«vi uu 
 
 Ctarles Ziieblii
 
 c 
 
 From THE j 
 
 LIBRARY :oi> 
 
 II 
 
 miL 
 
 M. no. Morner
 
 DEMOCRACY AND THE OVERMAN
 
 DEMOCRACY AND THE 
 OVERMAN 
 
 BY 
 CHARLES ZUEBLIN 
 
 Author of " The Religion of a Democrat '* 
 
 NEW YORK 
 B. W. HUEBSCH 
 
 1910
 
 Copyright 1910 by 
 B. W. HUEBSCH 
 
 Printed in U. S. A.
 
 dedicated to the memory op 
 
 those good democrats and beloved friends 
 
 Jessie Bross and Henry Demarest Lloyd 
 
 Sit 
 2S
 
 OVERWORD 
 
 The American prototype of the Overman 
 of Nietzsche is a winning personality in the 
 sense of 'heads I win, tails you lose.' He is 
 an aggressive, self-satisfied megalomaniac, the 
 offspring of business and finance, but he is the 
 best we have. He only needs the discipline of 
 democracy. He is the boss of hoi Polloi; he 
 must be made the servant of Demos.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Overspecialized Business 
 
 Man 11 
 
 II. The Overestimated Anglo- 
 Saxon .... I. .. 37 
 
 III. The Overcomplacent American 65 
 
 IV. The Overthrown Superstition 
 
 of Sex . . . . i. . . 93 
 
 V. The Overdue Wages of the 
 
 Overman's Wife *. . . .115 
 
 VI. The Overtaxed Credulity of 
 
 Newspaper Readers . . . 135 
 
 VII. The Overworked Political 
 
 Platitudes . . i. . . . 157 
 
 VIII. The Overlooked Charters of 
 
 Cities 193
 
 THE OVERSPECIALIZED 
 BUSINESS MAN
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE OVERSPECIALIZED BUSINESS MAN 
 
 THE sway of the business man is well 
 nigh complete. He is the master of in- 
 dustry, he controls the means of sub- 
 sistence and communication, he subsidizes edu- 
 cation and art in his own whimsical fashion, 
 he owns the Senate's boss ; through the Speak- 
 er he manages the House, he harries the Presi- 
 dent and the Supreme Court, he shapes the 
 moral code. 
 
 It is accepted as logical and appropriate 
 that the business man should control industry, 
 but people forget how recent is his warrant for 
 this. A scant century and a half mark his en- 
 tire history. The industrialist, expert in man- 
 ufacture, is dependent on the financier and the 
 man who can market the goods. The mastery 
 of industry by business is not wholly undesir- 
 
 [11]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 able, but neither is it unavoidable. Whether 
 to the advantage or disadvantage of the peo- 
 ple, the business man's control of the means of 
 subsistence and communication is less logical. 
 The raw materials of living ought surely to be 
 indirectly in the control of the public, and in 
 the more civihzed countries the means of com- 
 munication are regarded as public rather than 
 private concern. In this country the master 
 of transportation has been the promoter rather 
 than the engineer. Few street railways were 
 built to carry people, and this seemingly ap- 
 propriate function has fallen heavily upon the 
 expert after one or more promoters have 
 loaded up the system with embarassing finan- 
 cial obligations. In the interest of rapid 
 economic development it may be tempo- 
 rarily desirable to tolerate the rule of the 
 business man over industry and transpor- 
 tation, but why should he direct politics? 
 He will himself hasten to say that he stands 
 aside from affairs of state desiring only to be 
 let alone, and exhibiting contempt for those 
 
 [12]
 
 The Overspecialized Business Man 
 
 who rely on political support. In fact, 
 however, he is the chief beneficiary of pa- 
 ternalism; although he rarely holds office, he 
 subsidizes the boss and the office-holders, but 
 not from philanthropy. 
 
 With the growing recognition that poli- 
 tics is public business, we can understand 
 the business man's interference, even if we 
 cannot condone it, but there never has been 
 and never will be any reason why he 
 should direct art, education, and religion. 
 The man of means is conspicuously devoid of 
 artistic knowledge, judged by his home and 
 his mischievous patronage of art. He is rare- 
 ly cultured and frequently uneducated, and he 
 is either ignorant of, or indifferent to, the- 
 ology. Yet his benefactions determine the 
 quality of our art, his position on boards of 
 trustees guides, often restricts, education, and 
 only the more courageous preachers and priests 
 venture to expound ethical doctrines which are 
 unpalatable to the business world. 
 
 Is he not, in truth, the overman? 
 [13]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 The decalogue has been supplemented, if 
 not supplanted, by the overman's trilogy: 
 (1) "Business is business." (2) "Stand 
 pat." (3) "I want what I want when I 
 want it." "Business is business" is the mascu- 
 line equivalent for the feminine "because." 
 "Stand pat" is the defiant watchword of the 
 politician subservient to business. "I want 
 what I want when I want it" is the cry of the 
 spoiled child, overspecialization being akin to 
 immaturity. We need a prophet like Carlyle 
 to proclaim the iniquity and futility of the 
 philosophy, "Every man for himself and the 
 devil take the hindmost," and to announce the 
 discovery of a "nobler hell than that of not 
 making money." 
 
 If the business man is to be the mentor of 
 public morals, he must learn to follow the 
 teachings of Isaiah, Jesus, Ruskin, and 
 other social prophets that there can be no 
 legitimate mastery without service. Tlie 
 business man might see this if he were to 
 take his nose from the grindstone. As it is, 
 he not only sees sand, but he condemns the 
 
 [14]
 
 The Overspecialized Business Man 
 
 onlooker, whose vision is clearer, because the 
 latter is not practical — that is to say, is not 
 engaged in the same blinding business proc- 
 esses. It is as though a man rushing head- 
 long against the wall of an observatory should, 
 by the concussion, see stars and claim superior 
 accomplishment to the astronomer, who is 
 merely looking at the real heavens with the aid 
 of a scientific instrument, and hence not suf- 
 ficiently practical or strenuous. 
 
 An analysis of the business man, as we ob- 
 serve him in the ablest representatives, may 
 enable us to see how many of his powers are 
 wasted by overspecialization to the detriment 
 of public morals. He possesses more virility 
 than courage; more brains than culture; more 
 force than character; all successful business 
 men possess virility, brains and force; but few 
 exhibit the union of courage, culture and char- 
 acter. 
 
 There is something heroic about the virility 
 of a man like that New York patriarch who 
 could be seen trudging regularly to his of- 
 fice after he had passed the allotted span of 
 [15]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 human life, to engage in an occupation by 
 many considered questionable, the fruits of 
 which he would not permit himself to enjoy. 
 There was no courage, however, in leaving to 
 an aged widow the fortune he had not allowed 
 her to spend during the years of its accumu- 
 lation. Her wise benefactions cannot absolve 
 the cowardice of the miser. 
 
 Examples of virility abound, but unhappily 
 instances of courage are rare. During the 
 railway strike of 1894 a well known professor 
 of economics in a symposium at the First Pres- 
 byterian Church of Chicago declared that the 
 railways would have a better case against the 
 sympathetic strike if they did not themselves 
 maintain a blacklist. One of the pillars of 
 the church, a prominent railway President, 
 called the professor a liar, for this imputation. 
 The trials which followed the strike produced 
 the evidence that this particular railway kept a 
 blacklist. This railway executive is a notable 
 example of the virile business man. The un- 
 desirability of such infonnation having cur- 
 rency at that time doubtless caused his out- 
 
 [16]
 
 The Overspecialized Business Man 
 
 burst, but his cowardice was obvious. One of 
 the Chicago packers resented the criticism of 
 the leading Jewish rabbi that the packers were 
 evading their water rents, so he left the syna- 
 gogue and joined a Christian church. Cour- 
 age would have cost little in this case, except 
 the admission of the superiority of rabbinical 
 to business ethics. 
 
 While Washington has secured a great 
 union railway station and New York is wit- 
 nessing the building of the greatest railway 
 terminals in the world, Chicago, with no seri- 
 ous topographical difficulties, is dealing with 
 the steam transportation problem in a petty, 
 piecemeal fashion. The New York Central 
 system built a fine new station in the wrong 
 place, in entire disregard of other roads, the 
 city's welfare, or even its own future conven- 
 ience. The Chicago and Northwestern Rail- 
 way is building a new station in a new place, 
 making a desirable but utterly inadequate im- 
 provement, viewed in the perspective of fifty 
 years. The Pennsylvania Railway spent mil- 
 lions on its Pittsburg terminals, including an 
 
 [17]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 elaborate new station, which proved to be too 
 small the day it was opened, although it owns 
 and uses the ground on which an adequate 
 station might have been built. These in- 
 stances are typical. 
 
 The attitude toward physical improvements 
 is similar to that toward investments. Virility 
 is constantly being throttled by timidity. 
 Great industrial enterprises go begging for 
 funds, although protected by valuable plants, 
 while the speculative "securities" find a ready 
 sale. The preferred stock of a great mail- 
 order house was frowned upon, although 
 backed by a six million dollar modern factory, 
 while railways, subject to legislative interfer- 
 ence, were commended by financiers. It took 
 ten years to get the capital to build the New 
 York elevated railways, and, after they had 
 proved to be a gold mine, it was equally hard 
 to convince cowardly capital of the practicabil- 
 ity of the subway. 
 
 In the face of this experience the report of 
 the New York Chamber of Commerce on the 
 
 [18]
 
 The Overspecialized Business Man 
 
 extension of subways is one of the most con- 
 temptible pieces of contemporary pusillanim- 
 ity perpetrated by the overman. As re- 
 ported in the Boston Transcript: 
 
 "In its briefest form, the verdict reached by the spe- 
 cial committee of the Chamber of Commerce comes down 
 to this: The city has no borrowing capacity within its 
 present debt limit to enable it to raise money to build 
 subways and the chamber has declared against the pend- 
 ing constitutional amendment exempting bonds issued 
 for enterprises which have proved themselves self-sus- 
 taining — [«ic'.'] — so the question of municipal construc- 
 tion of further subways need not be considered. In the 
 matter of private construction, various obstacles, such 
 as the present limitation of operating franchises to 
 twenty-five years with a twenty-year renewal, the super- 
 vision of the Public Service Commission, the increased 
 cost of construction and operation and what the com- 
 mittee terms the hostility of a certain part of the public, 
 combine to make capital timid of entering the traction 
 field. It is a question, according to the committee, what 
 inducements are necessary. The committee suggests 
 private construction and operation under a scheme of 
 combined profit sharing and subsidy in which the city 
 makes good deficits below certain guarantees of return 
 on invested capital and takes the surplus over and above 
 [19]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 an agreed income. As an alternative, the Chamber of 
 Commerce committee suggests an increased fare on ex- 
 press trains. It would also create a commission of 
 three engineers, one chosen by the companies, one by 
 the city and the third by these two, to pass upon the 
 reasonableness of all orders of the Public Service Com- 
 mission before promulgation. With these safeguards 
 the committee and the Chamber of Commerce believe 
 that private capital might be induced to reenter the 
 traction field. . . . * It cannot safely be concluded 
 that future subways will necessarily prove profitable.' 
 . . . To begin with the last statement, the committee 
 of the Chamber of Commerce seems to have overlooked, 
 wilfully or otherwise, the fact that in the last year 
 and a half the growth of earnings on the present sub- 
 way has so far outstripped the elevated's earnings that 
 for the September quarter of 1908 the subway's net was 
 $1,182,605, after deducting interest, taxes, and amorti- 
 zation, as against a deficit of $209,312.47 for the ele- 
 vated. . . . The record shows that in the first full 
 year of operation — 1905 — 116,209,313 passengers were 
 carried. The following year the traffic rose to 149,778,- 
 370; for 1907 it was 182,559,990; and for 1908 it was 
 228,991,212. . . . Mr. McAdoo is willing to go 
 ahead to the Grand Central, at least, under all the re- 
 strictions of tlie present law, on a twenty-five year fran- 
 chise, with a twenty-year renewal, and asks no subsidy, 
 neither that he may vise the orders of the Public Service 
 
 [20]
 
 The Overspecialized Business Man 
 
 Commission before they become effective. Being in the 
 business of selling transportation and not that of selling 
 .watered securities, he has no fear of regulation," 
 
 The only advance in the methods of taxa- 
 tion in Chicago in twenty years was made 
 primarily by a woman, a little, single woman, 
 with the backing of women, the elementary 
 school teachers. It is universally recognized 
 that Chicago's chief municipal limitation is 
 lack of funds, due to its antiquated taxing 
 system, but the business world has had noth- 
 ing but vituperation for these women who 
 compelled the taxation of corporations, illegal- 
 ly neglected by the public officials. It was 
 cowardly, in the first instance, for the overman 
 not to have effected the reform himself ; in the 
 second, not to have applauded its accomplish- 
 ment. A lesson might have been learned from 
 the Carlisle Indian football player, as yet un- 
 sophisticated, who, being tackled just before 
 the goal posts, after having run half the length 
 of the field, grasped the hand of the full- 
 back underneath the mound of Harvard play- 
 ers, and said, "Good tackle!" 
 [21]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 The overspecialized business man is not a 
 good sport. 
 
 Secondly — The business man possesses 
 brains, but usually not culture. In his igno- 
 rance, he often disdains culture, confusing it 
 with learning. He does not know that his 
 habit of quick thinking indicates his ability to 
 do clear thinking outside of his daily routine, 
 if he were not so sadly overspecialized. Even 
 a self-made man may possess that culture which 
 is described by Bosanquet as "the habit of a 
 mind instinct with purpose, cognizant of a 
 tendency and connection in human achieve- 
 ment, able and industrious in discerning the 
 great from the trivial." 
 
 Perhaps the ablest business man Chicago 
 has produced was its great merchant prince. 
 Measured by the popular contemporary stand- 
 ard, his brains weighed a hundred million 
 dollars in gold, the foundations of which came 
 from legitimate business. After building up 
 a retail, wholesale, and export trade which has 
 no rival; after constructing the most monu- 
 mental wholesale house in the country, with the 
 
 [22]
 
 ^The Overspecialized Business Man 
 
 aid of America's first architect, Richardson; 
 after developing a retail store unrivaled in 
 New York or Philadelphia; after paying more 
 taxes than any man in the United States, he 
 still had a surplus, which was put into public 
 service corporations, from which finally the 
 bulk of his fortune was secured. Brains have 
 seldom been better used in business, but when 
 he came to die he revealed his tragic lack of 
 culture. He had aided education by gifts to 
 the university, and the establishment of 
 a natural history museum, through which he 
 exercises a permanent influence on the culture 
 of others. Nevertheless the bulk of his for- 
 tune is entailed and so bound by the dead hand 
 as inevitably to curse those who receive it. 
 
 Instances of brains without culture crowd 
 upon us. Mr. Roosevelt said that at the an- 
 thracite coal conference, John Mitchell was the 
 only gentleman in the room, the President, 
 with the coal operators, having lost his temper. 
 One of Chicago's most public spirited clubs 
 "entertained" the School Board by banquet- 
 ing them and inviting a distinguished uni- 
 
 [23]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 versity president and some local talent to 
 abuse them with personahties. No member 
 of the club would have dreamed of treating 
 guests in the same way in his own home, but 
 culture, not conventionality, is needed to meet 
 the amenities of public life. 
 
 The most spectacular and amusing evidence 
 of the absence of culture in the business world 
 is probably the National Civic Federation's 
 discovery of Mr. Mallock. For more than a 
 decade the Englishman's facile pen has been a 
 joy to the academic world, which has regarded 
 him as a cross between a philosophic Pickwick 
 and an economic Don Quixote. That sober 
 Americans should import him to annihilate 
 Socialism would have been incredible if it were 
 not known that the business world is "easy" 
 for the adventurer if he understands the over- 
 man's colossal vanity. Churches, philan- 
 thropies and Cassie Chadwicks are subsidized 
 by a recognition of this fact. The superior 
 common sense of the people was shown in New 
 York's reception of Dowie, who deluded some 
 of the people, as Mr. Mallock has many of 
 
 [24]
 
 The Overspecialized Business Man 
 
 the business men. The most trenchant criti- 
 cisms of Mr. Mallock have come from oppo- 
 nents of SociaHsm, who see that he is doing 
 damage to the cause he is subsidized to sup- 
 port. The Civic Federation would have ac- 
 comphshed its purpose better by employing a 
 notorious anarchist to advocate socialism, 
 which would have aroused the wrath of the 
 Socialists, who are now laughing in their 
 sleeves. 
 
 A more dangerous consequence of brains 
 unrestrained by sound culture is being mani- 
 fested in the development of the national gov- 
 ernment. The Federal Constitution is no 
 longer adapted to the industrial civilization it 
 attempts to govern. Industry employs twen- 
 tieth century methods, while the Constitution 
 is an eighteenth century product. The over- 
 man, who is trying to get into the Senate for 
 business or social purposes should join in the 
 effort to make Senate and House representa- 
 tive, preferably by their union in one official 
 body. Then he could extend the Federal juris- 
 diction, he could insure public conservation 
 
 [25]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 whether municipal, state or national, he could 
 legalize railway combinations and pools, unify 
 divorce and marriage laws, secure just tax- 
 ation, control foods and liquors in the interest 
 of public health, maintain dignity in foreign 
 relations, give the States home rule, and pro- 
 mote public morality. 
 
 Thirdly — The business man possesses force, 
 but frequently not character. One of the 
 most forceful men in the public eye at the time 
 of his unfortunate death was Mr. Harriman. 
 He was doing what ought long ago to have 
 been done, and ought by this time to be legal — 
 consolidating the great trunk railway lines. 
 Mr. Harriman's force was admirable, but he 
 unblushingly confessed to practices which dis- 
 interested people regard as flagrantly dishon- 
 est. Force is an element of character, and 
 nice discriminations are likely to be overlooked 
 in the presence of forceful and useful accom- 
 plishment, but public morality may be thereby 
 subverted. 
 
 When the Chicago stockyards revelations 
 were confirmed in the calm report of the Presi- 
 
 [26]
 
 The Overspedalized Business Man 
 
 dent's committee, following the insinuations of 
 a perfervid novelist, the Chicago business men 
 united in giving a clean bill of health to the 
 packers, whose improvements have since testi- 
 fied to the truth of the criticisms. This cer- 
 tificate of character was offered by the 
 business world to preserve the "fair name of 
 Chicago," forgetful that elementary morals 
 demanded that Chicago repent in sackcloth 
 and ashes, or at least crepe and soot, if the 
 name, already sullied, were to be redeemed. 
 
 Why should the moral vision be limited by 
 viewing society through the wrong end of the 
 financial field-glass? 
 
 The bankers, "honorable gentlemen all," 
 twice unanimously, in annual convention, op- 
 posed the postal savings banks. No express 
 official dares to admit the inferiority of the 
 United States parcel post, which sends a pack- 
 age to Europe more cheaply than from an 
 American city to its suburb. Even the hotel 
 keepers' association disapproves of the parcel 
 post, because it w^ould favor the mail-order 
 houses, which would reduce the number of 
 [27]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 commercial travellers, which would injure the 
 hotel business! All of these gentlemen view 
 with abhorrence the "class-conscious" prop- 
 aganda of the orthodox Socialists! 
 
 The merchants of Market Street, Phila- 
 delphia, in an effort to solve the local trans- 
 portation problem which afflicts that city with 
 most others, made a proposition to the com- 
 pany and the city with a view to harmony. It 
 must be borne in mind that Philadelphia has 
 been bound, hand and foot, to a corpora- 
 tion, spoiled by years of tolerance in an abject 
 community. The responsible merchants pro- 
 posed that all the previous misdeeds of the 
 corporation be overlooked, its watered stock 
 guaranteed by the city, and thenceforth a part- 
 nership be established, the city to receive half 
 of all revenues above six per cent. Only one 
 merchant in Philadelphia had ever shown any 
 sympathy for the public as against the corpo- 
 ration, yet many thoughtful Philadelphians 
 seemed ready to accept the more than dubious 
 proposal on the strength of the signatures ap- 
 pended to it. Furthermore, the papers, even 
 
 [28]
 
 The Overspecialized 'Business Man 
 
 the yellowest, refused to print articles and in- 
 terviews favorable to the public. Is it sur-^ 
 prising that such a company in such a city 
 should not feel bound by its obligations 
 to either the public or its employees? Yet, 
 when it illegally abandons the system of sell- 
 ing six tickets for twenty-five cents, or plunges 
 the city into anarchy with street railway 
 strikes, it should be remembered that the low 
 standard of public morality in Philadelphia is 
 at least coincident with what the inhabitants of 
 the average American city would regard as the 
 doubtful character of its merchants. 
 
 In seeming contrast with this experience is 
 that of Chicago, whose street railway fran- 
 chises have been heralded throughout the land 
 as exceptionally favorable to the city. Here, 
 too, one must be reminded, is a background of 
 civic history. Chicago's municipal ownership 
 agitation alone rendered impossible a repeti- 
 tion of Philadelphia's experience. The actual 
 details of the franchises are unimportant, ex- 
 cept that they are so many that it has been 
 said that only the corporation lawyers and the 
 [29]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 city's special traction counsel can interpret 
 them. Yet, in spite of repeated and unmis- 
 takable demands from the people for munici- 
 pal ownership, these franchises, which were of- 
 fered as a more practicable solution, were 
 rushed through the City Council in the middle 
 of the night. Then the business interests de- 
 manded that they be passed finally, without the 
 referendum, which had been promised the 
 people, claiming that the public was tired of 
 being consulted. Greatly to their surprise a 
 huge petition for submission to a popular vote 
 was secured in an incredibly short time. That 
 the people voted for the franchises, after in- 
 sisting on the referendum, only shows how 
 shortsighted the bullying business man can be. 
 This distrustful and overbearing attitude 
 was also evidenced in Boston, where a business 
 man's commission presented to the legislature 
 a bill for a new charter, framed primarily to 
 prevent the election of a previous mayor, and 
 based halfheartedly on the best American ex- 
 perience. All but the single labor member 
 opposed a referendum, but even the Chamber 
 
 [30]
 
 The Overspecialized Business Man 
 
 of Commerce, under great pressure of wise 
 leaders, demanded submission to a popular 
 vote. The legislature, moved by the business 
 man's commission on one side and office-hold- 
 ing politicians on the other, finally presented 
 to the people a choice of two charters. The 
 people chose the lesser evil, as might have been 
 expected, but the electorate which had been 
 treated with such condescension refused to elect 
 the business man's candidate for mayor, and 
 the overman is still innocently wondering why 
 his experience met with ingratitude. A com- 
 bination of culture and character would have 
 devised a wiser charter, would not have squan- 
 dered its energies on ephemeral political sit- 
 uations, and would have been honorable enough 
 to invite and enjoy the confidence of the peo- 
 ple. 
 
 Philadelphia's dishonorable supremacy is 
 threatened only by San Francisco, where the 
 graft prosecution, which promised for a time 
 to reach the culprits "higher up," has been 
 suppressed. As phrased by a typical editor 
 there, they feared that the graft proceedings 
 [31]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 would become an "institution." So an alli- 
 ance was made between respectable business 
 and a corrupt labor party to suppress morality 
 for the furtherance of prosperity, a process 
 not confused by the surrender of a prizefight 
 to get an exposition. It certainly takes a faith 
 that is "childlike and bland" to continue to 
 take interest in the city of the Golden Gate, 
 the capital of the Sunset Seal 
 
 It is frequently said that business men 
 would enter politics and give us the benefit of 
 their executive ability and unimpeachable char- 
 acters, but a political campaign may sully their 
 reputations and the time consumed in pubhc 
 affairs interfere with their business. Then, 
 too, they might not be elected! The business 
 district of Chicago is represented in the City 
 Council by Aldermen Kenna and Coughlin, 
 popularly known as "Hinky Dink" and 
 "Bathhouse John." These statesmen, whose 
 position seems almost self-perpetuating, cor- 
 respond to the liveried representatives of the 
 London guilds, those mediaeval survivals 
 which arouse such mirth in the American 
 
 [32]
 
 The Overspecialized Business Man 
 
 abroad. They will hold office, not merely as 
 long as the reformers say they levy tribute on 
 gamblers, prostitutes, and lodging-house keep- 
 ers, but while they are unopposed by the busi- 
 ness interests. In truth, the character of the 
 community is represented in its government 
 and written in its streets, that he who reads 
 may run. 
 
 Directly or indirectly, the brains of the com- 
 munity will govern. If the business interests 
 of the city would indorse municipal ownership, 
 when such sentiment exists, its success would 
 be assured, as it is generally abroad. If the 
 business interests demanded fair franchises, 
 such, and such alone, would be granted. The 
 overman must demonstrate that he believes, at 
 least, in the municipal ownership of the city 
 government, and its consequent freedom from 
 boss and business rule. It is legitimate for 
 the pubUc to measure the character of the over- 
 man by his disinterested devotion to city and 
 nation. StiU, the public must learn to be tol- 
 erant of the overspecialized business man for 
 the misdirection of his virility, brains, and 
 [33]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 force, due to the exacting system of which he 
 is not the author. The public will be tolerant 
 as he gains the courage, culture, and character 
 needed to fit him for public service. "He that 
 is greatest among you shall be your servant." 
 
 [34]
 
 THE OVERESTIMATED 
 ANGLO-SAXON
 
 CHAPTER Hi 
 
 THE OVERESTIMATED ANGLO-SAXON 
 
 THE Anglo-Saxon has been predestined 
 from the dawn of history to play the 
 leading part in industrial development, 
 as soon as the world-market embraced the en- 
 tire globe. His pre-eminence in economic and 
 social evolution is due primarily to his position 
 of natural advantage among modern com- 
 mercial nations. He is, at once, the child of 
 fortune and the maker of destiny. 
 
 The expression, "from the dawn of his- 
 tory," has been used with intent. Primeval 
 Britain was part of a great continent extend- 
 ing to Greenland and Iceland. Even in the 
 (geologically speaking) comparatively recent 
 Pleistocene age the British Isles were a part 
 of the continent of Europe, the English rivers 
 joined the Rhine, the Elbe, and others, to make 
 
 [37]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 a mighty stream flowing into the North Atlan- 
 tic Ocean/ The separation of the British Isles 
 from the mainland by "the narrow streak of 
 silver" known as the Straits of Dover, has al- 
 tered the history of the world and the destiny 
 of nations. When the elements declared 
 peace at the close of the Pleistocene age Eng- 
 land came into the heritage of the "favored 
 nation clause," but the claim could not be made 
 good until the expansion of the world in the 
 fifteenth century. 
 
 To appreciate the altered relations of Eng- 
 land to civilization we must project ourselves 
 into the Mediterranean w^orld of the Ptolemaic 
 geography, which represented the known 
 world down to the close of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury. Mediaeval civilization was almost wholly 
 confined to the European area accessible to the 
 Mediterranean Sea. The world powers were 
 all located there. Scandinavia was unknown; 
 Germany, the Netherlands, and Britain, were 
 not to be compared with Italy, France, and 
 the Iberian peninsula. The expropriation of 
 
 1 Dawkins, Early Man in Britain, p. 151. 
 
 [38]
 
 The Overestimated Anglo-Saxon 
 
 Europe having reached its hmit under the 
 known industrial methods the Far East was 
 the goal of wealth seekers. The Mediter- 
 ranean nations possessed the advantage of lo- 
 cation and profited by it. The isolated posi- 
 tion of the British Isles, actually at the end of 
 the world, is admirably shown in Ptolemy's 
 map of the world ; even the Indian Ocean is of 
 vastly greater importance than the Atlantic. 
 Bearing in mind the ignorance of the virtues 
 of the magnetic needle and the difficulties at- 
 tendant on venturing into the open and un- 
 known sea, we are not surprised that the con- 
 tour of the British Isles was not better known. 
 It is but another evidence of their insig- 
 nificance. 
 
 The Mediterranean nations were doomed, 
 however, to forfeit their natural advantages. 
 In 1498 the Cape of Good Hope route to In- 
 dia was discovered. In 1515 the Turks fell on 
 Egypt and blocked the only remaining land 
 route to the east. The latter event was almost 
 as important as the former, since it stimulated 
 the development of the sea route to India. 
 
 [39]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 The position of natural advantage in relation 
 to the new route was enjoyed by Spain and 
 Portugal. The energies of the former were, 
 however, being directed elsewhere. For a 
 long time the Portuguese, under the benedic- 
 tion of the pope, monopolized the trade with 
 India. There was a force at work, however, 
 more powerful than the benediction of a pope. 
 The plucky Hollanders, progressive, indepen- 
 dent, liberal, improved the art of navigation, 
 traded freely with all nations, and finally sup- 
 planted the Portuguese in the East. The slight 
 advantages of position and possession enjoyed 
 by Portugal are overcome by the Netherlands 
 through the superiority of the latter nation. 
 Supremacy, as we shall see in a more impor- 
 tant case, inevitably passes into the hands of the 
 Northern nations, but character is not always 
 to triumph over geography. 
 
 Meanwhile the destiny of nations was not 
 being settled in the far East but in the un- 
 known West. The early precedence of Spain 
 in the discovery and settlement of the New 
 World was not due merely to her advantage 
 
 [40]
 
 The Overestimated Anglo-Saxon 
 
 of position between the Mediterranean and the 
 Atlantic, nor to the accident of Columbus' 
 subsidy, but to the favoring ocean currents and 
 prevailing winds. The prevailing winds are 
 from the northeast, and the ocean currents 
 sweep away from the Eastern Hemisphere, off 
 the Iberian peninsula, toward the Gulf of 
 Mexico and South America. Once having 
 reached the West Indies, Florida, Mexico, 
 South America, colonists were favored by a 
 mild climate, which enabled them to sustain 
 life easily, and to furnish temporarily an 
 enormous advantage to the mother country. 
 It was not possible, however, for this advan- 
 tage to endure, for these colonists, enervated 
 by a too favorable climate, succumbed to the 
 more vigorous immigrants peopling the less 
 hospitable shores, after the analogy of the vic- 
 torious northern nations of the old country. 
 
 France, Holland and England, ignoring 
 currents and, winds, took advantage of the 
 shortness of the northern route, and settled 
 largely in accordance with isothermal lines. 
 The immediate disadvantage but ultimate 
 [41]
 
 "Democracy and the Overman 
 
 benefit to the latter nations lay in establishing 
 colonies where effort was needed to maintain 
 an existence, but at the same time where effort 
 was rewarded by more than an existence, a 
 comfortable livelihood in an invigorating cli- 
 mate. 
 
 In general contour and coast line North 
 America resembles Europe. Great navigable 
 rivers flow to the sea, giving today ports of 
 entry a thousand miles from the ocean. The 
 land which England was to colonize was as 
 much superior to the lands selected (involun- 
 tarily) by the Spanish as England is to Spain.* 
 The climatic conditions of North America re- 
 sembled those of these colonizing nations. 
 The same plants and cereals grew there. The 
 grains which had made energetic aborigines 
 were supplemented by domestic animals, whose 
 absence had kept the natives in the nomad 
 state. With these advantages the cultivation 
 of the relatively barren soil along the North 
 
 1 Leroy-Beaulieu, De la colonization chez les peuples mod- 
 ernes (Paris, 1891). 
 
 [42]
 
 The Overestimated Anglo-Saxon 
 
 Atlantic coast was not impossible, though suf- 
 ficiently difficult to prove a selective agency 
 in determining the character of the colonists.^ 
 Their power to labor was their chief source of 
 strength. The climatic conditions produced 
 only such diseases of men and cattle as were 
 already known to the settlers, so that remedies 
 were at hand, which was not true in the case of 
 the Spanish settlers. These were, however, all 
 deferred advantages. The palm at first 
 seemed to belong to Spain, as is well shown by 
 maps of the period. A map drawn by Johan- 
 nes Schoener in 1520 locates America all below 
 the equator, except the islands, the Antilles and 
 others, opposite Spain, and an island under the 
 Arctic circle on a parallel with Iceland.^ A 
 map of the year 1540 represents South 
 America in much its present known form, but 
 North America is a long peninsula, of which 
 Yucatan and Mexico, Cuba and Florida are 
 substantially correct, but the northern part 
 
 1 Shaler, History of the United States, vol. i, chaps, i, ii. 
 sLelewel, Geographie du Moyen Age (Brussels, 1850). 
 
 [43]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 tapers off northeasterly (having a width from 
 east to west for the most part of only a few 
 hundred miles) , not far from Iceland. 
 
 While these advantages of precedence were 
 being overcome by natural causes in the New 
 World similar forces were at work in the Old. 
 The only nations to whom the conquest of the 
 New World was possible were gradually elim- 
 inated by the character of the people or the 
 location of the land until the contest was nar- 
 rowed to two. Location was favorable to 
 Spain and Portugal as well as to Holland and 
 England. The two former were handicapped 
 by the character of their colonies and their peo- 
 ples. The superstitious, ill-governed Span- 
 ish and Portuguese were no worthy rivals for 
 the individualistic, enterprising communities of 
 the Netherlands and England, who were in 
 some measure capable of self-government and 
 who had been subjected to the clarifying in- 
 fluence of the Renaissance. The conflict was 
 reduced to the Netherlands and England. 
 England won by her geographical advantages. 
 Freedom from war, guaranteed by the Chan- 
 [44]
 
 The Overestimated Anglo-Saocon 
 
 nel, and easy access to the globe discounted 
 the superiority of the Dutch in government 
 and personal character/ These latter qualities 
 were proof against Holland's militant con- 
 queror, Spain, but had to yield the supremacy 
 to commercially favored Britain. The Anglo- 
 Saxon myth was germinating. 
 
 England's natural advantages were two: 
 geographic and geological. As was first 
 pointed out by Sir John Herschel, "If we 
 describe a great circle round London, which 
 at the present time is, in fact, the great focus 
 of attraction for the commerce of the whole 
 world, almost all the continental surface^ sur- 
 rounding the basin of the Atlantic, rendering 
 it almost an inland sea, will fall within this 
 hemisphere."^ Within this great inland sea, 
 London enjoys a position more favorable than 
 
 1 D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England, and 
 America, vol. i. 
 
 2 Sixteen-seventeenths of the land surface of the globe, the 
 land in this hemisphere being 47 million square miles as 
 against five million in the other, one-half the entire hemis- 
 phere in the one case, one-twentieth in the other. 
 
 sReclus, The Earth (London, 1886), p. 36. 
 
 [45]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 that occupied by Venice when she commanded 
 the commerce of the Mediterranean. Not 
 only does the bulk of the land of the world sur- 
 round the Atlantic Ocean, with the British 
 Isles in the center, but the greatest mountain 
 ranges of the world in Asia, Africa, North 
 and South America shut these continents off to 
 some extent from the Pacific Ocean and help 
 to complete the confined nature of the Atlantic 
 hemisphere. As a result of these mountainous 
 barriers, most of the great navigable rivers of 
 the two hemispheres flow directly or indirectly 
 into the Atlantic, bringing London and the 
 British Isles not merely into contact with the 
 seaports of the various countries, but also with 
 the inland towns in the regions drained by 
 these rivers. The Atlantic Ocean became the 
 great highway of the world and all routes led 
 to London. The Anglo-Saxon was revealed. 
 Hardly less important than geographical 
 location in the commercial development of 
 Britain are topography and geology. The 
 configuration of the English coast line is one 
 of the determining factors in her commercial 
 
 [46]
 
 The Overestimated Anglo-Saxon 
 
 ascendancy. A straight line drawn along the 
 east coast measures about 350 miles, along the 
 west coast about the same, along the south 320, 
 making a total of 1000 miles; "but so deeply 
 is the coast indented that the total length of 
 coast hne is about 2400 miles — that is, one 
 mile of coast to twenty-two square miles of 
 surface. This great proportion of coast line 
 is still more apparent when we compare Eng- 
 land with the two great commercial nations of 
 the continent — France, which has one mile of 
 coast to seventy-nine square miles of surface, 
 and Germany, which has a very much smaller 
 proportion."^ The number of excellent har- 
 bors is scarcely less remarkable than the inden- 
 tations in the coast. 
 
 Allusion has already been made to the relief 
 of the land. It slopes gently toward the 
 southeast, making many of the rivers navi- 
 gable for a relatively great distance. At the 
 same time the location of the mountains has 
 an important effect in making the climate 
 equable by controlling the moisture and winds. 
 
 iTAe World (Longmans), p. 100. 
 
 [47]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 England, of course, shares with western 
 Europe the advantage of the influence of the 
 Gulf Stream and warm air currents, the con- 
 trast with countries in the same latitude, 
 e.g., Labrador, on the west shore of the 
 Atlantic, being most marked. Nature has 
 again been very generous in shaping the 
 surface of the land. "England is distin- 
 guished among all the countries of Europe for 
 the great variety of geological formations. It 
 is the very paradise of the geologist, for it may 
 be said to be in itself an epitome of the geology 
 of almost the whole of Europe, and of much 
 of Asia and America. . . . Whatever 
 may be the mineral riches of America or Aus- 
 tralia, the British Isles remain the most pro- 
 ductive mining country in the world." ^ The 
 mineral wealth is not onl}^ great, but a large 
 variety of rocks lie quite near the surface, so 
 that it has been literally necessary only to 
 scratch the ground to produce wealth. 
 
 This England, blest above all her sisters. 
 
 1 Reclus, The British Isles (ed, by Ravenstein), pp. 7, 8. 
 
 [48]
 
 Tlie Overestimated Anglo-Saxon 
 
 slowly and painfully subdued Nature, who 
 was destined to be her slave. "It remained 
 even at the close of Roman rule an 'isle of 
 blowing woodland,' a wild and half reclaimed 
 country, the bulk of whose surface was occu- 
 pied by forest and waste. The rich and lower 
 soil of the river valleys, indeed, which is now 
 the favorite home of agriculture, had in the 
 earliest times been densely covered with pri- 
 meval scrub." ^ The climate was much more 
 disagreeable than now." The impassable 
 forests of Surrey, Kent, and Sussex, the 
 marshes of Lincoln, Cambridge, and Norfolk 
 have become gardens. The unseen veins of 
 coal in Lancashire, Durham, and South Wales 
 have made possible the British Empire. But 
 until the expansion of the world these treas- 
 ures were unappreciated. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon was pre-eminently insular. 
 His first effort was naturally directed to the 
 development of the superficial advantages of 
 
 1 Green, The Making of England, § 8. See, also map. 
 
 2 Gibbins, Industry in England (London, 1896), p. 18, and 
 map, p. 65. 
 
 [49]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 his country, with such happy results that until 
 the middle of the eighteenth century, England 
 was dominantly pastoral and agricultural. 
 The exports of minerals and manufactures 
 previous to the modern commercial era, while 
 not to be ignored, were distinctly insignificant 
 as compared with the importance of agricul- 
 ture, and another enterprise intimately con- 
 nected with the soil, wool raising. "To the 
 Ghent and Bruges of the Middle Ages, Eng- 
 land stood in the same relation as the Austra- 
 lian colonies hold to the Leeds and Bradford 
 of our own day. The sheep which grazed over 
 the wide, uninclosed pasture lands of the island 
 formed a great part of the wealth of England, 
 and that wealth depended entirely on the flour- 
 ishing trade with the Flemish towns in which 
 English wool was converted into cloth." ^ 
 
 From prehistoric times England had been in 
 communication with continental peoples, but 
 her position was one of passivity. Commerce 
 was developed at the hands of Venetians or 
 
 1 Gardiner and MuUinger, Introduction to the Study of Eng- 
 litk History (London, 1894), p. 86. 
 
 [50]
 
 The Overestimated Anglo-Saxon 
 
 the Hansa towns, or the Spanish or Portu- 
 guese, or the Dutch. The development even 
 of domestic manufactures was due to the im- 
 migration of skilled artisans into England, as 
 a result of religious persecutions. The Anglo- 
 Saxon was as rustic as he was insular. The 
 "nation of tradesmen" was innocent of the ele- 
 ments of trading. Under Edward VI, in the 
 middle of the sixteenth century, "it was en- 
 acted that whoever should buy any corn or 
 grain with intent to sell it again should for the 
 first fault suffer two months' imprisonment and 
 forfeit the value of the corn; for the second, 
 six months' imprisonment and forfeit double 
 the value of the corn; for the third, be set in 
 the pillory, suffer imprisonment during the 
 king's pleasure, and forfeit all his goods and 
 chattels." ^ Insular in commerce, the people 
 were also insular in mind and manners. "She 
 had originated nothing of her own. Satirists 
 held that Englishmen fetched their dress and 
 external accomplishments from foreign na- 
 
 1 Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (Globe edition), p. 412. 
 
 [61]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 tions. 'I think,' says Portia in the Merchant 
 of Venice of her EngHsh lover, 'he bought his 
 doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his 
 bonnet in Germany, and his behavior every- 
 where.' " ^ 
 
 Observe the transformations wrought by 
 Columbus and his fellow adventurers! The 
 immediate, tangible result of the era of dis- 
 coveries was the creation of a world-market. 
 The control of this market finally rested in the 
 hands of the Anglo-Saxon. Spanish arma- 
 das, navigation acts, piratical expeditions are 
 mere incidents, — often, it is true, very discred- 
 itable incidents, — but still subordinate to the 
 great dominant features of natural advantage. 
 The first great benefit to England of this posi- 
 tion of advantage was that she gained com- 
 mand of the carrying trade of the world's com- 
 merce. It was a great achievement of a hith- 
 erto uncommercial nation to become "mistress 
 of the seas," but she was to enjoy an even 
 higher position and to give a greater interpre- 
 
 1 Gardiner and JMuUinger, \>. \2\. 
 
 [52]
 
 The Overestimated Anglo-Saxon 
 
 tation to her maritime dominance. Added to 
 her favored position she had the internal, but 
 undeveloped, advantages which enabled her to 
 supplant not merely the ships of other nations, 
 but their cargoes. Africans or Asiatics could 
 not have resisted such economic pressure, as 
 the rise of Japan has more recently demon- 
 strated. 4 
 
 England has developed this world-market, 
 often at the expense of primitive nations, but 
 on the whole to the advantage of her present 
 rivals. The methods which she adopted in the 
 eighteenth century to supply this market were 
 those used since then by all industrial nations — 
 cheapened production and distribution. The 
 new continents were an outlet for the popula- 
 tion of the European states. The New World 
 furnished food in superabundance for a grow- 
 ing population, but they had to look to the Old 
 World for clothes and many other simple nec- 
 essaries. To clothe these colonists English- 
 men wore rags. "Cheap and expeditious" 
 were the methods adopted. The demand of 
 the world was pressing. England occupied 
 
 [53]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 the favored position. For half a century she 
 gave herself to the task of clothing the New 
 World. What wonder then that multitudes 
 in England were forgotten and went un- 
 clothed. 
 
 The rapidity with which mechanical improve- 
 ments were introduced, the transformation ef- 
 fected in methods of production by the intro- 
 duction of steam, the development of a mag- 
 nificent system of roads, the building of canals, 
 and finally the construction of railways, altered 
 the face of England. In 1688 the agricultur- 
 ists probably out-numbered those engaged in 
 trade and commerce four to one. Between 
 1811 and 1831 the increase in agricultural 
 families was two and one half percent., in man- 
 ufacturing and trading families thirty one and 
 one-half per cent. The independent yeomanry, 
 who were supposed to have numbered 180,000 
 at the beginning of the eighteenth century, 
 had all but disappeared at its close. The race 
 altered with the institutions. It is to be ob- 
 served that the first industrial expansion took 
 place in an entirely new industry, the cotton 
 
 [54]
 
 TJie Overestimated Anglo-Saxon 
 
 manufacture, which was exempt from the re- 
 strictive legislation and hampering traditions 
 which applied to the existing industries. Once 
 more geography and geology play their parts ; 
 the fine port of Liverpool gave access to the 
 coal region of Lancashire, so that American 
 cotton could readily reach the first great mod- 
 ern industrial center. 
 
 The results of these revolutionary changes 
 were a shifting of the population from the 
 south to the north of England; from the 
 country to the rapidly growing cities; and the 
 introduction of highly specialized division of 
 labor with its consequences of great factories, 
 employment of women and children, long 
 hours, low wages, ignorant foremen, careless 
 and conscienceless proprietors. Great and 
 pressing problems began to accumulate; over- 
 crowding in cities, unemployment, pauperism, 
 unsanitary conditions, illiteracy, intemperance 
 and a host of others. These too were the legacy 
 of nature. No man was responsible for their 
 creation, whoever might have been charged 
 with their continuance. The industrial rev- 
 
 [55]
 
 Deinocracy and the Overman 
 
 olution had come upon a nation unprepared 
 for its consequences, because the accident of 
 position thrust an inconspicuous people into 
 the leadership of a world-wide commerce and 
 the government of the world's largest and 
 greatest empire. How the nation has grap- 
 pled with these problems is beginning to be 
 appreciated. Their successful and unsuccess- 
 ful solutions will prove invaluable to us 
 and other nations where the same problems 
 are developing, if we frankty recognize 
 that England was inevitably the forerunner 
 in these industrial and social changes and con- 
 sequently must be possessed of the valuable 
 knowledge which comes only from experience. 
 The one power which can take away from 
 England her precedence is the annihilation of 
 distance. The encroachments of the less 
 favored nations may be explained by the fact 
 that location has ceased to have the prime sig- 
 nificance which it possessed in previous cen- 
 turies. The three great inventions, whereby 
 the genius of man has been able to bring the 
 extremes of this globe nearer together than 
 
 [50]
 
 The Overestimated Anglo-Saxon 
 
 were the distant parts of mediaeval civilization, 
 were successively appropriated by England to 
 strengthen her position of natural advantage. 
 The magnetic needle, in the fifteenth century, 
 gave her ships command of the world's com- 
 merce. Steam, in the eighteenth century, cou- 
 pled with her geological, and geographical 
 superiority, gave her the first position in in- 
 dustry. Electricity, in the nineteenth century, 
 has for a time enabled her to maintain the soli- 
 darity of the British Empire, the evidences of 
 which cause every foreign visitor to the city 
 of London to marvel. But electricity, by its 
 annihilation of distance, has been friendly to 
 England's competitors; first the New World 
 and then the Orient advanced by this latest in- 
 vention into the field of rivalry. The chief 
 contemporary evidence of Britain's having 
 made the best use of all the auxiliaries of com- 
 merce lies in the fact that she alone has been 
 able to maintain a system of free trade. The 
 growing protectionist sentiment is a testimony 
 to the loss of some of the advantages of her 
 position. 
 
 [57]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 Britain is the upstart among nations; her 
 opportunity was long delayed, but when it was 
 thrust upon her she seized it. Deny the Anglo- 
 Saxon none of the laurels of success; the crown 
 of victory still belongs to the god of battles 
 who located the strategic sites occupied by the 
 favored army of industrial invaders of the 
 world-market. "Honor to whom honor is 
 due." "Progress and poverty" are the marks 
 of modern civilization. The forerunner of 
 contemporary industrialism is the nation of the 
 nouveaux riches and the nouveaux pauvres. 
 In the wake of the Anglo-Saxon come poten- 
 tial good and unnecessary evil; prosperity and 
 misery, the Puritan conscience and graft, tem- 
 perance and debauchery, piety and hypocrisy, 
 law and injustice, chastity and miscegenation, 
 manufacturer and "hands," the gentleman and 
 the hooligan, the overman and the submerged 
 tenth. The overestimated Anglo-Saxon race 
 is a mythical mongrel in five continents; the 
 Anglo-Saxon institutions inile the civilized 
 world, the happiest accident in the history of 
 civilization. 
 
 [58]
 
 The Overestimated Anglo-Saxon 
 
 The testimony of a British democrat, who 
 tm'ned imperiahst, seems impartial: "There are 
 some people who seem to think an unlimited 
 supply of what we call the Anglo-Saxon race 
 is the best remedy for all the evils of the world. 
 Without wishing to be needlessly unpatriotic, 
 I do not think the unlimited Anglo-Saxon is 
 an altogether unmitigated blessing. The fili- 
 buster, the mercantile adventurer, and the mis- 
 sionary have not been so perfectly successful 
 between them in dealing with the problem of 
 the lower races; for the mere disappearance 
 of lower races before the rum supplied by the 
 trader and the clothes enjoined by the mis- 
 sionary (to the great profit of the Lancashire 
 manufacturer) is not quite a satisfactory solu- 
 tion. What has been already said about the 
 transmission of a type of culture, irrespective 
 of the continuity of the race that first devel- 
 oped it, seems to help one here. We need have 
 less doubt of the excellence of our language 
 and of our literature and of some of our insti- 
 tutions than of the supreme excellence of our 
 race, and there is nothing to prevent distant 
 
 [591
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 tribes and nations regarding Europe, and 
 Britain not least, as the school or university to 
 which they shall send their most promising 
 youth, in order to adopt just so much of our 
 civilization as suits them, so that they may work 
 out their problems in their own manner." ^ 
 
 The survival of the fittest resulted in the 
 raw, sturdy Saxon of primitive England. The 
 survival of the fittest resulted in Elizabethan 
 letters and piracy at the time of the national 
 awakening; in the romanticists and capitalists 
 at the end of the eighteenth century; in the 
 overman at the beginning of the twentieth. 
 Opportunity made insignificant England mis- 
 tress of the seas, made the overspecialized busi- 
 ness man master of civilization. "To him that 
 hath shall be given." Democracy must accept 
 the principle of the survival of the fittest, but 
 see in the Anglo-Saxon and the Overman the 
 worthy beneficiaries of opportunity. A su- 
 perior race and civilization will follow the dif- 
 fusion of opportunity, denied by its possessors 
 
 1 Ritchie, D. G., Darwinism, pp. 78, 79, 
 
 [60]
 
 The Overestimated Anglo-Saxon 
 
 to women and workmen, the children of the 
 poor, the average citizen, and the people of 
 color. The survival of the fittest may, by 
 direction, become the survival of the best. 
 Mastery by service is the salvation of men and 
 of man. 
 
 [61]
 
 THE OVERCOMPLACENT 
 AMERICAN
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE OVERCOMPLACENT AMERICAN 
 
 THE nervous, energetic, cocksure Amer- 
 ican is not without a curious blend of 
 complacency. He vociferously asserts 
 his rights, while he silently disregards his own 
 and others' duties. The dictum of Pope, 
 "Whatever is, is right" sums up his philosophy. 
 Conditions which are the result of rapid and 
 unstable transformations of industrial life are 
 regarded as permanent and inevitable, and are 
 treated as though they were the result of a 
 divine fiat delivered at the dawn of creation. 
 Our public and economic life suffers from 
 two disguised afflictions — one, historic; the 
 other, pre-historic. The latter is the long stor- 
 ing of our continent with its priceless natural 
 resources; the former, the spontaneous Min- 
 erva-like birth of our Federal Constitution 
 [65]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 from the mind of Alexander Hamilton. We 
 are too rich and comfortable to be under the 
 necessity of thinking. There is poverty, but 
 it is relative, and the pinch is not yet severe 
 enough to produce a revolution. In addition 
 to the constraint of easy wealth, there is the 
 incubus of a written Constitution, devised for 
 an emergency nearly a century and a quarter 
 ago, by men afraid of democracy, for com- 
 munities which needed temporarily some auto- 
 matic political system. Between the un- 
 doubted natural resources and the supposed 
 supernatural document optimism grows rank. 
 In spite of these invitations to complacency, 
 the natural resources in some localities ap- 
 proach exhaustion, and the Constitution is be- 
 ing bent almost to the point of breaking. 
 IVIeanwhile the undisturbed American forgets 
 that both the country and the Constitution 
 grow. The hand is still the hand of Alexander 
 Hamilton, but the voice is already the voice 
 of the people. They will never know enough 
 to buy back their inheritance with a mess of 
 pottage, but they may regain it at not too 
 
 [66]
 
 The Overcomplacent American 
 
 extravagant a price if they cease their com- 
 placency. The somnolent American regards 
 politics as politics when in fact it has never 
 been anything but business. It will be recog- 
 nized as public business instead of private busi- 
 ness when it is also measured by ethics. A con- 
 sideration of the ethics of some of those 
 national problems, commonly conceived as 
 strictly economic or political, arouses the hope 
 that a constructive consciousness may succeed 
 the inertia of complacency. 
 
 A logical and convenient measure of the 
 American's excessive amiability is found in the 
 tariiF. It is a subject we can discuss without 
 fear of effective contradiction, as nobody 
 knows anything about it. There have been 
 two commissions appointed to revise the tariff, 
 whose reports have been ignored by Congress. 
 We might avail ourselves of their investiga- 
 tions, but of course, however thorough these 
 were, they are now antiquated. The present 
 commission gives promise of more light, but 
 there is no guarantee that it will be appre- 
 ciated by Congress. All the time the tariff 
 
 [67]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 bills have been constructed without regard to 
 either justice or intelligence. The customary 
 method of estimating the proper tariffs on 
 commodities imported into this country is to 
 exchange votes in the Ways and Means com- 
 mittee. The New England member has con- 
 victions about the tariff on wool, which he 
 trades for the equally sincere convictions of 
 a westerner on hides. Corrupt influences may 
 have affected the determination of certain 
 tariffs, but the tariff could be just as unfair 
 as it is unscientific were all the members voting 
 conscientiously. 
 
 The fundamental fallacy is in the assump- 
 tion that the familiar methods are wise or hon- 
 orable. Is it not just as immoral to pass a 
 tariff by ignorance as by corruption? The 
 responsibility, however, does not end with the 
 Ways and Means committee. The people of 
 the United States tolerate these methods for 
 no better reason than that they bring general 
 prosperity, or are supposed to be responsible 
 for it. The acquiescence in individual in- 
 stances is a conscious perjury of the intellect. 
 
 [68]
 
 The Over complacent American 
 
 A representative Southern lawyer, interested 
 in various industrial enterprises, has said: "I 
 am of course a traditional Free Trader, and be- 
 lieve in the ethics of Free Trade, but we need 
 the tariff on lumber." This typical testimony 
 of the overman is a little franker and more 
 admirable than the indifferent and conscience- 
 less endorsement of the people at large, but it 
 is also more intelligently responsible. 
 
 Another of the immoralities attendant on 
 the present tariff situation is that the genuine 
 Free Trader being nearly as extinct as the 
 Dodo, neither he nor the party which regards 
 itself as the defender of his theory does 
 anything whatever to make it effective. 
 During the two terms of administration by 
 the Democratic Party there was much va- 
 poring on the tariff, but not a cloud as 
 small as a man's hand indicative of any 
 change in the McKinley or Dingley tariff 
 bills. The situation is still more deplorable 
 now when a Republican tariff can only be 
 passed with the assistance of corrupt Demo- 
 cratic votes and in opposition to discriminating 
 [69]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 Republican votes. The failure to justify the 
 traditional American sense of humor was never 
 more conspicuous than in the last political cam- 
 paign, when both parties demanded the right 
 to revise the tariff because of the peculiar 
 fitness of each. The public decided that the 
 Republican Party, while more shameless in its 
 demand for this privilege, was also more 
 effective, so that the complacency of the Amer- 
 ican people on the tariff has now resulted in 
 the moral compromise that rascals who make 
 good are worthier of support than ineffectual 
 rascals. The American public has betrayed its 
 price, as unmistakably as a cheap grafting poli- 
 tician ; the price is prosperity, which, unaccom- 
 panied by justice, makes a nation of grafters. 
 The tariff may be an imposition on the con- 
 sumer, but it does produce revenue. The 
 American is equally complacent when indirectly 
 taxed without any financial return. Recupera- 
 tion from war and preparation for war provide 
 one of the most vexed financial problems for 
 us, as for other people, but even in armament- 
 ridden Europe they do not add to the burden 
 
 [70]
 
 The Overcomplacent American 
 
 of the war superstition that of pensions for 
 soldiers who never served or suffered. No 
 courageous voice is any longer raised in Con- 
 gress concerning the pension scandal. If any- 
 one whispers the suspicion that what is univer- 
 sally known may be true, it is construed into 
 an attack on the old soldiers. This is an 
 astounding case of moral obliquity. Why 
 should the soldiers or their friends think them- 
 selves insulted when it is suggested that the 
 chaff be flayed out? The leaders in this select- 
 ive process ought to be the G. A. R., who 
 should not leave it to civilians, women and 
 preachers. 
 
 Apropos, a couple of typical instances may 
 be pertinent. A man wanted to see his friend, 
 then our consul in Berlin. The latter was not 
 at liberty to visit as he was compelled, that day, 
 to pay out pensions to six hundred Germans 
 who had served in the Civil War. The dif- 
 ference in the purchasing power of money en- 
 abled them to spend the rest of their days with- 
 out giving service to native or adopted land. 
 After the Cuban War a poll was taken to de- 
 
 [71]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 termine the possible demand for pensions. Out 
 of a Georgia Regiment three who had been in- 
 jured at the front made application for pen- 
 sions. In one Massachusetts regiment, 621 
 who had never set foot in Cuba, thought they 
 might want pensions. The good old state of 
 Massachusetts has got so used to feeding at the 
 trough that its near-soldiers compared some- 
 what unfavorably with the Georgians, who 
 actually served in the Spanish War. There 
 are doubtless millions being mulcted from our 
 government annually; we do not know just 
 how much, for since the Spanish American 
 War it has been unpatriotic to protect the na- 
 tional treasury, except for the prevention of 
 necessary public improvements. No Ameri- 
 can fails to rejoice in the fact that we under- 
 take to pension those who have offered to lay 
 down their lives for their country, but what 
 right does that give us to spend public funds 
 to take care of those who only pretend to have 
 done service? 
 
 There is a still larger question than this of 
 graft. Is the man who sacrifices his life in war 
 
 [72]
 
 The Overcomplacent American 
 
 the only one who is deserving of reward? 
 What a gigantic problem it is to try to provide 
 the American people with coal! There never 
 was a war juster than this daily provision to 
 enable us to cope with the cold. Yet as the 
 miners put it, they bet three dollars a day with 
 their employers that they will escape. Three 
 hundred of these gamblers lost their lives in 
 the Cherry mine disaster. The men at Cherry 
 were employed by a company that had no ade- 
 quate capital ; its credit came from the railway 
 which bought the coal. According to the law 
 a life is valued at $5,000, but this company 
 could not pay so much. Friends of the miners, 
 in amicable relations with the officials of the 
 Company and the railroad, have agreed to com- 
 mute the indemnity on the English method. 
 If each family gets $1500, the largest amount 
 they can hope to be paid, the railway company 
 will provide the funds. This is but one-third 
 of what the law of Illinois allows, in some 
 cases not one sixth; but here is a mining com- 
 pany that can do no more, a state without any 
 adequate liability laws, a population which is 
 [73]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 absolutely dependent on these miners, and yet 
 whose citizens sit dumb and indifferent, if these 
 martyrs who offer their lives daily are not pro- 
 tected, while the chances for loss of life are 
 vastly greater in the mines than they are in any 
 American War. 
 
 Our pension system represents only a frac- 
 tion of our expenditure for war and potential 
 war. We are told we must police our nations 
 as we now police our cities; navies and armies 
 are growing everywhere. Although the 
 United States had not much trouble while it 
 was weak in armaments, they are ardently ad- 
 vocated by our loudmouthed neighbors; the 
 leaders in this noble enterprise being the most 
 bekissed American officer and the much be- 
 smirched Hearst papers. Our business men 
 might unite with business men of other nations 
 to reduce these expenses, if they were not so 
 complacent or did not profit by supplying ma- 
 terials. What does it matter whether we spend 
 a million or a hundred millions, if we sustain 
 a navy of the same relative strength to those 
 of other nations! 
 
 [74]
 
 The Overcomplacent American 
 
 Although these expenses now amount to 
 seventy per cent, of our national budget, we 
 do not feel in this country the crushing expense 
 felt in poorer nations. People like indirect 
 taxes because they do not know when these are 
 imposed. They are slowly beginning to think 
 that they furnish not only money, but lives. 
 We cannot maintain a standing army or navy 
 without inviting the shedding of blood; nor 
 can we keep men in idleness without demoral- 
 izing them. There is no barracks of celibates 
 without its vices. Part of the price we pay for 
 a standing army is in terms of feminine as well 
 as masculine degradation. 
 
 The puerile practice of spending numerous 
 millions in preparation for peace is one of the 
 most absurd results of thoughtless profit-mak- 
 ing. To tolerate having the seven great na- 
 tions of the world spend nearly a bilhon and 
 a half a year in the alleged interest of civiliza- 
 tion, is to possess the greatest modern super- 
 stition. This sum would provide industrial 
 education for all children between the ages of 
 fourteen and eighteen in these seven countries, 
 
 [75]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 and leave enough over for old age pensions for 
 all the old people over sixty-five. If the ex- 
 penditure vi^ere reduced to any reasonable police 
 proportions that our most progressive presi- 
 dent or congress might demand, there would 
 still be enough either to take care of all the old 
 people, or to educate the children for industrial 
 efficiency.^ 
 
 We have not even the excuse of patriotism 
 for carrying deadly weapons, which is more 
 common in this country than in any other. The 
 reason for this is not merely that our brutal 
 men want it, or the primitive men demand it, 
 but that our most respectable citizens have the 
 habit. The excuse of protection is vain ; more 
 lives are lost than protected by this savage cus- 
 tom. When a man in one apartment grows so 
 careless that a woman across the court in an- 
 other apartment house is shot, it seems as 
 though this form of the destruction of life has 
 reached the limit of himian endurance. If the 
 assassination of presidents Lincoln, Garfield 
 
 1 The economic defense of war is annihilated by Norman 
 Angell's Europe's Optical Illusion. 
 
 [76]
 
 The Over complacent American 
 
 and McKinley and Mayor Harrison, inspired 
 no remedy but our silly anarchist exclusion 
 act, may the unsuccessful attempt on Mayor 
 Gaynor disturb our lethargy! Federal licens- 
 ing of firearms would locate all weapons and 
 hold owners responsible; but the overcompla- 
 cent American might cry, "Centralization!" 
 
 Is it appreciated by the American that in 
 Canada three in every million lose their lives 
 by homicide, while in the .United States tlie 
 number is 129 in a million? We are over forty 
 times as destructive of human life by violence 
 as is our sister country of the same race. In 
 Chicago 590 lives were lost in the Iroquois fire. 
 Legislation was immediately put into effect, — 
 legislation which is periodically violated. Why 
 was* not the whole world protected against the 
 repetition of such a holocaust? Yet shortly 
 thereafter 200 children were burned to death in 
 East Cleveland, and 150 women and children 
 in the Boylestown, Pa., fire. The progress of 
 vicarious salvation is tedious even in Christen- 
 dom. Our chief way of recognizing the anni- 
 versary of the Declaration of Independence, is 
 
 [77]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 to take a certain number of lives and offer them 
 on the altar of boisterous patriotism. One of 
 the hopeful signs of the times is that the Amer- 
 ican people are substituting for their barbaric 
 way of celebrating the Fourth of July a peace 
 offering of genuine patriotism. Chicago, 
 Boston and other cities followed Springfield, 
 Mass., this year in substituting pageants for 
 human sacrifices. 
 
 Much of this destruction of human hfe goes 
 on in the name of progress ! The car of prog- 
 ress, it is said, must not be stopped! Are we 
 not mistaking a modern juggernaut for the 
 car of progress? Even when, in revolt against 
 such lame pretenses, the protection of human 
 life and the defense of civilization are sought 
 in legislation which is not identical with the 
 laws of other states. Immediately there is dis- 
 crimination and consequent injustice. Our 
 only w^ay to get uniform laws is to begin a 
 separate agitation in one state after another 
 and slowly gain, state by state, what federal 
 legislation could accomplish at a stroke. We 
 must get a concert of opinion among these 
 
 [78]
 
 The Overcomplacent American 
 
 states, which seems to be just as difficult as to 
 get a concert of action among European states 
 for peace. Complacency is bolstered up by 
 the accumulated inertia from years of apathy. 
 
 We need legislation, national in scope, for 
 those affairs which cannot be regulated by the 
 states; but the Constitution is difficult of revi- 
 sion ; the average American thinks it ought not 
 to be revised; and the great majority of people 
 fear the centrahzation of legislative power at 
 Washington. Instead of devising adequate 
 machinery to deal with the domestic problems 
 of the United States, the federal maid-of -all- 
 work is now the Interstate Commerce Commis- 
 sion. It is supposed to supplement our anti- 
 quated constitution by controlling every new 
 expression of twentieth century civilization, 
 from the revolt against upper berths in sleep- 
 ing cars to the development of correspondence 
 schools. 
 
 There are some people, it is true, who com- 
 plain that the Interstate Commerce Commis- 
 sion is already over-burdened. It is now the 
 custom to ask them to do everything which 
 [79]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 nobody else has done, or will do, and they un- 
 complainingly undertake these functions. Is 
 it not in strict accordance with the best Amer- 
 ican tradition to relieve cabinet officials. Con- 
 gress, and the state legislatures, not to mention 
 citizens, of all their obligations, and impose 
 these upon some newly created body? It has 
 been seriously proposed to put upon this com- 
 mission the regulation of child labor, by having 
 it forbid the acceptance by the railways of the 
 products of child labor when they reach state 
 lines. In lieu of an amendment to the con- 
 stitution, or the exercise of federal police 
 power, the children of the nation are to be 
 stunted physically, mentally, and morally, un- 
 less the poor old Interstate Commerce Conmiis- 
 sion can reach them indirectly. 
 
 We have had some embarrassment because 
 our curious division of functions between the 
 states and the nation has prevented our mak- 
 ing proper reparation to European countries 
 for crimes, like those at New Orleans, com- 
 mitted in an individual state. Why not re- 
 quire the I. C. C. to refuse transportation 
 
 [80]
 
 The Overcomplacent American 
 
 across the state line to any of the inhabitants 
 of Louisiana until reparation has been made. 
 We are also troubled by the varieties of mar- 
 riage and divorce laws among the several 
 states. Why not have the I. C. C. forbid the 
 railways to transport divorcees across political 
 boundaries. 
 
 If we cannot have federal registration and 
 regulation of firearms, why not have the I. C. 
 C. prohibit the railways carrying concealed 
 deadly weapons, including, perhaps, defective 
 locomotive boilers, airbrakes, couplers, and car- 
 heaters. It might even be within reason to 
 expect the inclusion of exposed instruments of 
 torture, such as news-agents. Then there are 
 the growing problems of old age pensions, in- 
 come taxes, consumption, prize fights, and the 
 many other difficulties, illy regulated because 
 of the curious political divisions of the United 
 States. It might even be worth considering 
 whether the difficulty of disciplining docile con- 
 gressmen could not be met by having the rail- 
 ways refuse to carry them across the state lines 
 to Washington until they consent to represent 
 [81]
 
 Democracy arid the Overman 
 
 their constituents, instead of truckling to the 
 Speaker of the House. 
 
 The average American accepts municipal 
 misgovernment as though it were inherent in 
 American character. His general attitude to- 
 ward all subsequent public improvements is 
 that they must be conditioned on the accept- 
 ance of perpetual corruption. Even earnest 
 municipal reformers have tried to plan char- 
 ters which would act on the body politic as 
 antiseptics instead of tonics. The American 
 finds it hard to believe that any other city is 
 better governed than his own. He discredits 
 the reports which come from a half hundred 
 or more American cities which are now being 
 governed by the "commission" plan. He ac- 
 counts for the superior government of Euro- 
 pean cities by the difference in the character 
 of the people and the prevalence of monarchical 
 institutions. The fact that the cities of Great 
 Britain, France, and Switzerland are controlled 
 with much more democracy than those in Amer- 
 ica is either unknown or inexplicable to him. 
 That there are many cities in South America 
 
 [82]
 
 The Overcomplacent American 
 
 the government of which would put to shame 
 any city of the United States he does not know 
 and would not believe. Is there no other ade- 
 quate explanation of this American attitude 
 except that we are not intelligent enough to 
 govern ourselves? We have not known 
 enough, it is true, but we do not lack the ca- 
 pacity for knowledge; we might learn if we 
 were not so ridiculously overcomplacent. The 
 present rapid advance of the American city is 
 due to our partial recovery from this benumb- 
 ing self-satisfaction. 
 
 The attitude of the comfortable person is 
 nowhere more conspicuously futile than in his 
 conception of penal institutions. The moral 
 sense of the people of this country demands 
 the punishment of offenders, although without 
 giving any special thought to the connection 
 between the magnitude of the offense and the 
 penalty. The easy going American, who pos- 
 sesses a virtue which has never been tested, 
 finds it so difficult to understand the provoca- 
 tion to crime that he is indifferent to the fate 
 of the criminal. He does not know that most 
 
 [83]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 penal institutions promote crime rather than 
 hinder it; or, that the delays of the law are 
 more responsible for the encouragement of 
 criminals than original sin ; or, that the graver 
 the offense, the less the likelihood of punish- 
 ment. A twentieth century advance has been 
 made by the United States Supreme Court in 
 deciding that the punishment must be related 
 to the offense. 
 
 Only a small fraction of homicidal crimes 
 are ever punished and some of these, by lynch- 
 ing the culprit, or someone else, involve the 
 brutalizing of hundreds of people. In the city 
 of Cairo, Illinois, clergymen defended the mob 
 leaders on the ground that justice was dilatory. 
 While the uncaught criminal is treated with 
 unwarranted generosity, those who are caught 
 receive punishment of undue severity. France 
 does not punish civil offenders for the first 
 infraction of law, but gives a parole for three 
 years. If another offense is committed within 
 that time, the penalty is doubled. In a few 
 cities only have we adopted such a wise system 
 even for juvenile offenders, for we do not yet 
 
 [84]
 
 The Overcomplacent American 
 
 see that leniency plus promptness in the appli- 
 cation of the law is infinitely superior to sever- 
 ity with delay in enforcement. 
 
 In addition to this evidence of carelessness, 
 indifference, and inhumanity, it is still true 
 that people without money have difficulty in 
 securing justice through the courts. The poor 
 are constantly harassed by their creditors and 
 frequently, under threat of the law, compelled 
 to pay their debts over and over again, while 
 they cannot make good their claims against 
 individuals or organizations for injuries to 
 body or property. They have not even the 
 same facility in securing divorce as the wealthy. 
 They cannot defend themselves against unjust 
 taxation. The small number of people who 
 secure damage claims against corporations, 
 with the assistance of sympathetic juries, is in- 
 consequent compared with the mass of people 
 to whom the law is unjust. The old English 
 couplet is as applicable to-day as when the 
 poor man was being driven by the enclosure 
 acts to make way for the rich man's sheep: 
 "The law locks up the man or woman who 
 
 [85]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 steals the goose from off the common, but lets 
 the greater villain loose who steals the common 
 off the goose." Stealing fowl may still be 
 punished even in the Black Belt, but stealing 
 Africa or Alaska has, hitherto, been done with 
 impunity. 
 
 Overcomplacency extends to that industrial 
 life where Americans are so strenuous. It is 
 still the tradition that competition is the life 
 of trade. This is a self-evident truth when 
 competition is free, which, as everyone knows, 
 rarely happens to-day. Very few of the big 
 economic organizations of the day are com- 
 peting, or they compete merely for excellence 
 after prices are regulated. This, it is true, is 
 a superior form of competition, approaching 
 the emulation of the future, but it is not the 
 competition which the superstitious regard as 
 the life of trade. If one wishes to go from 
 Chicago to various points west, he will find a 
 choice of excellent trains, the best in the coun- 
 try, but the time and the cost of tickets are the 
 same on all roads. What is happening on the 
 railways is characteristic of the twentieth cen- 
 
 [86]
 
 The Overcomplacent 'American 
 
 tury method of pools, combinations and trusts. 
 It is inevitable that progressive industrial or- 
 ganizations, antagonized by the reactionaries, 
 should be misunderstood by the overcompla- 
 cent. What is needed now is not a revival of 
 eighteenth century competition but the regula- 
 tion of monopoly. Could anything better hap- 
 pen for the life of the country than the unifica- 
 tion of all the railways under uniform control? 
 Railwaymen and statesmen may dispute as to 
 the form of regulation but legislators must 
 stop trying to enforce artificial competition. 
 
 The progressive overman must obey the law, 
 but the overcomplacent citizen must make the 
 law progressive. * 
 
 Much of the legislation to secure justice in 
 railway rates is ill-advised because of the 
 greater necessity for improved service. Double 
 tracks, safety devices, union stations, and good 
 operation are more immediate than "two cents 
 a mile," and do not necessarily prevent that re- 
 duction of rates which will encourage enough 
 increased travel to pay for all added expenses. 
 The Cleveland street railway system seems to 
 [87]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 be run at a profit on a three-cent fare without 
 injury to the service, but in most metropoHtan 
 communities the first need is for a unified sys- 
 tem, and in all cities a reduced rate is less im- 
 perative than enough cars to provide seats for 
 the passengers at rush hours. Perhaps the 
 people should have the choice of cheap fares or 
 good accommodations, but the vast majority 
 of American citizens and most statesmen and 
 publicists have been sitting calmly by waiting 
 for men hke Tom Johnson to work out, in sweat 
 and blood, the solution of the transportation 
 problem. 
 
 The examples of overcomplacency are im- 
 material. Its application is not limited to the 
 tariff, pensions, industrial accidents, army and 
 navy, the destruction of fife, federal and state 
 legislation, municipal mis-government, penal 
 institutions, and the competition of trade. 
 Like the hook-worm, it threatens to undermine 
 the constitution of the nation and induces a 
 lassitude, which regards with indifference the 
 great fundamental issues. A correct diag- 
 nosis of this grave American ailment discovers 
 
 [88]
 
 The Overcomplacent American 
 
 its cause in the rich resources of our country, 
 making hfe easy, and the antiquated federal 
 constitution, obscuring the civic vision. As the 
 Chicago Tribune puts it: "Truth, crushed to 
 earth, was rising, but with exceeding slowness. 
 'Why should I hurry, anyhow?' said Truth. 
 'The poet says the "eternal years" are mine.' 
 With which lame excuse she also justified her- 
 self for never quite catching up with a fugitive 
 Lie." 
 
 The corrective for overcomplacency, as for 
 other forms of lethargy, is starvation. Jeshu- 
 ran has waxed too fat to kick. A prolonged 
 industrial depression would doubtless make 
 people think. It might be possible to obviate 
 the necessity for such a drastic remedy by 
 inoculating the American people with the virus 
 of fearless thought. The first moral responsi- 
 bility of intelligent Americans is to abandon 
 their overcomplacency long enough to reason 
 independently of purse or superstition. They 
 will then find the nation's wealth neither in 
 hard rock nor dry document. They will be 
 convinced "that the true veins of wealth are 
 
 1891
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 purple — and not in Rock but in Flesh — per- 
 haps even that the final outcome and consum- 
 mation of all wealth is in the producing as 
 many as possible full-breathed, bright-eyed, 
 and happy-hearted human creatures." 
 
 [90]
 
 THE OVERTHROWN 
 SUPERSTITION OF SEX
 
 CHAPTER IV; 
 
 THE OVERTHROWN SUPERSTITION OF SEX 
 
 THE day of the woman is dawning; the 
 superstition of sex is overthrown. The 
 arrival of the day of the woman does not 
 guarantee that all the women have arrived; 
 rather that the men have noted her arrival. 
 The National Conference of Charities and 
 Corrections has chosen Jane Addams for its 
 first woman president, but we are not so moved 
 as when women were first admitted to the plat- 
 forms of anti-slavery meetings, despite the ob- 
 jections of riotous reformers. Children, 
 church and cuisine no longer monopolize the 
 energies of the modern, healthy woman, be- 
 cause the major part of her household activities 
 have been eliminated by the industrial revolu- 
 tion. There is not enough domestic work for 
 [93]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 all of woman's time, any more than there is 
 agricultural work for man. 
 
 The leisure which may be enjoyed by a con- 
 temporary woman, while neglecting neither 
 domestic labors nor the rearing of children, is 
 typically represented by the Boston woman 
 whose husband left her an interest and respon- 
 sibilities in the catering establishment of a great 
 railway station. She helped to administer 
 this, until she sold out to become a stockbroker, 
 without interfering with her social and public 
 activities, which include the promotion of local 
 educational interests, an executive position in 
 a large fraternal organization, equal-suffrage 
 and international peace propaganda, and other 
 similar "outside" activities, while she is inci- 
 dentally the mother of ten and a grandmother 
 — at forty! A New York woman, after hav- 
 ing had six children, has turned lawj^er, and 
 although one of her three grown sons is in the 
 same profession, she has gone to Europe to 
 assist in settling an estate for New York cli- 
 ents. The controversy between two opera 
 singers as to the possibility of being a good 
 
 [94]
 
 The Overthrown Superstition of Sex 
 
 artist and having children at the same time, is 
 answered to the satisfaction of the newspapers 
 by a photograph of Mme. Louise Homer's 
 twins. Why should they hamper professional 
 success when Mme. Schumann-Heink is the 
 mother of eight children! 
 
 The endurance of mothers has been so long 
 familiar that the masculine mind quite gener- 
 ally forgets it while thinking complacently of 
 the "weaker sex." It excites little comment to 
 have a few children, but the athletic acliieve- 
 ments of the contemporary Amazon stun the 
 sex of brawn. Mrs. Hovey, who has recently 
 described her ascent of La Soufriere, the vol- 
 cano of INIartinique, was onty the first woman 
 to make the ascent, having been followed by 
 Madame La Croix. This is less astounding 
 than the mountain-climbing of Mrs. Workman, 
 involving among others a mountain in Turke- 
 stan twenty -one thousand feet high. Yet this 
 pales before the virgin feats of Miss Annie 
 Peck in the Andes. 
 
 INIuch of the feminine energy let loose by 
 modern domestic improvements is being util- 
 [95]
 
 Democracy arid the Overman 
 
 ized in women's clubs. The heraldic sign of 
 the age is the club-woman rampant, and she is, 
 when most unconscious of it, a powerful lib- 
 erator. The conditions that make club organ- 
 izations, rather than the results achieved by 
 them, mark the day of the woman. While 
 women's clubs are modern — revolutionary in 
 fact — we have already become so accustomed 
 to them that we forget how they evidence the 
 subtle undermining of conservatism. The idle 
 woman of the metropolis, feebly imitating man 
 in her social club, may be in process of eman- 
 cipation, but the patent evidence of the ascent 
 of woman is in the tacit recognition of human 
 merit in the female. She is no longer merely 
 captivating, but, at last, really competing with 
 man and complementing him. 
 
 It is not surprising that a woman is president 
 of a Bureau of Social Requirements in New 
 York. Neither is it a mark of the new age 
 that ]Mrs. Osborn opened a tea-shop or ]\Irs. 
 Gou\'erneur JMorris a toy-shop, or that Mary 
 Elizabeth makes candies. These are distinctly 
 feminine occupations, and it is much more sig- 
 [90]
 
 The Overthrown Superstition of Sex 
 
 nificant to learn that the president of Mount 
 Holyoke College has stepped into a new presi- 
 dent's house completely furnished by two 
 women designers, and that in New York, Chi- 
 cago, Louisville, Harrisburg, Boise, Idaho, and 
 elsewhere, women have no difficulty in compet- 
 ing with men in the decoration and furnishing 
 of houses and public buildings. Since an en- 
 ergetic woman without children ( and even em- 
 perors and presidents will probably admit that 
 women should not be compelled to have chil- 
 dren) can no longer employ all of her time in 
 the decoration of her own house, it is logical 
 that she should follow the industrial revolution 
 into avenues related to domestic occupations. 
 The inventive faculty, commonly and prop- 
 erly supposed to be masculine, is most naturally 
 directed to domestic advantage when possessed 
 by a woman. A new mechanical device for a 
 woman's work-basket, invented by a woman, 
 is less surprising to-day than was the fact that 
 Mrs. Nancy M. Johnson, of Washington, was 
 the first person to take out a patent for an ice- 
 cream freezer, in 1843, selling the right for 
 [97]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 $41,000; yet both of these inventions pertain 
 to woman's traditional occupations. The 
 broom has been an accepted symbol of woman's 
 sovereignty in all ages, but Mrs. Bissell has 
 found a successful business career, not by 
 sweeping cobwebs from the sky, but with the 
 purely mundane carpet-sweeper. 
 
 The latest developments mark the new day 
 by completely ignoring the economic traditions 
 of woman. Women are serving as guides in 
 Maine; there is a woman wireless operator on 
 a steamship on Puget Sound ; another is a pilot 
 on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers ; the grand- 
 daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton is a civil 
 and hydraulic engineer, a member of the Amer- 
 ican Society of Civil Engineers. There have 
 been many women school principals and super- 
 intendents, but the choice of a feminine super- 
 intendent of the Chicago schools, by a "busi- 
 ness" administration of men, puts this 
 responsible office in a new category, which re- 
 ceived added recognition in her election to the 
 presidency of the National Education Asso- 
 ciation. 
 
 [98]
 
 The Overthrown Superstition of Sex 
 
 The frank adoption of masculine methods, 
 in order to beat the men at their own game, is 
 modestly exemplified by the young Bryn 
 Mawr graduate who published the following 
 enticing advertisement : 
 
 "Situation wanted — Are you looking for brains? For 
 an experienced correspondent who can write convincing 
 letters, letters that get what they are sent to get? A 
 clever woman who can write clever ads or clever talks 
 on any subject and from any point of view? Some 
 one expert in the use of stenography and typewriting? 
 A hybrid from the university and business world? One 
 who knows people and conditions and who can meet all 
 combinations of the two with unwreckable savoir faire?. 
 That describes me exactly. Address B. A., 281, 
 Tribune." 
 
 Is it surprising that she was swamped with 
 answers? 
 
 Women who attain success in the most mas- 
 culine of industries and financial positions are 
 evidently multiplying. The statistician who 
 prepares the annual report on the cotton crop 
 for the Government is a woman, who is said 
 to have increased her income from eight dollars 
 [99]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 a week to ten thousand dollars a year. Tren- 
 ton, New Jersey, has recently reported fifteen 
 business women whose occupations are scarcely 
 feminine. They include barbering, wholesale 
 tobacco, real estate, undertaking, pharmacy, 
 jewelry, piano-dealing, insurance, shoe-repair- 
 ing, banking, and charcoal. South Chicago's 
 situation is more spectacular, if less creditable. 
 In addition to women doctors and police, a 
 woman runs the worst saloon and another the 
 best undertaking establishment, so that from 
 birth to death, even by "the broad way that 
 leadeth to destruction," a feminine hand may 
 guide. It is only just to South Chicago to 
 observe that a woman is injecting educational 
 "lectures" into its vaudeville houses, following 
 the example of a talented woman in Boston 
 who conducts the most progressive cheap the- 
 ater. 
 
 Reassurance may be found in Des Moines, 
 Iowa, which has a life insurance company 
 whose president is a woman. The vice-presi- 
 dent of a large insurance company is reported 
 to pay a salary of twelve thousand dollars to 
 [100]
 
 The Overthrown Superstition of Sex 
 
 a woman assistant who began as his stenog- 
 rapher, after renouncing school-teaching. 
 The mother of three sons and a daughter is 
 the owner and manager of the Boston Store in 
 Chicago, which represents an investment of 
 fifteen millions and the emploj^ment of 3,000 
 people. Since her husband died six years ago, 
 she has added a twelve-story fire-proof struc- 
 ture, increasing the size of the store four times. 
 The president of the Herrman Lumber and 
 Furniture Companies, a woman, pays three 
 thousand men two million dollars annually in 
 wages. These instances may be exceptional, 
 but obviously business women are more numer- 
 ous, as not only statistics, but the increase of 
 business women's clubs and leagues in various 
 cities indicate. 
 
 INIore momentous for the future of the sex 
 is the astounding increase in the number of 
 women employed in industries, the five million 
 women workers in the United States being 
 found in two hundred and ninety-five of the 
 three hundred and three occupations listed in 
 the last census. Even more remarkable than 
 [101]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 the extent of their employment is the propor- 
 tionally larger increase of women wage-earn- 
 ers. The number of women gainfully em- 
 ployed and the number of women employed in 
 each of the five large occupational groups 
 have increased at a greater rate per cent, than 
 the total population, the total male population, 
 or the total female population. Most curi- 
 ously, the increase is not in traditionally fem- 
 inine activities, for the percentage of increase 
 between 1890 and 1900 was greater for men 
 than for women in the following occupations: 
 launderers and laundresses, servants and wait- 
 resses, cotton-mill operatives, dressmakers, mil- 
 liners, seamstresses, tailors and tailoresses. 
 Men are supplanting women as women sup- 
 plant men. Instead of determining sex char- 
 acteristics by old wives' fables or the preposses- 
 sions of gentlemen of the old school, economic 
 functions are being adapted to individual pro- 
 ficiency. The perennial discussion of equal 
 pay for men's and women's work, whatever 
 may be its economic and social results, testifies 
 to the power of women in the new order to 
 [102]
 
 The Overthrown Superstition of Seoo 
 
 raise hitherto undreamed of questions, as does 
 also the organization of women into unions 
 with men or by themselves. The success of 
 the Women's Trade Union League is largely 
 due to the fact that working-women have the 
 assistance of a larger number of "emancipated" 
 members of their own sex than working-men. 
 Women are not only becoming a factor in 
 the industrial world, they are making new con- 
 tributions to all other human interests. The 
 professions include women now as college pro- 
 fessors, clergymen, doctors, lawyers, archi- 
 tects, landscape architects, even engineers. 
 There are said to be two hundred and fifty 
 women physicians in New York City. This 
 perhaps is not so surprising as that a colored 
 woman graduate of the Philadelphia Woman's 
 Medical College has been admitted to the prac- 
 tice of medicine in South Carolina. Women 
 are serving as sanitary inspectors and super- 
 intendents of street-cleaning and refuse-dis- 
 posal in Chicago, Boston, and elsewhere. It is 
 not generally known that Mrs. Ellen M. Rich- 
 ards, of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
 [103]
 
 T>einocracy and the Overman 
 
 nology, has the distinction of having trained 
 most of the sanitary engineers in the United 
 States. 
 
 Perhaps the most interesting phenomenon 
 of the moment is the endeavor of women in 
 private Hfe to do pubHc work left undone by 
 men and to do it without any of the prestige of 
 poHtical independence. The Woman's Forum 
 of New York, discontented with the mere dis- 
 cussion of pubhc questions in which they are 
 not supposed to participate, have undertaken 
 an investigation of the bread-hne which dis- 
 graces the alleged civilization of the metrop- 
 olis. A talented woman la^\yer begging 
 organized but unenfranchised women to coop- 
 erate with the chairman of the Committee on 
 Vagrancy is an anomaly which could not have 
 been witnessed in an earlier stage of the world's 
 development. 
 
 The confusion regarding woman's present 
 function ought to be relieved by the successful 
 municipal housekeeping experiments being 
 conducted throughout the country. Even in 
 disfranchised Washington, D. C, a city house- 
 [104]
 
 The Overthrown Superstition of Sex 
 
 cleaning crusade has been inspired by the 
 women, which has resulted in the cleaning of 
 3,700 vacant lots, 500 private alleys and 10,000 
 cellars, wood-sheds and back yards. Many 
 cities in the South and West have an annual 
 spring cleaning day, conducted by the women, 
 doing work which is, of course, logically femi- 
 nine, but which can be done adequately only 
 by the public authorities. 
 
 The Business Men's League of New Or- 
 leans has given Miss Kate M. Gordon a gold 
 medal in recognition of her services to the city 
 as president of the Woman's Drainage and 
 Sewerage League. It was largely through 
 her efforts that the women of New Orleans 
 got tax suffrage, and, as president of the 
 Drainage and Sewerage League, she is said to 
 have cast more votes than any other citizafibf 
 the United States. The women, if they so 
 prefer, may vote by proxy. Miss Gordon, it 
 is declared, cast more than one hundred of 
 these proxy votes. 
 
 National attention has been attracted to the 
 pubHc services of Miss Kate Barnard Com- 
 [105]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 missioner of Charities and Corrections for 
 Oklahoma. She had so much more to do with 
 the framing of the new constitution than any- 
 other one person that she was, despite her own 
 protests and those of conventional politicians, 
 well-nigh unanimously chosen for a position 
 which was created for her. Miss Barnard, 
 whose feminine instincts have given her a 
 vision of the possibilities of democracy in this 
 frontier State, was, however, so hampered by 
 the laborious masculine logic of her grateful 
 supporters that she had to acquiesce in the pop- 
 ular belief that there is no need of the ballot 
 so long as men do everything a woman wants. 
 The imaginary line between public and pri- 
 vate life is so much clearer in the mind of the 
 average American than it is in fact, that social 
 organization, although hampered by curious 
 political limitations, moves forward more rap- 
 idly than popular thought. When it becomes 
 recognized that constitutions, charters and 
 laws must be fitted to the public work to be 
 done rather than the work conformed to exist- 
 ing statutes, the chief objection to the public 
 [106]
 
 The Overthrown Superstition of Sex 
 
 activity of women will be automatically re- 
 moved. It is certainly a violation of all the 
 precious sentiments of chivalry and political 
 superstition that eighty thousand public docu- 
 ments should have been signed by the hand of 
 a woman in the year 1908, with the name of 
 iTheodore Roosevelt. 
 
 This form of the feminine invasion is em- 
 phasized by the Des Moines (Iowa) Capital: 
 
 "Women were not slow to take advantage of tfie op- 
 portunities created by the promulgation of the civil 
 service law in 1883, and their endeavors to secure Fed- 
 eral places have increased rather than diminished since 
 that time. Unlike men, their efforts are confined almost 
 wholly to securing appointment through competitive ex- 
 amination, inasmuch as political appointments are still 
 closed to them. Women make a considerably better 
 showing in examinations. Taking the stenographer- 
 typewriter examination as an index, an examination that 
 is conceded to be the most difficult clerical examination 
 offered by the civil service commission, recent statistics 
 show that of the women taking the examination fifty 
 per cent, passed, while but forty-seven per cent, of the 
 men were so fortunate. In the examination for depart- 
 mental clerks, seventy-four per cent, of the women passed 
 and but fifty per cent, of the men." 
 
 [107]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 A more conspicuous denial of tradition is 
 found in the appointment of women detectives 
 and police. Chicago, New York and Bayonne, 
 New Jersey, are among the places thus served 
 by women. 
 
 With this steady march of the logic of events, 
 it is not surprising that the agitation for equal 
 suffrage has grown more vigorous and the op- 
 position more desperate. The Woman's 
 Municipal Leagues of New York and Boston, 
 organized to instruct the women in civic affairs, 
 and console them, by the privilege of public 
 service, for the denial of the ballot, are proving 
 so efficient that the anti-suffragists' claim of 
 woman's incompetency seems threatened in the 
 house of its friends. 
 
 The American claim that woman enjoys ex- 
 ceptional privileges here which vitiate the suf- 
 frage movement overlooks the necessity of 
 balancing certain privileges against the lack 
 of others. The State Senate of California de- 
 feated the equal guardianship bill the other 
 day. Considering the youth and freshness of 
 this Western State, such an action is in painful 
 [108]
 
 The Overthrown Superstition of Seoc 
 
 contrast with the multiphcation of women 
 parish and municipal councilors in Great 
 Britain, the extension of municipal suffrage 
 to propertyless Norwegian women, the recent 
 election of seven women out of forty-two 
 municipal councilors at Copenhagen, the 
 women in the Parliament of Finland, and the 
 astounding rapidity of the development of the 
 feminist movement in Turkey. A writer on 
 the Young Turk movement furnishes this 
 eye-opener: "It may sound heretical to say that 
 the better class of Turkish women are the su- 
 periors of American women in cultivation. 
 Well educated and with more leisure, since they 
 do not have to spend so much of their time as 
 their civilized sisters in frivolous pursuits, they 
 give their attention to thinking." From the 
 promotion of a feminine federation of South 
 African aborigines, to the free participation 
 of women in the political affairs of Australasia 
 it seems to be true that "there is no speech nor 
 language where their voice is not heard. Their 
 line is gone out through all the earth, and their 
 words to the end of the world." 
 [109]
 
 democracy and the Overman 
 
 Equally significant, and for the Western 
 world more immediately hopeful, is the en- 
 trance of women into all worthy human activi- 
 ties. The five million women wage-earners in 
 the United States are not unique. There are six 
 million in Great Britain ! The successful busi- 
 ness and professional women of America rep- 
 resent only the translation into our industrial 
 country of the familiar women hotel-keepers 
 and landed proprietors of Europe. In the 
 realm of hygiene the trained nurse and the 
 doctor are supplemented by the multitudes of 
 women who are contributing to public health 
 through hospitals, day nurseries, and the tuber- 
 culosis, pure food and other agitations. 
 
 In the social world woman is not only hold- 
 ing her time-honored position, but is learning 
 the art of organization. Her entrance into 
 political life is so rapid that the reluctant pa-- 
 pers must chronicle new accomplishments 
 almost daily. In the artistic world there is lit- 
 tle to add except numerically, for woman has 
 always had her place there. The intellectual 
 life not only affords the distingushed examples 
 [110]
 
 The Overthrown Superstition of Sex 
 
 which have for all the centuries been evident, 
 but the newer democratic forms of education 
 meet with an even heartier response from 
 women than from men. The competition of 
 women has become so serious that several co- 
 educational colleges have adopted segregation 
 for the protection of the men. The predomi- 
 nance of girls in high schools has been the chief 
 factor in introducing those manual subjects 
 which are responsible for the increase in the 
 attendance of the boys. No season now passes 
 without some distinguished additions to the list 
 of honors conferred by the universities on 
 accomphshed women, and thereby on them- 
 selves, of which the degrees given to Julia 
 Ward Howe and Jane Addams are notable in- 
 stances. 
 
 In the moral and religious life women have 
 been traditionally faithful. But the new day 
 is characterized by feminine leadership of phil- 
 anthropic and religious institutions, including 
 many preachers in liberal churches and more 
 than one conspicuous founder of a new religion. 
 Still more significant is the gradual establish- 
 
 [111]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 ment of a common code of morals for both 
 sexes. Years ago the Women's Christian 
 Temperance Union, with a foresight not 
 always characteristic of its tactics, gave im- 
 petus to the contemporary tendency, which is 
 not feminist but human, in stating such prin- 
 ciples as: 
 
 "We believe that God created both man and woman in 
 His own image, and, therefore, we believe in one stand- 
 ard of purity for both men and women, and in the equal 
 right of all to hold opinions and to express the same 
 with equal freedom. 
 
 "We believe in a living wage; in an eight-hour day; 
 in courts of conciliation and arbitration; in justice as 
 opposed to greed of gain; in ' peace on earth and good 
 will to men.' " 
 
 The day of the woman is not the day of her 
 economic or political or intellectual recogni- 
 tion; it is not the day of the insinuation of a 
 spurious superiority; it is not the day of defec- 
 tion from her prehistoric function ; it is the day 
 of the rejection of the superstition of sex and 
 the acceptance of her common humanity. 
 
 [112]
 
 THE OVERDUE WAGES OF THE 
 OVERMAN'S WIFE
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE OVERDUE WAGES OF THE OVERMAN'S WIFE 
 
 THE curse of the overman is mastery with- 
 out service. His standard being busi- 
 ness, not Hfe, he has a pecuniary meas- 
 ure for labor, art, education, statecraft, 
 moraHty or even wifehood. He is chivakous 
 and conventional, but neither just nor demo- 
 cratic, industrially the master of men but so- 
 cially the slave of tradition. Tradition esti- 
 mates woman by her value to man, not to the 
 race. The most famous description of a virtu- 
 ous woman, and one accepted equally by both 
 sexes, is that which has been attributed to Sol- 
 omon's mother: 
 
 "Who can find a virtuous woman, for her 
 price is far above rabies." (The patriarchal 
 estimate of virtue is thus evident.) 
 
 "The heart of her husband shall safely ti*ust 
 
 [115]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 in her so that he shall have no need of spoil." 
 (Thus removing the temptation which con- 
 fronts the modern money king, who must pro- 
 vide for his ambitious wife's "conspicuous con- 
 sumption.") 
 
 "She will do him good and not evil all the 
 days of her life. She seeketh wool and flax 
 and worketh willingly with her hands. She is 
 like the merchantships. She bringeth her food 
 from afar." (Thus she not only tends the 
 cattle and the fields, for the sake of both cloth- 
 ing and food, but she goes to the distant 
 market. ) 
 
 "She riseth also while it is yet night and 
 giveth meat to her household, and a portion to 
 her maidens." (Early hours are quite indis- 
 pensable in view of the extent of her labors.) 
 
 "She considereth a field and buyeth it. 
 With the fruit of her hands she planteth a vine- 
 yard." (Her economies are not only suffi- 
 cient for the needs of the household, but pro- 
 vide a surplus for investment.) 
 
 "She girdeth her loins with strength and 
 strengtheneth her arms." ( She has neither the 
 [116]
 
 Wages of the Overman^s Wife 
 
 time nor the need for the physical culture or 
 the medical aid demanded by the prosperous 
 woman of to-day.) 
 
 "She perceiveth that her merchandise is 
 good, her candle goeth not out by night." 
 (Obviously because of her addiction to heavy 
 work, not light literature.) 
 
 *'She layeth her hands to the spindle and her 
 hands hold the distaff." (Thus finding occu- 
 pation for the winter as well as for the sum- 
 mer.) 
 
 "She stretcheth out her hands to the poor, 
 yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy." 
 (Even in those early and active days she found 
 leisure for charity.) 
 
 "She is not afraid of the snow for her house- 
 hold, for all her household are clothed with 
 double garments. She maketh herself cover- 
 ings of tapestry, her clothing is silk and pur- 
 ple." ( She was able to provide not only com- 
 forts for her family but luxuries for herself.) 
 
 "Her husband is known in the gates when 
 he sitteth among the elders of the land." (All 
 this time husband seems to have been absent 
 [117]
 
 'Democracy and the Overman 
 
 at the legislature, representing as women might 
 have thought, in anticipation of Matthew 
 Arnold, "that power not ourselves that makes 
 for [un] righteousness.") 
 
 "She maketh fine linen and selleth it and de- 
 livereth girdles unto the merchants." (She 
 not only dispenses with the need of a husband's 
 support, but also has such excess of product 
 that she can engage in a mercantile occupation, 
 which helps to account for her ability to buy 
 fields and to permit her husband to spend his 
 time among the elders.) 
 
 "Strength and honor are her clothing and 
 she shall rejoice in time to come." (Presum- 
 ably she did not have much time to rejoice 
 while engaged in these various occupations. ) 
 
 "She openeth her mouth with wisdom and 
 in her tongue is the law of kindness. She 
 looketh to the ways of her household and eat- 
 eth not the bread of idleness." (In fact, even 
 from the masculine point of view, she seems in- 
 dustrious.) 
 
 "Her children arise up and call her blessed. 
 [118]
 
 Wages of the Overman s Wife 
 
 Her husband also, and he praiseth her." 
 (Praise seems to have been an afterthought 
 on the part of husband, but certainly credit- 
 able, considering his preoccupation with the 
 statesmen. ) 
 
 "Many daughters have done virtuously." 
 (The marginal reading is "have gotten riches" 
 which throws light on the attitude of both the 
 original author and the King James' trans- 
 lators, after an interval of twenty-five cen- 
 turies. ) "But thou excellest them all. Favor 
 is deceitful and beauty is vain but the woman 
 that feareth the Lord she shall be praised. 
 Give her the fruit of her hands and let her own 
 works praise her in the gates." (This con- 
 descending attitude of the philosopher king, 
 while characteristic of chivalry in all ages, 
 seems not to have been followed to its logical 
 conclusion. While her works are still allowed 
 to praise her in the gates, or among the elders 
 of the legislature; in lieu of any voice in her 
 own government they still refuse to give her 
 of the fruit of her hands.) 
 [119]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 There has been skepticism in an unbeheving 
 generation as to the riches of Solomon, and 
 comparisons to his disadvantage have been 
 made with the money kings of to-day. But 
 the riches of Solomon are easily understood 
 when one reads this description of a virtuous 
 woman and remembers that in addition to three 
 hundred concubines, he was said to have seven 
 hundred such virtuous wives. The higher crit- 
 icism may rob Solomon of the authorship of 
 the Proverbs or the possession of one thou- 
 sand wives, but it cannot dispute the continued 
 acceptance of this ideal of a virtuous woman 
 of three thousand years ago. She is still 
 allowed to rejoice in the fact that "virtue is 
 its own reward." 
 
 This hypothetical paragon of Solomon 
 would have been an economic dependent, 
 legally subject to man, gaining spiritual ends 
 by circumlocution and hypocrisy, as truly as 
 her leisured and less mythical sisters of to- 
 day. In the course of the ages it has become 
 less necessary to pursue this Solomonic inquiry 
 than to join the search of Diogenes. Woman 
 [120]
 
 Wages of the Overman's Wife 
 
 has been emancipated from most of these do- 
 mestic obligations. With rehef from them 
 there have come increasing leisure, education, 
 social activity, and industrial latitude, but as 
 yet no relation between service and income. 
 
 In spite of these advances, which are almost 
 exclusively modern, the majority of women 
 remain economically dependent. A woman's 
 intellectual and social possibilities are condi- 
 tioned primarily by her husband's income. The 
 million dollar wife married to the thousand 
 dollar man may be uncommon, but less strik- 
 ing discrepancies to her disadvantage are usual. 
 Even the wife of little capacity united to the 
 man of wealth is unable to lead her normal life 
 because she is usually regarded as a toy. The 
 difficulty is not only that woman is dependent 
 on man, nor that each woman is dependent on 
 one man, but all of a woman's rich nature, the 
 sum total of her personality, is dependent upon 
 one man's income. 
 
 Men are paid a certain amount of money for 
 specified labors. Wives have no claim upon 
 any definite sum ; they are dependent upon the 
 [121]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 generosity of husbands. Happily this seems 
 adequate in most cases. Indeed it is quite the 
 custom among workingmen to turn over all 
 the family revenue into the hands of the wife. 
 Among educated people it is not uncommon 
 to determine the disposition of the purse be- 
 forehand, that disposition to remain through 
 life. But the husband is the treasurer, doling 
 out the amount which may be at any time at 
 his command or convenience, thereby control- 
 ling not only the economic but the spiritual 
 life of his wife. 
 
 The expression of this subjection which is 
 most degrading comes in the appeal which 
 seems to be increasingly made, or receives in- 
 creasing publicity in the United States — the 
 appeal to the unwritten law. When man's 
 choicest piece of property is violated, he 
 avenges himself. The appeal to the unwritten 
 law is the appeal to a law which he dare not 
 put in the statute books, where nearly all the 
 laws are concerned with property; where the 
 unwritten law is most often appealed to, it 
 is associated with the lowest depths of immor- 
 [122]
 
 Wages of the Overman's Wife 
 
 ality. Only in the most barbarous parts of the 
 United States would a jury acquit a man for 
 the murder of his wife or her lover, but any- 
 where a jealous brute may in a fit of passion 
 commit murder. It is never, however, because 
 of love for his wife. No man ever kills his 
 wife for love. He may die for love or live for 
 it; sometimes a woman kills herself for it, but 
 she does not want that kind of defense from 
 any man. Men, with their property instincts, 
 have for the most part not yet learned that the 
 inviolability of a woman's personality tran- 
 scends in ethical importance that self esteem 
 which the overman calls "honor." Even re- 
 fined men who love the objects of their devo- 
 tion, still often feel instinctively that they 
 would under provocation take the law into their 
 own hands, and use violence. But it is not an 
 attribute of affection to do this, it is the prop- 
 erty instinct which is stung. 
 
 However, there is a subtler expression of 
 economic mastery in the men of to-day, the 
 grandiloquent attitude of the courtly gentle- 
 man who says, "Are not the American women 
 [123]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 the best, the most beautiful, the most versatile 
 in the world? Have they not everything they 
 want, and if there is anything they would like 
 will we not give it to them?" Which may be 
 paraphrased: We care not how much these 
 American queens take or get, so long as they 
 recognize the power behind the throne. 
 
 It would be unfair to say that most mar- 
 riages are deliberately commercial, but most 
 marriages will necessarily result in the depend- 
 ence of woman until the equality of the sexes 
 is recognized. As Havelock Ellis puts it, there 
 is no hope for woman as long as she is looked 
 upon "as a cross between an angel and an 
 idiot." The age of chivalry has passed ; woman 
 is more respected and less worshipped, but she 
 cannot lead her own life until she has an equal 
 chance with man. Even the main function of 
 woman and the chief end of marriage, mater- 
 nity, which makes the female conservative, 
 while the male is aggressive, cannot result 
 ideally for offspring or parents, until the 
 woman is granted the same control of her life 
 as man enjoys. Edward Carpenter says: "No 
 [124] 
 
 I
 
 Wages of the Overmans Wife 
 
 effectual progress is possible until the question 
 of her capacity for maternity is fairly faced — 
 for healthy maternity involving thorough exer- 
 cise and development of the body, a life more 
 in the open air than at present — some amount 
 of regular manual work, yet good opportunity 
 for rest when needful, knowledge of the laws 
 of health and physiology, widened mental 
 training and economic independence." 
 
 We may learn the wisdom of requiring cau- 
 tion in assuming the responsibilities of mar- 
 riage and thus multiply the examples of do- 
 mestic bliss, but we cannot attain justice for 
 women and children, nor the full benefit of 
 sex difTerentiation, until women are given con- 
 trol of their incomes, and hence, their destinies. 
 The wage-earning woman of to-day is in a 
 superior position to command just treatment 
 from her prospective spouse; and she brings 
 to the marriage state a greater capacity for 
 the management of the family income and a 
 clearer estimate of man's worth ; but there are 
 still left the millions of women whose capacity 
 is never tested, because whatever be their intel- 
 [125]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 lectual, spiritual or social possibilities, they are 
 the recipients of charity. The charity may be 
 disguised by the love of a devoted husband, 
 but they are still stunted by subservience to 
 a patriarchal administration. 
 
 The entrance of woman into the actual eco- 
 nomic struggle, while it must be granted to 
 any individual woman who chooses it, seems 
 undesirable for the race because of the value 
 of the prolongation of infancy and the con- 
 stant availability of a mother's care. A system 
 of pensions for mothers might be devised, 
 which would recognize their services to the 
 state, and which in spite of possible pauperiz- 
 ing effects would be unquestionably superior 
 to the disregard of woman's economic rights. 
 The best proposal seems to have been made by 
 ]Mr. H. G. Wells in demanding that upon mar- 
 riage, and subsequently on the birth of each 
 child, the father be required to take out an 
 endowment insurance policy in the interest of 
 wife and children. 
 
 What are some of the spiritual consequences 
 of withholding the wages of wives? The great 
 [120]
 
 Wages of the Overmans Wife 
 
 majority of women have to marry; they have 
 no alternative. Most of them, happily, wish 
 to marry and many of them find appropriate 
 husbands, but there is not sufficient opportun- 
 ity for deliberate choice. The consequence is 
 that quite innocently, having been trained from 
 infancy to take the step, multitudes of women 
 marry and live with men whom they do not 
 love, whom they sometimes have never loved. 
 It is a hard thought that this is legalized pros- 
 titution, and it need not carry the stigma which 
 is often unjustly associated with professional 
 prostitution. There can scarcely be a stigma 
 when the victims are innocent. The fact re- 
 mains and its moral consequences are unavoid- 
 able. It means that a woman has sold herself, 
 although her early training and conventional 
 morality may keep her pure in mind and other- 
 wise blameless in conduct. There is no escape 
 from the distorted view of life which this en- 
 tails. But one of its inevitable consequences 
 is the subjection of woman to the physical mas- 
 tery of man in ways to which untutored woman 
 resigns herself, but not without moral an- 
 [127]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 guish which would be quite incomprehensible 
 to the unsophisticated husband, who regards 
 himself as wholly generous. If for no other 
 reason, legalized remuneration for house-keep- 
 ing, child-birth, and child-rearing is necessary, 
 to remove the temptation of a virtuous woman 
 to sell herself for life to one man. While 
 escaping promiscuity, women still relinquish 
 control over their own bodies. 
 
 Another spiritual result of economic depend- 
 ence is even more conspicuous because ubiqui- 
 tous. Woman's chief moral defect is her 
 method of circumlocution, forced upon her by 
 being compelled to make sex functions eco- 
 nomic functions (as Mrs. Gilman has so for- 
 cibly stated in Women and Economics). 
 Whether it is during the courting illusion, or 
 in rifling her husband's pockets (which a sober 
 American judge justifies) , or in accomplishing 
 benefits for him in subtle ways beyond his pon- 
 derous masculine comprehension, she is all the 
 time perfecting the arts of hypocrisy. It is 
 sutlicicntly serious that woman's character 
 should bear this blemisli without a premium 
 [128]
 
 Wages of the Overmaiis Wife 
 
 being put upon it by having it regarded as her 
 chief charm. This method of indirection is 
 becoming increasingly mischievous as the 
 larger social opportunities to-day demand for 
 their satisfactory performance political activity. 
 Women being engaged in innumerable social 
 labors, made possible by their advancing edu- 
 cation and leisure, are now expected to perform 
 many of these social obligations in spite of 
 the constant difficulty of social reconstruction 
 without political expression. 
 
 In this country this handicap is due of 
 course, in part, to the confused conception of 
 the state in the untrained political minds of men. 
 So long as the state is considered a thing apart, 
 political action will be differentiated from 
 social action. Aside from this, woman's social 
 labors are doubled by the expectation that she 
 will either accomplish them by clumsy and 
 laborious voluntary means, or persuade man to 
 aid her through his exclusive political preroga- 
 tives. 
 
 The handicap on fellowship is another of the 
 defects of economic dependence. There is 
 [129]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 little camaraderie between men and women, 
 even when married. This is partly tempera- 
 mental (some people cannot be confidential 
 with one another) but it is primarily due to the 
 husband's having economic functions and the 
 wife sex functions. The beginnings of mari- 
 tal unrest are found chiefly in the concealment 
 of a man's thoughts, due to his conviction that 
 the dependent domestic creature who shares 
 his home has had no training to share his larger 
 economic experiences. Keeping "business" 
 from women is as rational as keeping father- 
 hood from men. The pains of motherhood it 
 is true, cannot be shared by men, but they can 
 exercise the complementary relationship of 
 fathers. So women must be, at least, domestic 
 economists and municipal housekeepers. 
 
 Even the problems of sex, — the right of a 
 woman to control her life, the preparation of 
 children for the revelation of the mysteries of 
 life, — are discussed with less frankness because 
 of the instinctive feeling of the economic mas- 
 ter that new and unconvential modes of think- 
 ing disturb the social order. The consequences 
 [130]
 
 Wages of the Overmans Wife 
 
 of economic freedom, of which every man 
 dreams, cannot be less for woman than for man. 
 They would, in fact, be of mutual benefit. If 
 man can be brought to see the undesirability 
 of the power of man over woman, a power en- 
 joyed by the possession of money, he may then 
 labor to remove the power of money over man ; 
 "The woman's cause is man's : they rise or sink 
 together, dwarfed or godlike, bond or free." 
 
 [131]
 
 THE OVERTAXED CREDULITY 
 OF NEWSPAPER READERS
 
 CHAP.TER VI 
 
 THE OVERTAXED CREDULITY OF NEWSPAPER 
 READERS 
 
 EVERY boy thinks the town in which he 
 is born and brought up is the best in the 
 world. By loyal logic its people, its in- 
 stitutions, its newspapers, are "the first." In 
 boyhood one does not analyze his own emotions ; 
 why should he be critical of the press? In 
 later years it shocks us to find that our faith 
 in the newspaper has been childlike and mis- 
 placed. We have grown up tolerant of its 
 partisanship and ignorant of its economic func- 
 tion, but as our view of life becomes clearer 
 we reluctantly open our eyes to the fact that 
 the average newspaper regards the truth with 
 absolute indifference. 
 
 The growth in size, numbers and power of 
 the daily press in the last quarter century is 
 .[135]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 stupendous. Unfortunately the merits and 
 defects have grown hand in hand. The mod- 
 ern American newspaper is remarkably skilful 
 in the presentation of its printed matter. It 
 has a good conception of current events. His- 
 tory in the making is recorded with such accu- 
 racy as rapidity of production (and editorial 
 intelligence) will permit. The newspaper has 
 been the first contemporary institution to grasp 
 the significance of graphic methods; pictures, 
 maps, charts, cartoons, are all used with great 
 educational effect by the best newspapers. 
 There is also a well developed appreciation of 
 the spectacular, which is demanded to secure 
 attention in these strenuous days. In cruder 
 papers it may take the form of the exaggera- 
 tion of sensations, but it is widely exemplified 
 in the recognition given to festivals and anni- 
 versaries of great dates and names of history. 
 The activities of distinguished contemporaries 
 are recorded with a fulness which is remarkable 
 in consideration of the pressure under which 
 papers are edited and published. The organ- 
 ization of the material in the best newspapers 
 [136]
 
 Credulity of Newspaper Readers 
 
 into various departments, often under expert 
 editorial supervision, is an increasingly credit- 
 able performance. There are also some great 
 special issues, such as the Saturday numbers 
 of the New York Evening Post and the Bos- 
 ton Transcript, the New York Times Saturday 
 Supplement, and the New Year's editions of 
 the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. 
 The newspapers are big with matter, but, 
 after the fashion of the fabled mountain, they 
 bring forth periodically an insignificant amount 
 of trustworthy information. The volume of 
 print needed to balance the increasing amount 
 of advertising is so great that, together with 
 the speed of production, little discrimination 
 is exercised in the choice of news. Editors are 
 not alone in this slovenly practice. The Amer- 
 ican people are suffering from journalitis. 
 The slate is wiped off and life begins anew 
 every twenty-four hours. The reasoning fac- 
 ulties are precariously employed by the day; 
 they have no permanent occupation. Instead 
 of taking no thought for the morrow, we take 
 thought only for the morrow. We do not take 
 [137]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 time to think through subjects, but dismiss our 
 half-baked thought to make way for new im- 
 pressions. The pressure of business Hfe keeps 
 us keyed up to a tension to which the news- 
 papers are expected to respond. The news- 
 papers must be dated hours ahead to satisfy our 
 thirst for the new, which is not necessarily the 
 true thing. The difficulty is not merely that 
 they stimulate superficial thought; we demand 
 it. It is not possible to think clearly when we 
 are in such a hurry. The newspaper cannot 
 be accurate while it is printed so hastily; the 
 Damocles sword hanging constantly over the 
 head of the newspaper man is the fear of a 
 scoop; but there are unfortunately additional 
 reasons why it does not try to be accurate. 
 
 The newspaper is a business institution, not 
 an organ of education, and it must be made to 
 pay, whether the public taste and morals are 
 debauched or not. One serious aspect of the 
 capitalistic press is the presence of sweat-shop 
 methods in the management of tlie plant. The 
 staff of the newspaper are paid relatively less 
 [138]
 
 Credulity of Newspaper Readers 
 
 for the amount of intelligence they are sup- 
 posed to display than any other class, with the 
 possible exception of teachers. Even the 
 clergy are better paid on the average than 
 newspaper men. The sweat-shop methods ex- 
 tend to the subordination of the individuality 
 of the employee. Personality is a handicap, 
 even the nom de plume is passe; the mark of 
 the newspaper man is anonymity. Few news- 
 paper men are free; there is more freedom in 
 the pulpit and the college professor's chair 
 than in the editorial sanctum. This also is be- 
 cause newspaper publication is a business, — a 
 badly organized business, — representative of 
 the incomplete organization of the business 
 world today. 
 
 The influence of "the trust" (the Associated 
 Press) limits the number of papers which can 
 receive promptly the news of the world, while 
 poor business methods result in the accidental 
 multiplication of papers without regard to the 
 needs of the community, so, that, for example, 
 Pittsburgh has more papers than Chicago, 
 [139]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 with the natural result that Pittsburgh has 
 neither morning nor evening paper of influ- 
 ence or character. 
 
 Newspapers, although primarily business 
 enterprises, are subject to minor influences 
 and may be classified into personal, party, and 
 corporation organs. This classification is not 
 precise, as a paper may belong in two or even 
 three classes, but the individuality of the paper 
 is determined by the influence of a personality, 
 a party, or a corporation. Even when a news- 
 paper is intensely partisan or capitalistic, it 
 may have a quality beyond that of other 
 papers because of the dominance of a strong 
 personality. Such personal papers, still sur- 
 viving in this impersonal business age, are the 
 Springfield Republican, the Brooklyn Eagle, 
 the New York Evening Post, the Cincinnati 
 Enquirer, the Louisville Courier- Journal, the 
 Kansas City Star and the Los Angeles Times. 
 The reputability of these papers varies from 
 the best in America to the worst, but each one 
 has a strength due to the personality of its 
 editor. 
 
 [140]
 
 Credulity of Newspaper Readers 
 
 Except in the case of some rare independent 
 papers, which are so in fact and not merely 
 in name, most of the newspapers of the coun- 
 try are painfully partisan. This in all cases 
 vitiates their influence. It is not even ex- 
 pected that papers shall tell the truth during a 
 political campaign, or at any other time re- 
 garding their political opponents. While 
 nearly all papers are subject to the advertiser, 
 and especially truckle to the overman, there 
 are many which are organs of the corporations 
 and never, except through the accidental blun- 
 dering of a reporter, attempt to tell the truth 
 about these corporations and their allied in- 
 terests. 
 
 Much of the condemnation which must be 
 visited upon party and corporation bias is due 
 to the unconscious predilections of the person- 
 ality dominating the paper. What the radical 
 papers call "the capitalistic press" may be ex- 
 plained on this basis. The owners, and even 
 the editors, by social affiliation with capitahstic 
 interests, are naturally and sincerely sympa- 
 thetic with the interests of capital, right or 
 [141]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 wrong. This extends to the coloring and even 
 suppression of news by the Associated Press. 
 Such instinctive sympathies do not account, 
 however, for the pusillanimity of the New 
 York papers in their relations to the theater 
 trust, which Life so vigorously exposed, or the 
 dastardly tiniculence to advertisers which Col- 
 lier's is fighting, or the unscrupulous mendac- 
 ity of corporation papers. On the other hand, 
 too much notice must not be accorded the press 
 for its well nigh unanimous opposition to a 
 high tariff bill, regardless of party, when the 
 enthusiasm for free wood pulp is remembered. 
 It is legitimate for personal, party, or cor- 
 poration organs to defend their interests, pro- 
 vided it is done in the open, but the practice 
 of distorting facts on behalf of these interests 
 induces habitual lying. We have been hear- 
 ing a great deal lately about Ananias, but his 
 notoriety is generally misunderstood. He was 
 not a good liar; a good liar lies with discrim- 
 ination and effect. Lying was a secondary 
 thought with Ananias. His offense consisted 
 in \\ithholding something unjustly, and then 
 [142]
 
 Credulity of Newspaper Readers 
 
 lying about it. This is the situation in which 
 the newspapers find themselves. This is why 
 the newspapers habitually misrepresent. 
 There is something to withhold from the pub- 
 lic; dust must be thrown in their eyes, and 
 lying becomes a habit. One can understand 
 the San Francisco papers' lying about the 
 bubonic plague or their street railway presi- 
 dent, or the Chicago papers' reticence about 
 the mayor or chief of police, but the habit ex- 
 tends to subjects where it can be of no object, 
 and worse still, to the reckless defamation of 
 character. 
 
 Statements which cannot have any possible 
 basis in fact are copied by the papers through- 
 out the country, even though the exaggera- 
 tions be so great as to frustrate the inten- 
 tion which originally prompted the statement. 
 Editors, in their eagerness for news, lose the 
 capacity to identify the truth. Bryan's al- 
 leged play and histrionic ambitions were re- 
 ported in all seriousness by a truth-blind press. 
 The New Orleans papers guilelessly made 
 asses of all the members of the Chamber of 
 [143]
 
 Dernocracif and the Overman 
 
 Commerce by taking seriously the report that 
 "Dixie" was to be tabu in a Chicago patri- 
 otic festival, a canard telegraphed all over the 
 country. The Chicago Inter-Ocean printed 
 a series of definitions of socialism which it 
 boldly attributed to Governor Folk. As it 
 did not credit the item to any other paper, it 
 must be held responsible for as foolish an ag- 
 gregation of statements as has appeared in 
 print. No one will be surprised that Gov- 
 ernor Folk denied the authorship of the fol- 
 lowing: 
 
 FOLK DEFINES A SOCIALIST 
 
 Governor Folk of Missouri at one of his Chautauqua 
 addresses recently was requested by an inquisitor to de- 
 fine a "Socialist." "That is easy," replied the Governor. 
 "But half a dozen definitions are more expressive than 
 one: 
 
 "A Socialist is the one who loses in the competitive 
 race for luxurious existence. 
 
 "A Socialist is the dreamer among practical men. 
 
 "A Socialist is the man unable to rise to his selected 
 ambition and as a result determines to destroy it. 
 
 "A Socialist, generally speaking, is an antitheist al- 
 ^vays willing to embrace the ignorant foreigner, for in 
 [144]
 
 Credulity of Newspaper Readers 
 
 the foreigner only can he instill the Czolgosz-Averbuch 
 ideals. 
 
 "A Socialist, to be brief, is simply the unmentionable, 
 the unpermittable, and the impossible." 
 
 Quite a little amusement was created by the 
 New York Times' publication of the so-called 
 Cleveland article, supporting Taft in the 1908 
 campaign. 'No ordinarily intelligent person 
 thought for a moment that Cleveland had 
 written it, but the paper which prints "all the 
 news that's fit to print," was undoubtedly sin- 
 cere in its acceptance of the authorship, as 
 were a great many thoughtless people and 
 papers. The inspired columns sent out daily 
 from Washington by the party in power are 
 puerile in their ingenuousness. One wonders 
 whether there are people allowed to be at large 
 who can be deceived by these reports. Yet it 
 was thought necessary to issue a denial of the 
 dispatches which announced Roosevelt's en- 
 dorsement of Taft, although an intelligent 
 reading of the originals found this support 
 only in the headlines. The text showed that 
 letters received by the administration leaders 
 [145]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 contained no specific criticism of the President 
 by the ex-President, a praise so damning it 
 would seem desirable to suppress rather than 
 circulate it, were the papers less naive. 
 
 The subordination of the newspaperman's 
 mind to his employer accounts for his dread of 
 originality. Mr. Will Irwin makes the awful 
 confession that the New York Sun is the 
 newspaperman's newspaper. The Sun is 
 often clever, sometimes brilliant, always flip- 
 pant, seldom sincere, and, in this generation, 
 never original. It is sui generis, but it has 
 a method which precludes new talent's ex- 
 pressing anything really virile. Yet it is the 
 acknowledged guide of the ambitious news- 
 paper man! The newspaper world worships 
 the god of things as they were. It is eager 
 to give us the latest news about things as they 
 are said to be, even to manufacturing it, but 
 it has an extreme repugnance to serious dis- 
 cussion of things as they ought to be. Any- 
 thing the newspaper cannot understand must 
 be folly. From the point of view of conven- 
 tional newspaperdom any suggestion of eco- 
 [146]
 
 Credulity of Newspaper Readers 
 
 nomic reform is "socialism," fundamental po- 
 litical reforms are "anarchism;" any proposal 
 for the reform of domestic relations is "free 
 love;" religious reform is "atheism;" educa- 
 tional reform is "a fad;" moral reform is "pes- 
 simism." 
 
 The result of this attitude is the hypocritical 
 maintenance of a negative, colorless, bourgeois 
 morality. 
 
 Any discussion of the sex question, not con- 
 tained in the shorter catechism, is a "sacred 
 cow," the newspaper editor's pet superstition.. 
 The daily newspapers reviled Gorky without 
 knowing anything about him, although the 
 reputable weeklies defended him. Perhaps it 
 was this excessive virtue that concealed the 
 relation between protected brothels and the 
 police in New York and Chicago until the 
 socialistic press revealed what the capitalistic 
 papers had refused to print. A press notice 
 said of a social purity congress, attended by 
 the sternest friends of sex morality, that its 
 discussions were not fit for publication. 
 These pious ejaculations will be found in the 
 [147]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 same issue with page after page of obscenity 
 and scurrility. The same attitude prevails 
 toward anything fundamental that is not part 
 of current gossip, which accounts for the 
 ignorance of sociology and theology. 
 
 The Biblical World, in its October (1909) 
 number, took the ground that the "ethical 
 questions of today can not be decided solely 
 by appeal to the Bible regarded as a compen- 
 dium of ethics, but must be met on the one 
 hand by a historical study of the Bible, and 
 on the other by a similar study of present day 
 conditions." It reported the result in a sub- 
 sequent number: "The ink was scarcely dry 
 on our pages before there appeared in the daily 
 press reports of this article under such head- 
 ings as the following: 'Warns Church 
 against Bible as Moral Guide'; 'Calls Bible 
 useful only as History/ 'Bible not Ethical, 
 Thirteen Professors Say,' (there being thir- 
 teen names in our list of editors) ; 'Attacks 
 Ethics of Bible — Says it Ignores Vital Issues 
 — Polygamy, Wine Feasts, and Vengeance 
 are Given Biblical Sanction, He Says.' Dis- 
 [148]
 
 Credulity of Newspaper Readers 
 
 tance and telegraphic transmission but in- 
 creased the distortions. 'Bible Ethics Bad; 
 Chicago University Publication has Startling 
 Editorial. Frank Higher Criticism'; 'Bible 
 Morals condemned; University Magazine Says 
 it Teaches Bad Conduct'; 'Sensational Attack 
 on Bible Stirs University/ were some of the 
 headlines under which the news was spread 
 abroad." 
 
 The failure to balance nicely the merits of 
 questions in the interest of truth leads to de- 
 nunciation of original or novel propositions, 
 instead of refutation. The average news- 
 paper is more gifted in epithets than argu- 
 ments. So rare is unflinching devotion to 
 facts that when a paper starts out to be excep- 
 tionally clean and truthful it may lean over 
 backwards, as the Christian Science Monitor 
 does. While this attempts to be the most 
 genuine daily paper published in Boston now, 
 it does deliberately, in the interest of the faith 
 it represents, suppress news of deaths and acci- 
 dents. 
 
 An attempt might be made to estimate the 
 [149]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 extent of fearless devotion to the truth pre- 
 sented by the daily press. The majority of 
 newspapers are of local influence only and al- 
 though immensely important collectively, not 
 only do not directly affect national life, but 
 are too numerous and commonplace to permit 
 any individual to risk a comparative state- 
 ment. Even in the first-class cities (popula- 
 tion over 100,000) most of the papers are in- 
 consequential and their general influence must 
 be measured by typical instances, the selection 
 being made on the basis of the conspicuous 
 merit or defect of a paper. Some excellent 
 papers will not be mentioned because they ap- 
 pear in small cities, other well known papers 
 may be omitted because they lack distinctive 
 qualities. If any papers seem invidiously 
 characterized, they at least receive the tribute 
 of acknowledged importance. Employing 
 descriptive terms, suggested by the popular 
 use of "yellow," the spectrum of typical daily 
 papers of the United States, passed through 
 the prism of truth, may be said to emerge as 
 follows : 
 
 [150]
 
 Credulity of Newspaper Readers 
 
 WHITE (clear and clean) 
 
 Springfield Republican 
 
 Kansas City Star 
 GRAY (when in doubt, tell the truth) 
 
 Portland Oregonian 
 
 Indianapolis News 
 
 New York Times 
 COLORLESS (anaemic) 
 
 Philadelphia Public Ledger 
 
 Chicago Evening Post 
 YELLOW (lemon, touched with gold) 
 
 Hearst's papers 
 
 New York World 
 
 Chicago Tribune 
 GREEN (never set anything on fire) 
 
 St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Buffalo, 
 San Francisco, Detroit, Washington, 
 Twin-City papers. 
 INDIGO (blue-stocking temperament) 
 
 New York Evening Post 
 
 Boston Transcript 
 "A DASH OF VIOLET" 
 
 Louisville Courier- Journal 
 RED (inflamed, not luminous) 
 
 New York Sun 
 BLACK (but not opaque) 
 
 Los Angeles Times 
 
 Cincinnati Enquirer 
 
 [151]
 
 ^Democracy and the Overman 
 
 These typical instances represent every; 
 range of devotion to the truth from the seri- 
 ous endeavor to tell the truth all the time to 
 the utterly unscrupulous disregard of truth all 
 the time. 
 
 Democracy has an uphill fight in America 
 at present, since untrammeled organs of 
 free speech are generally vranting. News- 
 papers continue to be patronized and be- 
 lieved because they reflect the methods 
 which temporarily bring what is called suc- 
 cess. They meet the needs of the over- 
 man and the overman's friends, while they 
 lack intelligent criticism from the public which 
 is being gulled. They are cunning, but not 
 clever; detailed, but not exact; prudish, but 
 not refined; partisan, but not patriotic; flip- 
 pant, but not humorous; persistent, but not 
 vigilant; captious, but not critical; blase, but 
 not sophisticated; sensitive, but not honorable; 
 conventional, but not ethical ; emphatic, but not 
 true. 
 
 Yet the constant courage of a few daily 
 papers, the fearless devotion to the truth of 
 [152]
 
 Credulity of Newspaper Readers 
 
 some monthly magazines, and the multiplica- 
 tion of sterling, vigorous weeklies keep alive 
 the hope that as the public grows more deserv- 
 ing and exacting, public utilities come under 
 public control, publicity is demanded of busi- 
 ness, and libel laws are made more rigorous, the 
 daily papers will yet be the medium for achiev- 
 ing the ideal, "Ye shall know the truth and 
 the truth shall make you free." 
 
 [153]
 
 THE OVERWORKED 
 POLITICAL PLATITUDES
 
 CHAPTER yil 
 
 THE OVERWORKED POLITICAL PLATITUDES ^ 
 
 THE people are beginning to see, through 
 the dust of party strife, that the art 
 and science of government are concealed 
 by party labels and watchwords. Not many 
 know that "Republican" and "Democrat" are 
 synonymous with tweedle-dum and tweedle- 
 dee, but more are demanding that the adminis- 
 tration of the common life be no longer ob- 
 scured by the ambiguity of platforms and 
 the personality of candidates. 
 
 Yet the clever politician continues to side- 
 track the patriotic citizen. 
 
 The encouragement which has come most 
 recently from the rebuke of political rings by 
 men whose nomination had been demanded by 
 
 1 Published in the New York Sunday Times, October 4, 1908. 
 
 [157]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 the people, as was the case in the choice of both 
 Taft and Bryan, is marred by the surrender 
 to the ring in the choice of vice-presidential 
 candidates and platform planks. Party 
 shibboleths continue to mislead; party loyalty 
 injures patriotism; hysterical citizens see in 
 the opposing candidates only demon and 
 demigod, but more nearly than ever before 
 there emerges from the smoke of conflict a 
 vision of the meaning of a government of the 
 people, by the people and for the people. It is 
 not presented consciously by either candidate, 
 it is only casually indicated in those principles 
 which each party considers paramount, but it 
 is better defined. 
 
 Observation of the party conventions reveals 
 a people in their quadrennial spectacle of re- 
 ceiving uncomplainingly a stone when they 
 have rather incoherently asked for bread. 
 
 A study of the platforms does not betray 
 any striking issue between the parties. We 
 look in vain for any adequate treatment of the 
 most vital interests of the masses of the people ; 
 the few principles which are peculiar to either 
 [158]
 
 Overworked Political Platitudes 
 
 party seem insipid by contrast with the really 
 insistent needs of the multitude. 
 
 Both parties miraculously discover the ex- 
 istence of natural resources on the continent, 
 in the year of Our Lord, 1908. 
 
 Democratic Platform 
 
 "We urge the irrigation of 
 arid lands, the reclamation of 
 swamp lands, the clarification 
 of streams, the development 
 of water power, and the 
 preservation of electric power 
 generated by this natural 
 force from the control of 
 monopoly, and, to such end, 
 we urge the exercise of all 
 powers, national, state, and 
 municipal, both separately 
 and in co-operation, also the 
 plan for improving every 
 water course in the union, 
 which is justified by the 
 needs of commerce; and to 
 secure that end, we favor, 
 when practicable (sic!) the 
 connection of the Great 
 Lakes with the navigable 
 rivers and with the gulf 
 through the Mississippi river, 
 and the navigable rivers with 
 each other." 
 
 [159] 
 
 Republican Platform 
 
 "We indorse the movement 
 inaugurated by the adminis- 
 tration for the conservation 
 of natural resources; we ap- 
 prove all measures to prevent 
 the waste of timber; we com- 
 mend the work now going on 
 for the reclamation of arid 
 lands, and reaffirm the Re- 
 publican policy of the free 
 distribution of the available 
 areas of the public domain 
 to the landless settler."
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 By a remarkable coincidence the toiling 
 masses are to be relieved by 
 
 EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY 
 
 "We pledge the Democratic 
 party to the enactment of a 
 law by Congress, as far as 
 the federal jurisdiction ex- 
 tends, for a general employ- 
 ers' liability act, covering in- 
 jury to body or loss of life 
 of employees." 
 
 "The enactment in consti- 
 tutional form at the present 
 session of Congress of the 
 employers' liability law; the 
 passage and enforcement of 
 the safety appliance statutes, 
 as well as the additional pro- 
 tection secured for engineers 
 and firemen; the reduction in 
 the hours of labor of train- 
 men and railroad telegra- 
 phers; the successful exercise 
 of the powers of mediation 
 and arbitration between in- 
 terstate railroads and their 
 employees, and the law mak- 
 ing a beginning in the policy 
 of compensation for injured 
 employees of the government 
 are among the most commen- 
 dable accomplishments." 
 
 Having found that the real rulers of the 
 nation are not engaged in predatory occupa- 
 tions for their health, it is deemed expedient to 
 advocate 
 
 [160]
 
 Overn:orhed Political Platitudes 
 
 HEALTH REFORMS 
 
 "We advocate the organi- 
 zation of all existing public 
 health agencies into a na- 
 tional bureau of public health, 
 with such power over sanitary 
 conditions connected with fac- 
 tories, mines, tenements, child 
 labor and other such subjects 
 as are properly within the 
 jurisdiction of the federal 
 government." 
 
 " We commend the efforts 
 designed to secure greater 
 efficiency in national public 
 health agencies and favor 
 such legislation as wiU effect 
 this purpose." 
 
 The free trade and paternalistic parties 
 unite again on the 
 
 TARIFF 
 
 "We welcome the belated 
 promise of tariff reform now 
 affected by the Republican 
 party in tardy recognition of 
 the righteousness of the Demo- 
 cratic position on this ques- 
 tion; but the people cannot 
 safely entrust the execution 
 of this important work to a 
 party which is so deeply ob- 
 ligated to the highly pro- 
 tected interests as is the Re- 
 publican party. We call at- 
 tention to the significant fact 
 
 "We favor the establish- 
 ment of maximum and mini- 
 mum rates to be administered 
 by the President imder limi- 
 tations fixed in the law, the 
 maximum to be available to 
 meet discrimination by for- 
 eign coxmtries." 
 
 [161]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 that the promised relief was 
 postponed until after the com- 
 ing election — an election to 
 succeed in which the Repub- 
 lican party must have that 
 same high protective tariff as 
 it has always heretofore re- 
 ceived from them; and to the 
 further fact that during years 
 of iminterrupted power, no 
 action whatever has been 
 taken by the Republican con- 
 gress to correct the admitted- 
 ly existing tariff iniquities." 
 
 Neither party holding any intelligent or 
 courageous views on banking, they tentatively 
 compromise on 
 
 THE POSTAL SAVINGS BANK 
 
 "We pledge ourselves to "We favor the establish- 
 legislation under which the ment of a postal savings bank 
 national banks shall be re- system for the convenience of 
 quired to establish a guaran- the people and the encourage- 
 tee fund for the prompt pay- ment of thrift." 
 ment of the depositors of any 
 insolvent national bank under 
 an equitable system which 
 shall be available to all state 
 banking institutions wishing 
 to use it. We favor a pes- 
 
 [162]
 
 Overworked Political Platitudes 
 
 tal savings bank if the guar- 
 anteed bank cannot be se- 
 cured and that it be consti- 
 tuted so as to keep the de- 
 posited money in the com- 
 munities where it is estab- 
 lished. But we condemn the 
 policy of the Republican 
 party in proposing postal 
 savings banks under a plan 
 of conduct by which those 
 will aggregate the deposits of 
 the same, while imder gov- 
 ernment charge, in the banks * 
 of Wall street." 
 
 The simple minded Jeffersonian democrats 
 vie with the party of the " big stick " in advo- 
 cating an extravagant and demoralizing 
 
 NAVY 
 
 "The constitutional pro- "Although at peace with all 
 
 vision that a navy shall be the world and secure in the 
 
 provided and maintained consciousness that the Amer- 
 
 means an adequate navy, and lean people do not desire and 
 
 we believe that the interests will not provoke war with any 
 
 of this country would be best other country, we nevertheless 
 
 served by having a navy sufB- declare our unalterable de- 
 
 cient to defend the coasts of votion to a policy that will 
 
 this country and protect keep this republic ready at 
 
 American citizens wherever all times to defend her tra- 
 
 [163]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 their rights may be in ditional doctrines and assure 
 jeopardy." her appropriate part in pro- 
 
 moting permanent tranquillity 
 among the nations." 
 
 This will be especially useful for the 
 
 PROTECTION OF CITIZENS 
 
 engaged in questionable occupations in Vene- 
 zuela and other little countries. 
 
 "We pledge our services to "We 
 
 insist upon the just and law- efforts 
 
 ful protection of our citizens tration 
 
 at home and abroad, and to citizens 
 
 use all proper methods to se- pledge 
 
 cure protection for them, on the 
 
 whether native born or nat- tection 
 uralized." 
 
 commend the vigorous 
 made by the adminis- 
 to protect American 
 in foreign lands and 
 ourselves to insist up- 
 just and equal pro- 
 of all our citizens." 
 
 The parties having surrendered their con- 
 ventions to notorious spoilsmen, perjure them- 
 selves by professing devotion to 
 
 CIVIL SERVICE 
 
 "The laws pertaining to 
 the civil service should be 
 honestly and rigidly enforced, 
 to the end that merit and 
 ability shall be the standard 
 
 "We affirm our declaration 
 that the civil service laws 
 enacted, extended, and en- 
 forced by the Republican 
 party shall continue to be 
 
 of api^ointment and promo- maintained and obeyed." 
 
 [164]
 
 Ovei'tcorked Political Platitudes 
 
 tion ratlier than services ren- 
 dered to a political party." 
 
 The prospect of grateful support in the 
 Senate and the House prompts each party to 
 extend a welcoming hand to 
 
 NEW MEXICO AND ARIZONA 
 
 " The national Democratic "We favor the immediate 
 
 party has for the last sixteen admission of the territories of 
 years labored for the admis- New Mexico and Arizona as 
 sion of Arizona and New separate States of the Union." 
 Mexico as separate states of 
 the federal union, and recog- 
 nizing that each possesses 
 every qualification to success- 
 fully maintain separate state 
 government we favor the im- 
 mediate admission of these 
 territories as separate states." 
 
 The RepubHcan platform is actually dis- 
 tinguished from its rival's by some famiHar 
 platitudes, the absence of which would reflect 
 discredit on the Democrats, were tiie Republi- 
 can professions sincere. A bureau of mines, 
 the enforcement of the thirteenth, fourteenth 
 and fifteenth (sic!) amendments to the Con- 
 [165]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 stitution and generosity to the old soldier are 
 among others. Is there no positive message 
 from either camp? Is no larger life to emerge 
 from our great industrial civilization? 
 
 Industrial evolution proceeding by giant 
 strides cannot wait for party platforms. The 
 Constitution is stretched beyond the dreams of 
 the fathers to meet economic needs which could 
 not have been known to them, while the ma- 
 jority of the people still take the appearance 
 for the substance. A brief resume of the 
 fundamentals of American government is 
 necessary to see how empty are the phrases 
 hurled by Mr. Taft and ^Ir. Bryan at each 
 other, without edification or entertainment of 
 the apathetic public, giving Mr. Hearst the 
 monopoly of picturesqueness. 
 
 The American system of government pro- 
 vides for an executive organization consisting 
 of President, Vice-President and Cabinet, 
 without voice, presence or any other than in- 
 direct influence in the shaping of legislation, 
 except by presidential veto. In fact the sepa- 
 ration of the executive from the legislative is 
 [166]
 
 Overworked Political Platitudes 
 
 the cardinal principle of American govern- 
 ment and one of the chief causes of its inef- 
 ficiency. To exert an influence which will in- 
 itiate policies, the president must employ the 
 familiar feminine method of circumlocution, 
 imposed upon woman by the denial of her 
 rights, and the consequent development of her 
 skill in hypocrisy. The President must 
 wheedle and cajole, pull and push to secure 
 progress, and the type of man who can win 
 the office seldom cares for progress. 
 
 The Cabinet officers may, without disrespect, 
 be characterized in the language of the street 
 as the president's "push." Their executive 
 functions in the service of the people are quite 
 secondary to their importance in the strength- 
 ening of the part}^ It is unusual for a mem- 
 ber of the cabinet to exhibit any evidence of 
 improvement in his department, and on such 
 rare occasions he is usually met with unsparing 
 condemnation by his party, as when Mr. John 
 Wanamaker gave the only good administra- 
 tion of the Post-Office Department in this 
 generation. *'It is not so nominated in the 
 [167]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 bond," but it has become the function of the 
 cabinet to shine in the society of the capital and 
 serve as pawns for the pohtical moves in the 
 affairs of the party. 
 
 The Vice-President is the negative pole in 
 the executive battery. His main function is to 
 secure the election of the President by exert- 
 ing influence in a doubtful state. In spite of 
 being the only executive who sits in a legis- 
 lative body, which might be supposed to give 
 him almost the position of a prime minister, 
 he is not supposed to have a personality or 
 opinions : in fact, these are usually sufficient to 
 preclude nomination. When a party is forced 
 into the unfortunate position of being com- 
 pelled to nominate a live man for the vice-presi- 
 dency, it is regarded as so serious a calamity 
 that both parties unite in a zealous endeavor 
 to prevent its repetition. The nomination of 
 Roosevelt to this office was a blunder from 
 which the old Republican party will never re- 
 cover, and for which it is now paying the pen- 
 alty of disaffection and discord. So far from 
 encouraging the opposition party, this revolu- 
 [168]
 
 Overworked Political Platitudes 
 
 tion in American politics was emphasized and 
 rebuked by the choice in the succeeding cam- 
 paign of a senile superannuate by the Demo- 
 cratic party, and not to be outdone, the Re- 
 publican party, moved by similar monetary 
 influence, chose the mollycoddle of buttermilk 
 fame. The precedents having been re- 
 established it is natural that, though popular 
 clamor and presidential pressure had been 
 satisfied in the nomination of Mr. Taft, a can- 
 didate more to the liking of Cannon, Aldrich, 
 and their ilk should have been selected for the 
 vice-presidency. Not to be eclipsed by the Al- 
 phonses of the Republican party, the Gastons 
 of the Democratic organization reverted to the 
 stamp of Taggart and Sullivan in the choice 
 of a vice-presidential candidate, disregarding 
 the advice of public servants like Tom John- 
 son, as the Republicans ignored the little patri- 
 otic coterie led by LaFollette. 
 
 A leadership of the people, which is at- 
 tained by the executive only by circumventing 
 the intent of the Constitution, is denied to the 
 popular body of the legislature in various ways. 
 [169]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 The strict separation of legislative and execu- 
 tive functions, the check imposed through the 
 Senate, followed by the possible check of the 
 President's veto, culminates in the interpreta- 
 tion of the Supreme Court. A Constitution 
 is said to grow not to be made, but the United 
 States Constitution grows only like a potato 
 in a cellar. In order to secure the accomplish- 
 ment of anything and prevent the unnecessary 
 delay of public business, it has thus become 
 necessary for the Speaker of the House to ag- 
 grandize his office, as has the President. A 
 House which is supposed to represent the 
 voice of the people, as against the traditions 
 of the States embodied in the Senate, has there- 
 fore been assailed from within as well as from 
 without. What is lacking in the House is 
 naturally not supplied in the Senate. If the 
 House has failed as the popular branch, the 
 Senate has succeeded in being the unpopular 
 body. The play of party rivalry not only pre- 
 vents the Senate from being representative of 
 public interests, but prostitutes the State legis- 
 latures, which now exist primarily for the 
 [170]
 
 Overworked Political Platitudes 
 
 choice of these unrepresentative senators. 
 The difficulty of the popular control by Con- 
 gress of both the legislative and executive de- 
 partments of government is increased by the 
 necessity of referring laws to the decision of 
 the Supreme Court to determine their consti- 
 tutionality and, finally, by the restraining in- 
 fluence of the principles embodied in the Con- 
 stitution. 
 
 Whatever may be said in favor of a written 
 Constitution (interpreted by a Supreme 
 Court) providing two houses of Congress to 
 maintain the parity of representation be- 
 tween the people and the States, and an inde- 
 pendent executive with the power of 
 veto, it must be admitted that it is difficult for 
 this system to register accurately the will 
 of the people. Mr. Elihu Root, criticising 
 ]\Ir. Bryan and the Democratic plat- 
 form, said: "Do not the people rule? This 
 is a representative government. It surely 
 is not proposed to do away with repre- 
 sentation and have 85,000,000 of people 
 make and execute their laws directly, without 
 [171]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 the intervention of legislative and executive 
 agents. Are not the laws being made and 
 executed by the agents whom the people have 
 selected for that purpose? I find that by the 
 lawful returns of the last presidential election 
 Theodore Roosevelt received 2,541,296 more 
 votes for the presidency than Alton B. Parker. 
 Has he not a good title to the office? Are 
 not the people ruling through him, their chosen 
 executive, so far as his part in the govern- 
 ment is concerned? Has not every congres- 
 sional district been represented in Congress by 
 the man whom a majority of its voters selected? 
 Is not every State represented in the Senate by 
 Senators chosen by its own Legislature, se- 
 lected by the people of the State for the per- 
 formance of that very duty?" 
 
 Mr. Root represents that body of compla- 
 cent optimists who take majority rule for 
 granted, without examining the facts. Mr. 
 Hughes, in 1906, was elected Governor of 
 New York State by thirty per cent, of the 
 males of voting age, or nine per cent, of the 
 population; Governor Guild of Massachusetts 
 [172]
 
 Overworked Political Platitudes 
 
 was elected in 1907 by twenty-five per cent, of 
 the males of voting age, although he received 
 seventy-two per cent, of the votes; President 
 Roosevelt was elected by thirty-five per cent, 
 of the males of voting age, or ten per cent, of 
 the population. It is not only a small propor- 
 tion of the adult populaT:ion which determines 
 the people's representatives, but almost in- 
 variably a minority of the voting males. 
 
 The trouble with the present system is that 
 it is clumsy. It was designed as a protest 
 against monarchy and aristocracy, when the 
 belief naturally prevailed that the best govern- 
 ment was that which governed least. It was 
 the result of the compromise of different kinds 
 of men representing thirteen inharmonious 
 colonies, most of whom did not believe the 
 American people had the capacity for self- 
 government. With the pressure of public 
 business and the increase in popular enlighten- 
 ment, it has become necessary to get things 
 done. In order to accomplish this, under ex- 
 isting conditions, the president and the speaker 
 of the house must be autocratic, with the result 
 [173]
 
 'Democracy and the Overman 
 
 that popular government becomes accidental. 
 With a William JNIcKinley in the chair noth- 
 ing of importance is accomplished; with a 
 Joseph Cannon most of the actions are mis- 
 chievous; with a Theodore Roosevelt fortun- 
 ately the preponderance of influence is favor- 
 able; but the accomplishments of the last two, 
 for good or ill, are the result of the arbitrary 
 use of power which must soon be vested 
 in authoritative, but popularly controlled 
 hands. 
 
 President Roosevelt, naively blending the 
 executive and legislative, credits the last ad- 
 ministration with: "The creation of the de- 
 partment of commerce and labor, together 
 with the creation of a bureau of corporations, 
 which marks the beginning of federal control 
 over the large corporations doing an inter- 
 state business, the employers' liability law, the 
 safety appliance law, the law limiting the 
 working hours of railway employees, the meat 
 inspection law, the denatured alcohol law, the 
 anti-rebate law, the laws increasing the powers 
 of the department of justice in dealing with 
 [174]
 
 OvenvorJced Political Platitudes 
 
 those, regardless of wealth and power, who 
 infract the law, the law making the govern- 
 ment liable for injuries to its employees, the 
 laws under which the Panama canal was ac- 
 quired and is being built, the Philippines ad- 
 ministered, and the navy developed, the laws 
 creating a permanent census bureau and re- 
 forming the consular service and the system of 
 naturalization, the law forbidding child labor 
 in the District of Columbia, the law providing 
 a commission under which our currency system 
 can be put on a thoroughly satisfactory basis, 
 the laws for the proper administration of the 
 forest service, the laws for the admission of 
 Oklahoma and the development of Alaska, the 
 great appropriations for the development of 
 agriculture, the legal prohibition of campaign 
 contributions from corporations — all these 
 represent but a portion of what has been done 
 by Congress, and form a record of substantial 
 legislative achievement in harmony with the 
 best and most progressive thought of our own 
 people." 
 
 The chief result of the Roosevelt adminis- 
 [1T5]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 tration is that supporters, opponents and the 
 apathetic have been compelled to sit up and 
 take notice. The bad is inextricably mixed 
 with the good; the President has been at one 
 time prophetic, at another muddle-headed, but 
 meanwhile "the world do move." The conse- 
 quence is that not only has there been a greater 
 volume of progressive and aggressive legis- 
 lation than in several previous decades, but it 
 has been accomplished by appeals to public 
 opinion, frequently in disregard of party. As 
 Mr. Root said in speaking of the Hughes and 
 Roosevelt administrations : 
 
 "There have been two special and notable 
 characteristics in which these two administra- 
 tions have been alike. One is that they have 
 both gone directly to the people of the country, 
 to the great body of the electors themselves." 
 
 The intelligent and patriotic American who 
 is watching the evolution of American institu- 
 tions and sees how the administration of the 
 common life compels modified executive and 
 legislative action must be astounded at the au- 
 dacious corollary with which Mr. Root blandly 
 [176]
 
 Overworked Political Platitudes 
 
 follows this admission of the power of public 
 opinion when he says: "We can turn to the 
 administrations now drawing to a close, both 
 in the State and in the Nation, and with con- 
 fidence ask every American voter to say 
 whether they have not met all the great fun- 
 damental requisites of good government, 
 whether they do not justify the belief that it 
 is best for the country to keep in power the 
 party [ !} which is responsible for them and is 
 entitled to the credit of them." 
 
 It is not remarkable that Mr. Taft, upon 
 whom the mantle of the President is sup- 
 posed to have fallen, should make a similar 
 claim for the Republican party, which as a 
 party has antagonized almost every progres- 
 sive move made by this President, who became 
 its leader by accident. If it were not for the 
 popular acquiescence of the unthinking, one 
 might expect a universal protest against JNIr. 
 Taft's sublime presumption when he says: 
 "If ever a party earned the verdict of well 
 done by the record of the last seven years, and 
 the reward of a renewed mandate of power, it 
 [177]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 is the Republican party; under Theodore 
 Roosevelt." 
 
 No one doubts Mr. Roosevelt's intention of 
 conferring the mantle of Elijah upon his 
 ponderous understudy, but a rival claim was 
 presented by Mr. Bryan who said that he en- 
 dorsed the President's policies but did not need 
 to be the legatee of the mantle, as it was filched 
 from him. Mr. Roosevelt is not Elijah but 
 Ehsha, and Mr. Taft, like Dowie, Ehjah II. 
 It is not a purely partisan quibble whether 
 Mr. Bryan or Mr. Roosevelt has stolen the 
 other's thunder. Mr. Roosevelt had the op- 
 portunity which Mr. Bryan lacked. We can- 
 not know what Mr. Bryan would have done, or 
 would do, but we know that what Mr. Roose- 
 velt did was eagerly endorsed by those ambi- 
 tious to be his successors. "My policies" may 
 be right or wrong, desirable or undesirable, but 
 it is too late to return to the pusillanimous poli- 
 cies of the time-serving McKinley. 
 
 What have we a right to expect of the 
 promises of the Republican and Democratic 
 leaders? Each was chosen by his party as the 
 [178]
 
 Overworked Political Platitudes 
 
 sole candidate to succeed the strenuous execu- 
 tive, against the opposition of the party ring- 
 leaders. Having received the nomination 
 without compromise, each relaxed his stern 
 political idealism and allowed the nomination 
 of an unworthy running mate, subservient to 
 the worst element of his party. Each permit- 
 ted the dictation of the platform by the op- 
 ponents of popular welfare. Each is com- 
 pelled to stand upon an emasculated platform 
 to which he must sacrifice his independence. 
 Neither JNIr. Taft nor Mr. Bryan has indi- 
 cated since nomination that any principle is 
 at stake except that of office holding. 
 
 Mr. Taft effected a compromise in Ohio 
 with the senior senator; Mr. Bryan tolerated 
 as treasurer of his party the governor of Okla- 
 homa, neither of whom needed a Hearst to re- 
 veal his character to the well informed and 
 upright citizen. Mr. Taft made terms with 
 the boss of Cincinnati, whom he had personally 
 driven from power; ]Mr. Bryan surrendered 
 to the boss of Illinois, whom he had uncom- 
 promisingly and spectacularly fought. Mr. 
 [179]
 
 'Democracy and the Overman 
 
 Taft denied himself the assistance of the 
 courageous little Senator from Wisconsin and 
 accepted the dictation of the foul-mouthed 
 Speaker of the House. Mr. Bryan permitted 
 the suppression of Cleveland's public spirited 
 mayor and joined hands with the chief gambler 
 of Indiana. Neither can claim the mantle of 
 Elijah, worn though it may be by peculiar 
 prophetic services. 
 
 Mr. Taft is the apostle of the obvious, Mr. 
 Bryan is the prophet of the dubious. 
 
 The issues before the American people are 
 so numerous and momentous that all the time 
 of each candidate might have been occupied in 
 outlining constructive policies, had he not been 
 restrained by fear or ignorance. In spite of 
 the good fortune for the country that each can- 
 didate bears an irreproachable character, there 
 must be reflection on either intellectual or 
 moral capacity in the failure or inability to 
 grapple with the fundamental social prob- 
 lems. The respected public servant and the 
 idolized popular prophet are both sacrificed to 
 the interests which control parties. The coun- 
 
 [180]
 
 Overworked Political Platitudes 
 
 try still waits for a clear-headed, constructive 
 statesman. 
 
 Public pressure has forced some encoura- 
 ging advances. The public conscience is be- 
 coming tender. Not only was Mr. Foraker 
 compelled to abstain from public appearance 
 on behalf of the Republican candidate, but 
 even General Du Pont, at whom only insinua- 
 tions were directed, found it expedient to 
 withdraw from the Republican committee. 
 These are very different days from those in 
 which McKinley was managed by Mark 
 Hanna and no objection came from within 
 the party lines to his dictatorship, although he 
 was more boldly the representative of corpo- 
 rate interests than the men who have felt it 
 necessary to withdraw from the party counsels 
 in this last campaign. Similarly the treasurer 
 of the Democratic party felt it necessary to 
 resign, although protesting his innocence of 
 the charges brought against him. The at- 
 mosphere must be different from that which 
 Richard Croker and others of his stripe 
 breathed so freely in former campaigns. 
 [181]
 
 ^Democracy and 'the 'Overman 
 
 It is evident that public opinion has changed 
 also regarding the supremacy of the state 
 over the corporations created by it. In fact 
 Senator Beveridge in campaigning for Taft 
 said: "We declare that no power in the na- 
 tion shall be greater than the nation; that no 
 corporation created to serve the people shall 
 be above the people." 
 
 That conservative of conservatives, Mr. 
 Root, said: 
 
 "Never anywhere in the long history of mankind's 
 struggles for better conditions has there been among so 
 many millions of people so great a diffusion of wealth, 
 such universal comfort of living, such ready rewards for 
 industry and enterprise, such unlimited opportunities for 
 education and individual advancement and such inde- 
 pendence and dignity of manhood as in our country now. 
 Government did not make these conditions, but they 
 would have been impossible without wise and good gov- 
 ernment, and wise and good government is necessary to 
 their continuance." 
 
 Mr. Olney admitted, "that in respect to the 
 radical policies referred to and generally 
 [182]
 
 Overworked Political Platitudes 
 
 though indefinitely designated as sociahstic, 
 both parties are tarred with the same stick." 
 
 The cat is out of the bag! The Democrats 
 may attempt to rivet the attention of the peo- 
 ple on the maintenance of ancient states' 
 rights rather than the performance of public 
 business ; the Republicans may fall back on the 
 imperative need of long neglected tariff re- 
 form, to the disregard of the administration of 
 the common life ; but the people are beginning 
 to see that local home rule is not synonymous 
 with states' rights, and that tariff revision is 
 not the issue between the parties. The real 
 issue is how to get things done. It is not pos- 
 sible to perform increasing public business and 
 avoid the imputation of socialism by the de- 
 signing and unfriendly. 
 
 A plank in the Republican platform ex- 
 pressly charges the Democratic party with be- 
 ing the representative of these revolutionary 
 tendencies. Mr. Bryan retaliates by saying: 
 
 "The Republican party is loud in its denunciation of 
 socialism, but it is constantly feeding and augmenting 
 
 ri83]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 the socialistic spirit; it permits abuses which cast an 
 odium upon individualism and furnish an argument to 
 socialists. It cultivates the industries instead of culti- 
 vating industrial independence and a spirit of self-re- 
 liance. In its latest national platform, it boldly de- 
 clares that reasonable profits should be guaranteed to 
 the protected industries. It defends the principle of 
 monopoly on the theory that competition is hurtful. In 
 taking this position it supports the main contention of 
 the socialists. Mr. Taft, the Republican candidate, 
 in the speech announcing his candidacy, advocated such 
 an amendment of the anti-trust law as would make it ap- 
 ply only to unreasonable restraint of trade. This idea, 
 that reasonable restraint of trade is unobjectionable, is 
 the entering wedge — it is the first step toward the anni- 
 hilation of the principle of competition. 
 
 "The Democratic party has been called a socialistic 
 party and I have been denounced as a socialist. I con- 
 tend that the Republican party, not the Democratic 
 party, is aiding the Socialist party; and this is evident 
 from the fact that the socialist leaders prefer the Re- 
 publican success to Democratic success. They fear 
 that Democratic reforms will retard socialism and they 
 believe that Republican abuse can be used to arouse op- 
 position to the entire competitive system. The Demo- 
 cratic party would argue with the socialist, while the 
 Republican party denounces him, but the Democratic 
 party would remove the spirit of unrest and discontent 
 [184]
 
 Overworked Political Platitudes 
 
 by eliminating the abuses that are the foundation of 
 unrest and discontent." 
 
 Why this fear of a name! Mr. Taft said 
 (before the campaign, of course) : 
 
 "Under a representative form of government the in- 
 terests of any particular set of people are more likely to 
 be advanced when represented by one of themselves than 
 by one of another class, no matter how altruistic." 
 
 All the Republican leaders have been at 
 pains to defend the billion dollar Congress 
 and the multiplication of officeholders, on the 
 ground of work performed. The fact is here 
 — the name for it is being evaded. The exi- 
 gencies of public life have forced an enlarge- 
 ment of the state. It is still possible to 
 control this in the interest of officeholders and 
 privileged corporations, but all the ills threat- 
 ened with the advent of socialism, are fewer 
 than those which will inevitably result on the 
 undemocratic, paternalistic enlargement of the 
 state. The people do not rule, despite the 
 violent claims of Mr. Taft, Mr. Sherman and 
 [185]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 Mr. Root, nor has Mr. Bryan the right to ask 
 that they should rule, since he has abandoned 
 his program of initiative and referendum. 
 
 In spite of these socialistic tendencies forced 
 upon the government and unwillingly admit- 
 ted in fragmentary form in the platforms, the 
 lack of clear headed statesmanship causes a 
 neglect of the most urgent problems. Mr. 
 Taft and Mr. Bryan both claim to favor ex- 
 tending the franchise to woman, but it is not 
 a campaign issue ! Both profess great friend- 
 liness to the negro, but the Republican party 
 dodges the readjustment of representation in 
 the Southern States; while ]Mr. Bryan dare 
 not take advantage of the negro revolt because 
 the most loyal supporters of his party are the 
 chief enemies of the negro. While a prohibi- 
 tion wave is sweeping the country, what has 
 either partj^ to say about the regulation of al- 
 cohol? Prohibition, local option, high or low 
 license, the Sunday saloon, the domination of 
 the liquor interests are all skillfully evaded. 
 
 There is much talk of the tariff. Although 
 the Republicans have up to the present moment 
 [186]
 
 Overworked Political Platitudes 
 
 done nothing for organic reform, they claim 
 to have all the necessary wisdom for revision 
 now, while the Democratic party, which lost its 
 opportunity in two preceding administrations, 
 passes over other crying evils and obliterates 
 its previous watchwords to emphasize its tradi- 
 tional antipathy to the tariff. Meanwhile 
 what becomes of a scientific system of taxa- 
 tion? The Democratic party reiterates its be- 
 lief in an income tax, but who shall take the 
 lead in the abolition of the pernicious American 
 methods of indirect taxation, in favor of a 
 just and fruitful absorption of the unearned 
 increment? Where is the voice in opposition 
 to militarism? Mr. Roosevelt's "big stick'* 
 finds its chief support in the loud-mouthed 
 Democrat, Hobson. Both platforms express 
 their devotion to a burdensome navy, but 
 where shall one find in platform principles or 
 the utterances of the candidates a word for the 
 unemployed? 
 
 Honorary membership in unions ought not 
 to delude the thoughtful workingman when 
 he finds nothing in or on the platform regard- 
 [1871
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 ing the care and training of the unemployed; 
 the compulsory education of the working- 
 man's children; the distribution of immigra- 
 tion so as to prevent the congestion of the in- 
 ferior, unskilled labor at the great industrial 
 centers; old age pensions (already secured in 
 those countries which are the chief industrial 
 competitors of the United States) ; accident 
 insurance, and other extensions of the employ- 
 ers' liability law (which each platform effu- 
 sively demands) ; shorter hours of labor, 
 a Saturday half -holiday, or any other means of 
 making life richer by well ordered industry. 
 
 The people are, of course, concerned as to 
 the rescue of the House of Representatives 
 from the grip of the Speaker, the popular 
 election of Senators, the apportionment of the 
 functions of government to the nation and the 
 states, and all the other questions of adminis- 
 tration. They are not oblivious to the ques- 
 tion of bank deposits, tariff reform, the multi- 
 plication of officeholders, and the expense of 
 the government; but they are primarily con- 
 cerned in getting things done — no matter how 
 [188],
 
 Overworked Political Platitudes 
 
 great may be the extension of governmental 
 functions to accomplish this end. They are 
 tired of epithets and promises, negative criti- 
 cisms, and historical reminiscences. They are 
 apparently not yet prepared in large numbers 
 to fight for principle, or to refuse to vote for 
 either of the conspicuous candidates, or to ig- 
 nore the presidential office and reform 
 congress. There will be many quadrennials 
 before the people, through their just and law- 
 ful asking, receive a full loaf, but a half -loaf 
 is better than stones, and the chief fruits of this 
 campaign should be the recognition of the 
 emptiness of political platitudes and a clearer 
 demand for constructive statesmanship. 
 
 189
 
 I
 
 THE OVERLOOKED 
 CHARTERS OF CITIES
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE OVERLOOKED CHARTERS OF CITIES 
 
 THE government of the United States of 
 America is handicapped by a written 
 Constitution, the fundamental principle 
 of which is the separation of legislative and 
 executive functions. This historic document, 
 composed by painful compromise for the serv- 
 ice of the primitive society of the tliirteen origi- 
 nal states in the eighteenth century, has been 
 too inelastic to permit the adaptation of po- 
 litical institutions to the needs of the twentieth 
 century. It is now in process of breaking 
 down, through inability to support the weight 
 of a complex industrial society.^ 
 
 The hope of American poHtics Hes in the 
 evolution of municipal government. The 
 
 1 See J. Allen Smith, The Spirit of American Government 
 (Macmillan). 
 
 193
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 rapid increase of urban populations was not 
 anticipated by the framers of the American 
 Constitution. There has consequently been a 
 constant experimentation in charter-making, 
 with predominantly futile results. In course 
 of time, however, the simple principle has 
 emerged, that the charter should be adapted 
 to the functions of the city, and from this prin- 
 ciple there may be deduced the analogy that 
 the government of state and nation must be 
 functional, rather than arbitrary or historic. 
 The cities which have suffered because no pro- 
 vision was made originally for their govern- 
 ment may be the saviors of the nation, through 
 the djTiamic of experience. 
 
 There are now a hundred cities in the 
 United States larger than any city was at 
 the time of the adoption of the Federal 
 Constitution. The combined population of 
 three cities — New York, Chicago and Phil- 
 adelphia — is nearly three times as great 
 as the entire population of the United 
 States in 1789. The American colonies were 
 essentially rural, but the United States has be- 
 [194]
 
 The Overlooked Charters of Cities 
 
 come increasingly urban. In 1840, eight per 
 cent, of the population lived in cities; in 1860, 
 sixteen per cent, were urban; in 1900, thirty- 
 three per cent. More than a third of the popu- 
 lation, numbering in all thirty millions, live 
 under the unsystematized, badly administered, 
 municipal governments. 
 
 The most distinguished interpreter of con- 
 temporary American politics. Ambassador 
 James Bryce, said in his "American Common- 
 wealth" in 1889, that the American municipal- 
 ity was the one failure in the governmental 
 system. In these latter days he has happily 
 modified his statement, for it is in no sense true 
 today. The American municipality is badly 
 governed, but no worse than the state or the 
 nation, and the hope of the future is to be 
 found in the enthusiasm and higher moral 
 standard aroused by recent experiments in city 
 government. Valuable as contemporary ex- 
 periments are proving, it must be admitted 
 that most of the endeavors of the last century 
 and a quarter have borne only evil. 
 
 The first consequence of establishing the 
 [195]
 
 Democracy mid the Overman 
 
 government of a new country on the principle 
 of a written constitution which made no pro- 
 vision for the administration of cities, was that 
 the constant crudity of citizenship expressed 
 itself in a chaos of charters. Whenever a 
 municipal government has proved ineffective, 
 enthusiastic municipal reformers have begun 
 tinkering with the charter, without any well- 
 devised political philosophy, and without try- 
 ing to make the existing charter more effective. 
 The original plan of municipal government, 
 borrowed from the mother country, was the 
 simple one of a council, a central, representa- 
 tive, all-powerful body, unencumbered by any 
 checks or vetoes such as make national and state 
 governments ineffectual. This council, called 
 "selectmen" — or by some other designation in 
 different parts of the country — retained its 
 integrity only a little while, when its service 
 proved unsatisfactory. The first modification 
 suggested was the addition of a mayor, with 
 minor executive functions, but with the power 
 of veto over legislation. There was thus in- 
 troduced what wajs regarded as a corrective 
 [196J
 
 The Overlooked Charters of Cities 
 
 force for the impulsiveness or inadequacy of 
 the counciknen, but it proved to be the first of 
 the destructive forces, making city government 
 increasingly ineffectual. The mayor, first 
 chosen by the council, was subsequently elected 
 by the people; and this system of divided au- 
 thority remains characteristic of most of the 
 cities in America. 
 
 The next step in the modification of the 
 simple council also followed the analogy of the 
 national and state governments, many cities 
 dividing their legislative body into a select and 
 a common council. Legislation was thus re- 
 tarded and made more difficult, a process w^hich 
 has resulted in the course of time in hindering 
 good legislation rather than bad. Fortu- 
 nately, the practice has not become universal, 
 and the majority of the cities still retain the 
 single council. Whichever method was 
 adopted, dissatisfaction increased, and further 
 modifications were made by the appointment of 
 boards or commissions, sometimes by the coun- 
 cil, sometimes by the mayor, sometimes elected 
 directly by the people, and, at times, appointed 
 [197]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 by the governor. Accompanying this tend- 
 ency to diffuse responsibihty was the usual 
 "democratic" demand for the popular election 
 of as many officials as possible, on the supposi- 
 tion that the people thus secured better con- 
 trol. 
 
 The consequence of all these steps has been 
 divided responsibility. Occasionally a commis- 
 sion has been needed as an emergency meas- 
 ure, and has temporarily proved more efficient 
 only to result in permanent disaster because of 
 the reliance placed upon it instead of upon the 
 tedious process of educating the citizen for 
 self-government. The natural result of all 
 these complicated changes is to put an increas- 
 ing amount of power in the party organiza- 
 tions, to develop a system of political bosses, 
 concerned for patronage on the one hand and 
 for the support of the national party at the ex- 
 pense of local interests on the other. The 
 people have become bewildered and discour- 
 aged, and in some instances it has been pos- 
 sible for the state legislatures to pass what are 
 known as "ripper bills," taking from the pec- 
 [198]
 
 The Overlooked Charters of Cities 
 
 pie not only the right of self-government, but 
 even the officials they have chosen. 
 
 This unintelligent groping for governmen- 
 tal reforms would have been adequate to se- 
 cure municipal inefficiency; but to this has 
 been added increasingly the activity of the 
 aggressive private corporation, taking ad- 
 vantage of civic apathy. The business talent 
 will always rule a community; if it cannot be 
 induced to serve in official position and to sub- 
 ordinate private to public interest, it will, 
 nevertheless, rule indirectly. The founda- 
 tions of politics, as of all the rest of social 
 life, are necessarily economic, and the over- 
 man dominates the American community to 
 his own advantage, without participating, as 
 a rule, directly in politics. 
 
 There has been in the history of the Ameri- 
 can municipality a vast amount of raw 
 political corruption due to office-seeking, tol- 
 erated often by the people, whose crude con- 
 ception of equality has approved of rotation 
 in office; but more and more the controlling 
 force in the city has become the big business 
 [199]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 interest wishing special privileges. The pri- 
 vate corporation never sleeps: the public gen- 
 erally does. Even when the officials are 
 honest — a not invariable situation — the legal 
 talent of the private business is necessarily 
 alert in its defense. The sluggish people are 
 aroused once or twice a year to halting action 
 through public officials, much less competent 
 that the officers of the private company. In 
 consequence, these public officials have become 
 susceptible to the influence of the stronger 
 economic interests of the overman, the people 
 have been indifferent, and the custom has 
 grown of employing improper methods to 
 secure special privileges. When a large 
 lighting company presented a franchise to 
 the city council of a northwestern city re- 
 centlj', the interests of the public were found 
 to be so safeguarded through the foresight of 
 the officers, who saw the increasing tendency 
 to impose restrictions upon private business, 
 that the city councilmen refused to grant the 
 franchise, on the ground that it was incredible 
 that a private company could offer such liberal 
 [200]
 
 The Overlooked Charters of Cities 
 
 terms. The proposition seemed so fair to the 
 city that the public officials could not help be- 
 lieving that there must be "a nigger in the 
 woodpile." 
 
 A few of the less familiar instances of mu- 
 nicipal corruption will indicate the forces 
 which have tended to arouse the American citi- 
 zen to the necessity of municipal reorganiza- 
 tion. There was presented to a city on the 
 Great Lakes, in 1899, a proposition to extend 
 the franchise of the street railway company for 
 ten years, from 1924. The plea was made that 
 in order to improve the service it was necessary 
 to issue bonds, for which the credit of the com- 
 pany might be enhanced by these larger privi- 
 leges. It seemed to the people of the city an 
 unwarranted demand, as any competent body 
 of men should be able to make large profits on 
 a street railway system in a city of a quarter 
 of a million inhabitants in twenty-five years. 
 The campaign, therefore, revolved about this 
 proposition. The Republican party was sus- 
 pected, because the president of the street rail- 
 way company was its boss. The opposition, 
 [201]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 therefore, effected a fusion between the Demo- 
 cratic and Popuhst parties and nominated a 
 mayor who was to be the representative of the 
 people against the street railway company. A 
 body of exceptionally honest aldermen was to 
 be chosen to support the mayor. The people 
 were victorious and, presumably, the street rail- 
 way company defeated. 
 
 It was soon discovered, however, that the 
 people's mayor and the honest aldermen were 
 about to grant the franchise desired to the 
 street railway company. This was so traitor- 
 ous that a wide-spread public agitation occu- 
 pied the city for a fortnight. There was ap- 
 parently unanimous disapproval of the pro- 
 posed action of the council. In spite of that, 
 the franchise was passed by the council and 
 signed by the mayor. It is difficult to believe 
 that such high-handed methods could be em- 
 ployed in any city at the dawn of the twen- 
 tieth century, and the presumption might be 
 that only by the most corrupt methods could 
 such action be brought to pass. It is not, how- 
 ever, necessary^ to imply that the public of- 
 [202]
 
 The Overlooked Charters of Cities 
 
 ficials were directly bought, as a single 
 illustration will show. One of the "honest" 
 aldermen had a brother in the coal business. 
 Immediately after the election the brother re- 
 ceived a contract to furnish the street railway 
 company with coal, and the "honest" alderman 
 voted for the ordinance. In enlightened com- 
 munities this would be regarded as corrupt; 
 but where political life is primitive the people 
 are still dominated by personal motives upon 
 which the sophisticated overman and the poli- 
 ticians play, while themselves ignoring person- 
 al or party obligations. 
 
 In extenuation of the corrupt alliance of! 
 business man and politician, it should be stated 
 that these stupid people three times re-elected 
 the corrupt mayor. It is almost incredible 
 that a street railway president and a hotel 
 proprietor could hold in the hollow of their 
 hands a city of a quarter of a million people, 
 presumably in possession of universal suf- 
 frage. Even the minor business interests in 
 a city like that are subservient, the intelligent, 
 high-minded people usually constitute an in-, 
 [203]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 significant minority, while the masses are un- 
 organized or disorganized through the same 
 short-sighted self-interest. That the people 
 will not always remain a mob, while the over- 
 man flirts with impartial disloyalty with both 
 political parties, is illustrated by the election 
 of a Socialist mayor in Milwaukee. 
 
 The city of Chicago had been served for 
 some time, more or less efficiently, by a private 
 gas company, which had secured control of the 
 entire supply of the city. There was a charge 
 of a dollar a thousand cubic feet for illumina- 
 ting gas and seventy-five cents for fuel gas, the 
 quality, of course, being the same in both 
 cases. The city undertook to regulate the 
 price of gas by establishing a maximum charge 
 of seventy-five cents for any service. This 
 was promptly taken into the courts, in ac- 
 cordance with the American method of dis- 
 covering whether the law is "constitutional," 
 and there it remained for years. Meanwhile a 
 docile people continued to pay a dollar for 
 illuminating gas. 
 
 Then the city council resorted to that device 
 [204]
 
 The Overlooked Charters of Cities 
 
 of antiquity, "enforced competition." They 
 passed an ordinance granting a franchise to a 
 competing gas company on condition that it 
 should not sell out to the larger company 
 known as the "trust." The small company be- 
 gan to furnish gas in a limited area of the 
 city and was promptly met by a reduction of 
 rates, so that shortly the people of that favored 
 area were enjoying gas from either company 
 at forty cents a thousand cubic feet. This 
 pressure the smaller company could not stand, 
 but it was forbidden to sell out, so that the 
 people rejoiced in the situation — for a few 
 weeks! Then the gas "trust" entered into an 
 agreement with the competing company, offer- 
 ing to buy this company out at the expiration 
 of its franchise, and operating meanwhile upon 
 a "gentlemen's agreement." The price of gas 
 was immediately restored; and by way of re- 
 buking the people for attempting to interfere 
 with the prerogatives of a private company the 
 price of fuel gas was also raised to a dollar. 
 
 Then began a series of investigations with 
 regard to legitimate prices, and the question 
 [205]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 as to whether the city could regulate was 
 pressed in the courts by the public authorities. 
 A distinguished engineer, the head of one of 
 the great schools of technology, testified in 
 the investigation as to the legitimate price for 
 gas, that the company could not afford to sell 
 gas for less than ninety-five cents. Shortly 
 thereafter the company itself presented an 
 ordinance to the city council asking to have the 
 price of gas regulated at eighty-five cents — 
 presumably a dead loss to the company of ten 
 cents per thousand cubic feet, on the basis of 
 expert advice. The council was so impressed 
 with the generosity of this offer that it 
 promptly passed the ordinance, which, how- 
 ever, was vetoed by a mayor devoted to the 
 public interests. The council then, in great 
 haste, passed the ordinance by a two-thirds 
 vote over the mayor's veto. The very next 
 day the Supreme Court rendered a decision, 
 giving the city the right to regulate the price 
 of gas. The officials of the gas company must 
 have anticipated this decision, but the repre- 
 sentatives of the people and the people them- 
 [206]
 
 The Overlooked Charters of Cities 
 
 selves were asleep. There are so many 
 instances of this kind in the history of Ameri- 
 can municipal government, that in a great 
 many of the cities the people have utterly lost 
 courage; but it is these flagrant violations of 
 public morality which have aroused the people 
 to the present movement for municipal reform 
 and reconstruction. 
 
 It is less than fifteen years since the first ef- 
 fort was made to bring together some of 
 those interested in improved municipal condi- 
 tions for the organization of a national society, 
 devoted to the encouragement of municipal 
 reform. From the date of the organization of 
 the National Municipal League, in 1894, there 
 has been an extension of municipal reform in 
 accelerating ratio. The differing character of 
 the people in various parts of the country, the 
 varying size of cities, and the peculiarities of 
 local charters, have caused a great range of 
 expressions of this spirit. The first step to- 
 wards better municipal government has gen- 
 erally been an effort to emancipate municipal 
 politics from the control of the national po- 
 [207]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 litical parties. In order to maintain party 
 organizations, the interests of the locaUties are 
 sacrificed. In spite of the illogical character 
 of this domination and its injurious eiFects 
 upon the municipalities, it has been difficult to 
 shake off the control of the national parties, 
 because it is argued that each election tends 
 to maintain the organization which contributes 
 most to national prosperity. Independent 
 parties are multiplying, and there are many 
 non-partisan organizations which help to guide 
 the voter in selecting from the nominations of 
 the great parties, but absurd as the system is, 
 it persists. 
 
 Another step toward municipal reform has 
 been taken by introducing civil service regula- 
 tions for the choice of public officials and em- 
 ployes. The "spoils system" of appointing 
 public servants on the basis of political service 
 has been so intrenched that civil service reform 
 seemed the only avenue to municipal efficiency. 
 The clumsy device of examinations is a poor 
 means of testing a candidate's capacity, and it 
 prevents that elasticitj^^ which is indispensable if 
 [208]
 
 The Overlooked Charters of Cities 
 
 the public corporation is to compete with the 
 private corporation ; but it is a necessary make- 
 shift which tends to raise the standard of ef- 
 ficiency. 
 
 Among the most influential of the forces 
 tending to modify and improve American mu- 
 nicipal government has been a succession of 
 excellent mayors and other public officials in 
 different cities, who by their energy and vision 
 have not only improved conditions in their own 
 communities but have stinmlated the emulation 
 of others. In spite of the immense powers of 
 many of the American mayors, they have 
 often been politicians rather than statesmen, 
 amenable to private instead of public inter- 
 ests; hence the aggressive mayors, from Pin- 
 gree of Detroit and Jones of Toledo to Seidel 
 of Milwaukee and Gaynor of New York, who 
 have led in vigorous accomplishment, have 
 made a great impression on the country. 
 
 It is coming to be recognized that genuine 
 
 municipal reform is primarily a product of the 
 
 extension of municipal functions. When 
 
 there are more services to be performed by the 
 
 [209]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 municipality, when the pubhc debt and the 
 annual budget are continually on the increase, 
 the interest of the voter is excited. It is be- 
 coming evident that the changes proposed in 
 the methods of municipal administration not 
 only are due to the increasing volume of public 
 business but must be of such a nature as to 
 facilitate public administration. 
 
 Abstract political theories must yield to the 
 common sense of democratic administration. 
 
 When the people begin to see that their 
 chief antagonists are the public service corpo- 
 rations, it is next necessary to convince them 
 that government must be simpler and more 
 direct, and still leave to the officials that lati- 
 tude which is necessary to enable them to 
 compete with the officers of the private 
 corporations. Why may they not hope even 
 to employ the overman? 
 
 The traditional American form of govern- 
 ment is unsuited to the progressive education 
 of the people and to the expeditious perform- 
 ance of public business. The domination of 
 [210]
 
 The Overlooked Charters of Cities 
 
 the party, the remoteness of the legislative 
 machinery, and the complicated election meth- 
 ods have tended to keep the voter ignorant. 
 At the same time, the elaborate ballot, with 
 the simple device of party columns, having a 
 place at the top, sometimes aided by a symbol, 
 where the elector can vote for all the party 
 candidates at one stroke, make even literacy 
 unnecessary. Recently in Chicago there was 
 presented for a record of the voter's suiFrage 
 a ticket containing six columns of sixty-seven 
 names each, so bewildering that the most intel- 
 ligent voter could not be expected to discrim- 
 inate, but by the arrangement in columns a 
 premium was put upon a lack of intelligence. 
 While this method of perplexing the voter 
 continues, there is also the device of indirec- 
 tion, known as the "system of checks." The 
 veto of the mayor, the occasional double coun- 
 cil, and the final reference of legislative action 
 to the Supreme Courts, are all designed to 
 carry out the division between executive, leg- 
 islative and judicial functions, which is sup- 
 [211]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 posed to be the bulwark of American democ- 
 racy. It is, in fact, a primary source of 
 American corruption and inefficiency. 
 
 The general tendency in charter reform at 
 the end of the nineteenth century was towards 
 home rule and simplicity ; but with even an ex- 
 aggerated emphasis on the separation of the 
 legislative and executive. This results in giv- 
 ing the mayor huge powers, such as he has in 
 the city of New York, defended by many 
 people on the ground that one-man power is 
 the source of all success in the great private 
 corporations. It is worthy of record that this 
 "simplicity" was secured in New York by a 
 charter fifty times as large as the United 
 States Constitution with all its amendments. 
 The breaking down of that device of the novice 
 has facilitated recognition of the admirable 
 results achieved through the frank abandon- 
 ment of misleading American tradition, such 
 as one finds in Galvestion and other Texas 
 municipalities, more recently in Des Moines, 
 and now in scores of cities from Tacoma, 
 [Washington, to Gloucester, Massachusetts. 
 [212]
 
 The Overlooked Charters of Cities 
 
 The flood which destroyed Galveston left 
 the people of that city in industrial and po- 
 litical chaos. To build a new city on the ruins 
 of the old, among a distracted and discouraged 
 people, it was proposed to have what is called 
 a "commission," of five men, to whom should 
 be entrusted all the municipal functions, ex- 
 cept education. It is unfortunate that the 
 term "commission" has been applied to this 
 form of government, as commissions in 
 America suggest those supernumerary organ- 
 izations intervening to do the work left un- 
 done, or badly done, by council and mayor. 
 This plan is, in fact, a reversion to council 
 government, such as one sees universally in 
 Great Britain. Under the pressure of an 
 emergency, these cities have compromised on 
 a very small council, whose performances can 
 easily be observed. Experience will doubt- 
 less lead to the enlargement of this council in 
 larger cities (the details have already been 
 modified a number of times elsewhere) but the 
 initial step is epoch-making. 
 
 It has not only been followed by; other Texas 
 [213]
 
 Democracy and the Overman 
 
 cities; legislation in the state of Iowa has im- 
 proved upon it. The Iowa Legislature passed 
 an act enabling any city to adopt a charter 
 giving itself council government. The capital 
 city, Des Moines, availed itself of this oppor- 
 tunity and inaugurated a body of five council- 
 men, one of whom is the mayor with the func- 
 tions of presiding officer. Each member of 
 the council (elected at large, not by wards), is 
 the head of one of the five city departments. 
 These councilmen, thus, not only represent the 
 whole city instead of any district in the city, 
 but they are imder control by the people 
 through the necessity of submitting every 
 public utility franchise to the voters for ap- 
 proval, and to further regulation by the initi- 
 ative and referendum. Direct legislation is 
 made possible upon petition of twenty-five per 
 cent of the voters. Unfortunately the charter 
 is encumbered with a recall, whereby dissatis- 
 fied constituents may demand that their repre- 
 sentative stand for re-election at any time. 
 This ostensibly democratic device, justifiable 
 under the old complicated charters, seems to be 
 [214]
 
 The Overlooked Charters of Cities 
 
 in danger of discouraging representatives ac- 
 customed to the previous freedom of such 
 officials, who will feel sufficiently constrained 
 for some time under the restrictions of the 
 referendum and initiative. 
 
 The councilmen are paid salaries higher than 
 has been the custom in American cities (which 
 have usually paid some merely nominal sum) 
 but not large enough to secure the uninter- 
 rupted service of the best men. Despite 
 minor defects, the Des Moines charter repre- 
 sents a notable advance in American municipal 
 government in the abandonment of the qld 
 division between legislative and executive 
 functions, and the creation of an all-powerful 
 council, under the control of the citizens. 
 There has resulted, as in Texas cities, greater 
 efficiency and economy, with the steady edu- 
 cation of the voter. 
 
 It is difficult to exaggerate the significance 
 of this new form of municipal government, 
 which is not yet fully appreciated even by its 
 friends. The failure to comprehend its revo- 
 lutionary and regenerative character is indi- 
 [215]
 
 'Democracy and the Overman 
 
 cated in a review of its extension which ap- 
 peared in a Texas newspaper. The addition 
 of the initiative and referendum, which has 
 been made in all the cities outside of Texas, was 
 treated as immaterial, while Boston was cred- 
 ited with a modified "commission" charter. 
 In fact, direct legislation is indispensable, not 
 only to keep the board of five men from oligar- 
 chic tendencies, but also to educate the voter, 
 while Boston's charter represents the old 
 system intentionally in the continuance of a 
 mayor with veto powers. 
 
 There are many differences in these various 
 charters which are negligible, but the funda- 
 mental accomplishment of the new system is 
 the union of legislative and executive func- 
 tions. It is not desirable to restrict the coun- 
 cilmen more than is done in Galveston, where 
 all their time is not required by law, and con- 
 sequently a superior type of man (the over- 
 man, in fact) can afford to serve. Houston, 
 Des Moines and subsequent cities have unfor- 
 tunately exacted all the time of their council- 
 men at salaries which cannot attract the best 
 
 216
 
 The Overlooked Charters of Cities 
 
 talent. It is also desirable to keep the council 
 small, to elect the members at large, and not 
 by wards; it is imperative that the people be 
 given a voice in legislation and the control of 
 finances; but the triumph of the system is its 
 abandonment of the vicious American tradi- 
 tion of the separation of legislative and ex- 
 ecutive functions. 
 
 It is possible under this kind of charter or 
 constitution to secure the services of the most 
 efficient, to place responsibility where it can be 
 known of all men, and to educate the masses 
 to intelligent participation in government. 
 With the untrained and complacent American 
 electorate, and the domineering and privileged 
 overman, political conversion cannot be instan- 
 taneous, but American democracy has wit- 
 nessed no such contribution, since the adoption 
 of the Constitution, as the revival of council 
 government and its spread through American 
 cities. Its translation, in time, into the terms 
 of state and national government will coincide 
 with the sovereignty of Demos. 
 
 217
 
 i
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last dflte stamped below. 
 
 m 
 
 ON 
 
 tfHL APR2I'8| 
 
 RFX'D LD-URL' 
 
 ORION 
 
 LDfURt: 
 
 iHfizz^
 
 3 1158 00891 8459 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 001 177 665 5