II. True Americanism.

Whatever other meaning may attach to the word Americanism, Dr. Abbott points to its best definition. But what he has in mind cannot be expected in the absence of a spirit which is made manifest in real fraternalism conjoined with faithful devotion to intelligent convictions of duty. This spirit will take patriotism out of the realm of mere sentiment into that of noble passion. It will give to citizenship so high a meaning that failures in civic duty will take on—as they clearly ought to do—the character of sins against one’s own manhood and against the brotherhood of which the citizen is a member. If this spirit be underneath our laws and manifest in their administration, we need have little anxiety as to their statutory form. Political as well as scriptural wisdom expresses itself in the statement that the “letter” of the law kills, the “spirit” alone gives life.

III. The Right Spirit in Citizenship.

How the spirit of genuine citizenship is to be made ascendant is a question of increasing concern. It may nevertheless be doubted whether organized forces for its suppression do not, in the matter of painstaking and persistent energy and adroit management, excel the organized elements specially devoted to its cultivation. Citizenship activities, politically considered, for the most part are merged in the machinery of parties; and this machinery, instead of representing in its tenets the will of great bodies of independent and well-intentioned suffragists, is too often so manipulated by a few skilful and unprincipled political machinists as to represent their will instead. It is obvious that in so far as these clever machinists are able to run our politics to suit themselves, the very machinery through which the right spirit in citizenship must come to power, if at all, is turned into a means for its own suppression. It thus comes to pass that we have the pitiable spectacle of great party organizations through which masses of honest and patriotic citizens farcically—nay, tragically—coÖperate for the accomplishment of results, which, while secured through their votes and in their name, are in reality results of the clandestine and sinister work of a few men.

IV. Reform in Primary Elections.

Plainly, if the right spirit in citizenship is to be ascendant, it must find some means of doing away with the boss system in politics. This system is made possible only by the ease with which primary elections are controlled by coteries of designing men. Here is a battlefield where the best and worst elements in our politics need to be brought into immediate and conclusive conflict. A system which foists upon the people as its candidates for office those whom they have had no real voice in choosing, and who are not worthy, represents an actual subversion of popular government, and calls for such a manifestation of the spirit of true Americanism as shall overthrow it once for all. This question is an overshadowing one. Pollution at the fountain means pollution everywhere. Men elected to office through shameful methods may sometimes be better than the methods by which they have profited, but they are not to be trusted. Their responsibility is to the “bosses,” not to the citizens whose machine-directed votes elected them. The only sentiment to which they bow is that expressed by the leader whose favor bestowed, and whose hostility will deprive them of, official position and emoluments. The immediate outlook is not, however, without hope. Independent movements in several States are in progress looking to the complete uprooting of the boss system. In parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and California, and in some of the Southern States “the Crawford County method,” which takes the choice of candidates out of the hands of the few and places it in the hands of the majority of voters, is already being tried. In Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota similar methods have been the subject of legislative action, and satisfactory results are anticipated. This is a reform which should not be left to the advocacy of a few individuals, or to the members of a few organizations like the American Institute of Civics and local civic reform bodies. Members of these bodies have done much and will do more to promote it, but its final success depends upon the manifestation everywhere of an aroused public spirit whose demands cannot be denied.

V. Civics in Public Schools.

Much progress has recently been made in educational provisions for the instruction necessary to qualify American youth for the intelligent and efficient discharge of civic obligations. The Patria Club of New York City, a strong body organized under the auspices of the American Institute of Civics and devoted to the objects which it represents, has offered prizes to the pupils in the schools in the vicinity of New York for the purpose of stimulating their interest in matters of government and citizenship, and has undertaken a similar work in connection with the charity industrial schools of that city. Of great importance is the action of the New York Board of Education looking to specific instruction in civics in all the city schools, and its later action in giving to this subject an important place in the curriculum of the high schools which are to be established the coming year. Another organization which contributes to the same results, the American Guards, is represented by battalions in several New York schools. This movement, which has already extended into many schools in different States, is under the fostering care of Col. H. H. Adams, an officer of the Institute of Civics. The guards are composed of boys who voluntarily devote a certain amount of time, out of school hours, to exercises promotive of a virile and intelligent patriotism. These exercises include military drill, and the youthful guards, in their becoming uniforms, develop a marked degree of manliness and self-respect. Two of the battalions are under the leadership of public-school principals, E. H. Boyer and D. E. Gaddes, councillors of the Institute of Civics. The guards participated in the ceremonies at the dedication of the Grant monument, and no organization in line attracted more favorable attention.

VI. Rural Influences on Urban Affairs.

It cannot be denied that the hitherto controlling power of voters in rural districts has frequently been used to the prejudice of city interests. Representatives from country regions have lent their aid in effecting vicious as well as wholesome changes in legislation affecting municipalities, and this aid has sometimes been secured by corrupt methods. It is nevertheless true that the average country voter and the average legislator who represents him sincerely desire to promote only such legislation as will be of highest advantage to urban communities. If their votes fail to secure this result it is more often because of insufficient knowledge of urban conditions and needs, than of indifference or corrupt influences.

It is, therefore, a matter of the very highest importance that citizens remote from our great cities be made sufficiently familiar with municipal needs to enable them to reach wiser conclusions as to the desirability or undesirability of special measures affecting their political, social, and industrial interests. Opinions based, as now, chiefly upon the statements of a partisan press, too often represent the interests of a party regardless of those of the municipalities directly concerned.

With the steady growth of our great cities in population and political power, the question of wholesome State legislation in matters affecting their civic and moral wellbeing, is one of no less importance to rural communities than to the cities themselves. Controlling power is already drifting cityward in many States, and rural voters who have not contributed to the creation of right civic conditions in our great municipalities may soon find this power used to their own serious injury. In this connection the New York Christian Advocate, referring to the possibilities of good and evil in the Greater New York, justly says:

VII. Woman’s Work in Civics.

The growth of organizations which are directed by women, wholly or chiefly devoted to reforms in civic conditions, has been paralleled by hardly any popular movement of recent years. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union, although hardly more than a juvenile among other great organizations, is second to few of them in its potentiality for good. Women’s clubs are found everywhere, and, wherever found, for the most part represent a serious purpose to find and apply right remedies to existing civic and social evils. The Federation of Women’s Clubs brings all of these local movements into harmonious efforts for the upbuilding of unselfish patriotism in the community and the highest virtue in the home. The National Health Protective Association, whose second annual meeting was recently held in Philadelphia, has already made a record for itself, through its branches in many cities, which evidences not only a reason for its existence, but the capacity and success which women have brought to the solution of some of the most important problems of city life, such as protection from contagious diseases, the supply of pure water and pure milk, the prevention of food adulterations, improvements in tenement conditions, provisions affecting the health of working people, attention to the sick children of the very poor, and a score of equally important matters. The chairman of this organization is Mrs. Etta Osgood of Portland, Maine, and its leading members include Dr. Lozier of New York, Mrs. A. J. Perry of Brooklyn, Mrs. Theo. F. Seward of Orange, N. J., Mrs. Henry Birkenbine of Wayne, Pa., Mrs. L. E. Harvey of Dayton, O., Miss Florence Parsons of Yonkers, N. Y., Mrs. J. E Weiks of Buffalo, and Mrs. John H. Scribner of Philadelphia.

In the same city was also held, shortly after the meeting of the Health Protective Association, the Triennial Convention of Working Women’s Societies. This gathering of earnest women was notable for the keenness which its members brought to the discussion of questions affecting the interests of working women, and the equal sincerity of their desire to reach only just conclusions. Here is an opportunity for the bright women who are at the head of the Federation of Women’s Clubs to establish reciprocal relations which will be fruitful in great good.

VIII. Municipal Reform Organizations.

The third year of the National Reform League has been completed with results full of encouragement to the members of the various social organizations of which it is composed. Its annual meeting at Louisville, Ky., was attended by one hundred and fifty delegates. Much of the success of the widely extended work represented by this national organization is due to the persistent and unselfish activities of its able secretary, Mr. Clinton Rogers Woodruff, of the Philadelphia bar, who closed his address before the convention with these encouraging words:

The Good Citizenship League of Minneapolis adds to the means of its increasingly useful work by the publication of a carefully edited little periodical under the title of Facts, in which information that might not otherwise reach them in proper form is placed before all citizens. E. F. Waite is President, and Alfred Sherlock, Secretary, with offices at 254 Hennepin Avenue.

IX. City Taxpayers.

Mr. Charles Richardson, vice-president of the National Municipal League, in seeking the causes for the non-participation of large taxpayers in efforts to secure good government in cities, finds the following among other reasons:

X. Civics in State Universities.

A writer in Christian Work, urging the importance of action such as the American Institute of Civics is devoted to, says:

XI. A Betrayal of Reform.

These are the words applied to an act of the Republican Governor of New York by one of the ablest and stanchest Republican journals of that State, the Mail and Express of New York City. It goes on to say:

XII. State Aid to Industries.

Massachusetts has undertaken an interesting experiment in the way of promoting home industries. With the aim of producing in that State the finer grade of goods now produced only in foreign markets, the legislature two years ago appropriated $25,000 for the establishment of a textile school in any town which might make a like appropriation for the same object. This offer has now been accepted by the citizens of Lowell, and the first school of the character proposed is being established. It is hoped that this experiment may lead to results which will in some degree compensate for the industrial losses sustained by New England through the competition of the multiplying cotton mills in the South.

XIII. Reading Matter for Prisoners.

Some time ago, in response to a need brought to its attention by one of the local officers in Texas, the American Institute of Civics offered to superintend the distribution among the prisons of the United States of literature suitable for the use of prisoners. Citizens were asked to coÖperate, and much good literature has thus been placed in the hands of those who have found it not only a source of entertainment, but, through its refining and elevating influences, a means of great benefit. This beneficent work can be indefinitely extended with a little cost if citizens who appreciate its importance will give to it their aid by contributions of literature, such as wholesome works of fiction, popular works of history, treatises on the useful arts and industries, popular periodicals, etc., etc.; or by assisting in the payment of the cost of collection and distribution. One of the Institute’s councillors in the State of Washington, President Penrose of Whitman College, has recently made an appeal for such literature for the use of convicts in the Washington penitentiary. Inquiries as to methods of coÖperation, or gifts for the prison literature expense fund, may be sent to the American Institute of Civics, 203 Broadway, New York.

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