CHAPTER ONE
The Spirit of Self-Direction

Whosoever wishes to describe the political life of the American people can accomplish this end from a number of starting points. Perhaps he would begin most naturally with the Articles of the Constitution and expound the document which has given to the American body-politic its remarkable and permanent form; or he might ramble through history and trace out from petty colonies the rise of a great world-power; or he might make his way through that multitude of events which to-day arouse the keenest public interest, the party strifes and presidential elections, the burdens and amenities of city and state, the transactions of the courts and of Congress. Yet all this would be but a superficial delineation. Whoever wishes to understand the secret of that baffling turmoil, the inner mechanism and motive behind all the politically effective forces, must set out from only one point. He must appreciate the yearning of the American heart after self-direction. Everything else is to be understood from this.

In his social life the American is very ready to conform to the will of another. With an inborn good-nature, and often too willingly, perhaps, he lends himself to social situations which are otherwise inconvenient. Thus his guest, for instance, is apt to feel like a master in his house, so completely is his own will subordinated to that of the guest. But, on the other hand, in the sphere of public life, the individual, or a more or less restricted group of individuals, feels that it must guide its own activities to the last detail if these are to have for it any value or significance whatsoever. He will allow no alien motive to be substituted—neither the self-renunciation of fidelity or gratitude, nor the Æsthetic self-forgetfulness of hero-worship, nor even the recognition that a material advantage would accrue or some desirable end be more readily achieved if the control and responsibility were to be vested in some one else. This self-direction is neither arbitrary nor perverse; least of all does it indicate a love of ease or aversion to toil. In Russia, as a well-known American once said, serfdom could be wiped out by a stroke of the Czar’s pen, and millions of Russians would be freed from slavery with no loss of life or property. “We Americans had to offer up a half-million lives and many millions’ worth of property in order to free our slaves. And yet nothing else was to be thought of. We had to overcome that evil by our own initiative, and by our own exertions reach our goal. And just because we are Americans and not Russians no power on earth could have relieved us of our responsibility.”

When in any people the desire of self-direction dominates all other motives, the form of government of that people is necessarily republican. But it does not conversely follow that every republic is grounded in this spirit of self-direction. Hence it is that the republic of the United States is so entirely different from all other republics, since in no other people is the craving for self-determination so completely the informing force. The republics of Middle and South America, or of France, have sprung from an entirely different political spirit; while those newer republics, which in fundamental intention are perhaps more similar, as for instance Switzerland, are still not comparable because of their diminutive size. The French republic is founded on rationalism. The philosophy of the eighteenth century, with its destructive criticism of the existing order, furnished the doctrines, and from that seed of knowledge there grew and still are growing the practical ideals of France. But the political life of the United States sprang not from reasoned motives but from ideals; it is not the result of insight but of will; it has not a logical but a moral foundation. And while in France the principles embodied in the constitution are derived from theory, the somewhat doubtful doctrines enunciated in the Declaration of Independence are merely a corollary to that system of moral ideals which is indissolubly combined with the American character.

It is not here to be questioned whether this character is purely the cause and not also the effect of the American system; but so much is sure, that the system of political relations which has sprung from these ethical ideals constitutes the actual body-politic of America. Such is the America which receives the immigrant and so thoroughly transforms him that the demand for self-determination becomes the profoundest passion of his soul. Such is the America toward which he feels a proud and earnest patriotism. For the soil on which his kingdom has been reared he knows but scanty sentiment or love; indeed, the early progress of America was always an extension of the frontier, an unremitting pushing forth over new domain. The American may be linked by personal ties to a particular plot of land, but his national patriotism is independent of the soil. It is also independent of the people. A nation which in every decade has assimilated millions of aliens, and whose historic past everywhere leads back to strange peoples, cannot with its racial variegation inspire a profound feeling of indissoluble unity. And yet that feeling is present here as it is perhaps in no European country. American patriotism is directed neither to soil nor citizen, but to a system of ideas respecting society which is compacted by the desire for self-direction. And to be an American means to be a partizan of this system. Neither race nor tradition, nor yet the actual past binds him to his countryman, but rather the future which together they are building. It is a community of purpose, and it is more effective than any tradition, because it pervades the whole man. Participation in a common task holds the people together, a task with no definite and tangible end nor yet any special victory or triumph to look forward to, but rather a task which is fulfilled at each moment, which has its meaning not in any result but in the doing, its accomplishment not in any event which may befall, but only in the rightness of the motive. To be an American means to co-operate in perpetuating the spirit of self-direction throughout the body-politic; and whosoever does not feel this duty and actively respond to it, although perhaps a naturalized citizen of the land, remains an alien forever.

If the newcomer is readily assimilated in such a society, commonly, yet it must not be overlooked that those who come from across the seas are not selected at random. Those who are strong of will are the ones who seek out new spheres of activity. Just those whose satisfaction in life has been stunted by a petty and oppressive environment have always cherished a longing for the New World. That conflict which every one must wage in his own bosom before he can finally tear himself away from home, has schooled the emigrant for the spirit of his new home; and only those who have been impelled by the desire for self-direction have had the strength to break the ties with their own past. Thus it is that those of Germanic extraction adapt themselves so much more quickly and thoroughly to the political spirit of America than those of Romanic blood. The Latin peoples are much more the victims of suggestion. Being more excitable, they are more imitative, and therefore as individuals less stable. The Frenchman, Italian, or Spaniard is often a sympathetic member of the social life of the country, but in its political life he introduces a certain false note; his republicanism is not the American republicanism. As a moral ideal he has little or no concern with the doctrine of self-direction.

The American political system, therefore, by no means represents an ideal of universal significance; it is the expression of a certain character, the necessary way of living for that distinct type of man which an historically traceable process of selection has brought together. And this way of living reacts in its turn to strengthen the fundamental type. Other nations, in whom other temperamental factors no less significant or potent or admirable are the fundamental traits, must find the solution of their political problems in other directions. No gain would accrue to them from any mere imitation, since it would tend to nothing but the crippling and estranging of the native genius of their people.

The cultivated American of to-day feels this instinctively. Among the masses, to be sure, the old theme is still sometimes broached of the world-wide supremacy of American ideals: and a part of the necessary paraphernalia of popular assemblages will naturally consist in a reaffirmation that the duty of America is to extend its political system into every quarter of the globe; other nations will thus be rated according to their ripeness for this system, and the history of the world appear one long and happy education of the human race up to the plane of American conceptions. But this tendency is inevitable and not to be despised. It must more nearly concern the American than the citizen of other states to propagate his ideals, since here everything depends on each individual co-operating with all his might, and this co-operation must succeed best when it is impelled by an uncritical and blindly devoted faith. And such a faith arouses, too, a zealous missionary spirit, which wants to carry this inspired state-craft unto all political heathen. But the foreigner is apt to overestimate these sentiments. The cultivated American is well aware that the various political institutions of other nations are not to be gauged simply as good or bad, and that the American system would be as impossible for Germany as the German system for America.

Those days are indeed remote when philosophy tried to discover one intrinsically best form of government. It is true that in the conflicts of diverse nations the old opposition of realistic and idealistic, of democratic and aristocratic social forces is repeated over and over. But new problems are always coming up. The ancient opposition is neutralized, and the problem finds its practical solution in that the opposing forces deploy their skirmish lines in other territory. The political ideas which led to the French Revolution had been outlived by the middle of the nineteenth century. A compromise had been effected. The whole stress of the conflict had transferred itself to social problems, and no one earnestly discussed any more whether republic or monarchy was the better form of government. The intellectual make-up of a people and its history must decide what shall be the outward form of its political institutions. And it is to-day tacitly admitted that there are light and shade on either side.

The darker side of democracy, indeed, as of every system which is founded on complete individualism, can be hidden from no one; nor would any one be so foolish, even though he loved and admired America, as to deny that weaknesses and dangers, and evils both secret and public, do there abound. Those who base their judgments less on knowledge of democratic forces than on obvious and somewhat sentimental social prejudices are apt to look for the dangers in the wrong direction. A German naturally thinks of mob-rule, harangues of the demagogue, and every form of lawlessness and violence. But true democracy does not allow of such things. A people that allows itself to turn into a mob and to be guided by irresponsible leaders, is not capable of directing itself. Self-direction demands the education of the nation. And nowhere else in the world is the mere demagogue so powerless, and nowhere does the populace observe more exemplary order and self-discipline.

The essential weakness of such a democracy is rather the importance it assigns to the average man with his petty opinions, which are sometimes right and sometimes wrong, his total lack of comprehension for all that is great and exceptional, his self-satisfied dilettanteism and his complacency before the accredited and trite in thought. This is far less true of a republic like the French, with its genius for scepticism, a republic nourished in Æsthetic traditions and founded on the ruins of an empire. The intellectual conditions are there quite different. But in an ethical democracy, where self-direction is a serious issue, domination by the average intelligence is inevitable; and those who are truly great are the ones who find no scope for their powers. Those who appear great are merely men who are exploiting to the utmost the tendencies of the day. There are no great distinctions or premiums for truly high achievements which do not immediately concern the average man, and therefore the best energies of the nation are not spurred on to their keenest activity. All ambition is directed necessarily toward such achievements as the common man can understand and compete for—athletic virtuosity and wealth. Therefore the spirit of sport and of money-getting concerns the people more nearly than art or science, and even in politics the domination of the majority easily crowds from the arena those whose qualifications do not appeal to its mediocre taste. And by as much as mature and capable minds withdraw from political life, by so much are the well-intentioned masses more easily led astray by sharp and self-interested politicians and politics made to cater to mean instincts. In short, the danger is not from any wild lawlessness, but from a crass philistinism. The seditious demagogue who appeals to passion is less dangerous than the sly political wire-puller who exploits the indolence and indifference of the people; and evil intent is less to be feared than dilettanteism and the intellectual limitations of the general public.

But, on the other hand, it is also certain that when it comes to a critical comparison between the weaknesses and theoretical dangers of democracy and aristocracy, the American is at no loss to serve up a handsome list of shortcomings to the other side. He has observed and, perhaps overestimating, he detests the spirit of caste, the existence of those restrictions which wrongfully hamper one individual and as undeservedly advantage another. Again, the American hates bureaucracy and he hates militarism. The idea of highest authority being vested in a man for any other reason than that of his individual qualifications goes against all his convictions; and his moral feeling knows no more detestable breed of man than the incompetent aspirant who is servile with his superiors and brutal to his inferiors. It is typically un-American. And if, in contrast to this, one tries to do justice to the proved advantages of monarchy, of aristocracy and the spirit of caste, to justify the ruler who stands above the strife of parties, and to defend that system of symbols by which the sentiment of the past is perpetuated in a people, and the protection which is instituted for all the more ideal undertakings which surpass the comprehension of the masses, or if one urges the value of that high efficiency which can arise only from compact political organization—then the American citizen swells with contempt. What does he care for all that if he loses the inestimable and infinite advantage which lies in the fact that in his state every individual takes an active hand, assumes responsibility, and fights for his own ideals? What outward brilliancy of achievement would compensate him for that moral value of co-operation, initiative, self-discipline, and responsibility, which the poorest and meanest citizen enjoys? It may be that an enlightened and well-meaning monarch sees to it that the least peasant can sit down to his chicken of a Sunday; but God raised up the United States as an example to all nations, that it shall be the privilege of every man to feel himself responsible for his town, county, state, and country, and even for all mankind, and by his own free initiative to work to better them. The strife of parties would better be, than that a single man should be dead to the welfare of his country; and it is good riddance to aristocracy and plenty, if a single man is to be prevented from emulating freely the highest that he knows or anywise detained from his utmost accomplishment.

All such speculative estimates of different constitutional forms lead to no result unless they take into account the facts of history. Every side has its good and evil. And all such discussions are the less productive in that superiorities of constitution, although soundly argued, may or may not in any given country be fully made use of, while on the other hand defects of constitution are very often obviated. Indeed, to take an example from present tendencies in America, nothing is more characteristic than the aristocratic by-currents through which so many dangers of democracy are avoided. Officially, of course, a republic must remain a democracy, otherwise it mines its own foundations, and yet we shall see that American social and political life have developed by no means along parallel lines but rather stand out often in sharp contrast. The same is true of Germany. Official Germany is aristocratic and monarchic through and through, and no one would wish it other; but the intimate life of Germany becomes every day more democratic, and thus the natural weaknesses of an aristocracy are checked by irresistible social counter-tendencies. It may have been the growing wealth of Germany which raised the plane of life of the middle classes; or the industrial advance which loaned greater importance to manufacturer and merchant, and took some social gloss from the office-holding class; it may have been the colonial expansion which broadened the horizon and upset a stagnant equilibrium of stale opinion; or, again, the renewed efforts of those who felt cramped and oppressed, the labourers, and, above all, the women; it does not matter how it arose—a wave of progress is sweeping over that country, and a political aristocracy is being infused with new, democratic blood.

Now in America, as will often appear later, the days are over in which all aristocratic tendencies were strictly held back. The influence of intellectual leaders is increasing, art, science, and the ideals of the upper classes are continually pushing to the front, and even social lines and stratifications are beginning more and more to be felt. The soul of the people is agitated by imperialistic and military sentiments, and whereas in former times it was bent on freeing the slaves it now discovers “the white man’s burden” to lie in the subjugation of inferior races. The restrictions to immigration are constantly being increased. Now of course all this does not a whit prejudice the formal political democracy of the land; it is simply a quiet, aristocratic complement to the inner workings of the constitution.

The presence, and even the bare possibility, here, of such by-currents, brings out more clearly how hopeless the theoretical estimation of any isolated form of statehood is, if it neglects the factors introduced by the actual life of the people. The American democracy is not an abstractly superior system of which a European can approve only by becoming himself a republican and condemning, incidentally, his own form of government: it is rather, merely, the necessary form of government for the types of men and the conditions which are found here. And any educated American of to-day fully realizes this. No theoretical hair-splitting will solve the problem as to what is best for one or another country; for that true historical insight is needed. And even when the histories of two peoples are so utterly dissimilar as are those of America and Germany, it by no means follows, as the social by-currents just mentioned show, that the real spirit of the peoples must be unlike. Democratic America, with its unofficial aristocratic leanings, has, in fact, a surprising kinship to monarchical Germany, with its inner workings of a true democracy. The two peoples are growing into strong resemblance, although their respective constitutions flourish and take deeper root.

The beginnings of American history showed unmistakably and imperatively that the government of the American people must be, in the words of Lincoln, “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” No one dreamed when the Constitution of the United States was framed, some hundred and seventeen years ago, that this democratic instrument would ever be called on to bind together a mighty nation extending from Maine to California. And, indeed, such a territorial expansion would undoubtedly have stretched and burst the unifying bonds of this Constitution, if the distance between Boston and San Francisco had not meanwhile become practically shorter than the road from Boston to Washington was in those early days. But that this Constitution could so adapt itself to the undreamt broadening of conditions, that it could continue to be the mainstay of a people that was indefinitely extending itself by exchange and purchase, conquest and treaty, and that in no crisis has an individual or party succeeded in any tampering with the rights of the people; all this shows convincingly that the American form of state was not arbitrarily hit on, but that it was the outcome of an historical development.

The spirit of this commonwealth was not first conceived in the year 1787. It was strong and ripe long before the delegates from the Thirteen States assembled under Washington’s leadership in Independence Hall at Philadelphia. The history of the English colonists to the Atlantic coast shows from the very first what weight they attached to the duties and rights of the individual, and foretells as well the inevitable result, their unloosing from the mother country and final declaration of their independence.

We may consider the different lines of development which began early in the seventeenth century, after the feeble attempts at colonization from England, France and Spain in the latter half of the sixteenth century had miscarried and left socially no traces. French settlements flourished as early as 1605, chiefly however in Nova Scotia and other parts of Canada, and in 1609 settlements of Dutch, whose colony on the Hudson River, the present New York, soon passed over into English hands. The development of the Spanish colonies on the Gulf of Mexico went on outside the territory of these young United States; and so the story of the meagre years of America is comprised in the history of the English colonies alone.

These colonies began diversely but came to resemble one another more and more as time went on. There can be no greater contrast than between the pioneer life of stout-willed men, who have left their native soil in order to live in undisturbed enjoyment of their Puritan faith, seeking to found their little communities on simple forms of self-government, and on the other hand the occupation of a rich trading company under royal charter, or the inauguration of a colony of the crown. But these differences could not be preserved. The tiny independent communities, as they grew in consideration, felt the need of some protecting power and therefore they looked once more to England; while, on the other hand, the more powerful, chartered colonies tended to loose themselves from the mother country, feeling, as they soon did, that their interests could not be well administered from across a broad ocean. In spite of the protecting arm of England, they felt it to be a condition of their sound growth that they should manage their domestic affairs for themselves. Thus it happened that all the colonies alike were externally dependent on England, while internally they were independent and were being schooled in citizenship.

The desire for self-government as a factor in the transformations which went on can very easily be traced; but it would be harder to say how far utilitarian and how far moral factors entered in. Virginia took the first step. Its first settlement of 1606 was completely subject to the king, who granted homesteads but no political rights to the colonists. It was a lifeless undertaking until 1609, when its political status was changed. The administration of the colony was entrusted to those who were interested in its material success. It became a great business undertaking which had everything in its favour. At the head was a London company, which for a nominal sum had been allowed to purchase a strip of land having four hundred miles of seacoast and extending inland indefinitely. This land contained inestimable natural resources, but needed labour to exploit them. The company then offered to grant homes on very favourable terms to settlers, receiving in return either cash or labour; and these inducements, together with the economic pressure felt by the lower classes at home, brought about a rapid growth of the colony. Now since this colony was organized like a military despotism, whose ruler, however, was no less than three thousand miles away, the interests of the company had to be represented by officials delegated to live in the colony. The interests of these officials were of course never those of the colonists, and presently, moreover, unscrupulous officials commenced to misuse their power; so that as a result, while the colony flourished, the company was on the brink of failure. The only way out of this difficulty was to concede something to the colonists themselves, and harmonize their interests with those of the company by granting them the free direction of their own affairs. It was arranged that every village or small city should be a political unit and as such should send two delegates to a convention which sat to deliberate all matters of common concern. This body met for the first time in 1619; and in a short time it happened, as was to be expected, that the local government felt itself to be stronger than the mercantile company back in London. Disputes arose, and before five years the company had ceased to exist, and Virginia became a royal province. But the fact remained that in the year 1619 for the first time a deliberative body representing the people had met on American soil. The first step toward freedom had been taken. And with subtle irony fate decreed that in this same year of grace a Dutch ship should land the first cargo of African negroes in the same colony, as slaves.

That other form of political development, which started in the voluntary compact of men who owned no other allegiance, was first exemplified in the covenant of those hundred and two Puritans who landed from the Mayflower at Plymouth, in the year 1620, having forsaken England in order to enjoy religious freedom in the New World. A storm forced them to land on Cape Cod, where they remained and amid the severest hardships built up their little colony, which, as no other, has been a perpetual spring of moral force. Even to-day the best men of the land derive their strength from the moral courage and earnestness of life of the Pilgrims. Before they landed they signed a compact, in which they declared that they had made this voyage “for ye glory of God and advancement of ye Christian faith, and honour of our King and countrie,” and that now in the sight of God they would “combine ... togeather into a civil body politik for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of ye end aforesaid, and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitute and frame such just and equal lawes, ordinances, actes, constitutions and offices from time to time, as shall be thought most meete and convenient for ye generall good of ye colonie.”

The executive was a governor and his assistants, elected annually from the people: while the power to make laws remained with the body of male communicants of the church. And so it remained for eighteen years, until the growth of the colony made it hard for all church-members to meet together, so that a simple system of popular representation by election had to be introduced. This colony united later with a flourishing trading settlement, which centred about Salem; and these together formed the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which in 1640 numbered already twenty thousand souls.

The covenant which was drawn up on board the Mayflower is to be accounted the first voluntary federation of independent Americans for the purposes of orderly government. The first written constitution was drawn up in the colony of Connecticut, a colony which repeated essentially the successful experiments of New Plymouth, and which consisted of agricultural settlements and small posts for trading with the Indians situated at Windsor and Hartford and other places along the Connecticut Valley. Led by common interests, they adopted in 1638 a formal constitution.

There was still a third important type of colonial government, which was at first thoroughly aristocratic and English, and nevertheless became quickly Americanized. It was the custom of the King to grant to distinguished men, under provision of a small tribute, almost monarchical rights over large tracts of land. The first such man was Lord Baltimore, who received in 1632 a title to the domain of Maryland, on the Chesapeake Bay. He enjoyed the most complete princely prerogatives, and pledged to the crown in return about a fifth part of the gold and silver mined in his province. In 1664 Charles the Second gave to his brother, the Duke of York, a large territory, which was soon broken up, and which included what are now known as the States of Vermont, New Jersey, and Delaware. The great provinces of Georgia and Carolina—now North and South Carolina—were awarded by the same King to one of his admirals, Sir William Penn, for certain services. Penn died, and his son, who found himself in need of the sixteen thousand pounds which his father had loaned to the King, gratified that monarch by accepting in their stead a stretch of coast lands extending between the fortieth and forty-third degrees of latitude.

In this way extensive districts were turned over to the caprice of a few noblemen; but immediately the spirit of self-direction took everywhere root, and a social-political enthusiasm proceeded to shape the land according to new ideals. Carolina took counsel of the philosopher, Locke, in carrying out her experiment. Maryland, which was immediately prospered with two hundred men of property and rank, chiefly of Roman Catholic faith, started out with a general popular assembly, and soon went over to the representative system. And Penn’s constructive handiwork, the Quaker State of Pennsylvania, was intended from the first to be “a consecrated experiment.” Penn himself explained that he should take care so to arrange the politics of his colony that neither he himself nor his successors should have an opportunity to do wrong. Penn’s enthusiasm awoke response from the continent: he himself founded the “city of brotherly love,” Philadelphia; and Franz Daniel Pastorius brought over his colony of Mennonites, the first German settlers, who took up their abode at Germantown.

Thus it was that the spirit of self-reliant and self-assertive independence took root in the most various soils. But that which led the colonies to unite was not their common sentiments and ambitions, but it was their common enemies. In spite of the similarity of their positions there was no lack of sharp contrasts. And perhaps the most striking of these was the opposition between the southern colonies, with their languid climate, where the planters left all the work to slaves, and the middle and northern provinces, where the citizens found in work the inspiration of their lives. The foes which bound together these diverse elements were the Indians, the French, the Spanish, and lastly their parent race, the English.

The Indian had been lord of the land until he was driven back by the colonists to remoter hunting territory. The more warlike tribes tried repeatedly to wipe out the white intruder, and constantly menaced the isolated settlements, which were by no means a match for them. Soon after the first serious conflict in 1636, the Pequot war, Rhode Island, which was a small colony of scattered settlements, made overtures toward a protective alliance with her stronger neighbours. In this she was successful, and together with Massachusetts, Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut, formed the United Colonies of New England. This union was of little practical importance except as a first lesson to the colonies to avoid petty jealousies and to consider a closer mutual alliance as a possibility which would by no means impair the freedom and independence of the uniting parties.

The wars with the French colonies had more serious consequences. The French, who were the natural enemies of all English settlements, had originally planted colonies only in the far north, in Quebec in 1608. But during those decades in which the English wayfarers were making homes for themselves along the Atlantic coast, the French were migrating down from the north through the valley of the Saint Lawrence and along the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River. Then they pressed on down this stream to its mouth and laid title to the tremendous tracts which it drains, in the name of the French crown. This country they called after King Louis XIV, Louisiana. They had not come as colonists, but solely with an eye to gain, hoping to exploit these untouched resources in behalf of the Canadian fur traffic; and close on the heels of the trader came the Catholic priest. Thus the territory that flanked the English colonies to inland fell into French hands, whereas the land-grants of the English crown so read that only the Pacific Ocean should be the western boundary. A collision was therefore inevitable, although indeed mountains and virgin forests separated the coastland settlements from the inland regions of the Mississippi where the French had planted and fortified their trading posts.

When, in 1689, war broke out in Europe between England and France, a fierce struggle began between their representatives in the New World. But it was not now as it had been in the Indian war, where only a couple of colonies were involved. All the colonies along the coast were threatened by a common enemy. A congress of delegates convened at New York in April of 1690, in which for the first time all the colonies were invited to take part. Three long wars followed. The greatest advantage on the French side was that from the first they had been on good terms with the Indians, whose aid they were now able to enlist. But the French were numerically weak, and received but little assistance from their mother country. When in 1766 the last great war broke out the English colonies had a population of a million and a quarter, while the French had only a tenth as many. Chiefly and finally, the English colonists were actual settlers, hardened and matured through carrying the responsibilities of their young state, and fighting for hearth and home; the French were either traders or soldiers. The principle of free government was destined on this continent to triumph. Washington, then a young man, led the fight; the English Secretary of State, William Pitt, did everything in his power to aid; and the victory was complete. By the treaty of 1763 all French possessions east of the Mississippi were given to England, with the exception of New Orleans, which, together with the French possessions west of the Mississippi, went to Spain. Spain meanwhile ceded Florida to England. Thus the entire continent was divided between England and Spain.

But the Seven Years War had not merely altered the map of America; it had been an instructive lesson to the colonists. They had learned that their fortunes were one; that their own generals and soldiers were not inferior to any which England could send over; and lastly, they had come to see that England looked at the affairs of the colonies strictly from the point of view of her own gain. Herewith was opened up a new prospect for the future: the French no longer threatened and everything this side of the Mississippi stood open to them and promised huge resources. What need had they to depend further on the English throne? The spirit of self-direction could now consistently come forward and dictate the last move.

It is true that the colonists were still faithful English subjects, and in spite of their independent ambitions they took it for granted that England would always direct their foreign policy, would have the right to veto such laws as they passed, and that the English governors would always be recognized as official authorities. But now the English Parliament planned certain taxations that were the occasion of serious dispute. The Thirteen Colonies, which in the meantime had grown to be a population of two million, had by their considerable war expenditures shown to the debt-encumbered Britons the thriving condition of colonial trade. And the latter were soon ready with a plan to lay a part of the public taxation on the Americans. It was not in itself unfair to demand of the colonies some contribution to the public treasury, since many of the expenditures were distinctly for their benefit; and yet it must have seemed extraordinary to these men who had been forced from childhood to shift for themselves, and who believed the doctrine of self-government to be incontrovertible. They objected to paying taxes to a Parliament in which they had no representation; and the phrase, “no taxation without representation,” became the motto of the hour.

The Stamp Tax, which prescribed the use of revenue stamps on all American documents and newspapers, was received with consternation, and societies called the Sons of Freedom were formed throughout the land to agitate against this innovation. The Stamp Tax Congress, which met in New York in 1765, repudiated the law in outspoken terms. Nor did it halt with a mere expression of opinion; the spirit of self-direction was not to be molested with impunity. Close on the resolve not to observe the law, came the further agreement to buy no English merchandise. England had to waive the Stamp Tax, but endless mutterings and recriminations followed which increased the bitterness. Both sides were ripe for war when, in 1770, England issued a proclamation laying a tax on all tea imported to the colonies. The citizens of Boston became enraged and pitched an English ship-load of tea into the harbour. Thereupon England, equally aroused, proceeded to punish Boston by passing measures designed to ruin the commerce of Boston and indeed all Massachusetts. The Thirteen Colonies took sides with Massachusetts and a storm became imminent. The first battle was fought on the 19th of April, 1775; and on July 4th, 1776, the Thirteen Colonies declared their independence of England. Henceforth there were to be no colonies but in their place thirteen free states.

The Declaration of Independence was composed by Jefferson, a Virginian, and is a remarkable document. The spirit that informs it is found in the following lines: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed....” The sins of the English king and people against America are enumerated at length, and in solemn language the United States of America are declared independent of the English people, who are henceforth to be as “the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.” This Declaration was signed by delegates from the states in Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, where hung the famous bell, with its inscription, “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof.”

The spirit of self-direction had triumphed; but the dangers were by no means wholly passed. England sent over no more governors, and had indeed been repulsed; but she had as yet no intention of giving in. The war dragged on for five long years, and the outcome was uncertain until in 1781 Cornwallis was brought to surrender. Then England knew that she had lost the contest. The king desired still to prolong the war, but the people were tired of it and, the ministry having finally to yield, peace was declared in April of the year 1783. This was no assurance of an harmonious future, however. That solidarity which the colonies had felt in the face of a common enemy now gave way to petty jealousies and oppositions, and the inner weakness of the new Union was revealed. In itself the Union had no legal authority over the several states, and while during the war the affairs of the country had fallen into disorder, yet the Union had no power to conduct foreign diplomacy or even to collect customs.

It was rather in their zeal for self-direction that at first considerable portions of the population seemed disinclined to enlarge the authority of the central organization. Self-direction begins with the individual or some group of individuals. The true self-direction of society as a whole was not to be allowed to encroach on the rights of the individual, and this was the danger feared. Each state, with its separate interests and powers, would not give up its autonomy in favour of an impersonal central power which might easily come to tyrannize over the single state in much the same way as the hated English throne had done. And yet the best men of the country were brought at length more and more to the opposite view; a strong central authority, in which the states as a whole should become a larger self-directing unit, carrying out and ensuring the self-direction of the component members, was seen to be a necessity. Another congress of representatives from all the states was convened in Independence Hall, at Philadelphia, and this body of uncommonly able men sat for months deliberating ways by which the opposing factions of federalism and anti-federalism could be brought together in a satisfactory alliance. It was obvious that compromises would have to be made. So, for instance, it was conceded that the smallest state, like the largest, should be represented in the senate by two delegates: and the single state enjoyed many other rights not usual in a federation. But, on the other hand, it was equally certain that the chief executive must be a single man with a firm will, and that this office must be refilled at frequent intervals by a popular election. A few had tentatively suggested making Washington king, but he stood firm against any such plan. The republican form of government was in this instance no shrewdly devised system which was adopted for the sake of nicely spun theoretical advantages—it was the necessity of the time and place, the natural culmination of a whole movement. It was as absolutely necessary as the consolidation of the German states, eighty years later, under an imperial crown. The congress eventually submitted a constitutional project to the several state legislatures, for their summary approval or rejection. Whereon the anti-federalistic factions made a final effort, but were outvoted, and the Constitution was adopted. In 1789 George Washington was elected the first president of the United States.

It would take a lively partisan to assert, as one sometimes does, that this Constitution is the greatest achievement of human intellect, and yet the severest critics have acknowledged that a genius for statesmanship is displayed in its text. Penned in an age which was given over to bombastic declamation, this document lays down the fundamental lines of the new government with great clearness and simplicity. “We, the people of the United States,” it begins, “in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” This is the entire introduction. The contents come under seven articles. The first article provides for the making of laws, this power to be vested in a Congress consisting of a Senate and House of Representatives; for the business and daily routine of this Congress, as well as its powers and obligations. The second article provides for the executive power, to be vested in the person of the President, who is elected every fourth year; the third article provides for a judiciary; the fourth defines the mutual relations of separate states; and the last three articles concern the adoption of the Constitution and the conditions under which it may be amended.

The need of amendments and extensions to this Constitution was foreseen and provided for. How profoundly the original document comprehended and expressed the genius of the American people may be seen from the fact that during a century which saw an unexampled growth of the country and an undreamed-of transformation of its foreign policy, not a single great principle of the Constitution was modified. After seventy-seven years one important paragraph was added, prohibiting slavery; and this change was made at a tremendous cost of blood. Otherwise the few amendments have been insignificant and concerned matters of expediency or else, and more specially, further formulations of what, according to American conceptions, are the rights of the individual. Although the original Constitution did not contain a formal proclamation of religious freedom, freedom of speech, of the press, and of public assemblage, this was not because those who signed the document did not believe in these things, but because they had not aimed to make of the Constitution of the Union either a treatise on ethics or yet a book of law. But as early as 1789 the states insisted that all the rights of the individual, as endorsed by the national ideals, should be incorporated in the articles of this document. In the year 1870 one more tardy straggler was added to the list of human rights, the last amendment; the right of the citizens to vote was not to be abridged on account of race, colour, or previous condition of servitude.

Of the other amendments, the tenth had been tacitly assumed from the first year of the Republic; this was that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This principle also was surely in no way at variance with the spirit of the original document. It was, indeed, the lever that ensured the great efficacy of the Constitution, so that by its provisions the centrifugal forces were never disturbed by centripetal ones; an equilibrium was effected between the tendencies that made for unity and those that made against it, in such a way that the highest efficiency was ensured to the whole while the fullest encouragement was given to the enterprise and initiative of the parts. In no direction, probably, would an improvement have been possible. More authority concentrated at the head would have impeded general activity, and less would have lost the advantages of concerted action; in neither case would material growth or the reconciliation of conflicting opinions have been possible. Constant compensation of old forces and the quickening of new ones were the secret of this documented power, and yet it was only the complete expression of the spirit of self-direction, which demands unremittingly that the nation as a whole shall conduct itself without encroaching on the freedom of the individual, and that the individual shall be free to go his own ways without interfering with the unfettered policy of the nation.

Under the auspices of this Constitution the country waxed and throve. As early as 1803 its land area was doubled by the accession of Louisiana, which had been ceded by Spain to France, and was now purchased from Napoleon for fifteen million dollars—an event of such far-reaching importance that the people of St. Louis have not inappropriately invited the nations of the earth to participate in a Louisiana Purchase Exposition. In 1845 Texas was taken into the Union, it having broken away from Mexico just previously and constituted itself an independent state. The large region on the Pacific slope known as Oregon came in 1846 to the United States by treaty with England, and when finally, in 1847, after the war with Mexico, New Mexico and California became the spoils of the victor and in 1867 Russia relinquished Alaska, the domain of the country was found to have grown from its original size of 324,000 square miles to one of 3,600,000. The thirteen states had become forty-five, since the newly acquired lands had to be divided. But all this growth brought no alteration in the Constitution, whose spirit of self-direction, rather, had led to this magnificent development, had fortified and secured the country, and inspired it with energy and contentment. The population also has grown under this benevolent Constitution. Millions have flocked hither to seek and to find prosperity on this new and inexhaustible soil. The area has increased tenfold, but the population twenty-fold; and the newcomers have been disciplined in the school of self-direction and educated to the spirit of American citizenship.

There is a certain kind of character which must be developed in this school. It is true, of course, that there is no one model which just fits every one, the native-born Yankee as well as the European immigrant, the farmer as well as the resident in cities. The Irish-American is not the German-American, nor is the New Englander like the Virginian, nor the son of the East like his brother in the West. The infinite shadings of personal character, temperament, and capacity which nature has produced, have, of course, not been lost. And, nevertheless, just as the human race in America has begun to differentiate into a species which is anthropologically distinct, and this partly under the influence of the climate since the species has several characters in common with the aboriginal Indian, so also in the moral atmosphere of this body-politic a distinct type of human character is undoubtedly being evolved; and one may note with perpetual surprise how little the other great divisions of social life, as of rich and poor, cultivated and ignorant, native-born and immigrant, manual labourer and brain-worker—how little these differentiate the American citizen in his political capacity. Of course only the political life is in question here; that new groupings and divisions are being continually formed in the economic, intellectual, and social life need not concern us for the present. In the individual it may not be easy to follow the threads through the tissue of his psychic motions, but in the abstract and schematic picture of the type it is by no means impossible to trace them out.

What is it, then, which the American has gotten from his training? Many and apparently unrelated lessons are taught in the school of self-direction, and perhaps none of them are without their dangers. For it is here not a matter of theoretical knowledge, which may be remembered or forgotten and may be well or ill selected, but which in itself involves no scale of excellence and, therefore, has no need to be tempered or restrained. Theoretical knowledge cannot be overdone or exaggerated into untruth. But the practical conduct which is here in question is different; it involves an ideal, and in such a way that a man may not only misapprehend or forget what is the best course of action, but also he may err in following it, he may give it undue place and so neglect opposing motives which in their place are no less requisite. In short, conduct, unlike knowledge, demands a fine tact and unflagging discernment for the fitness of things. In this sense it cannot be denied that the teaching of American democracy is itself the source of serious errors, and that the typical American citizen is by no means free from the failings of his virtues. His fundamental traits may be briefly sketched, and from the excellencies which he strives for many of his defects can be understood.

There is, firstly, a group of closely related impulses, which springs from the American’s unbounded belief in his own strength, a trait which in the last analysis must be, of course, the foundation-stone of any doctrine of self-direction. He will not wait for others to look out for him, counsel him, or take cognizance of his interests, but relies wholly on his own judgment and his own strength, and believes no goal too high for his exertions to attain. Every true American will have found in himself some trace of this spirit. Each day of his life has suggested it to him, and all the institutions of his country have reinforced the teaching. Its most immediate result is such a strength of initiative as no other people on earth possesses, an optimism, a self-reliance and feeling of security which contribute more than half to his success. Faint heart is not in the American’s dictionary. Individual, corporation, or country may be undecided, and dispute whether a certain end is desirable or whether a certain means is best to a given end, but no one ever doubts or goes into his work with misgivings lest his strength be not enough to traverse the road and reach the goal. And such an attitude encourages every man to exert himself to the utmost. The spirit of self-direction is here closely allied with that self-initiative which is the mainspring of the economic life of America. But the initiative and optimistic resolution shown in the political arena astonish the stranger more than the same traits displayed in the economic field. It is shown in the readiness for argument, in which every one can express himself accurately and effectively; in the indefatigable demand that every public office shall be open to the humblest incumbent, and in the cool assurance with which thousands and thousands of persons, without any technical knowledge or professional training, assume the most exacting political offices, and become postmasters, mayors, ministers and ambassadors, without even pausing before their grave responsibilities. But most of all, American initiative is shown in the structure of all her institutions, great or small, which minimizes transitions and degrees between higher and lower, and so facilitates the steady advance of the individual. Each and all must have the chance to unfold and there must be no obstacles to hinder the right ambition from its utmost realization. Every impulse must be utilized; and however far toward the periphery a man may be born he must have the right of pressing forward to the centre. The strength of this nation lies at the periphery, and the American government would never have advanced so unerringly from success to success if every village stable-lad and city messenger-boy had not known with pride that it depends only on himself if he is not to become President of the United States.

But the transition is easy and not well marked from such strength to a deplorable weakness. The spirit of initiative and optimism is in danger of becoming inexcusable arrogance as to one’s abilities and sad underestimation of the value of professional training. Dilettanteism is generally well-meaning, often successful, and sometimes wholly admirable; but it is always dangerous. When brawny young factory-hands sit on a school committee, sturdy tradesmen assume direction of a municipal postal service, bankers become speakers in legislature, and journalists shift over to be cabinet ministers, the general citizen may sometimes find cold comfort in knowing that the public service is not roped off from private life, nor like to become effete through stale traditions. It is very evident that America is to-day making a great effort to ward off the evils of amateurish incompetence and give more prominence to the man of special training. And yet it cannot be denied that very noticeably in the intellectual make-up of the American his free initiative and easy optimism are combined with a readiness to overestimate his own powers and with a bias for dilettanteism.

Another psychological outcome of this individualism seems inevitable. When every member of a nation feels called on to pass judgment on all subjects for himself, it will come about that public opinion reaches an uncommonly high mean level, but it will also happen that the greatest intellects are not recognized as being above this mean. The genius, who in his day is always incomprehensible to the masses, goes to waste; and the man who sees beyond the vulgar horizon fights an uphill battle. The glittering successes are for the man whose doings impress the multitude, and this fact is necessarily reflected in the mind of the aspirant, who unconsciously shapes his ambitions to the taste of the many rather than of the best. Wherever the spirit of initiative possesses all alike, a truly great individual is of course insufferable; any great advance must be a collective movement, and the best energies of the country must be futilely expended in budging the masses. It is no accident that America has still produced no great world genius. And this is the other side of the vaunted and truthful assertion, that whenever in a New England town a question is brought to an open debate, the number of those who will take a lively, earnest, orderly, and intelligent part in the discussion is perhaps greater in proportion to the total number of inhabitants than in any place in Europe.

This leads us to a second consequence of the desire for self-direction. It stimulates not only initiative and self-reliance, but also the consciousness of duty. If a man earnestly believes that the subject must also be potentate, he will not try to put off his responsibilities on any one else but will forthwith set himself to work, and prescribe as well his own due restrictions. If a neighbourhood or club, town, city, or state, or yet the whole federation sees before it some duty, the American will not be found waiting for a higher authority to stir him up, for he is himself that authority; his vote it is which determines all who are to figure in the affair. Wherefore he is constrained by the whole system to an earnest and untiring co-operation in everything. This is not the superficial politics of the ale-house, with its irresponsible bandying of yeas and nays. When Secretary of the Navy under McKinley, Mr. Long said that when the cabinet at Washington was in conference, every member was of course better posted on the matter than the average citizen; but that nevertheless a dozen villagers, say in northern Maine, would read their New York and Boston papers and talk over the affairs with as much intelligence and as good a comprehension of the points at issue as would appear at any cabinet debates. This was by no means meant as a reflection on his colleagues of the cabinet, but as a frank recognition of an aspect of American life which invariably surprises the foreigner. One needs only to recall the discussion which preceded the last presidential election, and more especially the one preceding that; the silver question was the great issue, and evening after evening hundreds of thousands listened to technical arguments in finance such as no European orator could hope to lay before a popular assembly. Huge audiences followed with rapt attention for hours lectures on the most difficult points of international monetary standards. And this intellectual seriousness springs from the feeling of personal responsibility which is everywhere present. The European is always astonished at the exemplary demeanour of an American crowd; how on public occasions great multitudes of men and women regulate their movements without any noticeable interference by the police, how the great transportation companies operate with almost no surveillance of the public, trusting each person to do his part, and how in general the whole social structure is based on mutual confidence to a degree which is nowhere the case in Europe. The feeling that the ruler and the ruled are one pervades all activities, and its consequences are felt far beyond the political realm. Especially in the social sphere it makes for self-respect among the lower classes; they adapt themselves readily to discipline, for at the same time they feel themselves to be the masters; and the dignity of their position is the best security for their good behaviour.

But here, too, excellence has its defects. Where every one is so intensely aware of an identity between political authority and political subject, it is hard for the feeling of respect for any person whatsoever to find root. The feeling of equality will crop out where nature designed none, as for instance between youth and mature years. A certain lack of respect appears in the family and goes unpunished because superficially it corresponds to the political system of the land. Parents even make it a principle to implore and persuade their children, holding it to be a mistake to compel or punish them; and they believe that the schools should be conducted in the same spirit. And thus young men and women grow up without experiencing the advantages of outer constraint or discipline.

Hitherto we have considered only those intellectual factors derived from the spirit of self-direction which bear on the will of the individual, his rights and duties; but these factors are closely bound up with the others which concern the rights and privileges of one’s neighbour. We may sketch these briefly. Deeply as he feels his own rights, the American is not less conscious of those of his neighbour. He does not forget that his neighbour may not be molested and must have every opportunity for development and the pursuit of his ambitions, and this without scrutiny or supervision. He recognizes the other’s equal voice and influence in public affairs, his equally sincere sense of duty and fidelity to it. This altruism expresses itself variously in practical life. Firstly, in a complete subordination to the majority. In America the dissenting minority displays remarkable discipline, and if the majority has formally taken action, one hears no grumbling or quibbling from the discontented, whether among boys at play or men who have everything at stake. The outvoiced minority is self-controlled and good-natured and ready at once to take part in the work which the majority has laid out; and herein lies one of the clearest results of the American system and one of the superior traits of American character.

Closely related to this is another trait which lends to American life much of its intrinsic worth—the unconditional insistence in any competition on equal rights for both sides. The demand for “fair play” dominates the whole American people, and shapes public opinion in all matters whether large or small. And with this, finally, goes the belief in the self-respect and integrity of one’s neighbour. The American cannot understand how Europeans so often reinforce their statements with explicit mention of their honour which is at stake, as if the hearer is likely to feel a doubt about it; and even American children are often apt to wonder at young people abroad who quarrel at play and at once suspect one another of some unfairness. The American system does not wait for years of discretion to come before exerting its influence; it makes itself felt in the nursery, where already the word of one child is never doubted by his playmates.

Here too, however, the brightest light will cast a shadow. Every intelligent American is somewhat sadly aware that the vote of a majority is no solution of a problem, and he realizes oftener than he will admit that faith in the majority is pure nonsense if theoretical principles are at issue. This is a system which compels him always where a genius is required to substitute a committee, and to abide by the majority vote. The very theory of unlimited opportunity has its obvious dangers arising, here as everywhere, from extremes of feeling and so exaggeration of the principle. The recognition of another’s rights leads naturally to a sympathy for the weaker, which is as often as not unjustified, and easily runs over into sentimentalism, not to say an actual hysteria of solicitude. And this is in fact a phase of public opinion which stands in striking contrast to the exuberant health of the nation. What is even worse, the ever-sensitive desire not to interfere in another’s rights leads to the shutting of one’s eyes and letting the other do what he likes, even if it is unjust. And in this way a situation is created which encourages the unscrupulous and rewards rascality.

For a long time the blackest spot on American life, specially in the opinion of German critics, has been the corruption in municipal and other politics. We need not now review the facts. It is enough to point out that a comparison with conditions in Germany, say, is entirely misleading if it is supposed to yield conclusions as to the moral character of the American people. Unscrupulous persons who are keen for plunder, are to be found everywhere; merely the conditions under which the German public service has developed and now maintains itself make it almost impossible for a reprobate of that sort to force his entrance. And if a German official were discovered in dishonest practices it would be, in fact, discrediting to the people. In America the situation is almost reversed. The conditions on which, according to the American system, the lesser officials secure their positions, specially in municipal governments, and the many chances of enriching oneself unlawfully and yet without liability to arrest, while the regular remuneration and above all the social dignity of the positions are relatively small, drive away the better elements of the population and draw on the inferior. The charge against the Americans, then, should not be that they make dishonest officials, but that they permit a system which allows dishonest persons to become officials. This is truly a serious reproach, yet it is not a charge of contemptible dishonesty but of inexcusable complacency; and this springs from the national weakness of leniency toward one’s neighbour, a trait which comes near to being a fundamental democratic virtue. It cannot be denied, moreover, that the whole nation is earnestly and successfully working to overcome this difficulty.

The denunciations of the daily papers, however, must not be taken as an indication of this, for the uncurbed American press makes the merest unfounded suspicion an occasion for sensational accusations. Any one who has compared in recent years the records of unquestionably impartial judicial processes with the charges which had previously been made in the papers, must be very sceptical as to the hue and cry of corruption. Even municipal politics are much better than they are painted. The easiest way of overcoming every evil would be to remove the public service from popular and party influences, but this is, of course, not feasible since it would endanger the most cherished prerogatives of individualism. Besides, the American is comforted about his situation because he knows that just this direct efficiency of the people’s will is the surest means of thoroughly uprooting the evil as soon as it becomes really threatening. He may be patient or indifferent too long, but if he is once aroused he finds in his system a strong and ready instrument for suddenly overturning an administration and putting another in its stead. Moreover, if corruption becomes too unblushing an “educational campaign” is always in order. James Bryce, who is of all Europeans the one most thoroughly acquainted with American party politics, gives his opinion, that the great mass of civil officials in the United States is no more corrupt than that of England or Germany. An American would add, however, that they excel their European rivals in a better disposition and greater readiness to be of service.

But the situation is complicated by still another tendency which makes the fight for clean and disinterested politics difficult. The spirit of self-direction involves a political philosophy which is based on the individual; and the whole commonwealth has no other meaning than an adding up of the rights of separate individuals, so that every proposal must benefit some individual or other if it is to commend itself for adoption. Now since the state is a collection of numberless individuals and the law merely a pledge between them all, the honour of the state and the majesty of the law do not attach to a well organized and peculiarly exalted collective will, which stands above the individual. Such a thing would seem to an individualist a hollow abstraction, for state and law consist only in the rights and responsibilities of such as he. From this more or less explicitly formulated conception of political life there accrue to society both advantages and dangers. The advantages are obvious: the Mephistophelian saying, “Vernunft wird Unsinn, Wohltat Plage,” becomes unthinkable, since the body-politic is continually tested and held in check by the lively interests of individuals. Any obvious injustice can be righted, for above the common weal stands the great army of individuals by whom and for whom both state and law were made.

But the disadvantages follow as well. If state and law are only a mutual restraint agreed on between individuals, the feeling of restraint becomes lively in proportion as the particular individuals in question can be pointed to, but vanishingly weak when, in a more intangible way, the abstract totality requires allegiance. So one finds the finest feeling for justice in cases of obligation to an individual, as in contracts, for instance, and the minimum sense of right where the duty is toward the state. There is no country of Europe where the sense of individual right so pervades all classes of the inhabitants, a fact which stands in no wise contradictory to the other prevalent tendency of esteeming too lightly one’s righteous obligations to city or state. Men who, in the interests of their corporations, try to influence in irregular ways the professional politicians in the legislatures, observe nevertheless in private life the most rigid principles of right; and many a one who could safely be trusted by the widows and orphans of his city with every cent which they own, would still be very apt to make a false declaration of his taxable property.

There is a parallel case in the sphere of criminal law. Possibly even more than the abuses of American municipal politics, the crimes of lynch courts have brought down the condemnation of the civilized world. Corruption and “lynch justice” are usually thought of as the two blemishes on the nation, and it is from them that the casual observer in Europe gets a very unfavourable impression of the American conception of justice. We have already tried to rectify this estimate in so far as it includes corruption, and as regards lynching it is perhaps even more in error. Lynch violence is of course not to be excused. Crime is crime; and the social psychologist is interested only in deciding what rubric to put it under. Now the entire development of lynch action shows that it is not the wanton violence of men who have no sense of right, but rather the frenzied fulfillment of that which we have termed the individualistic conception of justice. The typical case of lynching is found, of course, in Southern States with a considerable negro population. A negro will have attempted violence on a white woman, whereon all the white men of the neighbourhood, assuming that through the influence of his fellow negroes the criminal would not be duly convicted, or else feeling that the regular legal penalty would not suffice to deter others from the same crime, violently seize the culprit from out the jurisdiction of the law, and after a summary popular trial hang him. But these are not men who are merely seeking a victim to their brutal instinct for murder. It is reported that after the deed, when the horrid crime has been horribly expiated, the participants will quietly and almost solemnly shake one another by the hand and disperse peacefully to their homes, as if they had fulfilled a sacred obligation of citizenship. These are men imbued with the individualistic notion of society, confident that law is not a thing whose validity extends beyond themselves, but something which they have freely framed and adopted, and which they both may and must annul or disregard as soon as the conditions which made it necessary are altered. It is a matter of course that such presumption is abhorred and condemned in the more highly civilized states of the Union, also by the better classes in the Southern States; and a lyncher is legally a murderer. His deed, however, is not to be referred psychologically to a deficient sense of justice. That which is the foundation of this sense, resentment at an infringement of the individual’s rights and belief in the connection between sin and expiation, are all too vividly realized in his soul.

We have dwelt on these two offshoots of the individualistic idea of law because they have been used constantly to distort the true picture of American character. Rightly understood, psychologically, these phenomena are seen to be black and ugly incidents, which have little to do with the national consciousness of right and honour; they are the regrettable accompaniments of an extreme individualism, which in its turn, to be sure, grows naturally out of the doctrine of self-direction. Every American knows that it is one of the most sacred duties of the land to fight against these abuses, and yet the foreigner should not be deceived into thinking, because so and so many negroes are informally disposed of each year, and the politicians of Philadelphia or Chicago continue to stuff their pockets with spoils in ways which are legally unpunishable, that the American is not thoroughly informed with a respect for law. He has not taken his instruction in the system of self-direction in vain. And the German who estimates the tone of political life in America by the corruption and lynch violence narrated in the daily papers, is like the American who makes up his opinion of the German army, as he sometimes does, from the harangues of social democrats on the abuses of military officers, or from sensational disclosures of small garrisons on the frontier.

One more trait must be mentioned, finally, which is characteristic of every individualistic community, and which, having been impressed on the individual by the American system, has now reacted and contributed much to the working out of this system. The American possesses an astonishing gift for rapid organization. His highest talents are primarily along this line, and in the same way every individual has an instinct for stationing himself at the right place in any organization. This is true both high and low, and can be observed on every occasion, whether in the concerted action of labouring men, in a street accident, or in any sort of popular demonstration. For instance, one has only to notice how quickly and naturally the public forms in orderly procession before a ticket-office. This sure instinct for organization, which is such an admirable complement to the spirit of initiative, gives to the American workman his superiority over the European, for it is lamentably lacking in the latter, and can be replaced only by the strictest discipline. But this instinct finds its fullest expression in the political sphere. It is this which creates parties, guarantees the efficiency of legislatures, preserves the discipline of the state, and is in general the most striking manifestation of the spirit of self-direction. But we have seen that none of the merits of this system are quite without their drawbacks, and this gift for organization has also its dangers. The political parties which it fosters may become political “machines,” and the party leader a “boss”—but here we are already in the midst of those political institutions with which we must deal more in detail.

The Presidency is the highest peak in the diversified range of political institutions, and may well be the first to occupy our attention. But this chief executive office may be looked at in several relations: firstly, it is one of the three divisions of the Government, which are the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. And these might well be considered in this order. But, on the other hand, the President stands at the head of the federation of states; and the structural beauty of the American political edifice consists in the repetition of the whole in each part and of the part in every smaller part, and so on down. The top governmental stratum of the federation is repeated on a smaller scale at the head of each of the forty-five states, and again, still smaller, over every city. The governor of a state has in narrower limits the functions of the President, and so, within still narrower, has the mayor of a city. We might, then, consider the highest office, and after that its smaller counterparts in the order of their importance.

But neither of these methods of treatment would bring out the most important connection. It is possible to understand the President apart from the miniature presidents of the separate states, or apart from the Supreme Court, or even Congress, but it is not possible to understand the President without taking account of the political parties. It is the party which selects its candidate, elects him to office, and expects from him in return party support and party politics. The same is true, moreover, of elections to Congress and to the state legislatures. For here again the party is the background to which everything is naturally referred, and any description of the President, or Congress, or the courts, which, like the original Constitution, makes no mention of the parties, appears to us to-day as lacking in plastic reality, in historical perspective. We shall, therefore, attempt no such artificial analysis, but rather describe together the constitutional government and the inofficial party formations. They imply and explain each other. Then on this background of party activities we can view more comprehensively the President, Congress, the Supreme Court, and the entire politics of the federation and the states.

We must not forget, however, that in separating any of these factors from the rest, we deal at once with highly artificial abstractions, so that this description will have continually to neglect many facts and cut the threads that cross its path. The history of the American Presidency shows at all times its close connection with other institutions. A treaty or even a nomination by the President requires the ratification of the Senate before it is valid; and on the other side, the President can veto any bill of Congress. Even the Supreme Court and the President can hardly be considered apart, as was seen, for instance, in the time of Cleveland, when his fiscal policy took final shape in an income tax which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional, and therefore unlawful; or again when the colonial policy of McKinley was upheld and validated by a decision of the same court. Again, the party politics of state and town are no less intimately related to the federal government and the Presidency. Here, too, the leadings are in both directions; local politics condition the national, and these in turn dominate the local. Cleveland was a man who had never played a part in national politics until he became the executive head of the nation. As Mayor of Buffalo he had been so conspicuous throughout the State of New York as to be elected Governor of that state, and then in the state politics so won the confidence of his party as to be nominated and elected to the highest national office. McKinley, on the other hand, although he, too, had been the Governor of a state, nevertheless gained the confidence of his party during his long term of service in Congress.

Similarly it may be said that local politics are the natural path which leads to any national position, whether that of senator or representative. And inversely the great federal problems play an often decisive rÔle in the politics of the states with which they strictly have no connection. Federal party lines divide legislatures from the largest to the smallest, and even figure in the municipal elections. Unreasonable as it may seem, it is a fact that the great national questions, such as expansion, free trade, and the gold standard, divide the voters of a small village into opposing groups when they have to elect merely some one to the police or street-cleaning department. It is, therefore, never a question of a mechanical co-ordination and independence of parts, but of an organic interdependence, and every least district of the Union is thoroughly en rapport with the central government and doings of the national parties.

There are political parties in every country, but none like the American parties. The English system presents the nearest analogy, with its two great parties, but the similarity is merely superficial and extends to no essential points. Even in the comparison between America and Germany it is not the greater number of the German parties that makes the real difference. For the German his party is in the narrower sense a group of legislators, or, more broadly, these legislators together with the general body of their constituents. The party has in a way concrete reality only in the act of voting and the representation in parliament of certain principles. Of course, even in Germany there exists some organization between the multitude of voters and the small group which they return to the Reichstag. Party directors, who are for the most part the representatives themselves, central committees and local directors, local clubs and assemblies are all necessary to stir up the voters and to attend to various formalities of the election; but no one has dreamt of a horde of professional politicians who are not legislators, of party leaders who are more powerful than the representative to be elected, or of parties which are stronger than either the parliament or the people. The American party is first of all a closely knit organization with extensive machinery and rigid discipline; to be represented in Congress or legislature is only one of its many objects.

This situation is, however, no accident. One may easily understand the incomparable machinery and irresistible might of the parties, if one but realizes a few of the essential factors in American party life. First, of course, comes the tremendous extent of the field in which the citizens’ ballots have the decision. If it were as it is in the German elections to the imperial diet, the American party organization would never have become what it is. But besides the elections to Congress, the state legislatures and local assemblies, there is the direct choice to be made for President, vice-president, governor, the principal state officials and deputies, judges of the appellate court, mayor and city officials, and many others. The entire responsibility falls on the voters, since the doctrine of self-direction ordains that only citizens of the state shall vote for state officials, and of the city for city officers. The governor, unlike an “OberprÄsident,” is not appointed by the Government, nor a mayor by any authority outside his city. The voter is nowhere to be politically disburdened of responsibility. But, with the direct suffrage, his sphere of action is only begun. Almost every one of the men he elects has in turn to make further appointments and choices. The members of a state legislature elect senators to Congress, and both governor and mayor name many officials, but most of all, the President has to give out offices from ambassadors and ministers down to village postmasters and light-house keepers, in all of which there is ample chance to put the adherents of one’s party in influential positions. Thus the functions of the American voter are incomparably more important and far-reaching than those of the German voter.

But even with this, the political duties of the American citizen in connection with his party are not exhausted. The spirit of self-direction demands the carrying out of a principle which is unknown to the German politician. The choice and nomination of a candidate for election must be made by the same voting public; it must be carried on by the same parliamentary methods, and decided strictly by a majority vote. There are in theory no committees or head officials to relieve the voting public of responsibility, by themselves benignly apportioning the various offices among the candidates. A party may propose but one candidate for each office, whereas there will often be several men within the party who wish to be candidates for the same office, as for instance, that of mayor, city counsellor, or treasurer. In every case the members of a party have to select the official nominee of their party by casting ballots, and thus it may happen that the contest between groups within the party may be livelier than the ultimate battle between the parties.

Now on a large scale such transactions can be no longer carried on directly. All the citizens of the state cannot come together to nominate the party candidate for governor. For this purpose, therefore, electors have to be chosen, every one by a strict majority vote, and these meet to fix finally on the candidates of the party. And when it comes to the President of the whole country, the voting public elects a congress of electors, and these in turn choose other electors, and this twice-sifted body of delegates meets in national convention to name the candidate whom the party will support in the final, popular elections. Through such a strict programme for nominations the duties of the voters towards their party are just doubled, and it becomes an art considerably beyond the ability of the average citizen to move through this regressive chain of elections without losing his way. It requires, in short, an established and well articulated organization to arrange and conduct the popular convocations, to deliberate carefully on the candidates to be proposed for nomination, and to carry the infinitely complicated and yet unavoidable operations through to their conclusion.

Finally, another factor enters in, which is once more quite foreign to the political life of Germany. Every American election is strictly local, in the sense that the candidate is invariably chosen from among the voters. In Germany, when a provincial city is about to send a representative to the Reichstag, the party in power accounts it a specially favourable circumstance if the candidates are not men of that very city, to suffer the proverbial dishonour of prophets in their own country, and prefers to see on the ballot the names of great party leaders from some other part of the empire. And when Berlin, for example, selects a mayor, the city is glad to call him from Breslau or KÖnigsberg. This is inconceivable to the American. It is a corollary to the doctrine of self-determination that whenever a political district, whether village or city, selects a representative, the citizens shall not only nominate and elect their candidate, but that they shall also choose him from their own midst. But this makes it at once necessary for the party to have its organized branches in every nook and corner of the country. A single central organization graciously to provide candidates for the whole land is not to be thought of. The party organization must be everywhere efficient, and quick to select and weigh for the purposes of the party such material as is at hand. It is obvious that this is a very intricate and exacting task, and that if the organization were sentimental, loose, or undisciplined, it would go to pieces by reason of the personal and other opposing interests which exist within it. And if it were less widely branched or less machine-like in its intricate workings, it would not be able to do its daily work, pick candidates for posts of responsibility, nominate electors, and elect its nominees; and eventually it would sink out of sight. The American political party is thus an essentially complete and independent organization.

Two evils are necessarily occasioned by this invulnerable organization of party activities, both of which are peculiar and of such undoubtedly bad consequences as to strike the most superficial observer, and specially the foreigner; and yet both of which on closer view are seen to be much less serious than one might have supposed at first. After a party has grown up and become well organized in its purpose of representing these or those political principles and of defending and propagating them, it may at length cease to be only the means to an end, and become an end unto itself. There is the danger that it will come to look on its duties as being nothing else than to keep itself in power, even by denying or opposing the principles with which it has grown up. Moreover, such an organization exacts a colossal amount of labour which must be rewarded in some form or other; and so it will find it expedient, quite apart from the political ideals of the party, to exert its influence in the patronage of state and other offices. The result is that the rewards and honours conferred necessarily draw men into the service of the party who care less for its ideals than for the emoluments they are to derive. And thus two evils spring up together; firstly, the parties lose their principles, and, secondly, take into their service professional politicians who have no principles to lose. We must consider both matters more in detail, the party ideals and the politicians.

America has two great parties, the Republican, which is just now in power, and the Democratic. Other parties, as, for instance, the Populist, are small, and while they may for a while secure a meagre representation in Congress, they are too insignificant to have any chance of success in the presidential elections: although, to be sure, this does not prevent various groups of over-enthusiastic persons from seizing the politically unfitting and impracticable occasion to set up their own presidential candidate as a sort of figure-head. Any political amateur, who finds no place in the official parties, may gather a few friends under his banner and start a new, independent party; but the bubble bursts in a few days. And even if it is a person like Admiral Dewey, whose party banner is the flag under which he has sent an enemy’s fleet to the bottom, he will succeed only in being amusing. The regular, organized parties are the only ones which seriously count in politics. It sometimes happens, however, that a few months before the elections a small band of politically or industrially influential men will meet to consider the project of a third party, while their real aim is to create a little organization whose voting power will be coveted by both of the great parties. In this way the founders plan to force one or both of these to make concessions to the principles of their little group, since the most important feature is that Republicans and Democrats are so nearly equally balanced that only a slight force is needed to turn the scales to either side. In recent elections McKinley and Cleveland have each been elected twice to the Presidency, and no one can say whether the next presidential majority will be Republican or Democrat. On Cleveland’s second election the Democrats had 5,556,918, and the Republicans 5,176,108 votes, while the Populists made a showing of one million votes. But four years later the tables were turned, and McKinley won on 7,106,199 votes, while Bryan lost on 6,502,685. It is clear, therefore, that neither of the parties has to fear that a third party will elect its candidate; nor can either rest on old laurels, for any remission of effort is a certain victory for the other side. A third party is dangerous only in so far as it is likely to split up one of the two parties and so weaken it in an otherwise almost equal competition.

What, now, are the principles and aims of the Republican and Democratic parties? Their names are not significant, since neither do the Republicans wish to do away with American democracy, nor do the Democrats have any designs on the republican form of government. At the opening of the nineteenth century the present Democrats were called “Democratic-Republicans,” and this long abandoned name could just as well be given to all surviving parties. Neither aristocracy nor monarchy nor anarchy nor plutocracy has ever so far appeared on a party programme, and however hotly the battle may be waged between Republicans and Democrats, it is forever certain that both opponents are at once Democrats and Republicans. Wherein, then, do they differ?

The true party politician of America does not philosophize overmuch about the parties; it is enough for him that one party has taken or is likely to take this, and the other party that position on the living questions, and beyond this his interest is absorbed by special problems. He is reluctant enough when it comes to taking up the nicer question of deducing logically from the general principles of a party what attitude it ought to take on this or that special issue. The nearest he would come to this would be conversely to point out that the attitude of his opponents directly refutes their party’s most sacred doctrines. Those who philosophize are mostly outsiders, either sojourners in the country, or indigenous critics who are considerably more alive to the unavoidable evils of party politics than to the merits. From such opponents of parties as well as from foreigners, one hears again and again that the parties do not really stand for any general principles at the present time, that their separate existence has lost whatever political significance it may have had, and that to-day they are merely two organizations preserving a semblance of individuality and taking such attitude toward the issues of the day as is likely to secure the largest number of votes, in order to distribute among their members the fruits of victory. The present parties, say these critics, were formed in that struggle of intellectual forces which took place during the third quarter of the last century; it was the dispute over slavery which led to the Civil War. The Republican party was the party of the Northern States in their anti-slavery zeal; the Democratic was the party of the slave-holding Southern States; and the opposition had political significance as long as the effects of the war lasted, and it was necessary to work for the conciliation and renewed participation of the defeated Confederacy. But all this is long past. Harrison, Cleveland, Blaine, Bryan, McKinley, and Roosevelt became the standard-bearers of their respective parties long after the wounds of the war had healed. And it is no outcome from the original, distinguishing principles of the parties, if the slave-holding party takes the side of free-trade, silver currency and anti-imperialism, while the anti-slavery elements stay together in behalf of the gold standard, protection, and expansion.

It looks, rather, as if the doctrines had migrated each to the other’s habitat. The party which was against slavery was supporting the rights of the individual; how comes it, then, to be bitterly opposing the freedom of trade? And how do the friends of slavery happen to champion the cause of free-trade, or, more remarkably, to oppose so passionately to-day the oppression of the people of the Philippines? And what have these questions to do with the monetary standard? It looks as if the organization had become a body without a soul. Each party tries to keep the dignity of its historic traditions and at every new juncture bobs and ducks before the interests and prejudices of its habitual clientÈle, while it seeks to outwit the opposite party by popular agitation against persistent wrongs and abuses or by new campaign catch-words and other devices. But there is no further thought of consistently standing by any fundamental principles. This hap-hazard propping up of the party programme is evinced by the fact that either party is divided on almost every question, and the preference of the majority becomes the policy of the party only through the strict discipline and suppression of the minority. The Republicans won in their campaign for imperialism, and yet no anti-imperialist raised his voice more loudly than the Republican Senator Hoar. The Democrats acclaimed the silver schemes of Bryan, but the Gold Democrats numbered on their side really all the best men of the party. Again, on other important issues both parties will adopt the same platform as soon as they see that the masses are bound to vote that way. Thus neither party will openly come out for trusts, but both parties boast of deprecating them; and both profess likewise to uphold civil-service reform. This is so much the case that it has often been observed that within a wide range the programmes of the two parties in no way conflict. One party extols that which the other has never opposed, and the semblance of a difference is kept up only by such insistent vociferation of the policy as implies some sly and powerful gainsayer. And then with the same histrionic rage comes the other party and pounces on some scandal which the first had never thought of sanctioning. In short, there are no parties to-day but the powerful election organizations which have no other end in view than to come into power at whatever cost. It should seem better wholly to give up the outlived issues, and to have only independent candidates who, without regard to party pressure, would be grouped according to their attitude on the chief problems of the day.

And yet, after the worst has thus been said, we find ourselves still far removed from the facts. Each separate charge may be true, but the whole be false and misleading: even although many a party adherent admits the justness of the characterization, and declares that the party must decide every case “on its merits,” and that to hold to principles is inexpedient in politics. For the principles exist, nevertheless, and have existed, and they dominate mightily the great to and fro of party movements. Just as there have always been persons who pretend to deduce the entire history of Europe from petty court intrigues and jealousies of the ante-room or the boudoir, so there will always be wise-heads in America to see through party doings, and deduce everything from the speculative manipulations of a couple of banking houses or the private schemes of a sugar magnate or a silver king. Such explanations never go begging for a credulous public, since mankind has a deep-rooted craving to see lowness put on exhibition. No man is a hero, it is said, in the eyes of his valet. Nations, too, have their valets; and with them, too, the fact is not that there are no heroes, but that a valet can see only with the eyes of a valet.

It is true that the party lines of to-day have developed from the conflicting motives of the Civil War. But the fundamental error which prevents all insight into the deeper connections, lies in supposing that the anti-slavery party was first inspired by the individual fate of the negro, or in general the freedom of the individual. We must recall some of the facts of history. The question of slavery did not make its first appearance in the year 1860, when the Republican party became important. The contrast between the plantation owners of the South, to whom slave labour was apparently indispensable, and the industry and trade of the North, which had no need of slaves, had existed from the beginning of the century and was in itself no reason for the formation of political parties. It was mainly an economic question which, together with many other factors, led to a far-reaching opposition between the New England States and the South, an opposition which was strengthened, to be sure, by the moral scruples of the Puritanical North. But the earlier parties were not marked off by degrees of latitude, and furthermore the Southerner was by no means lacking in personal sympathy for the negro. The question first came into politics indirectly. It was in those years when the Union was pushing out into the West, taking in new territories and then making them into states by act of Congress, according to the provisions of the Constitution. In 1819 the question came up of admitting Missouri to the Union, and now for the first time Congress faced the problem as to whether slavery should be allowed in a new state. The South wished it and the North opposed it. Congress finally decided that Missouri should be a slave state, but that in the future slavery should be forbidden north of a certain geographical line. Thus slavery came to be recognized as a question within the jurisdiction of the federal Congress. Wherewith, if Congress should vote against slavery by a sufficient majority, it could forbid the practice in all the Southern states. And this would mean their ruin.

It came thus to be for the interest of the Southern states, which at that time had a majority, to see to it that for every free state admitted to the Union there should be at least one new slave state; this in order to hold their majority in Congress. Now it happened at that time that the territories which, by reason of their population, would have next to be admitted, lay all north of the appointed boundary and would, therefore, be free states. Therefore the slave-holders promulgated the theory that Congress had exceeded its jurisdiction and interfered with the rights of the individual states. The matter was brought before the Supreme Court, and in 1857 a verdict was given which upheld the new theory. Thus Congress, that is, the Union as a whole, could not forbid slavery in any place, but must leave the matter for each state to decide. Herewith an important political issue was created, and a part of the country stood out for the rights of the Union, a part for those of the individual states. The group of men who at that time foresaw that the whole Union was threatened, if so far-reaching rights were to be conceded to the states, was the Republican party. It rose up defiantly for the might and right of the federation, and would not permit one of the most important social and economic questions to be taken out of the hands of the central government and left to local choice. It was, of course, not a matter of chance that slavery became the occasion of dispute, but the real question at issue was the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. The federal party won, under the leadership of Abraham Lincoln. His election was the signal for the slave states to secede, South Carolina being the first. In February, 1861, these states formed a Confederation, and the Union was formally cleft. In his inaugural speech of the following March, Lincoln firmly declared that the Union must be preserved at all cost. The Civil War began in April, and after fearful fighting the secessionists were returned to the Union, all slaves were freed, and the Southern states were reconstructed after the ideas of the Republican party. The opposing party, the Democratic, was the party of decentralization. Its programme was the freedom of the individual state but not the servitude of the individual man.

When one understands in this way the difference between the two parties, one sees that the Republicans were not for freedom nor the Democrats for slavery, but the Republicans were for a more complete subordination of the states to the federation and the Democrats were for the converse. This is a very different point of view, and from it very much which seems incompatible with the attitude of the two parties toward the question of slavery may now be seen as a necessary historical consequence.

If we cast a glance at foregoing decades, we see that ever since the early days of the republic there has been hardly a time when these two forces, the centralizing and the decentralizing, have not been in play. It has lain deep in the nature of Teutonic peoples to pull apart from one another, while at the same time the struggle for existence has forced them to strong and well unified organization, so that scarcely a single Teutonic people has been spared that same opposition of social forces which is found in America. The origin of the Constitution itself can be understood only with reference to these antagonistic tendencies. The country wanted to be free of the miserable uncertainty, the internal discord and outward weakness which followed the Declaration of Independence; it wanted the strength of unity. And yet every single state guarded jealously its own rights, suspected every other state, and wished to be ensured against any encroachment of the federal power. And so the Constitution was drawn up with special precautions ensuring the equilibrium of power. At once, in Washington’s cabinet, both tendencies were distinctly and notably represented. There sat the distinguished Hamilton, the minister of finance and framer of the Constitution, who was a tireless champion of the federal spirit, and beside him sat Jefferson, the minister of state, who would have preferred to have the federation transact nothing but foreign affairs and who believed in general the less the legislation the better for the people. The adherents of Hamilton’s policy formed the federalist party, while Jefferson’s supporters were called the Democratic Republicans. The names have changed and the special issues have altered with the progress of events; indeed, apparently the centralist party has gone twice out of existence, yet it was actually this party of which Lincoln became the leader. Jefferson’s party, on the other hand, in spite of its change of name, has never as an organization ceased to exist. The Democrats who, in 1860, wished to submit the question of slavery to the individual states, were the immediate heirs of the anti-federalists who had elected their first president in 1800.

Now if the centralizing and decentralizing character of the two parties is borne in mind, their further development down to the present day can be understood. This development seems disconnected and contradictory only when the slavery question is thought to be the main feature and the Republicans are accounted the champions of freedom and the Democrats of slavery. Even Bryce, who has furnished by far the best account of the American party system, underestimates somewhat the inner continuity of the parties. Even he believes that the chief mission of the Republican party has been to do away with slavery and to reconstruct the Southern states, and that since this end was accomplished as far back as in the seventies, new parties ought naturally to have been formed by this time. Although the old organizations have in fact persisted, a certain vagueness and lack of vitality can be detected, he says, in both parties. According to that conception, however, it would be incomprehensible why those who formerly went forth to put an end to slavery now advance to bring the Filipinos into subjection, and to detain the poor man from purchasing his necessities where they are the cheapest.

As we have seen, the Democrats were the party which was true to the Jeffersonian principles, and in opposition to the supporters of congressional authority defended the rights and free play of the individual states. And the Republicans were those who wished to exalt beyond any other the authority of the Federal Government. This is the key to everything which has since come to pass. At the last presidential elections there were three great party issues—the tariff, the currency, and the question of expansion. In deciding on all three of these points, the parties have conformed to their old principles. Free-trade versus protective tariff was not a new bone of contention. Jefferson’s party had urged free-trade with all the nations of the earth at the very beginning of the century, and, of course, a decentralizing party which likes as little supervision and paternalism as possible, will always concede to the individual his right to buy what he requires where it will cost the least. The Democrats did not oppose a tariff for revenue, to help defray the public expenses, but they objected on principle to that further tariff which was laid on goods in order to keep the prices of them high and so to protect home industries. The centralists, that is, the whigs or the Republicans, on the contrary, by their supreme confidence in the one national government, had early been led to expect from it a certain protection of the national market and some regulation of the economic struggle for existence. And protective tariff was one of the main planks in their platform early in the century.

It is clear, once more, that the anti-centralists had a direct and natural interest in the small man, his economic weaknesses and burdens; every member of society must have equal right and opportunity to work out his career. It does not contradict this that the Democrats believed in slavery. In the Southern states the negro had come in the course of generations to be looked on as property, as a possession to be held and utilized in a special way, and any feeling of personal responsibility was of a patriarchal and not a political nature. The peculiarly democratic element in the position taken was the demand that the slavery question be left with the separate states to decide. As soon as fellow citizens were concerned, the anti-centralist party held true to its principles of looking out for the members on the periphery of society. In this way the party favoured the progressive income tax, and has always espoused any cause which would assist the working-man against the superior force of protected capital, or the farmer against the machinations of the stock market. The exaggerated notions as to the silver standard of currency originated outside of the Democratic party, and have intrinsically nothing to do with democracy. But as soon as a considerable part of the people from one cause or another began really to believe that nothing but a silver currency could relieve the condition of the artisans and farmers, it became logically necessary for the party which opposed centralization to adopt and foster this panacea, however senseless it might seem to the more thoughtful elements within the party. And it was no less necessary for the party which upholds federal authority to oppose unconditionally anything which would endanger the coinage and credit of the country. The gold standard is specifically a Republican doctrine only when it is understood to repudiate and oppose all risky experimenting with bimetallism.

In the new imperialistic movement, on the other hand, it was the Democrats who were put on the defensive. Any one who leans toward individualism must instinctively lean away from militarism, which makes for strength at the centre; from aggressive movements to annex new lands, whereby the owners are deprived of their natural rights to manage their own affairs, and from any meddling with international politics, for this involves necessarily increased discretionary powers for the central government. It is not that the Democrats care less for the greatness of their fatherland, but they despise that jingo patriotism which abandons the traditions of the country by bringing foreign peoples into subjection. It is left for the centralists to meet the new situation squarely, undertake new responsibilities, and convince the nation that it is strong and mature enough now to play a decisive rÔle in the politics of the world. And thus the two great parties are by no manner of means two rudderless derelicts carried hither and thither by the currents ever since the Civil War, but, rather, great three-deckers following without swerve their appointed courses.

The parties have sometimes been distinguished as conservative and liberal, but this is rather a reminiscence of conditions in Europe. Both of the parties are really conservative, as results from both the American character and the nature of the party organization. Even in the most radical Democratic gathering the great appeal is never made in behalf of some advantageous or brilliant innovation but on the grounds of adherence to the old, reliable, and well-nigh sacred party principles. If either party is at present departing from the traditions of the past, it is the Republican party, which has always figured as the more conservative of the two. Yet such a distinction is partly true, since the centralists in conformity to their principles must specially maintain the Federal authority and precedent, while the Democratic party is more naturally inclined to give ear to discontented spirits, clever innovators, and fantastic reformers, lest some decentralizing energy should be suppressed. So the Republican party gains a fundamental and cheerful complacence with the prevailing order of things, while the Democratic party, even when it is in power, can never come quite to rest. The contrast is not that between rich and poor; the Democratic party has its quota of millionaires, and the Republican has, for instance, in its negro clientage many of the poorest in the land. But the Republican party is filled with self-satisfaction and the consciousness of power and success, while the Democrats are forever measuring the actual according to an ideal which can never be realized. Like all centralists, the Republicans are essentially opportunists and matter-of-fact politicians; and the Democrats, like all anti-centralists, are idealists and enthusiasts. It has been well said that a Democratic committee is conducted like a debating club, but a Republican like a meeting of the stockholders in a corporation.

These facts clearly hint at a certain personal factor which influences the citizen’s allegiance to one or other of the parties. In meeting a man on a journey one has very soon the impression, though one may often be mistaken, as to what party he belongs to, although he may not have spoken a word about politics. But more distinctive than the personal bias are the groupings by classes and regions which have come about during the course of time. In the North and West the Republicans have the majority among the educated classes, but in the South the educated people are Democrats, particularly since the negro population there holds to the old abolition party, so that the whites are the more ready to be on the other side. The lower classes are moved by the most diverse motives; the farmer is inclined to be Republican and the artisan of the cities Democratic; Protestants are more often Republicans and Catholics Democrats, a partition which began with the early identification of the Puritan clergy of New England with the Republican party. This resulted in an affiliation of Catholicism and Democracy which has had very important consequences, particularly in municipal politics; the Irish, who are invariably Catholics, vote with the Democratic party. The Germans and Swedes, specially in the West, are mostly Republicans. In these ways the most complicated combinations have come about, particularly in the Middle West, where many of the larger states are always uncertain at election time. In the elections of the State of New York, the Democrats and Republicans have been alternately successful. Very often the capital city votes differently from the rural districts, as in Massachusetts, which is a stalwart Republican state, although Boston, owing to the Irish population, is Democratic.

These considerations as to the groupings of the party adherents bring us directly to our second question—who are the party politicians? We have aimed to refute the assertion that the parties are without their principles, but there is the further assertion that the politicians are without principles. In asking whether politics are really in the hands of unscrupulous men, one should first ascertain whether there are any honourable motives which would lead a man to devote himself thereto. And it appears that nowhere else are there such powerful inducements for a conscientious man to go into politics. First of all there is the best possible motive, the wish to see one’s country governed according to one’s own ideas of justice and progress, and the desire to work in this way for the honour, security, and welfare of the nation. Any one who has witnessed the American presidential elections once or twice will be convinced that the overwhelming majority of voters casts its votes in a truly ethical spirit, although, of course, the moral feeling is now more, now less, profound. At times when technical matters are chiefly the order of the day, or at best matters of expediency, enthusiasm for a party victory has to be kept up in other ways; but when it comes to questions of the national solidarity and honour, or of justice and freedom, then really high ethical enthusiasm holds place before all other political motives. In fact, the keen party spirit of the American is rather in danger of making him feel a virtuous indignation against the opposing party, even in regard to purely technical issues, as if it had fallen into mere frivolity or been criminally irresponsible. And in this way the American is never at a loss for a moral stream of some sort to keep the political mill-wheel turning.

After patriotic enthusiasm come the economic and social motives which even the most high-flown idealist would not designate as corrupt. It is not only just, but it is actually the ideal of politics that every portion of the population, every class and calling, as well as every geographical section, should see its peculiar interests brought up for political debate. It is possible for an equilibrium of all existing forces to be reached only when all elements alike are aware of their chance to assert themselves. Nothing could be gained if agriculture were to become political sponsor for the industrial interests, or if industry were to assume the care and protection of agriculture. A due and proper emphasis by the respective interests of their own needs will always be an honourable and, for the public welfare, useful incentive to political efficiency. It is not to be doubted that in this way American politics have always induced millions of citizens to the liveliest participation. As we have seen, free-trade and protective tariff grew out of the chief demands of the two parties; but this does not prevent the same party opposition from standing in a way for the diverse and partly contradictory interests of Northern industry and Southern plantation life. Hence the parties are immediately interested in trade and commerce. In a similar way the interests of the West have been bound up in bimetallism schemes, while the commercial integrity of the East depends on a gold currency. Legislation affecting trusts and banks and the policy of expansion touch some of the deepest economic problems, and summon all those concerned to come forward and play their part. The same holds true of social interests. The negro, struggling against legislation aimed directly at himself, seeks social protection through the Republican party, while the Irish, Swedes, and Russians also look for political recognition to advance their social interests.

Now these moral, social, and economic motives interest the citizen of every land in politics; but there are other considerations here in play, which, although no less honourable, figure less importantly in Germany for example. First of all stands loyalty to the traditions of one’s party. The son joins the party of his father, and is true to it for life. In this way many are held in the party net who otherwise might not agree to its general tenets. In a country where there are many parties with only slight shades of difference, where, say, the national-liberals are only a step removed from the independents or the independent-conservatives, each new election period offers the voter a free choice between parties. But where there are only two camps a party loyalty is developed which leaves very much less to personal inclination, and makes possible a firm party discipline. Then the citizen may come to say of his party as of his fatherland, “It may be right or wrong, it is still my party.” A man like Hoar may use all the force of his rhetoric to condemn imperialism and to stigmatize it as a crime, and he may leave no stone unturned to bring his own Republican party to abandon the imperialistic policy, and yet, if his recommendations are officially outvoiced, he will not falter in supporting the regular candidates of his party, imperialists though they be, as against the anti-imperialist Democratic candidates. The typical American will rather wait for his own party to take up and correct the evils which he most deplores than go over to the other party which may be already working for the same reforms.

To be sure, there are Americans who account this point of view narrow or even culpable, and who reserve the right of judging the programmes of both parties afresh each time and of casting their lot on the side which they find to be right. The example of Carl Schurz will be readily recalled, who in 1896 delivered notable speeches in favour of McKinley against Bryan, but came out in 1900 for Bryan as against McKinley. He was a Republican on the first occasion, because at that time the question of currency was in the foreground, and he thought it paramount to preserve the gold standard, while in the next election he went over to the Democrats because the question of expansion had come to the fore, and he preferred the short-sighted silver policy to the unrighteous programme of war and subjugation. The number of such independent politicians is not small, and among them are many of the finest characters in the land. Behind them comes the considerable class of voters who may be won over to either party by momentary considerations of business prosperity, by any popular agitation for the sake of being with the crowd, by personal sympathies or antipathies, or merely through discontent with the prevailing rÉgime. If there were not an appreciable part of the people to oscillate in this way between the parties, the elections would fall out the same way from year to year, the result could always be told beforehand, and neither party would have any incentive to active effort; in short, political life would stagnate. Thus the citizens who owe no party allegiance but take sides according to the merits of the case are very efficient practically: in a way they represent the conscience of the country, and yet three-fourths of the population would look on their political creed with suspicion, or, indeed, contempt. They would insist that the American system needs great parties, and that parties cannot be practically effective if there is no discipline in their organization—that is, if the minority of their membership is not ready to submit cheerfully to the will of the majority. If any man wishes to make reforms, he should first set about to reform his party. Whereas, if on every difference of opinion he goes over to the enemy’s camp, he simply destroys all respect for the weight of a majority, and therewith undermines all democracy. It is as if a party, which found itself defeated at the polls, should start a revolution; whereas it is the pride of the American people to accept without protest the government which the majority has chosen. And so party allegiance is taken as the mark of political maturity, and the men who hold themselves superior to their parties are influential at the polls, but in the party camps they see their arguments held in light esteem. They are mistrusted by the popular mind.

In addition to all this the American happens to be a born politician. On the one hand the mere technique of politics fascinates him; every boy is acquainted with parliamentary forms, and to frame amendments or file demurrers appeals vastly to his fancy. It is an hereditary trait. On the other hand, he finds in the party the most diversified social environment which he may hope to meet. Aside from his church, the farmer or artisan finds his sole social inspiration in his party, where the political assemblies and contact with men of like opinions with himself make him feel vividly that he is a free and equal participant in the mighty game. Moreover, local interests cannot be separated from those of the state, nor these from the affairs of the whole country; for the party lines are drawn even in the smallest community, and dominate public discussions whether great or small, so that even those who feel no interest in national questions but are concerned only with local reforms, perhaps the school system or the police board, find themselves, nevertheless, drawn into the machinery of the great national parties.

Yet another motive induces the American to enter politics, a motive which is neither good nor bad. Party politics have for many an aspect of sport, as can be easily understood from the Anglo-Saxon delight in competition and the nearly equal strength of the two parties. All the marks of sport can be seen in the daily calculations and the ridiculous wagers which are made, and in the prevalent desire to be on the side of the winner. Not otherwise can the parades, torch-light processions, and other demonstrations be explained, which are supposed to inspire the indifferent or wavering with the conviction that this party and not the other will come out victorious.

The American, it is seen, has ample inducements to engage in the activities of party, from the noblest patriotic enthusiasm down to the mere excitement over a sport. And it is doubtless these various motives which sustain the parties in their activity and supply such an inexhaustible sum of energy to the nation’s politics. By them the masses are kept busily turning the political wheels and so provided with a political schooling such as they get in no other country.

But we have seen that to enlist in the service of a political party means more than to discuss and vote conscientiously, to work on committees, or to contribute to the party treasury. Every detail of elections, local or national, in every part of the country, has to be planned and worked out by the party organization; and particularly in the matter of nomination of candidates by the members of the party, the work of arranging and agitating one scheme or another has become a veritable science, demanding far more than merely amateur ability. It must not be forgotten that in questions of a majority the American complacent good humour is put aside. The party caucuses are managed on such business-like methods that even in the most stormy debates the minutest points of expediency are kept well in mind. If the several interests are not represented with all that expertness with which an attorney at court would plead the cause of a client, their case is as good as lost. The managers have to study and know the least details, be acquainted with personal and local conditions, with the attitude of the press, of the officials, and of the other party leaders. Those members of the organization who conduct the large federal sections and so deal with more than local affairs, have to be at once lawyers, financiers, generals, and diplomats. Shrewd combinations have to be devised in which city, state, and national questions are nicely interwoven and matters of personal tact and abstract right made to play into each other; and these arrangements must be carried out with an energy and discretion that will require the undivided attention of any man who hopes to succeed at the business. Thus the American conditions demand in the way of organization and agitation such an outlay of strength as could not be expected of the citizens of any country, except in times of war, unless in addition to patriotic motives some more concrete inducements should be offered. And thus there are certain advantages and rewards accruing to the men who devote themselves to this indispensable work.

The first of these inducements is, presumably, honour. The personal distinctions which may be gotten in politics cannot easily be estimated after German standards. There are both credits and debits which the German does not suspect. To the former belongs the important fact that all offices up to the very highest can be reached only by the way of party politics. The positions of president, ambassadors, governors, senators, ministers, and so forth are all provided with salaries, but such inadequate ones as compared with the scale of living which is expected of the incumbents that no one would even accept any of these positions for the sake of the remuneration. In most cases an actual financial sacrifice has to be made, since the holding of office is not an assured career, but rather a brief interruption of one’s private business. It is to be remembered, moreover, that a civil office carries no pension. And thus it frequently happens that a man ends his political career because he has spent all of his money, or because he feels it a duty to secure his financial position. Reed, who was in a way the most important Republican leader, gave up his position as speaker of the House of Representatives and broke off all political entanglements in order to become partner in a law firm. In the same way Harrison, on retiring from the presidency, resumed his practice of law, and Day resigned the secretaryship of state because his financial resources were not adequate. An ambassador hardly expects his salary to be more than a fraction of his expenditures. Now this circumstance need excite no pity, since there is an abundance of rich men in America, and the Senate has been nicknamed the Millionaire’s Club; but it should serve to show that honour, prestige, and influence are the real incentives to a political career, and not the “almighty dollar,” as certain detractors would have one believe. There are persons, to be sure, who have gotten money in politics, but they are few and insignificant beside those who have been in politics because they had money. The political career in America thus offers greater social rewards than in Germany, where the holding of office is divorced from politics, where the government is an hereditary monarchy and strongly influenced by an hereditary aristocracy, and where even the merest mayor or city councilman must have his appointment confirmed by the government.

Since the social premiums of the political life are so many and so important it may seem astonishing that this career does not attract all the best strength of the nation, and even embarrass the parties with an overplus of great men. The reasons why it does not are as follows: Firstly, distinctions due merely to office or position have not in a democratic country the same exclusive value which they have with an aristocratic nation. The feeling of social equality is much stronger, and all consideration and regard are paid to a man’s personal qualities rather than to his station. A land which knows no nobility, titles, or orders is unschooled in these artificial distinctions, and while there is some social differentiation it is incomparably less. One looks for one’s neighbour to be a gentleman, and is not concerned to find out what he does during office hours. The reputation and influence which are earned in political life are much more potent than any honour deriving from position. But here is found a second retarding factor: the structure of American politics does not conduce to fame. In Germany the party leaders are constantly in the public eye; they deliver important speeches in the Reichstag or the Landtag, and their oratorical achievements are read in every home. In America the debates of Congress are very little read, and those of the state legislatures almost not at all; the work of government is done in committees. The speeches of the Senate are the most likely to become known, and yet no one becomes famous in America through his parliamentary utterances, and public sentiment is seldom influenced by oratorical performances at Washington.

In the third place, every American party officer must have served in the ranks and worked his way up. It is not every man’s business to spend his time with the disagreeable minutiÆ of the local party organization; and even if he does not dislike the work, he may well object to the society with which he is thrown in these lower political strata. A fourth and perhaps the principal item comes in here. In its lowest departments politics can be made to yield a pecuniary return, and for this reason attracts undesirable and perhaps unscrupulous elements whose mere co-operation is enough to disgust better men and to give the purely political career a lower status in public opinion than might be expected in such a thoroughly political community.

This question of the pecuniary income from political sources is even by the Americans themselves seldom fairly treated. There are three possible sources of income. Firstly, the representatives of the people are directly remunerated; secondly, the politician may obtain a salaried federal, state, or municipal office; and, thirdly, he may misuse his influence or his office unlawfully to enrich himself. It is a regrettable fact that the first source of revenue attracts a goodly number into politics. It is not the case with Congress, but many a man sits in the state legislatures who is there only for the salary, while in reality the monetary allowance was never meant as an inducement but as a compensation, since otherwise many would be deterred altogether from politics. But the stipend is small and attracts no one who has capacity enough to earn more in a regular profession. It attracts, however, all kinds of forlorn and ill-starred individuals, who then scramble into local politics and do their best to bring the calling into disrepute. And yet, after all, these are so small a fraction of the politicians as to be entirely negligible. There would be much worse evils if the salaries were to be abolished. There are others who make money in criminal ways, and of course they have ample opportunity for deception, theft, and corruption in both town and country. Their case is not open to any difference of opinion. It is easy for a member of the school committee to get hold of the land on which the next school-house is to be built, and to sell it at a profit; or for a mayor to approve a street-car line which is directly for the advantage of his private associates; or for a captain of police to accept hush money from unlawful gambling houses. Everybody knows that this sort of thing is possible, and that the perpetrators can with difficulty be convicted, yet they occasionally are and then get the punishment which they deserve. But this is no more a part of the political system than the false entries of an absconding cashier are a part of banking. And even if every unproved suspicion of dishonesty were shown to be well founded, the men who so abuse their positions would be as much the exceptions as are those who enter politics for the sake of the salary. We shall return later to these excrescences.

Of the three sources of income from politics, only one remains to be considered—the non-legislative but salaried offices with which the politician may be rewarded for his pains. This is the first and surest means by which the party keeps its great and indispensable army of retainers contentedly at work. And here the familiar evils enter in which are so often held up for discussion in Germany. An American reformer, in criticizing the condition of the parties, is very apt not to distinguish between the giving out of offices to professional politicians as rewards and the later corrupt using of these offices by their incumbents. And as soon as the politician receives an income from the public treasury, the reformer will cry “stop thief.” The so-called “spoils system,” by which the federal offices in the patronage of the President are distributed to those who have worked hardest in the interests of the victorious party, will occupy our attention when we come to the political problems of the day. We shall have then to mention the advantages and disadvantages of civil service reform. But it must be said right here that, however commendable this reform movement may be in many respects, and in none more than in the increased efficiency which it has effected in the public service, nevertheless the spoils system cannot be called dishonourable, and no one should characterize professional politicians as abominable reprobates because they are willing to accept civil positions as rewards from the party for which they have laboured.

It is a usage which has nothing to do with the corrupt exploitation of office, and the German who derives from it the favourite prejudice against the political life of the United States must not suppose that he has thereby justified the German conception of office. Quite on the contrary, no one ever expects the German government to bestow offices, titles, or orders on members of the political opposition, to confirm, for instance, an independent for the position of Landrat or a social democrat for city councillor, while co-operation in the plans of the government never goes unrewarded. Above all, a German never looks on his official salary as a sort of present taken from the public treasury, but as the ordinary equivalent of the work which he does, while the American has a curious conception of the matter quite foreign to the German, which is the ground for his contempt of the “spoils system.” To illustrate by a short example: a state attorney who had been elected to the same office time after time, was asked to renew his candidacy at the coming elections. But he declined to do so, and explained that he had been supported for twenty years out of the public funds, and that it was therefore high time for him to earn his own living by the ordinary practice of law. A German cannot understand this conception, traditional though it is in America, but he can easily see that the man who shares such views as to public salaries will naturally consider it an act of plunder when the party in power distributes the best public posts to its own followers.

The case would be somewhat different if the politicians who step into offices were essentially incapable or indolent, though this is aside from the principle in question. Germans have recently become used to seeing a general or a merchant become minister. In America it is a matter of course that a capable man is qualified, with the aid of technically trained subordinates, for any office. And no one denies that politicians make industrious office-holders. And yet the same remarkable charge is always made, that the holder of an office receives a gift from the public chest.

These considerations are not meant as an argument against civil service reform, which is supported by the best men of both parties, although they are not exactly the most zealous party “heelers.” But the superficial assertion must be refuted, that the spoils system shows lack of morality in party politics. No unprejudiced observer would find anything improper in the attitude of those who endure the thankless and arduous labours imposed by the party for the sake of a profitable position in the government service. It would be equally just to reproach the German official with lack of character because he rises to a high position in the service of the government. If this were the true idea, Grover Cleveland, who has done more than any other president for the cause of civil service reform, could be said actually to have favored the spoils system. In an admirable essay on the independence of the executive, he says:—

“I have no sympathy with the intolerant people who, without the least appreciation of the meaning of party work and service, superciliously affect to despise all those who apply for office as they would those guilty of a flagrant misdemeanor. It will indeed be a happy day when the ascendancy of party principles and the attainment of wholesome administration will be universally regarded as sufficient rewards of individual and legitimate party service.... In the meantime why should we indiscriminately hate those who seek office? They may not have entirely emancipated themselves from the belief that the offices should pass with party victory, but in all other respects they are in many instances as honest, as capable, and as intelligent as any of us.”

There are such strong arguments for separating public office from the service of party, that every reformer is amply justified if on his native soil he stigmatizes the present usage as corrupt. But the representation that all professional politicians are despicable scamps because they work for their party in the hope of being preferred for public office, is unjust and misleading when it is spread abroad in other countries. Abuses there are, to be sure, and the situation is such as to attract swarms of worthless persons. It is true, moreover, that even in the higher strata of professional politics there is usually less of broad-minded statesmanship than of ingenious compromise and clever exploitation of the opposing party’s weaknesses and of popular whims and prejudices. Petty methods are often more successful than enlightened ones, and cunning men have better chances than those who are more high-minded. In the lower strata, moreover, where it is important to cajole the voting masses into the party fold, it may be inevitable that men undertake and are rewarded for very questionable services. Nevertheless the association of party and office is not intrinsically improper.

In the same category of unjust reproaches, finally, belongs the talk over the money paid into the party treasury. It is, of course, true that the elections both great and small eat up vast sums of money; the mountains of election pamphlets, the special trains for candidates who journey from place to place in order to harangue the people at every rural railway station, from the platform of the coach—Roosevelt is said at the last election in this way to have addressed three million persons—the banquet-halls and bands of music, and the thousand other requisites of the contest are not to be had for nothing. It is taken as a matter of course that the supporters of the party are taxed, and of course just those will be apt to contribute who look for further material benefit in case of victory; it is also expected that, of course, the larger industries will help the propaganda of the high-tariff party, that the silver mine owners will generously support bimetallism, and that the beer brewers will furnish funds when it is a question between them and the Prohibitionists. But in the endeavour to hurt the opposing party some persons make such contributions a ground of despicable slander. Any one who considers the matter really without prejudice will see not only that the American party politics are a necessary institution, but also that they are infinitely cleaner and better than the European newspaper reader will ever be inclined to believe.

The President of the United States is elected by the people every four years. He may be re-elected and, so far as the Constitution provides, he may hold the first position in the land for life, by terms always of four years at a time. A certain unwritten law, however, forbids his holding office for more than two terms. George Washington was elected for two terms, and after him Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley; that is, nine out of twenty presidents have received this distinction. No president has served a third term of office, because since Washington declined to be nominated for a third time the conservative sense of the Americans has cherished the doctrine that no man should stand at the helm of the nation longer than eight years.

At the present day it is urged from many sides that the provisions of the Constitution ought to be changed. It is said that the frequently recurring presidential elections, with the popular excitement which they involve during the months immediately preceding, are an appreciable disturbance to economic life and that the possibility of being re-elected is too apt to make the President in the first term of office govern his actions with an eye to his second election. It is proposed, therefore, that every President shall be elected for six years and that re-election shall be forbidden by the Constitution. Experience of the past, however, hardly speaks for such a plan. The inclination shown by the President to yield to popular clamours or the instances of his party has been very different with different presidents, but on the whole it has not been noticeably greater in the first than in the second term of office. More especially, the disadvantages which come from the excitement over elections are certainly made up for by the moral advantage which the act of election brings to the people. The presidential election is a period of considerable reflection and examination of the country’s condition, and everybody is worked up to considerable interest; and the more changeable the times are so much the more rapidly new problems come up. Therefore there should be no thought of putting the decisive public elections, with their month-long discussions, at further intervals apart.

The most important duties and prerogatives of the President involve foreign as well as domestic affairs, and of the latter the most important concern the administration; a less important, although by no means an insignificant, part of his duties relates to legislation. The President is commander-in-chief of the army and of the navy, and with the approval of a majority of the Senate he appoints ambassadors, consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all the higher federal officials. Subject to the ratification of two-thirds of the Senate, he concludes treaties with foreign powers and regulates diplomatic relations. He has, moreover, the right to send back inside of ten days, with his veto, any bill which Congress has passed, and in this case the bill can become law only by being once more voted on by Congress and receiving in both houses a two-third’s majority. The President has the power to convene both houses in special sessions, and is expected to send messages to both houses when they meet, in which he describes the political situation of the country and recommends new measures. In addition to this he has the right of pardon and the right to afford protection to individual states against civil violence, if they cannot themselves quell the disturbance.

Such are the principal features of the presidential office, and it is clear that here as everywhere in American civil law the spirit of precaution has tried from the outset to limit the possibilities of abuse. Although he is commander-in-chief of the army, the President has not the right to declare war, this right being given to Congress. The President negotiates with foreign representatives and signs all treaties, but these are not valid until the Senate has approved them with a two-thirds vote. He nominates government officials, but once again only with the sanction of the Senate. The President convenes Congress and recommends matters for its legislative consideration, but the President cannot, like the German Government, lay bills before Congress for its ratification. While the President sends his message to Congress his ministers have not, as in Germany, a seat in parliament, and cannot, therefore, in the debates actively support the President’s policy.

The President is authorized to veto any bill that is passed through Congress, but his veto is not final since the bill can still become a law if Congress is sufficiently of one accord to override his veto. Therefore a whimsical or arbitrary president would find small scope for his vagaries so long as he keeps within his powers, while if he exceeds them he can be impeached, like a king under old English law. The House of Representatives can at any time file complaint against the President if he is suspected of treason or corruption or any other crime. In such case the Senate, under the chairmanship of a judge of the Supreme bench, constitutes a court of trial which is empowered to depose the President from office. Up to the present time but one president, Andrew Johnson, has been impeached, and he was acquitted. The seditionary ambition of a man who should try to gain complete control, to overthrow the Constitution, and at the head of the army, or of the populace, or, as might be more likely, of the millionaires, to institute a monarchy, would have no chance of success. Neither a Napoleon nor a Boulanger would be possible in America.

In spite of these provisions, it is to be observed that tremendous power is in the hands of this one man. Thousands and thousands of officials appointed by his predecessor can be removed by a stroke of his pen, and none can take their places except those whom he nominates. And he can put a barrier before any law such as Congress could only in exceptional cases ride over. Cleveland, for instance, who to be sure made the freest use of his authority in this respect, vetoed more than three hundred bills, and only twice did Congress succeed in setting aside his veto. The President may negotiate with foreign powers up to the point where a loyal and patriotic Congress has hardly any choice but to acquiesce. The President can virtually force Congress to a declaration of war, and if insurrection breaks out in any state he can at his pleasure employ the federal troops on behalf of one or the other faction, and when war has once been declared the presidential authority grows hourly in importance. The army and navy stand under his direction, and since the Constitution makes him responsible for the maintenance of law and order in the country he becomes virtually dictator in case of an insurrection. Bryce says very justly that Abraham Lincoln exercised more power than any man in England since Oliver Cromwell, and the anti-imperialistic papers of America always assert that in their Philippine policy McKinley and Roosevelt have taken on themselves more authority than any European monarch, excepting the Czar, could acquire.

In two respects the President is more important as compared with the representatives of the people, even in times of peace, than the king of England or the President of France. Firstly, his cabinet is entirely independent of the voice of parliament, and it has often been the case that while a majority in Congress sharply opposed the party policy of the President, this has not influenced the composition of his cabinet. The cabinet ministers are the representatives of the presidential policy, and they do not even take part in the doings of Congress.

Secondly, the President is not less but rather more than Congress a representative of the people. A monarch who takes up a position against the parliament thereby antagonizes the people. The President of France is elected by the people, but only through their parliamentary representatives; the chambers elect him, and therefore he is not an independent authority. The President of the United States, on the other hand, is in his own person a symbol of the collective will of the people, as opposed to the different members of Congress, which is of diverse composition and chosen on more local issues. There is moral authority, therefore, vested in the President. He is the true will of the people and his veto is their conscience. It is almost astonishing that a Republican democracy should have put such tremendous power into the hands of a single man. It is the more striking inasmuch as the Declaration of Independence related at length the sins of the English monarch. But we must bear in mind that the framers of the Constitution had to make a new and dangerous experiment, wherein they were much more afraid of that so far unknown and incalculable factor, the rule of the people, than the power of that single person whose administrative possibilities they had, in the colonial days, been able to observe in the governors of the several states. These had been diminutive but, on the whole, encouraging examples. Before all else the great and incomparable George Washington, the popular, dashing, and yet cautious aristocrat, had presided at the deliberations in which the Constitution was discussed, and had himself stood tangibly before the popular mind as the very ideal of a president.

Thus the President stands with tremendous powers at the helm of the nation. Who has sought him out for this position from the hundreds of thousands, whose hot ambition has led them to dream of such a distinction, and who has finally established him in this highest elective office on the face of the earth? The Constitution makes no other provision for the selection of a candidate than that he shall have been born in the land, that he shall be at least thirty-five years old, and shall have resided at least fourteen years in this his native country. On the other hand, the Constitutional provisions for his election are highly complicated, much more so indeed than the circumstances really call for. In fact, while the electoral procedures still comply with the wording of the original Constitution, actual conditions have so changed since the establishment of the Union that the prescribed machinery is not only partly unnecessary, but in some cases even works in opposition to what had been originally intended, and inconsistently with itself. The law requires, merely to mention the main point, that every state shall elect by popular vote a certain number of men who are called electors, and that a majority of the electors shall choose the President. For each state the number of electors is the same as that of the representatives which it sends to both houses of Congress together; it depends, therefore, on the number of inhabitants. Out of the 447 electors, 36 come from the State of New York, 32 from Pennsylvania, 24 from Illinois, 23 from Ohio, 15 from Massachusetts, but only 4 from Colorado, Florida, or New Hampshire; and only 3 from Delaware, Idaho, North Dakota, Utah, and several others. In case the vote of the electors should give no absolute majority to any candidate, the House of Representatives has to elect the President from among the three candidates who have received the greatest number of electoral votes.

The intention of the men who framed the Constitution in making these roundabout electoral provisions is clear enough; the election was not meant to be made directly by the people. When in the first discussions of the Constitution it was suggested that the President be elected directly by the people, some of the framers called the scheme chimerical and others called it impracticable. Indeed, some even doubted whether the people would be competent to choose the electors since, it was said, they would know too little about the persons and so would be liable to grave errors. This mistrust went so far, it is said, that leaving the election of the highest executives directly to the people seemed as unnatural as asking a blind man to match colors. The first plan which was at all approved by the Assembly was that Congress should elect the President; and not until later did it adopt the system of electors. It was hoped that for the electoral college the people would select the best, most experienced, and most cautious men of the country, and that these men should be left quite free to choose the highest executive as carefully and conscientiously as possible: and so it really happened when the electors met for the first time and fixed unanimously on George Washington.

But the situation is somewhat changed to-day: for a hundred years it has been the case that the electors have inevitably been deprived of all free choice. They are as passive as a printed ballot. They are no longer elected in order to come to a decision as to the best President, but merely to vote for this or that special candidate as designated, and for a hundred years not a single elector has disappointed this expectation. Thus the election of the President is practically accomplished on the day in November when the electors are voted for. McKinley defeated Bryan for the Presidency on the ninth of November, 1900, although no elector had officially voted for either one or the other; nor would he have a chance to vote until the first day of January, when he was mechanically to deposit his ballot.

The indirect election prescribed by the Constitution has therefore become to all intents and purposes a direct one, and the whole machinery of electors is really superfluous. It may, indeed, be said to have become contradictory in itself.

Since the original intention to make an electoral college of the best citizens has been frustrated by the popular spirit of self-determination, the electoral apparatus can have to-day no other significance than to give expression to the voice of the majority. But now just this it is in the power of the electoral system completely to suppress. Let us suppose that only two candidates are in question. If the election were simply a direct one, of course that candidate would win who received the most votes; but with electors this is not the case, because the number of electors who are pledged to vote for these two candidates need not at all correspond to the number of ballots cast on the two sides. If in the State of New York, for instance, three-fifths of the population are for the first candidate and two-fifths for the second, the three-fifths majority determines the whole list of 36 electors for the first candidate, and not an elector would be chosen for the other. Now it can very well happen that a candidate in those states in which he secures all the electors will have small majorities, that is, his opponent will have large minorities, while his opponent in the states which vote for him will have large majorities; and in this way the majority of electors will be pledged for that candidate who has received actually the smaller number of votes. It is a fact that both Hayes in 1877 and Harrison in 1889 were constitutionally elected for the Presidency by a minority of votes.

While in form the voters choose only the electors from their state, nevertheless these ballots thus actually count for a certain candidate. At the last election 292 electors voted for McKinley, and 155 for Bryan, while for the McKinley electors 832,280 more votes were cast than for the Bryan electors. We have already seen how it is that the best man will no longer, as in Washington’s time, be unequivocally elected by the people, and why, although a unanimous choice of President has not taken place since Washington’s time, nevertheless no more than two candidates are ever practically in question. It was for this that we have discussed the parties first. The parties are the factor which makes it impossible for a President to be elected without a contest, and which, as early as 1797, when the successor of Washington had to be nominated, divided the people in two sections, the supporters of Jefferson and of Adams. At the same time, however, the parties prevent the division from going further, and bring it about that this population of millions of people compactly organizes itself for Presidential elections in only two groups, so that although never less than two, still never more than two candidates really step into the arena.

For both great parties alike, with their central and local committees, with their professional politicians, with their leaders and their followers, whether engaging in politics out of interest or in hope of gain, as an ideal or as sport—for all alike comes the great day when the President is to be elected. For years previous the party leaders will have combined and dissolved and speculated and intrigued, and for years the friends of the possible candidates have spoken loudly in the newspapers, since here, of course, not only the election but also the nomination of the candidate depends on the people. Although the election is in November, the national conventions for nominating the party candidates come generally in July. Each state sends its delegation, numbering twice as many as the members of Congress from that state, and each delegation is once more duly elected by a convention of representatives chosen by the actual voters out of their party lists. In these national conventions the great battles of the country are fought, that is, within the party, and here the general trend of national politics is determined. It is the great trial moment for the party and the party heroes. At the last election McKinley and Bryan were the opposing candidates, and it is interesting to trace in their elections by the respective conventions two great types of party decision.

McKinley had grown slowly in public favour; he was the accomplished politician, the interesting leader of Congress, the sympathetic man who had no enemies. When the Republican convention met at Chicago, in 1888, he was a member of the delegation from Ohio and was pledged to do his utmost for the nomination of John Sherman. The ballots were cast five different times and every time no one candidate was found to have a majority. On the sixth trial one vote was cast for McKinley, and the announcement of this vote created an uproar. A sudden shifting of the opinions took place amid great acclamation, and the delegations all went over to him. He jumped up on a stool and called loudly through the hall that he should be offended by any man who voted for him since he himself had been pledged to vote for Sherman. Finally a compromise was found in Benjamin Harrison. At the convention in Minneapolis four years later McKinley was chairman, and once more the temptation came to him. The opponents of Harrison wished to oppose his re-election by uniting on the Ohio statesman, and again it was McKinley himself who turned the vote this time in favour of Harrison. His own time came finally in 1896. In the national convention at St. Louis 661 votes were cast in the first ballot for McKinley, while 84 were cast for Thomas Reed, 61 for Quay, 58 for Morton, and 35 for Allison. And when, in 1900, the national convention met in Philadelphia, 926 votes were straightway cast for McKinley, and none opposing. His was the steady, sure, and deserved rise from step to step through tireless exertions for his party and his country.

Bryan was a young and unknown lawyer, who had sat for a couple of years in the House of Representatives like any other delegate, and had warmly upheld bimetallism. At the Democratic national convention at Chicago in 1896 almost nobody knew him. But it was a curious crisis in the Democratic party. It had been victorious four years previous in its campaign for Cleveland against Harrison, but the party as such had enjoyed no particular satisfaction. The self-willed and determined Cleveland, who had systematically opposed Congress tooth and nail, had fallen out with his party and nowhere on the horizon had appeared a new leader. And after a true statesman like Cleveland had come to grief, the petty politicians, who had neither ideas nor a programme, came to their own. Every one was looking for a strong personality when Bryan stepped forth to ingratiate himself and his silver programme in the affections of his party. His arguments were not new, but his catch-words were well studied, and here at last stood a fascinating personality with a forceful temperament which was all aglow, and with a voice that sounded like the tones of an organ. And when he cried out, “You must not nail humanity to a cross of gold,” it was as if an omen had appeared. He became at once the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, and six months later six and one-half million votes were cast for him against the seven million for McKinley. Nor did the silver intoxication succumb to its first defeat. When the Democrats met again in 1900, all the endeavours of those who had adhered to a gold currency were seen to be futile. Once again the silver-tongued Nebraskan was carried about in triumph, and not until its second defeat did the Democratic party wake up. Bryanism is now a dead issue, and before the next Presidential election the programme of the Democratic party will be entirely reconstructed.

Thus the presidents of the nation grow organically out of the party structure, and the parties find in turn their highest duty and their reward in electing their President. The people organized in a party and the chief executive which that party elects belong necessarily together. They are the base and the summit. Nothing but death can overthrow the decision of the people; death did overthrow, indeed, the last decision after a few months, in September, 1901, when the cowardly assassination accomplished by a Polish anarchist brought the administration of McKinley to an end. As the Constitution provides, the man whom the people had elected to the relatively insignificant office of Vice-President became master in the White House.

The Vice-Presidency is from the point of view of political logic the least satisfactory place in American politics. Very early in the history of the United States the filling of this office occasioned many difficulties, and at that time the provisions of the Constitution referring to it were completely worked over. The Constitution had originally said that the man who had the second largest number of votes for the Presidency should become Vice-President. This was conceived in the spirit of the time when the two-party system did not exist and when it was expected that the electors should not be restricted by the voting public in their choice of the best man. As soon, however, as the opposition between the two parties came into being, the necessary result of such provision was that the presidential candidate of the defeated party should become Vice-President, and therefore that President and Vice-President should always represent diametrically opposed tendencies. A change in the Constitution did away with this political impossibility. Each elector was instructed to deposit separate ballots for President and Vice-President, and that candidate became Vice-President who received the largest number of votes for that office, both offices being thus invariably filled by candidates of the same party.

In spite of this the position has developed rather unsatisfactorily for an obvious reason. The Constitution condemns the Vice-President, so long as the President holds office, to an ornamental inactivity. It is his duty to preside at sessions of the Senate, a task which he for the most part performs silently, and which has not nearly the political significance enjoyed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives. On the other hand, men still in the prime of life are almost always elected to the Presidency; the possibility is therefore almost always lost sight of that the President can die before the expiration of his four years’ term of office. The result has been that less distinguished men, who have, nevertheless, served their parties, are usually chosen for this insignificant and passive rÔle. The office is designed to be an honour and a consolation to them, and sometimes for one reason or another their candidacy is supposed otherwise to strengthen the outlook of the party. It is not accident that while in the several states the Lieutenant-Governor is very often the next man to be elected Governor, it has never so far happened that a Vice-President has been elected to the Presidency.

Now in the unexpected event of the President’s death a man stands at the helm whom no one really wants to see there; and it has five times happened that the chief executive of the nation has died in office, and four times, indeed, only a few months after being installed, so that the Vice-President has had to guide the destinies of the country for almost four years. When Tyler succeeded to the place of Harrison in 1841, there arose at once unfavourable disputes with the Whig party, which had elected him. When, after the murder of Lincoln in 1865, Johnson took the reins, it was his own Republican party which regretted having elected this impetuous man to the Vice-Presidency; and when, in 1881, after the assassination of Garfield, his successor, Arthur, undertook the office, and filled it indeed by no means badly, considerable consternation was felt throughout the country when people saw that so ordinary a professional politician was to succeed Garfield, on whom the country had pinned its faith.

On the death of McKinley a Vice-President succeeded him toward whom, in one respect at least, the feeling was very different. If ever a man was born to become President that man was Theodore Roosevelt. Nevertheless, he had not been elected in expectation of becoming President, and at first the whole country felt once more that it was a case which had lain outside of all reasonable calculations. Roosevelt’s friends had asked him to make a sacrifice and to accept a thankless office because they knew that his name on the ballot of the Republican party—for his Rough Rider reputation during the war was still fresh—would be pretty sure to bring about the election of McKinley. The opponents also of this strong and energetic young man, against his stoutest protestations, upheld his candidacy with every means in their power. Firstly because they wanted to get rid of him as Governor of the State of New York, where he made life too hard for the regular politicians, and secondly because they relied on the tradition that holding the Vice-Presidency would invalidate him as a Presidential candidate in 1904. Neither friends nor enemies had thought of such a possibility as McKinley’s death. Roosevelt’s friends had rightly judged; the hero of San Juan did bring victory to his party. His enemies, on the other hand, had entirely missed their mark not only on the outcome, but from the very beginning. Odell became Governor of New York, and quite unexpectedly he stood out even more stoutly against the political corruptionists. And, on the other hand, Roosevelt’s impulsive nature quickly found ways to break the traditional silence of the Vice-President and to keep himself before the eyes of the world. There is no doubt that in spite of all traditions his incumbency would have been a preparation for the presidential candidacy. But when, through the crime committed at Buffalo, everything came out so differently from that which the politicians expected, it seemed to the admirers of Roosevelt almost like the tragic hand of fate; he had done his best to attain on his own account the Presidency, and now it came to him almost as the gift of chance. Only the next election may be expected to do him full justice.

The successive moments in his rapid rise are generally known. Roosevelt was born in New York in 1858, his father being a prosperous merchant and well-known philanthropist, and a descendant of an old Knickerbocker family. The son was prepared for college and went to Harvard, where he made a special study of history and political economy. After that he travelled in Europe, and when he was still only twenty-four years old, he plunged into politics. He soon obtained a Republican seat in the state legislature of New York, and there commenced his tireless fight for reform in municipal and state administration. In 1889 President Harrison appointed him Commissioner of the Civil Service, but he resigned this position in 1895 in order to become Chief of Police in New York. Only two years later he was once more called from municipal to national duties. He was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy. All this time his administrative duties did not interrupt his literary, historical, and scientific work. He had begun his career as an author with his studies in the history of the navy and his admirable biographies of American statesmen. When he was thirty years old he wrote the first part of his great work, “The Winning of the West,” and often between the publication of his scientific works he published lesser books, describing his adventures as huntsman in the primeval wilderness, and later on volumes in which his social and political essays were collected.

Then the Spanish War arose and the Assistant Secretary could not bear to sit at his desk while others were moving to the field of battle. He gathered about him a volunteer regiment of cavalry, in which the dare-devil cow-punchers of the prairie rode side by side with the adventurous scions of the most distinguished families in Boston and New York. Roosevelt’s friend, Wood, of the regular army, became Colonel in this soon-famous regiment, and Roosevelt himself Lieutenant-Colonel. A few days after they had successfully stormed the hill at San Juan, Wood became General and Roosevelt Colonel.

His native State of New York received him on his home-coming with general rejoicing, and he found himself a few months later Governor of the State. At Albany he showed tremendous energy, put through popular reforms, and fought against the encroachments of the industrial corporations. It had been his personal wish to be Governor for a second year, but this was denied him by the admirable doings of his Eastern enemies and Western admirers at the national convention of June, 1900, held in Pennsylvania, where he was forced to become candidate for the position of Vice-President. On the 14th of September, 1901, in Buffalo, he took the Presidential oath of office.

At that time a quiet anxiety for the future was mingled with the honest sorrow which the whole land felt for the death of McKinley. A nation which had been sunning itself in peace suddenly found itself under the leadership of an impulsive colonel of cavalry, who carried in his hand the banner of war. The nation was in the midst of an economic development which needed before everything else to have a mature and careful leader who was honoured and trusted by all classes, and who would be able to effect some work of reconciliation between them; when suddenly there stood in the place of a most conservative statesman an impetuous young man who was not intimately connected with industrial life, who had for a long time made himself unpopular with party politicians, and whom even his admirers in the land seemed hardly to trust on account of his hasty and determined impetuosity. Roosevelt had been envisaged by the masses, through the cinematograph of the press, in campaign hat and khaki uniform, just in the attitude of taking San Juan hill. Nearly everybody forgot that he had for a long time quietly carried on the exacting labours of Police Commissioner in the largest city of the country; and forgot how, from his first year of study at Harvard on, every day had been given to preparing himself for public service and for acquiring a thorough understanding of all the political, social, and economic problems which the country had to face; they forgot also that he had wielded the sword for only a few months, but the pen of the historian for about two decades. Roosevelt’s first public utterance was a pledge to continue unchanged the peaceful policy of his predecessor and always to consider the national prosperity and honour. Still, people felt that no successor would be able to command that experience, maturity, and party influence which McKinley had had.

There have been differences of opinion, and, as was to be expected, complaints and criticisms have come from the midst of his own party. Yet anyone who looks at his whole administration will see that in those first years Roosevelt won a more difficult and brilliant victory than he had won over the Spanish troops.

He had three virtues which especially overcame all small criticism. The people felt, in the first place, that a moral force was here at work which was more powerful than any mere political address or diplomatic subtlety. An immediate ethical force was here felt which owned to ideas above any party, and set inner ideals above merely outward success. Roosevelt’s second virtue was courage. A certain purely ethical ideal exalted above all petty expediencies was for him not only the nucleus of his own creed, but was also his spring of action; and he took no account of personal dangers. Here was the keynote of all his speeches—it is not enough to approve of what is right, it is equally necessary to act for it fearlessly and unequivocally. Then he went on to his work, and if, indeed, in complicated political situations the President has had at times to clinch some points by aid of compromise, nevertheless the nation has felt with growing confidence that at no serious moment has he wavered a hair’s breadth from the straight line of his convictions, and that he has had the courage to disregard everything but what he held to be right. And, thirdly, Roosevelt had the virtue of being sincere.

McKinley also had purposed to do right, but he had hardly an occasion for displaying great courage since so incomparably discreet a politician as he was could avoid every conflict with his associates, and he was ever the leader on highways which the popular humour had indicated. Thus the masses never felt that he was at bottom lacking in courage or that he always put off responsibility on others. The masses did, however, instinctively feel that McKinley’s astute and kindly words were not always sincere; his words were often there to conceal something which was locked up behind his Napoleonic forehead. And now there succeeded him an enthusiast who brimmed over with plain expressions of what he felt, and whose words were so convincingly candid and so without reservation that every one had the feeling of being in the personal confidence of the President.

There was a good deal more besides his moral earnestness, his courage, and his frank honesty which contributed to Roosevelt’s entire success. His lack of prejudice won the lower classes, and his aristocratic breeding and education won the upper, while the middle classes were enthusiastic over his sportsmanship. No President had been more unprejudiced or more truly democratic. He met the poor miner on the same footing as he met the mine owner; he invited the negro to the White House; he sat down and broke bread with the cow-boys; and when he travelled he first shook the sooty hand of the locomotive engineer before he greeted the gentlemen who had gathered about in their silk hats. And, nevertheless, he was in many years the first real aristocrat to become President. The changes in the White House itself were typical. This venerable Presidential dwelling had been, up to Roosevelt’s time, in its inner arrangements a dreary combination of bare offices, somewhat crudely decorated private dwelling, and cheerless reception-halls. To-day it is a very proper palace, containing many fine works of art, and office-seekers no longer have access to the inner rooms. His predecessors, the Clevelands and Harrisons and McKinleys, had been, in fact, very respectable philistines. They had come from the middle classes of the country, which are in thought and feeling very different from that upper class which, up to a short time ago, had bothered itself less about practical politics than about general culture, literature, art, criticism, and broadly conceived industrial operations, combined with social high-life. This class, however, had begun at length to feel that it ought not to disdain to notice political abuses, to walk around the sea of troubles; but had begun to take up arms and by opposing end them. Aristocracy had too long believed in political mercenaries.

Roosevelt was the first to lift himself from these circles and become a great leader. Not alone the nobility of his character but also of his culture and traditions was shown in his entire habit of mind. Never in his speeches or writings has he cited that socially equalizing Declaration of Independence, and while his speeches at banquets and small gatherings of scholarly men have been incomparably more fascinating than his strenuous utterances to the voters, which he has made on his public tours, it has been often less the originality of his thoughts and still less the peculiarly taking quality of his delivery, than the evidences of ripe culture, which seem to pervade his political thought. Thus the smaller the circle to which he speaks the greater is his advantage; and in speaking with him personally on serious problems one feels that distinction of thought, breadth of historical outlook, and confidence in self have united in him to create a personality after the grand manner.

The impression which Roosevelt has made on his own country has not been more profound than his influence on the galaxy of nations. At the very hour when the United States by their economic and territorial expansion stepped into the circle of world powers, they had at their head a personality who, for the first time in decades, had been able to make a great, characteristic, and, most of all, a dramatic impression on the peoples of Europe. And if this hour was to be made the most of it was not enough that this leader should by his impulsiveness and self-will, by his picturesque gestures and effective utterance, chain the attention of the masses and excite all newspaper readers, but he must also win the sympathies of the keener and finer minds, and excite some sympathetic response in the heads of monarchies. A second Lincoln would never have been able to do this, and just this was what the moment demanded. The nation’s world-wide position in politics needed some comparable expansion in the social sphere. Other peoples were to welcome their new comrades not only in the official bureau but also in the reception-room, and this young President had always at his command a graceful word, a tactful expedient, and a distinguished and hospitable address. He was, in short, quite the right man.

Any new person taking hold so firmly has to disturb a good many things; busied with so much, he must overturn a good deal which would prefer to be left as it was. The honest man has his goodly share of enemies. And it is not to be denied that Roosevelt has the failings of his virtues, and these have borne their consequences. Many national dangers, which are always to be feared from officials of Roosevelt’s type, are largely obviated by the democratic customs of the country. He lives amid a people not afraid to tell him the whole truth, and every criticism reaches his ear. And there is another thing not less important: democracy forces every man into that line of activity for which the nation has elected him. A somewhat overactive mind like Roosevelt’s has opinions on many problems, and his exceptional political position easily betrays one at first into laying exceptional weight on one’s own opinions about every subject. But here the traditions of the country have been decisive; it knows no President for general enlightenment, but only a political leader whose private opinions outside politics are of no special importance. In this as in other respects Roosevelt has profited by experience. There is no doubt that when he came to the White House he underestimated the power of Senators and party leaders. The invisible obstructions, which were somehow hidden behind the scenes, have no doubt given him many painful lessons. In his endeavour to realize so many heartfelt convictions, he has often met with arbitrary opposition made simply to let the new leader feel that obstructions can be put in his way unless he takes account of all sorts of factors. But these warnings have really done him no harm, for Roosevelt was not the man to be brought by them into that party subserviency which had satisfied McKinley. They merely held him back from that reckless independence which is so foreign to the American party spirit, and which in the later years of Cleveland’s administration had worked so badly. Indeed, one might say that the outcome has been an ideal synthesis of Cleveland’s consistency and McKinley’s power of adaptation.

For the fanatics of party Roosevelt has been, of course, too independent, while to the opponents of party he has seemed too yielding. Both of these criticisms have been made, in many different connections, since everywhere he has stood on a watch tower above the fighting lines of any party. When in the struggles between capital and labour he seriously took into account the just grievances of the working-man he was denounced as a socialist. And when he did not at once stretch out his hand to demolish all corporations he was called a servant of the stock exchange. When he appointed officials in the South without reference to their party allegiance, the Republicans bellowed loudly; and when he did not sanction the Southern outrages against the negro the Democrats became furious. When everything is considered, however, he has observed the maxim of President Hayes, “He best serves his party who serves his country best.”

In this there has been another factor at work. Roosevelt may not have had McKinley’s broad experience in legislative matters, nor have known the reefs and bars in the Congressional sea, but for the executive office, for the administration of civil service and the army and navy, for the solution of federal, civil, and municipal problems his years of study and travel have been an ideal preparation. Behind his practical training he has had the clear eye of the historian. The United States had their proverbial good luck when the Mephistos of the Republican party prevailed on the formidable Governor of New York to undertake the thankless office of Vice-President. If this nomination had gone as the better politicians wished it to go, the death of McKinley would have placed a typical politician at the helm instead of the best President which the country has had for many years.

The President is closely associated with the Cabinet, and he is entirely free in his choice of advisers. There is no question here of the influence of majorities on the composition of the ministry, as there is in England or France. In this way Cleveland, in his second term, had already announced by his choice of cabinet ministers that he should go his own ways regardless of the wire-pullers of the party. He gave the Secretaryship of War to his former private secretary; the position of Postmaster-General to his former partner in law; the Secretaryship of Justice to a jurist who had never taken any interest in politics. His Secretary of the Interior was a personal friend, and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs a man who shortly before had left the ranks of the Republican party to become a Cleveland Democrat. The Secretaryships of Commerce and the Treasury were the sole cabinet positions which were given to well-known party leaders. The very opposite was to have been expected from a man of McKinley’s disposition. Even when he became the chief executive of the country he remained the devoted servant of his party, and just as his success was owing in large part to his sympathetic relations with all the important factions in Congress, so the success of his Cabinet was due to his having chosen none but men who had enjoyed for a long time the confidence of the party.

Roosevelt did at the outset an act of political piety when he left the Cabinet, for the time being, unchanged. It was at the same time a capital move toward reassuring public opinion, which had stood in fear of all sorts of surprises, owing to his impetuous temperament. Slowly, however, characteristic readjustments were made and a new cabinet office was created under his administration, the Secretaryship of Commerce and Labour. This was entrusted to Cortelyou, who had been the private secretary of two presidents, and who, through his tact, discretion, and industry, had contributed not a little to their practical success.

The highest minister in order of rank is the Secretary of State, who is the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and who, in the case that both the President and Vice-President are unable to complete their term of office, assumes the Presidency. He is responsible for the diplomatic and consular representation of the United States and he alone negotiates with representatives of foreign powers at Washington; moreover, it is through him that the President treats with the separate states of the Union. He publishes the laws passed by Congress and adds his signature to all of the President’s official papers. He is, next to the President, so thoroughly the presiding spirit of the administration that it is hardly a mistake to compare him to the Chancellor of the German Empire. It happens at the moment that the present incumbent makes this comparison still more apt, since John Hay, the present Secretary of Foreign Affairs, resembles Count von BÜlow in several ways. Both have been in former years closely affiliated to the national heroes of the century, both have gotten their training in various diplomatic positions, both are resourceful, accommodating, and brilliant statesmen, and both have a thoroughly modern temperament, intellectual independence bred of a broad view of the world, both are apt of speech and have fine literary feeling. Hay was the secretary of President Lincoln until Lincoln’s death, and has been secretary of the embassies in France, Austria, and Spain, has taken distinguished place in party politics, has been Assistant Secretary of State, Ambassador to England, and in 1898 was placed at the head of foreign affairs. His “Ballads,” “Castilian Days,” and “Life of Lincoln,” call to mind his literary reputation.

How far foreign affairs are really conducted by the President and how far by the Secretary of State is, of course, hard to say, but, at any rate, the representatives of foreign powers treat officially only with the Secretary, who has his regular days for diplomatic consultation, so that the relations of foreign representatives to the President, after their first official introduction, remain virtually social. Yet all important measures are undertaken only with the approval of the President, and on critical questions of international politics the whole cabinet deliberates together. Hay’s personal influence came clearly before the public eye especially in his negotiations regarding the Central American canal, and in his handling of the Russian and Asiatic problems. Particularly after the Chinese imbroglio he came to be generally reputed the most astute and successful statesman of the day. It will probably not be far wrong to ascribe such tendencies in American politics as are friendly toward England chiefly to his influence. On the other hand, he is supposed to feel no special leanings toward Germany.

The Secretary of the Treasury is next in rank. He administers the Federal finances to all intents and purposes like a large banker, or, rather, like a bank president who should have Congress for his board of directors. Since customs and international revenues are levied by the Federal Government, and not by the several states, and since the expenditures for the army and navy, for the postal service, and for the Federal Government itself, the national debt and the mints come under Federal administration, financing operations are involved which are so extensive as to have a deciding influence on the banking system of the entire country.

The third official in rank is the Secretary of War, while the Secretary of the Navy holds only the sixth place, with the Attorney-General and the Postmaster-General in between. The General Staff of the Secretary of War, which was organized in 1903, is composed of officers of high rank, although the Secretary himself is a civilian. In the case of the army, as well as of the navy, the functions of the secretary are decidedly more important than those, say, of a Prussian Minister. They concern not only administration, but also, in case of war, are of decisive weight on the movements of all the forces, since the President as commander-in-chief has to act through these ministers. Elihu Root was for almost five years Secretary of War; and on his retirement in January, 1904, Roosevelt declared: “Root is the greatest man who has appeared in our times in the public life of any country, either in the New World or the Old.”

The position of Attorney-General is less comparable with a corresponding office in the German state. This minister of the President has no influence on the appointment of judges or the administration of the courts. The official representative of justice in the Cabinet is really an exalted lawyer, who is at the same time the President’s legal adviser. So far as appointments to office go, the Secretary of the Post Office Department has practically no influence regarding those who are under him, since the tremendous number of postal officials of any considerable importance have to be confirmed in their appointments by the Senate, so that the appointing power has virtually gone over to that body. On the other hand, the whole postal service is under his direction; but it is here not to be forgotten that the American railroads and, what the German may think more extraordinary, the telegraph lines, are not government property.

The Secretary of the Interior is merely a name for a great many unrelated administrative functions. In the long list of duties which fall to this office comes education, although this seemingly most important responsibility is really rather slight, since all educational matters fall to the separate states and the Federal Government has nothing to do but to give out statistics and information, to collect material, and to offer advice. The national Bureau of Education is not empowered to institute any practical changes. A much more important function, practically, of the Secretary of the Interior is the Pension Bureau, since the United States pay yearly about $138,000,000 in pensions. Other divisions are the Patent Office, which grants every year about 30,000 patents, the Railroad Bureau, the Indian Bureau, and the Geological Survey. The Secretary of Agriculture has not only certain duties connected with agriculture, but is also in charge of the Weather Bureau, and of zoÖlogical, botanical, and chemical institutes, and especially of the large number of scientific departments which indirectly serve the cause of agriculture. Last in rank comes the recently created Secretary of Commerce and Labour, who has charge of the Corporation Bureau, the Labour Bureau, the Census Bureau, and the Bureaus of Statistics, Immigration, and Fisheries.

There are some 240,000 positions under the direction of these ministers; and all of these, from ambassadors to letter-carriers, are in the national service and under the appointment of the President, and are entirely independent of the government of the separate states in which the offices are held.

There is an avenue which leads from the White House in a direct line to the Capitol, the dominating architectural feature of Washington. On walking up the broad terraces one comes first to the great central hall, over which rises the dome; to the right one passes through the Hall of Fame and comes finally to the uncomfortably large parliamentary chamber, in which 386 Representatives sit together as the direct delegates of the people. Going from the central hall to the left one passes by the apartments of the Supreme Court, and comes finally to the attractive room in which the ninety state delegates hold their sessions. The room on the right is called the “House,” on the left the Senate; both together make up Congress, the law-giving body of the nation. When the thirteen states which first formed the Union in the year 1778 adopted the Articles of Federation, it was intended that Congress should be a single body, in which each state, although it might be represented by a varying number of members, should nevertheless have the right to only one vote. Nine years later, however, the final Constitution of the United States replaced this one simple system by dividing Congress into Senate and House of Representatives, doing this simply by analogy with the traditions of the state governments. Pennsylvania was the only state which had but one legislative chamber, while the others had taken over from England the system of double representation and had carried out the English tradition, although probably nothing was further from their intention than to divide their legislators into lords and commoners.

For the United States the dual division inevitably seemed the shortest way to balance off conflicting requirements. On the one side every state, even the smallest, should have the same prerogatives and equal influence: on the other side, every citizen must count as much as every other, so that the number of inhabitants must be duly represented. It was necessary, therefore, to create one chamber in which all States should have the same number of Representatives, and another in which every delegate should represent an equal number of voters. Furthermore, on the one hand a firm and conservative tradition was to be built up, while on the other the changing voice of the people was to be reflected. It was, therefore, necessary to remove one chamber from popular election and leave it to the appointment of the separate state legislatures. It was also necessary to put the age for candidacy for this chamber high, and to make the term of office rather long, and finally to contrive that at any one time only a fraction of the numbers should be replaced, so that a majority of the members could carry on their work undisturbed. The other chamber, however, was to be completely replaced by frequent direct popular elections. Thus originated the two divisions of Congress which so contrast in every respect. A comparison with European double legislative systems is very natural, and yet the Senate is neither a Bundestag, nor a Herrenhaus, nor a House of Lords; and the House of Representatives is fundamentally different from the Reichstag. One who wishes to understand the American system must put aside his recollections of European institutions, since nothing except emphasis on the difference between the American and European legislatures will make clear the traditions of Washington.

As has been said, the Senators are representatives of the several states; every state sends two. The State of New York, with its seven million inhabitants, has no more representatives in the Senate than the State of Wyoming, which has less than one hundred thousand inhabitants. Every Senator is elected for six years by the law-giving body of the individual state. Every second year a third of the Senators retire, so that the Senate as a whole has existed uninterruptedly since the foundation of the Union. Curiously enough, however, the Senators vote independently, and thus it often happens that the two Senators from one State cast opposite votes. A candidate for the Senate has to be thirty years old.

The members of the House are elected every two years and by direct popular vote. The number of delegates is here not prescribed by the Constitution. It is constantly modified on the basis of the ten-year census, since every state is entitled to a number of delegates proportionate to its population. While there were slaves, who could not vote, the slave states nevertheless objected to the diminution in the number of their representatives, due to the fact that the negro was not considered an inhabitant, and it was constitutionally provided to compute the number of Representatives on the basis that every slave was equivalent to three-fifths of a man. To-day neither colour nor race constitutionally affects the right to vote. On the other hand, the nation as such does not concern itself to consider who is allowed to vote, but leaves this completely to the different states, and requires only that for the national elections in every state the same provisions are observed which are made for the elections to the state legislature. Moreover, it is left to every state in what wise it shall choose the allotted number of Representatives at Washington. Thus, for instance, in those four Western States in which women are allowed to vote for members of the legislature, women have also the right to vote for Congressmen.

The first House of Representatives had 65 members, while the House of 1902 had 357, and the political centre of gravity of the country has so shifted that the states which originally made up Congress send now only 137 of the members. The number of delegates has recently been increased to 386. The age of candidacy is 25, and while a Senator must have lived in the country for nine years, only seven years are required of a Representative.

The differences in the conditions of election are enough to bring it about that the personal make-up of the two Houses, as had been originally intended, give very different impressions. The dignity of being Senator is granted to but few, and to these for a long time, and as it is bestowed by that somewhat small circle of the legislators of the state, is naturally accounted the highest political honour; it is thus desired by the most successful leaders of public life and the most respected men of the several states. The ideal condition is, to be sure, somewhat frustrated, since in reality the members of a state legislature are generally pledged, when they themselves are elected, to support this or that particular candidate for the Senate. Thus the general body of voters exerts its influence after all pretty directly; and, moreover, this distinction depends not a little, in the West and especially in the thinly populated states, on the possession of great wealth. Since, however, in these cases such wealth has generally been won by exceptional energy and keen insight, even in this way men come to Washington who are a good deal above the average voter, and who represent the most significant forces in American popular life earnestly, worthily, and intelligently.

In the last Senate the average age of ninety Senators was sixty years, and seventeen were more than seventy years old. Sixty-one of them were jurists, eighteen were business men, three were farmers, and two had been journalists. As to the jurists, they are not men who are still active as attorneys or judges. Generally men are in question who went over early from the legal profession into politics, and who have lived almost entirely in politics. Indeed, not a few of these lawyers who have become legislators have been for some years in commercial life at the head of great industrial or railroad corporations, so that the majority of jurists is no indication whatsoever of any legal petrifaction. All sides of American life are represented, and only such professions as that of the university scholar or that of the preacher are virtually excluded because circumstances make it necessary for the Senator to spend six winters in Washington. It will be seen that politics must have become a life profession with most of these men, since many are elected four and five times to the Senate. Among the best known Senators, Allison, Hoar, Cockrell, Platt, Morgan, Teller, and several others have been there for more than twenty-five years. Of course the conservative traditions of the Senate are better preserved by such numerous re-elections than by any possible external provision.

It is also characteristic of the composition of the Senate that, with a single exception, no Senator was born on the European continent. Nelson, the Senator from Minnesota, came from Norway when he was a boy. Thus in this conservative circle there is little real representation of the millions who have immigrated to this country. In the autobiographies of the Senators, two relate that, although they were born in America, they are of German descent; these are Wellington, the Senator from Maryland, and Dietrich, the Senator from Nebraska. The Senators are notoriously well-to-do, and have been called the “Millionaires’ Club”; and yet one is not to suppose that these men have the wealth of the great industrial magnates. Senator Clarke, of Montana, whose property is estimated at one hundred million dollars, is the single one who, according to American standards, could be called rich. Most of the others have merely a few modest millions, and for many the expensive years of residence in Washington are a decided sacrifice. And, most of all, it is certain that the Senators who are materially the least well-off are among the most respected and influential. The most highly educated member of the Senate would probably be the young delegate from Massachusetts, the historian Lodge, who is the President’s most intimate friend; but the most worthy and dignified member has been the late Senator from Massachusetts, the impressive orator, Hoar.

It is a matter of course that the social level of the House of Representatives lies considerably lower. Here it is intended that the people shall be represented with all their diverse interests and ambitions. The two-thirds majority of lawyers is found, however, even here; of the 357 members of the last House, 236 had been trained in law, 63 were business men, and 17 were farmers. The House is again like the Senate, since, in spite of the fact that the membership is elected entirely anew, it remains in good part made up of the same people. The fifty-eighth Congress contained 250 members who had already sat in the fifty-seventh. About one-tenth of the Representatives have been in the House ten years. The general physiognomy is, however, very different from that of the Senate. It is more youthful, less serene and distinguished, and more suggestive of ordinary business. The average age is forty-eight years, while there are some men under thirty. The total impression, in spite of several exceptions, suggests that these men come from the social middle class. However, it is from just this class that the notably clear-cut personalities of America have come; and the number of powerful and striking countenances to be seen in the House is greater than that in the German Reichstag. The Representatives, like Senators, have a salary of $5,000 and their travelling expenses.

What is now the actual work of these two chambers in Congress, and how do they carry it on? The work cannot be wholly separated from its manner of performance. Perhaps the essentials of this peculiar task and method could be brought together as follows: on the basis of committee reports, Congress decides whether or not to accept bills which have been proposed by its members. This is indeed the main part of the story. Congress thus passes on proposed bills; its function is purely legislative, and involves nothing of an executive nature. On the other hand, these bills have to be proposed by members of Congress; they cannot be received from the President or from members of his Cabinet. Thus the Executive has no influence in the law-giving body. The method of transacting business, finally, consists of laying the emphasis on the deliberations in committees, and it is there that the fate of each bill is virtually settled. The committee determines whether the proposed measure shall come before the whole House; and both House and Senate have finally to decide about accepting the measure. Each of these points requires further comment.

So far as the separation of the legislative and executive functions of the government is concerned, it is certainly exaggeration to say that it is complete, as has often been said. There is, to be sure, a somewhat sharper distinction than is made in Germany, where the propositions of the Executive form the basis of legislative activity; and yet even in the United States the ultimate fate of every measure is dependent on the attitude taken by the President. We have seen that a bill which is sent by Congress to the President can be returned with his veto, and in that case becomes a law only when on a new vote in both Houses it receives a two-thirds majority. A law which obtains only a small majority in either one of the Houses can thus easily be put aside by the Executive.

On the other hand, Congress has a very important participation in executive functions, more particularly through the Senate, inasmuch as all appointments of federal officers and the ratification of all treaties require the approval of the Senate. International politics, therefore, make it necessary for the President to keep closely in touch with at least the Senate, and in the matter of appointments the right of the Senators to disapprove is so important that for a large number of local positions the selection has been actually left entirely to the Senators of the respective states. The Constitution gives to Congress even a jurisdictional function, in the case that any higher federal officers abuse their office. When there is a suspicion of this, the House of Representatives brings its charges and the Senate conducts the trial. The last time that this great machinery was in operation was in 1876, when the Secretary of War, Belknap, was charged and acquitted; thus suspicion has not fallen on any of the higher officials for twenty-eight years.

The separation of the Legislative from the Executive is most conspicuously seen in the fact that no member of the Cabinet has a seat in Congress. At the beginning of the Congressional session the President sends his message, in which he is privileged politically to pour out his entire heart. Yet he may only state his hopes and desires, and may not propose definite bills. The Cabinet ministers, however, are responsible solely to the President, and in no wise to Congress, where they have no right to discuss measures either favourably or unfavourably. They do not come into contact with Congress. This is in extreme contrast with the situation in England, where the ministers are leaders of the Parliamentary party. The American sees in this a strong point of his political system, and even such a man as the former ambassador to Germany, Andrew D. White, who admired so much of what he saw there, considers the ministerial benches in the German and French representative chambers a mistake. It occasions, he says, a constant and vexatious disagreement between the delegates of the people and the ministers, which disturbs the order and effectiveness of parliamentary transactions. The legislative work should be transacted apart, and the popular representatives ought to have only one another to take care of.

We must not, however, understand that there are practically no relations existing between Congress and the ministry. A considerable part of the bills, which have to be discussed, consist, of course, in appropriations for public expenditures, so far as these come out of the federal rather than the state treasuries. Such appropriations included at the last time $139,000,000 for pensions, $138,000,000 for the post office, $91,000,000 for the army, $78,000,000 for the navy, $26,000,000 for rivers and harbours, and so on; making in all $800,000,000 for the annual appropriations, besides $253,000,000 for special contracts. Thus the total sum of appropriations in one session of Congress amounted to over $1,000,000,000, in America called a billion. This authorized appropriation has to be made on the basis of proposals, submitted by the members of Congress; but it is a matter of course that every single figure of such propositions has to come originally from the bureau of the army or navy, or whatever department is concerned, if it is to serve as the basis of discussion. Thus while the Executive presents to Congress no proposals for the budget, it hands over to the members of Congress so empowered the whole material; and this is, after all, not very different from the European practice. However, the voice of the Executive is indeed not heard when the budget is under debate. The members of Congress who are to receive the ministerial propositions through mediation of the Treasury, must belong to the House; for one of the few advantages which the House of Representatives has over the Senate is that it has to initiate all bills of appropriation. This is a remnant of the fundamental idea that all public expenditures should be made only at the instance of the taxpayers themselves, wherefore the directly elected members of the House are more fitted for this than are the Senators, who are indirectly elected. This single advantage is less than it looks to be, since the Senate may amend at will all bills of appropriation that it receives from the House.

Thus every measure which is ever to become law must be proposed by members of Congress. One can see that this privilege of proposing bills is utilized to the utmost, from the simple fact that during every session some fifteen thousand bills are brought out. We may here consider in detail the way in which the House transacts its affairs. It is clear that if more than three hundred voluble politicians are set to the task of deliberating in a few months on fifteen thousand laws, including all proposed appropriations, that a perfect babel of argument will arise which can lead to no really fruitful result, unless sound traditions, strict rules and discipline, and autocratic leadership hold this chaotic body within bounds. The American instinct for organization introduced indeed long ago a compact orderliness. Here belongs first of all that above-mentioned committee system, which in the House is completed by the unique institution of the Speaker. But one thing we must constantly bear in mind: the whole background of Congressional doings is the two-party system. If the House or the Senate were to break out in the prismatic variegation of the German parliamentary parties, no speaker and no system of committees would be able to keep the elements in hand. It is, after all, the party in majority which guarantees order, moulds the committees into effective machines, and lends to the Speaker his extraordinary influence.

The essential feature of the whole apparatus lies in the fact that a bill cannot come up before the House until it has been deliberated in committee. The chairman of the committee then presents it personally at some meeting. The presiding officer, the so-called Speaker, exerts in this connection a threefold influence; firstly, he appoints the members of all the committees, of which, for instance, there were in the last Congress sixty-three. The most important, and, therefore, the largest, of these committees are those on appropriations, agriculture, banking, coinage, foreign and Indian affairs, interstate and foreign commerce, pensions, the post office, the navy, railroads, rivers and harbours, patents, and finance. Both the majority and minority parties are represented in every committee, and its chairman has almost unlimited control in its transaction of business. All members of the more important committees are experienced men, who have been well schooled in the traditions of the House.

The Speaker is allowed further to decide as to what committee each bill shall be referred. In many cases, of course, there is no choice; but it not seldom happens that there are several possibilities, and the decision between them often determines the fate of the bill. In the third place, the Speaker, as chairman of the Committee on Rules, decides what reports, of those which have been so far prepared by the committees, shall come up for discussion at each meeting of the House. As soon as the committee has agreed on recommendations, its report is put on the calendar; but whether it then comes up for debate in the House depends on a good many factors. In the first place, of course, many of the proposed matters take naturally first rank, as for instance, the appropriations. The chairman of the Committee on Appropriations is given the floor whenever he asks for it; thus there are express trains on this Congressional railroad which have the right-of-way before suburban trains, and then, too, there are special trains which take preference before everything else. But aside from such committee reports as are especially privileged, a very considerable opportunity of selection exists among those which remain.

It is here that the really unlimited influence of the Speaker comes in. He is in no way required to give the floor to the committees which ask for it first. If the chairman of the committee is not called on by the Speaker for his report, he is said to be not “noticed” and he is helpless. Of course, whether he is noticed or not depends on the most exact prearrangement. If now a bill is finally reported to the House, it is still not allowed an endless debate, for the Speaker is once more empowered to appoint a particular time when the debate must end, and thereby he is able to come around any efforts at obstruction. If, however, the minority wishes to make itself heard by raising the point of no quorum, then not only those who are voting, but all those who are present in the House, are counted, and if these are not enough the delinquents can be hunted out and forced to come in. But in most cases there is little or no debate, and the resolutions of the committee are accepted by the House without a word. In certain of the most important cases, as in matters of appropriation or taxation, the House constitutes itself a so-called committee of the whole. Then the matter is seriously discussed under a special chairman, as at the session of an ordinary committee. Even here it is not the custom to make long speeches, and the members are often contented with a short sketch of their arguments, and ask permission to have the rest published in the Congressional Report. The speeches which thus have never been delivered are printed and distributed in innumerable copies through the district from which that speaker comes and elsewhere as well.

Thus if an ordinary Representative proposes a measure, which perhaps expresses the local wishes of his district, such a bill goes first to the Secretary and from him to the Speaker. He refers it to a special committee, and at the same time every Representative receives printed copies of it. The committee decides whether the bill is worth considering. If it has the good fortune to be deliberated by the committee it is often so amended by the members that little remains of its original substance. If it then has the further good fortune to be accepted by the committee, it comes on the House calendar, and waits until the Committee on Rules puts it on the order of the day. If it then has the exceptional good fortune of being read to the House it has a fairly good chance of being accepted.

But of course its pilgrimage is not ended here. It passes next to the Senate, and goes through much the same treatment once more; first a committee, then the quorum. If it does not there come up before the quorum, it is lost in spite of everything; but if it does finally come up, after all hindrances, it may be amended once more by the Senate. If this happens, as is likely, its consideration is begun all over again. A composite committee from both Houses considers all amendments, and if it cannot come to an agreement the measures are doomed. If the committee does agree, the close of the session of Congress may intervene and prevent its last hearing in the House, and in the next Congress the whole process is repeated. But if a measure has passed through all these dangers and been approved by both Houses, the President then has the opportunity to put his veto on it.

Thus it comes about that hardly a tenth part of the bills which are introduced each year ever become laws, and that they are sifted out and amended surely and speedily. Indeed, it can hardly be doubted that a large part of the fifteen thousand bills are introduced out of personal consideration for constituents, or even out of less worthy motives, with no expectation that they will possibly be accepted. Moreover, the popular tribunal, the House, spares itself too great pains, because it knows that the Senate will certainly amend all its provisions; and the Senate indulges itself in voting unnecessary favours to constituents because it relies on their negation by the House.

The Senate works on fundamentally the same plan. When a Senator brings his proposition, it goes likewise to the appropriate committee, then is read before a quorum, and is passed on to the other chamber. Nevertheless, there is a considerable difference in procedure; the House behaves like a restless popular gathering, while the Senate resembles a conference of diplomats. The House is a gigantic room, in which even the best orators can hardly make themselves heard, and where hundreds are writing or reading newspapers without paying any attention to the man who speaks. But the Senate is a parliamentary chamber, where a somewhat undue formality prevails. A strict discipline has to be observed in the House in order to preserve its organization, while the Senate needs no outward discipline because the small circle of elderly gentlemen transacts its business with perfect decorum. Thus the Senate tolerates no Speaker over it, no president with discretionary powers. In the Senate both parties have the right to appoint the members of the committees. The Chairman of the Senate must also not fail to notice any one who asks for the floor; whoever wishes to speak has every chance, and this freedom implies of course that the debates shall not be arbitrarily terminated by the Chairman. A debate can be closed only by unanimous consent. The influence of the Chairman of the Senate is, therefore, only a shadow beside that of the Speaker, and since the Chairman is not elected by the Senate itself, but is chosen directly by the people in the person of the Vice-President of the United States, it may happen that this Chairman belongs to the party in minority, and that he has practically no influence at all. Conformably with the extreme formality and courtesy of the Senate, majorities are counted on the basis of the votes actually cast, and not, as in the House, on the basis of members actually present. For both Houses alike it is possible for those who intend to be absent to be paired off beforehand, so that if one absentee has announced himself for, and another against, a certain bill, they can both be counted as having voted.

It is clear what the consequences of this unlimited exchange of Senatorial courtesy must be; the concessions in outward form must lead immediately to compromises and tacit understandings. If a debate can be closed only by unanimous agreement, it is possible for a single opposing politician to obstruct the law-making machinery. A handful of opponents can take the stand for weeks and block the entire Senate. Such obstructionist policy has to be prevented at any cost, and therefore on all sides and in every least particular friendly sympathy must be preserved. Of course, the opposition between the two parties cannot be obviated; so much the more, then, it is necessary for each man to be bound by personal ties to every other, and to feel sure of having a free hand in his own special interests so long at least as he accords the same right to others in theirs. Thus, merely from the necessity of preserving mutual good feeling, it too often happens that the other members close their eyes when some willing Senator caters to local greed or to the special wishes of ambitious persons or corporations, by proposing a Congressional bill.

This “Senatorial courtesy” is most marked in the matter of the appointment of officials, where matters go smoothly only because it has been agreed that no proposals shall be made without the approval of the Senators of the state concerned. Every Senator knows that if to-day one local delegate is outvoted, the rebellion may to-morrow be directed against another; and thus many a doubtful appointment, given as hush money or as a reward for mean political services, is approved with inward displeasure by courteous colleagues merely in order to save the principle of individual omnipotence. There is no doubt that in this way the individual Senator comes to have much more power than does a single Representative. The latter is really the member of a party, with no special opportunities for satisfying his individual wishes; while the Senator may have his personal points of view, and is really an independent factor.

If to-day the Senate, contrary to the expectation of former times, really plays a much more important rÔle before the public than the House, this is probably not because more important functions are given to the Senate, but because it is composed of persons of whom every one has peculiar significance in the political situation, while the House is nothing but a mass-meeting with a few leaders. This increased importance before the public eye works back again on the Senator’s opinion of himself, and the necessary result is a steady increase in the Senate’s aspirations and the constant growth of its rights. Perhaps the most characteristic exhibition of this has been the gradual evolution of the part taken by the Senate in the matter of foreign treaties. The Constitution requires the ratification of the Senate, and the original construction was that the Administration should present a treaty all made out, which the Senate had to accept or reject as it stood. But soon the Senate arrogated to itself the right to amend treaties, and then it came about that the Senate would never accept a treaty without injecting a few drops of its own diplomatic wisdom. It might be that these would be merely a change of wording, but just enough to let the President feel the Senatorial power. The result has been that the treaties that are now presented to the Senate are called nothing but proposals.

Looking behind the scenes one discovers that at bottom, even in the Senate, only a few have real influence. The more recently appointed Senators earn their spurs in unimportant committees, and even if they get into more important ones they are constrained by tradition to fall in line behind the more experienced members. In the House there is half a dozen, and in the Senate perhaps a dozen men who shape the politics of the country. Here, as in all practical matters, the American is ready to submit to an oligarchical system so long as he knows that the few in question derive their power from the free vote of the many. In fact nothing but oligarchy is able to satisfy the profoundly conservative feeling of the American. Behind the scenes one soon discovers also that the Senatorial courtesy, which neutralizes the party fanaticism and encourages compromises to spring up like mushrooms, still leaves room for plenty of fighting; and even intrigue thrives better on this unctuous courtesy than in the coarser soil of the lower house. The sanctified older Senators, such as Allison, Frye, Platt, Aldrich, and Hale, know where to place their levers so as to dislodge all opposition. Perhaps McKinley’s friend, Hanna, who was the grand virtuoso in Republican party technique, knew how always to overcome such political intrigue; but even Roosevelt’s friend, Lodge, has sometimes found that the arbitrarily shaped traditions of the seniors weigh more than the most convincing arguments of the younger men.

The moral level of Congress is, in the judgment of its best critics, rather high. The fate of every one of the thousands of bills is settled virtually in a small committee, and thus, time after time, the weal and woe of entire industries or groups of interests depend on one or two votes in the committee. The possible openings for corruption are thus much greater in Congress than in any other parliament, since no other has carried the committee system to such a point. In former times political scoundrels went around in great numbers through the hotels in Washington and even in the corridors of the Capitol trying to influence votes with every device of bribery. To be sure, it is difficult to prove that there are no such hidden sins to-day; but it is the conviction of those who are best able to judge that nothing of the sort any longer exists. To be sure, there are still lobbyists in Washington, who as a matter of business are trying to work either for or against impending bills, but direct bribery is no longer in question. On the slightest suspicion the House itself proceeds to an investigation and appoints a committee, which has the right of collecting sworn testimony; and time after time these suspicions have been found to be unjust.

A different verdict, however, would have to be passed if only that delegate were to be called morally upright who surveys every question from the point of view of the welfare of the entire nation; for then indeed the purity of Congress will be by no means free from doubt. Few Americans, however, would recognize such a political standard. When great national questions come up for discussion Congress has always shown itself equal to the occasion, and when the national honour is at stake, as it was during the Spanish War, party lines no longer exist; but when the daily drift of work has to be put through it is the duty of every man to uphold as obstinately as possible the interests of his constituency. Especially the political interests of his party then become predominant, and, seen from a higher point of view, there are no doubt many sins committed in this direction. Many a measure is given its quietus by one party, not because of any real inexpediency, but simply in order to embarrass the other party, to tie up the Administration, and thus to weaken the hopes of that party at the next election. In recent years such party tactics on both sides have prevailed time after time. Most frequently it is the present minority, under its leader, Senator Gorman, which has resorted to this policy and held out against the most reasonable propositions of the Republicans, simply because these measures would have increased the Republican respect before the nation.

On the other hand, party lines are all the time being broken through by these or those local interests, and any one observing the distribution of votes cast in the House will see clearly how, oftentimes, the parties mingle while the issue lies perhaps between two different geographical sections. When oleomargarine is the order of the day the representatives of the farming districts are lined up against those from industrial sections. If it is a question of getting Congress to approve the great irrigation measures, whole troops of Democrats hasten to forget that, according to their fundamental principles, such an undertaking belongs to the state, and not to the federal, government; the representatives from all the Democratic states which are to be benefited by such irrigation, fall into sweet accord with the Republicans. Thus the party divisions are all the time being forgotten for the moment, and it looks as if this weakening of party bonds were on the increase. By supporting his party principles each Congressman assists toward the next victory of his party, but by working for the interests of his locality he is surer of his own renomination. The requirement that a candidate must reside in the district that elects him naturally strengthens his consideration for the selfish claims of his constituency. Thus it is only at notable moments that the popular representative stands above all parties; he generally stands pat with his own party, and if the voters begin to nod he may take his stand somewhat below the parties.

Yet, on looking at Congress as a whole, one has the impression that it accomplishes a tremendous amount of work, and in a more sober, business-like, and efficient way than does any other parliament in the world. There is less talking against time; in fact, there is less talking of any kind, and because the Administration is not represented at all there is less fighting. The transactions as a whole are therefore somewhat less exciting; a single Congressman has less opportunity to become personally famous. Yet no American would desire to introduce a ministerial bench at the Capitol, or to have the next Congress adopt Austrian, French, German, or English methods.

Going from the hall beneath the central dome of the Capitol toward the Senate, in the left wing one passes by an extraordinary room, in which there is generally a crowd of people. The nine judges of the federal court, the Supreme Court of the United States, are sitting there in their black gowns, between Greek columns. The President and his Cabinet, the Senate, and the House of Representatives fill the American with a pride which is tempered by some critical judgment on this or that feature, or perhaps by a lively party dissatisfaction. But every American who is competent to judge looks on the Supreme Court with unqualified admiration. He knows very well that no force in the country has done more for the peace, prosperity, and dignity of the United States. In the constitutional make-up of the Federal Government, the Supreme Court is the third division, and co-ordinate with the Legislative and the Executive departments.

The jurisprudence of a nation forms a totality; and therefore it will not do to discuss the work of the nine men sitting at the Capitol, without throwing at least a hasty glance at the administration of justice throughout this enormous country. There is hardly anything more confusing to a European; and while the Englishman finds many features which are reminiscent of English law, the German stands helpless before the complicated situation. It is, most of all, the extreme diversity of methods which disquiets him. It will be quite impossible to give here even a superficial picture of the machinery of justice. A few hints must suffice at this point, while we shall consider many features in other connections, especially in discussing social problems.

The jurisprudence adopted by the United States comes from three sources. The average American, on being asked what the law of his country is, would say that it is “common law.” If we except the State of Louisiana, which by a peculiarity has the Napoleonic Code, this reply suffices for a rough idea. But if a German, having in mind perhaps the two German law books, the penal and the civil codes, both of which he can put so easily into his pocket, were to ask after some formulation of the common law, he would be shown a couple of huge bookcases with several hundred stout volumes. Common law is not a law book, nor is it a system of abstract formulations, nor yet a codification of the prevailing ideas of justice. It is, in fact, the sum total of judicial decisions. The establishment of common law signifies that every new case as it comes up is decided in conformity with previous decisions. The earlier decision may be a bad one, and very much offend one’s sense of justice; but if no superior authority has annulled it, it becomes historic law and determines the future course of things. American law came originally from the English. The early English colonists brought with them across the ocean the ideas of the English judges, and the states which have sprung up lately have taken their law from the thirteen original states. If to-day, in Boston or San Francisco, any one finds a piece of jewelry on the street and another snatches it from him, he can have the thief arrested, although the object found is not his property. The judge will decide that he has a right to the object which he has found until the original owner appears, and the judge will so decide because in the year 1722 a London chimney-sweep found a valuable ornament, out of which a jeweler later stole a precious stone; and the English judge decided in favour of the chimney-sweep.

The disadvantages of such a system are obvious. Instead of a single book of law embodying the will of the nation, the decisions handed down by single insignificant judges in different parts of the world, decisions which originated under wholly other states of civilization and from other traditions, still have final authority. Again and again the judge has to adapt himself to old decisions, against which his sense of right morally rebels. Yet the deep, ethical motive behind this legal system is certainly plainly evident. The Anglo-Saxon would say that a national code cannot be constructed arbitrarily and artificially. Its only source is in the careful, responsible decisions given down by the accredited representatives of the public will in actual disputes which have arisen. There is no right or wrong, he would say, until two persons disagree and make a settlement necessary, and the judge who decides the case creates the right with the help of his own conscience; but as soon as he has given his decision, and it is set aside by no higher authority, the principle of the decision becomes justice for all times. Every day sees new formulations of justice, because new conflicts between human wills are always arising and require new settlements; but up to the moment when a decision is made there exist only two conflicting desires existing in the matter, but nothing which could be called justice.

Although it seems at first sight as if a legal system, which is composed of previous decisions, would soon become antiquated and petrified, the Anglo-Saxon would say with firm conviction that just such justice is the only one which can be living, because it springs not out of rationalistic preconceptions, but from actual experience. The Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence is full of historical reality and of picturesque individuality. It has grown as organically as language, and is, in the estimation of the Anglo-Saxon, as much superior to a mere code as the ordinary speech of a people, in spite of all its historical inconsistencies, is superior to an artificially constructed speech like VolapÜk. And he would find many other points of superiority. He would say, for instance, that this is the only system which gives to every man on the judge’s bench the serious sense of his responsibility; for the judge knows that in every case which he decides, he settles not only the fortunes of James and John there present, but he influences for all times the conception of justice of the entire nation. He feels especially that the binding force of previous decisions reassures the public sense of right, and lends a continuity which could never be afforded by the theoretical formulations of an abstract code.

Another factor must be taken into account. A judicial decision which is forgotten as quickly as the voice of the judge who speaks it, can never have so considerable an influence on the public mind as one which itself creates law. In one sense, to be sure, the German judge creates law too; the penal code sets wide limits to the punishment of a criminal, and within these limits the judge assigns a certain penalty. He does in a sense create the right for this particular case; but the characteristic difference is, that in the German Empire no subsequent decision is in the least affected by such preceding decision. The German judge finds justice prescribed for him and he is its servant, while the American makes it and is its master. This gives to the judicial utterance an historical weight and enduring significance, which contribute vastly toward keeping judicial doings in the focus of the public consciousness.

The same is brought about in still another way. Since the decision of the judge is largely dependent on previous cases, the fate of the parties contending may depend on whether they are able to point to previous decisions which are favourable to their side. The layman cannot do this, and it falls to the counsel. In this wise a sphere of action is open to the American lawyer which is incomparably greater than that of any German Anwalt. The former has to concern himself not only with the case in hand, but he has to connect this concrete instance with the whole historic past. Thus the profession of the lawyer comes to have an inner importance which is unknown to the European, and which in many cases necessarily exceeds the importance of the judge, since he is bound to comply with the decisions adduced by the counsels for both sides. The judges are selected from the ranks of lawyers, and are, therefore, brought up in the idea that law is composed of former decisions, and that the decisions of the bench are admirable only so far as they are consistent enough with the earlier ones to force the conviction and respect of the lawyers. Thus barristers and judges are entirely at one, and are together entrusted with the public sense of right, as it has developed itself historically, and as it is day by day added to and perpetuated, so that it shall be a never-failing source of quickening to the conscience of the masses.

In the masses of the people, on the other hand, the natural tendencies are favourable anyhow for developing a lively sense of justice. It is a necessity devolving naturally on the individualistic view of things. The protection of individual rights and the inviolability of the individual person, with all that belongs to it, are the individualist’s most vital concern. Many outward features of American life may seem, indeed, to contradict this, but any one who looks more deeply will see that everywhere the desire for justice is the essential trait of both the individual and the nation; and the public consciousness would rather endure the crassest absurdities and misunderstandings in public affairs than the least conscious violation in the administration of justice. Again and again important trials go to pieces on small technical errors, from which the severe sense of justice of the American is not able to free itself. The public is always willing to endure any hardship rather than to tolerate any maladministration of justice.

On the finest square in Boston stands a large and magnificent hotel, erected by rich capitalists. The building laws provide that structures facing that square shall not exceed a height of ninety feet; but in violation of the law certain cornices and balustrades were added to this building above the ninety-foot line, in order to give an artistic finish to the structure, and still to turn practically every inch allowed by law to account for rentals, which are high in so palatial a building. Every one agreed that this ornamental finish was highly decorative and satisfactory in the Æsthetic sense, but that it must, nevertheless, be taken down, because it violated the law by some seven feet. The cornice and balustrades have, therefore, been demolished at great expense, and a handsome structure has been made absolutely hideous—a veritable monstrosity. The best square in the city is disfigured, but every Bostonian looks on this building with gratification. Beautiful architectural detail may indeed have been sacrificed; but the public conscience has won, and it is on this that the nation rests.

It is merely incidental that very much, and indeed much too much, of that which the Germans account matters of justice, is relegated by the American point of view to other tribunals; some, for instance, are held to be political questions, and thus it often appears to the foreigner as if there had been a violation of justice where really there has been only some political abuse. But matters of that sort loom up whenever any nation tries to form an opinion about another. In Germany, indeed, the American seems to see many violations of justice, where the German would find only an historically established social or political abuse.

As we have said, American justice is based on the decisions handed down in earlier cases. But this is, after all, only one of the three sources of law. That form of law-making is also here recognized which in Europe is the only form; the law-making by the majority of the people’s representatives. We have seen how Congress passes every year hundreds of laws. Many of these are indeed special measures, with no universal application; not a few, however, are of very broad application and involve an unlimited number of possible instances. And just as the Congress of the United States, so also can the legislature of each state prescribe general regulations, applicable within the state. Such laws made by the legislature are technically called statutes. These are engrossed in the statute-books of the state, and supersede all opposed decisions which may then exist. The federal judge, like the judge in a special state, is therefore bound to earlier decisions only so far as these are not expressly annulled by statutes.

Here we find one of the main reasons for the extraordinary complexities of the American law; forty-five legislatures are making laws for their several states, and in this way they of course give expression to the diversity of local needs and the varying grades of culture. At the same time, the principle of law, based on earlier decisions, is always combined with the principle of the statute-book. In the cases, both of the laws of Congress and those of the separate states, the judges who first come to apply the statutes in practice, are privileged to make their own interpretation; and here, too, the interpretation handed down in the judge’s decision is valid for all future cases.

In both the federal and state courts a legal action may be carried from the lower to the higher courts, and the decision of the highest tribunal becomes definitely law. The forty-five-fold diversity refers thus not merely to the statutes of the separate states, but also to the interpretations of those statutes which have been given by the upper courts of those states.

The third source of law is the only one that prescribes absolute uniformity for all parts of the country. This is the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution must not be conceived as the creation of Congress; Congress was created by the Constitution. Therefore every provision of the Constitution is a higher law than any bill which Congress can pass, just as the law made by Congress is higher than the decision of any judge. No Congress can modify a clause of the Constitution. The assent of the entire people is necessary for such a revision. Congress can, however, propose an amendment to the Constitution, and a two-thirds majority in the Senate and the House suffice to bring the proposed change before the nation, to be voted on. It has then to be passed on by the forty-five state legislatures, and will become a law with the approval of three-quarters of the states.

At first glance it seems as if this were a judicial machinery which would be far too complicated to work smoothly; it seems as if sources of friction had been arbitrarily devised, and as if continual collisions between the authorities of the several systems would be inevitable. This is true in two instances especially; firstly, the judicial machinery, which carries out the federal laws, sometimes collides with that of the separate states. Then, secondly, the complicated system of Constitutional provisions, devised a hundred years since, may interfere with the progressive measures of Congress or the separate states; and this must be a source of much uncertainty in law. These are the actual difficulties of a legal sort. Everything else, as for instance the enormous diversity of the laws in the separate states, is of course very inconvenient, but gives rise to no conflicts of principle.

Neither of these two difficulties finds its counterpart in Germany. In no Prussian city is there a German tribunal side by side with the Prussian, no imperial judge beside the local judge; nor can one conceive of a conflict in the German Empire between the creators of the legal code and the law-givers who frame the provisions of the Constitution. This doubleness of the judicial officials is in every part of the Union, however, characteristic of the American system and necessary to it. The wonderful equilibrium between centripetal and centrifugal forces which characterizes the whole American scheme of things makes it impossible from the outset for either the whole Federation to become the sole administrator of justice, or for such administration, on the basis of federal law, to be left entirely to the separate states. As a matter of course, a clear separation of jurisdiction has been necessary. The Constitution provides for this in a way clearly made necessary by the conditions under which the Federation was formed. Justice in the army and navy, commercial policies, and political relations with other countries; weights and measures, coinage, provisions, interstate commerce, and the postal system, the laws of patents and copyrights, of bankruptcy, and of naturalization, the laws of river and harbour, cases of treason, and much else are left to the Federation as a whole. While all these matters fall naturally within the scope of federal law, there are, on the other hand, obvious reasons whereby certain classes of persons should be under the jurisdiction of the federal courts. These are, firstly, diplomatic ministers and consuls; secondly, either actual or legal parties when they belong in different states; thirdly, and most important, the states themselves. Wherever a state is party to an action, the Supreme Federal Court must hear the case and give the decision. On the other hand, the Constitution declares expressly that, wherever jurisdiction is not explicitly conferred on the federal courts, it pertains to the individual states; therefore, much the larger part of criminal law belongs to the states, and so the laws of marriage and inheritance, of contract, property ownership, and much else.

For the administration of cases within its jurisdiction, the Federation has divided the whole country into twenty-seven districts, whose boundaries coincide partly with state lines, and of which each has a district court. Groups of such districts form a circuit, of which each has a circuit court, which sits on the more important cases, especially civil cases involving large interests. And, finally, there is a court of appeals. These districts and circuits are now coincident with the regions lying in the jurisdiction of the several states. In their method of procedure the federal and the state courts resemble each other, especially in the general conduct of criminal cases, which is everywhere the same, because the Constitution itself has fixed the main features. Both state and federal courts are alike bound by the extraordinarily rigid rules framed by the Constitution in order to protect the innocent man against the severity of the law.

No criminal can be condemned except by a jury which has been sworn to perform its duty, and before he comes before this jury a provisional jury has to make the accusation against him. Thus one sworn jury must be convinced of the justice of the suspicion before a second jury can give its verdict. A person cannot be brought up for trial twice for the same crime; no one can be compelled to testify against himself; every one has the right to be brought before a jury in the district where the crime was committed, to hear all the testimony against him, to have counsel for his own defence, and to avail himself of the strong arm of the law in bringing to court such witnesses as would speak in his favour; cruel or excessive penalties may not be fixed, nor a man’s freedom or property interfered with except after due process of law. The Constitution provides this, and a good deal else, and thus makes the conduct of trials uniform. In other respects, however, there are not a few differences which are not so obvious in the courts. Among these is the circumstance that federal judges are appointed for life, while the judges of the separate states are elected for short periods of from four to seven years.

The relations between constitutional laws and legislative laws seem even more complicated. Here, too, in a way, the same province is covered by a two-fold system of laws. The fixed letter of the Constitution and the living decisions by a majority in Congress or in a state legislature, stand in opposition to each other. It is established that no legislature can ride over the Constitution; and if the interpretation of a court brings out a contradiction between the two systems, a conflict arises which in principle makes justice uncertain. If we now ask how it is possible that all such conflicts have disappeared without the least prejudice to the national sense of justice, how in spite of all these possibilities of friction no disturbance is seen, or how in a land which has been overrun with serious political conflicts, a jurisprudence so lacking in uniformity has always been the north star of the nation—the reply will be that the Supreme Court has done all this. The upper federal court has been the great reconciling factor in the history of the United States, and has left behind it a succession of honourable memorials. Its most distinguished chief justice has been John Marshall, who presided over it from 1801 to 1835. He was America’s greatest jurist, and contributed more than any one else toward impressing the spirit of the Constitution on the country.

The German reader who hears of the Supreme Court sitting at the Capitol, must not turn back in his mind to the Imperial Court at Leipzig. The Supreme Court is by no means the sole court of highest instance, for the suits in single states which properly fall within the jurisdiction of a state can go no higher than the highest court of appeal of that state. The Supreme Court in Washington is the court of last instance for federal cases; but in order to disburden the judges in Washington, there are large classes of civil cases pertaining to the federal courts, which can be carried no higher than the federal court of appeals of a given circuit. Much more important than the cases in which the Supreme Court is really the court of highest instance for federal suits, are those others in which it is at once the court of first and last instance; these are the processes which the Constitution assigns immediately to the Supreme Court. They are chiefly suits in which a single state, or in which the United States is itself a party, for the Supreme Bench alone can settle disagreements between states and decide whether the federal or state laws conflict with the Constitution. In this sense the Supreme Court is higher than both President and Congress. If it decides that a treaty which the Executive has concluded, or a law which has been passed by the Legislative, violates the Constitution, then the doings of both Congress and the President are annulled. There is only one way by which a decision of the Supreme Court can be set aside—namely, by the vote of a three-fourths majority of all the states; that is, by an amendment of the Constitution. There are some instances of this in the history of the United States; but virtually the decision of the nine judges of the Supreme Court is the highest law of the land.

The Supreme Court has annulled Congressional measures twenty-one times and state statutes more than two hundred times, because these were at variance with the Constitution. Many of these have been cases of the greatest political importance, long and bitterly fought out in the legislatures, and followed with excitement by the public. The whole country has often been divided in its opinion on a legal question, and even the decision itself of the nine judges has sometimes been handed down with only a small majority. Nevertheless, for many years the country has every time submitted to the oracle of the Supreme Court, and considered the whole issue definitely closed.

One is not to suppose that the Supreme Court occupies itself with handing down legal verdicts in the abstract and in a way declaring its veto whenever Congress or some legislature infringes the Constitution. Such a thing is out of the question, since theoretically the Supreme Court, although the equal is not the superior of Congress; most of all, it is a court and not a legislature. The question of law does not come up then before this tribunal until there is a concrete case which has to be decided, and the Supreme Court has always declined to hand down a theoretical interpretation in advance of an actual suit. As early as the eighteenth century, Washington was unable to elicit from the Supreme Court any reply to a hypothetical question. Even when the actual case has come up, the Supreme Court does not say that a certain law is invalid, but decides strictly on the one case before it, and announces on what principle of the law it has based its decision. If there is a disagreement between two laws, the decision of the Court simply lays the practical emphasis on one rather than on the other. It is true that in this way nothing but one single case is decided; but here the principle of common law comes in—one decision establishes a point of law, and the Supreme Court and all lower courts likewise must in future hand down verdicts conformable thereto. The legislative law so superseded is thus practically annulled and made non-existent. In the Supreme Court one sees again that the security of national justice rests on the binding force of former decisions.

It will be enough to point out two decisions which have been given in recent years and which have interested the whole country. In the year 1894 Congress passed a new tax law; one clause of this law taxed every income which was larger than a certain amount. It was taxation of the wealthy. So far as income was obtained by actual labour the tax was undoubtedly valid. But New York barristers doubted the constitutionality of this tax in so far as it was laid on the interest from securities or on rents; because the Constitution expressly says that direct taxation for the country must be levied by the separate states, and in such a way that the whole sum to be raised shall be apportioned among the different states according to their population. The counsels of the wealthy New Yorkers said this provision ought to apply here. The difference would be for every rich man in thickly populated states a very considerable one. If the tax was to be apportioned according to population, the poor states must also bear their share. While it came to be levied on the individuals the largest part of the burden would fall to the millionaires, who are grouped in a few states. The Supreme Court would say nothing so long as the discussion was theoretical. Finally, a case was tested; when the lawyers were prepared, a certain citizen refused to pay the income tax and let the matter go to court. The first barristers in the country were divided on the question, as was also the Supreme Court. The majority decided in favour of the citizen who refused to pay the tax, because in its opinion the tax was a direct one, and therefore the constitutional provision relating to direct taxation was in force. By this one decision the income tax was set aside, and instead of ten thousand new suits being brought, of which the outcome was already clear, the excess taxes were everywhere paid back. At bottom this was the victory, over both President and Congress, of a single eminent barrister, who is to-day the ambassador to England.

A still more important decision, because it involved the whole political future of the United States, was that on the island possessions. By the treaty with Spain, Porto Rico had become a possession of the United States, and was therefore subject to United States law; but Congress proceeded to lay a tariff on certain wares which were imported from the island. There were two possible views. On the one hand, the Constitution prescribes that there shall be no customs duties of any sort between the states which belong to the Union; and since Porto Rico is a part of the Union the rest of the states may not levy a tariff on imports from the island. On the other hand, the Constitution empowers Congress to regulate at its discretion the affairs of such territory as belongs to the United States, but has not yet been granted the equal rights of states; thus the other provision of the Constitution would not immediately apply to this island. The question had never before been decided, because the Indian territories, the Mexican accessions, and Alaska had never been treated as Porto Rico now was. Congress had previously taken for granted that the Constitution was in force for these territories, but now the imperialistic tendencies of politics had created a new situation, and one which had to be settled.

Here too, of course, the Supreme Court did not try to settle the theoretical question which was stirring the whole country; but presently came the action of Downes vs. Bidwell, a simple suit in which a New York commercial house was the complainant, and the New York Customs the defendant. In case the provisions of the Constitution were to hold for the entire domain of the United States, the tariff which Congress had enacted was unconstitutional, but if the Constitution was to hold only for the states, while Congress was sovereign over all other possessions, the tariff was constitutional. The Supreme Court decided for this latter interpretation by five votes against four, and the commercial house paid its tax. Therewith the principle was decided for all time, and if to-morrow the United States should get hold of Asia and Africa, it is assured from the outset that the new domain would not be under the Constitution, but under the authority of Congress—simply because Downes lost his case against Customs Inspector Bidwell, and had to pay six hundred dollars in duty on oranges.

This last case shows clearly that the decisions by no means always support the Constitution against legislative bodies; and statistics show that although in two hundred cases the verdict has been against the legislatures, it has been more often decided in their favour. The entire history of the Supreme Court shows that in a conservative spirit it has always done full justice to both the centralizing and particularizing tendencies. It has shown this conciliatory attitude especially by the firm authority with which it has decided the hazardous disputes over boundaries and other differences, between the several states, so that such disputes really come up no longer. For a century the Supreme Court has been a shining example of a federal tribunal.

Such complete domination of the national life could not have been attained by the Supreme Bench if it had not remained well above all the doings of the political parties, and that it does so may seem surprising when one considers the conditions under which the judges are appointed. The President selects the new judge whenever, by death or retirement, a vacancy occurs among the nine judges; and the Senate confirms the selection. Party factors, therefore, determine the appointment, and in point of fact Democratic Presidents have always appointed judges belonging to their own party, and Republicans have done the same. The result is that both parties are represented in the Supreme Court. That in political questions, such as the case of Porto Rico, which we have mentioned, party conceptions figure somewhat in the decision of the judges is undoubted. Yet they figure only in the sense that allegiance to one or the other party involves certain fundamental convictions, and these necessarily come into play in the judicial verdict. On the other hand, there is never the least suspicion that the judges harbour political schemes or seek in their decision to favour either political party. This results from the fact that it is a matter of honour with both parties to place really the most distinguished jurists in these highest judicial offices—jurists who will be for all time an honour to the administration which appointed them. They are almost exclusively men who have never taken part in technical politics, but who have been either distinguished judges elsewhere or else leading barristers, and who, from the day of their appointment on, will be only judges. Their position is counted among the most honourable which there is, and it would almost never happen that a jurist would decline his appointment, although the position, like all American official positions, is inadequately rewarded; the salary is ten thousand dollars, while any great lawyer is able to earn many times that sum. At the present moment there sits on the Supreme Bench a group of men, every one of whom represents the highest kind of American spirit. The bustle and confusion, which prevail in the two wings of the Capitol, does not invade the hall where the nine judges hold their sessions. These men are, in the American public mind, the very symbol of conscience.

We shall have occasion to consider later on the administration of justice by the nation, under various points of view. While in many respects this will appear less conscientious and more especially less deliberate, it will, nevertheless, recall not a few admirable features of the Supreme Court.

The Constitution, the President and his Cabinet, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Supreme Court, in short all of those institutions which we have so far sketched, belong to the United States together. The European who pictures to himself the life of an American will inevitably come to think that these are the factors which most influence the life of the political individual. But such is not the case; the American citizen in daily life is first of all a member of his special state. The organization of the Union is more prominent on the surface than that of the single state, but this latter is more often felt by the inhabitants.

The quality of an American state can be more easily communicated to a German than to an Englishman, Frenchman, or Russian. The resident of Bavaria or Saxony knows already how a man may have a two-fold patriotism, allegiance to the state and also to the empire; so that he can recognize the duties as well as the privileges which are grouped around two centres. The essentials of the American state, however, are not described by the comparison with a state in the German Empire, which is relatively of too little importance; for in comparison with the Union the American state has more independence and sovereignty than the German. We have observed before that it has its own laws and its own court of last appeal; but these are only two of the many indications of its practical and theoretical independence. The significant organic importance of the state shows itself not less clearly if one thinks of the cities subordinate to it, rather than of the Federation which is superior to it. While the German state is more dependent on the Federation than is the American, the German city is more independent of the state than is any city in the United States. The political existence of the American city is entirely dependent on the legislature of its state. The Federation on the one hand and the cities on the other, alike depend for their administrative existence on the separate states.

It is not merely an historical relic of that time when the thirteen states united, but hesitated to give up their individual rights to the Federation; a time when there were only six cities of more than eight thousand inhabitants. Nothing has changed in this respect, and it is not only the Democratic party to-day which jealously guards state rights; the state all too often tyrannizes still over the large cities within its borders. There are some indications, indeed, that the state rights are getting even more emphasis than formerly—perhaps as a reaction against the fact that, in spite of all constitutional precautions, those states which have close commercial relations tend practically to merge more and more with one another.

On observing the extraordinary tenacity with which the federal laws and the local patriotism of the individual cling to the independence of each one of the forty-five states, one is inclined to suppose that it is a question of extremely profound differences in the customs, ideals, temperaments, and interests of the different states. But such is not at all the case. The states are, of course, very unlike, especially in size; Texas and Rhode Island, for instance, would compare about as Prussia and Reuss. There are even greater differences in the density of population; and the general cast of physiognomy varies in different regions of the country. The Southerner shows the character bred by plantation life; the citizen of the North-east evinces the culture bred of higher intellectual interests; while the citizens of the West attest the differences between their agricultural and mining districts. Yet the divisions here are not states, but larger regions comprising groups of states, and it sometimes happens that more striking contrasts are found within a certain state than would be found between neighbouring states. The state lines were after all often laid down on paper with a ruler, while nature has seldom made sharp lines of demarcation, and the different racial elements of the population are fairly well mixed. For the last century the pioneers of the nation have carried it steadily westward, so that in many states the number of those born in the state is much less than of those who have migrated to it; and of course the obstinate assertion of the prerogatives of such a state does not arise from any cherished local traditions to which the inhabitants are accustomed. The special complexion of any provincial district, moreover, is assailed from all sides and to a large extent obliterated, in these days of the telegraph and of extraordinarily rapid commercial intercourse and industrial organization.

The uniformity of fashions, the wide-spread distribution of newspapers and magazines, the great political parties, and the intense national patriotism all work towards the one end—that from Maine to California the American is very much the same sort of man, and feels himself, in contrast with a foreigner, to be merely an American. And yet in spite of all this each single state holds obstinately to its separate rights. It is the same principle which we have seen at work in the American individual. The more the individuals or the states resemble one another the more they seem determined to preserve their autonomy; the more similar the substance, the sharper must be the distinctions in form.

The inner similarity of the different states is shown by the fact that, while each one has its own statute-book and an upper court which jealously guards its special constitution, nevertheless all of the forty-five state constitutions are framed very much alike. The Constitution of the United States would by no means require this, since it prescribes merely that every state constitution shall be republican in form; and yet not a single state has taken advantage of its great freedom. The constitutions of the older states were modelled partly on the institutions of the English fatherland, partly on those of colonial days; and when many of these features were finally embodied in the Federal Constitution, they were reflected back once more in the constitutions of the states which later came to be. The new states have simply borrowed the general structure of the older states and of the Federation, without much statesmanlike imagination; although here and there is some adaptation to special circumstances. There are indeed some odd differences at superficial points, and inasmuch as, in contrast to the Federal Constitution, the state constitutions have frequently been reshaped by the people, a reactionary tendency or some radical and hasty innovation has here and there been incorporated.

The principles, however, are everywhere the same. Each state has framed a reduced copy of the Federal Constitution, and one finds a still more diminutive representation of the same thing in the American city charter. Yet we must not forget here that, although theoretically and constitutionally the state is greater than the city, yet in fact the city of New York has a population eighty times as large as the State of Nevada, with its bare 40,000 inhabitants; or, again, that the budget of the State of Massachusetts is hardly a quarter as large as that of Boston, its capital city.

Thus, like the Union, both city and state have a charter and an executive, a dual legislature, and a judiciary, all of which reproduce on a small scale all the special features of the federal organization. The city charter is different from that of the state, in that it is not drawn up by the inhabitants of the city, but, as we have said, has to be granted by the state legislature. The head of the state executive, the governor, is in a way a small president, who is elected directly by the people, generally for a two years’ term of office. In the city government the mayor corresponds to him, and is likewise elected by the citizens; and in the larger cities for the same period. A staff of executive officers is provided for both the mayor and the governor.

Under the city government are ranged the heads of departments, who are generally chosen by the mayor himself; New York, for instance, has eighteen such divisions—the departments of finance, taxation, law, police, health, fire, buildings, streets, water-supply, bridges, education, charities, penal institutions, park-ways, public buildings, etc. The most important officials under the state government are always the state secretary, the state attorney-general, and the treasurer. Close to the governor stands the lieutenant-governor, who, after the pattern of the federal government, is president of the upper legislative chamber. The governor is empowered to convene the legislature, to approve or to veto all state measures, to pardon criminals, to appoint many of the lower officials, although generally his appointment must be confirmed by the upper legislative body, and he is invariably in sole command of the state militia. The legislature of the state is always, and that of the cities generally, divided into two chambers. Here again the membership in the upper chamber is smaller than that of the lower and more difficult to obtain. Often the state legislature does not meet in the largest city, but makes for itself a sort of political oasis, a diminutive Washington. The term of office in the legislature is almost always two years, and everywhere the same committee system is followed as at the Capitol in Washington. Only a member of the legislative body can propose bills, and such propositions are referred at once to a special committee, where they are discussed and perhaps buried. They can come to the house only through the hands of this committee. The freedom given to the state legislature is somewhat less than that given by the Constitution to Congress. While all the parliamentary methods are strikingly and often very naÏvely copied after those in use at Washington, the state constitutions were careful from the outset that certain matters should not be subject to legislative egotism. On the other hand the state legislature hands down many of its rights to inferior bodies, such as district, county, and city administrations; but in all these cases in which there is a real transfer of powers, it is characteristic that these really pertain to the state as such, and can, therefore, be withdrawn by the state legislatures from the smaller districts at any time.

The entire administration of the state falls to the state legislature; that is, the measures for public instruction, taxation, public works, and the public debt, penal institutions, the supervision of railroads, corporations, factories, and commerce. In addition to this there are the civil and criminal statutes, with the exception of those few cases which the Constitution reserves for federal legislation; and, finally, there is the granting of franchises and monopolies to public and industrial corporations. Of course, within this authority there is nothing which concerns the relation of one state to other states or to foreign powers, nor anything of customs revenues or other such matters as are enacted uniformly for all parts of the country by the federal government. The state has, however, the right to fix the conditions under which an immigrant may become a naturalized citizen; and a foreigner becomes an American citizen by being naturalized under the law of any one of the forty-five states. All this gives an exceedingly large field of action to state legislatures, and it is astonishing how little dissimilar are the provisions which the different states have enacted.

The city governments are very diverse in size, but in all the larger cities consist of two houses. The German reader must not suppose that these work together like the German magistrate and the municipal representative assembly. Since in America the legislative and executive are always sharply sundered, the heads of departments under the executive—that is, the German StadtrÄte—have no place in the law-making body. The dual legislative is, therefore, in a way an upper and lower municipal representative assembly, elected in different ways and having similar differences in function as the two chambers of Congress. Here too, for instance, bills of appropriation have to originate in the lower house. Oddly enough, the city legislative is generally not entrusted with education, but this is administered by a separate municipal board, elected directly by the people. One who becomes acquainted with the intellectual composition of the average city father, will find this separation of educational matters not at all surprising, and very beneficent and reasonable.

In general, one may say that the mayor is more influential in the city government than that body which represents the citizens; this in contrast to the situation in the state government, where the governor is relatively less influential than the legislature. The chief function of the governor is really a negative one, that of affixing his veto from time to time on an utterly impossible law. The mayor, on the other hand, can shape things and leave the stamp of his personality on his city. In the state, as in the city, it often happens that the head of the executive and a majority of the legislative belong to opposite parties, and this not because the party issues are forgotten in the local elections, but because the methods of election are different.

The division of public affairs into city and state issues leaves, of course, room for still a third group, namely, the affairs of communities which are still smaller than cities. These, too, derive their authority entirely from the state legislature, but all states leave considerable independence to the smaller political units. In local village government the historic differences of the various regions show out more clearly than in either state or city government. The large cities are to all intents and purposes cast in the same mould everywhere; their like needs have developed like forms of life; and the coming together of great numbers of people have everywhere created the same economic situation. But the scattered population gets its social and economic articulation in the North, South, and West, in quite different ways; and this difference, at an early time when the problems of a large city were so far not known, led to different types of village organizations, which have been historically preserved.

When the English colonies were growing up, the differences in this connection between the New England states and Virginia were extreme. The colonies on the northern shores, with their bays and harbours, their hilly country and large forests, could not spread their population out over large tracts of land, and were concentrated within limited regions; and this tendency was further emphasized by Puritan traditions, which required the population to take active part in church services. There naturally was developed a local form of government for small districts, which corresponded to old English traditions. The citizens gathered from all parts of every district to discuss their common affairs and to decide what taxes should be raised, what streets built, and, most of all, what should be done for their churches and schools, and for the poor. In Virginia, on the other hand, where very large plantations were laid out, there could be no such small communities; the population was more scattered, and affairs of general interest had necessarily to be entrusted to special representatives, who were in part elected by small parishes and in part appointed by the governor. The political unit here was not the town, but the county.

The difference in these two types is the more worthy of consideration because it explains how the North and South have been able to contribute such different and yet such equally valuable factors to all the great events of American history. New England and Virginia were the two centres of influence in Revolutionary times and when the Union was being completed, but their influences were wholly different. New England served the country by effecting an extraordinarily thorough education of its masses by giving them a long schooling in local self-government; each individual was obliged to meditate on public affairs. Virginia, however, gave to the country its brilliant leaders; the masses remained backward, but the county representatives practised and trained themselves to the rÔle of leading statesmen. Between these two extremes lay the Middle Atlantic States, where a mixed form of town and county representation had necessarily developed from the social conditions; and these three types, the Northern, Southern, and mixed, worked slowly back during the nineteenth century from the coast toward the West. Settlers in the new states carried with them their familiar forms of local government, so that to-day these three forms may still be found through the country. To-day the chief functions of town governments are public instruction, care for the poor, and the building of roads. Religious life is, of course, here as in the city, state, and Union, wholly separated from the political organization. The police systems of these local governments in town and village are wholly rudimentary. While the police system is perhaps the most difficult chapter in American city government, the country districts have always done very well with almost none. This reflects the moral vigour of the American rural population. The people sleep everywhere with their front doors open, and everywhere presuppose the willing assistance of their neighbours. It was not until great populations commenced to gather in cities, that those social evils arose, of which the police system, which was created to obviate them, is itself not the least.

Any one overlooking this interplay of public forces sees that in town and city, state and Union, it is not a question of forcing administrative energies into a prescribed sphere of action. They expand everywhere as they will, both from the smaller to the larger sphere and from the larger to the smaller. Therefore, the Union naturally desires to take on itself those functions of state legislation in which a lack of uniformity would be dangerous; as, for instance, the divorce laws, the discrepancies in which between different states are so great that the necessity of more uniform divorce regulations is ever becoming more keenly felt. At present it is a fact that a man who is divorced under the laws of Dakota and marries again can be punished in New York for bigamy. A similar situation exists in regard to certain trade regulations, where there are unfortunate discrepancies. Many opponents of the trusts want even an amendment to the Constitution which will bring them under federal law, and prevent these huge industrial concerns from incorporating under the too lax laws of certain states.

Still easier is it for the states to interfere in the city governments. If the Union wishes to make new regulations for the state, the Federal Constitution has to be amended; while if the state wants to hold a tighter rein on city government it can do so directly, for, as we have seen, the cities derive all their powers from the state legislature. There is, indeed, considerable tendency now to restrict the privileges of cities, and much of this is sound, especially where the state authority is against open municipal corruption. The general tendency is increasing to give the state considerable rights of supervision over matters of local hygiene, industrial conditions, penal and benevolent institutions. The advantages of uniformity which accrue from state supervision are emphasized by many persons, and still more the advantage derived from handing over hygienic, technical, and pedagogical questions to the well-paid state experts, instead of leaving them to the inexperience of small districts and towns. There is no doubt that on these lines the functions of the state are being extended slowly but steadily.

Then again the cities and towns in their turn are tending to absorb once more such forces as are subordinate to them, and thus to increase the municipal functions. The fundamental principles which have dominated the economic life in the United States and brought it to a healthful development, leave the greatest possible play for private initiative; thus not very long ago it was a matter of course that the water supply, the street lighting, the steam and electric railways should be wholly in the hands of private companies. A change is coming into these affairs, for it is clearly seen that industries of this sort are essentially different from ordinary business undertakings, not only because they make use of public roads, but also because such plants necessarily gain monopolies which find it easy to levy tribute upon the public. In recent years, therefore, city governments have little by little taken over the water supplies, and tend somewhat to limit the sphere of other private undertakings of this sort—as, for instance, that of street-lighting. At the same time there is an unmistakable tendency for city and town to undertake certain tasks which are not economically necessary, and which have been left hitherto to private initiative. Cities are building bath-houses and laundries, playgrounds and gymnasiums, and more especially public libraries and museums, providing concerts and other kinds of amusements and bureaus for the registration of those needing employment; in short, are everywhere taking up newly arisen duties and performing them at public expense.

There is, on the other hand, a strong counter-current to these tendencies of the large units to perform the duties of the small—the strong those of the weak, the city those of the individual, the state those of the city, and the Union those of the state. The opposition begins already in the smallest circle of all, where one sees a strong anti-centralizing tendency. The county or city is not entitled, it is said, to expend the taxpayers’ money for luxuries or for purposes other than those of general utility. It should be generous philanthropists or private organizations that build museums and libraries, bath-houses and gymnasiums, but not the city, which gets its money from the pockets of the working classes. Although optimists have proposed it, there will certainly be for a long time yet no subsidized municipal theatres; and it is noticeable that the liberal offers of Carnegie to erect public libraries are being more and more declined by various town councils, because Carnegie’s plan of foundation calls for a considerable augmentation from the public funds. And wherever it is a question of indispensable services, such as tramways and street-lighting, the majority generally says that it is cheaper every time to pay a small profit to a private company than to undertake a large business at the public expense. From the American point of view private companies are often too economical, while public enterprises are invariably shamelessly wasteful.

The city pays too dear and borrows at too high a rate; in short, regulates its transactions without that wholesome pressure exerted by stockholders who are looking for dividends. Worst of all, the undertakings which are carried on by municipalities are often simply handed over to political corruption. Instead of trained experts, political wire-pullers of the party in office are employed in all the best-paid positions, and even where no money is consciously wasted, a gradual laxness creeps in little by little, which makes the service worse than it would ever be in a private company, which stands all the time in fear of competition. For this reason the American is absolutely against entrusting railroads and telegraph lines to the hands of the state. When a large telegraph company did not adequately serve the needs of the public, another concern spread its network of wires through the whole country; and since then the Western Union and Postal Telegraph have been in competition, and the public has been admirably served. But what relief would there have been if the state had had a monopoly of the telegraph lines, with politicians in charge who would have been indifferent to public demands? The wish to be economical, to keep business out of politics, and to keep competition open, all work together, so that the extension of municipal functions, although ardently wished on many sides, goes on very slowly; and it is justly pointed out that whenever private corporations in any way abuse their privileges the community at large has certainly plenty of means for supervising them, and of giving them franchises under such conditions as shall amply protect public interests. When a private company wishes to use public streets for its car-tracks, gas or water pipes, or electric wires, the community can easily enough grant the permission for a limited length of time, reserving perhaps the right to purchase or requiring a substantial payment for the franchise and a portion of the profits, and can leave the rest to public watchfulness and to the regular publication of the company’s reports. It is not to be doubted that the tendencies in this direction are to-day very marked.

Just as private initiative is trying not to be swallowed up by the community, so the community is trying to save itself from the state. So far as the village, town, or county is concerned, nobody denies that state experts could afford a better public service than the inexperienced local boards, and, nevertheless, it is felt that every place knows best after all just what is adapted to its own needs. The closest adaptation to local desires, as, say, in questions of public schools and roads, has been always a fundamental American principle. This principle started originally from the peculiar conditions which existed in the several colonies and from the needs of the pioneers; but it has led to such a steady progress in the country’s development that no American would care to give it up, even if here and there certain advantages could be had by introducing greater uniformities. There is a still more urgent motive; it is only this opportunity of regulating the affairs of the small district which gives to every community, even every neighbourhood, the necessary schooling for the public duties of the American citizen. If he is deprived of the right to take care of his own district, that spirit of self-determination and independence cannot develop, on which the success of the American experiment in democracy entirely depends. Political pedagogy requires that the state shall respect the individuality of the small community so far as this is in any way possible.

The relation between the city and the state is somewhat different; no one would ask the parliamentarians of the state legislature to hold off in order that the population of the large city may have the opportunity to keep their political interests alive and to preserve their spirit of self-determination. This spirit is at home in the streets of the great city; it is not only wide-awake there, but it is clamorous and almost too urgent. When, now, the municipalities in their struggle against the dictation of the state, meet with the sympathies of intelligent people, this is owing to the simple fact that the city, in which all cultured interests are gathered generally, has in all matters a higher point of view than the representatives of the entire state, in which the more primitive rural population predominates. When, for instance, the provincial members which the State of New York has elected meet in Albany, and with their rural majority make regulations for governing the three million citizens of New York City, regulations which are perhaps paternally well meant, but which sometimes show a petty distrust and disapproval of that great and wicked place, the result is often grotesque. The state laws, however, favour this sort of dictation.

The state constitutions still show in this respect the condition of things at a time in which the city as such had hardly come into recognition. The nineteenth century began in America with six cities of over eight thousand inhabitants, and ended with 545. Moreover, in 1800 those six places contained less than four per cent. of the population, while in 1900 the 545 cities contained more than thirty-three per cent. thereof. Since only a twenty-fifth part of the nation lived in cities, the greater power of the scattered provincial population seemed natural; but when now a third of the nation prefers city life, and especially the more intelligent, more educated, and wealthy third, the limitations to independent municipal rights become an obstacle to culture.

Finally, the states themselves are opposing on good grounds every assumption of rights by the Federation—the same good grounds, indeed, which the community has for opposing the state, and many others besides. It is felt that historically it has been the initiative of individuals rather than of the central government which has helped the nation to make its tremendous strides forward, and that this initiative should not only be rewarded with privileges, but should also be stimulated by duties. The more nearly one state is like another, so much the more energetically does it forbid the others to interfere in its affairs; and the more it is like the Union the more earnestly it seeks not to let its distinct individuality be swallowed up. Besides the moral effort toward state individuality, there is a powerful state egotism at work in many states which makes for the same end. Back of everything, finally, there is the fear of the purely political dangers which are involved in an exaggerated centralization. We have seen in this a fundamental sentiment of the Democratic party.

Thus at every step in the political organization centrifugal and centripetal forces stand opposite each other in the Federal Union, in the state, in the county, and in the city. And public opinion is busy discussing the arguments on both sides. Every day sees movements in one or the other direction, and there is never any let up. In all these discussions it is a question of conflicting principles, which in themselves seem just. There is, however, another contrast—that between principle and lack of principle. In the Union, the state, and the city, centralists and anti-centralists meet on questions of law; but in each one of these places there are groups of people working against the law and trying in every way to get around it. In these discussions there is a true and false, but in the conflicts there is a right and wrong; and here argumentation is not needed, but sheer resistance. If one does not purposely close one’s eyes, one cannot doubt that the public life of America holds certain abuses, which are against the spirit of the Constitution and which too often come near to being criminal. One can ask, to be sure, if that lack of conscience does not have place in every form of state in one way or another, and if the necessity of developing a sound public spirit to fight against abuse may itself not be an important factor in helping on the spirit of self-determination to victory.

Any one who should write the history of disorganizing forces in American public life will have the least to say about federal politics, a good deal more about those of the state, and most of all about those of the city. Certain types of temptation are repeated at every stage. There is, for instance, the legislative committee, which is found alike in Congress, in the state legislatures, and in the city councils. Bills are virtually decided at first by two or three persons who exert their influence behind the closed doors of the committee room; and naturally enough corrupt influences can much more easily make their way there than in the discussions of the whole house. If a municipal committee has a bill under discussion, the acceptance of which means hundreds of thousands of dollars saved or lost to the street railway company, then certainly, although the president and directors of the company will not themselves take any unlawful action, yet in some way some less scrupulous agent will step in who will single out a bar-keeper or hungry advocate or fourth-class politician in the committee, who might be amenable to certain gilded arguments. And if this agent finds no such person he will find some one else who does not care for money, but who would like very well to see his brother-in-law given a good position in the railway company, or perhaps to see the track extended past his own house.

Of course the same thing happens when a measure is brought before the state legislature, and the vote of some obscure provincial attorney on the committee means millions of dollars to the banking firm, the trust, the mining company, or the industrial community as a whole. Here the lobby gets in its work. The different states are, of course, very different in this respect; the cruder forms of bribery would not avail in Massachusetts and would be very dangerous; but they feel differently about such things in Montana. As we have already said, Congress is free of such taints.

Another source of temptation, which likewise exists for all American law-giving bodies, arises from the fact that all measures must be proposed by the members of such body. Thus local needs are taken care of by the activity of the popular representatives, and, therefore, the number of bills proposed becomes very large. Just as during the last session of Congress, 17,000 measures were proposed in the lower house, hundreds of thousands of bills are brought before the state legislatures and city councils. There is never a lack of reasons for bringing up superfluous bills. And since the system of secret committees makes it difficult for the individual representative to appear before the whole house and to make a speech, it follows that the introduction of a few bills is almost the only way in which the politician can show his constituency that he was not elected to the legislature in vain, and that he is actually representing the interests of his supporters. A milder form of this abuse consists of handing in bills which are framed by reason of personal friendships or hatreds; and the same thing appears in uglier form when it is not a question of personal favour, but of services bought and paid for, not of personal hatred, but of a systematic conspiracy to extort money from those who need legislation. The milder form of wrongdoing, in which it is only a question of personal favours, can be found everywhere, even in the Capitol at Washington, and the much-boasted Senatorial courtesy lends a sort of sanction to the abuse.

This evil is strengthened, as it perhaps originated, by the tacit recognition of the principle that every legislator represents, first of all, his local district. It is not expected of a senator that he shall look at every question from the point of view of the general welfare, but rather that he shall take first of all the point of view of his state. It has indeed been urged that the senator is nothing but an ambassador sent to represent his state before the federal government. If this is so, it follows at once that no state delegate ought to have any control over the interests of another state, and so the wishes of any senator should be final in all matters pertaining to his own state. From this it is only a small step to the existing order of things, in which every senator is seconded on his own proposals by his colleagues, if he will second them on theirs. In this way each delegate has the chance to place the law-giving machinery at the service of those who will in any way advance his political popularity among his constituents, and help him during his next candidacy. And then, too, a good deal is done merely for appearances; bills are entered, printed, and circulated in the local papers to tickle the spirits of constituents, while the proposer himself has not supposed for a moment that his proposition will pass the committee. Things go in the state legislatures in quite the same way. Each member is first of all the representative of his own district, and he claims a certain right of not being interfered with in matters which concern that district. In this way he is accorded great freedom to grant all sorts of legislative favours which will bring him sufficient returns, or to carry through legal intrigues to the injury of his political opponents. And here in the state legislature, as in the city council, where the same principles are in use, there is the best possible chance of selling one’s friendly services at their market value. If a railroad company sees a bill for public safety proposed which is technically senseless and exaggerated, which will impede traffic in the state, and involve ruinous expenditures, it will naturally be tempted not to sit idle in the hope that a majority of the committee will set the bill aside; for that course would be hazardous. It may be that all sorts of prejudices will work together toward reporting the bill favourably. If the company wants to be secure, it will rather try such arguments as only capitalists have at their command. And it has here two ways open: either to “convince” the committee or else to make arrangements with the man who proposed the bill, so that he shall recall it. If the possibility of such doings once exists in politics, there is no means of preventing dishonourable persons from making money in such ways; not only do they yield to temptation after they have been elected, but also they seek their elections solely in order to exploit just such opportunities.

Here we meet that factor which distinguishes the state legislature, particularly of those states whose traditions are less firmly grounded, and still more the city councils, so completely from the federal chambers in Washington. The chance to misuse office is alike in all three places, but men who have entered the political arena with honourable motives very seldom yield to criminal temptation. The usual abuses are committed almost wholly by men who have sought their political office solely for the sake of criminal opportunities; and this class of pseudo-politicians can bring itself into the city council very easily, in the state legislature without much difficulty, but almost never into Congress. If it were attractive or distinguished or interesting to be in the state legislature, or on the board of aldermen, there would be a plenty of worthy applicants for the position, and all doubtful persons would find the door closed; but the actual case is quite different.

To be a member of Congress, to sit in the House of Representatives or perhaps in the Senate, is something which the very best men may well desire. The position is conspicuous and picturesque, and against the background of high political life the individual feels himself entrusted with an important rÔle. And although many may hesitate to transfer their homes to the federal capital, nevertheless the country has never had difficulty in finding sufficient Representatives who are imbued with the spirit of the Constitution. On the other hand, to serve as popular representative in the state legislature means for the better sort of man, unless he is a professional politician, a considerable sacrifice. The legislature generally meets in a remote part of the state, at every session requires many months of busy work on some committee, and most of this work is nothing but disputing and compromising over the thousand petty bills, in which no really broad political considerations enter. It is a dreary, dispiriting work, which can attract only three kinds of men: firstly, those who are looking forward to a political career in the service of the party machine and undergo a term in the state legislature only as preparation for some more important office; secondly, those who are glad of the small and meagre salary of a representative; and finally, those whose modest ambition is satisfied if they are delegated by their fellow-citizens in any sort of representative capacity. Therefore the general level of personality in the state legislature is low. Men who have important positions will seldom consent to go, and when influential persons do enter state politics it is actually with a certain spirit of renunciation, and not so much to take part in the business of the legislature as to reform the legislature itself. Since this is the case, it is not surprising that the most unwholesome elements flock thither, extortioners and corrupt persons who count on it, that in regard to dishonourable transactions, the other side will have the same interest in preserving silence as themselves.

We must also not forget that the American principle of strictly local representation works in another way to keep down the level of the smaller legislative bodies. If the Representative of a certain locality must have his residence there, the number of possible candidates is very much restricted. This is even more true of the city government, where the principle of local representation requires that every part of the city, even the poorest and most squalid, shall elect none but men who reside in it. To be sure, there is a good deal in this that is right; but it necessarily brings a sort of people together in public committee with whom it is not exactly a pleasure for most men to work. The questions which have to be talked over here are still more trivial, and more than that, the motives which attract corrupt persons are somewhat more tangible here; since in the rapid growth of the great city the awarding of monopolies and contracts creates a sort of spoilsman’s paradise. As the better elements hold aloof from this city government, by so much more do corrupt persons have freer play.

The relation of the city to both the state and Federation is even more unfavourable when one comes to consider not the legislative, but the executive, department. Whereas in Washington, for example, a single man stands at the head of every department in the administration, and is entirely responsible for the running of things, there has frequently been in the city administrations, up to a short time ago, a committee which is so responsible—this in agreement with the old American idea that a majority can decide best. Where, however, a single man was entrusted with administrative powers, he was selected generally by the mayor and the city council together, and they seldom called a real expert to such a position. In any case, since the administration depends wholly on party politics, and the upper staff changes with each new party victory, there is no such chance for a life career here as would tempt competent men to offer their services.

In this part of the government, moreover, there is more danger from the administration by committees than anywhere else. The responsibility of a majority cannot be fixed anywhere; and where the mayor and aldermen work together in the selection of officials, neither of the two parties is quite responsible for the outcome—which is naturally not to be compared with the closely guarded election of officials under German conditions. For in Germany the selection of the head of a city department will lie between a few similarly trained specialists, while the administration of a New York or a Chicago department, as, say, that of the police or of street-cleaning, is thought to presuppose no special preparation, and therefore the number of possible candidates is unlimited. It is not surprising that such irresponsible committees are not above corruption, and that many a man who has received a well-paid administrative position in return for his services to the party, proceeds to make his hay while the sun shines. It is true that there are many departments where no such temptation comes in question. It is, for example, universally believed that the fire departments of all American cities are admirably managed. The situation is most doubtful in the case of the police departments, which, of course, are subject to the greatest temptations; and here, too, there can be the worst abuses in some ways along with the highest efficiency in others. The service for public protection in a large city may be admirably organized and crime strenuously followed up, and nevertheless the police force may be full of corruption. Thieves and murderers are punctiliously suppressed, while at the same time the police are extorting a handsome income from bar-rooms which evade the Sunday laws, from public-houses which exist in violation of city statutes, and from unlawful places of amusement.

To be sure, we must again and again emphasize two things. In the first place, it is probable that nine-tenths of the charges are exaggerated and slanderous. The punishments are so considerable, the means of investigation so active, and the public watchfulness so keen, both on account of the party hostility and by virtue of a sensational press, that it would be hardly comprehensible psychologically, if political crime in the lowest strata of city or state were to be really anything but the exception. The many almost fanatically conducted investigations produce from their mountains of transactions only the smallest mice, and the state attorney is seldom able to make out a case of actual bribery. In this matter the Anglo-Americans are pleased to point out that wherever investigations have ended in making out a case which could really be punished, the person has been generally an Irishman or some other European immigrant. In any case, the collection of immigrants from Europe in the large cities contributes importantly to the unhappy condition of city politics.

In the second place, we must urge once more that the mere distribution of well-paid municipal positions to party politicians is not necessarily in itself an abuse. When, for instance, in a large city, a Republican is succeeded by a Democratic mayor, he can generally bestow a dozen well-paid and a hundred or two more modest commissions to men who have helped in the party victory. But he will be careful not to pick out those who are wholly unworthy, since that would not only compromise himself, but would damage his party and prevent its being again victorious. If he succeeds, on the other hand, in finding men who will serve the city industriously, intelligently, and ably in proportion to their pay, it is ridiculous to call the promise of such offices by way of party reward in any sense a plundering of the city, or to make it seem that the giving of positions to colleagues of one’s party is another sort of corruption.

The evils of public life and the possibility of criminal practices are not confined to legislative and executive bodies. The judiciary also has its darker side. One must believe fanatically in the people in order not to see what judicial monstrosities occasionally come out of the emphasis which is given to the jury system. The law requires that the twelve men chosen from the people to the jury must come to a unanimous decision; they are shut in a room together and discuss and discuss until all twelve finally decide for guilty or not guilty. If they are not unanimous, no verdict is given, and the whole trial has to begin over again. A single obstinate juryman, who clings to his particular ideas, is able, therefore, to outweigh the decision of the other eleven. And it is to be remembered that every criminal case is tried before a jury. The case is still worse if all twelve agree, but agree only in their prejudices. Especially in the South, but also in the West sometimes, juries return decisions which simply insult the intelligence of the country. It is true that the unfairness is generally in the direction of declaring the defendant not guilty.

The law’s delay is also exceedingly regrettable, as well as the extreme emphasis on technicalities, in consequence of which no one dares, even in the interests of justice, to ignore the slightest inaccuracy of form—a fact whose good side too, of course, no one should overlook. It is most of all regrettable that the choice of judges depends to so large an extent on politics, and that so many judicial appointments are made by popular elections and for a limited term. The trouble here is not so much that a faithful party member is often rewarded with a judicial position, since for the matter of that there are equally good barristers to be chosen from either party for vacant positions on the bench; the real evil is that during his term of office the judge cannot help having an eye to his reËlection or promotion to some higher position. This brings politics into his labours truly, and it too often happens that a ready compliance with party dictates springs up in the lower judicial positions. Only the federal and the superior state courts are entirely free from this.

In a similar way, politics sometimes play a part in the doings of the state attorney. He is subordinate to the state or federal executive, that is, to a party element which has contracted obligations of various sorts, and it may so happen that the state attorney will avoid interfering here and there in matters where a justice higher than party demands interference. Especially in the quarrels between capital and labour, one hears repeatedly that the state attorney is too lenient toward large capitalists. Then there are other evils in judicial matters arising from the unequal scientific preparation of jurists; the failing here is in the judicial logic and pregnancy of the decision.

Finally, one source which is a veritable fountain of sin against the commonwealth is the power of the party machine. We have traced out minutely how the public life of the United States demands two parties, how each of these may hope for victory only if it is compactly organized, and how such organizations need an army of more or less professional politicians. They may be in the legislature or out of it; it is their position in the party machine which gives them their tremendous powers—powers which do not derive from constitutional principles nor from law, but which are in a way intangible, and therefore the more liable to abuse.

Richard Croker has never been mayor of New York, and yet he was for a long time dictator of that city, no matter what Democratic mayor was in office, and remained dictator even from his country place in England. He ruled the municipal Democratic party machine, and therefore all the mayors and officials were merely pawns in his hands. Millions of dollars floated his way from a thousand invisible sources, all of which were somehow connected with municipal transactions; and his conscience was as elastic as his pocket-book. That is what his enemies say, while his friends allege him to be a man of honour; and nothing has really been proved against him. But at least one thing is incontestable, that the system of the party machine and the party boss makes such undemonstrable corruption possible. Almost every state legislature is in the clutches of such party mandarins, and even men who are above the suspicion of venality misuse the tempting power which is centred in their hands in the service of their personal advantage and reputation, of their sympathies and antipathies, and transform their Democratic leadership into autocracy and terrorism. In the higher sense, however, every victory which they win for their party is like the victory of Pyrrhus, for their selfish absolutism injures the party more than any advantage which it wins at the polls benefits it. Their omnipotence is, moreover, only apparent, for in reality there is a power in the land which is stronger than they, and stronger than Presidents or legislatures, and which takes care that all the dangers and evils, sins and abuses that spring up are finally thrown off without really hindering the steady course of progress. This power is public opinion.

We have spoken of the President and Congress, of the organization of court and state, and, above all, of the parties, in order to show the various forms in which the genius of the American nation has expressed itself. It may seem almost superfluous to recognize public opinion as a separate factor in political affairs. It is admitted that public opinion is potent in Æsthetic, literary, moral, and social problems, with all of which parties and constitutions have nothing to do. But it might be supposed that when a people has surrounded itself with a network of electoral machinery, supports hundreds of thousands of representatives and officials, has perfected parties with their armies of politicians and legislatures which every year discuss and pass on thousands of laws—it might be supposed that in regard to political questions public opinion would have found its complete expression along official channels, and in a sense would have exhausted itself. Yet this is not the case. The entire political routine, with its paraphernalia, forms a closed system, which is distinct in many ways from the actual public opinion of the country.

It is indeed no easy matter to find under what conditions the will of a people can most directly express itself in the official machinery of politics. Many Germans, for instance, entertain the notion that no government is truly democratic except the cabinet be in all matters dependent on a majority in parliament; and they are astonished to learn that in democratic America Congress has no influence on the election of the highest officials; that the President, in fact, may surround himself with a cabinet quite antagonistic to the political complexion of Congress. But no American believes that politics would represent public opinion any better if this independence of the Executive and his cabinet were to be modified, say in conformity with the English or French idea. The reasons for a discrepancy between public opinion and official politics lie anyhow not in the special forms prescribed by the Constitution, but in the means by which the forms prescribed by the Constitution are practically filled by the nation. In the English Constitution, for instance, there is nothing about a cabinet; and yet the cabinet is the actual centre of English politics. American politics might keep to the letter of the Constitution, and still be the truest reflection of public opinion. That they are not such a reflection is due to the strong position of the parties. The rivalry of these encourages keen competition, in which the success of the party has now become an end in itself quite aside from the principles involved. Personal advantages to be derived from the party have become prominent in the minds of its supporters; and even where the motives are unselfish, the tactics of the party are more important than its ideals. But tactics are impossible without discipline, and a party which hopes to be victorious in defending its own interests or in opposing others’ will be no mere debating club, but a relentlessly strict and practical organization. Wherewith the control must fall to a very few party leaders, who owe their positions to professional politicians—that is, to men who for the most part stand considerably below the level of the best Americans.

The immense number of votes cast in the Presidential elections is apt to hide the facts. Millions vote for one candidate and millions for the other, without knowing perhaps that a few months before the national convention some ten or twelve party leaders, sitting at a quiet little luncheon, may have had the power to fix on the presidential candidate. And these wise foreordainings are even less conspicuous in the case of governors, senators, or representatives. Everywhere the masses believe that they alone decide, and so they do between the nominees of one party and of the other, or sometimes between several candidates within the party; but they are not aware that a more important choice is made behind the scenes before these candidates make their appearance.

As with the incumbents, so it is with the platform. The party leaders practically decide what questions shall be made the political issues; and this is the most important function of all. We have seen that dissenting groups can hardly hope on ordinary occasions to make a break in the firm party organization, and though they may vigorously discuss questions which have not been approved by the party leaders, they will, nevertheless, arrive at no practical results. It therefore happens very often that voters are called on to decide issues which seem to them indifferent, or to choose between two evils, and can expect nothing from either candidate in the matters which they think most vital. They go to the polls merely out of consideration for their party. Thus, in reality, the people do not decide the issues on which they are to vote, nor on the candidates whom they elect, nor yet on the party leaders who do decide these things. Nor can the people, if discontented with the party in power, recall that party during its term of office. In Germany the government can dissolve parliament if new issues arise; in England the Cabinet resigns if it fails to carry a measure; but in America the party with a congressional majority has nothing to fear during its appointed term. In short, the political life of America is dominated by those forces which rule the parties, and only in so far as the nation is filled with the party spirit, is the official political hierarchy an expression of the nation’s will.

Now it is not in the nature of public opinion to nerve itself up to clear and definite issues. Unless worked on by party demagogues, it never formulates itself in a mere yes or no, but surveys the situation impartially, seeing advantages and disadvantages on both sides, and passes a conservative judgment. The man who thinks only of parties will often agree to a compromise which is unjust to both parties and in general unworthy of them; but the man who takes his stand above the parties knows that many problems are not fathomed with a yea or nay; he does not see two opposite sides between which an artificial compromise is to be found, but he appreciates the given situation in its organic unity and historical perspective. Historical understanding of the past and moral seriousness for the future guarantee his right judgment. He sees the practical opposition of interests, which is always more complex than the two-horned dilemma that the parties advertise, in a true light, and testimony of experts instead of politicians suggests to him the rational solution of the problem. The actual course of action to be followed may coincide with the plan of one or the other party, or may be a compromise between them, and yet it will be a distinct policy. In such decisions there lives ever the spirit of immediate reality; no artificial dichotomy nor any political tactics are involved, and the natural moral feeling of a healthy nation is then sufficient for every issue. Nowhere is this naÏve moral sense more potent among the masses than in America; will then these unpartisan convictions have no weight in political life? Will they not rather strive to have an independent effect on the destinies of the nation? The centre and real expression of these politics for essentials is the system of public opinion.

We have seen that every American legislature has two parts, an upper and a lower house, which have different ways of procedure and different prerogatives. One might similarly say that the parties with all their paraphernalia are merely the lower house of the nation, while Public Opinion is the upper house; and only the two houses together constitute the entire national political life. The nation is represented in each branch, but in different senses. In a way the parties express quantitatively the will of the nation, and public opinion does it qualitatively. Whenever a quantitative expression is wanted, the issues must be sharply contrasted in order to separate clearly the adherents of each; all fine shades and distinctions have to be sacrificed to an artificial clearness of definition, much as is done in mechanics, when any motion is schematically represented, as the diagonal in a parallelogram of two other forces. As a quantity any yea or nay is as good as any other, and the intensity of any party movement is due to the accumulation of small increments. The great advantage of this lower house is, as of every lower house, that its deliberations can be brought to an end and its debates concluded. Every political election is such a provisional result.

It is very different in the upper house. Public opinion accepts no abstract schematizations, but considers the reality in all its complication, and in its debates no weight is given to any show of hands or other demonstration of mere numbers. Crass contrasts do not exist here, but only subtle shadings; men are not grouped as friends and foe, but they are seen to differ merely in their breadth of outlook, their knowledge, their energy, and in their singleness of heart. The end in view is not to rush politics, but to reform politics and in all matters to shape public events to national ideals. Here one vote is not like another, but a single word wisely and conscientiously spoken is heard above the babel of thousands. And here the best men of the nation have to show themselves, not with programmes nor harangues, but with a quiet force which shapes and unites public opinion and eventually carries all parties before it.

Public opinion may be responsible now for a presidential veto on a bill of Congress, now for the sudden eclipse of a party leader, or the dropping of a list of candidates, or again it may divide a party in the legislature. Public opinion forces the parties, in spite of themselves, to make mere party advantage secondary to a maturer statesmanship.

Germans will not readily appreciate this double expression of the popular will; they would find it more natural if party life and public opinion were one. For in Germany the conditions are quite different. In the first place there are a dozen parties, which express the finer shades of public opinion more adequately than the two parties can in America. And this division into many small parties prevents the development of any real party organization such as would be needed by a party assuming entire responsibility for the affairs of the nation. The nearest approach to two great parties is the opposition between all the “bÜrgerliche” parties on the one hand and the social democrats on the other. But the development of really responsible parties is hardly to be expected, since the German party is allowed only a small degree of initiative. The representatives of the people have the right to accept or reject or to suggest improvements in the proposals of the government; but with the government rest the initiative and the responsibility. The government stands above the parties, and is not elected by the people nor immediately dependent on them. It originates most of the legislative and executive movements, and therewith represents exactly that moral unity of the nation which is above all parties, and which is represented in America by public opinion; while in America the government is the creature of the parties.

One should not draw the conclusion that the public opinion of America is the quintessence of pure goodness. Public opinion in the United States would be no true indication of the forces at work in the nation if it did not represent all the essentials of the typical American. In order to find this typical man, it would be misleading simply to take the average of the millions; one leaves out of account the great herd of colourless characters, and selects the man who harmoniously combines in himself, without exaggeration, the most striking peculiarities of his countrymen. He is not easy to find, since eccentricity is frequent; one man is grotesquely patriotic, another moral to intolerance, another insipidly complacent, and another too optimistic to be earnest or too acquisitive to be just.

And yet if one goes about much in American society, one finds oneself now and then, not only in New York or Boston or Washington, but quite as well in some small city of the West, in a little circle of congenial men who are talking eagerly, perhaps over their cigars after dinner; and one has the feeling that the typical American is there. His conversation is not learned nor his rhetoric high-flown; but one has the feeling that he is alive and worth listening to, that he sees things in sharp perspective, is sincerely moral, and has something of his own to say. Party politics do not interest him specially, although as citizen he goes to a few meetings, contributes to the party funds, and votes on election day if the weather permits. But he speaks of politics generally with a half-smile, and laughs outright at the thought of himself running for the legislature. He sees the evil about him, but is confident that everything will come around all right; the nation is young, strong, and possessed of boundless resources for the future. Of course he understands the prejudices of the masses, and knows that mere slap and dash will not take the place of real application in solving the problems which confront the nation; he knows, too, that technical proficiency, wealth, and luxury alone do not constitute true culture. And herewith his best energies are enlisted; he contributes generously to libraries and universities, and very likely devotes much of his time to the city schools. But he is frank to confess, as well, that he has a weakness for good-fellowship and superficiality, preferring operetta to tragedy every time. He is not niggardly in anything; to be so is too unÆsthetic. At first one is astonished by his insouciance and the optimism with which he makes the best of everything. One feels at once his good nature and readiness to help, and finds him almost preternaturally ready to be just to his opponents and overlook small failings. He envelops everything with his irrepressible sense of humour, and is always reminded of a good story, which he recounts so drolly and felicitously that one is ready to believe that he never could be angry. But this all changes the instant the talk turns from amusing stupidities or little weaknesses and goes over to indecency or corruption or any baseness of character. Then the typical American is quite changed; his genuine nobility of soul comes out and he gives his unvarnished opinion, not blusteringly, but with self-controlled indignation. One feels that here is the real secret of his character; and one is surprised to see how little he cares for political parties or social classes. He will fiercely condemn the delinquencies of his own party or the unfair dealings of his own social set. It now appears how honestly religious he is, and how far the inner meaning of his life lies beyond the merely material.

Such a good fellow it is, with all his greater and lesser traits, who may at any time voice undiluted public opinion. Thousands who are better, wiser, more learned, or less the spendthrift and high-liver, and the millions of inferior natures, will show one trait or another of the national character in higher relief. And yet the type is well marked; it is always optimistic and confident in the future of America, indifferent to party tactics, but enthusiastically patriotic. It is anxious to be not merely prosperous but just and enlightened as well; it is almost hilariously full of life, and yet benevolent and friendly; conservative although sensitive, without respect for conventions and yet religious, sanguine but thoughtful, scrupulously just to an opponent but unrelenting toward any mean intent. Probably the most characteristic traits of public opinion are a patient oversight of mistakes and weaknesses, but relentless contempt and indignation for meanness and lack of honour. This is in both respects the very reverse of the party spirit, which is too apt to hinge its most boasted reforms on trivial evils, and pass over the greatest sins in silence.

One element of public opinion should be suggested in even the briefest sketch—its never-failing humour. It is the antiseptic of American politics, although it would be better, to be sure, if political doings could be aseptic from the outset. But probably dirty ambition and selfishness are harder to keep down in a democracy than anywhere else. The humour of public opinion stands in striking contrast, moreover, to party life; as one cannot fail to discover on looking closely. Party tactics demand that the masses have hammered into them the notion that the sacred honour of the nation lies with their party, but that on the other side there lies hopeless ruin. The man who urges this dogma must keep a very solemn face, for if he were to bring it out with a twinkle in his eye, he would destroy the force of his suggestion. The voter, too, is serious in his duties as a citizen, and demands of the candidates this extremely practical mien and solemn party arrogance. But when the same citizen talks the matter over with his friends, he is no longer a stickler for party, but a voicer of public opinion, and he sees at once the humour of the situation. He punctures the party bubbles with well-aimed ridicule. So it happens that the population is more ruled by humour here than anywhere else, while the party leaders stand up, at least before the public, in the most solemn guise. Just as in some American states the men drink wine at home, but at official banquets call for mineral water; so out of the political harness one may commit excesses of humour, but in it one must be strictly temperate. This is, of course, the reverse of the well-known English method, where the masses are rather dull, while the leaders are famous wits and cynics. America would never allow this. When one meets leading politicians or members of the Cabinet in a social way, one is often amazed at their ready wit, and feels that these men have decidedly the capacity to shine as do their English colleagues. But that would wreck the party service. The people are sovereign; public opinion has, therefore, the right to ironical humour, and can smilingly look down on the parties from a superior height; while those who play the party game of government have still to keep demure and sober. In England it is the Cabinet, in America public opinion, which assumes the gentle rÔle of wit. Hardly could the contrast between aristocracy and democracy be more clearly exemplified.

If some one should ask who makes public opinion, he might well be referred at first to that class which at present does not enjoy the suffrage, and presumably will not for some time to come—the women. The American woman cares little enough for party politics, and this is not so much because she has no rights. If she had the interest she probably would have the rights. But while the best people have no wish to see the women mix in with the routine of party machinery, this is not at all in order that they may not concern themselves with the public problems of the day. On the contrary, women exert a marked influence on public opinion; and here, as might be expected, it is not the organized crusades, like the temperance movement, which count, but rather their less noisy demonstrations, their influence in the home and their general rightness of feeling. Every reform movement which appeals to moral motives is advanced by the public influence of women, and many a bad piece of jobbery is defeated by their instrumentality.

If the boundaries between the sexes are forgotten in the matter of public opinion, so even more are those between the various classes. Public opinion is not weakened by any class antipathies. To be sure, every profession and occupation has its peculiar interests, and in different quarters the public opinion takes on somewhat different hues; the agricultural states have other problems than the industrial; the South others than the North; and the mining districts still others of their own. But these are really not differences of public opinion, but different sectors of the one great circle. In spite of the diverse elements and the prejudices which go to make up public opinion, it is everywhere remarkably self-consistent. This is because it is the voice of insight, conscience, and brotherly feeling, as against that of carelessness, self-interest, and exclusiveness. The particular interests of capital and labour, of university and primary school, of city and country, have not their special representatives at the court of public opinion. And least in evidence of all, of course, are the officials and professional politicians. These men are busy in strictly party affairs, and have no time to dabble in the clear stream of public opinion. At best, a few distinguished senators or governors, together with the President and an occasional member of the Cabinet, come to have an immediate influence on public opinion.

The springs of public opinion flow from the educated and substantial members of the commonwealth, and are often tinged at first with a very personal colouring; but the streamlets gather and flow far from their sources and every vestige of the personal is lost. Ideas go from man to man, and those which are typically American find as ready lodgment with the banker, the manufacturer, or the scholar as with the artisan or the farm-hand. Any man who appeals to the conscience, morality, patriotism, or brotherly feeling of the American, or to his love of progress and order, appeals to no special parties or classes, but to the one public opinion, the community of high-minded citizens to the extent of their disinterestedness.

Yet even such a public opinion requires some organization and support. Bold as the statement may sound, the American newspaper is the main ally of public opinion, serving that opinion more loyally than it serves either official politics or the party spirit. The literary significance of the newspaper we shall consider in another connection, but here only its public influence. An American philosophizing on the newspapers takes it as a matter of course that they serve the ends of party politics; and it is true enough that party life as it is would not be possible without the highly disseminated influence of the newspaper. A German coming to the country is apt to deny it even this useful function. He is acquainted in Europe with those newspapers which commence on the first page with serious leading articles, and relegate the items of the day to a back page along with the advertisements. But here he finds newspapers which have on the first pages not a word of editorial comment and hardly even a serious piece of politics—nothing, in fact, but an unspeakable muddle of undigested news items; and as his eye rests involuntarily on the front page, with its screaming headlines in huge type, he will find nothing but crimes, sensational casualties, and other horrors. He will not before have realized that the devouring hunger of the American populace for the daily news, has brought into existence sheets of large circulation adapted to the vulgar instincts of the millions, the giant headlines of which warn off the educated reader from as far as he can see them; that paper is not for him. But a foreigner does not realize the injustice of estimating the political influence of the press from a glance at these monstrosities, which could not thrive abroad, not so much because the masses are better and more enlightened as because they care less about reading. Moreover, he will come slowly to realize that what he missed from the front page is somewhere in the middle of the paper; that the street-selling makes it necessary to make the most of sensations on the outside, and to put the better things where they are better protected. And so he learns that the American newspaper does express opinions, although its looks belie it.

The better sort of American newspaper is neither a party publication nor yet merely a news-sheet, but the conscious exponent of public opinion. Its columns contain a tiresome amount of party information, it is true; but a part of this is directly in the interests of an intelligent public opinion, since every citizen needs to be instructed in all the phases of party life, of political and congressional doings, and in regard to the candidates who are up for office. It is to be admitted, moreover, that some of the better newspapers, although not the very best, are unreservedly committed to the leaders of some party—in short, are party organs. In the same way several newspapers are under the domination of certain industrial interests and cater to the wishes of a group of capitalists. But any such policy has to be managed with the utmost discretion, for the American newspaper reader is far too experienced to buy a sheet day after day which he sees to be falsified; and he has enough others to resort to, since the competition is always keen, and even middle-sized cities have three or four large daily papers.

It is perhaps fortunate that any such extreme one-sidedness is not to the commercial advantage of the newspapers, for in America they are preËminently business enterprises. Their financial success depends in the first place on advertisements, and only secondarily on their sales in the streets. The advertising firm does not care whether the editorials and news items are Republican or Democratic, but it cares very much about the number of copies which are circulated; and this depends on the meritorious features which the paper has over competing sheets. Newspapers like the German, which count on only a small circle of readers, and these assured, at least for the time being, by subscriptions, can far more readily treat their readers cavalierly and constrain their attention for a while to a certain party point of view. In an American city the daily sales are much greater than the subscriptions, and the sheets which get the most trade are those which habitually treat matters from all sides, and voice opinions which fall in with every point of view. Of course, this circumstance cannot prevent every paper from having its special political friends and foes, its special hobbies, its own style, and, above all, its peculiar material interests. But, on the whole, the American newspaper is extraordinarily non-partisan on public questions, notwithstanding the statements in many German books to the contrary; and the ordinary reader might peruse a given paper for weeks, except just on the eve of an election, without really knowing whether it was Republican or Democratic. Now one party and now the other is brought up for criticism, and even when the sheet is distinctly in favour of a certain side, it will print extracts from the leading articles of opposing journals, and so well depict the entire situation that the reader can form an opinion for himself.

While the newspapers are in this way largely emancipated from the yoke of parties, they are the exponents of a general set of tendencies which, in opposition to party politics, we have called public opinion. In other words, the papers stand above the parties with their crudely schematic programmes and issues, and aspire to measure men and things according to their true worth. Though ostensibly of one party, a journal will treat men of its own side to biting sarcasm, and magnanimously extol certain of its opponents. The better political instincts, progress and reform, are appealed to; and if doubtful innovations are often brought in and praised as reforms, this is not because the newspaper is the organ of a party, but rather of public sentiment, as it really is or is supposed to be. The newspaper reflects in its own way all the peculiarities of public opinion—its light-heartedness and its often nervous restlessness, its conservative and prudent traits, its optimism, and its ethical earnestness; above all, its humour and drastic ridicule. It is well known that the American newspaper has brought the art of political caricature to perfection. The satirical cartoon of the daily paper is of course much more effective than that of the regular comic papers. And these pictures, although directed at a political opponent, are generally conceived in a broader spirit than that of any party. The cap and bells are everywhere in evidence, and there is nothing dry or pedantic. From the dexterous and incisive leading article to the briefest jottings, one notes the same good humour and playful satire which are so characteristic of public opinion. This general humorous turn makes it possible to give an individual flavour to the most ordinary pieces of daily news, so that they have a bearing considerably broader than the bare facts of the case, and may conceivably add their mite to public opinion. And herewith a special newspaper style has come in, a combination of a photographically accurate report and the whimsical feuilleton. Thus it happens that the best papers editorially persuade where they cannot dictate to their readers, and so, apart from party politics, nourish public opinion and create sentiment for or against persons, and legislative and other measures, while ostensibly they are merely giving the news of the last twelve hours.

There is another distinctly American invention—the interview. Doubtless it was first designed to whet the reader’s curiosity with the piquant suggestion of something personal or even indiscreet. In Europe, where this form of reporting is decidedly rudimentary, it usually evinces neither tact nor taste; whereas in America it is really a literary form, and so familiar now as to excite no remark. It has come to be peculiarly the vehicle of public opinion, as opposed to party politics. The person interviewed is supposed to give his personal opinions, and it is his authority as a human personality which attracts the reader. A similar function is served by the carefully selected letters to the editor, which take up a considerable space in the most serious sheets.

The outer form of the newspaper is a matter really of the technical ability of the American, rather than of his political tastes; and it is to be observed at once that the general appearance, and above all, the whole system of getting and printing news rapidly, is astonishing. Every one has heard of the intrepid and fertile reporters, and how on important occasions they leave no stone unturned to obtain the latest intelligence for their papers. But the persistence of these men is less worthy of note than the regular system by which the daily news is gathered and transmitted to every paper in the land. With an infallible scent, a pack of reporters follows in the trail of the least event which may have significance for the general public. A good deal of gossip and scandal is intermingled, to be sure, and much that is trivial served up to the readers; but granted for once, that millions in the lower classes, as members of the American democracy, wish, and ought to wish, to carry home every night a newspaper as big as a book, then, of course, such a hunger for fresh printed matter can be satisfied only by mental pabulum adapted to the vulgar mind. The New York Evening Post will have nothing of this sort; it appeals more to bank directors and professors; but shop-hands prefer the World. It is the same as with the theatres; if the ordinary citizen is prosperous enough to indulge frequently in an evening at the theatre, then, of course, melodrama and farce will become the regular thing, since the common man must always either laugh or cry.

The lightning news service is, of course, somewhat superficial and frequently in error, not to say that it is served up often with the minimum of taste; but the readers gladly take the risk of mistakes for the sake of the greater advantage it is to public opinion to have a searchlight which penetrates every highway and byway, showing up every sign of change in the social or political situation, and every intimation of danger.

And if reporters are accused of being indiscreet, one must first inquire whether the fault does not really lie with some one or other who, while pretending to shrink from publicity, really wants to see his name in the paper. Anyone familiar with the newspapers of the country knows that he is perfectly safe in telling any editor, and even any reporter, whatever he likes if he adds the caution that he does not wish it given out. It will not be printed. The American journalist is usually a gentleman, and can be relied on to be discreet. The principal journalists and editors of the leading newspapers are among the ablest men of the country, and they often go over to important political positions and become even ministers and ambassadors.

The powerful influence of the American newspapers is outwardly displayed in the sumptuous buildings which they occupy. While in Europe the newspapers are published generally in very modest quarters, where the editors have to sit in dingy rooms, the buildings of the American newspapers compare favourably with the best commercial edifices; and the whole business is conducted on an elaborate scale. Scarcely less astonishing are their achievements in the way of illustration. While the most select papers decline on principle to appeal to the taste for sensation, many large papers have yielded to the demand, and have brought the technique of illustration nearly to perfection. A few hours after any event they will have printed a hundred thousand copies of the paper with pictures taken on the spot, and reproduced in a manner of which any European weekly might well be proud.

Taken all in all, the American press very worthily represents the energy, prosperity, and greatness of the American nation; and at the same time with its superficial haste, its vulgarity and excitability, with its lively patriotism and irrepressible humour, it clearly evinces the influence of democracy. The better the paper the more prominent are the critical and reflective features; while the wider the circulation, the more noticeable are the obtrusive self-satisfaction and provincialism, and the characteristic disdain of things European. Going from the East to the West, one finds a fairly steady downward gradation in excellence, although some samples of New York journalism can vie for crude sensationalism with the most disgusting papers of the Wild West. And yet the best papers reach a standard which in many respects is higher than that of the best journals of the Old World. A paper like the Boston Transcript will hardly find its counterpart in the German newspaper world; and much good can be said of the Sun, Tribune, Times, and Post in New York, the Star in Washington, the Public Ledger in Philadelphia, the Sun in Baltimore, the Eagle in Brooklyn, the Tribune in Chicago, the Herald in Boston, the Evening Wisconsin in Milwaukee, and many others which might be named. Even small cities like Springfield, Massachusetts, produce such large and admirable papers as the Springfield Republican. And to be just, one must admit that the bad papers could be condensed into tolerably good ones by a liberal use of the blue pencil. For their mistakes lie not so much in their not having good contributions as in their inclusion of crude and sensational material by way of spice. Very often the front page of a paper will be overrun with the most offensive scandals, caricatures, and criminal sensations, while the ninth and tenth pages will offer editorials and other articles of decided merit. The newspapers which care only for a large circulation will have something for everybody; and they are not far out of the way in calculating that the educated reader who looks first at the editorials and political dispatches, will have enough that is unregenerate in his soul to make him relish a sideward glance at the latest sensational reports. The newspaper is content on the whole not to bore its readers, and to hold a close rein on public opinion rather than on party politics.

With all this, it is not to be denied that there are lower motives which degrade journalism. One of the chief temptations lies in the amalgamation of newspaper politics and party activities. The editor who, in the interests of public opinion, scans all the parties with a critical eye and professes to be impartial, is for this very reason the more tempted to misuse his position for private gain. He may diligently support one party in the name of impartiality and fairness, while in reality he counts on a remunerative office if that party is successful; and from this point the steps are few to the moral state of those who attack a certain party or an industrial enterprise in order to discover the error of their position on receipt of a sufficient compensation. The energy with which some newspapers stand up for certain financial interests casts grave doubt on their personal independence; and yet direct bribery plays an exceedingly small role, and the government or a foreign country is never the corrupting influence. Very much more important are the vanity and selfishness of newspaper proprietors, who for one reason or another choose to lead the public astray. But such perversities are less dangerous than one might think, for the American newspaper reader reads too much and is politically too discerning to take these newspapers at their face value. The mood induced by one paper is corrected by another; and while the journalist is tickled at his own shrewdness in writing only what his readers will like, the reader slyly preserves his self-respect and belief in his own critical ability, by hunting out everything with which he does not agree and reading that carefully. If the journal is above the party, the reader is above the journal, and thus it is that the newspapers are the most influential support of public opinion.

In this, however, they do not enjoy a monopoly; beside them are the weekly and monthly papers. Here again we shall consider their literary merits in another connection, but their greatest significance lies in their influence on public opinion. The political efforts of the weekly papers are mostly indirect; they deal primarily with practical interests, religious and social problems, and literary matters; but the serious discussions are carried on as it were against a political background which lends its peculiar hue to the whole action. The monthly magazines are somewhat more ambitious, and consider politics more directly. In their pages, not merely professional politicians, but the very ablest men of the nation, are accustomed to treat of the needs and duties of city and state; and these discussions are almost never from a one-sided point of view. A magazine like the North American Review usually asks representatives of both parties to present their opinions on the same question; and a similar breadth of view is adopted by the Atlantic Monthly, the Review of Reviews, and other leading monthlies, whose great circulation and influence are hardly to be compared with similar magazines of Europe. The point of view common to all is that of a very critical public opinion, well above party politics and devoted to national reform and everything which makes for progress and enlightenment. Much the same can be said of those magazines which combine politics with literature and illustrations, such as the Century, Harper’s, Scribner’s, McClure’s, and many others. When McClure’s Magazine, for example, presents to its half-million readers month after month an illustrated history of the Standard Oil Trust, every page of which is an attack on secret evasions of the law, it is not serving the interests of any party, but is reading public opinion a lesson.

The spoken word vies with the printed. The capacity of Americans, and especially of the women, to listen to lectures is well-nigh abnormal. And in this way social and political propagandas find a ready hearing, although a purely party speech would not be effective outside of a party convention. The wit and pathos of the speaker generally reach a level considerably above mere matters of expediency, and appeal to public opinion from a broadly historical point of view. The dinner speaker is also a power, since he is not constrained, as in Germany, to sandwich his eloquence in between the fish and game or to make every speech wind craftily around and debouch with the inevitable “dreimal Hoch.” He is quite at liberty to follow either his whims or his convictions, and herein has come to be a recognized spring of public opinion.

Finally, somewhat the same influence is exerted by the countless clubs and associations, and the various local and national societies which are organized for specific ends. Every American of the better sort belongs to any number of such bodies, and although concerning two-thirds of them he knows no more than that he pays his dues, there is left a third for which he sincerely labours. There is much in these organizations which is one-sided, egotistical, and trivial, and yet in the most of them there is something which is sound and right. There is not one at least which fails to strengthen the conviction that every citizen is called to be the bearer of public opinion. Just as the parties complain that the voters neglect the routine duties of the organization, so to be sure do the strenuous reformers of the country complain that the ranks behind them informally break step. But the main thing is that behind them there is a host, and that public opinion is to-day as thoroughly organized as the official parties, and that it sees each day more clearly that its qualitative effect on the national life is at least equally important with the quantitative efficacy of the parties.

Every important question is treated by both organizations, public opinion, and the parties. At the approach of a great election the parties create such a stir and bustle that for a couple of months the voice of public opinion seems hushed. Party tactics rule the day. But on the other hand, public opinion has its own festivals, and above all, works on tirelessly and uninterruptedly, except for the short pause just before elections. Public opinion reacts equally on both parties, forces them to pass laws that the politicians do not relish, and to repeal others that the politicians would gladly keep; and, ignoring these men, it brings the public conscience to bear on the issues to be pressed, the candidates to be nominated, and the leaders to be chosen.

We have surveyed public opinion and party politics as two distinct factors in the American national consciousness, as two factors which are seldom in complete agreement, and which are very often in sharp opposition, but which finally have to work together like an upper and lower legislative chamber in order to solve the problems of the day. We have not the space to speak minutely of all these problems themselves with which the American is at the present moment occupied; since the politics of the day lie outside of our purpose. This purpose has been to study that which is perennial in the American spirit, the mental forces which are at work, and the forms in which these work themselves out. But the single questions on which these forces operate, questions which are to-day and to-morrow are not, must be left to the daily literature. It is our task, however, to indicate briefly in what directions the most important of these problems lie. Every one of them would require the broadest sort of handling if it were to be in the least adequately presented.

So many problems which in European countries occupy the foreground, and which weigh particularly on the German mind, are quite foreign to the American. Firstly, the church problem as a political one is unknown to him. The separation of church and state is so complete, and the results of this separation are viewed on all sides with so much satisfaction, that there is nowhere the least desire to introduce a change. It is precisely in strictly religious circles that the entire independence of the church is regarded as the prime requisite for the growth of ecclesiastical influence. Even the relations between the church and party politics are distinctly remote, and the semi-political movements once directed against the Catholic Church are already being somewhat forgotten. There is no Jesuit question, and the single religious order which has precipitated a real political storm has been the sect of Mormons, which ecclesiastically sanctions an institution that the monogamous laws of the nation forbid. Even here the trouble has been dispelled by the submission of the Mormon Church.

As a matter of course, America has also never known a real conflict between the executive and the people. The government being always elected at short intervals by the people and the head of the state with his Cabinet having no part in legislation, while his executive doings merely carry out the wishes of the dominant political party, of course no conflicts can arise. To be sure, there can be here and there small points of friction between the legislative and executive, and the President can, during his four years of office, slowly drift away from the party which elected him, and thus bring about some estrangement; but even this would only be an estrangement from the professional politicians of his party. For experience has shown that the President, and on a smaller scale the governor of a state, is successful in breaking with his party only when he follows the wishes of public opinion instead of listening to the dictates of his party politicians. But in that case the people are on his side. One might rather say that the conflicts between government and people, which in Europe are practically disputes between the government and the popular representatives of political parties, repeat themselves in America in the sharp contrast between public opinion on the one hand and the united legislative and executive on the other; since the government is itself of one piece with the popular representation. Public opinion, indeed, preserves its ancient sovereignty as against the whole system of elections and majorities.

There is another vexation spared to the American people; it has no Alsace-Lorraine, no Danish or Polish districts; that is, it has no elements of population which seek to break away from the national political unity, and by their opposition to bring about administrative difficulties. To be sure, the country faces difficult problems of population, but there is no group of citizens struggling to secede; and in the same way the American has nothing in the way of emigration problems. Perhaps one may also say finally that social democracy, especially of the international variety, has taken such tenuous root that it can hardly be called a problem, from the German point of view. For although there is a labour question, this is not the same as social democracy. The labour movements, as part of the great economic upheaval, are certainly one of the main difficulties to be overcome by the New World; but the social democratic solution, with its chiefly political significance, is essentially unknown to the American. All this we shall have to consider in other connections. Although this and that which worry the European appear hardly at all in American thought, there is, on the other hand, a great sea of problems which have mercifully been spared to the European. It is due to the transitional quality of our time that on this sea of problems the most tempestuous are those of an economic character. The fierce conflicts of recent Presidential elections have been waged especially over the question of currency, and it is not until now that the silver programme may be looked on as at least provisionally forgotten. These conflicts were immediately preceded by others which concerned protection and free-trade, and the outlook is clear that these two parties will again meet each other in battle array.

Meanwhile the formation of large trusts has loomed up rapidly as a problem, and in this one sees the real influence of public opinion as against that of party politics, since both parties would doubtless have preferred to leave the trusts alone. At the same time the great strikes, especially that of the Pennsylvania coal districts, have brought the conflicts between capital and labour so clearly to the national consciousness that the public attention is strained on this point. Others say that the most serious economic problem of the United States is the irrigation of the parched deserts of the West, where whole tracts of land, larger than Germany, cannot be cultivated for lack of water; while American engineers, however, now think it entirely possible with a sufficient outlay of money to irrigate this region artificially. Still others regard the tax issue as of prime importance; and the circle of those who believe in single-tax reform is steadily growing. Every one agrees also that the status of national banks needs to be extensively modified; that the reckless devastation of forests must be stopped; and that the commercial relations between the states must be regulated by new laws. Some are hoping for new canals, others for the subvention of American ships. In short, the public mind is so filled with important economic questions that others which are merely political stand in the background; and, of course, political questions so tremendous as was once that of independence from England and the establishment of the Federation, or later, the slave question and the secession of the South, have not come up through four happy decades.

Besides the economic problems there are many social problems which appear in those quarters where public opinion is best organized, and spread from there more and more throughout political life; such are the question of woman’s suffrage, and the half economic and half social problem of the extremes between poor and rich, extremes which were unknown to the New World in the early days of America and even until very recent times. The unspeakable misery in the slums of New York and Chicago, in which the lowest immigrants from Eastern Europe have herded themselves together and form a nucleus for all the worst reprobates of the country, is an outcome of recent years and appeals loudly to the conscience of the nation. On the other side, the fatuous extravagance of millionaires threatens to poison the national sense of thrift and economy.

Among these social problems there belongs specially the earnest desire of the best citizens to develop American art and science at a pace comparable with the extraordinary material progress of the country. Doubtless the admirable results which have here been obtained, came from the extraordinary earnestness with which public opinion has discussed these problems. The great development of universities, the increase in the number of libraries and scientific institutions, the creation of museums, the observance of beauty in public buildings, and a hundred other things would never have come about if public opinion had let things go their own way; here public opinion has consciously done its duty as a governing power. Somewhat nearer the periphery of public thought there are various other social propagandas, as that for the relief of the poor and for improving penal institutions; the temperance movement is flourishing, and the more so in proportion as it gives up its fanatical eccentricities. Also the fight against what the American newspaper reader calls the “social evil,” attracts more and more serious attention.

Besides all these, there is a considerable number of purely political problems; first among these are the problems of population, and notably the questions of immigration and of the negro; then come internal problems of government, such as civil service and municipal reforms, which especially engage the public eye; finally, the problems of external politics, in which the watchwords of imperialism and the Monroe Doctrine can be heard shouted out above all others. At least we must briefly take our bearings, and see why these problems exist, although the treatment cannot be exhaustive.

The first issue in the problem of population is, as we have said, that which concerns immigration; and this is just now rather up before public opinion since the last fiscal year which was closed with the beginning of July, 1903, showed the largest immigration ever reached, it being one-tenth greater than the previous record, which was for the year ending in 1882. The facts are as follows: The total immigration to the United States has been twenty million persons. The number of those who now live in the United States, but were born in foreign countries, is more than ten millions; and if we were to add to these those who, although born here, are of foreign parentage, the number comes up to twenty-six millions. Last year 857,000 immigrants came into the country. Out of the ten millions of the foreign-born population, 2,669,000 have come from Germany, and 1,619,000 from Ireland.

The fluctuations in immigration seem to depend chiefly on the amount of prosperity in the United States, and, secondly, on the economic and political conditions which prevail from year to year in Europe. Up to 1810 the annual immigration is estimated to have been about 6,000; then it was almost wholly interrupted for several years, owing to the political tension between the United States and England; as soon as peace was assured the immigration increased in 1817 to 20,000; and in the year 1840 to 84,000. The hundred thousand mark was passed in 1842, and from then on the figure rose steadily, until in 1854 it amounted to 427,000. Then the number fell off rapidly. It was a time of business depression in the United States, and, moreover, the slavery agitation was already threatening a civil war. The immigration was least in 1861, when it had sunk to 91,000. Two years later it began to rise again, and in 1873 was almost half a million. And again there followed a few years of business depression, with its correspondingly lessened immigration. But the moment economic conditions improved, immigration set in faster than ever before, and in 1882 was more than three-quarters of a million. Since 1883 the average number of persons coming in has been 450,000, the variation from year to year being considerable. The business reverses of 1893 cut the number down to one-half, but since 1897 it has steadily risen again.

Such bare figures do not show that which is most essential from the point of view of public opinion, since the quality of the immigration, depending as it does on the social condition of the countries from which it comes, is the main circumstance. In the decade between 1860 and 1870, 2,064,000 European wanderers came to the American shores; of these 787,000 were Germans, 568,000 English, 435,000 Irish, 109,000 Scandinavians, 38,000 Scotch, and 35,000 French. Now for the decade between 1890 and 1900 the total number was 3,844,000; of these Germany contributed 543,000, Ireland 403,000, Norway and Sweden 325,000, England 282,000, Scotland 60,000, and France 36,000. On the other hand, we find for the first time three countries represented which had never before sent any large number of immigrants; Italy, Russia, and Austria-Hungary. In the decade ending 1870 there were only 11,000 Italians, 7,000 Austrians, and 4,000 Russians, while in the decade ending in the year 1900 the Russian immigrants, who are mostly Poles and Jews, numbered 588,000, the Austrian and Hungarian 597,000, and the Italian no less than 655,000; and the proportion of these three kinds of immigrants is steadily increasing. In the year 1903 Germany sent only 40,000, Ireland 35,000, and England 26,000; while Russia sent 136,000, Austria-Hungary 206,000, and Italy 230,000. Herein lies the problem.

A few further figures may help to make the situation clearer. For instance, it is interesting to know what proportion of the total emigration from Europe came to America. In round numbers we may say that since 1870 Europe has lost 20,000,000 souls by emigration, and that some 14,000,000 of these, that is, more than two-thirds, have ultimately made their homes in the United States of America. Of the German emigrants some 85 or 90 per cent. have gone to the United States; of the Scandinavian as many as 97 per cent.; while of the English and Italian only 66 and 45 per cent. respectively. It is worth noting, moreover, that in spite of the extraordinary increase in immigration, the percentage of foreign-born population has not increased; that is, the increase of native-born inhabitants has kept up with the immigration. In 1850 there were a few more than two million foreign-born inhabitants, in 1860 more than four millions, in 1870 there were five and a half millions, in 1880 six and a half millions, in 1890 nine and a quarter millions, and in 1900 ten and one-third millions. In 1850 these foreigners amounted, it is true, to only 11 per cent. of the population; but in 1860 they had already become 15 per cent. of the whole, and diminished in 1870 to 14.4 per cent., in 1880 to 13.3 per cent.; in 1890 they were 14.8 per cent., and in 1900 13.6 per cent.

The State of New York has the largest number of foreigners, and in the last fifty years the percentage of foreigners has risen steadily from 21 per cent. to 26 per cent. Pennsylvania stands second in this respect, and Illinois third. On the other hand, the small states have the largest percentage of foreign population. North Dakota has 35 per cent. and Rhode Island 31 per cent. The Southern states have fewest foreigners of any. These figures are, of course, greatly changed if we add to them the persons who were not themselves born in other countries, but of whom one or both parents were foreigners. In this way the foreign population in the so-called North Atlantic States is 51 per cent., and is 34 per cent. throughout the country. If a foreigner is so defined, the cities of New York and Chicago are both 77 per cent. foreign.

These figures are enough by way of mere statistics. The thing which arouses anxiety is not the increasing number of immigrants, but the quality of them, which grows continually worse. Just fifty years ago the so-called Know-Nothings made the anti-foreign sentiment the chief plank of their programme, but the “pure” American propaganda of the Know-Nothings was forgotten in the excitement which waged over slavery; and the anti-foreign issue has never since that time been so brutally stated. There has always been much objection to the undeniable evils involved in this immigration, and the continual cry for closer supervision and restriction of immigration has given rise to several new legal measures. Partly, this movement has been the expression of industrial jealousy, as when, for instance, Congress in 1885, in an access of protectionist fury, forbade the immigration of “contract labour,” that is, forbade any one to land who had already arranged to fill a certain position. This measure was meant to protect the workmen from disagreeable competition. But right here the believers in free industry object energetically. It is just the contract labour from the Old World which brings new industries and a new development of old industries into the country, and such a quickening of industry augments the demand for labour to the decided advantage of native workmen. The law still stands in writing, but in practice it appears to be extensively corrected, since it is very easily evaded.

The more important measures, however, have arisen less from industrial than from social and moral grounds. Statistics have been carefully worked up again and again in order to show that the poor-houses and prisons contain a much larger percentage of foreigners than their proportionate numbers in the community warrant. In itself this will be very easy to understand, owing to the unfavourable conditions under which the foreigner must find himself, particularly if he does not speak English, in his struggle for existence in a new land. But most striking has been the manner in which the magic of statistics has shown its ability to prove anything it will; for other statistics have shown that if certain kinds of crime are considered, the foreign-born Americans are the best children the nation has. The question of illiteracy has been discussed in similar fashion. The percentage of immigrants who can neither read nor write has seemed alarmingly high to those accustomed to the high cultivation of the northeastern states, but gratifyingly small to those familiar with the negro population in the South. One unanimous opinion has been reached; it is that the country is bound to keep out such elements from its borders as are going to be a public burden. At first idiots and insane persons, criminals, and paupers made up this undesirable class, but the definition of those who are not admitted to the country has been slowly broadened. And since the immigration laws require the steamship companies to carry back at their own expense all immigrants who are not allowed to land, the selection is actually made in the European ports of embarkation. In this wise the old charge that the agents of European packet companies encouraged the lowest and worst individuals of the Old World to expend their last farthing for a ticket to the New World, has gradually died out. Nevertheless, in the last year, 5,812 persons were sent back for lack of visible means of support, 51 because of criminal record, and 1773 by reason of infectious diseases.

The fact remains, however, that the social mires of every large city teem with foreigners, and that among these masses the worst evils of municipal corruption find favourable soil, that all the sporadic outbreaks of anarchy are traceable to these foreigners, and that the army of the unemployed is mostly recruited from their number. These opinions were greatly strengthened when that change in the racial make-up set in which we have followed by statistics, and which a census of the poorer districts in the large cities quickly proves: Italians, Russian Jews, Galicians, and Roumanians everywhere. The unprejudiced American asks with some concern whether, if this stream of immigration is continued, it will not undermine the virility of the American people. The American nation will continue to fulfil its mission so long as it is inspired with a spirit of independence and self-determination; and this instinct derives from the desire of freedom possessed by all the Germanic races. In this way the German, Swedish, and Norwegian newcomers have adapted themselves at once to the Anglo-Saxon body politic, while the French have remained intrinsically strangers. Their number, however, has been very small. But what is to happen if the non-Germanic millions of Italians, Russians, and Turks are to pour in unhindered? It is feared that they will drag down the high and independent spirit of the nation to their low and unworthy ideals. Already many citizens wish to require of the immigrants a knowledge of the English language, or to make a certain property qualification by way of precaution against unhappy consequences, or perhaps to close entirely for awhile the portals of the nation, or, at least, to make the conditions of naturalization considerably harder in order that the Eastern European, who has never had a thought of political freedom, shall not too quickly receive a suffrage in the freest democracy of the world. And those most entitled to an opinion unconditionally demand at the least the exclusion of all illiterates.

Against all this there stand the convictions of certain rather broader circles of people who point with pride at that great American grist-mill, the public school, which is supposed to take the foreign youth into its hopper, grind him up quickly and surely, and turn him out into good American material. It is, in fact, astonishing to look at the classes in the New York schools down on the East Side, where there is not a child of American parentage, and yet not one who will admit that he is Italian, Russian, or Armenian. All these small people declare themselves passionately to be “American,” with American patriotism and American pride; and day by day shows that in its whole system of public institutions the nation possesses a similar school for the foreign-born adult. Grey-haired men and adolescent youths, who in their native countries would never have emerged from their dull and cringing existence, hardly touch the pavement of Broadway before they find themselves readers of the newspaper, frequenters of the political meetings, and in a small way independent business men; and they may, a few years later, be conducting enterprises on a large scale. They wake up suddenly, and although in this transformation every race lends its own colour to the spirit of self-determination, nevertheless the universal trait, the typical American trait, can appear in every race of man, if only the conditions are favourable.

In the same direction it is urged once more that America needs the labour of these people. If Southern and Eastern Europe had not given us their cheaper grades of workmen, we should not have been able to build our roads or our railroads, nor many other things which we have needed. In former decades this humble rÔle fell to the Germans, the Scandinavians, and the Irish, and the opposition against their admission was as lively as it now is against the immigrants from the south and east of Europe; while the development of the country has shown that they have been an economic blessing; and the same thing, it is said, will be true of the Russians and Poles. There are still huge territories at our disposal which are virtually unpopulated, untold millions can still employ their strength to the profit of the whole nation, and it would be madness to keep out the willing and peaceable workers. Moreover, has it not been the proud boast of America that her holy mission was to be a land of freedom for every oppressed individual, an asylum for every one who was persecuted? In the times then of her most brilliant prosperity is she to be untrue to her noble role of protectress, and leave no hope to those who have been deprived of their human rights by Russian or Turkish despots, by Italian or Hungarian extortionists, to disappoint their belief that at least in the New World even the most humble man has his rights and will be received at his true value? Thus the opinions differ, and public opinion at large has come as yet to no decision.

A curious feature in the immigration problem is the Chinese question, which has occasioned frequent discussion on the Pacific coast. The Chinaman does not come here to enjoy the blessings of American civilization, but merely in order to earn a competence in a short time so that he can return to his Asiatic home and be forever provided for. He does not bring his family with him, nor attempt in any way to adapt himself; he keeps his own costume, stays apart from his white neighbours, and lives, as for instance in the Chinese Quarter of San Francisco, on such meagre nourishment and in such squalid dwellings that he can save up wealth from such earnings as an American workman could hardly live on. A tour through the Chinese sleeping-rooms in California is in fact one of the most depressing impressions which the traveller on American soil can possibly experience. The individuals lie on large couches, built over one another in tiers, going quite up to the ceiling; and in twenty-four hours three sets of sleepers will have occupied the beds. Under such conditions the number of newcomers steadily increased because large commercial firms imported more and more coolie labour. Between 1870 and 1880 more than 122,000 had come into the country. Then Congress began to oppose this immigration, and since 1879 has experimented with various laws, until now the Chinese workman is almost wholly excluded. According to the last census there were only 81,000 Chinese in the whole United States.

More attractive than the yellow immigrants to these shores are the red-skinned aborigines of the land, the Indians, whom the Europeans found when they landed. The world is too much inclined, however, to consider the fate of the Indian in a false light, just because his manner of life captures the fancy and his picturesque barbarity has often attracted the poet. The American himself is rather inclined to see in his treatment of the Indian a grave charge against his own nation, and to find himself guilty of the brutal extermination of a native race. To arrive at such an opinion he assumes that in former centuries great tribes of Indians scoured the tremendous hunting-grounds of the land. But science has done away with this fanciful picture, and we know to-day that these millions of natives never existed. There are to-day about 270,000 Redskins, and it is very doubtful whether the number was ever much greater. It is true, of course, that between Central America and the Arctic Sea, hundreds of different Indian languages were spoken, and many of these languages have twenty or thirty different dialects. But the sole community in which such a dialect developed would include only a few hundred persons, and broad tracts of land would lie between the neighbouring communities. They used to live in villages, and wandered over the country only at certain seasons of the year in order to hunt, fish, and collect fruits.

As soon as the European colonies established themselves in the country the Indians used to take part in their wars, and on such occasions were supplied by the colonists with arms and employed as auxiliary forces. But the delights of these new methods of warfare, which they learned quickly, broke up their own peaceful life. The new weapons were employed for war between the Indian races, and eventually were turned by the Indians against the white settlers themselves. But, after all, the peaceful contact of Indians and whites was more productive of results. Only the French and Spanish permitted a mixture of the races, and in Canada especially to-day there is a mixed race of French and Indians; while in Mexico a large part of the inhabitants is Spanish and Indian. The truly American population sought above all else peaceably to disseminate its own culture; some Indian races became agricultural and devoted themselves to certain industrial pursuits.

Since the time when the United States gained actual possession of a larger part of the continent, a systematic Indian policy has been pursued, although administered largely, it must be admitted, in the American interests, and yet with considerable consideration of the natural inclinations of these hunting peoples. In various states, territories were set apart for them, which were certainly more than adequate to afford their sustenance; schools were built, and even institutions of higher learning; and through solemn treaties with their chiefs important rights were assigned to different races. To be sure, the main idea has always been to persuade the Indians to take up agricultural pursuits; to live merely by hunting flesh and eating wild fruits seemed hardly the thing at a time when millions of people were flocking westward out of Europe. Therefore, with every new treaty, the Indian reservations have been made smaller and smaller. The Indians, who would have preferred always to keep up their wild hunting life, felt, and still feel, that this has been unjust, and certainly many of their racial peculiarities have made it difficult to adapt American legal traditions fairly to their needs. The Indians had no idea of the private ownership of the soil; they considered everything as belonging to their tribe, and least of all had they any notion of the inheritance of property in the American sense. The Indian children belonged to the mother’s family and the mother never belonged to the tribe of the father.

Although all these sources of friction have led the Indian to feel unjustly treated, it is still true that there has been scarcely any actually destructive oppression. The very races which have been influenced most by American culture have developed favourably. Last year the Indian mortality was 4,728, and the number of births 4,742; the Indians are, therefore, not dying out. The largest community is in the so-called Indian Territory and consists of 86,000 people, while there are 42,000 in Arizona. The several Indian reservations together embrace 117,420 square miles.

The Indian question is the least serious problem of all those which concern population in America; by far the most difficult is the negro question. The Indian lives within certain reservations, but the negro lives everywhere side by side with the American. So also the Indian troubles are narrowly confined to a small reservation in the great field of American problems, but the negro question is met everywhere in American thought, and in connection with every American interest. There could hardly be a greater contrast than that between the Indian and the negro; the former is proud, self-contained, selfish and revengeful, passionate and courageous, keen and inventive. The negro, on the other hand, is subservient, yielding, almost childishly good natured, lazy and sensual, without energy or ambition, outwardly apt to learn, but without any spirit of invention or intellectual independence. And still one ought not to speak of these millions of people as if they were of one type. On the Gulf of Mexico there are regions where the black population lives almost wholly sunk in the superstitions of its African home; while in Harvard University a young negro student has written creditable essays on Kant and Hegel. And between these opposite poles exists a population of about nine millions.

The negro population of America does not increase quite so rapidly as the white, and yet in forty years it has increased two-fold. In the year 1860, before the slaves were freed, there were 4,441,000 blacks; in 1870, 4,880,000; in 1880, 6,580,000; in 1890, 7,470,000; in 1900, 8,803,000. In view of this considerable increase of the negro, it is not to be expected that the problem will lose anything of its urgency by the more rapid growth of the white population. And at the same time the physical contrast between the races is in no wise decreasing, because there is no mixing of the white and black races to-day, as there very frequently was before the war. It will not be long before the coloured population will be twice the entire population which Canada to-day has. These people are distributed geographically, so that much the largest part lives in those states which before the war practised slavery. To be sure, an appreciable part has wandered into the northern states, and the poorer quarters of the large cities are well infiltrated with blacks. Four-fifths, however, still remain in the South, owing probably to climatic conditions; the negro race thrives better in a warm climate. But it belongs there economically also, and has nearly every reason for staying there in future.

Nevertheless, the negro question is by no means a problem for the South alone; the North has its interests, and it becomes clearer all the time that the solution of the problem will depend in large part on the co-operation of the North. In the first place it was the North which set the negro free, and which, therefore, is partly responsible for what he is to-day; and it must lie with the North to decide whether the great dangers which to-day threaten can in any way be obviated. Europe has so far considered only one feature of the negro question—that of slavery. All Europe read “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and thought the difficulty solved as soon as the negro was freed from his chains and the poorest negro came into his human right of freedom. Europe was not aware that in this *wise still greater problems were created, and that greater springs of misery and misfortune for the negro there took their origin. Nor does Europe realize that opposition between whites and blacks has never been in the history of America so sharp and bitter and full of hatred as it is to-day. Just in the last few years the hatred has grown on both sides, so that no friend of the country can look into the future without misgivings. “Das eben ist die Frucht der bÖsen Tat.”

Yet where did the sin begin? Shall the blame fall on the English Parliament, which countenanced and even encouraged the trade in human bodies, or shall it fall on the Southern States, which kept the slaves in ignorance, and even threatened to punish any one who should instruct them? Or shall it fall on the Northern States, which were chiefly responsible for immediately granting to the freedmen, for the sake of party politics, all prerogatives of fellow-citizenship? Or shall the fault be put on the negro himself, who saw in his freedom from slavery an open door to idleness and worthlessness?

For generations the white man has regarded the black man as merchandise, has forcibly dragged him from his African jungles to make him work in ignorance and oppression on the cotton, rice, and tobacco fields of a white master. Then all at once he was made free and became an equal citizen in a country which, in its abilities, its feelings, its laws, and its Constitution, had the culture of two thousand years behind it. How has this emancipation worked on these millions? The first decade was a period of unrest and of almost frightened awakening to the consciousness of physical freedom, in the midst of all the after-effects of the fearful war. The negro was terrified by Southern secret societies which were planning vengeance, and confused by the dogmas of unscrupulous politicians who canvassed the states which had been so savagely shaken by the war, in order to gather up whatever might be found; and he was confused by a thousand other contradictions in public sentiment. Nowhere was there a secure refuge. Then followed the time in which the negroes hoped to employ their political power to advantage; the negroes were to be prospered by their ballot. But they found this to be a hopeless mistake. Then they believed a better way was to be found in the public schools and books. But the negro was again turned back; he needed not knowledge but the power to do, not books but a trade. So his rallying-cry has shifted. The blacks have never lost heart, and in a certain sense it must in justice be added the whites have never lacked good-will. And yet, after forty years of freedom, the results are highly discouraging.

On the outside there is much that speaks of almost brilliant success. The negroes have to-day in the United States 450 newspapers and four magazines; 350 books have been written by negroes; half of all the negro children are regularly taught in schools; there are 30,000 black teachers, school-houses worth more than $10,000,000, forty-one seminaries for teachers, and churches worth over $25,000,000. There are ten thousand black musicians and hundreds of lawyers. The negroes own four large banks, 130,000 farms, and 150,000 homes, and they pay taxes on $650,000,000 worth of real and personal property. The four past decades have therefore brought some progress to the freedman. And yet, in studying the situation, one is obliged to say that these figures are somewhat deceptive. The majority of negroes are still in such a state of poverty and misery, of illiteracy and mental backwardness, that the negroes who can be at all compared with the middle class of Americans are vanishingly few. Even the teachers and the doctors and pastors seem only very little to differ from the proletariat; and although there is many a negro of means, it is still a question whether he is able to enjoy his property, whether the dollar in his hand is the same as in the hand of a white man.

A part of the black population has certainly made real progress, but a larger part is humanly more degraded than before the slaves were freed; and if one looks at it merely as a utilitarian, considering only the amount of pleasure which the negroes enjoy, one cannot doubt that the general mass of negroes was happier under slavery. Their temperament is crueller to them than any plantation master could have been. The negro—we must have no illusions on that point—has partly gone backward. The capacity for hard work which he acquired in four generations of slavery, he has in large part lost again during forty years of freedom; although, indeed, the tremendous cotton harvests from the Southern States are gathered almost wholly by negro labour. It must be left to anthropology to find out whether the negro race is actually capable of such complete development as the Caucasian race has come to after thousands of years of steady labour and progress. The student of social politics need not go into such speculations; he faces the fact that the African negro has not had the thousands of years of such training, and therefore, although he might be theoretically capable of the highest culture, yet practically he is still unprepared for the higher duties of civilization. Under the severe discipline of slavery he overcame his lazy instincts and learned how to work both in the field and in the shop, according as the needs of his master required, and became in this way a useful member of society; but he was relieved of all other cares. His owner provided him with house and nourishment, cared for him in illness, and protected him like any other valuable piece of property.

All this was suddenly changed on the great day when freedom was declared; no one compelled the negro to work then; he was free to follow his instinct to do nothing; no one punished him when he gave himself over to sensuality and indolence. But on the other side nobody now took care of him; in becoming his own master he remained his own slave. He was suddenly pushed into the struggle for existence, and the less he was forced to learn the less he was ready for the fight. There thus grew up an increasing mass of poverty-stricken negroes, among whom immorality and crime could thrive; and oftentimes the heavy weight of this mass has dragged down with it those who would have been better. Worst of all, it has strengthened the aversion of the whites a hundred-fold, and the best members of the negro race have had to suffer for the laziness, the sensuality, and the dishonesty of the great masses.

The real tragedy is not in the lives of the most miserable, but in the lives of those who wish to rise, who feel the mistakes of their fellow-negroes and the injustice of their white opponents, who desire to assimilate everything high and good in the culture about them, and yet who know that they do not, strictly speaking, belong to such a culture. The negroes of the lower type are sunk in their indifference; they while away the hours in coarse enjoyments, and are perfectly content with a few watermelons while they dance and sing. The onlooker is disheartened, but they themselves laugh like children. The better negroes, on the other hand, feel all the hardship and carry the weight of the problem on their souls. They go through life fully conscious of an insoluble contradiction in their existence; they feel that it is denied them to participate immediately in life, and that they must always see themselves with the eyes of others, and lead in a way a double existence. As one of them has recently said, they are always conscious of being a problem.

They themselves have not chosen their lot, they did not come of their own accord from Africa, nor gladly take on the yoke of slavery; nor were they by their own efforts saved from slavery. They have been passive at every turn of fortune. Now they wish to commence to do their best and to give their best, and they have to do this in an environment for which they are wholly unprepared and which is wholly beyond them in its culture They have not themselves worked out this civilization; they belong historically in another system, and remain here at best mere imitators. And the better they succeed in being like their neighbours, the more they become unlike what they ought naturally to develop into.

This feeling of disparateness leads directly to the feeling of embitterment. In the general masses, however, it is the feeling of incompetence to support the struggle for existence successfully which turns necessarily into a bitter hatred of the whites. And the more the lack of discipline and the laziness of the black cause the whites to hold him in check, so much the more brightly burns this hatred. But all students of the South believe that this hatred has come about wholly since the negro was declared free. The slave was faithful and devoted to his master, who took care of him; he hated work, but did not hate the white man, and took his state of slavery as a matter of course, much as one takes one’s inability to fly. A patriarchal condition prevailed in the South before the war, in spite of the representations made by political visionaries. Indeed, it is sometimes difficult not to doubt whether it was necessary to do away with slavery so suddenly and forcibly; whether a good deal of self-respect would not have been saved on both sides, and endless hatred, embitterment, and misery spared, if the Northern States had left the negro question to itself, to be solved in time through organic rather than mechanical means. Perhaps slavery would then have gone gradually over into some form of patriarchal relation.

It is too late to philosophize on this point; doctrinarianism has shaped the situation otherwise. The arms of the Civil War have decided in favour of the North. It is dismal, but it must be said that the actual events of the ensuing years of peace have decided rather in favour of the view of the South. To comprehend this fully, it is not enough to ask merely, as we have done so far, how the negro now feels; but more specially to ask what the American now thinks.

What is to-day the relation between the white man and the negro? There is a difference here between the North and the South, and yet one thing is true for both: the American feels that the cleft between the white and black races is greater now than ever before. So far as the North is concerned, the political view of the problem has probably changed very little. Specially the New England States, whose exalted ethical motives were beyond all doubt—as perhaps is not so certain of the Middle States—still sympathize to-day with the negro as a proper claimant of human rights. But unfortunately one may believe in the negro in the abstract, and yet shrink from contact with him in the concrete. The personal dislike of the black man, one might even call it an Æsthetic antipathy, is really more general and wide-spread in the North than in the South. South of Washington one can scarcely be shaved except by a negro, while north of Philadelphia a white man would quite decline to patronize a coloured barber. A Southerner is even not averse to having a black nurse in the house, while in the Northern States that would never be thought of. Whenever the principle is to be upheld, the negro is made welcome in the North. He is granted here and there a small public office; he delivers orations, and is admitted to public organizations; he marches in the parades of war veterans, and a few negroes attend the universities. And still there is no real social intercourse between the races. In no club or private house and on no private occasions does one meet a negro. And here the European should bear specially in mind that negroes are not seldom men and women whose faces are perhaps as white as any Yankee’s, and who often have only the faintest taint of African blood.

At the very best the Northerner plays philanthropist toward the negro, takes care of his schools and churches, helps him to help himself, and to carve out his economic freedom. But even here the feeling has been growing more and more in recent years that the situation is somehow fundamentally false, and that the North has acted hastily and imprudently in accepting the emancipated negro on terms of so complete equality. The feeling of dissatisfaction is growing in the North, and it is not an accident that the negro population of the North grows so slowly, although the negro is always ready to wander, and would crowd in great numbers to the North if he might hope to better his fortunes there. The negro feels, however, intensely that he is still less a match for the energetic Northerner in the industrial competition than for the white man of the South, and that it is often easier to endure the hatred of the Southerner than the coldly theoretical sufferance of the Northerner when joined, as it is, with a personal distaste so pronounced.

In the South it is quite different. There could hardly be an Æsthetic aversion for the race, when for generations blacks and whites have lived together, when all the servants of the home have been coloured, and the children have grown up on the plantations with their little black playmates. There has been a good deal in the easy good-nature of the negro which the Southern white man has always found sympathetic, and he responded in former times to the disinterested faithfulness of the slaves with a real attachment. And although this may have been such fondness as one feels for a faithful dog or an intelligent horse, there was in it, nevertheless, no trace of that physical repulsion felt by the Northerner. The same is fundamentally true to-day, and the rhetorical emphasis of the physical antipathy toward the black which one finds in Southern speeches is certainly in part hypocritical. It is true that even to-day the poorest white man would think himself too good to marry the most admirable coloured woman; but the reason of this would lie in social principles, and not, as politicians would like to make it appear, in any instinctive racial aversion, since so long as the negroes were in slavery the whites had no aversion to such personal contamination.

The great opposition which now exists is two-fold: it is on the one hand political and on the other social. The political situation of the South has been indeed dominated in the last forty years by the negro question. There have been four distinct periods of development; the first goes from the end of the Civil War to 1875. It was the time when the negro had first received the suffrage and become a political factor, the most dreary time which the South ever knew. It was economically ruined, was overrun with a disgusting army of unscrupulous politicians, who wanted nothing but to pervert the ignorant coloured voters for the lowest political ends. The victorious party in the North sent its menials down to organize the coloured quarry, and by mere numbers to outdo all independent activities of the white population.

One can easily understand why a Southern historian should say that the Southern States look back without bitterness on the years of the war, when brave men met brave men on the field of battle; but that they are furious when they remember the years which followed, when the victors, partly out of mistaken philanthropy, partly out of thoughtlessness and indifference, and partly out of evil intent, hastened to put the reins of government into the hands of a race which was hardly out of African barbarism; and thus utterly disheartened the men and women who had built up the splendid culture of the Old South. Perhaps there was no phase of American history, he says, so filled with poetry and romantic charm as the life of the South in the last ten years before the war; and certainly no period has been so full of mistakes, uncertainties, and crime as the decade immediately following. A reaction had to come, and it came in the twenty years between 1875 and 1895. The South betook itself to devious methods at the ballot-box. It was recognized that falsification of election returns was an evil, but it was thought to be a worse evil for the country to be handed over to the low domination of illiterate negroes. The political power of the negro has been broken in this way. Again and again the same method was resorted to, until finally the public opinion of the South approved of it, and those who juggled with the ballot-box were not pursued by the arm of the law, because the general opinion was with them.

There has been another and more important fact. Slowly all party opposition between the whites vanished, and the race question became the sole political issue. To be sure, there have been free-traders and protectionists in the South, and representatives of all other party principles; but all genuine party life flagged and all less important distinctions vanished at the ballot-box when the whites rallied against the blacks, and since the negroes voted invariably with the Republican party, which had set them free, the entire white population of the South has become Democratic. By this political consolidation, the power of the negro has been further restricted.

People have gradually become convinced, however, that political life stagnates when large states have only the one fixed idea, as if hypnotized by the race issue. The need has been felt anew of participating once more in all the great problems which interest the nation and which create the parties. The South looks back longingly on the time when it used to furnish the most brilliant statesmen of the nation. The South has become also aware that so soon as public opinion allows a systematic corruption of the ballot-box, then every kind of selfishness and corruption has an easy chance to creep in.

Let once the election returns be falsified in order to wipe out a negro majority, and they may be falsified the next time in favour of some commercial conspiracy. An abyss opens up which is truly bottomless. So a third period has arrived. In place of nullifying the negro suffrage by illegal means, the South has been thinking out legal measures for limiting it. The Constitution prescribes merely that no one shall be deprived of his vote by reason of his colour, but it has been left to the several states to determine what the other conditions shall be which govern the right to vote. Thus any state is free to place a certain property condition, or to require a certain degree of education from every man who votes; but all such conditions must apply to all inhabitants of the state alike; thus, for instance, in four states, and only in those four, do women enjoy the suffrage. Now the Southern States have commenced to make extensive use of this state privilege. They are not allowed to exclude the negro as a negro since the Northern States have added the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution, and there would be no hope of altering this. But so long as the educational status of the negro is so far behind that of the white man, the number of those who cannot read is still so large that a heavy blow is struck at negro political domination when a state decides to restrict the suffrage to those who can read and understand the Constitution. It is clear that at the same time the test of this which necessarily has to be made leaves the coveted free-play to the white man’s discretion.

The last few years have witnessed a great advance of this new movement. The political power of the negro is less than ever, and the former illegal measures to circumvent it are no longer needed. It cannot be denied that in two ways this works directly in the interests of civilization. On the one hand, it incites the negro population to take measures for the education of its children, since by going to school the negro can comply with the conditions of suffrage. On the other hand, it frees Southern politics from the oppressive race question, and allows real party problems to become once more active issues among the whites. The political contrast is, therefore, to-day somewhat lessened, although both parties regard it rather as a mere cessation of hostilities; since it is by no means certain that Northern political forces at Washington will not once more undo this infringement on the negroes’ rights, and whether once more, in case of a real party division between the Southern whites, the negroes will not have the deciding vote. If the doctrinarianism of the North should actually prevail and be able to set aside these examinations in reading and in intelligence which have been aimed against the negro, on the ground that they are contrary to the Constitution, it would indeed frustrate a great movement toward political peace. When the abolitionists at the end of the Civil War granted the suffrage to the negroes, they were at least able to adduce one very good excuse; they claimed that the Southern States would continue in some new form to hold the negro in subjection if he was not protected by either a military guard or by his right to vote, and since the army was to be disbanded the right to vote was given him. To-day there is no such danger; the legal exclusion of the Southern negro from the ballot-box must be accounted an advance.

The social question, however, is even more important to-day than the political one, and it is one which grows day by day. We have said already that the Southerner has no instinctive aversion to the negro race, and his desire for racial purity is not an instinct but a theory, of which the fathers of the present white man knew nothing. To be sure, the situation cannot be simply formulated, but it probably comes nearest to the truth to say that the white man’s hatred is the inherited instinct of the slave-holder. In all his sentiments the Southerner is dominated by the once natural feeling that the negro is his helpless subject. The white man is not cruel in this; he wants to protect the negro and to be kind, but he can allow him no will of his own. He has accustomed himself to the slavish obedience of the negro, as the opium-eater is accustomed to his opium. And to give up the paralyzing drug is intolerable to his nervous system.

The everywhere repeated cry that the purity of the race is in danger, if social equality is established, is only a pretext; it is in truth the social equality itself which calls forth the hysterical excitement. No white man, for instance, in the South would go into the dining-room of a hotel in which a single negro woman should be sitting; but this is not because a mere proximity would be disagreeable, as it would actually be to the Northerner, but because he could not endure such appearance of equality. So soon as a little white child sits beside the negro woman, so that she is seen to be a servant and her socially inferior station is made plain, then her presence is no longer felt to be at all disagreeable.

In his fight against social equality with the negro, the Southerner resorts to more and more violent means; and while he works himself up to an increasing pitch of excitement by the energy of his opposition, the resulting social humiliation increases the embitterment of the negro. That no white hotel, restaurant, theatre, or sleeping-car is open to the black is a matter of course; this is virtually true also in the North. But it has contributed very much to renewed disaffection, that also the ordinary railroad trains and street cars begin to make a similar distinction.

The South is putting a premium on every kind of harsh social affront to the black man, and relentlessly punishes the slightest social recognition. When the president of a negro college was the guest of a Northern hotel and the chamber-maid refused to put his room to rights and was therefore dismissed, the South got together, by a popular subscription, a large purse for this heroine. It is only from this point of view that one can understand the great excitement which swept through the South when President Roosevelt had the courage to invite to his table Booker T. Washington, the most distinguished negro of the country. Professor Basset, the historian, has declared, amid the fierce resentment of the South, that, with the exception of General Lee, Booker Washington is the greatest man who has been born in the South for a hundred years. But who inquires after the merits of a single man when the principle of social inequality is at stake? If the President had worked for several months from early to late at his desk with Booker T. Washington, the fact would have passed unnoticed. But it is simply unpardonable that he invited him to the luncheon table, and even very thoughtful men have shaken their heads in the opinion that this affront to the social superiority of the white man will very sadly sharpen the mutual antagonism.

We must not overlook in this connection the various minor circumstances which have strengthened the lingering feeling of the slave-owner. First of all, there is the unrestrained sensuality of the negro, which has led him time after time to attempt criminal aggressions on white women, and so contributed infinitely to the misery of his situation. It is a gross exaggeration when the Southern demagogue reiterates again and again that no man in the South can feel that his wife, his sister, or daughter is secure from the bestiality of the blacks; and yet it cannot be denied that such crimes are shockingly frequent, and they are the more significant, since the continual fear of this danger seriously threatens the growth of farming life with its lonely farm-houses. Here the barbarities of lynch law have come in, and the rapid growth of racial hatred may be seen in the increased number of lynchings during recent years. But every lynching reacts to inoculate hatred and cruel ferocity in the public organism, and so the bestial instincts and the lawless punishments work together to debase the masses in the Southern States.

It is not only a question of the immorality of the negro and the lynch courts of the white man, but in other ways the negro shows himself inclined to crime, and the white man to all sorts of lawless acts against him. The negroes are disproportionately represented in Southern prisons, although this comes partly from the fact that the black man is punished for the slightest misdemeanour, while the white man is readily let off. In fact, it is difficult in the South to find a jury to convict a white man of any crime done against a negro. This application of a two-fold standard of justice leads quickly to a general arbitrariness which fits only too well with the natural instincts of the slave-holder. Arbitrary privileges in place of equal rights have always been the essential point in his existence, and so it happens that even where no negroes are in question Southern juries hand down verdicts which scandalize the whole country. Indeed, there is no doubt that secret attempts have even been made, in all sorts of devious forms, to re-establish the state of slavery. For some small misdemeanour negroes are condemned to pay a very heavy fine, and to furnish this they have to let themselves out to some sort of contract labour under white masters, which amounts to the same thing as slavery. Here again the whole country is horrified when the facts come to be known. But no means have yet been thought of for lessening the bitter hatred which exists, and so long as the sharp social contrast remains there will continue to be evasions and violations of the law, to give vent to the hatred and bitter feeling.

What now may one look for, that shall put an end to these unhappy doings? The Africans have had their Zionists, who wish to lead them back to their native forests in Africa, and many people have recently fancied that the problem would be solved by forcible deportation to the Philippines. These dreams are useless; nine million people cannot be dumped on the other side of the ocean, cannot be torn from their homes. Least of all could they be brought to combine with the entirely different population of the Philippines. More than that, the South itself would fight tooth and nail against losing so many labourers; it would be industrially ruined, and would be more grievously torn up than it was after the Civil War, if in fact some magic ship could carry every black to the negro republic of Liberia, on the African coast. For the same reason it is impracticable to bring together all negroes in one or two Southern States and leave them to work out their own salvation. In the first place, no state would be willing to draw this black lot, while the white population of the other Southern States would suffer fully as much. The student of social politics, finally, cannot doubt for a moment that the negro progresses only when he is in constant contact with white men, and degenerates with fearful speed when he is left to himself.

Among those negroes who have been called to be the leaders of their people, and who form an independent opinion of the situation, one finds two very different tendencies. One of these is to reform from the top down, the other from the bottom up. The energies of Dubois are typical of the first tendency, Booker Washington’s of the second. Dubois, and many of the most educated and advanced negroes with him, believe in the special mission of the negro race. The negro does not want to be, and ought not to be, a second order of American, but the United States are destined by Providence to develop two great and diverse but co-operating peoples, the Americans and the negroes. It is therefore the work of the African not simply to imitate the white man’s culture, but to develop independently a special culture suited to his own national traits. They feel instinctively that a few great men of special physiognomy, two or three geniuses coming from their race, will do more for the honour of their people and for the belief in its possibilities, than the slow elevation of the great mass. They lay strong emphasis on the fact that in his music, religion, and humour the negro has developed strongly individual traits, and that the people who forty years ago were in slavery have developed in a generation under unfavourable circumstances a number of shining orators, politicians, and writers. Thus they feel a most natural ambition to make away for the best and strongest, to elevate them, and to incite them to their highest achievements. The ideal is thus, in the work of the most gifted leaders to present to the world a new negro culture, by which the right of independent existence for the black race in America may be secured.

Booker Washington and his friends wish to go a quieter road; and he has with him the sympathies of the best white people in the country. They look for salvation not from a few brilliantly exceptional negroes, but from the slow and steady enlightenment of the masses; and their real leaders are to be not those who accomplish great things as individuals, but rather they who best serve in the slow work of uplifting their people. These men see clearly that there are to-day no indications of really great accomplishments and independent feats in the way of culture, and that such things are hardly to be looked for in the immediate future. At the very best it is a question of an unusual talent for imitating an alien culture.

If, then, one can hardly speak of brilliant genius in the upper strata—and it is to be admitted that Booker Washington himself is not a really great, independent, and commanding personality—it would be on the other hand much more distorted to estimate the negro from his lowest strata, from the lazy and criminal individuals. The great mass of negroes is uneducated and possesses no manual training for an occupation; but it is honest, healthy, and fit social material, which only needs to be trained in order to become valuable to the whole community. First of all, the negro ought to learn what he has once learned as a slave—a manual trade; he should perfect himself in work of the hands or in some honest agricultural occupation, not seek to create a new civilization, but more modestly to identify his race with the destinies of the white nation by real, honest, thoughtful, true, and industrious labour. Brilliant writers they do not need so much as good carpenters and school-teachers; nor notable individual escapades in the tourney-field of culture so much as a general dissemination of technical training. They need schools for manual training and institutes for the development of technical teachers.

Booker Washington’s own institution in Tuskegee has set the most admirable example, and the most thoughtful men in the North and South alike are very ready to help along all his plans. They hope and believe that so soon as the masses of coloured people have begun to show themselves somewhat more useful to the industry of the country as hand-workers, expert labourers, and farmers, that then the mutual embitterment will gradually die out and the fight for social equality slowly vanish. For on this point the more thoughtful men do not deceive themselves; social equality is nothing but a phrase when it is applied to the relation of millions of people to other millions. Among the whites themselves no one ever thinks of any real social equality; the owner of a plantation no more invites his white workmen in to eat with him than he would invite a coloured man. And when the Southern white replies scornfully to any one who challenges his prejudices, with the convincing question, “Would you let your sister marry a nigger?” he is forgetting, of course, that he himself would not let his sister marry nine-tenths of the white men of his community. Social equality can be predicated only of small groups, and in all exactness only of individuals.

Thus it might be said that peace is advanced to-day chiefly by the increasing exertions for the technical industrial education of the black workman. But it is not to be forgotten that the negro himself, and with him many philanthropists of the North, comprehends the whole situation very differently from the Southern supporters of the movement. These latter are contented with recent tendencies, because the negro’s vote is curtailed in the political sphere, and because he comes to be classed socially with the day-labourer and artisan. The negro, however, looks on this as a temporary stage in his development, and hopes in good time to outgrow it. He is glad that the election returns are no longer falsified on his account, and that legal means have been resorted to. But of course he hopes that he will soon grow beyond these conditions, and be finally favoured once more with the suffrage, just as any white man is.

It is much the same in the social sphere. He may be satisfied for the present that the advantages of manual training and farm labour are brought to the fore, but this must only be to lead his race up step by step until it has developed from a mere working class to entire social equality. That which the negro approves for the moment is what any white man in the Southern States would fix as a permanent condition. And so it appears that even in this wise no real solution of the problem has been reached, although a cessation of hostilities has been declared. But all these efforts on the part of leaders and philanthropists, these deliberations of the best whites and blacks in both the North and South, are still far from carrying weight with the general public; and thus, although the beginnings toward improvement are good, it remains that on the outside the situation looks to-day darker than ever before.

Whoever frees himself from theoretical doctrines will hardly doubt that the leading whites of the Southern States have to-day once more the better insight, since they know the negro better than the Northerners do. They demand that this limitation of the negro in his political rights and in his daily occupation shall be permanent, and that thus an organic situation shall come about in which the negro, although far removed from an undeserved slavery, shall be equally far from the complete enjoyment of that civilization which his own race has not worked out. That is, he is to be politically, economically, and socially dependent. If this had happened at the outset, the mutual hatred which now exists would never have been so fierce; and if the African succeeds materially he will hardly notice the difference, while the white man will feel with satisfaction that his superiority has been vindicated. The condition of the island of Jamaica is a good instance in point. Its inhabitants are strikingly superior to the debased negroes of the Republic of Hayti.

But it is not to be forgotten that history has repeatedly shown how impossible it is for a people numbering millions, with limited rights, to dwell in the midst of an entirely free race. Oppression and injustice constantly arise from the limitation of rights, and thence grow retaliation and crime. And the hour in which the American people narrow down the rights of ten million blacks may be the starting-point for fearful struggles. The fact remains that the real solution of the question is nowhere in sight. The negro question is the only really dark cloud on the horizon of the American nation.

The problems of population, especially those concerning the immigration and the negro, have taken considerable of our attention. We shall be able to survey problems of internal politics more quickly, since we have already met most of them in considering the American form of government. The insane programme of those who desire no government at all, that is, anarchy, is one of the American’s political problems only when the deed of some foreign assassin gives him a sudden fright. Then all sorts of propositions are on foot to weed out anarchism stem and root; but after a little time they subside. One sees how difficult it is to draw the lines, and the idea of suppressing free political speech is too much against the fundamental principles of the American democracy. But the fundamental principles of anarchism, or rather its fundamental confusions, have so little hope of influencing the conservative ideas of the Americans, that there need be no fear of anarchism creeping into the national mind. In so far as there is any such problem in America, it is connected solely with the question of immigration. Up to the present time, the government has been content to forbid acknowledged anarchists to land; but this involves such an un-American intermeddling with private convictions that the regulation will hardly be tolerated much longer. The true American, in any case, believes in state ordinances and loves his governmental machinery.

This apparatus itself of government has many details which offer problems, indeed, and are much discussed. Some of its elements have been added recently by President Roosevelt; the most important of them is the newly created Department of Commerce and Labour. This new division of the government, with over ten thousand officials, embraces also the Bureau of Corporations, which is designed to collect statistics regarding trusts and the overcoming of their influence; but the struggle promises to be a two-sided one. To the present administration belongs also the creation of a general staff for the Army, and on this head there seems to be a unanimous opinion that the Army is distinctly benefited by the measure. In some other directions, moreover, the make-up of the Army has become more similar to European models; new schools of war have been founded and the plan of holding great manoeuvres introduced. The weakness of the military system is that preferments go according to seniority. It is clear to all that a merely mechanical advancement of officers is not advantageous to the military service; and yet everybody is afraid, if the uniform principle is given up and personal preferment is introduced, that all sorts of regrettable political and social influences will be brought to bear in the matter. Many persons see a difficult problem here; the young officer has almost no incentive to-day to special exertions.

The government has more and various plans with regard to the Navy. There, too, it seems as if a general staff similar to that of the Army is indispensable. The steady growth of the Navy itself is assured, since everyone recognizes that America could not carry out its present policy without a strong fleet. The fleet, which dates virtually from 1882, won the hearts of the imperialistic public by its victories at Manila and Santiago; and its growth is nowhere seriously opposed. Likewise, the Navy is introducing more large manoeuvres. The real difficulty lies in lack of men; it becomes more and more difficult to get officers and sailors; and even in the question of manning a ship, the inevitable negro question plays a part.

There are many open questions also in regard to the diplomatic and consular service. The United States maintains an uncommonly large number of consuls, whose enterprise is nowhere contested, but whose preparation, tact, and personal integrity often leave a good deal to be desired. Their remuneration through fees contributes a good deal toward creating unwholesome conditions. The personnel of the diplomatic service is perhaps still more unequal than that of the consular. Since early times the United States has had the discernment to send some of its most distinguished men to fill important ambassadorial positions. At a time when the international relations of the country were still insignificant, such a position was often given to distinguished authors and poets, who represented their country at a foreign court in an intellectual and cultivated way, and contributed much to its esteem. This can happen no longer, and yet America has had again and again the good fortune to send to diplomatic positions men of uncommon caliber; scholars like Andrew D. White, statesmen like John Hay, and brilliant jurists like Choate. The danger still subsists, however, that men who are merely rich, and who have done small services to Senators, expect in return a diplomatic appointment, for the sake of the social glory. There is a growing desire to make the diplomatic service a regular career, in which a man progresses step by step.

As to the postal service, the foremost problem is now that of free delivery in rural districts. The tremendous extent of the country and the thinness of its population had at first made it a matter of course that the farmer should fetch his own mail from the nearest village. The rural letter-carrier was unknown, as he is still unknown in small towns; every man in the village goes to the post-office to get his newspapers and letters. But like every country at the present time, the United States is trying to check the continual afflux of population into the cities. It is obvious that specially with the intellectual make-up of the American, every effort must be made to make rural life less monotonous and tiresome, and that it is necessary most of all to establish ready communication between the remote farm-houses and the rest of the world. The more frequently and easily the farming people receive their letters and magazines, so much the less do they feel tempted to leave the soil. For this reason the very expensive rural delivery has spread rapidly. In the last year nine thousand new appointments were made in this service. Another important problem connected with the Post-Office is the fact that it does not pay for itself, because it carries printed matter at unprofitably low rates, and in this way has stimulated to an extraordinary degree the sending of catalogues and advertising matter. One can see how far this goes from the fact that a short time ago a factory for medicine sent out so many copies of a booklet advertising its specific through the so-called “testimonials,” that a railway train with eight large freight cars was necessary to carry them to the nearest post-office. Part of the difficulty comes from the private ownership of the railroads, whose contracts with the government for carrying the mails involve certainly no loss to the stockholders.

In similar wise, all of the great departments of government have their problems, large or small, and the most important of these must be dealt with when we come to speak of the economic situation. But there is one problem that is common to all branches of the government; it is the most important one which concerns internal affairs, and although it is discussed somewhat less actively to-day than in former years, it continues none the less in some new form or other to worry the parties, the government, and more especially public opinion. It is the question of civil-service reform.

We have touched on this question before when we spoke of the struggles between parties, and of the motives which bring the individual into the party service. Some things remain to be said by way of completely elucidating one of the most important problems of American public life. To commence with, if we abstract from the civil service in city and state—although the question is much the same there—that is, if we take into account only the federal service—we find over a hundred thousand official appointments: and the question is—Shall these appointments, with their assured salaries, be distributed to adherents of the party in power, chiefly with reference to their services to the party, or shall these positions be removed from all touch with the parties and given to the best and ablest applicants? It is clear that the problem could easily be so exhibited that the appointment of the best and most capable applicant, without reference to his party, should seem to be absolutely and unequivocally necessary, and as if any other opinion could proceed only from the desire to work corruption. The situation is not quite so simple, however.

In the first place, every one is aware that the highest administrative positions are invariably places of confidence, where it is very necessary that the incumbent shall be one in thought and purpose with the Executive; and this is more than ever necessary in a democracy composed of two parties. If the majority of the people elects a certain President in order to carry out the convictions of one party in opposition to the other, the will of the people would be frustrated if the upper members of the governmental staffs were not to be imbued with the same party ideas. A Republican President could not work together with a Democratic Secretary of State without sacrificing the efficiency of his administration, and struggling along on such compromises as would ultimately make meaningless the existence of two organized parties. A Republican Secretary of State must have, however, if he is to be spared a good deal of friction, an assistant secretary of state with whom he is politically in harmony; and so it goes on down.

But if we begin at the bottom and work up, the situation looks different. The book-keeper to the ministry, the small postal clerk, or the messenger boy in the treasury, has no opportunity to realize his personal convictions. He has merely his regular task to perform, and is not immediately concerned whether the policy of state is Republican or Democratic, imperialistic or anti-imperialistic. We have then to ask—Where lie the boundaries between those higher positions in which the private convictions of the incumbents ought properly to be with the administration, and those lower positions where party questions are in no way involved?

Opinions vary very widely as to where this boundary lies. Some put it rather low, and insist that the American by his whole political training is so thoroughly a creature of the party, that true harmony in state offices can be had only if the whole service from top to bottom is peopled with adherents of the ruling party; and this opinion, although it may be refuted on good grounds, is neither absurd nor dishonest. The population of Germany is divided to-day into a civil and a social-democratic party, and it appears to the dominant civil party by no means unnatural to exclude the social-democrats so far as possible from participation in the public service.

It is quite possible, moreover, for each party to furnish competent incumbents for all the leading positions; and so long as capable men can be found who will acquit themselves well in office, there is of course no reason for charging the party with greed or spoils-gathering, as if the public funds were a pure gift, and it were unworthy to accept an official appointment given in recognition of services to the party. We have already emphasized how extremely German conceptions differ from American on this point, and how the customary reiteration in Germany of the unfavourable comments made by certain American reform enthusiasts, leads to much misunderstanding. It is well-known that Germany has, for instance, for the university professors a system of state appointment, which rests wholly on personal recommendation; this in sharp contrast to England, where the candidates for every vacant chair must compete, and where no one can be called who does not compete; or with France, where the positions are awarded on the basis of an examination.

The considerations which we have stated are not at all to be taken as an argument against civil-service reform, but only as an indication that the problem is complicated and has its pros and cons. In fact, the grounds for the widest possible extension of a civil-service independent of party are many and urgent. In the first place, the service itself demands it. The appointments by party are really appointments on the basis of recommendations and wishes of political leaders. The Senators, for instance, from a certain state advise the President as to who should be appointed for postmasters in the most important post-offices; and the smaller positions are similarly filled on the recommendation of less influential politicians.

Therefore, it is only to a limited extent that there is any real estimation of the capacity and fitness of the proposed incumbent. Public opinion is always watchful, however, and the politician is generally afraid to press an appointment which he knows would be disapproved by public opinion, or which would later be seen to be absurd, would damage his own political credit, and perhaps even wreck his political future.

It is equally true that the political parties have become expert in sifting human material and finding just the right people for the places; and that, moreover, the American with his extraordinary capacity for adaptation and organization easily finds himself at home in any position and fills it creditably. And yet it remains, that in this way the best intentioned appointer works in the dark, and that a technical examination would more accurately select the fittest man from among the various candidates.

Most of all, by this method of appointment on the ground of political influence, where the petitions of the incumbent’s local friends, commendatory letters from well-known men, and the thousand devices of the wire-puller play an important part, the feeling of individual responsibility is always largely lost. The head of the department must rely on local representatives, and these politicians again know that they do not themselves actually make the appointments; and the candidate is put into office with no exertion on his own part—almost passively.

It is not to be denied that in this way many an unworthy man has come to office. The very lowest political services have been rewarded with the best positions. Political candidates have had to promise before their election to make certain appointments to office which had nothing at all to do with the fitness of the appointee; and such appointee, when actually instated, has not only neglected his office, but sometimes criminally misused it for embezzlement and fraudulent contracts, for government deals in which he has had some personal advantage, or for the smuggling in of friends and relatives to inferior positions. Politicians have too often sought to exact all sorts of devious personal and political services from those whom they have previously recommended for office in order to hush them up. Through the intrigues of such men all sorts of unnecessary positions have been created, in order to provide for political friends from the public treasury; and the contest for these personal nominations has consumed untold time and strength in the legislative chambers. No one can fail to see that such sores will develop over and over in the political organism so long as the principle is recognized of making official appointments on the basis of party allegiance. While criminal misuse of such a practice is the exception, and the honourable endeavour to pick out the best candidates and their honest performance of duty are the rule, nevertheless every thoughtful friend of the country’s welfare must wish to make all such exceptions impossible.

There is another unfavourable effect which such a system must have, within the party itself. A man who is put into office by politicians, unless he is a strong man, will labour in the interests of his benefactors, will carry party politics into places where they do not belong, and be ready to let the party rob him of a certain portion of his salary as a contribution to the party treasury, as has been customary for a long time. In this way salaries have been increased in order that a considerable portion might redound to the party treasury, and thus the means be won for bringing the party victoriously through the next elections; and in this way the official has been able to assure himself as good an office, or perhaps a better one, in the future. The same thing happens once more in city politics where the funds levied on city officials have made a considerable share of the party’s assets. There has been good reason, therefore, why public opinion has for a long time demanded, and with increasing energy, an entire change in such a state of things; and aside from the positions of actual confidence, in which in fact only men of a certain political faith could be of any service, it has demanded that public offices be put on a non-partisan basis and given out with a view solely to the efficiency of the appointee.

Such a problem hardly existed during the first forty years of American constitutional government; officials were appointed in a business-like way. A man in office stayed there as long as he did his duties well, and the advent of a new party in the higher positions had very little influence on the lower ones. It was deemed tyranny to dismiss a competent official in order to put a party adherent in his position. The statistics show that at that time not more than forty-two changes on the average were made on such political grounds every year. The opposite practice first arose in the cities, and especially in New York, whence it spread to the state, where in 1818 a whole regiment of party followers was established in the government offices of the state by Van Buren. And under President Jackson the principle finally became adopted in the federal government. About the year 1830, it became an unwritten law that official positions should be the spoils of victory at the elections and go to the favoured party. People were aware that there was no better way of getting party adherents to be industrious than to promise them positions if they would help the party to gain its victory. The reaction commenced at about the middle of the last century, closely following on a similar movement in England.

As the power of the English Parliament grew, popular representatives had demanded their share in the distributing of offices, and an obnoxious trading in salaries had become prevalent. When at last the abuses became too frequent, just before the middle of the last century, England instituted official examinations in order to weed out the obviously unfit candidates. It was not really a true competition, since the candidate was still appointed to office by the politicians. But the examination made sure of a minimal amount of proper training.

The American Congress followed this example during the fifties. Certain groups of minor positions were made, for which appointment could be had only after an examination. England now went further on the same course, and America followed her lead. On both sides of the ocean the insignificant examination of the candidate who had backing, became a general examination for all who wished to apply; so that the position came to be given to the best candidate. The Civil-Service Commission was instituted by President Grant, and for thirty years its beneficent influence has steadily grown, and it has made great inroads on the old system. The regular politicians who could not endure being deprived of the positions which they wished to pledge to their campaign supporters have naturally tried time after time to stem the current, and with some success. In 1875 Congress discontinued the salaries which had been paid the Commissioners; then competitive examinations were given up, and in their stead single examinations instituted for candidates who had been recommended by political influence.

But here, if anywhere, public opinion has been stronger than party spirit. Under President Hayes, and then under Garfield and Arthur, the competitive system was partly reinstated, and while the number of positions which were open only to those who had successfully passed the public examinations increased, at the same time the reprehensible taxation of officials for party ends was finally stopped. This did not prevent a certain smaller number of positions from retaining their partisan complexion; and the opinions and party creed of these incumbents continued to be important, so that whenever one party succeeded another, a certain amount of change was still necessary. So there remain two great divisions of the public service—the political offices which the President fills by appointment in co-operation with the Senate, and the so-called “classified” offices which are given out on the basis of public examinations. Public opinion and the sincere supporters of civil-service reform, among whom is President Roosevelt himself, are working all the time for an increase in the number of classified positions and a corresponding decrease in the political group.

The open opponents of this movement, of whom there are many in both parties, are hard at work in the opposite direction, and are too often supported by the faint-hearted friends of the reform, who recognize its theoretical advantages, but have some practical benefit to derive by pursuing the methods which they decry. There is no doubt that again in the last ten years some steps have been taken backward, and on various pretexts many important positions have been withdrawn from the classified service and restored to Senatorial patronage.

The actual situation is as follows. There are 114,000 non-classified positions, with a total salary of $45,000,000, and 121,000 classified positions which bring a salary of $85,000,000. Among the former, where no competition exists, over 77,000 are postmasterships; then there are consular, diplomatic, and other high positions, and a large number of places for labourers. In the classified service, there are 17,000 positions for officials who live in Washington, 5,000 of which are in the treasury. The committees on the commission have about 400 different kinds of examinations to give. Last year 47,075 persons were examined for admission to the civil service; 21,000 of these for the government service, 3,000 for the customs, and 21,000 for the postal service. There were about 1,000 examinations more for advancements in office and exchange from one part of the service to another, and 439 persons were examined for service in the Philippines. Out of all these applicants 33,739 passed the examinations, and of these 11,764 obtained positions which are theirs for life, independent of any change which may take place at the White House. It is a matter of course that the security which these positions give of life-long employment is the highest incentive to faithful service and conscientious and industrious labour.

The difference between the two services was again clearly brought out in the last great scandal, which greatly stirred up the federal administration. The Post-Office Department had closed a number of contracts for certain utensils from which certain officials, or at least their relatives, made considerable profits. Everything had been most discreetly hidden, and it took an investigation of several months to uncover the crookedness. But when everything had come out, it appeared that the officials who were seriously involved all belonged to the unclassified service, while the classified service of the Post-Office was found to be an admirable example of conscientious and faithful office-holding. Certain it is that such criminal misuse, even among the confidential positions, is a rare exception; it is no less sure that the temptations are much greater there. A man who holds office, not because he is peculiarly fitted for it, but because he has been generally useful in politics, knowing as he does that the next time the parties change places his term of office will be up, will always be too ready to use his position for the party rather than for the country, and finally for himself and his pocket-book rather than for his party.

Now, if civil-service reform is to spread or even to take no steps backward, public opinion must be armed for continual battle against party politicians. But it is an insult to the country when, as too often happens, some one tries to make it appear that the opponents of reform are consciously corrupt. The difficulty of the problem lies just in the fact that most honourable motives may be uppermost on both sides; and one has to recognize this, although one may be convinced that the reformer has the better arguments on his side. The filling of positions by party adherents, as a reward for their services, puts an extraordinary amount of willing labour at the service of the party. And undoubtedly the party system is necessary in America, and demands for its existence just such a tremendous amount of work. The non-classified positions are to the American party politicians exactly what the orders and titles which he can award are to the European monarch; and the dyed-in-the-wool party leader would in all honesty be glad to throw overboard the whole “humbug” of civil-service reform, since he would rather see his party victorious—that is, his party principles acknowledged in high federal places—than see his country served as economically, faithfully, and ably as possible. In fact, the regular party politician has come to look on the frequent shake-up among office-holders as an ideal condition. Just as no President can be elected more than twice, he conceives it to be unsound and un-American to leave an official too long in any one position.

The full significance of the problem comes out when one realizes that the same is true once more in the separate state, and again in every municipality. The states and cities have their classified service, appointment to which is independent of party allegiance, as of governor or mayor, and in addition to this confidential positions for which the governor and legislature or the mayor and city council are responsible. Municipal service has attracted an increasing amount of public attention in recent years, owing to the extremely great abuses which it can harbour.

Fraudulent contracts, the grant of handsome monopolies to street railway, gas, electric-light, telephone, and pier companies, the purchase of land and material for public buildings, and the laying out of new streets—all these things, owing to the extraordinarily rapid growth of municipalities, afford such rich opportunities for theft, and this can be so easily hidden from the state attorney, that frightfully large numbers of unscrupulous people have been attracted into public life. And the more that purely municipal politics call for a kind of party service which is very little edifying or interesting to a gentleman in frock and silk hat, so much the more other kinds of men force their way into politics in large cities and get control of the popular vote, not in order to support certain principles, but to secure for themselves positions from the winning party, of which the salary is worth something and the dishonest perquisites may be “worth” a great deal more. Even here again the service to the city is not necessarily bad, and certainly not so bad as the scandal-mongering press of the opposite party generally represents it. Most of the office-holders are decent people, who are contented with the moderate salary and modest social honour of their positions. Nevertheless, a good deal that is impure does creep in, and the service would be more efficient if it could be made independent of the party machine. Public opinion is sure of this.

Each party is naturally convinced that the greatest blame belongs with the other, and in strict logic one can no more accuse one party of corruption than the other. The Republican party in a certain sense whets the general instinct for greed more than the Democratic, so that its opponents like to call it “the mother of corruption.” It is a part of the Republican confession of faith, in consequence of its centralizing spirit, that the state cannot leave everything to free competition, but must itself exert a regulating influence; thus the Republican does not believe in free-trade, and he thinks it quite right for an industry or any economic enterprise which is going badly, or which fancies that it is not prospering enough, or which for any reason at all would like to make more money, to apply to the state for protection, and to be favoured at the expense of the rest of the community. The principle of complete equality is here lost, and the spirit of preference, of favours for the few against the many, and of the employment of public credit for the advantage of the avaricious, is virtually recognized. And when this spirit has once spread and gone through all party life, there is no way of preventing a situation in which every one applies to the public funds for his own enrichment, and the strongest industries secure monopolies and influence the legislatures in their favour by every means which the party has at its disposal.

The Democrats, on the other hand, desire equal rights for all, and free competition between all economic enterprises; they approve of all centrifugal and individualistic tendencies. And yet if the state does not exert some regulative influence, the less moral elements of society will misuse their freedom, and they will be freer in the end than the citizens who scrupulously and strictly govern themselves. And the spirit of unrestraint and immorality will be ever more in evidence. The Democratic party will be forced to make concessions to this idea if it desires to retain its domination over the masses, and any one who first begins to make concessions to individual crookedness is necessarily inoculated. Thus it happens that in the Republican party there is a tendency to introduce corruption from above, and in the Democratic party from below.

If in a large town, say, the Republican party is dominant, the chief public enemies will be the industrial corporations, with their tremendous means and their watered securities; but if the Democratic party is uppermost, the worst enemies will be the liquor dealers, procurers, and gamblers. Correspondingly, in the former case, the honour of the city council which closes huge contracts with stock companies will succumb, while in the latter it will be the conscience of the policeman on the corner who pockets a little consideration when the bar-keeper wants to keep open beyond the legal hour. And since the temptation to take small bribes are ten thousand times more frequent than the chances for graft on a large scale, the total damage to public morals is about the same in both cases. But we must repeat once more that these delinquencies are after all the exception rather than the rule, and happily are for the most part expiated behind the bars of a penitentiary.

Most of all, it must be insisted that public opinion is all the time following up these excrescences on party life, and that public opinion presses forward year by year at an absolutely sure pace, and purifies the public atmosphere. All these evil conditions are easy to change. When Franklin came to England he was alarmed to see what fearful corruptions prevailed in English official life; such a thing was unknown at that time in America. Now England has long ago wiped out the blot, and America, which fell into its political mire a half-century later, will soon be out again and free; just as it has got rid of other nuisances. Every year brings some advance, and the student of American conditions should not let himself be deceived by appearances.

On the surface, for instance, the last mayoralty election in New York City would seem to indicate a downward tendency. New York two years previously had turned out the scandalous Tammany Hall gang with Van Wyck and his brutal extortionist, Chief of Police Devery, by a non-partisan alliance of all decent people in the city. New York had elected by a handsome majority Seth Low, the President of Columbia University, to be its mayor, and thereby had instated the principle that, the best municipal government must use only business methods and be independent of political parties. Seth Low was supported by distinguished reformers in both parties, and was brilliantly successful in placing the entire city government on a distinctly higher level. The public schools, the general hygiene, the highways, and the police force were all thoroughly cleansed of impure elements and reformed without regard to party, on the purest and most business-like principle.

And then came the day for another election. Once more the independent voters, including the best men in both parties, the intellectual leaders and the socially dominant forces of the city, were banded together again to save their city of three million inhabitants from party politics, and to insure by their co-operation a continuance of the honest, business-like administration. They made Seth Low their candidate again; he was opposed by McClellan, the candidate of Tammany Hall, the party which loudly declares that “To the victors belong the spoils,” and that the thousands of municipal offices are to be the prey of party adherents. This was the candidate of the party which admitted that all the hopes of the worst proletariat, of prostitution and vagabondage, depended on its success; the candidate of a party which declared that it would everywhere rekindle the “red light,” that it would not enforce the unpopular temperance laws, and that it would leave the city “wide open.” On the day of election 251,000 votes were cast for Mayor Low, but 313,000 for Colonel McClellan.

Now, does this really indicate that the majority of the city of New York consists of gamblers, extortioners, and criminals? One who read the Republican campaign literature issued before the election might suppose so. After reading on every street corner and fence and on giant banners the campaign cry, “Vote for Low and keep the grafters out,” one might think that 300,000 pick-pockets had united to force out a clean administration and to place corruption on the throne. But on looking more closely at the situation one must see that no such thing was in question. Seth Low had furnished a clean administration, yet not a perfect one, and his mistakes had so seriously disaffected many citizens that they would rather endure the corruption of Tammany Hall than the brusqueness and various aggravations which threatened from his side.

Of these grievances, a typical one was the limitation of German instruction in the public schools. From the pedagogical point of view, this was not wholly wrong; and leading educationists, even German ones, had recommended the step. But at the same time the great German population was bitterly offended, and the whole discussions of the school board had angered the German citizens enough to cool off considerably their enthusiasm for reform. Then on top of this, Low’s administration had rigorously enforced certain laws of Sunday observance which the German part of the population cordially hated. Here, too, Mayor Low was undoubtedly right; he was enforcing the law; but when two years previously he had wished to win over the German vote, he had promised more than he could fulfill. But, most of all, Seth Low was socially an aristocrat, who had no common feeling with the masses; and whenever he spoke in popular assemblies he displayed no magnetism. Every one felt too keenly that he looked down on them from his exalted social height.

Against him were the Tammany people, of whom at least one thing must be said: they know the people and their needs. They have grown up among the people. In contrast to many a Republican upstart who, according to the European fashion, is servile to his superiors and harsh with his inferiors, these Tammany men are harsh to their superiors—that is, they shake the nerves of the more refined—but are servile before the masses and comply with every wish. And most of all, they are really the friends of the populace, sincerely true and helpful to it. Moreover, just these great masses have more to suffer under a good administration than under the corrupt government which lets every one do as he likes. These people do not notice that the strict, hygienic administration reduced the death-rate and the list of casualties, and improved the public schools; but they notice when for such improvements they have to pay a cent more in taxation, or have to put safer staircases or fire-escapes on their houses, or to abandon tottering structures, or if they are not allowed to beg without a permit, or are forbidden to throw refuse in the streets. In short, these people notice a slight expense or an insignificant prohibition, and do not see that in the end they are greatly benefited. And so, when the day of reckoning comes, when the election campaigns are fought, in which distinguished reformers deliver scholarly addresses on the advantages of a non-partisan administration while the candidates of the people excite them with promises that they shall be free from all these oppressive burdens—it is no wonder that Seth Low is not returned to the City Hall, and that McClellan, who by the way is a highly educated and cultured politician, is entrusted with the city government.

Such an outcome is not a triumph for vice and dishonour. In two years the reformers will probably conquer again, since every administration makes its enemies and so excites opposition. But there can be no doubt that even on this occasion public opinion, with its desire to reform, has triumphed, although the official friends of reform were outdone; such a man as the former Chief of Police, Devery, will be impossible in the future. Public opinion sees to it that when the two parties stand in opposition the fight is fought each successive time on a higher level. And Tammany of to-day as compared with the Tammany of years gone by is the best evidence for the victory of public opinion and the reformers.

The attitude of America in international affairs can hardly be referred to any one special trait of mind. If one were to seek a simple formula, one would have to recognize in it a certain antithesis of mood; an opposition which one encounters in the American people under the most varied circumstances, and which perhaps depends on the fact that it is a people which has developed an entirely new culture, although on the basis of the high culture of the Old World. When we come to speak of American intellectual life we shall have again to consider this extraordinary combination of traits. The people are youthful and yet mature; they are fresher and more spontaneous than those of other mature nations, and wiser and more mature than those of other youthful nations; and thus it is that in the attitude of the Americans toward foreign affairs the love of peace and the delight in war combine to make a contrast which has rarely been seen. Doubtless there is an apparent contradiction here, but this contradiction is the historical mark of the national American temperament; and it is not to be supposed that the contradiction is solved by ascribing these diverse opinions to diverse elements in the population, by saying, for instance, that one group of citizens is more warlike, another more peaceable; that perhaps the love of hostile interference springs from the easily excited masses, while the love of peace is to be sought in their more thoughtful leaders, or that perhaps, on the other hand, the masses are peaceably industrious while their leaders draw them into war.

Such is not at all the case. There is not any such contrast between the masses and the classes; personal differences of opinion there are and some individuals are more volatile than others, but the craze for expansion in its newest form finds strong supporters and violent opponents in all parties and occupations. The most characteristic feature is, that just those who show the love for war most energetically are none the less concerned, and most earnestly so, for the advance of peace. President Roosevelt is the most striking example of the profound combination of these opposing tendencies in one human breast.

Every movement toward peace, in fact every international attempt toward doing away with the horrors of war, has found in the New World the most jealous and enthusiastic supporters; whenever two nations have come to blows the sympathies of the Americans have always been on the side of the weaker nation, no matter which seemed to be the side of justice. And the mere circumstance that two nations have gone to war puts the stronger power in a bad light in the eyes of America.

The nation has grown strong by peaceful industry; its greatest strength has lain in trade and the arts, its best population has come across the ocean in order to escape the military burdens of Europe; and the policy of the founders of the Republic, now become a tradition, was always to hold aloof from any dealings with the quarrelsome continent of Europe. During the short time of its existence, the United States has settled forty-nine international disputes in a peaceable court of arbitration, and oftentimes these have been in extremely important matters; and America has been a party in over half of the disputes which have been settled before a court of arbitration in recent times. America was an important participant in the founding of the Peace Tribunal at The Hague. When negotiations for that tribunal threatened to be frustrated by the opposing nations of Europe, the American government sent its representatives to the very centre of the opposition, and won a victory for the side of peace.

It is almost a matter of course that it is the munificent gift of an American which has erected a palace at The Hague for this international Peace Tribunal. While the European nations are groaning under the burden of their standing armies, and are weakened by wars over religious matters or the succession of dynasties, happy America knows nothing of this; her pride is the freedom of her citizens, her battles are fought out at the ballot-box. The disputes between sects and royal houses are unknown in the New World; its only neighbours are two oceans on the east and west, and on the north and south good friends. No end of progress remains to be made, but everything works together under the protection of the American Constitution to produce a splendid home in the New World for peace. America is the one world power which makes for peace; and it will only depend on the future growth of this nation, which has been ordained to become such an example, whether the idea of peace will finally prevail throughout the world over the immoral settlement of disputes by mere force of arms.

All this is not merely the programme of a party or of a group of people, but the confession of faith of every American. The American finds no problem here, since none would dispute the contention. It has all impressed itself so fully on the consciousness of the American people that it gives to the whole nation a feeling of moral superiority. Nor is this merely the pathos uttered in moral orations; it is the conviction with which every child grows up and with which every farmer goes to his plough, every artisan and merchant to his machine and desk, and the President to his executive chamber. And this conviction is so admirable that it has always been contagious, and all Europe has become quite accustomed to considering the Republic across the water as the firmest partisan of peace. The Republic has in fact been this, is now, and always will be so; while the riddle is—how it can be such a friend of peace when it was conceived in war, has settled its most serious problems by war, has gone to war again and again, has almost played with declarations of war, is at war to-day, and presumably will be at war many times again.

The Spanish war has shown clearly to European onlookers the other side of the shield, and many have at once concluded that the boasted American love of peace has been from the first a grand hypocrisy, that at least under McKinley’s administration an entirely new spirit had suddenly seized the New World. But McKinley’s predecessor, Cleveland, in the disputes arising between England and Venezuela, had waved the sabre until it hissed so loudly that it was not at all due to the American love of peace but rather to England’s preoccupation in the Transvaal which prevented the President’s message and the national love of interference from stirring up a war. And it is now several years since the successor of McKinley moved into the White House, yet McKinley’s war is still going on; for although a war has never been officially declared in the Philippines, war seems the only correct name for the condition which there prevails.

This Philippine question is a real political problem. That America is to serve the interests of peace is certain; every one is agreed on that; and the great majority of the people was also enthusiastically in favour of ending the Spanish misrule in Cuba. But the same is not true of the war in the Philippines, and becomes less true every day. The enthusiasts have subsided, the masses have become indifferent, while the politicians carry on the discussion; and since it is a question of motives which cannot be put aside for the present, and which at any time may so excite the nation as to become the centre of political discussion, it is well worth while to look more fully into these points.

The imperialists say that the events in the Pacific Ocean have followed exactly the traditions of the land; that expansion has always been a fundamental instinct of the nation; that its whole development shows that from the day when the Union was founded it commenced to increase its territory. The tremendous expansion gained by the purchase of Louisiana was followed by the annexation of Florida, and still later by that of the great tract called Texas. In the war with Mexico the region between Texas and California was acquired. Alaska was next gathered in. The narrow strip originally occupied by the Thirteen States became a huge country within a century, and thus the nation simply remains true to its traditions in stretching out over the ocean and carrying the Stars and Stripes toward Asia.

To this the anti-imperialists reply, on the contrary, that the United States is repudiating an honourable history and trampling down that which has been sacred for centuries. For if there has been any underlying principle at all to guide the United States in moments of perplexity, it has been a firm faith in the rights of people to govern themselves. The United States has never exchanged or acquired a foot of land without the consent of those who dwelt thereon. Where such lands have held nothing but the scattered dwellings of isolated colonists there existed no national consent to be consulted, and where there were no people no national self-government could come in question; neither Louisiana, California, nor Alaska was settled by a real nation, and Texas had of itself decided to become independent of Mexico. But the Philippines are inhabited by ten million people, with striking national traits and an organized will; and the United States, for the first time in history, now misuses its strength by oppressing another nation and forcing its own will on a prostrate people.

Now the imperialists reply they do not mean at all to dispute the right of self-government, a principle on which the greatness of our nation is founded. But it is a narrow and absurd conception of self-government which regards every people, however backward and unruly, capable thereof, and divinely privileged to misrule itself. The right of self-government must be deserved; it is the highest possession of civilized nations, and they have earned it by labour and self-discipline. The Americans derive their right to govern themselves from the toil of thirty generations. The Filipinos have still to be educated up to such a plane. To this the anti-imperialists enquire, Is that to be called education which subdues, like rebels, a people desirous of freedom? Are you helping those people by sending soldiers to assert your sovereignty?

And the imperialists reply again that we have sufficiently shown, in the case of Cuba, how seriously we take our moral obligations toward weaker peoples. When we had done away by force of arms with all Spanish domination in America, and had Cuba quite in our power, all Europe was convinced that we should never relax our hold, and that the war would result simply in a mere annexation of the rich island; in short, that we should pursue a typical European policy. But we have shown the world that America does not send her sons to battle merely for aggrandizement, but only in a moral cause; just as we demanded of the conquered Spaniards no indemnity, so we have made a general sacrifice for Cuba. We have laboured tirelessly for the hygiene and the education of the island, have strengthened its trade and awakened to new life the country which had been desolated by Spanish misrule, and, having finished the work, we have restored to Cuba her freedom and her right of self-government; and we recognize that we owe a similar duty to the Philippines. We have not sought to obtain those islands. At the outset of the war no American foresaw that the island kingdom in the tropics, ten thousand miles away, would fall into our hands; but when the chain of events brought it about, we could not escape the call of duty. Were we to leave the discontented Philippine population once more to the cruelty of their Spanish masters, or were we to displace the Spaniards and then leave the wild race of the islands to their own anarchy, and thus invoke such internal hostilities as would again wipe out all the beginnings which had been made toward culture? Was it not rather our duty to protect those who turned to us, against the vengeance of their enemies, and before all else to establish order and quietude? The anti-imperialists retort—the quietude of a grave-yard. If America’s policy had been truly unselfish, it should have made every preparation for dealing with the Philippines as it had dealt with Cuba; instead of fighting with the Filipinos we should at once have co-operated with Aguinaldo and sent over a civil instead of a military regiment. Nor is the world deceived into supposing that our boasted civil rule in the Philippines is anything more than a name, used in order somewhat to pacify the sentimentalists of the New England States; while in reality our rule is a military one, and the small success of a few well-meaning civil officials merely distracts the world’s attention from the constant outbreaks of war. We have not worked from the point of view of the Philippines, but from that of the United States.

The imperialists answer that it is no disgrace to have been patriotic to our Fatherland; the national honour requires us, indeed, to remain for the present in the Philippines, and not to take down the flag which we have hoisted so triumphantly. We should not flee before a few disaffected races living in those islands. Then the other side replies, you have not protected the honour of your nation, but you have worked its disgrace. The honour of America has been the moral status of its army; it was America’s boast that its army had never lost the respect of an enemy, and that it had held strictly aloof from every unnecessary cruelty. But America has learned a different lesson in the Philippines, and such a one as all thoughtful persons have foreseen; for when a nation accustomed to a temperate climate goes to the tropics to war with wild races which have grown up in cruelty and the love of revenge, it necessarily forgets its moral standards, and gives free rein to the lowest and worst that is in it. The American forces have learned there, to their disgrace, to conquer by deception and trickery; to be cruel and revengeful, and so return torture for torture.

Then the imperialists say that this is not a question of the army which was landed in the tropical islands, but of the whole American people, which undertook new duties and responsibilities for the islands, and wished to try, not only its military, but also its political, economic, and social powers along new lines. A people also must grow and have its higher aspirations. The youthful period of the American nation is over; manhood has arrived, when new and dangerous responsibilities have to be assumed. To this the anti-imperialists reply, that a nation is surely not growing morally when it gives up the principles which have always been its sole moral strength. If it gives up believing in the freedom of every nation and carries on a war of subjugation, it has renounced all moral development, and instead of growing it begins internally to decay. But this, the imperialists say, is absurd—since, outwardly, at least, we are steadily growing; our reputation before other nations is increasing with our military development; we have become a powerful factor in the powers of the world, and our Philippine policy shows that our navy can conquer even in remote parts of the earth, and that in the future America will be a power to reckon with everywhere. But, on the contrary, say the others, our nation held a strong position so long as, in accordance with the Monroe Doctrine, it was able to keep any European power from getting a foothold on the American continents, and so long as we made the right of self-government a fundamental principle of our international politics. But the instant we adopted a policy of conquest and assumed the right to subjugate inferior peoples because our armies were the stronger, the Monroe Doctrine became at once and for the first time an empty phrase, if not a piece of arrogance. We are no better than the next nation; we have no right to prevent others from acting like ourselves, and we have sacrificed our strong position, and shall be led from war to war, and the fortunes of war are always uncertain.

The imperialists reply somewhat more temperately:—Ah, but the new islands will contribute very much to our trade. Their possession means the beginning of a commercial policy which will put the whole Pacific Ocean at the disposal of the American merchant. Who can foresee what tremendous developments may come from availing ourselves of regions lying so advantageously? When Congress in 1803 started to buy the great Province of Louisiana from France, there were also narrow-minded protests. At that time, too, anti-imperialists and fanatics became excited, and said that it was money thrown away; the land would never be populated. While to-day, a hundred years later, the world prepares to celebrate the anniversary of the purchase of Louisiana by a magnificent exposition at St. Louis—a transaction which has meant for the country a tremendous gain in wealth and culture. America is destined to be the mistress of the Pacific Ocean, and as soon as the canal is built across the isthmus the economic importance of the Philippines will appear more clearly every day. The anti-imperialists deny this. The financial statement of the entire war with Spain to the present moment shows that $600,000,000 have been wasted and ten thousand young men sacrificed without any advantage being so much as in sight. Whereto the imperialists reply:—There are other advantages. War is a training. The best thing which the nation can win is not riches, but strength; and in the very prosperity of America the weakening effect of luxury is greatly to be feared. The nerves of the nation are steeled in the school of war, and its muscles hardened. But the other side says that our civilization requires thousands of heroic deeds of the most diverse kinds, more than it needs those of the field of battle; and that the American doctrine of peace is much better adapted to strengthen the moral courage of the nation and to stimulate it than the modern training of war, which, in the end, is only a question of expenditure and science. What we chiefly need is serious and moral republican virtue. The incitements toward acquisition and the spirit of war, on the other hand, destroy the spirit of our democracy, and breed un-American, autocratic ambitions. War strengthens the blind faith of the leaders in their own dictatorial superiority, and so annihilates the feeling of independence and responsibility in the individual; and this is just the way for the nation to lose its moral and political integrity. The true patriotism which our youth ought to learn is not found in noisy jingoism, but in the silent fidelity to the Declaration of Independence of our fathers.

Thus the opinions are waged against one another, and so they will continue to be. We must emphasize merely again and again that that majority which to-day is on the side of the imperialists believes at the same time enthusiastically in the international movement for peace, and quite disinterestedly favours, as far as possible, the idea of the peace tribunal. Most of all, the treatment of Cuba certifies to the honourable and peaceful tendencies of the dominant party. That which was done under Wood’s administration for the hygiene of a country which had always been stricken with yellow fever, for the school and judicial systems of that unfortunate people, is remarkable; and the readiness with which the new republic was afterward recognized, and with which, finally, by special treaties extensive tariff reductions were made to a people really dependent on trade with America, makes one of the most honourable pages in American history. And all this happened through the initiative of these same men whose Philippine policy has been styled in the Senate Napoleonic. Thus the fact remains that there is an almost inexplicable mixture in the American nature of justice and covetiveness, conscience and indifference, love of peace and love of war.

The latest phase in expansion has been toward the south. America has assumed control of Panama. Constitutionally, the case is somewhat different here. Panama belonged to the Republic of Colombia, and when the government of Colombia, which conducts itself for the most part like the king and his advisers in a comic opera, tried to extort more money than was thought just from Washington before it would sign the treaty giving the United States a right to build a canal through Panama, and at first pretended to decline the treaty altogether, a revolution broke out in the part of the country which was chiefly affected. Panama declared itself an independent state, and the United States recognized its claim to independence, and concluded the canal treaty, not with Colombia, but with the upstart government of Panama. This was really part and parcel of the general imperialistic movement. We need not ask whether the American government encouraged Panama to secede; it certainly did nothing of the sort officially, although it is perfectly certain that the handful of people in Panama would not have had the slightest chance of escaping unpunished by Colombia if it had not been for American protection; indeed, it seemed to feel sure beforehand that the United States would keep Colombia at bay. And in fact, the baby republic was recognized with all the speed of telegraph and cable, and the treaty was signed before Panama had become quite aware of its own independence; while at the same time Colombia’s endeavour to bring the rebellious district into line was suppressed with all the authority of her mighty neighbour.

It is not to be denied that this transaction called into play new principles of international politics; nor can it be excused on the ground that new governments have been quickly recognized before. Never before had the United States declared a rebellion successful so long as the old government still stood, and the new one was able to hold out only by virtue of the interference of the United States itself. It is to be admitted that this was an imperialistic innovation, as was the subjugation of the Filipinos. But we should not be so narrow as to condemn a principle because it is new. All past history makes the expansion of American influence necessary; the same forces which make a state great continue to work through its later history. America must keep on in its extension, and if the methods by which the present nations grow are necessarily different from those by which the little Union was able to stretch out into uninhabited regions a hundred years ago, then, of course, the expansion of the twentieth century must take on other forms than it had in the nineteenth. But expansion itself cannot stop, nor can it be altered by mere citations from the Declaration of Independence, or pointings to the petty traditions of provincial days. The fight which the anti-imperialists are waging is thoroughly justified in so far as it is a fight against certain outgrowths of such expansion which have appeared in the Philippines, and most of all when it is against the loss to the Republic, through expansion, of its moral principles and of its finer and deeper feelings through the intoxication of power. But the fight is hopeless if it is waged against expansion itself. The course of the United States is marked out.

It requires no special gift of prophecy to point out that the next expansion will be toward the north. Just as the relations in Panama were fairly obvious a half year before the catastrophe came, the suspicion cannot be now put by that at a time not far hence the Stars and Stripes will wave in the northwestern part of Canada, and that there too the United States will be unwilling to lower its flag.

A newspaper is published in Boston which announces every day, at the top of the page, in bold type, that it is the first duty of the United States to annex Canada. On the other hand, one hears the opinion that nothing could be worse for the United States than to receive this immense, thinly populated territory even as a gift. There are the same differences of opinion on the other side of the boundary; some say that the Canadians are glad to be free from the problems which face the United States, from its municipal politics, its boss rule in political parties, and from the negro and Philippine questions, and that Canadian fidelity to the English Crown is not to be doubted for a moment. While others admit quite openly that to be annexed to the United States is the only natural thing that can happen to Canada. The immediate future will probably see some sort of compromise. It is wholly unlikely that the eastern part of Canada, in view of all its traditions, will prove untrue to its mother country; whereas the western part of Canada is under somewhat different economic conditions; it has so different a history, and is to-day so much more closely related to the United States than to England that the political separation will hardly continue very long. The thousands who have gone from the United States across the Canadian frontier in order to settle the unpeopled Northwest will, in the not distant future, give rise to some occasion in which economic and political logic will decree a transfer of the allegiance of Western Canada, with the exception of a narrow strip of land along the Pacific Coast. The area of the United States would then include a new region of about 250 million acres of wheat lands, of which to-day hardly two millions are in cultivation.

The Canadian problem, of course, arose neither to-day nor yesterday. The first permanent colony in Canada was a French colony, begun in the year 1604. Frenchmen founded Quebec in the year 1608, and French settlements developed along the St. Lawrence River. In the year 1759 General Wolfe conquered Quebec for the English, and in the following year the whole of Canada fell into their power. English and Scotch immigrants settled more and more numerously in Upper Canada. The country was divided in 1791 in two provinces, which were later called Ontario and Quebec; and in 1867, by an act of the British Parliament, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia were made into one country. A short time thereafter the government of the new country bought the possessions of the Hudson Bay Company, and soon afterward the large western region called Manitoba was organized as a distinct province. In 1871 British Columbia was taken in, and in the eighties this extensive western land was divided into four provinces. During this time there were all sorts of interruptions, wars with the Indians, and disputes over boundaries; but there has never been open warfare between Canada and the United States. The many controversies that have arisen have been settled by treaty, and a court of arbitration met even recently in London to settle a dispute about boundaries which for many years had occasioned much feeling. It was a question whether the boundary of the Northwest should lie so as to leave to Canada a way to the coast without crossing United States territory. The boundaries were defined by the treaties as lying a certain distance from the coast; was this coast meant to be mainland, or was it coastline marked out by the off-lying groups of islands? This was a question of great economic importance for a part of Canada. The court decided in favour of the United States, but the decision does not belong on one of the most honourable pages of American history. It had been agreed that both England and the United States should appoint distinguished jurists to the court of arbitration; and this the English did, while the United States sent prejudiced politicians. This has created some embitterment in Canada, and the mood is not to-day entirely friendly, although this will doubtless give way in view of the great economic development which works toward union with the United States.

Such a union would be hindered very much more by the friendly relations existing between the United States and England. At the time when the family quarrel between mother and daughter countries had made an open breach, it seemed almost certain that America would take the first good opportunity of robbing England of her Canadian possessions. Even before the early colonies decided on revolution, they tried to draw the northern provinces into their train. And when the new Union was formed, it seemed a most natural thing for all English speaking inhabitants of the American Continent to participate therein. It was no friendliness toward England that diverted the expansion of the young country toward the south rather than toward the north. It was rather the influence of the Southern States of the Federation which encouraged the expansion toward the south, because in that way their adjacent territory was increased, and therewith the number of the slave states represented in Congress; and the institution of slavery was thereby better protected from Northern interference. England was the hereditary foe of the country for an entire century, and every school boy learned from his history book to hate England and to desire revenge. But this has been wholly changed in recent years by the sympathy which John Bull showed during the Spanish war, and by his far-seeing magnanimity shown on a hundred occasions. There are already preparations making for a special court of arbitration to sit on all Anglo-American disputes, and the mood of the American people is certainly inclined to avoid everything that would unnecessarily offend England. American politicians would thus hesitate very long before attempting so bold a step as the annexation of Canada; and thus it is that the Canadian problem gets into the programme of neither party. Another consideration which perhaps makes a difference is that no party is quite sure which side would be the gainer; whether among the millions of people in the Canadian West there would be found to be more Republicans or Democrats. Therefore, Canada is not now an issue between the parties. Nevertheless, the problem grows more and more important in public opinion, and however much Congress may be concerned to avoid a war with England, and determined never deliberately to bring about any disloyalty in Canada, we may be certain that once the American farmers and gold miners in Northwestern Canada have set the pro-American ball rolling, then the general mood will speedily change and the friendly resolutions toward England which will be proposed by Senators will sound very feeble.

The most natural desire, which seems to be wide-spread, is for reciprocity with Canada. Both countries are aware that they are each other’s best purchasers, and yet they put difficulties in the way of importing each other’s products. American industry has already invested more than $100,000,000 for branch factories in Canada, in order to avoid duties; and the industry of New England would doubtless be much benefited if Canadian coal might be delivered duty-free along the Atlantic coast; nevertheless, the chief disadvantages in the present arrangements fall to Canada. A treaty was concluded in 1854 which guaranteed free entrance to the markets of the United States for all Canadian natural products, and during the twelve years in which the treaty was in force, Canadian exports increased fourfold. Then the American protective tariff was restored; and while, for example, the agricultural products which Canada sold to the United States in 1866 amounted to more than $25,000,000, they had decreased by the beginning of the twentieth century to $7,367,000; and all Canadian exports to the United States, with the exception of coin and precious metals, in spite of the tremendous growth of both countries, had increased at the same time only 5 per cent. Canada, on the other hand, contented herself with modest duties, so that the commerce of the United States with Canada has increased from $28,000,000 in the year 1866 to $117,000,000 in the year 1900. The necessary result of this policy of exclusion on the part of the United States has necessarily been closer economic relations between Canada and England. The Canadian exports to Great Britain have increased steadily, and the bold plans of those who are to-day agitating a tariff union for all Great Britain would, of course, specially benefit Canadian commerce.

But the United States knows this, and does not fail to think on the future. The agitation for new commercial treaties with Canada does not spring from the supporters of free-trade, but from some most conservative protectionists, and may be ascribed even to McKinley and Dingley; and this agitation is steadily growing. On the other hand, Canada is by no means unanimously enthusiastic for the universal British reciprocity alliance. The industrial sections of Eastern Canada see things with different eyes from the agrarians of Western Canada, and opinions are just as diverse as they are in England. The economic needs of the East and West are so fundamentally different, and since the West so greatly needs reciprocity, it is coming more and more to look for a solution of this problem by seeking, through a union of the West with the United States, all that which England cannot offer. The government of Canada, which comprises remarkably effective and intelligent men, is aiming to nip the incipient disaffection of the West in the bud, by means of its railroad policy. Railroad lines connect to-day the western portion of Canada much more closely with the eastern portion than with the northern parts of the United States.

The economic possibilities of Western Canada are enormous, and would suffice for a population of a hundred million. The supply of lumber exceeds that of the United States. Its gold regions are more extensive, its coal and iron supplies are inexhaustible, its nickel mines the richest in the world; it has twice the supply of fish of the United States, and its arable lands could feed the population of the United States and Europe together. Everything depends on making the most of these possibilities, and the Canadian of the West looks with natural envy on the huge progress which the entirely similar regions of the United States are making, and is moved to reflect how different things would be with him if only the boundary lines could be altered.

More than anything else, however, the Westerner feels that a spirit of enterprise, industrial energy, and independent force is needed to exploit these enormous natural resources, such as the inhabitants of a dependent colony can never have. Even when a colony like Canada possesses a certain independence in the administration of its own affairs, it is still only the appearance and not the fact of self-government. One sees clearly how colourless and dull the intellectual life of Canada is, and how in comparison with the very different life of England on the one hand, and of the United States on the other, the colonial spirit saps and undermines the spirit of initiative. The people do not suffer under such a rule; they do not feel the political lack of fresh air, but they take on a subdued and listless way of life, trying to adapt themselves to an alien political scheme, and not having the courage to speak out boldly. This depression is evinced in all their doings; and this is not the spirit which will develop the resources of Western Canada. But this infinite, new country attracts to its pioneer labours fresh energies which are found south of the Canadian line and across the ocean. The Scotch, Germans, Swedes, and especially Americans emigrate thither in great numbers. The farmers in the western United States are to-day very glad to sell their small holdings, in order to purchase broad tracts of new, fresh ground in Canada, where there is still no lack of room. They will be the leaders in this new development of the West. And while they bring with them their love of work and enterprise, they are of course without sympathy with Canadian traditions; nor do they feel any patriotism toward the country: their firmest convictions point toward such political freedom as the United States offers. Whether the tariff schemes of England will be able to win back some advantages for Canada, only the future can say. It is more likely that inasmuch as the Philippine agitation has extended the influence of the United States into the tropics, the climatic equilibrium will be restored by another extension into the Canadian Northwest.

The relations of the United States to Cuba and to the Philippines, to Panama and to Canada, have been regulated by the immediate needs of the country without bringing into special prominence any general principles. Economic interest and general ethics have so far sufficed, and only here and there has mention been made of the fundamental doctrines contained in the Declaration of Independence. The case of South America is quite different; the policy of the United States toward South America is dictated to-day neither by economic interests nor moral principles; in fact, it is a mockery of morals and a great prejudice to American industry. The sole source of this policy is an abstract political doctrine, which a long time ago was both economically and morally necessary, but is to-day entirely without value; this is the Monroe Doctrine. The observance of this famous doctrine is one of the most interesting instances of the survival of an outlived political principle, and the blind way in which this prejudice is still favoured by the masses, so that even the leading politicians would not dare, at the present time, to defend the real interests of the country by opposing this doctrine, shows clearly how democracy favours rule of thumb, and how the American people is in its thought conservative to the last degree. The Monroe Doctrine has done the United States good service, and redounded to both its profit and its honour. And so no one ventures to disturb it, although it has long ceased to bring anything except disadvantage. Some of the best people know this; but where the people rule it is as true as where a monarch rules, that the misfortune of rulers is not to wish to hear the truth.

The blind folly of the Americans in holding tenaciously to the antiquated Monroe Doctrine is surpassed only by the madness of those Europeans who wish to take up arms against that doctrine. All the declarations of the Old World to the effect that the Monroe Doctrine is an unheard of piece of arrogance, and that the Americans have no right to assert themselves in such a way, and that it is high time forcibly to call their right in question, are historically short-sighted as well as dangerous. They are unhistorical, because there really was a time when this doctrine was necessary to the existence of the United States, and when, therefore, the country had a right to assert such doctrine; and now that it has been silently respected for a hundred years, any protest against it comes too late. Opposition to the doctrine from the side of Europe would be foolish, because no European country has any really vital reason for calling it in question, and there would be a very lively war indeed if Europe were to try to overstep the Monroe Doctrine as long as the great mass of the American people still hold it sacred. The Monroe Doctrine must and will succumb, but it will only be through the convictions of the Americans, never because some European nation threatens to batter down the wall. The logic of events is, after all, stronger than the mere inertia of inherited doctrines. The hour seems near when the error and folly of the Monroe Doctrine are about to be felt in wider circles than ever before. The opposite side is already ably supported in addresses and essays. Soon the opposition will reach the newspapers, which are to-day, of course, still unanimous on the popular side; and whenever a wholesome movement commences among the American people it generally spreads with irresistible speed. We have seen how rapidly the imperialistic idea took hold on the masses, and the repudiation of the theory of Monroe will follow quite as rapidly; since the nation cannot, for the sake of a mere whim, permanently forget its best interests. It is only a question of overcoming the inertia of long custom.

The spirit of the Monroe Doctrine was abroad long before the time of Monroe. It was agreed, from the earliest days of the federal government, that the new nation should keep itself clear of all political entanglement with Europe, that it would not mix in with the destinies of European peoples, and that it would expect of those peoples that they should not spread the boundaries of their possessions over to the American continents. When President Washington, in 1796, took his farewell of the nation, he recommended an extension of commercial relations with Europe, but entire aloofness from their political affairs. “The nations of Europe,” he said, “have important problems which do not concern us as a free people. The causes of their frequent misunderstandings lie far outside of our province, and the circumstance that America is geographically remote will facilitate our political isolation, and the nations who go to war will hardly challenge our young nation, since it is clear that they will have nothing to gain by it.”

This feeling, that America was to have nothing to do with European politics, and that the European nations should on no condition be allowed to extend their sphere of action on to the American continents, grew steadily. This national conviction rested primarily on two motives: firstly, America wanted to be sure of its national identity. It felt instinctively that, if it were to become involved in European conflicts, the European powers might interfere in the destinies of the smaller and growing nation, and that the danger of such interference would increase tremendously if the great nations of Europe were to gain a foothold in the neighbourhood of the young republic on this side of the ocean. In the second place, this nation felt that it had a moral mission to perform. The countries of Europe were groaning under oppression, whereas this nation had thrown off the English yoke, and proposed to keep the new continent free from such misrule. In order to make it the theatre for an experiment of modern democracy, no absolute monarchs were to set foot in this new world; the self-government of the people was to remain unquestioned, and every republic was to be free to work out its own salvation.

Thus the desire for self-protection and a moral interest in the fight against absolutism have prescribed a course of holding aloof from European affairs, and of demanding that Europe should not reach out toward the American continents. This has become a cardinal principle in American politics. The opportunity soon came to express this principle very visibly in international politics. The Holy Alliance between Austria, Russia, and Prussia was believed by America, ever since 1822, to have been arranged in order to regain for Spain the Spanish colonies in South America. England wished to ally itself with the United States; but they, with excellent tact, steered their course alone. In 1822 the United States recognized the independence of the Central American republics; and in 1823, President Monroe, in his message to Congress, which was probably penned by John Quincy Adams, who was then Secretary of State, set down this policy in black and white. Monroe had previously asked ex-President Jefferson for his opinion, and Jefferson had written that our first and fundamental maxim should be, never to involve ourselves in European disputes; and our second, never to permit Europe to meddle in cis-Atlantic affairs, North and South America having their own interests, which are fundamentally different from those of Europe. Now the message of President Monroe contained the following declarations: “That we should consider any attempt on their part [of the allied powers] to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety,” and “that we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing [governments on this side of the water whose independence we had acknowledged], or controlling in any manner their destiny by any European power, in any other light than as a manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.”

Thus the famous Monroe Doctrine was announced to the world, and became an international factor sufficiently potent even to prevent Napoleon from realizing his plans regarding Mexico, and in more recent times to protect Venezuela from the consequences of her misdeeds. And although, at just that time of the Venezuelan dispute, the old Monroe Doctrine was in so far modified that the Presidential message conceded to European powers their right to press their claims by force of arms, so long as they claimed no permanent right of occupation, nevertheless the discussions ended with the extreme demand that foreign powers should be content with the promise of a South American state to pay its debts, and should receive no security; nor did the United States give security for the payment, either. After eighty years the doctrine is still asserted as it has been from the first, although the situation is in all respects very different. A few brief instances of these changes must suffice us.

In the first place, the two fundamental motives which gave rise to the doctrine, and in which all important documents are so clearly enunciated from the time of Washington to that of Monroe, have long since ceased to exist. The contrast between Europe as the land of tyranny and America as a democratic free soil, no longer holds; nor can the notion be bolstered up any longer, even for political ends. In the first place all countries of Western Europe now enjoy popular representation, while the Latin republics of South America, with the exception of Chili and the Argentine Republic, are the most absurd travesties of freedom and democracy. Conditions in Venezuela and Colombia are now pretty well known. It has been shown, for instance, that about one-tenth of the population consists of highly cultivated Spaniards, who take no part in politics, and suffer under a shameless administrative misrule; that some eight-tenths more are a harmless and ignorant proletariat of partly Spanish and partly Indian descent—people who likewise have no political interest, and who are afraid of the men in power—while the remaining tenth, which is of mixed Spanish, Indian, and negro blood, holds in its hands the so-called republican government, and keeps itself in power with every device of extortion and deception, and from time to time splits up into parties which throw the whole country into an uproar, merely for the personal advantages of the party leaders.

Even in America there is no longer a political back-woodsman who supposes that a republic like what the founders of the United States had in mind, can ever be made out of such material; and when, in spite of this, as in the negro question, some one gets up at the decisive moment of every discussion and tries to conjure with the Declaration of Independence, even such an appeal now often misses its effect. Since the Americans have gone into the Philippines they can no longer hold it an axiom that every government must be justified by the assent of the governed. People have learned to understand that the right of self-government must be earned, and is deserved only as the reward of hard work; that nations which have not yet grown to be orderly and peaceable need education like children who are not yet of age and do not know what is good for them. To say that the pitiable citizen of a corrupt South American republic is freer than the citizen of England, France, or Germany would be ridiculous; to protect the anarchy of these countries against the introduction of some European political system is at the present time not a moral obligation, surely, which the American Republic need feel itself called on to perform. The democratic idea, as realized in American life, has become much more influential on the governments of Europe than on those of South America, notwithstanding their lofty constitutions, which are filled with the most high-flown moral and philosophical utterances, but are obeyed by no one.

Now the other motive which supported the Monroe Doctrine, namely, the security of the United States and of their peaceful isolation, has to-day not the slightest validity; on the contrary, it is the superstitious faith in this doctrine which might conceivably endanger the peace of the country. Of course, this is only in so far as the doctrine applies to South America, not to Central America. It would indeed be impossible for the United States to allow, say Cuba, in passing from Spanish hands, to come into possession of another European nation; in fact, no part of Central America could become the seat of new European colonies without soon becoming a seat of war. The construction of the canal across the isthmus confirms and insures the moral and political leadership of the United States in Central America and the Antilles. But the situation is quite different in South America. The Americans are too apt to forget that Europe is much nearer to the United States than, for instance, the Argentine Republic, and that if one wants to go from New York to the Argentine Republic, the quickest way to go is by way of Europe. And the United States have really very little industrial intercourse or sympathy with the Latin republics. A European power adjoins the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean; and the fact that England, at one time their greatest enemy, abuts along this whole border has never threatened the peace of the United States; but it is supposed to be an instant calamity if Italy or England or Holland gets hold of a piece of land far away in South America, in payment of debts or to ensure the safety of misused colonists.

So long as the United States were small and weak, this exaggerated fear of unknown developments was intelligible; but now that the country is large and strong, and the supposed contrast between the Old and New Worlds no longer exists, since the United States are much more nearly like the countries of Europe than like the South American republics, any argument for the Monroe Doctrine on the ground of misgivings or fear comes to be downright hysterical. In the present age of ocean cables, geographical distances disappear. The American deals with the Philippines as if they were before his door, although they are much farther from Washington than any South American country is from Europe. Occasions for dispute with European countries may, on the other hand, come up at any time without the slightest reference to South America, since the United States have now become an international power; it requires merely an objectionable refusal to admit imports, some diplomatic mishap, or some unfairness in a matter of tariff.

If, on the other hand, the European countries were to have colonies in South America, as they have in Africa, no more occasions for complaint or dissatisfaction would accrue to the United States than from the similar colonies in Africa. No Russian or French or Italian colony in South America would ever in the world give rise to a difficulty with the United States through any real opposition of interests, and could only do so because a doctrine forbidding such colonies, which had been adopted under quite different circumstances, was still bolstered up and defended. If the Monroe Doctrine were to-day to be applied no farther than Central America, and South America were to be exempted, the possibilities of a conflict with European powers would be considerably decreased. That which was meant originally to guarantee peace, has, under the now wholly altered conditions, become the greatest menace of war.

But the main point is not that the motives which first led to the Monroe Doctrine are to-day invalid; the highest interests of the United States demand that this moribund doctrine be definitely given up. In the first place, it was never doubted that the exclusion of the Old World countries from the new American continents was only the conclusion of a premise, to the effect that the Americans themselves proposed to confine their political interests to their own continent. That was a wise policy in the times of Washington and Monroe; and whether or not it would have been wise in the time of McKinley, it was in any case at that time thrown over. The Americans have united with the European forces to do battle in China; they have extended their own dominion toward Asia; they have sent men-of-war to Europe on political missions; in short, the Americans have for years been extending their political influence around the world, and Secretary Hay has for a long time played an influential part in the European concert of powers. The United States have too often defended their Monroe claim on the ground of their own aloofness from these powers to feel justified in urging the claim when they no longer do keep aloof.

There is another and more important consideration. The real interest of the United States with regard to South America is solely that that land shall develop as far as possible, that its enormous treasures shall be exploited, and that out of a prosperous commercial continent important trade advantages shall accrue to the United States. This is possible only by the establishment of order there—the instant termination of anarchy. As long as the Monroe Doctrine is so unnecessarily held to, the miserable and impolitic stagnation of that ravaged country can never be bettered, since all the consequences of that doctrine work just in the opposite direction. It is sufficiently clear that progress will not be made until fresh, healthy, enterprising forces come in from outside; but now so soon as an Englishman or German or other European undertakes to earn his livelihood there, he is at once exposed to the shameless extortion and other chicanery of the so-called governments. And when European capital wishes to help the development of these countries, it is given absolutely no protection against their wretched politics. And all this is merely because the chartered rascals in power know that they can kill and steal with impunity, so long as the sacred Monroe Doctrine is there, like an enchanted wall, between them and the mother countries of their victims; they know only too well that no evil can come to them, since the statesmen at Washington are bound down to a prejudice, and required scrupulously to protect every hair on their precious heads. All this prevents any infusion of good blood from coming into these countries, and so abandons the land entirely to the indolence of its inhabitants. The conditions would be economically sounder, in almost every part of South America, if more immigrants came in, and more especially if those that came could take a larger part in the governments.

It would be somewhat different if the United States were to admit, as a consequence of the Monroe Doctrine, its own responsibility for the public administration of these countries, for their debts and for whatever crimes they commit; in other words, if the United States were virtually to annex South America. There is no thought of this; the United States have recently, in the Venezuela matter, clearly declined all responsibility. If, while declining the responsibility, the United States persist in affirming the Monroe Doctrine, they are to be charged inevitably with helping on anarchy, artificially holding back the progress of one of the richest and least developed portions of the earth, and thereby hurting their own commercial outlook more than any European protective tariff could possibly do. The greater part Europe takes in South America, so much the more will trade and commerce prosper; and in this pioneer labour, as history has shown, the patient German is the best advance-agent. Almost all the commercial relations between the United States and the South American republics are meditated by European, and especially German, business houses. The trade of the United States with South America is to-day astonishingly small, but when finally the Monroe barrier falls away it will develop enormously.

In all this America has not, from its previous policy, derived even the modest advantage of endearing itself to the inhabitants of these South American republics. Quite on the contrary, the Monroe Doctrine sounds like the ring of a sword in the South American ear. The American of the south is too vividly reminded that, although the province of the United States is after all only a finite portion of the New World, the nation has, nevertheless, set itself up as the master of both continents; and the natural consequence is, that all the small and weak countries join forces against the one great country and brood continually over their mistrust. The attempts of the United States to win the sympathies of the rest of America have brought no very great results—since, in the States, sympathy has been tempered with contempt, and in South America with fear. In short, the unprejudiced American must come back every time to the ceterum censeo that the Monroe Doctrine must finally be given up.

One point, however, must always be emphasized—that all the motives speaking against the doctrine will be efficient only so far as they appeal to the soul of the American people, and overthrow there the economically suicidal Monroe Doctrine. On the other hand, Europe would gain nothing by trying to tear in pieces the sacred parchment; no possible European interest in South America would compare in importance with the loss of friendship of the United States. And so long as the overwhelming majority of Americans holds to its delusions, the hostility would be a very bitter one. Indeed, there would be no surer way of stopping the gradual abandonment of the doctrine than for Europe to attempt to dispute its validity.

The process of dissolution must take place in America; but the natural interest and needs of the country so demand this development that it may be confidently expected. A new time has come: the provinciality of the Monroe Doctrine no longer does for America as a world power, and events follow their logical development; the time will not be long before the land of the Stars and Stripes will have extended across Western Canada to Alaska, and have annexed the whole of Central America; while the Latin republics of South America, on the other hand, will have been sprinkled in with English, Italian, French, and German colonies; and most of all, those republics themselves, by the lapse of the Monroe Doctrine, will have been won over to law and order, progress and economic health. The United States are too sound and too idealistic to continue to oppose the demands of progress for the sake of a mere fetish.

Thus the dominion of this world power will grow. The influence of the Army, and even more of the Navy, will help in this growth; even if the dreams of Captain Hobson are not realized. To be sure, the dangers will also grow apace; with a great navy comes the desire to use it. Nevertheless, one must not overlook the fact that international politics are much less a subject of public thought and discussion in America than in Europe. For the American thinks firstly of internal politics, and secondly of internal politics, and lastly of internal politics; and only at some distant day does he plan to meditate on foreign affairs. Unless the focus of public attention is distinctly transferred, the idea of expansion will meet with sufficient resistance to check its undue growth.

There is specially a thorough-going distrust of militarism, and an instinctive fear that it works against democracy and favours despotism; and there is, indeed, no doubt that the increasingly important relations between this country and foreign powers put more authority into the hands of the Presidential and Senatorial oligarchy than the general public likes to see. Every slightest concealment on the part of the President or his Cabinet goes against the feelings of the nation, and this state of feeling will hardly alter; it comes from the depths of the American character. On the other hand, it is combined with a positive belief in the moral mission of the United States, which are destined to gain their world-wide influence, not by might, but by the force of exemplary attainment, of complete freedom, admirable organization, and hard work. Any one who observes the profound sources of this belief will be convinced that any different feelings in the public soul, any greed of power, and any imperialistic instincts, are only a passing intoxication. In its profoundest being, America is a power for peace and for ethical ideals.