The qualities which render a government popular or successful at home do not always work for efficiency in foreign relations. In home matters the nation discusses, divides, and experiments; in its foreign relations it must act as one man and present to the other nations the same single attitude as would be offered by a dictatorship. Therefore it has been often said that a democracy is apt to be weak in its foreign policy, because it has to reconcile so many opinions before it can effectually act. But this weakness is not inherent in every conceivable democracy; it is possible for a democratic electorate if sufficiently intelligent to select one man or a small group of men to represent it in foreign affairs with firmness and ability. This, however, cannot be expected from an unintelligent constituency such as manhood suffrage provides, much less from an organization for spoils such as it has developed and placed in power in the United States.

The manhood suffrage politicians who have had the popular ear for the past century have not understood the necessities or proprieties of our foreign relations, and have misinformed the people on the subject. They have adopted the cheap newspaper attitude of sneering at skill, tact and secrecy and applauding truculence and bluff in foreign diplomacy. They have never realized the value of trained and cultivated statesmanship. Its importance is however transcendent. As long as the world continues to be composed of many different nations each including large populations, differing more or less in race, religion, habits and prejudices from each of the others, there will be new and delicate situations constantly arising, requiring the practice of tact, statesmanship, diplomacy, and a historical as well as a present day practical knowledge of foreign countries. But under the system of universal suffrage the populace is king, the machine is his chief minister, the cheap daily press is his mouthpiece, and statesmen and diplomats are not valued by either. The inferior newspapers want men in office who depend not on merit but on advertisement; who rely for promotion on journalistic control of a public which gets all its information from the daily press. They prefer politicians who toady to them to statesmen who despise their ignorance, their lies and their vulgarities. It is the custom of both politicians and newspapers to belittle statesmanship, because the politicians have no knowledge of its history and capacities, and because real statesmen are indisposed to tolerate the pretensions and the interference of either newspapers or politicians. All three, populace, press and political machine, would like to see the general policy of the nation, including its foreign affairs, confided to such politicians as would seek guidance rather in the opinions of the mob and the columns of the newspapers than in studies of the history of foreign politics, of economics, of institutions and of the dynamic forces of the time.

There can be no successful diplomatic or even business negotiation without a decent amount of secrecy. The cheap newspapers dislike this precaution. They pretend to see no need for secret diplomacy; they insist that all negotiations between nations should be public. They are not prone to understand pride or delicacy in any quarter, and would like to see made public the private transactions not only of nations but of individuals, so that they might thus satisfy the cheap curiosity of their readers; for this reason they are opposed to the law of libel and to every protection to human privacy. They tell us in their flippant and cock-sure way that diplomacy and secrecy are not necessary parts of the policy or of the procedure of a free nation; that all treaty negotiations should be open; and they are fond of denouncing with a great show of moral indignation the secret diplomacy of the so-called autocracies of the world. But common sense teaches us that as long as national pride continues, and treaties are to be made and war and peace decided upon by governments, that is to say, as long as opposing and warlike nations exist, secrecy will be necessary in the discussion of treaties and in all important international negotiations; and that the government which neglects to use the precaution and to give the guaranty of secrecy will be sometimes left in the lurch.

We hear a lot about a League of Nations in these days. The greatest and most successful league of sovereign powers ever established was this Union of States by and under a Constitution which was forged and created at Philadelphia in 1787 by some forty educated and propertied gentlemen working in absolute secrecy. Neither the newspapers nor the populace was allowed to be present or to be represented at their deliberations, nor to know what was going on, nor to read or otherwise learn of their debates or processes, therefore the delegates were able to work untrammelled and to produce good results. Absolute secrecy in its construction made our American Constitution possible.

Besides secrecy, great skill is required in the making of treaties and constitutions. The nations whose rulers and diplomatic agents are chosen under a system of universal suffrage, of government by demagogues and platform ranters who are allowed and expected to distribute diplomatic posts among their supporters; such nations will suffer in competition with those whose polity brings to the front and puts in command a set of trained educated statesmen and diplomats. The two greatest triumphs of the United States in its entire history were diplomatic achievements; and both were accomplished by statesmen trained under the old property qualification suffrage system, before manhood suffrage had cheapened our institutions. It was diplomacy, and secret diplomacy at that, which under the astute management of Franklin obtained for the American States the aid of France and made successful the American Revolution. It was diplomacy, secret and highly skilled diplomacy, which procured in 1803 the cession to the United States by France of Louisiana, from which territory nine great states and the greater part of four others were created and which made the United States a real power in the world. The story of that acquisition as described by Fiske is that of one of the greatest diplomatic achievements in history; and, after making all allowances for good luck in the affair, we find there pictured a statesmanship and a patriotism calculated to thrill the heart of every American. The men who were most conspicuous on the American side from first to last in that transaction, were not of the class of politicians who are to-day being chosen for high office by the popular vote; they were Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Robert R. Livingston; all of them men of position, property, good family, descent and education. All but Washington were college graduates. All were brought to the front by a system established upon the votes of a propertied electorate.

As government by the propertied class was successful in diplomacy in those old days, so that of manhood suffrage has been a diplomatic failure in our own time. The most recent and terrible instance of the direful results of lack of governmental efficiency has been that of the episode of the German War just concluded. Democracy was not only unprepared in 1914 for the struggle with Germany, but it completely failed to foresee or even to suspect its approach. The crisis of 1914 found the four great democratic nations of the world deficient in military organization, in preparation for defense, and in international vision and information. Granted the existence of a Germany, armed to the teeth, and sharpening her sword for mischief, Democracy should have had in charge of its foreign affairs men with vision sufficient to enable them to foresee or at least to conjecture her designs. Of these designs her democratic neighbors had no conception, and the United States was as unsuspecting as a child. No effort had been made to study the situation. Our rulers were mere vote-getters, local politicians, with a ridiculously small knowledge of foreign affairs, and of the dreadful impending future no vision whatever. We had then and we have now no adequate foreign affairs organization at Washington or abroad; and no sufficient popular conception of the need of one. It was part of the business of an efficient national government in 1914 to understand thoroughly our foreign relations; and therefore to keep competent representatives in all foreign countries; to measurably understand the policy of Germany and every other first class power and its true significance; the extent of Germany’s military and naval preparations and their object, and the issues involved in the war; it was its business to realize our true interests therein; to keep informed of every phase of the struggle as it proceeded; to lead and advise the press and the representatives of the people on all these matters; to cause due preparation to be made for all eventualities, and to prescribe a consistent and dignified policy for the nation. No one can possibly deny that the Washington administration failed in all and every one of these respects. It did none of these things; and let us haste to say that it is not to be supposed that the opposite party could have done any better. In these important matters Washington could not help but fail, because our political system created by universal suffrage and guided by its paltry spirit makes no provision for statesmanship or diplomacy; for forethought, sagacity and profound policy in foreign affairs; nor for preparation for great wars. Nor were the other great democracies, Great Britain, France, or Italy, much better off, as is shown by the miserable Russian fiasco, when they and ourselves, with an incredible fatuous folly permitted and even aided or encouraged the Bolsheviki and their German assistants to destroy the Russian alliance, by deposing the friendly Czar who was maintaining a government which had fought nobly and effectively for the common cause, and which was the only civilized government possible in Russia. It was then in the power of the Allies backing the Czar to have stamped out Bolshevism. They allowed him to be deposed by a gang of adventurers, while we stupidly applauded and raised the silly cry that Russia was now a democracy; a free country forsooth. Misled by our ignorant and worthless Foreign Office the masses who foolishly believe that freedom consists in merely voting at elections were delighted; our politicians and newspapers really or affectedly joined in this senseless joy; and the few among us who understood what was really being done were unable to get a hearing. Civilization in Russia and the cause of the Allies was betrayed by the ignorance of the politicians who controlled the Allied policies, and the result has been the loss of tens of thousands of American lives and billions of American dollars.

A corresponding inefficiency was displayed elsewhere by the great allied democracies. From the moment of the first blare of the German war trumpet in 1914 we saw them piteously struggling to free themselves from the burden of the political ineptitude which this pernicious system of universal suffrage and vote-getting politics had fastened upon each of them; striving to oust the democracy of ignorance and weakness, and to give the aristocracy of merit the place it must have before the fierce contest could be won. Some of the incompetents chosen for office by the much vaunted elective system were pushed to the rear out of sight; some were otherwise got rid of or superseded; and some were slowly trained up to the efficiency they should have already possessed before being put in places of trust and power. In the meantime, there was over there failure and again failure; failure in Serbia; failure in Greece; failure in Rumania; failure in Ireland; failure in Russia. And here in our own country as the war proceeded, want of foresight, want of preparation, inefficiency and waste; and though democracy conquered at last it was by sheer weight of numbers and resources, while its slowness to understand, to decide and to act brought us to the very verge of disaster and cost untold lives and money, which efficiency would have saved.

For the benefit of short memories, the writer presents here a few extracts from publications pointing out our criminal want of preparation for defense at all times prior to 1918. For this situation, each political party blames the other; the fact being, that the fault is chargeable, not to any party, group or individual, but to our political system and cheap traditions.

A well-known authority on naval and military affairs, writing in the Outlook of April 11th, 1917, says, p. 651:

Here is the case of England, another democracy, presented in an extract from an article in the North American Review for July, 1918, by A. Maurice Low:

Not only were the American people unprepared for physical action of any kind at the outbreak of the war of 1914, but the Congress then sitting in Washington was mentally unprepared and unequipped for dealing with that or any similar situation. It needed first rate men; and manhood suffrage furnished and is still furnishing the Capitol with a supply of third and fourth raters. It is not merely that they were wrong on the European situation; the fact is that they were nowhere; that a large proportion of them had no opinions whatever on the questions involved in the conflict, and were incapable of forming any; they were absolutely ignorant of European politics; were unable to read a French newspaper or to understand the political discussions of an English one; a few or none of them had ever made an adequate preparation for a congressional career; they were mere vote-getters, representatives of the political machines of their respective districts; they waited for the newspapers to tell them what was the popular thing and for the bosses to inform them as to the strength of the German vote. At every step in the nation’s progress from August 1914 to the declaration of the state of war in February 1917 the country and the President showed plainly that they did not trust Congress; and Congress showed plainly that it did not deserve to be trusted in such an emergency. Neither the manhood suffrage Congress nor the manhood suffrage administration nor its political opponents in Congress took the lead at any time during this fateful period in forming, enlightening, instructing or fixing public opinion; they lacked courage and statesmanship to do it, and the nation finally got into the war by the process of drifting stern foremost. Once in, and blood drawn, real work began with the officers of the army and navy acting and compelling action; and after all when it comes to waving the banner and making appropriations our congressmen are seldom derelict.

The popular belief in the inefficiency of the Federal government, and the mischievous operation of the rabble vote, are manifested by the unwarranted meddling of individuals and groups of individuals with the administration of our foreign affairs. Any one looking into the New York Times on a certain day in July in the year of grace 1919 might have there read of the activities of the “National Association for the Protection of American Rights in Mexico,” whose principal offices are in New York City and which seems to be a regularly organized and possibly incorporated body with directors and other officers. The intentions of the members of this association may be innocent enough, yet the fact is undeniable that the United States is and ought to be the true and only “National Association for the Protection of American Rights” not only in Mexico but everywhere; and it is difficult to imagine just what this Society can perform in pursuance of its avowed purpose without undue interference with the sovereignty and proper functions of the United States Government, and without endangering the peace of the two countries mainly affected. And although the whole community ought to have been shocked at an organized movement founded on a contempt for the Federal government and a belief in its incompetence or worse, it seemed to excite no comment, and there was probably little notice taken of this particular half column of the newspaper except by those directly interested in Mexican affairs. In the same and other newspapers of the same week were items of news concerning an agitation openly being carried on in New York, Boston, and other large American cities to forcibly overthrow the government of Great Britain, as it actually exists in Ireland, and to establish in its place not merely another government, but another form of government. At the very time this scandalous agitation was being promoted by solicitations, subscriptions and collections of money, and the usual acessories of dinners, receptions and bunkum speeches by politicians, the United States was just finishing a great war in practical alliance with Great Britain; the moral ties which bound the two nations were of the strongest; each owed its very existence at that moment to the other; and the two had just signed a compact binding them to unite in defense of France. The proposals of the agitators, if they meant anything practicable, were therefore in every way improper and seditious; they included a breach of faith toward Great Britain, a betrayal of France and a disregard of the best interests of the United States. It is true that few take these agitators seriously or believe that they will attempt a revolution in Ireland or that if they should they could possibly succeed; it is doubtful if all the world combined would be able to wrest Ireland from England by force; it is true also that the majority of the American people probably believe that the so called Irish grievances have no substantial existence, and really mean no more that the exclusion from power of a set of political adventurers. But the agitators count on the well-known weaknesses of the British and American governments, both chosen by universal suffrage, and the equally well-known fact that a minority if sufficiently well-organized and impudent can bully and humbug its way along far enough to be certain to get money and place for its chiefs and always with a chance of some substantial concessions to its desires. Already the money is coming in, and the leaders are living in luxury, at the expense not merely of their dupes but of the friendly relations of the United States with Great Britain and Canada and of its reputation for good faith in its foreign relations.

The nation is in constant danger of being pushed into serious difficulties by the interested meddling with its foreign affairs of political adventurers and fanatics who would never think of daring to thus insult and interfere with a government founded upon an electorate composed of the propertied and intelligent classes, nor to bully a Congress representing them. For it is reasonable to suppose that the immediate effect of excluding the irresponsible voters from the congressional elections would be to smash the machines, and to clear the way for such an improved representation in Congress, as would certainly be demanded by a constituency of men of substance and education. To sit in Congress might become once more a distinction worthy of the ambition of proud, honorable and able men; the standard of its membership would be sensibly elevated; the administration backed or criticised as the case might be by a really able and high-minded Congress would at once be stimulated and encouraged to energetic action on the highest attainable level, and America would present as she ought a firm and thoroughly intelligent attitude towards the rest of the world.