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 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 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!" 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. ICL- m NOV15J96760 1 -^.,tD r:: 13 -67 -9 AM LOAN DEPT. (N STACKS JUL 1 9 19/8 879 W/3 LD U1A-60.-.- ls10)476B University of California Berkeley IF YD .ID > /w