UIBRARV
OF Till
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
r I K T OK
KeceiveJ
Accession No.
, 1890
. Clots No.
PARTISAN POLITICS
THE EVIL AND THE REMEDY
AN ANALYSIS OF THE GREAT POLITICAL PARTIES OF THE
COUNTRY THEIR MORALS AND METHODS AS
THE SUPREME POWER IN THE REPUBLIC
THE REMEDY PROHIBITIVE LEGISLATION
BY
JAMES SAYLES BROWN
LOS ANGELES, CAL.
Then none was for a party ;
Then all were for the State ;
Then the great men helped the poor,
And the poor man loved the great ;
The lands were fairly portioned ;
Then spoils were fairly sold ;
The Romans were like brothers
In the brave days of old."
MACAULHY Lays of Ancient Rome
PHILADELPHIA
PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1897
PRICE, 50 CENTS
COPYRIGHT, 1897,
BY
JAMES SAYLES BROWN.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
PROLOGUE. THE GENESIS OF PARTIES . 7
CHAPTER II.
SECTARIAN POLITICS 14
CHAPTER III.
THEIR TENDENCY TO DEGRADE THE CIVIL SERVICE ... 20
CHAPTER IV.
POLITICAL HERESY 35
CHAPTER V.
PARTIES NEVER DIE. ALWAYS BE A BAD PARTY ... 42
CHAPTER VI.
DISPARAGEMENT OF PUBLIC MEN. HAVE WE ANY GREAT
MEN? 62
CHAPTER VII.
PARTY METHODS. CARRYING ELECTIONS . 66
CHAPTER VIII.
ELECTION METHODS CONTINUED 73
CHAPTER IX.
PURCHASING VOTES , 79
CONTENTS.
CHAPTEK X.
GERRYMANDERING
CHAPTER XI.
GOVERNMENT PATRONAGE 88
CHAPTER XII.
CLASS LEGISLATION 91
CHAPTER XIII.
LOG-ROLLING 95
CHAPTER XIV.
GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS 97
CHAPTER XV.
CORRUPT USE OF THE UNITED STATES TERRITORIKS . . 107
CHAPTER XVI.
THE GRAND ARMY OF CONQUEST 112
CHAPTER XVII.
THE VAST POWERS THEY WIELD 118
CHAPTER XVIII.
THEIR WAR RECORD . . . . 127
CHAPTER XIX.
UNAUTHORIZED AND IRRESPONSIBLE . . 144
CHAPTER XX.
PARTISAN CONTROVERSY AN ENDLESS CHAIN . 164
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXI.
THEIR OWN MON]
PEOPLE'S TIME . 164
PAGE
HOW THEY SPEND THEIR OWN MONEY AND OTHER
CHAPTER XXII.
THE REMEDY 174
CHAPTER XXIII.
OBJECTIONS . , 182
PARTISAN POLITICS.
CHAPTEK I.
PROLOGUE. THE GENESIS OF PARTIES.
THESE pages will be devoted to the discussion of
the following proposition : Those organizations known
as political parties, through whose exclusive agency
all the powers and functions of the governments, State
and national, are exercised and controlled, each
claiming to be, par excellence, the representatives and
servants of the people, and to be laboring earnestly
and unselfishly in promoting the common welfare,
are, in fact, combinations and minorities of the voting
population who have conspired to seize and hold the
government, with all its institutions, powers, offices,
and emoluments, and use them primarily and exclu-
sively in the interests of the party and its favorites.
Though the purposes of these formidable and rival
political factions are well understood, and are sanc-
tioned and encouraged by the great majority of the
electors, they are, nevertheless, hostile to free institu-
tions and the liberties of the people, and as such
should be subjected to the restraints and prohibitions
of law.
A reform in politics of the radical nature here sug-
gested will strike the average voter who is strongly
g PARTISAN POLITICS.
attached to his party as a proposal altogether extrava-
gant and impracticable, if not utterly absurd in con-
ception. With the great mass of the voting popula-
tion of this country the political sentiment which
binds them to the party organizations is as strong and
enduring as the religious sentiment cherished among
Christians of the various sects, and it is not improbable
that there are more backsliders among the Christian
converts than are found among the adherents of the
great parties. Nevertheless, there is left to us a large
number of thoughtful and earnest citizens who cher-
ish, our free institutions, with the love which the
fathers manifested for them, who see in the decay of
public morals the degeneracy of our representative
men, and in the increasing power of the political com-
binatioVs which already rule and despoil us one of the
greatest perils of the republic.
With a fraction of these citizens we hope amicably
to discuss this subject. We write for them, for with
right-minded minorities all genuine reforms must be-
gin.
The writer, for more than twenty years of his life,
was an active partisan in the political field, and during
that period the incumbent of several offices. Until
his recent acquisition of citizenship in the State of
California he had been for thirty years a continued
resident of the District of Columbia. For many years
he has not cast a vote with any party organization,
and has no party prejudices or preferences. He has
had much observation and some experience of the
political methods in vogue throughout the country.
PARTISAN POLITICS. 9
and hopes, therefore, to be able to treat the subject in
hand intelligibly and without prejudice or passion.
The rise of political parties in this country dates
back to about the year 1787. Previous to that time
the methods now in use in the management and con-
trol of such organizations were comparatively un-
known. In that year a constitutional convention
assembled in Philadelphia to establish a national con-
stitution for the government of the country. In
the debates on the drafting of the instrument marked
differences of opinion were soon developed, which
resulted practically in dividing the body into two
opposing parties. This tendency appeared in a form
quite as decided and irreconcilable in the State con-
ventions to which the instrument was submitted for
acceptance. These differences of opinion consisted,
on the one hand, in a tendency to maintain freedom
of action for the individual citizen, and for the several
States independence in legislation and administration,
and in everything, indeed, except the foreign policy
and the national defences of the Union. On the other
hand, the tendency was to subordinate the States to
the national authority and clothe it with powers com-
mensurate with its responsibility and dignity as the
ruling power of the nation.
The advocates of a central national authority soon
became known as Federalists. The opposite party
took the name of Republicans, or Democrats, or Dem-
ocrat-Republicans, Thomas Jefferson leading the lat-
ter, and Alexander Hamilton the former of these then
recognized divisions of the political sentiment of the
10 PARTISAN POLITICS.
country. These new parties, though they did not
possess the advantages of organization and the means
of support which are so readily obtainable at the pres-
ent day, nevertheless grew apace and shared the pub-
lic confidence. They had their separate candidates
for the Presidency and for the different State offices,
and their party leaders in the Senate and House of
Kepresentatives.
The Federalists were in power under the adminis-
tration of Washington and Adams until the year
1800, when the Republicans succeeded them, with
Jefferson as President, who held the office for eight
years. He was followed by Mr. Madison an<l Mr.
Monroe, who each were in office for eight years. This
period from 1788 to 1824 may be said to be the for-
mative period in the development of party organiza-
tion in American politics.
Other issues began to arise between these parties of
a commercial, economic, and diplomatic nature.
There was much party bitterness, and malice even,
manifested in the literature and discussions of the
partisans of the day; a wholesale detraction of their
opponents and a general disregard for truth and com-
mon courtesy were the chief vices of the politicians
of that period; but there was comparatively little of
that tendency, afterwards exhibited in so many forms,
to make merchandise of the powers and resources of
the State and of the rights of individual citizens.
Sectional divisions soon arose among the leading
politicians who joined in electing Mr. Monroe in
1820, and under the influence of the personal hos-
PARTISAN POLITICS. u
tility existing between Henry Clay and Andrew
Jackson two great parties again appeared upon the
stage in about the year 1830. One of these organiza-
tions, under the name of Democrats, supported the
doctrines and public measures of the Jeffersonian Re-
publicans. The other section took the name of the
National Republican, and finally the Whig party.
They represented many of the views and traditions
of the Federalists. These two organizations, which
contended with one another with varied success for
over thirty years, were succeeded by the present Dem-
ocratic and Republican parties.
The tenure of office under the earlier Presidents
was practically for life, or during good behavior. Ap-
pointments were made on the merits of the appointee,
and public office was regarded as a trust of much re-
sponsibility, as well as honor. "Washington in eight
years removed only nine persons. John Adams re-
moved the same number in four years. Jefferson in
eight years removed thirty-nine persons; and in the
twenty years following there were but sixteen re-
movals from office. In fact, from April 30, 1789,
to March 4, 1829, there were but seventy-four re-
movals from office, and out of this number, five were
defaulters to the government. But between March
4, 1829, and March 22, 1830, the number of changes
made in the civil service amounted to about two thou-
sand.
General Jackson on his accession to the Presidency
announced in his message rotation in office as Demo-
cratic doctrine. In the practical application of this
12 PARTISAN POLITICS.
rule of his administration he removed five hundred
postmasters during the first year of his executive rule.
Senator Marcy, of New York, a Democratic leader in
the Senate in 1832, in a speech in defence of partisan
removals and short terms of office, said, "They," mean-
ing the New York politicians, "when contending for
victory, avow the intention of enjoying the fruits of
it. They see nothing wrong in the rule that 'to the
victor belong the spoils' of the enemy." This doc-
trine had been pretty well exemplified and perma-
nently established by the action of the Democratic
party of the Empire State. It is generally conceded,
perhaps, by everybody outside of that party that the
spoils system was inaugurated and had its first party
recognition under the administration of General
Jackson. Its rivals were not slow in adopting tlio
same policy and like measures in securing its success.
The spoils system had at this period been adopted and
was flourishing with ominous success in the local poli-
tics of both New York and Pennsylvania. It was
perhaps inevitable that it should be introduced into
national politics.
The increasing wealth and population of the coun-
try and the rapidity with which new civil communities
were springing up all over the land increased the
activity of the politicians and opened a wide-spread
and inviting field to the demagogue and the soldier of
fortune in political warfare. This condition of things
was in a large measure due to some unfortunate legis-
lation obtained about this time for party purposes.
In 1820, Mr. Crawford, a distinguished Democrat
PARTISAN POLITICS. 13
from a Southern State, procured the passage of a law
limiting the tenure of office to four years. This un-
wise and dangerous provision of law was advocated on
the ground of justice to that large class of citizens
who desired to share in the honors and responsibilities
of public office. It was urged that such a law would
have a tendency to equalize the honors and emolu-
ments of office among the people, and prevent the
politicians and placemen from monopolizing these de-
sirable positions and holding them indefinitely. This
measure was generally accepted at the time of its en-
actment as a popular stroke of legislation and a scheme
adapted to give to a larger number of citizens a share
in the immediate administration of public affairs, and
thus increase the numbers of those who would have an
intelligent and direct interest in the execution of the
laws and promoting in a multitude of ways the gen-
eral welfare. Time has shown that it was really one
of the most mischievous and dangerous acts that was
ever passed by the American Congress. It was really
a party device to increase the amount of patronage
available for party purposes. Its immediate effect
was to increase enormously the patronage of the gov-
ernment and multiply the numbers and encourage the
hopes of the many who were engaged in the scramble
for office. It exerted a wide-spread influence in de-
moralizing the civil service and in diminishing its
general efficiency.
Thus at an early day after the adoption of the
Constitution did these organizations obtain an as-
cendency in American politics which has been con-
14 PARTISAN POLITICS.
stantly growing more assured and more tyrannical
and corrupt as the nation has advanced in civiliza-
tion and material progress.
CHAPTER H.
SECTARIAN POLITICS.
OTJK first accusation against the parties who divide
the political sentiment of the country to-day is that
they are clannish, selfish, and exclusive in a marked
degree. A simple statement of the real purpose and
business of these organizations, the chief end and
aim which inspires all their zeal and compensates
them for all their labor, is sufficient to impeach them
as unworthy the confidence of a free people, and
prompt the earnest inquiry from everv impartial
citizen, Why are they permitted to exist?y If they
were free associations admitting to their fellowship
citizens of every shade of political opinion, if they
were controlled by the wisest and best men of the na-
tion even, they would be dangerous to the liberties
of the people; and as organizations established out-
side and independent of the government for the pur-
pose of controlling its action and wielding its
authority, whatever may be their character other-
wise, they would be unworthy of the support of
honest men. But they have not this plea even of
good intentions and patriotic motives in their behalf.
They assume to be discharging the fimctions of gov-
PARTISAN POLITICS. 15
eminent which they have usurped, for the sole
benefit of their fellow-citizens at large, while, in
fact, such organizations are primarily maintained
for the exclusive benefit of those who actively sus-
tain it. It is a conspiracy, often openly avowed, on
the part of certain combinations of citizens to seize
the offices, honors, and emoluments which pertain to
the government service, and distribute them exclu-
sively among the members of the successful party.
Democrats cannot share in any of these honors and
responsibilities while Eepublicans are in power. A
Republican who sets up any claim to share the bene-
fits of a Democratic victory in an election will only
excite the derision and contempt of all parties. They
are simply political joint stock and mutual benefit
associations, conducted solely in the interests of their
membership. Its partisan adherents and followers
may be divided into two classes: first, those who
have talent, influence, or position, or can control a
large voting constituency; second, the rank and file
of the organization who do the voting, the shouting,
and the booming which constitutes so important a
part in the election of candidates for office. The
first class, who are the leaders and directors of the
combination, find their compensation for their labors
in the possession of the offices, perquisites, and hon-
ors captured by the party. As the lions of the organ-
ization they take by common consent the lion's share
of whatever the association captures under the rules
of political warfare. The second and larger class of
citizens look for their compensation insuch legisla-
16 PARTISAN POLITICS.
tion as will favor their interests or improve tlieir
business, or that of the class or guild to which they
belong. They have a pride, furthermore, in being
members of a large and powerful association patron-
ized and championed by a host of distinguished men.
Everybody knows, or, at least, has the evidence to
believe, that these are the sole considerations that
keep these organizations in existence, and that with-
out them it would be impossible to sustain a political
party as a permanent organization in any State in
the Union. How often in the strifes of these parti-
sans do we hear it said, and the party press of both
sides declare, of the rival party, that it is kept to-
gether only by the cohesive power of public plun-
der. These jobbing conspirators believe what they
aver, and from evidence of which they are excellent
judges; and, what is more, every intelligent citizen
holds the same opinion. If there were no spoils to
be obtained, men enough could not be found to
maintain these cumbrous organizations and do so
vast an amount of work at such sacrifice of time and
money simply for the purpose of instructing the
masses as to their duties as members of the body
politic.
Thus it may be confidently averred of these parties
that the prime object of their existence, and of all
their zeal and labor in the political field, is to secure
place and the emoluments of power under govern-
ment patronage and protection. Their loud profes-
sions of superior intelligence, virtue, and patriotism,
like the stale multiloquence of the showman and the
PARTISAN POLITICS. ^
mountebank, is a mere device to inspire confidence
and allay honest suspicion in the minds of the
masses to whose ears they mostly address themselves.
There is nothing new to us in this general condition
of a voluntary association, ostensibly formed for
wise and good purposes and in the interest of the
public. Such organizations are multiplied on every
hand, some of them of a religious and benevolent
order, originally instituted by wise men, which at
length, falling into the hands of ambitious and mer-
cenary combinations, become agencies of corruption,
oppression, and crime.
There are many people in these great political as-
sociations of superior merits as citizens, and as Chris-
tians even, but they can do little or nothing towards
changing the chief purposes of their action, their
methods, or their general character. They are the
mere servants and followers of those who lead and
govern the great coalition. Upright and conscien-
tious men are not eligible even, under the party al-
lotment, to the offices of inferior grades. The great
body of the electors of the country who have given
their fealty and support to these parties are silent
partners in the joint concern, and have little in-
fluence, and so naturally feel but slight responsi-
bility in regard to their general management. A
spartan phalanx of placemen, bred and skilled in the
tactics of political promotion, have obtained posses-
sion of all the forces and machinery of these organi-
zations, and use them as a stock company uses a mine
or a mill, to produce for its shareholders the largest
18 'PARTISAN POLITICS.
possible dividends. The earnings and honors of the
association can be shared only by those who are
members of it. The Democratic party is for Demo-
crats and for none others; all it achieves and ac-
quires is for Democrats only. The same is true of
the Republican party in every particular. While
either of these, or any other similar organization, is
in the ascendency, it is well understood that, as a
rule, nobody outside of them will be permitted to
hold places of honor and trust under the government,
or share in the peculiar advantages which come to
the party which wins a Presidential election. The
chief burden of the executive office and the princi-
pal business of the heads of departments is to fur-
nish places for the members of their own party after
its accession to power. If these gentlemen do not
use extraordinary diligence and skill in turning out
their political opponents and in making vacancies
for the benefit of their own political brotherhood,
they will subject themselves to the severest criticism
by the party throughout the country. That official
who would appoint a member of a rival organization
to any salaried position, or a non-partisan citizen to
any public office, or who would favor any such gen-
eral policy, would be denounced as a traitor to the
party, and would soon lose his political standing, if
not his official head. If they can prevent it, no one
outside of their ranks will be permitted to hold any
place of honor or profit, or be in any position as a
representative of the people. Thus they maintain
an unyielding monopoly of all these high privileges
PARTISAN POLITICS. jg
and sacred trusts which pertain to the govern-
ment of a free people. They manifest such a
degree of intolerance in proscribing all who are not
members of their conclave, that one is led to fear
that they might, under the pressure of great compe-
tition, disfranchise all persons who do not prove
their allegiance to it. To gerrymander the enemy's
district, to illegally challenge or destroy his vote, to
count him out, or contest his seat after he is legally
elected, are common devices practised by rival politi-
cal organizations, and grave bodies like State Legis-
latures and the national Congress will aid and abet
in these crimes against human liberties.
Such being the character of these combinations,
selfish and clannish, ambitious of power and doubt-
ful honors, with almost unlimited access to the pub-
lic treasury, who need be surprised that they are un-
scrupulous and corrupt in their methods, debauching
the public service and all persons connected with it?
What else are they likely to be than a disturbing and
dangerous force in the body politic and a constant
menace to the integrity of our representative system
of government and our free institutions? Who does
not know that they lower the standard of public
morals and deprave the sentiments of patriotism and
honor which the American people have been so long
taught sacredly to cherish?
20 PARTISAN POLITICS.
CHAPTER III.
THEIR TENDENCY TO DEGRADE THE CIVIL SERVICE.
WITH such parties, selfish, ambitious, and exclu-
sive, in possession of the government, what kind of a
civil service might we naturally expect them to
maintain under our free suffrage and unrestricted
immigration into the country? Would they not un-
questionably degrade it to a very low standard of
qualification and efficiency? Would it not be thor-
oughly partisan, incompetent, and corrupt? From
the composition and general character of all political
organizations in this country, they are quite unfitted
for the responsibilities they assume and the duties
they are called upon to discharge. Anybody can be
a Republican, or a Democrat, or a Populist in poli-
tics. We are all eligible to membership in these as-
sociations, without respect to race, condition, color,
antecedents, or moral character. No man who has a
vote will be blackballed or denied party fellowship
by reason of unfortunate idiosyncrasies or disabili-
ties, mental or moral. All the people want to vote,
and each man chooses a partisan organization
through which he hopes to make his vote and his
political endeavors effective. A very large share of
these citizens would like something in the way of
honors or perquisites, as a result of their labors in
this connection. Though they are too modest to take
openly the position of candidates for office, they have
PARTISAN POLITICS. 21
secret hopes and aspirations that they may be favor-
ably considered in the party allotment of places.
Others, and they are not a few in numbers, are very
anxious to hold office of almost any grade, or in some
other way serve the public for a stipulated consider-
ation. Hence each party is composed of a very mis-
cellaneous company of voting citizens who are de-
sirous of serving their country in a position of honor
and profit./ The drummers and recruiting sergeants
of these organizations are generally demagogues
who have expectations in the increase of the party
vote, and they want therefore, votes in any possible
number and in any way they can be obtained. They
therefore, as they say, appeal to the masses and hold
meetings where the common people can be most
easily reached. They make special appeals to the
poor man, the man out of a job, and the man
who wants a change or a rotation in office, to the
citizens of foreign birth, to the idle and vicious, and
promise them immunity from the ills of life, and
general prosperity, if they come into the party fold.
From this muster of partisan forces, which consti-
tute a numerical majority of every popular organi-
zation, are selected the persons who are to occupy
places of trust and power in the service of the pub-
lic; or rather from the ranks of the dominant party
only will these selections be made, for they will hold
a monopoly of this distribution. This appointment
of the prizes won in battle from the enemy will be
made in strict accordance with the doctrine of re-
wards and punishments, punishing your enemies
22 PARTISAN POLITICS.
by turning them out of office, and rewarding your
friends by putting them in the vacant positions you
make.
In the history of party organizations it will be
found that they generally arise out of some public
want and consequent demand; some needed reform
is imperative, some important changes are required
in the financial, commercial, or economic conditions
of the country. The inauguration of a now party
in politics is always an experiment. Such enter-
prizes offer little to corrupt even ambitious men,
who have nothing to risk for the public good merely,
so that the burden of initiating and launching a
new movement of this character upon an uncertain
sea is generally taken up by a class of earnest, pub-
lic-spirited, and more or less conscientious citizens.
They are a class generally who have no axes to
grind, and who are laboring generously, if not
solely, for the public good. Now this party while it
is young and vigorous, having little experience in
public affairs, and but little discipline in party tac-
tics, will be comparatively a pure and patriotic asso-
ciation; but when it has once partaken of the
honors that pertain to official place it is sure to de-
velop that lust for spoils which is innate in the car-
nal mind that has a turn for politics. As soon as it
has a pay-roll and a cash-box, in other words, as
soon as it can create vacancies in official positions
and fill them at will, as sure as it can get posses-
sion and control of the United States treasury it
will be sure of a large accession from the older party
PARTISAN POLITICS. 23
organizations. That numerous class of mercenaries
who follow and feed upon the spoils of the victors,
the broken politicians, the bosses out of a job, to-
gether with the great body who constitute the float-
ing vote, will go over to the new party, with the
instinct of gentler animals who are always seeking
fresh feeding-grounds. This is a general history of
all the political parties that have ever existed in this
country. As an Irishman would say, they never can
be trusted with power except when they are in the
minority.
Now, from these political unions there must be
chosen the persons to whom we intrust the entire
administration of government, State and national,
involving the liberties, the property, and the lives of
the people. There are good men enough, intel-
ligent, honest, and capable, to fill these official
places with credit to themselves and the country, but
the party rule by which they are distributed is such,
and the standard of qualification for holding the
highest offices even is so low and depraved, that citi-
zens of the better class have little chance of being
elected for these responsible trusts, or of remaining
long in them if they should fortunately be chosen.
These partisan associations are of a popular char-
acter, composed ostensibly of compatriots and sym-
pathizers, and they keep open house every day in
the year. Entire political equality, the sentiment
that one man is as good as another, that there is no
official position that the meanest man may not aspire
to and attain by any of the methods sanctioned by
24 PARTISAN POLITICS.
party usage, are cardinal doctrines in American poli-
tics. Taking advantage of the growing sentiment in
the country for liberty, equality, and fraternity, the
grosser elements of these organizations inevitably
assert themselves and claim the high privileges of
their citizenship and their party allegiance. The
ambitious, the mercenary and venal among them,
the bold, bad men of every caste, become active in
the competitive struggle for place or some remuner-
ative service under the government. By sheer
physical exertion and endurance, by shouldering
and bullying, by acts of violence and fraud, they
soon create an atmosphere around them in which an
honest man cannot live, and in which no self-respect-
ing gentleman will wish long to remain. These
worthy citizens generally retire in disgust from any
active service, and leave a clear field to those who are
less fastidious as to their associates and are not thin-
skinned and squeamish about the tactics to be em-
ployed in political warfare. This unscrupulous class
of partisans are insatiate and persistent in their hun-
ger for office; they will plot for it and fight for it,
and often they will stain their hands with blood to
secure it for themselves or their patrons. Thoso
methods are quite effective, and those who employ
them generally win. This style of men in various
guises abound in the political arena, and they multi-
ply rapidly as a party grows older and its revenues
and sinecures increase. Such a sphere of action is
congenial to, the tastes of a large class of citizens,
and it is qiiite adapted to their peculiar occupations
and talents.
PARTISAN POLITICS, 25
It is true, furthermore, that this class of persons
have become a necessity of the modern party organi-
zations, especially as they are conducted in the great
cities of the country; indeed, no political party can
do without them. They require a great variety of
service.- There is, as is sometimes said, much dirty
work to be done; and not unfrequently bloody work
is to be done; the bulldozing and shotgun policy of
the South, by which the negro vote has been sup-
pressed for the last twenty-five years, is not the only
record of violence and bloodshed which the political
partisans have furnished for the future historian of
the republic. In the great municipalities, where the
industrial classes are massed and can be more conve-
niently manipulated, they are made a factor of no
inconsiderable consequence. The slums of the great
towns must be worked, and the rural districts can-
vassed to their remotest corners; false and libellous
reports are to be printed and circulated against the
candidates of the opposing party; votes are to be
purchased; men of foreign birth not entitled to vote
are to be registered and kept under surveillance
until the day of election; men must be employed to
"vote early and vote often through the day;" ballot-
boxes are to be stuffed or rifled of their contents;
there must be members of the party who can carry
clubs and pistols on election day, and use them, too,
if the opposing party becomes violent in its conduct
at any polling place. Those who have influence
with all that class who prey upon society, and whose
votes for various considerations are on the market,
must be fellowshipped and employed. The saloon
26 PARTISAN POLITICS.
will be the appropriate place of rendezvous and in-
trigue, and the men who sell intoxicating drinks,
and those who keep disreputable places of resort,
must be chief counsellors as well as purveyors of
the party. These persons can command many votes,
and they will resort to expedients and violate law to
an extent that respectable citizens cannot be induced
to undertake. Their valuable services must, there-
fore, be retained, and they must be fellowshipped as
fellow-workers in a comon cause.
Now, it is said, in extenuation of these practices
and the employment of these agencies, that all tl.
things must be done, and supplemented by a multi-
tude of other offences against society and individ-
uals, because the opposing party will resort to the
same methods; and the party organization which
attempts to conduct an honest campaign is sure to
be defeated at the polls. Men trained to this work
must be had; the party who has a monopoly of their
services carries the country and will hold it as long
as party combinations are tolerated and recognized
as agents of the people. This bad element will not
consent to be tolerated simply, but they will require
recognition as fellow-citizens and useful members of
the party. Their methods must be sanctioned and
defended by the rank and file of their colleagues.
These agents and coworkers, furthermore, must be
well paid for such onerous and dangerous services.
They claim to have done all the hazardous and dirty
work of the campaign, and to have really won the
local victories where they reside; they therefore
PARTISAN POLITICS.
27
loudly and persistently demand that their services
be suitably recognized and compensated, on the
ground that "the laborer is worthy of his hire."
They must be paid in patronage and perquisites, the
products of their labors; they must have a share of
the offices of trust and power which they have aided
the party to wrest from the enemy. As they have
the means generally of enforcing their claims, they
will have preference generally over their collabora-
tors who have done cleaner and less doubtful work.
These persons, when they are placed in responsible
positions as a reward of their prowess on the field of
political strife, spread the contagion of their baneful
example throughout the public service. They are
pointed out as successful politicians, enjoying the
spoils of victory which they have aided the party in
securing. Their crimes are condoned by the party
and overlooked and apologized for by its most re-
spectable members. A large class of corrupt and
unscrupulous men are found eager to equal or excel
them as political aspirants.
One of the worst features of the present party
methods is the degrading influence of these practices
upon the public conscience. Who can doubt that
they tend to corrupt the public morals and foster the
common vices of society? It would seem that it need
not require the discrimination of a Christian minister
or the nice perception of a moralist to comprehend
the effect of such a public policy on the moral sensi-
bility of a Christian people.
Now, if such is the miscellaneous character and
28 PARTISAN POLITICS.
make-up of these political fraternities; if the rights,
the persons, and services, of all classes are alike to be
respected and rewarded, you will necessarily have a
low standard of qualification for office and a rule of
distribution of prizes that will give successfiil party
service priority over moral worth, as well as capacity
and experience in public duties. In justice to all the
i Members of this joint concern, your standard of quali-
fication for office must be adjusted to the capacity,
social standing, and moral worth of the average mem-
bers of the league. This is true democracy, but a
kind of democracy that crowds the public service wit li
mediocre men in talents and morals. Hence a man's
general character is not called in question or taken
into consideration at all by the ethics of the great
parties when he is a candidate for office. If he is a
convicted thief, a defaulter, or in other respects
grossly immoral or incompetent, his election or ap-
pointment to office may be a doubtful question, though
it by no means may be impossible if he can command
the local strength of his party, or the indorsement of
the party press of his general character with a persist-
ent denial of all the charges made against him. Tliat
a representative in Congress, or a United States sena-
tor, or a candidate for the office of President even, is
a man whose social habits should debar him from good
society, a man you would not trust with your money
or the custody of your wife or daughter, will not de-
feat him for a party nomination or election. Such
men have little chance of political preferment in an
election by the people, except where party machinery
PARTISAN POLITICS.
29
and party discipline have a controlling influence; but
a dominant party is generally strong enough to ignore
the question of character and general capacity, and
place such men in office as the interests of the organi-
zation may require. Persons of superior qualifica-
tions, who have not attained a standing of influence
in the party by a long and distinguished service in its
behalf, will have no chance whatever of occupying
one of the places of honor and trust.
Under such a rule of distribution of the spoils of
office, is it surprising that so many incompetent and
corrupt men are everywhere found in public life? that
we have pugilists and bullies, drunkards and duelists,
and men who have been convicted of various crimes,
holding seats as honorable senators and representa-
tives in the national Congress, men who are denied
social recognition at the capitol of the nation? There
being no standard of merit except valuable service or
political influence, there is seldom any due discrim-
ination exercised by the people or the appointing
power in the assignment of places. Hence you will
see small men in large places, and large men in small
places; as is said, round pegs in square holes, and
square pegs in round holes; and not always the right
man in the right place, according to business methods.
This is abundantly and strikingly illustrated in the
departments at Washington. Of the thousands who
occupy positions there under the government, every
mail and woman of them, from cabinet officers to the
day laborers and watchmen upon the public build-
ings and grounds, have obtained their places solely
30 PARTISAN POLITICS.
through the party influence and assistance they have
been able to command.
I am not to be understood as affirming or insin-
uating that all the persons, or a majority of them
even, connected with the civil service of the country
are, as a general rule, either incompetent or immoral
persons. I am criticising and condemning, rather,
the vicious system in vogue, under which persons are
selected to office under partisan rule. In regard to
those persons who occupy positions in the depart-
mental service at Washington, I am free to testify,
from an extended acquaintance with a large number
of them, that these departments contain a large body
of able and experienced men and women, who for
general intelligence and moral worth are not excelled
by the inhabitants of any community in the country.
Some of them have been long in the public service,
and are qualified to fill almost any office in the gift of
the people. Some of them have been members of
Congress, of State Legislatures, judges of courts, lit-
erary and professional men. Some have obtained dis-
tinction in the army and the navy and in different
branches of the civil service. These persons, many of
them, are holding inferior clerkships and working at
low salaries, and with all their vigilance and that of
their friends in resisting the various intrigues by
which the ins go out and the outs go in at the national
capitol, they are gradually being displaced by a class
of political favorites who have neither the experience
nor the general capacity that should qualify them to
fill the vacancies they seek to create. Each man's
PARTISAN POLITICS. 3^
position has depended upon the party influence avail-
able to him at the time of his appointment; of this a
record is kept by his superiors, and when such influ-
ence has lost its potency, unless he has acquired that
of a new patron, his tenure of office is very uncertain.
Hence, under this anomalous system of placing
persons in responsible positions without a careful con-
sideration of their respective merits, it is not uncom-
mon to find persons in office who are wholly unfitted
for the discharge of the duties required of them.
You will find a man perhaps sitting as a State legis-
lator who is not a citizen of average intelligence, who
is utterly without experience or requisite knowledge
of the affairs of his State. He may be the butt of
ridicule, even, of his political associates, and have only
capacity sufficient to make of himself a most subser-
vient party tool. Another may be a second-rate
lawyer who is a third-rate statesman, and is occupying
a cabinet position. Or there may be a Secretary of
the United States Treasury, who has to deal with the
gravest questions of finance, revenue, and commerce,
without either acquirements or experience in this
varied and responsible service. He is a good stump
orator and a thorough-paced politician; his party in
his State demanded his appointment, and after im-
mense labor through a series of months he succeeded
in obtaining it. If he has the good sense and courage
to accept the tutelage of his subordinates in office, and
is not ambitious of distinction as lord of the treasury,
he may leave a respectable record behind him on re-
tiring from the office; but his party has promised the
32 PARTISAN POLITICS.
people a reform in the finances of the country, and he
must act promptly and decisively to meet the expecta-
tions of the public. Acting under this blind impulse,
he becomes a bull in a china-shop.
Now, it is not always true that either the electors
or the appointing power of the government are di-
rectly responsible for these misfits of the civil service.
They are so entirely controlled often by the necessities
and dictation of partisan interests that President and
cabinet officers, even, must yield their preferences and
judgments to the mastery of the chiefs and bosses of
the locality most concerned. These high func-
tionaries often complain that they are compelled by
these considerations to place men in office who are un-
fitted to discharge its duties.
It is thus that the public service is degraded and its
efficiency greatly impaired. Instead of its being con-
stituted of men and women selected upon a high stan-
dard of qualification, persons who are fitted by educa-
tion and training for the special duties they are to per-
form, we have a muster of miscellaneous citizens from
every occupation and sphere in life. Thousands of
these persons, from the want of enterprise and indus-
trious habits, have been unable to obtain in other em-
ployments a comfortable support, and have become
practically pensioners upon the patronage of the
government, rendering it a perfunctory and inade-
quate service for the salaries paid them. These par-
tisan appointees may by a system of coaching and dry
nursing have passed a required civil service examina-
tion, but they are poorly fitted to enter as apprentices
PARTISAN POLITICS. 33
even into the public service. If in time they acquire
sufficient skill in their routine of duties, so as to render
them useful and almost necessary to the service, they
are liable at any time, by the partisan enforcement of
the doctrine of rotation in office, to be displaced by
new recruits, who will have to go through the same
matriculation and run the same risk of being in their
turn discharged by the appointing power.
Now, it need not be urged that these are not busi-
ness methods, and that no private enterprise could be
conducted successfully on such principles. No in-
telligent citizen could be induced to take stock in any
corporation or enter any partnership where the man-
agers or officers of the concern were conducting the
business manifestly for their own private advantage,
and where its employees were selected from among
the friends and relatives solely of the stockholders,
with little reference to their general character or their
skill and efficiency in the duties assigned them. It is
said that the officers and directors of corporations
sometimes enter into conspiracies similar to those of
the partisans in politics, by which they absorb the
profits and exhaust the capital of the concern for the
sole benefit of themselves and their co-conspirators.
Such persons are called wreckers, in common parlance,
because they soon bring such an estate to a condition
of insolvency. In suchacomplot for such objects, both
the individuals and the associations engaged in it will
naturally degenerate and become more bold, un-
scrupulous, and criminal in their methods.
This is history. Our politics are growing more
3
34 PARTISAN POLITICS.
turbulent and corrupt, and their influence on our
social condition more pronounced and disastrous.
Where a commonwealth is thus besieged and plun-
dered, its tendency is to drift into lawlessness and
revolution, until its liberties are lost and it becomes
tie prey of some ambitious or despotic power. And
yet the generous people of this country will cheerfully
pay the necessary taxes to nurse and support this ne-
farious and wasteful system, as something due to
patriotism and the country's welfare.
Now, how are you going to eliminate this element
from the political combination? How are you going
to keep these corrupt and dangerous men out of the
parties? Will they go out on mere invitation to do
so? Will a good deal of persistent moral suasion
even induce them either to abandon the sphere of
politics or to act in that sphere as patriots and honest
men? You might as well expect the gamblers and
liquor-sellers of the country to shut their doors
against their customers at the request of the reform-
ers of the day. So long as the civil service is open
to the competition of parties, you may expect that
this class of which we are speaking will be chief
competitors for as well as winners of the prizes so
liberally offered them by the public. So long as rich
prizes can be captured on the high seas without en-
dangering the loss of life or limb, so long will there
be pirates to engage in the destruction of commerce
while it lasts. It is the natural tendency of these
political organizations to draw venal and corrupt
men together for a common purpose. If the ten-
PARTISAN POLITICS. 35
dency in such a combination is to corrupt the better
part of its membership as well, how can you have
anything as its product but a body of men more or
less from their associations unfit for the public ser-
vice? It is a notorious fact that the moral standard
of any association is lower, that it has less moral sen-
sibility, than is conceded to the average of its mem-
bers. With such a membership as the great parties
contain at present, how can we expect anything but
a corrupt and wasteful administration of the affairs
of the nation? Ye cannot "gather grapes of thorns,
or figs of thistles." You can't get good deeds out of
bad men, or capacity or honesty out of a political
party.
CHAPTER IY.
POLITICAL HERESY.
PARTY so thoroughly selfish, exclusive, and
mercenary will naturally be intensely partisan, and
will be intolerant of all opposition to its acts or its
opinions. Who is more certain of his position or
more dogmatical and intolerant in maintaining the
doctrines and usages of his communion than the par-
tisan politician? He has little respect for the man
who does not belong to some political party, and he
will very industriously attempt to prove to you that
every vote cast for a party which is in the minority,
or for a person who is not the candidate of some
36 PARTISAN POLITICK.
political organization, is a vote lost or thrown away.
As though all the votes cast for an unsuccessful can-
didate of any party were not thrown away.
'Allegiance to one's party is a well-defined and
cherished sentiment with the average citizen every-
where, and is regarded as obligatory as allegiance to
the government under which we live, or to the re-
ligious sect to which one belongs. It is about as
much as a man's reputation is worth to change his
political opinions and cease to act with an organiza-
tion he has once been connected with. Political
heresy is as great an offence, in the estimation of a
partisan, as is religious heresy in the estimation of
the church; the former will be dealt with quite as
severely, and be regarded with quite as much dis-
trust, if not contempt, as will the other.
The practice of reading turncoats and dissenters
out of the party is quite as common as excommuni-
cating church members for heresy, and is quite as
damaging to their general standing in the commu-
nity and their future prospects in life. He is not only
disfellowshipped by his quondam political associates,
but they put the beagles of the party press upon his
track^and run him to cover and disgrace as soon as
possible. \ We complain of the bigotry and intoler-
ance manifested at times by the religious sects, and
fail to protest that the political parties are vying
with them in the display of these partisan virtues.
A religious bigot is one who is blindly devoted to his
sect and his creed, whatever errors of doctrine they
may uphold, or defects of moral character they apol-
PARTISAN POLITICS. 37
ogize for or defend. Intolerance in religion is a de-
sire to suppress all thought and discussion on reli-
gious subjects which controvert the religious belief
of some sect or individual. This depravity of mind
and heart often takes the form of persecution.
Tried by these tests the ecclesiastical and political
sects will be found about equally illiberal and un-
friendly towards those who dissent from their opin-
ions or secede from their order or join a rival
organization.
The political parties of the country are notori-
ously intolerant of any innovation upon the estab-
lished doctrines and usages of their associations, and
will persecute with almost fanatical zeal the man
who dares to think or vote adversely to the party
platform, or desert into the camp of the enemy. It
is a sort of constructive treason against the confeder-
ation, which they feel bound to punish conspicu-
ously. This spirit of intolerance was signally illus-
trated in the treatment which certain distinguished
party recreants received at the hands of their former
associates during the Presidential campaign of 1896.
The social instinct and the sentiment of loyalty
to one's sect or party, guild or clan, is exceedingly
strong in the human race. Men love and serve their
political parties and their churches with a zeal and
devotion very nearly equal in measure ; conse-
quently the great majority of political partisans are
of what is termed the thick and thin type; they be-
lieve and act with their party right or wrong.
are like well-disciplined soldiers who obey implicitly
38 PARTISAN POLITICS.
the orders of their superiors without questioning the
expediency or justice of such commands. [Many of
the partisans will on occasion boast that they never
have changed and never will change their political
opinions; they vauntingly declare that they are
dyed in the wool Democrats or Kepublicans, as the
case may be. They are, indeed, born partisans, as
they claim to be. Their endowments and acquire-
ments, mental and moral, fit them to do service as
veterans in the political camp. / They are, as a rule,
bigoted and intolerant, exceedingly conservative and
blind to all corrupt party methods. If they move at
all in the grand column of human progress, as
move they must, their evolution is scarcely percep-
tible from year to year. All this is necessary to
make an efficient partisan soldier. You must de-
grade him to a certain low standard of morals and
intelligence in order to make a subservient party tool
of him as the service requires; as we used to say of
slavery, that you must rob its victim of his manhood
before you could make of him a docile and money-
earning chattel.
No party can maintain the necessary discipline in
a body whose methods are unscrupulous and corrupt,
and whose object is the spoliation of the common-
wealth, nor have any general success without a large
body of men of this character in its ranks. In order
to make themselves in the highest degree useful
they must occupy large and commanding space in
the organization. This they are quite apt to claim
on the ground of their devotion to party interests.
PARTISAN POLITICS.
RX\
OF THE
DIVERSITY
39
(Sometimes it happens that a party takes the unpopu-
lar side of a public question, or, by reason of a series
of political mistakes, legislative, executive, or tacti-
cal, it loses the confidence of the public and is repu-
diated apparently forever by the people. A series of
popular elections running through a course of years
may give credit to these predictions that it cannot
survive its defeats and such a general loss of public
confidence. But the old guard of invincibles or un-
convincibles are incredulous and hopeful, and re-
main firm in the support of the organization, as they
would do under any conditions of censure or defea/
This loyalty to party name and party interests,
which was strong enough to revoke and annul the
loyalty of citizens of the Northern States to the
Union and the government which protects and
serves us at home and abroad, was signally illus-
trated in the course of the great majority of the
Democratic party during the Southern Rebellion.
It is astonishing how many intelligent and Christian
men and women in the North sustained to the end
the slave-holders in their war for the perpetuity of
slavery and the dissolution of the Union.
The election for governor in the State of Ohio in
the fall of 1863 was a striking example of the bane-
ful and deplorable influence of partisan allegiance in
carrying thousands of intelligent citizens to the very
verge of revolution and rebellion against the
authority of their own State. The candidates for
governor in that contest, remarkable as a significant
event in the history of the period, were John
40 PARTISAN POLITICS.
Brough, Republican, and C. L. Yallandigham, Dem-
ocrat. Vallandigham was a man of some ready
talent and local reputation as a politician in the
State. He had been a candidate for a seat in Con-
gress in his own district, and was a delegate to the
Democratic Convention which nominated General
McClellan for the Presidency. At the opening of
the war of the Rebellion he became a violent seces-
sionist, a noisy demagogue of the most offensive
type, and so seditious and treasonable was he in lan-
guage and conduct that he excited among the loyal
men of the State the utmost indignation against
himself and his associates. The volunteers of the
State, both those on duty at the front and those in
the home service, were greatly outraged in feeling
by his denunciations of themselves as hirelings and
cutthroats, and the general government as a des-
potism of corruption and cruelty. General Burnside
was in command of that department at the time, and
ordered Vallandigham's arrest and trial by court-
martial. He was convicted as charged, and as the
shortest and best method of disposing of him he was
sent into the Confederate lines. He soon transferred
himself into Canada, as it was supposed at the time,
that he might bettor serve the rebel cause and more
readily communicate with his political associates and
sympathizers. While he was thus on foreign soil,
an exile from the State for his treason and sedition
against its peace and welfare, with a reputation as
odious as that of Benedict Arnold; while the Con-
federate freebooter, Morgan, was raiding the State
PARTISAN POLITICS. 41
with an armed force, and Ohio had one hundred and
fifty regiments of volunteers in the field fighting for
the life of the nation, this man was nominated in a
State convention of Democrats by acclamation. In
the resolutions passed by that convention the gen-
eral government was accused of tyranny and hy-
pocrisy in making war upon the South, a war, it
was alleged, that could not, and never was intended
to, preserve the Union, but a war to free the blacks
by enslaving the whites. Two hundred and fifty
thousand Democrats voted for his election while he
was yet in Canada, a fugitive from his State. It
w:is one of the most remarkable elections that ever
occurred in the history of a free people.
The writer, who was at the time a citizen of the
State, well remembers the intense excitement caused
by this event throughout the country, and the immi-
nent danger there was for many months that there
would be a civil war among the loyal men and the
rebel sympathizers in the State. Here was a great
war inaugurated in the interests of the system of
domestic slavery that then divided and cursed the
country, precipitated for the sole purpose of per-
petuating the bondage of an unfortunate and help-
less race. As a result the union of the States was
to be destroyed and the republic divided into two or
more hostile sections. What had the free people cf
Ohio in common with this institution and with such
a conspiracy against the peace and general welfare
of the nation? Nothing. Slavery was the abhorrence
of mankind, a sin against God, and a crime against
42 PARTISAN POLITICS.
man; and yet, under the influence of that blind
fanaticism which party spirit engenders, thousands
of northern citizens gave moral aid and comfort to
the Rebellion, from the assault on Fort Sumter to
the surrender at Appomattox. It shows the power
of party sentiment and discipline in controlling the
actions of men who are associated together for a
common purpose. What will they not sacrifice to
party fealty and party dictation?
CHAPTER V.
PARTIES NEVER DIE. ALWAYS BE A BAD PARTY.
MANY good citizens, who deplore the evils arising
out of the selfishness and greed of party allim.
cherish the hope that as civilization advances, and the
world grows wiser and better, the vicious elements in
these factions will be eliminated and we shall see pa-
triotism, integrity, and capability exalted in their
stead as standard virtues, indispensable to a position in
the public service. I do not share with them in this
optimistic hope for the future of American politio.
Any combination the prime object and business of
which is to prey upon the public for the exclusive ben-
efits of its members is, in fact, a public enemy.
Every act of such a body in pursuit of its chief de-
signs is a usurpation of authority or a violation of law.
When they cease to act they will cease to exist. A
PARTISAN POLITICS. 43
thorough house-cleaning would dissolve any of the
great political fraternities now in existence, for want
of the means of subsistence. With reform would in-
evitably come the dissolution of the combine. No
party, no spoils; no spoils, no party. They are in-
separable, and society has no use for either of them.
Again, one reason why there is nothing to hope for
from these organizations in the evolution of politics
is that they are always, and naturally, formed and
built up on the line of social and moral distinctions
and differences which determine their character.
Hence there will always be a bad party and a better
party, comparatively. There will always exist two or
more party organizations so long as there is free ac-
cess to the public crib, a conservative and a progres-
sive organization. One will be exceedingly tenacious
of its ancient dogmas and traditions, and will sturdily
defend the existing evils of society, and perhaps point
with pride to its record as the persistent opponent of
the great social and political reforms inaugurated by
the people. The other, by a natural antagonism of
its rival, will be the champion of all popular reforms,
and especially the friend of every man who has a
grievance or an empty dinner-pail; while they each
employ the same reprehensible devices to secure a
common end, viz., to wrest the government from
the hands of the people and place it in the possession
of the chief conspirators of their own party, who will
distribute its patronage among the lieutenants and
bosses of its grand army of occupation.
These confederations, like most other voluntary as-
44 PARTISAN POLITICS.
sociations, are made up of affinities, of persons who
have something in common in the objects of an enter-
prise, or in whose tastes and general character there
is a similarity and more or less of sympathy. Per-
sons standing in such relations to one another are apt
to take like views of public questions and party
methods. The old adage about birds of a feather is
applicable to such political conclaves. All the busi-
ness and social unions are composed of persons similar
in their habits, manners, mode of life, and in their
general standing in the community. Men in forming
such associations seek to bring together congenial
minds. Every person who joins a club or selects a
place where he will attend religious services on the
Sabbath has a reference to these wise precedents in
exercising a choice of his associates. For example, Mr.
A is a business man and a respectable, well-to-do citi-
zen of the town; he is a benevolent and perhaps a
religious man. His chief interest in politics is to see
an honest and clean administration of the affairs of
the government. He is in favor of free voting and an
honest counting of the results of any election. All
the incidents of partisan strife are distasteful to him,
and he seldom "meddles with politics." Now, this
man feels that in order to discharge his duties as a
citizen he must be found at the polls at every election
and vote conscientiously. He therefore selects a po-
litical organization with which, and through which,
he will act for the best good of his country. In
making this selection he is influenced by the same con-
siderations that would weigh with him in joining a
PARTISAN POLITICS.
45
religious congregation or a Christian church. He
would associate himself with those who in taste and
character were more in conformity with his own stan-
dard of social and religious life.
Mr. B is a differently constituted man; he is neither
as intelligent, as patriotic, nor as kindly disposed to-
wards others as is his neighbor, Mr. A. He is a selfish
man, and has but little interest in anybody beyond the
circle of his own family and kindred. He sees no
reason why contributions should be levied upon him
to support the various projects which charitable people
are always soliciting for, and he rarely does anything
in aid of them. Neither does he see why he should
be taxed for public improvements, which in most cases
benefit others more than himself. His chief interest
in politics,, aside from his being a sort of standing can-
didate for several minor offices, is centred in a few
specialties, which are the cardinal planks in his politi-
cal platform. These are a low rate of taxation; the
abolition of high salaries for government officials, or
their reduction to his own standard of living; the
right of every man to sell whatever he has produced
or purchased in any quantity and of any quality
wherever there is a demand for it. He is therefore
opposed to all tariffs, all sumptuary laws, and to all
inquisitorial legislation. He is a protectionist in that
he wants his own labor and products protected from
foreign competition ; and he is a free-trader in that he
wants placed upon the free list all imported commodi-
ties of which he is a consumer. As he has some tene-
ments which he rents to miscellaneous persons, some
46 PARTISAN POLITICS.
of whom are disreputable people, and about whose oc-
cupations and vices the police department has given
him some annoyance, he is of the opinion that we are
governed too much, and when the law undertakes
to dictate as to a man's social habits and his business,
it is an undue restraint of his personal liberty. He
religiously believes in the doctrine that to the victor
belong the spoils, and that those who labor in the
political field are worthy of their hire. Now, this
man does not join the same party that Mr. A does.
He says he does not like that sort of a crowd of re-
formers and radicals. He goes where he can find
more congenial fellowship and a larger degree of per-
sonal liberty. He joins the l;i<l party. A becomes a
member of what he calls the best party.
This will be the innkr-up generally of the two great
parties into which any country may be divided where
free suffrage exists. Such organizations are not, of
course, formed strictly on these lines; there may be
A men in the bad party, and B men in the better
party; and there may be changes and interchanges in
the personnel of each body from time to time; but
each association will retain its identity in these re-
spects so long as it holds the same relation to its an-
tagonist. There will always be a bad party so long
as there are bad men and so long as the field of poli-
tics is open to such combinations. The faction that
embodies the least intelligence and moral worth in
its membership will draw to it by natural selection
the worst element of the social order. All that class
who are violators of law, whose occupations are at
PARTISAN POLITICS. 47
war with society, who gain their bread by violence or
fraud, will seek its protection and ally themselves
to its fortunes. Organization enables ambitious and
unscrupulous men to mass and keep in training this
dangerous political force.
Such a party will be exceedingly tenacious of life
and possess an amazing amount of persistence and
bull-dog courage. It will be better disciplined, be
more bold, unscrupulous, and aggressive in the per-
formance of its chief mission of obtaining spoils for
its subsistence and that of its members. For the same
reason there will be a strong bond of fraternity among
them. As with a band of outlaws, when the service
required becomes more hazardous and their violations
of law become more frequent and flagrant, the bond
of fellowship between them is strengthened, and the
general subordination to discipline is more apparent
as well as imperative. There is a fellow-feeling
among evil-doers that is often more demonstrative and
more exemplary than that exhibited in associations of
a better class. So long as parties in politics are per-
mitted to exist as contestants for place and power in
the public service, so long will there be a vicious party
composed chiefly of men who seek first their own ad-
vancement and well-being and their country's after-
wards.
The disgusted and outraged citizen sometimes finds
consolation in the hope that the dominant party,
through its inherent corruption and its utter disregard
of the public wishes, must soon cease to exist, or to
command any respectable following in membership;
48 PARTISAN POLITICS.
and sometimes, when such a party has met a signal
defeat in a general election, the cry goes up from the
opposing camp, and is echoed over the country, that
the great party has made its last campaign, has fought
its last battle, and is practically dead. It may be as
truly said of political parties as of corporations, that
they never die. They may undergo a variety of
changes, take on a new name, go into retirement for
a period, or form a coalition with a like political force,
but they will strive in some form to retain their iden-
tity and continue in the competitive race for the spoils
of office.
A party is sometimes formed without reference to
these rewards for political service. It has at heart
what its members deem some measures of public
utility which they wish to see put in operation by
some appropriate legislation and the election of such
citizens as will faithfully administer the laws thus
enacted. There may be several branches of reform
to which they are directing their efforts. Suppose
they are successful in this organization, and obtain
such political ascendency that they are able trium-
phantly to carry all their measures and establish per-
manently the new conditions they desire, do tlicy
thereupon disband the party and cease their labors?
Never. There is no such case in the history of poli
tics in this or any other country. They will find
new issues with their party opponents and abun-
dant sound and patriotic reasons why they should con-
tinue in power indefinitely. The history of the anti-
slavery party in this country, inaugurated before the
PARTISAN POLITICS. 49
Rebellion, illustrates the statement. It was an organi-
zation formed for the purpose of securing the aboli-
tion of American slavery. After varied fortunes it
cnme to be the party in power by the votes of the
people, and soon realized its hopes in the abolition of
the peculiar institution and the destruction of the
slave power, which had ruled the country for half a
century or more. But they did not disband after se-
curing the ultimate object of the organization.
We cannot hope to be relieved from the baneful in-
fluence of these combinations by the natural decay
and inevitable death which is the fate of all other
things mundane and organic; they are in the hands
of that modern breed of politicians of whom it is said,
they never die or resign. So long as the spoils of
office are set up by the people as prizes to be won by
competing political factions, so long, by the law of
supply and demand, will such bodies exist. Where
the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered to-
gether. Neither the lapse of time nor the occurrence
of the greatest disasters seems materially to affect
them. They will live and flourish through years of
war, pestilence or famine, as well as long periods of
business depression. These public misfortunes gen-
erally afford to a party seeking employment for its
talents and enterprise a wider field of opportunities
for success.
When the corruptions of the Grant administra-
tion were revealed to the public, and were univer-
sally discussed and condemned by the people, result-
ing in the nomination of Horace Greeley by the
50 PARTISAN POLITICS.
Democratic party as their candidate for the Presi-
dency, there was a great revulsion of sentiment and
feeling in the Kepublican ranks. As a result the
Grand Old Party lost thirteen Northern States from
its elective force. It was at that time thought by
many persons of both parties, and by the Democrats
universally, that the organization must succumb to
the tide of opposition that threatened to overwhelm
it. So when the Democratic party for four years
persistently sustained the Southern Rebellion, op-
posing the war for the restoration of the Union, and
giving in a multitude of ways aid and comfort to the
enemy, it was universally believed that with a lost
cause, ever afterwards to be infamous in history,
would be a lost political party to share its fate.
The corruptions of the Tweed administration in
the management of the municipal government of
the city of New York, twenty years ago, created a
profound sensation, and the odium which it brought
upon Tammany Hall was supposed to be sufficient
to disband and destroy that political faction; but,
notwithstanding its past reputation and the more
recent exposures of its infamous character, it is still,
with its energies and its following scarcely dimin-
ished, a powerful political force in the State and
city of New York.
No change in the condition of the country that
may require a change of public policy, no change of
public sentiment, or any effort to reform abuses will
materially affect these coalitions, much less close
their career and relieve the country of their pres-
PARTISAN POLITICS. gl
ence. They thrive on the misfortunes of the com-
monwealth and rise elastic from their own defeats
and disasters. When such an organization has once
gained ascendency and has tasted the sweets of office
and the luxury of power, it never goes into volun-
tary retirement or formally disbands. It may be
merged with some other rising and kindred organi-
zation, but it will not intentionally commit suicide.
There may be an infusion of other blood into the
new combination, and its members may heed for a
time the admonition of an indignant people, but the
old passion for place and power will have but a tem-
porary decline and will inevitably revive in the pres-
ence of the old temptations. It will be a change
only of party name, which may result in a change of
tactics and the lopping off of a few old abuses. The
fresh element will be more greedy for spoils, though
perhaps less unscrupulous in the pursuit of them.
The betterment will only be spasmodic and tem-
porary, and no permanent reform will be made.
There will be the same prizes to be won by hard
contests with rival factions, and the same party ne-
cessity for obtaining them. Such combinations will
always exist, unless prohibited by law. So long as
power and plunder can be obtained and honors won
in a bloodless strife of factions for political ascen-
dency, so long will organizations of this character
rule the country, endangering its liberties and de-
spoiling its resources.
52 PARTISAN POLITICS.
CHAPTEK VI.
DISPABAGEMENT OF PUBLIC MEN. HAVE WE ANY
GBEAT HEN '{
THE degrading influence of party rivalry and
strife is signally manifest in the license of the par-
tisan press, as well as of individuals, in their treat-
ment of persons in public positions. In no part of
the civilized world, perhaps, is there so little respect
paid to those who hold places of honor and trust
under governments, State or national, as in our own
country. As soon as a man is known to be a candi-
date for public office he becomes, temporarily at
least, a target for all the slings and arrows of party
animosity far and near. If he is elected by the poo-
pie to fill the place he seeks, this hostile attitude
towards him will be maintained and intensified to
the end of his official career. It seems a perversion
of all justice and propriety that in the land where all
the people are acknowledged sovereigns, and there
are no subjects and no tyrants, those we choose to
represent us in civil affairs should be objects of per-
sistent disparagement and ridicule.
There is no position with which a citizen may be
honored by the choice and consent of tin- people in
which he will be free from this shameful annoyance
and party persecution. These persons are chosen to
the places they occupy by a majority of their fellow-
citizens, which means practically, in a representative
PARTISAN POLITICS. 53
government like our own, by the choice and consent
of all the people. Such a man is your representative
and mine, whatever the difference may be politically
between us, or whether we voted for him or a de-
feated candidate. Because he does not, as he could
not, represent the opinions of everybody in the dis-
trict, a majority of his constituents even would have
no right to annoy him on such grounds. To adopt
such a rule in the support of public men would dis-
solve the bonds of civilized society and render the
maintenance of civil government impossible. If to
be chosen by one's fellow-citizens to a place of trust
and power in a commonwealth is not an honor con-
ferred upon the recipient of such confidence and
authority, entitling him to respect in his official ca-
pacity, then it is because the government whose
power he wields is not entitled to the respect and
confidence of other civil states.
It has become a confirmed habit of the American
people, as individual partisans, to regard the man who
holds a prominent position in public life, and who is
active and earnest in supporting his party creed and
measures, as a sort of public enemy, and in a great
measure to treat him as such. The opposing factions
to which he does not belong will gather up all the in-
cidents of his private life and his family connections,
his idiosyncrasies, personal habits and tastes, as well
as those of his political career and aspirations, and out
of the record select such facts and happenings as may
be used to disparage him and show if possible that he
is unworthy of the confidence of the people, and unfit
54 PARTISAN POLITICS.
or incompetent to hold the place he occupies. Grave
charges against such a man or an investigation of his
conduct gives nobody pangs but his friends. It will
prove a sensation in any community which the ma-
jority of the people of all parties will quite enjoy.
The newspapers, in giving details of the scandal as it
develops, will have a profitable and busy run of the
press. There will be a general conviction not unlikely
in the community, in advance of the proper verdict,
that he is guilty as charged. When party animosity
becomes personal it soon comes to be slanderous,
libellous, and scandalous, and it would be scarcely re-
strained from assuming a more violent form of malev-
olence and hostility, were it not for the sense of justice
and propriety among those citizens who have no other
than a patriotic interest in our current politics.
Hero worship and tuft-hunting are not social vices
with which the American people can be charged to
any extent. We are therefore in danger of going to
the opposite extreme, in habitual disparagement of
those whom impartial men the world over delight to
honor as distinguished American citizens. That this
want of due respect for public men, even those of the
highest character and most distinguished ability, is
due to partisan antipathy and education I have no
doubt. That it has become general among our people
cannot be denied. We have a large class of publica-
tions in various forms, some of them of a partisan
character, and others claiming to be neutral in poli-
tics, which are devoted largely to this reprehensible
business of assailing in various ways the acts and good
PARTISAN POLITICS. 55
name of our public men. Some of these enterprising
citizens make it their sole business to cater to depraved
public taste in this respect. These assaults are per-
sonal in their character, and are scarcely less injurious
and unlawful often than a more violent attack would
be, accompanied with battery. The victims of these
aggravated assaults are caricatured in every form
which art and ingenuity can command, and often in
the grossest and most repulsive manner. A President
of the republic, a cabinet officer, or some other dis-
tinguished statesman will be pictorially represented
in a score of disgusting and derisive forms; he may
be made to represent a beast, a foul bird, or a reptile
monster, as the distempered fancy of the author may
dictate. It is much to be regretted that men who have
the inventive genius and skill evinced in these imper-
sonations should lend themselves to this dirtiest of
partisan work.
These caricatures are placed conspicuously in the
shop windows and nailed upon the door-posts of the
news-dealers, and the people hasten to purchase
them, while the poorer class of citizens obstruct the
foot-way in the street in their eagerness to enjoy
what they deem a good practical joke upon the vic-
tim of this outrage. This partisan method of making
political capital and sustaining the doctrine of rota-
tion in office has become a species of popular amuse-
ment, and a thriving trade to those who cater to
this morbid taste. There are many reputable citi-
zens who laugh with the multitude over these politi-
cal persecutions, and in many ways countenance and
56 PARTISAN POLITICS.
aid in this annoyance and defamation of character,
who would very speedily resort to the law, or an act
of personal violence, if they or their families were
made victims of such wanton calumny and ridicule.
These demoralizing incidents show to what extent
the party strife may deprave the morals and taste
of an intelligent and Christian people.
During the administration of Gnu-nil (inmt as
President there came to Washington from the \\Y-t
a dissipated and broken-down politician in search of
a job. He was not long in getting control of a mori-
bund Sunday newspaper of small circulation, witli a
purpose of devoting its columns almost excusively
to libellous and indecent attacks upon public men,
and more especially upon senators and representatives
in Congress, and upon the President and his cabinet.
These gentlemen he naturally supposed would take no
public notice of his productions in print, and would not
be likely to call him to account for his shameless effron-
tery and ill-breeding. From their public positions
they were non-combatants, and must maintain the
silence of contempt as their only defense. Gown n Is
and unscrupulous knaves seek such victims in their
predatory excursions for notoriety and their daily
bread. This man had a degree of low comedy talent
and its boon companions garrulity and wit, with all
the unbounded assurance and self-esteem of the pot-
house politician. His scurrilous attacks upon public
men, from their audacity, soon attracted general at-
tention, and his Sunday paper was much in demand.
Everybody was curious to know who was assailed in
PARTISAN POLITICS.
57
each issue of the sheet, and speculation was rife as
to the temper in which these poisoned arrows would
be received by those at whom they were aimed, and
what would be the consequences to the culprit of such
an impudent and outrageous onslaught upon public
functionaries in high position.
The offence was almost unprecedented at the
national capitol. The Washington press from time
immemorial had treated each succeeding administra-
tion with marked toleration and respect. The citi-
zens of Washington have always been distinguished
for the deference and hospitality with which they
have treated the large body of official persons re-
siding temporarily in their midst. Reports were cur-
rent that blackmail was being levied on a class of
vulnerable people to exempt them from criticism or
exposure, and that the increasing amount of adver-
tising matter in that journal was obtained through
the same agency. Ladies in official circles became
very sensitive and not a little alarmed on seeing their
husbands and fathers so ruthlessly assailed, and had
reasonable apprehensions for their own safety from
similar outrage. The matter became one of the sen-
sations of the town, and threatened to be an absorb-
ing one.
Though this disturber of the public peace had no
recognized standing as a politician, or rank as a
partisan, he had acquired some experience of the po-
litical changes occurring during his voting majority.
He was at one time a Whig, afterwards a Know-
nothing, and then a Republican. At the time of his
58 PARTISAN POLITICS.
advent into Washington life he was a Democrat.
Under cover of party opposition to the Administra-
tion, General Grant was specially the object of his
malevolent and cowardly aggressions, in which the
members of his family were frequently included.
The President was caricatured, ridiculed, and repre-
sented in the most persistent and offensive manner.
The party press in different parts of the country
copied many of these ribald effusions, and the mat-
ter threatened to become a national scandal. Sober
and law-abiding citizens began to feel that some
measures more speedy than libel-suits should be
adopted to abate the nuisance. These attacks at
length became so personal and so insulting to the
Presidential office and the occupants of the White
House that Colonel Fred. Grant was stirred to deci-
sive action in the matter. It is known that about this
time he visited the house of the offending editor, in
company with a young army officer who was a friend
of the colonel, and it is said that he intended to give
the libeller of his family a thrashing suitable to his
offences and his general character; but the object of
this morning call was fortunate enough to make his
escape out of the back door of his castle before his
visitors caught sight of him.
Meantime, it was reported that several senators
were on the war-path. Senator Zack Chandler was
said to be hunting the avoidant editor with a large
hickory walking-stick, and others were impatiently
waiting an opportunity to give him a caning. In
consequence of these demonstrations there was an
PARTISAN POLITICS. 59
immediate change in the character of the next issue
of the Sunday sheet, as well as thereafter. The pub-
lic nuisance was effectually abated, and the author
of it all at length disappeared from the national cap-
ital together with the terrible stench he had created.
There was much in the administration of President
Grant that invited criticism and that was very gen-
erally condemned, but there was no good grounds
for such aspersions upon his character and fame.
Such a scandal would not be tolerated in any
country in the civilized world. No barbarous na-
tion, unless rife for revolution or rebellion, would
offer such indignities to their men and rulers.
A similar persistent attempt was made to degrade
the character and destroy the influence of Mr. Lin-
coln as the chief executive of the nation. A power-
ful minority of partisans had been educated into the
belief that he was a selfish demagogue, and was pro-
moting the Civil "War relentlessly for the purpose of
ambition, rather than a patriotic desire to maintain
the integrity of the Union. His assassin was trained
for the crime he committed, and stimulated for the
hour and the act of his commission by these multi-
plied and oft-repeated slanders of a great and good
man.
Our late President, Mr. Cleveland, was perse-
cuted for four years with the same disgraceful tac-
tics. He was not charged with any offences against
law or the morals of society. His chief culpability,
that the nation at large had any interest in, was his
adherence to the principals and platform of his
60 PARTISAN POLITICS.
party. To this partisans could not consistently ob-
ject, though they did, however, and all the political
factions of the country made common cause in this
unprecedented crusade against a chief magistrate for
being a too conspicuous and persistent partisan.
It is gratifying to know that the public mind is
not wholly insensible to the many evils arising out
of this mischievous and libellous crusade against
law-abiding citizens. I see that a member of the
New York Senate has recently introduced a bill in
that body making it a criminal offence to thus injure
the standing and caricature the person of any citizen
of the State. The weak defence often made by per-
sons engaged in this sort of calumny, that they bear
no malice towards their victims, and are only pleas-
antly chaffing them for their own good and the
nrnusement of the public, strongly reminds me of
what Solomon says of the man who casts firebrands,
nrrows, and death about him and asserts that he is
only in sport. Another will seek to justify this
reprehensible practice by alleging that it is a very
convenient method of enforcing many valuable
truths that would otherwise not reach the popular
mind. This is the doctrine of political Jesuits, that
the end justifies the means.
As a nation we have cultivated that sort of famili-
arity with those we are bound to honor which is said
to breed contempt. We apply to them the question-
able and paradoxical epithet of servants, meaning
that they are persons who work for the people for a
consideration. You will sometimes hear a citizen
PARTISAN POLITICS. Q
speak contemptuously of the incumbent of an office
as nothing but a hired man in the public service. It
is a common occurrence that official persons in the
highest positions will speak of themselves and others
in like circumstances as public servants, or sign
themselves "Your humble servant." Society the
world over requires a social distinction between ser~
vants and gentlemen. If such a distinction has any
warrant in the social order, it would be well to give
our citizens eminent in civil affairs the benefit of it.
This habit of contemplating our statesmen and
rulers from so low a point in the social scale is proba-
bly due to party subserviency and the arts of the
demagogues in endeavoring to catch votes. It is a
stooping to conquer, a sop to the Cerberus of poverty
and labor. The word servant is a correlative of mas-
ter, mistress, and employer, and implies inferiority
of station and submission to the will of another for a
stipulated price.
A public officer may be the servant of a despot or
king, who creates and controls the official place he
occupies at his will, but ours is a representative gov-
ernment. The citizens of an election district, for
example, choose one of their number to go on busi-
ness for them to the State or the national legisla-
ture, to represent them in the assembly which makes
the laws governing the country. If it were prac-
ticable we would each of us go to the same place.
That would be true democracy. But as it is not pos-
sible to do the business of a great nation in this cum-
brous and expensive manner, we select men from
62 PARTISAN POLITICS.
the district or State in which we live to represent us
there, and perform for us, at their discretion, such
acts as in their judgment may be for the best in-
terests of themselves and their constituents. This
selection and this discretion, and the power with
which we intrust them, implies our confidence in
them, and is a testimonial to their general character
and fitness for the duties they are chosen to perform.
Such a delegate acts for himself in the legislative
body, and is the representative and proxy of a por-
tion of his fellow-citizens. These persons are the
representatives and not the servants of the people.
They are not laborers for hire, and do not serve their
constituents in that capacity. These distinctions are
fundamental in civil government and in society gen-
erally, and cannot be ignored. If they are nt.
honor and station in any sphere of human activity
are not worth the seeking.
In a like spirit of disparaging criticism, we hear
people complain that there are no great men in pub-
lic life at the present time. Their ideals of distin-
guished men are all in the talking statesmen of the
past. They have seen the present generation of pub-
lic functionaries so assaulted and pursued, so libelled
and caricatured, during their whole career that they
have little or no respect for any of them. AYlm can
make a hero out of his servant, or a great man out
of one whom he sees held up constantly to ridicule
and contempt and charged with a great variety of
offences against society and those who have reposed
confidence in him? It is not in human nature that
PARTISAN POLITICS. Q%
we can sincerely honor and respect a man who is
personally a stranger to us when our daily paper is
constantly sneering at his talents and general ability,
and our nearest neighbor is confidently assuring us
almost daily that the accused is a selfish demagogue,
and is unworthy of the public confidence and sup-
port. Men nowadays seldom speak of their political
representatives other than in a mood of suspicion
and criticism. And yet there never was a larger
number of able and patriotic men in public life in
this country than there are to-day. For practical
statesmanship, for wide experience in civil affairs,
for learning and ability in the discharge of their
onerous duties, there are a large number of them
who well deserve the encomiums of the people and
the appellation of great men. There are a score of
great men in the American Congress at this hour
who would distinguish themselves in any legislative
body, or in the performance of any service their
country might require of them at home or abroad.
Deplorably as our Congress has been handicapped
and distracted by party strife for the last thirty
years, it has not been excelled in any country, or in
any age, in the number of wise and patriotic men
eminently qualified to make the laws and shape the
public policy of a great nation, notwithstanding it is
the fashion to decry and caricature them with little
discrimination.
The arena of party politics is not a sphere favor-
able to the development of great and noble qualities
in men. It is not an atmosphere in which statesman-
64 PARTISAN POLITICS.
ship and the higher purposes of civil administration
may be fostered and find moral support. Such an
environment is suited rather to the breeding of that
swarm of bosses, demagogues, and political shysters
which so largely control the political situation in
every State of the Union. And yet we have states-
men in spite of their adverse surroundings. There
are men and women in almost every community, be
it said in charity to our common nature, of such high
endowment that they are above gross temptation in
any sphere of life; like Milton's Abdiel, they grow
eterner and stronger under the seductive arts of the
wicked. The national civil service should be an ap-
propriate training-school for those who are ambi-
tious of distinction in the public service, but a par-
tisan conspiracy has degraded it to a competitive
rivalry of contending factions for place and power.
This repels men of character and worth who are am-
bitious of high repute in the administration of civil
affairs. Partisan rule has debased the standard by
which great public services should be estimated, and
has taught the nation to applaud and respect the
assumptions and political fallacies of demagogues
and charlatans. The people have little use for the
time-honored statesmen of other days. They prefer
to follow the lead of those who are eloquent in "de-
picting the alleged poverty and suffering of the
masses and the arrogance and oppression of what
they call the classes. They want patrons who hold
the wand of accomplishment in their hands and can
change the destiny of the nation at their will.
PARTISAN POLITICS. ^5
Whatever promises a political sensation and a
change of party rule finds abundant following.
The men who think, the men who are deliberate and
prudent in their action in the direction and manage-
ment of public affairs, are not in demand by the
great mass of those who wield the elective franchise;
they want immediate action on every question of
importance to the public, and are impatient of any
delay. They want those who represent them to do
their thinking while on their legs, and lose no time
in bringing in the promised political millenium.
Who does not know that this state of the country
is largely due to the teachings of that school of poli-
tics in which we have all been educated; teachings
which have a tendency to degrade the public morals
and debase and distract the civil service. This
national policy of party rule, unfortunately adopted
by our people, and by which the country is divided
and governed by constantly recurring factions, is
the bane of the republic. This is what so many
honest and patriotic citizens symbolize as "the dirty
waters of politics," a Stygian pool whose waters soil
everything they touch.
66 PARTISAN POLITICS.
CHAPTEK VII.
PARTY METHODS. CARRYING ELECTIONS.
THE chief ground of complaint heard on every
hand against current political parties is the corrupt
methods they put to use in obtaining power and in
maintaining their ascendency while in possession of
the government. I shall refer briefly to some of the
more common expedients resorted to by the political
craftsmen of the present time, avoiding that much-
explored field of facts and incidents with which the
partisan press has already made the world familiar.
It is with some reluctance that I direct the atten-
tion of the reader to the means which these fraterni-
ties commonly employ in the pursuit of their ob-
jects of association as a political party. The subject
is a hackneyed one in the literature of politics, and in
its details there is much that is repulsive and painful
to the friends of free institutions and public virtue.
Without some review of this wide field of partisan
activity I cannot do justice to myself or to the gen-
eral subject I have undertaken to discuss. The
means and measures adopted by an individual in the
management of his business, or of any special enter-
prise, are generally regarded as pretty sure indica-
tions, if not complete tests, of his general character.
These decide the question of his general reputation
and his standing as a citizen. If he is selfish, exclu-
sive, bigoted, and intolerant in his intercourse with
PARTISAN POLITICS. gy
his neighbors; if in his business methods he is un-
scrupulous and mendacious; if he habitually disre-
gards the rights and opinions of others, and in pur-
suit of his ends will violate law, and commit crime
even, when he can do it with impunity, society will
regard him with distrust and avoid him as a person
unfit to share the confidence and respect of honor-
able men. The generally accepted rule that a man's
acts are a true test of his character is quite as appli-
cable to associate bodies of every order as to indi-
viduals. We have very high authority for saying
that "by their fruits ye shall know them."
By the aid of time and experience the modern
spoilsmen have brought into use a multitude of skil-
ful devices through which the dynasty of partisan
politics has become the supreme power in every
state and county in the Federal Union. Many of
these artifices of modern statesmanship are of a na-
ture utterly subversive of civil liberty and the pri-
mary rights of citizenship. Of these, none are more
repugnant to free institutions, or hostile to the liber-
ties of the people, than the methods they employ in
manipulating the votes of the country and control-
ling all elections by the people. To deprive a citizen
of his vote is to take away his birthright and rob him
of his sovereignty. The right to vote is the most
sacred franchise the citizen can enjoy; to defraud
him of it by any device should be declared a crime
in every civilized country. But who does not know
that the violation of this right is recognized by the
political parties as one of the great agencies of sue-
68 PARTISAN POLITICS.
cess in carrying popular elections. JTo them the
selection of candidates for office is a matter of chief
consideration. By controlling the party nomina-
tions they have the means of rewarding the services
of those who are useful to them, and at the same
time filling all the official places with men loyal to
the party, and who will make the interest of the
joint concern their first duty under all circum-
stances. They begin their labors at the very sources
of political power in the country, the primary
meetings of the people preparatory to an election?]
[The first step taken in this conspiracy to defeat a
free and deliberate choice of candidates by the peo-
ple is the assembling of the caucus of the party
leaders of the township or ward. At this caucus a
ticket is made up, to be presented at the primary
meeting near at hand to select delegates for the
county or city convention. The persons who attend
this caucus and prepare this list of delegates are gen-
erally the local office-holders of the ward or town-
ship, with a sprinkling of contractors, small traders,
saloon-keepers, and boss mechaniS.J} While none of
them may be men of bad repute, they are on the
whole a miscellaneous crowd of persons who make
political preferment a trade, and who are known as
the most subservient and faithful tools of the party
to which they belong. They are sometimes desig-
nated as strikers, healers, and bosses by the partisan
press, if they are adherents of a rival organization.
This ticket is brought into the primary meeting,
composed generally in the rural districts and smaller
PARTISAN POLITICS.
69
towns of such citizens as are known members of the
party who may choose to come.
On the day when the primary meeting is held in
the district in which you reside, Mr. A and several
gentlemen, tax-payers who have a patriotic interest
in the administration of public affairs, go to the
meeting for the purpose of exerting their influence
and casting their votes in favor of some local re-
forms that are in general demand by the public.
They find, when the meeting is called to order, that
it is in the hands of a class of ward or town politi-
cians, who dictate and control entirely its actions.
Instead of its being an assemblage of citizens to dis-
cuss questions of public policy and the merits of can-
didates, they find that all such action is forestalled
by the circulation of a ticket made up in the caucus,
and that the meeting is in the control of those who
have dictated it. This caucus ticket is put to vote
and elected as speedily as possible, and an adjourn-
ment is hastened, sine die. This same method, with
some modifications, is adopted in the county and
State conventions for the election of delegates who
are to nominate the persons who are to fill all official
places. The ticket is "cut and dried" and "put
through" under the strictest party discipline, and
the man who refuses to acquiesce in this nefarious
job will forfeit his standing in the party, and will be
denounced as a bolter and an impracticable, who is
not wanted in the organization.
This system, by which a small minority of voters
become the proxies of a wholejpjrmmnitvin casting
70 PARTISAN POLITICS.
their ballots, has been carried to a high degree of
efficiency in this country, so that it is almost auto-
matic in its action, a sort of self -moving instrumen-
tality that does its work with very little friction or
delay. It is a part of the modern tactics by which
an oligarchy of politicians and place-brokers are en-
abled to rule the country by the tacit consent of the
people, and is collectively known as machine poli-
tics. The packing of the primaries in the large
cities and towns is a scheme resorted to by the party
bosses to maintain discipline and secure a solid vote
in every emergency.
No man can be admitted to this cabal of in-
trigners who lias the reputation of having n tender
conscience or being a scrupulously honest man.
A man may be a good Republican or Demo-
crat, but he cannot have a vote in the primary
meeting unless he is a member of the orpmi/a-
tion who has been admitted under a blackball
test and is thus vouched for by the party man-
agers. The great mass of the voters in these districts
are practically disfranchised by this combination of
conspirators. Said Governor Markham, of our own
State, California, in a message to the Legislature on
this subject, "The danger to our government lies in
the loose and very often profligate manner in which
these elections are conducted, regardless of the rights
of communities, imperilling their safety, and entirely
under the control of the worst elements of society.
Like stringent laws, which protect the voter at a reg-
ular election, should shield him at the primaries. It
PARTISAN POLITICS. 7^
is absurd to declare that the voter has the right at a
general election to vote for whom he pleases, when
those for whom he must vote have been placed be-
fore him without giving him an opportunity of de-
claring his choice. The privilege of nomination is
strangled at the birth, and he must follow the
dictates of a convention corruptly assembled, or
quietly abstain from the use of the franchise. This
is an evil growing by what it feeds on, threatening
the liberties of the people by debarring them from
the free and untrammelled exercise of personal
choice."
The rules of Tammany Hall for many years past
have made the consent of a majority of the members
of each primary necessary to the admission of a new
member. A similar system is in use by the Kepubli-
can party in that city. The organization of one
hundred and twenty-four Eepublican primaries (one
for each assembly district) is as strict as that of a
private club. The name of the applicant must be
posted on a bulletin and stand for inspection until
the next monthly meeting before it can go to the
committee on admissions. On a favorable report it
must have a majority at the monthly meeting. If
accepted, he must pledge himself to obey all orders
of the General Committee and to support all nomi-
nations approved by that committee this is a rule of
both parties; he must bind himself not to join any
organization which does not recognize the authority
of the association he joins. He may be expelled at
any time by a vote of the majority of the members.
72 PARTISAN POLITICS.
In 1880 it was computed that out of fifty-eight
thousand Kepublican votes in New York City, not
more than six or eight hundred were members of
the organization and entitled to vote in the prima-
ries. The members present in the primaries are
always noticeably small. In 1888 only about eight
per cent, of the Republican electors took part in the
primary election. In only eight out of twenty-four
districts did the percentage exceed ten, and in some
it was as low as two per cent. In the Twenty-first
Assembly District Tammany Primary, one hundred
and sixteen delegates to choose an assembly candi-
date were elected by less than fifty votes. In the
Sixth Assembly District County Democracy Pri-
mary, less than seven per cent, of Democratic voters
were present; of those who were, sixty nine were
election officers. These devices indicate a deliberate
plan on the part of the political directors and spoils-
men of the party to place its power under their con-
trol exclusively. Yea, more, it proves them guilty
of a conspiracy to place its direction and manage-
ment beyond the control of the people. A party
formed for such purposes, whose aims are hostile to
the general welfare, cannot tolerate the presence and
interference of scrupulous and over-sensitive men.
PARTISAN POLITICS. 73
CHAPTEE Yin.
ELECTION METHODS CONTINUED.
THIS is the preparation they make for what is
called an election of the people, and it is by similar
methods that such elections are carried. The party
devices for carrying popular elections are almost
countless in number. They are so minute and in-
genious in their application that they cover the
whole field of operation as with a net-work, laid to
ensnare the enemy and capture neutrals. "We have,
in this country, where many of these devices origi-
nated, acquired such proficiency in the use of them,
and they have so long been tolerated, that they are
regarded abroad as the natural appendages and off-
shoots of our free institutions. They have chiefly
found development in the great cities of the country
where there are brought to bear upon their success
the sagacity and experience of all the politicians for
a century past. In these great centres of political
activity they have been reduced to a system of disci-
pline and subordination which defies all authority,
civil or religious.
There is quite a catalogue of these party tactics,
each bearing a familiar name by which they are
known and recognized throughout the country, such
as bulldozing, colonizing, corralling, sweating, shoot-
ing, hanging, kidnapping, false registering, repeat-
ing, bribing, assault and battery, perjury, discharging
74 PARTISAN POLITICS.
from employment, lying, counting out, riots, threats
of violence, notice to leave the country, refusing cer-
tificates to candidates elected and granting them to
persons not elected, holding over, contesting seats,
falsifying and stealing election returns. Added to
these are a large number of devices used in imme-
diate connection with the preparation, depositing,
and counting of ballots cast. A political boss or
striker who is expert in these machinations will play
more tricks with a ballot-box and a fow hundred
votes than an Eastern junior can with a pack of
cards. Those discreditable practices, with a multi-
tude of others that might be named, indicate the
great variety and general character of the methods
employed by the great parties in carrying the more
important of our elections, State or national.
Fraud, violence, and intimidation prevail more or
less in every important election. Men of a certain
class are trained to this work, and such only are em-
ployed as are skilful and unscrupulous in the per-
formance of it. These men, many of them, go
armed to the polling places, ostensibly for the pur-
pose of protecting themselves from assaults of the
strikers and henchmen of the opposing party. Each
party has its corps of solicitors, challengers, detec-
tives, and fighting men. They must each make a
show of force and courage against what they call the
bravado and bullying of the opposite faction. Both
sides must be aggressive and confident, and maintain
their rights and their strategic positions at the poll-
ing places at any cost. In the cities it requires the
PARTISAN POLITICS.
75
presence of an armed police force to maintain order
and prevent bloodshed between the contending fac-
tions, and not unfrequently a military force is in
waiting under arms in case of emergency, so that an
election is sometimes turned into riot, and the town
assumes a warlike appearance.
Election day in a great city is more or less a day
of excitement and apprehension, a day of accidents
and incidents, a day when the worst elements are
abroad and the most dangerous forces of society are
brought into close and antagonizing proximity. On
this eventful day the chief of police will have his
force well in hand, for nobody knows what may
happen. If there are no assaults with battery and
bloodletting, no violations of law, murder, or man-
slaughter, citizens say, with a feeling of relief, that
the election has passed off quietly and that they are
glad that the campaign is over.
During the session of the ISTew York Legislature
of 1894, there came to that body from the city of
Troy, on the Hudson Kiver, loud complaints of out-
rages, involving murder and other high crimes, com-
mitted in connection with recent elections in that
city. The State Senate appointed a committee to in-
vestigate and report upon the facts in the case.
This report, though it deals with and censures but a
small number of these outrages against a helpless
minority, is sufficient to give us some idea of the
condition of lawlessness into which the country is
drifting under partisan violence and misrule. We
quote from this report as follows:
76 PARTISAN POLITICS.
history of these two elections (November,
1893, and March, 1894) presents a shocking condi-
tion of affairs. It shows uniform and intentional
violations of nearly every provision of the election
laws, and constant interference with and outrage
upon the rights of the public and of honest citizens.
It is a story of repeating, violence, rioting, and crime
culminating in murder. It is the exemplified work
of a desperate and hitherto resistless political
machine, so adjusted, organized, and run as to en-
able individuals in the name of the Democratic
party and in defiance of law to overthrow govern-
ment and thwart the rights of suffrage. This ma-
chine is an organization composed of professional
politicians, having a recognized, acknowledged, and
responsible head, and operates through Democratic
election officers, repeaters, and other outlaws, sup-
ported by a polire department and a police force
obedient to its dictation. It attracts and unites to
itself the criminal class, and its election-day work is
done by heelers and desperadoes, some of whom
serve as election officers, others as police, and the
balance as repeaters under the guidance of the first
two. This organization, known as the ^Murphy
Machine,' approves, rewards, and protects its tools,
and thus perpetuates its power. The process known
as 'repeating' is accomplished by persons not entitled
to vote going through the city singly or in bands,
voting in the various districts on the names of legally
registered voters. In many instances and in many
districts names of persons legally entitled to vote
were voted upon two or three or more times during
one election. Sometimes the legal voter, whose
name was given to a repeater, would at the time be
in the line and would himself protest against the
outrago. In such case the legal voter would be
threatened with arrest by a Democratic policeman
PARTISAN POLITICS. 77
for disturbing the election; and when such legal
voter was finally allowed to cast his vote he invari-
ably had to swear it in. Police officers, aldermen,
and other officials piloted and protected this disrepu-
table gang in this damnable business from polling
place to polling place in the city. A sergeant of po-
lice, an ex-president of the Common Council, a
member of the detective force are samples of the
official positions held by those who escorted and
guarded these criminals in the commission of their
crimes. Upon reaching a polling place the voting
thugs would be taken in charge by the official thugs
in a blacksmith's-shop, a saloon, or other convenient
place, and the official or other worker having these
in charge would enter the polling place and obtain
from a Democratic inspector a list of unvoted names,
or the worker would himself carry the registry list
out of the polling place and make the list himself,
and upon the names so obtained the waiting repeater
would, upon receiving his name, enter and vote. In
not one case was a gang of repeaters headed by a
Kepublican. In not one case was a challenge inter-
posed by a Democrat. In not a single case was a re-
peater arrested by a Democratic policeman; and we
recollect no case in which a Kepublican challenge
was not overruled by the Democratic majority. Ke-
peated requests to arrest these criminals were made
to the police by the Republicans, but no arrests were
made; and the only person in danger of arrest was
the person making the request."/
These are not exclusively the methods in use by
any single party, though our Democratic guardians
of the Constitution and the public service may excel
all others in the practice of these lawless acts.
There is an old adage that when rogues fall out
78 PARTISAN POLITICS.
honest men come at the truth. This is often veri-
fied when the parties make investigation and report
upon one another's conduct in relation to public
affairs, so that much that is said and proved as to
their corrupt practices is derived from investigations
held upon the ways and means of each other's stew-
ardship. From its partisan character it may be
taken with allowance, but with all such charitable
discount we have enough in evidence to prove the
infamous character of these organizations. Take
the reports of Congressional committees and com-
mittees of State Legislatures on the question of con-
tested seats, and you will have the most indis-
putable evidence that violence and fraud are the
commonest agencies in use by all the political par-
tisms in carrying elections all over the country.
\J do not affirm that all the elections held in our
extended domain are characterized by these repre-
hensible tactics, with which the citizens of Troy
were made familiar. They are not. A large
majority of them are conducted, so far as the polling
places are concerned, in a quiet and orderly manner,
with no visible signs of disorder or party animosity.
These popular assemblages have improved in these
respects very decidedly in the last twenty-five years.
While the parties have changed for the better some-
what in their public demonstrations, they manifest
no improvement whatever in their chief purpose and
general character.y During this period named they
have been gradually but surely acquiring possession
PARTISAN POLITICS.
79
and control of all the political forces of the republic,
until they are well-nigh absolute in their dominion
over the nation.
CHAPTEE IX.
PURCHASING VOTES.
in votes is another very considerable
factor in gaining a fraudulent election. Counter-
feiting tickets, and selling out one candidate for the
benefit of another, with many other devices of a kin-
dred sort, are very generally in vogue; but the chief
business in this line of traffic is in the actual pur-
chase of votes, or the hiring of electors for a con-
sideration to cast their ballots for certain persons.
This infamous commerce, from its secret and con-
fidential nature, is much larger than is generally
suppose^? Those persons who deal in contraband
or prohibited goods must sell by samples generally
and have visible stocks on hand, and are thus con-
stantly liable to detection; but those engaged in
this peculiar traffic are not subject to such risk and
and exposure. This vice has never made its appear-
ance in this country in such frequency as to attract
public attention until within the period of the
present generation, since which it has become, in
some of the older States, one of the recognized
methods of the parties in carrying elections.
In conversing with a gentleman who resides in
80 PARTISAN POLITICS.
the State of New York, at a county seat on the Hud-
son River, he said that it is well understood in his
section of the State that votes were bought and sold
at any important election. I He said, (C L have often
seen the old farmers sitting on the fences at the poll-
ing places late in the day driving cash bargains with
the politicians for their votes." These men who had
votes to sell were, he said, chiefly of foreign birth,
and he believed the vice had been imported into this
country with an immigrant farming and laboring
population. Whatever its origin, it is undoubtedly
true, as we have charged, that a growing traffic of
this sort has been established, and is fostered and in
use by the political parties for their advantage.
Everybody knows that whenever there is an indi-
vidual or an association who has votes to sell, at
wholesale or retail, they will find a ready market for
them, and some active competition among buyers of
the partisan sort. It is a most degrading form of
avarice, and it seems almost incredible that any man
bred amid the monuments of freedom could so dis-
grace and emasculate himselfj, It is a crime worse
than that of Esau. Such a person is not fit to exer-
cise the high privileges of American citizenship, and
he should be forever disfranchised.
(There is another still more reprehensible practice,
if possible, arising from the same source. I allude
to the procurement of the votes of unnaturalized
foreigners at the elections in towns and cities. The
great parties are always hunting for votes, and will
obtain them by almost any device or at any cost.
PARTISAN POLITICS. gj
The large body of immigrants constantly landing in
our cities afford a field of enterprise for this scan-
dalous traffic. From the desire of the parties to
make the immigrant vote available as soon as possi-
ble, and a further desire to gain the favor and pat-
ronage of this class, they have caused the period of
probation which each new-comer must pass to be
reduced to an inconsiderable space of time. Not
content with this, they provide him often with
fraudulent naturalization papers and declare him a
legal voter before he has been a month in the coun-
try .j This nefarious practice is one of the greatest of
the many outrages practised upon the American
people, by fraudulent and hasty introduction of this
base and perjured element into our politics.
The public sentiment of this country will wel-
come to our shores every man, of whatever nation-
ality, who will become a good citizen, but they
do object, as some one has said, to the making of
our towns and villages dumping-grounds for the
human garbage of European cities. Many of this
purchasable class are fugitives from justice, dis-
charged convicts, and persons who have been sent
out of the country for their country's good by the
courts and various social and religious societies.
This element, by party tactics, is fraudulently in-
jected into our political system, and these men, fresh
from the slums of Europe, are immediately placed
upon a political equality with American citizens
whose fathers first made this country habitable,
82 PARTISAN POLITICS.
gained its independence, and planted it with free
institutions.
Here is a despatch from the Associated Press,
which is quite significant of the activity of this busi-
ness on the Pacific coast. It is headed,
"NATIVE SONS WITH PIGTAILS WHO WILL DABBLE
IN POLITICS.
" SAN FRANCISCO, April 6.
"A political club is being formed in this city by
several Chinese who have the right to vote, and the
bosses behind it expect to make it several hundred
strong by the next election. Ning Gun and Loeng
Chung, two native-born Chinese, have established
head-quarters on Clay street, where they have in-
stalled a political club under the guise of Native
Sons. On the door is a sign reading, 'Chinese Na-
tive Sons' Association, Confucius Parlor/ This club
numbers at present about fifty members, and there
are said to be two thousand American-born Chinese
here that are entitled to vote and who will join the
club.
"About fifty Chinese voted at the last election,
and the Australian ballot has no terrors for them.
Practical politicians are scheming as to the possi-
bility of buying Chinese votes in blocks of two thou-
sand and utilizing them in a manner that will over-
throw any majority that white American citizens
may give a candidate."
The more shrewd and intelligent of this class,
from the favor with which they are received, hnvo
taken up the trade of politics, and they constitute in
some of our large cities almost the entire force of
PARTISAN POLITICS. 33
municipal bosses, party managers, and office-holders.
It is said that in Boston ninety-five per cent, of the
officials and employees of the city are of foreign
birth. As a general thing, in all our northern cities
the ward bosses and bullies were reared on the other
side of the Atlantic. I cannot perhaps do better
in sustaining my views of this branch of the general
subject than to conclude it by quoting an editorial
from a leading foreign journal, the Glasgow Even-
ing News. Its text is the word "Boss," a theme
which it discusses in this free and earnest style:
^'Although the word 'boss' is so familiar as to have
secured the respectful recognition of the latest lexi-
cographers, it does not figure even in the slang dic-
tionaries of ten years ago. It has come to us from
the Americans, who got it from the Dutch (baas, a
master), and is to-day in Britain the brief synonyme
for a superintendent in all ranks^)from navvying to
banking. But while Britain uses the word 'boss' in
a cheerful and flippant spirit, the Americans have
infused it with a meaning far deeper, far more seri-
ous, then we can readily understand. The 'Boss'
(for he is considered worthy of a capital B now in
the States) has become one of the most extraordinary
features, if not the most extraordinary feature, of
American municipal life, and 'Bossing' is a disease
which is eating into the vitals of American citizen-
ship. The Boss of the United States, from New
York to San Francisco, is Irish, not the decent,
warm-hearted, hospitable, honest Irish to be met
with (maugre Home Kule agitations) in Kerry or in
Clare, but the ignorant, blatant, plug-ugly Hiber-
nian who is a cross between the scum of Dublin City
and the sweepings of the Bowery. Bred in the odor
84 PARTISAN POLITICS.
of the saloons and the gambling-hells, he graduates
in time to the domination of other 'patriotic exiles/
and practically owns the polling booths of the muni-
cipal wards. An Irishman has no sooner landed off
the ship and set foot on Castle Garden, than the Boss
has him under his thumb by bribery, by threat, or
by the old inalienable claim of clanship, so strong a
factor in bringing the Celtic races to the front.
There landed in America from Ireland during the
past half-century no less than three million two
hundred and fifty thousand Irish people, and the
sons of this great multitude, native-born, have shown
a marvellous hereditary aptitude for securing offices,
such as those of alderman, councilman, policeman,
bureau chief, and mayor. When they are not
bribing their way to office, they are breeding Irish
voters, with the result that so long ago as 1886 more
than a seventh of the entire population of the city
of New York was of Irish birth. New York is un-
der the heel of the Irish Boss. It is a fact apparent
in the press of the State, and more especially in the
illustrated comic journals, such as Life and Judge,
which have for years made sarcastic capital out of
the tyrannous Hibernian 'copper,' the vulgar and
ignorant Hi hern inn alderman, and the thieving Hi-
bernian public contractor. The men who control the
affairs of New York are pure Irish. Its mayor, city
chamberlain, president of the Board of Police Com-
missioners, police court judges, chief criminal judge,
superintendent of the public force, etc., form one of
the most remarkable oligarchies ever known, and the
simple reading of the roll of officials of the Empire
City, with its Gilroys, Fitzgerald s, Sullivans, Sheas,
Murphys, Eyans, and Burkes, would 'send a thrill
of joy through the bones of the Irish kings/ If New
York was well governed there would not be the same
ground for alarm at this universal rule of the Irish
PARTISAN POLITICS. 35
minority; but it is not well governed. The officials
filch the rate-payers' money on all hands, witness
the present John Y. McKane scandal in the Graves-
end suburb, and corruption penetrates to the very
heart of a municipality which has ceased to be an
edifying study for municipal experts. "What has
been said of New York City is true of all the prin-
cipal cities of America, and a writer in the April
number of the Forum describes the Irish bossing
as 'a national ulcer, 7 to be thrown off sooner or
later if American independence is ever to be any-
thing more than a mere name. It is difficult for
the Britisher, with his well-balanced municipal
representation, to realize the full misfortune of all
this. The trade union boss we know in George
Square, in a mild and, as yet, harmless form, but
we are lucky as citizens, inasmuch as the com-
mon sense of the electorate and good counsel have
prevented any particular race, class, or interest from
getting the upper hand of our civic affairs, al-
though the attempt to establish the Boss is growing
every year more determined. Let us be warned by
the experience of America."
Thus much of party methods in the management
and control of our elective system. It is the boast
of our countrymen that the privilege of the elective
franchise is universally enjoyed by every male citi-
zen of the land; that in the free elections by the
people of our rulers we have the safest guarantee for
the maintenance of our rights and the integrity of
our free institutions. What a travesty on a nation's
autonomy and free institutions, when the most sa-
cred rights of citizenship can be suspended, bought,
sold, and exchanged, like second-hand wares in a
86 PARTISAN POLITICS.
public market. And yet the nation endorses this
factional misrule as statesmanship, and the people
boast of the liberty they enjoy under it. Would we
might see ourselves as others see us.
CHAPTER X.
GERRYMANDEEING.
ANOTHER scheme, equally reprehensible, which lins
been long in practice by the parties as a means of in-
creasing their representatives in Congress, and in the
Legislatures of the States, is called gerrymandering.
This is a system of rearranging election districts so
as to change majorities from one party to another.
For example, there are in a certain State two Con-
gressional districts, composed of three counties each.
They are known perhaps as the Eighth and the Ninth
District severally. The Eighth District has for some
years given an average Democratic majority of five
or six hundred, while the Ninth is Republican by a
much larger majority. Now, the Legislature of tlii-
State having a Republican majority, they proceed to
change the representation of the Eighth by taking
from it a Democratic county, and putting in its stead
a Republican county, at the same time placing the
county removed from the Eighth into the Ninth Dis-
trict, thus leaving the Ninth still a Republican dis-
trict, and making the Eighth also Republican, by
PARTISAN POLITICS. 37
which process one member of Congress is gained to
the party. The same device is applicable to increase
the party vote in the Legislature of the State. Re-
publicans and Democrats seem to be equally zealous
and unscrupulous in this nefarious work. It is often
one of the earliest measures an incoming majority
will adopt to make more sure what they have won and
possess. That it is a gross fraud upon the entire
people of the State need not be here asserted. It is
especially a gross insult, gratuitously offered to those
citizens who are moved about on a political chess-
board in utter disregard of their wishes and of their
rights as citizens.
Those opportunities and natural advantages which
come to us in the course of trade or politics, are as
much our possessions, as much our equitable interest
that has accrued to us, as our honest earnings and our
good name. To deny a competent voter, without suf-
ficient reason, the right to vote for such persons as
will represent him, Republican or Democrat, or by
any device wrongfully to defeat his purpose in doing
so, is practically to disfranchise him. These outrages
are being constantly committed upon the rights of
citizens by the parties whenever the opportunity
offers. The people with their rights degraded and
overridden are made pawns and puppets on the politi-
cal gaming-table, and men who expect to be called
statesmen, and have the prefix Hon. written with their
names, sit down deliberately to this kind of computa-
tion and reasoning, for the purpose of defrauding
their own neighbors and fellow-citizens.
88 PARTISAN POLITICS.
CHAPTER XL
GOVERNMENT PATRONAGE.
THE control and distribution of government patron-
age, State and national, is another device from which
political parties derive material aid in sustaining their
ascendency. This is the chief foundation and the
nursing mother from which the dominant party draws
its means of subsistence. It is the repository where the
bulk of their stock in trade is warehoused for future
use. It is a source of both honors and emoluments
in large supply, and from which all the rich plums of
political preferment are dispensed; hence it is the
cause of many bickerings and party feuds, and is a
source of constant peril to the party in power. This
patronage is immense, and is almost exclusively in
the hands of the President and the governors of the
several States in their jurisdiction. It is safe to say
that it is all used strictly on party lines and for lin-
n-ward of party services. In no part of the public
service is the maxim, "to the victor belong the spoil-."
more thoroughly adhered to or better illustrated. No
party can retain power, or any official, be he a <ZM\-
ernor of a State or President of the nation, maintain
the confidence and support of his party and ignore it.
The worst feature of this gross prostitution of the
honors and remunerations of the government service
is that it ignores the constitutional idea that in the
PARTISAN POLITICS. gg
wisdom and discretion of the President and his con-
stitutional advisers is vested the power to fill the va-
rious offices of the public service. While it is popu-
larly supposed that he absolutely controls the entire
list of these preferments to place, it is really true that
he controls but a fraction of the assignments to office.
What is usually called executive or Presidential
patronage is by custom placed under the direction of
senators and representatives in Congress; and often
when a President has made an appointment that
proves to be a bad one, he will avail himself of this
usage in defence of criticism. As a rule these sena-
tors and representatives designate and recommend
all the persons who "nil the offices of the State or dis-
trict in which they reside. It is no uncommon oc-
currence to hear disappointed office-seekers at the
national capitol denounce this appointing power most
severely, and aver that, from the President and heads
of departments down to the superintendents of public
streets, all are liars and bribe-takers, and offenders in
many other ways against justice and fair dealing.
These persons have been promised, or suppose they
have been promised, an office under the government,
and in their own estimation have had every assurance
from head-quarters that they should obtain it; but
the pressure has been so great and imperative, and the
party necessity so urgent, that the President, or other
official controlling the matter, has felt compelled to
set aside the complaining candidate whom he had
given the greatest encouragement, if not an actual
promise, that his fond hopes should be realized.
90 PARTISAN POLITICS.
Keally the power behind all this official dignity,
and which generally decides the fate of the candi-
dates, is the primary and home influence of the party
in the region where the candidate resides. There the
contest for the place is mainly fought out and decided
by the caucus bosses and the men who make up the
party ticket in elections and carry the polling places by
storm. They make their "demands," their "protests,"
and bring to bear their "pressure," if need be, upon the
appointing power at Washington, and rarely fail of
success. A senator may sometimes have a personal
friend or political benefactor to reward, and he may
practically ignore this local dictation; if so, he does it
at his peril. The people, who are mere lookers-on
in such a contest, are apt to suppose that the senator
or representative is serenely canvassing the merits and
demerits of the list of his friends and supporters in
order to decide whom it is best to appoint, when, in
fact, he is consulting and caucusing with the bosses
and leaders of the party to ascertain whom he shall
recommend for the place and not compromise his own
position and prospects. The power behind the throne
is greater than the throne, and doesn't care a button
for it.
President Hayes at the opening of his administra-
tion gave the politicians distinct notice that he should
not submit to their dictation in his appointments, but
sj;uid on his executive rights and discharge the respon-
sibilities laid upon him without fear or favor. This
announcement raised at once a bread-and-butter re-
bellion in the party. The writer well recollects with
PARTISAN POLITICS. gj
what displeasure the announcement was received in
Washington, especially by the official class. It was a
bold attempt to throw off the incubus of party dicta-
tion; but the party was stronger than their President,
and they compelled him to modify his policy so as to
conform to the usage of his predecessors. Thus the
entire patronage of the government is used by the
party in possession, to maintain its ascendency; and
such persons are selected as recipients of it who will do
the most for this object. It is commonly called "gov-
ernment pap," a commodity in the dispensing of which
there is more bargain driving and knavery, more dis-
appointment and heart-breaking, than is found in the
gambling-hell or the stock exchange.
CHAPTEK XII.
CLASS LEGISLATION.
CLASS legislation is another evil which is only
made possible by the existence of political parties.
There is much said in regard to the influence of cor-
porations and combinations of various sorts upon po-
litical changes which are constantly occurring in the
country; that these bodies control much of the cur-
rent legislation, State and national, and that often the
policy of a whole State is thus determined; and fre-
quently the administration of the national government
may be shaped at the dictation of a great railroad
92 PARTISAN POLITICS.
system, which keeps its agents as members of legis-
lative bodies in large numbers to do its bidding. It
is an open secret that the great trunk lines of this con-
tinent are in league with one another in defence of
legislation adverse to their interests, and that their
paid agents are constantly watching the course of
national and State legislation. The existence of
parties enables them successfully to do this. Indeed,
they are sought, and invited most cordially by the pur-
veyors of these party organizations to an exchange of
favors. The party in power is always in need of
votes, for it must be continually fortifying against the
enemy. It cannot exist without this source of suste-
nance, and often it is in desperate circumstances, like
a debtor whose creditors have reached the limit of
forbearance. The administration is therefore always
in the market to exchange benefits with those who
can command votes. It will make vendable and put
upon the market all the available resources of the com-
monwealth, and they will be for sale or to let, or hy-
pothecated to the highest bidder, and in quantities to
suit the purchaser. If an individual or a corporation
has a large block of votes, and, as they say, "can de-
liver the goods," they will be quite sure to get what
they want. It is an open and well-known market for
all comers, and all classes will flock to it for invest-
ments. The result is an immense amount of class
legislation and the potent influence of combinations
in every branch of the government. There will be
whole communities bartering votes for local benefits,
the sale of indulgences to violators of law, the delay
PARTISAN POLITICS. 93
or the defeat of justice in the courts, protection to il-
licit gains and to fraud and violence in multiplied
forms. All classes of associations who have votes to
barter for government aid flock to this national
market of reciprocal exchange, eager to interchange.
The great corporations, the merchants, the bankers,
manufacturers and miners, farmers and labor organi-
zations, and the church even, making to itself friends
of the mammon of unrighteousness, bids with others
for a share in the spoils. Here is a great railroad
corporation that holds the balance of political power
in a State; it wants legislation to protect its holdings
and to enlarge the sphere of its gains; it wants lands,
or it is seeking to avoid its obligations to its creditors,
or to the people, and it packs a State Legislature or
lias its lobby in Congress, and gains its desires. A
mining or manufacturing company who wants a
change in tariff laws; a sugar trust, a whiskey trust,
and an oil trust that want special privileges and a
chance to make more money; all the various trades
and occupations who by combining their strength
can give the party substantial support can change the
course of legislation and the flow of government
patronage in their favor from time to time, as their
interests require.
These people, the great mass of whom are otherwise
good citizens, excuse their share in this lobbying in-
famy by saying that there is no other way of obtaining
needed legislation or a fair share of government as-
sistance; that it is a game free for all, and they pay
for what they get, etc. This is a chief source of
94 PARTISAN POLITICS.
what is called class legislation in Congress and in the
State Legislatures. The general demoralization pro-
duced by these corrupt practices can scarcely be ap-
preciated by the public generally, so deeply are all
classes involved in it, and so popular has this method
of gambling in government futures and party prom-
ises become. The subject attracts but little serious
attention, and would be hushed to silence by the bene-
ficiaries did not the opposing party persistently keep
the matter before the people for the purpose of dis-
crediting and defeating its opponent.
It is considered a good joke rather than a cause of
public indignation that a great railroad corporation
has obtained milions of acres of the public land with-
out adequate compensation; and that a sugar trust or
a bond syndicate may adroitly pocket millions of the
public money as a result of a successful lobbying cam-
paign at the seat of the national government.
I do not believe in much that is loosely said about
the direct use of money in purchasing the votes of
members of Congress and official persons at the capitol
of the nation. Wise men do not accept bribes, and
the politicians who are worth buying are too sharp to
engage in this dangerous traffic. But they will trade
for party support without losing their self-respect,
such as it is; and the man who has the largest available
"barrel" to party success can obtain almost any legis-
lation that does not shock the sense of justice or de-
cency in the public mind.
PARTISAN POLITICS. 95
CHAPTEK XIII.
LOG-ROLLING.
ANOTHER kindred device for despoiling the United
States treasury is the system of co-operative knavery
known as 'log-rolling," which is chiefly in use in Con-
gress in passing appropriation bills. The early set-
tlers of the wooded districts of this country were ac-
customed, in clearing up the forest lands for cultiva-
tion, to cut the heavy timber into logs of a convenient
length and then invite their neighbors to what was
called a "logging bee," which was a gathering of men
and teams to put the logs into great piles suitable for
burning. They called this joining of forces, changing
work, as each man was liable to be called upon for a
similar service in compensation for what he received.
The politicians applied this principle in their tactics
in use in obtaining the passage of appropriation bills
in the national and State legislatures. From the so-
liciting and trading character of the work to be done in
the passage of these bills, it came to be popularly
called "log-rolling," from its co-operative character,
or log-rolling a measure through Congress. The
member who obtains a local appropriation for his con-
stituents has acquired reputation and popular favor
thereby, and holds a great card in his hand; it gen-
erally secures his renomination and otherwise
lengthens his political career. There is, therefore,
96 PARTISAN POLITICS.
a universal desire on the part of members to draw a
prize, great or small, in the log-rolling lottery of the
River and Harbor Bill. In the preparation and pas-
sage of these bills, as from time to time reported in
Congress, these tactics have been chiefly conspicuous
and most successful. Each member who sees any pos-
sibility of getting an appropriation under this com-
pact, for the improvement of any water-course or boat-
landing in his district, is sure to bring his claim to the
notice of the Appropriation Committee. It is there
that the active log-rolling campaign begins. It is an
active canvass on the part of each member for recip-
rocal assistance in securing what they individually
desire. This is the ordinary form of solicitation:
"Vote for me and I will vote for you ; refuse, and we
will combine and defeat the whole bill." After a
great variety of combinations formed and dissolved,
aft or an infinite amount of trading and huckstering,
after much good-natured badinage and some exhi-
bition of bad blood, the bill is "fixed up" and put upon
its passage. So notorious has this gambling method
of squandering the public money become, that Con-
gress has by a general understanding limited these
bilb to the sum of twenty millions of dollars.
Such machinery in the hands of a billion dollar
Congress without restraint or limit would soon bring
the government to a condition of bankruptcy. It is
not impossible that such a process of obtaining appro-
priations for what is in many cases a useless and prof-
ligate expenditure of money might be in use to a
limited extent if there were no political parties in ex-
PARTISAN POLITICS. 97
istence. They are only possible now from the fact
that the general demoralization created by the par-
tisan maladministration of the affairs of the nation
gives license and immunity to such gambling with the
people's money. When once the country is relieved
of the presence of these organizations, the political
atmosphere will clear up and such practices in legis-
lative bodies will become well-nigh impossible.
CHAPTEK XIV.
GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS.
THE letting of government contracts is another
source of corruption and extravagant waste of pub-
lic money. Nearly the entire annual expenditure of
the government passes into the hands of a vast army
of contractors, who furnish yearly supplies and ma-
terial of various kinds needed to carry on the gov-
ernment. It is a notorious fact that the government
pays always the highest price for everything it pur-
chases, whether of products or labor; that what it
buys is not of as good quality often as could be ob-
tained by private enterprise for the same money;
and that the service it employs is not up to the com-
mercial standard of ability and general efficiency.
It is a general rule, with few exceptions, that per-
sons disburse the money of others more freely than
they do their own. They will not economize expen-
98 PARTISAN POLITICS.
diture as closely or be as diligent and faithful in
their labors as they are where themselves only are
benefited. This is especially true of expenditures
for the government. United States officials say
that the government requires the best of everything,
that all its supplies must be of superior quality, and
that it is able to pay liberally for what it requires.
They use a great deal of formality and red tape in
the contract system, without securing such result as
a private citizen would expect from the same expen-
diture of money. Hence the government is con-
stantly the victim of fraud and collusion in the
quantity and quality of the commodities it pur-
chases. The same is true of what it has to sell, be it
bonds, public lands, or valuable franchises. Every-
body expects, in dealing with the government, to
buy at a low rate and to sell to it at a high rate.
This exceptional state of things is not difficult to
account for. It grows out of the fact that it does
not trade in a free market, but a market prescribed
by those who have an interest in high prices for gov-
ernment purchases and low prices for government
sales. The party in power always controls these
receipts and expenditures, and uniformly makes
them tributary to its support and aggrandizement.
Hence the contract system of the United States gov-
ernment is proverbially a field for fat contracts, pay-
ing jobs, and spoils generally. It is required by law
that these contracts be advertised and then let to
the highest bidder; this requirement is generally
complied with, but it always turns out, except in rare
PARTISAN POLITICS. 99
instances, that the highest bidder is a member of the
dominant party. Persons who are not in fellowship
with, that party, or who have no political backing,
do not think it worth the time spent to bid on gov-
ernment contracts. It is a common saying that you
must have plenty of pull to get a government con-
tract.
The chief objection raised by many business men
of experience in public affairs to the government
ownership of railways, telegraph lines, and other
great industries now owned and operated by the cor-
porations of the country is that the government does
everything in the most expensive way; that it pays
the highest salaries, the greatest price for material
and labor; that it cannot build a ship or erect a pub-
lic building without there is a job in it, and more
likely several of them, to add to the expenditure;
that all such enterprise conducted by partisan ap-
pointees would open a still wider field for the cor-
rupt practices already in vogue.
The United States government runs the Post-
Office Department at an annual loss of several mil-
lions. With its seventy-five thousand postmasters,
and half as many clerks and mail carriers, it has be-
come a vast political machine which is used with
partisan zeal and extravagance always in maintain-
ing the ascendency of the dominant party. The
bureau of Indian affairs and the department for the
erection of public buildings through the country
have for years had an unenviable reputation for job-
bing and extravagance under the contract system.
100 PARTISAN POLITICS.
We might in the same way refer to other brandies
of the public service were it needful to do so in order
to convince any intelligent reader that our criticisms
are just and our censures neither harsh nor improper.
When we consider the low moral tone which pre-
vails in all these partisan organizations and all the
profligate and scandalous methods they employ, it
would hardly seem prudent to give the spoilsmen
and the political suspects of these combinations the
power to choose from their own fraternities the men
who are to hold or disburse the people's money.
From the very purpose and composition of these
trading coalitions, they cannot be patriotic or honest,
and must legitimately and necessarily be untrust-
worthy and corrupt.
There are a few instances of this careless and
wasteful method of expenditure under the direction
of government officials which came within my own
knowledge personally, which I will cite as abun-
dantly corroborating what I have here averred in
regard to their prodigality in the disbursement of
public money.
The new Congressional Library at Washington
stands on a square of ground near the Capitol build-
ing. It was thought necessary by those in charge
of the construction of the new edifice that a fence
should be placed around it to protect it from tres-
pass during its erection. It had not been customary
thus to encircle public buildings at the capital dur-
ing progress of the work. The Capitol, the Treas-
ury, and the War and Navy buildings were not thus
PARTISAN POLITICS. 101
enclosed while in process of construction. It was
thought best, however, in this case to depart from
the old customs by placing a tight board fence, six
feet high, around the lot. This structure was made
of cedar posts with first-class pine flooring, tongued
and grooved, the whole work dressed and painted on
both sides. This quite handsome and substantial
environment cost the sum of eight thousand dollars.
Such a large sum for a temporary fence, which
would not sell for as many hundred dollars when
taken down, was thought to be quite exorbitant by
many people outside of official life. It was a subject
of comment for a short time, but as there was
nothing new about it, and the sum was small, it
created more merriment than indignation at the
capital. If you were to ask a citizen of "Washington
to explain to you how such extravagant prices were
successfully levied upon the government for mate-
rial and labor, he would likely respond, "Oh, there
is a job in it, as there is in everything here."
Some years ago the United States government,
with a view to increase the water supply in the city
of Washington, undertook the construction of a
tunnel from Georgetown over Kock Creek to the
city. The legislation of Congress providing for its
construction required that it should be built of
stone, and be in all respects of first-class material
and construction.
When it was about completed, as supposed, some
employee upon the work, who had been discharged
for cause, reported to a member of Congress, not of
102 PARTISAN POLITICS.
the Administration party, that there was gross neg-
lect and fraud in the construction of the tunnel.
These charges were soon verified by others acquainted
with the facts, and soon a committee of Congress
was appointed to investigate these rumors and in-
spect and report upon the work. This report re-
vealed a state of things which astonished official
circles even. The work had been done under the
supervision of a government engineer of considerable
reputation and ability. His assistants were Unite.]
States engineers, and the whole force was abundantly
equipped and supplied with everything required for
the undertaking. Notwithstanding, the job was a
scandal and a disgrace to all the responsible parties
engaged in it, and had to be abandoned as not only
unfit for the purpose for which it was designed, but
as a structure unsafe to use and not worth recon-
structing. The specifications required that all spaces
in the excavations over the stone-work should be
filled with stone laid in mortar. It was in evidence
that there were spaces over the arch of the tunnel
unfilled that a horse and cart might be driven into.
The structure was abandoned for years.
The matter for a time was in very bad odor in
Washington, but I do not think anybody was re-
moved from office or punished for any fraud or neg-
lect in the construction of the work.
I see that an effort is now being made by the citi-
zens of Washington to have this unfortunate aque-
duct overhauled and made to answer some useful
purpose. I quote here an article of the Washington
Post of March, 1897:
PARTISAN POLITICS.
103
"The Board of Trade held a short session last
evening at the Builders' Exchange hall, and adopted
resolutions urging the passage of the bill for funds
to complete the tunnel and reservoir. The following
resolutions were unanimously adopted:
"WHEREAS, There have already been expended on
the tunnel and reservoir nearly two and half million
dollars, and the same is of no use in its present con-
dition ; and,
"WHEREAS, There is a pressing need of an in-
crease in the water supply, especially on the higher
grounds ; and,
"WHEREAS, The Secretary of War and the chief
engineers have approved of the plan reported by the
commission of expert engineers for the completion
of said work, and it is estimated that two years will
be required for the completion of the same; there-
fore be it,
"Resolved, By the Board of Trade, that Congress
be and is hereby respectfully and urgently requested
to pass the pending bill at the present session for the
completion of said work.
"Resolved, That the Secretary transmit a copy of
the foregoing to the chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations of the House and of the Senate."
Another very interesting item in this connection
is the cost to the government of the official history of
the war of the Kebellion. I quote from the Chicago
Record a recent account of this large outlay for
books, maps, charts, etc. The article is headed,
"THE WORLD'S COSTLIEST BOOK.
"The most expensive book ever published in the
world is the official history of the war of the Reb
104 PARTISAN POLITICS.
lion, which is now being issued by the government
of the United States at a cost up to date of $2,334,-
328. Of this amount, $1,184,291 has been paid for
printing and binding. The remainder was expended
for salaries, rent, stationery and other contingent and
miscellaneous expenses, and for the purchase of
records from private individuals. It will require at
least three years longer and an appropriation per-
haps of $600,000 to complete the work, so that the
total cost will undoubtedly reach nearly $3,000,000.
It will consist of one hundred and twelve volumes,
including an index and an atlas, which contains one
hundred and seventy-eight plates and maps illus-
trating the important battles of the war, campaigns,
routes of march, plans of forts, and photographs of
interesting scenes, places, and persons. Most of
these pictures are taken from photographs made by
the late M. B. Brady, of Washington. Several years
ago the government purchased his stock of negatives
for a large sum of money. Each volume will there-
fore cost an average of about $26,785, which proba-
bly exceeds that of any book that was ever issued.
Copies are sent free to public libraries, and one mil-
lion three hundred and forty-seven thousand nine
hundred and ninety-nine have been so distributed.
The atlas costs $22.00, and the remainder of the
edition is sold at prices ranging from fifty cents to
ninety cents a volume. There does not seem to be
a large popular demand, for only fifty-one thousand
one hundred and ninety-four copies have been sold
for only $30,154. Thus it will be seen that the en-
tire proceeds from the sales thus far but slightly ex-
ceed the average cost of each of the one hundred
and twelve volumes. The books can be obtained by
addressing the Secretary of "War."
PARTISAN POLITICS.
The Government Printing Office has been the
subject of a good deal of adverse criticism for many
years. It is a very large and expensive establish-
ment, employing over a thousand men and women,
with a plant larger and more costly than anything
of the kind in the country. It is run on strictly
party lines, its employees being proteges and con-
stituents of members of Congress generally. It is
said that the typographical unions, through their
allies in the national legislature, control the hours
and the price of labor in that department; that it
is a political and a trades union combination that
costs the government several millions annually.
It is claimed by Democrats that the Fifty-first
Congress, which was Republican, authorized the
expenditure of a billion dollars out of the national
treasury. This was stoutly denied by the Republi-
cans, and they had their revenge in charging after-
wards that the Fifty-third Congress, a Democratic
body, authorized an equal amount of expenditure,
which the Democrats also stoutly denied. Now, as
this is a partisan controversy and the arithmetic
methods of the parties are so thoroughly discredited,
we can only conjecture as to the actual truth in the
case. "With a Congress so liberal in its appropria-
tions, there is a great temptation on the part of gov-
ernment officials to make exorbitant demands upon
the treasury, and to be liberal and extravagant even,
in their disbursements for the public.
These cases that I have quoted are not altogether
exceptional and rare. Those who are familiar with
106 PARTISAN POLITICS.
the want of prudence and economy in the construc-
tion of public works will corroborate from their own
observations what I have here alleged in regard to
the carelessness and wastefulness often exhibited in
this branch of government expenditure.
The people of this country choose to govern it
through party organizations, and to this end they
have placed in their hands all the powers and re-
sources of the nation. You cannot maintain parties
without something for them to subsist upon. They
are expensive institutions, and must have food and
shelter, and, not content with this, for it is a poor
compensation for the amount of hard and dirty work
they do, they must have something for a rainy day
and a good time generally, and the country ought
liberally to support them so long as they employ
them. To get their pay in the spoils of office, in
government contracts, and from other like sources
seems the most natural way, as every man should
consistently get his pay out of his job as he does his
work. It is in sad grace for the people to complain
under all the circumstances.
*
OF TT7F
UNIVERSITY
^
PARTISAN POLITICS' 1Q7
CHAPTER XV.
CORRUPT USE OF THE UNITED STATES TERRITORIES.
ANOTHER striking example of the corrupt methods
in use by the old political parties is the use for
party ends made of the "United States Territories by
the dominant party during its lease of power. They
are, from the time of their organization as civilized
communities, to the day of their admission into the
family of States, mere political appurtenances and
conveniences of the dominant political faction at the
seat of the government. They are deemed, taken,
and held as perquisites and instruments of party
power. As such they are used with little regard for
the rights of those who inhabit them, or the wishes
of the nation which is so largely responsible for their
existence and well-doing. The principal offices of
the Territories are filled at party dictation by the
President at Washington, without consulting the
wishes of the people residing within their limits, and
often in opposition to their known views and feel-
ings. In every Territory one or more political par-
ties are organized and maintained, so that the party
in power has its local organization on the ground,
and its appointees have generally supervision and
control of it.
The question of the admission of the Territory to
the Union, which is always a pending one, is a mat-
108 PARTISAN POLITICS.
ter of much consequence to its alma mater. If the
party needs the presence of two senators and an
increase of the membership of the lower house in
Congress, and the incoming State can give them this
party assistance, they will admit her to the Union,
though she may be entirely unfitted from the num-
ber and mixed character of her population to come
into the federal alliance on an equality with the
older States. Though she may lack the requisite
means to sustain the dignity and bear the burdens of
a State government, these considerations will inevi-
tably yield to the paramount interests of the party.
On the other hand, though this prospective State can
furnish evidence that it has had for many years
every requisite for statehood, in population, wealth,
and general intelligence of her inhabitants, and that
the people are desirous of admission, and the in-
terests of the Territory are suffering from its long
probation, these facts will be of no avail to them if
the dominant party has reason to fear that the repre-
sentation from the State when admitted will di-
minislj. their party strength in Congress. Such a
territory will be kept out almost indefinitely unless
there is a change in its political complexion or a
change of majorities in Congress. Thus the material
prosperity and the final destiny of a great Territory
may be seriously affected by the caprice and tyranny
of a reigning political oligarchy. Here is a de-
liberate conspiracy to seize and hold the political
power of this Territory, solely to subserve party in-
terests, an exercise of arbitrary power to restrain and
coerce it and to trade upon its rights.
PARTISAN POLITICS.
Had we more space for the discussion of this
branch of our subject, we might increase the num-
ber of specifications which sustain our charge of gen-
eral corruption in the public service. As the New
York chief of police said of his department, that it
was honey-combed with corruption, so are we ready
to affirm that the national and State governments of
the country under the rule of the parties are to a
shameful extent forums of knavery, injustice, and
scandal. In all the departments at Washington
there is embezzlement, depredation, jobbing, and in-
adequate service everywhere. The United States
treasury, the General Post-Office, the Interior De-
partment, the Departments of Justice and Agricul-
ture, the War and Navy Departments, the Bureaus
of Pensions and Patents, the Bureau of Engraving,
and the Government Printing-Office, are all political
machines, all made subservient to party behests, and
all have been degraded to the use of venal politi-
cians. They are organized, manned, and outfitted
as much with reference to the profits and aggrandize-
ment of party organization as a war-ship is outfitted
for fighting the enemy. At every session of Con-
gress some of them are under accusation and investi-
gation for corrupt practices or abuse of power, for
extravagance in expenditure, the delay of justice,
and a partisan and selfish administration. They are
a proverb throughout the nation, and were it not for
the vigilance of the spies set upon them by the op-
posing party they would bankrupt the nation in a
single Presidential term.
110 PARTISAN POLITICS.
These parties seize upon the powers and per-
quisites of the government and administer its affairs
simply for the spoils they can reap in the course of
their tenancy. They have really no other interest
in public affairs; hence they lay their corrupt and
onerous tax levy upon every department and re-
source of the government, and spoliation and mis-
rule is the general result.
Now, if these accusations of extravagance and
corruption in the partisan management of public
affairs are false, or exaggerated even, the writer must
not be charged with malicious and libellous inten-
tions, for his allegations are based upon and abun-
dantly sustained by the admissions, investigations,
and the repeated testimony of the organizations ac-
cused. The people are almost wholly indebted to
these parties severally for the reliable knowledge
they possess of their true character and the methods
in vogue with them. The Democrats have for many
years been loudly declaiming against the corruption
and general incompetence of the Republican party,
and are constantly producing accumulated evidence
to prove their allegations. The Republicans, on the
other hand, have been quite as often making similar
charges against their antagonists, and have been
quite as successful in producing evidence to sustain
their counter-charges. Both these organizations are
convicted of corruption and incompetence on the
testimony of their own accomplices in crime. Six
millions of Republican voters testify that the Demo-
cratic party is utterly depraved as an organization,
PARTISAN POLITICS. jjj
and lacks the requisite mental and moral capacity to
administer the affairs of the national government;
that at several periods in the history of the nation it
has brought the government to the verge of dissolu-
tion, and would soon ruin it if it could attain to un-
interrupted power. About the same number of
voting Democrats will give like testimony as to the
character and general want of capacity of the Ke-
publican party. Everybody outside of these organi-
zations would concur in these censures and share in
the want of confidence they express.
Thus we have an almost unanimous manifestation
of the state of public sentiment in regard to the
vicious and depraved character of these associations.
They are all engaged in a common conspiracy
against the common weal; and when they turn
State's evidence upon one another, they give us an
opportunity to understand their true character.
When a large majority of a man's neighbors are
ready to testify that he is a rascal, you can impeach
his veracity and general character in any court of the
civilized world. The American press is constantly
repeating these charges and denouncing these prac-
tices upon which we have dwelt, and if it is not ma-
licious and mendacious in the last degree then its
testimony must be taken as well-founded and of
solemn import to the public. The spoils system in
American politics is well known to fame. It has a
reputation beyond seas, as a system better organized,
more complete, efficient, and corrupt, than exists
under any government under the sun.
112 PARTISAN POLITICS.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE GRAND ARMY OF CONQUEST.
FEW persons have any definite conception of the
magnitude and extent of these great political trades
unions, the vast powers they exercise, and the im-
mense resources they are able to command. At the
last Presidential election the Democrats polled about
six millions and a half of votes, and the Republicans
upward of seven millions, altogether outnumbering
the armies of the world. These several numbers con-
stitute the membership of the two great parties who
are known in their localities to be the avowed adhe-
rents and supporters of the section with whom they
vote.
These federations are larger, each of them, than
any other voluntary association in the United States.
Either one of them has a larger membership than any
Christian sect in the country. The Christian sects
number about nine million members, all told, of every
age and sex. The census of the political parties ex-
cludes women and children, as it does the great ma-
jority of the colored citizens of the Union. They are
made up of citizens of the male sex who are of manly
age and who possess the qualifications of electors.
The voting population of the country is its most
efficient force for all the purposes of civilization.
These are the persons who lead society everywhere,
PARTISAN POLITICS.
and shape the destinies of every nation. They are
the most active, intelligent, and influential of the male
population, and when they combine for any purpose
and become distinctively a political class or a quasi
corporation they are a most formidable and dangerous
element in a free republic. These are the citizens in
whom the Constitution has vested the sovereignty of
the nation, and it is within the power of a small mi-
nority of them, if they selfishly and corruptly com-
bine, to seize and hold the government for their own
ambitious and mercenary ends as effectually as it
might be done by force of arms.
The membership of this immense political propa-
ganda is wide-spread throughout the length and
breadth of the land, and each man of them is a parti-
san of more or less zeal and activity, and all of them
are laborers in some way in doing service in the great
work of making proselytes to the party faith and in
sustaining the rule and prestige of the alliance. The
most effective coworkers in these organizations are
those who are the incumbents of office and there are
two hundred thousand of them on Uncle Sam's pay-
roll and those who are expectant of office. All
these persons have a degree of training, discipline, and
skill which makes them most efficient agents and bosses
in the political field; for they have a personal interest
in all the acquisitions made and the victories won by
the party. Their bread and butter depends upon its
perpetuity and its general success in carrying elections
by the votes of the people.
It is estimated that there are several millions of
8
114 PARTISAN POLITICS.
these persons in each of the great parties. The mem-
bers of the dominant party constitute the ins, who are
determined to retain their position, while the outs, a
still larger and more determined host, are waiting and
working for the succession. This army of workers
finds occupation and does missionary work for the
party in every portion of the country; "there is no
land where their voice is not heard." Thus the party
in ascendency has one or more efficient and well-paid
agents in every township and hamlet in the land.
fthe party organization throughout, to the minutest
detail, is most thorough and complete. There is the
township committee in the rural districts, the ward
clubs in the city, the county committee, the State
organization, the national committee, and the party
majority in Congress, which does more party work,
distributes more partisan literature, furnishes more
money, more positions for placemen, more fat jobs for
its contractors, strikers, and lobbyists, than are de-
rived from all other sources?) The chief labors and
anxieties of the average member of Congress arise out
of his party relations, the service he is expected to per-
form to retain the party support. He is always a
tired and overworked man from his excessive labors
as a general politician and a purveyor of office for his
hungry constituents. The same is true of the ruling
majority in each State Legislature; they supplement
the work that the Congress is doing to sustain the
common cause.
Each of the States has scores of officials distributed
through its territory, who are doing a great deal of
PARTISAN POLITICS.
earnest work for the same purpose. In the remote
and sparsely populated districts the town magistrate
and constable, the supervisor and town clerk, the
poor-master and the pound-master, the postmaster
and the fence-viewer, the town collector and the
school trustee are all active partisans. In the more
populous districts these officials are multiplied to an
astonishing extent, until they form a most active and
efficient force in determining the politics of the State.
The national government has its representatives
in the form of United States officials sent out by the
dominant party. The judges of the United States
District Courts and the United States district attor-
neys, the United States marshals and their deputies,
clerks, bailiffs, detectives, etc., the collectors of cus-
toms and internal revenue officers, harbor masters and
light-house keepers, pension and land commissioners,
with the inevitable postmaster who does picket duty,
day and night, for his party throughout his bailiwick,
most zealously and industriously. These are supple-
mented by a movable corps of United States officials
who do duty for the party as mounted men, who serve
to keep up close communication between head-quar-
ters and outlying posts. These are postal agents, in-
spectors and clerks, pension inspectors and detectives,
revenue agents and detectives, agents of the Indian
service, surveyors, engineers, and architects, with con-
tractors and laborers on public works. This host of
campaigners have all received their positions through
partisan influence, and with a great majority of them
their tenure of office will depend upon their increasing
PARTISAN POLITICS.
activity and zeal in the party's interest. These place-
men form in almost every township and ward in the
nation an advisory board and a working force, or both,
for the confederation to which they owe allegiance
and from which they derive support.
fan addition to this army of trained men, supervised
by the ablest politicians of the country, we have the
partisan press, the daily or weekly issues of which find
their way into every household, and constitutes per-
haps the most powerful political agency in use by
these organizations. This powerful instrumentality
reaches all classes of society, the great mass of wl
members have a superstitious reverence for, if not a
belief in, whatever is alleged to be true in a news-
paper. This partisan literature is so interlarded with
:ml served out with the current news of the day and
the state of trade, that thousands who feel no interest
whatever in politics or parties come, through the in-
fluence of what they at first read with indifference,
to be very decided and zealous partisans politically.
Through this agency the entire population may be
imbued with the partisan sentiment, and sustain or,
at least, apologize for all the party methods in vogue.
Through their silent influences the women and chil-
dren of the country are in most cases quite as earnest
partisans as the opposite sex. Even those classes who
are supposed to have but a diminished interest in the
world's every-day affairs, such as soldiers, sailors,
clergymen, and aged and infirm men, are found uni-
formly to have their party preferences and alliances.
This mighty political force, under the control of
PARTISAN POLITICS.
unscrupulous partisans, cannot be otherwise than a
dangerous combination that should never possess to
such an extent the confidence of the people or be
trusted with the power it possesses^
These great associations, composed of millions of
men, constitute a great army of occupation in posses-
sion of and quartered upon the country, scarcely ex-
colled in numbers and efficiency by any military force
ever mustered into service in any country. They
outnumber all the armies of the world. Either of
the two great parties can place more men in the field
of their operations than were ever called into service
in any war, ancient or modern. As a voluntary asso-
ciation they have a larger number of male citizens, a
better organized and disciplined force, under their
control than any other association of modern times.
Some good citizens express fears that the Eomish
Church will gain undue ascendency in our politics;
they are afraid of kingcraft and of the society of
Jesuits, of the Freemasons and other secret societies,
as endangering our liberties and free institutions; and
yet they are members of these colossal organizations
that have already usurped all the functions of govern-
ment, State and national, that make all the laws and
execute them, and rule the nation practically with
despotic power.
118 PARTISAN POLITICS.
CHAPTEK XVII.
THE VAST POWERS THEY WIELD.
THE powers that such an organization may exercise
through its right of possession are quite as extensive
as are the number of agents it employs. It deter-
mines who shall be the chief elective officer and Presi-
dent of the republic. It selects a leading man of the
party who is pledged to its interests and whose repu-
tation as a politician and whose loyalty to the party
is such that he can be trusted to administer the gov-
ernment in the interest of those who have placed him
in power. They want a man who believes that pub-
lic office is a public trust, and that he is the trustee
of his party to distribute the spoils of office on that
principle of Christian equity which declares that the
laborer is worthy of his hire. They are very careful
always in selecting their man, and whatever one's
qualifications may be for this responsible office, he
must give surety to his confederates and friends, with-
out mental reservation, that he will be true to the
time-honored doctrines and usages of the party, and
that he will especially recognize the claims upon his
gratitude made by those who have been chiefly instru-
mental in procuring his nomination and election. No
man who is not a thorough partisan, and will be
simply an agent and trustee of his party, can obtain
a nomination even as President of the United States.
PA R TISA N POLITICS. j j 9
The governors of each of the States of the Union hold
their offices by the same fiduciary tenure; they are all
placemen, put in their positions by their auxiliaries to
distribute among them the patronage of the State.
The Congress and all the legislative bodies of the
country are made up in the same way. They are
composed of men who are party favorites at home,
and who have been fortunate in securing the support
of the local leaders in the district which they repre-
sent. This President is the chief executive officer of
the government and commander-in-chief of the army
and navy. He executes the laws which are not in
conflict with the wishes of his party, and employs the
military and naval force under his command.
Furthermore, the dominant party shapes all the
legislation of the country, makes all such laws as the
sentiment of the party demands, and executes and en-
forces such as are not in conflict with the interests of
those who compose the organization. It appoints the
judiciary of the nation, from a police justice in an
inferior city to the Supreme Court of the United
States. Every judicial officer must have the creden-
tials of his party to his character as a devoted partisan
who has seen much service in its ranks. His ap-
pointment is uniformly obtained through the efforts
of the party leaders who recommend him as a member
and favorite of the political household.
The same power dictates the financial policy of the
country, coins all the money, controls the mints and
its stock of gold and silver bullion, issues millions of
bonds and other evidences of indebtedness and prom-
120 PARTISAN POLITICS.
ises to pay of the people. It may create a public debt
almost without limit, and then pay it or repudiate it.
It uses the credit of the nation at its discretion, and
often inflates or depresses it at the dictation and in
the interest of its partisans. It dictates the foreign
policy of the nation and executes treaties. It is in
possession of the people's treasury and is the custodian
of the public funds, the lord of the government ex-
chequer, collects iiml holds all tlie revenues of the gov-
ernment, levies all taxes and the duties on all imports.
It disburses three hundred :md sixty millions annually
of the people's money, the great bulk of which is paid
to the members of the combination for services ren-
dered or property purchased, for they are a trades
union that seeks to deal exclusively with its own mem-
bers where it is practicable to do so. It would be in-
teresting to know how much of this vast sum finds its
way to the pockets of those who are members of the
party in power. All contracts are let if possible
within the party circle and are taxed for party ex-
penses. It employs only as its assistants and agents
in administering the government those of its own
guild. It determines the number it will employ and
the compensation it will pay them. If any of them
are defaulters or embezzlers their conduct will be in-
vestigated by a committee selected by party dictation
and authority, and if they are prosecuted it will be-
very likely by a United States district attorney and
tried by a judge and before a jury all of whom may be
fellow Democrats or Republicans, as the case may
occur.
PARTISAN POLITICS. J21
The dominant party is the supreme power of the
nation. It can make such laws as it chooses, and
abolish all existing laws. It can abolish the Con-
gress, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution itself,
and change the present form of the federal govern-
ment. They cannot change the organic law of the
commonwealth, you reply, without a specific vote of
the people. This vote they already control in ma-
jority. By various party devices these organizations
have absorbed the individual sovereignity of the voter
and exercise it as they choose, and always for party
ends and party aggrandizement. The party in ma-
jority is stronger than the people, and can successfully
defy them. This truth has been many times forcibly
illustrated during the history of our government.
While it continues in power it will be well-nigh abso-
lute in the State.
These parties, absorbing and exercising as they do
all the powers of government originally vested in the
people, and standing in close relations with every
moral and material interest of the nation, their influ-
ence is felt and is more or less potent and decisive in
all the industries of the country and the occupation
of every individual citizen. They have power to pro-
mote its highest and best interests, or they may, by
unwise legislation, or by a corrupt and extravagant
administration of its affairs, squander its revenue, or,
in obedience to party dictation and a blind adherence
to the doctrines of a party platform, reduce the rev-
enues of the government to such an extent as to im-
pair its credit and threaten it with insolvency.
122 PARTISAN POLITICS.
It has come to be a matter of frequent occurrence
that the political action of these organizations are rec-
ognized as a disturbing force in financial and business
circles, for they have power to create the greatest
Miixiety and depression in these spheres of activity.
They are able to produce financial panics and dis-
aster to the business of the country in a multitude of
forms. All these interests are in such a large meas-
ure under their control that by their incompetence,
their mistakes, or their deliberate gambling on the
public credit, it may not excite surprise that at any
time they may create a dangerous crisis in the business
interests of the country, involving losses to the public
from which they may not recover in many years.
War may be declared by party dictation, or from a
fancied necessity of saving the party consistency or
honor, where perhaps neither the honor nor the wel-
fare of the nation requires it. They may adopt a
foreign policy of such a character, or conduct the
foreign relations of the government in such a manner
as to embroil the country in a war with a friendly
nation even. They can do this at their discretion,
inaugurate an unjust and disastrous war which they
may prolong almost indefinitely, or they may con-
clude it at any time with a dishonorable treaty of
peace.
Although these powerful party alliances have ex-
isted in this country for less than half a century, they
have during their brief history, at several important
junctures, involved the country in unnecessary war
and in wide-spread commercial disaster. The present
PARTISAN POLITICS.
depressed condition of trade, production, and the
finances of the country, commencing some four years
since, and from the influence of which the business of
the country is but slowly recovering, I think is di-
rectly traceable to the factional strife which has
always characterized the persistent efforts of these
rival organizations for place and power.
Prhe Presidential election of 1892 resulted in the
defeat of the Republicans and the reinstatement of
the Democrats in power, with Mr. Cleveland as Presi-
dent. It is generally conceded that the main issue
at that election was the tariff, the Republicans advo-
cating the doctrine of protection and the Democrats
opposing any such revenue policy, denouncing it as
unconstitutional and as a species of robbery of the
consumers of foreign imports. Upon this issue the
Republicans were beaten and went out of power. Im-
mediately after the result was known the beaten party
began to prophesy and croak disaster to the business
interests of the countr^ Whether these words of
ill omen arose out of a natural desire of the defeated
party to see their antagonist unsuccessful in retaining
its general popularity and a determination to destroy
as far as possible the prestige of their victory and the
public confidence in its future action, or whether it
was a sincere conviction on the part of the Republi-
cans that their rival was a free-trade organization who
would evince by speedy legislation such hostilities to
the tariff then in existence as to alarm the country
and cause a suspension, at least, of some of the most
flourishing industries of the nation, we cannot under-
124 PARTISAN POLITICS.
take to say. Under these circumstances, however,
apprehension was not slow in taking possession of the
public mind. The Republicans were predisposed, of
course, to believe all they predicted as to the results
of placing their old enemy in power; besides, this
method of casting the political horoscope against an
antagonist is recognized as quite admissible in party
tin-tics. Current events of much significance con-
tributed largely to sustain this contention of the li<inir
party and aided them in obtaining credence for their
portentous utterances. The Republican press and tin-
party orators took up the same gloomy perspective of
the affairs of the nation, so that before the first session
of the new Congress, which had a large Democratic
majority in the House of Representatives, there was
a state of great anxiety and general distrust as to the
action of that body on the question of the tariff.
When a great mass of persons, numbering five or
six millions, become possessed with the idea that some
great calamity or misfortune is reasonably to be ap-
prehended in the near future, and they begin in con-
cert to croak disaster and appeal loudly and earnestly
to the people on any subject, they will very likely
create a very profound impression, if not an actual
panic, in the community where they reside. Such
premonitions of evil are said to be contagious, so that
the very air we breathe is a medium figuratively for
the spread of such a popular apprehension. Such a
formidable number of citizens are of themselves a
body of public opinion whose warning will be heeded
if there are either facts or current events to sustain
PARTISAN POLITICS. J25
their prophecies. The Republicans contended that
the known views of the Democratic" party on the ques-
tions of tariff and finance, together with the political
complexion of the new Congress with its populist con-
tingent, had created a feeling of general distrust and
hesitation on the part of the capitalists and the busi-
ness men of the country, which would manifest itself
unmistakably in a disturbed condition of the money
market, and in diminished production through every
branch of industry and the consequent forced idleness
and suffering of the laboring classes.
This feeling of apprehension that a financial
storm was brewing caused all prudent people to take
in sail and seek shelter until the future politically
was more assured. It continued to grow until it be-
came almost clamorous among all classes, until at
length the party in power was appealed to by its
friends and the great mass of citizens to forego all
legislation upon the subject until the condition of
the finances and the labor of the country became
more settled. The appeal was not successful, though
supported by large delegations of citizens visiting
the seat of government for the special purpose of
such remonstrance. Congress refused to grant the
relief they sought, and refused in the midst of the
greatest political, financial, and industrial crisis the
country has ever witnessed. They continued
through two sessions of that body, occupying a
period of twenty months, to agitate changes in the
tariff and the financial policy of the government,
amidst the outcries and remonstrances of their con-
126 PARTISAN POLITICS.
stituents. In reply to these importunities they in-
sisted that they had been placed in power on a tariff
issue, that the Democratic platform pledged them to
tariff reform, and to be consistent they must adhere
to the platform and the time-honored policy of the
party, against any remonstrances and at any cost to
the country. They did persist in this adverse legisla-
tion until that Fifty-third Congress, ill-omened and
memorable, expired by limitation.
The contest of these opposing parties over the
measures in both houses has been the absorbing topic
of the period through which it existed, so that it may
be said that the severe political contest of the parties
over the Presidential election of 1892 has been con-
tinued with all its original virulence and excitement
for four years, resulting in a general paralysis of
business throughout the Union. During this period
the country has been lying prostrate and helpless
beneath the feet of these giant organizations, whose
Titanic struggles for supreme power have created an
era in the history of the country, an era of bank-
ruptcy, lawlessness, and political knight-errantry,
which is scarcely excelled in any civilized country.
PARTISAN POLITICS.
CHAPTEK XVni.
THEIR WAR RECORD.
I HAVE charged that the political parties of the
period are made responsible in history for all the
great wars in which we have been engaged for a
century past. I do not mean simply that these wars
have occurred while some political party was admin-
istering the government, but that in each case the
cause, the crisis out of which they severally arose,
was produced by the strife and selfish ambition of
party leaders; and in some cases the war was de-
clared and carried on for years for partisan pur-
poses. This is noticeably true of the war of 1812.
For ten years or more previous to this war our gov-
ernment was engaged in various controversies both
with England and France in regard to our rights of
commerce upon the high seas. The questions in-
volved, as is always the case under like circum-
stances, became party questions. The then existing
parties, the ^Republicans and the Federalists, took
issue with one another on them and the measures
proposed. Party spirit ran high, and in this contro-
versy such a furor was raised against Great Britain
that nothing would satisfy the Administration and
its friends but a collision of arms with their ancient
enemy of the mother country.
In June, 1812, the United States declared war
128 PARTISAN POLITICS.
against England, Mr. Madison then feeing President,
who, it is said, was opposed to the war. The Feder-
alists were most heated 'and determined in their op-
position to it, and were accused of in various ways
giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Mr. Madison
was a vascillating leader, and there were such party
dissensions and party scandals as to impugn the
patriotism of the American people and destroy the
moral force of the republic in the controversy with
the enemy. The war, though not disastrous to
either side, has ever since been regarded as ill ad-
vised and fruitless of any great results commensu-
rate with the expenditure of life and property in
prosecuting it. It was a painful tragedy put on ex-
hibition by the politicians and pursued to the last
act to gratify their selfish ambition to retain place
and power.
Mr. Rossiter Johnson in his history of the war of
1812, has this to say about some of the specific
causes and circumstances under which it was inau-
gurated and carried on:
"Since the inauguration of President Jefferson
the government had been in the hands of the Repub-
licans, and all measures looking towards war with
England were opposed by the party out of power,
the Federalists. The Federalists in Congress pro-
tested against the declaration of war, and this protest
was repeated in every possible form by the Federal
newspapers, by mass meetings, in numerous political
pamphlets, and even in many pulpits. The opposi-
tion was especially strong in the New England
States. The arguments of those who opposed the
PARTISAN POLITICS.
war were, that the country was not prepared for
such a struggle, could not afford it, and would find
it a hopeless undertaking; that the war policy had
been forced upon Madison's administration by the
Kepublican party in order to strengthen that party
and keep it in power; that if we had cause for war
with England we had cause for war with France
also, and it was unreasonable to declare war against
one of those powers and not against both. The last
argument was the one the most vehemently urged,
and the war party was denounced and censured, as
making our government a tool of France. There
was a certain amount of truth in each of these propo-
sitions. The country was very ill prepared for war
at all, least of all with the most powerful of nations.
Madison had probably been given to understand that
unless he recommended a declaration of war he need
not expect a renomination at the hands of his party.
England by her sacrifice of life and property had
gained absolutely nothing. She had not acquired an
inch of territory or established a principle of inter-
national law, or purchased for. herself any new privi-
lege or secured any old one. It had caused a great
deal of suffering and misery in this country by the
derangement of business and destruction of property
and loss of life. The war had cost the United States
a hundred millions of dollars in money, and thirty
thousand lives had been squandered, when with
ordinary skill and care they might have been saved."
The Mexican War was the result of a long-cher-
ished desire of the slave-holding South for the acqui-
sition of more territory suited to slave labor. Mexi-
can territory lying upon our borders was the coveted
region. War was declared against Mexico in 1846.
James K. Polk, of Tennessee, was elected President
9
130 PARTISAN POLITICS.
in 1844. Mr. Polk was a bigoted and well-trained
partisan and a pronounced and zealous advocate for
the extension of African slavery in the Territories of
the United States. His cabinet, among whom were
Buchanan, Secretary of State, and Marcy, Secretary
of War, earnestly supported his views on this sub-
ject, and assisted in making it a party question with
the Democratic constituency North and South.
The Whigs were the political rivals of the party
in power, and opposed the war on the ground that it
was sectional, a war to gratify the political ambition
and cupidity of the South, as an unjust and causeless
appeal to arms against a sister republic already over-
burdened with debt and the prey of contending fac-
tions within her borders. The South had for many
years been the controlling section in the Democratic
party. Under this influence the national govern-
ment had from time to time, for years previous, at-
tempted to purchase Mexican territory now known
as Texas and California, but had never been success-
ful. The colonization of Texas by citizens of the
South was a scheme by the same parties in interest
to secure by immigration what was denied them by
purchase. The Southern people had at least three
prime objects in view in the common movement.
First, to increase the political power of the South;
slavery had made them sectional and jealous of the
rapid increase of the north in wealth and population.
Second, they wanted to open fresh fields and pas-
tures new for the dusky herds of slavery as well as
homes for their owners; and third, to increase tho
PARTISAN POLITICS.
131
price of slave property in the slave-breeding States.
They publicly avowed these to be their objects in
agitating and urging a contention with Mexico.
United States Senator Benton, of Missouri, who
was strongly in favor of the acquisition of such ter-
ritory, wrote a series of essays on the subject, and
one of the reasons he assigned for the purchase of
Texas was that five or six more slave-holding States
might be thus added to the Union. In one of his cal-
culations he estimates that nine more States as large
as Kentucky might be formed within the limit of
that province.
Said a Charleston journal upon the same subject:
"It is an enterprise that could not fail to exercise an
important and favorable influence upon the future
destinies of the South, by increasing the votes of the
slave-holding States in the United States Senate. "
Judge Upshur, Secretary of State under President
Tyler, said in the Virginia Convention, "If Texas
should be obtained," which he strongly desired, "it
would raise the price of slaves and be a great advan-
tage to the slave-holders of the State."
Mr. Dodridge, in the same convention, said, "The
acquisition of Texas will greatly enhance the value
of the property in question."
Mr. Gholsten, of the Virginia Legislature, said
that he believed the acquisition of Texas would raise
the price of the slaves fifty per cent.
The Mobile Register of that day advocated an in-
crease of territory from Mexico for two reasons,
first, to equalize the South with the North; second,
132 PARTISAN POLITICS.
as a convenient and safe place, calculated from its
peculiarly good soil and salubrious climate, for a
slave population.
Mr. Mangum, senator from North Carolina, said,
"There are now three millions of slaves penned up
in the slave States, and they are an increasing popu-
lation, increasing faster than the whites. And are
the slaves always to be confined to their prison
States?"
"We trust," said the Charleston Patriot, "that our
Southern representatives will remember that this is
a Southern war."
The Courier, of the same city, held this signifi-
cant language: "Every battle fought in Mexico and
every dollar spent there but insures the acquisition
of territory and must widen the field of Southern
enterprise and power for the future. And the final
result will be to adjust the balance of power in the
confederacy so as to give us the control over the
operations of the government in all time to come."
These extracts, which might be multiplied almost
indefinitely, are sufficient to show the trend of pub-
lic opinion at the South, and the motive they had
for a quarrel with Mexico which should result in
open war. The slave-owners, having at their con-
trol the national government, under the administra-
tion of a President who was noted for his sectional
zeal in promoting Southern interests, found little
difficulty in using the whole force of the party in
power in accomplishing their designs. The writer
can well recollect that it was a very common thing
;
PARTISAN POLITICS. ^33
during the period of hostilities to hear at the North
the phrases used: "Mr. Folk's war;" "The slave-
holder's war;" "The Democratic party's war." The
South was not wholly responsible for it; there were
Northern Democrats enough in the party to prevent
its becoming the pliant agency which Southern poli-
ticians might use at their will; but they had long
been accustomed to Southern dictation, and the
crack of the party whip in hands accustomed to mas-
tery brought them submissively into line when the
votes were counted.
The Whigs very conclusively showed their want
of sincerity in their loud denunciation of the war
and the Administration, showing that political ex-
pediency was the motive of their opposition. On a
vote upon a bill declaring that war existed by act of
Mexico, and voting for fifty thousand volunteers and
ten millions in money, they could muster only four-
teen votes. It was an unjust and cruel war against
a helpless and comparatively innocent people; and
if public opinion in this country had not been bru-
talized and grossly depraved by the baleful influence
of slavery upon it for generations, this record would
never have stained the pages of American history.
Mexico had at that time a population of seven mil-
lions only, one million of whom were whites; while
the majority of her population consisted of Indians,
four millions; negroes, six thousand; and all other
castes, two millions. She owed a national debt of
eighty-five million dollars. Mr. Slidel, of Louisiana,
who was sent by President Polk as minister to Mex-
134 PARTISAN POLITICS.
ico to further the designs of the government in the
acquisition of territory, sent the following informa-
tion to the State Department of the condition of the
Mexican Republic at that time:
"The country, torn by conflicting factions, is in a
state of perfect anarchy, its finances in a condition
utterly desperate. I do not see where means can
possibly be found to carry on the government. The
annual expense of the army alone exceeds twenty-
one million dollars, while the net revenue is not more
than ten or twelve millions. While there is a pros-
pect of war with the United States no capitalist will
loan money, at any rate, however onerous. Every
branch of the revenue is already pledged in advance.
The troops must be paid or they will revolt."
As far back as 1829 the Mexican Congress passed
a decree emancipating every slave in her territory.
There was a strong anti-slavery sentiment in tho
country, and their chief opposition to any acquisi-
tion of any part of their domain by the United States
was that it would become slave territory. It was,
furthermore, regarded as only a beginning of the en-
croachments of the slave power. It was well under-
stood that such was the object of our government in
obtaining what it sought. This feeling was fre-
quently exhibited in the official correspondence be-
tween the two governments before and during the
war. Mr. Rejon, the Mexican Secretary, informed
our minister, Mr. Shannon, on the 20th of October,
1844, that he "has orders to repel the protest now
addressed to his government, and to declare that the
PARTISAN POLITICS. 135
President of the United States is much mistaken, if
he supposes Mexico capable of yielding to the men-
ace which he, exceeding the powers given to him by
the fundamental law of his nation, has directed
against it." After commenting on the conduct of
the United States, he concluded, "While one power
is seeking more ground to stain by the slavery of an
unfortunate branch of the human family, the other
is endeavoring, by preserving what belongs to it, to
diminish the surface which the former wants for
this detestable traffic. Let the world now say which
of the two has justice and reason on its side." It
was manifestly a war of conquest in the interests of
domestic slavery; and it was made possible and suc-
cessful by the fact that the conspirators were organ-
ized as a national political party. Through that
organization they did all their work; and had not
the slave-holders of the South held a controlling in-
fluence in the party it never could have been used
for such a purpose. The history of this war exhibits
the immense power which these organizations pos-
sess and the base purposes for which they may be
used as political agencies.
The war of the Kebellion furnishes another illus-
tration, far more comprehensive and instructive, and
quite as conclusive in the evidence it affords us that
these political alliances constantly endanger the
liberties of the people and menace often the national
life. Previous to the election of Mr. Lincoln, in
1860, the Democratic party had been in power
almost continuously for forty years. Kecognizing
136 PARTISAN POLITICS.
the sectional feeling that has always existed in the
slave-holding States, they very early made such con-
cessions to it as secured to them, down to the present
time, a large majority of the electoral votes of the
South. They defended always, with much zeal and
persistence, what they called the rights of the slave-
holders under the Constitution; and during the
thirty years of the heated and acrimonious discus-
sion of slavery in the Northern States previous to
the war they were champions and defenders of the
South against all comers at home and abroad. Mr.
Garrison used to denounce the party as the greatest
pro-slavery organization of the age.
Mr. Lincoln, as the candidate of the Republican
party, represented the anti-slavery sentiment of the
North; and the slave-holders saw in that party an
enemy to their cherished institution, too much in
earnest to be appeased and too powerful to Ix? con-
tended with at close quarters on the political field,
upon the issue whether the negro was a human be-
ing or a dehumanized monster and a chattel. They
felt that they had no alternative but to secede from
the Union in order to escape the Northern agitation
and adverse legislation resulting in the abolition of
slavery. Fully aware of the increasing sentiment
against slavery in the North and forecasting their
defeat at the national election, they resolved months
previous to that event to go out of the Union should
a Republican President be elected. Their hopes of
successfully accomplishing this desperate scheme
were based almost wholly upon the aid and comfort
PARTISAN POLITICS. 137
to be extended to them by the party in power, which
had, at least, three or four months of legal existence
left after its defeat. A few of the secession leaders
believed that the country was ripe for a revolution
against the abolitionists and their party, and that as
the Democratic party in possession of the govern-
ment was strong enough to hold it in spite of their
rival's, they justified their acts on grounds of a
necessity to save the Union. The same desperate
class of politicians had succeeded in defiance of the
North in annexing Texas and conquering Mexico
through the instrumentality of the same party
which, though now defeated in an election, had suf-
fered no abatement in its numbers or its predatory
spirit. They undoubtedly received abundant as-
surance of such aid. The history of the two parties
shows that during the war they received such sup-
port from their Northern allies, not only on the floor
of Congress, but throughout the Northern States.
Individual Democrats were exceedingly active
and censorious. They were well-nigh frenzied in
their rage towards the abolitionists, whom they de-
scribed as treasonable instigators of the quarrel with
the South, which now threatened the destruction of
the nation. They denounced as unconstitutional
and oppressive the efforts of loyal men to maintain
the integrity of the Union at all hazzards. Public
meetings were held throughout the North by such
sympathizers with the Kebellion, for the purpose of
producing a reaction in the public mind that should
result in maintaining the status quo and saving both
138 PARTISAN POLITICS.
slavery and the Union. The opinion was very gen-
erally expressed at the North by the opponents of
the incoming party that they could not prevent the
South from seceding, and that the North would not
enter upon a war of such magnitude and of such
doubtful results; that while the abolitionists, a
mere minority in the country, might sustain such a
war of coercion, the mass of the people had little
interest in the question beyond the addition of
further slave territory to the Union. I quote an
article from the Albany Argus, an old and leading
Democratic journal, which expressed the Demo-
cratic sentiment in regard to forcible resistance to
secession. The article was published in 1860, before
the election of Mr. Lincoln. It says,
"Waiving, in what we have now to say, all ques-
tions about the right of secession, we believe, as a
matter of practical administration, neither Mr. Bu-
chanan nor Mr. Lincoln will employ force against the
seceding States. If South Carolina, or any other
State, through a convention of her people, shall for-
mally separate herself from the Union, probably both
the present and the next Executive will simply let
her alone and quietly allow all the functions of the
Federal government within her limits to be suspended.
Any other course would be madness, as it would at
once enlist all the Southern States in the controversy
and plunge the whole country into a civil war. The
first gun fired in the war of forcing a seceding State
back to her allegiance would probably prove the knell
to its final dismemberment. As a matter of policy
and wisdom, therefore, independent of the question
of right, we should deem resort to force most disas-
trous."
PARTISAN POLITICS. 139
Mr. Buchanan and his cabinet as well were anxious
and diligent in this patriotic work of saving at once
the Union, the Democratic party, and the institution
of slavery. The retiring President was a lifelong
and earnest friend of the slave-holders of the South.
His record was satisfactory to them, and they hoped
everything from him in this emergency. In 1843,
while he was in the United States Senate, he opposed
the ratification of the treaty with Great Britain set-
tling the northeast boundary, because it did not pro-
vide compensation for certain slaves liberated in the
West Indies. He remarked, "All Christendom is
leagued against the South upon the question of domes-
tic slavery. They have no other allies to sustain their
constitutional rights except the Democracy of the
North. In my own State we inscribe upon our party
banners, 'Hostility to abolitions/ It is there one of
the cardinal principles of the Democratic party." In
his last message to Congress he said, "Has the Consti-
tution delegated to Congress power to coerce into sub-
mission a State which is attempting to withdraw, or
has actually withdrawn, from the Confederacy? If
answered in the affirmative it must be on the principle
that the power has been conferred upon Congress to
declare and make war against a State. After much
serious reflection, I have arrived at the conclusion
that no such power has been delegated to Congress,
or to any other department of the Federal govern-
ment." He recommended as a settlement of the dif-
ferences between the North and the South an explana-
tory amendment of the Constitution, providing, first,
140 PARTISAN POLITICS.
express recognition of the right of property in slaves
in the States where it now exists, or may hereafter ex-
ist. Second, the duty of protecting this right in all
the common territories throughout their territorial
existence. Third, a recognition of the right of the
master to his slave who has escaped from him to
another State, to be restored, delivered up to him.
Fourth, that the validity of the fugitive slave law,
together with a declaration that all State laws impair-
ing or defeating this right, are violations of the Con-
stitution and are consequently null and void.
This doctrine was sustained by his Attorney-Gen-
eral, Judge Black, in an elaborate opinion. He said,
"If it be true that war cannot be declared, nor a
tern of general hostilities be carried on by the central
government against a State, then it seems to follow
that an attempt to do so would be ipso facl<> an expul-
sion of such State from the Union; being treated as an
alien and an enemy she would be compelled t< act
accordingly. And if Congress shall break up the
present Union by unconstitutionally putting strife,
enmity, and armed hostility between the different
sections of the country instead of the 'domestic tran-
quillity' which the Constitution was meant to insure,
will not all the States be absolved from their federal
obligations? Is any portion of the people bound to
contribute their money or their blood to carry on a
contest like that?"
This was Democratic doctrine as announced from
the highest authority of the party. And it was gen-
erally accepted by the rank and file and acted upon
PARTISAN POLITICS. \^\
most diligently throughout the war. This was the
kind of aid and comfort, the moral support, which
the secessionists anticipated and chiefly depended
upon before going out of the Union. If their
Northern friends did not prevent the inauguration
of Mr. Lincoln by a general defection and rising of
the people aided by the government, still in the
hands friendly to their interests, they, at least,
hoped that they would succeed in so dividing and
distracting the Northern sentiment to a degree that
no effective resistance would be made against their
traitorous movement. That these hopes were de-
feated was not due to any zeal or determined effort
on the part of their Northern friends and allies in
and out of Congress.
The war of the Kebellion was a war among par-
tisans. It was instigated by party intrigue and car-
ried forward as a distinct issue between the two
parties to the end. Had there been no Democratic
party to countenance the secession movement early
in its history, it never would have assumed a danger-
ous aspect. An occasional threat on the floor of
Congress and in the partisan newspapers at the
South would have embodied the measure of its con-
stituent strength and general influence. It was an
infant enterprise that came to be formidable by the
lapse of time and good nursing. Had there been no
parties at all, there would have been no rebellion.
To the charge that the Democrats are responsible
for the war they enter an indignant denial and ear-
nestly assert that the Kepublicans were the insti-
142 PARTISAN POLITICS.
gators of the quarrel between the sections, by unwar-
ranted attacks upon the domestic institutions of the
South, by threatening to destroy twelve hundred
millions of dollars' worth of property in slaves
(Henry Clay's estimate), and to let loose upon them
their emancipated negroes, to overrun and im-
poverish the country; ^that to escape these calami-
tics, which were imminent and overwhelming, they
seceded from the Union as their only refuge. Now,
we do not propose to act as umpire in this contest,
but to let these parties settle the question as to which
of them did the most to involve the country in a
four years' war over a question that should have
been settled elsewhere without the shedding of
blood. Very certain it is, had there been no politi-
cal parties to manage and make capital out of the
case, there would have been no civil war about it.
Had there been no Democratic party the South
would not have seceded. Had there been no Re-
publican party they would have remained undis-
turbed in the Union.
These disagreements which often occur between
sections and nationalities not unfrequently lead to
open hostilities and a state of war where they have
not been conducted in a spirit of toleration, of jus-
tice, and mutual concession. Where there is party
bias and party interests to be subserved, questions in
controversy are not likely to be treated with judicial
fairness and amicably settled. Whenever in this
country there are conflicting claims or matters in
dispute between ourselves and a foreign nation, the
PARTISAN POLITICS. 143
controversy is carried forward by direction of the
President through the Secretary of State. When-
ever the Administration indicates its views and its
line of policy in regard to the differences in question,
immediately and inevitably the opposing political
party announces its dissent and its earnest protest
against the views officially declared. Its press im-
mediately takes up the question adversely to the
government, and the whole force and influence of
the opposing party is relentlessly used to embarrass
the Administration and precipitate a crisis that shall
disgrace the party in power, or make it responsible
for a causeless and unpopular war. It seizes the op-
portunity in such a critical period of our foreign
relations to make political capital out of a national
emergency. By impeaching the motives of the gov-
ernment and casting discredit upon the evidence by
which it seeks to sustain its side of the controversy,
they give aid and comfort to the enemy in the dis-
pute, encouraging them to persist in their unreason-
able demands. Meantime, the party in power, to be
consistent with its contentions and not bring dis-
grace upon itself and the country by yielding to un-
just exactments, embroils the nation in a needless
and expensive war.
In the history of parties throughout the civilized
world, it has been charged, and truly, I believe, that
in certain nationalities they have been guilty of the
monstrous crime of inciting internal revolution and
foreign war, as a means of securing political power
or of retaining it under a waning support.
144 PARTISAN POLITICS.
CHAPTER XIX.
UNAUTHORIZED AND IRRESPONSIBLE.
THESE federations, as it is said of corporations, have
no souls; they have not even a respectable moral code.
A work on the ethics of American politics would be
a literary curiosity. What compensation do they
give the public for these high privileges? What
guarantee do they tender that these great trusts shall
be faithfully executed? It would seem that persons,
parties, corporations, or combinations of any such de-
scription, wielding powers so vast and diverse in their
nature for the good or evil of society, should be in a
high degree responsible yes, in the highest degree
responsible for their acts; and should, futhermore,
possess a general reputation for integrity and capacity
that cannot be impeached and is quite above suspicion.
Who vouches for the honor and fidelity of these or-
ganizations? Who will be surety for their loyalty
and incorruptibility in the discharge of the trust as-
signed them by the people? Is there any corporation
or syndicate in this country or in Europe that would
at any price go bail or underwrite for the rectitude
and trustworthiness of any of our political factions?
As party organizations they are wholly irresponsible
and are a law unto themselves, whether they have
been placed in power by the votes of the people or are
waiting and laboring in expectancy of what they may
PARTISAN POLITICS.
145
never attain. They claim this immunity from all
responsibility by prescriptive right. They are in no
way amenable to law.
Other voluntary associations, engaged in occupa-
tions for profit, are answerable to the laws of the land.
Corporations must have charters which may be
amended or revoked by lawful authority. They ^ay
taxes and report their incomes and the profit and ex-
tent of their business to those who administer the laws.
They are chargeable with certain duties and are re-
strained from the commission of acts in derogation of
the rights of the public. Partnerships, trusts, lot-
teries, and joint stock companies, together with all
communities, fraternities, brotherhoods, etc., are an-
swerable to the law, and liable for their acts in the
courts of justice when charged with violation of law
and the rights of society. E"o court has jurisdiction
of a political party, no grand jury can indict them,
and no public officer can prosecute them for any of-
fence. They can not be judicially impeached or en-
joined; they are not legally liable on their contracts;
they cannot be sued, arrested, or served with legal
process, whatever their offences may be. Their
crimes are not punishable, even though they may
exceed in magnitude those of all other criminals.
They have no credit, and their promises to pay are of
no commercial value. It is a most common thing for
them to repudiate their most sacred obligations and
deny their express promises. Though large sums of
money come into their hands and they spend it lav-
ishly to promote the interests and general prosperity
10
J
j
146 PARTISAN POLITICS.
of the association, you cannot enforce the collection of
a debt for goods sold and delivered, or a claim for
damages to persons or property.
How would you proceed to collect the people's bill
^or damages against the political parties in and out of
/power during the past four years? They are above
the law and above the Constitution, and can violate
either of them with impunity. There is 110 law, hu-
man or divine, that can restrain or punish a political
party, whatever its acts may be. They can persist
in a course of maladministration which may bring
disaster to the country and suffering and privation
into every family in the land, and the people will be
absolutely without remedy. They cannot displace
them and employ a better service, for they have a
fixed tenure of possession which must first expire.
They are beyond the control of public opinion and can
defy it indefinitely. The whole country may !><
weary of them and unanimously condemn and repudi-
ate them, but they never resign. A public expression
of want of confidence is of little significance in this
country, and politicians never relinquish office bemuse
they are censured or admonished. We have no alter-
native but revolution or to patiently endure the
wrongs inflicted until their term expires by limitation.
There is no other body known to civilized society
which enjoys such multiplied privileges and immuni-
ties, and we may add, no other association so grossly
abuses its special indulgences or betrays so ungrate-
fully the confidence of the people.
Suppose an association of bankers and brokers, com-
PARTISAN POLITICS. 147
posed of persons from different parts of the country,
should, by the same party devices as are now in use
in shaping public policy, obtain such legislation from
Congress as would give them the possession and con-
trol of the United States Treasury Department aa
agents of the government, authorizing the association
to fill all the offices existing in the Department at
Washington and elsewhere, giving it possession of the
paper money factory at the capital, called the Bureau
of Engraving and Printing, with the power to employ
it for the issue of money at their discretion. Suppose
they had like authority and possession of the govern-
ment mints and sub-treasuries elsewhere, together
with the custom-houses over the country, and all other
branches of the service, so that it could collect all the
revenue, coin all the gold and silver, issue at pleasure
all the notes and bonds of the government, and deter-
mine the whole financial policy of the nation, admin-
istering the affairs of the national treasury with the
same freedom and absolute control jwhich the party
in power at present exercises. Let us further sup-
pose that this association was altogether a voluntary
affair, whose reputation for business capacity and
general integrity was very generally questioned; that
it gives no bonds for the faithful discharge of its
duties beyond the individual bonds of some of its em-
ployees; that there was no legal restraint upon its
authority or its acts, and the good faith and integrity
of its administration was dependent upon the senti-
ment of honor and fair-dealing which prevailed
among the members of the association. Could any
148 PARTISAN POLITICS.
citizen of this country not personally interested in the
spoils of such a scheme be induced to sanction it?
And yet the parallel is not overdrawn.
If these are proper bodies to be intrusted with the
plenary powers which they wield, if the lives and
property of the people and the destinies of the nation
are to be submitted to this species of vicarious, irre-
sponsible authority, make it amenable to law, the
first requisite to citizenship. Make them give bond
for good behavior and a safe and honest administra-
tion of the vast interests intrusted to their care. If
we want to farm out the national government every
four years to some voluntary association, let us look
for a reputable and responsible tenant. The old oc-
cupants, these mesne lords and their retainers, have
long been guilty of waste and bad management of
the people's inheritance. The nation is weary of
them, and though their stewardship is discredited
and their general character publicly impeached, they
continue by various devices to hold on and hold over.
Let the nation call these organizations to a strict ac-
counting, issue its quo warranto against them to
show by what authority they use the powers with
which they are intrusted for their own advantage
and profit and not primarily for the welfare of the
public. They are in possession, by permission of the
people, of vast powers, which they abuse, and of im-
mense sums of money, which they squander. They
are charged by common fame with corrupting the
public service and demoralizing the people; let them
show that these charges are not true, or, if true, that
PARTISAN POLITICS. ^49
their services are necessary to the people, who re-
ceive adequate compensation in their diligent ad-
ministration of the affairs of the nation for all the
losses and dishonor the nation suffers through them.
Let us have a contract suited to such grants of power
and patronage, some guarantee that the country shall
not be brought to the verge of bankruptcy every few
years or be involved in needless and dishonorable
wars; some assurance that the national credit shall
not be destroyed, its industries harassed and crippled
by conflicting legislation; that its civil service shall
not become a trading mart in the interests of partisan
jobbers and political Simonists.
If the people wish to be governed by a joint stock
company, by some powerful and wealthy corpora-
tion, or by some respectable religious sect, I have
little doubt that they could obtain better service
with less risk and smaller expenditure of money than
we are now getting at the cost of a million dollars
per day. What is it now but a leasehold to a thrift-
less and wasteful tenant, who taxes to the utmost the
patience and the industry of the people to keep the
estate in repair?
Suppose either of those respectable bodies, the
society of Freemasons or the Independent Order of
Odd Fellows, should attempt to capture the govern-
ment, ostensibly to promote some needful reforms in
the interests of the public, but really for the profit
and aggrandizement of the Order; or suppose
some religious sect, Catholic or Protestant, should
commence an intrigue and a campaign for the same
150 PARTISAN POLITICS.
purpose, setting forth as good grounds for such a
demonstration the general corruption and the incom-
petency of the present party, and the universal dis-
trust and want of confidence in them, manifested by
tfye people; that the people have confidence in the
church and its clergy; that the ecclesiastics of the
church are quite superior to the present race of poli-
ticians in morals and manners and general ability;
that the church, assured of divine assistance, which
the politicians neither seek nor obtain, would be en-
abled to administer the government for the temporal
and spiritual welfare o'f all the people, what a cry
of indignation would the publication of such a mani-
festo create in every hamlet in the country, a derisive
yet an apprehensive cry of disapproval! What
changes would be rung upon the words priestcraft,
popery, church and state!
No such attempt would be openly sustained by
any Christian denomination, and no such movement
could succeed in this country. The people would
not trust any other organization, religious or secular,
with the powers they so blindly bestow upon party
organizations to which they and their fathers have
for centuries given their allegiance. And yet one
may inquire, why not? If we are to put the political
power of the country into the hands of some coali-
tion or league to do the necessary work of carrying
on the government, and take our chances as to their
honesty and general capacity, the amount they may
steal, and the general demoralization they may
create, why not try by popular vote to elect some
PARTISAN POLITICS. 151
organization of known responsibility and general
character to assume this patriotic task?
It could scarcely be a policy more unwise, should
the majority of the people vote for it, to let the
Methodist Church administer the United States gov-
ernment for the glory of God and the salvation of
souls, with "incidental protection" to church in-
terests, than to give the Republican party a carte
blanche to run the government for four years for the
glory of the party and the good of the politicians
and bosses who control it. A United States Senate
made up of bishops of the church, and the lower
house of good, honest class-leaders of the denomina-
tion, excluding all persons notoriously immoral, all
third-rate lawyers, and persons who have been
charged with crime, would command a measure of
respect and confidence which these bodies do not
usually enjoy. You would, at least, have a Congress
that would in many respects be a marked improve-
ment on the Fifty-third, of savory memory. There
would be fewer brawls and pugilistic contests, and
perhaps less waste of valuable time, and better atten-
tion to the legitimate business of that body.
We perhaps might make a very advantageous bar-
gain with Leo XIII., the present head of the Romish
Church, to enter upon the arduous and responsible
task of governing the American commonwealth. He
has always manifested great interest in the temporal
and spiritual welfare of the American people. The
papacy has, furthermore, had large experience in
the exercise of temporal power and in the govern-
152 PARTISAN POLITICK.
nient of foreign states. There has hardly been a
civilized state in Europe for centuries that has not
submitted to his counsel, and been largely controlled
by his infallible judgment in temporal and spiritual
affairs. No Christian sect has manifested more in-
terest and zeal in civil affairs, or as much, perhaps,
as the Romish Church. Its members have always
manifested an earnest determination to support the
institutions of this country, and to assist in person,
as far as possible, in the execution of the laws and in
the maintenance of order in the several communities,
notably in the large cities like New York and Chi-
cago, where it would be impossible to fill the muni-
cipal offices satisfactorily to the government if there
did not happen to be a large number of Irish Catho-
lics to volunteer their services to the country of their
adoption.
Some sectarian prejudice might be created by
such an attempt to transfer the political power of
the country from a political to a religious hierarchy,
but all sensible citizens would hardly fail to see that
their could be in the case no essential difference be-
tween a Pope elected by a college of Cardinals of
the Church and a partisan President chosen by a
college of electors of his own party. If any of the
associations known to modern society should at-
tempt the possession or the exercise of such tremen-
dous powers, though they might be supported by a
majority of the people, every sensible and patriotic
man would oppose such a movement as dangerous
and impolitic. Every citizen with any experience
PARTISAN POLITICS.
in the administration of civil government, or ordi-
nary knowledge of the general qualifications of popu-
lar and miscellaneous societies to manage important
public affairs, would regard such a suggestion as too
absurd for any serious consideration. What else is
a political party but a voluntary association without
prerogative or authority superior to other bodies of
citizens? They have no official recognition as gov-
ernment agents, neither can they obtain any such
endorsement or voucher of authority from such a
source. No citizen is supposed to act as a Kepubli-
can, a Democrat, or a Populist; the voter is. jLcitizen
and not a party. No voluntary association of citi-
zens can jforce themselves .upo.n. .the people and by
any devices be recognized -.as exercising the sovcr-
eignty vested in the people. We speak of them as
though they were vested by the Constitution with
the right to represent the people, and with a degree
of independent sovereignty in the administration of
public affairs. We speak of them as the party in
power, as being in such a case the government de
facto and de jure. They have no ruling power, are
not clothed with powerful authority. They have
assumed an importance that is unreal, and have ob-
tained a prestige to which they are not entitled.
They are the instruments merely of the people, and
not their political guardians. They are the creatures
of the hour, of the popular will, and the hands that
use them to-day may vengefully destroy them to-
morrow.
154 PARTISAN POLITICS.
CHAPTER XX.
PARTISAN CONTROVERSY AN ENDLESS CHAIN.
WHILE these organizations, as political agencies,
are morally defective, and thus in a marked degree
unfitted to discharge the responsibilities they as-
sume, they are equally incapable of any impartial
and dispassionate consideration of those questions
which make up the issues between the great parties
of this country. A partisan is generally a person
who is biassed in his opinions and one-sided in his
views of all questions affecting the practice or the
creed of his party. The sect or party which has an-
nounced to the world a creed or a platform of
opinions, and challenged a public discussion of its
merits, has thus far prejudged and decided the
questions in controversy, and is itself incapable of
any but a partial and one-sided treatment of them.
Its members have a fixed belief to which they are
publicly committed, and have a vital interest in sus-
taining their opinions, on which the cause they advo-
cate depends. Party spirit has produced in them
obliquity of judgment, which disqualifies them more
or less as public teachers and leaders of their par-
ticular class or section.
A partisan has, in sustaining his contention, a
pride and a sense of loyalty to his guild ; and he well
knows that the public would lose confidence in it
PARTISAN POLITICS. 155
and its declarations, and that his rivals would be
ready to sound a note of triumph, if he should admit
but a single error in his political platform. He must
sustain the traditions and doctrines of his party and
the currrent methods of propagating its opinions
and maintaining its ascendency at all hazards. It is
the boast of the old political parties that their opin-
ions on public questions are time-honored and vener-
able in years, that they have descended to them from
the fathers of the republic, and have the sanction of
the wisest and purest patriots of that early period
in the history of the government. They quote Jef-
ferson and Jackson and Adams and Hamilton as
statesmen of the past who held the opinions they
now put forth; and the fact that these distinguished
men in our political history advocated certain public
measures gives them a wonderful, and many people
are inclined to think an undue, prestige and influ-
ence among the politicians and those whom they
lead. The teachings of Moses and the Prophets in
their influence upon the Christian sentiment of the
country are scarcely more potent and inspiring than
the political dogmas of these eminent men. Un-
doubtedly the average politician has a greater rever-
ence for the latter than for the former high au-
thority. That it exerts a more potent influence over
his life will be generally conceded. The traditions
of a political party are as sacred and binding upon
its members as those of the church. They hold that
order and consistency require that there should be
no change in the principles or policy of the organiza-
156 PARTISAN POLITICS.
tion. The doctrines of Jackson, Jefferson, Clay, and
Lincoln are precedents, and each party boasts of its
uniform adherence to them. There can be no gen-
uine progress in such organizations. They are re-
pressive rather of advancing civilization and of all
reforms in civil government. Their declarations and
platforms abound in much cheap rhetoric about
progress and reform, while their history shows that
they are afflicted with a chronic conservatism, an in-
herent malady running in the blood, from which po-
litical combinations never recover. They have
boxed the political compass; within its thirty-two
points there is nothing new for them to learn, and
they will never have anything new or original to
teach the public.
We judge that there is a growing belief among in-
telligent persons outside of party organizations that
the grave questions involved in the administration of
civil governments should be discussed on their merits,
rather than decided on the expressed opinions of
statesmen of the past century. In the evolution of
society great changes have occurred in the forces and
factors which made up the political situation fifty
years ago. These wonderful changes in our popula-
tion, in the earnings and industries of the nation, and
in the general character of our people will suggest
to the reader whether the laws governing a modern
commonwealth should be like those of the Medes and
Persians, unchangeable. When any question of pub-
lic interest is thrown into the maelstrom of political
discussion and becomes a party issue, there is an end
PARTISAN POLITICS. 157
of all hope of a satisfactory solution of it by the peo-
ple. It becomes a partisan controversy, and nobody
expects that there will be any change of opinion on
either side of the contest. The public mind becomes
so benumbed and confused by the contentions of the
politicians and the party press, reiterating from year
to year the same stale lamentations as to the political
condition of the country, and fulminating their in-
dignation against one another, that the great mass
of citizens are unable to vote intelligently upon such
party issues. They inaugurate campaigns of educa-
tion, loading the mails with partisan literature for
free distribution, while at certain seasons of the year,
the land is vocal with the prophetic eloquence of the
itinerant stump speaker and the village wrangler; but
all these varied efforts serve only to increase that state
of political obfuscation into which the average voter
seems hopelessly to have fallen.
Mr. Dickens, in his character of Stephen Black-
pool, has described this state of political quandary in
which an honest citizen is sometimes involved when he
wishes to cast his vote in the best interest of society.
Stephen was a power loom weaver in a great cotton-
mill in England. lie was a man of moderate abili-
ties, but capable and honest in the discharge of his
duties as an employee, and was quite respected for
these qualities by those who knew him. Humble
citizen as he was, all the agitators of opinion had use
for him. He was therefore beset at every turn by the
trades unions and politicians and the agents and bosses
of the employers of Coketown, who sought to capture
OF THE
IVERSITY
r
158 PARTISAN POLITICS.
for their own profit whatever he could command of
votes or influence among his fellows. To this pur-
pose they plied and overwhelmed him with rival argu-
ments and conflicting statements of theory and fact,
which resulted in a sort of collapse and utter confu-
sion of his reasoning faculties. He finally sums up
and dismisses the whole controversy in these words:
" ? Tis a muddle and that's aw. Alwus a muddle.
There is where I stick. I come to the muddle many
times and agen, and I never get beyond it."
Partisans never have settled and never can settle
any matter in controversy between them. They have
fixed ideas of public affairs, and are so biassed and
pledged by time-worn traditions and party platforms
that they are incapable of adapting themselves to the
changing conditions of society. The history of the
political parties of this country abundantly sustains
these assertions. For half a century or more they
have been discussing, pro and con, the tariff, the cur-
rency, and other collateral questions which enter into
the administration of civil government. These sub-
jects to-day are as seriously and earnestly in contro-
versy by these rival organizations as at any period in
our history j showing that they are quite incapable of
establishing anything like a permanent policy by
which the country may be governed. The political
embroglio which they created half a century ago
promises to be permanent so long as this war of words
shall last.
It is in vain that national elections are held where
these questions are distinctly in issue and where the
PARTISAN POLITICS.
parties go to the country on such issues joined. The
beaten party, instead of accepting the result as the
verdict of the people, and as conclusive as a repudia-
tion of their political theories and measures, at once
commence a fresh campaign to set this verdict aside.
Thus in the political field we have an endless strife,
one that will never terminate while we furnish prizes
to be won by the contestants. The truth is, the po-
litical partisans do not want these questions settled in
the public mind; the agitation of them is their stock
in trade, their only capital on which they do business.
They must have issues upon which they can appeal
to the people; they must have a public grievance, a
pending calamity, or some immediate threat or men-
ace against the liberties and happiness of the people
and the security of our institutions. This campaign
material, by a sort of mutual exchange, is furnished
by the parties themselves, the one to the other. Each
organization has only to draw upon the platform the
general character and history of its antagonist to make
a case that is sure to alarm and stir to action a large
number of the voting population. The country has
no need of a saviour, a power to protect it, unless
some danger is imminent. Each party, therefore, must
keep in stock the indubitable evidence of combinations
and conspiracies of corrupt and incompetent persons
to seize the reins of government and use its power
solely to their own advantage. They must have a
standing quarrel and difference of views in all public
questions with rival organizations, and be able to show
that their antagonists are bent upon ruining the coun-
160 PARTISAN POLITICS.
try and that they themselves hold the key to the situa-
tion and have come to the rescue simply from patri-
otic motives. They thus use one another as spectres
and bugaboos, playing upon the fears of the people
and dividing them into factions who will be subser-
vient to their wishes.
These political differences might easily be settled
if the contestants were in earnest for harmony of
views and action among the people on political topics.
A non-partisan Congress, having only the welfare of
the nation to legislate for, would soon compromise and
harmonize all these adverse interests, to the great re-
lief and satisfaction of the nation. But this would
imply the abandonment of party organization and an
end of the spoils system.
Current events sometimes narrow the issues be-
tween the parties to the extent that sensible people
begin to wonder what they can find to quarrel about,
why they don't come together, bury the hatchet, and
give the country a rest. On the contrary, at such a
time the politicians always hasten to widen such a
closing breach by some new declaration or device.
Each party must necessarily oppose every measure
adopted by its antagonist, and any concession is re-
garded as a confession of weakness in political war-
fare. Thus there is a perpetual deadlock of plat-
forms, and an endless controversy upon dead and
unnecessary issues; and this fight of scurrility and
detraction is what in this country is comprehensively
called politics, the synonyme of knavery and corrup-
tion and the avoidance of honest men.
PARTISAN POLITICS.
It is unfortunate that the great anxiety and uncer-
tainty in which the political sphere is involved in con-
sequence of this state of agitation is so largely shared
by the business and industrial world. The party poli-
ticians have taught the people for generations that the
prosperity of the country depends upon their action
while in power, and that the destinies of the republic
are completely in their hands. The great mass of
the people quite credit it, too, and sustain their as-
sumptions; hence the action of these organizations,
legislative and executive, have come to exert a marked
influence upon the business interests of the country
and upon its general prosperity. Trade and com-
merce, and all the industries of the nation frequently
wait upon the results of an election. The business
of the country is at times almost suspended, waiting
to know which of the great parties will be in the as-
cendency for the coming four years, and what will
be the policy of the victors. This, notwithstanding
platforms and promises, may be a very uncertain ques-
tion to determine. You will often hear men say, in
view of making investments, or starting some new
enterprise, that they must postpone it until after elec-
tion, or until they see what Congress is going to do.
So long as the political situation is controlled by
the parties, the business of the country must be un-
stable and insecure, must lack that uniformity and
promise of permanence so necessary to inspire con-
fidence and enterprise in those who do the business
of the world. We have heard it constantly repeated
by all classes of citizens during the depression of the
11
162 PARTISAN POLITICS.
past few years, that there seems to be nothing wanting
to bring a return of prosperity to business interests
but the return of confidence. It is said there is
money in abundance, and that it can be had at a low
rate of interest; that there is a large stock of raw ma-
terial and of manufactured goods, and a large supply
of the products of the soil and the necessaries of life:
that there are men enough and women enough to per-
form all the labor of the country and handle ita busi-
ness. There is an over-supply of everything we need,
yet labor is idle and trade and commerce languish,
capital is reluctant and business men are waiting and
hedging, and everybody is living from hand to mouth.
In such a condition of things all eyes are turned
to the action of the political parties. A canvas in-
volving a change of national administration is a mat-
ter of supreme moment to the people, for from the
results they can ascertain what will be the policy of
the government in relation to vital questions which
exert so much influence on the general prosperity of
the country. They know that for the next four years
there will be something like stability and uniformity
in the course of trade and production; that it will last,
in spite of the opposing party's efforts to obstruct and
decry it, for four years more or less, before another
material change can be forced upon the country.
A government so impeded and helpless through the
strife of political factions who have obtained control
of its sovereign power and patronage that it can give
to its people and to the world with whom it trades no
assurance in regard to its future policy, beyond the
PARTISAN POLITICS. 153
few short years intervening between our national elec-
tions, is, to say the least, a pitiable spectacle. To
excite this state of apprehension and uncertainty is a
part of the demagogues 7 plan of campaign; to work
up a crisis and produce if possible a political panic
has a wonderful effect in producing changes in the
popular vote. Politicians are most active and hopeful
in" a period of business depression and calamity.
When crops are short, when prices rise or fall, when
there is discontent and violence among laborers, when
values shrink enormously and bankruptcies are plenty,
such a state of things is in the nature of a Godsend
to a faction in the minority. Parties thrive on the
misfortunes of the country, and they work the calam-
ity role for all it is worth to drive the ignorant and
timid into the political fold.
These professional agitators of political issues are
to the voting population at large just what the walk-
ing delegates and the master workman, who works
only with his mandibles, are to the laboring class:
marauding wool-gatherers, who cry wolf to frighten
and stampede the human flock that they may the
more successfully tithe and tax them, solely for the
profit of the placemen who rule them. They are the
greatest enemies to the diversified industries and the
business interests of the nation that it has had to
contend with in modern times. They have absorbed
the public attention and disturbed the public peace
for generations in these stale discussions and boot-
less campaigns of affirmation and denial, and taxed
the strength and resources of the nation in main-
PARTISAN POLITICS.
taining a hostile feeling and inciting a factional
quarrel between citizens and neighbors in every
hamlet in the land. To what good end have they
succeeded in confusing the public mind and de-
bauching the public conscience? In this endless de-
bate all the questions involved are to the people the
profoundest mysteries. The question of the currency
is as mysterious to the average voter as the ways of
Providence; and the tariff is a labyrinth in which
partisan statesmanship has been groping for genera-
tions without finding its clue.
CHAPTER XXI.
HOW THEY SPEND THEIR OWN MONEY AND OTHER
WE may obtain some idea of the magnitude of
these associations and the interest felt in their gen-
eral success by those who support them, if we note
the amount of money they contribute in aid of them.
A political party is a very expensive institution, and
when it is mobilized for a Presidential campaign it
requires plenty of money, which must be liberally
disbursed. The amount of money they annually
misapply and waste, so far as any benefit is derived
from it to the country at large, is enormous. If
they were patriotic and useful organizations, as they
claim to be, spending time and money unselfishly for
PARTISAN POLITICS.
the public good, if they were not preying upon the
resources of the country, obstructing its material
progress and distracting its civil and industrial
policy, the public would have little concern in the
matter of their expenditures for party support; but
as organized conspiracies against the general wel-
fare, who tax the people to supply the means for
their own vassalage and degradation, it is well to
know what they are doing by the use of money to
maintain the authority they have usurped over the
nation.
The spending of large sums of money by any as-
sociation organized for selfish purposes and against
public policy furnishes evidence at least that the
enterprise is a profitable one, and that the contribu-
tors expect in some way to be reimbursed for their
timely advances. The bulk of the money spent by
the great parties is for the purpose of successfully
carrying the elections of the country. As the most
of this money is spent in a secret or more or less
private way, over a wide extent of the national do-
main, we have no means of knowing, proximately
even, what is thus widely scattered throughout the
election districts of the country. We have some re-
liable knowledge, however, of the large amounts dis-
bursed for conducting Presidential campaigns and
holding nominating conventions. These show the-
clearest indications of their masterful possession of
the political field, and the resources they can com-
mand to maintain their supremacy as the power par-
amount in the land.
PARTISAN POLITICS.
The Kepublican Convention of 1896, held at St.
Louis, which nominated Mr. McKinley for Presi-
dent, is said to have cost the party and its friends
four million dollars. I gather this estimate from
Kepublican sources, and I think it is perhaps re-
liable. This sum included the hall in which the
convention assembled, which was erected for that
special purpose and cost not far from seventy-five
thousand dollars. This sum also included the large
disbursements of one sergeant-at-anns for various
purposes and the expenses of a hundred thousand
visitors to the city on the occasion. The railroad
fare of the delegates is estimated at eight hundred
thousand dollars, and the fare of the visitors at a
much larger sum, while the estimate for their main-
tenance is put at over two million dollars. These
sums, together with the amounts paid for telegraph-
ing, music, servant hire, maintaining State head-
quarters, etc., make up an aggregate of about four
millions which it cost the party to nominate their
Presidential candidate. The value of the time lost
by all these attendants upon the gathering does not
appear in this estimate. The conducting of the
political campaign in which Mr. McKinley and Mr.
Bryan were rivals it is said cost the two parties, in
disbursements made under the direction of the two
National Committees severally, another four million
dollars. The New York World of November 16,
1896, had this to say about the cost of the cam-
paign:
PARTISAN POLITICS. 167
"The Presidential campaign just closed cost the
Eepublican and Democratic National Committees
alone more than two million five hundred thousand
dollars. Chairman Hanna had at his command
over one million four hundred thousand dollars.
The Democratic National Committee fund was
nearly as large. The five silver-producing States and
the mine-owners raised three-fourths of all the money
Chairman Jones spent. For the first time in twenty
years the Republican National Committee completed
its work, paid all its debts, and had a surplus. Money
flowed into the Republican coffers from the East.
The West gave little or nothing except to its State
organizations. Chicago bankers devoted most of
their spare funds to their State machine, which had
troubles of its own in its fight with Altgeld. The
moneyed men of St. Louis were a source of grave
disappointment to the National Committee, owing to
their small contributions. From the East the big
contributions in round numbers were as follows:
New York $500,000
Philadelphia 475,000
Pittsburg 250,000
Boston 162,000
Scattering 75,000
Total $1,462,000
(^No national committee ever had such enormous
financial resources at its disposal, and never before
has there been so much money spent in legitimate
campaigning in the way of speakers, campaign liter-
ature, etc. The dissemination of literature was the
heaviest item of expense. This was practically all
done through the Chicago bureau, presided over by
Perry Heath. Through this bureau there were sent
out in one of the biggest weeks of the campaign
168 PARTISAN POLITICS.
thirty million documents by mail, each piece covered
with a two cent stamp. This meant an expenditure
of six hundred thousand dollars for postage alone.
These are large figures, but they are not worrying
some Republicans nearly as much as the question of
what will become of the balance on hand in the Na-
tional Committee coffers. If reports are true, there
was a national committee which solved a similar
problem not a great many years ago by dividing up
some forty thousand dollars among the head-quarters
leaders the day before the election, and that was
why the committee had to carry a small debt for
four years moroT? What the Republican and Demo-
cratic State and local committees spent during the
campaign it is next to impossible to ascertain, but
it is estimated that it would amount to fully half as
much as that expended in the conduct of the national
campaign. The aggregate of the election expenses
was close to four million dollars, more than enough
to keep up the English royal establishment. The
civic list of Queen Victoria, together with the an-
nuities paid to the royal family, amount yearly to
only $2,742,845."
Now, if we add to this record the large sums spent
in sustaining local organizations and endeavors to
carry local elections throughout the country, we have
a very large aggregate of money spent and time
wasted in sustaining these endless controversies be-
tween rival political factions. What practical good
does the nation derive from this display of energy
and cunning in the political sphere? [For many
months previous to a Presidential election the coun-
try is filled with excitement, and resounds from the
Atlantic to the Pacific with the voice of the cam-
PARTISAN POLITICS. 169
paigner; business is partially suspended and waits
the decision of the great national prize-figh 1 ; between
the two leading parties. They call it a campaign of
education. It is not, for the people learn nothing
new nor settle anything practically by these pro and
con discussions. They are merely campaigns of con-
troversy and polemics, a war of words and the re-
iteration of the stale platitudes and feeble pleas-
antries of the average demagogue./
Suppose those respectable Christian sects, the
Presbyterians and the Baptists of this country,
should inaugurate a national campaign of education
to discuss before the people for a period of several
months the distinctive differences in their several
creeds. No doubt the people would hear reiterated
many valuable Bible truths, but who would be en-
lightened or made better by such a sectarian contro-
versy? Would any progress be made in settling the
merits of this debate which has existed for centuries
between the sects? By the experience and good
sense of all Christendom such public wrangling has
long since been condemned.
The parties use these public gatherings more as a
means of exciting enthusiasm in their own ranks,
and keeping their voting force well in hand for elec-
tion day, than from any expectation that they are to
change the views of the public on current party
issues by speeches and campaign literature. They
have so confused the public mind by their "damna-
ble iterations," that the people have little interest
really in their elocution or their literature. They
170 PARTISAN POLITICS.
are overwhelmed with words and phrases, with affir-
mations and denials, until they hardly know what
to believe or who to trust. Time was when figures
did not lie, and statistics were of some value in ascer-
taining the true condition of the country and the
state of trade, and deducing from them a settled
policy for the business of the country. Now, the
politician of eacli side will take the same data and
undertake to demonstrate the certainty of opposite
conclusions. Prevarication and perversion have be-
come distinctively political methods, so that from the
same state of facts each party will show that it em-
bodies well-nigh all the wisdom, patriotism and
humanity in the country, that to them is due all the
prosperity the nation has ever enjoyed or ever will
enjoy. As a result of these tactics, a large class of
citizens are so confused and perplexed, so beset by
candidates and bosses, that in a sort of desperation
they follow the last sensation, the biggest crowd, and
the loudest drum beat, and are sincerely gratified
and greatly relieved when the excitement and bull-
dozing of the campaign is over?
The waste of time as well as the waste of money
is a noteworthy item in the people's account against
these alliances. This is very large from the red-tape
methods that everywhere prevail in the public ser-
vice, and in no direction is it more conspicuous than
in the national Congress, where the delay of public
business and needed legislation add largely to the
inconvenience and damage the country suffers from
the present partisan rule of public affairs.
PARTISAN POLITICS.
The difference between the time necessary to carry
on a government non-partisan and harmonious in
character and that of an administration of it when in-
volved in all the antagonisms and diversions incident
to party strife is very great. Political parties are the
most wasteful and indolent of servants. If time is
money, then they have wasted millions by diverting
the time and service they owe the government to their
own use and profit. The delay of public business in
Congress is a subject of universal complaint. That
some four hundred men shall remain in session for
seven or eight months with ten thousand bills before
them requiring attention, and accomplish little or
nothing satisfactory to the public, is evidence either
of their incompetency or the wilful neglect of their
duties as representatives of the people. The greater
part of the time of this body seems to be occupied in
endeavors to make political capital out of pending
legislation and in mutual detraction and disparage-
ment. No man can make a speech in either house
that it does not assume a partisan character, and the
chances are it will bring on a lengthy discussion of
party measures. Days, and sometimes weeks are
spent in these wranglings. It would seem that a
member of that body cannot open his mouth without
in some way attempting to glorify or defend his party
or assail his political opponent. It is notoriously true,
and a matter well understood by all concerned, that
each short session is to be devoted to politics and party
skirmishing rather than to the business of legislation.
Here is an extract from the correspondence of the
172 PARTISAN POLITICS.
Assbciated Press, written in anticipation of the as-
sembling of the short session of the Fifty-third Con-
gress. It reads:
"The approaching session of Congress, which will
convene on December 5, is not expected by those
familiar with Congressional methods to be one of
great activity or productive of much legislation. The
fact that it continues for only three months, that it
will be the last session of the Congress, and that it
so closely follows a general election, are all considered
as indications that comparatively little work will be
attempted and still less accomplished. The greater
part of the session will, in all probability, be confined
to an exchange of chaffing over the results of the elec-
tion, and the session will be coramemorable more on
account of talk than work. It is probable that next
to nothing will be done from the Christmas holidays,
and predictions are freely made that it will be difficult
to obtain a quorum previous to Christmas. After
the holidays there will be but two months left for
work and speech-making. It will be, of course, neces-
sary to pass the usual appropriations. These bills
touch a variety of interests, and while on this occasion
they will be disposed of with considerable alacrity,
they can always be so manipulated as to kill much
time when there is any considerable element which de-
sires to rouse them."
By report of the Secretary of the Treasury for the
fiscal year 1895 the annual expenses of the two houses
of Congress is $7,639,166.65, or something over
twenty thousand dollars a day. Add to this the loss
and inconvenience to the business of the country by
such profligacy on the part of its representatives, and
PARTISAN POLITICS. 173
we find a partisan Congress is a very expensive insti-
tution.
This is our indictment of the great popular alliances
of the day known as political parties, these monster
conspiracies against the autonomy of the Republic.
We ask the reader in all sincerity if it is not true in
every count? We may have extenuated in charity,
but we have set down naught in malice or in party
prejudice. We have endeavored, first, to be truthful,
next, impartial, and always to be just in dealing with
facts and forces which we could but condemn. We
believe that what we have written in censure of the
politicians of the country, their organizations and
their methods generally, is in accordance with the
public judgment, and is sustained by almost a popular
clamor for relief from their tyranny. We think we
have conclusively shown that the public derives no
substantial benefit from these clannish associations,
that they are of no practical value to the nation, and
that really we have no possible use for their services.
On the contrary, it is sucessfully maintained that they
are, from their general character and the selfish mo-
tives which influence and control their action, wholly
incapacitated for any other mission than that of a dis-
turbing force in the body politic, wasting its revenues
and degrading the public service. A few hundred
thousand men are benefited by this system of spolia-
tioii and organized presumption. The oifice-holders,
government contractors, and those who obtain legis-
lation by unlawful means are its chief beneficiaries
and its most earnest and liberal supporters. There
174 PARTISAN POLITICS.
is not one man in a hundred of the voters of all the
parties who obtains any of these special benefits, or
has any real interest in the maintenance of these or-
ganizations. Seventy millions of people are suffering
immense losses annually in every branch of industry
and every material interest, and are taxed, harassed,
and despoiled for the benefit of the few who have
usurped all authority, hold the reins of government,
and are the predominant power in the nation.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE REMEDY.
IT would seem that an evil of such magnitude
should have a remedy. To say that there is none
within the sphere of prohibitory laws is to acknowl-
edge a fatal defect in the scheme of representative
government. It is a public wrong and one that
threatens the integrity of our political system, if not
its complete failure and disruption. The very nature
of the evil is suggestive of a remedy by appropriate
legislation. All its concomitants are recognized as
more or less the subjects of legislative action and con-
trol. The party methods form the general ground of
complaint of the people against those political unions.
They involve acts of fraud, violence, and corruption,
which are a violation of law and are so declared by
statute in every State in the Union when committed by
PARTISAN POLITICS. 175
individuals. Any citizen who stuffs a ballot-box, re-
peats his vote, purchases the vote of another, or who
is guilty of bribery or intimidation of voters is liable
to indictment and prosecution by the State. Now,
wlion these individual acts become the recognized
methods of an association, of a grand conspiracy to
scixe and use the entire powers of the commonwealth
for its own benefit, are they any less violations of law,
or are they any the less deserving of merited punish-
ment? Why should they not alike be amenable to
law? Should such associations, which are the chief
agencies through which these crimes are successfully
committed, who give asylum and rewards to the
guilty, continue to be regarded as beyond the reach
of law and such restraining and wholesome legislation
as the interests of the public may require?
The right to vote and hold any office of honor and
emolument, the freedom of the ballot, and the purity
of elections by the people are fundamental rights of
citizenship, and as such are regulated and abundantly
guarded by law. The people are entitled to the pro-
tection of their rights by the enforcement of these
laws against all alliances and conspiracies as well as
against individuals. All infringements upon the free
exercise of these sacred privileges of citizenship and.
all T5ombiTiatioTis to defeat or hinder such lawful use
of them are in every free country the subjects of legis-
lation; and a government who fails to protect its
people in the exercise of these high prerogatives of
citizenship is not wisely administered. It is true, if
all the voters of a State would cease to co-operate
176 PARTISAN POLITICS.
with and support the present political organizations,
there would be an end of them very speedily in such
locality, but so long as a small minority is permitted
to combine to gain political power, there will be
need, in aid of the majority, of some provision of law
that will exclude such confederations and their agents
from all the competitive contests of the political field.
As I have already shown, conclusively I think, else-
where, so long as political power and the spoils of
office are to be gained as at present through the ma-
chinery of party organization, such combinations will
exist and find abundant support. They will never
disband from the force of public sentiment or die of
their inherent corruptions. A law declaring any
candidate nominated by any such political association
ineligible to the office for which he is designated
would restore the elective power to the hands of the
people individually and protect them from the corrupt-
ing influence and competition of the present powerful
parties. The offices are intended for competent and
resjrasible_citizens who are chosen by individual bal-
lots to represent and serve the people, and not for the
bosses and master workmen of the political machine.
~No combination or device should be tolerated which
will defeat or corrupt a fair distribution of the honors
and emoluments of places of trust in the public ser-
vice. This remedy would rule the parties as such
out of the political field. The offices are the prizes
to be won, they are the source of spoils and the key
to the situation. Prohibited from competing with
the people for these responsible positions they would
PARTISAN POLITICS. 177
be left without occupation or a sufficient inducement
to maintain such an organization under such restric-
tions. They would have neither race-course nor tilt-
ing-ground on which they could contest with one
another for the honors of office and the right to govern
and plunder the people as of yore.
The remedy here suggested is simple in form,
covers the malady, and I think would prove more
effective than a more elaborate and prohibitive pro-
vision of law, needlessly antagonizing these organiza-
tions. When the majority of the voting population
of any sovereign State decides to free the common-
wealth from the incubus of party domination let
the Legislature declare by statute in some such form
as this:
The freedom of election, the purity of the ballot,
and the unrestrained voice of the citizen in the elec-
tion of those who shall represent him are primal
rights of citizenship, and must be neither hindered
nor impaired. That all political associations or par-
ties organized or maintained for the purpose of
nominating or electing candidates for public office,
or of influencing or controlling elections in the
State, or seeking to control and distribute the public
patronage for the use and benefit of such associa-
tions are hostile in their influence and tendency to
our free institutions, and should be disfellowshipped
and condemned by all good citizens. That long ex-
perience in this country with those combinations
known as political parties has shown that the ten-
dency of their influence and operations is to trans-
12
178 PARTISAN POLITICS.
fer permanently the sovereignty of the individual
citizen to an irresponsible and often a corrupt and
dangerous faction, who will use it unscrupulously
for their own political advancement. Such action
on the part of any combination of citizens for such
purpose is hereby declared unlawful and dangerous
to the liberties of the people. And it is further pro-
vided, more effectually to restrain the improper ac-
tion of these parties and free the commonwealth
from their baneful influence, that any person chosen
or nominated to office by such organizations shall not
be eligible to the offices to which they are thus
nominated or chosen. That nothing herein con-
tained shall be so construed as to prohibit or restrain
the people of the State from assembling together
and freely discussing questions of public policy and
expressing their opinions and preferences as to can-
didates for public office.
The moral force of such an attitude on the part
of the constituted authorities and a majority of the
citizens of a State would be in a high degree effica-
cious if not altogether remedial in its influence.
That, together with the interdiction of barring the
parties from the privilege heretofore enjoyed of
filling the offices with their own agents and partisans
to the exclusion of all others, could but prove effec-
tive in ridding the public speedily of their presence.
Under such restrictions how would they get their
candidates before the people? Candidates must be
duly proclaimed and endorsed to obtain the party
vote. Who would know, but a few, who was the
PARTISAN POLITICS.
accepted aspirant for office of the combination? In-
terested parties would be ready to create doubt and
confusion as to the fact, and the burden of secrecy
imposed upon such a movement would not only be
impracticable, but one too great to be borne.
There is no necessity to attempt through any pro-
vision of law directly to suppress these conclaves, or
to restrain them in the exercise of those rights which
are generally conceded to all voluntary associations
which do not by their teachings or their practices
deprave the public morals or endanger the public
safety. Such prohibitive measures might raise a
variety of questions connected with the execution of
the law which would serve only as pretext for hin-
dering or delaying the enforcement of the act. If
the remedy here suggested should prove either in
theory or practice inadequate or incompetent, there
could be no reasonable doubt as to the power of a
Legislature to protect the administration of govern-
ment and the rights of the people against all such
combinations and conspiracies to waste their reve-
nues and rob them of their autonomy. I do not
foresee any serious obstacles to the successful admin-
istration of such a law. Some questions of the in-
terpretation of the statutes might arise, but I
apprehend that they would be soon settled by in-
vestigation of the facts involved, or by the court if
the necessity required such dernier ressort.
Let us suppose some such case as this, and perhaps
others collateral to it might arise: A. B. claims to
have been elected as a member of the State Legisla-
180 PARTISAN POLITICS.
ture and demands a certificate of his election. Pre-
vious to the election some days or weeks a large pub-
lic meeting of voters was held in the county where
he resides, and at which he was present and took a
conspicuous part. He was known at the time to be
a candidate for the office and had so announced him-
self in the newspapers of the county. At that meet-
ing there were present and active members of the old
parties, as well as citizens who were zealous non-
partisans. Public measures and the merits of various
candidates were freely discussed. A. B. was called
upon to state his views in regard to certain local
questions of interest to those present. When the
meeting adjourned, as it did, sine die, it seemed
pretty well understood and settled that A. B. was the
choice of the meeting for member of Assembly, and
that he would be elected on voting day. This general
expectation was fully realized, as he had a large
majority of the votes in the district in his favor.
Now, those who were opposed to A. B.'s election
alleged against him the following state of facts:
They declared that he was a Republican, a member
of the party and always had been, though of a
moderate type; that he was put forward in the can-
vas by the local party for the office as their choice,
and had been elected mainly by Republican votes;
that the meeting named was called and organized
by the local members of the party for the purpose
of presenting A. B. before the people of the district
and obtaining such action on their part as would be
in effect a nomination by the meeting. Though no
PARTISAN POLITICS. Jgl
formal nomination had been presented, the Kepub-
lican party had accomplished through the meeting all
the purposes and benefits of an ordinary nomination
by the body, and hence A. B.'s accession to the office
would be a fraud upon the non-partisan act made
and provided in such cases. This contention, if per-
sisted in, might be carried into the courts as a last
resort. It would there, and elsewhere, be a simple
matter of evidence whether these allegations were
sustained, and whether within the meaning and
intent of the statute he was nominated as the candi-
date of a political combination or party.
Such cases of contested elections are very com-
mon, and the courts are constantly adjudicating
questions arising out of them. The legislation here
proposed would not involve anything difficult in
legal interpretation, or new in judicial decisions.
There would no doubt be many attempts to evade
the law, and some of them would be successful for
a time, but no party could long stand the strain of
the necessary vigilance and labor to keep up a war-
fare of such magnitude and imminent risk as would
be involved in a twofold contest with rival organiza-
tions on the one hand, and with the friends and
forces of the law on the other. The load of public
odium and distrust which they already carry would
seemingly be increased beyond endurance even by
politicians.
182 PARTISAN POLITICS.
CHAPTEK XXIII.
OBJECTIONS.
OBJECTIONS to the views I have taken of this ques-
tion may naturally arise in the minds of many persons
to whom the subject has been presented. Some of
these I shall venture to anticipate, and make such
reply to them as I think should be satisfactory to the
unprejudiced reader of these pages. A standing ob-
jection, and generally a leading one, to every measure
of reform is that it is impracticable and really impos-
sible. It will be said in this case that there can be
little hope of such a reform as is here urged, because
the people will not sustain it; that they are pledged
and bound almost unanimously to the rule of the
parties who are so firmly intrenched in public favor
and by actual possession that they cannot be routed.
Many men will content themselves with such an
objection to what is here advanced, and perhaps with
a pish of contempt dismiss from their minds the whole
subject. I confess that I cannot answer this objection
in any satisfactory form. The answer lies with each
citizen who has a vote to cast. If you and I resolve
that we will no longer act with or sustain any political
organization in the nature of the present parties, that
meets the objection for each of us; and if a majority
of the voters will do the same the reform will be ac-
complished. It is not worth while to waste words in
PARTISAN POLITICS.
reply to the man who meets every measure of progress
or reform with the disparaging cry, "It won't succeed ;
it can't be done." I have no assistance to offer such
a citizen in his helplessness and despair. He is a po-
litical Ephraim; he is joined to his idols, and we will
let him alone ; better men will do his work for him and
his children. There is no slavery more abject than
that of a man who has no aspirations for freedom,
and has lost all hope for himself and his country.
They are everywhere the drones of the social hive and
the enemies of human progress.
Another objection more plausible and yet more
easily disposed of may very likely be urged. It may
be said that the legislation here proposed will be a
violation of the rights of the people to assemble and
take such concerted action as they may deem advisable
in regard to public measures, to select candidates for
office of their choice and holding their own opinions,
and recommending them to the confidence and sup-
port of their fellow-citizens generally. Section 10
of the Constitution of California provides that the
people shall have the right to freely assemble together
to consult for the common good, to instruct their rep-
resentatives, and to petition the Legislature for redress
of grievances. It will be alleged that to refuse a citi-
zen the right to be presented to the public and be thus
recommended and nominated by his friends is to vir-
tually deny him the right to hold office, and, in fact,
to disfranchise an innocent person, for the right to
hold office is a collateral right with that of casting a
vote.
184 PARTISAN POLITICS.
In reply to this we say, first, the legislation here
contemplated does not seek to restrain the people in
their rights to assemble in large or small bodies for po-
litical purposes to hold such discussions as they may
see fit, and even formally to nominate for office such
persons as they may choose, and urge others to vote
for such candidates of their own choice and opinions.
The proposed remedy simply provides that when such
candidates are formally nominated as the representa-
tives of some political association, they shall not be
eligible to the office for which they may be elected.
Political gatherings may be held, and nominating
conventions may exercise their functions to any ex-
tent, but it does not follow that all such candidates are
deprived of their rights because they are not permitted
under the circumstances to hold office. Neither have
the persons who have formally put them before the
people and urged their election been unduly re-
strained of their freedom as citizens. The govern-
ments of all nations reserve to themselves the right to
determine the qualifications and general character of
those who hold office under their patronage, as well
as the circumstances attendant, and the methods em-
ployed in securing their accession to office. It is
found necessary that each department of the govern-
ment, executive, legislative, and judicial, should be
largely vested with this power for its own protection.
Secondly, we say that the right to vote and to hold
office are not absolute but conditional rights. Every-
body cannot vote; everybody cannot hold office.
There are reasons why many worthy citizens may not
PARTISAN POLITICS.
enjoy these privileges. Even citizens who have not
committed crime may be under such disabilities and
prohibitions that they can neither vote nor hold office.
No man who was born in a foreign country can be
President of the United States. A man may be a
citizen and a voter and not eligible for the office of
Representative in Congress because he is under
twenty-five years of age; or has not resided for four-
teen years in the country and is thirty-five years of
age. A person engaged .in trade and commerce is
not eligible to the office of Secretary of the United
States Treasury. The citizens of the District of Co-
lumbia have not the elective franchise, though they
may hold office. The women of the country, though
citizens, are not permitted to vote in a large majority
of the States of the Union. In some of the States
there is a property qualification, and in others a re-
quirement that the voter must be able to read and
write. These are not natural but conventional rights.
You have no natural right to vote or hold office in
every community where you see fit to remove. A
citizen removing from California to ISTew York will
remain without the right to vote to the end of his
days unless he takes the steps required by the laws of
'New York to make him a voter in that State.
Thus, not always on grounds of principle, but
often of policy and expediency, men are denied these
privileges. So the Legislature, in the discharge of
its duty to provide for the general welfare and pro-
tect the State from any invasion or usurpation of its
authority, may disfranchise a citizen even and deny
186 PARTISAN POLITICS.
him the high privilege of holding an office of honor
and trust under the government, notably those who
have been convicted of treason and rebellion, or who
have conspired to seize or overthrow the constituted
authorities. Revolutionists, anarchists, and socialists,
all over the civilized world, are subjects of discrimi-
nating legislation, as persons who menace established
order of society and seek to usurp by force or fraud,
if need be, the powers of the government and the rule
of the people.
There has been much power exercised in the his-
tory of free governments in the disfranchisement of
voting citizens and debarring them from holding
office, most of which may not be satisfactorily de-
fended; nevertheless, all governments must protect
their people in the exercise of their rights and from
the conspiracies of bad men to absorb for themselves
the powers and emoluments of the commonwealth.
Suppose a large majority of the people of a State
should inaugurate a grand lottery scheme, by which
the elections to office would be made to yield a large
revenue to the State treasury. Suppose that this de-
vice provided that all offices from governor down
should be listed as prizes and drawn for after the
fashion of an old-time Louisiana lottery, those draw-
ing prizes having pledges and assurance of an election
on voting day. Suppose the result of the scheme
showed that a great many people lost money in this
sort of office-hunting, and that the prime movers and
managers of the project drew all the prizes. Would
not the Legislature have power to deal with such a
PARTISAN POLITICS. 187
practice and break up such a combination, or declare
such nominees ineligible, or that all persons engaged
in pool-selling, book-making, and betting on elections
were not eligible to office? This plan comprises many
features of the present method of selecting candidates
for office and procuring their election, and would
hardly be less dangerous and demoralizing to the pub-
lic service. Each State has the power to prohibit lot-
teries and gambling generally. Why not gambling
and lotteries in the sphere of politics where such prac-
tices are far more reprehensible and pernicious in their
influence? No intelligent people will long permit
any combination to usurp civil or military powers of
the State and use them for their own advantage
under any pretence whatever. A wise and efficient
government would not delay action when its author-
ity was menaced until revolutionists should strike
their first blow, or a grand conspiracy had by easy
stages corrupted the civil service and been thus en-
abled to seize and defiantly hold the plenary powers
of the nation.
Section 26 of Article IV. of the Constitution of
California provides as follows: "The Legislature shall
pass laws to prohibit the sale in this State of lottery
or gift enterprise tickets, or tickets in any scheme in
the nature of a lottery. The Legislature shall pass
laws to regulate or prohibit the buying and selling
of the shares of capital stock of corporations in any
stock board, stock exchange, or stock market under
the control of any association. All contracts for the
sale of shares of the capital stock of any corporation or
188 PARTISAN POLITICS.
association, on margin or to be delivered at a future
day, shall be void."
The power of the Legislature to deal with all asso-
ciations, political, social, or religious, which endanger
the public peace or usurp authority, civil or military,
over any community, is generally conceded. The
pretensions set forth and the demand made upon so-
ciety by the various confraternities of agitators who
threaten the existing order of things the world over
have called the attention of the public to the question
of their restraint or suppression by the force of law.
These opinions have been variously expressed, and
some of them in European states have taken the form
of statutes to be enforced against those who degrade
the morals of society or menace the public safety.
I find in the New York daily Tribune of November
16, 1894, an interview of Ex-Senator Warner Miller,
of New York, on the result of the fall elections. His
language abundantly sustains the view I have taken
of the power of the Legislature over these corrupt
and dangerous political associations. The Senator
was asked, "What in your judgment ought to be done
with Tammany Hall?" He replied as follows :
"I said, two years ago, repeal its charter. I
that now. I know that its charter covers a so-calU'd
charitable society, but the name has become a syno-
nyme for corruption of every form in municipal gov-
ernment. Therefore, legislate the name out of ex-
istence. But don't stop at that. Pass a law which
will prevent the printing of tickets of any secret or
semi-secret organization which is self-perpetuating.
PARTISAN POLITICS. 189
Allow tickets to be printed only for open, free, politi-
cal organizations of the party, such as town, county,
and State conventions give; and any ticket made in
whole or in part by secret organizations should be pre-
vented by law from being voted at the polls. It was
secret societies and cabals which so long threatened
republican government in France. They have always
been dangerous to free institutions. Therefore, make
it impossible that any secret or semi-secret organization
shall become a controlling power in this country. I
am very sure that the lawyers of this city will be able
to frame a bill to carry out this suggestion."
I think these remarks are quite applicable to Sen-
ator Plata's Tammany faction of the Republican party
in that State, quite as applicable to the notorious
cabal of political freebooters he has organized, with
whom he seems to be making common cause in sus-
taining the spoils system and opposing all genuine
reform in the Empire State. This sort of thing is
evidently hastening a political crisis in the great Com-
monwealth, the legitimate outcome of which must be
the destruction of civil liberty or the annihilation of
these powerful confederations of ambition and in-
trigue.
It will be said, furthermore, in opposition to this
mode of reform, that these parties are organizations
of the people, and contain well-nigh all the voters of
the country; that the people choose to act politically
through such organizations; that it is a chosen and
long-established method of expressing themselves in
regard to public men and measures; that they are
so identified with these forms of political action that
190 PARTISAN POLITICS.
it may be said that the people are the party and the
party are the people. They very confidently inquire
who has a right to complain of it? There is truth in
this objection; and the people have a right to act
through any organization they may choose, and adopt
any forms or methods in administering the govern-
ment for which they are responsible that seem to them
wisest and best. They may choose any form of gov-
ernment, or decide to be anarchists and have no gov-
ernment at all if that suits the popular idea of social
order. We fully recognize the sovereign right of the
people to be represented by a party or any other politi-
cal agency they may select; but when such choice is
hindered and defeated at the polls or elsewhere, by
the fraudulent devices of the agent or representative
body, and that body becomes self-perpetuating and
abuses the authority it has usurped, it should be re-
pudiated and displaced forever as untrustworthy.
Such a form of representation has such inherent de-
fects and such corrupting tendencies as to make it a
dangerous and inadmissible agency in civil adminis-
tration. They undoubtedly have the right to choose
such a medium of representation, but so much the
worse for the people if they make such an unfortunate
choice in the exercise of it.
This unwise use of their sovereignty by a majority
of the voters cannot deprive the minority of their
rights to protest and to labor for a better administra-
tion of public affairs. Nor is it a sufficient answer
to their allegation of facts, showing the depraved
condition of our political system and the necessity
PARTISAN POLITICS. 191
of its radical improvement. That the great majority
of the people of this country are supporting this
monstrous conspiracy against good government, and
that they will oppose stubbornly any genuine reform
in this direction, is nothing new in the history of
civilized society. All the great wrongs that have
overshadowed and blighted the happiness of our race
have been permitted and fostered by the great mass
of the people. The wisdom of experience is not
always the best wisdom, nor is the voice of the people
always the voice of God.
In discussing this subject with various persons I
have found those who raise an objection to discard-
ing altogether the old parties, on the ground that
they embody pretty much all the talent and experi-
ence available in the country for political purposes;
that they, besides, have an organized system of ad-
ministering government and facilitating its labors
that can hardly be dispensed with unless we can
have assurance of something better in its place.
They ask, How will you reach the ears of the people
to instruct them on important questions upon which
they are called to act, if there are no parties to in-
augurate campaigns of discussion and education?
How can you select proper candidates for office or
hold elections without the aid of party zeal, party
money, and party machinery? They really believe
that these organizations are indispensable to the suc-
cessful administration of the government of the
United States, as well as government of the several
States of the Union. There are a great many peo-
192 PARTISAN POLITICS.
pie in the world who hold much the same views
in regard to kingcraft and human slavery. It seems
to them impossible that the world could be success-
fully governed without kings to rule the people, and
they hope for nothing but anarchy and bloodshed
when slaves are enfranchised.
The political parties have in some respects been
useful to the country; if they had not been they
would not have been tolerated down to the present
day, with all their frailties and transgressions of the
moral law. They have had their uses as all great
evils have. An unmitigated public wrong, one that
does not confer substantial benefits upon any class
of society, will be without patrons to defend it, and
will soon be suppressed at the hands of those who
most suffer from it. It is too late in the history
of civilization to insist upon the doctrine that there
can be no church without a bishop, no sta^e without
a king, or that there can be no commonwealth with-
out the aid of political parties. We contend that the
present parties exert no salutary or wholesome in-
fluence upon public opinion, which they seek so
earnestly and diligently to control. They have no
sphere of usefulness in any community, great or
small. Neither society nor civil government has
any proper use for them, and they should wholly
dispense with their pretensions and their services, so
persistently thrust upon them, at the earliest day
possible. They burden rather than facilitate the
legitimate labors of the commonwealth. The system
of administration that they have established in this
PARTISAN POLITICS. 593
country is not only defective in a multitude of ways,
but has become so complicated and cumbrous that
at times and places its functions seem well-nigh sus-
pended. It is cumbrous and complex much for the
reason that the gates and doors of prisons are made
of iron, with locks and combinations that are a puz-
zle to the average mind. The people inside have
the reputation of being rascals, and they need a
stronger government and more of it than honest
people do. When a government has been practically
let on shares for many years, as a farmer lets his
acres, the suspicions and vigilance of the parties will
lead them to build up a system of administration,
offensive and defensive, and more or less complicated
and amplified. There will needs be much red tape
and many checks and balances introduced to main-
tain the equilibrium of the contending forces.
There must be a vast detective system, a "circumlo-
cution office," and numerous experts in the science
of "how not to do it."
Many persons suppose that our appliances for
holding elections, giving a publicity to the time and
place of holding them, designating competent men
to fill the offices, furnishing polling places and bal-
lots at their own expense, haranguing the people and
securing the attendance of the largest number of
them at the polls, that all these devices are the in-
vention of the parties, a system which their genius
has supplied and their patriotism supports;^ and
without their assistance in putting this machinery
in operation the government would have to provide
13
194 PARTISAN POLITICS.
other agents and agencies in carrying on this im-
portant work, and even then suffer serious embar-
rassment from the change.
This is an entire misapprehension of the subject.
While the parties are not wholly ignored in our
theory and form of government, State and national,
they are not recognized except, incidentally, as agen-
cies necessary or otherwise in carrying on the gov-
ernment of the several States or of the nation at
large. They perform no service for the government
or the people that would not at once be improved
if they would cease their persistence in volunteering
it and withdraw from it altogether. That they af-
ford the public any aid in the management of elec-
tions and the choice of candidates is notoriously un-
true. There are constitutional provisions or express
statutes in all the States that provide all the neces-
sary machinery for popular elections with a full vote
and a fair count, so that the people do not need the
assistance of the politicians and the partisans who
harass and harangue them through their intermin-
able campaigns. The election laws, for example, of
our own State of California are full and specific in
their provisions, so that no citizen need be dependent
on any other aid or instruction in the discharging of
his duties as a voter than that which is furnished in
the most intelligent and practical manner by the
statutes and the official persons of the State. Thirty
days before a general election the governor issues a
proclamation announcing the event. Copies of this
document are sent to the supervisors of the counties
\
PARTISAN POLITICS.
where such elections are to be held, stating the day
of such election and the offices to be filled. The
supervisors have this printed in the newspapers of
the county and posted at each place where an elec-
tion is to be held. The necessary printed blanks for
poll lists, lists of voters, oaths, and returns are fur-
nished by the Board of Supervisors to the officers of
each election precinct at the expense of the county.
The law defines who shall be voters, and provides
for their registration previous to the election, posting
up copies of the same and supplying them to all per-
sons who apply for them. The Board of Supervisors
having charge and control of elections divide the
counties and cities into precincts containing not
more than two hundred voters. The supervisors
designate the place in the precinct where the elec-
tion must be held and the officers to be elected.
They also appoint two inspectors, two judges, and
two clerks; these six constitute a Board of Election
for such precinct. The time of opening and closing
the polls is prescribed by the law, and such opening
and closing are proclaimed aloud at the time. The
law defines what is a ticket and what is a ballot, or
secret ticket, and that it must be of paper, uniform
in size, color, weight, texture, and appearance. The
Secretary of State provides this paper and prescribes
the size of the ticket, the kind of type and ink to be
used, and gives a form or model of the ticket to be
voted and the manner of folding it. Very full in-
struction is given as to the specific manner of voting
and to receiving and depositing the votes. There
196 PARTISAN POLITICS.
are also a large number of provisions in the law
touching and regulating the challenge of votes and
the trials of the same. Then follow a great number
of clauses as to the counting of votes and declaring
the result. This return must be sent to the Secre-
tary of State, whose duty it is to compare and esti-
mate the votes given, and certify to the governor the
person having the highest number of votes. The
governor on receipt of this report sends to each per-
son chosen a certificate of the election.
These are substantially the election laws of all the
States of the Union. I have given this detailed ac-
count of them to correct the impression among a
class of voters who never seek to inform themselves
as to their political duties, who suppose that our elec-
tive system is so complicated that nobody but tin*
politicians have mastered it, and that they are about
the only safe interpreters of its provisions. There
are thousands of honest voters acting under such
false impressions who have become quite helpless,
and have surrendered themselves implicitly to the
canvassers and whippers-in of their party. The in-
terference of these organizations with the responsi-
bilities of the voting citizens is altogether gratuitous
and impudent, it being, as a general thing, neither
solicited nor needed by those who are subjected to
it. One might as well submit his business affairs to
the intrusion and superintendence of an association,
with the right to harass and tax him through the
year on pretence of protecting and improving his
business.
PARTISAN POLITICS. 197
Let us suppose that a general election is about to
be held in a State; that a governor, a lieutenant-
governor, and members of the Senate and the As-
sembly are to be chosen, together with some officers
of the judiciary. Let us further suppose that there
are no political parties in existence in the State.
Now, what would be the natural course of political
events in connection with this election? Any intel-
ligent citizen could predict them with a good degree
of certainty, from his knowledge of the fact that
there is a love of order, justice, and fair play in the
strife of politics even among the people that will
change the character of our popular elections as soon
as they are relieved of the presence of party methods
and party dictation. He would not apprehend loss
or damage to the State or the community from the
fact that it was not a party election, an old time com-
petitive contest between several giant organizations
for place and power. What would the voting popu-
lation do under these circumstances? What else
would there be to do but to vote and retire to their
homes? If there were questions of local interest in-
volved in the canvass, like woman's suffrage, the
manufacture and sale of intoxicants, or, in case of a
Presidential election, national questions, like the
tariff, or the currency, should be exciting much dis-
cussion and interest among the people, the friends
of the measures who were sufficiently in earnest
about them to hold public discussions and circulate
views would naturally do so, though they were not
partisans. All those better methods now in use of
198 PARTISAN POLITICS.
instructing and arousing the people and calling out
a decisive vote on election day would be continued
by those in favor of progress and reform in civil
affairs. These reformers might if they chose, emu-
late the zeal and liberality of the old parties in in-
augurating campaigns of rhetoric and elocution,
adorned with music and banners, so at one and the
same time both please and capture the voting public.
Under these new conditions there would be no ne-
cessity of hunting up that class of men who never
asked for office and whose nominations were a sur-
prise to them, and urging them to accommodate the
public and their friends by accepting a lucrative
place for a term of years. There would be no lark
of candidates, and of a class quite different from the
present style of office-seekers. The press would deal
with all these matters of political interest with
scarcely less zeal than they descant upon party ques-
tions at the present time. The newspapers, relieved
from party surveillance and dictation, would be a
far more reliable source of information on political
topics than they are now. The people generally
would be better informed on these subjects than
heretofore, and their discussions and reading, freed
from party bias, would be more deliberate and sin-
cere. The public judgment as expressed at the polls
would be the verdict of the people, and not the
triumph of one cabal over another. Its decisions
would be based upon justice and the common weal,
and not on party fealty and party dictation. It would
not be a party election where men en masse vote for
\
PARTISAN POLITICS. 199
measures prescribed by a party platform and little
comprehended by the average voter, giving a tacit
but not a cordial assent, surrendering their judg-
ments for the purpose of party harmony and success.
Every citizen would be at liberty to study these
questions without bias or dictation and vote for such
persons and measures as he may choose, thus secur-
ing to every man a fair opportunity to vote his con-
victions without fraud or intimidation.
With the partisan element discarded and ruled
out of our political system, the whole character of
the political drama, varying as it now does from farce
to tragedy, would be changed. Instead of strife, dis-
trust, and corruption on every hand, the political
field would become a scene of peaceful co-operation
and emulative zeal among the people, to make and
preserve for themselves and their children the best
government under the sun. Such a change as is here
suggested would bring an entire new class of men
into the sphere of political activity; patriotic and
public-spirited citizens, who are now overslawed and
shouldered out of public life by venal politicians and
placemen, would find room for their honest en-
deavors in the way of reform. This better class of
citizens, found in every walk of life, have essayed
bravely from time to time to stay the tide of de-
moralization and corruption flowing from this
source, but everywhere they find the people captured
and enslaved by the party organization, and^ they
have generally retired from all political activity in
disgust, convinced that any reform of our current
200 PARTISAN POLITICS.
political methods is a labor without hope. With the
rights of the people restored, and the elective fran-
chise relieved from the surveillance of party dicta-
tion, the man who is a fugitive in Canada for his
crimes against his country, the man who steals the
political power of a State, who bribes juries, falsitit -
election returns, intimidates and counts out honest
voters, with all the negro-drivers and knights of the
lash and the shotgun, would not receive their usual
majorities for seats in Congress, or for the high judi-
cial offices of the country.
Such non-partisan campaigns and elections are no
experiment in this and other civilized countrii-.
Partisan politics as an infection of the body politic is
a distemper of modern origin. It was many your-
after the settlement of the country, and nftcr \\<-
became a nation, that political parties sprang into
existence and assumed anything like their promt
authority over the destinies of the nation. The
fathers of the republic, who had earned their
liberties and prized them dearly, who were jealous
of any encroachment upon the sovereignty vested in
the commonwealth, were incapable of such con-
spiracies and usurpations of civil power. These
combinations were made possible by the stimulation
of foreign emigration and the consequent increase of
population, especially in towns and cities. The es-
tablishment of new industries, together with the
rapid accretion of wealth among the people, fur-
nished resources for the spoils system, and made pol-
itics a more inviting field for the adventurer.
\
PARTISAN POLITICS. 201
It is not by any means necessary, even when the
people are deeply stirred to political action, that they
should form a permanent organization and seek not
only to carry into effect such reforms as they desire,
but to hold indefinitely the powers and positions
they have secured. We have had many examples in
this country, during the last fifty years, where a
great amount of honest political work has been done
in seeking legislative action for the removal of
great evils, without the formation of permanent par-
ties. The friends of emancipation agitated the ques-
tion and sought government action upon it for
twenty years before they formed a third party in
politics. The friends of temperance and those in
favor of woman's suffrage have been in the non-par-
tisan field seeking government action an equal
length of time. These, with several other bodies
and classes of citizens who have been engaged from
time to time in canvassing public measures, inaugu-
rating political campaigns, and carrying popular elec-
tions, have not found it necessary to employ the form
of organization or tactics of the parties in order to
move the public mind. Strange as it may seem, and
quite inconsistent with all, it is the unanimous
opinion of both Democrats and Kepublicans that it
is the great mistake of their lives that the temperance
men and the female suffragists have formed a third
party. They very much fear it will prove their ruin.
The sum of their testimony severally seems to be
that distinct political organizations, after the pattern
of the modern political parties, are not necessary as
202 PARTISAN POLITICS.
agencies to instruct the public as to its political du-
ties, or to awaken an interest that shall result in
salutary measures of reform. They condemn their
own party associations when they advise a minority
of their fellow-citizens who are seeking justice
through State and national legislation to refrain
from party organization and not to make the prin-
ciples and measures for which they contend political
issues. It is a tacit admission that party organiza-
tions and party machinery are not needed to main-
tain a republican form of government, or to correct
abuses that may obtain under it.
I think there is discoverable a growing sentiment
to this effect among a large class of citizens. When
distinct associations and movements for a reform in
political methods take a non-partisan phase; when
government officials and persons closely identified
with the existing parties find it almost impossible
longer to conduct certain branches of the public ser-
vice through these coalitions; when it is a common
occurrence that special elections and elections to fill
the offices of the great municipalities are ordered
and successfully carried on the non-partisan basis;
when important questions of revenue and finance
have become so involved by party contention that
there is no hope of establishing any thing like a per-
manent policy in regard to them; when societies are
formed for the purpose of opposing or abolishing the
present parties as incompetent and corrupt, it is evi-
dent that a portion of the public, at least, are be-
ginning to take a serious view of the subject which
PARTISAN POLITICS. 203
has so long been treated with manifest indifference
by the great mass of the voters of the country.
These organizations are of a century's growth in
the very midst of us; fostered and defended by the
people, they have assumed enormous proportions and
begin to yield the ripened fruits that are the result
of a generous culture. In some of the great munici-
palities, and in some of the more densely populated
States, they seem to have reached a culminating
point, or, at least, a crisis in their history of usurpa-
tion and misrule. In the city of New York, for ex-
ample, it was found that the reign of law and order
in some of the departments was practically sus-
pended, that there was neither justice to be had in
the courts, nor protection from fraud and violence
to be obtained from the constituted guardians of the
lives and property of the citizens. It was shown on
investigation that the Police Department was a
criminal conspiracy, of the boldest and most shame-
less character, a confederation of crime more dan-
gerous and formidable than the aggregate criminality
of the great metropolis. Chief of Police Byrnes,
testifying before a committee of the New York State
Senate, at the risk of admitting his own incompe-
tency and criminality as a public officer, said, "The
Department is honeycombed with abuses which have
been growing for thirty years, and can be remedied
only by radical legislation." Local politicians he
claimed were the curse of the Department; and so
long as politics were a factor in the Police ^Depart-
ment, so long that state of things would exist. Al-
204 PARTISAN POLITICS.
though he had done his utmost to procure substan-
tial information as to corruption and bribery, he was
unable to get it; and the whole department was
impregnated with the belief that protection had to
be bought and that merit was of no avail.
The late W. H. Vanderbilt had previously ex-
pressed himself in language more terse and indignant
in regard to the official profligacy existing in the city.
He is reported to have said, "I live in a gang-
governed, tax-ridden city, where the annual taxes are
equivalent to paying rent. The real estate of this
city is the property of the city officials, and the real
owners are merely tenants. I can fight the wreck <r>
in "Wall Street more effectually than I can the thieves
in the municipal government."
We see in New York, not only in the city, but in
the State generally, the legitimate result of
a great commonwealth, with its wealth, its
and its populous cities, in the control of an irrespon-
sible faction to rule its destiny. The friends of good
government in the city had been laboring for years
through the Republican and Democratic parties to
correct the gross abuses of power and the profligate
waste of the city's revenues, but without any appre-
ciable success. They found it necessary to abandon
existing political organizations and unite their efforts
in a common non-partisan campaign of reform. On
such a platform the present mayor of New York was
elected. This gentleman and his friends have ever
since his election been carrying on a somewhat vigor-
ous contest with both the old parties; they seeking to
PARTISAN POLITICK. 205
regain their former ascendency, and he to administer
the government of the city upon a non-partisan basis,
in the interests of justice and the people and without
party dictation or assistance. This non-partisan move-
ment must in time extend throughout the State. The
old parties will not submit to have the powers and
emoluments of the city governments wrested from
them, and they will continue a campaign of intrigue
and intimidation to regain what they have lost, and
retain their hold upon what is still in their grasp.
This is destined to bring into the politics of the State
a distinct non-partisan issue, an issue between the
people and the parties, who shall rule the muni-
cipalities and the State. When that issue is dis-
tinctly made and is urged by a vigorous minority, I
cannot doubt that the friends of honest government
and clean politics will come to its aid.
The advocates of civil service reform must find
sooner or later that they can make no term of compro-
mise with the parties by which they will be deprived
of the power they have so long enjoyed to control the
offices of the State and collect and disburse its rev-
enue; that no bipartisan schemes for joint occupancy
or rotation in office will be satisfactory to either party
in the controversy. Nothing but the destruction and
repudiation of these organizations will restore the gov-
ernment of the commonwealth to the hands of the
people or give any security to the State or to the
nation.
There have been, furthermore, occasional utter-
ances from men in public life and discussions of the
206 PARTISAN POLITICS.
subject by the partisan press that encourage us to be-
lieve that there is an approaching crisis in the history
of the party organizations, when their incompetency
to deal with public questions, either intelligently or
impartially, will be clearly demonstrated to those
who now give them a loyal support. During the dis-
cussions on the tariff in the Fifty-third Congress when
the Democratic and Republican parties were fiercely
contending on that question, and the passage of any
tariff measure seemed hopeless, a reporter of the New
York Tribune sought and obtained an interview with
Senator Manderson, of Nebraska. The reporter pref-
aced the conference with the senator' by saying,
"There are not a few members of both houses who be-
lieve that the tariff should be taken out of politics
almost entirely, and that it should be put into th< 4
hands of business men and workingmen to settle in a
manner best to preserve and perpetuate the prosperity
of the nation." The senator said, "There is a grow-
ing sentiment that some permanent disposition should
be made of the question, so that in the future changes
may be made in the tariff schedules without causing
such wide-spread disaster and distress. It is the
opinion of many that the question, so far as practi-
cable, should be taken out of the domain of politics,
and that in the future a commission be appointed from
among the very best men in the country to determine
any question that may arise with reference to customs
and protective duties." The reporter adds, "This is
Mr. Manderson's belief in regard to the tariff. It is
PARTISAN POLITICS. 207
held by many members of Congress and it is a grow-
ing belief all over the country."
The partisan press sometimes gives utterance to
such sentiments, moved to such discourse perhaps
when an election has been defeated by party corrup-
tion or mismanagement, or when it has been found im-
possible to wrest a municipal government from the
hands of a cabal of pothouse politicians who have
driven it to the verge of bankruptcy. Here is an
extract from an editorial of the New York Tribune
which is quite in the line of the remarks just quoted
of the senator from Nebraska. The Tribune says,
"The desirability of removing the tariff question
from the field of party politics is generally recognized,
and numerous suggestions for the accomplishment of
this end have been made. One of these suggestions
has taken the form of 'A bill for the raising of reve-
nue and creating a tariff commission and for other
purposes/ which is to be submitted to Congress.
Its author is Samuel B. Archer, of Newark, New
Jersey, and for the promotion of the scheme a Tariff
Commission League' has been formed, of which or-
ganization Mr. Archer is secretary and treasurer.
The plan contemplates the establishment of a perma-
nent tariff commission, non-partisan in its character,
to be composed of one chief commissioner and eight
associate commissioners, all of whom are to be ap-
pointed by the President, with the advice and consent
of the Senate. It is proposed that this commission
shall virtually have charge of all matters pertaining to
the tariff, as the Interstate Commerce Commission
has supervision over the commerce between the sev-
eral States. The complete purification of municipal
208 PARTISAN POLITICK.
government will come only through the divorce of
such government from partisan control."
Here is an extract from another partisan journal of
similar import:
"These facts are rapidly becoming more and more
apparent to the better class of citizens, and there is a
rapidly growing tendency on the part of such citizens
generally, without regard to party, to break away
from party ties and act independently in purely local
elections. This is an encouraging sign of the times,
for it foreshadows the overthrow of boss rule, and of
the intolerable domination of rings and cliques. It
is an augury of wiser and more honest municipal gov-
ernment, in which the interests of party shall be sub-
ordinate to the interests of the people. It is an indica-
tion that the time is not hopelessly distant when city
governments shall be conducted on business prin-
ciples, and when the best men shall be selected as the
heads of such governments, without reference to their
political views."
I quote also an extract, entitled, "Machine Kule
Waning," from the Times of our own city, a leading
Eepublican journal of the State.
"The necessity for divorcing municipal govern-
ments from partisan control is becoming more and
more apparent. The partisan machine is responsible
for nine-tenths of the corruption and misgovernment
which have disgraced so many of our cities, large and
small, within the past generation. The case of Tam-
many is a conspicuous illustration. Tammany was
simply a party machine brought to a high degree of
PARTISAN POLITICS. 209
perfection and kept in thorough working order by
those who had it in charge. Had it not been for par-
tisanism in municipal government the monstrous
crimes of Tammany would have been impossible.
The case of Tammany, though more conspicuous than
others of its kind, is only one among many instances
of the evil of too intense partisanism in municipal
government. Men of progressive ideas are rapidly
coming to recognize this evil, its source and its rem-
edy. The trend of progress in better municipal gov-
ernment is distinctly away from partisanism and to-
wards independence of action."
These journals, I believe, are both in favor of
clean politics, and though they are heavily handi-
capped by their party alliances, they are working
diligently and honestly to secure to the nation a
purer and better service. I might here occupy many
pages with extracts of this character from various
partisan newspapers, but these are sufficient perhaps
to indicate that the attention of the country is being
called to the necessity of some radical organic change
in the political situation.
The State platform of the Prohibition party of
this State has this announcement:
"As it is a political impossibility to place the busi-
ness interests of our country on a firm, reliable, and
steady basis, while our tariff laws are subject to con-
stant changes by the dominant parties, and while it
is a subject of constant partisan dispute, we demand
that the tariff question be taken out of the realm of
party politics and be placed in the hands of a non-
partisan tariff commission where it can be regulated
14
210 PARTISAN POLITICS.
to afford ample protection for the need of all indus-
tries and to provide sufficient revenue for the support
of the Federal government."
I have brought these several opinions together to
show that some, at least, of the leading minds occu-
pied in public affairs are seriously considering the
question of non-partisan politics, a government by
the people, instead of the despotic rule of a joint
partnership of bosses and politicians. These opinions
are very significant, coming as they do from an intel-
ligent partisan source. They are a confession of the
common fame charges brought by the people at
large against the current political conclaves that
their political system is a failure as an agency for
administering the government; that the time has ar-
rived when other men and other measures must be
employed to save the nation from drifting into mis-
rule and anarchy. It is a confession that Congress
has become incapacitated to legislate upon some of
the most important questions affecting the credit and
the general prosperity of the country. It is an ad-
mission that these parties can be dispensed with,
that the public have no proper use for their services.
If such difficult questions as the tariff and the
finances of the country can be settled and these
branches of the public service administered without
the aid of the party organizations, if it is better
policy to administer them on a non-partisan basis, if
non-partisan commissions will make better adminis-
trative officials than can be furnished us under party
rule, why not dispense with the parties and give us
PARTISAN POLITICS. 211
the rule of men who neither wear a party collar nor
make politics a trade?
It is comparatively of little consequence to us that
the schools of philosophy, science, and religion,
whom we permit to hold for us the keys of knowl-
edge, may wrangle for centuries over questions in
which we feel much interest, and make little or no
progress in elucidating them. If they do not disturb
the order and harmony of society, or retard its ma-
terial prosperity, we do not lose confidence in their
wisdom or their intentions. But when a great na-
tional body like the American Congress, to whom
the people have committed the destinies of the na-
tion, becomes so utterly demoralized and deadlocked
by its factional strife for power and the spoils of
office that its legislative functions are practically
suspended, it is time that the causes, near or remote,
which have given to the world a scandal so disgrace-
ful and humiliating, should be unsparingly dealt
with and speedily removed.
Unfortunately, those minor questions reckoned in
the spheres of economics and political economy,
which come nearest the daily life of every citizen
and affect constantly the peace and comfort of every
family in the land, are the problems most deeply in-
volved and overslawed in the war of factions on the
floor of Congress. Meantime, the hammer and the
anvil, the saw and the plane, may be silent, the fur-
nace fires go out, the wheels of commerce be re-
tarded, and trade and agriculture languish, while the
people wait and clamor for such legislative action as
212 PARTISAN POLITICK.
their necessities demand. Congress, debauched by
party strife and ambition, refuses to suspend the in-
tensity of the obdurate contest long enough to re-
lieve the immediate necessities of the country.
What wonder that there is a demand from many
quarters that these questions be taken out of the po-
litical arena, as at present manned and equipped,
and that there is a growing conviction of the incom-
petency of the great parties to rule the country.
The people must be blinded by party infatuation
if they fail to see the dangerous tendency of this dis-
pensation of spoliation and misrule. The country is
weary of the domination of these combinations which
destroy its peace and devour its substance without
any adequate compensation for the injury. The pub-
lic mind seems anxiously turning in all directions to
find relief from their tyranny and exactions. The
people are constantly calling for a change of admin-
istration; and it makes little difference which of the
parties are in power, they fail to keep their pledges
or to satisfy even those who most earnestly support
them. What the people demand and seek is a change
of morals and methods in the management of public
affairs; this they hope to find in a change of parties,
but are always disappointed. Attempts at reform
have been made from time to time, some of them
exceedingly vigorous, and which for a time promised
permanent results, but they have proved thus far
quite unavailing. The only visible purpose they
seem to have served has been to bring charges of
disloyalty and apostasy against the reformers and to
PARTISAN POLITICS. 213
deny them political fellowship or absolution. All
attempts to reform an institution inherently and
necessarily incompetent and corrupt must, of course,
signally fail. It is like an effort to reform the drink-
ing-saloon and the gambling-hell by "improving the
services/' instead of uprooting the business entirely.
It will be further objected to this radical method
of renovating the public service and overthrowing
party rule in the affairs of the nation that we have
a system of civil service in operation under provi-
sions of law, which is designed to correct these evils
complained of.
While I am friendly to the system of civil service
adopted by our government in the last few years, I
do not share in the earnest expectations of that large
class of patriotic and honest citizens who are seeking
through this agency to purify the political atmos-
phere and give the country a non-partisan civil ser-
vice. They may do much by classifying the clerical
force of the government, establishing to some extent
a merit system in appointments and promotions to
improve the general efficiency of government em-
ployees; they may correct many of the grosser abuses
that have arisen under the former promiscuous
method of appointing persons to responsible positions
under the government; but there can be no genuine
reform, such as is demanded by the small minority
who stand outside of political circles, while the great
parties hold their present sway over the people.
These organizations have been fed and nursed to
their present large proportions upon the spoils of
214 PARTISAN POLITICS.
office. They depend upon government patronage for
the sinews of war in their rival conflicts for the same
prizes. The public offices and the emoluments and
honors incident to the possession of them constitute
their life blood. Without these resources they would
have neither the means nor the incentive to sustain
so vast an army in the active field against opposing
forces; hence they will never consent to relinquish
their hold upon these abundant and increasing re-
sources of strength so long as they control, as they
now do, the public press and a vast majority of the
votes cast by the people. They may make conces-
sions from time to time, as they are wont to do under
the pressure of public indignation, but while the
spoils of office are so necessary to their existence and
while they continue to control the legislation. State
and national, of the country, they will not relinquish
their purpose to be fed and quartered at the public
expense. As soon would an invading army sur-
render its provision train and its military chest.
What are the civil service advocates attempt ing
to do? What is their wish and their hope? They
want to eliminate from the civil service what is
usually styled politics; they want to break up the
system by which its patronage is controlled by politi-
cians and parties, so that they shall no longer be the
source of party spoils. A very worthy object. This
means the destruction of parties. They cannot exist
without supplies, and they have no other resource.
A party without spoils or patronage must die for
want of subsistence. I think for these reasons the
PARTISAN POLITICS. 215
great mass of the politicians and the partisan press
are either secretly or openly hostile to the civil ser-
vice law, and are determined to limit its operations
to improvement of the general efficiency of the gov-
ernment employees.
The vote in the House of Representatives during
a session of the Fifty-third Congress on the appro-
priation for the support of the Civil Service Depart-
ment for the coming year was very significant of the
prevailing sentiment in that body and among the
people in regard to civil service reform. The vote
stood 109 to 71 against the appropriation. Mr.
Caruth, a member from Kentucky, expressed his
satisfaction at the result of the vote by arising in his
place and joyfully exclaiming, "If the old Demo-
cratic system of giving the offices to the victors was
barbarous, then long live barbarism!" He un-
doubtedly voiced the general sentiment of his party
on the subject. Some people prefer barbarism with
the privilege of plunder to civilization with an
honest occupation.
The chief purposes of the law are constantly
obstructed if not practically nullified by both of the
great parties which have been in power since its en-
actment. Very much the same routine of appoint-
ments and dismissals is in vogue as under the old
system. With few exceptions, every man who has
received an appointment under either administration
has borne somewhere upon his organism the inevi-
table trademark of his party. The rule is to give
216 PARTISAN POLITICS.
patronage to the members of your own party when
you can and to others when you must.
It is notorious that heads of departments and
members of Congress are very ingenious and persist-
ent in their devices to evade the spirit of the law.
A favorite and very successful method for erratum
vacancies in the departments is to make an insuffi-
cient appropriation for the payment of salaries dur-
ing the year; then at such a time as suits the con-
venience of the head of the department to do so, he
gives notice to employees under him that as Con-
has not appropriated sufficient money to carry thorn
through the year, he shall be oblicrod to discharge a
portion of the force. He proceeds under this deci-
sion to make vacancies in his department at his
discretion; these are subsequently filled at the dic-
tation of senators and representatives in Congress,
who supply all this living material from their
various constituencies.
The Congress is a sort of recruiting bureau for
this service, and no man can be mustered into it who
cannot be debited or charged to the patronage ac-
count of some member of Congress of the dominant
party. It is a very easy matter to find very plausible
pretexts for these changes in the various brandies
of the service on other ground than that of party
preference. Men are discharged on the pretence
of inefficiency and partisan activity. Old men \vlio
have been long in the service, who are experienced
and valuable clerks of the department to whioh they
belong, are discharged on the pretence that there is
PARTISAN POLITICS. 217
too much "dead wood" in the department; or on
what is called the "economy dodge;" that is, by
pushing work for a few months, perhaps by over-
hours, everything in the bureau or division is up to
date and work is slack, and then its chief finds that
he can do with a lighter force, and discharges several
of his men.
These devices and pretexts are quite a study with
the appointing power of the government. Some men
in government employ are regarded as experts in this
kind of detective work. There was a chief clerk of the
Treasury Department a few years ago, under the ad-
ministration of Mr. Cleveland, by the name of Wig-
gins, who had a national reputation for his ingenuity
in creating vacancies. He had the activity and scent
of a sleuth hound in hunting out men that could be
"bounced" on some plausible plea for their removal.
It can never be reasonably expected that a partisan
Congress will provide any legislation or authorize any
rules under the Civil Service Commission that will de-
prive them of their hard-earned and long-established
monoply of the government patronage.
"December 22. Representative DeForest, of Con-
necticut, chairman of the House Committee on Civil
Service, to-day introduced a bill to exclude political
influence in the appointment of postmasters. It pro-
vides that all postmasters now in office, or hereafter
to be appointed, shall hold their offices during the
session. The President is authorized to remove first-,
second-, and third-class postmasters 'for cause com-
municated to the Senate' at the session following^the
removal. The Postmaster-General is also authorized
218 PARTISAN POLITICS.
to remove fourth-class postmasters 'for cause com-
municated in the letter of removal.'
"Section 3 provides that neither the President nor
Postmaster-General shall appoint or remove a post-
master for political reasons upon political grounds,
nor shall any post-office inspector recommend any
person for appointment or removal on account of poli-
tics. The bill directs that the United States be di-
vided into postal districts, each district to be presided
over by a post-office inspector. When there is a
fourth-class vacancy in the district the inspector pub-
lishes notices of the vacancy and issues blanks for
applicants. The latter must show their capabilities
of election, etc., for the place. No reference what-
ever is to be made of politics and no paper on politics
is to be received. The inspector then makes a report
to the Postmaster-General, and the appointment is
made strictly on merit."
While it is not probable that any bill restraining
the freedom of the appointing powers can pass either
house, the bill here described never came to a vote.
There is not a provision of it that cannot be evaded
by the skill of the politicians. Such an act of Con-
gress would prove a mere breastwork of straw against
the attack of the horde of arrogant and cunning
bosses of the great parties. All hopes of a better
civil service founded on the reform of these organiza-
tions are in my opinion quite extravagant and futile.
On the contrary, the spoilsmen are at present evi-
dently getting impatient under the restraints of the
civil service rules and enactments which lessen the
opportunities of the place-brokers to ply their trade.
The party revenues upon which their existence
PARTISAN POLITICS. 219
depends are endangered and naturally diminished.
These efforts are apparent in several of the States and
in the great municipalities of the country to rid them-
selves of this stumbling-block to party methods and
general success. This is notably true in the State
and city of New York, where the rule of the spoils-
men is almost supreme. They do not propose to re-
peal the present civil service legislation, but to attack
the outworks of the system by supplying various
amendments designed to destroy its efficiency, by di-
minishing the number of government employees who
will be subject to examination under its rules.
When this reform was first introduced it struck the
popular mind at once as a needed change. The poli-
ticians yielded to it as a necessary concession to public
opinion. They did not comprehend at that time
what they have since learned by experience, that the
system has a direct tendency, and is at war with the
efficiency and the very existence of the great parties
by which the government is dominated. The bosses
are now quite awake to the fact that they made a
grave partisan blunder when they permitted legisla-
tion so disastrous to party rule and party discipline
to become the law of the land. It does not require
extraordinary sagacity to successfully predict the fu-
ture course of the politicians of all parties in uniting
to restore to these alliances all the power and patron-
age they formerly possessed. This they can do if
they choose; and when they come to realize the facts
of the situation they will be quite equal to it. It will
not be long before there will be a union of these po-
220 PARTISAN POLITICS.
litical parties to enter decisively upon this work. Mr.
Allen, senator from Nebraska, has very recently in-
troduced a bill into the United States Senate to repeal
the civil service laws, and to do away with educa-
tional tests as preliminary to entering the public ser-
vice. The new Secretary of Agriculture, Mr. Wil-
son, is, I see by Washington despatches, charged
\vith an open attack upon the civil service system.
The antagonism between the two forces is sharp and
well defined. The conflict is irrepressible, and the
spoilsmen must assert themselves in force or commit
hari-kari.
It is the misfortune of all great reforms that in
their early history they are hindered and delayed and
often ruined by a resort to temporary expedients to
diminish and modify the evil rather than to wholly
uproot and abolish it. The difference between these
two methods is the difference between success and
failure.
What is wanted in this emergency is a square issue
with these organizations and a life and death conflict
for their complete overthrow. Let the people resolve
that the parties must go, that their usefulness, if they
ever had any, has long since ceased, and that their
usurpations and spoliations shall have an end. The
people have long since raised the hue and cry against
them of stop thief! in every part of the land. Let
the friends of justice and honest politics join in the
pursuit and bring these artful dodgers to bay and to
final judgment for their crimes against civil liberty.
What is needed at this hour is a national non-partisan
PARTISAN POLITICS. 221
movement for civil service reform, with a remedy
sufficiently radical to reach the causes of the disease
from which the body politic is suffering, the over-
throw of the party oligarchies, and the restoration of
the government of the country to the hands of the
people from which it has so long been practically with-
held.
There is in this country an increasing number of
the earnest friends of good government, but they have
no common aim to guide their exertions, no objective
point to reach, save the modification of the present
party system and the correction of the grosser abuses
of the public service. Let this large and intelligent
force of men and women who are in favor of clean
politics and good government organize on a non-par-
tisan basis, and they would cause their influence to
be felt in every State of the Tim* on That such a
movement is demanded, and that it would be re-
sponded to by a large number of citizens who are in
earnest for some change in the administration of pub-
lic affairs that a mere change of parties fails to bring,
I cannot doubt. I believe the country would re-
spond to such a timely and patriotic movement by
giving it the support of thousands of men and women
who are all ready for the work. They might with
poetic justice, as well as good tactics, turn upon the
parties the war-cry they have so successfully used in
harassing and defeating one another, "Turn the
rascals out!"
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