THE "COUNTER-REFORMATION"

The mission of Populism did not end when free silver had been driven like a wedge into all the parties. Its more fundamental reforms outlasted both the hard times and the recovery from them. Although obscured by the shadow of the larger controversy, the reforms had been stated with conviction. The Populist party was not permitted to bring the reformation that it promised, but it stimulated within the parties in power a "counter-reformation," that was already under way. This counter-reformation was largely within the Republican ranks because that party dominated in every branch of the National Government for fourteen years after 1897, but it was essentially non-partisan. It derived its advocates from the generation that had been educated since the Civil War, and many of its leaders bore the imprint of democratic higher education. It derived its materials from historical, economic, and sociological study of the forces of American society.

Practical politics in America was at its lowest level in the thirty years after the Civil War. The United States was politically fatigued after the years of contest and turned eagerly to the business speculations that opened in every direction. Offices were left to those who chose to run them, while public scrutiny of public acts was materially reduced. The men in charge, unwatched in their business, used it often for personal advantage, and were aided in this by the character of both the electoral machinery and the electorate. A multitude of offices had to be kept filled in every State and city by voters who could know little of the candidates and who accepted the recommendation implied in the party name. Control of the nominations meant control of the elections, and was within reach of those who were persistent in attending caucuses and conventions and were not too scrupulous in manipulating them. The laws against bribery at the polls did not touch corruption at the primaries. The cities, rapidly growing through manufactures and immigration, were full of voters who could be trained to support the "bosses" who befriended them.

The American "boss" made his appearance in the cities about 1870. His power was based upon his personal influence with voters of the lower and more numerous class. Gaining control of party machinery he dictated nominations and policies, and used the government, as the exposures of the Tweed Ring showed, to enrich his friends and to perpetuate his power. Caring little for party principle, he made a close alliance with the new business that continually needed new laws,—building laws, transportation laws, terminal rights, or franchises. From these allies came the funds for managing elections, and, too often, for direct bribery, although this last was necessary only rarely.Exposures of the evil of boss government were frequent after 1870, and in most cities occasional revolts of outraged citizens overturned the machines, but in the long run the citizen was no match for the professional politician. In the unequal contest city government became steadily worse in America at a time when European city government was rapidly improving. States, too, were afflicted with machine politics, and before 1890 it appeared that the dominant national party derived its most valuable support from organized business that profited by the partnership.

A minority of Americans fought continually for better and cleaner government as the evils of boss rule became more visible. One of them, Bishop Potter, of New York, gained wide hearing through a sermon preached at the centennial of the Constitution, in 1887, in which he turned from the usual patriotic congratulation to discuss actual government. The keenest interest in the subject was aroused by the American Commonwealth of James Bryce.

Not since Alexis de Tocqueville published his Democracy in America, in 1835, had any foreign observer made an equally intimate study of American life, until James Bryce, a young English historian, began a series of visits to the United States in the early seventies. For nearly twenty years Bryce repeated his visits, living at home a full life in his Oxford professorate, in the House of Commons, and in the Ministry. In America he knew every one worth knowing, and he saw the remoter regions of the West as well as the older society of the East. In 1888 he brought out the result of his studies in two volumes that were filled with admiration for the United States and with disheartening observation upon its practices. One of its chapters cut so close that its victim brought suit for libel, but American opinion accepted the book as a friendly picture and regarded attacks upon it as further evidence of its inherent truth. Probably no book in a generation so profoundly influenced American thought and so specifically directed the course of American reform. It became a textbook at once, teaching the truth that corruption and misgovernment were non-partisan, and until the Populists took them up the movements for reform were non-partisan as well.

The power of the boss lay largely in the structure of American governmental machinery, and though some preached the need for a reform in spirit, others saw that only mechanical improvements could accomplish results. A corruptible electorate, such as had long confused British and American politics, was one defect most easily improved. The prevailing system for conducting elections made it easy for the purchaser of votes to see that he got value for his money. The State provided the polling-place, but the candidate or the party provided the printed ballot. Party agents distributed these at the polls, and the voters who received them could be watched until the votes were cast. Intimidation of employees or direct bribery were easy and common, while secret deals were not unknown. The loyal party voter deposited the ballots provided for him; the boss could have these arranged to suit his needs. It was commonly supposed that in 1888, through an agreement between the Democratic and Republican bosses of New York, Hill and Platt, many Republicans were made to vote for Hill as Governor, while Democrats voted for Harrison as President.

A secret ballot was so reasonable a reform that once it had been suggested it spread rapidly over the United States. In 1888 Massachusetts adopted a system based upon the Australian Ballot Law, while New York advertised its value in the same year when Governor Hill vetoed a bill to establish it. Before the next presidential election came in 1892, open bribery or intimidation of voters was rapidly becoming a thing of the past, for thirty-three States had adopted the Australian ballot, provided by public authority and voted in secrecy. "Quay and Platt and Clarkson may find in this fact a fresh explanation of President Harrison's willingness to divest himself of their services," wrote Godkin in a caustic paragraph in 1892.

The Australian ballot enabled the honest citizen to vote in secrecy and safety, but it failed to touch the fact that the nominations were still outside the law. "To find the honest men," Bryce wrote, "and having found them, to put them in office and keep them there, is the great problem of American politics." So long as a boss could direct the nomination he could tolerate an honest election. The movement to legalize the party primaries was just beginning when the ballot reform was accomplished. The most extreme of the primary reformers saw the need for a preliminary election conducted within each party, but under all the safeguards of law, to the end that the voters might themselves determine their candidates. Direct primaries were discussed by the younger men, who were often ambitious, but helpless because of the rigor with which the bosses selected their own candidates. In 1897 a young ex-Congressman, Robert M. LaFollette, worked out a complete system of local and national primaries, and found wide and sympathetic hearing for it. The movement had to face the bitter opposition of the machine politicians because it struck directly at their power, but it progressed slowly. In 1901 it won in Minnesota; a little later it won in Wisconsin; and in the next ten years it became a central feature in reform platforms.

The reforms of the primary and the ballot were designed to improve the quality of public officers, and were supplemented by a demand for direct legislation which would check up the result. In Switzerland a scheme had been devised by which the people, by petition, could initiate new laws or obtain a vote upon existing laws. The idea of submitting special measures to popular vote, or referendum, was old in the United States, for in this way state constitutions and constitutional amendments were habitually adopted, and matters of city charters, loans and franchises often determined. The initiative, however, was new, and appealed to the reformer who resented the refusal of the legislature to pass desired laws as well as the unwillingness to pass worthy ones. The Populists, in 1892, recommended that the system of direct legislation be investigated, and they favored its adoption in 1896. A journal for the promotion of the reform appeared in 1894. In 1898 the first State, South Dakota, adopted the principle of initiative and referendum in a constitutional amendment. To those who attacked the device as only mechanical it was answered: "Direct legislation is not a panacea for all national ills. In fact it is not a panacea at all. It is merely a spoon with which the panacea can be administered. Specific legislation is the panacea for political ills."

The West was more ready than the East to break from existing practice and take up the new reforms. It had always been the liberal section of the United States. Between 1800 and 1830 it had led in the enlargement of the franchise and in the removal of qualifications of wealth and religion. It now approached the one remaining qualification of sex. With the admission of Wyoming in 1890, full woman suffrage appeared among the States. Colorado adopted an amendment establishing it in 1893. Utah, in the words of the women, "completing the trinity of true Republics at the summit of the Rockies," became the third suffrage State in January, 1896, while Idaho adopted woman suffrage in the same year. It was fifteen years before a fifth State was added to the list, but the women's movement was advancing in all directions. A General Federation of Women's Clubs was organized in 1890 as a clearing-house for the activities of the women, and through organizations like the Consumers' League, the movement fell into line with the general course of reform. A clearer vision of the defects in governmental machinery and of the needs of society was spreading rapidly. Hull House, opened in 1889 by Jane Addams, had a host of imitators in the cities, and enabled social workers to study the results of industrial progress upon the laboring class.

The new reforms, mechanical and otherwise, established themselves about 1890, and were taken up by the Populist party between 1892 and 1896. Neither great party noticed the reforms before 1896, but in each party the younger workers saw their point. As non-partisan movements they gained adherents before the Populist party died out, and were pressed more and more seriously upon reluctant organizations. As a whole they were an attempt to make government more truly representative of the voters, and to take the control of affairs from the hands of men who might and often did use them for private aggrandizement. They were overshadowed in 1896 by the paramount issue of free silver, and were deferred in their fulfilment for a decade by accidents which drove them from the public mind. The Spanish War, reviving prosperity, and the renewal of tariff legislation, did not check the activities of the reformers, but did divert the attention of the public.

William McKinley was inaugurated on March 4, 1897. He had served in five Congresses and had been three times governor of Ohio. He "knew the legislative body thoroughly, its composition, its methods, its habits of thought," said John Hay. "He had the profoundest respect for its authority and an inflexible belief in the ultimate rectitude of its purposes." He was not likely to embarrass business through bluntness or inexperience. He had risen through a kindly disposition, a recognition of the political value of tact, and an unusual skill as a moderator of variant opinions. He believed that his function was to represent the popular will as rapidly as it expressed itself, differing fundamentally in this from Cleveland, who thought himself bound to act in the interest of the people as he saw it. His Cabinet reflected the interests that secured his election.

The trend of issues had made the Republican party, by 1897, the party of organized business. For twelve years the alliance had grown steadily closer. Marcus A. Hanna was its spokesman. The burlesque of his sincere and kindly face, drawn by a caricaturist, Davenport, for Eastern papers, created for the popular eye the type of commercialized magnate, but it did him great injustice. Self-respecting and direct, he believed it to be the first function of government to protect property, and that property should organize for this purpose. Without malevolence, he conducted business for the sake of its profits, and regarded government as an adjunct to it. He possessed great capacity for winning popularity, and after his entry into public life in 1897 gained reputation as an effective speaker. He destroyed, before his death, much of the offensive notoriety that had been thrust upon him during the campaign of 1896, but he remained the best representative of the generation that believed government to be only a business asset. He did not enter the Cabinet of McKinley, but was appointed Senator from Ohio when John Sherman vacated his seat.

The pledge of the Republicans for international bimetallism created a need for a financial Secretary of State, and John Sherman, though old and infirm, was persuaded to undertake the office. The routine of the department was assigned to an assistant secretary, William R. Day, an old friend of the President. A magnate of the match trust, Russell A. Alger, of Michigan, received the War Department. The president of the First National Bank of Chicago, Lyman J. Gage, received the Treasury. The other secretaries, too, were men of solidity, generally self-made, and likely to inspire confidence in the world of business.

The new Senators who appeared at this time represented the same alliance of trade and politics. Hanna, in Ohio, and Thomas C. Platt, president of the United States Express Company, in New York, were the most striking instances. In Pennsylvania Quay was able to nominate his colleague in spite of the opposition of his old associate, John Wanamaker, and selected Boies Penrose. Only with the aid of the silver Senators could a Republican majority be procured in the Senate. This made currency legislation impossible, but the managers hoped that there would be a majority for a protective tariff when Congress met in special session, two weeks after the inauguration.

Preparations for a revision of the tariff had been made long before Cleveland left office. Reed was certain to be reËlected as Speaker by a large majority. Nelson Dingley, of Maine, was equally certain to be chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, and began to hold tariff hearings early in 1897. A rampant spirit for protection was revealed as the manufacturers stated their wishes to the committee. It was often told how the low rates of the Wilson Bill had caused the panic of 1893, and a New York maker of "Oriental rugs" created amusement by asking to be protected from the competition, not of the Orient, but of the German manufacturers. Since 1890 the strength of the Republican organization had been directed toward this revision, and the leaders had held back the silver issue lest it should derange their plans. Now, though returned to power only on the issue of the currency, they held themselves empowered to act as though the tariff had been dominant in 1896. The call stated the need for tariff legislation, and Reed held the House to its task by refusing to appoint the committees without which other business could not be undertaken.

The Dingley Bill passed the House of Representatives after a perfunctory debate which every one regarded as only preliminary to the real struggle in Senate and Conference Committee. In the Senate it became a new measure at the hands of the Finance Committee, whose secretary, S.N.D. North, was also secretary of the Wool Manufacturers' Association. Revenue was everywhere subordinated to protection, until the Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, Worthington C. Ford, declared that the act would prolong the deficit which it was designed to cure. On its final passage, the Democratic Senator, McEnery, of Louisiana, left his party to vote for protection to sugar. He was welcomed home in August, in spite of his "treason," by a reception committee with four hundred vice-presidents. The silver Senators, headed by Jones, of Nevada, were induced to support the bill. They had procured the Sherman Silver Bill in 1890 by the same tactics, and now, holding the balance of power, secured a group of amendments for themselves, covering hides, wool, and ore. The measure passed the Senate early in July and became a law July 24, 1897. Senator William B. Allison, of Iowa, was largely responsible for its final passage, although the law continued to bear the name of its forgotten originator, Dingley.

The Republican party was in no condition in 1897 to become the vehicle of the non-partisan reforms that the Populists advocated and that many young Republicans had taken up. The interest in tariff legislation drove everything else from the national organization, while returning prosperity destroyed the mental attitude in which reforms had flourished. Political introspection was less easy in 1897 and 1898 than it had been in the years of confusion and enforced economy since 1890. The civil service and ballot reforms had been started on the upward course, but party machines continued in control of each great organization.

The conduct of the Senate discouraged many of the reformers in the spring of 1897. Cleveland had left in its hands a treaty of arbitration with Great Britain, but no action had been taken upon it when he left office. Arbitration had been a common international tool between Great Britain and the United States. Boundaries, fisheries, and claims had repeatedly been submitted to courts or commissions of varying structure, and even the claims affecting the honor of Great Britain had been settled by arbitration at Geneva. After the Venezuela excitement friends of peace gathered in a convention at Lake Mohonk to discuss the extension of the method of arbitration. When Great Britain had accepted the principle in the case of Venezuela, Cleveland entered into a general arbitration treaty, which was signed at Washington in February, 1897. Public opinion received it cordially, but the Senate was slow to take it up. Late in the spring it was ratified with amendments that destroyed its force and showed the reluctance of Senators to accept the principle of arbitration. International peace was thus postponed, while the rising insurrection in Cuba drove it as well as general reform from the center of public interest.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE