absurd. Political discussion is 
 the necessity of a free state. That is its father's name and 
 that the name which all its children bear, like Mary's lodged 
 somewhere in every Spanish girl's. But political discussion 
 to be intelligent and fruitful means at least an educated 
 
Education as Related to Citizenship. 407 
 
 class which either steadily augments itself or in " times that 
 try men's souls " is rapidly enlarged. Nothing is more edu- 
 cational than a great public question everywhere discussed. 
 At the high tide of the antislavery conflict I was a shoe- 
 maker in a little shop with eight or ten others. There was 
 no aspect of that conflict which escaped our interest. Some- 
 times one read, the others making good his loss of time, his 
 voice raised high to drown the hammering. I have since 
 mingled with no casual group of men having a political con- 
 sciousness more intense than theirs, or better qualified to dis- 
 cuss the leading topics of the hour. 
 
 Given as your form of government an autocracy, a des- 
 potism no matter how paternal an absolute monarchy, 
 and the relation of education to citizenship is not a practi- 
 cal question. Under such a government, properly speaking, 
 there is no such thing as citizenship. To be the inhabitant 
 of a country, the subject of a governing person or class, the 
 payer of taxes levied without his consent, does not make a 
 man a citizen. To be a citizen he must have a share in the 
 government ; and the hostility of all narrow forms of gov- 
 ernment to education was a well-founded intuition. It ex- 
 pressed itself in the adage, " If a horse knew as much as a 
 man, I would not be his rider " ; and he would be quite as 
 unsafe for several to ride as one, which means that an oli- 
 garchy or an aristocracy has as little interest in the general 
 education of the community as an autocracy, a monarchy. 
 It has an interest to maximize its deficiencies and minimize 
 its range. 
 
 But it stands to reason that, given a republican and demo- 
 cratic form of government, " Government of the people, for 
 the people, by the people," as Theodore Parker defined it 
 so admirably that Abraham Lincoln could not improve the 
 definition and the more general intelligence you have the 
 better ; and general intelligence without general education 
 will probably be discovered on the same day with perpetual 
 motion and the philosopher's stone. Under any of the nar- 
 rower forms of government you can have plenty of govern- 
 ment of the people, and the less education of them the bet- 
 ter for the government. Government for the people also 
 you may have in abundance if the government is sufficiently 
 paternal. The benevolent despot will make sure of that, 
 for panem et circences the dear people shall not lack ; but 
 of education as citizens which they are not they will have 
 no need. Nor does a republican form of government as 
 27 
 
408 Education as Related to Citizenship. 
 
 such require the general education of the people. It re- 
 quires an education as wide as the basis of representation, 
 which may be very narrow and the government still be as 
 republican as ours ; but given a republican and democratic 
 form of government, government of the people, for the peo- 
 ple, by the people self-government and the education of 
 the entire body politic is an imperative necessity, for that is 
 no true government by the people in which they cast their 
 votes in flocks and herds at the dictation of a party dema- 
 gogue or local boss. That is government by demagogue and 
 boss. It is a sheer waste of railroad passes and good liquor 
 to have such a nominating convention as we had in Albany 
 a few weeks ago. The statesman whom a cruel wag has 
 called " Young Chicory " might just as well have nominated 
 himself unanimously and presented himself with an address 
 expressive of his many great and valuable services to him- 
 self, and have responded briefly " I am a Democrat," as to 
 have gone through all the forms of a representative assembly 
 which represented nothing but a foregone conclusion. 
 
 Government ly the people is impossible without popular 
 intelligence, and popular intelligence is impossible without 
 popular education. I know how much there is in the prac- 
 tical working of our institutions that does not seem to har- 
 monize with these self-evident propositions. I know that 
 practically the political appeal is often to men's prejudice 
 and ignorance ; not to their intelligence and their knowl- 
 edge. I know that while theoretically votes are necessary 
 for success, practically there is an infinite contempt for 
 them in the conduct of many party organs and the making 
 of many party speeches. Better than votes, better than 
 party victory, is the sweet and solemn satisfaction of paying 
 off old scores, of insulting those who wisely or mistakenly 
 have followed the dictates of their own reason and con- 
 science, of digesting the venom of the writers' spleen though 
 it do split them and their party too. But the understand- 
 ing implicit in every great political contest is that every citi- 
 zen is an independent voter, to be addressed as such, while 
 explicitly the independent voter is anathema maranatJia^ 
 which is, " double damned." The logic of the whole treat- 
 ment of independency by the party organs and the partisan 
 bigot is that all the organization and the output of a great 
 political campaign, all the liberal contributions of disinter- 
 ested friends to the campaign fund, and all the arguments 
 and eloquence of great assemblies, are to maintain the status 
 
Education as Related to Citizenship. 409 
 
 quo, to prevent any Republican or Democrat from going 
 over from one side to the other. But such logic is abso- 
 lutely at variance with the actual intention of these things, 
 which is to get as many citizens as possible to break from 
 their habitual allegiance and take the other side. And who 
 shall say that this intention is an intention to corrupt the 
 individual citizen, to make him an object of contempt, a by- 
 word and a hissing in the land ? No ; it is an intention 
 which does him honor, which implies that independency is 
 the normal condition and the indefeasible right of every 
 citizen of a free government, and that John Adams builded 
 better than he knew when, dying on the same day with 
 Thomas Jefferson, he faintly cried with his last breath : " In- 
 dependence forever." 
 
 There is no way in which the survival of the savage in 
 the modern man can more manifestly attest itself than by 
 the imitation of a party leader without the exercise of de- 
 liberate intelligence. Some traveler tells us of a company 
 of savages trailing along after their chief, when suddenly he 
 fell into a hole, and what did the others but go and do like- 
 wise every mother's son of them just because he had done 
 it ! You say, " What fools ! " But there are just as foolish 
 in our modern politics, and the holes into which the party 
 braves follow their leaders sometimes communicate by swift 
 descent with sewage of no special and superior kind. 
 
 Universal suffrage without universal independency and 
 universal education is a delusion and a snare. The political 
 canvass is an appeal to individual and general intelligence, or 
 it is a pretense and a fraud. For the shortcomings of uni- 
 versal suffrage which we are sometimes conscious of we 
 endeavor to console ourselves with the reflection that the 
 ballot is educational per se. It is to some extent ; in some 
 campaigns considerably; in others not at all. There are 
 those who would abate the evil by limitations of the suffrage. 
 That is the coward's way. And it is absolutely impracti- 
 cable. "Even the gods can not resume their gifts." Uni- 
 versal suffrage has come to stay as much as the Copernican 
 astronomy, and we may as well adjust ourselves to the one 
 thing as to the other. " We must educate our masters," 
 said the British Tories when they stole the Liberals' thunder 
 and made a great extension of the suffrage in 1867. That 
 saying has no place on this side of the water. We have 
 no masters here. If we say " We must educate our mas- 
 ters," it means that we must educate ourselves. We must. 
 
410 Education as Related to Citizenship. 
 
 Kepublican Democracy means self-mastery and it means 
 education universally diffused, or rascal politics and the ruin 
 of the commonwealth. To trust to the educational quality 
 of the ballot is blind or, what is worse, deliberate fatuity. 
 That quality can not inhere in a general poverty of mind. 
 Let the voter be at the outset educated and intelligent and 
 he may appreciate the issues of a great campaign, and it 
 may carry him to heights that have a more extended view. 
 If he is grossly ignorant he will catch up the war cries of 
 the hour and shout them with no more appreciation of their 
 meaning than the dull fish of the Atlantic have of the tele- 
 graphic messages which thrill its sunless deeps. 
 
 The popular vote means popular education. And how is 
 this to be obtained ? To ask this question here in America 
 is an opening of the morgue, as the ungodly say, hardly less 
 wasteful of our energy than to reopen the question of uni- 
 versal suffrage. There cornea along occasionally a doubter 
 of the Newtonian gravitation ; but it is hard for him to get 
 a respectful hearing for his doubts. It would be almost as 
 difficult for the doubter of the public-school system to get a 
 hearing for his doubts were it not for the bias of sectarian 
 religiousness upon the matter. The statistics of education 
 in the United States, as they can be gathered from the first 
 report of the National Commissioner of Education, which 
 was published only a few months ago, are convincing of the 
 wide acceptance of the public-school system and the liberal 
 appropriation of such advantages as it has to give. " The 
 total number of pupils enrolled in the schools of all grades 
 in all the States for the year ending June 30, 1889, was 
 13,726,574. In this number is not included the attendance 
 on evening schools or schools for art, manual and industrial 
 training, trades, business, or schools for the defective, de- 
 pendent, and delinquent classes, or schools for Indians." 
 These aggregated 228,280 more. Now, of children from six 
 to twenty years of age there were in the United States, that 
 year, 20,700,000, so that there was an actual attendance of 
 sixty-seven per cent of all these and ninety per cent of all 
 those from six to sixteen, inclusive, the inferior limits of the 
 school-going period; an admirable showing. Of the 13,- 
 726,574 in all the schools, 12,291,259 were in the common 
 schools, 1,435,315 in those of a private and parochial char- 
 acter. These figures measure the appreciation of the com- 
 mon-school system by the people of the United States. They 
 show that it is very general. There are others which show 
 
Education as Related to Citizenship. 411 
 
 that it is very warm. From 1870 to 1889 the value of pub- 
 lic-school property increased from $130,000,000 to $323,- 
 000,000 more than twice as fast as the population ; while 
 the annual expenditure rose in the same time from $63,000,- 
 000 to $132,000,000 $2.16 per capita for every person young 
 or old, $16.51 for every pupil in attendance in the public 
 schools. It has been said of Gladstone that he can make 
 figures sing. It seems to me that of their own free motion 
 these figures sing and dance for joy. I should have said 
 that the amount per capita in the Southern States nearly 
 doubled in the period we are considering. 
 
 That we have in these statistics not a matter for con- 
 gratulation but one for serious apprehension and regret is, 
 we are all aware, the opinion of a considerable class in the 
 United States. " We are all socialists now," says Sir Will- 
 iam Vernon Harcourt ; but it is clear that we are not. Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer may not have as many followers in dread 
 of over-legislation and "the new tyranny" as he has in 
 his doctrine of evolution, but he has many, and some of 
 them are men of great ability. Witness the volume called 
 A Plea for Liberty the work of several hands. In this 
 country the teachings of Emerson, and of the transcendent- 
 alists generally, so jealous of the inroads of the state and 
 of society upon the individual life, nourished a dread of so- 
 cial interference which has not yet spent its force. But we 
 are all socialists to a much greater degree than we imagine 
 till we are reminded of the extent of our unconscious so- 
 cialism by some antisocialist or some sober second thought 
 in our own breasts. We are all socialists in the paving, 
 lighting, and cleaning of our city streets, and the system 
 often works so badly, especially in the cleaning part, that 
 individual effort has to be invoked to better the condition. 
 We are socialists in the care of our highways, and annually 
 each country-side beholds a " slaughter of the innocents " that 
 breaks the heart of every man who loves the goodly trees. 
 But that is because the socialism is poor and bad, or because 
 there is not enough of it ; not enough intelligent control to 
 stay the spoiler's hand. We are also socialists in our postal 
 and coast service systems, in both of which Mr. Spencer 
 thinks we should do better under private management, as 
 do not I, especially so long as private criticism can be 
 brought to bear on the defects of our socialistic methods. 
 We are socialists, again, in our protective tariff, industrial 
 socialists socialists in that department where socialism is 
 
412 Education as Related to Citizenship. 
 
 most difficult to work, unless it be objected that socialism 
 is a method that considers the good of all and not the benefit 
 of a special class to the detriment of others, as some think 
 protection does ; though it must be conceded that it does 
 not so appear to many of its ablest and most ardent advo- 
 cates, wherein I can not follow them with equal steps. To 
 the amount of socialism we already have upon us, some, who 
 are by no means bitten by the socialistic idea as an ideal 
 scheme of life, would add the railroad system and the tele- 
 graphic, and one's personal experience with the delays of 
 the latter and the high temperature and stoviness of winter 
 trains is apt to make him feel that any change would be an 
 improvement. Only remember Mr. Emerson's general truth 
 which has many special applications : " When there is rot 
 in the potato, what is the use of having larger crops ? " When 
 there is rot in the civil service, what is the use of having 
 more civil offices ? No more till we have checked the rot ! 
 
 In this wide range of unacknowledged socialism the com- 
 mon school holds a conspicuous and, in the eyes of many, 
 the most honored place. Those who are convinced that the 
 anarchic theory of society is the true theory will not hold 
 it guiltless of complicity in the defects belonging to its class. 
 Those who are convinced that the socialistic theory of so- 
 ciety is the true theory will infer the advisability of the 
 common-school system from the ideal excellence of the gen- 
 eral system of which it is a part. But if the Sabbath was 
 made for man and not man for the Sabbath, and if the 
 same is true of every social institution, then we shall not 
 permit our theories, one way or the other, to determine how 
 much or how little socialism we shall admit into our body 
 politic. We shall prefer the life of the patient to the beauty 
 of the operation every^ time, and take and leave so much of 
 the socialistic method in the post-office, tariff, highway, rail- 
 way, telegraph, or common school, as seems, to the best of 
 our judgment, knowledge, and belief, to be for the greatest 
 good of the greatest number, though all the theories in 
 creation go to everlasting wreck. " Gray, my dear friend," 
 said the wise Goethe, " is all theory, and green the shining 
 tree of life." 
 
 " The end of government is the good of mankind." It was 
 John Locke who said it, and a better end has yet to be sug- 
 gested or devised. If that end can be attained by reducing 
 government to a police force, preventing mutual inter- 
 ference, or by going one step further and abolishing the 
 
Education as Related to Citizenship. 413 
 
 police force in favor of complete and universal anarchy, let 
 it be so attained. I leave the post-office and the tariff and the 
 railroads and the telegraph for others to consider. As for 
 education, I am convinced that America has not chosen the 
 wrong road, and that she is not being followed by Great 
 Britain and the countries of Continental Europe to their 
 hurt and shame. Government ~by the people demands uni- 
 versal education, and that this can not be trusted to the 
 individual impulses and tastes of the community is made evi- 
 dent by a wide experience of the methods and results which 
 have signalized the voluntary system. It is no socialistic 
 dreamer ; it is the hard-headed Huxley, as jealous of any 
 real infringement of the rights of individuals as Spencer 
 himself, who says: "If the positive advancement of the 
 peace, wealth, and the intellectual and moral development 
 of its members are objects which the Government, as the 
 representative of the corporate authority of society, may 
 justly strive after, in fulfillment of its end the good of 
 mankind then it is clear that the Government may under- 
 take to educate the people. For education promotes peace 
 by teaching men the realities of life and the obligations 
 which are involved in the very existence of society ; it pro- 
 motes intellectual development, not only by training the 
 individual intellect, but by sifting out from the masses of 
 ordinary and inferior capacities those which are competent 
 to increase the general welfare by occupying higher posi- 
 tions ; and, lastly, it promotes morality and refinement by 
 teaching men to discipline themselves, and by leading them 
 to see that the highest, as it is the only permanent, content 
 is to be attained not by groveling in the rank and steaming 
 valleys of sense, but by continual striving toward those 
 high peaks where, resting in eternal calm, reason discerns 
 the undefined but bright ideal of the highest good a cloud 
 by day, a pillar of fire by night." If it be objected to this 
 lofty justification of public education that it is the higher 
 education which Professor Huxley has in mind, I can only 
 say that no one is likely to defend the public institution of 
 the higher education without a fortiori defending the pub- 
 lic institution of the lower. Natural selection and the sur- 
 vival of the fittest demand a favorable environment here as 
 elsewhere for the ideal varieties. Boys must not " uncom- 
 mended die" who, if they had an elementary education, 
 would certainly discover aptitudes for higher and the highest 
 things. Public education is a sower who goes forth to sow. 
 
414 Education as Related to Citizenship. 
 
 Some of his seed falls by the wayside. Some of it among 
 thorns. But some falls on good ground, and the chance or 
 that is quite enough to justify the whole expense. Yet over 
 and above the best varieties which it preserves to satisfy the 
 hunger of mankind, it nourishes millions of growths which 
 have their humbler value in the great economy of God. 
 
 If the population of the United States were homogeneous 
 either Protestant or Catholic the perpetuity of our public- 
 school system would not have much to fear from the 
 theoretic anarchist. But he has an ally much stronger 
 than himself in the Roman Catholic assault upon our public 
 schools as irreligious or as unreligious and unmoral ; which, 
 too, has an ally in the sentiment of justice which has led 
 many Protestants, especially the more liberal, to conclude 
 that there is no way of doing justice to the Catholics in a 
 system of public education, and that the only way out of 
 the muddle is to abolish the common schools and let chaos 
 come again, trusting that some better cosmos may emerge in 
 time. For it is evident that to secularize the schools is for 
 the Romanist a consummation as little to be wished as the 
 reading of the Protestant Bible. If secularization would 
 satisfy him, the way out ought to be simple. Our national 
 Government is a purely secular institution, and though in 
 several of the State governments there are lurking vestiges 
 of the old relation between Church and State, it is our 
 national Government that furnishes the home to which all 
 the practical dealings of the several States would do well to 
 conform ; and that home is the " soul liberty " to which 
 Cotton and Winthrop for all their nobleness had not 
 attained, but which Roger Williams set in the forefront of 
 our civilization to guide us for all time. I trust that there 
 will come a time when the Bible shall so take its rightful 
 place at the head of the world's literature that it may be 
 read wisely selected portions of it in our public schools 
 without fear and without reproach. Why even now may 
 there not be " local option " in the matter ? Where a com- 
 munity can have it without protest there let it be. The 
 liberal, the radical, would be truer to his principles, I think, 
 in welcoming such local option than in joining hands with 
 the Roman Catholic objector ; and if in public assemblies 
 the majority prefer an opening prayer, why should the 
 liberal object, or to the Thanksgiving proclamation ? I love 
 " these roots that feed upon the past," and, if I did not, I 
 should not wish to prevent others from enjoying their sweet 
 
Education as Related to Citizenship. 415 
 
 taste. Think, too, what an opportunity the clergyman in 
 opposition misses who is no longer expected to read that 
 proclamation with its closing formula which made almost 
 the happiest moment of the year for my young heart. To 
 one debarred from "preaching politics," how expressive 
 might that formula become ! Thus, for example, " David B. 
 Hill, Governor. God save the commonwealth of New 
 York!" But these are lesser things. In all seriousness, 
 an ounce of mother- wit is worth a pound of clergy in these 
 things, and will outweigh their scruples. Time was, I 
 might have added, " and their drams " ; but that is past. 
 In all our smaller towns and villages a little common sense 
 will generally set the matter right. Roman Catholic chil- 
 dren can come a little later in the morning, after the Bible 
 has been read, or some hour during the week they may be 
 let off to receive parochial instruction. In our great cities, 
 I need hardly say, these makeshifts do not count. There, 
 when the Roman Catholic demand is made either for a per 
 capita portion of the school fund or exemption from taxa- 
 tion in that proportion which the school tax bears to the 
 general tax, the Protestant part of the community should 
 be prepared at once to make the required concession or to 
 make the schools so absolutely secular that the objectors' 
 occupation will be gone. As against anything less absolute 
 the Roman Catholics have a perfect right to the concession 
 they demand part of the school fund, or proportionate 
 exemption from taxation. Make your religion ever so little 
 Protestant short of absolute secularization, and you make 
 the Roman Catholic a present of the war-cry of the Revo- 
 lution : " Taxation without representation is tyranny." You 
 tax him and he can not conscientiously be represented in 
 our public schools. That is a ground you never can main- 
 tain, and consequently every little while we hear of some 
 more sensible or conscientious person who says : " The 
 Roman Catholics are right. They must have their share of 
 the school fund or their school taxes must be remitted." 
 Yes, till we secularize our schools. Forever and ever, No, 
 if we do that. But there are those who contend that even 
 then we should make the required concession not Romanists 
 only, but the most liberal Protestants. I can not find the 
 argument for such a plea. The ideal here is that which is 
 the constitutional law of California that no money or 
 property shall be appropriated by the State or any munici- 
 pality for any school not exclusively controlled by the State 
 
416 Education as Related to Citizenship. 
 
 or municipality. Otherwise you have that " establishment 
 of religion " which is prohibited by the Constitution of the 
 United States and should be by every other. As between 
 the sharing of the school fund and the remission of taxes 
 there is not a particle of moral difference. Facit per alium 
 facit per se. Furnishing equal education for all, the State 
 'has no more call or right to furnish special education for 
 some than to furnish the man who prefers a private cesspool 
 in his own yard, with so much from the general tax for 
 sewerage as will allow him to have one. Henry Thoreau 
 used the " old Marlborough road " and other roads in and 
 about Concord as much as anybody, and still declined to 
 pay his regular tax, saying to Alcott, who came to see him 
 in jail, in answer to his " Henry, why are you here ? " 
 " Why, Mr. Alcott, are you not here ? " But if he had 
 wholly neglected the roads and gone entirely across lots on 
 his outings he would have had no better case. There were 
 the roads provided for the good of all. Let him use them 
 or not, he must help pay for them. 
 
 Universal suffrage demands universal education. For a 
 man to vote who can not read his vote or write his name is 
 evidently monstrous and absurd. This means compulsory 
 education ; that the means provided shall not run to waste ; 
 and that the State or the municipality can not forego the 
 superintendence of all elementary training. It has no right 
 to compel attendance on its own schools. It has a right to 
 see to it that the education in private and parochial schools 
 is what it ought to be. If this is socialism we must make 
 the most of it. 
 
 The best counterblast to the parochial system is not sec- 
 tarian opposition, but the so evident superiority of our com- 
 mon schools that the Roman Catholics shall see our good 
 works and glorify the administration which makes them 
 possible, often much easier because of the strong infusion 
 in that administration of the blood which ran in Burke's 
 and G-rattan's and O'Connell's veins. For all the faults in- 
 hering in our public school instruction, it is evident that the 
 parochial instruction generally has been much inferior to 
 that. Make it still more so, and the parochial schools can 
 not maintain the ruinous competition. It is not in human 
 nature to pay a premium on an inferior article when the 
 superior article can be had at the market price. 
 
 The relation of private schools to citizenship has caused 
 no little sorrow and anxiety for the patriotic mind. Some- 
 
Education as Related to Citizenship. 417 
 
 times there comes along a socialist so rampant, or a patriot 
 so fierce, that he would compel the public education of every 
 child in the community. But this is foolishness. The pri- 
 vate schools, while generally inferior to the public schools, are 
 sometimes their superiors. At the least they relieve the 
 overcrowding which is the curse and shame of public edu- 
 cation in our great cities. At the best they offer an impor- 
 tant criticism and rebuke to the defective methods of the 
 public schools with their almost invariable tendency to run 
 every child in the same mold and turn out a multitude of 
 pupils as much alike in their acquirements as the victims of 
 our great orphan asylums are in their dress. In this con- 
 nection a very important relation of education to citizenship 
 is brought home to us. The citizenship of an autocratic or 
 oligarchic state requires dull acquiescence and passive obe- 
 dience in the constituent member of the community. The 
 citizenship of a democratic republic requires free intelli- 
 gence. The education provided by the state should be such 
 as to encourage this. Is this demand well met in our 
 American public-school education ? It is not. It too fre- 
 quently reverses the natural order of development, which is, 
 first, that which is concrete, and then that which is ab- 
 stract, and makes the early education a matter of words and 
 rules, and not a matter of things, of observation. This is 
 the method, Prof. Harris tells us, to produce the conserva- 
 tive mind, and we may thank it in good measure for the 
 fact that the American mind is more conservative and retro- 
 gressive at almost every point than the European. No one 
 can compare the current literature of England with that of 
 America and not be convinced that the former is a litera- 
 ture of much freer thought. The way in which our Ameri- 
 can Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians sleep on and 
 take their rest after their Scotch and English cousins are 
 wide awake to the new theology, teaches the same lesson : 
 that learning things by rote, the mnemonic craze of American 
 public-school education, is the worst possible preparation for 
 the duties of an American citizen or the responsibilities of 
 the religious life. Thrice welcome, then, be every private 
 school that sets over against the abstractions and the uni- 
 formities of the public school the methods of concrete ob- 
 servation and the free adaptation of the curriculum to the 
 individual mind, making not the willful choice but the 
 manifest faculty of the boy or girl elective of their course. 
 It is said that parents educating 'their children in private 
 
418 Education as Related to Citizenship. 
 
 schools will have no care to make the public schools what 
 they should be. But no wise parent can be expected to give 
 his children a lower education when he can secure and can 
 afford a higher. The criticism of that higher on the lower 
 pays his moral debt. 
 
 If, in my discussion of religious education in the schools, 
 I have seemed to give in my adhesion to the opinion that 
 secular education i. e., education without formal religious 
 exercises is irreligious, as it is often called, or even unre- 
 ligious or unmoral, I have done what I must hasten to undo. 
 Willing, for all that I can see, to let each separate commu- 
 nity retain the traditional forms where this can be done 
 without friction, alas ! I say for any school in which such 
 forms the reading of the Bible and a prayer are all that 
 it can do for morality and religion. Incidentally and una- 
 voidably it can do much more, if the teacher and the teach- 
 ing are both what they should be. The moral and the re- 
 ligious teaching which can not be got rid of in the most 
 secular instruction, so long as it is deep and true, which 
 sticks to all such instruction like the fairy Kobold to the 
 household cart such religious teaching will, I imagine, 
 have to be endured by Protestants and Catholics, Gnostics 
 and Agnostics, with a patient mind. For such religious 
 teaching sings the song the Brahmin sings : 
 
 " They reckon ill who leave me out ; 
 When me they fly I am the wings." 
 
 Show me the man who can teach astronomy, who can 
 teach geology, who can teach biology, who can teach history 
 without teaching religion, and I will show you a man who 
 can paint the pictures of George Inness without being an 
 artist, or write the verse of Browning without being a poet. 
 Theology is still " Scientia Scientiarum" the science of sci- 
 ences ; and religion is, in part at least, the emotion of emo- 
 tions, the aggregate of all those emotions which are awak- 
 ened in the mind by the facts and laws and harmonies 
 which the various sciences reveal. I had a teacher once, 
 Marshall Conant, the principal of the Bridgewater State 
 Normal School, in Massachusetts, who was as careful as 
 ever a teacher was to avoid everything sectarian in his in- 
 struction, everything formally religious. But to hear him 
 speak with face inspired and trembling tones of the won- 
 ders of the human body or the sidereal universe without a 
 thrill of wonder, love, and praise, was as impossible as for 
 
Education as Related to Citizenship. 419 
 
 the musical person to hear Paderewski's playing without 
 some trembling of the heart. Would that thrill, think you, 
 have been any more religious if we had stopped to think 
 how we should spell the name of that Eternal Power who 
 doth preserve the stars from wrong, and in whom we live 
 and move and have our being ? We have all heard of the 
 good woman who liked Shakespeare very much as a man, 
 but did not like his works. And there are those who like 
 God very much as a name, but do not like his works. That 
 is the best religion to my thinking which most likes his 
 works and cares least about his name. And wherever the 
 wonders of the material universe are so taught as to stir the 
 young heart of a boy or girl with admiration and with 
 wonder and with awe, there will be religion, though the 
 school be as completely secular as a school can possibly be 
 made. 
 
 And as it is with religion so it is with morality. When 
 cleanliness and neatness and order and punctuality and 
 truthfulness and honor and fidelity are not moral virtues, 
 then you may have a well-managed and well-disciplined 
 school, in which morality is not taught then and not be- 
 fore. Besides, a school without moral teaching must be a 
 school in which the reading and the recitation shall avoid 
 all that is best in literature, all that reports the sacrifices 
 and nobilities of human life. There are school-readers 
 which do this with tolerable success, but we do not cry for 
 them in the schools to which our children go. We like to 
 have them read of Arnold Winkelried and Samuel Adams, 
 of Father Damien and the Jesuits of North America, of 
 noble captains who have been the last to leave their sinking 
 ships yea, have gone down through the chill waters to the 
 heart of God ; and of George Nidiver, who shot the bear 
 which was nearing his unarmed companion, and met the 
 other with unweaponed heart. You must eliminate from 
 your readers and from literature all such stuff as this the 
 stuff of which the best morality is made before you can 
 eliminate morality and the teaching of morality from the 
 public schools. 
 
 But while believing, as I do, that the best teaching of 
 morality is by the moral order of the school and by the hero- 
 isms and fidelities which literature has enshrined with its 
 most perfect art, I believe that all that is best in morals can 
 be formally taught in schools in such a way that no Protest- 
 ant or Roman Catholic of ordinary intelligence would make 
 
420 Education as Related to Citizenship. 
 
 the least objection. The way I mean is that set forth in a 
 book, Conduct as a Fine Art, which contains my friend N. 
 P. Oilman's Laws of Daily Conduct, and Character Build- 
 ing, by Edward P. Jackson, one of the masters in the Bos- 
 ton Latin School. True, to use either of these helps suc- 
 cessfully would require something in the teacher akin to the 
 wisdom of the book. But text-books which do not require 
 good teachers have yet to be discovered. God grant that 
 their Columbus be, as yet, unborn ! 
 
 Universal education ought to mean universal taxation. 
 Every man who is not a pauper ought to do something for 
 the maintenance of the common weal. No sentimental 
 dread of a property qualification ought to prevent the levy- 
 ing of a poll-tax upon every citizen as such. You may 
 make a man as much more precious than the gold of Ophir 
 as you please, but a man who can not contribute at least two 
 dollars a year for all the benefits which he derives from the 
 town, county, and state in which he lives has no stuff in 
 him for a citizen. If I am proud of anything in the course 
 of my own life, it is that when in the Cambridge Divinity 
 School I lived seven weeks on five dollars. Frugal were my 
 repasts, but the man who would not willingly make his own 
 as frugal for a week or two, and put his family on the same 
 course if need be, to pay some part of that which goes for 
 all, should never have a vote. In the mean time no objec- 
 tion can be less generally applicable to public education as 
 developed in America than that which has overtopped all 
 others for the British mind that it makes education char- 
 ity. One would suppose that the school fund came down 
 entire from heaven like the mystic stone of the Mohamme- 
 dan temple at Mecca, when, in fact, the people are but put- 
 ting their hands in their own pockets. Only there should 
 be no exceptions' to the rule. Universal education ought to 
 mean universal taxation. " What will you have, quoth God, 
 pay for it and take it." 
 
 Elementary education is essential to citizenship. Let 
 there be no educational restriction of the suffrage, and still 
 a man should be ashamed to cast the blanket-ballot which 
 he can not read with his own eyes and correct with his own 
 hand. But much more than elementary education is essen- 
 tial. " The three Es " are a glorious trinity, and geography 
 with them makes an excellent quaternity, but to an intelli- 
 gent citizen secondary education is indispensable ; and for 
 the highest functions of citizenship, those of leadership and 
 
Education as Related to Citizenship. 421 
 
 guidance, the higher education is as essential as reading and 
 writing are to the humblest voter at the polls. And what 
 are we doing in America to meet these requisitions ? In 
 1889 there were 12,000,000 children of the elementary 
 school age. How many of them were in the elementary 
 schools? 12,931,259. The seeming paradox is easily ex- 
 plained. There were 931,259 pupils in these schools who 
 were under six or over fourteen. But now observe the sta- 
 tistics for the secondary school years, from fourteen to 
 twenty. There were 4,750,000 possible pupils for these 
 years. There were actually enrolled 668,461 less than one 
 seventh of the youth of secondary age. Of the 4,000,000 of 
 right age for the higher education there were only 126,854 
 enrolled less than one thirtieth of the quota. Shall we say : 
 " No wonder that our politics is so little marked by sound 
 intelligence " ? But it would be infinitely worse off than it 
 is if there were not an education which is not of the schools, 
 an education of books, of the free library, of business, of 
 life, which is sometimes so effectual that the young men it 
 graduates put to an open shame the graduates of the col- 
 leges and schools. And lest we mourn too grievously over 
 the statistics of our secondary and higher education, it 
 should be remembered that there are many tasks and situa- 
 tions for which factory and bench and field are a much 
 better education than our higher schools and colleges afford. 
 At the same time there is no doubt that we could bear a 
 very great extension of our secondary and collegiate educa- 
 tion without social detriment, and with great advantage to 
 our citizenship in all its range. I need hardly specify what 
 lines of study would make up the sum of this advantage, 
 they are so obvious to the most casual observation. One of 
 them would certainly be that developed in John Fiske's 
 Civil Government in the United States, a book which every 
 voter in the country ought not merely to read but to con 
 and inwardly digest, and to that end to have a copy of his 
 own. How different the intelligence which the voter who 
 had been thus qualified would bring to the town-meeting 
 and to the appreciation of all political questions from the 
 ignorance which is now so nearly universal ! There's some- 
 thing rotten in our several States that our political con- 
 sciousness is so much less vivid than it was a hundred years 
 ago. To increase its vividness, such a book as Mr. Fiske's 
 Civil Government would go far, and for the older reader 
 Mr. Bryce's American Commonwealth, so faithful in its 
 
422 Education as Related to Citizenship. 
 
 criticism, and so generous in its appreciation of our worse 
 and better things. But to such political anatomy as these 
 books and others of their kind make known to us, we must 
 add the political physiology which our history and political 
 biography reveal, showing the system in its dynamic opera- 
 tion. And here again Mr. Fiske has done us an inestimable 
 service. If there was ever any justice in the comparative 
 indifference to American history which was formerly in 
 vogue, he has taken away our reproach. What a delightful 
 tale is that which he has told of the successive eras of dis- 
 covery and exploration and settlement and revolution and 
 independent organization ! There is this answer also to be 
 made to the indifference named that English history is 
 just as much our history down to 1776 as it is that of our 
 English cousins. Their Hampden and Cromwell are as 
 much ours as their Shakespeare and Milton. It was their 
 battle just as much as ours, as every student knows, that 
 was fought out at Concord and Bunker Hill and Trenton 
 and Princeton and Yorktown. History teaches patriotism, 
 but it is not the only means of teaching it. Patriotism has 
 had its poets, and their poems ought to be the refreshment 
 and delight of every youth and maid. " I see them muster 
 in a gleaming row" the long and endless file. Happy 
 the day that brings to the ingenuous heart the thrill, the 
 pang, which is responsive to such words as those of Long- 
 fellow's : " Sail on. sail on ! " or Paul Eevere's Eide, 
 Lowell's Present Crisis or Commemoration Ode, Whittier's 
 great antislavery songs, Emerson's Voluntaries, Whit- 
 man's Our Captain, or Stedman's Osawotomie Brown. 
 There will be an embarrassment of riches for the teacher 
 who has an eye and heart for these great things. He need 
 not confine himself to our American poets. Are not 
 Milton's sonnets ours and Lycidas, Lovelace's song On 
 going to the Wars, Marvel's Two Kings, Tennyson's Wel- 
 lington Ode, Browning's Herve Kiel and Home Thoughts 
 from the Sea, Doyle's Private of the Buffs and Lyall's 
 Theology in Extremis are not all these ours by right 
 of sympathy and admiration, and so many more that the 
 young scholar has no need to read one worthless thing 
 from the beginning of his primary to the end of his 
 collegiate course ? And then, too, at the risk of teaching 
 morals, and perhaps religion, somehow the teaching must 
 make plain that there is a spurious patriotism as well as the 
 true article. It is that which says " Our country, right or 
 
Education as Related to Citizenship. 423 
 
 wrong," while the true patriot would rather see her fleets 
 dispersed, her army routed by the puniest foe, than to have 
 them triumph over the strongest upon earth in an unjust or 
 shameful cause. True, " the sheathed blade may rust with 
 darker sin," but war must be the last resort of justice ; not 
 the first of spite, as it is too often in the double-leaded 
 leading editorials. If we could have an educated press, the 
 education not less moral than intellectual, then we should 
 have the general assumption that each offending power will 
 do exactly what it should, and that assumption would go far 
 to make the wrong things right. So long as editorial cocki- 
 ness can do so much to precipitate a needless war, there 
 ought to be some understanding that, when it comes to 
 fighting, the editors should be foremost in the field. 
 
 " When Islam's army marches, place a beggar in the van, 
 And the frightened host of infidels will rush to Hindustan." 
 
 An editorial vanguard might have no such disastrous 
 effect upon the enemy, but it might have a salutary influ- 
 ence upon the editorial mind. In the phrase of the ungodly, 
 they would " know how it is themselves." 
 
 The whole tendency of our patriotism is too much to 
 magnify the military virtues while those of the statesman 
 are left unregarded. Go to Washington, that beautiful 
 city of which Americans may well be proud, and you will 
 see its lovely squares or circles each with its equestrian 
 general, General Jackson taking the responsibility of a posi- 
 tion horizontal to the level of the street. The fact is too 
 much a symbol of an inequality which ranges wide through 
 all the patriotic impulses of the school and press, and gives 
 the. statesman, the reformer, the educator, the inventor, and 
 the poet far less than belongs to him of honor, love, and 
 praise. 
 
 It is not enough to hope that the ratio of college-bred 
 men to the population may be indefinitely increased. The 
 better the culture the better the citizen, but we must also 
 hope that the higher education of the country may become 
 more intimate with its politics, more controlling to its legis- 
 lation. I know that university professors are called doctri- 
 naire, and in proof that they "are so we are offered the un- 
 doubted fact that they are ten to one low-tariff men in their 
 expressed opinions and free-traders in their hearts. But 
 this is perhaps only what we should expect as the result of 
 studies biased neither by business interests nor political 
 28 
 
424 Education as Related to Citizenship. 
 
 expectations. Moreover, the most stout protectionists will 
 privately assure you that free trade is the 
 
 " one far-off divine event," 
 
 and that they do not favor a high tariff that is, not a very 
 high one, only a pretty high one, for the present, until our 
 infant industries have got their growth. But it is not pro- 
 posed to recruit our legislators from college faculties, though 
 these have taken to themselves some of our most promising 
 young politicians ; it is proposed to recruit them somewhat 
 more largely from the body of our liberally educated men. 
 If Wendell Phillips distrusted them, there was Wendell 
 Phillips to show in his own person how unwarrantable was 
 his distrust. The Hon. Theodore Eoosevelt does not lecture 
 on Qualifications for Office without having proved that he 
 possesses them in an eminent degree, and he is, I think, a 
 college man. It was another, and pre-eminently the scholar 
 in our politics, Charles Sumner, who, April 30, 1864, intro- 
 duced the first bill looking to that reformation of our civil 
 service of which Mr. Eoosevelt is the official head, and of 
 which the moral head for twenty years and more has been 
 George William Curtis, the Chancellor of the University of 
 the State of New York, the presiding genius of the whole 
 system of our higher education in collegiate and academic 
 schools. And in these instances we have no exception to a 
 rule. The rule has been that at every stage of our develop- 
 ment much of the best in our political intelligence and in- 
 spiration has come from highly educated men. Before the 
 scholar in politics can be disdained, we must make up our 
 minds to disdain Cotton and Winthrop and Hooker, and 
 many another the founder of the New England States, James 
 Otis and the Adamses, and Witherspoon, and many more 
 of that great company who achieved our independence ; we 
 must forget that Thomas Jefferson, of William and Mary, 
 wrote the Declaration, and James Madison, of Princeton, 
 well-nigh our Constitution, which, put on its defense, he 
 with Jay and Hamilton, of Columbia, in the papers of The 
 Federalist, made good against the general assault ; we must 
 forget that Daniel Webster established that interpretation 
 of the Constitution against which the armies of secession 
 broke in vain ; we must forget how many men of college 
 training followed the lead of Garrison ; John Quincy Ad- 
 ams's part in the antislavery conflict ; Lowell's Tyrtsean 
 songs; the wrath which thundered from the pulpits in 
 
Education as Related to Citizenship. 425 
 
 which Beecher and Parker stood for the higher law ; and 
 Seward's " irrepressible conflict," to say nothing of John A. 
 Andrew's distinction at Bowdoin, which was to be the 
 lowest in his class. That was because a college course 
 was not then what it should be a splendid opportunity for 
 a young man to pounce upon his own. Across the Atlantic 
 the great forms of Gladstone and Cavour and Stein are seen 
 bringing their glory and honor into the service of our plea 
 for educated politics, the scholar in the halls of legislation 
 and the places of executive control. I do not forget that 
 neither Washington nor Lincoln was a college man, and 
 many have done well in politics without a liberal education, 
 though these excel them all. But the wider the range of 
 our investigation the more convincing we shall find the ar- 
 gument for a careful educational training as the best possi- 
 ble training for the legislator's work, the best possible safe- 
 guard against the vagaries of the financial schemer and the 
 crudities of fanatic zeal. And if it has been so in the past, 
 it must be much more so in the future when the studies of 
 pur secondary and higher schools and colleges are brought 
 into more intimate relations with the history of our coun- 
 try, her economic system, and the structure and inter- 
 pretation of her organic law. The educational system of 
 America has not yet attained unto the highest things, but 
 it is following after them with a diligent and patient mind. 
 It need not fear the Danaans bringing gifts the French 
 and Germans, with their different methods widely opposed 
 and yet each having its own special excellence. It need not 
 fear to change in any way that is for the better. The best, 
 that is the most American. And the better the education 
 the more intellectual, the more moral, the more practical, 
 the more ideal the better will be the citizenship which it 
 will instruct, ennoble, and inspire. 
 
426 Education as Related to Citizenship. 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 
 
 WILLIAM H. MAXWELL, PH. D. : 
 
 In this presence it is not necessary for me to say one word of eulo- 
 gium on Mr. Chad wick and his paper. You will not expect me to fol- 
 low him through all his argument and touch upon every point of this 
 vast subject. If I gathered the thought of the lecturer, he reached 
 the conclusion that universal suffrage involves the necessity of uni- 
 versal education. From this he deduced the necessity of compulsory 
 education. As I listened to his great array of statistics I regretted 
 that he did not give the figures as to illiteracy. They are eloquent, 
 and show that in the United States, and even in New York or Massa- 
 chusetts, we are far from having reached the condition of Bavaria, 
 Saxony, Baden, and other States of the German Empire. We have in 
 this State a compulsory education law, but it is a poor one. The law 
 reduces the necessity of school attendance to a minimum. It requires 
 only fourteen weeks each year for children between eight and fourteen 
 years of age. The law is so poorly drawn and badly worded that any 
 parent desiring to violate its provisions could probably do so. Only 
 civil process can be brought against an offender, and the fine is one 
 dollar for the first offense and five dollars for the second. Again, the 
 law is defective in that it makes no provision for its enforcement. New 
 York and Brooklyn are the only cities in the State which are making 
 any efforts to enforce it. There is a proposed law now before the Legis- 
 lature which, in some respects, is a decided improvement on the pres- 
 ent law, but is still far from satisfactory. It makes failure to educate 
 children a crime punishable by fine and imprisonment. It proposes 
 that children between seven and twelve shall attend school from Octo- 
 ber 1st to June 1st. From twelve to fourteen, children must attend at 
 least twenty weeks in each year, and if not in school during the re- 
 mainder of the school year they must be employed in some useful 
 occupation. From fourteen to sixteen they may be usefully employed 
 all the time ; but if not, they must be in school. Any locality in 
 which the authorities shall not make provision for the enforcement of 
 this law shall lose its share of the school funds. The defect of the 
 law is that it does not require that instruction shall be given in the 
 English language. And it does away with the only good provision of 
 the present law that which provides for the punishment of those who 
 employ children in unlawful ways. The law against employing chil- 
 
Education as Related to Citizenship. 427 
 
 dren in factories is enforced by factory inspectors. As the agent of 
 the Board of Education some years ago, I found the greatest obstacle 
 to the enforcement of the school law to be the employment of children 
 at home in the tenement houses. 
 
 Another of Mr. Chadwick's deductions is that not only should edu- 
 cation be compulsory, but the State should see to it that education in 
 private and parochial schools is what it ought to be. I can hardly say 
 that I agree. I am aware that that is the plan in Germany. There 
 no one is permitted to teach in public or private schools or as a private 
 tutor unless he has a good certificate, and all private schools must 
 conform to strict rules laid down by the Minister of Public Instruction. 
 I do not think the American people would tolerate such regulations. 
 Two or three years ago, when a compulsory education law had passed 
 both houses of the Legislature and was in the hands of the Governor, 
 the friends of the private schools imagined that one clause gave the 
 public authorities control over licensing teachers in private schools. 
 It was not so, but the feeling developed was so strong that the Gov- 
 ernor vetoed the bill. But Mr. Chadwick himself supplied the best 
 argument against his own position. If it is true that the public 
 schools are turning out children all of one pattern, why should he 
 want to extend that influence ? 1 can ask with him and Emerson : 
 " If there is rot in the potato, what is the use of raising a large crop f " 
 
 In education, as in every other department of life, emulation and com- 
 petition are essential to progress. I should like to see every parochial 
 and private school in this city far better than it is, not merely for the 
 sake of the children in those schools, but for the good of all ; and I 
 should also like to see the public schools better for the sake of the 
 private schools. If the State controls the education of all the children, 
 it will have the power to develop a certain type of character, which is 
 a dangerous prerogative. I believe, however, that the right of the 
 State to educate involves the right to license teachers, and to set a 
 certain minimum limit to education. The law ought to provide that 
 no child under fourteen should be permitted to work until he has 
 passed a certain examination. 
 
 The common schools should be made so good that the private and 
 parochial schools would be forced to be equally good or give up the 
 competition. I do not claim that Brooklyn schools have reached that 
 point. I think it is the part of wisdom to be modest. In the Brook- 
 lyn public schools there is some exceedingly bad teaching ; in the ma- 
 jority of cases the teaching is very good ; and in some cases it is as 
 good as can be found in the country. Yet the schools are not organ- 
 ized in the best way. We need kindergartens. Mr. Chadwick truly 
 said that education must begin in the concrete, and utilize the won- 
 
428 Education as Related to Citizenship. 
 
 derful self-activity of the child. Now, little ones of five or six years 
 old are put in classes of seventy or one hundred, or even more, under 
 one teacher. We need not be told that one teacher can not do justice 
 to one hundred pupils. The remedy is to put the young children into 
 kindergarten classes. 
 
 The lecture was a magnificent argument for the scholar in politics. 
 We need college graduates as leaders; and that makes it necessary 
 that the public schools should be so organized as to lead very directly 
 to the obtaining of a liberal education, and in all cases where the pupil 
 does not look forward to a higher education, to give him a taste for 
 reading and study. Mr. Chadwick indicated the weakest spot in the 
 public-school system too much uniformity. We should begin to dif- 
 ferentiate earlier than we do. The average age of the public-school 
 graduate is fifteen years. If he goes to college, it takes four years to 
 prepare and four years to get through ; then, if he takes a profession, it 
 takes three years more, and the man is twenty-six before he is able to 
 earn anything. The people of this city can have anything they de- 
 mand in the way of improvements in public education. They should 
 demand and have only the best. 
 
 Miss ELLEN E. KENYON, PD. M. : 
 
 Part of the ground I intended to cover has been already discussed 
 by Mr. Maxwell. I will adopt his eloquent words in praise of the 
 lecture as my own, and also what he says as to licensing teachers. I 
 dissent from none of the main points of the lecture. 1 believe in 
 socialism to about the same extent as Mr. Chadwick. There is a whole- 
 some dread of socialistic tendencies that may be too much exaggerated. 
 The claims of the extreme anti-socialists prove that they have not 
 closely followed the trend of evolution. Man has ceased to be the un- 
 conscious subject of evolution the blind product of external forces 
 and conditions ; he has taken evolution into his own hands. But as 
 the laws, nevertheless, are fixed, a certain amount of humility is be- 
 coming. 
 
 The socialism at present existing in our civilized communities is the 
 product of growth rather than of deliberate planning. It needs re- 
 forming, but is better than the rank individualism of the monopolist. 
 I do not believe in creating a socialistic monopoly by the State. I 
 believe in the admission of private enterprise to free and fair compe- 
 tition with every public enterprise. It is unwise to allow government 
 monopoly in the postal business ; and the public school has no right 
 to any unfair advantage over the private school. Parents who prefer 
 private schools should be released from their share of expense for pub- 
 lic education. Why not allow to private schools out of the public 
 
Education as Related to Citizenship. 429 
 
 treasury amounts equal to the pro rata cost of educating their chil- 
 dren in the public schools f This would take away the last argument 
 from those who object to the public schools as charity. We must 
 make education compulsory, and have public schools sufficient in num- 
 ber and efficiency to supply what private schools fail to supply ; but 
 not so protected by the State that they will kill the private schools. 
 
 As an example of progressive methods in education, take the school 
 of Mrs. Louisa Hopkins, containing about twenty children. She used 
 all possible means to excite an original interest on the part of the 
 pupils. Sometimes she would take them to the sea-shore for a day, 
 and the next day the facts discovered were reviewed and set in order. 
 One day they went fifteen miles to see an old sailor who had a collection 
 of curiosities and who liked to talk. This trip furnished suggestions 
 for reading for several days. Such methods may seem impracticable 
 in our large city schools. But if the State undertakes to educate, it 
 should educate. Science and literature must become the basis of 
 public-school education before it can give up its legal advantage and 
 compete successfully with that of private schools. 
 
 It is said that secondary education is requisite to intelligent citizen- 
 ship. True ; but secondary education is of secondary importance, here 
 as elsewhere. This is not the place to begin reforms ; they should be- 
 gin at the bottom. Make the primary school what it should be. Pri- 
 mary education based upon the kindergarten is capable of opening 
 every avenue of culture. But this requires trained teachers. Build 
 more normal schools, supply better literature for the children, and the 
 press will soon respond to the demands of an educated people. Let us 
 remember that in the training of the child for good citizenship one 
 ounce of prevention is worth ten thousand tons of cure. 
 
 PROF. H. J. MESSENGER : 
 
 I find much to praise and little to criticise in the lecture. If we 
 notice the development of the public-school system we shall see how it 
 has fallen into certain ruts of mechanical method. Public schools were 
 originally introduced as local institutions throughout the country. It 
 was soon seen that there must be some system in their management. 
 The result was that each State took hold and organized a splendid sys- 
 tem ; but, having a very definite form, it soon got into a rut. How- 
 ever, reform will surely come , but differing from the last speaker, I 
 think it will come from the top, down. Of late years we have seen 
 how the one-course system has been superseded by the elective system in 
 our colleges, and how the new method has been gradually working 
 down from post-graduate courses to senior, and in some universities 
 to sophomore and freshman classes. Eventually it will reach the pre- 
 
430 Education as Related to Citizenship. 
 
 paratory schools ; it has already done so to some extent. We are realiz- 
 ing the fact that only a small percentage of the pupils of the public 
 schools can go to college, and for those who do not, a different course 
 of study is needed. 
 
 In considering education as related to citizenship, we must bear in 
 mind that there are a great many kinds of education. We do not need 
 an education which makes one an authority on pronunciation, or enables 
 him to speak French and play his part among the four hundred ; but 
 we do need that which makes one a student of Nature and of Nature's 
 ways ; a student of history, able to grasp the political questions of the 
 time and to note the results of their past treatment. If we had an 
 educated people we should not have to pass through the greenback 
 craze or a free-silver agitation. If man had such an education he 
 would realize the fact that all change is gradual ; that all efforts at 
 improvement are not lost, even if the world is not reformed in two 
 weeks ; that everything is neither all wrong nor all right. No act of 
 your life is productive wholly of good or evil ; all is relative. When 
 we realize this we shall not have such intense partisan spirit. If 
 patriotism means love of country, we can not have too much of it. 
 But Goldwin Smith says : " Above all nations is humanity." We must 
 realize the fact that there are other nations besides America. While 
 America is a good country, the violent patriotism of a certain class of 
 newspapers can be overdone. Education tends to tone down that 
 form of patriotism in a beneficent manner. 
 
 DR. LEWIS G. JANES : 
 
 In regard to the question of socialism involved in public education 
 and discussed to-night in some of its other relations, I think no 
 evolutionist can fail to see that the true line of societary progress is 
 toward the freeing of the individual from governmental control ; but 
 we can not make a sudden leap to complete freedom. On the way it 
 may be necessary to take some steps that seem to tend toward 
 socialism. The public school is such a step. In other matters, how- 
 ever, our methods are really not as socialistic as they appear. In the 
 matter of street-cleaning, e. g., the usual method is to let out the 
 contract to private parties. This is correct strictly in line with Mr. 
 Spencer's conception of justice. It is the right and duty of the local 
 government to see that this work is properly done. No one affirms 
 this class of rights more thoroughly than Mr. Spencer ; and if the sys- 
 tem of giving contracts, for this and other work, has become an affair 
 of political favoritism and private monopoly, it may be necessary for 
 the community to take the business into its own hands for a while. 
 This is not necessarily a step toward State socialism. Our Post-Office 
 
Education as Related to Citizenship. 431 
 
 Department is not socialistic in the details of its management ; in the 
 carrying of the mails, the work is let out to private individuals or 
 corporations under free competition. I should deprecate any real 
 steps toward State socialism or Bellamy ism. 
 
 MR. CHADWICK : 
 
 It is too late for any reply. I will merely express my gratitude for 
 the criticisms on my address and for the expansions and illustrations 
 of my thoughts, and close with the words of that great teacher, Dr. 
 Arnold, of Rugby : " The measure of my loyalty to any institution is 
 my desire to reform it." 
 
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD M. SHEPARD 
 
 AUTHOR OF LIFE OF MARTIN VAN BUREN : THE COMPETITIVE TEST ; 
 THE WORK OF A SOCIAL TEACHER, ETC. 
 
COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED: 
 
 The Federalist ; Brown and Strauss's Dictionary of American Poli- 
 tics; Patton's The Democratic Party; Cooper and Fenton's American 
 Politics ; Houghton's Conspectus of the History of Political Parties 
 and the Federal Government ; Johnston's History of American Poli- 
 tics ; Stan wood's History of Presidential Elections ; Von Hoist's Con- 
 stitutional and Political History of the United States ; Sterne's Con- 
 stitutional History and Political Development of the United States ; 
 Works of Jefferson, Madison, and Calhoun; Messages of President 
 Grover Cleveland. 
 
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. 
 
 BY EDWARD M. SHEPARD. 
 
 You will perhaps remember in Thackeray's Paris Sketch 
 Book the two pen-and-ink figures of the French monarch 
 of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in whose reign 
 of seventy years French civilization took on its modern 
 form. In the first sketch we have Louis the Great in robes 
 of ermine and purple, his brow surmounted by a superb 
 and well-nigh impossible head of hair, his shoulders broad 
 and firm for cares of sovereignty, and his hand grasping 
 a scepter ; altogether it is a splendid figure of conscious 
 power. In the second view the monarch, having retired 
 from the public gaze to his chamber, has, much to his com- 
 fort, been reduced to the reality of his own manhood. The 
 heavy vestments have been thrown off ; no wig conceals the 
 royal baldness ; the shoulders and legs are no longer padded 
 out to lines of beauty ; the paint and powder are gone, so 
 that the eyes are seen to be sunken, and the wrinkled feat- 
 ures of old age are plain. In this bald, feeble, spindling 
 creature there is, however, all that ever there was of genu- 
 ine man or genuine ruler, all that had been so successfully 
 idealized by the disguise and harness of the first sketch. 
 There we had the king of tradition, of popular imagination, 
 ruling his people from an Olympian height of unspeakable 
 wisdom and sacred power. Here is the king of reality, a 
 feeble man, selfish, narrow, short-sighted. 
 
 Government was once identical with kingship. Modern 
 government has inherited many more, indeed, than we 
 sometimes think of the features and illusions of kingship. 
 The imposing and mysterious entity called government may, 
 even in our own land and time, be subjected, with advan- 
 tage, to the sort of disenchantment represented in the cari- 
 catures. The primary and all-including article in the creed 
 of the Democratic party, when at its best, has been its disbe- 
 lief that government has any virtue or wisdom apart from the 
 virtue and wisdom of the men who compose it. Democrats 
 have been hostile to the glamour of ceremony, to the tradi- 
 tions and mystery which have magnified the attributes and 
 abilities of the many particular men who administer govern- 
 
436 The Democratic Party. 
 
 ment into a single and half-divine personality with which it 
 is irreverent to deal on terms of practical and immediate 
 criticism. Democrats have always condemned as supersti- 
 tious the ascription to government of hidden and indefin- 
 able sources of inspiration incapable of analysis into specific 
 human elements. 
 
 If government, however, ought to be dealt with merely as 
 an assemblage of men for specific and practical purposes, 
 then surely it will not be reasonable, at least of a Sunday 
 evening and in a place of worship, to otherwise treat a 
 political party. Doubtless it is convenient for campaign 
 orators to speak of the Democratic party as a person of one 
 identical character, developed steadily through a career 
 which, according to the observer, has been one of glory or 
 of shame, a person of uniform instincts, of fixed habits, of 
 steadfast ambition. In the exigencies of an election, appeals 
 to party traditions and the cries of clanship under a great 
 leader are obviously useful. It then seems almost necessary 
 to appeal to that enthusiasm and loyalty which go out 
 only to a person or single figure. Politicians, the best and 
 the worst of them, will alike and always speak of their party 
 as if it were a St. George of perennial nobleness and valor 
 engaged in immortal and steady combat with the dragon. 
 You will recall the genuine, even if fleeting, enthusiasm 
 aroused in Brooklyn a few years ago when a man of distin- 
 guished station simply said to a crowd in the Academy of 
 Music: "I am a Democrat." What the phrase properly 
 meant it might take a volume to say. To few, indeed, of 
 those who heard it did the words bring any philosophical or 
 historical view of American government, or indeed any 
 living or immediate belief, except, perhaps, the belief that 
 the speaker would, if he were in the place of another distin- 
 guished citizen, distribute offices more rapidly than they were 
 then being distributed among the members of his party. I 
 do not believe, however, that the latter and grosser motive 
 was the controlling one with the people who cheered. The 
 enthusiasm largely signified personal devotion to a concrete 
 image, the American Democracy, a goddess always watching 
 over her worshipers, always beneficent, always the same. 
 
 I shall not for a moment this evening, even if I could, ideal- 
 ize the Democratic party as an unchanging personification 
 of political virtues. Nor do I think that its treatment two 
 weeks from this evening as a changeless personification of 
 political vices would be either true or useful. It is the 
 
The Democratic Party. 437 
 
 only American party which has had a continuous life from 
 the time of Washington's administration to the present. 
 But it has never been anything else than an aggregation of 
 men shifting and changing, with motives and views like- 
 wise shifting and changing, sometimes loyal, sometimes 
 most disloyal, to the original impulse of the party ; some- 
 times ruled by sound and far-seeing patriotism, sometimes 
 half inspired with a real love of mankind, but sometimes 
 also ruled by grosser motives and headed by selfish, timid, 
 and even corrupt leaders. In its career the Democratic 
 party had often been most useful to the American Common- 
 wealth, and sometimes, I believe, profoundly and enduringly 
 useful to the world. More than once, on the other hand, it 
 has stood offensively and dangerously in the way of the 
 public good ; more than once it has surrendered itself to 
 impulses contemptible and base. 
 
 It is just about one hundred years ago that the Demo- 
 cratic party in the United States and by that I mean the 
 present organization was born of the theoretical and philo- 
 sophical temper which pervaded Europe and America in the 
 later years of the last century, and the practical fruit of 
 which had been the destruction of monarchical institutions 
 in America and France. Instead of dealing, as typical An- 
 glo-Saxons would have dealt, as probably Hamilton and John 
 Adams would have dealt, only with the particular wrongs and 
 inconveniences of British oppression, the genius of Thomas 
 Jefferson had, in the Declaration of Independence fifteen or 
 twenty years before, made the thirteen colonies define the 
 whole reason and framework of government. Much of what 
 he said now seems truism. It was the supreme merit of his 
 career that he turned truths into truisms. He declared the 
 theoretical rights what he called the " inalienable rights " 
 of man ; he declared the justification of government to be 
 its ability to secure those rights; he declared respect or 
 obedience to be due government solely as in actual practice 
 it secured those rights. Whenever government ceased to 
 perform this practical work, it was only prudence and never 
 awe which should restrain citizens, if they were to be re- 
 strained at all, from overturning it. Divinity was no longer 
 to hedge it around. King George was, by the precise speci- 
 fications of the Declaration, stripped of his majesty, as in 
 the caricature of Louis XIV, and dealt with as a man who, 
 vested with physical powers, had done the colonists certain 
 concrete wrongs. 
 
438 The Democratic Party. 
 
 Very soon after the end of the American Eevolution Jef- 
 ferson went to Paris, where he lived during several years 
 of the intellectual ferment which preceded the cataclysm of 
 the French Kevolution. After our Constitution was formed 
 and Washington's administration was well under way, Jef- 
 ferson, returning home, was still, or perhaps more zealously, 
 an apostle of the rights of man a thorough-going icono- 
 clast toward every image of government as an earthly deity. 
 To his influence we probably owe the first ten amendments 
 of the Federal Constitution that bill of rights which has 
 been so largely copied into the constitutions of the Ameri- 
 can States. They form a series of declarations of jealousy 
 of government, or rather of the bodies of men who from 
 time to time compose government. Their meaning is that 
 the price of liberty is eternal vigilance toward rulers not 
 less toward rulers elected by the people than toward those 
 set over the people by the once useful but now absurd sys- 
 tem of primogeniture. While he was the nominal head of 
 Washington's cabinet, Jefferson and his friends viewed with 
 intense dislike the effort of Hamilton and his friends to 
 form into a governing class the citizens who had property, 
 the citizens who, through a dangerous slip, were called the 
 " well-born," and their effort to lodge in the Federal Gov- 
 ernment the chief political powers of every State. Hamil- 
 ton, you will perhaps remember, had proposed life-tenure 
 for the President and senators, and the appointment of 
 governors of the States by Federal authority, with the power 
 to every governor of an absolute veto upon the legislation 
 of his State. In our admiration for his great powers and 
 our gratitude for his splendid services in setting up the 
 framework of our Government, it is sometimes forgotten 
 that the Federal Constitution is a radically different thing 
 from what Hamilton would have had it ; that but little of it 
 is his handiwork ; that it represents quite as much, to say 
 the least, the Democratic view as the Federalist view of 
 American politics. In private Hamilton declared it to be a 
 " frail and worthless fabric." Democracy and by that he 
 meant the eager jealous participation of all citizens in the 
 Government, as well those whom he deemed unimportant 
 and incompetent as those who held responsible places in the 
 community and were skilled in affairs Democracy, he de- 
 clared just before his death, to be a " virulent poison." 
 
 From the time of Jefferson's return to America and his 
 appointment as Secretary of State in 1790 until his inau- 
 
The Democratic Party. 439 
 
 gtiration as President in 1801, the Democratic party was in 
 its first stoge ; and in that stage it tended toward extreme 
 opposition to the Hamiltonian views. In the formation of 
 lasting popular opinion, in permanently molding the politi- 
 cal instincts and institutions of America, and in setting up 
 ideals which have in our land grown stronger and stronger 
 with the lapse of time, the genius of Jefferson was, with 
 the possible exception of that of Franklin, the most fruitful 
 which our country has known. Within twelve years after 
 our present Government began he had gathered a majority 
 of the people of the United States into an organization then 
 called the Eepublican, afterward called the Democratic-Re- 
 publican, and finally, and until the present time, called the 
 Democratic party. During that period the principles of 
 the party were well settled. They appear in Jefferson's po- 
 litical papers, in his incessant correspondence, in the Vir- 
 ginia and Kentucky resolutions, for both of which, doubt- 
 less, Jefferson and Madison were largely responsible, and in 
 a great wealth of political and party literature more or less 
 doctrinaire. 
 
 The Democratic principles were in substance these : First, 
 Just government is a mere instrument for accomplishing 
 certain useful and practical purposes which citizens in their 
 other relations can not accomplish, and primarily, and chiefly, 
 to protect men, as, without trespass upon others, they pursue 
 happiness in their own way. Every effort, by ceremonial or 
 otherwise, to ascribe to government virtue or intelligence, 
 or invite to it honor, not belonging to the men who com- 
 
 Eose it, is an effort against the public welfare. Second, The 
 iss government does, the more it leaves to individual citi- 
 zens to do, the better. Every grant of power to govern- 
 ment ought, therefore, to be strictly and jealously construed 
 as impairing to some extent the natural rights of men. 
 Third) There should be the maximum of local self-govern- 
 ment. Where it is doubtful between the Federal Govern- 
 ment and a State, or between a State and a lesser commu- 
 nity, which should exercise a power, the doubt ought to be 
 solved in favor of the government nearer the home, and 
 more closely under the eye, of the individual citizen. 
 Fourth, It follows that the expenditure of money by the 
 Government ought to be the least possible ; the collection 
 and disbursement by public officials of money earned by 
 other men tends to corruption, not only in the jobbery and 
 thievery more or less attending irresponsible expenditure of 
 
440 The Democratic Party. 
 
 money, but perhaps more seriously in its tendency to create 
 in the minds of citizens a sense of dependence upon govern- 
 ment. And fifth, to sum up all the rest, the Government 
 should make the least possible demand upon the citizen, and 
 the citizen the least possible demand upon the Government. 
 The citizen should never suppose that he can be made vir- 
 tuous or kept virtuous by law, or that he ought to be helped 
 to wealth or ease by those of his fellows who happen to hold 
 the offices, and for that reason to be collectively called " the 
 Government." 
 
 Such was the Democratic creed at its beginning ; and, in 
 spite of many disloyalties of the party, such the creed, at 
 least as a creed, has remained until the present time. Cer- 
 tain constructive functions, like the post-office in the Fed- 
 eral administration, or the care of streets in municipal ad- 
 ministration, it is admitted it was then admitted must be 
 performed by the Government. Those constructive func- 
 tions, with the increase in wealth and complexity of modern 
 life, tend to increase in number and importance. But, as 
 to each one of them, the burden is upon those who would 
 have the Government assume it, to show that Government 
 is fit for it ; and by Government is always meant the men 
 actually making up the administration, with all the limita- 
 tions upon their intelligence and integrity, and with all the 
 disadvantages incident to the performance of business by 
 those who bear but an insignificant part of its burdens. It 
 is with ample regard to these considerations that we should 
 determine as to each constructive work, whether it ought to 
 be done by some division of the Government. The main 
 purpose and justification of government is, in every re- 
 sponse of the Democratic litany, and with ceaseless itera- 
 tion, declared to be the protection of the individual citizen 
 in best and most freely exercising his calling and in living 
 his life without trespass upon the like freedom of his neigh- 
 bor. Long before the birth of Herbert Spencer for whose 
 figure, with an aureole about the head, one half looks in the 
 meeting-house of this association the best of the proposi- 
 tions of Social Statics was an axiom of the Democratic party. 
 The creed is neither warm nor inspiring. It seems to be 
 selfish, and in some essentials it is selfish. It says : " Let 
 each man take care of himself. Let no man, through the 
 power of popular majorities, shift his burdens upon other 
 men." 
 
 Out of the triumph of this creed, which the first year of 
 
TJie Democratic Party. 441 
 
 our century brought, and incidental to that triumph, have 
 come many things unpleasant to well-ordered citizens. The 
 refusal to recognize public men as a class possessing esoteric 
 knowledge, the admiration for the plain, simple man, has not 
 infrequently led the American people to put incompetence 
 and stupidity into official place. The dislike of forms, the 
 determination to deal with realities, has sometimes led to 
 the neglect of forms necessary to thoroughness, precision, 
 and convenience. In a conversation which I was honored 
 in having with James Russell Lowell while he was Minister 
 to England he touched upon this subject, as, indeed, he 
 did in several of his political essays. He told me of a re- 
 quest which had been made to- him by a foreign govern- 
 ment I think that of Spain, where he had lately been Min- 
 ister for information accessible only in one of the depart- 
 ments of the American Government. He described the 
 respectful care and thoroughness of the form in which the 
 request for information had come to him, and had by him 
 been sent to America ; and then he spoke sharply of the 
 flimsy and careless, and even slovenly, papers which had 
 come to him in return for submission to the foreign govern- 
 ment papers which must create disgust in any well-ordered 
 and disciplined mind. I said to myself, and I have a half 
 impression that I said to Mr. Lowell : " Here are fruits of 
 Thomas Jefferson." Not that Jefferson would ever himself 
 have so transacted business, or perhaps tolerated such trans- 
 action of business in others. On the contrary, his work of 
 this sort was thorough and admirable. But in the Ameri- 
 can mind and habits of thought Jefferson and his school 
 have implanted so deeply the idea that forms are of second- 
 ary consequence, and the conditions of our country have 
 been so favorable to the growth of the idea, that not infre- 
 quently the usefulness, or even the necessity, of forms is 
 overlooked. It is quite possible that a dirty, shabby, half- 
 legible document may serve the main purposes of the thing 
 to be done ; and doubtless the substance of the document is 
 of vastly more consequence than its form. Form must not 
 control or stifle the substance, as in some of the business of 
 Spanish- American countries, or in the circumlocution offices 
 of years ago in England. But Jefferson knew, although 
 many of his followers have forgotten, that where form itself 
 is not properly observed there is grave danger that the sub- 
 stance will also suffer and sometimes will be lost. When 
 Jefferson received the British Minister, Mr. Merry, it was 
 
442 The Democratic Party. 
 
 doubtless well that burdensome etiquette should not prevent 
 the men going promptly and clearly to the business in hand ; 
 but slippered feet and shabby dress, if the story of Jefferson 
 be true, did not help, but rather hindered, the business. 
 When the Brooklyn Bridge was opened eight years ago we 
 determined, rightly enough, to have about it a bit of pomp 
 and ceremony. In one part of the proceeding the President, 
 the Governor, and other persons of distinction walked over 
 the footway of the bridge. In a European country this 
 parade would have been orderly, beautiful, solemn. Here, 
 however, one saw a desultory, straggling body of citizens 
 with a slatternly, dirty man carrying an ugly water pail and 
 a tin dipper not far from the President of the United States 
 the whole of the affair without that reasonable dignity of 
 official appearance which ought to belong to a public cere- 
 mony. I again said to myself, as I saw it : " Jefferson, here 
 again are your works." American sentiment has in large 
 measure forbidden garbs to various public professions and 
 ceremony to public affairs ; and I thoroughly believe the 
 reason of the prohibition to be sound and fruitful of good. 
 The public watchfulness and conscience are not to be di- 
 verted from the essential thing which is done by any splen- 
 dor or beauty of form or procedure. 
 
 Wholesome as is this greater simplicity to which we have 
 been coming, it has been reached at the cost of submit- 
 ting to much that is mean and even repulsive in appear- 
 ance. Why could we not dismiss the cumbersome vanities 
 of useless etiquette, the affectation of mystery in the trans- 
 action of affairs, public or private, without dismissing also 
 the proprieties and without wounding the sense of the beau- 
 tiful ? The Graces and the Muses, no less now than in the 
 classic days, or in Italy of the Renaissance, deserve shrines 
 in the temples of Republicanism. But this is digression. 
 Whatever were, whatever still are, the blemishes of its fruits, 
 such was the Democratic creed when Jefferson entered the 
 White House. From 1801 until 1825 the Democratic party 
 was in control of the machinery of government. At the 
 end of that time there was no opposition. When the presi- 
 dential election of 1824 took place each candidate was de- 
 clared by his supporters to be the best Republican of them 
 all. John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, quite as much 
 as Andrew Jackson and William H. Crawford, were sup- 
 posed to be followers of Jefferson and Madison. So utterly 
 destroyed was the Federal party that its traditions have since 
 
The Democratic Party. 443 
 
 that time played no practical part in the development of 
 the United States. The career, for instance, of Abraham 
 Lincoln is quite as far away from Federalist ideals as the 
 career of Andrew Jackson. Both careers were made possi- 
 ble by the surrender of the land to the political ideas of the 
 philosophers who were our Presidents during the first six- 
 teen years of the century. Not, however, that all the Demo- 
 crats were mere theorists. There were among the Demo- 
 cratic statesmen of the time several able administrators. 
 Gallatin, for instance, was one of the greatest executives our 
 country has known. The Clintons, and, among the younger 
 men, Van Buren, were highly competent in the efficient 
 transaction of the business of government. Never have 
 our national finances been better cared for. Still, on the 
 whole, the first twenty years of Democratic administration 
 were not conspicuous for executive efficiency. Jefferson 
 was a poor administrator. Madison was not a great one. 
 And although Monroe, the least able of the three men, was 
 in this respect superior to the other two, his executive talents 
 were quite inferior to those of his successor. 
 
 When John Quincy Adams became President he deter- 
 mined, although without recurrence to the ceremonial 
 features of Federalism, to make the Washington Govern- 
 ment a firmer, abler institution, to start it in the way of con- 
 structive work, to make it open the great highways through 
 the country, to make it influential abroad. Joined, as 
 Adams was, by the attractive abilities and character of 
 Henry Clay, the Whig party was formed during this admin- 
 istration ; and from the election of 1828, in which Adams 
 was defeated for re-election, until 1844, the Democratic 
 theories of government were ably and patriotically attacked 
 by some of the most famous Americans. It is an interest- 
 ing speculation to imagine what the present condition of 
 our country would have been if the Whigs had succeeded 
 in establishing as the policy of government the construc- 
 tion of the thoroughfares between the States ; that is to say, 
 if the Federal Government had taken upon itself the con- 
 struction of the great railways of the land. Under Jack- 
 son and Van Buren the Democratic party dissolved the 
 close alliance between the Federal Government and the 
 banks. The Federal Government was not, directly or indi- 
 rectly, to loan money to its citizens, for that was the propo- 
 sition substantially maintained by the Whigs in the bank 
 controversy. Since then Government has indeed deposited 
 
444 The Democratic Party. 
 
 moneys with banks, but only as a mere convenience, and 
 never under a general policy of helping bankers or mer- 
 chants. Under Jackson and Van Buren the Democratic party 
 at last showed genuine energy and ability of the first order in 
 the executive administration of affairs. The United States has 
 never known more forcible administrations than theirs. But 
 in the debasing use of official patronage the party then exhib- 
 ited, to an odious degree, the disloyalty, which had permeated 
 the whole body of the American people, to one of the cardinal 
 principles of Democracy. That the business offices of Gov- 
 ernment were mere implements for the transaction of the 
 business of the people, and not partisan prizes or private 
 possessions, as then they still were in aristocratic and corrupt 
 England, had been the firm conviction of Jefferson as of 
 other earlier American statesmen. For his honorable per- 
 sistence in this respect John Quincy Adams deserves our 
 lasting gratitude, as the Democratic party of his day deserves 
 a severe condemnation. 
 
 From 1800 to 1844 the Democratic party, being almost 
 continually in possession of the Government, had almost lost 
 sight of, or grown lukewarm toward, its Kentucky and 
 Virginia resolutions and its State Eights predilections. It 
 was a thoroughly Union party ; it was the Union party. 
 The disunionists were for some years chiefly New England 
 Federalists. In 1833 there was the later outbreak of dis- 
 union in South Carolina under Calhoun and other seceders 
 from the Democratic party, in suppressing which the Demo- 
 cratic administration used emphatic language of intense and 
 peremptory devotion to the Union which would not have 
 ill-fitted an original Federalist. Indeed, if one will apply 
 to politics the elementary rules of human conduct, he will 
 perceive it to be no very wonderful thing that the party in 
 possession of the Federal administration is always a Union 
 party, or that disunionists are always men out of the control 
 of the central administration. 
 
 In Van Buren's presidency occurred the memorable finan- 
 cial crisis of 1837 and 1838 ; and his resolute and unpopular 
 application of the principle that citizens in pecuniary trouble 
 must not look to the Federal Government for loans of credit 
 or other help, but must work out their own salvation, was 
 one of the finest exhibitions of patriotic and far-seeing wis- 
 dom known to American history. In my opinion, the 
 Democratic party did not again reach an equal height until 
 December, 1887. 
 
The Democratic Party. 445 
 
 About 1844 the slavery question definitely entered party 
 politics. Slavery existed only in the Southern States ; and 
 in those agricultural communities the Democratic party, 
 standing for low duties on imports, had come to be strongest. 
 Its strength there was, however, quite unrelated to its opin- 
 ions on the slavery question. But later, under the threats of 
 interference with slavery in the States, the slave-owners more 
 and more drifted to the Democratic party because of its strict 
 doctrine of non-interference with the domestic affairs of the 
 States. And when the slave-owners wished, as they soon 
 after did, not only to protect the institution in the States, 
 but to compel the rest of the Union to accept its atrocities, 
 they carried the Democratic party far away from its creed. 
 
 Among the Democrats there was there had always been 
 a large antislavery feeling, Jefferson had been almost an 
 abolitionist ; out of the Democratic party there later came to 
 the Republican party many abolitionists, among whom you 
 will at once recall John P. Hale, Salmon P. Chase, David 
 Wilmot and William Cullen Bryant. The Southern Demo- 
 crats, after a struggle, captured the organization of their 
 party, and refused Van Buren the nomination of 1844 be- 
 cause he was opposed to the annexation of Texas and to the 
 extension of slavery which it meant. From that time until 
 the election of Lincoln the Democratic party was ruled by 
 the slave-holders of the South. It was still a Union party ; 
 in one sense its unionism was too strong. It so far believed 
 in the Union that it was willing to sacrifice its own principles 
 of liberty and local self-government and its self-respect, and 
 to agree to a monstrous iniquity in order to preserve the 
 Union. Upon a monument in Greenwood to a distinguished 
 young Democrat who died during that time, and who, though 
 supporting slavery, or rather the contentions of slave-holders, 
 was no friend to slavery, the cherished aim of his political 
 career was declared to be, and truly, "the union of the 
 Democratic party for the sake of the Union." 
 
 The motives of the chief Democratic leaders of this period 
 I believe to have been patriotic to a high degree. Disunion 
 seemed to them to be the greatest of evils ; and they believed, 
 and rightly, that disunion must come, unless concession 
 after concession should be made to the slave-holding South. 
 The Whig party was no better. It had become contempt- 
 ible long before it fell to pieces on the rise of the present 
 Republican party. The real truth and the soundest and most 
 conservative wisdom was that of the antislavery disunion 
 
446 The Democratic Party. 
 
 men of the day, of the agitators who declared that if the 
 preservation of the Union meant the continuance or the ex- 
 tension of slavery, they were for breaking up the Union ; 
 if the Constitution stood for slavery, then it was a covenant 
 with Hell. When Buchanan became President the timid 
 and anxious unionism of the Democratic organization had 
 made it completely disloyal to its own traditions as well as to 
 the cause of human freedom. Democrats were now insane- 
 ly extending Federal powers for the sake of slavery ; and 
 however real their love of the Union, it blinded them to the 
 simple elements of right and wrong. The Dred Scott de- 
 cision, declaring that the Federal Constitution, of its own 
 force, carried slavery into all the territories, out-federalized 
 the Federalists. Bleeding Kansas told the story of the 
 ruthless destruction of local rights by the administration of 
 a party which affected to be the special guardian of local 
 rights and of human freedom. Van Buren, in his history 
 of political parties, quite justly rejoiced to point out that 
 Buchanan had been originally a Federalist and that in hia 
 old age he had returned to Federalism; that Taney, the 
 Chief Justice who had pronounced the Dred Scott decision, 
 had likewise been originally a Federalist and had in his old 
 age returned to Federalism. Those days, when the Demo- 
 cratic party was Unionist, and nearly Federalist, were the 
 days of its lowest estate. 
 
 The present Kepublican party was founded in 1854 upon 
 the proposition that there should be no further extension of 
 slavery. It was not an antislavery party so far as concerned 
 the States and Territories in which slavery already existed. 
 Until it was chosen to power, it was not a Unionist party. 
 On the contrary, its leaders, and notably Lincoln and Seward 
 and Chase, before the presidential election of 1860, rightly 
 enough, as one must infer from their speeches, set the 
 " higher law " above the Union. The Democratic party be- 
 ing at last and ignominiously turned out of power in 1861, 
 all the Democrats of the South and a few of those at the 
 North became disunionists. The Republican party, how- 
 ever, immediately upon its triumph in 1860, began fearfully 
 to turn from the higher law ; it became in its turn a Union 
 party. Its leaders (and among them one reads the names 
 of John Sherman, William Windom, and Charles Francis 
 Adams) voted for extreme and, it is not too much to say, 
 shameful, pro-slavery measures, designed to conciliate the 
 South. 
 
The Democratic Party. 447 
 
 It is one of the amazing facts of our political history that 
 after the presidential campaign of 1860, in which the Re- 
 publican party urged as its chief claim to power its determi- 
 nation that slavery should be excluded from the Territories, 
 the Republican party helped in the early months of 1861, 
 even Charles Sumner not opposing, to pass laws bringing in 
 the new Territories of Colorado, Nevada, and Dakota without 
 that exclusion of slavery for which alone they had come to 
 power. This party of the higher law, not panoplied, but 
 weighted, with executive power, also cringed to the slave- 
 holders for the sake of the Union. For that they were 
 ready to occupy the ignominious position which the Demo- 
 crats had occupied from 1844 until 1860. But the inso- 
 lence of the slave power and the wisdom of the masses of 
 the North saved them. There came the attack on Fort 
 Sumter, and the Northern sky lightened up. The aboli- 
 tionists, the truest statesmen of the time, had deeply im- 
 pressed the morality of the North. The people rose with a 
 splendid efficiency, and, in God's providence, the day for 
 compromise was past. Lincoln, though not a bold leader, 
 was a wise man. Though he would, as he himself very ex- 
 plicitly said, let his black fellow-men remain in slavery for 
 the sake of the Union, he was rejoiced when, to the North, 
 Union at last came to mean abolition. And he showed in- 
 comparable skill in dealing with this sentiment, now lead- 
 ing, now following it. 
 
 During the war and the days of reconstruction the Demo- 
 cratic party was the usual party in opposition. I can not 
 pause to describe its career from its defeat in 1860 until 
 the revival of its traditional policy in 1874. I must say, 
 however, that very insufficient justice has been done to the 
 patriotism of the great mass of Democrats during the Civil 
 War. The Union could never have been restored but for 
 their general and effective loyalty. If during the war there 
 had been no constitutional opposition from that party, if in 
 its ranks there had not been at least two fifths of the loyal 
 people of the North, the Union would have been restored 
 shorn of some of its chief merits, and with a framework very 
 different from that which had been set up by the fathers, and 
 which so wonderfully survived the flame and destruction of 
 our great struggle. 
 
 In 1874 the Democratic party, having in part recovered 
 from the demoralization of the war and the absurd candi- 
 dacy of Mr. Greeley, was taken firmly in hand by Samuel J. 
 
448 The Democratic Party. 
 
 Tilden and his coadjutors. Though not in every respect an 
 inspiring figure, Gov. Tilden was deeply imbued with the 
 traditional principles of his party. He had been an admir- 
 ing pupil of Van Buren, who had himself been a disciple of 
 Jefferson. He had joined Van Buren in the Free-Soil 
 revolt of 1848 against the dictation of the slave-holders. 
 When that revolt had failed, he had returned to the party, 
 and there stayed during the unionist period of the Demo- 
 cratic party which I have described. He was elected Gov- 
 ernor of New York in 1874 upon a platform whose distinctly 
 and tersely drawn propositions were completely Jeffersonian. 
 The Federal Government must not issue fiat paper ; it must 
 not promote manufactures or any kind of business at the 
 expense of those not engaged in it ; it must not meddle with 
 the affairs of the several States; a civil-service law must 
 destroy those evils of patronage which, however much prac- 
 ticed by Democrats, had been among the most flagrant vio- 
 lations of Democratic principles. With Tilden's success 
 there came into the administration of the Democratic party 
 a body of younger men, of superior intelligence, of great 
 sincerity, and warmly devoted to the traditions of the party. 
 Indeed, their devotion was one of the most honorable and 
 effective tributes paid him. After the electoral controversy 
 of 1877, and his failure through a scandalous and criminal 
 perversion of the popular will to actually reach the White 
 House, reaction from a steadfast course set in, as it had 
 more than once before. In 1880 the Democratic party, 
 shrinking from its own principles and abandoning its own 
 leader, met a defeat not altogether undeserved. When at 
 last, in March, 1885, it secured the Presidency, the business 
 and practical requirements of administration of a great 
 machine of Government long set up were so great, and the 
 temper of Mr. Cleveland and his associates was rightly so prac- 
 tical, that considerable time elapsed before Democratic theo- 
 ries could be put in practice or even very distinctly enunciated. 
 In a series of veto messages, however, in the latter part of 
 his administration, and especially in his famous tariff mes- 
 sages of 1887, and in his annual message of 1888, after his 
 defeat, there was clear and definite return to the traditional 
 principles of the Democratic party. He enunciated, in a 
 phrase of his own, the sum of them all when he said that it 
 was for the citizen to support the Government, and not for 
 the Government to support the citizen. 
 I feel bound not to deal in this address with the merits of 
 
The Democratic Party. 449 
 
 the differences between the parties in our own time. But 
 my story would be fragmentary if I were to leave unnoticed 
 the relation of the questions of our current politics to the 
 traditional principles of the Democratic party. Those ques- 
 tions seem to be the tariff, silver coinage, pensions, large 
 expenditures by the Federal Government, and bounties or 
 subsidies for steamship lines, producers of raw sugar, and 
 others. At least these are the questions to which public 
 opinion seems nowadays to require that party platforms 
 shall make references more or less sincere. Apart from all 
 theories of governmental action, I am perfectly aware that 
 on each side of every one of these questions much of a prac- 
 tical character is said which impresses intelligent and prac- 
 tical men. But to-night I can do no more than point out 
 that at the bottom of each of these questions is the old 
 question whether the Government at Washington can and 
 ought, by its affirmative action, to help a portion of its citi- 
 zens to greater pecuniary prosperity. 
 
 Is not this true about the tariff question ? Are not ways 
 and means committees asked to protect, or warned not to 
 protect, by artificial restrictions, this industry or that indus- 
 try from a foreign competition which is said to prevent its 
 making money which it would otherwise make ? Whenever 
 the passage of a tariff bill at Washington is politically possi- 
 ble, do not the manufacturer and the importer apply their 
 energy and skill and the resources of their influence to 
 the securing of supposed help, or the escape from supposed 
 injury, to come from Washington? The citizen engaged in 
 one of these callings is compelled to believe that, as a con- 
 dition of success, he must, to his own industry and intelli- 
 gence, and the free exercise of his own faculties, bring other 
 help. He must secure in one way or another such wisdom 
 and beneficence as may come from Senator Aldrich of 
 Rhode Island, Senator Carlisle of Kentucky, the Hon. 
 Bourke Cockran of New York, and others, among whom 
 surely is neither last nor least the Hon. John M. Clancy, 
 well known to all of you as the representative at Washing- 
 ton of the district in which we live, and who is, must we 
 not assume, the special protector of our varied interests and 
 callings. It is for these gentlemen and their associates to 
 decide which of the thousand industries of the country are 
 to be promoted, which to be discouraged, and as to each of 
 them to what extent. There may, of course, be economic 
 or social reasons for a protective tariff which overcome the 
 
450 The Democratic Party. 
 
 difficulty thus suggested. However this may be, the tariff 
 discussion ultimately involves the question whether one 
 citizen or set of citizens may rightly look to Congress to 
 compel by force of law his fellow-citizens to help him, or 
 whether he shall be left, with such reason, foresight, and 
 industry as God has given him, to help himself. There are 
 Democrats who are protectionists. There are Eepublicans 
 who are free-traders. But the Democrat who is a protec- 
 tionist adheres rather to the form or organization of his 
 party than to its essential principle. 
 
 The great parties of the United States have never dif- 
 fered as to the duty of the Federal Government to coin 
 money. So that the mere question whether or not silver 
 shall be as freely coined as gold does not involve the great 
 difference of principle between the two parties. But we 
 know that few people are interested in the abstract question 
 of bimetallism dealt with by the economists. If the free 
 coinage of silver could take place only at a rate which would 
 make, a silver dollar equal to the existing gold dollar, there 
 would be no agitation for free silver. The reason which 
 influences the masses of people outside of the few silver- 
 producing States, who demand free coinage is the fact, per- 
 fectly realized, that the silver dollar proposed to be coined 
 would be intrinsically worth far less than a gold dollar, and 
 that, when coinage becomes free, the only circulating dollar 
 would be a silver dollar worth far less than the present dol- 
 lar, a dollar to be obtained for far less labor that is to say, 
 at far less cost. This is the very motive which underlay the 
 paper-money mania after the war, in whose abatement seven- 
 teen years ago our friend here to-night, General Woodford, 
 did in Ohio, but for the whole country, so fine and lasting a 
 service. The Government at Washington seems to the citi- 
 zen who does not observe the real springs of power to be 
 inimitably powerful ; it can by law create a dollar of one 
 hundred cents out of a bit of paper or out of seventy 
 cents worth of silver. So the pressed and worried planter 
 in the South, or the farmer in the Mississippi valley, 
 does not greet with each morning the sun or rain of heaven 
 and proceed to work out his freedom from debt, with 
 the fruitfulness of those elements, and through his own 
 efforts and frugality. He is tempted instead by the illu- 
 sion against which the Democratic party, whenever loyal 
 to its own principles, will firmly protest to appeal to the 
 mysterious but imaginary deity who sits enshrined under 
 
The Democratic Party. 451 
 
 the dome on that Capitoline Hill which overlooks the Poto- 
 mac. 
 
 In the abuses of the pension system I believe is to be 
 found the most widely corrupting of these interferences or 
 beneficences of the Washington Government. I do not for 
 a moment mean that because some measure of corruption 
 attends the exercise of this or any other governmental 
 function, for that reason alone the function itself ought not 
 to exist. In all of these matters we are to deal more or less 
 empirically with the net result, whether of good or evil. To 
 those who gave or risked their lives in defense of their coun- 
 try, their country surely owes a lasting debt. Where in 
 such patriotic service wounds were received or special hard- 
 ships borne, or permanent injury inflicted, doubtless the 
 country ought not to measure its tribute with a niggardly 
 hand. Here again, however, it is neither justice nor true 
 generosity to relieve any man, who can help himself, of the 
 necessity of doing so. It seems to be the conclusion of the 
 most distinguished and patriotic soldiers themselves that 
 the payment of pensions has passed beyond any relation to 
 patriotic service. So far has this gone that the proposition 
 is now seriously made that pensions shall be paid to those 
 who ignominiously deserted from the service of their coun- 
 try. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that in the 
 average country village of the North the payment of a 
 pension is in large manner regarded simply as a largess 
 paid by this supreme and mysterious power at Washing- 
 ton to the man or woman who is in pecuniary need, and 
 with but a nominal relation to any service ever rendered 
 the country. A friend of mine traveling through south- 
 ern Illinois tells me that he was struck by the large num- 
 ber of idle, shiftless men standing at the railway stations 
 as every train passed. He asked the general manager of 
 the road for an explanation, and was told that the spec- 
 tacle was due to the zeal and skill of the local congress- 
 man a Democrat in politics, I think in procuring pen- 
 sions at Washington. In every village of his district there 
 were many men well able to work whose lives would have 
 been far more wholesome and happy if they had been at 
 work, but who were receiving pensions sufficient to main- 
 tain them in complete and corrupting idleness. The trip 
 mornings and evenings to see the trains pass was their only 
 occupation. In every such village one will see carried to 
 its extreme the idea that the Government is to support the 
 
452 The Democratic Party. 
 
 citizen rather than that the citizen is to support the Gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 The same principle is involved in the advocacy of great 
 expenditures by the Government. Very many patriotic 
 citizens, doubtless intelligent citizens, see something fine in 
 the expenditure of a thousand million dollars by a single 
 Congress. That every dollar which goes to Washington 
 must have come from the toil and economy of some citizen 
 and he the citizen who, because he is industrious and 
 economical, ought to be the first care of the Government 
 is forgotten. Or, if it be remembered, the patriotic cit- 
 izen who applauds congressional liberality has in mind 
 the famous image of the Government as a beneficent sun 
 drawing up by its beams from the earth the moisture and 
 vapor in order to return it in fruitful showers the idea 
 of a paternal government, liberal and generous to its chil- 
 dren. 
 
 Perhaps a more striking illustration of the principle in 
 contemporaneous politics is seen in bounties or subsidies. 
 A citizen owns a steamship line. Under the Democratic 
 theory he is told to depend upon his own energy, foresight, 
 and skill for the success of his venture. If a steamship 
 line will not pay, the Democrats say, or rather ought to say, 
 that he ought not to run it. His fellow-citizen earning a 
 scanty living from a farm in Hamilton County is no more 
 bound to contribute to the expense of running the steam- 
 ship line than the steamship owner is bound to bear the ex- 
 pense of the guano which might perhaps bring to the farmer 
 a living out of his unfertile soil. To the steamship owner, 
 however, there is the picture of an overflowing Treasury at 
 Washington, and of his personal needs, real or suppositi- 
 tious, mingled with which is probably a vague, general no- 
 tion of the benefits which his countrymen will derive from 
 his success in running steamships. So now we have begun 
 the system of giving bounties to the producers of commodi- 
 ties. To tap the trees of Vermont and give us each spring 
 our maple sugar, to raise the sugar-cane in Louisiana, to at- 
 tempt to raise sorghum in Kansas these have been deemed 
 by the law-makers acts of such peculiar merit that the citi- 
 zen doing them should be permitted to lay some of his burden 
 of life upon the shoulders of his nine hundred and ninety- 
 nine fellows. Not, however, that he consciously proposes to 
 make the lives of others harder, that his may be easier. In 
 his mind is merely the figure of this great and fruitful 
 
The Democratic Party. 453 
 
 power at Washington, which will help him instead of leav- 
 ing him to help himself. 
 
 I ought perhaps to add to this list of current questions 
 the suppression, real or supposed, of the negro vote at the 
 South by fraud or violence. The division in the Repub- 
 lican party, whether this can be dealt with by law, leaves 
 one in doubt whether this be really a question of current 
 politics. Assuming it to be so, you will observe that here 
 again is involved one of the principles upon which the Demo- 
 cratic party was founded. The remedy sought is the in- 
 terference of the Federal Government in the local adminis- 
 tration of the State. Such interference is perhaps some- 
 times necessary ; and so are revolutions sometimes neces- 
 sary. But even when necessary, such interference is, in 
 the mind of those holding the principles of Democracy, 
 attended with the evil of encouraging citizens to look to a 
 remote power to cure their ills, instead of looking to them- 
 selves to cure them. 
 
 I should be sorry indeed to have it supposed from any- 
 thing I have said, or from any omission in my recital, that 
 I do not recognize the great services of the Republican party 
 and of its predecessors. I have no doubt that if neither the 
 Republican nor the Federal nor the Whig party had existed, 
 there would have been raised up a party to perform a func- 
 tion absolutely necessary to the welfare of the state and dif- 
 ferent from that which the Democratic party has performed. 
 Although I believe that self-relying strength and manhood 
 of the citizen ought to be the most precious thing in the 
 eyes of a wise statesman or law- maker, it would be short- 
 sighted indeed to ignore the necessity for superior organiza- 
 tion, for order, for systematic executive detail, for all that 
 sort of public work which Hamilton, the Federalist, in his 
 time, and Gallatin, the Democrat, after him, and in our day 
 John Sherman, the Republican, have done so wonderfully 
 well. Whether the Republican party live or die, there will 
 here and in every constitutional country always be a political 
 party urging Government to disregard the cold and selfish 
 logic of doctrinaires, and to help to the utmost every good 
 cause and every needy citizen. There always ought, in my 
 opinion, to be a party which looks with favor upon the 
 constructive functions of Government, and another (or the 
 same) which stands ready to appeal to the "higher law" 
 when it is sought to stifle justice and right and betray hu- 
 manity in the name of public order or of adherence to 
 
454 The Democratic Party. 
 
 sound maxims of Government. Such, services the Repub- 
 lican party has at times honorably and usefully performed. 
 JSTo one should wish its death, lest some need, like that of 
 forty years ago, again come upon the American people. It 
 is, however, for the Democratic party to bring every proposi- 
 tion for taxation, for governmental work or expenditure, to 
 tests in which the Republican party and its. predecessors have 
 not genuinely believed. The tests are like these : Is this really 
 a thing which the citizen himself can not well do? Is this 
 a thing which the neighbors of this citizen not a remote 
 and impersonal being of unlimited power at Washington, 
 but his specific neighbors, the farmer, the carpenter, the 
 laborer, the blacksmith, the merchant, the lawyer, living 
 near by or far off within the United States any American, 
 who contributes, directly or indirectly, to the support of the 
 Government, ought to be compelled for his sake to do for 
 him ? Is this work which Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones and 
 Mr. Robinson, called by the methods of our politics from 
 their homes to sit in painted chambers at Washington, are 
 competent and disposed wisely and justly to do ? Let us 
 dismiss the term Government with its vague meaning and 
 illusions. Let us see in its place the specific human beings 
 who are to act under its name. Through every act of benefi- 
 cence of the Government let us observe the correspond- 
 ing burdens which, in the performance of that act, the 
 Government has been compelled to lay upon the shoulders 
 of other citizens. It is the historical duty of the Demo- 
 cratic party a duty frequently ignored, sometimes utterly 
 abandoned to subject every proposition for eitner restrictive 
 or constructive work to these tests. And whether the 
 Democratic party be the greater or lesser of the political 
 parties of our land, whether in general we owe to it a 
 greater or less gratitude than to its competitors, I can not 
 believe that thinking and patriotic citizens will not take 
 care that this work shall in every age be done by some po- 
 litical organization.* 
 
 I am tempted, though I have really finished the outline 
 of my discussion, not to close without touching upon a so- 
 cial feature of the partisan differences in our part of the 
 United States. I remember as a child, during the Civil War 
 or just after it, hearing a Connecticut lady, a visitor at my 
 mother's house, in some statement parenthetically use the 
 expression " because, you know, no respectable people are 
 
 * The remainder of the Address was not actually delivered. 
 
The Democratic Party. 455 
 
 Democrats." I hardly think the sentiment was cordially 
 received in our house ; but the Yankee dame did no more 
 than repeat a saying common in her land ever since the last 
 century. Among this very audience there are, I suspect, 
 some who have long seen a wide chasm between respecta- 
 bility and Democratic partisanship. It is right to admit 
 that this belief which one finds even to-day in the Northern 
 States, unintelligent and silly as perhaps it generally is, has 
 at times, and in some communities, had its origin in the 
 misbehavior of Democratic officials or unworthy adminis- 
 tration of the party. But, as like faults have, to say the 
 least, quite as often and as widely characterized the succes- 
 sive rivals of the Democratic party, the faults do not ade- 
 quately explain the preponderance of this sort of sentiment 
 against the latter party. The true explanation, in my 
 opinion, lies in certain historical facts the very facts which 
 underlay something said to me years ago in a bit of conver- 
 sational exaggeration by a distinguished man of large politi- 
 cal experience. " The reason," he said, " which keeps me 
 in the Democratic party is not that I think it better than 
 the Republican party, for I don't think it is so. It is that 
 nowadays most Americans of superior political intelligence 
 as well as conscience are in the Democratic party ; and I 
 would rather be in their company." If the remark had 
 really represented, as I knew it did not, the whole ground of 
 my friend's political faith, I should have admired it no more 
 than I did in my childhood the sharp saying from Connec- 
 ticut. My friend had in mind for the moment only the 
 drift to the Democratic party, since the questions of the war 
 were settled, of men given to philosophical or historical 
 generalizations in politics men whose intellectual independ- 
 ence was not daunted by seeing that three fourths, or more, 
 of well-to-do people at the North, the people who in Eng- 
 lish political and economic literature are called the " upper 
 middle classes," were in the Eepublican party. The three 
 things which formerly drove comfortable men with accumu- 
 lated property, but lacking breadth or force of political 
 view, to either the Eepublican or Whig or Federal party, 
 or kept them there, were the very things which have at- 
 tracted to the Democratic party not only the masses of 
 laboring men, but reformers and scholars of a particular 
 trend of thought. 
 
 First there was the Democratic insistence that political 
 power rightly and safely belonged to Americans without 
 GO 
 
456 The Democratic Party. 
 
 any preference of those superior in property or intelligence. 
 It is a century since this insistence drove a large part of 
 " respectability," so-called, into the Federalist ranks, es- 
 pecially in the New England and Middle States, and at- 
 tracted to the Democratic ranks the masses of poor men 
 and, especially in and near seaports, the great majority of 
 immigrants. The Democratic belief has, however, ceased to 
 be lacking in " respectability " ; it has become axiomatic in 
 American public life. Democrats established universal 
 suffrage against the angry and alarmed contempt of a ma- 
 jority of those we should perhaps call the most important 
 people. But nearly all Americans, whether important or un- 
 important, now see that, whatever may be its incidental or 
 temporary evils, universal suffrage has led and is leading to 
 a broader, sounder, and safer dependence upon public opin- 
 ion. The present Republican party, no less than the Demo- 
 cratic party, has adopted the theories of this character once 
 so savagely resisted by the predecessors of the Republican 
 party. But down to this very evening vast numbers of citi- 
 zens of means and position in the North are Republicans 
 solely because their grandfathers disliked the political creed 
 which brought, as they said, the " rabble " into an equality 
 with them. 
 
 The second cause impelling " respectability " into Whig 
 and Republican ranks was the firm resistance of sumptuary 
 legislation by the Democratic party. It said to Americans : 
 You can not by law make men moral. The attempt to do 
 so tends to a tyranny which, however exalted its original 
 motive, must become enervating and immoral. To no gov- 
 ernment other than that of Heaven is the prayer to be ad- 
 dressed : Lead us not into temptation. True morality and 
 robust soundness of life are not helped they are hindered 
 and prevented when the citizen asks the Government to 
 protect either his neighbor or himself from his own tend- 
 ency to vice, or when the majority restrains by law the 
 abuses of innocent things. Thirty years ago, therefore, the 
 Democratic party resolutely opposed prohibition by law of 
 the liquor traffic ; and to-day that opposition is approved by 
 the overwhelming preponderance of intelligence and virtue 
 in American life. It is only a third or fourth party com- 
 paratively insignificant and not growing, in spite of the 
 nobility and beauty of character and motive to be found 
 among its members which still advocates the regulation by 
 statute of private morals. Nevertheless, in a considerable 
 
The Democratic Party. 457 
 
 degree the personal composition at the North of the two 
 great parties is, to the present time, the result of the fact 
 that a generation ago nearly all the liquor dealers and their 
 adherents, from motives of self-preservation, entered the 
 Democratic party, and of the other fact that at the same 
 time a great body of sincere and pure though mistaken 
 men saw in the Democratic defense of that personal liberty 
 to choose the worse rather than the better, which an all-wise 
 God gives every man, a defense of intemperance and a wick- 
 ed indifference to its dreadful results. 
 
 A favorite caricature of the Democratic party was for 
 years the figure of a drunken, ragged Irishman brandishing 
 a shillalah. The drunkenness of the man, his poverty, and 
 his foreign origin, each- represented a Democratic principle 
 which once was regarded with horror by the majority of 
 respectable and well-to-do Americans in the North, but 
 which is now conceded by the American people, with but 
 insignificant dissent, to be a true foundation for a broad and 
 enduring commonwealth. Drunkenness was the false pict- 
 ure drawn by narrow, zealous men, of the morality which 
 results from free self-respect and self-guarding, rather than 
 from the constraint of laws. Poverty signified that inferior 
 social and business position had, in the topsy-turvy of Amer- 
 ican politics, acquired power which should have been reserved 
 to the "well-born" of the early Federalists. The Irish 
 birth reminded "native Americans" that political rights 
 which should have belonged solely to them had been capt- 
 ured by foreigners. 
 
 The State Kights, or home-rule, theory of the Democratic 
 party drew to it the majority of citizens in the slave-holding 
 States when the agitation for abolition began. The party 
 was originally not pro-slavery, but rather the contrary. 
 When its condemnation of interference with domestic insti- 
 tutions of the States had very greatly increased the pro- 
 portion of Southern slave-owners in its membership, they 
 acquired over it a domination which, between 1840 and 
 1860, perverted its principles, as I have described, and justly 
 led to its overthrow. After slavery perished, the original 
 Democratic principle of State control of State concerns 
 remained a true and vital principle of the republic. Still, 
 in the light of all that happened in this land from the 
 Democratic refusal of a presidential nomination to Van 
 Buren in 1844, because he opposed, the extension of slavery, 
 to the glorious decree of emancipation nineteen years later, 
 
458 The Democratic Party. 
 
 Democrats can not treat as absurd or unfounded so much 
 of the surviving prejudices of " respectability " against their 
 party as took their rise in the hatred of slavery. For, 
 although in its beginning the abolition sentiment was far 
 from " respectable," it became " respectable " in and by its 
 triumph. Democrats rightly suffered from the national per- 
 ception at the last of the truth that the rights of men, black 
 as well as white, are cared for by a " higher law " than even 
 the Federal Constitution. Every sensible and patriotic 
 American, whatever his party, should rejoice at the decay of 
 this prejudice, now that the jealousy of Federal power is no 
 longer a shield for the ancient iniquity of slavery. 
 
 Ought I not, before closing an address made on a Sunday 
 evening and in a Congregational meeting-house, to say one 
 thing further ? Is it not true that in the creed of Democracy 
 there is found the same principle which animated the relig- 
 ious ancestors of those who regularly worship under this 
 roof? The glory of the Reformation of the sixteenth cent- 
 ury was that it imposed upon every man, according to his 
 own conscience and his own intelligence, a responsibility to 
 his Maker which he could not rightly put upon other men 
 or upon a church. The stupendous and lasting influence of 
 the Puritans, unlovely and tyrannical as was much of their 
 theocracy, arose from its exaltation of the freedom and 
 privileges of the citizen, and of his responsibilites. Jeffer- 
 son and his Virginian associates did the same work when 
 they destroyed the dominance of aristocracy in that country 
 of planters. The best social development of modern times 
 among civilized nations, and among people of all religious 
 beliefs, is toward the independence and responsibility of the 
 individual citizen and of the single community, even if such 
 independence and responsibility lead, as at times they do, to 
 selfishness, real or seeming, and to jealousies and disorders 
 which, necessary as they are, sometimes become mean. 
 
 We know, however and I now at the last return to the 
 sentiment with which I began this address that no strength 
 of government, no efficiency of administration, no conscien- 
 tious care by rulers for the citizens under them, will, in the 
 long run, bring to the welfare and happiness of the country 
 a tithe of what will come from the independent character of 
 the citizen himself, from his pride in his self-support, from 
 his jealousy of interference, and, to sum it all up, from his 
 refusal, whether by device or the brute power of majorities, 
 to cast his burden upon other men. When the citizens of 
 
The Democratic Party. 459 
 
 a commonwealth are of this type, we need have no great 
 concern about government. It is because effect follows 
 cause that from such men will come sense and prudence 
 and integrity in public business, efficiency in political ac- 
 tion, and strength and thoroughness in administration. So 
 long as the Democratic party in its life and practice stands 
 for this theory of government, it will be a power for lasting 
 public good. So long it will deserve, and I believe it will 
 enjoy, a fitting success and honor. 
 
460 The Democratic Party. 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 
 
 HON. STEWART L. WOODFORD: 
 
 I shall not attempt any criticism of one of the most admirable po- 
 litical papers to which I have ever listened a paper so judicial in tone, 
 if somewhat misleading in its inferences, that nothing but a very 
 careful study and analysis of it would be just to the speaker or in- 
 structive to the audience. 
 
 Political parties represent great popular forces, and in every popu- 
 lar government, whether it be Monarchical, Republican, or purely 
 Democratic in form, there must be two parties. Sometimes these 
 parties represent opposing principles or policies, and sometimes they 
 become merely agencies by which one man or set of men endeavors to 
 win power as against another set. To say that the Democratic party 
 has been the only permanently existing political organization since the 
 origin of our Government has always seemed to me somewhat inaccu- 
 rate. The original party led by Thomas Jefferson was known as the 
 Republican party. There has been as much change from that name 
 to " Democratic " as from " Federalist " to " Republican," and I have 
 never assented to the proposition that the parties of to-day are lineal 
 descendants of the Jeffersonian Republicans and the Federalists. My 
 friend will admit that Jefferson was a protectionist So pronounced 
 and positive was he in his belief in the duty of the Federal Govern- 
 ment to lay imposts to protect American manufactures that we 
 might quote from his letters in support of the McKinley bill. That 
 Jefferson was a consistent opponent of slavery our friend admitted. 
 If the Democratic party of to-day is a lineal descendant from the 
 Republican party of Washington's administration, it has failed to con- 
 tinue to be the representative of the purposes and principles of the 
 original organization. 
 
 It is a somewhat singular fact that when the Revolution had been 
 ended and the struggle for the formation of this Government began, 
 the two opposing forces were these : one which proposed to make the 
 Government strong enough to stand, and one which would have 
 made it so weak that it would have no cohesion. And if the Demo- 
 cratic party of to-day is the successor of the party which sought to 
 form a government too weak to live, it only repeated its original en- 
 deavors in the struggle from 1861 to 1865. If the dividing line is the 
 tariff and I think it is it is a singular fact that the ablest free- 
 
The Democratic Party. 461 
 
 trade speech ever made in the United States Senate was made by 
 Daniel Webster before he became a protectionist, and the ablest pro- 
 tectionist speech was made by Calhoun before he became a free-trader. 
 The interests of the sections changed, and the advocates crossed lines. 
 
 There are three great facts in the history of the Democratic party 
 which I wish to note. First, if the Democratic party be the same as 
 the original Republican party, it opposed the construction of a Fed- 
 eral government that could live. The Federalist party took control 
 and set in motion our present Government. When this was done, 
 swerving from its original idea, the Federal party died. But I hardly 
 think this fact will warrant the inference that its principles did not 
 continue to live. Every man who says " I am an American," who 
 looks with love and reverence at our flag, who reads with pride the 
 story of the republic, and who is proud of his citizenship, is paying 
 tribute to the grand old party of Washington and Hamilton, that 
 gave our Government its shape and commanded the recognition and 
 respect of other nations. That party, proving false to its principles, 
 died ; and I am glad it did. I wish that all parties proving false to 
 their principles might die though I fear that would involve the loss 
 of the present Democratic party. 
 
 The historical facts concerning the struggle between slavery and 
 freedom were truly stated by our friend. It is the misfortune of his 
 party that, as it fought against a strong Government at the beginning, 
 it got bound to the chariot-wheels of slavery at the last. I concede 
 that there was a purpose of unionism in its efforts, and that many 
 clung to it in hopes of saving the Union and avoiding the bloodshed 
 of civil war. I believe with Mr. Shepard that the greatest honor be- 
 longs to one wing of the Abolition party, but I doubt whether any 
 Democrat of that period would have acknowledged it. I doubt, also, 
 whether any one will candidly commend the attitude of the Democratic 
 party during the period of reconstruction. 
 
 It is fortunate for the laboring men of this country that thoughtful 
 men of both parties are united in favor of the kind of money that shall 
 honestly measure the value of labor and of commodities. That is a 
 question below all parties, underlying the perpetuity of society itself. 
 My friend has my sympathy, for the majority of his party in Congress 
 doesn't agree with him on this question. The question at issue next 
 fall will be the tariff. I doubt if we could make any tariff, or have 
 none at all, without affecting the manufacturing and labor interests 
 of the country. Local and personal interests are bound to come in. 
 England taxes only the things which she does not produce ; and no 
 other system can leave out the local, personal interests. We must 
 either tax only the things we do not produce or tax others, and thus 
 
462 The Democratic Party. 
 
 affect production there is the dividing line. There is a disposition in 
 both parties to evade an honest discussion to secure local advantage 
 from the way in which the subject affects different localities. I hope 
 the lines will be drawn, sharp and firm, in platforms and by the can- 
 didates. I thank you for listening, and I thank our distinguished 
 friend for his able paper. He shows a spirit which rises above parti- 
 sanship ; and I have no fear of the rule of a Democrat who loves his 
 country more than he does his party. 
 
 MR. SHEPARD, in reply : My tongue ought to be tied and my lips 
 sealed by General WoodfordV kind remarks ; but I am tempted to 
 reply to one or two of his points. I do not accept the statement, 
 widely and commonly made, that Jefferson was a protectionist. The 
 question of protection, as we understand it, had hardly entered the 
 American mind in Jefferson's time. Hamilton's tariff we would to-day 
 not call a protective tariff. Five per cent is vastly different from a 
 hundred or a hundred and twenty per cent. It would require a long 
 time fully to discuss this historical question, and I now simply ex- 
 press my dissent from the statement as to Jefferson's tariff views. In 
 the second place, I dissent completely from the statement that the 
 Federal Constitution was adopted in spite of Democratic opposition. 
 The draft of the Constitution was chiefly Madison's, and Madison was 
 a Democrat. The " Federalist " itself was the joint production of 
 Hamilton, Madison, and Jay. The Constitution as adopted was an 
 utterly different thing from that proposed by the Federalist party. 
 
 General Woodford could not refrain from extending his sympathy 
 to me for the attitude of the Democrats in Congress on the silver ques- 
 tion. From 1885 to 1889, however, we had a Democratic administra- 
 tion, and during those four years not one step was taken toward 
 debasing the currency. Then a Eepublican administration was re- 
 stored, and we were at once in trouble over 'the silver and currency 
 questions. The present law as to the coinage of silver is an extreme 
 violation of sound principles ; yet it was passed by two Republican 
 houses and signed by a Republican President, to promote the interests 
 of a few States against the interests of all. The present silver mania 
 in the South and West followed the cowardly surrender made by the 
 present President and the last Congress. Had the attitude of the 
 President and Congress been what it was during the previous Demo- 
 cratic administration, we should not now have every great business in- 
 terest disturbed by the silver question. 
 
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 
 
 BY 
 
 HON. ROSWELL G. HORR 
 
COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED: 
 
 The Federalist; Brown and Strauss's Dictionary of American 
 Politics; Cooper and Fenton's American Politics; Houghton's Con- 
 spectus ; Elaine's Twenty Years in the American Congress ; Wilson's 
 Kise and Fall of the Slave Power in the United States; Greeley's 
 American Conflict ; A Year of Republicanism ; Personal Memoirs of 
 U. S. Grant ; Herndon's Life of Abraham Lincoln ; Holland's Life of 
 Abraham Lincoln; Nicolay and Hay's Lincoln; Messages of Presi- 
 dents Lincoln, Grant, Hayes, Garneld, Arthur, and Harrison. 
 
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 
 
 BY HON. ROSWELL G. HORR. 
 
 I HOPE to be able to confine my remarks in the treat- 
 ment of this subject to the scientific method so well un- 
 derstood by the people who meet in this house. But my 
 entire relation to politics has been of the rough-and-tumble 
 sort, and I may occasionally slide off into expressions not 
 strictly scientific. If so, I beg beforehand to be excused. 
 
 The question was once asked Renan, " What constitutes 
 a state, what makes a nation?" His reply in substance 
 was, A nation is a combination of people who have certain 
 interests in common, and who have labored and suffered 
 together in the past and are ready to labor and suffer in the 
 future, and to die, if need be, to promote the common good. 
 Patriotism, or love of country, is simply love of family 
 broadened a little. In the development of the human race, 
 the first social organism is the family, headed by the patri- 
 arch ; then comes the tribe or clan, headed by the chief ; 
 then the combination called a state or nation, headed by 
 a ruler called king, or emperor, or governor, or president. 
 Back of all this, as a cause for the evolution of govern- 
 mental institutions, must lie the defense of one's own fire- 
 side. Patriotism is but another form of fighting for the 
 family. 
 
 In the commencement of all nations, especially when the 
 power comes from the people, political parties exist. I 
 know it is common to note that there must be two great 
 parties, and only two. Parties exist only because people, 
 surrounded by different circumstances and impelled by di- 
 verse interests, will take different views of the same ques- 
 tions, and I do not see why there may not be more than two 
 parties. History bears me out in this presumption. No 
 doubt, as we were told by the gentleman who preceded me 
 in this course, when our Government was organized and 
 very early in the organization, there were two distinct par- 
 ties : one the Federal and the other the Republican, or, as it 
 was afterward called, the Democratic. The Federal party 
 was headed by Alexander Hamilton and the Republican 
 party by Thomas Jefferson. No doubt our present form of 
 
 (465) 
 
466 The Republican Party. 
 
 government is in a certain sense a compromise between these 
 two different parties. But I think any careful student of 
 history will admit that, taken as a whole, the Constitution 
 embodies the theories of Hamilton and not those of 
 Thomas Jefferson. The doctrine of Jefferson was that all 
 power should be left with the States. He and his party 
 advocated throughout the doctrine that sovereignty should 
 be left to the States, that all laws passed by the national 
 Congress should be ratified by the States. Hamilton 
 claimed that they had come together in the constitutional 
 convention to form a nation; that on national questions 
 the nation should be supreme; and that a law passed by 
 Congress should be as binding upon the States that opposed 
 it as upon the others. I admit that Hamilton had some 
 ideas on tenure of office, etc., that were ignored. But the 
 Eepublicans of that day did not get their doctrine into 
 the Constitution. It took all the ability of Hamilton and 
 the rest to get the Constitution ratified, simply because it 
 did not embody the Republican principles. The Demo- 
 crats are right in tracing the Democratic party of the pres- 
 ent day to the Republican party of 1798 ; but its princi- 
 ples were ignored by the convention and found no lodg- 
 ment in the Constitution. The able lecturer of two weeks 
 ago convinced me that there had been two or three times 
 in our past history when the Democratic party ought to 
 have died. A good many people seem to think it is to 
 the credit of the party to which I stand opposed that it 
 is venerable. I am not aware that age, when it comes to 
 questions of social life, politics, or religious belief, is neces- 
 sarily a badge of respectability. My impression is that the 
 oldest Christian church on earth is the worst. Organiza- 
 tion perpetuates error as well as truth; this is a funda- 
 mental truth of evolution. I admit that the party to which 
 I belong is young. I know it is, because I was present at 
 its birth. My first presidential vote was for the old Aboli- 
 tion or Free-Soil party, my second for the Republican 
 party ; and since then I have steadily voted with that party, 
 taken part in its conventions, and helped to frame its plat- 
 forms ; and if I do not give you its history accurately it is 
 because my memory is at fault. 
 
 We all agree that the Republican party came into exist- 
 ence in 1852-'54 actively in 1854 but if any one thinks 
 on that account that its principles are youthful, he doesn't 
 understand them. The doctrine that this Government of 
 
The Republican Party. 467 
 
 the United States is a nation, that laws passed by Congress 
 are supreme, and that in all matters of national legislation 
 no State laws are to be observed that was the doctrine that 
 prevailed away back when the Constitution was formed, that 
 was ingrafted into it as against Thomas Jefferson's doctrine 
 of State Rights. 
 
 Another great principle of the Republican party is also 
 as old as the Constitution. As a party it has always been 
 in favor of internal improvements of the National Govern- 
 ment's looking after harbors, encouraging modes of inter- 
 communication, building up the commerce of the nation. 
 That doctrine is as old as the nation it is the old doctrine 
 of George Washington and the Federalist party. The Re- 
 publican party is also in favor of honest money, and that 
 doctrine isn't new ; it is as old as the nation. Also, we be- 
 lieve in so levying duties on imports as to protect American 
 industries and institutions but neither is that a new prin- 
 ciple in our politics. 
 
 The second law signed by "Washington, and drafted by 
 Hamilton, was a protective tariff bill. And it was the same 
 in purpose as our protective tariff bills are now. Our friend 
 the other night said the tariff of Hamilton and Washington 
 was not a protective tariff, because the per cent was only 
 seven instead of forty-two or whatever it may be. I was 
 surprised at the conclusion, for the question whether a tariff 
 is protective or not is not a question of per cent. When 
 wages here and in Europe were almost identical, as was the 
 case in our earlier history, seven per cent was just as much 
 protective as fifty per cent is now. Wages have been in- 
 creasing since then in this country, and now we have to 
 make the tariff higher to cover the difference. Whenever, 
 in discussing questions of this kind, our opponents talk of 
 per cents, watch out ! they are covering up something. A 
 man might say that New York city gained in a certain time 
 twenty-five per cent in population, and the gain might be 
 400,000. Another place a little burg might increase one 
 thousand per cent, and continue insignificant. Avoid get- 
 ting into difficulty with per cents. 
 
 Now for the history of the Republican party. How did it 
 come into existence ? How did it happen to be founded ? I 
 do not differ with my friend of the Democratic party in that 
 regard. In 1850 the slave power became so arrogant, made 
 such demands, that the people of, the North began to ques- 
 tion the wisdom of putting that institution into control of the 
 
468 The Republican Party. 
 
 destinies of the nation. A few Abolitionists had been talk- 
 ing for twenty years, but had made little headway. It was 
 the avarice of the people in the South that finally drove the 
 best people in the North to question the propriety of allow- 
 ing the slave power to continue. 
 
 The Whig party went to pieces when Pierce was elected 
 President. There was a Free- Soil party that came into ex- 
 istence some years before on the one notion that slavery 
 should be kept within bounds, and not extend into any new 
 territory. When the Whig party dissolved, the great body 
 of that party in the North joined with the Free-Soil party 
 to form the new party the Republican. A large number 
 a very large number of the Democratic party in the North, 
 tired of the constant aggression of the slave power, also 
 joined us. The new party was made up then of the Free- 
 Soil party, the Northern Whigs, who believed that slavery 
 should be hemmed in, and the Democrats who were of the 
 same mind ; and that left the two parties of 1856 composed 
 of two elements the one of all those, chiefly in the North, 
 who believed slavery to be wrong, and sought for its restric- 
 tion to the territory it then occupied, and the other of the 
 mass of the people of the South and a large number of 
 Northern sympathizers, who believed slavery to be right, 
 and who sought for its protection and extension. Besides 
 these, there was a small number of conservative Whigs, who 
 reorganized under the name of the American party, and 
 nominated Millard Fillmore as their candidate for President. 
 
 We went into the fight in '56 on three items free soil, 
 free speech, and free men and the Republican party ran 
 John 0. Fremont, its first presidential candidate, on that 
 platform, and was beaten. But its enemies found that for 
 the first time there was a party in the field built on moral 
 principles, and that it meant business. The defeat of Fre- 
 mont was the Bunker Hill fight of the Republican party. 
 At that time the Republican party became a living, active 
 force. Aided by Southern slave-holders, Buchanan, in the 
 next four years, had succeeded in completing the ruin of 
 the Whig party, but had driven the great bulk of it into 
 the new Antislavery party. His claims in behalf of the 
 slave power were so preposterous that he split the Demo- 
 cratic party. One part attempted to nominate Jefferson 
 Davis, and finally nominated Breckinridge ; another, Doug- 
 las. With the Republican party united and the Democrat- 
 ic party divided, the election of Lincoln was assured two 
 
The Republican Party. 469 
 
 months before the voting took place. Up to that time 
 (1860) the Republican party had made only two contests, 
 and now found itself in possession of this great Govern- 
 ment. Then the very men at the South who had disrupt- 
 ed the Democratic party turned in and tried to destroy 
 the nation ; and to do it they had to reaffirm the doctrines 
 of Jefferson the very doctrines which our Democratic 
 friends think so good and they took their States out of 
 the Union on the principles of Jefferson which had been 
 defeated in the constitutional convention. Now, the ques- 
 tion whether this nation was a rope of sand or a govern- 
 ment was submitted to the trial of battle. Then a large 
 portion of the Democratic party of the North that had 
 voted for Douglas flew to arms and joined the Eepublican 
 party or the army, and from the army went into the Re- 
 publican ranks. So the Republican party was born of the 
 effort to make a nation, and baptized in blood to make a 
 stable government. 
 
 During the contest of 1860-1865 every member of the 
 Republican party, early and late, was found standing by the 
 old flag not one wanting. New questions constantly arose 
 during the struggle, but the question of the supremacy of 
 the Union overshadowed all the rest. The tariff was not 
 heard of as a political issue, because we had to levy duties 
 to get money for the use of the Government, and the indus- 
 tries of the country, in spite of the devastations of war, 
 sprung into existence with marvelous rapidity. 
 
 We had the solid South against us ; we had a large class 
 in the North which sympathized with them and gave all 
 the aid and comfort they could, in a moral way, to the ene- 
 my. The first question was how to run a nation without 
 money in the Treasury. We were bankrupt. Foreigners 
 said the American nation was a thing of the past. The 
 Republican party originated the greenbacks, which the 
 Democrats asserted was a violation of the Constitution. 
 The constitution which they think is constantly being vio- 
 lated is Jefferson's constitution the one that did not pass. 
 When the war was concluded the two parties remained in 
 existence, and the Republican party had its own way large- 
 ly, till it came to the difficult question of reconstruction. 
 This was finally adjusted on the principle of forgiveness, and 
 the question about which the parties next divided was that 
 of giving the suffrage to the colored man. Whether it 
 were wisely done or not is not the question now ; it was 
 
470 The Republican Party. 
 
 done simply because the Republicans at that time believed it 
 to be a matter of justice. In 1872 we got our first set-back 
 by the opposition's nominating one of the best of men and 
 one of the straightest Republicans that ever breathed, Hor- 
 ace Greeley. Our friend the other night said that was a 
 blunder ; yet, though it elected its candidate, the blow the 
 Republican party received then was one of the severest. 
 
 The next new question before the people was the resump- 
 tion of specie payments. We had used paper for currency 
 until people believed that paper was money. The Greenback 
 party came into existence on the notion that the country 
 could run its finances by managing a paper-mill. That 
 party was taken charge of largely by the Democrats in order 
 to beat their old enemy, the Republicans, and they adopted 
 largely the wild notions of that party. The Republican 
 party believed it was time to return to specie payments, and 
 that cost the Republican party a great number of its men. 
 During the use of inflated money the people embarked in 
 large speculations. There was a period of great enhance- 
 ment of values and apparent prosperity. When the shrink- 
 age commenced, a large number of business men shrank 
 out of existence as business men, and that cost the Repub- 
 lican party an army of its firm friends. Yet we were so 
 sure that we were right that we went on, in the face of 
 much adverse talk, and resumed specie payments and to 
 the present time that has been the rule of the nation. 
 
 I have said nothing yet of the great economic questions 
 that now divide the two great parties. In the platform of 
 the party that nominated Greeley nothing was said upon the 
 tariff question. It was called a " local issue," and relegated 
 to the congressional districts. It was a live issue in 1880, 
 both parties taking a square stand. In the platform of that 
 year on which Hancock was run the Democrats put a 
 new word. They believed in a " tariff for revenue only." 
 That word " only " cost them the presidency. They avoided 
 it in the next campaign, and the Democrats came into 
 power. Mr. Cleveland coming to power ended the slavery 
 discussion and the issues growing out of reconstruction. 
 In 1888 his party, under his leadership, again took a strong 
 stand in favor of free trade, and for the first time in the 
 history of the nation we had a square stand-up fight on the 
 question of free trade and protection ; and the Republicans 
 won, simply on that question as to how the duties should be 
 levied. We had only three things to talk about honest 
 
The Republican Party. 471 
 
 money, a protective tariff, and an honest ballot. I speak of 
 all these issues as matters within my own experience. His- 
 torically, I know I am right, because I was there. 
 
 To-day we confront again the same enemy. The two 
 parties stand opposed to each other merely on the one great 
 question the system of a protective tariff, adopted by Wash- 
 ington, believed in by Jefferson, taught by Andrew Jackson, 
 advocated by Webster and Clay, the war cry of the Whigs, 
 and the principle to which the Republican party to-day 
 stands committed with unbroken ranks. 
 
 Speaking before an ethical association, I am expected to 
 treat this subject in its ethical bearings. I am glad to have 
 this opportunity. 
 
 Ethically, I have some reasons for believing in the Re- 
 publican party. I believe in the doctrine of protection as a 
 matter of ethics. I believe it is the duty of a nation to so 
 manage its affairs that each individual shall have an oppor- 
 tunity for the highest development. If men in the United 
 States have a genius for making locomotives, there should 
 be a place in the country to make locomotives. I would 
 have everything made here that it is possible to make, in 
 order to give opportunities of development to every one of 
 our citizens. The doctrine of protection has its origin in 
 the rational instinct of the human mind. It is taught to 
 children and practiced toward them by their parents. The 
 man who will not protect his family isn't fit to belong to 
 any association. If he doesn't take care of his family him- 
 self, it is apt to be neglected no one else will take care of it. 
 
 It is very elegant and altruistic the doctrine that every 
 one should work for everyone else and do nothing for him- 
 self. If the whole world were working for me I would will- 
 ingly work for them. But up to date, things are not man- 
 aged on that plan. 
 
 I am a firm believer in the doctrine of development; 
 whether I am an evolutionist or not depends on circum- 
 stances, and on what " evolution " means. I have been in- 
 clined to call myself a free lance ; on religious questions, a 
 freethinker. And in the course of my life I have learned 
 that all the bigots of the world are not in the orthodox 
 churches. Some of the worst bigots are men who think 
 they are the broadest, and who call themselves " liberals " 
 or " freethinkers." A bigot is not simply one who knows 
 he's right ; he must also know that, every one else is wrong. 
 I have discovered that people who differ from me have got 
 31 
 
472 The Republican Party. 
 
 along as well and are just as good as I am, strange as it may 
 seem. I spent a couple of weeks last summer in Utah, and 
 for the first time met and mingled with thousands of Mor- 
 mons. I never found a more devout set of people ; their 
 piety is marvelous and their delusion keeps pace with it, 
 in my judgment. 
 
 I have learned to be charitable toward people who differ 
 with me, and I have the kindest feelings for my friends on 
 the other side of this political question, though I am going 
 to say something now that may hurt their feelings. Tip to 
 date, in my opinion, the members of the Republican party, 
 taken as a whole, are on a little higher plane than the mem- 
 bers of the Democratic party. They average up better. I 
 do not claim that there are not honest, intelligent gentle- 
 men among Democrats, but the culture, the elements that 
 make society worth living in, gravitate toward the Repub- 
 lican party. From the standpoint of evolution, the Repub- 
 lican party has developed a little higher plane of humanity 
 than our Democratic friends have yet reached. When we 
 look at people by groups, individual cases count for little 
 we gather lessons worth learning. To illustrate : A year or 
 two ago I lectured before an audience made up largely of 
 Quaker ladies, and the picture of their pure faces has gone 
 with me ever since. I have never examined their theology 
 or their politics, and don't know whether they are all right 
 or all wrong ; but there is something living with them daily 
 that has had its effect upon their faces. To a certain degree 
 to a less marked degree I observe this difference between 
 Democrats and Republicans. Looking at this audience, for 
 example, I should judge that a large proportion of the 
 people present were Republicans. 
 
 I have not in this talk addressed myself to the third 
 party, to the Independents. I have the greatest respect for 
 the Independent, if he is a real Independent, for one who 
 will always vote for the best man, ignoring everything but 
 the personal character of the candidates. But I believe a 
 man, as a rule, can do more good by standing by one party 
 the one that has the best principles than by withdrawing 
 from all parties. 
 
 The Republican party is going into the coming presiden- 
 tial campaign on precisely the same principles which it has 
 been advocating ever since it was born. We believe in a 
 nation ; we believe in internal improvements ; we believe 
 in human rights ; we believe in an honest ballot, and 
 
The Republican Party. 473 
 
 honest money, and in standing by the United States of 
 America and building up her interests. No man can doubt 
 where we stand on a single proposition. And we mean, 
 before the campaign is over, to make our opponents state 
 clearly where they stand. We do not propose to let them 
 dodge a single issue. We are going in, not decrepit with 
 age, for the party is still young ; this our opponents admit. 
 I remember that in 1884 it seemed for a few weeks as though 
 the bottom had all dropped out, as if the old party was 
 dead, but I have lived to see the party regain its strength. 
 We believe in our doctrines, and have the courage and in- 
 tellect to state them. We have seen the nation grow strong 
 and prosperous under thirty years of Republican manage- 
 ment for the Democrats have had no opportunity to put 
 their principles into operation. 
 
474 The Republican Party. 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 
 
 HON. JOSEPH C. HENDRIX : 
 
 I am sure we have all enjoyed the amusing and original manner in 
 which Mr. Horr has described the fortunes of the Republican party, 
 and I must thank him, in the main, for being candid. One of these 
 days, when the Republican regime is ended and the Democracy has 
 returned to its own, Mr. Horr might well climb to the top of the 
 Tribune building, and, looking out over the land, exclaim, in the 
 words of the defeated French general : "And has Providence forgotten 
 all that 1 have done for him f " 
 
 There is, nevertheless, a Democratic party. In 1888 there were 
 5,538,233 of the people who were a little below the average, or 98,017 
 more than there were in the superior Republican ranks. In 1884 
 there were 4,911,017 of those a little below the average, or 62,683 more 
 than those a little above. And in the election in which you will par- 
 don a Democrat for believing Tilden was elected President there were 
 a quarter of a million more Democrats than Republicans. Now, if we 
 are living in a free country a country governed by the people, and all 
 that we ought to have some faith in the intelligence and patriotism 
 of the majority. Mr. Horr told you that the Republicans believe in a 
 very strong government. We think they do : in a strong, centralized 
 government with great powers of interfering with the people. We be- 
 lieve in home rule in the right and ability of the people to govern 
 themselves. It is rather fortunate for this country that for sixty years 
 the Constitution was interpreted by Democrats, so that to-day we are 
 unable to see about us the minions of the Federal Government. Our 
 police, our schools, our magistrates, are our own, and we see nothing 
 but the Custom House and the forts in the harbor to remind us of the 
 Central Government. We have a Democratic government because it 
 has been in the hands of Democrats, and the Republicans have not yet 
 been able to carry their theories into effect. 
 
 I take off my hat to the Republican party for its work in preserv- 
 ing the Union by the help of Northern Democrats. The reason that 
 the Democratic party went down at that time was that the property 
 interests began to control its political policy, and if you took note of 
 Mr. Horr's description of the influences at work to overthrow the 
 Democratic party at the present day, you will see that the property in- 
 terests are now uppermost in the Republican party. Mr. Horr said 
 
The Republican Party. 475 
 
 that " ethically " he believed in protection. " Ethically " I believe that 
 above all nations is humanity. Manhood is greater than the almighty 
 dollar. If Mr. Ilorr believes in a stone wall between the United States 
 and foreign nations, he should believe in a similar wall between New 
 York and Brooklyn. He warned us that he was liable to slip into the 
 rough-and-tumble style of oratory, and I think we recognized the old 
 alarm bell in his statement that the fight in 1888 was between free 
 trade and protection. I deny that the Democratic party is a party of 
 free trade; I deny that the Mills bill is a free-trade measure, or 
 that the late Democratic President is a free-trader. We insist on a 
 revision of the tariff in the interest of the many and not of a few, and 
 we are ready to meet our opponents on this issue. There is no such 
 thing as a free-trade tariff. Protection begins in some form or other 
 as soon as a duty is laid. We shall not live to see a direct tax prevail 
 in this country ; the tariff will continue, but we insist that we shall no 
 longer sustain a war tariff in time of peace. We hear a great deal 
 about " infant industries." Is it not about time to differentiate be- 
 tween infants and adults? We do not object to protecting the infants 
 of our own generation if those of two generations ago can stand alone. 
 We believe it to be logical and philosophical that the tariff should be 
 laid for revenue, with incidental protection, bearing most severely on 
 articles of luxury. 
 
 I am not surprised to find our friend touchy on the question of per 
 cents. We can not get away from the fact that only nine per cent of 
 the people are getting the direct benefit of the Republican party's sys- 
 tem of protection. When it returned to power in 1889 its statesmen 
 wanted to cover up the question of per cents when the Democrats 
 tried to estimate the percentage of increase of the McKinley bill over 
 the previous tariff. We believe in the Democratic party because it is 
 based upon equality and philanthropy, because it has confidence in the 
 possibilities of the human race, because it loves justice and abhors 
 class legislation. The Republican idea of a strong government attracts 
 to that party the money power opposed to the interests of the masses 
 of the people. This is a country in which the majority should rule. 
 By no specious device should the rights of the people be interfered 
 with. There should be no special privileges. Democrats believe in 
 having as little government as possible. 
 
 As to being a little below the average grade in intelligence, that is 
 what the feudal barons said of the people in their day. Nevertheless, 
 on all great problems the history of human evolution has shown that 
 the people were right. To those of us who are true Americans and 
 believers in human rights Democracy means something. We believe 
 we have a heritage worth preserving, and are ready to extend a help- 
 
476 The Republican Party. 
 
 ing hand to lift the whole human race up to a higher level. The 
 Democratic theory is not " 1 am as good as you," but " Politically, you 
 are as good as I am." No social privileges political equality of the 
 units of society these are the questions of the hour. The history of 
 the rise and growth of the Democracy is too long and bloody, its 
 achievements are too sacred, for any discrimination to be made here- 
 after against any one on account of the turn of his speech, the cut of 
 his coat, or the color of the soil on his hands. 
 
 "A man's a man for a' that " 
 this is the creed of the Democracy. 
 
 MR. GEORGE E. WALDO : 
 
 It may be assumed, I think, that the tariff is the dividing issue be- 
 tween the parties at the present time. The great difference between 
 them on that question is seen in the statement made by the gentleman 
 who has just spoken that only nine per cent of the people are bene- 
 fited by protection. The claim of the Republican party is that not 
 nine per cent only, but the whole country is benefited by the added 
 wealth which protection creates, and without which the poor would be 
 poorer and the wages of laboring men would be reduced. The tariff 
 would find few supporters indeed if we did not believe it to be benefi- 
 cial to all classes of the people. 
 
 Apart from this question, or taking a broader view in which this 
 question is only incidental, in the light of the doctrine of evolution is 
 there any reason why the Republican party should exist to-day ? If 
 the doctrine of evolution, as applied to society, means anything, it 
 means advance, progress, and the Republican party has stood for 
 nothing else in the history of this country. Every great reform since 
 the Republican party was formed has been a Republican measure. 
 The Democratic party is a party of conservatism, always opposed to 
 the new. It started out with the idea that we should have no govern- 
 ment. We can hardly take up a platform of that party since it came 
 into existence without finding in it a protest against the powers of the 
 national Government. That we have any Federal Government at all 
 is owing to Hamilton and Washington and the opponents of the Demo- 
 cratic party. The supremacy of this Government was supported by the 
 Whigs and sustained during the Civil War by the Republican party. 
 The work of the Republican party is not yet done, if we believe in prog- 
 ress. The Democratic party has doubtless had its use in our history. 
 If it were not for the conservatives, the radicals would tear everything 
 to pieces. The conservatives are a drag, and perhaps help to keep us 
 down to the right gait in our efforts to advance ; but there is no 
 
The Republican Party. 477- 
 
 reason why we should give up to them. If we desire to see the country 
 go on with internal improvements, if we love our country as a whole, 
 and would see it developed in all its wonderful resources and possi- 
 bilities, we must stand by the Republican party. 
 
 MR. HENRY S. BELLOWS: 
 
 I appreciate the statement made by the first speaker, that this is not 
 an ordinary political debate, and that the line of discussion in such a 
 debate is not proper here. Like him, I am accustomed to political con- 
 troversy, and if I fail to keep within the proper course I hope you may 
 have for me the same charity as for him. I assume that the most of this 
 audience are Republicans. I was much interested in what the speaker 
 said about the sweet faces of the Quaker women. When he looks in the 
 faces of Republicans, he sees just such countenances as the Quakers had. 
 I look at his genial face, and can almost believe him to be a Democrat. 
 But the question before us is not whether such pleasant fancies have 
 any warrant ; it is a question of principles, a question of manhood, of 
 which of the two parties has been most true to mankind. Allusion 
 was made to Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton 
 was in favor of a " strong government " ; he wanted a monarchy, in 
 fact, but our friends leave that fact out of the discussion. What did 
 Thomas Jefferson want I Let the Declaration of Independence 
 answer : we will not leave that out. Jefferson was a true Democrat, 
 in sympathy with the ^ people, and all the great measures of political 
 progress have been in line with his principles. Coming down to the 
 period of reconstruction, after the rebellion of the South, what was the 
 thirteenth amendment to the Constitution ? It was in direct accord 
 with the principles of Thomas Jefferson. When Jefferson presented 
 the bill which gave the Northwest Territories to the United States, 
 it provided that slavery should not exist in these territories after 1800. 
 New Jersey objected, and this provision was struck out. Two years 
 later the ordinance of 1797 was passed. In our reconstruction meas- 
 ures we went back to the principles of Thomas Jefferson. 
 
 When the speaker of the evening combines the words " free soil," 
 "free speech," and "free men," and would have us infer that the 
 Republican party in its origin was an abolition party, he is mistaken. 
 In the beginning of our Government slavery existed in New York, 
 Massachusetts, and all the Northern States as well as in the South. 
 The North got rid of it because it didn't pay. It gradually died out, 
 and our fathers thought the same thing would occur in the South. 
 Eli Whitney, however, invented the cotton-gin, and slavery became 
 profitable. Money money which makes the happy faces that please 
 my friend claimed the South for slavery, and the Republican party 
 
478 The Republican Parti/. 
 
 did not oppose the claim. The Republicans did not abolish slavery. 
 Lincoln did not want to do it ; war did it. Fremont issued an eman- 
 cipation proclamation in the West, and Lincoln revoked it. Mr. 
 Seward, a leading Republican, was in favor of putting slavery into the 
 Constitution to stop the discussion of the question in Congress. The 
 free-soil fight over the territory we got from Mexico was not a question 
 of principle. There was no pretense of interfering with slavery in the 
 States where it existed. This is the true history of the question. I 
 know, because I saw it just the same as my distinguished friend. 
 
 Both parties, as Mr. Hendrix stated, are in favor of a tariff. It is 
 only a question of how it shall be adjusted. The idea of the Repub- 
 licans is that whenever we establish a protective duty, competition will 
 produce such a condition of industry as will enable us, after a time, to 
 undersell foreigners. How has it been since the tariff was taken off 
 of sugar? We paid the tax for ninety years, and now it is taken 
 off. Who was " protected " while the duty was assessed ? Shall we 
 adopt the policy of protection in a broad, sweeping way, or shall we 
 scrutinize every point, taking each case on its own merits ? This is 
 the question at issue between the two parties to-day. Let us not for- 
 get that all the virtue, all the patriotism, and all the industry that 
 creates our national prosperity, do not reside in anyone political party. 
 
 MR. HORR, in reply : 
 
 I must be brief, but I think I can do the last gentleman some good. 
 I was amused at his treatment of the subject. It is wonderful that he 
 should tell you that the country had to go back to the principles of Jeffer- 
 son in our reconstruction measures. Why didn't he say that the entire 
 Democratic party voted against the thirteenth amendment ? Where 
 was Jeffersonian Democracy then ? In legislatures and in Congress 
 they voted solidly against it. He supposes that the tax on sugar settles 
 the whole tariff question. His treatment of the subject shows that he 
 has no idea of the difference between a revenue tariff and a protective 
 tariff. We can not build up the sugar industry in this country by a 
 tariff. Any duty put on an article which we can not produce is a rev- 
 enue tariff, and increases the price of the article. What made every 
 Democrat in the party vote against making sugar free 1 It was their 
 kind of a tariff. 
 
 I was pleased with the candor of Mr. Hendrix, but I was surprised 
 that he should tell you that because the Democratic party got 60,000 
 votes more than the Republican party, therefore the mass of the people 
 were against us. He forgot that in the South 200,000 Republicans 
 were disfranchised. He also misinterpreted my statement that as a 
 whole the Republican party is higher-toned than the Democratic, into 
 
The Republican Party. 479 
 
 an admission that the lowly and humble were in the Democratic ranks. 
 I said that in every grade the Republicans are superior. We have 
 plenty of mechanics, for example, but they average better and are more 
 intelligent than the mechanics of Democratic sympathies. Wherever 
 you find school-houses plentiful, there you find the Republicans in the 
 majority. I don't say that all saloon keepers are Democrats, but the 
 Democrats will get away with us in the matter of saloons. Wherever 
 you find gross abuses of municipal government, ballot-box stuffing, and 
 so forth, you don't find Republicans under arrest. 
 
 DR. JANES: How about Philadelphia? 
 
 I admit that Philadelphia is an exception ; but the exception proves 
 the rule. Where will you find another instance 1 ? 
 
 As regards the tariff, the Democrats are attacking it by piecemeal. 
 They do not bring any consistent measure to oppose to ours. At this 
 rate, how long do you suppose it will take them to get through I 
 There are 2,500 items in the bill, and it would take 800 years to go 
 through the list. In the coming campaign they must tell us where 
 they stand on the silver question and on reciprocity. By reciprocity, 
 as applied to tariff legislation, I mean a law that enables us to make 
 arrangements with another nation to take from us what they do not 
 produce and to sell us what we do not produce. It is a serious ques- 
 tion, how to manage the industries of our country so as to make it 
 prosperous ; and I believe the Republican party has discovered the true 
 method of its solution. 
 
THE 
 INDEPENDENT IN POLITICS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN A. TAYLOR 
 
 AUTHOR OP THE EVOLUTION OF THE STATE, THE EVOLUTION OF ART, ETC. 
 
COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED: 
 
 Spencer's Justice, Essays Scientific, Political, and Speculative, 
 Recent Discussions, The New Slavery, and The Man vs. the State ; 
 Lowell's The Independent in Politics ; Stickney's Democratic Govern- 
 ment, The Political Problem, and A True Republic ; Storey's Politics 
 as a Duty and as a Career ; Ivins's Machine Politics ; Mackay's A Plea 
 for Liberty ; Comstock's History of Civil Service Reform. 
 
THE INDEPENDENT IN POLITICS. 
 
 BY JOHN A. TAYLOR. 
 
 " Not once or twice in our rough island story 
 The path of duty was the way to glory; 
 lie that walks it, only thirsting 
 For the right, and learns to deaden 
 Love of self, before his journey closes, 
 He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting 
 Into glossy purples, which outredden 
 All voluptuous garden roses. 
 Not once or twice in our fair island story 
 The path of duty was the way to glory." 
 
 BY far the noblest product of human endeavor is hu- 
 man government. Not the exact science of numbers which 
 measures the flight of constellations, nor of physics which 
 reduces to a few simple substances the complex chemistry of 
 the material universe, can approach the profound signifi- 
 cance of that mingled science and art which provides for 
 and administers to vast associations of human beings effi- 
 cient organic law. The supreme hope of all real statesmen 
 has been to devise a perfect scheme of government one 
 which should relegate to obscurity the wrong, protect and 
 develop the right, insure good social order, afford the most 
 ample opportunity for untried methods of progress and 
 improvement, and preserve unimpaired the primal safe- 
 guards of tranquil living. Among the most fruitful con- 
 tributions to this end has been that system of rule which 
 recognized as the sole squrce of power those members of 
 the community who, arrived at the age of discretion, were 
 invested at once with the responsibilities and privileges of 
 citizenship. 
 
 When, as the outgrowth of our own early history, man- 
 hood suffrage was ordained as an integral part of our plan 
 of government, it was proudly contended that wisdom could 
 go no farther in the solution of the problem " how to gov- 
 ern." Perhaps it may be fairly stated that the contempla- 
 tion of our fathers was that every political issue incident 
 to the continued prosperity of the nation was to be submit- 
 ted to the great jury of all the citizenship for final de- 
 termination ; nor was it ever doubted that such decision, 
 
484 The Independent in Politics. 
 
 once reached, should be forever recognized as the absolute 
 truth in the premises. But the instant an issue was pre- 
 sented it must have been foreseen that this aggregation of 
 human wisdom would divide itself into two parts one in 
 favor and the other against the proposition sought to be 
 enforced ; and hence parties would inevitably arise, involv- 
 ing the skillful and thorough organization of two great 
 armies, one favoring and the other opposing the proposed 
 public action. 
 
 Scarcely, however, could it have been expected that the 
 constituents ranged on one side of a particular issue would 
 forever after upon all new issues preserve like opinions 
 and stand loyally together as a great political army in the 
 treatment of new questions of policy and under constantly 
 changing environment. Less still could it have been im- 
 agined that all members in good and regular standing in 
 the same party would be expected to think the same 
 thought about the thousand and one subordinate interests 
 having no relation, either causal or sequential, to the main 
 issue upon which they agreed; or that the same body of 
 men should, during their entire lives, receive with the 
 same approval or disapproval the new questions which 
 should arise long after the issue which they had been or- 
 ganized to promote had been settled and made a part of 
 ancient history. Yet such is the interpretation now 
 widely given to party loyalty by the " wheel-horses " and 
 " mainstays " of modern politics. 
 
 No man can be strictly loyal to his political party in 
 this day and generation who disagrees by his vote with 
 the formally expressed opinions of its political platform, 
 or refuses to further the election of its regularly nomi- 
 nated candidates. Men are continually heard to say : 
 " There is no Republican blood in me ! " or " There is no 
 Democratic blood in me ! " and demonstrate in all their 
 acts and conversation that they inherit their political, as 
 they do their religious, convictions from a remote ancestry. 
 
 It is my purpose this evening not at all to recommend 
 or advise that any person should not, in the exercise of 
 an intelligent political free will, ally himself during his 
 entire life with either of the two great political parties ; 
 but rather to inquire whether or not there is any room 
 for a consistent, patriotic, and honorable exercise of politi- 
 cal duty entirely outside of and unconnected with either 
 of the two parties. I want to approach the consideration 
 
The Independent in Politics. 485 
 
 of this inquiry in the absolute good faith which truth and 
 candor ought to compel, with the most respectful appre- 
 ciation of all that political parties have done for our coun- 
 try, and with the most sincere recognition of the priceless 
 public service of men in the ranks of either party whose 
 proudest boast it is that they have never voted any other 
 than the party ticket during the entire period of their 
 exercise of the franchise. I want also freely to admit that 
 many of the names which stand highest on the list of our 
 country's benefactors are those of men who in season and 
 out of season, without variableness or shadow of turning, 
 have never suffered themselves for a single moment to 
 falter in unquestioned allegiance to the party of their es- 
 pousal. 
 
 Conceding this much, it must be asked in return for 
 those men who find it impossible to continue their former 
 party affiliations, or to subscribe to any new oaths of party 
 fealty, that they shall be recognized and treated as men 
 just as earnest in their love of country, just as unflinching 
 in their devotion to principle, and just as desirous of the 
 highest good of all mankind, as are their fellows whose feet 
 are still marking time in the ranks of the regular army. 
 
 Let us then make as our first inquiry : " What are the 
 implied obligations of the social compact ? " All must con- 
 cede that personal independence is partially surrendered 
 wherever communities are organized, and that absolute 
 authority to determine all supreme questions must be 
 lodged somewhere. " Liberty/' as Burke says, " must be 
 limited in order to be possessed." Republican institu- 
 tions repudiating the one-man authority declare the su- 
 premacy of the fairly expressed will of the majority, and 
 the individual is left but two courses either to submit to 
 this law of the majority, or to take himself out of the 
 community. If he would enjoy the blessings, he must en- 
 dure the penalties of associated action. If he would have 
 the protection, he must suffer the inconvenience of govern- 
 ment. But here it is to be clearly noted that he may cease 
 to belong to the community by abdicating his citizenship. 
 
 Why, then, should the tyranny of a party majority be any 
 more irksome, and why should it be insisted upon that, re- 
 fusing to be controlled by the tyranny of one kind of party 
 majority, he should be left no other course than forthwith 
 to submit to the like tyranny at the hands of the other kind 
 of party majority ? 
 
486 The Independent in Politics. 
 
 Nor let it hastily be concluded that the principle now 
 contended for involves any such profound absurdity as that 
 where citizens are associated for a common purpose any 
 other rule of action can obtain than that ordained by the 
 larger number of the interested persons. This is a law of 
 business procedure, society organization, and political evolu- 
 tion. There can be no coherence of action or continuity of 
 purpose otherwise. All associated action must go forward 
 upon the proposition that the whole agree to dedicate all 
 their energies to execute the decrees of a part. But this 
 rule of action can only effectually proceed where the objects 
 to be obtained are of common interest and all the units of 
 action are impelled toward a definite end ; nor is there any 
 absolute necessity for associated action. 
 
 To surrender the individual preference as to political 
 action to the prevailing opinion by a continuous obligation 
 to sustain that opinion during the entire future, under all 
 conditions and perhaps against the irrefutable logic of 
 events still to happen, is to dismantle the human judgment 
 of its regal crown of individuality and to declare that 
 enfranchised citizens are to be counted merely like cattle in 
 the shambles of political contention. To generally accept 
 the often avowed doctrine of " Once a Democrat, always a 
 Democrat," " Once a Republican, always a Republican," is 
 to narrow the mind and conscience of citizenship with Pro- 
 crustean severity. It is to place the partisan above 'the 
 patriot, the voter above the man. For, talk as one will of 
 party loyalty, and prate as one may of political consistency, 
 any view of political duty which requires as its logical 
 sequence the surrender of manhood and the individual 
 arbitrament of the citizen proclaims thereby that it is as 
 much at war with the manly instincts of the human heart 
 as it is in contradiction to the plainest requirements of socio- 
 logical law. 
 
 Call the roll at what time you please of the world's 
 noblest sons, and the names that illumine their respective 
 ages and challenge the completest homage of all succeeding 
 centuries are the names of those men and women who have 
 counted no anathemas of church, no proscription of state, 
 no banishment from country, as too great a price to pay for 
 the steadfast maintenance, before all the world, of their 
 inviolable allegiance to that within them which glorified 
 and sanctified their own unspotted manhood their indi- 
 vidual conscience. No age, or country, or church, or party, 
 
The Independent in Politics. 487 
 
 or civilization, has been barren of such spirits. In the 
 Church they have been called Luthers, in the state Wash- 
 ingtons, in science Darwins, and wherever you shall garner 
 from any country its greatest men, the list will be largely 
 composed of those who have sat apart from the multitude, 
 cherishing with undaunted persistency the supremacy of 
 their individual convictions. 
 
 But this tyranny of a party majority of which we are 
 speaking has, under the stress and strain of contemporary 
 politics, grown to be something still more odious. When 
 Jefferson wrote in 1824 of party divisions, he summed up 
 the then existing parties as composed on the one hand of 
 those who wished to draw all powers into the hands of the 
 higher classes, and on the other of those who had confi- 
 dence in the people as the most honest and safe depository 
 of the public interests, and added that the appellation of 
 aristocrats and democrats was the true one expressing the 
 essence of all. 
 
 To-day we have to submit, assuming that we are parti- 
 sans, not to the behest of a majority of our party, but to the 
 command of a very small minority of that majority. The 
 machinery of expressing personal preference within the 
 party is so skillfully adjusted that the choice at the party 
 primary is limited to determining which of two generally 
 very bad men shall go to the State convention, and if by 
 accident some very good man's name appears upon the 
 ticket at the primary, he finds himself in such bad company 
 in the delegation that he incontinently resigns, and a dele- 
 gate not too good, or, as an evolutionist ought to say, a 
 person more in harmony with the environment, is put in 
 his place. So that the confiding patriot who attempts to 
 reform within his own party is suffered mostly to carry a 
 flickering torch at the rear of the procession, and the only 
 part of political action in which he is suffered to stand at 
 the head is on the subscription paper, which is passed 
 around after the election with unerring regularity, to make 
 up the ever-present deficiency in the campaign fund. 
 
 Now, while we may not subscribe to Ruskin's assertion 
 that " men only associate in parties by sacrificing their 
 opinions, or having none worth sacrificing," yet it must be 
 confessed, I think, that here and now in the year 1892 the 
 men who influence party action are in the main men who 
 would not be intrusted with the direction or control of any 
 considerable business enterprise. They are the men who, 
 32 
 
488 The Independent in Politics. 
 
 shouting vociferously for party loyalty, stab in the dark the 
 candidates of a rival faction. They are the men who are 
 periodically possessed with the gravest apprehension lest 
 some of their fellow-partisans are becoming too good for 
 their party. 
 
 It is essential to remember that the political problem 
 which we are considering is one applicable alone to the 
 present epoch. ISTo independent in politics denies, so far as 
 I am aware, that in the supreme crises of national history, 
 when some absorbing issue of right or wrong is presented 
 for determination, it is the duty, as it is the privilege, of the 
 voter to attach himself to the one political army which 
 promotes his convictions, and to wage in that army a loyal 
 warfare for victory ; and that in the prosecution of war all 
 other differences of opinion are to be subordinated is an 
 inevitable condition to success. 
 
 This it was which gave coherence and inspiration to the 
 cause of the Republican party in 1856. It was the success- 
 ful organization and enrollment of men of differing political 
 faiths upon the supreme issue of national unity that drew 
 to the new Republican party so great a number of the inde- 
 pendent voters in both of the old parties as to almost insure 
 success in its first campaign. So, too, when the issue of 
 union or division developed as an inseparable complement 
 the even greater issue of human liberty or human slavery, 
 the one inflexible determination of the voting population 
 was demonstrated to be the supremacy of the Union and 
 dethronement of slavery. 
 
 But no man who now recalls or has ever read the career 
 of Abraham Lincoln during that eventful period can fail to 
 observe that he was, beyond all men who have ever lived, an 
 independent in politics. He was conspicuously, at all 
 crucial periods of the war, independent of and vastly wiser 
 than his party. Of him no more bitter things were said 
 than by his own partisan organs. He was denounced in set 
 terms as a traitor to his party and his country by many of 
 the most prominent Republican newspapers. So strong was 
 the openly expressed and generally held detestation of his 
 indifference and opposition to party behests, that nothing 
 but the opportune victories on the battle-field during the 
 months preceding his second election saved him from 
 defeat. 
 
 Now, as to this organization called the Republican party, 
 which at the close of the war and perhaps for some time 
 
The Independent in Politics. 489 
 
 thereafter stood in firm, compact coherence upon the ques- 
 tion which inflamed all its membership with patriotic fervor, 
 was it supposable that all its membership should forever 
 thereafter agree upon the new issues which presented them- 
 selves? To suppose so would be to determine that a body 
 of patriotic men organized for a given purpose have agreed 
 to do battle all their lives for whatever purpose a majority 
 of their organization should summon them. 
 
 But let us now consider briefly what is meant by the 
 phrase " The Independent in Politics." First, it is to be 
 noticed that the independent is not necessarily unidentified 
 with existing political parties, although he must at all times 
 stand ready to be. The independent in politics within the 
 political parties is one who votes with his party upon all 
 questions which do not challenge the approval of his own 
 conscience, but who gives the benefit of his action to his own 
 conscience whenever he is called upon to determine whether 
 his own or some other conscience shall prevail. 
 
 The independent in politics outside of both parties who 
 may perhaps be designated as of the genus Mugwump is 
 one who has determined that he can best promote the pub- 
 lic interest by claiming no affiliation with either party, de- 
 nying himself the emoluments as he is relieved from the 
 obligations of such alliances, thus holding himself at full 
 liberty to criticise and oppose candidates and proposed pub- 
 lic action according as the one or the other shall commend 
 themselves to his personal approval. Whatever else may be 
 said of the Mugwump, I think ifc must be conceded that his 
 position is from his standpoint logical, consistent, and patri- 
 otic, and in saying this I am speaking only of those who sin- 
 cerely take this position. 
 
 The supreme arbitrament of private conscience has dur- 
 ing our entire national career secured the recognition of 
 government, as witness the exemption from military duty 
 of the Quakers and from Sabbatarian regulations of the 
 Seventh-day Baptists and Jews ; and, wherever any man or 
 woman is believed to be sincere in standing upon conscien- 
 tious ground, it is everywhere among civilized nations ac- 
 knowledged as a standpoint higher than the law of the land 
 itself. Indeed, the change from monarchical absolutism to 
 democratic sway had no significance if it did not install in 
 the highest place of ultimate determination the edict of the 
 individual as to his own conduct. . 
 
 It is common to hear men holding such a position stigma- 
 
490 The Independent in Politics. 
 
 tized as hypocrites, Pharisees, men too good to live, doctri- 
 narians, cranks, and soreheads ; and it must be candidly 
 admitted that, wherever or for whatever purpose men classify 
 themselves, a certain number of camp-followers denied the 
 privilege of even hanging on the outskirts of regular organ- 
 izations will seek to ally themselves with the irregular forces. 
 Indeed, you must know all sides of an apparent human 
 being before you can determine that he is a man. 
 
 Consider for a moment, however, what it means to stand 
 outside the popular throng, to see the old procession in 
 whose ranks your feet have once marked loyal time march- 
 ing onward with you. Take, for example, one of the fore- 
 most thinkers and perhaps the most accomplished orator of 
 our times. A man who was present at the birth of the Re- 
 publican party and was one of the most efficient of its lead- 
 ers ; a man whose silvery sentences charmed many a patri- 
 otic youth into its allegiance ; a man whose face and speech 
 and heart and soul have been for more than one human 
 generation the synonym of candor and sincerity and who 
 represents to-day the highest form of disinterested patriot- 
 ism. Consider what it is to him with all his gracious ac- 
 complishments and splendid abilities to renounce all hope 
 of political preferment, to deny himself the comradeship of 
 the old allies and compeers of his youth, and to salute alone 
 the ensign of his private convictions. 
 
 It little boots to say that his judgment was wrong. The 
 man who substitutes another's conscience for his own is by 
 that very token dehumanized and made a cipher. On all 
 questions of mere expediency one may yield to the judg- 
 ment of his fellows, but against the sure and steady light 
 of his conviction on a question of right and wrong not forty 
 thousand fellows should be able to move a manly man. 
 
 Indeed, this whole question of party supremacy seems to 
 be a case of misplaced emphasis. The highest function of 
 mankind is not the patriotic, the teaching, or even the re- 
 ligious function. It is the function of manhood itself ; it is 
 the sublime intimation of the divine nature ; it is the royal 
 quality of sovereignty. He who on such questions abdicates 
 the throne of self-government is already prepared to be 
 counted and not weighed as a political factor. 
 
 You say you are an American ? Yes. You are a Chris- 
 tian ? Yes. You are a Republican or a Democrat ? Yes. 
 But before you were either of these you were a man, dis- 
 tinguishable from every man who ever has lived or will 
 
The Independent in Politics. 491 
 
 live, a bundle of passions and aspirations, the creature of cir- 
 cumstances beset by an army of conflicting emotions ; will- 
 ing the right perhaps and doing the wrong, but holding in 
 your own hand the all-conquering scepter of manhood, the 
 inalienable right of individual determination. 
 
 If, then, the political status of the independent in politics 
 has been made apparent and the ethical root of his being 
 correctly set forth, it may be in point to consider briefly his 
 genesis and development. We shall remark on this branch 
 of our subject that the Mugwump as a factor of political 
 action is contemporaneous with constitutional government 
 in the United States. It is true that, for reasons to be con- 
 sidered hereafter, his development as an important and dis- 
 tinct element of more or less organized political action is 
 comparatively modern ; but men with the spirit of the 
 Mugwump have lived and inspired all human history. 
 
 A contributor to the Boston Centinel, who dated his com- 
 munication at Hingham, October 26, 1802, stated in sub- 
 stance the Mugwump platform when he said : " We do not 
 make much ado about caucuses, but we attend our meetings 
 like freemen and vote from the honest convictions of our 
 consciences." This contributor of nearly ninety years ago 
 signed his communication " An Independent Elector," and 
 no one since has more concisely stated the platform of the 
 Mugwumps. He was doubtless one of many of his kind 
 who continually recognized in the performance of his pub- 
 lic duties the necessity of rebelling against party dictation. 
 
 Why, then, it may be asked, has not the Mugwump sooner 
 developed as a distinct political entity ? Several reasons are 
 obvious. One of the most suggestive from an evolutionary 
 standpoint is the familiar agent of repression by an unfavor- 
 able environment. An old primeval forest is desolated by 
 a fierce conflagration, and out of the charred waste of black- 
 ened stumps and herbage there arises as if by magic a new 
 field of verdure, and with the new state of vegetable life 
 there appear in the contest for survival the sprouting stalks 
 of new varieties of shrub or tree, the seeds of which had 
 been for many years biding in hidden silence their new en- 
 vironment. By similar political changes has the oppor- 
 tunity for independent political action been provided. 
 
 Consider for an instant the essential requirements of an 
 independent political entity : 
 
 First, an absence of all-absorbing political issues, and es- 
 
492 The Independent in Politics. 
 
 pecially of issues enlisting the ethical forces of men's na- 
 tures. 
 
 Second, a population sufficiently large in number to make 
 the actual marshaling of all voters in armies considerably 
 difficult. 
 
 Third, a dissemination of political knowledge among so 
 large a class of people that they should rely with some de- 
 gree of confidence upon the result of their own thinking. 
 
 Fourth, the existence of a leisure class, only practicable in 
 a wealthy country, who should have time as well as inclina- 
 tion to devote themselves to political pursuits. 
 
 Manifestly these conditions did not obtain during the 
 early part of our history. Indeed, it has only been by the com- 
 paratively recent advances in science and art that they have 
 been made practicable. Sporadic occasions of efficient po- 
 litical action outside the parties, or by partial amalgamation, 
 have indeed been incident to all party action, a notable in- 
 stance occurring in 1846 when Robert Peel and Richard 
 Cobden, entirely outside either party in Parliament, effected 
 one of the greatest of English reforms the repeal of the 
 corn law. But neither has the occasion offered, nor have 
 men been present to avail of it to any considerable organized 
 extent, until in recent times. 
 
 Two great questions of national importance and involving 
 ethical issues have mainly engaged the attention of our voters 
 from the birth of the nation. One, the question of national 
 unity as distinguished from state autonomy ; the other, the 
 question of property in man. The first, although in forms 
 of organic law proclaimed at the beginning, awaited the am- 
 plification by the judiciary department of the Government 
 under the Constitution, which may be said not to have de- 
 veloped until the work of the illustrious Marshall was com- 
 pleted in 1836. The second grew to such monstrous pro- 
 portions as to threaten anew the life of the nation, and was 
 not wholly and satisfactorily established until within the 
 present decade it had been demonstrated that the party long 
 out of power could be safely and profitably intrusted with 
 the administration of government. 
 
 To-day, therefore, the first and second requirements 
 namely, an absence of absorbing political issues, and a large 
 population may be justly said to be furnished us, for it is 
 now a part of our political history that in the national cam- 
 paign of 1884 there was so little difference between the offi- 
 cial utterances of the two parties on the only issue of national 
 
The Independent in Politics. 493 
 
 polity that the orators of each side spent most of their time 
 on the stump in showing that their candidate was really stand- 
 ing upon the platform of the other party ; and the latest 
 census of our country discloses a population of more than 
 sixty-five millions. 
 
 The third requirement spoken of namely, a wide dissemi- 
 nation of political knowledge may be said to be fairly met 
 by the hundred-handed press of to-day, which has assumed 
 with great success the role of censor, instructor, and investi- 
 gator of our national as well as our domestic affairs. There 
 is more knowledge, as well as something else, accumulated 
 in the issue of any Sunday paper of to-day than was stored up 
 in all the monasteries of France during the entire lives of their 
 votaries. That prince of Mugwumps, Wendell Phillips, has 
 pointedly remarked that "what gunpowder did for war, 
 the printing press has done for the mind, and the statesman 
 is no longer clad in the steel of special education, but every 
 reading man is his judge, every thoughtful man the country 
 through, who makes up an opinion, is his jury to which he 
 answers, and the tribunal to which he must bow." 
 
 If, then, these new conditions do really obtain as an inci- 
 dent to our increase as a nation in wealth, population, and 
 education, and the development of a leisure class among us, 
 is not an evolutionist prepared for the observation that with 
 the complexity of the political structure there arises a cor- 
 responding complexity in the political function ? Indeed, 
 it is Herbert Spencer who reminds us in his Biology that 
 " complexity of function is the correlative of complexity of 
 structure." 
 
 Are we not then prepared to observe that with the special- 
 ization of function to which Mr. Theodore Eoosevelt refers 
 in his recent admirable Essays on Practical Politics (by 
 which he means, I suppose, the calling of the politician as 
 such) we have arrived at a period when it should become 
 the special political function of a given body of citizens to 
 hold themselves as a permanent and more or less organized 
 menace to the abuse of the special function of the profes- 
 sional politician, and to the undue supremacy of party spirit 
 that party spirit of which Washington himself said : " A 
 fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to 
 prevent its bursting into a flame, lest instead of warming it 
 should consume " ? 
 
 Before defining further, however, the special function of 
 the Mugwump, it is proper to observe that the evil of party 
 
494 The Independent in Politics. 
 
 dogmatism is barely touched upon when it is considered 
 with relation to its effect upon national politics. Given an 
 all-consuming issue of national concern, as we have already 
 observed, patriots might well divide into armies in support 
 of that issue ; but that the membership of that army should 
 continue to agree upon questions affecting the state polity, 
 suggests an absurd obeisance of the individual will, and 
 when it is gravely put forth as a test of party loyalty that 
 the same persons should continue to agree upon lines of 
 municipal policy, the absurdity becomes grotesque and the 
 claim of the party organs or leaders sublimely ridiculous. 
 Yet such is the party claim to-day. Over and over again in 
 a neighboring city has the party, which is fond of calling 
 itself the great moral party, proclaimed it of greater impor- 
 tance that its voting army should throw its ammunition 
 away on a hopeless candidacy of one of its own, than to ele- 
 vate to power and usefulness an independent, public-spirited 
 citizen of the opposite party so callous has already be- 
 come the party conscience. And so the interests of a great 
 municipality are surrendered year by year to the keeping of 
 self-seeking politicians, for fear that a spirit of party insub- 
 ordination shall be fostered in the rank and file. 
 
 Nor is the same spirit lacking in our State government. 
 What spectacle can be more disheartening than that of the 
 highest officers in the foremost State of the Union resorting 
 to downright thievery in order to wreak revenge upon their 
 political foes for depriving them (most unjustly, it must be 
 admitted) for nearly a decade of proportionate representa- 
 tion in the State Legislature ? 
 
 And yet there is one thing still more disheartening, and 
 that is the elevation to a place in the highest legal tribunal 
 of the State of one who stands, by his own confession, in the 
 relation of particeps criminis to the monstrous theft. Nor 
 has this blind partisan folly the slim justification of party 
 zeal. For, in the true sense of a divided public opinion ex- 
 pressing itself through party channels, these are not the 
 (dictates of wise party leadership ; rather they are the man- 
 dates of cravens who by adroit manipulation have taken to 
 themselves the reins of party power and are driving the 
 party chariot in the courses which lead to their own shame- 
 less competence. 
 
 Let us not be deceived, nor fear to speak the truth about 
 it. More and more in our State and in our great cities poli- 
 tics has come to be a most degrading trade, and the men 
 
The Independent in Politics. 495 
 
 who wield the party power ply their infamous traffic to 
 just the extent which, in their shrewd judgment, the apathy 
 of their good-natured constituents will permit. Occasionally 
 they overstep the mark, and then the sleepy constituents 
 gather in enthusiastic conclave at the Cooper Institute, or 
 elsewhere, and, reminding their political bosses that " this 
 is really too bad," demand the repeal of some specially ob- 
 noxious measure ; and the legislators hasten to do their 
 bidding, in confident reliance that during the rush of busi- 
 ness incident to adjournment they may still commit, un- 
 observed, their particular piece of robbery. Meantime the 
 constituents, having performed their political duties, go 
 solemnly to sleep, and wake up at the next election denounc- 
 ing roundly their fellow-citizens who vote anything but the 
 straight ticket. 
 
 One of the most common and plausible justifications for 
 party dogmatism is the sugar-coated delusion of party re- 
 sponsibility. " Turn everybody out and put everybody in, 
 and then let the party take the responsibility," is the cry 
 often heard. And so this plan has been tried for genera- 
 tions with the effect of constantly decreasing efficiency in 
 city government, so that sagacious observers, like Lowell, 
 are heard to say that " the tricks of management are more 
 and more superseding the science of government," and, 
 again, " where parties are once formed, those questions, the 
 discussion of which would discipline and fortify one's minds, 
 tend more and more to pass out of sight, and the topics that 
 interest their prejudices and passions to become more ab- 
 sorbing. " 
 
 Now, if party allegiance meant, as it ought to mean, loyalty 
 to some great postulate of freedom, it would deserve to and 
 would enlist the utmost endeavor of all its adherents. But 
 what is it more to-day, in the main, than abject subser- 
 viency to the political fortunes of men in power ? What 
 more has it come to be than the practical question of which 
 army of office-mongers shall control after the next election ? 
 
 Nor is the baneful influence of this apparent truth so im- 
 portant in its effect upon the voter as upon the career of 
 the office-holder himself. Upon him it too often exercises 
 the most complete domination. To it he is expected, at the 
 peril of his political existence, to sacrifice everything. If 
 ne withholds honor, integrity, or consistency, he is taunted 
 with being ungrateful and disloyal to those men who have 
 " made " him, and is threatened with political destruction. 
 
496 The Independent in Politics. 
 
 What more lamentable spectacle can be contemplated 
 than the career of a well-known local politician who de- 
 rived his political life from the efforts of independent men 
 in the party opposed to him, and, once firmly seated in the 
 saddle, repudiated all professions of subordination of party 
 to principle, became the synonym of party obsequiousness, 
 honored all demands of the political bosses, and, in the short 
 space of five years, had so bedraggled a promising and hope- 
 ful reputation for political probity by bending the knee to 
 Baal that thousands of voters in his own party repudiated 
 his pretensions to political preferment, and though not past 
 the middle prime of life, he has already gone into lucrative 
 but dishonorable political retirement ? 
 
 And, on the other hand, how encouraging is the specta- 
 cle presented by another public man among us, who, in 
 whatever position he has been placed, has kept a true alle- 
 giance to his manhood, refusing the honeyed enticement of 
 political preferment and, holding high above all possible 
 honors of place or power the virgin whiteness of his reputa- 
 tion, has absolutely and with an upright, honorable carriage, 
 walked out of the devious paths of so-called practical poli- 
 tics into the ever green slopes of scholastic attainment and 
 promotion ! 
 
 Now, if the baneful influence of party spirit can produce 
 such diverse effects upon men of reputed honor, intelli- 
 gence, and public spirit, how demoralizing must be its effect 
 upon the great army of office-holders who owe the opportu- 
 nity to earn their livelihood to the will of the dispensers of 
 party patronage ! 
 
 More than fifty years ago Daniel "Webster said of this 
 question of party patronage that " the power of bestowing 
 places and emoluments creates parties not upon any princi- 
 ple or any measure, but upon the single ground of personal 
 interest. Blind devotion to party, and to the head of a 
 party, thus takes the place of a sentiment of generous pa- 
 triotism and a high and exalted sense of public duty." And 
 in baneful fulfillment of this characterization we have but 
 recently witnessed the determined and largely triumphant 
 stand taken at first by Independents in politics, and subse- 
 quently adopted by the parties themselves, against the posi- 
 tion that party fealty was the only essential requirement for 
 political place. 
 
 The establishment of so large a portion of our civil list 
 upon lines of comparatively independent footing has largely 
 
The Independent in Politics. 497 
 
 contributed to the practicability of independent political 
 action, and constitutes an important element in the changed 
 environment which makes the Mugwump possible. 
 
 Nothing is more common than to underrate the numbers 
 and influence of the Mugwump. In the campaign of 1884 
 it was noticeable that while the party organs could scarcely 
 detect the existence of any considerable body of Mugwumps 
 in the State of New York, there was an actual personal en- 
 rollment of fifty thousand bolters from the Kepublican party 
 in the possession of the managers of the independent revolt. 
 And in the election for the mayoralty which took place 
 in this city in 1885 more than thirteen thousand voters left 
 their party lines to vote under conditions which assured to 
 them no other success at the polls than their enumeration 
 as men who disdained to follow their party in what in their 
 judgment were policies prejudicial to the best interests of 
 the city. Surely the tyranny of no party majority can be 
 very dangerous with so large a body of independent voters 
 ready to administer a prompt rebuke to its pretensions. 
 
 But there is one period in the political calendar when the 
 sweetness and light of the Mugwump, and his many civic 
 virtues, arrest the attention of even the party organ, and 
 that is during the three weeks or more immediately pre- 
 ceding election. It is true that this recognition is most 
 profusely proclaimed by organs of the minority party. When 
 especially desirous to lift into power, in the teeth of a large 
 majority on the other side, some especial "favorite son," 
 their readers are somewhat surprised to learn that " there 
 are certain honest men belonging to the majority party who 
 have the courage of their convictions, and who it is cur- 
 rently reported have announced their determination not to 
 tamely submit to the behest of the party," and straightway 
 these worthy gentlemen are exhorted to " follow the dictates 
 of patriotism and support the candidate of the minority 
 upon the broad ground of the public interest." 
 
 But however superlative may be the encomiums bestowed 
 upon the poor Mugwump just before election, when the bal- 
 lots are all counted and the result of his fine work is apparent, 
 he becomes the Pariah of local politics against whom every 
 man's hand is raised. The party whose candidates he has 
 defeated denounces him roundly as a traitor to the cause, 
 and the party which has availed itself of his vote declines 
 to recognize his existence, but speaks in its double-leaded 
 leader, with a rooster at the head of the column, of the 
 
498 The Independent in Politics. 
 
 " growing prominence of Republican (or Democratic, as the 
 case may be) principles in the ninety-ninth congressional 
 district." 
 
 But let us now return to examine briefly the function of 
 the independent voter. Can it be reasonably denied that 
 in a community such as this city, where more than a hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand votes are cast at each election, it is 
 of the greatest value to have existing, and known by both 
 sets of party leaders to so exist, a large body of citizens 
 whose position outside both parties precludes their acting 
 from motives of personal aggrandizement ? Is not the ex- 
 istence of such a body of men a constant menace to party 
 leaders against imposing upon voters either candidates or 
 policies of an especially vicious character ? And may it not 
 be reasonably expected that such a body of voters may come 
 in time to be the center of useful political education whence 
 may come knowledge and estimates concerning men and 
 public affairs untainted by party bias and personal greed ? 
 
 Can we hope to have our children intelligently cognizant 
 of current political events when they find that even the 
 facts in favor of or against either party are suppressed or 
 published by the party organ accordingly as this or the 
 other course will promote the party cause ? 
 
 It is the function and the duty of the Mugwump to approach 
 the consideration of all public questions from the stand- 
 point of public interest, and the value of his independent 
 position is, or ought to be, that he can do this with absolute 
 freedom from entangling alliances. The true Mugwump is 
 always found on the registry list. He is not indifferent to, 
 but profoundly interested in, every public question. He is 
 an industrious observer of the career of public men and the 
 action of State and municipal legislatures. He reads with 
 care the organs of both parties and then searches assiduously 
 for the truth elsewhere. He has a reason for the faith 
 that is within him, and is never afraid or ashamed to state 
 it. He has no private hiding-places in which certain of his 
 convictions must be stowed away when influential party 
 leaders appear. He gives no prizes to target excursions, 
 does not present to picnic organizations bright banners in- 
 scribed with his own name ; he carries about him no rail- 
 road passes, and is free to return or not, as he pleases, all 
 tickets to charitable balls. He is owned by nobody but him- 
 self ; he owns nobody but himself ; he sometimes hears him- 
 self referred to as a crank, but even that does not frighten 
 
The Independent in Politics. 499 
 
 him. He is the recipient of most soothing euphemisms be- 
 fore election and the most scathing denunciations after 
 election. Nevertheless, he talks plain Quaker talk about 
 the candidate, talks boldly about the tax-rate, calls attention 
 to the weakness of each party platform in the very heat of 
 the campaign, and is allowed to vote exactly as he pleases 
 on election day, and he is also sure to vote. 
 
 The Mugwump has also a most abiding confidence in the 
 greatness of his country. 
 
 If in what has already been said it has been necessary to 
 look plainly in the face certain political evils, let it not for 
 a moment be suspected that this has been done because 
 there were not apparent to the Mugwump the great under- 
 lying potentialities of patriotism which render utterly im- 
 possible the destruction or even serious impairment of our 
 great republican nationality. 
 
 The evils complained of are, after all, but the superficial 
 excrescences which evidence the speedy and prodigious ex- 
 pansion of our new commonwealth. It is just because of 
 our faith in the inviolable patriotism of the plain people 
 that we look for the development and maintenance of the 
 Independent in politics as at once the evidence and prophecy 
 of better rulers and a better citizenship. Ignorant vice and 
 polished selfishness may at times climb to the high places 
 of power, but all about them, if they will but look, they are 
 compelled to witness the agencies of their own dethrone- 
 ment. 
 
 If it be true, as I believe it is, that no permanent civiliza- 
 tion can rise higher than the standard of its average citizen, 
 so also is it sure that no largess of power can be long be- 
 stowed on a plane of action lower than the intelligence and 
 conscience of its average manhood. 
 
 I have said at the beginning of this paper that it was not 
 my purpose to advise any young man against alliance with 
 either of the great parties. I now repeat the assertion. I 
 do not forget that wise remark of Jefferson's that " it is the 
 sum of individual knowledge which is to make up the whole 
 truth." If the mistakes of genius are often overshadowing, 
 how does humility become the utterance of those of us who 
 are but walking the ordinary plane of citizenship ! 
 
 What I do insist upon is that in the hot pursuit of 
 party aims, and facing the treacherous temptations of per- 
 sonal ambition, while you may place your private judgment 
 in the scales of your political importance and preferment, 
 
500 The Independent in Politics. 
 
 you shall unswervingly retain within your own control the 
 immaculate pearl of your private conscience. Surrender it, 
 I beg of you, to no exigency of party ; bear it clear and high 
 above all political turmoil, keep it as Philip Sydney kept 
 his undaunted humanity, to the end, and be prepared, if 
 need be, at any moment to hold steadfast to your convic- 
 tions upon questions of right and wrong, even if they are 
 cherished by no single person other than yourself. 
 
 So, holding yourself within the lines of party organiza- 
 tion, you shall make for yourself and your posterity an hon- 
 orable repute. 
 
 But if, on the other hand, you shall find it better suited 
 to your views of political action to stand outside the popu- 
 lar current of politics, do not, I beg of you, be dismayed by 
 the paucity of numbers, nor fear that your voice and vote 
 will be lost. Look back along the line of the world's his- 
 tory and say if you be not standing on the same spot 
 where, during all the centuries, the men whose memories 
 you most reverently cherish have stood. Has not the van- 
 tage ground of genius ever been outside the camp of throng- 
 ing multitudes ? Have not the leaders of all progress been 
 the loud protestants of their generation? Do not the men 
 of high example who are worthy the completest imitation of 
 men of earnest thought and sincere desire bear on their 
 frontlets the scars of accusations overcome and derision 
 baffled? 
 
 The field is clear outside, the atmosphere unmixed with 
 doubts, the limbs unshackled. There are no mental limita- 
 tions or reservations ; there is but one master the truth ; 
 there is but one goal the truth ; there is but one weapon 
 the truth ; and this is the master which has led, the goal 
 which has inspired, and the weapon which has won the 
 priceless victories of all the ages. Prudence, conservatism, 
 independence, have been respectively the root, the stalk, 
 and the flower of all political evolution. 
 
 It is a great thing for one sincerely inspired by fealty to 
 party to say " I am a Democrat," or " I am a ^Republican " ; 
 it is a greater thing for one thrilling with patriotic devotion 
 to his country to say " I am an American " ; but greatest of 
 all is it for one, passing beyond the limitations alike of 
 party and of country, and taking into his unfettered vision 
 the entire human race, to say " I am a man." 
 
The Independent in Politics. 501 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 
 
 MR. ROBERT W. TAYLER : 
 
 I have to thank the other Mr. Taylor for having refuted the old 
 adage that it takes nine of us to make a man. In that he needs no 
 assistance. I feel like saying to him something like what was said to 
 Paul on a memorable occasion : Almost thou persuadest me to be a 
 Mugwump almost, but not quite. And therein lies the infirmity of 
 the Mugwump in failing to do all that which, with the powers given 
 him, he might do. Failing to accomplish all that you can is a sin, no 
 less than the failure to accomplish anything. I can find no fault with 
 my predecessor's definition of the Independent in politics. I under- 
 stand him to be one who refuses to join with any political party, but 
 at all times and under all circumstances acts as a free lance. He sus- 
 tains the same relation to the political army as the guerrilla to forces in 
 actual warfare. When he finds he can not accomplish his end in the 
 space between the two parties, he allies himself temporarily with one 
 or the other, usually with that which, in his judgment, has the fewest 
 fixed principles. I object to the Independent, not as a partisan, but 
 as a citizen as one who desires to see the greatest good accomplished 
 for the greatest number. I protest against the Mugwump because he 
 either proceeds from or tends toward Phariseeism. It is a condition 
 of mind and not of the body-politic which produces the Mugwump. 
 The desire to be alone proceeds from an unsocial disposition. He is 
 unlike his fellows ; he knows it ; and I do not know as he is to blame 
 for thanking God that he is so. He stands by himself and says : " I 
 am better than the parties ; my judgment is better than the combined 
 judgment of men," and therefore I say he either comes out of Phari- 
 seeism or is led into it. He shears himself of his usefulness by this 
 isolation, and the public loses confidence in the measures he pro- 
 poses. 
 
 Again, he either proceeds from or leads into a pessimistic view of 
 life and society. I do not believe the lecturer is naturally an Inde- 
 pendent ; he takes too kindly a view of the tendencies of the times. 
 He does not breathe the spirit of Lowell in his last years. When we 
 consider that for nearly his entire life each morning was brighter and 
 more beautiful to him than the one before, the flowers were sweeter, 
 and the days were fuller of a large and hopeful promise for mankind, 
 that life was richer and fuller as the years rolled by, and set over 
 
502 The Independent in Politics. 
 
 against this supreme fact of his earlier years the disposition of the 
 man as revealed in the address on " The Independent in Politics," who 
 saw nothing in society or politics that was hopeful, who said : " It is 
 admitted on all hands that matters have been growing worse for 
 twenty years, as it is the nature of evil to do " the pessimistic tend- 
 ency of his mind at this time is manifest. I am not going to discuss 
 the question whether things are actually growing better or worse. 
 Any one with his eyes open who declares that in society or politics the 
 moral tone has not risen in the last twenty years has fitted himself 
 for the exclusive fellowship of the Mugwumps. 
 
 Far be it from me to say that evil does not grow ; but Lowell would 
 not have used the expression I have quoted unless he meant just what 
 he said. If he believed that the growth of good was greater than the 
 growth of evil, he would have qualified his statement. He meant that 
 things were going down, that the moral tone of society had lowered. 
 He said that the newspapers referred to the buying of votes in a jocu- 
 lar manner without attempting to rebuke or break up the practice. I 
 think, on the contrary, it is rare to find anything in the press of this 
 country but declarations of the very highest doctrine relating to the 
 right of suffrage. 
 
 I object to the Independent in politics because he isn't as useful out 
 of the party as he might be in. It has been declared this evening with 
 great plausibility that Abraham Lincoln, in the period of his greatest 
 power, was an Independent. Nevertheless, he was undoubtedly always a 
 Republican, acting with his party. If he accomplished anything by his 
 independence, he accomplished it as a Republican, and would have been 
 powerless to accomplish it otherwise. Our last President of the United 
 States was a man who, before his election, had not given great atten- 
 tion to national questions ; but he was honest, and when he saw the 
 right he endeavored to do it. His party had been going on with un- 
 certain tread, but because he was in the party he formulated a doc- 
 trine of taxation and revenue for it ; and because of him, the party to- 
 day stands upon its feet in advocacy of a definite principle. The In- 
 dependent talks, but the party man acts. Phillips thundered, but 
 Greeley accomplished. Garrison dared, but Lincoln did. The Inde- 
 pendent in politics must be so not only in thought but in act. The 
 field of thought is boundless, but the field of action is limited by the 
 necessities of life. Very eloquently indeed did the gentleman close 
 his address, telling us how through all time men of genius have acted 
 independently and left their mark ; but that is not the point. The 
 scientist does not join himself to a certain school and say " I will al- 
 ways belong to it " ; his field of thought and experiment is absolutely un- 
 limited. But when it comes to questions of politics and government you 
 
The Independent in Politics. 503 
 
 are in a limited field. Every man interested must do something. What I 
 Act, or fajl to act ? Parties were defined to-night with great force and 
 accuracy. Every public measure must have one party in its favor 
 and another against it. There never can be more than two parties on 
 living, practical issues. One of two ways every man must take, or 
 he is powerless, and fails in his duty to himself and to society. He 
 may take one to-day and another to-morrow. If he takes one course 
 to-day because a certain principle is at issue, that leads to other and 
 kindred questions, and in the nature of things he is likely to keep 
 with his chosen comrades. If reflection leads him to change his views, 
 however, he has a right to change his party allegiance ; I never heard 
 any one question the right to leave one party and go to the other. 
 
 DR. LEWIS Gr. JANES: 
 
 Emerson declared that in religious development the tendency of a 
 higher culture and civilization is to create churches of one and 
 churches of two. According to Herbert Spencer, this is also the tend- 
 ency of advancing evolution in politics. Differentiation and integra- 
 tion is the law here as in the unfolding of the physical universe. The 
 ideal is not individual independence as a condition of selfish isolation 
 from one's fellows, but as a vantage ground for a higher influence and 
 more perfect voluntary co-operation. Political independence, absolute 
 and complete, is therefore the goal of political evolution. A party 
 like government itself, like all organizations is a temporary thing ; a 
 thing to be used by the individual as a tool for working out certain 
 desirable ends, so long as it is sharp and adapted to the work ; but 
 when it is outworn or dulled it should be set aside, and another taken 
 up. The last speaker referred to the Independent as if he refused to 
 act with any political party. This is not the fact, however. The 
 political Independent does not vote in the air, does not leave one party 
 to form a third, but always throws his influence with that party which 
 to him seems to represent the truest principles upon the questions 
 immediately at issue. This, indeed, was the avowed reason of the 
 grievance of our Republican friends against the Mugwumps of 1884 
 not that they withdrew from all party connection in selfish isolation, 
 but that they threw their influence and votes solidly for the Demo- 
 cratic party. 
 
 The word " Phariseeism," as used by our friends to indicate the 
 characteristics of political independency, shows that they are not suf- 
 ficiently familiar with religious history to deal safely with its phrase- 
 ology and nomenclature. Who was the Pharisee of nineteen hundred 
 years ago *? Was he a Mugwump, or Gome-outer $ Not at all. The 
 Pharisee was the very incarnation of party spirit. He claimed, indeed, 
 
504 The Independent in Politics. 
 
 to be the pre-eminent representative of the party of " great moral 
 ideas " of his time. The founder of Christianity, on the contrary, was 
 the truest Independent that the world ever saw. He proclaimed the 
 direct relation of the individual soul to the great questions of ethics 
 and religion. He founded no new sect, but gathered around him a 
 little company of men and women who dared to disregard the conven- 
 tionalisms of thought and life, and, from the vantage ground of personal 
 independence, to call their fellow-men to a higher obedience to the 
 moral law. Such are the people, always and everywhere, who have 
 exercised a supreme influence on men and affairs. Search through the 
 ages, in the field of politics or of religion, and you will find that the 
 men of influence, the men who have done the highest things for 
 humanity, were Independents not subservient followers of party or of 
 sect. The true political Independent is not one who " votes in the 
 air," not the political recluse, but the man who always obeys his con- 
 science, whether accused of inconsistency or not. " A foolish con- 
 sistency," he believes, with Emerson, " is the hob-goblin of little minds." 
 I believe the growth of human society in the future is to be in the 
 direction of the political and religious independence of the individual, 
 and the voluntary and intelligent co-operation of all for great and 
 beneficent ends. 
 
 ME. WALTER S. LOGAN : 
 
 The eloquent speaker of the evening has expounded the doctrines 
 and opinions which he has exemplified in his life and in [his conduct 
 throughout his political career. His preaching and practice agree. 
 But the charm of these meetings is in the discussion, where both sides 
 are presented. To-night I propose to speak as a party man not with- 
 out limitations, for I have been something of an Independent myself. 
 I am a member of the Reform Club, was one of its founders, and am 
 proud of its work. I listened to the speech of Mr. Lowell, referred to 
 by the gentleman who opened this discussion, and I did not see in it 
 any indication of pessimism or the decay of his great powers ; but I 
 recognized his courage in leaving a party which had been great but 
 was becoming corrupt, as the crowning act of a great career. It is 
 true that the grandest characters on the world's stage, whose sublime 
 courage and magnificent ability entitle them to the respect of all man- 
 kind, were Independents. The early Abolitionists were among them ; 
 the later Mugwumps are among them, as fearless and as patriotic as 
 any men that ever breathed ; and yet, much as I love the men and 
 admire their characters, I am not in full sympathy with their methods. 
 Their courage is often wasted. They would accomplish more if their 
 valor were tempered with discretion. We owe abolition to Lincoln, 
 
The Independent in Politics. 505 
 
 not to Garrison and Phillips. The trouble with the Independent is 
 that he is too self-sufficient. He is a sort of pious freebooter a 
 modern Don Quixote, who, however, usually attacks real giants and 
 not windmills. But while he gets undying glory, the other side 
 usually gets elected. I believe, therefore, in Party, but I do not wor- 
 ship at its shrine. I appreciate its defects, and would have it better. 
 But when I have a tree to cut down I use the best axe I have at hand, 
 and do not stop to apply the differential and integral calculus to the 
 curve of its blade. The Eepublican party of Abraham Lincoln was 
 by no means an ideal party, but, with all its faults, Lincoln led it to vic- 
 tory. If he was an Independent, where shall we look for a great parti- 
 san f The democratic party of Grover Cleveland, was by no means per- 
 fect. Some of its methods we could not accept, but he organized it 
 for victory, and accomplished more with it in four years than would 
 have been accomplished by an independent movement in a century. 
 The Independent of nineteen hundred years ago did not spread Chris- 
 tianity over the world until a Christian party was formed, and its 
 triumph is a triumph of organization and not of independency. 
 Organization and co-operation mean success. Independence means act- 
 ing alone, and this means failure. The age we live in is opposed to in- 
 dependency. We are dependent on others for all we have for life itself. 
 We are not living now in the kind of world we had even fifty years 
 ago. In the era of the Abolition movement men lived in the country, 
 raised their own food, made their own clothes, and did not rely on 
 others for help. Now we live in cities, manufactures are divided up 
 in many hands, all occupations are specialized, and every man is de- 
 pendent on his fellows for a living. A Mugwump in the physical 
 world would starve in a week. We can not set up an arbitrary 
 standard of ethics for ourselves any more than we can feed ourselves 
 without relying on the help of others. We can not stand up erect 
 with forty thousand people leaning against us, any more than we can 
 walk up Broadway at mid-day without turning to the right or to the 
 left. The organization may not be as good as we should like, but it 
 isn't as bad as the speaker has painted it. Do not be too independent. 
 It is as bad to lean backward as forward. The kick of a gun is 
 sometimes quite as deadly as its bullet. Be content to use the old 
 tools till you can get new ones. Keep in advance of the army, if you 
 will, but do not get out of sight of its serried columns, or you will fall 
 into the hands of the common enemy. 
 
 MR. JOHN A. TAYLOR, in reply : I have been so kindly dealt with that 
 there is little occasion for reply ; but I can not help saying one or two 
 things. My friend and namesake carried us back to Paul and Agrippa, 
 
506 The Independent in Politics. 
 
 and admitted that he was " almost persuaded " to be a Mugwump. 
 You will remember that it was Christianity to which Agrippa was 
 " almost persuaded," and it was the greatest mistake of his life that 
 he didn't allow Paul wholly to persuade him. I told you that our 
 critics would call us various pet names. My friend and namesake in- 
 dulged in a few, such as " Pharisee," and " guerrilla," and finally he 
 ended with a doleful view of our pessimism. The fact shows that 
 instead of having no influence, we are doing what we are trying to do, 
 and making it very lively for the " regular army." I was sorry when 
 my friend and brother and namesake got so sad over Mr. Lowell, when 
 he delivered the noble address which will live after his poetry is dead. 
 He said he had to appeal from it. Well, the Republican party had to 
 appeal from all its great men during the Elaine and Cleveland cam- 
 paign. Its chief men stayed in the party when the party stood for prin- 
 ciple. When the principle went out the men went out. After saying 
 that the Independent could accomplish more in a party than out of it, 
 Mr. Logan instanced Grover Cleveland. But his nomination was 
 forced and his election achieved by the Mugwump. The Democratic 
 party didn't dare to nominate any one else. The man they now want 
 to nominate is David B. Hill, and he is the man whom the Independ- 
 ents will not let them nominate. It was said that a Mugwump would 
 starve in a week if left alone. What really troubles our friends is 
 that we don't starve, but live and work and vote, and are on hand to 
 annoy them. If any man desires to join a political party he should 
 be at liberty to do so. If he prefers not to be labeled with any party 
 name, he should be permitted to stand outside with all the privileges 
 of citizenship which are accorded to the members of political organiza- 
 tions. The Independent stands for the right of private judgment in 
 political affairs, and he will continue so to stand until his position is 
 recognized and respected. 
 
MORAL 
 QUESTIONS IN POLITICS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN C. KIMBALL 
 
 AUTHOR OF EVOLUTION OF ARMS AND ARMOR 
 ZOOLOGY AS RELATED TO EVOLUTION, ETC. 
 
COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED: 
 
 Spencer's Justice, Principles of Sociology and Social Statics ; Ward's 
 Social Dynamics ; Mill On Liberty ; Smith's Liberty and Liberalism ; 
 Fitz-James Stephen's Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity; Mulford's 
 The Nation ; Emerson's Essay on Politics ; Lieber's Political Ethics ; 
 Garrison's Life of William Lloyd Garrison ; Sumner's Speeches on the 
 Slavery Question ; Wendell Phillips's Speeches, and Phi Beta Kappa 
 Oration ; George Q. Cannon's Speeches on Mormonism ; Trial of the 
 Chicago Anarchists; Iles's The Liquor Question in Politics; Fernald's 
 Economics of Prohibition ; Oswald's The Poison Problem ; Pitman's 
 Alcohol and the State ; Ellis's The Criminal ; Ryland's Crime, its Cause 
 and its Remedy ; Tallack's Penological and Preventive Principles. 
 
MORAL QUESTIONS IN POLITICS, 
 
 AS RELATED TO THE OTHER METHODS OF THEIR 
 TREATMENT. 
 
 BY JOHN C. KIMBALL. 
 THE NEW POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 WHILE exploring with a party of friends several years ago 
 one of the many crab-like arms with which Puget Sound 
 crawls back from the sea up into the land, our boat anchored 
 for the afternoon in a picturesque spot under the shadow 
 of the Olympic mountains to allow the amateur artists on 
 board mostly ladies to make a sketch of its beautiful scen- 
 ery. Suddenly the silence of lead-pencils, which had been 
 reigning supreme for an hour or more, was broken by the 
 horrified exclamation of a feminine voice, " Oh ! oh ! oh ! 
 we are all adrift ! " Its occasion was the tide, which, up 
 there amid the innumerable inlets it has to visit, often gets 
 bewildered and loses all sense of its obligations to the moon, 
 sometimes piling itself up twenty-four feet at once, some- 
 times rising or falling six hours and calling that a day's 
 work, and sometimes running so long in one direction that, 
 like a sentence many-phrased, it seems to have lost all con- 
 nection with its starting point the tide unexpectedly 
 turned, that was bearing our boat its cable's length the 
 other way from its anchor. On coming to a stand again, 
 which it did in a moment or two, the scene we had been 
 sketching, though itself the same as at first, was, in the 
 aspect it presented to us, an almost entirely different thing. 
 The white man's cabin, the Indian's tent, and the dog's 
 humble kennel, before wide apart, were now in exact range 
 with each other. The houses and hewn logs had made a 
 complete swap in their visible sides and ends. A beautiful 
 white cataract, concealed before in all except its music, had 
 come plainly into sight ; and even the great snow-peaked 
 mountains, immovable as they were at their granite bases, 
 were parallaxed against a stretch of blue sky quite different 
 from the cloudy one against which at first they had seemed 
 to lean. Most of the artists, recognizing the changed per- 
 
 (509) 
 
510 Moral Questions in Politics. 
 
 spective, threw their old sketches aside and began wholly 
 new ones from their new point of view. But some, hating 
 to lose their work, went on and finished out what they had 
 begun, a part by drawing the uncompleted things as they 
 remembered them to have looked, and others by simply 
 adding them on as they now appeared. At the close of the 
 afternoon we organized an extempore art exhibition. The 
 wholly new pictures, though somewhat hasty, were all well 
 enough. But the others ! Besides the mistakes of memory 
 and the ludicrous results which had arisen from the mixing 
 up of the two perspectives the houses and logs with both 
 ends visible, and the dog, the Indian, and the white man 
 each with a double background they all had a horrified 
 jerk of the pencil where the exclamation " We're adrift ! " 
 had come in, exceedingly significant historically, but other- 
 wise as unmeaning in art as the sudden quirk was in chirog- 
 raphy that used to adorn our writing-books at the district 
 school when the master came up from behind and rapped 
 our knuckles with his ruler to keep us from making crooked 
 lines. And, as we compared the two results, we all con- 
 cluded that the best way to draw pictures when the tide has 
 turned is to begin the whole thing anew and draw every 
 object in them directly from its new point of view. 
 
 What took place with our tugboat on Puget Sound has 
 taken place in our day with the bark of thought on the sea 
 of life. Its tide has turned the great tide of philosophy 
 sweeping here and there in past ages through all manner of 
 strange channels, turned at last in this bright afternoon of 
 the nineteenth century to the side of evolution ; and it has 
 inevitably changed with it the point of view from which 
 the whole universe is to be seen. It is a tremendous change. 
 Not unnaturally, when first discovered, it wrung forth from 
 timid lips the ejaculation, " Oh ! oh ! oh ! we're all adrift ! " 
 And there are some even now who refuse to recognize in 
 their work that anything has taken place ; some who go on 
 teaching and describing things from the old creation stand- 
 point, just as they did before ; and others ministers, alas ! 
 who do indeed recognize the new position, but who think 
 the only safe way is to mix up the two in their views, look 
 at Nature and natural science from the standpoint of evolu- 
 tion, and at religion and ethics from that of creation, and 
 who, with a miracle of perspective such as the devoutest saint- 
 painter of the middle ages never dreamed of, represent the 
 Bible, Jesus, Christianity, and our human nature as showing 
 
Moral Questions in Politics. 511 
 
 at the same time a natural and a supernatural origin and end. 
 But the great body of thinking people are coming to see 
 more and more clearly that if they would not make their 
 work ridiculous, the only true way is to lay aside reverently 
 all forms of it drawn from their old position, retaining only 
 the ripened skill it gave them, and begin the whole thing 
 over again from the standpoint of evolution. Religion, his- 
 tory, sociology, natural science, education, economics, even 
 ethics, each has got to be entirely rewritten. The objects 
 themselves which they deal with, these of course are the 
 same ; but their perspective, their relation to each other 
 and to the eye which sees them, often a vastly more impor- 
 tant element in the truth of things than any special facts 
 about them that is changed, that change what henceforth 
 in any fair consideration of them must assuredly be taken 
 into account. The subject you have given me to discuss this 
 evening Moral Questions in Politics is one which needs 
 pre-eminently such a revised treatment. And interpreting 
 it in a large way as meaning not so much a consideration 
 of the special moral questions that are now prominent in 
 politics as of the principle of acting politically on any such 
 questions, and a comparison with it of the other great 
 methods of their settlement making it, in fact, include the 
 whole field of how society's moral progress under evolution 
 is to be brought about my aim will be to present its parts 
 not as an advocate, but in their natural grouping, and with 
 all alike of the lights and shadows that from this new stand- 
 point they themselves show. 
 
 EVOLUTION'S DEFINITION OF MORAL QUESTIONS. 
 
 What, as related to the body politic, are moral questions ? 
 Here, at the very threshold of the subject, the world's 
 changed perspective makes itself manifest. We all know 
 what have been regarded as such hitherto. They have 
 been questions about slavery, intemperance, gambling, 
 the social evil, the treatment of criminals, the rights of 
 women, and the like, as distinguished from questions that 
 were simply sanitary, civil, economic, industrial, military, 
 and the like ; and their moral quality has been thought to 
 consist, the same as with the individual, in their relation 
 sometimes to utility, sometimes to happiness, sometimes to 
 the Divine will, and sometimes to an eternal distinction in 
 the nature of things. But under evolution this old limita- 
 
512 Moral Questions in Politics. 
 
 tion with regard to them is largely wiped out. The scope 
 of morality is made by it to be everything in man's conduct, 
 both individual and social, physical and spiritual, which re- 
 lates to his full development and well-being ; or, as Spencer 
 puts it, " the moral law is the law of the complete life, the 
 law of the perfect man, the law of that state toward which 
 creation tends." It does not exclude the idea of an eter- 
 nal distinction in the nature of things between right and 
 wrong, any more than counting on the fingers does the 
 necessity that two and two would still make four even in a 
 world which had no fingers to be counted on; does not 
 deny that, so far as the individual is concerned, motive, 
 volition, knowledge, capacity, are important elements in 
 determining the moral character of an action ; but it says 
 that the only way in which we can know of the distinction 
 is by the accumulated experience of the individual and the 
 race with regard to their effects, and that so far as society 
 is concerned it is the effects alone that are to be considered 
 the right being all those things which, taken as a rule, tend 
 to promote the well-being of its members, no matter how 
 material their form, or lowly their motive ; the wrong, all 
 those which, taken as a rule, tend to prevent it, no matter 
 how religious their garb or worthy their motive. And 
 wherever it finds a question as to which of these two courses 
 the community shall allow its members to enter upon or 
 continue in, wherever a question of what will enable men 
 in their relations with each other to best secure the great 
 ends of life, whether it be that of freeing a street from 
 filth or a race from bondage, there it finds what to society 
 is a moral question. 
 
 It is the only definition which really covers the whole 
 inner field even of recognized morality is a theory which, 
 instead of making ethics less rigorous and wide-reaching in 
 forbidding robbery and murder and the like, as Mr. Huxley 
 seems to fear, makes it a great deal more imperative and 
 comprehensive. What are the worst crimes against life and 
 property that society suffers from? Not those which are 
 committed with the point of a pistol and the blow of a 
 bludgeon, but often those which are committed with a 
 point of law and a piece of financiering. Here is a factory 
 whose agent insists against all remonstrance on keeping its 
 windows closed because of the finer cloth he can thus make, 
 out of which a girl is carried fainting who in three weeks 
 dies. Out of a dwelling-house near by another girl is car- 
 
Moral Questions in Politics. 513 
 
 ried, stabbed, who in three weeks dies also. The one is 
 called a murder, and its agent is hanged for it. The other 
 is called a misfortune, and its agent gets a dividend of ten 
 per cent for it and is admitted to the Church. Is there any 
 justice in such a distinction any reason why all such cases 
 should not be defined and dealt with as of the same moral 
 character anything in the philosophy which does it which 
 lessens the stigma attaching to them as robbery and murder ? 
 What constitutes the real essence of slavery. Not alone the 
 owning of a human being. When it began, as it did, in 
 the sparing of a captive's life, it was a virtue. No ; but 
 the treating of a man as a thing, the supplanting of his own 
 will with the will of another, one of the most deadly ways of 
 interfering with his well-being. And wherever this is done, 
 whether in a Southern cotton- field under a system of lashes, 
 or in a Northern workshop under a system of wages, or in 
 a Utopian government under a system of laws, why is not the 
 question of how to prevent it as much in the one case as in 
 the other a moral question a widening, therefore, of the 
 ethical field? What is the real difference between those 
 matters which ordinarily are called economical and sanitary 
 and those which ordinarily are catalogued as ethical and 
 moral ? How many are the instances in which it is only 
 that of flower and fruit, cause and effect ? What makes a 
 man a drunkard? How often is it starvation wages! 
 Where do filthy lives come from? How frequently from 
 filthy lodgings ! Debase the coin of a country, and how 
 quickly will an alloy appear in its conscience ! Put a tariff 
 on its merchandise, and what is better proved by all experi- 
 ence than that it will pay a large part of it with its morals ? 
 And with such a relation between them is there any other 
 consistent principle than to class them all together as parts 
 more or less evolved of one moral species, steps higher up 
 or lower down of one majestic ladder ; anything in doing 
 so that does not give duty a broader base and a wider 
 
 It is the only definition which affords a solid ground for 
 the thorough scientific study and treatment of moral ques- 
 tions. The great difficulty with their investigation hitherto 
 has been their wide separation as regards the origin of 
 what is most distinctive in them from all the other depart- 
 ments of scientific inquiry the doctrine that though their 
 root was in " the nature of things," it was a " nature " that 
 did not mean nature, and " things " that had nothing to do 
 
514 Moral Questions in Politics. 
 
 with things. Trying to trace their principles into it was 
 like pursuing a defaulting cashier or a boodle alderman 
 from the United States into Canada, an experience in which 
 science came suddenly to a dividing line where its writs of 
 observation and experiment were no longer of any authority, 
 and where only the royal missives of intuition were recog- 
 nized. And with such a difference of jurisdictions, in one 
 of which were the deeds and in the other the doers, it is no 
 wonder that their treatment has been haphazard and con- 
 fused, an application of remedies to effects rather than to 
 their cause. It is a difficulty that the evolutionary view of 
 what constitutes their moral character entirely removes. 
 The " nature of things " under which they are to be studied 
 is real nature. And there is no longer any inconsistency in 
 recognizing that the root of an evil may be in a sewer be- 
 cause its fruit is in a soul. 
 
 THE OBJECTIONS TO MAN'S MEDDLING IN ANY WAT 
 WITH SUCH QUESTIONS. 
 
 How are moral questions thus defined to be dealt with ? 
 Back of the inquiry as to whether it should be through 
 politics is the more primitive one needing first to be settled 
 as to whether it should be through any human agency at 
 all, except as man is unconsciously the agent of the Power 
 which has the universe in charge. There is a large school 
 of thinkers who distrust all interference of the human will 
 for moral ends with the processes of Nature, and especially 
 with its processes in other men. They are not only indig- 
 nant, as the English girl was with the swimmer who vent- 
 ured, without an introduction, to save her from drowning, 
 but beyond this they deny the right of any man and of any 
 body of men to save them or save society from anything 
 without a direct request. Let things do themselves, is their 
 motto. The mighty forces of evolution, which have shaped 
 the physical universe so wonderful and fair, rounded out 
 the earth with its marvelous adaptations of part to part, un- 
 folded the animal and vegetable kingdoms to their perfec- 
 tion of form, and built up the human body into its splen- 
 did capacities of action, are not going to depend on man's 
 puny aid, they say, for success, now that society is to be or- 
 ganized and morals evolved. The youth who took the place 
 of Phoebus on the chariot of the sun and attempted to drive 
 its fiery steeds over the azure pave to their home in the 
 
Moral Questions in Politics. 515 
 
 "West is to them modesty itself as compared with the man 
 who would take the reins of Nature in his hands and guide 
 its forces to their moral goal. They find history filled with 
 the mistakes and blunders of the world's would-be reform- 
 ers. The objects that one age has labored for with all its 
 ethical might have been, how often, the horror and curse 
 of the next! Who would accept the ideals set forth in 
 Plato's Republic, Sydney's Arcadia, and More's Utopia, as 
 comparing for one moment with the realities that society 
 has come to in the actual course of events ? What is the 
 source of nine tenths of the tramps, drunkards, criminals, 
 and good-for-nothings that society is afflicted with to-day ? 
 The mistaken Christian charity, it is answered, that for 
 eighteen hundred years has been keeping alive a class of 
 persons to perpetuate their stock that Nature, let alone to 
 execute her law providing for the survival only of the fittest, 
 would long since have laid harmlessly away in graveyards. 
 There are many evils, it is said, the same as there are many 
 insects, which serve better than any human wisdom to keep 
 each other down " Evil its errand hath as well as good " 
 so that when one set is destroyed by man's interference 
 it only gives the others a better chance to operate ; many 
 reforms, also, that have a natural connection with each other 
 and with the world's physical progress, so that if any one 
 is artificially developed faster than its fellows, no matter 
 how good it may be in itself, it results, the same as with a 
 flower pushed ahead of the spring-time, or with one organ of 
 the body ahead of the rest, in a maladjustment of the 
 new good which in its effects is worse tenfold than the 
 old evil. And from such facts it is argued that instead of 
 trying to guide Nature's coach ourselves, either politically 
 or otherwise, our true course is to sit down very quietly at 
 her side and leave its reins very carefully in her hands. 
 
 THE WORLD'S INDWELLING POWER THAT MAKES FOR 
 RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 Far be it from me to deny or undervalue in any way the 
 tremendous moral strain of Nature's own work. There is 
 no other standpoint that mind can take from which it 
 looms up so conspicuous and so undeniable as from that 
 of evolution. It is the great mountain stream rising in 
 the far-off cloudy peaks of the world's nebulous state, and 
 flowing down with ever-increasing volume through its 
 
516 Moral Questions in Politics. 
 
 starry gorges, its bent and distorted geological strata, 
 and its monstrous animal forms into the regions of its civ- 
 ilized life, the stream on the banks of which all human 
 moralities are built, and by the force of which all human 
 reforms are carried on. The universe itself all through is a 
 moral agent, not of the kind perhaps always that would win 
 the prize at a Sunday school, or get its practitioner admitted 
 into good society as a model of deportment, but one that 
 has been true to its great principle of doing what would 
 conduce best to the ever higher well-being of itself and its 
 creatures ; one that has come up from the wild orgies of its 
 saurian youth into the decencies of a nineteenth-century 
 manhood, and from its myriad bloody-nosed rounds of fisti- 
 cuff with savages and barbarians to the battle-fields of civil- 
 ized industry and to the victories of enlightened peace. If 
 its contests at first were only those of brute strength and 
 brute cunning, and its survivals the survivals only of those 
 that were physically fittest, it was simply to lay the founda- 
 tions of its final moral structure the more solid and secure, 
 simply because the root of moral right, as we now know, is 
 in a right physical soil. And the lily and the lark have not 
 more surely come out of the awful struggles for existence 
 of the vegetable and animal worlds than Love's flower and 
 Religion's song have from the wars of hate and from the 
 grovelings of passion in the moral world. 
 
 THE CONSISTENCY or MAN'S ACTIVITY WITH THAT OF 
 NATURE. 
 
 But this recognition of Nature's inherent moral strain, 
 instead of doing away with the need of man's voluntary 
 effort in the same direction, is a stimulus all the more to its 
 use. The human will is not a separate thing from Nature 
 any more than the human body is, but is a part of Nature 
 one of its grandest parts. The daring injunction of the old 
 apostle Paul, " Work out your own salvation with fear and 
 trembling, for it is God that worketh in you both to will 
 and to do," expresses the true relation of the two agents. 
 And it is because of this mighty power working within us, 
 because our little human wheel is belted to the great driv- 
 ing-wheel of the universe, that we can take hold of moral 
 questions with some hope of being an aid in their solu- 
 tion. 
 
 The right to do so, and especially the right of the indi- 
 
Moral Questions in Politics. 517 
 
 vidual to help in the solution of those matters which con- 
 cern other individuals, is based on the fact that man is 
 not a unit separate from all other units, but a member 
 with them of an organism in whose welfare his own well- 
 being is vitally bound up, and for whose conduct he shares 
 with them the responsibility. There is indeed a sphere in 
 which the individual is supreme, and into which no other 
 man and no body of men have the right without his consent 
 to intrude a sphere in which he must be good or bad, 
 saved or lost by and for himself alone. Its existence is one 
 of the grandest and most distinctive facts of our humanity. 
 It is a realm in which the poorest beggar is monarch ; a 
 plantation on which the most abject slave is master; a 
 castle in which, more truly than in his home, every English- 
 man and every man is lord. And any social system that 
 would take it away or narrow its bounds, whatever com- 
 pensation of other blessings it may promise, is to be fought 
 against as man's bitterest foe. Not less true is it, however, 
 that there are other relations in which the individual is 
 only one part of a larger unit, one state of a grander king- 
 dom, and in which he normally both controls and is con- 
 trolled by its other members. It is these two organisms, 
 each legitimate, each the product of Nature, each vibrating 
 rhythmically back and forth into the other, that make hu- 
 manity. All the great questions between individualism 
 and socialism turn on the extent to which their existence 
 is recognized, one party going to the extreme of making the 
 individual the all in all, the other to the extreme of subordi- 
 nating everything to the control of society. Evolution 
 recognizes them both in its principles of differentiation and 
 integration ; Christianity both in its command, Thou shalt 
 love thy neighbor as thyself words which mean not as 
 much as thyself, but as being a part of thy larger self. 
 And just precisely as the individual has the right to answer 
 alone all moral questions in the realm where he alone is 
 concerned, on precisely the same ground he has the right to 
 join with others in answering all those in the sphere where 
 he has with them a common interest. 
 
 Then as to the wisdom and policy of attempting to 
 guide Nature's forces to their moral goal are they not as 
 pronounced here as in the use of the human will any- 
 where? Men do not act on the laissez-faire doctrine in 
 the other relations of life do not let the fields alone to give 
 them only their native fruits, or the winds and waves alone 
 
518 Moral Questions in Politics. 
 
 to toss them where they please, or diseases and sickness 
 alone to kill them in their own good time, or the lightnings 
 and the cataract and the expansive power of steam alone 
 to advance society after their own slow fashion. No ; they 
 mix them up with humanity ; they bit their wild mouths ; 
 they harness their mighty forces; they mount the box 
 behind their swift heels ; they guide them, loaded with ten 
 thousand human interests, to goals that by themselves alone 
 they would never reach. What is all civilization as com- 
 pared with barbarism, what is America to-day, jeweled with 
 cities, laced with railroads, waving with wheat-fields, rich 
 with thought, as compared with America three centuries 
 ago, a howling wilderness, but the refusal of men in other 
 things to act on the let-alone principle ? Why now should 
 they act on it in the moral world ? Why not join hands 
 with Nature in curing the diseases of the social body, rais- 
 ing richer virtues in the field of the soul, utilizing with tem- 
 perance factories the eternal power that makes for right- 
 eousness, steaming labor on to justice, and making a 
 trolley-system by which right's lightning shall hasten hu- 
 manity's plodding feet on to its goal? With Nature's force 
 the same eternal mystery everywhere, is there any more 
 immodesty in seeking to drive it with one rein than with 
 another, any more impudence in guiding its stream of 
 righteousness than in guiding its stream of life, any more 
 absurdity in using it to improve a virtue than in using it 
 to improve a vine ? What if mistakes are made ? They 
 are not made in morals any oftener than they are in art and 
 science and philosophy, and in everything else with which 
 man has to deal are a part of the food on which here, as 
 everywhere else, man grows up into success. What if re- 
 forms do need to move on together, so that a good one 
 pushed ahead of the others becomes an evil? There is 
 just about as much danger of mankind's making the earth 
 wobble on its axis by their all crowding into its one good 
 country as there is of their disturbing its moral balance by 
 their all uniting in one reform. Taste averages here as 
 safely as in all other things. And just as the same swing 
 of the earth along its orbit that brings the bobolink to his 
 northern home in spring-time, brings him the green 
 meadows to sing in, just so the same eternal spirit, in its 
 larger orbit that inspires the reformer to utter his song, 
 operates to make the field ready in which it is to be sung, 
 and to make spring also in all its surrounding fields. 
 
Moral Questions in Politics. 519 
 
 How has the world's moral progress thus far been car- 
 ried on ? Just as certainly by the action of human wills 
 as by the great working force of Nature. The crown and 
 climax of the universe's moral force, the last and finest 
 form in which it ultimates itself, is mankind's volition. 
 Other things are used to make its trunk and limbs, but it 
 blossoms only in souls and fruits itself only through wills. 
 
 More important still, it is man's personal effort in moral 
 questions that is the source of that best of all results that 
 comes out of them, his own moral character. If Nature 
 did all, and man was only the recipient, reforms might in- 
 deed be conducted as well as, perhaps better than, they are 
 now ; but they would not and could not have that wonder- 
 ful flavor about them which makes them distinctively moral. 
 It is the giver, not receiver, that in the struggles of human- 
 ity upward gets the greater blessing. 
 
 " Not the grapes of Canaan that repay, 
 But the high faith that failed not on the way." 
 
 What was the most precious outcome of the antislavery 
 struggle and our civil war? Not the freedom of the slave, 
 or the salvation of the Union, or the new life it gave to 
 liberty beyond the seas No ; but the new manhood into 
 which it lifted up ourselves, the finer quality of Union that 
 it brought to our whole land, North and South. It is this 
 kind of success that always comes in all moral struggles, 
 however much they fail outwardly this the laurel that the 
 vanquished equally with the victors all win in the battles 
 that are fought for human rights. 
 
 So I say in answer to this part of the inquiry that it is a 
 strict deduction from the principles of evolution that men 
 are to take an active part in dealing with the world's moral 
 issues I saw a coachman a while ago with his chubby two- 
 year-old boy on the seat in front of him driving a spirited 
 pair of horses. " He is young yet," said he, " and I keep a 
 
 food grip on the reins back of him ; but he'll come to it 
 imself with a little practice by and by. He's got the blood 
 of six generations of coachmen in him, and blood tells the 
 same here as everywhere Why," he continued, " we're all 
 of us born into the world with a twist in our wrists for 
 holding the ribbons ; and I am going to train him so that 
 when I am old and decrepit I can sit on the back seat feel- 
 ing safe and let him do all the driving." So with Nature. 
 Yes; ridiculous as it has been thought to be, she has taken 
 34 
 
520 Moral Questions in Politics. 
 
 her boy, Man, with her up on the great coach of the uni- 
 verse and has given him its reins. He is young yet, and 
 she keeps a good grip on them herself at the same time. 
 But he has got her stock in him for sixty thousand genera- 
 tions, and she knows that such stock in the end will tell. 
 He, too, is born every time with a twist in his soul- wrists 
 for moral driving. And in the long eons yet to come, when 
 her form outwardly has grown old and decrepit, she too, 
 perhaps, expects to sit on the back seat of the spiritual uni- 
 verse and let him do all the driving. 
 
 THE HUMAN FACTOES. 
 
 The settling of this point, however, does not by any 
 means settle the whole subject. There are two ways of 
 driving, two methods in morals of helping things along. 
 One is with politics, state authority, and the whip and spur 
 of law ; the other with inward principle, voluntary associa- 
 tion, and the voice and rein of reason. And the question 
 yet to be answered is, Which of these does evolution lead up 
 to and sanction? 
 
 LAW ASTD THE STATE. 
 
 The great nations of antiquity, as is well known, placed 
 their chief reliance on the first of these methods. The 
 words of Pliny, Non est princeps supra leges> sed leges supra 
 principem principle is not above laws, but laws are above 
 principle and of Aristotle, that the state exists before the 
 individual, and not the individual before the state, ex- 
 pressed the almost universal sentiment. What the world 
 in its early days wanted beyond everything else, wanted 
 with an intensity we can hardly realize now, was stability, 
 a condition of things fixed against change, violence, dis- 
 order; and this it had in the state, this the origin and 
 meaning of its name. Its form at first was naturally im- 
 perialism that of the one strong man who could suppress 
 disorder. He was its government ; his will its law ; obe- 
 dience to him its morals. The oft-quoted saying of Louis 
 XIV, " I am the state," was what all kings believed ; the 
 pious sentiment of the Bishop of Rheims, " When God had 
 made Napoleon he rested from his labors," an expression of 
 the reverence for great leaders as the greatest of divine 
 gifts that all people felt. . But kings were not always king- 
 
Moral Questions in Politics. 521 
 
 ly or rulers always righteous ; and little by little, each step 
 a battle, each line a revolution, legalism took the place of 
 imperialism, the people's law of the prince's will. Frederick 
 the Great, wishing a windmill removed from before his pal- 
 ace that its owner would not sell, threatened to have it 
 taken away by force. " There is a supreme court at Ber- 
 lin," answered the miller; and the windmill stands before 
 the palace to this day, a monument to the might of law 
 against the might even of kings. But amid all these changes 
 of form the state itself remained, the center of men's hopes, 
 the object of their devotion, as honored under law as leader, 
 demos as despot. The habit acquired through long ages of 
 reverencing it as the source of all public order and the 
 means of all public good had become a part of our very 
 nature. And so it was almost inevitable when men in the 
 progress of modern civilization came to have great moral 
 questions to deal with that they should look to politics and 
 political action as the chief, if not the only, means by which 
 they could be satisfactorily settled. 
 
 THE CHANGE OF SENTIMENT WITH REGARD TO LAW. 
 
 Evolution, however, has no sooner built up anything, 
 even a sentiment, than it begins either to tear it down or 
 to shape it over into something else. Gradually in our time 
 a change is taking place in not a few minds with regard 
 to the value of law and the state as the means of promot- 
 ing any of man's interests. Emerson's words "We are 
 kept by better gods than the will of magistrates " ; " good 
 men must not obey the laws too well " ; " to educate the 
 wise man the state exists, and with the appearance of the 
 wise man the state expires " express a widespread feeling 
 not among cranks and bomb-throwers merely, but among 
 sober, orderly, peaceful thinkers. It is the same kind of so- 
 ciological change, only a stage farther along, as that by 
 which imperialism gave way to constitutionalism and the 
 potentate to the politician a change by which now legalism 
 is giving way to individualism, law to liberty, politics to 
 principle. The old order which put the state above the 
 citizen, the laws above principles, has been already entirely 
 reversed. Governments are being remanded, if not into 
 the rubbish heap of the world's back yard, yet into a sec- 
 ondary and subordinate place. And whereas men have re- 
 lied in the past on the sovereign and the statute book for 
 
522 Moral Questions in Politics. 
 
 order, safety, property, happiness, they are now fast coming 
 to rely for them simply on themselves. 
 
 IMPERFECTIONS OF THE POLITICAL METHOD. 
 
 It is a change which has pre-eminently made itself felt in 
 the estimate of politics as a means of dealing with moral 
 questions. The very names of the two things have come to 
 have a natural incongruity with each other. As Emerson 
 says, " What satire on government can equal the word poli- 
 tic, which for ages has signified cunning, intimating that 
 the state is a trick ? " 
 
 Who are chosen to act as our legislators ? If it is a ques- 
 tion of carpentry, we do not trust a man to build even a 
 hen-coop who has not had some little apprenticeship at the 
 trade ; but in this most difficult of all arts, the building of 
 a state, the shaping of what is to be a moral habitation, the 
 one, as Burke says, that " requires all the experience a per- 
 son can gain in his whole life," how often are those chosen 
 who have never spent one hour in studying the real nature 
 of government and of morals, and whose sole qualification 
 is their ability to manipulate a caucus, pander to a popular 
 prejudice, or, it may be, buy outright the popular vote ! 
 
 What are moral questions used for in politics ? As soon 
 as the first outburst of enthusiasm is over out of which the 
 parties that take them up are born, how inevitably does the 
 execution of their principles sink into a secondary place, 
 and their main use become the keeping of their advocates 
 in power ! If Jove laughs at lovers' vows, how he must roar 
 at politicians' promises ! The performances of a circus on 
 its advertising board fence and in its actual equestrian ring, 
 or even the virtues of a citizen on his grave-stone and in his 
 life, are hardly wider apart than those of a political party 
 before election and afterward. The story is told in the ad- 
 ventures of the famous Baron Munchausen, that coming 
 one night to what seemed a great island in the far-off sea, 
 some of his sailors climbed up its steep sides and made on 
 its top a fire with which to cook their supper. The sup- 
 posed island, however, proved to be a huge whale asleep on 
 the water ; and as soon as the fire had burned a little into 
 his blubber, it waked him up and down he went, sailors, 
 supper, fire, and all, to his home in the vasty deep. And 
 that is the experience reformers have had again and again 
 when they have climbed up on the back of some apparently 
 
Moral Questions in Politics. 523 
 
 continental political party and kindled there the moral fire 
 with which to cook a supper of temperance, woman's suffrage, 
 or labor rights. As soon as it began to burn down into the 
 fat, how quickly has it become a whale and left them and 
 their cause exactly where Munchausen's sailors were, floun- 
 dering in the watery deep ! As Hosea Biglow declares : 
 
 " Constitouents are bendy to help a man in, 
 But arterwards they don't weigh the heft of a pin." 
 
 Then the methods by which politics and legislation are 
 carried on the manipulations of the caucus and primary 
 meeting, the torchlight processions, hurrahing and mudfling- 
 ing of the campaign, and the logrolling, bribery, and parti- 
 sanship of the lobby-room who will say they are the ones 
 out of which nice moral results are likely to come ? Is there 
 really any evil in society to-day that politics can be set 
 to run down which is worse than politics itself, anything 
 which needs reforming more imperatively than the would- 
 be political reformer? A dudish hunter went out into 
 the woods one morning with his equally dudish dog and 
 started a wolf. An hour after, meeting a grim old farmer, 
 he asked him if he had seen anything of the two. " Oh, 
 yes," said the farmer, " I saw them going by here a lit- 
 tle while ago fast as they could run." " And how near 
 were they to each other ? " anxiously inquired the youth. 
 "Well," answered the farmer, "the dog when I saw them 
 was about two lengths ahead, but the wolf was fast over- 
 hauling him, and I guess that by this time they are just 
 about together." So with very much of the politics that 
 we have started out to hunt down moral evil. The hunter 
 may indeed be some two lengths ahead now, but the game 
 is fast coming up with him, and the two very soon will 
 be together one inside of the other. 
 
 But even where politics is pure and honest, as, indeed, 
 it sometimes is, even when the wisest and best of men 
 get together to make laws, as, indeed, they sometimes do, 
 there are limitations in the method itself which make it in 
 dealing with moral issues only of partial value. The pro- 
 posed law has to be cut and trimmed and pared down to 
 meet their varying tastes. It never can be the embodi- 
 ment of the highest and most advanced principles, never at 
 the best ahead of what the average mind, the bare majority 
 of a people, will sustain ; otherwise it will be only a dead 
 letter. And when it is enforced 'it secures to itself only an 
 
524 Moral Questions in Politics. 
 
 outward obedience, not the homage of the soul ; cuts down 
 the branch of evil, but leaves its root to unfold, it may be, 
 in a far worse shape ; suppresses the saloon, but drives the 
 jug into the home ; wipes out slavery, but puts in its place 
 the race problem ; shuts up the brothel, but sows the whole 
 city with its inmates ; provides, perhaps, in the very fact of 
 obedience to its letter, a quietus to the conscience for break- 
 ing, all the more, its inward spirit. " Sammy," said a mother 
 to her little boy who was playing in the yard, and whom 
 she wished to keep from the dangers of the street, " don't 
 you go out of that gate." " No, mother," he answered, " I 
 won't go out of it." Ten minutes after, beholding him 
 making mud pies right between the cart ruts, she angrily 
 exclaimed : " Samuel, why didn't you obey me ? Didn't I 
 tell you not to go out of that gate ? " " Yes, mother," he re- 
 plied, " and I did obey you. I didn't go out of the gate ; I 
 climbed over the fence." How many are the grown-up 
 Samuels who strictly obey the State Mother when she tells 
 them not to go out of the gate into eviL but who in doing 
 so manage all the same to make for themselves plenty of 
 mud pies out in the roads of vice and wrong by climbing 
 conscience-easy over the unprohibited garden fence ! 
 
 Worst of all, as a politically made law can express only 
 the average morality as regards virtue, so also it can meet 
 only the average need as regards justice. It can not dis- 
 criminate, can not take into account an evil's intensifying 
 and extenuating circumstances, can judge only by the out- 
 ward act, has to saw off its punishment as we saw wood, by 
 the foot measure ; and the best legislation thus applied be- 
 comes sometimes an instrument of wrong that wrong itself 
 would hardly dare originate. A little lame boy nine years 
 old, with no home and no friends, who had stolen a few 
 pennies, is seized by it and locked up in jail, at first alone, 
 where, so timid and so little beyond babyhood was he, that 
 the sheriff had to put a light in his cell to keep him from 
 crying all night, afterward for four months with a vile, 
 licentious negro. And at the same time the boodle alder- 
 men, the defaulting cashier, and the downright thief, who 
 have stolen moneys by the hundred thousand, are enabled 
 how many of them ! to walk, money and all, through law's 
 unlocked doors. A woman with a nursing baby is sentenced 
 to ten days' imprisonment for calling a man who had insulted 
 her " vile names," so little hardened that on hearing the 
 sentence she fainted away; while in every great political 
 
Moral Questions in Politics. 525 
 
 canvass a thousand newspapers on each side fling charges at 
 each other and at the opposite candidates too outrageous to 
 be expressed by the term " vile names," all not only unre- 
 buked by law, but sustained by it as the necessary instru- 
 ments sometimes of settling great moral questions. It was 
 found a while ago in the city where I live that its charities 
 were encouraging idleness among the overgrown boys in 
 some of its families, and a law was made that no household 
 should receive public aid which had children whose age was 
 over twenty-one a most righteous law apparently; but the 
 very first case it cut off was that of a half-blind old lady of 
 eighty who was doing her best to support an idiot daughter 
 of forty the most deserving case in the whole city. Visit- 
 ing the veteran keeper of our county jail on one occasion, I 
 expressed the opinion that in the twenty years of his official 
 life he must have seen a very dark side of human nature. 
 " No," said he, " the average of those who come here is quite 
 as good as the average outside. Of course I get some down- 
 right rascals, but usually the big villains have too much 
 shrewdness, or too much money, or too much legal help to 
 get into my clutches. Most of those who come to me are 
 men who have some one weak place in their nature which 
 some one combination of circumstances has happened to 
 assail, but who otherwise are exceptionally good men and 
 men who in all other circumstances would have lived and 
 died respected citizens." Look at the side effects of polit- 
 ical action in dealing with polygamy out in Utah. It may 
 have suppressed a twin relic of barbarism, but it has been 
 only by using a twin relic of bigotry has produced about 
 the same kind of morality that the minister did piety who 
 whipped his child to death to make him say his prayers. 
 The dark ages can not show a more outrageous piece of 
 persecution than that of this nineteenth century against 
 Mormonism, or the feudal barons a more outrageous case of 
 robbery than that of the United States in seizing the prop- 
 erty of the Mormon Church. Look at our land's very 
 latest legislative effort against immorality, its action on the 
 Chinese question, its breaking of a solemn treaty with a 
 people to whom its missionaries are preaching a religion of 
 faith and trust, its drawing the line of human brotherhood 
 at almond eyes and a yellow skin, its making of the in- 
 alienable rights that all men are born with to life, liberty, 
 and the pursuit of happiness depend for thousands of them 
 on their possession of a United States license. It is our 
 
526 Moral Questions in Politics. 
 
 country taking the San Francisco hoodlums for its model, 
 our Congress and President going to the California sand-lots 
 for their morals, our politicians standing at the door of the 
 West virtuously forbidding the ignorant Mongolian to come 
 to this land of liberty, and at the doors of the East offering 
 the ignorant Irishman a vote with which to enforce the de- 
 nial. And such justice who shall measure the distance be- 
 tween it and Hooker's famous definition of law, that of it 
 no less can be said than that its seat is in the bosom of 
 God? 
 
 Then, apart from the failure of the political method to 
 reach the worst cases of immorality, how many are the lives 
 of earth's noblest and best that it has sacrificed on its scaf- 
 folds and gallows, not unintentionally through mistakes of 
 evidence, but knowingly because of their efforts to bring 
 about a higher morality ! 
 
 " Alas ! the blows for error meant 
 Too oft on truth itself are spent." 
 
 What is it that has slaughtered liberty's advocates on a 
 thousand battle-fields ? The sword of law's defenders. What 
 has been the worst obstacle that reform our antislavery re- 
 form, for instance has had to encounter ? Notoriously the 
 statute book. What stands next to church law as responsi- 
 ble throughout all time for the blood of the world's martyrs ? 
 Beyond question political law. A few years ago warrants 
 were issued for the arrest of eight men charged with mur- 
 dering the Chicago police. One of them could not be 
 found and might easily have escaped even a trial ; but con- 
 scious, apparently, of his own innocence and hoping by his 
 influence to save his companions, he voluntarily walked into 
 the court-house during their trial and gave himself up to 
 its officers. It was a deed of trust in law and of gallantry 
 toward comrades that in the days of classic Greece and 
 Eome would have challenged the world's admiration, and 
 which might apparently even in our day have weighed some- 
 thing in showing that he was no ordinary criminal ; but 
 law can have no eye for chivalry and no sense of honor in 
 dealing with its offenders. He was proved guilty of throw- 
 ing out, if not bombs, yet dangerous sentiments, the guilt 
 of reformers in all ages, and was hanged as remorselessly as 
 if he had been an actual murderer stabbing for money and 
 cornered, in spite of himself, by a vigilant police. 
 
 Such cases are the result of what must always be a limita- 
 
Moral Questions in Politics. 527 
 
 tion of the political method in dealing with moral questions, 
 the fixedness of its enactments. When Nature has settled a 
 point of right, she immediately leaves it to take care of itself 
 thenceforth, and goes on to help settle another ; but when 
 law has settled a point of right, it immediately sits down 
 square upon it, and devotes all its energies ever after to keep- 
 ing it settled. It is like the old farmer's horse good when 
 you want it to stand, but very poor when you want it to go. 
 In its eyes the right is all accomplished good, and to be de- 
 fended ; the wrong all unaccomplished good, and to be re- 
 sisted. The worst foe of new morality is law-embodied old 
 morality. Legislation is a man who makes barrels by put- 
 ting the boy Principle inside of them to hold up their heads 
 while he drives on the hoops a good way if each barrel thus 
 finished was the last ever needing to be built. But every 
 time he is called upon to build a better one, it makes it 
 necessary for the boy to smash the old one in order to get 
 out a process which naturally causes a good deal of disturb- 
 ance, as very often the smashing has to be done with gun- 
 powder. The path of the world's moral progress through 
 the ages is marked by jts smashed and abandoned laws. As 
 Mr. Buckle puts it, " Every great reform which has been ef- 
 fected has consisted not in doing something new, but in un- 
 doing something old." And with such a record the satis- 
 faction which is felt at getting the world's moral progress 
 into law must necessarily be a good deal modified by the 
 certainty that the very next question will be how to get it 
 out of law. 
 
 THE MORAL METHOD. 
 
 In contrast with political action, look at man's other great 
 method of aiding morals that of education, of voluntary as- 
 sociation, and of appeals to reason and conscience. " Where 
 is your music ? " said a bystander to a soldier of the Eighth 
 Massachusetts Kegiment as it was hurrying through the 
 angry streets of Baltimore to the defense of the nation's 
 capital at the outbreak of our civil war. " Down in the 
 breech of our rifles," was the grim reply. And that is how 
 we want to carry our moral music as we go forth to the de- 
 fense of right and justice on the battle-fields of human life 
 not so much in the drum and fife of a political caucus and 
 a legislative hall as down in the depths of our souls. 
 
 " Within himself he found the law of right." 
 
528 Moral Questions in Politics. 
 
 It is the naturally evolved successor to tlie method of law. 
 There is no characteristic of our times more marked than 
 the number, size, and sweep of the reformatory movements 
 that with the decadence of politics and the loosening of the 
 legal bond have sprung up into doing what was once con- 
 sidered to be almost exclusively the politician's and legis- 
 lator's work. Eeligion, so long divorced from morality, 
 has in our day recognized its claims and begun pouring into 
 it the might of its divine inspiration. The Church itself is 
 no longer, at least in free countries, a state institution, or 
 governed, at least in its Protestant form, on state principles, 
 but is simply a series of voluntary moral associations. And 
 wherever any new issue comes up in the world at large, or 
 any new and difficult work presents itself needing to be 
 done, it is the instinct of its advocates to form among them- 
 selves a society to take it in charge this even when the 
 Government is to be asked ultimately to act as its agent. A 
 salt dissolved in water so that its atoms can act freely accord- 
 ing to their own internal law does not more surely arrange 
 itself in a crystal than humanity individualized in the medi- 
 um of liberty does into a voluntary organization. It is a phe- 
 nomenon going on before our eyes to-day which transcends 
 in beauty anything ever seen in the chemist's laboratory, yet 
 is looked upon by how many as if it was only society going 
 to pieces. And in settling moral questions, who will say that 
 humanity thus crystallized is not a more highly evolved agen- 
 cy than humanity in its merely amorphous, political state? 
 
 It is the method of equality, of self-respect, and of manli- 
 ness. When a thing is done because of a law imposed by 
 another, no matter how worthy in itself the thing may be, 
 and no matter whether that other is a monarch or a ma- 
 jority, it inevitably places its doer in a position of inferi- 
 ority, makes him a thing moved by an outside force rather 
 than a man self-moved. But when it is done from inward 
 principle, it makes each man his own monarch and puts him 
 on a par with every other man. It appeals to and develops 
 that which is noblest and best in man his power of choice 
 and his own sense of right. 
 
 " A voice spake in his ear, 
 And, lo ! all other voices far and near 
 Died at that whisper full of meanings clear." 
 
 It brings together in support of a cause only those 
 who have a heart and soul interest in its success, those 
 
Moral Questions in Politics. 529 
 
 who love it and can lay on its altar the enthusiasm 
 of love. It is indeed open to fanaticism, narrowness, 
 crankiness; but it is lifted realms above the far worse 
 vices, so common in politics, of selfishness, shallowness, 
 and time-serving. All the noblest qualities of our human 
 nature altruism, self-sacrifice, the courage of conviction, 
 and the living for an ideal, all the crosses and martyr 
 stakes of our race, all its noblest poems and most heroic 
 deeds gather, if not inevitably, yet naturally around its 
 standard. And, in spite of the popular odium attaching to 
 the name reformer, if you want to stand on the mountain 
 tops of humanity, want to see how near dust can come to 
 Deity, want to breathe an atmosphere as far removed from 
 politics as that of Shasta from a sink, go into the company 
 of men who 
 
 " Ere its cause bring fame and profit and 'tis prosperous to be just " 
 
 have sided with a moral truth men like Phillips, Garri- 
 son, Foster, Pillsbury, and their associates in the early days 
 of the antislavery cause. So with the kind of morality that 
 is attained by the moral method. It is the real article. What 
 is done by it is done from principle, done because the thing is 
 really believed in, and not from outward constraint. Take the 
 man who is temperate from inward conviction, as compared 
 with the one who is temperate because the law will not 
 allow him anything on which to get drunk ; can there be 
 any question as to which is the higher kind of man ? And 
 a state all of whose moral questions have been settled in 
 souls, can it be otherwise than a better one to live in than 
 that which has settled them only on statute books ? 
 
 It is a method, to be sure, whose outward instrumentali- 
 ties are insignificant and unimposing ; one that, in compari- 
 son with the enginery and majesty of law the police officer, 
 the court, the judge, the prison, the gallows is a mere 
 " voice crying in the wilderness." But what has been his- 
 torically the most efficient moral agency this world has ever 
 seen, the Christian religion, was at the start that very thing, 
 a mere voice crying in the wilderness. It despised the aid 
 of law was, rather, so conscious of its own innate superiority 
 that it did not take the trouble to despise it. Think of 
 Jesus as lobbying in the Sanhedrin to get it to enact his 
 golden rule, or of Paul as dropping the sword of the spirit 
 to manipulate a caucus for his nomination to a position 
 where he could introduce a bill against idolatry. Instead of 
 
530 Moral Questions in Politics. 
 
 being helped by law, it had from the start all the power of 
 law, yea, the very principle of law, to contend against ; and 
 it did it triumphantly, did it even when its foe was the 
 Roman Empire, that very embodiment of law went on 
 doing it against the whole vast empire of wrong, till, desert- 
 ing its own weapons, it began arming itself with those of its 
 antagonist. I saw a place on Cape Ann a while ago where 
 a soft pine seedling had lodged itself in a cleft of rock, the 
 most hopeless, apparently, of all localities in which to grow, 
 a bit of soft woody tissue surrounded with solid walls of 
 granite and with only impalpable light and air to be its 
 nourishment. Yet the pine with the drill and dynamite of 
 its inner life force had rent asunder the huge granite ledge, 
 elbowed tons of it out of the way, and, as a tall tree, was wav- 
 ing its evergreen boughs in the April sunshine, unharmed 
 even with a scar. And that is what moral force is in the 
 ledges of wrong a tissue softer than that of the pine seed- 
 ling, yet rending into powder what defies the sharpest penal- 
 ties of the statute book and finding food where the sword of 
 law finds only flint. 
 
 With such a contrast between the two things, can there 
 be any doubt as to which is to be sought after as at least 
 the preferable one for advancing the world's moral interests ? 
 While believing thoroughly in woman's right to the ballot, 
 is it not a mistake to measure her progress as a social factor 
 by the degree to which it has been attained ? There are 
 scores of places to which she is being admitted notably to 
 the college, the t coun ting-room, the platform, and the sacred 
 desk that areVorth to her infinitely more than anything, 
 from polls to presidential chair, that politics has to offer. 
 And, however willing she may be to take it as the symbol of 
 her equality with man, is it worth while for her to pay a 
 very large price for what, as an agency in helping morals 
 along, is like a seat in a country wagon to a girl who has 
 
 ot her hand on the throttle- valve of a locomotive engine ? 
 o with reformers possessed of the ballot who never suc- 
 ceed in getting their ideas materialized in any political 
 measure go down to the grave, after years of struggle, with 
 them embodied, perhaps, only in their own tottering forms ; 
 they are not on that account valueless as moral factors. 
 There are men in the world you have some in your own 
 ranks ripe with age, yet blossoming continually with new 
 hopes and plans for humanity, orange trees in the realm 
 of soul, whose simple personality is doing more for progress 
 
Moral Questions in Politics. 531 
 
 than any political activity could. A vote in the minority is 
 lost ; a man in the minority always counts. And an asso- 
 ciation like this, made up of such men, young and old, and 
 operating wholly through ideas, is raising, if nothing more, 
 yet a raw material for ethics, without which at last all the 
 factors of it would come to a stand. So with the churches 
 that, refusing to meddle with politics, give their whole ener- 
 gies to the making of better souls. I know it is the custom 
 of progressionists to despise their work, and I am very far 
 from believing it is religion's whole sphere. But they, too, 
 have their place. What this world wants more than any- 
 thing else for the solving of its moral problems is moral men 
 and women. Human nature is the soil out of which all 
 social fruits grow ; and whatever makes that richer will 
 make everything above it righter. 
 
 THE RELATION OF THE Two METHODS UNDER EVOLU- 
 TION. 
 
 Nevertheless, with all this immeasurable superiority in- 
 trinsically and philosophically of the moral over the politi- 
 cal method in dealing with the questions at issue, practical 
 sociology is very far from saying that the political one is 
 yet wholly a thing of the past and never now under any 
 circumstances to be used for their solution. Adaptation to 
 the environment as well as intrinsic excellence is what here, 
 as well as everywhere else, has to be taken into account. 
 First archism ; then legalism ; then anarchism ; or, if the 
 words are better liked, first imperialism, then legalism, 
 then individualism prince, politician, principle that is 
 the natural order in which all government unfolds, that the 
 one each part of which has a corresponding phase of social 
 development it is best fitted for. Arid as in religion the 
 law is the school-master to bring us to Christ, so in the state 
 politics is naturally the path by which we go to principle. 
 With social development the same everywhere, the progress 
 from the one to the other would be everywhere the same. 
 But it is notorious that while some parts of society are en- 
 lightened enough to act on principle, others, even in the 
 most advanced communities, are yet in that savage and half- 
 civilized condition for which the personal ruler and the 
 strong arm of law are best adapted. And where this is the 
 case it surely is the dictate of plain good sense to use the 
 tool, whatever its intrinsic imperfection, which will best do 
 
532 Moral Questions in Politics. 
 
 the task. " I believe in blood as much as any one does," 
 said the horse-trader ; " but when I see a really good animal 
 I go for him, no matter how mongrel his ancestry may be," 
 a wisdom that will apply equally well to legal scrubs as 
 compared with the blood-stock of principle. Electricity is 
 a higher motive power for moving street cars than horse 
 muscle, and a dynamo in each car a higher one than a wire 
 connecting it with a central station. But, till the separate 
 dynamo is perfected, we use the wire ; and when the wire 
 will not act, as is the case now and then, we bring out the 
 old horses and hitch them on in the old way. And for the 
 same reason, though moral principle is a higher force than 
 law with which to move the car of progress, and a moral 
 dynamo in each man's soul a better form of it than a cen- 
 tral one at Albany or "Washington, it nevertheless is a mat- 
 ter of practical wisdom, when the dynamo breaks down or 
 can not be applied, to keep the old political horses as the 
 force on which to fall back. 
 
 It is indeed true that law can never rise above the aver- 
 age morals of the state, never express its most advanced 
 sentiment ; but, on the other hand, it is an immense instru- 
 ment for doing what in some respects is even more impor- 
 tant the bringing of its less advanced members up to the 
 average and the keeping of them from dragging the whole 
 into destruction. Here is a village where moral suasion 
 has succeeded in shutting up all the drinking saloons but 
 one. The very fact, however, that the others have been 
 closed makes it all the more profitable to keep this open, all 
 the more difficult, therefore, for it to be acted upon by 
 moral suasion. Why now should such a premium on its 
 baseness be allowed why not the great majority of citizens 
 who want it closed get together politically and shut it up 
 with the power of law ? Here is a State where a hundred 
 factories have been persuaded not to employ children under 
 twelve or fifteen years of age, but a dozen more selfish ones 
 persist in their employment, and as a consequence are able 
 to undersell the others, or else compel them to reduce the 
 wages of their adult hands to a level with those of the chil- 
 dren. Is not this a case where law can properly interfere 
 to put them all on the same footing ? Or, worse still, here 
 is a man who, through ignorance or a flippant contempt for 
 science, throws his offal into a brook or keeps open a filthy 
 sewer till it threatens the whole village with a deadly epi- 
 demic. Ought there to be any scruple about lifting him 
 
Moral Questions in Politics. 533 
 
 up by political action to at least the average height of sani- 
 tary morals ? A traveler attacked by a savage dog, as he 
 was passing peaceably by a farm-house, seized his gun and 
 poured its whole blazing charge down the creature's throat. 
 " What did you kill my dog for ? " exclaimed the angry 
 owner, rushing out. " To prevent his killing me," was the 
 answer. " Well, why didn't you hit him with the butt end 
 of your gun?" was the next question. " Well, why didn't 
 he come at me with the butt end of his body ? " was the 
 neat reply. There are some evils in society so savage and 
 wide-mouthed that if a man waits to deal with them mor- 
 ally there will not be any man, the same as if the traveler 
 had waited to tame the dog, there would not have been any 
 traveler left. And in such cases, savage as the method 
 seems, is there any other alternative than to give them the 
 blazing legal end of society's moral gun ? 
 
 Laws do indeed have a tendency to become the prisons 
 of moral principle, needing often to be violently destroyed 
 when any new onward step is to be taken. But that is 
 true of all forms, all institutions, all growths, is true of the 
 human body itself, is true even of the customs, habits, and 
 societies by which morality as a principle acts, is true at last 
 of the grand old man who for sixty years has stood at the 
 forefront of England's reforms. It is the fundamental 
 method of evolution, building up and then tearing down, 
 imprisoning life in one generation, and then sweeping its 
 forms all into graves in order to have it move on into bet- 
 ter ones in the next. 
 
 " Ever by losses the right must gain, 
 Every good have its birth in pain." 
 
 And its operation in the field of politics, its having the 
 laws which morality leaves in and blooms in during its 
 spring become the dead leaves and dead petals which it has 
 to shake off in its autumn so as to have its tree grow, only 
 brings the political method the more clearly within the 
 scope of evolution. 
 
 Laws at first produce only outward morality ; but out- 
 ward morality kept up long enough becomes habit, exact- 
 ly the same as inward morality does, and habit inherited 
 becomes nature, the inmost thing of all. It is the method 
 that all parents use in the training of children, the forming 
 of good habits through obedience to outward precepts. It 
 is closely connected with " the influence of the environ- 
 
534 Moral Questions in Politics. 
 
 ment," the working from the outward inward, which under 
 evolution is certainly one of Nature's recognized methods 
 of progress. And with society freed by any means from 
 immoral surroundings and its young trained up simply to 
 good habits for a few generations, who can doubt that the 
 moral gain, if not equal to that of inward personal strug- 
 gle, would at any rate be immense ? 
 
 There is no denying that laws are often badly adminis- 
 tered and do harm ; but, with all the tremendous value of 
 inward principle, it must be confessed that its practical 
 working is sometimes in this respect very far from being 
 perfect. Who shall say that custom, fashion, public opin- 
 ion, the channels entirely independent of law through 
 which morality expresses itself, are not often as tyranni- 
 cal and unjust as any legislation has ever been ? Take the 
 awful penalty that society inflicts on a fallen woman, laid 
 down in no statute book ; and in all the multiplied crimes 
 of law against the sex, is there anything that for absolute 
 damning wrong will compare with this ? What is it behind 
 judge and jury that in all ages has burned and shot and 
 hanged the world's martyrs and reformers ? What did it 
 notoriously a few years ago with the Chicago anarchists ? 
 Simply an excited public sentiment overriding all the safe- 
 guards of law. There is nothing in the vilest legislation 
 which is so much to be dreaded as the world's unlegalized 
 spasms of virtue. It is hardly twenty years since the man 
 who did more than all others to open the Pacific Railroad, 
 actually putting his money, as the event has proved, " where 
 it would do the most good," the manliest man Congress had 
 that year, was hounded into his grave without judge or jury 
 by the country's conscience. Trial by jury law's method 
 is bad enough ; but what is it in comparison with trial by 
 newspaper, the public's method outside of law ? And with 
 all the dreadfulness of the reporter's pen as a panderer to 
 vice, is it ever quite so dangerous as when it dips itself in 
 the ink of righteousness and prepares to come out as the 
 champion of virtue any damage it ever does with its account 
 of the murder's perpetration that can quite equal what it 
 does with its account of the murderer's punishment ? 
 
 While political laws, also, are often petty, inquisitive, and 
 a severe restriction on personal liberty, are they more so 
 than the rules and pledges of even the most pronounced 
 voluntary associations? What State ever made regulations 
 for its citizens that went down to a finer point than those 
 
Moral Questions in Politics. 535 
 
 which many temperance organizations and trades-unions 
 make for themselves ? The fact is, it is impossible to have 
 anywhere the tremendous power which comes from asso- 
 ciated action without the sacrifice to some extent of indi- 
 vidual freedom. The most voluntary reform societies 
 appealing to the world by moral suasion do have, and must 
 have, rules among themselves of some kind in order to use 
 to the greatest advantage even moral suasion ; must have an 
 iron-bound bucket with which to draw water even from the 
 wells of liberty. The degree of their rigor and minuteness de- 
 pends not on whether they are made by the state or by a vol- 
 untary association, but deeper down on the people themselves, 
 Eussian nihilism being just as despotic as Russian imperial- 
 ism, and the town meeting in America quite as free as the 
 town debating club. And so likewise the mean and objec- 
 tionable things about politics the caucusing, partisanship, 
 bribery, log-rolling, bossism, and appeals to prejudice and 
 passion do not arise from the nature of the state, but from 
 the undeveloped nature of man, are to be found in volun- 
 tary associations, even in churches and religious conventions, 
 quite as devilishly developed as in ward rooms and legisla- 
 tive halls. 
 
 Crowning all else, it is to be said on the side of political 
 action that it is not infrequently the direct means by which 
 the moral method does its work. The politics of a free 
 country is the great public school to which all its citizens 
 go inevitably as pupils. It is impossible to get a law enacted 
 which involves in any way their welfare without at least some 
 discussion of its right and wrong principles. Every election- 
 eering campaign is a debate of its members in which, mixed 
 in with the meanness and the mud-throwing, the precious 
 stones of right and virtue and moral obligation are flung 
 from side to side. If the calendar of politicians is darkened 
 with names that are the synonyms of cunning and self -seek- 
 ing, it is starred also with such shining ones in the ranks of 
 principle as those of a Sumner, a Gladstone, a Cavour. And 
 even in the worst machinations of the caucus and the lobby 
 there is of ten ^ an unconscious, unintended moral wisdom 
 that surpasses in its practical effect the sober designing of 
 the churches and schools, a divinity that shapes the ends of 
 politics to morals, rough hew them with bribery and trickery 
 as their actors may, presidents elected from the ranks of 
 pot-house politicians as one of themselves whom the dignity 
 and responsibility of their position have converted into 
 35 
 
536 Moral Questions in Politics. 
 
 models of official conduct, microbes of political vice that have 
 proved 'the best possible antidotes of some of the civil ones 
 that were consuming the general body of society, and seeds of 
 law sown in the dirt and filth of selfishness and corruption 
 that have flowered in public virtue and fruited in moral 
 progress. 
 
 CAN THE POLITICAL METHOD ITSELF BE FUKTHER 
 EVOLVED ? 
 
 Is there any improvement of politics, any further develop- 
 ment of the state, which can remove their defects and make 
 them more efficient as moral agents ? I do not see how 
 state socialism that is, the enlargement of their functions 
 is going to do it. It is a movement in the very opposite 
 direction of that to which evolution naturally tends ; a use 
 of law greater instead of less, a working more from without 
 instead of more from within. The evils of the political 
 method which are now in a few fields it would transfer to 
 all, bring everything under the control of the politician. 
 And just in proportion as it relieved the individual of the 
 moral strain under which he now so often falls, it would re- 
 lieve him of the moral strength under which he now so 
 largely stands. 
 
 Neither can I see any reason for going with Mr. Spencer 
 to the other extreme that of limiting the functions of the 
 state to the punishment of crime and stigmatizing all laws 
 for the direct promotion of a people's welfare as among 
 " the sins of legislators." If it is right for the state to stop 
 murder by shutting up murderers, why is it not right for it 
 to do it by shutting up the saloons which make the mur- 
 derers ? If it can properly interfere with the man who 
 maims another with a club, then why not with the one who 
 maims another with a polluted stream or a dangerous wall ? 
 Or, if it can support a police officer and a jail for the sake 
 of maintaining the peace of society, then why not a school- 
 master and a school-room ? The more evolved philosophy 
 here, as everywhere else, would seem to be prevention rather 
 than cure, dealing with the fountain rather than the stream. 
 And on Mr. Spencer's own ground that the state is to secure 
 to every man freedom to do all he wills, provided he does not 
 infringe on the equal freedom of every other man, all laws 
 needful for this, and especially all laws like those relating 
 to education, which tend to make him less desirous of in- 
 
Moral Questions in Politics. 537 
 
 fringing on the equal freedom of others, would seem fairly 
 to be within its province. 
 
 If the state is to be improved at all as an agency for deal- 
 ing with moral questions, the principles of evolution point 
 plainly to more freedom, more reliance on the individual, 
 more the character of a voluntary association as the direc- 
 tion in which the improvement is to be sought. The worst 
 thing about it now is its assumption that its laws have a 
 special sanctity and authority by virtue of their being made 
 by it, and that it has a natural right to impose them on all 
 the people within its limits independent of their direct per- 
 sonal consent. The conception of it presented in such 
 works as Mulford's Nation, and in so many patriotic ser- 
 mons and Fourth of July orations, designed to excite rever- 
 ence for it as an institution innately good and necessarily to 
 be obeyed, is quite as mischievous as that of the socialist at 
 the other extreme, who looks on it as a distinct personality 
 which has special duties it owes to him is indeed a kind of 
 teaching that is largely responsible for socialism, the obliga- 
 tion to support on the one side implying the obligation to 
 protect on the other. A remnant still exists of the old 
 philosophy that it is the state that makes morality. For 
 the divine right of kings we have substituted the divine 
 right of congresses. And as the pagan of other days took 
 a piece of wood he had saved from the fire heap or the 
 lumber yard and carved it with his knife into an idol which 
 he fell down and worshiped as his god, so the citizen of to- 
 day takes a piece from the timber of our common humanity 
 and shapes him with his ballot into a legislator whose law 
 he bows down to with a homage altogether different from 
 what he would give it as the word of a man. It is an as- 
 sumption that we need to get entirely rid of. The state is 
 ourselves, what we are, and with only such authority as we 
 choose to let it have. As Emerson says, " we ought to re- 
 member in dealing with it that its institutions are not ab- 
 original, that they are not superior to the citizen, that every 
 one of them was once the act of a single man, and that they 
 are all imitable, all alterable." There is no reason why a 
 man should not join it and leave it as freely as he does a 
 church or a temperance society; no reason why, if he re- 
 fuses to receive its protection and partake of its benefits, he 
 should be taxed for it, any more than when he declines to 
 buy any other goods. It is toward this relation to it that 
 all democracy, all civilization tends. And with the citizen 
 
538 Moral Questions in Politics. 
 
 thus its voluntary member there would be naturally the 
 same appreciation of its value and responsibility for its con- 
 duct, and the same chance to act in it on principle, that 
 there are now in all other voluntary associations. 
 
 With equal emphasis evolution points to more differentia- 
 tion in the legislative department of the state as a requisite 
 for its better dealing with moral questions. A large part 
 of its mistakes and inefficiencies now arise from its trying to 
 act on all its varied interests through only one set of men. 
 With the complexities of our modern social life and the 
 wide diversity of the matters to be attended to coinage and 
 crime, temperance and tariffs, Indians and imports, seals and 
 silver what can be more absurd than to expect one body of 
 legislators to make laws intelligently on them all ? Differ- 
 ent hands for different work is what is as much needed in 
 the state as in any other workshop. If an Indian question 
 is to be acted upon, the only way in which to have it done 
 properly is by the election of men for it who have made a 
 special study of the Indian situation ; if a temperance ques- 
 tion, then of those who have given to temperance in all its 
 bearings their life thought. So with all other matters re- 
 quiring wide knowledge and nice discrimination. Thirty 
 years ago our country had bitter experience of what it was 
 to wage a military war by acts of a general Congress, setting 
 politicians who could manage a caucus to managing a cam- 
 paign, and leaders who could fire the country's heart to 
 being leaders who should fire its cannon. We need to do 
 now in our war against wrong what we had to do then in 
 our war against rebels put its conduct in the care of moral 
 Grants and Shermans, have West Points at which to edu- 
 cate civilians as well as soldiers. It is this that is the real 
 civil-service reform, the one that will bring law-makers 
 within its scope, a hundredfold more important than that 
 which includes only law administrators. Then when a law 
 has been formulated it ought in most cases to be referred 
 back to the whole people for its final passage they who 
 ought, in the old New England town-meeting way, to be 
 their own ultimate legislative body. It is a reference which 
 would give them a direct knowledge of the laws they are 
 living under, a thing which in nine cases out of ten they 
 are ignorant of now, would be a union of the nation's select 
 and common wisdom, the voice of reason and the voice of 
 the people, that might with some justice be called the voice 
 of God. And moral laws public opinion had helped so 
 
Moral Questions in Politics. 539 
 
 directly to make, public opinion better than any policeman's 
 club would help naturally to enforce. 
 
 THE MANY MEMBERS IN ONE BODY. 
 
 Summing up the conclusions reached, society's moral 
 questions include all those which relate to how its members 
 in their dealings with each other shall best be enabled to 
 promote the public good and to secure from it their own 
 highest well-being. The right of any person to act on such 
 questions is derived from the fact that he is not only an 
 individual with his own conduct to attend to, but a part 
 also of the social body, having interests that are affected by 
 the conduct of others, and that his will and his work are 
 the legitimate higher channels of that great indwelling 
 power making for righteousness by which the whole uni- 
 verse is moved. Politics and the moral method both have 
 their place under evolution as agencies to be used in their 
 settlement, the difference between them being that the one 
 is a stage farther along than the other, and that it works 
 from within instead of from without. Each has its imper- 
 fections and limitations, each its special stage of social 
 development to which it is best adapted ; and while moral 
 principle is to be looked forward to as the ideal condition, 
 political law is to be used whenever for the time being it will 
 best promote the great end to be attained, just as in the 
 education of a child outward precept is imposed upon him 
 by parent and friend till he is able to act always from his 
 own inner sense of right, the acting from his own sense of 
 right being always kept in view as the end to be reached. 
 There is no inconsistency between the two, no reason why 
 both of them should not join hands, when the opportunity 
 offers, in helping do their common work. And the final 
 tendency of evolution here, as in so many other things, is 
 not to accentuate the differences of its factors, not to give 
 the one supremacy by the other's annihilation, but to fill 
 each with something of the other's life and to unite them 
 all on a higher plane and, in a completer whole, evolve 
 the state into more freedom for the individual, the indi- 
 vidual into more voluntary associations that, like the state, 
 shall act through self-imposed law, and society at large into 
 a completer yielding to that Divine Power within it which 
 of itself makes for righteousness. As the audience of a 
 country church one summer afternoon were laboriously 
 
540 Moral Questions in Politics. 
 
 struggling through their congregational hymn, the wheezy 
 old organ with its poor player trying to lead, and several 
 scores of voices each with its own distinct degree of success 
 trying to follow, it chanced that Emma Abbott, the famous 
 opera singer, dropped into the service, and suddenly a voice 
 rich, sweet, powerful, and thrilling with an accent of soul 
 no word can describe, broke in with them from among the 
 pews. It did not hush the others, but quickened, inspired, 
 strengthened, led them swept the hundreds of straggling 
 voices and the wheezy old organ itself, glad now to follow, 
 into complete harmony with each other, into a capacity, 
 also, that surprised themselves; and there went up to 
 heaven out of them all a burst of reverential song such 
 as the old church in all its eighty years of service had 
 never echoed with before. And that is what the inward 
 moving power of evolution, the voice of God in the soul 
 of man, is tending to do with our wheezy old state organ 
 and its political players, and with all the hundreds of 
 voluntary reform tongues that now, straggling apart, are 
 trying to deal with moral questions ; it is tending not to hush 
 them up, or take their place, but to quicken them into new 
 strength, unfold them into new beauty, and blend them 
 all together in a song that shall be worthy of its glorious 
 theme a song of the eternal Eight that in all this vast 
 world of ours shall not be marred with one discordant note 
 of wrong. 
 
Moral Questions in Politics. 541 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 
 
 His HONOR DAVID A. BOODY, MAYOR OF BROOKLYN : 
 
 Mayor Boody, who occupied a seat in the center of the church, was 
 then invited to address the audience. Mr. Boody came forward to the 
 platform amid applause and said : 
 
 With invited guests upon this platform coming, I believe, from dis- 
 tant cities, and at this hour of the evening, it would not be proper for 
 me to detain you. I will only do so long enough to express my ap- 
 preciation of the work of this society and of that which they have 
 already accomplished, and to add that I believe that moral questions 
 are the controlling ones in government. I believe that they very 
 largely determine the character and usefulness and the triumphs that 
 our great parties have won. In this respect possibly I differ slightly 
 from the conclusions which have been presented in the very able paper 
 to which we have listened. I believe that both of the great parties 
 had their origin in the consideration of ethical questions. I believe 
 that whenever they have been true to themselves and to the considera- 
 tion of moral questions they have won their great triumphs. If we 
 had time to notice the history of the two great parties we should 
 find that it was in the consideration of these questions as they refer to 
 the relations which man sustains to man and which man sustains to 
 government, in the consideration of such questions that they have had 
 their origin. If we should refer to the life of the great apostle of 
 the older party of the two, we should find that he prepared himself 
 for his usefulness upon a national scale by the work which he per- 
 formed in connection with the government of his native State; in 
 laboring to repeal those laws which prevented equal rights between 
 men such laws as entail, primogeniture, the prevention of religious 
 freedom, and kindred statutes we will find that he was continually 
 dealing with those questions which relate to right and wrong between 
 citizens, and we will find that the great party which he established 
 has lived until this day, because it has sought on memorable occasions 
 to be true to the great principles which he advocated. And if we 
 turn to the other great party we shall find that it, like the other, came 
 into existence in a great emergency in our history, because it also 
 undertook to defend moral questions in government. And so I am 
 not in the slightest degree discouraged. I believe in working through 
 these great organized forces. I believe it is our duty to work where we 
 
542 Moral Questions in- Politics. 
 
 can do the most good, all of us laboring to keep our party, whichever 
 it is, up to that higher standard which is our ideal, making it true to 
 its history, true to the principles which it has professed. I wish I 
 might more fully discuss this interesting question. I wish I could 
 refer to the great victories each party has won, to the great question 
 which is before the English nation to-day, to that issue which was 
 discussed before our people two years ago and which may be discussed 
 again, simply with reference to the moral features which each presents 
 to the people. But in the time allotted to me I can not on this 
 occasion. Let me close by saying I am thankful for the work of this 
 society ; for the opportunity which it gives all our people for becom- 
 ing familiar with these great questions and with the principles and 
 policies of parties ; for the opportunity which it gives to our people to 
 discuss these questions free from the excitements and prejudices of 
 great political campaigns. We should have these institutions in our 
 midst and appreciate their opportunities. If examples of this kind 
 can be followed by other communities, I feel sure that the truth will 
 be reached, that justice will prevail, and that our institutions will be 
 saved. [Applause.] 
 
 REV. JAMES T. BIXBY, PH. D. : 
 
 Between the active worker at the polls and the caucus room, and 
 the lazy, indifferent respectabilities who always boycott the political 
 columns in the daily journals, and on election day go to Tuxedo, or 
 pigeon-shooting, or for a drive in the country, there would seem very 
 little in common. But there is one subject on which they seem quite 
 agreed ; and that is that politics and morality have nothing to do 
 with one another. Our relations to the State and those to God and 
 duty are quite separate things. The church is a place where we should 
 get ready for heaven, not learn to live rightly on earth. The moral- 
 ist had better keep clear of politics if he wishes to maintain his reputa- 
 tion. Parties have no use for the Ten Commandments, and principle 
 in politics is an iridescent dream. 
 
 Now, if any one cares to maintain this separation between moral 
 questions and politics as an abstract possibility, I am ready to grant 
 that there may be ideal societies where the two might not mingle, 
 though I can hardly conceive it. But certainly in human society as 
 we know it, as it has always existed, and will always exist, till selfish- 
 ness, ambition, and greed cease to be, the two have never been sepa- 
 rated. As a moralist 1 have no objection to the politician saying, " I 
 pursue politics for polities' sake, and intend to have nothing to do 
 with moral questions." But he never does avoid these moral questions. 
 He is always invading the sphere of right and wrong with some propo- 
 
Moral Questions in Politics. 543 
 
 sition of reform, or, more commonly, with some scheme of private 
 plunder or class legislation. 
 
 Wherever there is a question of justice or injustice, of purity or im- 
 purity, of honesty or dishonesty, there we see the proper sphere of 
 morals. And if the politician sees fit to enter that sphere and bring 
 back any of these questions of right and wrong into the political arena, 
 and ask the decision of legislatures and congresses upon them, that 
 does not make them any less moral questions then they were before 
 the politicians took them up. 
 
 However it may be theoretically, yet practically, look where you 
 will, and all the great questions presented to the voter to-day are 
 moral questions. Look at national politics. Shall the man who has 
 contracted to work for a hundred dollars a month for the next twelve 
 months, expecting to get it in good hard money, be forced to take, in- 
 stead of gold or its equivalent, so many pieces of silver worth only 
 seventy cents or less in the money of the world? If that is not a 
 moral question, I should like to know what is. 
 
 Shall our industrious mechanics, who through the savings banks 
 have lent our bankers and capitalists some twelve hundred millions of 
 dollars, be defrauded when pay-day comes of over three hundred mill- 
 ions of the debt due them by a swindling Bland silver bill I Surely 
 such extortion is a moral question, just as much when done by law of 
 Congress as if by private force or fraud. 
 
 Or take the tariff ; the River and Harbor bill : the steamship bounty 
 bill ; half the bills before Congress what are they at bottom but a 
 question of robbing Peter to pay Paul; of getting some personal 
 advantage at the expense of the great public ; questions on which the 
 one maxim that ought most to be considered, but which is least often 
 considered, is the golden rule : " Do unto others as you would have 
 others do unto you " 1 
 
 Or take State politics : shall a man rob the mails and turn a minor- 
 ity of votes into a majority, and from that majority that received the 
 stolen goods be rewarded by a judgeship as the price of his crime ? 
 What else but that is to be one of the questions we are to vote on at 
 the polls next fall ? You may call that politics, but it is none the less 
 a question of very plain public morality. 
 
 No ; moral questions can not be ruled out of politics, for the poli- 
 ticians themselves will not allow it. They so persistently invade the 
 moral realm with their brazen violations of justice as to keep these 
 moral questions always before the public. And it is not alone the 
 moralists and the men of principle who make the outcry, who raise 
 the cry of violated rights ; but the politicians themselves. Not the 
 victorious half of them, to be sure. As long as they are on the top 
 
544 Moral Questions in Politics. 
 
 wave and it is the other party that suffers, politics has nothing to do 
 with morals. Might is right; success in the campaign justifies all 
 tricks and cheats, and Czarism is necessary to vigorous government. 
 
 But let defeat at the polls turn the tables, and they themselves be- 
 come the lamb to be shorn, not the shearer to shear ; and now the 
 long-forgotten words violated right, " eternal justice " are recalled 
 from the limbo to which they had been consigned, and the party 
 orators shout themselves hoarse over the despotisms, usurpations, and 
 iniquities of the other side. 
 
 One of the wise words of Mazzini was : " We ought to drop the phrase 
 human rights and substitute for it human duties." The one, to be 
 sure, implies the other. There can be no duties without correspondent 
 rights, and conversely. But it makes a great difference which we 
 attend to on which we put the emphasis. To take as our motive the 
 pursuit and enjoyment of our rights and ignore our duties is to foster 
 selfishness, egotism, and anarchic license. That is too much the tend- 
 ency here and now. With what clamor do the saloon-keepers and 
 the mistresses and habitues of brothels inveigh against encroachments 
 on their personal liberties, the spies who intrude into their privacy 
 and would turn our police and laws into shields of crime rather than 
 suppressors of crime ! American freedom ! Yes, that is a noble word. 
 But has it not degenerated to-day into little more than the inviolate 
 license of every man to be his own scoundrel and the corrupter of his 
 neighbor I No ; it is not of our rights we should think, but of our 
 duties. 
 
 The people that would make their land the home of justice, order, 
 and a higher civilization must think instead of their duties ; personal, 
 social, and national obligations ; their duties to the young and the in- 
 nocent ; to the weak and the oppressed ; to the cause of temperance 
 and purity ; and equity to all without regard to party, money, color, 
 or race. 
 
 What reason at all is there for the existence of government t That 
 the strong may have their own way ? That the cunning may win what 
 unscrupulous cunning can ? If so, better dissolve society and welcome 
 anarchy. Let us say, Hail to the bomb-throwers. Go back to the 
 primitive savagery, when the question between man and man was, 
 Can I kill and eat you, or you kill and eat me ? If it is well to give 
 brute force and cunning full sway, let us have anarchy. Society has 
 been founded and maintained for an opposite purpose : to establish 
 justice, to make right and equity prevail. Its fundamental thesis is, 
 the equal rights and equal duties of all ; and it reaches its ideal only 
 when the humblest and the weakest shall be as sure of that justice as 
 the strongest. 
 
Moral Questions in Politics. 545 
 
 In filling all civic offices, therefore, the chief qualifications are not 
 smartness, but honesty and faithfulness. The sharper a knave is, the 
 deeper and the more deadly is the cut he makes into the national wel- 
 fare. We have heard more than enough of education as the devil- 
 killer. Unless a man's heart is sound he is more apt to use his clever 
 intellect not to kill the devil, but to close a bargain with him for the 
 plunder of his neighbors. 
 
 The precious metal that alone makes political structures valuable is 
 civic integrity. Without it government degenerates into the legalized 
 plunder of one portion of the community by another portion, and loses 
 all respect for individual rights. A nation may endure high taxes and 
 unwise laws ; it may bear up under the load of a privileged aristocracy 
 nay, of an absolute monarchy ; but it can not experience the general 
 loss of honesty in its rulers without verging toward destruction ; and 
 when the general public becomes indifferent to the clean reputation of 
 its public officers and smiles at the mention of a candidate's barrel as 
 if that were the expected method of winning an election, and becomes 
 ready to condone the falsification of public records and the corrupt 
 bargains with the law-breakers and the vicious classes as long as it 
 keeps their party on top, there has already begun in the body politic 
 that fatty degeneration of the heart which is the sure symptom of na- 
 tional decay. 
 
 I have no great admiration for Mr. Rudyard Kipling ; but he gave 
 us a good deal of unvarnished truth when he characterized the gov- 
 ernment of New York as " not a government of the people, by the peo- 
 ple, and for the people, but a despotism of the alien, by the alien, and 
 for the alien, tempered with occasional insurrections on the part of 
 the decent people.'* We are proud to call ourselves a nation of sov- 
 ereigns. Let us remember what was said to Alexander when he had 
 the ambition to be deified : If Alexander wishes to be a god, let him 
 be a god. If you are a sovereign, act a sovereign's part. Prove your 
 title to royalty by the protection you give the weak, by the justice you 
 mete out to lawbreakers, wearing the purple of honor and courage 
 and the crown of untarnished .integrity. If you are a sovereign, be 
 ashamed to let yourself be browbeaten by bosses, cheated by false 
 counting and the contorted gerrymander. Don't any longer be con- 
 tent to abdicate your authority to some illiterate despot selected by a 
 little knot of conspirators in some drinking saloon amid clouds of 
 smoke and drinks of whisky. And don't fancy yourself free because 
 you go through the form of voting once a year, while you and every 
 one else knows that you can't get the most useful law or simplest act 
 of justice passed through the Legislature or the Common Council 
 without first becoming a member of some political wigwam or sub- 
 
546 Moral Questions in Politics. 
 
 scribing a good round sum to the campaign expenses of the dominant 
 party. 
 
 The great need to-day is a revival of civic conscience, of the public 
 sense of responsibility, and the old sentiment that official position is a 
 field of public duty. We need to remember that no nation can afford 
 to violate persistently the moral law. An individual may escape the 
 retributions of violated righteousness, for his life is short ; the fruit 
 may not ripen till he is in his grave, and only his child or grandchild 
 may suffer. But a nation always has time enough to reap the fruit of 
 its own wrong-doing. 
 
 Our young men often regret that the stirring days of the antislav- 
 ery crusade and the War of the Rebellion are past. But here is a 
 " present crisis " equally as momentous as that which Lowell sung. 
 Here is a campaign equally honorable, making as plain and noble a 
 call on every chivalric heart. 
 
 Let us no longer foolishly glory in the bigness of our country, the 
 size of its distilleries, and the thousands of hogs it packs every week. 
 This worship of bigness is the most silly of modern idolatries. If we 
 have not something nobler to boast of, if we can not show a higher 
 civilization, a more general education, a more ardent patriotism, and 
 a cleaner public honor than the effete monarchies we despise, we are 
 but rotting while still unripe. 
 
 If we are more than human sponges we ought to be unwilling to 
 suck all that we can from our country and give nothing back to it. 
 We ought to be ashamed to treat our native soil as the California 
 miner treats a worked-out quartz vein as a mere hole in the ground, 
 to be abandoned as soon as all has been extracted from it that it can 
 yield. 
 
 Gratitude, patriotism, and a wise self-interest, all call us to this 
 battle for the higher civilization of our new world. Do you say it is 
 a hopeless struggle ? Recall those words with which Garrison opened 
 his batteries on slavery when he began the Liberator : 
 
 " I am in earnest. I will not equivocate, I will not compromise, I 
 will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard." 
 
 Let our patriotic citizens take up the work in this spirit, and there 
 is no doubt what the issue will be. It takes some fighting to win a 
 fray. But if they will fight as Garrison and Lowell and Sumner did, 
 there will be won as glorious and needed a victory as that which has 
 put the laurel of fame on their revered heads. 
 
 REV. I. K. FUNK, D. D. : 
 
 I can certainly indorse much of what has been said, and at this hour 
 can scarcely present any objections which I might entertain unless 
 
Moral Questions in Politics. 547 
 
 you propose an evolution of this meeting into an all-night session. 
 The preacher should enter into politics, for politics is part of the busi- 
 ness of every American. The politicians fear the influence of the pul- 
 pit on politics. A Texas " statesman " has recently said : " We must 
 drive the preacher back into his pulpit." But he won't stay there ; 
 he is going to help purify politics. The age of muscle was first, then 
 came the age of brain, and now we are to have the age of the heart. 
 Moral questions must increasingly come into politics. Mayor Boody 
 said that the great parties had their genesis in moral issues. The 
 question with me is, Where do they stand on the great moral ques- 
 tions now ? An organization founded on a moral issue is generally 
 most earnest and devoted in its early days ; it strikes twelve first, then 
 eleven, and so on, until it finally runs down and its usefulness ceases. 
 The law of conscience should be applied to parties as well as to indi- 
 viduals. Government, after all, is only a committee of citizens ap- 
 pointed to rule ; we must be sure that they are on the right side that 
 is, the side of right. I am not sure that we can get conscience into 
 the old parties. Perhaps it would be cheaper to get rid of the parties. 
 As the old farmer said to the family doctor who had called to see his 
 sick son, " Doctor, if ye can cure Ike fer less than the funeral expenses, 
 go ahead and do it." But I believe that it is possible to get conscience 
 into politics and that things are gradually to shape themselves to that 
 end. The polls should be made the most sacred place on earth. We 
 must " hitch our wagon to a star," as Emerson said. With our eyes 
 fixed on the ideal we shall eventually get che political wagon out of 
 the mire. 
 
 ME. KIMBALL, in conclusion : 
 
 I will only say that in the paper as read there were omitted several 
 paragraphs, on account of the lateness of the hour, which would, I think, 
 modify or render unnecessary some of the criticisms which have been 
 made. I thank the audience and critics for their kind reception of 
 the lecture. 
 
INDEX, 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ABBOTT, REV. LTMAN, D. D., on the race problem in the South, 385. 
 
 Abolitionists : their attitude toward American slavery, 387 ; the dissolution of 
 
 their organization criticised, 387, 388 note ; explained by Dr. Janes, 402 ; their 
 . wisdom, 445^46 ; their statesmanship recognized, 447 ; honor due them, 461 ; 
 
 their political independence, 504-505 ; their era and ours compared, 505 ; their 
 
 moral earnestness, 529. 
 
 Adams, Charles Francis, his concessions to slavery, 446. 
 Adams, John, 409, 438. 
 Adams, John Quincy, 446. 
 Afric- American, evolution of the, 317-345. 
 Afro- American, 342, 343, 385. 
 American Commonwealth, 94, 165, 168, 421, 422. 
 Amphictyonic council, as related to representative government, 62. 
 Anarchism, forms of, prevalent in America, 11-16 ; dangers of these forms, 62 ; 
 
 philosophical anarchism the goal of evolution, 531-536 ; extreme forms of, 
 
 deprecated, 544. 
 
 Ancient and modern cities compared, 149-150. 
 Andrse, M., on the Danish system of representation, 66 note. 
 Andrews, E. Benjamin, D. D., LL. D., on the duty of a public spirit, 3-17. 
 A Plea for Liberty, 180, 411. 
 Applied sociology, the study of, 23-52. 
 Aristotle, on man and society, 7, 520. 
 Art, as related to science, 351-354 ; to government, 352-353. 
 Assembly, representative, in France, 58. 
 Assignats, 274-275. 
 
 Atwater, Prof. W. O., on the effects of soil exhaustion on our food-supply, 178-179. 
 Australian ballot system, 66, 88, 98, 102. 
 
 BAGEHOT, WALTER, on the authority of custom, 405 ; on the utility of free discus- 
 
 . sion, 406. 
 Ballot, its debauchery a crime, 17 ; the Australian system, 66, 88, 98, 102 ; second 
 
 choice in, 98-103 ; woman's right to, 530. 
 Banks and banking, 268-282. 
 
 Barbarization of land, 115, 125-126, 131-143, 385, 400-402. 
 
 Barrows, Rev. Samuel J., on the evolution of the Afric- American, 317-336,344-345. 
 Barter, the primitive method of exchange, 255-256. 
 Baxter, Sylvester, on city government, 155 ; on the Berlin municipality, 157 ; on 
 
 municipal lighting, 176, 177, and note. 
 
 Bayard, Hon. Thomas H., on the restriction of immigration, 300. 
 Beecher, Rev. Henry Ward, on immigration, 308 ; on free trade, 388 note ; on the 
 
 higher law, 425. 
 
 Bellows, Henry S., on the Republican party, 477-478. 
 
 Berlin, a model of municipal government, 19, 154, 157 ; its system of public light- 
 ing, 177. 
 Bible, its political ideals, 3-7, 55 ; on the earth, 115 note ; on the origin of the 
 
 black races, 337 ; its use in the public schools, 414, 418 ; its natural origin, 
 
 510-511. 
 Bicameral system, as related to representative government, 74 ; in municipal 
 
 legislation, 165, 166, 168, 169. 
 
 Bixby, Rev. James T., Ph. D., on moral questions in politics, 542-546. 
 Elaine, Hon. James G., 104, 506. 
 
 36 
 
552 Index. 
 
 Boody, Hon. David A., on moral questions in politics, 541-542. 
 
 Bounties and subsidies, 452. 
 
 Boroughs, original meaning of, 160 and note ; English origin of, 160 ; in America, 
 
 160 ; number of, in England, 162 ; original form of, in England, 167. 
 Bradford, Gov. William, 59. 
 Bribery in elections, 16, 89. 
 Bright, John, 244. 
 Bryce, Prof. James, M. P., on political parties, 94 ; on municipal government, 165 ; 
 
 on legislative functions in English cities, 168 ; his American Commonwealth, 
 
 95, 165, 168, 421, 422. 
 Buckle, his historical method, 142, 143 note ; on the nature of reforms, 527. 
 
 CAREY, HENRY C., on man and society, 151 ; on social intercourse, 200. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, his arraignment of Democracy, 72. 
 
 Carnot, President, 81. 
 
 Catholics, Roman, and the public schools, 414-416. 
 
 Caucus, its political status, 93-94 ; legalization of, advocated, 183 ; its objection- 
 able features, 535. 
 
 Cavour, Count, 535. 
 
 Chad wick, Rev. John W., on public spirit, 18 ; on education and citizenship, 
 405^25, 431. 
 
 Character and citizenship, 181-182, 419-420. 
 
 Cheapness, as affected by the tariff, 206-209, 221, 222, 236-238. 
 
 Chena, 120 note. 
 
 Chinese immigration, 295-297, 300, 303, 308, 310, 311, 312 ; effects of legislation con- 
 cerning, 525-526. 
 
 Choate, Joseph H., on neglect of political duties, 96. 
 
 Christianity and evolution, 517. 
 
 Church, its relation to representative government, 60, 61. 
 
 Cicero, on the stupidity of the ancient Britons, 341. 
 
 City, the ancient and modern, compared, 149-150 ; influence of, on civilization, 
 150-152 ; its position, judged by philosophy of evolution, 152-154 ; European 
 and American, 154-156, 162, 163 ; quasi-militant structure of European cities, 
 156-157 ; application of scientific method to its problems, 158-159 ; complexity 
 of these problems in America, 159-162 ; its government by partisan methods, 
 494. 
 
 City government, the problem of, 149-191 ; as related to political independence, 
 494. 
 
 Civil government in the United States, 165, 421. 
 
 Civil service reform, 28, 170, 448, 496-497, 538. 
 
 Clarkson, Hon. James S., in commendation of these lectures, v. 
 
 Clay, Henry, 442, 443. 
 
 Cleveland, Hon. Grover, 104, 218 ; his practical temper, 448 ; his Democratic prin- 
 ciples, 448 ; his presidency ends the slavery debate, 470 ; his relation to the 
 tariff issue, 502 ; his party leadership. 505 ; his relation to the Mugwumps, 506. 
 
 Cobden, Richard, his political independence, 492. 
 
 Collateral readings, 2, 22, 54, 84, 110, 148, 194, 230, 254, 290, 316, 348, 404, 434, 464, 482, 
 508. 
 
 Colonization of Afric-Americans as a remedy for the race problem, 318, 343, 379 
 note. 
 
 Commons, House of, its constitution, 57 ; its evolution, 58. 
 
 Conscience in politics, 486-489, 546. 
 
 Contents, ix. 
 
 Coomry, 120 note. 
 
 Copernicus, 143. 
 
 Corrupt practices, legislation against, 89-90. 
 
 Cotton-gin, influence of, in perpetuating slavery, 135, 477. 
 
 DARWIN, CHARLES, his doctrine of evolution, 351 ; his intellectual independence, 
 
 487. 
 
 Declaration of Independence, 184, 344, 355 note, 437. 
 De Coulanges, Fustel, on the ancient city, 49. 
 Democratic party, 435-462. 
 
 De Montfort, Simon, his relation to representative government, 56. 
 Destiny of the lower races, 373-375. 
 
 De Tocqueville, Alexis, on the despotism of majorities, 62. 
 Direction of social movement, 32-34. 
 Direct taxation. 247. 
 
 Diversification of industries as affected by a tariff, 204-206. 
 Dred Scott decision, its anti-democratic character, 446. 
 Duty of a public spirit, 3-17. 
 
Index. 553 
 
 ECCLES, DR. ROBERT G., on the study of applied sociology, 23-49, 52 ; on the Aus- 
 tralian ballot, 106 ; on the land problem, 143-144 ; on chemistry in food-pro- 
 ductioti, 150 ; in criticism of free trade, 225-226 ; on the monetary problem, 
 284-285 ; on the immigration problem, 310-311. 
 
 Educational qualification for suffrage, 343, 377, 378, 409. 
 
 Education and habit, 27-31. 
 
 Education as related to citizenship, 405-431. 
 
 Education of the Southern Negroes, 325-334, 365, 367. 
 
 Elections : the machinery of, 98-103 ; in American cities, 183-184 ; early political 
 contests in America, 442-446 ; recent national contests, 447-448, 474 ; influence 
 of the independent on, 483-486, 488-491, 497-500 ; moral questions involved in, 
 533-539, 542-547. 
 
 Elisha, a type of the good citizen, 3-5. 
 
 Emancipation, 388 note. 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, on eloquence, 56 ; on socialism, 67 ; on the wealth of 
 Nature, 114, 117 ; a lady's remark to, 158 ; his individualism, 411, 412, 521 ; on 
 the nature of institutions, 537 ; on elevated aims, 547. 
 
 English constitution as related to the American system, 10. 
 
 Ethics, of the land problem, 126, 131 et seq., 191 ; of the tariff question, 215-219, 
 224 ; of the immigration problem, 310, 312 ; of the race problem in the South, 
 379-382 ; as related to politics, 506-547. 
 
 Ethiopians, origin and characteristics of, 338-339. 
 
 Ethnology, as related to the race problem, 359-373. 
 
 Evarts, Hon. William M., on the bicameral system, 169. 
 
 Evolution, influence of human thought on, 11 ; nature of social evolution, 24 et 
 seq. ; influence of man's desires on, 51, 52 ; progressive nature of, 52 ; of rep- 
 resentative government, 55-62 ; relativity of governmental evolution, 80-81 ; 
 of land, 122 and note ; of sources of supply, 125 ; of American cities, 166-186 ; 
 of the Af ric-American, 317-345 ; as related to the race problem, 353-382 ; its 
 definition of moral questions, 511-514 ; its relation to law, 521, 531-536. 
 
 Evolution of the Afric-American, 317-345. 
 
 Executive functions in American cities, 164-165, 167, 169, 170. 
 
 FACTS, the basis of sociology, 34-40. 
 
 Fairchild, Hon. Charles S., on municipal government, 188-189. 
 
 Fawcett, Prof. H., on Hare's system of representation, 64 note. 
 
 Federalist, The, 62, 462. 
 
 Federal party, 436, 443, 444, 446, 453, 457, 460, 461, 462, 465, 467. 
 
 Fiske, Prof. John, in commendation of these lectures, v ; on political economy, 
 criticised by J. A. Skilton, 142, 143 note ; on the Government of the United 
 States, 155 ; on the bicameral system in American cities, 165 ; on the relation 
 of national to city politics, 171 note ; his work on civil government, 421 ; his 
 historical works, 422. 
 
 Fortune, T. Thomas, his term Afro- American, 342 ; on the future of the Negro 
 race in America, 344. 
 
 Francisco, M. J., on municipal lighting, 176. 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 74, 184, 244. 
 
 Fremont, Gen. John C., 104, 478. 
 
 Free-Soil party, 466-468. 
 
 Free trade, as related to taxation and revenue, 195-228 ; its definition, 195 ; its 
 Christian character, 197-198 ; dictated by self-interest, 198-201 ; its effect on 
 wages, 201-204 ; its relation to social reforms, 215-219 ; criticised by Hon. R. 
 G. Horr, 220-224, 470-471 ; Hon. J. C. Hendrix on, 475 ; H. S. Bellows on, 
 477 ; as related to morals, 513. 
 
 Fretwell, John, on the duty of public spirit, 18-19 ; opposed to sumptuary legisla- 
 tion, 19. 
 
 Froude, James Anthony, on social science, 23-24 ; on the cat's pilgrimage, 28. 
 
 Funk, Rev. Dr. I. K., on moral questions in politics, 576-577. 
 
 GALILEO, 143. 
 
 Gambetta, 81. 
 
 Garfield, Hon. James A., on inequalities of representation, 65-66. 
 
 Garrison, William Lloyd, his antislavery leadership, 424, 502, 505, 529. 
 
 George, Henry, his single-tax theory criticised, 140-141 ; defended by J. Whidden 
 Graham, 144-145. 
 
 Gladstone, Hon. William Ewart, on representative government, 59, 60 ; his elo- 
 quence, 255, 411 : his education, 425 ; his noble character, 535. 
 
 Glasgow, its municipal policy, 154, 157, 179, 180. 
 
 Gold, its value and use as money, 257-267. . 
 
 Government, its nature, 9 : its functions misdirected, 40 ; as related to represen- 
 tation, 55-81, 85, 86 ; of cities, 148-191 ; its fiscal powers, 261-282 ; its control 
 
554 Index. 
 
 of immigration, 291-307 ; an art, 352 ; of the people, 407 ; its fundamental na- 
 
 ture, 435-459 ; as related to the individual, 521-562. 
 Graham, J. Whidden, on the land problem, 144-145. 
 Greeley, Horace, his advice to young men, 161-162 ; his presidential aspirations, 
 
 447, 470. 
 
 Greenbacks, their value and use as money, 271-282. 
 Gresham's law, 266, 280. 
 Grevy, President, 81. 
 
 Guizot, on representative government, 61. 
 Gunton, Prof. George, on the study of applied sociology, 51 ; on opportunity, 
 
 143 : on the city as an outpost of civilization, 151 ; on the decay of Spanish 
 
 cities, 152 ; on the functions of government, 176 ; on the protective tariff, 231- 
 
 243, 249-251. 
 
 HABIT AND EDUCATION, 27-31. 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, on the despotism of majorities, 62 ; his political methods, 
 437 ; his work in the Constitutional Convention, 438, 466 ; his leadership in the 
 
 Federalist party, 465. 
 re, Thomas, on th 
 
 , . 
 Hare, Thomas, on the election of representatives, 63 and note, 64-72 ; on the value 
 
 of the suffrage, 68. 
 
 Harrison, President Benjamin, his tariff views, 218. 
 Harrison, Frederic, on the nature of government, 70. 
 Hendrix, Hon. Joseph C., on municipal government, 189-190 ; on the Republican 
 
 Hill, Honl David B., his lack of statesmanship, 76 ; his nominating convention, 
 
 408 ; his democracy, 436 ; his attitude toward the independents, 506. 
 Hinrichs, Frederic W., on manhood suffrage and the Hare system of representa- 
 
 tion, 79. 
 
 Hoadly, Hon. George, in commendation of these lectures, v. 
 Holland, its influence on American institutions, 61 and note. 
 Home rule need of, in American cities, 172 ; a cure for municipal apathy, 182 ; 
 
 how it can be restored in cities, 183-184, 190 ; Democratic doctrine of, 439-440. 
 Horr, Hon. Roswell G., in defense of a protective tariff, 220-224 ; on the Repub- 
 
 lican party, 465-473, 478-479. 
 Howard, Hon. Hiram, 186 note. 
 Humboldt, Baron, on the earth, 114. 
 Hundredmote, 60. 
 Hungarian immigration, 304, 309. 
 Huxley, Prof. Thomas H., on public education, 413 ; on evolutionary ethics, 512. 
 
 IMMIGRANTS, lawlessness of, as compared with native anarchism, 11-12 ; general 
 
 character of, 291-313. 
 Immigration problem, 291-313. 
 Independence, political, Dr. Eccles on, 29-30 ; Prof. Gunton on, 51 ; Dr. Janes on, 
 
 51-52, 503-504 ; Hon. R. G. Horr on, 472 ; John A. Taylor on, 483-500, 505-506 ; 
 
 Robert W. Tayler on, 501-503 ; Walter S. Logan on, 504-505. 
 Independent in politics, The, 483-506. 
 Index, 551. 
 
 Individual character and good citizenship, 181-182. 
 Infertility of hybrids, 369-370. 
 Italian immigration, 301-302, 305. 
 
 JANES, DR. LEWIS G., on political independence, 51-52, 503-504 ; on manhood 
 suffrage, 80-81 ; on the problem of city government, 149-186 ; in reply to 
 critics, 190-191 ; on the free-trade arguments, 226-227 ; on certain classes of 
 immigrants, 312 ; on the abolitionists, 402 ; on education and socialism, 430- 
 431 : his query about Philadelphia, 479 ; on the independent in politics, 503- 
 504. 
 
 Jay, John, 74, 424, 462. 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 409 ; on the dangers of government by majorities, 62 ; his 
 antislavery views, 355 note, 445 ; his contribution to democratic government, 
 437-442 ; Van Buren's relation to, 448 ; his tariff views, 460, 462, 471 ; his politi- 
 cal leadership, 465 ; his State rights doctrine, 466 ; his principles as related to 
 our civil war, 469 ; his true Democracy, 477 ; his views of party politics, 497 ; 
 on human knowledge, 499. 
 
 Jevons, Prof. J. Stanley, on money and finance, 266-267 ; on paper money, 284. 
 
 Johns Hopkins University pamphlets, 155, 175 note. 
 
 Justice, Spencer's work on, 131 ; as related to land, 131-133. 
 
 KENYON, ELLEN E., PD. M., on education and socialism, 428-429. 
 Kimball, Rev. John C., on moral questions in politics, 509-540. 
 
Index. 555 
 
 Kings, English, as related to representative government, 57-59 ; of France, 58 ; 
 
 their place in social evolution, 520-521. 
 Kipling, Rudyard, on the government of New York city, 545. 
 
 LAND PROBLEM, Prof. O. T. Mason on, 111-130 ; barbarization of land, 115, 125, 
 126, 131-143, 385, 400^02 ; relation of classes to land, 127 ; public and private 
 ownership, 127-128 ; taxation of land values, 128 ; James A. Skilton on, 131- 
 143 ; Robert G. Eccles on, 143-144 ; J. Whidden Graham on, 144-145 ; as re- 
 lated to city government, 178-180, 191. 
 
 Law, its part in human government, 9, 483 ; its influence impaired by corruption, 
 16 ; evils of sumptuary laws, 19 ; mingled good and evil of, 47^8 ; the refer- 
 endum as related to, 74, 184 ; opposed to corrupt practices, 89-90 ; as related 
 to the land, 128 ; courts of, in cities, 167 ; as related to the state, 520-521 ; 
 change of sentiment in regard to, 521-522. 
 
 Le Conte, Prof. Joseph, LL. D., on the race problem in the South, 349-382, 402. 
 
 Levermore, Prof. Charles H., on city government, 155 ; on the relation of national 
 to city politics, 171. 
 
 Lieber, Dr. Francis, on the right of free locomotion, 293. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, his definition of democratic government, 407 ; not a college- 
 educated man, 425 ; his democratic career, 443 ; on the higher law, 446 ; his 
 wisdom and statesmanship, 447 ; causes of his election, 468, 469 ; his political 
 independence, 488, 502 ; his abolition of slavery, 504. 
 
 Lincoln, Robert, 74. 
 
 Locke, John, on the object of government, 412. 
 
 Logan, Walter S., on suffrage and the ballot, 104-105; on the independent in 
 politics, 504-505. 
 
 Log-rolling, 169, 523. 
 
 London, its municipal government, 19. 
 
 Lords, House of, 58 et sea. ; compared with the United States Senate, 77 ; its 
 origin, 79-80. 
 
 Low, Seth, LL. D., on the government of New York city, 174 ; his political inde- 
 pendence, 496. 
 
 Lowell, James Russell, an ideal citizen, 18 ; his views on socialism, 67 ; on popular 
 government, 68 ; his patriotic poems, 422-424 ; on our slovenly diplomacy, 
 441 ; on political independence, 501, 502, 504. 
 
 Lubbock, Sir John, his defense of Hare's representative system, 64 and note, 65, 
 66 note ; criticised by Henry Rowley, 80. 
 
 Luther, Martin, 484. 
 
 McGEE, PROP. W J, on the waste of Southern lands, 114-115, 130 note. 
 
 McKinley, Hon. William, his tariff bill, 198, 211, 218, 223, 225, 227. 
 
 Machine politics, 93-97 ; in city government, 170-172 ; as related to personal inde- 
 pendence, 487. 
 
 Madison, James, his antislavery views, 355 note ,' his contribution to democratic 
 government, 439, 442 ; his relation to the Federal constitution, 462. 
 
 Magna Charta, 10, 57. 
 
 Maine, Sir Henry Sumner, on the ancient city, 149. 
 
 Man and Nature, 516-520. 
 
 Man's relation to moral questions, 514-515. 
 
 Mason, Prof. Otis T., Ph. D., on the land problem, 111-130, 145, 179. 
 
 Maxwell, William H., Ph. D., on public education, 426-428. 
 
 Mayor, his functions in American cities, 164-167. 
 
 Mazzini, Giuseppe, on human rights and duties, 544. 
 
 Mead, Edwin D., on representative government, 55-78, 81. 
 
 Messenger, Prof. Hiram J., on the tariff, 224-225 ; on education and citizenship, 
 429-430. 
 
 Metals, precious, as related to land-exhaustion, 121, 124, 125, 126 ; their value as 
 money, 257-263. 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, on Hare's system of representation, 62 ; on communism, 67-68; 
 on extra votes for superior persons, 69 ; on the benefits of freedom, 70 ; on a 
 skilled democracy, 73 ; on an indolent majority, 78 ; criticised by Henry 
 Rowley, 80. 
 
 Minority representation, 63-67, 98-103, 106 ; in American cities, 173-174. 
 
 Mirabeau, on paper money. 274. 
 
 Miscegenation, 320-321, 327.32-S, 336, 344, 367-375. 
 
 Monetary problem, The, 255-287. 
 
 Morality in Nature, 515-516. 
 
 Moral questions in politics, 509-547. 
 
 More, Sir Thomas, 515. 
 
 Mormonism, effects of its suppression by law, 525. 
 
 Moses, on the origin of the social state, 7 ; his relation to politics, 55. 
 
556 Index. 
 
 Mott, James and Lucretia, ideal citizens, 18. 
 
 Mugwump, 51, 52, 4b9, 491, 493, 497, 498, 499, 501, 502, 503, 504, 505, 506. 
 
 Municipal government, the problem of, 149-191. 
 
 Municipal lighting, 175, 176, 177. 
 
 NATION, its place in social evolution, 232-233 ; as related to immigration, 291-307. 
 National issues in local affairs, 87, 170-171 and note, 186. 
 
 Negro, in slavery and freedom, 317-336 ; his origin and relation to early civiliza- 
 tions, 337-344 ; his position in America, 349-402. 
 Nichols. Starr Hoyt, on the monetary problem, 283-284. 
 Nominating machinery, 100-103. 
 
 ORIGIN OF RACKS AND COLOR, 338. 
 
 PAPER MONEY, 271-282, 283, 284, 285. 
 
 Parker, Theodore, his definition of democratic government, 407. 
 
 Parliament, its origin. 56 ; its development, 57. 
 
 Parochial schools, 414-416, 427. 
 
 Party combinations, 91-92. 
 
 Party, political, its use in social evolution, 29-31 ; its place in representative gov- 
 ernment, 62-66 ; a means of uniting voters, 93 ; how its action is determined, 
 93-94 ; its management, 94-96. 
 
 Pascal, 75. 
 
 Paul, his conception of civic duty, 5 ; his daring injunction, 516. 
 
 Peel, Robert, his political independence, 492. 
 
 Peffer, Senator, his financial schemes, 277-278. 
 
 Pension system, its abuse, 451. 
 
 Phariseeism in politics, 490, 501, 503-504, 506. 
 
 Phillips, Wendell, on manhood suffrage, 173 ; on the scholar in politics, 424 ; on 
 the power of the press, 493 ; his antislavery leadership, 505, 529. 
 
 Pillsbury, Parker, 529. 
 
 Plato's Republic, 515. 
 
 Pliny, on law and principle, 520. 
 
 Political problem in the South, 375-379. 
 
 Politics, as a profession and a career, 14-15 ; in city and national government, 
 170-172 ; the independent in, 483-506 ; as related to moral questions, 506-547 ; 
 imperfections of its methods, 522-527. 
 
 Poll tax, 69, 378, 420. 
 
 Population of American cities, 159-162. 
 
 Potts, William, on taxation in cities, 181 and note ; on primary elections, 190 ; on 
 prices and wages, 249 ; on the monetary problem, 255-282, 286-287. 
 
 Principles of race improvement, 365-373. 
 
 Private schools, 414-418, 427, 428-429. 
 
 Problem of city government, 149-191, 266. 
 
 Property qualification, not in harmony with the democratic spirit, 69, 81 ; not 
 effective in American cities, 173, 174 ; recommended in the South by Prof. Le 
 Conte, 377-378. 
 
 Protection, by taxation of imports, criticised by Thomas G. Shearman, 195-219 ; 
 by Lindley Vinton, 244-247 ; by Henry Rowley, 248-249 ; defended by Hon. 
 Roswell G. Horr, 220-224, 467, 470-473 ; by Dr. Robert G. Eccles, 225-226 ; by 
 Prof. George Gunton, 231-243, 249-251 ; by Robert W. Tayler, 247-248 ; dis- 
 cussed by Edward M. Shepard, 449-450 ; by Stewart L. Woodford, 460. 
 
 Public schools, in American cities, 166, 175 ; in the South, 325-327, 333 ; as a prepa- 
 ration for citizenship, 416121. 
 
 Puritans, their idea of the Sabbath, 37 ; their relation to free government, 58, 59 ; 
 then* lasting influence, 458. 
 
 QUAKERS, their exemption from military service, 489. 
 
 RACE IMPROVEMENT, principles of, 365-373. 
 
 Race problem in the South, 349-402. 
 
 Referendum, 74-75, 184. 
 
 Reid, Whitelaw, 74. 
 
 Remsen, Daniel S., on suffrage and the ballot, 85-103, 106-107. 
 
 Representation, 85-87. 
 
 Representative government, 55-82. 
 
 Republican party, its relation to the Whig party, 445 ; its opposition to slavery 
 extension, 446-447 ; its early inconsistency, 447 ; its position on the tariff issue, 
 450 ; its great services recognized, 453 ; compared with the Democratic party, 
 455-456 ; its relation to the Federal party, 461 ; its career outlined by Hon. R. 
 G. Horr, 465-473 ; criticised by Hon. Joseph C. Hendrix, 474-476; by Henry S. 
 
Index. 557 
 
 Bellows, 477-478 ; defended by George E. Waldo, 476-477; by Mr. Horr, in re- 
 ply, 478-479. 
 
 Roman Catholics and the public-school question, 414-416. 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, on machine politics, 97 ; on the specialization of functions 
 in politics, 493. 
 
 Ruskin, John, on party action, 487. 
 
 SACRED AND SECULAR, false antithesis of, 6. 
 
 Sampson, Z. Sidney, on the study of applied sociology, 50-51 ; on the immigration 
 problem. 291-309, 312-313. 
 
 Schools public, in cities, 166 175 ; in the South, 325-327, 333 ; private and paro- 
 chial, 414-418, 427, 428-429 ; as a preparation for citizenship, 416-421. 
 
 Science and art, 351-354. 
 
 Scientific method, applied to the municipal problem, 158-159 ; to the race prob- 
 lem, 351-354. 
 
 Secularism, to be wisely cultivated, 16-17 ; in the public schools, 414-419. 
 
 Senate of the United States, its report on representative reform, 65, 81 ; its un- 
 equal representation, 76 ; its plutocratic tendency, 76-77 ; its meaning in our 
 Federal system, 168. 
 
 Seventh-day Baptists, 489. 
 
 Sewage problem and our food-supply, 178-180. 
 
 Sex, genesis of, 367-373. 
 
 Shaw, Dr. Albert, on city government, 155. 
 
 Shearman, Thomas G., on taxation and revenue, the free-trade view, 195-219, 
 227-228. 
 
 Shepard, Edward M., on the Democratic party, 435-459, 462. 
 
 Sherman, Hon. John, 76, 77, 446, 453. 
 
 Shiremote, 60. 
 
 Silver, its monetary use and value, 257-262, 266, 276 ; the free coinage of, 279-282, 
 284, 285, 286, 449, 450, 461, 462. 
 
 Single-tax, 128, 140, 141; in American cities, 181 and note. 
 
 Skilton, James A., on the land problem, 131-143 ; on land barbarization, 178, 179 ; 
 on the race problem in the South, 383-402. 
 
 Slavery, in the United States, as related to the land problem, 114, 135-143 ; in the 
 ancient city, 149 ; its origin and influence in the United States, 317-322, 329, 
 340, 341 ; as related to the race problem, 349-362, 383-388 ; its political aspects, 
 445-447, 467-169, 477-478, 488, 504-505 ; its real essence, judged by sociological 
 law, 513 ; moral effect of its abolition, 519 ; law an obstacle to its reform, 526; 
 lofty character of its opponents, 529. 
 
 Slaves as property, 352-359. 
 
 Smith, Adam, 134, 142, 143 note, 151. 
 
 Social compact, its obligations, 485. 
 
 Socialism, defined and commended, 67-78 ; opposed by Herbert Spencer, 72 ; as 
 related to city government, 180 ; to public education, 411-414, 428, 430-432 ; as 
 related to anarchism, 517-540. 
 
 Sociology, study of applied, 23-52 ; bearing of statistics on, 31-32 ; facts, not 
 wishes, its basis, 34-40 ; misleading fancies concerning, 40-42 ; Spencer's De- 
 scriptive Sociology, 119 note. 
 
 Socrates on the study of physics, 406. 
 
 Spahr, Charles, Ph. D., on the immigration problem, 308-310. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, on character as the aim of statesmanship, vii ; on the origin 
 of government, 10 ; on the anti-theological bias, 51 ; character of his influ- 
 ence, 52 ; on the ultimate ethics, 52 ; on representative government, 72 ; his 
 opposition to socialism, 72 ; his Descriptive Sociology, 119 note ; on the evo- 
 lution of morals, 131 ; on social evolution, 142 ; on the influence of cities, 151, 
 ir>v! ; on woman suffrage, 175 ; on the health of nations, 312 ; on the new 
 tyranny, 411 ; his individualism, 413 ; his views on government, 440 ; on the 
 co-ordination of function with structure, 493 ; on political evolution, 503 ; on 
 the functions of the state, 536. 
 
 Spoils system, 87. 
 
 State rights, 444-446, 457, 466, 467. 
 
 Statistics, their bearing on sociology, 31-32 ; on education, 410-411. 
 
 Stewart, T. McCants, on the history and destiny of the negro race, 337-344. 
 
 Street railways, as related to the municipal problem, 177-178. 
 
 Study of applied sociology. 23-52. 
 
 Suffrage, in Switzerland, 55, 61 ; its extension 59-60 ; in America, 62-63 ; a right 
 of value, 68 ; its freedom imperative, 69-70 ; and the ballot, 85-107 ; in Ameri- 
 can cities, 173-175 ; of women in English cities, 175 ; of the negroes, 333. 343, 
 37T. :\" t 7 ; as related to political independence, 483-500 ; woman's right to, 530. 
 
 Sumner, Chnrlos. on the city as the home of freedom. 151 ; on the admission of 
 certain Territories, 447 ;'his lofty personal character, 535. 
 
558 Index. . 
 
 Sunday, the best uses for, 55 ; Puritan uses of, 458. 
 Swiss voting customs, 55, 61, 184. 
 Sydney, Sir Philip, 500, 515. 
 
 TARIFF, the free-trade view of, 195-228 ; the protectionist view of, 231-251 ; a 
 
 moral question, 543. 
 Taxation and revenue, the free-trade view, 195-228 ; the protectionist view, 231- 
 
 251 ; direct taxation, 247 ; as related to political parties, 44 C J, 450, 460, 462, 467, 
 
 470-473. 
 
 Taxation in American cities, 181. 
 
 Tayler, Robert W., on the tariff, 247-248 ; on the independent in politics, 501-503. 
 Taylor, John A., on suffrage and the ballot, 106 ; on municipal government, 187- 
 
 188 ; on the independent in politics, 483-500, 505-506. 
 Tenure of office in city government, 170. 
 
 Thompson, Daniel Greenleaf , on the study of applied sociology, 50. 
 Tilden, Hon. Samuel J., his relations to city government, 161 ; his Jeffersonian 
 
 politics, 448. 
 
 Tolstoi, Count Lyof N., on love of enemies, 197. 
 Trading votes, 90. 
 
 Trades-unions, defects of, 12 ; their attitude toward immigration, 311, 313. 
 Turgot, his relation to representative government, 58. 
 Tyndall, Prof. John, on the potency of matter, 131. 
 Tyranny of institutions, 50. 
 
 UNION, the American, as related to the Democratic party, 444-447 ; to the Repub- 
 lican party, 469. 
 United action of voters, 91. 
 
 VAN BUREN, MARTIN, his ability as a statesman, 443 ; his relation to the national 
 banks, 443 ; on the relation of the citizen to the Government, 444 ; his history 
 of political parties, 446 ; his relations to Samuel J. Tilden, 448. 
 
 Vendetta, 312. 
 
 Veys, social status of, 341. 
 
 Vinton, Lindley, in defense of free trade, 244-247. 
 
 WAGES, as affected by free trade, 201-204 ; the protectionist view of, 235-239, 245- 
 246, 248, 249 ; as related to prices, 202-204, 236-237, 249-250. 
 
 Waldo. George E. , on the Republican party, 476-477. 
 
 Walker, Gen. Francis A., on money and finance, 258, 262-263, 272. 
 
 Ward councils, in American cities, 183-184, 190. 
 
 Washington, George, a founder of the Constitution, 10 ; his protest against no- 
 export duties, 135 ; his antislavery views, 355 note ; not a college-bred man, 
 425 ; a political independent, 487 ; on party spirit, 493. 
 
 Webster, Daniel, on the evils of party patronage, 496. 
 
 Whig party, its origin, 443 ; its views on the national-bank issue, 443 ; its conces- 
 sions to slavery, 445 ; its plutocratic tendencies, 455 ; its dissolution, 468. 
 
 White, Hon. Andrew D., on evolution in politics, v. 
 
 Wiclif, 61. 
 
 Williams, Roger, his contributions to free government, 59 ; his doctrine of soul- 
 liberty, 414. 
 
 Williams, William H., on party methods in elections, 105. 
 
 William the Conqueror, 57. 
 
 Witenagemote, its relations to representative government, 56, 57 ; to the House 
 of Lords, 58, 80, 81. 
 
 Wolf, Alfred J., on taxing immigrants, 311. 
 
 Woman's suffrage, in English cities, 175 ; its justice, 530. 
 
 Woodford, Gen. Stewart L., his opposition to paper money, 450 ; on the Demo- 
 cratic party, 460-463. 
 
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